Ron Collins
Jul 28, 2017 · 3 min read

We are simply talking about “manliness” in men and “womanlyness” in women.

You make good points as always. My original one, pre-dating your entry into this particular discussion, was that an OP had posted a lengthy list of things a man ought to do to make himself attractive, but neglected or saw no need to mention anything she might have to offer in return. I see you doing the same thing here. It’s right back to that obsolete and essentially useless “hunter-gatherer” model, except I’m being told “go hunt” with no mention as to what I can expect to see gathered when I get back.

Yes, this is an issue that cuts deeply into my own personal experiences, and I won’t be apologizing for that. I have spent too much of my life in these one-way arrangements where everything about how I decide to live is contingent on whether one woman feels safe about it, and yet when it came to collecting my side of the bargain…. oh, wait, there is no “my side.” Not everything is about you, I have been told way too many times, by someone who saw not the least irony in everything being instead about her.

And this has been the norm I have seen all my life that set me on the counter-feminist course that brought the two of us into contact, and on the anti-matriarchy one that I have come to believe is far more crucial to balanced relations between the sexes than anti-feminism will ever be. It has been the rarest of exceptions in my purview, to see a man and woman together living under any other guidelines other than what works for her, and I see this as an epidemic-level threat to the future of humanity, frankly.

You speak continually of “traditional gender roles” which is also ironic because you are a career woman and a bachelor. I wonder how traditional any woman is ever going to agree to being, in exchange for protection or whatever other traits of manliness-according-to-her she gets from him. That she has dinner waiting? That she agrees not to dress in an overly provocative manner when they go out? That she will prioritize family over career? That making the house a home be an utmost goal for her? What?

So again, what’s in it for me? What’s in it for any man? What bothers me about this entire line of discourse, is that it seems to hang in the air without anyone thinking they have to articulate it, that what’s in it for the man, is sex. And that he ought to be so encompassingly grateful for and satisfied by that alone, that otherwise the lady of the house is just free to go right on ahead and live as un-traditionally as she likes.

Maybe that’s what you mean, maybe it isn’t.

But just using you and I as a (harmless) metaphor here, just how traditional of a spouse would I find myself having? Folks don’t do a lot of hunting and gathering these days, and women might spend a fraction of their lives, if at all, actually being physically vulnerable due to motherhood. So what’s the rest of the equation here? I make you feel safe, impress you with my confidence and whatnot, in exchange for………..

????

    Ron Collins

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    Recognizing that women have no need of any special status granted them by men is as respectful of women’s abilities as it is protective of men’s