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by Anonymous User on Thursday June 26, @04:27PM EST (#1)
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While admittedly this column is a lot friendlier towards fathers than what would be expected from the likes of Ms. magazine, Mrs. Gallagher is still coming from a woman-centered perspective. She would like there to be a masculine duty to provide, without a corresponding feminine duty to care. She must rationalize her own decision to be a working mother and does so under the pretext of praising men who offer women 'choice'. She'd like to have her cake and eat it too. She thinks there should be more SAHMs. Ok, fine. Obviously it must be all men's fault for not being so readily "recruited" into being the primary breadwinner. But why isn't she a SAHM? Anyone else see the glaring contradiction?
Moreover, she does not mention how SAHMs and their husbands have been reviled and derided in our culture until now, so that any husband who wanted his wife to stay home and care for the children was denounced as a male chauvinist. Now that more women want to stay home, all of a sudden if men balk they are shirking their masculine duty. This is consistent, if what men owe women is the "gift of choices". But, coming from a conservative Catholic viewpoint, which I know is where Mrs. Gallagher comes from, the 'gift of choices' is very definitely NOT what men owe women.
What this essay is symptomatic of is that many women, including many conservative women, are proud as peacocks, seeing the speck in their neighbor's (i.e. men's) eyes but failing to see the mote in their own. And, when it cannot be denied that men, every now and then, do something right (after all, increasing numbers of men are actually taking on the responsibility of sole breadwinner) then this must obviously be because they are cajoled and talked into it by women.
Vince S.
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by Anonymous User on Thursday June 26, @05:17PM EST (#2)
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No one owes the duty of "providing" to a woman just because she decides she wants to stay home - that is, if you were not stupid enough to marry her.
Men are becoming a bit more careful about who they marry (or whether they get married) because they have seen the effects of divorce in the last couple of decades. Real effects.
So it's time for feminists to lay their cards on the table - maybe they will propose a special, SUBSTANTIAL tax on men that will go to pay for women who want to stay at home - even women without kids, they have the right to choose, you know. Why should they have to work if they don't want.
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by Anonymous User on Thursday June 26, @07:21PM EST (#4)
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I objected to the "choice" rhetoric and implication that it was only women's superior virtue responsible for the increase in SAHMs, not the increase itself, which I do view as a very positive trend. AU, if you start dissing SAHMs I will regard you in just as bad a light as the radical feminists who do the same.
No one owes the duty of "providing" to a woman just because she decides she wants to stay home - that is, if you were not stupid enough to marry her.
It's both parents who decide she should stay home, as they have rightly decided that a stay-at-home parent can do a better job raising their children than a daycare provider. It's a question of duty, not choice. And both parents make sacrifices, financial and otherwise, to have one of them at home.
Men are becoming a bit more careful about who they marry (or whether they get married) because they have seen the effects of divorce in the last couple of decades. Real effects.
Yes, but career women are much more likely to file for divorce than SAHMs. Not surprising, since SAHMs are showing they are willing to sacrifice something for their families, whereas career women tend to be selfishly "me-me-me" all the time.
So it's time for feminists to lay their cards on the table - maybe they will propose a special, SUBSTANTIAL tax on men that will go to pay for women who want to stay at home - even women without kids, they have the right to choose, you know. Why should they have to work if they don't want.
We already have these things for many women. They're called welfare, paid maternity leave, alimony, and child support. And as for unmarried childless women, there's always taxpayer-supported pseudo-jobs like women's studies professors, and others which they can qualify for via affirmative action. And the male tax has already been proposed. Feminists already have laid their cards on the table. They want wealth redistribution from men to women. They think men's purpose in life is, essentially, to be their slaves and to provide them with "fulfillment". However, this does not apply to many (although certainly not all, agreed) married SAHMs who see what they do as a duty towards their children, their husbands, and God, and for whom "self-fulfillment" is only secondary, if it enters the picture at all.
