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I think we all have the filter of our experiences, emotional turmoil and expectations. No one knows what really goes on in anyone else's mind. I have a friend from my army days who dated a useless man and got pregnant. She married him because... In the 70's that was still what most women did if the man wanted it. He left her with no money to move to another state with his girlfriend when the baby was a few months old. She figured out how to take care of herself and the infant. Her family could not help her much, they wanted to but they were in bad financial shape themselves with their own problems. When the baby was 7 months old he showed up and wanted her to move two states over to live with him. She was in a bad situation so she went. 6 weeks later he quit his job and moved to yet another state with a different girlfriend. Leaving her with 2 weeks of paid rent and no food in the house. Because she had only been there 6 weeks social services would not help her. Her brother was able to send her a little money and he saved up to rent a uhaul and bring her home, but it took him a month. When she got home she got a job, started college and took care of herself and her daughter.
We all make emotional mistakes, some of us falling for a reprobate that doesn't really care for us, some of us refusing to trust anyone (two ends of the same stick). One thing that helped my friend and me when we needed to work was our army history. In the 70's it wasn't something that young women did, join the military. Now it is common. And just because some women don't make the mistake of marrying a reprobate when we are too young to know better, doesn't mean they had any less childhood stress. We all have our limits and misunderstandings about how the world works.
This is kind of my point though, people are people...with life stories, choices, lots of stuff going on. Reducing people to big groups by gender or any other blanket consideration, or a bunch of stats, or anything, seems really stupid to me. Even the same individual is a different person at different stages of their life. Doing different things, in different circumstances.
The idea that a woman, any woman, should proceed to steps A, B, and C in how they live life just because they are female...regardless of where she came from, who she is, what resources and psychology she has going on...all of it... It makes no sense to me. There is not a one-size-fits-all "it's just nature/biology nurrp" life path that will work for all persons of some demographic. We are not fungible units.
And we weren't in the past, either. It's just that society left women stuck with whatever choices their husbands were making, for better or worse, in the past. Annie Pike Greenwood wrote, in her many articles to the Atlantic and in her book, "We Sagebrush Folks" about 100 years ago, that she was from a well off family and married a well off man. But he fell for advertising to "get rich" by farming newly irrigated land in Idaho, and along with most everyone else who went out there to try and do that, lost everything. She worked her butt off and also had a job as a schoolteacher, but none of her efforts were enough to save her family from the outcome that her husband dragged them into. What is not published but I know because I have some of her private correspondence, is that she left her husband to basically run off and hide eventually because he tried to murder her. She has a story. Individual and in some ways unique. Even though she was at the mercy of her husband's choices, she had her own to make as well.
My Grandmothers stayed with their alcoholic husbands because they didn't feel they had much choice, and the lives of these people affected the lives and mental health of my parents. One of my grandmothers worked and started and ran businesses, the other one did not work (seven surviving children) and suffered deep poverty because her husband didn't earn much and put some amount of it into his drinking habit. Neither of them was better off for "traditional female roles." Nor were their children.
Everyone has a story.
Personally, I chose as a feral teenager, to flip the script sexually and pursue sexual conquest. I saw no reason why sex should be something that a guy "gets" and girl "gives up." I decided that virgin boys were fun (in high school) and I had fun with them. Many of those who hate on feminism and other deviations from some standard they believe to be "nature" might wait for me to tell of the damage and consequences of this "promiscuous" behavior...well, there weren't any. The only damage I had from any guy was when suddenly I was 18 and every 20-something guy I tried to have a good time with decided he could then own me for life...and the second one of those sure tried. When I spent 18 years trying to be a "good woman" doing the faithful wife and mother thing, it nearly cost me my life. When I got out, for the first year I held off commitment, avoiding doing what "good women" are "supposed" to be doing of looking for a husband or nothing...and I returned to my philosophy of "I just want good times and companionship." Only then it had a name...polyamory. Well fine, whatever. But what I really accomplished with that, was holding space and time to not allow some man to barge into my home and life and demand ownership of me on his terms. I did decide to commit and remarry but I had the freedom to make the right choice in my own time, because I wasn't playing the game of exchanging sex for commitment. I was negotiating each aspect of any relationship, apart from the rest....and consenting only to what seemed like a truly good idea all the way through, as I was sure and ready.
I have never in my life felt that I had any kind of a problem in terms of a reputation, or that I was in a weak or vulnerable place because I had casual sexual activity. It's only the demanding, controlling, "this is how it is" men who were a threat to me. The one who insisted he was a "protector and provider" who never reliably provided and who was the only person I've ever felt I needed protection FROM. Thinks of himself as a hero but acts like a damn terrorist.
