So what are you thoughts on what Bill said? Why are “feminine” values and characteristics seen as negative–AND–exclusive only to women? And if women are easily distracted by shiny objects (HUGE generalization), then men are very easily distracted by breasts…
What is wrong with attributing power and great ideals to women? And IF it is being overdone these days, perhaps it’s due to the fact that until the 1960’s women still only had one type role to fulfill? She was only as good as her breeding ability and housekeeping skills.
Women need and want to be seen and recognized for more than their sexual nature–whether this be reproductively or objectively. I feel some of society may be trying to assist in this trend of portraying women in powerful and positive roles. Why is that so bad? This should not be emasculating to a strong man.
I usually like Bill…never seen him this grumpy before…
Thanks for the feedback, Bill is a comedian. That said he exaggerates for effect. But he’s making very valid points
– Few men over the age of 25 are constantly distracted by breasts. Boys are, men tend to be a bit more substantial.
– It is a myth that until the 1960s women only had one type of role to fulfill. Maybe for a small narrow range of upper middle class white protestants, but women have worked, and labored, for centuries. My great-grandmothers worked. Hard. As hard as my great grandfathers.
Believe me they WANTED the option to be able to just be housewives. Society denied women of their race and class that option. Most people who throw out these sort of myths really have very little idea what they are talking about when it comes to history, they selectively read from their narrow class biases and experiences, and leave out vast regions of fact. I do not say this disrespect. The real history of the sexes and genders is a bit more nuanced than is usually presented. Than we are taught, all of us carry myths. Take the sexual revolution. It’s a myth. Sex was not invented in the 1960s. The term free-love was invented somewhere in the 1870s, and get really old people talking about their youth and you would be surprised. They probably had better sex lives than most of your peers.
– Nothing is wrong with feminine values, for women, just as nothing is wrong with masculine values, for men. Forcing women into masculine molds (which happens) is destructive to femininity. Forcing men into feminine molds is destructive to masculinity. Moreover, and I hear this from countless women now, overly feminized men are turn-offs to most women in our society. Not all, but most. They get on the nerves of even very progressive feminists I know.
– Bill isn’t saying that anything is wrong with attributing power or great ideals to women, try not to make this rhetorical leap and \emotional reaction to what he’s really saying. He is saying that maybe, just maybe, society might be out of balanced if men abandon their masculinity. That much of society’s current discourse on the positivity of femininity and the negativity of masculinity are myths, and destructive ones. And he’s making people laugh by pointing this out.
– I think that deep down inside every woman realizes this on some level, what does and does not turn her on, and what does and does not annoy her. There is a misunderstanding of what strength is. Read Simone DeBouvior, she is explicit about it in the Second Sex, she was at war with the notion of femininity itself seeing it as a social construct, and seeing masculinity as a norm. She could only see strength in terms of male strength, she completely denied feminine strengths. She hated the very notion of woman. She is explicit in this.
This is self hatred. And it says more about her background, and political and social ideologies, and inner issues, than it does about femininity.
– What society and people label as strong and powerful and great are masculine ideas of the same, there are feminine strengths and powers but as long as people persist in seeing these as weaknesses then it will short change women and men alike.
– There are negative manifestations of masculinity and positive ones.
– There are negative manifestations of femininity and positive ones.
– The trick is figuring out which is which. What people typically see as portraying women in a strong and positive role sometimes is, but more often it is a mythic portrayal with a positive mind towards socially engineering but tell me, how often is motherhood portrayed as heroic and beautiful in the media? If it wasn’t for motherhood you and I wouldn’t be here. Which is more important, a mother, or CSI detective. It’s a trick question, both are important, it’s a matter of context.
– I am not talking about Donna Reed, or Ozzie and Harriet. I don’t want the society of the 1950s back. Many aspects of that era strike me as repressive in ways I do not want repeated.
HOWEVER there were things that were valuable, that were important, that that generation held on to that later generations and ours in particular threw out the window. Since most people have a very distorted view of history they simply do not realize ho much they threw out the window. It is not uncommon to find people from that age complaining about how the world has changed, well the world started changing in many ways with their rebellion against the norms of the time. They tried to bring in a brave new world of progress equality and social evolution and in many cases, what they brought in is broken. Some things are nice, but they threw out the window many things that were beautiful, and just, and valuable, and threw away things that should have been your and my generation’s birthright.
There are studies showing that there was a greater degree of happiness in general among women in that age, compared to today. Why is this? There are many possible reasons, but all should be considered, and not just the politically correct ones.
It wasn’t my generation but I know a LOT about it because not only was it my parent’s generation, but I have always hung out with older guys, and I know a good deal about what the 40’s and 50’s and 60s were socially like. As a Gen X’r I get the ability to have one foot there, and one foot today, I socialize with and talk to people from then to Gen Y types, my social circle has people born in the 30s, 40s, up to the early 90s. I see attitudes and beliefs and simple knowledge from multiple generations and believe me, much of what this generation thinks is true about the world of the past is just an ignorant myth. Like all myths, with grains of truth, but myths all the same.
So what are you thoughts on what Bill said? Why are “feminine” values and characteristics seen as negative–AND–exclusive only to women? And if women are easily distracted by shiny objects (HUGE generalization), then men are very easily distracted by breasts…
What is wrong with attributing power and great ideals to women? And IF it is being overdone these days, perhaps it’s due to the fact that until the 1960’s women still only had one type role to fulfill? She was only as good as her breeding ability and housekeeping skills.
