I usually stay out of the publishing businesss scrum for cash which basically is the most accurate way to describe the self-help genre. The start of each month seems to unleash a brand new, and benighted, array of counter-productive offerings which center upon romance. Unfortunately for me, an advertisement for Terrance Reals The New Rules of Marriage: What You Need to Know to Make Love Work caught my attention. It contained a glowing recommendation from the sinister bell hooks and Ballantines promise that the work delivered a long overdue message that women need to hear: You arent crazyyoure right! This caused me to part with much needed cash in the hopes of issuing a counter-statement.
My rash purchase would be somewhat comical if the women arent crazytheyre right mantra did not now form the basis of our entire culture. The author was previously unknown to me, but a quick search indicated that he is much esteemed by the mighty Oprah Winfrey, Americas greatest proponent of emotion-based reasoning. Supporters like Winfrey and Hooks tell us a copious amount about Mr. Real.
Buying the book was a good bit easier than consuming it. The New Rules of Marriage is as perplexing as it is annoying. The first question I had was what to call Terrence Real. What was his background? The jacket did not really say. I searched online and could not find out much about his history. I emailed the support at his website and queried them about the matter. They did not directly answer me but suggested that I refer to him as Terry Real. Well, a better descriptor, and one in keeping with his squishy perspective on the sexes, would be to dub him, Mr. Terry, which is precisely what I will do here.
The enduring theme of this work, which promises so much to women, revolves around men being to blame for the failure of modern relationships. It seems that we have neglected to alter ourselves to the necessary extent. If we did then we could better meet the needs of the liberated woman. Mr. Terry notes in the opening chapter that, Newly empowered, women across America turned to men and began insisting on levels of emotional intimacy that most menraised under the old regimewere not readily able to meet.
Further he notes, What most of the men I work with dont get is that their relationship job description has changed The refrain I hear over and over again from dissatisfied women is I dont feel like I have a real partner. A partner who shares in the details of domestic life and in her concerns about the kids. An intellectual partner who cares about what she thinks and supports her development. And most of all, an emotional partner who shows interest in and appreciation for her feelings and who has a few feelings of his own to bring to the table. In other words, women want more so the direct sex must give it to them.
Based on this presupposition, Mr. Terry swoops in and offers up his services as an intimacy coach. The new rules are a process and curriculum whereby men and women can save their unions provided that men learn to act more like women. He even goes so far as to recommend that males abandon objectivity when it comes to dealing with their wives. Mr. Terrys edict will horrify those who are proud of their logical faculties: You can be right or you can be married; whats more important to you? With throwaway lines like that it is easy to discern why Mr. Terry is so admired by the fair sex.
What makes Mr. Terrys background an issue has nothing to do with status and everything to do with the faulty assumptions which embody social constructivism. Male nature is neither an outcome of regimes nor media slant, it is a result of biology. Over the course of the last decade the social constructionist perspective has been rendered obsolete by science. Women and men are known to have disparate biological imperatives and goals in life. Advocating for one sex to obliterate their concerns and proclivities in the hopes of making things easier for the other is both absurd and despicable. More importantly, it cannot work anyway. Societal cheerleading will never succeed in getting men to purge themselves of their essence which is what makes them men.
The poverty of his initial assumptions renders Mr. Terrys book a sham. From seeds fertilized by irrationality no healthy flora can grow. Theres not much to be salvaged here. This is a methodology which asks half of its adherents to behave in ways contrary to their makeup. Getting men to verbalize their thoughts and emotions is pointless, foolhardy, downright goofy, and a waste of time. After all, talking about emotion is as useful as singing about electrical engineering.
If women want to wile away their 25,000 to 30,000 days on earth in the pursuit of discussing feelings then I am only too happy to respect their diversity, but I will never feel the need to follow their example. Foisting the habit of verbal emotional processing upon others is akin to placing heroin in another persons B12 shot. Its dirty, cruel, vindictive, and it encourages others to dwell in the same blind alley you do. We only have one life. If some people want to devote theirs to rehashing emotional piffle then so be it, but to convince others to do the same should be regarded as a spiritual felony.
