And this is why it’s distressing to see the same things people have always said about Jews get applied to nerds. They’re this weird separate group with their own culture who don’t join in the reindeer games of normal society. They dress weird and talk weird. They’re conventionally unattractive and have too much facial hair. But worst of all, they have the chutzpah to do all that and also be successful. Having been excluded from all of the popular jobs, they end up in the unpopular but lucrative jobs, for which they get called greedy parasites in the Jews’ case, and “the most useless and deficient individuals in society” in the case of the feminist article on nerds I referenced earlier.
. . .
I am saying that whatever structural oppression means, it should be about structure. And the structure society uses to marginalize and belittle nerds is very similar to a multi-purpose structure society has used to belittle weird groups in the past with catastrophic results.Of course it's also true that, for instance, a group of guys with some terrible habits about treating women as sex dolls might simultaneously be the target of crippling society hatred and the beneficiaries of lavish societal rewards of a different sort. It's even true that their distressing sex-doll mentality might be rooted in an oppressive social gender structure, even though they continue to suffer from some gender-based social structures and to benefit from others. It's not always about who's getting the short end of the stick in every possible walk of life. Sometimes it's just about treating people as individual human beings rather than as either objects or rigid categories. I'd really just as soon never read another article explaining that the "real" oppression is the plight of guys who would like to have sex with someone who doesn't happen to agree with the program, and therefore it follows as the night the day that all talk of oppression in the form of treating women as something less than human is illegitimate. I'm also all done listening to how a particular behavior couldn't possible be unjust or reprehensible, because the perpetrator also feels genuine pain about his life. That's just suffering one-up-man-ship, and it's not shedding light on how we can treat each other decently.
Alexander continues explaining how little help oppression-talk can be:
If we’ve learned anything from the Star Wars prequels, it’s that Anakin Skywalker is unbearably annoying. But if we’ve learned two things from the Star Wars prequels, it’s that the easiest way to marginalize the legitimate concerns of anyone who stands in your way is to declare them oppressors loud enough to scare everyone who listens.
And if the people in the Star Wars universe had seen the Star Wars movies, I have no doubt whatsoever that Chancellor Palpatine would have discredited his opponents by saying they were the Empire.
(seriously, you wanted to throw the gauntlet down to lonely male nerds, and the turf you chose was Star Wars metaphors? HOW COULD THAT POSSIBLY SEEM LIKE A GOOD IDEA?)He really dismantles theories of how Silicon Valley cleverly excludes women from lucrative STEM jobs while allowing women so to swamp the medical field these days that people are starting to worry who'll see all the patients when they start taking pregnancy leave.
Then there's this spot-on summary of the social atmosphere in a STEM-dominated office:
Any space with a four-to-one male:female ratio is going to end up with some pretty desperate people and a whole lot of unwanted attention. Add into this mix the fact that nerds usually have poor social skills (explaining exactly why would take a literature review to put that last one to shame, but hopefully everyone can agree this is true), and you get people who are pretty sure they are supposed to do something but have no idea what. Err to one side and you get the overly-chivalrous people saying m’lady because it pattern matches to the most courtly and least sexual way of presenting themselves they can think of. Err to the other, and you get people hollowly imitating the behavior they see in famous seducers and playboys, which when done without the very finely-tuned social graces and body-language-reading-ability of famous seducers and playboys is pretty much just “being extremely creepy”.The second article grabs me just as hard with a nerd woman's paean to perseveration:
What I’ve got, and what I wish the rest of the “women in tech” community who rage against the misogyny they see everywhere they look could also have, is a blazingly single-minded focus on whatever topic I happen to be perseverating on at the moment. It has kept me awake for days puzzling out novel algorithms and it has thwarted a wannabe PUA at a conference completely by accident. It is also apparently the most crashingly successful defense against attempts to make me feel inferior that has ever been devised. When I’m someplace that says on the label that it’s all about the tech, so am I. I may have come by it naturally, but it is a teachable skill. Not only that, it’s a skill that transforms the places where it’s exercised.
