You yourself don't seem to know how to be free either, given that you feel oppressed by so many external factors, and find that only after those external factors cease, will you really be happy and free.
Rape and the "Civilized" World
- Thread starter Tiassa
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You yourself don't seem to know how to be free either, given that you feel oppressed by so many external factors, and find that only after those external factors cease, will you really be happy and free.
In your mind.
They are just trying to live up to your kind of standard of normalcy.
It seems to capture your values and beliefs very well.
In your mind ...
Again, in your mind.
It was a Yes or No question. You didn't reply.
Bells
Staff member
Again, in your mind.
In a way, what you do is amazing. You don't care about anyone here and you are willing to commit abuse in order to get your way.
Bells
Staff member
As much as you may try to portray yourself as a victim here, it isn't working.
But carry on making a fool of yourself further. Because if your argument was not bad enough, you prefer to veer off that ridiculous spectacle and make an even bigger one of yourself in different ways.
Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
Also very mature. You must have watched every episode of Pee-Wee's Playhouse. You talk just like him.
Observation
Let us see if you can grasp this simple concept: It's not about women seeing themselves as helpless victims, but, rather, a question of why a society gives them so much to defend against.
Think of it this way: Sure, a self-defense course might be helpful for a woman who finds herself in a bad situation, but so far you seem just fine with the idea that a woman should find herself in a bad situation.
Let us take a look back to the beginning of this thread for a moment:
If you go back and actually read through the discussion, you will recognize that the proposition that "women see themselves as helpless victims who can do nothing to protect themselves" is a vapid trope.
Think for a minute about the self-defense argument.
While, say, jiu jitsu techniques can be very useful when a situation so demands, the statistical reality is that a woman so trained in rape prevention theory is far more likely to need to use those techniques against a husband or friend than a random stranger.
Madam, you just fended off your attacker? Good on you.
Madam, your husband just assaulted you, so you had to fend him off? Well, hey, at least you fended him off.
From the outset, in this discussion, prevention advocates have attempted to steer this discussion away from the rape phenomenon itself in order to make this about women.
Consider, for instance, LG's first post in the discussion, which put it straight back to women.
And here you are tilting windmills along with LG and Wynn?
You're demonstrating the problem:
Look at all the practical advice, all the ounces of prevention, and now all this talk about women defending themselves.
Consider the moment of assault.
Now, what is missing from that?
Perhaps, as we approach six hundred posts in this discussion, you might be able to shed some light on why questions of how to address that moment of initiation are so problematic to some people.
See, it's my understanding—although, to be honest, it's quite obviously an unreliable understanding, since I'm stupid enough to pay attention to what sex assault survivors say—that the negative effects of a rape don't wait to start until the assault is successfully completed. That is to say, whether it's a father or husband, longtime friend or random stranger attempting to sexually assault a woman, it's not quite the same feeling as some men—myself included—describe after getting in a fight or standing down some asshole in a nightclub. Even after a sexual assault attempt is successfully disrupted, it still has negative effects on the survivor's life.
Now, maybe your understanding is different, but I find it curious that prevention advocates are so focused on disrupting the success of an attempted rape specifically in lieu of discussing how we might disrupt the processes that lead to the initiation of these attacks.
We're six hundred posts and over a month into the discussion, and prevention advocates still want people to look away from this fundamental question. You're all for it? Sure, we believe you; after all, since you're all for it, that's why you're focusing on that question instead of advocating some stupid, open-ended "prevention" theory. Right?
Billvon said:
Let us see if you can grasp this simple concept: It's not about women seeing themselves as helpless victims, but, rather, a question of why a society gives them so much to defend against.
Think of it this way: Sure, a self-defense course might be helpful for a woman who finds herself in a bad situation, but so far you seem just fine with the idea that a woman should find herself in a bad situation.
Let us take a look back to the beginning of this thread for a moment:
• While it is easy enough to simply say, of India, or even Pakistan, "It's a different world over there," and accept the realities of economy, education, security, and other issues suggest that such incidents should be less unexpected, it is also fairly easy to say, "This is America!" or, "This is Australia!" and ask how these things happen in our societies.
If you go back and actually read through the discussion, you will recognize that the proposition that "women see themselves as helpless victims who can do nothing to protect themselves" is a vapid trope.
