Don't Oppress Or Burden Women

Before the wave of feminism that grew in the 1960s and 1970s, women who were housewives were oppressed and depressed from having to tend to a husband, the children, and home, while being treated as less than human since she couldn't have assets and accounts without her husband's participation or approval. Many of these women wanted careers, but were prevented from having them. Some of these women wanted to freed from servitude to a man or children, but they didn't have real options.

And those are just the white women with high earning husbands. Women of color had to have jobs on top of all of the rest of the stuff.

Now, although they can have careers and bank accounts, so many women are with men who don't contribute enough at home, don't do enough of the emotional labor, sexually harass and rape their wife, fiancee or girlfriend, and are terrible lovers.

Men are a burden on women. Women don't need men. Women don't like husbands.

These are things you'd know if you were enlightened by social media or certain college classes, movies, or books.

Guys, STOP IMPOSING UPON WOMEN. Respect their independence, autonomy, and capability. Do not move in with them. Protect a woman from her own temporary miscalculation by refusing to her let move in with you, don't impregnate them, don't propose marriage to them, and don't marry them. It's OK to be available to them, temporarily, when they want you around, but don't burden any woman by staying with her or being demanding of her time. Never be so cruel as to make a woman a housewife or stay-at-home mom. If that's what a woman says she wants, she clearly must be suffering from the inadequacy of our mental health system or misleading patriarchal indoctrination; don't take advantage of her!

Avoid mansplaining at work and in your personal life.

Stop bothering women. Leave them alone. Date when they come to you, but keep those dates short.

Respect women, guys!

We Are Not a Project

I found a column by Suzanne Fields at conservative site Townhall. With a headline of "A Good Man Is Still Hard to Find" I took notice. [This entry has been bumped up.]

Women have been complaining since the original Adams family was evicted from the Garden of Eden that "A good man is hard to find."

Whining, complaining, nagging... yep.

Despite radical feminist mockery of the very idea of manliness, that men are natural sexual predators, most women -- with very few exceptions -- still want one.

Of course they do! It's nice to have the cash flow, the bodyguard, an errand boy, and a receptacle for your whines and gripes and thoughts.

The #MeToo movement has nevertheless changed a lot of things in the wake of the sexual harassment-scandal season. One of them is the regard in which men are universally held by women. It often seems we're back to the '80s, when there was a similar assault on the idea of manhood and some women decried all sex as rape.

Radical feminist activists Catherine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin were widely credited with saying that "all sex is rape" and "all men are rapists." They both deny the statements, but Dworkin conceded that she did say, "Penetrative intercourse is, by its nature, violent."

No wonder men are choosing to To Their Own Way (see MGTOW).

What Happened Next Door

If you'd told me when I was twelve years old that multiple women who'd appeared in Playboy magazine were going to live in the Playboy mansion, appear in the magazine multiple more times, and be in a "reality" cable television show with Hugh Hefner, I would have known that those women, who were several decades younger than him, were going to expected to be his girlfriends and have sex with him even though he was old and not in the best shape and not committing to any of them, and they would be expected to participate in parties whether that seemed like fun or more work, and that what they were going to get out of this deal was fame, money, access, networking, and visits to Disneyland and wherever else. He's an older man, not in the best shape, and yet these women were going to have to show him a good time.

I would have known that at twelve.

My siblings would have known.

What thinking person over the age of sixteen wouldn't have known this?

But once Hefner was dead, and thus no longer useful, he was cast as a villain by some of the people who used to praise him and cling to him.

Nope. Not buying it.

If you weren't saying this was bad behavior at the time, but rather were profiting off of it, you don't get to bash him now and get any sympathy or points from me at all. Those women knew exactly what they were signing up for. The same goes for anyone going to an adult party at the mansion. Of course staff, such as cooks, cleaners, etc. shouldn't be targeted for harassment, but it was the Playboy mansion; home to a man who built the magazine and brand from the ground up. Nudity and shenanigans should have been expected.

Women Have Options Now

 

People lamenting the the fact that a smaller percentage of Americans are married now than ever before often will ask what has changed to bring this about.

Life has changed, indeed.

One thing that has changed:

Women have options now.

Do you want to change that?

Most people don’t.

It wasn’t all that long ago that women didn’t have full access to higher education, or the workplace, or financial services. Government was smaller with much less or no “social safety net” provided by government. Women who were abused by their husband had few places, if any, to escape and the social pressure, often from their own parents and siblings, was to stay with or go back to her husband. Being divorced could mean destitution and being ostracized.

A woman’s realistic options were:

• Marry young and pop out/raise children, keep the home, maybe work in her husband’s business/the family farm, and be dependent on her husband 
• Depend on her father, uncle, or brother, helping to raise their children and/or working in their business
• Be a teacher or secretary, which they might be expected to give up if they married 
• Be a prostitute 
• Be a nun 

Of course there were some outliers, but those options were what most women faced.

Women can now thrive without ever marrying. Women can decide to leave a marriage and nobody can stop them. They’ll even be applauded and can take half of the wealth with them and get ongoing payments. They can have government take care of them if they don’t take care of themselves. They can have their own residence.

Many women really don’t want to be wife to a husband. Many women don’t want to be mothers. In the past, many women like that were pressured into taking on a husband and having children. Now that they have options, many women opt to NOT marry. That’s just one reason marriage rates are down.

I’m glad women have options, although I want government much smaller and for private charity to handle the legitimate needs of those who need help. And women having options means lower marriage rates. I don’t see that as a problem, as long as women aren’t intentionally depriving a child of their father.

Do you agree? Disagree? Your comments are welcomes, as always.

Some Free Women Say They Wanted a Family

Melanie Notkin, an apparently free woman, writes about free women who wanted to marry and have kids, and contrasting their situation with women who did marry.

