On Reddit, a woman explains to other women why men hate them. SPOILER ALERT: It’s because women suck.
Wonder Woman: Forever alienating decent men with her blatant careerism.
Hey ladies! Have you ever wondered why so many men hate you? Well, you’re in luck, because on Reddit, another lady just like you has an answer. It’s because you suck. No, really. Men hate women because women are terrible. And not very ladylike, to boot.
Let’s join FleetingWish as she explains “Why Do Men “Hate” Us?” in Part 2 of her Who-knows-how-many-parts opus “Attracting Alphas,” which she has helpfully posted in the fPUAs subreddit, a forum apparently devoted to teaching “females” how to more effectively get picked up by alleged Alpha males.
FleetingWish starts off by distinguishing “misogyny” — in scare quotes — from bad things like racism:
[W]e cannot to fall into the common trap of lumping “misogynist” in the same category of “racist” and “homophobic”. The reason is they occur for entirely different reasons. Racist and homophobic people occur largely from lack of exposure. It’s easy to have misconceived notions of certain groups of people when you haven’t met any.
Obviously! For who in history were less racist than America’s antebellum slaveowners, white people who lived in close quarters with large numbers of black people and sometimes even fathered children with them via an ancient non-racist practice known as “raping your slaves.”
But this is not the case for women; men have met many, many women in their lives. Any “misogyny” that they may have developed (or lack thereof) has been created by their exposure to women, and those women have only confirmed their biases.
Huh. So if you retain your hate for a group of people even when you have had considerable contact with these people, this means your hate was justified? By this logic, then, slaveowners were justified in their racism, and Nazi concentration camp guards were justified in their antisemitism.
[O]n to the reason men “hate” us. There are countless complaints to be found, but they all seem to lead to the same core. They don’t see what value women can provide for them (outside of sex).
And how exactly is this the fault of the women, rather than a reflection of the rather limited imagination of the men in question?
When I first understood this, I felt disappointed and sad, because I want to feel that my presence makes a difference, and not that 50% of the population would be better off without me.
You didn’t ask: What the fuck is wrong with these guys who think that that the value of women can be reduced to what they provide men sexually?
But I wanted to find the truth behind the anger, so I asked myself two questions; “What are women providing for men in today’s society?” and “What should women be providing them?” (Or alternatively “What is it that women could provide that would make men see their worth?”)
Why would you assume there was “truth behind the anger” rather than, say, a stunted personality and a giant sense of entitlement? Why are women obligated to “provide” anything for men, apart from the basic human decency all people are generally expected to show one another?
I answered my first question by observing the world around me. We have a society where women are encouraged to behave like men. We are encouraged to be competitive, career driven, even to be brash and arrogant in order to get what we want.
None of these things are inherently male traits.
Also, we are told again and again, that not only should men not expect anything of us (not even common decency), but that we should leave any one who places any demands (or requests) on us.
Huh? I think Ms. Wish may be having imaginary conversations with those old villains the Straw Feminists.
The trouble with the first mentality is by acting like men, we run the risk of being second place to actual men. If a man wants to have a relationship of some kind with someone who behaves masculine, why would he seek a woman? … If he wants to seek out a woman, it’s because he’s seeking someone who behaves like a woman, and personifies feminine behavior.
Says you. Even setting aside all those who fall outside of, or otherwise confound, the traditional gender binary, there are plenty of straight cis men who have no problem with straight cis women whom you’d no doubt define as excessively “masculine.” Indeed, recent research suggests that men aren’t as intimidated by successful, high-earning women as the old stereotypes suggest. A recent report from the Brookings Institution noted that marriage rates amongst the top-earning women have been rising while those of lower lower-earning women have declined.
And why do you even care if other women act in a way that you’ve defined as “masculine?” If you want to act in a way you think is appropriately “feminine,” it’s your life, go for it. Let other people define “masculinity” and “femininity,” and their relationships with these concepts, how they want.
The trouble with the second mentality is that by not taking into consideration what men want from us, it takes away our ability to listen to their needs. Because men have needs, they have feelings, they have wants, and they have desires. And those needs are important, they are important for their basic happiness and fulfillment in life.
Uh, yeah. Women have needs, too. I’m pretty sure most successful long-term relationships are based on fulfilling both partners’ needs, not on forcing one partner into a “feminine” mold so as not to challenge the male ego.
The solution to both of these is actually the same. Be feminine. That’s what men are desperately craving from us. … Men don’t want a woman that they have to compete with, they compete with people all day long, at the end of the day they want someone who they don’t have to compete with.
