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Thursday, May 01, 2008
“Where Are The Men?”
Your Curmudgeon has pretty much written off most of the female commentators in the world, both printed and pixelated. Those that grace this dive are the exceptions to the prevailing patterns. The preponderance of the rest are either vicious shrews, or stupid, or willfully ignorant, and a fair number combine all three of those virtues to an unendurable degree. So when your Curmudgeon encounters one who's intelligent, knowledgeable, sensible, and fair-minded, there is much rejoicing here at the Fortress of Crankitude...until said commentator lets the mask slip.
Here is the giveaway emission from your Curmudgeon's most recent disappointment.
Let those...thoughts percolate at the center of your brain for a moment or two, Gentle Reader. If you're a woman and find yourself in agreement with them, your Curmudgeon severely doubts you'll be an Eternity Road reader for much longer. If you're a man and find yourself in agreement with them, that you're here at all, reading these words, is the eighth wonder of the world, right after Victoria Beckham's bosom.
"Where are the men?" Miss Fiano demands to know. Right under your leaky nose, lady. There are plenty of us. Your detector just isn't good enough to sniff us out. Maybe you live in some politically correct enclave where the menfolk keep their manliness to themselves and one another, out of concern for their sexual prospects. Or maybe you haven't learned about supply and demand yet. You see, manly men -- the sort that genuinely cherish the role of protector and provider; the sort that really will jump in front of a speeding truck to save an endangered woman or child; the sort that let feminist crap roll off their backs and do as they know a man should, free of concern for what's au courant among the glitterati -- don't disclose their identities to harridans of any stripe. Neither the ones who run men down at every opportunity, nor the ones who are constantly asking where all the men are.
A woman who wants manly men around her has to act like a womanly woman: the sort of woman who would appreciate and care for a manly man. That requires a supportive attitude, not a critical one. When he comes home tired, she must comfort and sustain him. When he comes home wounded, she must bind him up and encourage him back into battle. No man, be he ever so masculine, wants to be continuously judged against some abstract standard of manliness, like a dog at a dog show. That puts us off our feed; we automatically seek more congenial surroundings. Ever heard about the fly-catching superiority of honey over gall?
By far the greater number of American men are manly men. By far the greater number of American women are whiny, self-absorbed children in adult bodies, demanding to "have it all" even if they haven't got the wherewithal to obtain any of it. Because men's need for female acceptance and support is great, we make excessive allowances for this imbalance.
Modern American women want wealth and comfort, but dislike to work for it and castigate their men for working overtime. They decline to have children, because of the havoc it would raise with their figures, their "careers," and their social schedules. They dislike the idea that a man might be truly wearied out by his breadwinner's labors, yet their own forays into the labor market leave them stunned by the demands for exertion and commitment. They want beautiful, well-kept homes, but consider that a charge upon their husbands' time and effort rather than their own. In short, they see themselves as the center of the universe, and are offended when the men in their lives don't oblige by revolving around them.
These are the symptoms of pathological immaturity.
Listen up, little girls, and your Curmudgeon will tell you a tale of a womanly woman: the sort a manly man would be proud to call his own.
She grew up in abject poverty, in a land where ability, conspicuously displayed, was more likely than not to mark one for death. She struggled for bare subsistence practically from the day of her birth, for her father was long gone, and her mother was psychotic from repeated multiple rapes. Despite her enormous intelligence and courage, her townsfolk treated her as a pariah, not on her own account, but because of her mother.
At age fifteen, a few days after she'd buried her mother with her bare hands, she built a raft, provisioned it as best she could, climbed aboard it, and pushed off into the open sea. Some weeks later, half dead from hunger and exposure, she made landfall in Hong Kong, and began a slow, painful evolution from starved, homeless Vietnamese urchin to what she is today: an American businesswoman, highly respected by her clients, who has to turn down requests for her services because the demand is so great.
That young woman came to America because she met an American man who was in Hong Kong on business, and was dazzled by his quality. He urged her to come to the United States, assuring her that he was nothing special -- that among his countrymen were any number as worthy as he, or better.
That young woman is known here at Eternity Road as Fetiche Nouvelle. Your Curmudgeon asked her recently if what she was told by her American acquaintance in Hong Kong struck her as true. She said yes, emphatically and without hesitation. She said the men of her birthplace are worms by comparison.
