Pat, Pat, Pat…. you do not know anything of history?  Two generations only??? Men have always walked away from their children,. and no one called them on it.  So you got a girl in trouble… That is something to brag about… Historically no penalty was attached for having children out of wedlock, and if you took responsibility for them or not was just your individual decision. You did it if you felt like it. If not, you got a fried to say that he too had relations with the girl, and walked away. 

It was the woman who was always punished, brutally, to the point of murder, never the man.  Now after two generations, well, women can walk away too.  Not pretty, but better than being murdered or otherwise brutalized.

If that nun who prays at abortion mills were to pray at the site of a Magdalene laundry and beg forgiveness in name of the Church, then we might have something - at least the acknowledgment, as they say in Spanish, that from that dust come this mud.

Can you say hypocrisy, boys and girls?

So the nun shouldn’t pray at the abortion mill?

@adrianna:  you don’t get it at ALL.  “walk away too” <- this is what you call the killing of an innocent?  in days gone by, children were put up for adoption and a loving family who otherwise couldn’t was blessed with a child - today, children die.

From the sinking Italian cruises ship to the Magdalene Laundrys in one post… really???

@Matthew on Wednesday, Jan 18, 2012 10:45 AM (EST):From the sinking Italian cruises ship to the Magdalene Laundrys in one post… really???
...because men have abandoned God’s Justice and become LIARS, weasels, cowards and criminals, denying their responsibility, and if not their responsibility, then the love of man and human life.

Sherry;  She should not pretend that the Church is blameless and that all the fault is on the other side.  She should pray there, but also pray at the other site, because both are tied up. From that dust came this mud.  Refusal to acknowledge its own dust leads to believe that the mud is all someone else’s fault.

Nelson:  Who was it that taught women that their unborn babies were their enemy?  Who was it that when Irish girls chose life and carried their babies to turn locked them up in gulags?  Own your own sins before you bemoan others’

“Who was it that taught women that their unborn babies were their enemy?” 
Um… I’m going to say…. the feminists.  I could be wrong.
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Back to the article….  for years, feminists have been insisting that women don’t need men.  Pssst. I think the men heard.  Yeah, they heard and they behaved accordingly.  “Don’t need us? Fine. No need to go to college so I can get a good job and support a family some day. (more women than men enroll in, and graduate college these days)  Fine, no need to seek out a virtuous woman, I can have my fun with these women who are willing - and then I’ll complain that she’s trying to trap me into paying for any resulting kids…. because she’s supposed to be responsible and prevent pregnancy… she has her freedom and anyway, she makes more money than me anyway. “
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so congratulations feminists - you got the men you asked for….
Now what’s a virtuous girl like me supposed to do?  I guess I’ll allow the world to think that I put my career ahead of everything else when really, I was just trying to make a living until I met the right man. (or any good man).  And I’ll listen to my relatives supposing I’ll “settle down” one day ... um, I’m 41 and I own a home - I think I’m settled!!!!

“Now after two generations, well, women can walk away too.”

Progressive utopia.

So, men have always been murderous scum, but now we have justice, because women can be murderous scum too? I don’t see how that’s better…

Maybe the justice lies in writing off the entire history of men as murderous scum.

I think the outrage over the captain abandoning ship is in part due to the fact that it took priority over the “women & children first” idea.

Not that I found that “women & children first” get tossed out the window particularly surprising…

Given the decades of feminist dedication to insisting that men & women are the same (except that girls are better & boys are degenerate scum), my thought when I first heard complaints about “why didn’t men let women go first?” was “Welcome to ‘equality’...”.

Mike:  Since when have men needed feminists to abandon the women they seduced, and the children that resulted?

TRS and Adrianna, I couldn’t agree more.

I feel like its not just the dawning of Women’s Lib that brought about this change. I think they just wanted equality. But, what they didn’t understand is that, even we are capable of taking care of ourselves, we aren’t capable of making ourselves loved in someone else’s eyes. Men used to see a woman’s worth. He would never question that. Now, all he sees is her net worth, or lack thereof if it’s not sufficient. Children aren’t seen as blessings anymore, either, unless a married couple plans for a child. I’m 32 with 5 children and I live with my children’s father. We are not married. I want to get married, but he doesn’t understand why it’s so important to me. This is what we’ve become people. When women started trying to out do men, men quit caring and so did some women. Now, we’re left with a world full of abandon ship captains and loose, but equal, women, and mistakes for children.

I understand the point of this article. Radical Feminism has created a society of men to be worthless and has taught them to walk away from responsibility and to be lazy. I agree. This also has destroyed the family. Radical Feminism sucks! No pics of decomposed, disassembled preborn babies no fuss; Out of sight-out of mind.

It has also taught women to act as objects. A woman has casual sex with a man, which she does not know, and expects him to have character? Casual sex in itself is a non-characteristic act.

Screw a stranger and expect him to own up to any form of responsibility is ridiculous.

{Men, screw a stranger and expect her to have character enough to give you the option to keep your baby? Nope.}

Stop screwing like we are animals may alleviate some of the suffering. Secular society has sadly taught us to treat each other as objects. Therefore, the babies too. :( 

@TRS If I could click ‘like’ I would. :) 

Radical feminism/man-hating is the enemy. Not men. I can relate to some people’s mindset as I was raised to think women superior and men, well, ‘they don’t matter and we don’t need them’. I and my superiority complex were wrong. This world needs to produce respectable men & woman & hopefully it is time that we all came together to make goal. Peace to you.

Men do what women accept.  A woman who has five kids with a man who WON’T marry her should look in the mirror for blame.  Feminists unfortunately got their message out to men not to act like men, and brainwashed enough women to support that idea.  Result?  Very few MEN left.  Lots of little boys with sexually mature bodies, but very few MEN.  In my experience, MEN come from families that actively fight feminist ideology and usually practice traditional religion.