In other words, if you’re better than him at Halo 4, go ahead and let him win. These sorts of dudes tend to have a bit of a temper.
The thing is, those men who “hate” us, they don’t really hate us, they desperately want to be able to love us. But they have been unable to with every, single, woman they have come across. And they’ve become so hurt, that they don’t know what else to do.
Uh, no, I’m pretty sure a lot of these guys really DO hate you. If you don’t believe me, I’ve got roughly 1200 posts in the Man Boobz archive that might provide some further illumination on this point — although, admittedly, some of the posts are about kitties, not misogyny. So maybe 1000 posts?
So, my challenge to anyone reading this is if you see these men on reddit, try to empathize where they are coming from. Instead of being angry at them, be understanding of them. Instead of defending yourself, defend them. Instead of telling them “you’re not like that”, show them you aren’t like that. Respond to these posts with something to the effect of “Wow, I’m really sorry that women you’ve come across have treated you so bad, I wish there was something I could do to heal that hurt you’re feeling.”
“I’m so, so sorry you think I’m a worthless bitch.”
By responding like this, you accomplish so many things. First is you are validating their concerns, second you empathize with their feelings, and third you show them that there are women who care (demonstrating to them that they might be wrong after all). You will see that if you do this, these men’s hearts will melt so fast for the opportunity to believe that there are women who care.
At least until they disagree with you about something, at which point you can expect all the old misogyny to erupt again, this time aimed directly at you.
Naturally, all the guys who for some reason were reading a subreddit devoted to the “self-improvement of women” thought that Ms. Wish’s advice to her fellow not-fellows sounded a-ok with them.
“As a male, this is spot on,” wrote one. “This actually made me get shivers. Thank you for existing. Thank you for caring.”
Posted on May 15, 2013, in a woman is always to blame, alpha males, antifeminism, gender policing, ladies against women, literal nazis, misogyny, PUA, reactionary bullshit, reddit, straw feminists and tagged anti-feminism, antifeminism, gender, misogyny, pickup artists, PUA, reddit. Bookmark the permalink. 133 Comments.
It’s a long shot, of course, but I pray that they do buy an island. I really, really really want them to buy one, especially one that’s wild and undeveloped. I can’t wait for them to get dysentery and come back with diaper rash, and blame it all on women.
@Howard- that is actually a little bit heartbreaking. Like, it devolves from “bitchez ain’t shit lulz lull lull” to “… sometimes I miss human physical contact.”
And then I remember they are assholes, so no sympathy.
*shudder* Never have I been gladder to be gay/asexual.
Right, it’s like, No SHIT, Sherlock, treating women in a dehumanizing way and playing mindgames to get sex from them whether they want it or not leads to an emotionally unsatisfying life? And you’re probably a rapist? Welp.
I do not know what Kino Escalate is and I am scared to google fu it.
There are times I really wish that sex work was a legal and respected profession.
Because then someone could go to a sex worker and hire them, even if it was only for a cuddle puddle for an hour.
You know, I would ALMOST feel sorry for the person who wrote this. Because here’s a woman who saw a bunch of assholes who hate women, and instead of saying “Wow, what a bunch of noxious assholes! I want nothing to do with them.” Her reaction was to say “How can I get the assholes to like/tolerate me?”
I mean, that’s pretty sad, and if she’d stopped there, I might feel sorry for someone like that who places the approval of assholes above their own self-worth.
However, I don’t feel sorry for her, because after “thinking” about it, she comes to the conclusion that the problem isn’t with a certain vocal subset of men being assholes, no, the problem is with ALL women, instead. Or all modern women, or all Western women, or all women who don’t just do whatever these assholes say.
She blames women for not listening, but the thing is that women ARE listening to these guys. They’ve been listening for years, and what they’ve learned from all that listening is that manosphere guys are fucking disgusting.
Great article, David. Ms. FleetingWish’s hate-apologist exposé is about the dumbest thing that I have ever read.
I feel the same way, becausescience. I do feel sorry for women with internalized misogny, because I know what it’s like and I’m sure many other women do, too. The problem with fleetingwish and other FeMRA’s is that they then direct their misogyny toward other women.
No kidding. I want to ask her, “Why do you want praise from guys like them? Their opinions don’t amount to shit. There are many wonderful men out there that won’t demand you put yourself in a second class status just to win their respect”.
