Friday, February 19, 2010

I's Now a Moran

feminism, asshat, stupid,
I am stupider for having read Equal Opportunity Better than Ardent Feminism, and I thought I'd share the dead grey matter with you. You'll be attending tea parties in no time!

The past half-century of the feminist revolution is perhaps best viewed as a massive human experiment in ideologically driven social engineering I guess getting the vote was okay, but birth control and equal pay were not. ("The sexual devolution: Reflections on an apres-postmodern valentine," Opinion, Thursday). The pluses for women generally have been the attainment of higher educational, occupational and financial status. well, yeah. pretty awesome, right? The minuses, and most dramatically for "attained" women, are all personal really? freeing women from patriarchy has been entirely negative, how-- oh. - basically the absence of men for dates, husbands or fathers of their children. TEHRE AR NO MOAR MENZ!!1!! WOMMINZ WIT PEEAITCHDEES HAZ SCAYRED TEHM OFF!!!elenvty!!! "Spinster" has been redefined to include many "attained" women who would prefer to curl up with a cuddly sperm bank than the men available to them. maybe it's just me, but i'll cuddle up with a sperm bank (a large building) before i engage in a patriarchal marriage. fortunately, those aren't the only two options available to me. While the gains for women have been substantial in the cold i always assumed they heated schools and workplaces. what did i know? worlds of academics, jobs and money, the costs appear to have been high in the warm and emotionally satisfying, intimate worlds of social, sexual and family relationships with men. really? do you have proof of this? any of this?
(anecdotes =/= proof)

For most men, there are no pluses, as the social attitudes accompanying this social revolution have depreciated, demeaned and denigrated them. Now commonplace and socially acceptable are slogans and terms such as "boys are stupid" and "deadbeat dads." The consequences of this denigration for boys and men, who were fully capable before the feminist revolution in education and work, are obvious: lower educational, occupational and financial attainment. The personal consequences for boys and men appear to be lower self-esteem and life satisfaction and, I suspect, a major withdrawal from the pursuit of educational, occupational and fatherhood opportunities, which they rightly perceive as being stacked against them. In my view, both men and women would be far better off if America were to return to the land of equal opportunity rather than feminist social engineering. Such a land of equal opportunity would enable women as well as men not only to survive but to thrive as they strive for success and happiness in education, occupation and their own social and family lives.

multiple contradictory statement alert. "we need to return to the land of equal opportunity", but in the first paragraph, women gained opportunity through the feminist movement. seriously, pick one. also, you just outright stated that men can only succeed if women aren't on the playing field. apparently, women should be in charge, because men are just too delicate to compete. (if i actually believed that, i'd be all for some EO changes, but i don't.) This is, btw, the same sort of argument you see about minorities and affirmative action. white men are just screwed all around, I guess.

GORDON E. FINLEY
Professor of psychology
Florida International University
Miami

$50 to the first person who leaves a live donkey in Mr. Finley's office!

Men are marrying up. the horror! Increasing numbers of men are marrying women with more education and a bigger paycheck than they have. sauce for the goose and all that. i can't see what's wrong here. in fact, this summer you will have to do without me for a few days as i attend the wedding of my MBA brother- to a neurosurgeon who makes 10x what he does. Women had best forget looking for a knight on a white horse. we don't want or need to. They may not like it - and many don't show. your. work. - but the knight errant probably is trying to run away on a gray mule. is that a reference to Don Quixote or are female neurosurgeons grey mules? you might want to reconsider that considering that the neurosurgeon excels at kickboxing. (she is my hero.)That might be a wee overstatement ya think?, but the Pew Research Center reports that the number of wives with greater incomes than their husbands rose from 4 percent in 1970 to 22 percent in 2007. in other news, 65% of days are sunny in Philadelphia. so what? In almost a third of marriages in 2007, the wife had more education than her husband, up from 20 percent in 1970 to 28 percent. The number of years of formal education doesn't mean smarter or wiser obviously, but it does indicate the likelihood of a better job for the wives, who then tend to be the primary breadwinners. prove to me why this is bad. oh, right, you can't patriarchy all over the woman who pays the mortgage. that is bad. or not.

