Why is a lesbian qualified to talk about heterosexual relationships? I would not consider myself qualified to talk about same sex relationships. The relationship between a man and a woman is complicated, precisely because they are men and women (opposite but complimentary) and the desire, lust, emotions, commitment is multifaceted, extremely powerful and the core of our humanity. Julie just sees a relationship she does not understand, but she sees the energy, the deep desire and risk and doesn’t understand and so would like to control…. For 70 years women like Julie have been trying to control the very core of being human. Many men no longer behave as men, many women hate her for it and she doesn’t understand why…. “A world free from the threat of male violence” is of no interest to women, because they understand that this in reality, means a world without sexual desire, without passion, without commitment and without love. Congratulations Julie. You have nearly achieved a sexual relations 1984 and men and women hate you for it….
” A world free from the threat of male violence” is of no interest to women, because they understand that this in reality, means a world without sexual desire, without passion, without commitment and without love.”
Excellent comment.
The problem with feminism, and a lot of leftist thinking really, is that they don’t have the wisdom to accept that life, like accounting, is a double entry system.
Men are more likely to be violent or win Darwin awards. Men are more likely to die trying to end slavery or Fascism, run themselves into the ground to provide for their families or do engineering or STEM. Things go together, positives and negatives.
Similarly, breaking down centuries old norms like marriage or chivalry, and young women facing a dating scene which is a “dystopian nightmare”, go together.
The entire basis of the concept of “equity” is to try and circumvent the above. Doesn’t work.
“life, like accounting, is a double entry system.”
A system set up by Y chromosome carriers to count things.
Some individuals view men and women as “things”. Other individuals don’t.
Traditionally men have found themselves propelled into the role of culling certain members of societies because of their physical strength. This no longer applies. You don’t need massive strength to fire a Javelin or a NLAW at a tank or fire a semi automatic weapon or pilot a drone but you do need cunning.
As for “running themselves into the ground for their families” currently in the UK there are around 1.8 million single parent families and 90% of those are women led. led.https://www.gingerbread.org.uk/what-we-do/media-centre/single-parents-facts-figures/
As for STEM what are you implying that XX chromosome carriers have brains that can’t do maths ? That has to be the stupidest comment I have ever read on this forum.
Why are you afraid of the idea that women can be as creative, aggressive, analytical, ruthless, philosophical, spiritual, practical and productive as men if given the chance ?
This is 2022. Wake up.
“As for STEM what are you implying that XX chromosome carriers have brains that can’t do maths ? That has to be the stupidest comment I have ever read on this forum.”
No, the commenter is not. Not even slightly. More males go into STEM fields. It’s a statistical reality that the commenter is referencing which has educational initiatives designed to specifically redress the trend.
Only because girls are still pushed, by their peers and society in general, into more traditionally female careers. Have seen this with my nieces who have all been loud and proud to give society and their teachers the finger and gone down the STEM route. Their male colleagues may have a very tough time if it.
Good for them. On the other hand, it is well established in psychological literature that women in general have an inborn preference for dealing with people and men in general have a preference for dealing with things. These preferences play out in choices men and women make regardless of ‘traditional’ roles. Removing barriers to people’s choices is all to the good, but I think you’ll find, with barriers down, things won’t change that much.
I would have no issue with any homosexual trying to understand the dynamics of heterosexual relationships, provided they were basing their thinking on all the evidence out there and were open minded in their approach.
Bindle’s issue is she reasons from certain conclusions. There are plenty of heterosexuals who also reach bonkers conclusions based upon prejudice.
Such a strange attitude. It is a wonder anyone writes anything about anything when you need to be that thing to have an opinion. And yet plenty men have opinions on pieces written about feminism by women. I wonder why that is?
« “A world free from the threat of male violence” is of no interest to women, because they understand that this in reality, means a world without sexual desire, without passion, without commitment and without love.«
What ever are you talking about?
And why are YOU qualified to make such an absurd statement?
Thank you Julie Bindel for the tireless work you do for Women and for Feminism.
The man I live with is not violent, on the other hand he is no push-over either, so we fight….verbally. Whoever said that men should be like beefy saints except for some rather romantic silly magazines? On the other hand my first husband was violent. Silly me for not twigging. But I only got knocked about once. After than I went straight to the solicitors and obtained an order banning him from the house.
So on that logic men have no right to write novels about women? Or white women no right to write about black women? Didn’t need to read much further, clearly this person is into lefty woke nonsense but of course they don’t see it like this.
He didn’t say that she had no right, but isn’t qualified. Apart from that, anyone who knows Bindel’s work knows that she has a deep antipathy towards heterosexual men.
“” A world free from the threat of male violence” is of no interest to women, because they understand that this in reality, means a world without sexual desire, without passion, without commitment and without love.”” So, its not ok to say, not want to get raped, because that means you long for a world without male desire? What?!
“A world free from the threat of male violence” is of no interest to women, because they understand that this in reality, means a world without sexual desire, without passion, without commitment and without love.” So violence is an inherent part of your sexuality? It might be that you are just a sad violent man, incapable of seeing any other way of being sexual.
“A world free from the threat of male violence” is of no interest to women, because they understand that this in reality, means a world without sexual desire, without passion, without commitment and without love.
So you equate the threat of male violence with love ? I think you are in need of urgent psychological assistance along with the 70 + affirmative uptickers.
Lindsay S
1 year ago
My biggest problem today as a result of sexual liberation, is more along the lines of a lack of responsibility. Yes we can take the pill and not get pregnant but that doesn’t stop the spread of sti’s which we seem to think will never happen to us until it does. This kind of thinking is prolific amongst the young and old alike!
Then there is the problem of those who create children with people they don’t know well enough to know if they even like them, which results in an overwhelming number of single parent families which have their own problems, including domestic abuse which Julie et al believe only goes in one direction. It doesn’t, women can be abusive too and your obsession with always blaming men doesn’t help anyone!
We don’t need to try and force people into loveless marriages, we just need to be honest with every generation about the fact that freedom is never truly free, it comes with its own set of responsibilities!
Agreed. The ability to take responsibility is also about having deep dedication, being a grown-up, having a mutual long-term vision, postponing short-term pleasure or happiness for long-term goals.
Graham Strugnell
1 year ago
Many women, even in my own family, make stupid choices and marry men who are exciting but inferior to them in terms of intellect and education. Once the glamour has worn off and children have been born they face unhappiness together or impoverishment and single status.
Women cannot have it all, any more than men: security requires some sacrifice of liberty. No one forces women to marry, or to marry the men they choose, not in the West at least. In fact, it would be better if we lived in a world where the parents’ validation of a proposal was deemed necessary, rather than outmoded. Young people under the sway of hormones make catastrophic choices: you need wiser heads when considering marriage, which remains the best solution we have to human needs, however imperfect. The writer’s lazy generalisation that all committed marriages trap women in the 1950s is ridiculous.
What utter nonsense. My mother would have loved me to have married a secondary modern boy and stayed in my home town, bored rigid and producing children for her to control. Fortunately, in the 70s, grammar schools and grants allowed me to escape to be self-supporting and marriage and children-free.
I said parents, not parent. It is not nonsense just because you disagree. It is true for many people I know. Of course some parents are stupid. I am not recommending a return to the Jane Austen era, but I think she would be appalled by how casualty people enter and exit marriage now.
You are free to live the life you live, but you write rather sneeringly about women – and it IS usually women – wanting to have children. It’s rather a good thing, isn’t it, that not every woman wants to be child free! If it were, apart from the extinction of the human race (at least in some regions), no one would be around to look after the last oldies around!
