New York Post – Childish men are to blame for women having kids late in life
There is a very basic problem with the “Peter Pan” syndrome assertions/accusations that so many have been so ready to throw around. It failed to ask why men were not secure in their careers, why men were falling behind, why men did not seem to be going after the big careers, without examining what was going on underneath.
Now a lot of people have woken up to the impact of the choice to damage boys’ education, the choice to create hiring preferences for women. The latter was simply a choice to not hire a man if there was a qualified woman available.
So men not “growing up” because they are not ready to marry, when they know she may well demand to stay home, and he will be resented if he can’t earn enough to permit it?
https://archive.ph/JTzBQ
Consider that men have always been in the audience, and they understand how men are blamed for not blindly supporting their wives wanting to suddenly be a stay home mom.
Men heard men blamed for not pursuing the woman – who stepped off the partner track at 32… to find a partner, at her level~ First question most will have is, does she expect that man to be at the level she would have been had she stayed on the track? So, when they want kids, where does he have to be in career to make that work?
Affirmative action – delay or derail men’s careers
Given she was very likely pushed to the fore by her firm to some degree for political reasons, the men who would have been there, are where? Yes – that is correct – they were sidelined and therefore not on the partner track, or only being able to get on it after 30. So, they are not at her level, because she was boosted at their expense. Are they expected to chase her? If they want kids (say 2), that means they need to meet, date, build trust and settle down with her, in say 3 years? Oh – and they have just gotten on the partner track which means they will be working what hours?
It would have been really important to include in this piece the causes of why young women are earning more – that was clear in the data from studies published years before this piece. It would be important to discuss the causes of men being far more hesitant, or not believing in marriage. It would be important to have discussed the impact of affirmative action, before just blaming men for not being ready. What are men hearing with regards to how they will be treated within marriage, and how they will be seen?
Husband to blame – when wife reverses herself?
I would ask, why is he the issue when she is the one doing in effect breaking her word? Were his arguments even considered, or was he instantly painted as the problem? Is going to 1 car actually a non-issue where most Americans live? Did she pay any attention to where the explosion of hate started – that is in the suburbs with women feeling trapped in the home? Why should he not ask questions in a period of great change, where she is absolutely reversing herself from what she said she would want? Note the tone she uses around him “going there”… where the impact of hormonal changes in the period immediately after birth, that stretches out into the period of nursing – is well known. Why is it that when she abandons the frame she brought into the marriage – he should not be disappointed, when that was part of the basis of the union? If a man suddenly does a 180 like this, do we not wonder about his mental health? She suggests that “men have fallen prey to this narrative as well” where Venker misses, it may not be a question of the broader narrative, but rather been influenced by what she personally has said in the past. She misses that a woman is convincing a man to reverse herself entirely. She ultimately blames culture, but she started blaming the husband. She also misses the reality of no savings etc… and misses that they were on the same page, and the woman shifted. Most importantly she in effect asserts that her promises are not material, only his.
The husband not asking in the past, does not mean he did not have doubts. Frankly she radically changed her views, and it is no different than having married an ambitious successful surgeon who suddenly wants to stop working. If this is a man who suddenly stopped, would we not ask questions? If he wants to stay home to raise the child, would that not trigger a host of questions? We can say it is different, but he married an individual based in part on what they claimed they would always want, and she is seeking to unilaterally change the deal — and he is broadly being painted as the bad guy.
Not growing up, or reasonable adaptation?
So – is this not the answer in part to why men do not want to marry? If she is not held to her commitments, and he is to blame for her choices, why would he engage? Why would he hurry to marry, where he is not far enough along in his career – and yet we blame him for dating younger women, blame him to not chasing women he will have no time to build trust with, and blame him when she breaks his word? Would not his being very cautious around this, ensuring that he is positioned to weather these things, and only pursuing women he has time to build trust with, and only doing so after he is in a position to absorb such a change in her choices, not reflect acting like a responsible adult?
Is not the core issue, having failed entirely to examine the reality of risks, incentives and resulting perceptions and expectations for men? Should we expect him to believe there will be care and support, when he grew up seeing dad painted as the bad guy? Where female teachers graded him more harshly? Where he sees abusive women seem supported and abused husbands painted as the problem and even arrested? Injured men – a source of humor?
Older women – defined women to men
Consider the following was just fine, and young men, when they were boys saw their mothers watching this…..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tTUREalxVQ
So he knows violence and serious injury are just humorous when he is the victim of her violence!
What message did he get with regards to consent? Where he knows that in 2001 – 42% of women said they would consider lying to get pregnant, but for a man to tell such a lie, he knew most women would see this as sexual assault. So if he perceives that his consent is not seen as material by women?
What have we made clear to young men? When he can see the double standards, knows he is disposable, understands his education and opportunity were undermined and sees that to have been a choice, but he should just believe? Who told him that he should be slow to trust? Who is telling him that her word doesn’t count? Who has made it clear that fathers are disposable, and then to blame when disposed of?
Changing narrative – but what has been said – was said, and actions not words are convincing
So, we are increasingly understand this is a question of adapting, not one of growing up. However, young women are now stuck with the impressions made by their elders. The impressions created by their older sisters, cousins and mothers being angry at men for something largely created by a choice to not examine the other side. The impressions made by screaming men down when they pointed to the now obvious.
We can now say that we see men as also abused, and the importance of fathers, and that consent needs to be two way, but do we not still have a problem? We suddenly are starting to see abusive women and predatory women and their male victims, seeing the reality of disposed of fathers etc. and hear women starting to speak up about how this is and has been wrong, but we need to ask, what are men likely to actually react to? We hear men told routinely that “actions speak louder than words”, but why is it, that we do not seem to believe that applies equally the other way?
