Despite feminism...it's still a man's world

I moved to this small coastal town about 10 years ago, with my 2 children and their father. We moved because I needed the work, as he clearly was never going to be responsible enough to provide for his family (total passive aggressive as I detailed in my post here ). He left me (10 days before Xmas, I might add) in his typical manipulative way, thinking I would totally collapse, and totally need him and prove his total control over me. Needless to say, that didn't happen and all I felt was a deep sense of relief to not have him in my life, draining me.

The sad thing is women don't befriend me easily, married or single. Being a professional single parent is a threat to them. And not from my part, let me tell you! I am not interested in having an affair, or breaking up a family, or dealing with someone who hasn't processed the junk from their previous relationship. And single women are so competitive, competing for the available men, which they see as a resource.

The sadder thing still is the men here! They have no qualms about making a move on a single attractive female, and when turn them down there's this look of utter disbelief. The really sick and twisted thing is that the women who willingly engage in adultery and swinging (yes apparently this does happen here a lot-they should call this Melrose place) seem to fly under the radar. They are accepted in society, because they are doing what the men here expect/want them to! What really affected me, and made me want to post about this, was that a colleague (someone I used to think highly of both professionally and personally) invited me to dinner at his house, while his partner and daughter were away. I can tell you, I'd never get invited to dinner if she were here!

What the men don't like, is an independent woman who does not respond to their offer! They want you to be as corrupt as them, and when they fnd you cant be corrupted, they smear you, denigrate you! They then seek to malign you in some way, as their fragile male ego cannot handle the rejection. So if you have no morals, you're fine; if you have integrity, well watch out!

So for all that we live in an advanced Western world of equal rights and opportunity, it is a world controlled by men, where women are to be seen and not heard. And if they were caught out in an affair, well it would be the other woman's fault. How is this any different to some countries where sexual crimes against girls/women are blamed on the women for being too provocative, wile the perpetrators get away scott free!

Sorry for the rant, but I felt so cheapened by someone I thought of as friend and a colleague, that I just had to get this off my chest.

Arwenn

So for all that we live in an advanced Western world of equal rights and opportunity, it is a world controlled by men

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Statistical evidence regarding property and wealth ownership and access to political power, show this to be true.

Historically one can see that those who have control of a culture's wealth and power also make the rules and set the norms of standards of behaviors,
and will do whatever it takes to retain that control. This is true on a national level and local to small towns, community concerns, and families.
Male dominated hierarchy reigns. Until a significant number of women have equal access to wealth and power not much will/can change.
Given the rise of Psychopathy (who are predominately males) in all areas of cultural control; politics, business, military, religion, media, etc., it is
not likely that we will see much more change in the foreseeable future as we did during the Civil and Women's Rights movements of the sixties.

Sorry to be a pessimist--realist?, but we can continue acting with the knowledge that racist and gender stereotypes are harmful to all humans, male and female,
but at the same time, consider strategic enclosure and not always confront others head-on in no-win situations when avoidance might work better.

Best of luck to you in remaining true to your core values and setting an example for your children in respecting people without gender stereotyping.
shellycheval

In my opinion your view of things is close to the truth. The world and most of its inhabitants are machines controlled by impulses they're unaware of and uninterested in learning about. But, in between the cattle there are genuine people, and in my experience there are enough of them to keep one going - just about. Hang in there. :)

Arwenn said:

The sad thing is women don't befriend me easily, married or single. Being a professional single parent is a threat to them. And not from my part, let me tell you! I am not interested in having an affair, or breaking up a family, or dealing with someone who hasn't processed the junk from their previous relationship. And single women are so competitive, competing for the available men, which they see as a resource.

The sadder thing still is the men here! They have no qualms about making a move on a single attractive female, and when turn them down there's this look of utter disbelief. The really sick and twisted thing is that the women who willingly engage in adultery and swinging (yes apparently this does happen here a lot-they should call this Melrose place) seem to fly under the radar. They are accepted in society, because they are doing what the men here expect/want them to! What really affected me, and made me want to post about this, was that a colleague (someone I used to think highly of both professionally and personally) invited me to dinner at his house, while his partner and daughter were away. I can tell you, I'd never get invited to dinner if she were here!

