Here is a good example of a bata male.
Posted on 07/05/2005 5:31:57 AM PDT by Bon mots
Is marriage, as a social institution, doomed? As recently as 50 years ago, it was the norm for people to get married and have children. But now, at least in the west, we are seeing record numbers of people divorcing, leaving marriage until later in life or not getting married at all. In Britain, I was amazed to learn the other day, the proportion of children born outside marriage has shot up from 9 per cent to 42 per cent since 1976. In France, the proportion is 44 per cent, in Sweden, it is 56 per cent and even in the US, with its religious emphasis on family values, it is 35 per cent.
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I suppose we must blame the rise of selfish individualism. People are a lot less willing to sacrifice their independent lifestyle and become part of a couple or family unit than they once were. And if they do marry, the importance they place on their right to a happy life leaves them disinclined to stick around for long once the initial euphoria has worn off.
I wonder, though, if there is another possible explanation: that, frankly, a lot of women do not like men very much, and vice versa? And that, given the choice, a lot of women and men would prefer an adequate supply of casual nookie to a lifelong relationship with a member of the opposite sex?
Choice, after all, is a very recent phenomenon. For most of human history, men and women married not because they particularly liked one another but out of practical necessity: men needed women to cook and clean for them while women needed men to bring home the bacon. It is only in very recent times that women have won legal independence and access to economic self-sufficiency - and only recently, too, that men have been liberated from dependency on women by ready meals and take-away food, automatic washing machines and domestic cleaning services.
During the times of mutual dependency, women were economically, legally and politically subservient to men. This had a number of repercussions. One was that, lacking control over their own lives, women could justifiably hold their husbands responsible for everything, resulting in what men around the world will recognise as the first law of matrimony: "It's all your fault." Second, while men ruled the world, women ruled within the home - often firmly, resulting in the age-old image of the nagging wife and hen-pecked husband. And third, understandably resenting their subjugation outside the home, women took pleasure in characterising their oppressors as selfish, insensitive, lazy, lying, feckless, incompetent scumbags.
Fair enough. But in the last 30 years, relations between men and women have undergone a greater change than at any time in human history. Women have not reached full equality yet, but they are getting close. And now the economic necessity for getting hitched has died out, marriage is on the rocks.
What can be done to save it? My interest in this was provoked by an article I read online last week by Stephanie Coontz, an author of books on American family life. In The Chronicle of Higher Education, she said an important principle was that "husbands have to respond positively to their wives' request for change" - for example, addressing the anomaly that women tend to do the larger share of the housework.
So, husbands have to change. Does this sound familiar? Of course it does, because it is another repetition of the first law of matrimony: "It's all your fault."
I could quibble with Ms Coontz's worries about the uneven split in the male/female workload. In the US, according to the latest time-use survey from the bureau of labour statistics, employed women spend on average an hour a day more than employed men on housework and childcare; but employed men spend an hour a day longer doing paid work. While this may be an imperfect arrangement, it hardly seems a glaring injustice.
But my point is this. Yes, men must change; indeed, they are changing, which is why we hear so much about new men and metrosexuals and divorced fathers fighting for custody of their children. But are women so perfect, or so sanctified by thousands of years of oppression, that they cannot be asked to change even the tiniest bit, too?
If economic necessity is not going to bring and keep men and women together in marriage, then we are going to have to rely on mutual affection and respect. And there is not going to be much of that about as long as women - assisted by television sitcoms and media portrayals in general - carry on stereotyping men as selfish, insensitive, lazy, lying, feckless, incompetent scumbags, even if some of them are.
So, my timorous suggestion is that it is time for women to shrug off the legacy of oppression and consider changing their approach to men and marriage. First, with power comes responsibility, which means it is now all women's fault as much as men's and, hence, the end of the blame and complain game. Second, if women are to share power in the world, men must share power in the home, which means that they get an equal say in important decisions about soft furnishings.
Most of all, it is time for the negative stereotyping to go. I know women will say: "But it's true!" If so, then marriage certainly is doomed.
But whose fault is that? If you treat all men as selfish, insensitive, lazy, lying, feckless, incompetent scumbags, you should not be surprised if that is what they turn out to be.
It's a more complex decision than simple shallowness unwillingness to sacrifice, but ecurbh and I are not trying to have children right now. There are lots of issues rolling around that affect this decision, and who knows what the future brings, but I don't think we'll have kids. At least not an infant of our own, we started pretty late. And we want to spend this time able to go on trail rides. ;~D
Well if that is the case, you ought to follow an argument, if you can call it that, before making pontifications. This person WAS insulting females by saying that divorces are only the faulf of the women. THAT deserves a bone-headed monikker, in my opinion. Let's not be too sensitive here. Everyone should be able to take a little repartee.
