American men have been totally emasculated by the Feminist movement. They are portrayed or, act, like little girly wimps. I just watched a commercial where a young boy was learning how to ride a bike and it was the mom running behind him while the dad stood there, woman-like, snapping photos. I taught all my kids how to ride bikes. I ran behind all of them, but I digress. This is how men are portrayed in America. This is how they are. Either like girly wimps or dopes. The woman is supposedly the one who wears the pants and has the balls and the brains. Bruce Jenner is the ultimate symbol of what the sexes have become in America: a guy, with balls and a dick, who calls himself a woman garnering all kinds of accolades from society on behalf of his "woman-ness."
There's at least one intelligent feminist who appreciates men:
ReplyDeletehttp://ideas.time.com/2013/12/16/its-a-mans-world-and-it-always-will-be/
Excerpt from above article:
ReplyDelete"...A peevish, grudging rancor against men has been one of the most unpalatable and unjust features of second- and third-wave feminism. Men’s faults, failings and foibles have been seized on and magnified into gruesome bills of indictment. Ideologue professors at our leading universities indoctrinate impressionable undergraduates with carelessly fact-free theories alleging that gender is an arbitrary, oppressive fiction with no basis in biology.
Is it any wonder that so many high-achieving young women, despite all the happy talk about their academic success, find themselves in the early stages of their careers in chronic uncertainty or anxiety about their prospects for an emotionally fulfilled private life? When an educated culture routinely denigrates masculinity and manhood, then women will be perpetually stuck with boys, who have no incentive to mature or to honor their commitments. And without strong men as models to either embrace or (for dissident lesbians) to resist, women will never attain a centered and profound sense of themselves as women..."
No bigger girlie men than libertarians...
ReplyDelete"We're out of money!" = "We have no balls!"
ReplyDeleteYes, Matt!!!
ReplyDeleteGreat find, Malmo.
ReplyDeleteRU PC, Bro?
ReplyDeleteWhat are Tom's thoughts?
ReplyDeleteWhat are Tom's thoughts?
ReplyDeleteThe necessity for nuance.
The liberal view is that all people are equal as natural persons even through they differ as individuals, e.g., wrt gender. These differences are considered accidental wrt to the sameness of nature that is essential.
Liberalism is based on the equal rights to make choices for oneself as a person to the degree that behaviors do not unfairly impact the equal rights of others.
However, the US as the supposed beacon of freedom and democracy hasn’t yet been able to pass the ERA.
This is what we should be focusing on, IMHO.
The ERA is redundant. The 14th Amendments equal protection clause is more than sufficient.
ReplyDeleteSeptus...
ReplyDelete"We now have school banning legos for boys because legos somehow promoted sexist gender roles.
Un-fucking-real.
Let 'em have it, I say. I like to be left alone with my hobbies, and messing about with my PC, or just going down the pub to see my mates.
ReplyDeleteOh good grief. This is just an accurate picture of my life. My exes had no interest in the kids whatsoever, leave it all up to mom. Men are portrayed that way because that's how they are. Don't bother to ever stoop to actually interact with women or children.
ReplyDeleteQuit whining. You bring it on yourselves.
Septeus, you just went off the deep end.
ReplyDelete"You bring it on yourselves. "
ReplyDeleteNo doubt... wait till females figure out we're not "out of money!".... then its really going to hit the fan....
Changes in sexuality and gender roles maybe have more biological causes than social, politics and economics. Puberty onset is about 5 years earlier now than in the 1920s for girls and six months to two years earlier on average for boys. That is a massive change to human development. Women now dominate school and universities, maybe a super majority in universities by the end of this decade. For society as a whole, we have declining birth rates and other signs that something biological is going on that isn't completely explained except with the typical fall-back platitudes about obesity and other easy answers. As chemical and drug use has skyrocketed, along with increasingly complex diets we've not been spending more money on ensuring adequate toxicology at a population level. There has been a push for people to eat "balanced diet" at every meal, which is completely at odds with the way most of our evolution happened where we had feast-and-famine frequently. Brief periods of abundant harvest and then long periods of eating minimal amounts of whatever was available. Media and electronics provide instant ideas, pictures of all sorts of stimulus that probably elevate all sorts of hormones and brain function. We've bred animals that mature faster, plants that have more frequent flowers, sexual reproduction, produce larger fruit more frequently. Organic farming exposes people to higher levels of "natural" hormones. All sorts of possibilities that could have an affect hormones that could translate into changes in sexual development and social gender roles in humans. Something to think about anyway.