Obviously, logical thinking is what makes us uniquely human. The willful abandonment of rationality is a declaration of war on both humanity and Our Creator. Any relationship which requires one to dumb himself down to the level of a mollusk is not one that should be preserved. Mr. Terrys willful abandonment of objectivity during conflict resolution showcases just how much this authors knowledge has been contaminated by political correctness and the myth of female supremacy.
Mr. Terrys approach enables and encourages women to be irrational. Perhaps Mr. Terry regards emotion, which is based in the pre-mammalian portion of our brains, as being integral to our humanity. If so this is not only highly disturbing but misogynistic as well. Deeming women as being indifferent to truth or objectivity is the most sexist of propositions. Can women think logically? Absolutely, and I know this to be the case because I recall many an intelligent female beating the stuffing out of my partner and I over the course of several inter-collegiate debates. Women, just as men, should be held to a higher standard and not be given a pass when it comes to rationality.
The plain fact is most of us are born emotional thinkers. Emotion over reason seems to be the default position, but it is an aspect of childhood which many of us eventually overcome. Hark back to St. Pauls Hymn to Charity: when I became a man, I put away childish things. I ask the reader, what could be more childish than renouncing objectivity and truth? Habitually examining ones surroundings through the blood-stained lens of emotion is the mark of an inferior or of a child who never wishes to grow up.
Preventing ones affectations from poisoning cognition should be everyones lifelong project. It is a meticulous undertaking, but one that enriches both civilization and individual existence. Regardless of age, all persons should be encouraged to evaluate reality devoid of a jaded personal filter.
Of course, there is much to disdain about The New Rules of Marriage, but what offended me most was its pervasive celebration of inequality amongst the sexes. Women want more out of relationships today so men must give it to them. Why is that the case? In every equitable transaction, the side who asks for more must offer more in exchange. This leads us to ask, what do modern women offer men that is superior to what their predecessors proffered in the past?
Take your time mulling that one over because the man who enters into a marriage contract in 2008 faces far more risks than he ever did at any other point in history. In all likelihood, his wife will be infinitely more sexualized, far more materialistic, blatantly more narcissistic, and far less motherly than any woman who bonded with his ancestors. Given this eventuality, is it any surprise that modern men are increasingly reluctant to commit?
Twenty-first century women not only fail to render a quid pro quo they alsoby demanding that men retain their traditional function as objects of status and wealth while also adding new requirements such as males be Chatty Cathys and neatly-trimmed launderetteshave inflated their price beyond what the market can possibly pay. Todays woman may describe herself in glowing terms, but a look at the chassis should alert potential customers that what is labeled a Lexus was actually made by Daewoo.
Asking men to alter their consciousness in the hopes of accommodating women is preposterous. Such a wish should reveal to the direct sex that societys advocacy for equality was a ruse all along; nothing but a dense smog concealing a desire for female supremacy. Rather than internalize these New Rules men should memorize a more imperative injunction: Caveat Emptor.
Bernard Chapin is the author of Women: Theory and Practice and Escape from Gangsta Island. He can be contacted at veritaseducation@gmail.com.
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Posted on January 2nd, 2008 at 2:38 pm
More men ought to get in touch with their feelings…like the feeling he will have during divorce.
Before issuing a marriage license, the government ought to warn about the consequence of marriage:
-the number of divorces in America is about 55% of marriages; however, many states like California do not report their statistics. America has one of the highest divorce rates in the world.
-that wives initiate divorce about 80% of divorces
-though legally innocent, the father (and a few mothers) lose children, 18 years of income, property, and certain liberties by a court order.
-that the family court is a feminist styled group that mostly rules against men without due process and or without him being presented in court and or without him being represented by legal counsel.
-that family court is a secret organization that does not publish statistics; however, you may visit without an invitation or reservations.
