Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Nmaro Makari]

A good lesson from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie:

"We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls, "You can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful, but not too successful, otherwise you will threaten the man." Because I am female, I am expected to aspire to marriage. I am expected to make my life choices always keeping in mind that marriage is the most important. Now, marriage can be a source of joy and love and mutual support, but why do we teach girls to aspire to marriage, and we don't teach boys the same? We raise girls to see each other as competitors--not for jobs or for accomplishments, which I think can be a good thing--but for the attention of men. We teach girls that they cannot be sexual beings in the way that boys are. "Feminist": the person who believes in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes."

So yes I have neither seen nor read anything convincing as to why equality is not desirable. We raise our children, not simply according to different genders, but according to very, very different roles. It is a gross injustice.

And if you seriously believe that you can change that, or things similar, without thinking in terms of equality, then you simply have no idea of a solution.

[Kala]

Egalitarian and anti-feminist

As an aside, that doesn't make a lot of sense to me.  I get these are only really basic definitions here for essentially complex ideas (which are going to have more than one definition!), but still...as a basic premise feminism is fundamentally egalitarian in nature.


"feminism: the doctrine — and the political movement based on it — that women should have the same economic, social, and political rights as men."


...sooo...women and men should have the same rights.



"egalitarianism: asserting, resulting from, or characterized by belief in the equality of all people, especially in political, economic, or social life."


...sooo...women and men should have the same rights.

 

[Iwan Terpalen]

Tried one video at random, which consisted of a radical feminist piece being read by a funny-voiced vocoder, overlaid with quotes on the "extreme female brain" mirroring the "extreme male brain" speculation on the causes of autism, because, you know, bitch be cray-zee.

The second apparently set up "social rape of men", i.e. false rape accusations, as some kind of balanced counterpoint to, you know, rape.

Altogether not really a life-changing experience so far, I'm sad to say.

Are you sure that red pill wasn't just horse tranquilizer, or http://www.reddit.com/r/TheRedPill/ ?

[Vikarion]

Tried one video at random, which consisted of a radical feminist piece being read by a funny-voiced vocoder, overlaid with quotes on the "extreme female brain" mirroring the "extreme male brain" speculation on the causes of autism, because, you know, bitch be cray-zee.

The second apparently set up "social rape of men", i.e. false rape accusations, as some kind of balanced counterpoint to, you know, rape.

Altogether not really a life-changing experience so far, I'm sad to say.

Are you sure that red pill wasn't just horse tranquilizer, or http://www.reddit.com/r/TheRedPill/ ?

Yes, I'm not very interested in the MRA movement because, unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be that much of an atmosphere of reasonable conversation about them. I think that they have data to support some concern for men and boys, at least in American society (graduation rates, child custody, domestic violence, genital mutilation, etc), but half of them seem to think that everything would be better with women "back in the kitchen", and the other half don't seem to want to admit that women's inequalities exist, or, if they do, have any significance. To me, the former is regressive tripe, the latter is the same sin that makes many vocal feminists come off as, well, not worth listening to.

There are definitely reasonable feminists out there, and probably some reasonable MRA-ers. I haven't managed to read many of the latter. Actually, if my memory serves, I haven't read any popular MRA sites that were, well, balanced or reasonable.

As an example, I found out not too long ago about a part (I guess?) of the MRA "movement" called MGTOW, or Men Going Their Own Way. From what I've read, the idea is that relationships with women are unlikely to be successful, and that society penalizes legal involvement with women in favor of the woman (alimony, child support, custody, etc), so it's better not to participate. Well, ok, I can see how someone might conclude that, given the high failure rate of relationships, and some of the things I've seen some guys go through. I don't know that it's systemic, but hey, whatever floats your boat.

I mean, I generally view relationships as a way to get things I want, because, from my point of view, relationships are generally about interests, desires and power. So, if you don't think you're going to get what you want, don't play the game, right?

Heh. Apparently, some cannot simply not play the game, but must stomp on the board, toss the pieces in the air, and declare their opponents to be cheaters. Or, to put it another way, the focus did not seem to be on "how to live an enjoyable life as a single guy", but on more of a "I hate women and everything they do" theme. When I think of MRAs, I can't help but occasionally get a hint of that.

