Alternate title: Time to offend everybody
I have been reading a lot of stuff about gender roles in the modern world on Patrice's blog Rural Revolution. It was also in part by this this widespread article in the WSJ titled Where Have The Good Men Gone? and an interesting recent post (warning foul language and sexual content) by American Mercenary. Of course the my thoughts and writings are solely my own so please do not harrass Patrice or AM for me being an offensive jerk.
To start out I am in agreement with many of the basic tenants of feminism. Women should be able to pursue all manner of educational opportunities, work outside of the home, start and run businesses, not have to deal with abusive spouses or butt slapping bosses and all that stuff. Though not really an issue in the western world they should obviously be able to own and inherant property, sign contracts, vote if applicable in their country, be protected from violence in the home, have freedom to marry who they choose and divorce husbands they no longer want to be married to, have custody of children, get access to basic medical care, etc all.
The real issue starts with a lack of understanding the inherant trade offs involved in these choices. In my personal observation feminism has a serious case of "have your cake and eat it too" syndrome. It is true that women can rise to the top of the business world, date and have sex like men, have fulfilling relationships and raise children but they probably can't do all of those things and certainly can't do them all at once.
What I see is women who were told they can do everything. Invariably they often have to choose someplace to be mediocre. If they want to get to excell professionally then educational demands and working 60+ hours a week for years make establishing a meaningful relationship, let alone raising a family very difficult. On the other hand they can put their energy and time into home and family but if they are missing work all the time for this that and the other thing promotions are not going to come very readily. Certainly they will hit a "glass ceiling" which is another way of saying that the individuals who put in the time and have the capability get the promotions. Or they can spread their time and energy around and do fairly OK at everything.
[I have a female relative who was very successful in the business world. She did it with the same model that very successul men use. She went to college and started working in a large publicly traded company. She worked very hard and did some graduate work at a prestigious university then ultimately rose as high as one could in that company without being family. During this time she basically didn't have a life outside of work. She did not marry until her 40's and never had children. Only recently after a heart attack has she slowed down with work.]
In fairness the same is true of men. We can't work 60 hours a week, run a scout troop, coach a volleyball team, regularly practice a hobby, do fulfilling things with friends and be a great spouse. There just are not enough hours in the day.
Additionally feminists seem to want to be able to pick and choose where they are going to be treated equally and where they should recieve special treatment. The issue of women picking and choosing where to be equals is well stated in this passage from Why Are Men So Angry? by Kay Hymowitz. "Women may want equality at the conference table and treadmill. But when it comes to sex and dating, they aren’t so sure. The might hook up as freely as a Duke athlete. Or, they might want men to play Greatest Generation gentleman. Yes, they want men to pay for dinner, call for dates—a writer at the popular dating website The Frisky titled a recent piece “Call me and ask me out for a damn date!”—and open doors for them. A lot of men wonder: “WTF??!” Why should they do the asking? Why should they pay for dinner?After all, they are equals and in any case, the woman a guy is asking out probably has more cash in her pocket than he does; recent female graduates are making more than males in most large cities.
Sure, girls can—and do—ask guys out for dinner and pick up the check without missing a beat. Women can make that choice. Men say they have no choice. If they want a life, they have to ask women out on dates; they have to initiate conversations at bars and parties, they have to take the lead on sex. Women can take a Chinese menu approach to gender roles. They can be all “Let me pay for the movie tickets” on Friday nights, and “A single rose? That’s it?” on Valentine’s Day."
A lack of expectations being in line with reality seems to be a consistent issue. Again they can have just about whatevery they want but good luck finding EVERYTHING they want. A guy who can be John Wayne when a goblin jumps out of a dark alley is probably not going to turn into Woody Allen and talk about feelings all night long. Guys who are relatively successful tend to work much longer hours than starving artists. Conversely starving artists don't make a lot of money. There are definitely some choices and trade offs to be made.
Gals also seem to want to be able to do whatever they want but have guys willing to romance and marry them whenever they are so inclined. They have changed in behaviors over the last couple decades and so have we. Coming back to an earlier theme they can't pick and choose our characteristics any more than we can theirs. The guy who is happy living alone, has a fulfilling life and dates or hooks up with women having no real intention to commit to or marry them is a cultural countemporary to the gals we were talking about earlier.
As to all the complaining about my gender. Instead of "growing up" at a given age for men it seems to be more conditions based. It is my observation that many if not most men seem to rise or fall to the expectations they are put under. Single men, men in relationships, married men and married men with kids all have vastly different social/ cultural expectations. In other words single guys will act like well, single guys and they will continue to do so until they decide to settle down if that is at 20 or 35. Now we are seeing men staying single longer so you get the super bachelor pads, crazy party trips, etc that a 20 year old college student can't pull off.
When it comes to choosing folks to date we all have to figure out what (both positives and negatives) is really important to us. Finding a person who has most of the good qualities you are looking for and none of the negatives that drive you nuts is the name of the game.
