Villainous Company

August 14, 2008

The Morality of Abortion, Part I: Women Want It Both Ways on Choice

This is a repost of something I wrote a long time ago over at No Government Cheese. It is one of my favorite posts. I am reposting it here as Part One of a two part response to Linda Hirschman's piece, provocatively titled "Reclaiming the Morality of Abortion" I will address her essay specifically in Part Two.

Grim makes a good point on the Alito nomination:

The nomination of Alito has been a good thing for the country, if only so we could have this debate. The question is, "We've come to something of a settlement on a woman's rights. Now, what rights does a father deserve, and how do we balance the two?" The de facto answer is that we don't: the father's sole reproductive right is to keep his pants on. After that, the woman alone has the choices.

Silly man. Abortion is a women's issue - did anyone ask him for his opinion?

The casting of abortion, or stare decisis as it is euphemistically referred to on Capitol Hill, as "pro-choice" could not be more misleading, for in this debate only one of the three parties concerned (man, woman, and child) has the slightest semblance of a choice. Only slightly more honest is the strident call of abortion advocates who swear to defend a woman's right to choose to the death. Pro-choice lobbyists strain our credulity by beating beleaguered district attorneys over the head with the phrase when they go after sexual predators who prey on ten and eleven year-old girls.

No "woman" chose to have sex with those monsters, or to end the tragic new life that began and ended shortly thereafter as a result of that crime; but so jealous are these activists of their "privacy rights" that they'd rather see criminals go free than allow the courts access to records of abortion clinics that practice illegal late-term abortions. After all, we're talking about the woman's right to choose here. It's in the Constitution.

As we are constantly reminded, the abortion debate is all about something called reproductive choice. Of what does this reproductive choice consist? If a man and a woman, married or unmarried, conceive a child together, both are on the hook financially to support that child until he or she is grown. But there are rules. If the woman decides to rid herself of a fetus that she does not want (but the man does) she may kill it and this is perfectly legal. If the man decides to rid herself of a fetus that he does not want (but the woman does) - perhaps by slipping her an abortifact that does not otherwise harm her - this is murder, and he will go to jail.

Thus, two utterly contradictory things occur at the moment of conception:

Legally, from the point of view of a woman: the fetus is a lump of tissue which may be excised at will if she subsequently regrets having conceived a child. It imposes no obligation or legal duty unless she chooses to accept it.

Legally, from the point of view of the man: the fetus is a human being which must be allowed to live, even if he subsequently regrets having conceived a child. It imposes an absolute and irrevocable legal duty, regardless of his wishes in the matter.

In other words, if you have a y chromosome you have no reproductive choice. Except, of course, to pay at least a half-share of whatever "choices" your sexual partner may make, whether you are married or single - it makes no difference. When one considers that women can have multiple orgasms (and that ours generally last longer), something tells me men are getting the short end of the stick.

The following story makes that crystal clear:

...a lesbian couple wished to have children. An understanding and liberal-minded male friend agreed to donate his sperm, and three children were born to one of the two women between 1992 and 1996. But then relations between the two women deteriorated, and they split up.

The mother of the children found herself alone and in difficult straits. Who would support her, in her—and her children’s—time of need? Her former lover was unwilling, because—after all—she was no relation of the children. The sperm donor had made it clear from the first that he had no wish to be a father in any but the most literal biological sense; he thought he was merely doing the couple a favor. He therefore felt no moral obligation to support the children, and his conscience was clear.

You can probably guess where this is going:

Nevertheless, the government’s department of social security—the potential surrogate parent of every child—sued to force the sperm donor to pay. After a case lasting four years, he found himself obliged henceforth to support the mother and children financially.

The president of the Swedish Federation for Sexual Equality declared the legal decision an outrage. “It is scandalous,” he said. “The man has been condemned to be a father even though he did not take the decision to have the children. Above all, one of the women who took part in that decision has been absolved of all responsibility. If one desires equality of rights for lesbians, it is anomalous that it should not be she who was obliged to support the children financially.”

This is an interesting case for many reasons. The knee-jerk reaction is to say, "Well of course: the poor man did nothing but deposit his sperm into a cup. Why should he pay?"

In truth, several social institutions are shown to be foundering here. Marriage itself, so fervently desired by the lesbian community, as well as child-rearing, does not come off well. Four years? Hardly a serious commitment to making a relationship work. My sons both dated their girlfriends longer than that - they have shown more maturity in their teens and early twenties than either of these women. Not that the heterosexual world is doing a bang-up job at marriage either (mind you) these days. But two people stood up, presumably, and promised to love and honor each other "'til death do us part"... or until they tired of it, whichever came first.

The concept of family as an unseverable bond is another. Divorce happens, but children are forever. Only one half of this "couple" walked away from that. When she took wedding vows and decided to take on the responsibility of having three children in four years, that responsibility did not end when she tired of the relationship.

But what is in danger of getting lost here is the role of the sperm donor. On the one hand, I completely agree that his responsibility should be by far the least of any party involved in this. But there is still something unseemly in the Swedish President's use of "condemned to support the children", for without his intentional act those children would never have come to be. Did he never give a thought, when he deposited his sperm in that cup, that living, breathing human beings would one day walk the earth?

That they might, one day, wonder who their father was? That they might need him? Theodore Dalrymple comments:

If women have a “right” to children, in the sense that not having them if they want them is an infringement of their rights, then of course lesbian women can no longer accept childlessness as the natural consequence of their condition. Let it not be said that new medical technology is responsible for this change in attitude, incidentally: the kind of artificial insemination offered in a domestic setting by the sperm donor has been possible for a very long time. No, the culprit here is the idea that the fulfillment of our desires, no matter what our condition, is a right. As for the well-being of the children in this case—beyond the provision of sufficient financial support for them—that seems to have entered into no one’s thinking.

And that is the whole problem with the abortion debate: everything is cast in terms of the woman's rights.

Has a man no reproductive rights? Why don't we ever ask that question?

Yes, gestation takes place solely within the woman's body, but it could never take place without the man's unique and special contribution, and while not all men care about their progeny, some men do want, and love, and very much desire to protect and nurture, the children they conceive. In a rather caustically-worded excerpt at Protein Wisdom, Jill from Feministe said:

Alito distanced himself from previous Supreme Court views on undue burden, writing that “an undue burden may not be established simply by showing that a law will have a heavy impact on a few women but that instead a broader inhibiting effect must be shown.” So if a particular requirement which infringes on the right to privacy — husband notification for abortion, for example — only has a detrimental effect on some women, that isn’t a good enough reason to disallow it.

Hmmm... since she disagrees with Judge Alito's dissent, if abortion without the consent of a woman's partner only has a detrimental effect on some men, isn't that a good enough reason to disallow it?

Grim comments:

...feminists insist that abortion be seen as a medical procedure that is the woman's business and no one else's. The child has no rights that ought to bind her, because the advocates for the woman's position in our law insist on that point. The masculine understanding, however, holds that the man's rights are overwhelmed by his responsibility for the child. The men who have ruled the discussion, men like me, feel that fathering a child is an awesome duty and one that ought to bind you. The compromise position gives both sides what they want: the leading thinkers of the women's position have demanded freedom for women; the leading thinkers among men have demanded responsibility for men.

The feminist position on "reproductive choice" closely resembles the Rad-feminista position on many other issues of the day: so-called "equal pay for equal work", Mommy-friendly workplaces, flex-time, and cries of gender discrimination in math and the sciences: they want freedom without tiresome responsibility. It is a childish and petulant stance, unbecoming to 'liberated' women. There is enough genuine discrimination in the working world to combat without tilting at straw men.

If we ever hope to be equal with men then we must, with our "equal rights", accept equal responsibilities. It is, truly, that simple. And if women ever, by and large, come to do so and quit the silly whining that occupies so much of the airwaves, they will very likely find that a great deal, though by no means all, of the 'discrimination' they experience will vanish into the ether like a bad dream. Life is never going to be a level playing field for women, but then it's not a level playing field for anyone. We all bring different talents, different strengths, and if we are honest, different aspirations to the table. The one inescapable fact of life however, is that there are always trade offs.

The sad thing about the abortion debate is that by simply exercising a tiny amount of responsibility before conception, grown women could easily avoid a situation where they inflict the results of their own negligence on their partners, while depriving them of the "reproductive choice" they so ardently defend for themselves.

Posted by Cassandra at 08:21 AM | Comments (37) | TrackBack

August 10, 2008

That Little White Picket Fence

Greetings. The Princess appears to have survived week one of home renovation hell. Fortunately she has detected no ill effects that ten days on a beach in Key West with Adrian Paul on tap (in case she needs her toenails painted a divine shade of shell pink!) wouldn't cure. All of this just goes to show that there is nothing like having one's house torn completely to shreds to the comforting sound of Manly Power Tools to give a person some extremely bizarre fantasies.

Throw in a few crises at work and we have all the required ingredients for chronic cirrhosis of the liver. Needless to say, such an atmosphere is not conducive to quiet contemplation. It was a relief this morning to wake early enough to have the house to myself; to be able to read the paper, have some time to think, write, contemplate the lint in my navel. This is my favorite time: early in the morning before anyone - even the birds - are up. The house is still. Even the dog is still slumbering downstairs. In a few moments I will no doubt hear his muffled but imperious "woof!" from the basement but for now, the golden hours of pre-dawn serenity are mine to savor.

I am happily reading about books. Apparently, little boys like reading about things that are gross:

The book's main character slaughtered his victims by running them through with sharp stakes. He once left hundreds dying slowly on a hillside while the soil grew "muddy with blood" and "blackbirds flocked around the corpses, fighting for a meal."

Although it has the contours of a horror story -- with splotches of red ink on its pages depicting blood -- it's actually a children's book. "Vlad the Impaler: The Real Count Dracula" is widely available in libraries and is making its way into middle-school social-studies classes.

...Publishers are hawking more gory and gross books to appeal to an elusive market: boys -- many of whom would rather go to the dentist than crack open "Little House on the Prairie." Booksellers are also catering to teachers and parents desperate to make young males more literate.