“I was 22 when we met,” Lisa said of her future husband. “We broke up a few times, but I stuck with it. I gave him ultimatums!”

That's a train wreck.

It took the man, 13 years Lisa’s senior, six years to put a ring on it.

The fool.

“You can’t control who you fall in love with and who falls in love with you,” I added, in my defense.

Chemistry matters.

“Love shmove!” Lisa said with a look of disbelief in her eyes as if someone had pulled the wool over mine.

Lisa's poor husband.

Was it better to have never truly loved and gotten married than to have loved and lost it all?

Best to stay free.

What I’d said was true: I had been in love and had my heart broken. A few times. And as the years passed, each disappointment grew as my hope for children dwindled.

This wasn’t my plan. I was ready to get married at age 21, two years after my mother’s early death at age 52. I yearned to recreate her maternal love with my own children.

Yikes.

While I had grown up in a traditional Jewish home, after she died, I became more observant, believing on some level that religious young men were more likely ready to create a family that would gather around the warm glow of the Shabbat table on Friday nights. (Later, I’d learn at least my instincts were right.)

At age 24, I packed up my life in Montreal, Canada, and moved to New York City to find that great Jewish man, the future father of my children. It was surely the best possible plan. 

This month marks 30 years in Manhattan, still single and no chance of becoming a mother. As the old Jewish adage goes: We plan; God laughs.

Now why is that? Not enough Jewish men in the right age range? Did she not put herself in the right places? Did she not give off the right signals?

My second book, a memoir called Otherhood: Modern Women Finding a New Kind of Happiness was published in 2014. Along with my own story, I share the experiences of Generation X and older millennial women who expected the love, marriage, and children our mothers had, along with greater access to higher education and the careers they didn’t have. It wasn’t that most of my generation chose the latter over the former. We simply expected that we would date and pay the rent simultaneously, just like the men we were dating did.

Maybe men and women are different?

I first chose a low-paying non-profit career with greater flexibility to take care of my future children. I invested time and money in online dating sites in my twenties, matchmaking services in my thirties, and singles events (or big ticket charity events where there would be plenty of singles), into my forties.

We don't know how she behaved during her activities, though.

Now, age 54, I am among the 25% percent of Americans who by age 40 have never married. And I have surpassed the 46.7% of never-married women ages 40-50 who are childless.

Keep up the good work, guys!

It’s not that we did not want to marry. We did.

Wanting to marry isn't the same thing as wanting to be a wife, though.

The breadth of women who did everything they were supposed to do to prepare themselves for the life they imagined now stretches to the younger cohort who land on the college campus of their choice only to have few men to choose from. Or, they’ve graduated and moved to the big city, only to find it just as hard to meet someone. Childless women in their twenties out-earn their male peers in 20 metropolitan areas. For these women, meeting a man who is also ready to meet their match is more challenging than ever.

Why does it matter if she earns more, hmm?

Nonetheless, this narrative assumes women don’t plan well, make poor choices, put our careers first, are too picky, or believe love is a fairytale. And for those of us who didn’t find love in time for the children we yearn(ed) for and who grieve our loss, it’s often assumed we were too naive to understand our fertility would end. We waited too long, they say. Left it too late, they admonish. As if we didn’t have painful monthly reminders. For most of us, it wasn’t our choice.

I can believe that there are women who did "everything" right and still never married even though they wanted to marry. Better they not have married than to have had a bad marriage, though.

While more young women today say they are remaining single and childless by choice, I have my doubts that it’s what most of them truly want.

Believe women.

Perhaps she would have been more likely to marry if family law and courts weren't so terrible? Something to think about. Because we can change laws and courts.

Woman Is Surprised by Modern Dating

Let's check in on Dear Abby and see what's happening there.

NOT CONNECTING IN MISSOURI wrote:

I am a 48-year-old woman, divorced for 10 years.

Let's see... Missouri... middle aged... yeah, not going to be able to get a very high bid.

During that time, I have been in two serious relationships.

I'm wondering what that means? Most likely that she had tha feelz for them.

I'm no prude, but it seems like everyone I date, and who my friends and I talk to, and articles I see are all about sex, having sex, rushing to sex.

Yep. Because sex is fun.

It's like there's no emphasis on actually getting to know a person anymore.

Don't you get to know someone better when you have sex with them?

Let's translate this into English: "I want a man to spend more money on me before I'll have sex with him."

If she TRULY wanted to get to know a guy more, they'd write back and forth and talk on the phone or video chat. She can ask all the questions she wants that way to get to know him better. It doesn't need to be over a dinner at a restaurant.

Cats and Batteries

Part of Dennis Prager’s selling of marriage involves selling women on marriage. To his credit, he doesn’t just focus on selling marriage to men. Fortunately, for him, he got a call to his show, which I heard, that he turned into this column. I have no idea if she was one of those hired callers some shows use.

I found the column at Townhall, which is part of Salem, the company replacing Michael Medved with Sebastian Gorka at the end of the year. There, the column had the headline ”A Message to Young Women from a Career Woman”.

Every Wednesday, the second hour of my national radio show is the "Male/Female Hour." A few weeks ago, a woman named Jennifer called in. For reasons of space, I have somewhat shortened her comments. Every young woman should read them. This is precisely what she said:

Every young woman.

Why Are Men Expected to Pay For Dates?

Here is something I posted back in 2007. I will add some thoughts at the end. (- Me, 2015)



*****

Thankfully, I don’t have to deal with the dating game anymore, but my children will.

