The cat is out of the bag. The question of the relationship between masculinity and female preferences in men has been raised. I will cannibalize some of my research papers to review studies that can shed light on masculinity and heterosexual female preferences. This research doesn’t give any final answers, but I think it’s a good place to start in discussing women’s preferences. This post is really long, but there is a summary at the end. If anyone has questions about the studies, or wants more detail on how they came to their conclusions, let me know.
Preferences for masculine traits
Numerous studies show female preferences for traits associated with masculinity, including dominance, assertiveness, extraversion, and confidence. Sadalla, Kenrick & Vershure (1987) showed women videos or written descriptions of men behaving in dominant or submissive manners, and asked women to rate the attractiveness of those men. “Dominance” was operationalized through body language and interpersonal style in the videos, and in being competitive and winning competitions in the written vignettes. In all of their studies, Sadalla et al. found a female preference for dominant behavior in men, though this behavior did not make those men more likable. (There are some qualifications to the results of this study that I will mention later.)
In a study of dating couples and newlyweds, Botwin, Buss & Shackleford (1997) found that women had a higher preference for surgency and dominance in their mates than men did. This study used the five-factor personality model, rather than verbal vignettes or videos of body language.
If people desire a certain quality in their mates, and you expose people in relationships to potential mates with that quality, then they will probably feel like the grass might be greener elsewhere. Kenrick et al. (1994) exposed people in relationships to hypothetical people of the opposite sex, and measured their subsequent satisfaction with their current relationship and partner. The physical attractiveness of hypothetical males had no effect on female relationship satisfaction, but the social dominance of the hypothetical males did. (Big surprise: males became less happy with their current relationships when exposed to photos of beautiful women.)
Another approach is to take a sample of men and women, get them to interact, get them to take personality tests, and then see if there is a relationship between someone’s personality traits and how much their opposite-sexed partner enjoyed interacting with them. Berry & Miller (2001) found that women gave higher ratings to interactions they had with extraverted men rather than introverted men, while men did not should a similar tendency (they rated interactions with physically attractive women higher). This study used the five-factor model, and videotapes. One of the components of the Extraversion construct in the five-factor model is assertiveness.
Preferences for feminine traits
Various studies find a female preference for stereotypically feminine traits, such as agreeableness and altruism. Women tend to state preferences for agreeableness, sensitivity and honesty in men (Regan, 1998; Regan & Berscheid, 1997). This desire is stronger for longer-term partners; Desrochers (1995) found that women preferred more feminine men as romantic partners.
Women’s sexual attitudes and fantasies
We should expect women’s preferences in men to relate to what they fantasize about sexually. Sanchez, Kiefer & Ybarra (2006) found that women associated sex with submission on an implicit level, and that this association predicted their adoption of submissive behavior. (Men associated sex with neither dominance nor submission.) Yet women in the study didn’t report engaging in much submissive behavior, though it is not clear whether that is because they didn’t prefer submission, or because they didn’t have the opportunity. Zurbriggen & Yost (2004) found that while men’s sexual fantasies contained themes of both dominance and submission equally, women’s sexual fantasies were more likely to contain themes of submission than dominance; women weren’t found to fantasize about submission more than men, but their fantasies of dominance/submission focused more on submission than men’s did. The researchers also cite various other studies finding fantasies of submission in women. Kimmel & Plante (2004) found that women were more likely to envision themselves in a sexually passive role.
In addition to fantasizing about submission, women’s sexual fantasies were also found to be more emotional and romantic than men’s (Zurbriggen & Yost, 2004), indicating desires for connection and romance with men, not just for submission.
Female preferences for combinations of masculine and feminine qualities
The results of the Sadalla et al. (1987) study which found a female preference for dominant men are complicated by a study by Burger & Cosby (1999). Burger & Cosby argued that the Sadalla et al. study lacked a control condition of men who were neither dominant nor submissive. Burger & Cosby conducted a similar set of studies that included a non-dominant, non-submissive male prototype. Like Sadalla et al., they found that women preferred dominant men to submissive men, yet they also found that women preferred men who were neither particularly dominant nor submissive over all. However, Burger & Cosby only replicated the type of verbal descriptions used by Sadalla et al.; they didn’t test female attraction to dominant male body language, which was a key finding of the Sadalla study.
Burger & Cosby also gave women a list of qualities and asked which they would prefer in an ideal mate, and found that women named both masculine and feminine characteristics as either desirable or undesirable. No women wanted “demanding” men, only 2% of women wanted men who were “dominant,” and few women wanted men who were “aggressive.” Yet a majority of the sample displayed preferences for men with other traits associated with masculinity, such as confidence and assertiveness. As for stereotypically feminine traits, most of the women preferred men who were “easygoing” and “sensitive,” while virtually none wanted men who were “quiet,” “shy,” or “submissive.”
One of the most interesting studies in this area found not just a female preference for a combination of masculine and feminine traits, but a female preference for an interaction of masculine and feminine traits. Jensen-Campbell, Graziano & West (1995) constructed a similar study to Sadalla et al., but instead of studying just dominance, they measured female preferences for agreeableness and altruism also. They found that female attraction to men came from an interaction of dominance with agreeableness or altruism. Dominance increased female attraction, but only with increasing agreeableness.
Researchers have found a female preference for an interaction of masculine and feminine qualities not just in behavior, but also in preference for physical looks. Cunninham, Barbee & Pike (1990) found that:
men who possessed the neotenous features of large eyes, the mature features of prominent cheekbones and a large chin, the expressive feature of a big smile, and high-status clothing were seen as more attractive than other men.["Neotenous" means "baby-like."]
Female preferences and the menstrual cycle
Female preferences for male traits fluctuate according to the menstrual cycle. These traits include masculine facial structure, facial skin color, body odors, and voice pitch (numerous studies, cited in Puts, 2006). Furthermore, female preferences in male behavior, such as social dominance, also fluctuate (Gangestad et al., 2004). These studies find that women prefer masculine men at their periods of peak fertility during their menstrual cycles.
Male experiences
So far, all of the studies I’ve discussed focus on women’s preferences. What happens when we look at men, and see what kind of success masculine and feminine men report with women? Bogaert and Fisher (1995) studied the relationships between the personalities of university men and their amount of sexual partners. The study found a correlation between a man’s number of sexual partners, and the traits of sensation-seeking, hypermasculinity, physical attractiveness, and testosterone levels. They also discovered a correlation between maximum monthly number of partners, and the traits of dominance and psychoticism (in this context, “psychoticism” means a lack of agreeableness and conscientiousness; it isn’t related to psychotic psychological disorders like schizophrenia). Urbaniak & Kilmann (2006) found that more agreeable men had less success in dating and one-night stands, and possibly even less success in relationships also.
Limitations
Like any research, all of these types of studies suffer from limitations. Unfortunately, most of these studies are on white, middle-class undergraduate college women, for instance. Most of these studies are not generalizable to populations older than early 20′s.
In studies of male experiences, the existence of the correlation between all those masculine traits and number of sexual partners doesn’t tell us why this correlation exists: masculine men could be having more sex because women desire them more, or because they are better at playing the role of initiator, or because they seek more sex, or for all of these reasons. In the case of studies of sexual fantasies, fantasies aren’t reality, and can exaggerate what people actually want.
As I mentioned earlier, the limitation of the Sadalla et al. dominance study was the lack of testing of women’s preferences for neutral, non-dominant, non-submissive men. When Burger & Cosby added a neutral male prototype, women preferred the neutral male over the dominant male, and preferred the dominant male over the submissive male. Burger & Cosby argue that a single scale of dominance might not be the most useful way to measure female attraction to men. This makes sense, considering the finding by Jensen-Campbell et al. that dominance only raised male attractiveness when combined with agreeableness/altruism.
Furthermore, if we find all these studies saying that women prefer dominant men, why is this? Is it because women are attracted to dominance in and of itself, or because women are attracted to other qualities such as confidence or assertiveness, which just happen to be correlated with dominance?
The studies finding female preferences for feminine traits suffer from their own limitations. The biggest limitation is probably the social desirability bias, which would influence women to respond in a way that would be viewed favorably by society. Nowadays, it’s a lot more socially acceptable for women to say that they like nice, sensitive, honest men who respect them, rather than jerks who dominate them. The very mode of verbal description often conveys a value judgment. If you ask a woman if she likes a “dominant” man, she says “no.” If you ask her if she is attracted to Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca, she might say “yes,” though his character often behaves in a dominant fashion.
Herold & Millhausen (1999) argue that “research findings to date proclaiming the popularity of kind, sensitive men have overemphasized women’s partner preferences obtained through checklists while neglecting to study their actual relationship choices.” They found that women’s stated preferences didn’t always match their behavior: “although the women in our study reported preferring dating partners with limited sexual experience, more than one third reported having dated someone who had had more sexual partners than they would have liked.”
Summary
Women display preferences for stereotypically masculine traits that include dominance, confidence assertiveness, and extraversion. Women associate sex with submission on an implicit level, and tend to play the passive and submissive role in their sexual fantasies. Additionally, females also display preferences for traits associated with femininity, such as agreeableness and altruism. Other studies find that females prefer males with a combination, or interaction, of masculine and feminine qualities. Female preferences fluctuate at different points of the menstrual cycle. Masculine males report more sexual success with women than less masculine men do, though it’s not clear how of this success is directly due to women’s desires, and how much is due to other factors.
References are here.
Maybe it’s an age thing as well since you said everyone in the study was in their early 20s. I think most young people do look for sterotypical mates at that age (which is why it’s probably not such a good idea to marry young.) Minds could change as people mature.
As an adult I see a lot of men married to women who ‘mother’ them. So at some point some male preferences change.
But I guess like you said in an earlier post, it doesen’t offer much hope to young men that they’ll have to wait until their 30s possibly until they start having their first real relationships.
Bottom line is the modern world isn’t kind to men who don’t meet the ‘aggressive’ criteria or women who don’t meet the conventionally attractive ones. Both won’t do well until older probably and by that time their personalities could be so damaged by numerous rejections that it won’t make much difference.
Holy crap, I am agreeing with NYMOM. (break out the fine wine, this calls for a toast). Looks and verility and all are probably far more important to both men and women who are 20-somethings. Priorities do change, just as people do, as they get older. Yes, this is depressing for all the 20 something men AND women who are genuinely good people with a lot to offer who don’t have relationships because their good qualities are not noticed or not considered important…
Also, it’s important to consider in any of this…what do men want as well? Studies indicate a pattern of preference, sure, but focusing only on what women find desirable is only looking at one half of the equation.
You two sound like my parents always promising that things would get better at the next school.
I’m 42 now, and I long ago gave up believing that good things come to those who wait.
Daran:
I don’t think either of us said it would get better for everyone. Harsh but true. Not everyone finds true love, or that perfect relationship, or any of that. Some people settle for less, some people don’t. And frankly, anyone who promises a 100 happy ending is…lying. Life is no fairy tale. It has good parts and bad parts.
NYMOM said:
I’m glad to see someone acknowledge this.
I agree that age will influence what women are attracted to. Still, I do think that focusing on what young women are attracted is important, because youth is obviously when people have their first romantic experiences (or lack thereof), and where their attitudes towards the opposite sex will be formed.
I totally agree that men’s preferences are also an important subject. I don’t talk about men’s preferences so much, because I don’t think society really recognizes them as important (beyond looks). Women are more selective about their mates than men are, so men have to cater to women more than women have to cater to men. This isn’t female “privilege,” because privilege is unjust; women have the right to be as picky as they want about who they have sex with. It is, however, a female advantage.
