Posted on 05/22/2013 2:46:23 AM PDT by rhema
Writing for The Atlantic in September of 2012, Hanna Rosin argued that the “hookup culture” so prevalent on college campuses and in the lives of young adults is “an engine of female progress—one being harnessed and driven by women themselves.” She wrote:
To put it crudely, feminist progress right now largely depends on the existence of the hookup culture. And to a surprising degree, it is women—not men—who are perpetuating the culture, especially in school, cannily manipulating it to make space for their success, always keeping their own ends in mind.
For college girls these days, an overly serious suitor fills the same role an accidental pregnancy did in the 19th century: a danger to be avoided at all costs, lest it get in the way of a promising future.
In other words, women have succeeded in becoming the men they hated.
Earlier this month, during her annual campaign fundraiser called “The Ultimate Women’s Power Lunch,” Democratic Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky of Illinois prefaced her introduction of Planned Parenthood’s Cecile Richards with the declaration that “humanity is at a crossroads on this small planet and that our survival as a species is dependent on women taking charge, taking the world in our own hands.”
If forensic psychologist and men’s rights activist Helen Smith is correct, Schakowsky and her friends may have their hands full of the world, and sooner than they think. In her upcoming book Men on Strike, Smith offers up statistics and her own research to suggest that men are consciously boycotting marriage, fatherhood, and the “American Dream” because they feel beaten down by politically correct preferences and practices—in school, in the workplace, and in society in general. If the women want the world and all the power, the thinking goes, they can have it; the men will simply retire to whatever man-caves they are permitted.
Smith suggests that after several decades of giving particular attention and encouragement to female students, with good results, it may be time for schools and society to pay attention to the males, and to observe what has happened to those boys less-celebrated, who are now men feeling left behind and lonely. In a recent column for the New York Times, Ross Douthat cited troubling statistics: “The suicide rate for Americans 35 to 54 increased nearly 30 percent between 1999 and 2010; for men in their 50s, it rose nearly 50 percent.”
The sexual revolution promise that women could “have it all” has always been oddly paradoxical: It encouraged women to find their best selves by aping men and conforming to traditionally male valuations of worth and relevance. Mistaking the word “equal” for the word “same,” these “hookup feminists” have become precisely the shallow, insincere, career-fixated, people-users that early feminists decried. From spare button-down shirt in the office, to meaningless sex, Don Draper has not disappeared; he has just changed his name to Donna. Women replace men, but the story—contra Schakowsky—stays the same.
Schakowsky’s hope for a world led by women is also challenged by Mary Eberstadt’s just-released book How the West Really Lost God. Eberstadt challenges the accepted notion that faith supports marriage and the family, asking whether it is not actually the other way around—that the forming of families leads to faith.
Eberstadt makes the case that through committed human love we find God, and that this is particularly true in the transcendent experience of parenthood. The utterly new love that enters the world through childbirth leads us to acknowledge something that is greater than ourselves, and worthy of our gratitude.
Bit by bit we can see in such meditation the beginnings of an intuitively resonant account of how Christianity (and likely other religions too) really waxes and wanes in the world. . . . The Christian story itself is a story told through the prism of the family. Take away the prism and the story makes less sense.
Parents are the most fundamental defenders of life; they will die for their children’s sakes. Disrupt the family and you disrupt life, but not death. Death goes on. Our increasingly secular society sanctions abortion and euthanasia and battles to celebrate sterile unions that cannot naturally populate the world. We are in dissolution, so lonely that we are killing ourselves, so earth-bound in our thinking that we throw people away.
Gender politics have so confused us that the complementarity of the sexes has become a quaint notion, but Jan Schakowsky’s conceit is that we may “save the species” by putting one sex in charge of the whole world.
And people of faith are told they are gullible.
Gender politics have so confused us that the complementarity of the sexes has become a quaint notion, but Jan Schakowsky’s conceit is that we may “save the species” by putting one sex in charge of the whole world.
And people of faith are told they are gullible.
I have always felt that women, in consort with men (in a family type of structure) are a positive and “civilizing” influence, in that they bring out the best in men.
