'If you don't want a baby, stop feigning 'shock and awe' when a woman gets pregnant--and keep it in your pants'
March 3rd, 2008 by Glenn Sacks, MA for Fathers & Families"The real issue here is that our patriarchal society can't deal with the fact that men have lost control of a number of their women, after years of being able to have their cake and eat it too."
From Ruby, a feminist reader:
"Men, if you don't want a baby, stop feigning 'shock and awe' [when a woman gets pregnant] and keep it in your pants. What is sex for? I personally think it's amusing that women are being just as 'devious' as men to meet their biological urges. What's the difference between a man telling you he loves you so that he can satisfy HIS biological urge for sex, and a woman telling you she's on birth control to meet HER biological urge for sex?
"Children are the NATURAL product of sex but our society has so many social constructs in place, and tells all young men to go forth and copulate without consequences, that we've forgotten that. The real issue here is that our patriarchal society can't deal with the fact that men have lost control of a number of their women, after years of being able to have their cake and eat it too.
"What's more, a large number of single by choice women earn more money than the majority of men, so 'going after their pay check' is not a motivation for becoming pregnant, and men are kidding themselves if they think it is.
"The bottom line here is I think it's inherently sad that society ENCOURAGES men to sleep around without taking responsibility for contraception, ENCOURAGES men not to marry women their own age, ENCOURAGES women to take control of their destiny, and then burns a woman at the stake when the most precious blessing imaginable, a child, is bought into this world.
"From what the majority of men on this board have to say, the main issue of an unexpected pregnancy that they resent is having to pay for a child. If you didn't have to pay, would you even care?"
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March 3rd, 2008 at 11:59 am
Ruby Says:
"What's the difference between a man telling you he loves you so that he can satisfy HIS biological urge for sex, and a woman telling you she's on birth control to meet HER biological urge for sex?"
Hmm... I think I'll take a crack at this one and suggest that one major difference is that one involves 2 lives... and the other involves 3 lives.
Making it about the couple having sex is really very myopic considering that the result of lying about birth control is the generation of a new life who will ultimately suffer the consequences of that lie.
That is one pretty HUGE difference I'd say.
The only way one can fail to note that important distinction is if they really don't care very much about the impact of such a deception upon the child that is being created.
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:00 pm
"What's the difference between a man telling you he loves you so that he can satisfy HIS biological urge for sex, and a woman telling you she's on birth control to meet HER biological urge for sex?
A woman is not forced by the courts to provide a substantial portion of her income to a man who accidentally becomes in love after lying that he was.
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:02 pm
She makes some good points, but she is wrong about society and its "constructs." Men's biology, not society makes them like younger women and want to sleep with everything in sight. It's society that frowns upon this and makes men pay child support!
Finally, Ruby, if you're reading, if you don't like a patriarchial society, you should try living without all the benefits men invented. These are the results of a patriarchial society as well. The very technology you used to send off your missive was invented by a man. So were everything from vaccines to security alarms.
Camille Paglia once said if women ran the world, we'd still be living in grass huts. Looking around the world at societies that are less patriarchial, I believe she is correct. You make some interesting points and a few are valid to me, and I'm not a feminist. But by couching your ideas in cliche lingo ("constructs" "the patriarchy") you weaken those ideas.
It's 2008 and studies on biology have proven a lot of the "constructs" that feminists believed were put in place by society were put in place by Mother Nature. Nothing will ever make men not want to sleep with all women. Be lucky men "constructed" laws that keep most men from really running wild. And while you're at it, look at what happens when men run wild in a non-patriarchial society (ir Africa).
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:04 pm
Wow.. Impressive, society also says women should be able to go out and have irresponsible sex. How many times I've heard women when I was in university say "I'm a liberated women" when they talked about their "sex lives".
Of course let's all blame men again for something that should also be of concern to women.
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:07 pm
I'll give the author some credit that responsibility is there, but not on societys views of things.
Who are society, men and women. Frankly since there are more women mainly women.
Encouraging men to sleep around, I might go with it doesn't punish men for this but not encourage.
"burns a woman at the stake when the most precious blessing imaginable, a child, is bought into this world."
Extreme exageration I'd say society supports her, not burns her at the stake.
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:07 pm
Oh please, we've heard this one a million times before, 'keep it in your pants'
Funny how he doesn't say that women should 'keep it in their pants'
I very much doubt she protests outside abortion clinics telling pregnant women they 'should have kept it in their pants'
Also, 'patriarchal society' means nothing. If it means that men dominate positions of power, then it is accurate. But feminists traditionally make two assumptions from this.
That A: Men in power benefits other men, which it does not, men have to live with more disadvantage than women as a whole, always have.
and B: That men in power has anything to with birth control, sex, sexual relations, marriage, pregnancy, children, or anything else remoteley related to this subject.
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:09 pm
"What's more, a large number of single by choice women earn more money than the majority of men, so 'going after their pay check' is not a motivation for becoming pregnant, and men are kidding themselves if they think it is."
That is an interesting argument except you missed one important thing.
If these women are single by choice... and out earn men by so much that going after their pay check has absolutely nothing to do with it... why not just goto a sperm bank?
The only fundamental difference for these women between getting impregnated in that scenario versus some guy they have no intention of settling down with is the fact that in the second situation you can offset the expenses of raising that child by whatever the child support payment is.
If they just goto a sperm bank they are totally on their own financially.
While I don't believe that a pay check is the "motivation" for them getting pregnant... what I do believe is that many women in that situation perform a quick subconscious calculation and determine that it is cheaper to raise a child that is subsidized than to raise one that isn't.
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:14 pm
Note: B was not a common feminist assumption, rather the assumption that Ruby has made in this article.
"What's more, a large number of single by choice women earn more money than the majority of men, so 'going after their pay check' is not a motivation for becoming pregnant, and men are kidding themselves if they think it is.
Evidence please? I doubt very much that single mothers earn more than the average single male. What's more, the existence of poor single mothers is the very reason that myths like the 'feminisation of poverty' are allowed to manifest.
"The bottom line here is I think it's inherently sad that society ENCOURAGES men to sleep around without taking responsibility for contraception, ENCOURAGES men not to marry women their own age, ENCOURAGES women to take control of their destiny, and then burns a woman at the stake when the most precious blessing imaginable, a child, is bought into this world.
I have never seen society ENCOURAGE men to sleep around. In the UK right now we have a series of ads trying to dissuade young men and women from sleeping around. I'm pretty sure that a young man's libido is more involved in his sexual choices than what 'society' (whatever that means exactly) 'tells' him to do.
Again, I don't see what age has to do with anything. But men choosing younger spouses, and women choosing older ones is 100% biological. There is a wealth of psychological literature out there about it, try reading some.
And what the hell? Burning a woman at the stake when a child is born? What on earth are you talking about? Take an example of a recent news article. The author was shocked that a woman had sterilised herself because she didn't want to have kids. She was chastised for NOT having kids, hardly seems like being burnt at the stake for having them.
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:15 pm
"and a woman telling you she's on birth control to meet HER biological urge for sex?"
Because she can be on BC easily, and if she is honest about not being on it, men would still have sex just use a condom. So it is not her bio urge to have sex it is her bio urge to have kids.
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:18 pm
"What's the difference between a man telling you he loves you so that he can satisfy HIS biological urge for sex, and a woman telling you she's on birth control to meet HER biological urge for sex?
Okay something else occurs to me about this.
He'd only have sex if she was on birth control so she lied. But by Ruby's own statement "inherently sad that society ENCOURAGES men to sleep around without taking responsibility for contraception,..
Who abdicated the responsibilty in your scenairio Ruby?
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:23 pm
Can someone tell me what sorts of contraception there are for men. I mean, women can poke holes in condoms, and vasectimies are too permanent. What would all women do if men were required to get the snip at puberty? They would whine endlessly about not being able to have children.
Although I think she makes some good points, I believe she is missing the big picture. I may write mor on this later.
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:26 pm
Ruby,
Hmm, let's see . . .
1) " . . . keep it in your pants."
OK, that goes for women too. On, but, I forgot. Women are not responsible for their behavior. Only MEN are responsible for women's behavior.
2) "If you didn't have to pay, would you even care?"
Why would the childless men who do not pay child support reply to your essay if they didn't care? Use your head, Ruby.
3) "The real issue here is that our patriarchal society can't deal with the fact that men have lost control of a number of their women, after years of being able to have their cake and eat it too."
Ahh, the old PATRIARCHAL SOCIETY argument. Christ, is this the first time you've been here? Come up with something new.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Ruby, your writing is typical of most feminist rant. Catchphrases in place of logic; hysterical screed in place of reason; and whining, whining, whining.
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:29 pm
"Burns women at the stake" when a child is brought into the world?
Did I just read that?
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:41 pm
I cannot wait for safe, reliable, male BC pills to be available on the market. In clinical trials they are virtually 100% effective, reversible withing months, and only report mild weight gain as a side effect. It will be very interesting to see what happens when these hit the market in 5-10 years.
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:45 pm
"It will be very interesting to see what happens when these hit the market in 5-10 years."
I anticipate that many of societies social ill's will begin to see positive reform as soon as people aren't forced into parenthood against their will.
The question of course is how affordable and available with such things be.
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:47 pm
"If you didn't have to pay, would you even care?"
Some men (particularly the jerks from another post who some women find attractive) would not care and would adopt an (I'll-let-her-care-for-the-children-and-move-on) reproduction strategy.
Most men bond with their children.
The "main issue" is not just having to pay arbitrary amounts of child support. The "main issue" is that our government does not treat us as human beings with parental rights enforced by due process.
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:48 pm
From Ruby, a feminist reader:
"Men, if you don't want a baby, stop feigning 'shock and awe' [when a woman gets pregnant] and keep it in your pants. What is sex for? I personally think it's amusing that women are being just as 'devious' as men to meet their biological urges. What's the difference between a man telling you he loves you so that he can satisfy HIS biological urge for sex, and a woman telling you she's on birth control to meet HER biological urge for sex?
*****Big Difference!!!....Having Sex and Having a CHILD are two different things. Telling a woman that you love them does NOT commit you to 18 yrs of responsibility. A woman LYING about being on the pill or some other sort of contraception has much more far reaching consequences. So you are saying that if a man tells a woman that he loves her to get her in bed that its ok for a woman to lie to a man about being on the pill!!! Thats ignorant.******
"Children are the NATURAL product of sex but our society has so many social constructs in place, and tells all young men to go forth and copulate without consequences, that we've forgotten that. The real issue here is that our patriarchal society can't deal with the fact that men have lost control of a number of their women, after years of being able to have their cake and eat it too.
Most husbands support anything thier wife wants to do. Marriages are SUPPOSED to be equal. The patriarchal society you mention hasnt existed in decades but you and the rest of your "stuck in the sixites" bra-burning sychophantic crowd would have the world believe that men are as a whole are all rapists, batterers, abusers and only interested in keeping women in the kitchen barefoot and pregnant. You and your ilk think that just because a man has a penis that he instantly becomes capable of commiting a sexual assualt on a woman....does the fact that a woman has a vagina instantly make her a whore??She has the equipment so it must be so.
"What's more, a large number of single by choice women earn more money than the majority of men, so 'going after their pay check' is not a motivation for becoming pregnant, and men are kidding themselves if they think it is.
You just reversed yourself about a patricarchal society. If women earn more then men then that would mean that there is no patricarchy because those women are on an equal footing.
"The bottom line here is I think it's inherently sad that society ENCOURAGES men to sleep around without taking responsibility for contraception, ENCOURAGES men not to marry women their own age, ENCOURAGES women to take control of their destiny, and then burns a woman at the stake when the most precious blessing imaginable, a child, is bought into this world.
***Once again your facts are in error.....A Man who has a child with more then one woman is seen as a dog, an irresponsible father as well as someone who cannot keep them it in thier pants. They are given no support form any Federal, State or local entities no matter how hard they may be trying to keep up with thier responsibilities. A woman however, can have 4 children with 4 different men and very little is said about it. The Federal, State and local agencies will line up to give her everything she needs from WIC,Medical, Food Stamps if she needs them and put all of the resources of child support enforcement at her disposal because she is OBVIOUSLY the victim. But according to you thats ok.....because she is getting her revenge for him telling her he loved her right?? Again the ignorance you display in this posting is amazing.***
"From what the majority of men on this board have to say, the main issue of an unexpected pregnancy that they resent is having to pay for a child. If you didn't have to pay, would you even care?"
***No for the majority of men on this board unexpected pregnancy is NOT the main issue. The main issues are paternity fraud, the overwhelming and unrealistic child support awards that are based only on the fathers income with no regards to the mother, the unwillingness of the family court system to hold the mother to the SAME level of responsibilty that they hold men, the unwillingness of SOCIETY to hold women as accountable as they do men for the raising of the child and thier alomst outright refusal to allow credit for shared parenting, The heavy handed tactics used by the CSEs to enforce court orders against men but thier reluctance to hold women, and to finsih the list because I could on forever the refusal of the courts to prosecute women who dont pay (a higher percentage then men if you comepare an equal amount) to the same standard as men are.***
The fact you even wrote something like this just shows that you are not interested in the facts of anything. You want revenge plain and simple.Reading between the lines it looks like you had a bad relationship,YOU picked the wrong guy, YOU got pregnant by that guy, YOU believed that he lied to you but now YOU want to lump all of us in this category. Im also willing to bet that YOU think its his responsibility to provide you with a living just because you had a child. You rail against the patriarchy yet you will put on the tears and play the victim as long as it gets you what you want. But in a mans case you expect us to "Man Up" and "Keep it in our pants"
Perhaps you and others like you should have kept your legs closed.
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:55 pm
If you're a man and you sleep with a girl without using a condom, you're a fool.
But that doesn't mean it's not really horrible for the guy if the girl gets pregnant, and he has absolutely no choice about becoming a father or not.
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:59 pm
I think when girls say 'I love you', it means 'I love you and therefore let's do everything together and settle down together'.
What she fails to realize is that often when a man says 'I love you', it means exactly that, without the subsequent need to become attached. So this is really an issue of miscommunication -- she hears the 'let's be together forever' without the man actually saying it.
March 3rd, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Choice for Men, a super men's rights issue
Ruby is degrading her readers by demeaning them as stupid for not realizing women get pregnant.
That's not what shocks the men.
What shocks the men is that a woman would choose to exploit a child as a power tool to get the parent of this child to fork over money to her. This may sound strange to her, but men don't fantasize about raising bastard children alone as "fun". It shocked my foreign born wife that a woman could do such a thing but it also amazed her that we have welfare which rewards women for having children into poverty.
Society does encourage men to have sex. Hell, it degrades them as losers if they don't. But at the same time, it also encourages women to sleep around with images such as Brittany Spears and feminists proclaiming that women have abortion rights and contraceptive options. So it must surprise the men when women turn out to be helpless, lost deer-in-the-forest waifs who can't help but squeeze out babies after having sex they regard as icky. If the women didn't want sex and regarded it as a baby making activity, why did they do it?
Your argument that men should regard women as bastard baby making machines is pregnant, pun intended, with the presumption that women are lowlifes even moreso than men. Having casual sex, while irresponsible, is not on the same level as squeezing out helpless wards of the state. And don't lecture us about the importance and holiness of parenthood. 49 out of 50 states now allow women to legally abandon their infants because so many of them were left in dumpsters. When your gender isn't killing or starving their own babies to death left and right, you'll be in a position to condescend towards us.
March 3rd, 2008 at 1:04 pm
---"Men, if you don't want a baby, stop feigning 'shock and awe' [when a woman gets pregnant] and keep it in your pants.”
Women, stop feigning “shock and awe” when you get pregnant and want an abortion, just keep your panties on.
---“ What's the difference between a man telling you he loves you so that he can satisfy HIS biological urge for sex, and a woman telling you she's on birth control to meet HER biological urge for sex?”
That’s easy; it’s called a “baby”.
---"Children are the NATURAL product of sex but our society has so many social constructs in place, and tells all young men to go forth and copulate without consequences, that we've forgotten that.”
“Have we forgotten that 1,500,000 abortions take place every year in this country and that the only ones with any effective birth control are women? Yes, men should keep it in their pants, but its women who reward him for the selfish act.” (It takes two to tango)
---“The real issue here is that our patriarchal society can't deal with the fact that men have lost control of a number of their women, after years of being able to have their cake and eat it too.”
Seems to me women want all the cake; how about sharing some of that cake.
---"What's more, a large number of single by choice women earn more money than the majority of men, so 'going after their pay check' is not a motivation for becoming pregnant, and men are kidding themselves if they think it is.
No, I know there are a multitude of reasons for this and it all centers around the “wants” of the mother and not the “needs” of the father and child.
---"The bottom line here is I think it's inherently sad that society ENCOURAGES men to sleep around without taking responsibility for contraception, ENCOURAGES men not to marry women their own age, ENCOURAGES women to take control of their destiny, and then burns a woman at the stake when the most precious blessing imaginable, a child, is bought into this world.
Without spelling it out for you it’s clear you have that whole thing completely backwards. When will women ever accept responsibility for anything?
---"From what the majority of men on this board have to say, the main issue of an unexpected pregnancy that they resent is having to pay for a child. If you didn't have to pay, would you even care?"
I’m sure you and your feminist cohorts are the only ones who care about anything.
Grow up Ruby.
Kevin Merck
March 3rd, 2008 at 1:06 pm
And any lie is wrong. The argument "you're doing it too" is immature. But the man's I love you lie does not come with the 18 years of child support without seeing your children that the woman's lie comes with.
Men lie the most, women tell the biggest lies... A man lie is 'I was at Kevin's house!' A woman lie is like, 'It's your baby!' -- Chris Rock
March 3rd, 2008 at 1:19 pm
In spite of the hostile source of the article, you can glean one important idea from what our rabid feminazi has written. If you don't want to pay child support for the next twenty plus years, keep your pants on. I understand all too well the male sex drive, but since we are supposedly above the animals, and capable of reason, we can refuse to expose ourselves to such dangers. I am amazed at the number of men who seem astounded that the woman they've been boinking somehow got pregnant as if it's some sort of cruel trick of nature.
If you don't want to be a victim of the Matriarchy, then keep your pants on. It's very simple. If I've been able to do it, so can other men. It's called self-control. I'm not into religion, so I'll refrain from mentioning the idea of morality, but you get my point.
The whole idea of the sex act was to create children, not to be some sort of entertainment with no strings attached.
March 3rd, 2008 at 1:25 pm
One last thing I'd like to point out.
The analogy between lying about love and lying about birth control aren't even remotely equivilant because one is subjective and the other is objective.
If a guy tells someone that they love them... what determines whether or not it is true?... Does the person saying it determine it's truth value?, or does the person hearing it determine it's truth value?... can whether or not someones opinion of it as being true change over time?
By contrast... if a woman tells someone they are on birth control... whether or not it is true is objective reality, it doesn't change with the observer and it doesn't change as a function of time. Either they are or they aren't.
As a result a more appropriate analogy would be with regard to someone lying that they do not have an STD in order to get someone to have unprotected sex with them... or someone lying about being sterile when they aren't.
The analogy Ruby set up just doesn't hold water because she fails to explain how one is to determine whether or not someone is lying about loving you.
March 3rd, 2008 at 1:28 pm
The government creates more financial incentives for women to have babies then to divorce the father.
Amendment to 750 ILCS 5/503(g). 750 ILCS 5/503(g) has been amended (eff. Jan. 1, 2008) to provide that the family court set aside property in a trust for not only the support, maintenance, education, and general welfare of the child, but also for the child’s physical and mental health.
750 ILCS 5/503(g) is Disposition of marital property in Illinois. Every state in America has one.
http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/documents/075000050k503.htm
March 3rd, 2008 at 1:39 pm
Ruby,
The feminist cause would be lost but for the straw man arguments.
What's the difference between a man telling you he loves you so that he can satisfy HIS biological urge for sex, and a woman telling you she's on birth control to meet HER biological urge for sex?
So, you are saying a woman cannot have sex unless she is on birth control?
Further, there is some parallel between a man telling a woman he loves her for sex (dishonest and boorish, to be sure) and a woman lying about her protected status and bringing a child unwanted by 50% of its parentage into this world?
"The bottom line here is I think it's inherently sad that society ENCOURAGES men to sleep around without taking responsibility for contraception, ENCOURAGES men not to marry women their own age, ENCOURAGES women to take control of their destiny, and then burns a woman at the stake when the most precious blessing imaginable, a child, is bought into this world.
Some examples of these "encouragements" (particularly the "burning at the stake" allegation) are necessary to begin to address this.
Ruby, if one believes that noone has the right to use a persons body against their will for their own gratification i.e. rape (and believe it or not, Ruby, men don't think thats ok) then one cannot believe it is ok to use the body of a man to deliberately, and with malice aforethought, bring a child into this world. The money is an issue more often than you would care to admit, but quite beyond that, there is always the issue of a man forced into the role of fatherlessness and a child forced into the role of latchkey kid. All this, because a woman thought she wanted a child, when what she needed was a puppy. Ruby, your diatribe so completely misses the point and you are so clearly wrong on this issue, I simply cannot believe it is anything but a deliberate and concerted effort to misconstrue the point.
March 3rd, 2008 at 1:40 pm
Correction - "forced into the role of fatherlessness" should read "forced into the role of absentee father."
March 3rd, 2008 at 1:49 pm
I wonder if she can reconcile something for me then. I find the "keep it in your pants" argument (especially coming from a so-called feminist) to be pretty offensive. As noted in the comment below from Qi at feministing (with whom, incidentally, our-man Jason was fighting the good fight), feminists are supposed to believe "It's interesting how you buy into the right-wing BS that feminists 'hate men'... oh and they also want access to abortions and contraceptives... so they [women] can safely make love to men."
http://feministing.com/archives/008670.html#comment-136584
What Ruby doesn't understand is that we ALSO want [paper] abortions and contraceptives so we [men] can safely make love to women. So it is not men that "want their cake and eat it too" it is women (and feminists).
March 3rd, 2008 at 1:54 pm
(incidentally I love taking their words and throwing it back in their face...sometimes it is entertaining to see how sexist feminists really are...oh when oh when will they embrace egalitarianism???)
March 3rd, 2008 at 2:01 pm
Sorry if this is already covered. Too many replies for me to read.
Anyway, I'm really tired of the feminist line that if men don't want children, they should keep it in their pants. Based on this logic, if women don't want children, they should keep theirs in their pants also. And the obvious extension of that, it seems to me, is that we should be able to do away with women's right to abortion and adoption and the right to drop her child off at the nearest fire department or hospital within a certain amount of time after birth with no repercussions if she changes her mind about keeping her child.
Could American women handle true equality?
March 3rd, 2008 at 2:05 pm
Sad fact is these days its cheaper to hire a hooker 3 or 4 times a week than it is to get divorced
March 3rd, 2008 at 2:06 pm
The message, as usual, is that it isn't a woman's fault she gets pregnant - it's a man's fault and they have to deal with the consequences. It takes two to "sleep around" and there is no condemnation for the women who are willing participants is "sport fornication."
On some bizarre level, she is correct and men should take heed.
I wonder what's going to happen to society when men, en masse, get vasectomies right outta the gate in order to protect themselves?
I'm dreading the reality that, as of this moment, instead of encouraging my young boys to find the love of their life, get married, and have a family - I will be telling them to do just the opposite, knowing that the lineage will end with them.
What a truly sad state of affairs.
March 3rd, 2008 at 2:12 pm
Jason, great point about subjectivity and objectivity!
March 3rd, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Thanks George... I just don't understand what necessarily makes the guy a liar... my guess is that Ruby considers a guy to be lying about love if for some reason the relationship goes sour somewhere down the road. However that doesn't actually mean he was lying when he said he loved someone.
Love being an emotional experience isn't something we can just call someone a liar on... the only way they are a liar is if they declare "yeah, I didn't love you but said it anyway just to get what I wanted".
Often we are given lectures by women that feelings shouldn't be called into question and that they need to be validated and accepted... I guess that doesn't apply when a man says he loves someone.
Ultimately no woman should be having sex with a guy because of HIS emotions... she should be having sex with the guy because of HER emotions.
It's just another responsibility shifting scheme that strives to put men in total control of the situation while leaving women powerless... as if any man could just walk up to any woman on the street, say "I love you" and have her back at their apartment moments later.
March 3rd, 2008 at 2:30 pm
The answer to all of this is to read Roe v Wade sometime.
The argument of the majority is that women have a right to abortion so that they can choose to be free from the burdens of motherhood. Under the 14th Amendment, the same right must be available to men to qualify as equal protection under the law.
March 3rd, 2008 at 2:36 pm
It is good that Ruby's comments are aired for inspection. They epitomize the reason why opposition to the feminist attitudes displayed must be unrelenting, if gender equity will ever be obtained. I assume that Ruby is, all in all, a nice person. I am sorry that she has been infected with a philosophy / pathology that panders simultaneously to both victimhood (so that one can feel sorry for oneself and escape any "blaming"), and gender superiority (so that one can self-validate every privilege and advantage received by themselves, and justify the deprivation of privilege to the inferior gender).
An obvious problem resulting from putting on the "blinkers" of feminist ideology is the abandonment of both logic and fairness. Ruby confuses the very different concepts of desire for sex (which both genders have), and desire for children (which both genders also have): "What's the difference between a man telling you he loves you so that he can satisfy HIS biological urge for sex, and a woman telling you she's on birth control to meet HER biological urge for sex?" Feminism allows Ruby to justify women's intentional paternity fraud -- denying a man any control whatsoever over his own reproductive ability, and bringing a child into the world who needs a father, but whose father has every right to be resentful and bitter that the only reason that the child exists is because he was knowingly "raped" (denied the right to control his own reproduction) by the mother.
Feminism also allows Ruby to decry young men's rampant "seed sowing," while failing to acknowledge the other side of the coin: that young women (who used to have to be "chaste" -- now an obsolete concept) are now as rampant in dispensing their "favors" as the guys are in taking what turns out to be the "bait."
Finally, feminism allows Ruby to present as some sort of "victory" for women the fact that women are 1) having to forego any expectation of voluntary financial support from a man, 2) having to forego any expectation of voluntary procreation by a man, and so 3) are forced to resort to reproductive and financial "rape" in order to fulfill their biological need to have babies. The price? In a world where the best thing that a man can do for his children is to love their mother, we have a growing tsunami of children born to fathers who have every reason to hate their mother, and not be involved in their lives. I am proud to see how many men get past the sins of the mother and love their children notwithstanding.
So, so sad. But, whatever sympathy we may have for Ruby personally, the poison that has clouded her mind and robbed her of any empathy or sense of proportion or justice cannot be tolerated. It must be resisted, and finally eradicated. It's in the best interest of the children.
March 3rd, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Ultimately no woman should be having sex with a guy because of HIS emotions... she should be having sex with the guy because of HER emotions.