Things that I’ve noted…
Physically, women seem, as a general rule, to prefer men who are physically larger than they are (taller, weigh more). Some like “beefy” men, some like thin men, some like athletic men, but I have yet to meet a woman who was attracted to obese men.
Many women do look not for “rich”, but employed and stable in a “good job” (i.e an office versus a fast food joint), or getting an education (college degree).
Most women do not like a man who stares at, drools over, comments constantly about how hot other women are.
Most women like a bit of a sense of a humor, and at least moderate confidence (not arrogance, but confidence).
[...] Next: Research on Female Preferences in Men [...]
[...] Guys”, in which Hugh, as well as taking part, has picked up on his two most recent posts. “Nice guys”, so the perception is, “finish last” with [...]
[quote comment="7130"]You two sound like my parents always promising that things would get better at the next school.
I’m 42 now, and I long ago gave up believing that good things come to those who wait.[/quote]
Daran, you’re right. The fact is, women want the same thing whether they are 15 or 45. I’m not a particularly dominant or masculine guy, but I deliberately emphasise those parts of my personality when I’m with my girlfriend, and she loves it. We’re only 15 and have been dating for over a year now.
Essentially, lots of guys are suckered into thinking that women want ‘nice guys’ who will help them out. In reality, women always go for the guy who doesn’t want/need them. They go for the guy who potrays a higher status than her.
All the traditional male attractive traits: assertiveness, confidence, height, size, wealth, position within a group a masculine looking face (rigid, defined features) show that they are of high status.
[quote comment="7179"]
All the traditional male attractive traits: assertiveness, confidence, height, size, wealth, position within a group a masculine looking face (rigid, defined features) show that they are of high status.[/quote]
I wonder if that ties in with the women who are attracted to men based on their relationships with other men.
In other words, if a man has strong relationships with other men, he’s more attractive to a certain subset of women. (Not sure how large that subset is.)
“Daran, you’re right. The fact is, women want the same thing whether they are 15 or 45.”
Incorrect. Most women’s tastes and priorities change a great deal between 15 or 45. Most young girls actually go more for “pretty boys” physically rather than “manly men”. There is often no real, developed concern for compatibility, long term stability, or future with a 15 year old, where those things are very important to women who are older. Issues such as political view points, a desire (or lack there of) for children, financial concerns in a long term partnership? 15 year olds rarely consider these matters.
[quote comment="7222"]“Daran, you’re right. The fact is, women want the same thing whether they are 15 or 45.”
Incorrect. Most women’s tastes and priorities change a great deal between 15 or 45. Most young girls actually go more for “pretty boys” physically rather than “manly men”. There is often no real, developed concern for compatibility, long term stability, or future with a 15 year old, where those things are very important to women who are older. Issues such as political view points, a desire (or lack there of) for children, financial concerns in a long term partnership? 15 year olds rarely consider these matters.[/quote]
What you mean 15 years old aren’t thinking about having children yet? Or establishing a Trust Fund for those unborn children in-between their gym class and their lunch period? Pssh, what high school did you go to?
I agree with RenegadeEvolution. There are huge differences in what a 15 year old wants versus a 45 year old. And that goes for men too.
[quote comment="7179"][quote comment="7130"]
Essentially, lots of guys are suckered into thinking that women want ‘nice guys’ who will help them out. In reality, women always go for the guy who doesn’t want/need them. They go for the guy who potrays a higher status than her.
All the traditional male attractive traits: assertiveness, confidence, height, size, wealth, position within a group a masculine looking face (rigid, defined features) show that they are of high status.[/quote]
I don’t mean to be nitpicky, but I think always is a very strong word.
If you watch enough Dr. Phil, many women in fact go for the complete opposite than the ones who don’t “need them.” They seek out those kind of men who “do need them” in order to mother them, which eventually leads to bullying them.
Which Dr. Phil usually responds to her in a stern manner, “You married him as your husband. He already has a mother. He doesn’t need you to be his mother. He needs you to be his wife.”
Now, of course, if we were to analyze this particular situation more closely (without getting too far off topic) I suspect feminists and feminist critical positions would draw very different conclusions of what is actually happening here. I suspect most feminists would see this as a clear case of the patriarchy forcing women into certain roles (mother figure) and therefore the wife is really the “oppressed” party, whereas feminist critical would see the male getting the abuse and being mothered over as if he were a little child instead of a full-grown adult as evidence that he is the one who is really suffering in this situation, and the wife is the “oppressor.”
* Please note the quotes around oppressed and oppressor.
Huh. A lot of women also seem to want an equal. End of story. They may have different skill sets, areas where they excel, but even out as equal.
Imagine that?
[quote comment="7277"]Huh. A lot of women also seem to want an equal. End of story. They may have different skill sets, areas where they excel, but even out as equal.
Imagine that?[/quote]
I do not think anyone is saying there are not women who want equals in a relationship. The focus happens to be on women who do not because it appears–based on the choices we see women making–than for most women this is not the case.
based on the choices you see women making…
that does not mean most. could most think that way, it is possible, could most think otherwise, it is also possible. I believe studies cited elsewhere focused on 20 something women? That is not most women. The personal testimonies of men here? Most of them have admitted they do not spend a great deal of time observing/dating vast amounts of women and therefor have a great amounts of experience or knowledge on what women really want.
now, based on the choices I see women making, I would say in a whole lot of ways that is the case. And a woman saying what she prefers or wants to another woman comes without the risk of bruising male feelings.
[quote comment="7273"][quote comment="7179"][quote comment="7130"]
Essentially, lots of guys are suckered into thinking that women want ‘nice guys’ who will help them out. In reality, women always go for the guy who doesn’t want/need them. They go for the guy who potrays a higher status than her.
All the traditional male attractive traits: assertiveness, confidence, height, size, wealth, position within a group a masculine looking face (rigid, defined features) show that they are of high status.[/quote]
I don’t mean to be nitpicky, but I think always is a very strong word.
If you watch enough Dr. Phil, many women in fact go for the complete opposite than the ones who don’t “need them.” They seek out those kind of men who “do need them” in order to mother them, which eventually leads to bullying them.
Which Dr. Phil usually responds to her in a stern manner, “You married him as your husband. He already has a mother. He doesn’t need you to be his mother. He needs you to be his wife.”
Now, of course, if we were to analyze this particular situation more closely (without getting too far off topic) I suspect feminists and feminist critical positions would draw very different conclusions of what is actually happening here. I suspect most feminists would see this as a clear case of the patriarchy forcing women into certain roles (mother figure) and therefore the wife is really the “oppressed” party, whereas feminist critical would see the male getting the abuse and being mothered over as if he were a little child instead of a full-grown adult as evidence that he is the one who is really suffering in this situation, and the wife is the “oppressor.”
* Please note the quotes around oppressed and oppressor.[/quote]
Not to criticize Dr. Phil but it’s basically none of his business if a couple is happy in whatever roles they’ve chosen for themselves.
If a man wants a carbon copy of his mother running his life and his wife is okay with playing that role, that is nobody else’s business but that couple.
[quote comment="7282"]based on the choices you see women making…
that does not mean most.[/quote]
Later you state: [quote]now, based on the choices I see women making, I would say in a whole lot of ways that is the case.[/quote]
The italics are mine. Men cannot speak of what they observe and make a generalization based on those observations, but you, because you are female, can? Would that not negate the experiences of men who would have a completely different view of women’s patterns of behavior?
[quote]The personal testimonies of men here? Most of them have admitted they do not spend a great deal of time observing/dating vast amounts of women and therefor have a great amounts of experience or knowledge on what women really want.[/quote]
Personal interaction is an a requisite for observation. One can observe many things about women–or people in general–without dating them.
[quote]now, based on the choices I see women making, I would say in a whole lot of ways that is the case. And a woman saying what she prefers or wants to another woman comes without the risk of bruising male feelings.[/quote]
What a person wants and what a person seeks are not necessarily the same thing. A woman can tell you what kind of man she wants, but she may actually seek out entirely different men than she previously described. So while you may be privy to hearing what women desire, is not possible that men are privy to what women actually seek to obtain?
That’s not what I said. You said men have observed some things, I said I have observed some things. Neither of us know which things comprise “most”. That is what I am saying, that the use of the word “Most” is not the right word to use. “Some” might be appropriate. Most cannot be proven, thus, not the word to use.
Also, would men accept, as fact, a group of primarily women sitting around telling them what men, most of them, really want in a woman?
[quote comment="7292"]Neither of us know which things comprise “most”. That is what I am saying, that the use of the word “Most” is not the right word to use. “Some” might be appropriate. Most cannot be proven, thus, not the word to use.[/quote]
My misunderstanding. I agree with you.
[quote]Also, would men accept, as fact, a group of primarily women sitting around telling them what men, most of them, really want in a woman?[/quote]
Yes, we would and have been doing so for quite some time. In fact, we not only accept women telling us what kind of women we want, we accept women telling us what kind of women we should want, and then some of us proceed to follow those directives.
Toy Solider:
How so? How do we dictate what men want, or don’t want, aside from Mom telling you to find a good girl? Do we dicate you preferedd physical type, or mental and social qualities? “Marrying material” vs. “just for fun”? If so, how? Please do explain.
[quote comment="7300"]Toy Solider:
How so? How do we dictate what men want, or don’t want, aside from Mom telling you to find a good girl? [/quote]
That’s a pretty damn big aside.
Typhon Blue:
Like thread drift is uncommon
Own topic, perhaps on another post? Fine.
No, I mean… excluding the influence mothers have on their son’s mate preferances is a pretty damn big exclusion.
I’ve never been one to care about thread drift.
BTW, here’s another bit of thread drift.
Why is it that we all seem to be operating under the assumption that “manly man != nice guy”?
Seems to me there’s an unspoken dichotomy between masculinity and what we are, right now, percieving to be altruistic and self-sacrificing behaviors.
Feel free to include it then. It’s probably no more of an influence than a father’s persona on a female though, and not every woman out there was born to an alpha/manly man type of father…
[quote comment="7284"][quote comment="7273"][quote comment="7179"][quote comment="7130"]
Not to criticize Dr. Phil but it’s basically none of his business if a couple is happy in whatever roles they’ve chosen for themselves.
If a man wants a carbon copy of his mother running his life and his wife is okay with playing that role, that is nobody else’s business but that couple.[/quote]
I couldn’t agree more NYMom. It isn’t any of Dr. Phil’s business if they are happy in whatever roles they’ve chosen and aren’t asking to fix it. I’m not talking about some sort of forced normativity here where Dr. Phil is walking down the street and approaching couples who’s behaviors he disapproves of. I used examples of people who came on his show to fix their relationships because they were unhappy.
If they are on the show, at least one partner obviously isn’t happy with their role in the relationship and are thus asking Dr. Phil for help.
[quote comment="7300"]How do we dictate what men want[/quote]
I mean no offense, but this is a facetious question. Often the dictation is hidden under the guise of deconstructing the objectification of women, but the underlying point of those discussions is that men desire skinny, beautiful or dumb women (in any combination). Among feminists, this dictation takes another step by associating male sexuality and male attraction to women as inherently predatory. So males not only look for pretty girls, they look for pretty life-size dolls.
The evidence often cited as proof of men’s desires is pornography, women in music videos, in magazines (including women’s magazines), in film, in video games and on television. The readily made assumption is that because some males find the types of women presented to them attractive, this is what they want.
