This may be the stupidest thing I've read in awhile, and I've read a lot of stupid this week. But Ann Althouse, for sheer vapidity, you take the cake:
A classic feminist question is why must it be women's job to make men good? One answer is that men will be so horribly bad if we don't.
I'll leave the issue of whether "why must it be women's job to make men good" is really a "classic feminist question" to people better versed in feminist history than I. I'd like to focus instead on this notion that women should serve men because if we don't, "men will be so horribly bad."
(Permit me this opportunity to remind everyone that it's the so-called "gender feminists" who really hate men.)
This is Bill Cosby and the chocolate cake all over again. I can't believe we're still hearing this. Do you know what I'm talking about? It's this bit by Bill Cosby--I don't know where it's from and no longer remember where I first heard it*--where he tells the story of his wife nagging him one morning to, just for once, be the one to get up early and get the children their breakfasts so she can sleep in. For once, please God, let her be the one to sleep in on a Saturday!
So as the Cos tells it, he gets up, utterly clueless as to what his children actually eat in the mornings, or where anything is located in the kitchen, or, well, anything at all about his own offspring and the house in which they all live, and so in the end, stumped, he simply lets the children persuade him to give them chocolate cake for breakfast.
The wife gets up, sees the kids face-planted into plates of chocolate cake, and shrieks at Cosby to GO TO HIS ROOM.
"Which," Bill concludes, smirking, "is what I had wanted to do in the first place."
I don't know what Cosby's point with that story was but I'll tell you what I get out of it: When you think your man is playing dumb with you just to get out of doing his part around the house, you're probably right. See, otherwise, I have to believe Bill Cosby is too brain-damaged to find a box of Rice Krispies in his own kitchen, then perform the complex operation of decanting Krispies and milk into bowls--and while that's tempting to consider, ultimately I can't buy it.
From what I can tell of Ann's post, to be a Christina Hoff-Sommers feminist (and we all recall what I think of that oxymoron), and to be receptive to Harvey Mansfield's premise in Manliness, you must embrace doublethink in the most fervent way. You must hold, simultaneously, the idea that men are intelligent enough, driven enough, and self-sacrificing enough to put themselves on the moon; and the idea that they are incapable of exercising any of these qualities to accomplish anything that might, however meagerly, help women--whether that's doing their share of the dishes, learning to sit still in class, or eradicating rape.
You must hold, simultaneously, both the idea that men possess superior logical and analytical skills, are more rational; and the idea that men are utterly flummoxed, to the point of being no longer able to follow simple linear thought processes, when placed into that most ordinary of rooms, the kitchen.
You must hold, simultaneously, the idea that men can endure worse hardships than women, living for months under threats of dehydration, starvation, and isolation-induced hysteria; and the idea that men cannot reach "the higher ethical levels of manhood" without, you guessed it, more fucking blood, sweat, and tears from women.
It is this level of irrationality that fuels my disgust with Hoff-Sommers, Mansfield, and any other "oh no, wimmen are emasculating us!" whiner out there. And for the life of me, I cannot see what this has to do with conservatism except in the purest sense, that sense of wanting to stand athwart history, yelling "Stop!" Harvey Mansfield certainly does seem to want women to Stop. Don't you know your commitment to excellence in life is hurting men, bitches?
But notions of standing athwart history aside, the idea that it is women's responsibility to civilize men is antithetical to conservative ideals of self-reliance, self-sufficiency, and self-sacrifice. I do not understand the current conservative fascination with claiming that men are the real victims in modern life. I do understand that I have grown immune to these complaints. I do not care if men "will be so horribly bad." It is my view that too many of them already are so horribly bad.
It is further my view that ethics of accountability and responsibility demand that men fix the problems of men--not me. Or, as Hugo Schwyzer puts it:
This is complementarianism (the notion that the two sexes have predetermined, specific roles to play in human relationship) at its worst. It burdens women with the task of making men better. It liberates men from taking responsibility for taking the primary leadership role in nurturing younger men into ethical, responsible adulthood. And it implies, none too subtly, that destructive and violent men become that way because of women's failures, not because of their own personal choices as males.
