Each time JV comments, a new post is born :-)
I could retire my post-finding hemisphere and just depend on her for ideas :-)
So thank you, JV.
For your gems.
Here is something JV said, which I was starting to ponder about anyway. PVW also made a similar comment that made me think.
The background to my thoughts on this is perhaps a little selfish, in a longwinded sort of way.
I mean, if I am going to somehow produce ten children, the names of which are already entered into the old cerebral database, to be dished out at appropriate intervals :-), it is statistically reasonable to expect a good number to be boys.
Sure, I could end up with ten girls.
But that would be (statistically) improbable.
It follows that I have to think about one day being in charge of a man's early life.
By being his mother.
Why do I need to think about this?
Because I imagine I already know how to raise a woman. Because I am one.
I have to prepare myself specially to (co-)raise a man.
Is this overthinking things a tad?
Indeed.
But that's what I do best :-)
On a side note, I am currently wary of both genders when they are still under the age of reason and still under three foot.
The girls game me and the boys show me things I am not expecting to see.
:-)
I think I am going to need all the help I can get.
Back to the topic in hand, PVW said this in the context of educating girls:
"...when I heard about the Oprah Winfrey situation, I thought that in South Africa, can it be a matter of young men in such a more patriarchal society, young men are deemed empowered merely by their existence, while for young girls, they need extra efforts for their empowerment."
I know any future daughters I have will get an education.
That's a given.
First wave feminism achieved this for already at least three or four generations of modern families.
No problem there.
But I am not so sure about my future sons now.
Because it is no longer about leveling a playing field anymore.
It is now about some sort of retribution against manhood.
I didn't sign up for that.
But it might be what my future son will get.
And now I am starting to feel queasy for him before he is born.
Neurotic motherhood at its best :-)
This is what JV said, to further fuel my neuroticism:
This, in the context of 'ball-busting' women:
"It's funny, but your post idea was something that I was thinking about the other day. A friend of mine who is a single mother has a son who was goofing around with my teenager. The insults were fast and furious, and my friend was horrified. She turned to me and said, "I just can't get him to stop doing that." I told her to not worry about it. It's how boys socialize.
But it got me to thinking how varying degrees of teasing insult is a part of male social skills, whether it's among their friends, or the teasing neg with women. Training that out of a boy could cause a lot of problems."
The problem with a feminised society is that it can produce two types of men:
1. In the majority group will be those who just feel isolated and want to run fast from that society, because there is nothing in it that they can identify with.
2. In the minority, the men who are 'feminised' and as a result become unattractive to the vast majority of women.
Neither category is desirable.
I am sure there are 'matriarchies' that worked in ancient times.
But our attempt at 'matriarchy' in the current clime is not working.
Because it is a false and confused kind of matriarchy, precisely because it is borne out of dissent at patriarchy, without a prior negotiation.
It is a funcional matriarchy rebelling at an actual patriarchy.
If more and more households with children are consisting of mostly single mothers, then in thirty years we will have more of the above categories.
But I think I spot an unseen fiend (no typo).
Even in a 'normal' family setting of both parents who are in 'traditional' roles (for want of a better expression), early childhood is going to be spent in the majotity of the time with Mother.
This is not just practical, it is also natural.
A father's 'input' grows with the child's age. That's not to say that he is unnecessary at Day 1 of course.
All I am saying is that the needs of a baby are overwhelmingly at the door of Mother from Day 1 and the direct interaction with father comes later.
If Mother is clueless as to the specific needs of boys, even the most 'advantaged' boys in society, i.e. those who have both parents living under the same roof by age sixteen will lack something they really ought not to do without.
I am reliably informed (by the men of The Manosphere) that boys are singled out at school for ridicule and punishment much harsher than befits their 'crimes'. The problem is said to (partly at least) stem from the fact that the majority of teachers in schools are female.
If this is true (that boys are being singled out in this way), then I don't think the problem is that their teachers are female at all. There has to be an unseen force at play here. In this sense, the female teacher might just be a puppet on a string in a macabre 'Punch and Judy' show where Judy is made to punch Punch more times than is necessary to keep the show funny.
One of the tools at a school's disposal may be the accusation that a boy is 'violent'.
Is this criminalising 'normal' little boy behaviour or is this indeed the start of the long road to 'Her Majesty's pleasure' aka prison for young Tommy?
Was JV right to be nonchalant about her friend's son's behaviour or is she aiding and abeting a future outlaw?
