Letters to the Editor
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It's about picking your battles, not surrendering.
I've read "The Surrendered Wife." The 2 messages I got from it were "Be kind to your husband" and "Don't micromanage".
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separate spheres are not equal
"The fact is, women have always been equal to men. The division of labor made him deal with things outside the home, her within. There were benefits and burdens to each role. It was often said that he ruled the roost, but she ruled the rooster."
The problem with this logic is, that until well into this century, women were simply *not* *allowed* to own property, sign for loans or other financial transactions, vote, or hold jobs that might dis-employ a man. Women were 100% financially dependent upon men, qwhether they be fathers, husbands, brothers, sons, or the State. With that utter financial dependence, women also had little control over their homes, beyond what to cook for dinner; their own bodies, (as she was as much a commodity as wheat or wool, as it didn't count as rape if she were married, as she was considered promiscuous even if she were attacked, as she had no access to birth control ...I could go on for *days* if you like); even their own children, who were could be sent to foster care, apprenticeships, and early marriages without their mother's consent.
Yes, there are exceptions that prove the rule if we look for them, but insisting that women have always been "equal" to men, overseeing the divided labor of civilization, just doesn't wash. It's like Ben Franklin's quip about calling an ox a bull ... nice words, but he'd rather have his missing property than the inaccurate, though flattering, title.
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separate spheres are not equal
true, even in some traditional societies women were often better off. It's really very very simple. Men and women are not the same and do not think feel of do all the same things the same way and never will. Defining all problems and issues arising frome these differences (while often denying that real differences exist) as ones of fairness or equality is simply a way of making the desire to have everything one's own way sound more legitimate.
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World's smallest violin plays
for MerelyMortalMale.
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mockery doesn't really address the issue
whether that matters or not I guess remains to be seen.
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Given that women but not men are prepared to voluntarily opt out of sex if they don't get everything their own way
it may not matter what men think, at least until men can have real sex and birth control that they control at the same time, if they ever can.
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Is that you, "anon"?
Sure sounds like you.
*eye roll* the big bad feminists have abused you long enough, right?
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actually it hasn't been long enough yet
that's kinda the point
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LeCastor's Comment
is the only proof I need that womennists couldn't give a flying **** about men and their needs or thoughts unless those needs or thoughts are on the list of womannist PRE-approved needs/thoughts as defined by womennists.
Time for men to begin paying back the favor?
Time for men to begin remembering why it is that men were historically considered more honorable, decent and trustworthy?
We all seek equality of genders, but womennists seem to continually have a problem with it when it does not favor them.
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You know what, Brightstar? You're right
I don't like whiny, passive-aggressive assholes. I'm not one myself, and I have no tolerance for them. So, yeah, I wuldn't like someone like you.
Good think that my bf is nothing like you. I woudln't be with him if he was. And it's not like he doesn't have feelings or emotions or any of that. Of course he does. But having feelings and emotioncs does not equal being a whiny, pathetic asshole.
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Anonymous
Please show me the societies where the women, as a class of citizens, were "better off" then the men. And show me the proof.
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women sometimes live longer, suffer less violence, etc, so by some measures women are better off
of course these are never the measures that matter, are they?
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I got an idea: The Surrendered Husband
If the lessons are good for the goose, how about the gander?
Who's with me? ... no one?
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don't need another book, nearly every book and for that matter nearly every magazine article written about the subject in the last 40 years
might as well have that title
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Thanks for proving my point
"women sometimes live longer, suffer less violence, etc, so by some measures women are better off"
And women sometimes win the lottery. But that hardly helps the women who don't. And it certainly proves nothing about one gender or another being "better off."
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Oh Anon
don't you think you're exaggerating just a little bit?
Sounds like you're in love with being an abused victim.
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And it certainly proves nothing about one gender or another being "better off."
And neither do specific complaints about the status of women.
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Am I exaggerating? Depends
Feminist attitudes towards sex, men and gender are analagous in a lot of ways (actually the relationship is closer than that) to the most extreme Victorian prudery. Victorian prudery didn't stop people from having sex but it did make them stupid and crazy(not in a good way) about it. So if I were saying the the androgyny/fem supremacists attitude had completely replaced reality on every level that would be an exaggeraion but if I said that these attitudes had acquired a priviliged position in the public conversation and made most people unwilling to deal fairly with reality that would not be an exaggeration. (For all you Victorian history buffs I am aware that problems with sex were not invented in the 19th century; it's shorthand)
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But see, anon, here's the problem
Am I exaggerating? Depends
Feminist attitudes towards sex, men and gender are analagous in a lot of ways (actually the relationship is closer than that) to the most extreme Victorian prudery. Victorian prudery didn't stop people from having sex but it did make them stupid and crazy(not in a good way) about it. So if I were saying the the androgyny/fem supremacists attitude had completely replaced reality on every level that would be an exaggeraion but if I said that these attitudes had acquired a priviliged position in the public conversation and made most people unwilling to deal fairly with reality that would not be an exaggeration. (For all you Victorian history buffs I am aware that problems with sex were not invented in the 19th century; it's shorthand)
--Anonymous
I'm not sure what attitudes about sex you are referring to here. Most feminists I know, including myself, are very much into sex. If you're referring exclusively to Greer and Dworkin, say so, because represeting them as speaking for all feminists is not correct and probably intentionally misleading on your part.
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The column author has no clue what she's talking about
I never heard of The Surrendered Wife, so checked out the website. Just reading the sample chapter online made it clear the book isn't even remotely what Ms. Lloyd claims. In my opinion, it's a poorly-chosen title, but what Ms. Doyle is actually recommending makes good sense.
This sort of column is exactly why I dropped my premium subscription 2 years ago. I miss the old Salon.