It would be easy to condemn movements like this as pandering to the lowest common denominator but as a mother of two boys, the article's observations ring all too true. My sons were both strong readers but their reading preferences differed sharply from mine. To interest them in reading I had to appeal to their tastes, not necessarily my own. Luckily, we shared an appreciation for all kinds of humor as well as a love of learning about the world around us:

Scholastic and other publishers are heeding the research of such academics as Jeffrey Wilhelm, an education professor at Boise State University. Prof. Wilhelm tracked boys' reading habits for five years ending in 2005 and found that schools failed to meet their "motivational needs." Teachers assigned novels about relationships, such as marriage, that appealed to girls but bored boys. His survey of academic research found boys more likely to read nonfiction, especially about sports and other activities they enjoy, as well as funny, edgy fiction.

For girls, especially as they grow older, a large part of successfully negotiating the world around them means learning to understand how the people around them think and feel. Relationships, whether they are friendships, professional contacts, or romantic liasons, are tremendously important to most women. While boys rarely devote more than a few moments of conscious thought to actively maintaining their personal relationships, girls generally begin doing so almost from birth. And if they want to learn about relationships, they could hardly do better than this refreshingly retro-sexual page turner:

... the four Meyer novels -- "Twilight," "New Moon," "Eclipse" and now "Breaking Dawn" -- tell the story of a regular girl, Isabella Swan, who falls in love with a not-so- regular boy, Edward Cullen. Edward is a vampire. New to the perpetually rainy town of Forks, Wash., Bella immediately falls for the pale and shockingly beautiful Edward -- who does everything in his power to resist his attraction to Bella. Edward has long fed only on animals, not humans, but his thirst for Bella's blood is beyond intense. Neither, it turns out, can stay away from the other, and what follows is a page-turning saga, a portrait of adolescent desire and first love at its most powerful and tender.

Bella and Edward find themselves "unconditionally and irrevocably in love," as Ms. Meyer writes. Despite this, there are barely more than a few passionate kisses in the series' first 1,700-or-so pages, and almost no kissing at all in its first 500. Rather, Bella and Edward are satisfied by nearness. An innocent touch of the hand feels "as if an electric current had passed through us," Bella explains at one point. Saying her beloved's name, Edward, is "a thrill" in and of itself. Edward's breath on Bella's face is a heady, intoxicating experience, and Edward is knocked nearly senseless by Bella's smell, which he describes as floral, "like lavender . . . or freesia." They are restless unless they are together. But when together, they create more sparks than either knows how to handle.

Oh, and then there's Jacob, Bella's best friend, also supernaturally beautiful (he's a werewolf) and in love with Bella -- creating a triangle that has fans declaring allegiances to one or the other of Bella's suitors. (Though Edward clearly wins the day.)

And here lies Ms. Meyer's secret. She knows that romantic tension is often better built with anticipation than action. That there is enough excitement in gazes, conversation, proximity and maybe a few stolen kisses to keep young lovers busy for years -- if they allow themselves to indulge in this slow kind of seduction.

Ms. Meyer's fans agree. This vampire love story has captured more than their hearts -- it has them demanding that young men behave like gentlemen.

...At the New York "Breaking Dawn" concert event, amid girls alternately chanting "Ed-ward! Ed-ward!" and "Steph-en-ie!" and screaming with excitement, one girl, Jordana, explained why she thought the relationship between Bella and Edward was so compelling and sexy, even though they never go further than kissing. "They are so perfect together and so into talking to each other and just being together, you don't even notice they don't kiss." Her friend Sarah added that "they show that you can have a perfect relationship without being physical."

Another pair of girls, Donna and Meghan, said they loved "the forbidden passion" laced throughout the series. (And, indeed, many girls wore T-shirts that said: "The forbidden fruit tastes the sweetest." This may be a reference to the cover art of the first book, which shows two hands holding an apple.) "Bella and Edward connect in ways other than with sex. They connect spiritually," Donna explained. "They just look at each other and sparks fly."

"It's not all physical," Meghan chimed in, saying once again a line I heard over and over from girls I interviewed. "I mean, Edward has been alive since 1901," Meghan continued. They both then stopped to do the math. "That's over 100 years and he's been waiting for Bella the whole time! He's never been with anyone else. That's the most romantic thing ever."

Teenage girls were not the only ones with a strong presence at the Twilight Party. Mom-fans from the online group TwilightMoms.com were out in full force, wearing T-shirts boasting their allegiance and excitedly talking about why the series is good for their daughters. "Edward is everything every high-school boy isn't," one said with conviction. This mother of a teenage girl went on to explain how boys "are only interested in booty calls, not romance," while the rest of the TwilightMoms nodded their heads in agreement. "Twilight shows girls that you can have the most intimate, romantic relationship of your life without any sex."

Another mother nearby had a litany of reasons why the series was good for girls. "Twilight helps girls realize they don't need to settle for anything less than what they really want," she began. "It teaches them to keep high standards. That there are guys that will treat them with respect. Girls today need to learn this, and they can learn it from this series."

I had two thoughts when reading this review. First, that many men would thing: "Great! Here we go again! Reinforcing the notion that a great relationship doesn't involve sex!"

And secondly, "If more men spent time talking to their wives - actually flirting with them again, respecting them, cherishing them - they might get more sex after marriage." A few weeks ago I read an article about marriage. It was pretty negative on the whole institution:

At the core of Dolan's thinking is the insight that even when we leave aside internal contradictions between models of marriage, each version presents intractable problems. The "fusion into one" conceit, notoriously absorbed into law through the fiction of "coverture" that made a husband the controller of his wife's rights, ignores the reality of distinct personalities with distinct goals. The "contract between equals" vision of companions and partners confronts religious, legal, and popular traditions that associate "equality with conflict," and hold that "once spouses confront one another as equals only one can win the resulting battles."

In Dolan's view, marriage rests on an "economy of scarcity" in regard to rights and privileges "in which there is only room for one full person." The traditional solution? Marriage "as a hierarchy in which someone, usually the husband, has to be the boss." On this view, "hierarchy resolves conflict while equality promotes it," an assumption that Dolan says underpins "many conceptualizations of marriage."

It's here that Dolan insinuates her most provocative idea — that marriage, by its confused nature, amounts to a form of "violence" against individuality, sometimes prompting other forms as well. At first blush, the notion sounds extremist. Yet Dolan makes sense of it. She hardly lacks examples of the more gory violence long associated with marriages gone terribly bad. But her perspective often proves most impressive not when she's revisiting women burned at the stake for actually murdering their husbands, but identifying a whole tradition of women diarists who fantasized their husbands' deaths as the only way out of captivity.

Dolan devotes only two pages to same-sex marriage, but the implications of her study for it are immense. Though plainly sympathetic to the idea on equality grounds, Dolan suggests that married gay people will confront many of the lingering biases of the "economy of scarcity" model — its presumption that one marriage partner must be privileged, its tendency to concentrate "entitlements and capacities in one spouse" until "that spouse absorbs, subordinates, or eliminates the other." Without the signposts of biological difference, how will the courts know who's who in gay marriages?

Dolan ventures no opinion. But Marriage and Violence forces a bigger issue into the policy limelight where gay marriage now finds itself. The book's incisive, detailed attention to abundant aspects of matrimony makes one realize that scholarship on marriage as a historical institution must be part of the nationwide debate on gay marriage. We need to contemplate, in a new light, those challenging concrete elements — the ownership symbolism of the ring, the wife's traditional taking of the husband's surname, so-called male "headship" in marriage generally, intercourse as a "conjugal debt," prenuptial agreements, wifely submission as subterfuge, the psychological subtleties that criminal law must confront in assessing battered women.

Until now, most media have taken the "marriage" half of "same-sex marriage" for granted. That's a recipe for more of the simplistic discussions we've heard so far. Dolan rightly seeks to "denaturalize" our clichéd conception of marriage by explaining its historical development. In that spirit, she makes clear that while she can't devote desirable space to such rich traditions as Jewish and Muslim marriage in her largely Protestant-driven narrative, they too, and their idiosyncrasies, must be part of any sophisticated conversation about the subject.

In the meantime, Dolan and the marriage scholars she ably represents and cites — such thinkers and inspired researchers as Nancy F. Cott, David Cressy, Alison D. Wall, and Stone — offer a further message to conservative opponents of same-sex marriage. If they truly understood the institution's history, they might fall to their knees and thank God that gay people want anything to do with such a conceptual mess.

Good nightshirt. Where to start? How about with "I do"? Because it seems that right after saying those two little words, so very many couples start saying, "I don't".

As in, "I don't..." have to do that anymore. I don't have to earn this person's regard anymore ... because I'm married now. I don't have to compete for his or her time. I don't have to pick up my own socks. I don't have to put out. I don't have to shut the bathroom door.

We become so careless. We all do. It's as though when we say those two little words, we forget that we could always lose our partner to someone else. The best thing about marriage - the sense of safety, of belonging, of being part of a couple, is also the worst. We become complacent.

And thus, if we are not careful, the sense of excitement that was there when we were just dating, the challenge, the danger, the thrill - all of these things go away and are replaced by a dreary sameness. But Dolan has it all wrong. Marriage is not the death of individuality, but the conscious decision of two individuals to commit to something greater than themselves: a partnership. If they choose wisely, if they are equally yoked to a partner of roughly equal intelligence, willpower, and other gifts, there is a give and take over the years. We are not relieved of the duty to assert ourselves over time: if the balance shifts too far towards one partner or the other, the partnership will fail.

I have always loved the words of Khalil Gibran on marriage. A wedding does not create one person, but unites two distinct people with a common goal. They freely choose to walk side by side through life, because they would rather be together than apart. During the journey, each learns from the other:

Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone, though they quiver with the same music.

Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.

I don't think marriage is going anywhere, for all the bleating of the chattering classes, because human nature hasn't changed. And it's reassuring that despite the constant bombardment of sleazy Victoria's Secret ads, our children still realize there is nothing sexier than that tantalizing space between a man and a woman, still waiting to come together for the first time.

If they can understand that desire is as much about the pursuit as about the attainment of our dreams, they will have learned much.

Posted by Cassandra at 06:31 AM | Comments (60) | TrackBack

July 16, 2008

To Love, Honor, And Cherish

Something tells me it's going to be one of those days.

The Princess had a bad night last night. Woke up at 2:30 with the uncomfortable feeling the Attention Bill hadn't been paid. Made the world's largest pot of coffee, pottered randomly around the kitchen in the dark for a few minutes (thus allowing me to don the highly coveted Mantle of Domesticity), savagely threw an obscenely large spoonful of coffee ice cream into my coffee cup and headed for my office where I performed the ritual genuflection at the shrine of Santa Mañana, the patron saint of highly ineffective people.