Sorry to go back to Michelle Duggar, but I do feel sorry for her about how she has to dress. Her religion demands that she always wear long dresses and be modest, but she’s also on TV for the whole world to watch and laugh at her for looking frumpy. Even in Arkansas or Branson, people stare at her and the daughters for wearing their long prairie skirts with hair down to their butts. I don’t know, but by laughing at the way they look, it seems like people are just laughing at their oppression. Does that make any sense or am I just rambling?
You know, the most apparent hatred I’ve received from men in my life is when I’ve been working at very pink collar jobs, where I do usually wear a lot of dresses and skirts because it’s easier to find my size in skirts and dresses.
Men, almost always men, who already have a bone to pick get their ire up even more when they hear my very feminine voice over the phone, or see me, looking youngish and feminine, and generally feel far more entitled to call me “stupid” or “worthless” etc, etc when they are not getting the answer they want to hear - and usually they are not getting the answer they want to hear, not because I’m a horrible masculine, man-hating woman, but because it is part of my job to not disclose the kind of information these kinds of men are generally demanding I disclose.
What’s especially funny to me is that I’ve never once, in a year of playing co-ed volleyball, gotten any verbal swats from any of the men I play with, and I’m really pretty darn competitive when it comes to sports. I’ve blocked and been able to dig a fair number of their spikes too, and give a pretty decent amount of spikes back. But none of these men I play with seem to hate women, or begrudge the women who are part of our group. Not one of these men has told me “you know, I compete with men all day. The last thing I want to do is show up on the court and have to compete with a woman who everyone knows can only serve half as well as a man”.
It’s almost like FW’s screed is bullshit and there are lots of men out there who aren’t entitled warts and just some men who are entitled warts who want to hate on women no matter what.
I get it when misogynist men reject the idea that women are people and go around acting like people. It is harder for me to understand misogynist women who reject the idea that women are people and chastise women for acting like people.
It is not humanly possible to live up to unrealistic expectations and yet unrealistic expectations are the only kind many people seem to have. Of others, of course, not themselves.
Maybe themselves too. I don’t know.
I can relate to that so well. I agree that there are some men that will treat women in customer service much worse than men, and I think it’s because they see women as a weak, easy target. They’re like “How dare she not let me have my way, when she is a woman and I am above her!” Add that to the ridiculous idea of “the customer is ALWAYS right” and you get that kind of behavior.
What made me the maddest was when they would say something sexually degrading and act offended when I referred them to a manager. It’s like yes, sexual harassment is still wrong even when it’s a customer doing it. Sorry to go off on that rant, but I waited tables at a truck stop in high school, so I’ve had my fair share of sexist asshole customer experiences.
And I didn’t look at guys like that and decide “God, men suck” just because of them. Yet when MRA’s and PUA’s encounter bad women, they then paint all women with the same brush.
I wonder how people like this woman on Reddit even know what it takes to eliminate misogyny. She talks with such authoritativeness, and yet her thesis betrays a stunning ignorance of history.
For much of the pre-feminism period, women were reviled, at least by intellectuals, not for being too “masculine”, but for being feminine. Numerous writers in the vein of St. Jerome described women as animalistic, brainless, and basically non-human, precisely because they were deemed to lack qualities traditionally associated with men — such as competitiveness, intellectual success and courage in battle; a non-insignificant number of theologians claimed that women are like animals in that they have no soul, and thus do not enter heaven.
Even moralists who were less extreme nevertheless agreed that women’s very femininity made them unsuitable for companionship. A man could only have love and meaningful companionship with another man. Women were deemed fit for sexual pleasure and breeding only. Writings on the subject — such as those of Michel de Montaigne — are extremely depressing to a woman, as they postulate that a woman has nothing to look forward to in her relationship with a man -no love, no intimacy, no companionship — just mechanical sex, child-bearing, and endless humiliation, but in word and in print.
So clearly, those poor men who lived in the 16th century, didn’t hate women, they were desperate for being able to love women, if only women were more like men. Which is the opposite of what this Reddit woman is claiming.
This seems to be a good time to leave this here:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/this-is-the-most-epic-brand-meltdown-on-facebook-ever
I saw that yesterday; the Yelp reviews are too much. Sometimes you can’t tell which ones are real and which ones aren’t.
“For much of the pre-feminism period, women were reviled, at least by intellectuals, not for being too “masculine”, but for being feminine.”
I think that’s how things are today, too.