-that child support agencies have broad powers, for example, they can cancel, without notice or due process, your driver’s license, passport, and vocation license. They can also advertise your name and picture that you are dead beat dad - though you may only owe a couple thousand dollars. They will help incarcerate you. That their accounting report is always inaccurate.
-that in the marriage, you may be abusive if you 1) ask your wife not to spend more than the both of you make; 2) make her feel afraid; 3) get angry, among other things. The Violence Against Womens Act is used by wives and girlfriends to incarcerate men and later to remove them from the home by court order.
-that divorce is unilateral (one person decides), not bi-lateral (two people agree)
-that divorce is no-fault (no reason required)
If you repeat these facts to a feminist, he or she will call you bitter or a woman-hater.
Posted on January 2nd, 2008 at 2:53 pm
I remember about 20 years ago when I went out with a career woman after a personals ad date.
We went for a walk on the cooper river (outside of Philadelphia) and wound up at a coffeehouse. During the walk, she said she was happy I was a “professional” and at least as tall as her. I commented that while her qualfications and demands weren’t entirely unreasonable under the circumstances, that as a mid-20’s woman she might have difficultly. She said she was a combination of “old fashioned” but “modern.”
She just couldn’t get it that men didn’t exist solely to please her. That they weren’t going to treat her as an equal (or even superior) in the workplace and then when they came home suddenly act like a knight in shining armor and insist upon being the perfect protector and breadwinner. On the contrary, she replied that only a “real man” could meet up to that kind of standard (she thought men should literally be defined to fit her selfish standards.)
In addition, something that occurred to me a week later (but I didn’t mention to her considering she and we didn’t click for obvious reasons) was that she didn’t live up to any standards herself: She wasn’t very good looking. She also didn’t live up to the traditional standard of the supportive, housecleaning wife.
The women who want men to be more like “wives” in addition to being ATM machines are basically saying men should “be it all” and do as they please since they were going to be worthless. Sadly, I’ve seen men who tried to please such women (and even voted Democrat and apologized regularly for all the problems of the world and carefully recycled their soda cans).
Overall, so many white males from my generation (early X, late boomer) seem to be total slaves to their women and society. They hate themselves.
From what I see of young men today, they seem to be more selfish and even politically and personally apathetic. I don’t work in that field though. Comments anyone?
Posted on January 2nd, 2008 at 3:12 pm
I usually don’t comment on these types of articles anymore but this one is fair with valid concerns. I would add one thing from a female perspective. I often encounter men who want (yes want) a high income career woman who will further their own financial ambitions. Such a woman will be more agressive and often “a b**l buster” for lack of a better term. The more feminine wife and mommy types will not be out there in the highly competitive world wheeling and dealing and bringing in six figures. You can’t have it all. A man has to decide what he wants and deal with the consequences.
It is equally stressful and unfair to demand women act like men as vice versa.
Posted on January 2nd, 2008 at 3:26 pm
In writing that “Mr. Terrys approach enables and encourages women to be irrational.”, Chapin is giving women too much credit. Actually Mr. Terry is encouraging women to be manipulative and hypocritical and his book will be purchased by women seeking validation for this antisocial behavior. This seems to include an awful lot of American women.
If men resist being manipulated, it is because they are incorrectly or incompletely socialized. If men counter being manipulated by attempting to manipulate the woman, then these men are oppressive monsters.
See how easy that is?
Posted on January 2nd, 2008 at 5:23 pm
Once the boys babies learn that mommy will like them better if they do what she wants, just like his female teachers the first few years and then later his girl friends … by the time most males go through that process they too believe it’s their job to cater to female needs he rest of their lives.
