Gee. My feminism entailed helping women in fear for their lives after years of beating escape from their abusers w/o abandoning their children, or helping women just brutally raped. Around 3k women each year in the US are murdered by their male partners–the handful of males murdered by female partners typically have a bunch of felony batteries and TROs in their wake.
Male violence against women=male entitlement in four words.
Male violence against women could be anything. If a woman is killing a man’s child and he pushes her away, that is male violence towards the woman. Is it entitlement?
However tragic it may be that 3k women die of domestic violence every year, it is statistically tiny.
And yet the most violent of relationships isn’t male/female nor even male/male but female/female; that’s right, lesbians have the worst record for domestic violence. It’s because you’ve paired together 2 of the same sex where most likely both are feminists which means as a woman they are never wrong but teh problem is that their partner is also a woman and so they can’t both be never wrong. In a Male/Female relationship the majority of men put up with this b/c men can’t hit a woman without consequences but 2 women certainly can go at each other.
Your experience is just that “Your” experience and not necessarily reflective of most of what happens or is.
These feminists would of course oppose any efforts to name and shame minority communities that have far higher crime rates against women.
What is also ironic is that those who claim women are helpless, weak victims of men (ignoring male victims because they don’t matter) are also precisely the same demographic that demand equal pay for female footballers, allowing women in the army or liberally adding female superheroes or action stars in movies. Because girl power, women are as strong as men, etc.
I read a term somewhere, maybe here or YouTube – Schrödinger’s feminism. Women can be both helpless victims or strooong, until you open the box and figure out what’s more convenient.
The fact that feminists couldn’t care less about male victims of domestic violence (about 1/3rd of the total, zero resources or help), or the mostly male victims of workplace accidents, homelessness or suicides, just underlines his point.
Plenty of men officially (as police, lawmakers or simply good samaritans) step on to help females.
Feminists on the other hand?
Always victims, no responsibility, introspection or accountability.
Samir. Every feminism discussion you have a meltdown about feminists destroying everything.
Every thread I go after you, you wimp out.
Sorry to piss on your bonfire AGAIN (sorry I know you don’t like womens ‘violent verbal politics’ was it last time?) but once again. I ask you. Where are your sources for your woman hating tropes?
Yeah bless him, he posts like one who has much to learn. I keep scaring him off too.
I’ll keep roasting him. He needs to come out and slap down my verbal politics, I was hoping for at least a vain attempt, a bit of sport. Come on Samir, I’ve got loads of verbal politics. They used to say at home I never know when to shut up. Right of coarse. But it doesn’t stop me from carrying on.
Cheers to you and John for pushing against a persistent, predictable tide on this comment board! I hope your informed, contra-lunatic-ranting stance reflects the views of more readers than screens would indicate. In any case, your pushback is welcome. Keep calm and carry on then.
I’m intrigued as to why this site- which has consistently interesting and varied articles- attracts such a relentlessly nutty right-wing sort of commenter, way outside the normal range of opinions one meets in life, thank God.
I suppose it’s all down to the dreaded ‘algorithms’, which are used to seek out the dispossesed, the angry and fringe conspiracy theorists, and in this case, the poor, delicate chaps who think the world went to pot the day women were given the vote, or the Witchfinder General lost his day-job. I have to remind myself that this isn’t the norm, it’s a strange collection of self-selecting individuals and just one of the odd manifestations of online demographics, even though they like to think of themselves- as such extremely vocal types invariably do- as the ‘silent majority’.
You and me both! Every time I read an excellent article on here my feeling of satisfaction immediately plummets when I see the retrograde comments. If only the audience lived up to the content.
Let’s stick together!
I agree with you and Kirsten. Periodically I have to take a break from reading the comments. It isn’t that I mind if they are right or left-wing but that the commenters from the right seem to se their opinions as facts.
Exactly. Well said. Only saw this about a week after your post but yes I was hoping to liberate (liberalize?) that “silent majority” saying from its Nixonian origins.
One hypothesis: This website lets a lot of comments through, and far-right commenters may not encounter that liberty on relatively mainstream–i.e., not insistently-wackadoodle–websites, especially for rat-a-tat back-and-forth exchanges [?].
Not to brag but I’m leading the downvotes right now.
You in turn remind me of an amusing exchange with a feminist on twitter.
I pointed out that one third of domestic violence victims are men.
She got quite enraged, and shrilly pointed out that while 1 in 4 women are victims of DV, the corresponding levels for men were only “1 in 8”.
So, sorry to disappoint you, but you are free to pretend that
A. Men aren’t a third of the victims of domestic violence, or account for most workplace accidents, homelessness or suicides
Or
B. Feminists display absolute contempt for the above, and predominantly focus on portraying women as victims
And as for not liking womens ‘violent verbal politics’ , it isn’t a personal experience or view.
I suggest you ask your female friends aged 30 plus, whether they would prefer a male or female boss.
Go on. You might get surprised.
Ah sport! Well done samir. I salute you.
I’m not that invested in battling stats on this, it’s not a subject I’m that invested in but I’ve started so I will finish.
You still have provided no source for your assertion :
‘The fact that feminists couldn’t care less about male victims of domestic violence (about 1/3rd of the total, zero resources or help), or the mostly male victims of workplace accidents, homelessness or suicides, just underlines his point.’
Surely feminists promote women’s issues? Isn’t that the point?
Or the assertion:
Feminists on the other hand?
Always victims, no responsibility, introspection or accountability.
Sounds a very sweeping statement. Or are you just basing everything on your twitter exchanges?
Ask my female friends if they want a male or female boss? What is that a weird social experiment? What answer would I be surprised to get? I don’t mind either way really as long they’re not a nutter. I certainly don’t think you should be in charge of hiring people any time soon though.
I have serious doubts about violence statistics because it does not define actual damage which can go from death to the faintest of bruises and the level much pain inflicted. A pinch can be very painful but leave little evidence.
A woman slapping a man very hard who happens to be heavy weight boxer or a very solid prop forward will do little damage, a light frail man could be knocked to the ground.
This is why I consider more thought should be given to relative size, strength and ability to withstand blows of those involved when considering acts of violence.
We talk around each other. Like ships in the night, we steam by these monolithic shapes, vaguely seen, and shout curses at the passing shadows. It’s really rather silly.
Feminism is clearly more than 4 words…but those particular 4 words of William’s capture the worst of it. Heck, they capture the worst of much of what we see everywhere. ‘Infinite Agency / Zero Responsibility’: the current generation which accumulates empty degrees, and 6 figure debt, ignorant & entitled & living in Mom’s basement while waiting for the Loan Forgiveness Fairy to kiss them on their forehead and make it all better (all while shouting Diversity, Inclusivity, and Equity!)
And yes, of course, there is a part of Feminism, particularly in the 1st and 2nd Waves. which insisted, rightfully so, on equal pay for equal work and equal access given equal skills. Who would disagree? But we must also acknowledge that there are other aspects of those 4-Waves which are twisted & poisonous. We can hear those loud & strident voices insisting that there is no difference between men & women (Biologic Essentialism — Oh My!)… that all sex is rape… and marriage a form of chattel servitude, and family a prison. We can see the Activists and Academicians working diligently to make ‘Gender’ performative even as they cancel Women by refusing all definitions, or telling us ‘they’re people with vulvas’.
Tragically, none of those Feminist Ideologies of whatever stripe have succeeded in eliminating violence against women. If anything, we might suspect that the last 50 years of insistence on outcome equality (Where are the female lumberjacks!?)…and the inevitable lowering of quality standards (https://freebeacon.com/latest-news/absolutely-insane-connecticut-law-would-axe-fitness-requirements-for-female-firefighters/) to achieve outcome equality has incited at least some of it.
But no, male violence against women does not equal male entitlement. Male violence is only violence. And men are significantly more violent (not because they feel a sense of entitlement but because they can be violent and are naturally aggressive). Looking at the murders committed in ’21…87% were committed by men…and 78% of the victims were also men. (a different and more dangerous kind of biologic essentialism).
I’ve got no sympathy with those women because they pick up anything in trousers,that’s got a p***s,of course rather than suffer the still real stigma of being a man- less spinster. They usually live in neighbourhoods where that weird isolated,lonely woman who no one talks to is thought to be a witch and they encourage their children to throw stones at her,and the fact she HASNT GOT A MAN is perceived as sinister and disturbing. Bunch of fat,drunken,tattooed slatterns.
Truth and reality might have something to do with that. Not all men have been suckered into going along with the feminist non-sense; the societal cancer it is.
It’s not an insult, it’s a self-description. It’s what these sad people call themselves. You’ll find them easily enough, should you want to, if you type ‘I hate feminists’ into your computer.
I’ve never heard of “small pee pee”- how quaint. Do you mean small d**k?
Why would I not be a ‘John’? Are we already into conspiracy theories, so soon? Are you ‘really an ‘Andre’, I wonder…..?’ How do I know you’re not a robot from the future, sent to destroy humanity? Or, even worse (help!) Andrea, a WOMAN!!!!!
And no, I don’t live under a rock, thanks for asking- I live in the normal world, with a wife, a couple of jobs and a family, with normal friends of both sexes; rather than the wierd, online Men’s Victimhood Society that most of the commenters here seem to spend an unhealthy amount of time in.
You should try it, Andre. It’s not nearly as scary as some people here think it is. You might even get laid, if you’re lucky….
No conspiracy theories, on my side at least. Just the infantile habit of posting as a man when you’re a woman, quite common these days. As for the ad hominem disparaging, it only lets everyone realize how mature you are… Anyways, enough of attention to you.
Oh my God, it turns out I’m a woman! Thanks for telling me, Andre, or Andrea, or whatever you are.
By the way, look up the meaning of ‘ad hominem’- it doesn’t mean what the standard dumb internet usage thinks it is.
Aren’t women horrible, Will? Absolutely awful.
If only us men could live together without them, just us strong, naked, lithe chaps, muscles all glistening in the purifying sunlight, limbs glistening like sweaty bronze….. far, far from `Mummy and her suffocating, emasculating embrace…
Emre S
1 month ago
The way I see this is, any ideology that centres itself around selfishness will be unwilling to pass the baton on (why be selfness for the next generation if your point is about being selfish), and eventually starve itself out unable to continue. Or reading it backwards, any ideology or society that’s dying out because it can’t have continuity may have been doing so because they adopted a selfish ideology some time back.
Judging by birthrates, Western society (esp Europe) is quite literally dying out. This may be because of a selfish ideology adopted a while back.
Modern Western culture is an “ideology that centres itself around selfishness”–would you call any movement that asks for rights not to be battered and raped w/ impunity “selfish?” Was the Civil Rights Movement “selfish?”
“raped w/ impunity” – I hope you’re not referring to marriage with that.
I would have in mind things like drug use, lack of commitment to raising children or family, lack of interest in creating a community / knowing your neighbours, lack of respect for hard work or on its inverse being focused solely on financial success at the expense of others – that kind of thing. None of these are unique to Western societies of course, but a liberal system based on “experiments on living” obviously won’t be there to tell you not to do these things.
“Infantile.” Now THERE’S good word for characterizing something a woman says. I notice Suburbia’s comment was something more than name-calling, unlike your reply.
Occasionally, yes. Not very often.
The Met Police officer Carrick has finally been arrested after raping at least 12 women over a period of 20 years, despite a number of accusations against him, during which he was promoted several times. “Nasty” was his Met nickname, apparently.
Yes. I realise that. And I have a right not to be burgled, but whether the police are inclined to investigate a burglery, to bring a case to court, or the courts to prosecute it, is an entirely different issue.
I think one of the sticking points on your comment is “proven.” That’s a high bar to cross when police won’t even test a rape kit or listen to a woman’s complaints to begin with.
I guess the police have more IMPORTANT things to do than listen to a woman’s “infantile” complaints, regardless of how “shrilly” they are lodged.
Did I miss any of the dog-whistles used for women in this comments thread?
“Accountability is kryptonite to women.”
“Zero responsibility.”
“…the obsession with patriarchy is overdone.”
Last edited 1 month ago by Romi Elnagar
Pat Rowles
1 month ago
Ellie, 30, a New England mother of two under two, tells me…her mother …scornfully rejected an offer to live rent-free closer by, in exchange for helping with childcare, as a hostile attempt to reduce her to “just a grandma”.
“Hi Mom, what say you completely rearrange your life to be a free, on-demand babysitter for my kids? What? You won’t?!”
This was my reaction as well, and that’s from a Gen Z baby. Who would want to be unable to say no to any childcare demands, no matter how last minute or unreasonable, on pain of jeopardising your housing arrangement?
Yes, it seems that this selfish, narcissistic way of life has captured the Anglosphere, in particular. Affluence can be a curse, for sure. Family is still #1 in many other cultures, to their credit and to the Anglosphere’s peril.
It’s possible you have a point, but I’m not sure what it is. Is it that, because those people you know do it, “white English” people should also do it? If so, your logic escapes me.
It’s more a remark than a point really. You made a comment I understood to say what’s described in the article wasn’t necessarily a reasonable ask – which was heavily agreed with/voted by people. Seeing this I remarked this seems to be a white English thing as in my circle it’s fairly common practice.
On the other hand we were expected to routinely drag two toddlers across an entire continent for week long stays with family during which neither set of grandparents offered to babysit even for an hour. There is no doubt this issue breeds resentment. I certainly resented it.
I can understand your resentment. It will often arise if you accede to other people’s unreasonable expectations. But, as my old dad used to say: “You have a choice: do it, or moan about it; but don’t do it and moan about it.”
I love babies so would be happy to assist in rearing my descendants and being an influence in their lives. Many of today’s children don’t know basic fairy tales or nursery songs or games, I would love to pass down that cultural heritage.
I genuinely applaud your willingness to pitch in. That being the case, you should look for ways to make it easier for you to do so. It just struck me as massively entitled for someone to think it reasonable to ask someone else, even a parent, to move house because it would make their own life easier.
The thing is that families are a bulwark and provide stability and cohesion. You don’t have to give up your own enjoyments and goals to help out. By no means should you be a doormat but why wouldn’t you want to spend a good amount of time with the people who you love the most?
I agree with you where family is concerned, but the devil is in the details: from my perspective, the expectation that the mother would determine how much time her mother spends with the grandchild, not the grandmother herself, is implicit in the request that the grandmother make such a major change to her own life.
You ask, “why wouldn’t you want to spend a good amount of time with the people who you love the most?”, but we all have our own idea of what constitutes a “good amount of time”.
Rob N
1 month ago
I feel the obsession with ‘patriarchy’ is overdone. The belief has become an unchallenged cult, blamed for everything.
It is hardly surprising that with women having and caring for babies and children, and men being more suited to a physical protection role that they had different spheres of control.
Inevitably most men don’t want to be told when or how to risk their lives by a woman who is not going to fight but instead want to make such decisions with their comrades who they will fight with. This then leads to male control of war and the pre war state, which ultimately covers a lot of areas. Not the household though where the woman has traditionally been in charge in most cultures.
Now that war is being taken away from the individual (militarily, culturally and legally) it is reasonable for woman to want more control over their life. However this is leaving men with a reduced and uncertain role and is making our society less able to withstand violent threats when they arrive. And they will and are.
At some point we will regret the loss of the maleness that we used to have. Probably in the next decade.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the arrival of nuclear weapons and really the detente in the Cold War, and the start sexual revolution/women’s emancipation follow each other. In all likelihood, the patriarchy narrative was made possible basically because of nuclear weapons.
To add to the above, nuclear weapons may not be able to keep us in peace indefinitely. Some day, some nation may be able find an asymmetric weapon, or find means to hack into others’ weapon systems. That’s where today’s danger lies for me.
Men no longer preoccupied by war can divert their energies to protecting the family identity of female and male from the ravaging war being waged against the family unit by ideology cults who have invaded our establishment our schools hospitals prisons etc? (Aka Tavistock and mermaids) Maybe our warrior men are not superfluous but can help defend womanhood and womens safe spaces?
Women have been fighting for themselves for decades at the expense of men. It’s time men woke up and fought for themselves. No more sacrifices for a section of humanity that hates us.
You don’t think perhaps that the accusation of “ad hominems” (which is misplaced, as you seem to follow the standard misunderstanding of the term as meaning ‘personal insult’, which it doesn’t), when applied to a thread largely consisting of a bunch of angry men getting increasingly bilious about women who don’t behave as they think they should, is just a little ironic? You just whined that most women “hate you”, for God’s sake. That’s not exactly Socratic in its dispassionate intellectualism, is it? What do you want, a bowl of ice cream and a hanky?
If you don’t like “ad hominem” (sic) disparaging remarks directed at anyone with whom you disagree (ie, the great majority of women), you must strongly dislike most of the stuff here.
I was fully enjoying it. You Americans don’t understand British humour at all do you? There’s little left when all hope of rationality has abandoned ship to crazy American feminist rants.
John, the downvotes should be enough for you to realize just how much your opinion is appreciated over here. Do yourself a favour and go join some feminist march somewhere, please? People are trying to discuss as adults here, and you are sticking out like a sore thumb.
Andre, dear, the reason this blog is called ‘unHerd’ is precisely because it supposedly prides itself on NOT being a repository for the kind of braying “herd” mentality that infests the internet these days.
Sadly, you represent exactly this braying herd mentality, the sort of group-think clone who cannot cope with a different viewpoint, and merely wants to sit in some half-witted echo-chamber of your own ‘thoughts’ , unchallenged by anything or anyone. In which case, why not just sit in a darkened room and talk to yourself? You’ll be guaranteed not to be upset by a differring opinion.
Problem is, when you have spent decades pathologising males and their agency, you might not get the response you wish for when you appeal for their aid.
Feminism helped create a world where men are at a loss as to what they are supposed to be and where male activity is constantly subject to outside approval. The same kind of men who will be aware of the trans issue are the same kind of men who would be horrified of being called a sexist, and as such, are equally horrified of being called a transphobe. Men know that they will be condemned whatever they do.
Ironically the men who hold the most traditional views on gender are the working-class types feminists would never dream of associating with and who couldn’t care less what feminists think.
Most men are doing ok- they have jobs, families, friends, they watch sport, go to the pub, secretly look at a bit of porn, do the gardening and even change nappies. They aren’t “condemned” by anyone for doing these things.
They don’t tend to spend their time crying to everyone about their victimhood and how they suffer under such a cruel dystopian nightmare. Maybe you should give it a try.
Men clearly aren’t seen as “optional” by anyone other than a few fringe figures who can be safely ignored by any sane person.
You might think they are “great minds”, but 99% of normal humans think they just need to get laid and find a hobby.
My only problem with this line of thinking is it portrays men as helpless victims of the unreasonable demands of women. I personally find that cringe worthy. Men find great comfort in strong established roles and are very hierarchical. The women’s movement smashed that up. We have been called to reimagine what bravery, commitment and sacrifice look like. Instead of relying on mum to affirm our manhood. We all know what manhood looks like, especially women. It’s time to take our hands off it and get on with it without constantly looking for female approval.
The trans agenda dovetails into a lot of the things that helped feminism succeed
1) assertion that a group is oppressed or vulnerable (then women, now trans)
2) a desire for people to be seen as tolerant and inclusive towards this group
3) an opponent group who are seen as discriminatory and cruel to the group (feminism would have painted this figure as an archetype of sexism and male chauvinism, the trans equivalent is what they call a TERF)
4) an environment of liberalism which makes people subconsciously believe freedom is the ultimate end and that the more freedom there is the better.
The trans have two more things going for them
A) for young men who are fed up of the way they feel they are treated by society, they can instantly become part of a progressive “in-group” by becoming trans. Going from male to trans woman means going from the very bottom of the progressive stack right to the very top. Once in the crosshairs of the Left, they are now aiming the gun.