Women need and want to be seen and recognized for more than their sexual nature–whether this be reproductively or objectively. I feel some of society may be trying to assist in this trend of portraying women in powerful and positive roles. Why is that so bad? This should not be emasculating to a strong man.
I usually like Bill…never seen him this grumpy before…
Thanks for the feedback, Bill is a comedian. That said he exaggerates for effect. But he’s making very valid points
– Few men over the age of 25 are constantly distracted by breasts. Boys are, men tend to be a bit more substantial.
– It is a myth that until the 1960s women only had one type of role to fulfill. Maybe for a small narrow range of upper middle class white protestants, but women have worked, and labored, for centuries. My great-grandmothers worked. Hard. As hard as my great grandfathers.
Believe me they WANTED the option to be able to just be housewives. Society denied women of their race and class that option. Most people who throw out these sort of myths really have very little idea what they are talking about when it comes to history, they selectively read from their narrow class biases and experiences, and leave out vast regions of fact. I do not say this disrespect. The real history of the sexes and genders is a bit more nuanced than is usually presented. Than we are taught, all of us carry myths. Take the sexual revolution. It’s a myth. Sex was not invented in the 1960s. The term free-love was invented somewhere in the 1870s, and get really old people talking about their youth and you would be surprised. They probably had better sex lives than most of your peers.
– Nothing is wrong with feminine values, for women, just as nothing is wrong with masculine values, for men. Forcing women into masculine molds (which happens) is destructive to femininity. Forcing men into feminine molds is destructive to masculinity. Moreover, and I hear this from countless women now, overly feminized men are turn-offs to most women in our society. Not all, but most. They get on the nerves of even very progressive feminists I know.
– Bill isn’t saying that anything is wrong with attributing power or great ideals to women, try not to make this rhetorical leap and \emotional reaction to what he’s really saying. He is saying that maybe, just maybe, society might be out of balanced if men abandon their masculinity. That much of society’s current discourse on the positivity of femininity and the negativity of masculinity are myths, and destructive ones. And he’s making people laugh by pointing this out.
– I think that deep down inside every woman realizes this on some level, what does and does not turn her on, and what does and does not annoy her. There is a misunderstanding of what strength is. Read Simone DeBouvior, she is explicit about it in the Second Sex, she was at war with the notion of femininity itself seeing it as a social construct, and seeing masculinity as a norm. She could only see strength in terms of male strength, she completely denied feminine strengths. She hated the very notion of woman. She is explicit in this.
This is self hatred. And it says more about her background, and political and social ideologies, and inner issues, than it does about femininity.
– What society and people label as strong and powerful and great are masculine ideas of the same, there are feminine strengths and powers but as long as people persist in seeing these as weaknesses then it will short change women and men alike.
– There are negative manifestations of masculinity and positive ones.
– There are negative manifestations of femininity and positive ones.
– The trick is figuring out which is which. What people typically see as portraying women in a strong and positive role sometimes is, but more often it is a mythic portrayal with a positive mind towards socially engineering but tell me, how often is motherhood portrayed as heroic and beautiful in the media? If it wasn’t for motherhood you and I wouldn’t be here. Which is more important, a mother, or CSI detective. It’s a trick question, both are important, it’s a matter of context.
– I am not talking about Donna Reed, or Ozzie and Harriet. I don’t want the society of the 1950s back. Many aspects of that era strike me as repressive in ways I do not want repeated.
HOWEVER there were things that were valuable, that were important, that that generation held on to that later generations and ours in particular threw out the window. Since most people have a very distorted view of history they simply do not realize ho much they threw out the window. It is not uncommon to find people from that age complaining about how the world has changed, well the world started changing in many ways with their rebellion against the norms of the time. They tried to bring in a brave new world of progress equality and social evolution and in many cases, what they brought in is broken. Some things are nice, but they threw out the window many things that were beautiful, and just, and valuable, and threw away things that should have been your and my generation’s birthright.
There are studies showing that there was a greater degree of happiness in general among women in that age, compared to today. Why is this? There are many possible reasons, but all should be considered, and not just the politically correct ones.
It wasn’t my generation but I know a LOT about it because not only was it my parent’s generation, but I have always hung out with older guys, and I know a good deal about what the 40’s and 50’s and 60s were socially like. As a Gen X’r I get the ability to have one foot there, and one foot today, I socialize with and talk to people from then to Gen Y types, my social circle has people born in the 30s, 40s, up to the early 90s. I see attitudes and beliefs and simple knowledge from multiple generations and believe me, much of what this generation thinks is true about the world of the past is just an ignorant myth. Like all myths, with grains of truth, but myths all the same.
The feminist revolution is bloody. They have declared war on the family read Genesis what God originally created all things good.
@ Timothy:
You are wrong! Blasphemer! I say:
They have declared war on the family read “The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster” what “His Noodliness” originally created all things good.
It works with “satan”, Zues, even Allah. So…what makes your invisible friend so much better than the other “Super Best Friends”?….lol
…Giver of pasta, giver of sauce, from age to holy age; not created He was, but ever He lives, through the glory of spaghetti, now and forever. R’Amen.
Lol..
That is not dead, the noodles that forever lie,
but with strange hours they may harden crisp, and dry.
You get a lot of respect from me for writing these helpful artilecs.