But it seems that her preferred option would be to marry and have a family.
Her explanation of why she resigned from her job is interesting:
There’s never a good time to tell your boss that you find baking more interesting that PowerPoint; that the WI holds more of an appeal than a networking conference and that the very thought of still doggedly working your way up the career ladder for the next 25 years fills you full of cold terror, is there?
...It is ironic that in this most-feminist age of egalitarian opportunity I feel guilty for admitting what I really want in life: a husband, a family, and the space to enjoy them.
And there's the tricky dilemma - you can pursue your career with determination and achieve those goals, but will that make you happy?
If, on the other hand as I do, you believe that 'life goals' (of the husband/children variety) are what you really want in the future, how do you aim for them?
It is a fine line, juggling the balance between maintaining plan B (the career) whilst allowing for the possibility, or encouraging, plan A (the life).
The effort of sustaining plan B (career) was difficult to combine with the pursuit of plan A (husband/children).
She has followed a typical pattern of leaving family formation to her 30s:
And yet is it only now, in our 30s that we are feeling ‘different’ to our male compatriots; feeling a different pull and different priorities emerging; feeling that our paths are not so straight and true as our male friends and colleagues; feeling the worry, as we stare out from behind our suited desks as another friend embraces her new role as ‘wife’ and ‘mother’ – has that boat sailed?
I'm not sure how the landmine clearing option is going to help with the husband/children aim. She recognises herself that it can be defeminising:
Men on the other hand are invariably fascinated, green with envy at the idea of blowing stuff up...as the testosterone rises their perception of me shifts and I can see myself morphing from 'woman' to 'mate'. I may be sitting in a bar wearing a dress, I may even have scrubbed up and be wearing perfume and make-up, but my job confers honorary man status on me. And that just isn't sexy.
Indeed, I find myself going to some lengths to preserve my sense of self as a woman. My toenails are always painted, I've found a local waxist, I wear subtle earrings with my uniform as a badge of pride. I carry perfume in my rucksack - and I'm not afraid to use it. I don a dress at every opportunity. My duty-free make-up collection is bigger than it ever was in my corporate world, and Saturday night application has taken on a certain reverence. But I still struggle to feel feminine.
She then goes on to explain how for years she has experienced an "internal battle" over her femininity. On the one hand she has seen feminine traits as a weakness, on the other hand they make her feel true to herself:
I'd been aware of this rumbling undercurrent for some months, but I only really realised when I was in London in January. I was standing next to the Swede, looking in a mirror ... and it just struck me, I felt powerfully Female. Next to his height, his solidity and his strength I just felt different. Smaller, gentler, softer. And it was lovely. I felt like Me. I had license to ask for help and admit vulnerability, to just Be A Girl.
Isn't it strange, this peculiar internal battle I seem to have been living with for years, challenging aspects of my absolute identity. I don't really understand why I've subconsciously viewed my more feminine traits as weaknesses. Flaws to be crushed or ignored, when in fact they are parts of my character as a woman that I need to open up to.
I'll try to give an example without blithering too much, here is a paradox:
On the one hand, I find myself viewing vulnerability as a weakness and something to be stifled or hidden. It is 'girlie' and therefore something to look down on or rise above.
On the other hand, I am a girl, and I want to take the female role in a relationship dynamic. I want to be the feminine yin to masculine yang - and to feel cared for and looked after. If I am unwilling to acknowledge vulnerability when I find it, then what role is there for a man to feel that his help and support is needed in my life?
It is easy to try to do everything and be self sufficient. But the problem is in that expression. If I am overtly 'self sufficient' then maybe I shouldn't be surprised if there doesn't appear to be emotional room for someone else?
I could be over analysing, but I have a feeling that I'm edging towards (and I hate this expression) 'finding myself'. I just don't know why its taken so bloody long and a dramatic life change to get here!
It's my belief that this "internal battle" is a very common one amongst women - and that it does play a role in confusing the relationship dynamic between men and women.
Note too what she writes about feeling connected to her feminine essence: she writes "I felt like Me". I think the same applies to men who connect strongly to their masculine being - it creates a sense of being who you are meant to be.
Lol, another one hits the wall.
ReplyDeleteIf they "feel" different about men in their 30's while treating them like garbage in their 20's, good luck. They shouldn't take things to the levels they do.
ReplyDeleteWomen abuse their 20's like no other. And then whine when they actually pay for it later on. But is anyone listening? Or should I say do they "feel" the people they want to listen to them paying attention? Maybe they should start to "think" instead. And long term would be a start.
Gee, maybe she views "vulnerability" as a weakness because it IS weakness, by definition!
ReplyDeleteThe reality is that the hard work of getting by in life is tough on everyone. We all, male and female, have vulnerabilities by virtue of being human. But women are given this cultural escape hatch, i.e. the social acceptance under the guise of so-called "femininity" of just wanting to be taken care of. Of course there are going to be women who leap into that escape hatch when the going gets rough. Men would do the exact same thing if they had cultural permission to do so.
Rather than just soldiering on and doing her work, this woman thinks she should be honored for embracing weakness as the essence of her identity. Has she no shame? Apparently not.
Georgina, on what grounds do you say things which are manifestly false? "Men would (want to be taken care of) if they had cultural permission to do so."
ReplyDeleteNo, the vast majority of men would not, and the remainder (homosexuals) are confused. Men do not appreciate being helped or asking for it (asking for directions, etc.). They tolerate it when necessary; they do not long for it. That you do not understand something so basic to male psychology should tell you just how unmasculine you really are, and by extension, how deeply ingrained the differences between the sexes.
Is this comment thread going to turn in to everyone responding to Doomed Harlot? Like over at Dalrock. Why can't people ignore her? Why do so many feel the need to respond to her? She isn't going to change her beliefs.
ReplyDeleteNobody's stopping you from changing the subject.
DeleteGeorgina's speciality is what you might call "plausible denial of reality". Because she makes it sound plausible it's worth replying to, even if her standpoint is predictable.
ReplyDeleteFor instance, her last comment simply assumes that there is no such thing as femininity. If a woman wants to be feminine, then there is no way that she can live by a masculine ethos of being as tough as is required to meet the toughest of circumstances. A woman who did this would not be feminine anymore.
The feminine virtues are the gentler, more vulnerable ones. Most heterosexual men happen to find these appealing and we respond to them.
What the Englishwoman I quoted is saying is that she has a corresponding sense that these virtues are part of her feminine identity as a woman. She has also figured out that if she instead follows a masculine course she will be responded to more as a "mate" than as a possible girlfriend by men and that her self-sufficiency, as a matter of logic, does not leave a role for a masculine man in her life.
Bartholomew,
ReplyDeleteWhat I was thinking of was the long, hard schlog of working for a living. I know tons of men who would love to find an easy way out of that if they could. Women have a built-in excuse to opt out when the going gets rough. Men don't.
I do think it's beneath contempt for the author of the quoted blog post to say she is vulnerable and just wants a man to care for her, and then lump the rest of us women in with her.
Georgina Charlotte/Doomed Harlot please understand that women such as yourself are the true minorities. The exceptions to the rule does not disprove the rule but proves it because a rule is general and applies to most (roughly 80 to 95%), not all (as in 100%). You may know "tons of men" but these men are a minority.
ReplyDeleteRemember the opening ceremony of the London Olympis were they showed a typical British household as a white woman married to a black man and having a mulatto child? Turns out that blacks are only 1 to 3% of the entire British population. How on earth is that typical?
That's exactly how your circles are. The liberal worldview has utterly influenced most of the West and it seems that most women are like you but in reality most women who live a feminist lifestyle are miserable.
