Is the patriarchy a good thing?

[Edmundus1581]

But if you saw the Women’s Liberation Movement of the 1970s, the primary goal was disrespecting men, contraception and abortion. Fewer babies and more sex.

And families? Who needs families?

The women’s movement is still about those things and always will be, however it portrays itself.

They just have to keep digging deeper for “oppression” and male villainy to justify their jobs. It’s like a mine that’s running out, or a sea that’s been over fished. There isn’t much left, but you can bet they’ll seek out and exploit whatever they can find.

The most effective ways of finding “oppression” are to: lie over and over (“A woman earns less than a man in the same job”); gerrymander definitions and cheat with statistics (“epidemic of domestic violence”, “rape crisis”), and exploit people’s stupidity and natural sympathy for women. There’s also mens’ cowardice in the face of angry, loud women, in which they betray both other men and the women who aren’t advantaged by the feminism. (Catholic clergy, I’m looking at you!).

The fake “victim” cancer is deep even in the Church. eg. here in Adelaide Centacare “More than 3000 male school students have participated in the power-to-end-violence-against-women program” and St Vincent De Paul “one third of women in Australia are affected by domestic violence in some way during their lifetime”. (But the Protestants are worse and there’s no coming back for them).

With sex they’ve done an about-turn and now are prudish. They are defining what “consent” is and of course changing it to strike fear into men, empower women, and pursue vengeance against men with retrospective laws. It is now common for women to deny husbands sex indefinitely and feel society’s approval for the choice.

I know by acquaintance one woman who denied her husband sex for five years. In this time she gave birth to twins via IVF. I thought he was dumb to go along with this, but men are dumb when it comes to women. She spent all his money, worked him to exhaustion, then left him, taking the three children and most of the assets across the continent. She’s sexually active again, looking for the next sucker/fool. You go girl!

Always, extending abortion is a goal. They had to push for it to be “free”, up to birth, and without any constraints. That’s the current aim in Australia (including one of our two major political parties). Who knows what they’ll think of after that? Actively encourage abortion in government funded campaigns and in schools?

Here in Australia our major anti-feminist is Bettina Arndt, who started out as a sex therapist and feminist in the '70’s, and in her work came to see what feminism is doing to men and marriages and she’s been on top of every feminist strategy since then. “Domestic violence”, “The wage gap”, the “chores gap”, #metoo etc.

Bettina puts it simply “The goal of feminism is grind men into the dust”.

That’s the future for our sons and grandsons. We’re already more than halfway there.

 

[Sarcelle]

People here tend to see things through the US lens since they’re mostly American. Unfortunately, many don’t seem to realize this whole gender equality movement from them is greatly helping us here.

Indeed.

It would be nice for once to be seen as just as human as a man.

 

[Sarcelle]

How would a non-white woman such as myself be treated in 1950s USA?

 

[edwest211]

The current problem is an invention with no basis in reality. What it is based on is slavery to the flesh. I just finished reading an article where an actress talks about a fluid sexuality. You may want men one day, and women a little later. Perverse sexuality, and promoting it, is corruption, not progress.

 

[MagdalenaRita]

My grandmother hunted with my grandfather, and was by all accounts a better shot than he was. She also held down many jobs, particularly when her older daughters were able to look after the younger children. Both were breadwinners, particularly during the Depression. My grandmother also kept the family finances afloat because my grandfather, a wonderful and kindly man, was just horrible with money. By the 1960s my grandfather had a good job, my father and my youngest aunt were both over ten years old, and my grandmother became caterer. She always put money in the family bank account, and was proud of the fact that she was able to work and raise five children.

Again, this whole notion of the “ideal family” may have been an ideal…

This is exactly it. This is awesome. This is what family is. It is husbands and wives working together to raise their family. It is not about personal seperate pursuits. Women have had “jobs” since the beginning of time but not because they went out seeking personal fulfillment or because they were trying to be the breadwinner or the head of the home. They had jobs to help their family. Usually though, women held part time jobs while the husband carried the majority of the responsibility.

My parents ran a small grocery store. My mom worked side by side with my dad. She would take a day or two off during the week to care for the home, laundry and groceries. The whole family pitched in at the store also. Things weren’t perfect but they were good.

 

[MagdalenaRita]

I don’t know what kind of men you know, but there are many men who have careers that they take pride in. Not all men are miserably working.

You’ll have to show me where I said men are “miserably working”. My point was men have different attitudes toward work. I have just never heard a man say, “I am going off to pursue a career”, but more likely you will hear, “what job or profession can I pursue that will give me the means to support a family” vs many women who pursue a career to find “self fulfillment”. Common phrase, “it is something I have to do for me”.

