“Oh, a little respect, Yeah, baby, I want a little respect”
When Aretha Franklin belted out those words at the start of the era of gender politics, I, in my innocence, having never heard of gender politics, assumed that she was making reference to the civil rights movement in the US. It was the era of ‘Black Power’ after all.
The song has stood the test of time, and is one of the most popular at Karaoke evenings now. So I am told anyway – never having been willing to apply evidence based thinking to my knowledge of Karaoke. Now it seems to be the theme song of the modern woman, or female Twitterer.
That really is what the Twitter outrage story is about, isn’t it? None of these women really believe that they are about to be raped, any more than the ‘Female bloggers cry rape‘- but they do object to being spoken to in such a rough and uncouth manner. It has become the latest battlefield in the gender politics war. One more mountain to be climbed in the search for female emancipation. Or is it?
One defining characteristic of the women, Laura Penny, Caitlin Moran et al, who are shouting loudest about the indignity of being spoken to via Twitter in this manner is that they are young. Too young. Too young to realise that women once had the respect they demand today as though it is some new and shinny bauble that is missing from their lives.
I am happily starting to give Methuselah a run for his money in the longevity stakes, and I have a different perspective on these matters. Women had respect – few men as recently as the 60s would have uttered a swear word in front of a woman, even under circumstances of great stress, without reddening and apologising profusely. Rape wasn’t unknown, even rape within marriage, but it was a rarity that we had heard of but didn’t expect to experience nor live in fear of, simply because the vast majority of men took it for granted that protecting a woman was his duty. A boyfriend who took you out, and didn’t walk you safely home again would never get a second chance.
That wasn’t solely the way of the world for a favoured few, but the norm. Even as a teenage run away – surely that most vulnerable of creatures in terms of harm that could befall you – men routinely stepped forward to protect me from harm, to ensure that I was safe, warm and fed. Nowadays it is axiomatic that the first man who sets eyes on you as a teenage runaway will ‘groom’ you for sex with 15 of his mates. Of course there were dangers around, aberrant males, child abusers – we all knew not to ‘accept sweets from a stranger’ – but it was still possible for the average woman, even a vulnerable teenage runaway, to go through life without being raped, without being abused, without having a string of foul language directed at her.
So what has changed?
Is it that women are more emancipated these days? Taking men’s jobs, invading their spaces, usurping their authority? Scarcely! In the 60s women were everywhere in positions of authority. On the throne, (and consequently on our bank notes!) running schools, hospitals, heading up departments in the Civil Service. An entire generation had found a shortage of men to marry, and used as they were to doing the ordinary men’s jobs whilst the men were busy blasting away at each other in the trenches had merely continued to do so. They trained as Doctors, ran shops, became lawyers, aircraft mechanics, naval officers, farmers, bred horses and dogs rather than children….I have heard tell of the ‘glass ceiling’ that kept women ‘in their place’ – but I saw precious little evidence of it amongst the women that I knew.
So it must be that men have changed, yes? After thousands of years of civilisation, they have suddenly turned into untrustworthy animals? Foul mouthed, spending every waking moment looking for new opportunities to abuse the nearest child, or to intimidate an unwary woman? Allowed an anonymity that previous generations didn’t find in the poison pen letter or toilet wall graffiti but now given by the ability to call themselves what they will on Twitter – why Mary Jane can become Fred Bloggs, and Fred Bloggs can call himself Annabelle, and this has somehow unleashed the animal in man? I am struggling with that one…
Undeniably there is foul mouthed abuse and threats delivered and received via Twitter. (I should add here that the most sustained and foul mouthed abuse I have ever received on-line turned out to come from a Mother of four children…) Shouldn’t women be more concerned with how they came to lose the respect of men, rather than demanding that its absence be punished? Rather than making it illegal, or rather more illegal than it already is – would it not make more sense to explore the reasons why it is happening, rather than assuming that you can put a stop to the apparent change of heart by men towards women simply by adding a button to Twitter?
Why did women lose men’s respect so dramatically? For lose it they did…
Discuss – under a false username if deemed necessary!
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August 9, 2013 at 04:25 -
XX Why did women lose men’s respect so dramatically? For lose it they did… XX
They wanted equality. They got it.
