This post may piss some of you off, but I've unfortunately had the ability to vent taken from me in most arenas. THis is designed to make you think and considering this genre is filled with mostly WOMEN, who may raise SONS, it begs the question:
What happened to real men?
When did society stop raising men and start letting little bitches run things? What do I mean by that? Very simply that men aren’t men anymore. I’m not talking about men who are gay or cross dress or who are more in touch with their feminine sides. Or submissive men, I’m not referring to them. And I don’t mean the metrosexual, either.
I’m talking specifically about men who take no responsibility for their actions. I’m talking about men who take no interest in their own self care. When did size 38 become the normal waist for a man?
Hint, it’s not the normal waist size in pants unless the man is over six and a half feet.
Society’s attitude of letting people have “feelings” has gone too far I believe. Men who have taken that attitude too far have made it their personal battle cry when life doesn’t go their way. Example: My best friend’s cousin is a selfish halfwit of twenty one years old who believes he’s entitled to anything left lying around for him.
He uses greedily the things that my best friend and her husband work hard for, like groceries, shampoo, conditioner and other things. He doesn’t offer to replace them, nor does he even make the effort. He’s also a liar. Yet family continues to make excuses for him citing he has no place to live. I hear there’s plenty of room on the street.
That’s not how a man behaves. When I used to shop for pants, I had the most difficult time trying to find pants in my size. Although I’m somewhat an anomaly due to being extra slender and tall, it shouldn’t take me having to drive all over creation to find a pair of pants in my size.
Examples of this I see prevail. Corporate schmucks who won’t make required health and lifestyle choices continue to put away massive amounts of food that’s bad for them and only driving up their health care costs (not to mention the cost of health care for everyone else) because they have no self discipline.
I know and see far too many men behaving badly. What happened to manners? What happened to standards of dress? What happened to standards of living? This isn’t something we can blame on the outgoing administration. Nor can we blame this on the media, sadly. The truth is, it’s our own fault.
My ex Mistress’s ex husband was twenty five when she met him. Guess who played Mommy to a boy who refused to get a job even as he turned 30 this year.
Living in Oakland, I see plenty of homeless people. I can’t feel sorry for them. Mostly I see men who are lazy, lack ambition to seek opportunities around them and put themselves in a better position. I see men who won’t work for something. Yes I do see women too. They’re usually crazy and drunk. But I see them far less than I do the homeless men.
And we as a society give them a pass. Maybe that’s why romance is so popular and is enjoying quite a long time in the spotlight. Our romance heroes are men. None of them are down and out, and if they are, they were that way before we “met” them. They have goals, stick to their word as best they can and handle business. And none of them are in bad health or ill equipped to have a conversation.
Some people have said that these men are unrealistic and that the novels we write set an unrealistic example for men and women everywhere. I disagree. I think the standard that’s being set is one that people in general (mainly men whom I’m bitching about) are too stupid and selfish to acknowledge.
I still tip my hat to many women, still hold a door open for a lady. I still treat my girlfriend like a girlfriend, not a piece of shit that I can abuse at will. I still respect her opinion. If I didn’t, boy you’d all hear about it! And I’m relatively “young.” What’s the excuse of anyone over the age of eighteen?
What say you, fellow Midnight Seductions readers?
20 comments:
I'm happy to say that they're around, and frequently married to very lucky women! :D My two best friends are definitely in the "real men" category, but fear not...they are raising their sons to be the same way, and doing a damned fine job at it.
wow what a statement- agreed if they area round they are already taken.
Yep, you're in trouble. lol
Actually, I agree with a lot of what you said. Where are all the real men?
And I've blogged about this before. I blame it on the women's movement. We emasculated men. They got so many mixed signals it had to be hard to know how to act.
We wanted men to show us their emotions, cry, for God's sake. So they gave it to us. Then we chided them for being babies. We wanted to do their work. Pushed a lot of them right out of the market. And then we sashayed into the work place wearing our tight skirts and push up bras in our even tighter sweaters and when they did what they always do--acted like a man and copped a feel--we shouted sexual harassment. I could go on and on with examples of how the reversal of roles has affected men.
The bottom line is that by virtue of our physiological differences our psyches are different too. We should not expect to be completely equal, nor should we be expected to be all one way or another. Our personal interactions with each other is all effed up!
And no, I'm not suggesting I want Ward Cleaver for my man and I don't want to be dutiful June either. But I do say, a man can never truly be a man unless his woman lets him.
And by the way Sascha, I love tummies. Get over it. The way to a man's heart is through his stomach. I'm a good cook and my men love to eat...in more ways than one. *wink*
Tessie, I love to eat too. I just won't look like a cow. Btw, you ready for me to show up on your doorstep this September?