(Hugo has some emphasis in the original, but that above is mine.) Hugo also brings his faith to bear on the issue:
My Christian side cries foul as well, even more loudly. As Christians, men and women alike, we are called to become ever more and more like Christ. We all know the Epistle:When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.
Paul didn't write:
When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. With the constant pressure and encouragement of women in my life, I became a man; I put childish ways behind me only because my mommy and my wife helped me ascend to the higher ethical levels of manhood.
Men and women alike are called to be "new creations" in Christ. As Genesis makes clear, rigid gender roles with their strict complementarianism are a holdover from the Fall, but in Christ all things are made new. To me, that has always meant that as a believer, I can never, ever, ever, ever, say "I'm just a man, I can't help being the way I am."
I guess we don't have to worry about Hugo feeding anyone chocolate cake for breakfast. But it's okay if he does, because we can bank on Hoff-Sommers, Mansfield, Ann Althouse, and all manner of "equity feminists" to excuse him for it. He can't help it! He's a guy! That makes him almost as good as mentally deficient! (But, right, it's feminists who hate men.)
I admire Hugo tremendously for putting the burden of achieving excellence where it belongs. Thanks, man, for not putting it on me or on any other woman.
We have enough to do in a day, thank you.
*Oh-ho! Here it is.
UPDATE: Althouse updates her post to note that "some hotheads" out there "don't get" her sarcasm, and in fact:
I heartily resist the notion that it is women's work to make men good.
It's good to have the clarification, but honestly, I don't think I'm the only one who didn't get the sarcasm, and that sarcasm goes curiously unmentioned even as commenters on the post react to the statement literally, beginning with the third comment in the thread:
It is comments or "questions" like these that make me absolutely dismissive of "feminists":"A classic feminist question is why must it be women's job to make men good? One answer is that men will be so horribly bad if we don't."
Imagine the reaction if a similar but different construct was used from the other side. "A masculinist question is why it must be a man's job to make women tough. One answer is that women will be so horribly wimpy if we don't."
Followed by:
The problem Gerry, is that you have all these women crusaders on a crusade to change men who are perfectly fine as they are. The result is a continual buzzing of harrassment day-in and day-out that bleeds life of its beauty. I think the problem is that these female chauvinists have good intentions, and so are entirely oblivious to the harm they are causing in the world. They make the world a worse place for the majority of men, and we shouldn't validate their delusional perspective by presuming that men are naturally bad and need improvement.
And:
A classic feminist question is why must it be women's job to make men good? One answer is that men will be so horribly bad if we don't.I guess it depends on how you define "horribly bad". The PC thought seems to be that men are responsible for all that's bad in the world, war, famine, slavery, oppression, and everything else. This has been going on for a long time and if something could be done I think that it would already have been done.
Finally Ann herself jumps in:
I hope people are reading the whole article. The answer I present for the "classic question" is taken from Mansfield. It's not the feminists who say women are needed to civilize men. It's the traditionalists!
. . . but while she correctly attributes Mansfield's sentiments, I don't see a whole lotta indication that his answer is one she "heartily rejects."
So, is it me? Am I stupid? Am I just some hothead who doesn't get the sarcasm? Or is this simply the same routine every Friend of Glenn pulls when they're insulted? Because, you know, when you link an article with:
I've been ignoring that book "Manliness" by Harvy C. Mansfield, but Christina Hoff Sommers is writing about it -- in the Weekly Standard -- so I'm going to pay some attention
And that article is basically one long handjob for Mansfield, culminating in:
The world of gender studies has never before had to confront anyone quite like this solitary rogue male professor of politics. Critics will rail against his excesses and feminists will be indignant and offended. But many women will be charmed by his effrontery, and grateful for the truth and wisdom in Mansfield's elegant treatise.
Then maybe, I don't know, people would have to really fine-tune their sarcasm detectors to pick up on it?
Well, it's back to ignoring the so-called big bloggers, for me. Because I just don't get their sarcasm, for one, and for another, they never engage their critics directly, with links, because They Have Too Much Dignity for That. I'm tired of their ridiculous pretensions, the whole "We're up here; you're down there" nonsense that has turned the writing on most big blogs dry, dull, and joyless--an awful lot more like their nemesis, The Mainstream Media, than most of them prefer to admit--because that's what Glenn Reynolds likes and that's what Glenn Reynolds links. To hell with them all.