B) a lot of young men will seek to “get back” at women by presenting as one
C) there is a potentially huge social dividend to being trans and young. Trans people can make a LOT of money as social media figures in a way men simply cannot. There is a boy at a local school being “transitioned” by 5 girls. He has instantly boosted his social circle. Being trans is a popular thing amongst the young.
Depends what numbers you look at. The main concern is male to female transition. Then again, you don’t seem to be able to really do much in the comments section other than be obtuse and insult people.
It’s a fact, in the UK at least- if you have figures that dispute it, please say.
And why is the “main concern” male to female transition? Whose “main concern”, and why? Perhaps you mean YOUR main concern- in which case, why is the one so much more of a “concern” to you than the other?
And yes, many of my comments today have been a bit, er, tetchy- that’s because the comments I’m responding to have been pretty unpleasant misogynist ranting. If someone posts that stuff, they should surely be ‘man enough’ to take it on the chin, no? Or should we blame their Mothers?
The main concern is male-to-female transitioners because these individuals are biological men who are seeking access to women’s spaces. You would know that if you were so knowledgable about the trans issue. Various feminists have written on Unherd about it. You can pollute the comments on those articles too.
“Misogynistic ranting”. Lol. Get a grip. I think you got bullied a lot at school.
“Where do you get you figures from?” There is no strict authority, but the great majority of studies put the current number at around 2/3rds female to male- see Meier and Lebusky , ‘The demographics of transgender population’.
“Various feminists have written…” I thought you hated feminists, and blamed them for most of the world’s ills? Why are you now telling me I should read these hateful, man-hating harridans? Make your mind up.
“I think you got bullied a lot at school”. Ah. Very good argument. I’ve tried to think of an intellectual counter to that epistemological theory, but I just can’t. Top marks.
Yes Samantha I think I agree with that. Whenever I see us bemoan the loss of traditional roles I think it is mostly a loss of imagination. Are we saying that we no longer need men to be brave? Do we no longer need men to be protective? Do we no longer need men to be father to children? My God, there is a world of work to do as you pointed out. The traditional roles for men and women do not become superfluous. They just need to be reimagined.
Many of these grandparents have done their duty, raised the next generation and now want a break from both work and small children and expect the next generation to do their bit now, as they did. Not everyone wants their last years on earth surrounded by horrible little brats running and screaming around, for which they no longer have the energy of youth to tolerate. Especially as the current generation of parents – and our current legal system – forbids giving such brats the corporal punishment – the belt, the ruler to the knuckles that all children were familiar with 50 years ago – they deserve that we used to have. Back when we were (quite properly) expected to be seen and not heard and feared the wroth of adults if we dared to intrude on their adult world with our insufferable childishness.
That other cultures that contributed a mere iota of what the English have think differently strikes me as a moot point.
Well Ukrainian men have been expected to be very traditional whether they like it or not. I am always surprised at how many of them are middle aged in the combat footage. I would have been all over being a warrior when I was 19 – not so much in my middle age.
Three women submariners as fas as I know.
Which may be your definition of “plenty”, but it’s a lot less than the number of women “victims” who have murdered their partners.
Edit: 2016. Could be modestly higher now, I guess.
I agree.
However there has been quite a bit of “bovver “ in HM Submarines in recent years despite the MoD doing its very best to suppress any mention of it.
Courts Martial have been the result and one tabloid has highlighted the scandal, rather amusingly as “UP PERISCOPE “!
ps. (Useless information.)
You serve IN a Royal Navy vessel not ON.
The only two exceptions used to be H.M.S.Aisne and H.M.S. Opportune. Both now scrapped.
What you also do ON a navy vessel is to watch out for other ships. Not a hard task, given the extent of navigation aids and radars.
Which is something that the crew of the USN Fitzgerald and KNM Helge Ingstad failed to do, quite miserably, under benign conditions.
Guess what was the common link?
In other news, the royal navy is trying to double the number of women (overall, not those in submarines and stuff) from 1 in 10 currently. Should be good. Strangely, no such initiative for increasing male teachers in schools though.
Sue Frisby
1 month ago
A thought-provoking article, particularly as it’s very relevant to me. I was a radical ‘80s feminist and I’m now a grandmother. I have been seriously re-thinking my views around women and men for some years and I have been letting go of the idea I must prove myself in the ‘outside world’ at the same time as being a single mother. Even though I was seriously programmed by feminist ideology, it still feels natural to me to home-make and nurture. My spiritual and practical female wisdom is vital for my family.
Christopher Chantrill
1 month ago
Yes, dear old Siggi and “what do women want?”
He was wrong, as usual. The question is rather “what do women expect?”
And the answer is that “women expect to be protected,” by men, by mothers, by grandmothers, by government, by first-wave feminists, and Uncle Tom Cobbley.
And yes, when a woman has a baby she needs — expects — a lot of support. That is how to beat the odds on all the things that can go wrong.
I know a mother who says “my job is to keep these kids alive.”
I think she is probably right. But I don’t know if the lasses on Mumsnet would agree.
In a society like Freud’s the question was ‘What do men want from women?’ and so women were shaped accordingly, focussing on sexual attractiveness and marriagability. It was hammered home that this is how they should be by making it impossible to survive without a man’s protection.
To ask what it was a woman wanted was a question she couldn’t answer as she’d been schooled in meekness and obedience and was allowed little agency.
So Freud could find no answer in his time and was utterly puzzled by the woman that patriarchy had created and shaped. That he could not see the blindingly obvious- that women want to be seen as humans first and ‘women’ afterwards, is an indication of deeply ingrained patriarchy was in his time.
Now we ask what do men want? And if the Internet is any indication, they want to be back on top again, where they can dictate the terms then ridicule women for following them.
And where does this patriarchy come from?….the Bible, and the Koran, and thus the three so called Abrahamic Faiths confine women the dustbin. ( perhaps it is something to do with the desert where they came from?)
Although the Romans were not entirely blameless,* at least Roman women in the first century AD had far greater legal and property rights than women in the UK did until the late nineteenth century.
Where does patriarchy come from? Well, it goes way back beyond the Abrahamic religions. I hoped Yolanda Harari would answer that question in his book Homo Sapiens, but he basically said he didn’t know and that it could be stemming from men’s superior strength.
It’s a really fraught question because if it’s regarded as a default, natural state of affairs, then we would all have to just give up striving for equality. And I do think that as animals, there is a strong biological factor. But we are also, social and symbolic beings living on the cusp of gender implosion, so we can implement change and choice.
Those who say it’s a natural thing should be reminded that Nature does not give a toss how we arrange ourselves only that we reproduce. Nature has endowed humans with some seriously self destructive features and we deploy them every day. It would be good if we could rise above patriarchal structures, good for all, I suspect.
Surely you jest Charles? “Pater” is the Latin word for father, who in Roman society had the right to kill his children on a whim and for centuries had legally sanctified absolute authority over his wife. Hence the historically widely used term “paterfamilias”. The rest of the family other than the Father was legally defined as a “body of slaves”. All this has been well known to the educated classes since Fustel de Coulanges published ‘The ancient city’ back in 1864. Christianity on the other hand had woman leading some of the churches right from the first few decades, and the Holy Bible has several famous and influential pro equality passages.
An excellent book detailing the utterly oppressive nature of Roman society and the largely liberating nature of Christianity is “Inventing the individual” by good Larry Siedentop. Subtitled ‘The Origins of Western Liberalism’ it also sheds historical light on several of Mary’s fave themes. Conversely, you’re not going to be able to cite a single even 5th rank scholar who holds ancient Rome was more pro Woman than Christianity, as that’s such an absurd position.
That said, of course there have been many oppressive movements within the faith, and even as a Christian I’m glad that feminists has done much to counter them. PS – great insight in the original comment by Pip & as ever in Mary’s article.
In the early Republic you are absolutely correct about the potential power of the Pater Familias or as some say Paterfamilias, but over time this slackened and by the first century of the Principate a woman could divorce almost at will and RETAIN her property. Surely you don’t deny this?
You are also correct that in the early Church woman were treated as equals or at least near equals, but later (St) Augustine & Co soon put a stop to that and they (women)were reduced to the status of near Helots. Hardly surprising really in a Semitic religion is it?
I would dispute your claim about the oppressive nature of Roman Society, and given the longevity of that society it would take all day to discuss it!
However I must agree that I can think of no notable Classicist who has troubled themselves discuss the position of Roman women and the advent of Christianity, particularly from a legal standpoint. That off course says something in itself does it not?
Whilst what you say about the power of the paterfamilias in Roman society is essentially true, this was more de jure and less de facto; killing one’s wife when she had a living father and brothers, who may have wielded more power than you, was never wise. Also, certainly by the 1st century AD, the main type of marriage was sine mano, in which the woman’s father remained her paterfamilias,and she retained her own property rights. The stories of the grim paterfamilias killing his own kin are just that – stories.
Maybe I only remember the ‘Human Biogrammar’ from my otherwise stupendously dull Sociology ‘A’ Level (maybe because it was written by the groovily-named Tiger and Fox) was because it made so much sense about why men are men and women are women. Well, to me, anyhow.
That, and my cookie-cutter ‘Millie Tant’ style uber-feminist lecturer hated it. Ha ha ha.
I agree. Just because something is “natural,” like most 17-year-old boys feeling the urge to rape half the females who pass by, doesn’t make it inevitable or unsurmountable. Most people have felt enraged enough at some point (sometimes justifiably, like after having a family member harmed) that if they’d had a loaded gun immediately available w/ the perp right there they’d use it–that’s why we develop ethics, morals, and a justice system, to restrain those impulses.
I feel some impulses of revenge against the many men on my “metoo” list but I’m above chasing them down for deplatforming and other shaming retribution, because I’m emotionally intelligent enough to recognize that their nervousness now is enough of a consequence and that I also need to get on w/ my blip-in-time life.
“Natural” isn’t an excuse for anything, and has often been reworked to justify Enlightment-forward atrocities, such as Negro slavery, contemporary patriarchy through sociobioogy, Nazi eugenics, or the latest transactivist nonsense. It’s informative, to be sure, and worth investigating, but it’s not determinative. That’s what makes us human.
I never felt the urge at 17 to “rape half the females who pass by”. Have sex with them, yes- well, a quarter- but not rape.
I wanted women to find me devastatingly attractive, to desire me and willingly submit to my devastating masculine charms. I don’t think any of my friends wanted to rape women on a daily basis either- we didn’t spend our teenage lives constantly suppressing a desire to violently attack girls and violate them. We just wanted constant consensual sex, and occasionally got lucky. If you did, I’m sorry for you. It must have been terrible- did it ever recede, or do you still want to rape half of the women you see?
“Just because something is “natural,” like most 17-year-old boys feeling the urge to rape half the females who pass by … ”
I was going to ignore this outrageous comment, but I’ve changed my mind. How do you know what adolescent most (or any) boys think or feel? You’re equating sex with rape. What everyone does know, and what biologists know, is that boys of this age have sex on their minds (and so do teenage girls). That’s what puberty is all about. But rape? That’s a preposterous non sequitur, to say the least. Unfortunately, it’s also become a pervasive ideological assumption.
I agree, it’s hard to scroll by when there’s so much wrong with that comment on so many levels. And somehow it’s got five up votes.
This part:
‘I feel some impulses of revenge against the many men on my “metoo” list but I’m above chasing them down for deplatforming and other shaming retribution, because I’m emotionally intelligent enough to recognize that their nervousness now is enough of a consequence and that I also need to get on w/ my blip-in-time life.’
You have a metoo list??? Where do find these men?? You’re basically saying your above blackmailing these people because of your’ emotional intelligence’??
If someone has committed a crime against you and you have evidence enough to ‘chase them down and deplatform them or other shaming retribution ‘ surely you should just go to the police??
Teenage girls have romance on their minds. One reason men on oestrogen doesn’t work is it gives them romantic drives when they are the romantic target of 0% of the population.
Let’s not be ridiculous. No, “most 17 yr. old boys do NOT feel the urge to rape half the females who pass by”.
Are most 17 yr. old boys obsessed with sex? Absolutely; no question.
But there is a vast and chasmic difference between being sexually obsessed, fascinated, & entranced .. as all that is focused — at 17 — primarily upon the stereotypical movie-star/cheerleader girls who only date QB’s….and feeling the urge to rape. The Venn Overlap between the set of young boys who desperately want to go on a date with ‘Jacy Farrow’ (as played by Cybill Shepherd in “The Last Picture Show”) and those who are seriously considering rape is microscopically small.
Let’s not confuse normal, adolescent sexual fascination with criminal sociopathy.
Nature doesn’t give a toss about extinction, only we care about our reproduction to avoid that fate. That requires, by all means fair or foul, women must average 2+x children each. Anything less guarantees extinction so let’s try to keep the means fair. And, from a species survival perspective, “… some seriously self destructive features…” are homosexuality, contraception and abortion: but I think we can maybe work round that with the ‘x’ in 2+x.
Reality is a problem in our current world. It is likely to become an even bigger one if our leaders continue the way they are. So I wouldn’t worry about down-votes. If Ukraine gets out of hand it won’t be the feminists being conscripted, assuming it doesn’t go nuclear. That happens and what Rough men survive, will be in great demand, maybe even by Feminists.
The small logical problem with this particular concept of “reality” is that the solution and the problem are the same- i.e., “tough men”.
What you and your angry little friend above are sayig is, basically, ‘when violent men (or “Rough men”- ooh..) are threatening you, you’re going to want a violent man to protect you’. The fact that the problem, as well as the putative solution, is violent men suggests that you need to think this through a bit more Bill.
In a situation where someone is threatening you with violence, defending yourself, or getting someone to defend you, which will probably involve something approaching violence, may be unavoidable, however unpalatable it may be and however preferable other solutions may be.
You’re missing the point. It would be nigh-on impossible to eliminate violence in human society. So the next best solution is to employ safeguards to counteract it. One of these may be being prepared to be violent to counter a violent person, or being under the protection of another person or group entity.
Yes. But my confusion here lies in the fact that the anti-feminist comments here get deeply upset by the supposed assertion that male violence is endemic, whilst simultaneously glorifying in male aggressiveness, and telling women that they should shut up and be grateful that some nice violent men might protect them against other nasty violent men.
Can we have some honest logic here, rather than just blaming women for both ‘nice’ violent men and ‘nasty’ violent men? If men ARE inherently violent (which may, to some degree, be true), can we please just stop blaming feminists for this? It’s a cop-out.
I think this occurs in Europe post Charlemagne where an aristocracy with inheritable titles and land evolved.
In rural societies where there was little to inherit, female fertility was the most important quality of women. Pre 1492 and the introduction of syphilis, there is the indication that rural women married the man who got her pregnant. Chaucer was not prudish.
Sparta gave women far more freedom than Athens and the Gauls more than the Romans. Was it Tacitus or Caesar who noted that women in Gaul had more freedom than in Rome? Beduin women have more freedom than those who live in cities. I suggest that where societies are of the warrior type, rural, nomadic or where men sail overseas ( Viking )women have far more freedom as they run the farm when the men are away. Where the society is urban and the fmily is sufficiently wealthy so they do not have to work, women, have often been housebound.
Yes it is said that Spartan women even used to wrestle…….naked and……………covered in olive oil…..simply outrageous!
It was Caesar who commented on Gallic women and Tacitus on German, besides our own beloved Boudicca or Boadicea as ‘we’ used to call her.
However, as outlined above, Roman women soon caught up, legally speaking, which rather challenges your ‘Warrior Thesis’. The ‘exception that proves the rule’ so to speak.
Then off course there the mythical (?) Amazons, but we had better leave that for another day.
I think it is basic, when men are away wife has to run farm , business , home, et.Shepherdesses had to be free to roam the hills and women take goods to market: they were not house bound.
Women in nomadic groups, especially warrior ones such as Huns and Mongols had to be able to ride long distances. My Mother used to say that freedom with which a women could move wearing her clothes showed the freedom she had in society. Compare a Mongol , Spartan, Viking or British Shepherdess with an upper middle class urban women of late 19th Europe who had to wear very restrictive dresses.
Lady Anthonia Fraser in one her books said war tends to increase women’s freedom whether it is defending family home when men away : The Anarchy, War of Roses, Civil War and domestic staff going to work in factories are examples.
Did Roman women ever have the freedom and physical training of Spartan?
Perhaps the the ability to think, speak and move freely are beneficial to the growth of balanced and well developed people.
No, I doubt very much that Roman woman achieved quite the same level of athleticism as Spartan women are thought to have done.
However the major social event in the Roman world for both men and women was attendance at the Baths (Thermae).
As such all ‘Baths’ had either a Gymnasium* or a Palaestra attached to them. Both were places for extreme physical exercise, prior to bathing.
Off course this exercise was performed naked which was NO problem in the pre Christian/Semitic world, unlike today.
(* From the Greek ‘gymnos’: Naked or without clothes!)
Fascinating question.
But isn’t the answer obvious?
If by ‘patriarchy’ we mean a social system in which men hold most of the nominal power….and since patriarchal systems have dominated human society since time immemorial….should we not conclude that male leadership of most social collectives is a natural function of the qualities which are stereotypically male? (you know, the standard list: strength, independence, courage, leadership, aggression…the qualities which existed long, long before the concept of ‘patriarchy’ was invented)
What else could it be (given a lack of good-old-boy backroom clubs back in 10,000 BC)?
Given a world in which life was short, nasty & brutish…a world absent any any moderating civilization… group survival would depend upon devising and using successful solutions to life & death problems. If male leadership provided those solutions more consistently…if male strengths were more effective in nominal tribal leadership roles than female…if female strengths fit more effectively elsewhere….then male leadership became the normal operational solution as demonstrated by those same 10,000 years of human behavior.
You speak of ‘blame’ but ‘blame’ has nothing to do with the fact that the so-called ‘patriarchy’ was clearly, historically, the solution which worked.
As for the roles women played, they were far from powerless. But their social roles were clearly different and less nominally powerful than male roles…with rare exception.
But please note, these were not social roles invented by the Patriarchy (capital ‘P’), rather this male/female division of labor which created what we now call ‘patriarchy’ was patterned by the very exigencies of existence itself. 10,000 years later things have change…and male / female roles have also changed…but there remains, always, the essential biologic difference between men & women and this is still reflected in any number of life choices still being made by both men & women.
Yes, basically because patriarchal power comes at the cost of the
‘other ‘ having to use every trick in the book to give herself some agency.
As for the power of the grandmother? Very diminished, the competition on mumsnet between female generations is toxic. Mother in law hate particularly, ‘how dare they imagine they have any rights of access over my children ’ etc etc. the latest craze is to ‘ghost’ them. Female generations are competing for the attention of the husband / son. The last thing they are doing is honouring the elder generation’s experience knowledge and wisdom.
In an age where everything is monetised, money rules, men have most access to that which fuels their power and feelings of superiority which many women willingly feed off. The majority of female pensioners have very little.
That grandmothers prioritise their attractiveness to men, over their valuable knowledge and experience is tragic indeed.
It seems that women still internalise misogyny. Siding with power and denigrating the aged female who is long past her alleged prime. Wait until they get there and get a taste of it.
It would be tragic, were that not a false dilemma. Surely to imply that a woman loses the right to an expressive personal existence the moment she begins to breed exemplifies misogyny. As is most things, the secret sauce is in the proportionality.
Why is a patriarchy a patriarchy? Women throughout history have been in the position of influencing the younger generation. The Jesuits recognised the importance of influencing the thoughts of those under seven for a long term return. Why have women until very recently singularly failed to instil into the children in their charge a matriarchal ideology? Could it be that for many women a “patriarchal” society suited them fine? Perhaps most preferred to pull the strings out of sight and leave the illusion of patriarchy.
