The final nail in the coffin of the American marriage?
Via Jeff Fecke, I found this awesomely inept anti-feminist screed from Kathryn Jean Lopez. It’s all based on the tragic figure of Jason Bateman’s loser character in Juno. Lopez argues that his type—yuppie men who secretly wished they were punks, and lay all the blame for their lack of super-coolness on their yuppie wives who don’t labor under any illusions of being anything but what they are—is evidence for an epidemic of male refusal to embrace adult responsibilities. And who is responsible for this lack of male responsibility? Well, not men themselves, dummies! Anti-feminists may hate women, but they also have a searing contempt for men, which is reflected in Lopez’s unwillingness to even allow men the responsibility of being responsible.
No, of course women are to blame for men who are unwilling to take responsibility. Specifically the secret, all-powerful cadre called The Feminists. We all know the argument—men aren’t motivated to grow up and do icky girl stuff like get married and have children and hold down a full-time job on their own. No, they have to be bribed into it. You ladies have to sweeten the deal by offering dependence and submission. But never fear, men are like vending machines. You put submission and dependence in, ladies, and you’ll get devotion and responsibility back. So really, it’s all on you to “make” men be responsible.
Sax calls it “this weird new virus of apathy.” Not all young men have it, but enough that it shows in the stats. Colleges have gone from majority male to majority female in the last 50 years. And while most young women who enroll will graduate, most of their male counterparts won’t. Mark Loring has gone through the motions, got the job, got the bride. But he’s not satisfied and doesn’t know what to do in his beautiful home, with a successful wife who is happy with the life she’s made for herself (and, she hopes, for them both).
She neglects to mention that colleges didn’t just go to a male to female majority, but that the past male majority was based in large part on legal discrimination against women. Or that men’s willingness to not finish college is based in no small part on the greater job opportunities available to men that often lure them away from finishing an education. Or the role the racist prison-industrial complex plays in that. It was just uppity bitches forgetting the importance of willful submission.
As Jeff notes, the privilege not to care about the family you created is not evidence of some new loss of motivation in men. And the sitcom stereotype of the buffoonish-but-fun-loving husband vs. the stick-in-the-mud wife is hardly new, and it’s the opposite of feminist. What Mark does in the movie, which is abandon his wife after promising to go on this parenting journey with her, is something men have been doing since time immemorial. Abandoning your family has always been a male privilege.
But I will say that Juno did something interesting in the movie, something that probably did offend Lopez to her core. First of all, in the sitcom family situation, refusing to take responsibility is something that never has real consequences for the buffoonish men. They never lose their marriages or piss anyone off permanently—the message is always, “Men, can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em.”* But in this movie, the marriage ends, and you’re left with a genuinely feminist take, which is that women can live without men if need be, and that’s a good thing. Because in the past, if your man abandoned your family, you’d be screwed, something which anti-feminists conceal with their fairy tale about how you can always get devotion for submission.
But the evidence for Lopez’s thesis—that women are independenting ourselves out of male love and devotion, because men are emotionally shallow creatures who can’t love freely but have to be bribed into it—is a tad thin. A stiff breeze blows it all away. Like the dreaded marriage-destroying properties of the Xbox.
Mark Loring reminds me of a letter in Sax’s book from a woman named Sarah. She says her husband is stuck on Xbox, and while she loves him and so will tolerate a certain amount of his lack of motivation to grow up, she is “constantly haunted” by something he said: “He said that I might need to lower my expectations in life because he didn’t know whether he could provide them for me. What I find funny now is that I’m the real provider. I don’t feel like I’m part of a team. It’s wearing on me.” I hope that Sarah and her husband wound up better off than the Lorings.
Yes, your husband plays the Xbox all the time because you have the nerve to make your own money. That’s the ticket. Back in the days before middle class women had independent careers, men were careful to spend most of their free time lavishing love and attention on their wives, so much that you began to get sick of it. And of course, it’s impossible for the Xbox to be a social occasion that couples could enjoy together—women don’t have fun! Next you’ll be telling me they can do math.
Which reminds me of a term that was popular when I was growing up in the feminist wonderland of small town Texas: football widow. A football widow may or may not have had a job outside the home (though really the Platonic ideal of the football widow was the busy housewife), but regardless, she busted her ass making a nice home for her family and just generally devoting her life to her husband’s well-being. And in exchange, her ungrateful husband spent all of his free time watching sports, leaving her bereft of anything to do but make snacks, since even the TV was taken up by all football all the time. According to Lopez’s theory, the football widow shouldn’t exist.
The cure, for the record, for being a football widow or Xbox widow or whatever is often not to bemoan the fact that your partner doesn’t spend all his free time entertaining you. It’s to cultivate interests outside of your husband, to be an individual unto yourself who also needs some time to pursue her hobbies. And if he really is withdrawing into his hobbies to the exclusion of ever interacting positively with you, to take advantage of the newfound feminist right not to be in a marriage with someone who doesn’t really love you.
Now excuse me, but I’m going to drag my childish ass over to play the Xbox. Wonder if Lopez knows that you don’t actually need a penis to work the controller.
*The subsequent fear that springs up is that the second women get a chance to live without men, we’ll take it. The idea that women would freely choose men seems incomprehensible to a lot of sexists, demonstrating once again a real contempt for men.
99 Responses to “Movies and video games told me that feminists ruined men”
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I had many of the same thoughts after listening to a horrendous NPR interview with some woman from the Manhattan Institute arguing that this veritable epidemic of “peter pan” like boy/men was totally new (but how old is the peter pan label?) and the result of “bourgeois marriage” *and* the feminist movement. The NPR interviewer didn’t query her on the equivalency between “bourgeouis marriage” and feminism. I had thought feminism was a *response* to bourgeouis marriage and its problems for women and men. But I also learned that feminism teaches that everyone is “the same” and so when it turns out that (some) men don’t want babies that’s proof positive that feminism is *totally wrong about everything.* And Juno would totally back me up on that because, after all, it shows that the Mark character *doesn’t want babies* but his wife does, so it proves that feminism is all bad and wrong and stuff. (sarcasm off)
You have written a great essay on an aspect of Juno that I hadn’t really grasped as so central–that not only are we shown a teenage girl who doesn’t want to be a mother, but we are shown an adult woman who wants to be a mother but who doesn’t need to be a wife to do it. In that way its a bit like the (very dissapointing) Waitress where the ultimate love of the heroines life is her baby, not any of the men who so badly want to be her co-parent and sex partner.
aimai
I had many of the same thoughts after listening to a horrendous NPR interview with some woman from the Manhattan Institute arguing that this veritable epidemic of “peter pan” like boy/men was totally new (but how old is the peter pan label?) and the result of “bourgeois marriage” *and* the feminist movement. The NPR interviewer didn’t query her on the equivalency between “bourgeouis marriage” and feminism. I had thought feminism was a *response* to bourgeouis marriage and its problems for women and men. But I also learned that feminism teaches that everyone is “the same” and so when it turns out that (some) men don’t want babies that’s proof positive that feminism is *totally wrong about everything.* And Juno would totally back me up on that because, after all, it shows that the Mark character *doesn’t want babies* but his wife does, so it proves that feminism is all bad and wrong and stuff. (sarcasm off)
You have written a great essay on an aspect of Juno that I hadn’t really grasped as so central–that not only are we shown a teenage girl who doesn’t want to be a mother, but we are shown an adult woman who wants to be a mother but who doesn’t need to be a wife to do it. In that way its a bit like the (very dissapointing) Waitress where the ultimate love of the heroines life is her baby, not any of the men who so badly want to be her co-parent and sex partner.
aimai
Maybe K-Lo should take time off to watch Over Her Dead Body which is about as funny as it sounds. Yep, two women, one living, one dead, spend two hours arguing over the same rather dull looking guy. Instead of sympathizing, I felt “If you can bring back anyone from the dead, why don’t you bring back Cary Grant? Now HE would be somebody women would fight over.”
