Article

2007-12-11 -Short Attention Span Theater-

Girls taught to value sex over achievement and intelligence

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Posted by Fred 2007-12-11 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11123 views ] Top

#1 I do hope she's not under the illusion the fellows admire her for her mind

She's not. She would need a mind to have an illusion.

And it's a good thing that not all women fall for this crap, as this NSF Werk photo so clearly demonstrates.

Disclaimer: Not for the weak of heart. Don't click if you've eaten recently, have taken your insulin, have a meeting to attend in the next half hour, or plan to do anything naughty with your S.O. in the next few days.

Posted by gorb 2007-12-11 02:30|| 2007-12-11 02:30|| Front Page Top

#2 I forget who it was that said these, but I think they are true -

1. Feminists thought that they were empowering and liberating women but instead they were turning most of them into unpaid whores.

2. When women finally busted out of the cage that men had kept them in for millenia, they instantly built a different cage and willingly climbed in and locked the door behind themselves.

I'm not suggesting that women be slutty. But there's no reason why a woman cannot be attractive and pleasing to a guy AND work hard and study to be well educated. Furthermore, Ms. Liebau is sounding a little like Naomi Wolf in her lament that young men no longer find the hairy, saggy bodies and the "you will service the goddess" attitude that worked OK on baby boomer leftist men 30 years ago to be worth their time.

Fifty years ago feminists were decrying the lack of sexuality in our culture. Now Ms. Liebau claims it's overly so. Perhaps this isn't about sexuality at all, but the feminist obsession with having power OVER men, not coequal with men. Apparently, sexuality is only acceptable if it is an amount which advantages women, and to hell with the men.

Posted by no mo uro 2007-12-11 06:17|| 2007-12-11 06:17|| Front Page Top

#3 sweet Jesus, Gorb. Don't ever do that again. I think I threw up a little bit in my mouth

Posted by Frank G">Frank G 2007-12-11 06:40|| 2007-12-11 06:40|| Front Page Top

#4 Fred, I'm going to disagree with you just a little.

I am all in favor of lusty wenches and manly men romping in healthy ways. But Liebau is right that we are losing a whole generation of girls to a destructive, empty and corrosive kind of superficial sexuality - not the lusty celebration of our basic male/female goodness, but an empty perversion of it.

I am currently trying to reach out to a niece of ours. My brother and his wife finally divorced after years of mutual infidelities combined with a toxic bickering household. Is it any wonder that their 17 year old daughter is overweight, dresses Goth and has had a series of disastrous, exploited/exploitative sexual relationships with older lowlifes?

We are desperately in need of adults who embody mature sexuality - which includes self-discipline and respect for oneself and for others. Neither my brother nor his ex-wife aspired to those virtues. The result is that their daughter grew up without any security or any idea what mature men and women look and act like, including in their sexual relationships.

She is, unfortunately, not alone. Watch this years' ads for liquor in the runup to the new year - I've counted 4 so far with overt scenes of l3sbians tongueing one another's faces, bodies flaunted to the camera, hands suggestively just off camera. I saw a still ad along similar lines in the NYT sunday magazine this week.

What I didn't see were adults acting like adults.

Sexuality is a lot more than empty lust and power based on lust. But that is all our girls are being shown and taught.

Posted by lotp 2007-12-11 07:13|| 2007-12-11 07:13|| Front Page Top

#5 Sexy AND clever works for me. Who says they have to choose?

Off Topic: Is Zenster's picture going to be appearing on milk cartons soon?

Posted by Grumenk Philalzabod0723 2007-12-11 07:39|| 2007-12-11 07:39|| Front Page Top

#6 "Chivalry is dead--and women killed it." Absolutely correct. What's more, they're taking down Western society as well. I'm not surprised in the slightest when I read that Western women are finding it increasingly hard to get men to make commitments to such things as marriage and children. There's a very simple answer to why they aren't: the odds are horrifically against Western men when it comes to happy and successful marriage.

Any woman who can get a man to actually marry her and father children holds an economic gun to his head from the minute she becomes pregnant. Anytime she decides she doesn't like being married, she can get at least half of what he already has plus a hell of a good chunk of whatever else he might get in the next eighteen years. She doesn't have to worry one damned bit about how fat, ugly, grumpy, wasteful or unpleasant she might become because she's calling the shots and she's got the American legal system behind her all the way. If her husband doesn't like what she's become or how she treats him, that's just too bad. He can either live with it or else lose both his kids and any hope of a decent post-divorce standard of living.

