The idea is a perfectly orthodox liberal one. Liberals want to make sex distinctions not matter. So, just as the US Government is planning to redesign naval submarines to make them more user friendly for pregnant women, so are our Portland liberals demanding that the female body be treated no differently to the male one.
But the protest backfired. The topless march attracted a large gathering of male onlookers:
Ty McDowell, who organized the march, said she was "enraged" by the turnout of men attracted to the demonstration. The purpose, she said, was for society to have the same reaction to a woman walking around topless as it does to men without shirts on.
The comments in the local newspaper wouldn't have been too encouraging for Ty McDowell either:
Dino90000000 said...I'm still not totally convinced. Many more of these protest marchers are in order. Pretty please?
spud said...I wish I would have gone now. I would have offered Ms McDowell some "support"
comnsnseruls said...I don't want a man to look at me and think it's no big deal, I want him to look at me and like what he sees and get excited, not think the same thing when he looks at another guy, that's crazy. pick something that really matters to march for.
Y2Nyb3c%3D said...One thing is for sure; there are no "ladies" in this bunch. Try as they may, here in America it is never going to be business as usual for women to walk around topless. They can be angry at God or whomever, but that's just how it is.
ElSkipper said...This article is useless without photos!!!!
It goes without saying that the Swedes have already resolved this issue in favour of the liberal position. Authorities in Malmö decided to let female bathers swim topless at public swimming pools. It was thought discriminatory that men could swim topless and women couldn't; it was also thought wrong that female breasts should be thought sexual in a way that men's aren't:
Speaking to The Local, Ragnhild Karlsson , 22, explained the women's motives for swimming without bikini tops.
"It's a question of equality. I think it's a problem that women are sexualized in this way. If women are forced to wear a top, shouldn't men also have to?"
Outraged by what they regarded as discrimination, a group of women in southern Sweden made a show of solidarity by establishing the Bara Bröst network. (The name translates both as 'Bare Breasts' and 'Just Breasts'.)
"We want our breasts to be as 'normal' and desexualized as men's, so that we too can pull off our shirts at football matches," spokeswomen Astrid Hellroth and Liv Ambjörnsson told Ottar, a magazine published by the Swedish Association for Sexuality Education ...
"Our aim is to start a debate about the unwritten social and cultural rules that sexualize and discriminate against the female body," said Astrid Hellroth and Liv Ambjörnsson.
Laura Wood in her post asked, reasonably enough, if the Portland protesters really believed that the male and female chest were the same:
Do they deny that a man’s chest is, um, different from a woman’s?
Ah, but the power of ideology. If you really think it's important to believe that they are the same, then you will. Bengt Forsberg, the Swedish official in charge of the swimming pools, justified the decision there on this basis:
"We don't define what bathing suits men should wear so it doesn't make much sense to do it for women. And besides, it's not unusual for men to have large breasts that resemble women's breasts," he said.
In the meantime, young Frenchwomen are going the other way. They're starting to put their tops back on:
At one private beach at Bormes-les-Momosas on the Mediterranean coast, fewer than two per cent were topless this week. "It used to be about half," said one sunbather in her 40s.
The women's magazine Elle noted the return of a value – la pudeur – which it thought "had been put firmly in the discarded goods cupboard since May 1968".
According to a recent poll by the IFOP agency, 88 per cent of French women describe themselves as pudiques ... The most striking finding was that younger women are far more unwilling to bare all than their mothers or grandmothers. A quarter of 18 to 24 year-olds even described themselves as "tres pudiques".
Jean-Claude Kauffman, a sociologist said it was a sign of less showy times."We are witnessing a return to more safety and family-oriented values. Modesty and discretion are the order of the day," he said ...
Younger women who had chosen to cover up gave a variety of reasons. Some said it was because of the risks of skin cancer, but more attributed it to changes in society. "On the beach, it's only the older ones who show their boobs nowadays. Having boys look at you is too annoying," said Clara, 17.
"There's a real difference between the generations. Frankly it's hard to find girls of 20 these days who want to go topless," said Manon, 20.
Mr Kaufmann advised French men not to ogle if they wanted bare breasts to remain on their beaches at all. "The male look on the beach must be void of expression, with a lack of interest, which glides over the landscape neither avoiding bare breasts nor staring at them otherwise the beach equilibrium is broken," he warned.
