I had a comment on this post (which I had forgotten about) so I decided to re-post it for two reasons. One, the comments were interesting; and two, I banned a poster named Anne...
In retrospect, I should not have banned her(especially considering I've let Polish Knight and Richard remain w/o banning them for the same behavior)...
Oh well, with age comes wisdom...
Monday, May 29, 2006
Swimming Against the Tide of Historic Change
Divorce ruling could apply to old cases
Lords decision means women may go back to court to claim more money
Clare Dyer, legal editor
Monday May 29, 2006
The Guardian
A landmark House of Lords ruling last week could open the way for hundreds of divorced women to go back to court for more money, according to leading lawyers.
The principle laid down by the law lords that women who gave up a well-paid career to raise children were entitled to compensation for their sacrifice has come too late for partners who divorced with a clean break. But those still receiving maintenance from high-earning former husbands could go back to court to ask for a big increase, lawyers said, even if their divorce was years ago.
This week the Law Commission, the official legal reform body, will unveil proposals to give unmarried partners who live together the right to claim limited financial support and a share of property when the relationship ends. The consultation paper, commissioned by the government, will stop short of recommending full divorce rights but will suggest a safety net to prevent hardship. A draft bill is due in August next year.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/gender/story/0,,1785195,00.html
My first thought is that this ruling (similar to the recent one which made anonymous sperm donations illegal) was more of the tendencies of Great Britain to hold back the forces of historic change. Men clearly do not wish to be constrained by society in their behaviors. They wish to have sex freely, married or not, and if a pregnancy unexpectedly occurs, they wish to have the sole up or down vote on whether to be an involved father or not, pay child support or not, marry the mother or not, whatever.
Yet there is no obvious advantage for women in any of this.
Thus societies that allow men to avoid the responsibility to provide for womens' security and welfare, while still allowing men legal rights to the children women alone bear, will continue to decline in numbers.
Men just can't seem to accept the fact that this is something that woman is the final arbitrator of: IF, WHEN and how MANY children she'll ultimately bear. The old days are gone FOREVER as reproductive technology changed the equation.
Okay.
Women now control their own bodies, reproductive choices and there isn't anything that is going to change that. If anything as the technology improves, it will get worse. Men will NEVER be in charge of those decisions again. Involvement with children will be a gift women chose to share with men, MAYBE, always contingent upon you being on your BEST behavior.
Okay, just to be clear.
So what to do?
I think the more sensible, but politically more difficult, way to handle it would have been to accept the irreversible nature of the change and allow women, who wished to be mothers but didn't have a husband, to access reproductive services and public benefits freely, openly, and without finger pointing on an as needed basis. This would have had the benefit of keeping women who wished to be mothers happy, the countries' population numbers stable as the idea caught on and having children through anonymous sperm donations lost its stigma.
Most importantly it would have shown men that if they wished to play at being head of a family (becoming a father), they would have to pay (through a marriage). Those who were actually concerned with being fathers would have married to do it as they have in the past and toed the line thereafter. Those who weren't would not have and thus have no rights or responsibilities to any children they carelessly spawned but could keep all their money/property for themselves (outside of taxes) and that would have shut them up.
NOW Great Britian has alienated most men by this ruling and while it has made most women happy, I see it as just a question of time before the law gets subverted by men from its original intent. Which is to provide women with the security that would allow them to bear children (and be a stay-at-home mother to them if they wished) without having to worry about economic penalties at some later date.
I guarantee you that looking back a year or two from now, women will have gained little or no real benefit from this law.
Just my opinion.
But anyway...
There is nothing so unusual about this ‘new’ law in Great Britain which allows women, who gave up their career to bear children and then become stay-at-home mothers, to be compensated adequately in the event of a later divorce. Frankly I think it makes a lot of sense as Great Britain, which is trying to get their population numbers up like every other industrialized country, has finally seen which sex is directly at fault for their declining birth rates and it’s clearly selfish men.
Women will have few children if they have to charge back to work again immediately after birth, not to mention the constant delays that inevitably ensue if she is forced to jockey for positions in her career choice. Frequently the time involved in this translates into no kids. We only need to look at the successful career women such as Maureen Dowd or Condi Rice in our own society to see the impact this has. As how many men at that ‘uber’ level would be alone with no children???
Anyway, their American cousins and many other countries have been following this formula for awarding alimony for years. Actually it doesn’t impact a lot of people as few couples today can afford to NOT have both parents working. Yet for the high-income men whose wives do stay home to bear and raise their children, then yes, it’s a good thing for those women and children and should be encouraged. Only a stingy cheapskate would be against his kids having their mother around when they are young and then him compensating her for that sacrifice later. Most of these men, who will be impacted by this, are worth millions, so too bad about them if they don’t like it.
In the US only 15% of all divorces include any award of alimony and only half collect (and this includes men who collect alimony as well after contributing nothing unique to the marriage, just because they can collect it), so this won’t be a big issue in most people’s lives. I’m sure Great Britain will follow the trajectory of the US pretty closely in this as it does much else since our societies are similar.
As always, men will now try to latch onto this ruling to benefit themselves and attempt to get alimony from so-called ‘high flying’ women, who frequently are just ordinary women who managed to buy a house before marriage or inherited a small sum from a deceased family member, but the bottom line is this sort of ‘sacrifice compensation’ needs to be limited to women ONLY. The ones who actually bring something unique to the marital relationship, womens childbearing capacity, This should not include some man who just up and quits his job one day and decides to lay around on the couch watching TV 24/7. Tossing a stale potato chip to the kids every once in a while during a commercial should not entitle you to anything.
So that aspect of it needs to be carefully monitored, but otherwise this ruling was ‘spot on’.
The other ruling from the House of Lords, which wasn’t mentioned in this article, pertained to fault being taken into account when settling marital property issues. This law is far more likely to affect ordinary people. Yet again, the Lords were spot on in their decision. The US also takes fault into account vis-à-vis property issues (at least many states do); although fault cannot be used to decide custody. Although frankly I think it should be used in the event of a tie-breaker custody situation, everything else being equal, the one at fault should forfeit custody.
Anyway to use fault to decide property issues is completely just. You’re a bad boy or girl during the life of the marriage and it causes a divorce, you should be ‘punished’ and a hit in the pocketbook seems to be appropriate for a capitalist society to use as punishment. I mean what else can we do, flog them??? Not that some of them don’t deserve it, as I could easily see that Charlie Sheen meriting a good whipping for all the stuff he does; yet we are in a civilized society, so must adhere to the norms of where we live.
Unfortunately in some cases...
Last, but not least the most interesting part I find is what they haven’t done yet, but are just looking into, which is the abililty to treat live-in relationships as if they were defacto married ones. I’m not completely sure this is right, especially if children are involved. Yet if it makes parents stop and think before they carelessly expose their children to a casual relationship by moving in with someone they hardly know, then it could morph into a good thing.
Clearly parents should know better but many don’t. So again what else can we do but hit them in the pocketbook when they exhibit unsavory behavior. Again, this is appropriate for a capitalist society to do. Parents who persist in exposing their kids to one live in relationship after another raise the sorts of screwy, unstable adults that impact all the rest of us negatively, so, the House of Lords could be spot on for three in a row.
These are ALL good rulings.
Men don’t like it, don’t marry, don’t have kids, actually go live on a desert island somewhere so you can just die off and not impact anyone else with your behavior. But don’t think that the societies that allow you to become as wealthy as you are will continue allowing you to use them for all your benefits, while giving nothing back but aggravation.
Of course, as I said above, these rulings were the lesser of two evils that the British lords chose to go with, since anything else would have caused too much unheaval in their society over the short-term.
Long-term these laws will just delay the inevitable change that has followed the advent of reproductive technology which has swung the balance of power in favor of women for the first time in history. It's application plays to womens' ONE essential strength, which is that we are the ONLY ones who are the bearers of life and can chose to quite simply not bear any. Thus, we can as passive/aggressive as we wish and still hold all the aces up our sleeves. It's called Anne Boleyn's Revenge for those history buffs out there: ie., "You're never going to have a son Henry or any other kids because me and my girlfriends just decided to form a bowling league and I can't bowl and be pregnant at the same time. Or a shopping league or need to be at work early everyday for the next decade. Truly sorry old bean. Why not get a little dog to play with instead?"
Women don't need to start any wars or invent some new destructive technology to wield this power either, that's the beauty of it.
Men, unable or unwilling to accept womens new status are the source of much of the current unroar, yet they will just have to get over it...
posted by NYMOM | Monday, May 29, 2006
11 Comments:
Anonymous Anonymous said...
This post has been removed by a blog administrator.
12:36 AM
Anonymous ManMan said...
Now men now can have surrogate mother to bear their children or adopt. So using yout crass logic and inane thinking I would say we should encourage men to use surrogate mother more often especially third world mothers and make sure they are paid adequately. It should be freely given by the government and using our taxes. That way we can increase the population and men can become fathers.
I feel sorry for any sons that have a mother like you. Damn feminist, your sons will eventually become men who will get screwed by the system you helped create.
A few words you should learn the meaning of: Misandry, Fascism, Feminazism and Dementia.
Statistics: Single mothers in the UK still provide the highest number of violent criminals and murders. What life givers! Great for our prison system and society as a whole, as it help employment levels in these sectors.
Men remember that there are always other oriental fish in this world. Go abroad, marry abroad and live abroad. The UK sucks. You can still find Italian women that are still feminine, and we all know about Asian women. The world is your oyster.
10:01 AM
Anonymous Anonymous said...
Hi, NYMOM.
"Women now control their own bodies, reproductive choices and there isn't anything that is going to change that. If anything as the technology improves, it will get worse. Men will NEVER be in charge of those decisions again. Involvement with children will be a gift women chose to share with men, MAYBE, always contingent upon you being on your BEST behavior."
I would not go so far as to say "never" here. The same reproductive technology that has given women most of the control over reproduction at the present time will eventually render actual physical childbearing unnecessary. Though I'm sure I won't be alive to see it, I would be very interested to know how laws will evolve to serve the interests of children and the family when childbearing itself is no longer a "unique" contribution and neither gender has any clubs to use against the other with regard to children.
"This should not include some man who just up and quits his job one day and decides to lay around on the couch watching TV 24/7. Tossing a stale potato chip to the kids every once in a while during a commercial should not entitle you to anything."
Do you really want to perpetuate negative stereotypes about stay-at-home parents, exactly as Mr. Nemko was doing?
"It's application plays to womens' ONE essential strength, which is that we are the ONLY ones who are the bearers of life and can chose to quite simply not bear any. Thus, we can as passive/aggressive as we wish and still hold all the aces up our sleeves."
NYMOM, this is the classic radical MRA "marriage strike" philosophy turned around. The thing is, if men really are less interested in having children than women are, as I know you believe and which I personally doubt, then it doesn't work very well the way you've set it out.
Thanks,
Anne
4:31 PM
Blogger NYMOM said...
Sorry I was away on vacation and just got back yesterday so missed that vulgar comment which I just removed. I told people already that I am not allowing any more vulgar language or senseless nonsense to be posted on this blog.
If you have something interesting to add to the debate or ideas (as I've said in my introduction) to assist mothers, fine. Otherwise don't bother posting.
5:56 PM
Blogger NYMOM said...
"Now men now can have surrogate mother to bear their children or adopt."
Yes men can, however I believe few will do so. As my feeling remains that few men are that interested in children. Most will not go through the trouble and expense of locating a surrogate and/or arranging an adoption.
Just like we went through the whole emotional trauma route 20 years or so ago about agreeing to allow single men to adopt. We finally got the laws to allow it in most states and guess what, 20 years later few single men, gay or straight, have adopted kids.
So people's essential natures don't change because technology does.
AND don't think this business of going to third world countries to use their young women as egg donors or surrogate mothers is going to be allowed to continue much longer. I guarantee you that those countries will get fed up with it as well. Just as soon as the information becomes widely disseminated amongst the common people there, they'll veto this nonsense, so don't be making plans for much longer thinking this will be continuing. It's a fluke or short-term condition, like cheap oil used to be which will end as soon as people in those countries become aware of what's going on.
BTW, you don't need to feel sorry for any of my sons. A. I don't have any. I'm a grandmother and not having any more kids, and B. even if I did have any sons, I'd still feel the same way.
You don't encourage your children to take advantage of others just because they can. It's like telling me if my kids owned slaves I wouldn't be against slavery because it benefitted my children.
No, a moral wrong is wrong whether or not your kids or you are advantaged by it.
6:11 PM
Blogger NYMOM said...
"I would not go so far as to say never here. The same reproductive technology that has given women most of the control over reproduction at the present time will eventually render actual physical childbearing unnecessary".
First of all this is a mistake most people make. The assumption that technology has given women our control over reproduction.
Women have NOT been given OUR control over OUR reproduction by technology. This is something that the female of every species, as well as our own, has ALWAYS had.
It is our birthright.
Not something men, feminism, technology or laws have 'given' us; like a gift or something that women need to be grateful for...
No.
Wrong. That's ours, not something we've been given.
AND again, as I've said before, technology might allow men to bypass women someday in order to have their own children; however, I don't think most of them will bother doing it. Frankly I don't find men to be that interested in children and if it becomes costly and/or troublesome to have them, I believe most will just forego the whole thing.
As Polish Knight pointed out to me, (and I must admit I hadn't thought of it until he did) women themselves will probably use the artificial womb technology more then men. They'll do it to have children w/o disfiguring their bodies through a pregnancy. The same way MOST women jumped on the technology of bottle feeding formula to not disfigure their breasts.
"Do you really want to perpetuate negative sterotypes about stay-at-home parents"
I NEVER claimed to support stay-at-home PARENTS but stay-at-home mothers. I do happen to believe that children benefit from having their mothers around in their early years. She's the one who has invested the most in them up to that point and God, evolution and nature itself has already designated mothers as the one most likely to always act in her childrens' best interest.
That's the way it has been for million of years in every species as well as our own, with the exception of a few snakes, bugs and penguins which I don't care about...so I'm not going to second guess evolution the way others always like to do.
Women can chose to allow their childrens' fathers or other caretakers to raise them if they wish (I would never outlaw these choices), but as far as I'm concerned it's the second best option and always will be.
"...this is the classical radical MRA marriage strike turned around..."
Again wrong.
My observation is new as women were never credited with having any power before this.
As I don't consider the MRA marraige strike to be something radical or new. As men have been trying to get out of marriage since the time of Augustus Caesar. Probably even before that, but the Romans just kept better records then other civilizations, so we know more about them.
We have to face the fact that men contribute nothing unique to society when they don't marry today (actually if you want to be honest about it, even when they do marry they bring little to the table nowadays)...Women, on the other hand, even w/o marrying still clearly wish to have children. Actually the out-of-wedlock birth rate is growing faster then the in-wedlock rate and many believe will soon surpass it.
So women are still fulfiling the vital role of providing the next generation, even when men fail to hold up their end of the social contract because they've decided to go on strike.
Overall if you want to be honest, you could make the case that for a capitalist society, we are better off w/o people marrying since having two households is better then one since two spend more on goods and services.
However, we still need children.
Our government is ONLY interested in people marrying because marriages USED to be the ONLY way to produce the new citizens every society needed to flourish. Thus, in a society like ours where men refuse to marry, guess what, their value goes waaaaay down.
Most women on the other hand, retain the same value.
Combine that observation with the higher rates of crime, civil unrest, wars and other violence perpetuated by societies with a lot of men and societies populated mainly by women start to look a lot more attractive.