Ask any young man today what he thinks of marriage and the odds are that he's VERY skeptical about it. And he should be. He's not going to get a wife who has any reason to worry about keeping him happy. Once he takes the bait and marries, he's good and solidly hooked and likely to get the same treatment as the average pan fish.

Young guys not only see their married friends get treated like crap by their wives after the kids come along, they see their unlucky divorced friends provide horrifically scary examples of what it's like to be legally raped by the courts. High child support and no enforceable visitation rights are the lot of most divorced fathers. And this is all at the mere whim of the wife, ready to hand for her at any time she chooses.

And the wives choose it a lot. A large majority of divorces in the U.S. are requested by women. It's very obvious that many Western women feel that the business of maintaining a home for a husband and children is beneath them. The feminists have taught them that someone else should be doing all that drudgery because it's just not suitable for an educated woman to spend time doing things like cooking and cleaning. She's meant for more than that and anyone who can't see it must be a sexist pig. All she needs to contribute to marriage is the ability to perform in bed, and even that only when she feels like it.

If you don't think my take on that is true, take a good look at the women's magazines at the checkout counter next time you leave an American supermarket. There's a hell of a lot more emphasis on sexual technique than on anything having to do with domestic economy of any sort. Females reading those magazines are far more likely to know how to stimulate a frenulum than sew a button. It's not just Britney, Christina and Paris either--it's the whole damned female part of American society. You can't think that in these PC days MEN are writing and editing those magazines with stories like "Ten Sex Tips to Make Him Beg for More," "The 10 Hottest Sex Positions Ever," and "Is Anal Bleaching for You?"

Well, the chickens are coming home to roost. We've got a generation of women who think all it takes to succeed in marriage is knowing how to screw like a cheap whore. That's not going to cut it, and men exploiting and dumping them without even thinking of commitment will continue toward becoming the more common reality.

Allen Bloom said that the old marriage rules were broken and we neither could nor should go back to them, but he also said that we shouldn't believe that a new and workable set would emerge just because we wanted or needed them to. He was right. The system itself is broken and I don't see any way to make it right again.

By the way, lest I get slammed for making attacks solely on American women, it's not just them. East Asian (Korean and Japanese)women are worse. Their marriage rates are much less than the U.S., although in their cases, it's usually the women who don't want to marry. Societal pressure on women over in East Asia is very strong and the legal system treats them poorly in divorce cases. Their answer is simply not to marry and just continue to live at home. Should a dalliance cause a pregnancy, they simply abort. That happens quite often. The number of abortions since 1973 in South Korea alone is equivalent to the number of people living in the country today (44 million.)

Bottom line: we used to have men and women. Now we have men and imitation men, and the imitations are following all the worst habits of the real men.

Posted by Jomosing Bluetooth8431 2007-12-11 08:32|| 2007-12-11 08:32|| Front Page Top

#7 I've seen the same from lotp, and not just from families that have shirked their responsibilities. The external pressures from society and the lionization of such as Paris et al sends a values message to young people. The absolute abandonment of any sense of ethical or moral values by our institutions of higher learning has turned them into bordellos with books where hooking up has made the myth of the sixties sexual revolution a reality.

And campus man-woman ratios approaching 40-60 have not helped matters either. The derision in which all displays of masculinity by men is held by our elites is equally to blame. And it's not as if this was unforeseen. Listen to Jean Shepherd speak in the sixties of the Great Role Reversal and its consequences that are now borne out daily.

But fear not. The coming crisis will reward the masculine values that will be necessary for our society to prevail. And along with that will come a restoration of values by women as they seek to win the returning real men by acting as adult women. But it's not here yet and I fear we must only witness more degeneration before regeneration can begin.

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2007-12-11 08:40|| 2007-12-11 08:40|| Front Page Top

#8 I had to look up the word "frenulum". You learn something new every day.

Posted by Excalibur 2007-12-11 08:47|| 2007-12-11 08:47|| Front Page Top

#9 We've got a generation of women who think all it takes to succeed in marriage is knowing how to screw like a cheap whore.