@princessbonbon, that meltdown was very cringeworthy. I kept reading and wondering how far they would dig their hole. I must say, though, the inside of their bakery was very pretty.
@thebionicmommy- I had a sudden flash on the sort of woman who would want these sorts of men to like her is someone who grew up in surrounded by deeply misogynistic people, who grew up hearing over and over that it is the duty of women to serve and the duty of men to steamroller over women. The only sort of person who writes screeds like this is the sort of person that has internalized that abusive behavior is normal.
And then I was EXTREMELY depressed, because there are parts of society where people think that those levels of misogyny are normal.
If Amy is the one who did the design work, she is very good at that. Stick to what you know I would say.
pineapplecookies —
“Btw, I’m new here…So I decided to enter the lounge and have a cookie and some tea too”
We have chairs and penguins too! And a whole welcome package! Cushions are available upon request (well, until someone finds the link to that rant about how couch pillows are feminine and pillows get added to the welcome package)
thebionicmommy — “Does that make any sense or am I just rambling?” — yeah, that made sense, and, much as I hate the “quiver full” movement, mocking them isn’t cool (or at least the kids anyways, I guess Michelle made her own choice)
Odd that FleetingWish is setting herself up to advise women how they can catch themselves an “Alpha” male when the men she’s advising them to pander to display personality traits more often found in alcoholics, addicts, gamblers, etc. rather than high-status, high-earning men, so I have to wonder if she’s running a scam or if she really is that deluded.
I myself mock many of the tenets of Quiverfull, especially its misogyny, reactionary ideals, and rigid gender roles. I guess I just don’t feel right to mock the way the women look, since they are pressured to do so by their communities. If they dressed in jeans or T-shirts like me, then they would be slut shamed and ostracized in their churches. But by adhering to their churches’ dress codes, they get mocked by the rest of the world for being frumpy. What bothers me is that the women are the ones getting all the crap for how they look, even though they have the least power in these groups. They are just like how M Dubz described as
They are brainwashed to see themselves as inferior, to believe their status is a servant and brood mare, and that their own needs and desires don’t matter. So when they choose to dress like Little House on the Prairie, it’s a decision made based on huge societal pressures. But for the patriarchs of these families, I won’t give them nearly this kind of slack.
Karalora: Yes! It’s always astounded me that manospherians put all this strange thought and theory into male/female relationships, but not into all their other human relationships. Won’t someone tell me how I can ditch my loser beta manbros and attract some more alpha friends? Won’t someone lay down some evobiotruths about what kinds of dudes I should play videos games with for maximum Darwin points?
Going back to the “attracting alphas” in the title, I think one of the basic reasons that I find PUA stuff so hard to understand is that it requires women to be carnivorous plants. Women can’t actually actively go after a guy they want, they have to “attract” him into going after them. If you take that assumption away by giving women the least little bit of agency, the whole Greek Letter theoretical edifice collapses. Since most of my relationships have been initially initiated by women*, does that make me a sexy manly alpha, or a passive un-man poodlebeta? Maybe I’m just really good looking? I’ll bet that’s it.
Also, fuck that no competition bullshit. Having a competent live in opponent is one of the main reasons I like being in a relationship. Being around someone who is as good or better than me at stuff makes me get better at stuff.
*”It is cool how we both like/hate the same things. I am doing a thing later, perhaps you would like to do that thing with me?” Pretty sneaky fPUAistry, women. I can see how you’d need a whole subreddit to discuss this technique.
Pinapplecookies, hi and welcome! Please accept your Official Manboobz Complimentary Welcome Package. Use it well while Oppressing teh Menz!
Exactly. I really appreciate and am often attracted to women who are highly competent in their fields. If it’s a field I don’t know well, all the better. I can learn something from them, and our conversations will never get boring.
Plus, I’m egotistical enough as it is. The last thing I need is some fawning sycophant to inflate me even more. I much prefer people — men and women and otherwise — who will check me on my bullshit with love, confidence and compassion.
Whoops, ninjaed on the welcome package!
Kitteh —
thebionicmommy — point noted, and I did mean mocking her religious type decisions not wtf she wears, but context and lack of clarity and yeah, I failed. Hard to sort which is which though — actual choice versus no real option without being shunned. Maybe it’s the “put it all on TV part” that bugs me so much (and, of course, raising the kids to think their value is solely tied to making as many babies as possible)
@Aaliyah
You are correct. The reason “traditional” gender roles are so much harder on women than men is that women are screwed whether they follow the script or not. If they don’t, they’re transgressing, but if they do, they’re assumed to be weak, simpering, and incompetent. For all the “separate but equal” blather, femininity is definitely not given the same respect as masculinity.
