wolfe’s Growling Musings

The idea for this topic came up from a set of comments over at Dakota’s, in his magnificently titled thread “Are Androids Better than Women?” One male commenter, “Chris”, argued that men needed to be quite wary of women these days. Another commenter, female, “Zogmama” argued that it was still appropriate for men to be courtly, to be gentlemen.

I have sympathy for both perspectives, of course. From Zog’s perspective, the general decline in civility in our society affronts me — as a man, as a human being, and as a conservative. Moreover, treat every woman as though she’s a ho, and that’s likely what you’ll get.

Rap videos showing Nelly swiping a credit card through some ‘ho’s’ buttocks are an undeniable legacy of some ghastly fusion of feminism and misogyny.

On the other hand, for commenter Chris? A great many women in North America have enormous privilege — social, financial, biological, and legal. As he puts it:

I said before…. women act like this on CREDIT. They have done NOTHING to show, prove or earn ANY special status where men are concerned… and until they do…. it’s a man’s … responsibility to POINT IT OUT!

However….. Men are nice. Too nice. When women behave badly , we WANT to be nice and say things like “what’s wrong?� instead of “Why are you behaving like total BITCH?!� We see something wrong, identify it and WANT to fix it. We WANT things to WORK. The NICE and EASY way. It’s the way we are made. But gents, if you do this with a woman, it will NOT WORK. You will be AMAZED at how GOOD it can be for YOU to say something to the effect of ….

“I don’t accept second class behavior from anyone and I am not enjoying myself. Unless I am enjoying being around you, I will not want to be. If you want me to be with you, respect you, enjoy you, and be entirely committed to you, you will have to give me good reason to be. Or you may leave. It’s entirely up to you.â€?

This desire (on the part of men) to fix things is very much the case, and sometimes it exists to our detriment. Sometimes, we are reluctant to see that the problem is the woman in question and her atrocious behavior.

Here’s a story of a truly disastrous blind date — it’s worse than any tale I have, but not infinitely so. Remember, this is a first date; two people of ordinary middle-class means getting to know one another. Sadly, it’s not so far out of any man’s experience, just an extreme example of more of the same.

My date for the evening opened her purse and pulled out a sheet of paper, unfolding it purposefully. On it, were questions (a cross examination) she wanted to pose to me, so as not waste time of there was not a ‘meeting of the minds’ and a shared idea of ‘priorities.’

My interrogator wanted to know how much I would allot her to spend on clothes. She wanted to know how often we might vacation, and where. What type of travel and accommodation arrangements would I make? Would I bestow a gift of jewelery once a month? What would be her allowance? How large a home she wanted and a decorating budget were mentioned, with the express proviso that the budget was not written in stone. She also believed that fine dining 3 to 4 times a week was not unreasonable. I just listened. At no time was there any reference to what was in it for me.

My evening’s companion then perused the menu and ordered the most expensive item, as the waiter gently hovered over us. I ordered a plate the establishment was well known for, a salmon dish. It then asked if she could order the wine. Being a gentleman, I agreed. She then ordered a $225.00 bottle of wine.

His response? He complimented her on her choice of wine, excused himself from the table, got up, and unobtrusively left the restaurant.

A staggeringly rude, ungentlemanly, and discourteous thing to do. But one, I think, that was entirely appropriate under the circumstances.

You can read the rest of the story. Suffice to say, the friends who’d set him up with her were enraged at him… at first.

My experience in the United States and Canada has been that women are stunningly willing to sleep around and dole out sex like it’s going out of style. Many will rent their bodies for little more than the price of a burger. Then there’s another group. The Privilege Princesses, such as the woman described above.

This seemingly leaves a huge number of women falling into one of two camps: they either view themselves as worthless, or so staggeringly beyond price that no man could possibly be worthy of them, however deep his bankroll. A cynic would say, of course, that these latter are simply much more expensive whores with a very high degree of self-esteem.

In both cases, they appear to hate and envy men and to be profoundly bitter.

Of course there are women that do not completely fall into these categories. (or even at all!) Thank goodness. But even most of the best women seem to have more than a hint of either the whore or princess about them. The phrase ‘high maintenance woman’ springs to mind.

It should go without saying, but I’ll say it before any female abschickeners beat me to it: Of course there’s a whole set of negative behaviors from men, some of which I touched on above in the coarsening of our culture. To a certain degree, the cheap whore motif exists because it’s what some men want, and what a great many women think all men want. The expensive whore motif seems to exist because it’s what a great many women seem to want. And if you read the blind date story I linked to, you’ll see the (male) author links to a female blogger’s blind date story that, if anything, is even weirder (though perhaps slightly less horrific).

Speak away, one and all. Bad blind dates? Is my judgment fair? Or is a recent break-up with a lovable, but horribly high-maintenance woman impacting my own judgment?

-wolfe

But Clark Kent, now there was a real gent…

Superman never made any money
For saving the world from Solomon Grundy
And sometimes I despair the world will never see
Another man like him

– Crash Test Dummies, ‘Superman Song’.

Day by Day cartoon copyright by Chris Muir.

What can I say? It made me laugh. So which power of Superman’s would you want to use for good? Other than X-Ray vision?

Without the character of Clark Kent backing up that power, it becomes a trickier question. As Lord Acton famously said, “power tends to corrupt…”
-wolfe

American Woman, stay away from me
American Woman, mama let me be
Don’t come a hangin’ around my door
I don’t wanna see your face no more

– ‘American Woman’ by The Guess Who.

It used to be rock musicians we imagined singing this about groupies. We didn’t imagine the ‘mama’ would be literal.

I recognize there’s a degree of tautology inherent in that title. Be that as it may, here’s a great parenting technique, brought to us by warm and nurturing American mothers: (And yes, obviously, most mothers thankfully aren’t like this. I think. Yet.)

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A Montana mother who allowed her 18-month-old baby daughter to inhale from a marijuana water pipe on several occasions was properly convicted, but should not have to spend five years in jail, a U.S. appeals court ruled on Friday.

Jessica Durham was photographed allowing her toddler Michala to suck from a marijuana water pipe, also known as a bong, in 2004 by a friend upset about the activity.

“Ms. Durham allegedly remarked that smoking improved Michala’s appetite and left Michala lethargic and mellow - a manner she found consistent with her own experience smoking marijuana

h/t Patterico.

I’d like to think there was a time when that would have been unimaginable. I mean maybe you could see a parody of a stoner idiot dad doing it. Maybe. But a mother who’d borne the baby for 9 months? And cared about her daughter? And surely wanted more for her daughter than she had?

Not now, I guess.

This helpful young woman seems to be ably replicating
the message the mother, above, is sending to her child
(and society). Fortunately this young woman isn’t sending
that message to a small child, but merely, we assume,
to an adult who’s annoyed her.
Source: Google Cache of “Snowboarding in July”

And this happened in Montana, of all places. You’d almost expect it in Northern California, but Montana?

I’m baffled. Where the heck are we going as a society?

-wolfe