The fact that Shanley Kane dismisses experiences like mine as “denial,” and regards them as “colluding in my own oppression,” both saddens and baffles me.The author is perfectly describing the dreadful "Uncle Tom" or "Oreo Cookie" criticism. She's found a home in the STEM world, she knows why it works for her, and she's not interested in apologizing because it doesn't work for people not like her, whether anyone thinks the necessary qualities sort themselves out along gender lines or not.
The more I read about this, the more it seems like a war between people on opposite ends of the autism spectrum.
29 comments:
I'm glad you liked the articles. I thought they were both very thoughtful, and interested in a genuinely fair resolution of the dispute insofar as that is possible.
Having grown up in the "nerd" world (a term I still object to, but it's useful to use so we don't need to continue to try and define things), I can honestly say, I never once... not a single time ever observed behavior like the feminists in the vein of Marcotte describe. There was no "she owes me sex", there was no "treating women as sex dolls", there was no "entitlement to sex". Universally, what I saw was fear. Fear of being wrong about if talking to a woman was unwanted. Fear of ridicule. Fear of giving offense. Fear of being awkward.
I'm sure it was no easier on geeky girls. I'm not trying to compare anyone's experiences here, merely passing along my observations. But clearly, the modern feminist blogs DO engage in shaming, that if it were directed against their preferred group (women) would bring howls of condemnation and outrage. They practice what they call "lookism" without any sense of hypocrisy. They "slut-shame", albeit in the sense that they are virgin-shaming. They are using all the awful things they accuse their detractors of using, but somehow it's totally ok for them to do so.
I really liked the article by Patterson, specifically because it really does bring home the very worst of the behaviors. When she writes:
I have since been made painfully aware that my experience is atypical. Every time, it has been a woman who has done so. Every time, it has been a lesson in how the woman I am talking with expects the tech world to relate to her and other people like her. This was pointed out with particular clarity in a conversation I had last year, face-to-face with a friend who, after patiently hearing me out about how comfortable I’ve always felt and still feel in the tech community, suggested, “Have you ever considered that most women don’t experience things the way you do?”
The implicit criticism is that it's both HER (Patterson's) fault for having an atypical experince, and that it makes her experience somehow invalid. Which is precisely the point. If you want to accuse Patterson of being insensitive because she's "questioning" the validity of the experience of someone else, then you cannot question the validity of her experience.
Quite literally, this is the same thing to me as saying, "well, because the majority of women have never been raped, your experience as a rape victim is invalid." How insane and offensive is that? Because Patterson's experience in the STEM fields is a positive one, and it is the premise of the women who question the validity of that experience that it is atypical, that simply does not mean it's not valid. It means it does not match up with their preconceptions. Nothing more.
I've very little use for this modern grievance mongering that masquerades as "feminism". People who live their lives like that seem to be wallowing in misery to me. When you look at the world with such a jaundiced eye, it should come as no surprise that everything looks jaundiced. But what I do not get, and do not accept is that they do so, and then say the very words they find offensive, take the very actions they find objectionable, and get so very, VERY angry if you dare mention that.
I'll close with an anecdote from about a year or so ago. A friend (mostly true at the time) who was one of these hyper-offended feminists made a public post where she called Sarah Palin a "c^&t". I actually apologize for putting the censored word here, because I too find it offensive. When I asked her how she could say such a misogynistic thing about someone, her response was "well, some people are just c^&ts." I don't associate with this person anymore; her constant need to find new things to be outraged about was making her miserable, and me miserable because of having to see her be miserable.
There's no question that there are feminist sites where people are behaving like this now. I think you're right: a kind of virgin-shaming to mirror the slut-shaming.
