Yo Bro!

You gentlemen are strange creatures.


Hahahahahahaha, in the nicest possible sense, of course.


Today, I have a pink hat firmly on. No man-goggles. No seeing it from your point of view. I am all-woman, oestrogen, warts and all :-)


I was at a gym yesterday. No, not a New Year's resolution as such, just normal routine :-)


I was highly amused by a sighting of two men greeting each other.


They were two muscular guys (I think the term is 'beefcakes'?)
And no, I most definitely wasn't ogling.


I wasn't!


They were in my field of vision, OK?


The only reason I spotted the rippling pecs and bulging biceps is that they had somehow crossed over into my direct field of vision. I had been looking straight ahead, minding my own business, in a 'tunnel' of my own making and all...


Honest!


:-)






Anyhow, despite being of different races, they greeted each other with 'Yo bro'.
I didn't think they were genetic brothers, no :-)


Then they did this inverted handshake thing, and then whilst maintaining this handshake, they 'bumped' right shoulder to right shoulder. I could hear this bump, frankly it seemed painful, but these guys didn't seem to feel any pain. Manwhile I was wincing.


And they did all this in like, 3 seconds, all without eye contact.


They then parted company as each went in search of some weights to pump.










This is not the first time I have seen men greet each other in a way that makes me want to laugh out loud. It is so cute to watch (at least by a woman).


Are you men amused at the way women greet each other?


Come on, fess up! We won't be offended :-)




Perhaps a description of how I greet my own best friend may help.


I hadn't seen her for about two months.


I met up with her recently. As I spotted her among a crowd as she made her way towards me at our appointed venue, I immediately noticed she was wearing new boots.


Maintaining eye contact as she approached me, we hugged so tightly I couldn't be sure how legal it was :-) We maintained this hug for well over a minute.


Then I stepped away to admire her new boots for the best part of two minutes, then she looked me over and complimented me on some random feature of my physical being (I forget what). Then we hugged again, and stroked each other's shoulders/arms/backs in light touches whilst taking past each other at the rate of a thousand words a minute...




Hahahahahahahahaha!


If anyone thinks I am exaggerating....


I am not.


I describe it exactly as I recall it.


But it does sound like a caricature of women's greeting, doesn't it?




The thing is, it feels so good.




Do you guys get this sense of 'it feels good' when you do your 'fist bumps' and 'chest bumps' (like the basketball players do) and your inverted handshake greetings?


To you, is it necessary for it to 'feel good'?
I can tell you that from this side of the fence, we definitely do it for the 'feel good factor'!


:-)






I love forms of greetings. They are my guilty pleasure.


In some parts of the world, a simple 'hi' just won't do. People spend a good ten minutes just saying 'hi'. I kid you not.


I once watched a documentary where two women were timed just exchanging simple pleasantries. It took just over eight minutes. Eight minutes!


It went something like this:


How are you?


Good, how are you?


Great. How are the kids?


They are fine. How is your husband?


He is well, how is your Mum? Has she recovered from her operation yet?


Oh yes, she is walking again now. And the party? How's that coming on?


Oh, yes, she is looking forward to it. We haven't got the cake yet. She says she's too grown up now to have a cake with thirteen candles on it...


And so on.


After everyone had been accounted for in the greeting, then they started talking about what they had actually met up for.


Hahahahahaha, so amusing...








I understand the need to keep your distance even when you are greeting your nearest and dearest, gentlemen. It is something I admire, because I cannot do it myself.


But do you feel the need to be like this in all your close encounters with your fellow fellas? Is this some code of manhood or something?


My friend and I regularly invade each other's privacy. We have no real boundaries.


I 'get' that a lot of men would recoil in horror at that. I understand.


What happens when a rather tactile woman hugs you like she would a fellow female?
Would you tolerate it ('well, she's just a female, she's not dangerous afterall, besides it's rather nice' :-)
Or do you hate it when this happens ('get off me, woman!')


Please do share!










What do you think of the Obamas' 'fistbump'?
Is this a normal 'form of greeting' between a couple?
Or is it a case of 'whatever floats their boat'?


Why do basketball players jump up and bump chests?
Is this a 'beating my chest, but even better if my buddy does it for me' thing?
We women could never do this. It would be a physically painful experience :-)
Even for the less endowed among us :-)


But we sometimes do the 'bump hips' thing.
I have never seen men bump hips - why is this?
Could a man explain this to me?






Anyone use the 'rub noses' form of greeting?
Is it cute or infection-prone? :-)


What about the kiss on the mouth between parents and children?


Why is a 'firm handshake' a good thing?


