A woman in the aftermath of Traditional Conservatism and Feminism

Author: Analgesic.Spectre

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@ethang5
@Mopac
You know, if you are going to get on me for something, you shouldn't be doing it yourself.
Writing something that could be found in a novel/speech, of which is clearly not intended to be a scientific analysis (my OP), is not the same as writing one sentence of opinion: "I don't think that traditional marriage is any more humiliating for the woman as it is for the man". My OP has far greater depth than yours, to start with, and it is clearly attempting to capture the human condition.

For example, people don't read 1984 or A Clockwork Orange, and then ask, 'where are the sources?' Rather, they think about whether what is written parallels reality. My OP is akin to that.

Congratulations on being a post man hating woman. My married life is very fine, and we are Orthodox. That's about as traditional as you can get. 
Yep, I'm sure your singular experience is all we need to understand global marital trends.

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@Analgesic.Spectre
Your capturing of the human condition is likely alien to anything but the most decadent of cultures.

Don't care.

I'll leave you alone now.
Analgesic.Spectre
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^
If people on this website think this is a well-supported, worthwhile comment, then I don't belong on this site.

ethang5
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Get a clue. "well-supported and worthwhile" are not values that can be assigned to your comments. Stop condemning people when you do the same things.
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@Analgesic.Spectre
Woman Xx is more complex than man Xy. Many males and females cannot handle this fact/truth.

Generally Speaking:
Woman { attracter } is better and managing ergo manager of time
...see gravity { mass-attraction }

Man { pusher } is better at being focused on a tasked ergo more like EMRadiation
...we do not focus gravity but we do focus{ quantise } EMRadiation can be focused as a laser beam of light......
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Woman is the container --again see gravity--- for biologic life

Man is the seed/germ  --again see quanta-- for biologic life
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Woman tends toward being integrative --see gravity and birds-nest--

Man tends toward disintegrative isolations ---see man-cave---
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Women tend toward more bilateral thinking activity in the brain

Man tends toward less bilateral thinking activity in the brain
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@mustardness
How did you reach these conclusions?

17 days later

ResurgetExFavilla
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@Analgesic.Spectre
I think that the 'shackles of traditional conservatism' are overblown, and have much more to do with the minority perspective of early feminists than with the actual experience of women in that era. A lower class woman in the 1700s would be mystified by an 1900s banker's wife demanding 'the right to work', as she would live her life working alongside her husband, a partner in his trade. A fisherman's wife would mend nets, clean fish, and keep the books in order. A farmers wife would tend her share gardens and small livestock. It was only ever rich women who felt 'shackled', and they weren't shackled by the 'patriarchy' at all. They were shackled by a society which had made consumers out of them, which had robbed them of productive work and replaced it with comfort and large, opulent, and oppressively silent homes. Mainstream feminism was often born out of the boredom of the well-to-do, not the struggle of poor women, because that struggle filled their lives with rich meaning. Just look through the early suffragettes. All of them are from bourgeois or higher social caste. Where poor women did adopt feminism, it was almost always tacked onto some larger material struggle against oppressive industrial labor conditions (which, btw, only came about after the destruction of those 'oppressive' traditional norms).

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@ResurgetExFavilla
A lower class woman in the 1700s would be mystified by an 1900s banker's wife demanding 'the right to work', as she would live her life working alongside her husband, a partner in his trade. A fisherman's wife would mend nets, clean fish, and keep the books in order. A farmers wife would tend her share gardens and small livestock.
Only because she had to. Do you honestly think that should wanted to mend nets, clean fish, and keep the books in order? Have you ever heard someone say, "wow, I'm sure glad I get to spend my life cleaning fish".

Unless you think all women wanted to perform menial tasks to support their husbands, what do you think the alternative was if the she wanted more out of her life?

It was only ever rich women who felt 'shackled', and they weren't shackled by the 'patriarchy' at all.
Were married women allowed/encouraged to start their own careers, if they didn't want to play second fiddle to their husbands? Did women, traditionally, have the option of not marrying? 

They were shackled by a society which had made consumers out of them, which had robbed them of productive work and replaced it with comfort and large, opulent, and oppressively silent homes.
Yes, technology has caused traditional relationships to morph into the far more acidic nuclear family, wherein women are plagued by comfort and boredom. However, again, women were only interested in Agrarian era traditional relationships because they didn't have a choice. Once women do have an option (as we're going to see below), they choose not to uphold traditional relationships.