Frankie, thanks :)
Adrianne, good to know. I hate pussified men. I don't mind crying, I'm a cancer and a male romance writer. But damn...
It IS the woman's movement to blame in part. But people in general need to take responsibility for themselves.
This September? Will you be wearing that damn kilt?
Our ideas on gender are just fucked up, period. This goes for both men and women. I envy no one.
I'm appalaed you would blame the women's movement for pure laziness. What would have happened if the women didn't take up "so called man's work" in world war 1, 2 or 3? We'd be in pretty pathetic shape right now. That's what.
I'm a strong woman and proud of it. I work in a man's field and I'm DAMN good at it. Not gonna appologise for that, nor should I have to!
Have you ever stopped to consider what would have happened to a woman like me if the woman's movement had never occured? Not allowed to vote, to work or to own property? Hell I'm not married, so who would support me? My parents? Who do you think supports them?
No, I'm sorry but the only person that should be blamed for how a man acts today is the man himself.
Any man who can't handle a strong woman is no man at all in my opinion and my hero's prove that.
Aline
A lot of great things came out of the women's movement. A movement I was involved in in the late 70's (near the end, but unfortunately not old enough to participate before--or fortunately, depending on how you look at it. lol), but followed from the time I was a thirteen year old girl. I was quite a militant about it actually.
No,I never burned my bra, I just flat out didn't wear one! lol
I work for myself, have my own business. Previously, I owned a construction company and supervised a crew of sixteen men. I consider myself strong, intelligent, and independent.
However, the women's movement caused a shift in male/female roles. As far as blame is concerned, it's not a matter of truly blaming this or that. It's just the way it is.
Things happen, we evolve.
Without the women's movement women would still not be getting paid their worth. Abortions would still be performed in some back alley. Our daughters would grow up to think the only thing in life they can attain is a husband and or some menial job. It also gave us marital rape laws, and the Pregnancy Discrimination Act. A wealth of good things came out of the women's movement.
But the women's movement also gave us some major problems too. With no fault divorce as one of the major chants of the movement,we now have higher divorce rates, out of control lawsuits involving much ado about nothing with sexual harassment in the work place. No, I don't mean all sexual harassment cases are bogus, but I do believe some times it's taken too far.
The women's movement also gave us stressed out women who thought they were supposed to do it all. And you can't. No one can.
I'm old enough to remember a lot of these things being argued. Actually was a member of NOW. And do remember the failure of the ERA to pass. I cried that day.
But I'm older now and realize that with everything good there can also be bad.
Personally, I was speaking to the issue of interpersonal relationships between men and women. And yes, I honestly believe that the movement changed men and how they act and react. It did that with women. Why not men too?
It took women over 70 years to get the right to vote. In no way would I ever belittle that or those women who made it happen. I'm pleased that I blazed a few trails where women are concerned myself.
But when I'm with a man, I let him hold the door for me. I let him help me to my seat. I let him take out the garbage and kill the mouse. I let a man be a man and I am a woman. A woman who is damn proud of the fact that I recognize the difference in our roles in and out of bed. In and out of the board room and on the assembly lines.
And he's with me because he knows I am strong, independent, and intelligent. I don't have to burn my bra to be any of those things and I don't have to squash a man's masculinity either.
There's no doubt that our youth is different than the youth of yester-year. And the changes I'm seeing personally are not better. In fact they are downsliding by the minute.
Youth, be them male or female don't have responsibility, they don't have the ability to take care of themselves or know when or why to do the right thing.
I'm rambling but the real men I know say themselves that they are a dying breed. I for one like the door opened for me. I want my man to take care of me. I don't feel the need for constant control.
I'm a strong and independent woman. I've lived alone, I've taken care of myself, I've raised a child for many years all on my lonesome.
I, along with tons of other women, sometimes crave to have my hubby talk more or let me know what he's thinking but in the end if he spilled all and got all emotional on me I think I'd have to dump him. I don't like those kind of men. If I wanted a crier or a basket case I'd get me a young boy!
Signing off to go to a workshop.....
Kissa
I am a woman who also works in a man's field, who had to contend with a male professor in college who kept me and other female students held back and made sexist jokes in the classroom because he saw us as "too dumb" to learn physics.
Men are responsible for themselves, yes, but it starts in the home and how they are raised. In the end, we are ALL responsible for men believing that they have to act a certain way, and women also believing they have to behave in another fashion.
I have to agree with you Sascha.
My honey couldn't understand why the first thing on my "want" list of a man, was that "he have a job!"
Because he does. He's 32, works like a crazy man, and doesn't understand what's wrong with most of the male population either. (that's good because I love the man and would hate to have to kick him to the curb for being lazy *grins*)
Trust me I've had a few who didn't want to get their lazy butts up, and being young and stupid, I not only supported me and my son, I supported one that had three kids.