Whatever, your view is very much a modern western one, not being followed in any other region of the world, or even minority communities in ours, to their eventual advantage and dominance and our loss.
“In fact, it would be better if we lived in a world where the parents’ validation of a proposal was deemed necessary, rather than outmoded”
Oh wow, no. My parents were nuts. The guy they wanted me to marry went to church every week and looked nice but was a total jerk. He married a girl in town and beat the pulp out of her on the honeymoon. He’s in jail now. They never approved of my husband, and he’s a wonderful man and our marriage is strong even after many years. Parents don’t always know best.
R Irb
1 year ago
Excuse me, but what is so bad about chivalry?
It is a creed where a man sees his loved one on a pedestal and offers love, dedication, security, and is sensitive to her needs, a stable reliable rock against the ills of this world. A man who creates an environment where a woman can feel safe enough to have children and grow as an individual instead of sacrificing herself as a single mother for the good of her children or having to suffer from violent, manipulative, perfidious men. A chivalrous man makes a woman feel like a woman and will not place her into the classic slot of Kinder, Küche, Kirche.
A chivalrous man is also honourable, dedicated, committed.
There is a deep reason why chivalry has been so important idea in literature and poetry for millennia. If a woman finds a man who really is dedicated to the ideas of chivalry, she will be very lucky, as it is rare, like finding their own unicorn :), but such unicorns do exist!
There are women who like chivalry just as there are probably women who don’t, but that does not mean that it has no place and cannot be modified to align with the modern world.
Last edited 1 year ago by R Irb
Rasmus Fogh
1 year ago
I freely admit to having a vision of a world free from male violence, where rape, prostitution and femicide are distant memories. And although utopian thinking can never be a substitute for action, we cannot change the world without imagining a better one.
It would be interesting if JB could tell us how she imagines that world would work. As a starting point we have lots of men who desperately want more sex than they can get, and who are willing to pay, cajole, – or force – women to provide it. How do you get rid of that? Male acceptance of social norms would be hard to achieve unless there was *something* in it for them too. Indoctrination from childhood is unlikely to be enough unless it is backed up by enforcement mechanisms – after all neither colonialism nor slavery succeded in completely convincing people to remain subservient without rebelling. So what is left – a minutely detailed surveillance state? Apartheid? Chemical or genetic behaviour modification? Reducing the male population by sex-selective breeding?
None of these proposals are realistic, of course. But JB really needs to tell us something about how she thinks her plans could be achieved.
I think Samir’s first sentence was describing the current state of the UK benefits system, whereby the easiest route to getting a free house and money, for some, is to get pregnant at 16 and let the father do a runner.
His second sentence was a sarcastic reference to how well that turns out.
The point about the problems of fatherless families is very relevant.
Last edited 1 year ago by Steve Kerr
Philippe W
1 year ago
Perry, on the other hand, seems to doubt that we can end male violence
vs.
a world free of sexual violence, a world which I believe it is our imperative to strive for.
Pragmatism vs. naïve, pigs-might-fly Guardian page filler
Last edited 1 year ago by Philippe W
William Shaw
1 year ago
Julie, we get it. You don’t like men and you like women who do even less.
I really have trouble believing a lesbian can understand the feelings of the majority of women.
Well,Julie listens to women, so I would trust her take over yours.
Malcolm Knott
1 year ago
Too many women choose to hang out with the wrong sort of men, live to regret it, but continue to make the same bad choices, sometimes over and over again. To put it bluntly, they choose to live with thugs. Anthony Daniels has written extensively about this.
Last edited 1 year ago by Malcolm Knott
Jonathan Weil
1 year ago
Speaking of “vile misrepresentation of… male sexuality,” this stood out: “as long as a woman isn’t subservient to a man, she is clearly a threat to his erection.”
There are men like that but my experience is that the majority of heterosexual men want equal partnerships in the real world. Certainly I’ve always preferred feisty women who stick up for themselves (& it appears to be similar with big majority of friends I’ve known as far as I can see). In porn-world maybe subservience looks attractive (I assume it’s the same for women given the success of “Fifty shades of..”) but in real life it’s different. I’m old though so maybe mankind has changed lately. I did, though, grow up in the swinging 60s so any effects down to that period – I would’ve experienced.
(I commented on here whilst I wasn’t logged in (I am now) -hope this doesn’t then duplicate).
Likewise, I disagree with: “as long as a woman isn’t subservient to a man, she is clearly a threat to his erection.”. I’m a male hetero and have always been attracted to women who are equal to myself and can stick up for themselves (are feisty even). There’s no way of knowing for sure but I’d say most of my (mainly sporty fraternity) friends throughout my life appear to be the same. Subservience maybe OK in porn-world for a kick/fantasy (for women too if the success amongst women of “Shades of…” is anything to go by) but in real life I think its not anything like a majority thing that men prefer partners who are subservient.
R Wright
1 year ago
“heterosexual young women face, on the dating scene, a dystopian nightmare”
Given that they hold all of the cards when it comes to ‘dating’, this isn’t the case at all. While I do enjoy The Case Against the Sexual Revolution, this is where it seriously falls flat. Young women have all of the choice in the world, and yet they still end up suffering for it. Most men on the other hand, have nearly zero choice and end up suffering anyway. Heterosexual young women are in a hell of their own making which they could opt out of if they had an ounce of willpower, while heterosexual young men have the deck entirely stacked against them.
Quite. Apparently a study of dating apps showed that women who used them considered 80% of the men to be below average attractiveness. That, right there, is one humungous set of expectations. As well, women will on the whole only pair up/marry men of their own social standing or higher. All perfectly understandable in terms of sexual selection.
Can you explain a bit more about this – in what way is the deck entirely stacked against heterosexual young men? And what should young women do differently, in your opinion?
As Perry acknowledges in her book (based upon initial perception of men) it is about 8% of men who are actively sought by women, a further 12% have a reasonable chance of having time to illustrate why they are interesting, the remaining 80% start at a disadvantage.
She is also aware, that a man at the top of that attractiveness hierarchy have enormous choice (the top 2%-5% particularly) but those in the bottom 80% have a very rough time.
For comparison men see the top 40% of women as attractive and the next 20% as worth further information.
In terms of what young women should do? Slow interactions down, technology and changes in social interaction have sped up decision making to a point we are not designed to cope with. She talks about delaying sex, but it is more than that. All social interactions ought to be slower, that way you get to process the situation better. Men also need to slow down social situations, but that for other reasons. In the mating market women are, for the most part, the choosers which is why their choices matter in this context.
You could also give advice like be clearer on what you want and don’t want and be deliberate and many other traditional pieces of advice. But the biggest improvement is slowing down.
It’s not quite that bad but you’re on the right track. I know quite a few young women, and some men (maybe not quite as many), who are happy with their social and domestic situation. More of them are not.
Alphonse Pfarti
1 year ago
“.Men are biologically programmed to spread their seed, and so they primarily r—e women aged between 12 and 25, because this group is most physically attractive to them “
Bit of a generalisation, surely?
Penny Mcwilliams
1 year ago
The whole argument seems needlessly binary – 1950s style marriage, which Tolstoy characterized as legalized prostitution, that marriage gives a man ‘entitlement’ to sex, or untrammeled male sexual behaviours which include violence and rape. All of this somehow assumes that women ‘must’ have sex, with someone, if they are to have a place in society. Perhaps we start again from the beginning and try to ask what women genuinely want sexually, and how to teach men that sex is not something that they are ‘entitled’ to? The whole Incel culture arises from male resentment at not getting ‘enough’ sex without paying for it
At last – a sensible and feminist comment.
