Posted on 09/15/2011 6:03:17 AM PDT by Paladins Prayer
In great part you are talking about, as you say “educated ‘liberal’ woman,” who have absorbed the messages and stereotypical identities that women are exposed to in our culture. Education is key and cultural prizes — fame, wealth, sex, (surprisingly what men also want) etc. — are enormous. These are the carrots or brass rings that are held out and lead to the de-feminization of women. Like Lady Macbeth they’ve unsexed themselves and the prize carrot they reach out for has come from the witches’ cauldron, IMHO.
I’ve pointed out the increasing numbers of commercials and tv shows to my wife where the adult male or males are seen as either overgrown children or incompetent boobs who cannot tie their own shoelaces. The female looks on with disapproving stares at the inept buffoons she married or has to work with. My wife doesn’t seem to notice. The latest dippy anti-male ad is the Geico one where the three frat boys posing as businessmen act like idiots before a female co-worker walks on in their inanities. There are many other examples.
***I’ve said since the early 1970’s that men and women both want freedom and security, but there is a huge divide.***
You’re right. Women are inherently more vulnerable (physically smaller and weaker) and children make us a thousand times more so.
I was raised primarily by a single mom. (Had a string of ‘daddies’ that didn’t do me any good.) I was raised in fear and poverty. It was not a nice place to be. My poor mom was under constant stress and lived in ‘survival mode’ for my entire childhood. It made me grow up very fast.
I figured out that I needed two things to not live my life in terror: An education and a good husband. ‘Love’ was not enough for me.
As a matter of fact, I was so mistrustful of romantic love that if a guy was pouring on the ‘goo-goo’ crap, I’d run the other way.
Right after my 19th birthday I made a list of all the qualities that my future mate had to possess in one column and qualities that he could not have in another. I’d go out on a date with a guy then, after the date, go through the list. If I found that he was lacking a positive quality or had a negative one, that was the end of it. I wouldn’t date him any more. It usually took no more than 3 dates before the truth came out and I was NOT forgiving on these points.
When I met my husband, I remember being shocked at the end of every date to find that he still held up to the list. Our courtship was about as romantic as a friendly job interview. It took me about a month before I felt like I knew him well enough to trust that he really was that great of a guy - and only then did I allow myself to begin to fall in love with him.
I was motivated by fear to do all of this. I’d grew up in the alternative and I had too many friends in the same position. I’d once heard that the first and more important decision that I’d make as a mother, was choosing their father wisely and I took that to heart.
My daughter has been floundering with these concepts. for a long time she still put romantic love and attraction first. I told her that you needed to have an attraction, but that a woman is capable of being attracted to many men. She needs to sift through those to chose the best one. After getting singed a few times, she’s finally starting to wise up and now her list is now more picky than mine.
Because my mother never took government assistance, I don’t think it ever occurred to me to turn to the government as a source of support. It wasn’t a point for pride for her, it just wasn’t an option that she ever considered. You worked as hard as you can, never turned down an opportunity to make a buck, scraped, dug through garbage cans, and did your best to survive.
Thus she managed to raise a die-hard conservative who lives a very traditional life and values traditional marriage above all else.
But what’s a woman to do if her man fails her and she has children? She has to turn to *someone* for help and support.
***Since there is a big difference between what conservative women and liberal women admire and look for in men, this also shows in the qualities we admire (and vote for) in a president.***
That’s a really smart comment. I’d appreciate it if you’d expand on that thought.
Great post. Without getting into TMI, my wife’s first husband died and left her with three single digit aged kids. She went on food stamps at her father’s insistence but was on it for less than a month.
She said that the quality that finally left her when we married (in our mid-40’s) was “tough old bird”. It’s been amazing for both of us.
BTW, you said: “But what’s a woman to do if her man fails her and she has children? She has to turn to *someone* for help and support.”
The answer is in your post.
***Great article! The author missed another phenomenon - males raised by females. Males raised without training in becoming and being male revert to the innate “Lord of the Flies” mode further debasing the male currency.***
Agreed. Along with this phenomenon, I see another trend with teenage males - they gravitate toward any male role model they can get their hands on.
