Tag Archives: Feminism

A lesson about men for marriage-minded women from the movie “High Noon”

Marine prays with his wife on their wedding day
Marine prays with his wife on their wedding day

One of my favorite movies for explaining the differences between men and women is “High Noon” (1952).

Here’s the summary from IMDB:

Former marshal Will Kane (Gary Cooper) is preparing to leave the small town of Hadleyville, New Mexico, with his new bride, Amy (Grace Kelly), when he learns that local criminal Frank Miller has been set free and is coming to seek revenge on the marshal who turned him in. When he starts recruiting deputies to fight Miller, Kane is discouraged to find that the people of Hadleyville turn cowardly when the time comes for a showdown, and he must face Miller and his cronies alone.

The main theme of the film concerns Amy’s decision to break her wedding vows the very day that she makes them. She tells her new husband that he must bow to her will, and give up his male role as protector. When he explains his reasons for standing his ground to her practically (Miller will hunt them down) and morally (he has a duty protect the town), she dismisses both. She tells him that if he doesn’t run away from Miller and his gang with her, that she will get on the train and leave town by herself.

The intro of film shows the member’s of Miller’s gang assembling, and the words of the song explain the central conflict between husband and wife:

Here’s the part of the lyrics we care about:

The noonday train will bring Frank Miller.
If I’m a man I must be brave
And I must face that deadly killer
Or lie a coward, a craven coward,
Or lie a coward in my grave.

O to be torn ‘twixt love and duty!
S’posin’ I lose my fair-haired beauty!
Look at that big hand move along
Nearin’ high noon.

He made a vow while in State’s Prison,
Vow’d it would be my life or his’n
I’m not afraid of death, but O,
What will I do if you leave me?

Do not forsake me O my darlin’
You made that promise when we wed.
Do not forsake me O my darlin’
Although you’re grievin’, I can’t be leavin’
Until I shoot Frank Miller dead.

What’s interesting is that his new wife Amy apparently does not understand the meaning of wedding vows or the natural roles of good men as protectors of the weak, and fighters against evil. Although she vowed to stick by him and help him, the minute anything threatening appears that makes her feel unhappy, she abandons her vows and abandons her man. Let’s break down her mistakes now, using actual conversations from the movie.

First, she doesn’t understand or respect the man she married as a man:

Kane: [while riding out of town] It’s no good. I’ve got to go back, Amy.

Amy: Why?

Kane: This is crazy. I haven’t even got any guns.

Amy: Then let’s go on. Hurry.

Kane: No, that’s what I’ve been thinkin’. They’re making me run. I’ve never run from anybody before.

Amy: I don’t understand any of this.

Kane: [after looking at his vest watch] Well, I haven’t got time to tell ya.

Amy: Then don’t go back, Will.

Kane: I’ve got to. That’s the whole thing. [He turns the buggy around and rides back into town]

Her feelings and her desires for the world to be a happy place for her are so strong that they cloud her judgment.

Second, she doesn’t understand the threat posed by evil men:

More:

Kane: I sent a man up five years ago for murder. He was supposed to hang. But up North, they commuted it to life and now he’s free. I don’t know how. Anyway, it looks like he’s coming back.

Amy: I still don’t understand.

Kane: He was always wild and kind of crazy. He’ll probably make trouble.

Amy: But that’s no concern of yours, not anymore.

Kane: I’m the one who sent him up.

Amy: Well, that was part of your job. That’s finished now. They’ve got a new marshal.

Kane: He won’t be here until tomorrow. Seems to me I’ve got to stay. Anyway, I’m the same man with or without this. [He pins his badge on his vest]

Amy: Oh, that isn’t so.

Kane: I expect he’ll come lookin’ for me. Three of his old bunch are waiting at the depot.

Amy: That’s exactly why we ought to go.

Kane: They’ll just come after us, four of ’em, and we’d be all alone on the prairie.

Amy: We’ve got an hour.

Kane: What’s an hour?…What’s a hundred miles? We’d never be able to keep that store, Amy. They’d come after us and we’d have to run again, as long as we live.

Amy: No we wouldn’t, not if they didn’t know where to find us. Oh Will! Will, I’m begging you, please let’s go.

Kane: I can’t.

Amy: Don’t try to be a hero. You don’t have to be a hero, not for me.

Kane: I’m not trying to be a hero. If you think I like this, you’re crazy.

Instead of recognizing how her feelings are deceiving her about the threat and trusting her husband, she tries to force him to accept her mistaken view of reality by threatening to abandon him.

One of Kane’s ex-girlfriends has a talk with Amy, which helps her to understand who Kane is, and what is expected of her:

Amy: That man downstairs, the clerk, he said things about you and Will. I’ve been trying to understand why he wouldn’t go with me, and now all I can think of is that it’s got to be because of you…Let him go, he still has a chance. Let him go.