I suspect that most women would prefer not to live with men if they could afford to live alone. Keeping armies of women on benefits is neither desirable nor sustainable, so the answers are what the 1920s feminists knew they were; education and a proper job with a wage that is enough to live on independently.
Some women are quite happy being spinsters.
Are we also going to ask what men genuinely want sexually – and then look for a way to organise society that has something to offer to both sexes? Or are women’s desires the only ones that matter?
I would argue that women always have the final say because they are the playing piece.
If the contraceptive fails (which it does from time to time) women carry the consequences which in some societies are significant (death / morbidity of child and / or mother)
This ultimate, biological power dynamic has clearly created many problems over millenia.
Personally I think women should call the tune on this – they are the ones who carry the physiological, emotional, economic and every other burden in most cases. I am talking here world wide not just in the educated, relatively wealthy west where one might optimistically expect some division of labour .
Well, when we are talking individual cases both parties obviously need to agree. When we are talking how to organise society, disregarding the wishes and interests of half the population seems a bit problematic. One classical solution was to say that since the entire extended family is required to guarantee the upbringing of a child, it was up to the entire family to take decisions about who made babies with whom. Another classical solution was to insist on marriage, and to expect maintenance and faithfulness from husbands (with one to four wives depending on religion), in return for a wifely duty to provide sex.
We are almost at the point where a woman can follow her own desires fully, and care for and bring up any children alone as an isolated individual. Still, if women expect child support, faithfulness and permanent commitment from their bedmates (by norm and custom, if not by law), men might quite reasonably ask why they should comply unless their needs and desires are also taken into consideration.
M. Jamieson
1 year ago
The critisism of utopianism here is well deserved.
The part Bindle isn’t saying out loud, though she has suggested as much elsewhere, is that by simply cutting men and children out of the picture, women can stop worrying about all the inherent problems of casual sex.
Of couse most women quite like men, and want to have children, and aren’t really all that keen to be lesbians, so that’s not really all that helpful.
But this idea that somehow, if only we have the right policies, the right education, the right attitudes, we will create a society where there is no sexual violence, no coercive or exploitative relationships – that’s pie in the sky. Not even lesbians manage to avoid coercion and exploitation in their relationships.
All choices about how we shape society have consequences. A choice where we give sexual desire a lot of freedom, have few taboos, is one that will have consequences in terms of people who don’t think sex is all that serious or something to worry about, who don’t have much practice at sexual continence. If you engage in casual sex, there is a good chance that at some point, there will be a miscommunication, someone will take things more seriously than you do or vicer versa, maybe even someone will become over-wrought. People wll make bad choices.
And there will always be people with poor self control, psychopaths, people who were brought up in environments that compromise their social interactions, addicts, and so on.
Mark Chadwick
1 year ago
I’m 42 and single and I really do wonder when dating and flirting, which used to be fun and natural, turned into this gender war which has made everyone miserable. I gave up on dating a long time ago because I found it incredibly frustrating and always ended up getting badly hurt. It was anything but fun. It’s worse than going to a job interview. It’s never fun, it’s never just natural and it’s just a giant pain.
Molly O
1 year ago
Well I’m a heterosexual woman and I think Julie is wrong and Louise Perry is right.
Casual sex between women and men (can’t speak for lesbian casual sex) benefits men far more than women, as a general rule. Yes, women can enjoy the sex of course but it’s more complicated than that: most women do not enjoy the knowledge that the man involved does not value them in any way other than as a “shag” (which is why they often only engage in these encounters when drunk). Are many women really happy with their night of “fabulous fun” when the guy walks off next day “see you around” and it’s clear it was nothing special to him? I don’t think so. I’m not sure Julie understands heterosexual relationships – no offence to her, no reason she should, but perhaps she shouldn’t issue advice to all women about what should be their sexual code of conduct.
Morgan Watkins
1 year ago
What future is there to hope for without functioning human relations and biological reproduction from heterosexual couples? Let’s liberate women to have fabulous sex… until the species ends.
Molly O
1 year ago
“Perry tells us that loveless sex is not “empowering” for women. So what? It can be fabulous fun.”
Are you talking about lesbian sex here? Perry was clearly talking about heterosexual sex – sex between women and men. I’m not sure you’re qualified to pontificate on this.
Daniel P
1 year ago
This woman’s writing wreaks of misandry. It is clear she sees women as permanently in a state of victim-hood and the only way out is to win some ongoing battle of the sexes.
Most of us, male and female, are just plain worn out and tired from the war she seems to want to perpetuate.
She also seems to be of the opinion that women are either incapable of awful, brutal behavior against men, or that they are too noble to not engage in such behavior. She seems to be of “the world would be better if women ran it” crowd.
Are there shitty men out there? Yep. But there are just as many scary, shitty women out there too. Both are capable of physical violence even if women are more likely to use other forms of abuse fist.
In remember in my early 20’s working at a restraunt while I went to college.
There was a woman I worked with who grabbed my crotch in front of the other staff. I reported her to my boss, a woman. My boss, told me I should “f**k her and get it over with” but she agreed to speak to her. That night, as I was leaving work, the woman I reported tried to run me down with her truck as I was crossing the street. The next day I got snide remarks from some of the other women at work, like I had been wimp for reporting her.
Geoffrey Hicking
1 year ago
Harrington versus Bindel.
Philip Stott
1 year ago
“Perry, on the other hand, seems to doubt that we can end male violence and suggests that all we can do is contain men’s behaviour”.
Men are physically more powerful than women, and there will always be some despicable individuals that want to prey on women, so I’m afraid that is all you can do.
As for chivalry, what’s wrong with that? If I saw a guy taking advantage of a woman I would do everything in my power to prevent it.
It’s not just men either, or related to sex.
There will always be bad people.
Ian Cooper
1 year ago
Being married to a good woman, having the privilege and fun of children and being with other couples doing the same is as rewarding as it gets. It does involve care and support in making a good choice and a continuing follow up commitment, but is that really beyond today’s generation. Are the expectations so high, the sexualised culture so naff and the immaturity so entrenched? I see quite a few encouraging examples where what Louise Perry suggests really works – not perfectly but enough. Go forth and multiply.
michael stanwick
1 year ago
I would never recommend that women invest in a hypothetical chastity belt and accept as inevitable that men will rape and pillage unless we contain them. The problem with this type polemical writing is that the attack includes lazy, fallacious reasoning that implicates all men in some type of negative behaviour, as in this quote for example. It is legitimate to point out not all men will rape and pillage because the vast don’t and on that basis not all men need containing.
Objecting to this gross prejudice of a whole group defined by an immutable characteristic (being male) because of the behaviour of some of its members is legitimate and ethical IMO.
Christian Moon
1 year ago
The curiosity is why so much attention is paid to lesbian voices. By definition they do not speak to the issue of relations between the sexes from a perspective of relevance to more than a tiny minority, and they are not representative.
The one wry consolation of World War T (as Sailer has it) is perhaps that the higher-testosterone lesbians who have spent decades dominating their heterosexual sisters are now themselves being pushed overboard by even-higher-testosterone trans-women.
Steve Jolly
1 year ago
I sympathize with the author, in that I think current dating culture is toxic but I also don’t want a return to the bad old days when things like domestic violence and rape were swept under the rug. Unfortunately, this discussion, like most discussion of social problems, boils down to navel gazing over less desirable aspects of human nature. I can tell the author is a progressive because she seems to believe changing human nature is actually possible. It’s nice to imagine a world without male violence. It’s also nice to imagine a world where fluffy pink unicorns frolic amongst the fields of jelly beans. The latter is probably more achievable.