One way to alter it would be to provide them with real competition. Remove the state sponsored monopoly on 'legal' sex. Yes, legal sex. We still have the laws that gives women the monopoly on sex and the institutional bias to support that. Remove the prohibition on commercial sex. Just like the numbers rackets took a big hit when the state authorized legal gambling, removing this barrier will force those who want a 'marriage' to offer something more than just 'sex'. Look at Nevada [other than the Plague of Harry]. The world hasn't ended. And don't give me the line about men exploiting women. I can direct you to a website that is definitely Not Safe For The Workplace which clearly shows that women are seeking other women for 'sevices' at a 2 to 5 ration to men. It is a different world now.

What it would mean is that 'couples' would enter into something closer to real contract [formerly known as marriage] in which each would have to show something other than 'sex' as the basis for that contract. That'll force changes in behavior.

Posted by Procopius2k 2007-12-11 09:04|| 2007-12-11 09:04|| Front Page Top

#10 We've also got a generation of 'men' who have close to zero self discipline, willingness to sacrifice and a clear sense of what really matters in a relationship.

Both genders has better get their act together, sooner rather than later.

I'll believe men really dislike the horridly shallow lustfilled behavior of so many young women when I see them refuse to date or sleep with such. Until then, it looks hypocritical and shallow to me on both sides of the aisle.

Posted by lotp 2007-12-11 09:52|| 2007-12-11 09:52|| Front Page Top

#11 Don't be a fool, lotp. They'll screw them; they just won't marry them. And the smart men will use rubbers.

Posted by Jomosing Bluetooth8431 2007-12-11 10:09|| 2007-12-11 10:09|| Front Page Top

#12 Like I said, I'll be more impressed with the complaints about women when I see men acting like adults themselves.

Posted by lotp 2007-12-11 10:21|| 2007-12-11 10:21|| Front Page Top

#13 lotp,

You missed the part where the women seek the divorce and all the support. Did you know that after a divorce and a DNA test showing the kid wasn't the former spouse's, that some states still makes the person formerly known as the husband to still pay child support and not the sperm provider?

Posted by Procopius2k 2007-12-11 10:40|| 2007-12-11 10:40|| Front Page Top

#14 Yes, I did know that. Our legal system on divorce is out of whack. And that has caused injustice and pain.

Speaking of injustice and pain:

Did you know that not all that long ago I volunteered for a battered women's hotline? That I more than once went to rescue women beaten so badly that their faces were unrecognizable, or their ribs kicked in, for the offense of asking Him for money for the baby's medicines when He was drinking?

That up through the late 1960s, when I was a teen, a woman needed her Husband's written permission to be prescribed contraceptives or to have a hysterectomy?

Do you really want to get into an exchange of abuses here? Because based on severity x duration, it won't be nearly as complimentary to men as you might wish.

For my part, I want this society to Grow Up on the part of both sexes. Sooner, rather than later. To build a society and families based on mutual respect for each other - including for our differences.

It's not impossible, you know. I live and work among military families who do it all the time, including families in which both parents are in uniform and each has deployed in theater over the last few years.

My parents divorced when I was a kid. My mother got me because that was the norm at the time, when everyone knew my father was the better parent. It sucked for me, until I finally ended up with him. I know personally how bad divorces can be.

There's a reason I stuck out my marriage during the hard parts. 33+ years into it I'm glad I did. But Mr. Lotp and I *both* had a lot of maturing to do to make this relationship work. And I wouldn't trade the mature Man he's become for a dozen of the pseudo 'men' I see in our society these days.

Posted by lotp 2007-12-11 10:47|| 2007-12-11 10:47|| Front Page Top

#15 "Women's groups last night also warned that the sexualisation of young girls was making them increasingly vulnerable."

No doubt, some the same "groups" that last week blamed the uptick in teen pregnancies on an increase in abstinence based sexuality programs.

Posted by DepotGuy 2007-12-11 10:54|| 2007-12-11 10:54|| Front Page Top

#16 "We've also got a generation of 'men' who have close to zero self discipline, willingness to sacrifice and a clear sense of what really matters in a relationship."

Go back and read what I read earlier. I'd contend that a lot of men today have a very good sense of what matters in a relationship--and that their chances of getting it from most Western women is darned slim. As for "willingness to sacrifice," I'd contend that you're asking males to play a rigged game with a deck they KNOW from empirical evidence is stacked against them. Smart people don't do that.