So. But you know what though? None of this means jackitty squat for "women" or anyone or anything as a group or a whole or projected largely in any way. This is just MY story. Like everyone has. Nothing more, nothing less.
The only thing that seems fairly universal to me, is that anyone can probably prosper more in a healthy partnership, a functional team with a good person where there is mutual love and respect and best effort...than they can alone in this world. And yet being alone is better for anyone, than a bad relationship with somebody carrying around a load of toxic sludge where their brain should be. Regardless of genders or anything. Then or now, the choice of who to commit to in a devoted life partnership is huge, it's make or break. The highest of stakes. So for anyone who is now OK standing on their own, I do not blame them one bit for not wanting to rush into it.
Where I see feminism failing women is telling them they could do it all, which of course is pretty much what they're doing now: working full time, caring for children, and keeping the household chores up. Very few men even today will come home from a full day's work and help with the chores or the kids (and I say that's on the men).
So as long as I see that men continue to abdicate their responsibilities around the house, I see feminism as a choice. If you, as a woman, can find a traditional man to support you and you want to stay home, have kids, and be a housewife, then that's fine by me. If you want to work for a living and be an equal partner with your husband, that's fine with me, too. Unfortunately, women want both these things and sometimes, because of men who die or bail out on their family, they end up doing both whether they want to or not. I'm not saying a family without a man won't be successful. But it will take a great deal more effort. Maybe more than most women (and the few men who are raising their children without wives) want to put into it.
What's important is that I've not met many younger women that understands the consequences of any action and movement. Things are a certain way because of cause and effect or intended that way. If you try to change the narrative and disrupt the balance. Be careful what you wished for. When I was young I didn't understand much about how everything worked. Feminism today is like a farce. I think it's stupidity to make believe that somehow women can do everything a man can do with their own hands. Leveraging other men and resources doesn't count because I can mobilize men just like Andrew Tate has done so.
Andrew Tate is the perfect example. He preaches the counter to feminism or so called toxic masculinity. He thinks just like some extreme feminists thinks. The perversion of sexual privilege.
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Originally Posted by rodentraiser
I'd put lack of acceptance into the main reason people believe feminism has failed. I'm not saying you're old fashioned, MK, but there are still men who are upset women can vote. It's time to move on from that and deal with what's here.
The younger the woman, the more independent she usually is. What is this guy going to do when his younger chick decides she, also, doesn't want a 1950s life?
In traditional families, a younger woman requires more protection before being allowed to be independent because there is so much danger and risk being a young vulnerable female in a world where deviant males are lurking everywhere. So the feminists revolt why they should be in fear of men. They should be a blamed for being sexual predators and violent criminals. This would only work if enough civilized men with dignity would give you protection. But as we know, there are many fake feminist men who lurk amongst women pretending to be their white knight.
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Originally Posted by rodentraiser
I'd also add, most women today have a higher expectation for the men in their lives. Personally, any man that I knew who had abandoned his family because his wife didn't want kids, would in no way find me receptive to him, whether I wanted kids or not. It would be insulting to me to even think of taking on a man who made marriage vows (remember them?) and then would break them. How do I know he's not going to do the same thing to me if I burn his dinner one night?
This how feminism can let down a lot of women. They pushed themselves academically and fought hard to climb the corporate ladder benefited from identity hires to push aside many men who would be better choices. The reality then becomes they couldn't find any men that are competitive enough since men have a different competitiveness nature. When they feel they are getting opportunity they will compete, when they are not given any good ones they accept lesser roles and just accept it. Younger women today are just too competitive, I've dated quite a few younger women that worked very hard and wanted to promoted ASAP. I laughed and said it doesn't work like that. Companies today hired way too many ambitious women and then underpay them because the supply and demand doesn't equal to a high paying role. I've gave my ex-gf this explanation from a corporate view, if you start with less experience, you work hard but not smart. Then you can only perform a narrow focus line of work but you do it very well. How can a company give you a higher salary when the budget has a limit. Most women just can't tolerate this explanation until they worked in finance and HR.
The best example is: Women in WNBA complaining they aren't being paid as well as Men in the NBA.
Let's compare the NBA viewership and revenue vs the WNBA and then divide the profits to the players. We have to look at the EPS or earnings per share and take stock before we demand equality of pay.
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Originally Posted by rodentraiser
You're too young to remember times of no birth control, but my mother, who had three kids before birth control came along, always said she didn't want any. And this is a woman who enjoyed being a housewife.
