EleGirl

Lordy this must be hard on men... poor dears! Having women being more-or-less equal. Can you tell me why women should not be completely equal to men under the law?

The fact is that women working in traditional male industries do not offset the same amount of men. There are simply more jobs now than there used to be. More engineers, more accountants, more doctors. By the way, there are more men in traditional women's industries too. There are for example a lot of male nurses now.
One thing that people keep forgetting is that women have always worked… when most people lived on farms, the women helped plant, bring in the crops and feed the livestock. It was only at the onset of the industrial revolution that there was a window in time when men worked and brought home the income and women were able to stay home and take care of the children and the house.

Society is changing again. There is no need for women to stay home to take care of children and house all their lives any more. Women live long lives, house work is much easier with our modern appliances, children are in school from about 6yrs old on. There is no reason for a woman be bored to death staying home all day. There is no reason for a woman to not have a well-paying career.
And let’s not forget that a large number of women, even in the past, were left at some time in their life.. if not their entire adult life to fend for themselves and to support their own children. If women are not equal to men under the law and in the work place that means that a woman without a man to support her is relegated to a life of poverty with her children. IN many countries even today, there are only two job possibilities for women.. housekeeper or prostitute. That’s it. Yea, let’s go back to that… .great idea.
You are right that this is not always the case today. Why is this bad? What’s great about today is that a couple can now decide for themselves what works for them.
I really get a kick out of all this nonsense of men are the bread winners traditionally because I come from a long line of family that did not follow that model in the past.

My paternal grandmother, great grandmother and great-great grandmother were nurses. They earned a living throughout their adult lives, had children and were married to well-to-do-men.

My maternal grandmother worked as a costume designer and seamstress at the metropolitan opera in NYC. My grandparents told me that the only way they made it through the great depression was that they both had jobs. When one of them lost a job, the other was able to get one. So by tag teaming supporting the family they made it through the great depression with their 5 daughters. Every one of my great-aunts worked. Even by great, great aunts in Italy worked in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s.. they ran the family farms which, to this day export produce, wine and other farm products to northern European counties.
And among the pervious generations of my family, on both sides, all of the men worked. And none of them made a fuss about their wives, mothers, sisters working and brining in a good part of the family income.
Marriage is a team effort. I would think that a man would want his wife to have the ability to support herself and the children in case something happened to him.

Got news for you… lesbians have no need for men. Just like gay men have no need for women. So I seen no loss here.
What? The fact is that children need a mother and a father. So why you think men are not needed is beyond me.
So what is the word for a men’s movement that is equivalent to the feminist movement?

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EleGirl

From your previous post you seem to think that men have given up somethings.. or lost somethings.. what are those things.

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I Know

I get your point. I'd be frustrated too. I also get your husbands lack of motivation. I too have heard more men being long term unemployed for whatever reason. It is quite sad really. Nobody wins here.

I tend to think it more of a reflection of the economy and the crappy nature of the work environment. Companies wring every bit of energy out of you that they can. Use you up, spit you out. So, I would blame economic woes rather than the idea that all of the sudden men are getting lazy. Who would be happy groveling for employment at a job that pays less than your old one?

I have a great job on paper. Yet I am demoralized every day. If I got laid off, I have no idea what I would do. Nobody would hire me for 1/2 of what I make now. I'd be depressed like your H.

Men are still men. Hope yours finds his bearings soon. Marriage requires everyone to do their part.

EleGirl

This does not explain why a man who is working part time or not working at all will not do anything around the house to help.

If I were unemployed I'd go out of my way to make life easier for my husband. Cleaning, cooking, yard work... etc. It's really not too much to expect that a man would do the same thing.

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SockPuppet

I provided my answer to the OP's question. You either mis-read or misinterpreted it. Or maybe you didnt read it, and just cherry picked the parts you could contradict.

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Only popular opinion.

Therealbrighteyes

You tell me. Many men seem happy blaming women for their shortcomings. Feminism, bread winning, etc., seems to be the meme around here as the cancer on men. How?