I want to be fair - some complaints do seem warranted. For example, there's this list here: http://triggeralert.blogspot.com/2013/11/mens-rights-101.html (EDIT: to be sure, I don't agree with this guy, having just now read a bit of him), which, while it has some bad sources, has some good ones as well (no, I didn't read his blog previous to this, I just found the list). There's my personal experience, which suggests that a view of women as "an oppressed class who are justified in what they do to their oppressors" has some, uh, problems. But I don't think you're going to get very far by adopting a sensationalist style, hyper-aggressive tone, or by trying to make everything look it's wonderful for women.

[Vic Van Meter]

Tried one video at random, which consisted of a radical feminist piece being read by a funny-voiced vocoder, overlaid with quotes on the "extreme female brain" mirroring the "extreme male brain" speculation on the causes of autism, because, you know, bitch be cray-zee.

The second apparently set up "social rape of men", i.e. false rape accusations, as some kind of balanced counterpoint to, you know, rape.

Altogether not really a life-changing experience so far, I'm sad to say.

Are you sure that red pill wasn't just horse tranquilizer, or http://www.reddit.com/r/TheRedPill/ ?

Yes, I'm not very interested in the MRA movement because, unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be that much of an atmosphere of reasonable conversation about them. I think that they have data to support some concern for men and boys, at least in American society (graduation rates, child custody, domestic violence, genital mutilation, etc), but half of them seem to think that everything would be better with women "back in the kitchen", and the other half don't seem to want to admit that women's inequalities exist, or, if they do, have any significance. To me, the former is regressive tripe, the latter is the same sin that makes many vocal feminists come off as, well, not worth listening to.

There are definitely reasonable feminists out there, and probably some reasonable MRA-ers. I haven't managed to read many of the latter. Actually, if my memory serves, I haven't read any popular MRA sites that were, well, balanced or reasonable.

As an example, I found out not too long ago about a part (I guess?) of the MRA "movement" called MGTOW, or Men Going Their Own Way. From what I've read, the idea is that relationships with women are unlikely to be successful, and that society penalizes legal involvement with women in favor of the woman (alimony, child support, custody, etc), so it's better not to participate. Well, ok, I can see how someone might conclude that, given the high failure rate of relationships, and some of the things I've seen some guys go through. I don't know that it's systemic, but hey, whatever floats your boat.

I mean, I generally view relationships as a way to get things I want, because, from my point of view, relationships are generally about interests, desires and power. So, if you don't think you're going to get what you want, don't play the game, right?

Heh. Apparently, some cannot simply not play the game, but must stomp on the board, toss the pieces in the air, and declare their opponents to be cheaters. Or, to put it another way, the focus did not seem to be on "how to live an enjoyable life as a single guy", but on more of a "I hate women and everything they do" theme. When I think of MRAs, I can't help but occasionally get a hint of that.

I want to be fair - some complaints do seem warranted. For example, there's this list here: http://triggeralert.blogspot.com/2013/11/mens-rights-101.html, which, while it has some bad sources, has some good ones as well (no, I don't read his blog, I just found the list). There's my personal experience, which suggests that a view of women as "an oppressed class who are justified in what they do to their oppressors" has some, uh, problems. But I don't think you're going to get very far by adopting a sensationalist style, hyper-aggressive tone, or by trying to make everything look it's wonderful for women.

I think the problem with that argument runs that men are unfairly victimized by child support, alimony, and more.  The problem with it is that the system is mostly unbiased, it's just that the system seems stacked against the man because marriage is stacked against the woman.  They usually get more alimony because they usually make less money.  When they do, it's often because it's their time that gets sacrificed to raise the kids, hence why they can usually prove they deserve custody.  Once you can prove you deserve custody, child support follows.

In cases where stay-at-home dads get divorced from their wives, the courts generally decide in their way.  Obviously, that doesn't happen very often just because of how families tend to work in the western world, but it does happen.  It's more often that equally invested couples who divorce get split custody and nobody gets alimony.