[quote]or don’t want[/quote]
This is implied for the most part by the above instances, though one will often find women commenting about how men are intimidated by smart women, wealthy women, women with children or “empowered” women. The assumption is that men find these women unattractive because these women threaten men’s power or privilege, whatever that means.
Of course, men are not usually asked what they look for in women when these discussions take place, assuming men are part of the discussion at all.
[quote]aside from Mom telling you to find a good girl[/quote]
I agree with TB. This is a pretty big aside, not only because it assumes that what one is told as a desire has little to no impact, but also because this is the facetious element I mentioned above. Mothers are not the only ones who instruct males on what kind of women they should want, nor are they necessarily the most prominent. It seems impossible not to know this, so your comment comes across as an intentional disregard of other dictations concerning the desires of men.
As a side note, you seem slightly miffed. Please do not take my cold deliverly personally. I am like that with everyone.
I’m not miffed, I am curious. I am not asking what feminists want men to say they want, I am asking you, and other men, and how it is influenced or dicated by women. It’s a pretty direct question, really. Feminists and who ever else can tell men what they think they should want, but that doesn’t necessarily change what it is that men want.
I also don’t tend to think most men are terribly intimidated by smart women, or powerful women, so on so forth…I think certain combinations of various traits in any person can be intimidating, but once again, i don’t think that’s necessarily gender related.
[quote comment="7309"][quote comment="7284"][quote comment="7273"][quote comment="7179"][quote comment="7130"]
Not to criticize Dr. Phil but it’s basically none of his business if a couple is happy in whatever roles they’ve chosen for themselves.
If a man wants a carbon copy of his mother running his life and his wife is okay with playing that role, that is nobody else’s business but that couple.[/quote]
I couldn’t agree more NYMom. It isn’t any of Dr. Phil’s business if they are happy in whatever roles they’ve chosen and aren’t asking to fix it. I’m not talking about some sort of forced normativity here where Dr. Phil is walking down the street and approaching couples who’s behaviors he disapproves of. I used examples of people who came on his show to fix their relationships because they were unhappy.
If they are on the show, at least one partner obviously isn’t happy with their role in the relationship and are thus asking Dr. Phil for help.[/quote]
Somehow I got the impression that you were supportive of Dr. Phil’s comments. The “He has a mother” remark implying that she didn’t need to be one to him. Unfortunately sometimes adults still have unmet needs from childhood, so it’s not so simply to just say someone had a mother and dismiss a wife’s relationship as excessive. Just like sometimes a woman’s father won’t have been around, so she’ll marry an older man to fulfill that unmet need…
[quote comment="7277"]Huh. A lot of women also seem to want an equal. End of story. They may have different skill sets, areas where they excel, but even out as equal.
Imagine that?[/quote]
I think each situation is different. Some people want an equal in a relationship, some don’t.
Actually I think the divorce rate is very high for ‘equals’ in education and income. So it’s not a given that the more equal a relationship is the better. Sometimes a power differential is required for a relationship to be successful if you define success as being long lasting.
[quote comment="7307"]BTW, here’s another bit of thread drift.
Why is it that we all seem to be operating under the assumption that “manly man != nice guy”?
Seems to me there’s an unspoken dichotomy between masculinity and what we are, right now, percieving to be altruistic and self-sacrificing behaviors.[/quote]
Yes, but manly man doesn’t readily translate into nice guy.
I think Augustus Caesar, Henry VIII, Osama bin Ladin, were all good examples of so-called ‘manly men’…were they also what we would call nice guys? Somehow I doubt it…
“I also don’t tend to think most men are terribly intimidated by smart women, or powerful women, so on so forth…I think certain combinations of various traits in any person can be intimidating, but once again, i don’t think that’s necessarily gender related.”
Or maybe they just don’t find these kinds of women particularly appealing for marriage. Perhaps they are becoming the equivalent of the ‘nice guys’ who women like as friends only. For instance, Maureen Dowd, Condi Rice and Harriet Miers all strike me as being very smart, attractive women, ‘at the top of their game’, so to speak. But no man ever married them, they have no children and at least one of them has said she would have liked to have kids…
They dated and everything but maybe no man ever found their smart, powerful personalities attractive…
We can’t assume women becoming more like men is going to have the desired result that feminism has been telling us it will for the past few decades. It might not result in men being attracted to women and wishing to have families with them. So we must prepare young women for that eventuality as well. Having to plan their lives differently…
Remember: action = reaction.
NYMOM:
I guess I don’t see “smart & powerful” as being, by nature, manly. There have been a lot of women, both smart and powerful, who have been married with families, just as there are those without. Hilary Clinton, Margaret Thatcher, Barbra Walters and yes, even Madonna come to mind. I think it is wise for people of both genders to be prepared for the fact they may not meet mr/miss right and be on their own, or have mr/miss right leave, and thus they need to be self sufficient. It actually kind of creeps me out when girls are raised to think they need not worry about an education or life skills because all they have to do is get married and not worry about any of that. I know women like that…women who never learned to change a tire, keep their checkbook straight, fill out their taxes, or pump their own gas! And these women, should mr. right leave, are royally screwed. Thanks, but no thanks.
Meh, I still don’t think smart and powerful are, nor should they be classified, as “manly” traits though.
[quote comment="7330"]I am not asking what feminists want men to say they want, I am asking you, and other men, and how it is influenced or dicated by women. It’s a pretty direct question, really.[/quote]
To which I responded. I am unsure whether you are looking for different answer or if you do not accept that women do dictate what men want and/or should want.
Toy Soldier:
How? Let’s see some concrete examples. For instance, as a woman, I know what I personally find attractive in men, and in listening to other women, know what they find attractive. I can read a glamour mag and see traits often considered, by women, to be attractive, but that is mostly women discussing what they find attractive, not being told, hands down, what is. However, the media tells women what it is they should be in order to be attractive…and that is an industry where men hold most positions of power, hence, men dicating to women what men see as attractive…not women.
So, I am curious to see some specific examples of how you see women telling men what they find attractive, and I am actually very curious to know if you, and other men, agree with these mandates, adapt to fit them (thus looking for qualities in women that other women have told you you should be looking for) or if you go with what you personally admire or what men (via the media and mens mags) are actually saying is attractive. For instance, a lot of women, especially feminists, will jump all over a guy for saying “looks are important”, or “I prefer thin blones”…yet, a lot of men still like those qualities. So, does that chastising by females modify the mans actual desired qualities? Does he cease liking slim blondes because women tell him he should not want a slim blonde, and if it does not…how then do women dictate mens tastes in women?
I find this all very fascinating.
I think what anyone is attracted to in a visceral sense is probably set in the brain before we are sexually mature. I never sat down and decided to be attracted to thin brunettes with small breasts, for instance, or to have a certain specific interest in BDSM. I just realized I did. Who knows where that came from.
Some men like blondes. Some men like women with large breasts. I don’t. Or rather, not that I don’t like them, I like them fine, but they don’t flip that ‘turn on’ switch in me. But then I’ve dated plenty of women who were not what I’d consider my ideal ‘type’.
I don’t know what dictates taste in this regard anymore than I know what makes some people homosexuals and some not. They didn’t chose that either, and that is another factor that tells you who you are attracted to.
[quote comment="7356"]NYMOM:
I guess I don’t see “smart & powerful” as being, by nature, manly. There have been a lot of women, both smart and powerful, who have been married with families, just as there are those without. Hilary Clinton, Margaret Thatcher, Barbra Walters and yes, even Madonna come to mind. I think it is wise for people of both genders to be prepared for the fact they may not meet mr/miss right and be on their own, or have mr/miss right leave, and thus they need to be self sufficient. It actually kind of creeps me out when girls are raised to think they need not worry about an education or life skills because all they have to do is get married and not worry about any of that. I know women like that…women who never learned to change a tire, keep their checkbook straight, fill out their taxes, or pump their own gas! And these women, should mr. right leave, are royally screwed. Thanks, but no thanks.
Meh, I still don’t think smart and powerful are, nor should they be classified, as “manly” traits though.[/quote]
“Well I do think powerful can be classified as a manly trait until fairly recently anyway. In the past, women who became powerful became that way through their association with men, their husbands, fathers, brothers, etc.,
Smart is not necessarily a manly trait as a man can be manly and not smart.
I’m not sure if we can just take a few examples of high profile women to make a point either. Didn’t that Forbes study show highly educated women more likely to divorce?
I’m not sure if it’s true but we have to be prepared to face the fact that women who are high achievers might not find men so ready to marry them and prepare accordingly. My own eldest daughter is 33, college educated, makes about $100,000 annually and isn’t married either…so I’m just wondering if going forward this is what women will have to expect.
NYMOM:
Could be, but I think also that “Career Women”, as it were, put more effort into their careers and less into “getting a husband” or keeping up a relationship, and of course, there will be reprocussions for that. But I do think there is a happy medium out there, which also could become more normalized…I mean, there are a lot of marriages/relationships out there that do work, even with both people in them working in high power or high stress jobs…
[quote comment="7360"]Toy Soldier:
How? Let’s see some concrete examples. For instance, as a woman, I know what I personally find attractive in men, and in listening to other women, know what they find attractive. I can read a glamour mag and see traits often considered, by women, to be attractive, but that is mostly women discussing what they find attractive, not being told, hands down, what is. However, the media tells women what it is they should be in order to be attractive…and that is an industry where men hold most positions of power, hence, men dicating to women what men see as attractive…not women.
So, I am curious to see some specific examples of how you see women telling men what they find attractive, and I am actually very curious to know if you, and other men, agree with these mandates, adapt to fit them (thus looking for qualities in women that other women have told you you should be looking for) or if you go with what you personally admire or what men (via the media and mens mags) are actually saying is attractive. For instance, a lot of women, especially feminists, will jump all over a guy for saying “looks are important”, or “I prefer thin blones”…yet, a lot of men still like those qualities. So, does that chastising by females modify the mans actual desired qualities? Does he cease liking slim blondes because women tell him he should not want a slim blonde, and if it does not…how then do women dictate mens tastes in women?
I find this all very fascinating.[/quote]
I think what they are trying to do is claim women shape men by our choices…
In essence it’s just the opposite, as it’s only recently that women have been in the position to have any preferences and it’s only here in the west that it goes on. Aggressive males used to win all the ‘marbles’ so women have been the ones forced to ‘play’ with them.
Actually its male choice that has shaped women, not the other way around.
If men wouldn’t marry you because you were too aggressive, loud, ugly, skinny, you just never transmitted your genes to the next generation. So its’ women who have been the ones shaped by men and this is true all over the world.
You can take a woman from just about anywhere and put her in any society and pretty much her role will be the same, she’ll adjust and fit in anywhere, not so for men. Like just try to take to take one of those male Taliban and place him in NYC. Let’s see how he’ll fit in with the singles nightlife culture. He’d probably wind up murdering some high status woman because her skirt was too short or she talked too much or something.
Actually I once read that what we call “depression” used to be considered fairly normal behavior in many woman. Afraid to be away from their home or family, easily crying or fainting in times of stress.
Womens’ choices couldn’t have shaped men as we haven’t been making choices for long enough to have any impact on them. So the whole idea is ridiculous.
[quote comment="7412"]NYMOM:
Could be, but I think also that “Career Women”, as it were, put more effort into their careers and less into “getting a husband” or keeping up a relationship, and of course, there will be reprocussions for that.