Think for a minute about the self-defense argument.
While, say, jiu jitsu techniques can be very useful when a situation so demands, the statistical reality is that a woman so trained in rape prevention theory is far more likely to need to use those techniques against a husband or friend than a random stranger.
Madam, you just fended off your attacker? Good on you.
Madam, your husband just assaulted you, so you had to fend him off? Well, hey, at least you fended him off.
From the outset, in this discussion, prevention advocates have attempted to steer this discussion away from the rape phenomenon itself in order to make this about women.
Consider, for instance, LG's first post in the discussion, which put it straight back to women.
And here you are tilting windmills along with LG and Wynn?
You're demonstrating the problem:
• In order for a woman to defend herself against attack, there actually needs to be an attack taking place.
Look at all the practical advice, all the ounces of prevention, and now all this talk about women defending themselves.
Consider the moment of assault.
• Before: Prevention measures for women including attire, questions of attendance and participation, physical and psychological training.
• During: Self-defense (see prevention measures above).
(1) Don't dress like a slut; don't drink, walk alone, or talk to strangers.
(2) Whatever precautions one is comfortable with in trading out the risk of being raped.
(2) Whatever precautions one is comfortable with in trading out the risk of being raped.
• During: Self-defense (see prevention measures above).
Now, what is missing from that?
• Initiation: Holy shit! Dude's attacking someone!
Perhaps, as we approach six hundred posts in this discussion, you might be able to shed some light on why questions of how to address that moment of initiation are so problematic to some people.
See, it's my understanding—although, to be honest, it's quite obviously an unreliable understanding, since I'm stupid enough to pay attention to what sex assault survivors say—that the negative effects of a rape don't wait to start until the assault is successfully completed. That is to say, whether it's a father or husband, longtime friend or random stranger attempting to sexually assault a woman, it's not quite the same feeling as some men—myself included—describe after getting in a fight or standing down some asshole in a nightclub. Even after a sexual assault attempt is successfully disrupted, it still has negative effects on the survivor's life.
Now, maybe your understanding is different, but I find it curious that prevention advocates are so focused on disrupting the success of an attempted rape specifically in lieu of discussing how we might disrupt the processes that lead to the initiation of these attacks.
We're six hundred posts and over a month into the discussion, and prevention advocates still want people to look away from this fundamental question. You're all for it? Sure, we believe you; after all, since you're all for it, that's why you're focusing on that question instead of advocating some stupid, open-ended "prevention" theory. Right?
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And we find evidence of this when we go all the way back to the beginning of this thread, where a not-so-hidden agenda--founded wholly upon misconceptions and lies--is revealed:
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread...d-quot-World&p=3055434&viewfull=1#post3055434
I've no objections to what lies outside the parenthesis, of course (though given the poster in question has over 15 thousand posts and an animated gif for an avatar, I'm fairly confident that he's a whole lot more beholden to this "technology" than I am, with this 8 year-old piece-o-crap laptop being the only piece of technology I've got made within the past 30+ years), but the parenthetical bit is utter and complete bullshit.
Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
Yeah right. Three thousand years ago when men had to go off to another country to find work they didn't come home for years. And since only aristocrats, priests and scholars could read and write there was essentially zero communication with their families during that time. Today they can fly home periodically. They can stay in touch with e-mail and even talk face-to-face with Skype.LG said:
More importantly, technology allows many of those jobs to be relocated in their own country so they don't even have to travel.
Technology even allows more people to work at home. They can even move their home to a different location where they're closer to their grandparents, friends, etc.
Technology has been a boon for the family!
This went by too quickly
People whose actual agenda was preventing rape rather than stopping it, or making bad male behavior less frequent rather than good female behavior more circumscribed, might have noticed that.
If they put no limits on their door locking - if they, as so many do, lock their inside doors, lock their doors in between the deliveryman ringing the bell and said deliveryman attempting to bring in their burden, repeatedly lock themselves out of their own garages and decks and basements, and so forth - if their door locking is open-ended - they are living in fear. And people who advocate such behavior are advocating living in fear.