Posted by Ilyka at April 7, 2006 12:41 PM in f is for feminismThanks, Ilyka.
Posted by: Hugo at April 7, 2006 03:22 PMThank you. Excellent job on putting on the hypocritical beliefs together.
Posted by: Katherine at April 7, 2006 03:56 PMDo you have *any* "conservative" readers left who aren't either frothing at the mouth or hunting you with torches & pitchforks in hand?
Posted by: Craig R. at April 7, 2006 08:07 PMExcellent takedown of the "men are mighty, but can't do a blessed thing without women" theory of manhood, and Mansfield sure is a piece of work - but where has Hoff Sommers expressed that view? (Honest question - I read lots of stuff by her years ago, and I don't recall that particular view coming up in her work.)
Posted by: Moebius Stripper at April 8, 2006 09:34 AMCountee Cullen
Tribute (to my mother)
Because man is not virtuous in himself,
Nor kind, no given to sweet charities,
Save goaded by the little kindling elf
Of some dear face it pleases him to please;
Some men who else were humbled to the dust,
Have marveled that the chastening hand should stay,
And never dreamed they held their lives in trust
To one the victor loved a world away.
So, I, least noble of a churlish race,
Least kind of those by nature rouh and crude, Have at the intervention of your face
Spared him with whom was my most bitter feud
One moment, and the next, a deed more grand,
The helpless fly imprisoned in my hand.
So there too!
Posted by: Malcolm Kirkpatrick at April 8, 2006 10:59 AMPoint, MS. I read the Weekly Standard piece more closely and realized she is only quoting Mansfield's view in the article, as excerpted in Ann's post:
In the private sphere, his advice is vivé la difference! A woman should not expect a manly man to be as committed to domesticity as she is; nor should she assume that he is as emotionally adept as her female friends. Manly men are romantic rather than sensitive. They need a lot of help from females to ascend to the higher ethical levels of manhood, and Mansfield urges women to encourage them in ways respectful of their male pride.
. . . but it's like this: When I find you fawning over Mansfield in the Weekly Standard, and I know you've written a book called The War on Boys, and every misogynist asshole on the web throws your work in my face to remind me that Men and Women Are Different--maybe I fail, then, to detect the subtle differences between your position and Mansfield's.
Posted by: ilyka at April 8, 2006 11:54 AMIn the same vein, I was reading part of an interview with Prince Charles yesterday where he said:
...Asked how men could be encouraged to pay more attention to their health, Charles said: "Via the ladies, I'd have thought."It's funny, the influence that women can have on getting us men sorted out is enormous," said Charles
(Yes, I'm still here, no I'm not frothing. That would be so unladylike, don't you know)
Posted by: Ith at April 8, 2006 12:14 PMCraig
I'm one of those nasty conservative equity feminists who finds Ilyka a great read (even if from time to time I disagree)
Have you broken out in hives yet?
PS Ilyka? Cosby's chocolate cake thing is a comedy routine...and, personal taste and all, I find his old routines much funnier than the crap being touted these days by standups who think profanity laced spiels about either 1-fucking anything that moves 2-any one that doesn't want to fuck anything that moves is a moron...
That aside. No, it is NOT a woman's "responsibility" to make men "good" anymore than it is a man's responsibility to make women "strong."
But DO notice that in successful relationships the man and woman compliment each other's natural talents and make each other want to work on the 'weaker' aspect of themselves.
For each male that won't do a load of dishes there's a female who won't look after the routine maintenance of her car.
And each couple will bring different things to a relationship...
My grandfather didn't know what end of a hammer to hold and my grandmother did all the home repairs including designing and overseeing the construction of a to-die-for backyard brick bbq and hearth. They were born in 1901 & 1904 and were married 59 years (dying within 5 mos of each other in 1984).
Somewhere along the line we gotta think our "nature" is some sort of plot against our individualism. We are all willing to understand that we can only change the course of a river so far without serious repercussions but we want to ignore hundreds of thousands of years of evolution in order to fulfill some pipe dream of "total equality."