Please don't speak for them. Please don't speak for us.
MARK SAYS: "The feminine virtues are the gentler, more vulnerable ones. Most heterosexual men happen to find these appealing and we respond to them."
ReplyDeleteExcept when they are on MRA or traditionalist blogs frothing at the mouth about how weak and contemptible women are. It seems that, at least in MRA or traditionalist circles, heterosexual men only respond to "appealing" feminine traits by demanding that women embrace a very specific, subordinate (i.e. submissive) role within the family and society.
"What the Englishwoman I quoted is saying is that she has a corresponding sense that these virtues are part of her feminine identity as a woman. She has also figured out that if she instead follows a masculine course she will be responded to more as a "mate" than as a possible girlfriend by men and that her self-sufficiency, as a matter of logic, does not leave a role for a masculine man in her life."
Self-sufficient people don't need or desire friends, lovers, and life-partners? Of course, there's a role for a man (including the "masculine" ones) in every straight woman's life. And straight men will always respond to women, regardless of what role they play in society or how tough they are.
For example Georgina Charlotte/Doomed Harlot you may be a wonderful woman who wants to do STEM and has longed to participate in it since a child. But that's rare in a girl. Most girls don't do STEM and the fact that say, President Barack Obama in the USA, wants to increase the proportion of women in STEM and put quotas for men in colleges, is not a good thing. Most go for things beside STEM, such as humanities or the arts. Or even other pursuits. There can be places where women are the majority, where men are the majority or where men and women are evenly spread out. There's always some hierarchy. It's foolish to try to advance sex equality (e.g. androgyny) where all sectors are 50/50 female/male or to argue for autonomy. Autonomy from what one is or what one should be, is not freedom at all but true, tortuous slavery.
ReplyDeleteNo, Georgina Charlotte/Doomed Harlot. Heterosexual men will not always respond to women if there is no such thing as women.
ReplyDeleteHow can there be heterosexuality if men and women are equal and the same? If there are no sex differences? No opposite yet complementary sex? If gender is all a social construct?
There's no point in sexual reproduction since we could all be asexual androgynous beings. There's no point in heterosexuality.
In fact its quite close to being homosexual. Or even the pederasty.
It has been my observation that it actually does take women who have been indoctrinated with careerism a long time to come to grips with their innate femininity.
ReplyDeleteFemales are social herd creatures and it takes a Herculean effort to break away from the prevailing paradigm, particularly if they have no inner social core to direct them (I guess that is why female 'advice' magazines are so popular).
Unfortunately it often happens when they are close to the wall and realize another 25 years of the corporate grind isn't as palatable as they once thought.
I have numerous female friends in this boat (and no, not all of them are carousel riders) that are slowly having their 'aha' moment but at that age the men around them are either dating younger women, are jaded, are players or have been through the divorce wringer, so the pickings are very slim.
I don't want to read the comments above mine...they are more messed up then this woman.
ReplyDeleteI totally understand this woman. I yell at my parents the following: "Why didn't you tell me???" "Why didn't you tell me???"
and my dad replies..."Well...you were supposed to *insert some high falutent physicist job here*"
and I'm like "That's ridiculous! Einstein can't do that!!"
and my dad says "Well honestly I thought you being a girl, you'd just find someone easily and naturally. I didn't think girls had those problems."
Being that I'm genetically 55% of my dad, with all of his character traits, Of Course I Have Problems. I'm insanely shy, I stay out of public, I love being alone...just like my father. I'm actually a hyper-version of my dad's personality just in female form.
You guys have to realize...no one told me I had to find a guy in college....No one told me men don't like smart women (they don't sorry)...No one told me that the ONLY quality a woman needs to have is her looks and wearing dresses.
You guys should be happy that many of us women are Totally Getting It Now. We love men, and we want so desperately to be feminine.
We're not the enemy, we just didn't understand what you guys wanted.
And btw, I HAVE NEVER treated a guy badly.
EVER.
NEVER.
EVER.
I can honestly say that.
Except when they are on MRA or traditionalist blogs frothing at the mouth about how weak and contemptible women are.
ReplyDeleteThere is anger out there, I grant you. But I think you misunderstand the average young man. Most well-adjusted young men love the feminine qualities of women. You don't love what you find contemptible.
Consider the female body. In terms of raw strength it's not as powerful as the male body. But men don't look down on it - men love the softness, the elegance and the beauty of the female body. The feminine manages to hold its own, even if it's not as large or as muscular.
Women get to embody a life principle that is every bit as compelling as the one available to men.
@Anonymous 5:12 pm
ReplyDeleteIt is at this point that you should see that it was the (gender) feminists who did this to you and that they need to pay/be stopped.
Anonymous Wednesday, 1 August 2012 5:12:00 PM said...
ReplyDeleteNo one told me men don't like smart women (they don't sorry)
Patently untrue but not being among the smart ones you couldn't be expected to know this.
Most of what Georgina wrote has already been addressed. I just can't help but highlight and respond one more time to the following:
ReplyDelete" And straight men will always respond to women, regardless of what role they play in society or how tough they are."
So regardless of how mannish, overbearing, angry, bossy, unstable, screeching and whorish a woman is, a *real* man will always want to sleep with her.
OK, and I guess regardless of how effeminate, wimpy, whiny, obsequious, weak, nerdy and awkward a man is, a *real* woman will always want to sleep with him.
What a mutually satisfying, sexually appealing vision of life you're promoting there, Georgina.
/sarcasm
Gwallan quoted anon
ReplyDelete"No one told me men don't like smart women (they don't sorry)"
and then wrote,
"Patently untrue but not being among the smart ones you couldn't be expected to know this."
Yeah, I'm not sure what she meant by that either, Gwallan. I definitely prefer being around women who are intelligent.
I think what she might have been getting at is that we don't like being around women who are intent on proving how intelligent they are in the way that, well, we men tend to do. We want women to be smart, yes, but still feminine.
That idea goes for pretty much every other positive trait and virtue, too. The ideal woman is intelligent, fit, courageous, talented, loyal, and so on (all traits that could describe a good man), while adding to them something uniquely feminine. In practice, this means an intelligent woman is likely to use her intelligence to help her husband accomplish whatever their household goals and aims. She'll stay fit by being toned, not muscular. She displays her courage by stoically enduring pain too, only the pain might be, say, the pain of childbirth rather than battle, and so on.
I could go on, but why should I repeat (badly) what Proverbs 31 already says so well?
@ Anonymous 5:12
ReplyDeleteMen do not dislike intelligent women. They do dislike a woman who harps on her intelligence, uses her intelligence as an excuse not to shave her legs, or complains that household chores are demeaning to a being so intelligent as she. But intelligence is always an asset. If your prospective husband is intelligent, he understands that you will be his principle conversation partner for the next fifty years or so, and he will appreciate the fact that you have something to talk about (provided you're not talking about your intelligence). I'd guess that the average man prefers a wife who is slightly less intelligent than himself. If you're slightly more intelligent than he, this is easy to simulate.
Don't be too hard on your parents. They gave you the same crappy advice that millions of parents gave their daughters. (These same parents are now wondering why they have no grandchildren.) Your mission now is to help deprogram deluded young women.
For once I agree with people here. Men definitely respond to and appreciate intelligence in a woman. You have to have other appealing qualities as well, Anonymous, but if you're striking out, it's not because you are intelligent.
ReplyDeleteBartholomew,
ReplyDeleteYou are setting up a false choice. Playing the same role in society as a man and being tough in that role does not mean a woman has to become boorish, mannish, screeching, nasty,etc. and all those other adjectives you used.