Vince S.
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Vince, For the record, I don't object to SAHMs per se. What I object to, vehemently, is the notion that women should somehow have a choice - and men shouldn't.
As a man, you get a bazillion little patronizing and cutesy names if you're a SAHD (Mr. Mom springs to mind) which is another way of painting the Girl's Club pink and lavender and putting up frilly curtains so the men get the message they're unwelcome, and sissies if they overstay their welcome.
Bottom line - if I have no choice, neither should women. Get to work, you fat lazy parasite of a dumb broad. You wanted the hours, the stress, the heart disease - have them and be damned. You mocked motherhood for 40 years; what was the quote? Ah, "You have sown the wind, now reap the whirlwind."
What I dis are the SAHMs who have sat silently by and let the pheminazis have their way, and far as I am concerned, you're either fer us or agin us. And straddling the fence is agin us.
Yeah, I'm feeling real bitter and angry tonight. Harry'd be proud.
---- Burn, Baby, Burn ----
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by Anonymous User on Friday June 27, @12:10PM EST (#8)
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Well, actually, Gonzo, we're more or less on the same page.
For the record, I don't object to SAHMs per se. What I object to, vehemently, is the notion that women should somehow have a choice - and men shouldn't... Bottom line, if I have no choice, neither should women.
I object too, and just as vehemently. However, insisting that women go to work is not the only way to equalize the amount of choices. One could just as easily say that mothers with children should stay home. That's my main objection to the column - from her conservative perspective, that's what Mrs. Gallagher should be saying, but isn't - because she has to justify her own decision to work outside the home. Conservatives do have a blind spot here - because they won't confront female pride.
Or, one could say that fathers should also have the choice to stay home. But then, of course, women would have to give men the "gift of choices" so lauded by Mrs. Gallagher - but only when it goes in the other direction.
I absolutely agree that women want to have it both ways - preaching about a man's solemn duty to support his wife and children when it suits them, such as collecting child support, or when they want to stay home, but then turning around and praising "egalitarian" marriages when they want the man to change the diapers and do the dishes. And I also agree that this is symptomatic of an almost incredible self-absorption and self-centeredness.
You have sown the wind, now reap the whirlwind. Exactly right. Screwing men over in divorce and custody cases, and then complaining that men "won't commit". Calling men "male chauvinist pigs" if they want women to stay home and raise the children, and then complaining that now men must be "recruited" into the role of main breadwinner. Women are getting exactly what they deserve.
What I dis are the SAHMs who have sat silently by and let the pheminazis have their way, and far as I am concerned, you're either fer us or agin us. And straddling the fence is agin us.
Me too, and the fact the sons of these same SAHMs are having to inhabit the anti-male world we live in points to a general dereliction of duty on their part. But I'm not straddling any fences. I don't give my wife the "gift of choices" - I regard it as her duty to stay home and raise our children, as does she. And I will not sit silently by as we slide further into the abyss. In 10 years my oldest son will be 18. What kind of environment will he have to cope with?
Yeah, I'm feeling real bitter and angry tonight. That's OK. You aren't the only one.
Vince S.
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"Where will this lead? Not to Mommy Wars between moms who work and those who stay home, I hope, but toward a profound and shared recognition of the importance of mothering and of the husbands that give mothers the gift of choices."
I agree Vince. This statement is profoundly insulting to men and women (patronizing them both).
If, in a married relationship with children, one parent works while the other is a full time SAH parent, or if both work, or if both work part-time and SAH part time .... whatever ..... it should be assumed to be a shared decision between the two parents about how best to organize their lives and raise their children. Neither is giving a "gift" to the other. It is simply a mutual negotiated decision between two partners.
Just as insulting are the Traditionalists who call men on the carpet for "letting their wives work". Just as insulting are the Modernists who call men on the carpet for "making their wives stay home". Both views, and the statement above, negate the fact that two partners in a marriage sit down and rationally discuss how to organize their lives, making a mutual decision.