Phillipa, In my view we are living through a very indulgent time and that applies to men and women. The top comment does not reflect this. The “the refusal of responsibility” applies at least as much to men as to women – and probably more to men, who seem to be opting for a state of permanent adolescence. But what has driven this is the deification of the concept of personhood. The idea of self determination without reference to family or community.
I”m male, and i too live relatively comfortably, confident that I too worked for the means to look after myself. Yet I look at the world today and I hope that Orwell’s Rough Men are still rough and capable of ensuring I sleep in my bed soundly until the end of my days.
When people perceive weakness others will take advantage of it no matter which sex they are. I’m curious if your apparent male feminist stance has made you attractive to women?
Is this actually the level of debate here? ‘You don’t hate women so you don’t get laid? Honestly? [email protected]@@@@g [email protected]@l.
I’ve had more interesting and challenging debates with a salad.
By the way, Kat- I don’ think anyone I know prerceives me as a “male feminist”- I think they just percieve me as a ‘bloke who was born after c.1890 who doesn’t spend more time than is strictly healthy on ‘male-victim’ chatrooms’- not quite the same thing. Ask my wife.
Yes, Charlie- I took three out with a blunt machete, bludgeoned one to death with a rusty mallet and used a ratchet screwdriver to remove the eyeballs of the last. I then stamped repeatedly on the said eyeballs (just in case my enemy might have reinserted them), and set fire to the heaped bodies.
I hope that is sufficient for your enjoyment, Mr. Stanhope.
Sorry Charlie, I’ve clearly broken some Chaps’ rule here- was I actually meant to felate you with some realistic, non-ironic chap-on-chap slash-porn? I didn’t realise- it’s awfully hard here to negotiate between whining about horrible feminists slandering men as being inherently violent (boo!), and keeping up with the Lads when boasting about psychopathic acts of fun street-violence (hurrah!). I’m learning- cut me some slack.
I did once knock my brother out with a silage fork when he locked me into a boar pen as a child in the family pig styes- is that good enough? He was out for about ten minutes…
I was nearly blinded in one eye and cut in the head which bled profusely. Being blinded could have reduced my job opportunities.Luckily I was cut not on the carotid arteries, my parries stopped that but I was cut on the arms.Waiting in A and E was unpleasant.
What made it worse was that in was afternoon, daylight, sunny and people were walking past pretending nothing was happening.
They were not even trying to mug me, just slice me up for kicks. I tried to walk and talk my way out but it was likely they were on drugs, probably LSD and amphetamines. I learnt one cannot reason with the unreasonable.
The attack was close to my home. To conquer my fear, the next day I forced myself to walk to the location of my attack: my drops of blood were still on the street. What lasted for some time was the fear of being attacked again. The scar on my head only disappeared a few years ago.
Speak to any women who has been attacked, the fear invariably stays for years. How many women have been attacked and passsers by ignored the situation?
It was far worse than being kicked in the head playing rugby and going to A and E for stitches.
My advice is be very wary of people acting erratically as they could be on drugs and carrying knives. People on drugs can have very fast reactions.
Well you know the answer to such savagery?
Prior to 1964 very few feral scum would have contemplated such an assault because they knew the likely consequences if things went wrong!
‘Three clear Mondays’ as the expression went and then they’d “swing” to use the contemporary vernacular.
Besides the usual ‘shriekers’ of Quislington, and a large number of pathetic MPs, most of the country was quite content with Capital Punishment.
It was cheap and effective, and in some cases a deterrent, although that is rather hard to prove!
Either way the sort of wanton assault you were subject to was rare indeed.
It was invaluable experience, coupled with that drug dealers operating outside the front door and a riot plus rumblings of ones that did not occur.
I do not believe in capital punishment. However crimes should result in decades of hard labour in prison and the same rigour the Glass House of pre WW2 army.
The Labour Party up to Callaghan a WW2 RN Petty Officer and Sunday School Teacher , knew from personal experience that crime and poor schools had the greatest detrimental impact on the honest hard working poor in reducing their opportunities for upward mobility to practically zero.
As this article is about women, the most adversely impacted by crime are women. When nine year old girls are offered white powders by men on their home from primary school, Mothers are terrified ,especially when they are reformed heroine addicts.
Where Methodism was prevalent; men worked in heavy industry; many had served in served in Armed Forces, boxed, played rugby, whether Union or League, lived in settled communities and such as S Wales and along M62, there was little killings, rapes and robberies .
Women were safe. Making an unacceptable comment to any women would have resulted in the forceful intervention of any passing man. Today, however, any man teaching some manners to the youth would result in them being prosecuted for assault. The male relatives of the woman would have then visted the Father of the you and given him a verbal warning.
The Left Wing Middle Class white Collar type brought up in safe suburbia, attended soft schools in such areas and only worked in offices; does not perceive gentleman going about their daily business who can intervene and are supported by society, are the most effective way of stopping street violence. This is not being a vigilante: it is an adult male accepting the responsibility to protect those who are unble to do so.
Bad luck mate, sounds nasty. Was fascinated by the lack of responses from passers by. There are definitely people you should cross over the street to avoid!
Yes. That’s correct. It may be unpalatable, but we have to consider that, somewhere, someone (probably male) will want to do us harm, and societies have acted accordingly by creating things like police forces and armies.
We live in socieites that have become very good at delivering consequences to violent people. You need people capable of violence to contain violent people.
There’s some truth in that. As a moral defence of men, and as a reposte to feminists, it’s dismal- essentially, it’s a mafia protection racket, pay us our dues and you won’t get hurt by the other gang- but there’s some truth nonetheless.
Okay John. Do you seriously think we could have a society without the armed forces and without the police. No prisons (institutions which deprive criminals of liberty through force). How do you quell disorder without controlled state violence? How do you collect tax? How do you ensure property rights? What if someone robs you?
No, I don’t think this. Where did I say I did? Can you specify?
Although most of your dystopian scenarios are largely about male violence- the same male violence that half the commenters here are defending as both ‘natural’ and good, and the sort of thing that modern feminism has ruined for everyone
There’s a very wierd contradictory attitude here on this site- on the one hand, women should shut up and stop complaining about male violence, as this is a horrible “feminist” libel against decent masculine values, and on the other they should shut up or some other bloke will beat them, and it’ll serve them right. Which is it?
Frankly, it all seems a bit odd. The only consistent idea seems to be that whatever the problem is, it’s all bloody women’s fault. Awful people. Burn the witches, I say.
“Mafia protection racket” might be more felicitously described as Reciprocity. It should of course fall short of the old definition of extortion as “demanding money with menaces”.
Our species (like many others) relies on inter-dependence. We all depend on each other in one way or another. On every level–physiological, psychological, economic, moral and so on–the goal of every culture is, and should be, to perpetuate and maintain itself as a society, not a collection of either competing or indifferent individuals. And what’s true on the personal level is true also on the collective level of groups within society.
I think the decline in dangerous jobs where all those had to be responsible for themselves and each other plus decline in team sports, has led to the decline of emotionally mature responsible tough competent men men. The rugby playing miner, forester or trawlerman tends to be cheerful, tough, competent and emotionally mature and not panic in life or death situations which are the type of person one wants to create and maintain a civilisation.
Back stabbing effete ineffectual brittle office workers are not the type to create and maintain a civilisation
The death and injury rates in offices is minimal: commercial forestry( 154 per 100K),mining and trawling are higher than Law Enforcement and Armed Forces,check US Labour Statistics.
“The rugby paying miner, forester or trawlerman tends to be cheerful…’
Good grief. I love this kind of crap. I mean, says who, Charles? What exactly is the point in just spouting this kind of arbitrary baseless drivel? What’s your experience of “cheerful`’ verses non-“cheerful” trawlermen, for Christ’s sake? How many moody foresters have you encountered, in proportion to jolly ones? Give a round number, based on your experience.
Then again, if you’re worried about the insufficient number of office deaths, we could always send out out some exploding pens in the stationary supplies…
When one is working out of doors in cold wet windy conditions,in winter at the end of day and especially at the end of the week people, who are tired, cold and moan about the conditions are not concentrating on the job adequately and are a risk to themselves and others. People who can make a cheerful quip brighten raise spirits and are assets, those who moan depress spirits and are libaility. The death toll as the USA labour Statistics show are forestry, trawling and mining are dangerous..
Boxing and rugby develop upper body strength which are needed to carry people( Fireman’s lift), pull them to safety or knock them out of the way of moving objects. Dragging someone to safety when one is on one’shands and knees such as in a collapsed mine or air duct on burning ship, requires very high upper body strength. An example is given below of the use of upper body strength. The day a Welsh Lions star was saved from death by his English tour rival – Wales Online
From the 19th century it was recognised that there were many civilian acts of bravery and awards were commenced. Civilian gallantry medals, honours and other awards – The National Archives
Many of the awards were those for working at sea, in the mines, docks railways ( crashes ); none for office work.
Much employment legislation from the early 19th century such as banning women and children from mines and reducing working hours was to reduce death and injury. Injuries go up at work when people are exhausted, thirsty, cold and hungry.
They may have upper body strength, but are they “cheerful”?
I’m not questioning that trawling or forestry are dangerous. I’m wondering how you get from the fact that more trawlermen (or professional rugby players) die at work than office workers to the death of civilisation, with no rational explanation whatsoever.
If you simply think that work should be more exhausting, cold, dangerous, hungry and dangerous, then you might need to explain in more detail how this will make people’s lives better. At least I gave the suggestion of exploding pens for office workers- that might be a start. How about cholera in the water-fountain?
Would “the position” needing “a man” involve yet another man, by any chance?
So- as a woman, she should be grateful for violent men, as they can protect her from…violent men. Right.
Except I’m not being “rude”- unless you are being ‘triggered’ by different opinions?
Yet another ‘snowflake’ who cannot accept an interurruption in their favoured echo-chamber, it seems. It’s remarkable how this supposedly “unHerd” site reacts to ‘un-correct’ opinions with such visceral, group-think anger. It would be funny, if it wasn’t so depressing.
“What does a woman want?” is an unanswerable question
because no 2 women are identical even if twins. A more apt question is as you pointed out what do most women expect and that depends on their generation. Millennial and younger women, most of whom have been poisoned by feminist ideology, expect nothing but the best of everything including a 10 for a man even when they aren’t even a 5 themselves. The majority believe they are perfect 10’s, the prize catch, that they deserve it all from only the best and this is why so many of them will be member of the BOBB (Bitter old Boss Bitcshes) club before long.
I don’t know that many young women now but according to what I see online you appear to be accurate. My Gen X dating experience was that I tried to be nice even when I was rejecting but couldn’t understand the meanness of my girlfriends. That was before online dating took off.
William Jackson
1 month ago
In the world according to Disney, the perfect anything and everything exists, always existed. For example, Tom never catches Jerry, the abused sister becomes the princess, or the fairy etc. Combine Disney with, for example, Holywood’s often romantic claptrap, and senseless celebrity idealisation (as if an actor, or a pop singer knows any more than Joan or Jo Blogs), with marketing and advertising, then I suggest that that is what we, at least in the western world, have enveloped ourselves in. What I am describing is a child’s eye view of the world, of society, of family, of male and female, even, and for heaven’s sake, what makes a woman a female (may I suggest two X chromosomes, it is just that complicated). My question is, female or male, where did all the adults go? Someone else always has to be blamed, who, if anyone, is taking responsibility for anything any longer? (Definitely not the governing political class in the UK at least). Wishes of health and peace to all, William
So true! I go shopping for my children and I see a tonne of Charlie Brown and Scooby Doo gear that I would love to buy for them but when I go to get their fit it’s only adult sizes available. We are living the horrible legacy of the boomer influence.
Galvatron Stephens
1 month ago
I am surprised that anyone is surprised by this. The revolution always devours its mothers. Feminism is an ideology of the Left and the Left has always idealised and focused on the young as its favoured vanguard. It is also an individualist one which has seen families as oppressive. Yet left-wing ideologies have always assumed their adherents and people acting under them would act morally, an assumption which has never really been interrogated.
Feminism specifically has never had much of a concept of motherhood, other than it being an oppressive patriarchal construct invented by men to oppress all women. Why would a feminist show any family members loyalty or commitment? Bit too much emotional labour for the emancipated woman, dontcha think?
Why would a feminist show any deference to older women? I mean, think of all the things older feminists are guilty of that younger feminists are unhappy about. Older feminists are too white, too transphobic, too frigid, too bourgeois, didn’t abolish XYZ… New problems must be tackled, new grifts must be had, new heretics must be harvested. It is much easier to attack the older generation of any movement, as they have less energy and there are probably fewer of them. Even better if the old duffers are dead. They can’t defend themselves then. Ask Churchill.
The nuclear family has effectively been abolished. Feminism played a role in this, as any form of family life was oppressive to women. The result of this and other factors is that there is no moral or emotional impetus for anyone to have strong family relations now.
Ironically, male influence in families was wrecked first. Why would, for instance, men stick around to be fathers if men are seen as optional at best and harmful at worst? If a woman’s needs can be fulfilled by Big Daddy Government, then the man is just an inconvenience. A famous feminist slogan in the Sixties was “abolish the husband, abolish the father, abolish the patriarch”. Husbands and fathers have long been abolished. A majority of children now grow up in single-parent unmarried households. It does not take much to question how much women are expected to care about children under this arrangement in our indicidualistic, hedonistic age.
Why would mothers be any more loving than the often-absent fathers? If feminism regards motherhood as oppressive, then surely grandmotherhood is just as oppressive. Why, then, are we surprised at the antics of these grannies? In our individualistic society, other people are just an inconvenience to many, even if they are related.
Brilliant analysis! I would add that pregnancy was the invention of the nefarious patriarchy to deprive women of the best jobs, to make them less attractive to rivals, and to keep them imprisoned at home as cooks and personal sex slaves.
It’s imposisble to guess, given the intellectual standard of the comments here, whether you’re being ironic or not. That’s the joy of the unHerd blogsite.
Many feminists have complained about pregnancy being a unique oppression borne by women. So while you tried to mock my analysis, you accidentally said something true.
“The nuclear family has effectively been demolished”.
Utter cobblers. Seriously, have a look at the real world sometime- I live in a nuclear family, most of my friends do also, the great majority of people live in some variation of a nuclear family. The idea that the “husband as been abolished” exists only in some crazed online community ranting from their basements- it simply isn’t the real world. I had a dad. I am a dad. I will soon be a granddad.
Why don’t you just look at the actual world around you- of families, mothers, fathers, grandparents and children – instead of ranting in your wierd little online ideological fantasy construction?
John Holland you live in realm of luxury beliefs coined by Henderson. It’s great you have this group of intact nuclear families around you. You will all be, especially your children, better off for it. The kicker is, the commenter you disagree with is correct in the aggregate. The nuclear family has been decimated over decades by various progressive and control movements and society is not better off for it. Data that supports this view is all over the place, but in the interest of conciseness all one has to do is look at birth rates globally and you learn all you need to about the state of the intact family. It’s important to speak your truth but here your ‘lived experience’, if I can borrow a truly obnoxious progressive moniker, is quite limited to a privileged group.
You’ll have to explain how global birth rates (are they supposed to be too high at the moment, or too low- it’s hard to tell these days) justify the brainless, baying misogyny of half the comments here.
How has the “nuclear family”- never a universal fact of human society, whatever the historically-challenged blow-hards love to think- been “decimated” all over the globe by “progressives”? In China? In India? In Africa? No. “progressives”, whatever you think they are, have little to do with these social and economic changes. You’re indulging in simple, ideological explanations for complex changes in human societies.
If you want to invoke “data” or “aggregates”, you’ll need to be a little more specific than that.
Recent figures show the majority of British children are raised by single parents.
Many sociologists have claimed that the nuclear family is as good as ancient history for the lower classes.
My analysis is entirely correct and no amount of bitchy whining from you will change that.
Edwin Blake
1 month ago
I find much of this discussion of a matriarchy that means a reversion to some delayed adolescent rebellion, very silly.
I come from a family, on all sides, run by a matriarchy as far back as can be traced. It was always the women who made the family while the men went off to war and often got themselves killed, or went off as missionaries or big game hunters. The women fled invaders and marshalled the family. Who do you think organised food and children? Who did the growing generation look up to?
And when peace returned they didn’t relinquish their power at home. It seems the men didn’t want them to either.
Kat L
1 month ago
Boomer Feminism is destructive; they told my x generation to focus on career and give it away at every chance and now many are unhappily chasing late life fertility… if they ever even found a stable marriage. I now try to communicate those lessons to young women. But…I don’t see a conflict between doing maintenance to look great for your age and being there to help with the family.
A most sensible comment. Although my mum is a generationally part of the Boomer group, she thankfully does not subscribe to such destructive attitudes. I am well educated, professionally successful, married to my daughter’s father, and I believe that I have been a good mother to her just as mum taught me. My mum, who turned 70 today, looks great for her age, and is physically and mentally fit. It doesn’t have to be a conflict, and one can indeed accomplish both.
Steve Murray
1 month ago
I can only gape in wonder at how Mary is able to locate the pulses of so many societal impulses whilst caring for a young child. From observational experience, the amount of head- and heart-space, not to mention limb-space that being a mum of young children requires is phenomenal, and for many simply overwhelming. She epitomises the very essence of the selfhood, the personhood she describes as somehow newly characteristic of todays grannies whilst combining it with parenthood.
It’s absolutely a subject close to not just her own heart, but the heart of the ways we’re starting to transition from one generation to the next. It’s almost as if there’s some new factor at play which we can sense but can’t as yet fully grasp; a kind of mutation in our very humanity, with effects that are unknowable. For instance, it’s one thing for those young mums of today to espouse the view that they’ll take a different tack to their ‘glammies’ when in a position to do so, and to actually do so when the time comes, not least because society will have moved on again and their own daughters will have absorbed a whole new generations-worth of cultural influences which will go quite some way to how much scope their mums will have to fulfil their present-day intentions.
I’m inclined to think that railing against it (and i’m sure there will be plenty of posts doing so) does little except disable the requirement to start to try to understand, by harking back to something which is disappearing over the horizon behind us. Perhaps this feeling is unsettling – i feel it too, whilst also being responsible for initiating it in my own life, from a young teenager onwards, part of the post-war boomer generation. Mary seems to be doing the very same thing, which leads me to conclude that there may well be something going on here that is natural, in a literal sense. I suspect that’s why i find Mary’s articles so humane.
A most interesting post. Yup for some conscientious folk becoming a parent is overwhelming like you say. For others it grounds them into new sources of energy & can trigger a ‘sleeper must awaken’ effect. I’ve seen this with my friend Rowenna Davis who’s already phenomenal output (paid job, political work, civil society organising, director on a think tank etc) seemed to be boosted after she had her first child, and she takes being a good Mum very seriously.
As for this vital to understand new factor youre talking about, which is impacting our civilisation in all sorts of ways, often entwined with the excess individualism, Swarm activism & machine like thinking Mary often writes about, I’d hazard a guess it has its roots in some ancient tendencies. Firstly our propensity towards spiritual forgetfulness, which is millennial old (see ‘the Hymn of pearl’). And the centuries long ascendancy of Left brain thinking, well explained in Ian McGilchrists last two books.
As for why these tendencies seem to have recently metastasized into something new and more dangerous than before, this may be related to technology, most specifically to the smart phone that became so ubiquitous since 2011. An excellent short book about this is ‘The struggle for a human future’ by Jeremy Naydler. He connects it to both tech and the spiritual, including for example the Luciferean tendency which once contributed to beneficial individualisation but is now clearly going too far. There’s also Jean Twenge who is great on covering the psychic impact of the Smartphone from a more secular / mainstream science perspective.
