Monday, June 18, 2007

Manliness, Maleness, and Mannish Women

Being that Harvey Mansfield's Manliness is a thoughtful, wonderfully entertaining, and very necessary book, it highlights how corrupt the major book review services are -- you know, Publishers Weekly and all the rest. Like academia and the MSM, they've been taken over by leftist activists who do not tolerate dissent and give negative reviews to works that do not meet their standards for ideological purity. And there is no way a book in praise of manliness is going to be acceptable to the left, a philosophy which specifically excludes and even pathologizes the expression of healthy -- which is to say, higher -- manliness:

"Harvard government professor Mansfield delves into philosophy, literature and science to define manliness and to argue that it should have a place in an increasingly non-gender-specific society. Throughout, Mansfield clearly states his intentions, and though he may have convinced himself he accomplished his goals, readers will be skeptical.... murky questions and non-sequitur lines of logic continue throughout.... But Mansfield's theories on gender equality are likely to create the most conversation: 'women are the weaker sex,' 'women's bodies are made to attract and to please men,' and 'now that women are equal, they should be able to accept being told that they aren't, quite' all appear on the same page. Mansfield set out to write a provocative book, but ended up penning a juvenile screed."

So said the juvenile reviewer on whom the irony is lost.

Let's start with those three passages from the book, which were seemingly deliberately taken out of context in order to shock the sensibilities of the unmanly and politically correct reader. One of the most self-serving mamamyths of our time -- a myth that can only be promulgrated on our nerves because ovary-tower leftists control most of the feminine organs of disinformation insemination -- is that conservatives are somehow "anti-science" while liberals are "pro-science." In reality, the reverse is true.

Even with regard to the one issue most mentioned by the histrionic left -- embryo stem cell research -- the question is not over the research itself but government funding of it. But the left further confuses the issue by conflating stem cell research and embryo stem cell research and then simply stating that conservatives are "against stem cell research." The left is so intellectually dishonest it just makes you want to throw up. Unless that's a remnant of the virus.

One of the issues about which the left is most insistent is the teaching of Darwinian evolution as metaphysics or a sort of secular religion rather than just a scientific theory. "You can't teach children creationism! (their scary code-word for intelligent design). You have to teach Darwinian evolution! It's been proven! No scientist disagrees with it!"

Okay, deal. Darwin is God. And what does Darwinian evolution teach about male-female differences? Darwin, of course, reduced existence to 1) a struggle for life revolving around 2) the survival of the fittest. Thus, what we see as "manliness" -- which is to say, aggressiveness, risk-taking, and defending one's possessions, including women -- is in many respects the quintessence of both. That is, men who had these traits were much more successful both in surviving and getting their genes into the next generation than the men who didn't have these traits.

And there is no way feminists can duck the issue by whining, "it's not our fault, we don't want men to be this way!" Rather, thousands of years of sexual selection by their sisterly furbears means that the attributes of the men we see today were selected by women in the never-ending competition for access to female bodies. Men are the way they are because women wanted them -- needed them, is more like it -- to be that way: strong, aggressive, confident, courageous, and willing to risk danger to themselves to defend obviously weaker and more vulnerable woman and children. In Darwin's words, this selection process resulted in men being "more courageous, pugnacious and energetic than woman" and giving them "a more inventive genius."

Let's just pause right there for a second. If Mansfield has written a "juvenile screed," what would the girlish Publisher's Weekly reviewer make of Darwin's insensitive screed? Remember a few weeks ago, when that buffoonish caricature of a man, Christopher Matthews, tried to make the Republican candidates look foolish by asking if they believed in creationism or natural selection? I wish one candidate had said, "the latter, which is why it is scientifically proven that someone who is not a man is not fit to be president, whether it is Hillary Clinton or John Edwards."

Here is what relationships look like from a purely Darwinian standpoint: "Men have manliness so as to compete with other men; women use the manliness of men to protect themselves and their children. And if women consciously manipulate men for their purposes, men dominate women for theirs. A woman may look as if she is surrendering, but in truth she is indulging her relational aggression."

