Bad Feminist World Building

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

When I was young I called myself a feminist. Remember the culture I was born into, though it changed when I was in my teens — in law, but the underlying culture remains of course — did make women second class citizens. A woman needed permission from father or husband to work outside the home, for instance. Women didn’t have the vote. And women were assume to be dumber than men, a myth I enjoyed exploding. And, and, and–

So I called myself a feminist because I wanted women to have the same rights as men. That was all.

I did not have a mythos in my head as to why females were superior and males evil, nor as to why women had had an “inferior” position throughout history.

Part of this is that I didn’t necessarily see women’s position as inferior, except for the injustice of laws against them. Sure, in the world outside women were at danger of being attacked if they were out after sundown (and it would be considered her own d*mn fault for violating the unspoken curfew) and there were only male clubs, and most women worked at home (and I mean beyond being stay at home moms and wives.

But, look, it’s complicated. In many ways it was an archaic society, partly national culture, partly just the area and class. There were male spheres and female spheres. And in each of their spheres, each sex held themselves as superior.

I was indicted early into the sphere of women, because as a girl child, I often ended up sitting under tables or int he corners of the kitchen while women cooked or sewed. (I was usually hiding and reading. I didn’t say I was good at the female thing, just that I was in the general area.) Also of the adults in my life, the one who walked on water was female: my paternal grandmother. And you know exactly what I mean by walking on water. In every child’s life, if things are even vaguely healthy, there is an adult who is assumed to “be able to do anything.”

I followed grandmother around a lot, and a lot of her talk was about how annoying and incapable of doing things men were… In the female sphere. While being given all possible respect and leeway in their sphere.

I think the best way to explain this, is that a lot of men in the village (though not all. Some were artisans or small time farmers) had jobs, and worked for a salary. But at the end of the month they came home and handed the money to their wives. From that they received an allowance.

All money decisions from there on were the woman’s. Not just what to buy for the house and children, but what to invest, how to invest, what clothes to buy for the husband, and whether to get them ready made or make them.

If a couple floundered financially, barring abuse, it was the woman’s doing.

In the same way, she was responsible for making sure the kids were learning, or if not were apprenticed at something outside formal education. She kept the lines of communication not only between family members (which in that time and place might be all over the world) but also between households in the village. She jockeyed for prestige, position, and precedent for her husband and entire household. Where a family stood and whether it rose or fell was the woman’s doing. Unless she was a “poor thing” “almost a man” (I’m afraid if I’d stayed there and the village endured, I’d have fallen there.) in which case she ignored all of that, and the family got the dirty end of the stick.

Men? You went and got your man to help if you needed to: deal with bureaucracy; buy or sell in a large scale; hire someone skilled or degreed, make a complex investiment you weren’t sure how to structure. Oh, men also kept track of politics, and had opinions on economics and macro issues. Women just knew if the price of bread rose and fell and had opinions about that.

So, it never occurred to me back then that men and women were one superior and one inferior. Just different specialties, and fairly idiotic at the other one’s job. Though mind you, things were in flux when I came in, so I was expected to get a degree and function in the world of men. (And yes, there were women doing that by the time I was born.) So I was tolerated to hide and read, and while taught some housekeeping, it was assumed I’d have servants for that (university degrees used to be valuable) and that my function would be closer to a male’s.

As such, I was very interested in the laws, and wanted equality under the law, and called myself a feminist.

Until I came to the US and realized it meant something completely different, and weird. Look… I’m not saying everything feminist was or is like this, just that …. most of what that said struck me as nonsensical. If this were a novel, it would be really bad world building.

So, some of the things I’ve been told by earnest and exquisitely educated women who apparently never bothered to analyze received wisdom.

“There were always the same number of women fighters at all levels as men, it’s just that men have suppressed knowledge of them.”

<Holds aching head. Yes, there were always “Maidens who went to war.” You can’t throw a stone in folklore without tripping over one of those. I’ve often wondered if it’s a reflection of reality or just a wish fulfillment, because frankly men like stories of women fighters.

BUT we know some women were “fighters” for a definition of fighters. There were a lot of soldiers found not to be male when they died. Now, most of those we know for sure are in the modern era, when guns make the whole thing easier. But we know from bios and other stuff that there were women in the ranks at every major battle we know of.

These were usually not commanders or famous fighters, but women who for some reason or another found it expedient to run away, pretend to be male, and engage in the dirty and dangerous business of war.

Their stories are usually exactly what you would expect, too: big and ugly, widowed, without visible means of support. In societies where a woman either depended on others to survive (look, there’s physical and biological reasons for this) or became whores, becoming a “man” could be very attractive.

They were not usually commanders (though Queens did command armies, but that’s different and of course, not common or average) and they weren’t anything so complex as “knights” which had rules and groups and–

I mean, there might have been a half-mad woman roaming the back country in found Armour and calling herself a “knight” — but if so, she’d be passing as a male.

Oh, and women who stayed behind in their cities often found themselves forced to defend the garrison with the old men and the kids. And some of them became heroes. But that was “hazard of war” not a career.

Yes, women have always fought, in the sense that war — particularly primitive war — doesn’t respect sexes. And you either fight or die.

But think about it. Think about women throughout the ages fulfilling exactly the same role as men in war, but “Men kept it secret.”

How would men even do that?

“Well, men wrote the histories.”

Not strictly through. We do know that several women were erudite and wrote, also throughout history. They could have preserved the lore of women fighters.

But let’s say that every woman writer was also suppressed. (Leave the now for a while.)

How do all the men — all the men int he world — keep a secret? No, seriously. Think on it five minutes. This means keeping secrets from their moms, their sisters, their daughters, their WIVES.

Every intelligence service in the world knows men leak like sieves to women in their lives.

But let’s suppose men had decided to forever keep women down. HOW would they keep this secret conspiracy forever?

And in fact, we know of maidens (and queens) who went to war. Which means no one is policing this.

It’s bad worldbuilding, get over it.

“Men can decide to impregnate whoever they want at any time.”

Uh. What? Wait a fricken minute. My husband had that super power and let us go through six years of infertility? That male conspiracy must be bigger than I thought.

“If men made sure other men wouldn’t attack women, women would be safe anywhere at any time.”

Hold, time out. Any decent man I know would risk his life to defend a woman (or anyone) being attacked. What more are they supposed to do?

Do they think men have superpowers and can each connect to each other’s brains and turn switches on and off? (No, there isn’t locker room support for rape and attacks. EXCEPT in the sickest pockets of culture. And that’s different. Sick culture is sick culture, and that affects men and women both. Most men are just as disgusted as sexual or other assault as most women.)

They believe this about the past too. “Humanity used to live in a peaceful matriarchy” (I never understood how this connected to women being amazing fighters. Bad worldbuilding. Keep on trucking.) “And then men overthrew it, and instituted patriarchy and capitalism.”

I swear this is like the myth of onthogeny recapitulates phylogeny, except inverted and for society. In all of our lives there was a time the mother was central. And in that world, all was peaceful at least according to us, because we were small and dumb and had no clue what went on beyond the nursery walls. But eventually we entered the larger world where there are — ick — men and things became more complicated.

For the species as a whole, it doesn’t hold. Maria Gimbutas just straight up made up things, and anyway, except for small places with weird customs (and those not matriarchies, but matrilineal descent or inheritance places, which is not the same) the more primitive the society, the more women have fewer rights, because women are weaker than men. And in a society that prizes brute force to survive, that matters.

Also matrilineal descent tribes — the ZULUS — aren’t peaceful.

Again, think about how this would work: Men took over, using their psychic powers, I assume, and thereafter women could never restore the great and peaceful matriarchy.

Look, at this point I’m thinking if men can do all this they’re obviously superior beings, and we should all shut up and have more sons.

“Ah, but women would be exactly the same as men, as strong, etc, if we fed them and educated both the same.”