What the men don't like, is an independent woman who does not respond to their offer! They want you to be as corrupt as them, and when they fnd you cant be corrupted, they smear you, denigrate you! They then seek to malign you in some way, as their fragile male ego cannot handle the rejection. So if you have no morals, you're fine; if you have integrity, well watch out!

So for all that we live in an advanced Western world of equal rights and opportunity, it is a world controlled by men, where women are to be seen and not heard. And if they were caught out in an affair, well it would be the other woman's fault. How is this any different to some countries where sexual crimes against girls/women are blamed on the women for being too provocative, wile the perpetrators get away scott free!

Sorry for the rant, but I felt so cheapened by someone I thought of as friend and a colleague, that I just had to get this off my chest.

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No, its not fair. Yes, its mean and nasty for a man to slander your reputation over the fact nothing happened. If the community you live in is that rife with cheating, this man isn't fooling anybody. The gossips will do what they do whether anything happened or not.



Flourish. Life your life as well as you can, and to heck with them.

It's always been like this, Arwenn. My perception is that the divisory STS weapon of Patriarchy, the dominance of male over female, is THE most effective of all its weapons. The sort of dynamic that has disturbed you, caused a significant emotional response in you, is rife in this density.

But, rather than be tricked into buying into it, remember (I don't intend to be patronising here - it's just how I deal with it) that women are just as capable of acting in the same way as men. This is because, I believe, the two illusory poles of 'woman' and 'man' are just that - illusion.

We are beings programmed to believe that we are split into two very different sub-species. The program specifies that we are opposites - inherent in that is conflict.

It's nonsense.

Hi, Arwenn. What actually picked my interest is the song 'Can't hold us Down' by Christina Aguilera ft Li'l Kim and the video http://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php/topic,5700.2250.html I watched, listened and carefully read the lyrics, and it makes me really sad. And it brought together many conversations with people, I had lately. Let me try to explain.

As we all know, there is a lot violence directed at women in the world today, injustices of all sorts: economical, social and political. And women are angry. And they need to speak up and raise their words. But what we see in the video is the a way to do it? I will honestly say, I find it shocking and sad. Please, understand, I mean no disrespect to you, if you like this song. But, really, is that what women are fighting for? And it all comes to sex. No surprise here. By the way, Christina Aguilera in this video, as well her and Li'l Kim in another video on youtube (it's actually even more telling, osit), look like victims of childhood sexual abuse. I saw the similar mannerisms, the way many sexually abused women, especially when it happened to them in their childhood and/or adolescence and they never really got a chance to process this trauma, dress and talk in other women, who told me their stories of sexual abuse.

As I see it, there are a lot of really good men in the world. Women in general need men's help as protector and defenders of life. We need unity, not division. And seems that for men is even more difficult to overcome their programming, because of their 'privileged' position in our psychopathological society ruled by men and women psychopaths (and maybe, if we pay not so much attention to all that secondary sexual characteristics, we might see that psychopaths are really genderless). That's what they were lead to believe. Instinctively, I think, they know that is not true, and it's generates a lot of anger. Many men expect women to have sex with them, when they want it, regardless. They talk about sex all the time, especially between themselves. It seems like their lives revolve around it. Many women talk between themselves quite openly that they don't need sex as much, and actually can live without it for quite a long time with no problems, but have sex with their husbands to keep them calm. And it's not actually funny, but true. At the same time, it seems to me that most women want closeness, tenderness from men, while most men want to have sex to get orgasm. This sexual practice (not optimal for human beings): i.e. sexual relationship with the orgasm at the end lead to many relationship problems, and not just between men and women, but maybe between women and women, and men with men, osit. The actual mechanism of the orgasm cycle and the brain processes was explained in the Karezza video (sorry, can't find the thread), and relationship issues associated with this were discussed in many threads as for example in "Cupid's Poisoned Arrow" thread http://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php/topic,21030.0.html and in "The hidden factor in relationship disharmony" http://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php/topic,20835.msg438241.html#msg438241

I shared this information with other people via e-mail, without saying anything about it. Men think it's kinky or too out there. Imagine that! Women think that quarreling and making up via sex, it's passion which proves to them that their man love them. I couldn't find one person who would be responsive to this information.

