It’s obvious that she thinks her daughter marrying a guy that likes her just as she is necessarily means that such a man won’t be as successful as she wants her son-in-law to be (because rich powerful men don’t have to settle for less than perfectly decorative women, and if they do there’s something wrong with their competitive streak).

See, MRAS? It’s this conservative, family-honouring, model of wifely perfection who is setting up the idea that women should always aim to marry the richest man they can find. It’s not feminists who advocate marriage as a mutual trophy-hunt - wealth for her, beauty for him - it’s patriarchal traditionalists.

However, I did not say “women did not work”. I said that the expectation was that they’d be “mostly supported by their husbands”. The man was supposed to be the breadwinner. I was not denying that women did work, or saying that it was seen as neglectful or wrong. (But my mom did seem to have extremely strong feelings about there being a parent at home any time the kids might be.)

But the economic reality - it was much, much harder for a woman to find a good job - fed into the social expectations that a woman would marry.

When that changed, when a woman has a decent chance of finding a decent job, it couldn’t help but change the nature of man/woman relationships.

Excellent! Now, instead of covering my eyes and fleeing the room when I witness something so godawfl stupid, I can just screwm “Wagonhalt!”

Thanks!

When my squad was pinned down for a day and a night by a vastly superior force—eight hundred to forty soldiers of various nationalities—-my Iraq CO loaded up every last round of ammo we had and tried to get clearance to drive a twelve-man convoy across the largest province in Iraq at 3 AM under the noses of insurgents to relieve us and get us out—or die trying. When Battalion flatly refused he came within a hair’s breadth of commandeering a Blackhawk with his sidearm. I’ll never forget that. He got a Bronze Star, and he earned it. So you’ll forgive me if I’m a bit skeptical about Mr. Du Toit’s credentials.

Actually, if I remember correctly Du Toit took a few digs at me in typical Reichwing fashion after I blogged about that battle, in the interests of full disclosure. Of course having a vagina precludes combat experience, because the enemy checks your genitals before they shoot at you.

Mmm - one of the quietest, gentlest men I knew while I was growing up, hell of a great guy, commanded an artillery battery in Vietnam - given the nature of the service, he almost certainly killed more people than anyone else I’m likely to meet.

I’ve seen it reported a lot that in fact, it’s more often the woman that ends a marriage / live-in relationship and it’s the man who “didn’t see it coming”. I don’t want to spend my afternoon googling, but don’t MRAs also complain about that? Therefore, his statement above seems not to stack up, at all.

Well, you know, Du Toit is White Fang, master of his own destiny. In this hypothetical relationship, it’s him who gets to pick and choose, baby, and don’t you forget it.

The idea that he’s going to be the one who is left, and upset when some woman dumps his ass sorta conflicts with this internal mythology.

That would fit. It has been my civilian experience that, when talking to veterans, the brag level goes down as the one moves closer to the front. For example, my own father was an RAF WW2 Bomber Command veteran, and I think he spoke about three sentences about it during my conscious lifetime.

It varies. One friend of mine, John, a Battle of Britain Spitfire pilot, is quite clinical when talking about his kills. Even in his ’80s he remains something of a blue-eyed killer. He still chuckles at the recollection of an operation over Yugoslavia where he gunned down a German in a strafing run.

That said, John is openly regretful about the friendly fire incident, a genuine accident, where he killed a Hurricane pilot. He’s particularly bitter about his C/O, Adolph Malan, who tried to have him cashiered by a courts-martial following that incident. The only thing he does not talk about is the time he was shot down during the Battle of France and had to be evacuated from Dunkirk. “That was a bad time,” is all he’ll say.

Another acquaintance of mine was a rear gunner on Lancasters during the war. I know from his son that he got extra pay for cleaning out the bomber after one of the crew was killed. He doesn’t talk about his war at all, and I know he was hospitalized for a while due to the trauma.

I’ve yet to see a real military guy who puts on the show that these reichwingers do. That would fit. It has been my civilian experience that, when talking to veterans, the brag level goes down as the one moves closer to the front. For example, my own father was an RAF WW2 Bomber Command veteran, and I think he spoke about three sentences about it during my conscious lifetime.