In celebration of the female voice

I did it again.
Something I swore I would never do again.
But I couldn't help myself.

I was at Mass at the cathedral of my city. The choir is always tip-top. But on this occasion, the leader outdid herself. Her singing caught me by surprise. It touched me in a way I could not believe.
After Mass, I went in search of her to say what a beautiful voice she had.
She smiled sweetly at me and said 'thank you'.
She was a much older woman than I expected from the sound of her voice. She was also very beautiful. I suspect she 'became' beautiful in my eyes because of her voice.
She regarded me with the same curiosity that I had become accustomed to when I used to compliment beautiful women wherever and whenever I saw one.
But she was gracious and seemed to appreciate my boldness.

There is something so incorrigibly beautiful about the female voice.
A lot of sopranos have won the hearts of millions with their talent. Think Maria Callas. The 'Forces Sweetheart', Dame Vera Lynn. Lynne Dawson who sang the 'Libera Me' from Verdi's Requiem at Princess Diana's funeral.

My own personal favourites are Marita Solberg, a little-known Norwegian soprano (have a look at her below singing 'Solveig's song' from Edvard Grieg's 'Peer Gynt') and Korean soprano Sumi Jo (singing Caccini's 'Ave Maria' below) and frankly, anyone who can hit the top notes of Mozart's 'The Magic flute' :-)

I suppose it is the high notes that strike a chord with me (sorry about the pun:-)
It conveys a certain purity...
Which transcends all that is earthly.

By the way, I get the same tingling sensation hearing a 'soprano' boy sing too. The careers of several male singers have been launched by their childhood high voices as boy choristers. Good examples are Anthony Way and Aled Jones. The opening scene of the film 'Empire of the sun' embodies all that is beautiful about this type of voice (see below) with the rendition of the Welsh lullaby 'Suo Gan'. There is a heartrending scene in this film where the protagonist Jim Graham spots some Japanese soldiers preparing for a kamikazi mission. He starts to sing this lullaby, which is heard by everyone at the camp. Even the ruthless Japanese officer in charge of the camp is reduced to tears on hearing this.


It has been said that the boyhood soprano voice is much purer than the adult woman's soprano voice. I forget who said that. They were some sort of expert. I am not. I just appreciate something beautiful when I see or hear it. The boy's voice might be purer because he is a child. But I find an adult woman's voice 'richer' though. Perhaps because she can convey emotion much better than a child? I dunno. It is all the same to me though - whether it is a boy or a woman or a girl or a 'castrato', if they can hit some high notes, they've got my attention :-)

I appreciate singing because I used to be in a choir myself. Although I have quite a low speaking voice, I was surprisingly soprano and not the expected mezzosoprano or contralto.
This reminds me of someone like Justin Timberlake who until he starts singing some pretty high notes in his unique falsetto voice, you just would never guess he could or would.

One of my female cousins had a scarily low speaking voice as a little girl. She was this sweet little thing, and then when she opened her mouth this deep voice would come out from seemingly nowhere. It never failed to amaze and amuse me. Now a lovely young lady, she has sadly lost that voice. But I suppose it is funny at age 3 to have an unusually deep voice. Not so funny at age 25.


That high female singing voice that soars far above our heads makes one want to reach up and 'touch it'. At least that is usually my reaction. I have the trait of 'seeing' music, so for me it makes sense to describe music in a visual way.
Superbowl 1990, Whitney Houston (RIP) comes to mind. As does her hit 'I will always love you'.
It is particularly pertinent in a religious context. Often, a piece of music such as Mozart's 'Laudate Dominum' instills in the listener a sense of awe and enchantment. I have added a fourth video below, which is a recording of a version of this piece sang by Cristina Piccardi.
How beautiful is that?

What is it about the high female voice that makes it so entrancing?
It is said that Albert Einstein once proclaimed, 'Now I know there is a God in heaven' after hearing young Yehudi Mehuhin play the violin.
That is kinda how I react to hearing some high-voiced people display their God-given talent.

And finally, who can ever forget this moment on British TV when the then 47-year old Scottish woman named Susan Boyle walked out on stage to sing 'I dreamed a dream' from the musical 'Les Misérables'?

I begin Lent by celebrating the female voice. It is truly beautiful.

Incidentally, I also love the male voice. But strangely enough not necessarily the male singing voice. Could it be related to the distinct possibility that many of my male entourage are...how shall I put this politely...erm...tone deaf? :-)

And when I do react to a beautiful male singing voice, it is (unsurprisingly) very different to my reaction to a female voice. But that's for another post.

It is said that women are generally not visual when it comes to mate selection (as least not as much as men).
Aherm... I concur.

Let's just say I am rather auditory in this regard. And I know I am not alone in this.
Confess all, ladies :-)

Den (lille) sinte gutten

No I didn't forget to apply the spellchecker :-)
The above title comes from Norwegian, my favourite language.

Translation: The cross little boy. Or the Angry little boy.

Norway is a country that is fiercely proud of its cultural heritage.
Ancient Norse mythology is alive and well in modern Norway.
For the classical fans, composer Edvard Grieg and pianist Leif Ove Andsnes are kings.
For the contemporary lot, followers of the Eurovision Song contest, for example, you will know that Maria Haukass Storeng ruled the world as far as Norwegians were concerned even though she only came 5th in Belgrade in 2008, and Alexander Rybak really did rule when he won in Moscow in 2009.

Frogner Park in central Oslo is the open air gallery of Norwegian sculptor Gustav Vigeland.
There are many famous statues in Frogner Park, but the most famous one is 'The cross little boy'.
He is nicknamed 'Sinnataggen'. He is arguably Norway's favourite son.
The 'cross little boy' is the title of many an essay on cultural issues not only amongst Norwegians but around the world.

Like his Belgian brother in Brussels, he is naked, but this little guy ain't peeing. He is peeved.
Who does he remind me of?
Not who you would expect.


There are lots of angry men around.
For that matter, there are lots of angry women about too.
Both have their grievances. Some are vocal about it.

In a way, the Angry Man and the Angry Woman are chasing each other round and round an empty park.
The Angry Man is shouting at the Angry Woman: You are not woman enough!'
The Angry Woman is shouting at the Angry man: You are not man enough!'

Neither of them is wrong. But neither is totally right either.

Suppose we could somehow take away the reason they are both angry and just focus on getting them to calm down.
(Did I hear, 'dream on SpaceTraveller'?)

Never said it would be easy, but let's try. Let's all revert to childhood for one little second.

Suppose the Angry Man just followed the example of the 'cross little boy'.
Hear me out.

Suppose if instead of running around after The Angry Woman and shouting abuse at her, he just stopped in his tracks, lifted one leg off the ground and just dug his heel in.
And then just stayed like that and didn't move. For a few long minutes.

What would the Angry Woman do?

How might she react?

She might be stunned.

She too might stop running around and start to wonder what just happened.


The 'cross little boy' is a little alpha.
He is cross. And we all know it. Oh yes.

But he ain't running around. He is not throwing himself on the floor of the supermarket. That would be beta behaviour. He is literally standing his ground in no uncertain terms.
I bet you he got his way, regarding whatever he was cross about.
Without ever leaving this position.