Why no shelters for men? Does it matter that lots of organizations now acknowledge that there are male victims, or that institutionally the supports for domestic violence were organized around the notion of only women could be victims, largely based on a loud lobby dominated by angry women? Does it matter that they see their errors, when it results in them going silent and leaving the institutions they created on the basis of a lie? Does it matter that all domestic violence funding is all tied up with Violence against women, when all funding for domestic violence flows through groups created on the basis of a gendered narrative, that was always a lie?
So even while it may be institutional imperative and inertia that keeps things in such a state, is it reasonable to expect young men to believe where the reality remains he can expect to be the designated bad guy, when she does things that would be deemed abuse, or sexual assault if he were to do them? Where no action has been taken to create the impression that this is not broadly supported by women?
Young women – betrayed by their mothers and grandmothers silence
It is worth noting, that a lot of older women, even most, have woken up from the false beliefs they held. Most now see that domestic violence is not one way, that consent is a two way issue, that boys education has been harmed, that fathers are important, and even that the courts have created the circumstances where moms were likely to alienate fathers unfairly. However, having screamed down men for decades, told them they were misogynist monsters for believing that any woman could, the very women who led the charge that defined men as enemy other, often seem to expect men, to lead the charge on reversing those impressions.
They will say the insane like – “the next generation needs to take up the challenge” where the challenge is entirely repairing the trust they destroyed and repairing institutional damage they created, and worse politicians that have no reason to think those women will not attack them if they listen to the next generation. They will say insane things like, men need to lead against the feminist narratives, where they already destroyed men and women who did point out the flaws.
They will ignore that the first and most important step in repairing trust, is acknowledging error, which only those who made it can. They will ignore that expecting the next generation to restore trust, where they have never seen the conditions required to create it – is asking the young to do a task orders of magnitude harder than it would be for them, if they would just acknowledge they have culpability.
Young women, an alternate path
Let us be frank, the young women who have seen from the start the lies around domestic violence, cannot say “we made a mistake”, they cannot say, “we were wrong”, they can’t explain with any credibility any motive that would justify what was done. It is, in the cold light of day, quick clear, you can never see a female abuser, if you ask only women victim questions, can’t see a male victim of sexual predation, if you only allow a discussion of rape, defined as “the carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will.” as it was prior to 2012, or even reasonably a man coerced into sex by a woman, when it excludes being forced to penetrate. You can’t explain how the reality of women choosing to stay home on relative earnings could be missed, when you always saw it… or explain how the view of it being women forced out of the workforce dominated all discussions, where the demand was for work to be “women’s choice”. Where you know it was always known, women tend to marry men as educated as them, how would not it be the women with the highest earnings potential would also be evidently the ones most likely to enjoy choice… and how https://archive.ph/JTzBQ the findings that most working women wanting choice to exit – would somehow not apply to the ones with the highest earnings potential.
Frankly, how can young women, who never believed in the hysteria, explain the loud proclamations and misandry of those who did? So how do they deal with a reality of an older generation that will not acknowledge misandry for beliefs that gender reversed they would instantly label as misogyny?
Trust requires -accountability
The short version, I do not believe young women can reverse the impressions made on their peer men, without acknowledging that their elders did hate men. I do not believe young women can build broader trust, and recreate the historical norms of men believing in family, initiating and pursuing, in relationships, without dealing with the spreading awareness that what has been, can only be understood as hate. They cannot hope to restore trust – without accountability for those who chose to spread it, and those who continue to resist change. Can’t hope to restore trust, without being part of helping to create spaces for men, and not expect men to lead in that area. Can’t hope to restore trust without taking lead on holding predatory women to account.
Can’t hope to restore trust, without demanding accountability from those who knowingly lied around domestic violence and sexual violence, but going the next step, demanding accountability for those who refused to question, even after it was made clear that only women were asked victim questions, and only men perpetrator ones. Can’t hope to restore trust, if they do not see the current domestic violence agencies who continue to quietly assert that shelters are not needed for men, or acknowledge that the reason they may not work well for women is they continue to refuse to give women initiator counseling.
Can’t hope to restore trust, where a woman is collecting child support from a man she sexually assaulted as a boy -and in effect confessed to it – when she named him the father. Can’t hope to restore trust, while only her consent is seen to matter. It is in short, if those who lead the creation of policies while believing a lie, will not take leadership in reversing their positions, and acknowledging the harms, young women would be well served by drawing a clean and clear line between themselves and those people, where they are clear that they see their choices as hate, and seek to hold them accountable accordingly.
We can say young men should be involved in this as well, however, one of the great mistakes I routinely hear from anti-feminist women, is a demand that men lead the way back. To put it bluntly, men cannot do the heaviest lifting here. The perception that women do not care was created by the actions of women influenced by hysteria and reversing it, can only be done by women themselves acting to for change and to hold those who promoted hate to account.
If you blame men for acting on their own interests, where your demand is in effect they act on yours, should you not understand you are choosing to alienate them further? So, young women need to be seen to be acting to create a shared interest before they can approach the issues. Today his argument that those are in effect her children, not their children, because she will keep them and the house in any conflict and he will be obligated to them, even if they are the product of her cheating. Oh, and another of the imploding lies is women don’t cheat, where the “no woman would” has created the impression of women covering for bad women, instead of holding them to account – another space where the generation that fell for the feminists distortions betrayed their children, including, if not especially their daughters’.
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