That's so damn straight.
Did you see my comment above about why girls think a guy is lying? I think it's sometimes because a girl thinks if a guy loves her he must do all the things she would do if she loved him. What do you think?
March 3rd, 2008 at 3:02 pm
"Did you see my comment above about why girls think a guy is lying? I think it's sometimes because a girl thinks if a guy loves her he must do all the things she would do if she loved him. What do you think?"
I think you're pretty much on target. I also believe that this is the sort of thing we all do to some extent or another... and in some respects it is fair... in others it isn't.
Here is what I mean... I think it is perfectly fair to expect someone to love you the way that you love them... that part is fine.
What isn't fine is declaring that if they don't love you the way you love them that it inherently means that they do not love you.
There is a distinct difference between being loved the way we want to be loved (something everyone has the right to expect)... and using ones own emotional measuring stick to determine the feelings that someone else has (something no one has the right to do).
If I tell someone I love them I mean it... they don't then get to tell me it must be a lie because I didn't take them to their favorite restaurant on valentines day, or because I decided to spend some extra time with my best friend when they wanted me around.
That sort of behavior is emotional extortion (i.e. "if you loved me you would... " ) that is then used to fuel this sort of statement that his love is a lie since he didn't do what he was told when love was made the condition.
March 3rd, 2008 at 3:05 pm
Don't you love the way feminists dismiss any male discontent as the whining of someone desperately trying told on to power?
March 3rd, 2008 at 3:06 pm
That should of course read "TO HOLD on to power". So much for being pithy.
March 3rd, 2008 at 3:16 pm
What men want are choices. The same choices that women have.
What women want is for women to have all the choices and men to have none.
Right now women have all the choices and they are STILL not happy.
What women don't want is for men to have equality when it comes to children.
March 3rd, 2008 at 3:19 pm
"What's more, a large number of single by choice women earn more money than the majority of men, so 'going after their pay check' is not a motivation for becoming pregnant, and men are kidding themselves if they think it is.... Evidence please? I doubt very much that single mothers earn more than the average single male. What's more, the existence of poor single mothers is the very reason that myths like the 'feminisation of poverty' are allowed to manifest."
Some "single mothers by choice "earn more than the average single male. But the number is really quite miniscule, because very few single women who are smart and educated enough to outearn the average single male deliberately opt for single motherhood, and the few that do are either lesbian or desperate about approaching menopause. They're mostly smart enough to know that single motherhood is not a smart choice for either themselves or their kids.
As for the others, who are mostly poor, collecting child support/welfare probably isn't their main motivation, but it makes it a lot easier to make the wrong decision.
March 3rd, 2008 at 3:25 pm
David: "What women don't want is for men to have equality when it comes to children."
I do think there is a segment of the female population (I won't comment on the size of this segment) that want to hold on tightly to female privilege. The irony is they (ie: feminists) attack men for trying to hang on to male privilege when in reality many of the "privileges" they seem to think we have are long gone - if we ever had them to begin with. If feminists were truly egalitarian they would turn their sights on female privilege now.
Feminism has become a movement that fights not for "equality" but for women's rights. There is a BIG difference there.
March 3rd, 2008 at 3:27 pm
Hmm, I count 5 paragraphs from Ruby. Each paragraph is based on an argument that is so distorted as to be ridiculous. If you had any trouble seeing the problems, read below....
Para.1: (Massive MisAccounting) She implies there is no difference between the damage/cost of a child out of wedlock/single mom and a one night stand not in love. This is a massive does-not-equal. The average cost to the man: $500,000 over 18 years. The average cost to the woman: guilt/anger for a week or two: hmm, $500. A thousand to one ratio of damage/cost shows these feminists are hype and no substance.
Para. 2: (Strawman Argument/ Conspiracy Theory) 'The Patriarchy': this feminist dogma makes no sense. If men wanted a patriarchy, we would put a real one in place, like the Arabs have. The truth is, we don't want that, it seems wrong and stupid to us. Sure, there are cultures that are more or less that way around the world. Putting in their place a few women would be no problem for men, jeesh, we are 3x stronger, and way better tacticians. Believe that we want equal rights for women.
Para. 3: (Extreme Case Does Not Prove Big Point) There are about 5 really good reasons why the Family Court system is really bad for the world. Pointing out that one of the reasons in some very few cases is not as prevalent does not disprove even that reason, much less the other 4 or so. A woman who makes 150% of what the guy makes, but gets 75% custody, still gets paid child support, for a nice unearned bonus to her income.
Para. 4: (Bald Faced Misinformation) Women are not getting burned at the stake, they are getting paid really really well to destroy the family and damage their children.
Para. 5: (Strawman/Extreme Case Does Not Prove Big Point) Again: there are about 5 really important problems about the Family Law Crisis.
March 3rd, 2008 at 3:32 pm
And if I do want my baby, and she enjoys tormenting me by keeping my baby away from me, what then, Ruby?
March 3rd, 2008 at 3:35 pm
Excellent analysis Weiss!
March 3rd, 2008 at 3:36 pm
Lance: "Feminism has become a movement that fights not for "equality" but for women's rights. There is a BIG difference there."
Lance you are correct. Women have more than equality at this point. I would say they are not fighting for women's rights, they have that. Their agenda is power not equality.
March 3rd, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Don't you love the way feminists dismiss any male discontent as the whining of someone desperately trying told on to power?
Patrick I noticed that a while ago. Its as simple as this: Feminists want to cry that men hold all the cards in society while sneaking around trying to get all the cards to themselves. They have to maintain the image of this "patriarchy" in order to garner support for their cause. They must have an enemy to fight, they must have something to smash, they must have something to brainwash their women's studies students and DV counselors with.
Think about the double standards that feminsts try to maintain:
They cry from the mountain that men must take responsibility for the sexual acts but will then say that once the child is concieved he must abide what the mother does.
They quote painfully false "statistics" and when men use stats to back up their own arguments they try (and usually fail) to pick them apart by using more false "statistics" as "proof". This is espcially true when it comes to rape.
When anyone that disagrees with them comes to their sites they respond with "if you have such a strong opinion why don't you go make your own site," and when you do they come over and do exactly what they accused you of doing.
And my personal favorite: Feminsts like to chant that women and men are equals right? Then why is it that they abolutely refuse to believe the fact that a woman can initiate DV a man and cause substantial damage? Their response is usually to the effect of, "So exactly how did this small woman hurt a guy 2-3 times her size? She must be Jet Li or something." Funny I thought women were just as capable as men in all walks of life (including becoming martial arts masters). Or does that only count when there is no negative to account for.
March 3rd, 2008 at 3:49 pm
Yeah....sorry, this is just someone saying "That's just the way it is, deal with it" yet again. Oh sure, she thinks she's justified in her hatred because someone "lied" to her in the past, and she's apparently still hurt by it, but this is not justification. This is also not explanation. This is simply acknowledgment and dismissal, same as always.
If you ever meet a woman with this attitude on men's reproductive rights...RUN, run really far away, and not now, but right now.
March 3rd, 2008 at 3:51 pm
"What's the difference between a man telling you he loves you so that he can satisfy HIS biological urge for sex, and a woman telling you she's on birth control to meet HER biological urge for sex?"
The former is a little dishonest because it results in some temporary hurt feelings. One is very dishonest because it results in a PERMANENT burden on the lives of all THREE people now involved. Next question.
March 3rd, 2008 at 3:54 pm
Ruby,
"The real issue here is that our patriarchal society can't deal with the fact that men have lost control of a number of their women, after years of being able to have their cake and eat it too."
MCA, Thats the real issue as you see it!!
I see the real issue is that modern gender feminists are using faulty statistics and even outright lies to create cultural anti-male mass hysteria: to the degree that men are no longer receiveing equal protection under the law.
March 3rd, 2008 at 3:55 pm
Well whaddya know, here's the next question!
"From what the majority of men on this board have to say, the main issue of an unexpected pregnancy that they resent is having to pay for a child. If you didn't have to pay, would you even care?"
For the same reason why women who have unplanned pregnancies and henceforth seek abortions care.
Seriously lady, I'm not even breaking a sweat here. Can't give me SOMETHING that requires a few brain cells?
March 3rd, 2008 at 4:03 pm
MCA- "I see the real issue is that modern gender feminists are using faulty statistics and even outright lies to create cultural anti-male mass hysteria: to the degree that men are no longer receiveing equal protection under the law."
Perfect.
March 3rd, 2008 at 4:07 pm
As suggested by Demonspawn, the following text (without the enumerations) is from the Roe vs. Wade opinion.
***********************************
This right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment's concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the District Court determined, in the Ninth Amendment's reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy. The detriment that the State would impose upon the pregnant woman by denying this choice altogether is apparent.
1)Specific and direct harm medically diagnosable even in early pregnancy may be involved.
2) Maternity, or additional offspring, may force upon the woman a distressful life and future.
3) Psychological harm may be imminent. Mental and physical health may be taxed by child care.
4) There is also the distress, for all concerned, associated with the unwanted child, and there is the problem of bringing a child into a family already unable, psychologically and otherwise, to care for it.
********************
In other cases, as in this one, the additional difficulties and continuing stigma of unwed motherhood may be involved. All these are factors the woman and her responsible physician necessarily will consider in consultation.
March 3rd, 2008 at 4:20 pm
Ruby
"The bottom line here is I think it's inherently sad that society ENCOURAGES men to sleep around"
MCA.
Wow i don't know what planet youre on, but you definatelly are out of touch with generation x.
Women can now sleep with multiple men with whenever they want to.
Men now sleep with few.. because men now put their life in her hands when he sleeps with a women.
Women now have 30 days from the time of intercourse for her to decide if she really wanted to do it or was it a rape??? Thats alot of power she has, and should men be afraid ...yes!!
March 3rd, 2008 at 4:25 pm
"The bottom line here is I think it's inherently sad that society ENCOURAGES men to sleep around without taking responsibility for contraception, ENCOURAGES men not to marry women their own age, ENCOURAGES women to take control of their destiny, and then burns a woman at the stake when the most precious blessing imaginable, a child, is bought into this world."
Society this and society that, men bad, women precious yakkity yakkity yak.
Society, the nonexistent force we can blame for anything to puff up an empty argument.
Society be damned, I pursue younger women because I like them.
March 3rd, 2008 at 4:25 pm
women/girls...when you're 40 and the clock is ticking, and you still cannot find a husband, think about a class action lawsuit against the college that indoctrinated you and started this gender war!!
March 3rd, 2008 at 4:29 pm
As suggested by Demonspawn, the following text (without the enumerations) is from the Roe vs. Wade opinion.
Ya, it's a real F-ing landmine when you actually read it, isn't it?
RvW has NOTHING to do with "a woman controlling her own body" and has EVERYTHING to do with "a woman having the right to avoid motherhood".
Why don't men have the same right? On what basis is the 14th Amendment of the Constitution denied to us?
March 3rd, 2008 at 4:29 pm
JayR says "It is good that Ruby's comments are aired for inspection. They epitomize the reason why opposition to the feminist attitudes displayed must be unrelenting, if gender equity will ever be obtained. I assume that Ruby is, all in all, a nice person."
Hello Jay,
Where did you get the impression she's a nice person? She's cruelly taking delight in men having to pay thousands per year for a significant portion of their life for having sex. She thinks it's okey-dokey for women to exploit bastard children for fun and profit. She has no concern for the children's welfare beyond getting money out of them.
Quite frankly, crocodiles are better mothers than such women.
"Gender equity" is a nice term, but it sounds too close to "equality" which is impossible. Women and men are different both in terms of obvious biology as well as thinking and reasoning. Even "nice feminists", ultimately, want the two biggest goodies men have traditionally had (higher pay in the workplace/voting rights) while grabbing all of the other traditionalist goodies they can keep their hands on even if they have to hold a baby hostage to do it.
This particular issue shows that it's not mere feminism that makes women into monsters but rather the opportunity to do so. Feminism doesn't make women put babies into trash dumpsters. Or gestate children to collect welfare benefits or "child" support. This is just one issue, out of many, that transcends feminism and man-hating attitudes. Ruby's philosophy is that if a man sleeps with a woman, he DESERVES to be financially "raped". A baby in a woman's womb is something that deserves to have it's brains sucked out because it's in her tummy. If a firestation is too far away for her to walk, then it's society's fault if she murders it and tosses it into a dumpster.
And lo and behold, you're still trying to assume she's a nice person and have an equitable relationship with her. Do you keep baby alligators in your bathtub too?
March 3rd, 2008 at 4:33 pm
Controlling one's body myth
The RvW decision wasn't supposedly about a woman controlling her body but about "privacy". It's a poor decision since privacy is a legal concept that is seperate from legality. Police require a court order to inspect my home and papers to see if I'm doing something not legal. But that doesn't mean that I'm allowed to do anything I like in my home. (Far from it.)
We don't have either a "bodily privacy" or "bodily right" to use illegal drugs, engage or purchase prostitutes, have sex with someone while carrying a disease (and being aware of this), etc. This so-called bodily privacy right, which isn't really about privacy, doesn't exist anywhere else. It's illogical.
March 3rd, 2008 at 4:46 pm
RvW's items 2 and above seem to apply equally to fathers - except for "maternity" in 2.
You're right Demonspawn, its a landmine.
I"m wondering why the "Roe vs. Wade for Men" case didn't have more credibility given RvW's lack thereof.
March 3rd, 2008 at 4:48 pm
PK,
You take issue with Jay R. saying "I assume that Ruby is, all in all, a nice person."
Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!
If you look closely, though, you will see that my qualified, back-handed compliment is a device, used in peremptory fashion to avoid criticism that I just hate Ruby personally, as I go on to, in effect, accuse her of being deranged and corrupted on the topic of gender relations. After all, I have no reason to think that she goes around kicking puppies and stealing from the collection plate, right? It may just be in this one area that she exhibits such a nasty, toxic attitude.
March 3rd, 2008 at 4:52 pm
MILES: Good Post.
1. Deals with a miniscule number of pregnancies. 2.3. and4. deal with feelings and not logic.
Feelings are not supposed to determine law as people have different feeling in similar situations and different feelings at different times.
March 3rd, 2008 at 4:55 pm
According to feminists:
If a man goes out and has several children with different women he is called a philanderer and a bastard.
If a woman goes out and has several children with different men she is called a victim.
March 3rd, 2008 at 5:49 pm
This particular nut-job doesn't seem cabable of seeing reality from other than her own unreal perspective.
Imagine that back in the days when there really was no such thing as safe abortion,
1. men were free to deceive women into pregnancy (e.g., holes in condoms just to keep it simple),
2. men were then free to take the resulting child away from the mother,
3. men were then able to go into court and in a few minutes, get awarded a 20 year slave contract on the woman's future work and wages therefrom, and
4. men could have the mother from whom they took the child (after coercing/duping her into pregnancy), thrown into jail if her earnings were not up to snuff.
This is what America's courts are doing to American men.
And the notion that female "sperm-trapping" behavior is not rampant in this country is pure folly.
The means through which a women can "sperm trap" a man range from deception through direct physical interventions, including violent ones. If this feminist or other female readers aren't bright enough to comprehend how this can and does go on, then, I'm not sure it serves the interests of mankind to publish here the methods used by some of your gender.
Very sad that honest, nice women in America are seeing their gender being increasingly tarred by the errant thinking and lawless actions of other women, including the nut-job who wrote the drivel referenced above.
March 3rd, 2008 at 5:52 pm
How much do you want to bet if and when this is on the market , women will be claiming that this violate their rights to reproduce.
March 3rd, 2008 at 6:11 pm
Hello,
This is an interesting one, especially as I look at my own life. I have 3 children, 2 grown, and I became pregnant last year, apparently after an antibiotic upset my birth control cycle.
I had been in a relationship with 'Dad" for more than 3 years. He'd never used any birth control. I told him what had happened, and he seemed reasonable and said, OK, since I did nothing to prevent it, I'll pay for the abortion...except that he never did. I sat outside of 3 clinics before 5 appointments, feeling all of the mixed feelings a woman experiences, waiting for him to show up and he was too busy....and too cheap. By the tine I realized he was...who he was, and had no integrity, it was too late to have a procedure.
I asked him how a few hundred dollars could be so important to him (he makes 6 figures) compared to a life and told him what had happened and he laughed and said "you f----ed up, you deal with it!" and proceeded to make my life miserable.
I now have a beautiful 5 month old son, and his father has not only been a complete---who he is, he has threatened our lives (I had to get a restraining order) , harassed my at workplaces until I was fired, refuses to pay support, lied to the courts about his income and his conduct, and expressed NO interest in his son at all (except wanting him dead) until I got the final restraining order walked away in disgust.
NOW all of a sudden he wants to meet this little baby boy who cannot even sit up on his own and have visitation...without supervision...and he 's never once asked about his health, could not remember when he was born and does not even know or care to ask what color his eyes are and refuses to pay any support. Thankfully, the courts ordered supervised visitation until this man meets a few other criteria, such as classes for substance abuse, anger, and parenting.
I found another woman he did the same thing to 18 years ago...EXACT SAME STORY... and this man has made her life a misery or 18 years, all for $175 a month...for 18 years! (he quit his job, went on unemployment, and moved away for 6 years only to come back knocking on thier door when he got curious again, completely disrupting her son's life). She said that going after him for the more than $20,000 he is in arrears is just not worth it because of...who he is.
Her son has been having panic attacks since the age of 12, ran away twice because he did not want to go with his father, has been in jail already, and all of this broke up her subsequent marriage to another man she has a 17 year old with.
I LOVE my son. He is precious, sweet, happy. and innocent. I am an excellent mother who has raised two others who attended gifted schools, are now in college, doing real and valuable things for this planet.
I am afraid for my son...deeply afraid, because I am ordered to allow this man to see him and he doesn't care about him. He has not once even asked for a photograph or offered to buy a package of diapers and he destroyed my livelihood, but refuses to help, and believe me, raising a child alone is not easy or cheap. All he cares about is seeing what he created...after promising to destroy us both.
Could someone please tell me how this is OK? How am I supposed to be OK leaving my little baby with a man like this even for a couple of hours? How is it that he can destroy my income, and I struggle and manage somehow, and he is ordered to pay pittance support when he makes 6 figures a year...and he can refuse and he still gets to see this child he wanted dead?
I can't wait until this male birth control pill comes on the market (and to see how men deal with bloat and weight gain and mood swings that go with it), but I sure hope it's ready soon.
Until then, like it or not, men and women are each 50% responsible for the lives they create. If you don't want to be a parent, then take responsibility for yourself! There are at least 50 ways for a woman to prevent it, and aside from sterilization (which is expensive, highly traumatic, major surgery), there still is NO sure way.
Could someone please tell me how it is that when a man knows he does not want to create new life he does not just get a vasectomy? It is the surest way there is to stop this madness simply by virtue of the fact that men can create many children at a time and a woman can only gestate one every 9 months? My late husband did it after our second was born and we'd decided to stop. It was an outpatient procedure he said was only uncomfortable for 3 days (over a weekend), and far less invasive and less expensive than me having my tubes tied (or being on... medication like I was when I got pregnant this time).
To be honest, after that, our love life got even better. We were more free and relaxed than ever before...because there were no worries...and we were really in love and could just play.
When things got nasty with the man who is the father of my son, I asked him why he didn't just do the world a favor and take responsibility for his body. He laughed and said "I'm not getting my nuts cut off. You're the one who F-----d up." How is it that people can live in a world of fantasy where they think they can just do whatever they want and not have to deal with the results of their choices?
THESE ARE LITTLE HUMAN BEINGS, JUST LIKE YOU. THEY ARE NOT THINGS TO BE BOUGHT AND SOLD, UNFEELING OBJECTS TO BE DISPOSED OF OR FOUGHT OVER AND USED TO HURT OTHERS.
THESE ARE BABIES, LITTLE PEOPLE, JUST LIKE YOU. They are precious gifts, sweet, soft, and helpless and meant to be cherished. My son is a gift and he will do amazing things in his life..if he can make it though childhood with his self esteem and heart intact.
I am the LAST one to try to keep a father from his child. I was one of those children growing up in the 70s whose father split and I did not see him again for 20 years, He was a neat guy, but definitely NOT cut out to be a father (he had 3 kids). Finding him and getting to know him gave me a piece of myself I had been missing, but it was not "daddy" that I found.
When you create a child , it is a lifelong relationship, not just for 5 or 10 or 18 years, and the average cost of raising a child over the next 18 years is estimated at $1.5 million.
If your sense of humanity will not inspire taking responsibility for your body, then perhaps your financial planner can convince you, because once you've passed that 16 week time frame at the beginning of life, you're in it for life.
If you do not want kids, please take responsibility for yourself. If everyone did that, there would hardly be a need for this website.
March 3rd, 2008 at 6:13 pm
I recall some feminist saying that "children should not be the punishment for sex", and others denigrating "right wing blble-thumpers" for insisting on unprotected sex, no abortions, etc, and "get the government out of my bedroom, uterus, etc"
Ruby's statements should be taken as an analysis of the current legal and social realities. Women are NOT considered responsible, anything they do is not their fault, lying is OK, and yes, it's for financial gain - she intends to work, AND get your check, in essence, a dual income with out the messy 'dual interest' aspect. She is correct in that women don't even see it as a double standard.
My response is that a legal obligation can be forced on men under circumstances that women would scream "unfair" about, and have several means to avoid, while still engaging in the same behavior. Of course, if a woman WANTS a baby, then she's a saint above and beyond any criticism. No matter how negligent or decitful she was in the child's creation, it's the man's fault, and his responsibility to subsidize her decision, directly or indirectly.
My suggestion is that men and women should be able to enter into a verbal agreement for sex. As a separate issue, men and women can enter into a joint contract for mutual support (aka marriage), that includes support for children that may or may not arise.
March 3rd, 2008 at 6:19 pm
The bottom line is "action breeds reaction."
Ultimately, if you don't want to pay for the consequences of an unwanted pregnancy, keep it in your pants. That is the only logical conclusion anyone can make.
It's your body - and ultimately your life in more than one way.
Quit trying to rationalize the issue.
What a woman thinks about it has not basis upon your own perception of reality.
Don't like condoms? Get a vasectomy.
Women have birth control options. So do you.
Doc
March 3rd, 2008 at 6:28 pm
Women have birth control options. So do you.
But women ALSO have "parent control" options, which men do not.
Why do I not have equal rights to women?
March 3rd, 2008 at 6:35 pm
I can see where she's coming from as she does make some good points, but instead of the transfering of responsibility (because really, does it solve the problem of curbing unwanted pregnancies?) what I'd be interested in is a solution that gives both parties equal options both pre and post conseption.
Women have birth control pills, so should men.
Women can opt out of pregnancy through abortion / adoption / safe haven, something should also be available for men.
Let there be consequences for paternity fraud.
Do NOT pauperise a man with support of another man's child/children.
When we hold both parties accountable, when there's something in it for both parties to lose, maybe then people will start thinking first with their brains, thereafter their privates.
And yes, I've come across men who resent supporting their own kids. It might surprise you to know that there are a lot of mothers in that category too. The simple fact is that such parents (male and female) DO exist.
That said, I've also come across men who don't so much resent supporting their kids, but resent supporting their exes through their kids. Exes for whom they often have very hard feelings. It's a bitter pill to swallow when you have to give your hard-earned money to someone you've probably come to despise. In many cases, it has nothing to do with not wanting to pay child support.
Switch the roles, Ruby, and you'll see that women would be just as bitter, if not more. Not because they don't love their kids, but because they hate their exes.
Not saying this behaviour is admirable (because at the end of the day this SHOULD be about the kids), just that it's understandable.
March 3rd, 2008 at 6:38 pm
Why are you confusing birth control with parental control? Two distinct different issues.
You want unfettered parental control - marry the broad.
Anything else is left to chance.
Myself? I'm not a gambling man.
Doc
March 3rd, 2008 at 6:43 pm
Susan B,
You dated the father of your baby for more than 3 years, and you claim to have had no knowledge about his a**hole tendencies. He never used condoms, but you used no back up to the pill, even when you were on antibiotics. Ruby says that the natural consequence of sex is pregnancy. So, you in effect elected to get pregnant with a man you did not know well enough to have discerned he was a jerk. You also had a desire to get an abortion (knowing that your man did not want to be a father), but were completely incapable of following through on your own, notwithstanding the only impediment was a few hundred bucks, and you have a job.
Then you go on to say that you would never keep a man from his child -- after describing your efforts to do just that.
Hmmm. How much blame do you ascribe to yourself in all of this? Not much, it seems.
March 3rd, 2008 at 6:46 pm
And along comes Davina with excellent words of wisdom -for the most part.
Quote Davina: When we hold both parties accountable, when there's something in it for both parties to lose, maybe then people will start thinking first with their brains, thereafter their privates.
Anyone that stands anything to lose logically should be thinking with their brains and not their privates.
Wrap that rascal if you don't like, desire or want the consequences of what he can do to not only our life, but other's lives as well.
Think of it this way: A woman can get pregnant only once every 10 months. A man can impregnate up to 300 women or more in that same time period.
Who is deadlier? Who has the weapon of mass destruction?
Contain thyself my brothers. You will avoid problems that way.
Doc
March 3rd, 2008 at 6:53 pm
Can any of us remember an argument we’ve had with a girlfriend or wife, when they held the most ridiculous position imaginable, yet we caved into the argument to keep the peace?
Something tells me we’ve all done that.
This is how Roe v Wade and other unconstitutional laws get passed. It’s because the courts are caving in under illogical pressure from women. (Not all women) Women are a powerful force at the polls, in the courtroom, in the home, and if you don’t support their lunacy, you will find yourself without a job and/or living in your car down by the river. (That goes for judges and lawyers too) (Maybe even the president)
Roe v Wade (correct me if I’m wrong on anything here, but please be specific) was passed to allow a woman in the first trimester of pregnancy to have an abortion if she met one of these conditions:
1. Rape
2. Incest
3. Medical advice for the purpose of saving the life of the mother.
Roe was the plaintiff in the case and claimed to be a victim of rape. (Everyone hold your breath … SHE LIED!!!)
She was also in her last trimester when the opinion was rendered. She is now an activist trying to get the decision overturned before she dies. (Smart move)
Now abortion is commonplace with very few restrictions at all. What happened? Simply put, we gave in to nonsensical arguments to make our lives livable.
Ruby and her ilk are completely out of touch with reality and have convinced much of the public that they’re sane. They are hate-mongers bent on destroying any man who doesn’t give in to their irrational arguments.
Kevin Merck
March 3rd, 2008 at 6:55 pm
Susan B.,
Once pregnant, you had ALL the choices.
Congratulations on your choice and a beautiful baby.
March 3rd, 2008 at 6:55 pm
susan, youre story of stealing a mans sperm, then filing a restraining order, then bringing the man to court to pay for a son he cannot see...is becoming the norm!!