My last comment was written in response to other comments, not to the article itself. Now I would like to respond to the article.
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Certainly men deserve their fair share of blame for the tragedy of abortion. One can enumerate a variety of ways men deserve this blame. There is the failure of many men, myself included, to mount resistance to the abortion industry, laws, and culture. There are the men who in various ways pressure their girlfriends, daughters, sisters, and friends to get abortions, or who fail to support these women in choosing life. These are ways that come immediately to mind, I’m sure we can think of more.
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However, when Pat writes, “Millions of men behave just like this [captain] every year and millions of human beings have died each year as a consequence,” I perceive that he is laying the entire blame for all these abortions on the shoulders of men. If this is only a misunderstanding on my part, then the rest of my comment should be ignored. However Pat does not help one understand just how far his blame goes.
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Our society is incoherent. We operate by two sets of rules. We have one foot in the old world, and the other foot in the new. In whatever problem we face, we tend to use the rules that put women at an advantage. So when it comes to the distribution of civic power, we use the new world rules that grant women equality. But when it comes to the distribution of civic responsibility, we fall back on the old world rules and hold men more accountable, sometimes dramatically more accountable, than women. My own position is that I am happy to abide by whatever set of rules women themselves prefer, since they are the ones who demanded change in the first place. It’s just that I want to abide by one, and only one, set of rules.
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So under the new world rules, we speak of women as moral agents capable of making intelligent, responsible, and free choices - just like men. Any suggestion that men are superior to women here or elsewhere is considered a shameful and anachronistic display of male chauvinism. Yet when we turn the situation around and find a woman who has made a choice we consider evil - in this case an abortion - we instantly, and without reflection, revert to the old world rules, and assign only as much blame to her as we believe she can handle without breaking. For the rest we look for the nearest identifiable man in her life, such as her boyfriend, and assign the rest of the blame to him, because we assume that he as a man can handle it without breaking (or maybe breaking him is not a problem for us). If we can identify no such man we blame men in general, which seems to be what Pat, Adriana, and Mary De Voe are doing on this web page (my apologies in advance if this is not a fair reading of the situation). This is not consistent with the new world rules which gave women the power to abort in the first place. Under the new world rules the pressuring boyfriend indeed deserves blame, even a lot of blame, for his behavior, but the woman deserves at least as much. They are moral equals under the new paradigm: as it is cowardly for him to walk away from his new responsibility, so it is just as cowardly for her to walk away from hers.
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There is of course a larger context. In the new world, women share civic power with men. In fact, from my position as a man, it seems that women as women have greater civic power - that is, greater consciousness, greater unity, and a greater voice - than men do as men. In other words the academy, the government, the law, and the culture are all more or less dominated by feminism, whose willingness and capacity to give men a voice are, at a minimum, questionable. There is also a palpable sense of misandry in the culture, expressed in some of the comments here and exacerbated by some unfounded anti-male propaganda in recent decades, that puts us men at a further disadvantage. Whether one agrees with this appraisal, it seems clear that women have a degree of civic power that is fairly commensurate with that of men. In that case, and if we are operating by the logic of what I keep calling the ‘new world’, the responsibility of women for the abortion situation is roughly commensurate with that of men. If we are operating under the logic of the old world, however, and we cannot blame women very much for their choices because we don’t think they can handle it, then we must take issue with a system that gives them a level of power for which we cannot then hold them accountable.
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In summary, you cannot say, women are strong, so let’s give them power, while also saying, women are weak, so don’t you dare blame them.
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I’m sorry if it’s hard to place the relevance of my comment to the larger discussion, but it seemed necessary to put the discussion back on balance, since Pat has framed the topic in a way that puts men on the defensive and women on the offensive. This mirrors the larger social discourse about the relationship between the sexes. Consider this, then, an affirmative action-style addition to the comment box.

Sallyann, despite my shock at being associated with Adriana—- I agree that the ‘feminist’ movement has deteriorated respect for women.  I know that wasn’t their intent… but it wasn’t that hard to see that it would happen that way.

Meanwhile, I don’t mean to bash men. Women allowed and encourage them to become that way.
There are men who are virtuous and upstanding… but they’re married and I’m not willing to break up a marriage to have one.  I just want the single men that are still out there to realize there are women who respect men - and want the traditional life, willing to love and support them and be a true partner.
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Please, let’s get these men to church so I can meet them!

The most interesting thing about this article is that the focus is entirely on men, even tho’ the issue being discussed is actually women’s bodies.
It has confirmed my suspicions that men who are opposed to abortion aren’t considering women at all; they are not seriously considering what it might be like desperate. And in that desperation, to have to consider the knitting needles. Or the gin and stairs.

Also, a few generations ago, there were orphanages full of abandoned illigitimate children, most of whom were never adopted.

Pat, you sound like an old man shouting at the kids to get off the lawn.  What is your solution, you’ve defined the problem.  Outlaw abortion? Fine.  Outlaw contraception?  Fine.  Prohibition worked so well with alcohol, lets do it with reproductive freedom.

You want abortion and contraception outlawed so that leaves celebacy.

What percent of people can remain celebate?  I wonder what percent of priests are?  It is less than 100. Nun’s probably a much higher percentage. Just a guess on my part there though. 

Republicans, when in power, need to keep abortion legal so they can rally the troups to hate democrats.  Reagan did it, Bush did it, Santorum will do it.  Sorry, that is the only way the republicans can have any power, fear.

Funny.  I read the whole thing as respect for women.  Respect for all life. 
That sometimes you sacrifice to do the right thing.
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You know what? I knew from a very young age that I wanted to have a family. And that I didn’t want to have children without a husband.  so after a couple false starts, I realized that not every man I dated felt as I did… they weren’t marriage-minded.  One even asked, after noting that there was no birth control in my purse or my makeup bag, where it was.  He was not open to life.  That’s when I decided the next man I would sleep with was going to be my husband…. and I’ve been abstinent ever since.
That was 1997.
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Yeah, it’s lonely… and sometimes I feel like I wasted a lot of good years.  I’ve most likely burned through my fertile years and THAT really sucks (I don’t like using that word, but it’s SO appropriate for my situation!). But it’s also not that hard to be honorable.

But, in the end, I took responsibility - that I knew what was acceptable to me and the Lord.
I pray my reward is in heaven because it sure isn’t here.

The Sinking Ship.  I thought it was a metaphor for the bishops and their handling of the priest pederasty scandal!

I thought it was a metaphor for society.

The women have got to stop giving it up BEFORE LOCKING DOWN A MARRIAGE!

Else the man can easily go looking for the next sexual escapade when he tires of this one.

Absolutely correct.  Why would anyone be surprised that this man places no or little value on the sanctity and dignity of the human person? 

The world culture, and much more precisely the athiesitic socialist secular culture of the world, has been indoctrinating multiple successive generations of government schooled children into a culture of death.

A culture where value of the life of the human person is quantified and qualified on the basis of the needs and wants of some other oppressing entity (i.e. the state or the mother).

In that culture…that dispicable culture…why should this man be punished for determining their lives meant little or nothing to him?  He didn’t need them and he didn’t want them and, if the state needed or wanted them, let the state save them.

Nice connection Pat.

Sure, it if feminism fault that women look upon their children as they enemy.  Because before feminism an unwed pregntant women did not have to fear

Being murdered by her family to wash off their dishornor.

Being kicked out into the street.

Being confined to a brutal prison.

Or being tured into a prostitute as her only way to survive.

Being treated as a commodity by the same men who made a point of being respectful to the ones who had not “fallen”

Pleasant was the life of a “fallen woman” before feminism, and thus they had no reason to think that the baby that doomed them to either death or a horrible existence was their enemy.

Thanks for the enlightening history lesson.

You illustrate a great point Pat.  I think a few people went a bit overboard in their analysis of your piece. 

Your use of the voice of the general fun loving moral-relativist liberal gets the point across with the right amount of irony.