Geez, in the economic realm, didn't the Soviet system teach us nothing about human nature?
We each are a product of nature and of nurture. We have to recognize our NATURE before we can customize nurture to play to our stengths and talents in order to more fully round us as social beings.
YIKEs...typo
should read:
Somewhere along the line we gotta stop thinking our "nature" is some sort of plot against our individualism.
Posted by: Darleen at April 8, 2006 01:20 PMBut DO notice that in successful relationships the man and woman compliment each other's natural talents and make each other want to work on the 'weaker' aspect of themselves.For each male that won't do a load of dishes there's a female who won't look after the routine maintenance of her car.
I see you've met my parents!
Hahaha . . . no, that's true enough. For all my mom might gripe that my dad's not so good at doing stuff around the house, I notice she often forgets how often he picks up/drops off her drycleaning, does the cooking (oh man, I miss his barbecue just typing that), takes the car in for an oil change or washes it, etc. He has his things and she has her things, and I think they fit together pretty well. Their routines tend to fall more into the stereotypical male/female roles than, say, my relationships have, but it works for them.
Posted by: ilyka at April 8, 2006 01:30 PMI'm perfectly prepared to believe that thanks to socialization, some folks are more comfortable with traditional gender roles. But as Darleen says, we are called to help our partners work on the weaker part of themselves. That may mean a wife teaching her husband to cook, and a husband teaching his wife how to check oil levels. But that doesn't mean that one sex is more responsible than the other for someone's "ethical development!"
The problem is when we say "It's not in my nature to do that." Well, it's not in our nature to use the toilet either, but most of us master that early on. Whatever our biological impulses, we are all capable of radical transformation.
Here's how I was taught to think about complementarianism (worth a post, I suppose). The idea comes from John Bradshaw.
Complementarians see men and women as each "looking for their other half." When we find our other half, we imagine we will be completed. But the funny thing is, God uses multiplication, not addition. 1/2 times 1/2 equals 1/4; folks who look for another to complete them end up even weaker as a result. Want unity and wholeness? 1x1=1. By striving to become a complete human being in every facet of one's life, one brings more to the table and increases the possibility for unity.
I'm tired and ineloquent, but I always remember that marriage is multiplication.
Posted by: Hugo at April 8, 2006 03:21 PMThe problem is when we say "It's not in my nature to do that." Well, it's not in our nature to use the toilet either, but most of us master that early on. Whatever our biological impulses, we are all capable of radical transformation.
Ooh, perfectly put. I always think of an incident in one of the Anne of Green Gables books in which a cantankerous older gentleman explains to Anne that she "mustn't mind" his surly demeanor, because it's "just his nature." And she responds to him with something like, "Well, if it were your nature to run around sticking pins into people, would you expect them not to mind that either?"
One other thing about strictly defining male/female "natures:" Ann's excerpt focuses on Mansfield's attempt to define "manly" nature, in a way that I think is demeaning to men; the flip side is the attempt to define "feminine" nature, in such a way as to imply that women who deviate from this nurturing, supportive, forgiving role must necessarily be less fullfilled than those who embrace it, and that women who deviate have probably only done so because the poor fluffy dears were seduced by this pipe dream of--
--oh, right! Darleen, I was too busy reminiscing about my dad's spare ribs to notice this before, but,
we want to ignore hundreds of thousands of years of evolution in order to fulfill some pipe dream of "total equality."
Uh, what? That kind of blows my mind, that you'd label equality a pipe dream. It reads as though perhaps you are equating (ha!) "equality" with "identical in every way," and I know I'm not arguing for that, because I can't bench-press for shit. And I'm NOT going to start peeing standing up. It would only make a terrible mess.
Posted by: ilyka at April 8, 2006 05:02 PM__San Francisco Chronicle__, 2005-Nov.-01
"The UC Berkeley-Stanford study found that all children who attended preschool at least 15 hours a week displayed more negative social behaviors such as trouble cooperating or acting up, when compared with their peers. The discrepancies were most pronounced among children from higher-income families."