Likewise, marriage has nothing to do with such unscientific and fanciful notions as "love," but is a sort of complementarity of two opposed forms of aggression. Each sex is simply manipulating the other for selfish purposes. Actually, it's not even the person who is selfish, just his or her genes.

Yes, for you male Raccoons out there, listen closely. This will keep you out of a lot of trouble: what your nervous system mistakenly perceives as female pulchritude is just a trick of the genes. Don't be fooled. Women are neither attractive nor unattractive. Their "beauty" is actually female aggression -- passive aggression, if you will -- designed to make you want to pay attention to her. No, let's be honest: to shag her. But she has all the power! She arouses general male interest, but then she gets to choose from the pool of interested candidates! How fair is that?

It seems that if males were only males -- as opposed to men -- they would simply take what they want. Why would they care what a woman thinks? Because the decent ones are men, and a manly man realizes that women are weaker and that they could easily physically overcome them if they wanted to. An unmanly man acts on the impulse. But manliness is a virtue, not a result of genetic programming.

This raises an interesting point about sexual harassment laws. Obviously these laws are terribly unscientific, because they are essentially making it against the law for males to be males. They outlaw the wisdom of our genetic programming, and that can't be right, not if you believe that Darwin trumps the Bible. Our genes mandate that for a man to get a date and for the species to survive, men should be hitting on women all day long, if only for the practice. Anything less is to shirk one's genetic duty. (I remember back when I worked in the supermarket, a friend of mine would literally hit on every attractive women, including those who were seemingly way outside his league. I asked him why, and he said something to the effect that he was just playing the percentages, and that one in ten will say yes.)

This would have been another good answer to Matthew's question about "creationism": "Yes Chris, I'm passionately pro-science. One of the first things we need to do get rid of all these sexual harassment laws, because they just interfere with the wisdom of nature. Men are men. You can't make manhood against the law. What's next, making it a crime for baseball players to spit? You wanna start arresting people because they leave the toilet seat up?"

Or, if we don't get rid of sexual harassment laws, at least we have to be scientific about them and apply them equally to women. Since female beauty is a manipulative form of genetic aggression, then we must have strict dress codes for women in the workplace. No make up. No revealing clothing. Cover up the legs. No curves, no panty lines, none of those nasty tricks to make your eyes look bigger and more alluring -- none of that. You're just taking advantage of the scientifically proven male propensity to take that as an advertisement of sexual availability, and you know it. No woman who has already been claimed by another man would dress so provocatively in public.

Frankly, I don't see how we could work this out unless we followed the Islamic model of having women wear shapeless bags with eye holes cut out. But as we know from science, men can eroticize anything except Rosie O'Donnell, so to be on the safe side we should probably screen the eyes as well, so that women can see out but men cannot see in. This is the only way to protect female nature from male nature and vice versa. Men are sick and tired of being teased and titillated by these sexually aggressive women, and we need to have laws protecting us.

But of course, it's not like that. Since women are women and not men, they need laws protecting them from men, whereas men don't need laws protecting them from women. With respect to sexual differences, this is irony #872 that eludes radical feminists. Men can respect these laws because there is something in a man's higher nature that recognizes female weakness and vulnerability. In short, these laws nudge some of the more barbarous males in the direction of manliness, even if they're just pretending. The reverse doesn't accomplish much, for example teaching "assertiveness training" to women, the reason being that you are trying to teach women to be more like men, not women (who obviously have their own specifically female ways to be assertive and get what they want). Assertiveness training "presupposes that women have a defect in that department." If it takes root, it is not a natural extension of femininity, but something added to it.

Now, if maleness is a result of millions of years of genetic selection, how can radical feminists -- and leftists in general -- come along and try to create a new kind of man in the span of a single generation or two? If Darwinism is true, how could this be scientifically possible? Suddenly we are being asked to accept an equality of the sexes that has never been known before in all of human history. Are we sure we know what we are doing in ignoring the science of natural selection?