I’m mostly a traditional guy. I do recognize that times change, however. With that in mind, I have to wonder why it is that men are still expected to pay for dates? To me, this harkens back to an age when young unmarried women lived in either their father or brother’s home and cared for their younger siblings, nieces, or nephews, did the laundry, the cooking, and general cleaning, and didn’t work outside of the home or the family business. Their brother or their father was their protector and literally their representative, as women did not have voting rights until well into the twentieth century. Before the automobile culture, men would court women by going to where they lived – which was their father or brother’s home - and spending time with them in front of a bunch of other people – mostly her family members. Until the modern feminist movement, women were still expected to be homebodies or perhaps work as a school teacher, secretary, or waitress until getting married. It made sense in the past for men to be expected to pay the costs of a date.

Times have changed a lot. Women are now in every career field out there and positions of power. They make up the majority of college students. Women have the same access and privileges men do. They earn their own money and manage their own financial matters.

So why are men still expected to pay for dates?

Yes, there women who insist on “going Dutch” at least some of the time, but by and large, women still expect men to pay for dates - even if they make that half-hearted reach into their purse as if they’re going to offer to pay their half - and they hold it against a man if he doesn’t pay for it all.

Why is this? I mean, clearly lesbians and Britney Spears have proven that women can not only pay their share, but they can support men. But we still hear a lot of men join women in saying, “Real men pay for the date.” Why?

These are the reasons I’ve heard people give:
1. It is tradition.
2. Because he asked for the date (whomever asks, pays).
3. Because she spends so much money on looking good for her date.
4. Because men earn more money.
5. Because he is paying for her time.
6. Because he is expected to be the provider, and paying for dates is a demonstration of his ability to provide.

Let’s look at these reasons one-by-one.

It is tradition. As I wrote above, this tradition harkens back to when women were always under the authority/protection of a male and didn’t earn income for themselves. Those traditions are long gone. It is also tradition that sex was saved for marriage. Why be inconsistent when sticking to tradition?

Because he asked for the date (whomever asks, pays). This one is flimsy, considering that men are also expected to ask for the date. My question might as well be “Why are men expected to ask for the date?”

Because she spends so much money on looking good for her date. Yes, and she does that for her own benefit. The more attractive she is, the more and better choices she will have. Men spend money building nests. They are expected to have a nice car and a nice place to live. This is a poor justification for letting the financial burden of a date fall on the man.

Because men earn more money. Men, as a sex, do earn more money than women, as a sex. HOWEVER, studies show that a woman doing the same amount, kind, and quality of work as a man gets paid the same as a man. So, this one doesn’t hold up, either.

Because he is paying for her time. That makes her a professional - therapist, counselor, prostitute… you decide. Why is her time more valuable than his? And if he is paying for her time, she'd better be extremely attentive to him and pleasant with him.

Because he is expected to be the provider, and paying for dates is a demonstration of his ability to provide. He can easily demonstrate his ability to provide without paying for her share of the date. Wouldn’t he prove that he will be a better provider if he is self-respecting and confident enough to demand that she pay her own way and he save his money for investing so that his future wife and kids will have a better life?

Looks the reasoning for men to continue to pay for dates is rather flimsy. Let’s face it - women just enjoy the drinks, food, gifts, and entertainment at someone else’s expense. That’s understandable, but that's freeloading.

Why Women Should Pay Their Half

I can think of a few reasons why women should pay their own way.

1. To avoid “obligations”. Many men expect something for their money. Most men are dating with sex as a goal, even if they are willing to get married before they have sex - sex is still a main goal. Thus, a lot of men lose respect for a woman who is willing to sleep with him because he spent money on her, especially since she has the ability to pay her own way. If she doesn’t sleep with him, then in this guy's mind she is a tease or is just using him for freebies, unless she really is looking for a husband and has made it clear she won’t sleep with anyone before marriage, no matter how much they shell out.

2. For a legitimate vote in the date. If a woman is paying her way, she has a legitimate say in how the date goes. She can ask to go to a more expensive restaurant, for example. Demanding a more expensive date if you're not paying is sheer hubris.

3. To demonstrate equality. Are you equal? Prove it.

In conclusion, women have just as many opportunities as men now, and so they should pay their own way on dates. If you have a good reason why a man should still be expected to pay for dates, I’d like to hear it.

*****

[From 2015]

I think this entry still holds up well. In recent years, I've heard Dr. Laura say men pay for dates (and have to jump through other hoops) because men value that for which they have to work. In other words, if it is too easy for a man to get, he won't value it. So ladies, tell your man that before he comes home, he has to run around the block ten times. That way, he'll value coming home. But seriously, what does thus imply about women? It is implies either that they don't value that for which they have to work, or it doesn't matter if they value it or not. Or am I missing something?

As far as I can tell, there are two real reasons why men are expected to pay for dates:

1) The inertia of customs. It's an outdated holdover from which women benefit. If women didn't benefit from this custom, it would have been scrapped a long time ago. It's like when I carry around an umbrella a week after it has stopped raining  even though it is not likely to rain again for months. Only, in this case, women are benefiting from that umbrella so they aren't going to tell me I should leave the umbrella home.

2) Supply and demand. As unromantic, crude, crass, or cynical as it sounds, it's just another way men are expected to pay for sex (honest prostitution and alimony being some other ways), because the average man wants sex more than the average woman. I'd like to deny this (that it is about men paying for sex), but mulling it over, it don't see this as false. We like to pretend otherwise, but when you get down to the bare bones of the matter, this is ultimately what's going on. If someone can demonstrate otherwise, the romantic in me really wants to see that.

It's Too Late

Suzanne Venker, who has been one of the women who has expressed awareness of misandrist elements in our culture, posted an entry on her blog, which is "for a marriage-minded woman", that caught my attention. The title is "An Open Letter to American Men: Here's What Modern Women Want".

Now, before we get into the body of the blog entry, I wanted to address the title.

A growing percentage of men don't care what a modern woman wants.

The MGTOW movement and similar reactions to misandry have men swearing off marriage, shacking up, supposedly exclusive relationships, and, for many, dating at all.

