That last paragraph is one of the reasons I’m jealous of you as a writer, Jesse.

Sweet peach-flavored Jesus indeed.

Well, I guess I mean the second-to-last paragraph.  Penultimate.  The one with morlocks.

I’m going back to bed.

correct a problem that women spend over 30 years in the making.

Wait, “holding men responsible” is somehow causing problems for women?

Wait, “holding men responsible” is somehow causing problems for women?

Realizing that you were properly mocking Dr. Helen, I would note that there’s actually one place that this is causing women problems. We don’t have a sensible way to treat men (or women) who engage in physical abuse of their significant other. Jailing someone for beating up their spouse is not a great idea if the victim needed the income of the violent spouse for food, clothing, health-care and shelter for the family. I’m glad we take spousal abuse seriously these days, but we need to find more wisdom in dealing with it.

This, I’ve realized, is the main reason I consider myself a feminist.  I tend to prefer a world which, at some point, can have some form of gender equality that’s not based on the presumption that the other gender is genetically inclined to fuck me in the ear with a rusty spoon.

Funny how different the world looks when you view members of the opposite sex as part of your own species, rather than a completely alien group whose motives and actions one cannot possibly understand. It turns out that women and men are both motivated by pretty much the same things, and that there are both good and bad women and good and bad men! Crazy, right?

Oh, and Dr. Helen can’t go Galt soon enough. Sadly, I don’t think she’s going to.

“I just don’t understand how these people operate… ...in a world where an entire gender is an instrument of civilization’s destruction.”

Well, considering that everyone to the left of Ronald Reagan, and therefore something like 60-75% of the American citizenry, is considered by Greater Wingnuttia to be “an instrument of civilization’s destruction”, blaming only half of humanity because of the kind of naughty bits they have is actually an improvement…

considering that everyone to the left of Ronald Reagan, and therefore something like 60-75% of the American citizenry, is considered by Greater Wingnuttia to be “an instrument of civilization’s destruction”

Probably even higher than that . . . if you take in anyone who’s sexual practices aren’t acceptable, anyone who’s ever had a potentially socialist thought in their head, anyone who’s ever smoked pot, anyone who follows a theological tradition other than the theological tradition of Greater Winguttia . . .

No wonder they feel themselves to be an embattled minority, no matter how much institutional power they gain :o/ . . .

Dr. Helen enjoys rough sex a bit to much I would say.

Having a stable marriage with of without kids is hard work and I am no saint, but I try to do the right thing and not be a total douche. No hookers or girls on the side always helps keep a marriage going. (duh) (I am looking at you Republicans) But I am always surprised to hear my coworkers (Not just Republicans) talk about women as if they are not people too. To stay with a person or married to them, I think loving the person your with even when they bitch about how lazy you are around the house helps. Also being able to speak your mind, and being equals helps in my opinion. In the end I would say love him or her as much as you do yourself and treat her or him the way you want to be treated like a thinking caring person.

Dr Helen is fucking pathological. The sooner she Galts off, the better.

I don’t see that these two differ all that much.  Both subscribe to the ancient Christian/Victorian view that the nature of women is “higher” or “purer” than that of men, who are basically of a coarser or “lower” nature.  Thus, the proper sphere of women is the Virgin Mary-ish wife/mother/nurturer, while men are fit for dealing with the world but need their baser natures channeled by society and religion.

Men go bad by slipping their chains, and women go bad by taking the roles of men.  Society (read religion) is needed to keep both of them in their proper spheres, and those who violate Natural Order are both a Threat to Our Civilization.

They’re just setting different priorities in their objections to the 20th (no that’s not a mistake) century.

I am sold on this philosophy and would like to subscribe to its newsletter.

I think you write for its newsletter.

The sooner she Galts off, the better.

THis is Karmakin, and I approve of this dismissal.

I mean really. Galt off?

That’s just great.