That was (revealingly enough) posted as rhetorical, in need of no argument. But it isn't, when you think about it, all that obvious: considering who rapes and when and why, it's reasonable to consider that if rape seminars for men were as rigorously advocated and socially enforced as special diligence in locking doors for women, the effect on the frequency of rape would be greater from the seminars than the doors.
People whose actual agenda was preventing rape rather than stopping it, or making bad male behavior less frequent rather than good female behavior more circumscribed, might have noticed that.
This, again, relies on a myth. Well, two, actually. The first being that rape victims should see it coming, and the second that rape occurs when a woman mouths off to a man.
I also fail to see how it's more "practical" to demand that a woman not react normally when offended or provoked than it is to help men avoid becoming rapists. But this is precisely the kind of nonsense I'd expect from someone who literally has no fucking clue what they're talking about.
And being black doesn't help anything as a motorist. Should they hide their race so as to prevent being pulled over, or perhaps avoid cities where such police behavior is common? Or is this strictly about women and their failure to shut up and do what the man says?
Actually, beyond the BS about the "family unit" (of course, a very particular type of family unit), LG's first post within this thread is a veritable goldmine for wrong-headed thinking:
Regarding the absurdity of the "10 step process... of not raping someone" for rapists, one has to wonder: Is rehabilitation (in LG's mind) a wholly futile endeavor? Is education also a futile endeavor? Or are these things which ought not be pursued for other reasons?
You'd be hard-pressed to find a more opinionated critic of technology and loci of centralized control than myself, but I'm more apt to place the family unit--as it's conceived in the affluent and developed nations--alongside the former two as potential threats to a civilized society,i.e., that domain in which liberty, equality, and fraternity are the sole guiding and governing principles.
But getting back to that "10 step process": is LG alleging that besides education and/or rehabilitation, the promotion of such lofty notions as egalitarianism, fair distribution of resources, respect for fellow beings, etc. would be wholly ineffectual in curbing the possible courses of action which a rapist, or a burglar, might take?
Or is it simply that LG believes that the responsibility for such lies elsewhere, i.e., in the hands of those who are--or might be--wronged?
Regarding the absurdity of the "10 step process... of not raping someone" for rapists, one has to wonder: Is rehabilitation (in LG's mind) a wholly futile endeavor? Is education also a futile endeavor? Or are these things which ought not be pursued for other reasons?
You'd be hard-pressed to find a more opinionated critic of technology and loci of centralized control than myself, but I'm more apt to place the family unit--as it's conceived in the affluent and developed nations--alongside the former two as potential threats to a civilized society,i.e., that domain in which liberty, equality, and fraternity are the sole guiding and governing principles.
But getting back to that "10 step process": is LG alleging that besides education and/or rehabilitation, the promotion of such lofty notions as egalitarianism, fair distribution of resources, respect for fellow beings, etc. would be wholly ineffectual in curbing the possible courses of action which a rapist, or a burglar, might take?
Or is it simply that LG believes that the responsibility for such lies elsewhere, i.e., in the hands of those who are--or might be--wronged?
I'm gradually working my way through this thread...
wellwisher:
The "brutal beast-man" or "stranger rape" is the image that springs to mind for many people when the word "rape" is mentioned. Most rapes are not committed by strangers, but by a person well known to the victim.
Tied up with the idea of the "stranger rape" is the idea of the "ideal victim". This is the young, naive girl who is innocently walking down the street when she is dragged into the alleyway by the evil stranger. She is modestly dressed. She isn't sexually promiscuous or a prostitute. She can't be accused of doing anything to provoke the attack. She isn't drunk. She doesn't take drugs. She comes from a good family. etc. etc.
Typically, people feel much more sympathy for the ideal victim than for actual victims. Sympathy for actual victims depends, to a large extent, on how closely they are perceived to match the "ideal" victim profile. The more departures from that, the more likely there is that some kind of subconscious blame or part-responsibility will be hung on the victim. Hence, date-rape isn't usually viewed as being as serious as stranger rape, regardless of the actual circumstances and repercussions.
If the word "rape" has widened in meaning at all, I think it is partly that some people have come to recognise that, in fact, being raped by your "boyfriend" can be just as or more traumatic than being raped by a stranger in an alley. It can be just as violent. It can have long-term physical and psychological consequences that are just as severe. This kind of rape is every bit as much rape as stranger rape.