That's why I also mentioned but you overlooked it that it was foolish for England (a rapidly depopulating country) to make it illegal for single women to use anonymous sperm donors any longer. Actually they should have made it easier for women to obtain these, even offering a bonus to women for having children (even if single).
But men as always, would rather cut off their noses to spite their faces, then relinguish control of anything...their motto as always remains if they aren't in charge of it, it just can't happen.
They and you continue trying to ignore the fact that women contribute something unique to the world and men simply do not. AND until they can accept the fact of women's uniqueness and more valuable contribution as being the bearer of life, this power struggle will continue.
Those days of women being second-class citizens are over.
7:05 PM
Anonymous Anonymous said...
"Women have NOT been given OUR control over OUR reproduction by technology. This is something that the female of every species, as well as our own, has ALWAYS had."
You just got through stating that women now control their own bodies (thru effective birth control and safe abortion, if I understand you correctly) and that this is something new, and that you believe that developing technology with even increase that control. Of course technology HAS given women control over reproduction. How many women in times gone by actually WANTED to give birth to ten-plus children? Queen Victoria, mother of nine, considered childbearing the dirty little trick God plays on women for enjoying sex. My own grandmother didn't even want the one child she had, but if she wanted to make love with her husband she had to assume the risk and the consequences. And she was far from unique. This is no longer the case today.
"So women are still fulfiling the vital role of providing the next generation, even when men fail to hold up their end of the social contract because they've decided to go on strike."
I've seen little evidence that "men" in general are on strike, although doubtlessly they have more to lose on average by risking marriage than does the average woman. Only a few on the fringe, relatively speaking, are decidedly shunning marriage.
"Overall if you want to be honest, you could make the case that for a capitalist society, we are better off w/o people marrying since having two households is better then one since two spend more on goods and services. However, we still need children. Our government is ONLY interested in people marrying because marriages USED to be the ONLY way to produce the new citizens every society needed to flourish."
And two single-parent households, require more public help than one married household (which is the main reason why government is interested in people marrying) and if we're talking economics and capitalism then such homes most certainly will have less capital, if any, for discretionary spending and, more importantly, investment. Which is why I always hate to see the cycle of single parenting start in a family, since it is strongly self-replicating and seldom leads upward. At the risk of sounding elitist, which is not my intention, it appears that the more intelligent, educated, successful and upwardly-mobile classes are predominately made up of those who understand that the best way to accumulate wealth and to ensure the success and security of one's offspring is to become educated, to marry at an appropriate time, to have children within that marriage only, and most importantly to REMAIN married.
"...actually if you want to be honest about it, even when they do marry they bring little to the table nowadays..."
Except the proven advantage that children from intact homes possess.
"As Polish Knight pointed out to me, (and I must admit I hadn't thought of it until he did) women themselves will probably use the artificial womb technology more then men."
I agree.
"Women can chose to allow their childrens' fathers or other caretakers to raise them if they wish (I would never outlaw these choices), but as far as I'm concerned it's the second best option and always will be."
Be that as it may be, it is nevertheless rather unfair to characterize the work of stay-at-home dads, many of whom are doing a fine job, in such a derogatory manner.
Hope you had an enjoyable vacation. We're saving ours for the hottest part of the summer, when we hope to escape to Pennsylvania.
Thanks,
Anne
3:28 AM
Blogger NYMOM said...
"You just got through stating that women now control their own bodies..."
Sorry I took your original response to mean (as you referenced men having children without women) that technology has finally given women control over our CHILDREN. AND I don't accept that as being valid.
Yes, technology has given women control over their reproduction processes but women in every society, in every age, in every species as well as our own, have always had control over the children our bodies produced...this is a misunderstanding of history to suggest otherwise.
Actually it just came to my attention that under Muslim 'sharia' law there is a recognition that children should be under their mother's care at least until the age of 7, some say 9 years old...so although western man talks a lot of crap about how much better he is then his Islamic brothers regarding the treatment of women, I find no equivalence in the west to that bit of common sense...
"but if she wanted to make love to her husband, she had to assume the risks and consequences"
Yes, of course, I'm sure that was the driving force behind the invention of birth control. So WOMEN could have sex without consequences.
"I've seen little evidence that 'men' in general are on strike."
So why did you bring it up then? Just to invalidate what I said I guess. So it's okay to say anything, even if you don't believe it is true, as long as you can use it to invalidate your opponent's argument.
Got it.
"they have more to lose on average by risking marriage then the average women"
Really, like what. Since according to the census only 15% of ALL divorces involved alimony and of that 15% ONLY 7% actually collect it. AND that figure includes men like Halle Berry's husband who cheated on her 29 times and STILL got awarded alimony. I'm still trying to figure out how the Judge figured he deserved that in a short-term marriage, that produced no children, where he contributed absolutely NOTHING...
Actually he could have damaged her career by his behavior if she had continued ignoring it.
In a world where both people generally work in most households, at least in the US and few have assets other then their marital home and maybe a TDA what do men risk exactly????
This is more statistical lies and bullcrap being fed to men about how much they stand to lose in a marriage. MOST stand to lose nothing as most have little...
"two single parent households require more help then one married household"
Exactly my point: the government doesn't CARE about your marital status if you are not producing children...thus, the children are the reason for the focus, not the marital status.
So men being on a 'marriage strike' means diddly squat to the state if women continue producing children without benefit of marriage.
"which is why I always hate to see the cycle of single parenting start in a family"
Even if most of the statistics about single mothers are based upon men's statistical lies???? Like their marriage strike lie? Then how do you feel about them?
I don't consider this blog to be about fairness to stay-at-home dads. This is a site about women in their role as mothers. If you want to hear great things about dads, there are plenty of other places to find that sort of propaganda.
10:35 AM
Anonymous Anonymous said...
This post has been removed by a blog administrator.
2:28 AM
Blogger NYMOM said...
Goodbye Anne.
I told you already I'm not interested in this constant back and forth of you trying to invalidate everything I post here.
Thanks but no thanks.
If you have some ideas to contribute to help with the current situation where millions of mothers have lost their children, fine. I'm open to hearing them.
Otherwise don't bother coming here.
11:10 AM
Anonymous Anonymous said...
I love the hostility to men and general presumption that women are better than men on this site. It so reflects British and American society.
No sensible man is going to marry under current laws. We're not going to pay taxes so women can live off public assistance either.
We can always go to other countries where there is more equality and surrogate parenthood is open to us as well. If women don't want equal relationships we can have families without them.
4:39 PM
122 comments:
See what I mean, PK? This Anne person sounds just like my wife, your wife, my sisters, my neighbors, and all the other smart women I know with something on the ball.
They're out there, quietly doing everything the right way and thriving and raising thriving kids, while the losers continue to scream for "society" to make up to them for the lousy choices they made and "eeeeeequalize" everything and everybody.
Has it occurred to you yet, NY, that you called all these shenanigans over in the UK "good rulings" but none of them are fitting into your "nature" paradigm too well?
There's a little thing out there that indicates that people intend to assume responsibilities toward each other. It's called a marriage license and it ain't too hard to get.
Those who don't get one should be assumed unwilling to accept marital responsibilities.
For them, the "laws of nature" can control. We've already seen what that is.
"women contribute something unique to the world and men simply do not."
We don't, eh? Take a gander at the inner city (where men do diddley and shoot up the place).
And to take the race card off the table, look at the Mosuo too (where men do diddley and don't shoot up the place).
See what common denominators you come up with.
On second thought, I'll do it for you:
Poverty, stagnation, ignorance, illiteracy, and a damned sucky life.
It's all yours if you want it.
Richard
"We don't, eh? Take a gander at the inner city (where men do diddley and shoot up the place).
And to take the race card off the table, look at the Mosuo too (where men do diddley and don't shoot up the place).
See what common denominators you come up with.
On second thought, I'll do it for you:
Poverty, stagnation, ignorance, illiteracy, and a damned sucky life."
The inner city has high rates of unwed motherhood. The inner city also has a high rate of male on female domestic violence and glorifies male violence in the community. Basically, these are signs of patriarchy.
The mosuo is a society made up entirely of unwed mothers (with absolutely no fathers AT ALL). Yet, they have very little if any domestic violence, or crime of any kind. Women are respected, and they don't glorify violence.
It just goes to show that it isn't unwed motherhood (or matriarchy for that matter) that causes high crime rates, but a total lack of respect for women while glorifying male violence and undermining women as single parents. In other words, the patriarchy that is really running the inner cities.
V, the inner city has high rates of violence of ALL varieties. Men there are violent, women are violent, kids are violent.
And who undermines women as single parents there? It's part and parcel of their whole damn culture. They can hardly conceive of any other way to live.
If the Mosuo way of life sounds so great, want to live there?
Even the women there who run everything admit that life was "very hard," especially before they brought in electricity from the developed world. By western standards, life is probably still very hard.
No sanitation. No transportation.
No respect for medicine. They haven't seen it. They can't read about it either. No written language. Sad.
Great place to have a problem birth, a life-threatening infection, an accident, a heart attack, or cancer.
What we were talking about is "unique" contributions. NY thinks men contribute nothing "unique" to society.
Yet our unique contributions are so pervasive that persons of the woman-firster bent don't see it even while sitting in the middle of it.
Without MALE drive, muscle, risk-taking, innovation, creativity, and focus (for starters) and as always the resources that flow from those traits, what you're left with is women and their "unique contribution" of children living in shit.
Despite her moniker, maybe NY would like that. I don't think most women would.
It's time for a little mutual respect for what both sexes bring into human society, and some respect for willingly assumed responsibilities and obligations of each toward the other.
And respect for the freedom and choices of those who don't assume those responsibilities, too.
Otherwise...I don't think you want to go where you're heading, NY.
Richard
Richard, I'm amused at the notion of women "sacrificing" by being supported by a husband. Yet... if it's such a sacrifice, why not give the children to the father and let her go to school and back to work rather than continue "sacrificing" by perpetuating the lifestyle?
The notion of someone "sacrificing" by living off of someone else is about as realistic as Marie Antoinette or the Queen of England griping about the burdens of the monarchy. It's laughable and only has any social and legal credibility because of... chilvarous patronage. If a man were to go to a career woman and offer to sacrifice his career and let her support him, most would reject him as a loser.
I remember a woman working as a property manager in our complex who griped that her husband was "unambitious." She was upset that he didn't work hard enough so she could "sacrifice" to stay at home and raise children. I observed that when she put it that way, she hardly expressed any gratitude or encouragement for him to do such a thing. Why work hard to be punished for it?
Homer Simpson to sled dogs: "That's enough whipping!.... with THIS hand!"
Richard, men show respect for women in their roles in a very simple, convincing manner: When we defend and support them. A woman with a 6 figure salary can't do such a thing even as there are plumbers and janitors who live up to that role.
NYMOM's position seems to be that society, and men, are not "respecting" motherhood enough and giving out credit, and free goodies, with two hands while at the same time allowing them to do willy nilly as they please. It's a position that regards men as slaves and children as chattel and when either gets "uppity", they complain about how oppressed they are. Fiddle dee dee!
Virago, who gestates and raises these men who shoot up the inner cities AND produce children FOR them? It's a MATRIARCHY that produces bad men.
Regarding male on female DV, there isn't any serious recording mechanism for the opposite but when the FBI did collect statistics, it found that it was about equal but female on male DV is viewed as funny, tee hee, or the police ignore it or punish the man. A man whose a victim of DV cannot call the many shelters that cater to women only and encourage women to file claims to get free shelter.
"NYMOM's position seems to be that society, and men, are not "respecting" motherhood enough and giving out credit, and free goodies, with two hands while at the same time allowing them to do willy nilly as they please."
That's exactly what she's saying when she wants to "provide women with the security that would allow them to bear children (and be a stay-at-home mother to them if they wished) without having to worry about economic penalties at some later date."
Absent any kind of mutual agreement and with no complementary obligations of course.
What I want to know is why should ANYBODY get to do as they please without "having to worry about economic penalties at some later date?"
That's what life in the real adult world is all about.
NY speaks of pregnancy and childbirth as "the great equalizer of women," when it's actually no such thing. In fact it's the opposite. Nothing creates more inequality among women than the choices they make with regard to how they become mothers.
Among smart women, pregnancy and childbirth doesn't even start it. It's only the last step in a long process of planning and preparing that involves educating onesself, selecting a suitable spouse, preparing a proper home, saving for future expenses and emergencies.
It's only the losers that undertake the process with no worry about the future and then want to look around for someone else to clean up the mess for them.
Earth to NY: we want LESS of this, not more! Get it?
Richard
Then we are looking at extinction as a civilization.
Okay...
Maybe you're okay with that, many others are not, myself included...
The finer point of this post, which you seem to have missed, is that Anne was a troll...a polite one, most the time, but a troll nevertheless...AND so are you and Polish Knight but yet I banned Anne and let you two remain...that was my regret.
AND pregnancy and childbirth ARE the great equalizer of women...as ALL have to go through the same disfigurements of their body and painful delivery to bring forth life...
Once again you appear to have missed the point and made this about men.
This is not about men but about women and children. Stop trying to make everything about yourself...
How did I make it about men?
It's about women. For one subset birth is the whole story. For another, it's the last step of a series of preparatory choices. That's why it's not an equalizer.
If we have to go extinct unless we coddle the losers then we deserve what we get.
As if losers and their progeny can carry on civilization...
"This is not about men but about women and children."
This is about women and their interests, not men OR children.
If the interests of children came first, we would never have had no-fault divorce, the explosion of unwed motherhood, or abortion on demand.
BTW I'm not a troll. I'm an invitee, remember?
Richard
NYMOM, you keep trying to pretend that "women and children" exist independent of men similar to rabbits in the forest. The fundamental paradox of the liberated woman as a wife of the welfare state is that... (drum roll), such a state would require patriarchal, chivalrous western men to both protect and fund it. It's like Richie Rich wanting to put a treehouse in the backyard with a sign saying "Parentz not allowed!" but needs his parents to fund, build, and clean it.
Your notion of women as mothers, birthmothers actually, is incredibly condescending towards women who are adoption mothers, childless women, and women who use surrogacy options. It's the 21st century, NYMOM, in case you haven't noticed.
I chuckle a bit at how, on the one hand, the female suprecists argue that society should protect women because of all the pain that childbearing brings, blah blah blah, but when men have problems with the system due to their unique background (such as not having a say in abortion decisions) they turn around and say: "That's Mother Nature! Take it up with her!" It's kind of like my cat whose the bravest creature in the world when going after a bug but when a dog comes around, he scurries under the bed.
Finally, I don't consider Richard or I "trolls". Trolls are considered to be posters who are insincere and vulgar and just out to get a rise from the forum for the sake of stirring the pot. Rabblerousers for the sake of rousing. Richard and I are sincere in our beliefs and we are bringing up valid points.
PK said: "The fundamental paradox of the liberated woman as a wife of the welfare state is that... (drum roll), such a state would require patriarchal, chivalrous western men to both protect and fund it."
Thank you, PK, for condensing this concept more effectively than I was able to.
NY said: "AND pregnancy and childbirth ARE the great equalizer of women...as ALL have to go through the same disfigurements of their body and painful delivery to bring forth life..."
Come to think of it, NY, all women DON'T go through the same pain or disfigurement. My wife lost all her pregnancy weight by her six week checkup.
She had labor pains before we got to the hospital but she didn't have any during her delivery. She got a shot in the back that numbed her.
That shot freaked her out more than anything else about the process, though most women seem to be ok with it.
My sister had the same thing a month ago. In fact, I don't even know a woman who didn't get the same shot in the hospital.