But I do think there is a happy medium out there, which also could become more normalized…I mean, there are a lot of marriages/relationships out there that do work, even with both people in them working in high power or high stress jobs…[/quote]
What about the Forbes article then? It actually relied on a number of other studies to come up with it’s findings. Although I know many studies are unreliable and dependent upon their findings for who researches them…
I don’t think it’s a possibility that should be ignored.
[quote comment="7376"]I think what anyone is attracted to in a visceral sense is probably set in the brain before we are sexually mature. I never sat down and decided to be attracted to thin brunettes with small breasts, for instance, or to have a certain specific interest in BDSM. I just realized I did. Who knows where that came from.
Some men like blondes. Some men like women with large breasts. I don’t. Or rather, not that I don’t like them, I like them fine, but they don’t flip that ‘turn on’ switch in me. But then I’ve dated plenty of women who were not what I’d consider my ideal ‘type’.
I don’t know what dictates taste in this regard anymore than I know what makes some people homosexuals and some not. They didn’t chose that either, and that is another factor that tells you who you are attracted to.[/quote]
I think they were trying to say that choice of mates (over time, of course) will start eventually selecting for certain types. Like more shapely women over skinny ones, big hips/breasts over small, quieter over loud, etc., The problem is woman haven’t had ‘choice in mates’ for long enough to have any significant impact on men.
Give us a thousand or so years as men have had (far more time actually) and we’ll start seeing a different man emerge as well…
[quote comment="7416"][quote comment="7412"]NYMOM:
Could be, but I think also that “Career Women”, as it were, put more effort into their careers and less into “getting a husband” or keeping up a relationship, and of course, there will be reprocussions for that.
But I do think there is a happy medium out there, which also could become more normalized…I mean, there are a lot of marriages/relationships out there that do work, even with both people in them working in high power or high stress jobs…[/quote]
What about the Forbes article then? It actually relied on a number of other studies to come up with it’s findings. Although I know many studies are unreliable and dependent upon their findings for who researches them…
I don’t think it’s a possibility that should be ignored.[/quote]
I should have said here that’s it’s a possibility that should NOT be ignored.
Oh, I am not doubting the Forbes article…lots of people get divorced too, no doubt, and I do think women need to consider that if they are going to put their career first, well, that means everything else falls in line behind it, and frankly, a lot of men are not going to want to take second place to a job. Which I think is fair, really. And no, it should not be ignored.
[quote]Let’s see some concrete examples.[/quote]
An excellent example would be the criticism of pornography. The common response is that because the industry is so successful and because men use porn as part of their sexual fantasies, men want those kinds of women. The individuals making such statements are typically female. This notion then gets projected onto men by holding men collectively accountable women’s individual decisions to dress in a particular fashion. In other words, men are told–via blaming them for women’s beauty issues– that they want porn stars. There is an underlying conflation between what men find attractive versus what men actually want.
[quote]However, the media tells women what it is they should be in order to be attractive…and that is an industry where men hold most positions of power, hence, men dicating to women what men see as attractive…not women.[/quote]
Because women are not a significant part of the media…
Conveniently, you excluded the most prominent dictators of what women should do in order to be considered attractive: glamour magazine. I suppose this exclusion would also include daytime talk shows, make-over shows, etc., many of which are run primarily if not exclusively by women.
[quote]So, I am curious to see some specific examples of how you see women telling men what they find attractive[/quote]
Which are we discussing: attraction or desire? The two are not the same and not necessarily related.
[quote]and I am actually very curious to know if you… agree with these mandates, adapt to fit them[/quote]
I have no desire for such relationships with women, so I neither agree with those mandates nor adapt to fit them.
[quote comment="7426"][quote]Let’s see some concrete examples.[/quote]
An excellent example would be the criticism of pornography. The common response is that because the industry is so successful and because men use porn as part of their sexual fantasies, men want those kinds of women. The individuals making such statements are typically female. This notion then gets projected onto men by holding men collectively accountable women’s individual decisions to dress in a particular fashion. In other words, men are told–via blaming them for women’s beauty issues– that they want porn stars. There is an underlying conflation between what men find attractive versus what men actually want.
[quote]However, the media tells women what it is they should be in order to be attractive…and that is an industry where men hold most positions of power, hence, men dicating to women what men see as attractive…not women.[/quote]
Because women are not a significant part of the media…
Conveniently, you excluded the most prominent dictators of what women should do in order to be considered attractive: glamour magazine. I suppose this exclusion would also include daytime talk shows, make-over shows, etc., many of which are run primarily if not exclusively by women.
[quote]So, I am curious to see some specific examples of how you see women telling men what they find attractive[/quote]
Which are we discussing: attraction or desire? The two are not the same and not necessarily related.
[quote]and I am actually very curious to know if you… agree with these mandates, adapt to fit them[/quote]
I have no desire for such relationships with women, so I neither agree with those mandates nor adapt to fit them.[/quote]
Hahahah, don’t get me started on the criticism of pornography…we’ll be here for the next two months.
And it’s good you don’t agree with mandates…I think doing so is…slly.
On the evolutionary time scale, men and women have, I’m sure, shaped each other. It is unavoidable. Claiming that it was only men’s choices that mattered is ridiculous. Even if it were the RARE case that a man totally forced a woman to marry him (which has never been the norm anywhere) the woman always has the option to, when her husband is off bringing home the bacon (or wild boar or whatever), go cheat with the man she REALLY wants, get pregnant by him, and thereby HER choice of mate is what shapes the next generation, not his. If women were not prone to do that, men would perhaps not be so obsessed about keeping women chaste. And so the “dance” continues.
DBB:
Now now, let’s not be placing the illegitimate children issue all on the women now, okay? It takes two people to screw and cause that situation…cheatin’ women are not solely responsible for that.
[quote comment="7453"]On the evolutionary time scale, men and women have, I’m sure, shaped each other. It is unavoidable. Claiming that it was only men’s choices that mattered is ridiculous. Even if it were the RARE case that a man totally forced a woman to marry him (which has never been the norm anywhere) the woman always has the option to, when her husband is off bringing home the bacon (or wild boar or whatever), go cheat with the man she REALLY wants, get pregnant by him, and thereby HER choice of mate is what shapes the next generation, not his. If women were not prone to do that, men would perhaps not be so obsessed about keeping women chaste. And so the “dance” continues.[/quote]
Oh please get real. Women (until fairly recently) rarely had any choice in who they married and penalties for adultry were so draconian EVERYWHERE until recently in the west that I seriously doubt if many women ever took the chance anywhere to engage in it.
Frankly I believe most adultry charges were probably used by men in order to fabricate grounds for divorce. Which goes on even today in many countries. It’s totally bogus to believe that women at other points in time freely committed adultry. For what? Risk being burned alive, stoned or turned out to starve in the streets. Again for what: for 2.5 minutes of pure bliss with some male idiot????
Again, get real…
Keeping women chaste is mens’ obnoxious strategy to try to give yourselves more importance then you actually merit for your biological contribution to the next generation…which if you were being honest you’d have to admit is practically non-existent.
It’s like the male current fixation with ‘who’s your daddy’ propaganda.
Totally irrelevant in the general scheme of things but it makes you all feel important so we are forced to tolerate it…
Keeping women chaste was men’s strategy for keeping inheritances within one’s own biological family if at all possible.
Well I find it hard to believe that since poor men with nothing to pass along are just as fixated on women being chaste as rich ones…
I’m not saying it was terribly common or that men didn’t accuse innocent women of doing this. I’m simply stating that there is an evolutionary strategy women in such a situation can employ. I make no moral judgments on it, on the women, or the men, in so observing.
What I was pointing out was how even in the most vile male-dominated societies, women can still have say in who they mate and produce offspring with. And thus their choices do shape the species as a whole, even in such a society.
I generally find suspect any claim that one gender or the other has a monopoly on anything.
DBB: Actually, in many societies, neither the male or the female had a choice…marriages were aranged, generally by the male heads of households who found it beneficial for those two people to marry, for monitary, political, or religious reasons.
“I generally find suspect any claim that one gender or the other has a monopoly on anything.”
Well sorry to have to inform you but women have a monopoly on bearing children.
Okay…
Men have little or nothing to do with the whole process although they apparently have no problem awarding themselves a whole assortments of ‘equal’ rights after the fact…AND having the nerve to get indignant if anyone questions them on the why of it…
NYMOM, you’re right. It would have been more precise to say, inheritance and support.
There is no reason for a man, or a woman either, to want to support someone else’s offspring instead of their own.
Yet few men ever paid support in our past.
This is a fairly recent thing only instituted since the Johnson admininstration decided that the biggest problem of the Afr. Americans community was that men didn’t pay child support, not our history of slavery, racism, etc.,
So wanting chastity in women is not relevant to men paying child support…all men of every social class wanted this whether or not they had an inheritance to leave…
Child support is recent, not relevant to that argument.
[quote comment="7469"]DBB: Actually, in many societies, neither the male or the female had a choice…marriages were aranged, generally by the male heads of households who found it beneficial for those two people to marry, for monitary, political, or religious reasons.[/quote]
Isn’t what DBB is getting at the idea of “life finds a way?” A sex may find a dominantly useful strategy for insuring the production and survival of offspring, then a behavior may arise that gives one segment an advantage over another; this may result in changes in each sex over time, in segments and/or as a whole, shifts of population characteristics, social structures that arise to deal with these changes, counterstrategies arising to deal with the variances — sometimes biological, sometimes social, etc.
If I’m getting DBB’s point correctly, it’s that neither the social nor the biological is strictly categorical, and neither is the interaction between the two. Some factors may be dominant at some points but not at others; small changes can ripple into larger effects; and at no point does control rest completely (as distinct from dominantly via particular means) with any particular group — not as a sex, and not within a sex. If there’s anything that things are not, it’s linear.
As to how employable such strategies as the ones DBB mentioned may be, in what ways, and with what risks… that’s a different issue, and one that, as you and others have pointed out, is highly dependent on context and how that context may work to support its own continued existence. Of course, the context shapes and is shaped by this other stuff too, so….
The whole thing is an infuriatingly tangled, convoluted mess. But that’s evolution in a nutshell, isn’t it? Biology is just so, well, fractal.
NYMOM, surely you understand that I am not talking about “child support” as we know it today.
I am talking about support within marriage.
Historically, ensuring the chastity of women both during and immediately prior to marriage helped to ensure that a man would not be raising, and therefore expending his resources upon, someone else’s offspring.
[quote comment="7493"]NYMOM, surely you understand that I am not talking about “child support” as we know it today.
I am talking about support within marriage.
Historically, ensuring the chastity of women both during and immediately prior to marriage helped to ensure that a man would not be raising, and therefore expending his resources upon, someone else’s offspring.[/quote]
No. Unfortunately I didn’t know that.
[quote comment="7484"][quote comment="7469"]DBB: Actually, in many societies, neither the male or the female had a choice…marriages were aranged, generally by the male heads of households who found it beneficial for those two people to marry, for monitary, political, or religious reasons.[/quote]
Isn’t what DBB is getting at the idea of “life finds a way?” A sex may find a dominantly useful strategy for insuring the production and survival of offspring, then a behavior may arise that gives one segment an advantage over another; this may result in changes in each sex over time, in segments and/or as a whole, shifts of population characteristics, social structures that arise to deal with these changes, counterstrategies arising to deal with the variances — sometimes biological, sometimes social, etc.