This reminds me of a story Tom Leykis tells about when he was trying to get a woman to move out of his house. And yes, it was his house. She had no claim to it, by design. In his telling, he takes her to a therapist because she's ignoring his statements that he wants her to leave. In session, Leykis explains that it is over and he wants her out, and her reaction is, "What about all of the bad things he does?"

It's not a negotiation!

This is like when someone decides they do not want to buy any car on that car lot at all, and they leave, and the salesperson calls after him and says, "Here's what we're going to need from you."

We're not looking to buy the cow anymore, ladies. We might not even care to drink milk. Heaven forbid my wife leave or die any time soon, but if I were to find myself unmarried again, I would never, ever get into another supposedly exclusive relationship ever again, and thus I wouldn't care what modern women want. And I'm doing what I can so that other men won't care, either.

But let's take a look anyway, shall we?

It's Hard Out Here for a Boy

Matt Walsh's latest at The Daily Wire is about the war on boys.

He wrote a surprisingly good intro:

Our culture is very bad for boys. It's bad for girls, too. It's bad for everyone. But I think we fail to recognize and appreciate the unique struggles that boys face. Partly we fail to recognize it because we are too busy worrying about the Patriarchy's persecution of women. Partly we fail to recognize it because, collectively, we just don't care that much about boys. Partly we fail to recognize it because men are not as likely to talk about their own plight. And partly a man will not talk about it because everyone, even his fellow men, will only laugh at him and downplay the problem.

Exactly.

Men are told about their privilege, but if you look at things honestly you will not see much evidence of this privilege. On the contrary, you will see several profound disadvantages suffered by men in general and boys in particular.

Hmm. Wonder if Walsh has been hit with some reality lately?

1) Our culture preys relentlessly on a boy's weaknesses.

Basically, it's about how women/girls dress all slutty and pr0n is everywhere! Of course that was first.

Hugh Hefner and Hysteria

After a long and storied life, Hugh Hefner passed, and everyone seemed to have something to say about him. Those who had mostly negative things to say about him fell into two basic categories: self-proclaimed feminists who are misandrists, and people with a religious conviction that sex and nudity are for monogamous heterosexual marriage and anything that goes against that is some of the worst stuff ever.

While some critics puffed up their essays with big words, if you watched closely and read between the lines, what really upset people about Hefner more than anything else was that he and/or his media exposed or glaringly reinforced some truths people didn’t want to admit:

1)  Men can get sexually aroused strictly from the visual, and static, two-dimensional visuals at that.

2) Men want to see women naked more more than woman want to see men naked.

3) Men are willing to pay to see women naked.

4) Women, even the girl next door, are willing to sell their sexuality for money.

5) Men want sex more than women.

6) Women are their most visually attractive in their late teens/early 20s.

Hugh Hefner's biggest "crime" was making glamour nudes of the world's most beautiful women accessible to the masses, especially men, even if they were poor, whereas in the past, only the rich could see such women. He catered to the tastes of grown men, without trying to accommodate women and children or let women dictate what men should enjoy. Playboy allowed men to see nude women (albeit only pictorial representations) without having to sign a state marriage contract. These are his real sins in the minds of so many, whether they want to admit it or not. Some of the men speaking out are trying to appease their wives or pastors.

Regarding truth number 2, notice that while Playgirl and similar offerings became a thing, their popularity was only a tiny fraction of that of Playboy, and much of that interest came from homosexual men.

The critics, especially the religion-based ones, make it sound like Hefner was one of the worst things that ever happened to the world, because his magazine and associated media had young, beautiful, nude women and because he surrounded himself with young, beautiful women. He did far more damage with some of his political involvements and some of the messages conveyed in text, but people want to focus on the fact that his magazine featured women in their birthday suits.

Do the critics really think that if Hugh Hefner never existed, media, and society in general, wouldn’t be like it is today? While critics and fans alike try to paint Hefner as a pioneering pornographer, if he hadn’t done it, someone else would have. He saw a demand and cultural trends, and he capitalized on them.

Below are some of the reactions published online in response to Hefner’s death.

March Madness

People have the right to protest, not riot, and not litter. And we all have a right to analyze their protests to see if what they're saying is true and what they want is a good thing. A lot of people have spread this essay by Dina Leygerman. Let's take a look at it. After that, I'll link to some coherent and reality-based stuff.

It has the headline, "You Are Not Equal. I’m Sorry."

A post is making rounds on social media, in response to the Women’s March on Saturday, January 21, 2017. It starts with “I am not a “disgrace to women” because I don’t support the women’s march. I do not feel I am a “second class citizen” because I am a woman….”

This is my response to that post.

Because, if you don't think you're a victim, by golly you're wrong!

Taking a Dive

Unless you're avoiding all 2016 Rio Olympics coverage, you've seen at least an image of Qin Kai proposing to He Zi while He Zi was on the podium during her medal ceremony. Here's coverage from the National Public Radio (that's USA) website.

He Zi of China was standing on the podium after receiving a silver medal for diving in Rio on Sunday when her boyfriend, fellow diver Qin Kai, pulled out a ring and proposed marriage. It's the second proposal of the Rio Games.

Moments before Sunday's proposal, He had been dueling teammate and world champion Shi Tingmao for the gold medal in the 3-meter springboard final. It was shortly after the medal presentation that Qin — who owns gold medals from previous Olympics and has won bronze here in Rio — seized the moment.

"We are dating now for over six years, and I didn't know he would do this proposal," He said, according to the Federation Internationale de Natation, which oversees diving.

With tears and a hug, He accepted Qin's proposal.

I have heard/read a lot of "enlightened, strong" women denouncing the guy's timing, saying nothing should have been attached to, or inserted into, her moment. If she was upset, she didn't let on.