Let’s ignore the fact that we’ve been doing exactly that in the west for fifty years and got a whole lot of soyboys for it, but no amazing doughty fighting women.

Forget that we know the role of testosterone in bone and muscle formation.

How does the worldbuilding work again? Go back as far as you can go, even in pre-history. Women are smaller and more gracile, and therefore physically weaker then men.

Women are also, as far as we can tell far into societies without writing, the ones who gather and prepare food.

… They were intentionally starving themselves?

When they could instead have gone hunting, because they were just as big and strong as the guys?

…. Boy, that male mind control must be powerful. It even got the women to cooperate, even before there were PROPER women, back to homo erectus and such.

If this were a book and I were writing, I’d have to make men a superior alien race, gifted with a collective mind, and powerful mind control to make any of this work. (In fact, some of the crazier of my colleagues have done that.)

And again, in the face of that powerful and omnipotent a race, all you can do is surrender and hope they treat you kindly.

Or you know, you can admit that men and women are different and complementary, and that men fighters who were the great majority of the combatants in any war depended on women to feed them and defend the homeland while they went to war.

And that men scholars often worked together with women scholars.

And that every couple one has competences the other lacks (sometimes not necessarily stereotypical masculine-feminine.)

Men have greater strength. Women have greater pain resistance. Men have greater force. Women have greater patience.

Together we achieve more and we secure the future.

Why engage in bad worldbuilding to explain this away?

208 thoughts on “Bad Feminist World Building”

  1. So I called myself a feminist because I wanted women to have the same rights as men. That was all.

    I advocate for every individual–regardless of race, gender, how they like to match up mucus membranes, religion, whatever–to have the exact same rights I claim for myself, neither more nor less.

    This gets me called the other “ist” (as well as all sorts of “phobe”).

    1. Judging people by the content of their character-what a novel idea (sarc). MLK, Jr. would be deemed a thought criminal by today’s so-called civil rights leaders.

      1. Shelby Steele came to campus when I was in grad school to give a lecture. He was heckled by a group of black undergrads who were yelling for equal rights and claiming to lack privilege. His response to them was (paraphrasing) ‘You attend one of the most elite private colleges in the country. How are you not privileged? How are you missing out?” They, of course, had no answer for that, so they just screamed for more.

    3. Yeah, well, treating everybody the same is RRRAAACISSST!! and SEXIST!! and <whatever>PHOBIC!! but discriminating based on skin color, sex and <whatever> is not.

      Because the Way to fix discrimination in the past is to impose more discrimination in the present.
      ———————————
      They kill a lot of people, overthrow their corrupt rulers and replace them with a new batch of corrupt rulers. Viva la revolution! Yesterday’s oppressed become tomorrow’s oppressors.

  2. The traditional culture of the Marshall Islands (as it was explained to me) was Matrilineal Patriarchy. Because you may not know for sure who your father is, but (in most cases) you sure as heck know who your mother is. And property is handed down Matrilinearly(?), but the male head of the household IS the head thereof. And today’s Marshallese are descendants of some very war-like people. At the end of an occasional unsuccessful fishing trip, my Marshallese fishing buddioes would joke(?) about eating me. My reply that then they wouldn’t have anyone to rent the boat from the Marina usually quelled such comments . . .

    1. Wandering around the Ring Of Fire, the Pacific, I learned early on when sitting down to eat you never asked what was in the pot.

      Not a worry about long pig but the fare therein might include anything else from cat to cobra.

      1. When my boss got married to a girl from Kusae (Kosrae), I was not able to attend even though he was also a good friend of mine. Somebody had to be in charge of the helicopter hangar after all. And I’m kind of glad, because the centerpiece of the wedding feast was – dog.

    2. There are matrilineal societies where inheritance is from uncle to nephew, and others where it’s father-in-law to son-in-law. (It’s a continuum, BTW. Sometimes different things are inherited differently.)

      BUT there are none where the power is in the woman’s hands. (Though societies in the middle, where men have duties to both their mother’s and their wife’s lines, tend to have high status for women.)

  3. Finding out just how different men and women really are over the last year or so has made me re-evaluate a lot of how I approach stories.

    It has been so pervasive overy lifetime that they were interchangeable widgets, it has been a thing to realign to the reality.

  4. “Any decent man I know would risk his life to defend a woman (or anyone) being attacked.”

    You mean decent as normal people would understand it; recall the case of the Sensitive New Age Guy who ran away when his Strong, Independent Woman was mugged and she was totes fine with it (or said she was) even though she apparently wasn’t strong enough to defend herself.

  5. During the heyday of the Hanseatic League, some women (a handful, perhaps double handful) of women became full citizens with full legal rights because 1) they were widows without sons or near male relatives of age and 2) everyone knew that they were capable of running the business (and probably had been). A legal ceremony made them citizens, with all the duties as well as rights. They fought as city defenders, usually in charge of stuff like dumping boiling water on attackers, or moving around supplies and ammunition.

    So men knew that women could do it, women did it, but only a memorable few. At least officially. Any trade master or guild master without a competent wife would not stay in business for very long. Alberich Durer’s wife managed the business, drew up contracts, oversaw the household (including employees) and made it possible for her artist husband to do what he needed to do. I suspect there were a LOT more women like her than modern wymynists want to admit.

    1. Being a woman like that involves hard work and the right kind of stubbornness in the right places. Which requires discernment.

      Not exactly something that modern feminists are known for.

    2. Terry Pratchett caught this with Sybil Vimes and her compatriots. I think back to my ancestors raising children on the North West frontier. Tough women, not hard, tough.

    3. Quite a lot of the prominent Men of Science (or whatever else) relied pretty heavily on their wives to ensure they ate, had their observations properly noted and filed, and didn’t offend the patron by forgetting to be properly grateful.

      Rather than lauding these women, or these teams, modern feminists instead prefer to call such women “oppressed” and denigrate their work.

    5. That’s what the idea of a husband and wife being one means— you can’t have one without the other.

      /annoyed at “Feminists.”

  6. In one SF novel I read a few years ago, a man was visiting a colony world where one society was very patriarchal but he thought “the women knew their place and like women elsewhere, they made sure that “their place” was as important as men’s place.” 😉

    Oh, “Men can decide to impregnate whoever they want at any time” may have been intended to mean that “men can have sex with whoever they want at any time”. Which is obviously false considering female attitudes and male attitudes toward rape.

    1. They usually use it to mean “Men can have consequence-free sex whenever they want, because women bear the burden of a possible pregnancy.” Which is still stuff and nonsense, especially in the modern era.

      The entire point of marriage and registering marriage is to provide for children and inheritance of property.

      1. Ah, that makes slightly more sense.

        Oh, elsewhere when discussing Women’s “Right To Birth Control” and “Right To Abortions”, it was suggested that since women can Now Control Having Children, then Men shouldn’t be required to pay Child Support (especially when they are not married to the women having “their” child).

        After all, since the Woman Chose To Have That Child (not the Man), then the Man shouldn’t be held responsible to aiding in the Child’s Care. [Very Very Big Sarcastic Grin]

        1. Actually, it makes logical sense. He’s not responsible for the birth, it was HER CHOICE.

          The argument that women Need Abortion in order to be Equal, on other hand, starts from the premise that women are innately inferior and must surgically fix it. Its proponents seldom notice that.

        2. I’ve seen some wannabe sarcastic posts on Twitter from pro-abortion females saying, “If you pro-lifr types like children so much maybe we should make the men pay for them!” and getting, “Your terms are acceptable,” in reply.

          1. Oh, if you want to see heads explode, check out the reactions when the requirement for a DNA match to impose child support is mentioned. Because somehow #BelieveAllWomen is better than proof.

            1. Watch the heads explode when you point out that one of the cases where they used DNA testing, they “proved” the woman hadn’t given birth to her own children.