Tell all about your preferred (or not!) forms of greeting!


Not sure why this interests me, but it does :-)

The Servant King

What an oxymoron this is!
It's got me thinking all day.



At Mass this morning, I was struck by the words of this hymn.
The lyrics kept playing themselves in my mind all day.
Flicking through channels in the hope of an update about a certain royal baby :-) I came across a church service where the congregation were singing a hymn.

You wouldn't believe which hymn...


I promised to pray for a young lady.
She is on the cusp of womanhood.
That means she will soon enter into the SMP.
Her father is educating her well. But he is quite rightly worried about her romantic future.

Cadders, this one is for your young daughter.
May she be the kind of woman that one day you would be immensely proud of.

The Servant King.
A servant who is also a king, or a king who serves?

This reminds me of a french phrase that a close family member uses a lot:

Noblesse oblige.
With nobility comes a lot of responsibility.

Kind of puts paid to the modern 'princess' who has all the rights and no responsibility, doesn't it?




The last verse of this hymn is the one that got most of my attention.

"So let us learn now to serve,
And in our lives enthrone Him
Each other's needs to prefer
For it is Christ we're serving."


I am not versed in Scripture. I can't quote Bible passages at will. Google is my friend when I need to find something in a hurry :-)
So for me it is nice to get a little titbit of wisdom handed to me on a plate, for free.
This hymn was one such gift for which I am grateful.

The last post about 'a new breed of woman' is a way to elevate my own ideals. But I realise it won't be possible without a supreme being's help.

In my world, I call this being 'God'.
Others may have a different word for Him.
It doesn't matter what we call Him.

If we learn how to serve, like Him, if we prefer each other's needs like Him, we would be well on the way to be what He designed for our eternal happiness, I am sure.

There are people who serve everyday, without even thinking about it. Kudos to these people. They are selfless and self-sacrificing, and they are a great example to follow.

This servant King, he has a number one fan.
She is his mother, the Servant Queen.
And she is like me, female.
But there endeth the similarity :-)


She is a cool role model to have, for every young woman.
If one has a difficult choice to make, one could try asking, 'would she do that?'
If the answer is yes, cool.
If it is no...



For sure, we would all never quite be like her.
For she was born without sin, and we were.

But our lives can be lived trying to imitate her, and other women like her.

Cadders, may your daughter strive to be like the mother of the Servant King all the days of her life.

At this point in her life when she is about to enter into an important phase, may she get all the good guidance that you (and her mother) have to offer.




The rest of us will support her with our good wishes, positive thoughts and prayers.

The diverse faces of modern motherhood

First the funny side.

This video had me laughing so hard I may have ruptured something :-)

 

All this to advertise a car? :-)

Well at least this is one contraceptive The Church will not disapprove of :-)



It seems not too long ago we were ringing in a brand new year.
And already, I am back to asking questions.

No longer just why, but also nowadays how?

Like...how can these women be women?
Yes, South Africa has 'special' problems, but can this ever be explained by socio-political unrest?


Crass fatherhood is never to be excused, of course. And it takes many forms.
But I don't think I have ever come across a tale like this one before...

Children whose parents break up often blame themselves to some degree.
This poor child will one day know that she is indeed the reason her parents divorced.
For being 'ugly'. And she isn't even ugly at all!

But the first man in her life thinks so.
So she will always believe this.

This father has ruined the life of his daughter before it has begun.
Every young woman needs to know that she is pretty. Especially to her father or his substitute.
This doesn't mean she has to flash her bosom on Facebook.
But she has to know in her soul that she is attractive to someone important to her.
Daddy is the most important man until someone else takes over :-)





This is a highly dangerous woman.
Other than to share her ideas, I shan't discuss her further.

Let's hope she never has a son.
But even so, she is still dangerous to society.

With her ideas, she is condemning her daughters to pain and solitude.
Unless they choose not to listen to her.





Has it always been this diverse?
Or is this a relatively new phenomenon...

Briffault's Law: A law on a fault of womanhood?

Someone* asked me to share my thoughts on the above law.

It is exactly the kind of topic Sensible Me would have steered clear of :-)
But Someone wanted to start this discussion going.

So in this season of goodwill, I thought I would oblige, leaving my sensible self somewhere far away from here :-)

It may not be quite the right time of year to discuss this issue.
 But when is it ever right to tackle such a contentious topic?

Robert Briffault (1876-1948) was a (French? - under speculation if he was actually French or British) surgeon who became more known for his anthropological observations than his career as a doctor.