"Both genders has better get their act together, sooner rather than later."

I'll heartily concur with that. However, I place most of the blame for the downfall on the women. Western women today demand a hell of a lot more from men, while men expect a hell of a lot less from women. What man in his right mind today would have any reason to expect that a woman he might consider marrying could actually COOK, for example, much less do anything else that smacks of domestic economy.

Women, on the other hand, expect that not only will their husband be an excellent provider and good father, but also be emotionally sensitive and capable of filling all their physical, emotional and financial needs. Big change, I'd say, and not at all in favor of the men. And remember, the minute the woman decides her man isn't good enough, she's advised by the female society around her to reach for the ripcord. They'll be happy to tell her that she doesn't need him anyway, and to encourage her to go for the jugular and get the last damned dime out of him she can.

"I'll believe men really dislike the horridly shallow lustfilled behavior of so many young women when I see them refuse to date or sleep with such."

They'll hold such behavior in contempt, but that doesn't mean they won't take advantage of it when the opportunity arises. A saying I heard many times in college was "a stiff dick has no conscience." The problem for the rest of us is that a society full of contemptuous men and bitter, angry women is a horrible place for trying to raise children, much less decent ones. And if you want a real close view of where that situation already exists, take a good look at America's black community. In their male-female interactions they're already where the rest of us are going. That place has a 70+ per cent illegitimacy rate, BTW, in addition to all its other problems.

"Until then, it looks hypocritical and shallow to me on both sides of the aisle."

No, what's happening is the men who use the cheap women and discard them are utilizing rational choice theory and taking advantage of the free-rider effect (no pun intended, although it does fit rather nicely). That's adult economic behavior if I ever saw it, although not worth a damn for the society as a whole.

I think Excalibur's right. It will get better, but we're going to have to see it get a lot worse before it does.

Posted by Jomosing Bluetooth8431 2007-12-11 10:58|| 2007-12-11 10:58|| Front Page Top

#17 Did you know that after a divorce and a DNA test showing the kid wasn't the former spouse's, that some states still makes the person formerly known as the husband to still pay child support and not the sperm provider?

What's the problem? That's what real men do. Not run around finding other people to bear their burdens. Now, if the divorce had been for cause of adultery with a corresponding action for alienation of affection with paternity as evidence in both cases, I would see it differently. But once a man brings a child into his home and recognizes it as his own, responsibility for it should be his in the eyes of the law. That's part of why we have christenings.

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2007-12-11 11:00|| 2007-12-11 11:00|| Front Page Top

#18 "Both genders has better get their act together, sooner rather than later."

I'll heartily concur with that. However, I place most of the blame for the downfall on the women.

Yes, I can see that you do. And I respectfully and unapologetically suggest that your view is distorted. You haven't a clue how hard it can be -- for practical as well as emotional reasons -- for many women with children to leave a marriage. No doubt there are some who do so nastily and like financial vampires. There are many others who stay in abusive marriages because they have few choices otherwise.

I'd contend that a lot of men today have a very good sense of what matters in a relationship--and that their chances of getting it from most Western women is darned slim.

What about their sense of THEIR needed contributions? And I don't mean the Oprah crap about sensitivity and backrubs. I mean self discipline, emotional stability, sacrifice, a willingness to do the drudge things that contribute to house and home.

Both are needed. BOTH.

Posted by lotp 2007-12-11 11:07|| 2007-12-11 11:07|| Front Page Top

#19 I was told marriage is an 80-20 deal. You give 80, the other gives 20. This goes equally for both parties.

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2007-12-11 11:09|| 2007-12-11 11:09|| Front Page Top

#20 Individually the issues are with both male and female behavior.

Societally the issues are more with the female.

To me the problem is that the feminists that were trying to address the real issues which lotp speaks of didn't know where to stop.

Unmarried sex has always and will always be easier for the man. That's nature, live with it.
Unwanted pregnancy is the woman's burden and there's damn little that can be done to change that. So, the women ought to recognize that situation and act accordingly instead of bitching about how unfair it all is.

If you dress and act like a slut you will be treated like a slut. If that means that fewer males are interested, what have you lost?

If a man is looking for a real relationship, he will not be looking for sluts, except for use as an amateur whore.