I've also, unfortunately, run across too many sites exhibiting the sex-doll mentality, with equal vitriol. It's worlds away from anything I've ever, ever, ever encountered among my many nerd friends. My college was just crawling with them, and it's hard to imagine how I'd have missed it if it had been there. This seems to be a new thing, like the revolting PUA shtick. A counterattack, maybe.
Oh, how tired I am of the idea that someone's experience doesn't count because it's not typical. Someone's experience is what it is, not what we would have predicted or preferred.
...her response was "well, some people are just..."
I suppose you answered: "Well, it's hard to argue with someone prepared to lead by example."
(Of course I realize you didn't answer that way. ;)
I'd really just as soon never read another article explaining that the "real" oppression is the plight of guys who would like to have sex with someone who doesn't happen to agree with the program, and therefore it follows as the night the day that all talk of oppression in the form of treating women as something less than human is illegitimate. I'm also all done listening to how a particular behavior couldn't possible be unjust or reprehensible, because the perpetrator also feels genuine pain about his life. That's just suffering one-up-man-ship, and it's not shedding light on how we can treat each other decently.
Tex, this made my day.
The whole "privilege" thing is warped from the get go.
People - of all types - want to "privilege" their own trials and tribulations over everyone else's, and if you don't agree that they have it much worse than anyone else, that's just evidence that you need to check your privilege :p
I've also, unfortunately, run across too many sites exhibiting the sex-doll mentality, with equal vitriol.
Me too, and the real irony is that I only because aware of these sites because right leaning bloggers I used to read (often with daughters) continue to link to them.
*sigh*
I can't, for the life of me, understand people like that, any more than I understand idiot radical feminists who talk about men as though they were some subhuman life form.
It would help if more people would learn to handle situations with a little humor and savoir faire, rather than furious legalistic bombast with a heavy coating of weird theory. For example:
(The players here were Jim (not a nerd, but a sales rep whose social intelligence was sometimes just a bit off, and Katie, a very smart woman in an administrative position)
Jim: Katie, do you ever...play around?
Katie (leaning back in her chair and stretching out her legs to show her excellent figure to maximum advantage): Why yes, I do!
Jim: We should go out sometime
Katie (with a total change of facial expression): Oh...you mean with YOU
Problem solved...no HR, no lawyers, no feminist blogs or publications required
I wonder where the PUA types hang out in real life. I've been in STEM-land for decades, and though there've been a few professors who allegedly took advantage of their position, the only thing remotely resembling a PUA is Feynman's self-description in one of his books (in which he says he gave up the techniques after a while)--but he was apparently given to embellishing personal stories.
Not his shining moment! But yes, I suspect the PUA community had to wait for the Internet to develop fully. It flourishes in anonymity. I've often wondered whether any of the conquests ever occurs in real life. It's certainly easier to adopt such an extreme attitude toward the opposite sex in an abstract discussion than in an in-person sexual encounter.
Well, again, I have only read a little of it; but the description of "peacocking" suggests to me that many of these fellows would be accompanied down any ordinary street by gales of laughter.
I know, right? The whole thing may turn out to be fantasy-land. It remains disturbing that there are so many people who inhabit that particular fantasy-land. It doesn't bode well.
Maybe the only solution is to lock them all in a room with feminazis. A sound-proofed room; I don't want to hear the shrieking with enough sound fidelity to pick out the words.
...clearly, the modern feminist blogs DO engage in shaming, that if it were directed against their preferred group (women) would bring howls of condemnation and outrage. They practice what they call "lookism" without any sense of hypocrisy. They "slut-shame", albeit in the sense that they are virgin-shaming. They are using all the awful things they accuse their detractors of using, but somehow it's totally ok for them to do so.
This is absolutely true.
On the flip side, the PUA/MRA bloggers are always whining about how men are cruelly shamed, and yet they viciously shame both women whose behavior they don't like and men who don't meekly agree with them.