Hey look: I don't think of it as procrastination. After 49 years of living on the edge, it's more like performance art.

Read an email from Pile. Seems Brit Hume is leaving FauxNews:

Brit Hume, a top anchor and executive with Fox News since the channel was launched 12 years ago, plans to step down at year's end. But he won't disappear entirely.

Sources familiar with the situation say that Hume, 65, will give up his job as Washington managing editor and anchor of "Special Report," the 6 p.m. show that has beaten the cable news competition for seven years. They say he is near a deal to continue with Fox in a senior-statesman role, not unlike that of NBC's Tom Brokaw, for roughly 100 days a year.

Hume would be a senior political analyst, anchor for special events, panelist on "Fox News Sunday" and occasional substitute for the host, Chris Wallace.

Mr. On, to say the least, was less than enthused about the change. In a desperate effort to cheer him up I'd sent back a snarky bit of repartee referring to a conversation years ago on ScrappleFace about how I thought Brit was just dreamy. Back then the idea had struck me as funny, given Hume's correct and rather formal manner. It worked as a riff on the old Carol Burnett/John Foster Dulles routine, except that Hume really is rather cute. The funny thing was that shortly after that I found myself at a fairly small cocktail party sipping a glass of wine when suddenly, my youngest son tapped me on the shoulder, one eyebrow raised with Spock-like interest (as though he had just placed two exotic but highly unpredictable specimens together in a Petri dish). My cherubic offspring proceeded to inform me of the great man's presence with what I deemed an unwarranted degree of relish.

There are times when I suspect I provide entirely too much entertainment value to my children.

Sure enough, there he was. Brit Hume. Standing not 20 feet from me. Sadly, my son also saw fit to alert my mother in law. Who decided we needed to walk over and talk to him. Fortunately, it was a very crowded party in a very small house. We spent the next 40 minutes or so weaving in and out of various conversational groupings whilst the Princess assiduously avoided any situation which might result in accosting FoxNews anchors.

The thing is, Pile can never resist the temptation to pull my chain.

My snarky comment, you see, had been something to the effect of, "Dang - I *knew* I should have spoken to Brit at that cocktail party."

To which he replied, "...if you had talked to him, did you know that he would for him be talking to a much younger chick?"

And that is all it took to send this too, too much younger chick's Clue Train right off the rails. The female mind is a Terrible Thing. Forty minutes of my life I will never get back, one deleted and unsent email later, my mind had been to Timbuktu and back. Poor Brit. And poor Ben Stein, because he is about to get dragged into this against his will. Back in March I wrote about the interplay between economics, decision-making, and happiness:

The architect's maxim that the form of a building should express its intended use cleanly and honestly seemed so right. But what interested me even more was a notion that occurred to me in thinking about the human implications of this idea. For often, perhaps because I'm female, I see human corollaries to ideas in economics, math, or even architecture. Not that, as a consequence, I am necessarily quick enough to correct my own behavior, mind you :p

I just lecture other people about how to correct theirs. This is one of the dubious joys of being a solipsistic parasite who traffics more in pronouncement than persuasion.

Once, after having a 'discussion' with my husband, it occurred to me that in marriage outward behavior (i.e., our "form") was in many ways more important than (and may even at times play a role in determining) what both partners think to themselves privately. In other words, some times if we are not happy, it's because we've fallen into the habit of not acting happy. Correct the behavior and you correct the state of mind.

Relationships are a bit of a feedback loop. In marriage, people tend to get sloppy and stop doing the nice things they did when they were courting. They take each other for granted. And all of a sudden, there is no positive feedback and they wonder where the 'magic' went? What they forgot was that the magic wasn't an externally created force: they had a role in creating it. If the flame dies out, you can re-ignite it. I think that's the biggest reason modern marriages don't succeed; couples are so busy with careers, the Internet, their iPods, and watching cable TV that they're forgotten to take an active role in their own lives. No wonder they're unhappy.

Stein picks up this idea. It's one that has always fascinated me - the notion that because it deals with the way human beings assign value, manage risk, and choose from competing alternatives in the presence of scarcity, economic theory applies not just in the marketplace but is broadly applicable to all facets of our personal and emotional lives:

In general, and with rare exceptions, the returns in love situations are roughly proportional to the amount of time and devotion invested. The amount of love you get from an investment in love is correlated, if only roughly, to the amount of yourself you invest in the relationship.

If you invest caring, patience and unselfishness, you get those things back. (This assumes, of course, that you are having a relationship with someone who loves you, and not a one-sided love affair with someone who isn’t interested.)

The economic corollary is "Don't throw good money after bad." - a maxim many women would do well to study. Stein has more:

The returns on your investment should at least equal the cost of the investment. If you are getting less back than you put in over a considerable period of time, back off.

Long-term investment pays off. The impatient day player will fare poorly without inside information or market-controlling power. He or she will have a few good days but years of agony in the world of love.

To coin a phrase: Fall in love in haste, repent at leisure.

Realistic expectations are everything. If you have unrealistic expectations, they will rarely be met. If you think that you can go from nowhere to having someone wonderful in love with you, you are probably wrong.

You need expectations that match reality before you can make some progress. There may be exceptions, but they are rare.

None of these, however, is what popped into my mind in response to Pile's "young chick" crack. Though I know he was just kidding, what popped into my mind was actually quite serious.

Men and women have such different perceptions about age and appearance. Being on the Internet has been an eye opening and at times disheartening experience. What is very much apparent, both through reading endless intuitively obvious studies and the comments of male readers is that men of all ages pretty much universally prefer young women. Duh.

The reverse, however, is not true. Women do not prefer younger men. Very much the opposite is true, in fact.

Men and women value different things in each other. But paradoxically I am not always certain we reward the things we claim to value in our mates. I am always interested in what finding out what people think. Consequently I try to visit other sites and read the conversations there from time to time.

I don't know how much skew there is in the readership of some of the larger sites, but I've been dismayed at the tone of the comments at Dr. Helen's and Ace of Spades. I see an awful lot of what seems to me to be very angry, unhappy men coupled with a lot of female bashing. There are times when I don't see much difference between what goes on there and what goes on over at Pandagon where the men are all evil, all the time and the women all seem to be victims of some galactic conspiracy to chain them to their Easy Bake ovens and force them to deliver unwanted fetuses.

I suppose I don't see life that simply. I see a lot of systemic problems in modern society which mediate against happy marriages but I hardly think all of them can be the fault of shrill, shrieking feminazis or the overbearing, testosterone-laced Patriarchy. Maybe - just maybe - there is some room for individual responsibility here?

Maybe it takes two people to make a happy marriage: a man, and a woman. Both have to try. Both take a vow: till death do us part, not "Like ... until this gets so, last week.".

What I see, mostly, is a mutual lack of respect.

I think this is largely a function of modern society, but also of a failure to honor the vows we take on that one day we make such a tremendous deal over. We hold nothing sacred anymore, so perhaps it is hardly surprising that we have lost the ability for reverence in our private lives. But nowhere is this more necessary than in a marriage. The marriage vows say, "To love, honor, and cherish." I believe the honor part is essential to a happy marriage. In order for a couple to form a bond that withstands the stresses and strains of modern life, each partner must feel the other has placed them first: in a place of honor and respect that takes precedence over anyone outside the relationship.

Viewed through this lens, each sex's objections to certain things become more understandable. For instance, in reading Pile's 'young chick' joke, I immediately thought to myself, "Isn't that funny. Men do like younger women, but I'm hardly a younger woman. Haven't been for years."

Women, on the other hand, continue to find men attractive well into their fifties and even sixties. I often think of this when I'm getting ready to go out. I thought of it when reading an article in the WSJ this morning. It made me laugh:

My kid is playing Russian roulette with Creamsicles. He's seven, pushing eight, but he scarfs them down like he's got the arteries of a four-year-old. Then he rationalizes it all by boasting about his "HDL/LDL ratio" and his "fitness routine." Which is chasing the cat around the house 100 times.

Last week his doctor hoisted him up on the examining table and gave him a stern talking-to, complete with gruesome pictures of arterial plaques. In response, Harry noted that "a kid'll eat the middle of an Oreo first." But he knows he's whistling past the graveyard.

At least we got through the midlife crisis, which arrived like clockwork at Harry's fifth birthday party, where he licked the icing off 30 cupcakes, opened the piñata with my buzz saw and ran off with Meryl Braunsdorf for 15 minutes. That autumn in kindergarten, she wouldn't stop bothering him at nap time and left decapitated Steiff animals in his cubby hole when he tried to end things. At Thanksgiving he abstained from the pilgrims-and-Indians diorama project, calling it "scary" and "sad."

Now that he's getting slammed by the alternative minimum tax, though, all that seems quaint. He's been meeting with his accountant, Joey Scardino from next door. Scardino's the best, been handling tricky cases for most of his nine years, but from what I overheard of their working lunch at our kitchen table yesterday, it isn't going well.

HARRY (slurping): This milk is good and cold. Why are there bubbles?

SCARDINO (riffling through papers): Harry, you need to focus. I'm looking at accelerated depreciation here, I don't like your percentage depletion … bottom line, you're out of deductions. We're talking about a 26% rate.

HARRY (immersing cookie): How fast do you think it'll disintegrate?

SCARDINO (snatching briefcase and rising to leave): Harry, you're in denial. Call me when you're ready to deal with this.

I don't think he is ready to deal with it. It doesn't help that he's in a lot of pain with that torn rotator cuff, that and the itchy palms (his dermatologist says it's just dry skin but it's driving him crazy), plus a clicking he's started to notice in his jaw when he goes like this. He's been brooding a lot. Yesterday he snarled that if this $4 gas continues he's going to "go drilling in the damn Arctic Wildlife Refuge" himself.

"Dad?" he says, as I kneel by the school entrance to hug him goodbye. "You think Scardino'll get me out of this mess?

Whenever I go clothes shopping with my son, he or the sales clerk will bring me clothes and I invariably say, "That's too young for me - put it back."

And they say, "Nonsense. You don't look your age. Try it on." And I do. And it looks fine, and I buy it.

I don't look my age, or at least what I remember as a child thinking someone my age should look like. Who does, these days? None of us does. My husband is proud of the fact that I've kept my weight down. I'm not beautiful, but I look OK... for my age. At my age, that is all I aspire to. And my husband likes me to dress nicely sometimes. Well, not like this exactly, but it is not so hard to dress like a woman instead of like some of those couples I see where I cannot tell which is the wife and which the husband.

