Archive for the ‘Is It Really a Man’s World?’ Category

The Girlie Men

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010

Richard Fernandez writes in Pajamas Media, The Belmont Club:

A study described by the Wall Street Journal concludes that women from “healthy countries” don’t like he-men. Respondents, mainly white women in “Argentina, Sweden, Russia, Australia and the United States,” were presented with pairs of photos each representing the same man. But in one the image had been subtly altered to create a more “feminine” appearance. The authors say that in countries with an efficient health care system the women tended to choose the feminine-looking image.

The faces, it turned out, looked eerily alike and yet subtly different, like identical twins. They were created by software that masculinizes or feminizes a person’s features in a few keystrokes. Only by examining the faces closely could one discern that the man on the left, say, had slightly rounder eyes and a narrower jaw than the one on the right. Some of the faces had slightly thinner lips than their doppelgängers, or wider-set eyes, or thicker archless brows. It took most women fewer than 10 minutes to click through the 20 pairs of male faces and select which ones they found hunkiest.

Wimpy KidAfter crunching the data—including the women’s facial preferences, their country of origin and that country’s national health index—the Face Lab researchers proved something remarkable. They could predict how masculine a woman likes her men based on her nation’s World Health Organization statistics for mortality rates, life expectancy and the impact of communicable disease. In countries where poor health is particularly a threat to survival, women leaned toward “manlier” men. That is, they preferred their males to have shorter, broader faces and stronger eyebrows, cheekbones and jaw lines. The researchers went on to publish the study in this month’s issue of the scientific journal Proceedings of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences.

The authors argued from principles of evolutionary psychology that women from countries with bad medical systems selected men from a tougher genetic pool because they wanted their offspring to survive. Since a good proxy for tough genes turns out to be testosterone, they picked out Mr. Tall Dark and Handsome. But testosterone also creates problems: men who are “uncooperative, unsympathetic, philandering, aggressive and disinterested in parenting”. They are men who might balk at sitting down when using the toilet. What to do about testosterone?

The link is testosterone, the hormone behind manly muscles, strong jaws, prominent eyebrow ridges, facial hair and deep voices. Testosterone is immunosuppressive. This means a man must be healthy and in good condition to withstand its effects on his development. Testosterone is also linked to other traits related to strength: fitness, fertility and dominance. From an evolutionary perspective, masculinity is basically man’s way of advertising good genes, dominance and likelihood to father healthier kids. When disease is a real threat, as it had been—and arguably still is—heritable health is invaluable.

The answer is apparently for women to ditch it as soon as it is safe to do so. Hence the preference for feminine looking men in women from countries with medical provision. The reason American society is so full of atavistic knuckle-draggers is because its health care (until recently) was so primitive. Now that Obamacare has been passed the United States has every prospect of truly joining “Western civilized societies”. They are leaving the dark ages of Gary Cooper and John Wayne and entering the bright sunlit uplands of Mr. Sensitivo.

And where does the U.S. stand in the masculinity ranking? The answer is fifth out of the 30 countries in the study, one of the highest. This is, after all, the home of James Dean and Clint Eastwood. And where does America stand in the health index ranking? Twentieth of 30 countries, one of the least healthy.

With Obamacare passed it’s time to blow-dry your hair and apply that subtle cologne. But there’s a price. Taken to its limit this theory explains the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire: when a society becomes richer and more stable the he-men go out of fashion. The fops rule the roost. The girlie-men get the all girls. And so it goes until the barbarians arrive at the City Gates. Then overnight he-men are back in demand. But by then the race of two fisted men are extinct and the women are ravished by he-men of a different sort. The kind who rape, pillage, burn and torture. Ultimately they burn all the books, put women under heavy veils and go back to the economy of raising goats. So the evolutionary psychology also explains the Dark Ages.

Somewhere in my archives, there’s a passage in which I pulled some stagnant speculation about mankind’s development squarely out of my ass…but I suppose you could call it a crude form of “science” because I stumbled on this trying to find an explanation for something, and it seems nothing else really explains it.

I think, throughout mankind’s existence, we have spent thousands of years being lured back into collectivist living units; evolution has not succeeded in showing us what a failed experiment it is. Food gets scarce, the village needs to make a decision about who is to be ostracized. And so an instinct develops, and is refined to a competent art among those lucky enough to survive the famine. The instinct of “In scarcity, ostracize that guy, over there…not me.”

Some family units did not live in villages; and it seems they survived, and evolved, as well. Now, think about this. Two leopard-skin-covered cave ladies; one lives with her man and her whelps, the other lives in a village. Both of them are mothers to ancestors of people alive today. But the village lady does not see her man much of the time. She couldn’t, could she? The men would be off — together — trying to lay a trap for a boar like those skinny guys in the first few minutes of Apocalypto. The women would hang out together, raising their children together. Minute-to-minute, hour-to-hour, the “home” stuff that requires male brawn would be handled by some village resource. A buff warrior left behind for such purposes, perhaps. Not by her dude. Something centralized.

The result would be two evolving, surviving, occasionally competing mindsets. One — “If it requires male intuition or brawn, it will be resolved by some resource inside my home.” Two — “the village will provide someone or something that is not part of my home.”

The point? I think the ladies are fighting this internal battle with greater conflict, and more zeal and more gusto on both sides, than the gentlemen are. If you’re one of the “healthy” girls picking these wimpy guys in the experiment, you’re not trying to make a political statement or anything — you’re just doing what comes naturally. Truly vexing problems are not to be solved by anyone or anything from your “cave.” The village will provide. And this has a bearing on what exactly it is that you’re choosing…which is something…pretty. An accessory, one visually uplifting. Like macrame.

Of course, macrame is disposable. To the best I can determine, the divorce rates in these countries-of-origin, were not discussed. And the bias I perceive in the research staff, based on the nuggets I have read, suggest that they will not be.

No man who’s been through any significant experience will need too much edification on what I’m going on about; it becomes quickly evident that all ladies are not looking for the same things when they pursue (or allow themselves to be pursued by) men. And it isn’t too hard to figure out which variety you’re courting. Just start growing a beard, see what she has to say about it. Some women want men to do things women cannot do; others are offended by this. They hide behind trivial things like “it scratches!” But generally, a lady who recoils from one masculine trait, will recoil from all of the others.

And households can be masculine in nature. A household that is constructed around a dictum of taking care of its own stuff, not relying on the village alms, is masculine in nature. A lot of people don’t like that, it seems.

Helpful Dads Can Hurt Mom’s Self-Esteem

Thursday, March 18th, 2010

Yahoo News:

Dads are helping out with childrearing more and more these days. The result can be both a boon and a letdown for super-moms, whose self-competence can take a hit when paired with husbands who are savvy caregivers, new research finds.

The findings reveal the fallout as women have entered the workplace in droves over recent decades, many of them leaving young children at home. One result is mothers have less time for care-giving. Past studies have shown working moms are torn between full-time careers and stay-at-home duties. And lately more diligent dads are helping out with the diaper-changing and other household duties.

But since mothers pride themselves on being just that – moms – their self-esteem can take a blow.

“While mothers are encouraged to join the workforce, socially constructed ideals of motherhood requires mothers to be primary caregivers,” said study researcher Takayuki Sasaki of the Osaka University of Commerce in Japan. “Thus, employed mothers may feel pressured to do more care-giving to ensure the survival of their feelings of self-competence, even though they may wish for fathers’ increased participation to lessen their burden.”

So it’s A) Men always have yet another excuse to be lazy. Or, B) Women never ever stop bitching no matter WHAT.

Or C) Science isn’t science if it shows a social problem is in remission; all disasters have to be growing, all the time, threatening to engulf us.

Vote only once, please. Well, okay maybe more than once…

If Men Were Allowed to Edit Womens’ Magazines

Friday, February 19th, 2010

Click pic to view.

Hat tip to Linkiest.

Disenmanchised

Saturday, February 6th, 2010

Blogger friend Andy lays it down:

PussywhippedModern woman is not evil, and modern man is not weak, but the new assertion of the former has met the humble acquiescence of the latter, and the consequence of that convenient tryst is a shrinking of the places that men have for the making of things.
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It is difficult to know, but it seems that with the decreased room to work has come a decreased estimation for the work that does get done. The builders are no longer the heroes of our society. For far too long now we have been watching men span great distances with improbable technology for the nobility of human exploration, so the bridge maker has been rendered just another guy doing another thing in another place. It is passe exceptionalism in a culture full of people grown weary of celebrating a few hyper-acheiving world builders among throngs of everyday souls. There is no longer any accomplishment too great to be ignored, no myth too beautiful to be spurned, and no sedentary self-righteousness too complacent to be hailed as brilliance.

Don’t Pick on the Girl

Saturday, January 23rd, 2010

Item: Daphne is digging into the root cause of what’s really wrong in Haiti. Besides/before the quake. Because nobody, anywhere, is saying before the quake hit, Haiti was some kind of Garden of Eden. They can’t say that because you’d immediately know they’re full of it. So howkumthatiz?

I pulled up a headline a little while ago that began “The scarcest commodity in Haiti…” and fully expected the answer to be fathers. Serendipity has been flashing her soft skirts at me today, pressing an incessant peak of firm, high thigh well before the sun rose and the flirt hasn’t let up yet. An incessant weave mentioning good fathers, or the clear lack of them, has been a steady theme turning up in every corner of my world today.

