is deh dog weh you lick"
-Jamaican proverb
The recent article by Brienne Walsh entitled "An Open Letter to the Women Who Are Telling Me It's My Fault I'm Not Married made the above proverb come to mind. Her article was a response to a previous piece posted to the Huffington Post by Tracy McMillan entitled "Why You're Not Married"
Ms. Walsh's major point was this:
I know it's my fault I'm not married. I know that in the future, if I don't get married, it will be my fault as well. And thanks to the advancements made by the women in the generation above me, it's my decision to make.
If she had left it at that this post would not have been written because the above is the same thing I tell women, and men. If you're not married it is your "fault" (I prefer "choice"). I would add that the reasons for her current ability to chose such a lifestyle isn't only due to the advances made by women but by technology created by men. It's all symbiotic really. But that is a minor quibble. The major quibbles start here:
Because staying in a bad relationship just because it is heading towards marriage is like putting a plastic bag over your head, and just letting in enough air that you can stay alive.
Notice the quick, fast and in a hurry jump from "I'm not married" to "bad relationship". This is typical of far too many women (and men) who assume that if a relationship isn't "perfect" (whatever that may be) then it must be god awful and metaphorically stifling. I don't know what article this woman read, but McMillan's piece did not advise anyone to stay in a 'bad relationship". It did however bring up the unrealistic and completely selfish definitions that a lot of people have of "good relationship". So yeah, that sound you're hearing? That would be the dog crying out.
But Ms. Walsh wasn't finished. Instead of dissecting McMillan's piece and her 8 points, which I would have done, Walsh decides to cut to this part:
Because ultimately, marriage is not about getting something -- it's about giving it. Strangely, men understand this more than we do. Probably because for them marriage involves sacrificing their most treasured possession -- a free-agent penis -- and for us, it's the culmination of a princess fantasy so universal, it built Disneyland.
This is by and large true and the level of "Free agent penis" is directly related to a male's status. This "free agent penis" concept is particularly true in this current "monogamy as normal" social organization. I'm not going to get into the ins and outs of human sexuality but I'll say this: Monogamy is an artificial block on a male's ability to reproduce. Biologically speaking it serves him very little benefit to stay attached to a single female for his entire reproductive life. Females on the other hand naturally benefit from keeping a male around and to not have him create other children that "steal" resources away from her own. Keep this in mind because it is going to be relevant in a few.
Walsh goes into her objection to McMillan's "getting something" statement culminating in:
And so we learned how to expect literally nothing from a man. And do you know what happened because of that? We learned to let men treat us like crap. We came to believe that men were doing us a favor by settling down -- because otherwise they would be out spraying the world of willing women with their abundant seed. We were taught to be grateful if a man showed interest in us, and we became fearful at all times that he would leave us once he did. Women of my generation are still the second-class citizens of
fairy tales: only now, we don't even have the chivalry or the ever-blooming roses to comfort us in our eternal boredom.
"We learned how to expect literally nothing from a man" We? We who? And WHO taught girls this? I suggest that her problem in this regards lies with those who, while rightfully fighting for legal "first class citizenship" for women, also had the idea that they'd fuck around with certain social conventions that forced men to become responsible and marriageable. Besides, from what I've heard men were treating women like crap before women were mysteriously taught to expect "literally nothing from a man". I'm so confused.
The rest though, particularly "spraying willing women" is exactly correct though. Seriously. If you're not willing, there are others who are. And ummm that is the entire point of "the game". Catch your man (or woman) before someone else does. Apparently some women haven't come to terms with the fact that "independence" doesn't give them much of a leg up in the finding a life mate game. Don't blame me though. Blame your genes.
Besides, there she goes again with the negativity. "Boredom"? "Eternal boredom"? I do say, I think this woman really has unresolved relationship issues.
There's that dog makin' noise again.
But Walsh continues to show us just how clueless she is by giving us The Story:
A few weeks ago, I was interviewing a woman who is at the top of her chosen profession. She's a single mother to her teenage daughter. She is enormously successful, well-educated, beautiful -- and never married.
Our conversation eventually -- and inevitably -- led us to the topic of why she never married, and to illustrate the point, she told me a story. "When I was younger," she said, "I was dating a man who told me: 'You're extraordinarily smart, and you're extraordinarily beautiful. You need a man who is either so strong that he can stand up to you, or so weak that you can walk all over him. I'm just a normal man. I'm not the man for you.'"
[20 years later, they met again, and she asked him why he had married his wife. "She made good sandwiches," he said.]
So let's review this. Some presumably drop dead gorgeous woman took all her time gaining status and thought that such status would get her a man. Apparently this "extremely bright" woman never thought to evaluate the fact that in the sexual realm of humans Males display status to attract females. Males display such status in order to convey the ability to protect and provide and that they have good survival genes to pass on to offspring. Not the other way around. Furthermore; generally speaking, males who go after "high status" females, generally use said females resources to attract and impress other lesser status females. Think the guy who drives his girlfriends Benz to the club to pick up women. I cannot tell you the number of times I have heard "high status" women complain about men they "upgraded" who turned around and used that "upgrade" to get "lower status" women.
Furthermore; in this story the "high status" female apparently found some guy "hot enough" to lay with and have a child with. It doesn't surprise me at all because she's "beautiful". And "beauty" ranks no. 1 on every straight male's priority list for females. And please do not listen to these lying men who claim otherwise. Any man who claims otherwise who is not involved with a straight 0 on a 1-10 scale has proven my point.