The boy on the right has the right facial expression for this post. His facial expression, combined with the stance of the 'cross little boy' is the perfect combination.
(Somehow, the 'cross little boy' looks like he is about to cry...no, no, no, not the look he needs to project right now!)


I think in fact some men are already doing what the 'cross little boy' is doing.

The Angry men with Inner Game are just as angry as the Angry men without.
The first group just know how to use their anger effectively to get what they want.
And they do get what they want. Eventually.
The second group are running around in an empty park. Unproductively of course.

Nth wave Feminism changed womanhood into something it was never meant to be. One of these traits is the permanently angry woman.

Feminism had less of an impact on men because men as a whole did not change too much as a result of feminism.
Some just dug their heels in and continued as men (red pill).
Some got burned when their previously 'good boy' beta habits were thrown back into their faces (blue pill).
Some became ultra bad boys to survive (overdose of red pill).
Some kept the balance between alpha and beta and were the outright winners (purple pill).

But they all remained on a fairly tight and narrow spectrum.

The largest swings of the pendulum occurred on the other side of the fence.
There are some old ladies who wouldn't even recognise some female teenagers today as fellow women.
The old men don't see anything new in their grandsons.
Nothing much has changed about male behaviour, really. It is (mostly) the same as it always was.

Vigeland sure knows his own.

Question is, can or will the rest of the men who are not already doing this, handle things in a way that is...I dunno...more manly?
Where there is no leadership, there certainly will be chaos. Lack of patriarchal leadership breeds anarchy.

Feminism: A simple case of adult P-envy?

Are we all suffering today because 50 years ago a few women wanted their own male appendages?

I am not a psychologist. I think that much is clear :-)
But there are certain aspects of psychology that strike a chord with me.
In today's post, I am specifically interested in developmental psychology.


I remember that in the post on MGTOW, I was baited into questions to the tune of 'do you wish you were a man' or some variation thereof, and I quipped back saying those days were long gone.

By 'those days' of course, I meant 'under age 5' kind of days.
Those days when I was fascinated by how high some of the boys in my kindergarten class could pee.
And being dismayed that I couldn't do the same :-)

Some of the more unkind men reading this might say, 'things haven't changed much, then, Spacetraveller'...
But I assure you they have!

As soon as I started sprouting strange protuberances on my own chest, I forgot all about high-pee boys.
Or rather, my interest in them changed somewhat. Let's just say I was no longer interested in how high they could pee anymore :-)

My point is, I moved on from one developmental milestone to the next, in a fairly typical fashion. I was, in this case, firmly within the Gaussian distribution.

I stopped having p-envy when puberty kicked in for me, much in the same way as a boy leaves behind his mother in his Oedipus complex when he becomes a man and seeks his own female company. In fact, p-envy ends well before puberty if I am not mistaken.

Now, I realise feminism is not as simple as all that.
It has many facets I know nothing about.
It is a bigger political animal than I give it credit for.

But I am going to concentrate on a small aspect of feminism which could explain a lot.

I was watching British boxer Amir Khan give a little 'masterclass' on boxing to two reporters who were doing a documentary on him. The reporters were male and female.
After the boxing masterclass in a gym-like setting, the two reporters were put into a boxing ring for a mock boxing match, with Amir Khan as the referee.
It was absolutely hilarious to watch.

The man was only marginally better than the woman at boxing, and one could clearly see that he was being chivalrous and allowing the woman to land punches on him for comic effect.
In fact the reason it was so funny was that her punches were so wildly out that even a blind boxer would have been able to avoid getting hit, and he, to (over)compensate, was actually getting into position in such a way that those ridiculously off-target punches would land on him.
He was not managing to get any punches in himself, because he was too busy receiving hers.

To make it even more hilarious at the end, Amir Khan declared her the winner, his explanation being that she was the only one actually landing punches. Which was technically true.

I laughed so hard, I was in physical pain at the end of this boxing 'match'.

But, after the laughter came the overwhelming sadness.

This little 'charade' I had just witnessed demonstrated in no uncertain terms what has been lost, perhaps for good, in this modern era.

Chivalry. Lighthearted banter and 'friendly fire' between the sexes.

The male reporter hadn't really been 'beaten by a girl', of course. It was plain for all to see. The two were complicit in creating this little 'act' for the entertainment of the TV audience.
The woman made a big show of 'winning'.
The guy looked suitably crestfallen and even made a little 'attempt' to appeal to Amir Khan who was having none of it: his decision was final.

Everything was made funnier by the fact that this guy was like, twice the size of the girl, and even taller and bigger than Amir Khan himself. It was like the characters in this 'charade' had been handpicked for maximum comic effect. It worked. I laughed until it hurt.

This woman was 'validated' by the guy much in the same manner my friend had ''respected" the men at the dinner party in her home. No cost to the giver. But invaluable to the receiver.
It was easy enough to do, knowing my friend. It didn't cost her anything to 'respect' the men.
It was goodnatured fun. It made a nice evening extra special.

To state the obvious, more and more, that sort of thing is getting lost in modern society.
Like Tango dancing.
Exchanges between men and women are less cordial than before, for sure.

It seems the only time there is passable civility between the sexes is when one party wants something from the other.
A man may validate a pretty stranger just so he can get her to a four-poster in double-quick time.
A 'not so nice' girl might put on her 'nice girl' face just long enough to get a man to commit, and then shortly after, this Medusa appears from nowhere.
There really is no such thing as a free lunch anymore.

Yes there was plenty wrong pre-feminism. This is why I have a healthy respect for first-wave feminism which brought me certain rights that my female ancestors from a hundred years ago would never have dreamed about.

But then things got all crazy and weird, and now both women and men are worse off.
Because today, a man in that male reporter's position would find nothing wrong in knocking out  a woman half his size within two seconds of the boxing 'match'.

Some of his charming brothers might even cheer him on chanting, 'kill the b*tch!'
This very scenario unfolds all the time in The Manosphere.

The following three lines are a shameless lament of the death of decorum. I know the causes of this, but point no fingers. Ever the (not so) quiet observer, I feel I am as much part of the problem as the next guy (or girl).
A sinking ship not long ago...
The heavily pregnant women on trains and buses who can't find a seat...
The old lady who passes a line of able-bodied youngsters as she struggles up some steps with her heavy shopping.

How did we get here?
The same Manosphere has an answer for this:
Apex Fallacy.

A few women from 50 years ago saw how 'good' life was for a few men at the top of the food chain.
They perceived this 'good life' as pertaining to all men.

So they set out to get this 'good life' for themselves. At all cost.
But no-one told them that their very own natures would NOT allow them to enjoy that which was not designed for them.

Did a few grown women see how high one boy could pee on the wall?
Did a few grown women never outgrow their natural p-envy?

If so, why would I associate myself with someone who is behind me on the developmental chart?
Would that not put me in the same place as them?
I don't want to be a 5 year old again.
I enjoyed being a 5 year old. When I was 5.

Being neither bible scholar nor basher, I must say, this by St Paul appeals to me a great deal:
1 Cor 13:11: "When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things."