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two partners in a marriage sit down and rationally discuss how to organize their lives, making a mutual decision.
Oh, how wonderful! How peachy! Sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows!
I just have one small suggestion, then - since this is obviously so wonderful and fair, of course, and we're using the old principle of "You cut the apple, and I choose which half I get" - How about we just reverse it so that instead of the present arrangement, it's the MAN who gets the tie-breaker vote, which of course doesn't effectively give him two votes.
Fair now? Like it that way now? Heh. Don't bother to answer. Didn't think so.
This is why you're full of it - it's all fair until we try the shoe on your foot, then it's totalitarian. Wonder why it's not totalitarian when it's the woman with the control?
Oh - that would be sexism, wouldn't it? Except that women can't be sexist because men... have ...all... the ... power.....
Hmmm. Howzzat again?
---- Burn, Baby, Burn ----
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Historically, the traditional family has been held up as the norm and heavily supported and subsidized by both the Church (religion) and the State.
I recently ran across this essay: On American Motherhood by Theodore Roosevelt written in 1905. It is nothing short of totalitarian in its viewpoint on the traditional family and the roles men and women must play "for the good of the State". This article is more indicative of our inherited views on marriage, fatherhood, motherhood, children and family ..... moreso than anything Feminism has ever put forth. Remember, these values are centuries old and the weight of tradition is heavily on us. Even as we consider ourselves modern and more enlightend it is these traditional historical (and fairly totalitarian) values which still drive most of our laws and courts and our common psyches.
http://www.bartleby.com/268/10/29.html
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Historically, the traditional family has been held up as the norm and heavily supported and subsidized by both the Church (religion) and the State.
Hey, nice cheap shot, attempting to prey on anti-clericism and equate any support of a traditional arrangement as an entanglement of church and state. Ooops! That "person" you knocked down -looky here, there's STRAW in it!
I recently ran across this essay: On American Motherhood by Theodore Roosevelt written in 1905. It is nothing short of totalitarian in its viewpoint on the traditional family and the roles men and women must play "for the good of the State".
Which of course, it was necessary for "feminism" to occur, to liberate women from the chains and shackles of being the primary caregiver.
Odd, isn't it, how it's all the more important to "feminists" that the man remain shackled to the plow (metaphor) as the primary support?
Or maybe not so odd at all.
This article is more indicative of our inherited views on marriage, fatherhood, motherhood, children and family ..... moreso than anything Feminism has ever put forth.
Apples and oranges. "Feminism" advocates a destruction of the traditional marriage, and sees it only logical that women be the sole caregivers, with men preferably being kept away from the family unit, but contributing over half the financial support.
Remember, these values are centuries old and the weight of tradition is heavily on us. Even as we consider ourselves modern and more enlightend it is these traditional historical (and fairly totalitarian) values which still drive most of our laws and courts and our common psyches.
You tend to throw the baby out with the bathwater - perhaps these traditional arrangements came about because they worked best?
I'd submit that if we went tomorrow to a contract based "civil union" it would wind up, when all the legal wrangling was done, close to the traditional marriage you decry as totalitarian - because, as Angry Harry says, no man alive would sign this contract:
A woman can, at any time, dismiss her male partner, without justification, and have that partner imprisoned if he objects too strongly to his dismissal.
If he raises his voice in anger he may be arrested for 'domestic violence'.
In any event, a woman can dismiss the man regardless of the circumstances, and at her sole discretion.
She can fire him from his jobs as father and partner, whenever she wishes, no matter how long he has served the family, and even if he has done absolutely nothing wrong.
Further, the woman can insist that the man is evicted from his own house, and never allowed to re-enter it.
If she has children, a woman may further demand that her sacked partner must, under threat of imprisonment, forfeit part of any future income to the woman and her children for some considerable time into the future - and this is the case even if her children turn out not to be his.