If I’m getting DBB’s point correctly, it’s that neither the social nor the biological is strictly categorical, and neither is the interaction between the two. Some factors may be dominant at some points but not at others; small changes can ripple into larger effects; and at no point does control rest completely (as distinct from dominantly via particular means) with any particular group — not as a sex, and not within a sex. If there’s anything that things are not, it’s linear.
As to how employable such strategies as the ones DBB mentioned may be, in what ways, and with what risks… that’s a different issue, and one that, as you and others have pointed out, is highly dependent on context and how that context may work to support its own continued existence. Of course, the context shapes and is shaped by this other stuff too, so….
The whole thing is an infuriatingly tangled, convoluted mess. But that’s evolution in a nutshell, isn’t it? Biology is just so, well, fractal.[/quote]
I think at one time all of this could have been true but humans have even impacted this today.
For instance, men being attracted to women with larger hips/breasts probably led women with these attributes to be more likely to get married and have children thus passing these traits along to their daughters…but today with plastic surgery and more ordinary women able to get artificial implants that is changing…even this business of women dying their hair blond and/or wearing contact lenses instead of glasses to correct their poor vision is getting fairly widespread.
Additionally I think very intelligent, stable men could always find a wife in the past and pass along their genes. This is probably getting more difficult as well…
We’ve destined to become a society composed of Anna Nicole Smiths and Kevin Federlines.
So, it’s actually probably more difficult for evolution to play the role it did previously…
[quote comment="7475"]NYMOM, you’re right. It would have been more precise to say, inheritance and support.
There is no reason for a man, or a woman either, to want to support someone else’s offspring instead of their own.[/quote]
Well since I can’t imagine a scenario where a mother could be fooled into supporting someone’s else offspring this is clearly a concern for men not women, as all mothers know their children. So why should women care who the father of her children are? From a purely evolutionary standpoint it makes not a whit of difference to females. Her child is hers no matter if the father is her husband, an angel who sneaked into her bedroom window in the middle of the night or a random homeless man she had a drunken encounter with in the bushes…
These are the concerns of the male half of the equation and men have made them the concerns of women and the rest of society. Actually today you find women so brainwashed that they will argue with you more strongly then men will about how important it is to pick a certain ‘type’ of man to father her children…
Whereas in the general scheme of things it means absolutely nothing to women or any children they bear whether they have chosen an ex-convict or a millionaire as a father. Actually from an evolutionary point of view they are probably better off choosing an ex-convict, as at least they are assuring a physically robust set of genes for their children. Most male millionaires today are sadly lacking physically puny specimens.
Yet I still do not believe that is the sole origin for men pushing chastity on women. It is ONE reason. Their jealousy of womens’ life-bearing ability is the primary one and their attemtps to make themselves the center of the universe in all things is the secondary one. They simply cannot tolerate having to play second fiddle in any situation. This whole fixation on the importance of ‘fatherhood’ nonsense is about that, their ceaseless attacks on single mothers, all these custody wars they have started. It’s all linked.
It’s about jealousy and high child support and men trying to be the center of attention in all things again.
Women, especially gender neutralized feminists feed into this obsession of men with their own self importance when they continue supporting this whole gender neutral agenda. It empowers men at womens’ expense and I see no good reason to do it today.
Clearly women were in no position before to challenge the template laid out by men on these issues; but what’s the point of a womens’ movement if we are going to continue going along with the same program now under another name? We might as well have never bothered starting a womens’ movement to begin with, since we’re heading right back into the same position we were in before the damn movement started. Which is women being manipulated by others by placing limits on our freedoms and I’m not just talking about the right to education, working, birth control here or even abortion as I could live in a world w/o abortion. I’m talking about the oldest, most fundamental rights of every female: the rights to our own damn children, the ones we alone bring into this world. Our rights don’t end at the hospital door, they continue in an unbroken line or should until we do something that negates those natural rights or our children become adults. Women are the ones who risk, invest, simply contribute the most to the whole damn enterprise so of course we should be first amongst equals here. Men contribute absolutely NOTHING, risk nothing, invest nothing, yet have awarded themselves some phony legal, constitutional rights here. This is totally illegitimate.
I don’t know what is wrong with you lady that you don’t get this. This is oppression of women. That at anytime some male idiot can waltz into a family courtroom somewhere and waltz out with a court order removing your children from you. To me this is the same crap as some Roman patriarchal ass deciding to use his grandkid as an example to the population not to commit adultry and exposing her outside at birth to die…
Okay no difference.
It’s the same damn thing.
“I can’t imagine a scenario where a mother would be fooled into supporting someone else’s offspring…”
OK, if you had an emergency delivery and were anesthetized at the time and later the nurse brought you the wrong baby from the nursery and gave your baby to someone else, are you saying that once you found out about it you’d be perfectly content to just raise that baby you were handed? You wouldn’t want your own child back?
Of course you’d want your own. So do men.
“So why should women care who the father of her children are? From an evolutionary standpoint it makes not a whit of difference to females.”
I’m stunned.
“Actually from an evolutionary point of view they are probably better off choosing an ex-convict. At least they are ensuring a physically robust set of genes for their children. Most millionaires are sadly lacking physically puny specimens.”
The average ex-con is of far below average intelligence and prone to addictions and mental disorders which are often genetically based. Physically robust or no, he has little to offer that is of value in modern society. The reverse is true of millionaires.
In case you haven’t noticed, a jackass breeds a jackass.
You better believe smart women know they better choose wisely when picking fathers for their children.
I can’t believe I have to state the obvious.
But you and your daughters are certainly welcome to the ex-cons.
But as far as what you said about someone being able to walk into court and remove your children from you…
The day will eventually come, when the present generation in power is replaced by one which is not so preoccupied with gender, when neither parent will be able to do that to the other. And probably everyone will wonder what was so difficult about it all.
“I can’t imagine a scenario where a mother would be fooled into supporting someone else’s offspring.
OK, if you had an emergency delivery and were anesthetized at the time and later the nurse brought you the wrong baby from the nursery and gave your baby to someone else, are you saying that once you found out about it you’d be perfectly content to just raise that baby you were handed? You wouldn’t want your own child back?”
Yes well people don’t evolve behaviors based uopn these rare freak occurrences. Like a woman having her baby switched at birth or something. Fatherhood has always been a social construct since until fairly recently there was no way to know with a certainty who a father was and we got along just fine w/o knowing…
As I said before men have cooked up these modern day schemes to give themselves more importance then they actually merit vis-a-vis children, as well as to get out of child support.
“Of course you’d want your own. So do men.”
Their own what? Their own nothing….they contribute little or nothing to the whole process. Men wanting ‘their own’ is stealing what rightfully belongs to a mother, her children…and no matter how they dress up the language in all this ‘equality’ and ‘rights’ baloney, its’ nothing but an attempt to give themselves undeserved rights and usurp the rights of women and children. More aggresssion, greed and selfishness on the part of men.
“So why should women care who the father of her children are? From an evolutionary standpoint it makes not a whit of difference to females.”
I’m stunned.
“Actually from an evolutionary point of view they are probably better off choosing an ex-convict. At least they are ensuring a physically robust set of genes for their children. Most millionaires are sadly lacking physically puny specimens.”
The average ex-con is of far below average intelligence and prone to addictions and mental disorders which are often genetically based. Physically robust or no, he has little to offer that is of value in modern society. The reverse is true of millionaires.”
Sorry that was probably true years ago when millionaires actually worked and made their own fortunes. Today with so many millionaires inheriting their fortunes, it is no longer the case. Like the difference between the early Rockefellers and Kennedys and the later ones. Or the difference between a medieval King and modern day Charles of England…
“In case you haven’t noticed, a jackass breeds a jackass.
You better believe smart women know they better choose wisely when picking fathers for their children.
I can’t believe I have to state the obvious.
But you and your daughters are certainly welcome to the ex-cons.
But as far as what you said about someone being able to walk into court and remove your children from you…
The day will eventually come, when the present generation in power is replaced by one which is not so preoccupied with gender, when neither parent will be able to do that to the other. And probably everyone will wonder what was so difficult about it all.”
I doubt this will ever come to pass.
What will happen is few women will wish to have children since under your scenario, they still invest much, only to have their children stolen from them at birth…
So as more women become aware of this our birth rates will continue to drop…it’s happening already…even adoption rates are being impacted as women now see they can be overruled on these as well…
Your vision of the future is leading to us having no future…
The rest of your remarks are not worth responding to as they are not serious answers to my comments.
[quote comment="7432"]And it’s good you don’t agree with mandates…I think doing so is…slly.[/quote]
Any mandate is by its nature silly as it forces people to act within a certain set of “acceptable” behaviors. The more ambiguous the mandate, the more dangerous it is. It is for this reason that I more readily reject mandates issuing from political agendas more so than those that are social norms. The latter is a matter of habit, but the former is nothing more than social engineering.
NYMOM:
Regardless of the impression given by the tabloids, most millionaires do not inherit their fortunes. They work hard, more often than not own a business of their own, save and invest carefully, and usually stay married to one person for life.
And yes, are far smarter than your average Joe convict from the underclass. Which is why no woman in her right mind would want to breed with a convict. Educated women don’t have kids just to be having them, as underclass women often do. Their reproductive behavior is organized around the goal of having intelligent offspring who can succeed in a modern world and to whom they can pass on a comfortable and high-status lifestyle. Which, incidentally, is also why they marry first.
“Men have cooked up these modern-day schemes to give themselves more importance than they merit vis-a-vis children…”
We weren’t talking about modern-day schemes. We were talking about historical restrictions on women’s chastity and how they mainly served to ensure the legitimacy of children. And no, if everyone was just fine with the uncertainty of paternity those restrictions probably would never have existed. Just as today, with determination of paternity merely a matter of a blood test, men don’t seem to care nearly as much about women’s chastity, if at all.
“Men wanting their own is stealing what rightfully belongs to a mother…”
This is beyond absurd. It is simple human nature to crave connection with one’s own blood. But more important than a parent’s desire for that connection is the child’s. Any mother who would remove a child from its father unless absolutely necessary is stealing what rightfully belongs to that child.
“I doubt this will ever come to pass.”
You don’t think joint custody of children will ever become the norm? Given the overwhelming popular support for it, I can’t imagine that it WON’T become the norm eventually.
Lastly, you still seem to be blaming custody policies for dropping birth rates in the western world. I don’t know where you’re getting this, unless you’re just projecting your own feelings about what motherhood is about. I really suggest that you do some reading. There are several recent books that offer insight on the subject:
Generation Me, by Jean Twenge
Strapped: Why America’s 20- and 30-Somethings Can’t Get Ahead, by Tamara Draut
The Empty Cradle, by Phillip Longman
The F-Word: Feminism in Jeopardy, Women, Politics and the Future, by Kristen Rowe-Finkbeiner
I recommend the last most strongly. Rowe-Finkbeiner agrees with you that feminism is going to have to become more mother-friendly in order to survive, but she correctly observes that this will have to be accomplished through greater attention to the economic needs of families such as family leave, health care, quality child-care and the like.
She has actually surveyed and studied young women of child-bearing age to ascertain why they are increasingly opting out of motherhood. She found that, far from fearing not owning their children outright, young women actually fear having the burdens and disadvantages of child-rearing falling disproportionately upon them as women while they are trying to make a comfortable living in a non-family-friendly economy where the necessities of middle-class life are getting more expensive all the time.
Even if we, tomorrow, guaranteed every woman absolute ownership of all of any and all children she would ever bear, I seriously doubt that it would even make a ripple in birth rates. Most women wouldn’t support it, anyway.