You’re clearly understanding the essence of my post (and Mary’s article) and have added to that with specific references. Thanks. It all remains very exploratory, but if there’s one thing that characterises human civilisation it’s the will to explore. Some will remain in their caves, no doubt, but having sighted a new horizon there’s no going back now. We have to plough on to see what lies beyond it.
I can understand why to many, this may not be either appealing or understandable. The simple fact is, it may be a wrong turning to disaster or it may be the beginnings of the next successful stage in our evolution. Uncomfortable, yes; but if one thing is for sure, standing still isn’t an option.
Agree entirely. Yup an upswing is certainly possible, just wish any understanding I now have would let me see how to contribute to that. Instead it just makes me see how my younger more active self shares responsibility for making things worse, like you allude to in your first post. You’re reply reminded me of the Heidegger essays ‘The Question Concerning Technology and Other’ and ‘The turning’. These are easy to find online but let me quote a bit: There was a time when it was not technology alone that bore the name technē. Once that revealing that brings forth truth into the splendor of radiant appearing also was called technē. Once there was a time when the bringing-forth of the true into the beautiful was called technē. He argues that’s it’s art, aided by tech, that will be key in getting us to that next successful stage of evolution you mention. I’ve took a look at your pics, I really like your take on dualities like masculine /feminine & especially decadence / regeneration.
Ah, thanks for researching them. I’m still very much in the early stages of exploration in this medium. It takes time and infinite patience, which i’m only just learning about, but all the better for facilitating the challenge.
I also see equivalence between 20th century claims that “painting is dead” and the nihilism that arose at around the same time. I make it my task to demonstrate otherwise; that we’re only just beginning, providing we don’t destroy ourselves first.
James Wills
1 month ago
Of course, Freud never heard the old joke:
A fellow stumbles across a lamp on a California beach, rubs it, and the requisite genie pops out.
“Oh, boy! Three wishes!”
“No. It’s been a long week and I’m tired. You get one wish.”
“OK. I love Hawaii, but I am afraid of flying. I want a personal road from here to Honolulu so’s I can just drive there.”
“Jesus, you don’t want much, do you? I told you I’m tired. Pick something else.”
So he thinks, scratches his head, thinks some more. “OK, I have it. Just answer one question: What do women want?”
“Would you like that road two lanes or four?”
I see no reason to assume (as several comments do) that Freud understood men any better than he understood women. Freudian psychoanalysis has never been supported by empirical evidence and no longer has much influence among psychologists (not that the latter have anything like a good track record when it comes to understanding human nature). Nonetheless, some followers of Freud have turned his theory into something like an ideology. Others have used it as “evidence” to demonstrate their own rival ideologies.
Is he taken very seriously now in professional circles? Not for a long time, I think.
It seems to me that his theories these days are taken more or less symbolically- as literature, in effect. That’s to say, not scientifically serious, but nonetheless useful as a source of ideas and ways of talking about ourselves. Obviously, he didn’t invent the idea of the unconscious, but his ways of talking about repression are basic to the way laypeople talk about themselves.
All I know is he was a nutter and his daughters foundation Anna Freud Centre, is pushing all kinds of stuff in our schools.
Freud would have a field day analysing some of these comments…
It’s alright Charlie, it’s not as if many people take his theories very seriously now as scientific fact. Almost no-one, in fact.
He’s really only taken that seriously by furious people complaining about how seriously he’s still being taken. Which, I’m sure you’ll agree, is quite funny.
How much influence did he have on his daughters stuff though? I don’t really know tbh, but Anna Freud foundation seems to be behind all kinds of stuff in our schools. Not necessarily all stuff I approve of.
What do you make of:
I don’t know much about all that- it looks like the standard modern ‘touchy-feelly’ stuff. What in particular concerns you about it?
But regarding Freud, it’s quite funny how he was regarded for years by feminists as a patriarchal, misogynist old b****r, but lots of misogynist, patriarchal old buggers here regard him as the source of Man’s downfall.
I thought the video was a bit weird for want of the right words, they showed it to my daughters class, she’s only six, she was pretty upset by it when she came home.
I really don’t know much about the feminism Freud thing it’s coincidence that I came across the name again really because they send stuff out from school from the Anna Freud Centre. I checked it out after my daughter was upset by the video, it seems a bit heavy for six year olds.
It’s really all over the place what I know about Freud but I think in America he had a big bad influence that still lingers, I’ve copy and pasted because it says it better than I can:
‘Freudian thought has been embraced, actuated, and exemplified in contemporary America. This essay explicates four features of the trans-Atlantic instantiation of Freudian thought’
‘(1) Freud’s discovery of the unconscious mind laid the foundation for a central tenet of Western modernity: we cannot know our deepest motives. (2) Freud’s recognition of repression as the unique aspect of the individual mind made possible the modern notion of individual identity whose basis is narrative. (3) Freud’s recognition of the impossibility of full knowledge of the mind set the stage for the tenet of uncertainty. (4) Freud’s discovery that consciousness is based not in rational thought about reality but in a turbulent effort to control the unconscious offered a way to re-animate a world emptied of magic. The essay concludes with a critical summary of the process by which Freudian thought came to be pervasive in social-scientific viewpoints on American culture’
A book “Le livre noir de la psychanalyse” may have been translated in English and contains all responses you need. A key element of Freud’s success is that it flatters the narcissism of every involved participant, while more modern methods can be dull.
In Freud’s world, your mind a subject of infinite complexity, worthy of nuanced exploration as it treasures untold secrets. While more clinical approach may tell you to move on and take some pills or practice some positive (but boring) reinforcement routines.
Last edited 1 month ago by Emmanuel MARTIN
Suzanne C.
1 month ago
So much to say about this topic. I have so far succeeded in just what you describe here, both the matricide of a toxic, narcissistic mother and the creation and nurturing of a three generation family. It is possible, though the times that are coming will bring unimaginable challenges to every last bulwark of normalcy, we still have to try and bolster them.
My husband and I met at university at 17, in 1979. Both of us came from dysfunctional families, torn apart by adultery and alcoholism. We wanted something very different. There was a popular American television program in the 70’s, the Waltons, based on the true stories of a large Appalachian family during the depression. Silly as it seems, it stood for a shorthand way of expressing what we longed for, stability, faith, family. Our first child was born in 1983, her brother a year later. Homeschooling surfaced in the news soon after, just as we realized our second child, though gifted, would never fit in a classroom. 14 years later Asperger’s syndrome would be widely recognized, explaining why my son, and indeed myself, had so many social issues though verbally and intellectually fluent.
We went on to raise and homeschool our five children through high school. My husband worked as a consultant most of those years, working four days most weeks, leaving time for trips to museums, zoos, even grocery shopping was a group outing. They were wonderful years.My eldest child and only daughter has five sons, ten and under. We are very close, see each other most weeks though she lives about an hour away, and communicate daily. My grandsons visit often for days at a time and have their own room here with a basement full of toys, their uncle’s things augmented by new additions.
My eldest son married in China and brought his wife back to live with us while they established careers here. They lived with us for three and a half years. It turned out to be far easier than we expected until Covid made six adults living under one roof without leaving the house a little too much. Getting them into their own place months before prices skyrocketed turned out to be a huge blessing. When I say that they trust me to watch their precious two year old daughter I have said a lot about our relationship. I have always been very close to this son, but I love my daughter in law more than I thought possible. She is a wonderful mother, but she comes from a culture that hasn’t evicerated motherhood regardless of its other faults.
We have close relationships with our as yet unmarried younger sons and the entire family are often together, now numbering 16. We are blessed in that politics and religion has not driven a wedge as with so many, everyone leans right of center and identifies as Catholic whether fiercely practicing or not.
It has not been perfect. The rebellion so many experience with teens was delayed to the early 20’s with some, partially because of the sheltering, partially because intellectual kids living in their books are often socially immature and don’t feel the need to separate as early.
I was very influenced by Rudolph Steiner’s concept of home as a therapeutic place of refuge and shelter from the world, and that is what we have worked single-mindedly to build. Given the state of the world this may have been prescient. I could say a lot more about bad mothers, bad grandmothers, and the selfishness of the generation immediately preceding me, but I’ve already gone on too long. I am not Grammy either, but Nana, not because it’s cool but because my mother insisted on being called Grammy and the word is tainted forever. She never baked a cookie either, but I’ve made six dozen this morning with my granddaughter.
I wanted to delete this because it really sounds obnoxiously triumphalist, but Mary’s point seemed to me to say that there are young women who want this and wonder if it’s possible and I wanted to be encouraging. I have many regrets, made many mistakes, one or two that were huge and damaging. We have what we have in spite of making mistakes. One of our children has needs that we never seemed able to fully meet, and I’m sure each of the others can point to many similar instances in their lives, besides the obvious. It was a long way from our childhoods and I wish it could have been farther but old sins cast long shadows.
Sounds like a Wonderful Life (so to speak!).
What you describe might perhaps seems strange or foreign to many for whom family is a an equally foreign concept….but what you describe is the way most (?) families used to be. And perhaps many still are. I know several, but they are not the majority.
I suspect that a significant portion of this happy equilibrium you detail may be due to the fact that you “are blessed in that politics and religion has not driven a wedge as with so many, everyone leans right of center and identifies as Catholic whether fiercely practicing or not.” Ten years ago I would have thought that nonsense (how could a vote or an ideological preference interfere with family!!!)…now, not so much. The shallowness of the roots, I guess: too easily torn & twisted if tainted by the talking heads.
Best wishes for a similarly golden future!
I hardly ever comment on here, but thanks for sharing this. I’m likewise a child of dysfunctional parenting trying to do better. I hope you have many more years of enjoying your family ahead!
Anthony Michaels
1 month ago
Whenever people talk about “the patriarchy” in the modern west, the discussion immediately becomes quite theoretical and academic. It’s almost as if the patriarchy died several decades ago.
“It’s almost as if the patriarchy died several decades ago.”
Unfortunately, the roughly 3,000 women killed each year in the US alone by their male partners are still dying. Men commit almost all of the sexual violence in the world and most of the murders. The fact that men are murdered by other men doesn’t change that they also murder women at a ratio of about 100:1.
“Patriarchy” may have died, but systematic male violence against women certainly hasn’t.
I thought it was supposed to be very mean of women to suggest that men were violent? Several blokes here have claimed to be insuted by the suggestion, as if it were a feminist smear- one even saying that lesbians are the worst perpetrators of domestic violence.
Are you saying, in fact, that men ARE inherently violent? I’m just trying to get this straight, as there are some wild contradictions here in the defenses of men against what seems to be seen as the oppression by women.
“Men” are not all the same. There are bad actors, and violent ones, that some women find very attractive, and they are responsible for many violent crimes against women. And despite all warnings and advice, they go back to them all the same.
Women have agency. They are able to make adult decisions about whom they frequent. Anyone – but especially men – who try to dissuade them are infringing upon their rights as women to choose their partners. But if it ends badly, then many will denounce their own agency in favour of victimhood at the hands of “men.”
People are complicated and contradictory. We have “agency”, but we are also subject to our history and psychology, and manipulative people know how to exploit these weaknesses.
To simply say, in effect, ‘you got what you asked for’ to a victim of domestic violence is both cruel and wildly simplistic. Of course, there’s often a grain of truth in it- but there’s also a huge and wilful blindness to the awkward truth of people’s lives, often starting with an abusive parent.
My Mother was physically abused as a child, and was physically abused by my Father; it must, even in courtship, have been fairly obvious that he was domineering, at the least. Would you say my Mother got was she asked for, and leave it at that?
By your line of reasoning then, should men benefit from the same defense that their lives are “complicated and contradictory,” and therefore deserve understanding when physically – or emotionally -abused by a domineering parent? There lies a slippery slope….
Yes, obviously, in psychological terms- except there’s a clear ethical and practical difference between someone beating their partner, and the partner being beaten.
Do you agree?
Not asked for it — as in the poor lady personally deserved it, but the majority of us, in many ways, prefer to seek a comfort level, and what is familiar does have, however grotesque, a comfort level. Life has a way of grooving game paths in our synapses. The more analytic we are, the greater self-determination we can achieve. Perhaps that is why the saying endures, “An unexamined life is not worth living.”
Homicide is, indeed, a serious problem. But it’s always helpful to get the numbers right.
In 2020, about 4300 women & 17,000 men were murdered. Of those, it’s estimated that about 1800 of the women (41%) were murdered by male partners, and 1200 men by female partners (about 7%).
This would give us a ratio of women killed by intimate partners to men killed by intimate partners of about 3:2….meaning for every 3 women killed by a male partner, there are 2 men killed by a female partner.
These numbers vary by year and the degree of granularity also varies, but by almost any measure the intimate partner homicide ratio is significantly smaller than then 100:1 that you misleadingly quote. Nor can we say that this violence is systematic, meaning done methodically or according to some master plan.
As for whether it’s systemic….violence itself is systemic.
Whenever people talk about “the patriarchy,” they do not do so as cultural anthropologists or archeologists. They do so as feminists, for whom that word refers to a conspiracy theory of history–that men have conspired since the dawn of human history to oppress women. This is an ideological theory, a profoundly cynical one at that and no more verifiable than Marx’s “dialectical materialism” or Freud’s “Oedipus complex.” Our society is not a utopia. Women do have serious problems, and so do men. But this is hardly a patriarchal society, in which fathers rule.
It’s not a patriarchy, in the technical sense. But it IS a society in which the most wealthy people are men, most political leaders are men, most corporate leaders are men, and the vast majority of violent acts are committed by men.
Now, it’s possible to argue that this is biological determinism- that this is simply how things should be. Plenty of angry (and probably single) men on this site say so. There’s no need at all to invoke a “conspiracy”- men were men, and women shut up or were belted, and quite right too, as my Dad used to say. The “verifiable” bits were the bruises. No need for theory, “cynical” or otherwise…
I never said that any form of social organization is more “natural” than any other. As for our own society, it’s not patriarchal even in a metaphorical sense. Neither is it a matriarchal one. (There have been a few of those, although they’re unstable.) Rather, it’s a gynocentric one. It is systemically preoccupied with the needs and problems of women and systemically ignores those of men (although the rise of wokism has now added a systemic focus on race). Until very recently, social scientists seldom bothered to measure those; now, many are afraid to do so for fear of woke vigilantes.
Nor have I ever invoked a conspiracy theory of history. Ideologically oriented feminists have done that (and so have wokers).
There are many kinds of power, moreover, and women have certainly wielded their own kinds throughout history. Now, increasingly, they wield also the kinds of power that have been associated with men. I’m not convinced that the number of men and women in legislatures says much about anything. If elected male officials could represent only men and elected female officials could represent only women, our democracies would be impossible. And the same thing is true of all people who speak and act in the public square: business executives, journalists, academics, judges, bureaucrats and so on. There are dissenters, but even they must be mindful of what women say and do.
Caroline Ayers
1 month ago
Love your writing Mary! Only one comment on the article itself; when we are born our eggs are all in our ovaries, not our uterus.
Yes, i did wonder about that, but assumed on first reading that Mary meant the eggs of a woman’s grandchildren are in her uterus – in the ovaries of the female foetus she’s carrying. But i think you’re right, a strange anatomical error.
Daniel P
1 month ago
At 57 yrs of age, having grown up in a house with 3 sisters and my mother, having spent years in a female dominated sport (horse competition) with female coaches, having dated for 44 yrs, having a daughter and an ex wife, I STILL have only the barest clue what women want.
BUT….I think I have come to a reason for why that is. Women do not know what they want and when they do it is very likely to change before you can respond to it or change on a dime based on some context. I’ve just reached a point where I realize that the nature of most women is mercurial and that being in a relationship with one, wife, daughter, mother, cousin, any relationship, is like being a surfer. There are days with big, dangerous waves and days with slow rollers but there are always waves to navigate. Accept that you are never gonna be in control, that the best you can do is react and respond to the changing conditions in front of you and pray you do not fall off or that the curl doesn’t bury you and slam you into the bottom. Exciting and thrilling and simultaneously dangerous and terrifying.
Absolutely. I, and most women, have found men to be still points in a raging ocean; never changing their minds, never getting emotional (anger is not an emotion so that doesn’t count). They can always be relied up on to be there, a rock in a storm, a beacon to guide us. I’ve run out of metaphors here, so – the end.
Ha ha! Yes- it’s ‘funny’ how a propensity to violence is seen as a manifestation of intellectual rigour and dispassionate cogitation by the misogynists.
Infinite agency.
Zero responsibility.
Feminism in four words.
Gee. My feminism entailed helping women in fear for their lives after years of beating escape from their abusers w/o abandoning their children, or helping women just brutally raped. Around 3k women each year in the US are murdered by their male partners–the handful of males murdered by female partners typically have a bunch of felony batteries and TROs in their wake.
Male violence against women=male entitlement in four words.
Male violence against women could be anything. If a woman is killing a man’s child and he pushes her away, that is male violence towards the woman. Is it entitlement?
However tragic it may be that 3k women die of domestic violence every year, it is statistically tiny.
The fact that such idiotic comment gets ‘6’ upticks here is pretty depressing.
And yet the most violent of relationships isn’t male/female nor even male/male but female/female; that’s right, lesbians have the worst record for domestic violence. It’s because you’ve paired together 2 of the same sex where most likely both are feminists which means as a woman they are never wrong but teh problem is that their partner is also a woman and so they can’t both be never wrong. In a Male/Female relationship the majority of men put up with this b/c men can’t hit a woman without consequences but 2 women certainly can go at each other.
Your experience is just that “Your” experience and not necessarily reflective of most of what happens or is.
This was quite an interesting factoid.
Two women can’t share a kitchen
I resent the implication all men batter their wives, demonstrably false.
She didn’t imply that at all, so your “resentment” is misplaced.
These feminists would of course oppose any efforts to name and shame minority communities that have far higher crime rates against women.
What is also ironic is that those who claim women are helpless, weak victims of men (ignoring male victims because they don’t matter) are also precisely the same demographic that demand equal pay for female footballers, allowing women in the army or liberally adding female superheroes or action stars in movies. Because girl power, women are as strong as men, etc.
I read a term somewhere, maybe here or YouTube – Schrödinger’s feminism. Women can be both helpless victims or strooong, until you open the box and figure out what’s more convenient.
Male violence against women.
They really ought to pass a law against that.
I mean, men shouldn’t be entitled to do that, should they?
We are a country of 330 million…about half of those are men. Not excusing it but it isn’t common place in everyday life here.
The fact that feminists couldn’t care less about male victims of domestic violence (about 1/3rd of the total, zero resources or help), or the mostly male victims of workplace accidents, homelessness or suicides, just underlines his point.
Plenty of men officially (as police, lawmakers or simply good samaritans) step on to help females.
Feminists on the other hand?
Always victims, no responsibility, introspection or accountability.
Samir. Every feminism discussion you have a meltdown about feminists destroying everything.
Every thread I go after you, you wimp out.
Sorry to piss on your bonfire AGAIN (sorry I know you don’t like womens ‘violent verbal politics’ was it last time?) but once again. I ask you. Where are your sources for your woman hating tropes?
I think we know Samir’s “sources”- a lifetime of repeated rejection. Which is sad, but not a reasonable basis for a philosophy.
Yeah bless him, he posts like one who has much to learn. I keep scaring him off too.
I’ll keep roasting him. He needs to come out and slap down my verbal politics, I was hoping for at least a vain attempt, a bit of sport. Come on Samir, I’ve got loads of verbal politics. They used to say at home I never know when to shut up. Right of coarse. But it doesn’t stop me from carrying on.
Cheers to you and John for pushing against a persistent, predictable tide on this comment board! I hope your informed, contra-lunatic-ranting stance reflects the views of more readers than screens would indicate. In any case, your pushback is welcome. Keep calm and carry on then.
