Quote 1:
“There are no gentlemen anymore, because their are no more ladies. “
– Keoni Galt at the Hawaiian Libertarian Blog
Ok this that one had me in stitches, because it is so very true… after all, the one is predicated on the other, and vice versa.
Quote 2:
“”Most people are merciless sadists. Only cowardice tempers their
behavior. Never trust a coward, and never “empower” one. Weaken them
further.”
— The Woodchuck, on the dc-stuff list.
On your quote regarding ladies, there’s a considerable typo.
But more importantly, why should one allow another’s poor behavior to dictate their own? Spoiled children, expecting something in return for what we have deemed decent and polite behavior.
If one will not act the part of a gentleman because one expects certain “lady-like” behavior and does not receive it, one is not a gentleman at all, but an animal playing the part. The same goes for the gender-reverse.
@ POF – But more importantly, why should one allow another’s poor behavior to dictate their own? Spoiled children, expecting something in return for what we have deemed decent and polite behavior.
Tell me, my dear, what is it about the modern Western female that curses like a sailor, spit like baseball players, publicly burp like drunkards, and is proud of being a “strong female” (aka bitchy), and dresses in a masculine manner…what part of such traits that are nearly ubiquitous nowadays in today’s modern female…how is that supposed to inspire men to act gentlemanly? It’s not even about men deliberately acting “poorly” just because women are acting poorly…we men WANT to treat LADIES as Gentlemen. But where are the ladies?
Our entire culture has actively instilled the masculine traits into women en masse in the last two generations.
People my laugh at my quote, but I say it with great sadness. Even many of the women in my own peer group who I love and respect…even I can’t help but notice these socially engineered masculine traits manifest themselves frequently from women who I otherwise do recognize have good character and are generally good people…they still have been effected by the culture wide masculiniztion of femininity.
It’s to the point now where a woman who wears a nice, pretty dress that is somewhat modest but attractive, really REALLY stands out in a crowd to the male eye.
Then perhaps there are no more ladies b/c there are no more gentleman?
And who and what defines what either of those are anyway?
And let’s be clear about what we are defining as “masculine” and “feminine”. If it’s the above spitting, cursing, burping, etc., that’s neither lady-like NOR gentlemanly. I wouldn’t discriminate against either gender: it’s disgusting for both.
But let us not equate status and with being lady-like. To say that women cannot and should not be powerful and self-sufficient out of fear of being less desirable is to limit and threaten women.
Men aren’t so strong who can’t fathom an intelligent woman in a business suit. To me it denotes an insecure, weak man…not very manly or gentlemanly.
Dave,
Let me rephrase your quote for you, then.
“There are no gentlemen anymore, because there are no more ladies,” should be translated to:
“In my opinion, Western men no longer act in polite and masculine ways because Western women no longer conform to my personal value system of what feminine behavior is. The idea that women are taking on more masculine traits in a constantly changing world is not something that I find pleasing or desirable, and so I will protest against this expected social change by degrading and dismissing women who act in a way that I am allowed to act based on what is hanging between my legs. Furthermore, based on this physical difference that we use to validate social behaviors I have been raised to find desirable, I will expect that every male in Western culture shares my same ideas of desirability and socially acceptable behavior on the part of women (of which I am not) and will roam about the internet making sure to belittle those who do not.”
I’m sorry if this sounds overly aggressive to you, but I do not take kindly to gentlemen telling me what sort of behaviors it is acceptable for me to engage in. I find it sad that, because of a woman’s social or sexual actions, gentlemen find it quite acceptable to dismiss, degrade, and harass that woman. That when she steps outside of what a small group of men (and it is small) find desirable, poor behavior on the part of those gentlemen is what she -deserves-.
In short, I do not consider men who expect certain behaviors from women or they will not act with politeness not to be gentlemen at all. Or, as Rebekah said in her comment, to be masculine.
It’s easy to play the role of the manly protector when the thing you are protecting is so very weak. Crippling a little over half of the world’s population with your social/sexual expectations is foolish, in my opinion.