That didn't last very long.
Don't even get me started about my son's dead beat father. Who left town with the cops after him and hasn't been seen or heard from in nine years. (for the best I say)
I grew up with my dad working everyday, at one time he had two jobs to support the family so my mom could stay home.
He's 62 years old and still works hard.
He is one of those men who will not be happy sitting around watching the grass grow. It's in his blood to work, and if something needs doing, he does it.
The youth of today needs a good old kick in the ass!
Interesting post.
For me, most of the problems you mentioned are about what sort of person someone is, rather than what sort of man they are. A woman behaving in the same way would annoy me just as much as a man.
Not sure what it's like everywhere else, but in the UK most of the men living on the streets are substance dependant / mentally ill / or ex-service men. If women are less likely to get up begging on the street it's because they are more likely to support themselves through prostitution than men.
As for opening doors, I've always lived by the philospohy that whoever reaches it first opens it for the other, regardless of who is male and female :)
Flame war! Flame war!! LOL!!!
No fault divorce did not cause the rise in divorce rates. It made it easier for abused women to leave abusive marriages, so there is something good about no fault divorce. Worldwide, divorce rates go up in countries where there is economic incentive for it. In the U. S., when women, who file for the most divorces, have the financial ability to leave bad or unsatisfying marriages, they seek divorce. Economic growth, high rates of employment, good salaries, and the ability to support themselves and their children lead to divorces.
I don't think that the women's movement lead to the "have it all" mentality. That came from mainstream media trying to make money from feminist ideals. Remember that it was Helen Gurley Brown, of Cosmopolitan magazine, who wrote about how women can "have it all" without thinking it through. It was a con job, and I don't think that feminism had anything if much to do with it.
I have my own problems with the modern women's movement. I think that N.O.W. has lost touch with the lives of many women over the years, especially now. Also, the feminist movement has been around well before the '70s. That's the second wave.
There are Real Men out there. You just have to look for them. I have seen plenty of ne'er do wells, but I know that there are plenty of men are not like that. The U. S. is starting to recover from a decade and more of corporate greed and personal greed, and I for one am a bit burned out of it all.
Wow, I forgot how much fun it is to get into a heated political discussion. Got into one yesterday about abortion. I must admit that writing about butt plugs and G-spot vibrators is much more relaxing. LOL!!!
Great topic. This is fun!
One of the biggest probs with the feminist movement IMHO is that they've encouraged women to become "supermoms" and try to raise kids, have a full time job, and essentially do it all.
I plan to never have kids regardless of my marital status. I know that I will never have the time and energy to devote to such an endeavor, and certainly don't live the lifestyle for it. But I know how VERY easy it is, female or not, to be an overachiever and I'm quite guilty of it too.
I still get strange looks from women who think that you SHOULD want to get married and have kids, and something must obviously be wrong with me or I'll change my mind. LOL I'm afraid that's terribly unlikely, as the standards by which I am fulfilled in my life are different from the norm. And that's okay. I'm a human being first, and being female isn't purely defined by wanting to procreate. That's just our culture talking.
Yes, Lizzie, the reasoning behind no fault divorce was a very noble reason and has helped God knows how many women, but in reality it also made it so easy to just walk out the door without thinking through the consequences. Single parenting, kids who never see one parent. And the lack of bonding that parent could give to their child. And as we all know, most women keep the kids and the hubbys are weekenders. So what kind of role model does that child have in the home for a man? Especially boys. Who is teaching him to be a man?
My little boy is twelve. I tried to do the boy scout thing. I played catch, played video games, and am now talking to him about sex, but still, there is no man in his life to teach him how to be a man. Which is one of the things I think Sascha is talking about.
Someone needs to give these boys the "man swagger". lol I know this is a serious topic, but it's a good way to think of it. Women most certainly raise their little boys to be kind, sensitive, and caring, but when they meet the school bully or need to know the "manly art" of dealing with woman (lol), they need a man.
I honestly try my best, but I'm a poor substitute for the alpha male.
And no, I don't think the women's movement contributed to the problem entirely. That have it all mentality was definitely the mantra of those in the know in the movement though. And women have tried and tried.
When I think of the women's movement, I think of it as having given us the opportunity to choose how we live our lives.
And yes, the women's movement started way before the 70's, I just wasn't old enough to carry picket signs with good old Susan B. Anthony. The women's movement continues today, but now with women like myself who recognize the need to slow down and take a look at both sides of the coin.
The great alpha male is what we write about. And since romance books are a billion dollar plus industry, I guess we all want our men to be alphas. That's not a fantasy, it's just a matter of wanting things to be set right.