His most famous observation from his literary work 'The Mothers' which became his eponymous law was this:


"The female, not the male, determines all the conditions of the animal family. Where the female can derive no benefit from association with the male, no such association takes place."


This quote of Briffault is highly familiar, in the sense that it highlights a 'fault' of womanhood that men don't like and is often discussed by Manosphere bloggers :-)

Now, bearing in mind that I am female (and therefore perhaps automatically excluded from rational or unbiased analysis of Briffault's Law), I offer my thoughts.

(NB: I have never read 'The Mothers', nor any others of Briffault's works. I do think it may have been useful to have read his works to get a 'feel' for his line of thinking and his worldview. But alas, I lack the time and the inclination. Apologies for that).


I think Briffault is both right and wrong with his law.

Why is he right?

Yes, it was always Nature's brutally unfair intent that a woman associate herself with a man who would be of most help to her in the business of offspring-raising.
That, in my opinion is what Briffault's Law is for.

So this law, in of itself is not wrong.
Au contraire, it is a useful law. For society in general, not just women.

If more women rejected men who were clearly and unequivocally unsuited to the role they were designed for, perhaps we would not be in the mess we are in today.

There would certainly be fewer feral childern about.
Because Father would be in the home, along with Mother.

A wise person I know has this rule:

'As women go, so goes society'.

I have quoted this saying ad nauseum on this blog. Whichever way I look at it, it seems to make sense to me.

Briffault's law implies both a right and a responsibility of women.
Every good father tells his daughter: Pick a responsible man to associate with. Vet his character, his values, make sure they are compatible with what you want. If not, reject him.

Briffault's law.


Every good mother tells her daughter: Keep your wits about you when meeting and dating men. Keep your ears and eyes open, but your legs crossed. If he is not to your taste, do not invest yourself in him.

Briffault's law.


A woman may not get a 'finished product' of a man, especially when he and she are young. But she needs to see some 'potential' in terms of how he sees life, his character and his values. For some women (especially those who wish to have children), earning power of a man is also very important. I make no judgment on that, except to say that as a woman, I understand this very well. Child raising is not cheap.
But alas, money is not everything. There are some women who will gladly marry the poorest man around, but whose character is golden. A character they would wish to pass on to their children.
This is still Briffault's law at play. The woman is still seeking something.

The woman who enters into an association with a man with zero expectations of something back from him is not a wise woman, especially if she wants a family. I am sure everyone would agree with this. Low expectations is reasonable in this context :-). Zero expectations is not.

Therefore, I think Briffault's law is an accurate observation and perhaps a good assessment of how a woman should be. It fits very nicely in fact with my own views on hypergamy.


But enough of the 'rights'. Note that it is also the responsibility of a woman to find a man with the best fit to what she believes is the ideal man for her.

Therefore, in the best interpretation of the perfect 'subtitle' to Briffault's law, a woman is not allowed to marry or otherwise enter into a committed relationship with a man and then rescind her initial 'promise'.
This is where things get messy.

Briffault's law contains the following 'subtexts':


1. Past benefit provided by the male does not provide for continued or future association.


2. Any agreement where the male provides a current benefit in return for a promise of future association is null and void as soon as the male has provided the benefit (see corollary 1).


3. A promise of future benefit has limited influence on current/future association, with the influence inversely proportionate to the length of time until the benefit will be given and directly proportionate to the degree to which the female trusts the male.


Certainly, in today's feminist-boosted, legally-encouraged, spiritually-bereft culture, the above scenarios are very, very common.
This is hypergamy according to Manosphere Law!
And I would agree that this is crass womanhood.
How Briffault worked this one out in 1960 I'll never know, but he seems to have had the same foreseer's glasses as George Orwell (1984) and Aldous Huxley (Brave New World).
He was absolutely right about his predictions (actuality?).


But Briffault was also wrong.

For one, wanting something in return is a human issue.
We were all born selfish.

The person who is the eternal doormat has something wrong with him or her. It is not normal.

So, a woman may wish for a provider  type. This is wired into her DNA.
A man may wish for a beautiful and young woman. This is also wired into his DNA.
:-)

Men and women want different things from each other. But each has his/her needs/wants. Therefore one might also interpret the second line of Briffault's law as applying to both men and women.

For two, it is not always true that women control everything. Clever men know how to 'lead' women, even in the domestic realm. But I won't be drawn into another long discussion about 'alpha' and 'beta' :-) It's Christmas!




Briffault's law has always existed. Kudos to Briffault for actually verbalising it for the rest of us.
In the Patriarchal society we had pre-feminism, this was 'controlled' and did not allow women to get all 'feral' with their desires.
It also incidentally enabled women to have a wider choice of 'suitable men'.