Here is a good example of a bata male.
When I read threads like this, I realize that we are all, all of us, are losing in a big way. I mourn for my children.
Acutally, it was more about drowinging in the water and grabbing hold of this rotting, stinking life raft that was floating by.... it kept my head above water but I barely made it to shore...
In the beginning, those housewives and Mothers, joined their husbands in the work force, to earn the money to help the family afford those little extras that one wage earner could not afford for the family. My Mother did that.
It worked well at the get go, as two wage earner families began to really prosper and mom could enter or leave the work force as was benefical to the family needs. Until the various levels of government began to lust after the extra income of two earner families, while totally ignoring the personal sacrifices those families were making, and jacked up the income tax until it took two to afford the standard of living that one wage earner provided earlier.
The greedy government is our problem-it's members are our employees. We must start choosing the tunes, and if they can't dance to them, they are free to carry their tone deaf ears home on their two left feet and stop embarrassing us.
That is hardly rubbish I haven't met a feminist yet who did not look wwith drisdain on any women who wasn't head of a big corporation, the housewife is a useless fool to feminist, as is any act of femininity. Feminist are obsessed with besting men at their own game, and there's not one thing feminine about them. The more die hard the feminist the more die hard they want to eliminate men from every arena of life and replace him with a buff woman, it's childish, stupid, and the darling of popular sitcoms.
A case that comes specifically to mind is a girl I knew a while back who complained how aweful the guys she dated always turned out but 'hooked up' with guys half drunk that she met at a gas station around 2 AM. I don't know much about your situation so maybe you just made a mistake, and it isn't the sort of serial bad taste that I've seen.
I make pontifications.
They are Nestle tollhouse pontifications.
They are so yummy.
"it was more about drowning in the water and grabbing hold of this rotting, stinking life raft that was floating by....
You need to learn to delegate. With six kids you shouldn't be doing any cleaning or laundry, and should be splitting the cooking duties. You shouldn't be doing any dishes.
Depending on the age of your children, you should farm off as many errands as possible.
I have nine children, aged 14 to 1 year with one Aspergers and one probably autistic (working through the process of finding a specialist to look at him).
If you delegate properly, the household runs itself for the most part.
Sounds like you haven't actually met any feminists then. Feminism as I say is about equality NOT role reversal or less of this for one side more for the other. It is a uneducated stereotypical impression that you are parading around as fact. it is beneath your obviously higher IQ to promote that idea.
No.
why would feminists want to save marriage.
They read an article like this and it speaks only of the left's ongoing success in taking appart marriage. (about fathers with no rights etc...)
The drum beat is marriage is irrelevant to having a child.
Even the word mother is forbiddent.
The left talks of the strong father vs the nuturing parent. (no mother just "parent") Father is eeeevil, mother is gone.
I understand alot of issues go into making a decision to have/not have children.
My post read "people who do not have children because of the "sacrifice" they would have to make.
I'm speaking of the people who do not want to give up "anything" who consider having children "giving up freedom/stuff/time" Yes, children change your life alot, but to view that change as having to "give up" or sacrifice, is sad, and yes selfish, IMO. What about the gains that come. Children will pretty much love their parents unconditionally. Where else can you get that? It's a wonderful gift.
Becky
... does anyone still believe this crap?
Thanks for the remarks. As a matter of fact, I do delegate. My older girls basically do the dishes and alternate the job. I do need to superivse and help with the cruddier jobs. Everyone pitches in with laundry folding. My son does the garbage hauling and burning. I have started getting them more involved in the bathrooms. My son sweeps the kitchen and the little ones are getting good as "pick-up" artists.
When they were younger I had to do it all. In recent years I have had somewhat less to do. I also have cut my standards back a bit. What I am going through emotionally with my divorce, etc., it taking enough energy out of me. I am trying to be easy on myself.
Remember, you have a husband around, and perhaps family, and I do not.
It doesnt matter how much testosterone you have, if you dont have a college, law school, or medical degree - you still wont make as much money. Uneducated males with lots of testosterone will still be able to get jobs digging ditches to work off all that testosterone, but their paychecks will be lots smaller than women with advanced degrees and who are in management.
While there is truth to what you say, it is a big mistake to only consider having a job to make money. There are many opportunities out there to make millions where college degrees are at best a distraction.
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