Age of consent laws exist because certain people are deemed to be too young to give informed consent to sex with older people. If a girl is "too young", there's no question of her consenting; she is unable to give the right kind of consent.
No. In the second case, there's no arguing that "she consented!" or "I thought she was 18" or whatever. It's not her fault if the guy who has sex with her doesn't check that she is old enough to give proper consent.
This doesn't mean, of course, that the full circumstances wouldn't be taken into account in determining the severity of the penalty for the offender.
I'm not quite sure what your contention is here, so I'll leave this part alone.
Personally, I try not to bring prejudices to the table, but rather to look at what actually happened.
wellwisher:
The "brutal beast-man" or "stranger rape" is the image that springs to mind for many people when the word "rape" is mentioned. Most rapes are not committed by strangers, but by a person well known to the victim.
Tied up with the idea of the "stranger rape" is the idea of the "ideal victim". This is the young, naive girl who is innocently walking down the street when she is dragged into the alleyway by the evil stranger. She is modestly dressed. She isn't sexually promiscuous or a prostitute. She can't be accused of doing anything to provoke the attack. She isn't drunk. She doesn't take drugs. She comes from a good family. etc. etc.
Typically, people feel much more sympathy for the ideal victim than for actual victims. Sympathy for actual victims depends, to a large extent, on how closely they are perceived to match the "ideal" victim profile. The more departures from that, the more likely there is that some kind of subconscious blame or part-responsibility will be hung on the victim. Hence, date-rape isn't usually viewed as being as serious as stranger rape, regardless of the actual circumstances and repercussions.
If the word "rape" has widened in meaning at all, I think it is partly that some people have come to recognise that, in fact, being raped by your "boyfriend" can be just as or more traumatic than being raped by a stranger in an alley. It can be just as violent. It can have long-term physical and psychological consequences that are just as severe. This kind of rape is every bit as much rape as stranger rape.
Age of consent laws exist because certain people are deemed to be too young to give informed consent to sex with older people. If a girl is "too young", there's no question of her consenting; she is unable to give the right kind of consent.
No. In the second case, there's no arguing that "she consented!" or "I thought she was 18" or whatever. It's not her fault if the guy who has sex with her doesn't check that she is old enough to give proper consent.
This doesn't mean, of course, that the full circumstances wouldn't be taken into account in determining the severity of the penalty for the offender.
I'm not quite sure what your contention is here, so I'll leave this part alone.
Personally, I try not to bring prejudices to the table, but rather to look at what actually happened.
feel free to indicate any sort of "civilization" that doesn't have at its core the family unit .... and feel free to indicate any sort of psychological assessment that disregards the role early childhood experiences (ie experiences that are essentially relegated to the context of "family") play in powerfully shaping the structure of the individual in their more mature stages.
:shrug:
Animated gifs are hardly the cutting edge of technology (or even posting on online discussions for that matter ... and even much, much less for citing an absence of animated gifs and a reduced post count for advocating a more reduced level of dependence for one's values - or even straight out sustenance - being derived from centralized systems of support/technocracy ) ..... but your estimations of enthrallment with technology aside, as an individual you simply don't have the capacity to stake a claim for your existence outside the society that contextualizes you.
IOW you (or indeed any sort of human being that is at the level of posting or reading anything on sciforums) exist in a state of dependence on the society that you are situated in.
at that stage it has blown past the "see it coming stage" and is actually at the "know its coming / it has already come stage".
That's why they are talking about the folly of hanging around to seek retribution born of pride/to take the moral high ground/ to inflict injury on them like they have inflicted injury on you etc etc
That prevention strategy has absolutely nothing to do with what precludes an attempted rape.
IOW it actually begins at the point of an attempted rape.
well for a starter you would have to define what is the normal standard for reaction and how one can talk about it being viable to be advocated divorced from any consequences or concomitant hazards arising from it.
IOW risk prevention (once again, regardless whether we are talking about the risk of rape, polar bear attacks or aggravating an ingrown toenail) aims at pushing a new standard for a "normal" reaction that would see the participant delivered to a state assumedly preferable to what succumbing to an uninformed/ill-prepared foray offers).