We are back to 'as women go...'.
For as women on the one hand went 'over the top' with Briffault's law, and killed the goose that was laying the golden eggs (awful pun, sorry) by being too critical of men, and then on the other hand dropping Briffault's law entirely by not vetting men they rewarded with... um... 'favours', the possibility to exercise Briffault's law at all disappeared. Almost overnight.

Women do and should control the animal family. It is the way it has always been, and was designed to be. The only difference between before and now is that, now, it is done at the expense of men rather than for the good of society as a whole.

With this important role comes some very serious responsibilties.
Ignore the responsibilities at our peril.

Umm, too late... already there....





Merry Christmas everyone!






 *Thank you, Someone.

Manhood United, Womanhood unlimited

I got the distinct impression yesterday that I stepped on someone's toes.
Or the collective toes of manhood.

I suggested in a clumsy way in trying to pose a question, that 'Game' could be a retort against feminism.
I said other outrageous things that pushed all the wrong buttons for at least one person.
As I said in my response to that person, I was not 'fitness testing'. Which is true.
I was fishing for evidence that I am doing the right thing by identifying with the potentially contentious crowd that are collectively known as the Red Pill poppers.

I think we are cool now, Mr Displeased and I.
At least I hope so :-)

But this little episode taught me something that I thought I understood in principle, but I stll fail on in practice.

Never walk into the locker room.
I do avoid the locker room. Like the plague. Most of the time. But occasionally I accidentally find myself in it and then I have to run out again screaming and holding my head in my hands.


Masculinity is sacred to men. Just like femininity is sacred to women.
I get that.
The only reason I and other Red Pill women want to understand masculinity is purely to enable us to navigate seemingly confusing behaviour in men. We need/want to see beyond the haze. This may take some unauthorised trips to 'the locker room' to achieve. These trips are usually accidental, always fortuitous.
Beyond scraping the surface of masculinity, my interest wilts. As it should.

My last 'accidental' trip to the locker room saw me asking if perhaps some men saw feminism as a 'good thing' because it gave some men some incredible benefits.
Someone said 'Objection'!

So although I gave a good defence as to why I asked the question, I take it back.

Feminism in its worst form is bad for society. We are all agreed?
And Game in its purest form is about the sacred assembly of the highest order of masculinity in any given man.


So in penance for my transgressions (Erm, I know how to do penance really well, and we are still afterall in Lent, hehe) I dedicate this post to Masculinity (capital M) and all its participants and cheerleaders :-)




I was talking to a friend whom I haven't seen for a long time. During the course of our conversation she mentioned she had gone fishing with her husband the weekend before.
Not being particularly interested in fishing, I was non-plussed by this.
But she went on and on about this.

She had always resented the fact that her husband does not spend enough time with her and the kids. During the week and most saturdays he is working. And then on sundays, what does he do? Goes fishing :-)

Infuriating!

She has bugged him for years about this, but nothing's changed.
Then for some reason, after yet another argument, he calmly invited her to join him to go fishing. The kids were sent off to friends and off they went to go catch some fish.

She said that when they got to the lake and he set about preparing the fishing tackle and the lures and bait and what not, she couldn't help but notice a few thngs:

He took such great care to get his gear together. He seemed to be really concentrating on his 'work', all the while enthusiastically explaining to her why he thought such and such a manoeuvre would work and why that lure or other might not.
And at the same time he also seemed so relaxed and seemed to be enjoying himself.
They sat and he fished for hours.
At the beginning she said she was conversing with him. But after a while, she stopped talking and just enjoyed the peace and quiet with him. She said he seemed to enjoy the quiet more.

My friend told me she now understood why her husband went fishing so much. She now saw what it did for him. She felt it was a special experience for him. She just didn't know before.

Neither did I. Can't say I have ever been fishing. But now I know it can do for a man what a retail therapy session with the BFF can do for a girl :-)

I watched South African all-male choir 'Ladysmith Black Mambazo' sing the other day. These men became the symbol of hope for Nelson Mandela while he was in prison. He took them with him when he travelled the world - to Oslo when he received his Nobel Peace Prize, to England when he visited the Queen, and they were right there with him when he was inaugurated as president in 1994.

The call themselves 'the family'. One of them now has managed to recruit 4 of his sons into the choir. It is a bastion of maleness. A family of men.
And yet women are not necessarily excluded. These guys practise with their wives and girlfriends in their recoding studio all the time. Their children are heavily involved in their music. The next generation of Mambazos are being recruited with each practice session. The whole community is part of their wider team.
These men are a family of men, but everything they do is for both men and women to enjoy.