For men here, you better wear 5 rubbers, or pay for hookers to have sex!!
The price and burden for men to have children has skyrocketed to the degree that only irresponsible men are having children!!
you go girl!!!
March 3rd, 2008 at 7:00 pm
Susan b,
I am sorry you have experienced this, but once more the straw man - "Could someone please tell me how this is OK?" It is not ok. If all you say is true then it is no less than reprehensible. What I need you to explain to me is this - how does a man consenting to have sex with a woman also constitute consent to father a child by her? If "just keep it in your pants if you don't want children" is a good enough answer for men, why isn't "use the aspirin method of birth control" a good enough answer for a woman?
THESE ARE LITTLE HUMAN BEINGS, JUST LIKE YOU. THEY ARE NOT THINGS TO BE BOUGHT AND SOLD, UNFEELING OBJECTS TO BE DISPOSED OF OR FOUGHT OVER AND USED TO HURT OTHERS.
I believe that is the point MRA's and Fathers Rights Activists have been trying very hard to make for some years now. Noone here needs to be told that. But, if I am not interested in being a father, I believe I am being no more cold blooded about the decision than a woman who, upon learning she is pregnant, chooses an abortion. If you want to put the above quote to good use, perhaps you might spend an afternoon at your local courthouse outside family court - you will find many judges, lawyers and social workers who need to be told exactly that.
Finally, it bears repeating - if what you say about the latest father of your latest child is true, how does that further the argument that a man consenting to have sex with a woman is also consenting to father her child and support that child for 18 years without benefit of being consulted on the decision?
March 3rd, 2008 at 7:01 pm
While I feel for your plight Susan, I do want to point out that you blame the pregnancy on your anti-biotic medication. In some way are you not partially culpable? And while I think the cost of abortion should be "shared", it appears you waited a long time because you were determined not to pay at all. I don't wish to suggest that the "dad" should not have contributed and assisted with that process, but your story does quite the opposite than your conclusion puts forth. It demonstrates why sites like this are absolutely necessary. For example, your example of vasectomy brings about the same question for you, if you did not wish to have another child, why didn't you have your tubes tied? Somehow the traumatic effect of that kind of surgery only applies to you?
Regardless, I wish you well. May your jaded hatred, some of it understandable, be strong enough to overcome the wish to banish this father from your son's life should he fulfill the court's requirements. Like it or not, even a father who you perceive to be a bastard is an important figure to a son.
March 3rd, 2008 at 7:05 pm
Susan b,
"If you do not want kids, please take responsibility for yourself. If everyone did that, there would hardly be a need for this website."
I missed this little tidbit. If everyone did that, there might be one less need for this website - there would still be many more. Over 200 released from prison after DNA cleared them of the rapes of whicxh they were convicted - and thats just the start.
March 3rd, 2008 at 7:31 pm
My imaginary virtual ex-girlfriend Davina wrote --
"When we hold both parties accountable, when there's something in it for both parties to lose, maybe then people will start thinking first with their brains, thereafter their privates..."
The "accountable" part of your argument would require significant legal reform, starting with VAWA.
You cannot legally define one gender as predatory by nature and then expect accountability.
(I was going to say "girl" but I have learned that is an impolite tactical mistake...)
How would you propose that we get from where we are in silly Gender Wars to some kind of "accountability?"
(And BTW -- was Davina the ONLY female to post on this thread? That is either strange or fascinating....)
March 3rd, 2008 at 8:09 pm
Roy,
Ruby and Susan b. may well be like many of the other "drive by commenters" - she doesn't care to engage the issue. Just a salvo of vitriol then a retreat to "Feministing" or "Pandagon" for a round of "you go girlfriend." It would be nice if she defended her comments, and answers some of the very legitimate questions that have been raised.
March 3rd, 2008 at 8:18 pm
I do sometimes visit feministing.com.
But I always feel like I need to take a shower after reading that toxic bile.
Too many visits and my water bill goes through the roof!
Interesting girls there.
Too high maintenance.
March 3rd, 2008 at 8:20 pm
Susan, who are you trying to convince ... yourself or us?
Indeed, if your side of the story is the truth, then this guy is a real piece of work, where the devil did you find him?
But listen, don't try to portray yourself as blameless here. In any situation where a problem involves two people they're usually both at fault to some or the other degree. So you've chosen the wrong thread to play the victim card because you'll never meet a more cynical group of people in your life. You will not, and with good reason judging by your post, get any sympathy from me, or most other people here for that matter, by playing the victim card.
I understand your predicament, but it's quite likely you contributed to it.
First of all, didnt you know the antibiotic was upsetting your cycle? If so, did you insist that he used a condom knowing that you didn't want to have another child?
Furthermore, when a woman and a man decide that they will forego using a condom since the woman is on birth control it is a joint decision ... not the man deciding "not to do anything to stop pregnancy" (btw I know you know he said this and not you). If an agreement wasn't reached, it's likely that he would have done something (if he's rational and sober and 100% sure he doesn't want a baby), and even if he didnt you could have insisted that he used a condom, if YOU were 100% sure you didn't want a baby. The fact is that avoiding a situation which neither of you want is up to you both. As you said, there are no guarantees, so it's unfair of you to be blaming this guy left, right and centre for a situation you contributed to. But, hey, if you want to play the blame game without implicating yourself you should have insisted that you guys come up with an agreed plan B in the event of an accident such as your son.
You say the guy was cheap apparently because he didn't show up to pay for the abortion. By your description of him being "cheap", I take it the procedure was inexpensive ... were you so financially deplete that you couldn't pay for it yourself? Something you're implying you wanted, why not just pay? I happen to remember you said you had income before he got you fired from your job. Why did you have to wait on him?
"Until then, like it or not, men and women are each 50% responsible for the lives they create."
True. But after that it's pretty much your call all the way, whether he likes it or not. How is that fair when you can abort, adopt or leave the kid in the hospital if you're so inclined .... again whether he likes it or not. Now tell me HOW is that OK?
"If you don't want to be a parent, then take responsibility for yourself!"
It's easy for the lion to sweet talk the bird when its already in his mouth because he knows once its in there's no way out. You made an agreement with the guy to not use a condom since you're on the pill, now you're blaming him because he acted according to the plan? I don't get that. What happened was an accident. It wasn't his fault your cycle reacted to the antibiotics. For that matter it was your fault either. It's just life, accidents happen. Where is your responsibility ... when you go about blaming the guy for carrying out a task exactly as you've agreed on without shouldering some of the blame yourself?
"There are at least 50 ways for a woman to prevent it, and aside from sterilization (which is expensive, highly traumatic, major surgery), there still is NO sure way."
I like the way you make this sound like it's huge ball game for a guy to get sterilize.
"...and he can refuse and he still gets to see this child he wanted dead?"
Well, the child would have been dead if his father had shown up with the money so you pretty much wanted him dead too, Susan.
"If your sense of humanity will not inspire taking responsibility for your body, then perhaps your financial planner can convince you, because once you've passed that 16 week time frame at the beginning of life, you're in it for life."
Quit with your shaming tactics already. You seem to be forgetting that this is just as relevant for women as it for men. If you want to use the argument of humanity, if women possessed any of it ... they'd stop having kids out of wedlock with jerk men who will not give their child the love and attention it needs. They will think of the child they're about to bring into the world first (how am I going to feed him/her, is its father reliable, will my child suffer in my circumstances) and not about themselves and their biological clocks or any other clocks. We are the ones who bear the children, therefore we have even more advantage than the men because we can evaluate the circumstances and say you know what bringing a child into this situation would not be within its interest. How many women do you see doing that?
Look at those Single Parent by Choice women ... they think having money is enough to look after a child and that a mother and sstrangers can do a fathers job. I had a wonderful step-dad growing up but he never erased the void living without my biological dad left in my soul.
Quit being the victim, and take your own advice. Be responsible for your own life and body.
I empathise with your son, but I've none whatsoever for you. That might seem harsh, but your victimhood is appaling. I'm also not trying to defend your ex and his repulsive behaviour. I just want to show you how biased and one-sided a woman's world view becomes when she's being influence by feminist propaganda and the lack of suitable male discourse.
Susan displays exactly why we MUST continue to fight the good fight to get the male perspective out there. I'm tired of women going around crying look at poor little old me ... that bad bad man did that to me, this to me. EVERYTHING in these women's life is a man's fault. They're always innocent, taken advantaged of ... just like helpless little children. I'm sick of it.
Grow the hell up!
March 3rd, 2008 at 8:28 pm
Why are you confusing birth control with parental control? Two distinct different issues.
You want unfettered parental control - marry the broad.
You are misunderstanding what I said.
A woman can become pregnant against her desire. That is possible. By that it is also possible that a man can get a woman pregnant against his desire. That is possible as well.
But what is impossible is for a woman to become a mother legally responsible for a child against her will ("parent control") while it happens to men on a regular basis. That is what needs to be corrected.
The argument isn't only about unwanted pregnancies, it's about unwanted parenthood as well.
March 3rd, 2008 at 8:36 pm
I might add that I agree with Doc, in part, while also agreeing with the complaint that women have all the choices after getting pregnant.
I try to get to the "root-cause" of any issue, and Doc's reality is one with which I concur. The man gives the woman "all the rights" by getting her pregnant in the first place. If you want to prevent that from occurring - prevent the pregnancy.
Reality is, while sexual relations with a woman is very exciting and satisfying, I could survive having sex with my own hands for the rest of my life. Really, I could. My hands don't argue with me. They don't cause me unnecessary grief. They don't argue with me. They'll have sex with me anytime I'm ready to go.
The only thing that they cannot give me is a child. If you want children, pray you find the right woman and have children with her (and take your chances). Otherwise, retain your rights by not getting someone pregnant unless it was your intention to do so.
March 3rd, 2008 at 8:39 pm
its her body her choice her responsibility.
March 3rd, 2008 at 8:44 pm
Davina
I'm glad I took the time to read your comment. I wish all women (and men) were that reasonable.
March 3rd, 2008 at 8:47 pm
If one does not wish to fall into the category of being a parent - then one must protect himself / herself.
Part of the problem men face is that the medical profession is unwilling to provide a vasectomy to younger men no matter how much they are opposed to being a parent. If a man does not have any children, regardless of his age, they are also unwilling to perform the procedure.
Another part of the problem is that many men are unwilling to have the procedure - part of that "he man" mentality.
I made a conscious choice not to become a parent.
Too many people - male and female - say they don't want to be a parent - but play roulette.
At that point, in my opinion, everyone deserves what they get.
It's that old "personal responsibility" thing....
Doc
March 3rd, 2008 at 8:54 pm
It's that old "personal responsibility" thing...
What personal responsibility?
Oh, wait, that's right, responsibility only applies to men in today's society.
its her body her choice her responsibility.
Bingo.
March 3rd, 2008 at 9:04 pm
"its her body her choice her responsibility."
Correction: It's her body. It's her choice. THEN it's his responsibility (too), whether he wants it or not. She has all the choices after conception - he does not.
March 3rd, 2008 at 9:07 pm
What's the difference between a man telling you he loves you so that he can satisfy HIS biological urge for sex, and a woman telling you she's on birth control to meet HER biological urge for sex?
The difference is one party is committing fraud & extortion and the other isn't. The woman in question willingly agrees to sleep with the man. So both parties consent to the transaction.
But the man who is a victim of maternity fraud doesn't agree to take on the financial, emotional, and ethical responsibilities of parenthood. In fact the female in question is using deception to gain access to goods and services. The dictionary definition of fraud.
If you don't think that individuals should be able to unilaterally discharge their parental rights and responsibilities after a pregnancy has already occured then that's fine. In that case it's time to outlaw abortion and abandonment. As well as forcing women who adopt their children to pay child support to the government and eventually the couple that adopts their child.
We can't have any dead beat mom's running around now can we?
What's more, a large number of single by choice women earn more money than the majority of men, so 'going after their pay check' is not a motivation for becoming pregnant, and men are kidding themselves if they think it is.
The only one deluding themself is you; if you actually believe that all things being equal a woman looking commit maternity fraud would choose a man who earns less then her. If the child support isn't an issue then she would just go to a sperm bank rather then trying to conn her mark out of a lifetime of earnings. Obviously a maternity fraudster is more interested in someone bankrolling her baby along with getting a large amount of supplemental income.
If you didn't have to pay, would you even care?
Irrelevent. A woman can unilaterally discharge her parental responsibilities at any time, for any reason, without having to explain why to anyone. If feminist's only goal is equality then they should have no problem advocating extending the same right's and responsibilities to men with regards to unintended pregancies as women currently enjoy.
March 3rd, 2008 at 9:07 pm
No Demonspawn, that isn't quite the way that it works.
She can't get pregnant unless a man makes a deposit.
If you don't make a deposit - you have no problem.
If you have unprotected sex and end up with an STD - it is your own responsibility. It isn't her fault. You should have protected yourself.
Your logic - and that of others is along these lines:
You come to an intersection. The light is red. It turns green. You start to race across the intersection the moment that the light turns green.
Someone runs their red light and hits you.
You both are at fault. You should have looked first and made sure that there was no traffic coming. The other person should have stopped.
You both can get booked.
Everyone is responsible for the consequences of what they do or don't do.
Doc
March 3rd, 2008 at 9:19 pm
"Marry the broad"
Often women do not want to be encumbered by a committed relationship, even at the expense of the well-being of their children. Doc, you must not be paying attention to this site's documentation on how family courts treat men. Also, I'd point out that condoms are really horrible for having really hot, steamy sex on both parties' counts. What you are giving us is a viable short-term solution that doesn't address long-term social consequences from cultural and legal norms in Western society.
March 3rd, 2008 at 9:25 pm
Susan B, do you understand the meaning of the word "symmetry"?
A woman having the "choice", and a man having no choice, is not symmetry.
A woman having the "choice" and the man having 20 years of responsibility for her choice, is not symmetry, especially if the "responsibility" is something falsely called "child support" when in fact, it amounts to so much money that it would be impossible to imagine spending that much on a child.
A woman having the "choice" and the man having 20 years of responsibility for her choice, and no rights to be with or to nurture their joint child, is not symmetry.
It boggles my mind that so many women do not get this, will not acknowledge that it is a completely unstable model for society, and that this unstable model is responsible for untold chaos in America RIGHT NOW.
You trotting out some terrible anectdote (based solely on your side of the story) about some male in your life does not justify the assymetrical stripping of reproductive rights, individual freedom, and parenting rights from all men in America at the whim of any woman who gets possession of a live sperm cell from that man.
What is happening here is a grotesque human rights disaster, and women like you can't seem to see the larger landscape of society with any sense whatsoever about the appropriate rights of the population as a whole.
You live from anecdote to anectode, and yours seem to be "made for TV" quite frankly.
There are lots of anectodes on this site about women not just being disinterested in children, but rather murdering them. So what does that mean Susan B.? That all mothers should be cut out of the lives of their offspring?
Hardly.
You profess concern for your son. If you really care about your son, what you should be scared to death of on his behalf is the prospect that someday,
1. he will very likely be a father in one of the over 50% of divorces which end in divorce in America,
2. he will very likely be a father of one of the more than 40% of children in America who are born out of wedlock.
Your writing shows that you are very blind about how the current day American landscape of "all rights to the mother, no matter what she did to whom, and no rights to the father" is extremely dangerous to the future happiness and wellbeing of your "son" who you profess such concern for.
In fact, frequent contact with his father, who one assumes has been multiply gutted economically by women seeking "support", and who according to you has a tendency towards "in your face" comments, might be just the recipe to get your son being extremely careful about ever getting "sperm trapped" by an American woman.
Or would you rather that your tear-jerk, one-sided anecdote become the basis of American family court policies impacting your son's future life? Well if so, I predict that some day in the future your son will be informing you that the woman telling the tearful story to a judge so as to attach your son's paycheck, was indeed telling the judge a pack of lies just to get his money for 20 years.
You need to wake up and smell the fraud being rampantly committed by vast numbers of members of your gender in this country, Susan B.
March 3rd, 2008 at 9:26 pm
OK - a woman can have an abortion. I say that is totally within her rights and does not infringe upon a man's rights at all.
If the man doesn't want to have a kid - it is his sole and exclusive responsibility to himself and his sexual partner to take all necessary precautions.
If she wants to keep the baby for whatever reason, that is her decision. The man doesn't like it? Tough. He had a choice to avoid the pregnancy. He missed the bus.
If she doesn't want to keep the baby - and he wants to keep it - and they are not married - tough.
If it happens with any scenario in a marriage - that is one of the costs of being married. Yes, some married women will intentionally get pregnant in an effort to hold the marriage together. They both know that the marriage is in trouble. They both still engage in procreation activities. They both share the responsibility, no mater what the choice is. Both parties are dysfunctional.
In the long run - life ain't far across the board all of the time - or even part of the time. Everything in life ain't equal. Everyone has choices that they can make. Some make wise choices. Others don't.
One of the constants in life is that people typically seek out their equals for long term relationships. When those relationships fail, it is invariably due to faults on both sides and a total or profound lack of communication.
Doc
March 3rd, 2008 at 9:30 pm
Davina Says:
March 3rd, 2008 at 6:35 pm
---“I can see where she's coming from as she does make some good points, but instead of the transfering of responsibility (because really, does it solve the problem of curbing unwanted pregnancies?) what I'd be interested in is a solution that gives both parties equal options both pre and post conseption.”
Davina your last comment seemed to make so much sense and then I saw this one and had to scratch my head a little.
What is there about Ruby’s comments that you think make good points?
March 3rd, 2008 at 9:40 pm
Doc,
Much of what you say is well taken... but we are talking about trust and deception within the context of very close human relations. People cannot reasonably go through life expecting that everyone they deal with is looking to screw them over.
Just to be clear, your position suggests that no one should ever trust anyone... even people they are supposed to be emotionally close with.
If that is your position I can accept that... but let me ask you the following question... if your best friend invited you to go on a hunting trip, and you agree to go... if once you arrive he thinks it would be amusing to shoot you in the foot... do you share equal responsibility in the injury you just sustained because you agreed to go on the trip?... or did you have a reasonable expectation not to get shot by your best friend?
March 3rd, 2008 at 9:42 pm
Women have complete control now over their bodies, and can conceive and carry to term a child, or have an abortion against the father's wishes. He has no say legally or otherwise. If she gives birth to a child, and he wasn't planning on becoming a parent, he's forced to support that child against his wishes. A woman can put an unwanted child up for adoption, no questions asked, but a man cannot. Women have numerous options for birth control, men only have condoms, or abstinence. In the age of punitively anti-male laws being the law of the land, men really need to stop thinking with their glands. Women lie about being on birth control, women get pregnant just so they can take a man's money or force him to stay in a relationship he finds intolerable. Men are nothing but expendable sperm donors and ATM machines without feelings or thought to feminists and the government. They have NO reason to commit, get married or want children. By treating men as little better than slaves, it only makes life miserable for men, women and children too. When men are demonised, women and children in the end also suffer. Sorry, the original commentator's all wet when she says men should no longer in shock and awe. She should however instead be in shock and awe at the already massive size of the "Ghost Nation" and it's increasingly rapid expansion. Men are fighting back by withdrawing from both society and women, and that does not bode well for women.
Taras
March 3rd, 2008 at 9:57 pm
Jason and Taras,
Well said and well written.
To Taras' points I would note that sadly, men are also fighting back by committing an alarming number of murders and murder-suicides of women who are threatening or in "family" court with those men. A very substantial percentage of those men have no history of violence whatsoever.
What this means is that a small percentage, but a very large number (single digit thousands per year) of deaths can be reasonably attribute to the slave-like, no-rights treatment of men. It also implies that millions more who are not committing murder are suffering horribly.
And many of these men were not so long ago mere children -- the same children who this system professes to be protecting. But why protect male children is society's plan for them is compulsory slavery for what will likely amount to 50% to 65% of them?
Why not just euthanize male children at birth rather than put them into that system?
Oh, I forgot. If you euthanized male children, who would be the slaves upon whose economic flesh so many lawyers, judges, GALs and other hangers-on would feed?
March 3rd, 2008 at 10:03 pm
Davina, you go girl!
I was just thinking that SusanB could benefit immensely from the Women are turned on by Jerks article... I couldn't have said what you wrote better myself (and I give that praise out rarely) but I would also add that what she claimed is not true.
I dispute just _one_ thing you let slip: Both parties are NOT held accountable. Women have the additional option to legally abandon their infant. Feminists try to spin this by saying the women are providing a "safe haven" for the child... (forgetting to add that the "haven" is away from the mother's clutches.)
For true 50/50 responsibility, the woman should be responsible for 50% of the financial expenses. No ifs, ands, or buts. Saying that she should get paid for parenting a child doesn't cut it. Most people in the world look after their children... for free! What a notion! Caring and loving a child without there being a financial incentive involved. Who would have thought...
Do you see my point about jerks being attracted to jerks? SusanB comes across as someone who wasn't "controlled" totally by the guy. Quite frankly, I suspect she "oopsed" him.
March 3rd, 2008 at 10:14 pm
The logic of bastard child support. Following the bus...
Doc says: If she wants to keep the baby for whatever reason, that is her decision. The man doesn't like it? Tough. He had a choice to avoid the pregnancy. He missed the bus.
Granted. But let's follow that analogy down the rabbit hole. If you "miss the bus", the bus driver doesn't come back to you 18 years later and demand you pay for years of rides that you didn't take. If SHE wants to choose to have a bastard child for a father who doesn't want her, that's her choice but he shouldn't pay for it.
Ok, now I know the mantra that both chivalrous traditionalists AND feminists have at the ready: WHAT ABOUT THE CHILD? Well, what about it? Society doesn't tell women when they can or can't have a child even if it's not a good idea. They'd shriek about their PRIVACY. We can't get welfare mothers put on norplant against their will. So privacy trumps the interests of the child when a woman is milking the system or doing as she pleases.
As Davina pointed out, a mother who has a child with a jerk is probably not a terribly good mother anyway and that's assuming that she's paying all the bills as one of those career mothers by choice. If the mother either is getting support from a father with a restraining order on him or via welfare, it might be useful to consider putting the child up for adoption.
Logically, this issue implies that women are to be regarded as morally bankrupt. Men should treat them as if they're potential baby exploiters just as feminists told women to regard all men as potential rapists. The women not only might exploit the baby, but they may abort, abandon, or even mistreat it and the state will be slow or even supportive in her abuse. In the meantime, men have to be saints and wear 6 rubbers before having sex and have a million dollars in their bank account because rather than 2 people being responsible, it's really just one: the man. No wonder so many jerks remain in this game. If you make the rules to where only a fool or a jerk would play, who does that leave?
March 3rd, 2008 at 10:23 pm
Jason says: "If that is your position I can accept that... but let me ask you the following question... if your best friend invited you to go on a hunting trip, and you agree to go... if once you arrive he thinks it would be amusing to shoot you in the foot... do you share equal responsibility in the injury you just sustained because you agreed to go on the trip?... or did you have a reasonable expectation not to get shot by your best friend?"
Foreign friends of mine often observe, and not with any humor, that Americans appear mercenary when it comes to money and lack culture and friendship. They laugh at the joke that America is one big work camp, but the food is better.
We're awash with people obsessed with scoring it big. It's the American Dream and with the news filled with lottery winners and people getting rich from getting in on the ground floor on some dot.com stock, everyone thinks that they're suckers for just working for a living. In addition, we're the only culture where it's possible for two parents to work for a high salary. Most countries have high unemployment and it's not unusual for the woman to become a housewife.
I like living in the states but if a war started, I'd get my Polish nationalization and blow out of dodge. Nothing personal, but I don't know most of my neighbors and I know they'd leave me for dead rather than risk their own precious fortunes (or even their lush green lawns). This isn't a country I love anymore. It's just where I show up for work.
March 3rd, 2008 at 10:28 pm
I was prepared to jot a note, and then I read the brilliant Davina's post from 20.20. Yep, that pretty much encapsulates it.
March 3rd, 2008 at 10:31 pm
Susan B -
We've all heard stories of the typical dead beat, violent, drug addict dad. We're all assumed to be just that, plus rapists, harassers, conspiring to put women in their place. Turn on the TV, and you'll be awash in just how little regard men have in modern culture. This is so stereotypical of a story that I'm likely not going to believe it.
Or maybe it's this old story again: "Once again, the cool jerk got your attention, and then we nice guys have to listen to you whine about your relationship problems because the bad-boy you hooked up with is being himself".
Being a dad isn't socially valued, except by other hard working dads.
I'm sorry for your situation. Personally, I'm a single custodial parent. The other parent doesn't do anything but antagoinize the situation. On top of the harassment, lawsuit after lawsuit, vandalism, assault, etc, I also have to deal with a pile of false allegations, and a new CPS case worker every few months who will not do her (it's ALWAYS a female caseworker) due dilligence where my ex is concerned, but feels a need to test me to see if I'm being a competent parent. The other parent has severe mental problems (google "borderline personality disorder"), an alcohol problem, and works as a prostitute.
My ex is so bad, I gladly pay $60 a month to have our exchanges done through a third party. I don't have to see her, speak to her, and aside from the lies she tells the kids, I don't have near the grief I did when I had to put up with her manipulation in a fast-food parking lot, and the possiblity of a false allegation is greatly reduced, (but not eliminated).
I too lived with a violent substance abuser. The difference is that I was married with children, and couldn't just walk away. It took 3 years of litigation to finally get that termination of my obligations, and even then, it was incomplete.. For the next year and a half, I was compelled to subsidize an alcoholic, all in the name of my children, until the situation was so bad that no one could ignore it any longer. You had no "contract" of mutual support from this man, even after 3 years - why would you assume that he would want to have children with you and settle down?
Oh, yes, dispite having other people pay her bills, men buying her cars, and her making thousands tax free a week, she has never paid her child support, which is set for less than 60% of what someone who makes minimum wage would pay. Of course, she has no obligation to pay for their insurance or medical care, unlike a man.
You had the chance to abort. You chose to wait on someone that you already knew to be unreliable, and who already shown that he was going to abandon you. Ultimately, It was YOUR sole decision. He could not force your decision, either way. Your characterization as this is "his" fault is no better than any alcoholic's or drug addict's excuse. "Look what you made me do!". I think this is the very definition of passive-aggressive. Your body, your choice. It should be, at this point, your responsibility.
Yes, I understand about antibiotics and (hormone based) birth control. My second child is likely a result of that, if not a desparate attempt by my ex to stave off an impending divorce.
