A blog for Christian men "going their own way."

Saturday, July 11, 2009

A Necessary Rant

All the recent discussion on various blogs about the decline of marriage and fatherhood has got me to thinking. Suppose you were on a cruise ship that got sucked into a maelstrom and landed on an island in a parallel universe. While on the island, you notice a odd phenomenon about the natives. All the men insist on only marrying healthy, attractive women. However, they routinely deny women adequate nutrition, exercise, etc. The end result is that most women are not attractive enough for the men. Also, the men routinely ignore some of the women who are partially attractive because the men have such high standards. So many partially attractive women grow old without a husband. Then the men ignore these women even more and accuse these women of having issues. The men also complain about their being "not enough good women to go around."

How would you feel about these men? How should one feel? You know where I am going with this, don't you? Yep, let's turn the tables. Now you know just how despicable many women are. There is a systemic problem with female expectations in this society. Let's face the facts: Men have been betrayed by women. When many of us were growing up in the shadow of feminism, we were told that women wanted equality. Did that mean true equality? Men were promised that they could be sensitive and they didn't have to be success objects. Men were led to believe that social dominance wasn't not as important as a man's character. Men were led to believe that women would love them for who they were and not for the roles people expected men to fulfill. It's all been a lie.

Too many women are not interested in equality as they are in "eekwalitee" (having their cake and eating it, too). Women are the choosier sex and often express a preference for socially dominant males (men who are confident, ambitious, resilient, industrious, and who have social assets - whether that be looks, wealth, intelligence, or whatever suits the whim of women for that given moment). After all, we are told that women need to pick wisely in order to maximize the benefit for their offspring.

And yet what have we seen?

1. Men being socially disenfranchised as women compete with them for social, legal, and economic power. Men are left scratching their heads. How can women expect men to provide something that women are taking away in the first place?

2. Men have been psychologically beaten down by an anti-male society. From an early age onward, they receive little or no affirmation or encouragement. They encounter very few positive male role models and they receive no real mentoring. Mostly it's blame, recrimination, ridicule, vilification, and neglect they receive at the hands of others and the hands of culture as a whole. The end result is that these men either don't have self-confidence or don't have any ambition (traits women find attractive in men). How could the men have these traits? How could they feel that they have a stake in a society that repeatedly demonstrates indifference, distrust, or outright hostility towards them? Again, how can anyone expect men to possess something that is being taken away in the first place?

The bottom line is that men are having an increasingly difficult time being what women want them to be. And what's even more disconcerting is that many women don't even seem to be bothered by that. It's make one wonder if women have just seen men as a means to an end: genetic material and resources for the offspring. Now that women can receive much of what they want without men, look how many of them act. Women in the mainstream media revel about the demise of men. If these women said similar things about blacks or Jews, they would be dismissed as mentally unhinged. Indeed, they are mentally unhinged, but very few people challenge these women on their sick, mindless, androphobic drivel.

Don't you dare tell me it's "the way women are" and that I need to deal with it. If we place social constraints on the behavior of men, then corresponding constraints need to be placed on women. Churches rant and rave about male promiscuity, the "male gaze", and men "being hung up on looks." Where are the church sermons that address the problem women have in objectifying men as success objects? Have you heard any lately? In the animal kingdom, a lot of female organisms work to accumulate resources for themselves and their offspring with little or no regard for others. Male organisms are reduced to a disposable resource. What are faith communities doing to challenge women to move beyond such a base mode of existence? We talk about a "Christian worldview" but I think a lot of conservative women act like Darwinists in their relationship with men. We are hypocritical when we suggest that masculinity and the male sex drive are sinfully disordered (a result of the Fall, or whatever), but the behavior of women is just "something natural" and the "way they were designed." Excuse me, but I have a difficult time believing the Creator designed women to treat men like tools, or worse, like garbage.

A lot of women are being incredibly foolish if they think society can move on just fine without being concerned about the welfare of men. Readers should take note of this: Women have no power unless men consent to it. That even goes for sexual power. If men don't have a personal stake in the welfare of future generations, then there won't be any future generations. If a critical mass of men start caring more about video games than about impregnating women and parenting the resultant offspring, then this society will fall flat on its face (or it will be replaced by something more rooted in reality). The future is not independent-minded white women. The future is traditionalist, brown-skinned women of an "ancient and enduring" people "whose language you do not know."

Women can't expect to play "top dog" and yet be married to the "top dog." There can only be one "top dog." Embracing gender equality means ditching the Alpha Male Fantasy(tm). Embracing the Alpha Male Fantasy(tm) means ditching gender equality. Remember what I said about the New Gender Deal. Women can't have it both ways.

People also need to start showing genuine compassion, concern, and respect for men as human beings; they need stop acting like men need to earn these things. Otherwise, an increasing amount of men are going to get the idea that nobody genuinely and honestly cares about their inherent worth as people. When men start believing that, they are not going to show much care and concern in return. I think that lies at the heart of much of the crimes men commit.