This little guy in Brussels is not doing too badly...

My 5 year old self would have been impressed...

Validate a woman, respect a man

The mother in this family is a 'natural' at treating men and women differently. She knows how to validate a woman and respect a man.

One recent example of this comes to mind.

A dinner at a restaurant had been scheduled for a party of about 30 of us (work colleagues), including her. But unfortunately, the day before the dinner, the restaurant got flooded in a freak incident. Bizarre but true.
She, as the solo organising committee for this dinner was undeterred. With one day's notice, she singlehandedly fixed a gourmet dinner at her own house. For 30 people. At her own cost.
Admirable in itself.

But what sticks in my memory about that evening is what she did just prior to the dinner itself.

After laying out the delicious spread of various meals on the table, she made a big show of calling the men to table first. There was the usual mock protests from all the ladies, of course (all in good humour, I might add), all of us expecting the usual 'ladies first'.

The men were absolutely delighted. They were not expecting that at all.
She made up some cock-and-bull story about how she was sick and tired of the whole 'ladies first' thing and it was time the men had their turn at going first...She was clearly 'sucking up' to the men and they loved it. We the women were totally unimpressed with her :-)

At the end of the evening, the men reimbursed her for the cost of hosting the whole group at her home. They graciously paid for all the women too.

When they were leaving, I overheard one man say to her husband, "If only wife-swapping were legal in this country..."

All she had done was show a little bit of good humoured 'mock' respect to a group of men. They were more than happy to oblige with chivalrous behaviour.
Imagine what they would have done with a more serious display of respect.

Because the need for respect is hard-wired into a man. From within, in the guise of his self-worth, and from others in his entourage.

Some of the men at that party had never known a day of respect in their entire married lives.
Shame, because in fact, it is an easy thing for a woman to do. Especially if she chose her Top Spot man.

That dinner was of course no example of validation of the women, by our hostess. Our 'rights' had been taken away from us. So naturally we were seething. We would have been quite happy to do what red pill men want to do with manginas: take him to the courtyard and publicly flog him.
Until, that is, the men paid for us :-)
Until, that is, the men validated us.
There was no obligation on their part to pay for us. They just did it. Just because. They made us feel special. Like we were worth being spoiled.
Even if we did not collectively merit that, necessarily.

Here is another example of validation of a woman.
As a child, I remember being amused by my grandparents' displays of affection during visits to their home. Grandma would call Grandpa the equivalent of 'The Boss' and he would call her the equivalent of 'Babydoll'.
'Babydoll'.
She looked anything but, given that at that time she was pushing 60.
But appearance is important to a woman. Sure, she knows she is not 21 anymore. But it makes her feel important if someone tells her that, to him, she might as well be.

Women feel important for what they are, men feel important for what they do.
Those two were the best kind of role model there could ever be for us kids.
Twenty years after his death, Grandma was still singing the praises of 'The Boss'. Even though while he was alive, he was hardly an angel. And she had complaints about him a foot long. But you would never have known it unless you were part of the family.

Because she respected him and he loved her.

Women do not need to hear they are respected. They only need to feel it.
A woman's favourite three words (from a man if she is heterosexual) are 'I love you'.
It is never 'I respect you'.
Love is more important to a woman than respect when it comes to 'building' her up.
'I respect and love you' is perfect.
'I respect you', on its own is not.

A woman's source of self-importance tends to be external. She usually needs to be validated by someone else. Otherwise she feels less than desirable, less than feminine.

Many women have learned to live without this external validation. This is admirable because it is not easy to do.

A man's self-worth is always internal.
Everyone around him can tell him how great he is. If he does not believe it himself, he will never be swayed into believing it by someone else.
His own accomplishments determine how he sees himself.

From the above observations, it is easy to see why a woman is easier to encourage than a man.
All she needs to hear is, 'you can do it' and she is off and away.
A man needs to be able to tell himself  he can do anything. Otherwise, he just won't do it.

From the above observations, it is easy to see why a woman can be easily led astray by a skilled pick up artist (PUA) or the wrong 'herd' of fellow women.
All she needs to hear is "you're beautiful, I love you" and the rest is history.
Or she might hear "you're not fat, sweetie, you're just 'big-boned', you are absloutely fabulous just the way you are!" and the rest is not history.
A woman can definitely be 'persuaded' into all sorts of things. This is why women make better hypnosis subjects than men.

From the above observations, it is easy to see why a  woman's greatest fear is abandonment.
Someone who once validated her is no longer willing to do so. She feels she has failed as a 'people connector' which is supposed to be her best skill.

A man realising his greatest fear (cuckoldry, betrayal by a woman) suffers a masive blow to his self-image: his criteria for assessment were all wrong.
Some woman outsmarted him. Nothing more irksome to a man than losing any kind of competition, especially to a woman.

Having his own strong sense of accomplishment AKA self-worth intact, the single most important virtue a man needs from outside of himself is respect, especially coming from his own 'camp' - his own family and then secondly, from his 'competitors' - his rivals at work and play.

For a woman, the concept of 'respect' is a foreign one usually, except in the realm of womanly virtue. This is perhaps why no woman can stand to be seen as a word rhyming with 'rut'. Even if  by the standards of the times, she is technically one.

She would rather be validated than respected in everything else.
A man would pick respect over validation any day.



If anyone is interested in 'evidence' (effectively, just someone else's opinion), part of my formulation of thought on this theme comes from Dr. Emerson Eggerich's book, Love and respect. I have found his theories to be true. A good summary of the book is to be found here.

When is a fitness test not a fitness test?

I love playing the victim just as much as the next woman. When done within certain boundaries, it is actually quite comforting. It feels great.
But I do not expect a man to understand this.
And what's more, I would not like to see a man play the victim along with me.
I have female friends for that.
I did not know this about myself before I stepped into the Manosphere jungle.

I invite the males in my entourage to 'play the victim' with me all the time without even realising it. But now I know I would not want them to take the bait. For them to do so would be to lose serious credibility with me. I know this now.
None of them has ever taken the bait so far.
Good boys.
They are not all 'alpha'.
And yet, they are consistently men I can look up to.
Because they have never failed a fitness test of mine. At least, not this particular one.

The concept of 'fitness testing' is one that I notice is bandied about in the Manosphere a lot.
I asked myself, 'why is this?' a lot, before I began to see a few patterns.

Fitness testing is very much a part of feminine behaviour. Like 'tossing men back out into the parade', it is a necessary part of a woman's life. Femininity is all about fulfilling this function. Women who accept 'all and sundry' and do not do any fitness testing are worse off than those who do a little 'filtering'.
This is something I would not expect a man to understand, but full marks to him if he does.

In one of Bellita's posts, she recounts a Muslim man trying to convince her that her 'reward' for converting to Islam would be 'a thousand men' or something to that effect.

Bellita's response to that is typical of a woman's reaction to this: absolute horror.

That man was projecting his own standards to a woman. It doesn't work. Because men and women are different. A woman is never truly interested in more than a few men in her entire lifetime. Of those few, she must still do some filtering. There are always outliers, sure. But for now, we concentrate on the inliers.