"Flip side" is an apt term: they're two sides of the same self-obsessed coin. What kills me is seeing right leaning bloggers go off on feminism while simultaneously making the very same flawed arguments feminists make (women/men shouldn't be shamed!!!, don't try to limit my behavior!!!, OWIE! Life's not faaaaaaaaaaaaair to my gender!, Come see the violence inherent in the system!!!!, so-and-so is wrong when they do it but completely understandable when I do it!!!).
It's exhausting :p
I've also, unfortunately, run across too many sites exhibiting the sex-doll mentality, with equal vitriol. It's worlds away from anything I've ever, ever, ever encountered among my many nerd friends. My college was just crawling with them, and it's hard to imagine how I'd have missed it if it had been there. This seems to be a new thing, like the revolting PUA shtick. A counterattack, maybe.
Well of course they exist on the internet. It's the internet. You can find left-handed, bisexual, Nazi, midget porn (note, I don't know that's true, but don't search for it unless you really want to see a three foot tall Eva Braun making out with a southpaw Madam Goering*).
The internet has webpages to satisfy every minute niche of humanity... good, bad, or ugly. The real question is, have you ever run into one of these PUA type guys in person? Because I'm pretty willing to bet that they are all talk on the internet and completely non-active in the real world. And the fact is, I've never once seen anyone ever act or talk in person like what is being described.
In the real world, nerdy guys are shy because they fear ostracism, rejection, and social torment. And these "aggressive feminists" are simply reinforcing for them every stigma, every taunt, every torment, every shame that they've faced growing up and going to school.
* I also don't know if that exists, but I wouldn't bet against it.
The real question is, have you ever run into one of these PUA type guys in person?
You know, I really haven't. At no point have I ever had a conversation with a man, on the subject of women, in which whatever man I was talking to expressed these ideas out loud. Whereas I run into aggressive feminists fairly often in real life: it's much more socially acceptable offline.
In the real world, nerdy guys are shy because they fear ostracism, rejection, and social torment. And these "aggressive feminists" are simply reinforcing for them every stigma, every taunt, every torment, every shame that they've faced growing up and going to school.
The one thing about all this that rings true for me is this sense of fear the guys express of offending a woman by seeming sexually attracted to her. That was a real part of the culture when I was growing up too, and it took me years to figure out how to deal with it. And I came up in a classroom with 26 girls and 4 boys, myself included, meaning that I learned to talk to girls easily by the second grade. But I still didn't know how to approach one, and I can remember really not wanting to hurt their feelings by expressing sexual interest in them in the wrong way.
American culture is pretty weird on this point in the present generation: it's "Sex, sex, sex" all the time, on TV and the radio and visual media of all sorts, but we've destroyed the systems that allow young people who haven't yet learned social graces to express these things (and obtain a 'yes' or 'no') in a controlled way that avoids shame and pain.
I'm thinking here of the forms of courtship that used to exist. It would be possible to call on someone without 'hitting on her,' and for her to make clear that this wasn't going anywhere without it being a crushing and public rejection.
Cass--I agree.
Mike--I wish I could say it was a tiny sliver of behavior on the Internet, something that could easily be ignored. I really can't. It crops up in the most surprising places, in the middle of otherwise reasonable and pleasant conversations on sane sites, such as Maggie's Farm or Cassandra's old place, or really anywhere. That's why it got my attention: it looked like a distressingly broad trend to me.
It's true I never run into such people in person, as I said above. I'm probably immune to that kind of thing, and anyway I've been out of the market for over 30 years and never hang out in places where any sane guy would think of picking girls up. Who knows what's going on in the singles bars? Certainly not I. The whole thing may be a total online fantasy, but it's a disturbing one nonetheless. Years ago I don't remember constantly running across posts from guys who detested women so profoundly that they'd talk like that even anonymously on the Internet. And then that horrible video came out after the nutso shot up the streets in California, and the reaction to it was so . . . understanding . . . in many quarters. I found it very disquieting, completely in line with the equivalent sputtering hatred on some "feminist" sites. That situation is getting more and more polarized.