The Juno guy was passive-aggressive. He should have objected to his wife’s wanting to adopt before they hired a lawyer and put ads in the Penny Saver. If that meant divorce, fine. That’s better than whining and pouting you didn’t want your essence to be relegated to a basement room in the McMansion you reluctantly agreed to buy. And if he thought he was attractive to teen girls — good luck with that pal.
A friend of mine knows a single woman who loves playing video games. Oh God, I hope I can arrange a date with that woman, that could end well. ^_^
Wonder if Lopez knows that you don’t actually need a penis to work the controller.
Of course not.
You use it to turn the pages of your comic books.
This is even funnier considering I just signed of X-box live. Shockingly we live in a two X-box 360 household. It’s amazing how much fun you can have *together*.
Mark Loring has gone through the motions, got the job, got the bride. But he’s not satisfied and doesn’t know what to do in his beautiful home, with a successful wife who is happy with the life she’s made for herself (and, she hopes, for them both).
This whole schtick about men being too apathetic honestly makes me happy. As I see it…40 years ago Loring would have just worked himself to death and refused to consider whether or not his life was fulfilling. Now he’s thinking about. Maybe someday he’ll DO something about it. Maybe someday it will be socially acceptable for both men and women to lead the life that brings them the most joy regardless of whether that leads to a white picket fence and 2.5 perfect children.
Or am I hallucinating again? Damn Obama and making me hopeful for humanity again….
Basing social analysis on works of fiction is a very difficult thing to do without getting led astray. In fiction, authors can create outcomes that correspond to their attitudes without any corresponding events occurring in the real world.
There is a similar problem with the Fountainhead, by the founder of the Randroids. Of course the world worked the way Rand thinks it does in her novel. The real test, and the failed test, is when you look at actual non-fictional events.
And Rez HD just came out! The perfect couples game!
Never mind that ambition alone is no guarantee of being able to provide for your family. Waking up to the increasing elusiveness of the stable middle-class life is bound to lead to some indecisiveness, if not downright “fuck-it” attitude.
A gaming community that I post in had a huge thread regarding this article the other day. The whole concept is similar to this notion, that there is a generation of “child-men”, abandoning “responsibility” in favor of individual pursuits.
It’s not. The guy playing these games with their friends, as she mentions, probably has a good job. But just isn’t ready for marriage and children..and *GASP* might not even want it! And *GASP!* they might prefer sci-fi flicks to “Serious Drama”!. It’s the end of the world!
The problem is that uninformed folks mistake this for feminism, instead of what it is, is traditionalism, a sort of generational “GET OFF MY LAWN” reaction to a new generation. That women as well choose this lifestyle, and are happy with it is lost. That responsibility for men is defined solely as wife and kids is very limiting.
And that guys who have interests and hobbies that might interfere with building a relationship decide not to inflict this on unsuspecting women, is an improvement if you ask me. A huge improvment over the sports widow, if you ask me.
Best thing at all? Gaming is something that people tend to WANT to share with their partner. We do it not to get away from the other person, but because we think it’s fun. And we want to share that fun.
Wonder if Lopez knows that you don’t actually need a penis to work the controller.
Wow. It’s like, I want to see it? But at the same time, I don’t want to see it.
Please bring back the self-assured kicking heroine of Lara Croft. The wise-cracking femme fatales of the old movies. Women that took charge of their life and didn’t waste precious media.
Sorry, Juno is too stoopid to use BC in f***king 2008! And acts as if the world should stop on her say-so. Makes me wish for women that had a clue, even the gigantic breasted LC
The thing is very few hobbies and interest lead to actively excluding women. There are women who like sports and video games and all of those “manly” activities. If that hobby is important to you, you will tend to meet other people with it. Hell it is the attitude of men that women are invading their “manly space” that drives a lot of women out of those areas.
But I suspect that men that complain about the wife not liking their hobbies are men that want to have their hobby and have the wife pick up the slack at home as oppose to actually wanting a partner to share in the joy of the hobby.
Careful, Rob. If enough women play Rez HD and mod it to turn the Trance Vibrator into… well… a vibrator, then they’ll really have no use for a man
Lopez has always seemed to hate men, also arguing weirdly against abortion for these same reasons: women must NOT “let men off the hook.”
You know, like fish.
One of my friends [who’s been married a good 6 months or so] just got a DS Lite. She’s pretty ecstatic.
Maybe she has a secret penis!
Wonder if Lopez knows that you don’t actually need a penis to work the controller.
I’m pretty sure the Wii was designed for women, then. My drink’s in one hand, the wiimote is in the other, and the nunchuck goes down south. (I just have to be careful not to spill any beer when I shake the nunchuck.)
ROTFL. So all those “Defense of Marriage” types are REALLY aiming at the wrong target.
Damn you, Bill Gates!
No, 40 years ago it would have been considered his right (after a suitable period of midlife crisis and finding himself) to find a young, probably-fecund, spunky-yet-ultimately-submissive babe after his first wife had turned out to be a barren shrew. Most likely in the secretarial pool.
In a certain sense, of course, it is the fault of feminism that men end up slacking like this. If The Feminine Mystique had never been written, how would we poor dumb creatures ever have recognized that the role prescribed for us by modern US patriarchy sucks beyond the telling of it, even if we manage to fill it “successfully”?
Daisy, I often get the impression that Lopez is casting around for a properly feminist villain to blame for her inability to secure a devout patriarch of her own. Maybe not. But yeah, she should watch “The Apartment” if she wants a movie that really captures the devotion that women got from men in exchange for dependence. Or “Mad Men”.
Huh?
You can’t play video games with a vibrator.
Well, maybe if you have a Wii….