If that's truly your situation, you should be able to take your ex to court, subpoena his tax records and his earnings (business records, if nothing else). You'll have to do some work to find an attorney who's willing to work on your case, not just passively set a few hearings and do no investigating. Most states have some sort of system to deny drivers licenses, sieze property, etc. A civil suit will likely allow you to sieze and liquidate his property to pay off some of his arrears. You will have to take some action, invest some money, and you will likely have to endure some mudslinging. Court sucks, but lucky for you, it will not be near as difficult as it is for men. You will likely have the services of the state AG's office, for free, if not the county's domestic relations office. They have a financial incentive to do so - federal tax dollars to reward them for every bit of support they collect. If your ex has been harassing you, you'll have to record it and document it - specifics. Your county usually has a "Visitation Co-ordinator", who can suggest alternate means of visitation and exchanges, including third party facilities.
Susan B: "THESE ARE LITTLE HUMAN BEINGS, JUST LIKE YOU. THEY ARE NOT THINGS TO BE BOUGHT AND SOLD, UNFEELING OBJECTS TO BE DISPOSED OF OR FOUGHT OVER AND USED TO HURT OTHERS.
THESE ARE BABIES, LITTLE PEOPLE, JUST LIKE YOU. They are precious gifts, sweet, soft, and helpless and meant to be cherished. My son is a gift and he will do amazing things in his life..if he can make it though childhood with his self esteem and heart intact."
Yes, and your son is your responsibility. And, unfortunately, these sentiments are used to justify a number of unreasonable obligations on men, and almost none on mothers. Most women think of the resulting children as solely "theirs", and having a superior entitlement to possession. Too many women use their children as tools to hurt their ex's, without regard to their children's interests. In too many cases, (not yours, from the sound of it), "the best interests of the child" is used to mask alimony as child support. Personally, I think that if Dad's income is that far in disparity with the Mom's, the kids should be with him. The money he'd otherwise pay in support, coupled with then receiving a dependant tax break, would result in a much higher standard of living for the kids. Simple math and accounting, but not politically viable in this sexist court system that presumes that simply by being in possession of a uterus, a woman is a vastly superior parent.
For that matter, "think of the children" has been used to champion way too much bad legislation. MADD, anyone?
I'm not sure which poster said it, but we can't legislate the male birth control pill into existence, any more than we can legislate fusion power, 100 MPG cars, etc. If someone develops one, great. I hear there's a few candidates. Until then, there's condoms, vasectomies and yes, abstinance. I think a vasectomy costs upwards of $700 to $1000, plus a period of recovery, and having to watch someone poke a hypodermic in your nads. If I ever consider dating again, I'll get one, but right now, I can't take funds away from other essentials to do it.
Most men here would agree with you that in the given legal and social climate, men should be taking their own initiative to exercise what control they can. My proposal for a boy's sex ed would be several hours a family law attorney explaining in excruciating detaili what kind of hell a woman can put him through, both in child support, divorce, visitation, and top it off with the results of charges of domestic violence and rape accusations. We should be actively villifying girls as fervently as women villify boys in their sex ed. and college activism.
Condoms feel awful, leak and or break, abstinance and alcohol don't mix, and I can't "take" a condom in the morning and be ready for whenever sex happens. There's no Depo Provera, Nuvo rings, IUD's, sponges, patches, implants, films or diaphrams for men. I'm sure I left a few out. For most of these, the male has no idea if it's in use, or if it's in employed properly, so he can't make an informed consent. Fat chance of suing for fraud or negligence, or insisting on an abortion if the primary method fails, since it's considered Uncouth to put demands on a woman's body. If a married couple disagree on having a child, it is not a big leap for something to go "oops" with her birth control. Your passive stance on your own abortion would easily translate to "oh, I didn't realize that I put that in wrong", "sorry, forgot I was taking an anti-biotic". "I forgot to take my pill, again!". More nefarious scenarios exist, and several here have been victim to them.
I'm a libertarian, so my take on it is "if we stop paying women to be single moms, we'll stop having as many single moms". Unfortunately, some well intentioned people decided it was a good idea to take money from hard working, responsible people and give it to train wrecks who can't take care of the kids they made. Surprise, the number of Single Moms exploded.
March 3rd, 2008 at 10:35 pm
LOL @ Davina:
"I like the way you make this sound like it's huge ball game for a guy to get sterilized. "
March 3rd, 2008 at 10:40 pm
Ruby, the points you make are thus:
- firstly, you say there is no difference between a man tricking a woman into having sex and a woman tricking a man into impregnating her by claiming she is on the pill etc. Both are simply satisfying their biological urges. Well, yes, to a point. There are a few differences though. One is that if a man tricks a woman into putting out, society does not then impose other obligations on the woman as punishment. But society does impose obligations on the man who impregnates the woman. The other is that the man who tricks the woman is seen as a cad, while the woman who tricks the man is seen as a victim. No-one denies that men are capable of deceiving women in these matters, but people are less willing to admit that woman also deceive men. People are less willing to acknowledge women's dishonourable intentions than men's. The other point is that society expects men to pay for their desire for sex, but treats women as victims if they pay for their desire to have children at all costs.
- you also say that because single women make more money than single men, this proves that they are not after the men's money and us guys are kidding ourselves to think otherwise. This is a curious argument. What you are saying is that because one person has more than another, they are then incapable of economically exploiting the person with less. Would you apply this argument to every other situation?
It is funny that for so long feminists have complained bitterly that women don't make as much money as men, yet as soon as women start making more this is used as another excuse to put men down. Single men are such miserable paupers that we are kidding ourselves if we think you women are after us for our money.
The fact that women make more does not preclude them from wanting to get their hands on a man's money also. Moreover, women who have children to extract money from men are more likely to target wealthier men rather than poorer men.
March 3rd, 2008 at 10:46 pm
I am sick of feminists trying to convince me that women are weak and pathetic. I don't believe them. Women can do it all by themselves can't they?
March 3rd, 2008 at 10:49 pm
"The bottom line here is I think it's inherently sad that society ENCOURAGES men to sleep around without taking responsibility for contraception, ENCOURAGES men not to marry women their own age, ENCOURAGES women to take control of their destiny, and then burns a woman at the stake when the most precious blessing imaginable, a child, is bought into this world.
"From what the majority of men on this board have to say, the main issue of an unexpected pregnancy that they resent is having to pay for a child. If you didn't have to pay, would you even care?"
On the second point, you are saying that men only care about children to the extent that they are forced to pay child support. Maybe you could try telling this to a man who has been emotionally devastated by a woman's decision to terminate their child. After all, if men only care about child support these men should be glad that they have been let off the hook. The problem is that on the one hand society says that it is a woman's body and a woman's choice, but expects men to still be responsible for and emotionally attached to the child.
As for your argument that society teaches men that they can screw around with no consequences, this is nonsense. There is an enormous amount of societal condemnation for men who abandon their offspring, to the point of vastly exaggerating how often this happens.
March 3rd, 2008 at 10:51 pm
In response to PolishKnight Says …
---“If you make the rules to where only a fool or a jerk would play, who does that leave?”
A Polishknight perhaps?
---“This isn't a country I love anymore. It's just where I show up for work.”
That’s probably one of the reasons why this country has gone so far downhill. I suspect you care more than you say or you wouldn’t be here in the first place.
March 3rd, 2008 at 11:01 pm
Good reply Jason.
Actually we are talking about two different scenarios. One, where there is not a commitment, and one where there is a commitment.
Where there is no commitment - yes, cynicism or out right paranoia should exist.
Commitments are a different story. There should be trust between both parties. That comes about through communication and mutual respect. Mind you, I do not buy into the theory that "I never knew anything was wrong in the relationship." That is just someone that is going through life blind for whatever reason. At that point, he or she bears responsibility for the southward bound relationship. In short, in a healthy, committed relationship, the problem is not going to arise. The couple makes mutual decisions and abides by them.
Quote: " if your best friend invited you to go on a hunting trip, and you agree to go... if once you arrive he thinks it would be amusing to shoot you in the foot... do you share equal responsibility in the injury you just sustained because you agreed to go on the trip?... or did you have a reasonable expectation not to get shot by your best friend?"
Kind of a poor and obscure analogy in my opinion. First of all, I would hesitate to call someone that would find that amusing to be a "best friend." If I stood there and let him do it without attempting to avoid the shot - then yes, I am as equally as stupid as he is, and hence, partially responsible. See the above comment about committed relationships. A best friend would fall into that category.
Polish Knight Quote: "Granted. But let's follow that analogy down the rabbit hole. If you "miss the bus", the bus driver doesn't come back to you 18 years later and demand you pay for years of rides that you didn't take. If SHE wants to choose to have a bastard child for a father who doesn't want her, that's her choice but he shouldn't pay for it."
Basically, you "missed the bus" by not taking proper precautions to ensure that she did not get pregnant while you were playing around in the "rabbit hole." (Sorry - couldn't resist that one...)
Every man with half a wit knows that if he has unprotected sex that there is a 50-50 chance of a pregnancy no matter what promises or statements are made. It takes two to "boom-boom."
Every man with half a wit knows that he can, and in most cases will, be held liable for support of the byproduct of that venture into the "rabbit hole." If the rabbit dies, then something has to be done.
You don't protect yourself - then you are setting yourself up for the - as you say - the bus driver coming back 18 years later. Your problem. You set yourself up for it. Your problem.
I disagree that the logical conclusion would be that women are morally bankrupt. Both would be considered to be morally bankrupt. If you lie with dogs, you are gonna get fleas if you don't have them already.
"Men should treat them as if they're potential baby exploiters..." Ah. Now you are making sense.
"In the meantime, men have to be saints and wear 6 rubbers before having sex ..." Not a bad idea if you don't want to be stuck paying for something that you don't want.
"...because rather than 2 people being responsible, it's really just one: the man." Technically, both people who take precautions to avoid a pregnancy are being responsible. When one does, and one does not - what does that say about the one that didn't take precautions - which would be the man because without him, there ain't going to be a child.
"No wonder so many jerks remain in this game." Yep. Plenty of jerks around who don't cover their pecker, which means that they aren't covering their ass.
'If you make the rules to where only a fool or a jerk would play, who does that leave?" It leaves one jerk. The jerk that doesn't cover his own ass - or pecker.
Everyone makes a choice. If you get someone pregnant, you bear responsibility. That's the way life is.
Doc
March 3rd, 2008 at 11:06 pm
Doc,
it is true that both parties have equal opportunities to avoid the pregnancy, but I don't see how this negates the fact that the woman has all the rights after pregnancy occurs. It is a curious argument to say that because both parties have equal opportunity to avoid a situation occurring, therefore it does not matter how much the result favours one party or disadvantages the other.
To apply this logic to other situations. If the marriage laws gave husbands complete power and control, then you could argue that wives who are treated badly have no-one else to blame because they could have avoided the situation by simply refusing to get married. The argument is that if a situation is unfair, the fact that the party being disadvantaged had some opportunity to avoid it therefore has no right to complain. After all, both the husband and wife had equal chance to stop it so all's fair.
March 3rd, 2008 at 11:16 pm
'If you don't want a baby, stop feigning 'shock and awe' when a woman gets pregnant--and keep it in your pants'”, just like women do.
March 3rd, 2008 at 11:18 pm
Doc,
regarding the traffic analogy, I have a different take. If a traffic accident occurs and the police conclude both drivers were negligent, what do you do? Do you then give driver A all the rights, while sending all the bills to driver B?
Men and women have equal opportunity to decide whether or not pregnancy occurs. Therefore, if pregnancy does occur women should have all the rights (abortion, adoption) while men should have all the responsibilities (child support). Can you see what is wrong with this?
"If you have unprotected sex and end up with an STD - it is your own responsibility. It isn't her fault. You should have protected yourself."
Then how is it a man's fault if a woman gets pregnant? After all, she consented to the risk when she chose to sleep with him.
March 3rd, 2008 at 11:23 pm
Doc,
"
Actually we are talking about two different scenarios. One, where there is not a commitment, and one where there is a commitment.
Where there is no commitment - yes, cynicism or out right paranoia should exist.
Commitments are a different story. There should be trust between both parties. That comes about through communication and mutual respect."
Everything you say here I agree with 100%.
When having sex outside of a committed and healthy relationship there is no legitimate reason to expect your partner to be completely honest with you... you've got to go the extra mile to protect yourself in these situations.
When it is reasonable to assume that you are in a committed and healthy relationship however, that is where I feel the responsibility is no longer split 50/50 if someone purposefully tries to decieve you.
Here is where you and I seem to differ in perspectives a little though:
"In short, in a healthy, committed relationship, the problem is not going to arise. The couple makes mutual decisions and abides by them."
You have assumed that it is possible to know for absolute certain that you are in a healthy and committed relationship. I dissagree.
I think it is possible for someone to be under a reasonable impression that their relationship is healthy and committed when in reality they are getting conned.
That is how we have people get cuckolded while in what is supposed to be a monogamous marriage... it is also how we have seemingly honorable men keeping mistresses on the side without their wives knowledge.
This is why I make the distinction between having a reasonable expectation not to be decieved... and not having a reasonable expectation for such treatment.
If you meet someone for a one night stand then you have no right to expect they are going to be completely honest with you... but you certainly have every right to expect that a long term girlfriend, fiance, or wife is going to be truthful with you and not try to decieve you in any way.
Your argument boils down to the following:
You shouldn't trust people who aren't to be trusted... and you are perfectly safe trusting those who are safe to be trusted.
Well that is certainly true... but you've conventiently forgotten about the situation where you aren't safe trusting someone who by all means you should be able to trust, but ends up being untrustworthy.
"First of all, I would hesitate to call someone that would find that amusing to be a "best friend.""
That is the point though Doc... if you knew ahead of time that they would do something like that to you, they wouldn't be your friend at all... but on occasion situations arise where people we've never had any reason to mistrust suddenly stab us in the back (or as in my analogy, shoot us in the foot).
March 3rd, 2008 at 11:25 pm
Doc is essentially restating Ruby's point - "You put your dick in it, too bad".
In today's leal climate, right or wrong, equal, equitable, or whatever, Men are held to a higher standard of behavior, and our ability to affect the outcome ends the moment we drop our pants. Not only do we have the possibility of 22 years of child support obligation to consider, we also need to consider the false allegation scenarios.
It's a sad, ugly truth in today's legal system. Women are hipocrites about reproductive rights, and not even the ACLU has any sympathy for us. The scenario is reversed - where access to women used to be the thing in demand, and it was witheld until a marriage, now men need to wise up and realize that access to the next two decades of our lives is what's at stake, and we need to be the gate keepers.
If I had it to do all over again, I would have been snipped in my 20's with some on ice. Would have saved me a great deal of grief.
March 4th, 2008 at 12:05 am
Doc makes all the best conceivable arguments imaginable to overturn Roe v Wade and hold women responsible for their actions. Even when it’s overturned a man will still eventually have the right to give his child up for adoption the same as the mother has that choice. It’s inevitable because that’s what the law requires.
I hope you keep talking Doc because you are doing more for our cause than a thousand men. People see your hypocrisy and it will eventually make them reject you for being a bigot. To say that women have the right to abort a child, and men have no rights at all, is about as diabolical as it gets.
Why you would want to be so hateful and vindictive is hard for me to understand. In a way I really do pity you. I guess all anyone can do is pray for you. I’ll say a prayer for you Doc, and I hope you open your eyes and let go of the hate.
March 4th, 2008 at 12:43 am
From Ruby, a feminist reader:
I personally think it's amusing that women are being just as 'devious' as men to meet their biological urges. What's the difference between a man telling you he loves you so that he can satisfy HIS biological urge for sex, and a woman telling you she's on birth control to meet HER biological urge for sex?
= = =
The proper and fair set up lines for this would be
What's the difference between a man telling you he is sterile so that he does not have to use a condom to satisfy HIS biological urge for sex, and a woman telling you she's on birth control to meet HER biological urge for sex?
NOW both of these are devious the result being begetting a child.
A man telling you he loves you to have sex is WAY different than a woman telling a man she is on birth control when she is not so she can beget a child and make a man pay for the child. Furthermore, if a man says he loves you so he can have sex and beget a child and make the woman pay for the child . . . well . . . we all know that cannot happen legally, do we not?
The ability for feminists to put an irrational twist on statements never ceases to amaze me. She is trying to solve a math equation such as; solve for x 3x=12 and she divides the left by 3 but not the right and comes up with x being 12. My God no one can see how transparent this is can they? Perhaps what infuriates me the most abut feminists and statements like the one above is that it insults not only their intelligence but also others and mine.
b
March 4th, 2008 at 1:09 am
Male birth control is coming lady. I wonder what your tune will be when men can no longer be entrapped for "trusting" a woman when she says she is safe. I listened in court while a woman stated that she intended to get pregnant and not get married - admitting the deception to meet her reproductive goals. But the law supports this type of fraud, and encourages the bastardy with all kinds of benefits, from child support, to tax breaks, to educational benefits, to subsidized child care, to utility subsidies, etc, etc, etc. While a man with a wife and non-bastard children has to pay the full price. Such a deal. Women have no honor. They are in it for themselves. The best interests of the child just happens to benefit the brood sow that birthed them.
March 4th, 2008 at 1:12 am
Bernie,
the only way feminists can win an argument is by setting up completely false equations and dichotomies, because their arguments are completely bankrupt and would not stand up in any honest assessment. So they have to confuse the issues, and generally baffle people with BS.
I think it is good that people like Ruby and Doc post on this site, because it gives us some understanding of the sort of self-righteous self-serving hypocrtical logic women have been encouraged to adopt.
The thing that annoys me about feminists is that they assume men are too stupid to see through them. I don't expect the world to be fair, and I can deal with some injustices. But it is adding insult to injury to expect all men to be stupid enough not to see through them, and work out what is really going on.
March 4th, 2008 at 1:20 am
"From Ruby, a feminist reader:
" What's the difference between a man telling you he loves you so that he can satisfy HIS biological urge for sex, and a woman telling you she's on birth control to meet HER biological urge for sex?"
Stupid question Ruby, the woman is the bigger lier, that's as silly as asking which is the more dangerous weapon a hand-grenade or a tactical nuke. Again what a stupid question.Yep classic womanese if have ever read it.
March 4th, 2008 at 1:28 am
Bernie,
You're correct... that would be the equivilant set up. What Ruby is missing is the fact that one form of deception has consequences that end in the short term, and the other has consequences that persist for the rest of the three peoples lives. How she can fathom even setting the two on par with one another is beyond me.
That doesn't make lying to get someone to have sex with you an honorable practice, because it isn't... but she is definately comparing apples and oranges and then expecting no one to be able to tell the difference.
Nick,
I think some of what Doc has to say is valid... specifically with reference to very short term relationships. Where his train of thought gets derailed however is by making the quantum leap assumption that anyone can know for certain that a long term relationship is completely healthy, committed, and faithful.
Ultimately we each take a leap of faith in those kind of relationships... you have to because there is no way to be absolutely sure that they would never do anything to hurt you, you just go with your gut and hope for the best.
In those situations I see no defense for deception of this magnitude... there is just no excuse.
Saying "well if the relationship *really* was healthy and committed this never would have happened... you should have known better" is about as useful as telling a patient who trusted their physician not to suggest unnecessary surgery that they should have known better than to trust the doctor with their health.
March 4th, 2008 at 1:40 am
"What's the difference between a man telling you he loves you so that he can satisfy HIS biological urge for sex, and a woman telling you she's on birth control to meet HER biological urge for sex?"
Err a baby.. for starters.
This also equates to saying she was showing lot's of flesh - had a skimpy outfit on so she deservedly
got it but in reverse.
Next Ruby will be saying drink spiking is ok as people should be carrying around portable science labs and deserve to get raped for not doing so, due to failing to test their drink at the bar.
Bad ethics and morals is just that, regardless who is practiseing them and a persons "ism"
does not make anyone immune.
I suspect if Ruby was to ever was to ever hold up the mirror she would not see a Ruby but a nasty shard of glass.
KARMA
March 4th, 2008 at 1:44 am
Ruby is saying woman are allowed to tell massive h-bomb lies and men can only tell little ones.
That pretty much sums up the feminist movement in one perfect sentence.
KARMA
March 4th, 2008 at 1:45 am
And the Ruby type of woman say there is a "man shortage" geeezz whom would have thought!!!
March 4th, 2008 at 1:54 am
Has been an interesting debate in some respects. Other respects... well...
Nick - you are correct: Life is not fair. It never has been and never will be. What is, and is not equitable is going to be in the eyes of the beholder. The same goes for justice.
I come from the old school where personal responsibility was stressed and demanded. I know that isn't a popular position these days where everyone thinks that they should have certain rights and benefits.
This is a "me me me" society that we live in. Everyone is interested in only what benefits them. To hell with everyone else.
Men need to realize that they - and only they - have control over their own destiny. Women need to realize the same thing.
Men: If you don't want to have a child, you know what you can do about it. Plain and simple. A woman can not have a baby without your input.
Ultimately - men have ALL of the control in the reproductive cycle. Use that control wisely. Use it to your own benefit. Don't whine, cry, whinge or complain when YOU let someone take control of your reproductive rights.
You whine, cry, whinge or complain about women being able to get an abortion. It was YOUR irresponsible behavior that put her in that position where she had to make that choice. If she decides against an abortion - it was your own irresponsible behavior that created that decision.
If you take full and completely responsibility of your sperm, then you never have to worry about these issues.
No Nick - I am not self righteous. I am self serving - yes. I served my needs very well by taking full and complete control over my sperm. Nothing hypocritical about that. That is being responsible.
Everyone can make - as virtually everyone here seems to be doing - excuses for not being responsible for themselves.
In the words of Woody Allen (presumably) "Having sex is like playing bridge. If you don't have a good partner you better have a good hand."
That applies to both men and women.
Of course, I do expect my message to be ignored. Personal accountability and responsibility is so contrary to American and Western society and culture any more. Goes back to the "me me me" thing.
With some of the attitudes I see here - you are going to need all the luck that you can get. The legal changes you want to see, just ain't gonna happen.
Doc
It ain't easy being me.
March 4th, 2008 at 1:56 am
I wonder if Ruby would say it was ok for a man to give HIV to a woman because he preferred not to wrap it up (he lied about HIV) and the same woman lied about the pill but got HIV...... you could go on forever with her "logic".
KARMA
March 4th, 2008 at 1:58 am
By the way - it was my Daddy that taught me some 45 years ago to keep it in my pants if I didn't want to have the responsibility of a kid later on.
Good advice then. Still good advice.
Doc
It ain't easy being me.
March 4th, 2008 at 2:00 am
Doc Says:
March 4th, 2008 at 1:54 am
I don't think people are saying that.
KARMA
March 4th, 2008 at 2:05 am
If I didn't have to pay, would I care?
Yes, I would. If I bring a child into the world, I owe it to that child to raise him or her. That is the responsibility of being a parent. Child support is a completely separate issue. Now, when child support is used as an excuse to keep a parent away from their child, that is when society fails to honor the needs of that child.
March 4th, 2008 at 2:30 am
"Keep it in your pants". How about teaching women to accept their accountability with THEIR WOMB. I agree that all to often younger people heel to the call of the wild but since FEMINISM - A TOTALITERIAN COMMY concept has been eschewed by the likes of the writer, there are over ONE MILLION PLUS abortions in the USA - ONE MILLION. If this is the bastion of feminism then I say bring back female slavery and enslave the whores like the writer. For they make a WHORE of LIFE. Evidenced by their most HOMICIDAL fascination with their vanity and as for the men that sire these children with impunity for deliverance - Hoist them from the highest tree, for you are not worth the life you breed so you are not worth the life you have. How about born abortions - You callous woman. But then you have become masculine by your interpretation of feminism, you have forgotten the value of your womb so why should you expect young men with no brains to respect you when you do not respect your self. Feminists are with out doubt the dumbest mules ready to be used by money lords so as to appease their vanity with falsehood. There is no equality with men and women this is a feminist illusion. So how many more MURDERS will you lot committ, Oh thats right it is not murder cause MUMMY is doing it. PAY$$$$$$$ - What for? I did not know you were that stupid to play LIFE and DEATH with your womb ! Have you no accountability. When I think of a woman I see a man and take away reason and accountability - Jack Nicholson.
March 4th, 2008 at 2:33 am
PolishKnight:
"Ok, now I know the mantra that both chivalrous traditionalists AND feminists have at the ready: WHAT ABOUT THE CHILD? Well, what about it? Society doesn't tell women when they can or can't have a child even if it's not a good idea. They'd shriek about their PRIVACY. We can't get welfare mothers put on norplant against their will. So privacy trumps the interests of the child when a woman is milking the system or doing as she pleases."
Heh, oh this is not a done deal by any means. Have you ever heard someone talk about how childbearing should be licensed? I have. I routinely run across people from all political persuasions, or none at all, who talk about such things. The fact is that forced abortion and infanticide as a means of controlling who procreates is the rule in human history rather than the exception.
Forced abortion, not abortion rights, will be the debate in a few short decades. At least if our civilization wishes to survive.
Nick S:
"The other point is that society expects men to pay for their desire for sex, but treats women as victims if they pay for their desire to have children at all costs."
Exactly! In fact, women are rewarded for their desires and men are punished for their desires. Socially imposed obligations make all the difference in the world. However, society deciding who has the privilege of procreating makes all the difference in the world. I've said it before and I'll say it again:
When it takes a village to raise a child then the village gets to decide who has children.
That's the way it's always been.
Doc:
"If the man doesn't want to have a kid - it is his sole and exclusive responsibility to himself and his sexual partner to take all necessary precautions."
Nice non sequitur. You are missing the point: it's not that men do not want a kid but rather that men do not want to be forced by the government into a fatherhood that they did not consciously choose. The current family laws are anti-social: the goal of all laws is not to advance the "interests of the child" but, rather, "the interests of society".
"In the long run - life ain't far across the board all of the time - or even part of the time. Everything in life ain't equal. Everyone has choices that they can make. Some make wise choices. Others don't."
Ah, another logical fallacy, and this time a red herring and possibly a straw man all rolled into one. The saying "life ain't fair" refers to acts of nature such as being born short, as a man, or being born with a propensity toward obesity, for a woman. If a man rapes a woman we don't tell her "life ain't fair", we send him to prison for a good portion of his life. If society has two separate rules for men and women that imposes responsibilities on the first for rights accrued by the second then that's not "life" being unfair but society imposing unequal duties and obligations. You are blatantly misuing what is otherwise an excellent maxim. Tsk, tsk, tsk. Silly boy.
"One of the constants in life is that people typically seek out their equals for long term relationships. When those relationships fail, it is invariably due to faults on both sides and a total or profound lack of communication."
True, but people sometimes make mistakes and there is significant evidence that some instincts in women from a distant evolutionary past tend to weaken the pair bonding process after a child is around four years old. You want to use the power of the state to enforce rules that are inequitable and socially detrimental; remember the point of laws is always to advance the interests of society, as a whole.
There are all sorts of completely non-traditional people, such as myself, who think that a reversal of no-fault divorce is in society's best interests.
"Actually we are talking about two different scenarios. One, where there is not a commitment, and one where there is a commitment.
Where there is no commitment - yes, cynicism or out right paranoia should exist.