And once again, this is done through refining risk assessment (IOW the point where one begins to recognize hazards entering a scenario) and risk management (the manner in which one deals with these hazards when they start framing an incident).
And once again, these points of risk assessment and management will be used by any and all individuals that faces any and all sorts of incidents.
The only detail lies in how well these strategies are backed up by relevant or effective information/training.
will the irony never end?
:shrug:
Actually its about looking at things that one can and cannot control.
If the propensity of an individual to get shit-faced is as all encompassing an issue for them as the colour of their skin, it would probably indicate that they need professional help to deal with their alcoholism.
and you are trying to say that such individuals were common, forming the backbone of civilizations in terms of labour?
And that they were nuclear family units?
Provided they have functional family units to return to and aren't violating any court orders on visitation rights.
Funnily enough, agrarian civilization also provided a dominant requirement for vast swaths of the population to remain in one place too
Yet "home" for many such people does not include many (or in some cases "any") other individuals related to them
yet we are progressively moving into increased housing situations that fracture even the nuclear family.
First, please note that I specified a particular conception of the "family unit":
Communism and the Family
The Communist Manifesto, Chapter 2
Shall I go on?
Also, though not ordinarily regarded as "civilizations" owing to imperialist and technologist bias, traditional hunter-gatherer bands, pastoral nomadic societies, et al do NOT by any means embrace such rigid conceptions of "family" as do your ilk--moreover, they tend to be far more egalitarian and have far fewer problems with violent crimes such as rape.
Sure, to a degree. My point was simply that I am far less immersed in and enthralled by this technological society.
Family Affairs
"Family", as a singular unit, is a dynamic definition. Were it not, our daughters would still be baubles to be traded away for influence. Stephanie Coontz, for instance, in Marriage: A History, noted:
And throughout history, this has largely held true. Coontz also notes that in 1556, marriage required parental consent until the age of thirty for women, and twenty-five for men.
Interestingly, societal and family decay have long been popular political arguments:
And have you ever heard of "coverture"? We don't use the word much these days, though it might come back into fashion if advocates of traditionalist families have their way:
The twentieth century was a difficult time for these wannabe philistines:
Of course, maybe the traditionalists think this is all something to hold onto:
Which, incidentally, grants us a moment to circle back to the beginning of this thread, and consider something about societal attitudes.
I mean, wow. A woman is not fully adult until she is willing to be raped by her husband because his sexuality is less warped than hers?
See, there is a reason why people are wary of calls to traditionalism in family.
The most common traditional notion of family in the United States seems to hearken back to the Long Decade (1947-62), which can in its most positive depiction be described as a "Cleaver" marriage. And, in the early twentieth century, the notion of a marriage based on love and choice was considered detrimental to the traditional family.
The World Wars, in a way, were the worst thing that could happen to the traditional patriarchy.
To the other, though, those fears both failed to come true, but also set the stage for even greater fears:
Which, of course, was the run up to World War II, which called women back to the workplace, and that's when things went south for the traditionalists. As I noted last year:
So here's the thing: I know what version of "family" Parmalee is referring to—"I'm more apt to place the family unit--as it's conceived in the affluent and developed nations ...."
What is less apparent, though, is what notion of "family" you are referring to. The Cleaver/Nelson idyll is a product of the mid-twentieth century; romantic, chosen marriage evolved through the nineteenth century.
And the English, for instance, blew "traditional" marriage in 1891:
So ... which "family" notion are you referring to? The decay of parental consent? The decline of coverture? The rise of love and choice? Women out of the workplace? The sexual-slave marriage of Ernest R. Groves? The Long Decade, June Cleaver/Harriet Nelson family?
The importance of the family unit is well established; indeed, it is an anthropological and evolutionary outcome, not a political slogan. But there remains the question of how one defines family.
Parmalee has offered identifiable boundaries to the critique of the family, but we have no such markers from you.
It would behoove you, LG, to take some time to consider what your slogans and quips actually mean.
No, really. It would help you make a point if you had one to make in the first palce.
____________________
Notes:
Coontz, Stephanie. Marriage, A History: From Obedience to Intimacy, or How Love Conquered Marriage. New York: Viking, 2005.
