Dalrock, a manosphere traditionalist with a great love of charts and statistics and other accoutrements of SCIENCE, has managed to figure out a way to stretch “don’t be so picky, ladies, or you’ll get old and ugly and no man will ever want you” out to 1500 words.
Here are a few of them:
Men foot the searching costs in the marriage and sexual marketplace (MMP & SMP). This means bearing most of the risk of rejection and expending the bulk of the resources to facilitate the process of meeting and getting to know one another.
Oh dear. We’re off to a very unpromising start here.
As the ones who bear the costs of courtship, men have a strong incentive to minimize the number of women they court and the overall duration of time spent in the process. However, as the consumers of courtship, women have an incentive to draw the process out as long as possible and to receive courtship from as many men as possible.
Here’s some surveillance footage of an average American woman being courted by several men.
But now — get this — the ladies are waiting longer to marry!
Just think about what this does to the dude navigating the marriage market hoping to “maximize his Pareto efficiency,” if you know what I mean and I think you do.
He needs to manage risk vs reward. When courting, there are two fundamental risks. These are the risk of wasting resources on the wrong women, and the risk of rejection harming the man’s reputation/MMV.
So watch out, ladies, because if you wait too long, guys are going to decide you’re not much of a bargain!
For a man who is managing the risks of courtship outlined above, the age of a woman is very important. The older a woman is, the more likely it is that she is very picky and/or not seriously looking for a husband.
Exactly! Because women never change their mind because they’re, you know, in a different stage of their life or anything.
Older women also are less attractive from a courtship perspective because they have used up more of their most attractive/fertile years, and while their attractiveness for marriage has declined their expectations for courtship have only increased.
This reminds me of that famous joke, you know, where that woman approaches Winston Churchill at a party and says, “Sir, you are drunk.”
And he replies: “And you, Bessie, have used up your most attractive/fertile years. But I shall be sober in the morning, and you will still have used up your most attractive/fertile years.”
That Churchill, what a card!
Consider the 25% of current early thirties White women who still haven’t married; unless they are terminally unattractive an awful lot of courtship has almost certainly been wasted on them.
Are there really a lot of guys who look back on the women they dated in their twenties and think, “boy, I wasted a lot of courtship on those gals! I mean, I wasted nearly 14 courtship on Jessa alone!” (Also, who knew that the women are always the ones to blame when heterosexual couples in their twenties break up?)
They aren’t just bad bets for courtship today, but (in retrospect) they clearly were bad bets for courtship for the last 15 years. …
Put simply, the extended delay of marriage by women has placed marriage minded men in a dilemma; older women are (generally speaking) known bad bets for courtship, but half of early twenties women are also poor bets for courtship.
Well, you could always marry a dude.
There are only two logical ways men can respond to women’s extension of courtship.
Wait, really? Please, please, please, let one of the ways be “marry a dude.”
The first logical choice is to recognize that these women are debasing marriage, and decide to “court” for sex and not marriage.
Damn. Anyway, sexual relationships are fine, but you are aware that there are other kinds of relationships — sorry, “courting” — besides sex and marriage, right?
Ok, we still have one more. Marry a dude. Marry a dude. Marry a dude.
But while “courting” for sex is a logical choice, it is not a moral choice, and we still do see men courting for marriage. For these men, having a fairly low age cutoff makes a great deal of sense.
That’s your, er, “solution?” Marry a teenager? Or a woman at most in her early twenties?
As Dalrock knows, but doesn’t want to believe, those who marry when they’re very young are much more likely to divorce than those who marry when they’re older. For evidence, see this chart, which I found elsewhere on Dalrock’s own blog:
But hope springs eternal for modern misogynistic manospherian marriage market minded men (MMMMMMM).
No. No. Aaaaaand no.
But you can’t be expected to know what it means. It’s not like there’s an easily-accessible page that explains it.
The origin of the blog’s title is the FAQ, FYI. Also, there is no we at work here, David is a journalist who covers online misogynistic stink piles.