Change VAWA to VAPA

Phyllis Schlafly, a favorite target of Leftist feminists who usually "forget" to explain where and how she is wrong, talks about the problems with the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) in this installment of her column that calls on WAVA to be rewritten.

For 30 years, the feminists have been pretending that their goal is to abolish all sex discrimination, eliminating all gender differences no matter how reasonable. When it comes to domestic violence, however, feminist dogma preaches that there is an innate gender difference: Men are naturally batterers, and women are naturally victims (i.e., gender profiling).

Starting with its title, VAWA is just about as sex discriminatory as legislation can get. It is written and implemented to oppose the abuse of women and to punish men.

Ignoring the mountain of evidence that women initiate physical violence nearly as often as men, VAWA has more than 60 passages in its lengthy text that exclude men from its benefits.

Schlafly isn't just complaining. She has specific recommendations.

For starters, the law's title should be changed to Partner Violence Reduction Act, and the words "and men" should be added to those 60 sections.

The law should be rewritten to deal with the tremendous problem of false accusations so that its priority can be to help real victims. A Centers for Disease Control survey found that half of all partner violence was mutual, and 282 scholarly studies reported that women are as physically aggressive, or more aggressive, than men.

Currently used definitions of domestic violence that are unacceptably trivial include calling your partner a naughty word, raising your voice, causing "annoyance" or "emotional distress," or just not doing what your partner wants. The law's revision should use an accurate definition of domestic violence that includes violence, such as: "any act or threatened act of violence, including any forceful detention of an individual, which results or threatens to result in physical injury."

If refusing meet a wife's every request is considered domestic violence, the concept is trivialized. There are women who are beaten by their shack-ups or husbands, and their plight should be taken seriously, not equated to disagreement.

Women who make domestic violence accusations are not required to produce evidence and are never prosecuted for perjury if they lie. Accused men are not accorded fundamental protections of due process, not considered innocent until proven guilty and in many cases are not afforded the right to confront their accusers.

Here's another specific problem:

Feminist recipients of VAWA handouts lobby legislators, judges and prosecutors on the taxpayers' dime (which is contrary to Section 1913 of Title 18, U.S. Code), and the results are generally harmful to all concerned. This lobbying has resulted in laws calling for mandatory arrest (i.e., the police must arrest someone -- guess who) of the predominant aggressor (i.e., ignore the facts and assume the man is the aggressor) and no-drop prosecution (i.e., prosecute the man even if the woman has withdrawn her accusation or refuses to testify).

She goes on to cite the same thing Michael Barone cited in a column I discussed here.

Victims of actual domestic violence have an obligation to 1) remove themselves and anyone for whom they are responsible from the situation, and 2) document the abuse, and, depending on how serious the abuse is, 3) following through in prosecution. Law enforcement should definitely cooperate, but not abandon the "innocent until proven guilty" approach. This will not only protect the victims (and thus allow them to leave the victim status behind), it will also protect others from becoming victims.

Ah, Malaysia

A group of women in Malaysia is making headlines because the group has said women should give it to their husbands good, and let him run the show. Associated Press writer Eileen Ng reports.

As a new bride, 22-year-old Ummu Atirah believes she knows the secret to a blissful marriage: obey her husband and ensure he is sexually satisfied.

Well, yes, unless her husband is a complete idiot. My wife obeys me. And guess what? I obey her, too. We don't treat each other like children.

Ummu and some 800 other Muslim women in Malaysia are members of the "Obedient Wives Club" that is generating controversy in one of the most modern and progressive Muslim-majority nations, where many Muslim Malaysian women hold high posts in the government and corporate world.

The new club, launched Saturday, says it can cure social ills such as prostitution and divorce by teaching women to be submissive and keep their men happy in the bedroom.

Well, it would certainly cut down on the number of men seeking divorce. In the USA, women are far more likely to file. As far as prostitution, There are some married men who go to hookers because the wife will not meet a reasonable sexual request. However, there are plenty of men who go to hookers for other reasons, such as not being married and lacking game, having a fetish for hookers, or having some sort of fetish that is difficult to fulfill in with an "unpaid" partner, etc.

"Islam compels us to be obedient to our husband. Whatever he says, I must follow. It is a sin if I don't obey and make him happy," said Ummu, who wore a yellow headscarf.

I'm sure there are Muslim women (and men, for that matter) who swear up and down that this is false.

The club, founded by a fringe Islamic group known as Global Ikhwan, has been dismissed by politicians and activists as a throwback to Medieval times and an insult to modern women of Malaysia.

I'm still not seeing what is so bad. Well, except for the fringe Islamic thing.

But the group's activities, which previously included the setting up of a Polygamy Club, show that pockets of conservative Islamic ideas still thrive in Malaysia.

Ah. But are they touting one husband-multiple wives polygamy with this particular program? And have they written in to Dear Abby?

Despite the group's conservative Islamic background, Rohayah Mohamad, one of the founders of the club, openly talks about the virtues of marital sex even though most of her colleagues are shy about the topic.

"Sex is a taboo in Asian society."

Oh yeah, right. Asians never ever talk about sex. Right.

"We have ignored it in our marriages but it's all down to sex. A good wife is a good sex worker to her husband. What is wrong with being a whore ... to your husband?" she said.

Whores charge.

Okay, well, wives who earn less than their husbands, which is most, are paid through community property laws within marital law. So, I suppose the argument can be made that a husband is already paying up. But is that true in Malaysia?

Marital lovemaking is supposed to be mutually enjoyable. A wife should not think of it in literal prostitution terms, and neither should her husband. But if you want to use "whore" in the nonliteral sense, then I getchya.

She said wives must go beyond the traditional roles as good cooks or good mothers and learn to "obey, serve and entertain" their husbands to prevent them from straying or misbehaving.