I’m intrigued as to why this site- which has consistently interesting and varied articles- attracts such a relentlessly nutty right-wing sort of commenter, way outside the normal range of opinions one meets in life, thank God.
I suppose it’s all down to the dreaded ‘algorithms’, which are used to seek out the dispossesed, the angry and fringe conspiracy theorists, and in this case, the poor, delicate chaps who think the world went to pot the day women were given the vote, or the Witchfinder General lost his day-job. I have to remind myself that this isn’t the norm, it’s a strange collection of self-selecting individuals and just one of the odd manifestations of online demographics, even though they like to think of themselves- as such extremely vocal types invariably do- as the ‘silent majority’.
You and me both! Every time I read an excellent article on here my feeling of satisfaction immediately plummets when I see the retrograde comments. If only the audience lived up to the content.
Let’s stick together!
I agree with you and Kirsten. Periodically I have to take a break from reading the comments. It isn’t that I mind if they are right or left-wing but that the commenters from the right seem to se their opinions as facts.
Exactly. Well said. Only saw this about a week after your post but yes I was hoping to liberate (liberalize?) that “silent majority” saying from its Nixonian origins.
One hypothesis: This website lets a lot of comments through, and far-right commenters may not encounter that liberty on relatively mainstream–i.e., not insistently-wackadoodle–websites, especially for rat-a-tat back-and-forth exchanges [?].
Not to brag but I’m leading the downvotes right now.
Thank you! Lol minus three votes. The lunatics are strong on this platform..
You in turn remind me of an amusing exchange with a feminist on twitter.
I pointed out that one third of domestic violence victims are men.
She got quite enraged, and shrilly pointed out that while 1 in 4 women are victims of DV, the corresponding levels for men were only “1 in 8”.
So, sorry to disappoint you, but you are free to pretend that
A. Men aren’t a third of the victims of domestic violence, or account for most workplace accidents, homelessness or suicides
Or
B. Feminists display absolute contempt for the above, and predominantly focus on portraying women as victims
And as for not liking womens ‘violent verbal politics’ , it isn’t a personal experience or view.
I suggest you ask your female friends aged 30 plus, whether they would prefer a male or female boss.
Go on. You might get surprised.
Ah sport! Well done samir. I salute you.
I’m not that invested in battling stats on this, it’s not a subject I’m that invested in but I’ve started so I will finish.
You still have provided no source for your assertion :
‘The fact that feminists couldn’t care less about male victims of domestic violence (about 1/3rd of the total, zero resources or help), or the mostly male victims of workplace accidents, homelessness or suicides, just underlines his point.’
Surely feminists promote women’s issues? Isn’t that the point?
Or the assertion:
Feminists on the other hand?
Always victims, no responsibility, introspection or accountability.
Sounds a very sweeping statement. Or are you just basing everything on your twitter exchanges?
Ask my female friends if they want a male or female boss? What is that a weird social experiment? What answer would I be surprised to get? I don’t mind either way really as long they’re not a nutter. I certainly don’t think you should be in charge of hiring people any time soon though.
I have serious doubts about violence statistics because it does not define actual damage which can go from death to the faintest of bruises and the level much pain inflicted. A pinch can be very painful but leave little evidence.
A woman slapping a man very hard who happens to be heavy weight boxer or a very solid prop forward will do little damage, a light frail man could be knocked to the ground.
This is why I consider more thought should be given to relative size, strength and ability to withstand blows of those involved when considering acts of violence.
We talk around each other. Like ships in the night, we steam by these monolithic shapes, vaguely seen, and shout curses at the passing shadows. It’s really rather silly.
Feminism is clearly more than 4 words…but those particular 4 words of William’s capture the worst of it. Heck, they capture the worst of much of what we see everywhere. ‘Infinite Agency / Zero Responsibility’: the current generation which accumulates empty degrees, and 6 figure debt, ignorant & entitled & living in Mom’s basement while waiting for the Loan Forgiveness Fairy to kiss them on their forehead and make it all better (all while shouting Diversity, Inclusivity, and Equity!)
And yes, of course, there is a part of Feminism, particularly in the 1st and 2nd Waves. which insisted, rightfully so, on equal pay for equal work and equal access given equal skills. Who would disagree? But we must also acknowledge that there are other aspects of those 4-Waves which are twisted & poisonous. We can hear those loud & strident voices insisting that there is no difference between men & women (Biologic Essentialism — Oh My!)… that all sex is rape… and marriage a form of chattel servitude, and family a prison. We can see the Activists and Academicians working diligently to make ‘Gender’ performative even as they cancel Women by refusing all definitions, or telling us ‘they’re people with vulvas’.
Tragically, none of those Feminist Ideologies of whatever stripe have succeeded in eliminating violence against women. If anything, we might suspect that the last 50 years of insistence on outcome equality (Where are the female lumberjacks!?)…and the inevitable lowering of quality standards (https://freebeacon.com/latest-news/absolutely-insane-connecticut-law-would-axe-fitness-requirements-for-female-firefighters/) to achieve outcome equality has incited at least some of it.
But no, male violence against women does not equal male entitlement. Male violence is only violence. And men are significantly more violent (not because they feel a sense of entitlement but because they can be violent and are naturally aggressive). Looking at the murders committed in ’21…87% were committed by men…and 78% of the victims were also men. (a different and more dangerous kind of biologic essentialism).
I’ve got no sympathy with those women because they pick up anything in trousers,that’s got a p***s,of course rather than suffer the still real stigma of being a man- less spinster. They usually live in neighbourhoods where that weird isolated,lonely woman who no one talks to is thought to be a witch and they encourage their children to throw stones at her,and the fact she HASNT GOT A MAN is perceived as sinister and disturbing. Bunch of fat,drunken,tattooed slatterns.
3k is a tiny number compared to the number of cohabiting heterosexual couples . Who would have guessed men were so gentle and forbearing ?
Really? What a bizarre assertion. Why specify only women for this claim, and not men?
Truth and reality might have something to do with that. Not all men have been suckered into going along with the feminist non-sense; the societal cancer it is.
They may be the “truth and reality” for a bunch of whining, misogynist incels crying into their laptops, but they ain’t mine dear.
“Incel” is now as tired as “small pee pee”, “mother’s basement” and all the other insults for people who object to feminism. Do better.
It’s not an insult, it’s a self-description. It’s what these sad people call themselves. You’ll find them easily enough, should you want to, if you type ‘I hate feminists’ into your computer.
I’ve never heard of “small pee pee”- how quaint. Do you mean small d**k?
Which claim are you referring to?
The claim that feminism is “infinite agency, zero responsibility”.
I did not specify women anywhere in that assertion. I specified an ideology, not a demographic as such.
To which the answer (regarding “evidence”) is: John (are you really a John, I wonder?…) where do you live? Under a rock, perhaps?
Why would I not be a ‘John’? Are we already into conspiracy theories, so soon? Are you ‘really an ‘Andre’, I wonder…..?’ How do I know you’re not a robot from the future, sent to destroy humanity? Or, even worse (help!) Andrea, a WOMAN!!!!!
And no, I don’t live under a rock, thanks for asking- I live in the normal world, with a wife, a couple of jobs and a family, with normal friends of both sexes; rather than the wierd, online Men’s Victimhood Society that most of the commenters here seem to spend an unhealthy amount of time in.
You should try it, Andre. It’s not nearly as scary as some people here think it is. You might even get laid, if you’re lucky….
No conspiracy theories, on my side at least. Just the infantile habit of posting as a man when you’re a woman, quite common these days. As for the ad hominem disparaging, it only lets everyone realize how mature you are… Anyways, enough of attention to you.
Oh my God, it turns out I’m a woman! Thanks for telling me, Andre, or Andrea, or whatever you are.
By the way, look up the meaning of ‘ad hominem’- it doesn’t mean what the standard dumb internet usage thinks it is.
As a movement, ‘feminism’ is dead – it lost the plot a while back…
Accountability is kryptonite to women.
Aren’t women horrible, Will? Absolutely awful.
If only us men could live together without them, just us strong, naked, lithe chaps, muscles all glistening in the purifying sunlight, limbs glistening like sweaty bronze….. far, far from `Mummy and her suffocating, emasculating embrace…
The way I see this is, any ideology that centres itself around selfishness will be unwilling to pass the baton on (why be selfness for the next generation if your point is about being selfish), and eventually starve itself out unable to continue. Or reading it backwards, any ideology or society that’s dying out because it can’t have continuity may have been doing so because they adopted a selfish ideology some time back.
Judging by birthrates, Western society (esp Europe) is quite literally dying out. This may be because of a selfish ideology adopted a while back.
Modern Western culture is an “ideology that centres itself around selfishness”–would you call any movement that asks for rights not to be battered and raped w/ impunity “selfish?” Was the Civil Rights Movement “selfish?”
“raped w/ impunity” – I hope you’re not referring to marriage with that.
I would have in mind things like drug use, lack of commitment to raising children or family, lack of interest in creating a community / knowing your neighbours, lack of respect for hard work or on its inverse being focused solely on financial success at the expense of others – that kind of thing. None of these are unique to Western societies of course, but a liberal system based on “experiments on living” obviously won’t be there to tell you not to do these things.
Sorry, but your comment has to be called out as being utterly obnoxious and infantile.
What exactly was “obnoxious” about it?
Standard Culdy Sack comment sadly.
“Infantile.” Now THERE’S good word for characterizing something a woman says. I notice Suburbia’s comment was something more than name-calling, unlike your reply.
The right not to be battered and raped already exists. It’s why people proven to have violated those rights go to jail.
Occasionally, yes. Not very often.
The Met Police officer Carrick has finally been arrested after raping at least 12 women over a period of 20 years, despite a number of accusations against him, during which he was promoted several times. “Nasty” was his Met nickname, apparently.
The rights exist otherwise the laws would not be in place.
Yes. I realise that. And I have a right not to be burgled, but whether the police are inclined to investigate a burglery, to bring a case to court, or the courts to prosecute it, is an entirely different issue.
I think one of the sticking points on your comment is “proven.” That’s a high bar to cross when police won’t even test a rape kit or listen to a woman’s complaints to begin with.
I guess the police have more IMPORTANT things to do than listen to a woman’s “infantile” complaints, regardless of how “shrilly” they are lodged.
Did I miss any of the dog-whistles used for women in this comments thread?
“Accountability is kryptonite to women.”
“Zero responsibility.”
“…the obsession with patriarchy is overdone.”
“Hi Mom, what say you completely rearrange your life to be a free, on-demand babysitter for my kids? What? You won’t?!”
That was my reaction too (Gen X not a Boomer)
This was my reaction as well, and that’s from a Gen Z baby. Who would want to be unable to say no to any childcare demands, no matter how last minute or unreasonable, on pain of jeopardising your housing arrangement?
Funny – I know plenty of people who do that for their families but they’re not white English people.
Yes, it seems that this selfish, narcissistic way of life has captured the Anglosphere, in particular. Affluence can be a curse, for sure. Family is still #1 in many other cultures, to their credit and to the Anglosphere’s peril.
It’s possible you have a point, but I’m not sure what it is. Is it that, because those people you know do it, “white English” people should also do it? If so, your logic escapes me.
It’s more a remark than a point really. You made a comment I understood to say what’s described in the article wasn’t necessarily a reasonable ask – which was heavily agreed with/voted by people. Seeing this I remarked this seems to be a white English thing as in my circle it’s fairly common practice.
Fair enough. I appreciate your measured reply, and I apologise for misjudging your previous one.
And I know quite a few who are white English people.
On the other hand we were expected to routinely drag two toddlers across an entire continent for week long stays with family during which neither set of grandparents offered to babysit even for an hour. There is no doubt this issue breeds resentment. I certainly resented it.
I can understand your resentment. It will often arise if you accede to other people’s unreasonable expectations. But, as my old dad used to say: “You have a choice: do it, or moan about it; but don’t do it and moan about it.”
I love babies so would be happy to assist in rearing my descendants and being an influence in their lives. Many of today’s children don’t know basic fairy tales or nursery songs or games, I would love to pass down that cultural heritage.
I genuinely applaud your willingness to pitch in. That being the case, you should look for ways to make it easier for you to do so. It just struck me as massively entitled for someone to think it reasonable to ask someone else, even a parent, to move house because it would make their own life easier.
The thing is that families are a bulwark and provide stability and cohesion. You don’t have to give up your own enjoyments and goals to help out. By no means should you be a doormat but why wouldn’t you want to spend a good amount of time with the people who you love the most?
I agree with you where family is concerned, but the devil is in the details: from my perspective, the expectation that the mother would determine how much time her mother spends with the grandchild, not the grandmother herself, is implicit in the request that the grandmother make such a major change to her own life.
You ask, “why wouldn’t you want to spend a good amount of time with the people who you love the most?”, but we all have our own idea of what constitutes a “good amount of time”.
I feel the obsession with ‘patriarchy’ is overdone. The belief has become an unchallenged cult, blamed for everything.
It is hardly surprising that with women having and caring for babies and children, and men being more suited to a physical protection role that they had different spheres of control.
Inevitably most men don’t want to be told when or how to risk their lives by a woman who is not going to fight but instead want to make such decisions with their comrades who they will fight with. This then leads to male control of war and the pre war state, which ultimately covers a lot of areas. Not the household though where the woman has traditionally been in charge in most cultures.
Now that war is being taken away from the individual (militarily, culturally and legally) it is reasonable for woman to want more control over their life. However this is leaving men with a reduced and uncertain role and is making our society less able to withstand violent threats when they arrive. And they will and are.
At some point we will regret the loss of the maleness that we used to have. Probably in the next decade.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the arrival of nuclear weapons and really the detente in the Cold War, and the start sexual revolution/women’s emancipation follow each other. In all likelihood, the patriarchy narrative was made possible basically because of nuclear weapons.
To add to the above, nuclear weapons may not be able to keep us in peace indefinitely. Some day, some nation may be able find an asymmetric weapon, or find means to hack into others’ weapon systems. That’s where today’s danger lies for me.
Men no longer preoccupied by war can divert their energies to protecting the family identity of female and male from the ravaging war being waged against the family unit by ideology cults who have invaded our establishment our schools hospitals prisons etc? (Aka Tavistock and mermaids) Maybe our warrior men are not superfluous but can help defend womanhood and womens safe spaces?
Women have been fighting for themselves for decades at the expense of men. It’s time men woke up and fought for themselves. No more sacrifices for a section of humanity that hates us.
Oh dear- was Mummy mean to you?
Your contribution to this thread seems to be ad hominem disparaging remarks directed at anyone with whom you disagree.
You don’t think perhaps that the accusation of “ad hominems” (which is misplaced, as you seem to follow the standard misunderstanding of the term as meaning ‘personal insult’, which it doesn’t), when applied to a thread largely consisting of a bunch of angry men getting increasingly bilious about women who don’t behave as they think they should, is just a little ironic? You just whined that most women “hate you”, for God’s sake. That’s not exactly Socratic in its dispassionate intellectualism, is it? What do you want, a bowl of ice cream and a hanky?
If you don’t like “ad hominem” (sic) disparaging remarks directed at anyone with whom you disagree (ie, the great majority of women), you must strongly dislike most of the stuff here.
I was fully enjoying it. You Americans don’t understand British humour at all do you? There’s little left when all hope of rationality has abandoned ship to crazy American feminist rants.
This not a nice comment. Totally unnecessary.
Whereas a comment by a man whining that women are hateful and men need to “fight” back is both “nice” and “necessary”
Good grief.
John, the downvotes should be enough for you to realize just how much your opinion is appreciated over here. Do yourself a favour and go join some feminist march somewhere, please? People are trying to discuss as adults here, and you are sticking out like a sore thumb.
Andre, dear, the reason this blog is called ‘unHerd’ is precisely because it supposedly prides itself on NOT being a repository for the kind of braying “herd” mentality that infests the internet these days.
Sadly, you represent exactly this braying herd mentality, the sort of group-think clone who cannot cope with a different viewpoint, and merely wants to sit in some half-witted echo-chamber of your own ‘thoughts’ , unchallenged by anything or anyone. In which case, why not just sit in a darkened room and talk to yourself? You’ll be guaranteed not to be upset by a differring opinion.
Problem is, when you have spent decades pathologising males and their agency, you might not get the response you wish for when you appeal for their aid.
Feminism helped create a world where men are at a loss as to what they are supposed to be and where male activity is constantly subject to outside approval. The same kind of men who will be aware of the trans issue are the same kind of men who would be horrified of being called a sexist, and as such, are equally horrified of being called a transphobe. Men know that they will be condemned whatever they do.
Ironically the men who hold the most traditional views on gender are the working-class types feminists would never dream of associating with and who couldn’t care less what feminists think.
Most men are doing ok- they have jobs, families, friends, they watch sport, go to the pub, secretly look at a bit of porn, do the gardening and even change nappies. They aren’t “condemned” by anyone for doing these things.
They don’t tend to spend their time crying to everyone about their victimhood and how they suffer under such a cruel dystopian nightmare. Maybe you should give it a try.
I was obviously referring to men’s role in society. Men are seen as optional, at best. Greater minds than yours are concerned, female and male.
Men clearly aren’t seen as “optional” by anyone other than a few fringe figures who can be safely ignored by any sane person.
You might think they are “great minds”, but 99% of normal humans think they just need to get laid and find a hobby.
My only problem with this line of thinking is it portrays men as helpless victims of the unreasonable demands of women. I personally find that cringe worthy. Men find great comfort in strong established roles and are very hierarchical. The women’s movement smashed that up. We have been called to reimagine what bravery, commitment and sacrifice look like. Instead of relying on mum to affirm our manhood. We all know what manhood looks like, especially women. It’s time to take our hands off it and get on with it without constantly looking for female approval.
I am trying, as, it seems, are quite a few men. Just don’t understand why some men and lots of women seem to support the transcultists.
It is damaging to both sexes/genders and all of society.
In effect we are now at war, just one where guns are not being used. Yet.
The trans agenda dovetails into a lot of the things that helped feminism succeed
1) assertion that a group is oppressed or vulnerable (then women, now trans)
2) a desire for people to be seen as tolerant and inclusive towards this group
3) an opponent group who are seen as discriminatory and cruel to the group (feminism would have painted this figure as an archetype of sexism and male chauvinism, the trans equivalent is what they call a TERF)
4) an environment of liberalism which makes people subconsciously believe freedom is the ultimate end and that the more freedom there is the better.
The trans have two more things going for them
A) for young men who are fed up of the way they feel they are treated by society, they can instantly become part of a progressive “in-group” by becoming trans. Going from male to trans woman means going from the very bottom of the progressive stack right to the very top. Once in the crosshairs of the Left, they are now aiming the gun.
B) a lot of young men will seek to “get back” at women by presenting as one
C) there is a potentially huge social dividend to being trans and young. Trans people can make a LOT of money as social media figures in a way men simply cannot. There is a boy at a local school being “transitioned” by 5 girls. He has instantly boosted his social circle. Being trans is a popular thing amongst the young.
Most ‘trans’ people are now girls wanting to become boys- more than two-thirds. This does rather contradict your simple theories.
Depends what numbers you look at. The main concern is male to female transition. Then again, you don’t seem to be able to really do much in the comments section other than be obtuse and insult people.
It’s a fact, in the UK at least- if you have figures that dispute it, please say.
And why is the “main concern” male to female transition? Whose “main concern”, and why? Perhaps you mean YOUR main concern- in which case, why is the one so much more of a “concern” to you than the other?
And yes, many of my comments today have been a bit, er, tetchy- that’s because the comments I’m responding to have been pretty unpleasant misogynist ranting. If someone posts that stuff, they should surely be ‘man enough’ to take it on the chin, no? Or should we blame their Mothers?