Indeed, I am in probably the most adversarial profession in the world (litigation) and I find it pays to be warm, friendly, reasonable and pleasant, while calmly and firmly explaining your client's position and the reasons for that position. Successful men in the profession do the same thing. There is no conflict for either sex between professional success and being a kind and attractive person.
There are certainly unpleasant and unattractive people in the professions but that's just they are, and they tend not to do very well.
ELIZABETH SAYS: "How can there be heterosexuality if men and women are equal and the same? If there are no sex differences? No opposite yet complementary sex? If gender is all a social construct?
ReplyDeleteThere's no point in sexual reproduction since we could all be asexual androgynous beings. There's no point in heterosexuality."
I SAY: This is so odd to me because it almost sounds as if you are the one creating a social construct out of sex.
Are you saying that if women think and behave like men that there are no sex differences and no heterosexuality? But surely, women will still have their eggs and vaginas and uteruses, and men will still have sperm and penises and Y chromosomes? Even if GENDER is a social construct, that doesn't change the physical facts of SEX. SEX is not a social construct.
I don't think that heterosexuality is impossible in a situation of equality. Men and women will still be attracted to each other and will continue to reproduce because that is a biological fact of life. They just won't be doing it under circumstances you like.
Oh and I should clarify that I do not believe that women are "thinking and behaving like men." After all, I am a woman so my thought and behavior by definition is that of a woman. The fact that men and women may behave and think similarly to each other doesn't change that fact.
ReplyDeleteELIZABETH SMITH: I don't speak for all women but then, neither do you, and neither does the author of the post quoted in this blog entry. If a woman is miserable in a "feminist lifestyle," then she should take steps to change her situation, but she shouldn't lump the rest of us in with her in her claims of weakness and vulnerability.
The fact that some women aren't haaaaaappy working hard and taking on responsibility on the same basis that men have always done does not justify stripping the rest of us of our hard-won equality.
Feminism does not guarantee happiness delivered to women on a silver platter. It's a social justice movement, not a New Age Self Help book. Each woman's happiness is her own responsibility. But please don't ask me to respect someone who claims that weakness is an essential aspect of her character that she sees no reason to try to fix, and then wants to tell me, sight unseen, that this is an essential aspect of my character ("femininity") too.
But surely, women will still have their eggs and vaginas and uteruses, and men will still have sperm and penises and Y chromosomes?
ReplyDeleteIf that's meant to be reassuring Georgina it's a massive fail.
The idea that we are only distinguished by our reproductive organs is not an appealing one to put before a heterosexual audience.
Men and women will still be attracted to each other and will continue to reproduce because that is a biological fact of life. They just won't be doing it under circumstances you like.
Actually, it's more likely they won't be doing it under circumstances you like, Georgina.
If it's just about the biological fact of sex, then we get a ghetto culture. And from there comes domination by other, healthier cultures.
please don't ask me to respect someone who claims that weakness is an essential aspect of her character that she sees no reason to try to fix
You're defining the feminine as a kind of fault that needs fixing.
The instinct between men and women is that men love the feminine and want to provide a secure and private/intimate space for it to be expressed and women have a corresponding instinct to want to find a strong man who can provide this.
Georgina wrote,
ReplyDelete"Are you saying that if women think and behave like men that there are no sex differences and no heterosexuality? But surely, women will still have their eggs and vaginas and uteruses, and men will still have sperm and penises and Y chromosomes?... Men and women will still...reproduce because that is a biological fact of life."
Even Georgina must have sensed the weakness of her argument. Androgynous males and females will still have sex because...well, because that's what their penises and vaginas are for, dammit! Haha, watch it, Georgina. Say that too loudly and your homosexual and trannie allies might mistake you for one of us.
As if sensing imminent and fatal danger to her entire worldview (if you can't reduce men to just a penis or women to just a vagina, then maybe manhood and womanhood have something to do with behavior and mentality too...Gaaah! RED ALERT! RED ALERT!), her liberal programming snapped her back into feminist doublethink, and just in the nick of time! She backpedaled:
"Oh and I should clarify that I do not believe that women are "thinking and behaving like men." After all, I am a woman so my thought and behavior by definition is that of a woman. The fact that men and women may behave and think similarly to each other doesn't change that fact."
Haha, and it's relativism/nihilism to the rescue! Yes, Georgina, the "fact" that men and women can and should think and act exactly the same (your point the past few threads) does not in any way make an egalitarian man's thoughts any less manly or an egalitarian woman's thoughts any less womanly (our counterpoint the last few threads), even if they're the exact same thoughts ! That's the beauty of liberalism! We change the content, but the labels get to stay magically and wonderously the same! We can even come up with one, single Thought and stick a bazillion different labels on it like the bumper of my college car at UC Berkeley and...they'll each still refer to something magically and unquestionably (!) distinct.
And did you hear that trannies? It's a penis and sperm that make you a man, and a vagina and eggs that make you a woman! Looks like "sex change operations" were just a cruel, irreversible joke on your mental illness after all! Haha, isn't that funny? Well, hey, at least Georgina gets to be a lawyer, so that's cool.
And allow me to clarify my restatement of Georgina's point:
ReplyDeleteThe exact same thought or behavior can be equally manly or womanly depending solely upon the groin of its thinker (who knew there was such an intimate connection between the two?)! If a penis goes with that thought, then, ipso facto, it's a manly thought. And if a vagina goes with that thought, then, the exact same thought magically and mysteriously becomes a feminine thought.
I ask you, what in all the mysterious doctrines of the Church is so inexplicable that you would embrace such obvious idiocy as this?
"bumper of my college car" should be "bumper of *your* college car". I wasn't that liberal, haha.
ReplyDelete"Except when they are on MRA or traditionalist blogs frothing at the mouth about how weak and contemptible women are."
ReplyDeleteGenerally they don't froth about women being gentle and traditionally feminine (i.e., what you mischaracterize as "weak"). They froth about women being aggressive, fat, and whorish.
They froth about women being aggressive, fat, and whorish.
ReplyDeleteAgreed.
Georgina, your age makes it extremely likely you were raised by a stay-at-home mother or at least your grandmother was one. It's not the easy road out and they carry tremendous responsibilities, working harder than you ever will.
ReplyDeleteOnce honoured, it's now denigrated and not only do they undertake a never ending role but zealots like you spit on them for the audacity.
And that hard-won equality was begun by women before you were born who certainly didn't want to destroy families, and shirk their feminine nature. Or turn into men.
How many doors were opened for you that you as a man wouldn't have had?
Suspend the quotas and advantages women get as a minority, then tell me that some women don't want to work as hard as men. It's called responsibility for one's own life.
Oh and Georgina? Women are physically weaker than men and that's just facts. Our emotions are handled differently because in scientific terms you adore, women think with the emotional parts of the brain while men's have been shown to be in reasoning.
Don't begrudge other women for not trying to be what they aren't and never can be. It's the same crazy logic as swimming against a rip in the ocean, you'll save your life by swimming with the current. Not in resisting it.
Mark,
ReplyDeleteI am not trying to reassure anyone. I am under no illusions that a traditionalist crowd is going to LIKE the forms in which heterosexual relationships manifest themselves under egalitarian conditions. I am simply responding to Elizabeth's contention that heterosexuality is impossible under conditions of equality.
But I'm not implying that the sexes will only value each other for sexual purposes. I am saying they will continue to be attracted to each other sexually, while also liking and valuing each other in other ways (being "mates" if you will). You talk about the "ghetto" but I wasn't aware that sexual equality were ever highly valued in the "ghetto." A better example would be communities of upper-middle-class professionals, which seem to maintain stable marriages even while women and men work alongside each other in the same professions. Virtually every female trial lawyer I know is married.
