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battle of the sexes, blue pill, break ups, divorce, feminimity, feminism, gender, marriage, patriarchy, red pill, relationships, sexism
The title of a post at another red pill blog reminded me of something I have been meaning to write about for awhile, my thoughts on who is to blame for the mess we find ourselves in today. The blog post above is not about the topic I am about to discuss, but is a worthy read in its own right.
If you were to ask the question, “Who’s to blame for the mess today?” (and by mess, I mean the mess between men and women, relationships, divorce, failed relationships, people having a hard time getting or saying married, etc.) to the average Jane on the street, she’d likely say some version of “Men are!” or “The patriarchy!” or some such.
But are men really behind the backwards and upside down dating and marriage marketplace we face today?
I’d argue no. I’d say women are.
Now there may have been some Machiavellian men involved in the start of the sexual revolution, feminism, no fault divorce, the destruction of generations of social and moral norms that while not perfect worked for the most part — but largely it was women themselves, and more specifically women who came of age during the late 60s and early 70s (my mother’s generation) who I feel are truly to blame.
Perhaps it started before them, by the whisperings and urgings of the female generation before, but somewhere in all that the wheels started coming off the cart when older women started to encourage younger women to rebel against and then reject their traditional gender roles rather than to encourage them to be good, honest, chaste, and upstanding young women headed toward marriage and motherhood.
Women created the situation we find ourselves in by encouraging a “go guuuurl” style culture where young women (including myself) were taught from a very young age to reject the roles of wife and mother for as long as possible or even entirely, mistrust men, and to instead adopt the false Goddess idol of the “single independent woman” instead. At the same time these elder women worked to dismantle as many of the social norms as they could that had previously restrained women from acting upon their basest natures (hypergamy and solopism).
These women taught their youngers that red was blue and blue was green, that being a devoted wife and mother was akin to wasting one’s life and that to embrace some party girl, casual sex, be your own boss, live for yourself and the moment lifestyle was “freedom” and “progress.”
In my opinion, it was an incredibly selfish and destructive sophistic thing for these elder women to do, misleading the young down a path that would lead them to pain, confusion, disease, heartbreak, loneliness, broken families, broken lives, and an unbridled unapologetic, selfish worship of “me“, among other things.
It was especially harmful because women are greatly influenced by group thinking by our very natures. Because of this, women can easily be manipulated and mislead.
As I approach the age where I transition away from being a young (reproductive age) woman and toward the next phase, being a matriarch (post-baby making age), I feel the pull stronger and stronger to try my best to turn the tide, to counsel young women (including and especially my own daughters) against the “new ways” and back toward the tried and true path women followed before. Perhaps a more constrained path, a less exciting path, but a far more stable, safe, and solid path for them, their future children, and society as a whole. I believe this is what I am (and other women my age are) called to do in the next phase of my life — build up the next generation of women, support them, encourage them, guide them.
To those younger than me: Be a good woman. Develop your traditional skill set. Resist the urge to put yourself in the center and put your family and community there instead. Revel in your feminine nature, nurture others, be loving, kind, and true. These are your strengths and gifts as a female, as a woman.
I am not saying women should forgo education or being a productive member of society, not work. I am not advocating women accept abuse, oppression, or second class status. Don’t believe the lie that it is either this or that…. that the traditional path will only and always lead you backwards.
Forget the “new ways.” They don’t work. I have tried, I have watched others try, I have seen the results, it is a broken script, a failed social experiment. Beware! It will seem to work in your 20s and 30s but like a house of cards it collapses and reveals it was an empty shell all along. By the time that becomes obvious, and you have second thoughts, it could be too late to correct your path.
Let those who have ears hear.
What do you think? Did women let women down?