Obviously M. Gaugin played too much X-Box…
What about Nora slamming the door? What about the woman charater nicknamed the Bolter for abandoning her young child to relatives to party in the Pursuit of Love? What about Maria Bertram and Lydia Bennett going off to party with rakish studs when in Maria’s case at least, there was stability, a mansion, and a husband unlikey to give you any trouble right there at your feet? This is the HUMAN condiition. It predates feminism by hundreds of years. Because the means of production were once largely landed property and womens’ ability to own property was impaired at best, chucking domesticity for freedom from responsibility was not as practicable for women, but their increasing ability to to do is not making MEN more irresponsible. Read one of the many essays drifting like cinder ash through major magazines about the life of Lee Miller who spent the early part of the century going from one lover to another (including Man Ray and Picasso), leaving one husband and never developing much interest in her son. There’s nothing new under the sun, kiddies, and women and men are a lot more alike than the culture warriors would like people to believe.
Belatrys, so did John McCain, Bob Dole, and Newt Gingrich.
if youre playing xbox all day, or watching football, or etc…who gets the housework done? cluck, cluck, cluck….
and the sum-ups of the end of Juno & Waitress, are just two morew reasons why i wont watch these movies: i’m sick of movies that aim for the ‘happy’ ending that men are dipshits & you dont need them &/or all the love you need in your life is your baby.
Pul-lease; these arent even remotely new themes, & they are bummers. Movies are reality; they are escapism. And i dont want my escapism preaching to me that i should be happy to be alone or that my baby can take the place of a grownup sexual love relationship.
I should remember this to tell my husband next time he refers to himself as a “WoW widow”.
Great blog!
correction: Movies arent reality.
Also, does anyone ever listen to the Guys With Feelings podcast? Jason Nash (& many others)is a great example of the kind of loser yuppified guy who’s wife is more successful than he & who spends his time denigrating & bitching about her …as a joke. If we’re supposed to find the ultimate joke himself & his pathetic character, then it only partially works. He’s an asshole who’s still using his wife (& kid) for his own aggrandizement. No wonder he doesnt have any success; you can smell the stink of a loser like this for miles.
Sorry for the threadjack, but I’m sure one of the bloggers here would love to call attention to this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1yUsYIk2EM Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQ6Lsqmf9yM Part 2
Ohio cops strip and batter a woman for no apparent reason, then leave her naked in a cell for 6 hours (this second part, they admit, and there is video for the rest), yet claim that it was all “by the book.”
I know what you mean, but do you really want to go back to the era of formulaic romantic comedies where you know the two are going to get together so there’s no suspense and all the fake “crises” just ends up being lame? Escapism is all well and good, but that stuff was just tripe.“just *end* up.” sorry.
Movies are reality; they are escapism. And i dont want my escapism preaching to me that i should be happy to be alone or that my baby can take the place of a grownup sexual love relationship.
No, absolutely not. If your baby is taking the place of your grown up sexual love relationship, you should be put in jail, deviant.
seriously though, I’m assuming you meant “movie’s aren’t reality.” but they aren’t escapism either.
Movies are art. and like ALL art, they can be about realism, or escapism. all sorts of things.
You have written a great essay on an aspect of Juno that I hadn’t really grasped as so central–that not only are we shown a teenage girl who doesn’t want to be a mother, but we are shown an adult woman who wants to be a mother but who doesn’t need to be a wife to do it.
This is what I though the movie was about. Not abortion politics, not adoption politics, but a kid who sees that the ‘perfect family’ can fall apart but as long as there’s an adult woman who wants a child–it’s still a perfect family. The desire and ability to nurture is what it takes to parent, not the perfect McMansion and the hip gorgeous man.
I cried at the shot of the framed note on the wall in the nursery.
And I don’t go to chick movies, or cry.
” know what you mean, but do you really want to go back to the era of formulaic romantic comedies where you know the two are going to get together so there’s no suspense and all the fake “crises” just ends up being lame? ”
no; i want something better than that. iwant something that isnt formulaic tripe –the old kind , or the new kind. then maybe it will be more like ‘art’, (as you say, karpad). something more original .
I thought Susan Faludi’s book on the American male problem nailed it - the problem derives, at least in part, from the elite decision to smash labor in this country by smashing the manufacturing sector. Ship it overseas, site it in countries with no labour laws, no environmental laws, and let those steel workers find jobs at seven eleven, or retrain them for who knows what - computer jobs - as if people are infinitely malleable and everybody wants to go back to a classroom again and again for re-robotizing. Conservatives like Lopez, with their pseudo-populism and their utter hatred of the working class, love their divide and rule strategy, and that is inscribed in every word that comes out of their mouths.
On the other hand, I do think middle and upper middle class American males, with their penchant for violence, are in a bad way. It isn’t the peter pan syndrome, it is the warblogger syndrome, the I hate brown skin syndrome, the inability to imagine other people syndrome that seems to be a huge, gender wide problem. Look at any issue that involves a violent means to a solution and a peaceful means to a solution, and these bozos will trip over themselves advocating the violent solution. Not, of course, that they are about to join any army any time soon. Maybe their sons are passive in sheer revulsion over their dads acting as proxy soldiers, salivating over war crimes.
She got all of this from Juno? Even in the *movie* that doesn’t work. Look at Michael Cera’s character, who is in love with the independent, flinty, sarcastic Juno and shows more care, love and responsibility in the final ten minutes than Bateman’s character, or even Ellen Page’s character does throughout the whole movie.
Both characters are male, both in love with independent women, and have utterly different personalities.
Well, you don’t actually NEED a penis to play X-Box, but it does help with some of the control combinations…
Is the “Sax” she is referring to Leonard Sax? The professional sexist who thinks if boys have temerity to do anything unmanly like sit around and read books instead of playing football, they should be severely punished until they man up?
Because in the past, if your man abandoned your family, you’d be screwed, something which anti-feminists conceal with their fairy tale about how you can always get devotion for submission.
Not at all. They are happy to talk about your man abandoning the family–that’s what will happen to you if you aren’t a good little wifey. You’ll drive him off. This is just the pre-marital extension.
It’s really sad to see this coming from a woman; it’s the verbal equivalent of frantically rubbing a lucky rock to keep the bad spirits away. If only she believes that every asshole was driven to his assholery by some woman’s ill behavior, she can assure herself that she won’t be abandoned or ignored, because she’s trying so hard to be good.
What’s truly pathetic is that there are men and women out there who hold that view: that if the woman is the primary provider there is no longer a team. The man must be the primary provider in the marriage or else the marriage is broken.
Seek, are you being sarcastic? Are you saying my marriage is broken because I make more than my husband and he could not possibly support this show on his own?
bmc90, did you read seeker’s first sentence?
Sorry it’s past my bedtime. The sad truth is we get a fair amount of flack from all kinds of people about the disparities in our income.
Interesting, that article’s more nonsense like Kay Hymowitz and the “child-man” piece referenced in comment #1. I knew what Hymowitz’s viewpoint would be but I was still shocked to hear her flat-out say on NPR that it takes marriage and children to make you an adult (and no one challenged her at all). Blogged it in a piece called “So, are you an adult?” (sorry, I’m not sure I know how to link properly here yet)…what got me wasn’t just the narrow, heterosexist, anti-feminist AND anti-male view (from both Lopez and Hymowitz) but how some of the NPR and other blog commenters twisted it–Hymowitz is criticizing men, therefore SHE must be “feminist” and bad! Whatever.