              That’s before you get to the point where state law often protects the rights of presumptive fathers– because you don’t have to have DNA in common to love someone, and yes some dads are way better than the women they married.

  7. “Any decent man I know would risk his life to defend a woman (or anyone) being attacked.”

    Except it won’t be just my life; it will be the lives of my family members after I’ve been sent to prison by a blue zone prosecutor or sued into bankruptcy by the attacker, his relatives, or just some S.W.I.N.E for picking on their choirboy or girl.

    Heck, in NY there’s a law on the books saying that the addresses and other personal data of accusers and witnesses MUST be given to choirboy’s attorney in advance of trial. Meanwhile, choirboy’s been RoR’ed and is out before the victims have been bandaged. Can you say “victim / witness intimidation”?

      1. Bob, just remember that when you call the cops, they know you called. Guess who’s now a witness, and whose address will be provided.

        1. I think I’d be way, way down on the target list, and it probably wouldn’t matter anyway: eyewitness testimony is unreliable, and there’s no law that says I have to stay in a dangerous situation (if there’s a Good Samaratin Law, I figure calling the cops counts as complying). I can take the stand or fill out a police report and honestly just say “I saw something and heard a commotion and made myself scares, and that what awhile ago and the details are fuzzy.”

    3. Yep, and there have already been cases where witnesses have been tortured and murdered, the most prominent being a witness to a crimes by MS13 gang.

      As I have said numerous times, the leftists are on the side of the violent criminals who prey on the innocent.

  8. When the feminist movement really started picking up steam here in the 70’s, my mother observed that she would be all for equality except that she liked it up on her pedestal and she had no intention of lowering herself to a man’s level.

    I always liked that attitude.

    No offense to any males here or to any that I actually know, but if a woman knows her worth she need not feel inferior to anyone. Nor will she put up with being treated badly.

    1. In the early 70’s I was a college student and the feminst issues involved getting a divorced woman the same credit record as her ex husband, rather than her starting with a blank slate. And that a man forcibly having sex with his wife really was rape.
      Equality under the law is important.

      I am a great supporter of that and of equal opportunity. Not superior opportunities, and not equal outcomes. The travesty today is . . . well, a travesty. And getting taken over by men who claim to be women.

      It’s sort of like choice–when one side means “Your choice, so long as you chose what we think is the right thing.”

      Choice and Equality used to mean something a bit different than the Left is trying to make it.

      2. Yes. Getting a checking account? I had to have dad’s signature. This was in ’74. Granted I was only 17 when checking account was setup.

        I remember when we went to an accountant for our second year taxes (handling ’78 taxes while interesting, was easy. Interesting that our wages for all 11 months prior to being married were combined together. Yet we’d only been married for 15 days in ’78, and no income over those 15 days. The married tax.) ’79 taxes we’d been working 9 months. Same employer, same job, same job level. But his year-end pay total was higher. Accountant said something. Reality check. Both base salaries were exactly the same, salary not exempt. The difference was he worked more overtime over the year than I had, plus he started two weeks before I did (I had to finish finals).

        As far as credit score, ours were equal. There wasn’t one. We ended up getting a Sears card for our first furniture, and more important, washer and dryer. Then paid on it for a bit rather than quickly pay it off. Just to establish credit. Then moved on to regular bank CC and a house payment …. Note, who knew that fuel credit cards (we each had one), didn’t count? Nor did our individual checking accounts. Or individual rentals during college (okay, good news is they didn’t count against us either. Not that we had bad rental credit, just that we both moved a lot … I mean, duh, not there during the summers.)

        1. About 1968, got a college-student BankAmericard, now Visa, and still have it. Over 50 years of maintaining that account is a significant positive in our credit score. And it is our score. Don’t recall the stuff that compelled the sharing, but we both worked so it didn’t really matter much.

          1. I don’t know how many credit cards we have had. Getting rid of Old accounts we did not want anymore was a PIA. (Not using the cards was the trick. Calling just got new cards. Rolling eyes …) I think just 4 now. Only 3 that are actually used, and two of those are specialized use only. Then there is our primary card we use for everything else. The 4th card is tied to our checking account, that never gets used.

            1. On accident, I got awesome credit.

              by…

              Have done the dumbest f’ing thing and gotten All The Cards, but never used them.

              So now I’m at like 20-is years and low use.

              1. We’ve had Sears, Wards (until they quit doing stupid, on their part, we’ll make payment games that meant we got free stuff … Hey! We are honest. Not stupid), our bank visa. Then the percentage gift to charities happened so we got the Beaver credit card (OSU got 5% of everything we spent). Then we got a Chevy credit card and could get up to $3500 max toward a Chevy. We’d get up to the $3500 on that card, then go back to giving Beavers money. Then there have been the Sears Visa, where we’d get the card for specific purchase no interest payment if pay off in 6 months. Then the personal return percentage accounts came along and we started using this one (mostly) exclusively (return has been running $1200+/year for what we are paying for anyway). Yes, we have maliciously with foresight legally played the system.

                As the prior no longer used ones, finally dropped off, credit rating started to drop (like from *860 to 820 … so really “bad” … yes, sarcasm, jic). Figured out that it was because the credit percentage used to overall credit have was “too high” because of when it reports. That every cent owed is paid without incurring interest, doesn’t matter. That with current inflation pushing our card limit (more than I’d like, special circumstances, but still …), I jumped the limit by 50%. Boom the credit rating is climbing again. The flip side of credit rating for us, now, is how our income has “dropped” based on “known” monthly income … Or they don’t know anything about what we have or don’t have in savings, so that can’t count. Do not plan on telling them either.

                (*) When we apply for loans, now, the response is always “wow, they really like you two!” “They’d” better we’ve worked the system hard enough over the last 44 years. Been in the place of can’t get credit because never had credit. It made an impression. We also took those lessons and taught our son. His credit is considered “Excellent, but thin.”

      4. It looks like people wanting a Great Cause to serve, so they can Make a Difference. Hence the very unpleasant struggle session we had to endure a couple of years ago when (among other things) we were told the “trans struggle,” was, “the great civil rights movement of our time.”
        That tore a viable household apart and fallout has been as nasty as you would imagine.

        1. Or: they want a Great Cause so big they personally can’t Make any real Difference to it, so they can just repeat the Right Words and don’t have to actually accomplish anything, or even make any further effort.
          ———————————
          Dukhat: “When someone does a foolish thing, you should say it is a foolish thing. They may still continue to do it, but at least the truth is where it needs to be.”

    2. Whenever women have insisted on absolute equality with men, they have invariably wound up with the dirty end of the stick. What they are and what they can do makes them superior to men, and their proper tactic is to demand special privileges, all the traffic will bear. They should never settle merely for equality. For women, “equality” is a disaster.
      Robert A. Heinlein

  9. Why back in the last century, when I used to work for a living, it was still quite common for many of guys that worked for me to hand their paychecks over to their wives and the wives to sign their husband’s name on the back to cash them.

      1. In some older American “sub-cultures”, the Man would give his money to his wife and she’d use it for household expenses as well as “give him spending money”.

        One was the Irish-Americans and there was the connotation of “that way he wouldn’t spend it all on drink”.

        1. That last bit is reportedly one of the reasons why the infamous Company Stores came into being. The men would get paid, and immediately go spend it all at the bar. The women complained to their husbands’ employers about this, so the employers issued part of the pay in scrip that could only be redeemed at the company store. The men could still go get drunk on payday. But they wouldn’t leave their wives and kids starving as a result.

          1. One company I worked for changed its paycheck issue day from Friday to the following Monday exactly for that reason – the wives were complaining that too much of the check got spent at bars on Friday night.

            Several years later it became a non-issue with mandatory direct deposit (because processing paper was more expensive); “management involvement” then became handing out the statements instead of handing out the checks.

            1. Plus, in my experience, when direct deposit came along, my paycheck hit my account on Thursday afternoon. I didn’t have to wait until Friday afternoon to run to the bank to deposit the check.