The French experiment hasn't led to the desexualisation of women's bodies. Quite the opposite. Young women are still complaining about unwanted attention from men if they go topless. And men are being advised in response to adopt a studied lack of interest in what's around them, in which they maintain a pretence of neither noticing nor avoiding noticing the fact of attractive women being topless.
Is there a better example of the liberal mindsets inability to deal with reality?
ReplyDeleteMen are attracted to a womans breasts because they are a sign of fertility. Ancient europeans carving fertility idols out of stone understood this, modern liberals it seems cannot.
Male breasts [man-boobs] are a sign of a man who is out of shape yet recieves a large calorie intake.
Going on what most women I know say they are thus generally unattractive in a sexual fashion but more or less irrelevent in searching for a stable long term partner.
Gender and biology seem to be two areas where public knowledge, [or at least where it concerns that public which resides in universities] seems to be going backwards.
These women aren't thinking this through. Breasts are a core component of women's sexual power, which they would lose if men stopped caring about looking at them. Do they really want to give that up?
ReplyDeleteDid these women expect millions of years of evolution to vanish through sheer willpower?
ReplyDeleteThese women aren't thinking this through. Breasts are a core component of women's sexual power, which they would lose if men stopped caring about looking at them.
ReplyDeleteIt's possible that these women are being led astray by patriarchy theory.
Patriarchy theory claims that men assigned women the role of sex class in a process of "othering" and oppressing women.
Therefore, if women can escape being "sexed" they will be restored to their rightful power and place.
It's an odd theory. It's odd to think women's sex appeal was something that men deviously assigned to women. And it's odd too to think that if women lost their sex appeal that they would become more, rather than less, powerful.
It's possible that these women are being led astray by patriarchy theory.
ReplyDeleteThe other possibility is that these women are complete and utter morons.
Still the correct response to such a stupid protest--as the good citizens of Portland showed--was to ogle the womens' breasts. They certainly got the attention they wanted, or maybe they got the attention that they didn't want :)
Let's not forget that this is part of the ongoing, blatantly aggressive feminist effort to castrate men. The man is forced to emasculate himself by suppressing the normal physical response that is hardwired into his brain.
ReplyDelete"I can shove my tits in your face, but you are not allowed to respond to this sexual stimulus, you naughty man!"
You notice that they're not protesting for men's right to walk around with their dicks hanging out, the hypocrites.
ReplyDeleteTotal morons, but worth a laugh.
There's also an alpha/beta thing here, too. The outrage is very "faux" in that way, kind of like the "outrage" about sexual harassment. No well-adjusted straight woman, feminist or not, dislikes a male she finds attractive finding her attractive sexually, despite her ideological programming. What she dislikes is an unattractive "beta" ogling her. So you create laws and norms that discourage "most men" from ogling women sexually, and "most men" will follow along, other than the "pure alphas" who are transgressive, and in transgressing the rules provide proof positive of their alphaness and hence their desirability. Feminism as shit test.
ReplyDeleteAgain it's like sexual harassment -- much of what falls under the rubric "sexual harassment" can best be described as "flirting with women at work while beta".
I still don't get it. What do these women want? Do they want men not to be attracted to them?
ReplyDeleteSomeone needs to ask one of these women:
"Since you want men to have the same response to female breasts as to male breasts, i.e., no response at all, does that mean that you also want your husband or boyfriend to have no response to your breasts? If your answer is no, then you are simultaneously demanding that men be attracted to your breasts and demanding that they not be attracted to your breasts, which makes no sense. If your answer is yes, then you don't want your husband or boyfriend to be attracted to your body, which also doesn't make sense. Another possibility is that you do want your husband or boyfriend to be attracted to your body, but just not your breasts. That also makes no sense. So please tell me again what is it that you actually want."
Lawrence Auster,
ReplyDeleteYou make a good point. Even if what these women are demanding fits in with a liberal politics, there's still the question of how the women sort out their position in their own minds.
After all, it seems difficult to believe that a woman wouldn't want her own body to be desirable or attractive to someone she's interested in.
I can only make an educated guess as to a possible answer, based on feminist discussions I've read previously.
It's not uncommon in these discussions for feminist women to believe that sex distinctions really don't matter, that there is more difference within the sexes than between them, that there is such overlap between the sexes that it's not possible to talk of masculine or feminine qualities, that unless there are qualities that are so universal that they are held only by men or by women without exception that the test of sex distinctions fails and so on.