Just chalk it up as another "gift" to women from us men who contribute nothing unique to society.
Although for as much as you woman-firsters recognize it we might just as well let you go back out out in the boonies and howl your own way through it like females do in "nature." And the Mosuo probably still do.
And when you're done you can get up and start foraging to feed yourselves and your young just like in nature.
No support checks or WIC out there.
Richard
I'll admit to being vulgar at times, PK, (working on it!) but always sincere, yes.
R.
Sorry but you are trolls according to the internet definition which is a poster who goes to a site and continuously posts comments arguing against whatever the site is about.
For instance: an anti-war site where military or their supporters keep posting or the opposite...
That's the internet definition of trolling...
So coming here continuously when you know what this site is about and continuing to argue on a daily or even hourly basis about every single post is the definition of trolling...
This is my site, my opinion, my rules...the world is wide as is the internet with hundreds of sites where men can post about their issues.
This is a site for mothers and their issues.
Period.
I don't mind if you come once in a while to comment, but now you've evolved into non-stop trolls...
Not Polish Knight so much, but you Richard are becoming ridiculous...So give me one reason Richard why I shouldn't ban you the way I banned Anne for the same sort of behavior.
Because I've said nothing here that I didn't say (or wouldn't have said if it had come up) at Gonz', or at KellyMac's, and you specifically asked me to come over here and discuss stuff with you.
You always seemed to love a good scrap, over there.
I told you no then because you had a reputation for erasing long stretches of comments you didn't like and I already knew you wouldn't like any of mine.
Then I heard you had stopped all that so I came over to chat some. Thought you wanted to liven things up around here like Glenn's resident "trolls" liven up his site.
But hell, you don't need to "ban" me. I'll leave anytime you want me to and let you get back to PreachItSister, or nothing.
Richard
From Wikipedia's page: "In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room or collaborative content community with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional or disciplinary response[1] or to generally disrupt normal on-topic discussion.[2]"
Note that a troll is defined mostly by their intent. Posting controversial subject matter is NORMAL for a discussion forum otherwise it wouldn't be a very intersting place.
Yet, there are are people who seem to think they deserve a medal for cheering on the status quo. As Ann Coulter, a controversial figure herself, put it: "Liberal students clap erasers for the marxist professor because they're BAAAAD and REBELLLIOUS! They bring apples for him because they HATE THE MAN!"
Really, NYMOM, the concept behind your site seems to be good ol' chivalry as defined in modern times (sentimentalistic patronage of women and children). You act as if you just discovered this idea.
Your concept is about as original as: "Cancer is bad!" or "DV need to be addressed!" or "Nobody cares about the hardships of Latina women!" I actually saw a morning program where some DV shelter administrator was going to make an announcement at a ballgame about DV because "awareness of DV against women needs to be raised". Yeah, a billion dollars a year for DV against women, social prohibitions against a man even hitting a woman back if she hits him, and there's not enough publicity.
I refer to this as the greasy wheel usually is the squeakiest. People love to jump on the bandwagon and their enthusiasm for doing so isn't dampened by the American ideal that they want to feel like pioneers too. "I'm a pioneer! I'm following the herd!"
If you just a website with nothing but "Me too!", NYMOM, I'm ok with that. Please just say so upfront. Fair enough?
NYMOM, one of the things I often think about is how MRA's and Men's Issues/sites often spend a lot of time talking about feminism and women and vice-versa. Sometimes, there are gripes such as: "Why are we talking about women so much? What about men's issues?" and vice-versa: "Why don't we talk only about women?"
I then pose the simple challenge: If you want to talk about a sole women's or men's issue, then post it. The problem is that they are usually non-controversial to the point they are not interesting.
In addition, it's hard to seperate women's and men's issues because they're intertwined. Men's identities have a lot to do with sex and earning a living to support their families, and guess who that involves. Mother and women's issues involve getting men to support them and their kids.
Thanks Richard, as usual your response is very predictable...so as I've been doing lately with all of your responses I'm just going to ignore this one...
For now...
Polish Knight...your constant attempts to link my ideas with chivalry are almost laughable. Actually they show me that you are not even reading most of these posts but you're just on auto-pilot responding to everything from the same perspective...
I, as I've told you many times, am not a gender neutral feminists nor am I a fan of the old system of "chivalry" if you want to call it such where women stayed home and raised children and men worked and made all the decisions...if women and men wish to continue that, fine, but most don't appear to wish to live this way any longer so I'm looking to come up with new ideas for new ways of living, not recycling the old modes.
They served their purpose, it's time to move on now...
Actually I'm far more radical then either one of those groups of women which you would know if you were paying attention.
I have said many times that unmarried mothers should NOT be able to go to court for child support, I have also said many times that domestic violence, child abuse and other deviant behaviors are rare, meaning most people don't engage in them, so I seldom directly refer to them on this blog UNLESS they are relevant for some other reason...ie., they have been used to pass some new legislation which I consider damaging to ordinary mothers.
Actually it is you who keep bringing these issues up...so you can shoot them down I guess.
That's what is bothering me I guess. It seems that instead of reading my posts, you are just automatically responding...this blog is about ideas and discussion but I don't see how we can have that with Richard droning on and now you morphing into Richard 'Lite'...
Regarding your comment about men issues all having to do with sex and earning a living to "support their families"???? Is this really what you think most men are trying to earn a living to do???? OR are they trying to earn a living to attract a woman to have sex with them??????
See I have a problem with you defining men's issues so kindly...
I just don't see it that way...
Sorry.
"V, the inner city has high rates of violence of ALL varieties. Men there are violent, women are violent, kids are violent."
And what's your point Richard? We aren't talking about upper middle class surburbia here. We're talking about neighborhoods where you can walk outside your house and see a drive-by shooting, drug deals, knife fights, and prostitution going on without leaving your front porch. The rules you live by in nice safe surburbia aren't going to apply in the inner city. People have to deal with violence everyday, and people themselves are going to be more violent. It's called survival. OTOH, the ones who are by far the most violent are MEN.
"Virago, who gestates and raises these men who shoot up the inner cities AND produce children FOR them? It's a MATRIARCHY that produces bad men."
A matriarchy doesn't have high rates of male on female domestic violence. That's a patriarchy and the inner city is a patriarchy through and through. And the unwed mother homes is a product of this environment not the cause. Women in the inner cities usually grew up in the poverty and violence of the inner city. They have little or no education and usually don't have the finances to leave the inner city to begin with. The pool of men available to these women are usually men who are poor, uneducated, unemployed, with criminal histories, drug and/or alchohol problems. Who wants to marry men like that? OTOH, these are usually the kinds of men who are available to these women, and these women usually live with the fathers of their children at some point. Unfortunately, the problems that these men have plus the high tendency for domestic violence usually drive these couples apart, and women know that living as an unwed single mother is better than staying with the fathers of their children. Unfortunately, these women are stuck in the inner city, they are subject to violence both in and out of the home, depression, and drug and alcohol problems themselves. On top of this, they have to deal with racism, violence in the neighborhood, poor schools,etc. Even if these women didn't have substance abuse problems or depression, do you really think that it's easy to raise a child in an environment like the inner city especially by themselves? OTOH, do you really think these kids aren't going to have problems if the mothers had stayed with the fathers, or the fathers had custody? Ha! The kids would have it even worse because chances are if moms a prostitute, dad is her pimp. If mom is a druggie, dad is her dealer (or even a fellow druggie or both). And even if mom is a decent mother, chances are dad isn't going to be because of the kind of men who are available in that environment. Being an unwed single mother makes better sense than to marry in that environment. Of course, your not going to agree, but that is the reality of the situation. It's as simple as that.
V said: "People have to deal with violence everyday, and people themselves are going to be more violent. It's called survival."
Yeah, girls beating the crap out of each other over the rutting rights to some worthless male (which is usually what violence among females boils down to) is all about survival. Right.
"They have little or no education and usually don't have the finances to leave the inner city to begin with."
Despite massive government and community do-gooder effort to lure these kids away from drugs/violence/babymaking and keep them positively occupied, they have little or no education because they blow off all their educational opportunities and usually their parents (i.e. mothers) don't have the good sense or the ability to make them do any better. Of course that leads to lack of finances to leave the inner city. Duh.
"Being an unwed single mother makes better sense than to marry in that environment."
You're presupposing the complete lack of female control over reproduction, which is what NY's reprinted post was about. As well as the complete lack of female judgment.
How about the third option, which makes the best sense of all? Simply don't have kids if you can't provide them a proper home and/or adequate support?
Men get this advice all the time, and most of us accept it as sensible. Why don't women?
"But I wanna" doesn't count.
Richard
"Why don't women?"
Because if we did, humanity would have been extinct years ago as it doesn't make sense today nor did it make sense in the past for women to get pregnant and have ANY KIDS...the entire concept is illogical if you want to be honest about it.
Following your advice humanity would have died out a long long time ago...maybe the earth would have been better off...
Who knows....
"How about the third option, which makes the best sense of all? Simply don't have kids if you can't provide them a proper home and/or adequate support?
Men get this advice all the time, and most of us accept it as sensible. Why don't women?"
The problem is that most of you don't practice what you "accept as sensible". Condom use among men is 20%, and if men used a condom 100% of the time, it's effectiveness is 97% effective. You men want to whine about having to pay child support for a child you don't want or can't afford. You want the absolute freedom to run around the countryside spreading your sperm wherever and with whoever, but you don't want to take responsibility for what happens afterward. And spare me those arguements about women lying about birth control or whatever. Women are still more likely to use birth control than men are. So instead of griping about irresponsible, lying women, you guys need to face the REAL REASON why your getting stuck paying for kids you don't want or can't afford. THE REAL REASON YOU DON'T WEAR CONDOMS IS BECAUSE YOU THINK THE SEX ISN'T AS GOOD. That's it. End of story. And it's the ONLY REASON that we're even having this discussion. It all boils down to the almighty male orgasm, and male entitlement to enhance that orgasm anyway they can without taking any responsibility for anything else. My heart breaks for you (not)because this is the ONLY stupid, shallow reason that you feel the need to blame women for all your problems. OTOH, I think NYMOM is right when she says that women who have a child out of wedlock shouldn't be allowed to go after the father for child support. I also agree that men shouldn't have any parental rights to these kids either. AND I also agree with NYMOM that the STATE should be the only one to go after these guys to reimburse the tax payers for what it cost to raise these kids, and believe me, the state is going to be far more aggressive in going after these guys than any one woman will be. So, instead of depending on women for birth control all the time, you guys should just accept the fact that the sex might not be as good and wear a condom. After all, most men still manage to ejaculate when they wear a condom so it can't be all that bad.
V, you're still presupposing lack of female control over reproduction.
You bash us for not being responsible enough about contraception but you all haven't done any better.
If you think NY is so right about everything (and maybe she is partially), then do you think she also right when she says THIS?:
"...this is something that woman is the final arbitrator of: IF, WHEN and how MANY children she'll ultimately bear."
I say, yes she is.
Planned Parenthood is all over the inner cities trying to give out free BC pills and teach girls how to use them properly. Contrary to popular liberal excuse-making there is no shortage of contraception or ignorance about it. In fact most underclass females start out relationships using it.
Then they stop. THEY make the decision to make a baby. Usually to straighten out their lives and give them a "purpose." Which it often does, but that's no job for a helpless kid. The obligations should run in the opposite direction.
I think NY is right on all three of the points you quoted. And I also think PK's idea is a good one. Remove kids whose parents can't care for them, raise them in orphanages until the parents CAN handle them, and send the bill to BOTH of them.
Then watch stupid babymaking dry up in a flash.
NY said: "Following your advice humanity would have died out a long long time ago..."
I don't accept that public acceptance and financing of any irresponsible choices women choose to make is necessary to prevent human extinction.
Is it too much to ask for people to be able to take care of their offspring before having them?
"Nature" has no problem with the concept.
I think you're right that having kids is often a thankless job, and with an increasingly rich and self-indulgent modern culture more and more people will opt out. This attitude is all over Europe and will probably overtake the US too.
But enabling those who have completely lost any sense of family, commitment and obligation won't preserve civilization. It just puts us further down the road to ruin.
Richard
We don't know why young women decide to stop using their birth control
It could be a subconscious effort to be a mother (maternal instinct)...
I've heard many older well-educated women say they finally just gave in to the instinct and have a baby...no other reason.
It goes against logic and men don't experience it...but perhaps that's just what it is...maternal instinct that kicks in when young girl start to menstrate...Civilization via education and birth control keep it at bay for a while...but not forever.
Once again, we cannot deny our connection with other living beings on the planet...we're not machines who can be programmed and planned.
"You bash us for not being responsible enough about contraception but you all haven't done any better."
But Richard, I'm not talking about women. I'm talking about men. NYMOM has said repeatedly that you miss the point and make it about men. I just thought I would accomodate you. So, let's look at the issue that REALLY concerns men-their male entitlement to have the best orgasm any time, anywhere without any restrictions or responsibilities. Heck, if condoms were found to increase male sexual pleasure, there wouldn't be any out of wedlock pregnancies. And that's the real reason why men find themselves "in a fix", and they have only themselves to blame. That's it. End of story.
"We don't know why young women decide to stop using their birth control."
NY, you might want to go over to the library and check out Promises I Can Keep, by Edin and Kefalis. These are a couple of women who actually went into the inner city and lived among poor single moms for five years, if I remember correctly, and got to know them and found out what makes them tick.
The theme that comes up among them again and again is that motherhood is meant to "save" them. From drug use, from lives of crime, from aimlessness, and the list goes on.
Which is all well and good for them, but it doesn't offer much for the kids that result, except a similar life of crap that they'll need to be "saved" from eventually.
"It goes against logic and men don't experience it...but perhaps that's just what it is...maternal instinct that kicks in..."
Well we all come equipped with instincts that help to drive the propagation of our genes. Ours are despised by the woman-firsters for some reason, however, while yours are somehow holy.
But...
"...we're not machines who can be programmed and planned."
We may not be machines but oh yes our behaviors can most certainly be programmed and planned. What else is civilization but a system of channeling our primitive instincts into behaviors that enable us all to live together as pleasantly and peacefully as possible?
For thousands of years we programmed and planned procreation and the procreative instincts of ALL of us into the most efficient and socially beneficial form by keeping it largely within the boundary lines of marriage and family by means of laws, economics, and some well-placed stigmas.
Over the last generation the middle classes dabbled a little in "alternative family forms" but are now rediscovering marriage and family as the best way to raise kids and achieve prosperity.
I don't think it's at all illegitimate (no pun intended) to look for ways to discourage procreation among the others until they can rediscover marriage, family and self-sufficiency too.
And V, that's not an answer and you know it. You simply seized the opportunity for a put-down.
I asked you why women, "the final arbiter of IF, WHEN, and HOW MANY children she'll bear," don't accept that they should therefore only have as many children as they can provide a decent life for.
You answered because men don't wear condoms enough.
At least NY's answer was responsive.
Richard
NYMOM, I'm chuckling a bit because I have offended/disagreed with every single blog owner including Glenn Sacks. But at the same time, I make it clear that I respect the owners of the blogs and don't take, or give, things personally. If things aren't controversial, then I don't think we're making any real headway.
I appreciate your complex position but I'm honestly a bit confused. You seem to be advocating a social perspective of motherhood similar to that of a traditionalist approach of women being primary custodians/raisers of children and "housewives" when necessary of the state and men to fund that goal. That sounds like a form of classic (Victorian era) chivalry to me.