I had a similar conversation recently with a friend about the “ideal” appearance standards for men and women. The ideally masculine and ideally feminine physiques are arguably equally hard to attain, but the closer a man approaches to his, the better off he will be in ways unrelated to appearance - physical strength, stamina, etc., which are good to have even if nobody ever looks at you. The closer a woman approaches to the ideal feminine physique, the…um…better she looks by conventional standards? Being very thin with big boobs doesn’t really do anything for a person apart from being considered cute.
No worries, I get what you’re saying. You didn’t fail at all. It’s just the subject matter is so complex. And there are things Michelle does that I have serious problems with, like her making the oldest daughters tend to their younger siblings instead of pursuing their own academics and interests, pushing the kids in front of the cameras to make a spectacle out of the size of the family, sending the sons off to right wing militia training camps, and expressing so many right wing, Christian beliefs. Sorry, I could go on forever on the subject, because I find it so fascinating after leaving a fundie church in my teens and reading feminist responses to the whole Christian patriarchal movement, like Quiverfull by Kathryn Joyce.
And this kind of stuff really gets me annoyed with the feminists that put down “choosy choice feminism” as classist and elitist. Um, I’m not sure how women who are brainwashed into servitude are showing privilege by not working and raising ten or more children, especially when to do so, many of them live without things like running water, enough food, or access to health care. (They aren’t allowed to ever accept government help but still must live on one income.) Oh yes, that is so privileged of them for “choosing a choice” even when they made their choices under the authority of a dominating patriarch. I would rather everyone, including women, be free to actually make choices that make themselves happy, and that is not elitist at all.
LOL, sorry I should make my own blog that is pro choose my choice feminism. It’s just frustrating to see feminists put other feminists down for making choices when they cut way more slack to FeMRA’s.
Not only does it do nothing for one’s health, it doesn’t even make it easier by fitting those stereotypes. When was the last time anyone saw off-the-rack clothing that was made to fit a thin woman with big breasts? Just another small example of how fitting the demands doesn’t actually help.
2 truck stops, a hole-in-the-wall diner and a skeevy coffee shop here. I encountered less sexist crap when I worked on an adult phone line, fer crissakes.
I really should read Reddit more, bc I had no idea that men compete all day long! Now I’m going to further please busband* by asking him today (and each day) if he won, and what his standings are.
So I asked “How was your day? Did you win?”
“Win what?” he said.
“The competition,” I said.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said, then showed me the new ship he got in his Star Trek game. I explained to him that because he is a man, he competes every day. He said “The only competition is maybe between you and me, like who’s gonna clean the litterbox first, and I don’t want to win that one. Check out my new engineering console!” So he must be a beta or a pi cappa gamma or something.
*busband = boyfriend/husband hybrid
““The only competition is maybe between you and me, like who’s gonna clean the litterbox first, and I don’t want to win that one.”
LOL Mum and I have that competition, but there’s a real incentive to get there fast when Fribs has waged biological warfare on the house.
Thank you for the welcome and the package!
However, I got utterly distracted reading the Tom Martin’s thread… I can’t stop laughing or reading that. There are even some awesome recipes over there! Gotta try those!
I will be back soon on topic.
(Btw, what a strange nickname mine became… I wanted just pineapple because I was craving it. They didn’t let me register it… somehow the cookies just arrived.)
Y’know, I met a lot of guys in my youth who were threatened by me. I’m lucky* enough to be queer, so I just dated mostly women. Problem solved.
I did wind up with a guy though…when we met, he was initially attracted to me because I was the only woman at this party wearing boots, a flannel shirt and a baseball cap (I like to be stylish, what can I say? also I was moving). Also I made fun of him like crazy because he was whining about being sore after doing a notoriously difficult 12-mile hike in our area (it has a 4,000-foot elevation climb and is literally all uphill).
Recently a friend of his asked him what he liked most about me, and after some thought he said, “Well, she’s a real bitch in all the best ways.” We have a daily “20 minute hate” session where we tell each other about our days to much mockery from each other. It is delightful.