Posted by AlanC 2007-12-11 11:34|| 2007-12-11 11:34|| Front Page Top

#21 I was told marriage is an 80-20 deal. You give 80, the other gives 20. This goes equally for both parties.

Bingo - How very true. The hard part is finding that person. (for both parties)

Posted by GORT 2007-12-11 11:39|| 2007-12-11 11:39|| Front Page Top

#22 Now, if the divorce had been for cause of adultery with a corresponding action for alienation of affection with paternity as evidence in both cases, I would see it differently.

It's called 'no fault' divorce for a reason NS.

Posted by Procopius2k 2007-12-11 11:40|| 2007-12-11 11:40|| Front Page Top

#23 I don't think we're that far apart in our opinions, though I think in some cases we're talking about two different things.

Society has always produced hookers and dancing girls (and pimps and pushers and other unsavory male characters). Ye Kynge's Doxy isn't a recent phenomenon, and it wasn't recent back when men wore periwigs. Since caveman times there's always been a "genteel" class. It was made possible by the labor of the "earthier" half of society.

You just can't get good help anymore. That's because machines now do the work the pert Irish lass did 150 years ago. Most of us will go through life without ever having servants, of any kind. We can't afford them.

Neither are the members of society stuck in their social positions, unchanging from generation to generation. Today you can make the choice as to whether you're going to live in a trailer and have the cops come to visit four nights a week or if you're going to make something a bit more substantive of your life. We've all made those choices, and when we've been really lucky we've had the opportunity to change our minds when we've made the wrong choices.

Life is short-term simpler when a girl sits on the most valuable part of her. Life is short-term simpler when a young fellow's ambition extends no further than beer and babes. Liebau makes a point that there's an informal propaganda campaign that nudges large numbers of mostly brainless girls toward sluttish behavior. It does do them a disservice, but there are also enough girls who don't need the nudge, just as there are male equivalents in sufficient numbers to mate with them regularly.

I don't find that sinister or find some deep political meaning in that, even though I'd rather live in a society that was quite a bit more straightlaced than the one we have now. I merely keep in mind that half of everyone is below average and 80 percent of everyone is middlin'.

Until society starts disapproving of Ms. Hilton's penchant for displaying the details of her sex life and her equipment society will remain the way it is. When it does, there will be a new set of problems associated with the change in attitudes.

Posted by Fred 2007-12-11 11:48|| 2007-12-11 11:48|| Front Page Top

#24 Of course, Good Parenting has nothing to do with it. (sarcasm) It's easy to blame society for all the ills but what exactly is "society".

Posted by Deacon Blues">Deacon Blues 2007-12-11 11:50|| 2007-12-11 11:50|| Front Page Top

#25 "Yes, I can see that you do. And I respectfully and unapologetically suggest that your view is distorted. You haven't a clue how hard it can be -- for practical as well as emotional reasons -- for many women with children to leave a marriage."

First of all, who the hell are you to comment on what I do or don't have a clue about? You have no knowledge of my background and what I have or haven't experienced. This would be a perfect spot to concoct some sad story that would make you look like a perfect jerk for having made that comment. Because I don't shoot sitting ducks, I'll refrain.

Second, it's the men who DO work hard and try to be good providers that are the ones who get screwed worst. They're the ones who will be paying for 18 to 21 years for children's upkeep when they far too often never get to see them, not to mention the many times that the support money doesn't go to the kids.

I've seen divorce up close and personal, from both men's and women's sides, and what I've seen is that men getting divorced DO IT ALONE. There are damned few people they know even willing to talk to them about it, and most people feel that the issue is best avoided because no matter how it happened, it somehow represents a failure on the man's part. They go through what might be the toughest thing they'll ever have to deal with generally without much, if any, help or support from anyone at all.

What I've seen from the women's side is totally different. I've seen female relatives of mine literally surrounded by other women telling them how they always knew the soon-to-be-ex was a loser, and how he needs to be made to pay for having been such a bastard. Then they come out with their best idea of how she and her lawyer can best manage to screw the guy over. Sympathy? For her, oh yeah--you could cut it with a knife.

For the guy, a far different story. That lot would gladly have used the knife to emasculate him. Watching that particular scene made me understand where Kipling was coming from when he made his comment about blowing your brains out being preferable to having the women cut up what remains. That was an ugly thing to see but I'm pretty sure (as I was the only man there) I'm the only one who thought so.

