Women: are you worthy of a real man?

My post yesterday about how men need to man up ruffled a lot of feathers -- as I knew it would. But it wasn't the whiny liberals complaining this time around. Here, at Wizbang, and on Melissa's blog, the same theme was repeated over and over again: what are women doing to deserve real men?

And you know, it's a good question. Right now, for most women, the answer would be NOTHING.

As much as men may be missing out on what it means to be a real man, women have this problem a hundredfold worse. The state of women today is alarming, and a significant portion of the blame can be laid at the feet of modern feminism. Many women are walking stereotypes and hypocrites. They want a real man, a strong man, to take care of them -- but if he does, he's holding her down. They want to be strong, successful, and as respected in the boardroom as the male CEOs are -- yet they want special treatment to get there. They want to be lauded for their ability to birth children and for their mothering instincts -- but they don't want to be tied down at home, doing "all the work". They want their husband or boyfriend to respect them and make them feel appreciated -- but do nothing to make him feel loved, respected, and appreciated. They talk about being "empowered" -- yet still cry that women are victims.

They're walking, talking contradictions.

Here are some of the comments I got, and Melissa got, on this subject that resonated with me.

anonymous:

Manliness is really the willingness to sacrifice self for the benefit of others, particularly a man's children, wife, family, neighbors and country.

Most young men are willing to die for the respect, admiration and love of a worthy and chaste woman. The problem is that interaction with most women today leads them quickly to the conclusion that few women are worth dying for.

Some will question the need for chastity as a requirement. However, from the male perspective, sex is the greatest compliment that a woman can pay to a man. A woman who sleeps around devalues the compliment.

I am lucky that I found such a woman. As a result, my goals in life in order of priority are fairly simple: (1) provide for my children until they graduate from college, (2) provide for my wife for the rest of her life, (3)provide for myself for the rest of my life, (4) serve my community, and (5) spend as much time with her as I can enjoying life.

MB:

Doctor Melissa, what exactly do you bring to the table as consideration for the man acting according to your precise specifications (and also apparently earning all the money)?

Your vagina?

What if the man doesn't think you're worth it, does he still have to act within your precisely defined parameters?

What a spoiled, entitled brat.

lordsomber:

Re DuToit's rant, I wonder if there's a corresponding rant by a woman criticizing the lack of real women nowadays? Cos as much as guys *do* need to 'man up,' I see plenty of women who need to grow up as well. (Present company excluded, of course.)

Aries:

Gosh, little women really think SHAMING men still works? That stopped a while ago. Scream "Man-Up" from your OWN apartment. Men have seen women in action. Whiners, complainers, misandric and endlessly focused on themselves only. Women threw men away. They're just upset that men realized how much happier they were keeping their pitiful, abusives asses to themselves. Womens Groups lobbied for laws which destroyed the Nuclear Family/Marriage. I'm happy to let women sleep in the bed they made. I'm not lifting a damn finger. Women got us in this mess. When it gets bad enough they'll fight the feminist/the source of their problems. Then MEN will show up, Not before. I'm not fighting battles for women who never cared before. Its the chivalrous nature of men which allowed this to get this far. NO LONGER OUR PROBLEM! Women have built up a lot of contempt in men and they dont know how to put the ink back in the bottle. Oh well!

So SHAME AWAY. We no longer care. Your fault! You fix the problem!!! Men are now HAPPY. We adjust. Wwwhhhiinnnne away!

DJ Drummond:
The real men never left. The women stopped noticing us.

Sean:

What? The bed's been made and now you don't want to sleep in it? Please try to understand. If guys need to "man up", how is that going to happen, because a woman tells them to? T'aint likely. Y'all wanted abortion on demand(kill the children) the pill (sex means nothing) any job a man does (just tweak the standards a little, okay?) sevice acadamies (uh, coporal Sledge raped me) and pretty much anything and everything else. Ok, you got it. Now you want us to act more like men used to, even if it's a whole new ball game. It ain't that men don't want to BE men anymore, it's just that it doesn't MEAN anything anymore, and we just quit giving a shit. And maybe, just maybe, if women didn't behave and look like whores, drink like a Templar, and talk like a sailor, there might be a point to having respect for them. But this is what women wanted, to be more like men, so welcome to club, and when you dilute the standards and race for the bottom, don't be shocked when you wake up in the gutter. I never stopped being a man, and I never needed some woman to tell me how to do it.You got questions? You don't know what happened? You want things to change for the better? Go look in the mirror. I got things to do, I'm a busy man.