So how exactly would you define the difference between spiritual motherhood and fatherhood?

Okay, so I think I have answered this several times but will again one last time, one person is a woman and one person is a man and even if they are doing the exact same thing, they remain one person being a man and one person being a woman. Women become mothers, no matter how masculine they may act and men become fathers, no matter how feminine they may act.

The woman can’t work without being thought as selfish.

A woman can work without being thought of as selfish but if the job is taking her away from her husband and family, and keeping her from her responsibilities at home, she may want to rethink her career. Perhaps working part time until her children are older. Like you said:

Most women tend to work less after having families

This is absolutely true and more women are making this choice.

We are not called to be unnecessary martyrs.

No one said we were called to be “unnecessary martyrs” but we should try to be saints, as Patrick Coffin used to say on Catholic Answers Live, “what else is there?”

 

[bassmansteiny]

Haha! I love that. I hope you don’t mind but I snagged that picture!

 

[PetraG]

Well, maybe. I’m all for giving women the jobs they want as long as they meet the requirements. I dislike the continuing us versus them theme. Yes, some women are still encountering problems. I get that. But if you saw the Women’s Liberation Movement of the 1970s, the primary goal was disrespecting men, contraception and abortion. Fewer babies and more sex.

And families? Who needs families? After all, who wants to live in “a comfortable concentration camp.”? (Betty Friedan)

I remember in the 1970s it was assumed that women weren’t capable of driving forklifts. I’m old enough to remember all of that stuff. It is really amazing now how all those limits were just assumed to be the truth.

 

[edwest211]

This is wishful thinking. Women worked in factories during World War II. Women ferried completed aircraft from factories to shipping points. And there was the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps ( WAAC ), with some women serving as mechanics. This type of history needs to be mentioned.

 

[blackforest]

You’ll have to show me where I said men are “miserably working”. My point was men have different attitudes toward work. I have just never heard a man say, “I am going off to pursue a career”, but more likely you will hear, “what job or profession can I pursue that will give me the means to support a family” vs many women who pursue a career to find “self fulfillment”. Common phrase, “it is something I have to do for me”.

Lea101:

The reference to “self-fulfillment” means that it’s probably unnecessary to get a job if their spouses are already making a good living. But it’s not as selfish as it implies; for a lot of women, getting a job is not selfish, it is self-care. It not only puts their talents and skills to good use, but it keeps their career skills sharpened. Not everyone can predict when their husbands face sudden death, or simply leave them for someone else. An economic safety net is vitally important.

You’re also overlooking the many women who have to work and don’t have the privileged luxury of making references to “self-fulfillment.”

 

[blackforest]

Let’s see . . . . Sexual abuse was stigmatized, so kids either didn’t speak out, or they spoke and weren’t believed.

Kids huddled under their desks during drills, wondering when a nuclear bomb would really strike.

Women sought abortions to avoid the social stigma of unwed pregnancy. Or they “disappeared” for nine months and came back without a baby.

African-Americans were still sent to the back of the bus and denied things as simple as using a restroom.

Women who were beaten were expected to stay in violent marriages.

Yea. I won’t say that either time was “better” than the other - history just isn’t that black and white. But a heckuvalot has improved!

 

[edwest211]

For the most part, things have gotten worse. Millions dead from abortion. Distorted male-female relationships where either party can drop out/leave at any time. Instability. Love replaced by sex. No in-laws and an uncertain future. Oh, and the constant whine in the background. Not healthy.

As a student of history, I know things are very black and white. There is real good, heroism and bravery and real evil as well. But in the no commitment world that has been created, only those who reject it will get what they need. Satisfying temporary wants ends up being not fulfilling.

 

[edwest211]

The propaganda machine is going full blast. “I have seen the future and it is female.” Hillary Clinton

 

[edwest211]

The younger George Bush: “I’m telling you there’s an enemy that would like to attack America, Americans, again. There just is. That’s the reality of the world. And I wish him all the very best.”—Washington, D.C., Jan. 12, 2009

 

[MagdalenaRita]

I did not say that pursuing a job is selfish but pursuing a career can be self fulfillment and I have made a couple of comments that there are many families where both husband and wife have to work so I have not overlooked that.

 

[edwest211]

I have zero political party affiliation. I hate politics. I understand it, but at this point in history, it is a dirty game. Both parties are corrupt.