“Be carefull what you ask for.”
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August 9, 2013 at 04:29 -
OK. Should have read the posts first, (HEY it is only 05:30 here, and I am about to go to bed!)
XX Joe Public August 7, 2013 at 14:07 XX
Said it first. Totaly agree.
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August 9, 2013 at 04:23 -
An interesting question that is being asked in the US too.
The book ‘Men On Strike’ by Dr. Helen Smith (a noted psychologist) addresses the question of why men there are withdrawing from marriage, education and even work. As others have pointed out, ‘equality’ was reached years ago, what is being done now is both for superiority and revenge (for mostly imagined ills). She points out that men withdraw from such, and I’d suggest chivalrous behaviour is another, because there is no longer any benefit for them, and in many cases considerable probable negative outcomes, should they not.
Dr. Smiths (equally qualified and lauded) husband writes as Instapundit (http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/), and has repeatedly written articles stating that ‘chivalry was a code that imposed responsibilities on women as much as men’. When women, not only, no longer respect such behaviour, but actively disparage it (supported by feminist organisations and even, in many instances,, by the courts, police and other authorities of the land) surely the question should be – why would any sensible man ever behave or involve himself with a woman in such a manner?
Something ladies seem to have forgotten is ‘As you sow, so shall you reap’.
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August 8, 2013 at 00:12 -
I’ll say i’ve never been raped and find most men who are not completely indifferent, helpful with good intentions more than anything else.
I’ll happily walk home on my own at night and have only really ran into friendly strangers or indifferent one’s, lol…
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August 7, 2013 at 23:44 -
“but it was still possible for the average woman, even a vulnerable teenage runaway, to go through life … without having a string of foul language directed at her”
If only, lol…
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August 7, 2013 at 23:09 -
Well, wouldn’t you know, it seems there’s actually been no progress on the equality front.
“Girls are never innocent, they are born knowing, alluring seductresses at any age, asking for it, in one way or another.”
And that piece in full…
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/07/misogyny-society-abused-children-predatory
No surprises as to the source of that one. I’d comment but I note how many remarks have been removed by the moderators already…
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August 7, 2013 at 21:20 -
They don’t seem to have this problem in Saudi Arabia…….
Being of a similar production date to Anna, I concur with her observations. Being educated at an all-male school further enhanced the ‘respect’ in which I have always held those of t’other gender – I find it hard to separate how much of that respect was family cultural upbringing and how much was engendered by the sheer unattainablilty of female ‘intercourse’ through those challenging teenage years.
But I got over that, learnt that women are pretty good to be around, every bit as bright as blokes, I’ve worked alongside many, sampled a few, married one, emerging from the total experience with a confirmed view that women are different but equal. I celebrate the differences while enjoying the equality. I’m not a feminist, they’re just strident voice-boxes, the ‘Menstrual Militia’. I’m an equalist.When I married Mrs Mudplugger many years ago, she insisted on making the traditional ‘obey’ commitment – maybe I should test that contract one day…. But I won’t, of course – it’s not a master & slave arrangement, never was, it’s just two equals making it work for each other. I think she feels the same way, but she may just be fooling me……..
I’ll just carry on holding doors open for all, treating all humans as I hope they would treat me and enjoying the huge range of different versions you meet within the 7 billion or so with whom we share this planet. We’re not here for much longer, so make the most of its positive experiences along the way.
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August 7, 2013 at 22:13 -
Couldn’t agree more Mudplugger. My very best to Mrs Mudplugger.
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August 7, 2013 at 19:52 -
There has been a general coarsening of public life, but I think there’s still hope. When I was a lad, not that long ago (cough), it was the done thing to stand up and offer your seat to an older person on a bus if it was fairly full. I thought stuff like that had gone by the board, but using the bus into town recently (first time on a bus in twenty-five years – car was in for MOT) I was offered a seat by a shy teenaged girl. I declined (politely, I hope) as I’m not yet of pensionable age; however, the occurrence did raise my faith in the much-maligned youth of today.
During an office discussion a few years ago between a couple of us engineers and a fairly sharp-tongued young lady with rather aggressive feminist traits, she complained about being patronised by men holding doors open for her. Our reply was that the gesture was intended as a bit of politeness from one human being to another, and most of us held doors open for other men, too. She went quiet after that.