Notes From a Red Pill Girl 
It was inevitable that reliable contraception and changes in the work environment, coupled with the greatly-reduce homemaking burden enabled by electrical appliances, would lead to some changes in male/female relationship patterns. What was not inevitable was that the changes would be accompanies by so much rage, irrationality, destructiveness, and heartbreak. For that I think we have to ‘thank’ the following parties: (1) Academics, both professors and administrators–not *all* professors & administrators, of course, but a good number of professors and a very high % of the administrators, (2) the entertainment and media industries, and (3) “activists” of various types.
True David, those other forces were also an influence. But I would argue that without the “buy in” of the older generation of women, all those groups could not have accomplished it alone. Women opened the gate and let them have influence, not the other way around, as I see it. But I suppose it could be somewhat a chicken and an egg thing…
I’d recommend you to look at Russia as an example of a country that had it all under radical Left rule of Bolsheviks: no-fault divorces since 1918; abortions on will since 1920; ‘sex should be as easy as drinking a glass of water’ attitude etc etc etc.
If it wasn’t enough, we took enormous tall during WW2, effectively loosing three generations of men, being left with mostly-female society of single mothers and widows. Guess how they raised their sons. Late-soviet men were emasculated, week, unable to lead (at the same time with a strong block on violent behaviour toward women). There was – and still is, – a cult of ‘mother’ (a bit similar to Latin America culture).
Women were on par with men everywhere – literally: logging, fisheries, factories, you name it. Wartime economy made it a must, and then it just settled this way.
The family… With emasculated disoriented males being raised 100% by women, with no proper male role model in sight, they made pathetic husbands. Women almost always dominated the family – they should’ve, otherwise it would’ve collapsed in a year. Men succumbed to alcoholism and were generally marginalized. Husband beating – in public (!) – was widespread even in late 80s, much more so prior to that.
As you can easily guess, no women was happy about this sort of ’empowerment’. Most of them completely lost their feminine qualities at their early 30s.
Both me and my wife were raised in families, where mothers dominated (and my wife’s father was in military!). Our fathers were decent men, physically developed and smart. They just lacked that ability to lead.They were submissive. Because no one ever taught them different.
Guess what happened, when the Big Gov of USSR (that was a major force over supporting the status quo of Left egalite and emancipation)? Man turned to machismo in a decade. And the most popular small businesses in Russian cities are beauty parlors. It’s just like every single girl in new generation decided to embrace her feminine side to never be a genderless ugly creature her mother is. It’s like every boy make a promise to himself to never turn to that whimp his father was.
Now, Russian women usually wash their heads and put their best clothes on prior to a short trip to nearest grocery. They wear stiletto casually. They wake up three hours before work hours to put on the make up. And – guess what? I like it that way, and I never, ever will look back in Soviet times. And so is my wife (and, hopefully, our two kids).
Sergey:
ARe you describing Bolshevik, then post-war Soviet family life?
One thing I’ve heard was that no fault divorce in the USSR resulted in exactly the same circumstances that happened in the USA post 1970 – the divorce rate skyrocketed. Women left their marriages in droves. (I’ve also heard that with abortion being legal in the USSR, many women had multiple abortions.) Men responded to all this by retreating into work or vodka bottles.
Is that true? Was the divorce rate and broken family life that bad there during Soviet rule? Were the alcoholism rates as bad as has been portrayed?
I remember a movie called White Nights in which Mikhail Baryshnikov played a dancer who ended up back in the USSR and he talked about the heavy drinking and how it “helps” with the pain and the misery that was Soviet life, and that he was “Russian, just not Soviet”. Was it really that bad?
Sorry, had to cut in a middle – it’s family dinner time here in UK, where we live.