Western women have become a lot more demanding of men in the last 50 years. Disagree if you will; it's true, and it's been the cause of many a divorce that probably would not have happened five decades earlier.

Our society and today's media far too often paint men as stupid, brutish cretins and women as both their moral and intellectual superiors. Men, knowing this isn't true, are far more suspicious of women than they used to be, and rightly so. The cohabitation and divorce statistics are clear evidence of it.

What is probably even more persuasive evidence is the number of people living alone in America--the people who don't even bother to cohabit. That number is going through the roof. It's now higher than it's ever been, and I think the reasons are obvious.

Posted by Jomosing Bluetooth8431 2007-12-11 11:55|| 2007-12-11 11:55|| Front Page Top

#26 Agreed on Hilton and her ilk, Fred.

A saying I heard many times in college was "a stiff dick has no conscience."

Real men keep it in their pants most of the time. Perpetual adolescents think a stiff dick is an excuse for behavior.

Posted by lotp 2007-12-11 11:59|| 2007-12-11 11:59|| Front Page Top

#27 However: I 100% agree that men do not get emotional support when they're divorced. How much of that is due to sterotypical differences between men and women I leave others to judge.

Posted by lotp 2007-12-11 12:01|| 2007-12-11 12:01|| Front Page Top

#28 A comedian once said he named his um...part because he didn't want a total stranger making all his decisions.

And a man I once loved deeply chose to marry a (seemingly) empty headed temptress instead. He's now going through a flesh-eating divorce and custody battle. I wouldn't wish that on anybody but hey, he had his choices.

Posted by Seafarious 2007-12-11 12:16|| 2007-12-11 12:16|| Front Page Top

#29 A saying I heard many times in college was "a stiff dick has no conscience."

That's the choice you're given, isn't it? The guy lugging it around has to carry the conscience, too. The girlies also have consciences and get to make their own decisions. Liebau sez they're being nudged toward deciding to take their pants off. Conscience is the most secure waistband.

When you're young and horny and you're afraid the supply of sex is going to be cut off without warning at any time it's more important to you. That's why the nudges are successful. They're decreasingly successful when the participants are 40 or 50 or 60. As the remorseless years go by it's more likely (though still not guaranteed) that horniness will be overlayed by other factors like dignity, self-respect, and modesty. Your sense of self-worth encompasses more things than just your nether regions.

Eventually you come to the conclusion that there are 24 hours to the day and that the average sex act takes something less than 20 minutes. You start looking for things to do to fill the other 23 hours and 40 minutes. That's when you discover bowling.

Posted by Fred 2007-12-11 12:24|| 2007-12-11 12:24|| Front Page Top

#30 That's when you discover bowling.

Golf.

Posted by Pappy 2007-12-11 12:41|| 2007-12-11 12:41|| Front Page Top

#31 ;-)

Posted by lotp 2007-12-11 12:45|| 2007-12-11 12:45|| Front Page Top

#32 So THATS the problem. No one ever showed Teddy Kennedy how to bowl. Shoulda told'm you can drink and bowl at the same time.

Posted by Procopius2k 2007-12-11 12:53|| 2007-12-11 12:53|| Front Page Top

#33 I agree w/the Deacon. Still comes down to parenting. My folks advice to me as a young man - "don't bed a woman you wouldn't be willing to marry, because if you get her pregnant you'll be marrying her."

As for gender diffenrences and unrealistic expectations of partners - go to any msn, yahoo, or other dating site. Look at the comparison between what men and women singles of age range 26-36 (typical bio-clock ticking marriage range) want in a prospective partner - illuminating.

Posted by Broadhead6 2007-12-11 13:09|| 2007-12-11 13:09|| Front Page Top

#34 Let me just say that it sucks that the girls all turned into sex perverts after I got too old to be considered as just a sex object.

Posted by rjschwarz 2007-12-11 15:19|| 2007-12-11 15:19|| Front Page Top

#35 lotp,

1. If you asked all of the women in America under the age of 50

"In matters of childrearing, does the husband EVER get the final say in deciding what to do"

what percentage of them would say NO, NEVER?

2. If a husband and wife have children, and the husband does anything which bothers, annoys, or even bores the wife, does that give her the right to leave him and take the children and half his stuff at a whim, what percentage would say YES?

The answer to both questions is 99%+.

