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So as I read Honor’s piece she strikes me as a self regarding, immature, over-educated woman with a lot of First World problems. And now she's trying to justify to herself why she done lost her damn mind. And seeking more attention in the bargain, because that's what solipsistic people do. And really failing on all fronts.

Again... eesh. I have never heard a man refer to another man as "over-educated" - and please do not suggest that you would say the same thing about a man if you ever came across one. You're telling on yourself. Over-educated for what? For her "god-given" role as a wife and mother? Seriously, save this stuff for the "traditional" mens message board echo Chamber. Bonus: you'll find that they are likely to agree with your loud-and-clear belief that women with children (and countertops) have no justifiable reason to leave a marriage with a man who doesn't abuse them.

Thumos, you're not a dummy. I don't buy for a second that you've never heard of the "mental load" or the second shift or any of the scores of articles and ink spilled on the subject. If you haven't, you have made a very clear decision to ignore or tune out the voices of women, because trust me, they are absolutely out there screaming into the void. I guess that makes sense given your readiness to dismiss women's voices and obvious disdain for "over-educated" women.

A lot of what is discussed in this thread seems to ignore the sacrifices and burdens men take on in marriage.

Whataboutism at its finest. Grade-A gaslighting. Give examples. Explain why any of it is relevant to this conversation. What does it have to do with the article? If men make sacrifices in a marriage (and NO ONE SAYS THEY DON'T)- does that somehow invalidate a women's concerns/complaints?

I have seen articles debunking the notion that females who work take on more of the load for household duties , childcare etc.

Prove it. I'm going to need receipts.

So, do correct me if I'm wrong, but are you suggesting that what prevents cheating is the near-constant presence of your SO?

I think you are reading past what I wrote a little bit. I'm saying if you don't choose a near-constant presence with your SO, you are more likely to be the kind of person that would happily choose to spend some of that extra time with an extra partner.

People can't be trusted if they aren't living together? I'm having a hard time relating to this. So people who date can't be expected not to cheat until they've moved in together?

They are still early in the relationship. They can maintain exclusivity more easily because it's still exciting and there is still future planning. As I said, the natural progression of a committed serious relationship is moving in together.

Does this apply to military members stationed overseas for months at a time too? Is cheating kinda understandable in those cases? How about for their spouses left at home socializing without them?

I think that cheating is rampant in the military and among military spouses. You don't end up with the term Jody for no reason. It isn't quite "don't ask don't tell" open relationship because it has the extraneous conditions for LAT where that isn't exactly the choice of the couple but a feature of the career.

I think that people who choose an arrangement that is already prone to cheating among those that aren't choosing that arrangement will almost certainly choose to have an affair as well.

because trust me, they are absolutely out there screaming into the void.

And being told in return that it's all in their heads, there has never been a patriarchy, they're just being silly, etc.

I think you are reading past what I wrote a little bit. I'm saying if you don't choose a near-constant presence with your SO, you are more likely to be the kind of person that would happily choose to spend some of that extra time with an extra partner.

Well on that, we're just going to have to disagree. If one partner all the time is too much, I fail to see where two or three would be better.

And being told in return that it's all in their heads, there has never been a patriarchy, they're just being silly, etc.

Yep. Or that they are solipsistic, attention-seeking, immature women with First World problems (who should quit complaining and be grateful because their husbands do not beat or cheat).

Let's use a very typical set of complaints. Man too messy, he is basically a third child.

Let's say LAT gives the woman additional emotion and physical energy because the LAT man is a slob.

Lets say the LAT gives the man additional emotional and physical energy because his SO isn't constantly nagging him to come to bed at a reasonable hour and help clean up.

Both now have unspent emotional energy (that they hypothetically would have used) that they can go use however they see fit and plenty of alone time to use it in. Woman meets a man at book club. Man meets a woman at a bar.

"Oh, I'm married."

"That's not a problem for me, I just want to worship your body."

"Sorry, I'm exclusive."

"So where is your SO then? Why are you talking to me?"

"I don't rely on them for all my emotional stimulation."