Also to be fair, I started dating my wife when I was eighteen, and it's been almost 11 years now.  The point of getting married is to not get divorced unless something really, really bad happens.

[Vikarion]

I think the problem with that argument runs that men are unfairly victimized by child support, alimony, and more.  The problem with it is that the system is mostly unbiased, it's just that the system seems stacked against the man because marriage is stacked against the woman.  They usually get more alimony because they usually make less money.  When they do, it's often because it's their time that gets sacrificed to raise the kids, hence why they can usually prove they deserve custody.  Once you can prove you deserve custody, child support follows.

In cases where stay-at-home dads get divorced from their wives, the courts generally decide in their way.  Obviously, that doesn't happen very often just because of how families tend to work in the western world, but it does happen.  It's more often that equally invested couples who divorce get split custody and nobody gets alimony.

I think this betrays a little bit of bias on your part. I think that, if you consider time spent with the kids to be a "sacrifice", you are probably not viewing child-rearing in the most healthy way. As well, given the fact that the pay gap is not as large as the custody gap, and given the fact that many mothers work, using your explanation doesn't seem to explain this large of a deviation from the theoretical norm. Nor do my anecdotal experiences bear this out: there are at least some mothers who see custody as a means of leverage and manipulation.

That said, I'll be honest: this is a mild academic interest for me, and I don't put much stock in anecdotes. I don't intend to have kids, and I find that I'm far happier (minus the occasional day or two a year) on the average if I'm focused on my own well-being, as opposed to someone else's. I'm more interested by far in dealing with issues like the lack of a social safety net for men and the lack of awareness regarding female domestic violence.

Also to be fair, I started dating my wife when I was eighteen, and it's been almost 11 years now.  The point of getting married is to not get divorced unless something really, really bad happens.

Something really, really bad must happen to a lot of people. Like, over half. 

I think there's a lot of societal pressure on men (I can't speak for women on this) to get married. At least, people have put it on me. I think one of my favorites was being told that I was selfish, as there was some girl out there who needed me in her life, or a partner, or something like that. More common has been the intimation or the outright assertion that my worth is to be found in supporting a wife and children. Or rather infantile bits like this: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748704409004576146321725889448. Now, despite the fact that I have my own place, I suspect that I am one of the people who the author has a problem with, because I'm not "manning up" to be a good partner. Well, I don't think that this societal pressure is good for the divorce rate, and as for me, I'm far more interested in money than sex, much less marriage.

[Elmund Egivand]

((Soapbox))

I'm sorry for the sense of loss, betrayal and exhaustion you probably feel.  If it makes you feel any better though, or opens your eyes a bit, pretty much every Ideal I've ever believed in has turned out to be false...or at least heavily co-opted by interest groups.

I believed in the particular Church I went to when I was young.  I came to find out that it felt more like yet another power structure bent on domination and wealth accrual.  So I stopped believing.

I believed that the particular Military Service I joined was committed to the defense and betterment of my Nation.  Yup, that one fell through as well.  It was ran more like a corporation that produced terrible leaders and random tasks that served little to no purpose.  So I stopped believing.

I've believed in various public figures or promises of Hope and Change.  All of them have fallen far short of any respectable mark.  So again, I stopped believing.

And the ones that hurt the most.  Just about every promise that has ever been made to me by someone I loved and trusted has been broken.  Same as above.

The only ideologies, ideals, goals and beliefs worth having and following are your own.  The minute you let them get out of your head and hands, they are co-opted by those who would abuse them for the power they generate.  I hope you can find some kind of peace with your beliefs and seek to pursue them for the betterment of all, and not the domination and destruction of them.

((/Soapbox))

Shall I introduce you to Friedrich Nietzsche?

[Vikarion]

Shall I introduce you to Friedrich Nietzsche?

“Companions the creator seeks, not corpses, not herds and believers. Fellow creators the creator seeks -- those who write new values on new tablets. "

[Vic Van Meter]

I think the problem with that argument runs that men are unfairly victimized by child support, alimony, and more.  The problem with it is that the system is mostly unbiased, it's just that the system seems stacked against the man because marriage is stacked against the woman.  They usually get more alimony because they usually make less money.  When they do, it's often because it's their time that gets sacrificed to raise the kids, hence why they can usually prove they deserve custody.  Once you can prove you deserve custody, child support follows.

