{A lot of people are coming to this post from metafilter-please note that the poster of this piece is female, “duende.” Also, she is not the only blogger on Gene Expression, and our views are diverse, so don’t go confusing our posts. The resume you are looking at is that of “David,” not “duende.” I am “Razib,” and I am the most prolific blogger in these parts, but my views do not necessarily reflect those of of everyone else, and vice versa. Also, someone mentioned that this site is pro-life-some might be pro-life here, I don’t know, but I support abortion on demand. Additionally, I, like several other of the bloggers here am a “person of color.” Please recalibrate your insults accordingly, also, any regular GNXP readers with metafilter accounts can clear up misconeptions here….}
A few of you noted that my recent post neglected to mention a primary reason that Oriental women are attractive to white men: relatively few of them are feminists. I purposefully left that question out because in recent months I’ve become unsure of what constitutes a “feminist. Ten years ago, there would have been a brighter line between the lesbo man-haters and the nice girls.
Since then, it has become much more easy, and trendy, to criticize feminism. Now, most of this criticism is richly deserved. As Christina Hoff Sommers and Sylvia Ann Hewlett have demonstrated, one can criticize feminism and still be loyal to women’s equality. However, it is little appreciated that one can criticize feminism and be psychologically indistinguishable from the prototypical feminist. It’s easy to laugh at hairy pits and bizarre conspiracy theories, and it’s easy to convince people you dislike feminist mentality by eschewing the obvious trappings.
I’ve heard women scoff at the idea that women’s career opportunities are curtailed by the patriarchy, then turn around and declare that they’d never “submit my sexuality to any man” (i.e. be faithful). I have a beautiful sister who dresses carefully to impress and is always a knock out. She’s charming and personable, and guys always like her. However, when seeing a pregnant woman walking through a parking lot, she once exclaimed “That’s disgusting!” Neither of these women buy the patriarchy line, but both are contemptuous of marriage and motherhood. Are these women feminists? I don’t know, but if I were a man I’d want nothing to do with either of them.
Most women careerists have learned that feminist rhetoric is counterproductive in the workplace. So even if they really believe it, few make their case. Still, in Washington I’ve been struck by the similarities between Democratic career women and their Republican counterparts. There are some stylistic differences, but in my experience Republican career women are just as likely to not want children, to consistently put career over relationships, and to be utterly impossible at emotional intimacy.
Therefore, I don’t see any specific political agenda or movement that renders so many intelligent white women unmarriageable. A larger cultural movement, independent of Marxist feminist rhetoric, is the culprit. Camille Paglia wrote in Sexual Personae “Men’s egotism, so disgusting in the untalented, is responsible for their greatness as a sex.” Paglia is no man-hater, but a battle-scarred veteran in the wars against speech codes, false rape accusations, and draconian sexual harassment regulations. However, she fervently supports the entry of women into the professions and corporate world. She correctly sees egotism as necessary for to conquer the world, and as a feminist properly encourages intelligent women to adopt egotism as a tool for the glittering success they are all supposed to want.
Here in Washington, at least, girls from affluent socioeconomic backgrounds are groomed for academic and professional superstardom from the cradle. They are encouraged to delay marriage, if the subject is broached at all by their parents. Usually, they are encouraged to work tirelessly in school and work and avoid serious relationships that are too “distracting”. Now, I can sympathize with this, since women seem particularly susceptible to give up their lives for men when the latter aren’t anywhere near reciprocating their level of commitment. But the biggest impediment to these girls’ romance and marriage prospects is the promotion of the egotism necessary to rise to the top. Now, in and of itself this is not harmful. Self-promotion is appropriate tool for getting ahead. But frequently, by accident or design egotism, like the work ethic, becomes a general moral value. This makes it very difficult to confine egotism to the career sphere, and also difficult to understand why egotism isn’t praiseworthy on general principle.
In my experience, women are much more willing to tolerate egotism in men than men are in women. I suspect that this is due at least in part to women’s expectation of a husband as breadwinner. Men don’t demand career success to the same degree that women do. Having established that professional success isn’t big factor for men, I’m faced with a nearly impossible question: in the long term, what do men want from women? Once the necessary-but-not-sufficient sexual requirement (compatibility and fidelity) is filled, it would be hard to imagine a more subjective question. There are different preferences for certain personality types, interests and life goals. However, my observations over the years of many men from a multitude of economic, racial, and national backgrounds have yearned, in differing terms, for a dream girl who is loving and sweet.
Clearly this is a broad continuum. What might be gentle and kind to Man A may be cloying and suffocating Man B. Man B’s perfect measurement of TLC might seem cold and unresponsive to Man A. Still, there comes a time in every relationship when a woman has to tender and empathetic. If she can’t or won’t do that, it doesn’t matter if she has the face of Helen of Troy with George Eliot’s mind.
Thus, feminism is not completely to blame for cold, unloving women. Venomous, bitchy personalities are certainly not confined to feminists. Wives and girlfriends cannot, and should not, be expected to function as new mothers. Hopefully, with a principled, sympathetic debate, some career women will learn to understand the limits of workplace personae. But I close asking a compelling question: can a society that discourages femininity manage to get enough people to form stable marriages to maintain basic social order?
Update from the Comment Boards: “i am reluctant to speak on this topic as i believe in the primacy of individual choice and contentment, which might not always square with any given social idyll,” (Razib). I believe in this as well. However, many, MANY people make stupid choices based on misjudgements of what makes people happy. Most twentysomethings lazily assume that what’s fun now will fulfill them just as much in 20 years, or never imagine that they are sowing the seeds of their futures right now. At this point I think that bourgeois normality is most people’s best shot for reaching retirement age with the fewest regrets.
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