I saw John Gray one of the first times he was on TV and he dared share a view that women and men needed to work together … the women ate him alive asking “Why are we always the ones giving” (Not exact words, was many years ago, but what surprised me was his inability to gauge the audience and to not know that to make the recipe work it had to be 5 parts male bashing, one part of showing males as good, to ten parts of female superiorty and one part of gentle asking women to consider that perhaps they really are not so perfect. He certainly didn’t say that men are dying in the work place, killing themselves, … to provide for families and when you come from a past where coal mines, oceans, and forests took lives, perhaps being “self aware” and chatting about your feelings might not be a good survival tool. Telling women that they had been running their mouths about gender issues for 20 years and most were clueless about men wouldn’t sell many books either.
This author Mr. T, read a few books, a few women’s magazines, watched O.W. few times (Oprah) and then wrote a book to sell in the Feminist Porno side of the book store. The side that just can’t get enough of how wonderful women are and what “shits” men are (I got that term, shits, from more than one book written by female authors. ) Feminist porno feeds a lust that can’t be satisfied. Chick flicks and chick lit, - Men are pigs, women are angels, hug each other … one book after the other shared by the Sista’s. Read the book, get out the vibrator, tell your self how much you love yourself after you get out the little mirror to see where your parts are… liberation.
Mr T is one more guy castrated so long ago that he doesn’t have a clue about what he is missing.
Miss A. above. I agree with your view. I have been watching older professional woman deal with menopause, tough careers, while commenting on how much they lost with the early years with their children. Hot flashes, over worked, and hanging in there, stressed out, medical problems. It’s not an easy life. I don’t think stressful jobs and menopause works out well for most of these women and I do believe men can handle the work place a bit longer. But they should be praised and well compensated for carrying that load and for letting their wives have a break when they need it.
I would like it if men and women could make arrangements based on what they have to give to each other, to share with each other, and not based on some book that acts as if all men are the same and all women the same … and the author, so wise, sees what we all need.
So easy to say “Why can’t a man be more like a woman” well, maybe it’s because we need women to be women and men to be men and instead of seeing them as separate, we need to see how they can combine their differences so the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. We evolved together.
If women had - thousands of years ago, gone to the wall flower males, the quiet, introspective, non aggressive, low testosterone plant eaters, for sex, then ten thousand generations later we would not have sexually agressive men, logical men, men who focused on goals and achievement, … we wouldn’t have central heat or toilets, or airplanes either…
We celebrated masculine and femine values and accepted differences not that many years ago. Today - prissy men tell other men to be prissy men and women seem to want to buy it. Truth is, the prissy - chatty men I know don’t have happy wives.
Posted on January 2nd, 2008 at 8:27 pm
“This leads us to ask, what do modern women offer men that is superior to what their predecessors proffered in the past?”
A ‘real woman’ (its about time we started throwing some blaming shit around too) could offer a great deal to the man in her life. Men and women were made for each other. Designed for the melding. Perfectly suited for the development of each other’s spiritual and emotional and adult maturity development.
They choose not to.
In the past, if the comparison is sought, they offered relatively equal effort, and life was nasty, brutish and short for both genders. We relied on one another to get through the day and provide for the kids. Women worked their little butts off, in the main, as did the men.
Today they ‘have it all’ and want even more. They hold back from giving of themselves. They claim empathy yet they cannot fathom a man’s emotion: men on the other hand, apparantly devoid of empathy, can identify a woman’s emotional state at 500 paces. Of course it has changed 14 times by the time they are three feet apart, if they ever move toward one another.
She revels in decrying his abilities, his character, his emotions, his spirit. And she then wonders why we turn away.
Gurus like Mr Terry leap in like the ubiquitous White Knight to supprt her ‘Relationship’.
First of all, a man does not call it a relationship. Mr Terry doesn’t ‘get it’. A man refers to it as a marriage or a romance.
To her, relationships are of ABSOLUTELY PRIMARY importance, and EXCLUSIVE. She has a relationship with her husband or partner (if she eschews the husband word) or boyfriend or lover. (Occasionally, contemporaneously).
Also with the local butcher, grocer, hairdresser, Doctor, Dentist and Naturopath.