The stories beyond the statistics are dramatic and sad. For a long time, feminists complained about fairy tales peopled with Prince Charming; they imagined that such stories prevented little girls from asserting themselves. The new Walt Disney movie "The Princess and the Frog" turns on its head the ancient tale of the little girl who kisses a frog and turns it into a prince; she kisses the frog and turns into a frog herself, at least temporarily. The next version probably will keep the little boy a frog forever. That's hardly something to croak about, satisfying only the girl frogs who long ago resigned themselves to taking an ugly green guy, warts and all. clues for the clueless: there is a life outside of men , and, isn't it the women of the past, without hope of education, income or personal determination, who had to settle for frogs?

Not all women are buying the new scenario, and sad corollaries abound. I've met women who wanted good fathers for their children but spurned less "qualified" prospects for a date with a laboratory sperm just out of the deep freeze. Over the past three decades, more women with college educations have been choosing to have children without husbands. According to the Pew survey, their less-educated sisters are only half as likely to make this choice. Anecdotal evidence is sadder still. I once gave a party for an eligible college-educated bachelor and invited several attractive, successful single women in their late 30s to meet him. All the women said they had expected to have children with a husband by then. My attempt at playing Cupid failed, too. The bachelor saw his possibilities as endless, and the women, all self-sufficient, were by this time unwilling to "settle." Picky, picky. that's right. refusing to settle for some random guy, any guy, (who, if he's a friend of this writer, you should run away from him as fast as you can) is just unwarranted pickiness. fuck happiness, you need a man!

the rest of this devolves into similar half told stories about all the women having babies via sperm banks and TEH SADNESS this causes, but quite frankly, i may now be too stupid to continue with this . . . Flowers for Algernon, bichez!

17 comments:

  1. I hope I am not alone.

    I find well-educated, confident women very sexy.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Clearly MBA brother is totally into well-education, confident women. In fact, he introduces his fiance- to everyone, including the mailman- as [redacted name], the neurosurgeon.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hey, I settled once. That... well it didn't work out so well for me. Now I won't settle. I live on my own with Kiddo and we're happy. I don't see the problem.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Oh, and your bother sounds so cute! Good for him! I hope he and his neurosurgeon have a long and happy life together.

    ReplyDelete
  5. What John said. I guess I'm just prejudiced.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I can see both sides of this issue. I enjoy the money I make and my husband and I are both fine with the fact that I went further than he did in our post graduate studies. He's very proud of me and I'm happy that I have someone to help me raise kids and provide a good male example for my sons, something that as a woman I'd never be able to do properly.

    We both appreciate what the true early feminists did for women, but perhaps fanatics have taken the movement further than it should with many women thinking that they are superior to men or that men aren't needed.

    I also don't see anything wrong with a man wanting to be a real father and provide for his family. From the men I know, it doesn't seem to be about a power struggle, but rather something in their genes that causes them to want to be a protector, provider and make a woman happy and proud of him. If a women doesn't let him do that, she's just eliminated one of the potentially greatest things in her life.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Whether there were negative consequences or not, it's clear that men have gained a few things from the last 50 years of feminism. These consist primarily of survival skills: cooking, cleaning up after ourselves, personal hygiene, etc.

    I would also suggest that, even if I'm not confronted by a Birkenstock-wearing Smith-graduated lesbian with several months of leg stubble, understanding that women may choose things different from my expectations is "good". A woman (just like a man) should be treated with on a case-by-case basis, and not stereotyped into some preconceived idea of how they should lok/act. Heck, feminism made us more aware of differences in cultural norms - in general.