In cases where stay-at-home dads get divorced from their wives, the courts generally decide in their way.  Obviously, that doesn't happen very often just because of how families tend to work in the western world, but it does happen.  It's more often that equally invested couples who divorce get split custody and nobody gets alimony.

I think this betrays a little bit of bias on your part. I think that, if you consider time spent with the kids to be a "sacrifice", you are probably not viewing child-rearing in the most healthy way. As well, given the fact that the pay gap is not as large as the custody gap, and given the fact that many mothers work, using your explanation doesn't seem to explain this large of a deviation from the theoretical norm. Nor do my anecdotal experiences bear this out: there are at least some mothers who see custody as a means of leverage and manipulation.

That said, I'll be honest: this is a mild academic interest for me, and I don't put much stock in anecdotes. I don't intend to have kids, and I find that I'm far happier (minus the occasional day or two a year) on the average if I'm focused on my own well-being, as opposed to someone else's. I'm more interested by far in dealing with issues like the lack of a social safety net for men and the lack of awareness regarding female domestic violence.

Also to be fair, I started dating my wife when I was eighteen, and it's been almost 11 years now.  The point of getting married is to not get divorced unless something really, really bad happens.

Something really, really bad must happen to a lot of people. Like, over half. 

I think there's a lot of societal pressure on men (I can't speak for women on this) to get married. At least, people have put it on me. I think one of my favorites was being told that I was selfish, as there was some girl out there who needed me in her life, or a partner, or something like that. More common has been the intimation or the outright assertion that my worth is to be found in supporting a wife and children. Or rather infantile bits like this: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748704409004576146321725889448. Now, despite the fact that I have my own place, I suspect that I am one of the people who the author has a problem with, because I'm not "manning up" to be a good partner. Well, I don't think that this societal pressure is good for the divorce rate, and as for me, I'm far more interested in money than sex, much less marriage.

If it's unhealthy to not like kids, then I'm probably pretty sick.  Then again, I don't want to have kids because I grew up in a family where my dad definitely didn't want them, he just had them because that's what you did for most people in the 80s.  He didn't dislike us, in fact I distinctly remember him sometimes liking it when we were around.  But it was later in life that I realized that it really was a sacrifice for him, the same as it would be for me.  Kids are either cute or annoying, and for him and me they're annoying.  I don't think he really liked consistently talking to me until I was almost in college.  Thank God my mother's not like that.  She thinks kids are cute.  So when my parents split, my mom got custody, my dad got visitation, and that was fine for the both of them.  I was a fairly happy kid of divorced parents.

I guess I never worried much about female domestic violence because if a woman ever got violent with me, I might not knock her head off but I would definitely not stay with her.  Call me egomaniacal, but I think I'm a damn fine man and I'm worth having.  Maybe it's more a result of my upbringing, but I see abused men the same way I see abused women, that they're victims mostly due to low self-confidence and not having anywhere to fall back to.  I've never had that problem.  My family, though divorced, is pretty tight-knit and I don't have to take anyone's shit.  If I ever had to go back to the single-people marketplace, I don't think I'd sit on the shelf that long.

I've got no problem saying that's my opinion and it comes from a very specific place.  I tend to react to societal pressure to do anything (drink, smoke, get married, have kids, cut my hair) with a degree of hostility and suspicion.  The weird thing is that I didn't want to get married in high school; I thought it was a religious anachronism.  However, I think being married is something I can recommend.  My relationship is a lot different than someone with a long-term, live-in girlfriend just in terms of how I seem to view my own relationship.  That's why I've been to so many gay marriage rallies here in town.