Bartholomew,
ReplyDeleteYes, it is absurd to define a thought or behavior as "masculine" or "feminine" based on the genitalia of the person involved. That's exactly right! And that's kind of what I'm getting at.
You seem to believe in some kind of "masculine" or "feminine" essence -- but "essences" don't exist, flesh and blood people do. And very few of us conform precisely or even closely to what is considered the ideal "masculine" or "feminine."
Yes, I do equate so-called "femininity" with "weakness," as does the writer quoted in Mark's blog post. She uses the word "vulnerability," but that's e another word for "weakness."
ReplyDeleteYou're being disingenuous again, Georgina. You wrote this,
ReplyDelete"After all, I am a woman so my thought and behavior by definition is that of a woman."
and then you wrote this,
"Yes, it is absurd to define a thought or behavior as "masculine" or "feminine" based on the genitalia of the person involved."
So, here it is: Either you're going to accept the accusation that you are an androgynous, strictly genitally female, human being, or you're going to have to accept the truth that men and women have metaphysical, masculine and feminine essences. I really don't see any other alternative for you. Let us know what you come up with.
Also, you wrote,
"You talk about the "ghetto" but I wasn't aware that sexual equality were ever highly valued in the "ghetto."
You don't spend much time in the ghetto, do you? I can tell by the scare quotes.
I do quite a bit of volunteer work with blacks and low class whites in an American inner-city. Allow me to fill you in.
Yes, the ghetto mentality is very sexually egalitarian. Males here view females as like themselves only a.) physically weaker and b.) f*able. This has a few shocking, but common, effects on daily interactions.
One, males hit females back, and hard. The idea that a female is beneath a male, physically, and is therefore an unworthy physical opponent is, of course, "sexist". So, males hit back. Females cry, scream and run away, and everyone else hoots and laughs.
Two, females are expected to want sex as much as males, i.e. all the time. The idea that a female is more reticent sexually and does not enjoy f*ing 24/7 is alien to the ghetto male's mind. Therefore, rape is frequently excused by the assertion that "she really wanted it" (hey, if he had been her, he would have!).
Foul, evil, degraded, yes, yes and yes. But it's perfectly, logically, egalitarian. And, thanks to integration and mass immigration, Georgina, it's coming soon to an all-white neighborhood near you!
Bartholomew,
ReplyDeleteI don't think I'm being disingenuous in the least. I am trying to illustrate the absurdity of the terms "masculine" and "feminine." There can be no "masculinity" and "femininity" apart from actual men and women -- who have pesky habit of not conforming to our idealized notion of their supposed "essence." Yeah, it's ridiculous to call a thought or behavior "masculine" and "feminine" based on the person's genitalia. But how else would you determined what conduct is "masculine" and "feminine" other than by the actual conduct of people with the requisinte genitals?
I suspect you thought I would be shamed to view myself as an "androgynous" person apart from my corporeal self. But I don't really have a problem with that. Most people I know seem to be a mix of so-called "masculine" and "feminine" traits -- and that's okay.
Bartholomew,
ReplyDeleteSo beating and raping women is egalitarian? And not being beaten and raped is a special, unequal privilege? Uh huh.
A,
ReplyDeleteI never spat on any homemakers, nor have I benefited from any quotas. Not sure what you're referring to!
And no, you can't claim to be a weak, emotion-driven person who can't take care of herself and has no intention of trying to improve, and then expect to be respected.
There can be no "masculinity" and "femininity" apart from actual men and women -- who have pesky habit of not conforming to our idealized notion of their supposed "essence."
ReplyDeleteI have to laugh at this one, because it is so patently untrue.
In my experience, the "pesky" habit is precisely constantly falling in line with their essence. Like the proud geek girl who blows all her money on nice things to wear, or effeminate nancy boy playing World of Warcraft because living encased in armor every day is awesome.
Sure, there are attempts to break free from the essence. But you never truly do. Even the Amazons let poor Achilles down by going gaga over shiny things, leaving the cross-dressed hero alone browsing the weapons section.
So beating and raping women is egalitarian? And not being beaten and raped is a special, unequal privilege? Uh huh.
ReplyDeleteLiberal troll i'm calling it. Stop wasting your time Traditionalist friends.
Bartholomew,
ReplyDeleteThis was very good:
So, here it is: Either you're going to accept the accusation that you are an androgynous, strictly genitally female, human being, or you're going to have to accept the truth that men and women have metaphysical, masculine and feminine essences. I really don't see any other alternative for you. Let us know what you come up with.
You've found the "clinch point" in the debate and stated it very clearly.
Which forced Georgina to this admission:
I suspect you thought I would be shamed to view myself as an "androgynous" person apart from my corporeal self. But I don't really have a problem with that.
Do men fall in love with androgynous beings who happen to have female body parts?
I don't think that sums up the male response to women at all. If it did, then the role of women in men's lives would be very small. Women would be just like men but with different bodies men happened to like. But there would be nothing special behind the body that men were connecting to.
You talk about the "ghetto" but I wasn't aware that sexual equality were ever highly valued in the "ghetto." A better example would be communities of upper-middle-class professionals, which seem to maintain stable marriages even while women and men work alongside each other in the same professions. Virtually every female trial lawyer I know is married.
ReplyDeleteOK, where to begin? First, my point was that "if it's all about biological sex, then that leads to the ghetto".
Why? Civilisation depends on women encouraging men to make stable commitments to work and to the socialisation of their children.
But if there is no protector/provider role for men and the sex instinct becomes the primary thing connecting men and women, then those commitments will break down.
Men and women will increasingly select each other on the basis of hotness, which for many women will mean raw and superficial displays of testosterone, such as those you find in gangsta culture. There won't be much encouragement given to the traditional family guy qualities.
And if it's just about biological sex, then what do you do if you meet someone who is hotter? Logically, you leave. That makes less sense for a man who is determined to protect and provide for a wife and family. He will not be fulfilling his masculinity if he leaves a woman because he met someone else who is hotter.
And so the more that men get detached from a stable role within the family, the more you get the emergence of ghetto cultures, which are by their nature poorer, more violent and with radically less stable forms of family life.
As for upper-middle class professionals as models of egalitarianism, it's true that a small number of couples might end up living this way.
It can work if the man is naturally ambitious and status conscious, as he might then be happy to have a wife who contributes to their financial position and who has a high status job, whilst a nanny or some other person looks after the children.
But, but, but...
Most men are not naturally ambitious and status conscious. I can see this in the upper middle-class branch of my own family. The men are starting to drop out. And I understand this. If you're married to a woman who already pulls in a big income, then why would you make such big sacrifices at work? You're not providing for or protecting anyone in doing so.
Second, even within the professional elite, there has been a very significant disruption to family formation. Here are the stats:
In Australia, for instance, a 2003 research paper showed that the rate of childlessness amongst women with a bachelor's degree was double the average. One third of Australian women with an income over $50,000 ended up childless.
In Canada, a 2009 research paper found that childlessness rose with the level of a woman's education: 11% for women with a high school education and 25% for the university educated.
Think too of Sweden, the country which has taken feminism further for longer than any other country. The result in that country is not a lot of happy married professionals but a dramatic rise in the number of people living alone: 47%, which is easily the highest in the world.
I am trying to illustrate the absurdity of the terms "masculine" and "feminine."
ReplyDeleteAnd thus you only illustrate your own absurdity and laughable stupidity.
Hogging the comments, but one final thought.