 

[PetraG]

This is wishful thinking. Women worked in factories during World War II. Women ferried completed aircraft from factories to shipping points. And there was the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps ( WAAC ), with some women serving as mechanics. This type of history needs to be mentioned.

What is wishful thinking? That the plant I personally worked in didn’t assign any women to drive forklifts until I was in college? Are you saying I wasn’t there? Do you think I’m fabricating the story? Or am I “hysterical,” maybe?

Do you think the guys in the research group at my university who were chuckling to me about their research director instructing them to discourage women who wanted to join the group were making that up?

Sure, women drove forklifts during World War II. Then the men came home and much of what women once did was again considered men’s work. I’m not twenty years old, so don’t try to tell me I don’t know what things were like in the 1970s. I’m still young enough to have my memory.

But we digress. Patriarchy and patronizing aren’t the same thing.

As a student of history, I know things are very black and white.

I’d suggest studying harder.

 

[LilyM]

MagdalenaRita:

You’ll have to show me where I said men are “miserably working”. My point was men have different attitudes toward work. I have just never heard a man say, “I am going off to pursue a career”, but more likely you will hear, “what job or profession can I pursue that will give me the means to support a family” vs many women who pursue a career to find “self fulfillment”. Common phrase, “it is something I have to do for me”.

Lea101:

The reference to “self-fulfillment” means that it’s probably unnecessary to get a job if their spouses are already making a good living. But it’s not as selfish as it implies; for a lot of women, getting a job is not selfish, it is self-care. It not only puts their talents and skills to good use, but it keeps their career skills sharpened. Not everyone can predict when their husbands face sudden death, or simply leave them for someone else. An economic safety net is vitally important.

You’re also overlooking the many women who have to work and don’t have the privileged luxury of making references to “self-fulfillment.”

Also overlooking the many men who uproot their families for the sake of their own desires.

You have David Beckham who relocated from the UK to Spain and America and then back again for the sake of his career - and for what? He certainly had zero need of the money or the continued notoriety.

You have Donald Trump relocating his wife and young child from what had been their base for years, in New York, to Washington. For eight years, after which they will have to relocate again. Why? Again, his own ambition and nothing else. There are accounts that Melania was unhappy to the point of tears when he won the election. And her public demeanour, to me at least, speaks of someone who, unlike Michelle Obama before her, is far from embracing the role and opportunities of a First Lady.

And these two are symbolic of many fathers and husbands all over the Western World who, without genuine need, either uproot their families or take jobs that take them away from wife and children, in the name of their own ambition. And are applauded rather than made to feel shame for doing so.

 

[Pattylt]

Though it was on a small scale at a tribal level only, the American natives had an interesting political structure. It wasn’t in all of them but in very many of them.

They had two groups of elders, male and female. The women determined if they went to war, the men did the planning and execution of it. The women determined if a large hunt was needed and the men planned and executed the hunt. The women often did the distribution of meat afterwards. When problems arose, the men would propose solutions and the women executed the best plan.

It’s very different yet very equitable in practice. I have no idea if it could have ever been done in larger societies but it worked quite well for them.

 

[Edmundus1581]

You’ll have to show me where I said men are “miserably working”. My point was men have different attitudes toward work. I have just never heard a man say, “I am going off to pursue a career”, but more likely you will hear, “what job or profession can I pursue that will give me the means to support a family” vs many women who pursue a career to find “self fulfillment”. Common phrase, “it is something I have to do for me”.

I was raised in a house where both parents came from university educations through several generations, and in that environment is was normal for both young men and women think about “fulfilment” in their career choices.

Only recently, at nearly 60, have I discovered that this (career as “fulfillment”, at least as a ideal) is a privilege of wealth. I’ve had many conversations with tradesmen and other workmen, but the topic of how you got into your line of work never came up, probably because it’s assumed.

A man I met recently had gone from a blue collar background to university education and he informed me that in his background it was imposed on men that they were to seek a career with a good income in order to provide for a wife and family. The career should put their skills to use for financial reward. It was unthinkable to pursue something for interest rather than gain.

All of this stuff about what women could and couldn’t do previously neglects that this was more determined by class than gender. Most men were excluded from university when upper class women were attending them, and prior to 1920 most men couldn’t vote either.

Like many men of his generation my step-father* was compelled to leave school before finishing to get a trade. University was excluded for him but was open for my mother (1930 and 40s’s) because of differences in social class. My mother freely admits he had a much stronger intellect and academic potential than herself.

*“Step-father”. My university-educated father died when I was young, and my mother remarried this man.