My ridiculous expectation wasn’t nearly as absurd as the reporter’s answer…
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Communities that function with reasonable success under normal circumstances are full of solid men shouldering broad responsibilities for their children’s welfare. These widespread corners of low crime, good schools and dynamic business revenue thrive on the responsible backs of hardworking men who willingly respond to meet the everyday needs of their personal responsibilities and community infrastructure. When their neighborhoods are afflicted by catastrophic events, natural or man-made, they react with decisiveness and ingenuity to save lives, alleviate suffering and quickly rebuild. They’ve made plans for future contingencies because they have their children’s long-term welfare in mind. It’s really that simple.

And now for another item, brought to our attention by John Hawkins, something completely, or mostly, unrelated. Daphne has explored what we fellas are doing right, now let’s take a look at what the chickees are doing wrong.

15 Annoying Things Girlfriends Do (That You Have to Put Up With)

1. Random Item Relocation
2. Unwanted “Organization” of Your Stuff
3. Constant Overdressing
4. She’s Late for Everything
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15. Deeming All Things Technical to be Unimportant

And what have these two things in common with each other? One points out that men do things right — or, let us be more precise, that it is important that the men do things right. The other points out that women do things wrong. One has to do with keeping a civilization going…a matter of life and death. The other has to do with the minor irritant of not being able to find your Super-Suit, and when you unleash a plaintive wail about where the damn thing might be, you’re asked why you need it.

What’ve they got in common with each other?

They are disallowed. Men important…women flawed. Neither one of those can get a fair hearing in our culture. We’ve blocked them both out. No one will ever say “women are perfect” and very few people will say “men don’t matter.” But with the black magic of the pliable, Gumby-like code of unwritten taboos, we can say those things without saying them — by stigmatizing their opposites. So you aren’t allowed to mention that men might play a pivotal role, or that some women do some tiresome, tedious things.

Check out the comments under the “15 Annoying Things” article. It really is astonishing. They pretty much fall into two categories: “You’re a pussy for even taking the time to notice/jot down this stuff,” and “If you’re dating any women at all, which I doubt, they’re not the right kind.” Read that last one as the “Yeah But All Women Aren’t Like That” stanza.

That’s the same as saying no woman ever does this? Huh. How do you explain that live-in of mine from a few years ago…during which time I had my “survival kit” packed in the trunk of my car, of the vital items she couldn’t “Randomly Relocate”? The batteries, the bandages, the tampons, the cat food. Why was that necessary if this isn’t a real problem?

Criticizing women is a funny thing. “Not All Women Are Like That” — is the same, somehow, as — “There Are No Women Like That,” which logically is a completely different thing to say. Read those comments again. What you’re seeing here is Thing I Know #58:

To insult a man says nothing about other men, but for some reason, anything said against one woman is perceived to be said against everything female who ever lived.

What we have condemned with such severity — without having the balls to out-and-out condemn it — is inter-generational transfer of knowledge. Bar Mitzvahs, taming the wild mare, the institution of marriage itself, Ten Commandments, Pan Far…these are traditions that got started for a reason. And the reason is that some requirements, some customs, some prohibitions that are needed for a society to continue to thrive, are absolutely essential. Among those are essential, even if you’re a real smart ticket it’ll take you a long time to figure out they’re helpful. Like, to age fifty or so. Well, we don’t have time for everyone to reach age fifty and figure it out. And so traditions are handed down from mother to daughter and from father to son. Rules are recorded in books, and then they’re followed. Old people are going to have to tell young people what to do, and then the young people are going to have to do it without asking questions about everything.

Our new taboos have torn these to shreds as well. Men don’t count, and nobody should ever demand anything out of them (except money); women never annoy anybody, or else it’s the other person’s fault for being annoyed.

The eventual result? Men in their twenties who don’t do a damn thing that’s constructive, fun as they may be to watch. Old men who are alone and purposeless, wishing like the dickens that they did something constructive when they were young. Women leapfrogging from one marriage to the next, annoying the shit out of every single husband they get, wondering why it’s taking them so long to find “love.” Children who can’t pay attention to a goddamn thing besides the latest text message that popped up on their “Hello Kitty” flipfone.

It isn’t our lack of ability to do things well, or to fix things when we aren’t doing well. It’s our lack of ability to figure out what we’re not doing well — and that’s a lack of willingness, not ability, when you get down to it. We’ve identified just a few occasional flaws that we are not ever, ever, ever willing to acknowledge should we ever run across them.

Which, in reality, actually do happen from time to time. And that is where we start to slip off the rails and become all dysfunctional. Things go gunnybags.

Your New Boyfriend Might Be an Egomaniac

Thursday, January 21st, 2010

Watch out, ladies. Look for these tell-tale signs.

1. He can’t take an innocent joke at his expense.
2. He works in advertising, has an M.D., or is the lead singer and/or most good-looking member of a band.
3. He tells you about the assorted girls who hit on him. Or worse, the ones who looked at him and thus OBVIOUSLY wanted to hit on him.
4. He gives you a verbal resume on a first date. Even if it sounds impressive, run.
5. He begins 75 percent of sentences with I.

Begins three-quarters of his sentences with “I”? Last time I was on the market, I dated a lot of women who did that. Or let’s just say a lot of the women I dated, did that…makes me sound a bit more chaste. I didn’t (whoops!) keep a record of them or the sentences that came out of them…but it was easy to form the impression that nowadays this is just how available young ladies talk. I said this, I said that, and then I said…blah blah blah.

I remember noticing this about my ex-wife, way back in the early days, when there were still a few more months before she started looking like a future-ex. The story would start out “she said to me” — just telling me what happened to her at work that day. And then the remaining 99% of the story was “so then I said.” I remember teasing her about it and asking “so after that point, didn’t the other person say anything, or was it all just you talking?” Hmm, now that I think on it maybe that’s when she started being a future-ex.

Anyway, it really comes as news to me that guys aren’t supposed to do this. I suppose it’s not very chivalrous. Then again, I wonder how a gentleman comes off on a first date if he makes too much of a point of not doing it. Can’t you just hear the BFF’s debriefing afterward in the inevitable “So Tell Me What He’s Like” chit-chat? “It was so hard to get anything out of him…it’s like whatever he’s got going on, he didn’t want me to know anything about it. Really creepy.”

Oh well. In the end, for the most part, I’m convinced it’s physical. At least with the younger ladies it is; if you look like Casper Van Dien, you can say whatever you want to say and be as egomaniacal as you please, she’ll find a way to get past it and the litmus tests won’t even be applied. The few that wanted to hang on to me, before the one I eventually snagged, really didn’t have anything else good to say about me besides that I was “handsome.” Whatever was positive that could be said about the brains, was uttered dismissively by those who chucked me to the curb, in the middle of the “someday you’ll find someone” speech. Those who wanted to keep me, catalog’d it alongside all the other things that made me an overall pain-in-the-ass.

In the end, men and women are exactly alike: If they’re available for very long, they’re available for a reason. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, mind you. But it’s certainly true.

Not In It For The Attention, Mind You… XXXVIII

Thursday, January 7th, 2010

A few days ago I got in trouble with a whole lot of my male readers on the subject of chicks. And so I’m glad, today, to see my point of view defended by…a chick. And not just any chick, but Blogsister Daphne.

We all know when a good-looking woman crosses our path, our eyes turn, we can’t help ourselves. Humans enjoy physical beauty. Classically beautiful women have two things in common; a shapely figure and attractive faces. It has always been so. Playboy didn’t define beauty, it merely showcased the finer lights of my sex in a more blatantly prurient vein.

Big bottomed girls, fair redheads sprinkled with freckles, golden brown brunettes, lean boyish frames, overflowing busts and tawny eyed blondes all find admirers in the wide arena of men. Taste is subjective, sexual heat is particular. Acknowledging the platinum standard of female beauty doesn’t denigrate or negate women who failed to benefit from a great combination of DNA nor does it demean the men who fall in love or deep passion with a woman who swims in circles well outside that ancient ideal.

I still maintain my own careless editing motivated many to take my words out of context. Many among my critics were offering the critique that man-to-man-to-man, the ideal of beauty will naturally change. I agree with this, and it seems Daphne does too.

But I’ll certainly go along with the idea that there is a predilection. And that it is frequently misrepresented and mis-perceived. Rare is the man who’d prefer the physique of Keira Knightly, contrasted against Marilyn Monroe. My point was that Vox Populi was perfectly on-target: If you spend your lifetime preferring a certain look, it is highly unlikely some “Rules”-reading bimbo will come along sporting a completely different look, and cause you to stop in your tracks and go “Whoa!” You’ll probably end up marrying someone within your ideal of beauty.

Daphne’s point is well taken too, though. There is taste; there is the magnetism. One is subjective, the other is far less so.

Why “The Rules” Don’t Work

Tuesday, January 5th, 2010

Some fifteen years ago there was this book put out by a couple of bitter women called The Rules: Time-Tested Secrets for Capturing the Heart of Mr. Right. Men all over the civilized world, within the tenth of a second they took to analyze the phenomenon, had exactly the same thought: This shit would send me running away screaming, so if “The Rules” really do work then these millions of excited women must be looking for someone different from me. You see, there is an unstated, unifying principle behind each and every one of The Rules, and the unifying principle is this — actually, it’s a small double-handful of principles: The man should do more work, the woman should decide more things, the man should know less about what’s going on, and the whole experience should cost him a good amount of money.

This, I think, feels mighty good to you if you’re an available female and you’ve been through some unsatisfying dating experiences, particularly if you’re the one that got dumped. It doesn’t follow from that that these are rules that will work in your future dating endeavors. But the women got excited about the book anyway, by the millions. And this puts the big reveal on the kind of women who like this stuff: If you put them in the right emotional frame of mind, and then tell them some things that aren’t true, you can get whatever you want out of them. Hmmm. I think I know why their dating lives might not have been fulfilling.

