Saturday, January 08, 2011

Liz, you can't have contradictory things

Liz Jones is a particularly clueless specimen of the New Woman. She wants things to fall in place just as she'd like them to, without thinking through how that might happen.

Take a recent incident in her life in which her BMW broke down. She was stranded and upset. None of the young men who passed by stopped to help her and a few even abused her. And so she is upset that young men are no longer chivalrous and lack the masculine code of their forefathers:

Let me tell you, dear ladies: the age of chivalry is dead...

It is young men — up to the age of 40 — who behave like louts.

I had thought it was just my ex-husband who used to allow me to put petrol in the car while he sat warm in the passenger seat, but if my ­experience yesterday ­morning is anything to go by, it’s a generational phenomenon.

As Top Gear’s James May said this week, young men have lost their masculinity, in that they can no longer fix things. And this loss of manners is far worse.

Young working British men: you should be ashamed.

Did this sort of foul-mouthed male really win us the war? We don’t need more aircraft ­carriers, we need men who are not rude, ignorant pigs

Liz Jones never stops to consider why this transformation might have occurred. Why would an older generation of men have behaved with concern and courtesy toward women whilst the younger one doesn't?

Could it be because of the behaviour of women like Liz Jones herself? Here, for instance, is how Liz Jones describes her treatment of men who do try to take care of her BMW:
I still, to this day, whenever I am told my BMW needs a new tyre, say, yell at the hapless man serving me: 'You wouldn't dare treat me this way if I were a man!'

As for her husband, she expected him to be a new man, in touch with his feelings, who would take a back seat to her as an independent woman:

New men, metrosexual men, men who are in touch with their feelings, who are willing to take a back seat, supporting and nurturing you, don't exist.

They might pretend to be able to cope with you but they are, instead, storing up anger and will hate you for being fabulous, for being independent, for not needing them in your life but just wanting them to be there.

No wonder hubby sat in the car while Liz got the petrol. He was, after all, expected to "take a back seat" in the marriage.

Liz Jones can't have it both ways. She can't behave like a harpy toward men and then expect that men will be inspired to treat women with chivalry and courtesy. Nor can she proclaim that women don't need men and that men should learn to live with this and become nurturing metrosexuals, whilst at the same time collapsing in tears when her car breaks down and no traditionally masculine man stops to help her.

12 comments:

  1. I get the impression the Daily Mail likes to keep its readers riled up, and that's why they publish her. She's an ogre, even by Feminist standards. And the failure of her life plus her total lack of self-awareness that her ruination is self-inflicted is oddly compelling.

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  2. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of white male Eurocentric minds. Feminists, like all leftists, are perfectly capable of demanding several incompatible things at the same time.

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  3. ""Feminists, like all leftists, are perfectly capable of demanding several incompatible things at the same time.""

    And then stamping their feet at the sheer unfairness of the world when they find that getting them one thing loses them another.

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  4. I personally think its outrageous that a guy would leave their wife/girlfriend to fill up the car. Certainly I'd also stop to help a woman or man stranded on the side of the road. Would I do this for gratitude? I wouldn't care a damn about gratitude I'd see that as my obligation as a man. An obligation that I take seriously and which is satisfying to me regardless of whether its appreciated. Does that mean that I'd let the wife walk over me or take the kids if I could help it? No.

    Its not good enough to blame the feminists for everything. A guy who won't pump the car is a sack of shit. Maybe, just maybe, men today act like kids. Why is this the case? Well you can certainly blame liberalism which says everyone do your own thing and don't feel obligations to anyone. Can we blame feminism though? Really? A generation WWII guy would (probably) stop to help someone today regardless of what the women said in response. You don't have to like someone to help them.

    I think picking out feminism is too easy an answer. If a guy today says "Oh women should go fight wars, that will serve them right", which I've heard several times from men, that shows a pathetic pettiness. How about the best members of your society go fight wars and that way you'll be most likely to win? You want your best to go not your worst.

    If men have thrown off any obligation they feel to society, whether they've been divorced or not, or punished by society or not, and plenty of men haven't and they still feel no obligation to society, eg Gerry Harvey, then they should sort themselves out.
    Lets make this really easy. Women are not the equal of men. Men are superior. Men will remain superior no matter how much weight women want to put in the saddle bags to try even it up or whether the state is used as a leveler. However, this superiority still has to be worked at. Its not automatic and will take discipline and effort.

    If I was put in an position to help a feminist (in a relatively costless way, eg stopping to help with a car) I'd take it every time. And after I'd finished helping I'd give them a look in the eyes that says "See, I'm a superior male, you're a useless woman, and I'm also graciously not pointing out that fact too obviously to you, enjoy your fixed car".

    Is this weakness? I don't think so. You lead by strength. The biggest argument that feminists have always had is that men are selfish. You do constructive things and you're not only stronger but you're also more worthy. Result double win.

    Insert men's movement cry now.

    One more point. Many feminists would resent a guy stopping to help them, because it would show their position of weakness. Many women on the other hand want both things, a "new" guy who's also strong and effective. We want a women who's sexy but also effective. This is a raising of the bar, it doesn't however, necessarily have to mean the destruction of men. Provided men are given realistic assistance to get there. If she has boys and is happy to let them play on the computer or whatever and not tool about with gadgets (not to mention marry men like that) then yes, the next generation of men will not be fixit men.

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  5. ""Certainly I'd also stop to help a woman or man stranded on the side of the road. Would I do this for gratitude?""

    I would do it for either of the same two reasons men always have:

    1] Completing a task like that gives you a feeling of achievement which boosts MY confidence about myself.

    2] I could be single and she could be hot...

    I am from a fairly young demo though [mid 20's] so maybe things are just different.

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  6. "A guy who won't pump the car is a sack of shit"

    Tough titties, we're equal now. Works both ways.

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  7. Wait a min if you're equal shouldn't you pump the gas sometimes too? Or do you expect the woman to do everything?

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  8. Jesse,

    Interesting comment. You make a good case for your approach, but it's not how forms of courtesy/chivalry once worked (i.e. in the 1970s when I remember them personally).

    They were once everyday gestures which marked a kind of positive feeling between men and women.

    They expressed an easy flow of good feeling between men and women.

    It was a kind of permissible masculine/feminine communication - so it wasn't just something held together one-sidedly by men.

    If women don't contribute to the feminine side of that conversation, then you don't have the flow of courtesy as it once existed.

    (I know I haven't put this very well - it's not easy to describe.)

    For all that, I have always stopped and helped when I've seen women needing assistance.

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  9. Mark maybe it is generational.
    I know a few men my age who would do such a thing, but they are rare to say the least.

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  10. I am approaching 30 so perhaps the generation younger than me is even worse! They certainly seem more feminised, but that is a complaint common across the centuries!

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  11. As this impressionable young man who was taught to respect woman growing up in the 80s, I heard the stories of men holding doors open for women only to be told that that was demeaning and sexist.

    Yes, these stories sunk in and I started to look at things differently, to the point where I can conclude that feminism has INFECTED women with a deranged, overblown sense of entitlement, the complete opposite of what I would look for in a woman.

    You made your bed, feminists, now lie in it.

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  12. Interesting take on the mutual exclusivity of women who want aspects of betas and alphas, replete with a religious twist;

    http://captaincapitalism.blogspot.com/2010/10/missing-boat.html

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