For years I’d tried to pursue the dream: to be the perfect wife and mum. But I was also the main breadwinner and I grew to resent it.
I wanted him to shoulder more of the responsibility for earning, but we could live more than adequately on my earnings, so he didn’t have any impetus to do so.
It's not as if her husband lacked career success of his own. He had been a member of a successful band and he continued to write hit songs for other artists. But none of it matched the royalties earned by the one big hit his wife had in the 90s.
It ended up with Beverley Craven walking out on her marriage.
Is there not a more general problem in all this? If women need men to be the main breadwinner from a romantic point of view, but society pushes women into being the main breadwinner, then aren't we going to have more stresses and strains on marriage?
There's a similar theme in a USA Today article which claims that college women are dumping men who don't match them in levels of ambition. I can't see this ending well either. Women are increasingly dominating higher education and they are being pumped up in their 20s to believe that career is all - so how then are all these women going to find men who can match or outshine them in education credentials and ambition.
Aren't a lot of women being set up for relationship failure?
You make several good points in this post.
ReplyDeleteYou see, only middle class people really actually care about getting a good education and then walking into a career.
It's not expected of people from lower social classes.
To be honest I personally am beginning to resent middle class people. The snobbery, the career expectations - these things are just not present amongst those of a lower social class.
I've also found highly career-driven, educated women to be less approachable and less dateable than those who aren't aiming so high.
I remember reading an academic study relevant to this, long ago. The question was: how well are relationships with female breadwinners and male house-husbands working out? Probably just because it was easiest to study, the focus was on relationships where this had been an ideological focus from the outset, which meant that these "house-husbands" were remarkably well-educated, if academic feminism counts as education.
ReplyDeleteThe outcomes were very bad, with the wives typically despising their husbands, regarding them as "leeches", disrespecting them not only in the bedroom but in front of children, and often divorcing them.
This created a problem (which was not addressed) because the focus should by the rules of feminism have been on female heroism and female problems, with males learning to do things the better, female way and gaining by it. (As well-indoctrinated feminists, they were supposed too be far to secure in their masculinity to be challenged by the indignities of their ideologically chosen role.) But in reality, the women were solving their problems pretty well from their own, feminist point of view: "Out, damned leech!" And when they were dissatisfied, which was often, it was never challenging to their identity, as by the rules of the game all the blame went on the men, never mind who agreed to what going into the relationship. The men, on the other hand, were utterly crushed, and had no viable plan b, nor any way to come to terms with their ideologically incorrect situation. They didn't even have sympathy from their academic peers. Children - of little interest in the study - seemed to be neither numerous nor very happy.
Ultimately I agreed with everybody in having no sympathy for the men, despite their hopeless situation and great distress, because they like everybody else involved in living out this mass experiment in feminist family life were unwilling to learn anything, except that the ideology should have worked. World War I generals sending out orders to already-dead soldiers to charge the barbed wire and the machine-guns again! had more flexibility of mind. Regardless of the outcome, the official recommendation to couples, especially young men, going in the same direction in future would be: "You're doing the right thing."
"Aren't a lot of women being set up for relationship failure?"
Oh heck yes! And the cause of these failures is already defined: men! Inadequate men, leeching off heroic feminists.
There is a huge difference between the self-evaluated worth of women like this, and their worth as marriage prospects as seen by ordinarily-competent, wisely-instructed young men with less education, with the machinery of (gender, racial etc.) affirmative action all against them, and therefore with lesser prospects.
Basically this has to end with a lot of selfish, bitter, nasty, hyper-entitled feminists living into old age with their cats and their grudges to keep them warm, and a lot of men who were never cut out for cad / player / alpha tactics, living alone with no families to work for, sitting on the dock of the bay...
It's a shame, but given feminism there is no other way for this to play out.
In white nations with closed borders, the way this would correct itself in the next generation would be: lower population density, cheap land for family housing and more opportunities for labor, a loss of valuable men but that happens from time to time in wars anyway, a huge wiping away of women whose genes make them good prospects for being indoctrinated in feminism (even at the cost of selecting for women who are simply too dumb to be very educable in general), and a massive discrediting of an ideology that did not work. Outcome: a nation less intelligent on average but less unwise, and a long road to rebuild the national average intelligence.