Also, it has been more than the last two generations that this change has been taking place. Sexual roles have been changing and been protested about significantly longer than that. If you think that this current tiny corner of the internet protesting against the supposed growing masculinity of women is something new or exciting, some history books need to be cracked open.
“In my opinion, Western men no longer act in polite and masculine ways because Western women no longer conform to my personal value system of what feminine behavior is.”
Nope, you’ve got it all wrong. My observation was merely pointing out that our gender roles in society have changed tremendously in the last 50 years. Prior to this socially engineered change, society basically operated under the unspoken social contract of chivalry. It was a code that most people adhered to, and was responsible for holding up an ideal of behavior for both men and women to aspire to, to be Gentlemen and Ladies.
But the change in gender roles and the de-stigmatization of female restraint (“oppression”) has also lead to a large segment of women that happily embrace the freedom from social stigma for what was once considered “ostrasize-able” behavior…yet still expect men to adhere to the chivalry codes and defer to women as if the masculine behaviors they have embraced should have no effect on how men treat them.
Most modern women want their cake of liberated freedom from social mores, and still eat it to by demanding that men continue to adhere to the privileges the old code of chivalry demanded.
The idea that women are taking on more masculine traits in a constantly changing world is not something that I find pleasing or desirable, and so I will protest against this expected social change by degrading and dismissing women who act in a way that I am allowed to act based on what is hanging between my legs.
Now you are trying to project onto me what you think my motivation is here. You couldn’t be more mistaken.
Context, my dear. I was merely pointing out in that today’s empowered, liberated female that happily embraces masculine behavior on one hand, turns around and try to shame men into bestowing upon hem the privileges of chivalry by asking “Where are the Gentlemen?”
I’m merely observing what many ladies such as yourself refuse to recognize – you cannot pick and choose what aspects of traditional gender roles you’d like on one hand (all the privileges accorded by gender), yet throwaway all of the responsibilities in the name of “progress” and “women’s liberation.”
Furthermore, based on this physical difference that we use to validate social behaviors I have been raised to find desirable, I will expect that every male in Western culture shares my same ideas of desirability and socially acceptable behavior on the part of women (of which I am not) and will roam about the internet making sure to belittle those who do not.”
I’m not demanding or expecting anything. I’m not whining or complaining either. I’m merely answering the question based on the female “shaming” tactic of trying to get men to continue to bestow the privileges of chivalry even though the vast majority of women don’t want the old codes of conduct that defined them as a “Lady.”
You want society to be full of “Gentlemen” than you need a society of “Ladies.”
You want liberation and the freedom to not be judged for promiscuity, and to embrace masculine behavior…fine. Just don’t turn around and demand that men act like “gentlemen” if you don’t want to act like a “lady.”
That is the only thing I meant by that last sentence which Kamal quoted here.
Dave,
I do not particularly find the ideas of feminine restraint to be accurately termed “oppression”, though I’m sure I’ll be assasinated by a small pack of feminists come tonight for even saying that.
“Most modern women want their cake of liberated freedom from social mores, and still eat it to by demanding that men continue to adhere to the privileges the old code of chivalry demanded.”
They do. I certainly will not disagree with you on that. I find that whole idea to be reeking of “special treatment” which I believe has more of a negative impact in the ways that affirmative action does. I do not agree or look well upon women who engage in this sort of social behavior.
“Now you are trying to project onto me what you think my motivation is here. You couldn’t be more mistaken.”
You’re likely right. I was quite annoyed with two Roissyites when I caught your response and went off of the conversations I had with them, assuming that since you do seem to visit and agree with Roissy, that you would be in a similiar mindset. I apologize for this mistake.
“I’m merely observing what many ladies such as yourself refuse to recognize – you cannot pick and choose what aspects of traditional gender roles you’d like on one hand (all the privileges accorded by gender), yet throwaway all of the responsibilities in the name of “progress” and “women’s liberation.””