Commitments are a different story. There should be trust between both parties. That comes about through communication and mutual respect. Mind you, I do not buy into the theory that "I never knew anything was wrong in the relationship." That is just someone that is going through life blind for whatever reason. At that point, he or she bears responsibility for the southward bound relationship. In short, in a healthy, committed relationship, the problem is not going to arise. The couple makes mutual decisions and abides by them. "
Commitment? Is this some sort of legal status? Odd, I'm pretty sure that I'm quite familiar with legal theory, I won't delve into my pedigree, but I'm pretty sure that claiming "commitment" in a court of law has little legal standing. Correct me if I'm wrong about this. Doc, you are switching back and forth between private relationship dynamics and public policy, and you gotta quit this bait and switch, another logical fallacy, btw.
"Every man with half a wit knows that he can, and in most cases will, be held liable for support of the byproduct of that venture into the "rabbit hole." If the rabbit dies, then something has to be done."
Will be held? By whom? Is it a force of nature. Nice usage of passive voice, btw, which underscores the weakness of your entire line of thinking. Men aren't magically "held", rather they're imposed upon by the legal system in ways that are not imposed on women.
"'If you make the rules to where only a fool or a jerk would play, who does that leave?" It leaves one jerk. The jerk that doesn't cover his own ass - or pecker."
Ah, but here's the flaw in your reasoning. The legal system gives the pregnant woman a choice of whether or not she wants to put the man on the birth certificate. I have an excellent example from my own life: recently a really cute 19 year old barista at a shop nearby got pregnant. Now the father is a complete party animal and reprobate who she has decided to avoid completely and not put on the birth certificate. However, if the guy had been a docile, provider-type then she might have put him on the B.C. while taking up with the same sort of guy who got her pregnant. The point is that the legal system allows women to have their cake and eat it, too. So, docile men leave the mating, and sex, market altogether, and the only men who impregnate women are the "cad" types.
This bodes quite ill for the future of society and its longevity.
""Men should treat them as if they're potential baby exploiters..." Ah. Now you are making sense."
Okay, but men do this by completely withdrawing from society and by deciding that they no longer have any vested interest in its continuance. Is this really your prescription?
Finally ...
Doc, you have a superficial, but dogmatic, intelligence to your posts. They are beginning to seriously grate on me, and I will warn you that when something grates on me I tend to exercise the nuclear option on it. Desist from your dogmatism or I will make it my mission in life over the next several days to systematically shred every comment you make on this site. And, as more than a couple of my professors can attest, I make good on that promise like nothing you've ever witnessed.
Here's my request: end this monomaniacal fascination of "responsibility" as you are doing nothing more than blindly looking for a place to lay blame on what you dislike in society.
"[T]he doctrine of the will has been invented essentially for the purpose of punishment,...Christianity is a metaphysics of the hangman." - Friedrich Nietzsche
March 4th, 2008 at 2:35 am
"What is there about Ruby’s comments that you think make good points?"
Kevin, what I actually meant to write is that I can see where she's coming from because she actually makes a good point.
It's clear this woman is speaking from her (feminist) female perspective only. I don't agree with everything she says but essentially I interpret her message to be pretty much the same as the men's movement's message. Some way or the other men and women want each other to shoulder more responsibility in the event of pregnancy. The cry for equal responsibility is not an invalid one thus I don't think neither points of view are wrong, per se. We're all certainly entitled to believe whatever we want. However, what is wrong, and what seems to be completely lost on Ruby, is the complete lack of sufficient male perspective which would help women like her to shape a more reasoned and fair female perspective. In another words, she's not addressing the big picture.
We all know that her feminist mentors have probably never showed her how "your body, your choice" can vastly disenfranchise men. A woman can basically do away with a man's child against his wishes whenever, wherever, however she wants but then if she decides to keep it she can literally ruin his life to her heart's content and he'd have no way to save himself. To any fair-minded person that is not brain-washed by feminist propaganda this seem oddly one-sided.
Here again you see a perfect manifestation of the feminist lie: "Feminism is about equally for women AND men". Really?
Now had the male perspective been mainstream women would understand your body, your choice? Then your body, your choice, your responsibility MUST also makes sense. As women, we have the first say in what occurs in our bodies without input from men.
Another thing Ruby seems to be missing is that society ALSO tells young girls they can sleep with anyone they please without consequences. After all what is there to worry about when you're ensured government funded hand-outs and 3/4 of your partner's income. I'm exaggerating slightly but still the issue is quite clear: women in the 21st century are also given the go ahead to think with their privates, yet only men are penalised when they do. Ruby's letter confirms that.
March 4th, 2008 at 2:45 am
Doc,
No offense here, but many of your points are incongruous.
For example:
"Men need to realize that they - and only they - have control over their own destiny. Women need to realize the same thing."
This I agree with within certain bounds... we all have control over our destiny within certain limits... those limits are exceeded when someone tries to impose their will upon someone elses destiny and they are unable to prevent it.
"Ultimately - men have ALL of the control in the reproductive cycle. Use that control wisely. Use it to your own benefit."
This is impossible.
Why?... because your conclusion that men have *ALL* the control is based upon the premis that men have the ability to abstain.
Have you forgotten that women can abstain as well?
If both parties can abstain, clearly neither can have *ALL* the control as you are declaring... by default they should have equal control under your scheme because they have the same options available... have sex or not have sex.
Or are you suggesting that when a man wants to have sex, women are powerless to resist their charms?
"It was YOUR irresponsible behavior that put her in that position where she had to make that choice."
What happened to both men and women needing to realize that they have control over their own destiny?... How did the pregnancy suddenly become the result of the mans irrisponsible behavior?... How did the man "put her in that position"? Did she have no hand in controlling her destiny?
I fail to see how this statement logically sits within the same philosophical framework as the first thing I quoted... where men and women were both in control and therefore responsible for their destiny.
With each successive statement you attempt to transition from one of equality to one of women being subject to the sexual desires of men that they have no power to resist... therefore to prevent women ending up in these situations... it is men who need to be more responsible.
"That applies to both men and women."
It's too bad that you didn't apply things to both men and women though... you started off on the right track and then took a wrong turn.
You make mention of men and women controlling their destiny and then go on to declare that men control the entire reproductive process and women are just "put in that situation" by men, suddenly women no longer have any control and men have all of it... the contradiction there should be plainly obvious.
My question to you is this... which is it?... do men and women control their own destiny?... or do men control womens destiny when it comes to reproduction?
You can't have it both ways.
March 4th, 2008 at 3:10 am
"Nick - you are correct: Life is not fair. It never has been and never will be. What is, and is not equitable is going to be in the eyes of the beholder. The same goes for justice.
I come from the old school where personal responsibility was stressed and demanded. I know that isn't a popular position these days where everyone thinks that they should have certain rights and benefits."
Doc, the problem is that when you are cornered on specific points and logical flaws that you cannot answer you tend to lapse into retorical generalistions.
You say that the only reason people on this site won't agree with you is that you believe in personal responsibility, while we don't. So you are claiming moral superiority simply for having a different view. I'm sorry, but this is a self-righteous, self-serving attitude. Of course personal responsibility is important. But does that mean that we can never have a debate about who should take responsibility for what in any given circumstance?
You are right when you say that our society places too little emphasis on personal responsibility, and that people are too willing to blame others for their problems. But the problem is that women are actually held to much lower standards of personal responsibility than men. That is what we are complaining about. Feminism has given women many spurious excuses to blame men for all their problems. Believe it or not, I am not against personal responsibility per se. I am simply annoyed that men are held to much higher standards of personal responsibility than women.
The problem is that you want to claim moral superiority without debating the logic. This is the opposite of reasoned argument. What you are saying is that anyone who disagrees with you is a moral cretin who can be dismissed out of hand, and no further argument is required.
March 4th, 2008 at 3:25 am
Doc,
I and others on this thread have pointed out many instances of logical flaws in your arguments, yet you can't respond to any of them. If you can't deal with rational arguments, then you have no right to adopt the sort of condescending, supercilious tone that you do.
All you can say is 'yeah sure life aint fair'. As if that justifies perpetuating unfairness.
March 4th, 2008 at 3:31 am
Davina, great post. You always manage to hit the nail on the head.
March 4th, 2008 at 3:42 am
Doc Says:
March 4th, 2008 at 1:54 am
I respectfully disagree the point here is that men are accepting responsibility but it is unfair to have to do this trough deception. How dare you blame the male victim of these women’s deceit. I know that at least 50% of all men have had to pay child support this way.
I firmly believe that at least half of all men have been victims of sexual deceit in some form. I think it is incredibly revealing that women are completely unaware of this. Because, you know, women are completely unaware of most of the other aspects of deceitful sexism. It never occurs to most of women that they can play and pick up a man without fear and men cannot. It doesn't occur to women that when they ask a professor a question about this type of deception men are automatically taken less seriously than women are. Most women are utterly unaware of the reality of sexism against men.
I despair of the topic whenever it comes up anywhere on the left-leaning blogosphere (except MRA sites). Suddenly, it's not like I'm among progressives anymore. Instead, it's women denying sexism and decrying the supposed over sensitivity of men. And nowhere is this more infuriating and offensive, as it is when the topic is sexual deceit against men.
And what's even sadder is that it's not women alone who are ignorant of the reality of this. Then there are the sex-deceit apology people. Because men are generally very reluctant to talk about their experience of being the victim of sexual deceit, even amongst themselves and sometimes especially among themselves (because men can often be more judgmental of their fellow men than are women), then if they are among those who've been lucky enough not to have been violated (or are in denial about it because of self-blame), then they jump to that same conclusion: I don't know anyone who's been sexually deceived, so it can't be that common. Well, they're wrong. It is common.
Doc, it's clear that you have absolutely no interest in engaging in anything but offensive, disgusting accusations and mischaracterization.
You are the one ignoring men's experiences when you don't recognize their trauma just because they don't answer "yes" to "have you ever been sexually deceived."
You are the one suggesting that it's not a serious problem if we go with the number of men who say they've been sexually deceived.
You're the one ignoring all the many stories that have been posted from men talking about how hard it was for them to acknowledge their experience.
You have done nothing but disrespect men here.
Might "your" boy(s) wear their own version of a chastity belt? Do they stay at home, only going out escorted by their wives or female relatives? Do you beat them when they get harassed or assaulted by women for "shaming" you?
Just a few excerpts reversed that have been used against men in feministing, I thought it was a fun experiment.
How did you feel (any of you) until you got to this sentence? I had fun and it was hard to type because I was laughing so hard . . .
Have fun
Bernie
All because a woman lied to them. Your are telling me that the only way for men to not be taken advantage of by women is to remove themselves from society. We must except our second class status and that is that.
March 4th, 2008 at 3:47 am
Sorry Doc you just happed to be the latest post with any thing close to dissident remarks. It was not personal but it was fun (not because it was you)
Wrong place bad timing
Thanks for allowing me to take this latitude with you
b
March 4th, 2008 at 3:51 am
opps after Bernie that was to be incorporated somewher above but the point still works
b
March 4th, 2008 at 3:54 am
Bernie,
the only way to avoid being taken advantage of by women is increasingly to avoid women altogether.
If her sons were to get done over in a divorce settlement, then she would probably say that it was their fault for getting married in the first place. After all, you have to take responsibility for everything and not whine about it. If you are kicked in the balls, it is your fault for leaving your balls hanging there or not wearing a protective device.
I'm not sure if I could do what you did in going into enemy territory like that.
March 4th, 2008 at 4:02 am
Doc (again):
"A woman can not have a baby without your input."
Is this a joke? Of course she can, and there are tens of millions of men available for that "input". Many of these men can provide the input while she forces other men to pay for that input.
"You whine, cry, whinge or complain about women being able to get an abortion."
Um, no, we're pissed that men are required to pay for the choices of women over whom we have not control; this includes women with whom we've never had sex but who burden society by bringing in genetic defectives from men without putting the name on the birth certificate. If a man is not good provider material then the woman has the option of foisting off some of the burden on society, or if she is hot enough, onto another man willing to deal with a bastard for the privilege of being with a desirable woman. But if he is good provider material then she has the option of sticking him with the bill while she carries on with her merry ways.
"If you take full and completely responsibility of your sperm, then you never have to worry about these issues."
Invest in porn. Seriously, it is the future's biggest growth industry although this fact bodes hideously ill for the future of society.
"No Nick - I am not self righteous. I am self serving"
*Sigh* would that you were self-serving. A truly self-serving, middle-class male with a vested interest in the continuance of society would favor every policy that contributes the continuance of good genelines and the termination of bad genelines. Every single thing you advocate promotes the propagation of bad genes and bad memes. Your prescription is that if you can't find perfection then choose celibacy; yes, telling otherwise decent evolutionary choices to refrain from procreating is great for the future of society.
"Everyone can make - as virtually everyone here seems to be doing - excuses for not being responsible for themselves."
Ah, making excuses for what, exactly? At 34 with excellent genes and an impeccable philosophy of living life I have not had children and yet am forced for pay for the "social safety net" that protects the children of men who are not required to provide for their own children. I can specify at least two women in the past whom I would have invested significant social capital but who have children without claiming the father. Therefore, I am paying them, through taxation, for rejecting me. But, hey, I "kept it in my pants". Again, is it good social policy to take a man with no personality disorders, no substance abuse issues and a high IQ and force him to pay for the offspring of men with personality disorders, substance abuse issues and a low IQ?
Well, not if that society wants to last for long, but then I have no vested interest in that society, so who cares.
"Of course, I do expect my message to be ignored. Personal accountability and responsibility is so contrary to American and Western society and culture any more. Goes back to the "me me me" thing."
Amusingly, Western society seems to be being out-bred by an Islamic society that has no notion of personal responsibility at all. So, maybe, individual responsibility, as construed by you, is not evolutionarily adaptive.
"With some of the attitudes I see here - you are going to need all the luck that you can get. The legal changes you want to see, just ain't gonna happen."
Finally!!! You make a valid point!!! Amazing!!! Yes, some of the legal changes sought by MRAs are not practical for the changes they seek to bring, an example being overturning Roe v. Wade. I refer you to the Roman historian Sallustus: Few peoples seek freedom; most want nothing more than fair masters. The MRAs are still bewitched by an ideal of liberalism, when in reality a people who no longer wants freedom needs a benevolent parent.
And there's another word for a government that is a benevolent parent: Fascism. And, no, I don't mean any sort of silly, racialist version, but a clean authoritarian fascism that guides society through difficult times when large numbers of the citizenry want no responsibility for themselves. I refer you to my earlier post where I posited that "When it takes a village to raise a child then the village gets to decide who has children".
And such a government, a necessary condition to survive these times, can only be described as fascist.
"By the way - it was my Daddy that taught me some 45 years ago to keep it in my pants if I didn't want to have the responsibility of a kid later on."
Ah, daddy taught you to withdraw from society. His bad. Bad daddy. Bad daddy! Bad, bad, bad, bad daddy!!!!!!!
Nick S:
"You say that the only reason people on this site won't agree with you is that you believe in personal responsibility, while we don't. So you are claiming moral superiority simply for having a different view. I'm sorry, but this is a self-righteous, self-serving attitude. Of course personal responsibility is important. But does that mean that we can never have a debate about who should take responsibility for what in any given circumstance?"
Responsibility is the siren call of the hangman. But it is also the defense of the weakling: I have no power how can I be responsible. The problem is that sanction has been tied to "responsibility" when in a life-affirming world sanction is tied to usefulness. You don't impose on someone because they are responsible but because they are useless and without merits.
"You are right when you say that our society places too little emphasis on personal responsibility ... "
No, society places too much emphasis on responsibility and too little on usefulness. Someone born with an IQ of 80 has no responsibility for that circumstance but that does not make them any more useful to that society.
"The problem is that you want to claim moral superiority without debating the logic."
Exactly!!! Holy Crap, someone finally "gets it"!!!!!! You are almost there, and all it takes is for you to understand that the very concept of "moral superiority" is utterly incoherent, and that you are constrained by nothing but countervailing forces acting against yours. All you need is even greater power to assert your will, and I can tell you how to get it.
"What you are saying is that anyone who disagrees with you is a moral cretin who can be dismissed out of hand, and no further argument is required."
The original Latin term for "morality" simply meant customs/accepted practices. I'll bring this up in later posts, but it's a vital point.
"All you can say is 'yeah sure life aint fair'. As if that justifies perpetuating unfairness."
Life ain't fair. Ah, I criticized that earlier but now it seems useful to point out that if your opponents want to throw fairness out the window then you might as well respond in kind. If justice is fairness, see John Rawls, and your opponents like Doc and the feminists eschew fairness, then you might as well remove the gloves, as it's nothing more than a fight to the death.
Nick, you, and the MRAs have stumbled onto a bloodsport, and there's nothing fair in bloodsport. It's kill or be killed.
Are you ready for your mission?
March 4th, 2008 at 4:53 am
Bernie:
"I despair of the topic whenever it comes up anywhere on the left-leaning blogosphere (except MRA sites). Suddenly, it's not like I'm among progressives anymore. Instead, it's women denying sexism and decrying the supposed over sensitivity of men. And nowhere is this more infuriating and offensive, as it is when the topic is sexual deceit against men."
So, when are you going to understand that debate is meaningless here? All that matters is brutal, overwhelming force.
"I despair of the topic whenever it comes up anywhere on the left-leaning blogosphere (except MRA sites). Suddenly, it's not like I'm among progressives anymore. Instead, it's women denying sexism and decrying the supposed over sensitivity of men. And nowhere is this more infuriating and offensive, as it is when the topic is sexual deceit against men."
Oh, no! Whatever shall we do?! Apparently, you've not been introduced to the concept that the best defense is a good offense. Attack, attack, attack!
"And what's even sadder is that it's not women alone who are ignorant of the reality of this."
How cute, and sad, that you think they're sincere. Of course they're aware of the reality of this, and, in fact, they use this to their tactical advantage to advance their interests. Hello, are you able to pay attention? As Bill Clinton would say "focus like a laser beam".
"Because men are generally very reluctant to talk about their experience of being the victim of sexual deceit, even amongst themselves and sometimes especially among themselves (because men can often be more judgmental of their fellow men than are women), then if they are among those who've been lucky enough not to have been violated (or are in denial about it because of self-blame), then they jump to that same conclusion: I don't know anyone who's been sexually deceived, so it can't be that common. Well, they're wrong. It is common."
Ah, women excel at secrets and subterfuge, men at organization and overwhelming force, so when are you going to put two-and-two together ... Fortunately, I am a very rare man who is willing to talk of his experiences, and I have experienced untold social opprobrium but survived to tell the tale.
"Might "your" boy(s) wear their own version of a chastity belt? Do they stay at home, only going out escorted by their wives or female relatives? Do you beat them when they get harassed or assaulted by women for "shaming" you?"
Clever boy. Sadly, this is an empty rhetorical flourish meaning nothing.
"Just a few excerpts reversed that have been used against men in feministing, I thought it was a fun experiment.
How did you feel (any of you) until you got to this sentence? I had fun and it was hard to type because I was laughing so hard . . ."
Such cleverness in service to impotence makes my heart sink. Don't convince of the rightness of your position, convince how your position provides benefits to others and to society You are laughing yourself into the grave. Embrace the black.
Nice S (again):
"If her sons were to get done over in a divorce settlement, then she would probably say that it was their fault for getting married in the first place. After all, you have to take responsibility for everything and not whine about it. If you are kicked in the balls, it is your fault for leaving your balls hanging there or not wearing a protective device."
My mother would've said this. She, by the way, is a fundamentalist Christian.
"the only way to avoid being taken advantage of by women is increasingly to avoid women altogether."
Which is why men are abandoning the mating (and sex) market in droves. Not exactly something that bodes well for a society looking to perpetuate itself. Hey, anytime you guys have the balls to actually do something about this give me a holler.
March 4th, 2008 at 5:08 am
Sorry to the guys near the bottom of this blog. I read the first 40 or so blog comments responding to "Ruby" a "feminist" and skipped over the rest, for the time being, in order to respond here.
I'm thankfull for the many fine , although brief, comments written in response to "Ruby" the "feminist." Such brief commentary manages to render ineffective assertions made by someone who likely received, by one way or another, their understanding of a small portion of the world from a subsidized and uncorroborated "women's" studies" program.
Many, many thanks to Glenn Sacks for believing in the cause of men's issues long enough to provide US (!!), here and now, with an outlet to counter, with words, the many ill effects that uncorroborated "feminism" has endeared to society.
I've waited many years, since the nine-teen eighties, for something of this magnitude to materialize and I do not doubt that several other readers of this site have thought the same. We all know that the regular "media" will not address the challenging of feminism and its ilk. This tax-payer assisted house of cards is going to topple as a result of the commentary here and as other men clue into this site. One of the interesting things about this site is the absence of hatred toward all women. Keep it up, guys, I'm proud to be associated with what I see here.
Nobody needs to respond to my comments here. Just keep doing what you are doing as the good nature, as much as exists, displayed here will eventually spill over to the rest of society.
Mike
March 4th, 2008 at 5:38 am
"One of the interesting things about this site is the absence of hatred toward all women."
That is a really important point Mike B.
Often times MRAs are accused of hating women when they argue that women have entrapped themselves via feminism in a lose-lose proposition.
I can't imagine hating individual women.
I do indeed hate the deformed biased laws and societal misandry that women take advantage of to harvest men's assets. (Blame Congress with its 100% unanimous vote every time for VAWA.)
Men are in general logical creatures and they focus their hatred on bad principles.
Feminism has been shown to be a very bad idea.
Because it hijacked the concept of gender equality and turned it into Gender War.
I believe I will live long enough to see feminism totally discredited.
If not, I have a nice modest island condo in a sovereign nation where the women could not even spell feminism and do not care to be in a constant war with men.
It is amazing what you can learn by leaving Fem-America for even just a little while.
March 4th, 2008 at 5:56 am
(Davina) - "As women, we have the first say in what occurs in our bodies without input from men."
Actually, I think it is the "input" from men that creates the dilemma.
You are writing very well and I am not going to pick on you.
March 4th, 2008 at 6:36 am
So, Ruby, if a woman lies about being on birth control and then gives birth to a baby nine months later, and demands child support to the unknowing guy, you'd say 'You go, girl'?
You're so horrible I am wondering how can you show your face in public. Women are not perfect. Oh no, not by far.
March 4th, 2008 at 7:11 am
I like how this person says `if a man didnt have to pay would he even care?`...haha... if she didnt get a check, would she want to take care of a kid?? My ex wouldnt... and she`s got the same mentality.
March 4th, 2008 at 7:12 am
Hog wash , just plain hogwash . These women movements will stoop to any tactics and rederick to justify their cause.
If our society realized that our children were actually paying the price for this type of behavior it would be revolutionary.I for one am a 45 year old father of a 4 year old daughter . I was dragged into the sewer (probate court) when my child was 3 months old . All about the money . EXTORTION. Mom had no insurance and I paid for the birth out of pocket . PRIOR to probate court , I actually thought mom wanted a family as she had led me to believe . That pretty much adds up to FRAUD.Then she kept my child away from me . ALIENATION.She was awarded physical custody although she had no where to live.KIDNAPPING . Well as I stated my child is now 4 years old. Mom has had 9 addresses , 4 jobs , 4 boyfriends which actually move right in . I,Dad, have been afirefighter for 22 years , I am barely hanging on to a home I have owned for 8 years and which my daughter has stabily domiciled since I received limited custody arrangements through $100,000.00 worth of litigation . Basically put , I honestly believe if a woman wants a child without a father and stoops so low as to blame the man upon conception she has committed a FRAUD. Shared equal physical custody IS THE ANSWER.
March 4th, 2008 at 8:16 am
Personally I agree with the author. If men want respect and control, they should take responsibility for birth control. Take it out of the hands of women, because clearly many have decided that they will take a child with or without a father in the child's life.
March 4th, 2008 at 9:13 am
While there is quite a bit of what Doc has written with which I disagree, I'm having a tough time with those who would take exception to the reality that - if you don't want to be responsible for a baby, either don't have sex or take major precautions to avoid it.
Like it or not, it is ultimately our responsibility. We retain that control. It is the one thing with which I 100% agree (from Doc).
Yes, it sucks that in today's day and age, you have to treat the relationship with such suspicion (or fear... or paranoia) given the state of the laws and legislation. For now, that's our reality.
March 4th, 2008 at 9:24 am
Joe,
Taking personal responsibility for ones life situation is certainly of critical importance... the difference between a child and an adult is often distinguished by an adults ability to see how their own actions contributed to the currect state of their life.
That said, it is important to note that what you think many men are after isn't actually what they are going for.
You suggest that "if men want respect and control" they need to behave a certain way.
Well what if men don't want respect and control so much as they want to be treated fairly and with consideration?
When you change the goal you change the approach that is necessary to achieve those ends.
In particular, when you want to be treated fairly you need to first quantify the injustice and make it known publically such that society in general eventually learns not to engage in or enforce such inequitable behavior.
In other words, while your solution to the existance of theft is for everyone to stop purchasing anything but the essentials for survival... my solution is to try and generate a society that doesn't tolerate thieves.
March 4th, 2008 at 9:41 am
Mister-M Says:
"I'm having a tough time with those who would take exception to the reality that - if you don't want to be responsible for a baby, either don't have sex or take major precautions to avoid it."
I have no issues with such a stance when it comes to casual relationships or ones that are just starting out.
My problem comes in with how this plays out in a more serious relationship.
Exactly what is a man supposed to tell his wife on their honeymoon?... "Sorry honey... I don't want to have a baby yet... so we're just going to play cards"?
Men and women alike have every reason to believe that people they are in close longterm interpersonal relationships with aren't going to decieve them on such an enormous scale.
In that context the suggestion makes no sense... and at the moment there are no "major precautions" that can be taken beyond self sterilization... not an option if you just aren't ready yet, but will be in say five years.
I find it difficult to believe that anyone would make a similar argument with reference to any other type of fraud... no would would find it reasonable for example to tell the insurance company "well if you didn't want responsibility for my fabricated claim you shouldn't have agreed to give me the policy".
Trusting ones long term partner not to trick you into parenthood is no different than trusting ones surgeon not to remove an organ without cause... the same way "doing no harm" comes with the job description of being a doctor... "telling no lies" comes with the job description of any serious relationship.
If we cannot expect to be able to trust those in our life who we are the closest with... then we can have no expectation of trust in any other context at all... the entire medical profession which is based upon the trust between the patient and doctor would need to be demolished (along with many other professions rooted in a foundation of trust).
March 4th, 2008 at 9:44 am
I've had several women lie to be about being on birth control, so they can try to get pregnant. When my ex got pregnant, I was curious, because I was wearing a condom. We had gone on a trip together.
I go to my backpack, open one of the remaining unused condoms, put it on the faucet and turn on the water. Water came out of this thing like a shower head. I opened all of them, and every condom had been compromised.
