Lately, we've all been hearing a lot about the rise of women and the fall of boys. Statistics and personal testimonies have come to prove that while women are charging full speed ahead into that corner office, "men are in trouble."
It's sad that a significant block of the feminist movement was dedicated not only to the rise of women, but the utter failure of men. It's even sadder that this block seems to be succeeding. CNN reports:
In 1970, men earned 60% of all college degrees. In 1980, the figure fell to 50%, by 2006 it was 43%. Women now surpass men in college degrees by almost three to two. Women's earnings grew 44% in real dollars from 1970 to 2007, compared with 6% growth for men. In 1950, 5% of men at the prime working age were unemployed. As of last year, 20% were not working, the highest ever recorded.
And therein lies the reason I'm sticking women in the hot seat. Why are we settling for ultimatums? Why do we accept having to force them to be with us? Adolescent men with continue to be adolescent men until something or someone forces them to grow up. For some reason this immature behavior is not only persisting, it's getting worse and women are getting more and more frustrated. We just have to stop. Stop putting up with the uncommitted hooking up. Stop with the ultimatums. Stop indulging the immaturity.
Ha. Easier said than done.
In one of the aforementioned emails I received this morning, in which a handful of professional young women were commiserating about the unfortunate state of guys, a girlfriend asked, "So does this mean we become lesbians, find new boys, or pretend that we don't care about finding new boys even though we do?"
"I don't know what we should do," I said, "I guess just be happy with what we can control (our jobs, social lives... pretty much everything but men) and then hope somewhere along the way a nice guy wakes up and realizes that it's time to man up, too."
No matter how much we're succeeding in pretty much every other walk of life, women are failing miserably at beating back that pesky thing called Mother Nature. So, guys, you might not have a clue what you want these days, but hopefully now you have a faint idea of what women want. If you can't man up and commit, at least stop leading us on with those meaningless "I like yous," romantic dinners, and confusing post-breakup texts.
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Debra Ollivier: The Spirit of a Generation
An apparently common theory appears to be that women appear to generally be raised with more relationship-related experience. This appears to include free expression of relationship-critical emotions, discussion of relationship-related issues, and exercise of relationship-level communication. Men, on the other hand, appear to generally be raised for protective, rather than nurturing duties. Therefore, women appear to generally be reasonably expected to develop, at an apparently much earlier age then men, highly-detailed relationship-related perspectives including specific ideas about personal relationship-related preferences and needs.
While the women were inside addressing relationships, the men were outside, chopping trees (Absent trees, perhaps high score at “Call of Duty” (tm)). Perhaps any man can tell you that that tree chopping (as well as video-game explosives, helicopters and warplanes) are not the right context for sharing relationship-relevant insight. Perhaps, with tree-chopping recently learned (and/or high score emblazoned as computer wallpaper or screensaver, men are, much later, freshly turning their attention to trying to piece together fragments of stories on the battle of the sexes, on women’s needs, and about what their own needs should be.
Perhaps, knowing the real-life preoccupations that tie up men’s attentions before they get around to relationships can help women feel less confused, frustrated and, ultimately, disappointed when men seem somewhat less than ready to make “an honest woman” of a girl. Perhaps you might want to think, “He’s been busy, he’s been busy, he’s been busy…”
Most males are attracted to women who need us. It's the Tarzan dna in us that drives our hormones. We may be attracted to the business owner driving the Maz but our protection instinct doesn't trigger. We know you don't need us. We'd have equal footing with your autonomy. That's not a hormone trigger for us.
The secretary, the waitress, the struggling student, the single mom teacher who can barely pay bills, the overtly feminine woman who cant seem to get it right......see the pattern ? They need us. Tarzan, John Wayne and our Captain America genome awakens. We find these women very desirable because we get to be who we are, men.
We don't bring much to the table anymore that can compete and we know that, but we're still happy prisoners of our austrolepithicus dna.
We want to be your hero. We know if we're not. It's not something you can fake. It either is or it isn't there.
Stop dating boys with toys and you wont have to look for a man, he'll find you.
Food for thought.
The courtship process is an age old time tested process for vetting each other. You never really know somone until sh*&^ hits the fan and then watch how they react to the problem. Or how you both interact to a mutual problem. Up until then you're on a quasi fake honeymoon for a marriage that never happened.
If you have layed out the expectation of a courtship its very possible your ex would have bolted for easy naked sex girl down the street. You kinda had that instinct but you wanted him anyway so you played a trump card only you won the hand not the pot.
Love has nothing to do with money, occupation, employment, fashion, ultimatums or selection. You fall in love by forces out of your control. If men and women would stop "selecting" each other and just follow their heart chances are they would be very committed and content.
Perhaps women students work harder (such good girls!) and don't expect to get good grades just because they are male (saw that in business school).
Perhaps women's real wages grew because they were so low to begin with.
Perhaps the, um, recession has something to do with 20% of men not working (although I am curious to know where that figure comes from). What is the rate for women? Perhaps men have a higher unemployment rate because the good, family-supporting, professional jobs finally started to be outsourced, and what has replaced them are temporary, customer service, part-time jobs.
And how do all of these statistics "prove" that "a significant block of the feminist movement" was dedicated to the "utter failure of men". That is giving women, and the "feminist movement", a lot more power than they ever had.
Why am I not surprised that this poster is a "publicist"?
Let's get some context here before we start blaming women for something else.
Are there a lot of indecisive, immature men out there who don't want to commit? Certainly... and I will wager that there are just as many women who fall into the same category. Though I have a wonderful husband, secure family life and domestic calm, many women my own age are still living the party lifestyle of their late teens.
The indecisiveness and hesitation you've encountered may stem from the fear of being saddled with a person who has unrealistic demands and lack of understanding. Perhaps if you want guys to "man up" and be commitment-focused and driven, you should "woman up" and work on some patience and empathy.
Also? Don't ever presume to speak for me and what I may or may not want.
We may both be female, but from what I've gleaned about you from what you've written here, I'd sooner tear my ovaries out with a whisk than draw any other parallel between us.
I would say you were the immature one here.
Wonderful.
Also, there is some kind of myth that is indirectly perpetuated here, that all men want hook ups with no strings attached and women always want commitment. Not true. Both women and men are equally capable of uncommited promiscuous behaviour. On top of that, when I compare my male and female friends number of ex-significant others I find women come out ahead of the men. What does this say about commitment if women are in and out of relationships more than men, its quite narrow to think men are the cause of this and women are the innocent victims in every relationship.