Christopher Barclay
1 year ago
“I had assumed that women … knew perfectly well that the so-called sexual revolution only benefited men,…” So women didn’t benefit from being able to use contraception while having sexual relationships that they clearly want ?
I assume that the birth control pill had very little significance to lesbians
S A
1 year ago
It is unfortunate that so many would rather hold to their world view than learn to help achieve a goal that they claim to struggle to achieve.
Bindle’s world view will never achieve her stated objective. There are plenty of areas to disagree with Perry on and she has some serious misunderstandings in places but she appears to be looking to learn to achieve what she wants. Bindle’s distain for men appears to blind her to actually understand what she is looking at.
“because as long as a woman isn’t subservient to a man, she is clearly a threat to his erection.”
A total lack of understanding of the research on sexual desire, her assumption that the “dominance in the bedroom” preference is a primarily male one is laughable. There is research on this but a basic view of historic narrative consumption. Perhaps being a lesbian and the company of heterosexual woman she keeps gives her a skewed perspective.
Also, note the misrepresentation of Perry’s position over and over. Yet, perhaps Bindle lacks the capacity to take on the arguments. There are going to be numerous short comings, but they will probably not be addressed to retreating to regurgitated lines.
To strawman arguments as “biology is destiny” also indicates an unwillingness to engage with reality. Biology alone is not destiny but it contributes to the advantages and challenges in life. Tall people will find it harder to be a pro jockey short people will find it hard to be pro basketball player. Neuro diversity is also real and some can be adapted too and other just accepted.
I embraced feminism as a rebellion against both ‘marriage and family’ traditionalism and the apparently compulsory promiscuity adopted by some of my 1970s contemporaries as their form of rebellion.
The purpose of feminism is to be educated and self supporting and not to need men. That means that sex can be truly consenting and, if it is the nature of the relationship, about love. When the relationship ends, being self supporting and child-free, you move on. Female friends with the same approach are far more reliable than men and, in later life, much more fun.
So glad I was young in the 70s and not now!
Good on you! Sounds like you have found your solution. But if you want to generalise it to all of society, you will need to look for some political solution to how to deal with all the incels. Not to mention finding enough care home workers for a generation of ‘child-free’ women.
That’s fine for you, but it’s not what most women want, they want a committed relationship with a man and have children with him and raise them together.
It seems sad that your model is to foster relationships with consensual sex and maybe love but not children or commitment, then when (not if) these relationships fail, just move on without baggage while retaining similar female friendships.
Relationships can actually succeed. I think that having the skills and mindset to take care of oneself is good, so as not to be dependent on having a partner (male or female) – because sometimes things don’t work out. But to expect relationships to fail is to cause them to fail.
Jason Highley
1 year ago
It isn’t a secret. Meet your future spouse in church. Court them. Get married. Go to church with them. Make lots of babies. There is no more surefire recipe for happiness than that. Yes, that stuff is also hard. Anything worth doing is. But show me anything else that brings greater overall satisfaction in life.
Boiling a relationship down to only the most intimate physical interactions is lopsided and daft. In the model I talked about above, those interactions at least have the potential to be edifying, beautiful, pleasurable, and ordained. What greater security? What greater freedom?
Charles Hedges
1 year ago
If one was born into pre WW1 slums; worked in factories in WW1 or perhaps a nurse behind the trenches, experienced the grief of one’s father, fiancees, husbands and brothers being killed: the Depression, being bombed in WW2 and having ones children killed, rationing until 1953; then the 1950s were wonderful. A 60 year old Mother living in a city which had been been bombed would have relished 1955 and later, as she would have had the quality of life unthinkable living in a slum in 1914, and especially before 1905.
Charles Hedges
1 year ago
If one was born into pre WW1 slums; worked in factories in WW1 or perhaps a nurse behind the trenches, experienced the grief of one’s father, fiancees, husbands and brothers being killed: the Depression, being bombed in WW2 and having ones children killed, rationing until 1953; then the 1950s were wonderful. A 60 year old Mother living in a city which had been been bombed would have relished 1955 and later, as she would have had the quality of life unthinkable living in a slum in 1914, and especially before 1905.
R Irb
1 year ago
Men are the other part of the equation as fathers, sons, husbands, lovers, friends. They might not be as qualified, but they can offer their own perspective and empower women in such debates and they can also offer healing.
R Irb
1 year ago
Men are the other part of the equation as fathers, sons, husbands, lovers, friends. They might not be as qualified, but they can offer their own perspective and empower women in such debates and they can also offer healing.
Matt Sylvestre
1 year ago
Bindel does not have any use for men and appears to hate them (which she has said as much in the past with only partial irony). What I gather from the partial window of her writing is that she blames men entirely for her poor treatment back in the day (never mind that in the old days both men and women were often homophobic) but as she sees benefit from the presence of other women she elides any issue and absolves them from anything negative. She has no use for men in any context, they are at worst violent misogynists and at best, competition… If only they would just all go away…
Ian Stewart
1 year ago
Looking for Mr Goodbar.
Julie doesn’t seem to realise that casual sex means playing with powerful emotions that inevitably results in violence occasionally, usually against women, though the mental violence women that women are capable of inflicting on men is often ignored. She has a rather naive outlook, that may be borne of shallower relationships.
Judy Johnson
1 year ago
Julie writes as if the only points of view are hers and those of Shulamith Perry. There are others!
Judy Johnson
1 year ago
Julie writes as if the only points of view are hers and those of Shulamith Perry. There are others!
george villeneau
1 year ago
Perhaps women need to get rid men to be truly liberated,and ,likewise men may need to do the same.
Roddy Campbell
1 year ago
“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”
Kat L
1 year ago
Uh this author doesn’t appear to know much about men or why it’s advantageous for both parties to wait and get to know each other before having sex. No one can hide who they are for months. And any potential red flags will be paid attention to since the passion of good sex won’t blind them from making clear headed decisions about shared values and compatibility. At their core, most women want a man who can protect and provide whether they want to admit it or not.
jane baker
1 year ago
Once again I’m reading the words telling of a parallel universe,the “real world” the one I don’t inhabit. Its like those trails on TV (I don’t have a TV now) for a “gritty new drama” (Probably starring Anne Reid and Sarah Lancashire). The voice over says this ultra realistic drama depicts how we all live nowadays and its searingly realistic. Then by bad luck you see an episode of it in someone’s house and it’s all people behaving with bad manners and shouting at each other and I think,nobody I know lives like that,I don’t live like that,in real life even on a bus or in shops people don’t lose it like that,this is UNREALISTIC. So these words. I don’t recognise any of this. All this male violence garbage. Since the 1980s we’ve been being non stop “educated” fat lot of good that’s done then. The only women who suffer male violence are stupid ones who deserve a good pasting.
Last edited 1 year ago by jane baker
jane baker
1 year ago
Once again I’m reading the words telling of a parallel universe,the “real world” the one I don’t inhabit. Its like those trails on TV (I don’t have a TV now) for a “gritty new drama” (Probably starring Anne Reid and Sarah Lancashire). The voice over says this ultra realistic drama depicts how we all live nowadays and its searingly realistic. Then by bad luck you see an episode of it in someone’s house and it’s all people behaving with bad manners and shouting at each other and I think,nobody I know lives like that,I don’t live like that,in real life even on a bus or in shops people don’t lose it like that,this is UNREALISTIC. So these words. I don’t recognise any of this. All this male violence garbage. Since the 1980s we’ve been being non stop “educated” fat lot of good that’s done then. The only women who suffer male violence are stupid ones who deserve a good pasting.