ReplyDeleteIf you boil down Georgina's belief system, you get back to the idea that autonomy is the key defining human good.
What riles Georgina more than anything else is the idea that women might not provide for themselves independently of men - that they don't stand autonomously of men.
That to her is an unforgivable weakness and a sign of "not trying".
And that's connected, I think, to the 47% living alone rate in Sweden. If you make independence/autonomy the key defining good of human life, then you'll get a larger number of people who will prefer to live alone.
The trad view is very different. We see distinct roles for men and women as a division of labour within the family - a specialisation.
What matters to us is that the family as a whole can operate autonomously and that is achieved through interdependent, complementary relationships.
Do men fall in love with androgynous beings who happen to have female body parts?
ReplyDeleteEnter Japanese sex dolls...
Because if its really just the genitalia....
Georgina wrote,
ReplyDelete" Yeah, it's ridiculous to call a thought or behavior "masculine" and "feminine" based on the person's genitalia. But how else would you determined what conduct is "masculine" and "feminine" other than by the actual conduct of people with the requisinte genitals?"
I don't, Georgina. God does, and I am trying to listen.
Mr. Richardson,
Thank you. You've been an excellent teacher.
Jonathan Wolfe, quoting Mr. Richardson wrote,
"Do men fall in love with androgynous beings who happen to have female body parts?
Enter Japanese sex dolls...
Because if its really just the genitalia...."
Excellent point. And isn't the idea that sex is just about banging the kind of body you like at least partly responsible for the proliferation of sexual perversion (homosexuality, pedophilia, transsexuality, etc.)?
If you know sex is supposed to connect you with a certain essence, and you feel a pull toward someone who lacks that essence, then you can recognize the attraction as a distraction. But if you don't know that sex is about connecting to an essence, and you happen to feel a pull toward the wrong kind of body, well, why not go for it?
MARK SAYS: Do men fall in love with androgynous beings who happen to have female body parts?
ReplyDeleteI don't think that sums up the male response to women at all. If it did, then the role of women in men's lives would be very small. Women would be just like men but with different bodies men happened to like. But there would be nothing special behind the body that men were connecting to.
But that's just not true at all! Of course, there's something special behind the female body a man is connecting to, and there's something special behind the male body a woman is connecting to. Each person's personality, character, and consciousness ("soul" if you will) is different and unique. You fall in love with that soul, not just the genitalia as Jonathan would say. Of course there is something special there! The physical attraction and sexuality creates a bond of greater intimacy, or perhaps a different kind of intimacy than one would have with a same-sex friend, but you can have a deep connection with an opposite-sex person without believing that his or her soul is of a completely different order than yours based on his or her sex.
Physical attraction accelerates and creates intimacy, but you fall in love with the individual person, a person who is almost always a MIX of so-called masculine and feminine traits.
I think the difference between upper-middle-class stability and unstable "so-called" ghetto culture arises from the differences between hopefulness and hopelessness. In the upper-middle-class, men and women are motivated to work hard, stay together, and provide stability for their kids, because doing so leads to a very pleasant lifestyle. But the more you get into poverty, the less there is anything to strive for, and the slog of work and stability seem to pay little reward.
ReplyDeleteMARK SAYS:
ReplyDeleteIf you boil down Georgina's belief system, you get back to the idea that autonomy is the key defining human good.
What riles Georgina more than anything else is the idea that women might not provide for themselves independently of men - that they don't stand autonomously of men.
That to her is an unforgivable weakness and a sign of 'not trying'.
And that's connected, I think, to the 47% living alone rate in Sweden. If you make independence/autonomy the key defining good of human life, then you'll get a larger number of people who will prefer to live alone.
The trad view is very different. We see distinct roles for men and women as a division of labour within the family - a specialisation.
What matters to us is that the family as a whole can operate autonomously and that is achieved through interdependent, complementary relationships.
I wouldn't say I'm "riled," so much as contemptuous of women like the one you quoted. But you are somewhat correct in your summary. I do think autonomy of the individual (whether male or female) to be a key human good.
I have nothing against individuals working together for mutual benefit in interdependent, complementary relationships, whether in the working world or in family life, but such relationships should be freely chosen, idiosyncratic to the needs and desires of the individuals involved, not arbitrarily assigned based on sex and (in the family context) egalitarian.
There is no reason whatsoever that the formation of stable families requires women to embrace a stance of vulnerability and helplessness.
you fall in love with the individual person
ReplyDeleteBut I don't fall in love with the individual male person. Why should I fall in love with an individual female one, if the female one is just the same as the male one (albeit with different reproductive organs)?
but such relationships should be freely chosen, idiosyncratic to the needs and desires of the individuals involved, not arbitrarily assigned based on sex and (in the family context) egalitarian.
There's not much that's going to survive those conditions. If you say to people that 'what you freely choose is what is best and most legitimate' then people's default setting will be to reject whatever is a traditional role, or whatever seems to be a biologically based role. So there will be a strong bias against a woman choosing a traditional motherhood role which is not only a traditional role but criticised as a merely 'biological destiny' for women.
The heroes and heroines of society become those who go against the traditional or the biological, regardless of the merit of what is being rejected or accepted.
And if the ultimate good is thought to be autonomy, then that will be the measure of egalitarianism within family life. Do men get more autonomy because they get to choose amongst careers, or because they earn money, or because there is thought to be power or status in the public role? Yes, answer the feminists rightly or wrongly and so the male role becomes the one to aspire to, once again leaving the motherhood role languishing, regardless of how suited individual women are for it.
It's a framework of judging things that pushes to certain conclusions, and which clearly subordinates the traditional motherhood role.
OK, now that we know that Georgina Charlotte's "belief system" consists of the robotic regurgitation of Leftist dogma, can we ban her from this site already? It's not like we can't get her tedious and predictable "arguments" from a million other sources. (As a personal aside, I heard exactly the same nonsensical crap from women at Cambridge in the 1980s.)
ReplyDelete"It's a framework of judging things that pushes to certain conclusions, and which clearly subordinates the traditional motherhood role."
ReplyDeleteThis has been absolutely true in my life. When Georgina talks about being contemptuous of traditional women, I understand her point of view because I was brought up with it as well. To be independent was what I strived for all my life. I never wanted to be weak. I worked very hard to become an independent person.
At the insistence of my parents, I got a degree in engineering. I was considered smart, and therefore I had to live up to my potential academically and career-wise. The "ambitious career" path was the only one that was ever presented to me, and I did not consciously object to it or question it. However, at every stage, I had to force myself to be more "masculine." It never felt natural to me.
The real confusion set in when I met and fell in love with my future husband. For the first time in my life, I seriously contemplated marriage. I also started to want children. I never factored this into my career plans. No one ever told me to make it a priority. I was meant to get into a stable career, support myself, and then do whatever I wanted later.
There are compromises that must be made when it comes to egalitarianism. I didn't realize it until quite recently, even though it seems obvious. If you are working 50+ hours per week to get ahead in a career, you can't be available to your family for that time. I love my fiance so deeply and I can't imagine ever abandoning any children we have the way so many women do today. I fear being a "weak" person, but I can't sacrifice a family to achieve autonomy. It is too high a price to pay.
I'm in my late 20's now, so I don't feel that it is too late for me to turn my life around. However, I regret the time (and money) I've lost chasing independence. The problem now is that I don't know how to fill the female role. I was never taught how to do it, and I don't see good models around me. I'm doing my best to make changes. I appreciate this blog, as it helps to know that I am not entirely alone in my thinking.
Mark, in one of my classes we were given an extract for our readings of 'Centrist liberalism as ideology'.