There are many other male and female equivalents of the Ladysmith Black Mambazo singers.
Any boyband or girlband that can truly call themselves a 'family' - not just a bunch of people thrown together for commercial gain.

Boy scouts. Girl guides or Brownies.
Women's organisations that have nothing to do with feminism. Like some 'Mothers' groups'.

It is indeed beautiful when a man or a woman knows what it is to be a man or a woman. It is only then that one becomes truly open to the other gender.

In individualistic terms, it is one's own sense of self  that enables one to seek and understand another. If a self-identity is missing, one cannot fuse with another.

Lost describes another activity for men only. I think it would be great to have this tradition back in modern life, health issues aside.

Fishing, hunting (and I know that at least one man here hunts), sports...GREAT things for a man to do. If they feel so inclined, how cool would it be to involve willing womenfolk and children (um, occasionally?? if the thought of  a regular stint is unpalatable to male tastes :-)
Many women have their own outdoor 'thing' too, although it may not necessarily coincide with a man's 'thing'.

I was going to include video games and watching TV to the above list...
But I know many women have 'issues' with these.
I know why:
A man who is out of sight playing football or fishing with his mates can be imagined to be doing amazingly wonderful 'manly' things.
If he is sitting right under your nose seemingly ignoring you whilst zoning out on a video game or TV it takes away from this illusion somewhat :-)

Leisure acitivity is on the decline in many ways, for both genders. Shame, because for one it may buck the trend of obesity for most people, being a fun way to lose weight and destress all at the same time.

Work is already something that men can see as a 'masculinity marker'. I can understand that. But unless 'work' is your own business or a passion of yours, a leisure activity, whether sporting or not is surely unbeatable in terms of your own little oasis of masculinity?


We should never stop doing what makes us masculine or feminine.
For it is a huge facet of our essence, no?

It's hard to be a woman

Tammy Wynette's famous song 'Stand by your man' hits it on the head.
Sometimes, it really is hard to be a woman.

I remember once, I was in an algebra class at school. I must have been around fifteen years old.
It was an all-girl school.
The teacher was a middle-aged man. A father-figure type.

One of my classmates was obviously having a bad day. I forget what her problem was, but I am willing to bet it was related to the time of month.

The class was dead quiet until she started speaking. We had a test coming up and we were trying to work hard for it.
The girl looked up at the teacher and said, "Oh sir, how I wish I was a man!"

The teacher regarded her for a moment.
Then he turned to all of us and said, "Yes sure, it's hard to be a woman. But you do not want to be a man. You are blessed in being women. Embrace it."

Now, I remember feeling stunned that a man was talking to us like this. Years later, I realised how nice and important for our feminine development that a man was telling us to enjoy womanhood.

But as we were to discover in later life, it would turn out to be hard to enjoy womanhood.
Feminism saw to that.

Women have their biological role to play in life, with all its complexities. Navigating that alone is hard enough.

In addition, many women have taken on the roll of the man too. By way of brutally exhausting careers.
Which she may not be fully equipped to perform. Think women in the Armed Forces and their physical capabilities relative to men.

All these factors collude to disrupt a woman's journey through life.

Another unintended consequence of feminism is the delay in the maturation process of the modern woman.
In previous generations, women matured much faster than men. Nature was keen to make sure that by the time she had children, she would be well equipped to care for them.
Not so anymore.
By the time a man matures nowadays, his female counterpart is still lost at sea.

But whilst a man has all the time in the world to mature, women don't.
Because there is one more Nemesis to tackle: Mother Time...

And then she seeks compassion.
But would a man show compassion?

Generally not.
At least not in the way a woman wants it.

But here is the good news.

The solution for a woman who is finding it hard to be a woman is simply to use male and female nature to her advantage.

It is a mistake to seek compassion (read: pity) from a man.
Men don't do pity.
One look at the Manosphere and that becomes clear very quickly.
It would appear on the surface that men are harsh critics. Very harsh critics.
But actually, they simply are seeing the world through masculine eyes. Naturally.
Men judge everyone including women by masculine (i.e. their own) standards.

He won't stand another man crying and feeling sorry for himself. He might soften if a woman he is attached to (mother, sister, wife, longterm girlfriend) appeals to his soft centre.

Otherwise, it is 'get up and get on with it'. End of story.

Take advantage. Let us use the harsh criticisms of the Manosphere as the first step in our Recovery Programme.
In the end, they are doing us a favour.
Even if they think otherwise.