My aunt had a miscarriage and it would have been her fourth child. She was relieved because she certainly didn't want any more kids.
Birth control has been a great invention for women not men. Women are the bearer of consequence from having sexual affairs. Now women have more option and get to benefit from their sexuality. Today women can easily have a career directly with using birth control.
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Originally Posted by rodentraiser
This is what feminism has done: it's given women a choice. Women have gratefully taken this choice and it's sad that while some of them wish they didn't have a choice today, what they don't realize is that not having a choice might be fine for them, it also puts millions and millions of other women right back into the prison of being tied to man and a life she might hate.
It takes early feminists to demand certain rights and put men in their place but to elevate it from pushing for women's rights to privilege is wrong. I don't see anything left that women don't have rights, feminists are only complaining about rights that they don't want. That's an abuse of feminism movement when when you want privilege instead of equality. Women are just too insecure and illogical to understand that everything has to have limits otherwise the introduction of transgenderism will hurt women more than men.
And so many women support transgenders. You cannot allow someone to conveniently choose the sex that gives them certain benefits while also maintaining their birthright benefits. I would segregate and put laws to protect men and women from transgenders. Because I don't want women forced to compete against birth males that simply put on a wig. And I don't a man who pretends to be a woman trying to compete for male affection.
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Originally Posted by rodentraiser
I don't need a man and I never wanted children. I've paid the price in independence and freedom and mental health. I would not have been a good mother. I would have abused any child I had. I would have hated the life of being a housewife. My life has been as far from easy as you can imagine and I never worked any great career or made tons of money. But I can't even imagine how much worse it would have been had I had children. I wouldn't mind being married even now, but I am still picky and I have standards. I won't put up with an abuser or someone who thinks he's going to tell me what to do. I'd rather be single.
I don't think you're a feminist. We all at certain age just tired of playing a defined role based on our sex. I think it's a mockery that women wants to be like men and be able to lead a company or be the hero in a story. Heroes aren't made, they pay a heavy price to be the champion amongst men. You have to be extremely cruel or powerful to be the man amongst men. To lead a company also means you've divorced yourself from family life and duty in order to lead a big company that demands your decision and attention at all times of the day and not many women of child bearing age can do that successfully.
As a guy (yes real biological... not transitioned/identify/some sort of choice thing).
I spoke about this subject with the love of my life of 35 years (32 married), and she agrees with me that the biggest thing that has failed women is one large demographic (MSM/liberal democrats/millennials/gen z/woke) that are allowing women to be marginalized by those who "identify" as women.
Losing all that was fought for by letting biological men take many aspects of being a women away from them is the biggest failure. There will always be those that try to "cheat", and I agree there are men who truly feel they are women. But to allow what we see today is the biggest threat today to "biological" women than anything else my wife and I see.
And feminists aren't fighting enough, and we have no idea why.
The main problem with these young feminists today is they think it's all a game. If they can't get things their way they will use identity to force things and not bear the consequences. There's a price for everything in life, if it's earned you get to keep. Rob or steal using something you didn't earn will come back and you'll have to pay later and there will be interest payments too.
Most of these young liberal woke feminist lack the rationality because their main desire is to emulate the Kardashians. Why can't they be rich and desired if the Kardashians can just get plastic surgery and make billons so can they and men should pay to support them. BTW, the Kardashians' primary sources of income comes from women related brands and services. Men aren't paying Kim's family they make money from women who are interested in how to think and behave like them.
I agree. The feminist movement went too far too fast. The thing about evolution is that it is well,... evolution. At its outset, feminism was fashioned as a rebellion against the status quo. The status quo being a generation who had raised families during a worldwide depression and then a generation who had turned to welding together tanks, building air-frames and carrying the load at home while the men went to die, and who, once that was over were mostly glad and thankful to go back to being in a traditional role.
Certainly, I'm not saying all the changes that have taken place are bad, just that you don't make a fork in the evolutionary road with a metaphorical atom bomb.
As uncomfortable as it is to ponder on, women have one role in the furtherance of our species and men have another and societies up until recently have done their best overall to recognize and accommodate these roles. When one realizes each deviation from your planned path is a form of change that should be measured and deliberate, the feminist movement in the U.S. was an anarchic answer to an as-of-that-time un-posed question and caused unrealistic expectations and conflict between sexes for really a very low benefit to those from either camp who chose to go overboard, they having been ruled by their passions. Luckily, we all, with a little humor and tolerance, have mostly healed up and moved on. In fact, it is kind of surprising to me the anger that accompanies discussions around the "battle of the sexes" at all. Almost as if it is meant to destroy the beauty of the male-female relationship.