So, I do think that as the topic of psychopathology and ponerology is of outmost importance, the topic of sexual practices as Karezza needs to be talked about more and discussed a lot. How to explain it, so people will be receptive to the idea, not just dismiss it outright, I don't really know. The topic of good diet (and detox), trauma processing and release, body work and so on all connect to this. Maybe then people will be perceptive to this idea through arts, or/and it will come just naturally?

That's my thoughts on this topic.

I feel sorry for what has happened to you and hope things will work out quickly. In this world, it is more difficult to be a woman than a man.

However, i guess something is missing here. I find that your post lacks economic and social considerations. There is only a sexual division. It looks men and women could be studied monolithically. That is not the case. It is misleading to think of women or men as a single unified group. Discussing the “woman condition” in the world is like discussing the “man condition” in the world. First of all we must know what woman or what man we’re talking about, and the condition of a person primarily proceeds from his/her social conditions. Women are not a homogeneous social group, nor are men (but the latter seem to be well aware of it, and only gays consider themselves a homogeneous social group, which they are obviously not). A more relevant analysis grid is the social class analysis (working class, middle class or bourgeoisie, upper class, upper upper class, (parasitic) aristocracy…).

Arwenn said:

What really affected me, and made me want to post about this, was that a colleague (someone I used to think highly of both professionally and personally) invited me to dinner at his house, while his partner and daughter were away. I can tell you, I'd never get invited to dinner if she were here!

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This sad thing has happened to you has happened among working/middle class members. The solution against sexual harassment is full employment because if a woman who is not respected could just slap someone in the face and find another job, then fine. Who is responsible for the current joblessness rate ? The answer is “the aristocracy (made of men and women)”, or “the oligarchy (same)”, not especially “men” as a monolithic group.

Arwenn said:

And single women are so competitive, competing for the available men, which they see as a resource.
They are accepted in society, because they are doing what the men here expect/want them to

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This is not true among the haves where women are accepted because they have money. And if you ever get to sneak in a “rich club”, you will notice that nothing else matters. It is not a matter of race, religion or birth. It is a matter of your financial weight.
I acknowledge that men can be seen as resources. Generally speaking, the attractivity of a woman arises from her beauty, and the attractivity of a man arises from his social status.

Arwenn said:

The sad thing is women don't befriend me easily, married or single. Being a professional single parent is a threat to them.

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You have raised an interesting topic. Isn’t misogyny mainly feminine ? I ask the question because in all the companies I’ve been working for, I’ve witnessed feminine misogyny and hardly any masculine one.

Arwenn said:

So for all that we live in an advanced Western world of equal rights and opportunity, it is a world controlled by men, where women are to be seen and not heard.

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Once again, it is not a matter of sex but a matter of money, social class and social class struggle. For example, what would Blythe Masters (JP Morgan's main trader, who has created the top infamous credit default swaps) think of your remark ? Or Angela Merkel, Hilary Clinton, Condoliza Rice, queen Elisabeth…
There comes the swindling of parity, equal number of men and women in the parliaments. Who shall these women be ? The wives of the men in power. If a worker is exploited by a man or by his wife, then what is the difference ?

This is the link with feminism. It is born in the Western world, where women are most respected. In France it has not been created by women but by a man called Leon Richier, who has written the “women’s rights” in 1869 and lead the first feminist congress in 1878. To make it short, feminism does not help women at all. It regards maternity as alienation and work as freedom. Feminism has never demanded maternity income (which I support) but has “liberated” women by putting them to work and thus validating the double-day of so many women. Who is the winner ? The aristocraty. Have feminists contributed to your current situation ?

With this post, my aim is absolutely not to deny your suffering. Again, I believe that it is more difficult to be a woman than a man. I’ve just found misleading to put all men and women in the same bag and to consider feminism helpful for women.