" 'It is time to come to grips with what all too many have denied for all too long, namely, that all disconcerting news about adverse effects cannot be attributed to low-quality care, which has been more or less the mantra of the field of child development and the child-care advocacy community for decades,' Belsky said."
I found this http://www.amconmag.com/2006/2006_04_10/article.html
over at John Ray's blog, Education Watch http://edwatch.blogspot.com/
Autism and its milder variant, asperger's syndrome, (see http://www.udel.edu/bkirby/asperger/aswhatisit.html) and the related phenomenon of late talking children (described by Thomas Sowell in __Late Talking Children__) are far more common in men than in women. One characteristic of autism, and asperger's syndrome, is a deficiency in social awareness.
Some years ago I examined the relation between school district size, age of compulsory attendance, and crime. For most categories of juvenile violent crime (murder, robbery, aggravated assault) the correlation with district size is stronger (and positive) than is the correlation with the age at which States initiate compulsory attendance. The correlations are about 0.25 or so, iirc, between district size and the rate of juvenile arrest for robbery, etc. There is an interesting exception: rape has only a very weak correlation with district size, but a fairly strong negative correlation (0.45 or so) with the age at which States initiate compulsory attendance. Later is better. That's one extra year of time with Mother.
There is definitely something biological at work here.
Posted by: Malcolm Kirkpatrick at April 8, 2006 05:52 PMSo someone has to explain to me how my youngest brother managed to put aside hundreds of thousands of years of nature or evolution or whatever, and when he was laid off from his job, stayed home with his son and played househusband for several years while also getting job retraining.
Let's see: He cooks, he cleans (better than me; he's a neat-freak and I'm a slob), he does laundry, he takes care of his child, and has no compunction about letting his wife be the breadwinner (she makes more than he does, too).
What would you call that again? Going against nature?
No, wait. He was raised by a single mother who worked perforce. All of us learned to do chores from an early age. I put my foot down as a teenager and told my mother there was no way in hell I was doing all the cooking and cleaning for the four of us, so she made us all take turns.
I believe the answer to the question of "How did my brother turn out that way?" would have to be: It's how he was taught.
Yeah, it's as simple as that.
Well, except I always hated mowing the lawn, so I did manage to get out of that. We traded chores. I'd choose cooking or dishes over lawnmowing any day.
I guess according to Mansfield, we're just freaks.
Posted by: Meryl Yourish at April 8, 2006 05:53 PMYou know how I love the Anne references!
Posted by: Ith at April 8, 2006 05:58 PMThat's one extra year of time with Mother.
I see nothing in what you've cited that specifies it must be Mother and not Father, or Grandma, or Uncle Bob.
But now we've gone around to Men and Women Are Different. AGAIN. Crikey, you people! So let me spell out what my problem is with Althouse's post and the material referenced within it:
1. I do not accept that it is the natural right of one sex to define the role of/for the other.
2. I do not accept that women as a sex have a moral obligation to help men "be better," beyond the ordinary human obligation we all have of helping each other be better.
3. I smell a rat when the chief way in which women are instructed to help men be better is by assuming a more passive, compliant role, that is:
A woman should not expect a manly man to be as committed to domesticity as she is; nor should she assume that he is as emotionally adept as her female friends. Manly men are romantic rather than sensitive. They need a lot of help from females to ascend to the higher ethical levels of manhood, and Mansfield urges women to encourage them in ways respectful of their male pride.
Note the implication that women are presently insufficiently respectful of "male pride," which is . . . what, exactly? No one likes to be torn down, mocked, belittled--that's human enough. But what's MALE pride? Not taking shit from a bitch? What?
Incidental note: Moebius Stripper asked why I was dragging Hoff-Sommers into it. I failed to note where she dragged herself into it:
Though he mentions it only in passing, it follows from his position that our schools should be more respectful and accepting of male spiritedness; they must stop trying to feminize boys.
That's Hoff-Sommers all the way; Mansfield "mentions it only in passing." But Hoff-Sommers wrote a whole book fretting about this:
How did we get here? How did the legitimate cause of achieving educational equity in our schools get transformed into a mission to feminize boys? There was more than one step. But it all began with the assumption that our "patriarchal" society conspires to favor boys and to keep girls down by depleting them of self-confidence.
