Having it all...

In the last post, Bellita diagnosed a fundamental problem I did not know was even there.
(But maybe the fact that I did not know it was there is itself a problem! as explained below):
The possibility that many women harbour a dislike for men but are not actually aware of it. It just shows up in their actions, catching unwitting men by surprise.

I am so pleased we discussed this at length, because now I feel that (to me at least), specific strategies to deal with this problem can be sought and aired.

(Yes I know there are men who hate women too. But as a woman, I cannot help them - wouldn't know how. They will have to find their own solutions, if they want to.
This post, as does many other posts on this blog, deals with what women can do to change the status quo. If this translates as 'girl on girl hate', so be it.
But I am not guilty as charged. Even if judge and jury convict me :-)


A few people mentioned possible solutions to the manhate problem.


Bob Wallace mentioned the word 'envy'.
That got me thinking, and I made a cursory foray into this line of thinking right at the end of the last thread.
But other aids to my thoughts popped up.
For which I am grateful (note this word). Because they help clarify my jumbled thinking on this.

Aid No. 1: I read a post from Badger ages ago. But it didn't really register. I guess my mind was not yet fertile enough for this seed to grow. Now it is.

Envy. Not good. And I don't even need to go into the moral aspects of why envy is not a good thing.
Just this is enough, at least for me, and Badger also makes this point:
One is usually woefully misinformed about what exactly one is being envious about.

People's lives, no matter how 'out there' they might seem belie a private component that is never displayed to the outside world.
As usual, I shall use extreme examples to make my point:

The billionaire who is only so because he sold his grandmother to a drug cartel 20 years ago.
The size zero model who is bingeing on cotton wool balls and feels a sense of emptiness.
The happily married couple who don't remember what love means anymore.
The clever kid at your child's school whose father beats him every morning because he can't remember his 8Xs table at 6 o'clock in the morning.

Be careful what you envy. You just might not like it if it were suddenly yours.

Why is this relevant?

Enter Aid No. 2:
"I don't want it all. I just want enough".

The above was uttered by a female 'millenial' on a TV programme about her and her peers.
Music to my ears.
Cause for celebration.
Because this is the next generation and I thought they were all worse than my lot :-)

There are little pieces of evidence that feminism is dying a slow death everywhere one looks.
(But these are often overshadowed by evidence to the contrary on the whole, still. I admit that).

So it's really encouraging when I happen upon a gem like this :-)

The speaker of the above was a young South African woman, 26.
She ran her own fashion boutique and was a fashion writer/blogger.

She was being interviewed for a programme about 'Millenials'.

As is the fashion (no pun intended) when faced with a woman who is doing something useful and positive with her life, her interviewer asked her the eternal question:
'Do you want it all'?

Without a pause she said, 'No, I don't want it all. I just want enough'.

This young woman must have seen a tombstone of a woman with the following epitaph on it:
'I got it all.'

Thanks but no thanks, she had said to herself.
Good girl.

'Having it all' was one of the greatest lies of feminism that entrapped millions of women.

My generation and hers are beginning to spot the bogey.
Some are getting off the express train to hell.
Some were never really on it in the first place.

All are collectively doing the equivalent of sticking two fingers up in the face of Feminism.

As the above young woman said, it is not necessary to have it all.
No-one needs it all.

We just need to be grateful for what we already have. This is my own biggest lesson, I have to say.
Gratitude never really came easily to me.
But I see that many more people suffer this problem too.

My joke about Feminism and 'p-envy' and the widely quoted 'Apex Fallacy' in The Manosphere are manifestations of a recognition of this lack of 'gratitude'.
When women start to feel less grateful for what or who they are (feminine beings) and start to crane their necks to peer into a man's life, they will automatically see only the good things he has.
His nice job which pays well (nevermind that he is putting his health at risk doing it), his strength (he works out a lot, that's why he has those pecs :-) his confidence (he was a nerd for the first thirty years of his life)...and so on.

A woman who is not feeling grateful for her own natural gifts (which are numerous!) will not see the man's 'not so good' lot in life.
The fact that his self-respect is based on his work so he is condemned to work till the day he dies, or his retirement, whichever comes first.
The fact that he is inherently more likely to die from a serious illness sooner than a woman for two reasons: he is less likely to get screened routinely and he is also a known 'under-reporter' of unusual symptoms.
The fact that he is likely to lose everything he has built in his whole life, on the say-so of one woman. Usually in one word... and in one fell swoop...

Gratitude. Prevents the need to envy and therefore (incorrectly) dislike another .

There is another aspect to 'gratitude' that I now also realise is crucial.
And that aspect cures 'overentitlement'.

We all know a woman's 'list' is long.
Mine is :-)
That is not so much a problem unless the woman takes it so seriously that she prices herself out of the market altogether.

Bellita talks a lot about whittling down 'the list'.
I find it difficult to do this, personally, but I know it must be done.
The hamster must be overridden :-)

But perhaps an alternative strategy to 'whitling' down the list to one or two items might be... (and this is so similar to 'whittling down' that it is by no means revolutionary) trading off a little by adjusting what we bring to the table.

So if a tall, dark handsome man (assuming that's at least 2 out of 3 of what I want) wants a woman who is short, thin and under 25, I am in trouble on at least two counts. I would have to offer him something else to make up for my 'deficiencies.'
And in being grateful that I get at least something in him that I want, I too become more than willing to give him something that I don't intrinsically have, but that I can achieve.

With reference to the last post, if 'Jeff in Sacamento' wants a tall, blonde, Polish and charming woman, a short American brunnette had better give him the last one if she wants him.
(Assuming Jeff can be persuaded to change his taste in women, that is).
But she won't, unless she is grateful for what Jeff has to offer in the first place.
That is, unless Jeff is somewhat appealing to her.

In many ways, therefore, the advice for a woman to 'look for the one good thing' in a potential suitor is useful advice. Because it primes her mind to be grateful for something.
This is not to say she can bypass her own attraction triggers however. That would be a really tall order.
But the rationalisation hamster can do funny things when it is allowed free rein :-)

Is Modern Woman so entitled because she has too much?
And yet perceives herself to have too little?
Is she just too ungrateful and that's why she always wants more from men?
Is this a First World thing?
Or a worldwide thing?

If Modern Woman really is that insatiable, then perhaps marriage is the last thing she should seek?
Because marriage doesn't automatically make you happy if you are not already happy.
In fact it can make you unhappy, according to field reports...


Neither Jeff nor the woman will 'have it all'.
But there are ways to get most of it...
And it starts with gratitude.


I am glad I know this now.
Better late than never.

Having it all? Or having none of it?