For example, in the traditionalist country of India, where traditional values are still held in high esteem, and the women are notably frugal, there has been a sudden surge of divorces initiated by women (and divorce, obviously, is quite non-traditionalist) So, why would this occur? Quote:

"In India, this means a growing number of women have become financially independent enough to leave abusive husbands, there's been a decrease in the stigma attached to divorce and there are greater opportunities for extramarital affairs in the more mobile, urbanized and interactive society."


Rather than women being shackled by economic circumstances, they are being liberated by economic circumstances. When women aren't forced into traditionalist slavery, as soon the stigma and financial dependence is relaxed (not even abolished), women leave their traditional relationships in droves.

Being made "consumers", and these "large, opulent, and oppressively silent homes" have not caused these divorces.

Mainstream feminism was often born out of the boredom of the well-to-do, not the struggle of poor women, because that struggle filled their lives with rich meaning. Just look through the early suffragettes. All of them are from bourgeois or higher social caste...
Feminism has always been about female supremacy. I think it's dysfunctional (much more so than Traditional Conservatism) and I'm not going to defend it. In this thread, I'm criticising both Traditional Conservatism and Feminism.
ResurgetExFavilla
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@Analgesic.Spectre
A lower class woman in the 1700s would be mystified by an 1900s banker's wife demanding 'the right to work', as she would live her life working alongside her husband, a partner in his trade. A fisherman's wife would mend nets, clean fish, and keep the books in order. A farmers wife would tend her share gardens and small livestock.
Only because she had to. Do you honestly think that should wanted to mend nets, clean fish, and keep the books in order? Have you ever heard someone say, "wow, I'm sure glad I get to spend my life cleaning fish".

Unless you think all women wanted to perform menial tasks to support their husbands, what do you think the alternative was if the she wanted more out of her life?
I think that lower class woman gets a lot more fulfillment out of their lives than you give them credit for, precisely because her life is more than her work. It is tied up in community and family. Repairing fishing equipment and preparing fish to be cooked is also a lot more fun and fulfillinh than being a barista, fry cook, or cubicle rat, while also being much more limited in scope. Hell, fishing is literally considered a leisure activity nowadays.

It was only ever rich women who felt 'shackled', and they weren't shackled by the 'patriarchy' at all.
Were married women allowed/encouraged to start their own careers, if they didn't want to play second fiddle to their husbands? Did women, traditionally, have the option of not marrying?
Women had the option of becoming nuns or anchoresses, who often became educated and contributed to the larger culture. Just as common men could become monks. Abbesses could even vote in some pre-modern European elections. So yeah, woman absolutely had the option to not marry. In fact, it was considered quite admirable to sacrifice motherhood and sensory distraction for a rich spiritual and intellectual life, and women who did so were honored.

They were shackled by a society which had made consumers out of them, which had robbed them of productive work and replaced it with comfort and large, opulent, and oppressively silent homes.
Yes, technology has caused traditional relationships to morph into the far more acidic nuclear family, wherein women are plagued by comfort and boredom. However, again, women were only interested in Agrarian era traditional relationships because they didn't have a choice. Once women do have an option (as we're going to see below), they choose not to uphold traditional relationships.
I don't think that people make good choices, left to themselves. Quite the opposite, really. I think that people generally take the path of least resistance, and that this causes them to suffer in the long run.

For example, in the traditionalist country of India, where traditional values are still held in high esteem, and the women are notably frugal, there has been a sudden surge of divorces initiated by women (and divorce, obviously, is quite non-traditionalist) So, why would this occur? Quote:

"In India, this means a growing number of women have become financially independent enough to leave abusive husbands, there's been a decrease in the stigma attached to divorce and there are greater opportunities for extramarital affairs in the more mobile, urbanized and interactive society."


Rather than women being shackled by economic circumstances, they are being liberated by economic circumstances. When women aren't forced into traditionalist slavery, as soon the stigma and financial dependence is relaxed (not even abolished), women leave their traditional relationships in droves.

Being made "consumers", and these "large, opulent, and oppressively silent homes" have not caused these divorces.
Well, I find a lot of traditional Indian culture to be profoundly diseased, so this probably isn't the best example for me, but I'll bite. What are the long term effects of these divorces? Can single women raise children which are as functional as those raised by a married couple? Will the exodus of woman actually reform the behavior of the men? I don't think that the answer to any of those questions is rosy, and furthermore I think that the availability of divorce perverts incentives by making marriage seem like an arrangement of convenience. Is abuse in marriage bad? Absolutely. But to me the sensible way to tackle that problem is to stigmatize abuse in marriage, not to do away with marriage. I think that the Indian concept of marriage is terrible and has little to do with Christian marriage, so I obviously think that it should be reformed. Look at any map of India that maps abuse rates and you will see that the small state of Goa has drastically lower rates. The Goa states were ruled by Portugal for almost five hundred years, are more deeply Catholic than other areas, and some of the more barbaric Indian practices have been stamped out there.