I agree about the forms of courtship. It's beyond me why it's so hard to find a middle ground between the monastery and sexual predation. How about polite proposals, polite refusals, and polite acceptance of refusal?
How about polite proposals, polite refusals, and polite acceptance of refusal?
Well, what's polite? That seems like the real issue. The old forms had a standard, something like, "Miss Dandridge, may I call on you this evening?" Whereas, "Would you like to come home with me tonight?" would have been impossibly insulting. But there was a road from the one to the other, and it was well defined where it was polite to begin.
That's just what we're missing. What constitutes a polite proposal isn't at all clear. During the Clinton administration it was proposed by his defenders -- some being feminists -- that his conduct didn't rise to the level of sexual harassment in the office because he'd accept "No" for an answer if he dropped his trousers in front of a woman. Meanwhile, these young nerdy guys who really want to be courteous as they indicate their interest don't know where it's safe to start, or when it's safe to advance to the next level of courtship.
A direct proposal of immediate sex to a stranger or casual acquaintance probably can't be pulled off politely, though the practice may gradually be becoming standard and practically inoffensive in singles bars. Even a veiled proposal from a boss is asking for trouble; the target's ability to say "no" politely is problematic.
For two people who have had a chance to interact a little socially, at a party, or during outings with mutual friends, or even in a park after a pleasant and restrained conversation, it gets a little easier to apply polite methods of proposal. "I'm enjoying your company and would like very much like you to be my guest at dinner" is something that either a man or a woman should be able to say without anyone's having to call the cops. If the recipient of the invitation had good reason to think a romantic experiment was being proposed and was otherwise engaged or uninterested, it should be easy to say, "Thanks so much for asking, but I'm afraid I can't," or even "I appreciate the offer, but I'm seeing someone."
These are all a long way from accosting a stranger on the street, blurting out that she's hot, and demanding her phone number. "But I was just trying to pay you a compliment!"
I'm trying to remember my courting years as a tadpole. I think there was a lot of "You wanna go . . . .[wherever]?" Actually we tended to be quite direct, now that I think of it. Apparently we signalled our intentions competently enough that it was rarely necessary to start a big fight over rebuffing a mistaken overture. If I got a crush on someone, he was usually able to figure it out. The big fights tended to happen once a casual relationship had begun, and one side or the other wanted to cool it, to the intense disappointment of the other. The tentative courtship gestures never set off any explosions.
I remember a college professor hitting on me a little bit at a party. He had pretty good reason from my general behavior to think he wasn't out of line. On the other hand, when I wasn't receptive, he backed off and saved face. It was a minor issue, easily handled. Lots of times I think it's no more complicated than the usual difficulty of finding a way to say "no" politely, as to people soliciting volunteer work or the like. If the person asking is civil, and the person refusing is both civil and clear, there shouldn't be a problem. We don't have to say, "No, I won't work on your stinking project. How dare you ask me?" If a neighbor is importunate on the subject and gets out of line, there are a variety of social responses that can be used with gradually increasing severity to signal that they should back off. Getting hit on sexually is not the only way we can expect to be hit on in life. "Thank you so much, but my answer must be no" ought to be part of our conversational repertoire.
I think I erred constantly on the side of courtesy, and as a consequence failed several times to convey to a young woman my romantic interest. But it worked out well in the end, and I certainly could not have asked for a better, more loyal, or more loving wife. I expect my willingness to be courteous and patient in my approach with her was exactly what allowed her to come to love me.
I've turned down at least one sexual advance from a woman directly by mentioning in passing that I was married, which put her off so much that she almost never spoke to me again. This was in Iraq. I later found out she (who was a military officer) had taken up with a married Sergeant Major, so clearly it wasn't an obstacle for her. What put her off, I suppose, is that it was for me.
