Interesting Article on Men & Women

Off Topic
101

[quote]EmilyQ wrote:

[quote]Uncle Gabby wrote:

[quote]EmilyQ wrote:

I think a lot of the things you view as being nice things for the women, then and now, are actually things that infantilize them. [/quote]

Was voluntarily dying of hypothermia in the frozen north atlantic, so that there would be enough room for the women and children on the titanic’s life boats really that insulting? [/quote]

I’m thinking that constitutes “the shit hitting the fan” and we’ve already established that at such times I am willing to be infantilized without asking who the fuck anyone thinks he’s talking to.

But really, come on. Heroism is not insulting. And who pretends there are no good guys? Most people? Some people? Or one or two really negative people? Not me.

I feel that we’ve established a code that we can agree upon that trades strengths or services in an approximately equitable way, as your grandparents did. He does more of the grunt labor but I am willing to talk to his incredibly tedious sister and in fact talk more to her than he does. He never initiates contact with my family. I do more meal planning, more holiday preparation, more household maintenance, and…and this is a huge thing…I run the information systems portion of our lives. We need to know something that comes from one of the hundreds of books piled around, I’m the one to quickly find it. And the internet is definitely my baby. He’s not lacking in technical skill (his may in fact exceed my own) but he doesn’t have the patience for walls of text and for some reason is not a good skimmer of information. Too methodical, I guess?

So maybe it looks more like this: my husband pays the bills, crawls into the spidery corners and slay the wolves. I reward him by cooking him a nice dinner a couple of times a week, creating a cozy and inviting home space and helping to clean it, bearing him the number of children we’ve agreed upon, researching everything connected to all of those endeavors, and bringing home a paycheck with which to pay the bills assuming I am not home with the above-mentioned children, in which case my share of household work increases.

I think, though, that none of that really hits what is valuable about our combining of strengths and weaknesses. I am a dreamer and he is practical and driven. I generate dreams for him to pursue and he in turn anchors me in the here-and-now. I make us friends and plan social events and he is able to remember that we have food in the oven when I’ve had a couple of drinks and have gotten caught up in talking.

You seem to think that these balances are not important any longer because they are not survival-oriented, as in your grandparents’ day. They are, though. I feel invested in my home and family to a degree that I don’t think you can comprehend from where you are at this point, where freedom from entanglement seems to be your overriding priority. My husband is as invested as I am. We are intensely territorial people and I don’t see a great deal of difference between us and people protecting a homestead on the frontier in terms of devotion. i suspect you will eventually feel the same way.

We’ve encountered shit sandwiches along the way and we just deal with it. If someone’s soul is withering we work together to get whichever one of us it is out of it.

As for this:

You’re so far off. It is about that, of course, but only in part. There is something deeply satisfying about belonging to someone. A best friend, a lover, someone who shares your bed and your refrigerator. I assume there is satisfaction for imhungry alike to what I feel when I do something that is gratuitously feminine. Ooh and ahh over his muscles, say. I know we both get a kick out of comparing hands. The difference between us is so profound.

Also? It’s nice to be nice. I can’t imagine that even a small portion of the men who hold doors open for me think they might get to have sex with me in return. Some of them are very old and others are very young. One I see now and again is a homeless bum who collects our cans at work. Maybe he doesn’t realize he doesn’t stand a chance? Other men who hold doors probably wouldn’t WANT to have sex with me. My husband, who might reasonably hope to get lucky more often than this, does the car door thing on, like, anniversaries, when I’m dressed up and we’re doing a formal date. Otherwise I load myself in and out of the car and if I happen to get to a door first (which I rarely do) I open it and let us both in. Differences in arm reach and bulk impact the door-opening thing, I think. I have to either move back with the door or go in first and hold it open behind me. He can for some reason let me in without having to significantly reposition himself. I don’t know, it’s like magic.

I’m really curious as to how you handle your dating life, Gabby. Because you seem like someone who would be extremely gracious, and yet you’re saying that’s all bullshit and you’re not interested. You also seem like someone who would be interested in the internal workings of a woman you’re seeing, given that you spend your free time poking around in the psyches of people online. I can’t imagine your interest in real life being limited to a woman’s “cooch.”
[/quote]

Seriously, Emily, I think we would be friends IRL. IH loves when I touch his muscles and tell him how much I love them. I’m just amazed at how totally infatuated with me he is. I know he wants to fuck me, DUH! But it’s not just that. We spend a lot of time just sitting and watching TV or perusing TN.

102

[quote]EmilyQ wrote:
I’m thinking that constitutes “the shit hitting the fan” and we’ve already established that at such times I am willing to be infantilized without asking who the fuck anyone thinks he’s talking to.