It's one of those things that doesn't seem important until you've been with someone for a while and you know that she's it, you're never going to meet anyone better in all your life.  You meet a girl who loves pocket-healing your raids, doesn't mind not having kids, hangs on your every word about the benefits of .30-06 ammunition, enjoys your first date seeing House of 1000 Corpses in theater, graduates summa cum laude, thinks your hairy chest and stomach is sexy, goes with you on a six hour pilgrimage to see Slayer live, refuses to drink because she knows your family history and teetotals with you through college even though she went to hers two hours away, you don't come to an understanding on your living arrangements.  You marry that woman and you never look back.

I think the reason the divorce rate is so high is because people don't get married for the above reason (or, you know, whatever's important for people who don't like that stuff).  They get married for reasons like they got their fling pregnant or because they went on a few good dates and get impulsive.  I'll be frank as well, forever is a long, long time.  Lots of men and women get intermittently bored and for some reason single men and women like married men and women a lot (maybe it's because you get attached to someone pretty quick if you're decently good looking and easy to get along with).  Even if you know it's a bad idea, that your wife is amazing and you couldn't ask for better, you're going to be tempted because of the sheer volume of flirting that suddenly gets fired your way.  Marriage is for people with a lot of discipline that aren't prone to bouts of stupidity.  Anytime you spend a lot of time with someone, they'll get on your nerves now and again, and your spouse will always be there with you, will probably want to go to all of your functions, will know all of your friends, will live, sleep, and eat with you every single day for hopefully the rest of your life.  Yes, there are times I have to go somewhere and do my own thing for a few hours just because you can't handle any person without a break.

But do I recommend it?  Absolutely!  I dated my wife all the way through college then moved in with her in Houston for a while before we got the whole wedding planned.  That period where everyone said I was supposed to be having wild parties and screwing around, I was attached and I spent it hoping it was going to work out with this one woman.  Was it worth it?  My anniversary is on FUCKING HALLOWEEN!  We had a costume party for a wedding!  I guarantee you that no man has ever thought his life would turn out quite so good as that.  It's a lot different to be able to say to someone that this woman isn't your girlfriend or your "partner" (which I always hated because it sounds like you're running a small business), but this is your wife and you're planning on being with her, good or bad, until the cholesterol problems that plague your family tree ends up popping your ancient heart like a water balloon.

Coming from someone who thought otherwise, it doesn't just change how your family and friends see your relationship, but how you see it.  It kind of gets beyond a joint enterprise of sex and child rearing and becomes more of a life mission statement.  Lots of people don't get that until it's too late.  Even with everything going on now, when I spend a lot of time with her at her parents' house (her father's not probably going to make it another year) and away from things that maybe make me happy, I know that she's not in this thing for her own pleasure either and she'll be there when I need help.  A good wife or husband is the rock you put your back against that handles the other half of the shit that gets flung at you from all directions.  It was really nice when I got laid off and her income basically made up for what I lost in unemployment until I got another job.  She's also my biggest cheerleader.

Don't get married if your relationship is weak and you think it needs to be stronger, but I can definitely say that once you think you've got "the" woman, do the marriage thing.  If you get it wrong, you don't really end up much worse off than when you were single, but if you get it right, your life gets easier on the whole.  You get someone that can pick up the slack, especially on things you're not good at, as long as you're willing to specialize a little on the things that you're good at for them.  And yes, even as you said, you do get booty on tap.

I guess if you really just don't like other people though, that might be a hassle.  Just saying, marriage gets a bad rap from people who make bad decisions, but I figure a 50% rate on something that's usually done in your 20s-30s that lasts until someone dies is a pretty damn good statistic.  These days, when being divorced isn't a point of much ostracism anymore and you don't have the widespread puritanical view of ironclad marriage we used to (thank God), 50% means people must be making better decisions than I give them credit for.  I'm shocked that many people make it the whole stretch.

... I think I may have posted a lot more about marriage during this little stream-of-consciousness defense of marriage than I wanted to.

[Victoria Stecker]

+1 to that stuff.

Re: Vikarion, there's frequently a lot more pressure on women to get married than on men, although it depends on family/culture. I'm from a strange mix of socialy progressive and theologically conservative that resulted in a mixed fear or marriage (my mother being divorced twice didn't help) and determination to get married. My wife, on the other hand, came from an even more conservative background such that she felt deviant and subversive for not really wanting to get married. Having seen her family dynamics, I don't blame her.

