In the comments to a Dr. Helen post: Should Men Get Married?, commenter ‘One More Man’ says:
The preponderance of women I meet daily make a point of trying to be men, and ill-bred men at that. If you are familiar with Sir Compton MacKenzie’s statement that “Women do not find it difficult nowadays to behave like men; but they often find it extremely difficult to behave like gentlemen,” you will know what I mean. [bold added]
I would phrase that slightly different. Since the ’60s we have given women cultural permission not to act like men but to act like boys.
Our entire culture has become infantilized to a historically unprecedented degree. Changes in technology, wealth levels, institutions, law and culture mean that any adult can live in an extended childhood all their days if they wish. In this regard, women and men have the same options.
However, for women I think this evolution is more extreme. The capital-F feminist movement of the post-’60s era set the wrong goals. Women, they claimed, should have the right to engage in the same behaviors as “men” without facing social sanction. Women should be able to be sexually promiscuous if they chose. They should be able to pursue their careers and ignore family if they chose. They should not have to accept responsibility for creating and raising children if they chose. “Men,” they argued, had the right to do all these things, so women should as well.
However, the feminists made a critical error. The behaviors and freedoms they so coveted were not those of “men” but of boys. In traditional society, feckless immature males slept around. Immature males pursued careers at the expense of family. Immature males avoided the responsibilities and obligations of creating and raising children. Traditional culture called adult males without such responsibilities “men” merely out of courtesy.
Feminists concentrated too much on the supposed freedoms that “men” enjoyed, without realizing that true manhood, like true womanhood, came only at the point where the child stops putting himself first and instead binds himself to serve the welfare of others. As all true adults know, and vainly try to teach the young, adulthood and freedom have little to do with one another. All men feel the tug of the boy in their hearts all their days, but every human culture grants full adult status only to those with obligations they cannot surrender at will.
By holding up the immature male as the exemplar of masculinity, feminists did females a disservice. They drove females far further down the road of infantilization than males traveled. Modern society encourages and glorifies behavior in females that traditional culture fought so hard to suppress in males. At the same time, it still requires more-responsible behavior from males. Too many adult males, ready to make that final transition to full-fledged manhood, now must contemplate the very real possibility they will find themselves yolked to female versions of their younger, immature selves.
In the end, we’ve traded womanhood for boyhood.
I don’t see this changing anytime soon. Narcissistic childishness sells any product, from cars to political ideologies, because it appeals to our selfish fantasies of life free of obligation and restraint. I fear that when the dust settles women will find they suffered more for this foolishness.
Well, what are the poor dears supposed to do? They lack proper male role models! :)
I found this via Reddit.com: Girls 2 Men
It is about young lesbians going for the thug life style, for it gets them the most girls.
Not exactly pornographic, but probably still not quite safe for work
I think you meant yoked, not yolked.
Related post at Athens and Jerusalem.
Miki Ellis,
Yes, dear.
I find it much easier to love and praise any and all women. Especially in bars where they are drinking martinis.
Shannon: Too many adult males, ready to make that final transition to full-fledged manhood, now must contemplate the very real possibility they will find themselves yolked to female versions of their younger, immature selves.
And no doubt, many of these adult males will ultimately conclude that it’s not worth the bother. Meaning, of course, that society is now out one more traditionally-defined woman and one more traditionally-defined man.
“However, the feminists made a critical error. The behaviors and freedoms they so coveted were not those of “men” but of boys…without realizing that true manhood, like true womanhood, came only at the point where the child stops putting himself first and instead binds himself to serve the welfare of others.”
In fact, on many occasions in the 70’s and 80’s I encountered feminists explicitly arguing that the right to full equality entitled women to behave as badly as men, and that any objection to worsening behavior was sexist. So, sadly, I don’t think that this was an unconscious mistake but rather a knowing embrace of barbarism. But then, the 60’s produced a lot of that sort of pathology.
Pst314,
I don’t think that this was an unconscious mistake but rather a knowing embrace of barbarism.
Yes, it was part of a broader trend embracing a reckless, self-centered, permanent childhood.
One promising development is a more globalized market for finding suitable mates. American men who are interested in women with more traditional values and attitudes have the prospect of finding such women in other countries. I do not speak from personal experience, but I have two friends who have done precisely this. The current bad behavior Shannon describes is somewhat self-limiting. Such women are less likely to reproduce, thankfully. With a more competitive marketplace for spouses, the bearers of such ideas may face demographic extinction all the sooner.
Allow me to suggest that a plurality (if not most) women and men are still essentially reasonable, if not because of then despite cultural trends, and perhaps because they were trained to be reasonable by their parents or are — as some people are — naturally reasonable or simply too contrary to submit to fashion. IOW, while the trends Shannon describes are real and troubling, they do not affect every young woman, and even among affected women there is a wide range of behaviors. The loutish young woman who repels men is an extreme case, as is the loutish young man who repels women (who is very loutish indeed).
I agree with Lex that female bad behavior is inherently self-limiting. I would add that so is bad behavior by men. In these arguments people always cite American men who look overseas for wives. We should notice also that women who may be treated poorly by the men in their own countries (Russia, Latin America, etc.) tend to look to America for husbands. There is a worldwide market for mates, and if a lot of women or men who are on the market behave badly to their prospects at home, some of those prospects will take advantage of attractive offerings by foreign competitors.
Some people will never find a mate but most will, despite feminist stupidities and male reactions to them. In the long run the pendulum will swing and the market will clear.