I think life is hard for a woman these days (playing the victim :-) but I also have more sympathy for men these days (snapping out of it :-)

Why?

Life became hard for women when they had to go out there and fend for themselves in the same way that men had been doing since time immemorial.
Life became hard for women when they had to kill their own snakes and take care of baby as well. All alone.
Life became hard for women when the big ugly troll commonly known as feminism stepped into the picture.
But the big ugly troll was not content to ruin womens' lives.
In fact the big ugly troll's intended target was men.

To bring a man to his knees, you don't go for him directly. That would be the stupid strategical move.
To bring a man to the jaws of defeat, you get his woman. Gangsters know this principle well.
In this respect, so it would appear, does feminism.
Except feminism hurt women more than men in the process.

In the old days, a man would go out there and bring home the bacon.
Home to an equally hardworking woman who loved him and was suitably grateful for the bacon.
Home to male children who looked up to the hero and wanted to be just like him when they grew up.
Home to female children who wanted to snag a man just like their hero incumbent when they grew up.

Fast forward fifty years and the picture is very different.

Nowadays, a man will still go out there and get the bacon, but in order that he is not taken for a fool, he has to step into another role.

Relationships have always been a woman's domain. Nature designed it that way. Nature also aids and abets women in this role.
My grandmother knew more about men than I will ever know.
Her mother and grandmother probably knew even more than she did about men.
These women spent their whole lives learning about men.
Because their whole life depended on that knowledge.
If they didn't know men enough to choose one well, to the best of their abilities, they would literally die of starvation. Or at least, figuratively speaking.

Feminism removed this skill from women starting fifty years ago.
A woman does not have time to 'learn about men'.
For a start, she is out killing snakes.
So now, there are many more clueless women than there were sixty years ago.

A man can see now that he cannot afford to blindly follow in his grandfather's footsteps.
To do so would be to run a 'fool's errand' as someone described on a previous post.
So now men have to learn what their grandfathers never had to. All about women.

Pick Up Artistry is about understanding women and their psychology.
Know the enemy, so to speak.
The LTR/marriage-minded man has to do the same in order to avoid the traps his father fell into.

But he is up a creek without a paddle somewhat.
Because women are much more complex than men.
Stephen Hawking has finally figured this out, aged 70. And he ain't dumb :-)

So a man is more likely than a woman to make mistakes in the dating arena. It is not his fault. He is trying to scale a greasy pole.

One common mistake men make is to see everything a woman does as a 'fitness test.'

In general, men do not 'fitness test' women. They have 'frames'. He is who he is. If a woman wants to step into his frame, fine. If she doesn't like his 'frame', she is free to walk. He usually has no need to 'test' anything.
It is women who do the 'fitness testing'.
Because women have every need to.
If the 'king' is a rogue in disguise, or a weakling, she and her children are in trouble.
So she will test and test and test until she is satisfied he is the real deal.
She is supposed to.
Which is why the red pill men who have figured this out talk about fitness testing a lot.

Women don't talk about this because men traditionally do not fitness test women. (But times are changing, fast).
Moreover, because women do not realise they do it, and because they never have it done to them, they often do not even know about this until it is pointed out to them.

There are a few exceptions to a woman's 'fitness tests'.
Certain things are actually a sort of 'frame'.
Her 'non-negotiables'.
A man has to accept it or not.
She is prepared to really walk if he is not a good fit for this 'non-negotiable'.
For every woman, this 'non-negotiable' is different.
A man interested in a woman needs to know what this 'non-fitness-test' is for her.
And then acquiesce to that if it works within his frame too.
In other words, fail this one test if it is not worth losing a special woman over it.
But pass all the others.

It is not easy being a man these days (back to playing the victim, but now on behalf of 'the other side').
Because 'the other side' is not allowed to be a victim.
It's a horrible job, but someone has to do it ;-)

Before I ventured out into the Manosphere jungle, this was my idea of a fitness test.
How long ago it all seems now.
And how odd my vocabulary has become.

Gods and Goddesses

All the recent talk generated from the post about religion and how it relates to masculinity and femininity reminded me of something.

That post of course concentrated on Catholicism, but that's just a function of my own familiarity with a little part of Christianity.

I was wondering if Deities in other religions had a 'gender' aspect to them, and if so, did this affect the practice of these religions in any way?

In a sense, it shouldn't matter what happens in other religions, where the point of this post is concerned.

Because one really only needs one template for discussions such as these. Unless there is something especially relevant in another religion which would render our template useless.

An example would be if someone could provide examples of a religion where one or more Deities is asexual. That would be interesting. I don't think I have ever come across something like that before.

Our template does not have to be Christianity of course.

Bellita has been educating us all lately about the Deities in Greek mythology with her posts on Heidi Klum and Emma Watson, aka Aphrodite and Artemis.

As far as I know, the Greek Gods and Goddesses (and their Roman equivalents, I might add) were certainly not shy about displaying their gender-specific traits.

In a sense, they could almost be described as the perfect fodder for a parody of male-female interaction.

These guys are us, but like a million years ago :-)

Films like 'Clash of the Titans' and 'Jason and the argonauts' absolutely fascinated me. Sadly they were really my only education about Greek mythology, until Bellita's posts.

But alas, I have to switch back to Christianity for a specific point I would like to make.

The post about God practising 'Game', albeit a joke, made me aware of my inability to escape my own female nature. This little bit of self-awareness changed my outlook on a lot of things.

It helped.

But then I realised something else.

Something which, of all the churches in christendom, is unique to Catholicism.

And that is, the role of the mother of Our Lord.

Catholics hold Our Lady in extremely high esteem.

I grew up with this sense of reverence to Our Lady, being Catholic.

I assumed it was only natural, given I was female and she was a great female role model.

But I never imagined that boys or men could see Our Lady in more or less the same way I saw her.

Catholicism is a Patriarchy. That is undeniable.

But it is also often decribed as a 'Maternal' religion. The 'Mother' religion.

There is a link here to Our Lady.

During the last decade, several Church of England members switched to Catholicism as a rebellious move against the ordination of women priests in the Anglican church.

All of a sudden, there were many more young, handsome guys at Mass than there were the previous months. It was literally raining men at my local parish.

'Keep ordaining those women,' was my silent message to the Anglican Church.

(Don't look at me like that. I like rain :-).

One of the rain droplets surprised me though. For him, it wasn't the ordination of women that had pushed him over the edge, so to speak. He was always a closet catholic born into an Anglican family, I suppose. I guess he was really an outlier.

He had converted to Catholicism because he was really looking for a religious 'Mother-figure'.

This guy had a mother. I didn't get it.

Pope John Paul II had a great love for Our Lady. I am guessing if he hadn't been born catholic, this wouldn't have changed anything. But I understand why, in his case.

His mother died when he was eight years old. He lived with his father unil he too died several years later.

Is this kind of reverence towards a female Deity the basis of 'pedestalisation' when a man falls in love with a woman?

My favourite psychologist thinks so: This is what he says on the matter:

Strange Goddesses:

"I am the Lord Thy God. Thou shalt not have strange gods before me."

