As I have shared in previous posts, I have been spending a lot of time walking. 65 miles is about 22 hours (a part-time job).
Most of the walking was alone. A little bit was with Mrs ERJ. One mile was with an older gentleman who had been tossed a hot-potato.
Said gentleman has an associate who had an urgent, long-term family-issue come up. Being the chivalrous man that he is, he asked if he could pick up any of her workload.
Which is how he got scheduled to be a presenter at a Feminist Event. The first time in the history of this particular event that a person who was not a biological woman was to present.
That is not the kind of challenge I crave but it is an interesting problem. What can a +70-year-old man bring to a bunch of Feminists (capital "F") and not get his head handed to him?
First swing at the pinata
Intro
The Feminist movement was initiated because there were huge power-disparities between men and women. Culturally, it was imperative that the brains and talents of women be allowed to flourish and to enrich the larger culture.
Viewing the movement from the vantage point of power-disparities, the battle is waged on several fronts. Most of the attention is focused at the macro-level. There are many other speakers who will speak to that struggle with far more authority than I can. While the macro-level offers a huge amount of leverage, the long time-horizons can make that perspective seem "not-empowering" and at some level, discouraging.
Viewing Feminism through the lens of power-disparities
Power-disparities occur at the macro-level but they also occur at the level of individual relationships.
I am dating myself, but I remember seeing my grandparents resolve conflicts adult-to-adult. I remember seeing my parents discuss issues. And aunts-and-uncles. I was blessed to be a witness to many examples of near-peers working through knotty issues and forging workable solutions.
America has become much more mobile than my childhood in the 1950s and 1960s. The nuclear-family-as-the-norm was vaporized. You are much less likely to have been blessed with the experiences I was given for free.
This poverty-of-experience means it is far more likely for you or your partner to lack internal Adult <===> Adult communication models. One of you is likely trapped in Parent <===> Child modes for lack of other models. Other names for Parent <===> Child are Master-Slave, Dom-Sub.
The trap is that reversing roles does not eliminate power-disparities. It hides them. It sets booby-traps. Failure is lurking just out of the sight horizon. True Feminism isn't about making a different set of people subordinate or oppressing a different set of people. That would only make Feminists an XX version of the Male Patriarchy. True Feminism is about raising-the-bar on how people can interact with each other and have both be winners.
Jack and Jill can both have the entire pie if Jack likes the filling and Jill loves to eat the crust. But how can we ever figure that out unless we learn enough about ourselves personally to be able to verbalize our needs and then be able to negotiate in Adult <===> Adult mode?
The good news
The good news is that what I learned informally, by osmosis, can be learned through study. Not only can it be learned, but a much higher quality of methods can be learned as opposed to folk-wisdom and rules-of-thumb that I absorbed.
You can Google "Rules for fighting fair" and get millions of options. I have a little bit of heartburn over the word "fighting". I much prefer words like "negotiating" or "constructing win-win scenarios".
To me, the important thing is that we can all improve our lives and our important relationships before the sun-sets tonight by focusing our efforts at this high level of granularity. Whether events happen at a macro-level or not, this is something we can do as individuals that will move the needle and move it quickly. Because of that, it is a great complement to the macro-efforts the other speakers will address.
*** ERJ comments ***
I could not find an elegant way to suggest that life is about trade-offs. It is not possible to have it all, in spite of what the "influencers" on social media claim. They are all a bunch of greedy, lying fakes looking for more clicks.
If you want a fabulous career, you might not get the relationships you want.
If you want to remodel a major room in your house every year, then you will not be able to afford one-more-child.
If you have to be the sassy-boss-ball-buster that impresses the gurlz, you probably will not be able to hang onto a guy with integrity.
If you let others decide what your priorities will be, then only random chance will result in your being happy. "An unexamined life is not worth living".
Priorities are not just about "What I want", they are also about "What I am willing to let go of to get what I want"
How about: We push women into the workforce, double the amount of workers available, depress wages for everyone? Win for the Capitalists!
ReplyDeleteDouble win by forcing families to have an outsider raise their kids and indoctrinate them the commie/.gov/degenerate way.
Anon
Big win for the tax-man. Mama used to make dinner and no tax revenue was generated. Mama goes to work and pays income-tax and buys take-out to feed the fam and all of the workers pay income-tax.
DeletePoint being, Mama was seduced into leaving home, lured by the "need" for a second vehicle or a "meaningful" occupation or other propaganda.
It seems no one at that time stopped to consider that maybe, just maybe, taking care of one’s home and family was just as meaningful, if not more so. I’d like to marry a woman who loves to care for our home and family and is content doing that and not trying to work a job or seek significance outside of our home (which entails doing things with our community, too). My heart sinks every time I think about what I would like to find in a woman, because it seems that breed is dying out faster and faster.