Well said, I agree. I often ponder if women would make better matting choices. And feminism disrupted the sex eco system.
It's quite common to find pansexual women that develops long term relationships only with women while having boy toys on the side and being on birth control created this. But if these women accidentally get pregnant they proliferated the gene pool with unintended offsprings. We're starting to see more and more people who were the product of unintended pregnancies of poor male selection.
Feminism has created such intolerance, now feminists (women) are attacking other feminists (women). Is it tragic irony or a product of an ill evolved social movement?
I don't know what it will be like in other places. Here in my country, feminism is intimately linked to leftism. To such an extent that it is inadmissible for a woman within feminism who does not embrace left-wing ideas.
And that movement is full of lesbians. They use this distortion of the Spanish language that they call inclusive language. Due to the characteristics of the Spanish language, it is very annoying to hear (or read) things repeated all the time in both genders (if not in 3 genres).
Another way feminism hurts women is "selective feminism"... meaning feminism only fights for equality when it only benefits women. For instance ... Florida passed a law for child custody (shared) equality, feminists organization fought against it. What about equalization of military conscription? Feminism does fight for that equality because in their minds, it comes as a potential detriment to women.
In addition does feminism fight against men in women sports? Lia Thomas... a 6' 2" fully intact male ranked 200th in world in men's swimming is now the best in the world in woman's swimming. Not to mention Caitlyn Jenner won woman of the year with no feminist objection. It was also here first year as a 'woman'.
1 - The quote was about women and men in relationships (and women needing men's financial support, or their control/domination) more than raising families or being parents, I think.
2 - Something like 90% of single parents are women. Do you have similar statistics for children of single fathers? Because it seems like these issues have many causes, relating to single parenthood and potentially finances, not just the lack of a man present. Which reminds me - how about those two mom households? I wonder how your stats compare there.
Systematically in this thread, we hear children, children, children. Women are defined as mothers... or if not-mothers, they're supposed to either be aspiring mothers, or if older, regretful that they didn't become mothers. OK, I fully concede, that a child benefits from having a mother and a father. But again and again, why is everything about the child?
I mean, what about the child-free? Has feminism "failed" them too? It seems to be the case, that the more strident critics of feminism have as their main talking point, that mothers are on the losing end. OK, let's stipulate that that is true. What about non-mothers? What about non-fathers? Has feminism failed them too?
Systematically in this thread, we hear children, children, children. Women are defined as mothers... or if not-mothers, they're supposed to either be aspiring mothers, or if older, regretful that they didn't become mothers. OK, I fully concede, that a child benefits from having a mother and a father. But again and again, why is everything about the child?
I mean, what about the child-free? Has feminism "failed" them too? It seems to be the case, that the more strident critics of feminism have as their main talking point, that mothers are on the losing end. OK, let's stipulate that that is true. What about non-mothers? What about non-fathers? Has feminism failed them too?
Feminism hasn't failed women in general. Or anyone else. Any given man or woman, any and all of us, are prone to failing at any time in our lives, in ways small or large. We all have the freedom to fail, or succeed, subject to all sorts of variables.
Feminism liberated a lot of superb minds to grow and achieve for the betterment of their own lives, the lives of their families, and for our nation as a whole.
The feminist unleashing of brain power is having an effect on our nation as profound and positive as the productivity benefits of the Interstate Highway System.
Some men, by not recognizing and/or enjoying the benefits feminism brings us, are failing themselves.
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No rational person can say feminism has failed. Every time I listen to a news story, I'm struck by how common it is to see women journalists, women politicians, women experts.
However, feminism has stalled. Just like civil rights for black people has stalled.
Well said, I agree. I often ponder if women would make better matting choices. And feminism disrupted the sex eco system.
It's quite common to find pansexual women that develops long term relationships only with women while having boy toys on the side and being on birth control created this. But if these women accidentally get pregnant they proliferated the gene pool with unintended offsprings. We're starting to see more and more people who were the product of unintended pregnancies of poor male selection.
If they are on birth control, maybe they won't get pregnant, ya think?
If they do, they can get abortion, which is something feminism has also allowed women to do.
I want to come back to your statement about how when women can't produce children any more, they're not desirable. Here's the problem with that statement: All women go through menopause. So now I'm wondering if your statement on women not having or producing children and not being desirable is simply a legitimate excuse for men to leave their wives and cheat. I mean, that's what it sounds like you're saying.
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