Analgesic.Spectre
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@ResurgetExFavilla
I think that lower class woman gets a lot more fulfillment out of their lives than you give them credit for, precisely because her life is more than her work. It is tied up in community and family. Repairing fishing equipment and preparing fish to be cooked is also a lot more fun and fulfillinh than being a barista, fry cook, or cubicle rat, while also being much more limited in scope. Hell, fishing is literally considered a leisure activity nowadays.
I can agree with this.

However, this does not compare to other, thrilling professions that are perhaps not experienced by lower class women, such as an archaeologist, scientist, doctor etc.

Is it a good idea to relegate all women, regardless of ability, to menial tasks?

Women had the option of becoming nuns or anchoresses, who often became educated and contributed to the larger culture. Just as common men could become monks. Abbesses could even vote in some pre-modern European elections. So yeah, woman absolutely had the option to not marry. In fact, it was considered quite admirable to sacrifice motherhood and sensory distraction for a rich spiritual and intellectual life, and women who did so were honored.
This is hardly an admirable scope. How does this compare to present age job options? Women might have had the option to not marry, but you're presenting a seriously limited job selection as freedom.

Off the top of my head, some traditional societies didn't allow women to receive an education; some didn't allow learning to read. Do you honestly believe traditional women had any enviable freedom?

I don't think that people make good choices, left to themselves. Quite the opposite, really. I think that people generally take the path of least resistance, and that this causes them to suffer in the long run.
Do you believe that people never make good choices? If not, then how do we know women won't make good choices, in this specific situation?

If women are not interested in traditional relationships, is it okay to force women into them?

Well, I find a lot of traditional Indian culture to be profoundly diseased, so this probably isn't the best example for me, but I'll bite. What are the long term effects of these divorces? Can single women raise children which are as functional as those raised by a married couple? Will the exodus of woman actually reform the behavior of the men? I don't think that the answer to any of those questions is rosy, and furthermore I think that the availability of divorce perverts incentives by making marriage seem like an arrangement of convenience.
This Indian example precisely refutes your conception of consumerism causing divorce -- you don't have to be found of the culture to see that.

Is it not possible to have a male-female relationship that isn't marriage? If women so desperately flee their marriages, when laws surrounding it relax ever so slightly, why should you insist on that arrangement? 

Before we start asking about the long term effects of these divorces, shouldn't we consider the damage it is doing to women in them? They've essentially been forced into an obligation, all the whilst unwilling. Is traditionalism really worth it?

I agree that single women do a horrible job (on the whole) of raising children. However, the alternative to traditional relationships doesn't have to be single motherhood.

I don't think women leaving these undesirable relationships is going to change the behaviour of men, on the whole. However, it will help women remove themselves from relationship arrangements they have no interest in.

Lastly, it wasn't divorce incentives that drove this marriage exodus. Again, it was merely a relaxation in red-tape, in regards to women divorcing, that resulted in women leaving marriages. That's part of why I chose India -- they don't have the same divorce incentives Western women enjoy.

Is abuse in marriage bad? Absolutely. But to me the sensible way to tackle that problem is to stigmatize abuse in marriage, not to do away with marriage. I think that the Indian concept of marriage is terrible and has little to do with Christian marriage, so I obviously think that it should be reformed. Look at any map of India that maps abuse rates and you will see that the small state of Goa has drastically lower rates. The Goa states were ruled by Portugal for almost five hundred years, are more deeply Catholic than other areas, and some of the more barbaric Indian practices have been stamped out there.
I'm going to make a bold statement, but I don't think the abuse is as terrible as is claimed, in the article. I think "abuse" is a convenient excuse for these women to leave relationships (they're saving face, I think). I could expand upon this point, with things like anonymous studies showing around 30% of the reason for divorce in a Western country (can't remember which one) was because "I'm not happy" (which doesn't look very good, hence it's publicly claimed as "abuse"). I also think the conception of abuse is heavily deranged, with criticising your partner's religion now considered domestic abuse.

Anyway, just a conspiracy theory I think I can defend, if you don't agree prima facie. The bottom line is this: I don't think women want traditional relationships at all.

937 days later

Aryanman
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@Analgesic.Spectre
are you a traditional women?
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@Aryanman
Good question lol.
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@badger
My guess is she at least self identifies as a woman, which apparently makes her one.