There is a double standard in our society. How fitting that you wrote the piece today as millions look towards the annual Walk for Life in their neighborhoods!

thanks,

Ed

Update:  He tripped and fell into a lifeboat. It’s not his fault. (sacrasm)

@Adriana:  I agree with you about history.  So often we forget it.  So easily we who want more virtue in the world want to idolize the past when virtue was often enforced through violence: implied, or actual.
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I disagree with what I read as your implication that women are justified in walking away through abortion.  Understandable?  Perhaps.  AS an unwed mother in somewhat difficult circumstances I achingly knew the desire to have it all go away.  I also knew, and cannot forget now, how good I had it.  I had a lot of other options, and help.  Not all women do.  Anyway, some individual cases of abortion are more easily understood than others.  Only the Lord can know how culpable each person is for his or her own sin.
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Anyway, Pat, I think you have done a magnificent job of linking this story not only to the sin of walking away from responsibility that some fathers commit, but the human pattern of having to contend with unintended consequences and wanting to choose what is “fair” over what is Right.

@TRS:  The first feminists did not want abortion.  They wanted women to have full participation in the direction of the human civilization:  They wanted women to be treated as full human beings, not property, and get the right to be believed in court and the right to vote.  When you demean feminism, be careful.  The fact that later generations of women thought that birth control was one solution to their oppression, to their being constantly under the arm of one man or another, can be understood if you think about it.  They were wrong, of course.  But abortion serves the needs of selfish men just as much as it does women.  It didn’t take long for men to see the advantages they would get from the lifting of societal punishment for female sexual freedom.

Corita;  I do not justify it, just say that those who bemoan abortions forget the part they played into making it a sensible option.  Those who idealize a past when women were terrorized into chastity should be able to recognize their handiwork when now there is a hardwired reaction to an unwanted pregnancy “get rid of it before it becomes the death of you”.  It is not justified, but it is a logical consequence, and must be seen as thus.

Did you hear about the chaplain on the boat? Now that makes an interesting comparison - I have written on my blog about it, and also about the HMS Birkenhead where the protocol of women and children first cam from.

http://sjsa.wordpress.com/2012/01/18/the-captain-and-the-chaplain/

@Adriana,
I gotcha.  And I agree with you that there is a kind of blindness when you idealize a past of women’s virtue.  Men and women both have lost many virtues in today’s world—but then again human sin is no worse than it has ever been.  Looking at a past that was only there for a privileged few—and only within great constraints—is as foolish as saying virtue is meaningless.  Both erase the truth of sin and redemption.

I think this was a fantastic post. I have only two comments:
First, I hardly know any men who really take on the role of protector and provider in the family. I know many more men who see relationships and marriage as a way to provide THEM with something while they pursue their self-centered goals, and children are a nice extra but if push comes to shove, it’s not the man who will sacrifice. Ironically these same men often whine about not being respected and obeyed as the head of the family; they want the respect and freedom but not the sacrifice. Second, I am weary of the feminist movement (read: women) being blamed for men’s failure to be men. I am NOT a feminist by any stretch, but this sort of blame is just another way for men to shirk responsibility for their own choices. I don’t think the feminist movement arose because women did not need or want men’s help and protection. I think more likely it was because they were not GETTING this protection and support, and therefore they had to strike out on their own. At that point, aman holding a door for a woman doesn’t mean much more than an opportunity for the man to make an empty public display.

Missy: What do we care whether you need our help and protection?

Dustin, of course.  You do not care, you do not offer.  You just want the privileges of being male.

Missy, the reason was not so much that women were not getting protection and support but a) that it came with a price tag that many found intolerable, like the right of a man to beat a “disobedient” wife, the right of a man to control the wealth, even the one she brought in, and the right of a man to deny her access to her children. Plus the right of a man to keep as many mistresses as he wanted with the woman not being able to object.  and b) when the man did not provide that protection and support, there was no appeal, no help whatsoever. It was her lot in life to suffer, and suffer, and suffer. Jesus wanted her to suffer, she was told, because she was an inferior creature.

So, protection adn support that were not guaranteed, and paid for in toleracne for male infidelity, being kept ignorant, being patronized, being called “lesser”, and even being beaten in the bargain.  Of course womend did not like it.

I guess I’m going to need to explain my last comment further if I don’t want it to lead to a useless argument.
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Look, I feel like women - and men - and society - are all constantly changing their tune about what they want us men to do. It’s very, very confusing to be a man today. At least I find that it is. Pat’s article is perplexing. The commentary, lamenting the loss of good men, is perplexing.
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Let me explain further. I’m twenty six years old. By the time I entered my early twenties I was what I now would call a radical feminist (as I’m beginning to think that even mainline feminism is radical in its contempt for human nature and the mutual interdependence of the sexes). In other words, I came to my young adult life with the expectation that the sexes should treat each other more or less the same way. Since I’ve never read a feminist book, I absorbed these ideas somewhere else. I can’t name that ‘somewhere else’ from my memory - likely culprits are the schools I attended, the television shows I watched, the women I met growing up. I feared oppressing women. I wanted to make sure I didn’t do anything that would oppress them. The last thing I wanted to do was hurt women.
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Think about that. I’m a protector by nature. That’s not something abstract to me, it’s something I understand from my daily experience of life. The way to strike at the heart of a protector is to tell him that he’s actually the danger from whom you must protect yourself. We men don’t know what it’s like to be women, so what we have to guide us is simply what women tell us about themselves. In general, if women are nearly shrieking to us that we’ve damaged their hearts, guess what? We’re going to stop doing whatever it is they say is damaging their hearts. What happens when women say that men’s traditional role in family and society is hurting them?
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For any woman who’s skeptical I propose an experiment. Pick a man you know fairly well, a family member, your significant other, a friend, or a colleague. Someone who cares about you at least a little. Now do your worst: the next time you see him, really act like he’s a danger to you. Watch what happens. Is this basically what has been happening on a mass scale for the last sixty years?
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Anyway, I didn’t want to hold on to any privilege or advantage that would keep women down. I wanted women to have everything I could have as a man. I had no desire to be a patriarchal oppressor and I wanted women to know it: “See? My heart is good! I’m not bad. You don’t have to hate me.” I just assumed that women, whom I must have thought were omniscient and omnibenevolent, were going to give me a fair deal, and grant me equality as well. Seems equality only went so far for them.
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All the while I was a radical feminist on the outside, I was a deeply traditional, marriage-minded man on the inside. I wanted to be the man in my marriage. Yes, I wanted to be the head of the household. I wanted the ‘buck’ to ‘stop here’ - to take ultimate responsibility for the welfare of my family - to be accountable to God for my family, and to hide my wife behind me from His judgment - “no matter what, honey, you don’t have to answer for this, I’ll take the heat even if it sends me to Hell”. I wanted a woman to protect, one who would warm my family with her heart. I wanted children to father in a stable, safe, enduring home - I wanted to be the guarantor of this safety and stability. In short I think I wanted to be what Missy says today’s men aren’t. I didn’t want it because I was special or somehow different from other men. I wanted it simply because I am a man. Period.
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On rare occasions I took these desires seriously and wanted to fulfill them. What stopped me short was the lingering fear that this model was oppressive, and that my wanting it meant that I was an oppressor (Defcon 5: The protector instinct has been violated - abort mission). Every time Ephesians 5 was read at Mass, I was deeply uncomfortable and even embarrassed at my religion and my own desires. I couldn’t imagine living such an anachronistic lifestyle in a society full of equal partners. And certainly there was no one around to affirm me in my desire, much less show me how to be the sort of man I wanted to become.
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So - I’m twenty six years old and no, I am not a prospective Protector and Provider. I am a reluctant but prospective Equal Partner. Not by design, not by desire, but by training. After having prepared more or less for one set of expectations - the Equal Partner set - I can only say, in response to the apparent sudden demand of women for Protectors and Providers - well, first of all - “What the hell?! Now you tell me??” - and second, “So what the hell am I supposed to do now?” - and third, “What right do women have to complain about this?”
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I understand women want better men - I affirm and support you in this desire. However, the tirades against men for not being good enough need to stop. You really need to understand we’re not machines. You don’t flip a switch to make us act one way or the other. You don’t have the right to kick us because we’re not ‘working’. I am tired of reading these alienating articles like the one Pat has written. It takes a lot of time, a lot of help, and a lot of support, to make a good P&P. They aren’t made overnight. It’s a long process. If the society wants P&Ps; again, it will need to show some patience with us men, and help us to work our way back into that role again, because whole generations of us have been very thoroughly and very effectively persuaded that the P&P is Public Enemy #1.