Jailing someone for beating up their spouse is not a great idea if the victim needed the income of the violent spouse for food, clothing, health-care and shelter for the family. I’m glad we take spousal abuse seriously these days, but we need to find more wisdom in dealing with it.
freelunch on 03/21 at 09:18 AM

Minimize dependency by:

1) Transforming society by providing resources for people who have children to earn living incomes (including ambitious careers that allow for advancement up the ladder on equal terms with men) while knowing their children are OK when they can’t be there for them—this includes making workplaces more child-friendly places, which might well require making them much more worker-friendly places! As well as comprehensive, well-funded, accountable hence trustworthy day care options. All this in service of eliminating barriers that tend to put women at a disadvantage in the workplace, but I said “people” above because we should also be eliminating barriers for men who want to share the burdens of childcare equally as well; perhaps then more would let go of male privilege in the workplace.

2) Guarantee that all families (of whatever composition) have the resources to raise children should they opt to have them; including hassle-free emergency (but long-term) support for displaced homemakers—theoretically of whatever gender, but we know we are talking mostly about women here. (That social transformation may take a while and may never go all the way…but a huge part of that happening will probably be eliminating workplace terrorism, including the fear of unemployment as a life-ending disaster. I’m a big fat socialist, sue me!)

3) Fund the above in part by levying fines on abusive partners, once accountable due process has determined they are at fault. It would be more likely that the current failures of our system to properly recognize who is at fault would be reformed if women were not, as you say, afraid of the consequences of speaking out.

Of course, when and if abuse rises to the level of persistent past and likely future violence, we certainly should continue and even redouble our theoretical hard line in punishing past abuse. Because quite aside from all too reasonable fears of poverty and inability to provide for children, women all too often have to fear retaliation from the abuser down the line.

As was pointed out in the recent death penalty thread, it isn’t severity so much as likelihood of getting caught and held accountable that is a deterrent to crime. If abusers know that their targets can and likely will escape into safety and then denounce them, many will, hopefully, reconsider their ways and seek and get help in breaking their dysfunctional habits.

Or some might just get more stealthy and ruthless, but that’s what severe penalties are for; the point is to dry up the vast sea of abuse-culture that we are currently soaking in.

Unfortunately I fear that our society is founded on systematic abuse and that systematically trying to uproot all abuse soon brings one afoul of conservatives who don’t think of what they are upholding as “abusive” at all.

Which is why progress and enlightenment is a centuries-long process with frequent reversals. But it is also why one should be a progressive, IMNSHO.

Both subscribe to the ancient Christian/Victorian view that the nature of women is “higher” or “purer” than that of men, who are basically of a coarser or “lower” nature.  Thus, the proper sphere of women is the Virgin Mary-ish wife/mother/nurturer, while men are fit for dealing with the world but need their baser natures channeled by society and religion.

Actually, the Victorian version is rather recent; the “ancient” Christian traditions (not held by all Christians, but certainly by the “Fathers of the Church” and other bastions of orthodoxy) which they shared/inherited from the dominant Classical philosophies of the Greco-Roman world and certain strands of Hebrew tradition, was that women were lower, incomplete, less capable of civilization or salvation (as the case may be).

I’ve been accused, here and elsewhere, of having a one-note Procustean bed of a world-view, but that’s why I suppose I just do a terrible job of explaining it. Actually, while I will go on about “dominator society” I also think people are human beings first, and that it is not easy to beat dominator society values into each new generation. A good trick such societies have mastered is co-opting dissent, but by that same token they become paradoxical and there is room for individuals to negotiate the terms.

Thus, the Classical view I outlined above is the more straightforward dominator view; in a society which is preoccupied with militarism and competition, everyone is systematically terrorized and put off-balance, but women will be more so and when ideologists apply logic to explaining their society without just calling it a big racket, they will “logically” conclude women are less worthy. But a dominator society that can incorporate some less severe viewpoints is at a competitive advantage with respect to more rigid ones, reflecting the fact that we are human beings first and too tight a hierarchy dismisses the talents of too many people wholesale (not to mention turning them into subversives of various stripes, from idealistic rebels to sneaky malcontents).

I see the typical “Victorian” cant—women as pure vessels, homophobia, blah blah blah—as the outcome of class dynamics in Early Modern societies with rising numbers of people who were as we say “middle-class;” they were privileged compared to the majority but much less secure in their privilege than the real upper class, and when they reached a certain critical mass (in post-Restoration Britain, notably in the Georgian reigns—also generally in the European capitalist world including of course colonial America) they began to parley their “virtue” relative to the unchecked privilege of their “betters” as well as the no-benefits-and-nothing-to-lose masses below them as standards.

