While feminism is a gift, it definitely becomes an illusion and rather disempowering if taken too far because it does not incorporate the reality of women's nature.
It is beautiful to be able to be feminine and relax into your own nature and not be forced to stray far from it 💗
Also amazing if it doesn't force you to lie to yourself about your sexual nature either (sexual energy is creative energy)
Most people would prefer to not-work than to work. I'm fairly staunchly feminist but would agree to a semi-trad life (not working, cooking a couple times a week, doing chores a little more often, raising a kid or a few) if the guy was bangable (my physical standards are not astronomical: has to smell good, white, brunet, hygienic, at least 5'6" and not obese but can be a little chonky) and, VERY IMPORTANTLY, not live in a shithole (for me, not a McMansion or new construction, but not a stinky dump that smells like sewage, mold, and ketchup for some fucking reason, where he lives like a slob), not be a "truck guy" or a "sports guy", and have a decent allowance for fitness classes and gear, clothes (upscale second-hand), body maintenance (probably $10k a year), etc.
The first complication for women, is that there is a relatively small pool of men who make enough to enable them to not work. It can be argued that before women were normalized into the workforce, or before the effects of leaving the gold standard materialized, or before the prescriptions of the Hays Memo were enacted, basically any sufficiently productive man could provide something better than "living like a goddamned child with her parents".
The second complication is that receiving support from someone almost always involves relinquishing a degree of sovereignty -- some men are strict and some are permissive, some have aligning priorities and others don't. The best case scenario is finding a man who will not only afford some of these pleasures, but permit the woman to have them.
Those two things combine and mean that the men who can afford to provide are not only more elusive than they've ever been, but also can afford to have disproportionate standards and be very demanding. There are not enough men for the women who want them.
It makes sense that women default to maximizing their individual earning potential while not totally writing off being provided for at a certain standard.
In my case, because women have such a constrained time window, the choices I narrowed down to were: a) do I want to be provided for by a guy I don't want to bang and he fucking spikes my cortisol? b) do I want to work like I would anyway and be with a guy I like, in whatever form that takes? I chose the second and am regularly thankful that society has allowed me the ability to do that.
One thing I haven't really seen discussed is heterogeneity within the sexes. A lot of feminists may be more-masculine women who want to sleep around more before marrying, achieve a career, and be more equal or even the dominant partner. (Though I have found that last one tends to evaporate in the bedroom.) They tend to assume their tastes are normal and the patriarchy is suppressing them.
I'd rather see a sort of 'balanced polymorphism' where people can pair off as they see fit rather than reifying one extreme or the other as the correct one. I feel we'd see a lot of 'traditional' couples (man works, woman stays home), a fair number of 'balanced' couples (both work and do some housework), and a few 'role-reversed' couples (woman works, man stays home).
Exactly. My philosophy on how society should guide people is generally that people should be mildly encouraged towards stereotypical outcomes as that’s the most likely fit. But we should maintain a certain generosity and openness to difference, not just because some people are a unusual, but because American culture dynamism relies on some acceptance of eccentricity. Gender roles are just one application of this.
Women actually come to despise men they can out-earn, out-perform, out-buy (as we’re seeing now in real estate.) Like hate, revile. (George Gilder writes about this.) If we’re dependent on them in any meaningful way, husband or father, we cannot help it, even if we’re begging to “girl boss” or whatever.
This is just natural law, and the designs of feminism have created an “egalitarian” society that cuts men off at the knees, much like DEI, and the bar for everything gets lower and lower and it all crumbles into chaos and ruination. Whew.
It’s sad for men because at least two generations were groomed to be nice (act gay) and women can’t help but hate them for it. Guys get angry that women like “bad boys” but it’s just self-actualization and self-containment; benevolent sexism is not the same thing as dangerous misogyny. All womanizers have a healthy (benevolent) sexist outlook. Nice guys are deeply misogynistic, like a lot of gay guys. I can only assume that the women who claim to want a “golden retriever” haven’t felt their cervix yet.
*edited to add that so many weak, petty men hate their mothers, even if they’re entangled in a weird relationship w her, and most “sexist” men seem to casually adore their mothers. They hug her and kiss her as a greeting, chat with her regularly but briefly on the phone, write her little birthday notes, update her about their comings and goings in life, about the grandkids, etc. Very interesting. Healthy normal men like women and don’t punish them for being female and they aren’t burdened w a constant fear of emasculation, is what I’m taking from all of this.
I'm not sure I would lump in Perry with "feminists" as such, because she leans more conservative and typically says totally reasonable or even outright conservative things in most of her interviews. Plainly put, I almost always agree with her. Because she's a feminist who still tends to believe in things like gender roles and being honest about what makes men attractive. But having said that, your point still applies whether it's to Perry or not.
I've always thought of "Happy wife, happy life" as a sort of banal, cliche, but potentially useful phrase, not really a political one. Maybe I've sort of misunderstood the cultural connotations of it. Or maybe, like so many other things, it's been hijacked and rebranded for the toybox of progressive talking points. I always just took it to mean, "whatever else is going on in your life, if you don't keep your wife happy along the most basic axes, your life is going to suck and it's going to lead to totally avoidable catastrophe."
Thank you for writing this!
While feminism is a gift, it definitely becomes an illusion and rather disempowering if taken too far because it does not incorporate the reality of women's nature.