Adriana, believe me, when it comes to women like you, I don’t care. Take a hike.

Dustin, I am sorry that you are confused, and cannot understand that what you want to offer is not wanted.  You want to know what is wrong with providing and protect - and taking away the responsibility from others.

What is wrong is that while providing and protecting are excellent things when done to children - who need it desperately, and it is right
to make the decisions for them, as they are not fully developed and their knowledge is flawed, it is wrong to do that to an adult.  And women are adults.  Your sincere desire to please them leads you to propose an infantilization, making them into pretend children.  That is what is wrong.  A child is a child, and need protection and guidance. An adult is supposed to make his or her own decisions and abide by the consequences.

To treat a woman, an adult, as a child, is saying that as a child because their knowledge is flawed and that they are not fully developed. That they cannot be trusted to make their own decisions, and that you will willingly to it for them.  Don’t you see how insulting this is to an adult?  Your desire to protect leads to that old put down “don’t worry your pretty little head about this” and the harsher “just be pretty and shut up”.  I advice you to learn how to deal with adults, and respecting boundaries. And do not give to adults what is reserved for children. It insults the adult, and robs the child.

Adriana, I am perfectly shocked to get this response from you. You speak of taking responsibility as an adult. Meanwhile, in your comments have done nothing but blame men for all the world’s problems. Put your money where your mouth is or I can’t take you seriously. What is the role of women in contributing to the problems we have today? What are the legitimate grievances men have in the relationship between the sexes? If you are unwilling to hear our side of the story, you cannot expect us to be willing to hear yours. The sexes are going to have to work together to solve these problems, it can’t be a matter of our men doing everything while you women complain, complain, complain.
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I also want to know how on earth you got the idea that I want to take responsibility away from women. Please reference the exact words I used that gave you this idea. Otherwise please, as a responsible adult, admit that your words were irresponsible.

If anything, I want women today to take more responsibility for their own behavior, not less. I am sick and tired of comments like Adriana’s.

Dustin, really I just don’t get what your problem is with this essay.

Corita, we’re at it again. I already stated my position about the essay. I can’t repeat myself a hundred times. It’s already right there on this page if you want to read it.

Dustin, I don’t mean to sound rude, but you should seek a counciler.  You state you are very very confused.  It is good you realize that.  Life is hard for everyone, that is why I don’t judge people for making decisions I don’t think are wise.  Being the “man of the house” worked great for the fictional Father knows best tv show but it was never real life. 

I do find it intersting you strike out at other opinions with “Adriana, believe me, when it comes to women like you, I don’t care. Take a hike. ” That worries me. It may explain why you have so many problems with women.  Seek help.

Rover, do you see your bias in the discussion? Two people here have stated problems they see in the relationship between the sexes - Adriana and me. When a woman expresses her complaints, you have nothing to say. When a man speaks, you accuse him of having emotional problems. Why do you remain silent when women speak their minds, but seek to undermine the credibility of men who do the same?
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I have many problems with women, for example I am tired of hearing them lay the blame for all the world’s ills on our shoulders. I have problems with other groups of people as well. This includes men who shoot down members of their own sex who are trying to show a side of the story that doesn’t currently get much airtime.

I like to think we will one day regret a time when we considered men who stood up for themselves in a feminist-dominated society as mentally ill.

Sorry, Dustin, I somehow missed your earlier comment.  I understand better now. 

Don’t forget that mental health and illness are a long continuum, and often subjective, especially when diagnosed over the internet.  Sin and mental illness can mimic each other, too.  And my days of roiling anger and simmering resentment over the failings of others (Please G-d may they be behind me now) I would definitely say now were those of bothe emotional and spiritual sickness. 

So I guess I have no judgements for you, only encouragement.  Don’t let the Internet get you down.  Here’s hoping there is an Adoration chapel nearby—for me, it was the beginning of a very long road (I am still on it) back to health, through the True Healer, Jesus.

Dustin, you let yourself open to certain comments when you began discussing your personal life - how women do not want what you offer. When one starts discussing that, a lot can happen, mostly bad. You end up with a lot of unsolicited advice and diagnoses by laymen. 

I merely wish to explain to you why what you offer is not selling. Protection can become oppression very quickly - have you heard of protection rackets, specifically when the ones protecting and the ones protected from are basically the same group. And providing is less tempting when it is accompanied by repeated efforts to prevent the recipient of such largess to provide for herself.  Not very tempting. 

One rule about salesmanship. If what you offer is not selling it is time to reconsider a new product, or a new target audience, or a new pitch. What does not work is blaming the customer. Any store owner who did that would be bankrupt in a few weeks.  So I advice you to a) offer something else, b) improve your pitch, and c) look somewhere else to pitch it to.

It’s interesting. When a woman speaks for her own sake - that is, from her own perspective - there is no fighting, only discussion, usually with sympathetic and like-minded women, and occasionally some supportive man. When a man starts speaking for himself, most of the people listening run for cover as quickly as possible, except for a few brave souls who quickly open fire on the Big Bad Man to make sure he learns his lesson and never dares open his terrible mouth again. It’s flattering, really: you must think I’m something really big and powerful to take me on like this. But the fact is that I’m not big and powerful. I’m one man in a country of more than three hundred million people who think men who talk realistically, frankly, and yes, sometimes passionately about their own lives are sick or immoral or whatever litany of shaming tactics women and their well-manipulated puppy dog men can produce.
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We are living in a democratic society in which the sexes share power. I understand that men do not like to talk about themselves or their problems or their lives. I understand that men do not like to admit when they’ve been hurt, wronged, or defeated. I understand that men do not like to admit their dependence on the world around them, or say those dreadful words, “I need.” But in a democratic environment in which the sexes share power, a demographic that refuses to find its own voice, that is, to speak, effectively disenfranchises itself. What happens when women talk and men don’t? The answer should be clear: we come to live in a society determined by women’s concerns and more or less inhospitable to men. You can’t tell me men have nothing to say to this society. You can’t tell me men have nothing to say about themselves.

