Tuesday, September 14, 2010

When tomorrow comes

On the island of Malta, as elsewhere, a certain generation of women were encouraged to be sexually liberated, which meant the pursuit of relationships for sex alone, rather than for marriage or romance:

They were brought up to have fun, fun, fun which meant as much sexual freedom as the boys. And they certainly did have fun in their twenties when their bodies and hair was at its best, when it seems tomorrow would never come.

And how did this work out? Was it a triumph of womanhood? Not according to Marisa Micallef. She writes despairingly of the position that these women have now been left in. It seems that once these women hit their mid-30s, that men of their age and older won't make commitments to them, preferring the company of younger local or Eastern European women. The only men available are poor immigrant men, who don't have the money to finance the lifestyle that these women want:

But the minute they start to hit their mid thirties, the minute they realise they have slept with everyone they wanted to sleep with, they look around and see a very reduced market indeed, a very unattractive supply of potential male partners...

Whatever the reason the supply is not matching the demand. The only glut of men are the very sad illegal immigrant, and very obviously these are not what the beleaguered Maltese female is looking for especially if she is looking for a degree of financial security to finance her coffees with girlfriends complete with the whole nail, skin and straightened hair look which doesn’t come cheap, but is now de rigueur, even for many single parent mums living off benefits.

What can a 30-something woman do? The men of her age seem to have the advantage:

Some of my thirty and forty something male friends complain that the girls they meet, especially the local ones are all a mite too keen to settle down, find husbands and make babies. The thirty something girls on the other hand complain there just aren’t enough men around, and the ones that are, around that is, are fine as friends go but are not interested in any form of commitment. And that indeed when they do decide to commit they find someone much younger, much more malleable, perhaps foreign, but in every case girls who are prepared to play second fiddle to them.

This includes hanging around with his male friends and his partners, remaining pretty and well maintained while he deteriorates physically to an astonishing degree, and generally having pretty unbalanced relationships despite years and years of equal educational and other opportunities. At the end of the day if there isn’t enough of a supply of men and of heterosexual men particularly, and if men can pick and choose and go younger and younger, or foreign or more foreign, the imbalance and the catholic-arab attitude we have in many relationships is bound to persist.

So perhaps traditional marriage wasn't such a source of inequality after all. And perhaps it would be in women's interests to marry a little earlier in life, before their own attractiveness has declined and before they have helped to create a culture of casual relationships.

Marisa doesn't consider these options. She thinks the solution might be for mothers to bring up their sons differently or for wealthier foreign men to be brought to Malta:

it certainly is a boy’s world, and here in Malta and Gozo particularly so. The only way to improve things might be a different generation of mothers and importation of the male equivalents of all the East European women who are here. Trouble is though our girls still seem to like the local talent, even though it is in ever reducing supply?

19 comments:

  1. I have great difficulty understanding the narcissism and sense of entitlement required to hold the attitudes these women have.

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  2. I suspect you think this is an example of even Southern Europeans following the liberal mindset.

    I do not buy it.

    Maltese people are perhaps the most anglo influenced ethnic group from within Europe.

    I would assert that Greece and to a lesser extent, perhaps Italy and Spain women do not follow this line of reasoning.

    Savvas Tzionis

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  3. Historically it has been semi acceptable, depending on the country, for men to have mistresses in marriage. It has been acceptable for men to "sow their wild oats" prior to marriage. It has been also acceptable for older men to marry younger women.

    For women it has been acceptable/required that they must marry, usually at a fairly young age. Should not have a leading career or engage in excessively serious educational pursuits. Certainly shouldn't have affairs outside of marriage or even possibly enjoy sex as much or more than men.

    The sense of entitlement and narcissism we're seeing from women is simply an attempt to level the playing field so to speak. The problem is when women do it there are substantially greater social consequences in lower childbirth rates and less stable marriages, or as mentioned here less desirable marriages.

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  4. Marisa, like many women her age, has eaten her cake, but now wants to have it in order to be supported in the style to which she is accustomed.

    I won't be surprised to see Malta Islamized in another generation.

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  5. Articles like this bring a tear to my eye.