Why is a lesbian qualified to talk about heterosexual relationships? I would not consider myself qualified to talk about same sex relationships. The relationship between a man and a woman is complicated, precisely because they are men and women (opposite but complimentary) and the desire, lust, emotions, commitment is multifaceted, extremely powerful and the core of our humanity. Julie just sees a relationship she does not understand, but she sees the energy, the deep desire and risk and doesn’t understand and so would like to control…. For 70 years women like Julie have been trying to control the very core of being human. Many men no longer behave as men, many women hate her for it and she doesn’t understand why…. “A world free from the threat of male violence” is of no interest to women, because they understand that this in reality, means a world without sexual desire, without passion, without commitment and without love. Congratulations Julie. You have nearly achieved a sexual relations 1984 and men and women hate you for it….
” A world free from the threat of male violence” is of no interest to women, because they understand that this in reality, means a world without sexual desire, without passion, without commitment and without love.”
Excellent comment.
The problem with feminism, and a lot of leftist thinking really, is that they don’t have the wisdom to accept that life, like accounting, is a double entry system.
Men are more likely to be violent or win Darwin awards. Men are more likely to die trying to end slavery or Fascism, run themselves into the ground to provide for their families or do engineering or STEM. Things go together, positives and negatives.
Similarly, breaking down centuries old norms like marriage or chivalry, and young women facing a dating scene which is a “dystopian nightmare”, go together.
The entire basis of the concept of “equity” is to try and circumvent the above. Doesn’t work.
“life, like accounting, is a double entry system.”
A system set up by Y chromosome carriers to count things.
Some individuals view men and women as “things”. Other individuals don’t.
Traditionally men have found themselves propelled into the role of culling certain members of societies because of their physical strength. This no longer applies. You don’t need massive strength to fire a Javelin or a NLAW at a tank or fire a semi automatic weapon or pilot a drone but you do need cunning.
As for “running themselves into the ground for their families” currently in the UK there are around 1.8 million single parent families and 90% of those are women led. led.https://www.gingerbread.org.uk/what-we-do/media-centre/single-parents-facts-figures/
As for STEM what are you implying that XX chromosome carriers have brains that can’t do maths ? That has to be the stupidest comment I have ever read on this forum.
Why are you afraid of the idea that women can be as creative, aggressive, analytical, ruthless, philosophical, spiritual, practical and productive as men if given the chance ?
This is 2022. Wake up.
Who needs to be ‘given the chance’? Just take it. We are not in the same position as our grandmothers an mothers.
“As for STEM what are you implying that XX chromosome carriers have brains that can’t do maths ? That has to be the stupidest comment I have ever read on this forum.”
No, the commenter is not. Not even slightly. More males go into STEM fields. It’s a statistical reality that the commenter is referencing which has educational initiatives designed to specifically redress the trend.
Only because girls are still pushed, by their peers and society in general, into more traditionally female careers. Have seen this with my nieces who have all been loud and proud to give society and their teachers the finger and gone down the STEM route. Their male colleagues may have a very tough time if it.
Good for them. On the other hand, it is well established in psychological literature that women in general have an inborn preference for dealing with people and men in general have a preference for dealing with things. These preferences play out in choices men and women make regardless of ‘traditional’ roles. Removing barriers to people’s choices is all to the good, but I think you’ll find, with barriers down, things won’t change that much.
I would have no issue with any homosexual trying to understand the dynamics of heterosexual relationships, provided they were basing their thinking on all the evidence out there and were open minded in their approach.
Bindle’s issue is she reasons from certain conclusions. There are plenty of heterosexuals who also reach bonkers conclusions based upon prejudice.
I am unsure why you equate feminism with the left!
There are some correlations but you are generralising.
“Julie just sees a relationship she does not understand…”
Yes. That’s the heart of the matter for JB.
Such a strange attitude. It is a wonder anyone writes anything about anything when you need to be that thing to have an opinion. And yet plenty men have opinions on pieces written about feminism by women. I wonder why that is?
« “A world free from the threat of male violence” is of no interest to women, because they understand that this in reality, means a world without sexual desire, without passion, without commitment and without love.«
What ever are you talking about?
And why are YOU qualified to make such an absurd statement?
Thank you Julie Bindel for the tireless work you do for Women and for Feminism.
I don’t think he’s endorsing violence as such, just that a world without ‘male’ violence only exists in one where there is no men to have feelings.
Much as I deplore the use of violence I have occasionally been forced to physically defend myself or my loved ones.
The man I live with is not violent, on the other hand he is no push-over either, so we fight….verbally. Whoever said that men should be like beefy saints except for some rather romantic silly magazines? On the other hand my first husband was violent. Silly me for not twigging. But I only got knocked about once. After than I went straight to the solicitors and obtained an order banning him from the house.
So on that logic men have no right to write novels about women? Or white women no right to write about black women? Didn’t need to read much further, clearly this person is into lefty woke nonsense but of course they don’t see it like this.
He didn’t say that she had no right, but isn’t qualified. Apart from that, anyone who knows Bindel’s work knows that she has a deep antipathy towards heterosexual men.
I wonder why!
“” A world free from the threat of male violence” is of no interest to women, because they understand that this in reality, means a world without sexual desire, without passion, without commitment and without love.””
So, its not ok to say, not want to get raped, because that means you long for a world without male desire? What?!
“A world free from the threat of male violence” is of no interest to women, because they understand that this in reality, means a world without sexual desire, without passion, without commitment and without love.”
So violence is an inherent part of your sexuality? It might be that you are just a sad violent man, incapable of seeing any other way of being sexual.
Nope, he understands the human condition. You don’t seem to.
I’d take a lesbian talking about female sexuality over a man’s opinion any day. She is much more qualified than you,sir.
These discussions don’t go anywhere. They never do. Take my advice – Find someone you fancy and ignore the rest of us.
“A world free from the threat of male violence” is of no interest to women, because they understand that this in reality, means a world without sexual desire, without passion, without commitment and without love.
So you equate the threat of male violence with love ? I think you are in need of urgent psychological assistance along with the 70 + affirmative uptickers.
My biggest problem today as a result of sexual liberation, is more along the lines of a lack of responsibility. Yes we can take the pill and not get pregnant but that doesn’t stop the spread of sti’s which we seem to think will never happen to us until it does. This kind of thinking is prolific amongst the young and old alike!
Then there is the problem of those who create children with people they don’t know well enough to know if they even like them, which results in an overwhelming number of single parent families which have their own problems, including domestic abuse which Julie et al believe only goes in one direction. It doesn’t, women can be abusive too and your obsession with always blaming men doesn’t help anyone!
We don’t need to try and force people into loveless marriages, we just need to be honest with every generation about the fact that freedom is never truly free, it comes with its own set of responsibilities!
Agreed. The ability to take responsibility is also about having deep dedication, being a grown-up, having a mutual long-term vision, postponing short-term pleasure or happiness for long-term goals.
Many women, even in my own family, make stupid choices and marry men who are exciting but inferior to them in terms of intellect and education. Once the glamour has worn off and children have been born they face unhappiness together or impoverishment and single status.