Basically, what I was going to say is two things:
1) there will be backlash, and women will be driving force besides it to at least the same extent as men;
2) this ‘new life style’ is mostly a government construct: it depends on affirmative actions, welfare state, constant media propaganda etc to exist. I.e. think what would happen if there’d be no welfare support for single mothers – it’ll make it sure way to poverty and even death for many mothers in a society without strong binds to extended family, stigmas will reappear, and the concept of marriage/family as the most proper institution to raise kids will strengthen back. And the Governments are not forever. I know for sure, I’ve seen one crumbling to pieces in no time with my own eyes.
thedetisaid:
Abortions were, and still are on absolutely frightening levels. I.e. check this: http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Health/Abortions
Russia still have twice as much abortions (and the statistic is really poor in this regard, so the actual number might be significantly higher) as US, with half the population. In Soviet time it was worse due to complete lack of contraceptions (condoms were extremely rare even in 80s, pill was unheard of).
Alcoholism was The Norm significant portion of Russian men between late 1950s and early 1990s. It was pandemic. Including on-the-job drinking. Including drinking in military regiments. The only excuse to not being drunk at least one time during the week were chronic health problems issues (i.e. peptic ucler).
One of the most popular ways to treatment alcoholism was this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disulfiram Basically, it was a capsule with alcohol-activated poison injected under a person skin. You drink – you die.
When it comes to divorces, those were surprisingly rare. Russia was still mostly rural country in 1917, and changed to mostly urban only in mid-70s. Prior to that, rural mindset and religious past dominated, nevermind the extremely leftist code of laws. Even in 80s divorces were quite rare, though almost every second family was clearly dysfunctional. This might be related to extreme egalitarism that prevailed in a (very homogenous) society. Why trade on alcoholic to another? Another major thing was, no matter how pathetic men were, ‘thanks’ to the heavy casualties in WW2 and poor longevity rates, they were significantly outnumbered by women (there was a popular song in USSR, that there’s 10 women for every 9 men; and for some age cohorts it was 10 to 4).
This is still an issue, by the way: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/08/14/why-the-former-ussr-has-far-fewer-men-than-women/
@ Sergey, thanks for sharing that point of view! Very interesting indeed!
It is far more common to find childless women regretting not having children than mothers regretting their motherhood.
Sergey,
Thanks for the info. It is good to see how another culture deals with these issues. The one point you brought up that hit me like a sledgehammer is even when men are scarce, they are still going to be dominated by women.
There is a theory that women have used hormonal birth control as a tool to further themselves in the SMP. By not risking pregnancy in having sex, they could offer themselves to more desirable men. This opened the floodgates on extramarital sex. There is a problem. A lot of women are not taking their pills and are getting pregnant. So, with the introduction of birth control, out of wedlock pregnancies skyrocketed.
On the last thread, RPG proposed that men and women have different goals. My contention is that restaurants could print two sets of menus. Men and women have diverged that far.
Alimony.
aka “child-support”.
No Fault Divorce is in and of itself a good thing.
Long conversations with a PI-turned-publisher:
Pre NFD it was not unknown for couples to stage an infidelity to grease the legal wheels. Hotel room, “surprise” happy snaps, tender these images y’Honour.
They just wanted out of a bad situation.
Sexual Liberation is in and of itself a good thing.
I knew a girl who tried men, one after another, until she found one she liked.
Whom she kept. A total sweetie and I cherish her memory to this day.
Women Can Do Everything. And have.
AA batteries in Britain, snipers and tankers and pilots in Russia, WASPs in America,
combat medics in the Middle East, Special Forces in Ireland.
Haven’t heard? Not looking. They tend to shut up and soldier.
But women, like hobbits, overwhelmingly do such things only in dire necessity,
Preferring welcome company and good cheer. Sensible really.
So, where is the rub?
Pre Birth Control / Abortion-on-Demand, unexpected pregnancy could blow a hole in a woman’s life. Instantly unmarriageable and, cruelly, unemployable.
The co-offending male could often be induced to marry the lass.
But how to keep him there?
For the poor there were humourless dads with axe-handles.
For everyone else there were the divorce courts – you pay, whether or not you stay.
Alimony was the secret sauce that made a man look twice at his paramour,
and thrice at his bride-to-be.