Helen: He isn’t staying for me. I haven’t spoken to him for a year – until today. I am leaving on the same train you are…What kind of woman are you? How can you leave him like this? Does the sound of guns frighten you that much?

Amy: I’ve heard guns. My father and my brother were killed by guns. They were on the right side but that didn’t help them any when the shooting started. My brother was nineteen. I watched him die. That’s when I became a Quaker. I don’t care who’s right or who’s wrong. There’s got to be some better way for people to live. Will knows how I feel about it.

Helen: I hate this town. I always hated it – to be a Mexican woman in a town like this.

Amy: I understand.

Helen: You do? That’s good. I don’t understand you. No matter what you say. If Kane was my man, I’d never leave him like this. I’d get a gun. I’d fight.

Amy: Why don’t you?

Helen: He is not my man. He’s yours.

Helen understands the need for a wife to stand by her man. But Amy’s response to evil is to shut her eyes and focus on feeling good and being happy. Notice that her “better way” is unspecified – it’s just a feeling she has that pacificism and no-violence will somehow “work” to stop evil. But in reality, pacifism is not a “better way” of dealing with evil – it does not work. Her pacifist response not only does not make evil go away, it actually encourages more evil. Weakness emboldens evildoers, and laying down your arms provokes them to do more evil. Will Kane knows this, but she won’t listen to him.

You can watch the final gunfight here, as well as Amy’s final decision:

So, this is why I really recommend this movie as a discussion-starter when you like a girl and are thinking of marrying her. It clarifies the essential problem with many young women today not being ready for marriage. To be fair, most women come around to respect their husbands and his different roles after they get married. However, the risk of divorce is so dangerous that it makes sense to bring it up for discussion before the marriage happens. Marriage is supposed to be an engine to serve God, and the success of that enterprise cannot be left to chance. You can’t just rely on the fact that she says the words of the vow, you have to check to see if she has a habit of keeping her promises when it goes against her own self-interest.

Ask yourself: Who are you, as a man? And does your woman accept that you have obligations to stand up to evil and do good ? Will she support you in your battle against evil, or will the marriage just be about her feelings and desires? I would especially beware of women who think that God is speaking to them through their feelings and desires. Look at her friends: are they practical and successful? Or are they irresponsible, unaccountable and reckless? Look at her father: does he have a plan for her, and does he lead her to be practical, frugal and hard-working? If you are not going to get an ally and a supporter in a wife, then you will not be able to serve God well, as a married man. Think about it.

Boys are falling further and further behind girls in UK public schools

Boys are enrolling in university at a much lower rate than girls
Boys are enrolling in university at a much lower rate than girls

This story is from the UK Telegraph.

Excerpt:

Each time UCAS releases statistics on equality of access to university in the UK, the gap between the entry rates for girls and boys gets a bit worse.

Just before Christmas, our 2015 End of Cycle Report revealed that young women in the UK are now 35pc more likely to go to university than young men, and 52pc more likely when both sexes are from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Today we publish data on the sex balance in specific degree courses, which shows that there are more women than men accepted to most subject areas.

This highly entrenched trend is not just a reflection of the preferences of young men and women when it comes to making decisions about their lives after school or college.  It is a direct consequence of years of lower educational achievement by boys, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds, throughout primary and secondary education.

At the end of primary education (age 11), only 22pc of boys achieve Level 5 or better in reading, writing and maths compared to 27pc of girls.

By the age of 16, girls are over 20pc more likely to achieve five GCSEsincluding English and Maths at Grade C or better.

By age 18, only 47pc of students studying for pre-university level qualifications are boys. 30,000 more girls than boys are studying for A levels or other academic qualifications which best support progression to higher tariff universities. Some 5,000 more boys than girls are doing vocational qualifications, but girls are outperforming boys in both academic and vocational qualifications at this level.  The only exception seems to be that slightly more of the boys who are doing A levels get the very highest A* grades, and they still do rather better at maths than girls.

Degrees supporting traditionally male-dominated professions such as medicine, law and dentistry now all recruit more female students than male.  And move over James Herriot – 80pc of students accepted to veterinary medicine last year were female.

The UCAS figures today also show that there are more women than men across a range of subjects including, pathology and anatomy, biology, genetics, nursing, social work, and English. Two years ago women overtook men in Philosophy, and the same happened with history subjects in 2011. Given that there are more men than women in the population, to achieve equality, there would need to be around 5pc more men than women across the board.

Why is this happening? Well the author of the piece nails the cause of the problem:

So what is going wrong?  Does lower achievement for boys have anything to do with the 80pc female dominated state schools’ workforce, which includes 85pc female teachers in primary schools and 62pc in secondary?  Would boys respond and learn better with more male teachers and role models? 