It was done not only for money, but it was an attempt to lock me down so that I could "never leave," in her words. Still, when people hear the story on the surface, their response is always the same.
"You should have wore a condom or kept it in your pants."
When someone says they care about you, the last thing you expect is for them to be lying and deceiving.
One day, technology will arrive that give men the ultimate reproductive control. I heard women tell me that they were certain men would like about taking their pill in order to get a woman pregnant. I don't know how many men would be doing this, but I certainly would not.
March 4th, 2008 at 10:01 am
Hi all;
Quoted from the article:
"The bottom line here is I think it's inherently sad that society ENCOURAGES men to sleep around without taking responsibility for contraception, ENCOURAGES men not to marry women their own age, ENCOURAGES women to take control of their destiny, and then burns a woman at the stake when the most precious blessing imaginable, a child, is bought into this world."
"From what the majority of men on this board have to say, the main issue of an unexpected pregnancy that they resent is having to pay for a child. If you didn't have to pay, would you even care?"
Men are encouraged to sleep around? I would have thought it was the other way around. I see no ads for women suggesting abstinence. Instead I see a concerted effort by society to make women sexy, alluring, take charge, take control individuals. How often have you seen an ad encouraging women to take responsibility for reproduction? I see lots for men.
Interesting that the author of the article also suggests men marry outside their age range scope.......men aren't stupid, I keep hearing about how women are smarter than men when it comes to relationships.........really? We are smart enough to know when to love someone for who they are regardless of age. The primary difference being we marry for love and friendship. In that regard we ARE STUPID! The divorce statistics tell us that. We for the most part love them, they for the most part marry a fantasy that they want to start to mould and change as soon as the nuptials are over and when they can't.......bye bye.
If I was the one getting pregnant, and I had a means to control that ,you can bet your ass I'd do so regardless of what my partner for the evening said. That is taking responsibility!!!!
The majority in here are not saying we won't support a child we wanted. We are saying we don't want to become parents forced against our will to do so. If a women were forced to carry a pregnancy to term, have the child taken away from her, allowed only occasional visits and required to work to support the child she too might have something to bitch about.
Do we even care? Damn right we do, but blackmail is blackmail however you couch it, even under the guise of "the best interest of the child" or more aptly " the best interest of the mother"?
March 4th, 2008 at 10:01 am
Ruby, You are so off base it isn't even funny. I am a woman, it isn't all men on this board. That's just one assumption you make that is wrong.
Another wrong assumption is that "society is telling men to go forth and copulate without consequences". Clearly there are consequences if a woman becomes pregnant for a woman as well as the man, don't forget the child in a loveless or unmarried relationship. I think the message society sends in media is for women to have all the sex they want and either abort the babies or sue the dad for child support and then get back to screwing around again.
Clearly, society has sent the message that it is men who will pay for the children and not the women. The whole basis of child support is based on the fact that men used to leave their families and the mothers rarely worked and if so they made considerably less. Now that women have left the old traditional roles and are regular participants in the work place, I think it is high time women and men were treated equal in the eyes of the law. I know a lot of states laws appear to be even on the books, but with old and liberal judges on benches men have a huge uphill battle. Also, most lawyers don't put forth the effort they should for men b/c they simply buy the myth that a man cannot win. Men are forced to act like slot machines for the women they made babies with. Society also tells us that we should feel sorry for single moms (as if these circumstances came about through no fault of the mother). I feel sorry for the kids and sometimes the dad's who are forgotten. Many single moms are that way b/c they chose it, they wanted to feel sexy and have the adoration that comes with "single mom" title.
Child support is no laughing matter when 40% of your paycheck goes to the mother and you don't even see the kids except every other weekend and sometimes less. But it isn't all about the money. You assume men have no feelings. I have sat by and watched my brother's heart be torn out as his wife of 20 years took off with the kids and wouldn't let him see them at all while she was awaiting the papers to be filed with the court for her divorce. Now my brother has the kids only every other weekend. He loves the kids and never wanted to be a part-time father. He always loved coming home to his family and he is an active and involved parent. His wife still gets to see the kids before and after work, while he goes home to an empty apartment (the crappiest home he's had since college). He cannot afford the lifestyle consistent with his income or his peers he works with b/c now they support two households and he pays child support. The evil whore ex is screwing around keeping up her hair color and nails while the kids wear crap clothes. Sometimes I think they just wear crap when he picks them up so he'll feel sorry for them and fork over more money he doesn't have. He doesn't have a lot of money and barely eats so he can entertain his girls when they come to see him. It isn't all about the money, but I think if someone took your kids and then insisted you pay them 25-40% of your income, you'd be a little upset. It's life shattering on all levels.
If you don't realize the level of stress this causes to suddenly lose your kids who you dearly love and to also then lose your income suddenly, then you either have no money or no kids to love. Dad's are put in positions where they have to sell all of their assets, mooch off of family, borrow money, etc. just to make ends meet b/c "society" has said it is okay for the victims of divorce (women) to take it all. Credit is ruinned, this all comes down by temporary orders when a woman files, so he has to pay child-support while also trying to afford an attorney.
It's painfully obvious by your venemous rant that you are a feminists incapable of rational thought on the matters of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness as far as men are concerned b/c you think they are perps and women are merely their victims (even though you say they can bring down as much pay or more). Talk about "having your cake and eating it too", it's women who decide to do whatever they please with no regard to the childrens' lives they wreck or the mens' lives they wreck.
You seem to imply that men trick women into having sex by telling them they love them, huh? I can tell you that never happened to me as a woman. No man can trick me into having sex with them. I have been careful with whom I lay down with and have very specific standards which includes a marriage certificate.
You made a good point, lots of women make more money than the average man. That is exactly why child-support guidelines should be changed. They are outdated from the times when men were the only wage earners. It's my firm belief that if you remove the mandatory child-support that someone would support the child. Too much fighting and using the kids happens just for financial gain, and a lot of you women make enough to support the babies you have had. I'm not saying dads shouldn't or don't want to help out support their kids, but this has become a tool of pain and gain.
Also, I think if women who are married but decide to take the kids and run off with a new lover should not be awarded the child support they seek from a man they decieved as well as take the kids. I think in that instance if you can prove infidelity then the other spouse should have the kids, if a person is willing to wreck the kids' family for sex then they shouldn't be trusted with the kids family life again b/c they will wreck it again, most likely. Talk about having your cake and eat it too. Women can leave a marriage for no good reason, for instance a whore who want to screw around ,and take the kids along for the immoral lifestyle (punish the man if he criticizes these choices at all in front of the kids, even though he clearly wouldn't want slutty daughters who wind up pregnant) and the ex gets a fat check each month as a bonus?
Ruby, what reality are you living in? Clearly it is a woman's world. I don't feel sorry for any woman b/c she got pregnant and now has to raise kids she didn't want to have quite yet. Children aren't a death sentence for a woman, besides you can use the child support for daycare and go on about your life like nothing happened. Children are a gift that can come unexpectedly even in the best circumstances. We all know what causes them, so there shouldn't be a big surprise and WWIII when two people have sex and make a baby. Women shouldn't act like they were deceived and men either. Really when it results from uncommitted sex, I only feel sorry for the child, not the man or the woman, however the law is on the woman's side again in this situation. Some men pay for kids that aren't even theirs.
I don't know what the answer is, but a system that is designed to keep dads in line or punish them for leaving seems antiquated at best. Now it seems women are rewarded for leaving with the kids and destroying families. The only thing you addressed in your rant is permiscuous sex that results in a baby. In that case both man and woman are responsible. I tell my boys that they lose all control if they lose control. I'd rather my daughter got pregnant than one of my sons get a girls pregnant. I wouldn't want my grandchild aborted, and I don't want my boys or myself strapped with child support for a kid we'll never be involved in raising. I think society is far more punitive to men in that situation and women get treated like they are something special or should be revered- oh the single mom.
March 4th, 2008 at 10:30 am
Doc-
Of course, I do expect my message to be ignored. Personal accountability and responsibility is so contrary to American and Western society and culture any more. Goes back to the "me me me" thing.
Because the personal accountability you propose only applies to men.
Otherwise, you would state that a woman does not have a right to an abortion, cannot adopt out the child, and not abandon it. But seeing that you think all three of those are fine and dandy, then you have no care about personal responsibility and only care about your own sense of chilvary.
March 4th, 2008 at 10:31 am
So where is Ruby? What are her rebuttals if any?
March 4th, 2008 at 10:56 am
roy Says: March 4th, 2008 at 5:38 am
"It is amazing what you can learn by leaving Fem-America for even just a little while."
I came back from South America recently. It was refreshing. Millions of people that do not worship women, diversity, pets, and or children. Dogs are considered street animals; woman embrace traditional roles; and, government stays out of the family.
A feminist would not be happy, as there are no Women's/Family Health Centers (read: abortion and birth control centers) in every neighborhood; the divorce rate is about 5% (divorce is bi-lateral, fault); and, fathers are mostly honored.
Employment is easier than America with fluent English (the language of business) and an American college degree, and there are no affirmative action programs.
I applied for citizenship, and I plan to purchase a home soon.
March 4th, 2008 at 10:57 am
In response to Davina says …
---“It's clear this woman is speaking from her (feminist) female perspective only. I don't agree with everything she says but essentially I interpret her message to be pretty much the same as the men's movement's message.”
Davina, I’m trying to make sense of your response but it has left me confused. I fail to see any correlation whatsoever (not even a little) between her one-sided lecture and the “men’s movement message”. The statement made above is in my observation *double speak* at its best.
If you go down her list, there is not one thing on it that supports equality between men and women. Please be more specific. What *exactly* does she say that makes any sense.
Thanks
March 4th, 2008 at 11:06 am
Davina says …
---“It's clear this woman is speaking from her (feminist) female perspective only. I don't agree with everything she says but essentially I interpret her message to be pretty much the same as the men's movement's message.”
Davina, I’m trying to make sense of your response but it has left me confused. I fail to see any parallel whatsoever (not even a little) between her one-sided lecture and the “men’s movement message”. The statement made above is in my observation *double speak* at its best.
If you go down her list, there is not one thing on it that supports equality between men and women. Please be more specific. What *exactly* does she say that makes any sense.
Thanks
March 4th, 2008 at 11:10 am
Women deserve control over their own bodies according to feminists. Well shouldn't men be in control over their bodies and all the rewards that come from usage of that body too just like women (i.e. paycheck)? If I go out and adopt a child, should I force the woman who had the child to pay me support? Shouldn't men have some say in how their gamete cells are used just like women? Or is it just women who get to be dictator? Lastly, if feminists really are fighting for equality, how is spending the majority of the time telling men what they should do with their bodies "equal"?
March 4th, 2008 at 11:24 am
Jason said, "Exactly what is a man supposed to tell his wife on their honeymoon?... "Sorry honey... I don't want to have a baby yet... so we're just going to play cards"?
Men and women alike have every reason to believe that people they are in close longterm interpersonal relationships with aren't going to decieve them on such an enormous scale.
I agree with the sentiment, however, the point is today - that the risk is just that great. It really, truly is. I didn't get married with the thought in mind that after having two kids, my wife would bail and pull out all but a few stops to separate me from my children - completely - in order to maximize the income stream without the responsibilities that are a part of everyday marriage.
The POINT is that the situation is just.................... that.................. CRITICAL. With 50+% of marriages failing (for any reason) - you have to realize that even in the comfy confines of a loving, trusting relationship - things can turn without warning and men are obviously at a decided disadvantage in family/divorce courts.
You can believe what you want - the point is, you just never EVER know - and the risks are just so incredibly huge that you have to (unfortunately) operate in that mode today.
The analogies you provided are borderline absurd. There are stiff penalties for insurance fraud and there isn't a 50+% failure rate in such cases. The surgical analogy your brought up doesn't apply because this country isn't faced with a 50+% surgical errors rate and the price for accidental screw-ups, let alone deliberate ones... are STEEP.
If you believe "telling no lies" is part of the agreement of marriage given the state of marriage in this (and many other) countries - you're an absolute fool.
That is the bottom-line. What risks are you willing to accept given the consequences of such fraud in a marriage are non-existent (in a "loving, trusting relationship" or not)?
I can't imagine when faced with such grim realities today any man in his right mind would choose to marry, let alone procreate. It's saddens me very deeply.
March 4th, 2008 at 11:46 am
Dan Snell,
"It was done not only for money, but it was an attempt to lock me down so that I could "never leave," in her words."
If she has you're child, a part of you will always be with her....The lions share of you're disposeable income!!
March 4th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
Davina, nice response to Susan B. Same for Tracy.
And at Susan B. You strike me as the sort of woman who wouldn't date 'nice guys' because 'He's boring.' Well as the Chinese curse goes, "May you live in interesting times."
March 4th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
I don't see what women making more than men has to do with them not using money a s a motivation. So, because she makes 5,000 a month and he makes 3,000 she still is going to pad her wallet with 600-700 a month. These women want the money and the child at the expense of the child not having a father in there life and to get the "money". These liberal idiots who right these articles don't have a brain. How do they stay employed? This is the state of mind of these people "throw the baby out with the bath water"
March 4th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
"The adulterous woman used to get marked with a scarlet letter. Today, she gets a Golden Globe"
"Based on my research," the gender studies professor says, "I believe that 60 percent of women will at some point in their marriage embark on an extramarital affair."
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/01/17/earlyshow/living/main667380.shtml
March 4th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
Tracy Miller:
That sure is some story about your brother. It convinces me that marriage is an anachronism with about twenty years left in it before it goes away for good. I'm divorced and would NEVER, EVER think of getting married again. I would have loved to have had kids. Fortunately, I learned to obliterate that part of myself in order to survive.
March 4th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Asher Says:
March 4th, 2008 at 4:53 am
= = =
Asher,
I did not write those words feminists did. These were arguments used against me when at feministing.com. All I did is change woman to man and man to women for example. I was being facetious using what the feminists think are valid arguments.
b
March 4th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
Anyone thats not completely stupid knows that if you have sex, you can reasonably expect that theres going to be a baby...PERIOD.
March 4th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Mark Ruffolo said: ""The adulterous woman used to get marked with a scarlet letter. Today, she gets a Golden Globe"
"Based on my research," the gender studies professor says, "I believe that 60 percent of women will at some point in their marriage embark on an extramarital affair."
Wow, 60%? All I have to say is that I am glad that new over-the-counter DNA testing kit is available now. One wonders how many men think that their children are actually theirs when they aren't. The future of marriages are prenups and DNA tests for the kids. That is, if marriage has much of a future at all.
March 4th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Asking for it
Doc wrote"Polish Knight Quote: "Granted. But let's follow that analogy down the rabbit hole. If you "miss the bus", the bus driver doesn't come back to you 18 years later and demand you pay for years of rides that you didn't take. If SHE wants to choose to have a bastard child for a father who doesn't want her, that's her choice but he shouldn't pay for it."
Basically, you "missed the bus" by not taking proper precautions to ensure that she did not get pregnant while you were playing around in the "rabbit hole." (Sorry - couldn't resist that one...)
Every man with half a wit knows that if he has unprotected sex that there is a 50-50 chance of a pregnancy no matter what promises or statements are made. It takes two to "boom-boom."
Every man with half a wit knows that he can, and in most cases will, be held liable for support of the byproduct of that venture into the "rabbit hole." If the rabbit dies, then something has to be done.
You don't protect yourself - then you are setting yourself up for the - as you say - the bus driver coming back 18 years later. Your problem. You set yourself up for it. Your problem.
I disagree that the logical conclusion would be that women are morally bankrupt. Both would be considered to be morally bankrupt. If you lie with dogs, you are gonna get fleas if you don't have them already.
"Men should treat them as if they're potential baby exploiters..." Ah. Now you are making sense.
"In the meantime, men have to be saints and wear 6 rubbers before having sex ..." Not a bad idea if you don't want to be stuck paying for something that you don't want.
"...because rather than 2 people being responsible, it's really just one: the man." Technically, both people who take precautions to avoid a pregnancy are being responsible. When one does, and one does not - what does that say about the one that didn't take precautions - which would be the man because without him, there ain't going to be a child.
"No wonder so many jerks remain in this game." Yep. Plenty of jerks around who don't cover their pecker, which means that they aren't covering their ass.
'If you make the rules to where only a fool or a jerk would play, who does that leave?" It leaves one jerk. The jerk that doesn't cover his own ass - or pecker.
Everyone makes a choice. If you get someone pregnant, you bear responsibility. That's the way life is.
Doc
The women in your life probably all carry concealed guns and have security forces follow them around when they walk alone at night. Otherwise, they're just advertising that they want to get raped since if you don't take every possible precaution to prevent something, using your logic, then you're equally responsible for it as the perpetrator.
Merck says: "---“This isn't a country I love anymore. It's just where I show up for work.”
That’s probably one of the reasons why this country has gone so far downhill. I suspect you care more than you say or you wouldn’t be here in the first place."
I do care Merck but there are limits. I live next to guys like Merck because it's profitable for me to do so. If I see his family getting murdered, I'm not wasting my money on a 911 phone call. I might lose money and hey, I'd be a fool to act morally or decently for a loss.
March 4th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
causefighter: "Anyone thats not completely stupid knows that if you have sex, you can reasonably expect that theres going to be a baby...PERIOD."
I don't think anyone here disagrees with this statement. What we do take issue with is the fact that, post-conception, women have choices (abortion, abandonment, adoption, etc) and men have responsibilities (whatever the woman wants). In a society that tries to espouse equality, that is fundamentally wrong. PERIOD
To put it another way, men and women have equal rights and responsibilities in most ways up to and including intercourse (the one glaring disparity is in the lack of an oral contraceptive for men). However, upon "completion of the act," that's when the man's rights end and the woman's rights continue. In my experience, only the chumps (ie: chivalists) and the feminists of the world see this overall and complete disparity as acceptable.
March 4th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
Joe, Dallas, Tx Says:
March 4th, 2008 at 8:16 am
Personally I agree with the author. If men want respect and control, they should take responsibility for birth control. Take it out of the hands of women, because clearly many have decided that they will take a child with or without a father in the child's life.
= = =
You missed the point. It was the different levels of deceit that are in question here and she is blaming men for the ENTIRE pregnancy. In reality in this situation it is the woman’s treachery that caused it so really it is entirely her responsibility for becoming pregnant because she lied about birth control.
Now do not give me that if he keep it in his pants argument because what this is about is that lying about birth control. This tells me one thing. A woman like this wanted a baby and would do anything to get it. This includes if the man said extra protection will not hurt and I will wear a condom anyway. You can bet the house that a woman this desperate to have a child would go into the garbage as soon as he is out the door.
I guess now you are going to tell us men that we should take our used prophylactic with us when we leave. You know it is not such a bad idea. This is a way to take responsibility for yourself not becoming hurt, being proactive, and a great way to entertain yourself when she goes nuclear and starts a domestic because you do not trust her (at least you will have found out that she is a bad person). Unfortunately because she started a domestic you will be the one going to jail and you will be the one that has to sign the property envelope that states "one soiled prophylactic." That is ok YOU and SOLELY YOU did not get her pregnant.
b
March 4th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
Where the "bus" is taking society with the bastard baby exploitation model.
Doc: "A woman cannot have a baby without your input."
As others have commented, this isn't true. Women can and do have sperm bank babies or through one night stands with strangers. Let's follow this down the rabbit hole.
In the old days, there weren't that many bastard children out there. Not only because society didn't give out awards like it does now to bad mothers but also because women had higher standards. They didn't see why they should raise a child in such awful conditions when, with a little work, they could MARRY a decent man and have children.
Today, with women's equality in the workplace, there are fewer men available to live up to the traditional breadwinner standards nearly all women demand AND there are more women out there who have higher standards because they have high paying careers. It's a double whammy that was predicted by many, such as Phylas Schlafly, to cause a relatinoships crisis. We've been seeing these chickens come home to roost for about 2 decades now.
So millions of women out there don't have a man available for marriage due to a variety of circumstances so they settle for a bastard baby. The system accomodated them but there's a flaw: The system requires men be irresponsible enough to sleep around with these women but ALSO responsible enough to pay lots of mommy support. See the problem? It's like the state punishing drug abusers with million dollar fines. The problem is that most crackheads don't have that kind of money which is why most of them are criminals.
So in the long run, the little bastards turn out to be... little bastards in a derogatory sense. The quality of men that are being caught is going downhill, fast! and these children are being subjected to increasing duress. "Doc" talks about responsibility and proactiveness, but he doesn't want to see the consequences of his simpleminded blame-the-man-reward-the-woman chivalrous knee-jerk reaction.
I do not have any bastard children. If these women and their children complain about starving to death, don't ask me to help. Don't ask me to help if I see one of these children being harmed. I have to look out for numero uno.
The society that the "Docs" make reminds me of the final episode of Seinfeld where the despicable Manhattanite characters redicule a poor defensless fat man being mugged and wind up going to prison for their cynacism.
March 4th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Ooops!
I wrote: "I do care Merck but there are limits. I live next to guys like Merck because it's profitable for me to do so. If I see his family getting murdered, I'm not wasting my money on a 911 phone call. I might lose money and hey, I'd be a fool to act morally or decently for a loss."
Er, I mean Doc. Doh! Merck seems like a nice guy I'd want as a neighbor. I'd rush into his place to help save his family from a fire or from an intruder. But Doc? I'd roast marshmellows while his family cried out in agony...
March 4th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
Doc Says:
March 3rd, 2008 at 11:01 pm
Every man with half a wit knows that if he has unprotected sex that there is a 50-50 chance of a pregnancy no matter what promises or statements are made. It takes two to "boom-boom."
= = =
Now the response from a feminist. You just do not get it, when will you understand that you are blaming the victim of this heinous crime. Women who practice deceit do not wear a sign around their neck stating so. What is the matter with you? You are so callous and hateful toward men it is disgusting. I wonder if you take the same stance on women who fondle little boys. I suppose that when a person gets hit by a drunk driver and dies it is their (the victims) fault for not taking evasive action or being out on the road at 1am
Do us all a favor and shut up we know what we have to do to protect ourselves stop being condescending and treating us like we are ignorant.
Doc your whole spiel seems to be that men shouldn't be allowed to be fully participating members of society. If they do, they run the risk of a deceit baby and it's their fault for choosing to run that risk.
Nice, Doc Do me a favor. Don't talk to your sons about these things. Send them to someone who actually lives in this century instead.
I wonder if he has the same philosophy on child molestation
again these were arguments actual use against me by feminists THESE ARE NOT MY WORDS
b
March 4th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
Bernie: "I guess now you are going to tell us men that we should take our used prophylactic with us when we leave. You know it is not such a bad idea."
My approach, back in my "dating days" was to flush used prophylactic's moments after use. It was a matter of course. I never depended upon the trash can.
Another suggestion: make sure your condoms come with plenty of spermicide.
Another suggestion: make sure your condoms are your condoms (never trust the woman to have one) so that you know that quality is maintained.
March 4th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
Lance Says:
March 4th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
= = =
Outstanding Lance!
Boys are you getting this?
b
March 4th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
Oh wait a minute, I forgot myself. You actually want MEN the victims to do something about this crime? You should be ashamed of yourself. It is woman according to you who cannot control them selves so you are suggesting that they should all be locked up?
Women commit this deceit crime so it is up to them to stop it and I should not have to always look over my shoulder and figure out if she is lying and going to have a deceit baby that I have to pay for . . .
B
I know sarcasm is low brow but I think in this case it is very effective at educating others what to expect when they encounter a feminist and possibly equip them with the tools that they need ahead of time to be able to have a proper response that will confound them.
Remember Americans started guerrilla warfare the Vietnamese perfected it and confounded us. Learn for you opponents and never underestimate them
b
March 4th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
Joe: "Personally I agree with the author. If men want respect and control, they should take responsibility for birth control."
Again, that's not the issue. As they say, sh*t happens. I had ALWAYS taken responsibility for BC.. Always...but that is in no way 100% guarantee that she won't get pregnant. And of course, as you could correctly say, "you know the risk".. Right you are - and I agree with that 100%. BUT, why should the risk be higher for me (a man) then it is for a woman? If men and women are truly supposed to be equal then their level of risk should also be equal. Women can lower their risk via abortion/abandonment. Men have no way to lower their risk.
Since both men and women have ~equal access to BC, you CAN NOT use BC as an argument with any credibility.
March 4th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
"he can satisfy HIS biological urge for sex"
"society ENCOURAGES men to sleep around "
So is it biology or society that makes men promiscuous?
Anyway, the point is: if a women says she is on birth control, she's accepting the idea that sex is more than reproduction, and that a baby isn't the inevitable outcome.
Also, this is one of those stupid arguments that goes "some people from one party act incorrectly, so it's fine for people from the other party to act incorrectly too!" ... men and women in this discussion happen to be in couples, not just random members of the population. Would she actually use this argument with her real partner!? "It's ok I lied to you, my partner, about being on birth control, because other men lie about loving their partners. It balances out, see?"
Not really.
March 4th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
PolishKnight Says …
“Er, I mean Doc. Doh! Merck seems like a nice guy I'd want as a neighbor. I'd rush into his place to help save his family from a fire or from an intruder. But Doc? I'd roast marshmellows while his family cried out in agony...”
You say that, but I don’t buy it. Either of us would forget about the differences as soon as the situation demanded it.
However, I think people like Ruby and Doc probably would be roasting marshmallows.
Kevin Merck
March 4th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
Did Anyone Catch This?
JenniferB said: "When you create a child , it is a lifelong relationship, not just for 5 or 10 or 18 years, and the average cost of raising a child over the next 18 years is estimated at $1.5 million."
I did the math and it turns out that she claims it costs $83K per year to raise a child. AFTER taxes.
Doesn't it sound rather suspicious that it supposedly costs more than twice the national income to raise an "average" child? Did she really spend $83K on her children, each, per year?
I don't think so.
Kevin Merck observes: "[rushing into a burning building to save someone] You say that, but I don’t buy it. Either of us would forget about the differences as soon as the situation demanded it."
You have a point there Kevin. The jerks of the world count on other people NOT living up to their professed beliefs even if they project that attitude upon others. Look at Jennifer: Does anyone here take her story at face value? That she was the helpless victim and he was a total ungrateful jerk?
If I met the guy today, I'd buy him a beer. If MORE men acted like that, then women would think twice about this. In the long run, that's what's going to happen anyway. It's shocking feminists that after bashing men as jerks for 40 years that only jerks are associating with them. Gasp! Life _IS_ fair sometimes! Who would have thought?
March 4th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Lance Says:
March 4th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
Again, that's not the issue. As they say, sh*t happens. I had ALWAYS taken responsibility for BC.. Always...but that is in no way 100% guarantee that she won't get pregnant. And of course, as you could correctly say, "you know the risk".. Right you are - and I agree with that 100%.