    "Supply is not matching the demand. The only glut of men are the very sad illegal immigrant."

    As opposed to the wonderful over 35 entitlement princesses.

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  6. I am flying on a cloud of giddy satisfaction.

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  7. Is it me, or does it seem that modern women (aka,'feminists') find it nearly impossible to take responsibility for their own poor choices?

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  8. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  9. An economic explanation with an awesome supply and demand chart at the end;

    http://captaincapitalism.blogspot.com/2010/08/to-3040-something-woman-who-wouldnt.html

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  10. "The only way to improve things might be a different generation of mothers and importation of the male equivalents of all the East European women who are here"

    That is hilarious!

    So... to fix the problem... import wealthy men or psychologically re-engineer boys.

    Amazing. You just can't make this up. Women are never at fault and none of their decisions in life should ever merit any assessment or reconsideration. Talk about feminist dogmatism!

    This is possibly one of the clearer examples of the female mind being inherently juvenile and solipsist.

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  11. PS: re Savvas Tzionis

    I wish I had the link to post, but I distinctly remember the cover story of Time a couple of years ago (or was it the Bulletin or Newsweek, 'can't remember) which explicitly stated that Greek women were among the most liberalised, marriage'o'phobic, barren, careerist, sex obsessed of the entire Eurosoviet.

    Stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

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  12. Its been clearly documented that Greece, Spain and Italy have some of the lowest fertility rates in Europe.

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  13. This, crossposted by blogger Captain Capitalism, is indeed masterful. I recommend it to readers.

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  14. Kilroy .....

    the point I was making was that they don't sleep around to the same extent as in the Anglo Western countries (sex obsessed? Send me the article and then we will see).

    Maltese women are like British women in their liberal attitude to sex. Just look at them here in Australia to see what I mean.

    Low fertility amongst southern mediterranean countries is more to do with economic circumstances.

    Unlike here where you get BONUSES for more children, in Greece there is no immediate benefit.

    Greek women certainly follow many aspects of liberalism, but I think the owner of this blog assumes 'they are all the same". The liberal atitude to sex is one major difference.

    Savvas Tzionis

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  15. "The only glut of men are the very sad illegal immigrant, and very obviously these are not what the beleaguered Maltese female is looking for especially if she is looking for a degree of financial security to finance her coffees with girlfriends complete with the whole nail, skin and straightened hair look which doesn’t come cheap, but is now de rigueur, even for many single parent mums living off benefits."

    LOL

    Wasn't feminism about doing whatever men could do? If men were supporting women in the past, why can't women support men now?

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  16. Mark,

    I would also like to add that if women dictate 85% of spending in the US (and probably most western countries), shouldn't they earn 85% of the money?

    If in the US on average, 65-year old men today will receive only 43.6% of the net benefits that women receive, and young men today can expect a net tax burden over their lifetimes that will be 3.4 times greater than for women, what is the incentive for an American young man to join the US workforce? None, I say. Thus, systemic discrimination against men prevents traditional women from finding rational men or enough wealthy men to marry them. Western governments with consumer economies seem to have decided that if women spend most of the money, it is better to reroute it directly to them instead of through men irrespective of what those men coerced into subsidizing this scheme want.

    Also, when looking at female jobs, one wonders how many were employed via affirmative action and how many jobs exist for the sole purpose of creating niche positions for women...not to mention how many women would be able to stay employed if there were no mitigating factors to compensate for their various employment related inefficiencies relative to men listed here.

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  17. on average, 65-year old men today will receive only 43.6% of the net benefits that women receive, and young men today can expect a net tax burden over their lifetimes that will be 3.4 times greater than for women

    One of this month's major US monthly finance magazines has a cover story purporting to show how women are shortchanged by pensions. The misandry never stops.

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  18. "One of this month's major US monthly finance magazines has a cover story purporting to show how women are shortchanged by pensions. The misandry never stops."

    It is male apathy not misandry that is IMO the primary problem. This is because anti-male policies always need to be funded and the segment that funds these policies is primarily male. These men are not bothered by feminist policies because their status and wealth prevents feminism from significantly affecting them before and during their marriages.

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