Corita - Thank you. I don’t understand why unqualified laymen bother to make statements about the spiritual or psychological state of the commenters they meet online. They are certainly not capable of making these claims. Mr. Seton has no idea whether I’m a lunatic or actually capable of communicating something meaningful about my demographic. In either case I am a human being I do not deserve to have everything I say summarily written off because certain people hear would prefer that I shut up and be a good boy.

Yikes, please excuse the typographical errors in the last comment.
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Adriana, your latest response amuses me to no end. I have to ask you, if you’re going to respond to me, will you please take the time to read what I’m saying? I’m sorry to be condescending but this is very frustrating. You are talking past me. Isn’t you sex supposed to be better than mine at listening? In my experience your sex actually really sucks at it.
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The story I shared about myself had nothing to do with offering something women didn’t want. In fact it had nothing to do with what women wanted - this has absolutely nothing to do with what you women want, as if we men haven’t heard enough about that already. It was instead about something *I* wanted but have had remarkable difficulty achieving and at this point may never achieve.
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Your salesmanship advice is full of projections. Stop telling me what I mean and what I’m saying and show me enough respect to listen to me or just stop responding to me. It’s like you’re too busy listening to yourself to listen to me. You have no basis whatsoever on which to accuse me of trying to stop women from providing for themselves, as if my intention is to somehow - you could explain how, since it was your idea - what? force women out of the labor market? force a woman to marry me? Come on.

Two of my comments are going through the spam filter now. One of them is addressed to you, Adriana. This is the second part of my response.
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Here Pat has written what I’m sure he must realize on some deep forgotten level of his being is something guaranteed to score points with just about everybody and keep people coming to his otherwise unenlightening posts. That is, he has written an article talking about how bad men are. Everybody loves articles like these. Women eat them up and throw more grist in the mill, men nod and yup, everybody’s happy. Male bashing is fun, fashionable, and easy. Come on, it’s your turn! Kick the male while he’s down! Yeah, kick him!
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Well, that’s great. The thing is, we’re talking about real human beings and real problems. Nobody likes to mention this part or hear it discussed. It takes away from the fun. “Come on, man, what’s the problem? It’s just a game of Kick the Male! Can’t you have any fun? Just kick him already!”
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The reason I bothered to share my story is that I am a real human male and this is an article about my sex and my generation (on the abortion side). I get it: all we want to do is complain about how bad men are. It’s not like any of us are actually interested in facing real world truths or solving real world problems. We just want to sit around and complain. Well, I’m here to make you uncomfortable and tell you a little about the people you’re pissing off.
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You people just want to sit around talk about men like they’re broken appliances. “Wah! They’re not working any more!” (Kick them again, maybe that will work.) I’m here to get you thinking about what it might be that we men are facing today and why it is we’re having a hard time.

Adriana, my responses for you are in the spam filter. Please, spare me your condescending lectures, they are both unwanted, inappropriate, and, quite frankly, obnoxious.

Typical arrogant male response.  First he complains, when one offers one’s reasons, says that it is because one hates men.

Thanks Pat for a spot on article.  It’s sad to realize that women like Adrianna and her feminist kin see no difference between you and and irresponsible fathers.  We’re all the same to them and that’s why they never elevate expectations for us.  Thus promoting what they condemn.

Adriana, your reading comprehension skills suck. Try again.

JohnHinshaw.  The one who started it was Mr. Archbold, who blames feminism for anything that he does not like. I had to give him a history lesson about the way men behaved long before feminism reared its head, and that the times he was nostalgic for enforced chastity in women by terrorizing them. 

But I forget, Americans suck at History.  The past is all a blur, where Lyndon Johnson, Charlemagne, and the dinosaurs are contemporaries.

As for expectations, well, in old days women had expectations from men. The result left a lot to be desired (somebody had to be frequenting brothels, after all…)  Maybe it is time men starting elevating their expectations themselves, instead of blaming others for their shortcomings.  It is not what women expect of you, but what you expect of yourself.  Women are not the guardian of your conscience.  For that you have your confessor, and you have Jesus.  Women will complain about you when your behavior affects them personally, but that is all that can be expected of them.. You are not a child. You do not need a pat on the back “good boy, John” each time you do a good deed. So, act like an adult.

And again, get rid of your typical arrogant male discourse. When someone says something you do not like do not say ‘women like her” Adress the one person individually, and to not reduce her to a category.  Do not attempt to demean or dismiss me, if you want me to respect you.

In many areas I lack knowledge, but none of them is history.  Women have historically set the standards by which society survives.  The current state of (and lack of) manhood was set by a generation of women who accepted the most destructive of male tendencies as long as they (the women) got their faux liberation.  They then blamed all men for the destruction.  Men who simply believed that their calling was to love and be loved by one woman, who thought that love was to be generously shared with children were ignored or accused of seeking to dominate women.  I lived it, I saw it.  The carousing men were not our heroes, but they never lacked female admirers.

I think it’s good to remember the things that prompted feminism in the first place, but then, I also think it’s important to avoid giving feminism too much credit. Second wave feminism, at any rate, seemed to me characterized by a preoccupation with power - even revenge - while justice was a secondary concern. So what I see in this wave of feminism is, at best, a severe overreaction to the problems that existed in its day of origin, so that further course correction is now warranted. I think it’s important to bear both points in mind simultaneously, rather than viewing our options as either patriarchal oppression or misandry, child-aversion, and all-around feminist excess. In this regard I think both Pat and Adriana have contributed something useful to the discussion. It’s just that neither position, by itself, is synthetic. An adequate statement will integrate each position intelligently and coherently.
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My position is similar when it comes to the problem of the responsibility of either a particular woman or a particular man living in our times. Each one of us is in a relationship, a dialogue, with the world around him or her. This means that I must take responsibility for my own choices in this relationship. At the same time, it means that I have something to say about the way the world is treating me. Adriana certainly feels like she has something to say about the way society is affecting her - and she wants society to respond appropriately. I feel the same way as a man. I belong to society, but society also belongs to me. As society has something to say to me, so, too, I have something to say to society. When society disenfranchises a demographic but continues to make demands upon it, it reduces said demographic to de facto slavery, whether such slavery is recognized explicitly by anyone, including the disenfranchised demographic.
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The sexes, in particular, are on a path to divorce. Both women and men feel put on the defense with each other. If we are not willing to listen to each other, to talk to each other, to work with each other - then we will truly be left with nothing but a zero sum game and the war to see which sex can destroy the other the fastest. The blame game, the condemnations, the accusations, the repudiation of responsibility to one another - is going to destroy this society - it already is destroying this society.