The punch line is usually that it's only possible to treat people in a non-gendered way as unique individuals.
For such people there isn't really a heterosexuality as such. It just "happens" that one unique individual who happens to be a man falls for another unique individual who happens to be a woman.
I know it sounds odd and extreme and people will dismiss these people as crazy and not worth the bother. But that's the mindset of some on the cutting edge of gender politics.
It always strikes me as being a nominalistic point of view in which there are only individual instances of things and that there are no forms or classes of which the individual instances are expressions.
Anyway, I wonder if our Portland feminists might reason as follows: the "classes" of being male or female are just oppressive impositions of the patriarchy. Women have been placed in a subordinate position as the sex class.
So to get rid of oppression the fact of gendered classes must be gotten rid of, which means denying the imposition on women as a class of being "sexed".
But that leaves us as non-classed, free individuals. If a person with male reproductive organs happens to find a woman's uniquely individual non-gendered being attractive, including her physical appearance, then that is a single instance of attraction and desire, with no wider bearing or consequence on anything else.
It doesn't prove anything, our feminist might say. It could just as easily be the case that a woman might be similarly attracted, as a unique instance of desire, to the breasts of a man.
There are no principles of order, just an ever changing state of flux along a continuum of individual personality.
The female breast is thought to have no inherent meaning or significance, even if the Portland feminist's boyfriend happens to find them desirable. That's just him. Who knows about all the other unique individuals out there? Not all men like breasts, you know. I know this guy who says he doesn't like them at all, yada yada yada ...
I think you've nailed it Mark.
ReplyDeleteLiberalism is about the suppression of pattern recognition!
“Not all men like breasts, you know. I know this guy who says he doesn't like them at all, yada yada yada …”
What I meant is that I’m more of an ass man.
Stop twisting what I said, Feminists!
As an example of the type of thinking I tried to describe earlier, there is the case of "Figleaf", not a female feminist but a male heterosexual one.
ReplyDeleteHe claims that human beings are 99% the same. There is only 1% difference that could be described as "gendered" behaviour:
"Well. I think it’s the same with gender. A lot. Human beings aren’t 100% alike ... But we are 99% alike. Even when we’re biologically different we’re very often still functionally alike."
Not only does he claim 99% similarity, he even has a strategy for disarming the 1% gendered difference, of rendering it harmless to his world view:
So I got a big epiphany the other day that it’s not actually gender itself that bugs me.
No, he doesn't mind now if some people, for instance, wear pants and some people wear skirts. It's not the "gendered" behaviour itself that is the problem. It's connecting this behaviour to people on the basis of their biological sex or their sexual identity:
In other words I’m fine with gender ... as long as it’s completely independent of sexual biology, or anatomy, or identity, or orientation.
Completely independent. Whether someone wears a skirt, for instance, should be completely independent of them being born a woman, or having a feminine identity. It should just be a kind of random preference they have as an individual.
This approach allows figleaf to accept the reality that gendered practices exist - that he himself is still marked by gendered practices - whilst continuing to believe that such practices do not relate to the existence of two distinct classes of people with distinctly essential natures - man and woman.
One of his commenters follows up by reasserting the basic liberal ideal on this issue:
My belief on gender is that in a perfect world it would be a la carte.
You'd just get to choose autonomously which masculine or feminine practices you would "perform". Just like you get to choose autonomously what dish you're ordering for dinner. It wouldn't be tied to a predetermined biological sex.
Yes, of course, that's the whole point of the discourse on "gender" and the (over)use of the word "gender" to begin with: to detach behaviors from biological sex, and male behaviors simply an aspect of personal choice -- like choosing what to wear one day. One day it's skirts and makeup for a guy, another day it's engineer boots and a leather jacket -- presenting as "girl" when he wants to and as "boy" when he wants to, at whim. It views "gender expression" as simply an aspect of personal expression, and therefore sees the idea of "gender expression" being tied in any way to biological sex as restricting personal freedom of expression.
ReplyDeleteThe underlying idea, Mark, is as you have pointed out -- essentially to free women from the "scourge" of being "expected" to be "feminine" because they are female. I don't think too many gender theorists expect men to walk around in skirts, makeup and heels, but they *do* want women to be "free" to dress and act like men and still be considered to be attractive females (to whom, one wonders).