Where are your figures from?
The main concern is male-to-female transitioners because these individuals are biological men who are seeking access to women’s spaces. You would know that if you were so knowledgable about the trans issue. Various feminists have written on Unherd about it. You can pollute the comments on those articles too.
“Misogynistic ranting”. Lol. Get a grip. I think you got bullied a lot at school.
“Where do you get you figures from?” There is no strict authority, but the great majority of studies put the current number at around 2/3rds female to male- see Meier and Lebusky , ‘The demographics of transgender population’.
“Various feminists have written…” I thought you hated feminists, and blamed them for most of the world’s ills? Why are you now telling me I should read these hateful, man-hating harridans? Make your mind up.
“I think you got bullied a lot at school”. Ah. Very good argument. I’ve tried to think of an intellectual counter to that epistemological theory, but I just can’t. Top marks.
Yes Samantha I think I agree with that. Whenever I see us bemoan the loss of traditional roles I think it is mostly a loss of imagination. Are we saying that we no longer need men to be brave? Do we no longer need men to be protective? Do we no longer need men to be father to children? My God, there is a world of work to do as you pointed out. The traditional roles for men and women do not become superfluous. They just need to be reimagined.
Well said.
Many of these grandparents have done their duty, raised the next generation and now want a break from both work and small children and expect the next generation to do their bit now, as they did. Not everyone wants their last years on earth surrounded by horrible little brats running and screaming around, for which they no longer have the energy of youth to tolerate. Especially as the current generation of parents – and our current legal system – forbids giving such brats the corporal punishment – the belt, the ruler to the knuckles that all children were familiar with 50 years ago – they deserve that we used to have. Back when we were (quite properly) expected to be seen and not heard and feared the wroth of adults if we dared to intrude on their adult world with our insufferable childishness.
That other cultures that contributed a mere iota of what the English have think differently strikes me as a moot point.
Well Ukrainian men have been expected to be very traditional whether they like it or not. I am always surprised at how many of them are middle aged in the combat footage. I would have been all over being a warrior when I was 19 – not so much in my middle age.
No feminists in house fires, the Titanic or trenches on the Ukrainian battlefield
Plenty in HM Submarines unfortunately.
Three women submariners as fas as I know.
Which may be your definition of “plenty”, but it’s a lot less than the number of women “victims” who have murdered their partners.
Edit: 2016. Could be modestly higher now, I guess.
I agree.
However there has been quite a bit of “bovver “ in HM Submarines in recent years despite the MoD doing its very best to suppress any mention of it.
Courts Martial have been the result and one tabloid has highlighted the scandal, rather amusingly as “UP PERISCOPE “!
Oh, to be in a long hard vessel full of seamen, Samir….
ps. (Useless information.)
You serve IN a Royal Navy vessel not ON.
The only two exceptions used to be H.M.S.Aisne and H.M.S. Opportune. Both now scrapped.
What you also do ON a navy vessel is to watch out for other ships. Not a hard task, given the extent of navigation aids and radars.
Which is something that the crew of the USN Fitzgerald and KNM Helge Ingstad failed to do, quite miserably, under benign conditions.
Guess what was the common link?
In other news, the royal navy is trying to double the number of women (overall, not those in submarines and stuff) from 1 in 10 currently. Should be good. Strangely, no such initiative for increasing male teachers in schools though.
A thought-provoking article, particularly as it’s very relevant to me. I was a radical ‘80s feminist and I’m now a grandmother. I have been seriously re-thinking my views around women and men for some years and I have been letting go of the idea I must prove myself in the ‘outside world’ at the same time as being a single mother. Even though I was seriously programmed by feminist ideology, it still feels natural to me to home-make and nurture. My spiritual and practical female wisdom is vital for my family.
Yes, dear old Siggi and “what do women want?”
He was wrong, as usual. The question is rather “what do women expect?”
And the answer is that “women expect to be protected,” by men, by mothers, by grandmothers, by government, by first-wave feminists, and Uncle Tom Cobbley.
And yes, when a woman has a baby she needs — expects — a lot of support. That is how to beat the odds on all the things that can go wrong.
I know a mother who says “my job is to keep these kids alive.”
I think she is probably right. But I don’t know if the lasses on Mumsnet would agree.
In a society like Freud’s the question was ‘What do men want from women?’ and so women were shaped accordingly, focussing on sexual attractiveness and marriagability. It was hammered home that this is how they should be by making it impossible to survive without a man’s protection.
To ask what it was a woman wanted was a question she couldn’t answer as she’d been schooled in meekness and obedience and was allowed little agency.
So Freud could find no answer in his time and was utterly puzzled by the woman that patriarchy had created and shaped. That he could not see the blindingly obvious- that women want to be seen as humans first and ‘women’ afterwards, is an indication of deeply ingrained patriarchy was in his time.
Now we ask what do men want? And if the Internet is any indication, they want to be back on top again, where they can dictate the terms then ridicule women for following them.
I
Very perceptive. We frequently see evidence of what you describe in Unherd Comments.
And where does this patriarchy come from?….the Bible, and the Koran, and thus the three so called Abrahamic Faiths confine women the dustbin. ( perhaps it is something to do with the desert where they came from?)
Although the Romans were not entirely blameless,* at least Roman women in the first century AD had far greater legal and property rights than women in the UK did until the late nineteenth century.
(*The Pater Familias etc.)
Where does patriarchy come from? Well, it goes way back beyond the Abrahamic religions. I hoped Yolanda Harari would answer that question in his book Homo Sapiens, but he basically said he didn’t know and that it could be stemming from men’s superior strength.
It’s a really fraught question because if it’s regarded as a default, natural state of affairs, then we would all have to just give up striving for equality. And I do think that as animals, there is a strong biological factor. But we are also, social and symbolic beings living on the cusp of gender implosion, so we can implement change and choice.
Those who say it’s a natural thing should be reminded that Nature does not give a toss how we arrange ourselves only that we reproduce. Nature has endowed humans with some seriously self destructive features and we deploy them every day. It would be good if we could rise above patriarchal structures, good for all, I suspect.
That should be Yohan Harari, not Yolanda
Yuval Noah Harari
Sadly Aristotle has much to answer for on this subject, although his mentor Plato, is far more magnanimous.
Surely you jest Charles? “Pater” is the Latin word for father, who in Roman society had the right to kill his children on a whim and for centuries had legally sanctified absolute authority over his wife. Hence the historically widely used term “paterfamilias”. The rest of the family other than the Father was legally defined as a “body of slaves”. All this has been well known to the educated classes since Fustel de Coulanges published ‘The ancient city’ back in 1864. Christianity on the other hand had woman leading some of the churches right from the first few decades, and the Holy Bible has several famous and influential pro equality passages.
An excellent book detailing the utterly oppressive nature of Roman society and the largely liberating nature of Christianity is “Inventing the individual” by good Larry Siedentop. Subtitled ‘The Origins of Western Liberalism’ it also sheds historical light on several of Mary’s fave themes. Conversely, you’re not going to be able to cite a single even 5th rank scholar who holds ancient Rome was more pro Woman than Christianity, as that’s such an absurd position.
That said, of course there have been many oppressive movements within the faith, and even as a Christian I’m glad that feminists has done much to counter them. PS – great insight in the original comment by Pip & as ever in Mary’s article.
In the early Republic you are absolutely correct about the potential power of the Pater Familias or as some say Paterfamilias, but over time this slackened and by the first century of the Principate a woman could divorce almost at will and RETAIN her property. Surely you don’t deny this?
You are also correct that in the early Church woman were treated as equals or at least near equals, but later (St) Augustine & Co soon put a stop to that and they (women)were reduced to the status of near Helots. Hardly surprising really in a Semitic religion is it?
I would dispute your claim about the oppressive nature of Roman Society, and given the longevity of that society it would take all day to discuss it!
However I must agree that I can think of no notable Classicist who has troubled themselves discuss the position of Roman women and the advent of Christianity, particularly from a legal standpoint. That off course says something in itself does it not?
Whilst what you say about the power of the paterfamilias in Roman society is essentially true, this was more de jure and less de facto; killing one’s wife when she had a living father and brothers, who may have wielded more power than you, was never wise. Also, certainly by the 1st century AD, the main type of marriage was sine mano, in which the woman’s father remained her paterfamilias,and she retained her own property rights. The stories of the grim paterfamilias killing his own kin are just that – stories.
Thank you Linda.
Thanks for the gentle correction to my somewhat excessive assertions Linda & Charles.
Maybe I only remember the ‘Human Biogrammar’ from my otherwise stupendously dull Sociology ‘A’ Level (maybe because it was written by the groovily-named Tiger and Fox) was because it made so much sense about why men are men and women are women. Well, to me, anyhow.
That, and my cookie-cutter ‘Millie Tant’ style uber-feminist lecturer hated it. Ha ha ha.
I agree. Just because something is “natural,” like most 17-year-old boys feeling the urge to rape half the females who pass by, doesn’t make it inevitable or unsurmountable. Most people have felt enraged enough at some point (sometimes justifiably, like after having a family member harmed) that if they’d had a loaded gun immediately available w/ the perp right there they’d use it–that’s why we develop ethics, morals, and a justice system, to restrain those impulses.
I feel some impulses of revenge against the many men on my “metoo” list but I’m above chasing them down for deplatforming and other shaming retribution, because I’m emotionally intelligent enough to recognize that their nervousness now is enough of a consequence and that I also need to get on w/ my blip-in-time life.
“Natural” isn’t an excuse for anything, and has often been reworked to justify Enlightment-forward atrocities, such as Negro slavery, contemporary patriarchy through sociobioogy, Nazi eugenics, or the latest transactivist nonsense. It’s informative, to be sure, and worth investigating, but it’s not determinative. That’s what makes us human.
I never felt the urge at 17 to “rape half the females who pass by”. Have sex with them, yes- well, a quarter- but not rape.
I wanted women to find me devastatingly attractive, to desire me and willingly submit to my devastating masculine charms. I don’t think any of my friends wanted to rape women on a daily basis either- we didn’t spend our teenage lives constantly suppressing a desire to violently attack girls and violate them. We just wanted constant consensual sex, and occasionally got lucky. If you did, I’m sorry for you. It must have been terrible- did it ever recede, or do you still want to rape half of the women you see?
“Just because something is “natural,” like most 17-year-old boys feeling the urge to rape half the females who pass by … ”
I was going to ignore this outrageous comment, but I’ve changed my mind. How do you know what adolescent most (or any) boys think or feel? You’re equating sex with rape. What everyone does know, and what biologists know, is that boys of this age have sex on their minds (and so do teenage girls). That’s what puberty is all about. But rape? That’s a preposterous non sequitur, to say the least. Unfortunately, it’s also become a pervasive ideological assumption.
I agree, it’s hard to scroll by when there’s so much wrong with that comment on so many levels. And somehow it’s got five up votes.
This part:
‘I feel some impulses of revenge against the many men on my “metoo” list but I’m above chasing them down for deplatforming and other shaming retribution, because I’m emotionally intelligent enough to recognize that their nervousness now is enough of a consequence and that I also need to get on w/ my blip-in-time life.’
You have a metoo list??? Where do find these men?? You’re basically saying your above blackmailing these people because of your’ emotional intelligence’??
If someone has committed a crime against you and you have evidence enough to ‘chase them down and deplatform them or other shaming retribution ‘ surely you should just go to the police??
Seems that someone is not bothered about protecting other women and just wants a power trip. Plus, how does she know they are nervous?
Teenage girls have romance on their minds. One reason men on oestrogen doesn’t work is it gives them romantic drives when they are the romantic target of 0% of the population.
I never felt the urge to rape half the females who passed by me when I was 17. What a pathetic statement.
Let’s not be ridiculous. No, “most 17 yr. old boys do NOT feel the urge to rape half the females who pass by”.
Are most 17 yr. old boys obsessed with sex? Absolutely; no question.
But there is a vast and chasmic difference between being sexually obsessed, fascinated, & entranced .. as all that is focused — at 17 — primarily upon the stereotypical movie-star/cheerleader girls who only date QB’s….and feeling the urge to rape. The Venn Overlap between the set of young boys who desperately want to go on a date with ‘Jacy Farrow’ (as played by Cybill Shepherd in “The Last Picture Show”) and those who are seriously considering rape is microscopically small.
Let’s not confuse normal, adolescent sexual fascination with criminal sociopathy.
Nature doesn’t give a toss about extinction, only we care about our reproduction to avoid that fate. That requires, by all means fair or foul, women must average 2+x children each. Anything less guarantees extinction so let’s try to keep the means fair. And, from a species survival perspective, “… some seriously self destructive features…” are homosexuality, contraception and abortion: but I think we can maybe work round that with the ‘x’ in 2+x.
Patriarchy is inevitable. Like it or not, the psychological and physical tools of leadership lie with men.
Reality is a problem in our current world. It is likely to become an even bigger one if our leaders continue the way they are. So I wouldn’t worry about down-votes. If Ukraine gets out of hand it won’t be the feminists being conscripted, assuming it doesn’t go nuclear. That happens and what Rough men survive, will be in great demand, maybe even by Feminists.
The small logical problem with this particular concept of “reality” is that the solution and the problem are the same- i.e., “tough men”.
What you and your angry little friend above are sayig is, basically, ‘when violent men (or “Rough men”- ooh..) are threatening you, you’re going to want a violent man to protect you’. The fact that the problem, as well as the putative solution, is violent men suggests that you need to think this through a bit more Bill.
In a situation where someone is threatening you with violence, defending yourself, or getting someone to defend you, which will probably involve something approaching violence, may be unavoidable, however unpalatable it may be and however preferable other solutions may be.
Yes- and that “someone threatening you” will almost certainly be a violent man, so that’s not much of a sales pitch.
You’re missing the point. It would be nigh-on impossible to eliminate violence in human society. So the next best solution is to employ safeguards to counteract it. One of these may be being prepared to be violent to counter a violent person, or being under the protection of another person or group entity.
Yes. But my confusion here lies in the fact that the anti-feminist comments here get deeply upset by the supposed assertion that male violence is endemic, whilst simultaneously glorifying in male aggressiveness, and telling women that they should shut up and be grateful that some nice violent men might protect them against other nasty violent men.
Can we have some honest logic here, rather than just blaming women for both ‘nice’ violent men and ‘nasty’ violent men? If men ARE inherently violent (which may, to some degree, be true), can we please just stop blaming feminists for this? It’s a cop-out.
Perhaps but an unfortunate use of the word TOOLS.
In Tudor England, the England of Henry VIII tool was vernacular word for p*nis.
As such it survives to this day.
Not to mention our Norman overlords, who had a far more restrictive legal and social attitude to women than the Anglo-Saxons.
Even perhaps ‘Droit du seigneur’ for the lucky few.
I think this occurs in Europe post Charlemagne where an aristocracy with inheritable titles and land evolved.
In rural societies where there was little to inherit, female fertility was the most important quality of women. Pre 1492 and the introduction of syphilis, there is the indication that rural women married the man who got her pregnant. Chaucer was not prudish.
Contrary to popular opinion, syphilis, (otherwise known as the dreaded Pox) was not introduced from the New World.
There is forensic evidence from a Nunnery in I think Kingston upon Hull* that it was thriving by the mid thirteenth century.
*Correction that should read Mendicant Friary in Gloucester. Sorry Hull!
Amusing truly, that the correction focused on geography rather than nuns vs. friars!
That would have taken too long sadly!
Although there is certainly evidence for “hanky panky” at both as I recall.
‘As I recall’. I had you down as old Charles, but not that old!
Sparta gave women far more freedom than Athens and the Gauls more than the Romans. Was it Tacitus or Caesar who noted that women in Gaul had more freedom than in Rome? Beduin women have more freedom than those who live in cities. I suggest that where societies are of the warrior type, rural, nomadic or where men sail overseas ( Viking )women have far more freedom as they run the farm when the men are away. Where the society is urban and the fmily is sufficiently wealthy so they do not have to work, women, have often been housebound.
Yes it is said that Spartan women even used to wrestle…….naked and……………covered in olive oil…..simply outrageous!
It was Caesar who commented on Gallic women and Tacitus on German, besides our own beloved Boudicca or Boadicea as ‘we’ used to call her.
However, as outlined above, Roman women soon caught up, legally speaking, which rather challenges your ‘Warrior Thesis’. The ‘exception that proves the rule’ so to speak.
Then off course there the mythical (?) Amazons, but we had better leave that for another day.
I think it is basic, when men are away wife has to run farm , business , home, et.Shepherdesses had to be free to roam the hills and women take goods to market: they were not house bound.
Women in nomadic groups, especially warrior ones such as Huns and Mongols had to be able to ride long distances. My Mother used to say that freedom with which a women could move wearing her clothes showed the freedom she had in society. Compare a Mongol , Spartan, Viking or British Shepherdess with an upper middle class urban women of late 19th Europe who had to wear very restrictive dresses.
Lady Anthonia Fraser in one her books said war tends to increase women’s freedom whether it is defending family home when men away : The Anarchy, War of Roses, Civil War and domestic staff going to work in factories are examples.
Did Roman women ever have the freedom and physical training of Spartan?
Perhaps the the ability to think, speak and move freely are beneficial to the growth of balanced and well developed people.
No, I doubt very much that Roman woman achieved quite the same level of athleticism as Spartan women are thought to have done.
However the major social event in the Roman world for both men and women was attendance at the Baths (Thermae).
As such all ‘Baths’ had either a Gymnasium* or a Palaestra attached to them. Both were places for extreme physical exercise, prior to bathing.
Off course this exercise was performed naked which was NO problem in the pre Christian/Semitic world, unlike today.
(* From the Greek ‘gymnos’: Naked or without clothes!)
Fascinating question.
But isn’t the answer obvious?
If by ‘patriarchy’ we mean a social system in which men hold most of the nominal power….and since patriarchal systems have dominated human society since time immemorial….should we not conclude that male leadership of most social collectives is a natural function of the qualities which are stereotypically male? (you know, the standard list: strength, independence, courage, leadership, aggression…the qualities which existed long, long before the concept of ‘patriarchy’ was invented)
What else could it be (given a lack of good-old-boy backroom clubs back in 10,000 BC)?
Given a world in which life was short, nasty & brutish…a world absent any any moderating civilization… group survival would depend upon devising and using successful solutions to life & death problems. If male leadership provided those solutions more consistently…if male strengths were more effective in nominal tribal leadership roles than female…if female strengths fit more effectively elsewhere….then male leadership became the normal operational solution as demonstrated by those same 10,000 years of human behavior.
You speak of ‘blame’ but ‘blame’ has nothing to do with the fact that the so-called ‘patriarchy’ was clearly, historically, the solution which worked.
As for the roles women played, they were far from powerless. But their social roles were clearly different and less nominally powerful than male roles…with rare exception.
But please note, these were not social roles invented by the Patriarchy (capital ‘P’), rather this male/female division of labor which created what we now call ‘patriarchy’ was patterned by the very exigencies of existence itself. 10,000 years later things have change…and male / female roles have also changed…but there remains, always, the essential biologic difference between men & women and this is still reflected in any number of life choices still being made by both men & women.
Yes, basically because patriarchal power comes at the cost of the
‘other ‘ having to use every trick in the book to give herself some agency.
As for the power of the grandmother? Very diminished, the competition on mumsnet between female generations is toxic. Mother in law hate particularly, ‘how dare they imagine they have any rights of access over my children ’ etc etc. the latest craze is to ‘ghost’ them. Female generations are competing for the attention of the husband / son. The last thing they are doing is honouring the elder generation’s experience knowledge and wisdom.
