Be the man, be the law

Dalrock has been addressing the problem of troublesome mothers-in-law this week, particularly the problem that some wives have with their mothers-in-law. While I respect what he is saying about not feeding female drama and the importance of not meekly accepting Wifey's orders to go and confront Mommy because Wifey doesn't like that you're listening to Mommy instead of Wifey, I think he's missing the point about the mother-in-law problem legitimately being one the husband should solve.

It always cracks me up when people start by explaining how entirely unreasonable someone is being, and then follow up with a solution which would only apply when dealing with someone who is generally speaking reasonable.  As I explained in the previous post, this kind of dramatic confrontation is the troublesome mother-in-law equivalent of crack.  There are so many ways for a trouble-making mother-in-law to parry such a clumsy response that all I can say for sure is the mother-in-law couldn’t have asked for a better outcome.  It may be that the husband will decide bringing his folks along on future family vacations is a bad idea, but setting this up as a punishment only invites decades of “poor me” performances by the mother-in-law.  That in doing this he isn’t acting under his own steam, but instead taking orders from a gaggle of gossiping women makes the situation all the worse.  This is a major victory for the mother-in-law, and decades of high drama will undoubtedly ensue.

My advice is somewhat different. I think the husband should a) defend his wife, and b) bring the noise. Which is to say issue a direct order to Mommy to be respectful to his wife, be a helpful grandmother, and heed his wife's expectations and requests or be left out of most social activities. And if the wife is being unreasonable or being a bitch, then he should tell her to knock it the fuck off or watch him step back and let her have it out with her mother-in-law on her own.

Which really isn't all that different than Dalrock's ultimate advice on the matter:

1) Protect his family.
2) Minimize the drama.
3) Are loving to all involved. 

Women may love drama, but they don't love being called on it when they lapse into childish schoolyard behavior. So long as both women find the prospect of being dressed down by the husband more unpleasant than waging low-grade war with each other, they'll figure out a way to get along. And if Mommy is simply a lunatic drama queen, then the husband should excise her from the family's life before it's even necessary for the wife to voice her opinion on the matter. I don't see (3) being relevant, and in fact it may make matters worse. Such situations call for justice and discipline, not mercy and understanding.

Be reasonable, be honest, and be civil, or be gone. Life is vastly simpler, better, and easier if a man operates on that principle.

I understand it can be hard for a submitted husband who regards every woman's wish as his command to even think about such a situation in this way, but that doesn't change the fact that it is a viable solution.

Bitches be literally crazy

Women are more likely to have mental health issues:

Women in every age group in the United States were more likely than men to have serious mental health problems, according to federal health statistics released Thursday.... Pratt said she could not explain why women have higher rates of serious psychological distress. “As I’m sure you are aware, we see this in major depression as well, but I don’t know that anyone has ever come up with a definitive answer of why that is,” she said.

Of particular interest is the fact that one in 28 women between 18-44 have "serious psychological distress". Think about it. In a room of 100 women, about four are complete whack jobs. And another 21 are on anti-depressants.

I would suggest looking at the fact that women are being brainwashed into rejecting their primary material purpose in life being a contributing factor, if not the causal factor, in this. After all, pregnancy is essentially a nine-month hormone bath. Perhaps women need it in order to stay sane.

It would be interesting to learn if women who have born children experience lower rates of serious psychological distress or are less inclined to use anti-depressants.

Yes. Next question?

Dr. Helen disagrees with my description of childless women and asks if women without kids are failures:

I don’t think men who have no children are “failures” and nor do I think women who have no children are “failures.” I think that people make choices in life that are right or seem right for them at the time. People are autonomous beings who may or may not want children. While I agree that our culture is a negative one that often mistakenly tells women to go only for careers and other pursuits rather than have children, I do think there are some women who do not want them. This choice may be wrong for some but not for all.

I had a friend in college who didn’t want kids. She is happy today many years later without them. That is her choice. It should be everyone’s to decide what is right for their own life. To call that a failure for that decision seems extreme.

I like and respect Dr. Helen, but I disagree with her here on two grounds. First, one's success or failure as a human being are not determined by whether or not one is happy. That way lies, quite literally, madness. I'm sure John Wayne Gacy was quite happy when he was raping and killing little boys, and that was his decision about what was right for his own life, but I don't think we would be well to describe him as a success as a human being.

Second, it's simply not possible to argue that a woman who is childless is not a failure at reproduction. That is a tautology; a childless woman has, by definition, failed to reproduce. Moreover, unlike men, this failure to reproduce is very seldom imposed by others, or by external circumstances. And while this doesn't make her a failure at anything else, it does mean that she has failed in her singular duty to her species, to her sub-species, and to her genetic line; she has failed to continue it.

 And as a human being, what Earthly responsibility could possibly be greater?