Women cannot have it all, any more than men: security requires some sacrifice of liberty. No one forces women to marry, or to marry the men they choose, not in the West at least. In fact, it would be better if we lived in a world where the parents’ validation of a proposal was deemed necessary, rather than outmoded. Young people under the sway of hormones make catastrophic choices: you need wiser heads when considering marriage, which remains the best solution we have to human needs, however imperfect. The writer’s lazy generalisation that all committed marriages trap women in the 1950s is ridiculous.
What utter nonsense. My mother would have loved me to have married a secondary modern boy and stayed in my home town, bored rigid and producing children for her to control. Fortunately, in the 70s, grammar schools and grants allowed me to escape to be self-supporting and marriage and children-free.
I said parents, not parent. It is not nonsense just because you disagree. It is true for many people I know. Of course some parents are stupid. I am not recommending a return to the Jane Austen era, but I think she would be appalled by how casualty people enter and exit marriage now.
You are free to live the life you live, but you write rather sneeringly about women – and it IS usually women – wanting to have children. It’s rather a good thing, isn’t it, that not every woman wants to be child free! If it were, apart from the extinction of the human race (at least in some regions), no one would be around to look after the last oldies around!
Whatever, your view is very much a modern western one, not being followed in any other region of the world, or even minority communities in ours, to their eventual advantage and dominance and our loss.
“In fact, it would be better if we lived in a world where the parents’ validation of a proposal was deemed necessary, rather than outmoded”
Oh wow, no. My parents were nuts. The guy they wanted me to marry went to church every week and looked nice but was a total jerk. He married a girl in town and beat the pulp out of her on the honeymoon. He’s in jail now. They never approved of my husband, and he’s a wonderful man and our marriage is strong even after many years. Parents don’t always know best.
Excuse me, but what is so bad about chivalry?
It is a creed where a man sees his loved one on a pedestal and offers love, dedication, security, and is sensitive to her needs, a stable reliable rock against the ills of this world. A man who creates an environment where a woman can feel safe enough to have children and grow as an individual instead of sacrificing herself as a single mother for the good of her children or having to suffer from violent, manipulative, perfidious men. A chivalrous man makes a woman feel like a woman and will not place her into the classic slot of Kinder, Küche, Kirche.
A chivalrous man is also honourable, dedicated, committed.
There is a deep reason why chivalry has been so important idea in literature and poetry for millennia. If a woman finds a man who really is dedicated to the ideas of chivalry, she will be very lucky, as it is rare, like finding their own unicorn :), but such unicorns do exist!
There are women who like chivalry just as there are probably women who don’t, but that does not mean that it has no place and cannot be modified to align with the modern world.
It would be interesting if JB could tell us how she imagines that world would work. As a starting point we have lots of men who desperately want more sex than they can get, and who are willing to pay, cajole, – or force – women to provide it. How do you get rid of that? Male acceptance of social norms would be hard to achieve unless there was *something* in it for them too. Indoctrination from childhood is unlikely to be enough unless it is backed up by enforcement mechanisms – after all neither colonialism nor slavery succeded in completely convincing people to remain subservient without rebelling. So what is left – a minutely detailed surveillance state? Apartheid? Chemical or genetic behaviour modification? Reducing the male population by sex-selective breeding?
None of these proposals are realistic, of course. But JB really needs to tell us something about how she thinks her plans could be achieved.
Well, to begin with, maybe we could pay benefits for women who stay in single mother households, and liberate themselves from evil males.
Because we all know lots of boys growing up without fathers really solves the problem of male violence and rape.
Why should working people keep other people’s children? Mothers should not live on benefits, they should work.
I think Samir’s first sentence was describing the current state of the UK benefits system, whereby the easiest route to getting a free house and money, for some, is to get pregnant at 16 and let the father do a runner.
His second sentence was a sarcastic reference to how well that turns out.
Or US black society that was going rather well until the 60s, when suddenly the % of fatherless kids went from 20% to 80%.
The scary thing is that “Idiocracy” turned out to be more realistic documentary than a simple comedy movie.
His comment was sarcastic.
The point about the problems of fatherless families is very relevant.
vs.
Pragmatism vs. naïve, pigs-might-fly Guardian page filler
Julie, we get it. You don’t like men and you like women who do even less.
I really have trouble believing a lesbian can understand the feelings of the majority of women.
William, You don’t get it.
And, Lesbians ARE Women.
Well,Julie listens to women, so I would trust her take over yours.
Too many women choose to hang out with the wrong sort of men, live to regret it, but continue to make the same bad choices, sometimes over and over again. To put it bluntly, they choose to live with thugs. Anthony Daniels has written extensively about this.
Speaking of “vile misrepresentation of… male sexuality,” this stood out: “as long as a woman isn’t subservient to a man, she is clearly a threat to his erection.”
There are men like that but my experience is that the majority of heterosexual men want equal partnerships in the real world. Certainly I’ve always preferred feisty women who stick up for themselves (& it appears to be similar with big majority of friends I’ve known as far as I can see). In porn-world maybe subservience looks attractive (I assume it’s the same for women given the success of “Fifty shades of..”) but in real life it’s different. I’m old though so maybe mankind has changed lately. I did, though, grow up in the swinging 60s so any effects down to that period – I would’ve experienced.
(I commented on here whilst I wasn’t logged in (I am now) -hope this doesn’t then duplicate).
Likewise, I disagree with: “as long as a woman isn’t subservient to a man, she is clearly a threat to his erection.”. I’m a male hetero and have always been attracted to women who are equal to myself and can stick up for themselves (are feisty even). There’s no way of knowing for sure but I’d say most of my (mainly sporty fraternity) friends throughout my life appear to be the same. Subservience maybe OK in porn-world for a kick/fantasy (for women too if the success amongst women of “Shades of…” is anything to go by) but in real life I think its not anything like a majority thing that men prefer partners who are subservient.
“heterosexual young women face, on the dating scene, a dystopian nightmare”
Given that they hold all of the cards when it comes to ‘dating’, this isn’t the case at all. While I do enjoy The Case Against the Sexual Revolution, this is where it seriously falls flat. Young women have all of the choice in the world, and yet they still end up suffering for it. Most men on the other hand, have nearly zero choice and end up suffering anyway. Heterosexual young women are in a hell of their own making which they could opt out of if they had an ounce of willpower, while heterosexual young men have the deck entirely stacked against them.
Quite. Apparently a study of dating apps showed that women who used them considered 80% of the men to be below average attractiveness. That, right there, is one humungous set of expectations. As well, women will on the whole only pair up/marry men of their own social standing or higher. All perfectly understandable in terms of sexual selection.
Can you explain a bit more about this – in what way is the deck entirely stacked against heterosexual young men? And what should young women do differently, in your opinion?
As Perry acknowledges in her book (based upon initial perception of men) it is about 8% of men who are actively sought by women, a further 12% have a reasonable chance of having time to illustrate why they are interesting, the remaining 80% start at a disadvantage.
She is also aware, that a man at the top of that attractiveness hierarchy have enormous choice (the top 2%-5% particularly) but those in the bottom 80% have a very rough time.
For comparison men see the top 40% of women as attractive and the next 20% as worth further information.
In terms of what young women should do? Slow interactions down, technology and changes in social interaction have sped up decision making to a point we are not designed to cope with. She talks about delaying sex, but it is more than that. All social interactions ought to be slower, that way you get to process the situation better. Men also need to slow down social situations, but that for other reasons. In the mating market women are, for the most part, the choosers which is why their choices matter in this context.
You could also give advice like be clearer on what you want and don’t want and be deliberate and many other traditional pieces of advice. But the biggest improvement is slowing down.
It’s not quite that bad but you’re on the right track. I know quite a few young women, and some men (maybe not quite as many), who are happy with their social and domestic situation. More of them are not.