Most men have a much harder time with strange goddess than strange gods. These goddesses are strange because they pop up in a man's life as a live woman. They rise up when a man falls, falls in love. "Love" turns an ordinary woman into a goddess whether she wants that transformation or not.

He continues:

The whole psychospiritual journey of a man calls him to dance with the feminine in her many guises, be it mother, lover, his own soul, the feminine face of God. To a man, the feminine is the life force. He is brought life by his mother who nurtures and protects him when he is most vulnerable to forces that can take that life. He dances with his mother from toddler to teenager, unless she is taken from him too soon.


Mother seems the first goddess because she is the life force he came from and the life force that nurtures and protects his own life. She gives life to a child, and if the child is chronically neglected or inadvertently abandoned, the child instinctively knows she has the power to take that life away. She is the creator. She is the higher power.


Mother energy, represents the grace of the life force, freely given without asking. She can be a reflection of the nurturing, protective face of God. Mother energy flowing through a woman carries an unimaginable strength of character, willing to give until her own life force is totally depleted even to death, for the sake of her children. There is no expectation of payback here. In many ways a man's mother can be the embodiment of the feminine face of God, the face of God that exudes unconditional love and nurturing.

So, God has a feminine face, and it is your mother's face.

Charming Disarray reminded us what God himself thought of his own mother.

He couldn't say no to her.

Is this the face of God men can relate to? This feminine version?

As opposed to my masculine version?

Or would this only apply to men who belong to 'Mother' religions?

Is God Gaming Me?

Charming Disarray, this one is for you.
It is a tongue-in-cheek post designed to kill two birds with one stone.

1. I feel rather playful today. (Grasshopper, I am wearing 'blue' today :-)

2. CD, I know you belong to the Faith beginning and ending with the letter 'C'.

I also know you detest with great intensity all things 'Game'.
This strangely amuses me.
But... my guilty pleasures aside, I thought to myself: how can I make this a bit more palatable to her?

The answer came to me bizzarely enough on a Sunday:
Just add 'God'.

:-)

So here we are. Game-food for the uninitiated, with a few sprinkles of  'God' as 'relish'.
Buon appetito.

I see God as a man. Masculine. Male.
Whether I am picturing the 'brimstone and fire' old dude with the long white beard in the Old Testament or the 'hippy' type fellow with the long hair and sandals in the New Testament.
Both are undeniably male. I have no other versions of God in my head, except of course the abstract versions like the roaring thunder in a fierce storm depicting 'the wrath of God' (again, Old Testament-like) or the 'still small voice' during a gentle breeze over the lake on a sunny day (?New Testament).
Both are still masculine, in my eyes.

To digress a bit, there is some music I 'see' and not hear. Some composers really know how to depict 'rage' or 'wrath' that I can 'see' - good examples are Beethoven's 'Rage over a lost penny' and Sibelius' sultry, moody violin concerto. Both seem to be innocuous on the surface, and then when you 'see' it, you feel there might be no escape, like I imagine the 'Great Wrath' to be.
On the other hand, Beethoven especially is the absolute master at creating that 'still small voice' too.
Practically all of his symphonies' second movements are so gentle, you could almost imagine hearing God speak.
Something to do with his deafness perhaps? He did afterall live in a silent world.


This masculinity of God was always the traditional view of God.
Until that is, the feminists tried to get a foothold in the Church.

There was a time when there was a drive to change 'The Lord's Prayer' into 'Our Mother, who art in heaven'...

It didn't catch on.
Not in the Catholic church, at least.

For all the Catholic Church's sins, deviation from the Patriarchy is not one of them, unless I am grossly mistaken.
Unlike many other churches in christendom, the Catholic church refused to and still refuses to ordain women as priests. It refused to accord women certain powers as demanded by secular society (read: feminists).

And yet the Catholic church, to me, is one of the most 'woman-friendly' churches there is.

Why is this?

The Catholic church, since 1970, has begun to accord some of its highest honours to women. There are now three female 'Doctors of the Church' (St Theresa of Avila, St Catherine of Siena, St Thérèse de Lisieux - this last one is referred to as a 'Doctor of love'!) and there are many more on the list, being considered by Pope Benedict.

The Catholic Church has always placed a high importance on Our Lady. To an extent that some people outside the Catholic Church believe that Catholics 'worship' Our Lady. They therefore have confused the Church with a 'Matriarchy'.
If indeed Our Lady is a Matriarch, then it is only in the sense that she is the type who defers to the Patriarch.
She, afterall, was very quick to say "Thy will be done" when she was given the task of becoming mother to Our Lord. No easy task considering she was a young, unmarried but betrothed Jewish girl, and she lived in a society where if a woman was found to be pregnant outside of marriage, she was stoned to death, no questions asked.

According to the Catholic Church, Our Lady is the 'highest' of all the saints.
It is no secret that some Popes, like John Paul II adored her till his dying day.

I am pretty sure there will never be a woman Pope in the modern era.
But I am sure there will be no need.

Again, I wonder: why?

Do I need God to be 'female' to feel better?
Do I need to have a woman Pope to feel any more validated in this life?

Strangely, I feel the answer is 'no'.

But, alas I will never know. Because I have not experienced the above scenarios before.
But that's OK. I can live with that.

A woman does not need to be a 'leader' to be 'powerful'.
Because feminine power is an entirely different animal from male power.
It is less 'out there', but it is there, nonetheless.
You might miss it if you blink. But if you are looking for it, you see it.

Interestingly, speaking of composers above, I note there aren't that many female composers, if at all.
Why?
Afterall, there were many women authors from time immemorial.
What is the difference between the written word and a musical note?



So, because I see God as 'male', I sometimes correlate his 'behaviour' to that of men in general. This is done in jest, a kind of intellectual joke I play with myself.

If I need a prayer answered and I don't get what I want, I wonder, "Is God gaming me?"

If I ask God to intervene in my daily life and it doesn't quite happen in the way I envision, I think "Is God GHOW where I am concerned?"

If I don't seem to get an answer from him, I think,  "Am I being negged?"

And then when he does do something nice for me, I secretly think, "Is he going all beta on me?"

And then he is back to alpha.

What is your end-point?

The last few posts have alerted me to a problem I didn't see coming.
But in fact it is a problem which lies at the very heart of the confusion in the SMP.

Take the above  question for example:
What is the end-point of the dating game?

Here we find a huge disconnect.
Some people will answer, 'to get married'.
Some will answer 'to have a lasting marriage/relationship till death do us part'.

Now, I know that there is no gender divide when it comes to the answer to that question.

But, (and don't shoot the messenger), the number one complaint by modern men against modern women is that most if not all women will give the first answer, and that they would give the second answer.
It is the basis for the question: where are all the good women?
This is what I have observed.

But why do modern men think this?
The short answer is this:
High divorce rate being increasingly instigated by women (even though women would argue that they are pushed into it by unruly men!).