Lightgigantic said:
"Family", as a singular unit, is a dynamic definition. Were it not, our daughters would still be baubles to be traded away for influence. Stephanie Coontz, for instance, in Marriage: A History, noted:
In the 1970s anthropologist Ernestine Friedl pointed out that most of the functions of marriage could in theory be performed by a group of brothers and sisters. "Procreation," she wrote, "could be accomplished by irregular sexual encounters with men and women of other sibling groups, with each set of brothers and sisters supporting the children of the sisters only." The only thing such a system could not do, she said, was allow individuals to acquire in-laws. She suggested therefore that the effort to acquire in-laws was as vital purpose of marriage as the organization of reproduction or the enforcement of incest taboos.
Friedl's comments were mere speculation before the recent publication of a huge and fascinating study of the Na, a society of about thirty thousand people in the Yunnan Province of southwestern China. Among the Na, the only society we know of in which marriage is not a significant institution, brothers and sisters live together, jointly raising, educating, and supporting the children to whom the sisters give birth ....
.... The Na are a startling exception to what otherwise seems to be the historical universality of marriage. But this society makes one thing clear: Marriage is not the only way to impose an incest taboo, organize child rearing, pool resources, care for elders, coordinate household production, or pass on property to the next generation. It is, however, the only way to get in-laws. And since the dawn of civilization, getting in-laws has been one of marriage's most important functions.
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Friedl's comments were mere speculation before the recent publication of a huge and fascinating study of the Na, a society of about thirty thousand people in the Yunnan Province of southwestern China. Among the Na, the only society we know of in which marriage is not a significant institution, brothers and sisters live together, jointly raising, educating, and supporting the children to whom the sisters give birth ....
.... The Na are a startling exception to what otherwise seems to be the historical universality of marriage. But this society makes one thing clear: Marriage is not the only way to impose an incest taboo, organize child rearing, pool resources, care for elders, coordinate household production, or pass on property to the next generation. It is, however, the only way to get in-laws. And since the dawn of civilization, getting in-laws has been one of marriage's most important functions.
(32-33)
And throughout history, this has largely held true. Coontz also notes that in 1556, marriage required parental consent until the age of thirty for women, and twenty-five for men.
Elizabeth Pallier and Pierre Houlbronne, for example, had lived together for eight years, had children together, and eventually, though belatedly, were married in church. According to traditional canon law, this was a perfectly valid marriage. But when Pierre got a job at the Palais de Justice, a post that suddenly made him a very desirable marriage partner, his parents petitioned to have the marriage declared invalid because he had not received their consent. In 1587 the court upheld the parents. After eight years with Pierre, Elizabeth instantly became an unwed mother. Her children were suddenly illegitimate, with no claim on their father's property. Pierre, on the other hand, was free to contract a more advantageous marital alliance.
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Interestingly, societal and family decay have long been popular political arguments:
Traditionalists of all political stripes were horrified by the ferment. "The social order is entirely overturned," wrote two defenders of the right of wealthy families to disregard their daughters and leave their property to whichever of their children they pleased. Another family's lawyer argued that forcing families to recognize the rights of "natural" children "seems to chase man out of civil society and push him back into a state of savagery." Another French lawyer declared: "All families are trembling."
In 1799 the British conservative Hannah More predicted that the agitation for "rights" would undermine all family ties. First there was "the rights of man," she said. Then came the "rights of women." Next, she warned, we will be bombarded by "grave descants on the rights of youth, the rights of children, and the rights of babies."
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In 1799 the British conservative Hannah More predicted that the agitation for "rights" would undermine all family ties. First there was "the rights of man," she said. Then came the "rights of women." Next, she warned, we will be bombarded by "grave descants on the rights of youth, the rights of children, and the rights of babies."
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And have you ever heard of "coverture"? We don't use the word much these days, though it might come back into fashion if advocates of traditionalist families have their way:
There was a remarkable continuity in the legal subjugation of women from the Middle Ages until the end of the nineteenth century. In the thirteenth century the English jurist Henry de Bracton declared that a married couple is one person, and that person is the husband. When Lord William Blackstone codified English common law in 1765, he reaffirmed this principle. Upon marriage, he explained, "the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended." Blackstone noted that "a man cannot grant anything to his wife, or enter into any covenant with her, for the grant would be to suppose her separate existence." This doctrine of coverture, in which the legal identity of a wife was subsumed ("covered") by that of her husband, was passed on to the colonies and became the basis of American law for the next 150 years.