The "reality" that this runs into, however, is that most females want to be attractive to males, and want to act as feminine in order to be so (and for other reasons as well). I suppose a gender theorist would say that this is fine as long as what they are doing is not considered "normative" -- but that's very hard to swing, because behavior that is adopted by a huge majority of women will, de facto, be considered normative.
The French experiment hasn't led to the desexualisation of women's bodies. Quite the opposite.
ReplyDeleteI'd be interested to hear from one of your sophisticated European readers on this score. Is it all about "looking without seeming to be looking"? Or are the objects of interest "really no big deal"?
And what of Africa and other places where exposure is commonplace? Have they desexualized women's bodies?
I'm German, not French.
ReplyDeleteIt's looking without being seen to be looking. You can glance, but not stare. Every European guy I know is a "breast man", although some like nice legs, as well. Men are pretty much the same everywhere, it's just which type of breasts they prefer (larger, smaller, round, etc.)
Look, the women go swimming topless or lay out on the beach that way so that men will look at their breasts. That's the whole point.
The only exceptions are the FKK beaches, where it's mostly old people swimming in the North Sea. And even most of the Germans just make fun of them.
Alte wrote: Look, the women go swimming topless or lay out on the beach that way so that men will look at their breasts. That's the whole point.
ReplyDeleteExactly. This has been going on for so long, as well as many tabloids deal with pictures of breasts, that breasts are becoming boring objects. So what better way to attract attention then by going topless, and insist that men do not look at them.
This fad or gimmick will not run for long. Besides there are others, particularly in OZ, who regard such objects as 'uncovered meat'.
Yes, but the French and German women don't go around topless all the time, everywhere. I think the feminists position (which I suspect is wrong) is that women's breasts are tittilating (pun fully intended) soley because they are kept covered up most of the time.
ReplyDeleteMost German women don't go topless ever. It smacks a bit of desperation. I think younger women are starting to realize that, and learning about the power of modesty.
ReplyDeleteThis "movement" and parade is sponsored by the Raelian cult. To quote from the Go topless.org website, "GoTopless was founded by the Raelian Movement, which recognizes that life on Earth was created by advanced extraterrestrial scientists. These scientists, both male and female, used their mastery of genetic engineering to create humans in their own image (breasts included!)"
ReplyDeleteMark's answer to my question is extremely interesting.
ReplyDeleteIf one is trying to make sense of *why* they're doing this sort of thing, one must also keep in mind that many (most?) of the leading-lights of feminism are man-hating lesbians.
ReplyDeleteSo, for *that* sort of woman, it makes perfect (if wicked) sense to pull these sorts of stunts -- they *know* that men find women's breasts beautiful and appealing and arousing. What better way to punish men for the crime of being men than to "desexualize" women’s bodies? How much more delicious the revenge if they can browbeat both women and men into cooperating in the noble task of "desexualizing" women?
And Satan puts his feet up, takes a puff from his cigar and says, "My work is done."
ReplyDeleteNovaseeker said:
ReplyDelete"Feminism as shit test."
Haha. I must admit though I knew a guy who was alpha plus and he would shameless flirt with all the women in his vacinity, at work or otherwise (sighs wishes I was him). Some of the women did find it genuinely offensive or "gross".
Kilroy, Ilion, I've removed the exchange between you on this thread. It may have begun with a political disagreement but it seems to have become personal to a degree. Can I ask you to let each other alone for a period of time?
ReplyDeleteM.Richardson: "Kilroy, Ilion, I've removed the exchange between you on this thread. It may have begun with a political disagreement but it seems to have become personal to a degree. Can I ask you to let each other alone for a period of time? "
ReplyDeleteMr Richardson, if you will pay attention to what is actually going on, you will see that your "evenhandedness" is rather misplaced.
Ilion,
ReplyDeleteMy apologies if I haven't handled the situation adequately, but it has become clear that the issue isn't going to go away by itself - hence my cutting off of further exchanges.
(Jesse, yours too, to try and finish things off cleanly.)
Shoot, I'm not objecting to you removing my responses to his baiting.
ReplyDeleteGentlemen, you're overlooking the most obvious point. The real issue for women is WHO'S noticing them. They don't want to be bothered by ordinary guys.
ReplyDeleteWomen are constructing a social hierarchy where the average Joe will soon be expected to conduct himself in the public sphere with head bowed. Eye contact is already a crime.