There is a bit of an attitude problem from some women. However, in my experience, most women (and men) are just trying to get on with being half-decent human beings in a sometimes rather mad world.
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August 7, 2013 at 19:26 -
Neither my late husband or my son would ever swear in front of me although both did at work. I remember the old days well, funny thing I never felt put upon by men at any time and never have. We could walk home safely through the Gorbals late at night from the dance halls and were never afraid. it just didn’t occur to me that I wouldn’t be safe when I went out with someone. My only experience of danger was being attacked by a stranger on my way home, I was in my 20s then and have posted about it here. I think the constant denigration of men, the loss of their status as breadwinner looking after their family have all contributed to their loss of respect for women. After all if they are all condemned as potential rapists or wife beaters why should they value women? Erin Pizzy wrote with a lot of life experience and common sense which resulted in her being ostracized by the feminists when she did more to help women than any of them.
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August 7, 2013 at 19:16 -
This is not exactly a new phenomenon. In the mid-70s I worked in the back office of a major USA bank. My American female colleagues were far from being ‘trailer trash’, but their utterances around the office were liberally peppered with the F word. Not said in anger, or acute frustration — which one might’ve understood and forgiven — but merely as unremarkable adjuncts of any sentence. Unremarkable to them, anyway. It was all the more cringe-making as we were not based in America: we were in the Middle East office, which had a multi-national staff.
A friend who later went to work in the States made a similar observation. She was working in an entirely unrelated field from banking and her colleagues, too, were supposedly well-educated. So perhaps this was yet another ‘norm’ imported from over the Pond? Now, we no longer flinch at the word when it’s heard in theatre, film or TV drama, where it’s used by male and female characters alike.
This is but one of the small, incremental, changes which have chipped away at the notion of polite public discourse. Of course, Flanders & Swann must take their share of the blame too, for “Pee po belly bum drawers”….
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August 7, 2013 at 19:24 -
My mum worked in a factory in the Seventies and always said that “the women were worse than the men”…..
What she failed to account for was that men would tend not swear in front of her….. for all those old-fashioned reasons Anna suggests.-
August 12, 2013 at 10:52 -
Weird. I know an older lady who was a petty officer in the wrens and she seems to think that they did. And lots of old ladies I have met seem to think that too. Still, maybe they existed in a different dimension. If you read accounts of WW2 then you might get a different picture of ‘the way things used to be’.
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August 12, 2013 at 10:57 -
@Bobby
That’s the trouble with Anecdotage I guess. He says potatoes, she says tomatoes.
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August 7, 2013 at 19:04 -
I haven’t been following the young reporters and their complaints but I do follow Mary Beard on Twitter and she has been receiving dreadful insults and threats which I would find very disturbing if aimed at me. She is not so young and does, in my opinion, deserve respect, yet is subject to this on line abuse. Not sure if you intended to include such examples in your post. I do wonder if the instant publication and subsequent gratification of attention is a part of the issue.
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August 7, 2013 at 17:42 -
The anonymity of the web is an enabler but not the cause. It used to be unthinkable to address a woman in the way often done nowadays, anonymous or not.
I think it comes down to the need for reciprocity in human relationships. In the same way that it can be difficult to like a person who, we know or suspect dislikes us, so it is difficult to have respect for a person who despises us.
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August 7, 2013 at 16:50 -
I was riding my bike in a counntry park, and came across a little group, picnicing on the grass, a few women and a bunch of childred and toddlers. I gave them a fairly wide berth, not wishing to collide with one of the kids running around, and as I passed, I heard one of the women shouting out (to one of the kids, I think, “What the fuckety fuck fucking fucko fuckworthy fucktype fuck ….” I’m not quoting exactly, I was too astonished to take it in. I rode on …
Respect? Not with a nine-foot bargepole.
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August 7, 2013 at 16:49 -
Many, many years ago, a highly skilled manager I had the good fortune to work for had to make a female redundant.
After breaking the sad news, he made a light-hearted comment “I hope you’ll take this like a man”. She didn’t; she sued the company. And won.