I contend that Dalrock’s ungainly mixture of simple-minded conservative horseshit and regurgitated manosphere talking points is just run of the mill sexist traditionalism. Your reality challenged Cliff Notes of Dalrock’s blather isn’t exactly sophisticated or well-argued either.
I’m amazed other posters can muster the energy to engage with you since your repetitive “Christianity Vs Feminism: Marriage Apocalypse” schtick is so thin and boring. And, yes, Virginia, there are feminist Christians.
Then why attack Dalrock? What unverified prehistoric accomplishment does Dalrock use to justify anything?
“Then why attack Dalrock? What unverified prehistoric accomplishment does Dalrock use to justify anything?”
Does “The New York Times” only talk about clocks in new york? It’s just a title, not every story is related to the title.
My name is not Virginia and no, there are no feminist Christians. There are feminist churchians who simply disregard many of Christ’s teachings that are at odds with feminism, disregard significant parts of the King James Bible is all. They can call themselves whatever they want. If you are a feminist, then you can’t be Christian.
Christ came to fulfill God’s law. Genesis 3:16, God said unto Eve that her desire shall be for her husband and he shall rule over her. It is impossible for a feminist (who professes to be Christian) to reconcile that.
Christianity and feminism are mutually exclusive.
You do realize that the King James Version is an English translation of a Latin translation of a Greek document.
I really don’t get why people get hung up on the king james as ‘the one and only English translation that could ever have been inspired by God, even though language changes relatively rapidly. God meant only King James Version!”
I’m pretty sure God can work with other texts, dude.
He’s kind of like that.
I’m going to keep this simple. In the original post, David is criticizing something Dalrock wrote about women, relationships and society in his eponymous blog. Criticism is a thing people do on and off the internet. Dalrock is not above criticism.
Just scuttle back to Dalrock’s blog and pore over some fake bar charts, you’ll soon forget about mean old David and everyone will be in a better place.
Okay. In which version or translation of the Bible are wives NOT helpmeets to their husbands whom God has commanded that they must obey? Take all night to answer that one.
Oh, we’re into “no true scotsman” territory again? All christians ignore/disregard/reinterpret portions of the bible, so clearly there must be no real christians at all.
@contrapangloss
Well, I’m the one who quoted the KJB because I felt the troll was making a tacky allusion to it in order to bulk up Dalrock’s Christian goody goodyness. I personally favor the KJB because it’s the one I grew up with, plus the language is all purty and stuff. YMMV obviously.
If you’re saying that God is a being that wants some humans (you know, the ones that are supposedly all his beloved children) to be constantly under the heel and at the mercy of other humans due to minor physical attributes like sex or skin color, to be treated as lesser beings and expected to submit mindlessly when He gave us free will and minds in the first place, then that God is no God of mine.
I’ll cherry pick the verses I like, about loving ones neighbor as yourself, forgiving others, and helping the poor, hungry, downtrodden and needy, thanks. And you can cherry pick the verses you like, about women being chattel and NO HOMO BRO. And we’ll see which, if either of us, might be considered a true Christian at the end of it all.
But right now, you’re tedious and awful and everything that makes me wary of my own faith, and I’d appreciate it if you hit the road.
David is criticizing something Dalrock wrote about how feminism has altered (for the worse) courtship. Dalrock is not concerned with people dating just to date. He is Christian and loves marriage and feels that people should date/court to marry and start families…. or don’t date. That is not attacking women. That is attacking feminism that attacked courtship.
Correct. He most certainly is not above criticism and I have criticized him on multiple occasions. He would be the first to tell you that. But just because I may have disagreed with him on an issue or two (or ten) and criticized him, does not make him a misogynist.
Here’s a different interpretation of that “helper” bit.
http://www.godswordtowomen.org/ezerkenegdo.htm
It’s almost like the old testament wasn’t originally written in english.
innocentbystanderboston, I just have to ask – do you actually, genuinely believe this? That a woman’s role is one subservient to men, that he should ‘rule over’ her?
Fascinating. Abso-fucking-lutely fascinating.
@PoM I might love you
He believes that because he believes women have value only to the extent that they are willing/able to produce children. He disapproves of dating just to date because that means women are making their own choices about what to do with their lives instead of what he thinks they should do. That is misogyny.