    I frequently hear this idea that feminism is to blame for the loneliness we single people encounter here in America. While I can't say whether this is true or not, I know that at a minimum, interpersonal relationships are affected by many things, not just socio-political ideologies. Media trends, the economy, our hope for the future - all of these things affect human-to-human interaction.

    It seems hasty at best to blame for a lack of happy marriages on feminism. Rather than squelch it, feminism FOSTERED equal opportunity.

    I suggest that the professor spend less time buying into political stereotypes and more time looking at the world around him.

    ReplyDelete
  8. And, um, by the way: I came for the cookies. Can someone kindly point me in the right direction?

    ReplyDelete
  9. obviously, Whateverman is a cousin of mine that i never knew i had :)

    ReplyDelete
  10. I had to stop reading that about half way through - it got too stupid.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Female Kickboxing Neuroscientist.

    I am so writing that into a novel.

    "... he's got seventy-two bullets and a katana lodged in his head!" shouted a bystander. "Nobody can save him now!"
    "Stand aside," came a confident, powerful voice. White lab coat glowing in a single ray of sunlight just breaking from the clouds, radiating an aura of calm in the frantic eye of the storm, Dr. Naomi Mikkleson stode dramtically towards the fallen man. "I'm a neurosurgeon."

    ReplyDelete
  12. 22% of marriages where the wife has a higher income? That means that in 78% of marriages the husband has an equal or higher income than his wife. Oh, but that's just "normal."

    ReplyDelete
  13. James -


    if you write that, i am *SO* buying it!

    ReplyDelete
  14. Your kickboxing neurosurgeon sister-in-law is also my hero. Can I haz to marry her 2?

    But seriously, Finley's article paints a really shoddy portrait of men. He's basically saying that ever since the feminist "experiment" succeeded in granting women equal opporunities, men have suffered because they are inherently unable to compete with women and because some people aptly call fathers who refuse to pay child support "deadbeat dads."

    It sort of confirms my longstanding argument that patriarchy is actually an affirmative action program for men, relegating women to the home so men won't have to compete against women in the public sphere.

    ReplyDelete
  15. denelian said...
    James -
    if you write that, i am *SO* buying it!


    "... dropkicking the gunman out of the way and diving under the table, Naomi pulled Daniel's lifeless body out of sight as a hail of bullets shredded the wall behind her. Using the falling debris as cover, she dragged him to the window. A glance out revealed what she had feared: the building was surrounded by zombies and fundamentalists. There was no way to escape, not trying to drag Daniel behind her. She would have to leave him there, unless...
    Could she do it? Could she operate on her best friend while fighting off hundreds of drug-crazed Leonard Nimoy clones? She didn't know. But she had to try..."

    ReplyDelete
  16. *swoon*


    where to buy! i must own!
    hook your brain to the computer and write this book!


    :D

    ReplyDelete
  17. I don't get it. I earn more than my partner and I went to Uni and he didn't. Who gives a shit? His job is just as important as mine and his contribution to our lives is just as important. In fact he gets to do an apprenticeship for his dream job because I support him financially to do it. How is there anything wrong with that? He did the same for me while I went to Uni. It's swings and round-a-bouts. If you care about your partner you'd support them with their career and education. Once he's finished his study he'll likely earn more than me. Who cares?

    You have to be a totally insecure cockbag to get emotional about your partner having an education or a higher income than you. There's no fucking way I'd settle for a dude who wanted me to be quiet and spawn while he bought home bacon and other food items.

    ReplyDelete

Comments are for you guys, not for me. Say what you will. Don't feel compelled to stay on topic, I enjoy it when comments enter Tangentville or veer off into Non Sequitur Town. Just keep it polite, okay?

I am attempting to use blogger's new comment spam feature. If you don't immediately see your comment, it is being held in spam, I will get it out next time I check the filter. Unless you are Dennis Markuze, in which case you're never seeing your comment.

Creative Commons License
Forever in Hell by Personal Failure is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at foreverinhell.blogspot.com.