Since patriarchy is the universal norm in human history, it must be natural and inevitable. After all, if men dominate women, it is because they have genetically selected traits that make them able to do so. If women have been oppressed for millennia by men due to sexual differences and in accordance with their nature, how is it now possible for women to overthrow their oppressors? If men are what these these women think they are, why is there no organized movement among men to defend their patriarchy? Being that we are male oppressors, one would think that we would be fighting to the last man to defend our empire!

If all civilization has been based on patriarchy, but the patriarchs responsible for our Western civilization specifically created one in which their superior physical strength was not the ultimate authority, then perhaps this patriarchy wasn't so bad after all. The radical feminists are like Gandhi -- he didn't win anything, but was given it by a morally superior adversary.

You might say that Western manliness liberated women from their biology. That's if you're going to be scientific about it.

Of course, the realilty of our sexual differences is much more complex, nuanced, and sophisticated, but to explicate it you need to turn to patriarchical religion.

59 comments:

julie said...

"You wanna start arresting people because they leave the toilet seat up?"

Actually, isn't Germany literally headed in that direction? Yikes - I just stumbled across a disturbing article on how to "train" your man to leave the seat down. Holy crap - if I ever treated my husband this way, I don't think we'd stay married very long; tactics include denying dinner, shopping, or sex, and having more "mannerly" (i.e. feminized?) men explain the importance of toilet seat etiquette. What I was originally looking for, though, was the story about the German toilet seats and signs commanding men to sit when they pee, found here.

Back to that eHow article though, related topics listed on the same page as the "How to neuter your Man" article include:
"How to Impress a Man," "How to Get Along with a Male Roommate," and "How to Maintain a Harmonious Household."

If those articles have the same quality advice as the toilet seat article, I think I'll pass.

Sheesh - and we we wonder why divorce rates are so high in this country...

Joan of Argghh! said...

Few women instinctively know that if their man became everything she thought she wanted him to be, she'd then despise him.

But quite a few women are surprised to find out how much they hate what they've created when their man is a sensitive, emotionally available, weak-willed dolt who can't be trusted to turn on a light in a dark room. Such women now rule their men, and today's metro-males are actually infantalized drones in the queen's colony.

It's silly to make the sexes boringly the same. Much more fun to spend a lifetime investigating and celebrating the differences... and swapping notes on how to get what one wants from the other!

Anonymous said...

This calls to mind a conversation I had with my roomie Friday night. She's been having trouble with a male in her life (I am reluctant to call this overgrown boy a "man"), and she asked "Why are guys such jerks?"

To which I replied: "Natural selection, I'm sure. Many millenia of our grandmothers who were more concerned that a guy could and would be a jerk to everyone else, and less concerned that he not be a jerk to her and the kids."

. . .

I've also thought for a while now that women who hobble men only reveal their own weakness as women, and shame the rest of us gals who prefer to allow boys to be boys, and men to be men. Truly strong and confident women should have no problem with manly men, and shouldn't feel a need to make males into simpering fools.

julie said...

"Few women instinctively know that if their man became everything she thought she wanted him to be, she'd then despise him."

I think you're right about that. It seems that in our culture, there is a high percentage of women who look at a man and say to themselves, "he has potential," meaning he can be domesticated, "housetrained," manipulated and controlled, etc; ultimately, it usually seems to end up as emasculation in some form. To me, if you don't like him as he is already, you shouldn't be marrying him, and if you do like him as he is, then you have no business molding him into something else that you think you want more. If the marriage is a good one, both of you will change over time to each other's benefit anyway - it's called "love."

Ephrem Antony Gray said...

Men are like lions. The goal is for them to be good lions.

That is, 'He's not a tame lion, but he's a good lion.'

I'm a difficult person, I'll give you that - but strive for the Good.

Now if I could just find a woman who gets that...

Anonymous said...

Julie, the whole sitzpinkler brough-ha has a lot to do with the atrocious design of German commodes, which feature, eh, a shelf above water level.

Really, the less said about it the better.

Ephrem Antony Gray said...

Althouse was musing on the Other side, here...

Anonymous said...

River
"Now if I could just find a woman who gets that..."

Are you sure it's not that weird thing coming out of your ear? Very few women have evolved to understand that mutation.

Anonymous said...

