Men are simply more intelligent than women. You can read this article here: http://www.timesofoman.com/newsdetails.asp?newsid=19045
Reading Sally’s article on male Primary teachers sent me off on a tangent that I thought I had left behind a number of years ago. It seems that all men have been relegated to the role of insignificant slugs (a little hyperbole doesn’t hurt here) with little more value than as breeding stock (Mary’s experience with Kim aside) (ask the Swedes).
What are we to make of men? Do television ads portray them in any positive way? Do news stories portray them differently than women when identical crimes are committed? What about how men are treated in the Church?
We talk of quorum unity, but where is it exhibited? Could the experience of others be like someone I know, where the Bishop and High Priest group leader assigned one High Priest to go into his home 3 days after his wife kicked him out, because she didn’t want to be married to him anymore?
We now see from Sally’s blog that men are to be highly supervised when called to the Primary and other callings.
The point is: What is man and why bother with him?
My beginning statement regarding men was put there to attract attention to a ridiculous argument. We all know that it is ridiculous on its face. However, could the comment made by this man have been triggered by some negative experiences with women, or the role that men now seem to fill in todays society? (I’m not trying to excuse his remarks…just trying to figure out why a supposedly intelligent person would make such a stupid statement.)
Are we beginning to see a burgeoning men’s movement that discounts reason in the vain attempt to give men some credibility? Are we feeling the consequences of the denigration of men as men?
Take a look at the number of single adult young men, who are marriageable age, who are not even dating. Take a look at the age at which people are getting married today. The average age is substantially higher today than it was 30 years ago.
There is a serious problem with young men going inactive in the Church after they return from their missions. Why?
Where are the male role models? Those that we often look to as models spend half their time criticizing men instead of building them up. Where do they turn for identity, because there is a crisis that exists today?
How do women portray men? What are their expectations of them?
In short…where are the answers?
personally i have been saddened by what i have been reading too. i have never heard of men not being allowed to teach primary alone, i am in utah too, but i remember primary teachers who were male teaching without their wives.
i do wonder if this has changed, but if it has it is truly sad.
as far as why guys aren’t dating, this much i can tell you because i too married older, and i have many male and female friends who are still not married and are in their 30’s, and not dating.
there are a few things going on, one is just that it is more appealing to get married older in life and be able to experience school, travel, ect… it is better for many reasons, the most obvious is that you may actually be able to afford to live as a married couple if you aren’t married right out of high school.
the other thing i can see going on is that men don’t have to ask girls out anymore. a lot of people just hang out, and end up in relationships. a lot of girls will ask out the boys instead. it’s laziness.
and then there are those who just aren’t there socially. i hate to say it about my male friends, but they aren’t getting dates, and won’t be able to get married because of their personalities and the veiws they have about relationships. where did they learn it? who knows. but they are very self centered, and that just doesn’t work in a relationship. and as for the female friends, it goes back to my male friends… they like to date young girls, not those their own age.
anyway, maybe it’s time for a “menimist” movement.
Menimist movement…I like it. Sounds……..
i second the menimist movement! i am tired of seeing the good men of the world getting crap piled upon them for no reason other than being male.
that is why i think men don’t always try to do much, what would be the point if they know that they are just going to be put down in someway regardless. for instance, dating or not dating. i hear girls complain that men don’t ask out, and i hear them complain about guys that ask out everyone… it seems to be a lose lose situation.
so come on men, start the menimist movement and prove to us ladies that we have been wrong all this time afterall. :)
I second this as well. Men do get a crap treatment and I think it’s wrong. There are good men and not so good men, there are good women and not so good women and they is just because we are all human.
Maybe the answers lie in our expectations. OUr expectations of ourselves and each other need to rise.
I totally agree!
Whats even more shocking (if thats possible) is when a mother runs off with her child – leaving behind a father that desperatly wants to be a part of his childs life. When this happened to my DH with his ex wife (squishy is with us finally after 6 years of searching!) and his daughter was just 3 months old, he was treated by the police and the courts like a man who wanted his daughter for, shall we say, “unnatural reasons”.
There was no assistance offered to him to find his child because, as they said “she is with her mother” – assuming that the mom is a good, healthy and non abusive parent which she was not. We finally found her ourselves and were only able to get her listed on Child Find and Missing and Exploited Children AFTER we had found her.
All because he was a man… if it was the other way around you can be sure that the police would have been on the case right away.
It saddens and angers me to no end.
I don’t know Larry. You ask some good questions, but the facts remain. Men are much more likely to be perverted, sexually abuse children, commit crimes, be violent, etc. The protection of innocent must be a higher priority than the collective self-esteem of men. It’s a necessary evil brought on by men themselves.
One of the most notorious pedophiles in Canada, is a woman.
Eric,
Ask Ann Cools, who is a senator. She used to be a strong women’s libber until the facts got in her way.
The fact is that women verbally and physically abuse children to a greater degree than men do.
Women are just as likely as men to resort to violence, though the statistics and studies show that men don’t report it.
The only area where women may be behind men is in the sexual abuse arena, and the stats are starting to move on that one too.
Ultimately we have to acknowledge that these problems are not gender specific.
Our sons and grandsons are going to pay a heavy price because of the labels we have burdened them with. As a consequence, so will our daughters and granddaughters.