I have to say, I wouldn't have looked at the issue this way were it not for comments like these. But every single one of them is exactly right.

While men are more and more emasculated in our society, there's no argument against the fact that it is because of women. Women insisted that men change. Women insisted that they show their emotions more and be less stoic; they insisted that men let themselves be more vulnerable. They try to train boys from infancy to be more feminine so that women can be more masculine.

And now what do we have? "Strong" women with an entitlement attitude and a victim mentality, while men meekly let themselves be walked all over, disrespected, and parodied left and right? Is this how anyone wants it to be?

While men have become emasculated sissy boys, women have become selfish, whiny bitches.

I think anonymous' comment summed it up the best, particularly this part:

Most young men are willing to die for the respect, admiration and love of a worthy and chaste woman. The problem is that interaction with most women today leads them quickly to the conclusion that few women are worth dying for.

So what makes a women worthy of a real man? What does she need to do? I think a large part of the problem deals with the fact that too many women have zero respect and/or appreciation for the men in their lives and the sacrifices that they (the man) are making for them (the woman). How many TV shows today show a smart, strong father figure with a smart, strong wife? When I think of an ideal relationship, that's what I envision. I don't think a real man would ever want some meek, beta female to do everything he wanted. I think he would want a real woman, someone who was his equal, who he could not only love and cherish, but respect and admire.

Anyways, the point was that you can often look to television and pop culture to see what the prevailing attitude of the day is. And too often you see a stupid, lazy husband who's probably not very good-looking and overweight, with a beautiful, brilliant wife who is clearly above him and doesn't appreciate him in the least. He does a lot of smiling meekly and saying, "Yes, dear", while she castigates him in front of her girlfriends.

Why should this guy bother being a better man for her, when she so obviously has no respect for him.

Women today were raised being told that they could have everything. You can have the high-powered career with a six-figure salary, a great husband, two adorable kids, and the house with the white picket fence. No one ever told them that this bears zero resemblance to reality. Therefore, too many women are never satisfied. Nothing their man does is ever good enough; they're never happy in their job; they're always disappointed. They couldn't open their eyes and appreciate what's in front of them if their lives depended on it. Well, that's bad (duh). You couple that with a lack of willingness to make sacrifices (because these kinds of women expect everything handed to them on a silver platter), and you have big trouble.

They expect their man to waste his entire life sacrificing to make her happy, yet she is unwilling to even lift a finger to help, or even acknowledge the sacrifice he's making -- for her. Because in her mind, she deserves all these things anyways, so it's automatically expected. It's not her man going above and beyond to prove his love for her, to provide for her -- it's him doing what's expected of him. The entitlement attitude rears its ugly head, and leaves her disappointed and him bitter.

And then you have to add in the masculinization of women. Feminism seems to view equality as "being exactly like a man". It doesn't allow for the fact that men and women are, indeed, different. So in order for women to be equal, they have to act just like men do -- drink like men, sleep around like men, cuss like men, etc. And while I'm sure it's momentarily thrilling, I somehow doubt that any man wants the drunk chick he saw making out with another girl at a party in the middle of a circle of cheering guys as the mother of his children, as someone he can respect. How is a man supposed to respect a woman who he knows has slept with a hundred different men without blinking an eye? With the advent of abortion on demand, birth control, and feminists cheering slutty behavior on, women have been "liberated" to... sleep around? And this strengthens and empowers women... how?

So what do we have? We have women who expect the world to be given to them, and when it isn't, demand special treatment and affirmative action to get it. They want a man who will do everything she asks of him and more, without ever showing appreciation or gratitude for him. They want to act like men, but be treated like women. They want everything, but are unwilling to do what it takes to get it.

They spent twenty years emasculating men, and eventually realized that it isn't what they want at all. And when they figured out that they wanted real men, many of them had disappeared or weren't interested.

Women need to take a step back -- a big step -- and do a lot of introspection. While yes, this is America, you can't have everything. You can accomplish anything you want, but it always comes with a price. And if women want a real man, then they're going to have to find it in themselves to be able to respect him, to appreciate all he does, and to work as hard as he does at their life, whether inside or outside of the home. I think most men are willing to do just about anything for their wives, if they knew that she was grateful and appreciative. Is it too much to ask to take our egos down a few pegs?

If women want real men to re-emerge, then they need to make themselves worthy of them.