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Debbie Roxs

After reading these posts it reminds me of the months I did missionary work in Mozambique Africa. The majority of the men we saw did not work. They sat around while their wives walked 5 miles to get water then cooked and took 100% care of their 5 kids. I am glad I live in America and have a husband who works.
I think for the sake of your marriage you might want to try counseling. Maybe he will learn that if he doesn't have a job it is expected of him to work around the house. He probably won't listen to you explain that to him. I hope the best for both of you.

AFEH

I’m just reading about the first World War. It’s an interesting era from the prospective of women not having the vote, the beginning of the suffragette movement in England etc. In the novel women have just won the vote, provided they’re over 30, own property or are married to a property owner.




Now getting back to lazy, bone idle husbands. Yes these men actually existed in the early 20th century in exactly the same way they exist in the early 21st century. And then just as now their wives not only worked in virtual paid slave conditions but also did everything in the home.

I just don’t see what the problem with understanding this is. Either a man is industrious, takes his responsibilities seriously and works hard to fulfil them. Or he is lazy and bone idle and he doesn’t take his responsibilities seriously and he doesn’t fulfil them. It really is that simple.

Mephisto

I have been watching this thread for the last few days, and see the misandry starting to creep in. I know I will be flamed for my views on this but I guess it'll be an interesting response, so here goes.

Let's not comment on the people who are bone idle, as there are just as many stories about women with entitlement issues as men....

On to the question at hand, Where did it all go wrong?

When the feminist movement began, men showed chivalry and gentlemanly conduct to women at all times, they tipped their hats and watched their language and did not expose women to the cruder side of the male persona. They went to war to protect the women and they were the first to go into any form of dangerous situation to protect the home, the family or the woman, not just a wife, but any woman, because that was the man's role in society. provider and protector. Don't get me wrong, there were the non-gentlemen, but lets stick to generalisations shall we.

Now, the feminists began to fight for equality, fantastic, no problem with that at all, but then they starting fighting the chivalry, they starting fighting the men who opened doors or tipped their hats, they fought to demasculate and demoralise any man who offered to fill the previously defined role, as women were capable of doing for themselves. Men began to question what it was they were supposed to do, as they were being lambasted if they tried to maintain the civil liberties that were given to women.

Then the pendulum kept getting pushed further, women started to divorce their men, just because they thought that they could get something better, the men lost half if not more of everything that they had worked for in a single swoop and then were also made to pay for the woman to have a comfortable lifestyle. So at this point a man is left with nothing to protect and yet still has to provide for a wife who is no longer involved, his worth in society is greatly reduced, as he has less than half of what he should have accumulated in his life till then, he is a failed husband, and his income is cut by a great percentage, so he is further held back from accumulating wealth and therefore has trouble attracting a new partner, because women STILL marry for security.

Amid all of this anarchy that is the male-female war of rights and responsibilities, women were taking more and more of their rights, again, no problem with this, but with rights come responsibilities, and the women were not taking the responsibilities on board. The family unit became defunct as women decided to burn their bras and leave the home to find a job in society that they deserved. The children in these families had a less stable PAIR of role models and were left questioning just what the hell was going on.

These children grew up in an era where the roles were less defined in the home and mum and dad held no clear cut definition, the lines were starting to blur, socially, men were not as deferential to women in their manners, women were outright hostile to men in scenarios where the men tried to remain old school and maintain the gentlemanly airs and graces. The message that was transferred to these children was confusing to say the least. Society had left a well worn and working path and was now trailblazing it's own way.

The children of the revolution grew up and formed their own families, with each side trying to fill a role that was now so undefined that they had to ad-lib and in doing so, more dysfunction was transferred into the family unit. The divorce rate started to increase as the women decided running and taking half and starting again all over with someone new was the easier option than working through life's problems and creating a relationship based on their own ideals rather than the feminazi model. These dysfunctional families created a generation of children with no idea what a family unit was, no skills for handling conflict or for relationship development and were solely focussed on themselves, a generation of people who were bought up with the idea that things meant happiness and people were just others to be competed with.

