Sucks To Be You, Sir
Karol Markowicz tells it like it is in the New York Post -- about how it's easier to be a woman than a man:
It's always entertaining when a poorly thought-out feminist argument refutes itself, saving the rest of us the trouble.In a widely shared moment late last week, Sen. Kamala Harris asked Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, "Can you think of any laws that give government the power to make decisions about the male body?"
The question was in the midst of Harris' extensive grandstanding so Kavanaugh didn't have an immediate answer. But there's an obvious one: Selective Service.
...Had Kavanaugh thought of that answer, it would have exposed a hidden truth: Being female is amazing. Meanwhile, being a man does not seem like a good thing at all.
Even with the modern loss of niceties like men holding doors or offering seats for women, being a woman is still far easier and more pleasant than being a man.
It's not just theoretical wars that men fight in if drafted. In Operation Enduring Freedom, the name for America's ongoing engagement fighting global terrorism, 98 percent of the 2,346 military deaths as of April 2017 were men.
And it's not just combat deaths. Men have a far higher rate of workplace death than women. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says men represent 92 percent of all workplace-related fatalities. The 10 industries with the most workplace-related deaths are almost entirely stocked with men: truck drivers, steel workers, refuse collectors, loggers, fishers. Men take the dangerous, hard, smelly jobs that most women wouldn't consider.
Far less serious, but no less real, is the issue of discomfort. While moving homes this summer, we stayed with my in-laws in suburban Long Island. I'd drop my husband off at the Long Island Rail Road station, and he would join the throngs of men in suits in sweltering summer heat.
Love how she ends the piece:
Being a woman isn't easy, but that's because being a human isn't easy. When compared to men, though, women have it made. We may not run the world but that's mostly because we don't want to. Feminism tells women to strive to be just like men. Smart women should respond: "No, thanks."
I wrote a column on this, "Romancing The Grindstone." An excerpt:
In a 2015 study, economists Ghazala Azmat and Rosa Ferrer surveyed young lawyers on their level of ambition: "When asked to rate, on a scale from 1 to 10, their aspirations to become an equity partner in their firm, 60 percent of male lawyers answered with 8 or more, compared to only 32 percent of female lawyers."However, there's an assumption that women should want to join the cutthroat race to the corner office. Psychologist Susan Pinker criticizes this as the "male standard" being forced on women. In her 2008 book, "The Sexual Paradox," Pinker points to countless studies that find that women tend to be more motivated by "intrinsic rewards" -- wanting to be happy more than they want to be on top. As an example, she profiles "Donna," who quit her prestigious job as a tenured professor in a computer science department for a lower-status job (tutoring faculty at another university) that allowed her more one-on-one engagement with people. Pinker explains, "Donna decided to opt for what was meaningful for her over status and money."
Like you, I don't want kids. (I describe them as "loud, sticky, and expensive.") However, Pinker notes that there's "plenty of evidence that many more women than men" -- including women at the top of their game -- put family before career advancement. She tracked down "Elaine," the author of an op-ed titled "My glass ceiling is self-imposed," about why she'd declined a promotion that would have put her third from the top in a company with 12,000-plus employees in more than 60 countries.
The president of the company was dumbfounded. But Elaine wrote that she was happily married, with children (and grandparents nearby). The promotion would have required relocating, and that would have destabilized her family. She concluded her piece with the observation that "many companies ... would like nothing more than to have more senior female executives, but not all females are willing to give up what it might take to get there."
These sex differences in ambition make evolutionary sense. Because women evolved to prioritize finding high-status "providers," mate-seeking men evolved to duke it out to occupy the spot of Ye Olde Big Man On Campus. Sure, these days, mover-and-shaker men typically seek women on a par with them in intellect and education. However, men are still vastly more likely than women to date the hot barista -- probably because, over evolutionary history, men evolved to prioritize signs of health and fertility in women (or, to put it another way: "Ye Olde Big Perky Breastesses").
My father, a helicopter engineer back in the '80s, refused a big promotion in case he agreed to move to China for at least 10 years (we are Italian).
It was the opportunity he has been waiting for a long time; in 1971 we were in Iran, were he was the leader of the technical department for his copmany helicopter fleet - Italy had very good economical relationship with Iran's Shah Reza Palevi.
He was making big money, a brilliant career but it ended at the end of 1972, because my mother one day took up us three kids and escaped to Greece (she could not find enough money for the flight to Italy), without warning her husband. She was a teacher and an aggressive leftist typical of those years (she sympathized for the red terrorists Brigate Rosse later); she had had an altercation with the president of the Italian school in Tehran and, not tolerating his "bigot views", decided she didn't want to stay there any more.
My father, reached us in Greece and, after some time, we went back to Italy. The only concession my mother made was to find home in the countryside, because my father hated to spend 4 hours a day, commuting to job through the city traffic; instead my mother preferred the big city (Milano) because the revolutionary life was there. The compromise was a home in a small town 25 Km from Milano.