Quite frankly, it seems that the only one agonizing over custody and birth rates is you.
“NYMOM:
Regardless of the impression given by the tabloids, most millionaires do not inherit their fortunes. They work hard, more often than not own a business of their own, save and invest carefully, and usually stay married to one person for life.
And yes, are far smarter than your average Joe convict from the underclass. Which is why no woman in her right mind would want to breed with a convict. Educated women don’t have kids just to be having them, as underclass women often do. Their reproductive behavior is organized around the goal of having intelligent offspring who can succeed in a modern world and to whom they can pass on a comfortable and high-status lifestyle. Which, incidentally, is also why they marry first.”
You are very invested in all these differences in classes. I find the behavior of mothers to be ‘classless’ I hate to be the one to tell you…
“Men have cooked up these modern-day schemes to give themselves more importance than they merit vis-a-vis children…
We weren’t talking about modern-day schemes. We were talking about historical restrictions on women’s chastity and how they mainly served to ensure the legitimacy of children. And no, if everyone was just fine with the uncertainty of paternity those restrictions probably would never have existed. Just as today, with determination of paternity merely a matter of a blood test, men don’t seem to care nearly as much about women’s chastity, if at all.”
We were talking about both modern day schemes and their initial beginnings…as one led to the other. This business of our current sick fixation on ‘fatherhood’ as being anything of significance to children did not just appear out of whole cloth…there is history here.
“Men wanting their own is stealing what rightfully belongs to a mother…
This is beyond absurd. It is simple human nature to crave connection with one’s own blood. But more important than a parent’s desire for that connection is the child’s. Any mother who would remove a child from its father unless absolutely necessary is stealing what rightfully belongs to that child.”
No. You’re beyond absurb with this nonsense you keep putting out about men being connected to children. They didn’t even know until the last decade or so if ‘their blood’ was even theirs. This is baloney…it’s mothers who are the ones being hurt here through the aggressiveness and greediness of men.
“I doubt this will ever come to pass.
You don’t think joint custody of children will ever become the norm? Given the overwhelming popular support for it, I can’t imagine that it WON’T become the norm eventually.”
No…it’s become popular because men sneaked it under the radar before this generation of women who are of childbearing age became aware of what was going on. Many of them were taken by surprise still believing (similar to you) that women had the upper hand in family court, unless they were abusive or neglectful to their children. However as more truthful information gets out there you will start seeing the changes. Even now you can see it in the many famous women who are married and divorce with no children. Then they start adopting children from other countries or using anonymous sperm donors to conceive. Women are becoming aware of how things have changed and starting to change their behavior accordingly.
Action = reaction.
Men think they are always so smart, well let’s see what how they handle this now. They’ve shot themselves in the foot this time through their selfishness.
“Lastly, you still seem to be blaming custody policies for dropping birth rates in the western world. I don’t know where you’re getting this, unless you’re just projecting your own feelings about what motherhood is about. I really suggest that you do some reading. There are several recent books that offer insight on the subject:
Generation Me, by Jean Twenge
Strapped: Why America’s 20- and 30-Somethings Can’t Get Ahead, by Tamara Draut
The Empty Cradle, by Phillip Longman
The F-Word: Feminism in Jeopardy, Women, Politics and the Future, by Kristen Rowe-Finkbeiner
I recommend the last most strongly. Rowe-Finkbeiner agrees with you that feminism is going to have to become more mother-friendly in order to survive, but she correctly observes that this will have to be accomplished through greater attention to the economic needs of families such as family leave, health care, quality child-care and the like.
She has actually surveyed and studied young women of child-bearing age to ascertain why they are increasingly opting out of motherhood. She found that, far from fearing not owning their children outright, young women actually fear having the burdens and disadvantages of child-rearing falling disproportionately upon them as women while they are trying to make a comfortable living in a non-family-friendly economy where the necessities of middle-class life are getting more expensive all the time.”
I think I told you before I do not pay attention to self-serving studies especially not from gender neutralized feminists or people who have a hidden agenda to push…
“Even if we, tomorrow, guaranteed every woman absolute ownership of all of any and all children she would ever bear, I seriously doubt that it would even make a ripple in birth rates. Most women wouldn’t support it, anyway.
Quite frankly, it seems that the only one agonizing over custody and birth rates is you.”
Right.
All these custody fights and parental abductions going on. The FBI has its own website featuring parental abductions as one of the fastest growing crimes in this country but I’m the only one agonizing over it.
I’m the ONLY one who has pinpointed the source of the problem and it’s the usual suspects simply put, “the greed of men”.
“I find the behavior of mothers to be ‘classless’ I hate to be the one to tell you.”
Well I hate to be the one to tell you but you could not possibly be more exactly wrong.
“This business of our current sick fixation on fatherhood being anything of significance to children…”
To suggestion that it’s NOT of significance is not only sick but willfully ignorant.
“No, it’s become popular because men sneaked it under the radar…”
Nobody sneaked presumed joint custody under the radar. It’s not the law. But most people of both sexes support it. It’s the lawmakers (mostly men, wouldn’t you know?) who are resisting it, probably because it will result in less child support changing hands and all that goes along with that. But I can’t see it being held back forever.
“Even now you can see it in the many famous women who…”
I told you before please don’t point to celebrities and imply that they say anything about midstream American values. They don’t. They live in pampered fantasy worlds that revolve around them. They have nothing to do with the ordinary America where 97% of educated women understand that marriage comes before motherhood while a majority of underclass women don’t. Where over 90% of children in homes with an income of $75,000 or more live with their married biological parents while only 20% of children below the poverty level do.
“Classless” behavior my foot. Reproductive behaviors evidence more class differences than just about anything else. It’s not polite to talk about it in mixed company of course but sometimes things need to be said anyway.
And the FBI and their parental abductions have nothing to do with what I said. Custody issues are not related to birth rates. The family instability that leads to parental abductions and the like are a mostly lower-class phenomenon but the lower-class consistently has more kids. What you’re saying doesn’t square.
“I think I told you before I do not pay attention to self-serving studies especially not from gender-neutralized feminists or people who have a hidden agenda to push.”
“I’m the only one who has pinpointed the source of the problem…”
I’m sorry but I just had to put those two statements together side by side for the pure comic effect of it.
You need to lease that crystal ball of yours to the United Nations, NYMOM.
[quote comment="7541"]“I find the behavior of mothers to be ‘classless’ I hate to be the one to tell you.”
Well I hate to be the one to tell you but you could not possibly be more exactly wrong.
“This business of our current sick fixation on fatherhood being anything of significance to children…”
To suggestion that it’s NOT of significance is not only sick but willfully ignorant.
“No, it’s become popular because men sneaked it under the radar…”
Nobody sneaked presumed joint custody under the radar. It’s not the law. But most people of both sexes support it. It’s the lawmakers (mostly men, wouldn’t you know?) who are resisting it, probably because it will result in less child support changing hands and all that goes along with that. But I can’t see it being held back forever.
“Even now you can see it in the many famous women who…”
I told you before please don’t point to celebrities and imply that they say anything about midstream American values. They don’t. They live in pampered fantasy worlds that revolve around them. They have nothing to do with the ordinary America where 97% of educated women understand that marriage comes before motherhood while a majority of underclass women don’t. Where over 90% of children in homes with an income of $75,000 or more live with their married biological parents while only 20% of children below the poverty level do.
“Classless” behavior my foot. Reproductive behaviors evidence more class differences than just about anything else. It’s not polite to talk about it in mixed company of course but sometimes things need to be said anyway.
And the FBI and their parental abductions have nothing to do with what I said. Custody issues are not related to birth rates. The family instability that leads to parental abductions and the like are a mostly lower-class phenomenon but the lower-class consistently has more kids. What you’re saying doesn’t square.
“I think I told you before I do not pay attention to self-serving studies especially not from gender-neutralized feminists or people who have a hidden agenda to push.”
“I’m the only one who has pinpointed the source of the problem…”
I’m sorry but I just had to put those two statements together side by side for the pure comic effect of it.
You need to lease that crystal ball of yours to the United Nations, NYMOM.[/quote]
Mothers are going along with this ridiculous idea of Joint Custody because they have no choice but to go along with it. I, myself, on my blog have supported it as ‘the lesser of many many evils that can happen to women and children if we don’t go along with it. Not because I think it’s right by any means.
Forcing mothers to turn their infants over for days or even weeks at a time to what is in essence a total stranger when they should be home with their mothers is outrageous. Many of these men get the Joint Custody to pay no child support and then dump these kids off on girl friends, neighbors, whatever female is around to play the enabler for them. That’s the bottom line about Joint Custody. It’s nothing but another defeat for mothers and children. That our legal system didn’t have the guts to stand up to do the right thing…and like I said I supported it myself because the alternative is that these mothers lose their children all together if they risk litigation by not accepting Joint Custody. Okay…but it’s certainly not a good thing for mothers or children. Who does it help: as usual men.
Celebrities are a microcosm of our society. In spite of what you’d like to believe about the vast gulf between classes, many of the changes we see today in our next door neighbors and ourselves were first seen in celebrites. Like the casual sex hookups, high divorce rates and single motherhood. Now it’s pervades every class today.
What they are doing today, we’ll all be doing tomorrow.
AND in spite of what you say, yes custody issues are related to birth rates. They even impact single motherhood. Columbia University found that states that have high rates of child support enforcement also experience a drop in single mother birth rates of almost 20%…this is probably a drop in minority birth rates as single mothers are the engine of growth for these communities…Although listening to people like you every single mother is popping out kids in order to collect child support. So states with high collection rates should be experiencing even higher birth rates of these low class single mothers.
Of course this is going to impact mothers’ behavior…
BTW, I just want to say women like you are a good part of the reason for men’s current bad behavior in this area. As you encourage it. First of all little boys shouldn’t grow up thinking that they will have the exact same physical bond with children that little girls will. How can they? Why would you encourage two individuals to think they have the exact same rights in ANY area? It’s a recipe for a fight…Of course men will be indignant thinking they lost some ‘entitlement’ if women like you keep feeding this crap to them. The boy is father to the man.
So like I said women like you have to accept your responsibility in causing a lot of the damage in the name of helping fathers. You have helped unleash this horror upon women and children through your mindless nonsense.
Brooke, your bitch-slaps are a thing of beauty.
It’s a good thing I’m not paying any attention to this discussion, then, isn’t it?
“Although listening to people like you every single mother is popping out kids in order to collect child support. So states with high collection rates should be experiencing even higher birth rates of these low class single mothers.”
Where did I say single mothers have kids to collect child support?
I don’t believe that at all. Poor single mothers have kids because it’s the most easily attainable way for them to create meaning in their limited lives.
But that study you’re talking about was discussed at length over at Alas long ago. The obvious fact that everyone over there understood, but you seem to have missed, is that where child support is rigorously enforced it is MEN who become a little more careful about who and when they impregnate.
Not quite so much of this “I wanna have a baby by you” to girls they’ve known for a week. See?
“Little boys shouldn’t grow up thinking they will have the exact same physical bond with children that little girls will…”
Herein lies the gist of the difference between the feminist view of custody matters and the views of the more MRA-like contingent.
Many feminists (not all, as some are unwilling to give up women’s power over children and the accompanying access to the “oppressor’s” resources) will support equal rights to children in the belief that the sexes are fundamentally the same and can have the exact same kind of bond with their children.