I'm opposed, for obvious reasons, to what I think your proposal seems to be where women get kids and the goodies and men get stuck with the burdens as fathers and taxpayers. Chivalry, as most people understand it today, is the notion of "women and children first" with women getting the lifeboat seats and men going down with the ship. However, at the time that chivalry became popular women weren't allowed to vote and men ran things. Asking for women to come first and be treated, literally, as children while being treated as equals is similar to making men into second class citizens. You seem to share that view by arguing that women make babies and that us men are just sub-human filler material. It's not only dehumanizing, but IMO naive when men are needed to make this societal support of mothers by western standards work in the first place.
Is that helpful?
I don't bring up DV, child-abuse, etc. but rather address arguments posted here from Kimberly/Virago etc. to rationalize women as saints by claiming that it's men who do most of those things. If someone calls the pot black, then the kettle also has to be examined.
Regarding me as Richard lite. I disagree with Richard on a lot of things. I do read posts thoroughly but I admit that my style of looking at things from a different perspective, if only to shed new light, can be misinterpreted as not listening.
In closing, NYMOM, I want a society where women and men get along. I love my wife. Richard loves his daughter. But I also want men to be treated fairly albeit not equally. That's where I'm coming from.
Richard, I love the put down "men don't wear condoms enough" to imply that all of us men, collectively, "father" the welfare recipients and future criminals from mostly unwed mother homes.
These social policies actually had a reverse effect similar to a parent who instinctively slaps a child who tells him when he's done something wrong resulting in a child who lies about doing wrong things and does them more often.
The current social system rewards irresponsible mothering from soup to nuts: Divorces are easy and profitable for women and mothers can get welfare and child-support. All of this works just great provided well-to-do breadwinning men marry and have illegitimate children and produce income for the welfare state. Until... they don't.
The biological reality that every feral cat administrator knows (this is a personal cause of mine, the alleycat.org, Allie Cat Allies) is that you can neuter nearly every single male feral cat and you won't impact the colony one bit. But if you spay just half the female cats, you cut the population in half of starving cats.
In addition, if you provide feral female cats and their offspring with unlimited food without condition (spaying), they will just produce more litters and attract other cats from neighboring areas (hmmm, the parallels to our society are fascinating, aren't they?)
In my own personal case, I wore condoms and avoided marriage until my early 30's. Then, with the wisdom of old age, I married a super younger woman of foreign birth. I rejected 3 marriage proposals from older American women.
We are nearing a crisis period where California is considering cutting services, including welfare, to balance the budget. They'll have to. They simply can't give money to welfare mothers without roads, electricity, or police. Western culture is going the same route.
PK said: "Richard, I love the put down "men don't wear condoms enough" to imply that all of us men, collectively, "father" the welfare recipients and future criminals from mostly unwed mother homes."
I think somehow V has it in her mind that I don't want men to have to pay child support. In reality I rarely ever think of child support from the male angle.
My beef with child support is that its availability, along with welfare and other freebies, has encouraged the breeding and raising of children outside of marriage, which used to be the sine qua non for claims on a biological father. And women knew damn well not to mess with reproduction without it.
Funny how NY is sure that we cannot be programmed and planned but it only took one generation and a little moolah to reset the programming of thousands of years.
Maybe it's high time for a "system restore," albeit a reluctant one:
"We are nearing a crisis period where California is considering cutting services, including welfare, to balance the budget. They'll have to."
We shall watch the petri dish with interest.
Richard
"And V, that's not an answer and you know it. You simply seized the opportunity for a put-down.
I asked you why women, "the final arbiter of IF, WHEN, and HOW MANY children she'll bear," don't accept that they should therefore only have as many children as they can provide a decent life for."
Oh, no, YOU choose to make this all about the men when it suits you. When I bring it up, you don't want to play. The fact of the matter is that men are more concerned with their orgasms than making sure that they don't procreate a child with the wrong woman, or making more children than they can provide for. In the medical field, everyone wears gloves to protect themselves against the possibility of HIV. It doesn't matter if a patient is HIV positive or not because the fact of the matter is, a doctor, nurse, or lab technician isn't going to know who is or who isn't HIV positive. The idea behind wearing gloves for EVERY PATIENT is to treat ALL PATIENTS as if they were HIV positive to protect medical workers against the possibility that some of the patients may actually have HIV. If a medical worker gets HIV from a patient because they didn't wear gloves, they can't use the excuse that they didn't know the patient was HIV positive, or that the patient lied about being HIV positive because THEY'RE SUPPOSE TO WEAR GLOVES FOR ALL PATIENTS ANYWAY. It's called UNIVERSAL PRECAUTIONS. The same concept applies to men who don't wear condoms. Instead of whining, "The bitch lied to me about birth control." AFTER SOME WOMAN GETS PREGNANT because the GUY DIDN'T WEAR A CONDOM, men should be treating all women as IF THEY WEREN'T ON BIRTH CONTROL. That means making sure they protect themselves by wearing a condom before they have sex. This wipes out any excuses on the man's part, or blame that a man tries to put on his partner and it puts the blame exactly where it belongs-on the man's own shoulders. For every woman who chooses to have a kid they can't afford, there's a man equally to blame.
Virago, here's a perfect example of you making a generalization based upon a few exceptional cases and then not getting called out by NYMOM because it's a bad generalization about men.
For the record, the vast majority of men provide financially for their children and many if not most for their wives in addition even after marriage has long stopped being about sex. This is even when they don't have access to their own children or are forced to pay support.
On the other hand... with millions of women graduating from universities and getting high paying jobs, most would rather go childless or single rather than marry down. Men literally, er, ok not literally, put their money where their, er, mouth is!
Your comparison of medical technicians wearing gloves to protect from HIV is interesting because you're equating baby rabies women to an amoral horrific disease. Indeed, the biggest enemies against women-as-mother's reputations in the modern era are themselves with them divorcing at the drop of a hat, going on welfare, or demanding society pick up after their little darlings when they can't find a willing sugar daddy.
In addition, your comparison of men choosing to have sex to women choosing to have babies blows away any moral recognition that NYMOM has worked to build for mothers. Women aren't heroic for having babies, they're just satisfying an URGE. Like getting a slice of pizza. Hey, there are negative physical consequences to birth but there are also negative consequences to eating. Good going Virago! NYMOM, are you listening?
V said: "For every woman who chooses to have a kid they can't afford, there's a man equally to blame."
V, I don't know how I can make this any clearer for you.
The question isn't whether or not men are equally to blame.
Hell, let's just say that yes, they are.
The question is why women, who have complete power over whether or not children are born, do not accept that they should only have as many children as they can adequately provide for.
NY had enough honesty to respond, although I don't agree with her answer that women have to breed irresponsibly because of irresistable maternal instincts.
That's no more legitimate than for us to claim that we are powerless to control our natural instincts to spread our genes as widely as possible.
But if you can't bring yourself to respond, then just forget it.
I think we all know the answer already anyway.
Richard
"In addition, your comparison of men choosing to have sex to women choosing to have babies blows away any moral recognition that NYMOM has worked to build for mothers."
OMG, if D.C. is missing it's village idiot, I think they can find him here on this blog under the alias Polish Knight. I believe I made this very clear. MEN WHO CHOOSE NOT TO WEAR CONDOMS ARE THE SAME AS A WOMeN WHO CHOOSE NOT TO USE BIRTH CONTROL. Is that plain enough for you, or should I skywrite it over D.C.? WTF, does this have to do with men choosing to have sex? What? Are men who wear condoms not the same as men choosing to have sex? That's an oxymoron. Really, Polish Knight, stop trying to project your own stupidity onto me. I think that you need to see the Wizard because you sure don't have a brain.
"The question isn't whether or not men are equally to blame.
Hell, let's just say that yes, they are."
Okay, I can agree with that.
"The question is why women, who have complete power over whether or not children are born, do not accept that they should only have as many children as they can adequately provide for."
See that's the problem, Richard. Women don't have COMPLETE POWER. That's an illusion. I agree with NYMOM that women should be the
"the final arbiter of IF, WHEN, and HOW MANY children she'll bear".
That's how it SHOULD BE, but it ISN'T. Right now, pro-lifers have managed to close down all the planned parenthoods in my area, and the closest one is 60 miles away. Pro-lifers are constantly trying to push through legislation to restrict a woman's access to abortion, and they've succeeded in many states including mine. Prolifers are also pushing abstinence only education in our schools that don't even discuss birth control. All this does is make the teenage pregnancy rate skyrocket. Our local pharmacists have refused to sell the morning after pill based on their own religious believes. Right now, the local catholic hospital has a monopoly on most of the medical facilities around me. They won't give out birth control, nor will they do tubal ligations or vasectomies for that matter. Most insurance companies won't cover birth control or abortion, but they'll cover viagra. No, Richard, women don't have complete power, and what so-called "power" they do have is being threatened by pro-lifers and the economy. There's actually been more pregnancies because woman can't afford to fill their birth control prescriptions because of being unemployed or whatever. And that's why MORE MEN need to step up to the plate, AND WEAR A CONDOM FOR CRYING OUT LOUD. Women don't have complete power, what power they do have is constantly threatened, and MEN REFUSE TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY AT ALL. And who gets blamed-WOMEN. That's your answer, and if your not satisfied, or don't agree, that's on you. I know what the real situation is because I've had to deal with a lot of these issues myself, and I really don't think you have. That's it. End of story.
Virago, if you want to call people idiots, consider first the words you are using. In this case, "birth control". Men have _contraception_ options and a limited array at that. Women have such options in addition to abortion and, of course, legalized abandonment. Women literally have legal "birth" control.
You then try to argue that, hey, women's "birth" control options aren't perfect because there are pro-lifers trying to restrict it with some success. Well... la dee dah! Poor Virago! She needs a red carpet (pardon the pun) and silver spoon everywhere she goes otherwise she can't cut it. Yep, a bus ride to another state us such an imposition. And safe havens require that she walk nearly a mile before abandoning a baby. They should provide limosines!
It's additionally amusing that you gripe that there are pro-lifers out there trying to restrict women's access to abortion even as you seem to think that babies are created at the moment of conception as far as the man's responsibilities go. Essentially, when the woman wants the baby (and money), it exists at conception and he should man up. When she doesn't, then it's just a blob of cells to be sucked out and he shouldn't dare to ask any questions.
As I said, your attitude exposes a greater agenda which appears to be a selfish one where men and children come second to satisfying a woman's urges. Then we hear accusations that men are irresponsible and greedy. Hilarious.
Finally, I notice how you didn't address my point that failure to take precautions out of negligence or naivety is different than deception or selfishness. Perhaps you really don't see one.
"Your comparison of medical technicians wearing gloves to protect from HIV is interesting because you're equating baby rabies women to an amoral horrific disease"
OH, come on Polish Knight! Just when I thought you couldn't get any dumber, you prove me wrong. You know what? Your just deliberately twisting around everything again like you always do, and I'm not going to bother explaining it to you because I think you know damn well what I was referring to. And if you don't, your really JUST THAT DUMB.
" As I said, your attitude exposes a greater agenda which appears to be a selfish one where men and children come second to satisfying a woman's urges. Then we hear accusations that men are irresponsible and greedy. Hilarious."
Men are the ones who refuse to wear condoms because their orgasms are more important than any child they might procreate. That's the height of selfishness right there. Again, Polish Knight, quit trying to project YOUR STUPIDITY onto me! It gets old after a while.
Virago, I'll put it simply: Stupid is as stupid does. You compared baby rabies to HIV and it's an important distinction because you really don't think it's a problem for women to exploit children as a power tool. That it's something that men, and society, should regard as normal. This merits discussion:
When I invite someone over to my house, even someone I just recently met, I take it for granted that they won't go through my medicine cabinets or put chewing gum under the couch. I suppose that has as much to do with my values as theirs. I tend to avoid the kinds of people who would do such things. But... sadly, basic manners and decency is lacking in this culture. Perhaps it's due to a clash of the American materialism and obsession with personal success with victim-entitlement politics. People from foreign cultures tell me that they don't feel they can trust Americans individually.
Regarding men collectively, and me, refusing to wear condoms: I used condoms religiously, so to speak, before I got married in addition to contraceptive foam. Those sperm weren't getting through! And I'm not exceptional(see my feral cat example above). "Men" largely have cleaned up their act and the baby rabies girls are going for the bad boys. YOU are projecting YOUR (collective) stupidity onto ME. Not the other way around.
I'm chuckling a bit about you generalizing that I, personally, have a problem with around without protection. After having lived in Western and Eastern Europe for a few years, I don't even NOTICE American women anymore. They're about as appealing to me as the lunch lady at my high school. Either they're vulgar and have this... used look or they dress like they're going to a puritan/mormon convention. (Actually, puritan/mormons are actually hotter than the typical American woman nowadays.)
Well Richard, as usual you have picked one of the most deviant groups in our society and applied what you claim is their reason for having children to everyone else. Actually our census shows that it is now older women who have the highest rate of children 'out of wedlock'...and as long as they can afford to support them alone, I see nothing wrong with it...
AND yes, men do have the same evolutionary urges to procreate...except their urge ends after having sex...womens' ends after having a child...
Virago I don't know if I would compare every woman who doesn't use birth control to every man who doesn't use a condom...
Some women do decide to get pregnant in this fashion versus using an anonymous sperm donor...I guess they feel embarrassed so they act like they made a mistake and got pregnant accidentally...
My feeling is I don't care how they got pregnant as long as they take care of the child afterwards I won't fault them...the consequences for these two actions are so different in magnitude that I don't know if you could compare them...
This was one of the best discussions on these issues that I have seen in a long time...however, I think if everyone could cut out the name-calling it would be a better interchange of ideas...
I will accept the term 'baby rabies' as the equivalent to my maternal instincts...I guess it's a more americanized version of what I said...and a funnier term...
NY said: "Actually our census shows that it is now older women who have the highest rate of children 'out of wedlock'"
Where did you get that idea, NY?
It's false unless you consider twentysomethings to be "older."
"Rates [of unmarried births] in 2006 remained highest for women ages 20–24 (79.5 per 1,000), followed closely by the rate for women ages 25–29 (74.9 per 1,000)"
http://www.childstats.gov/americaschildren/famsoc2.asp
And I don't think I picked a "deviant" group at all. I picked the one most plagued by illegitimacy. The young, poor and the under-educated.
By older I meant they weren't teengers which I believe was the group of Newark teenagers that Richard's story was referring to...
20 to 24 and 25 to 29 are the perfect ages for womem to be pregnant...and this is now the group with the highest rate of single motherhood.
AND yes, that group of Newark teenagers are deviant as most American teenagers are not having babies because they have nothing else to do.
Actually mens' rights groups continuously pick some deviant group to try and make a false point about themselves...like when they picked the educational statistics of black and hispanic boys to try and show discrimination against ALL BOYS.
Hope I was clear Polish Knight...
Sorry Polish Knight that was Richard I was responding to above, I should have known he'd try and debate the obvious...
I wasn't talking about any Newark teenagers, NY. I was talking about a book that did a comprehensive study of inner city women (I think it was Pittsburgh, but I don't remember for sure) of all races and age groups and the reasons WHY they put motherhood before marriage.
That was the subtitle, in fact. Why poor women put motherhood before marriage.
I wouldn't condense it exactly the way you did but I guess it's as good as any other way. Nothing else to do, or more precisely, nothing better to hope for.
Of course, the kids they produce don't have much better to hope for, either. That's the problem right there.
Richard
NYMOM, I see what you're saying but your statement about not caring about how a woman got pregnant versus how she raises the children seems to have a disconnection with reality. It's like saying that you have no problems with children going out and playing in traffic or running around with scissors provided they don't get hurt.