I think many of the liberal authors who write this garbage might just live in a whussified urban psuedo yuppy world that is totally disconnected with reality. There are plenty of men out there, they just might not frequent art galleries or wine tastings. Real men are out doing something productive or getting together for a couple beers after work.
Instead of whining gal's should look at their expectations and the pool they are fishing in.
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7 comments:
Amen!! I am all for the girl power but I think we as women have become blind to how much stress we can put on ourselves. We also seem to forget that the whole point was to be able to CHOOSE.
One of the problems feminism has created is found in our military. I first joined the military in 1964. I understand that in 1964 the percentage of women in the military was about 3% and most of these worked in health care or typist. Basic training was rigorous and continuing training and physical conditioning standards were tough. In the 70's a conscious effort was made to increase the numbers of women in the military. The first problem was that in general women could not meet the physical standards and testing. A logical decision would have been to continue to eliminate all those who could not meet the requirements, male or female. But a feminist based decision was to lower the standards. At first they lowered the standards for women only but that only highlighted the problem and we couldn't have that. So then they lowered the standards for everyone. In the early years common sense still swayed decisions and women were barred from combat roles. But soon these barriers had to be breached or there was no sense of equality.
Here is the problem in a nutshell; Most of the actual tasks a soldier must accomplish in battle are gruelingly physically tough. For reasons that are both obvious and sometimes a mystery 99% of men can do them and 99% of women cannot. I cannot explain why a pimply faced teenage boy weighing 120 lbs can pick up 70 lbs and run with it or carry a 60 lb pack for 20 miles. But the fact is they can especially when motiviated by a big intimidating DI or actual combat. However a women regardless of age, weight, training, will generally cannot do these things. The DI only reduces her to lying on the ground crying so we had to stop the DI's from being "too tough" on them. The standard procedure in battle if your Humvee is disabled is to grab the 50 cal gun, the portion of the mount that detaches and the ammo and run for cover. The heaviest component is 70 lbs and is awkward to carry never mind run with. Maybe somewhere their is a woman who can do this but the military discovered they cannot so the modified standard procedure for women who find themselves in this position is to take cover and call for help. Is that what women will do if we decide to begin using them in combat? Take cover and call for backup?
The ONLY reason it even seems possible that women could be in combat is because 30-40 years ago we so badly feminized the training and strength standards that we can easily overlook the fact that women cannot do the physical part of actual combat.
Today, every male in the country is required to sign up for the draft when they turn 18. We haven't actually had a draft for a few decades but the requirement still exists. If the feminists are serious about women in combat then let them call for registering women at age 18 for the draft. Maybe, just maybe that would wake up enough people to the reality that it would stop this push to feminize the military.
Another take on 'Equal Pay for Equal Work'. The concept sounds fair to me. So to be fair, men should take a hit on their paycheck so that their female counterparts get their just due.
Whoa whoa - wait a minute. What I meant was my employer should raise the women's salary to equal mine.
Why should they? Will raising salary automatically increase productivity or quality of work? Probably not. Many women may not have a problem with their coworkers, but would likely object to their husband's salary cut.
Its the same with raising the ceiling of minimum wage - work or quality does not increase, its just more expensive to employer. Who will raise the price on the consumer / client to make it up.
I think women are held up to too many expectations like you said. Career, family and a hottie in bed all at the same time - not enough hours in the day. Men should pick up more slack though.
Lila, Realistic expectations on all sides would help a lot.
10:49, Women in the military is a post I might do some time. As a shortened and not thought out version. Some chicks are as hard as coffin nails. If they can meet standards and do the job I can't see why having an innie instead of an outie should be a deal breaker.
As to our military being harder or tougher in the 60's. It would be interesting to look at some sort of data on that kind of thing. I can however observe that everything was always harder back in ones own day. In the 60's some WWII vets were talking about how everyone was soft and there were no standards. In the 40's there was some WWI vet saying the same thing, etc.
I do believe the draft should be coed.
11:39, Equal pay for equal work is a nice idea but would be problematic to impliment in a lot of work enviornments. In a lot of private sector jobs pay is somewhat arbitrary based on a bosses assessment of their productivity and value. Tom might get paid more than Jill because he is more productive or brings in more business.
RE: women, military, etc.
I believe that women ought to adhere to the same standards as men when those standards are directly related to their job. Wanna be infantry? Better be able to drag 200lbs for such and such a distance. Period.
However, there are plenty of jobs in the military that don't require that level of physical training and in those jobs I see no reason to exclude women based on criteria that do not relate to their job performance.
Heather, Also a 12 mile ruckmarch with 40 pounds of gear in under 3 hours.
Noncombat fields are open to women.
there are reasons why the several states failed to ratify the "ERA". the problems that women would have (or cause) in a combat situation had to be at least one of those reasons.
the "LEFT" and the "PC" crowd never accepted its defeat. they have consistently acted as though it was the law.
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