Now, one of the MRA persuasion, in contrast, would be more likely to argue that parents should have equal rights and access to their children because they are NOT the same. Because mothers can not be fathers to their kids anymore than fathers can be mothers to them and to remove either one from the equation brings damage.
While I’m not technically an MRA, this view seems to best square with the facts.
I mean for God’s sake, even underclass women, who are the most likely to raise fatherless children, usually come to the realization eventually that their kids needed their fathers, particularly if they have sons. Of course by then the damage is done, and having raised fatherless children themselves they lack the moral authority with which to appeal to their daughters not to repeat the cycle.
In my view women like you (thankfully there aren’t too many of you) are the ones doing the damage, encouraging smart and educated young women who know better to adopt the reproductive behaviors of losers.
Well, thanks Typhonblue, but mostly what I’m doing is pointing out where NYMOM is slapping herself.
You just can’t make this stuff up!
[quote comment="7559"]“Although listening to people like you every single mother is popping out kids in order to collect child support. So states with high collection rates should be experiencing even higher birth rates of these low class single mothers.”
Where did I say single mothers have kids to collect child support?
I don’t believe that at all. Poor single mothers have kids because it’s the most easily attainable way for them to create meaning in their limited lives.
But that study you’re talking about was discussed at length over at Alas long ago. The obvious fact that everyone over there understood, but you seem to have missed, is that where child support is rigorously enforced it is MEN who become a little more careful about who and when they impregnate.
Not quite so much of this “I wanna have a baby by you” to girls they’ve known for a week. See?
“Little boys shouldn’t grow up thinking they will have the exact same physical bond with children that little girls will…”
Herein lies the gist of the difference between the feminist view of custody matters and the views of the more MRA-like contingent.
Many feminists (not all, as some are unwilling to give up women’s power over children and the accompanying access to the “oppressor’s” resources) will support equal rights to children in the belief that the sexes are fundamentally the same and can have the exact same kind of bond with their children.
Now, one of the MRA persuasion, in contrast, would be more likely to argue that parents should have equal rights and access to their children because they are NOT the same.
Because mothers can not be fathers to their kids anymore than fathers can be mothers to them and to remove either one from the equation brings damage.
While I’m not technically an MRA, this view seems to best square with the facts.
I mean for God’s sake, even underclass women, who are the most likely to raise fatherless children, usually come to the realization eventually that their kids needed their fathers, particularly if they have sons. Of course by then the damage is done, and having raised fatherless children themselves they lack the moral authority with which to appeal to their daughters not to repeat the cycle.
In my view women like you (thankfully there aren’t too many of you) are the ones doing the damage, encouraging smart and educated young women who know better to adopt the reproductive behaviors of losers.[/quote]
I never said there was anything wrong with mothers who chose to include a child’s father in the child’s life voluntarily. If that’s what they wish to do, fine.
The problem is that this has now become a mandate enforcable through the courts and I will never accept any system that tries to force mothers into these forced situations. Women had to put up with this for years because we had no power to stop men from doing it before. Now we do…
You are really living in an unrealistic world if you think men have any sayso today over whether or not a woman gets pregnant. Reproductive technology has taken this out of men’s hands although they are doing everything to try to roll it back under this phony pretense of being ‘concerned about life’. Women make the ultimate decision whether or not to have babies, at least here in the west. You just can’t give women any credit for anything can you. The bottom line is men have sex, women decide if that will lead to a baby…men here have little say over the matter.
I’m don’t give a damn what that Atlas claims giving men all this power…of course, he would, after all when everything is said and done he is still a man and likes to think they still control everything.
[quote comment="7549"]Brooke, your bitch-slaps are a thing of beauty.
[/quote]
Not really. She’s actually quite common, typical female enabler, like you. I’ve seen hundreds of you, always empowering men in some fashion while claiming to be so independent minded. It’s a joke really this constant sucking up…
Actually the reason I quit posting on feminist dominated sites is because I wished to discuss these issues with men to get their opinions. Yet just like those women, you two can never shut up and let any man get a word in edgewise. Yet you’re supposedly champions of men. Some champions.
Clearly if I wanted to discuss these issues with women I wouldn’t have come here now would I…
“It’s a good thing I’m not paying any attentioon to this discussion then, isn’t it.”
Well nothing personal Daran but that’s nothing new so I’ve gotten used to it. You have totally ignored all of the snide comments this typhonblue makes to me and others on a regular basis, as well as ignoring Brook’s constant baiting of me.
“While I’m not technically an MRA, their views square with the facts.”
What a coincidence.
Just as women have finally gained some power over our own lives suddenly there appears a movement of men trying to undermine womens’ authority over her children.
Can they be more obvious?
Square this fact: men are bit players regarding children…second string, not the captains but the crew. Like it or not womens’ unique contribution makes us FIRST amongst equals here.
So men better start getting used to their new secondary place…otherwise we won’t have any more kids to fight over…
[quote comment="7552"]
It’s a good thing I’m not paying any attention to this discussion, then, isn’t it?[/quote]
Er… Brooke isn’t leveling personal insults, just excellent arguments.
[quote comment="7566"][quote comment="7552"]
It’s a good thing I’m not paying any attention to this discussion, then, isn’t it?[/quote]
Er… Brooke isn’t leveling personal insults, just excellent arguments.[/quote]
No but you were. Even your ‘white noise’ comment the other day was an insult to me that you got away with.
Daran has told both Brooke and myself to stop baiting one antoher. I took it to mean for her to stop her endless ‘stalking’ of every comment I make regarding motherhood on this site…since she adds nothing original her comments are totally reactive to everything I say, so I consider what she does to be the definition of trolling…
Yet as usual Daran has allowed you two to get away with this behavior…
BTW, I didn’t come to this site to talk with women but to get the opinion of men. You and this Brooke woman haven’t shut up long enough to give any men a chance to get a word in edgewise on these topics. If I wished to talk with you I know the sites you frequent and would be there. Why don’t you try to listen for a change and give a man the chance to give an opinion for a change…
BTW, I don’t consider throwing a bunch of fathers rights stats and propaganda at someone to be ‘excellent arguments’…she has not added a single unique thing to the discussion ever. Just arguing the opposite of everything I say. I don’t consider that excellent arguments.
Like I said previously I could find literally hundreds of women parroting the same tired arguments, it’s nothing original…I think I could safely say it’s in womens’ genes to keep supporting the movers and shakers of society. It’s how we’ve survived for so long…so it’s nothing new to me to hear this…
Surprise me by saying something original or better yet really surprise me by letting a man get a word in edgewise to one of my comments.
Reproductive technology is eventually going to do a lot more than you ever dreamed, lady.
But little reproductive technology is needed for a man to decline to breed with a woman. He can decline sex or, more realistically, he can use some protection. The poor are not ignorant of birth control no matter what the left believes. And contrary to popular belief a poor girl doesn’t generally go around screwing one guy after another just to get the baby. She has sex within a relationship, albeit usually an ill-considered one. If the male is actively trying to avoid a pregnancy, having adequate motive to do so, the chances of a pregnancy happening go down of course.
But I give women credit for a great deal. In most cases they can choose to set their kids on a path to prosperity or a path to generations of trouble.
“I will never accept any system that tries to force women into these forced situations…”
Well fine but the rest of society is never going to accept any system that does not provide at least some protection for the relationship between fathers and their children. All the NYMOMs and Liz Kates and Phyllis Cheslers and whatnot of the world can rant forever without ever convincing kids that their fathers don’t matter. People want their blood. It’s that simple.
“So men better start getting used to their new secondary place…otherwise we won’t have any more kids to fight over…”
I’ll tell you what men AND women better start getting used to, and it sucks. A two-tier society composed of haves who understand the importance of the intact, two-parent family, and have-nots composed of women like you who don’t get it and their children who keep repeating the cycle and wondering why they can never get anywhere or make a relationship work or have real options.
Like it? You’re welcome to it.
Daran, I’m sorry if I’ve been harsh and abrasive but I have three school-aged children of my own and find it hard to remain indifferent to these issues.
At a time when it’s becoming harder than ever here in the US for even intact families to procure the essentials of a comfortable middle-class life, it’s critical that our young people know where the pitfalls are and how to steer clear of them.
I see red when people pop up saying the pitfalls don’t exist or, worse, point to them and say “Please step in.”
I’ll try to tone it down and do more lurking than posting, if you wish.
When I said I wasn’t paying much attention to this discussion, I meant it. I skim each new post to check that it hasn’t erupted into a flamewar, but otherwise I’m not following the discussion because I’m not interested in it. A consequence of that is that I’m not moderating it as tightly as I might a discussion I was paying attention to.
I’m not obliged to provide you (plural) with a forum for your discussion, nor to moderate it for you. That said, I don’t mind you having this discussion here, provided you don’t cause me grief about it.
Bottom line: Don’t bait. Also, don’t take the bait.
BTW, I’ll agree I have not added anything “original.” What I have added are mainly just facts. Boring, tired, facts that are well-known and, unfortunately, not going away.
But I’m interested in knowing the men’s opinions on motherhood issues as well, if they are in fact interested.
Perhaps a separate thread?
[quote comment="7573"]Daran, I’m sorry if I’ve been harsh and abrasive but I have three school-aged children of my own and find it hard to remain indifferent to these issues.
At a time when it’s becoming harder than ever here in the US for even intact families to procure the essentials of a comfortable middle-class life, it’s critical that our young people know where the pitfalls are and how to steer clear of them.
I see red when people pop up saying the pitfalls don’t exist or, worse, point to them and say “Please step in.”
I’ll try to tone it down and do more lurking than posting, if you wish.[/quote]
Translation: I’m a privileged stay-at-home mom with nothing much to do, thus, I spend my time fooling around on the internet all day fighting for mens’ rights….Well god bless you I’m happy you’re in the privileged position to do this…
In general, what I’d like you – all of you – to do is stop talking about what you think of each other. That just leaves the substance of the topic. When you reach the point where you’re just going round in circles, then let it drop. If you think you’ve had the best word, there’s no need to insist on having the last word.
Me:
NYMOM:
And that’s a perfect example of what I was talking about.
Of course you’d pick out what I said as opposed to her and typhonblue calling me ‘white noise’ last week…
[quote comment="7580"]BTW, I’ll agree I have not added anything “original.” What I have added are mainly just facts. Boring, tired, facts that are well-known and, unfortunately, not going away.
But I’m interested in knowing the men’s opinions on motherhood issues as well, if they are in fact interested.
Perhaps a separate thread?[/quote]
No…
It’s MRA interpretation of the so-called facts. Even that 20% decline in birth rates to single mothers, my interpretion is just as good as yours as to what caused it. You, of course, claimed it was men trying not to pay child support, I said it was women deciding not to chance losing custody…
There’s no facts supporting who’s the lead person men or women in that happening…
I picked out what you said, because you happened to be the one who I crossposted with. You’re also the only one complaining to me about others’ behaviour. Glass houses and stones.
Nevertheless, I’m not sanctioning anyone because I’d need to pay a lot more attention to the discussion than I want to, to do that fairly. I’d rather you all took it somewhere else, than drag me into it.
Well if you don’t wish to be dragged into it then why do you keep defending them???
The bottom line is this Brooke probably has a husband who works very hard all day so she can be a stay-at-home mothers to their kids. AND what does she do with her time: fool around on the internet all day arguing with me and posting on Alas for instance. I’ve met numerous of these stay-at-home moms doing this actually, that’s how I know…it’s a very typical pattern…most of the women in the MRA movement fit this profile. Her husband is probably eating tuna sandwiches at night and TV dinners because she’s spending so much time on the internet…
That’s the bottom line…
My husband and I work TOGETHER, FYI, NYMOM. Something you probably could not manage with any man. He has his interests, I have mine. No business.