This behaviour is a canonical demonstration of female triumphalism born from the powers granted by the state - laws against the unattractive.
Women have insinuated themselves into all levels public and private institutions, initially in the seventies by sexually misleading men. Subsequently they've engaged in a multi-decade campaign of male sexual repression.
Just ask yourself this question lads: On what basis would any man expose himself to a creature driven by a genetic imperative to instantly and permanently discriminate against him based on his physical attractiveness to her?
As stated previously, when women are allowed to promote their desires into moral values social chaos won't be far behind.
Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteWomen and men are not foes.
Anonymous said:
ReplyDelete"Just ask yourself this question lads: On what basis would any man expose himself to a creature driven by a genetic imperative to instantly and permanently discriminate against him based on his physical attractiveness to her?"
Isn't this the situation that women face? As unpleasant as it is, isn't what's good for the goose good for the gander? Hell I'd love to walk around like Arnold Swarzenegger and say women are there for my sexual pleasure exclusively, but I don't know how the women would like that. In my experience it would be ok for a while then the women started to get the shits.
Ilion, then why have women campaigned so ardently to criminalize male sexual desire?
ReplyDeleteThis isn't about violating women with sexual assault. Men are now under the threat of contingent legal retaliation for expressing in the mildest manner their appreciation of feminine attractiveness.
What do you think the nature of the problem is then? We like each other too much? I think you're in denial of a problem with a much larger context.
I work at a University and can express anecdotally with a high degree of confidence that the relationships between the genders are increasingly adversarial. I regularly question young men on their attitudes toward women, the comments are often alarmingly cool and hostile. The good looking guys are the worst by the way.
In the past, male students often were willing to assist their female counterparts in technical projects, not that women are incapable but usually is due to lack of exposure to mechanical systems in their K-12 schooling.
Today, it's all to common to overhear male students cautioning each other at the start of the semester not to assist female students. The usual line is "they're going to take our jobs when we graduate".
The salient point to consider is how do men view each other? If that's the social organizing principle for m/f relationships then you can't escape its logic. Men are either competing, cooperating with or coercing each other.
A traditionalist perspective would prefer cooperation as the sole category for male female relationships. It's the feminists who've decide to bring the other two into the game.
So how do you want men to react to that? I'm certain it would make anyone uncomfortable to acknowledge they might be suppressing another persons natural inclinations for their own selfish ends - err, autonomy...
"Hell I'd love to walk around ... and say women are there for my sexual pleasure exclusively ..."
ReplyDeleteReally, now?
How ... ummm ... how "traditional."
Or not.
I guess one difference between men and women though is that if men want something its usually at the level of a want, especially these days. If a women wants something it may be elevated to the status of a right. *Coughs*.
ReplyDeleteI can tell you one thing. I'm pretty tired of working my absolute ass off to avoid being called a villain or right denier. Pretty sick of women generally lol.
llion said:
ReplyDelete""Hell I'd love to walk around ... and say women are there for my sexual pleasure exclusively ..."
Really, now?
How ... ummm ... how "traditional."
Or not."
I can deal. Desire is one thing practice is another. Who's the biggest inhibitor of me acting like that? A girls shrieking? Or my conscience? Its the latter. That's why I get the shits at women mate. I'm not just working to do the right thing and keep them happy. Keeping me happy wouldn't be the end of the world either. I know that one slip or problem, even if its out of your control, and I'm stuffed no matter how well I've done up to that point or how much effort has been put in. That sounds an awful lot like blatant self interest on the part of women to me.
There are codes of behavior that tell men not to act like asses to women. It seems there are codes of behavior telling women TO act like asses to men.
Anonymous said:
ReplyDelete"This isn't about violating women with sexual assault. Men are now under the threat of contingent legal retaliation for expressing in the mildest manner their appreciation of feminine attractiveness."
This is one I think women get confused about. If you want them they love it. If you want them too much, they don't love it. I'm not talking about emotional neediness but physical desire. Does sex leave women "soiled"? Sometimes women think that sometimes they don't. Sometimes within the same heartbeat. Sex is only right if they initiate it? Give me a break!!!!
Jesse_7,
ReplyDeletePerhaps I should have expanded on that thought in the context of public life. Our institution has been feminized to the point of embarrassment for administration. The makeup is now at 92% female representation for all management positions. Even women are complaining about what they see as petty biases that now substitute for institutional values.
