So apparently, according to the London times, Pius Ncube, the Archbishop of Bulawayo, has asked for Britain to invade Zimbabwe (that’s where he is from), because shit has officially hit the fan there. See, Britain used to own Zimbabwe. After World War Two, they turned it over for self rule, in part because the people there were demanding it. Now, a bit more recently, Robert Mugabe was elected President of Zimbabwe, and things have been going down hill from there. Up till a few years ago, Zimbabwe produced far more food then its population needs. It was sort of an up and coming nation. Now, not so much. It all started when Mugabe kicked a lot of white farmers off their farmers, and gave them to his friends, who apparently don’t know how to farm. He then blamed all the problems his nation has on “the White Devil”. Of course, this is just one of several bad things this man has done. Anyway, as things stand now, Zimbabwe is facing a severe food shortage, 15,000% inflation (prices doubled in one week), and things are in general crap. As such, the very same people that were blamed for causing all the problems are now being begged by more than a few of the people to come in and fix things. Of course, they don’t want British control, which is understandable, but they also want no British influence, British culture, you know, the things that allowed Great Briton to actually get shit done. They want the money and support, but don’t want to change in any way or give up anything to actually improve or truly stand on their own. We see similar behavior elsewhere, some place closer to home, and in some ways quite subtle: you can see similar behavior in the modern American (well Western, really) woman.
That probably got some people’s attention. I should start by saying that not all women engage in the behaviors that I am about to rant about, and that some of these problems are more of a problem with the way various systems are set up, not with the women themselves. That being said…
First, lets define feminism, for the purposes of this writing. For this little rant, feminism is the fight against double standards, the belief that the playing field should be totally level. In more philosophical terms, negative freedom, in the sense that no one is standing in your way. Under this definition, most women that call themselves feminist are not. Many men, even those who would never claim to be, are in fact feminist. Let me explain. As the system is set up now, and how many women consciously and unconsciously act, there exist many double standards. Let start with a common one: dating. Who pays for the date, 9 times out of 10? The man. Why? Is there any good reason? We could point out that it is done this way do to evolutionary psychology, as a means for a man to show the level of resources at his disposal. However, if we run under that assumption, then we have a few other issues. One, it could basically turn the date into what could be a very expensive prostitution arrangement. I buy you dinner, you have sex with me. I buy you enough dinners, you marry me, and let me get you knocked up. Second, assuming that sex is not implied, then the arrangement, rather than make women sex objects, objectifies men as procurers of resources, not necessarily as people. Sadly, I find this to be all too often the case.
More than a few men report at least feeling, if not having been bluntly told, that it doesn’t matter to their wives, or their girlfriends, if they like their job. Fulfillment, having a job that is challenging and enjoyable, all this is second to making money. Now, and here is where the societal double standard comes in, women are encouraged to find a fulfilling, meaningful, and enjoyable job, and heaven help their husband if they are not super supportive. More than a few wives don’t see the problem with telling their husbands to bite the bullet and take a job that they don’t want, that doesn’t suit them, but then refuse to get a higher paying job themselves, because they enjoy their current, low paying job. When women do take a decent paying job, they are often, in terms of salary, paid less then men. Now, lets ignore the sort of half assed studies saying that women are paid less because they don’t stand up for themselves as much as men. Lets instead focus on harder facts. Women don’t work as much as men, as a rule. Its true. Don’t bitch, don’t whine, don’t argue. A place called Employment Policy Foundation did a study, and found that there is statistically no pay gap when you look at unmarried men and women, and a 3% difference between married but childless couples. That’s right, it’s the kids fault. Who goes home to take care of the kids? Mom. As such, mom works less hours, thus less exposure at work, less over time, and thus a smaller paycheck. Not one bit of this is the fault of men. And yet, we still get to hear about it. We still have to deal with policies that tell us women are the equals to men, but they need special hiring preference. That women are just as thick skin and tough as us, but heaven help you if you crack a sexist joke. But don’t even think of complaining to HR if a women makes a sexist comment; you will just get laughed at. I would have to say, that in terms of jobs, men are on the short end of the stick when it comes to double standards.
Lets talk a bit about relationship dynamics, specifically relating to sex. Men, ask yourself, how many times have you been told by your girl she isn’t in the mood? How are you supposed to handle it? All understanding right? No complaining, no whining, and it better not visibly hurt your self esteem, cause that will just ending up basically annoying her, because then it would seem like you are trying to guilt her. Want to see your girl mentally fall apart quickly? Reject her advances. Tell her “no” one night, that you are not interested. (And don’t give me this whole “that would never happen” line; every man has at least one night where he is too tired, too stressed, or too busy.) Some girls will be ok with it. Most girls wont be. Sure they may not say anything, at first; but then comes the questions and doubts. The “is it me”, or “is it another girl?” Don’t get annoyed with them though, cause then you are not taking in to consideration their feelings.