Most prominently displayed quote at The Rules home page: Oprah Winfrey. “The Rules isn’t just a book, it’s a movement, honey.” Yes, that Oprah Winfrey. I rest my case.

Well, I don’t know why Vox Populi waited this long to critique The Rules (hat tip to The Ness in Darkness), but I’m glad he did. Wonder if the people who need to read it, will ever see it.

Rule 1: Be a “Creature Unlike Any Other”

Given that Playboy has spent five decades proving the near-universal male predilection for a slender, pretty, large-breasted, blue-eyed blonde, this rule is obviously insane. In fact, most men have distinct preferences that anyone who knows them well can easily identify…Women are naturally attracted to outliers for the sheer sake of their novelty. Men aren’t.

Rule 2: Show Up to Parties, Dances, and Social Events Even if You Do Not Feel Like It.

This makes sense, but you probably shouldn’t bother if you’re just going to be a tiresome bitch. Unless it’s a Goth party, then feel free to mope and whine all you like, Lady Dolorous.
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Rule 5: Don’t Call Him & Rarely Return His Calls

That’s fine. He’ll be busy having sex with the woman who calls him at 11 PM to see if he happens to be free at the moment and you’re just another haughty bitch who can’t be bothered to call him back anyway. This is easily the worst Rule, as it is designed to ensure that the only men who will continue to call you are terminally obsessed stalkers.

Rule 6: Always End Phone Calls First

This Rule is fine, because there isn’t a single man on the planet who keeps track of who hung up first. Besides, he’s either reading his emails, surfing the Internet, or playing video games while you’re rambling on and on about who said what to whom anyhow.

There are, in my opinion, quite a few women who sunk some money into this book and still have it on their shelves to this very day even though they’re still single and miserable. There is an unhappy phenomenon taking place here…and it is not exclusively female, although it is perhaps predominantly female. The phenomenon is an enjoyment of the adrenaline rush that goes with the feeling of solving a problem, coupled with sustained ignorance and apathy regarding whether the problem is really being solved. The Rules were given the ol’ college try; they didn’t work, for the reasons Vox Populi states, along with some others; but the whole experience felt so damn good. Especially those above-mentioned principles according to which men shouldn’t decide anything and they shouldn’t be in control of anything.

Of the millions of old copies of The Rules that were snatched up all those years ago, I speculate further that more than half of them reek of cat urine.

“The Misandry Bubble”

Sunday, January 3rd, 2010

The Futurist has an essay up of some 12,000 words give-or-take (hat tip: Cassy Fiano), on why it seems civilization is quickly disintegrating under our feet:

The Western World has quietly become a civilization that undervalues men and overvalues women, where the state forcibly transfers resources from men to women creating various perverse incentives for otherwise good women to conduct great evil against men and children, and where male nature is vilified but female nature is celebrated. This is unfair to both genders, and is a recipe for a rapid civilizational decline and displacement, the costs of which will ultimately be borne by a subsequent generation of innocent women, rather than men, as soon as 2020.

Our take on it? Yes, you’re “undervaluing” people when you denigrate them simply for being what they are, regardless of their actions or lack thereof. And you certainly “overvalue” them when you worship them for being certain things rather than doing certain things.

That’s not intended as a promotion of my own view of why civilization seems to be crumbling under our feet; although that remains my answer to the question today. It is crumbling under our feet because we are no longer fit to stand upon it, because of a number of issues that all trace back to our predilection for passing judgment on each other for what we are, rather than for what we do. What The Futurist is exploring is one small facet of this sickness. Women good, men bad, and who cares what any of them actually do.

We are undervaluing work, overvaluing entertainment, undervaluing defense, overvaluing compromise, undervaluing meat, overvaluing organic vegetables, undervaluing competition, overvaluing empathy…et cetera. Because we’re trying too hard to think like women.

Speaking just for myself, that is not intended to bash women. If we were to undervalue them and overvalue men, and embark on all the thought transgressions that would result, our consequential societal problems would be just as severe. But “If” is ultimately a game for children. In the real world, things are what they are; and we are out of balance, because being out of balance is a state that is in perfect harmony with our efforts.

Girls Don’t Do Computer Science and It’s Star Trek’s Fault

Thursday, December 17th, 2009

Wired found a study:

The gender gap in computer science may have been widened by Star Trek, a new study suggests — but it could be bridged with a less geeky image.

New research published in the December Journal of Personality and Social Psychology suggests that the stereotype of computer scientists as unwashed nerds may be partially responsible for the dearth of women in the field, as shown by National Science Foundation statistics.

“What this research shows is that the image of computer science — this geeky, masculine image — can make women feel like they don’t belong,” says lead author Sapna Cheryan of the University of Washington.

“I think this is an important contribution to the literature,” says Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton of the University of California, Berkeley. He says it raises questions about how much conscious control people have over their choices.

Previous research has found that a person can get a good sense of what another individual is like just from spending a few minutes perusing that person’s bedroom. Cheryan wondered if the same was true of classrooms.

“You can get a message about whether you want to join a certain group just by seeing the physical environment that that group is associated with,” Cheryan says. “You walk in, see these objects and think, ‘This is not me.’”

Cheryan and colleagues tested this idea by alternately decorating a computer science classroom with objects that earlier surveys pegged as stereotypically geeky—Star Trek posters, videogames and comic books — or with objects that the surveys found to be neutral— coffee mugs, plants and art posters. Thirty-nine college students spent a few minutes in the room, then filled out a questionnaire on their attitudes toward computer science.

Women who spent time in the geeky room reported less interest in computer science than women who saw the neutral room. For male students, however, the room’s décor made no difference.

This would explain why on all of the shows on WB Network — let me repeat that, all of the shows — you find a male character from there, and the dude doesn’t act like a “real” dude, knowwhatimean? The wounded-puppy look; immaculately tweezed eyebrows that could hold up book collections. A twenty-something face that has never known stubble (unless it’s in the script), or for that matter pressure under a deadline. He’s only concerned about one thing, ever, and that is whatever concerns her. He is only masculine in the ways a girl would find non-threatening — if she’s about twelve — and therefore, he isn’t very masculine at all.

It all makes sense. Everything has to fit someone’s image of “female-friendly,” and if it doesn’t then whoever created it is widening a gender gap. Better knock it off now.

This is such a colossal mistake; females are more resilient than this. Aren’t they? Or do I have it wrong? All of them, young and old, need to see plaid and paisley everywhere they look?

Wouldn’t it be funny if these asshats set out to make an “experiment” that would prove the opposite — that men are influenced by a room’s decor just as much as, or more than, their female counterparts. The data got in the way, so they found a different spin to put on it so they could still get their grant money.

Suppose we turn the world upside-down and make the technical fields bright purple and pink so they are pleasing to women who demand this. Make it all appealing…just barely long enough for them to pass a point of commitment. And then they find out, it’s greasy nerds, it’s some other more humble line of work to which they did not dedicate themselves to the necessary training, or it’s waiting for a sugar-daddy. Who’s that help? Really, I wanna know.

And I haven’t even mentioned the other people like me, who consider it a colossal headache when they have to work with someone, man or woman, who never should have entered the field in the first place. That is no picnic. Someday I must jot down all the reasons why that sucks so much. For now, I’ll just comment that it sucks for them just as much as it sucks for everybody else.

I know they’re just trying to be politically correct, but this really isn’t very helpful to anyone.

Delicate Negotiations with the Attractive Girls Union

Sunday, November 29th, 2009

Some language toward the end there not quite safe for a work environment…


Attractive Girls Union Refuses To Enter Into Talks With Mike Greenman

Cosmo, Stupak and Defiant-Looking Women

Wednesday, November 25th, 2009

Cassy Fiano brings us the latest example of Cosmopolitan nags making abject fools out of themselves, with an alarmist expose absurdly headlined Are Your Rights in Jeopardy? Once again, the glossy-mag scolds are confusing the right to indulge in baby-killing, with the right to demand taxpayer-funded baby-killing.

Cosmopolitan has gotten in on the anti-Stupak movement. Without bothering to think for themselves at all, they’ve just taken the feminist route and decided that cutting abortion funding means that “women’s rights” are being threatened somehow. Check it out:

If you’re pro-choice, you may not be aware that an amendment to the health-care reform bill that passed in the House earlier this month threatens women’s rights. Called the Stupak-Pitts Amendment, it bans abortion coverage for millions of women who will purchase health insurance in the new health exchange. This ban will also extend to women who opt to be covered under the “public option” form of health insurance that the bill will create.

The health-care reform bill still has to be passed by the Senate, so it isn’t law yet. If you want to preserve a woman’s right to comprehensive reproductive health care, click on the link below to sign a petition that will be sent to President Obama and key legislators.

To really get their point across, they even included the prerequisite picture of a defiant-looking woman.

Defiant-Looking WomanI guess it would be impossible for someone to point out to these harpies that abortion would still be legal. Any woman in the United States, provided she is over the age of 18, can legally get an abortion without any trouble at all, beyond the occasional pro-life protestors. All the Stupak amendment will do is prevent abortion from being taxpayer funded… in the new health care bill. It doesn’t ban all taxpayer funding for abortion. But to hear these feminists carry on, it’s as if abortion is going to be completely outlawed and the world is going to end.