This is a propoganda campaign that we have all bought into. Yes, there are a category of men that fall into the most abysmal form of humanity. If the law allowed men to do what men can do best, there would be fewer of these perverts harming our children.
As it is, those who like to demean men are the same ones that refuse to allow us to deal with it effectively.
Think about it.
Umm, you’re weirding me out, Larry.
When you say, “if the law allowed men to do what men can do best, there would be fewer of these perverts harming our children.”
So you are advocating vigilante justice? For someone who thinks men are so persecuted, it is bizarre to me that you think hurting people is “what men can do best.”
While we can find counter-examples of female sex offenders, let’s face reality. Sex abuse is an overwhelmingly male disease. I don’t see what is accomplished by pretending otherwise.
Ned,
I appreciate that the comment to let men do what they do best is a liitle over the top, but I remember my grandfather telling me the story of a man who was abusing his family; a few neighbours got together and took him out behind the woodshed and gave him a whoopin’ that rivaled what he did to his children. Never had a problem again.
The real problem is that we catch and release these abusers and put them right back into our communities. If our civilized system isn’t going to handle this appropriately, then perhaps some form of vigilantism is appropriate.
After all, if mothers find them in their community they immediately try to get them moved. Isn’t that a form of vigilantism?
Let’s not forget that most of the serial killers and serial rapists are men. Period. It’s not spin, it’s not a reduced incidence of reporting, it’s that men commit these crimes more often.
As far as letting men “do what men can do best”, I think that is just the problem. Mest are the best ‘doers’ of many of these forms of activity that society wants to be rid of.
As far as society’s portrayal of men in general, I think it’s more of a backlash of the 50’s ‘father knows best’ attitudes. Men are typically seen as being bumbling dolts whose motivations are laziness, sexual gratification and watching sports (not necessarily in that order).
Is it fair? No. Yet this is the bed we’ve made for our men.
There are plenty of good examples of men who have worked hard, are kind, and who live good lives. If the young men today do not choose to seek out these types of role-models, it is their own fault that they remain un-enlightened and seem uninspired.
Many of these men may seem lazy. Some probably are, but the question we should ask ourselves is, who is allowing these men to act the way they do? Who is letting these men get away with so little? Why aren’t we willing to say,”Get up and make something of yourself.”
In this day of the ‘sensitive male’ it seems people are much more willing to let people fail, than to hurt their feelings.
I think both parties are equally to blame.
Hi Rick,
“As far as letting men “do what men can do best”, I think that is just the problem. Mest are the best ‘doers’ of many of these forms of activity that society wants to be rid of.”
This has nothing to do with their aberations; I’m talking about defending their families and providing a safe environment for everyone. When we let the social agencies set the agenda, the perverts end up back on the street.
As for your other comments – bang on.
I’m one of those backwards types who misses some of the values of the 50s. I think, in a more balanced society, children would grow up with the idea that father really does know best. The failure that we see today is a product of a rejection of those values by our post-sixties enlightened generation–not a product of those values being “forced” upon a bunch of whining rich kids who chose to follow the counsel of their professors rather than the down to earth common sense of their positivistic parents.
I will concede that, as a society, we were on our way to busting loose from the positivistic moors that held so many spoiled children bound not only because they were, in fact, spoiled, but because their wasn’t enough true religion undergirding the concurrent morality. People wanted something more sincere and as a result of turning over almost every existing christian value the sixties upheavel did effect some positive change.
The price for those changes, however, as been enormous. What we have now is a bunch of post-modern selfish twits anxiously warming up for their grand openning at the opera. Me me me me me… I would like to think that some of this might be corrected be the social pendulum swinging back a little. Let’s hope.
Jack
Also,
I must say that I’m not quite in agreement with Larry (who is one of my best online friends) on the issue of men versus women regarding child abuse. I think men are clearly more responsible for the grosser crimes of harsh sexual abuse, mutilation, murder, etc.
Where I do agree with Larry, is that there are probably actually more instances of child abuse on the part of women when verbal, emotional, and physical abuse are added to the equation. And I certainly agree that abuse from women is more likely to go unreported than that from men–keeping in mind that some of the “milder” forms of abuse aren’t taken as seriously and therefore are not as likely to be reported.
Jack
Hi Jack,
Say that on a plane and see how far you get. hee hee hee
Here is a quote from Senator Anne Cools that I mentioned earlier. She is renowned for her standing up for men and the false accusations levelled against them.
Here is what she has to say. She was head of a commission charged with the responsibility of studying this issue, so she doesn’t speak from a strictly ideological perspective. She insist on hard evidence and facts to determine her positions. She is, IMHO, the finest politician in Canada by a country mile.
“Gender feminist ideology has driven much law in Canada, and consequently has driven much injustice. It has ravaged law, justice, many careers, and many human lives. It worked for many years. It was even lucrative. It resulted in positions, jobs, grants, and even appointments to the bench. It created a terrible silence as it inflicted obvious injustices on many. It was buttressed by feminist terrorism and aggression, ready to pursue to destruction anyone who gets in its way, while chanting its mantra that all evil and violence are men’s, and that all goodness, virtue, and truth are women’s. (Mar. 4, 1999, speech in the Senate, http://sen.parl.gc.ca/acools/cools99/04mar99.htm )
“The majority of them [false accusations of abuse] are clearly by mothers. Mothers are the accusers.†(Feb 29, 2000, radio interview, http://www.fathersforlife.org/cooltlk1.htm)