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August 7, 2013 at 22:10 -
Oh heck, did the boss lose his job too?
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August 7, 2013 at 16:23 -
Some of the abuse is of course loathesome but it is terrifically useful to the more authoritarian feminists. A relative handful of incidents can be blown up into evidence of a mythical, widespread “rape culture” and be the excuse for all sorts of draconian measures.
It also helps to create an atmosphere where questioning or criticizing politely the arguments of a female writer or politician, complete with reasoned arguments backed up with references, can be crudely and easily dismissed as an “attack” or “abuse”. This will invariably happen on any thread written by a woman on a contentious issue on “Comment is Free” (sic).
The few morons who use real abuse are making life easier for the people they despise, not harder. -
August 7, 2013 at 15:51 -
Splendid post Anna,
I’ve just finished watching a jolly good i-player programme [unusually], that takes a look at the modern German culture:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b038669g/
In the programme we deduce that Britain’s mothers are rarely with their children, whilst German mothers are rarely away from theirs. Now a question comes to mind: Do Germans have an equivalent of ‘mums.net’?Considering the Germans have a far more involved motherhood culture than the British do, isn’t it ironic that our declining family culture in the UK, has spawned the neo-fascist site ‘mums.net’.
What say you, young Anna?
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August 7, 2013 at 19:24 -
Haven’t clicked the linky but I’d be surprised if German Muttis were more involved with their kids than Brit. There is a big debate in Germany ATM about gving Stay-At-Home Moms an extra paltry sum if they choose not to send their child to Kindergarten. Pretty much everyone except the Bavarian Tories (whose idea it is) thinks the idea is stupid because German Moms are pretty much expected , and more importantly EXPECT, to hand over their children to the care of trained professionals and go back to work from the moment Little Hans’ eyes can focus. As of the 1st of this month all german mother’s have a legal right to a kindergarten place …on paper anyways.
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August 7, 2013 at 15:34 -
I must admit I am continually shocked by the behaviour of some young women today. Some are very brash but perhaps that is how it’s supposed to be – I really don’t know. It’s not the way I behaved but that was so long ago from the late 60′s onwards. I always thought that the lyrics of RESPECT were a bit pathetic, give me some respect when you’re home and I’ll give you my money. I don’t know if ‘money’ was a euphemism or was actually money. There were a few songs from that era that I found equally pathetic if not patronising; Bert Bacharach’s ‘Wives and Lovers’ was one; I found that sick making. Try a little tenderness was another. What I do believe is that if women want to be treated equally, that’s good but there are obvious differences and always will be. I don’ think it’s about a woman’s intellect being rubbished by men but challenged by both genders and if anyone puts their head above the parapet then they must expect that. I think a really good challenge of my opinion would perhaps shut my mouth for a while but I wouldn’t crumble, because I know most know so much more than I do, life’s a learning curve. There will always be odd balls out there, perhaps it’s best to ignore them. What a chicken and egg conundrum this is though.
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August 7, 2013 at 16:44 -
I always thought that the lyrics of RESPECT were a bit pathetic, give me some respect when you’re home and I’ll give you my money.
No, as I said above it was adapted from an original Otis Redding song, in which she would give him respect (code for sex) and he would give her money.
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August 7, 2013 at 16:49 -
But I agree about pathetic lyrics. For example I could never make head nor tail out of this one:
Oh what’s love got to do, got to do with it
What’s love but a second hand emotion
What’s love got to do, got to do with it
Who needs a heart
When a heart can be brokenThis was a huge hit for Tina Turner, but the song was apparently originally written for Cliff Richard, of all people.
I have never understood what “second hand emotion” means, but lots of people have told me it makes sense to them. I still don’t get it, but then I am just not a lyrics person.
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August 7, 2013 at 19:29 -
Well, the lyrics fitted the tune. Didn’t really matter if they meant anything. (I can’t help feeling that applies to an awful lot of so-called ‘meaningful’ songs.)