Until you are willing to admit this to yourself - and until we as a society are willing to address this situation and honestly deal with the factors that led to it and perpetuate it in the courts and our culture - it cannot change.

I can't prove it, but the way women are leaving men and soaking them, I'm beginning to believe that they are actually planning to do so from a time long before they actually marry. It's beginning to seem to frequent to be anything but scripted - the script being "get the man and his income stream, get pregnant, and leave him and take his stuff if he does ANYTHING that does not meet with your approval.

I think that this is yet another outgrowth of postmodern feminism - an aspect which comes from the propensity of women in our era to view a man as useful for his income stream and genetic material only. And having gotten both, he has little other worht, according to what they learned from the media and in the education industry.

Posted by no mo uro 2007-12-11 17:38|| 2007-12-11 17:38|| Front Page Top

#36 no mo uro, I deal daily with young soldiers and junior officers in our military, many of whom marry when they live the installation where I work.

Your descriptions just don't fit the vast majority of them. And I know because, among other things, I mentor many of them, male and female, as do my professional colleagues. And I know because I see marriages stay steady during the 30s and 40s despite long and dangerous deployments, lower income than the national average for the same education and other hardships.

Now, these young men and women don't suddenly adopt that pro-marriage, pro-fidelity, pro-children attitude while in military training. For the most part they bring that attitude with them when they sign up. We might help them to understand what leadership, sacrifice and commitment mean and we surely help them practice it in various ways before they say "I do". But they brought the basic values with them when they signed up. They got them somewhere, often from their families. So those values still persist in many places.

But I know - I really DO know - how bad the marriage and gender wars are out there in the culture at large. My daughter is 31. My younger brother, the divorced one, just turned 40. Several nieces and nephews or ours have married - or not - over the last few years; others remain determinedly single, willingly or not. My older brother's marriage was a total fiasco. He ended up losing not only his biological daughter but his wife's daughter from a previous marriage whom he had formall adopted -- and he lost all visiting rights.

And I read the media, watch TV and movies. The evidence is all around us.

I detest the erosion of marriage that has been pushed for 3 decades now. I cringe and object when I see the deliberate downgrading of men and masculinity that permeates ads, movies, literature. I see the bitterness on BOTH sides of the gender barrier. And yes - in some women I see stupid shallow destructiveness and vindictiveness. Just as I've seen some pretty horrid behavior on the part of some men.

But I'm struck by the way you phrased your questions. In a healthy marriage both members discuss, negotiate, compromise. When we really couldn't agree I've yielded to my husband's wishes on a lot of issues that mattered to me. He's done the same for his part. We insisted that our commitment to the marriage would always matter more than any issue where we disagreed. It was bitterly, painfully hard to live up to that some times. But we did it.

The idea that there's the wife and kid over here and then there's the man and "his stuff" over there .... is a recipe for a marriage that will never work whether or not the woman makes off with the kids and "half of HIS stuff". Marriage isn't a commercial transaction. Not real marriage.

I'm no expert. But I do have the scars and successes of forging a successful marriage that was far from easy going and conflict free. From what I've seen around me, in corporate jobs and our family and our neighborhood, right now neither sex is behaving very well on average.

And that means a lot of hurt and angry men plus, as Liebau notes, a lot of empty, bitter and often also hurt women. We can fix this but it won't be easy. And it will take a deliberate decision to seek a common ground.

Posted by lotp 2007-12-11 18:45|| 2007-12-11 18:45|| Front Page Top

#37 propensity of women in our era to view a man as useful for his income stream and genetic material only. And having gotten both, he has little other worht

This last part really left me sad. Mr. Lotp's worth to me is infinitely wider and deeper than either of those factors. But truth be told, I didn't really have the maturity and perspective to measure his real worth to me until my late 40s. I just turned 56 last week, but I can still remember how I thought and felt in my 20s, 30s and 40s. It's not always a comfortable thing to remember. Some I'm ashamed of. And some was so very dominated by what I thought were urgent, bottom line issues at the time, which I now realize just weren't as important as I thought back then.

Conversely, that worth has deepened in part because he matured into his real potential as a man during those years too.

Posted by lotp 2007-12-11 18:52|| 2007-12-11 18:52|| Front Page Top

#38 lotp, those were thoughtful and reasoned responses - it's nice to see that there are a few good women out there.