@Brooked, no problem. Personally, I like the KJV for psalms and Habbakuk because, yeah, the KJV just has a lovely feel for those. Mostly, I putter around in the NRSV.
@ Everyone else, against my better judgement, I’m going to have a theological discussion with the troll. Feel free to ignore the following teal deer who is very teal and very deer.
I don’t feel like starting much of a religious debate thread, so yeah, but the troll is baiting me and I’m sleepy enough to feel like playing might be a little fun.
If religious talk isn’t your thing, feel free to skip!
@Troll, I can’t believe I’m going to indulge you a little bit, but here goes nothing!
You’ve just revealed that you’re one of those pesky types who memorized a bunch of verses but chronically failed to look at the context. Here’s a massive hint: Those verse numbers were inserted, not given by the original writers.
So, since you’re going to play the pedagogy game, I’ll play just a bit, and then I really, really have to go to bed. The verse you quoted does indeed say (and I’ll include the whole verse, not just your cherrypicked phrase):
To the woman he said,
“I will greatly increase your
pangs in childbearing;
in pain you shall bring forth
children,
yet your desire shall be for your
husband,
and he shall rule over you.”
In context, god is speaking to the serpent, to Eve, and to Adam, just post the ‘original’ sin. This is him decreeing his ‘punishment’ for said sin. As Spindrift pointed out, there’s things that are odd just due to translation to English, but still…
This verse, Genesis 3:16 is referring specifically to the punishment and atonement for the original sin. Prior to said sin, there was nothing said about the husband ‘ruling’, merely that man clings to his wife and they become one flesh after he moves out of his parents future guest bedroom (Genesis 2:24, paraphrased).
If you believe in the whole Christ part of the Christianity, you’ll note that the reoccurring theme of the New Testament is forgiveness of sins, which includes that whole “Original Sin” debacle.
Thus, with forgiveness of sins, the ‘punishments’ for the original sin might not be such solid footing. Honestly, the only people who can give us the straight answers on that aren’t all that chatty and probably won’t bother telling us until postmortem.
(Note, biblical scholars have been arguing the whole ‘does original sin apply to everyone or just everyone post puberty and what the fuzz’ for forever, so we won’t go there)
You’ll note in the New Testament, there aren’t any verses that say flat out “Men Rule” in all translations without qualifications.
You just read that, and smirked, and prepared to draw out your secret weapon from the new testament.
I’ll do it for you.
But what about Ephesians 22-23: 22 Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church, the body of which he is the Savior.” CHECKMATE FEMINIST!
You’d be the type to totally ignore context, I’m totally assuming.
Verse immediately preceding that one: “21 Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.”
Basically he’s encouraging a slightly odd mutual partnership based on trust where, yeah, the implication is that when in doubt, let the guy lead. That’s hugely different from the guy calling all the shots, because it leaves room for the husband being subject to his wife (when she might be better informed).
Verses following essentially say to men to love their wives. Biblical love is incredibly complicated. I can’t promise to have even come close to working it out. I’m not a theologian, by any stretch, but the overall takeaway message of the passage is towards the end:
“Each of you, however, should love his wife as himself, and a wife should respect her husband.”
There’s a massive difference between respecting and being ruled.
You and I don’t have to agree.
Fortunately, you aren’t going to be the one judging me at the metaphysical pearly gates.
Next, of course, you’d probably like to yank forth Peter 3:1-2:
“Wives, in the same way, accept the authority of your husbands, so that, even if some of them do not obey the word, they may be won over without a word by their wives’ conduct, 2 when they see the purity and reverence of your lives.”
Well, okay, sure. Peter also calls women the weaker vessel even later on. Peter is an interesting character… But he also uses the word “likewise” (or the greek version of it) a lot when starting to describe husbands roles after talking about wives roles, but that’s besides the point.
Still, lets cary on just a single verse from where we stopped (or rather, where you’d likely have wanted us to stop):
“3 Do not adorn yourselves outwardly by braiding your hair, and by wearing gold ornaments or fine clothing; 4 rather, let your adornment be the inner self with the lasting beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in God’s sight.”
