Tuesday, March 07, 2017

Some thoughts on women

Women are so enigmatic. One way that men respond to a physically beautiful woman is to "read" virtue into her body - in other words, a man sees the beauty and then has a sense of the "virtuous feminine" which might include purity or grace or tenderness. But, of course, the individual woman might not embody these qualities very well at all, might not even be self-conscious that they are qualities that a woman might try to cultivate. It can leave men with the feeling that they are privy to an appreciation of the feminine that has been denied to women themselves - that women are, in some ways, strangers to their own virtues.

Women are more complex too in the sense that it is generally a good thing for a man to be as masculine as possible, as this brings him closer to the fruition of what he was created to be, but the same is not necessarily true of women - it is not simply the case that the more feminine a woman, the more she upholds an ideal of what a woman should be.

It is a good thing, for instance, for a woman to be more sensitive than a man. Most men will find it attractive if a woman tears up and sniffles at the sad parts of movies, or if she is more fearful of potential danger, or if she is a little more connected to the emotions of children. But too much sensitivity is not a good thing. It can lead to a woman never forgiving small slights she has experienced, or holding onto petty hurts that her husband may not even be aware of. An overly sensitive woman will make for a poor wife. There is some sort of sweet spot for a woman to have when it comes to this quality.

It is similar when it comes to passivity. If a woman is passive in the sense that she doesn't emasculate her husband and allows him to lead in a masculine way; or if she is passive in the sense that she keeps herself lovingly receptive to her husband, that is obviously a good thing. But I've noticed that there are women who interpret passivity as meaning that their role is to merely look on and critically judge the performance of their husband; or that their husband should take over the work of the household, so that he becomes something of a drone in her eyes; or even that the husband is responsible for her happiness - she externalises a responsibility onto him that can only really be carried by herself.

8 comments:

  1. I think you are right about women, but all extremes are pathological, there is a golden mean for men too, and it is possible to be 'too masculine' - just as femininity can display vices as well as virtues, so can masculinity. It's just that white Christian Western men are so far from that today.

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    1. I understand what you're saying - that Western men have been so feminised by modern culture that the possible extremes of masculinity have become rare and aren't so obvious. You could well be right, it's just that the way this applies to women is more clear in my experience.

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    2. "but all extremes are pathological"

      My view is that civilization requires both men and women to restrict their natural impulses. This was clearly the case in traditional christian society.

      But in the modern era, both men and woman are pushed to diverge from this, but in opposite ways. Natural male behavior has always been restricted and regulated, but we have now taken it one step further and has made it pathological. A normal boy, that is active and rowdy, was previously only considered to be in need of discipline. Now he is in need of medication!

      A normal man, that likes to look at a hot woman and may try to talk to her if he is feeling brave, previously only needed to be instructed in basic boundaries. Now this very natural behavior is regarded as a HUGE problem that requires massive efforts from all of society.

      At the same time, the destructive aspects of natural female behavior, that was previously regulated mainly via social control, has now been totally let loose.

      A woman was supposed to be faithful and modest and if she failed in this, there were very strong social sanction. She could also suffer significant negative economic consequences.

      But now this negative behavior is not only permitted, it is encouraged and celebrated! And the legal system and the state will make sure that the woman that misbehaves does not suffer financially and many times even makes a large profit.

      So what we get are weak and scared men, combined with slutty and destructive women. The obvious solution to this is a return to more traditional values. It will happen, since the present set up clearly is self destructive.

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    3. Euro Swede, first, I am in awe of your English language skills. A lot of people have an unspoken sense of what you've written as being true, but wouldn't be able to describe it as clearly as you have done, let alone in a second language.

      I don't disagree with anything you wrote in your comment at all. The only thing I'd add is that as well as society holding both men and women to a standard, it would be useful for men to know what to look for in a woman when it comes to marriage. It's better, after all, to marry a woman who finds pair bonding and fidelity relatively easy, rather than a woman who needs to be restrained from acting on her worst and most destructive impulses. Men have a definite dislike of women who are too mannish, but this doesn't mean that a woman who is willing to present herself to men as feminine, both in appearance and behaviour, is necessarily a good choice.

      It's especially useful for traditionalist men to recognise this. It's possible for a woman to disavow feminism, to present herself in her appearance in an attractively feminine way, to say that she values family and motherhood, and yet to make a very poor choice in wife. The "female imperative" can be strong in these women; as can a moral outlook based on "my feelings define moral reality"; as can an external locus of control "the universe wants me to follow this path"; as can moral rationalisations justifying selfish and destructive behaviour.

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    4. @ Mark Richardson,

      I appreciate your kind remark about my English! Thank You! In general, I think that it is a fantastic language. The combination of relatively simple grammar with massive vocabulary is a hit! German and French are much harder to learn, in my experience.

      "it would be useful for men to know what to look for in a woman when it comes to marriage."

      No doubt about that! Regardless of the legal and social framework, some women will be more suitable than others. But the framework still has great importance. History indicates that a large majority of females can do a reasonable job as wife and mother, if the proper incentives are in place. In the same way, a large majority of men can function reasonably as providers and protectors.

      What seems to be a major issue is that the risks have become extreme for men that wants to enter marriage. In the traditional model, there were reasonable safeguards for both husband and wife if one party misbehaved. Now the woman have much stronger rights and the man has only obligations. This is not a balanced contract and it makes it very difficult and dangerous for men to commit.

      As theoretical solution would be to have private contracts that are similar to historical marriage. But since the legal systems will not accept anything even remotely similar to a traditional western marriage contract, this would need to be enforced in a private manner. We know that this is possible since, to some extent, both Muslims and Jews use this model in the west. But it requires very strong communities. Possibly a real christian church could hold such communities together, but the existing churches seem very much intent on being a part of the problem rather than the solution. In some places, the church has turned in to a regular freak show. In Sweden, it is now dominated by half mad lesbian women.

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    5. Good discussion - completely agree with you both. One thing though - many women today display both a parodic masculine behaviour *and* the feminine vices Mark describes. Feminism seems to encourage both sorts of vice. By saying women are good (& men bad) by definition, it encourages all sorts of bad behaviour, often at almost the same moment. Telling men they are worthless encourages bad behaviour from them too, of course.

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  2. As a bonus, I give you the insanity of the day from the Far North:

    http://www.svt.se/opinion/article12710148.svt

    Just look at the picture. In it, you will see around 15 grown men with a funny pink hat on their heads. This is the board of the Swedish construction union. I Swedish, the hat is known as a "fittmössa", i.e. a "vagina hat".

    The article is about these men apologizing and groveling to women in every way imaginable, so nothing new there.

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