ReplyDeleteThe way this plays out with mass immigration and forced integration: massive white population loss (focusing on the most educable elements of the population), and continued crowding-out of the insufficiently numerous, on average less intelligent, badly-parented children. No recovery. Nature's relatively short-term self-correction is vitiated and the long term effects of family-destroying feminist ideology are made much more severe.
Yeah, unfortunately Feminism + Open Borders = Slow Motion Apocalypse; Death of the West. At best future generations will be able to re-establish territories within reduced borders, but that won't happen until the current ideology fails and we may not see that in our lifetimes. The West now is in a much worse state than the Communist-occupied world was 1917-1990; they were oppressed and they lost lots of people, but in most cases they weren't replaced.
DeleteOn the slightly brighter side, every guy and every girl who reads Oz Conservative's advice and acts differently as a result is a strike back.
I don't know whether to be dismayed by this story or dismissive. Why is this a story appearing in a British paper to begin with? On the former, I agree with the gist of your written sentiments; on the latter, I can't help but believe that this was published to create scandal and divisiveness. It's indecorous gossip which doesn't present her in a good light, no matter how "non-judgemental" (or more like incapable of moral understanding) it is with its liberal "female" autonomy framework.
ReplyDeleteThey even make sure to get the money quote (pun intended) where she says: "There are undoubtedly some people who would consider me selfish, but actually I’d been very selfless for many, many years." Spoken like a true narcissist.
But this unflattering portrayal, a bit of schadenfreude; coupled with creepy publicity photos of her with her children, and the digs at her ex-husband and the money angle seem to me as an attempt to gin up interest in that autobiography she "just wrote." And the Mail, I assume, has it's core audience in the female 35-60 range: the perfect target for this tripe. It's like tabloid crack-cocaine; the audience is the real story here and gets to read themselves into it; along with all the divisiveness from shock and sanctimony on one side and perfidy and incorrigibility on the other. The guarantee is that the audience is invested to continue buying and emotionally associating with the rag.
Beverely is craven for our enjoyment (the paper assures us that her parents divorced, and she's scared of being 'trapped') and she's craving that her books sell well ('cause she's going through a 'me' phase 'cause, like, her cousin died of cancer and she's gotta live every moment, 'ya know?)
And I can't help but think this whole thing is feigned.
The Mail is always full of badly behaved feminist women. The readership disapprove of them as much as we do.
Delete" If women need men to be the main breadwinner from a romantic point of view, but society pushes women into being the main breadwinner, then aren't we going to have more stresses and strains on marriage? "
ReplyDeleteThis is another reason why marriage cannot be based on "the romantic point of view" which is a euphemism for emotionalism. Human emotions being both fragile and fickle cannot form the basis of a social institution such as marriage. In traditional societies the man is financially responsible for family expenses regardless of the financial standing of the woman. In some cases women, due to their own work or financial inheritance or lottery wins, will be wealthier than their husbands but that does not absolve men from their financial obligations. Similarly some men due to illness or injury will become physically or mentally uanbel to work and will be dependent upon their wife or even children financially.
The main point of this story is to demonstrate that marriage as a personal relationship based upon emotion and money is not viable as both emotions and money come and go. The traditionalists views marriage as a social institution based upon commitment irrespective of emotional and financial states.
Marriage cannot be based upon the pursuit of dreams. This woman married her husband in the full knowledge that he was financially less successful than her and she should have held true to her marriage vows and remained within the marriage. He has not abused her or her children and she has no viable grounds to end the marriage. Her actions are a selfish desire to inflict revenge on her husband (and children who are the victims) because she cannot realise her dreams and cannot live with reality which does not always measure up to expectations.
ReplyDelete"Her actions are a selfish desire to inflict revenge on her husband (and children who are the victims) because she cannot realise her dreams"
ReplyDeleteWhat dream did she not realize? She had a ton of money, a huge house, and a devoted husband. She had no basis for dissatisfaction.
Well... she didn't get the 'provider husband' she obviously wanted. And it's hard to compete with someone who lands a smash-hit. I would speculate that the loss of affection and further breakdown of the marriage was directly was related to this desire. In short, with all she had, she still wanted more.
DeleteWho is Beverly Craven? There are only a few songs from the 90s that I find worth listening to. You never hear 90s music on the classic rock stations I listen to, though Craven probably isn't a rock singer and it is somewhat surprising that whatever song she wrote still gets airplay.
ReplyDelete