“.Men are biologically programmed to spread their seed, and so they primarily r—e women aged between 12 and 25, because this group is most physically attractive to them “
Bit of a generalisation, surely?
The whole argument seems needlessly binary – 1950s style marriage, which Tolstoy characterized as legalized prostitution, that marriage gives a man ‘entitlement’ to sex, or untrammeled male sexual behaviours which include violence and rape. All of this somehow assumes that women ‘must’ have sex, with someone, if they are to have a place in society. Perhaps we start again from the beginning and try to ask what women genuinely want sexually, and how to teach men that sex is not something that they are ‘entitled’ to? The whole Incel culture arises from male resentment at not getting ‘enough’ sex without paying for it
At last – a sensible and feminist comment.
I suspect that most women would prefer not to live with men if they could afford to live alone. Keeping armies of women on benefits is neither desirable nor sustainable, so the answers are what the 1920s feminists knew they were; education and a proper job with a wage that is enough to live on independently.
Some women are quite happy being spinsters.
Quite happy.
Removed unnecessary duplicate
Are we also going to ask what men genuinely want sexually – and then look for a way to organise society that has something to offer to both sexes? Or are women’s desires the only ones that matter?
I would argue that women always have the final say because they are the playing piece.
If the contraceptive fails (which it does from time to time) women carry the consequences which in some societies are significant (death / morbidity of child and / or mother)
This ultimate, biological power dynamic has clearly created many problems over millenia.
Personally I think women should call the tune on this – they are the ones who carry the physiological, emotional, economic and every other burden in most cases. I am talking here world wide not just in the educated, relatively wealthy west where one might optimistically expect some division of labour .
Well, when we are talking individual cases both parties obviously need to agree. When we are talking how to organise society, disregarding the wishes and interests of half the population seems a bit problematic. One classical solution was to say that since the entire extended family is required to guarantee the upbringing of a child, it was up to the entire family to take decisions about who made babies with whom. Another classical solution was to insist on marriage, and to expect maintenance and faithfulness from husbands (with one to four wives depending on religion), in return for a wifely duty to provide sex.
We are almost at the point where a woman can follow her own desires fully, and care for and bring up any children alone as an isolated individual. Still, if women expect child support, faithfulness and permanent commitment from their bedmates (by norm and custom, if not by law), men might quite reasonably ask why they should comply unless their needs and desires are also taken into consideration.
The critisism of utopianism here is well deserved.
The part Bindle isn’t saying out loud, though she has suggested as much elsewhere, is that by simply cutting men and children out of the picture, women can stop worrying about all the inherent problems of casual sex.
Of couse most women quite like men, and want to have children, and aren’t really all that keen to be lesbians, so that’s not really all that helpful.
But this idea that somehow, if only we have the right policies, the right education, the right attitudes, we will create a society where there is no sexual violence, no coercive or exploitative relationships – that’s pie in the sky. Not even lesbians manage to avoid coercion and exploitation in their relationships.
All choices about how we shape society have consequences. A choice where we give sexual desire a lot of freedom, have few taboos, is one that will have consequences in terms of people who don’t think sex is all that serious or something to worry about, who don’t have much practice at sexual continence. If you engage in casual sex, there is a good chance that at some point, there will be a miscommunication, someone will take things more seriously than you do or vicer versa, maybe even someone will become over-wrought. People wll make bad choices.
And there will always be people with poor self control, psychopaths, people who were brought up in environments that compromise their social interactions, addicts, and so on.
I’m 42 and single and I really do wonder when dating and flirting, which used to be fun and natural, turned into this gender war which has made everyone miserable. I gave up on dating a long time ago because I found it incredibly frustrating and always ended up getting badly hurt. It was anything but fun. It’s worse than going to a job interview. It’s never fun, it’s never just natural and it’s just a giant pain.
Well I’m a heterosexual woman and I think Julie is wrong and Louise Perry is right.
Casual sex between women and men (can’t speak for lesbian casual sex) benefits men far more than women, as a general rule. Yes, women can enjoy the sex of course but it’s more complicated than that: most women do not enjoy the knowledge that the man involved does not value them in any way other than as a “shag” (which is why they often only engage in these encounters when drunk). Are many women really happy with their night of “fabulous fun” when the guy walks off next day “see you around” and it’s clear it was nothing special to him? I don’t think so. I’m not sure Julie understands heterosexual relationships – no offence to her, no reason she should, but perhaps she shouldn’t issue advice to all women about what should be their sexual code of conduct.
What future is there to hope for without functioning human relations and biological reproduction from heterosexual couples? Let’s liberate women to have fabulous sex… until the species ends.
“Perry tells us that loveless sex is not “empowering” for women. So what? It can be fabulous fun.”
Are you talking about lesbian sex here? Perry was clearly talking about heterosexual sex – sex between women and men. I’m not sure you’re qualified to pontificate on this.
This woman’s writing wreaks of misandry. It is clear she sees women as permanently in a state of victim-hood and the only way out is to win some ongoing battle of the sexes.
Most of us, male and female, are just plain worn out and tired from the war she seems to want to perpetuate.
She also seems to be of the opinion that women are either incapable of awful, brutal behavior against men, or that they are too noble to not engage in such behavior. She seems to be of “the world would be better if women ran it” crowd.
Are there shitty men out there? Yep. But there are just as many scary, shitty women out there too. Both are capable of physical violence even if women are more likely to use other forms of abuse fist.
In remember in my early 20’s working at a restraunt while I went to college.
There was a woman I worked with who grabbed my crotch in front of the other staff. I reported her to my boss, a woman. My boss, told me I should “f**k her and get it over with” but she agreed to speak to her. That night, as I was leaving work, the woman I reported tried to run me down with her truck as I was crossing the street. The next day I got snide remarks from some of the other women at work, like I had been wimp for reporting her.
Harrington versus Bindel.
“Perry, on the other hand, seems to doubt that we can end male violence and suggests that all we can do is contain men’s behaviour”.
Men are physically more powerful than women, and there will always be some despicable individuals that want to prey on women, so I’m afraid that is all you can do.
As for chivalry, what’s wrong with that? If I saw a guy taking advantage of a woman I would do everything in my power to prevent it.
It’s not just men either, or related to sex.
There will always be bad people.
Being married to a good woman, having the privilege and fun of children and being with other couples doing the same is as rewarding as it gets. It does involve care and support in making a good choice and a continuing follow up commitment, but is that really beyond today’s generation. Are the expectations so high, the sexualised culture so naff and the immaturity so entrenched? I see quite a few encouraging examples where what Louise Perry suggests really works – not perfectly but enough. Go forth and multiply.
I would never recommend that women invest in a hypothetical chastity belt and accept as inevitable that men will rape and pillage unless we contain them.
The problem with this type polemical writing is that the attack includes lazy, fallacious reasoning that implicates all men in some type of negative behaviour, as in this quote for example. It is legitimate to point out not all men will rape and pillage because the vast don’t and on that basis not all men need containing.
Objecting to this gross prejudice of a whole group defined by an immutable characteristic (being male) because of the behaviour of some of its members is legitimate and ethical IMO.
The curiosity is why so much attention is paid to lesbian voices. By definition they do not speak to the issue of relations between the sexes from a perspective of relevance to more than a tiny minority, and they are not representative.
The one wry consolation of World War T (as Sailer has it) is perhaps that the higher-testosterone lesbians who have spent decades dominating their heterosexual sisters are now themselves being pushed overboard by even-higher-testosterone trans-women.