I do not believe that any privileges are accorded by gender. I find that idea to be a horrible social construction that ends up frustrating me when I deal with the majority of women and making me feel pity for the men I encounter that are likewise frustrated or damaged by this incredible double-standard.
However, since I have, apparently, been lumped into this group of women, I wish to tell you that you are mistaken in this judgement. I do not like the “special” treatments that are afforded my gender and do my best to avoid them, simply because it makes me uncomfortable. My general social/sexual operating base is that if I want to be treated as an equal by my partner and by my male friends, then I must decline and not engage in behaviors that would cause them to view me as needing or requiring said special treatment, which would take away the balanced social dynamic that we have, that balanced dynamic I would much rather have than the sex-based expected behaviors other girls seem to need to validate their femininity and worth.
But that paragraph was entirely too long.
I am promiscuous. My social behavior tends towards masculine. I am occasionally described as “liberated” though I find that adjective much too condescending. I do not expect (or want) to be treated like a “lady”, I only ask to be treated with politeness and the basic respect that one would accord another for simply being a fellow human.
I do, again, apologize for reading your sentiments incorrectly, and thank you for responding and explaining your position so politely.
Whoa.
Thanks for pointing that out.
Poetry@
Another pleasant visitor, thanks for swinging by. Your blog’s interesting, but challenging. On the one hand I feel there are many things that are of value to some traditional gender roles. I also realize the contingent and relative nature of some such gender roles.
I think both you and Dave were making certain points that complement each other, when looked at a certain way.
“I do not particularly find the ideas of feminine restraint to be accurately termed “oppression”, though I’m sure I’ll be assassinated by a small pack of feminists come tonight for even saying that.”
“….Meh…”. If they had any real inner strength they would understand where you are coming from. I’ve met truly strong women in my life, who would eat alive some of the stereotypical feminist types I met in college. A truly strong woman, comfortable in her skin, rarely has a need to assassinate dissenters.
I have a suspicion that many women find you and your sexuality threatening. Both your sexuality and the comfort you have in your skin.
Liberated is a condescending term. It’s weak and milquetoast – someone who had true liberty would simply act in the way she or he deemed most appropriate. Which could, and should, involve restraint.
You may not find it pleasant than some men have certain expectations of women’s behavior, or that likewise some women have certain expectations of men’s behavior, but we live in a collective society in which people do have expectations of the opposite sex’s behavior.
These expectations are not just repressed nonsense. Many – for both men and women – may be rooted in something deeper than just social conditioning.
As a free individual I am free to buck social expectations of others, a more mature approach involves my negotiating my way through society and it’s expectations, and my desires. Restraint where interaction with others demands restraint, and where it does not finding my own norms.
None of us are islands to ourselves. But at the same time, no mature adult should be a slave to other people’s opinions.
Female restraint and male restraint share a certain reciprocity. I DO believe that there are fewer gentlemen because there are fewer ladies. At the same time I also believe that one of the reasons there are fewer ladies because there are fewer gentlemen.
Both guys and gals in our culture have been fucked in the head by a pernicious form of social engineering – one good at selling us false needs, false desires, and goods we don’t need. One that stunts our growth as whole men and women. The more women I’ve dated and befriended, the more men I’ve met and befriended, the more I’ve reflected on myself, my father, my mother, my step mother, my siblings, and society around me, the more this becomes clear to me.
Usually it’s the weak, women and men alike, who need to make others march lock-step with them. And typically it’s the weak who tend to harp on themes of oppression.
But not all weak people. Only a certain kind.
Part of this is that weakness makes one more likely to be oppressed, but the other part is that once oppressed our character gets warped along really ugly lines.
Like a sort of stunted growth. There is a gentleness that is MISTAKEN as weakness by some people, but it is not weakness. It is actually a form of strength.
There is a passive yielding and receptive strength, and an active and penetrating, projecting strength. These two strengths can be complementary.
There is also a passive yielding and receptive weakness, and an active penetrating weakness as well. It’s a form of sapping cloying weakness on one hand, and a bullying compensating blustering weakness on the other hand.