I know a few alphas who are still out there myself. Their take charge, take responsibility attitude is one they were taught by their mothers and fathers. Like I said, we each have our roles to play and we should play them. It doesn't have to figure into the workplace or our abilities and how much we are paid.
I do agree with you Adrianne about how feminism has looked at combining a career with motherhood. A lot of the "do it all" mentality did come from the media and non-feminist women's magazines trying to make bucks from the new ideas, too. I think that it was short-sighted of the feminist movement to push so much for child care in the workplace and as a federal program. There was more concentration on women working outside the home, getting advanced degrees, and putting their children in childcare, and not enough attention paid to women who wanted to stay home to take care of their children, especially when their children are very young. In my opinion, there needed to be more of a balance. The big feminist groups overall haven't really paid much attention to ordinary women with jobs who have families - the ones who either work part-time or are stay-at-home moms. Little attention has been paid to motherhood overall. There's so much focus on upper middle class women with careers that many other women have felt left out.
I got the strange stares, too, when I told my friends and family that I didn't want to marry and have children. I did - and I divorced my first husband. I have a college age son. Still, my career is important to me, but my conservative family rarely asks me about my current or previous work. If my mom knew I reviewed vibrators for a living, she'd faint. LOL!
For more than a decade, I worked as a feminist activist on family issues, divorce, child custody, domestic violence, and child abuse. I did that before beginning my current career as a sex and erotic romance writer. I've seen all of the problems first hand, and I even studied and wrote many articles and papers on those subjects. I'm glad I don't do that anymore because it was too stressful.
Choice, Adrianne, that's what the movement gave us. It's your choice how you live your life. Screw the stares.
"...short-sighted of the feminist movement to push so much for child care in the workplace and as a federal program. There was more concentration on women working outside the home, getting advanced degrees, and putting their children in childcare, and not enough attention paid to women who wanted to stay home to take care of their children, especially when their children are very young."
Yep, just one more thing that came back to bite us on the ass. And those women who were "JUST" housewives, and "JUST" moms were looked down on.
Is it any wonder men didn't know how to handle it? We arrived--finally--but the alpha male had been here since he rebuffed Lillith in Eden. And we all know how that turned out. lol
Which brings me to another thought. The women's movement gave us our sexuality. And yes, we went a bit overboard, but without it, we wouldn't be reading erotic romance today!
Hey, want to talk about Evolution tomorrow? lol
I think that boys have all kinds of role models that teach them good lessons about manhood. When I was divorcing, my son had male role models other than his father. Teachers. Uncles. Stepdads. Coaches. Religious leaders. Women can teach them about manhood, too. I don't necessarily agree that only a dad can teach a boy about what it means to be a man. What if dad is an asshole? What kinds of lessons will that teach?
From where I can see divorce going today, women can't just leave because they feel like it. While there are women who leave for frivolous reasons, I don't think most women leave their marriages unless they've thought through the pros and cons, and realize that the cons outweigh the pros. Plus, even with joint custody rates rising, most divorcing parents decide on their own that mom will have custody and dad will have weekend/mid-week visitation. Most parents who choose the joint custody thing have only one kid, higher education levels, and they both have well-paying, flexible jobs that allow them to cater their schedules to their child-rearing. You probably know that most companies today are not parent-and-child-friendly at all, so visitation schedules are really hard to keep up with.
I think that the romance industry is popular exactly why Sascha and you, Tess, say it is - women like those alpha males, and if they can't find them in their real lives, they seek them in literature. And they eat those stories up.
Hey, the more the better. More money for us. :)
Yeah, let's talk about evolution. LOL! How man and woman love MONKEY SEX! ROFL!!
I think that men who are involved in custody battles right now would disagree with you, Lizzie. There is even an organization out there for those men. Divorce is often times frivolous. Divorce is often times simply taking the easy way out rather than working it out.
I'm sorry, but the vast majority of men in my little boy's school teach him for one hour and then they are gone. Nothing replaces having a man in the home and parenting his children.
Sure there are all kind of buddy programs out there, we have one here. My little boy is a part of it, but having lunch with some man he doesn't know one day a week just doesn't cut it.
He'll grow up to be a good man despite all these problems though. I'll see to it one way or the other. And no, we don't want a father to be in a kid's life if he is an asshole and couldn't teach him anything anyway, but I know couples who have split up. And the kids catch hell for it.
The parents remarry and the kids go by the way side or get mixed signals. And there again is the single mother like me, you, Cindy, and Kissa, who did our best.
For every success story there is a failure. The women's movement has had a major impact on all our lives both positive and negative. Period.
Hey, what happened to the "red hot" in monkey sex???? I'll bring the apples for tomorrow's discussion. lol
Post a Comment