But Cosmopolitan wouldn’t possibly point out all those pesky little facts, would they? They phrase it in a very specific way. They aren’t lying, but they don’t point out that abortion itself isn’t going to be banned, nor is all taxpayer funding going to be ceased. Women who don’t pay attention to politics — which would be many Cosmopolitan readers, of course — could very easily be misled. And why would they offer the other side of the argument, either? It’s all one-sided with liberal publications like Cosmopolitan, which, of course, masquerades as a non-partisan, non-political publication.

A hundred years from now, historians will look back and associate pictures of defiant-looking women with all the evils, liabilities and weaknesses of the times in which we live. Here we go again: People pretending to be preserving “rights,” when really all they’re trying to do is destroy things. Every single abortion that might happen, has to happen. The lying, the obfuscation, the half-truths.

And gol darn it, we’re just trying to get the world to spin on its axis with a little bit more peace, love, mutual respect and harmony…and the standard we hoist as we ride into this battle, is always some kind of a hip skinny spoiled white chick with her arms crossed looking like she’s ready to lay some smack down.

I remember last time I was single and available. I had certain “jobs” expected of me on dates…and they no longer had much to do with pulling out chairs or opening doors. They had to do with what I was supposed to be, and what I was supposed to be was something very, very normal but at the same time very, very extraordinary. Usually, I failed that test before things went on to the next step…but the next step was to show lots and lots and lots of empathy.

My date would reciprocate by demonstrating how self-assertive she was and how she wouldn’t-take-no-shit-from-anybody.

That was not, by the way, for the purpose of laying ground rules for a potentially lasting relationship. That, I suppose, might have happened around step five or six, by which time I would typically have been dismissed from the interview process quite some time ago. No, this I-am-woman-hear-me-roar bullshit was…and this gets back to Cassy’s observation about feminists, and I find it exceedingly sad…the young lady’s offering. She was demonstrating for me what she would be bringing to the table. It was the reason why I should want to continue dating her.

Just imagine. I had to show empathy. That was her way of reciprocating: Hey, she knew exactly what I wanted! To spend the rest of my life with a spoiled rotten harridan. Gee, I’m so impressed, she knows me better than I know myself. What a keeper.

So from this experience of mine while I was “on the market” — some ten months or so, now five years out of currency — I have this impression that there’s a lot of delusion and fantasy taking place out there. There are single and available females somehow operating under the premise that cantankerous bitches are rare and therefore sought, coveted and highly prized.

Toward the end of it, I had to conclude that I was being offered an endless procession of just the women who happened to be available, each of them arriving with a bundle of reasons why they were the ones still available.

Feminism hurts women in all kinds of ways. In this case, it mentally “abducts” them when they’re at an impressionable age, and indoctrinates the weaker among them to the idea that everyone is going to be oh so nice to you, if you can just show how irascible and vicious you can be. And this has been going on for forty years now. It’s thankfully on the wane, it seems to me…part of the female coming-of-age is, more and more often, learning how to show proper etiquette, smile sweetly at the right time, do your bit to keep things pleasant…then just wait until the time’s come to stand up for yourself, and do so. Behind closed doors. That’s what a mature, capable, sophisticated lady does. That’s what a woman of class and substance does.

But the less capable grown-up-girls are still out there, the “Real Housewives of New Jersey” types, eager to showcase their talents for dripping acid.

This does not represent womanhood well. In fact, thinking on it awhile one has to notice: These “ladies” must have some friends who tolerate the behavior, or else they wouldn’t keep doing it. Sure, most women grow out of it by the time they’re thirty. But that’s a long time to be going through life spoiling for a fight, with your brow all furrowed up like that and your arms crossed.

Cosmopolitan-and-similar-mags: Civilization will ultimately succeed in spite of you, not because of you.

The Dog Gets Better Treatment

Tuesday, November 24th, 2009

Dr. Helen notices that when the time comes to ration Christmas presents to accommodate the lean times that have fallen upon us, the hubby-of-the-home seems to have taken a back seat to Fido:

In a separate Consumer Reports survey, 22% of women who expected to reduce their holiday spending said they would be cutting back on gifts for their spouse. Only 14% said they would cut back on gifts for their pets.

Who loses when men are disrespected? Who loses when dogs become replacement husbands?

We all do. Gals, especially, lose out when the figurine at the top of the wedding cake has four legs.

It’s a loss to everyone because men are human and dogs are not. If some of us can be simply re-defined out of human-hood, then we all can be so re-defined out of human-hood.

Because it requires considerably greater skill to form a relationship with a human being than it does to form a relationship with a dog. The magical, wonderful thing about dogs is that they think you’re wonderful all the time. That’s because dogs are stupid. You’re not really that wonderful, and you’re certainly not wonderful that often.

And also, because in spite of appearances and feelings, they pay about the same amount of attention to the woman who accompanies them. In fact, the two-legged companion is slightly more attentive. Few things assault the eardrum more cruelly than a “mistress” going through the motions of taking command of her canine. “Leonardo! Heel! Leonardo! Sit! Heel! Leonardo, didn’t you hear me!?!?” While Leonardo sniffs whatever other dog’s butt he wants to sniff, and pisses wherever he wants to piss. It’s an endless loop. Men and dogs have evolved into a natural partnership, but the dog’s ear just isn’t attuned to a female voice. Dogs appreciate an authoritative master’s voice, in a booming baritone, and a one-syllable name.

And, finally, because it is a departure from reality. Dogs are not capable of things that are within a human’s capacity. And as a result of this inability, they cannot participate in human things. You cannot lend money to a dog to buy a house. A dog can’t even co-sign on your loan. A dog cannot calculate interest payments and a dog cannot sub-let an apartment.

Also, using a dog as a fashion accessory is a form of animal abuse. A dog deserves a master who sees the dog as an animal, which is what the dog is. A domesticated animal, molded and shaped by hundreds of thousands of years of evolution into a perfect companion for work and play…one that is capable of a limited spectrum of tasks. Certainly, a broader spectrum than a lot of people appreciate. That is absolutely true. But still a limited spectrum. They aren’t humans and they aren’t replacements for humans. And they aren’t toys either.

Affirmative Action for Men?

Saturday, November 7th, 2009

Dr. Helen links to an interesting story about the U.S. Civil Rights Commission:

This week, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights announced that it will investigate whether colleges discriminate against women by admitting less qualified men. It will strike many as odd to think that American men would need such a leg up. From the men-only basketball games at the White House to the testosterone club on Wall Street, we seem surrounded by male dominance.

And yet, when looking to America’s future—trying to spot the future entrepreneurs and inventors—there’s reason to be troubled by the flagging academic performance among men. Nearly 58% of all those earning bachelor’s degrees are women. Graduate programs are headed in the same direction, and the gender gaps at community colleges—where 62% of those earning two-year degrees are female—are even wider.

Economists at both the Department of Education and the College Board agree that, to ensure high future earnings, men and women have an equal need for college degrees, and yet only women are getting that message. The numbers are startling. This summer the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University published the results of a study tracking the students who graduated from Boston Public Schools in 2007. Their conclusion: For every 167 females in four-year colleges, there were 100 males.

She comments,

Typically, I would not be for any type of affirmative action. I think people who are qualified, regardless of race and gender, should be admitted to these universities, end of story. But in today’s PC world, that is not possible. If we admit people based on their gender and race, then we must do it in an equitable way. Men should be represented at colleges in equal numbers to women since they comprise roughly half (a little less these days) of the population.

What do you think?

I disagree. I do see a silver lining here, but it’s a silly and comical one. All preferences look reasonable, at first, when they benefit you or some group with whom you sympathize.

But in the end, all preferences are the same. The antecedent action that made them appear to be part of some reasonable thing to do, or that “had to be done,” really doesn’t weigh into it that much.

Also, across lines of race, gender and creed — preferences do not heal divisions. Just from a vantage point of looking back on the last few decades, that whole belief was pretty stupid. That was an example of our “leaders” telling us that gasoline was the perfect agent for putting out a house fire.

Colleges shouldn’t be doing it; but once they do, we shouldn’t be having some commission investigating it. Anyone on the commission, or in the college, in favor of such a practice, regardless of what direction, should be treated just like someone trying to recruit for the KKK.

Most Reviled Demographic

Thursday, November 5th, 2009

Andy asks a great question. I’m sure the answer has to do with cherry-picked bits of ancient and not-so-ancient history, and copious amounts of thundering righteous indignation.

Great Movie Dialogue: How to Murder Your Wife

Saturday, September 26th, 2009

From here. If you haven’t seen it yet, you’re really missing something.

Harold: Mrs. Ford, this is my wife, Edna. She speak mucho good Italian…take lessons…many dollars…dollars is many many Lira…

Edna: Shut up, Harold, you sound like a feeble-minded idiot. (Italian cross-talk as Edna and Mrs. Ford greet each other.)

Stanley: It’s very simple, I want an annulment! I don’t like being married!

Harold: How do you know you don’t like it, if you haven’t tried it?

Stanley: I’ve tried it!

Harold: If you’ve tried it, then it’s too late to get an annulment! (Signature horse-laugh.)

This movie is older than I am. And yet it identifies a problem that even now is just beginning to reach a crescendo: Marriage being re-defined as something innately unacceptable to a man of any intelligence…seemingly to weed out any men who have any intelligence.

I think my favorite part of the movie is the way the tiny loud purse-sized little yip-dogs are used as a metaphor for what is happening. Quite ingenious, and prophetic really, when you stop to consider it’s a 44-year-old movie.