Tell me, do you have a huge problem when your wife decides to braid her hair? Or wear her wedding band? Or put on a nice dress for a date with you when the kids are with the babysitter?
Yeah, probably not.
Also, again this ignores the larger context. Peter was essentially trying to give a “how to be Christlike” to regions where Christianity was just starting to spread. Most missionaries will tell you that waltzing in with a “CHANGE EVERYTHING NOW” rarely goes well, so Peter was trying to bring them into the fold using ideas that might have made more sense for them.
Like the whole braiding hair thing? Not really an admonition not to braid hair ever. More of an admonition to not focus on elaborate material things (like uber fancy german imported wigs, those were a thing).
Furthermore, there are no verses that say that all women should submit to any random man. All of these passages focus solely on ‘husband’, usually followed with the ‘likewise, dudes’.
There are other bits of scripture where Paul pretty much says that people who can do the celibacy thing are special sunbeams of faith-ness, and marriage is a sad second to celibacy.
If you wanted to read it literally, Paul kind of said that asexuals are more faithy than you and Dalrock. So, since I’m ace, you should be thanking me for my insights if you want to play the literal game!
But… I’m human, and could easily be wrong. Like, SO easily. I’m pretty sure you’re wrong, and I’m absolutely sure Dalrock is misogynistic, so whatever! He could also be a lousy Christian: I’ll leave that between him and God.
And now it’s well past my bedtime, so if you respond, I really won’t care until the AM. Actually, I probably won’t care all that much then, either.
Sorry!
Nice teal deer, contrapangloss, I enjoyed it.
@contrapangloss
I think this troll fails to look at context in every facet of life, so I’m guessing his interpretation of the bible is mostly a thwacking sound.
I was blessed with a religion free childhood and a life long agnostic bent, so I enjoy a thoughtful theological discussion. There’s a real benefit to a lack of baggage.
I’ll issue a similar teal deer warning as contrapangloss, for pretty much the same reasons.
You can’t reconcile Christianity and feminism. Its impossible.
Er, I found it quite easy, actually. Hi. I’m a Christian and a feminist.
I was raised in a conservative Christian home, and grew up around people who assumed and proclaimed feminism to be a Very Bad Thing. Then as an adult, I stumbled across some feminist writings (not realizing that’s what they were), and was exceedingly surprised to discover I already agreed with most of what was there. Treating women like human beings gels exceedingly well with biblical teaching.
I currently work for a Christian organization, where I teach Bible classes. I have followed Jesus since I was a small child and my faith is as strong now as it has ever been. I had to adjust precisely nothing in how I understood Him, or Scripture in general, when I became a feminist. Sure, there are things feminists have said that I disagree with—a few for faith-based reasons, and a few for simple differences of opinions. Feminists are not a hivemind, and my feminism is 100% shaped by my faith, not the other way around.
It is only feminism that thinks so little of the sacrament of marriage (something that God created for us, something supposed to be sacred) and reduced it to nothing more than an “at will” contract that can be terminated at any moment by either party for any reason or NO reason. Feminism gave us that.
Actually, feminism did not come up with this at all. In Malachi, God takes His own priests to task for divorcing their wives wantonly for younger, more attractive mistresses. The Pharisees quizzed Jesus over divorce laws, and were more lenient about it than He was. Solomon married literally hundreds of women, and kept literally hundreds more as concubines. Even within Scripture, we see that plenty of people did not do well with this. Going outside of Scripture, we see that many ancient cultures allowed men to divorce or dismiss their wives with relatively little consequence (but few allowed women to initiate a divorce, even if they were suffering tangible harm in the marriage).
I can affirm that marriage has a great deal of sacred meaning, and that neither marriage nor divorce should be done flippantly—but you have to ignore an awful lot of human history to claim that feminism was the first to allow divorce. Feminism’s contribution to divorce only allowed women to have an equal voice in it, and must be recognized in light of a culture that, historically, widely allowed husbands to mistreat their wives without consequence. I don’t think divorce is “good”, in and of itself, but being legally trapped in an abusive marriage is worse. A lot worse.