But really, come on. Heroism is not insulting. And who pretends there are no good guys? Most people? Some people? Or one or two really negative people? Not me.
[/quote]

My point is that the vast majority of women pre-feminism didn’t have it as bad as contemporary feminists claim. As you said their arrangement would not suit you, and that’s perfectly fair, but they were far better off than are portrayed by the feminist left. Same goes for the stuff I said about good guys and what not. Surely I’m not the only one who went to college and had to listen to a lot of historical revisionist bullshit? It’s like if you think that the Americans were the good guys in WWII you’re some kind of fascist right wing nut job.

[quote]…
We’ve encountered shit sandwiches along the way and we just deal with it. If someone’s soul is withering we work together to get whichever one of us it is out of it.
[/quote]
First, I’m glad you and your husband have things worked out so well. Your relationship is that tiny little beacon of light that makes me think there are good, functional relationships out there, and that I should not be so pessimistic. I’m not being sarcastic.

But when I talk about soul withering and shit sandwiches I’m not talking about within the relationship, I’m talking about at the job/work/career. Maybe your husband owns his own business or is lucky enough to work for people who don’t feel the need to make him eat shit just to remind him who’s the boss. Me, I’ve never worked any job in any company where they didn’t regularly make good workers eat shit as part of some irrational animal dominance game. Most of the time they leave me out of it, maybe they can sense that I aint been right lately. But as I see it, being a good father/husband means being a good provider and putting your family’s needs ahead of your own, and I see good men eat shit because they can’t say “fuck you boss, I quit”. I respect the hell out of those guys, but I couldn’t do it. So until I finish that novel or start my own business or find some other little profitable niche for myself, I’m not much of a provider and probably never will be.

What I’m saying about chivalry is that while I practice it myself, I see it as highly suspect behavior in other men, because as a man I see how other men act and talk when there are no attractive young women around who they want to fuck. Talk is cheap, and holding open a door is easy.

For example, I’m going to pick on HotTamale for a minute. Here’s what she said earlier in this thread:

Long story short, her baby daddy is a piece of shit (if we can take her version of the situation at face value). I’ve known some pretty worthless guys before, but even they were eager to spend as much time with their children as they could get, going so far as to hire lawyers they really couldn’t afford to try to win joint custody. She chose her man poorly. But I’m sure that when they were still in the courtship phase of their relationship he was happy to hold doors open for her and make all kinds of other little superficial gestures that are known collectively as chivalry. That’s what I mean by being nice just to get in her cooch.

It’s probably not fair to pick on Tamale, but her statement about THE WOMEN getting fucked over is ridiculous. The system didn’t fuck her over. She was only fucked over by her own poor judgement. Our current divorce system seems built around protecting women like her from herself, which seems like infatilization to me. It’s also the laws designed to deal with Tamale’s baby daddy that inadvertently fuck over decent guys like Broncoandy.

She’s an adult, I’m sure she can overcome the consequences of her poor decisions, and raise her kids to be decent human beings. Women have done it for thousands of years without Big Government’s help. In the mean time, lets push for laws that don’t totally fuck over guys like Broncoandy who’s marriages fail inspite of their best efforts.

103

Grneyes, I’m inclined to think we would make good friends, too. :slight_smile:

It may be that accounts of women’s suffering are exaggerated…in fact, I agree they are…but you’re still missing the point that if a woman had a bad husband pre-women’s movement she suffered beyond what is tolerable in a slavery-rejecting society. I don’t know if you can understand the vulnerability that comes with the kind of body mass differential most men and women have. I am the size of a twelve- or thirteen-year-old boy, married to a man who is 6’ tall and over 200 lbs. He is very nice to me and always gentle but if I’d chosen poorly and nice and gentle turned out not to be the case I would not like to be raped and beaten according to his whim. Because I was born when I was he only gets to try that once, because decades ago radical feminists won me the right to walk away.

Still, I think your point is that marriage has become devalued as a result of the shrieking and self-pity and with that I agree wholeheartedly. I notice that the people who were divorcing back when I was in the previously mentioned agony of unhappiness over my husband’s confirmed asshole-ness are now bitching about new mates. (I’m still bitching about the same one. lol) My friends and I have laughed about our grandmothers’ standard “at least he doesn’t get drunk and beat you!” It’s funny but also…not. Was the bar really that low? Or is it a joke grandmas tell because young married women whine so much? I don’t know.