Part of maturing and growing up is figuring this out and getting over some things.
Dave‘s comments on the re-engineering of gender roles touches on broader, deeper, social changes that affects our sexual and social roles.
There WAS an unspoken contract a mode of normal polite and inoffensive behavior for men and women both and knowing it was part of good breeding, being well bought up.
It was “chivalry” – Chivalry was originally, essentially, a thug code. It’s important that people understand where things came before throwing them away.
Dark Age knights were amongst the most brutal and rapacious men on the planet. Study medieval history in depth and you realize this, even if one wants to gloss over this for political reasons. Anyone who wants to put into context the Guelph and Ghibbiline factions – just look at the Mafia today. Many nobles started out essentially as outlaws, pirates, bandits who could unite factions in their tribes, hold on to turf, and more or less make the church recognize their de facto power. Many essentially go to where they were by theft and brigandage alone, while giving lip service to “dominant powers” . Organized crime is a perfect parallel to feudal and power politics.
Chivalry mellowed out the warrior brutality and gave it an idealized dimension. There was an old pagan Celtic influence, and an Islamic influence (there are some good studies on both). Middle eastern Chivalry – “Futuwwah” – ended up formalized in Sufism and Sufi poetry (like Rumi or Hafez).
In southern Spain and Sicily, and moving north from there, Christian, Celtic Pagan, and Islamic Arab love poetry and warrior ideals and gender constructs melted into each other, and formed something new – the codes of chivalry in the early Romances. Which formed the basis of groups like the “Fidele de Amor” who created a cultural code that defined Western ideas of ideal male female behavior for centuries. It became about more than sex, more than love, more than politeness. This code among English speaking people grew more and more dominant over male female relations until Victorian times.
Chivalry civilized a code formerly based on iron, blood, and rape. Chivalry and romantic love restrained male excesses in Western culture, and it restrained female excesses as well. It created a code of decorum a lady and gentleman followed and reciprocated this. Both male and female restraint matters.
Chivalry was what caused Western women to be treated as more than just breeding sows and useful servants for housework. It created an ideal, and avoiding one-sided history, it is what prevented women who were physically weaker from being generally treated as completely expendable, and in many cultures gave women a far higher degree of respect than in others. Modern gender history is one-sided, lacks nuances, and never looks at the broader picture. There were real significant differences in how women and men treated each other in German, French, Spanish, Italian, and English areas. A lot of this up to the 20th century was a factor of the degree to which chivalry was a part of the culture.
There were other factors, I’m not simplifying or romanticizing the past, just pointing out things many people miss.
Chivalry enabled Western cultures to develop along lines far more positive to women, and their children, than would have been possible. Chivalry also had some real problems. There was both good and bad, but it certainly caused many women to be treated much better than they were before.
When your culture is full of belligerent well armed and well muscled men in armor, we do realize that treating women like men would be detrimental to women’s interests..
I think politeness and social restrain is a good thing for both men and women.
I mourn it when it’s gone.
Chivalry and politeness lingered, Poor folk and Middle class folk alike knew how to say Ma’am and sir. I’ve met a lot of old inner city hoods, guys who grew up in my Dad’s day. Real gangsters (and not young buck wanna be 50 Cent thug clones) and these guys were some of the most polite people possible, especially to women in social situations. These were dangerous men who somehow were able to say Ma’am, hold a door open for a lady, and shake a man’s hand and call him Sir with social deference.
It’s called being polite, if many inner city thugs ex-con who grew up in the 50’s are more polite and have more social graces and restraint then “well bred” upper class Wasp co-eds at good colleges (and they do) then, well, there ya go.
The kind of modern female behavior that Dave is talking about is basically the abandonment of good old fashioned politeness. And a falling into behavior that once was stereotyped onto the lowest rungs of society. Most of whom were often far more “noble” in their real behavior than modern American middle and upper classes.
Like, our society collectively stopped aspiring upwards, and decided to cultivate nostalgia for the mud.