Again, let's be clear. Husband should not stray. However, it is more understandable that a husband will stray if his wife rejects him. After all, if you’re hungry, do you simply not eat if the kitchen is bare? No, you go out and get some food. Wives do have the power to keep their otherwise good husbands from falling to temptation. If the guy is messed up, he's going to cheat regardless. And he may marry a Kennedy.

Indirectly, "disobedient wives are the cause for upheaval in this world" because men are not happy at home and their minds and souls are disturbed, she said.

I would never go that far.

Some of the upheaval in this world, after all, is caused by women being catty towards each other.

Okay, so I kid. But women really do have more power than men, especially when men choose not to control everything through brute strength. That is because men will only do what we can get away with and still get women to have sex with us and make us dinner.

NOW vs. Hooters

NOW, the National Organization for (a certain kind of) Women, better known as NAG, is trying to remind people they exist. They're going after Hooters, and the basis of their attack is laughable. Michael Mello of the Orange County Register has the story.

A well-known feminist organization has filed a complaint with Orange County officials, alleging two local Hooters restaurants exposed children to sexual entertainment.

On Thursday, the California chapter of the National Organization for Women sent a letter to District Attorney Tony Rackauckas saying Hooters restaurants don't comply with state and local laws that regulate sexual entertainment. NOW said Hooters should have an age requirement, much the same way strip clubs can only legally admit patrons 18 and older.

I'm sorry, but an organization that does everything it can to make sure that thirteen-year-old girls can have sex, contraception, and abortions without their parents even knowing is in no position to talk about this.

What about the choices and the rights of Hooters girls?

Hooters says it has 455 restaurants in 44 states in the U.S. and 28 countries worldwide. The company's website also says a third of its managers and corporate staff are women.

I wonder how many are members of NAG?

The letter specifies the Hooters locations in Anaheim and Costa Mesa. It omitted the newest Orange County location, in Lake Forest.

That's because one of the NOW's local members volunteered to visit the restaurants herself, and only went to the Anaheim and Costa Mesa locations.

What, did the women working at the restaurants not flirt enough with her?

"Members physically went and brought their children to see the children to see the children's menu and the items sold," said Patricia Bellasalma, president of NOW's California chapter. "They took them to see whether they would serve them."

Bellasalma said the group targeted Hooters restaurants because they offer "sexual entertainment," but choose to have locations near popular tourist spots or in shopping malls.

"Sexual entertainment" of this sort is a problem for NAG because it is largely heterosexual and enjoyed by men. It is interesting that shorts and tank tops = "sexual entertainment". Maybe it is the shaved legs, too.

NOW plans to ask state Attorney General Jerry Brown to conduct his own investigation.

Can I conduct one?

NAG doesn't want men having fun. It is that simple. But Hooters is so tame that this is ridiculous. Perhaps this is a trial balloon for NAG before moving on to other entertainment? Or, maybe it is just a cry for attention by a bunch of bitter women who are jealous of women who can make a living for a while on their looks and personalities. But the way, I've been to Hooters exactly once in my life.

Is Equality Important or Not?

Here's a woman complaining about a man wanting things to be strictly equal between them. UNFAIRLY EQUAL IN PHOENIX wrote in to Dear Abby in regards to her husband, who is the father of her dauther.

Leon is hung up on things being "equal." This can range from whose "turn" it is to do the dishes, change the diapers, put our daughter to bed -- to exactly how many days we spend with each set of parents. If we travel to see my parents, we must also travel to see his.

Isn't that what feminists said they wanted? Equality?

This "equal" obsession drives me nuts.

Yeah, I could see how it would. It often drives me nuts. But the law in community property states demands equality.

Yes, I believe men and women should be treated equally by the government as much as possible, and I try to personally treat men and women equally as human beings, but I do stick to certain traditions and it is ridiculous to pretend that there is no difference between men and women. Difference does not mean superior/inferior.

I'm fully in support of "fair," but if I'm busy making dinner, it seems to me that he could change the baby's diaper even if it's my "turn."

Or maybe you could schedule things differently. Or, contaminate dinner.

A marriage is a partnership, and I believe in picking up the slack when Leon is overwhelmed, sick or tired. Why can't he do the same for me?

If he is so obsessed with equality, than I'm sure that he picks up the slack for every time you pick up the slack, but that's it. So you are saying you are more often overwhelmed, sickened, or tired than Leon?

I wonder who earns more?

So, dear readers, what do you think about this situation?

It seems to me like an example of why potential spouses should separately write out how they expect things to be in their marriage – What would the ideal workday look like – what would happen during the course of that entire day? What would the ideal regular day off look like? What would vacation look like? What would certain holidays look like? Figure that out through every phase of the marriage... newlywed and childness, during pregnancy, with a baby, with a toddler, with an older child, with an empty nest, etc. Sure, there are unforeseen things that will have an impact on these things, but by knowing what someone's ideal expectations would be, you can compare notes to see how compatible the visions are, and what the other person's priorities are likely to be.

That is something my wife and I should have done. We only nailed down some generalities – I would be the breadwinner, she would stop working to have kids, etc. I wish we would have discussed what she was going to do with the kids when I was busy, what was going to happen when I was around, and so many other things.

Thankfully, my wife and I are not so bent on "equality".

Dear Abby responded:

Because, for whatever reason, your husband is obsessed with the idea that he's going to get the short end of the stick -- if you'll forgive the vernacular.

Maybe he is afraid she will get cheated. Maybe he's just looking out for his wife.

However, he isn't going to change until he realizes he has a problem.

So wanting gender equality in marriage is a problem? That's an interesting thing for Dear Abby say. When men suggeste certain women of having mental, social, or emotional problems for certain feminist beliefs, they were tarred and feathered.

