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Miss California

Particle Man

Match Penalty
Joined
Mar 23, 2008
Particle Man, It sounds like you're going through a very bad time.

As a white male in the United States of 2009, yes I am, and so are all the others whether they realize it or not. (Well, other than those "men" who just exist for sexual conquest.) In essence, other than distractions/hobbies like figure skating, I have nothing to live for in this country other than making money, which doesn't greatly interest me by itself. What good is money in an empty life? Cheap sex doesn't interest me. The family is dead, marriage is dead. I was raised to believe in those things, and I live in a country/world where they are extremely hard to achieve. You're right that divorce is "lose/lose" especially for the kids, but most women don't realize it until later in life, or maybe never. They just discard their man like a paper towel and go off looking for a new one. When things get hard - give up! The court will reward you if you are female! Your brother's situation is extremely atypical. And I never said women get 95% of assets, I said 95% of the time women are favored in court.

I'm glad that you have been in a stable marriage for a long time. You grew up in a different era. I'm willing to bet that in your marriage, there is something called mutual respect. That you have ideals higher than just looking for the biggest monetary and situational advantage. That even though you rightfully want more than JUST being a wife and mother, you still believe that being a wife and mother is a thing to be honored, instead of a backward notion to be ashamed of, or a tedious chore that gets in the way of your "real life." The "traditional family values" from your era are a shadow of what they were, and continue to fade every day. If your circle of friends is also from your era, you probably don't see it. I don't personally know a single couple my age or younger who has been married any length of time. I've given up even imagining that I could be.
 

Tonichelle

Idita-Rock-n-Roll
Record Breaker
Joined
Jun 27, 2003
My parents were married in 1981... my dad is 55 this year, mom just turned 63. In my mom's case it's her second marriage. The first dissolved because her exhusband was cheating on her. Not the other way around.

My aunt is in a relationship right now with a man who has done the same thing to his first wife as my mom's ex did to her. Only he didn't have the guts to warn his wife first.

I don't think women are the only ones who can be 'evil' in a relationship, far from it. But there are MANY happily married couples for a LONG time... and they all haven't had the rosey lives. Two of my close friends (couples both in their 20s very early 30s) are weathering through the horrible storm of losing a child (one in childbirth, the other during surgery... both under the age of three). In a lot of cases grief brings out the very worst in a couple, but they're weathering through there by the Grace of God. It's not easy, marriage is not easy.

Most of my 'girlfriends' that are married are either stay at home mothers, or they do work but their first priority is their home and family. This is by choice, not because they fear the wrath of God or anything spiritual. It's what they want. By some this is considered weak minded and backwards, but if it's truly THEIR CHOICE how can it be wrong? Isn't that what the women's movement was about? Having the choice? or at least the option if they need to take it?


If and when I get married I have no problem with the hubby being the main 'bread winner' - I still plan to work to bring in that second income, but only so far as it does not interfere with my family. Now, if, for some reason I have a job and he doesn't that's different, but so long as one of us is working the other doesn't NEED the work.. might as well go with tradition... besides the job path I would like to follow is a little more condusive to this sort of plan anyway... I can work from home as a photographer.
 
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Medusa

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 6, 2007
entire post
Where exactly do you live? Hollywood?

Sounds like a really bad place.

I think most people are actually raised to love their families. I was raised to be a good and dutiful daughter and I have always tried to fulfil my roles as a daughter, granddaughter and sister to the best of my abilities. The same way I will fulfil my roles as a mother and wife, if I am so lucky to be that one day.

Where I come from, lots of people think so. And in my extended family, I only know one divorced woman.

So wherever you live - just move away!
 

Tonichelle

Idita-Rock-n-Roll
Record Breaker
Joined
Jun 27, 2003
I agree with Medusa... yes there are divorces all over in the US but not all of them are as ugly as what is portrayed here, some even get back together... but it takes that seperation to make the change.... which I find incredibly encouraging and hopeful.

And considering the divorce proceedings that my brother was involved in (his bio parents' divorce, lol, Duane's not even legal age to marry!) it's not always the woman who gets everything even NOW... which is why Duane ended up with his sexually abusive father instead of his mother (who couldn't protect him anyway as his father threatend to kill her).

Some people are just ugly. Doesn't matter what race, religion, creed, or gender.
 

dorispulaski

Wicked Yankee Girl
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
Country
United-States
Yes, it's a fact that some people are just evil.