One Hundred Must-See Man Movies

Tuesday, September 8th, 2009

From The Art of Manliness. Everyone knows the real fun of these lists is picking away at them and criticizing them for what they left out. Well, this one didn’t leave anything out, it covered every single movie a real man would want to watch.

1. The Great Escape
2. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
3. Dirty Harry
4. The Endless Summer
5. Bull Durham
6. The Apartment
7. The Shootist
8. Hoosiers
9. Last of the Mohicans
10. The Bicycle Thief
11. Field of Dreams
12. North by Northwest
13. The Outsiders
14. First Blood (Rambo)
15. The Manchurian Candidate
16. In the Heat of the Night
17. Shane
18. Double Indemnity
19. Mar Adentro (The Sea Inside)
20. The Maltese Falcon
21. Das Boot
22. Star Wars (The Original Trilogy)
23. Rudy
24. High Noon
25. Gandhi
26. Rebel Without a Cause
27. The French Connection
28. Casablanca
29. Unforgiven
30. The Iron Giant
31. Gladiator
32. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
33. The Hustler
34. The Untouchables
35. The Grapes of Wrath
36. Bullitt
37. The Best Years of Our Lives
38. Die Hard
39. Enter the Dragon
40. Malcolm X
41. Cinderella Man
42. The Right Stuff
43. True Grit
44. A Streetcar Named Desire
45. Vertigo
46. All Quiet on the Western Front
47. The Shawshank Redemption
48. Cool Hand Luke
49. Spartacus
50. Mississippi Burning
51. Chinatown
52. Remember the Titans
53. Braveheart
54. Citizen Kane
55. On the Waterfront
56. The Bourne Identity (The Series)
57. Rocky
58. Apollo 13
59. Glory
60. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
61. The Karate Kid
62. The African Queen
63. The Sting
64. Chariots of Fire
65. Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
66. Schindler’s List
67. All the President’s Men
68. Zulu
69. Patton
70. Lawrence of Arabia
71. The Godfather (I and II)
72. 12 Angry Men
73. Lord of the Rings (The Series)
74. Gangs of New York
75. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
76. Dead Poets Society
77. The Searchers
78. Pride of the Yankees
79. Saving Private Ryan
80. American Beauty
81. Seven Samurai
82. From Here to Eternity
83. Old Yeller
84. To Kill a Mockingbird
85. Dr. No
86. Jeremiah Johnson
87. A River Runs Through It
88. Bridge On the River Kwai
89. Gentleman’s Agreement
90. Fight Club
91. Indiana Jones (Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade)
92. It’s a Wonderful Life
93. A Raisin in the Sun
94. The Natural
95. Ghostbusters
96. Ben Hur
97. Groundhog Day
98. Top Gun
99. Swingers
100. The Longest Day

With just a few minor exceptions…which I wrote down…

1. Robocop
2. Judgment at Nuremberg
3. The Patriot
4. Bad Day at Black Rock
5. Fargo
6. The Cowboys
7. The Incredibles
8. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
9. The Man From Snowy River
10. How To Murder Your Wife
11. Airplane I & II
12. Jaws
13. Beowulf
14. Troy
15. 1776
16. 300
17. Robin Hood
18. Zorro
19. The Mask of Zorro
20. Batman
21. Superman I & II
22. A Bridge Too Far
23. Casino Royale
24. The Hunter
25. Billy Bathgate
26. Blade Runner
27. The Terminator
28. No Country For Old Men
29. Blue Thunder
30. Goldeneye
31. Office Space
32. Blazing Saddles
33. The Russians Are Coming
34. Outland
35. Team America: World Police
36. Rob Roy
37. Rear Window
38. Shenandoah
39. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
40. Death Wish I & II
41. Escape From Alcatraz
42. The Three Musketeers
43. The Towering Inferno
44. Chato’s Land
45. Full Metal Jacket
46. The African Queen
47. A Few Good Men
48. The Fugitive
49. Beau Geste
50. Lawrence of Arabia
51. The Bucket List
52. Easy Rider
53. The Wind and the Lion
54. Planet of the Apes
55. Soylent Green
56. Tom Horn
57. The Poseidon Adventure
58. Duel
59. Harry’s War
60. Saving Private Ryan
61. The Green Mile
62. Pulp Fiction
63. Reservoir Dogs
64. The Gauntlet
65. Centennial (TV)
66. American Pie
67. The Fountainhead
68. Payback
69. The Princess Bride
70. Gran Torino
71. Peter The Great (TV)
72. Heartland
73. Fright Night
74. The Graduate
75. Breaking Away
76. Breaker Mourant
77. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
78. The Sons of Katie Elder
79. Roots (TV)
80. The Winds of War (TV)
81. Tombstone
82. A Man Called Horse
83. Road House
84. Commando
85. Highlander
86. Watchmen
87. True Lies
88. Raging Bull
89. Fitzcarraldo
90. Network
91. Harold and Maude
92. Deliverance
93. Psycho
94. The Lion in Winter
95. Rashomon
96. The Fighting Sullivans
97. The Scarlet Pimpernel
98. The Mummy
99. Marathon Man
100. The Great Santini

Other than those few things left out, it’s a perfect list.

In an Antagonistic Role, It’s Best to be Hard to Read

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009

Cassy Fiano, who works hard at developing all the attributes the rest of us are supposed to be wanting to have…beautiful, nice, articulate, quality thinker, wholesome values…is experiencing a case of culture clash. She’s come in virtual contact with someone who works equally hard (if we are to believe what we read, which isn’t much of a stretch) at being a nasty, toxic person. And is admired for this, for the time being, with regularity…

After reading this interview with Megan Fox, I’m convinced that she epitomizes everything that is wrong with women today. Check out her illuminating statements in the new Cosmopolitan:

MEGAN FOX is scary as she is sexy.

The Transformers beauty has been giving her verdict on relationships and leaves us in no doubt who wears the trousers in her house.

She told Cosmopolitan magazine: “Women hold the power because we have the vaginas.

“If you’re in a heterosexual relationship and you’re female, you win.”
:
“I never call them guys, I always call them boys,” she explained.

“Maybe it’s a superiority complex – my needing to keep them down.”

Ya think??

Reading this, I just couldn’t help but think that this is exactly the problem with women and relationships today. Too many women think exactly this way, “empowered” by third wave feminism and Sex and the City. When the woman in the relationship has this kind of attitude, it dooms the relationship. It doesn’t matter how Beta the man may be. It will be doomed to fail.

My wisdom:

At her age, [her shitty attitude] actually makes a lot of sense. Twenty-somethings think of it as commodities trading, and she’s worked really hard to achieve precisely the look that is in the greatest demand, so she’s showing the behavior that capitalizes on it the best.
:
[Trouble is,] When you have set yourself up in an antagonistic role, it’s best to be hard to read. The power-mongering-bitch thing is such a simple thing to read, and an even easier thing to understand. And so long before the immature male mind figures out this kind of woman is a waste of his time and energy — like, ten years earlier than that — even if he possesses only a mediocre amount of intelligence, like what Ms. Fox possesses of acting ability, it’s a relatively easy task for him to begin…drum roll please…

…manipulating her right back. And there are lots of ways to do this.

The glossy-mag puff piece doesn’t go on long enough to direct any attention toward how Ms. Fox perceives men — whether she has some complaints about them or not. Anyone want to place some bets that the starlet has a negative comment or two to make? That among these complaints might be that she has found them to be manipulative?

Wouldn’t exactly be sticking your neck out, would it.

It’s a rather sad thing what is happening to the bridge across the divide between the sexes; it’s sad what is happening to sex itself. The act used to be the highest compliment a woman could pay to a man. It’s still a positive thing, I think, but now it has some meaning as one of the few things a woman could want from her fella, that isn’t exploitative. Think about it — a woman wants something from you, what she wants is not sex, nowadays that’s likely to mean it’s something you wouldn’t give up willingly. And if sex is part of it, that means she’s bartering with you, which means it’s something more in her interest than in yours. This applies to anything, I don’t care what. It’s become so difficult to simply share a positive experience in which you both want to participate.

I think a lot of women are in Ms. Fox’s camp, and have simply given up. “He” is just a lowercase-h little-boy thing…something to be manipulated. So there aren’t things she wants to do that he’d also like to do, versus, things she wants to do that he’d despise…and therefore are to be avoided. Instead, there’s this vast encyclopedia of things she wants to do, in which he would not willingly participate — and so he has to be bribed, blackmailed, ridiculed and coaxed into it.

So easy to read, even for a young, inexperienced beau. And that is to the “lady’s” detriment. This is a house that cannot stand.

Driving While Female

Thursday, August 20th, 2009

Woman DriverThey’re gunnin’ fer the gals:

A nationwide crackdown on drunken driving that starts tomorrow will feature sobriety checkpoints, saturation patrols and a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign.

It also will focus on women, who represent a growing percentage of drunken drivers, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said yesterday.

“Impaired driving is an issue that cuts across all segments of society and, sadly, the number of arrests of women driving under the influence is on the rise. This is clearly a very disturbing trend,” Mr. LaHood said at a news conference in Washington, D.C.

He cited FBI statistics showing that arrests of women driving under the influence increased by nearly 30 percent from 1998 to 2007. Over the same period, DUI arrests of men decreased by 7.5 percent, although men still were arrested four times as often as women.

An analysis by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration showed that the number of impaired women drivers involved in fatal crashes increased in 10 states last year, including Ohio and West Virginia, despite an overall decline of 9 percent in drunken driver crashes. In Pennsylvania, the number of female drunken drivers in fatal crashes declined from 67 in 2007 to 54 last year.

