By David Futrelle
The Federalist — the tradcon clickbait site with the oddly wonky name — has won itself a vast audience of hate-readers by posting some of the most ridiculously backward crap on gender you’re likely to find outside of Return of Kings. Federalist posts regularly go viral on the sheer strength of their stupidity.
Well, it looks like they’ve got another potential hit on their hands, a post with the lovely title “How Acting Like A Feminist Can Ruin Your Marriage.” The writer, a self-described “homeschooling mother of four [with] a doctorate in philosophy from the Catholic University of America” named Carrie Gress, is worried that feminism is making women too girl-powery to be attractive to men.
“Women today are supposed to ‘be bold and assertive,'” she writes, “but could all this girl-power actually undermine our best efforts at finding marital bliss?”
You can probably guess how she answers this question.
Feminism has ushered in a near-universal trend for women to “just one of the boys” or to be better than the boys. It is reflected in our sarcasm, sexual habits, attire, and goals. A recent study found that women are now dropping the f-bomb more than men.
“Fight like a girl,” “Strong is the new pretty,” and “Find your fierce” may sound nice, but we have to ask if they have led women to happiness or an endless fluctuation between ferocity and victimhood.
It’s fairly familiar stuff so far, but Gress breaks new ground with her suggestions on how women can learn how to be the traditional “country girls” of every man’s alleged dreams. It involves Italian poetry, the Grateful Dead, and … Sting. Yes, that Sting.
You can learn a lot if you listen to men when they don’t know we are listening: poetry and music.
From the dawn of time, men croon about particular attributes especially found in women: loyalty, sweetness, a calming presence, kindness, thoughtfulness. Looking past lyrics dripping with lust, a pattern emerges. Dante, the Beatles, Elvis, James Taylor, Sting, The Grateful Dead, Tim McGraw, and on and on—all speak of loving a truthful, kind, loyal, soulful woman who brings them peace. There has been no love song dedicated to a nagging, angry, self-absorbed woman.
Well, none that I can think of offhand. Can any of you think of some? If not, well, there’s literally nothing stopping anyone from writing songs like this and maybe posting them here hint hint nudge nudge knowhatImean?
Also, I’m not quite sure that Mrs. Gress has been listening all that carefully to Beatles lyrics, because if she had been she surely would have noticed that, in addition to writing assorted silly love songs, the Beatles also wrote songs about:
- Setting a woman’s house on fire because she says no to sex
- Murdering a woman for being unfaithful
- Randomly murdering one’s date because why not?
So I’m not sure Beatles lyrics are necessarily the best guide on how to live a happy life as a woman.
Oh, and the worst bit in the Beatles’ Run for Your Life — “I’d rather see you dead, little girl/ Than to be with another man” — was ripped off word-for-word from an Elvis song, so I don’t think Elvis is necessarily the best guide either.
I would say something about Sting’s lyrics as well, but, come on, there’s no way I’m going to voluntarily go and read a bunch of Sting lyrics. Every Breath You Take is pretty creepy, though. Don’t base your life on that.
Fuck off, Gress.
Ooops. Dropped that F-bomb. My bad.
“If I could have my time with The Police again I wouldn’t change a thing; except the drummer and the bass player.”
~ Andy Summers
Why is it so inconceivable to these shit-weasels that women can be both strong AND sweet? I am both…but I bet I’m too strong for them because “sweet” is too often code for “submissive”. I plan to be myself and if it drives away these turd-nuggets, all the better!
Why can’t I do this *and* have my own money, the vote, and be strong enough to kick ass up and down main?
Ninja-ed
She has a pretty limited view of what men want in general. There’s someone for everyone.
Not sure if these count, but:
^He falls in love with someone he describes as a cannibal
^His bros see her as toxic, but he doesn’t really mind and won’t let her go
Love songs dedicated to “nagging, angry, self absorbed women”. Tada!
The usual disclaimers about this whole argument being nonsense on levels beyond the author just not knowing too much music. Not like these are super old, extra rare, obscure recordings either
Oh, and here’s a song from the PoV of the toxic woman
Does she know that people used to think that Elvis was corrupting youth and made by the devil?
This song and dance gets so old.
In Dante’s case, Beatrice was not meant to inspire matrimony or sexual fulfillment. She served specifically to elevate him to spiritual love. Her name means “woman who makes saintly.”