As to marriage stats: In my family, my one brother divorced and the other brother stayed married until he died at 49. One of our sons is married and has been so for 14 years. The other never married. 3 of my nieces have long term marriages. (one was married for less than a year, but the 2nd marriage is long term) A fourth niece had a short marriage and has not remarried. However, her first husband was an extremely abusive guy who beat her up all the time. It was a nightmare. She is very shy of relationships of any sort at this time. Of my nephews, 2 are in long term marriages. The 3rd one married the girl he was fooling around on the side with after he dumped his first wife.

I would not advise any woman to be a stay at home mom because being one drove me completely nuts (seriously seriously depressed, pretty much all the time). When my youngest went to 1st grade, I went to college, got a degree in physics, and then worked for IBM until I retired. My husband is very happy that both our pensions are quite good, rather than having too little money to cover too many expenses, so I am happy, looking back, at my choices.

However, if staying at home is what the woman wants, IMO she should definitely go for it. And all the feminists I knew from back in the day felt the same. The issue was to have a chance to choose.

But someone who chooses the stay at home mom option should realize that if it ever does come to divorce, she likely won't have enough to live on afterward because of having no skills and no work history.

I've got to say I never considered stereotypes even the slightest bit amusing or fun or funny; because they made me really, really angry. And if you look at a lot of the school shooting incidents and teenage suicides, you will find a number of them are related to 'teasing' and 'bullying' incidents.

And Particle Man, wherever you're living, you definitely need to move. Probably to a small town.
 

evangeline

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 7, 2007
I find it extremely unfair that the woman is to blame for breaking up marriages and divorce. As they say, it takes two to tango.

My mother is a stay-at-home wife and I, as a person that's part of the 'younger generation' completely respect her choice and am grateful that she chose to raise me full-time. But at the same time, my mother has always told me to get an education for, well, the same reasons as dorispulaski outlined.

Also, I don't think the majority of women think that being a wife and mother is a backward notion to be ashamed of or a tedious chore at all. None of my friends are married (we're still in school, after all) but the general consensus among us is that being a wife and mother is fine, and is something that we look forward to along with our future careers. We know it's going to be difficult balancing a career and a family, but that's why we hope to find spouses that understand that raising a family involves both the wife and husband. And if a woman wants to be a stay-at-home mother, that's her prerogative and though we may not make the same choice, what's the point of judging? Anyways, I think the stereotype of 'modern women' or the new generation not wanting to be wives and mothers is just that--a stereotype.

Also, "traditional family values" are not necessarily fading to our detriment, but they are being changed and adapted in order to fit the world we live in today. As Eric Hobsbawm would say, traditions are invented.
 
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Joined
Jul 11, 2003
^^^^

Some married couples should not stay together (like my mom and dad). They would be better apart, imo. But they did stary together and we kids saw no love in marriage.

Marriage is over rated for most people, imo, and it is by no means Holy.
 

Medusa

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 6, 2007
Some married couples should not stay together (like my mom and dad). They would be better apart, imo. But they did stary together and we kids saw no love in marriage.
That's a good point. It's not like things were necessarily better 50, 100 or 1000 years ago. Divorce was just simply forbidden, for a long time the woman was the man's property. And 50 years ago divorce might have already been legal, but it was really frowned upon.

I remember seeing this documentary on arte (French-German culture network tv) about married couples in the fourties, fifties. They talked to the children of those couples, read diaries and letters, talked to spouses. And it was really interesting to see how something often so idyllic to the outside world, was incredibly dark and uncomfortable for the parties involved.

But still - those divorce rates are freaking high. Perhaps the entire approach to marriage is changing? E.g. in France, Sweden and other European countries more than half of the children are born to unmarried parents. I don't know if they count the PACSs in France though. (the funny thing is that the PACSs are originally intended for same-sex couples, but also available for opposite-sex couples. Lots of opposite-sex couples use this now too - because it's easier to "divorce". Now comes the joke: there are actually a lot less PACSs dissolved than marriages divorced in France. Must have something to do with less pressure)
 
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Tonichelle

Idita-Rock-n-Roll
Record Breaker
Joined
Jun 27, 2003
Marriage is over rated for most people, imo, and it is by no means Holy.

