Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Emasculation Education

Last month, in a post called Who Wears Short Shorts?, I wondered how the male students at college handled having to constantly see female students who are provocatively dressed.  I figured that the men had to somehow become desensitized to it or else drop out of school.

If they become desensitized, what does that process do to them?  I figured it couldn't be good.   I stumbled across some answers via The Thinking Housewife in a fascinating discussion called A Theory of Viagra.  Here's the initial punch:

The way many women dress today, with half their breasts exposed, is an expression of total disrespect for men. Men are left with three possible responses. To grab the woman, which is illegal; to ogle the woman, which is socially unacceptable; or to affect not to notice the woman at all, which is emasculating. A culture that normalizes such female behavior--i.e. not only not noticing or objecting to it, but prohibiting any objection to it--is extremely sick.

 You can see that it is well worth setting aside some time to read in its entirety.  I've read it at least three times.  The discussion goes far and wide, even including a comment by  Laura Wood (who is The Thinking Housewife) about educating women. She said:

As Aristotle said, "So it is a matter of no little importance what sort of habits we form from the earliest age--it makes a vast difference or all the difference in the world." Women used to spend a healthy portion of their formative years learning about men, how they were different, what they could and could not expect from them in the way of intimacy, how to respond to their powerful sex drives, what they needed to do to get around their differences. This is one reason why the education of women seemed outwardly so unimpressive compared to the education of men. They were learning essential things, it just wasn't the things men were learning. They seemed to be doing nothing, but they were preparing for real adulthood, not the life of a perpetual adolescent or neutered workaholic.

Women get none of that today, and, in fact, receive the reverse. From early childhood, they are told that men and women are essentially the same. Of course, women know that this isn't quite true, and older women still reinforce the idea of differences, but women enter adulthood with many misconceptions and have had little time to meditate on and absorb the truths of human nature. What a disaster when they get married. Life was never a rose garden, and the idea that it should be is part of the problem, but women are crushed by false expectations today.

I was really glad to read that, as I have been actively trying to teach my daughter about men through conversation, books, and movies for the last couple of years.  The book, Fascinating Womanhood, has been the most helpful of all.  After finishing it, she immediately began accurately identifying problems in relationships that were portrayed in movies.   I hope this understanding will help make her own marriage more successful.

2 comments:

Kristyn Hall said...

So thought-provoking. Feminism has not elevated women as was the intent, but it has sure done its job in knocking the men down. I hear women complain all the time about getting ogled and I think to myself, "I'm a woman and I have no clue where to look when you are in front of me!" They are worse than naked, because they are "packaged." They are a purposeful temptation and then wonder why they get the looks (and the occasional grabs, I would imagine). This is not what God meant when He made us "male and female."

Wendy Haught said...

I agree. I get embarrassed all the time by scantily-clad women. i even received a women's clothing catalog a couple of weeks ago that I couldn't look at because almost every page featured a model with her legs spread wide. Thank goodness they were all wearing pants, but it was still awful.