Feminism, femininity, and marriage

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It seems the two problems the OP has with feminism are:

1) men don't want to marry women because feminism has made them all manly and bitchy and men get nothing out of marriage

2) despite feminists insisting it wants gentle and kind men, biologically women actually want men who are cocky and treat them like shit

Clearly the only answer is to be the biggest a-hole you can be and then just sit back and NOT get married while legions of 25 year olds throw themselves at you because you treat them all horribly. Why are you complaining? If the conclusions you've drawn are accurate, it seems like feminism should be awesome for men.

The problem is that, in practice, it's not doing anyone much good. Traditionally feminine gender roles are looked down upon by feminists and, as a result, families are stressed, women aren't happy, and men are checking out.

[Anonymous]

I think there is an important lesson to be learned from the "out of your league" comments that regularly crop up in these discussions. The implication is that the scope of the league is defined pretty much exclusively by appearance. Within the league, you look for other qualities -- like, the other person treats you respectfully, as an equal -- but egalitarian respectfulness does not define the league.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It seems the two problems the OP has with feminism are:

1) men don't want to marry women because feminism has made them all manly and bitchy and men get nothing out of marriage

2) despite feminists insisting it wants gentle and kind men, biologically women actually want men who are cocky and treat them like shit

Clearly the only answer is to be the biggest a-hole you can be and then just sit back and NOT get married while legions of 25 year olds throw themselves at you because you treat them all horribly. Why are you complaining? If the conclusions you've drawn are accurate, it seems like feminism should be awesome for men.

The problem is that, in practice, it's not doing anyone much good. Traditionally feminine gender roles are looked down upon by feminists and, as a result, families are stressed, women aren't happy, and men are checking out.

Families were stressed back when women followed traditional gender roles, just in a different way. The truth is that there are no good options. Families are stressful. When women played traditional gender roles, they were stressed all the time because they were treated very badly by the majority of husbands (of course, maybe 25% of the husbands were good, but 75% treated their wives and children someplace between their dog and their car). When women try to have some power in the relationship, by bringing in money and some independence, they have some self respect, but end up working 24/7. I think it is an impossible problem, and we just have to accept that families will always make at least 50% of the people miserable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Families were stressed back when women followed traditional gender roles, just in a different way. The truth is that there are no good options. Families are stressful. When women played traditional gender roles, they were stressed all the time because they were treated very badly by the majority of husbands (of course, maybe 25% of the husbands were good, but 75% treated their wives and children someplace between their dog and their car). When women try to have some power in the relationship, by bringing in money and some independence, they have some self respect, but end up working 24/7. I think it is an impossible problem, and we just have to accept that families will always make at least 50% of the people miserable.

There's an interesting premise buried in your paragraph. I totally get the problem with the power disparity -- even if I'm skeptical of your statistics. (Wouldn't really matter if it was only, say, 20% of husbands abusing the power structure). But the idea that self-respect should be tied to bringing in money, rather than other life activities, is troublesome. Making money is often a shallow endeavor, unrewarding in the long term. It's necessary but, in my opinion, overvalued in our society. Our culture's narrow focus on earning and consumption makes our lives shallow and sad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It seems the two problems the OP has with feminism are:

1) men don't want to marry women because feminism has made them all manly and bitchy and men get nothing out of marriage

2) despite feminists insisting it wants gentle and kind men, biologically women actually want men who are cocky and treat them like shit

Clearly the only answer is to be the biggest a-hole you can be and then just sit back and NOT get married while legions of 25 year olds throw themselves at you because you treat them all horribly. Why are you complaining? If the conclusions you've drawn are accurate, it seems like feminism should be awesome for men.

The problem is that, in practice, it's not doing anyone much good. Traditionally feminine gender roles are looked down upon by feminists and, as a result, families are stressed, women aren't happy, and men are checking out.

So funny that men are bemoaning the disappearance of traditional roles.....by complaining on a women's forum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It seems the two problems the OP has with feminism are:

1) men don't want to marry women because feminism has made them all manly and bitchy and men get nothing out of marriage

2) despite feminists insisting it wants gentle and kind men, biologically women actually want men who are cocky and treat them like shit

Clearly the only answer is to be the biggest a-hole you can be and then just sit back and NOT get married while legions of 25 year olds throw themselves at you because you treat them all horribly. Why are you complaining? If the conclusions you've drawn are accurate, it seems like feminism should be awesome for men.

The problem is that, in practice, it's not doing anyone much good. Traditionally feminine gender roles are looked down upon by feminists and, as a result, families are stressed, women aren't happy, and men are checking out.

So funny that men are bemoaning the disappearance of traditional roles.....by complaining on a women's forum.

I thought I saw "Dads" referenced somewhere in connection with this forum. Oh, right. At the top, center of every goddamn page.

But, in any event, I don't get your point. Discussion of gender roles should be confined to one's own gender?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It seems the two problems the OP has with feminism are:

1) men don't want to marry women because feminism has made them all manly and bitchy and men get nothing out of marriage

2) despite feminists insisting it wants gentle and kind men, biologically women actually want men who are cocky and treat them like shit

Clearly the only answer is to be the biggest a-hole you can be and then just sit back and NOT get married while legions of 25 year olds throw themselves at you because you treat them all horribly. Why are you complaining? If the conclusions you've drawn are accurate, it seems like feminism should be awesome for men.

The problem is that, in practice, it's not doing anyone much good. Traditionally feminine gender roles are looked down upon by feminists and, as a result, families are stressed, women aren't happy, and men are checking out.