Now in regards to the comment made by the "high status" woman's male friend in regards to the two types of men she would have to choose from. He is generally correct. I hate to say this, really I do, but I have run into so many well educated women who are downright nasty. They are generally condescending to anyone who they believe has a lesser education than they do, work a lower status job than they do or have lesser income than they do. They have nasty things to say about things that men generally like or like to do be it the music they listen to, games they play (or that they even do so), etc. I'm not saying that these women represent most or even a large percentage of "high status" women, but they are out there and they generally have one of the types of men mentioned in the quote. They either snag a man as high status or higher than she is who is very strong willed and who'll tell her to "shut the fuck up" when she gets "out of pocket". Or she gets a man whom she can manipulate and hen peck. He'll take it 'cause he knows he can't do better. This last part will probably come to a surprise to Ms. Walsh but yeah, men compromise too. Shocking I know...I know some of us actually get past the fantasies of hour glass shaped sex slaves. Shocking I know.
*eye roll*
What I'm sure Ms Walsh and Ms. High Status missed though was the real meaning behind the "sandwiches" comment. I'm going to assume that Walsh and company thought that a sandwich sealed the deal. No it did not. I would put down crispy green cash that rather than having an attitude that he owes her something, this guy's wife actually, gulp, catered to this man. She was probably the first woman who he really liked, to have went out of her way to make the sandwich where previously his girlfriends were on some "What do I look like?" or "what's wrong with your hands" shit. She probably made that sandwich with care and attention. I'll bet she was humming a tune happily too. Probably asked him if he wanted a drink to go with it. She put that joint on a clean tray and gave him a kiss on the cheek. And while he was biting into that sandwich and that feeling of satiation flowed over his body he thought of all the times she treated him well, All the women before her that gave him shit when he asked for a sandwich and perhaps one that got away who did do it for him but he was too dumb to see what he had. He thought about his friends who had been telling him he had struck gold and better "do the right thing" and he said to himself: "you know what I need to tie this up."
But I'm sure this scenario is too hard for Ms. Walsh to understand. So they'll be wondering if it was the Mayo.
Lest you think I'm being to harsh look at Ms. Walsh's next commentary:
So when you say to me, Tracy McMillan, that I have to work around a "man's fear and insecurity in order to get married," I say to you, why aren't you telling me that I should be going out to look for the men who wants a woman like me? (They do exist; some of them are my friends.) Instead of being told I need to medicate my "craziness" to pander to a man's itty-bitty oh-so-witty ego, I want a man who is every bit my match, and is not scared off by that.
Mind you I didn't quite dig McMillan (and others) constant chatter about male "insecurity" because this isn't about security as much as it is about biology. There are certainly "insecure" people out there, but there is a difference between "insecure/ social phobia" and "insecure/ biological drive". However; Walsh has a point. Why doesn't she go for men who are into women like her? Note that she doesn't answer the question. Why not? Why does Ms. Walsh have so many male "friends" who by her accounts are "into her" and is still not married? By her own account they are "secure". So what's the problem? The problem is the same biological human sexuality issue that spans "status". She is probably not attracted to them "like that" and she is probably holding onto some fantasy man that none of those men qualify for. What's that? Yes the dog making noise again. She's all ME-I-ME-I-ME-I.
E-I E-I oooooooooh.
I believe McMillan had a point on that.
The last point that Walsh makes, really pissed me off though. Really:
When are women going to start telling women not to be afraid of raising children by themselves?
It might not be easy for us to be single mothers, but it would surely be workable, just another way of doing things that would have the same balance of happiness, sadness, and hardship as any other life I may choose to live.
I don't do running the man out the family unit. I don't. In African-America, there is, unfortunately a pandemic of children living with one parent. I'm not cool with it. It is not a good thing to have males disconnected from family and child rearing. In the end, such an idea that children should be had without a man is to turn men into simply sperm factories. It is no less objectification than what many feminist speak about in regards to women. What's even worse is that rampant single motherhood contributes to the idea that Walsh began with: not expecting anything from men. What's worse though, is that in reference to my discussion on monogamy, a woman who decides to have a child on her own, immediately drops many potential mates from her pool as a good number of men are unwilling to provide for another man's children. And it is entirely within their right to make such a decision. Of course Walsh does not care about that because it's all about her.
Overall though Walsh missed the entire point of McMillan's piece:
All that I'm trying to say, ladies, is stop trying to frighten me; make me feel empowered. Speak to me like I can make my own decisions, and don't demean the difficulties I may be having finding a guy who I think is worth my time and energy.
The entire point of McMillan's piece was to help people like Ms. Walsh make their own decisions by showing the fucked up thinking processes that are preventing some women who claim to want to be married from doing so. McMillan's piece highlights that some of the difficulties that some women are facing are of their own making. Any mature person would actually understand that. Immature people, and I think Walsh qualifies as one, are always looking to blame other people.
Those men are insecure.
Those men are intimidated by x y or z.
I want a b or c and if I can't have it then I'll take my dildo and go home.
I won't do A B or C in order to get him and it's his fault for expecting that.
Everything for them is the fault of someone or something "out there" instead of focusing on what they have to do to get what they claim they want. If a woman doesn't want to be married that's her business. And really she ought not indulge in "why you're not married" articles because they are not for her. And when someone asks here why she isn't married she should say like I do:
It's a result of choices I have made. And until I make new and different choices my status will likely stay the same. No one else is to blame.
I'll close with a Yoruba proverb that many of us "single and old" people need to take to heart:
Don't let best become the enemy of good.
Posts