In short, if nothing changes, then women are going to destroy this society. It's going to be a classic case of the Tragedy of Commons. You don't like me talking about women? Too bad. There's going to be little or no real progress for men and women until women get their act together and rethink their behavior. We can blame the government, the liberals, the New World Order, technology, chivalrous men, genes, or whatever, but here's the indisputable truth: A critical mass of women are primarily responsible for the mess that has come about. Someone needs to point this out. When women constantly belittle, demean, and marginalize men at every turn, someone needs to say something. When women try to have their "eekwalitee" cake and eat it too, giving men the shaft in the process, someone needs to say something. Otherwise, the whole mess is going to explode in the face of women, and they will have no one to cry to.

The Behavior of Women (A Video Interview)

A few days ago, I came across a video interview between Dr. Helen Smith (aka "Dr. Helen") and Dr. Richard Driscoll that was originally aired on Father's Day. Novaseeker has already covered it (with probably some other bloggers), and perhaps some of you may have already seen it. All the same, I find the interview to be thought-provoking for what it has to say about the behavioral patterns of women as a group. It's telling when two psychologists reiterate what many MRAs take for granted.

Here's what grabbed my attention ...

1. Driscoll indicates that our status quo depends on chivalry and men who are desperate for female approval (i.e., getting sex).

2. Driscoll affirms that men like sex more than women and that women are choosier in mating. This shows how utterly hypocritical people are in attacking the so-called "unrealistic standards of beauty" men putatively have without addressing how women can be picky to a fault.

3. Driscoll claims that women are hardwired to perturb men and give them grief (to "test" them, as it were). He also confirms that women are hypergamous, which doesn't bode well as women economically disenfranchise men.

4. Driscoll points to a survey where 34% of women were found to be always resentful of men, compared to 14% of men being always resentful of women. Quite chilling, but it confirms the prevalence of misandry (and why the charge of misogyny is often false and patently stupid).

5. Driscoll avers that relationships are predicated upon the exchange of a man's resources for sexual access to women. Driscoll narrowly skirts by calling marriage "prostitution" but I think it's worth addressing. Is Marriage 2.0 nothing more than "prostitution" with a grossly-inflated price tag? Are religious conservatives basically pushing church-sanctioned prostitution? Are married men nothing more than glorified Johns, where the primary thing that is valued is not their humanity, but their money? How do women view their relationship with men when the money dries up? Do women really take hubby "for richer or poorer" or are they lying through their teeth?

Bottom line: I am not a hardcore marriage-avoider, but having watched the video, I will not be surprised if more men have vasectomies and stay inside with the video games.

Monday, July 6, 2009

Male-Bashing at Boundless (Again)

On a recent podcast at Boundless, Lisa Anderson discusses a sentiment that seems to be common among some women she has talked to: If a man is still single by a certain age, then there is something wrong with him (Never mind that single women don't have to jump through as many hoops as men do in order to attract the opposite sex.). Ted Slater thinks there's some truth with the sentiment expressed by these women. You can hear the salient part of the exchange here (starting at 18:00 minutes into the broadcast).

Yeah, bachelors are just a bunch of dysfunctional ne'er-do-wells who are a drain on our society.

Friday, July 3, 2009

Recommended Essay

I was troving the MRA blogosphere when I stumbled across a wonderful essay by F. Roger Devlin ("The Feminine Sexual Counter-Revolution and Its Limitations"). Devlin has written for a publication called Occidental Quarterly and apparently the essay in question was supposed to be published by that journal. The piece is over year old and perhaps some of you have already seen it, but it nonethless gets to the heart of one of things this blog has been trying to fight. That is, the whole neo-chivalrous, "damsel in distress," marriage mandate, Makenite tripe that has gripped the imagination of religious conservatives. Devlin's article busts the stupid myth that women are just precious little angels that need to protected from unscrupulous, immature men.

A juicy quote:
When the sexual revolution began, women imagined that the "slavery" of marriage was unfairly standing between themselves and endless erotic fulfillment. Forty years later, many are imagining instead that the availability to men of sex outside marriage is standing in the way of their wedding. "If other women were not sluts," they reason, "the man of my dreams would be forced to discover my true value and come crawling to me with a diamond ring." One of the interviewees from Shalit's first book, for example, complains: "After three dates when I wouldn't sleep with [a certain man], he dumped me, just like that! If you ask me, it's because it's way too easy for them. Why should they waste time with a girl like me when they can get it for free?" (RM, p. 104)

Now, how does the woman know this is the reason he "dumped" (stopped courting) her? Never once have I heard a woman say: "I am such a pain in the derriere that after just three dates men are charging for the exit." Appealing to the supposed universal availability of sex has become a way for women to avoid facing the reality of rejection. Men break off courtships for all kinds of reasons: they may sense that a particular girl might not be faithful, is not careful with money, has too many bad habits, or just plain is not for them. Holding out for wedding rings is not going to solve these women's problems and allow them to live happily ever after. If we could wave a magic wand and cause extramarital sex to disappear overnight, many women would be shocked to discover that handsome movie stars were still not flocking to their doorsteps with flowers and chocolates. (emphasis mine).
Devlin's essay is actually a review article of Wendy Shalit, but it could have just easily been a response to Debbie Maken, Albert Mohler, certain staff writers for Boundless.org, and the Evangelical Establishment Media to boot. It's a lengthy piece, so don't scan over it and miss the good stuff. Enjoy.