So funny that men are bemoaning the disappearance of traditional roles.....by complaining on a women's forum.

I thought I saw "Dads" referenced somewhere in connection with this forum. Oh, right. At the top, center of every goddamn page.

But, in any event, I don't get your point. Discussion of gender roles should be confined to one's own gender?

You can feel free to discuss gender roles, but you are not free to speak for everyone else. You are making ridiculous generalizations: "women aren't happy, men are checking out" based on YOUR experiences.

So feel free to say, "my wife isn't happy and I am checking out," or "I am not happy and my husband is checking out," but please don't speak for the rest of us.

[Anonymous]

Whoever keeps saying it is men complaining in this forum needs to STFU. There are women here too..and he majority of the posters discussing this are women. Very annoying when some posters keep trying to degrade my opinion by saying I am a man..how would you even know? And both genders have a right to talk about how genders roles impact them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Whoever keeps saying it is men complaining in this forum needs to STFU. There are women here too..and he majority of the posters discussing this are women. Very annoying when some posters keep trying to degrade my opinion by saying I am a man..how would you even know? And both genders have a right to talk about how genders roles impact them.

Okay lady, tell us how gender roles impact you personally.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Whoever keeps saying it is men complaining in this forum needs to STFU. There are women here too..and he majority of the posters discussing this are women. Very annoying when some posters keep trying to degrade my opinion by saying I am a man..how would you even know? And both genders have a right to talk about how genders roles impact them.

Okay lady, tell us how gender roles impact you personally.

Well aren't you the little tyrant, barking out orders.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I mostly enjoyed this blog post from Ian Ironwood entitled "Of Feminism and Femininity: A Brief History."
http://theredpillroom.blogspot.com/2015/05/of-feminism-and-femininity-brief-history.html

I've become mostly disillusioned with the "Manosphere" and this post could have done with a good editor to pare it down, but Ironwood is insightful and doesn't seem consumed by hate like so many of the other manosphere writers seem to be. There's a little more "feminism sucks" and "you reap what you sow" in this post for my tastes. But I think he presents an interesting historical account of how feminism has changed notions of femininity over the past 80 years or so and what that has meant to the family and marriages. He suggests that feminists have encouraged women to embrace types of femininity that have left both genders conflicted and largely unhappy. Some quotes:

"Femininity is experiencing an identity crisis again because now that it has successfully established "Independent Earner" into its matrix, it doesn't know how to make it relate to the other cast-off identities a woman has in her metaphorical closet. The problem is that "Independent Earner" is now the dominant paradigm in Femininity, at direct odds with "Home & Hearth" and "Motherhood". And it's sharing a mostly-unhealthy relationship with "Sex Kitten", these days. "
. . .
On the one hand, the "romantic desire" for a permanent relationship is there . . . but feminism has successfully re-written the social rules enough to use any woman's apparent success in a relationship as prima facia evidence of her failure as "Independent Earner". A woman who is successful in her professional life is NEVER lauded for her relationship or her family, even if she has them. Particularly not her husband.
. . .
"
What was left - what you are left with - is pretty desolate, from a masculine perspective. There was no dedication to children, except in abstract, no devotion to domestic skills, no cultivation of a warm and loving heart to encourage his own perseverance in the face of adversity. Instead young men looked at what their futures held with these determined, driven, highly-competitive girls who saw marriage and family as check boxes and his role as "guest husband" in her domestic fantasies. The looked at it, saw the pain and agony of their divorced dads, saw the misery in the eyes of their married friends, and realized that it just wasn't worth the effort.

By that point feminism's odd ideas about sex had progressed to where sex within marriage was the absolute most boring, patriarchal, non-feminist sex you could have. They denigrated husbands and men in general in popular culture and made the term itself one of cultural disrespect. With that kind of painful humiliation to look forward to in the institution formerly known as marriage, the young men had a decision to make. So the dudes shrugged, went back to porn and video games and women went crazy, a little."

There are still plenty of women out there who would snap up a SAHM gig in a heart beat, and
It is not woman's job to "encourage his perseverance in the face of adversity". Get your own determination, like the rest of us grownups do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If they want a woman to stay home with the kids and cook, there are plenty of women who enjoy that out there, who have made the choice to do that instead of a career (but the choice is thanks to feminism).

One of the allegations in the post is that there is social pressure by feminists against women who are content with running a family.

There are some of those people out there. So what? Haters always gonna hate.

I'm a raving feminist and I applaud women who get what they want - and if what they want is to SAHM, then good for them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's pretty simple, women. Either abandon feminism or abandon all hope of being wives and mothers. Because men will not abide feminism and you cannot force us to accept it.

Then why am I surrounded by women who have had no problem getting married, having babies, and having a career? Where is this "will not abide/accept" rule that you speak of?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Whoever keeps saying it is men complaining in this forum needs to STFU. There are women here too..and he majority of the posters discussing this are women. Very annoying when some posters keep trying to degrade my opinion by saying I am a man..how would you even know? And both genders have a right to talk about how genders roles impact them.

Okay lady, tell us how gender roles impact you personally.

Well aren't you the little tyrant, barking out orders.

Not sure if you are the PP or not, but she said she wanted to talk about how gender roles impact her. So, I'm waiting.....

[Anonymous]

We already had an entire discussion on this. Read the past few pages. I am a woman, and your insults just show how crass you are. Degrading someone's opinions based on gender is also sexist. So you can go STFU.