Long comment time – the rest is yet to come..
Damn it, I should just make this into another blog post…..
”My general social/sexual operating base is that if I want to be treated as an equal by my partner and by my male friends, then I must decline and not engage in behaviors that would cause them to view me as needing or requiring said special treatment, which would take away the balanced social dynamic that we have, that balanced dynamic I would much rather have than the sex-based expected behaviors other girls seem to need to validate their femininity and worth.”
I don’t think any two women are equals, that any two men are equals, and that men and women both are equals, equality is a mathematical concept. Equality is sameness. We are all different, there are strengths you have that I lack, and strengths I have that you lack, strengths Dave has that both of us lack, and you Rebekkah strengths you may have that Dave lacks, and vice versa in weaknesses.
I want to be treated with respect, and I treat women with respect. If I treated my female partners equally I could do them injustices because one may have needs another didn’t have, and vice versa.
Actually I’ve found that when I treat most women like I treat most men they are unhappy. And when I treat one woman in the same way I’ve treated another in the past, she was unhappy. Everyone is different.
Our society’s focus on “equality” is a trap, we should be focused on respect and justice. Equality doesn’t exist in the human condition at all. And the way the word is abused in the English language creates a good deal of suffering.
I believe there are sound reasons for traditional attitudes towards male promiscuity and female promiscuity, in a certain type of social setting. But I also believe that today we live in quite different social settings.
I struggle with these ideas a lot, on the one hand desire, yearnings, cravings. And on the other hand a realization of the need for control, for restraint.
I think that something that’s affected many in our generation, and the one before us, is a type of deliberate social engineering that makes it difficult to know what our natural sexual desires and cravings are, and what a natural affirming way of expressing them, and what our natural gender traits and roles are, and how to express them.
I think that a good deal of demonstrable sexual and gender social engineering has been to sell us shit, to make us less as men, and less as women, and to make us insecure. I also think that there are other factors, but since it’s more difficult to document them in a way that satisfies most people’s skepticism, I let them slide.
I also think that a lot is due to natural social and sexual transformations and dislocations as a result of industrial city life.
There is an aspect to female promiscuity that can be very threatening to many men, and women alike.
Part of it is due to the “alpha/beta” divide (which I think is poorly understood and fucking poorly articulated) but part of it is due to natural instinct, perhaps evolutionary in nature.
In the case of both men and women, there are private rewards for promiscuity, pleasure being the most obvious. But there are also prices to pay on the level of society at large, in certain types of societies..
Some women and men alike naturally have large, prodigious sex drives. Some men and women are naturally hedonistic in our natural disposition, in other words some of us are naturally wanton sluts. Others of us are not, our desires tend to be more circumscribed and easily controlled and satisfied.
Some gals need it three times a day, others need it three times a week. Some guys need it twice a day, others need it twice a week. Once I had a close friend whose natural sex drive scared many men. Most men who met her simply didn’t understand her natural desires and needs. On the other hand I once had a very close friend who was unable to believe that any human being could really have a natural drive that large. For her sex more than three or four times a week simply wasn’t special. It could be twice a day one day, and then once two days after, and one three days after, but for her frequency was the opposite of spontaneity and “specialness”
Our sexual desires differ naturally, and also due to early experiences and personal tragedies, which can influence our drives either to pathological extremes of frigidness or sluttishness. But between the two extremes is a wide range of natural dispositions.
In a healthy society I think that both types would sort out, more easily than they do in ours. While people differ in desire. There’s direct ramifications on our differing desires on family and social organization.
Some of this is displaced by contraception, antibiotics, labor saving technology, and the modern economic and state structure.
At the end of the day we are who and what we are. Our appetites are what they are. Irrespective of how we get to where we are. And irrespective of how a society gets to a certain point, it is where it is.
Societies have to balance individual desires with larger social needs. Some traditional ones veer to extreme repression, some people judge this, not realizing that it may be a survival tactic enabling a specific type of social order to survive and sustain itself.