The point of all this (and there is a point) is that sometimes I am struck by my own relative discomfort with all of this, but also by how much time men spend running down women who are "shallow" and "preoccupied with their appearance" while out of the other side of their mouths ostentatiously ogling pretty younger women and complaining that their wives have let themselves go. Do they ever wonder what their wives think of the mixed message?

I argue with Grim, sometimes, about why women spend so much time fixing themselves up? I would just as soon stake myself on an anthill as wear makeup and high heels and fussy clothes but the truth of the matter is that I look better with them on. Not to my next door neighbor, who doesn't give a rat's ass if I'm wearing a sundress and high heeled sandals, but to my husband. Because the truth of the matter is, the aesthetic I'm competing against, subconsciously, is that 19 year old supermodel with the cantilevered physique that often as not owes as much to the surgeons knife as to mother nature.

She's everywhere. Everywhere I look. And it's a competition that I don't stand a chance in hell of winning, and one that can often make me feel vaguely shamefaced. Truth be told, I'd rather be in shorts and a t-shirt. It would be feel more natural to me, and I'd be a hell of a lot more comfortable. But I'm competing with a million years of programmed biology, so I put my game face on and compete because I love my husband and I love to see that smile on his face when he comes home from work and I've taken his preferences into account, not mine.

But it's not just me. Feminists, of course, would tell me I'm "pandering" to the patriarchy. But isn't my husband "pandering" to me when he gets home from an exhausting day at work and makes boring conversation when what would be far more natural for him would be to zone out in front of the TV? There are times when it's pretty obvious that it - that I - take a lot out of him.

I don't think we're at all unusual. I see plenty of couples who do this, who accommodate each other. It's not difficult.
But what is also apparent is that increasingly, as with childbearing, a great many men and women can't be bothered to make the effort to accommodate each other, to place each other's needs above their own comfort zone.

I have no great desire to push my lifestyle, much my values, upon them. But what I wonder at is the bitterness, anger, and disappointment I keep seeing. As society and gender roles have changed, so have marriage and the demands of raising a family. But human nature and the basic truth that you get out of these endeavors what you put into them, haven't changed. The simple truth is still, after all these years, this: marriage is sometimes hard work. But it is still possible to be married, and to make marriage succeed.

The truth is that it is modern life which has gotten easier, and our tolerance for the work that is necessary to make marriages work that has changed. Another unpleasant truth may be that the erosion of our culture has eroded our will to work at institutions like marriage. As movie critic Pauline Kael learned to her sorrow after a lifetime of championing pop culture at the expense of craftsmanship, what we take for granted sometimes disappears altogether. Once the benefits are forgotten, the cost of producing what used to be the standard become unacceptably high:

Kael assumed she was safe to defend the choices of mass audiences because the old standards of taste would always be there. They were, after all, built into the culture. But those standards were swiftly eroding. Schrader argued that she and her admirers won the battle but lost the war. Acceptable taste became mass-audience taste, box-office receipts the ultimate measure of a film's worth, sometimes the only measure. Traditional, well-written movies without violence or special effects were pushed to the margins. "It was fun watching the applecart being upset," Schrader said, "but now where do we go for apples?"

...Not long before she died, Pauline Kael remarked to a friend, "When we championed trash culture we had no idea it would become the only culture." Who did?

And so it is with marriage. Will it the same thing happen, one day, with having children?

The birth rate among the Western nations suggests this may be so. And many of our "well educated" children whom we tried so hard to spare the pains we gladly suffered when we were young see no downside to all of this.

So much for progress. Or is it regress?

Posted by Cassandra at 06:07 AM | Comments (82) | TrackBack

July 03, 2008

Party Idea of the Week

First there were Mandals. Then came the ManCave and the Mancation.

The latest shiny thing? The ManShowers:

When Jonathan Morris’ daughter was planning her wedding, he thought the groom was getting overlooked. So he planned a guys-only "man shower" to welcome Brian Wigand into the family.

The party included manly snacks, games and gifts.

"It seemed like there was a lot of hoopla for the ladies and not too much for the guys," said Morris of Maple Valley, Wash. "It was really fun, male bonding."

It’s another example of grooms leaving their stereotypical roles behind, she said, noting that male bridesmaids and female groomsmen are becoming more common.

That doesn’t mean they’re abandoning tradition. For Rob Wise, the man shower was a warm-up to, not a substitute for, the bachelor party.

"It was precursor, a chance to get the guys together and let off a little steam," he said.

Highlights of the party included playing football, drinking games and Rock Band, a video game where players perform in virtual bands, said Wise, who married Michelle Creel in June.

"First and foremost, it was getting all my friends together in one place," the Baton Rouge, La., resident said. "It meant a lot for everyone to mingle before they got to the wedding."

Men also are recognizing that showers are a great way to acquire tools and other necessities needed to maintain a home, said Abby Buford, spokeswoman for Lowe’s Home Improvement stores, which launched an online wedding registry in 2006.

Actually, as long as guys don't have to wrap stuff or do anything stupid, I don't see what's wrong with giving the groom something to take his mind off the fact that his life has been completely derailed by the preparations for a one day ceremony. This kind of bonding experience could catch on.

Posted by Cassandra at 08:34 AM | Comments (28) | TrackBack

June 19, 2008

Post of the Day

Reader Lela has started her own blog. Recently she asked her daughter to guest post. The result was this delightful entry on what it means to be a woman in the military:

“Describe your military experience, please. What does it mean to be a woman in the military?” Blah. Blah. Blah….

I really hate it when people ask me things like that. “What does it mean to be a woman in the military?” What does it mean to be a man in the military? What does it mean to have brown eyes and be in the military? What does it mean to be short and in the military?

These are characteristics, not definitions. When I look back on my military service, I don’t want to think of myself as a “female warrior” or a “lady pilot”. I’m a pilot. I happen to be a woman, but I also happen to have brown eyes and a tattoo. Those aren’t germane to this discussion, why should my gender be?

And, of course, I know the answer.

The answer is that it’s germane because we as a society have made it germane. It’s almost like a type of voyeurism. We want to know about everyone’s dirty little secrets and experiences. It’s like it gives us a thrill to hear that someone has faced discrimination. For many of us, I suspect, it lets us feel vindicated. Holier than thou, perhaps, as if we’d never, ever contemplate judging someone on the basis of their gender, or race, or appearance, or whatever.

I also suspect that for most of us, that’s what we in the business call “Bullsh**”. (Feel free to edit, Mom. Just leave in my parenthetical. smile.). If those things truly didn’t matter, then we wouldn’t have to ask questions like “so what does it mean to be a woman in the military?”.

See? Catch-22, like so much else. smile. But now that I’ve talked you in circles, let me answer the question I hate.

Go read her answer. What she has to say may surprise you.

The lady takes no prisoners. I don't believe I could have said it half as well.

Posted by Cassandra at 07:07 AM | Comments (15) | TrackBack

June 05, 2008

Getting Beyond the Real Men/Real Women Paradigm

This thread, via Glenn Reynolds, got the Princess thinking furiously about the relative advantages and disadvantages of being a man vs. being a woman:

Both genders face huge and distinct disadvantages. I'd be hard-pressed to say whether it's more unfortunate to be a man or a woman.

As a thought-experiment, you could imagine -- apologies to John Rawls and his veil of ignorance -- that you haven't been born yet and you get to choose which gender you want to live your life as. You get to be fully informed about what the world is like, but all you know about your future life is that you'll be a human being growing up in the United States. (Significantly, you don't know your race or sexual orientation.) Which gender would you choose to be? I think some people would choose to be a man, and others would choose to be a woman, and it's far from obvious what the wiser choice would be.

I want to focus on the male-disadvantages side of this question, which I find more interesting because it's not talked about as much.

I'm well aware that the person who suggests, at least in certain kinds of elite circles, that maybe there are some not-so-great things about being a man is likely not be heard. Civil discussion will end. You aren't allowed to talk about, or think about, the idea that while gender roles, norms, traditions, stereotypes, etc. have certainly been bad for women ... they might also be bad for men too.

It's odd: I would have thought that if that's true, then it would actually strengthen the case for feminism. If everyone is burdened by antiquated gender rules, isn't that twice as bad as if half the population were burdened?

I think that's a bit of an oversimplification. "Antiquated gender rules", as they are so often referred to, developed over time as the most efficient means of ensuring stable families and guaranteeing the survival of homo sapiens. Our relative affluence and political stability have allowed us to change the rules, or so we like to think. Unfortunately for us, we have yet to figure out how to repeal the law of cause and effect:

Most countries in the Western world have stopped breeding. For a civilization obsessed with sex, this is remarkable. Maintaining a steady population requires a birth rate of 2.1. In Western Europe, the birth rate currently stands at 1.5, or 30 percent below replacement. In 30 years there will be 70 to 80 million fewer Europeans than there are today. The current birth rate in Germany is 1.3. Italy and Spain are even lower at 1.2. At that rate, the working age population declines by 30 percent in 20 years, which has a huge impact on the economy.

When you don't have young workers to replace the older ones, you have to import them. The European countries are currently importing Moslems. Today, the Moslems comprise 10 percent of France and Germany, and the percentage is rising rapidly because they have higher birthrates. However, the Moslem populations are not being integrated into the cultures of their host countries, which is a political catastrophe. One reason Germany and France don't support the Iraq war is they fear their Moslem populations will explode on them. By 2020, more than half of all births in the Netherlands will be non-European.

The huge design flaw in the post-modern secular state is that you need a traditional religious society birth rate to sustain it. The Europeans simply don't wish to have children, so they are dying.

In Japan, the birthrate is 1.3. As a result, Japan will lose up to 60 million people over the next 30 years. Because Japan has a very different society than Europe, they refuse to import workers. Instead, they are just shutting down. Japan has already closed 2000 schools, and is closing them down at the rate of 300 per year. Japan is also aging very rapidly. By 2020, one out of every five Japanese will be at least 70 years old. Nobody has any idea about how to run an economy with those demographics.

Europe and Japan, which comprise two of the world's major economic engines, aren't merely in recession, they're shutting down. This will have a huge impact on the world economy, and it is already beginning to happen. Why are the birthrates so low? There is a direct correlation between abandonment of traditional religious society and a drop in birth rate, and Christianity in Europe is becoming irrelevant. The second reason is economic. When the birth rate drops below replacement, the population ages. With fewer working people to support more retired people, it puts a crushing tax burden on the smaller group of working age people. As a result, young people delay marriage and having a family. Once this trend starts, the downward spiral only gets worse. These countries have abandoned all the traditions they formerly held in regards to having families and raising children.