No telling what Dante’s wife felt about his writing so much stuff about this pure, saintly woman.
We think Beatrice was inspired by a woman who died at a very young age too.
As a final point, Dante is responsible for designing a hell full of torment. Punishments reflect whatever the sin was: young adulterers caught up in their passion blow in the wind; angry people engulfed in flame; traitors are trapped in ice.
I mean, it’s a great work of literature his Divine Comedy, but I wouldn’t say it’s exactly about worldly love, marriage and finding a woman to have your children.
that Cake song about the woman with a long jacket is a love song directed towards an assertive and career-focused woman. ‘killer queen’ could also count but I haven’t listened to it in a while. There’s no one way to be a woman that is desirable to men, I guess. Surprise surprise.
Don’t forget I Can’t Stand Losing You, where the narrator eventually decides to kill himself in order to get back at his ex. “I’m too full to swallow my pride,” indeed.
(I have never considered that Sting was doing any more than ‘playing a character’ when he wrote and sung this.)
Yep, no women openly listen to poetry or music. Well known fact.
Some desirable traits in women, gleaned from song lyrics:
* Itty bitty waist and a round thing in your face
* Gunpowder, gelatine, dynamite with a laser beam: basically a well-stocked armory
In the third part of the Divine Comedy. Paradiso Beatrice goes out of her way to call Dante a horrible, pathetic man. And the Divine Comedy is basically bible fanfic Dante written throughout his life where everyone he doesn’t like all suffer cruel ironic fates.
Love Song by the Damned has a … different perspective on all this.
Um, ‘Greensleeves’ is a love song to a woman who treats her suitor ‘discourteously’ and there were printed lyrics to that song by 1580.
Also if she wants to us to include poetry, Catullus only seemed to fancy women if they were cheating on him or with him and mean about it to boot, and I don’t think he’s the only Roman or Greek poet with a thirst for relationship drama.
I’m not sure why Gress thinks the absence of love songs to blatantly toxic women provides any proof of lack of male attraction to strong, resourceful, self-reliant women. However, she has stated her assumption and the assumption is wrong. People have been singing love songs to horrible people, including women, for as long as we’ve been writing down the words and almost certainly before then.
Horrible sound quality, horrible lyrics, but DAMN what an excellent song that is:
@Oogly
Come for the world building, stay for the shade. Inferno would be amazing as a diss track mixtape ?
Well, by golly gum she’s convinced me. I am determined to change my ways and get myself a man!
Wow! There’s a man in my bed RIGHT NOW! And we’ve been married for 21 years, so that must mean … TIME TRAVEL.
*snerk*
When we were dating, one of the first compliments my husband gave me was “You look like Ace!”
Wow, I was just listening to Love Song on a necro’d thread I just commented on, and voilà!
I guess this one doesn’t pay attention to anything feminists talk about these days and is basing her opinions on straw feminism from twenty years ago. Exhibit A is her use of “girl power” and exhibit B is this sentence. Real feminists discuss how internalized misogyny sometimes leads to – usually young – women to reject anything coded feminine and brag about being one of the guys and having only guy friends. Current feminists typically believe that it’s okay for anyone of any gender to like either feminine or masculine coded things or a mix of both.
Who says that sarcasm, enjoying sex, wearing pants and having lofty career goals is inherently male? The point of feminism is that these things aren’t naturally gendered, not that these things are inherently male but women should try to be like men. Just once, I’d like to read an anti-feminist who actually knows what feminism is in the first place. Is that really asking so much?
http://static1.fjcdn.com/thumbnails/comments/4868533+_73b1744df9b1304e39dcc7dd127283b2.gif
Neglekted by the Afghan Whigs is my pick for a song about a woman who’s not so sweet and prim
Well bearing in mind he was a schoolteacher who wrote “Don’t stand so close to me” let’s hope so.
I’m pretty sure Elvis recorded a version of ‘Mean Woman Blues’, in which the narrator basically brags about how stern and angry his girlfriend is.
I’ll be watching you.
Uh, speaking of the Beatles, how about freaking “Girl”???
“Girl” sounds like the perfect MGTOW whine theme song.
Not sure if she’d think either one counts since I find her criteria sneaky, but I could nominate ‘Hard-Headed Woman’ by Cat Stevens and ‘Cold Hard Bitch’ by Jet.