Further, contact and visitation with his children will be solely at the discretion of the woman, and at her convenience.
__________________
Sign Here
Yeah, I'd say it's totalitarian - oh, you were talking about traditional marriage. Hm. Well, I suppose it is, to a feminazi who wants to be able to blame a male for her own shortcomings and frustrations in her life.
Maybe such women should just become lesbians, as women are so much superior. Of course, then again, maybe being a herero is the greatest way they can express their utter contempt and hatred for men - as bulldykes, they wouldn't be in the position to torment them.
And people wonder why I won't have a damn thing to do with a male/female relationship unless it's cash on the barrelhead for services rendered.
You want to be liberated from compulsory motherhood and still have all the sex you want? Give me the same. Otherwise, it's rationalized sexism, no matter what semantic masturbation you use to arrive there.
---- Burn, Baby, Burn ----
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Read the rest of this comment ......
Pass.
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Aw, izzums poor widdle Lorianne unable to come up wid one of her widdle squelches? Or is this the best you can do? Or just haven't got the nuts.
What's the matter - blunt truth a little too much for you? Isn't all neutered out in PC doubletalk and weaselspeak like over at your other favorite board?
You're real good on coming around and vomiting sanctimonious pronouncements, but you're a little short on actually backing them up with more than high-sounding weaselspeak and rhetoric.
Oh well. Business as usual for you. I should learn to expect no better from a feminist.
---- Burn, Baby, Burn ----
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by Anonymous User on Friday June 27, @08:44PM EST (#15)
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Actually, the comment is very coherent and forceful. It also shows considerable anger and pain. Wow! Maybe men really do have feelings! Maybe men aren't really made of stone!
Actually, I knew this. Do you?
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It's, unfortunately, sometimes a wasste of time to point anything out to the stealth feminazi here; she's fond of portraying herself as some sort of egalitarian humanist, but she does little besides spew pheminist apologetics and victim-mentality histronics.
I've never been one to let a lie stand unchallenged, though, which is why I persist in calling her on her crap from the get-go.
Typical Lorianne operation is to write some sanctimonious and self-righteous missive of how "It's not so bad" or "women have it worse" or "It's legal so it's right;" Then, when someone calls her on her emotion-laden lack of logic, she'll crank up the shaming language and guilt (You're a misogynist, you just want to get revengeon all women, you're as bad as the feminists, this will hurt children, etc., etc., ad nauseum, ad infinitum). If this fails, it's a sniff, a flip of the hair, and some pithy little comment (Groupthink" is a favorite, and an ironic one at that since her posts generally don't vary far from the verbage of NOW's marching orders; as is "babbling" and "incoherence") as she shuts up, trying to cast the illusion that she has the last word.
Trouble is, she has yet to actually post any independent aupport on any of her wild claims and fictitious statistics - she doesn't have to "do our research for us" - though she's often the first to demand page by page citations.
She'll get in a snit, shut up for a week or so, and then when something comes up that is actually a serious challenge to the status quo of feminine privilege, she'll start in again.
---- Burn, Baby, Burn ----
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by Anonymous User on Friday June 27, @10:37PM EST (#16)
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I agree with Gonzo. You are taking an unwarranted cheap shot at traditional marriages and using the cheap debater's trick of guilt by association.
Historically, the traditional family has been held up as the norm and heavily supported and subsidized by both the Church (religion) and the State.
Cheap shot #1: We supporters of traditional families just aren't "with it": we are pie-in-the-sky romanticizing an unrealistic "Ozzie and Harriet" model. Well, news flash: the traditional family was not "held up" as the norm, it was the norm.