The U.S. birth rate is 2.0, just below replacement. We have an increase in population because of immigration. When broken down by ethnicity, the Anglo birth rate is 1.6 (same as France) while the Hispanic birth rate is 2.7. In the U.S., the baby boomers are starting to retire in massive numbers. This will push the "elder dependency" ratio from 19 to 38 over the next 10 to 15 years. This is not as bad as Europe, but still represents the same kind of trend.


Western civilization seems to have forgotten what every primitive society understands, you need kids to have a healthy society. Children are huge consumers. Then they grow up to become taxpayers. That's how a society works, but the post-modern secular state seems to have forgotten that. If U.S. birth rates of the past 20 to 30 years had been the same as post-World War II, there would be no Social Security or Medicare problems.

The world's most effective birth control device is money. As society creates a middle class and women move into the workforce, birth rates drop. Having large families is incompatible with middle class living. The quickest way to drop the birth rate is through rapid economic development.

It's odd; I think that the discourse on gender is heavily influenced by political orientation. The Left, taken as a whole, seems repulsed by traditional masculinity. A series of posts by Ezra Klein brought this into particularly stark relief. His analysis of Obama's candidacy is revealing:

Webb represents something of almost transcendent importance to some post-Bush liberals: The opportunity to out-tough the GOP. A candidate who's not only a liberal, but in no way a sissy. He is the daywalker, combining a progressive's positions with a southern militarist's affectations.

But this is not a sustainable approach to politics. Democrats can't out-tough the GOP. It's possible that James Webb can do it. But he's sui generis; a Democrat who can win at politics when played under Republican rules. Democrats love those candidates, because they think of presidential elections as an away game, and they're endlessly hunting for the candidate who plays best under those conditions.

But Democrats can't win at politics when played under Republican rules. Progressivism can't prosper when politics is played under Republican rules. It needs to make its own rules.

Barack Obama's effort to do exactly that has been, by far, the most exciting element of his campaign...

...though [Obama] has been confident and even aggressive in all of this, he has not been "tough." He has not pretended to go shooting, or driven on to Jay Leno's show on Harley. He's essentially been making his own rules.

It's crystal clear, given the choice between the 'hypermasculine' Webb and the 'exciting' but 'un-tough' Obama, which Klein prefers, even given his admission that Democrats have repeatedly lost contests against the GOP. Remembering their impotent fury over the girlie man taunt Klein's choice of words seems even more piquantly ironic here:

...this isn't a commentary on Webb. But the argument for his elevation to the national ticket -- which is to say, to become one of the faces of the party -- is about the electoral benefit of a hyper masculine, effortlessly tough, culturally conservative (seeming) candidate who can win back those Reagan Democrats and white males. As I wrote the other day, I don't think the Democratic Party should be orienting itself towards reknitting that particular coalition.

Apparently Jim Webb is not to be welcomed in the best progressive knitting circles. But Klein goes on to say something even more delicious in a subsequent post. Is it a Freudian slip, or just a moment of stunning intellectual honesty?

Earlier, I asked for a better term than "soft power".... Reading through all this, though, I'm not sure the term can be saved. The problem isn't just the "soft" part, it's the "power."

Grim comments:

I don't think we're going to do well against the evils of the world with that attitude.

But then that seems to be what the battle of the sexes comes down to, in the end: the maintenance of power. The Left hates the very idea of it and is seen as weak and femininized. The Right wants to preserve it and is seen as controlling and masculine. The fight, like many domestic battles, gets pretty nasty at times. And just as the Left can't seem to get past bashing men every chance they get, the Right seems to be on a never ending tear against women. Everything, it seems, is the fault of feminists. Even the most paradoxical and nonsensical arguments are laid at our door, even when men engage in (ostensibly) laudable activities for the distaff side, it is all our fault, our fault, our most grievous fault. Mea, mea culpa:

Do you guys think that by women entering the workforce, that women have had the same effect on the man's role as say welfare has?

I mean, a generation ago, a man wouldn't look down on his woman for not working outside the home. Taking care of the house; cooking, cleaning, caring for the children and basically being the center of the home was what a woman did. It was enough. No one would consider her to be slacking. In this generation, women suffer a vague, and sometimes, explicit, unease about doing that job. She is viewed as not pulling her weight because she's just a housewife.

And it's not just women judging women. Men, too, want their women to work to take the pressure off. A man is simply not interested in carrying all the financial weight and why should he have to? Women are equal now. Equal means doing the same thing--working and living like a man. Feminism means, and it's men that I've seen to be the biggest feminists, being a good man and bring home the bacon, frying it up in a pan and doing it again and again.

But it seems like an unintended consequence has been resentment. Women have excelled in the workplace. They can take care of themselves. They do leave their babies to work. Meanwhile, some men (not all, of course) have gone the other way. They no longer work as hard because they just don't have to. On the one hand, they don't have the financial pressure of their father's generation, but they also don't have the self-respect, work-ethic and noble purpose of their father's generation either.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. The clue train just went off the tracks, big time. I fully agree that, speaking in broad terms, men and women have different psychological needs.

I understand that men tend to value their role as providers and breadwinners; that they have a deep need to be admired, respected, and needed; that most men are more driven to compete and win than most women. I understand that most women are more comfortable in our role as nurturers, teachers and facilitators; that we have a deep need for communication and intimacy; that we are more driven to form bonds and build alliances. We prefer to foster cooperation rather than competition. These are, properly understood, complementary rather than clashing traits; both have value in society. This is why marriages work: in a good marriage both parties grow and learn from each other over time, absorbing and assimilating each other's strengths and compensating for each other's weaknesses. Marriage is a partnership.

Hopefully it is a partnership of equals. As Shakespeare said, 'Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments'. Perhaps that is why I am so dismayed by the responses to Melissa's post. I don't understand the whole "real man/real woman" paradigm. Why would any sane person allow anyone else to tell them what a real man or real woman is supposed to look like?

Melissa seems to want "real men" to "butch up" (dear sweet Christ, what an idea):

I'm sick of men condemning women to superficiality when many women just want a strong, decent, hard-working man who is very good at what he does professionally and can man up personally. Some women limit themselves because they make good money and feel they need a man to make more than they do in order to respect him. That can be short-sighted. A confident man won't give a shit how much the woman makes. He won't feel small because she is successful. He will know who he is and what he's made of.

There are rich men and men of modest means who embody what it means to be a real man. And there are rich men and men of modest means who are insecure, wimpy, over-compensating assholes. In my experience money has had little to do with it.

Cassy Fiano, likewise, has had it up to here with "limp" men:

I've written before about how men need to freakin' MAN UP. My most notable post on this issue was my The Shortage of Real Men post.

It can't be said enough -- if there are any real men left out there, they need to come out of hiding. It's frustrating as hell, even as a woman, to see men becoming more and more pussified each year (yeah, I'm stealing Kim's phrase).

The run-down housewife and over-worked husband myth needs to cease. If a woman wants to work outside the home, then that's great. A real man would encourage her to, if that's what she chose to do. But a real man would also accept her role as housewife if that was what she wanted -- even if it meant taking on extra financial responsibility. A man's job is to provide for and protect his family, and no, it isn't because a woman is incapable of doing so. It's because that is his primary responsibility. It's one of the reasons real men like guns -- because they understand that having a gun is a crucial part of the "protect your family at any cost" mantra encoded into real-man DNA.

As I've said before, I think you see an overwhelming number of real men flocking to military or law enforcement lifestyles. And there's a reason -- the values I listed above are instrinsic to being a real man, and also to succeeding in the military. And, as I've said before, this is a large part of why so many women pine over having a military man for their own. There's a reason women swoon over An Officer and a Gentleman. Being in the military (or law enforcement) means you're signing up for so much more than just a job -- it's a lifestyle, a mindset.

Women, although feminists like to deny it, want and need men who can be a real man. This means they want and need a living, breathing embodiment of values like honor, courage, and integrity. They want someone who will be strong even in the toughest of situations. They need someone they can feel safe and protected with. And you know what? They aren't going to find those things in an emasculated, feminized, sissy-boy who still clings to his mommy's apron and whines about carrying his family's financial burden.

If you're that kind of man, there are only two words you need to hear: MAN UP. Don't whine that you have to pay for every date you take your wife or girlfriend on. Don't bitch that your hair got messed up or your clothes got dirty from doing some manly activity -- or worse, refuse to get involved for those reasons. If your shower and bathroom cabinet is lined and stocked with more haircare and body treatment products than your girlfriend or wife owns, reevaluate your male-ness. Real men have more important things to worry about.

Unfortunately, it seems too many men are willing to let feminists emasculate them. Too many men aren't willing to stand up for themselves, lest they be attacked by the PC Police. Real men have thick skin, and are more worried about doing what's right than what is popular, so who gives a crap what feminists like Amanda Marcotte & Co. have to say? I think all men know, deep down, what their priorities should be, and the values that they need to hold dear. But everything that real men stand for has been under attack for 20+ years, and men have seemingly given up.

Dr. Helen has a different take, but I don't really agree with her either:

I have a question for you, Dr. Melissa. "Why should men--in your words--butch up?" Certainly women don't seem to value manliness as they once did.

I have a different take on things. Say that a man works hard, and "acts like a man," rarely complaining and doing "man things." What is his reward? In your mind, it is self-worth. This is nonsense. Self-worth comes from working hard and being rewarded. Today, that man is regarded as a "chump." If a man works hard to get ahead, he puts it all at risk by having a family, in a society that says that his working means that he is now responsible for everything in a way that a woman will never be--if that man gets divorced. If he has kids, he is now responsible for their standard of living no matter what. No matter if he gets sick, no matter if his ex-wife is a spendthrift, no matter if his pay goes down, no matter what. The state puts him into indentured servitude to a family that no longer wants him as a member or wants him for four weekends a month. His life is toast, unless...he never "butches up" as you suggest. Your strategy can end in early death and a lifetime of servitude. "Soft and aimless" often ends with freedom. Which would you choose?

I find it interesting that all three of these women describe a universe in which men essentially have their maleness determined by the actions of women.