I also had a female boss who constantly, but playfully, sexually harassed me. This was in an otherwise all-female office (not the business -- just by happenstance of seating arrangements, it was four women and me in one room). I adopted the strategy of responding, equally playfully, that I was going to report her to our (non-existent) HR Department. It was fine; she was a good boss, actually, one of the best I ever had.
One of the weird things about the Internet is that in real life, I'm never going to be around a conversation between men about how many hot girls they've had sex with.
But the behavior? (not taking no for an answer, acting like a complete jerk and expecting women to fall all over them)? Sure - I remember guys like that back from when I was dating.
I just figured they were morons with no social skills and avoided them.
I have, on the other hand, been around feminists and have had quite a few conversations with them in meatspace. Not one - not a single one! - acted like what I see from *some* feminists on the Internet. I've never really even heard open hostility to men.
What's more common is the kind of sad, "Why can't I find a decent guy?" thing.
But men would be highly unlikely to rant about women in front of a woman. So I"m not sure real life is a great test.
I have definitely observed what Tex mentions - this stuff cropping up at my own site and at sites where I never expected to see it in a million years. That's what's alarming - not that there are weirdos online, but when you hear people you thought were not completely insane mouthing this nutjobbery.
It's continually amazing to me to hear men saying they've been deeply wounded by the over the top rhetoric of *some* feminists, and then turn right around and say really ugly things about women as a class of people. Apparently, we're not as smart as men and never will be, we're so much more risk averse than men (wow - try placing your entire life and financial well being in someone else's hands some time and then talk to me about risk aversion), we are money grubbing gold diggers, we all hate sex (umm, only when it's no fun). The list goes on and on.
*sigh*
Words do hurt people. But you can't condemn an entire sex because of a few loudmouths.
"Well! Are you the sort of fellow to let a little thing like a wife get in the way of taking me up on a fabulous offer?"
Cass--I've often had to sit with clients and senior partners who complained bitterly about their gold-digging wives. Sometimes their third or fourth gold-digging wives. They wouldn't talk about their conquests in front of me, though. I've never known any feminists in life who hated men, though it's not uncommon to hear casual disparagement of men's ability in various areas of the "you can't expect a guy to be able . . ." type, but usually more in jest than anything else. Certainly less virulent than the casual talk I hear from guys about how, say, a woman can't drive for beans. Nothing vicious. I haven't made it a habit to make friends with women who habitually marry with the intention of taking their husbands to the cleaners after cheating on them, but I get that story handed to me on the internet constantly.
I've heard the same kind of thing IRL, Tex. I've read a lot of studies that say when a relationship fails, most men blame their partner and most women blame themselves :p
I have to say my real world experience backs that up in spades. But most of us only control one half of the relationship. If someone has a string of failed relationships, I"m guessing the problems aren't all with the other person.
One of the biggest shocks to me when I first started reading other blogs and comments was how common it is to hear men viciously disparaging their wives, girlfriends, and exes. I had run into that in real life, but fairly rarely.
The Internet absolutely does provide a megaphone and a handy-dandy group of like minded folks if one has a mind to wallow in anger or self pity, and I have a tendency to assume (mostly because men aren't shy about slamming each other in comments sections) that silence means agreement/acceptance.
My husband has told me several times that his reaction to that sort of thing is to thing, "That guy's a moron" and ignore it. Grim has said similar things.
I have never encountered women doing the same thing online, though I'm sure it happens sometimes. Venting anger that way seems to be more of a guy thing: there's probably some obnoxious matching female behavior (maybe the 'woe is me' shtick).
The one that amazes me is the "I keep moving from guy to guy, but sooner or later he always starts beating me up." The tone is a little different from the "those hideous harpies always cheat on me and steal my money"; it's more a sad-sack riff. But what the two complaints have in common is the assumption that "all men/women are inherently like that," rather than "I have awful taste in men/women."
There used to be a blog called Gene Expression that I liked to read.
Not sure if it's still around or not, but I always thought the term "gender expression" works too - people of both sexes do the same things, it just manifests itself differently :p
The one constant is that everyone wants to play the blameless victim.