ReplyDeleteI found a link to it in google books. It is only 19 pages and it pretty much sums up the ideological origins, history and differences between conservatives, liberals and radicals.
It also accords a lot with what you have been saying about liberals. To quote one part;
"Liberalism has always been in the end the ideology of the strong state in the sheep's clothing of individualism; or to be more precise, the ideology of the strong state as the only sure guarantor if individualism.... If one defines individualism as maximizing the ability of individuals to achieve self-defined ends..." on page 10 of the extract.
The link to the piece of google books is here:
http://books.google.com.au/books?id=RqXsa9kLtQcC&pg=PA1&lpg=PA1&dq='Centrist+liberalism+as+ideology',&source=bl&ots=JITBMDtPhu&sig=-yICGuEjllRgKVQyMOGtxmblhuw&hl=en&sa=X&ei=2EcbUKXHFM6diAfT4oDwBw&ved=0CGMQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q='Centrist%20liberalism%20as%20ideology'%2C&f=false
Johanna,
ReplyDeleteI never said I was contemptuous of traditional women. I was raised by a mother who stayed home until I was ten and was quite the homemaker extraordinaire. But my mother never said, "I am an inherently weak person because that's my feminine nature."
I will admit that I find it surprising that you never previously considered what kind of family life you would have while pursuing your engineering career. This was something girls seemed to talk about endlessly when I was growing up in the 70s and 80s, and into college in the 90s.
I also find it surprising that you feel you don't know how to fill the traditional female role. I think that the work women have traditionally done in the house and with children has definite value, so I'm not expressing contempt for that work by any means (and in fact I've done quite a bit of that work), but it's not exactly difficult to learn, except for very technical and not strictly necessary skills like embroidery or quilting.
Mark,
ReplyDeleteThe specific kind of love between a man and a woman in a heterosexual couple is derived from the individuality of the two people involved combined with the intimacy of sexual relations and perhaps producing babies together. You may love your male friend, but you will never be as intimate with him in the same way as you are with a woman you love and sleep with.
I think that sexuality is what distinguishes heterosexual love from the love one has for one's friends, but sexuality is not the only component of that love.
Mark,
ReplyDeleteI do agree that in a society in which people value individual autonomy, far fewer people will choose the traditional mother role.
You seem to be implying that it's because they want to "prove" that biology is not destiny. I think that that kind of thinking has little to do with people's personal choices. Most people of both sexes want to do interesting work, earn a decent living, and care for their families. How they do it is unlikely to conform to the 1950s housewife model, which is not at all etched in our DNA.
Georgina Charlotte, & all other such persons ought to be confined in an asylum for the insane, for their own good. She is quite obviously mentally deranged. This "egalitarian" rubbish is contradicted by the very laws of creation.
ReplyDeleteIn nature one finds inherent inequality, all properly organised human societies are based on the hierarchical principle. Only worthless degenerate societies exalt this absurd ideal of an illusory absolute equality. Compare the achievements of the Spanish Empire of the 16th century, bringing the light of the Holy Gospel & true civilization to millions of ignorant heathen savages, or the grandeur of the Austro-Hungarian Empire to so many "egalitarian" countries that we see now, that can only plunge ever lower into an abyss of decadence until they are overrun by those who are stronger & worthier to rule, by possessing natural courage if nothing else.
The decadent western "democracies" will fall to the stronger & more vigorous & well-organised peoples of the East who do not lead such soft lives eventually. It is only a matter of time. As Solzhenitsyn said during his address at Harvard in '78, "Even biology knows that habitual extreme safety & well-being are not advantageous for a living organism." & later in the address " And yet--no weapons, no matter how powerful, can help the west until it overcomes its loss of will-power. psychological weakness, weapons become a burden for the capitulating side. To defend oneself, one must also be ready to die; there is little such readiness in a society raised in the cult of material well-being. Nothing is left, then, but concessions, attempts to gain time & betrayal." The renaissance introduced a spirit of pride & sensuality into European society which contained within itself everything that came afterward. First religious liberalism with the rise of the protestant sects, then political liberalism, which culminated in the American & French revolutions & the uprisings in 1848 & later facilitated the coming of Bolshevism.
Eventually political liberalism led to, for lack of a better term moral, or personal liberalism, that which we see round about us now, which boldly denies the very principal of hierarchy, even of differences between men & women, an absurdity that earlier, saner generations would have found laughable. What we are now watching unfold, is in effect the death agonies of the West,rather like a man who has ingested some mortal poison & is now convulsing on the floor crying out in delirium, that is what we are witnessing. Only God Himself can help at this late hour.
"I do agree that in a society in which people value individual autonomy, far fewer people will choose the traditional mother role."
ReplyDeleteLOL they will not choose any kind of mother role. They will refuse to breed entirely, thus thankfully eliminating their stupidity from the gene pool.
Georgina Charlotte/Doomed Harlot said...
ReplyDeleteSo beating and raping women is egalitarian? And not being beaten and raped is a special, unequal privilege? Uh huh.
That "privilege" word seems very agile. I've been told by more than one feminist that my male privilege prevented my aunt from not raping me when I was seven.
Most people of both sexes want to do interesting work, earn a decent living, and care for their families.
ReplyDeleteThat doesn't describe adequately the life course that is put before young middle-class women.
These women are taught:
i) Their life meaning is bound up in how far they push along a professional career
ii) That competitiveness in education, in sport, in career and in terms of their standing with men is the important quality to cultivate
iii) That the lifestyle to aspire to is one in which they live alone as a single girl in an inner city apartment; have a high income professional career; spend their money on clothes and travel and food and drink; and have many sexual relationships with men, and perhaps a few boyfriends along the way - but with the focus on exciting sexual encounters rather than love
iv) If there is a meaning outside of this it's in indicating support for the oppressed other, e.g. wanting to go to Africa to help out with a charity group
Young middle-class women are pretty good at following through with this. They pick up on the social cues of what's expected of them and they have the self-discipline to follow through. And maybe parts of it have a genuine appeal for young women.
But then you get to the point when a woman is in her early 30s when she's done the career thing, proven to herself that she can do it, and starts to wonder if that is all there is. Is it just a case of long hours at work and returning to her cats in her little inner city apartment? It doesn't seem as glamorous anymore.
Something is missing. Some women react by ditching the corporate job and looking for something more creative, albeit lower paid. Others amp it all up, and try to find ever more exotic places to travel to or ever more risky relationships to burn themselves on.
But some begin to think of family formation. But they face two difficulties. First, they haven't left themselves much time. They are early 30s and their secure window of reproductive opportunity ends in a few years.
Second, they haven't been raised with the kind of feminine qualities appropriate to being a wife and mother. They have to reorient themselves at an unnaturally late time in life to their feminine selves. That can take time.
Georgina, this is a pattern of life which will break the Western middle-classes. Think of what it's like being a middle-class 20-something man. If all you want is casual sex with a woman who dresses up hot then it's fine (if you're good enough at being a player). But if you want to fall in love with a feminine woman you're in big trouble. Maybe you'll get lucky, but the odds are runnning against you.
I want women to hit the age of 21 and be irresistably feminine in their natures - to the degree that it actually makes sense in the minds of young men to make the big commimtments to work and family life. And I want timely family formation - which means that women should ideally marry by their mid-20s.
If the so-called "feminine qualities" you refer to, Mark, are gentleness, kindness, and nurturing, these are not things you have to learn or that are at all contradictory to a professional careeer. People have a vast range of behaviors and modes of relating that they apply in different contexts. Just because a woman spends a lot of time negotiating contracts, it doesn't follow that she is incapable of comforting a crying child or lending a sympathetic ear to a husband.