... the above really has nothing to do with my point, does it? Bother.

Anyhow, what I meant to say, is that there is frequently/usually/almost always more pressure on women then on men to get married, at least in American culture. While men will certainly get questions from older family members about why they haven't settled down yet, the degree to which our worth is questioned because we're single doesn't even compare. You can be a man and be considered successful and still be single. We have stories, books and movies and such, about men doing big things. It's rare to encounter stories like that about women - usually, if you have a primary female character, her story is going to revolve around relationships or children. You're rarely going to see a woman in a book or a movie who is doing Important Things™ without being somehow romantically involved with another character. [An example that just popped into mind after seeing The Hobbit this past weekend. Peter Jackson added Tauriel, a female elf who spends most of the movie kicking ass. The problem? She's the only meaningful female character, and aside from killing orcs, her only value to the story is in flirting with one of the dwarfs and making Legolas jealous because he has a crush on her. The elf king pulls her aside to talk to her - but only because Legolas likes her. That's what makes her important.]

See enough movies and read enough books where the thing that makes women important is the fact that the men like them, and you start to absorb this whether you really want to or not.

/rant

[Lyn Farel]

I may be wrong but people over here do not really care at all for marriage, even as a purely secular bond... However, they still do it if you are single. It can somehow become shameful, or just that they will do anything to find you someone because otherwise "it's not normal".

[kalaratiri]

[An example that just popped into mind after seeing The Hobbit this past weekend. Peter Jackson added Tauriel, a female elf who spends most of the movie kicking ass. The problem? She's the only meaningful female character, and aside from killing orcs, her only value to the story is in flirting with one of the dwarfs and making Legolas jealous because he has a crush on her. The elf king pulls her aside to talk to her - but only because Legolas likes her. That's what makes her important.]

I think I know why Peter Jackson has done this. Read The Hobbit, and count the female characters. I honestly can't remember any. I don't even think there are any. Tauriel seems to have been added to give younger, female, Hobbit fans a "role model" as such, of a strong, independent, ass kicking woman.

Of course, as you point out, Jackson seems to have taken one step forward and two back here, as he's made Tauriel only important as part of some inter-sepcies love triangle.

[Vic Van Meter]

+1 to that stuff.

Re: Vikarion, there's frequently a lot more pressure on women to get married than on men, although it depends on family/culture. I'm from a strange mix of socialy progressive and theologically conservative that resulted in a mixed fear or marriage (my mother being divorced twice didn't help) and determination to get married. My wife, on the other hand, came from an even more conservative background such that she felt deviant and subversive for not really wanting to get married. Having seen her family dynamics, I don't blame her.

... the above really has nothing to do with my point, does it? Bother.

Anyhow, what I meant to say, is that there is frequently/usually/almost always more pressure on women then on men to get married, at least in American culture. While men will certainly get questions from older family members about why they haven't settled down yet, the degree to which our worth is questioned because we're single doesn't even compare. You can be a man and be considered successful and still be single. We have stories, books and movies and such, about men doing big things. It's rare to encounter stories like that about women - usually, if you have a primary female character, her story is going to revolve around relationships or children. You're rarely going to see a woman in a book or a movie who is doing Important Things™ without being somehow romantically involved with another character. [An example that just popped into mind after seeing The Hobbit this past weekend. Peter Jackson added Tauriel, a female elf who spends most of the movie kicking ass. The problem? She's the only meaningful female character, and aside from killing orcs, her only value to the story is in flirting with one of the dwarfs and making Legolas jealous because he has a crush on her. The elf king pulls her aside to talk to her - but only because Legolas likes her. That's what makes her important.]

See enough movies and read enough books where the thing that makes women important is the fact that the men like them, and you start to absorb this whether you really want to or not.