After some years, when the revolt era faded away, my mother felt unhappy to live in such a small town and also that my father was not able to provide any more the good life we once had; in fact his career stopped after he had to leave abruptly from Iran. So, she had an affair with a neighbor (who happened to be Communist as well as wealthy owner of a lingerie factory) and left us for good in 1978, when I was 11, my brother 12 and my sister 7. She was a formidable woman, very intelligent and charming, but she was not able to renounce anything when her own desires were at stake. We remained in erratic contact, because of course she missed her sons. In 1980 she had a new girl from her man, Fosca: interestingly, she grew up manly with us, because her parents were busy with their jobs and this little girl developed a lasting bond with my father, always very kind and nice with kids.
In 1983 my father, then 45, had the last chance of his life: going to China and making a new start. But he did not, with a great sacrifice, because that wouldn't have been a good choice for his sons. The place in China was lost in the middle of nothing and we already had our interests and plans. So he ended his life in a bitter disappointment,closing in himself when all his dreams - family, love, job - had been shattered. He developed hypertension, which eventually destroyed his kidneys: he died for complications in 2011, but his last years were sweetened by finding some friends sharing his passion for art an literature.
So, I know at least a case where a man has been abundantly honorable. He is my model in life.
Paolo Pagliaro at September 10, 2018 12:40 AM
I'm sorry you had to go through some of that Paolo.
Ben at September 10, 2018 6:59 AM
She was a formidable woman, very intelligent
From your description up to to this point I would have guessed shallow, impulsive, narcissistic, cluster B
lujlp at September 10, 2018 8:04 AM
Perhaps. Sadly, sportsmanship is dead.
Conan the Grammarian at September 10, 2018 8:06 AM
Wrong thread. Sorry.
Conan the Grammarian at September 10, 2018 8:07 AM
Feminists want all the cushy jobs for women. Those with air conditioning and flexible schedules. Not overnight long-haul trucking, or plumbing. For men, it is essential to make good money--having a "fun" job just isn't that important. I have friends who are plumbers and carpenters and they make good money so their wife is happy and that is all that matters. In order to make the wife happy and pay for the kids, most guys I know work long hours, commute long distances, have a second job, or all three. Women rarely do this unless divorced, and if they do, it exhausts them.
But men do not feel sorry for themselves. We are proud to be husbands and fathers and take care of things.
It is interesting how much feminists want women to be like men and men to be like women. Some sort of misplaced jealousy?
cc at September 10, 2018 11:48 AM
And women will answer this data by saying that men created these conditions and so can't be seen as disadvantaged.
The truth is that many women have a deeply seated need / desire to see themselves as victims. It's part of their identity and how they relate to the world.
People blame Feminism, but women's erotic fascination with subjugation and victimization is well established throughout history. It's just part of their psychology and probably has some evolutionary basis.
IMO this is a lot of what's behind the constant hysterics we're seeing today in the media and online - 'call out culture' , 'rape culture', #MeeeToo, #BelieveAllWomen, #YesAllMen (are rapists and murderers), the mobbing, snitching, tattling, melodramatic lying etc..
We're witnessing what happens when women gain power in society - and why matriarchal societies don't survive.
WTF at September 10, 2018 12:02 PM
"Can you think of any laws that give government the power to make decisions about the male body?"
Sure, I can't self medicate using various illegal or just experimental drugs, commit suicide, get paid for sex, etc.
Oh you meant ones where males and females are treated differently. there's circumcision, and selective service/the draft, male victims of statuary rape get routinely punished by having to pay their rapists child support, and they wouldn't call it the Violence Against Women Act because if it protected male victims.
Joe J at September 10, 2018 2:48 PM
What CC said: "Feminists want all the cushy jobs for women."
They look at the "great" jobs and claim that they aren't allowed; they claim that men get all the breaks, etc.
In fact, the "bring your daughters to work day" was started because they claimed that sons were allowed to see where dad worked and got a leg up on starting a career - totally ignoring the fact that it was mainly the professional class, not working class who had that luxury. What truck driver/factory worker/construction worker, etc. would have brought his son into the dangerous workplace?
charles at September 11, 2018 4:20 AM
Don't worry: The schools have held out female behavior as perfection for generations, and the boys got the lesson. The macro trends suggest (and, having employed some, I would absolutely agree) that there is going to be no marriage dividend for Generation Y or Z, and the boys have learned to care as little about building up an economic surplus as the girls historically failed to care.
At least the wage gap will go away in fact (but never in rhetoric), because the wide tails of male working hours that was left, right, and above the female working hours graph are narrowing.
Rosie the Riveter required three women to do the job of one man, and the quality still was not as good as you couldn't replace a lifetime of experience with a boot camp; this is going to hurt as it is applied to every trade and service.
El Verde Loco at September 11, 2018 11:24 AM
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