It is beautiful to be able to be feminine and relax into your own nature and not be forced to stray far from it 💗
Also amazing if it doesn't force you to lie to yourself about your sexual nature either (sexual energy is creative energy)
Feminism is not a gift, precisely because it does not incorporate the reality of woman's nature, but is in fact an ideological rebellion against it.
Most people would prefer to not-work than to work. I'm fairly staunchly feminist but would agree to a semi-trad life (not working, cooking a couple times a week, doing chores a little more often, raising a kid or a few) if the guy was bangable (my physical standards are not astronomical: has to smell good, white, brunet, hygienic, at least 5'6" and not obese but can be a little chonky) and, VERY IMPORTANTLY, not live in a shithole (for me, not a McMansion or new construction, but not a stinky dump that smells like sewage, mold, and ketchup for some fucking reason, where he lives like a slob), not be a "truck guy" or a "sports guy", and have a decent allowance for fitness classes and gear, clothes (upscale second-hand), body maintenance (probably $10k a year), etc.
The first complication for women, is that there is a relatively small pool of men who make enough to enable them to not work. It can be argued that before women were normalized into the workforce, or before the effects of leaving the gold standard materialized, or before the prescriptions of the Hays Memo were enacted, basically any sufficiently productive man could provide something better than "living like a goddamned child with her parents".
The second complication is that receiving support from someone almost always involves relinquishing a degree of sovereignty -- some men are strict and some are permissive, some have aligning priorities and others don't. The best case scenario is finding a man who will not only afford some of these pleasures, but permit the woman to have them.
Those two things combine and mean that the men who can afford to provide are not only more elusive than they've ever been, but also can afford to have disproportionate standards and be very demanding. There are not enough men for the women who want them.
It makes sense that women default to maximizing their individual earning potential while not totally writing off being provided for at a certain standard.
In my case, because women have such a constrained time window, the choices I narrowed down to were: a) do I want to be provided for by a guy I don't want to bang and he fucking spikes my cortisol? b) do I want to work like I would anyway and be with a guy I like, in whatever form that takes? I chose the second and am regularly thankful that society has allowed me the ability to do that.
One thing I haven't really seen discussed is heterogeneity within the sexes. A lot of feminists may be more-masculine women who want to sleep around more before marrying, achieve a career, and be more equal or even the dominant partner. (Though I have found that last one tends to evaporate in the bedroom.) They tend to assume their tastes are normal and the patriarchy is suppressing them.
I'd rather see a sort of 'balanced polymorphism' where people can pair off as they see fit rather than reifying one extreme or the other as the correct one. I feel we'd see a lot of 'traditional' couples (man works, woman stays home), a fair number of 'balanced' couples (both work and do some housework), and a few 'role-reversed' couples (woman works, man stays home).
Exactly. My philosophy on how society should guide people is generally that people should be mildly encouraged towards stereotypical outcomes as that’s the most likely fit. But we should maintain a certain generosity and openness to difference, not just because some people are a unusual, but because American culture dynamism relies on some acceptance of eccentricity. Gender roles are just one application of this.
I agree. This was supposed to be a free country once upon a time.
Women actually come to despise men they can out-earn, out-perform, out-buy (as we’re seeing now in real estate.) Like hate, revile. (George Gilder writes about this.) If we’re dependent on them in any meaningful way, husband or father, we cannot help it, even if we’re begging to “girl boss” or whatever.
This is just natural law, and the designs of feminism have created an “egalitarian” society that cuts men off at the knees, much like DEI, and the bar for everything gets lower and lower and it all crumbles into chaos and ruination. Whew.
It’s sad for men because at least two generations were groomed to be nice (act gay) and women can’t help but hate them for it. Guys get angry that women like “bad boys” but it’s just self-actualization and self-containment; benevolent sexism is not the same thing as dangerous misogyny. All womanizers have a healthy (benevolent) sexist outlook. Nice guys are deeply misogynistic, like a lot of gay guys. I can only assume that the women who claim to want a “golden retriever” haven’t felt their cervix yet.
*edited to add that so many weak, petty men hate their mothers, even if they’re entangled in a weird relationship w her, and most “sexist” men seem to casually adore their mothers. They hug her and kiss her as a greeting, chat with her regularly but briefly on the phone, write her little birthday notes, update her about their comings and goings in life, about the grandkids, etc. Very interesting. Healthy normal men like women and don’t punish them for being female and they aren’t burdened w a constant fear of emasculation, is what I’m taking from all of this.
Agreed.
I'm not sure I would lump in Perry with "feminists" as such, because she leans more conservative and typically says totally reasonable or even outright conservative things in most of her interviews. Plainly put, I almost always agree with her. Because she's a feminist who still tends to believe in things like gender roles and being honest about what makes men attractive. But having said that, your point still applies whether it's to Perry or not.
I've always thought of "Happy wife, happy life" as a sort of banal, cliche, but potentially useful phrase, not really a political one. Maybe I've sort of misunderstood the cultural connotations of it. Or maybe, like so many other things, it's been hijacked and rebranded for the toybox of progressive talking points. I always just took it to mean, "whatever else is going on in your life, if you don't keep your wife happy along the most basic axes, your life is going to suck and it's going to lead to totally avoidable catastrophe."
I felt this picture in my bones