"Then why rely on them for your physical stimulation?"

You know, some of my contemporaries as a young man would tell me that women with serious long term boyfriends that weren't with them were the most open to casual encounters. You didn't have to be better than all the options, just the one, and just for right now. And the one she is with is a slob she doesn't live with.

How is that different from being tired of going home to the slob every day and doing all the cleaning and finding some neatly-dressed rando with a clean car who just takes you out to dinner and gives you sex and pretends to "appreciate you"? If a person is going to cheat while not living together, they're probably going to cheat while living together because cheating isn't about having time or cleaning/not cleaning up after someone. Cheating is a character issue. This extra emotional energy thing should mean that anytime someone doesn't have so much going on that they don't have time to cheat, they'll be cheating. Hell it should mean that all single people are pretty much fucking randos at all times what with their emotional energy. There should be orgies in the streets. I think most of us are here because we were with people in our homes who theoretically shouldn't have had the emotional energy to cheat and yet there they were, out cheating.

Find your own receipts, emergent. Easy to find these articles. Same with stats on gender pay gap and the prevalence of female on male domestic abuse.

The genders line up on accepting whatever study supports their allegations.

As far as relevance, the drudgery/burdens of marriage disproportionately affecting women was brought up by others, ostensibly to endorse the author's decision to bail out. So, Whataboutism is appropriate, IMO.

Find your own receipts, emergent. Easy to find these articles.

Things that don't exist for 100, Alec.

Look, people can have whatever arrangement they want. "Not Just Friends" has a few maps, and a few quizzes. LAT will make you score higher risk in all three phases of Relationship Vulnerability, Individual Vulnerability, and Social Vulnerability by my estimation.

I know we say cheating is a "character flaw" and that you can't affair proof a marriage because it's the cheater that cheats. But I also think that millions of people with porous boundaries who have simply not cheated because they were low risk, not because they were high in character.

I'm going to drop this topic on agree to disagree though, I think and move on to some other topics I haven't hit.

The patriarchy is real. I think it's awfully hard to deny that. The degree to which the patriarchy continues to "hold women down" etc. I think is a little overblown, but I have the advantage of getting to say that as a person of enormous privilege. But like, the woman traditionally takes her husband's name in western culture. Exhibit A, I think. I have a mix of very liberal and very conservative beliefs on family life. I don't buy all the biblical bullshit of the man being the leader of the household, but it's in there right? We have thousands of years of history, and we can make a pretty convincing argument that the patriarchy 100% existed, and continues to exist in some way culturally regardless of attempts at an egalitarian society legally.

As for the emotional load, I have an essentially problem with how it is framed as a gender issue. I don't think of it as a gender issue necessarily because it can go either way. That said, women do tend to carry it more because they have a higher expectation than men on average. The "easy going" person though doesn't have it easier. "I'll help you if you ask" is about as good as they can do. It's not their fault. They have a different expectation, and the emotional effort is part of the compromise. The easy goer will eventually hit their natural equilibrium. If you don't do the dishes or the laundry or cook or clean, they will live life the way they prefer. It's the more organized and ambitious individual that is upset with this lower standard of living. So this is a matter of people coping with different preferences if you ask me, and therefore, the "emotional burden" of higher expectations is fully symmetrical with the "emotional burden" of exceeding your own expectations.

It's like you say, "I want to run 8 minute miles with you" then get upset that the other person says, "Yeah, I can only do 9". So you get out the cattle prod, you go 8:30 and you get upset running along prodding your partner at a slower pace is harder than running alone. You think it's fun to run faster than your fastest pace while getting prodded the whole time, then told by society you are the lazy fatass problem in the equation?

Eeesh for 200( Alex passed on, unfortunately).

I know we say cheating is a "character flaw" and that you can't affair proof a marriage because it's the cheater that cheats. But I also think that millions of people with porous boundaries who have simply not cheated because they were low risk, not because they were high in character.

Agree with this 100%.

The patriarchy is real. I think it's awfully hard to deny that. The degree to which the patriarchy continues to "hold women down" etc. I think is a little overblown, but I have the advantage of getting to say that as a person of enormous privilege.