DeleteI found a nice lady from Latin America who has good Christian values. I married late due to not finding a woman from the US who appreciated a Christian gentleman. Many home grown women thought a relationship was a competition.
DeleteI have a friend who married a woman who might have been in her late-20s. She was a liberal.
DeleteMostly, he kept his mouth shut. He told her what news links he viewed the most and she started reading them so they would have common ground for conversations.
The birth of their first child was around the time Trump was first elected. His wife found the hyperbole of her leftist friends to be over-the-top. Other weirdness happened and she told him...let's move out of Blue Hive City and closer to your parents.
Today, she is a stay-at-home mom and homeschools their kids.
My friend was patient. He never insulted her intelligence. But he started with a very decent and compassionate person.
They live in an old farmhouse and attend a church with a modest congregation. They don't drive new vehicles. Vacations are family oriented.
It CAN happen.
Locally, women from the Philippines seem to be very popular with men looking for traditional wife who is willing to pitch-in and work...either in the home or to help supplement the family budget.
DeleteAgreed. Many families feel they "have" to have two incomes, but if they cut back on spending they wouldn't feel that pressure.
DeleteI know many young women who prefer not to work outside the home, and men who have planned to make that happen. I find it much more common in rural areas than urban or suburban areas.
For myself, I planned since finishing college to be in a position my wife wouldn't have to work. I married late to a dedicated women who doesn't work. We don't drive new cars, but due to wise financial decisions we are doing quite well - and have no debt at all.
Jonathan
Nonsense.
ReplyDeleteFeminism took root in the 1950’s when electricity made “women’s work” largely obsolete. Vacuums, dish washers, clothes washers and dryers, etc etc. When the kids were old enough, they went to school, leaving mom home alone. Mom could literally finish her housework by 9:00 am and have an entire day to fill. Idle hands are the devil’s workshop, so Moms began to drink, smoke and even do drugs, driven by boredom and loss of meaning and value to the family. That is no life to want… so they began to look for meaning and self worth and identity in the workplace. The workplace offers none of those things and women started manifesting other problems like heart disease, stress/burnout, and clinical depression. Today 80% of divorces are driven by unhappy women and 25% of them are taking psychotropic drugs for depression. Because women are governed by their hormones and emotions, they have problems accepting their limitations and blame men for their shortcomings.
We are three generations deep in fat, unhappy and unwanted women that turn to feminism as a way of dodging responsibility for their problems. As you note - they are told that they can have it all so when that inevitably fails to prove out…they look for people to blame. Men very seldom will hurt or mistreat women. The vast number of rape and abuse accusations are false. There is no punishment levied against them when they’re caught either. Modern feminism poses as an attack on patriarchy but is actually an attack on womanhood. It is an ideology of hatred.
From my outhouse vantage point, I’ve seen women cope successfully in modern times by throwing themselves into community and volunteer work and practical, useful hobbies involving crafts and the like.
In the west we are so stupid that we cannot see that if you do something that hurts one gender… it ultimately hurts them both.
Filthie
DeleteSNIP In the west we are so stupid that we cannot see that if you do something that hurts one gender… it ultimately hurts them both.
One of your best thoughts.
Hahahaa, you're going to have your friend address a group of feminists with logic and rhetoric?!?!?!? Why not just tie a pork chop on him and set him loose in the lion cages? It would be more humane.
ReplyDeleteThe irony, it burns.
DeleteIf the roots of the Feminist movement are because of power-disparities and lack-of-power, then how can a woman abdicating her ability to make decisions to others and claiming lack of individual responsibility and agency solve the problem?
Maybe I should just send Glen Filthie. No pork-chop required.
You're addressing a room full of people that want to hear what they already think. It's not unique to feminists. A gathering of them, for allegedly affirming their previously held beliefs and empowering each other, is not going to be interested in listening to solutions. Political rally's are not about finding common ground, but about exciting the base. The baser the excitement the better. Same, same.
DeleteI think too many people, both men and women, either don’t understand compromise, or refuse to consider it. You are more eloquent about it than I.
ReplyDeleteMy priests have given several good sermons about marriage, and the roles of husbands and wives. Men and women must support each other, do what is necessary and right, not what Hollywood, or advertising, or social influencers try to tell them.
Southern NH
"True Feminism is about raising-the-bar on how people can interact with each other and have both be winners."
ReplyDeleteReally? True Feminism hasn't been tried yet. Yeah. What fucking planet do you live on, Joe?