Cheap shot #2: Obviously we supporters of traditional marriages want to forcibly impose our views on others since (gasp) both Church and State supported it in the past. Granted that the traditional family was and is supported by many religions. You've got a problem with freedom of religion? If you presume to tell religions what they can and cannot support or subsidize, then you are much more totalitarian than anyone you criticize. The last I checked, religious bodies (unlike government) are voluntary organizations without the ability to compel financial support by force, and thus they have the right to use their freely given money in a manner they deem appropriate. And as for the State, I will concede that traditional families were "supported" by the prohibition of no-fault divorce, but this is as it ought to be, although this topic has been discussed at length on this site and elsewhere. As for subsidization by the State, I don't know exactly what you're referring to, but the fact is that unwed child-bearing is subsidized by the State much more today than traditional families, now or 100 years ago.
I recently ran across this essay: On American Motherhood by Theodore Roosevelt written in 1905. It is nothing short of totalitarian in its viewpoint on the traditional family and the roles men and women must play "for the good of the State". This article is more indicative of our inherited views on marriage, fatherhood, motherhood, children and family ..... moreso than anything Feminism has ever put forth.
Cheap shot #3: Obviously we supporters of the traditional families must be closet totalitarians. What a crock. First, the essay is not totalitarian at all. Nowhere is there a call for greater government intervention and control. The essay is much more like an exhortation. Whereas feminists, although they be new on the scene, and with no claim to "inherited" values, want and need bigger and bigger (and, yes, totalitarian) government intervention for their idea of "good of the State" to come to fruition.
Even as we consider ourselves modern and more enlightened...
Cheap shot #4: Obviously if something is "modern" it must therefore be "more enlightened", ergo, if we hold on to anything traditional we must be back in the Dark Ages. How arrogant to think that "we" know everything so much better than those who lived 50, or 100, years ago.
The traditional family needs no apologies. It has worked for centuries. It best fits men's and women's different natures, and is best suited to the raising of children. You may argue with this all you want, but res ipsa loquitor. There are statistics galore on the effects of divorce and fatherlessness on children. There is also a correlation between mothers working outside the home and divorce. It has been shown repeatedly that in terms of abuse children are least at risk from a married biological father, and most at risk from a stepfather or live-in boyfriend.
Vince S.
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I didn't attack Traditional Marriage. You're off on a tangent of your own making.
What I said was: Traditional family values are part and parcel of our legal/economic/social situation STILL today. Moreso than any other system of values. For example: Those who blame say, the family courts tender years doctrine on feminists are wrong in that these values are ALSO upheld by the values of traditionalists who insist that women are best suited for child rearing and men best suited for providing for the he familiy. These are age old values. They don't trap people in these roles entirely by law, but also by social custom, which we did not recently invent, but rather which we inherited from centuries of these values and roles being reinforced.
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What I said was: Traditional family values are part and parcel of our legal/economic/social situation STILL today. Moreso than any other system of values. For example: Those who blame say, the family courts tender years doctrine on feminists are wrong in that these values are ALSO upheld by the values of traditionalists who insist that women are best suited for child rearing and men best suited for providing for the he familiy. These are age old values. They don't trap people in these roles entirely by law, but also by social custom, which we did not recently invent, but rather which we inherited from centuries of these values and roles being reinforced.
Those "traditional values" you cite are not the sum total of the whole social contract based on those traditional values. Feminists have neatly erased or exercised selective memory on the whole of the complex legalities and obligations involved.
At the very least it's disingenuous of you to suggest that "you're the traditionalists, so this is tradition," so, ergo, it's okay; because you're forgetting the other edge of that knife.
The family courts have enacted the feminist agenda that has been hell-bent of releasing women from all obligations as "sexist" but still demanding the traditional protections - in a word, giving women their cake and eat it too.
You don't want to be "totalitarianed" into having to be a mother, to be forced to commit to your "traditional" duties? Excellent, madam. Than neither shall men. This should be done by making all things in the family court declared gender blind.
You wish to see men forced into their traditional responsibilities and duties of fatherhood? Excellent, madam. Then so shall you. If you do, it's rather disingenuous as well to throw out words like "Totalitarian."