I read something by Jeff Hawkins the other day, 7 things women do wrong with men or some such. It was mostly pretty sensible advice about how the same situation can appear different to the average guy and average gal. One piece of advice was not to hop into bed too soon if it's going to be a big hairy deal if the guy decides after a week or so that he's not that into you. He said that having sex three times after which the guy never calls you again may seem like a catastrophe to you, but he probably sees it as a "win." That's not to say that he's a heartless cad who intended to love and leave you from the start, but that men on the whole don't see a brief sexual encounter as a terrible thing, while women on the whole do. The women very likely would have preferred not to have gotten involved sexually at all if if was going to end quickly that way, whereas a guy might see it as something fun and inconsequential and be ready to move on to the next experience, perhaps in the hope that it will be more permanent, but not in the frantic need for it to be permanent. I think that's a fairly accurate generalization, not only with women of my generation but--if I may judge from the popular literature--even with the young women of today.
There was another part of his piece that I think would appeal to Cass: the notion that guys will be much more upset by a woman's tears than she realizes, and that she should be careful not to use strong emotion to manipulate him. He has a picture of the Hulk, with the subtitle: "Hulk strong! Hulk fight everything! Hulk . . . wait! You no cry! Hulk sorry! Hulk bring flowers!"
I suppose women tend to be more vulnerable to sexual contact, and men to raw emotion. It would help if we could empathize more with each other.
I have never encountered women doing the same thing online, though I'm sure it happens sometimes.... probably some obnoxious matching female behavior...
I would say that it's this kind of article. You wrote a long piece on that one, actually, which is linked there. It didn't occur to you, maybe, because these articles don't appear on somebody's blog, but in major publications (that was from the Atlantic, for example).
My husband has told me several times that his reaction to that sort of thing is to thing, "That guy's a moron" and ignore it. Grim has said similar things.
That sounds like me. Morons are chiefly harmful to themselves, and time and attention are always limited.
You wrote a long piece on that one, actually, which is linked there. It didn't occur to you, maybe, because these articles don't appear on somebody's blog, but in major publications (that was from the Atlantic, for example).
No, actually I remembered that article (I think I may actually have written about it more than once - it really offended me on several levels).
But the number of women who have written such articles is not large, and so it doesn't make much sense to me to treat the existence of such articles as an indicator of whether those attitudes are widespread among women. I'm not even sure comments by men viciously running down their own wives are a good indicator either (I pointed this out earlier), but I've seen a TON more comments like that than articles from nutjobs like her :p
We had this discussion a few years ago and several male commenters at VC said they'd never even once seen a similar article by a man. I promptly linked several.
I suspect both sexes notice what bothers them more and ignore/minimize what doesn't. What I've never been able to figure out is why it doesn't bother guys when a man says something disparaging about marriage, but bothers them intensely when the same sort of thing comes from a woman?
About marriage per se? What really bothers me about the article is the violation of the marriage vows; it wouldn't bother me nearly as much if she'd dissolved her marriage quietly, and simply announced that she would never marry again because divorce was too painful. I would be sorry, and hope she'd find a reason to take a chance on it again, but I would kind of understand that the trauma and difficulty had put her off of it.
Whereas I don't get the 'marriage is evil' stuff from men or from women. I think the patriarchy/marriage-is-slavery/marriage-is-rape arguments are ridiculous. I can barely avoid laughing out loud when I read PUA-types (or the anti-PUA-types who think women are so evil that they don't even want to pick them up) suggesting that men are going to stop marrying women so they can pursue robot sex and internet porn. No, they're not.
I consistently advise young men I know to keep looking for a good woman, one they can trust above all, because there's no better way to face life than with a partner you can really rely on. And of course the best part of that is the joy of raising children together, difficult as it is, because of the wonder of the experience. This mode is best for the child, and it's best for the parents. You just have to take care to get it right and keep it right.
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