I sympathize with the author, in that I think current dating culture is toxic but I also don’t want a return to the bad old days when things like domestic violence and rape were swept under the rug. Unfortunately, this discussion, like most discussion of social problems, boils down to navel gazing over less desirable aspects of human nature. I can tell the author is a progressive because she seems to believe changing human nature is actually possible. It’s nice to imagine a world without male violence. It’s also nice to imagine a world where fluffy pink unicorns frolic amongst the fields of jelly beans. The latter is probably more achievable.
“I had assumed that women … knew perfectly well that the so-called sexual revolution only benefited men,…” So women didn’t benefit from being able to use contraception while having sexual relationships that they clearly want ?
I assume that the birth control pill had very little significance to lesbians
It is unfortunate that so many would rather hold to their world view than learn to help achieve a goal that they claim to struggle to achieve.
Bindle’s world view will never achieve her stated objective. There are plenty of areas to disagree with Perry on and she has some serious misunderstandings in places but she appears to be looking to learn to achieve what she wants. Bindle’s distain for men appears to blind her to actually understand what she is looking at.
“because as long as a woman isn’t subservient to a man, she is clearly a threat to his erection.”
A total lack of understanding of the research on sexual desire, her assumption that the “dominance in the bedroom” preference is a primarily male one is laughable. There is research on this but a basic view of historic narrative consumption. Perhaps being a lesbian and the company of heterosexual woman she keeps gives her a skewed perspective.
Also, note the misrepresentation of Perry’s position over and over. Yet, perhaps Bindle lacks the capacity to take on the arguments. There are going to be numerous short comings, but they will probably not be addressed to retreating to regurgitated lines.
To strawman arguments as “biology is destiny” also indicates an unwillingness to engage with reality. Biology alone is not destiny but it contributes to the advantages and challenges in life. Tall people will find it harder to be a pro jockey short people will find it hard to be pro basketball player. Neuro diversity is also real and some can be adapted too and other just accepted.
Well said!
I embraced feminism as a rebellion against both ‘marriage and family’ traditionalism and the apparently compulsory promiscuity adopted by some of my 1970s contemporaries as their form of rebellion.
The purpose of feminism is to be educated and self supporting and not to need men. That means that sex can be truly consenting and, if it is the nature of the relationship, about love. When the relationship ends, being self supporting and child-free, you move on. Female friends with the same approach are far more reliable than men and, in later life, much more fun.
So glad I was young in the 70s and not now!
Good on you! Sounds like you have found your solution. But if you want to generalise it to all of society, you will need to look for some political solution to how to deal with all the incels. Not to mention finding enough care home workers for a generation of ‘child-free’ women.
That’s fine for you, but it’s not what most women want, they want a committed relationship with a man and have children with him and raise them together.
It seems sad that your model is to foster relationships with consensual sex and maybe love but not children or commitment, then when (not if) these relationships fail, just move on without baggage while retaining similar female friendships.
Relationships can actually succeed. I think that having the skills and mindset to take care of oneself is good, so as not to be dependent on having a partner (male or female) – because sometimes things don’t work out. But to expect relationships to fail is to cause them to fail.
It isn’t a secret. Meet your future spouse in church. Court them. Get married. Go to church with them. Make lots of babies. There is no more surefire recipe for happiness than that. Yes, that stuff is also hard. Anything worth doing is. But show me anything else that brings greater overall satisfaction in life.
Boiling a relationship down to only the most intimate physical interactions is lopsided and daft. In the model I talked about above, those interactions at least have the potential to be edifying, beautiful, pleasurable, and ordained. What greater security? What greater freedom?
If one was born into pre WW1 slums; worked in factories in WW1 or perhaps a nurse behind the trenches, experienced the grief of one’s father, fiancees, husbands and brothers being killed: the Depression, being bombed in WW2 and having ones children killed, rationing until 1953; then the 1950s were wonderful. A 60 year old Mother living in a city which had been been bombed would have relished 1955 and later, as she would have had the quality of life unthinkable living in a slum in 1914, and especially before 1905.
If one was born into pre WW1 slums; worked in factories in WW1 or perhaps a nurse behind the trenches, experienced the grief of one’s father, fiancees, husbands and brothers being killed: the Depression, being bombed in WW2 and having ones children killed, rationing until 1953; then the 1950s were wonderful. A 60 year old Mother living in a city which had been been bombed would have relished 1955 and later, as she would have had the quality of life unthinkable living in a slum in 1914, and especially before 1905.
Men are the other part of the equation as fathers, sons, husbands, lovers, friends. They might not be as qualified, but they can offer their own perspective and empower women in such debates and they can also offer healing.
Men are the other part of the equation as fathers, sons, husbands, lovers, friends. They might not be as qualified, but they can offer their own perspective and empower women in such debates and they can also offer healing.
Bindel does not have any use for men and appears to hate them (which she has said as much in the past with only partial irony). What I gather from the partial window of her writing is that she blames men entirely for her poor treatment back in the day (never mind that in the old days both men and women were often homophobic) but as she sees benefit from the presence of other women she elides any issue and absolves them from anything negative. She has no use for men in any context, they are at worst violent misogynists and at best, competition… If only they would just all go away…
Looking for Mr Goodbar.
Julie doesn’t seem to realise that casual sex means playing with powerful emotions that inevitably results in violence occasionally, usually against women, though the mental violence women that women are capable of inflicting on men is often ignored. She has a rather naive outlook, that may be borne of shallower relationships.
Julie writes as if the only points of view are hers and those of Shulamith Perry. There are others!
Julie writes as if the only points of view are hers and those of Shulamith Perry. There are others!
Perhaps women need to get rid men to be truly liberated,and ,likewise men may need to do the same.
“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”
Uh this author doesn’t appear to know much about men or why it’s advantageous for both parties to wait and get to know each other before having sex. No one can hide who they are for months. And any potential red flags will be paid attention to since the passion of good sex won’t blind them from making clear headed decisions about shared values and compatibility. At their core, most women want a man who can protect and provide whether they want to admit it or not.
Once again I’m reading the words telling of a parallel universe,the “real world” the one I don’t inhabit. Its like those trails on TV (I don’t have a TV now) for a “gritty new drama” (Probably starring Anne Reid and Sarah Lancashire). The voice over says this ultra realistic drama depicts how we all live nowadays and its searingly realistic. Then by bad luck you see an episode of it in someone’s house and it’s all people behaving with bad manners and shouting at each other and I think,nobody I know lives like that,I don’t live like that,in real life even on a bus or in shops people don’t lose it like that,this is UNREALISTIC. So these words. I don’t recognise any of this. All this male violence garbage. Since the 1980s we’ve been being non stop “educated” fat lot of good that’s done then. The only women who suffer male violence are stupid ones who deserve a good pasting.
Once again I’m reading the words telling of a parallel universe,the “real world” the one I don’t inhabit. Its like those trails on TV (I don’t have a TV now) for a “gritty new drama” (Probably starring Anne Reid and Sarah Lancashire). The voice over says this ultra realistic drama depicts how we all live nowadays and its searingly realistic. Then by bad luck you see an episode of it in someone’s house and it’s all people behaving with bad manners and shouting at each other and I think,nobody I know lives like that,I don’t live like that,in real life even on a bus or in shops people don’t lose it like that,this is UNREALISTIC. So these words. I don’t recognise any of this. All this male violence garbage. Since the 1980s we’ve been being non stop “educated” fat lot of good that’s done then. The only women who suffer male violence are stupid ones who deserve a good pasting.