Somehow, this generation managed to reproduce, quite often their was no marriage or partnership, simple one night stands or casual sex, empowered women being impregnated because they didn't need a man in their lives. A generation born into some form of governmental financial assistance. A generation doomed to have no strong role model on either side, and a sense of entitlement from being raised on government handouts.... even the single mothers who work, are receiving supplemental income from the government. This generation have grown up with no idea what a stable family unit is, no idea what a gender role is, no idea that TV isn't real, no idea of the value of work, no idea about much at all really. They have an insatiable appetite for instantaneous gratification and are going to suffer greatly when they cant repay the loan for their big screen tv and xbox when the first payment is due in 12 months.

This is the worst of the generations up until now, but the splitting did not happen all at once, so we have a society with a mixture of all the generations attested to earlier, all at once in the same place. All competing..... you also get subsets of the generations, when differing generations crossbreed..... fascinating stuff when you sit back and watch it.

So, here you have my breakdown of how we have got it all wrong, notice though, that it is entire generations of people confused. The men you wish to see have been shouted down and put in a cage, we have no outward expression to create men anymore. We are arrested if we fight, scolded if we spit, and abused if we so much as dare to speak our minds.

So now we have metrosexual princesses who are going so far with the equality that they wear make-up and androgynise themselves, women who try to compete with men in their foolish pursuits of adrenaline, and binging, an entirely directionless, genderless mishmash without a thought in their vapid heads that does not centre around themselves, an entirely egocentric subset to society.

Real men went underground, waiting for the real women to come to us.

uphillbattle

I don't know where you live but I just took 5 whole min to find using google that it would cost me a 40$ filing fee and only about 15 sites on how to fill out the form for a legal seperation. It is not a divorce, a lawyer is not necessary. If she takes a few moments of her time to research, she will realize she is not trapped and have him evicted within 3 months. So please give me an example of somebody who doesn't have any options.

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Halien

Haven't seen many of them actually blaming women. They tend to be describing demotivating factors in society. I think many would join in and say that nothing external should keep a man from being a man, but then I realize that, while I don't change who I am, I behave completely different when I get off the plane to visit the area where I grew up than I did while walking on the streets where I live now. I grew up in an environment where many men were taught to be strong and respect the women in our lives in a way that elevates them, in a sense. The women I dated in the college years by and large were more romantically interested in a masculine man who was very serious about his responsibilities to his future family.

That approach doesn't cut it where I live now if you are under 30. I listen to local media on the radio, instead of generic stations. Recently, there was one of these shows with mostly upper twenty something women talking about what they were looking for in a man for a good time. Clearly, the kind of guy I was as a younger man is not what they declare to be what the typical woman in the area is looking for. When you really think about what the guy that they pine for would be like, he would easily become the kind of guy that is derided in this thread. And I'm not bragging, but I was pretty popular in college. I know its anecdotal, but my wife's coworker has a son who is a star on his college basketball team. I gave the guy my old furniture from my study when my wife declared the sofa to be offensive, and guided me to the furniture she wanted. This guy was a pretty incredible person, tall, and according to my daughter, looked like a 9 out of 10. But he is very serious about his career after basketball. He seemed to be of a serious nature, but was quick to stand up and speak with passion about our city. His mom later said that the guy was dumped so many times that she wondered if it should be in the world book of records. The reason was that he didn't know how to party and was too serious. You, Brighteyes, know that I live in a city that defines societal decay, though, so its more like what we see our country heading to. Hey, I'm the only manager in my company who was once dragged out of his car by a mob when picking up an employee on my way to work.

AFEH

There can be no doubt whatsoever that boys and young men are influenced by their family (if they have one) and society they live in, no doubt at all. That was as true in the 12th and 20th centuries as it is today in the 21st century. In fact we “create” our sons and daughters in many more ways than just conceiving and giving birth to them. As we sow so shall we reap.