Thank you.

Not really hard to deny.

I read the article and frankly, I completely get where Thumos is coming from. My H's crisis was much like hers but over the mundane nature of adult married life. No real complaints with me as his wife or the mother of his kids. In fact, he said he loved me and was just no longer in love with me and wasn't happy. He just a vague sense that there was more out there that he needed to experience and of course in his case, young women to seduce but not until we were divorced because "he was honorable" and wouldn't do that to me. It was all horseshit and I am a bitch so I told him to get his head out of his ass. I am very strong and was brutally honest with him. This seems to apply to this writer too who is navel gazing and contemplating drivel in an attempt to justify her unjustifiable actions.

Marriage is a commitment, you make vows. If your word is no good, you have no honor or integrity. Ideally you discuss what your deal breakers are before you take those vows. I know we certainly did and we were very honest about what those deal breakers are at the time. His crisis was not one of our deal breakers and I was not going to easily let him walk away without telling him exactly what I thought of his BS thought process. I made it clear that he had the freedom in our marriage to explore other things he needed in life (excluding any type of infidelity) but if he walked away, there would be major consequences that he wasn't considering. I laid those out to him very succinctly and clearly. He was stunned. I told him if he left, I love him enough to let him go but I also loved myself enough to never let him come back.

She didn't even try personal counseling or introspection that was fruitful in learning who she was and what she wanted before she abandoned her life, husband and kids. She just felt "lost" and needed to find something new. It's shallow, selfish and not honorable behavior. There is no depth there. Honestly, if she persisted in that type of talk I'd let her go. She's not worth it.

I am an incredibly firm believer that when we bring children into this world, we have a great responsibility to them to teach them values, emotional maturity and strength, self respect, how to give back to the society in which they live in a meaningful way and to become productive good people. How you model that when your inherent nature is so selfish you willingly give up 50% of your time with them to pursue..you don't even know what, is failure as a parent.

Yes, the patriarchy exists but in part it affects women so much because we let it. Those women who give too much in marriage don't value themselves enough. They buy into the concept that "this is how it is and men are often just like this, there is no changing it". That's not entirely true. Many men can be made to see that this way of thinking is archaic, outdated and won't work in their partnership in this day and age. They don't lay out early in the relationship that they won't accept being treated as the maid, they don't demand their partner step up while being disrespected. Being treated as less than an equal partner should be one of those deal breakers on both sides. Young people often don't really know themselves well enough to know what they want and need in a partnership and don't realize this. I get that but at some point you become aware and it is on each of us to address our needs as strongly as possible and by exploring all options before considering divorce. As a society we treat marriage these days so casually. It pisses me off.

Don't be obtuse, Linus. Ask yourself honestly, if you got to choose would you be a man or a woman. And don't just pick in the *right now* today's society. Think about it over the last several hundred or thousand or prehistoric years. The truth is this. In modern conflict resolution, there is a spectrum of solutions from peaceful to forcible. Agreement, mediation, arbitration, judgement, and violence. In nature, we have agreement and violence. Men have a distinct natural advantage in violence.

As a result, essentially any durable power structure worth talking about was made by men. Every matriarchal society was more cooperative and not particularly interested in making a pointier stick that flew farther to kill the person they disagreed with. As a result, patriarchal societies stomped their way around the world. Killing those that disagreed. Especially western culture where every leader was "ordained by god" and passed on power to the eldest son. If if there were no sons, cousins. Daughters could stuff it and weren't allowed to lead.

Eventually rational men decided all men were created equal and not ordained by god. But I promise you the founders and other visionary male leaders didn't think women should lead. They didn't even get to vote. "All landed freeborn males are created equal, I thought that was obvious in context..."

Then HUNDREDS of years later, after the industrial revolution, more rational thinkers including women this time, thought, "Shouldn't women get a say in governance as well?" And yes, women got the vote in most western cultures around 1900 or so. Only though the proliferation of blasphemous philosophical materials were women started to be considered equal.