ReplyDeleteVegan children mature much more slowly. Some scaremongers spread alarm about veganism because of this, that vegan children are getting proper nutrition, but they are not eating a load of growth hormones in their food. Also, animal protein contains natural growth hormones too which overwhelm our bodies.
DeleteWe probably have three 35 gallon Rubbermaid containers filled with Lego pieces ....
ReplyDeleteSepteus here "The end goal is the same"
Look perhaps its not systematized with what you assert a "goal" here...
We often want to "systematize" in general but think about it ... its like the left thinks all of this is some sort of "neo-liberal conspiracy!" but cannot produce evidence yet they think its a cabal of clever "neo-liberals" conducting a PERFECT conspiracy to impose their evil policies ... its a fantasyland view of things..
If you are here then I'll assume you understand MMT ie you understand the basic operations of our numismatic systems currently so that puts you imo AT LEAST in the top 10% of 'systems thinkers' out there... AT LEAST top 10%...
BUT, that doesnt mean EVERYTHING is 'systematized'...
There is the cliche 'if you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail!".. well perhaps if you are a systems thinker, everything has to be systematized...
I would posit that your basic cognitive approach is one of systemization...
No doubt we can see the trends you point out being manifest but that can be the result of CHAOS ie NOT a systemic 'design' .... the product is this human caprice as an outcome of macro-policy imposed by morons in leadership positions...
This from Paul comes to mind from my perspective:
"that we may by no means still be minors, surging hither and thither and being carried about by every wind of teaching, by human caprice, by craftiness with a view to the systematizing of the deception." Eph 4:14
Capricious human behavior (gender benders, nut job produced commercials with roles reversed, etc..) is subordinate to what are higher order but yes truly systematized conditions...
We have to get the order of the systemization correct... and not confuse the capricious outcomes with said systemization... its like in medicine symptoms vs the actual disease...
There is the cliche 'if you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail!".. well perhaps if you are a systems thinker, everything has to be systematized...
ReplyDeleteSpot on Matt, unfortunately we all fall prey of our own thought patterns time to time no matter how hard we try not.
I've fallen into the same thought trap as Septeus above time to time, but I don't think there is any sort of conspiracy. The funny thing is that as you have said sometimes, the harder we try to achieve opposite outcomes the harder it will probably fire back lol (like the conservatives complaining about homosexuality or whatever, and then it increases).
Also I don't agree with this romantic vision of the careful patriarch, as "Unknown" says above we bring it onto ourself, as a part of the male population just cares to "provide" (materially) and prefers to be left alone for anything else.
And I don't think that society is becoming "emasculated", actually women are each time more like men, and you just have to see any woman in the power chain. A lot of trends, most of them probably not being analyzed (apart of the obvious ones, like women gaining economic independence and labor participation), are impacting society.
When women achieve income parity and men lose their grip on power a lot will change (for the worse for men probably lol).
When women achieve income parity and men lose their grip on power a lot will change.
ReplyDeleteRight. Society is in transition owing to the cultural march of liberalism. The US this has been proceeding for decades. When I was young the US was a WASP male culture. That has changed a great deal but it still has quite a way to go.
"(for the worse for men probably lol)"
That is a matter of perspective. The shifting of accustomed boundaries is painful for those that gained from the previous boundaries, but those that adapt find themselves better off in terms of a wider perspective.
"When I was young the US was a WASP male culture. That has changed a great deal but it still has quite a way to go."
ReplyDeleteA way to go? Which way you think it's going? With recent immigration patterns, the tilt towards patriarchy will be firmly embedded as far as the eye can see.
Acceptance of the fact that the sexes are different, with differing goals and visions and biological drives than their male counterparts is simply common sense.
Oh, other than your or my opinion, there's nothing objectively wrong with what you label a male culture, whatever you think it is.
The globalization of liberalism is a thousand year project culturally. There is going to be huge resistance to it in many quarters and wars fought over it.
ReplyDeleteLive unity, celebrate diversity.
As far as so called income inequality is concerned I'd say it's a lot bunk:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.businessinsider.com/actually-the-gender-pay-gap-is-just-a-myth-2011-3?op=1
Also, in the liberalism you speak of in our dialectical march forward, outcomes are uncertain at best. Liberalism has a penchant for becoming staunchly conservative once pieces of the agenda come to fruition, stopping progress (whatever that is) in it's tracks. In other words liberals oft times are the most strident conservatives once they achieve said goal/goals. Change becomes anathema and the subjective truth is pawned off as the objective truth with the fervor of a Jonathan Edwards, stopping history's arc on the dime.
