The harder sides of male characters have atrophied from lack of self-worth.

Same as for women.

The pendulum swings. It will swing back. First the law did not protect women from physical abuse. So too many men took advantage of the law and abused their wives. Then, with noble intentions, the law went tipped the other way to protect women "at all costs". Now in many jurisdictions a woman can swear an abuse complaint against her husband and, without any chance to rebut her allegations, he can be subject to a restraining order and kicked out of his house. Armed with the backing of that law, many women now emasculate men. Others of us allow ourselves to be emasculated out of fear of what our wives could do if threatened.

The pendulum will swing back. Society will recognize that there is a cost to kicking dad out of the family home. The bar will be raised for abuse claims. Unfortunately, more women will then be abused. But some men will discover they do have cojones.

The wheel will continue to turn. More women will be the higher earning spouse. Divorce will then entail more and more women paying alimony to men. See if the proportion of divorce filings by women doesn't drop. Of course, these swings take place over decades. So does the behavioral reaction.

How sane people behave has no beginning in law. Men who would be men would do so without law bearing.

Wow. Nice DJ in there. Both of us are staying in unhappy marriages. I don't think either of us should throw stones about who is sane.

Hee hee....to you both.

It's going to be a tough swing, since males have been dwindling in higher education since the 1970's due to the feminization of the American classroom, and typical male child behavior being given a medical label and Ritalin as the cure.

It's not just political correctness; it's the false assumption that equality must equal sameness, its the assumption that opportunity must guarantee success.

It's all a product of a self-centered, instant-gratification, single-serving, disposable society.

I blame Rondald McDonald.

The law of unintended consequences is huge here. Women complain marriage is a bad deal for them. We change the rules. Now women complain that they don't like how men have reacted to the changed rules.

As you say, in the future women as a group will have more education and higher incomes than men. Funny how that may work out for highly educated women. There won't be enough highly educated men to go around. There will be competition among women for the few highly educated men. Suddenly, these men will be the object of competition and female advances. We can see how this has played out in the African-American community, where there is a dearth of marriage-eligible males. Huge drop in the rates of marriage. High levels of infidelity by males. Something tells me that most American women will not be pleased with these changes. But the pc police will continue to argue that female norms should be enforced across all students.

People in favor of strong stable marriages are going to need to recognize that many factors are at play. And be willing to think outside the box about the level of social change that may be necessary to reinvigorate the institution. Even though I have been unhappoily married for most of my marriage, I am still a strong proponent of marriage as a social institution. I still think it is the best context for raising children. I hope that we can preserve it against the forces that are pulling it apart.

Where did you get this idea? It is the foundation of your entire post. Without solid documentation to prove this, the rest of your post is without merit. Documentation, please, about all of these women complaining about how marriage is a bad deal for them.

I like my path. Trend-bucker.

High demand field nationally consisting of 6% males at the most.

Sorry if my use of tense was misleading. I meant they complained years ago, and we are now living with the consequnces of those - in many cases valid - complaints. In the 1960s and 1970s, women complained that the marital laws and the assumptions of society as to female roles were constraining. So they lobbied to have both the laws and the expectations changed. Do you really want me to cite documents proving that the women's liberation movement exists? Or that many state laws relating to marriage were changed?

I am not suggesting that the changes were entirely negative. There were many positive achievements. Still, the law of unintended consequences applies. I am confident that the proponents of the legal and social changes imagined they were an unadulterated "good thing". But to the extent they were taken to an extreme, as HHH says, the assertion that granting equal rights requires the law and public institutions to ignore any gender differences as logically impossible, they have burdened males in ways that were likely not forseen.

And HHH, we in some ways are simultaneously confronting and perpetuating the gender stereotypes. My D13 is good at math and science, so we are encouraging her to explore these areas. Everyone says colleges are hot to accept female scientists because there aren't enough of them. So in that sesnse we are breaking down gender stereotypes. On the other hand, we are warning her that if she does become a scientist, she may have to date outside her major. Perpetuating the stereotype that male science majors are not "manly" or "cool" enough to date her. What one hand giveth, the other takes away.

Hold, just tell her to date a kinesiology or sports medicine major

Lemme guess - hmmmmmmmm

I got it! Pantyhose model?