What, I wonder, was the fate of those poor boys in the early 1900s who were taught almost solely by female teachers? All that feminization!
Anyway, here's what this post is about: The fact that it makes my head spin to contemplate how manliness can be, well, manly at all, if it apparently quails so readily without a level of care more befitting an orchid. Not which sex is more prone to Asperger's syndrome. Hey, did you know women are more prone to ovarian cancer? God's honest!
Posted by: ilyka at April 8, 2006 07:26 PMYou know, I got all the way to the end of that last comment, Ilyka, and all I can say is: Thank God I had already finished my sip of Coke before that.
Warn a girl, willya?
Posted by: Meryl Yourish at April 8, 2006 08:07 PM"What, I wonder, was the fate of those poor boys in the early 1900s who were taught almost solely by female teachers? All that feminization!"
The school year was much shorter, the span of compulsory attendance was shorter (8 to 14, or so), and rural kids could take their rifles to school and hunt dinner on the walk home.
"Anyway, here's what this post is about: The fact that it makes my head spin to contemplate how manliness can be, well, manly at all, if it apparently quails so readily without a level of care more befitting an orchid. Not which sex is more prone to Asperger's syndrome. Hey, did you know women are more prone to ovarian cancer? God's honest!"
In the absence of care, manliness does not quail, it grows hideous. Repressed, it becomes perverse. The point about autism and asperger's syndrome is that these are strongly sex-linked and present a smooth continuum: autistic social retards--asperger's--me--Juliette--Ilyka--the Anchoress. Equality of treatment will not yield equality of result. Why expect that it will?
Ilyka
I put "total equality" in quotes on purpose because I see "equality" tossed around and as synonym for sameness and YES a lot of people promote that.
How MANY times do I have to read that as long as there is not strict parity in every realm between males and females it is proof of The Patriarchy?
I've raised four daughters, I spend oodles of time with my twin grandsons (now 3 1/2). I'm consistently amazed at the differences!
oh, btw, Meryl? Did you see something in what I wrote that says a stay at home dad is somehow screwing with nature? In either gender is a range of talents, interests, lacks. Just as there are women who could care less about having and taking care of babies, there are men who can't wait to be home with the kids and do much of the day to day nurturing.
Just as sexual orientation is not an either/or instance, but rather a range from 100% gay to 100% straight, with most people clumped to several degrees near the straight end, so is the basic natures of male/female range in a way that with have a great deal of overlap, rather than totally separate realms.
However, one will generally find a great number of males or females naturally in certain areas even as there are a number of significant exceptions.
We do better to work with our natural talents instead of against them.
If your toddler girl is cradling, cooing and tucking into bed the Tonka truck you gave her then why not just give her the baby doll? If your young son refuses to play Little League and is using his sister's Easy Bake Oven, why not start giving him cookbooks to read and time to experiment in the kitchen?
And when it comes to children, BOTH parents are valuable and necessary. They each bring something different to the mix. STOP creching kids in daycare regardless of whether mom or dad would be home with them.
Good lord, the prisons are filled with broken adults that come from single parent families.
Posted by: Darleen at April 8, 2006 11:37 PMDarleen,
I don't think anyone here, certainly not Ilyka, is arguing for parity of result--because it runs counter to the concept of individualism, for one thing.
Speaking for myself, I don't care about the alleged "on average" characteristics of either gender, because it doesn't help me to relate to anyone else (or to myself) as an individual. It just leads to limiting assumptions.
Posted by: Hubris at April 9, 2006 04:38 AM
Hubris
I know Ilyka doesn't/hasn't/won't arguing for parity of result.
And as far as recognizing general differences being limiting, I would contend that studied ignorance of differences can be devestating. Let's just heap a ton of internalized guilt upon men or women who personally enjoy doing "men" or "women" stuff that they are just Patriarchal brainwashed automatons.