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The twentieth century was a difficult time for these wannabe philistines:
Women had to adjust their expectations and desires to the reality that they had few rights in marriage and few options outside it. The main reason nineteenth-century marriages seem so much less conflicted than modern ones is that women kept their aspirations in check and swallowed their disappointments. The English domestic advice writer Sarah Ellis put it bluntly. A wife, she said, "should place herself, instead of running the risk of being placed, in a secondary position".
Such ideas still have their proponents. In 1999 the neoconservative William Kristol, who has made a lucrative career out of rehashing nineteenth-century ideas, argued that modern woman must move "beyond women's liberation to grasp the following three points: the necessity of marriage, the importance of good morals, and the necessity of inequality within marriage".
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Such ideas still have their proponents. In 1999 the neoconservative William Kristol, who has made a lucrative career out of rehashing nineteenth-century ideas, argued that modern woman must move "beyond women's liberation to grasp the following three points: the necessity of marriage, the importance of good morals, and the necessity of inequality within marriage".
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Of course, maybe the traditionalists think this is all something to hold onto:
A wife must "cease to take pride" in "outgrown maidenly reserve," scolded sociologist Ernest Groves. She should accept her husband's sexual initiative and follow his lead, because "his attitude toward sex is less likely to be warped" than hers. Physicians and marriage counselors came to believe, in the words of one contemporary, that women "have to be bluntly reminded that one main source of prostitution is the selfish and unsurrendered wife." Women who failed to find physical satisfaction in such surrender were told that they were not "fully adult" in their sexuality.
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Which, incidentally, grants us a moment to circle back to the beginning of this thread, and consider something about societal attitudes.
I mean, wow. A woman is not fully adult until she is willing to be raped by her husband because his sexuality is less warped than hers?
See, there is a reason why people are wary of calls to traditionalism in family.
The most common traditional notion of family in the United States seems to hearken back to the Long Decade (1947-62), which can in its most positive depiction be described as a "Cleaver" marriage. And, in the early twentieth century, the notion of a marriage based on love and choice was considered detrimental to the traditional family.
The World Wars, in a way, were the worst thing that could happen to the traditional patriarchy.
Fears about women's political and personal emancipation were compounded by the surge in women's employment between 1900 and 1920. William Sumner wrote in the 1924 Yale Review that this had produced "the greatest revolution" in the history of marriage since the invention of the father-headed family many millennia earlier. It gave women "careers and ambitions which have dislodged marriage from its supreme place in their interest and life plan."
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(201)
To the other, though, those fears both failed to come true, but also set the stage for even greater fears:
Nor, contrary to the fears of William Sumner, did the greater acceptance of women's work and social activities outside the home after World War I dislodge marriage "from its supreme place" in women's lives. Most people believed that women should retire from work after a few years. And such a course of action became possible for wider segments of the population as men's wages rose in the unprecedented prosperity of the 1920s. It was during this period that for the very first time in U.S. history, a majority of American children lived in families in which the man was the primary wage earner, the wife was not involved in full-time labor outside the home or alongside her husband, and the children were in school instead of in the labor force.
(209)
(209)
Which, of course, was the run up to World War II, which called women back to the workplace, and that's when things went south for the traditionalists. As I noted last year:
The social-issues conservatives really do have the appearance of trying to return us to the Long Decade, which was an incredibly prosperous time for the United States; history, however, is beginning to show that this was not a particularly healthy time for women. That is, the whole June Cleaver and Harriet Nelson outlook on the family that led to the Sexual Revolution did so for a reason. As the Greatest Generation dies off, historians are finding in some of the personal papers—letters, diaries, &c.—of women from that period a growing sense of ennui that demanded some manner of relief.
To use a more recent, and admittedly superficial notion, did you ever see The Simpsons 3F23, "You Only Move Twice"? The episode where Hank Scorpio hired Homer away from SNPP to Globex? The James Bond episode? That one.
Marge is very much a traditional housewife, yet as she looked around their technological wonder of a home, she found everything she needed to do was taken care of. Bored, she sat down at the dining table and started drinking a glass of wine.