Be Afraid

If you want a good example of how and why some men get to a point where they hate women, or distrust women, or decide not to look for a wife, or decide to insulate themselves from relying on a woman for anything, then check out this entry (and the comments) at MarkyMark's Thoughts. His blog gets a lot of traffic, and taking that into account along with the comments, it appears that this kind of experience and thinking is familiar to a lot of people. Your father, uncle, brother, or son may have had to or may yet face experiences just like the ones described. Notice that these men have the reactions they do because of what they have experienced themselves; whereas so many of the women on the other side of the coin are hostile towards or paranoid about men because their single/divorced/overbearing mothers, the media, and academia have told them to be.

For the men I'm talking abut, this isn't just a matter of "guilt by association" or prejudice along the lines of dismissing all African-Americans as criminals because you've seen a few African-American people in the news for being convicted of crimes, and you've never known an African-American on a personal level very well. Skin color does not induce criminal behavior. For some of these men, it is the women they do know personally who have sent them over the edge, with their sex (and associated ways of thinking and emoting) and socialization as a sex being an integral part of why the women behaved the way they did.

It seems that the differences between men and women are real, and it really does matter how boys are raised and how girls are raised, and it is important how men and women socialize separately and with each other. Treating men and women identically (which is not necessary in order to treat them equally) in every way makes both miserable or angry. Showing favoritism towards women while or after insisting on equality fosters bitterness. Some of the traditions we have abandoned were doing a lot of good, and haven't been replaced by suitable substitutes – perhaps because, in some cases, none exist. Walls were removed and now we're finding out in a very painful way why some of those walls were there in the first place.

In the blogosphere - one of the few places where men (and sympathetic women) can feely speak about their experiences with reasonable protection against retaliation along the levels of firing, lawsuits, divorce, false accusations of crime, assault, vandalism, etc., - you can find an awful lot of horror stories about how the culture has denigrated and penalized masculinity (and femininity as collateral damage), chivalry, men, husbands, fatherhood, and marriage, and what the consequences have been.

We can't survive as a healthy society if this is the norm for male-female interactions; when irresponsibility, incivility, and malignant narcissism are rewarded and their opposites punished. Not when it happens in gender relations, not when it happens as government policy in general. Many would say we already lost our societal health long ago.

I pray that good women and good men can somehow raise enough good women and good men in the next generation. I want each of my kids to have a realistic option of having a happy marriage, if that is what they want - and a healthy country.

More Childless Women

Amanda Marcotte, who blogs at pandagon.net and rhrealitycheck.org and identifies as a "progressive" said she was surprised by a recent Pew Research Center study showing that the share of American women who are not becoming mothers has nearly doubled since 1976, from 10 percent of the population to 18 percent. She writes in "The Real Reason More Women Are Childless"…

Personally, I was happy to see that more women feel free to forgo childbearing.

Why? You don’t want new labor, inventors, investors, managers, artists, engineers, taxpayers, and soldiers to keep things going? You'd rather American culture be replaced? Yes, it is nice for them to know they have the choice not to become mothers. But that fewer Americans with the capabilities to be good parents are having children is not a good thing.

But there seems to be a pushback...

According to Pew, 38 percent of Americans now denounce childlessness as bad for society. That's up from 29 percent just two years ago.

That some people never have children is fine. If just about everyone didn't have children, isn't it self-evident that it would be bad for society? It isn't good for a team if most of the team dies off and isn't replaced.

So what's behind the increase in women choosing the non-mom route? According to social conservatives, legal abortions are to blame for declining birth rates.

Somewhat, sure. Unless you believe that, even with contraception around, women are getting pregnant at such higher rates than when abortion rates were much lower (say, 40 year ago) that the increase in abortions among previously childless women can't offset that increase. Abortion is the symptom, though – it doesn't explain why women don't want a child (except when abortion damages her emotionally, or physically, so she can't).

My guess is that 1) we've turned children into more of a liability instead of an asset, and 2) women are now more self-centered.

However, that doesn't mean that the passage of Roe v. Wade had no impact on the upturn in childless women. Defense of legal abortion led feminists to create a national discourse around the concept of "choice," which helped legitimize the decision to remain childless. This created a space for women who never wanted children to embrace their true desires.

Yes, talking about what a horrible drag children are – so much of a drag that dismembering them is the best option in millions of cases - can have that effect.

Part of this new self-awareness might mean that women are forsaking motherhood because we're finally admitting that it isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Maybe it isn't, if you're bad at it, or you're bad at picking a father for your kids - or you were delusional about what it was going to be like. Your parents downplay the "negatives" of having children until after they are born, because they want grandchildren. Then once they have their grandchildren, they respond to your complaints about what you don't like about how your life has changed with "Oh.... yeah... well, that happens when you have kids."

As last week's New York magazine cover story documented, parenthood is becoming increasingly miserable because of the exploding expectations placed on mothers—making the child-free lifestyle seem all the more attractive.

Motherhood has always been hard and consuming. Where are these new expectations coming from? Ah, that's right. Feministas who tell mothers they need to have careers, too, and the people who encourage women to raise children without a man, drive husbands away, neglect husbands, or divorce good husbands. That brings on more obligations for a mother.

In 1988, only 39 percent of Americans disagreed with the notion that the childless "lead empty lives." Now a majority-59 percent-disagree that childlessness automatically means you're unfulfilled.

I do agree that someone can be fulfilled without ever raising children. But as Dennis Prager points out, they haven't experienced the most they can. That's true about a lot of things in life, but parenting is a much bigger thing.

Still, a woman who chooses to remain childless continues to face a series of negative stereotypes, from claims that she's selfish to implications that she's too career-minded and self-centered to remember to breed before it's too late.

There are people who have children for selfish reasons as well as people who don't for selfish reasons. And some people have children because they are lazy and had sex without caring enough to do something to avoid conception. That's just reality.