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August 7, 2013 at 19:43 -
Tina’s song was surely very simple. It was the idea that people had “relationships” because this is what their human chemistry required and it would be foolish to rely on the thing called love – a tradition Sinatra knew all about when he sang a romantic duet with his daughter [
] about spoiling it all by saying something stupid like I love you.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xkm4jx_frank-nancy-sinatra-something-stupid-stereo-hq_music -
August 7, 2013 at 20:42 -
@Moor
Yes but what is a “second hand emotion”? I go with Engineer that it is just mostly a matter of the lyrics fitting the tune.
“Michelle, ma belle,
These are words that go together well.”You don’t say!
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August 7, 2013 at 20:45 -
Classic example of making the words fit the tune is in ‘Every Time We Say Goodbye’, brilliantly sung by the smoke-haunted voice of Nat King Cole – the bizarre line “How strange the change from major to minor” is quite irrelevant in lyrical terms but fits very neatly with the musical key-shift – but how many people have noticed it ?
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August 7, 2013 at 21:08 -
@Jonathan Mason
You must understand
That the touch of your hand
Makes my pulse react
That it’s only the thrill
Of boy meeting girl
Opposites attractIt’s physical
Only logical
You must try to ignore
That it means more than thatThe “second-handedness” is the notion that “love” is just how society rationalises the chemistry, so it’s not real, it’s what you turn the hormonal rush into – inside your head…. a second-hand emotion, a learned behaviour. All part of that “free love” era where there was a wish to dispense with the delusion that we are moral beings, and encourage acceptance we are just genetic machines powered by hormones.
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August 7, 2013 at 21:20 -
@Mudplugger
Yes, Cole smoked three packs a day of Kools, and believed this helped his smokey voice. Guess what he died of?
Cole was a consummate musician and pianist in a variety of styles, but the lyrics to that song were written by Cole Porter, himself no stranger to witty lyrics.
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August 7, 2013 at 21:44 -
MYSTERY SOLVED!!!!
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August 7, 2013 at 21:48 -
But if a woman is singing the lyric we have to assume the role change. I actually thought money might be the code for sex. It’s not important though.
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August 7, 2013 at 22:05 -
‘How strange the change from major to minor’ go’s from Ab major to Ab minor
It’s easy. A major key is bright, lively. The minor key is sad. So ev’ry time we say goodbye I cry a little, die a little. The God’s above me who must be in the know think so little of me they allow you to go.
However, this song from 1944 I think is beautifully sung by Ella.
Should say that Nat King Cole did die of lung cancer poor old Cole Porter who wrote Ev’ry time we say goodbye, died of kidney failure after a long illness. He’s one of my favourite word smiths.-
August 7, 2013 at 22:18 -
Talking music now too eh… I feel more at home here with every visit
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August 7, 2013 at 22:35 -
Ah, Chris I do love music. Sorry if I bored you all.
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August 7, 2013 at 23:25 -
ah, ‘yew’ can’t bore me with music.
http://itstotp.blogspot.com -
August 8, 2013 at 08:54 -
@ Charlotte.
I’d never spotted that musical nuance (not being musically trained, I just like good songs) but Cole Porter was a very smart writer and that may very well have been his intent. Agree that Ella’s version is also excellent – but then most performances by both Nat and Ella were – quality lasts.
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August 7, 2013 at 14:49 -
The rampage of ‘feminism’ these days baffles me – what do they want now that they don’t have already?
If they want they can be rude (brutally so, if they see fit), drink, smoke and even urinate in the street, have the run of the job market and can decide – at any point in time – if any physical or sexual contact with a man (even imagined) constitutes assault or abuse.
It is now about the repression of men, not equality.
As has been mentioned before, Twitter I find utterly moronic – and the “trolls” and 140-character Campaigners I find equally vile and insulting. I am there, but keep my contribution to a minimum.-
August 7, 2013 at 15:00 -
They are just reflecting what happens in almost every situation where SOME of those who perceive themselves as previously ‘downtrodden’ (whether that was truly so or not), once their fight for justice has been won and the position has been rectified, do not realise that it is bad form to then continue to kick the other side when its down. They all get their comeuppance eventually, when just how appalling they are, and what they are doing, finally sinks in on everyone else. It just takes time, and unfortunately that’s sometimes more than the average man or woman’s lifespan
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August 7, 2013 at 14:47 -
Beg pardon.
That should say “…in withholding…”.