For the record, I am firmly against people having one night stands without using maximum protection. Period. But I don't think most oopser women, real or "accidentally", get preggers and carry children from one night stands. I think they probably tell the man she's on birth control and he believes her. The pill was heralded as this wonderful device that caused the sexual revolution, but it appears to be like giving a car with a faulty airbag to a teenage driver, at best.
As I said above, I think in a civilized society we should be able to rely upon most people acting decently and honorably. Men should be able to count upon women's word that they are on birth control and uninterested in having children before marriage and, by the same token, people should be able to rely upon their girlfriends/boyfriends to tell them if they have an STD, for example.
One of the sad consequences to the one-sided legal liability men face in dealing with women is that it severely impacts our ability to regard women as trustworthy. I love reading feminist web sites about how they worry about walking around at night or going on a date lest they get raped. But nearly all men and society find such men abhorrant. On the other hand, our society tells men that women don't have to have any moral scruples whatsoever.
You may wonder where a lot of my sexist chauvanism comes from and part of it comes from my father and mother. When my mother found a playboy (back in those days, that was hard pornography) under my bed and excitedly told my father it was time for... the talk. He gave me MORE information than I could have ever imagined and half of it was about how to protect myself from unscrupulous women with my mother listening in from the kitchen. (Yeah, I know, nice imagery there!)
A responsible father has to teach his sons to regard women in general as unreliable, at best. NYMOM, don't blame me, I'm the messenger. I wish women could live up to higher standards. I married one who does. But in this society, stick a fork in them. They're done.
NYMOM, about the older, spinster women having babies out of wedlock.
I dated a number of such women and found them to often be a few cans short of a six pack. Hey, they were desperate enough to date me, weren't they? OK, seriously, there are some people out there who are wonderful spouses and lousy parents and vice versa, but doesn't it make sense that it takes a functional adult to raise a functional child to adulthood?
I know you hate talking about deviancy because it may take things out of context, but consider that single motherhood, until recently, WAS deviant! Most women in the past were able to find a decent man who lived up to the woman's instinctual need for a breadwinner protector.
A woman who becomes a successful doctor, say, is making herself more attractive to the opposite sex in the same way as a man taking home economics and learning how to cook and clean and choose the latest fashions. Sure, in THEORY, it's great if a woman makes a ton o' money and shares it with us or if a man cooks and cleans but that is NO SUBSTITUTE for what is now clear biological hardwiring in the sexes. Feminism was a social experiment that failed. There's an old joke in the former Soviet Union that the original marxists were not social scientists because scientists always test on animals first.
When I hear someone say that, hey, a high income career single mother by choice can be a great parent I would like to see their reaction if a man wearing a dress were to take his surrogacy produced children to the park to play with their kids (No, I'm not going to poke at Michael Jackson here). But think about it: We're in the middle of deviancy! Deviancy has become so normal, that it has lost much of it's meaning!
In conclusion, and with the caveat I mentioned above, spinster career women mothers by choice are on a similar level as welfare mothers: They are dysfunctional human beings and produce inferior adults.
Well excuse me Richard but whether it's Newark or Pittsburgh, the principle is the same: These groups of teenagers are not representative of the average American women...
AND, of course, I disagree completely with Polish Knight...women ALWAYS got pregnant out of wedlock...Always...what has changed is that men are no longer marrying them...
Actually there was a study posted on another blog talking about early America and it noted that looking at tombstones birth/death dates and comparing them to family bibles with wedding dates noted it appeared that most women were pregnant at the time they got married. We are talking about pre-Revolutionary War here.
So womens' behavior has never changed. It's men's behavior that has...
Did you even read what I said, NY? The study was NOT of teenagers but of poor urban women of EVERY race and age group.
The theme was nearly universal. "I need a baby to give me a purpose."
And the unspoken flip side of course: "I don't care what I can or can't give my baby."
I don't see why Edin and Kefalis' findings shouldn't be taken as representative at least of the segment of American women who do almost all of our unwed breeding, the lower class.
Richard
"After having lived in Western and Eastern Europe for a few years, I don't even NOTICE American women anymore. They're about as appealing to me as the lunch lady at my high school. Either they're vulgar and have this... used look or they dress like they're going to a puritan/mormon convention."
Men who make comments like this are usually the bottom of the barrel of AMERICAN MEN. They strike out with American women, and instead of looking at themselves, they decide to blame American women for their own insecurities. Basically, they want women who will stoke their egos and do what they want. These are also the same kind of men who usually buy into the myth that foreign women are submissive live blow up dolls that are willing to do whatever these guys want. These guys frequently turn to mail-order brides (a form of human trafficking) to get what they THINK are lacking in American women. Mail order bride agencies frequently tell these guys that foreign women are not uppity like American women and are very submissive. A lot of foreign women complain that there is too much poverty in their own countries, and that the men in their cultures are TOO SEXIST. These foreign women are told by the mail order bride agencies that American men will treat them better, and they will find a better life. Unfortunately, a lot of these foreign women come here and find that the wonderful American men they married are just as bad as the men in their culture. In a lot of cases, these women are abused, threatened with deportation by their "husband" (American captors)if they don't do what they want. A lot of these women see that American women aren't puting up with this crap, and basically, they end up leaving these guys. A lot of times, these foreign women end up abused, or even murdered when they try to leave, or they end up losing custody of their children because these guys manage to convince the court that these foreign women aren't fit parents in some way, and a lot of these women don't speak enough english and at are a disadvantage in custody issues. Domestic violence against foreign brides is so bad that a new law was passed in February 2006 that required mail bride agencies to tell any foreign women about domestic violence history their American male applicants may have. And guess who opposed this law? Men's Rights Activist. Just like I said, the bottom of the American barrel of men are the ones who want the foreign brides. They can't handle American women, and they end up resorting to threats, violence, and even murder when their foreign mail order brides aren't what the agency promised. In other words, their foreign brides want to be like their American counterparts. Interestingly enough, a lot of these foreign women come from Phillipines, Asia, Russia, EASTERN EUROPE among some of the places. So, Polish Knight, I can't claim that this is your situation, but your remarks about American women, and the fact that you like to frequent brothels with Eastern European prostitutes, and your an MRA supporter MAKES ME HIGHLY SUSPICIOUS. Don't bother trying to tell me your not one of these guys because your not going to make me believe anything you say. OTOH, your remarks about American women do tell me that you have trouble getting any American women at all and listening to your views on women, that's no surprise. Your definitely the bottom of the barrel as far as American men are concerned, and I'm not really interested in your comments about what a studmuffin you are. Men who frequently pay for sex they wouldn't get otherwise and trash American women in the process are far from being that.
"Actually there was a study posted on another blog talking about early America and it noted that looking at tombstones birth/death dates and comparing them to family bibles with wedding dates noted it appeared that most women were pregnant at the time they got married. We are talking about pre-Revolutionary War here.
So womens' behavior has never changed. It's men's behavior that has..."
NYMOM your absolutely right. We did an extensive family tree in my family, and more than half the women in my family were pregnant when they got married, and this pattern went back 200 years. Other people who have done geneaology have found the same thing in their families.
Funny dat, V. My wife's favorite hobby is genealogy and after doing both our trees she found only ONE instance in over 400 years.
But you can't really compare a little premarital hanky-panky with your intended to the tomfoolery going on today among our modern losers.
R.
Well, good for you and your wife Richard. Not everyone has a geneaology that's morally superior to everyone else's. After all, your situation has not been the experience of most geneaologists that I have come in contact with. However, there's a common rule of thumb when doing geneaology-everything has to be verified more than once to make sure the record is what it appears to be. After all, mama's baby, daddy's maybe is not an uncommon situation. The only geneaology that you know for sure is really yours is that of your mother's. Paternal geneaology is never sure. That's the best basis for making family names matrilineal right there.
A little late for that. We've got DNA testing now.
Hopefully one day to be routine upon birth.
Unless you want to make support an exclusively "matrilineal" affair too...
Richard
"Men should be able to count upon women's word that they are on birth control and uninterested in having children before marriage and, by the same token, people should be able to rely upon their girlfriends/boyfriends to tell them if they have an STD, for example."
It was common knowledge when I was growing up that boys and men frequently lied to women that they were sterile to get them into bed. We were warned about this in sex ed class. I read about this in many different teen magazines and in magazines like Cosmo. I read about this in pamphlets from the doctor's office. I can't remember how many times I've heard from one of my girlfriends that some stupid guy was trying to pull this stunt with her. I told 3 different guys that I wasn't on birth control at 3 different times in my life, and I heard the same thing, "Don't worry, I'm sterile." Obviously, these guys couldn't all have been sterile now could they? No, they were all only interested in one night stands, and they didn't care because they thought that I would be the one stuck with the problem if I got pregnant, and they would get off scott free. There's a reason that women and girls have been warned about this for years, and that's because men will lie about anything just to get a woman in bed (and to avoid using a condom). And the girls that fell for this were usually treated with public scorn, "How could she be so stupid as to believe this guy was sterile?", and of course, said guy always said the girl lied to HIM. In fact, now that child support enforcement is a lot stricter nowadays, I have a feeling that a lot of guys who whine about being lied to were in fact the liars, and they knew damn well those girls weren't on birth control. The only reason those guys weren't paying child support to me was because I refused to have sex if they didn't wear a condom especially when I WASN'T on birth control. Yes, I agree that both men and women should be honest about birth control and STDs, but I also live in the REAL WORLD. You can't expect everyone else to take responsibility for you while you don't bother to take any. Men think they're entitled to act as irresponsible as they want to, constantly expect women to take responsbility for everything, and want to blame women for EVERYTHING that goes wrong even when it's the MEN WHO ARE THE LIARS. Women who got pregnant because they believed some guy who said he was sterile were blamed for being naive and stupid. Men who got a girl pregnant because she "supposedly" lied about being on the pill are seen as victims. There's a huge double standard, and women are ALWAYS blamed. Face it, men don't wear condoms because they care more about improving the quality of their orgasms than they do about fathering a child they don't want, and the reason for this is BECAUSE THEY DON'T CARE. They think that if said girl gets pregnant, SHE'S the one with the problem. Men will do anything to get sex from a girl, and they'll do anything to avoid wearing a condom. All this crap about "women lying about being on the pill" is a big smokescreen to take the blame off themselves and put it ALL on their partners. After all, the majority of men really don't give a damn if the girls on the pill or not. All they care about is avoiding responsibilty for wearing a condom, and avoiding responsiblity for paying child support. That's it in a nutshell.
BTW, V, your comment about paternal genealogy shows exactly what I mean about the difference between bygone premarital sex between engaged couples and the nonsense going on today among people who "intend" nothing except to raid the public coffers.
Y-chromosome genetic testing as an aid in genealogical research is still relatively new but so far it's been very successful in confirming paternal pedigrees.
Imagine, generations of honest and faithful spouses!
There doesn't seem to have been nearly as much paternity fraud back when illegitimacy came with no rewards.
R.
"A little late for that. We've got DNA testing now.
Hopefully one day to be routine upon birth."
And since you all need dna tests to proove that your kids are in fact, your kids, that's even more reason to give the children THE MOTHER'S NAME UPON BIRTH. See, we don't have to wait for a letter to come in the mail, we already know that's our kid.
"Unless you want to make support an exclusively "matrilineal" affair too..."
It already pretty much is. Women as a group sacrifice much more financially to pay for their kids than men as a group do, AND women provide most of the actual hands-on care. It's as simple as that.
"Y-chromosome genetic testing as an aid in genealogical research is still relatively new but so far it's been very successful in confirming paternal pedigrees."
That's exactly the point Richard. Men need some kind of special dna test to know if their paternal lineage is IN FACT their paternal lineage. OTOH, just looking at public records CONFIRMS what woman gave birth to what child, and it can be traced back for several centuries in an unbroken lineage without some special kind of test. And besides, Y chromosome testing does nothing to confirm the paternal lineage of daughters.
"There doesn't seem to have been nearly as much paternity fraud back when illegitimacy came with no rewards."
Yeah, back in the good old days when women were forced to wear scarlet letters (or publicly flogged, or whatever punishment was around), their children were branded bastards, and both mother and child were ostracized from the entire community for being the whore who gave birth to the bastard child. Yes, Richard, there was no rewards, but there was plenty of ABUSE of these women who were often seen as FAIR GAME to any guy who wanted to have sex, and I'll bet a lot of these women were in fact rape victims to begin with that resulted in them having illigetimate children to begin with. And all the while, the fathers of these children didn't face ANY public disgrace, weren't ostracized from the community, and were free to go their merry way and seduce and rape than woman they wanted resulting in more illegitimate births. Yeah, the good old days when men got away with EVERYTHING, and that's really the reason that men are whining about paying child support today. They want to still be able to do the same thing without any consequences whatsoever.
Sorry but I don't buy it Richard...
I did read your comments but I also remember hearing the woman talking on tv. I actually think they were making a tv show about her book "The Corner' I think it's called. AND no, she wasn't talking about every age and race in her research but specifically about Afr-Amer. teenagers...
Again not representative of most American women or even most American teenagers...
BTW, Richard, the study I was referring to didn't ask people if so-and-so relative was pregnant before their marriage as most people will lie, of course. It compared birth and marriage DATES...on tombstones, family bibles, etc.,
AND once again you continue implying women have children 'intending' to apply for welfare.
I will shortly re-post another study from Columbia University (as a matter of fact) refuting that crap as well...
That's an unintended consequence of having a child, when unmarried, for SOME small group of women...
BTW, many cultures trace lineage through the MOTHER as that line is always certain...whereas the father's line is less easy to trace...you don't have a natural, physical bond with children as a mother does...men have a legal link which they have given themselves using the courts or other systems...
Total social construct.
NY said: "I did read your comments but I also remember hearing the woman talking on tv. I actually think they were making a tv show about her book "The Corner' I think it's called. AND no, she wasn't talking about every age and race in her research but specifically about Afr-Amer. teenagers..."
NY, I repeat, the book was called Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood Before Marriage by Edin and Kefalis and they're not making it into any TV show and they studied every age group and race (white, African-American, and Latino). Readily available at your public library.
"Again not representative of most American women or even most American teenagers..."
If you're going to look for something representative of American women you'll have to look both high and low because we have two Americas on this issue. Upper/middle class America who by and large don't do this crap, and lower class America for whom it's a way of life.
"Sorry but I don't buy it Richard..."
It looks like you don't buy much of anything that doesn't validate your POV, no matter how straightforward and documented. So just forget this, too.
"It compared birth and marriage DATES...on tombstones, family bibles, etc.,"
Of course. That's what my wife deals in too, in pursuing her hobby.
"AND once again you continue implying women have children 'intending' to apply for welfare."
Save your bandwidth, NY. As I've told you repeatedly poor women don't have illegitimate kids IN ORDER TO get public benefits but to create "purpose" in their lives. However, the need for this "purpose" would not be nearly as urgent if they didn't know that the public money was there and available.
We know they always found ways to control their "needs" before the Great Society, at least.
"That's an unintended consequence of having a child, when unmarried, for SOME small group of women..."
If it were only "a small group of women," Clinton would never have had to touch the issue of welfare reform.
"BTW, many cultures trace lineage through the MOTHER as that line is always certain...whereas the father's line is less easy to trace...you don't have a natural, physical bond with children as a mother does..."
Ha! Even the mother's line isn't certain unless she gives birth at home.