In an age where everything is monetised, money rules, men have most access to that which fuels their power and feelings of superiority which many women willingly feed off. The majority of female pensioners have very little.
That grandmothers prioritise their attractiveness to men, over their valuable knowledge and experience is tragic indeed.
It seems that women still internalise misogyny. Siding with power and denigrating the aged female who is long past her alleged prime. Wait until they get there and get a taste of it.
It would be tragic, were that not a false dilemma. Surely to imply that a woman loses the right to an expressive personal existence the moment she begins to breed exemplifies misogyny. As is most things, the secret sauce is in the proportionality.
Why is a patriarchy a patriarchy? Women throughout history have been in the position of influencing the younger generation. The Jesuits recognised the importance of influencing the thoughts of those under seven for a long term return. Why have women until very recently singularly failed to instil into the children in their charge a matriarchal ideology? Could it be that for many women a “patriarchal” society suited them fine? Perhaps most preferred to pull the strings out of sight and leave the illusion of patriarchy.
A point well made, Jeremy. Female power has always been more subtle, interpersonal, social.
Phillipa, In my view we are living through a very indulgent time and that applies to men and women. The top comment does not reflect this. The “the refusal of responsibility” applies at least as much to men as to women – and probably more to men, who seem to be opting for a state of permanent adolescence. But what has driven this is the deification of the concept of personhood. The idea of self determination without reference to family or community.
Absolute nonsense. I have no desire to be ‘protected’ by anyone. I have worked for the means to look after myself and that’s what I do.
I”m male, and i too live relatively comfortably, confident that I too worked for the means to look after myself. Yet I look at the world today and I hope that Orwell’s Rough Men are still rough and capable of ensuring I sleep in my bed soundly until the end of my days.
Who are these “Rough men” you keep fantasising about protecting you FROM?
Ever been in a street fight with weapons?
So just other “Rough men”. In other words, ‘you need us because their are other blokes just like us’. Great.
When people perceive weakness others will take advantage of it no matter which sex they are. I’m curious if your apparent male feminist stance has made you attractive to women?
Devastatingly, thank you.
“Devastatingly”, as in, it has had a devastating effect on his chances with the opposite sex.
Is this actually the level of debate here? ‘You don’t hate women so you don’t get laid? Honestly? [email protected]@@@@g [email protected]@l.
I’ve had more interesting and challenging debates with a salad.
Yet the salad probably did not failed abysmally to disguise its true gender, huh?
You seem rather oddly obsessed with the thought that I’m a woman in drag, Andrea.
Is this a personal fetish with you?
Yah sure it has…LOL
Has the term “Yah LOL” ever been used online by anyone who isn’t an intellectual colossus?
I don’t know, but intensive research suggests not.
By the way, Kat- I don’ think anyone I know prerceives me as a “male feminist”- I think they just percieve me as a ‘bloke who was born after c.1890 who doesn’t spend more time than is strictly healthy on ‘male-victim’ chatrooms’- not quite the same thing. Ask my wife.
You didn’t answer the question Mr Holland. To repeat, have you ever fought for your life in something akin to a street fight with lethal weapons?
Yes, Charlie- I took three out with a blunt machete, bludgeoned one to death with a rusty mallet and used a ratchet screwdriver to remove the eyeballs of the last. I then stamped repeatedly on the said eyeballs (just in case my enemy might have reinserted them), and set fire to the heaped bodies.
I hope that is sufficient for your enjoyment, Mr. Stanhope.
That is a description by a man who secretly yearns to be a tough guy, but falls woefully short of such a status.
Er…yes. Look up the word ‘irony’ some time, Big Boy, and get back to me.
Calm down Mr Holland, you sound like an idiot, I’m sorry to say.
Sorry Charlie, I’ve clearly broken some Chaps’ rule here- was I actually meant to felate you with some realistic, non-ironic chap-on-chap slash-porn? I didn’t realise- it’s awfully hard here to negotiate between whining about horrible feminists slandering men as being inherently violent (boo!), and keeping up with the Lads when boasting about psychopathic acts of fun street-violence (hurrah!). I’m learning- cut me some slack.
I did once knock my brother out with a silage fork when he locked me into a boar pen as a child in the family pig styes- is that good enough? He was out for about ten minutes…
No.
You should have answered Mr Charles Hedges simple question with just one word, NO.
QED?
But Mr. Hedges “simple question” was idiotic, so why bother giving it a serious answer Charles?
I was nearly blinded in one eye and cut in the head which bled profusely. Being blinded could have reduced my job opportunities.Luckily I was cut not on the carotid arteries, my parries stopped that but I was cut on the arms.Waiting in A and E was unpleasant.
What made it worse was that in was afternoon, daylight, sunny and people were walking past pretending nothing was happening.
They were not even trying to mug me, just slice me up for kicks. I tried to walk and talk my way out but it was likely they were on drugs, probably LSD and amphetamines. I learnt one cannot reason with the unreasonable.
The attack was close to my home. To conquer my fear, the next day I forced myself to walk to the location of my attack: my drops of blood were still on the street. What lasted for some time was the fear of being attacked again. The scar on my head only disappeared a few years ago.
Speak to any women who has been attacked, the fear invariably stays for years. How many women have been attacked and passsers by ignored the situation?
It was far worse than being kicked in the head playing rugby and going to A and E for stitches.
My advice is be very wary of people acting erratically as they could be on drugs and carrying knives. People on drugs can have very fast reactions.
Well you know the answer to such savagery?
Prior to 1964 very few feral scum would have contemplated such an assault because they knew the likely consequences if things went wrong!
‘Three clear Mondays’ as the expression went and then they’d “swing” to use the contemporary vernacular.
Besides the usual ‘shriekers’ of Quislington, and a large number of pathetic MPs, most of the country was quite content with Capital Punishment.
It was cheap and effective, and in some cases a deterrent, although that is rather hard to prove!
Either way the sort of wanton assault you were subject to was rare indeed.
It was invaluable experience, coupled with that drug dealers operating outside the front door and a riot plus rumblings of ones that did not occur.
I do not believe in capital punishment. However crimes should result in decades of hard labour in prison and the same rigour the Glass House of pre WW2 army.
The Labour Party up to Callaghan a WW2 RN Petty Officer and Sunday School Teacher , knew from personal experience that crime and poor schools had the greatest detrimental impact on the honest hard working poor in reducing their opportunities for upward mobility to practically zero.
As this article is about women, the most adversely impacted by crime are women. When nine year old girls are offered white powders by men on their home from primary school, Mothers are terrified ,especially when they are reformed heroine addicts.
Where Methodism was prevalent; men worked in heavy industry; many had served in served in Armed Forces, boxed, played rugby, whether Union or League, lived in settled communities and such as S Wales and along M62, there was little killings, rapes and robberies .
Women were safe. Making an unacceptable comment to any women would have resulted in the forceful intervention of any passing man. Today, however, any man teaching some manners to the youth would result in them being prosecuted for assault. The male relatives of the woman would have then visted the Father of the you and given him a verbal warning.
The Left Wing Middle Class white Collar type brought up in safe suburbia, attended soft schools in such areas and only worked in offices; does not perceive gentleman going about their daily business who can intervene and are supported by society, are the most effective way of stopping street violence. This is not being a vigilante: it is an adult male accepting the responsibility to protect those who are unble to do so.
Bad luck mate, sounds nasty. Was fascinated by the lack of responses from passers by. There are definitely people you should cross over the street to avoid!
Yes. That’s correct. It may be unpalatable, but we have to consider that, somewhere, someone (probably male) will want to do us harm, and societies have acted accordingly by creating things like police forces and armies.
We live in socieites that have become very good at delivering consequences to violent people. You need people capable of violence to contain violent people.
There’s some truth in that. As a moral defence of men, and as a reposte to feminists, it’s dismal- essentially, it’s a mafia protection racket, pay us our dues and you won’t get hurt by the other gang- but there’s some truth nonetheless.
Okay John. Do you seriously think we could have a society without the armed forces and without the police. No prisons (institutions which deprive criminals of liberty through force). How do you quell disorder without controlled state violence? How do you collect tax? How do you ensure property rights? What if someone robs you?
No, I don’t think this. Where did I say I did? Can you specify?
Although most of your dystopian scenarios are largely about male violence- the same male violence that half the commenters here are defending as both ‘natural’ and good, and the sort of thing that modern feminism has ruined for everyone
There’s a very wierd contradictory attitude here on this site- on the one hand, women should shut up and stop complaining about male violence, as this is a horrible “feminist” libel against decent masculine values, and on the other they should shut up or some other bloke will beat them, and it’ll serve them right. Which is it?
Frankly, it all seems a bit odd. The only consistent idea seems to be that whatever the problem is, it’s all bloody women’s fault. Awful people. Burn the witches, I say.
“Mafia protection racket” might be more felicitously described as Reciprocity. It should of course fall short of the old definition of extortion as “demanding money with menaces”.
Our species (like many others) relies on inter-dependence. We all depend on each other in one way or another. On every level–physiological, psychological, economic, moral and so on–the goal of every culture is, and should be, to perpetuate and maintain itself as a society, not a collection of either competing or indifferent individuals. And what’s true on the personal level is true also on the collective level of groups within society.
I think the decline in dangerous jobs where all those had to be responsible for themselves and each other plus decline in team sports, has led to the decline of emotionally mature responsible tough competent men men. The rugby playing miner, forester or trawlerman tends to be cheerful, tough, competent and emotionally mature and not panic in life or death situations which are the type of person one wants to create and maintain a civilisation.
Back stabbing effete ineffectual brittle office workers are not the type to create and maintain a civilisation
The death and injury rates in offices is minimal: commercial forestry( 154 per 100K),mining and trawling are higher than Law Enforcement and Armed Forces,check US Labour Statistics.
“The rugby paying miner, forester or trawlerman tends to be cheerful…’
Good grief. I love this kind of crap. I mean, says who, Charles? What exactly is the point in just spouting this kind of arbitrary baseless drivel? What’s your experience of “cheerful`’ verses non-“cheerful” trawlermen, for Christ’s sake? How many moody foresters have you encountered, in proportion to jolly ones? Give a round number, based on your experience.
Then again, if you’re worried about the insufficient number of office deaths, we could always send out out some exploding pens in the stationary supplies…
When one is working out of doors in cold wet windy conditions,in winter at the end of day and especially at the end of the week people, who are tired, cold and moan about the conditions are not concentrating on the job adequately and are a risk to themselves and others. People who can make a cheerful quip brighten raise spirits and are assets, those who moan depress spirits and are libaility. The death toll as the USA labour Statistics show are forestry, trawling and mining are dangerous..
Boxing and rugby develop upper body strength which are needed to carry people( Fireman’s lift), pull them to safety or knock them out of the way of moving objects. Dragging someone to safety when one is on one’shands and knees such as in a collapsed mine or air duct on burning ship, requires very high upper body strength. An example is given below of the use of upper body strength.
The day a Welsh Lions star was saved from death by his English tour rival – Wales Online
From the 19th century it was recognised that there were many civilian acts of bravery and awards were commenced.
Civilian gallantry medals, honours and other awards – The National Archives
Many of the awards were those for working at sea, in the mines, docks railways ( crashes ); none for office work.
Much employment legislation from the early 19th century such as banning women and children from mines and reducing working hours was to reduce death and injury. Injuries go up at work when people are exhausted, thirsty, cold and hungry.
They may have upper body strength, but are they “cheerful”?
I’m not questioning that trawling or forestry are dangerous. I’m wondering how you get from the fact that more trawlermen (or professional rugby players) die at work than office workers to the death of civilisation, with no rational explanation whatsoever.
If you simply think that work should be more exhausting, cold, dangerous, hungry and dangerous, then you might need to explain in more detail how this will make people’s lives better. At least I gave the suggestion of exploding pens for office workers- that might be a start. How about cholera in the water-fountain?
Excellent. Let’s hope you never get in the position where you realise a man might have made all the difference.
Would “the position” needing “a man” involve yet another man, by any chance?
So- as a woman, she should be grateful for violent men, as they can protect her from…violent men. Right.
Uh women can be just as violent but they are generally unable to win. Been bullied and threatened by plenty of girls growing up, not so much by boys.
Then you must be happy about the annual number of women killed by their husbands and ‘lovers’. Serves the silly, feeble bitches right, yes?
With every rude comment you are showing your arse.
Except I’m not being “rude”- unless you are being ‘triggered’ by different opinions?
Yet another ‘snowflake’ who cannot accept an interurruption in their favoured echo-chamber, it seems. It’s remarkable how this supposedly “unHerd” site reacts to ‘un-correct’ opinions with such visceral, group-think anger. It would be funny, if it wasn’t so depressing.
“What does a woman want?” is an unanswerable question
because no 2 women are identical even if twins. A more apt question is as you pointed out what do most women expect and that depends on their generation. Millennial and younger women, most of whom have been poisoned by feminist ideology, expect nothing but the best of everything including a 10 for a man even when they aren’t even a 5 themselves. The majority believe they are perfect 10’s, the prize catch, that they deserve it all from only the best and this is why so many of them will be member of the BOBB (Bitter old Boss Bitcshes) club before long.
I don’t know that many young women now but according to what I see online you appear to be accurate. My Gen X dating experience was that I tried to be nice even when I was rejecting but couldn’t understand the meanness of my girlfriends. That was before online dating took off.
In the world according to Disney, the perfect anything and everything exists, always existed. For example, Tom never catches Jerry, the abused sister becomes the princess, or the fairy etc. Combine Disney with, for example, Holywood’s often romantic claptrap, and senseless celebrity idealisation (as if an actor, or a pop singer knows any more than Joan or Jo Blogs), with marketing and advertising, then I suggest that that is what we, at least in the western world, have enveloped ourselves in. What I am describing is a child’s eye view of the world, of society, of family, of male and female, even, and for heaven’s sake, what makes a woman a female (may I suggest two X chromosomes, it is just that complicated). My question is, female or male, where did all the adults go? Someone else always has to be blamed, who, if anyone, is taking responsibility for anything any longer? (Definitely not the governing political class in the UK at least). Wishes of health and peace to all, William
So true! I go shopping for my children and I see a tonne of Charlie Brown and Scooby Doo gear that I would love to buy for them but when I go to get their fit it’s only adult sizes available. We are living the horrible legacy of the boomer influence.
I am surprised that anyone is surprised by this. The revolution always devours its mothers. Feminism is an ideology of the Left and the Left has always idealised and focused on the young as its favoured vanguard. It is also an individualist one which has seen families as oppressive. Yet left-wing ideologies have always assumed their adherents and people acting under them would act morally, an assumption which has never really been interrogated.
Feminism specifically has never had much of a concept of motherhood, other than it being an oppressive patriarchal construct invented by men to oppress all women. Why would a feminist show any family members loyalty or commitment? Bit too much emotional labour for the emancipated woman, dontcha think?
Why would a feminist show any deference to older women? I mean, think of all the things older feminists are guilty of that younger feminists are unhappy about. Older feminists are too white, too transphobic, too frigid, too bourgeois, didn’t abolish XYZ… New problems must be tackled, new grifts must be had, new heretics must be harvested. It is much easier to attack the older generation of any movement, as they have less energy and there are probably fewer of them. Even better if the old duffers are dead. They can’t defend themselves then. Ask Churchill.
The nuclear family has effectively been abolished. Feminism played a role in this, as any form of family life was oppressive to women. The result of this and other factors is that there is no moral or emotional impetus for anyone to have strong family relations now.
Ironically, male influence in families was wrecked first. Why would, for instance, men stick around to be fathers if men are seen as optional at best and harmful at worst? If a woman’s needs can be fulfilled by Big Daddy Government, then the man is just an inconvenience. A famous feminist slogan in the Sixties was “abolish the husband, abolish the father, abolish the patriarch”. Husbands and fathers have long been abolished. A majority of children now grow up in single-parent unmarried households. It does not take much to question how much women are expected to care about children under this arrangement in our indicidualistic, hedonistic age.
Why would mothers be any more loving than the often-absent fathers? If feminism regards motherhood as oppressive, then surely grandmotherhood is just as oppressive. Why, then, are we surprised at the antics of these grannies? In our individualistic society, other people are just an inconvenience to many, even if they are related.
Brilliant analysis! I would add that pregnancy was the invention of the nefarious patriarchy to deprive women of the best jobs, to make them less attractive to rivals, and to keep them imprisoned at home as cooks and personal sex slaves.
It’s imposisble to guess, given the intellectual standard of the comments here, whether you’re being ironic or not. That’s the joy of the unHerd blogsite.
Personally, I find the intellectual standard here pretty good, and that is why my clearly ironic comment was not badly received.
I hate to break it to you, but as your comment closely echoes most of the comments here, I very much doubt if many saw it as ironic. Why would they?
Many feminists have complained about pregnancy being a unique oppression borne by women. So while you tried to mock my analysis, you accidentally said something true.
“The nuclear family has effectively been demolished”.
Utter cobblers. Seriously, have a look at the real world sometime- I live in a nuclear family, most of my friends do also, the great majority of people live in some variation of a nuclear family. The idea that the “husband as been abolished” exists only in some crazed online community ranting from their basements- it simply isn’t the real world. I had a dad. I am a dad. I will soon be a granddad.
Why don’t you just look at the actual world around you- of families, mothers, fathers, grandparents and children – instead of ranting in your wierd little online ideological fantasy construction?
John Holland you live in realm of luxury beliefs coined by Henderson. It’s great you have this group of intact nuclear families around you. You will all be, especially your children, better off for it. The kicker is, the commenter you disagree with is correct in the aggregate. The nuclear family has been decimated over decades by various progressive and control movements and society is not better off for it. Data that supports this view is all over the place, but in the interest of conciseness all one has to do is look at birth rates globally and you learn all you need to about the state of the intact family. It’s important to speak your truth but here your ‘lived experience’, if I can borrow a truly obnoxious progressive moniker, is quite limited to a privileged group.
You’ll have to explain how global birth rates (are they supposed to be too high at the moment, or too low- it’s hard to tell these days) justify the brainless, baying misogyny of half the comments here.
How has the “nuclear family”- never a universal fact of human society, whatever the historically-challenged blow-hards love to think- been “decimated” all over the globe by “progressives”? In China? In India? In Africa? No. “progressives”, whatever you think they are, have little to do with these social and economic changes. You’re indulging in simple, ideological explanations for complex changes in human societies.
If you want to invoke “data” or “aggregates”, you’ll need to be a little more specific than that.
Recent figures show the majority of British children are raised by single parents.
Many sociologists have claimed that the nuclear family is as good as ancient history for the lower classes.
My analysis is entirely correct and no amount of bitchy whining from you will change that.
I find much of this discussion of a matriarchy that means a reversion to some delayed adolescent rebellion, very silly.
I come from a family, on all sides, run by a matriarchy as far back as can be traced. It was always the women who made the family while the men went off to war and often got themselves killed, or went off as missionaries or big game hunters. The women fled invaders and marshalled the family. Who do you think organised food and children? Who did the growing generation look up to?
And when peace returned they didn’t relinquish their power at home. It seems the men didn’t want them to either.
Boomer Feminism is destructive; they told my x generation to focus on career and give it away at every chance and now many are unhappily chasing late life fertility… if they ever even found a stable marriage. I now try to communicate those lessons to young women. But…I don’t see a conflict between doing maintenance to look great for your age and being there to help with the family.
A most sensible comment. Although my mum is a generationally part of the Boomer group, she thankfully does not subscribe to such destructive attitudes. I am well educated, professionally successful, married to my daughter’s father, and I believe that I have been a good mother to her just as mum taught me. My mum, who turned 70 today, looks great for her age, and is physically and mentally fit. It doesn’t have to be a conflict, and one can indeed accomplish both.