In Dr. Melissa's world, men are so demoralized by the ravages of feminism that they've lost their male 'mojo', somehow devolving from the wonderfully rewarding world of male work to the ignoble demi-existence of "women's work". Ironically, they resent the little woman for wanting to stay home. Men should not do this, because staying home is hard work for women but somehow lazy, demeaning, and dishonorable for men.

Uh-huh. Got it.

Cassy Fiano extols the virtues of macho, manly-men who like guns, eschew male grooming products, pay for dates and earn the lion's share of the take-home pay. There's just one problem with this handy-dandy formula: it seems like a rather simplistic and formulaic prescription for a phenomenon that is, in reality complex and poorly understood. People love to describe men as little better than Neanderthals, content with sex, food, and a never ending diet of Nintendo and cable porn. That these virtual knuckle-draggers somehow managed, despite their intellectual limitations, to design the world we live in today escapes those who continue to advance this paradoxical notion. In truth, masculinity is a complex equation, not a one-size-fits-all straightjacket and men come in an almost limitless number of permutations. The idea that there is some magical "real man" who is disappearing is something I find laughable. What do exist are people of greater and lesser willpower who sometimes allow their destiny to be shaped by social forces. This has always been the case throughout history and will no doubt continue to be the case long after I have shuffled off this mortal coil

Personally, I could give a rat's ass about many of the things Cassy Fiano talks about. I've been married to a Marine for nearly 30 years. We don't have a gun in the house and never have had. My husband does happen to keep himself in excellent shape. He has a very nice body that fits the definition of manliness by any yardstick one cares to name. If you like muscles, he's your huckleberry.

And yet in many ways, he sounds little like her definition of a "real man". He doesn't care about guns one way or another. He doesn't care much about cars either, or about many other traditionally male geegaws. He's the smartest man I know. He is also very quiet; there is no bluster about him. He is not a show off. I've known other men in my life whom I consider to be very masculine. I can't tell you why. Some are tall and thin. Some hate sports and guns. Some get choked up easily. Many have incredibly tender hearts. I consider this far and away their best quality, and it doesn't impinge on their masculinity in the least. In fact, when they let you see this side of them, it only makes me respect them more. Their willingness to be a bit vulnerable doesn't make them soft: one can tell that they are tough as steel inside. One can sense that in a pinch, they would die rather than let you down.

And it was my husband who, weeks ago, provided the answer to Dr. Helen's question. What kind of man is too stupid to look around him and see what would happen to the human race if every man refused to grow up, get a job, find a decent, responsible woman, and have children.

An selfish idiot, that's who. Certainly one for whom my husband had nothing but contempt. Going back to the piece cited at the beginning of this post, if only uneducated, irresponsible people have children, what implications does this have for the continuation of civilized society? The first duty of any human is to continue the species. This is not brain surgery.

In short, I don't believe in the whole "real man/real woman" paradigm.

I've seen successful marriages work along a whole spectrum of male/female role sharing. I don't believe either traditional conservatives or traditional liberals have it right on this score. Get the hell out of private marriages and let people work this out on their own.

The key is simple: mutual respect and support. If those two elements are present, everything else will fall into place. Despite my reluctance to reduce manliness or womanliness to a simplistic formula, if pressed, I found this comment consorted well with my overall notion of what I (personally) find manly and womanly:

On what a real man is... A real man is one who feels a sense of responsibility to care for, provide or protect something or someone, and then offers his strength (even when it is almost run out) to make their world a better place. Hence, the fight. It can be physical, it can be financial, it can be emotional, but masculinity is strength applied to the good of others. for contrast, I say femininity is gentleness applied for the good of others. It's simple enough, and it doesn't tie you down to guns and tattoos.

On a note about why women don't deserve it...
"Today's woman wants to be treated like a princess, yet she refuses to treat her man like a king."

You'll notice two things about this definition:

First, it is quite vague. A man is strong, but how he exercises that strength is a function of his unique personality. A woman's essence is more that she is gentle and loving, but again, she chooses the application. But also men and women, if they are wise, respect each other.

A while back on the 'real woman' post, Grim asked for a standard by which men could replace chivalry when dealing with women. I have always believed, and continue to believe, that respect is that standard. Using distainful language like "butch up", or man up, or limp men bothers me because it is, by its nature, disrespectful to men in the same way the rhetoric directed at Hillary Clinton has been disrespectful to women. I think it is sexist. Telling men what a "real man" is like seems beside the point, because I'm not sure an adult ought to care what anyone else thinks a real man or real woman is. An adult decides for him- or herself what kind of man or woman he or she wants to become.

And then he or she goes out and becomes that person. It's a voyage we all have to make, but sometimes, it really is that simple.

So..... that said, if you had it to do all over again, would you rather be born a man?

Or a woman? And why?

Posted by Cassandra at 07:08 AM | Comments (312) | TrackBack

May 27, 2008

The Mote In Our Own Eye

Many moons ago on a Constitutional law exam far distant in time and space, the blog princess argued herself into a position that surprised her greatly. In short she found herself agreeing, at least in part, with the reasoning behind a landmark decision, the practical results of which she found (and continues to find) personally distasteful. This was most distressing, but try as she might, she could not in good conscience reason her way to a more acceptable conclusion. Being of a somewhat snarkastic bent, she couldn't pass up the obligatory self-deprecating remark.

When her graded exam was returned, in the margin next to that answer was written, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." At the time, she thought her law prof was poking a little gentle fun at her.

The passing years have given that remark a rather different connotation, however. Age, and a thousand small reminders that we aren't as smart as we'd like to think, are powerful advocates against a doctrinaire approach to life's little tribulations.

I couldn't help thinking of that exam when reading Peggy Noonan's latest column. Long suffering time readers of VC will no doubt recall that the princess is no great fan of Ms. Noonan. I was, once. In fact, I rather wanted to be her.

But my problem with all too many of her columns is repeated in this one. Ms. Noonan is quite perceptive. She has a gift, and a way with words. But she is also frequently quite vicious, and to my way of thinking at least, has a disturbing way of attacking people without backing up her charges. In this case, the charge is against Hillary Clinton. Ms. Clinton, you see, (at least according to Ms. Noonan) is a "sissy":

Hillary Clinton complained again this week that sexism has been a major dynamic in her unsuccessful bid for political dominance. She is quoted by the Washington Post's Lois Romano decrying the "sexist" treatment she received during the campaign, and the "incredible vitriol that has been engendered" by those who are "nothing but misogynists." The New York Times reported she told sympathetic bloggers in a conference call that she is saddened by the "mean-spiritedness and terrible insults" that have been thrown "at you, for supporting me, and at women in general."

Where to begin? One wants to be sympathetic to Mrs. Clinton at this point, if for no other reason than to show one's range. But her last weeks have been, and her next weeks will likely be, one long exercise in summoning further denunciations. It is something new in politics, the How Else Can I Offend You Tour. And I suppose it is aimed not at voters -- you don't persuade anyone by complaining in this way, you only reinforce what your supporters already think -- but at history, at the way history will tell the story of the reasons for her loss.

So, to address the charge that sexism did her in:

It is insulting, because it asserts that those who supported someone else this year were driven by low prejudice and mindless bias.

It is manipulative, because it asserts that if you want to be understood, both within the community and in the larger brotherhood of man, to be wholly without bias and prejudice, you must support Mrs. Clinton.

It is not true. Tough hill-country men voted for her, men so backward they'd give the lady a chair in the union hall. Tough Catholic men in the outer suburbs voted for her, men so backward they'd call a woman a lady. And all of them so naturally courteous that they'd realize, in offering the chair or addressing the lady, that they might have given offense, and awkwardly joke at themselves to take away the sting. These are great men. And Hillary got her share, more than her share, of their votes. She should be a guy and say thanks. [Ed. note: how, precisely, did Noonan determine that Clinton had been awarded "more than her share" of the male vote? Inquiring minds want to know.]

It is prissy. Mrs. Clinton's supporters are now complaining about the Hillary nutcrackers sold at every airport shop. Boo hoo. If Golda Meir, a woman of not only proclaimed but actual toughness, heard about Golda nutcrackers, she would have bought them by the case and given them away as party favors.

It is sissy. It is blame-gaming, whining, a way of not taking responsibility, of not seeing your flaws and addressing them. You want to say "Girl, butch up, you are playing in the leagues, they get bruised in the leagues, they break each other's bones, they like to hit you low and hear the crack, it's like that for the boys and for the girls."

And because the charge of sexism is all of the above, it is, ultimately, undermining of the position of women. Or rather it would be if its source were not someone broadly understood by friend and foe alike to be willing to say anything to gain advantage.

First of all, Ms. Noonan commits what amounts to journalistic malpractice almost right off the bat with two statements. If Noonan's willingness to attribute the complaints of Hillary's supporters to the candidate herself didn't give you pause, you can segue straight to the first of them, here:

Great women, all different, but great in terms of size, of impact on the world and of struggles overcome. Struggle was not something they read about in a book. They did not use guilt to win election -- it comes up zero if you Google "Thatcher" and "You're just picking on me because I'm a woman." Instead they used the appeals men used: stronger leadership, better ideas, a superior philosophy.

Noonan's argument is not just disingenuous. It is, frankly, appalling in its blatant disregard for what was actually said during the interview she refers to. Had Ms. Noonan bothered to listen to the interview, she would have heard Clinton responding to direct and pointed questions posed by Ms. Romano rather than volunteering complaints of sexism. This places Noonan's opening anecdotes in rather a different context, doesn't it, unless, of course, one is determined to reach a predetermined conclusion.

What if Golda Meir, Indhira Gandhi, or Margaret Thatcher had been specifically interviewed about their experiences with sexism in political life? It would seem the only way to avoid being called nasty names (at least by the likes of Ms. Noonan) would have been for them to lie. Hardly the example I'd want my daughter to follow, but your mileage may vary.

One wonders, given her opening anecdotes, how Ms. Noonan ever found out Ms. Gandhi had been called "Dumb Doll"? Who breached this impenetrable sisterhood of silence she would have us believe existed, pre-Hillary, when sexism (and Noonan admits there was sexism) was dutifully met with saintly silence?

The second misstatement of fact is that Ms. Clinton has alleged that she is losing the election because of sexism. Where in the interview did she hear this charge made? I was unable to find the quote and Noonan offers no corroboration. In fact, Clinton expresses confidence that she can and will win; that voters will vote for her because (wait for it) she is the better candidate.

It's right on the tape Ms. Noonan didn't have time to listen to while she was calling Hillary Clinton a "sissy".