ReplyDeleteI also don't agree, of course, that women pursue years of education and long on-the-job hours merely because they think it's "glamorous," -- nor that anyone can ever be said to "have done" the career thing or proven much of anything professionally by the tender age of 30! A lot of the language used on traditionalist blogs seems designed to express contempt for women and the work they perform professionally.
If the so-called "feminine qualities" you refer to, Mark, are gentleness, kindness, and nurturing, these are not things you have to learn or that are at all contradictory to a professional careeer.
ReplyDeleteIf you are brought up as a girl with the understanding that you will be judged a success or failure on the basis of how competitive, materialistic and results driven you are, then you won't cultivate gentleness, kindness or nurturing.
If you then spend long, stressful hours working and studying over many years the effect is compounded, as it also is by the hardening effects of embarking on many casual relationships.
The effect is then compounded depending on what profession you are working in. Being a librarian might not affect you much, being a teacher in a tough secondary school certainly might, as might working as a police officer.
But the main point is this. Women are conflicted about identifying with their femininity. Most women have picked up on cues suggesting there is something wrong with being feminine, but at the same time knowing that their femininity is tied to self-identity and to relationships with men.
So we get much confusion. Some women try a compromise in which they are hard-edged in many ways, but try to offset this by dressing sexily when they go out man-hunting. Others take the view that it's OK to have "girly" flourishes every now and then, as if this were an outlier behaviour.
In a traditionalist society, femininity would be taken much more seriously, as a meaningful life principle and as a natural telos for women to develop toward and embody. We would admire women who best expressed a feminine way of being.
A lot of the language used on traditionalist blogs seems designed to express contempt for women and the work they perform professionally.
ReplyDeleteGeorgina, relax, I don't take careers as seriously as you do for either men or women. If I won tattslotto I'd quit my own job tomorrow.
There are no doubt some people who manage to find interesting, well-paid work which allows for a good work/life balance, but I'd suggest to you they are in the minority.
Something you need to take seriously Georgina is this. When you begin a career the first few years, even if they are difficult, can be rewarding in the sense that you are challening yourself to see if you are able to succeed.
But what if you work your way up fast (and some gen X women managed to do this)? You've got a promotion, you've got a great income, you've got the lifestyle, but after a few years at this level of success the reality kicks in that this is what you'll be doing for the rest of your life, until you are old and grey and your youth is gone.
I have read numerous accounts of women hitting this point and just not finding it a sufficiently meaningful prospect.
For men it's a bit different, as work at least has a bit of extra meaning invested in it, in terms of securing ourselves a family life and a masculine role as a provider.
@GH/DC:
ReplyDeleteIf your so focused on career, then what is your ultimate goal in life?
As much as a person is devoted to a career and loves their job, at the end of the of day it is only a job!!! At the end of ones life that job ain't going to love you back!!!
Since your reproductive window has all but closed, if you were to have a child/children would you be willing to scale back your powerful job and bring that child/children without farming the child rearing to daycare? Since geriatric pregnancies bring about complications, would you bring up a child with Down's Syndrome or have an abortion and carry on as normal?
Mark,
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure that modern women who compete in the workplace but also display "feminine" dress or "feminine" touches are confused. These things don't seem contradictory unless you already think that working at particular jobs is man's work, an assumption many of us don't share. To me, it seems perfectly natural to engage in an intense adversarial proceeding while wearing a flowered dress.
That said, to the extent there is "confusion," it's because of the existence of the very gender binary you advocate. You can't insist that one half of the population to embrace a set of traits that will definitely earn them derision in any human society, and then that half of the population not to be conflicted. "Femininity" has never been respected and never will be, because it stands for weakness, dependency, irrationality, cowardice, and frivolity.
Mark,
ReplyDeleteI think that questioning the meaning of one's life is very common regardless of what one's life choices are. Whatever we dedicate ourselves to, we will eventually be old and grey with our youth gone (except perhaps for those of us with a good hairdresser), and it is natural to question whether one's work, whatever it may be, has been sufficiently meaningful.
I don't agree that a woman's experience with a paid professional career is somehow less meaningful to her than to a man. Women, too, take deep satisfaction in providing for themselves and their families (I do). For many of us, there is also deep satisfaction in knowing that we are participating and contributing to the historical novelty of women's social equality. This can add an extra dimension of satisfaction to our working lives, as well as the satisfaction in the actual value of the work we are doing to others and to the community.
Anonymous has some questions for me, which I will answer:
ReplyDeleteIf your so focused on career, then what is your ultimate goal in life?
I am not sure I can name a single ultimate goal in life. I think that on my deathbed, it would be most important to me to feel that I lived an ethical and valuable life, even if in a small way. That is, I hope that I will feel that I used whatever gifts I have in terms of intelligence and energy to improve the life of the community and the people around me.
I believe that people who are essentially decent in their behavior have value to others, even if we can't always see what it is. You never know exactly what kind of positive effect your words, example, or actions may have on others. I've certainly been heartened and inpsired by many people who are toiling away, often unaware of how they've helped me. My fondest hope is that there are others who think the same way about me, even if I don't know who they are. So it's always worthwhile to keep plugging away and doing one's best!
As much as a person is devoted to a career and loves their job, at the end of the of day it is only a job!!! At the end of ones life that job ain't going to love you back!!!
Well, sometimes your job does love you back, but you're right that people are important too. There is nothing about career dedication that precludes strong human relationships. I feel pretty loved by my parents, in-laws, friends, dog, and a lot of the people I work with. I may well outlive everyone and die alone, but I will have had enough love in my life, and in any event, somethig tells me I will always have friends. There are always people to meet and connect with.
Since your reproductive window has all but closed, if you were to have a child/children would you be willing to scale back your powerful job and bring that child/children without farming the child rearing to daycare?
No, I wouldn't scale back my job and, yes, my child (if I were to have one) would certainly go into daycare. I'm not sure what my closed or closing reproductive window has to do with this, though.
I don't expect this will be easy, but I'm lucky to have a very nurturing husband with a reasonable work schedule and flexibility, as well as our parents, all vigorous at around 70, living close by.
Since geriatric pregnancies bring about complications, would you bring up a child with Down's Syndrome or have an abortion and carry on as normal?
I'm not terribly concerned about Down's since, even at 41, the risk is only about 1.7%. If I happen to be in that 1.7%, I will cross that bridge when I get to it. Besides, the reality is that I'm pretty old and will likely opt for either adoption or not having children. (I do want to say that I didn't "forget" to have children. I never expected at any point in my life to have kids, so any children we have will be an unexpected blessing!)
You can't insist that one half of the population to embrace a set of traits that will definitely earn them derision in any human society, and then that half of the population not to be conflicted. "Femininity" has never been respected and never will be, because it stands for weakness, dependency, irrationality, cowardice, and frivolity.
ReplyDeleteAnd there you have it. Georgina belongs to a generation of women who were brought up to despise being feminine.
How do you envisage a world in which the feminine is missing? Georgina does it by androgynising everyone: we are all to meet in the middle in practising middle-class decency and niceness. That is thought to be sufficient.
Georgina can have her bloodless world of ungendered sameness.
And as for the modern girl's compromise - of wearing a floral dress whilst inwardly despising one's own feminine qualities - that too belongs in the rubbish bin of history.
Love is a connection between the masculine and the feminine. If men are confused in relationships it is because so often there is nothing there to connect to in women - it has been suppressed or denied or remained uncultivated.
"And straight men will always respond to women, regardless of what role they play in society or how tough they are."
