A nice fantasy versus the harsh reality

On one of the mailing lists I'm on (yeah, antique technology, but I've been on it since the mid-1990's) someone commented that if anyone understood how the female brain actually worked, they should write a book on the subject. So I recommended Athol Kay's "Married Mand Sex Life Primer". Wow, I wound up receiving an incredibly vitriolic response about how abusive whole idea was.

So I guess there are still a lot of people out there who don't want to know the truth even though they say they do. They still think gender is merely a social construct. The reality is that men's and women's brains really are wired differently. Understanding how the female mind works can be used to do some very abusive things. It can also be used to provide a very comfortable and happy environment for a woman. Not understanding it is a major contributor to the sky high divorce rate we see today. Being an asshole is currently very effective, being a nice guy is typically a losing strategy in the mating game. However, I think and Mr. Kay has certainly demonstrated that there is a middle ground between being an abusive asshole and a unattractive milktoast, that's what I strive for and I hope others do the same. Just because I know how to do terrible things doesn't mean that I'm going to them, knowledge itself is neither good nor evil, it's how we apply that makes the difference.

Forward into the past...

Yet again there is more and more press about the plight of women in Afghanistan. There is the unspoken assumption that they deserve special treatment just because they are women. That's a very 19th century attitude, which I don't really have a problem with, at least as long as that attitude applies across the board. If we are going to insist on some of the older gender roles, like that of men protecting women, I'm going to insist on the other roles, like women being wives and mothers.

Is this likely to happen? Not a chance. Besides the feminist opposition, there's also that massive drop in consumption that would result in there being fewer total households. I don't think the Powers That Be would ever accept that happening. Politicians and economists would scream about the loss of GDP, even when the average quality of life is improving. Even worse, if we managed to go back to the 19th century values of having extended families, consumption would drop even more. In addition, this sort of return to older values would reduce te need for government assistance. Given that government agencies areloathe to give up any funding or power, there is another opponent to older social structures.