I think I remember over at Gonz' telling you about what happened to the Twiggs and the Mays babies in Florida who were switched in the hospital. Regina Twigg had already seen, held, and fed her own baby, if I remember correctly. But a few days later she walked out of the hospital with someone else's baby (whom she had no "natural, physical bond" with at all) and no one was the wiser until the baby got sick 10 years later and routine medical tests showed she wasn't a Twigg at all.
Such cases are rare of course, but only because hospitals are deathly scared of lawsuits and they have a bazillion rules and precautions in place to prevent such mixups. And even so a few slip through now and then. Magical mother-child bonds notwithstanding.
Better go out and birth in the forest the "natural" way so you can be sure...
"Total social construct."
As is virtually everything you have advocated EXCEPT for sole female ownership of children. Has that occurred to you?
Look, NY, I think by now it's obvious to everyone reading, that this nature vs. social construct notion of yours is bogus.
We're human beings and not rabbits, and for us this IS nature.
It's our nature to form pair-bonds and have children within them, for our children to require paternal investment because of our long gestations and long childhoods and huge needs for socialization and role-modeling.
It's also our nature to live in societies and for those societies to be governed by laws, be they ever so simple or complex, meant to make life more stable and predictable for all. Being that our societies are built upon families, our laws have to touch upon families too.
So take it up with God, evolution, whatever...
Richard
V said: "They want to still be able to do the same thing without any consequences whatsoever."
What? OMG, a liberal used the word "consequences!"
Don't you know that's profanity! Oppression! Racism! Misogyny! Right-wing code for punishing women and controlling their sexuality!
Oh wait, you meant consequences for MEN. Oh well, in that case...
But really, don't you think you're being a little dramatic?
Our mothers' and grandmothers' generation didn't require flogging and scarlet letters to keep most reproduction within its proper place.
They only needed clearly defined expectations for their behavior, solid families, fathers present and on task to beat the crap out of any guy who messed with his daughter, and of course, no monetary incentives to do otherwise.
It didn't take very much to reverse the traditional order. It probably wouldn't take much to reverse it back if our leaders only had the balls to do it.
R.
"Oh wait, you meant consequences for MEN. Oh well, in that case..."
We've already heard ad nauseum about consequences for women from you. I've decided to look at consequences for MEN for a change. Again, you do it when it suits you, but when I do it YOU don't want to play. Hypocrite!
"But really, don't you think you're being a little dramatic?"
No, I don't. The whole idea behind illegitimacy and consequences for unwed mothers and women who strayed from the marriage bed has to do with making sure that MEN knew who their offspring was. It didn't matter if women were faithful or not. The idea was to make sure that SHE wasn't unfaithful because there was AN AUTOMATIC ASSUMPTION that she would be. Men had all the legal authority, and they had control of almost all property including that of their wive's as well as the legal right to transfer their names, inheritance, and property to their offspring- especially their sons. The entire system depended on women, but women were the ones who didn't benefit directly from the system like they should have. They had absolutely no legal control over their own property, children, or their own persons. They went from being the property of their fathers to the property of their husbands. And men could legally do whatever he wanted to his wife and children because HE OWNED THEM. This whole system was flawed because it made women responsible for making sure that MEN had offspring of his own to pass on his name and legacy, and only women suffered the consequences of their actions while men could do whatever they wanted. Men NEVER should have been allowed to pass on their family names to their children because all it really did was support a system and legacy of abuse for women and children. The system depended entirely on women, but women got ABSOLUTELY NOTHING out of it. A system that passed on property and the MOTHER'S FAMILY NAME should have been implemented centuries ago because WOMEN DON'T HAVE TO RELY ON MEN TO KNOW WHO THEIR CHILDREN ARE. And men never would have had to endure the same cruel punishments that women have had to endure under the reverse system BECAUSE THE ENTIRE SYSTEM DIDN'T RELY ON WHETHER HE WAS FAITHFUL OR NOT. LEGALLY, no one would care, and on a personal level, it would be between him and his wife and not everybody in the neighborhood, and children wouldn't be labeled illegitimate because of it. I'm very against children taking their father's names because this is the remnant of a custom that NEVER SHOULD HAVE BEEN. All it is is a reminder of how cruelly WOMEN had been treated under this system, and IT NEVER SHOULD HAVE BEEN THE BASIS OF HUMAN RECORDS. And men blaming women for everything while they don't take any responsibility themselves, or suffer any consequences while calling women liars is just an attempt to resurrect the same old attitudes that have oppressed women for centuries.
"It's our nature to form pair-bonds and have children within them, for our children to require paternal investment because of our long gestations and long childhoods and huge needs for socialization and role-modeling."
There is no "our long gestations". This entirely on WOMEN, and because of it, WOMEN are usually the ones that end up actually raising the offspring. Paternal investment should be around the PHYSICAL AND EMOTIONAL NEEDS OF BOTH MOTHER AND CHILD AND RESPECT FOR THE MOTHER/CHILD BOND. Otherwise, dad can hit the road.
"We've already heard ad nauseum about consequences for women from you."
And we've all heard ad nauseum from liberals and woman-firsters, (and you're no exception) that they intend for women to experience no consequences that might interfere with their "choices." Therefore liberals preaching to us about "consequences" can never be anything but a joke. Sorry.
"I'm very against children taking their father's names because this is the remnant of a custom that NEVER SHOULD HAVE BEEN...IT NEVER SHOULD HAVE BEEN THE BASIS OF HUMAN RECORDS."
Well V, like much else in nature, including millenia of human nature, if it shouldn't'a been, then it wouldn't'a been.
And if hadn't'a been, there probably would have been no human records of ANY basis.
Or anything else worth shitting on, because if you women provide no one for us to pass our names or legacy on to, then we have no incentive or obligation to provide jack to you or anyone else.
And that's where civilization and progress has stalled out for matrilineal society.
"All it is is a reminder of how cruelly WOMEN had been treated under this system"
Again, V, see if you can get up a group of women to turn their backs on our cruel and horrible civilization and go with you to live among the Mosuo. They've got everything you've ever dreamed of. Matriarchy, matrilineality, free love, illiteracy, squalor...
If you can recruit enough women maybe you can get a group discount on one-way airfare to the nearest outpost. And don't forget your walking shoes.
"...while calling women liars..."
This is hilarious! Who was telling me all about how uncertain paternity was just a couple of posts ago? While I was pointing out how it was fairly reliable when economic incentives to the contrary were absent?
If anyone called women liars, it's you. And I challenge you to take that concept over to a more radical feminist blog where they flat-out don't believe in female dishonesty at all, and see how fast they barbecue you.
Richard
"Therefore liberals preaching to us about "consequences" can never be anything but a joke. Sorry."
It's only a joke to you if we're talking about consequences for MEN. Otherwise, the only consequences you bring up is for WOMEN. Again, Richard, your the one who likes to make it all about the MEN when it suits you, but when I do the same, YOU don't want to hear it. You can't have it both ways.
"Well V, like much else in nature, including millenia of human nature, if it shouldn't'a been, then it wouldn't'a been."
And through most of millenia of so-called "human nature" we've had slavery of one kind or another (because that's basically what women were to men). Following your logic, if it shouldn't 'a been then it wouldn't'a been. Well, it's nice to know that you think slavery is meant to be due to some so-called "human nature". Try telling that to black people and see how far you get.
"And that's where civilization and progress has stalled out for matrilineal society."
So-called civilzation and progress for a matrilineal society was killed off by PATRIARCHY. A view remote examples of matriarchy doesn't proove anything about how backward these societies may be now because for every back ward modern day matriarchy you point out, there's numerous MODERN DAY BACKWARDS PRIMITIVE PATRIARCHIES. Just look at the zulus and masai of Africa as well as several I named on that other post. Patriarchy did absolutely nothing for them. It's easy to point a finger at the Mosuo when you conveniently forget all the primitve patriarchies that are still in existence today. The wonder of the Mosuo IS THAT THEY SURVIVED AT ALL because patriarchy's greed has killed the majority of the matriarchies millenia ago with the so-called "human nature" of slavery.
"This is hilarious! Who was telling me all about how uncertain paternity was just a couple of posts ago? While I was pointing out how it was fairly reliable when economic incentives to the contrary were absent?"
We've had in place for milllenia a system of patriarchy that assumes that women are unfaithful liars. Those economic incentives were to give men all the power and all the property while women got ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. If there is so much uncertainty about paternity to begin with, it was established by PATRIARCHY a millenia ago. So, I say fuck that and make everything matrilineal than there will be no uncertainty. You men are the ones with something to worry about-not women. I know when I pass my name onto my kids, those are MY KIDS. Can you be so sure? I don't think so.
V said: "I know when I pass my name onto my kids, those are MY KIDS. Can you be so sure? I don't think so."
Sure I can. Anybody can. Science has seen to that. Your argument for matrilineality is years too late.
Eventually DNA testing at birth will be universal and mandatory. And not because we demanded it, but because lower-class women insist on making babies every which way EXCEPT within marriage and the state is tired of chasing down the dads they name for support only to find out that they're not the dads.
They tried to stick it to the named dads anyway by setting up unconscionable limits on contesting paternity, but the courts are starting to see through that nonsense. So eventually they'll have no choice but to test at birth.
It's a good thing. In this age when too many women don't form families, or honor their commitments when they do, a guy with paternity doubts and a lifetime of support obligations ahead of him shouldn't be dissuaded from checking it out by the old "Don't you trust me?" whine.
Richard
Okay Richard, I'm erasing one of your comments as you tried to post a slur against me and claim I support slavery. I'm just getting really fed up with you...this is your second warning on a similar issue as previously you tried to imply I was supporting sex abuse of children, now this slavery business.
Going forward, if you continue, I'm going to erase everything you post on this blog.
I'm just fed up with you and you're getting close to being banned..
In case anyone is wondering I removed one of Richard's post where he tried to compare my comments regarding mothers rights via nature law to me supposedly being supportive of slavery.
He pulled a similar stunt before and I just posted a response but I'm just fed up with it now...Richard continues trying to sneak in these snide insults against me which I generally ignore unless he gets too blatent...and this time he did...
Anyway consider this your second warning Richard. Watch your step if you want to continue commenting here....
NY, READ for a change. I didn't say YOU supported slavery. I said natural law arguments have often been used to support it.
It's very easy to just decide how you want things to be and then claim "natural law."
That's why "natural law" arguments often get an eyeroll from me, particularly when they're coupled with other demands that have jack to do with nature.
But hey, if you're fed up with me I'm equally fed up with this discussion. See ya later.
Preach it sister! ;-)
R.
"Sure I can. Anybody can. Science has seen to that. Your argument for matrilineality is years too late.
Sure I can. Anybody can. Science has seen to that. Your argument for matrilineality is years too late."
Well, Richard, that's the point-YOU NEED A DNA TEST TO KNOW THIS-I don't. Matrilineal systems were the original systems until patriarchy all, but destroyed it with these ridiculous assumptions that women are unfaithful liars. OTOH, the claim to have mandatory dna tests is just another way to do this. However, the majority of paternity tests today usually come back showing that the guy who the mother named as the father IS THE FATHER. That's why there is so much griping from men. It only confirms what the women say anyway. However, if men want to make dna tests at birth mandatory-fine with me. However, since men need dna tests, it should be automatic to name the children after the mother because even in our law today, SHE IS ASSUMED THE NATURAL PARENT, AND SHE'LL REMAIN THE PRIMARY PARENT THROUGHOUT MOST OF THAT KID'S CHILDHOOD. It's as simple as that. Well, I'm sick of said discussion too. Maybe another time Richard. It was fun while it lasted. Bye.
Richard, Virago seems to act a lot like Kimberly, doesn't she? When the going gets tough, she fights like a girl (runs away.)
In response to her claim that American men who marry foreign women are at the bottom of the barrel and the foreign women are all victims. That sounds like something bottom-of-the-barrel rejected American women say to limit the competition. Next thing you know, she'll be saying that Japanese auto companies exploit their workers so they shouldn't be allowed access to American markets. To "protect" these workers, you see, from exploitation working at high paying jobs... She accuses men who marry foreign women as refusing to examine themselves yet she thinks the government should run to women's aid whenever they have a problem at work, or with the men they pick, or the children they choose to have. Yeah, it's always SOMEONE ELSE'S fault there...
It's rather funny that she bleeds concern for these women but, on the other hand, doesn't see any problem with spinster American women buying children in foreign countries and bringing them home like tourists do with baby alligaters. In fact, after a few Ukrainian babies suffered problems in the hands of their American adoptive parents, they shut down the program for a while. I think it was overreacting and politics since overall the orphans are better off in the states than in an orphanage (even with a well-to-do single mother.)
Sad to say, there are cases of foreign brides making false accusations of abuse in order to get a green card or even engage in extortion themselves. Glenn Sacks profiled one such case which was pretty hilarious where the woman made all kinds of crazy accusations that the judge saw through and he threw them out (no doubt you'll see this as proof of anti-woman bias in the system like blacks saw with OJ where the police dared to ask him why his blood was all over a crime scene...)
Overall, however, most foreign women still appreciate that a man who provides a decent income and wants a family isn't a "loser" if he doesn't earn a six figure salary and apologize for oppressing her every 5 minutes and state department statistics bear this out. The state department claims that foreign bride marriages have an 80% success rate at 7 years compared even Richard's ideal college-educated/middle class women. Note that the 20% failure rate usually occurs early on due to culture clashes/etc. so it they get to the 4 year mark, they're usually at a 90% rate.
On the other hand, as I said, I dated plenty of well-to-do 30 something American women who were reasonably attractive (by Americn standards, of course) and... they dated me. Because THEY were desperate. So whose the loser? I COULD have married American women but by the time I was making the money liberated American women crave along with being cultured I just decided I didn't need them anymore.
After all, if this agenda of women getting high paying jobs and then expecting men to foot the bill and then do 1/2 the cooking and cleaning is so fair, you gals no doubt should be able to find plenty of men who live up to those standards, right? Oh, wait, there's competition.
Actually, Virago, a surprising number of DNA tests are now coming back false but this is partly due to the function that when a man insists upon a test, he often does have reason to be suspicious.
Here's the thing I find funny about discussing paternity tests in the first place: Doesn't that indicate a patriarchal lineage? It keeps coming back to the fact that the so-called matriarchy can't survive without patriarchal funding.
And yes, NYMOM, those are a small group of women having babies to go on welfare, but in context they are in the MILLIONS. I wouldn't want to have them over for tea. Seriously, the number of women on welfare or "child" support are monstrous (literally) and a massive social problem and the solution ultimately will take us back to a less generous "social construct" of men protecting women and children (which you don't want me to call chivalry.)
Here's why: The current social system in the states rewards irresponsible mothers for having babies with men who are irresponsible enough to have sex, but responsible enough to earn a decent living and have a social security number.
Think about that for a moment. The social dynamics of such a system drive away responsible men and reward "bad boys." Hence, the bad boys are blamed by Virago/Kimberly and the cycle continues until... it doesn't anymore. Enjoy it while it lasts.
*rolls eyes* How pathetic! I knew my suspicions about your "marriage" were right. Thanks for confirming them.
Sorry I know I owe you guys two posts. One on the Columbia study which clearly shows that both Richard and Polish Knight are WRONG when they keep saying that women have babies to get money from men either welfare or child support (which Polish Knight claims is welfare by another name)...
I forgot what the issue was about. I'll look up the comment and let you all know.
I was just very busy this week getting my grand daughter's dog and 7 month old kitten neutered this weekend...
Now that's a population problem at least in the US.
Anyway I just didn't have time to post.
Hope everyone enjoyed their weekend.
BTW, Richard "Promises I can Keep" is the same run of the mill propaganda as "The Corner"...Both focus on inner city African American families...and both are really border line racism...