When NFD came along there was no immediate reason to take alimony off the books.
There were still scumbags who would abandon a faithful wife with four young ‘uns for the waitress in the next town, because breasts.
NFD was envisaged as “Whups, bad idea. Let’s backtrack and part company”.
In that scenario, only wealth created since marriage should be apportioned.
With BC / AoD, disposition of children should be solely the option of the non-initiating partner. (Not sharing. Each child assigned entirely to either parent.)
But no.
NFD + Ye Olde Alimony = huge financial incentive for female-iniated divorce.
Kids become leverage.
Good women get distracted, bad women openly mercenary.
Men become jaundiced, and experienced, and skittish.
The miracle is not that the mess is so big, but that it is not worse.
Switch off alimony. Watch what happens.
Good point Fuzzie, those can’t all be “oopsie!” Hopefully in the near future they will come up with a better option for men than just 1. condom or 2. vasectomy. If I was a guy, I would be clamoring for it!
Thanks for adding that Saracen. Alimony and child support are actually two different things, at least in my area. Would you say NFD is a good thing? Bad thing? Indifferent?
As you’ll see if you follow here much, I am actually a realist. Yes, there are (rare) times when divorce is needed and the best for all parties involved. However I would bet that the actual number of divorces that are truly that (including marriages where the WIFE is physically dangerous and abusive, which also happens), versus some form of, “I am unhappy” or “I am bored” or something similar, and in many cases it’s the woman, not just the man (although men do it too). Marriage has come to be devalued to the point it’s like “going steady” and broken off just as easily, it seems to me, since NFD. I am not sure that was the intent…
RPG,
Effective male contraception is long overdue. It would be a game change.
Bad marriages are not best ended in divorce. On an individual level, perhaps it works out well for the man and woman. On the community level, it is a valuable example to have. Taking marriage lightly can have grave effects later on in life. If you are stuck with your spouse no matter what happens, you are going to take a lot more interest in doing it properly. It also removes the incentive to act out in order to get out of a marriage. If you are locked in, you had better make the best of it.
The Shadowed Knight
@ tsk, indeed. In the religious group in my area I often talk about, divorce is almost unheard of. If someone is unhappily married, they are expected to make the best of a bad situation, not leave. People are encouraged to work on improving their marriage or if that’s not possible bc of an unwilling partner, they are expected to find productive outlets for a meaningful life otherwise and accept their lot in marriage. Divorce in their community means leaving behind everyone and everything they know. A powerful disincentive! And it works! A happy marriage is great, obviously, but a less than ideal one does not have to mean a ruined life, or a divorce.
Here’s a good post on how “successful marriages” are often those who just stick it out, ride the rapids the good and bad. https://notesfromaredpillgirl.com/2015/10/14/ride-the-rapids/
One day I went to my favourite pie shop.
The cook was a long-time friend and a good one.
Her face was flushed, her eyes more shadowed than usual.
She was busy and jovial, but not smiling, and not looking me in the eye.
Then I understood.
Her partner had given her a full-face shiner to be going on with,
and was holding custody of her eldest child over her head for her silence.
fuzziewuzziebear:
Lack of men = lack of role models for boys + lots of single mothers.
Authoritative single mother = submissive son that fears women
Weak single mother = anarchic asshole son that treats women like shit, but have no real spine (men are not assholes, men shun and reject assholes).
Absent single mother = anxious son that deeply insecure
Lack of role model = insecurity, inability to lead, no knowledge on how to cover a gap between where you are now and what society expects from you (while men in USSR degraded, expectations were still high and constantly reassured through praising for Gagarin and war heroes)
All of them will make poor husbands and weak leaders. Some of them will find a way to build up their confidence and ability to lead, as those thing just go naturally in men. And then those, who were able to do this will find themselves in a society of emasculated peers and overstretched women going against their nature (this might be considered sexist, but I think that women are in general far less risk tolerant than men, and have an in-born strive for maximum safety; hence, although they CAN do all the things expected from men, some roles are significantly more costly to them in terms of psychological health). Literally, they will go to the top easily.
