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The old feminine ideal was the woman who got married to a good man, stayed home, took care of their house, took care of the kids, and took pride in making the whole family function.As soon as you tell a woman she's emotional, she will . . . er, become emotional:
Now, look at the messages women get from popular culture: Dress like a fashion model, cat around like the women from Sex in the City, get married, have a beatiful house, have 2.5 kids, have a career that’s every bit as successful and fulfilling as your husband’s, and still look like a professional actress, even when you’re 60 years old.
There are only so many hours in a day, days in a week, and weeks in a year and there just isn’t time for most women to do all that. Granted, there are a few who manage to pull it off — or at least seem to do it to the outside world.
But, the reality is that most people have skills, abilities, desires, and wants that they never fulfill — women, in part because of their emotional natures, are just made to feel worse about not living up to the hype of what modern feminism says a woman should be. (Emphasis added.)
This is a lot of words to say that I think it’s wrong to dismiss the loss to the individual woman and to society when a woman doesn’t use her gifts and talents just as I think it is a loss to the individual man and to society when a man doesn’t involve himself with his child’s life.OK, sweetheart. Now that you're done with that, how about you run along and fix me a cup of coffee?
(John, you can thank me later for taking the heat off you. Being the most-hated man in the blogosphere is a tough job, but somebody's got to do it.)
Somehow, I think you'll be hearing from Little Miss Attila about this.
ReplyDeleteWhose side will you take, Stace? Beck or Levin?
ReplyDeletehttp://thinkprogress.org/2009/09/22/mark-levin-v-glenn-beck/
The thing is, and this is incendiary in our times, to the degree that a person is more emotional she is also less rational. This is a necessary consequence of being directed more by emotion than by reason. A less rational person is less reliable for certain things.
ReplyDeleteAlso there has been a strange turn-about in notions of female virtue. It was once thought that virtue is virtue. It's the same for everyone. Not today. Now, women compliment themselves with words like 'sassy.' When did inappropriate boldness and impertinence become a good thing for anyone?
I blame feminism.
But you can't blame feminism for how men react. When men get sassy right back to women, out come these weird faux chivalry types, chests out and fists up, looking for the lady to toss her veil.
A lot of men still want to treat 20th century slutty feminists like 18th century chaste ladies. That's a kind of social cuckoldry. It's all the fault of weak men. And feminism didn't do it.
I don't think it's so much as that women can't live up to the standard of modern-day feminists as that it's they're absolutely excoriated by feminists when they don't.
ReplyDeleteLook at Sarah Palin. Michelle Malkin. Michelle Duggar. The attacks leveled at these women for not toeing the liberal feminist line are beyond uncivilized and downright evil. So I think women are unhappier not because they're supposed to be X, Y, Z but because if they CHOOSE not to be they're going to be publicly flogged.
Men just need to figure it out already and quit being l a z y.
ReplyDeleteNow that's freaking interesting observation there, jav.
ReplyDeleteBut I think you're complaining about the last 100 years or so. Good luck with that.
The only constant in the universe is change. The wise adapt.
Eric, I'm arguing for adaptation. But by and large men aren't adapting. Thus, the "treat 20th century slutty feminists like 18th century chaste ladies" comment. Adapt. Treat 20th century feminist like, well, 20th century feminists.
ReplyDeleteWhen someone says they are a conservative, they means they want to conserve something. So sure, some things I don't want to change, for example the Constitution and traditional notions of virtue. So if a woman acts like a lady, by all means treat her like one. Otherwise, not.
When you write, "but I think you're complaining about the last 100 years or so," I have no idea what you mean.
"The wise adapt." Ah, but not all adaptations are wise. It's all too easy to conflate the ease of oblivion with the attainment of wisdom.
I see you're not afraid of a frying pan. I don't think a cup of coffee is worth that pain (beer, on the other hand, is).
ReplyDeleteClick your heels together, Stace: there's no place like home...
ReplyDeletehttp://littlemissattila.com/?p=10387
To be honest, it makes me feel awkward and apart when I'm at my office (I'm a female attorney) and male attorneys at my firm refuse to walk through a door that I am holding. I want to join in the camaraderie, just be one of the guys, but there's this chivalry crap that gets in the way. (Mind you, I do not hesitate to walk through doors when they are held for me, whether by men or women. I consider that a courtesy that should be accepted with thanks rather than rejecting it and embarrassing the offeror.)
ReplyDeleteHere's my theory on why women aren't as happy: The combination of overly-romanticized love ("there's one perfect man in the world for me, somewhere..."), increased acceptance of (and demand for) premarital sex and the attendant unwed motherhood, and increased opportunities in the workforce mean women are having to do everything themselves. I'm trying to do my part for the future by educating my sons that both women and men are supposed to take equal responsibility for managing the home and children. Or at the very least, Mom isn't the default caretaker in our house. We'll see how well they learn that lesson.
RSM, there was this charming cartoon in "Playboy" back in the 60's. A choleric, red-faced man is pounding his fist on the arm of his chair and screaming at his wife over her newspaper:
ReplyDelete'Dammit, Harriet, I will not be bound by the opinions of someone who is subject to RAGING HORMONAL INFLUENCES!"
Ah, for the days when "Playboy" did serious writing...