  10. This is tangential to this post at first, but we will get there…..
    When I first found this blog, our Hostess happened to be writing about growing up and relating stories of that. From reading the stories, I got the impression she was 90. Why? My mother was about 90 then, and she told the same stories (in general) except they were what her grandmother had told her of growing up in the US in the late 19th century.
    Sarah is 3 years younger than I am. So, Portugal in the 60s/70s was about where parts of the USA were in 1870/80.
    The things Sarah fought against, my great grandmother, my grandmother and my mother all fought against.
    Mom got her BS in Chemical Engineering right at the end of the war. She worked for a couple of years in the field, but when they promoted a new hire to be her supervisor (his grandfather was majority stock holder) and he had only graduated because mom tutored him (he did learn but they both knew who ran things), she quit and ran away to NYC with her best friend at the age of 24.
    She eventually used her degree in Accounting to get a really good job at the hospital her friend worked at. She got the degree by reading books on accounting and bookkeeping from the public library, then changed her major on her resume. In 1949 no one was going to call or send a telegram to a podunk univeristy 1000 miles away…..especially when she had top grades and smoked the interview.
    Later she got the job she really wanted. Mom.
    My fathers sister was similar as was moms sister.
    All of my sisters grew up casually knowing they could do just fine at working. Mom hated womens lib and feminists (she was an intelligence snob and recoginized people with subnormal IQs for what they were). My sisters had no truck with stupid people either.
    Sarah and my sisters were the last generation that had the choice to not work outside the home without being considered weird.
    The truth that is ignored by ists is that in all generations women have always done what must be done, and succeeded or failed as did their men.

  11. “Any decent man I know would risk his life to defend a woman (or anyone) being attacked.”

    Not me. I’d call the cops, but that’s the extent of it.

    Odds are, any woman who got herself into such a situation – by 1) having no situational awareness and ridiculous confidence in the civilization that’s falling apart and 2) being unarmed – is a leftist and depending on the identity of the attacker she would probably turn right around and blame the rescuer soon as she was safe.

    If Eli Roth’s Green Inferno has taught me anything, it’s that you can literally pull a leftist girl out of a cannibal’s stewpot and she’ll blame the rescuer and defend the cannibal.

    Or for a real-life example, check out that vid of the Swedish girl on the plane pitching a fit because a someone was getting transported back to Afghanistan. I do, and I keep it in mind whenever my not-entirely-stifled chivalric impulse rears it’s fool head.

  12. I still hand my pay packet to the wife who pays all the bills. I’m not entirely sure what I actually make in fact. I do the stocks and bonds but she determines how much is available to put into the stocks and bonds. Real Estate we do together but my contribution tends to be around simple arithmetic and checking her intuition against what the numbers are. She’s got a really good gut for these things, women often do — they make very good portfolio managers but not such good traders.

    She hasn’t worked outside the home for over 30years now but I was able to semi retire 15 years ago because of her good management. I’m good at making money, she’s good at maximizing the value of whatever I make, It’s a team sport. Wherefore a man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they shall be two in one flesh.

    1. How we handled finances too. We have the 401(k)’s setup which gets paid first, all the other deductions. Rest went into same checking account. I paid the bills. We started out both balancing the checkbook. That was a disaster. When I constantly balanced it, no problems. When he constantly balanced it, no problems. When we switched off? Who, boy, it was not fun. Then we got into the IRA/Roth, etc. At first easy to manage those, interest bearing money market accounts. Now everything is in stock and funds. Hubby handles all that. I deal with bank accounts, bills, and everyday items. I know what he does, I just don’t want to do it. He knows what I do, ditto on not wanting to know the details.

      The only reason we deal with who is primary on an account is because we don’t remember which of us is primary on the account (after 44 years, no clue unless we have to deal with it, and often that is exactly how we put it). I had to help mom deal with that problem after dad died. He was primary on everything, even though she did the household management. That was a PIA. Essentially, because she just couldn’t deal with it all, I’d get on the phone and say “Here is the problem. Dad died. Mom knows he is primary on the account.” Married since 1955 and even the more recent household, power/phone/natural gas, were setup when they got the loan on the house, 1963. “What do you need to change her to primary?” I think EWEB and the phone company were the biggest PIA. Once she was setup as primary, I was added not just as secondary but with full rights to deal with anything that came up.

  13. Women went to war, all right. But mostly as support personnel–what they used to call “camp followers.” In the old days in Mexico, a soldier was expected to have a female companion—a “soldadera,” as they were called—who saw to his needs. Some of them did fight, and fought very well, but that was not their main job.

    Any knowledgeable military historian knows that for every person out actually fighting, there were (had to be) several support people behind the lines.

    1. Yes, the camp followers armed, fed, repaired equipment, and performed many other services for the actual fighters… This was true even during Wellington’s campaigns…

    2. The Greeks and Romans both remarked on how Gaulish women would back their husbands in battle, with rolled up sleeves and bared teeth. The Ludovisi Gaul shows the effect it had on them.

      Celtic women haven’t changed much that I’ve noticed, During the siege of Limerick in 1690, it was the women of the town who threw back the last Williamite assault at the black battery with paving stones.

      1. The Old Testament shows women taking decisive roles in sieges. I remember one where a “wise woman,” asked the besieging leader why they were doing it. The response was, “Because you’ve taken in so-and so.” The woman went to the town elders, and the enemy general’s body went over the wall shortly afterwards.

          2. I think you meant “Paris”.

            Paris was the asshole who “kidnapped” Helen.

            Hector was the older brother who stayed in Troy doing his job of protecting his father’s city.

    3. Jim Butcher has one of his camp follower ladies named Legion Quartermaster in his Codex Alera books. This is after most of the Legion died, of course. Tavi does things his own way.

  15. I’ve often wondered if it’s a reflection of reality or just a wish fulfillment, because frankly men like stories of women fighters.

    Yes, yes they do– something about the idea of a girl that can beat you up….

    And modern video!

        1. How’d you manage that? I tried cop and paste, and there doesn’t seem to be a photo upload option.

          1. If the address ends in dot JPG, it will load the image.

            Doesn’t work from DA, but I did a reverse image search with bing and then opened stuff until one of them 1) still existed and 2) ended in JPG.

            1. Know how to load or past an image that’s not online (or that I can’t find online anymore, just in my computer)?

                    3. They have their first big fight, Mara manages to get away with Baby Yoda and gets to know him for a couple days, Luke shows up to get him back and while their fighting another bad guy snatches Baby Yoda, so now Luke and Mara have to work together to rescue him.

                      The thing writes itself!

                    4. Ah dammit. Now my muse is screaming at me. Add this to the long list of Star Wars FanFics I’m going to get around to writing someday….

                    6. Someday. But I kid you not, I have a list of at least 4 other Star Wars FanFics that I’m also planning to write one of these days.

                    7. I’ve actually been working on that, or trying to, for the last few months, but I got stuck. I guess this’ll motivate me to hurry it up.