I couldn’t agree with you more! One of the most insidious aspects of male privilege is the belief that a man’s free time is more important than a woman’s. Why does a guy become a football or XBox husband? Because he can. He knows his wife will pick up the slack. A lot of guys have had women take care of their basic needs like cooking, shopping, laundry, etc. their whole lives. What does an XBox husband say to his wife when she discusses things she might like to do on her free time? “That’s nice dear, now when is dinner ready?”
Paul,
My bad. I usually go with the working assumption that the majority of people are not assholes, but rather people struggling to do the best they can given who they are and where they come from. I know, I know…someone should have kicked that optimism out of me years ago.
Re: “football widows”…
One of our first dates was to a Giants home game at the Meadowlands, where they got smoked by the then LA Rams 21-3. We got married years later on a Saturday in October and first thing we did unbeknownst to our families was sneak back to our house and delay our honeymoon in New England one day to watch football- my idea.
I have loved football my entire life (as has my mom) and can’t wait for the Super Bowl tonight- I’m a 3rd generation Giants fan and Charlie, like my mother, roots for the Pats. 2 households with phones off today!
And i dont want my escapism preaching to me that i should be happy to be alone or that my baby can take the place of a grownup sexual love relationship.
Why not? It’s something of an escapist fantasy in and of itself. Because you don’t see the parts where raising a baby by yourself is hard or that you get lonely, just as escapist romance doesn’t show the fact that relationships are hard work and that you have to get through your fights or unintentional offenses.
Not only that, MM, but there’s also Juno’s parents. Her stepmom isn’t some submissive, mousy woman-she’s outspoken, protective of Juno, and has what appears to be a completely healthy relationship with her husband. He appreciates both her and his smart-alec daughter.
I think it’s refreshing to see a teen comedy in which the adults AREN’T idiots.
The pink XBox controllers come with a prosthetic penis so that girls can play the games too.
i guess youre right & im just crabbing because it’s really not that new or revelatory a story, even if it is a progessive, woman-positive one. i just want to see women & girls in different stories, where the plot has nothing to do with their reproductive organs; im really tired of this shit.
I knew what Hymowitz’s viewpoint would be but I was still shocked to hear her flat-out say on NPR that it takes marriage and children to make you an adult (and no one challenged her at all).
Her viewpoint strikes a chord on the eve of Chinese New Year: in Chinese culture you’re a child (and thus eligible for a red envelope) until you marry. I would say that accepting responsibility for the care and support of another human being makes you less self-centered, and therefore more mature == more adult. Marriage and children are just two ways of accepting such responsibility.
It’s also that men value their free time more than women. Most single men don’t do as much around the house as most single women.
I think a lot has to be said for cultural standards. It is far more socially acceptable for a man to have a less than neat house and eat less than healthy food. Women have to be perfect. Women are supposed to have the perfect house, the perfect clothes, the perfect body, the perfect job, the perfect man, the perfect children. An unintended consequence of the expansion of opportunities for women is the expansion of areas where society expects women to be perfect. I believe that failure to meet all these artificial standards is what causes a lot of anti-feminism in some women.
Wayward, your last paragraph is right on. Please refer to it when revisiting the sentence above it. It’s not that men value their free time more than women, it’s just that women don’t get the luxury of having as much (equally valued) free time due to the expectations put on us and the consequences if we fail to meet those expectations. Most single men don’t do as much around the house as single women because they can get away with it, not because men inherently value free time more than women.
roger: just a note about upper-middle-class men and their penchant for violence — that’s a penchant for vicarious violence. Carried out by, and on, other people.
One of the things documented by some anthropologists who study workplaces is that the different politeness rules typical of some working-class cultures make it almost impossible for formerly blue-collar men to work their way up the ladder of the white-collar world (insofar as that’s possible any more anyway) because the bottom ranks of office workers are expected to be uniformly deferential. And if you’ve been conditioned that deferring is what women do…
It’s important to lay the blame where it belongs, though: on the metaculture. If the culture lays bullshit obligations on women that they must care about having a perfect house then it is incumbent on them as feminists to fight those expectations. Not every male relaxing on the couch is a sitcom child who needs to be hustled into doing some work. He may actually have a better grip on what does and doesn’t need to be done than an overly propagandized woman with an inadequate sense of self or awareness of how she has been brainwashed.
Think about that: the guy who says, “jeez, give it a rest, love, this or that is just not that damned important” might actually be right. Fitting him neatly into the doritos and couch, X-Box playing, football-addicted stereotype is every bit as pernicious as the con job pulled on the woman. Why? Because the jabs at him to “get off his ass” and ensure that the house can pass some sort of perfectionist muster that would put a Paris Island Sunday Inspection to shame are also a way of ensuring that an aged, sexist set of household expectations are maintained. It’s not a means of unchaining women from being June Cleaver, it’s also a means of ensuring that Ward is as equally fucked up, unnecessarily busy and anal and miserable as June is supposed to be. The Perfect House, don’t forget, is just another way that the capitalist and patriarchal metaculture –like a religion — gets us to buy into never actually being happy, or content, or just Being. If we’re not miserable then they can’t sell us shit to Organize THIS! Clean THAT! Redecorate the OTHER! now, can they?
The house is what it is. If it is clean and not a disaster area, if it is good enough to be a healthy happy home then it is good enough, period. Go catch a game together. Take the kids to a movie. Make love like you did when you first met. Everybody who wants it to look like Better Homes and Gardens can just fuck off.
I would say that accepting responsibility for the care and support of another human being makes you less self-centered, and therefore more mature == more adult. Marriage and children are just two ways of accepting such responsibility.
It would be really nice if real life worked that way, Hector. Unfortunately RL doesn’t usually follow your Platonic Ideal of maturity - Sperm Magic, Ring Magic, and Parturition Magic do not actually exist…
Yeah, that’s easy for the husband to say, but the wife is the one who gets judged by society if the house isn’t neat enough. Unless he’s willing to step up and back her up when people bitch and crab at her—and they will—-he’s just doing another form of bitching.
It helps if your male partner backs you up 100% on the belief that the pressure on you is unfair. Much of the expectations put on women to have a perfect house don’t come from outsiders, but their own men. The couples I know of who make it work both let it go when it needs to be let go, but both kick into high gear to get the work done when it needs doing.
I see what you are saying, seeker. I recognize that our culture puts a premium on orderliness and cleanliness, especially in middle-class homes. I understand the expectation to have a home that Martha Stewart would approve of. It’s an expectation that busy people don’t have the energy to meet, nor should they try.