And as to the charge of sexism on the part of the media, watch this tape and tell me that these ads are directed at Ms. Clinton's policies, or even her personality:

How is implying that a United States Senator will pull the nuclear trigger once a month when she has her menstrual period (yes, it's pretty unpleasant, isn't it, when you say it out loud) not incredibly offensive sexist rhetoric? More importantly, why is it off limits for Ms. Clinton to note that this is offensive to women generally?

What about calling her a whore? How, precisely, does this address her policies or her fitness for office? Has Ms. Clinton been arrested for prostitution or any other sexual misconduct? The truth is that had comparable remarks been made regarding Barack Obama, Ms. Noonan and every other pundit (whether liberal or conservative) would be screaming 'racist' from the hilltops.

And yet when the same type of attack is consistently leveled against Clinton on no basis other than her gender, they not only remain silent, but have the temerity to call her a sissy if she (in response to a direct question from a journalist who did call attention to this treatment, mind you) is honest enough to call it exactly what it is: offensive, sexist, and unworthy of being included in a Presidential race.

I have seen a lot of disappointing things in my lifetime, many of them in my own party. One of them is the treatment of Hillary Clinton, a women I will openly admit I don't like much. But one thing Hillary Clinton is not is a sissy.

She has hung tough in this race despite repeated abuse and calls from her own party to bow out. This is as close a race as I've seen. So close, in fact, that even if she did claim sexism lost her the race, I think Peggy Noonan or anyone else would have an extremely hard time proving her wrong:

Hillary Clinton is now complaining that her candidacy has been harmed by sexism. Interviewed earlier this week by the Washington Post, Sen. Clinton said the polls show that "more people would be reluctant to vote for a woman [than] to vote for an African American." This gender bias, she grumbled, "rarely gets reported on."

So a woman who holds degrees from Wellesley and Yale – who has earned millions in the private sector, won two terms in the U.S. Senate, and gathered many more votes than John Edwards, Bill Richardson and several other middle-aged white guys in their respective bids for the 2008 Democratic nomination – feels cheated because she's a woman.

Seems doubtful. But hey, I'm a guy and perhaps hopelessly insensitive. So let's give her the benefit of the doubt and assume that her campaign has indeed suffered because of sexism.

This fact (if it be a fact) reveals a hitherto unknown, ugly truth about the Democratic Party. The alleged bastion of modern liberalism, toleration and diversity is full of (to use Mrs. Clinton's own phrase) "people who are nothing but misogynists." Large numbers of Democratic voters are sexists. Who knew?

But here's another revelation. If Mrs. Clinton is correct that she is more likely than Barack Obama to defeat John McCain in November, that implies Republicans and independents are less sexist than Democrats.

The truth of the matter is that the media have repeatedly trumpeted the mantra that anyone who doesn't vote for Obama is a racist. And yet the very idea (despite repeated polls indicating there is more resistance to a female than a black candidate) that those who don't vote for Hillary are sexist is hogwash. The supposed "proof" that there is no sexism is that some people do vote for her.

The logic, she is compelling, no? Peggy Noonan and Donald Boudreaux could teach a course on it: in a population composed of a spectrum of voters (some of whom may harbor sexist attitudes and some who may not) the very fact that some people - even men, praise the Lord! - have voted for Hillary Clinton constitutes conclusive proof that there is no sexism. Yep. Well nigh irrefutable. Of course, no one can prove there is sexism either. But their arguments begin to sound much like the reaction to Hillary's tears earlier in the election season: more of a double standard that exists, but is seldom talked about.

The fact is that male politicians have been crying for ages. One may well doubt the sincerity of Ms. Clinton's tears. One may even deplore crying by political figures. But to claim it is not done for American leaders to cry is ludicrous.

Recently during a conversation with a man I respect, I was shocked to hear the words, "in the past few years your feminist sentiments have been coming to the fore..." from him. What shocked me about this is that it has often seemed to me that men are overly quick to label the exact same behavior in a woman that they find perfectly acceptable, normal, and even desirable in a man as "feminist". Not to put too fine a point on it, a man expects other men to have self respect, to stand up for their own rights assertively, and not to back down when someone tries to put them in their place. He also naturally expects a man to resent it if anyone tries to infringe on his freedom or his rights. And yet, if a woman does these things, she is considered "feminist", with all the pejorative connotations that word carries with it (the prime example being that she must somehow be angry or dislike men rather than perhaps she simply respects herself too much to accept behavior they themselves would not put up with for one second.) As Grim has often remarked, (and I agree) men and women think differently. Yet we want many of the same things out of life, though not always for the same reasons.

I was heartened that Grim, unlike Peggy Noonan, was able to see the sexism in way Hillary Clinton has been treated:

What we're seeing from the Obama campaign is in fact sexism -- the use of negative female stereotypes, either in place of or to augment actual arguments. Had Sen. Clinton succeeded to the Democratic nomination, I don't doubt we would have seen it increasingly from Republicans as well.

I think there is a lot of reflexive chest beating among female conservative bloggers and pundits. Sometimes we get so caught up in our own dogma that we won't recognize the truth when it is staring us right in the face. The truth is, it's not easy for a female conservative to cry, "sexism". Most of us would rather stick our finger in a light socket.

But as my long ago law professor once said, a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. I think Peggy Noonan is right thus far: in the end, if you succeed at something extremely difficult, 9 times out of 10 it is some combination of luck, ability, hard work, but mostly refusal to give up. The problem with government programs aimed at leveling the playing ground or redressing so-called historical injustices is not just that they fail to accomplish their intended objectives (How can government force those people who are prejudiced to accept you or your work? How can government redress wrongs done to people who are dead?) is that they are distractions from the fundamental truth that regardless of who you are, hard work and determination are the only things that will get you ahead in life.

Everything else - even where you started from, relative to someone else, or what perceived handicaps you face on your way - is just a distraction. Those are givens and they won't change. Some people are short, some are stupid, some are slower than others. You may be female or black or foreign in an atmosphere where that matters, or one of the many, many more where it does not. The thing is, there is not much anyone can do about intangibles like race, gender, or other personal qualities that help or hinder us along the way.

On an individual level, the best course is to take stock what you have and work with it until you cross the finish line. On a broader level, I can't help wondering if calling people sissies when they take notice of unacceptable behavior is the standard conservatives want to hang their hats on? Republicans used to believe standards and ethics were important. Perhaps that's not true anymore.

Ms. Noonan? Anyone?

Posted by Cassandra at 07:53 AM | Comments (21) | TrackBack

May 13, 2008

Monkey See, Monkey Do

Yesterday, MikeD left a comment on the college rape post that I wanted to respond to more fully for a number of reasons other than my usual impulse to be excessively tiresome:

Now, to be fair... while I understand the young men's motivation (I was once a raging pile of hormones myself), someone should really pull these guys aside and have a talk with THEM about self respect.

I think this is something that frequently gets overlooked. We're used to warning the young ladies about the predatory male, and the good news is that some (e.g. Katelyn) are also recognizing that they bear some responsibility for their actions too (didn't we just have a long conversation about women being fully capable of taking care of themselves recently?). But other than pointing fingers at the young men and shouting "RAPIST! J'accuse!" they seem to get a pass on their own behavior.

Basically, all I am saying is that there's some middle ground between being a slavering bestial monster bent on deflowering helpless maidens and being an incompetent fool who is mentally disabled by testosterone flowing through his bloodstream. These guys are NOT idiots. Nor are they monsters. If you lay out to them that sexual conquest is not a game, and that if they don't respect themselves how is anyone else going to (and let's not forget the "would you really want some other dude treating your sister/daughter like that" logic... cause guys hate that), then I suspect the world might be improved.

I'm no Pollyanna... I know what college dorm life is like. I also know that it took me till the ripe old age of 24 to get my head out of my fourth point of contact. But dammit, let's have more respect for guys (and for them to have more respect for themselves) and grant that hormones do not cause men to become Neanderthals.

These are the points I tried, as a mother, to drive home to my young sons. It's not always easy for a woman to talk to teen-aged boys about sex. For one thing, your street cred isn't all that impressive. You can't exactly tell them "When I was your age..." stories since you lack the comparable road gear. In addition, boys are often a bit uneasy when Mom brings up a subject they're intensely curious about, but is also intimately connected with their impending voyage into that great unknown we call the wonderful world of adulthood. Let's face it: who wants to tell his friends, "Yeah, I learned all about birth control from... [not Playboy or Penthouse or a camping trip with Dad in the Adirondack, but... wait for it!] my Mom!" But when Dad is gone most of the time, someone has to do it if you don't find the idea of being the youngest Grandma on the planet even mildly attractive, so you find a way.

What I tried to teach my sons is that there is nothing wrong with sex. It's wonderful and enjoyable, but it isn't the be-all and end-all of life. Adult men and women should have enough respect for themselves that they remain in control of their emotions and impulses: a healthy sense of balance is what distinguishes a mature adult from a child. This is what annoyed me so about some of the arguments on the Military exchanges post. It is almost comically demeaning to seriously contend that the ability to procure skin mags from the local PX is an essential force multiplier, without which we might as well run up the white flag. This obscures the real issue: there are far stronger arguments to be made for not unnecessarily infringing upon the rights of service members.

But the reason I wrote about that issue, and the reasons I continue to bring this (and tangential issues) up here at VC are twofold:

1. It continues to bother me when I see conservatives ostensibly defending freedom of expression by reflexively flinging ad hominems at anyone who dares to raise a point they happen to disagree with. Any time this happens, I'm going to get my back up. I have often urged women to be more assertive about voicing their opinions on the 'Net, but there are valid reasons why many women are reluctant to do so.

One reason is that when certain subjects are raised, some of the very men who would be the first to maintain that women are mean spirited and overly emotional proceed to defend their positions with.... [wait for it] mean spirited personal attacks and essentially emotional arguments. This doesn't mean that women are good and men are bad. It means that both men and women are fallible, and when it's our own ox that's being gored, each sex tends to react with something less than our usual equanimity. The thing is, if your best argument against porn is that "normal men don't enjoy that sort of thing" or that men who do are rapists in training, you've left the realm of the rational.

But if your best argument against women who object to porn is that women "shouldn't object to/feel threatened by it" or that women who do, do so because they are "ugly, fat, and don't like sex" or are "joyless scolds who like to control men", you're not exactly looking like the poster child for reasoned discourse, are you?