Bias is a part of life, more often than not it's men who aware of them and can put those aside when making decisions that affect someones hiring eligibility, promotions etc. From what I've observed in hiring committees that involved over fifty positions women seem almost unaware and unwilling to acknowledge that those biases are influencing them.
If a women or a man isn't sexually interested in someone, so what. Appearance is just an accident of biology we all live with.
For that to become a moral component used to decide whether I get a job or promotion, that's going to be a problem.
Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteFor all my swearing and bitching, and I can go off (too feminine a thing to say?), on a day to day basis I usually get on pretty well with women. Which means when I hit full time employment I'll have an advantage in certain areas because there are now so many women in the professions. So bloody much for a male dominated workforce.
Surely at the end of the day real work has to be done? Perhaps not in the public service. If the person, male or female, looks like a bandy legged troll but can do the job well I'd hire them. As you say when it comes to looks a lot of it is not fully realised. Of course who works these days to do work? Its all about excitement/fun, money and lifestyle right?
Jesse said:
ReplyDelete"That sounds an awful lot like blatant self interest on the part of women to me."
Awesome I'm quoting myself. Saying that women are basically selfish creatures was fine, and maybe even proper, in the old days when they had limited power. For it to be A Ok now, when they have substantial power, is just rank. The only counter to that I can think of is that women are generally pretty selfless when it comes to children.
The only counter to that I can think of is that women are generally pretty selfless when it comes to children.
ReplyDeleteNo, they're not. Otherwise women would not initiate so many divorces and take the kids away from their fathers. Indeed, women always somehow manage to convince themselves that their actions are "for the good of the children" (surprise, surprise) when 9 times out of 10 this is manifestly not so.
The fact that women in divorce justify their actions as being "for the good of the children" indicates how highly they value children and how they generally do believe or wish to believe that what they're doing is justified. The thing is though that the children and the mother are sort of blended together in their psyche, what's good for me is good for the children, which tends to negate counter evidence, eg what the children may think.
ReplyDeleteThe idea of women being selfless towards their children is pretty clear in the way women generally prioritise their children in their day to day lives or in emergency situations and in their very strong emotional attachments to their children. Women are also strongly attracted to careers that involve work with or for children. If a mother is generally neglectful its usually other women who are the biggest critics. Putting it another way, guys I don't think would generally want to be stay at home parents whilst many women wouldn't mind or would like that. This is because women have a stronger maternal or childraising instinct, which is not a revolutionary thing to say.
I'd like to put this out there. When a thread on feminist related issues is up there is generally a fair amount of comment from women, this is only right. However, when a thread such as immigration comes up female comments generally dry up. Is this issue not of interest to you? I would have thought that the future of the nation would be a bloody big deal regardless of gender. Is such a matter a "guy" thing, them and us, potential war fighting overtones, and therefore not of sufficient immediate interest to women? I role my eyes at this.
Pauline Hanson's political power such as it was occurred because she was a woman. Same again for Sarah Palin. It could be said that here is a women, a moral actor by definition of the fact that she is a woman, talking about "guy" issues, war immigration etc, which together amounts to them being an incredible savior. Please help us women, we men are not qualified/moral enough to be spokesmen on such issues and need you to do it for us.
I would suggest one reason women are less interested in immigration issues is because it is a national rather than a family or an immediate self related issue. However you are half the electorate so your views actually do matter. Is it too much to ask that you consider the entirety a little more? This is what men are trained and required to do. Greetings and welcome to the civic sphere.
A larger focus I think may help women from being less self focused and self justifying in their dating and family issues as well, which would do us all a bloody big favor.
I've seen self centeredness front and centre in women's behavior, regardless of their political orientation or whether they're conservatively oriented or not. You have guys willing to protect you and your interests, (too white knighting a thing to say?) however, there are two genders out there and such an attitude cannot be taken for granted. One gender’s interests can’t be allowed to dominate at the expense of the other. No matter how bloody moral you are.
The fact that women in divorce justify their actions as being "for the good of the children" indicates how highly they value children and how they generally do believe or wish to believe that what they're doing is justified.
ReplyDeleteNo, it indicates how massively narcissistic they are. When they have decided to do something - in this case, get a divorce - then immediately they reorder everything else to justify that decision. If it becomes necessary for her to think that the outcome is "good" for the children in order for her to feel good about what she did - and for women, it's all about feeling good! - then she will think that even if it flies in the face of the obvious fact that divorce is horrendously bad for the children.