You cannot write anything about African-Americans in this country w/o highlighting the historic origins of this behavior in slavery, emancipation, reconstruction, Jim Crow system, Civil Rights era, etc.,
Thus the issues that afflict that group and their children tell us NOTHING about any of the rest of us...NOTHING...They are completely unique. Pretending they are not is just propoganda used by people with certain agendas.
"BTW, Richard "Promises I can Keep" is the same run of the mill propaganda as "The Corner""
You can't know it's "propaganda" of any kind if you haven't read it, and you HAVEN'T read it or you would understand that it did not focus on African-Americans but ALL underclass women white and Latino included.
I'm not sure I understand what makes these findings so awful that you insist on trying to dismiss them, unsuccessfully.
About the Columbia study, again, save yourself the trouble. You've distorted my words again.
R.
You said "Promises I can Keep" is research concerning inner city women so that automatically translates into non-white women...as those are the inhabitants of inner cities today...
AND no, I didn't distort you and Polish Knight's intent: which is to claim women have babies to either collect public assistance OR child support (which Polish Knight claims is another form of public assistance)...
So it is necessary to refute this claim...
It's totally bogus.
"You said "Promises I can Keep" is research concerning inner city women so that automatically translates into non-white women...as those are the inhabitants of inner cities today..."
Have you ever been there, NY?
The underclass is not all black and the inner city certainly contains all racial groups, though not always in the same neighborhood.
After rechecking the details I see that the study was conducted in the various poor neighborhoods of Philadelphia, not Pittsburgh, and the slums of Camden NJ.
Here's a short excerpt from the book available thru Google Books:
"Despite these important differences in family-related behavior, our data show few differences across racial and ethnic groups in the attitudes and worldviews that are the subject of this book. By and large the themes in these chapters ring as true in white PennsPort as in Puerto Rican West Kensington or in the African-American neighborhood of Strawberry Mansion...In sum, though the 162 women we spoke with varied along numberous dimensions, their individual stories reflect man of the themes we have elaborated here. Though these eight impoverished neighborhoods in which they live are in some ways distinct social worlds, the differences in the worldviews of single mothers that live in them are usually quite subtle, while their commonalities are striking."
Now can you tell me why their findings are so disturbing?
"AND no, I didn't distort you and Polish Knight's intent: which is to claim women have babies to either collect public assistance OR child support"
For about the third of fourth time, I don't believe poor women have these kids IN ORDER TO get the money but to create life purpose for themselves in the way most accessible to them. The problem with the money is that it has taken away a formerly critical deterrent to this kind of self-indulgence, which is financial disaster.
Now, what is hard to understand about this?
R.
http://tinyurl.com/lhx3mq
"Ukraine women are 'most beautiful women in the world,' says Vice President Joe Biden
The kudos came as no surprise to anyone in Brighton Beach, where Ukrainian women say they are known for their style and poise.
"He came, he saw and he told the truth," said Vlada Khmarska, 20, who lives in Odessa, Ukraine, and is visiting the U.S. for the summer. "Everyone who visits Ukraine says so - Ukrainian girls are beautiful."
Virago, nobody "suspects" that men the world over pine over YOUR beauty, style and grace. Oh wait, there's always your generous personality and character to fall back on... hahahahaha!
NYMOM, I never said that women (in general) had babies to get money off of men. I did say that most women NEED money from men in order to raise children decently. I also said that child support or welfare is often used as a fallback plan by women in leau of earning a living although, thankfully, this isn't common in the middle class up but is common enough in the lower classes to be a social menace.
It's funny you bring up neutering pets regarding addressing population control problems because I recently made such a comparison here. Unless you neuter EVERY SINGLE male pet, the female portion of the population finds "bad cats/dogs" to meet their instincts.
I'm a member of Allie Cat Allies and they encourage spaying feral cats in addition to releasing them to help control rodent populations. Feral cats actually serve a useful purpose as demonstrated by the Santa Monica city council killing all the feral cats only to have a rodent problem crop up the next month.
Richard, for the record, I said that poor women who have such kids and collect money do it for that motivation and I stand by it. However, I didn't say women, IN GENERAL, had kids just to get money although they usually expect men to finance their decision.
I guess we can say we're saying the same thing when you say that they do so for a "life purpose". That's typically what people say about their work and while I don't think people should be totally married to their work (Americans are often criticized for this. The joke in Europe is that if you ask a European what they do, they'll talk about their family or hobbies but Americans can't stop talking about work) but, nonetheless, it's important for people to understand that the world doesn't owe them a living. That they need to earn their way.
NYMOM, child support enforcement was part of the welfare reform package that merely sought to transfer the burden and cost of welfare from the taxpayers to the fathers. It's the same rationalization and beneficiaries, just the source of funding has changed.
NYMOM, child support enforcement was part of the welfare reform package that merely sought to transfer the burden and cost of welfare from the taxpayers to the fathers. It's the same rationalization and beneficiaries, just the source of funding has changed.
Richard, I'm not upset about the findings at all...it's just that I do not believe they are the typical reason women have children...
Many educated older women today are either adopting or doing in vitro to have children and not because they are looking for a purpose in their life. I happen to believe it's due to a maternal instinct...
AND anyone who knows anything knows that 'inner city' is code for minorities in this country...even you can't be that dense...
So it's my feeling that those findings from the inner city whether Pittsburgh or New Jersey are not relevant to what I'm talking about...you are using them as a red herring to distract from the actual issue...and btw, that's being a troll...
Men keep bringing those examples up to try and act like the only reason women have children is to get out of working and providing for themselves...and it's simply not true...Women have been having children in the WORSE possible circumstances looong before welfare or child support was even invented...
As usual you have it backwards...women have children which is a benefit to society so society provides them income if they have none...women don't have the kids to get the income (with some minor exceptions)...
Again if that was the motivation to be a mother, humanity would have gone extinct...as this is the first time in humanity's history that society HAS provided any income for children...
Let's be honest Richard the persons motivated by money here are men...that's what these custody wars are about (typical of men to start wars to have their own way) and what this blog is about...to alert mothers to what is going on...
I understand all this Polish Knight about the physic link (if you will) between welfare and child support. As I've said many times if we fix the child support situation, we'll end these custody wars at the same time...it's all connected.
"Virago, nobody "suspects" that men the world over pine over YOUR beauty, style and grace. Oh wait, there's always your generous personality and character to fall back on... hahahahaha"
Well, Polish Knight, I wouldn't sound so smug when the only way you can get a woman is to BUY her. After all, I'm sure your wife just fell in love with your good looks, charm, and personality. Can you say GREEN CARD? The jokes on you. LOL.
"Richard, I'm not upset about the findings at all...it's just that I do not believe they are the typical reason women have children...Many educated older women today are either adopting or doing in vitro to have children and not because they are looking for a purpose in their life. I happen to believe it's due to a maternal instinct..."
They're typical of the group that accounts for ALMOST ALL illegitimacy and that's the lower class.
These educated older women who do it may be acting on some maternal instinct but usually it's only after giving up hope of married parenthood. Single motherhood is a pitifully distant second choice for them.
"Women have been having children in the WORSE possible circumstances looong before welfare or child support was even invented..."
Women have not been having children without marriage much until it was subsidized. Marriage WAS their "child support." And it's not even honest to attribute all their marital childbearing in bad circumstances to "maternal instinct" because until recently there was no reliable birth control to give them a choice.
"AND anyone who knows anything knows that 'inner city' is code for minorities"
Um, NY, it ain't "code" to name the specific neighborhoods you're studying and give the sample sizes of the racial, ethnic and age groups you're studying.
Edin and Kefalis deliberately avoided the result you're assuming by using equal numbers of white, black and latino women. That's why they had to go to different poor neighborhoods (and that's why it took them five years.) Pennsport, for example, is poor but 78% white and Asian.
It's better to go out and ask the women themselves than to stay at home and think of reasons for illegitimacy that suit your agenda, isn't it?
"...women have children which is a benefit to society so society provides them income if they have none..."
THIS is the crux of the problem, NY. Poor single mothers, who do almost all the unwed childbearing, DON'T produce children that benefit society. They produce children that continue the cycle of poverty and crime and the drain on public resources.
The only ones who benefit from subsidized illegitimacy are the mothers themselves. It often gives them a motivation to clean up their lives. It offers NOTHING to the children they produce or the rest of us who support them.
Not every "instinct" should be acted upon. Poor women should again have a reason to defer gratification like the rest of us do.
R.
Single motherhood is a second choice, it's not a pitiful one.
Well we've had reliable birth control now for almost 50 years and most women still become mothers...so what does that say????
I disagree with your assessment that most poor women produce children of no benefit to society. There is a segment that does this, it's not most.
Many successful men and women were raised by their mothers alone or by their grandmothers.
"Well we've had reliable birth control now for almost 50 years and most women still become mothers...so what does that say????"
It says that most smart and educated women eventually marry and are able to give a promising life to a child or two, because they don't have them until they can. While the others have them any old way they want because they know a public net is under them. Give them a good reason and they'll defer it just like everyone else.
"I disagree with your assessment that most poor women produce children of no benefit to society. There is a segment that does this, it's not most."
Stop changing my words, NY. I'm talking poor SINGLE mothers who deliberately breed illegitimate children.
Of course there are exceptions to everything but they don't say much about the situation we're now dealing with, where America is neatly split into almost permanent haves and have-nots and the most consistent dividing line between them is illegitimacy. Remember your "bell curve" analogy...
It's foolish to let a handful of "success stories" justify carrying the entire illegitimacy-generated underclass on our backs. which we can't do forever anyway.
R.
The problem with your analysis Richard is that it's not just a handful of cases anymore...Actually I understand that something like 40% of the children born annually are now born to unmarried women...
Additionally as I mentioned before, but you brushed aside, large numbers of women in our past (and I suspect this happened in other places as well) were already pregnant at the time of their marriage. So it appears that womens' behavior is not what has changed over time, but man (as usual)...
So look to your own buddies before you start blaming women...since I don't think our behavior has changed, it's the behavior of men that is driving this crisis.
If you wish to think of it as a crisis, I think of it as an evolutionary change that we probably have to adjust our society to accept since I don't think there will be any going back...
Quite simply men appear to be opting out of marriage when they get a girl pregnant..
NY said: "Actually I understand that something like 40% of the children born annually are now born to unmarried women..."
It hasn't changed very much over the last decade for white women or for the educated. The increase in the percentage is largely caused by the dramatic growth of the Hispanic population (which produces the most illegitimate births per 1000 women) coupled with married couples opting to have fewer children for economic reasons.
The stats also don't tell us how many of these unmarried births are to cohabiting couples who behave mostly as married couples except for the license, which is typical of Europe.
"I think of it as an evolutionary change that we probably have to adjust our society to accept since I don't think there will be any going back..."
We don't HAVE to accept it. It would be relatively easy to change. The only reason we're not going back is because our politicians can't quit pandering to the vote of the underclass who want freebies and the liberals who want everyone on the government tit and doing as they're told.
Reminds me of Alexander Tyler's words about what happens when voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public coffers.
Society might adjust to this but it probably won't be in a way that any of us will like.
"Additionally as I mentioned before, but you brushed aside, large numbers of women in our past (and I suspect this happened in other places as well) were already pregnant at the time of their marriage. So it appears that womens' behavior is not what has changed over time, but man (as usual)..."
I didn't brush it aside. I said you can't compare premarital horsing around with your fiance, with a view to an impending marriage that was probably arranged by both families, to what is going on today where marriage and childbearing are completely decoupled.
This is a situation, as Edin and Kefalas found from studying poor single mothers themselves, where marriage is viewed as something to be saved for when you're "economically set," while nothing is to be gained from delaying childbearing.
When did women ever see marriage and childbearing that way before?
And why do they see it that way now?
Could it be that "nothing is to be gained from delaying childbearing" because we've wrongheadedly provided a public safety net for it?
Eliminate the net and childbearing would also be something to be saved for when you're "economically set," like it used to be.
For the record, I don't think that women's OR men's behavior has fundamentally changed over time. Both will act in their own self-interest.
The problem is that we've rewarded too much bad behavior on both sides.
R.
Marriage being viewed as something you do when you're economically set is obviously something that a man thinks...as men can wait far longer then women to have children. However, if women don't act in their 20s or early 30s it becomes more difficult for them to bear children...that was the whole point of the book "Creating a Life: Professional Women and the Quest for Children". The author points out that womens' fertility starts declining around 28 or so and then continues that decline until they enter menopause...
Clearly this whole scenario that you've just outlined is one that favors the longer-time line of men...
You always seem ready to see the wrongness of what women do but never look to the responsibility of your brothers in instigating these situations.
"Clearly this whole scenario that you've just outlined is one that favors the longer-time line of men..."
Well, maybe this scenario would result in fewer children being born among the lower classes at least.
But where is it written that we need to financially guarantee every woman's ability to have kids whether or not she can afford them or offer them a decent future?
Isn't it better to aim for everyone being able to support their kids before they have them?
"You always seem ready to see the wrongness of what women do but never look to the responsibility of your brothers in instigating these situations."
Oh I know my "brothers" could do a heluva lot better job of avoiding pregnancies and picking women more carefully than they currently do.
Which is why my heart doesn't bleed much when my brothers get stuck with child support for illegitimate kids, or when they take up with women with bad track records and then find themselves in the same boat with the ex(es).
I have little patience with stupid.
But didn't you just tell us all about how you women are the ones who decide whether kids are born?
You've already managed to impose marriage-like obligations upon us and help yourselves to our resources absent any consent whatsoever on our part. So what's left?
If we want less illegitimacy and its accompanying social costs then remedial efforts, if any, now have to be directed towards YOUR behaviors.
Much like PK's cats.
R.
Well I hate to point out the obvious but a man can cut down on the 'tom-cating' around and that would cut out about 99.9% of the problem...that way even if he did get a girl pregnant it would be one he was in a serious relationship with as opposed to knocking someone up that he doesn't even know her last name...
What about that option???
Women deciding whether kids are born or not is AFTER THE FACT...simple biological factoid...
"Well I hate to point out the obvious but a man can cut down on the 'tom-cating' around and that would cut out about 99.9% of the problem...that way even if he did get a girl pregnant it would be one he was in a serious relationship with as opposed to knocking someone up that he doesn't even know her last name...
What about that option???
Women deciding whether kids are born or not is AFTER THE FACT...simple biological factoid"
Exactly which has been my point throughout much of this thread. Nice to see someone gets it.
"Well I hate to point out the obvious but a man can cut down on the 'tom-cating' around and that would cut out about 99.9% of the problem..."
Well, I'm completely favor of less tom-catting of course. But...
(drum roll please)
"Nature" fails NY yet again.
Her plan is for us to stifle our naturally hard-wired "instincts" toward widespread procreation in order to contain women's "maternal instincts" for them. Instincts which they appear powerless to control on their own, of course.
What happened to all the sanctimonious gloating about women choosing "quite simply not to bear any," whether before OR after the fact, and telling us to get a dog?
Now we're supposed make that decision for you too?
Like PK said, any slip-shod female behavior is acceptable to you all but you require sainthood of us.
Are you or aren't you rational beings with freedom of choice?
There's plenty of blame to go around for both men and women but the big question is what would effectively change the situation.
Ninety percent or more of males in the "hood" could suddenly go completely celibate and the women would still breed with the remnant. And catfight with each other over the right to do so.
We'd be hearing the same whining as now, only louder: "We can't find any decent guys to have babies with. We have to use these..."