And “…ought to share…”
Eyes. It’s me eyes. I really should get some reading glasses.
CR.
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August 7, 2013 at 14:44 -
Am I alone in withhold my respect until it is earned?
There was a time when I would unashamedly respect anyone in uniform, in politics, or in a judges robe, or indeed anyone in ‘authority’.
The blinkers are off and I have learnt that a great many of these people are not deserving of my (or your) respect. It has been a rude awakening, I can tell you. Ignorance and bliss really out to share the same place in the dictionary.
But to respect an entire sex? Madness. Think of May, think of Dorries, think of Flint. All of these women let the female side down. There are countless others but who has the time to list them all?
For balance, a great many men are twats as well. Blair, Brown, Cameron, Clegg, and that bastard Heath are but a few….
Hang on to your respect. Hand it over in the same way you would a precious gem.
CR.
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August 7, 2013 at 16:00 -
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August 7, 2013 at 17:35 -
Nellie McClung is my personal favourite! What a great name!!
CR.
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August 7, 2013 at 18:33 -
Astonishingly, Erin Pizzey is listed there, and her wiki page cites this:
Pizzey said in 2009 that she has “never been a feminist, because, having experienced my mother’s violence, I always knew that women can be as vicious and irresponsible as men”
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August 7, 2013 at 19:04 -
There are a few blokes listed as well…..
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August 7, 2013 at 14:43 -
Some help needed please
How do I subscribe to a post, so as to get the comments made, via my email, without first having to make a comment myself?
It’s probably obvious and staring me in the face, but any advice would be most welcome
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August 7, 2013 at 14:43 -
I’ll give you all a good laugh now. At seventy years of age I still mix with younger women in the motorcycle club I frequent. I’ve always liked women and get on well with them and now I’m of an age not to pose a sexual problem to them I get on even better with them (I think).
Well, I still am shocked inwardly when I hear a nice young woman come out with ‘f*ck that’, ‘f*ck them’, ‘f*ck this’ etc but do my best not to show it. I often say to them, in a jocular way, ‘Very nice from a young lady’. Then we all laugh at my ancient innocence and get on with the conversation. Please don’t think I am unworldly, I was Airborne (Para) in the 60s and no language from a man ruffles these old feathers, I’ve heard and used it all. My women friends are no less worthy of respect than the girls of my youth – they are decent women with a different socialization to mine, that’s all. Our society has been changed radically over the last 50 years by those in the driving seat. I am still not sure why and try to stay away from conspiracy thoughts. However, there is no doubt in my mind that there is a close coincidence between the hopes of the ‘Frankfurt school’ re undermining western society and what has come to pass. I hope it is coincidence but am not sure.
I have come to think that younger and middle-aged women are demanding fairness in all areas of life and that’s no bad thing. Some of the brashness is one way of saying ‘I’m your equal, I can act as rough n tough as you and more so if I want.’ They and their menfolk will build a very different world from the one I look back on and love and have lost but it will come with downsides as well as upsides. I hope the balance will be in favour of ordinary folk but I doubt it. That’s not in the nature of the beast. I believe that TPTB allow or produce change which is advantageous to themselves. What we are seeing, in terms of social divisions is certainly to their advantage. While we consider the damage they continue to plunder and pillage our poor society without let or hindrance.
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August 7, 2013 at 15:06 -
I was at a BBQ with some friends – and, alas, some idiots, a few weeks ago. These tattooed young “ladies” were guzzling vodka and smoking, like lab rats, those e-cigarettes. Sparkly pink e-cigarettes. Watching them greedily puffing away, bulging out of their tight maxi-dressed – I quipped that I thought that girls shouldn’t smoke as it is somewhat ‘unladlike’ – and before I had chance to finish my sentence with ‘as the only thing they should be smoking is The Big Fella’, the portly blonde one with a tattoo behind her ear shouted “eh, it’s not the f***ing 1950s. We can do what we want”
Quite, thought I. And how very vile and unattractive most of these idiots who “can do what we want” are….-
August 7, 2013 at 15:09 -
“unladylike’ that should read, not ‘unladlike’. They are clearly very ‘ladlike’
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August 7, 2013 at 15:07 -
Things change. I never heard my mother (born 1923) utter a swear word and I seriously doubt she even said the word “fuck” in her life. She grew up in an ordinary family in Suffolk and her father drove a bus.