The Vet, if she has a cat.
She also has girlfriends. She has ‘relationships’ with them too.
Men cannot understand how so many people can be Primary. Maybe women are more ‘team players’ than we give them credit for.
He, generally, has his missis. Very, very infrequently a mistress ( not his term).
Hes unsure what a lover is. Clearly, it aint him.
He can have a mate or a ‘Pal’ but cannot EVER have a boyfriend.
He has a relationship with his accountant. It does not have parentheses.
At the same time she considers commitment to be of the VERY GREATEST importance. It has to be TOTAL and for ALL TIME.
She is always willing and eager to commit and intuitively knows that it takes practice. It has to be done over and over. She thinks about it every day.
He has difficulty committing.
To him its a one- off thing. He thinks about it deeply, for some time, usually too long, not understanding its importance to her that he does it right NOW.
She commits to him, easily. Its only Him, after all. He is ‘everything to her’.
He commits to the mortgage, the provisions of worldly goods - even FMCG ones which appear in his fridge only to be gone by the time he gets home as she has been very generous to her other girlfriend relationships; the kids for 18 years or more; the savings demands for retirement; the daily dismissal of his own desires in order to meet hers etc.
It takes a bit of thought.
Despite her practiced commitment, her demand for it, her reverence to it, she initiates 73% of divorces.
When a ‘relationship’ ends, a woman will cry, and pour her heart out to her girlfriends, and she will write a poem entitled ” All Men Are Just Like Pigs.” Then she will get on with her life.
But even with all the Primary bases covered, there is still more she wants.
There is Fidelity.
For her, this is the SINGLE, MOST VITALLY important and CRUCIAL quality in a relationship. It has nothing to do with Truth, in Mr Terry’s eyes nor hers. Fidelity, like everything else, including money, is about sex.
If she has a love affair with a charismatic other man who has swept her off her feet, whilst she is in a relationship, it is ONLY because she had to.
For Love.
Her partner, obviously, had been neglectful or abusive or heartless or unappreciative or taken her for granted.
He has no such excuses though. If he is getting his end away with a bit on the side, its because hes a cheating bastard who cant keep his hands off that slut/tart.
Back to your question, Bernie, “”This leads us to ask, what do modern women offer men that is superior to what their predecessors proffered in the past?”
Truth could be a good start. They are better educated than ever before; have mental acuity like never before; have vastly superior communication skiils than ever before (and vastly better than men, they tell us); can multi-task better than a test pilot; can empathise (Hahahaha); the list of what they could offer is long even before we get to logic.
But they chose not to give.
Modern women - and her Guru - harp on about emotion, but are emotional anorexics.
Posted on January 2nd, 2008 at 9:45 pm
Amfortas, back in business with a vengeance. Its an act to follow thats for sure!
I took this “review” and posted it over at my Christian Divorced forum and wow, how illustrative.
The women there “give” sex to men, are exploited by ogres (not under bridges there Shreck old boy, but now that you mention it did you know its your whole bloody body that turned green after your roll with that babe?) who use the Bible….imagine that The Bible to rule over them.
This book declares one thing that seems more and more true to me.
Do you want logic, or to be married? I’d expand on that as a kind of condition statement of the world in which we live.
Do you want logic, or free health care
Do you want logic, or Utopian diversity
Do you want logic, or to prosecute those who would profile
Do you want logic, or to “help the childernz”
Do you want logic, or to soak the rich with taxes
Do YOU WANT LOGIC, or a grunting scratching rutting life in a friggin government provided cave for Neanderthals?
Ann, I didn’t follow your comment as it relates to the premise here. Those few women who begin to think like men are not the ball busters. they are the honest to goodness PEOPLE, and almost genderless characteristics , sharing communication by actually responding to what they have read or heard, not how they “feel” about it.
But hey, if you can’t do that, there is the fall back…..community colleges are offering a 6 month certificate now in ball busting.