USSR as a country was clearly dominated by men, no doubts here. Politics, military, industry, since – you name it, all males (except maybe Gorbachev, who was under heavy influence of his wife). 5% on the top were all males, and so were 25% on the bottom. Good deal of men suffered (being on the bottom), but almost all women did too (lacking good men to build happy families, thous having to struggle with gender roles that are so much easier for men to carry). ‘Dominating’ is a bad concept. Women doesn’t had it better by being ‘dominant’ in families. I’d say they had it worse. Being a breadwinner, having a bigger income than your spouse, making all the decisions in the family is not something that makes you happy. Your husband being reduced to a grown-up male child makes you feel sick, not empowered. And greatly unhappy.
Now, this became obvious to everyone. But instead of dropping the failed effort of complete gender equality after stumbling on a traditional gender roles build around risk tolerance profiles, the Left decided to merge men and women into something in the middle (empower women, emasculate men, destroy carer/provider dichotomy – or the role of a family as a main child-rearing unit in society at all through making kids ‘shared responsibility’). They pushed toward complete dismantling of the gender, and keep pushing now.
You can see this everywhere, really. Especially in Europe. In USSR they introduced so called ‘yasly’, a nursery-from-6-months, as a mass public service. In Europe now they’re forcing a legal framework built on ‘interests of the child’, effectively overriding parents’ decisions with government’s interests.
Unless the Left will suffer a series of devastating blow from reality, they will carry on with this.
And they may as well succeed. We might be just traditionalists whining about progressive tide that brings social changes. It takes from us personally, while gifting to society in whole. And it might be not against the nature/reality (besides, humans are VERY adoptable). This might be a possibility as well (although depressive).
Another thing is, while initially the Left was pro-feminist (supporting the underdog in struggle for universal equality), it is now more and more not so after 30 decades of empowering women. Now it goes more and more against the interests of women (i.e. artificial womb would be a Holy Grail for the Left as a universal mean to equalize reproduction power of genders; but a curse for women, stripping them of this power; same for the trend ‘your child belongs to himself first – read “The Government” – and not to you’). And some feminists seems to start to finally realise that, and trying to separate the Leftist drive from a pro-women struggle as the former already hijacked the later, and bend women to the worse outcomes.
So things will be interesting for my generation (I’m 31; my wife is 30; our son is ten, and our daughter is four; another Russian thing 🙂 ). And I’m glad to have a happy family in the face of the flux to come.
Saracen III:
That’s the main dichotomy I have right now. I see that legal framework and social lifts are now all tuned for women over men, and it makes me feel resentful. At the same time I see that lots of women are suffering from violence and unjust treatment (though it might be my patriarchal nature that puts women’s happiness over men’s, and takes images of suffering women as more disturbing).
Anyway. If you have it bad with someone, it doesn’t mean you’ll be better on your own. It sucks, I know. But maybe it’s not a Stokholm syndrome but a choice, with all the other options being even worse? After all, we’re all have our free will.
(The dickhead should be punished one way or another. In patriarchal society, this was the moment when father and brothers stepped in.)
Answering to the question in the title. We have leftist movement to blame. Not men, or women in general, but ideological groups (on the second thought, those were mostly male, so – blame men 🙂 ) that sold the idea of equality – equality of social outcomes, not equality of staring positions or legal rights – to the people.
Nobody I know thinks that economic parity and work opportunities for women are bad thing. Nobody I know think that gender-neutral laws and gender-neutral universal rights are bad. What people mostly concerned with, is that push that women and men should play against each other on the same fields – instead of playing on the same team with different roles that suit them the most.