/rant

I remember writing a really long essay about that in a film studies course in college.  The examination wasn't as much on whether it exists or not, but whether it's justifiable.  For some reason, of the 10% of female characters that aren't just willowy love interests in stories, almost all of them are essentially compensatory.  They make them stand out in such a way that they don't seem like interesting female characters; they make them into male characters with female bits attached.  It's almost like female empowerment in media seems to be derived from what we associate as male qualities like physical presence, intimidation, and a domineering personality.  You almost never see a movie where a man is portrayed as being stronger because of his feminine qualities, even in movies where a woman takes on that former role.

Maybe it's just because, while it isn't seemly or correct to say women are subservient creatures who exist as pretty trinkets for ubermenschian film heroes, that's what an awful lot of men and women have sort of assumed for years.  Even now, when most of us enlightened types know better, there's always a large segment of the population that didn't get the memo.  So seeing it portrayed in some other way seems really weird to them.  I try not to assume that my opinion isn't a universal one; plenty of men probably still see women as little better than trainable dogs.

And if that's the way most film today is, imagine what it was like back in Tolkein's day.  Then, it was considered pretty progressive if you listed your wife as the main beneficiary and executor of your will.  He just didn't write in many female characters.  Even the ones that Peter Jackson didn't add to the story, that were native to the novels, he gave some pretty expanded roles to.  Tolkein's women sort of existed to drive the men through plot elements.  You can't really call him a sexist; it's just how things were in literature of that nature.

So maybe we still have a long way to go in making women into real equals in media without simply dumping male traits into them until it seems to even out, but it's better than it was.  Ever see the end of McLintock?  Where your marital problems can get solved by chasing your wife through town, embarrassing her, then beating her?  I watch that ending and it kind of makes my stomach turn.  But it's hard to judge it because it was made so long ago.  I don't really have a sense of perspective for it.

If they tried to play that off as a comical joke nowadays, I'd be pissed.

Sort of disjointed thoughts there on the subject, so I apologize if it was just jumping around.

[Vikarion]

I suppose I tend not to notice the sort of "shy and retiring" females, but then, I don't particularly notice the "quiet and reticent" guys, either.

I don't think that media portrayals are as bad for women as might be made out, these days. Much of our older literature is sexist, yes, although I imagine that Tolkien quailed somewhat at the idea of how to portray a female dwarf. But because many of our movies, tv, and etc., are based on older sources, there's a carry-on effect (Tolkien, James Bond, Spider-man, whatever...we're still making movies from those).

Newer stuff, well, we have Buffy, Starcraft (and don't complain about hyper-sexualization in that, every male character is just as exaggerated), The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Game of Thrones, and so on. The portrayal of the female as a shrinking violet is one that receives far less currency lately. I think you may never quite get away from the "male action hero" type, however, unless we come up with a drug to reduce testosterone levels.

Perhaps I'm somewhat jaded, however. Watching True Blood certainly gave me no inclinations to fawn over southern blonds. 

As for me, I don't tend to think of strength, aggressiveness, or etc. as necessarily masculine qualities. I see them as potential human qualities, qualities which are needed in order to survive in an often cruel and always uncaring world. I happen to know a few women who actually prefer to have their men shield them from that, where possible. I am not a fan of this view, and I am not a fan of the view that thinks that men need to be more "soft". The women I admire, as the men, are often the "not giving a fuck" sort, and invariably, the more determined and self-assured type.

[Vikarion]

While men will certainly get questions from older family members about why they haven't settled down yet, the degree to which our worth is questioned because we're single doesn't even compare. You can be a man and be considered successful and still be single.

I can't speak to that in general, and I'm not convinced it's true, at least in my area of the country. I've certainly had questions from older family members - I've also had them from friends, acquaintances, etc. It could also be that, after a particularly unpleasant experience, I decided that I was, for lack of a better expression, less than thrilled about the return on investment in regards to my relationships. Perhaps I decided that a bit early, after only a few relationships, but having spent the last seven years without going on a date, some family and friends have become rather...well, I'm not sure. Sort of a combination of suspicion, discomfort, and perhaps a bit of anger. I've been "accused" of being gay a few times. 

But, then, I don't know how much pressure single women get. Work-wise, I used to have to deal with a definite surplus of comments. Fortunately, that lessens once you are in charge, and, honestly, I don't mind teasing now and then.