ReplyDeleteA dog walking on two legs will be responded to too, which whilst appearing good-humored at first, will outrage more people when they learn of it being forced to do so all the time, than at the POS feminists.
"does not justify stripping the rest of us of our hard-won equality"
hard-won? how about working for the next thousand of years to pay back men so that it is well-earned? And stop using the term 'equality' as if learning the theory of gravity makes me equal to Newton.
"But the more you get into poverty, the less there is anything to strive for, and the slog of work and stability seem to pay little reward. "
So you can appreciate the value of the work of men coming before you.
"And very few of us conform precisely or even closely to what is considered the ideal "masculine" or "feminine."
The precise reason why it's called an ideal.
"a person who is almost always a MIX of so-called masculine and feminine traits."
What Georgina expresses is much weininger-sque, earlier feminists were influenced by his work, though of course, not agreeing to its other parts.
Or maybe they did, which would explain why they continue to clamor for masculinity, even though they do so dishonestly under the guise of 'equality' and "there is no masculinity" "it's a social construct!" and perverting the development of sexes by encouraging the "breaking the sterotypes" "female role-models" "first woman to do so-and-so!!"
One of the key differences between the sexes that he argued from was that of the differentiation of sexual organs, which unlike the other differention of reason/emotion is much more universal. Which goes against Gerogina's "it's only some iffy sexual organs!".
Weininger's conclusions were to reduce femininity to nothing, masculinity(in the form of genius) as the originator of all that we consider human learning, knowledge, behavior and that genius was the masculine ideal.
That of course is unpalatable to the feminists and so he finds himself listed in the misogynist list on wikipedia, even though the feminists themselves seem to ultimately believe in his work while making convoluted rationalizations to burrow around it
"heterosexual relationships manifest themselves under egalitarian conditions"
as Weininger notes, even in same-sex conditions, there is no equality between the participants.
Weininger also wrote of masculine women and how emancipation of women should be their emancipation. Many animals seem to have virilized females popping up now and then, for an example I read was of lionesses who had grown small manes and behaved territorially/sexually like young males.
Then the feminist movement wasn't as much of 'equality' or social justice which is an empty canard that rings hollower day by day, but of such women. That these women could now dictate that the newer generations of women coming after them be modeled on them(and prevent boys from being raised into men and turn them into androgynous caricatures like themselves) is where western civilization has gone horribly wrong. (as mentioned in Laura Grace Robbins link)
"Femininity" has never been respected and never will be, because it stands for weakness, dependency, irrationality, cowardice, and frivolity. "
ReplyDeleteNothing that couldn't be applied to what feminism has devolved into, even if you assume that it wasn't rotten from the start. And how it spreads its rot to other places. Essences and stuff like that.
"the historical novelty of women's social equality. "
The distortion of history and that of the word "equality" itself.
"What riles Georgina more than anything else is the idea that women might not provide for themselves independently of men"
which is risible, unless these women ended up in africa without any rudiments of civilization and then came up with one of their own. Even the bloody ideas they espouse are not independent of men.
"You guys have to realize...no one told me I had to find a guy in college"
Yes, the feminists fought for your right to do that. The right to not to be reminded of any such pesky things about men. And the right to copy men and then spend their lives talking of "what is masculinity?" and "we so independent now!".
"We're not the enemy,"
that might be true, but letting women play with societies is not acceptable and quite foolish.
"You're being disingenuous again, Georgina"
If she is not being disingenuous, then she is merely stupid and regurgitating some half-baked feminist principles.
Feminism is about re-organising society to benefit feminists, not women, not men and not society in general.
ReplyDeleteFeminists may believe that they're re-organising society to benefit themselves, but in the end they will find out that they are nothing but useful idiots who have been used by those who run things to help clear the way for the imposition of a Marxist-Leninist dictatorship.
ReplyDeleteMany of them will probably be among the first to be "liquidated" as the Marxists like to put it, having served their purpose they'll no longer be needed. When they make it official & run up the red flag over Canberra, Washington, London, Ottawa &c., they'll learn the hard way that some are more equal than others.
Riiight. I despise my own alleged femininity and am "compromising" by wearing a floral dress once in a while. Of course, that's absurd. I guess we're at the point where there's little more to say!
ReplyDeleteI will say that I have not advocated a world of bloodless sameness by any means. You're the one advocating conformity -- i.e. that everyone fit himself or herself into either a masculine or feminine ideal.
Someone above says:
hard-won? how about working for the next thousand of years to pay back men so that it is well-earned? And stop using the term 'equality' as if learning the theory of gravity makes me equal to Newton.
Ha ha, that's cute. I don't think that random men today get the credit for other men's achievements in history. By virtue of being human, I'm just as much an heir to Newton as any man is.
Love is a connection between the masculine and the feminine. If men are confused in relationships it is because so often there is nothing there to connect to in women - it has been suppressed or denied or remained uncultivated.
ReplyDeleteYes.
GCDH basically has admitted that, for her, attraction to a man, as a *man*, is purely based on his physical nature -- in other words, she likes people who have a male physical shape and plumbing (for humorous shorthand, "people with dicks"). The rest of the attraction she has to a person is to a mix of traits that are not specifically proper to a male or a female, but could be present in either a male or a female person -- i.e., not intrinsic to either.
So, it follows that she could fall in non-sexual love with another female, and that if the female had a dick, she could be sexually attracted to that female as well But if no dick, then the attraction could not be physical/sexual. So at the end of the day, the only thing "essential" about her heterosexuality is physical -- she is sexually attracted to people who have dicks. The personality attraction could happen to either a male or a female (because there is no "male essence" she is attracted to beyond the physical), but unless the person in question has a dick, she isn't physically/sexually attracted.
What this does is make heterosexual attraction strictly a matter of physicality. This strikes me as incredibly strained and at odds with how attraction works (at least for men). I've never, for example, liked another guy's personality to the extent that I have enjoyed the personae of female "partners" in the same way - it's never been the case that "well, you know, what I'd really like is someone with the personality he has, but who has a vagina and boobs". Um, no. There is, in fact, a "way of being" that is feminine and different from that way of being that guys have and *that* is attractive quite apart from the confirmation that said person does, in fact, have a vagina and boobs (i.e., is not a tranny). I think the notion that most people are attracted to men and women equally as personae and only strictly physically heterosexually attracted (i.e., would be just as attracted to the same persona in a "partner" as that of their same sex friends) simply doesn't describe how attraction works for most people.
Brendan,
ReplyDeleteI think your first two paragraphs are a fair summary of my point of view of this issue. Good work! It's nice to be understood, even though I know you don't agree.
"Ha ha, that's cute. I don't think that random men today get the credit for other men's achievements in history."
ReplyDeleteIt's not cute, it's more like an inversion of the stupidity called feminism.
Instead of past men getting credit for their labour, they get the blame for whatever feminists dream up. And men today have to recompense for that besides proving their own worth too.
For all the crowing about how technology has made physical strength,that difference between sexes, redundant, women have an excellent opportunity to pay men back for all of eternity. Besides women like you paying a woman tax.
All the 'injustices' against women are rationalized away or simply never mentioned, of course.
"By virtue of being human, I'm just as much an heir to Newton as any man is. "
Since you don't have dick, you aren't "as much an heir" to Newton as a man.
Which btw is wildly off-track than:
women can prove equality once they have shown that they build up same institutions as men without having the convenience of marching in already established ones under the banner of oppression.
The claim of equality is mere shameless expropriation of anything men build up, or as in the case of videos games recently, boys build up.
'It's nice to be understood,'