“Women are driving more like men and, unfortunately, have picked up some of their dangerous habits,” said Barbara Harsha, executive director of the Governors Highway Safety Association, which is participating in the enforcement blitz.

Hmmm. I think this one, I’ll just leave up there…without comment. Quit while ahead.

They’re White, They’re Men, They’re Angry

Tuesday, August 18th, 2009

Inspired by the latest Michael Crowley column, Neo-Neocon figures out what’s really happening…

Obama’s race is the gift that keeps on giving. It will continue to do so until we see the unlikely spectacle of hordes of Angry Black Men rising up against him. That’s the only thing that will get those poor Angry White Men off the hook—and maybe not even that.

The fact that the opponents of health care reform speaking up at the town hall meetings are clearly motivated by extremely substantive issues other than racial hatred of Obama is irrelevant to Michael Crowley. In fact, many of them are also at least as furious at Congress and the person of one White Woman Nancy Pelosi, as well as a number of Very White CongressMen.

But repeat after me: they are White. They are Men. They are Angry at Obama. They are Angry White Men.

And don’t let the fact that some of them are women confuse you, either. Those women (for example, Sarah Palin) are Angry White Men too, albeit honorary ones. After all, there is no Angry White Man more racist than an Angry White Woman.

And the fact that there are even a few Angry Black Men speaking out at the town halls against Obama’s health care reform plan is irrelevant. For example, although Kenneth Gladney—who may or may not have been physically attacked and beaten at a town hall meeting by a black Obama supporter and SEIU member—is unquestionably a black man, and unquestionably a vocal opponent of the President’s health care reform, for the purposes of our discussion we will consider him an Angry White Man too.

After all, since Obama’s approval rating among black Americans remains steady at 95% (the only group in which it hasn’t declined), that most definitely makes Gladney an outlier. He’s been branded a liar as well by the Left. What could be Angrier and Whiter and Manner than than an outlieing liar?

But Michael Crowley, although white and a man, and rather angry at the Angry White Men who are angry at Obama, is not an Angry White Man. That’s because he’s on the Left and an Obama supporter, so that makes him immune to the charge.

Crowley’s not to blame for fanning the flames of racism, either. Anyone who cries “racism” against Obama opponents, even if he writes an entire column emphasizing their white race, can’t be a racist himself because he supports Obama, who in case you haven’t noticed (and Obama and Crowley and the Left will make sure you notice, every step of the way) is black.

Of course, if we wanted to get really technical, we might say that Obama is half white and half black. And he’s a man. So, when he gets angry, does that make him an Angry Half-White Man?

Don’t be silly. Obama never gets angry.

Niner Fiver Six Three Zip

Tuesday, August 11th, 2009

I’ve seen both Stepford Wives movies, and I’ve never understood either one of them. They seem to define a tragic situation from what I consider to be a happy one, and vice versa. Gorgeous, graceful, devoted and docile wives — a sign of trouble? Men happily sipping from brandy snifters, smoking cigars, farting into luxurious leather chairs while their happy, agreeable wives bring them plates of sandwiches…that’s an ominous harbinger of doom? Argumentative, buzz-cut harpies arguing with their henpecked husbands just for the sheer hell of it — that’s the way things are supposed to be? The Katherine Ross version came out a third of a century ago. In all that time, I’ve managed to remain entirely clueless. I just don’t get it. I don’t show signs of getting it anytime soon.

But I get the opposite. Folsom, California 95630 absolutely, positively has a “Stepford Husbands” problem.

How do I know this? The parking lots. The parking lots with great big SUVs parked in them. SUVs that no true man would ever buy. With loud, obnoxious, mouse-like dogs barking their fool heads off in the front seats. Dogs no self-respecting man would own.

In the twinkling of an eye, anyone with a head that’s worth more than a hat-hanger knows exactly what has taken place here. She (and maybe the kids) came home with an adorable puppy dog that he did not pick out, nor did he assist in picking out…and in response…he said “oh, alright.” Folks, I’m here to tell you right now, no man from the planet I call “Earth” would react that way. Nobody with red blood would react that way. Normal people raise it as an issue — um, would you care to discuss this with me before you consign me to indentured servitude living adjacent to this annoying little yip-dog? What in the hell is the matter with you, woman?

Beast from HellYes, I mean it. It’s not a “man of the house” thing; it has nothing to do with dominating your wife. It’s basic self-respect.

Not so with the Folsom husbands. They just say “oh, alright” and that’s the way life is from that day forward. I speculate recklessly? How else did that damn dog get in there? It was his? Hah. Tell me another. It’s a rapidly spreading sickness. An epidemic. How do I know this? Because the next car over is also a halftrack-sized leviathan gleaming-metal-skinned creature…with an annoying little yip-dog barking his head off in the front seat. And the next car over from that. And the next car. And the next car. You think Folsom is like any other place in the union? You think wrong.

These Stepford Husbands who do the unthinkable so regularly…behold such an evil canine/rodent creature taking over their home and acquiescing to the invasion in such an unmanly, French way…they don’t live in my world. But they live in Folsom, that’s for sure.

Folsom — land of the tank-sized vehicles people drive to work, while they worry incessantly about global warming.

Folsom — urban mecca of the enormous SUVs with irritating little marsupial-rodent dogs, bred to be carried around in purses, barking, barking, barking some more, with high, glass-cutting animal sounds you’d expect out of a birdcage.

Folsom — where men talk to their very own kids as if they aren’t really men. Children go through their entire childhoods, never seeing anything good coming out of masculinity. Folsom, which is slightly conservative-leaning…for now. Nobody with a brain expects it to say that way. How can it?

Why do we live here? Because until people start forcing each other to raise their kids the same way, it’s still a good place to raise kids. And you can unpack groceries from your car, forget to lock up your car…in fact, leave the trunk yawning wide open…and come back the next morning to a concerned neighbor (walking his wife’s annoying little yip dog) pointing out “Hey dude, you left your trunk open and I closed it for ya.” This offsets my concerns about what’s happening to the culture. We don’t have manliness, but for now we do have some order. We still have the “good guys should win bad guys should lose” spirit. It may be the next casualty, but it’s still around for now.

I’m reminded of a protocol that is supposed to be effective within the United States Marine Corps: Be courteous to everyone, friendly to no one. This is a good distinction to keep in mind, I think, and it would benefit the average Folsom family man enormously to learn it. It would be good for his family, too. It’s never, ever a good thing for kids, to have a “friend” instead of a father…or a mother. And I think that’s the problem. I see kids playing with toys, obstructing heavy pedestrian traffic. The proper response from the parent is to move the child out of the way and then provide admonishment, commensurate with the age of the child who doesn’t know his place, that he shouldn’t be getting in the way. This doesn’t happen often in Folsom; seems lately like I’m the only one who bothers.

Gum on the sidewalk. Let’s be fair about it, Folsom is not a “gum on your shoe” capital of the world by any means. If I want to get gum stuck on my shoes, I’ll head to midtown. But nevertheless — why does it ever happen at all? My own kid isn’t even allowed to chew gum outside. He hasn’t expressed an interest in it. If he did, he would be properly schooled in how to dispose of the gum when he’s done chewing it. Kids leaving gum where it can get stuck to your shoes, reflect poorly on their parenting. They should’ve been taught things. They show, yet again, their parents were in too big of a hurry to be buddies rather than parents.

Searching for Books About Women Who Hate Men

Monday, August 3rd, 2009

Dr. Helen produced a paragraph I thought worthy of note:

In fact, when I searched Amazon with the key words women who hate men, I came up with only books about…men who hate women.

Interesting. I guess we gentlemen aren’t throwing enough dollars to the publishers. Or we are, but our money just isn’t worth as much as woman-money.

Trust me on this. I would have parted with some decent coin, in the days and months following my divorce, to explore the subject of women who hate men. I’d have gone out of my way to get ahold of whatever information I could, in whatever way I could find it. So I hope no one’s gearing up to tell me there’s nothing being published on the subject because there’s a lack of discernible interest in it.

Quite to the contrary — the interest is high and it oughtta be a whole lot higher. Name a societal problem, and a durable, convincing argument can be constructed that the problem started with women who hate, or hated, men. It is the one human vice we have made no efforts to stigmatize or restrain whatsoever.

Nothing’s available on it? Nothing? Is this something where lots is being written, but the publishers are saying no? Or is nothing being written?

The Macho Response

Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009

UglySo Gerard sent us a link in an offline, to a politically-incorrect blog out in the Bay Area…and we hadn’t checked it out too long before it became an imperative to slam it into the sidebar.

There is an occasional picture that is not quite appropriate to an office environment, although I’m not sure this by itself justifies a “NSFW” warning…language isn’t fit for family viewing. The ideas are definitely dangerous. Unsuitable opinions. Terrible taste. Pictures of strange ugly creatures. Yup, we’re cousins, alright.

And this link, which we got here, is definitely not to be missed. It’s one of my favorite subjects: Our continuing efforts to somehow motivate the limousine liberals to live up to the same standards they slap down on the rest of us…and our ongoing failure in this effort, as they continue to impose their aristocratic, stratified, two-yardstick solution on society…

You know all those fevered editorials they churn out over there at the New York Times editorial board? Like, for instance, the hot fury published on June 30 wonderfully titled “Firefighters and Race.”

In this jewel the Times editorial board makes its displeasure plain in the very first sentence, huffing that the Supreme Court decision in favor of the New Haven firemen has “dealt a blow to diversity in the American workplace.” This was followed by a July 14th column by Times columnist Dowd titled “White Man’s Last Stand,” to which we will return shortly.

