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[Max White]

Hey Vector, whats up?

[GlyphGryph]

On enthusiastic consent:
I think you may have a fundamental misunderstanding of what we're talking about. This is confusing, since there's a whole damned article about it behind that link.

On stay-at-home:
I know a couple stay-at-home dads, though not as many as moms. I don't know any woman that stays at home without kids though. I think modern society has pretty much obliterated the "one half of a couple gets to stay at home and do housework and cooking" type dealio, sans kids, pretty effectively.

In my own relationship, we'd certainly like to do that - my wife enjoys working, I don't. But either of us working is not really an option, and I make a lot more money than she does, so me especially not working isn't an option. I wish she could make more money so we could really consider it, but it's not in the cards for either of us to stop working, at least until we have kids (and then, yes, at that point we're hoping she's making enough that I can stay home to take care of them).

[Leafsnail]

I actually can't think of a single "stay at home" mother I know.  Generally at most they take a few years off working to look after children, then have to go back for financial reasons because one income isn't usually enough to support a family.

[Reelya]

Oh, hey, in case anyone was wondering about that question--would you rather stay home with the kids and be on call to do housework 24/7 or be a salaried man who comes home and, should he stop working his 40 hours a week, loses the submission of his wife and sexual access to her: I'd much rather be a man.

You may be overestimating the percentage of wives that are "submissive". And the sex thing, is just as much about female power to manipulate the male as it is the reverse, unless you're saying the majority of males are rapists who will literally pry their ladies' legs apart by force. It's supply and demand - guys want it, the girls have it, so the guy will jump through hoops to get it. The girls are clearly smart enough to definitely be onto this.

Lots of guys work long hours because they have domestic problems. I for one, had a relationship where i preferred the time at work to the time at home, less stress. And my work at the time was dealing with constant customer complaints for an extremely large and unpopular telco.

[Vector]

If we were married, DJ, it might well be an option.  I don't want to fucking stay home.  You stay home and make sure you're looking handsome when I get back, offer me dinner, clean up my messes without ever being able to tell me to do simple stuff that would make your life easier, mend my clothes, shine my shoes, raise my children so I don't have to think about them, and leave alone my "woman cave" so that I've got privacy.  Oh, and we have sex when I want to, and you have to beg off.  And I'll leverage the fact that I make money and you don't whenever I feel like it, so that you constantly feel beholden to me and belittled.

(Somewhat based on what's seen in my own little family, of course My mom is a stay-at-home mother, because she's pretty much too disabled and uneducated to get anything above minimum wage)

Let's see, financial and reproductive freedom, not constantly hearing rape jokes as an immediate threat to my own integrity, not being literally greeted to college with reference to rape rates, being the majority in my major of choice, having my opinion be the "objective" "unbiased" opinion, not being told to man up.  Seeing myself in a wide variety of roles, with a wide variety of body types, being the hero, being the scientist, being the rationalist, and being able to quiet another half of the population with a wink at hysteria or irrationality or any of those other dog whistles that remind us that "hey, you, you're a little bit less important than I am."  I'll take the kudos if I feel like helping out with the kids, rather than having it seen as my primary responsibility and the main reason for my existence.  I'll take having it called "babysitting" and the inevitable compliments for being "soooo helpful."  I'll take clothes that fit with little fuss and being the default gender, the assumed subject of discussion.  I'll take being seen as a responsible go-getter, the one who knows how to work a job, the one whose salary is earned (not with sexual attraction but with aggressive rhetoric) and the one who gets to be in charge.  I'll take being the brilliant inventor, the genius, the creative force, the creator of "seminal" works and author of "muscular" prose.

I want to exist!  I don't want to disappear.

To be the sacrificial lamb in a country that glorifies self-sacrifice and denigrates those who stay home?  Yes, I'll take it.  To be mutilated once at birth and never again, to live without the demand for my own starvation and endless bodily self-sacrifice until I disappear from the scene when I'm no longer fuckable or a mommy--yes, I'll take it.  What's a couple more years living, for the privilege of being visible for your entire life? 

None of this bullshit about getting doors opened for me and how it's such a huge fucking privilege.  I'm a woman.  I persistently hold the door for my date.

I fucking HATE being a woman.  I have always hated being a woman.  It's not that I'm transgendered or whatever.  But this deal is especially bad for me, who I am, whatever.  I know women who are happy with their lot, because they honestly want to get married and have lots of babies and be chaste until the wedding.  But I'm. . . not.