Unless they knew the resulting babies wouldn't be publicly subsidized. Then either a marriage or a steady job would have to come first.
The illegitimacy crisis was created by government policy influencing women's behavior. Sorry to say, could only be ended the same way.
R.
Virago, you really make it too easy, don't you?
How am I "buying" a woman if the state is giving her the green card? If anything, you're implying that I'm smarter than the local suckers who put more on the line for less. And you're missing the main point: Men aren't standing in line to buy YOU because of your personality and charm.
The shaming ploy that men "buy" women is amusing because it's kind of like a prostitute insulting her clients as the kind of men who "buy" women. Nearly all women's identity is tied to men "buying" them. It's like Groucho's line about not wanting to be a member of a club that would have him...
NYMOM declares: Women deciding whether kids are born or not is AFTER THE FACT...simple biological factoid..."
NYMOM, in many ways I appreciate your honesty even if it's unintentional. You've just admitted that women decide whether to allow her child to be born or... (without saying so directly), NOT. (Meaning she'll kill 'em in the womb.)
It makes the allegations against the Patriarchy pale by comparison. Your philosophy treats children as chattel to be rescued by society in her care via the welfare state or "minimum income". On the other hand, the Patriarchy expected men to support and protect their families.
"Walk a mile in my shoes, you'll stumble in my footsteps" -- Depeche Mode
"How am I "buying" a woman if the state is giving her the green card?"
And the state is giving the green card because she's married to YOU after you probably spent thousands of dollars to some mail order bride company. And even if you didn't, it was the lure of the green card that got her to marry you in the first place. Your kidding yourself, if you think otherwise.
"And you're missing the main point: Men aren't standing in line to buy YOU because of your personality and charm."
Well, I'll say this much. I have a male co-worker who asked me out several times. I turned him down because he made my skin crawl, but I couldn't say why exactly. He seemed nice enough. He wasn't bad looking, and he made good money. However, at an employee dinner, I found out why. This guy was a big sexist jerk. He was drunk and running down women in general and American women in particular. He employed every sexist stereotype about women that could be imagined-basically, he sounded like YOU. He also loved to go overseas on business trips and pick up prostitutes in brothels. In one breathe, he was talking about geting a mail order bride from you guessed it-the Ukraine because he said the mail order bride agency promised him a "traditional" woman. At the same time, this pig cornered me in the coat rack room and tried to tell me how I was missing out on not dating him. I could taste the bile in my throat that's for sure. Anyway, he ends up marrying 25 year old "Aneta" (a full 15 years younger) from the Ukraine. All we heard about was how gorgeous she was, and what American women lacked compared to this girl. A male co-worker told me that this guy had a picture on his desk of this girl, and he said I just absolutely had to see it because the resemblance to me was uncanny. I thought, "yeah, right", but I went and looked at the picture. My mouth fell open, and I really got a creepy feeling. The girl looked just like me that it was surreal. She had the same build as me, same red hair, same green eyes. And btw, being married to some beautiful girl from the Ukraine didn't stop this pig from hitting on me whenever he got the chance. He was always telling me that I should go out with him because he wanted a real woman after being married to someone who can barely speak english. I threatened him with a sexual harassment law suit if he didn't leave me alone and that seemed to work. Anyway, rumour has it that this guy is abusive to this poor girl and threatens her with deportation all the time. And this was told to me by male co-workers who hang out with this guy after work. So, Polish Knight, I don't care if there isn't a line of men waiting to buy me for my "personality and charm" (though that didn't stop at least one guy from getting a Ukraine girl that resembles me). I've seen the kind of men who are lining up to buy women from the Ukraine, and I'm not envious.
Nice story, Virago, but I call BS. I can't imagine you merely THREATENING a vile co-worker with sexual harassment or not turning him in to the authorities if you had suspicions of him abusing his wife. In addition, these "rumors" don't make sense. How would someone know such distasteful, private things? Oh, wait, I think I know the source of the "rumor!" It's clear you made up a composite of different men you know and stereotypes to create this story (mostly the latter). This becomes clear when you claim that he told you he wanted a "real" woman rather than someone who could barely speak English. This is something YOU would say. It's a rather ugly stereotype that says more about it's holder than the recipient.
AND... you STILL haven't addressed my main counterpoint: You don't have men standing _in line_ to buy YOU.
Virago says: "it was the lure of the green card that got her to marry you in the first place. Your kidding yourself, if you think otherwise."
One of the cutest myths in modern times is the notion of free or "soulmate" love. Love that isn't based upon dingy practicalities or shallow notions of marrying for money or looks.
But the fact of the matter is, Virago, that most modern women are more shallow than any golddigger of the past. You want mo' money from the workplace and then try to either go for good looking bad boys or wealthy sugar daddies or ideally both. When sitting around waiting for one to ride up on a white horse doesn't pan out,you take it out on "men" for being loser jerks.
In the long run, though, true love, per say, really is based upon practicalities and providing each other with things they want and more importantly, need. All men have to provide something to get a woman to love them whether it's a green card or at least a reliable income so she can raise children. That's just the way it is. Some things will never change...
You failed to notice or address my point that most women expect men to "buy" them and that you don't hold the women accountable for their side of this behavior. It takes two to tango. Why should men feel ashamed for engaging in behavior that women crave of them?
And yes, foreign women do turn heads and provide men what they want: attractive women who appreciate and provide for them in a traditional way in reciprocation for what the men are expected to provide as breadwinners. In other words, they treat men FAIR. You define this as abuse which says a lot: You think men who don't earn a lot of money and give it to women are deadbeats and if they do earn the money, they're oppressors to be targeted for reverse discrimination. At least with sexist men, we're not contradictory or paradoxical.
Good luck watching Sex and the City reruns alone. I'm sure "Mr. Big" is waiting out there with a limo for you because he loves you "just as you are."
"One of the cutest myths in modern times is the notion of free or "soulmate" love."
Amen, PK. Few things make me madder than that "soulmate" crap. Both married and single people are making themselves miserable over it and destroying their kids' families over it. And there's no such thing.
"I give you stuff/you give me kids" has been the true bottom line of marriage and family since time immemorial and the worst thing government ever did was to mess with it.
R.
"And yes, foreign women do turn heads and provide men what they want: attractive women who appreciate and provide for them in a traditional way in reciprocation for what the men are expected to provide as breadwinners. In other words, they treat men FAIR"
Yeah, until they complain of abuse by their American husbands-than you call them liars just like you do American women. Your so full of shit!
Virago, far more foreign children adopted by American women die of abuse compared to foreign brides yet you don't seem terribly concerned about outlawing foreign adoptions... Same thing with abuse statistics showing that mothers are more likely to harm children than fathers.
Such abuse cases are a minority by the state department's own statistics (showing that 80% of foreign bride marriages last past 7 years).
Hmmm, interesting how you seem to BELIEVE the claims of supposed abused foreign brides when they have motivations to get a green card and free housing for making such claims but believe that men are fools for believing they are in love with them for the same motivations...
I note you still haven't addressed your rather poor personal life. Don't worry! Mr. Big is out there!
Richard, I don't think men make deals with women to bear them kids. If that was the case, men would be as willing to marry ugly women to bear them children as with attractive ones. Duh! You're still thinking in chivalrous patronage terms.
Men "contract" for loving, attentive spouses and, sadly, many of them got very little out of the deal for what they put in hence Virago's loneliness that she refuses to face up to. Then again, remember that the most popular restaurant in America is McDonalds...
Well that's one of the few honest things you've admitted Polish Knight. It kind of goes back to what we discussed before about men making money (biggest antlers theory) to attract women...not really to support families, but basically to have more sex...
It's interesting how men always like to give themselves the most noble motives for everything they do.
"Richard, I don't think men make deals with women to bear them kids...Men "contract" for loving, attentive spouses..."
Up until everyone went off the deep end over "romantic" marriage a hundred or so years ago it was the ONLY reason to contract a marriage. People were nudged into this or that marriage by their families with a view to everyone's benefit, and yeah that often meant a wife who was no beauty but if she could have kids to farm with you and inherit the land later then she was good enough.
But interesting that you should mention beauty, because what makes a women physically attractive to us often signals fertility as well.
For my part I would NEVER have married if not for the expectation of a family.
What would be the point?
If all you want is a loving and attentive companion you can have that in your two-room apartment without any contract, and simply move on if one or the other ceases to be loving and attentive. No need for the over-priced, suburban home in the good school district, the college fund, the life insurance, and the list goes on.
It doesn't take a lot of earning to get sex these days, contrary to what NY is suggesting.
Hell, underclass women don't require any earning at all, thanks to Uncle Sam. That's the whole problem.
R.
Richard, I don't like the fertility argument because it's correlation rather than causation. Of course men like pretty women who also tend to be fertile. That doesn't make them brutes though. They can still want families and, importantly, want to work cooperatively with the mother to raise them.
I like to argue that the sex urge has gotten a bad rap. We have urges to eat, for example, but that doesn't mean we need to be pigs or not find a way to enjoy these urges in a civilized manner. Restaurants and family dinners are actually social events. By the same token, the sex urge has given us fashion and beauty pageants. On the flip side, the extremist urge to have children in modern times, especially for single mothers, is the second worst social plague for mankind next to war. Baby rabies is responsible for most of the criminals including those that attack women.
I know a number of bachelors hitting their 40's and they want to settle down with a nice woman but don't necessarily mind if they don't have children. They would probably think twice about settling down with an infertile woman, but only in the context of denying them a choice they may regret later (kind of like keeping their options open.)
So yes, I would say that men who can't control their sex urge have a problem. They could harass women or get into trouble in other ways. I'll be the first to say that a young man needs to control that urge and it's important to have male role models to help guide them (that are missing in unwed mother households hence the high rate of rapist/criminals coming from them.) By the same token, amazingly, women from unwed mother households also seem to have problems dealing with their urges to both have sex and make babies even when welfare isn't a factor. They don't have socially constructive ways to express themselves.
NYMOM, I ought to feel hurt for you saying that I rarely say honest things. I may say things you may disagree with or you may think I'm wrong, but I bend over backwards to be honest. I've said here that I'm not a great looking guy, for instance.
"Virago's loneliness that she refuses to face up to"
Or Polish Knight's desperation that he refuses to face up to.
Viragi, ?!?!? Your response is less mature and convincing then "That's what YOU are but what am I?" What "desperation?" I'm intrigued. Please feel invited to clarify and elaborate on that claim...
I think you believe the things you say Polish Knight...I just question if they are correct...so I should have said 'correct' instead of 'honest'...that would have been more correct...
BTW, I wish you would quit fighting with Virago. It detracts from your position to keep slinging one-liners at her.
It's your blog, NYMOM, and if you think my battles with Virago are a distraction, I will try my best to restrain myself (but it's really tough! I mean, she really sets them up for me.)
I believe that one of the biggest assets to growing personally, and convincing others (or at least educating them) of my opinion is to be as honest as possible. When someone doubts my sincerity, it causes a lot of fruitless redherrings on both sides. I also believe it's important to respect people's right to disagree with me. Of COURSE I think you're incorrect on a lot of things. But since I'm not God (I'm just made in His image, :-) I am not in a position to make that declaration. All I can do is appeal to your sense to come to the best conclusion you can and vice versa.
If you had met me 20 years ago, I'm sure you'd see a lot of who I am now, but I also have also changed my mind in many ways. Some people would view that as a flaw (a flip flopper) but I see it as growth and a sign of an honest willingness to listen and change.
So NYMOM, I want you to know that "I'm listening" (to quote Frasier Crane). Sometimes I don't fully understand your position, perhaps.
The kind of men who want women from the Ukraine:
http://hugoboy.typepad.com/hugo_schwyzer/2006/07/male_despair_an.html
Some quotes from the above cite:
"I've thought hard about what it is that makes me so angry about these men in particular, and I've decided that it's the colossal sense of entitlement. Over and over again, the men Garin interviews claim that American women aren't giving American men what is their birthright: submissive, pleasing, beautiful, infinitely understanding companionship. In the Ukraine, a nation whose economy has forced countless young women into one form or another of prostitution, these men hope and expect to have the "natural order" of human relationships restored. The Ukraine, in the fervid fantasies of the middle-aged and the socially inept, represents an idyllic pre-feminist culture where women "still know their place". In a sense, traveling to Eastern Europe (or Southeast Asia, or South America, or wherever) is, in the hopes of these sad characters, an opportunity to live out their boyhood fantasies of time-travel."
Another quote:
"Just for a moment, reading the Harper's piece, my heart ached for these sad and lonely men. Beneath their misogyny, their rigid traditionalism, their anger, their misplaced sense of entitlement, beneath all of their crap lie vulnerable and hurting hearts of boys who never got to feel like the handsome prince. Without excusing their actions, I can genuinely empathize with that sadness, that woundedness, and that DESPERATION."
"It's your blog, NYMOM, and if you think my battles with Virago are a distraction, I will try my best to restrain myself (but it's really tough! I mean, she really sets them up for me.)"
Yep, put all the blame on the woman. Just like a REAL man. Figures!
See NYMOM, this is what I'm talking about! Virago/Kimberly, that's a real tempting morsel you put out there. I'm going to bite but I'll try to make this interesting...
For the record, I learned Polish and Russian (along with some German) BEFORE going to Ukraine which, as it turned out, was something I hadn't intended to do (I am of Polish ancestry and usually dated Polish girls but I met my wife through match.com and decided to meet her because she's so great). She laughs that we're an "interracial" marriage. In other words, I wasn't the stereotypical mail-order catalogue guy featured in this article (which really is a liberal commentary of a liberal journalist's view of these men). I was able to get my own apartment at local prices rather than hotels, traveled on the bus from Poland, etc.
I personally advise American men considering marrying a foreign woman to do their homework rather than rely totally on agencies. The journalist in this article made an ugly, hypocritical slur of Ukrainian women by trying to imply that they're "submissive" because they're desperate which is part of the truth, but ignores the fact that foreign cultures such as this often do have strong traditional elements that America now lacks. Consider that there are plenty of desperate American women in inner cities or 30 something low income or unwed mothers, for instance, but they are not viewed as traditional and submissive.
The author's observations are of a sub-group of men appealing to his (and your) stereotype of a sub-group of men that date foreign women. Most of these men do not go on agency sponsored "speed date" events. Catalogues are largely used as pen-pal meeting resources and it's not uncommon for couples to exchange letters for a year or so before meeting. This actually was a common practice in the STATES before automobiles and cheap travel was around, actually. It's also becoming more popular in the states for couples to meet via match.com and the electronic personals which women frowned upon as little as 10 years ago (they viewed women and men who used the internet personals as "losers" who couldn't meet someone at work or through friends or by "fate" and chance.)
The author (who is merely quoting an article HE read) who says that these men have entitlement attitudes reveals his own attitude from his article that, well, he has rather low standards for women. He's been divorced three times, his wives took him for everything they could get, and he still blames himself and can't land a decent woman. He sounds like a wuss and, virago, he's available! So there's hope for you yet!
Dammit! See what you made me do? (note, Virago, that's a joke. Everyone knows women have a poor sense of humor. :-)
BWAAAAA HAHAHAHAHA! OMG, I think I just about died laughing! Nice try Polish Knight, but your the epitome of the "stereotypical guy who dates foreign women". All your comments just parrot the same thing those losers in the article say. I swear all those guys were Polish Knight clones. LOL
Well, NYMOM, I apologize for the "fighting", but I made my point. I won't be commenting on this particular post anymore so I don't "distract" Polish Knight. He might stroke out or something if he keeps projecting his feelings on to me. Good-bye.
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