But then I doubt whether she ever ate a hamburger either. She called them “those beefburger things”.
However, she traveled toWest Africa on her own in her early 20′s in the late 1940′s, and was deputy matron of a hospital in northern Nigeria. When she arrived in Lagos, she bought a car and drove 200 miles upcountry on dirt roads, never having driven before.
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August 7, 2013 at 16:47 -
@Den
@ now I’m of an age not to pose a sexual problem to them I get on even better with them (I think).@That’s what Jimmy Savile probably thought they were thinking………….
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August 7, 2013 at 16:59 -
Being a man of great worldly experience, I am quite sure that both were over 16.
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August 7, 2013 at 17:04 -
Savile’s last offence was said to be a helpless woman of 49……….
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August 7, 2013 at 17:10 -
Blimey! Hope my jury is better than the one I served on.
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August 7, 2013 at 14:27 -
Excellent post. I did not know that Aretha Franklin’s version of Respect had a connection with feminism. The song was originally written by Otis Redding and it is believed that the word “respect” was code for sex. Redding also wrote a song called Satisfaction, of which Mick Jagger couldn’t get none–though he tried his best.
However I must admit to being one of those who almost never pays attention to lyrics of popular songs and 90% of the music I listen to is instrumental jazz, so what do I know?
Yes, when I was a stripling men had to walk on the outside of the pavement to protect women from being splashed with ordure by passing tumbrils , but now that has all changed thanks to shopping malls and pedestrian city centres. I bet women want to bring back the ox-carts for that very reason. Back in those days women washed dishes and men dried, but the automatic dishwasher made men redundant.
My wife wants to relocate to the USA, but since I have two young daughters I am reluctant to go, as it will be hard to protect them from marauding rapists, especially if they go to college. I would rather stay in the Dominican Republic, where they are more likely to become prostitutes, I suppose, but at least they would get paid for their trouble.
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August 7, 2013 at 16:37 -
@Jonathan Mason
@The song was originally written by Otis Redding and it is believed that the word “respect” was code for sex.”@Sung by a man, it is plainly a demand for sex when he comes home after work…………
Hey little girl, you’re so sweeter than honey
And I am about to just give you all my money
All I’m asking for
Is a little respect when I come home
http://www.oldielyrics.com/lyrics/otis_redding/respect.html-
August 8, 2013 at 03:54 -
Of course he’s talking about sex in an ultimate sense, but as he states the case, in his willingness to concede that his wife may not think all that much of him, and he even wonders whether she cheats on him (“What you want, baby I got it, what you need…/you can do me wrong while I’m gone/but all I ask is for a little respect when I get home.”) Really, he just wants his woman to be affectionate and show that she’s glad he’s home, and not immediately put him to work taking out the rubbish, etc. “Just gimme my propers” means “Treat me as if I really mean something to you.” And that means “Act like you’re my lover, not my boss,” which will eventually lead to…well, y’know…
But you wonder whether Otis Redding actually had that problem– somehow I don’t really see him as Rodney Dangerfield, saying “Hey– no respect! I don’t get no respect! It’s rough being me– life’s a jungle, I tell ya!”
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August 8, 2013 at 07:48 -
@therealguyfaux
I had regretted my original rush and loose use of the term “demand”. You are wholly correct. Otis was indeed just asking for respect in the first instance – perhaps merely what might have been called manners up to a point. It is a sign of my own hyper-sexualisation that I inevitably then hastened from all those things that make up “behaving with love in your heart”, to the denominator that does often prove the equation to be true for a certain set of parameters but is by no means always necessary for the hypothesis to be proven…..
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August 7, 2013 at 14:20 -
Today in the Independant:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/the-real-bad-girls–extraordinary-insight-into-londons-female-gang-culture-8748938.html
And in the same issue:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/judge-calls-victim-13-a-sexual-predator-outcry-as-man-walks-free-after-admitting-sex-with-girl-8748494.html
Compare.
Women of all ages are a protected species, like bats.