Another short answer is this:
Kim Kardashian and Heidi Klum.
These women are giving the rest of us the impression that they would like to get married, but not to remain married, certainly not beyond 'the good times'. I am sure they have not set out to do this deliberatly, but there we are. We can but draw lessons from those in the public eye.
I declined to take the bait when Charming Disarray proposed/invited thoughts on Kim K. But I have changed my mind (woman's perogative and all that).
This is because Kim K is actually relevant to this post.

As is Bellita's recent post on Masculine women.

Beginning with Bellita's post, there is a discussion there about two different types of women. The so-called 'masculine woman' or 'high T' woman and the regular woman.
Interestingly, I do not personally think there is necessarily a correlation between a woman having a 'masculine' outlook on things and being physically of the appearance of a 'high T' woman with the prominent jaw, narrow hips and so on. But there may be an overlap, for sure.
I believe Michelle Obama is a 'masculine woman'. Nothing to do with her height. Notice she has strong male influences in her life pre Barack.

Commenter 'just visiting' makes some extremely insightful points on Bellita's post.
One of them is this:

"Much has been said about the high risk of long term relationships with high T women. I think that it depends on a few things. High T means higher sex drive. More than likely they have a lot of male friends (And are able to relate well to men.) and their female friends will be high T as well. Slut tells in the manosphere.
Here’s the thing, we also have a higher chance of developing that one thing the men in the sphere claim women do not possess. Honor.
As well, there’s more of a chance of developing integrity, introspection,rationality, principals, and courage. It helps to be brought up with these things, and helps if society at large encourages those things, but it’s not always necessary.
These things are the “set” switch on the hamster, as opposed to the default setting that the sphere concentrates on. When things are not going well in a marriage, we may very well stick it out by rationalizing the importance of marriage. The stability and well being of children. What our faith means to us, this too shall pass, focusing on the positive traits of a husband, having the courage to walk through the mouth of hell to retrieve him or die trying in some cases. And having the strength to deal if we lose that battle, without becoming bitter and hard."

The so-called 'masculine woman' (not the 'sex-positive' variety of course - there is a difference between a high sex drive and promiscuity) is the one most likely to give the second answer to the above question.
She is the 'good woman' the men are looking for.

But where is she?

Precisely because of her thinking, she refuses to dress like Kim K. She refuses to appear so-called 'feminine' because she is disgusted at what 'feminine women' do. She is often very principled, she may even be fiercely religious or spiritual, but none of that is getting picked up by anyone, let alone her intended target.
She is not completely right in her thinking, of course.

She has a lot to learn from the 'feminine woman'.
If only she will outwardly display her femininity which is buried under all that 'masculine thinking', and therefore become more visible to men, she will be a 'winner takes all'.

In the same way as the 'beta' man with real character can learn 'Game' to become visible to women.
These two groups of people are not visible to each other because they are missing an essential ingredient in their gameplan. They are missing the chance to get their foot in the door, so to speak.

"I was fortunate enough to acquire feminine graces growing up. My father and my maternal grandmother saw to that. "

Notice that just visiting atrributes her femininity to both a man and a woman. It is a point I made in my Blue Pill post. A woman needs both masculine and feminine influences to 'get there'.
This is one reason why fatherlessness is a crime against humanity. I make this point in The sins of the Mother.
I make it here again.

As a side argument, I note to myself that there is plenty wrong with the film 'Fireproof' in which a man attempts to win back his wife who is well on her way to becoming unfaithful to him as a result of problems within their marriage.
Whilst I find the film unrealistic because Caleb is not at all typical of men who find themselves in the situation he finds himself, I find it interesting that the advice Caleb's father gives him actually comes from Caleb's mother. But somehow, it works better for Caleb when it is delivered by Caleb's father. Caleb's father knows this, which is why he does what he does.
Interesting. I don't know why this is.

Back to Kim K, I believe the big issue with her entourage is this:
She and her sisters effectively live in a matriarchy.
I believe her biological father, Robert Kardashian was a patriarch. But he died when the girls were young. A big shame.
Enter beta Bruce Jenner.

Like Seal, this is someone you could easily mistake for an 'alpha'. He won Olympic Gold. He looks like a masculine guy.
And yet, as step-father to Kim and her sisters, he is essentially invisible. He is led around by the nose by his wife, mother to the Kardashian clan. His only way to survive is to avoid them as much as possible. He has no authority whatsoever in his own household.

This is why the girls are 'ultra feminine' but ultimately, and yet paradoxically, end up being attracted to either 'badass' alpha types (as Bellita calls them, 'sizzle without the steak' kind of men) or beta men (who on the surface, again you could easily mistake for 'alpha' if you are not discerning or mature enough - Kris Humphreys is afterall a 6ft 9 professional athlete! And yet he was 'led a dance' by 5 ft 2 Kim).
Which begs the question: Who is telling these young men that it is a good idea to marry a woman whose only claim to fame is a sex tape? It's not even Blue Pill advice. Maybe yellow pill?
But...and it must be said, since his divorce announcement, Kris Humphreys has displayed a lot of maturity for one so young, to his credit. Watch out for this kid - in a few years he will be the real deal, and more. That's my prediction for him. All the makings of a decent mature fellow are there. He just got 'caught' early on in the game. In his case, recovery is everything.

Kim K's idea of femininity is an entirely female idea of femininity. It can be toxic for a long term relationship because the 'masculine' component is missing.
But, she is the one who is more visible to a man because of this same 'feminine femininity'.

A man with real ('inner' plus 'outer') Game can tell the difference between the two - the 'complete' and the 'incomplete' femininity.
He can confirm his suspicions with a little 'fitness test' of his own, aka 'alpha behaviour' even if he is intrinsically a beta man.
Kris Humphreys did not do this apparently.
So he got 72 days of what he thought would be a lifetime's worth of marriage.

Can Kim K recover?
The answer to questions like this is always 'yes'.
But it depends.
Can she mentally or physically separate herself from her toxic herd?
Not easy in her case, as the 'herd' is also her closest family.
But it can be done.
Can she find a 'father substitute' of susbstance who can give her what just visiting got? And I don't mean a 'sugar Daddy' type.

It does bear repeating: Quality people attract each other. Non-quality people also attract each other.
It is a law of...you guessed it, Nature.
To attract a quality person, one has to become quality oneself. Whatever 'quality' means to one.
No-one is born 'quality'. One has to simply work at it.

Blue Pill advice and why we receive it

The subtitle of this blog alludes to my curiosity. It is no exaggeration. I am a very curious person. Apparently it shows on my face.
During one of those leadership/management courses one gets dragged to even though they are totally irrelevant to one's job, a fellow course-goer was asked to describe me. He said this:
"She always looks like she is about to ask a question!"
To be fair to him, I did have a question in mind... "what am I doing on this course?"


My quizzical nature dictates that I get on perfectly well with two types of people in real life:
The patient types who will tolerate my constant search for answers, so basically, really old people...
And those who have already lost their sanity and therefore have a huge tolerance for humouring two-year olds going 'why' all day long...

As they say, curiosity killed the cat.
As I am thankfully non-feline with respect to my phenotype, and I am not yet dead, my curiosity persists.

My favourite question is indeed 'why'.

Whenever I receive advice, especially unsolicited advice, I like to analyse why I was given that advice.