                      “He’s a fighting beast. He escaped his cage a week ago and he’s been living wild in the bazaar and town since,” Yuri said in delight at Kristov’s side. “They were starving him, but he’s Been eating a lot better since he’s been able to hunt rats and steal food, so I thought the other animals would survive well too.”
                      “That’s why you opened all the cages and let them out,” Kristov said. It wasn’t a question. Still he couldn’t blame the boy: Yuri was resilient, but he knew grief and pain and hated to see cruelty. The boy petted that short-furred cat. There was an odd yellow patter on his fur and ridges and horns at its forehead. It also carried more than a few battle scars, but it was tame as a house at in Yuri’s arms.
                      Kristov considered the would-be kidnapper he’d dragged into the alley for concealment. A quick search of the man had yielded nothing, but his very presence was dire enough.
                      “His name is Brindle,” Yuri said of the cat. “He’s been waiting for me.”
                      Kristov had no time to inquire further. The sense of menace that had hovered over him was descending.
                      “Kristov-” Yuri abruptly turned grave and Brindle sprang to his delicate shoulder, back arched and hissing. “Something’s coming.”
                      “Yeah, I know.”
                      Cries of alarm sounded from the bazaar and spaceport and then the way ahead was abruptly clear of crowds.
                      A party of armed and armored troops marched toward them. At their head strode a woman.
                      Part of Kristov took in her appearance – beautiful, wearing form-fitting armor that sheathed her curves like a serpent’s scales. She held a psyblade like a burning violet katana in her hand – but of greater impact was her presence in the ram: it seemed a glacier was approaching, armored in layers of ice and a chilling wind blew from its sharp and bitter peaks.
                      She and her men stopped. She regarded him without emotion. Then:
                      “Give me the child and I will make your death quick.”
                      Now Kristov called his own psyblade to hand. The burning blue energy that would take life, but Kristov’s soul would feel every kill. With it came the usual deep sadness at the battle to follow, but neither did he shy from it. He was focused and present, mind and body and blade all one weapon and the power of the ram flowed through him. He donned a smile.
                      “Sorry, that’s not going to happen.”

                    9. Thanks, I guess I just got tired of waiting for John C. Wright to finish the StarQuest books and started something myself.

                      I wrote through the initial kidnapping, but now I’m stuck figuring out what the overall plot is – not the surface plot of chasing and saving the kid, but who the factions and players are in the post-Imperial universe and what the bad guys’ plans are.

                      And realizing I have to develop a whole giant backstory with analogs to the Clone Wars, the Empire, the Rebellion and all the heroes and heroics that’s sufficiently different from SW canon but still has that resonance if I want to capture the exuberence of those first EU books and the joy of being back with on adventures with our heroes from the movies, along with new heroes and villains. Then figure out how to refer to those events in the story I’m actually writing without going into long digressions.

                      There’s plenty of differences already: the Mara-analog was given the Winter Soldier treatment and needs to be snapped out of it, and the Luke-analog comes from an ice planet, not a desert one, sort of like a Siberia where his ancestors got exiled as political prisoners and had to survive.

                      And real life is getting in the way of course.

                      Still plugging along. May the Force-analog be with me!

                    10. Eh, don’t let yourself be trapped. Give yourself such analogues as aid you, and develop new, non-analogous stuff! Exuberance is, in my experience, more likely when you throw in whatever you like and toss out whatever you dislike.

                      It also has the advantage of making the work less derivative. I have yet to have anyone identify the original source except when I was deliberately retelling public domain tales.

    3. From some of my readings it wasn’t that the men liked women who could “beat him up”, but more of “what a man I am who can win a woman that tough”.

      1. That’s pretty much it. It’s the male version of women doing the “I tamed him” dance. Women like to imagine that it was their charms that tamed the savage beast of a man, who will now protect them against the world. Men like to show how fierce their woman is, but “look, she chose me to settle down with/submit to.” Even if there’s no actual submitting as such.

          2. Yup you do NOT want to mess with Clarissa Kinnison (nee Macdougall). After she hit L2 she’d probably kick my sorry ass (metaphorically mind you, Rigellians aren’t built like that) all around the joint. To be honest I think I’d rather have a go with Kimball Kinnison than his spouse, especially if she thought Kim or her children were on the line.

              1. The wife of Kimball Kinnison (Second Stage Lensman) who was later given a Lens of her own.

                She’s the mother of the “Children Of The Lens”.

                And yes, she “kicks ass” almost as well as her husband.

              2. Indeed she is. She is the ONLY Female Lensman of any species (and all of Civilization have the Male/Female Split as we are based off Arisian spoor NOT Eddorian). She is also a level 2 (L2) entity rare even amongst Lensman, there are but a handful mentioned in the Lensman series.

      2. :nods:

        Similar to how female fantasies are not “I want to be In Trouble like that” than “I want someone that I want to want me that way.”

      2. Hon, don’t get me started on Lucas and his hate-on for Mara Jade.

        You can find the stuff online, but… ouch.

        (also can’t see link)

        1. Yeah, Lucas didn’t want Luke to get married.

          But he also had this stupid idea that Jedi couldn’t get married but they weren’t celibate. IE They couldn’t have a husband or wife but they could have sex.

          Idiot.

          1. Barbara Hambley’s Children of the Jedi is hands-down my favorite SW book. I literally just finished re-reading it today.

            A major and plot point is the wives and children of the old republic Jedi knights. The prequel movies proceeded to negate everything about that novel – to the detriment of the brand in my opinion.

            Likewise Lucas failed to pick up on Zahn’s lead, when he had the impression that the clones were the bad guys in the Clone Wars (understandably: we often name wars after the enemy defeated). It’d have made for a far more interesting concept, if the bad guys were clone overlords with hordes of mass-produced and programmed people and normal men were trained to fight them.

            2. That reminds me, I “need” to get an e-copy of Children of the Jedi. 😉

          3. The “no marriage” thing might have been inspired by monks, as Jedi have been described as warrior-monks. And monks were often celibate in the real world.

            But then Lucas decided that they only needed to be single, and not celibate.

            /Facepalm

            1. I suppose it could be argued that the Jedi weren’t to marry because “marriage means emotional attachment” but they were allowed sex because (in the Leftish mind) because going without sex is unhealthy.

              But of course, Roman Legionaries were to remain unmarried as long as they were members of the Legions but Legionaries stationed somewhere in the Empire for long periods would have “unofficial wives” where they were stationed which were not a secret to their commanders.

              It’s very possible that some Jedi had long-term lovers who they never officially married. 😀

              1. Yeah, the whole ‘Jedi don’t marry’ thing was the height of stupidity, since it was painfully obvious that the Force ran in families. If I’d been in charge of the Jedi Council, we would have been encouraging Jedi to form stable relationships and pop out as many kids as they could, while trying to avoid setting any sort of ‘breeding program’ precedent, because that never leads anywhere good…

              2. I think its part of the dichotomy that represents leftist thought. Like many of the greek philosophers and many heterodox early flavors of Christianity they separate the spiritual and physical and hold that the physical is in some manner lesser or degrading. Greek Philosphy is NOT the only one to have this view, some of the Eastern views (especially Buhddism where the idea of nirvana is to be free of the physical ) also hold these views and I think much of Lucas’ idea of the Jedi owes more of its source to the stupid ideas of monks in the 1970’s Kung Fu than anything else. Lucas’ also loves him some Joseph Campbell (ESPECIALLY “Hero With a Thousand Faces” , see here for a start https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hero_with_a_Thousand_Faces#In_film) and that shapes his vision too.

          4. But he also had this stupid idea that Jedi couldn’t get married but they weren’t celibate. IE They couldn’t have a husband or wife but they could have sex.

            Idiot.

            :very carefully doesn’t look at anyone’s personal life on that one:

            Suggestive, though, innit?

            1. I wonder if the franchise’s decline had anything to do with Lucas’ marriage falling apart?

              Lucas was the creative spark, but Marcia’s influence shaped Star Wars into the thing we love. On his own, Lucas has been a bit self-indulgent.

              1. I wonder if the franchise’s decline had anything to do with Lucas’ marriage falling apart?

                Ding ding ding, we have a winner.

                Lucas is awesome at ideas.

                ….carrying them out, not so much.

                1. This seems to be too common. I know we see it in authors who become uneditable. Cough George Martin cough cough, It’s also a very good way to identify companies that might be overextending and possibly becoming prone to certain types of fraud, I use it all the time as the chairman leaving the wife he’s known since college, the last person in the world to whom he’s just “Bob” as opposed to Mr. Chairman is the common denominator in all sorts of corporate shenanigans from Tyco through WaMu, Salomon through Lehman, the list is long. Tom Wolfe caught a good bit of it in A Man in Full.

