Letters to the Editor
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Gender confused young men- wishful feminist fantasy?
"In trying to empower the girls, we implicitly sent a message that the guys were not as good,".
A point that many of us who have been subjected to an inherently and institutional anti-boy, anti-male society comment on when we see articles like this. Leave it to the author to debunk it with nothing of substance only disagree presumably because it was written by a man. Nowhere in that sentiment is an insistence that woman give up anything as many of the angry misandronysts have claimed. It is a statement of perception based on men's experiences. Women do not own the providence of commentary on gender and do need to listen to men and their views. Emily your touting of your household as a feminist household sounds like a great atmosphere; my only objection is that is not the feminist ideal being preached in the high schools to the women's studies programs. In many males opinions, what is preached is hypocrisy and hatred- much like what has been written in these posts. Your home is a successful embodiment of equality, but not feminism.
We have a serious problem in educational achievement from kindergarten on... it is boy's who are failing. They are failing because the school does not resonate with their biological beings and they do not learn the way girls do. Feminist ideals are not going to fix that, they do quite the contrary. However, when we attempt to address this inequality the ardent hatred as demonstrated here again looms large. The point is, to do anything positive to aid and develop positive masculinity in any form is vehemently denied. That is not gender confusion, that is a result of telling boys and men they are not important of valuable regardless of how they choose to portry their masculinity. There is a false fear that promoting the needs of boys/men and rewarding masculinity will lead to untold horrors i.e see the hateful comments from many of the female posters. To immediately resist male input is a choice you can make for sure, but accept that it will be called out as a sexist misandronystic act, or as the one poster so aptly put it, "go fuck yourselves" we welcome you to tell us the same. Which seems to be happening because quite frankly the assertion that men can't handle women doing the hook-up thing seems larely a fantasy of feminist wishful thinking. As for those so certain of their anti-male views and deny that they are anti-male views- please join the minions of women who are having a hard time finding a suitable mate. And if you do choose to procreate I hope you do not have a son- for his sake.
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"In fact by the sounds of some of the women here there are already a lot of them in existence now."
To what are you referring? It can't be those of us who talk about our happy, egalitarian relationships with men, because that would imply that happy, egalitarian heterosexual relationships are impossible. Surely you can't be that bitter?
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In this latest round of Troll/CounterTroll...
...aren't Broadsheet's bitter guys mirror images of its critics of the patriarchy? Don't both camps sound like self-proclaimed rebels fighting a gendered evil empire?
But, it reminds me of Giovanni Ribisi's bus scene from "Masked and Anonymous". The ideas remain static while the terrain shifts.
How can anyone NOT be a function of whatever oppressive system he or she envisions? If their thoughts really are their own, their criticisms ring hollow. Instead, we get clunky liberation narratives. Some folks are free, others aren't. A lot of time's spent hashing out who's who.
At any rate, we can't ascribe too much power to our enemy without becoming that enemy. We can't proclaim our independence too boldly without defanging our criticisms.
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my completely unscientific study
I read my local newspaper Sunday engagement and wedding announcement section. Usually there are some hysterically funny entries that my husband and I chortle over. But what you'll find is a lot of average looking people getting married to each other. Every now and then there's a hottie but it's typically two hot people getting married to each other. The educational backgrounds are usually very similiar or both work in similar fields. Obviously this is a self selected group, but you just don't see these trends that people are talking about. In volume it goes from more to less: recent college grads in their 20's, career people in their 30's, second marriages, kids still in college or right out of high school. You'll see a few more references to children of the bride or groom participating in the ceremony, but there are no earth shaking trends of the numbers trailing off. To me it looks like plain old regular people are getting hitched to each other.
As far as college dating rituals, the traditions still hold true in Southern colleges. Yes, there is probably a lot more overt sexual activity and a lot less "shotgun marriages". My sister-in-law graduated two years ago. 90% of her friends were engaged at graduation. At her wedding there was one member of her wedding party that was not married or engaged. She was off to graduate school, where her friends assured her she would certainly be able to find a husband. My husband's male friends are all married many of them having gotten engaged in college. Even his most uncouth and unattractive friend has a wife (and she's totally cute). We were actually the odd ones having waited until our early 30's to marry. In my Southern university, I participated in a sorority for a semester, there were very specific dating rules laid out for fraternity brothers and sorority sisters. It started with a group date or party, if you liked someone specific you asked them to a formal or mixer. If you wanted to get serious and exclusive the frat boy would offer you his frat pin. Typically by now you were having monogamous sex. In this case you would NOT be considered a slut. (However if you had put out before this stage you might be and then finding a real boyfriend might be difficult). At this point you'd meet each other's families, probably at parents weekend or tailgating at a football game. If everything went well you'd be engaged by graduation and heading toward marriage a year out from that. What year do think I graduated? 1995. My sister-in-law assures me that in 2007 the tradition holds strong. (Although blow jobs are not considered as big a deal, but that you still need to make sure you don't get a "rep".)