However, there are some chores that must be done in order to make any household barely functional. For instance, dishes and laundry. Not everyone is rich enough to wear one outfit once and discard it at the end of the day. Thus, doing laundry is a necessity. The same thing with doing the dishes. The problem is that domestic chores are considered to be woman’s duties. That “brainwashed” woman hustling her husband to get off his duff and pitch in with domestic chores is not “propagandized” — she’s fighting the notion that his free time is more valuable than hers.
Amanda, ginmar: Agreed. The whole point is that both genders have to fight back against the expectations and programming and consciously avoid stereotyping. I think that matters are worsened by the fact that too many men are conditioned to believe that their partner will do the managing, and too many women are conditioned to Manage Their Man and Household. To be honest I’ve seen a few men who kept immaculate homes before they were married throw up their hands in despair and wait to be told what to do in their matrimonial homes. Not because they were sexist assholes or lazy or entitled but because their wives had been too well programmed that only they were the ones who set the game plan and schedule and standards for the house. After the umpteenth “no, it gets done THIS way” after having it done well, but differently, they just gave the f*ck up. Bad communication on both sides; it was incumbent on both of them to break free from the expectations, but both just ended up blaming each other for what was, in fact, the metaculture’s fault.
Unfortunately RL doesn’t usually follow your Platonic Ideal of maturity - Sperm Magic, Ring Magic, and Parturition Magic do not actually exist…
If you mean that some people get married and have children without realizing that that makes them responsible for human beings other than themselves, I can’t disagree. But I put that on a par with not realizing sex can lead to babies.
BeaTricks, I believe that you missed the underlying premise of my posts, which dealt not with necessary housework but the Over And Above nonsense of the “Better Homes And Gardens” / Martha Stewart ideal. Nobody here, least of all me, is arguing against the equitable distribution of household chores in partnerships and families. But when one of you cares about something more than you care about the marriage itself or the person that you are in it with then that marriage is in trouble.One of the strongest weapons that the metaculture has against change is getting people to think in stereotypes and create conditioned responses at individuals based on those stereotypes. It prevents people from thinking and stopping to see the forest instead of bitching at each other about trees; they are trapped into resenting each other rather than defining their own terms for how they will relate. Frankly, the lazy husband on the couch stereotype has outlived its usefulness as much as the nagging wife, but many people are very attached to them and refuse to let either go. Such crap is, I confess, one of the reasons that I quietly consider the sitcom to be one of the most pernicious, regressive, and subtly manipulative forms of propaganda that the metaculture has.
I just want to put in my two cents’ worth on the families make you mature meme. Two words: utter crap. I have two children. Neither of them makes me more mature than somebody who does not have children or chooses not to have any. The notion that they do is preposterous. Likewise the notion that an individual’s willingness to commit to a marriage is a measure of maturity; that is also crap. People have excellent reasons for staying single.
It had to be said.
families make you mature meme
Two words.
Britney Spears.
This pathetic creature was desperate to get married, and then had children, all thinking that would make her “grow up.”
Well, yes, if you are dumb enough to think that makes you grow up, you then have to grow up.
Unless you don’t. It did not work for the unfortunate Miss Spears, because it never does work.
We should marry and have children because it’s what we want. And we are mature enough to decide properly.
As an under-achieving, lazy gamer who spends most of her time with the Xbox, I never stop feeling offended by the presumption by 90% of America that me and women like me don’t exist, and that when we do, we only do to please the men we lower ourselves to be with.
I do play games sometimes with my boyfriend, but I bought my Xbox (both of them) myself and I choose the games I spend my time playing. He’s only here once every other week, and we don’t usually spend that time playing games.
It’s a hobby we have in common, but my interest has nothing to do with his.
I’m so tired of being invisible.
“I’m so tired of being invisible”
amen.
I hear you, Cola.
My partner went to see Juno last week with one of his buddies while I stayed home to play WoW. I have no interest in seeing Juno, and he has little to no interest joining me in my gaming.
Also, he pretty much does the vast majority of the housework at the moment. I spent the first 10 years of our relationship in that role, then I caught his allergy to household chores. Surprisingly, he picked up the slack and now putters around doing laundry and dishes and making dinner, listening to his Ipod and singing all the while. Who knew?
I’ve never understood the presumption, so common to social fascists like Lopez, that video games and “maturity” are somehow incompatible. What part of “maturity” means that having fun is not allowed? There’s no functional difference between cracking a good book, working on a cross-stitch, going out for a round of golf or watching an opera on DVD and dropping an hour or two on World of Warcraft or Call of Duty, whether or not you do it alone or as a couple. Leisure time is leisure time.
You’re not invisible here, or over at my place.
Unless you’re lurking.
In which case, you are.
Seeker, I agree with what your saying and would add that sometimes, the first and best step is you and your spouse acknowledging the problem. My husband recently admitted that he decided not to plan a surpise party for me at home because he knew that all I’d want to do after I walked in was run around the house and make sure it was up to MY standards for guests, which includes silver polishing, total decluttering, and candles warmly glowing on the mantel. Of course the truth is that our actual friends are fine with dust, old newspapers, a keg, and some crabs. However, my husband knows I’m not going to just come around without electroshock therapy. For my part, on a daily basis, before I get miffed about the house, I ask if what I’m miffed about is really mission critical or in my way. The fact that he really gets that I am nuts and does not try to change me actually makes it easier to let go of some things. Turns out the laundry piled on his dresser is not making my life more difficult. Wow. When no more can fit, he puts it away. (Not to let him off too easy, before we got married, I was banned from his apartment for a month because due to dirty dishes, laundry and clutter, there were only paths you could walk on from one place to another - so we know what would happen if we did everything his way.
As a guy and a life long gamer I can’t help but feel that an important point is missing. I started gaming when I was 3. My first memory is playing the Legend of Zelda for the Nintendo Entertainment System NES. As I grew up, so did the industry. More and more mature games were coming out. Now as a Mid-20 year old I have access to games that are geared towards me like Grand Theft Auto, Call of Duty, Halo, and Guitar Hero.
But do you know what I loved to see, female gamers. I love it when I date women who play video games. I have no problem taking the time to do things that they want to do, and greatly appreciate when they want to step into the things I like to do.
In the end it isn’t about feminism or men and women having equal oportunities in their relation ships or games being the blame of why women can’t find good men.
It all comes down to compatability. There is a man or woman out there that will fit with your hobbies, loves, and way of life, you just need to find them.
You’re dating someone who enjoys video game a lot and you start to despise them for it because you feel they are getting free time your not? That is your fault, not his.
You feel your being discriminated upon as a woman because your doing “all the chores”, you chose the wrong man.
Your a guy who has a woman that gets on you all the time for doing what you like to do? Again, bad picking.
I currently have been dating the same woman for 2.5 years, we have lived together for about 2 of them. I do more dishes than she does. We both do our own laundry. I tend to be the one to clean up if we are going to have company. We BOTH enjoy playing video game, we both have seperate hobbies as well, but we don’t mind when we don’t share in them.