                  My da told me that the old Jewish Wall Street houses had a strict rule about partners in the firm and scandal. Any scandal affecting the family and you were out. It wasn’t about morality — they had “professionals” on contract IYKWIM —it was about focus. If you were catting around, you weren’t concentrating on the bidness.

                2. Yeah Lucas’ wife was one of the prime film editors on Star Wars (aka A New Hope) and Empire Strikes Back . On Return of the Jedi she was NOT a major part of the editing team as things were going to hell in a handbasket, and it shows. Add to that that by Return of the Jedi Lucas was a KNOWN major moneymaker for Hollywood and no one was going to question his choices in 1983 with ESB and Raiders of the Lost Ark being 2 of the largest grossing pictures in their respective years and in general to that point.

                  Things just get worse in the prequel trilogy, as Lucas can’t write dialog and can’t write believable romance. The only thing making the original trilogies Solo/Leia pairing work was that there was some rather illicit interaction going on between Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford that made for far more chemistry than Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman manged to generate with the awful dialog they had. Empire Strikes back also had good bones to its script having had its first pass done by Leigh Brackett who was both a Sci-fi author AND a decent screen writer.

                  1. I actually read the Bracket screenplay, and I think it was pretty good. There were definite improvements in the final version, but I find myself wishing some cut elements of the screenplay had made it in.

                    Like Lando originally being a clone.

                    And one funny moment where Threepio is so scared he reaches back and switches HIMSELF off!

                    1. OOOHHH that sounds interesting… didn’t know such a thing existed. In any case it’s got to beat “Splinter of the Minds Eye” by Foster all hollow, Foster DID talk to Lucas, but apparently went off in a STRANGE direction.

                    2. “Splinter Of The Mind’s Eye” was written when Lucas didn’t know if the first movie would earn enough to warrant a big-budget sequel and had Foster write a book that could be used a model for the script of a low-budget sequel.

                      Which is why Han Solo wasn’t in Foster’s novel and why there was still the hints that Luke & Leia might become a couple. (Luke being Leia’s brother hadn’t made canon yet.)

                    3. In fairness to Foster, apparently he talked to Lucas BEFORE Lucas made the plot shift from “Luke and Han are the good guy vs scoundrel rivals for the hand of the Princess” to brother / sister / scoundrel path he actually took.

                    6. To tregonsee314:

                      I think Terry Pratchett’s Cohen had the best answer to the Evil Overlord List:

                      “There was, there always was, at the start and the finish … the Code. They lived by the Code. You followed the Code, and you became part of the Code for those who followed you. The Code was it. Without the Code, you weren’t a hero. You were just a thug in a loincloth. (…) Forget the Code, dismiss the Code, deny the Code … and the Code would take you.”

                      https://wiki.lspace.org/The_Code

                  2. I thought ROTJ had some good points. I thought the Ewoks managed to straddle the line between cute and legitimately dangerous, and the lines the troopers say to each other about rumored native animals really highlights the arrogance of the Empire – they just landed a base and shield generator there without bothering to look for natives.

                    Second Death Star: not exactly a carbon copy of the first, since it was half-completed and had a distinct look, and it was the perfect place for a showdown with the Emperor and Vader and Luke.

                    And it was the movie that gave us the golden bikini. I can forgive a lot for that.

                    1. There’s a tightness to the flow of the first two that is missing in ROTJ. That kind of visual snap is the sign of a good editor let do their job. And comparing ROTJ to Phantom Menace is like comparing Casablanca to Plan 9 From Outer Space… I didn’t say that : -) . My daughters grew up with the prequels and they have a love for them just like I like UFO or Thunderbirds with all their goofiness. And yes Leia in a bikini was quite nice, but Leia flouncing about with no/limited support garments in Star Wars was kind of tough on a 16 year old boy :-).

                    2. ROTJ had its faults, sure. I still think it was a mistake for Vader not to follow up on his initial offer in ESB for Luke to join him in taking down Palpatine, only for Palpatine to double cross Vader expecting Luke to take his place.

                    3. Given the rule of two for Sith (which honestly gets violated left right and center) one of two things is going to happen with a Sith and their apprentice. Either the Master will figure out that the student is trying to replace them and will kill/expend the apprentice OR the apprentice will surprise the Master and take their place and become the new number 1. I feel like this kind of stuff might be in the Evil Overlord instruction manual somewhere 🙂 .

                    4. I think the theory is that it keeps both of them on their toes.

                      And since Sith are always going to betray each other, at least now the betrayals are at a minimum, between known quantities.

                    5. It gets violated because it’s STUPID.

                      Holy F, what is teh binding factor, here?

                      Uh… magic says?

                      “Hi, I’m evil, I am going to have ONE apprentice….and magically not violate that right off the bat to kill my boss.”

                    6. Because if you jump the gun and get an apprentice while still an apprentice yourself, there’s a good chance your apprentice will try and off YOU and take your place with the boss. But they still try it.

                      Likewise, the master can also secretly train another apprentice to try and set them against each other, or eliminate the weaker one in other ways, but it runs the risk of the apprentices allying to take down the master, then squabble with each other over precedence.

                      The binding factor? I always took it to be the same sort of semi-magic thing that allows the Orcs to work together: they hate each other, sure, but they hate goodness worse, and they’ll drop their quarrels soon as they see one of the good guys.

                      And in purely self-interested terms, there’s always a big potential prize of power if they work together.

                      And given the reputation the Sith have (deservedly) earned, who else would work with a Sith but another Sith?

                      It was heavily implied in James Luceno’s Cloak of Deception prequel novel to the Phantom Menace that Sidious had tons of blackmail material on Nute Gunray to keep him in line.

                3. “Lucas is awesome at ideas.
                  ….carrying them out, not so much.”

                  It’s amazing how many times, and in how many diverse places, that issue shows up, from the design vs. production of Mopar cars to the design vs. production of electronic systems by a certain major (former) defense contractor. And I owned enough of the first, and worked long enough at the second, to be somewhat of an expert. 🙂

              2. I’m of the opinion that the first movie was a mix of blind luck coupled with an audience that was hungry for a fun throwback. I think the most relevant point to note is that the movie generally regarded as the best of the six while Lucas was in charge was not written by Lucas. Lucas may have come up with some of the basic plot ideas, but Brackett and Kasdan are the ones with the writing credit. George’s name is conspicuously absent.

                If George Lucas had similarly limited himself with the subsequent four movies, we might regard all of them as fondly as we do the first two.

  16. It’s really pretty simple from an evolutionary standpoint, given the traditional roles in a tribe or small village…Women are evolved to optimize child care, creating a social life (which is why they are much more verbal), and light gathering or gardening..Men are evolved for hunting and warfare (which is why they are stronger, faster, have denser bones, and have quicker reflexes), and toolmaking…..Of course, some members of both sexes vary and surpass those roles or be inadequate in them…The famous Greek quote about citizen soldiers is that 10% of them shouldn’t even be there, and another 10% will carry the main burden of fighting…

  17. Yes, women have always fought, in the sense that war — particularly primitive war — doesn’t respect sexes. And you either fight or die.

    More than that– no sane culture WANTS the women to fight.

    “Wars are ugly when women fight.” It’s true. It’s the same reason you for dang sure do not cross a small man, or an old man– he will kill you, because there is no cost difference. If he’s in combat, it’s win or die.

    A nice, big, strong woman is starting at small and/or elderly guy level.

    Guns can help level this level of threat, and I think a lot of the modern insanity is failing to understand that change.

    1. Female cops are much more likely to shoot I have heard.

      Which makes complete sense. If a male cop has trouble subduing a male perp, and they do, ( have you ever tried to hold a 3 year old kid down for stitches? How about someone your own size?) What chance would even an above average fit female have?

      1. FWIW, that has less to do with cops than with criminals.

        Though I still oppose female beat officers because of it.