He’s also a total manly man that would make the MRA proud (except for the fact that he’s not a misogynist and doesn’t like submissive women, of course). He worked for years in mining (and *gasp* as a foreman he actively tried to change the culture to help female miners feel comfortable because he thought the discrimination they faced was terrible), and now he works with explosives and weaponry. He likes sports and cheap beer, much to my chagrin (well, on the latter count anyway…I do love me some baseball). He’s muscular and strong, and was a semi-professional martial artist when he was younger. And yet he loves that I am also strong and capable and an equal partner in our relationship, and frequently cites that as his main attraction to me.
I always kinda wonder what MRAs would make of us, because if I followed their “relationship advice,” I wouldn’t be with the person I love right now.
*well, lucky in that sense anyway. And while I wound up in a het relationship, the only reason two of my long-term queer relationships fell apart was because I want kids (adopted or biological, I don’t care) and she didn’t. Otherwise I’d probably be happily gay married.
“(Btw, what a strange nickname mine became… I wanted just pineapple because I was craving it. They didn’t let me register it… somehow the cookies just arrived.)”
As all good cookies should!
Your pineapple-coloured kitty is very cute, btw.
So FleetingWish thinks men are some kind of Sith Lords for whom women must be “useful” in order for them to approve of/not actively hate our existence?
Man, having that impression of (approximately) 50% of the population must suck.
@Kendra
Agreed completely. Even for those women who choose to wear of their own free will, it’s straight dickery to make fun of them because it’s not some random fashion choice it’s a choice to wear their cultural clothes. It’s like laughing at the Amish for their clothing, or laughing at South Asian women for wearing a salwar kameez (which is also designed with modesty (measured by how little skin it shows) in mind, especially with the more traditional styles), or the bullshit leveled at women in burqas.
The quiverfull movement used to be a source of amusement to me, back when I thought they were just a bunch of peeps doing a lot of fucking because they find people like me so terrifying (I always wanted to meet one of them just to say “You’re welcome”). But after hearing about all the child abuse and stuff, I really grew to hate them. Not just because of the abuse itself (though that’s obviously more than enough), but there’s this additional feeling of transferred ick when you realise that they’re doing all this because of their ridiculous fear of you.
@Tracy
Can’t lie, I thought y’all met at work and he was bussing tables. I had the rom-com all drawn up in my head
…. I lied, there’s nothing in my head. But the idea that there could be a rom-com named Busband is now drawn up in my head.
@MKlein
One of the qualifications of being an MRA or PUA seems to be that you need to think humanity ain’t shit.
AK - loved reading about you and Mr AK.
It made me think of how one of the things I love about Mr K is that he isn’t, by current standards, a straight-out “manly man”. I’m not sure he was even by the standards of his own time, when masculinity was framed rather differently. Ballet, for example, was seen as a very masculine art and eminently fit for kings to take part in. I just love the combination of a soldier who’d risk his own neck leading his army across the Alps in winter, and who’d sew or paint or compose or cook in his leisure time. And that’s just his earthly days … now one can add “is a total cat person” to the list.
That is the premise of quite a few high school based movies/tv shows, except the characters are almost always girls rather than boys, and one of the payoffs of the ‘cooler’ friends is the more ‘alpha’ guy.
@Shadow - yeah, I know. Somehow I just never get over it.
You know, I like the soft, sugar-and-pastel, field-of-flowers feeling that femininity entails to me. I am looking for some skirts and dresses I can wear everyday, long enough where I can enjoy the swirling feeling around my legs as I spin around (I loved doing that as a little kid). I could go on longer about the cute and girly things I like, but moving on.
Ahem.
…But then someone “praises” feminine women in a way that makes me go, “Eeek! Get away, get away!” and put up my fists like a boxer. I put that word in quotes because it probably is intended to be flattering. But it doesn’t flatter me because the *reason* they like it is not what I want.
That may have sounded a little confusing so tl;dr, I want to enjoy the style, but not the supposed limitations.
BritterSweet - I hear ya on the long skirts! I’m wearing one now. Ditto on the fists.
(Not that I get called feminine or girly or anything. Could be because when I’m walking/limping my demeanour is generally “Get the fuck out of my way!”)
@BritterSweet- Yeah, totally seconded. Like, I want to wear skirts and heels and lipstick and have long supermodel type hair. In the summer, I love breaking out my sun dresses and wandering around like a total fairy princess earth mama. But don’t play like I won’t kick your ass at being smart and ambitious while wearing my fairy princess clothes. My personal style and my personality do not necessarily correlate at all.