“Women will complain about you when your behavior affects them personally, but that is all that can be expected of them.” Yes. We men will do the same, of course.

Hey, Dustin, you are reading me!!! You are not treating it as spam!!!

Yes, now if only you would extend the same courtesy to me. Anyway, speaking of spam, I have another comment in the ‘spam’ filter.

Sorry, Dustin, but you said that you were treating what I write as spam.  I assumed you did not read me at all (the normal response to spam).  But I guess you want to continue to argue, I can do it.  As for my comment, look at the context, answering the one who said that men did not behave as they ought because women did not expect them to.  I reminded him that the reason to behave as he should was not women’s approval, but that of his sense of right and wrong.  That on the Last Judgement “she did not expect me to be better” will not work as an excuse.

You have a complaint, I would like to discuss it, but it is tricky answering personal complaints, as a) the complainant tends to leave out details that seem insignificat to him, but can be illuminating, b) it is difficult to tell how typical his experience is, c) very few of us are trained as counselors, and thus can say the wrong thing very easily. 

Much better to stil to impersonal, general cases.  But if you insist, I will try to do my best.

Dustin, thank you for your POV essays. I found them enlightening. My take on Pat’s article isn’t so much that men suck, really, but that a society preoccupied with individualism tends to produce men who abandon ship (and Adriana confirms it produces women who do likewise).  Individualism after all DEMANDS the right of the idividual to serve his or her own interests, without taking the interests of others into consideration. For the individualist there is no higher cause ever.  It’s the modernist heresy where ideas like protection, provision, self-sacrifice and sacrificial love are devalued and demeaned.  No one under the influence of this paradigm can be the man or woman God called them to be.

What are you doing, Adriana? I can’t make heads or tails of where you begin and where you start. Why did you just give me an explanation of your response to John Hinshaw? I have no idea where this is coming from.
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I never said I was treating what you write as spam. Stop putting words in my mouth. I said your reading comprehension skills suck, and that’s because you obviously aren’t reading anything I say. It sounds like you’re just skimming what my comments, matching me to some type already in your head, and responding to that type. On top of this you lecture and accuse and insult constantly. And ironically, much of what you lecture about is advice you yourself are strongly in need of taking. Respect? Responsibility? Arrogance? Check the mirror.
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I share personal stories in the hope that it will encourage other guys to do the same. They won’t like it. They won’t want to do it. But as I said before, my belief is that we men need to begin clarifying what it is that’s happening in our lives. The more we do this, the more we can begin to understand why it is, for example, that men are walking away from their own children (a decidedly unnatural thing to do), or worse, saving their own hides at the expense of others. I didn’t share my story because I was looking for Adriana’s answer to my life problems. You don’t have the answer. That’s the point of my comment.

MissH, thanks for your support - I really appreciate that. You are right that our modern values lie in opposition to any kind of admirable behavior on the part of either sex.

So true.  It’s the age of the anti-hero. Instead of ushering in a golden age of blissful self-fulfillment, it’s left most of us bored and disappointed on a very deep level (and a society coming apart at the seams).  If this weren’t true you wouldn’t have angst poured out in news reports, movies, books, tv shows and disco ballads (ok, I apologize in advance,this earworm’s been in my head all week):

Where have all good men gone…
Isn’t there a white knight upon a fiery steed?
Late at night I toss and turn and dream of what I need

I need a hero
I’m holding out for a hero ‘til the end of the night
He’s gotta be strong
And he’s gotta be fast
And he’s gotta be fresh from the fight
I need a hero
I’m holding out for a hero ‘til the morning light
He’s gotta be sure
And it’s gotta be soon
And he’s gotta be larger than life

...But wait, but WAIT!!...repeat after me…you need a hero like a fish needs a bicycle!!!

Dustin:  I appreciate you pouring out your heart and your experiences, and how you are hurting.  But do you think that you are the only one with experiences, and who has been hurt? Where do you think we speak from?  I daresay that at 63 years old I have a lot more experience than you, and I can recognize certain things because we have seen it before.

So you have this urge to protect and provide, and direct women, and are hurt by our rejection.  So we should allow you to protect, provide, and direct to heal your emotional wounds?

Dustin, that is the old argument about the male ego, that needs to be cossetted, and encouraged women to hide their intelligence, lose any games their played with their men, belittle themselves, so as to make them feel better.

We know how that works.  We remember.  For you it is a new discovery, for us it is old hat, and we have learned the proper name for it: flattery.

I such at flattering anyone, really.

Adriana, again, my comment had nothing to do with being rejected by women. In fact I have always been very good with women. It seems that in your senility you are losing both your mind and your capacity to read. Either this, or you’re a despicable liar, which I tend actually to believe is the case.
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I wouldn’t save you from a burning car accident.

No, your comment was how your natural instincts to protect and provide were being frustated and belittled. Whether that included actual rejection of your person… it was a bit of a stretch.

But still it is a rehash of the old “fragile male ego” argument.  I remember it well.