It's a very subtle analogy, but that's what happened to the Long Decade. Women's work, such as it was, suddenly became a whole lot easier, and allowed the June Cleavers and Harriet Nelsons of American society too much free time.
Isn't that a dangerous sentence? Women's work? Too much free time? Of course, it's all how you measure things; as a resource-allocation question, women suddenly had more free time to think and reflect, and the ennui became inevitable. The Sexual Revolution emerged in no small part because of the difference between stoking the range and turning a dial, wringing and pinning clothes or throwing the laundry into the dryer and pushing a button.
This is hardly the only thing that pushed women toward a liberation movement, but it is the sort of thing that cannot be ignored. It's a hard sell to women in general, just on the sentimental point of going back to what is widely seen as a subservient societal valence. But it's also a hard sell practically. No matter how much the social right wants to stuff this genie back in the bottle, nobody really knows how to do that.
To use a more recent, and admittedly superficial notion, did you ever see The Simpsons 3F23, "You Only Move Twice"? The episode where Hank Scorpio hired Homer away from SNPP to Globex? The James Bond episode? That one.
Marge is very much a traditional housewife, yet as she looked around their technological wonder of a home, she found everything she needed to do was taken care of. Bored, she sat down at the dining table and started drinking a glass of wine.
It's a very subtle analogy, but that's what happened to the Long Decade. Women's work, such as it was, suddenly became a whole lot easier, and allowed the June Cleavers and Harriet Nelsons of American society too much free time.
Isn't that a dangerous sentence? Women's work? Too much free time? Of course, it's all how you measure things; as a resource-allocation question, women suddenly had more free time to think and reflect, and the ennui became inevitable. The Sexual Revolution emerged in no small part because of the difference between stoking the range and turning a dial, wringing and pinning clothes or throwing the laundry into the dryer and pushing a button.
This is hardly the only thing that pushed women toward a liberation movement, but it is the sort of thing that cannot be ignored. It's a hard sell to women in general, just on the sentimental point of going back to what is widely seen as a subservient societal valence. But it's also a hard sell practically. No matter how much the social right wants to stuff this genie back in the bottle, nobody really knows how to do that.
So here's the thing: I know what version of "family" Parmalee is referring to—"I'm more apt to place the family unit--as it's conceived in the affluent and developed nations ...."
What is less apparent, though, is what notion of "family" you are referring to. The Cleaver/Nelson idyll is a product of the mid-twentieth century; romantic, chosen marriage evolved through the nineteenth century.
And the English, for instance, blew "traditional" marriage in 1891:
In England, the case of Emily Hall and Edward Jackson spurred a radical transformation in traditional marriage law. Hall and Jackson had married in 1887 but lived together for only a few days before she returned to her family. In 1889 Jackson got a court order against Hall for "restitution of conjugal rights." Emily simply ignored the order because five years earlier Parliament had abolished penalties for spouses who refused to grant conjugal rights. In 1891 the frustrated Jackson kidnapped his erstwhile wife on her way home from church. Emily's family immediately took Edward to court to win her freedom. A lower court ruled in Jackson's favor, on the traditional grounds that a husband was entitled to custody over his wife. The Court of Appeals, however, reversed the decision, holding that no English subject could be imprisoned by another, even if he was her husband.
(193-194)
(193-194)
So ... which "family" notion are you referring to? The decay of parental consent? The decline of coverture? The rise of love and choice? Women out of the workplace? The sexual-slave marriage of Ernest R. Groves? The Long Decade, June Cleaver/Harriet Nelson family?
The importance of the family unit is well established; indeed, it is an anthropological and evolutionary outcome, not a political slogan. But there remains the question of how one defines family.
Parmalee has offered identifiable boundaries to the critique of the family, but we have no such markers from you.
It would behoove you, LG, to take some time to consider what your slogans and quips actually mean.
No, really. It would help you make a point if you had one to make in the first palce.
____________________
Notes:
Coontz, Stephanie. Marriage, A History: From Obedience to Intimacy, or How Love Conquered Marriage. New York: Viking, 2005.
Probably should have been more clearer and asked for what cultural impacts these societies have on the 21st century ... since you seem to feel its okay to entertain the notion of downplaying the institution of "family" within it.
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