Hey a bittersweet, I like the swishy dresses thing too and I liked the difference it gave me in a very male environment .. But now I’m in the horror of reconstructive surgery I’m having to reasses all my assumptions about “beauty” and femininity. I’m not sure what the answer is, but I feel horrific shame for every time I saw a person with a weight problem and mentally put them down. Maybe doing an angelina Jolie without the fabulous surgeons and treatment is my penance .. More likely I have to work harder.
So I’m basically supposed to be a Stepford Wife? [i]Really?[/i]
You know, I hate reading this kind of crap, because it almost always becomes a kind of sacred validation for arseholes everywhere. I am sick of coming across Girlwriteswhat, etc links posted by shitstains who honestly believe that because a woman said it about her own sex, it must be true.
And seriously, we all want to be comforted sometimes, but that responsibility shouldn’t fall squarely on the shoulders of women. I am not a blankey! I am human being with my own desires and needs, for fuck’s sake!
This brings to mind something I’ve wondered before: Do you think that someone who desires a submissive partner is inherently wrong/ not a nice person. Say, if someone were to say that they could only live with someone who lets them make all the decisions. I have a hard time accepting that that person isn’t just selfish, but maybe there is someone out there for everyone…
Yeah, this. I felt the same way on reading some of Clarisse Thorn’s posts on PUA. Like that extract from her PUA book about how this PUA guy basically kidnaps her to his apartment and pester her for sex all night. She keeps saying no, and EVENTUALLY gets to leave his place after insisting an entire night that she really doesn’t wanna have sex with him and really really wants to go home. Then she gives him a kiss before she leaves, and then she feels bad about only giving him a kiss and nothing more than that. I shit you not.
I know lots of feminists are pissed off at Clarisse for the PUA-stuff she’s written, but my reaction is more along the lines of “that’s fucking sad”.
Regarding what men gets from women… The reason Husband is the love of my life is basically that we have SO MUCH IN COMMON. That we UNDERSTAND each other so well, and THINK so alike. We meet people who are different from us all day long; it’s wonderful and relaxing to come home to someone who just “gets” you.
But people’s mileage obviously vary on this. I was once in an internet discussion with a guy (who I think mistook me for man btw, since the whole discussion was originally about which female guest stars in Star Trek TOS were hottest, and everyone always assumes that only men could be interested in that topic), and he thought it completely incomprehensible that anyone could want to marry someone who’s “just like me but with a vagina”. Um, why not? Never really got that clarified, to him it was just obvious.
Hey, I missed An Inconvenient Truth saying
I wish we still had Manjaw the Mighty to ask him what is wrong with furry armed 40 something women working in Human Resources. And copulation? Why do PUA’s use terms like this when they’re talking about sex? It makes them sound like Maude Lebowski, except I hate to compare her to these guys.
So, Inconvenient Truth, if you want to date 20 something waitresses, that’s terrific. Just stop claiming to speak for other men when you discuss your preferences.
@Shadow, I agree. There are some people of color in Quiverfull, too, though. The people of color in the movement aren’t trying to “outbreed” people of other races and ethnicities, but people of other religions. I don’t think religious sectarian prejudices are any better, though. Here is a video of a woman married to a man of color and they were Quiverfull together. She had to divorce him, though, because he was very abusive. The church excommunicated her for leaving.
“It’s a natural, zesty enterprise.”
Wow, that’s provocing
Thank you, Kittehserf! ^^ I enjoyed making this kitty avatars, they are so cute.
I believe it’s sad when people put relationships in little boxes of “do’s / don’ts” and make everything seem like some kind of game….
Also, the “heteronormativity” of these discourses kind of annoys me. So there are only man/woman couples in the world. That’s the only possibility ever. Right…
So, for me to be loved by men - because the author seems to think that would be my sole concern - I need not to behave like a man…. I wonder what “behaving like a man” really is. Because, quite frankly, by reading this I cannot really understand. Do they seem to think that certain characteristics are “natural”?
I’m rambling
“It’s a natural, zesty enterprise.”
You mean coitus? I thought we were talking about my rug.
I like this. I’ve been using “partner”, but every so often people will get confused and upset when it turns out the “partner” I’ve been referring to is a man (which I would understand if it was queer people objecting, but it’s usually not).
ostara321: My wife works phone-desk in a tech-support center that services medical staff. She has told me she can always tell when a caller is obviously thrown by the fact that they’re asking a woman for help with their computer.
It happens most frequently with older doctors (who, because of past sexism, tend to be heavily skewed towards men), whose understanding of computers is “Magic box that should do this when I do that.” Doctors, almost by training, tend to have a tendency towards hubris-you HAVE to be a bit arrogant, just to have the confidence needed to get the job done in the first place, because if you’re inclined to second-guess yourself, you’ll never stick out a tough treatment.