It was not a rehash the fragile male ego argument, though I am sure that is just more man-hating feminist indoctrination that you’ve absorbed over the course of your life. It was borne of a desire to be acknowledged and treated as a human being by the society in which I live, to live in a society that recognizes, values, and supports this humanity, to have a place here as you women have a place here. I wrote the comment because although I would not have ditched women and children on a ship nor abandoned a woman who had conceived by me I recognize in myself the sort of man this society often smashes and condemns: a twenty six year old man, unmarried, only now just about to move out of his mother’s home, only now getting out of six months of unemployment (and not into a professional entry-level job like many of my female peers but into a rather menial one), a college drop out after seven years of trying to get through it, etc. Men like me are routinely the subject of harsh and condemning articles across the Internet. I am tired of it. I am not a broken appliance you can kick because it isn’t working; I am not, in any case, an appliance, but a human being, and I am only asking to be treated like one by my fellow citizens. It is truly disturbing to see that you are incapable of responding to me with this basic level of human respect. It’s disturbing because in my experience your response is typical of women, which leads me to wonder whether women are capable of treating men like human beings. In case you think I am joking or exaggerating, let me assure you, I am not: when you see the same behavior repeated a thousand times (with few exceptions), you begin to set your expectations accordingly. You will, of course, rush to blame me for the way *you’ve* chosen to respond to me, but in so doing will only further expose yourself as a hypocrite, for you will be contradicting your earlier call that each person take full responsibility for his or her own choices.
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Let me pause here and thank the precious few women who did respond to me with human respect and understanding. I certainly appreciate your taking a moment to comment here to let me know what you’re thinking.
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The truth is that my above comments should have elicited no particular response except perhaps a continuation on the part of men who could in some way identify with my story and further elaborate and clarify how their own stories are the same or different. Of course men do not like to do this - responses like Adriana’s demonstrate why. Men who speak openly and plainly about their experiences of life, not with a view to saying merely what women want to hear but telling the truth as they know it, are subjected to all manner of insults, accusations, misrepresentations, slurs, and all-around lies by vicious women for whom power and violence are much more pressing concerns than truth and love. I’ve seen this constantly. A man points to something and says, “This is a problem.” In response, a woman points to him and says, “You are a problem.” If a man complains, many women would have us believe, something must be wrong with him. In the eyes of most women injustice towards men, particularly on the part of their own sex, is categorically impossible. Therefore, when a man has a problem, it always *his* problem, and no further action is required than to accuse him of being immoral, sick, or otherwise defective. It’s for this reason that women in the past have gone to the appalling extreme of condemning me for failing in heroic - yes, heroic - virtue. The problem isn’t that society is in some way inhospitable to normal human men; it isn’t that my complaints might contain some kernel of truth that should be - yes - sorted out from what otherwise be my own bias, ignorance, or personal shortcomings. No, the problem is that I am not St. Benedict (as I was told recently).
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Imagine a particular kind of abusive relationship between a husband and his wife. Whenever she indicates to him that she believes something is wrong, for example concerning the discipline of their children or their finances, he responds by speaking about her - her character is defective, she isn’t a saint, she needs to pray more, she needs a therapist - and leaves the complaint entirely unaddressed. She talks about a problem, he talks about her. If she has a complaint or a worry, she comes to understand, it is for him a sign that she is defective - for him there’s no way the finances could be in bad shape or the children unruly - the problem must always be with her. Imagine how this would wear her down. And imagine how awful it would be when the day finally came that he convinced her he was right. We can truly say that on that day the man had succeeded in destroying her and this invasion of the mind and heart is to my way of thinking the zenith of abuse and despotism.
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This dynamic is not just my imagination. I have heard many other men confirm that it is something real in the relationship between the sexes. It explains why men don’t speak - they know their words will be used against them.
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Adriana viciously distorts my position by saying that I am trying to force women to satisfy my instinct to protect and provide. But she mistakenly goes a step further than me: all I actually said was that I have this instinct to protect and provide. In point of fact I have met many women who have shown in ways large and small that they want me to offer a sense of leadership, provision, or protection. My longest standing woman friend said one of the things she likes most about me is that I am chivalrous. My girlfriends have always wanted me to take the initiative in our relationship. They have always wanted me to take a little more responsibility than them for the condition of the relationship. They have always wanted the assurance that I’m not going to leave them wondering what we’re doing together, whether I’m going to take advantage of them (by intent or negligence), whether I mean business or am just passing time. No, the problem as I see it isn’t that the commodity ‘man’ isn’t in demand. If anything, when it comes to men, it’s a seller’s market: women are looking for us. The problem I have is that I have never found in this society first of all any support or affirmation of this deep element of my heart, which is deeply hurtful to me, nor, worse still, have I received any help developing this instinct. In other words I have not had any help becoming a man, so I am not, to tell you the truth, very much of one, which is painful when I want to be one and the women I date want it from me, too. It’s also painful simply to get bashed, bashed, bashed by articles like Pat’s.

I’m sorry to be harsh with the women here, it’s just that I come to this conversation with a great deal of frustration from other conversations in the past, both those in which I have been a participant and those which I have overheard. It seems that only one side of the story usually gets a hearing, and this is my frustration, as I’ve been saying. Thanks for your time.

Again Dustin, Thank YOU for writing it down. And thank God someone’s willing to admit to this stuff.  You wrote, “I have met many women who have shown in ways large and small that they want me to offer a sense of leadership, provision, or protection.”  Oh yes, we’re out there, but who could admit it?  I’ve never wanted to be the man in a relationship, nor have I had a problem with a man being the man.  I never wanted to fight forest fires, bust bad guys, fly airplanes or career climb.  I nurture by nature.  I’d rather stay home and bake cookies than run a successful anything.  But like I said, who can admit to such things?  That would make one an infant, a doormat, a victim, a fool, a life-waster.  And you’d never hear the end of the doomsday prognosticating.  It’s sad times when you almost need a support group (or I guess group therapy according to a former commenter)for men who want to be Men and women who want to be Women.

Dustin: Believe me, the instinct you have as a man to protect and provide is God-given. I am thankful for the protectiveness and ability to provide that the men in my life have shown me. And now my daughter has a wonderful husband who shows her the same considerations. I am sorry for all the women out there who haven’t known or appreciated the men who want to be chivalrous, but our society seems to be very hostile and condescending to men, as taught in our public schools and inane television shows.(which is why I no longer subscribe to television). At any rate, Dustin, have you checked out Michael Voris of RealCatholicTV.com? He ran a series of videos last week on the definition of masculinity that I bet would speak to you perfectly. Good luck to you—sounds like you will make a terrific husband and father!

Dear Dustin:  I am sorry for your situation.  I would be the last one to blame you for your situation.  Unfortunately you are one more of the young people today who have no future because people at the top thought a good idea to deindustrialize and ship jobs overseas.  And then say that people are unemployed because they would rather collect unemployment that look for work.  All over the world there is talk of a lost generation of young people who are in your same tragic situation. 

I would like to know what knuckleheads make fun of you, or blame you for the whole mess. I only hope that the US can be as lucky as Argentina, which, after coming to the edge of catastrophe has rebounded and is now growing at a healthy pace.

As for your original post, what do I have to tell you?  It is not that being protective is a bad thing, but that it has to accomodate other concerns, learn the rules of the road, as it were….  You have to remember that for women of my generation (I am *63*), there was a dark side to that protectiveness, and we rebelled about it. Perhaps it would be wise before you start offering protection to ask what the protected one wants.  After all, a boy scout knows to ask the old lady if she wants to cross the road before helping her across….she may be going in the opposite direction and the help ends hurting.

I have been a merchant, and I learned that when something I offer does not sell, all I can do is a) offer something else, b) repackage the item, showing its good points, and c) find a different market for the item.  Bemoaning that people do not appreciate fine things *never* helps. As they say, the customer is king, even if a silly king at times.

