Amaros
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Joined: 7/25/2005
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True, traditional values: commitment, loyalty, honesty, etc., have largely been replaced by commercial, materialist ones, and part of that blame can be attributed to feminists, though it's largely our comercialized culture that keeps that particular dynamic centralized.
Radical feminists wanted men to share the housework, childrearing, etc., so that they could persue their careers more single mindedly, men resisted - male hierarchies are still based on primordial primatological perceptions of status - it was a sign of low status in the Middle Ages to even be able to write, and early in the digital revolution, CEO's and upper management similarly disdained computers, use of which was relegated to a lower "caste" of monklike "nerds".
Status is a somewhat flexible thing, so as things fell out, nerds now have greater long term status potential than jocks, the alpha pool of an earlier generation.
Anyway, back to women - currently, they appear mainly attached to the status symbols of SUV's and cell phones, and expect these things even before they graduate high school, more costly in general than their previous generation which was mainly interested in your car - muscle cars which a typical high school graduate could purchase and maintain.
These women LaTigresse refers, are perhaps moving from man to man, looking to move up from an Explorer to an Expedition, as LaM suggests, and similar to what the author of the article in question is whining about - substituting whatever it is that French girls are after.
Wages have gone down, cost have gone up - if people are marrying later, it's because it's courting financial disaster from which you may never recover to marry before you have a degree and are already firmly established in a career, usually not until your late Twenties, at which time, said career might leave you little time to actually date, or once married, to spend much time with your spouse.
In the previous generation, a man was typically expected to have some prospects, and the woman he married was expected to help him further his career, i.e., a partnership - currently, it appears less so, from a loose alliance of independent individuals, to outright competition.
Meanwhile, the single most common factor in low income househoolds is that they are single income - i.e., the women are staying home and taking care of the kids precisely the way social conservatives think they ought, but these are the very same people for whom they reserve their deepest contempt - the poor - and their most venemous ire for the liberals who attempt to represent them by proxy.
We've basically come full circle, from marriage as political-economic alliance, to marriage for love, back to marriage as a political-economic alliance - a status partner increases your status - Hillary Clinton's status boosted Bill Clinton's status, when she stayed in the background, now that he's in the background, her status is boosted by his status.
Bottom line is, those who dream of going back to the old patriarchial system where women stayed home and took care of the men, or got turned out, and status was mainly a male thing, such as the author - are dreaming - the status system itself is based on materialist values, people do not listen to reason, they listen to money, money is status, and very little else matters - in this system, those who own the majority of the wealth benefit from a loose labor market, and women are actually prefered as employees in many cases - they are typically more dedicated, less prone to waste time and cause disruptions playing power games, less likely to demand higher wages, etc., all of which translates to profits.
One big problem here is that men are still expected to earn their status working their way up, whereas women can still gain instant status by marrying a high status male - there is a bit of a disparity in the way that the old systems and the new systems have syncretized, and in this case, it's mostly the social conservatives who have contributed to this situation.
Naturally, in a system like this, it is to womens advantage to be fickle, always hunting for the BBD, and to men's advantage to disdain them for this, and play them at every opportunity - neither one respects the other, and there is very little basis for stable relationships, unless compatable people just happen to stumble on each other.
Feminisim upset a lot of apple carts, but it happened at a time when change was inevitable, and it helped correct a lot of ethical imbalances when it wasn't withdrawing into unrealistic fantasy (men have balls, and we like to swing 'em around from time to time, it's just the situation...) - conservative reactionaries have unfortunately, complicated it further by clinging to outdated habits and superstitions without understanding why they exist or how they worked to begin with, much less understanding that in many case these conventions have changed from advantages to outright disadvantages, or how their own priorities have largely created that situation.
< Message edited by Amaros -- 12/19/2006 8:44:27 AM >
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RE: things are changing...and the v-nillas are scared - 
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