Despite her physical slightness, Fetiche is a womanly woman, the sort a manly man would seek for a mate. She doesn't hold herself cheap. She doesn't lower her standards for mere companionship or physical gratification. She pays for what she wants out of her own pocket. She cuts her own path through the world, exactly as the I-am-woman-hear-me-roar types would like to claim they do, but as pitifully few of them actually do -- and almost none without constantly complaining about "boys' clubs" and "glass ceilings." She's still single because she wants a man of intelligence, courage, and integrity equal to her own; given her extraordinary gifts, such men are rare even here in America. But she meets people at their own level. She never denigrates anyone of lesser stature, and she never dismisses anyone for not being what she thinks he "ought" to be. Someday her man will arrive, and she will recognize him, and the two of them will bond inseparably. She's worth a million of you whiners who claim to be desperate for a real man but unable to find one.
The next time you feel inclined to disparage anyone, Miss Fiano, compare yourself to Fetiche. Can you equal her courage, her perseverance, or her generosity of spirit? If so, why are you bitching? If not, how dare you cast aspersions on half your countrymen, struggling to do the best they can in a milieu that's become shriekingly hostile to what God and nature sculpted them to be?
Grow up. Or shut up. Either would suffice.
Comments
Grow up. Or shut up. Either would suffice.
Neither is likely to happen, I’m willing to bet.
Posted by Scott on 05/01/2008 at 10:46 PMFetiche is top notch. I pray she can find someone worthy of her affections.
Posted by on 05/01/2008 at 11:25 PMOh yes! Beautiful, just beautiful. And I have a wife reading this who feels as I do.
Time it was said.Posted by kg on 05/02/2008 at 02:23 AMFetiche makes the rest of us look like perfumed princes.
I wish her only the best.
Posted by Elijah on 05/02/2008 at 04:49 AMA powerful riposte, sir, and well written besides.
As someone said recently, ‘I could not agree more’.
Posted by DJ Drummond on 05/02/2008 at 12:24 PMMethinks our Curmudgeon encountered a swarm of harpies well before this Lady of Self Import nibbled at his heels.....
It was a fair on bruising given, and as always well said.
Thank you for adding Miss Nouvelle to your roster of writers.
“Miss”....hmmm, *nope*, nevermind....not erudite enough for that one.....
Posted by Wollf on 05/02/2008 at 04:01 PMVery nice, Mr. Curmudgeon, sir. I cannot disagree with anything you have written. As always, you’ve artfully expressed my subconscious inklings on this matter, writ large. I agree that a woman in desire of a good man must be a good woman first. Our society has taken a turn to where a typcal woman is raised like a princess, to where she expects a knight in shining armor to come sweep her away and fulfill her every need. A woman in a state of want in today’s society is often conditioned to blame her state on the men (or lack thereof) in her life, instead of on herself, where the real problem lies. This is an extension, I think, of the “spoiled teenager” years, and the inability of many women to completely move past that stage.
I struggled with this with my wife in our first years together. She is an intelligent and rational woman, and would agree with me when I say that she was raised in the way i just described. it took her awhile to realize that a relationship is a mutual support network, where each member takes care of the other when and if needed. It started with me being expected to be a rock, supporting her every need and want, with no reciprocation in my times of need. But being the highly intelligent woman that she is, she figured out pretty quick that she was confomring to societal norms, not what was right, and things have been much better since.
Typical man-bashing aside, I do have to admit one thing that I agreed with in her post.
Men are becoming milk-toast pussies, and it is a cancer on our society that I fear will weaken us fatally. Watch “American Idol” sometime and see what our “ideal” american male has become. A limp-wristed shadow of the men who stormed the beaches at Normandy and raised the flag on Suribachi.
Posted by on 05/02/2008 at 04:04 PMPoorly worded…
I should have said “There are societal pressures that many men are giving into that push us into being milktoast pussies....”
I don’t truly believe that American Men are all becoming milktoast pussies. But the ones on TV, (the ones we are supposed to “aspire” to be like) sure are.
Sorry for the generalization, I’m better than that. Can we chalk it up to Friday fatigue?
Posted by on 05/02/2008 at 04:26 PMPoorly worded…
I should have said “There are societal pressures that many men are giving into that push us into being milktoast pussies....”
Actually, still poorly worded: The word is “milquetoast”
Still and all, a good retort, sir.
(and, amusingly, the Capsha word below me here is “alone”.)
Posted by on 05/03/2008 at 12:56 AMYeah, but spelling it that way felt too ENGLISH for me.
Seriously, thanks for the heads up. Not sure how, in half a decade of post-secondary education, I missed that. You learn something new every day, I guess.
Posted by on 05/05/2008 at 01:57 PM