Again, hi, Christian feminist here. I cannot think of any of Christ’s teachings that are at odds with the main point of feminism, honestly. And I have no problem with the King James Version of the Bible. I primarily read the New King James Version. I don’t mind most widely-accepted translations, though, because there are benefits to both formal equivalence translations and dynamic equivalence translations, so reading more than one English Bible translation helps us get a better grip on what the original Greek or Hebrew does and does not say.
That’s actually really easy to reconcile. Genesis 3:16 is not a law of God. God did not declare that things “should” be this way; He said that they “would”, because of humanity’s sin against God. Domineering, hostile male/female relationships are a consequence of sin, just like death is (Gen 2:17, also Rom 6:23).
In the New Heavens and the New Earth (Revelation 21-22), there is no more death. All who are in Christ receive eternal life. If Jesus redeems us from the power of death, would He not also redeem us from conflict and power struggles in our human relationships? Matthew 10:25-28 makes it clear: We are not to “exercise dominion” (KJV) over one another, or “lord authority” (NKJV) over one another. It’s the same way that Jesus Himself did not come to be served, but to serve, even to the point of giving up His life.
Insisting on half of humanity’s right and/or religious duty to rule over others is directly opposed to the explicit teaching of Christ.
Aaaaand blockquote mammoth got me. Paragraphs 2 and 6 are meant to be quotes. I’m not sure how I borked that.
If more divorces are initiated by women, doesn’t that indicate that marriage is a worse deal for women? (The actual marriage, not the aftermath.). If traditional Christian marriage is such a great thing for women, you’d think they’d voluntarily want to stay even when the exit door is opened.
It’s almost as if the laws forbidding women to initiate divorce were put in place precisely because of this awareness, that designating one half of a couple as lesser isn’t a sustainable model for a lifetime partnership unless some stringent societal measures are put in place to keep women dependent and submissive.
Why would you want to force women to stay in unhappy relationships against their will? That sounds rather women-hating.
Y’all are awesome and have far more patience than I do.
IBB, why the hell should one person be completely and totally under the thumb of the other person during marriage? Because of Dalrock’s interpretation of the Bible? I live in the US. That’s a democracy, not a theocracy. “Because this is what I think the Bible says” is not a valid reason to subjugate half the population.
I am not a Christian. Many people in the US and the world aren’t. Why should we be beholden to Dalrock’s interpretation of the Bible?
Several people here are Christian. They’ve offered thoughtful and Biblically-based reasons why Dalrock’s interpretation of the Bible is wrong. Why should I be beholden to Dalrock’s version?
Fuck that noise.
Easily enough. You have both/all made it clear from your words that you do hate women, because you espouse the “lesser than/should be submissive to” argument as gospel. And because you clearly think that women are commodities to be consumed, not persons to be regarded as full equals (and none of this “separate but/complementary to” bullshit, either). You just don’t have the spine to get up on your hind legs and admit it.
And you also don’t have the wit to realize that Christian feminists are, in fact, better Christians than the likes of you. They believe in healing the sick, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and putting roofs over the heads of the homeless. Many of them are also, by definition, socialist. Just what Jesus said to do. What you got?
As for me, I became a Wiccan in part to get away from men like you. You’re a stench in the nostrils of Jesus, humanity, and women alike.
It kind of seems like our troll worships Dalrock more than he does God. I’m not a Christian but I thought the worship of false idols are frowned upon?
It’s cute how he thinks feminism invented divorce. Um, no. Divorce has existed as long as marriage has and both institutions have changed and evolved constantly with culture. There is no such thing as “traditional marriage.”
Also, what’s with the feminists are destroying Christian society bit. Which society is he talking about? From the user name I’m guessing he’s from the US. But we aren’t a Christian society. The constitution explicitly makes us secular. The very first treaty we signed, the Treaty of Tripoli states that we aren’t a Christian nation as well. We’re a secular society that is predominantly Christian. Feminists can’t secularize the US because it came presecularized.