Posted by: Darleen at April 9, 2006 07:17 AM
Ilyka - fair enough; I concur. I do know that Sommers has made more subtle points in the past, and I remember finding much of Who Stole Feminism to be intelligent and worthwhile (The War on Boys, not nearly as much); bear in mind, though, that I read both 6-8 years ago and there's a good chance I'd feel differently if I reread them. (I do recall that Who Stole Feminism contained a rather satisfying critique of a view, espoused both by both a certain brand of traditionalist and a certain brand of feminist, that logic is masculine and patriarchal. I've personally met folks who've considered themselves progressive feminists who've held that view, and I find it loathesome. Anyway.)
Aside: I will give a free cookie to anyone who can explain to me the difference between "feminizing boys" (bad!) and "providing boys and men with the necessary civilizing influence that only women can provide" (good!).
Posted by: Moebius Stripper at April 9, 2006 09:41 AMHow much do I get if I also explain the difference between slaking one's thirst and drowning?
Posted by: Malcolm Kirkpatrick at April 9, 2006 11:27 AMNothing. A specious analogy is not an argument.
Posted by: Moebius Stripper at April 9, 2006 11:35 AMMS: Just off the top of my head, one particularly silly effort at feminizing boys that comes to mind is pushing boys away from traditionally male toys and buying them barbie dolls and such instead. That's just one instance, but the idea is that encouraging masculinity in boys is somehow dangerous. There's a difference between teaching boys to be woman-abusers and letting them play GI Joe. I don't want to get back to the "Boys and girls are different" argument, but there are, I think, some people that feel that all things masculine or traditionally male is bad, and should be discouraged in boys.
But in response to the original post, it's funny that for years conservatives have scoffed at the idea of the Patriarchy, but what they seem to be arguing here is the exact same thing from the opposite side. Conservatives (and I guess I should include myself here) generally don't buy the idea of a shadowy Patriarchy that holds down women in a systemic manner, but now they're arguing now the presence of a Matriarchical element in that if women are fully individuals, they are somehow holding men back by...not supporting them enough? Men become the victims of a powerful alliance of women who are just out for themselves, dem bitches.
I don't get it. How about everybody just takes responsibility for themselves?
Or was that not substantially "Frothing" enough? How about, I BLAME THE MATRIARCHY!!!!1!1!!
Posted by: francis at April 9, 2006 02:21 PMAwwww, gee, I expected a math teacher would see the point of my continuum argument. Looks like a pretty good analogy to me, for that limited purpose. I'm not at all sure we have a real disagreement here, anyway, and I wouldn't disagree with this assemblage of intellects by choice, believe me. It'd be like arguing Economics with Milton Friedman or Math with Paul Cohen. Well, not quite, but I am in awe...Meryl Yourish, Moebius Stripper...Gosh.
Posted by: Malcolm Kirkpatrick at April 9, 2006 08:46 PMQ: Why did the feminist cross the road?
A: To suck my d***!
Barry, Barry, Barry--don't make up stories like that. We all know you ain't got a dick (and you're apparently too chickenshit even to type THE WORD "dick.") But that's okay! Believe in the benevolence of the universe. Trust people to like you for YOU.
P.S. Sorry to hear about the Blazer. First being born dickless, now this! Tragic.
Posted by: ilyka at April 10, 2006 10:12 AMDarleen, my comment was aimed at Mansfield in general, not you in particular.
My point was that my two brothers learned to cook and clean and do all kinds of housework because, well, Mom made us.
And it turns out that of the three of us, my younger brother is the best homemaker. I wish I could think of a non-creepy way to say I wish I had a husband like my sis-in-law's.
(Permit me this opportunity to remind everyone that it's the so-called "gender feminists" who really hate men.)
I think that either you're being sarcastic and I didn't get it, or you intended to write "equity feminists," not "gender feminists."
Great post, btw.
Posted by: Ampersand at April 11, 2006 12:34 AMBeing sarcastic, yup.
Posted by: ilyka at April 11, 2006 09:57 AMI wish I could mark entire posts as favorites so I could visit them over and over. And comments like this:
"Anyway, here's what this post is about: The fact that it makes my head spin to contemplate how manliness can be, well, manly at all, if it apparently quails so readily without a level of care more befitting an orchid."
Fucking awesome. I actually guffawed.
Posted by: Lauren at April 11, 2006 07:30 PMOh, Ilyka. Take a bow.
Posted by: Roxanne at April 11, 2006 08:17 PM