I can only gape in wonder at how Mary is able to locate the pulses of so many societal impulses whilst caring for a young child. From observational experience, the amount of head- and heart-space, not to mention limb-space that being a mum of young children requires is phenomenal, and for many simply overwhelming. She epitomises the very essence of the selfhood, the personhood she describes as somehow newly characteristic of todays grannies whilst combining it with parenthood.
It’s absolutely a subject close to not just her own heart, but the heart of the ways we’re starting to transition from one generation to the next. It’s almost as if there’s some new factor at play which we can sense but can’t as yet fully grasp; a kind of mutation in our very humanity, with effects that are unknowable. For instance, it’s one thing for those young mums of today to espouse the view that they’ll take a different tack to their ‘glammies’ when in a position to do so, and to actually do so when the time comes, not least because society will have moved on again and their own daughters will have absorbed a whole new generations-worth of cultural influences which will go quite some way to how much scope their mums will have to fulfil their present-day intentions.
I’m inclined to think that railing against it (and i’m sure there will be plenty of posts doing so) does little except disable the requirement to start to try to understand, by harking back to something which is disappearing over the horizon behind us. Perhaps this feeling is unsettling – i feel it too, whilst also being responsible for initiating it in my own life, from a young teenager onwards, part of the post-war boomer generation. Mary seems to be doing the very same thing, which leads me to conclude that there may well be something going on here that is natural, in a literal sense. I suspect that’s why i find Mary’s articles so humane.
A most interesting post. Yup for some conscientious folk becoming a parent is overwhelming like you say. For others it grounds them into new sources of energy & can trigger a ‘sleeper must awaken’ effect. I’ve seen this with my friend Rowenna Davis who’s already phenomenal output (paid job, political work, civil society organising, director on a think tank etc) seemed to be boosted after she had her first child, and she takes being a good Mum very seriously.
As for this vital to understand new factor youre talking about, which is impacting our civilisation in all sorts of ways, often entwined with the excess individualism, Swarm activism & machine like thinking Mary often writes about, I’d hazard a guess it has its roots in some ancient tendencies. Firstly our propensity towards spiritual forgetfulness, which is millennial old (see ‘the Hymn of pearl’). And the centuries long ascendancy of Left brain thinking, well explained in Ian McGilchrists last two books.
As for why these tendencies seem to have recently metastasized into something new and more dangerous than before, this may be related to technology, most specifically to the smart phone that became so ubiquitous since 2011. An excellent short book about this is ‘The struggle for a human future’ by Jeremy Naydler. He connects it to both tech and the spiritual, including for example the Luciferean tendency which once contributed to beneficial individualisation but is now clearly going too far. There’s also Jean Twenge who is great on covering the psychic impact of the Smartphone from a more secular / mainstream science perspective.
You’re clearly understanding the essence of my post (and Mary’s article) and have added to that with specific references. Thanks. It all remains very exploratory, but if there’s one thing that characterises human civilisation it’s the will to explore. Some will remain in their caves, no doubt, but having sighted a new horizon there’s no going back now. We have to plough on to see what lies beyond it.
I can understand why to many, this may not be either appealing or understandable. The simple fact is, it may be a wrong turning to disaster or it may be the beginnings of the next successful stage in our evolution. Uncomfortable, yes; but if one thing is for sure, standing still isn’t an option.
Agree entirely. Yup an upswing is certainly possible, just wish any understanding I now have would let me see how to contribute to that. Instead it just makes me see how my younger more active self shares responsibility for making things worse, like you allude to in your first post. You’re reply reminded me of the Heidegger essays ‘The Question Concerning Technology and Other’ and ‘The turning’. These are easy to find online but let me quote a bit: There was a time when it was not technology alone that bore the name technē. Once that revealing that brings forth truth into the splendor of radiant appearing also was called technē. Once there was a time when the bringing-forth of the true into the beautiful was called technē. He argues that’s it’s art, aided by tech, that will be key in getting us to that next successful stage of evolution you mention. I’ve took a look at your pics, I really like your take on dualities like masculine /feminine & especially decadence / regeneration.
Ah, thanks for researching them. I’m still very much in the early stages of exploration in this medium. It takes time and infinite patience, which i’m only just learning about, but all the better for facilitating the challenge.
I also see equivalence between 20th century claims that “painting is dead” and the nihilism that arose at around the same time. I make it my task to demonstrate otherwise; that we’re only just beginning, providing we don’t destroy ourselves first.
Of course, Freud never heard the old joke:
A fellow stumbles across a lamp on a California beach, rubs it, and the requisite genie pops out.
“Oh, boy! Three wishes!”
“No. It’s been a long week and I’m tired. You get one wish.”
“OK. I love Hawaii, but I am afraid of flying. I want a personal road from here to Honolulu so’s I can just drive there.”
“Jesus, you don’t want much, do you? I told you I’m tired. Pick something else.”
So he thinks, scratches his head, thinks some more. “OK, I have it. Just answer one question: What do women want?”
“Would you like that road two lanes or four?”
I see no reason to assume (as several comments do) that Freud understood men any better than he understood women. Freudian psychoanalysis has never been supported by empirical evidence and no longer has much influence among psychologists (not that the latter have anything like a good track record when it comes to understanding human nature). Nonetheless, some followers of Freud have turned his theory into something like an ideology. Others have used it as “evidence” to demonstrate their own rival ideologies.
Is he taken very seriously now in professional circles? Not for a long time, I think.
It seems to me that his theories these days are taken more or less symbolically- as literature, in effect. That’s to say, not scientifically serious, but nonetheless useful as a source of ideas and ways of talking about ourselves. Obviously, he didn’t invent the idea of the unconscious, but his ways of talking about repression are basic to the way laypeople talk about themselves.
Freud was a complete fraud, a perfect product of Fin de siècle Vienna, and all that it stood for.
I cannot understand how his myth has endured for so long. Any ideas?
All I know is he was a nutter and his daughters foundation Anna Freud Centre, is pushing all kinds of stuff in our schools.
Freud would have a field day analysing some of these comments…
Spot on Ms Emery!
It’s alright Charlie, it’s not as if many people take his theories very seriously now as scientific fact. Almost no-one, in fact.
He’s really only taken that seriously by furious people complaining about how seriously he’s still being taken. Which, I’m sure you’ll agree, is quite funny.
How much influence did he have on his daughters stuff though? I don’t really know tbh, but Anna Freud foundation seems to be behind all kinds of stuff in our schools. Not necessarily all stuff I approve of.
What do you make of:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DxIDKZHW3-E
Their web:
https://www.annafreud.org/
I don’t know much about all that- it looks like the standard modern ‘touchy-feelly’ stuff. What in particular concerns you about it?
But regarding Freud, it’s quite funny how he was regarded for years by feminists as a patriarchal, misogynist old b****r, but lots of misogynist, patriarchal old buggers here regard him as the source of Man’s downfall.
I thought the video was a bit weird for want of the right words, they showed it to my daughters class, she’s only six, she was pretty upset by it when she came home.
I really don’t know much about the feminism Freud thing it’s coincidence that I came across the name again really because they send stuff out from school from the Anna Freud Centre. I checked it out after my daughter was upset by the video, it seems a bit heavy for six year olds.
It’s really all over the place what I know about Freud but I think in America he had a big bad influence that still lingers, I’ve copy and pasted because it says it better than I can:
‘Freudian thought has been embraced, actuated, and exemplified in contemporary America. This essay explicates four features of the trans-Atlantic instantiation of Freudian thought’
‘(1) Freud’s discovery of the unconscious mind laid the foundation for a central tenet of Western modernity: we cannot know our deepest motives. (2) Freud’s recognition of repression as the unique aspect of the individual mind made possible the modern notion of individual identity whose basis is narrative. (3) Freud’s recognition of the impossibility of full knowledge of the mind set the stage for the tenet of uncertainty. (4) Freud’s discovery that consciousness is based not in rational thought about reality but in a turbulent effort to control the unconscious offered a way to re-animate a world emptied of magic. The essay concludes with a critical summary of the process by which Freudian thought came to be pervasive in social-scientific viewpoints on American culture’
https://parisinstitute.org/depictions-article-sigmund-freuds-america/
America. Home of the crazy.
A book “Le livre noir de la psychanalyse” may have been translated in English and contains all responses you need. A key element of Freud’s success is that it flatters the narcissism of every involved participant, while more modern methods can be dull.
In Freud’s world, your mind a subject of infinite complexity, worthy of nuanced exploration as it treasures untold secrets. While more clinical approach may tell you to move on and take some pills or practice some positive (but boring) reinforcement routines.
So much to say about this topic. I have so far succeeded in just what you describe here, both the matricide of a toxic, narcissistic mother and the creation and nurturing of a three generation family. It is possible, though the times that are coming will bring unimaginable challenges to every last bulwark of normalcy, we still have to try and bolster them.
My husband and I met at university at 17, in 1979. Both of us came from dysfunctional families, torn apart by adultery and alcoholism. We wanted something very different. There was a popular American television program in the 70’s, the Waltons, based on the true stories of a large Appalachian family during the depression. Silly as it seems, it stood for a shorthand way of expressing what we longed for, stability, faith, family. Our first child was born in 1983, her brother a year later. Homeschooling surfaced in the news soon after, just as we realized our second child, though gifted, would never fit in a classroom. 14 years later Asperger’s syndrome would be widely recognized, explaining why my son, and indeed myself, had so many social issues though verbally and intellectually fluent.
We went on to raise and homeschool our five children through high school. My husband worked as a consultant most of those years, working four days most weeks, leaving time for trips to museums, zoos, even grocery shopping was a group outing. They were wonderful years.My eldest child and only daughter has five sons, ten and under. We are very close, see each other most weeks though she lives about an hour away, and communicate daily. My grandsons visit often for days at a time and have their own room here with a basement full of toys, their uncle’s things augmented by new additions.
My eldest son married in China and brought his wife back to live with us while they established careers here. They lived with us for three and a half years. It turned out to be far easier than we expected until Covid made six adults living under one roof without leaving the house a little too much. Getting them into their own place months before prices skyrocketed turned out to be a huge blessing. When I say that they trust me to watch their precious two year old daughter I have said a lot about our relationship. I have always been very close to this son, but I love my daughter in law more than I thought possible. She is a wonderful mother, but she comes from a culture that hasn’t evicerated motherhood regardless of its other faults.
We have close relationships with our as yet unmarried younger sons and the entire family are often together, now numbering 16. We are blessed in that politics and religion has not driven a wedge as with so many, everyone leans right of center and identifies as Catholic whether fiercely practicing or not.
It has not been perfect. The rebellion so many experience with teens was delayed to the early 20’s with some, partially because of the sheltering, partially because intellectual kids living in their books are often socially immature and don’t feel the need to separate as early.
I was very influenced by Rudolph Steiner’s concept of home as a therapeutic place of refuge and shelter from the world, and that is what we have worked single-mindedly to build. Given the state of the world this may have been prescient. I could say a lot more about bad mothers, bad grandmothers, and the selfishness of the generation immediately preceding me, but I’ve already gone on too long. I am not Grammy either, but Nana, not because it’s cool but because my mother insisted on being called Grammy and the word is tainted forever. She never baked a cookie either, but I’ve made six dozen this morning with my granddaughter.
I wanted to delete this because it really sounds obnoxiously triumphalist, but Mary’s point seemed to me to say that there are young women who want this and wonder if it’s possible and I wanted to be encouraging. I have many regrets, made many mistakes, one or two that were huge and damaging. We have what we have in spite of making mistakes. One of our children has needs that we never seemed able to fully meet, and I’m sure each of the others can point to many similar instances in their lives, besides the obvious. It was a long way from our childhoods and I wish it could have been farther but old sins cast long shadows.
Sounds like a Wonderful Life (so to speak!).
What you describe might perhaps seems strange or foreign to many for whom family is a an equally foreign concept….but what you describe is the way most (?) families used to be. And perhaps many still are. I know several, but they are not the majority.
I suspect that a significant portion of this happy equilibrium you detail may be due to the fact that you “are blessed in that politics and religion has not driven a wedge as with so many, everyone leans right of center and identifies as Catholic whether fiercely practicing or not.” Ten years ago I would have thought that nonsense (how could a vote or an ideological preference interfere with family!!!)…now, not so much. The shallowness of the roots, I guess: too easily torn & twisted if tainted by the talking heads.
Best wishes for a similarly golden future!
I hardly ever comment on here, but thanks for sharing this. I’m likewise a child of dysfunctional parenting trying to do better. I hope you have many more years of enjoying your family ahead!
Whenever people talk about “the patriarchy” in the modern west, the discussion immediately becomes quite theoretical and academic. It’s almost as if the patriarchy died several decades ago.
“It’s almost as if the patriarchy died several decades ago.”
Unfortunately, the roughly 3,000 women killed each year in the US alone by their male partners are still dying. Men commit almost all of the sexual violence in the world and most of the murders. The fact that men are murdered by other men doesn’t change that they also murder women at a ratio of about 100:1.
“Patriarchy” may have died, but systematic male violence against women certainly hasn’t.
You just also admitted of systematic male violence against men. Perhaps it is all down to biology?
No! Biology is a social construction.
I thought it was supposed to be very mean of women to suggest that men were violent? Several blokes here have claimed to be insuted by the suggestion, as if it were a feminist smear- one even saying that lesbians are the worst perpetrators of domestic violence.
Are you saying, in fact, that men ARE inherently violent? I’m just trying to get this straight, as there are some wild contradictions here in the defenses of men against what seems to be seen as the oppression by women.
“Men” are not all the same. There are bad actors, and violent ones, that some women find very attractive, and they are responsible for many violent crimes against women. And despite all warnings and advice, they go back to them all the same.
Women have agency. They are able to make adult decisions about whom they frequent. Anyone – but especially men – who try to dissuade them are infringing upon their rights as women to choose their partners. But if it ends badly, then many will denounce their own agency in favour of victimhood at the hands of “men.”
People are complicated and contradictory. We have “agency”, but we are also subject to our history and psychology, and manipulative people know how to exploit these weaknesses.
To simply say, in effect, ‘you got what you asked for’ to a victim of domestic violence is both cruel and wildly simplistic. Of course, there’s often a grain of truth in it- but there’s also a huge and wilful blindness to the awkward truth of people’s lives, often starting with an abusive parent.
My Mother was physically abused as a child, and was physically abused by my Father; it must, even in courtship, have been fairly obvious that he was domineering, at the least. Would you say my Mother got was she asked for, and leave it at that?
By your line of reasoning then, should men benefit from the same defense that their lives are “complicated and contradictory,” and therefore deserve understanding when physically – or emotionally -abused by a domineering parent? There lies a slippery slope….
Yes, obviously, in psychological terms- except there’s a clear ethical and practical difference between someone beating their partner, and the partner being beaten.
Do you agree?
Not asked for it — as in the poor lady personally deserved it, but the majority of us, in many ways, prefer to seek a comfort level, and what is familiar does have, however grotesque, a comfort level. Life has a way of grooving game paths in our synapses. The more analytic we are, the greater self-determination we can achieve. Perhaps that is why the saying endures, “An unexamined life is not worth living.”
America you have so many problems. Clearly evidenced by the crazy abounding on here again.
Homicide is, indeed, a serious problem. But it’s always helpful to get the numbers right.
In 2020, about 4300 women & 17,000 men were murdered. Of those, it’s estimated that about 1800 of the women (41%) were murdered by male partners, and 1200 men by female partners (about 7%).
This would give us a ratio of women killed by intimate partners to men killed by intimate partners of about 3:2….meaning for every 3 women killed by a male partner, there are 2 men killed by a female partner.
These numbers vary by year and the degree of granularity also varies, but by almost any measure the intimate partner homicide ratio is significantly smaller than then 100:1 that you misleadingly quote. Nor can we say that this violence is systematic, meaning done methodically or according to some master plan.
As for whether it’s systemic….violence itself is systemic.
Whenever people talk about “the patriarchy,” they do not do so as cultural anthropologists or archeologists. They do so as feminists, for whom that word refers to a conspiracy theory of history–that men have conspired since the dawn of human history to oppress women. This is an ideological theory, a profoundly cynical one at that and no more verifiable than Marx’s “dialectical materialism” or Freud’s “Oedipus complex.” Our society is not a utopia. Women do have serious problems, and so do men. But this is hardly a patriarchal society, in which fathers rule.
It’s not a patriarchy, in the technical sense. But it IS a society in which the most wealthy people are men, most political leaders are men, most corporate leaders are men, and the vast majority of violent acts are committed by men.
Now, it’s possible to argue that this is biological determinism- that this is simply how things should be. Plenty of angry (and probably single) men on this site say so. There’s no need at all to invoke a “conspiracy”- men were men, and women shut up or were belted, and quite right too, as my Dad used to say. The “verifiable” bits were the bruises. No need for theory, “cynical” or otherwise…
I never said that any form of social organization is more “natural” than any other. As for our own society, it’s not patriarchal even in a metaphorical sense. Neither is it a matriarchal one. (There have been a few of those, although they’re unstable.) Rather, it’s a gynocentric one. It is systemically preoccupied with the needs and problems of women and systemically ignores those of men (although the rise of wokism has now added a systemic focus on race). Until very recently, social scientists seldom bothered to measure those; now, many are afraid to do so for fear of woke vigilantes.
Nor have I ever invoked a conspiracy theory of history. Ideologically oriented feminists have done that (and so have wokers).
There are many kinds of power, moreover, and women have certainly wielded their own kinds throughout history. Now, increasingly, they wield also the kinds of power that have been associated with men. I’m not convinced that the number of men and women in legislatures says much about anything. If elected male officials could represent only men and elected female officials could represent only women, our democracies would be impossible. And the same thing is true of all people who speak and act in the public square: business executives, journalists, academics, judges, bureaucrats and so on. There are dissenters, but even they must be mindful of what women say and do.
Love your writing Mary! Only one comment on the article itself; when we are born our eggs are all in our ovaries, not our uterus.
Yes, i did wonder about that, but assumed on first reading that Mary meant the eggs of a woman’s grandchildren are in her uterus – in the ovaries of the female foetus she’s carrying. But i think you’re right, a strange anatomical error.
At 57 yrs of age, having grown up in a house with 3 sisters and my mother, having spent years in a female dominated sport (horse competition) with female coaches, having dated for 44 yrs, having a daughter and an ex wife, I STILL have only the barest clue what women want.
BUT….I think I have come to a reason for why that is. Women do not know what they want and when they do it is very likely to change before you can respond to it or change on a dime based on some context. I’ve just reached a point where I realize that the nature of most women is mercurial and that being in a relationship with one, wife, daughter, mother, cousin, any relationship, is like being a surfer. There are days with big, dangerous waves and days with slow rollers but there are always waves to navigate. Accept that you are never gonna be in control, that the best you can do is react and respond to the changing conditions in front of you and pray you do not fall off or that the curl doesn’t bury you and slam you into the bottom. Exciting and thrilling and simultaneously dangerous and terrifying.
A human driven by emotion is as changeable as the weather.
Absolutely. I, and most women, have found men to be still points in a raging ocean; never changing their minds, never getting emotional (anger is not an emotion so that doesn’t count). They can always be relied up on to be there, a rock in a storm, a beacon to guide us. I’ve run out of metaphors here, so – the end.
Ha ha! Yes- it’s ‘funny’ how a propensity to violence is seen as a manifestation of intellectual rigour and dispassionate cogitation by the misogynists.
From what I have seen far too men have allowed themselves to be chained to a ROCK like Prometheus, and suffered the consequent fate.
I gather the technical term is “henpecked “.
Oh Charles, it really is TOO awful. Poor little chickens, how they suffer so….
Indeed, mostly because of that poseur known to history as Sigmund Freud.