The other day I got on the bus and it occurred to me that back in my grandmother's day, all the young men would have gotten up to offer us ladies their seats. Now, of course, since we are "equal," the thought never crosses their minds. When a foreign gentleman offered me his seat one day, it blew me away. It also got me to thinking about feminism, what it promised and what it delivered. The fact is that men are generally stronger than women, so in that sense we are not equal. If the Titatic were to sink today, the survivors would all be men instead of women.
When my grandmother was a young woman, she would go out on a date with a gentleman caller, and he would pay for dinner. At the end of the date, if it was at least the second one and things had gone well, he might hope to give her a kiss on the cheek. Today if I go out with a man, he expects me to pay my own way... yet he also thinks I will jump in the sack with him on the first date!! How is this a better deal? Could I have one of Grandma's gentlemen callers, please?
When my grandmother was a young woman, a man had to propose marriage and promise to support her and their children before he saw any action. Now we women have been "liberated" by bizarre chemicals we can inject or ingest, or strange contraptions we can insert inside ourselves, or invasive surgery... for what? Men to have sex without consequences? If things were equal, why isn't there a Pill for men? I can tell you why: because men would not take it. They did some trials on a potential man pill but discontinued the trials when the men complained of discomfort in a sensitive area. I could understand this, but it does stand in STARK contrast to the trials on the female pill, when women were literally dying but they continued with the trials and eventual approval of the pill.
It sounds like things are even worse for girls in college now than back in the Triassic (otherwise known as the 90's) when I was there. I read an article about how they don't even date, they just "hook up," which is a euphemism for casual sex with no strings attached. The girls even said they would go to the guy's place and give him their most precious gift, and then they didn't even feel they could ask him to walk them home because that would make them seem "needy." So then they would walk home alone at night. Makes Grandma's deal sound positively quaint!
Famous Hat
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You know modern Valentines day sucks and it goes hand in hand with your post. Guys have to fork over all the cash for dinner, rings, flowers, candy in the hopes of getting either a silly plush toy that they dont care about or sex. My significant other calls it basically whore day - the guy pays in hopes that the woman puts out. In crass terms, that is pretty much what it has been reduced to. Once I found out where roses come from (hideous labor conditions and toxins in third world countries), I never wanted flowers again. I think it it's cute and sweet to have a day for romance, but frankly it has gone totally overboard, with a massive emphasis on overconsumption and guilt if one does not. I can show you a graph for the price of roses in the past 2 weeks at my corner flower store. What would I want for Valentines day - maybe a break from cleaning the catbox :-)
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