"Being that we are male oppressors, one would think that we would be fighting to the last man to defend our empire!"

To the last man!

Ephrem Antony Gray said...

Joe, I think its the mechanized prehensile tail more than the integral headset, but I've been wrong before...

Anonymous said...

Heck, I didn't know our empire was even under siege! Thanks for the warning Bob, I'll be on the look out.

Anonymous said...

Any opportunity I see to ride my favorite horse, a.k. a. , the "quickening", I'm going to seize with both hands . . .

If, at the very highest planes, there has been an ongoing adjustment, so to speak, of nature's basic polarities - yang/yin, postitive/negative, male/female - it's going to filter down and be distorted by the secular-minded.

The quickening is basically the manifestation of the Holy Androgyne, the fusion of male and female, yang and yin. Creativity, spiritual insight, spiritual gifts - these are the ideal manifestations of the quickening.

If one is not capable of channeling the quickening energies into spiritual manifestation, then one gets the grotesque distortion - the Holy Androgyne becomes hermaphroditism, bi-sexuality, a militant, materialistic feminism, etc.

I think the Marianic movement in the Church as being an example of the higher manifestation of the quickening energies.

Anonymous said...

River,
Much obliged for sparing me the picture of that tail!

Van Harvey said...

"[insert entire post here]"

LOL!!!

Van Harvey said...

Joseph said... "Are you sure it's not that weird thing coming out of your ear? Very few women have evolved to understand that mutation. "

Ancient Tongan old satisfied wives tale says that the size of the 'weird thing coming out of you ear' indicates size of other Tongan feature which makes german sitzpinkler's weap in shame.

Argue with Ancient Tongan old satisfied wives tale, and their Darwinian selected fiercness will make you flush your sitzpinkler.

wv:utpeejhd - yes, Tongan tp jihadies for fun.

robinstarfish said...

Matrimanipulation
hours of baking done
groom held waiting by the bride
keep the flame on low

julie said...

Late Convert, you may be right about it starting due to German toilet design, but I also read this is getting to be a popular item in the U.K. as well, and if I recall their toilets were generally more like ours.

Anonymous said...

Tony Woodlief is good and heartfelt on the subject of raising boys if a man is somewhat battered-about-the-ears from the 60's malformations.
WSJ essay.
Blog.

The Jungians have some of the Holy Hermaphrodite! stuff right IMO. Male warrior with undercurrent of available satiny gentle unselfishness. Female accommodating&admiring with sparky undercurrent of available assertiveness and robust self-reliance.  Work to energize those layers discretely and in the right order, and it's alchemical [f/m]babe-magnet all the way, to those with ears to hear.

But the wrong order -- a man "possessed"/given over to sensitive needy gentleness; or a woman to "I-already-know" clichés and ready to fight -- run for the hills.

And abstain from the single-malt recipe: The thug, and the femme fatale, ensnare and execute their prey.

Anonymous said...

On real men and leftism, courtesy of the final Sopranos episode:

Meadow: "The state can crush the individual."

Tony: "New Jersey?"

Stephen Macdonald said...

Few men today are gentlemen.

Anonymous said...

Few women are lady like...

Teri said...

Our preacher's son came to the service yesterday. He's a big guy with a mostly shaven head, one of those guys that fills the room with his presence. You could tell that he is not one of those "boys" that never becomes a "man". At any rate, he was there with his wife, newborn son and another son maybe 7 or 8. At one point, the son put his arms around his dad and hugged him. And the tenderness his dad showed him was such a sight to see. You can't have that much tenderness unless you also have the strength to go with it.

I finished the night reading "Country Women", a back to the land book from the mid-70s. And oh, the whining about patriarchy and how her husband wouldn't let her be an equal when it came to nailing up boards. Yet, when he lost his job and wants to be comforted, she almost sneers at him for being weak. The marriage doesn't last.

I hope we can move beyond that mid-70s version of what manhood is and move towards seeing real men out there again. I miss them. And if it means that they get to have little male only activities, I'm okay with that too.

Anonymous said...

I don't know who to credit with this, but I remember reading back in the '70s that all men are either boys, men, or hairdressers and all women are either girls, mothers, or men.