I think it's easy to look at the hundred years left since then and see that it's still a work in progress. Yes, more women graduate college than men now. Yes, more women are in power and vote. But there are still some societal hurdles and expectations that were put in place long ago. We are basically living the revolution. I think it's only a matter of a few more years until women are required to register for the draft and something close to actual legal equality will be established permanently. Society will follow after a few more decades.

Well, I disagree, but, with ad hominem already starting, I won't debate it. Suffice to say that there is a case to be made for no patriarchy. Lots of stuff on youtube by folks with this view and supporting evidence. Jordan Pet er son is, particularity, equipped in arguing the position.

I wish we could discuss this without it degenerating into insults.

Well, if you stated your case instead of asking people to do their own homework, I wouldn't have called you obtuse. In this case, being essentially unwilling to accept or understand the points other people are making. All that said, I apologize for the insult. I should have simply asked you why you think history and society has not been shaped broadly by "the patriarchy" or patriarchal power systems.

Plenty can be said by Dr. Peterson and others but I'm mostly interested in understanding the individual opinion of other posters and what shapes that opinion while also offering my own, and my reasons for disagreement.

[This message edited by This0is0Fine at 9:19 PM, Wednesday, January 5th]

Or that they are solipsistic, attention-seeking, immature women with First World problems (who should quit complaining and be grateful because their husbands do not beat or cheat).

I said that about one individual, Honor Jones, who has provided us with an abundant solipsistic narrative to that effect. About which most here -- women and men -- agree. no need to be purposefully obtuse. I didn't say that about all or any other woman. You're the one generalizing.

I have never heard a man refer to another man as "over-educated"

I have -- all the time. Routinely. Especially these days with more advanced degrees floating around that are not very employable. Are you being thin skinned and making this about gender on purpose?

ETA: Emergent, I take that last sentence back. Too harsh.

But it does appear, at least by my lights, that I've been pretty careful to avoid making this a broad gender thing (with the exception of talking about the trend of this sort of subgenre book/article being something women writers have done a lot the past decade or so -- and that is empirically true). I've said a lot of snarky things about Honor Jones, and it's been fun. Kinda like -- although not exactly like -- relishing a review of a bad movie or a bad restaurant.

And yet it somehow keeps becoming a gender thing. I'll confess I'm confused by that. For goodness sake, even those like Ellie or Dee who have disagreed with me here I think agree that Honor Jones is not exactly a shining example of what empowered feminists ought to aspire to.

I'm picking on Honor Jones for precisely the reason laid out by Katya, who said a lot of better and more articulately than I have.

I think it would be refreshing for legitimate feminists to call out the Honor Jones types for parasitically trying to attach their navel-gazing onto concepts like the patriarchy or championing their -- yes First World entitled -- experience as some empowerment narrative. I originally put "the patriarchy" in quotes when writing about Honor, because that is how I viewed what she was doing: a cynical gambit on her part to jam that word into her piece as a way of attaching herself to a greater cause (one that is frankly a hell of a lot more noble than anything she herself exhibits).

For the record, I don't deny that societies have been patriarchal, or that women have been denied autonomy and human rights in the past in various societies -- although the broad term "the patriarchy" has been legitimately debated in anthropological, human biological and sociological circles, mainly because it is seen by many (even left-leaning academics) as overly broad, abstract, and even often drifting into a kind of conspiratorial thinking. The debate centers around the idea that the concept seems to lack a sufficient explanatory power and that it fails to acknowledge the rich tapestry and complexity of human experience (and other factors such as class, race, the wide variety of cultures across the planet, and so on). In other words, it sets up a bit of a false dichotomy.

(The idea itself did indeed emerge from within an academic neo-Marxist context; in fact, it was first laid out from within old school Marxism. I wasn't making that up, and that wasn't a snarky aside.)

[This message edited by Thumos at 10:42 PM, Wednesday, January 5th]

Is that an apology with a qualifier/ justification?

Yes. I qualified my apology, and I'll do it again.

I was frustrated by your behavior, and inappropriately used an insult while frustrated. I apologize for insulting you.