        Imagine someone so broke in the head that he thinks “anyone female is an easy target.”

        It’s the same weakness as hiring a tiny guy for security.

        Great, he can kill you– NOW MAKE IT SO HE DOESN’T HAVE TO IN ORDER TO STOP THE IDIOT!

      2. Look, if you’re going into a house arrest, you want at least five to one cops vs what you THINK is there- with no offense to the folks involved, when Vienna was under siege before the Winged Hussars arrived, it was 15 to one.
        With stone walls, even undermined.
        Attackers are at a disadvantage, if there’s any warning.

        MOST cop arrests are cops being ‘invaders’ to protected territory.

      3. There are female cases where they are really, really scary – I worked with a bunch of the CERT (think prison SWAT without guns) and the worst cell extractions were women and one specific woman even scared them when it came time to deal with her misbehavior.

        Also there is a lot of truth to the “mama bear” idea when you involve women and their offspring when that’s the case it may not mean strength but just shear violent intensity.

  18. “So I called myself a feminist because I wanted women to have the same rights as men. That was all.”

    A lot of people in the US still believe this. And whenever the “feminazis” (as Rush used to call them) get pushback over yet another attempt at excess, they’ll appeal to this standard. Whenever a woman says that she’s no longer a feminist because of the excesses of the modern feminist movement, she’ll be attacked for supposedly not believing in the above.

    The problem, as always, is part of the left taking a word that means something positive, and then quietly substituting their own replacement definition instead.

    1. Motte and bailey argumentation. It’s their stock in trade. For basically everything, from abortion as healthcare to “everyone’s a feminist”.

    3. The meaning of the word “feminist” has changed. Just like hundreds of years ago, the word “awful” meant “awesome” but now means “terrible”, the word “feminist” no longer means “wanting women to be equal before the law.”

      So I’m not a feminist. And I’m done with having to follow that up with “except that I believe women should be equal before the law.” Of course I do. Virtually every American on the left and the right believes that. It is the current baseline. The fact that some people on the left project their fantasies on the right doesn’t mean those fantasies are true.

      I don’t have to call myself an “abolitionist” to say I’m against slavery, and I don’t have to call myself a “feminist” to say women should be equal before the law.

    4. Activist Feminism in the U.S. morphed into Feminaziism in the mid 70’s after the sex based banking/credit/employment rules had been largely abandoned & Title IX was in place. Feminism had achieved its purported goals, so the activist class had to move the goalposts to stay “relevant”.

  19. The great problem was that the feminist movement won in the 1970s…then transformed into a Female Supremacy Grift. Along with most of the other civil rights activities – it seems to be a chronic issue.

    1. Won early ’70s. When I chose to go into Forestry I wasn’t told I couldn’t. Was told I wouldn’t stick with it, they were wrong (I am stubborn), but they were right too. Just weren’t right for their original reasons. My reasons were gender neutral … I wasn’t the only Forester to have to give up on the field. A lot of us went into software. Gee wonder where were people being pushed for career changes in the ’80s? “Learn to code” is not new.

  21. Women were usually the regents left to defend the castle and the home when the men went off to war. Richard I left his mother in charge, not his brother, regardless of any Robin Hood legends you may have heard. It was a common practice.

    One of the things that irks me beyond measure, as a woman in financial planning, is the insistence of modern feminists that women were never allowed to handle their own money, or were not allowed to be in finance. This is a huge and direct insult to every woman who ever handled household accounts. Those don’t count because it’s not “outside the home” and therefore worthless. No one denigrates “women’s work” like feminists.

    Do they ever think that the reason a man is unwilling to do women’s work is because he considers it to be theft from the woman, rather than “beneath him”? No, no they do not. Work is only important if it is men’s work. According to feminists.

    Um. I may be a bit ranty.

    1. Um. I may be a bit ranty. Only a little because I’ve heard (and done) worse.

      Oh, for some time now, I’ve wondered if jokes about “men in a kitchen” or “male housekeeping” were started by women to Keep Men Out Of Their Place Of Power. 😉

      1. Oh no! Ladies, I think they are on to us!

        But, seriously, the ladies I know love to see men doing the dishes, cooking, helping out. I taught my boys housekeeping skills so they wouldn’t have to get married (or these days shack up) because they were hungry and didn’t have any clean clothes. Hubby taught our girls how to solder, pick out the right tool for a job, how to change oil and tires on a car and basic maintenance because they might want to be independent or might not find a guy with those skills. And if they did find one they could be helpful on household jobs. I learned a lot of “male” skills from my dad. Hubby learned zero cooking or housekeeping from his mom. But he is neat by nature so it’s fine.

        Now, in mixed company, like a family dinner or church supper, there does seem to be a certain separation of the sexes after dinner or even during prep, just because they tend to have different interest in conversational topics.

        That’s where the joking generally comes in.

        I don’t mind the kitchen with the ladies, but some of the conversation is really lame. I’d rather listen to talk about cars, elk hunting, supply chains or high finance any day. Even though I don’t DO any of those things.

      2. I’ve heard a story about how Israeli Kibbutzim started off as ideologically sex-blind and ended up with the kitchen being all-women except for one ‘man of the kitchen’ to do the heavy lifting.

        Also (puts tongue in cheek) modern kitchens promote sexism is by liberating men. In the old days, men who wanted decent meals had to get married, and that caused them to value women. Now, with modern kitchens, “Men can cook for themselves; women, minorities hardest hit.”

        1. There is an old folk tale about a peasant farmer and his wife arguing over who had it tougher so they switch roles. In an early form of feminism, the housewife handled the farm chores well enough but the farmer’s efforts were a disaster–mostly because he tried to be “clever” about things.

          More recently there was an old episode of I Love Lucy (I said more recently, not really recently) where Ricky an Fred swapped roles with Lucy and Ethel. The results were disastrous for both of them because the different roles required wildly different skillsets and each lacked the others skills in that area. A much more plausible result, IMO.

          Nowadays, of course, people would proclaim that the women could do anything the men could do but the men would be hopeless outside their narrow field because…faminism.

          1. I think there was a cute video about “woman glasses,” too….

            In fairness, these days, a functional woman can do teh job of a man, because we’re socially required to do a very basic level of the same.

            Very.

            Very.

            VERY basic.

            Not to be confused with GOOD…

            /SEE RANT RE CAD VS MAN

    2. “Richard I left his mother in charge”.
      True, but Eleanor of Aquitaine was kind of a special case. Duchess in her own right, former Queen of France, former Queen of England – lots of political experience there.

      But the word ‘chatelaine’ is feminine because those who exercised the office were very frequently women.

        1. Well, sure, but my late mom was not an Eleanor. Though mom might have liked being a Duchess.

          By most measures, John wasn’t actually a bad king (see Stephen, predecessor to Henry II), but he wasn’t successful in keeping his continental possessions, and he certainly was not a ‘nice guy’.

          1. King John’s major problem was that he had no “lands of his own” so he didn’t have the funds to support an army loyal to himself. (His nickname was John Lackland.)

            So any money he had came (in taxes) from the English Nobility and wealthy merchant types.

            That’s how the Barons “forced” him to sign the “Great Charter”.

  22. Years ago, I read that the United Kingdom had three different systems of household accounts: the whole wage system, where the husband handed his pay to his wife and she gave him walk around money; the housekeeping allowance system, where the husband managed the money and gave his wife a fixed sum to spend on household needs; and the joint account system, where all the money went into one account and they both had checkbooks. These apparently were markers of social class, though I don’t know which went with who.

    Our own household uses none of those systems. But I don’t propose our system as the right one for everyone; I wouldn’t presume to advise other households on how to manage their money, or even ask how they do it. Though there could probably be an interesting novel about household economics!