In our present age, young women are being actively dissuaded from fulfilling their primary role and responsibility as women and as human beings. It should be no surprise that women have never been unhappier or less fulfilled. This is a consequence of the true Female Imperative being replaced by a false one.

The only way to effectively dispute the definition is to a) claim that women have a more important purpose in life or b) to claim that women have no purpose in life at all. And the latter, I submit, is entirely more damaging and degrading to women than to suggest that they have a extraordinarily important purpose at which they can fail.

As for the former, well, what is it?

Knowing the unknowable

It's shocking, I know, to discover that proud young women continue to be unable to successfully predict how they will feel about having children in the future:

Twelve years ago, I penned an essay for a Salon series called “To Breed or Not to Breed,” about the decision to have children or not. It began this way: “When I tell people that I’m 27, happily married and that I don’t think I ever want children, they respond one of two ways. Most of the time they smile patronizingly and say, ‘You’ll change your mind.’ Sometimes they do me the favor of taking me seriously, in which case they warn, ‘You’ll regret it.’” The series inspired an anthology titled Maybe Baby. It was divided into three parts: “No Thanks, Not for Me,” “On the Fence,” and “Taking the Leap.” My essay was the first in the “No” section.

So I felt a little sheepish, when, a year and a half ago, the writer Meghan Daum asked me if I’d be interested in contributing to the book that would become Shallow, Selfish and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on the Decision Not to Have Kids. I wrote back to tell her that I couldn’t: My son had just turned 1.

It’s embarrassing to be such a cliché, to give so many people a chance to say, “I told you so.” (And some people, I’ve learned, will say those actual words.) I fear I’ve let down other women who disavow children and who, because of my example, might face an extra smidge of condescending doubt. Worse, if I’m honest, when I hear younger women confidently describe how they’ll feel when they’re older, sometimes I feel a pinch of such condescension myself. Not because I think they’ll all necessarily want kids, or that they should have them, but because one tricky thing about your 20s is the need to make decisions for a future self whose desires are unknowable.

Most of the mothers I know used to proudly declare they never wanted to have children. Not some of them, not many of them, MOST of them. That is why the correct response to a young woman declaring that she doesn't want to have children is to laugh at her, because bearing children is the prime raison d'etre for every woman. The woman who fails to do so is, quite literally, a failure as a human being.

Women pay for Alpha

Any last remaining doubts about the reality of Game and the Socio-Sexual hierarchy should be eliminated by the behavior of female prostitute-users:

Why would a woman pay for sex when they can walk into any bar and get it for free?', is a classic male response to this topic.

Well, that’s highly contingent on how old you are, how good you look, which bar you walk into and, crucially, how fussy you are. Most females are very fussy indeed. We don’t want sex with anybody, we want sex with someone we’d like to have sex with.

Apps like Tinder are popular with women as well as men because she can see what she’s getting but they have drawbacks....

'You get what you pay for,' said one 37-year-old woman, who didn’t want to be named but has a twice monthly set appointment with the same male escort. 'Women’s sexual systems are complicated. My guy’s highly skilled at what he does. I’ve tried Tinder and the sex was rubbish. The guys haven’t the foggiest of what women need to orgasm and get offended and huffy if you dare to guide them.'

The quality of sex on offer appears to be one of the main appeals of hiring an escort - and the more ‘me sex’ is it, the better.

In other words, they'd rather pay for ALPHA sex than get BETA sex and all the associated material goodies for free.

It must be the smart women's fault, then

We are reliably informed that men prefer intelligence to large breasts or long legs in long-term relationships:

Men value intelligence in women far above large breasts and long legs, a Cambridge evolutionary biologist has claimed. Although having a large bust and never-ending pins are deemed by western culture as the epitome of femininity, when choosing a mother for their children, men look for brains first,

Professor David Bainbridge, of the University of Cambridge said that intelligence is by far the most attractive quality for men looking for a long term partner because it demonstrates that his chosen partner is likely to be a responsible parent.

It also suggests she was brought by intelligent parents and so was likely to be well fed and looked after in childhood, and so healthier. It may reveal why men like George Clooney ended up marrying human rights barrister Amal Alamuddin.

If men prefer to marry intelligence, and nearly 50 percent of women with advanced degrees remain unmarried and childless, then we can only conclude that the declining rates of marriage, particularly among the intelligent, must be entirely the fault of women.

Obviously, since we so prefer intelligence, it can't possibly be our fault that no one is marrying all those smart women.

Don't be that guy

This is about as good as life gets for a Gamma.

You can hope for more. You can do better. Don't be that guy. If you're the only man in the group and you're not involved with one or more of the women in it, you need to seriously rethink your entire approach to life.

Stop looking for female approval. You need male approval in order to become a man and you're not going to get it from women.