So you have this guy who has spent the last 40 years of his life practically ‘playing God’ now suddenly having to ask a woman half his age for help with technology. They feel stupid (and really, a good many of their callers are, at least, prone to brain-lock when it comes to computers-as in, being literally unable to type the same password twice in a row), and they take their embarrassment out on the person they’ve called for help.
The company’s policies won’t let them get away with actual verbal abuse, there’s still a lot they can do to make the support personnel miserable-accusations of incompetence, refusing to answer questions, etc.
Wouldn’t men needing a doormat kind of make them inferior to women in a sense? If strength and independence were male traits, then wouldn’t it be unmanly for a man to depend on half the population to serve him so he can feel “strong”? That would be like someone demanding GameFreak to make a Pokemon game where half the other trainers had level 2 Magikarps, and then whining that GameFreak was preventing you from winning the game and being unfair when they refused.
This all sounds more like a mother and child’s relationship too… Where the kid goes to school and comes home and talks about what they did, and the mother treats them like some super genius that will grow up into an astronaut. However in this case, it would be a full grown man coming home, so it’s more pathetic than cute.
See, what I find interesting about wishfuls post is that I’ve spent my entire life being told that men don’t want unambitious women. Why? Because they don’t want to be the sole provider, they want a woman who makes a comparable amount of money (and therefore has a comparable education and career) so that the burden of hardwork to achieve financial and material comfort goals are more evenly spread. Which was supposed to nix me ever having a long term partner.
Which amounts to one of two possibilities. The first being that men as a group have a wide range of needs and desires in finding a life partner. The second being that there is a large group of men seeking partners that give them the best of what ambitious career women can offer but also wanting the best of what ambitous family and home oriented women have to offer. This in spite of the fact that society has yet to achieve a structure to allow women to balance those kinds of demands or to remove the inherent obstacles to the two often conflicting roles women are expected to perform.
So once again, we have advice to women that’s only going to attract a very small (and frankly unnatractive) group of men AND ensure that instability and dissatisfaction are seamlessly integrated into the relationship from the very first hello. Good job!
Auggie: Your argument there parallels how a lot of Atheists feel about public prayer-if this Big Guy in the Sky is so all-powerful, why is it that He needs constant, public reassurances about His all-powerfulness? (Note: There are, in fact, multiple passages in the Gospels, at least, that argue directly against public adulation of the deity for this very reason.)
@Carlelyblue:
Yeah, I have a hard time thinking it’s anything but someone being an arsehole/controlling/projecting their own insecurities. Especially when it’s laden with misogyny, like this shit.
Yeah, I think there’s a definite tie-in with the customer service thing and verbal abuse directed at women in customer servicey jobs. I think it’s all sort of balled up in that mess too of a lot of customer servicey type jobs being devalued specifically because they are deemed “pink collar”. I think it goes back to the stupid “women don’t work, they just do stupid make work jobs” BS some of the MRAs like Owly spout off. The idea that women can’t possibly work as well as a man - therefore their job is stupid - their job is stupid = they are stupid.
@freemage, hooo lord, that was a lot of my experience at a public library. As someone young-ish and mildly computer competent, I was often solicited to give a lot of help to the people who would just drop in expecting us to fill out their job applications or tax forms for them (instead of making an appointment like a considerate person who realizes we have jobs outside of standing over their shoulder walking them through every click-through agreement form) and I could tell there was some of that indignant attitude from some of the older men, particularly when I couldn’t make the magic box do what they wanted it to do. So it was my fault. Even though they couldn’t figure HOW I was doing it wrong, clearly I was stupid and I was doing it wrong.
But, you know, that’s what I get for COMPETING with men. Clearly I should have just said I didn’t know anything and not tried to help them with anything so that way they could feel smarter than me. Their shit never would have gotten done, but who cares about the janitorial job I helped that one guy get, or the bus tickets I helped that other guy order, or the soccer coach who’s summer schedule I typed up half of? I mean, men’s egos are on the line! How DARE I help them figure out how to do stuff on the computer?
As someone who used to espouse these very ideas, I appreciate Manboobz commentary on them just so, so much. If you protect the fragile male egos of basement-dwelling Redditors by being everything they want you to be all the time, they’ll reward you with their affection.
WHERE DO I SIGN UP