The notion of gender as a social construct that should be dismantled to achieve The Final Equality is the most troubling part. The notion of equality being more important than (for the Left; or – the missing part of, for resentful unhappy wives giving life advices to their daughters) happiness.
We should find a way to match people better, not a way to provide every boy and girl with the ability to be completely autonomous in their adult lives (the later being a knee-jerk reaction of their parents to their poor spousal matches). Sadly, given how increasingly autonomous our urban, mobile, anonymous society became, this is increasingly hard to achieve.
Thanks so much for contributing to this thread, Sergey.
This is really interesting reading.
Sergey,
Thank you again for the added input. In the West, we are reaping the harvest of all the single mothers. It is not encouraging. That government would encourage this is short sighted. This doesn’t empower government, it increases dependence on it.
I do have to wonder where Russia would be without all the death of the First World War, the famines, the purges, and the Second World War. One historian guessed that Russia would have emerged from the First World War as the most powerful European nation.
fuzziewuzziebear,
This is an interesting topic, but it’s not for this blog. Briefly, without 1917, Continental Europe would’ve been probably divided between Russia and France, who’d then unite against Britain – and then fight against each other with Russia having significant advantages. Germans would’ve been completely off the map for century, British were stripped of their colonies and reduced to an island, and French up for another major war in two decades. None of them wanted this, hence they helped Bolsheviks to overthrow the monarchy as a part of combined effort, pushing Russia into collapse the same path as Habsburg Empire.
Well, what’s done is done, resentment over possible glorious past is meaningless.
@ Saracen, wow that is terrible! 😦 how did that turn out?
@ fuzzie I think increased dependance on govt. is part of the point. Sadly. And this concept of “the govt. has to protect you and save you from yourself via some meddling nanny state” really really vexes me. If I skin my knee in life or have to work extra during a hard time, I would much rather have that than be unable to cope with adversity or fend for myself. Like college students demanding “safe spaces” so their feelings or thoughts aren’t challenged??? Give me a break!
Oh sorry, I was ranting, lol 🙂 don’t get me started on all that, I could go on for hours there!
A fuzzie for example there have been times where I could easily have qualified for govt. help such as food stamps etc. but I refused to apply and instead I applied myself to be more creative, be more frugal, create opportunities to improve my income. I didn’t take food stamps bc I didn’t want to start to “rely” on that help mentally, and then later not apply myself fully out of fear of losing that help. That’s the way I see it, anyway…
RPG,
I think it was “bread and circuses” that took down the Roman Empire more than anything else.
I would second most of the reasons given above, however, fundamentally it is our society’s lack of understanding in terms of Gods design for man, woman and their union, that has destroyed relations between the two. This applies whether you believe or not; Gods law is unmovable and their consequences unstoppable once invoked. The secular and new church versions of marriage are hardly distinguishable, which explains why so-called “christian marriages” end in divorce as often as the secular. I am convinced through scripture that “marriage” and all its bounty as God instituted from the beginning, can only exist through a blood covenant union between two chaste individuals. Anything else is physical and spiritual chaos, hence very few can understand the conflict in emotions that exists in marriages today, if I dare call them that. This is utterly shameful, given that churches are like Walgreens . . . there is one on every corner, yet young and old seem to be ignorant of the grave nature of relations between man and woman. I can understand how the secular world can be so ignorant, but in the church? I think new churchians just have their ears closed to the truth because its hurts and no one wants to feel bad about themselves and the decisions they have made, especially one that cannot be undone. And Pastors are afraid of offending their memberships and losing collections, therefore they focus on the “grace” message and skip the consequences. I will not let my children live in such ignorance and delusion, I want them to experience marriage as God intended, not the misery and emotional torture that comes with a government issued marriage, I honestly don’t see why seculars even bother with it any longer.
Maybe it’s the lousy women, but consider the fact that the men are addicted to the lousy women. They need to be rougher with them.
I don’t mean that to sound NAWALTish. I consider 99.9999999% of all women to be lousy.
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