But clearly there are upsides to childlessness. Just looking around my own apartment, I can see the value in furniture that's gone unruined, cats that have gone unbothered, and a distinct lack of toys cluttering up my floor.

That's it? Can’t you come up with more? I sure can. More free time and money, more freedom in general/fewer obligations. Everything is a trade off, though. I'll take my son's laugh over preserved furniture any day.

Gayle, age 30, drolly observed, "My ovaries do not stir when I see a baby."

I hope for her sake she feels the same way when it is too late. Even if she regrets not having kids, it will be better than if she had kids and then neglected them. But I'd prefer everyone be happy with not having had kids if they didn't, and having kids if they did.

Most believed that it wasn't harmful to society and could, in fact, be beneficial. But few spoke about benefits to the environment or women's pocketbooks. Instead, childless women argued that increasing childlessness is good … for the children.

"Honey, me not giving you a diamond engagement ring is good for the ring." How can it be good for a kid for the kid to be aborted, or for the kid to not exist in the first place?

Dana, age 34, made this case forcefully. "Many children are treated bad or abandoned. Some live their entire lives in foster care."

But this doesn't explain why Dana chooses to be childless, unless she's saying she would be abusive or neglectful.

Natalie agreed that her attachment to her disposable income could be considered selfish but said, on the other hand, "When I ask friends of mine who have/want kids what their reasons are, the answers range from 'I don't know' to 'I want someone to love me' to 'I want someone to take care of me in my old age,' which are not only also selfish but poorly reasoned."

I agree. Like I said, some people have selfish motivations either way. However, whether from a Darwinian or a theistic paradigm, having children is not inherently selfish. It is how we continue our society.

Could these childless women be harbingers of a new world, one in which parenthood is considered an active choice and not simply the default state of adulthood?

Uhm, hasn't it been that way for decades now? I chose to have kids. I actively made that choice. There was a time when I considered not ever becoming a father.

Cindy Krischer Goodman also wrote about this. She is CEO of BalanceGal LLC, "a provider of news and advice on how to balance work and life."

A look behind the numbers reveals more of what this trend reflects - a generation of women who are not necessarily choosing career over kids but rather finding that time has passed and their focus has been elsewhere. Women are starting businesses in record numbers, advancing in corporate arenas, and blazing career trails in male-dominated industries. They are the bulk of people getting advanced degrees, and they are getting married later in life.

That’s all fine. I'd rather a woman not have a children only to have that child raised by strangers and MTV.

Many of these women say they are happy and fulfilled.

Good for the ones who are.

Some have made work a priority, but others discovered by the time they found the right mate and decided to have children, they couldn't.

And a lot of those women were playing around with guys who weren't "the right mate" for a good chunk of the time, and a many of those could have found the right mate if they’d really wanted to... they probably even rejected him or he avoided her because she was with some jerk.

At the same time, childless people in today's workplace often feel their personal time is less valued. "If you have a pet in distress and need time off, it's not viewed the same as a child who needs to go to doctor," Lauby said.

Nor should it be. I'm a pet owner, but pets are not humans.

I'm encouraged that women are increasingly exercising their right to choose the circumstances under which they have children.

Who isn't?

While I am a father and enjoy my kids, I'm not one of those "everyone should have kids" people, nor someone who thinks women shouldn't have careers. No woman (or man, for that matter) should have children unless they want to and prepared to be good parents. In fact, I think that women who do get pregnant and don't want to be mothers should give their child up for adoption. I don't want to "punish them with a child" as some would way. Let someone else be blessed by being able to raise that child.

Leveling the Playing Field: Introduction

I don’t want to shock anyone, but men and women are different.

Can women meet and surpass the performance of men in many jobs and academic contests? Definitely. Should they be treated equally under the law? Sure, as much as possible. But they often aren’t, because certain laws and courts favor women, especially when combined with cultural reality. Men and women are different physically – women can get pregnant, and men can’t. Thus, maternity of a child is never in doubt, while paternity can be. It is also possible for a male to walk out on his child by simply walking away, while a female carrying the child can’t walk away unless she gets an abortion or gives the kid up at birth. In most places, men are legally and financially responsible for a child born to their wife, regardless of conception. She could have gotten pregnant buy the guy's mortal enemy. Most women marry men who earn more than they do, and there is an even greater disparity, on average, between a husband and a wife, because after a woman marries a man who earns more than she does, she may cut back on working for income or stop entirely even if they do not become parents.

This reality makes divorce more costly for men than it does for women, especially where there is no-fault divorce.

There are men who are deciding not to marry and not to father children because of these realities - in addition to the men who are genuinely reluctant to commit for hedonistic reasons.
Due the fact that men and women are different, we’ll probably never arrive at a perfectly level playing field. But there are things that can be done to make things more fair.

I’m not talking about rolling back feminist gains in access, protections, and equal rights. Feminism has been good in that it has given women real options in life. It has been bad when it has attacked femininity and the roles of wife and mother, and tried to portray normal masculinity as bad and men as the enemy of women. I also recognize abortion as murder except in certain cases of self-defense.

I’m also not saying that women have it easy, or that all women use the system to an unfair advantage.

What I am saying is that men generally do have a disadvantage now in our legal system when it comes to marriage and parenting, and there are changes that can be made in family law that can help to erase that disadvantage. You should care about this stuff if you believe in fairness or simply have a male family member or friend (including yourself, of course) you don’t want to see treated unfairly. Yes, I know life isn’t fair, but our governmental system supposedly attempts to create equal access to legal protections for individuals, personal responsibility, and letting individuals enjoy or suffer the consequences of their own actions.

I will be making some subsequent posts that suggest some changes. Please check back and chime in. I’m especially open to reading alternatives.