You wish courts, law, and custom to be gender blind? Manifestly, they are not, and favor women to the extreme, in any instance where favor may be demonstrated. If rectification of this is your true desire, it must also be your desire to see these gross injustices and inequities remedied at the most immediate moment; thus you should see the tremendous illogic in assisting in the maintainence of this deplorable status quo with your continuous apologetics.
You wish to have your cake and eat it too? Then you are a sexist sow, too despicable for description, and the moral equivalent of the Ku Klux Klan.
Pick one.
---- Burn, Baby, Burn ----
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I didn't attack Traditional Marriage. You're off on a tangent of your own making.
And I quote, from your post:
It is nothing short of totalitarian in its viewpoint on the traditional family and the roles men and women must play "for the good of the State". This article is more indicative of our inherited views on marriage, fatherhood, motherhood, children and family ..... moreso than anything Feminism has ever put forth.
Hmmmmmm... let's look at the article - nope, that wasn't a part of it - it's in Lorianne's words. Hmm. Looks like a duck. Totalitarian is mentioned. Hmm. Quacks like a duck. Moreso then feminism, clearly implying that those who support traditional marriage are worse than pheminists. Hmm. Walks like a duck.
By Jiminy, IT'S A DUCK!
Well, any other transparent attempts at revisionist history you'd care to spew? Really, you think someone would have more sense than to try to revise their own post which is still on record on the same page.
---- Burn, Baby, Burn ----
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by Anonymous User on Thursday June 26, @06:48PM EST (#3)
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toward a profound and shared recognition of the importance of mothering and of the husbands that give mothers the gift of choices.
What about the importance of giving men the choice to be stay-at-home fathers? Why is this never considered? Is it that men are considered to be donkeys, only fit for pulling carts?
Given that marital property laws enforce a 50/50 division of marital property on dissolution of marriage, with the right wife being a stay-at-home parent can be in effect a well-paid job, nice hours, and no boss. Are men too dumb to realize this? Have men actually believed anti-male media portraits of the suffering housewife being oppressed by her male breadwinner?
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Yeah, like men have a veto on whether they will support a female to stay at home with the kids!
Get real!
If a woman whats to stay at home she has the full backing of the judicial tyrant machine behind her.
She does not have to get her husband's agreement to stay at home. Hello!
So where does this "gift" of choice come from?
And what is so wrong with stay at home dads? Nothing except the stay at home dad concept is not supported by the judicial tyrant machine of family law.
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Note such writers as the one who penned this article have lauds for men who finance "women's choices" to stay home and raise kids (ie, do nothing for long periods during the day, watch TV, etc., and a few chores-- maybe-- those she wants to do and leave the others for Mr. Hen-Pecked), but only in the context of what's useful to women. I recall Esther Vilar's book "The Manipulated Man". Vilar noted this tendency of women to declare traits as masculine or laudable in men, if they serve the interests of women.
Same sh*t, different day.
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>Vilar noted this tendency of women to declare traits as masculine or laudable in men, if they serve the interests of women.
Very true - there's something I've noticed too. Plus there's the tendency of women to declare traits as 'good'/laudable/etc or not depending on whether or not they warm to the man in question (which arguably is a result of whether or not 'they serve the interests of women', so my point overlaps yours a fair bit).
For example, let's say we have two agreeable, good-natured and otherwise identical men, one is rather wealthy (women like that, needless to say) and the other isn't as wealthy. Result? The rich guy has 'designer stubble', the other guy is 'scruffy'. More double standards, heh.
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I am a Divorced Father of 5 Children. My oldest Two Children are Married. My ex stayed at home while they were young at my request. I wanted them to come home from School to their Mother or I, not to Day Care. She was never happy either Working or staying home. She was heavily influenced by Feminists who insisted that she was "demeaning" herself by staying at home. Children grow up so fast and then they are involved with friends. You have 6-8 years to mold them into the Persons they become. The Feminazis are assholes who I have no use for.
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