And I know men who want to coordinate color swatches and be submissive and have access to their feelings (whereas I, for most of my life, have been accused of being stone-cold--and for a man, would probably only be seen as slightly too emotional and temperamental), and this isn't fair to them, either.

But there is something that is the truth: help women out of their position and you will help men out of theirs.  If we no longer see everything feminine as bad (yet still an ideal to which a woman must cleave), then men will receive more flexibility.

Lots of guys work long hours because they have domestic problems. I for one, had a relationship where i preferred the time at work to the time at home, less stress. And my work at the time was dealing with constant customer complaints for an extremely large and unpopular telco.

And you control the amount of time together, because your workplace isn't the home.  This sort of thing is what I envy.  Housewives don't have the option of working longer hours to keep away.

It's supply and demand - guys want it, the girls have it, so the guy will jump through hoops to get it. The girls are clearly smart enough to definitely be onto this.

As men are about the fact that they're wage earners.  But I think part of the problem here is that the feminine illusion constitutes always being pleasing and happy, whereas the male illusion constitutes always being in charge.  So you don't hear about the daily grind for women--and it is truly a daily grind, not the pleasure-fest women necessarily pretend it is.  It's fucking hard work.  And we don't hear about male weakness, and male submission.

You know, there's a reason why we have a saying: "beauty is pain."

[Glowcat]

Hey Vector, whats up?

Apparently she's finally exploding at this thread's bullshit in the nicest possible way.

[moocowmoo]

If only empathy were not such a scarce resource. You can clearly see, people are starved for it. The intellect becomes a weapon, and it cuts more deep than any tooth or claw.

[Neonivek]

I'm pretty confident women have always had it worse than men

Well the answer to this is a resounding.... No actually.

There have been pockets of "Women actually had it pretty good" throughout history. Some are in theory such as Minoan Crete and others are in a few of the First Nations in Canada and the United states where Women either had as much power or more power then males.

In fact one of the reason why some of the First Nations went from a matriarchal society to a patriarchal today is because the soon to be Canadians forced them to adopt it.

---

Also Max White

You should have been here earlier in the thread when I was discussing how a lot of the people were treating Equality like it was some sort of conquest... Like only one sex could win equality.

[Lysabild]

I'd rather sit at home and be the submissive one than be blown to death in a trench, or have my guts cut out with a nicked and almost blunt bronzesword after hours of fighting. I think I'd prefer not being able to vote, to being sat on a ship as a shipmate, where I'll most likely die of sickness or directly from hard labour after which I'll just be thrown overboard.

I won't ever accept for a second that women had it 'worse' through history, it's true that the culture that the Romans and Greeks put in place across Europe was misogynistic. (The Celtic cultures for an example, had many female leaders and the Germanic tribes had a very clear split between domains, with women often ruling the homes and men voting at the gatherings.)

But the ladder of priviledges have always been with the man being of less importance until you reach the very top of society.

So a peasant woman was definitely more lucky than a peasant man, even though a princess often risked a terrible life at the whims of a horrible king.

On the actual subject, I can't take the topic seriously for a second, but it's nothing new that feminists want to control everything to fit their narrow and unsupported world views.

[Vector]

If we're back to the death statistics, more women have died in childbirth than men in all wars combined.

Bearing children is not for the weak-willed, nor those unprepared to face their deaths.  We need to remember that.  Our culture gilds and softens the image of the pure madonna, but birth is a bloody, violent business.  Being protected from war usually doesn't mean that you're being freed from visceral, gut-destroying horror; it means, rather, that you're being saved for a particular kind of hell.

What did you think Alien was about?

This isn't to make light of war, nor of the draft, nor of the penance demanded from men in blood--in an earlier time, I would not be able to say I had a preference, as both modes of living would terrify me.  But we're in an era where peaceful living is possible, but one sex's blood struggle is being elided, softened, and warmed over in a maternal glow.  I object to this notion.

[Glowcat]

There's also the fact that a woman who dies in childbirth is simply a tragedy that few care to remember, whereas a man who dies in war is a hero. Soldiers receive honor and respect from their role. They receive the chance to earn power whether that is in income or opportunities for social advancement. Even those who are pressed into service are given more respect and freedom than a woman taken into servitude. There's definitely a few issues that arise from men being valued for their upper body strength when combined with issues of classism, but personal preferences have nothing to do with which gender has more power and opportunities for power in society.