They do not value children. They value themselves first and foremost.
Fortunately not all Frenchmen are as crazed as are the liberals discussed here. Although this is not strictly germane to the specific sex-related issue at hand, readers might be interested in the appended link from iconoclastic French author Guillaume Faye:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.toqonline.com/archives/v9n2/TOQv9n2Faye.pdf
Vincent,
ReplyDeleteOf interest, yes. The idea of building up a network to take advantage of a future crisis is a good one. I found it unusual, though, that he identifies the United States as the common enemy. I would have thought that the European political classes were more directly responsible for the current situation in Europe.
When they have decided to do something - in this case, get a divorce - then immediately they reorder everything else to justify that decision.
ReplyDeleteThis is true. They get turned off by their husband's weakness, decide to leave, and then rationalize their actions by saying that it's "good for the children". They know it's not good for the children, but if they admit that -- even to themselves -- they'd have to fess up that their actions are wrong. I also think it's defensive; they know that everyone will say, "What about the children?", so they try to preempt that argument by framing their very abandonment as sacrificial on their part.
"This is true. They get turned off by their husband's weakness, decide to leave, and then rationalize their actions by saying that it's "good for the children"."
ReplyDeleteIts scary to see it happen. If there are no children in the divorce it becomes "he treated me poorly".
Although now I think they don't even bother rationalizing it anymore. They just say, "I just don't love him anymore." Which means: he's no longer dominant, so I don't want him.
ReplyDeleteGay marriage has taught us all, once and for all, that marriage is about love, so when the love (read: lust) dies, the marriage can be dissolved.
Now they usually only look for justification for leaving if there's going to be a custody or alimony battle. A male cousin of mine is going through that horror right now. He didn't do anything wrong, but she drained their bank accounts, had the police remove him from his house, and she now lives in it with their 2 sons and her new boyfriend. He hasn't seen his kids since December.
Vincent: "Fortunately not all Frenchmen are as crazed as are the liberals discussed here."
ReplyDeleteIt's something we all need to keep in mind ... we images we all have of one another's nations are filtered through the leftist prisms of the various media. Waht we are seeing may have next to nothing to do with reality.
In my opinion and experience (of watching it amongst my own relatives), it's generally the spounse who is trying to moral and civilized about the break-up who gets shafted.
ReplyDeleteThough, I also think it tends to be the woman who is behaving most badly.
llion,
ReplyDeleteI agree with your earlier point that its the person most willing to go down the sociopath route who has an advantage, which is incredibly unfortunate because the legal system should exist to discourage those sorts of tendencies rather than embrace them. "Taking things meekly" or in a civilised fashion seems to imply weakness and thereby fault. Which is barbarous. Life should not be a gladiator ring with the legal system cheering on the biggest hitter.
Mr. Richardson makes a good point about the European political classes, but Paul Gottfried in his valuable book The Strange Death of Marxism proves conclusively that the intellectual and moral corruption of the European political classes in the 21st century is not primarily home-grown. It comes from these classes having taken on board so much of the American Clintonesque-neocon agenda.
ReplyDeleteAdmittedly, Europe inflicted on America the Frankfurt School of malignant nihilist Jews (e.g. Gyorgy Lukacs the sex-educationist, Wilhelm Reich the jailed erotomaniac). But post-Cold-War America has repaid this cultural export with interest.
Gottfried, himself a believing Jew, gives instance after instance of fifth-rate European Marxist intellectuals (e.g. Habermas) who, almost as soon as the Soviet empire collapsed, reinvented themselves as advocates of spreading democracy and sexual revolution via the Pax Americana. (Cf. the US/NATO 1999 campaign to exterminate Serbs, who were the ultimate villains. Since Serbia was Christian, small, hyper-patriotic, socially conservative, contemptuous of the New World Order, and anti-Muslim to the core of its being, it had to be smashed.)
These pundits' quarrel with America during the Cold War was only a second-order issue (we can now discern) for them. What they hated with an everlasting hatred, and what they could never reconcile themselves to, was Christian Europe. And more especially Catholic Europe.
In this, the pundits haven't changed. Perhaps one day, when they've succeeded not only in neutralizing Benedict XVI but in causing his death, this simple fact will be admitted by the "mainstream" media.