My own son just turned 18 and my husband is deployed. For the last few months, my son has been spinning with frustration. He’s really pushing me away.
I believe that this is a natural part of his development. A healthy 18 year old man doesn’t cleave to his mother.
He’s made a friend. A 31 year old author who’d been there, done it all, turned his live around and made himself a man. He’s taken my son under his wing and, when my son comes home, he’s all excited about the ‘revelations’ that this guy has shared with him about being a man.
Of course all of these things are things that I’ve taught him and raised him with for the last 18 years; but, for some reason, he needed it from a strong male role-model.
I wish the well-developed men in our society would step up and mentor these boys on a regular basis.
Boys need men - period. Without it, they gravitate to each other and you end up with the ‘lord of the flies’ situation that you described.
Really? I can’t abide commercials. I can’t hit the mute button fast enough every time one comes on. In our house, Hubby gets irritated by my muting the commercials. He thinks he’s missing something. The only commercial worth watching is that Snickers commercial with the sharks.
***BTW, you said: “But what’s a woman to do if her man fails her and she has children? She has to turn to *someone* for help and support.”
The answer is in your post.***
My mom was lucky. I was a generally healthy child.
Without my husband, I’d be on assistance with my children. My son is a T1 diabetic and my daughter has a heart condition. Both of my children have primary immunodeficiency. The medical care these two have needed has been expensive and ongoing.
Another drawback is that the kids of a single mom simply do NOT get the emotional support that kids of two-parent families do. There just isn’t enough time. I remember going days with only getting a glimpse of my mom as she rushed out to her third job. I can honestly say that I pretty much raised myself after the age of 12.
If your kids are healthy and you have some family support, you can do it without gov’t assistance.
I honestly believe that gov’t assistance is the reason *why* we have so many unwed mothers. Young women don’t have the fear that I grew up with.
I like to ask the question this way: What would they have done a hundred years ago. The interesting part of your story is that as bad as your mother had it, look what she produced. 8->
When he was very young, a friend of mine lost his dad in the vietnam war. His mom married a guy he’s never liked. But my friend is now CIO of a VERY large and famous company.
Look at the black family now compared to the black family before LBJ’s great society. Sometimes what seems like the best thing to do is not really the best. Human reasoning can be flawed.
It is good to help people. It is bad to force people to help other people through taxation. It creates resentment on the part of the person being taxed and dependence on the part of the person being “helped”. It poisons the whole biblical concept of freely giving to those in need and should not happen.
Not a diatribe by any means. Actually, very perceptive and enlightening. I went back and read it for a second time, actually. I thought most of your points made excellent sense.
Do you have training in this area or are you just naturally talented?
When I typed that this morning I wondered if any one would catch the usage.
Oh, dear... I’ll certainly make a hash of it...
Conservative women want... well, MEN... in all their hairy, belching, scratching glory. lol I think we understand that men and women were made to complement each other. We each bring two halves to the table and are (usually) more the better for it. We soften them and they strengthen us.
We want men of strength, dependability, respectability and character, men who aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty and don’t ask of others what they themselves aren’t willing to give. We want men that will stand strong in the face of adversity, men that will stand for truth and right, men that aren’t afraid to lead, to make tough decisions and accept the consequences of those decisions without complaint. We want the other half of ourselves.
Liberal women, for all their talk of tolerance and diversity, want someone EXACTLY like them. (Maybe that explains the prevalence of homosexuality in the liberal world.) They want someone who FEELS and THINKS exactly like they do. Someone who completely UNDERSTANDS them... or at least says they do. They’re looking for a female in a male body, without understanding that you’re then losing half of the equation and half the perspective.
The qualities I would look for in a man to share a life and a family with are the same qualities I look for in a President. Sadly, I’m sure liberal women do the same thing.
Egads, does any of that make any sense at all??? I’m lousy at explaining things. *blush*
You made perfect sense and you gave me a lot of food for thought with that one.
“Real” men who hunt and fish and are desirable as mates, simply aren’t raging liberals.
Conservative women *are* looking for a man who compliments them. Liberal women what themselves in a male form.
I can tell that this is going to expand into a good conversation with my daughter tonight. :-)
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