This comment by The Navy Corpsman made me smile, because it describes my attitude to advice to  a tee:
"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to run screaming from people who give free advice."

Like many people today, I grew up with 'Blue Pill' advice.
Nowadays though, Blue Pill advice makes me see red.

In general, I have found only three reasons why people dish out Blue Pill advice:

1. Ignorance
2. Sabotage
3. Misguided good faith

The specific reason in any given case depends very much on who is giving the advice, of course.

Below is some typical Blue Pill advice and my feelings towards them.

For women
1. "Don't even think about settling down until you are out of your twenties."

This is an extremely common one. Actually, I have mixed feelings about this one. On the one hand, it sems totally illogical. Because there is such a thing as a biological clock for women.
On the other hand, many women will admit that they are just not ready for the huge responsibility marriage is, in their twenties.
I personally was a late developer. Which is a euphemism for 'slow'. Not an insult directed at self. Just an observation.
I have a lot of sympathy for both arguments. But on principle, I think it is wrong advice. Hence its appearance under 'Blue Pill advice'.

2. "You can have it all".

This one I have zero sympathy for. I think this one is the single most anger-provoking advice for young women today. Because it is patently false. And it is the reason feminism is dying a slow painful death, finally.
Because savvy young women are turning their backs on this particular lie. It was the last straw that broke the proverbial camel's back.

For men
1. "Be nice/be yourself".

Now, as the recipient of this advice myself, which I find appropriate for women, I honestly did not know that this was also advice being dished out to men.

But I was seeing the results of this advice. I just did not know what the problem was until I happened upon the Manosphere and discovered exactly why this was bad advice for men.

I have great sympahy for the male recipients of this advice. Partly because of who is most likely to give it. For many men, it is Mother, or an equivalent well-meaning female relative.

 As women, we have come to expect sound advice from a trusted mother figure, especially the kind of woman I would call a 'Titus 2' woman. (An experienced, godly, wife and mother).
And, we expect equally sound advice from a father figure too, because a man knows other men best.

But somehow, it just does not seem to work out well when a mother tries to guide her son in the SMP. I really don't know why. Somehow, I have learned that a man can only really get good advice about the dating game from another man.
 I find it hard to believe that a father would tell his son the above advice. But I am sure there are always exceptions to the rule. Surely this has to be a rare exception though!

Another reason this bit of advice is problematic is that, it is just incomplete.
Taken at face value, it is excellent advice. Because women actually do want 'nice'. But only in men they already find attractive, aka, 'alpha', whatever 'alpha' may mean to her.

In the interests of brevity, I shall stop here.

I am sure there is plenty more Blue Pill advice for both men and women I have left out...
 Let me know if I have left out your favourite one, and please tell me the reason behind people dishing it out.

Educate a woman...

Educate a man, and you educate an individual. Educate a woman, and you educate an entire nation.

I have heard the above statement before, in several guises.
Until today however, I never knew where it came from.

A quick Google search revealed the following information about the above statement, by John Kwami Esseboe Nyamidie  :

This well-known saying is attributed to the Ghanaian scholar Dr. James Emmanuel Kwegyir-Aggrey (1875-1927), one of this century's greatest educators. Kwegyir-Aggrey probably used this proverb to convince African parents who were more willing to allow their male children to attend missionary schools than their daughters. Like many sayings, this one makes its point by unqualified exaggeration to capture our attention. The message here is that once we know the value of education for men in society, we should allow women to have equal access to it. Education is used here to mean knowing, through formal or informal means, what is right for the spirit, mind and body and acting upon this knowledge.

Women in general are the newborn child's primary caregivers in most societies. The paid nanny, the indulgent grandmother or an older sister are most likely to watch over the child during its first three critical years. From the womb through its early formative years the baby has more direct contact with women. It is during this time that the words, unspoken messages and expectations of the caregiving woman affect and determine the child's future destiny most. A physically abused and psychologically hurt child at this time is likely to project his or her anger on society in later life. On the other hand, a child that is surrounded by the warm embrace of loving women caregivers will most likely spread that love in his or her future dealings with others as the child grows up. Perhaps the truthfulness of this saying is best exemplified in the life of George Washington (1732-1799), the first President of the United States, who said this about his mother: "All I am I owe to my mother...I attribute all my success in life to the moral, intellectual and physical education I received from her."

A biblical parallel is Exodus" 2:9: "Pharaoh's daughter said to her, 'Take this child and nurse it for me, and I will give you your wages.' So the woman took the child and nursed it." This story of Moses shows the importance of women in raising a child. The mother of Moses protects her child from hostility, hides him in a basket and asks the infant's sister to watch from afar. The Princess saves and adopts him. These three women are epitomes of the various women that ensure the growth of any child in society. When one in the chain fails her duty, society loses the opportunity to have another Moses, another deliverer, another reformer. What is not stated but implied in this second chapter of Exodus is that the mother of Moses knows that it is right to protect her child. The sister of Moses is well brought up to obey her mother. You won't find many girls in today's world "sticking out their necks" for their little brothers. She was unafraid to suggest a nurse to the princess for her little brother. The Princess knew that it was morally right to raise this child against the Pharaoh's edict. Because the women saved this child through their knowledge of what was right and doing it (education), the people of Israel were saved from the Egyptians and God sent to humankind one of the greatest tools of education: "The Ten Commandments."

Some might see the statement as sexist. I don't.
Here's why:
It is a historical statement not to be viewed out of context. As explained in the first few sentences, it was a great way to capture the attention of many families who did not see the potential benefits the education of their girls would bring to their families.

A woman is a natural teacher. Because she is a natural communicator. She is simply wired that way. A man has to have a good reason to step into this role. Like he wants to teach his son football, or his daughter the skill of computing. Or it is his job. Women teach all the time. We don't need a reason to do it. Just like we don't need a reason to talk.

What Dr. James Emmanuel Kwegyir-Aggrey was saying was, 'let's put this natural gift of women to good use. Let's not waste a natural resource at our disposal'.

The problem is, Dr. James Emmanuel Kwegyir-Aggrey never envisaged a time in history when girls' education would come at the expense of boys' education. Like many well-intentioned men of his time, he never foresaw a time when educating boys would be seen as something in direct conflict with girls' education. To him, boys' education was a constant given. End of story.


I got into a little 'spat' with The Private Man over his post on educating women. Although I agreed that education in women was somewhat counterproductive to women in their goal to settle down with a worthy man, because it increased their 'hypergamy' instincts, I disagreed wholeheartedly with him that the solution was to stop educating women.

To me,  a better solution would be to educate women more as to the importance of men in society. So not less education for women, but more.

I watched with great pride as Oprah Winfrey's first crop of girls from her Leadership Academy graduated in their cute white dresses.

These are girls who would never have had an opportunity like this in their lives had Miss Winfrey not had a dream.
A dream she later backed up with action.

Kudos to Miss Winfrey.

But I had a nagging thought in my head the whole time I was watching the graduation ceremony.

Where are the boys?
Who is educating them?

I voiced my unease to someone. Their response: don't worry about the boys. Let's concentrate on the girls.
Fair point?
Or more evidence of brazen feminism?

