Posted on 01/12/2014 6:48:42 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
I haven’t seen my copy of Men On Strike for several weeks. I kept careful watch on the book until I finished interviewing her, but after that it disappeared into the Bowyer-Family-Book-Sharing Vortex from which it has not yet emerged. That’s because it is an easy read about a topic which is interesting in both a social science theory way, and in a figuring out how to get by in the current world kind of way.
Men on Strike is pretty much what the title says it is, a book about how many men have decided not to participate in certain areas of life, most notably in school, family, and increasingly in work. What separates the work of Helen Smith, a psychologist who deals with men like the ones she writes about in her book, is the lack of scoldiness that you might find in the similar work of say Kay Hymowitz’ Manning Up. For Smith, the men are in large part acting rationally. They’re more John Galt than they are Peter Pan. The book could as well have been titled Andros Shrugged, if ancient Greek titles sold books.
---snip---
“Boys and young men are no less rational, or capable of adapting to incentives, than girls and young women are. They are, in fact, adapting very well to the incentives for female power and independence–which inevitably also serve as disincentives to male reliability and self-sacrifice.”(continued)
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
I think in a way many men are just saying, if society won’t respect me, I refuse to support this failing system by propping it up...
Many men like that go shopping overseas, if you catch my meaning.
Oh good grief.
Women are going Galt as well.
It is a rational response to what is going on in the economy and politics.
I have noticed that narcissistic blindness for a long time. Some women seem to believe that men aren't permitted to learn from their own real-world experiences, or from the personal disasters of friends and family. It's bizarre.
I find all the hubbub over homosexual state marriage to be a bit surreal
I do, too. After all the wreckage and carnage of feminism it's hard to get worked up about a little more bouncing rubble.
I read and enjoyed the book. Mostly she points out the obvious, which seems to offend many people.
I agree. That's how I see it!
Then what do you think happens? Once you marry one and bring her back to the US, she has you where she wants you and turns into your worst nightmare.
The divorce industry and wedding industry are pushing hard for gay marriage.
“Imagine if we ever developed a fully function male and female android? “
They were called “The Stepford Wives.”
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073747/
“The leftists will turn it into a “progressive” society, only to hand it over to the muzzies shortly thereafter.”
They are already failing at that; the “relacement Americans” from Latin America, Asia, and Africa are not assimilating.
“So friggin sick of the idiot males in commercials et al.”
Useful teaching tools for the next generation, though; I point out to my sons how the State Farm commericals have one woman summon a young, sharp black man to help with her insurance, while the other gets a goofy old white guy.
Living between Newark and Jersey City here in NJ, it is easy for the kids to see the absurdity of it. Many of their friends are foreigners (or the first generation born here), and political correctness plays no role in their cultures - they have refreshingly honest views about such things, and they come from very traditional families led by fathers.
My son's biggest complaint is finding a woman who doesn't swear like a sailor in a normal conversation, and we are in a good part of town.
When one of my fellow residents wondered how a particular Ham Beast could possibly be pregnant, my OB Gyn professor told him Rule #1 of Obstetrics : “ for Every Pig there’s a Pig F##ker” .....
So depressingly true......
I quite agree, but there are some considerations.
1) Children raised by single parents are brought up in a “survival” instead of a “success” mode, so they are 60% more likely to become criminal offenders.
2) When a country reaches an economic plateau unique to them, the number of children per family drops to just 2.1 to 2.3. While government or culture cannot increase this birthrate, by increasing the degree of difficulty and expectations on parents, they can substantially lower it even further.
3) Student loans have become a demographic disaster in America, by upsetting the reproductive timetable of college graduates. While their parents would have graduated poor, from that point, their earnings, less taxes, would be theirs, so they were comfortable in getting married, having children, and mortgaging a home in their prime years for doing so. Graduating deeply in debt can delay this process outside of its effective window, making it much harder.
4) Redemption may exist in organizations like Quiverfull, that communally encourage large families. While currently limited to just a single Evangelical Protestant line, other religious sects should be encouraged to follow suit, for both religious and patriotic reasons.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiverfull
Good points.
“While government or culture cannot increase this birthrate, by increasing the degree of difficulty and expectations on parents, they can substantially lower it even further.”
The strangest thing is that while the policies suppress the native birth rate, the borders are flung open for newcomers. As though they want population (to keep the whole pyramid-scheme service economy moving), but they don’t want them when they aren’t consumers/workers (as infants).
“Graduating deeply in debt can delay this process outside of its effective window, making it much harder.”
The small number of young people I know don’t have this debt because NJ is ground zero for the importing of foreigners to take the jobs anyway; a lot of young people in these areas don’t waste the time/money on college, and look to trades instead.
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