Posted on January 3rd, 2008 at 10:13 am
Ann said,
I usually don’t comment on these types of articles anymore but this one is fair with valid concerns. I would add one thing from a female perspective. I often encounter men who want (yes want) a high income career woman who will further their own financial ambitions. Such a woman will be more agressive and often “a b**l buster” for lack of a better term. The more feminine wife and mommy types will not be out there in the highly competitive world wheeling and dealing and bringing in six figures. You can’t have it all. A man has to decide what he wants and deal with the consequences.
It is equally stressful and unfair to demand women act like men as vice versa.
Hello Ann,
That’s a valid point and many young men, including myself, did try to date ball-busting career women due to our concerns that if we did marry traditional women, and they later ball-busted us _anyway_, we’d be in a more vulnerable position in divorce court and would have to pay alimony. At least the wealthy career woman might move on and leave us alone (it was hoped.) That changed when “child” support became a form of alimony.
It was amazing that many working class women in the states had the same demands and selfish attitudes towards men as ultra-successful materialistic career women. Oprah and The View and other feminist porn shows often encourage these women to act as if simply being a woman entitles them to princess treatment. I literally just got done talking to a Romanian who came to the states 20 years ago and was offered by friends to date American women and said he wasn’t interested.
In all fairness to the women, our culture makes it difficult for women to invest themselves in traditional femininity. Many young men aren’t ready for marriage until their 20’s both due to the hookup culture and workplace demands. So a young woman in their late teens looking to settle down with a nice normal man will have to be very determined and saavy and our culture doesn’t educate her well in such an endeavor. And the media is screaming for her to be a bitch.
Whatever we have to say about people’s failings: men and women, it’s useful to remember that culture has a lot to do with it and we’re the ground floor at educating them otherwise. There is an alternative to this mess. I worked hard to find it and other people should too. It’s their choice.
Posted on January 3rd, 2008 at 11:20 am
How tough it must be to be a woman nowadays. She is raised to believe she can do anything and have it ALL. She parties hard all through college, celebrating her liberation by bedding any man she fancies. She complains to her girlfriends how men are such pigs, they’re lazy and dirty and just want sex. As a few of her girlfriends manage to get into good relationships with men they eventually have kids. They tell her how having a baby has changed their life and how fullfilling it is. This grates on her nerves. How is it that she, with a college education and and high salary job can’t even find a man who’s able to stay with her longer than a few dates. Eventually, old, unloved, and childless, she throws herself into feminist issues, believing that society needs to change to further empower her and her sisters.
Posted on January 3rd, 2008 at 12:00 pm
women are right about the “not feeing as though they have a partner” bit.
if you look at the common marriage it does not fit the definition of partnership. a partnership is an equal type arrangement w/ both parties sharing equally in the proceeds and the incurred debt.
as an example: a man and a womam get married, have a couple kids, an automobile, a house, some meager savings, maybe an IRA and so forth.
in the chance that a “partnership” ceases to exist in the business world, both parties typically split all assets and debts equally and go their merry and separate ways.
not so in a marrage “partnership”. in the split the children almost always default to the woman along w/ the house, car, money and anything of value this average marriage produced. the guy he gets …. well,he gets kicked out. he is in deed lucky if he is not saddled w/ all sorts of lingering debts. he also is commonly expected to pay for all the lawyers, his and hers.
oh yeah, almost forgot, he gets to send a goodly portion of his future earnings, in the form of CS and alimony, back to the old “partner” for many years to come. sometimes “forever”. (women and the clergy use the word “forever” a lot when describing marriage i’ve noticed.) and if he fails to met these outlandish obligations, goes to jail w/o a trial. he also has very little rights to his own children, and can be kept away from them for any number of reasons, real or imagined. and let’s not get into false abuse, parental allienation and molestation claims, made to typically gain position, and never prosecuted.
today’s women are definitely right, marriage is no partnership by anyone’s sane definition.
Posted on January 3rd, 2008 at 9:38 pm
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