In Britain, around 10 years ago, a new trend started: Handing out ASBOs (Antisocial Behaviour Orders) to 'unruly' teenagers like smarties. Guess which gender got the majority of these?
And what about the adult men?
Apparently not much changes between ages 5 and 50 :-)
I was once went on a road trip in a party of four, with a married couple in their 50s and a friend in his 40s.
The two men frequently had each other's heads in an underarm head lock whilst I and the other woman looked on in sheer embarrassment whenever this was done in full view of polite company.
To me it was like kindergarten all over again but my female friend assures me this is normal behaviour even for a 50-something year old man :-)
As we celebrate the diamond Jubilee of our dear Queen Elizabeth, my thoughts veer towards two astounding realisations:
1. She has effectively been 'married' to Britain and the Commonwealth for 60 years.
She took vows of loyalty and alliance to the nation, and she has kept them.
2. If she has been Queen for 60 years, she has been married (in the normal sense of the word) for longer than that, because she was already married (and Prince Charles was already a toddler) by the time her father died and she became Queen.
For any woman whose eternal lament is 'he has no social skills, he does and says whatever he wants whenever he wants', spare a thought for our dear old Queen Liz.
Prince Philip has never been known for his social graces and tact.
In fact he is so well-known as 'HRH Prince of Gaffes' that diplomatic relations with certain countries of the world have only been maintained because of the love and respect that the inhabitants have for our dear Reina Elizabeth.
In lesser circles, Prince Philip would have been branded as downright antisocial. He may even have earned himself an ASBO.
And yet, he managed to avoid being thrown out of Buckingham Palace all these years.
He managed to evade being thrown out of the country the literal way.
He escaped the grasp of the guillotine executioner at The Tower of London.
Other spouses of the reigning monarch of England have heard the words 'off with their heads' for much less than the 'crimes' of the impossible Prince P :-)
Does Prince Philip get away with it because he is a man and therefore his tactless jibes at the unsuspecting public (foreign or otherwise) are considered a variant of normal?
Here are some goodies from the national treasure chest of HRH Prince P's gaffes, for your entertainment.
Please note that these were all said to high-ranking people who formed part of a welcoming committe for the royal party:
On a tour of Canada: "We don't come here for our health. We can think of other ways of enjoying ourselves."
During the recession he mused: “Everybody was saying we must have more leisure. Now they are complaining they are unemployed."
When accepting a figurine from a woman during a visit to Kenya he asked: "You are a woman aren't you?"
He asked a Scottish driving instructor in Oban: "How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to pass the test?"
The Duke asked a British student who had been trekking in Papua New Guinea: "You managed not to get eaten then?"
At a Buckingham Palace drinks party, he told a group of female Labour MPs: "Ah, so this is the feminist corner then."
On being offered fine Italian wines by Giuliano Amato, the former Prime Minister, at a dinner in Rome, he is said to have uttered: "Get me a beer. I don't care what kind it is, just get me a beer!"
In Cardiff he told children from the British Deaf Association, who were standing by a Caribbean steel band: "If you're near that music it's no wonder you're deaf".
He told a World Wildlife Fund meeting that "if it has got four legs and it is not a chair, if it has got two wings and flies but is not an aeroplane and if it swims and it is not a submarine, the Cantonese will eat it."
“You look like you’re ready for bed!”
- To the President of Nigeria, dressed in traditional robes.
Said to black dance troupe Diversity at the Royal Variety Performance: "Are you all one family?"
To Australian Aborigines during a visit to Australia with the Queen he asked: "Do you still throw spears at each other?"
To the Aircraft Research Association, he said: "If you travel as much as we do, you appreciate the improvements in aircraft design of less noise and more comfort, provided you don't travel in something called economy class, which sounds ghastly."
While touring a factory near Edinburgh he said a fuse box was so crude it "looked as though it had been put in by an Indian".
It seems no group, clan or nation has managed to escape Prince Philip's sharp wit.
And yet, the most celebrated woman in the world thinks the world of him.
So much so that she has been his loving and faithful wife for over 60 years.
Is he a strutting, rebellious and feckless alpha with an unusual sense of humour?
Or a witless, embarrassing and antisocial sigma?
Or...just a normal male?
Are we in danger of making manhood extinct by the time my sons get born?
Or are we going to let men be men?
And for that matter, let women be women?
Defiant as ever...
But still the best royal consort to date...