Now, lets talk about every one’s favorite, happy making activity: divorce. Women got it good in divorce, and I have never, not ever, heard of a supposed “feminist” trying to change the system. Lets start with alimony: women, and men, don’t deserve it. Not a dime. You could argue those who get married say before 1990 might have a case, but its kind of iffy. Split the assets, and be done with it. Yes, some women do stay at home and raise kids, but who made them do it? I mean really made them. Their husbands? How can he? Hit her? He goes to jail. Her priest? Her faith is her choice, and as such the consequences are hers. You don’t even need to be a full time stay at home parent to raise good kids, especially after they start school. So who is making them stay at home now? No one, its their call, their consequences, but no one is really holding these women accountable, not if we are making their ex husbands support them. And please, dear readers, don’t start with any kind of “but she got used to a lifestyle/standard of living”. As many a comedian, such as Chris Rock, has pointed out, men get used to certain things too, like sex. I have yet to hear of a court ordering a women to pleasure her ex to maintain his lifestyle. Before you start saying its an unfair comparison, well, think about it. Post divorce, with no alimony, the woman has to go and find a job, assuming she isn’t working, and will have to survive, will have to start over again, or just live off of her share of the assets. The man, assuming he even wants to, has to hit the dating circuit. He may well have to move, which is expensive, and also may entail him getting a new job. Add to that the fact that the first thing many divorce lawyers will tell their female clients is to claim the husband was abusive. That kind of stigma sticks with you. So, if she deserves money, the guy does deserve something to take his mind off of things. But never mind, honestly I doubt such an arrangement would happen, and really it shouldn’t happen. Alimony should just be abolished, if nothing else because again, because it seems to be a system that’s sole purpose now is to reduce some one to a source of income, and not a person.
Finally, lets talk about the last area: psychology. People are slowly coming to the realization that the whole trying to raise and teach boys to be girls, well, its stupid. The whole idea that boys play with guns because we give them guns is flawed. It’s wrong. It’s a product of feminist philosophy trying to be hard science, when there is not one creditable study to back up the notion that boys and girls have similar play styles. Also, telling men to share and open up has never been really proven to be healthy for men. Also, being sensitive is counter-productive for guys in terms of evolution. A few scientists did a study, and found that at the height of their monthly reproductive cycle, women don’t want the nice, cuddly, sensitive guy. They want the Neanderthal. Sometimes it it’s the same guy; you can have a linebacker with a brain and a soul. But never the less, women don’t seem to respect the whiny boys as much as the bastards. Furthermore, what’s so great about the way that women think and at? Not saying its all bad; but lets look at it. Women out number men. Women as a rule have better immune systems, and can out survive men in a variety of conditions. Men run things. Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot. I see it as a two fold problem. First, and to some extent least, is ambition. Men seem to have more drive to succeed, and in addition to opening more opportunities, propels men into plans and ideas that lead to power and wealth. Women gossip; men scheme, plot, and climb over the corpses of their enemies. Warren Buffet didn’t get rich by gossiping, or sharing his feelings. Rome wouldn’t have been built and taken over a lot of the world if it was run by women. That’s not say that there are not some ambitious bitches to complement that ambitious bastards, but they are rare. Getting more common, which is good. The second, and greatest, roadblock in the way of women getting power is organization. Women suck at getting their shit together and following a leader. Too much talking, not enough doing, in my opinion. Don’t believe me? Watch a group of women try to form a team. It takes a long while to get the group cohesion that men hit almost instantly. There is bickering, bitching, backstabbing, tears and hurt feelings. With men, we find a guy who knows what’s going on, who presents a plan, and we go. Some of us don’t even ask questions, which isn’t good, but does allow for a particularly ambitious man to get a good deal of other men to follow him, while the women are split. Men get more done, in my opinion.
Now, all that being said: so what? What does it all mean, who cares, what should we do about it? Yada yada yada. Well, to relate this assembled mess to the original story, women are kind of like Zimbabwe. They wanted to be put on the playing field, to be treated as equals, but hey, being an equal hard. It involves suffering, sacrifice, and goddamn it, who wants to do that, when you can use long establish double standards and flawed systems? Why not place the blame for failing on some one else, make them pick you up and support you while at the same time demanding to be treated as an equal. I mean, its only fair right? Way back when this other group was really mean, not to us personally, but so what, I am gonna sit here and whine. Sure, doing so really doesn’t help anything, but progress is being made, right? Women are become more equal, right? Aren’t they? Maybe, for now. Ask yourself this though: back in the day, there were many male feminists, who put in a lot of energy fighting for equality. Now, they are going into groups to fight misandery, which is good, but some of those groups don’t want to just stop there. They see the whole goddamn feminist movement as a mistake, and they are organizing. This is not so good. Add to that, my generation of men seems to be looking at marriage as something to be avoided, and not just from fear of commitment. They just don’t want to give an ex half their stuff, and support her. Now sure, marriage isn’t a big deal for many women and such, yet. For some women it never will be. But imagine, if you would, what it would be like if say 40% of the current 18-26 year old men never wanted to marry. Are there really enough women out there who are ok with never getting married, not even once, to compensate for that? We as a species have this almost pathological need to pair off. Can you imagine, dear readers, the kind of power men would have over women as a whole, if say we got 30% of us to agree to never marry a women unless she conformed to a certain template, agree to support certain causes. More over, what if we also agreed that we would never have kids with a woman, unless she fell into a certain template? The biological clock is a powerful thing, and sure there will be other guys, for a bit. But they might get snatched up, and even if they don’t, the kind of guy willing to just randomly knock up girls probably isn’t too interested in child support. So maybe that’s what we a group should do guys. Not get married, or if we are married, don’t get married again, and stand up for ourselves more inside our marriages. Make her work as much as you. Don’t have agree to have kids, unless you are totally happy, and if she threatens to leave, pack her stuff for her. We, as a generation, were told not to hit girls. That girls are special. They are not the rare commodity; we are. Especially the apparently prized members of our gender. I think we need to remind the ladies that they need us, as much as we need them. Many women need to be reminded that men are just as special as women, and that if they want our respect, if they want equality, they have to earn it, they have to sacrifice. Could it be worth being bastards, denying them and ourselves very nice things, all in the name of progress and true equality?
Well, not sure where all this leads, or how to end this, so I close with this. I am not sexist; I prefer the company of women. Certain things annoy me, certain suck. A few things down right frighten me with their potential. But in the long run, I like diversity, the dichotomy.