Others veer to extremes of permissive non-repression and even dissipation.
Others vacillate between the two, while others find a middle ground.
I personally feel that our society is in a sexual and familial free fall. This can create large spaces for individual liberty and gratification. But it can also creates large spaces for discontent, and disintegration. It can create hurt and angry children who never experienced an intact family, disease, personal suffering.
It’s complicated and I don’t pretend to have answers, but I do question most of the assumptions that both liberals and conservatives carry. I think that this stuff is more complicated than most people imagine.
How does it affect individual men and women, and their individual desires? That is for them to realize themselves.
But I don’t think the hedonism party can go on forever without personal and social costs…
On people seeming to agree with Roissy, it’s might be a mistake to assume that someone reading a particular blog or visiting a particular forum agrees with it’s host, totally or partially.
I’ve noticed his regulars commenting on his points that resonate with them, and not commenting on points they disagree with. I guess this may be due to respect of him and his space, and I surmise that part of this may also be a desire to avoid flame wars.
Like all persuasive writers he attracts a fan base, who may agree with him on many points, and respect his figure to the point that on points of disagreement they simply remain quiet. He also attracts an enemy base . it is possible that some readers project views on his commentators that they don’t all hold, and it is possible that his commentators project on him views that he doesn’t hold, or fully hold. I think he’s shocking on some points, vague and ambiguous on others, and sure as hell knows how to attract a crowd.
And that is that.
Dave@
Thanks for swinging by. Yeah, I am totally feeling your point.
There’s a book that I picked up a couple of weeks ago, Female Chauvinist Pigs. It’s about what the author terms “Raunch culture” – basically girls gone frat boy.
I think it is important for people to realize that these sort of traits are typically socially engineered, masculine, traits at that. Many women in our culture ape “masculine” stereotypes that are only accidently masculine, and frequently associated, in earlier phases of our culture, with a type of undesirable masculine crudeness, stupidity, and poor breeding.
In other words, en trying to feel strong and be strong, they simply act crude and compensate.
This is like the 95 lbs weakling who buys a Charles Atlas course from the back of a comic book, bulks up, and struts around like a big man.
A good deal of “Second Sex” by Simone de Beauvoir, deals with this paradox. I don’t like de Beauvoir much, but to be polite I deleted the curse^H^H I mean epithet that I typed after her name. Feminism as SHE saw it was essentially an abolishment of the feminine. Abolish womanhood. She was near explicit on this point.
Because she could only see weakness, and vegetative passivity in her understanding of femininity. She utterly lacked an understanding of complementarily. How opposites can complement each other and counter-balance strengths with weaknesses. And she wasn’t really that intelligent. Neither was Sarte. Both were clever, in a sense. But it was that dry academic theoretical and cowardly type of cleverness that covers real character defects.
Some readers may like de Beauvoir. Folks I make no judge of your character for doing so, I just think she was a twit…
She associated womanhood with feminine traits that typically irked her, and ignored the possible positive aspect of these feminine traits. What were really bourgeoisie stereotypes.
Working class women were very feminine in ways that her privileged boughi ass couldn’t understand. What she saw as femininity I think was a stereotype of French Catholic middle class femininity. I think that much of her upbringing pre-disposed her in this way.
I think that her brand of feminism ended up actually being a glorification of the masculine and a desire for it to be normative. In other words, she worshiped masculinity and wanted it to be the normal human state for men and women.
This is a weird paradox.
In our culture “Androgyny” for women involves taking stereotypically male traits, and “butching it up” – but butching it up in a stereotypical way. This is essentially taking on male traits, and male traits that used to be, generally, regarded as our worse traits.
It does makes a nifty sorting function, when it comes to me picking and choosing who I want to spend my time with. Any girl who is more boorish and crude than my most boorish and crude male friend is automatically put in the “Next” category.
Does this mean that I look for passive wall flowers? No, far from it. It does mean that I don’t look for girls who inwardly have a certain reality but outwardly try to over-compensate by challenging me to spitting contests, and behaving like caustic sardonic assholes. If I don’t tolerate doucehbag behavior in my male friends, I sure as hell won’t tolerate it in female friends.