But first, let’s get the meat into the stew. You can just smell that sizzling hypocrisy, can’t you?

It seems the “American workplace” (to use the Times description) that is the New Haven fire department has a higher percentage of minorities than the American workplace that is…yes indeed… the New York Times editorial board its very self. To be quite specific:

• The New Haven fire department, according to press accounts, is 43% black and Latino. Or, if you prefer the term of art, 43% of the fire department is “minority.”

• The New York Times editorial board, according to the information provided by The New York Times, is — wait for it — 12% black and Latino. Or, again, 12 % “minority” if you prefer the term.

• The New York Times Op-Ed page team of columnists, an elite group of which Ms. Dowd is a star, is 19% black and, again according to the Times listing of its Op-Ed page columnists, 0% Latino.

That’s right. At the core of the beating intellectual heart of the left-wing establishment where such things are studied with the detail of Talmudic scholars, the New Haven fire department is doing more than three times better on race than the very liberal elites who have set themselves up as its sniffy critics. Perhaps instead of seething about “Firefighters and Race” the Times would have been better served by pondering “Editorial Writers and Race.” Or perhaps: “Too Black to Write; New York Times Column Writing and Race.”

One set of rules for Manhattan, and a different set of rules for everybody else.

Our society-at-large hasn’t been getting serious about tackling that particular problem because we’re too worked up about the planet on which we live getting too hot to sustain life, due to our not being taxed enough. The responsible thinker cannot help but wonder if the two problems are not somehow related. Anybody know off the top of their head what the annual net carbon footprint is of the New York Times? Just throw me a hint. For all I know they could be printing it on every damn page; I seldom-to-never read the thing.

But I’m certainly gonna read this “Macho Response” guy.

Daphne, Her Husband, Roissy, Alphas, Betas, Builders, Destroyers

Saturday, July 18th, 2009

She must do some re-thinking, and she does it as only she can. Some good, deep thinking about the relationship between the sexes over there.

My thoughts are very sensible as well, and as usual, trump everything else in line-of-sight in the contest of common sense. But they’re already on record at her place.

On Marriage: Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off

Thursday, July 2nd, 2009

Cheating WhoreSays the flibbertigibbet, I screwed around on my husband, so I guess marriage can’t work out for anyone…plus, I get to write a column!

On marriage: Let’s call the whole thing off
Author Sandra Tsing Loh is ending her marriage. Is it time you did, too?
By Sandra Tsing Loh
updated 6:27 a.m. PT, Mon., June 22, 2009

Sadly, and to my horror, I am divorcing. This was a 20-year partnership. My husband is a good man, though he did travel 20 weeks a year for work. I am a 47-year-old woman whose commitment to monogamy, at the very end, came unglued. This turn of events was a surprise. I don’t generally even enjoy men; I had an entirely manageable life and planned to go to my grave taking with me, as I do most nights to my bed, a glass of merlot and a good book. Cataclysmically changed, I disclosed everything. We cried, we bewailed the fate of our children.

And yet at the end of the day — literally during a five o’clock counseling appointment, as the golden late-afternoon sunlight spilled over the wall of Balinese masks — when given the final choice by our longtime family therapist, who stands in as our shaman, mother, or priest, I realized…no. Heart-shattering as this moment was — a gravestone sunk down on two decades of history — I would not be able to replace the romantic memory of my fellow transgressor with the more suitable image of my husband, which is what it would take in modern-therapy terms to knit our family’s domestic construct back together. In women’s-magazine parlance, I did not have the strength to “work on” falling in love again in my marriage. And as Laura Kipnis railed in “Against Love,” and as everyone knows, good relationships take work.

Which is not to say I’m against work. Indeed, what also came out that afternoon were the many tasks I — like so many other working/co-parenting/married mothers — have been doing for so many years and tearfully declared I would continue doing. I can pick up our girls from school every day; I can feed them dinner and kiss their noses and tell them stories; I can take them to their doctor and dentist appointments; I can earn my half — sometimes more — of the money…I can administer hugs as needed to children, adults, dogs, cats; I can empty the litter box; I can stir wet food into dry.

Which is to say I can work at a career and child care and joint homeownership and even platonic male-female friendship. However, in this cluttered forest of my 40s, what I cannot authentically reconjure is the ancient dream of brides, even with the Oprah fluffery of weekly “date nights,” when gauzy candlelight obscures the messy house, child talk is nixed and silky lingerie donned, so the two of you can look into each other’s eyes and feel that “spark” again. Do you see? Given my staggering working mother’s to-do list, I cannot take on yet another arduous home- and self-improvement project, that of rekindling our romance. Sobered by this failure as a mother — which is to say, my failure as a wife — I’ve since begun a journey of reading, thinking, and listening to what’s going on in other 21st-century American families. And along the way, I’ve begun to wonder, what with all the abject and swallowed misery: Why do we still insist on marriage? Sure, it made sense to agrarian families before 1900, when to farm the land, one needed two spouses, grandparents, and a raft of children. But now that we have white-collar work and washing machines, and our life expectancy has shot from 47 to 77, isn’t the idea of lifelong marriage obsolete?
:
Imagine driving with me now to Rachel’s house for our new 40-something social hobby — the Girls’ Night dinner. Leap not from my car, even though I realize — given my confessed extramarital affair, avowed childhood desire to see my father explode into flames, and carpet of tattered Happy Meal wrappers — I may not strike you as the most reliable explicator of modern marriage. Still, we forge on, and what I’d like to do now is recant for a moment and not be quite so hard on marriage, which I think is a very good fit for some people.
:
[Helen] Fisher, a women’s cult figure and an anthropologist, has long argued that falling in love — and falling out of love — is part of our evolutionary biology and that humans are programmed not for lifelong monogamy, but for serial monogamy.

“Why Him? Why Her?” explains the hormonal forces that trigger humans to be romantically attracted to some people and not to others (a phenomenon also documented in the animal world). Fisher posits that each of us gets dosed in the womb with different levels of hormones that impel us toward one of four basic personality types:

The Explorer — the libidinous, creative adventurer who acts “on the spur of the moment.” Operative neurochemical: dopamine.

The Builder — the much calmer person who has “traditional values.” The Builder also “would rather have loyal friends than interesting friends,” enjoys routines, and places a high priority on taking care of his or her possessions. Operative neurotransmitter: serotonin.

The Director — the “analytical and logical” thinker who enjoys a good argument. The Director wants to discover all the features of his or her new camera or computer. Operative hormone: testosterone.

The Negotiator — the touchy-feely communicator who imagines “both wonderful and horrible things happening” to him- or herself. Operative hormone: estrogen, then oxytocin.

Fisher reviewed personality data from 39,913 members of Chemistry.com. Explorers made up 26 percent of the sample, Builders 28.6 percent, Directors 16.3 percent, Negotiators 29.1 percent. While Explorers tend to be attracted to Explorers, and Builders tend to be attracted to Builders, Directors are attracted to Negotiators, and vice versa.

Exclaims Ellen, slapping the book: “This is why my marriage has been dead for 15 years. I’m an Explorer married to a Builder!”

The nitwit. Guess Fisher forgot about that fifth one there. Poor schmucks that are married to these nitwits; they’re about to lose half their stuff because they made the awful mistake of allowing their nitwit wives to read books.

Yup, it’s really as bad as people think it is. Middle-aged married women with a Cinderella complex, angry that life isn’t perfect and stress free, get all sauced up and talk each other into divorces. Then they bury their gross wrinkly noses in hateful chick-books carefully designed to expunge any doubts about it that might remain, download some hunky stud off the innerwebs, and the poor schlub who was stupid enough to marry them loses half his stuff.

And then they become authorities on marriage, graciously counseling women who are more mature and mentally balanced than they are. Making craploads of money, if they get lucky…and still pulling in that alimony check. So that girls’-night-out wine-buying slush fund stays all slushy.

This is the kind of thing that makes me think our whole society needs a reboot. In a number of our most treasured institutions, the rules are made by whoever among us have proven themselves to be, without any doubt, the most dysfunctional.

Drill Baby Drill

Thursday, July 2nd, 2009

Daphne’s Disgusted

Wednesday, July 1st, 2009

Unlike the rest of that unending parade of snarky females slapping us bumbling men upside the head claiming to want us to smarten up and do better, this one means it. She’s Blogsister Daphne, a woman of wit, class and substance, who claims to like men because she really does; and she’s upset with our obsession with Flo.

If obsession is the offense, I would point out we didn’t bring up the subject in the first place. But something tells me this is one of those things where “discussion” only exists as an idea…train has left the station…woman-talk-man-listen territory from here on out. We’ve all been there.

Lara CroftAnd we know the protocol. Wait for her to get done…try like the dickens to avoid doing anything to piss her off any further…stay quiet and out of sight…do something harmless. Like playing Tomb Raider.

For those who can’t bear to stay quiet — Buck represented us reasonably well, I thought. But hey, maybe you think he left something unsaid. I’m staying out of this one. Things reach a fevered pitch, and then they crescendo further to a point where even I start to have some common sense. Best to just stay out of (further) trouble.

Besides, have you noticed what they’ve done with Lara’s rack in the last two games? Great googly moogly.

The Glasses

Tuesday, June 30th, 2009

GlassesSo one of the bloggresses we follow, a particularly enchanting and intelligent one, got hold of a phony egghead study that says something completely ridiculous and decided to believe every word in it. Said phony egghead study concerns something men and women are simply not going to see the same way — ever — and it was obviously written up by a chick for other chicks. So don’t be too hard on Dr. Mel, she’s a chick too.