Sal said...

I concur with Julie and Joan. If you don't like them as they are, move on, honey.

On Bob's supermarket friend: my elder daughters, both very attractive young women, had the repeated experience of males approaching them and being actively rude to them, as though the guy had already gone through the rejection scenario he expected in his mind and felt free to take it out on them.
Curious.

Of course, Will. What kind of family doesn't have a Mother?
Oh, and, wonderful evocative post yesterday. That's some writing talent you've got there.

Susannah said...

Bob, you have the coolest blog and group of commenters--ever. Right on, Bob and everyone!

Julie, I feel the same way you do...you marry a man, you are saying you're willing to spend the rest of your days with him just as he is. I was telling DH the other night, how do feminists respect their men? Maybe I'm a throwback, but I want a MAN, a guy who won't let me push him around. I want him to stand up for himself! I'm very, very blessed in that dept. And teri, what you said about the tender dad, that's my guy exactly. One of our sons learned to ride his bike today and, as he came pedaling into the driveway, dad got down on one knee, threw his arms open, gave him a giant hug and expressed his pride. You could literally see my son's soul being fed. Our kids adore their father.

Bob, just...what you said. Brilliant. Exactly what I've always thought, but couldn't have expressed half so well.

Gagdad Bob said...

Raccoon alert:

If any OC readers live in the Burbank, California area, please be on the lookout for Lisa's beloved chihuahua, Pinky, who escaped as a result of some incompetent dogsitters. I placed her picture at the bottom of the post.

Anonymous said...


Beauty in Odd Places
, the rest of the story for those wondering how Paul Potts did in the finals:

He aced it. The homely dude with bad teeth opened his mouth, sang a little opera, and bit off Britain's Got Talent grand prize. There's a man for you.

No doubt he'll get hundreds of marriage proposals now from young English birds for whom bad teeth are no object.

Fortunately, he's already married to a gal he met in a web chatroom. And I'll bet she had no idea what she was in for when she found him. Nice surprise.

Gotta love it.

Sal said...

Lisa-
Prayers for Pinky's safe return.

Joan of Argghh! said...

To temper my comments, I'd expand on the idea of sensitive and emotionally available. Of course, in the intimacy of marriage there will be many opportunities for a man to learn a bit of the skill of being... not so much sensitive as considerate. Not so much emotionally available as being comfortable in his own skin and able to communicate a constancy of being.

Someone once likened it to a two-pronged designer's compass. The man is the pivotal base and the woman circles around and encompasses him, far and near, creating new designs when the man establishes new bases of being in his life.

I've always said the man is the figher pilot: direct, strong, determined, focused and single-minded,and able to vanquish an enemy. The woman is the AWAC Radar, sweeping the horizon, gathering vital information for the mission they are both on, but ultimately vulnerable. It's foolish for one not to listen to the other on either side of that mission.

Anonymous said...

No way, matriarchy is the norm. Who is teaching the young ones how to think? The vast majority of the time, even when the father makes a point of it, it is the mother who teaches the new-born. There are always a few exceptions. If the flourish and dazzle of male power politics means that patriarchy is the universal norm of human history, it is still conditioned on the matriarchal introduction of children, by mothers, into the substance of reality. Patriarchy never had a chance!

Gagdad Bob said...

Joan--

Very interesting. Schuon said that woman finds her center in man, whereas man finds his space in woman. Not that a woman can't be centered, but you get the idea. There is a sort of grounding that occurs, which would explain why women become conservative when they marry, while the Democrats are the party of single women. They just replace men with the Mommy state.

Mizz E said...

The Compleat Gentleman

and prayers for a happy reunion between
"Pinky" and lisa.

Lisa said...

Thanks Bob and all!

Spent the day covering shelters, vets walking the Chandler corrider calling her name. Hung lost posters all around town. Hopefully the power of prayer will work. Tomorrow I will hire a bloodhound and pet detective...Funny how your life can completely turn upside down in the blink of an eye. Trying to think positive!

James said...