You have to learn to find the right person to split the workload with you. If you end up with a person and than you end up despising them because you’re doing all the work. It is not because he is a man-boy with his games. No your not being oppressed because you have ovaries. You just put yourself in a relationship you shouldn’t have. Make better choices for yourself instead of blaming society.
That is the real problem with responsibility. People are unable to accept responsibility for their choices and instead broadcast the problem on the world around them… It’s the mans fault for putting women into the role of home maker… It’s the womans fault for not accepting me for my hobbies and joys…
Take responsibility for yourselves.
Say what? Having a degree or not makes more of a different to your salary than gender.These days in New York and other US cities young women
make more money than young men. You’re taking one of the results of the anti-male institutional bias of the modern education system and trying to
spin it to fit with feminist rhetoric.
David, you need to take a reading for comprehension course and try reading the post again. I realize that this blog isn’t written with the painstaking repetition of meaning that you would find in a JRPG, but you’ve completely missed the point of the post.
TheDivineInvasion: O RLY?
Just go back to whatever troll den launched you.
Oh, I see Amanda got linked by Kotaku. That explains a lot.
@Mighty Ponygirl
Sorry about him, but we’re not all that bad.
So much wisdom in this thread.
I gotta wonder, hasn’t anyone noticed that the generation who grew up playing video games never stopped?
My refusal to leave my den of adolescent pleasures has more to do with how I don’t see any special prize or value in going in to debt to own a house or tying myself down to any kind of relationship when I’m really enjoying myself as a single young professional than with running from responsibility.
I’ve spent a lot of time wondering what I want for myself. I don’t think a life of 9-5 in order to pay for my suburban existence is it.
I was really impressed with the eloquence that a lot of these posters have been saying about this article and it has opened my eyes to some very interesting points that I would of never thought before.
..but really MP…what’s with the hate for the last two posters? Aren’t you really just making the original article Kathyn Lopez’s point and indiscriminately classifying men/video games as some immature cohort that can’t understand anything?
I do agree with you though about the wage disparity in the workplace still being common. I work in a computer-related field and heard from other co-workers that in their previous jobs they eventually realized they were getting less than what they deserve.
Oh! And now games advocate drugs too!
No, Johnny, I just refuse to tollerate misogynistic idiots like the sort that Destructoid and Kotaku have sent to my gaming blog because I dared question their right to treat women like objects.
MP: Young urban women make more money overall, but not in tech jobs. There was a report recently that young women in New York earn 120 cents for every dollar young men make, with other US cities close behind.
It’s frustrating that Amanda feels she has to slip such a sexist comment into a perfectly good essay on video games.
Well goody, I guess we can just all pack up and go home! Back to places NOT New York, which, contrary to the popular belief of New Yorkers, are actually inhabited! By women! Who earn less money on average than men!
TheDivineInvasion
I didn’t know that doing math was considered sexist.
According to this site, the median pay for someone with a BA is $43,000 per year.
Unfortunately, they didn’t bother to calculate the median pay for people who went to trade school after high school, which is what Amanda is talking about. Not the idea that men can skip all school altogether and make the same amount, but that the gender wage gap is such that men can get away with pouring less money into education and make the same amount as women who have slightly more education.
So instead, we’ll go with the level after HS grad to be conservative: People with some college under their belt have a median salary of $31,000 per year. I’m considering this conservative ‘cuz I’m guessing that people who went to trade schools (esp the male dominated trade schools like car repair and electrician) actually make more seeing as how they have a marketable skill and a piece of paper that says that they are able to follow through with something.
Do the math and waddya know - you come out with 31K being about 72% of 43K.
Gosh, that sounds awfully close to the “75 cents for every dollar” line about the gender wage gap.
Meaning, yes. Guys can get away with less education and make the same amount as women who got slightly more education that they did.
Now, how that’s sexist to point this out, I have no idea. Please enlighten.
And because I just realized someone’s going to stupidly point out that women aren’t banned from trades schools, the point about the trade schools is that most of them are male dominated (ITT Tech) and for male dominated fields (anything to do with cars or repair).
This has less to do with Peter Pan syndrome and more to do with the tell tale signs of a bad marriage.
Juno is basically a retelling of Ibsen’s ‘A Doll’s House’ with the gender’s of the characters reversed.
Mark Loring is a prop in Vanessa’s life. Vanessa has this vision of what married life should be and look like for public suburban consumption. What devestating insecurity on her part has sparked this need for everyone to play their prescribed role in Vaneesa’s vision of things is not discusseed. As a result, Mark is segregated to a seperate side room with all his stuff / toys lest who he is sully the public persona of how Vanessa wants the marriage to be percieved (see pics on wall).
There is nothing shared about their sterile life. How Mark expresses himself within the marriage is really a matter of what Vanessa permits. Even the adoption was Vanessa’s decision; its as if the only way life can be created between them is through external importation.
The one way that Mark can express himself is through his music and even that has been prescribed by Vanessa in to what can make money and be socially acceptable (commercial jingles). The music and movies that he enjoys cannot be played in the living room for fear of angering Vanessa should she find out. Its kind of sad and lonely that he can only discuss the things that move him with this 16 year old stranger and not his wife.
So in the end, he does the right thing for himself and leaves Vanessa’s Doll House to live a life that is more fulfilling and healthy for him. The ending with Vanessa playing with her new child was pretty damn sad. She replaced her man prop with a child prop and kept on trucking. Whatever happened to Mark Lorring hardly entered her equation.
This has less to do with Peter Pan syndrome and more to do with the tell tale signs of a bad marriage.
Juno is basically a retelling of Ibsen’s ‘A Doll’s House’ with the gender’s of the characters reversed.
Mark Loring is a prop in Vanessa’s life. Vanessa has this vision of what married life should be and look like for public suburban consumption. What devestating insecurity on her part has sparked this need for everyone to play their prescribed role in Vaneesa’s vision of things is not discusseed. As a result, Mark is segregated to a seperate side room with all his stuff / toys lest who he is sully the public persona of how Vanessa wants the marriage to be percieved (see pics on wall).
There is nothing shared about their sterile life. How Mark expresses himself within the marriage is really a matter of what Vanessa permits. Even the adoption was Vanessa’s decision; its as if the only way life can be created between them is through external importation.
The one way that Mark can express himself is through his music and even that has been prescribed by Vanessa in to what can make money and be socially acceptable (commercial jingles). The music and movies that he enjoys cannot be played in the living room for fear of angering Vanessa should she find out. Its kind of sad and lonely that he can only discuss the things that move him with this 16 year old stranger and not his wife.
So in the end, he does the right thing for himself and leaves Vanessa’s Doll House to live a life that is more fulfilling and healthy for him. The ending with Vanessa playing with her new child was pretty damn sad. She replaced her man prop with a child prop and kept on trucking. Whatever happened to Mark Lorring hardly entered her equation.
This has less to do with Peter Pan syndrome and more to do with the tell tale signs of a bad marriage.