Forget Mary Bell – They are all pure and innocent, and by definition can do no wrong. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Bell-
August 7, 2013 at 17:03 -
Girls under 16 are pure and innocent unless defiled by a man.
Then there’s a muddy two years before they hit the booze at 18.
Then they become tabloid fodder………
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2255587/New-Years-Eve-2012-Shameful-scenes-booze-fuelled-chaos-cities-Britain.html -
August 8, 2013 at 00:23 -
Shaftmonde,
Mary Bell was an evil little…
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August 7, 2013 at 14:18 -
The stand-off between Bristol Tweeter Peter Nunn – some call him ‘The Nunnmpty’ – has resulted in the arrest of the keen male blogger/tweeter/buffoon
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23599115
http://www.youtube.com/user/stabvests/videos-
August 7, 2013 at 14:25
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August 7, 2013 at 14:07 -
“Why did women lose men’s respect so dramatically? For lose it they did… ”
(Some) men have always sworn & been abusive to other men. Only a few dacades ago, saturday night rumbles at closing time, mods vs rockers, football hooliganism, etc, etc.
Then (some) women demanded ‘equality’, so why do they whinge when they get it?
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August 7, 2013 at 14:22 -
Well said Joe, whilst I totally agree in “equality” I deplore the feminists (thank god not all women are like that ) that believe it is below them to accept what I would call simple manners or to use an old fashioned term chivalry, things like holding the door, walking on the street side, standing when a women comes in the room. This surely shows more respect than the current start of affairs.
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August 7, 2013 at 22:01 -
I, too, once used to behave chivalrously toward all women. No longer. I have been sworn at, ignored and received verbal abuse for simply holding open a door.
Equality? You want it, you’ve got it. Now take the rough with the smooth. The door closes? Open it yourself. The seat’s up? Hinges work both ways, babe. It’s raining? Get your own umbrella.
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August 7, 2013 at 15:08 -
Except it isn’t equality they’re after is it? It’s Superiority.
I’ve been married for over 25 years, and in all that time I’ve never laid a finger on the wife.
However, there’s this mindset amongst certain females who believe they have a god given right to hit men, but under no circumstances can a man retaliate. (My eldest daughter is one of these) Sorry but if a woman hits me, she gets a no misunderstanding, concise, clear warning of the positively guaranteed consequencies if she does it again. That’s not being a bully, that’s just refusing to be anyones punchbag.
I have also reserved the right (under these circumstances) to thump their Boyfriend/Husband/significant other if they object and fail to keep their dogs (that’s all they are) muzzled and on a leash whilst out in public. -
August 7, 2013 at 17:11 -
They were once referred to as the weaker sex and in many respects treated that way but many now demand and deserve equality but cannot accept that equality applies all along the line and not just when and where it suits them.
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August 7, 2013 at 13:49 -
Two major differences between “the age of courtesy” and now is the internet and mobile phones. We did not have the virtually-instant communications then, so (attitudes to) the safety of women were necessarily different. Men, as you say, had a responsibility to see their girlfriend home safely – there was no possibility of relying on a mobile to call for help if attacked, so no woman would put herself in a vulnerable situation.
The internet has, in my view, released many male deviants from seclusion into imagining their delusions are shared, so they now venture out.
Also, we did not have inbred and uneducated immigrants grooming young impressionable girls…
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August 7, 2013 at 13:58 -
Perhaps we didn’t have the girls prepared to be groomed either….
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August 7, 2013 at 14:09 -
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August 7, 2013 at 19:56 -
Joe, the NSPCC and their fellow travellers would have us believe we would live in an idyllic Enid Blyton wonderland if it were not for evil predatory men.
Several years ago, I worked at an EBD school, where you naturally had more conversations with the children in your care than you would at mainstream schools – over breakfast, lunch, at breaks, and driving them to and from school. One day a fourteen year old girl confided to me (boastfully to be honest) about her 30 year old boyfriend. Of course I reported the conversation to the school’s child protection officer. She told me that she already knew of the situation and had been in contact with social services, but no action would be taken.
I asked for an explanation as to why and was given some of the history of girl. At 12 she had been in a relationship with a man in his thirties, who was convicted and g
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] about spoiling it all by saying something stupid like I love you.
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