Dilys,

Its strange you should mention thugs and femme fatales. That they ensnare and execute their prey. That is True I think. This is an excellent way of describing what a Thug and a femme fatal actually are. Pure unrestrained sexual energy is predatory. As I was growing up I noticed that some boys would just turn mean, almost overnight. I could never figure out if I was afraid of it happening, or if I wanted it to happen to me. The mean guys got all the power and respect, which is what they wanted. Power and respect are currency in junior high. The idea of being a thug is seductive by promising power and respect, and being able to deliver. The problem is that is all it will ever deliver. A thug is a predator, swimming in a sea of predators, eventually he will be prey. The thug lifestyle is both seductive and ultimately self-destructive. There is such a thing as a human predator.
Creepy. I think I see one of the survival benefits of coonscent.

walt said...

Lisa -
Yes, prayer works well in cases of lost critters. Ours and yours together.

walt said...

Teri -
I remember the book Country Women quite well. It was common currency amongst a lot of folks who headed "back to the land" in the 70's. In addition to the specific skills it presented, was also a model of behavior for liberated farm ladies. The mountains of Northern California were crawlin' with these lifestyle experiments, and the ones I was around were a mess. We would have probably been better served by reading books like Five Acres and Independence, which came out of the WWII generation.

julie said...

Lisa, add my prayers to your search for Pinky. I know I'd be a wreck if one of my dogs was missing.

NoMo said...

Good, manly men make good husbands and fathers. I'm thankful to say that all three of our sons are in happy (not perfect) marriages. They know I will have to kick their butts if they don't treat their wives the way I have always treated their mother.

;0]

PIIIIINKY! Come Home!

Anonymous said...

Viva la diferance between men and women!

However, it is in the area of economics that the great equalizing convergence is happening.

Women are as good as men at the wealth-creating activities of our culture and are reaching parity with men in earnings.

The outcome is that all of the inter-gender shenanigans and manipulations built around the pursuit of food, shelter, and money are going to go away.

I for one like it. No more squirelly indirect marriages based on "need". No woman will need a man--but, she'll certainly want a good one, and that's when things will finally fly right.

We are entering a bona-fide Golden Age of Romantic Love. This is the right time to be in love or plan a life with a mate. The chances of happiness are shooting skyward exponentially as money parity progresses.

An empowered woman is loving happy mate and a good mother.

A decent man will always be the greatest joy of a woman even (or especially) when she doesn't depend on him for her survival.

Anonymous said...

Ready for this again?

Women are as good as men at the wealth-creating activities of our culture and are reaching parity with men in earnings.

The outcome is that all of the inter-gender shenanigans and manipulations built around the pursuit of food, shelter, and money are going to go away.

I for one like it. No more squirelly indirect marriages based on "need". No woman will need a man--but, she'll certainly want a good one, and that's when things will finally fly right.

We are entering a bona-fide Golden Age of Romantic Love. This is the right time to be in love or plan a life with a mate. The chances of happiness are shooting skyward exponentially as money parity progresses.

An empowered woman is loving happy mate and a good mother.

A decent man will always be the greatest joy of a woman even (or especially) when she doesn't depend on him for her survival.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Lisa-
We'll be praying for Pinky's safe return.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

"But as we know from science, men can eroticize anything except Rosie O'Donnell, so to be on the safe side we should probably screen the eyes as well, so that women can see out but men cannot see in."

Ha ha! I don't know how you came up with that line, Bob, but it's a good one!

Anonymous said...

"The chances of happiness are shooting skyward exponentially . . ."

Unless, of course, you're a four month old who's in daycare full time, learning the bulk of your social skills from 2 year olds.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Joan said-
"Few women instinctively know that if their man became everything she thought she wanted him to be, she'd then despise him."

Juliec said-
"To me, if you don't like him as he is already, you shouldn't be marrying him, and if you do like him as he is, then you have no business molding him into something else that you think you want more. If the marriage is a good one, both of you will change over time to each other's benefit anyway - it's called "love.""

Robin Starfish said...
"Matrimanipulation
hours of baking done
groom held waiting by the bride
keep the flame on low"

Dilys said-
"But the wrong order -- a man "possessed"/given over to sensitive needy gentleness; or a woman to "I-already-know" clichés and ready to fight -- run for the hills."