Juno is basically a retelling of Ibsen’s ‘A Doll’s House’ with the gender’s of the characters reversed.
Mark Loring is a prop in Vanessa’s life. Vanessa has this vision of what married life should be and look like for public suburban consumption. What devestating insecurity on her part has sparked this need for everyone to play their prescribed role in Vaneesa’s vision of things is not discusseed. As a result, Mark is segregated to a seperate side room with all his stuff / toys lest who he is sully the public persona of how Vanessa wants the marriage to be percieved (see pics on wall).
There is nothing shared about their sterile life. How Mark expresses himself within the marriage is really a matter of what Vanessa permits. Even the adoption was Vanessa’s decision; its as if the only way life can be created between them is through external importation.
The one way that Mark can express himself is through his music and even that has been prescribed by Vanessa in to what can make money and be socially acceptable (commercial jingles). The music and movies that he enjoys cannot be played in the living room for fear of angering Vanessa should she find out. Its kind of sad and lonely that he can only discuss the things that move him with this 16 year old stranger and not his wife.
So in the end, he does the right thing for himself and leaves Vanessa’s Doll House to live a life that is more fulfilling and healthy for him. The ending with Vanessa playing with her new child was pretty damn sad. She replaced her man prop with a child prop and kept on trucking. Whatever happened to Mark Lorring hardly entered her equation.
This has less to do with Peter Pan syndrome and more to do with the tell tale signs of a bad marriage.
Juno is basically a retelling of Ibsen’s ‘A Doll’s House’ with the gender’s of the characters reversed.
Mark Loring is a prop in Vanessa’s life. Vanessa has this vision of what married life should be and look like for public suburban consumption. What devestating insecurity on her part has sparked this need for everyone to play their prescribed role in Vaneesa’s vision of things is not discusseed. As a result, Mark is segregated to a seperate side room with all his stuff / toys lest who he is sully the public persona of how Vanessa wants the marriage to be percieved (see pics on wall).
There is nothing shared about their sterile life. How Mark expresses himself within the marriage is really a matter of what Vanessa permits. Even the adoption was Vanessa’s decision; its as if the only way life can be created between them is through external importation.
The one way that Mark can express himself is through his music and even that has been prescribed by Vanessa in to what can make money and be socially acceptable (commercial jingles). The music and movies that he enjoys cannot be played in the living room for fear of angering Vanessa should she find out. Its kind of sad and lonely that he can only discuss the things that move him with this 16 year old stranger and not his wife.
So in the end, he does the right thing for himself and leaves Vanessa’s Doll House to live a life that is more fulfilling and healthy for him. The ending with Vanessa playing with her new child was pretty damn sad. She replaced her man prop with a child prop and kept on trucking. Whatever happened to Mark Lorring hardly entered her equation.
Ah, there’s nothing like the “anything that I don’t enjoy that isn’t culturally mandated is childish/nerdy” meme.
(No, I don’t think this is about doing the dishes. I doubt KLo’s complaint would evaporate if it were proven, with video footage, that there was a 50/50 split of household chores.)
What strikes me is that the people who buy into this are so universally boring. Ward and June Cleaver always struck me as such monumentally uninteresting human beings that I would have been counting the days until I could get out of that place, were I the Beav. Those that emulate them are little different, and I’d almost certainly prefer the company of some sort of manchild (or womanchild) that at least demonstrates some passion about something.
I mean, think about it. The very people KLo are talking about would never go see a quirky, indie-ish movie like Juno in the first place. He would want to see Cloverfield, and she would want to see Mad Money, and the rest of us would just sadly and slowly shake our heads at people whose horizons end at the tip of their nose.
And then maybe go pick up a comic. (The end of Y: The Last Man was excellent, for example.)
Huh. I hadn’t thought about that at ALL, Brooklynlou, but it’s a fantastic analogy, albeit one that should be viewed with the caveat that the societal context is hardly reversed.
It does highlight the “patriarchy screws up the lives of men, too” issue. Were the genders reversed, a “trophy musician” as a wife would almost certainly be seen as a prize possession… but society expects men to have trophy wives, not the reverse.
(Not that this makes any sense, either. Although the likelihood of “making it big” as a creative type is extremely low, the outside possibility of fantastic success would seem to make it economically viable to keep such a “trophy” around just in case he/she does make the bigtime. In the meantime, you have the bragging rights of being the, heh, “patron” of an artist.)
“What strikes me is that the people who buy into this are so universally boring. Ward and June Cleaver always struck me as such monumentally uninteresting human beings that I would have been counting the days until I could get out of that place, were I the Beav.”
Obviously, being “boring” is a feature to them, not a flaw.
It’s related to the Right-Wing Authoritarian mindset - Ordered, organized, minimal uncertainty, safe, predictable, and with fixed roles for everyone - all the things that create boredom. And they LIKE IT that way…
“Those that emulate them are little different, and I’d almost certainly prefer the company of some sort of manchild (or womanchild) that at least demonstrates some passion about something.”
Passion is exactly the kind of thing that scares the hell out of them.
Patriotism, subordination, following The Rules, always obeying The Law (man’s OR god’s), etc.
When people have passion, they’re unpredictable and dangerous. The wingnuts can’t have that…
“No, Johnny, I just refuse to tollerate misogynistic idiots like the sort that Destructoid and Kotaku have sent to my gaming blog because I dared question their right to treat women like objects.”
Ahh, I see your point. Having read those blogs for a while I can say that the minority but more vocal of posters on that site really do need a good shaking for some of the views they spout off.
Which reminds me of a term that was popular when I was growing up in the feminist wonderland of small town Texas: football widow. A football widow may or may not have had a job outside the home (though really the Platonic ideal of the football widow was the busy housewife), but regardless, she busted her ass making a nice home for her family and just generally devoting her life to her husband’s well-being. And in exchange, her ungrateful husband spent all of his free time watching sports, leaving her bereft of anything to do but make snacks, since even the TV was taken up by all football all the time. According to Lopez’s theory, the football widow shouldn’t exist.
At first I thought you were writing parody, but I think you’re actually serious. This paragraph, as an example, is typical of feminist blinder-vision.
The housewife does bust her ass making a nice home for herself and her family, while her husband is out busting his ass earning their living. Note that this doesn’t mean he’s in his dream career, although if he is very lucky, he is. It’s the choice they both made when they decided to marry.
As for his spare time being taken up watching football, that is easily believable. But I doubt he has as much spare time as you imply. What with doing all the heavy work of maintaining house, yard, vehicles.
You know as well as I do that maintaining a clean house and cooking for the family takes less time than a 40-hour work week. There’s plenty of time left for watching Oprah, getting Starbucks with the other housewives, and bitching about the menfolk.
You should be ashamed of yourself writing such strident nonsense, and then trying to pass it off as reality.
Well, KellyMac, I guess (by design) your blog’s tagline “A Woman Against Feminism and For Men’s Rights”, says all we need to know about you. BTW, do you think we should take back women’s right to vote? To inherit property? Civil rights?
