[Ta Wee]

Listening to all these whiney loser-men venting hatred about women certainly makes me want to marry them.

Ever wonder why you can't find conservative women? When you spew so much hate, conservative women have enough sense to run the other way.

[Our man in washington]

Ta Wee wrote:

"Listening to all these whiney loser-men venting hatred about women certainly makes me want to marry them.

Ever wonder why you can't find conservative women? When you spew so much hate, conservative women have enough sense to run the other way."

You got a point there.

I think some people misinterpreted post #50. My argument there was that feminists have raised the cost and risk of marriage to men. Fairly or unfairly, men are less likely to get married.

Maybe justice demands that men do half the work of raising kids. The reality, however, is that if men are required to do so, men will often respond by not getting married at all.

On the other hand, most men will gladly work long hours to provide for their family. Men think of themselves as providers. Thus, women looking for spouses will generally have better luck looking for a provider rather than looking for someone who will change diapers.

My criticism was against feminism, not women. And especially not conservative women. We owe conservative women a great deal of thanks for all the work they do to maintain whatever traditional values exist in this country.

The only problem with conservative women is that there aren't enough of them! Let me apologize to anyone on the board who thought I was bashing women in general. I raise a Fourth of July toast to all the conservative women of america whose work insures that we have a free, prosperous. and moral* nation.

(*Okay, so the nation isn't always moral, but whatever morality we have can be credited in large part to conservative women.)

[tortoise]

Listening to all these whiney loser-men venting hatred about women certainly makes me want to marry them.

I generally agree. Most people have had numerous bad experiences of all types in their live. More people need to learn to accept outcomes, learn from the experience, and get on with their lives. For people who've had exceptionally bad experiences this may take some strength of will and character, but those are good properties to have and experience is always useful if used constructively.

As a more general comment on this topic, I do find that there is a dirth of women that a sane man would consider "marriageable" in the current social climate -- most women I meet seem to be bringing very little to the table these days. I bring a number of things to the relationship table: Great personality, intelligence, integrity, money, status, ambition. I expect a woman to bring her own set of assets that complement and leverage my assets and vice versa. Instead, most women I meet seem more interested in "coming along for the ride" than being an active partner in my life and business. I like strong, independent women, but many women who claim to have these attributes in popular society really only have strong personalities and are otherwise parasites. Most women assume that I'm looking for an arm decoration and sex partner (a perception which is probably men's fault to a certain extent), but there are so many women that are willing to be such that it is time consuming to wade through it to find a woman I could consider a real partner.

I'm a young-ish guy who doesn't really have any problems meeting women, so I'm sort of one of those people in the group being discussed, but I'm struck by how many women are essentially offering nothing more than sex in a relationship. I'm not looking for sex in a relationship per se, but for a strong partner. I can't see putting my not inconsiderable assets on the legal chopping block merely for a sex partner.

In this sense, I do think one could argue that the value proposition of marriage for men has disappeared in the current market (such as it is). Just to throw more fuel on the fire, I do find that there is a higher "hit rate" with women from certain cultures than others. I find, for example, that culturally Asian women (as a broad demographic group) have a much stronger sense of "partnership" in a relationship than American culture at large these days.

Sorry about the long-windedness. :-) In my own searches and lessons learned I've thought about this issue a lot. I think both men and women need to remember that it is about finding a partner, not a "lover" or whatever.