2. Grim and I have probably gone at least 50 rounds on this subject, and we seem to have come at last to an understanding (I think) that I have no desire whatsoever to ban pornography. Never have. Never will. What disturbs me is the mainstreaming of porn into everyday culture. The reason this concerns me, frankly, is well illustrated by stories like this:

Time was, when a girl had a crush on a boy, she sent him a note in class.

Today, as at least one local school district has learned, she might use her cell phone to take a naked picture of herself and send the photo to him.

The Pioneer Central School District over the past two months has discovered three cases of teenage girls — ages 13 to 16 — electronically sending nude photos to male classmates.

“All of the situations we’re dealing with, the images are of a girl in a provocative and seductive position, and in the nude,” Pioneer Superintendent Jeffrey Bowen told The Buffalo News.

What I have argued against, repeatedly, is not the existence of porn but the easy access to porn. Pornography has been around for centuries. It will continue to be around as long as human beings enjoy sex. No one is ever going to "get rid" of porn. It's that simple. What you hope to do - what I hope to do - is keep it out of the hands of children who are not nearly old enough to possess the judgment to handle it yet.

When I see young girls having plastic surgery to make themselves look more like porn stars, that really bothers me.

When I see 15 year old girls sending nude photos and movies of themselves over cell phones and email, that bothers me. And the most disturbing thing of all is passages like this:

In the third and most recent case, a female high school student at some point sent a naked photo of herself as a text message to her boyfriend, a fellow high school student.

“That picture then was forwarded somehow from that phone to another phone and was distributed from there,” Schultz said.

...The teens initially didn’t realize the consequences of what they were doing, Bowen said, but now they do and they are upset.

Most of us talk to our children about unprotected sex.

How many of us talk to our children about unprotected email? A single careless email can be forwarded in an instant half-way around the world without your knowledge or consent. If your child is foolish enough to attach an indiscrete photo, it could end up on the Internet, where it could be found by future employers and colleges, ruining any chance he or she might have of finding employment. In one careless moment, your child's reputation could be utterly ruined.

And the real kicker here is that our don't come up with these ideas on their own. Their behavior reflects the world they see and hear every day: they mimic the values we create and defend.

Think about that for a moment: Monkey see, monkey do. As Mike so perceptively noted, men hate being told, "Would you really want some other dude treating your sister/daughter like that?" And yet it often seems to me that even conservatives, increasingly, just wish away the conflict between their professed values and their own behavior. The truth is that children pay far more attention to what we do than what we say, and they notice far more than we give them credit for.

The problem, as I see it, is not that porn exists at all. It has always existed. The problem is that it has become so mainstream that people's appetites are sated. When you can dial up the most hardcore entertainment right on your home TV set, when even lingerie ads and prime time television shows have become semi-pornographic, nothing is tantalizing or forbidden. And our children are getting that message loud and clear: nothing is off limits anymore. Nothing is unthinkable. Because adults (and many conservatives) ridicule what we used to call modesty or restraint, there is no barrier to keep them from doing things that can and do harm them.

Sex occurs primarily in the mind, and in order to feel that forbidden thrill it's only human nature to push the boundaries farther and farther out. Where once the mere sight of a woman's uncovered ankles was unbearably enticing, now we see nearly naked women on billboards; consequently it takes something truly shocking (how about a 15 year old sporting that freshly f*cked look?) to get our collective juices flowing. But what effect, when adults refuse to rein themselves in, does this have on our children?

Easy. Fifteen year olds are mailing videos of themselves engaging in sex acts over the cell phones their parents gave them so they could 'keep in touch'.

The kids are in touch all right. Nice work.

Posted by Cassandra at 07:26 AM | Comments (30) | TrackBack

May 09, 2008

What the....

Via Glenn Reynolds, have these women lost their minds?

Dr. Helen,

My wife has recently informed me that husbands are now expected to give their wives “push presents.” Quite frankly, the idea and the term disgust me. She is not pregnant, nor is she materialistic, shallow, or prone to feeling entitled to anything. To the contrary, she is an exceptional woman, and I don’t believe she was motivated to tell me this out of materialism. Thus, I found this somewhat out of character for her. I tried to convey my disgust to her, but she just did not seem to understand what I found so offensive about the idea.

I had never heard of this, but it is not only offensive but demeaning. Why don't you just put a fish in her mouth when she's done pushing and have done with it?

Have I been living underneath a rock? That said, this seems like the right response:

What a woman is saying when she expects a gift is that sex — and by extension, child-bearing — must be compensated by a man. This exchange boils down to legal prostitution (nothing wrong with prostitution in my book, but call a spade a spade). The problem here lies in the fact that wives who want this type of exchange often think of themselves as above being a prostitute, but indeed, they are not — they are just dishonest prostitutes who are pretending to be something else. And what about the act of paying for children? A diamond in exchange for a child? Isn’t this a little sick? And if this kind of exchange is okay for women, why not for men?

Perhaps husbands should start expecting “pro-presents” when they get a promotion — wives should be expected to get hubby a new car or perhaps some kind of fun technology he has been wanting, that new big screen TV, perhaps? If the wife has no money, surely there are other things she could do to show how much she cares that her husband is moving up the career ladder. I’ll let the guys fill in the blank here.

If women find the above suggestions insulting, then think how men might feel when women expect gifts from them for having their children. Something that is precious, amazing and part of the human experience has now been turned into a business transaction.

What was it I said yesterday? Something about doing things for the other person because you enjoy the doing, not because you secretly expect something in return?

It seems to me that is part of being an adult, whether you're a man or a woman.

Posted by Cassandra at 08:20 AM | Comments (29) | TrackBack

May 08, 2008

Finding Your Inner "Real Woman"

I can put the wash on the line
Feed the kids, get dressed
And be at work by five to nine

I can bring home the bacon
Fry it up in the pan
And never, never, never
Let you forget you're a man...

'Cause I'm a wooooooman

"Darling, a true lady takes off her dignity with her clothes and does her whorish best. At other times you can be as modest and dignified as your persona requires."

- Notebooks of Lazarus Long

What is a real woman? Via Tigerhawk, the question seems to be generating some interesting commentary:

...there’s really not a lot of mystery about what everyone agrees a “real” man is. We all know “real” men are:

Mentally, emotionally, and intellectually strong, even if not physically (crippled and elderly men can still be “real” men). Hardworking, honorable, honest, dutiful, protective of family and country. Brave, courageous, rational, reasonable, kindhearted, and respectful. Knowledgeable about how to survive in rough times and how to solve problems. And so on.

What I started wanting to know when I was about 16 was just how in the hell any of those things were (or should be) exclusive to men. I realized even then that in fact, they are not. All adults should have every one of those personality and character traits as a matter of course.

So then I started wondering why anyone bothered with the phrase “real man” at all. Don’t they just mean “real adult”? As a young girl, shouldn’t I strive to be exactly the kind of person I kept hearing a “real man” would be? I thought so, and I still do. Maybe that’s why you never hear me whining about how my butt looks in these jeans or crying that no one pays enough attention to me. Who gives a crap? I don’t need any reassurances about silly shit because apparently, I am a “real man”, secure in my own “manliness”. Even though I’m a woman.

Now, what the fuck? Why can’t I just say I’m a “real woman”? Because no one ever talks about that. Except in the context of how “real women” have curves and “real women” don’t look like Heidi Klum. Of course, of course it always comes back to looks and sex when you’re talking about women. Google it. The first result you get on “be a real woman” is a site that says stuff like:

A woman shouldn’t solve man’s problems. This prerogative is male. A man is the one supposed to take care of a woman.

A real woman can’t ever be had over the barrel. She is always well-dressed with her hair and make-up done. Be ready that anything can happen all of a sudden. You’ll say it is hard to look nice all the time – for a real woman it’s a habit.

A real woman always has a couple of really good and expensive dresses in her wardrobe. They play the role of a parade costume for cases when it’s necessary to make an impression.

A real woman can let herself twist men round her little finger. She may stay mysteriously silent, complain that she’s bored, act stupid or start a passionate scientific argument. Nobody can make a woman answer a question if she doesn’t want to, and nobody can force her explain the reasons for doing/not doing this or that. Acting so capricious and unbalanced is a simple way to get a man attached to a woman. Don’t hesitate to make a man spend as much money on you as he can afford – he will never leave an object of capital investments.

A woman knows her worth, but makes everyone believe she’s priceless…She knows how to make men dance to her tune and she really enjoys it.

Christ with a cigarette.

The other results you get from the search “be a real woman” are almost completely equally pointless or niche-like, nothing general about all women and what it takes to be a “real” one. There’s stuff about being a good chaste Christian woman, stuff about “real beauty”, and stuff about sex changes. By the end of the FIRST PAGE of results, the search phrase is not even found. But Google “be a real man.” It goes on and on, page after page, about honor and strength and hard work and discipline and how to fix shit around the house.

Once again I feel the most appropriate question to ask at this juncture is what the fuck?

You know what I think? I think women have utterly FAILED each other. It has almost nothing to do with men, at all. Men have this shit worked out, they have a code by which they judge each other, and it’s a good code for the most part. There’s no mystery among men about how to behave in order to be taken seriously and have a life you can look back on when you’re old and feel pride.

What do women do? We sit around and we either bitch about men or we bitch about other women. Men don’t do what we want them to do, and other women are competition for all those men we don’t even want because they don’t obey us, so we’re never happy.

What we don’t do, or at least I don’t see it very often and believe me, I’ve looked, is establish our own code for judging others based on qualities that really matter, like men have.

Oh dear. I'm about to say some things that are going to make a whole lot of people very, very angry.

Again. Yee ha.

First of all, I agree with Rachel to a limited extent. But I also take issue with part of her argument. She blames the difference in standards squarely on women, claiming that men have defined their own standard for themselves and that women have, unlike men, singularly failed to do likewise:

I think women have utterly FAILED each other. It has almost nothing to do with men, at all. Men have this shit worked out, they have a code by which they judge each other, and it’s a good code for the most part. There’s no mystery among men about how to behave in order to be taken seriously and have a life you can look back on when you’re old and feel pride.

But is this really the case? I don't think it's that simple at all.

Neither men nor women exist in a vacuum. We react to rewards and disincentives, to signals we receive in response to our actions as we interact with other human beings. These are all cues we use to adjust our behavior and bring it into line with what society expects of us. To the extent that some of us are adept enough to figure out how to give other people what they want (i.e., to trade