From all that you’ve said you’re in no position whatsoever to tell anyone how to run or not run their lives or families. For you to try to do so falls ridiculously flat.
But I understand how frustrating it must be to have your arguments so thoroughly demolished that you’re driven to further embarrass yourself by making personal attacks on strangers.
And having said that, I’m exiting this thread as well.
“No business of YOURS.”
Sorry.
[quote comment="7603"]My husband and I work TOGETHER, FYI, NYMOM. Something you probably could not manage with any man. He has his interests, I have mine. No business.
From all that you’ve said you’re in no position whatsoever to tell anyone how to run or not run their lives or families. For you to try to do so falls ridiculously flat.
But I understand how frustrating it must be to have your arguments so thoroughly demolished that you’re driven to further embarrass yourself by making personal attacks on strangers.
And having said that, I’m exiting this thread as well.[/quote]
No.
Just letting you know I’ve seen this situation a dozen times before. The womens’ auxilliary of the MRA movement trying to take over every conversation regarding motherhood. For some reason they think it gives them more creditability because they get a woman to front for them.
BTW, just because you have three kids gives you no more credibibility on this issue then anyone else…I have grown children too as well as a grandchild. My concern is other children, who are not my relatives, trying to make sure their lives aren’t screwed up by some dirtbag trying to get out of paying child support.
Okay…I”m not just concerned about this situation because it personally affects me, as frankly, it doesn’t…
NYMOM:
Brooke:
Please stop now, both of you. I’m not prepared to act as referee. I’m not interested in who started it, or who’s fault it is, or who’s the worst offender. Either stop personally attacking each other, take it somewhere else, or just stop.
What’s interesting in this article about attraction, what drives it for men and women, is some other information about birth rates in various Western Countries.
ALL Birth rates are dropping rapidly, but as many have said, it’s a game of last man standing. Iran’s IIRC is something like 1.8 according to the CIA World Fact Book. Counterintuitively other Muslim countries where a high birth rate would be expected fall below this replacement level: Algeria comes to mind. Yemen is quite high though.
But what struck me was that Daily Telegraph article that 30% of all College Educated women in Britain won’t have children. The figure is I think 40% in Germany. Wow.
IMHO this has to do with a limited set of available high-status men that College Educated women demand. Status relating to financial, social, and sexual success. Women seem to have narrow and non-adaptive standards for men: high status.
AND IMHO they are in competition with many other women from socio-economic status for these high status men. A beautiful woman is a beautiful woman. Whether she’s an MBA from Harvard or singer/model/waitress-whatever. I’ve seen column after column by Maureen Dowd wondering gee why Michael Douglas or Warren Beatty or Aaron Sorkin never married her.
The standard complaint is “men are scared/whatever of smart, successful, powerful beautiful women.” In reality the Maureen Dowds always lose to the younger and more beautiful Catherine Zeta-Jones or Annette Bennings as the Lotharios age. [If other women want him, he must be worth having of course being a marker of status.]
But to me the universality among all developed countries and the huge drop among places like Italy, Spain, Greece (fertility at around 1.1) seems to scream that the supply of high-status men in the upper classes has just dropped down relative to women.
Which I think makes sense. You’re an educated woman. Pretty, attractive, men have been interested in you since you developed your figure. Why should you settle for anyone less than highest status you can get?
Interesting sidenote: Dowd’s sisters and brothers are all married, happy with kids. Married other dentists or accountants and such.
Do I think there is something seriously wrong here? Yes. The future of the nation depends on well-adjusted, smart and motivated kids from stable, well adjusted and loving homes. Unlikely to happen searching for the highest status guy who is probably not achievable.
I don’t think we can increase the supply of high status guys. So it would be more productive to change women’s minds about what indeed constitutes high-status for men when women have college degrees. [Fascinating: women without College degrees are not experiencing a drop in having kids, in the UK and elsewhere. IMHO this is a casual arrow pointing to status. But just my gut, no data.]
If you’ve seen Idiocracy, in the end the “ordinary guy” gets married to the woman he’s been frozen with. But she’s lower status, he’s higher (Maya Rudolph’s character was a prostitute). And Hollywood movies would seem a good indicator of what works for people romantically. Successful romances seem to indicate what’s on women’s minds; failures in aggregate pointers to what is not working for them fantasy wise.
Perhaps a study could be done analyzing box office, audience response, to romantic comedies aimed at women (and perhaps men)?? There might be some data buried in there.
Welcome, Jim.
Narrow, yes. Non-adaptive? Hmmm. Evolutionary psychologists would argue that female attraction to high status males is adaptive, which is why that attraction exists. That attraction was adaptive in the past, and probably the present also. Yet as you point out, that attraction isn’t necessarily going to lead to fulfilling relationships or make women happy (especially when the supply of high status guys is short, making it easy for them to have non-relational sex, and leading many women to prefer being single that to stoop to being with a low status guy).
If we are taking about wealth and high status jobs, that is true; it will be hard to increase males with those things relative to women. But those things are not the only component of status. As the research above and practical experience suggests, body language and charisma are also components of female attraction to men, and can create a sense of enhanced status. These are qualities that are to some degree malleable.
I think this makes a lot of sense. We can’t change female attraction to status. But what counts as status is relative to cultural values to some degree (though some qualities tend to be more or less universally valued). How to change those values, and what to change them to, are the real questions.
“So it would be more productive to change women’s minds about what indeed constitutes high-status for men when women have college degrees.
I think this makes a lot of sense. We can’t change female attraction to status. But what counts as status is relative to cultural values to some degree (though some qualities tend to be more or less universally valued). How to change those values, and what to change them to, are the real questions.”
That’s why I thought a point I made about a week ago was important. Women are not necessarily looking for millionaires. So an average guy making about $50,000 is in the running as a high status male I think. At least for many women…
[...] researching heterosexual female preferences, and beginning a synthesis of this research, the only answer I can [...]
Very well put. I appreciate the clarity with which you defined the question. I’m eager to read the research.
My experiences:
Whenever I’ve heard a guy say, “Women say they want nice guys, but they don’t really.” or something like that, and the guy saying that is implying that he is nice, but women don’t like him, he never actually is nice. I’ve never heard an actual nice guy say that. I wonder what the men who say that think of as “nice.”
(Maybe they mean superficially polite, begrudgingly following the cultural rules and miffed that she still won’t sleep with him? I don’t know, this is pure conjecture.)
Personally, I do like manly men. (If we are defining “manly” as”probably having a lot of testosterone.”) I once heard a show about the effects of testosterone on mens voices: makes them kind of gruff and deep, and noted that my two favorite boyfriends had voices like that. All of my boyfriends have been athletic, but I don’t think they were all especially “manly.” I think that was cultural. My two “manly” boyfriends were also popular and confident. I don’t know if that has anything to do with testoterone.
(Note: They were the nice kind of popular- they were nice to people, which is key to me.)
So, although I do like manly men, I also like and have dated just regular men. The differentiating factors are niceness, (ie: grounded, at least somewhat emotionally intelligent, kind even to people who won’t benefit him), physical attraction (which I guess must be chemical and has been quite varied for me) and of course, shared humor, interests, values, etc..
I DON”T think “manly” is the opposite of “nice.” My manly boyfriends were very nice. I have also been approached, accosted, or pursued by manly men who were not nice. I have even gone on a couple dates with them before I realized they were not nice. Ick. And just because someone isn’t manly doesn’t make him nice. I’ve gone on a couple dates with regular not nice men as well. equally ick. I think a tell tell sign of one of those guys is if he says that women don’t like nice guys.
The complaint is not that women don’t like nice guys its that women often say they like nice guys and most of the time it has no effect on her desire at all if he is nice or not. Niceness or lack of niceness tends to only have an effect if he is really not nice and basically an asshole.
[...] are my edited comments about Research on Female Preferences in Men over at, (yipes!) Feminist Critics: My experiences: Whenever I’ve heard a guy say, [...]
Hi B,
just read your comment here as well as well as your blogpost. As for the second, I don’t quite understand why it’s so shocking (yipes!) feminism could be critized. I’ve been reading this blog for a while (as well as a couple of the main feminist blogs) and I’ve occasionally commented, and while I don’t necessarily agree with everything said here, I think it’s fair to say that the authors (not necessarily the commenters) are usually trying to be as fair as possible but as rigid as necessary when it comes to exposing weaknesses in feminist theory and problematic, not necessarily intended, consequences of feminist practice. Usually, that involves definitions of feminism that go a bit beyond a fallback definition like “women and men should be treated equally and have equal opportunities to pursue happiness according to their choices.” As far as I can tell, it’s about critizising feminism while recognizing its achievements and social importance.
As for the niceness thing – I think that’s one of the things pretty accurately defined by the feminism 101 blog, although they refer to “nice guys ™” to differenciate between “nice” and “kind”, it seems. The definitional difference seems to be that “nice” means “nice with an agenda” (ie, “I don’t know how to express my real interest in you, so I’ll help you clean your appartment and be friendly hoping you’ll get what I *really* want”) and “kind” means “nice without an agenda” (ie, “I know how to express my possible sexual interest in you if I want – independent of my “niceness”).
Now, as far as I know, there’s a couple more things involved in “attraction” – one of them is purely chemical, people (both sexes) tend to be attracted to people who get their “juices flowing”, in this case juices meaning adrenalin and dopamin in particular. So if non-nice means adventure, uncertainty, push-pull, it is chemically obvious why women (assuming it is possible to generalize about tastes) would be c.p. more attracted to someone exposing these characteristics. At the same time, they would probably be c.p. more attracted to someone exhibiting these characteristics who also has a higher degree of “kindness” (to use the other word) if the women don’t actually have a psychological issue influencing their taste in the problematic direction. Most women don’t.
So, I guess it’s both true that women don’t like nice guys and that they like them. In the end, this comes down to a communication problem. And, as leta mentions, it’s really not a decisive element when it comes to sexual attraction.
This is a good summary of research and certainly interesting. But I don’t like the use above of the terms “masculine and feminine qualities”. What does that men?
I think using the term “feminine trait” for things like altruism or cooperation, etc. is a mistake and makes this analysis muddled. Likewise, aggressiveness is not a “masculine” trait. Men and women can be equally aggressive, just in different ways. Women are just as cut throat and selfish as men, just in a more socialized way.
Furthermore, since the studies referenced above are supposed to be scientific, use of these terms seem like an unjustifiable assumption that invalidates the research. They have not proven that being “caring” is a “feminine” trait. They simply assumed that.
Basically we have terminology and definition problems here. The result is an unenlightening muddle of thought.
Contamination of terminology is nothing new. Much research on intersex and trans patients bases “outcomes” on sexual orientation and success in relationships…not much of a measure if you ask me.
[...] and behavior have an effect on women, yet they have a strange blindspot to the potential results of women’s average preferences for stereotypically masculine appearance and behavior in [...]
Apart from the terminology issue, i find one thing lacking in this, otherwise interesting, summary.
Namely, the strenght of the preferences. It’s crucial issue that very often goes underreported and the effect is people assume it’s strong and general preference even when it’s weak.
For many of the studies you can find the full text online with Google Scholar and look at the size of the effects yourself.
I know. I was trying to say that in my opinion it should be included in such analysis. I don’t know if you disagree or you thought that i am just personally curious.