well, I'll disagree there a little bit... but I will say that Paul taught that it is better to be SINGLE than married... and it's in the Bible... there are a lot of people/churches that skip over that part, but it's incredibly encouraging to me.

there are SOME women who are the complete opposite of the "uber-feminists" who would have you believe you are a failure as a woman if you aren't a wife at an early age rearing five bazillion little ones... I grew up with several women like that in my life and I shined them on then and now. I'm seen as a failure because I didn't go to a Bible school and pick me up a good looking preacher boy. I didn't feel called to that (I seriously couldn't stand being a Pastor's wife. With all of the church politics these days blech! I'm too loyal and connected to my family, I could barely stand being a youth pastor's kid!), and I wasn't going over the line to the point of no return and I certainly am not sorry for the choices I've made as far as where I am in life. Little things, yes, but they are all learning stepping stones...


I'm rambling... but I just wanted to jump in and point the whole single thing out... even though I even forget about it sometimes... being married isn't the be all end all. Something I personally want - and if I do it "right" divorce won't HAVE to be an option - and desire, but I might be called to live something of a wanderer for all I know... who knows!




and you gotta love how random our threads become after so many pages... it cracks me up!
 
Joined
Jul 11, 2003
I have not read much bible but I do recall it was overly concerned about women being barren. I wonder why that was such an issue?

From the second bible, many scholars find Paul a bit strange. After stoning Stephen to death and enjoying it, he had a complete turn around and left the middle east for Greece.
 

dorispulaski

Wicked Yankee Girl
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
Country
United-States
Well, it's all on the subject of free speech and marriage, more or less. Some of our skating theads get even more random :laugh:

BTW, I wondered whether those in favor of ethnic jokes perhaps were thinking of a different humor form than I was thinking of. Here's some from when I was young that made me quite angry. They were all told at work, BTW:

Why do seagulls have wings?
To beat the Guineas to the dump.

Why do Italians eat garbage?
They are the only ones that know how to cook it.

What is the difference between a French cess pool and an Italian cesspool?
A French cess pool has a cover. An Italian cess pool has a diving board and a ladder.

Why did the Polack paint his garbage can blue and orange?
So his kids would think they were eating at Howard Johnson's.

How is a Polish woman like a hockey player?
They each change their pads every three periods.

Why wasn't Christ born in Poland?
They couldn't find three wise men and a virgin.

And the racist jokes were worse, and too foul to repeat at all.

After my boss told me the garbage can joke, I asked him, "Do you speak Polish?" He said no. I said, "How does it feel to be dumber than a Polack?"
 

Tonichelle

Idita-Rock-n-Roll
Record Breaker
Joined
Jun 27, 2003
are there people saying we should have ethnic jokes? I don't think I said that...


Joe - "second Bible????" not sure what that is...Paul's conversion from Christian hunter to Christian himself is the ultimate 'salvation' story... if PAUL can turn his life around and work for God then anyone can make that step and change... he's a hero to most Bible scholars I know...

and I'm not sure what you're referring to as far as barren being bad... certainly in those historic cultural times it wasn't a good thing, but Biblically?
 
Joined
Jul 11, 2003
No offence intended Tonichelle. Just thinking out loud. I'm not a bible lover as everyone knows. Too much scientific discovery gets in the way. And now, the Missing Link? :rolleye:
 

evangeline

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 7, 2007
Actually, the Bible never really "says" being barren was a bad thing, but it makes it clear that being barren in the context of the time it was being written was...not exactly the best thing in the world. Something to be ashamed of, sometimes even seen as a curse upon the woman. Of the top of my head, I can recall many Bible stories in which women who were barren were seen as desolate or 'not as good' before God apparently intervened: Rachel before she had Joseph and Benjamin, Hannah before she had Samuel, Michal.

If I recall correctly, these attitudes stemmed from outdated cultural views reflecting the time when the Bible was written, when the only worth of a woman was to be someone's wife and bear children as heirs for her husband. If a woman was not able to fulfill the role of bearing children, she was seen as a failure. This, I suppose, also explains why historically, the woman is blamed when she also has daughters instead of sons.
 

dorispulaski

Wicked Yankee Girl
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
Country
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are there people saying we should have ethnic jokes? I don't think I said that... ?

Okay, but if we don't have a certain level of political correctness, we will have the racist & ethnic jokes again. In fact, that is one of things I thought you were advocating, but evidently I was wrong. About which I am glad, BTW. It seemed unlike you.