Just a few words of wisdom randomly plucked from today's feast.
Of course, all of the Sista Raccoons are Women of honor who don't consider chivalry to be a bad word. :^)

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Obsessed femme said-
"An empowered woman is loving happy mate and a good mother."

Real women don't need to be "empowered."
Although you make it clear that you need to be "empowered" by the state.
Good luck finding a real man with that feminista tripe.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Cosanostradamus said...

"Beauty in Odd Places, the rest of the story for those wondering how Paul Potts did in the finals:

He aced it. The homely dude with bad teeth opened his mouth, sang a little opera, and bit off Britain's Got Talent grand prize. There's a man for you."

I was bummed out when I couldn't view the Youtube video (got dial-up?).

Fortunately, Fox news showed the final song Paul Potts sang.
Now I see why y'all liked his singing so much!
He is one of the most Honest singers I have heard, and the man has a uniquely enthralling stage presence of...manliness.

I'm not an opera affeciendo, but I gno music from on high when I hear it, and that guy has it!

And he didn't need a mohawk, make-up, piercings, costumes, gimmicks or tattoos to capture the listeners attention!

walt said...

Obsessed femme said,
"No woman will need a man--but, she'll certainly want a good one..."

Nope: when you eliminate the need you also eliminate the reason.

Anonymous said...

Yes, Walt. The elimination of reason in general appears to be the essence of the Feminist Mystique.

How else to explain the prioritization of the self and money over child-centered parenting?

Ephrem Antony Gray said...

Yup. Of course, I've got perhaps a bit more of a conflict of interest discussing the subject, I think. Being single these days doesn't have to be a choice!

All kidding aside, seems to me that if you have certain standards - and I don't mean of hawtness, you're likely to find yourself single. Not that that, given the alternative, may be a bad thing.

I see the opinion of the redundant femme to be very pervasive - even among a lot of Christian women. And to those who it is not, they've been 'married to Jesus' which is just another way for a girl to turn ya down without ever having to say, "No thanks."

Oh, in such a world, women would certainly have their pick of men, but like they said, they'll want good, 'quality' men. Last time I checked, two things were true:

1. Men are not made in factories, much less quality-controlled ones,

2. The number of men an 'enlightened woman' will find acceptable will definitely not include large sections of the population.

The woman, fully completed, needs no man - so he will be to her at most another pet. And so will her children.

I'm sure that's what they've always wanted.

Sometimes, though, it makes me glad I'm single.

Ephrem Antony Gray said...

By the way, we most definitely don't want an era of 'romantic love', being that fifty percent of it or so is unrequited. Or more! Of course, if you read 'romance novels' - you might be given to the impression that romance is just the ladies getting what they want...

You can have your era of romantic love, but please, have it somewhere else.

Van Harvey said...

River Cocytus said "1. Men are not made in factories, much less quality-controlled ones,

2. The number of men an 'enlightened woman' will find acceptable will definitely not include large sections of the population."

Which means that the problem women have, is that they are the ones who hold the standards most guys observe. Most guys will do what it takes to get the gal. If she doesn't expect him to be a man, heck, being a kid is way easier. Fewer responsibilities, less hassles. No worries. And you still get to get the babes?

Pshaw! That's a no brainer!

Or should I say an all brainer/no Minder.

Ladies, you'll get what you'll settle for.

Anonymous said...

A couple of Uhhhhh's here:

One note's "Women are as good as men at the wealth-creating activities of our culture." Not.

I love -- well, actually I don't -- the slinging around of embattled clichés. The trend toward rewarding the creation of wealth, rather than inheritance -- women simply aren't the big players. It's good females can go out and bring home some bacon, and need to be basically self-sustaining; but great wealth among women has declined because at the really innovative and creative long-tail end of the curve, it appears men have The Knack.

"The share of women among the very wealthy (top 0.01%) in the United States peaked in the late 1960s, reaching almost 50%.  Three decades on, women's share had declined to one third, a return to pre-war levels.  We argue that this pattern mirrors the relative importance of inherited vs. self-made wealth in the economy."