Rebekah@
I agree with you that there is some behavior that is neither lady like or gentlemanly.
Some behavior I expect of both men and women, who are free to scorn my expectations as free men and women, but if they want my company and respect, while scorning my expectations, they are welcome to fuck themselves. In such cases, they really do not want my respect, because they are not willing to extend respect.
“..But let us not equate status and with being lady-like. To say that women cannot and should not be powerful and self-sufficient out of fear of being less desirable is to limit and threaten women. “
I could be mis-reading you, but status and being lady-like are essentially linked Rebekah, just like status and being gentleman like. The very notion of a lady, or gentleman, is explicitly linked to class and status. Explicitly.
As for women not being powerful or self-sufficient out of fear of being less desirable, I don’t think that anyone is saying this. It is better to develop a true inner strength and core than to focus on how people’s expectations seem to limit and threaten you as a woman. in other words, if we are truly self-sufficient and powerful, we really wouldn’t care whether or not someone’s expectations of us desire us limited or threaten us.
Now would we? Even being concerned about others’ expectations in this regard betray a lack of inner strength. We are all growing in our lives, trying to develop as people. It is helpful when we look at where our own concerns project our own fears and apprehensions, and where they point to our own need for inner growth.
After all, can anyone limit you by their expectations if you are a free actor in your own life?
When we find other people’s expectations are limiting us, then in reality it is our own selves who are limiting ourselves. Unless they are using physical restraints, it is all in the head, and in the heart.
I do think that many men are saying things that sound like this, but are actually more nuanced, and could possibly be misinterpreted in this way. But I honestly don’t know of a single man who actually says or wants what you are saying.
I know I don’t want a helpless damsel in distress or a purposefully frail quivering thing. I enjoy the company of women who are intelligent, with real inner strength.
What many men yearn for is in some ways the inverse of what many women yearn for. And it differs by degree, because every man, and every woman, is a unique individual. But our very biology dictates certain broad general yearnings.
Many women yearn for men who are strong, direct, know what they want, who are NOT indecisive, who can take the lead seeking what they want. Even many women who intellectually are turned off by types of male dominance are emotionally and physically turned on by it. Not domineering, not controlling, but a sort of comfortable fitting in the skin. A man who is master of himself.
Many men want women who have a gentle grace, who are not crude or unrefined, who have a certain softness. Not weakness, though for many men fragility can bring out an endearing protective reaction. But in other men they may want sterner stuff in their women. It is hard to explain, but a type of gentleness, nurturing nature, a sort of grace, not hardness rather softness, and it is exquisitely feminine.
And it can be strong. It can have a good deal of real strength and fire. Our culture typically stigmatizes graceful soft femininity as weakness, and prizes Amazonian hardness.
I think this is a mistake.
There is a truly feminine strength that many women AND men in our culture typically don’t understand.
I’m not going to make this into a “what’s wrong with American women” thread. Indeed both American men and women are suffering, mutually, from a crisis in our genders. And part of it is a misunderstanding of what masculinity and femininity mean.
Often out of fear. Fear of what? Each of us, when we look deep inside ourselves, and our relationships with our fathers, and mothers, and early girlfriends or boyfriends, can find fears that we usually deny.. but that lurk there.
But I am a critic of our culture, and how it warps both men and women, and the effect this has on both of us.
An aspect of traditional femininity is a delicateness of sensitivity, a lack of coarseness. This can be, and often is, expressed in a truly feminine way. For example, I’ve met and known many Mediterranean women, especially Arabs. Western women often stereotype Arab women as being oppressed, frail, weak, uneducated things.
Nothing can be further from the truth. Most Arab women I’ve met are inwardly stronger than American men. They can endure things that American women and men alike can’t. In university pressures that made many American women crack, I saw Arab women plow through.