I meant from external sources, too. Neither of us wants the other unhappy (because it’s unpleasant to live with someone who is unhappy), so a shared goal would be to either brainstorm a way to make the job tolerable or find a way to rescue whichever one of us it is before the soul is completely crushed. That said, I have talked him down more than once. So maybe I’m a tool of his oppressor, I don’t know. I think it may be like my divorced-and-repartnered friends. Let’s say I don’t talk him down and he beats the shit out of today’s irritant. Won’t that necessitate finding a new one tomorrow? So yes, I suppose he eats shit sandwiches. Honestly, I think it very often is his own animal dominance hangup that causes him grief, but who knows. He has for most of our acquaintanceship been a business owner but the economy hasn’t been kind to his industry. He’s pretty aggressive. He definitely does better at the top of his personal food chain. Hopefully eventually.

You know, it occurs to me that this comment of yours:

Is pretty apt for the marriage discussion as well. Maybe life is just a giant all-you-can-eat shit sandwich buffet. Dr. Laura said (don’t tell anyone I’ve read it, I’ll get kicked out of the Feminists if they find out) that in marriage commitment is what holds you together while love comes and goes. I’ve found that to be true. For me adoration comes in waves, but so does negative sentiment. I’m not sure people realize that infatuation returns if you’re open to it.

I see it, too. Here at T-Nation, in fact. But there have consistently been men who speak out against slimy behavior. Perhaps I’m naive, but I can’t imagine men would really put a whole lot of effort into fooling women at T-Nation. Realistically, what are the odds of cooch? And if they were going to put the effort in wouldn’t they go to a section of the internet with more of them?

Not everyone is a quality human being. Not everyone is discerning enough to choose partners who are quality human beings. Some people, men and women alike, mature into thoughtfulness (by which I mean “given to thought” as well as “nice”) after enduring or witnessing consequences for behaving carelessly. Moving away from Tamale and focusing on Broncoandy, I wonder what changes he might make if he had it all to do over, or what changes he will make if and when he tries again. Women love to communicate. Did he realize how important that is when he and his ex were beginning to have problems? Ludacris notes in one of his songs that girls want to talk and suggests that the wise man will shut up and listen. I don’t mean to suggest that Broncoandy deserves what happened, he doesn’t, or that it was his fault. It wasn’t. But I do wonder what he learned about himself through it all. He sounds like a good guy. I wonder if his wife knew how much he cared and how good a guy he is. I wonder if he communicated that clearly.

As for tiny beacons of light, I think you’re underestimating both the state of today’s marriages and the state of yesterday’s. I think the ratio of bad to good is probably pretty similar because by and large people will be people. I can remember my grandfather intoning “yes, dear, whatever you want, dear” to my grandmother. He sounded…I don’t know, long-suffering I guess. Exhausted. I would kill my husband if he started Eeyoring me like that. I work with a guy who sounds like that when he talks about his wife. He’s in his fifties, maybe. So a guy who came of age to the music of The Stones and Led Zeppelin. Why does he sound like my grandfather? Are there married men in their twenties who sound like that, too? :frowning:

Lastly, it occurred to me yesterday while running errands that the answer to this:

Is that one day he will be too frail to do anything about wolves at the door, should they appear. But she will remember him with broad shoulders, capable of tearing a boss’s throat out with his teeth and throwing her around on the bed to the sound of her shrieks and giggles. He’ll open the door for her because they will together be able to maintain a fantasy of formidable male and desirable female.

Or, he can seek a younger female prior to frailty if he’s financially well-off enough, but then he has to become paunchy mid-life crisis guy to her money-motivated quasi-prostitute.

104

Emily, I have also wondered the same things about Broncoandy. No, I don’t think it’s his fault either.
I don’t usually take much of more than a passing interest on the posts here, but the guy I am dating just finished a nasty divorce and I am seeing that it’ll never really be finished for him because there is a child involved. Of course I’ve heard his side of the story and there are things that I feel his messed up on in his marriage, but nothing compared to his ex wife.

I wonder what her side of the story is, how she can justify her actions, and as much as it horrifies me the way people will use their kids, I can’t stop thinking there must be reasons why women do these things. I mean it’s easy to say she is a lazy bitch and it’s her way or nothing, but damn are people really that fucked up?

Bronco’s kids have been traumatized by the actions of their mother, no doubt in my mind. At the very least they will hold some resentment issues for a long time and be scared too! I’m not going to use my bf’s details as an example out of respect for his privacy but if I did anyone would see his kid has suffered some damage too, and continues to on what seems to be a daily basis. Do these types of women really think that the father/child relationship just comes down to the father sending a check? It makes me wonder how they will handle it when these children get to be teens and no longer agree with everything the mother says or does.

IDK what my point is here, it confuses and saddens me greatly to know that there are men, who while may not be perfect, are being denied healthy relationships with their children over bitterness and spite on the mother’s behalf.

The world is one fucked up place some days.