First wave feminism was a good thing because it sought to 'redress the balance'.
First wave feminism is the reason I can vote.
First wave feminism is the reason I can read and write.

But it morphed into something else whilst we were all asleep. A new monster emerged, determined not just to redress the balance, but to declare a state of 'superiority' of women over men.

It does not work. It is not working.
Because Nature will not allow it.

I thought about all those lovely young women in their white dresses receiving their diplomas with 'proud mama' Oprah watching over them.

I wondered to myself: In twenty years when they have conquered the world, then what?

Are they being groomed to be little mini-me's like Mama Oprah in this fashion? To conquer the world and yet at the end of it all, to be alone, or in a place they don't want to be?

I sincerely hope not.

I hope part of their studies include words like these:

You are beautiful, intelligent young women. Get an education, which is being handed to you free on a plate. Go out there and influence others, in a good way. You have the power to educate a whole nation. Take it.
But remember that your true happiness lies in forming great relationships with good men. Never forget that.

I don't hear much about educating boys in today's mainstream media.
Could it be that it really is a forgotten concept?

When I do hear something about boys and education, it is usually in the context of boys falling behind.
Why is this?
Are boys really getting thicker/dumber? Or are they not being treated as equals with the girls anymore?


It seems Bellita is reading my mind and vice versa. On the same day she published her post on education (she is a teacher), I drafted this post.

The general consensus seems to be, men don't want highly eduacted women.
I say 'false' to that. Many men do choose educated women.
But they have to know that the woman is not going to choose her career over and above him and their family.
In this day and age, an uneducated woman actually poses a risk to a man. Unless she has other sources of income, he might well wonder if she is just looking for a meal ticket?
Our grandfathers never thought like this. But then again, our grandfathers did not have the current dating milieu to contend with.

Let's educate the girls. It's a good thing. But let's not forget the boys.

She made me a better man

Poor old Seal. He has turned all beta 'mushy' lately, gushing to anyone who would listen about his love for his wife and children.

It came as a total shock to me when I heard that he and Heidi Klum had split up.
This was one couple I always believed would make it to the very end.

As an eternal optimist, I hope this is not the end of 'Team Seal' though.

They renewed their wedding vows every year, they seemed in love with each other. He in particular seemed to be very expressive in the way he felt about his family.

And yet, they split.

But...was the writing on the wall all along?



I come from a family and a social group of  'quiet men'.
I too am 'quiet' in real life.
I do however talk a little bit more than the men in my entourage. Like at least one word per day more :-)

Given my background, I find that I am 'allergic' to men who 'talk too much'. I have female friends for that!
I have become used to the 'strong silent' type, so for me personally, 'quiet' is my particular hallmark of masculinity.

So, hearing Seal gush forth after the breakup of his marriage, I was not surprised to note the familiar hives starting up all over my skin.
In particular, I note the 'quietness' of Heidi Klum.
This is a role reversal I don't see very often.

So naturally, it has elicited my curiosity.


Seal is an extremely well-spoken and eloquent man (we Brits are suckers for each others' accents).
Moreover, he appears to be the very epitome of masculinity, whatever criteria you use. He has been described as 'alpha' by some men in the Manosphere, using various yardsticks.
Even the scars on his face add to this phenomenon.
Heidi Klum had said before how tall he was. Apparently he is 6ft 4 or thereabouts.

He had a hard childhood but overcame all to become one of the most famous men in the world.

So top marks for fulfilling his potential.

And yet, watching him, I was reminded of an incident with Wanda Sykes (the american comedian and actress who is so funny, one look at her and laughter is immediately induced. As the sidekick to Jane Fonda in 'Monster-in-law', for example, she is absolutely hilarious).

Sykes was being interviewed in London many years ago, and the topic of Prince Charles leaving Princess Diana for Camilla Parker-Bowles came up.

She looked straight at the camera in a way only comedians know how and said, "Chucky, yer doin' it wrong, honey, Yer doin' it wrong! Yer supposed to go from the older woman to the younger one, not the other way round, stupid!"

I still laugh out loud when I remember that.

My first instinct was to scream at Seal, "Yer doin' it wrong, brother, yer doin' it wrong!"

But no. Let him show his soft side. Let him be 'beta' as long as he chooses.
With any luck, Heidi Klum will return the favour one day and 'chase him back'.

It should be a dance of Tango.


One thing he said however, which made me think is this:

"Heidi made me a better man."

Can a woman make a man 'a better man'?
Like a man can make a woman a 'better woman'?

Does a man need a woman to make him a better man? Or is it just nice to have?

Can a man who has encountered such a woman ever let go? Is this why Seal is so helplessly 'mushy'?

It is highly publicised that when Seal met Heidi, she was pregnant with someone's baby.

Some men (and women) might find it incompehensible that he didn't run fast in the other direction.
But I don't, in this case.
Afterall, Seal was not deceived. He chose to take this woman on fully knowing she was pregnant.
This woman who 'made him a better man'.
(In any case, it would have been hard in this case to convince Seal the baby was his, had any attempt been made to deceive him. He would have had to be Michael Jackson to believe this :-)



There must have been something special about Heidi Klum.
Any suggestions?
Is it just because she is a beautiful woman? Somehow I think not. Because the world is full of beautiful women.
But I am willing to be corrected on this if indeed this is the case.


Did Seal get it horribly wrong?
Did he fail to spot a 'reluctant bride' all along?

Despite all his external 'alpha' traits, is he deep down just another 'beta' dude who just happens to be rich and famous?

A beautiful love story cut tragically short

Grerp says it best on her blog which begins with: life isn't fair...

I had never heard of Sarah Burke until after her death. It seems obvious that this woman was a beautiful and wonderful human being whose life was unfortunately tragically cut short in a skiing accident. She was 29 years old.

She was training for a super-pipe event in Park City, Utah when she crashed, rupturing an artery in her brain which resulted in a cardiac arrest at the scene. Despite being airlifted to a hospital in Salt Lake City, she died 9 days later after suffering irreversible brain damage.

She was a Canadian freestyle skier who won Olympic Gold (her lifelong dream) and was Winter X Games champion 4 times as well as World Cup winner 5 times and World Champion.

She was also known  for singlehandedly campaigning for the inclusion of women in the ski half-pipe discipline and for pushing for a lot of freestyle events to be included in the Winter Oympics. She succeeded. Women will participate in the half-pipe event in the Winter Games of 2014 in Sochi, Russia, a Winter Games at which Sarah Burke was widely tipped to take Gold.

In 2010, she married fellow freestyle skier Rory Bushfield.

As part of the tributes to her, a short video clip of a documentary called 'Winter' in which she had taken part with her husband Rory Bushfield was posted.

I was struck by how much love they had for each other.
The pride he has for her as the 'gold medal hopeful'.
The way she smiles at him.

I was particularly moved when they described their mutual love for the mountain. And when they both said their wish would be to die on the mountain...

My heart goes out to Rory Bushfield.

And the rest of Sarah's family.

How does one recover from a loss such as this?

May Sarah Burke (Sarah Bushfield) rest in peace.