= = =
Lance I dunno, you sound like a sex-deceit apologist to me. You do not even realize you are a victim, come over to the brotherhood we will coddle you and re-indoctrinate . . . er . . . I mean . . . give you the facts . . . and if after that you still do not agree you will simply disappear . . . er . . . I mean we will find you a commune where you can live in harmony with like-minded people . . .
b
b
March 4th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
Glenn,
Ban her she does not think like us! She also forgets how insensitive she is to the men here that have and are still going through the type of psychological trauma that sex-deceit by women does to men. BAN THE TROLLS!
(torch and pitchfork in hand)
Everyone here I know is going to join me!
b
All those in say AYE!
March 4th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
(Kevin M) -- "Davina, I’m trying to make sense of your response but it has left me confused."
Get used to being confused.
That is only Phase One in your adventure with Davina.
It gets more interesting from there.....
March 4th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
"BAN THE TROLLS! "
I am never, ever in favor of banning for any reason.
Mainly because it is an admission of intellectual cowardice.
When you ban a person's voice, that simply means you either could not respond effectively to their narrative, or you are resorting to infantile "I'll take the ball and go home...." tactics.
Trolls are the very best of friends because you have to evolve your thinking when you confront them.
Alternatively, you can simply ignore them.
If a troll pushes your buttons, you need to examine your vulnerabilities.
March 4th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
uh roy....I'm pretty sure Bernie is joking around (calling me a sex-deceit apologist kinda gave it away for me).
His theme this thread has been providing answers that feminists give but changing the genders of the victims/perpetrators.
Go back over the thread and you'll see what I mean..
March 4th, 2008 at 4:30 pm
Tracey M. wrote -- "Clearly it is a woman's world."
I think you are a new voice here and it would be good if you could write more.....
So, if it is a women's world, why are men the oppressors?
Just a little tease to see if you are existential....
March 4th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
As a divorce mediator and former original feminist from the early 70's (no Longer), I can say with some conviction that the writer is simply irresponsible. I was irresponsible when I supported feminism to the extent I did. I went over board. I was for job equality & safe abortions for women. "Choice" was not how the movement got started & like a lot of other feminist ideas they have morphed into casual conditions to which our society has sustained at an immesureable rate of failure. The idea that we have advanced our society by reducing men while advancing women is ludicrous. Men are biological beings with 7 X's the testosterone as women. I think there will be some differences ...ya think? Children are in the worst state of maturity & balance ever because of our society's failure to recognize the benefits of men and fathers. We've been extolling women's rights so hard and for so long that we pushed them off the table of common sense. It is a false sense as a matter of fact...I call it "Maternal Conceit" This women is stuck!
March 4th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
roy Says:
March 4th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
"BAN THE TROLLS! "
= = =
GOTCHA!
LOL
b
roy Lance and I are going to take you out for a beer (not miller) to loosen up. Oh wait a minute we will most likely fall into deep deceit and debauchery, tell women we love them just to sleep with them and harass any and all women walking by us in the streets.
see here Feministing, Miller Beer, and closing liquor stores
b
March 4th, 2008 at 5:51 pm
Bernie,
Why go out for beers and molest women when we can call our womenfolk outta the kitchen to bring us one and beat and molest them without leaving the house?
March 4th, 2008 at 6:39 pm
LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
b
March 4th, 2008 at 7:16 pm
The problem is Doc, all too many women don't even know what commitment means, or have a warped world view of it. I would respond differently if she was at least committed to the welfare of a child, even if he was born of a relationship that later foundered for some reason. But the only commitment I've ever seen most women display is to themselves and the Devil take the hindmost when it comes to everyone else close to them. Because of that reality, men should be paranoid about all women unless they have good reason not to be.
March 4th, 2008 at 8:07 pm
In response to Chris Says …
---“Children are in the worst state of maturity & balance ever because of our society's failure to recognize the benefits of men and fathers.”
When you look at the statistics it really shocks the conscience. Children are really suffering at the hands of all the parasites who make their living in the “child’s best interests”.
I recently discovered how many children are being medicated with dangerous drugs and it really leaves me speechless. I went to grade school in the sixties and I don’t remember anyone being on drugs in those days. What happened?
I can’t believe the audacity of these criminals, who violate children to this degree, and then have the nerve to call a father alienated from his children a “deadbeat” for not paying for the privilege of having his children mercilessly molested by government parasites.
Kevin Merck
March 4th, 2008 at 8:13 pm
Women will bring beer from the kitchen?
Damn, I've been doing it wrong. I put a keg fridge in the living room to cut down on carpet wear.
March 4th, 2008 at 8:27 pm
Mister-M Says:
"I agree with the sentiment, however, the point is today - that the risk is just that great. It really, truly is. I didn't get married with the thought in mind that after having two kids, my wife would bail and pull out all but a few stops to separate me from my children - completely - in order to maximize the income stream without the responsibilities that are a part of everyday marriage."
You agree with the sentiment of what I am saying because deep down you know that what I am saying is ethically sound.
Your sense of fairness and equity is telling you that you should agree... I suggest that you listen to your inner voice :)
I am sorry about what happened to you by the way... but it doesn't make you personally responsible for the fact that she walked out on you.
Personal responsibility is about taking responsibility for ones own actions... not about taking responsibility for the actions of others.
I agree that if you have sex with someone and they get pregnant without any deception involved then you share responsibility... the moment they try to con you, your level of responsibility drops significantly.
"The POINT is that the situation is just.................... that.................. CRITICAL. With 50+% of marriages failing (for any reason) - you have to realize that even in the comfy confines of a loving, trusting relationship - things can turn without warning and men are obviously at a decided disadvantage in family/divorce courts."
A failed marriage isn't necessarily about purposeful deception.
You and I seem to be on different pages here... I am not talking about a situation where things go sour and a relationship just falls apart... I am talking about deception and fraud on a monumental scale.
It would be no different than if a spouse cooked their husband/wife dinner that he/she had every reason to suspect was perfectly fine but ended up being laced with some dangerous chemical.
You don't get to tell that person after they've been in the hospital recovering "50% of marriages fail... you have nothing to complain about... take personal responsibility".
We are not discussing a situation where pregnancy actually occurs by accident... we are talking about actual fraud where a lie has caused the course of events to unfold in a determined effort to circumvent someone elses right to choose.
"The analogies you provided are borderline absurd. There are stiff penalties for insurance fraud and there isn't a 50+% failure rate in such cases. The surgical analogy your brought up doesn't apply because this country isn't faced with a 50+% surgical errors rate and the price for accidental screw-ups, let alone deliberate ones... are STEEP."
They are actually quite on target if you ask me... you are the one proposing something that is absurd.
You are proposing that insurance companies and patients should possess a higher expectation of honesty with their customers and doctors than people who are married should have of eachother.
Do you realize how crazy that sounds?
"If you believe "telling no lies" is part of the agreement of marriage given the state of marriage in this (and many other) countries - you're an absolute fool."
I am talking about lies of this magnitude... and yes... it is part of the agreement in any long term relationship.
You do not ever attempt to trick the person to the extent that you permanantly alter their life.
You are acting like since sometimes people in long term relationships murder eachother, that we shouldn't concern ourself with it because anyone who get's into a long term relationship expecting their significant other not to kill them is "an absolute fool".
I don't know what type of people you hang around with... but if you can't reasonably expect any of them not to defraud you, maybe you need to rethink things a little.
"That is the bottom-line. What risks are you willing to accept given the consequences of such fraud in a marriage are non-existent (in a "loving, trusting relationship" or not)?"
My entire point is that consequences should exist... you don't get to determine right and wrong based upon what the punishments are.
If one generates their ethics externally then they aren't really an ethical person... they are merely a frightened criminal who is afraid to break the law because of the punishment that might come their way.
You are essentially saying that the reason you can trust a bank not to steal your money is because the government says it is illegal... but since the goverment doesn't declare such a thing about pregnancy fraud no one should trust the people they love.
"I can't imagine when faced with such grim realities today any man in his right mind would choose to marry, let alone procreate. It's saddens me very deeply."
The only reason it makes you sad is because as I said before... deep down you know that trust is part of the deal in long term relationships, regardless of what the legal consequences are.
March 4th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
Bernie: "roy Lance and I are going to take you out for a beer (not miller) to loosen up."
As I sit here with a yuengling lager in my hand, cheers!
March 4th, 2008 at 10:46 pm
Doesn't it sound rather suspicious that it supposedly costs more than twice the national [average] income to raise an "average" child? Did she really spend $83K on her children, each, per year?
According to some child support calculators... ;-)
March 5th, 2008 at 1:57 am
It's not just the men. If a woman don't want to get pregant maybe she should leave her pants on. I was always told to keep my birth control pill between my kneew and that way you know you won't get pregant.
Why does most people always just blame the man when a woman get pregant. It does take two. There are allot of women who will get pregant just to trap a man too.
Make the women take responsbility for their own actions, after all they are 3 X 7 and should know what they are getting into if they get pregant.
Sure men should take care of there responsibilty of the child and most of them do. Its usually the mother that makes them stay away because the man will be with their child and don't want to be with the mother. That is life and its time to move on and think about what these mothers are doing to there children. They are causing lifeline traumaziation to their own children and could care less.
If the women want to be that way they should give the child up for adoption to where the child could have a chance at a happy, safe and healthy childhood. A childhood all children deserve and not being pawns used by the mothers for their own pruposes.sorry for any typo's
March 5th, 2008 at 9:43 am
Women will bring beer from the kitchen?
The good ones will.
Heck, mine *gasp* made me a sandwich the other day!!
Why does most people always just blame the man when a woman get pregant.
That is the big question. The answer comes down to this:
Our society infantlizes women. Much like Islamic countries "protect" women by giving them freedom from (restricting their rights) Western society "protects" women by giving them freedom of (not holding them accountable for their actions). As such, even a 15 year old boy is considered more responsible for his actions than the 36 year old women who seduced him and became pregnant. Our society is based on the premise that women are not fully capable creatures, and therefore cannot be held as accountable for their actions as men.
The shame is that most men and most women hold this view without realizing how big of an insult to women it is.
March 5th, 2008 at 11:41 am
Kevin Says:
"The statement made above is in my observation *double speak* at its best. If you go down her list, there is not one thing on it that supports equality between men and women. Please be more specific. What *exactly* does she say that makes any sense."
Kevin, pay attention. I didn't say her arguments support equality between men and women. I said in my earlier post I don't agree with most of what she writes but I do agree with her sentiment. The "most" refers largely to all the nonsense she spews in the rest of her letter.
Her sentiment is what makes sense to me. Prevention is better than cure so for me her sentiment of men taking responsibility is not a problem as this helps them to eschew trusting a woman with their reproductive well-being. It's something I teach my sons all the time ... much to their chagrin :-)
Urging men to be more responsible is not wrong (nor is it the first time I've said it on this site). It's only wrong when your argument is grossly one-sided and biased like Ruby's. It's not only men who should be encouraged to exercise responsibility. It does after all takes two to make a baby.
Therefore, with the motto of "My Body, My Choice" women are at least 50% responsible for ensuring an unwanted pregnancy doesn't occur. I see this as the male perspective that is lacking in the mainstream. This is clearly lost on Ruby. And most other modern feminist women. That's why their entreaties are always so skewed because nobody challenges them. Nobody is allowed to challenge them.
With regard to the sameness in message, I refer to the fact that both sides cry for responsibility from the other. Feminists want men to accept more responsibility and MRAs want women to accept more responsibility.
Some men seem to have a good grasp of the female perspective on this issue. They are aware that they must bear some of the responsibility in pregnancy prevention and they accept this burden without much complaint. I believe this is so because that is simply their moral code or it was ingrained in them by over 4 decades of feminist thought.
Some women on the other hand seem to want to weasel their way out of ALL responsibility, but keep all the privileges that goes along with being "equal". I'm sympathic to the male position on reproduction because it is not socially acceptable for men to have a say in something that so essentially affect their lives. I think this is wrong. Many women, like Ruby, doesn't seem to have the knowledge I have. Some do, but either don't care or don't want to give up their privilege. They continue to live in ignorance or denial because of the lack of male perspective. Ruby's position assumes her view of the current state of affairs is the absolute truth. And my argument is that it can not be absolute with only one side of the equation, the feminist equation, we also need the male perspective to gain better insight, not only on this issue but every issue.
Better I can't explain it Kevin. I've not only answered your question I clarified once again why I have the view that I do. If you still don't get it, there's nothing more I can say.
March 5th, 2008 at 11:51 am
CORRECTION
This "Her sentiment is what makes sense to me" should have been "Her sentiment of responsibility is what makes sense to me".
And while I'm at it ... let me just say this before my statement is misunderstood. My agreement of her sentiment of responsibility is not solely directed at men. I think in all the time I've spent here most of you know that I am completely for women being held accountable on all grounds if equality with males is what we seek.
So don't think I'm agreeing with what appears to be Ruby's cry for ONLY men to be responsible. Not so.
The message of being responsible, whether you're male or female, is what I like.
March 5th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
The Catholic Church is right, sex is only for pro-creation. There's plenty of free porn on the internet. No need to force or con your selfish act on someone else. There's too many people at the mercy of sex. Without sex I bet the suicide rate would go through the roof and start shootin' for the moon.
March 5th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
Davina Says …
---“Kevin, pay attention.”
Now that’s the Davina I remember.
I guess you took offense to the “double speak” comment, but that’s exactly what your statement is. Instead of telling me *exactly* what she said that makes any sense, you go into a lengthy rationalization that makes no sense at all. She doesn’t advocate for people taking responsibility and if you believe in a “women’s right to choose” then neither do you.
March 5th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
Davina Says …
---“Kevin, pay attention.”
Now that’s the Davina I remember.
I guess you took offense to the “double speak” comment, but that’s exactly what your statement is. Instead of telling me *exactly* what she said that makes any sense, you go into a lengthy rationalization that makes no sense at all. She doesn’t advocate for people taking responsibility and if you believe in a “woman’s right to choose” then neither do you.
March 5th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
Child support? If men had a say in the way thier children were raised, and appropiate the money according to what they thought was beneficial for there children, we wouldd definatly be less inclined to Bitch.
Though We are forced by a system to pay, in a fashion that is forced regardless of our current situation to pay a person to make decisions on our children, weigh heavy finicial burdens to the point of overworking us, and limit our personal ability to spend time with our children in fear of backpayment issues or prison. I am an Ex-financial advisor, After research, there is no positive result from our current conditions in regards to child support.
They are over charging fathers for support, Especially in lower income brackets, under 35K they are outrages percentages and payback obligations that provoke criminal activity to get by.
Besides food for thought, Fathers have always raised the children in single homes before 1940's from the beginning of time. Why is it only in the last 70 years public opinion believes that a woman is better suited for raising a child? Or better yet, as my ex says, Woman are smarter than men and use two sides of there brain when men use one. Well damn it if I was that dumb why should I be responsible for anything? {SARCASM} sorry;
Point is woman believew that they are more suited when either sex is probably just as efficient at raising a child. Even the earlier feminist groups were trying to point this out, What made the feminist actually start there better than men?
March 5th, 2008 at 6:07 pm
Kevin Says: "Instead of telling me *exactly* what she said that makes any sense, you go into a lengthy rationalization that makes no sense at all."
Lengthy rationalisation comes with being a woman on a men's rights blog. People are just waiting for me to out myself as a feminist, a man-hater. But, I guess it comes with the territory. Keeping the purpose of this blog in mind, I can certainly tolerate the constant suspicion, even if I don't understand it.
March 5th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
Kevin Says: "Instead of telling me *exactly* what she said that makes any sense, you go into a lengthy rationalization that makes no sense at all."
Lengthy rationalisations come with being a woman on a men's rights blog. People are just waiting for me to out myself as a feminist, a man-hater. But, I guess it comes with the territory. Keeping the purpose of this blog in mind, I can certainly tolerate the constant suspicion, even if I don't understand it.
March 5th, 2008 at 6:54 pm
Davina,
I am surprised you don't understand it (the suspicion), but I don't share it, I welcome your comments and enjoy your input. For what its worth.
March 5th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
I agree with WolfmanMac 100%.
March 5th, 2008 at 7:16 pm
Davina Says:
March 5th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
People are just waiting for me to out myself as a feminist, a man-hater. But, I guess it comes with the territory. Keeping the purpose of this blog in mind, I can certainly tolerate the constant suspicion, even if I don't understand it.
= = =
Now turn the tables and on a feminist site BEFORE a man even gets there he is a he-man woman-hater-pig and nothing he has to say is true or makes sense.
b
March 5th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
Hey, Davina,
It seems to me that the guys evidencing "suspicion" are relatively few, and some of those are trying to provoke you just for fun, since you are kind enough to engage them thoughtfully. On the other hand, I think I have counted even more positive comments about your presence and contribution (and those of Celia, Betsy, Rosemarie, and the other wonderful ladies who support us -- and sometimes provoke us right back!) The women who post here give us reason to hope that we can make progress together. The presence of even-handed female voices such as yours on this blog is crucial to its integrity and level of discourse.
I suspect you can take it the suspicion. When you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear!
March 5th, 2008 at 10:14 pm
Davina,
on the argument that as a woman writing on a men's rights blog you have to constantly justify yourself against those who will assume you will out yourself as a feminist apologist. The thing is that occasionally you come across women who pretend to be supporters of mens rights but at the same time want to keep a lot of myths going regarding women's disadvantages relative to men. But it is obvious from most of your writing that you are not one of them. Don't feel the need to be defensive about it, because I don't think most of the posters here doubt your sincerity.
The reason I point this out is that on a previous thread I took you up on a quote that feminist ideology is not the problem. You responded with a lengthy and passionate post about how you never said the feminist position is not a problem, and pointed out numerous problems. The thing is, I wasn't questioning your support or confusing you with a feminist apologist. I was simply disagreeing about how we conceptualise the problem. It was a minor intellectual quibble, that was all. Reading your response, I felt a bit bad knowing that I had made you feel you were being viewed as the enemy. That was not my intention. In retrospect I would not have posted the comment if I thought that was how it would come across. I didn't realise at the time.
I hope that you keep contributing on this site, as it is nice to find women who get what is wrong with the current situation.
March 5th, 2008 at 10:31 pm
Sorry guys but this is a legitimate observation . . .
We complain about men coming to the rescue of women when they are perfectly capable if handling things themselves . . . one good example is the female cop and the F4J blog
BUT it seems to me that people are falling all over themselves to "protect" and make Davina feel wanted, liked, credible, etc. I am not saying that I do not receive the occasional complement and kudos but four or more in a row come on now.
Davina, no offence (oops am I doing the same thing I am complaining about?) but I call them as I see them. You are a big girl more than capable of deciding to stay or go and whether or not you are helpful here and whether it is worth your effort, time and aggravation . . .
Enough guys
b
March 5th, 2008 at 10:33 pm
Opps primarily directed at WolfmanMack, Glenn, Jay R, Nick S
Sorry guys I am bluntly honest
b
March 5th, 2008 at 10:53 pm
See also:
Demonspawn Says:
March 5th, 2008 at 9:43 am
b
March 6th, 2008 at 2:11 am
Ruby, you're a real gem.
March 6th, 2008 at 3:33 am
Bernie,
you are right. She managed to sweet talk us all into submission. When she started complaining about how hard it is being a woman commenting on a mens rights blog, it was a classic setup. Woman pretends to be helpless and long suffering in order to attract a male protector. And all us guys tripped over ourselves to fall for the scam. I'm so embarrassed.
The problem is that us guys are so used to copping venom and contempt from women that we go all ga-ga as soon as we find one woman who is willing to offer a few kind words. We are a pathetic and contemptible bunch. Let's all grow and maintain our rage:-).
March 6th, 2008 at 3:34 am
typo: the last sentence was supposed to be 'grow up and maintain our rage'.
March 6th, 2008 at 6:19 am
WolfmanMac Says: "I am surprised you don't understand it (the suspicion)"
Guys, I don't understand it because I've been posting on this site for quite sometime. By now, I think everyone who frequents this blog should know exactly where I stand on gender issues. However, sometimes I've found that people scrutinize every nuance in my writings in order to question my sincerity. I admit that I'm not the best, most eloquent commentator, but I do my best to be clear on my positions.
I don't get why some feel the need to do it, but I can tolerate it because I know many on here have been thru the wringer with women in their lives. Say, I might not be in agreement with every position Betsy takes on every issue but based on her prior positions on many discussions, it is not my first inclination to think she's being insincere in her support of the movement when she comes with a slightly different opinion that the rest of us might have. It's shouldn't be an either "you're with us" or "against us" situation. I can still disagree with you, and still be on your side.
Of course, I'm not saying everybody does this, in fact most don't. And based on that I have ignored it until now, but since Kevin (perhaps inadvertently) led us to it, I decided to speak my mind as I always do.
If I go into "lengthy rationalisations" its because I feel compelled to explain myself in detail to avoid misinterpretations or misunderstandings. How well I've achieved my goal is another story, but essentially that's my motivation.
This site is an excellent resource for me. I can speak my mind with a great degree of freedom thanks to Glenn and his desire to give all of us a voice (within reason of course) when noone else would. I'm a female who supports men's rights. I'm in a community of like-minded people and would feel like a fish on a bicycle if places like feministing.com were the only sites available to show my activism. I'm given the male perspective on many things I thought I understood but after coming here saw that I didn't. I learn something new on here everyday. My interactions with men have certainly grown for the better. I shall continue to post here to my heart's content if it's all the same to you accommodating gentlemen ;-)
March 6th, 2008 at 6:23 am
Bernie: "BUT it seems to me that people are falling all over themselves to "protect" and make Davina feel wanted, liked, credible, etc"
Hey man, what am I ... a kid?
I've never asked anyone to make me feel "protected, wanted, like, credible"? It's either people agree with my positions or they don't, nobody have sought to curb their disagreements with me. Bernie, sorry ... but WTF?
You're way of base there, pal.
March 6th, 2008 at 6:27 am
Bernie: "You are a big girl more than capable of deciding to stay or go and whether or not you are helpful here and whether it is worth your effort, time and aggravation . . ."
Please provide me with evidence where I've said I don't know if I should stay or go or if it's worth my time, effort and aggravation being here or not ... please, I'd love to see it. You will not find it because I have NEVER said that.
Bernie, usually I'm really good with you, but now you're pissing me off.
March 6th, 2008 at 10:57 am
Bernie--I see nothing wrong with chivalry (within reason), but the purpose behind what I wrote was not to "protect" Davina, but was instead written to acknowledge her valuable contributions to this board.
As I've said before, just as men are never right on the feminist blogs, sometimes on this blog the women can't win no matter what they do.
March 6th, 2008 at 11:00 am
Davina,
I think the point is that if a man were to express that they felt subjected to skepticism they would be unlikly to recieved instant support and validation from the group.
Instead most would expect him to get over it on his own and just accept that they are welcome here to present their thoughts.
That being said I think there is room enough for everyones opinion here, you just have to have a tough skin sometimes.
March 6th, 2008 at 11:29 am
The "babies pop out of men's penises" argument...and "it takes two to make a rape"
Davina says: "Urging men to be more responsible is not wrong (nor is it the first time I've said it on this site). It's only wrong when your argument is grossly one-sided and biased like Ruby's. It's not only men who should be encouraged to exercise responsibility. It does after all takes two to make a baby.
Therefore, with the motto of "My Body, My Choice" women are at least 50% responsible for ensuring an unwanted pregnancy doesn't occur. I see this as the male perspective that is lacking in the mainstream. This is clearly lost on Ruby. And most other modern feminist women. That's why their entreaties are always so skewed because nobody challenges them. Nobody is allowed to challenge them.
With regard to the sameness in message, I refer to the fact that both sides cry for responsibility from the other. Feminists want men to accept more responsibility and MRAs want women to accept more responsibility. "
PK:
Hello Davina,
What I think frustrates a lot of men here is that you fail to understand the distinction between basic responsibilities for ones actions versus being held responsible for other people's reprehensable behavior.
Your argument that two "make a baby" is the "babies pop out of men's penises" argument. If a woman wants to keep the baby, then men are expected to "share" in the responsibility of this baby that magically came into existance the second his sperm left his penis. If not, then it's just a fetus that can be aborted or later a baby that can be abandoned or adopted out.
Men are being asked to be "more responsible" for choices women make. The logical conclusion of men having to be "more careful" women don't exploit bastard babies is like asking women to regard all men as rapists. If a woman goes out on a date, and she's raped, she is partially responsible for the decision to go out and get raped, right? It takes two to make a rape and since we split things down the middle, both are responsible.
Don't laugh or fshaw this one away! A woman victim of rape in Saudi Arabia was convicted of acting improperly by going out unescorted and being raped by multiple men. She had to take "responsibility" for that action.
The logical conclusion of all this for young men to learn, besides that women are all potential bastard baby exploiters, is that gestation is a liability for women. They need to be supported by men and pregnancy is something that makes women into helpless baby making machines. This leads to the next response to Glenn:
March 6th, 2008 at 11:39 am
The myth of women's equality and yes, _I_ respect Davina
Glenn Sacks wrote:
"Bernie--I see nothing wrong with chivalry (within reason), but the purpose behind what I wrote was not to "protect" Davina, but was instead written to acknowledge her valuable contributions to this board.
As I've said before, just as men are never right on the feminist blogs, sometimes on this blog the women can't win no matter what they do."
PK responds:
Glenn, I'm shocked about your opening statement. Could you also say something like: "I see nothing wrong with white supremecism (within reason)?"
We all know why sexism is acceptable both in terms of women clinging onto sexism such as Colleen who still wants wealthy white knights to pay for her dinner dates and listen to her pretend to be equal and even feminism itself which is a warped extreme version of chivalry (women need to be protected as helpless victims so that they can be treated as equals).
So let's address the 500 lb gorilla in the room: Sexism is natural. Women are not equal to men. Men are still needed as providers and protectors of women and society and children and therefore the notion that women can be "equal" in sharing the few goodies men have to live up to this vital role is just exploitive double dipping. It's like taking the catalytic converter off of your car and saying: "I still care about the Earth. I just believe other people should conserve energy."
We've given men such as Doc also a hard time for their positions. Davina is not getting any girl-breaks but, to her credit, I don't think she wants them. I think she's nuts for believing that ALL women are capable of following her example, but I give HER credit for trying herself and setting an example. She's been very lucid and fair and level headed in her responses to me and rolled with the punches. Davina, if I didn't know better, I'd think you were a man. I don't know if you'd consider that a compliment though.
March 6th, 2008 at 11:43 am
Jason Says: "That being said I think there is room enough for everyones opinion here, you just have to have a tough skin sometimes."