Besides of which it goes without saying her judgment is not perfect. Far from it. She put together a list of hot and sexy conservative blogger guys, and left us off of it. Just like that. So, you know, she’s got her on-days and her off-days. So do we all.

Here’s what the study says. Hope you’re sitting down for this one, guys. Here it is. Ready? — We, on our side of the gender aisle, have a much narrower and uniform definition of the ideal woman, than women have of the ideal man. They like variety more than we do.

Isn’t that a riot?

Quoting myself, at Dr. Melissa’s place, trying to inject some reason and common sense into it —

Try this: In an urban setting, pick out the women who are, or successfully project the appearance of being, the creme de la creme of genetic perfection. Top tenth of a percent. Women who can have whichever guy they want. Now let your eyes drift off two feet to the left or right…to the dude. Oh no, you don’t really need to, you already know what he looks like don’t you? Cookie cutter. Mass produced. No variety whatsoever.

He’s 6′2″ but he wears a sleeveless shirt built for someone who’s 8′2″. He’s got goofy shorts on that come down well past the knee. Gold chain or two about the neck, which is thicker than his head. Sort of a flesh Michelin-man. Or a chubby round little boy decked out in his dad’s summer clothes, and then you triple the size of the whole thing. Plus an obligatory tattoo. Right now the hair on the head is half an inch long, or gone entirely, so it doesn’t much matter what color it is. Skin is not white, not black, something in between. Mixed ethnicity, or Caucasian with a really good tan. Cash-register jaw. Think Jay Leno, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Howie Long.

These guys could’ve been built on a conveyor belt.

I went on to cite the example of girls-in-glasses; and now that I give it another think, I’m ready to pin my entire argument on that one thing. Guys, I can tell you, are split even-Steven on this, right down the middle. Of course I’m not split at all. Guys-in-general are split. Half the dudes recoil in horror at the genetic inferiority (or lifetime curiosity about the written word) that imprisons a fair maiden behind the corrective lenses…the other half of us are intrigued, and not mildly.

With GlassesAfter glasses, there is the height thing. Do you have to stop seeing her if she’s taller? And then the big-nose thing. A lot of guys don’t notice, a lot of other guys can’t stand a big nose on a girl. And then there are the breasts. The arm muscles. Her thighs aren’t curvy enough, or they’re too thin…huge issue for some guys, not worth mentioning to other guys.

We aren’t all scrambling for the same model of girl. Just take my word for it.

But I’ll let all that other stuff go. I’m willing to rest the entire thing, like I said, just on the reading glasses. Because it’s personal…they’re my Achilles’ Heel, my Kryptonite. Probably because of the very first girlfriend that started all that trouble. Thirty-five years now — I don’t quite have the balls to jot down on the front page of a blog sitting right there on the innerwebs, exactly what a nice-lookin’ gal in glasses does to the thoughts in my head. But she certainly does something, I’ll say that much. And all guys on the planet do not agree with me about it.

We got variety in what tickles our fancy, trust me on this. Dustin Wood and Claudia Brumbaugh might have missed it, but it’s there, I’m in a position to guarantee it.

I think this is one of those many, many examples where the way women see things, seems to be a whole lot more real than the way the fellas see things — because women do a lot more talking.

A Nothing Masquerading as a Something

Saturday, June 27th, 2009

Blog sister Daphne would like someone — anyone — to explain eco-feminism to her.

EcofeminismIt’s a pretty tall order. Eco-feminism is inherently incoherent because as a collection of alternative values and scruples, it is designed to oppose something else. And it isn’t willing to admit this. This is why it consists of so many things that are bound together even though they are unrelated. Rather like a homemade kitchen gadget built from oil filters, band-aids, coathangers, silver dollars and cotton swabs. The parts don’t fit together; ecology has very little to do with upholding equal rights and privileges for women.

To think on what brings these unrelated elements to a common juncture, you have to first acknowledge that someone values them for their oppositional power to something else. Which in turn means you have to acknowledge that it is an assault on something.

As I said,

Sometime soon after JFK’s assassination, it became very fashionable within the hard left to deploy a strategy of pretending to build things while laboring in actuality to destroy things…Turns out it feels real good to destroy things while pretending to build things, when there are a lot of people of like mind participating in the same effort with you.

Ecofeminism, therefore, is simply the latest chapter of this, a nonsensical and sloppy modern hodge-podge of values antithetical to something else, disliked, that existed before. It is a nothing masquerading as a something. It is defined, not through what it is, but what it seeks to eradicate — cultural items, spiritual items, work and play items. Specifically: Private industry, strong gender definitions & relationships, private enterprise & industry, whiskey, beer, meat, guns, Christianity, clinical medicine, the list goes on and on. If it was invented by someone masculine, and it helps people, eco-feminists don’t like it. They prefer the nothings pretending to be somethings that stand in opposition: The occult, holistic therapy, aromatherapy, smoking grass, men dressing and acting like women, women dressing and acting like men, socialism, veganism, tofu and henna.

That’s my explanation for how all these unrelated parts end up scooped into the same “lint trap” of sorts. Those hated men eat their meat and then invent disposable diapers and baby formula; the awful truth that must not be realized, is that the men who can’t get pregnant, nevertheless have a lot to do with building and sustaining life. And so the eco-feminists who feel they aren’t worth anything unless they can nullify the existence of any & all men, must champion veganism…cloth diapers…and breastfeeding. As they engage in that slick fantasy of pretending to build something when they’re really destroying something, they erase the common bond. People like Daphne are forced to stand around going “WTF?” because browbeating your relatives on Thanksgiving that they should buy a “Tofurkey” has very little, and arguably nothing, to do with whipping out a tit in the middle of a crowded restaurant for your brat’s feeding-time, and taking the restaurant manager to court when he asks you to stop.

To understand what ties it all together, you have to understand that the effort engaged here is to bring an assault down on something else. That’s the only way it makes sense. Yogurt and astrology don’t have a lot to do with each other.

I should add that earlier this week, as I presume she was struggling to figure this out, Daphne e-mailed me a link to the home page of the always-delightful Dennis the Peasant; and he, in turn, had a fisking up that was pure blogger comedy gold. It’s still there, but we opted not to link it right away because Dennis didn’t provide a link (that we could find) to the original work…and the Google Godz did not answer our prayers for it. Not that we doubt Dennis’ word. But when you examine the material he’s slicing apart so mercilessly, you’ll understand. Priceless stuff like this has to be viewed first-hand — where it can be. Having failed in that mission, we’ll have to bring it to you in whatever form we can…

I write this entry because it is my passion to begin a deeper conversation with feminists [and others] about women’s rights, animal rights and the interrelationship between the two. I am vegan and believe that my passion for “rights” in general encompasses all individuals, including those that are non-human or nature for that matter.

Nature is an individual? Who knew?

So is there a difference between us (women) and them (nonhuman animals)? This leading question is a profound cornerstone in many philosophical and social conversations. As a very proud feminist and vegan, it was always clear to me that there was a distinct connection between both feminism and vegetarianism. Throughout my career as a social activist, it has become increasingly fascinating that there are many feminists who are not vegetarian and vegetarians who are not feminists. In addition, there are many women who are part of the feminist movement, but not part of the animal rights movement and vice versa. Although, some individuals are not simultaneously part of both movements, the objective for both feminism and vegetarianism works to create a society that is equal for all living beings [and the environment], that is not oppressive and exploitative.

You know, I read the above paragraph and wonder just how much difference there is between a femnist and a cherrystone clam… At least in terms of higher brain functions.

Vegetarianism is deeply connected to the Women’s Suffrage Movement. This connection illustrates a long desire for social equality for all (Leneman 1997). Many leaders in the Women’s Suffragist Movement were vegetarian and advocates for other progressive movements (Leneman 1997) (George 1994). Vegetarianism is deeply connected to the Women’s Suffrage Movement. This connection illustrates a long desire for social equality for all (Leneman 1997). Many leaders in the Women’s Suffragist Movement were vegetarian and advocates for other progressive movements (Leneman 1997) (George 1994). Many women during this era made the connection between the killing of animals for food and the killing for fur. One woman, Maude Arncliffe- Sennett (1913) remarked on an advertisement of a model wearing a fur coat: “these women all seem to me hateful – they represent so much killing!”

“Many women during this era made the connection between the killing of animals for food and the killing for fur…” So did the neanderthals, sweetie, so I’m not sure it constitutes a bragging point.

Bring out the Che Guevara posters…and the incense and henna.

The other piece of comedy gold — Comment #1 in Daph’s thread. Doctorate Upholder wins, hands down:

Ecofeminism (n) – The study of the global warming of the feminism movement due to menopause.

Cross-posted at Right Wing News.

Are Women Born This Way?

Monday, June 22nd, 2009

Not my title, it’s the title of the video. So says Neo-Neocon.

I’m a real hard-hearted sonofabitch when it comes to babies and kitties and puppies and what-not…and this thing we do where we raise boys and girls differently, and then fail to admit we do it, is in my mind an awful crime against humanity energizing me to stand on a soapbox and deliver hours-long lectures, finger-and-fist waving in the air the whole time, in a way that would make John Galt proud. The event of the female babbling away just for the sake of babbling away, I’ve noticed, is something that precedes more than its fair share of disasters in the saga of the human condition.

But this did put a goofy grin on my face nevertheless. Tough to keep dark thoughts in your head watching her go. And go and go and go…