Also true, in my opinion, is that women on their own can be just as venal and corrupt as men.
Women want the world???
Let ‘em have it - and good luck to ‘em.
They’ll need it.
Nothing would change, women are just as greedy, conniving, petulant, arrogant — just some in different ways.
It’s hard to find a benevolent dictator be they Men or Women.
What is not generally known (and undoubtedly suppressed by leftist feminist journalists) is the fact that since women have gained jobs in many areas of business responsibility, the amount of embezzlement by female employees has rise precipitously. Statistics from various gov. sources say the ratio is 2-1 female to male in cases of embezzlement over large sums, but other sources put the number of women being the offender at 75-80%. The typical offender is a single female in her mid to late forties given complete authority over funds for businesses or charity orgs and such.
I became aware of this phenomenon about ten years ago while reading the paper at work. It seemed every other week I'd read about an embezzlement case involving large sums of money. Virtually every offender was female. One case in recent years involved the female mayor of San Diego who stole millions of dollars intended for a public charity.
Since males are usually the offender in the great majority of other crimes, was this crime of greed the one area where women outperformed men? It appears so. My wife really became irritated when I mentioned this phenomenon to her, and she, of course began railing about all the crime men commit. Which is true: men easily lead women in virtually every other area of crime you can mention. But the canard that women are guiltless/blameless perfect angels who will lead the world to utopia is undermined by the fact that many women will steal you blind if put in positions of power.
The great taboo, the veritable mastodon in the room, is that whatever societal 'advances' Western women have made since the caves are the direct result of the chivalry and doting forbearance of men.
Spanning the gamut from angelic to loathsome, women can be the most captivatingly awesome of creatures, or they can be Hellary!, or any of the countless variants between.
In our eternally mysterious yearning for their company, and in deference to their infinite idiosyncrasies, men routinely supply and refresh the various clubs used to beat us into seeming PC impotence.
Wimyn seem to think they want to wage war on men and rule the world, when the reality, absent that chivalry and forbearance, is that they wouldn't last a day.
<flame>
</give a damn>
She nails it!
WWMTD?
Hollywood would portray them as evil businesswomen in movies and TV series, responsible for all the woes of the world by their greed and indifference to (fill in the blank)
In sitcoms and commercials, women would also be the butt of jokes, the dumbest members of the family, old-fashioned, bigotted, inferior to even pets and houseplants.
Some great comments here.
I’d take a Margaret Thatcher in a heartbeat.
Maybe Palin or Bachmann? But the last thing I want is a token woman (like the token black we have in office now). No more affirmative action candidates.
I didn’t know those statistics, but immediately after reading this thread, I saw one about an IRS employee embezzling them for four years. Female? Yup. Started once she was given an IRS credit card. Bought all sorts of things from cosmetics to Ginzu knives, then forged the receipts given to her superiors.
Interesting points,
It is certainly like that here in Maryland, single +divorced women many unmarried with kids #1 issue is themselves.
We have a woman running the most powerful nation on earth - Valerie Jarrett.
Look where that’s gotten us
It's more like a man will choose to become civilized in order to attract and hold onto a good woman, and have children he is sure are his.
Take away the rewards of being civilized, and men will eventually cease to value civilization. If marriage turns into Russian Roulette, where the guy stands to lose his assets and his children at whatever point the wife decides she's "unfulfilled" and needs to "find herself" (with a succession of bad boys), and men will lose interest in marriage.
Women are also fooling themselves about the rewards of a career, thinking they can postpone marriage and kids until they are in their thirties, and a good man will come along at whatever point the woman decides she's ready. I got news for the ladies: men will not be attracted to your career as much as you think they will.
I think a good percentage of thirty-something men (perhaps most) would be more attracted to a 22-year old waitress who is pretty, in good shape, has an affectionate personality, and has a high libido than to a thirty-something executive who has none of the above qualities.
Rush’s undeniable truth of life -
that modern feminism is about giving unattractive, harpylike women access to the mainstream of society.
Valerie Jarrett is a woman?
I thought she was one of those alien lizard people from “V”.
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