But it’s a pointless task trying to get any feminist to “admit” or own up to any downsides, unwanted side effects of feminism, even though feminism is the biggest change see in our most recent and current societies.

In essence the feminists are in a massive denial, very much like tobacco companies denied that smoking causes cancer. But at least the tobacco companies knew the truth of the matter and denied the cancer link for reasons of profit. The feminists aren’t even prepared to go as far as the tobacco companies and actually even consider believing there are any unwanted side effects to feminism. It’s the denial of exceedingly closed minds and for that it is exceedingly dangerous and damaging to the whole of society.

And it will get worse before it gets better. Simply because now it has become a way of life for so many, it’s an “expectation” the shortfalls of which are paid for and covered by the tax payers.

okeydokie

sums it up fairly well. i think i was the first to mention feminism at a great contributer to the the original thread title. i did not mean it as it has been apparently taken by many of the ladies in here. i do not wish to see any gender or race of people opressed in anyway, i have always respected and supported most ideals of the feminst movement (voting, equal pay for equal work, burning bras etc..). however, there is no way anyone can deny that it has changed society and how men view everything about women and themselves.

Lon

After reading Mephistos post (which, though I'm not prepared to defend, seems to resonate strongly with me) and your notion of being too serious, somewhere inside me a feel a little tug of despair. I look to stories of prior generations where even serious guys could find a cool girl, where a person's character attracts a really good mate... but my whole life I've looked around and seen what seems like a horde of irresponsible people having all kinds of fun things in life... and it is still working for them it seems - it seems the character that is successful is one that mainly knows how to party and have fun (and if they have other traits such as intellect that is perhaps a bonus).

My struggle all my life is trying to decided if my inability to really let loose is a matter of integrity or if I'm in fact broken. I have a pretty good sense of humor, but it is almost always trumped by my sense of chivalry and politeness, maybe that is just my niceguyness problem coming to the surface. And now facing life as a divorced dad, it is really a struggle to decide how I want to proceed, I want to attract a cool woman but don't want to instill a sense of self-centeredness in my son, or perhaps I'm better throwing that broken paradigm out and just start caring less and hope when the time comes my ingrained sense of responsibility guides me subconsciously to the right place.

In fact just two days ago I found myself googling "how to be more playful" (and I wasn't searching for just with the opposite sex).

It is tough being a good man in todays world. Our male ancestors faced challenge and adversity too, but nothing that resembles what today's men face - not saying who had it worse, just that we are in uncharted waters (and so are today's women, as all of society).

Scannerguard

Realbrighteyes,

Honestly, I don't know your problem.

Before we converse in the future, you just need to tell me, "I want to debate you, Scannerguard" and then I'll know where you are coming from.

I only said the 15-35% child support "evaporating into nothingness" could be a possible explanation for a declining work ethic.

I did not condone it (and went out of my way to say that). I do not encourage it to any guy.

It's stinkin' thinkin' but nonetheless, the OP is asking about "Thinking" and I am sticking to my story, that I have seen a lot of men not take that promotion, not take overtime, not take that side job.

Why?

Because I would just have to hand a lot of it over to my ex, is the thinking, and she'll just spend it on make-up and nails.

My attorney has noted he has seen it and has counseled me otherwise. I told him no need to; I'm on a 100%. I will pay my share and continue to try to earn more, no matter how the system penalizes me, if it does.

I'd rather be out scratching a living out, meeking an existence, being drown in child support (I am not, I think it's fair), than be back in a house being the family **** (and treated as such) cooking, cleaning, and doing laundry, and definitely not appreciated for such.

Kapeesh?

Never, EVER will I go back to a Feminist lifestyle. I'd rather live in a trailer and smoke Camels and drink Piels with Billy Bob Jimmy Boy.

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And maybe I seem a bit confused. . .but maybe, I got you pegged! Ha! Don't know what to do about those tossed salad and scrambled eggs. . .they're posting again. Scannerguard has left the building.