(Just joking, HHH)

Ah, there is that.

Hmmm... man and nurse... does that sound like it belongs in the same sentence?

Not to most people.

Male as provider is acceptable, man as a care provider? Not so much.

Fortunately, geek is in. The development of our society has left it that one has to be focused and knowledgeable if they wish to succeed. She will likely need to date within her major, because those who are not neo-neanderthal would be threatened by her intelligence.

This is interesting to me, my spouse is recently on this "quest", too.
I am confused by how do you define this "manliness" and what yall are looking for. As far as I can tell..

#1. Women are blamed (mom's, female teachers and the fact divorced dads not being around to model behavior.)
#2. Perception that women have "taken something" (control?) away.

Are you meaning integrity and strength?
P.S. disclaimer.. I have a hard time saying all "men" act like this or they are whimps, and all women act like this or they are "itch@s".

Strength comes from an inner understanding of your moral compass, and your aility to define and stand up for that heading.

But maybe this type of thinking is what people think are causing the issue?

Feminazi.

Well, if women are raising the children because they've chosen to divorce their husband and use restraining orders and whatever tools to keep the father out of the child's life, then how could you possibly blame the father?

Ditto for those women who have children out of wedlock and don't allow the father to be part of the child's life. You would blame the father for this?

You've read it here that the women who are leaving husbands by and large are not leaving husbands who engage in marital misconduct. Perhaps leaving romantically challenged husbands, but not husbands who beat or cheat.

Since it appears that once that woman has it in her mind that her husband doesn't cut the mustard, and is all but impossible to win back (Yes it can be done, no it's not the typical outcome.) then how could you possibly blame the man who is not allowed to be a part of his child's daily life?


Well, any time a woman divorces a man or does something to keep the child away from his father, she has taken something away. She's taken something from both the child and the father. Seldom is anyone better after such a choice. Since 2/3rds to 3/4's of all divorces (and even more when you are talking about the first 7 years of marriage) are filed by the women, I think it's pretty clear that they are indeed taking something from both the children and the father.
But the law doesn't look for that in a divorce case. So in many cases, the one with the solid moral compass is the one who is on the outside. While the one with the broken moral compass is the one trusted to raise the children.

Since infidelity doesn't matter in most divorce cases, the women who breaks her vows gets the children, unless she's doing group sex in front of the child present at the local crack house.

Again, is that the betrayed father's fault?

Well, it can't be good for those who are impacted by those decisions to end the marriage.

It's not good for most marriages to end, and as long as women are by far the ones choosing to end marriages, the blame for the consequences falls squarely on those shoulders.

Yes, my wife has a cousin who was a kinesiology major, and now does physical therapy. Very useful relationship skills!

Ok.

I'll bite.

Yes. Control. Control over our own lives and destinies. Control over our involvement with our children.

And then we are being controlled by asserting such arguements as [snark]"What have you lost? Control?[/snark]

Furthermore by muffling typical male behavior by associating it with poor behavior in general, we are taught to believe that natural, instinctive male behaviors are; violent, controlling, insensitive, juvenile, low class, uneducated... the list could go on forever.

In all but very few classrooms across America, the classroom has been tailored to such a feminine standpoint, that average boys and tomboy girls are constantly in trouble and being lost, simply because they are kinetic and not static.


Oh, but we are expected to be "men" when we have a problem!

"What? You think you've lost control? Get over it, ya sissy!"


Yes, mom... *walks away with his head down...*

And who's to say it isn't the man's fault that this is happening? It certainly was in my case. I kept the bio father of my older kids away because he was unfit to raise children. He was a danger to others and to himself. After he got himself arrested for assault with a deadly weapon and started threatening to commit suicide and talking about having himself committed to a mental institution, I'm glad I finally woke up and threw him out of our lives for good. Having now met him as adults, so are my older children. They tried to let him back into their lives many years later and ultimately had to cut off contact with him again because apparently he still hasn't changed.

There may be a very valid and good reason why women choose to exclude men from their children's lives. Not in every case, certainly, but vilifying all women and victimizing all men, as a few bitter posters on this thread seem determined to do, hardly seems justified.

I did what I did because I love my kids and I didn't want someone dangerous and destructive in their lives. Yeah, what a terrible feminazi that must make me.