    2. My family worked on the first – Dad’s paycheck went to Mom, and she did all the shopping and paying for bills. In the early days, she had me endorse Dad’s paycheck ( which arrived by mail, and she needed the money RIGHT AWAY! and my handwriting looked like his.
      Mom had the household accounts – she told Dad what we could afford.

    3. Over 51 years of marriage Michele and i have worked this system: She has a joint checking account. I have a joint checking acct. Bills are paid from whichever account is convenient, Money can be be shifted between accounts as we decide. I do not mess with her account, nor she with mine, except in emergencies, but we have total transparency into each account.

      1. Seems a workable method. My wife and I have only a single account. This comes mostly from the fact that when we started 2 accounts would have made no sense When we married after I had worked a year and she had graduated from undergrad and was headed to grduate school we had bupkus. It would have taken one small pile of money and made it into two smaller piles. We’ve lived like that for 38+ years and it’s worked for us. We know several other couples that have 2 accounts, mostly because they married later than us and already had established bank accounts and credit histories.

        1. we had bupkus. It would have taken one small pile of money and made it into two smaller piles.

          ……..
          You too? We had to borrow money (family) to be able to go to where we both had jobs.

          I’ve been asked why only the *one account? Beyond “this is a partnership”? I got nothing.

          (*) Of which hubby is primary. I had to go look to double check. Just how it worked out.

        2. We have one account because I liked my bank and insurance better than his. So, we merged into mine with the idea that at some point we’d have our own checking accounts and a third account for everything else. That never happened. We have one joint checking, one joint savings. We each have our own retirement accounts (obviously) and I have an account with my inheritance money. He does all the finances, but I track household spending. I used to panic when we were first married because we’d be down to our last $40 bucks before one of our measly paychecks hit, so he took over and just gave me cash when possible. If I didn’t see the close to empty account, I didn’t panic even though I knew it was tight.

    4. We have the last, more or less. One account. But only one checkbook. Made easier now by ability to auto pay through CC, or against checking account, then pay the few bills payment. We maybe go through a physical box of checks every 10+ years. I also use Quicken to track everything. I know the status of everything down to the penny. Hubby does the same with the stock investments. Or why we know, not think, we are generating 8+% return.

  23. A woman needs to know the housework if she has servants. Then she can judge how good they are. She can also retrench if necessary, and hold out against unreasonable demands because she can survive without servants.

  24. First, I thought this was going to be about The Left Hand of Darkness for reasons.

    Second, a musical interlude.

    Oh, and women who stayed behind in their cities often found themselves forced to defend the garrison with the old men and the kids. And some of them became heroes. But that was “hazard of war” not a career.

      1. I need to finish the part I have. I read to the point I had that lead to the 2am realization and then life went sideways.

          1. Easily. When insurance dicks around and I have a strattera gap, going off eats a week and back on a month. I was throwing up Thanksgiving morning as a side effect.

            The main reason I haven’t just quit is C and Z have to deal with me when I’m off.

            1. yeah. Now it’s only hanging on as cough at night, and I wonder if this lovely little episode set off the incipient COPD into permanent and dangerous mode. Sigh.

          2. Easily. When insurance dicks around and I have a strattera gap, going off eats a week and back on a month. I was throwing up Thanksgiving morning as a side effect.

            The main reason I haven’t just quit is C and Z have to deal with me when I’m off.

  25. It seems like many (all?) ‘Civil RIghts’ type actions have been coopted to remove the bond between man and woman and replace it with state and slave.

    Destroy family, make State your father. Destory men, make State your provider and protector.

    The State believes the “American Mind” even belongs to them, as evidenced by Missouri v Biden.

    1. I have within the last day seen leftists screaming that Woke must be good, because it means empathetic.

      1. Oh great. Now they are changing the meaning of: Empathetic.

        “Woke” is the utter disregard of Empathy.

  26. On an unrelated note, Jiang Zemin has died in China. Since I don’t imagine many of you recognize that name, he’s a former leader of China. He’s not the one that just got purged from the Chinese Communist Party. That’s Hu Jintao. Rather, he’s the one who preceded Hu. Despite the unusual timing just as these national protests have started, it’s almost certain that he died of natural causes (he was 95), and not some machination by Xi Jinping.

  28. This was something I had understood a long, long time ago, and only really codified when I was writing Solist At Large and doing all of the research on female fighters.

    Short version-female fighters were extremely rare for a reason. On average-not as strong (not as much muscle mass, not the same muscle mass), sheer combat-type endurance is lower, more fragile due to bone density and structure (the pelvic girdle that lets large human baby heads past is notoriously fracture-prone), and the mentality of females was not built for brutal in-your-face combat on average. Julie d’Aubigny was spectacular, but she was most certainly an outlier.

    (This doesn’t mean that women aren’t violent. Most female violence is social violence. Whisper games, innuendo, having your reputation destroyed and having your tribe shun you so that you kill yourself, followed by poison and a knife in the back.)

    This dictated a lot of the novel writing, and there’s several consequences that will show up as time and the plot goes on.

    I want people-whoever they are-to have as much equality before the law as is possible. The current round of “feminism”…has turned from something that wants to build people up into a monster that will tear everything down.

  29. When I got stopped on the street to sign a petition for “women’s rights” I (being the ornery professor I am) would ask “What rights, under the law, are women currently denied that men enjoy?” The usual answer was “abortion”. I said, but you can get one. “Well, it might not…” I said, so there is no inequality regarding rights? “Well, but women don’t get paid as much!” Then I said, well, that’s too long of a discussion for the sidewalk. Go research the data… I got a lot of dirty looks.

  30. Pingback: LinkSwarm for December 2, 2022 « Lawrence Person's BattleSwarm Blog

  31. It is said that in Japan, every man is Emperor within his own household. However, his wife is Shogun. And if you know Japanese history, you know who had the real power.

    “Salary-men” customarily bring their pay envelopes home and hand them over, un-opened, to their wives. The wife handles all the family finances. While the husband is expected to go out partying with his colleagues (this is an important aspect of doing business in Japan) this is done on his employers’ dime.

    As for cooking and household chores—my mother made damn sure my brother and I could handle those, so we wouldn’t have to get married. She had a Cunning Plan to get us to help out in the kitchen—“cooks got to nibble.” Mom also said that as a woman, she liked being the only woman in a house full of men. That way, if something needed doing that required greater height or muscle, she had a choice of guys to call on.

    1. I made sure the boys could cook. It’s not a matter of marrying or not. Very few girls of their generation cook from scratch. They seem to have found girls who do, but it’s still useful to be able to pitch in when the wife is sick, or away from home.
      My dad had to get mom’s instructions on making tea when she had the flu. And the whole house came to a standstill. (Mom didn’t teach anyone to cook. Her choice.)

      1. My great-grandmother didn’t teach anymore to cook, much. With the net result that my grandmother, the youngest, the only one ambulatory during the Spanish Influenza, fed them all oatmeal all the time they were sick, because it was the one thing she could cook.

        They all managed to survive but were thoroughly sick of oatmeal. So sick that she actually taught her daughter how to cook.

        1. Thank you, Mary.

          I remember this story being posted but forgot who told it. 😀

  32. I had to look at your bio to understand some of your comments. Portugal didn’t give women the vote, apparently after 1919. I had no idea Europe was still so primitive. And, based on recent events, they still are primitive. We’re watching the Great Powers play effing games in Eastern Europe, that can affect us all.
    I all to well know the role of women in the family. Jan died in April 2019. I’ve had problems ever since, with multiple things. Besides the heartbreak, and being a single parent for a teen girl.

  33. I have a magic super-power to control the women in my life; instead of being controlled by them? How do I access this?

      1. Vichy Mitchy needs to be removed from the Senate Republican leadership position and given something else to do. Finger painting comes to mind…

        Maybe Mitchy’s doodles could sell for $500,000 each. I mean, how could they be worse than H. Biden’s spit-paintings? Maybe, contribute to the federal budget. 😛

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