Ethnic jokes are one of the things people complaining about PCness that I know are usually lamenting - the loss of those jokes. A key phrase from them is 'humorless' coupled with a complaint about modern PCness.
 

Medusa

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 6, 2007
Ethnic jokes are one of the things people complaining about PCness that I know are usually lamenting - the loss of those jokes. A key phrase from them is 'humorless' coupled with a complaint about modern PCness.
I didn't mean that. I meant that I have difficulties with considering all the important points of human communication (basic politeness, emotional signs, gestures), that I am really at loss with political correctness. It's just too much at once. I simply can't remember not to call black people black or stuff like that. I am not telling jokes anyway and also don't understand most of the jokes other people tell.

I also don't care of other people aren't PC towards me. I memember this attending physician (very handsome, Tunisian descent) at ICU where I worked for some time and he kept calling me "Schätzchen" (equivalent of babe or sweetie pie). Nobody could understand why I didn't complain. But I simply didn't care. The physician taught me a lot of things, gave me responsibility, treated me like an equal, always answered my question, didn't mock my questions, was easy to work with. What did I care how he called me? That's just words.
 

Tonichelle

Idita-Rock-n-Roll
Record Breaker
Joined
Jun 27, 2003
well Job's "friends" were also really hard on him and saying he was out of favor with God when he was far from it... just because certain women didn't have children it wasn't that God thought less of them, otherwise he'd have not given them the desire of their heart (which in all of the women mentioned above was a child).


Doris - no I have a problem with people just immediately screaming racist/sexist/bigot just because someone dares believe/feel something different. Not just on the big issues, but the small as well. I'm not an advocate of racial/ethnic jokes... I don't have a problem with blonde jokes (or brunette or male vs women jokes - normally the joke's on the guy anyway ;)) but that's me... I think hair color is a little less of a negative thing. That's just me...

I'm not into racial profiling or anything like that either...

I do have a problem with the fact that you can't even describe a person by their skin color/ethnicity without people immediately taking offense. It's like they automatically think it's bad. Um, no. Sometimes you HAVE to have that in the context of the story you're telling or whatever... like the jokes that my mom and her best friend have (the inside jokes) in order to explain them they have to say "well, my bf's white or my bf's black..." otherwise people just look at them funny....

I'm not saying PC is all bad. I think the version we have now where we censor SO MUCH and are 1. paranoid of what we be ACCUSED of saying and 2. getting our hackles up to be offended before anything is even said - does NOTHING to move society forward and seems to be working backwards... I swear there's a new sort of segregation that just shouldn't exist but it has to for fear of offending the other groups... (be them racial or religious or whatever!)
 
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dorispulaski

Wicked Yankee Girl
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
Country
United-States
I think blonde jokes are just "women are stupid" jokes recast. They are seldom seldom told about stupid men with blonde hair. Lots of times, in fact, I recognize the joke from back in the day when it was told about women in general without the blonde part, just as most of the Polish and Italian jokes were told interchangeably about both groups. In fact, the only ethnic jokes I ever found funny were ones where a true characteristic of the group was part of the joke, and which didn't have as a main punchline "They are so stupid".

For example: Did you know only 6 people were actually killed by the atomic bomb in Hiroshima? The others were all trampled to death by Polacks looking for the big mushroom. (As it happens, my Polish relatives all adore mushrooms, and they have many great recipes for them, including sauerkraut & mushroom pierogis (Yum))

The issue I think is that I do not get to choose what offends someone else. And I would like to avoid offending people as much as possible. OTOH, I hope they would educate me about what offends them, if it's non obvious, or when the correct term that's polite keeps changing.
 

Medusa

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 6, 2007
For example: Did you know only 6 people were actually killed by the atomic bomb in Hiroshima? The others were all trampled to death by Polacks looking for the big mushroom.
That one might not have a "they are so stupid" punchline - but I still find it extremely tasteless and highly insensitive, to use a huge and horrific tragedy like Hiroshima as part of a joke, especially since the joke mocks the tragedy. This is definitely not PC in my book (and maybe the Polish don't feel mocked, but the Japanese might feel a bit uneasy about it). Additionally the joke describes basically a stampede and, well, there are definitely not many things that are less funny than a stampede and it's consequences.
 
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