“You should be ashamed of yourself writing such strident nonsense, and then trying to pass it off as reality.”
Gosh! That darn Amanda Marcotte and her unfeminine stridency! Doesn’t she know her proper place?…
I don’t know about where you live, but where I live, and in the majority of families in the US, mom HAS to work outside the home so the family has enough money to pay the rent, get food and clothing, etc. (And don’t forget the ridiculous cost of gas…)
I’m glad that you have been able to work out an arrangement that allows you to be a SAHM, but the way you are living doesn’t actually represent “reality”, at least not for most Americans…
Yes, I came from Kotaku, I’m going to ruin everything!!!! Seriously, what’s the problem here? We’re arguing about an article that was written in response to another article that condemns all men because of one movies character, A MOVIE CHARACTER! I’m not saying it’s possible….you know what I’m just going to stop right there. How about this - we all go back to what we were doing/enjoying and live our lives instead of complaining on the Internet. ENJOY LIFE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
MikeEss: Well, KellyMac, I guess (by design) your blog’s tagline “A Woman Against Feminism and For Men’s Rights”, says all we need to know about you. BTW, do you think we should take back women’s right to vote? To inherit property? Civil rights?
KM: Of course not. However, feminism is not responsible for my having those things in the first place.
Before women’s suffrage, most people couldn’t vote. The landowners could, and then it was one vote per family, with the vote falling to the head of the household. That could be a woman, by the way. Also, there were certain states who gave the vote to both men AND women BEFORE the 19th Amendment.
Regarding inheritance laws, they appear to have been made to ensure the inheritance went to the one who was traditionally responsible for maintaining the well-being of the rest of the family. In the time period I believe you’re talking about, that person generally was male, as he was expected to be the one making the living. It’s not like he had a choice. If you want to call that oppression of women, go for it.
Civil rights? As far as I know, women have never been singled out to be denied civil rights. Blacks, yes. Women, not so much.
Even if I were to concede all you mentioned as oppression, I believe women have had the vote for nearly 100 years now. Why is there still so much lamenting about it? Do you believe that the minute you let your guard down, we’ll be stripped of the vote and the right to wear shoes? Please.
ME: “You should be ashamed of yourself writing such strident nonsense, and then trying to pass it off as reality.”
Gosh! That darn Amanda Marcotte and her unfeminine stridency! Doesn’t she know her proper place?…
KM: There is a world of difference between the feminine and feminism. What you’ve said here is a complete non-sequitor. It has nothing to do with her politics, nor her gender. It has to do with the “poor me” whining attitude that shows so clearly. In other words, I was telling her not to be such a baby. But nice try characterizing it as gender-related. This is yet another example of manufactured victimhood.
ME: I don’t know about where you live, but where I live, and in the majority of families in the US, mom HAS to work outside the home so the family has enough money to pay the rent, get food and clothing, etc. (And don’t forget the ridiculous cost of gas…)
I’m glad that you have been able to work out an arrangement that allows you to be a SAHM, but the way you are living doesn’t actually represent “reality”, at least not for most Americans…
KM: I don’t know where you got the idea that I am a SAHM; would that I were. I was addressing Amanda’s comment, which was clearly about SAHM’s and the lazy, slave-driving, controlling bastards they married. What she wrote was a far cry from reality, and was a clear example of the half-truths upon which feminism is built.
MikeEss: Well, KellyMac, I guess (by design) your blog’s tagline “A Woman Against Feminism and For Men’s Rights”, says all we need to know about you. BTW, do you think we should take back women’s right to vote? To inherit property? Civil rights?
KellyMac: Of course not. However, feminism is not responsible for my having those things in the first place.
Before women’s suffrage, most people couldn’t vote. The landowners could, and then it was one vote per family, with the vote falling to the head of the household. That could be a woman, by the way. Also, there were certain states who gave the vote to both men AND women BEFORE the 19th Amendment.
Regarding inheritance laws, they appear to have been made to ensure the inheritance went to the one who was traditionally responsible for maintaining the well-being of the rest of the family. In the time period I believe you’re talking about, that person generally was male, as he was expected to be the one making the living. It’s not like he had a choice. If you want to call that oppression of women, go for it.
Civil rights? As far as I know, women have never been singled out to be denied civil rights. Blacks, yes. Women, not so much.
Even if I were to concede all you mentioned as oppression, I believe women have had the vote for nearly 100 years now. Why is there still so much lamenting about it? Do you believe that the minute you let your guard down, we’ll be stripped of the vote and the right to wear shoes? Please.
MikeEss: “You should be ashamed of yourself writing such strident nonsense, and then trying to pass it off as reality.”
Gosh! That darn Amanda Marcotte and her unfeminine stridency! Doesn’t she know her proper place?…
KellyMac: There is a world of difference between the feminine and feminism. What you’ve said here is a complete non-sequitor. It has nothing to do with her politics, or her gender. It has to do with the “poor me” whining attitude that shows so clearly. In other words, I was telling her not to be such a baby. But nice try characterizing it as gender-related. This is yet another example of manufactured victimhood.
MikeEss: I don’t know about where you live, but where I live, and in the majority of families in the US, mom HAS to work outside the home so the family has enough money to pay the rent, get food and clothing, etc. (And don’t forget the ridiculous cost of gas…)
I’m glad that you have been able to work out an arrangement that allows you to be a SAHM, but the way you are living doesn’t actually represent “reality”, at least not for most Americans…
KellyMac: I don’t know where you got the idea that I am a SAHM; would that I were. I was addressing Amanda’s comment, which was clearly about SAHM’s and the lazy, slave-driving, controlling bastards they married. What she wrote was a far cry from reality, and was a clear example of the half-truths upon which feminism is built.
Well, KM, what an interesting load of…information…
“…feminism is not responsible for my having those things in the first place.”
…and the Civil War had nothing whatsoever to do with freeing the slaves and making them full citizens of the US. WTF?
“Before women’s suffrage, most people couldn’t vote. The landowners could, and then it was one vote per family, with the vote falling to the head of the household.”
…and your point?…
“Civil rights? As far as I know, women have never been singled out to be denied civil rights. Blacks, yes. Women, not so much.”
KM, you need to do a lot for research then. Women have been treated as second class in virtually every culture for the entire known history of mankind.
You claim to be “A Woman Against Feminism and For Men’s Rights”. Since when have men not had full rights, so that they need somebody to advocate for them? And what has feminism done to you to make you so bitter, besides attempt to make sure you are treated equally with men?…
Dan, Grand High Emperor of Bananas Foster: You are correct - Mark Loring’s sign of immaturity is not really his liking of entertainment, but his allowing of it to overshadow the duties that he is supposed to be doing. I.E. he could have showed Juno his guitar collection at any point OTHER than during the lawyer meeting.
If he had the balls to be a dad, he would have been known as the “Cool Dad”