Your thoughts on discussion and negotiation and compromise are spot on. And I'll take your idea on that even further - those should be in place even before marriage. How many couples talk about what they will do if they are childless, or if a parent gets Alzheimer's, or if one of the couple becomes paraplegic, or what kind of religion their children might have BEFORE they get married nowadays? They almost universally don't - either because they are still in the lovestruck phase, or because they fear to drive off their potential mate. My wife and I talked about these things and a whole lot more prior to marriage, which is when they should be hashed out.

But to get back to your responses - you stuck with your husband and conceded to him on some issues, and he to you. That's what it is all about. My point is that while there are still men 10-20 years your junior who are willing to do this, there are very, very few women who are. They have been sent messages both conscious and unconscious that to ever concede to a man is to betray the sisterhood. The woman is NEVER wrong - Gloria Steinem (and others) said so. This is pervasive now in our culture.
You stuck with your spouse through the tough times even though he didn't always agree with you and you couldn't always get your way. Most women significantly younger than you will simply NEVER permit that outcome to happen, they'll bail way ahead of that, and never have a good marriage or see their spouse reach their potential.

When you have the combination of women who believe they can never be wrong right to their core combined with a court system that backs that notion up with financial and other penalties, you have a recipe for disaster. And while I agree with you that there is a great deal more to marriage (particularly a successful one) than material stuff, the material stuff is nonetheless a big part of marriage, and has been for millenia. You can't just toss that part aside on a lark.

None of this is to let off the hook men who are generically and unconsciously pigs or who game the system with dispassionate cruelty. Philanderers and abusers exist, and the ire of the courts should be directed at those individuals, no doubt. But the current statistics indicate that women are responsible for initiating divorce nearly 80% of the time. Do you really believe that 80% of men are philanderers and abusers? And when the reasons given for divorce are carefully analyzed, it seems that a greater and greater percentage of women are intiating them because Princess got told "no" for the first time in her life, or because she was simply bored. If a man were to initiate divorce for these reasons, he would rightly have to pay. If the woman does this, the man still has to pay. "No fault" sounds a lot more like "man's fault" without regard to the real problem at hand.

At any rate, thanks for your responses, and I hope you've taught your experiences and outlook to a few younger women.

Posted by no mo uro 2007-12-11 19:25|| 2007-12-11 19:25|| Front Page Top

#39 They have been sent messages both conscious and unconscious that to ever concede to a man is to betray the sisterhood. The woman is NEVER wrong - Gloria Steinem (and others) said so.

Yes, I've encountered that attitude. A lot. And fought it.

Some may remember me boring y'all with my stories about fighting the young radical l3sbian takeover of the LA NOW chapter in the mid-late 80s. They drove out the married women (many Latinas) who were focused on health care, education and similar issues and who didn't regard our marriages as "sleeping with the enemy".

They won control of the feminist movement. They dominate the "womens' study" departments in universities. And their agenda has been utterly corrosive to all who are touched by it.

Posted by lotp 2007-12-11 19:34|| 2007-12-11 19:34|| Front Page Top

#40 What lotp said in her last two posts. The same for me after spending more than half of my life with Mr. Wife. We who think of our husbands as equal partners, and whose husbands think of us that way, we're working together to get through our problems instead of getting divorced.

I'm very sorry some of you have had, or watched, bad women destroy all that had been hoped for. But about half of those who marry nowadays never get divorced. Which suggests that significantly more than 1% of the men and women in this country are neither spiders nor leaches, neither bitches nor brutes.

Posted by trailing wife 2007-12-11 19:36|| 2007-12-11 19:36|| Front Page Top

#41 I checked with trailng daughter #1,who is reading over my shoulder, and she says this kind of thing makes her mad -- Ms. Liebau likely doesn't have any evidence to substantiate her allegations, and anyway, this is how the older generation has spoken of the younger since Socrates' time. Besides, she is saying, even as I type this, she and her sister haven't been taught to value sex over achievement and intelligence, and they're both going to be good wives, or not at all.

My apologies: my previous post responded to lotp's #36 and 37.

Posted by trailing wife 2007-12-11 20:01|| 2007-12-11 20:01|| Front Page Top

#42 Fair cop TW.

Posted by no mo uro 2007-12-11 20:02|| 2007-12-11 20:02|| Front Page Top

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