One reason I fix the time and dynamic so precisely is the impression I got in a course on Restoration English literature, which focused in part on the new gender definitions emerging from the period, notably the rise of homophobia, which eventually took the form of severe attacks even on very rich and powerful people; the straightlaced “virtue” of the middle classes was a weapon in their negotiation of higher status and greater general power. Of course it generally was quite hypocritical but the point was not to get caught rather than to simply assert that rank hath its privileges…

The middle-classedness of “Victorian” values helps explain the reversal in oppressive tropes for womanhood—in order for middle-class families to get ahead they had to be able to rely on women, and much of the abstract “feminine virtue” did correspond to culture they were made responsible for transmitting.

Winged critters are either angels or harpies depending how you look at them.

As I see it, the 2 conservative women actually agree: that this is a cause-and-effect phenomenon, ie that one gender started it and the other is pushing back, ie that it’s a case of action and reaction. Where they disagree is which gender is in which position.

Where they both disagree with liberals/feminists is that such a black-vs.-white, good-vs.-bad structure exists or needs to exist.

Then we’ll all have superbabies, except for the ugly people, who will become our Morlocks.

Yes, but remember that the Morlocks eventually evolved to become the superior race.

The thing is, it would be nice to have a council on men and boys that focused on raising consciousness about the zillion ways that patriarchy hurts men, and what they can do to escape the various catch-22s that surround them. That way it wouldn’t be all the feminists’ (which means practically mostly, and politically entirely, women) job to educate men and boys and raise them out of their ignorance (which, oh, right, is a self-defeating meme as well as a pain in the ass).

And then we could all have a pony.

And then we could all have a pony.

I do not want to share a collective pony with you, as you appear to be a man and would likely eat it. Only girls can appreciate ponies correctly. All men are terrible with ponies ‘cause they evolved to hunt ponies while women evolved to ...um, gather… ponies… Yah.

Joking aside, these women both seem to hate everybody and want to punish everyone they know by making them marry assholes. Which is everybody.

Also that past tense is bugging me (“correct a problem that women spend over 30 years in the making.”) Does she mean spent? ‘Cause else it sounds like each marriage is like some 30 year ordeal in which women all individually do something’r other blah blah I’m done with her forever psh.

(And Jesse you are lovely! You say the things I want to say but awesomely. ^^)

“Then we’ll all have superbabies, except for the ugly people, who will become our Morlocks.”
And then keep you as livestock?

Jailing someone for beating up their spouse is not a great idea if the victim needed the income of the violent spouse for food, clothing, health-care and shelter for the family.

Surely the right thing to do therefore is to ensure economic as well as bodily protection for women, not expect them to put up with violence on top of all the other sacrifices we require them to make for the privilege of being allowed to bring up future generations of tax payers for free?

Or perhaps to eliminate a culture that pushes women into exclusive and legally restrictive relationships with a men on whom they must become dependent when children come on the scene, pressuring them to accept a status akin to chattle for the privilege of being allowed to bring up future generations of tax payers for free?

Or possibly even stop telling women that they must fight, pine, long and strive for the privilege of being allowed to bring up future generations of tax payers for free altogether, and instead encourage them to become fully integrated agents with autonomous control over their own reproductive organs?

If a womam is in a situation - all to common I know - of being forced to remain in an exclusive relationship entailing exchange of sexual favours and domestic labour in order to ensure the economic viability of her children, then that’s abuse right there, because that dude *owns* her. Whether he gives her the occasional black eye or not is just icing on the cake.

A council on men and boys would address the crisis in American manhood that results in the scourge of infidelity, divorce, lack of commitment and fatherhood with multiple partners.

I hate the way conservatives think that only men cheat, initiate divorces, or lack commitment to their children and families.  A council to reduce these things would be good, but we need it for both men and women.

This includes making workplaces more child-friendly places, which might well require making them much more worker-friendly places!

You’ve got to be kidding. I so don’t want to deal with anyone’s screeching brat while I"m trying to concentrate on my work. Offices are where adults do business. They are not for you to bring in your special snowflake to have everyone fawn over it.