105

[quote]EmilyQ wrote:
I can remember my grandfather intoning “yes, dear, whatever you want, dear” to my grandmother. He sounded…I don’t know, long-suffering I guess. Exhausted. I would kill my husband if he started Eeyoring me like that. I work with a guy who sounds like that when he talks about his wife. He’s in his fifties, maybe. So a guy who came of age to the music of The Stones and Led Zeppelin. Why does he sound like my grandfather? Are there married men in their twenties who sound like that, too? :frowning:
[/quote]

It depends on the strength of the man’s spirit, and the tactics that the wife is using to crush that spirit. I’m sure there are men in there 20s that sound like that. lol.

I’m not gonna say it’s all because of the wife, some young guys who have no kids, and nothing to loose who sound like that are just pussys and can only blame themselves, while some old men who sound like that have just had a long, hard life “carrying the weight of the world” , have used up all their fight, and are just tired in general.

But I find alot of married men “Know better than to argue with a woman”. Either because their wives are so quick to play the “I’m leaving you, and taking the kids, and everything you own with me” card if they aren’t getting their way, or their wives are passifists who will ensure that if the husband wins an argument he’s sure to loose in the long haul (no sex, shitty lunch, dirty laundry, whatever). Eventually a husband learns that “You can’t have a happy life without a happy wife”.

A good woman, and a good man in a good relationship will have a good give and take, where neither one feels compelled to “control” the other by abusing their “power”. Than there are relationships where a man attempts to control a woman by abusing his physical size over her, or by denying her access to his finances. These male power / control tactics are easy to spot from the outside, and / or are against the law (black eyes from battery / assualt crimes, and depression from “I’m not buying groceries unless you suck my dick” rape). The famale power / control plays are almost impossible to spot from the outside, are blamed on the man for being “weak” (which is like blaming rape on a woman for being pretty), and can be difficult to escape due to the way divorce works for most men.

People don’t take it seriously of corse because no sex tonight isnt’ a “big deal”, and no lunch this week isn’t a big deal, but that makes it all the more difficult. If your husband hits you he only gets to try it once right? How many times could you refuse him sex? It’s like the power of dynamite vs. the power of flowing water. You only have to hit or rape a woman a few times before she’s broken. BOOM! Dynamite. A woman spends 50 years denying her husband sex, and eventually he will break too. But unlike the woman with the black eye, he doesn’t know why he feels like that. He can’t quite pin it down.

I dunno if that makes sence or not, and I’m probably using bad examples, but any time you hear a man do that, the odds are good he’s in a bad relationship, and he doesn’t even realize it.

106

It’s funny what difference perspective makes. In my story about my grandfather’s moaning I saw the obvious victim as being my grandmother. Because who could live with that?? If I said to my husband that we should grab a pizza or that I was thinking we should do something about the broken deck railing and he responded with a weary-sounding “yes, dear, whatever you want, dear,” I would kill him. Just find a gun and shoot him.

I had to call the above-mentioned coworker at home one evening and his wife answered. The following day he mentioned that she’s always been jealous about women he works with. He’s far from eye candy, so it’s not his stellar good looks making her uneasy. It’s because she’s got no faith that she’s something he wants. I can’t imagine waiting at the front door to throw myself into the arms of someone whose tone and body language suggested I’m a burden to him.

I’d maybe glance up from the television to say a bored “oh, you’re home?” He’s not someone I’d be delightedly straddling anytime soon. I think my grandfather’s and coworkers tone and message are like the water you mentioned, Broncoandy.

My grandmother was pretty cheery. I thought of her as a lot of fun. My grandfather died before I was old enough to really tune into their relationship dynamics. I only think of the “yes dears” because my coworker reminds me so strongly of him. But it’s hard for me to imagine, knowing both of them, that she was being nasty out of my sight. I can’t think about the sex piece and won’t even speculate there. lol

However, looking at it from your perspective I agree with your take on things.

Diana, I agree with you. It’s entirely bewildering. One thing I can say based on working with families is that when things go very badly often it is because the weakness of two players intersect in a really bad way. If either player were a little stronger in that key regard things wouldn’t become so toxic.

So for example you might have a hyperactive kid with an anxious and controlling parent. If the kid were a little mellower things would be okay. If the parent were a little less rigid, fine. But neither is so you wind up with an explosive situation. So perhaps in these terrible divorces you have a woman with a bent for laziness paired with a man who scores highly on the competitive/aggressive scale (as many men posting here do).

They go back and forth long enough maybe she feels justified in fucking him over because she lacks intrinsic motivation anyway. But perhaps if he hadn’t been so dismissive of her along and along because he’s so competitive, she would have felt duty-bound to act more honorably.