A good friend of mine is Palestinian, she has a fiery strength and endurance of character that I’ve encountered in very few American women. But it’s expressed in a way that, for lack of a better word, is traditionally feminine.
South American women are another example. I used to have a good friend from Venezuela. She had character strength exceeding most men’s, in our social circle. A focus, determination, endurance, and ability to meet life’s problems, that frightened many women in her academic department. They feared her and saw her as a bitch, which is funny because she can be the most soft and tender thing possible. She really isn’t a bitch. She can be quite direct however. Funny, but one of her typical complaints was always;
a) How weak spineless and non-masculine American men seem.
b) How utterly unfeminine and air-headed most American women seem.
Needless to say dating was frustrating for her, here. Where she’s from she’s almost butchy, here she was one of the most feminine and graceful women I’ve ever met. But disrespect her and you could get an unforgettable tongue lashing – in Spanish and English. Physically attack her and all 5’3″ of her may very well send you to a hospital.
She is a feminist, a punk when she was a teenager, and far from ever being a helpless wallflower. But she did have a real feminine grace and restraint that is highly attractive and exquisite. Only a fool of a man would mistake her grace for weakness.
I think our society has lost sight of what masculinity and femininity really is.
What hardness and softness are. What strength and weakness truly are.
A truly strong person is capable of great amounts of grace, the most powerful and dominant men I’ve ever known in my life were often the most gentle. In other words, gentlemen. They could be direct, and strike fear, but usually were utterly relaxed, gentle, nice, playful. My Dad was such a man. Generally the most polite and graceful men I’ve known were physically and spiritually the most dominant and strongest.
The same with the most truly strong and powerful women. “Alpha women” do exist, but the real ones are not domineering bitches. They have a more subtle and graceful strength of character. Strength and femininity can, and should, often go hand in hand.
So I see it as a tragedy when some young women try to act strong by adopting the opposite character.
To be strong you must be able to be. Without neediness. Needing others to see you in a certain way.
I think for every woman who wonders where real men are, if they look in the mirror the same thing could be asked of them, where are the real women?
Focusing excessively on issues of power and agency betray what Nietzsche called a “slave morality”. This focus is usually a sign of powerlessness and the need to compensate.
A truly powerful woman or man alike doesn’t focus on, or obsess over, their lack of power. They are, and cultivate themselves, and learn, and grow, and laugh, and love, and cry, and hate, and they are, as they are, not from a position of obsession with other people’s opinion, but from a position of sufficiency and plentitude.
Female “Bitchy” behavior or butchy is the exact analogue of male “prick” or douche behavior. Both are manipulative, both are domineering – not dominant. Both are forms of pretending to be strong, but not true strength. Both are often born out of low self esteem.
Indeed, something needs to be said for weakness. I prize my strengths but I also respect my weaknesses. They are often inverses of each other.
To grow, to evolve, to become who and what we can become, we must embrace both our strengths and weaknesses first, and understand them.
Many males are afraid to be men.
Many females are afraid to be women as well.
We can ask ourselves whether this statement describes us. I think that often it does. Not always, but often.
Behind society’s expectations of who and what we should be as men and women, lie our own natural instincts and desires. Our ideologies conceal them, our wounds scar over them, but they are there. And they differ for ever woman and man.
Rebekah, another thing.
“Men aren’t so strong who can’t fathom an intelligent woman in a business suit. To me it denotes an insecure, weak man…not very manly or gentlemanly.”
I agree. The degree to which I may find myself threatened by a woman in a particular position or dressed a certain way shows a degree of my insecurity and weakness.
Few things are absolute. All men and women possess various strengths and weaknesses. We all have insecurities, for which we attempt to compensate.
You can often tell volumes about what a man’s insecurities are, in how he approaches and interacts with women, in particular women who are hierarchically superior to him, at work, or school.
Likewise you can tell volumes about a woman’s insecurities in how she interacts with men.
A clever man can use his awareness of his insecurities and weaknesses to cultivate them into strengths. This is an art not taught to many of us while we grow up. It’s a damn shame too.