Not to deny the possibility of wisdom and happiness, even wealth, is increasing. But not on just any invented terms. Complementary, that's how the world works.

As to River's complaint in general, two real-world fairy-tale principles may apply. (1) Perseverance is powerful. (2) In the finer stories, a young man must leave the comfort of the early home to go & seek his fortune, to have something, later and maturely, to lay at the princess' feet. Framed by those principles, the question then becomes, why not specialize in "requited"? The Rules wisely tells women, love those who love you. There's a match there somewhere.

And as to how men's good relationship with women, and getting religion right, makes the difference between sanity and monsters, see an interesting and chilling paper by Ralph Peters on terrorists.

Pinky, come home!

Susannah said...

Lisa, hope you've got some good news today. We lost our kitty once for three days, and she did finally come home, skinny but fine. We walked the neighborhood with fliers, prayed, etc. I feel for you.

River, don't give up! ;)

Nomo, you made me laugh. "I can still kick your butt" is a big joke between my hubby and the boys. I wonder how long it will be true.

I read the link to the Anchoress article on protector men the other day, and one of the commenters really hit it on the head when he said "you have to live up to a woman like that" (paraphrasing here)--meaning, a woman who expects a man to be a man. I realized you have to be the sort of woman who inspires manliness.

Speaking of outside reading, I came across an article by some feminist the other day decrying the patriarchal origins of diamond engagement rings. As usual, she came across like a joyless scold. Great PR for the feminists there...don't they know that girls love sparklies? LOL! I can just see all the women reading that thinking, "Yeah right, I'm going to hand back my diamond, and he'll go out and buy that fishing boat/dirt bike/fill-in-the-blank he's always wanted." Ha!

Don't worry, guys...not that a diamond is necessary to the wooing process. Believe me, my man is diamond enough that I didn't necessarily need or want one.

Diamonds are a Girls' Worst Friend

Anonymous said...

I think the comments of Our Lady of Perpetual Perseveration may have gotten us to overemphasize the prevalence of that perspective. Last time I looked, only 16% of Americans consider themselves liberals, and that has to include those of the leftist persuasion. And only last year there was a book written about how modern young women were seeking more traditional roles of mother and wife, having seen that having it all meant having it mediocre at best.

Young women my daughters' ages, mid-twenties, are all trying to be able to earn money while planning to emphasize children. I think the predisposition to mothering tends to trump everything else.

And River, I think a lot of young women will become increasingly aware that the perfect is the enemy of the good as the clock keeps on ticking. And you don't want to be with someone who doesn't figure that out anyway.

Sal said...

River-
a wise spiritual teacher once said "You can have romantic love or you can have Christian marriage, but not both."

b/c as we know, marriage is a job of work taken on for the love of God, which is why grace lets you persevere when your natural impulse is to take a skillet
upside his head, and vice versa.

Romantic love? Pffffttt!

wv: zhimaui? no, never been to Hawaii

Susannah said...

"I think the predisposition to mothering tends to trump everything else."

That is absolutely true. And it has some hard-core feminists in a dither, too.

Susannah said...

Oh, and RiverC, prayer works. It did in my case. Honestly, I had no idea what I wanted in a man. No clue how to tell which was the "right" one. It's not just a matter of attraction; there were plenty I was attracted to.

I just prayed that God would make it obvious when the time came, and pledged not to marry if I were unsure (for fear of making a huge mistake, and since I'm a married-for-life kind of gal, I didn't want to do that). And He answered my prayer in spades. I had a strange sort of epiphany. It wasn't even emotional, necessarily. It was like the knowledge that this was the man to whom I would be married dropped into my head from outside myself. No matter what has happened in our lives since then (and plenty of hard things have), I have never doubted once that God put us together.

Stephen Macdonald said...

Hey, maineman

I'm going to Bangor on Thursday. Any recommendations for good places to eat?

Anonymous said...

They have restaurants in Bangor?

(I'll check for you, but I'm from the Southern part of the state. I could help you much more readily if you want to stop and eat in Portland.)

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