Nothing is certain about the future, and the belief in progress and that liberalism is somehow associated with it is a belief. But it is a reasonable belief based on the expansion of liberalism since the Renaissance and especially since the Enlightenment.
ReplyDeleteBut events are now proceeding in a way that makes it just as reasonable to assume that the new world order will be a totalitarian plutocracy, in which a power structure has unchallengeable authority based on control of technology. Were this to come to pass, it could result in a new type of feudalism lasting centuries.
There are a lot of other conceivable options, too, and no doubt many that are not even possible to imagine based on historical trends owing to emergence.
The potential consequence of climate change, epidemic (now that the strongest antibiotic as been bridged), and WMD all present the kinds of shocks that make foresight dim at best.
Tom, good analysis, other than the climate change part.
ReplyDeleteWell, for whatever reason or motive, Feminism is now the religion of our elite and establishment.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/feminism-and-the-turn-against-enlightenment/17057#.VlKNOnarTIU
Whether it's to emasculate more males as some have stated, or it's to further distract people away from their own economic self-interest, political rights and free speech, i'm not sure. Generally speaking I prefer the time-and-tested "Circus and Bread" objective of the elite. After all, why not focus on Gays, God, Guns and Abortion for the "help the poor" Christian right and Social Justice and Corporate Feminism for the "anti-big business" left?
Acceptance of the fact that the sexes are different, with differing goals and visions and biological drives than their male counterparts is simply common sense.
ReplyDeleteThere's no psychological or neurological reason to think this is true, but conservatives have been inventing racial, gender and class distinctions for millenia.
How traditional.
I'd venture to guess that I am one of, if not the youngest, male who reads and writes this blog. And for the life of me I dont understand this complaint--and I live in a city with lots of effeminate/urbane men. The "Bro" culture is alive and well within my generation, even a bit too much so IMO. Fraternities, beer drinking, working out, and NFL football are more popular than ever. And tragically, male-on-female sexual assault fills the headlines of campus newspapers everywhere. That doesn't seem like excessive femininity to me.
ReplyDeleteIsn't the whole point of our MMT POV that we have enough "space" for everyone to thrive and realize their potential, without need to compete over artificially scarce resources? Just as we know money does not need to be artificially scarce, universal self-actualization and broad social acceptance doesnt need to be artificially scarce either.
If anything, what I see is the country falling into social and ideological extremes. The liberal class is becoming excessively PC to a fault. And the white, male class is becoming increasingly bellicose and violent as they see "their" country slipping away- the Trump crowds are plain evidence of this.
Where I live violence against woman, sexual abuse and misogyny in general is increasing amongst youth as is. Is true though that in part due to past influx of Muslims/Africans and south american population. And income disparity is a very well proven reality too.
ReplyDeleteI don't see facts proving this theory of 'emasculating society', not sure how it is in USA, but I'm pretty sure is the same.
I'd venture to guess that I am one of, if not the youngest, male who reads and writes this blog. And for the life of me I dont understand this complaint--and I live in a city with lots of effeminate/urbane men. The "Bro" culture is alive and well within my generation, even a bit too much so IMO. Fraternities, beer drinking, working out, and NFL football are more popular than ever. And tragically, male-on-female sexual assault fills the headlines of campus newspapers everywhere. That doesn't seem like excessive femininity to me.
ReplyDeleteAlthough no longer young in body (but still young at heart)I, live in a Big Ten university town and I can attest to the "Bro culture" is alive and well here, again too much so. The jocks are in charge. Iowa City is a major destination in Iowa and fills every time the Hawkeyes are playing at home.
Sexual assault and date rape are big issues at UI, and the town is dominated by sports bars. UI sipped from first place as the national party school last year, so no doubt they are attempting to recapture the town. Every year several students die of alcohol poisoning from binge drinking.
Iowa City, home of the UK Writers' Workshop made famous by teachers like Kurt Vonnegut, is also a big literature, music, dance, and arts town and it has been a leader in the LGBT movement for decades. No issues about it here.
Iowa City is a study in contrasts in many respects, with a noticeably large foreign study body, too. It's been that way for decades, too. Then the Chinese students were poor, now they all drive luxury cars. A Chinese student bought the house across the street from us for his stay here. Five bedrooms and a swimming pool.