There were men who died on the field of battle, yes, but wars weren't only fought on the field and if the enemy was victorious women were hardly unscathed. And unlike men their agency was stripped, their stories ignored, and their lives forgotten. Some people idealize becoming soldiers, nobody idealizes becoming a civilian casualty.

[Lysabild]

If we're back to the death statistics, more women have died in childbirth than men in all wars combined.

I don't believe you can honestly compare them, one is a necessity for our species to exist, the other is humankind being immature.

Bearing children is not for the weak-willed, nor those unprepared to face their deaths.  We need to remember that.  Our culture gilds and softens the image of the pure madonna, but birth is a bloody, violent business.  Being protected from war usually doesn't mean that you're being freed from visceral, gut-destroying horror; it means, rather, that you're being saved for a particular kind of hell.

This is partly true, but it's not something you can blame on anyone, it's not a cultural decision that women give birth. If it was up to culture, I think many men would be more than willing to ease the pain of those they love.

What did you think Alien was about?

Didn't watch it.

This isn't to make light of war, nor of the draft, nor of the penance demanded from men in blood--in an earlier time, I would not be able to say I had a preference, as both modes of living would terrify me.  But we're in an era where peaceful living is possible, but one sex's blood struggle is being elided, softened, and warmed over in a maternal glow.  I object to this notion.

I don't really agree this is happening, I'm painfully well aware that my mother almost died giving birth to me, and I saw her weakness after my sister was born, I've also known enough other mothers to know it's a horrible, but important, thing.

Again, I would rather be a woman on this point, because giving birth is an actually important biological thing and it easily has the most beautiful end result. There is no good ending to war, and you die for more or less nothing.

There's also the fact that a woman who dies in childbirth is simply a tragedy that few care to remember, whereas a man who dies in war is a hero. Soldiers receive honor and respect from their role. They receive the chance to earn power whether that is in income or opportunities for social advancement. Even those who are pressed into service are given more respect and freedom than a woman taken into servitude. There's definitely a few issues that arise from men being valued for their upper body strength when combined with issues of classism, but personal preferences have nothing to do with which gender has more power and opportunities for power in society.

I never heard of a lowly conscript making it very far up in the military, from all the history I've studied. And I don't know how much respect is being shown when you put people in the front to die for you. I'd call that a very shallow respect. And which women were taken into servitude here? I don't get where that one came from, because women haven't been slaves in Western Europe for about a thousand years, and neither has men.

There were men who died on the field of battle, yes, but wars weren't only fought on the field and if the enemy was victorious women were hardly unscathed. And unlike men their agency was stripped, their stories ignored, and their lives forgotten. Some people idealize becoming soldiers, nobody idealizes becoming a civilian casualty.

Civilians weren't just women, it wasn't the women who was wiped out and forgotten, it was the whole of the losing part. And the fact that culture glorifies soldiers is just that bit more horrific, it means every man who isn't up for getting gutted and having his limbs blown off isn't a real man.

[Vector]

True story: my grandfather actually nearly died from not being conscripted during WWII.  He was severely physically disabled, in a country where only "men who weren't men" were on the streets, so he left for Mexico and contracted some sort of horrible disease.  He told his friend: "It'll be hard to ship my body home.  Put me on the train so they'll be stuck with my corpse."

Anyway, he wound up alive, but yes, I understand--our culture kills men.


But the truth is, because the tacit conscription of women is necessary for the continuation for the species, the woman disappears as soon as she becomes a mother.  It's not a childbirth so much as a molting.  What's inside starts mattering a lot more than the outside; a pregnant woman's body is treated as communal property for the sake of the child it's holding.

I have trouble with this, as well.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

What did you think Alien was about?

* MetalSlimeHunt, Resonant Film Critic appears.

Technically speaking, Alien is not about childbirth specifically. The Xenomorph is meant to be a disturbing shadow of human behavior, somewhat familiar but also alien. While Chestbursters are certainly representative of this "shadow childbirth", there are many such parallels. The adult Xenomorph, for example, brutally kills the crew...without any good reason. It can easily escape them and it doesn't eat them. It's homicidal urges are apparently passionless and reasonless, making it all the more terrifying despite human propensity for violence. Humans kill people, but there is reason and emotion behind these actions that the Xenomorph lacks. The unknown of its motivation for familiar actions is what makes it scary.

[penguinofhonor]

* MetalSlimeHunt, Resonant Film Critic appears.

1. Holy fuck, the forums have a /me command. This isn't just MSH typing that out with red font color.
2. Don't you mean "Resident Film Critic"? I mean I guess you could have very good sound reflection qualities.