Thanks very much, Susan K and Adriana.
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I would never force my protection on a woman. I think we really are coming at this conversation from very different perspectives. Obviously I don’t know first-hand what it was like to live prior to, say, the 60s (or during the 60s or 70s or even the 80s and 90s when I was a boy and then an adolescent…). But as for the experience of life I do have, I can say it has included, from my earliest childhood, constant warnings about… let’s say, male domination. I have heard an endless number of women from every single generation say, in every possible mode of communication (face-to-face, radio, television, advertisement, Internet, newspaper, you name it), that they are afraid of being mistreated by men on the basis of their sex, and that they are actively rebelling against even the possibility that such mistreatment could occur. (Incidentally, I believe young women have this fear not because they have actually experienced this mistreatment themselves, but because decades of feminist hammering away at our cultural mindset has made them needlessly fearful of men.) As I tried to say earlier, I have always taken these concerns to heart. Nothing you’re saying is news to me. It is not the first but the ten thousandth time I’ve heard all of these things. Believe me, it is no great, life-shattering, terrorizing discovery for me that women are my equals (*gasp*). Now stop treating me like an oppressor.
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It is not that I need to sit down and endure yet one more demeaning, offensive round of sensitivity training, this time with Adriana teaching us lowly, idiotic, vile men how to be decent, moral human beings. Stop treating me like an inferior. It is infuriating.
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For example, Adriana, when you wrote, “Perhaps it would be wise before you start offering protection to ask what the protected one wants.” Do you have any idea how offensive and insulting this is? Do you know how angry it makes me to hear you talk to me like this? It’s like you’re living in 1949. Wake up already. It’s 2012. I’m not your grandfather. I’m a young adult man who has heard quite enough of all this crap already. Get with it.
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No, the problem isn’t that I’m inclined to dominate. If anything, my problem in relating to women, over the last few years, has been learning not to let them dominate *me*. I have had to learn that women are not morally superior to me. I have had to learn that I am not an oppressor, so that I can finally start to take offense when I’m called one, as you have been here. I have had to learn to stand up for myself. I have had to learn to be a bit tougher with women because if anything they aren’t shrinking violets these days who are easily intimidated by men but strong, tough women who sometimes don’t take us men seriously and who are inclined to laugh us off (because everyone knows that men are stupid). It’s not that this happens all the time or that it’s always salient but it’s a definite, palpable undercurrent that I’ve encountered hundreds of times in my life in ways subtle and explicit.
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So when you say, “Perhaps it would be wise before you start offering protection to ask what the protected one wants,” you are reinforcing for me the fact that I need to fight hard for my credibility precisely because I am a man and you don’t take me seriously as an equal. See how things have changed?
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As for - who are the knuckleheads who blame everything on us. I don’t even know where to start with that - it’s like standing in front of a car that has its high beams on and asking, “Where are the headlights?”

Dustin and Adriana, men and women were created by God for each other, not as enemies, but as people with complementary attributes, you know, to love and support the other. It seems obvious that there is an effort underway to slowly dismantle that friendliness between men and women as witnessed by countless distorted portrayals in the media. Public schools have been particularly effective at ruining our children’s perceptions of the true roles of men and women. Growing up, the only thing I wanted to be was a wife and mother. Public school and society tells a woman who wants that that she is somehow “less than.” Thank God I had some good Catholic teaching in my early years. All these years of people being brainwashed is not going to be easy to counter, but Jesus did say that whatever you pray for, not to waiver, and it will be given to you! BTW, I despised the feminist movement growing up…who wants to align with a bunch of grouchy, angry women?

Miss H, don’t give up, not that I think you would. There are some wonderful men out there, mostly homeschooled, who will make wonderful husbands, with the same values you seek. My daughter found such a man. A great provider, protector, he values the fact that she wants to be home, bake cookies, take care of their child and be the heart of the home. She’s no slouch. She’s a hard worker, and they make a great team. Check out tfp.org to see some real men in action. God Bless!

MissH - Sorry, I just now saw your comment. Thank you for sharing your perspective. It helps to remember that the feminists are attacking us on both sides. So much for ‘freedom’, ‘equality’, and ‘choice’. Some women are a little more equal than others, apparently.

I’ve always heard that a captain gose down with his ship. when flight 1549 went down in the hudson Captain Sullenberger was the last out. that man was a coward and deserves what prison gives him!

Posted by Zongle on Wednesday, Jan 18, 2012 5:45 PM (EST):

The most interesting thing about this article is that the focus is entirely on men, even tho’ the issue being discussed is actually women’s bodies.

Zongle, the actual issue being discussed is NOT women’s bodies. It’s *children’s* bodies.

While I do have opinions on what women should do with their bodies, I make no attempt to enshrine my opinions in law. Sure, I’d love to see them eat only healthy foods, exercise them well, not give themselves to men, etc. But, I agree that people have free choice when it comes to their own bodies. I disagree that any woman has any right to take another’s life, even if that life happens to live inside her body.

So, no, the issue is NOT the bodies of women; it is the bodies of children.

Dustin- I would like to commend you on taking the time to explain and write out your experiences and opinions regarding the men/women age old conflict. You are not the first male I have heard point out that the man’s natural, God given instinct to provide for and protect others, particularly women and children, seems so unwelcome and even offensive in this day and age. I agree with many of the things you have to say. As a wife and mother, who is completely dependant on my husband to provide and protect our family, I feel criticism almost every where as if I have betrayed women by choosing freely this “inferior” and “demeaning” role. If it weren’t for a few close supportive friends who truly value and support a woman’s natural role, I would have gone nuts. As it is, I still struggle to feel valued for what I do. And I have NEVER felt unvalued by a man. It has only come from women and women run organizations.
  What I don’t understand with the modern feminists is that they think that bringing back the chivalry and traditional roles means that women won’t be treated as equals. Why can society not keep the good from both situations. Women absolutely should have the right to vote, work, get paid equally, make their own way in life. But we should also be allowed to stay home, have babies, cook and clean etc. without being the scorn of the modern women’s movement. I have six children and am continually being put down and ostracized by women for not living “my own life”. But I say I am living my own life. And guess what? I’m happy. My husband respects me. He values my opinions. We make decisions together, and I let him have the final say. He gets to fall into the natural role of protector and provider, while I get to fall into the natural of nurturer and help mate. I admire all men that accept the responsibilty of providing for his family. I know that many of these men, contrary to what many believe, they hold the women in their lives up as something worth loving and sacrificing for.
  I don’t believe the current situation is all the men’s fault, just as I don’t see it is all women’s fault. What I see is a movement, meant to better women’s lives take a bad route which has led to a situation where women are no longer valued or respected. Men will certainly be held accountable for their actions, but it cannot be denied that, as humans, who like to take the easiest route, many men have accepted the demands of these women and now will not take the stand to help them, protect them, or even love them.
  Women and men are equals in value and worth. But we are not the same. We each, with some differences, have something to bring to the table. Of equal value and that are complimentary to the other. It only requires an understanding of basic biology to see those differences.
  So, I just wanted to share my agreement with you Dustin, even though I also agree with the main point in the article. I wish you the best of luck in finding a woman who appreciates a man who understands his natural role and who is ready to step up to the plate and be a man while respecting and viewing women as equal members of society. I’ll be praying for you!
Thea

Zongle on Wednesday, Jan 18, 2012 5:45 PM (EST):

>the issue being discussed is actually women’s bodies.

No, he was discussing babies.

> Also, a few generations ago, there were orphanages full of abandoned
> illigitimate children, most of whom were never adopted.

And your solution is to murder those people?

@rover serton

> Prohibition worked so well with alcohol, lets do it with reproductive freedom.

Your “argument” makes no sense. By that logic, we should legalize rape too, because the current laws are a “prohibition of rape”. Also, calling abortion “reproductive freedom” is like calling rape “unsolicited sexual freedom”.