Excuse me, Jason, but you will never be able to point out anywhere on this blog in the past, present or future where I've cried out at you guys for ganging up on me or any other woman for that matter. I remember when Betsy & Felicia & Ruby and a number of other women wrote their letter to Glenn complaining about the harsh criticism of women on this site, I was right there with you guys telling them to get used it as this was a men's rights blog that discussed the treachery of some women, not a place where we sing women's praises (we have feministing for that) unabashedly, but rather give credit where credit is due (like for eg Erin Pizzey and the other female DV professionals who are not influenced by feminist propaganda).
With the exception of myself and perhaps Celia (because I can't recall her having ever complained either) I have never uttered a word of complaint about any criticism directed at me. I always try to answer people as best as I can or ignore those comments I perceive to be particularly mean-spirited. On occasion I will speak out if they are grossly unfair, and even so, never on my own behalf (the exception of now perhaps).
So forgive me if I think that by my own definition I have a pretty darn thick skin.
March 6th, 2008 at 11:52 am
PK Says: "Hello Davina, What I think frustrates a lot of men here is that you fail to understand the distinction between basic responsibilities for ones actions versus being held responsible for other people's reprehensable behavior.
Your argument that two "make a baby" is the "babies pop out of men's penises" argument. If a woman wants to keep the baby, then men are expected to "share" in the responsibility of this baby that magically came into existance the second his sperm left his penis."
PK, how in the world you interpreted the above from my post is beyond me. Seriously. Your argument and your apparent attempt to distort what I wrote isn't worth the time I'd use to respond to you.
Yours is a perfect example of the nit-picking I mentioned earlier just to prove that I'm *really* just a misandrist. So be it. Think whatever you want. At this point I'm beyond caring.
March 6th, 2008 at 11:54 am
PS: And before you accuse me of saying you care that I don't care ... I'm not. Just for the record.
March 6th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
On the radio this morning in Riverside some under age girls reported on Sunday that Friday some boys invited them in the house and they had sex but the cops ruled it consensual. Maybe some adult was coaching them to do this after they saw on Hard Evivence-48 hours- that a teenage girl sued a rich father for $20 million 'cos of a tape that was found of 3 guys (one his son) having sex with a drunk girl. lololol, money rules the world but sex is a close second. Love? Come on, get serious, Lust, ok.
March 6th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
Face, you're not gonna have much of a marriage if you don't have money or a job that brings in money. No candy coating the facts.
March 6th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Our "responsible" society and how McD's had to pay a woman a million bucks for spilling coffee in her lap in her car
Davina wrote: PK, how in the world you interpreted the above from my post is beyond me. Seriously. Your argument and your apparent attempt to distort what I wrote isn't worth the time I'd use to respond to you.
Yours is a perfect example of the nit-picking I mentioned earlier just to prove that I'm *really* just a misandrist. So be it. Think whatever you want. At this point I'm beyond caring.
And follows up with:
PS: And before you accuse me of saying you care that I don't care ... I'm not. Just for the record.
PK responds:
Yikes! And I just said you rolled with the punches you write something bizarre like that. I find it puzzling that you claim to not understand what I'm saying but then, at the same time, get all snippy. My usual response when I don't get what someone is saying is to ask for clarification. When I'm honestly confused I can't be offended.
I think what I wrote was obvious and even blunt. I'll restate my case: Men don't "make babies". They have sex. That's zit. WOMEN make babies and decide to become parents and even if abortion was illegal, they still choose to not put the child up for adoption. You are attempting to hold a man responsible for merely being involved in a series of events that is mostly in the woman's control.
Then again, you're not alone. As I mention above, we have a legal precedent for this where many rediculous cases happen where "big pocketed" defendants have had to pay irresponsible people millions of dollars because they did something wrong and the defendant was peripherally involved. McD's didn't spill a cup of coffee on a woman's lap. The woman did that. Coffee is hot. Duh.
March 6th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
WOW!
I was just being honest about my observations and feelings and now I am being lambasted . . . where are the multiple posts in a row for me and my contributions will they follow this post? I doubt it! I am sure I will receive more of the same. That is Ok because I am a man and have to be thick skinned, think about it.
My intent I assure you was not to cause a - - - - storm but a very valid observation. I was going to address all the comments in one post but that would be way too lengthy and I will handle them separately. Right now I feel like I AM on a feminist site with a few exceptions.
b
March 6th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Okay this is the story according to Kevin. Susan B. made the following comments …
susan b Says:
March 3rd, 2008 at 6:11 pm
This is the response Davina made to the comments made by Susan B.
Davina Says:
March 3rd, 2008 at 8:20 pm
To which I responded …
Kevin Merck Says:
March 3rd, 2008 at 8:44 pm
Davina
[“I'm glad I took the time to read your comment. I wish all women (and men) were that reasonable.”]
This is the response I made after reading Davina’s comment. I was reading the comments in reverse chronological order. Don’t ask me why I do that; sometimes I just do. I continued up the sequence of comments until I reached the following comment.
Davina Says:
March 3rd, 2008 at 6:35 pm
The following is my response after I read her comment.
Kevin Merck Says:
March 3rd, 2008 at 9:30 pm
Davina Says:
March 3rd, 2008 at 6:35 pm
---“I can see where she's coming from as she does make some good points, but instead of the transfering of responsibility (because really, does it solve the problem of curbing unwanted pregnancies?) what I'd be interested in is a solution that gives both parties equal options both pre and post conseption.”
Davina your last comment seemed to make so much sense and then I saw this one and had to scratch my head a little.
What is there about Ruby’s comments that you think make good points?
To which she replied …
Davina Says:
March 4th, 2008 at 2:35 am
To which I replyed …
Kevin Merck Says:
March 4th, 2008 at 10:57 am
---“It's clear this woman is speaking from her (feminist) female perspective only. I don't agree with everything she says but essentially I interpret her message to be pretty much the same as the men's movement's message.”
Davina, I’m trying to make sense of your response but it has left me confused. I fail to see any correlation whatsoever (not even a little) between her one-sided lecture and the “men’s movement message”. The statement made above is in my observation *double speak* at its best.
If you go down her list, there is not one thing on it that supports equality between men and women. Please be more specific. What *exactly* does she say that makes any sense.
Thanks
To which she replied …
Davina Says:
March 5th, 2008 at 11:41 am
To which I replied …
Kevin Merck Says:
March 5th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
Davina Says …
---“Kevin, pay attention.”
Now that’s the Davina I remember.
I guess you took offense to the “double speak” comment, but that’s exactly what your statement is. Instead of telling me *exactly* what she said that makes any sense, you go into a lengthy rationalization that makes no sense at all. She doesn’t advocate for people taking responsibility and if you believe in a “woman’s right to choose” then neither do you.
To which she replied …
Davina Says:
March 5th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
Kevin Says: "Instead of telling me *exactly* what she said that makes any sense, you go into a lengthy rationalization that makes no sense at all."
“Lengthy rationalisations come with being a woman on a men's rights blog. People are just waiting for me to out myself as a feminist, a man-hater. But, I guess it comes with the territory. Keeping the purpose of this blog in mind, I can certainly tolerate the constant suspicion, even if I don't understand it.”
At this point I decided not to continue the discussion. Men are often at a severe disadvantage in debating women because the usual tactic is to resort to claiming that you’re not being fair because they’re a woman. Whether or not this is what she attempted to pull is a matter of perception. In my eyes she resorted to being a victim and the knights in shining armor came rushing to her rescue.
I was simply trying to understand her reasoning. I get the impression that maybe she and Ruby have agreed on things in the past and she was showing loyalty to someone she may have thought was better than the childish argument put forward. That’s only speculation, because to be honest I don’t always read the comments. Most often I comment without reading any of the other comments at all.
I have no problem with Davina or any other woman for that matter. I do my best to separate the behavior from the person. I don’t hate anyone, man or woman, and am just trying to make things better for everyone. I may not always go about it the “right way”, or make the best argument, but my motivations are sincere.
Davina, I just wanted to understand why you agree with her statements. You said she made several good points? What are they? That’s all I was trying to get at.
Sincerely,
Kevin Merck
March 6th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
Awww the heck with it, it is going into one post
Jason has expressed exactly what I mean and now I am under scrutiny and some of what I said is being misunderstood. But even Jason got something wrong. Sorry Jay (there was no intent for her to have thick skin it was directed at her "protectors". You know I speak my mind and no offence meant you, you just misunderstood and I know that you will not take any offence.
Davina what did you not understand about "no offence" meaning that it really was not directed you it was meant that you are a big girl capable of making your own decisions, deciding whether you should stay or go on your own, and whether it is worth it to you, I guess I made an error and that should have been directed at the guys jumping to your rescue and not at you saying that "Davina is a big girl and she . . . ." That was meant that you are an adult and not a kid . . . I am insulted by your attack on me and the language you use toward me in your posts I have never done that to you and DEMAND rightfully so the same respect from you.
Davina Says:
March 6th, 2008 at 6:23 am
I've never asked anyone to make me feel "protected, wanted, like, credible"? It's either people agree with my positions or they don't, nobody have sought to curb their disagreements with me. Bernie, sorry ... but WTF?
You have taken that out of context and that is wrong. I NEVER said that you asked for the protection (they did it of their own free will) and I have now lost some respect for you implying that I did. This is exactly what I experience on feminist sites. They will put their own slant on something to depose me and my post.
You're way of base there, pal.
So you are way of base there hun.
Davina Says:
March 6th, 2008 at 6:27 am
Bernie: "You are a big girl more than capable of deciding to stay or go and whether or not you are helpful here and whether it is worth your effort, time and aggravation . . ."
Please provide me with evidence where I've said I don't know if I should stay or go or if it's worth my time, effort and aggravation being here or not ... please, I'd love to see it. You will not find it because I have NEVER said that.
Bernie, usually I'm really good with you, but now you're pissing me off.
Davina, you have misconstrued that too. I did not mean to imply that you said that, I just meant that you are more than capable of making that decision if you do or ever feel that way, again this was more directed at your "protectors." Jeez . . .
Glenn I agree with you but not 100%. What I said (and meant) is that it was uncommon to have the number of posts in a row to protect some ones feeling on this blog. Again we will see if the same happens to me after I point how I was so misunderstood.
PK responds:
Glenn, I'm shocked about your opening statement. Could you also say something like: "I see nothing wrong with white supremecism (within reason)?"
We've given men such as Doc also a hard time for their positions.
BINGO
Who has come to his rescue? Due to his lack of response to me When I said no offence and that he was the most recent poster with that particular view so he was my example I believe that he did not take any offence and just heard out my point
Davina is not getting any girl-breaks but, to her credit, I don't think she wants them.
agreed but now by her recent posts it could emphasis on could, Davina, that she could be phishing for them now
I think she's nuts for believing that ALL women are capable of following her example, but I give HER credit for trying herself and setting an example. She's been very lucid and fair and level headed in her responses to me and rolled with the punches. Davina, if I didn't know better, I'd think you were a man. I don't know if you'd consider that a compliment though.
agreed again
Davina Says:
March 6th, 2008 at 11:43 am
Jason Says: "That being said I think there is room enough for everyone’s opinion here, you just have to have a tough skin sometimes."
Excuse me, Jason, but you will never be able to point out anywhere on this blog in the past, present or future where I've cried out at you guys for ganging up on me or any other woman for that matter.
That seems to have changed right now and again my post was not directed at you is was for the conspicuous attempt by men to rescue you
With the exception of myself and perhaps Celia (because I can't recall her having ever complained either) I have never uttered a word of complaint about any criticism directed at me.
Again that has changed right now
I always try to answer people as best as I can or ignore those comments I perceive to be particularly mean-spirited. On occasion I will speak out if they are grossly unfair, and even so, never on my own behalf (the exception of now perhaps).
I was not being mean spirited (if you thought so or grossly unfair if you thought so) I just made a simple observation about OTHER MEN on this blog.
So forgive me if I think that by my own definition I have a pretty darn thick skin.
Not right now you do not; especially again this was not for you but for the other men on this board
Maybe if this is the way I am going to be misunderstood it is time for me to go, we will see
I cannot apologize for my ability to make astute observations or for my blunt honesty, that is who I am and I cannot and will not change that . . .
b
March 6th, 2008 at 6:13 pm
Doc: Mind you, I do not buy into the theory that "I never knew anything was wrong in the relationship."
You are entitled to your opinion.
March 6th, 2008 at 8:41 pm
PK: "I think she's nuts for believing that ALL women are capable of following her example"
Jesus Christ, is that what you really believe I believe? Man, you're clueless. If there was any inkling of truth to the above statement what would be the purpose of me being here? Wouldn't I have just gone out and persuaded them all with my message?
Once again we see where people are putting words into my mouth that I've NEVER said. I'm not stupid or naive (not saying you said or implied that) enough to believe most, muchless ALL women, are "capable of following my example". How many times have I said that when it comes to gender politics our society is screwed up because of the lack of the male perspective? Countless of times.
Kindly refrain from giving off your interpretations and impressions of what I've written as something I've actually written. Not once have I EVER said I believed most, muchless ALL women, are like me. In fact, even already on this thread, I've wrote "Many women, like Ruby, doesn't seem to have the knowledge I have." (please refer to my 11:41am post).
"Davina, if I didn't know better, I'd think you were a man."
I can assure you I'm very much a woman.
Kevin Says:
"I was simply trying to understand her reasoning."
I understood that that you were trying to understand my reasoning, and I did not at all take any offence at you asking.
"I get the impression that maybe she and Ruby have agreed on things in the past and she was showing loyalty to someone she may have thought was better than the childish argument put forward. That’s only speculation, because to be honest I don’t always read the comments. Most often I comment without reading any of the other comments at all. "
Kevin, I haven't the slightest inkling who Ruby is, and thus do not have loyalty toward strangers.
"I have no problem with Davina or any other woman for that matter. I do my best to separate the behavior from the person. I don’t hate anyone, man or woman, and am just trying to make things better for everyone. I may not always go about it the “right way”, or make the best argument, but my motivations are sincere."
I've never thought you had anything against me.
"Davina, I just wanted to understand why you agree with her statements. You said she made several good points? What are they? That’s all I was trying to get at."
Kevin, by your own admission, you don't read the comments. Why ask the question if you're not interested in the answer? I did answer your question above, to the best that I could. You asked me the same question earlier and in my final attempt to respond I kindly ask you to refer to my 11:41am and 11:51am posts. You might not like or agree with my answer, that is certainly your prerogative, but that is my answer. I shall now respectfully withdraw from this discussion as I've nothing left to say.
Kevin, just so you're aware, after my 6.09pm comment, my posts were not directed at you.
In my 6.09pm post I wrote:
"Lengthy rationalisations come with being a woman on a men's rights blog. People are just waiting for me to out myself as a feminist, a man-hater. But, I guess it comes with the territory. Keeping the purpose of this blog in mind, I can certainly tolerate the constant suspicion, even if I don't understand it."
The above was clarified in my 6.19am post. But I'll make one final attempt to clarify it.
*Lengthy rationalisations come with being a woman on a men's rights blog*
Considering that many men here have been badly abused by the women in their lives, they've developed a natural instinct to distrust the female presence. I mentioned I can tolerate this but not understand it, and I said this merely because I've been posting on this site quite a while and all you should know where I stand on gender issues by now. Therefore, I don't see the need for the constant suspicion. Perhaps in this assumption we see my proverbial naivete manifesting itself. Oh well ...
*People are just waiting for me to out myself as a feminist, a man-hater.*
The above was not me attempting to play the victim card in any form whatsoever, so you got that wrong. Because of the suspicion I meet from some individual posters here, I tend to go into what you described as "lengthy rationalisations" in order to avoid misunderstandings, So I try to go into detail about my positions and not leave anything at the mercy of anyone's misinterpretations (much good that strategy did me).
March 6th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
Bernie's original comment was clearly meant as a jibe at us guys, rather than having a go at Davina for supposedly playing the victim. I took his comment in good humour as I have a fairly thick skin, and I can deal with a bit of mockery without falling to pieces.
I think this exchange illustrates a potential problem in that the mens movement at times develops its own form of political correctness, whereby any man who is not automatically suspicious of a woman is immediately dismissed as a brainwashed, chivalrous, p**** whipped man. It is a bit like the way feminists will ridicule any woman who does anything for a man as a doormat.
The point that Glenn was making about chivalry not always being the problem is right. Chivalry becomes a problem when women who are already advantaged try to extract more and more unfair advantages, usually by falsely claiming to actually be disadvantaged. But posting on a mens rights forum is perhaps one of the few situations where women genuinely are at a disadvantage relative to men, and the fact that men have to cop it more elsewhere in society might be blinding us to that fact.
Like many others here, I have also developed a natural instinct to distrust women. For me, it is not because of having been burned in relationships or the family law system (I have never been married or had a serious long-term relationship). Rather, it is simply that when you have grown up in a society where you are constantly bombarded with women who are peddling falsehoods to get their own way, demanding more and more, and ignoring the rights or interests of others then this does have an impact on your worldview. Eventually you develop a mentality of assuming that women will be selfish or unreasonable, and can't really be trusted. I don't believe it is my fault for having that view. Too many women have chosen to embrace the BS, and too few have chosen to embrace common sense, so women can't really complain if this impacts on how men view women. I have chosen to avoid relationships with women, basically because I'm scared of them and I'm not about to invite a whole lot of trouble into my life.
Having said all that, it is crazy to turn on those women who understand what is wrong and are trying to help. Guys, save your invective for those women who don't have a clue, rather than those who do.
March 6th, 2008 at 11:46 pm
Nick,
Nice.
b
March 7th, 2008 at 2:38 am
Thanks Bernie
I always save my best until everyone else has left the thread!
March 7th, 2008 at 4:31 am
Nick Says: "Bernie's original comment was clearly meant as a jibe at us guys."
It was not "clear" to me that it was just a jibe at just you guys so don't expect me to lie down and play dead when I have the impression I'm being attacked.
If I miscontrued Bernie's position, fine, I can accept that but I responded with the information as I gleaned it at the time. Bernie found himself in the same situation I try to avoid in what Kevin calls my *lengthy rationalisations*. I would rather give lengthy rationalisations than leave room for misinterpretations (althought I don't know how successful that strategy has been considering this rather bizarre episode). Clearly Bernie didn't take the time to elaborate on who exactly his comments were directed at so I formed my own interpretation and responded accordingly. I will not apologise for that.
"Having said all that, it is crazy to turn on those women who understand what is wrong and are trying to help. Guys, save your invective for those women who don't have a clue, rather than those who do."
Well said. I agree.
March 7th, 2008 at 11:48 am
Davina Says:
"So forgive me if I think that by my own definition I have a pretty darn thick skin."
I just want to be clear about something... my comment about having a thick skin sometimes wasn't meant to be interpreted as saying "your skin is too thin".
Instead it was just a simple statement of fact that I think everyone needs to keep in mind... that includes you, it includes me, and it includes everyone else.
If you feel that you've demonstrated that you have a thick skin that is great... I hope that I've demonstrated the same thing... but it doesn't obviate my point that we still need to be resilient against criticism here.
March 7th, 2008 at 11:59 am
Tracy Miller:
I have sat by and watched my brother's heart be torn out as his wife of 20 years took off with the kids and wouldn't let him see them at all while she was awaiting the papers to be filed with the court for her divorce. Now my brother has the kids only every other weekend. He loves the kids and never wanted to be a part-time father. He always loved coming home to his family and he is an active and involved parent. His wife still gets to see the kids before and after work, while he goes home to an empty apartment (the crappiest home he's had since college)
I think that what happens to Tracy's brother is missed by many people. For example, Doc suggests that Tracy's brother and his ex-wife must have had a profound communication breakdown.
March 7th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
Case and point PROVEN!
No multiple posts of support, I am ok with that, in fact I am pleased because it proves my point
Bernie Misiura Says:
March 6th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
WOW!
I was just being honest about my observations and feelings and now I am being lambasted . . . where are the multiple posts in a row for me and my contributions will they follow this post? I doubt it! I am sure I will receive more of the same. That is Ok because I am a man and have to be thick skinned, think about it.
= = =
Nick S Says:
March 7th, 2008 at 2:38 am
Thanks Bernie
I always save my best until everyone else has left the thread!
= = =
Davina Says:
March 7th, 2008 at 4:31 am
Nick Says: "Bernie's original comment was clearly meant as a jibe at us guys."
It was not "clear" to me that it was just a jibe at just you guys so don't expect me to lie down and play dead when I have the impression I'm being attacked.
If I miscontrued Bernie's position, fine, I can accept that but I responded with the information as I gleaned it at the time. Bernie found himself in the same situation I try to avoid in what Kevin calls my *lengthy rationalisations*. I would rather give lengthy rationalisations than leave room for misinterpretations (althought I don't know how successful that strategy has been considering this rather bizarre episode). Clearly Bernie didn't take the time to elaborate on who exactly his comments were directed at so I formed my own interpretation and responded accordingly. I will not apologise for that.
BUT
Nick S Says:
March 6th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
Bernie's original comment was clearly meant as a jibe at us guys, rather than having a go at Davina for supposedly playing the victim. I took his comment in good humour as I have a fairly thick skin, and I can deal with a bit of mockery without falling to pieces.
= = =
Davina I find it interesting that you state:
" If I miscontrued Bernie's position, fine, I can accept that but "
I already explained that you did but you have to leave yourself a way out so that you can say;
"Clearly Bernie didn't take the time to elaborate on who exactly his comments were directed at so I formed my own interpretation and responded accordingly."
You are right it is my fault for you misunderstanding (not that you may be just a tad hyper-sensitive because you are a woman on a mans site [I think you hinted and indirectly implied this yourself a few times]
And the kicker
“I will not apologise for that.
Which means that you cannot accept your part/responsibility for your “misconstrued” quoted above. You half heartily (at best) stated that you may or may not have misinterpreted me [very not committed especially after I explained that you did misunderstand me](giving you an out so you can make the above statement)
I am done with this silliness especially since my point was proven, there is nothing left to say.
b
March 8th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
Kevin Merck:
"... if you believe in a “woman’s right to choose” then neither do you."
Actually, believing in "a woman's right to choose" means nothing of the sort. "Responsibility" simply means nothing more than not allowing your choices to substantially impinge on others without providing them with some compensation. If a woman gets pregnant in a situation where she will not be a good mother, or cannot be without large amounts of assistance, then aborting is the ONLY possibly responsible option. Otherwise, you are forcing an individual onto society that does not want it and that will be detrimental to the overall well-being of society.
Almost all women are capable of becoming pregnant, but many of those are not capable of being competent mothers. Such women have no capacity for responsibility; they are de facto children. Telling them to be responsible is like telling a dog to write a crtique of Thus Spake Zarathustra.
Abortion needs to be safe, legal and as often as possible for the poor, young, single, mentally ill, chemically dependent and stupid.
March 8th, 2008 at 8:35 pm
Davina,
On the subject of lengthy rationalisations, I have stated on more than one occasion that I don't see you as anything like a feminist apologist. In fact, I think anyone who does see you as a feminist apologist has a seriously distorted view of reality. I have also said on multiple threads that I really appreciate your contributions here.
I agree that some of the criticism or skepticism directed at you is unfair, but it is by a relatively small number. When this argument got started, at least four of us lined up to sing your praises (and got mocked by Bernie for being too fawning). But you seemed to ignore that and just focus on the negatives.
Most of the time you are one of the best posters on this site. I don't know why you assume that everyone has it in for you. 90% of the time I think you are fantastic. Which is why I am a little dismayed at the shrillness creeping in, because you could ruin a good thing.
I, for one, sure as hell don't scrutinise everything you write for some little nuance that will give you away as a closet feminist. I usually carefully scrutinise what you write to make sure I don't miss out on any insight you have to offer. You actually sum up a lot of issues well, and balance a lot of the excessive rancorousness that is sometimes found. I think on this thread you actually defined the problem better than anyone else.
BTW: in case you were wondering my 3:33am post was not meant to be taken seriously. I was exaggerating for comical relief. It was my way of dealing with Bernie's mockery.
March 9th, 2008 at 11:02 am
Nick S.
Sigh.
In my 6.19am post I wrote:
"Of course, I'm not saying everybody does this, in fact most don't." This was in reference to those who, irrespective of what I say, try to convince themselves that I'm not being insincere.
In my 8.41am post I wrote:
"Because of the suspicion I meet from SOME individual posters here, I tend to go into what you described as "lengthy rationalisations" in order to avoid misunderstandings."
"SOME" here being the operative word.
My contentions were not directed at you, or even the majority of those who comment on here regularly. I was referring to those who nit-pick my posts just for the sake of it, and Bernie, who at the time came off as very unfair in his criticism of me. Now that he has clarified himself, I understand his position.
I'm grateful to those of you who accept my position for exactly what it is: complete and utter disgust, as you all feel, with the state of gender affairs in this country.
March 9th, 2008 at 11:04 am
The following
"Of course, I'm not saying everybody does this, in fact most don't." This was in reference to those who, irrespective of what I say, try to convince themselves that I'm not being insincere.
should of course read: "Of course, I'm not saying everybody does this, in fact most don't." This was in reference to those who, irrespective of what I say, try to convince themselves that I'm being insincere.
March 9th, 2008 at 9:34 pm
Davina,
"Sigh"
That wasn't quite the response I was hoping for, given that I spent much of the previous post telling you how great I think you are. Then again, as a guy raised in the current environment I should be used to it.
When I say that you assume everyone has it in for you, I know you have never actually claimed that is the case. It just seems to me that sometimes you exaggerate the negatives and ignore the positives. Because you get unfair treatment from a small number, this sours your view of others and you assume that more people are against you.
When I said that it was clear that Bernie was only mocking us guys, I was not criticising you. I simply wanted to clear up the issues as I saw them. What I should have said is that it was clear to me.
You responded:
"It was not "clear" to me that it was just a jibe at just you guys so don't expect me to lie down and play dead when I have the impression I'm being attacked."
Holy crap. Where do you get the idea that I expect you to just lie down and cop it when you are being attacked?
I feel that sometimes you get too hung up about the fact that a few people are skeptical of you. You can't please all the people all the time, so there is no point lamenting the fact that you don't have 100% approval. As I said, I don't think you need to be defensive about it as most of us don't doubt your sincerity.
The only reason I say this is because I miss the old Davina, before you let the nit-pickers get to you.
March 10th, 2008 at 11:29 pm
Davina,
It seems that in this thread you are actually doing the very thing that you accuse others of, namely scrutinising comments for the merest hint of any malice. Even though I spent much of this thread saying kind things about you, you managed to find one fairly innocent comment of mine and interpret it as me saying that you should simply cop it sweet when others are attacking you. I certainly would never say anything like that to you.
I understand that you have lost patience with some of the guys who try to tease you or who won't accept your sincerity in good faith. But you have chosen to take out your frustrations on some of us who have done nothing to warrant this treatment.
I'm prepared to cut you some slack here, because I think you have made many good contributions in the past. But I think your treatment of me has been quite unfair. Maybe you are just having a bad day, and will be back to your old self soon enough.