[…]What about the curriculum and qualifications?  In all the heated debates about the primary curriculum, I don’t recall hearing anything about the different impacts on teaching and learning for girls and boys.  

If we were serious about fixing this, we would hire more male teachers and administrators in the schools. Boys do better studying material that is boy-friendly, and when the material is taught by male teachers. Boys tend to underperform in mixed-gender classrooms, too. But there is no effort in the schools to fix that, because men can never be victims – only women. No one in the education system wants to fix problems for boys. No one wants to speak up for boys for fear of being perceived as insufficiently feminist.

Are the UK schools doing anything to address these problems?

Of course not:

[…][A]lthough most schools will track the achievement of their boys and girls, there seems to be little focus on the gender gap in education policy.  A recent FOI request by the men’s human rights group, MRA-UK, asked the Department for Education if it recognized boys’ underachievement, what initiatives are in place, and how much is budgeted for them in 2015/16.  The response in July 2015 was “The Department does not fund any initiatives that just focus on addressing boys’ underachievement”.

My advice to young men is to hit the math and STEM hard, and understand that the odds are stacked against you. You have to take your education seriously, because if you don’t no one else will. You have to take your career seriously, because if you don’t no one else will. The system isn’t there to help boys. You’ll have to make your own way on your own strength, and the system is there to fight you all the way.

Women verbally abuses man for refusing to have sex with her on the first date

Click for larger image of chat with crazy woman
Click for larger image of chat between a sensible man and a crazy woman

Dina sent me this horrifying article from the UK Daily Mail.

It says:

A man received a barrage of abuse over texts after refusing to sleep with a woman during a date.

The screenshots of the messages, which were posted to image sharing site Imgur last night, show the man’s female date initiate conversation before launching into an angry rant.

The unnamed woman even goes so far as to suggest that her date had no right to turn down the opportunity to sleep with her, asking him whether he was gay and telling him no only means no when a woman says it.

‘Can I ask you something?’ the woman says.

Once her unnamed date from the the night before agrees she continues. ‘Why didn’t we have sex last night?’

The rational man writes, ‘I’m not really sure. Just didn’t feel like it. That bad?’

It seems as though, according to the woman, it certainly is bad, as she goes on to send some foul-mouthed messages.

‘It kind of ****** me off because I took a good 2 [sic] hours out of my time to get all ready, shave my legs, and what not… I’m actually super ******* ****** I wasted 2 hours of my time getting ready for nothing.’

The confused woman goes on to add, ‘I literally kept giving you hints and was trying all night.’

However, the man stands his ground and replies: ‘I just didn’t want to. Sorry bout it lol. What’s the big deal, it’s just sex [sic].’

But the woman just can’t accept no for an answer and loses her cool completely at his response, as she writes: ‘The big deal is I wasted 2 [sic] hours…Okay **** that a whole night trying to have sex with you and you just ‘didn’t want to.’

‘Like what’s the issue? Are you actually gay and lying? Am I that ******* hideous? Not that ******* hard to whip your **** out???’

And she even argues with the man’s protestations of ‘no means no’ as she claims that the anti-rape catchphrase only has significance when she uses it. 

However, the man still manages to keep his composure and cooly answers the message, calling the woman ‘hypocritical’ and repeatedly telling her that he ‘didn’t need reasons’ to not want to have sex with her.

He also sarcastically remarked: ‘Rape is only rape for women, got it.’

Taking the comment seriously and without any explanation, the woman replies: ‘Basically.’

Read that part in bold carefully. She thinks that if she asks for sex, then the man has no right to tell her no. Compare that with the hysteria we are seeing from feminists over the “rape culture” on university campuses, where an unwanted kiss can now be prosecuted as sexual assault, and speech that offends a woman is “sexual harrassment”. Where is the chastity and the modesty that we should expect from women? Is anyone brave enough to tell this woman that her approach to relationships is destructive and harmful?

The real underlying problem is feminism

I am seeing a lot of people trying to blame men for the way that the culture has gone ever since feminists pushed the sexual revolution on us. I think we should be blaming feminism. Feminism is the idea that there are no differences whatsoever between men and women. As such, the feminist prescription for the culture is that women start to work like men, drink like men, and have sex without feel bad afterwards like men. That’s what they’ve been teaching women to do in the schools for some time, and guess what… young women believe this and they are acting on it. The normalization of fatherlessness through the generous single mother welfare programs pushed by Democrats just makes the problem worse.

Young women these days want to get attention from men, but they don’t want to be saddled with the responsibilities, expectations or obligations of a relationship with him. So, they are very proud about not listening to a man, not caring for him, not investing in him, not auditioning for the role of stay at home wife and mother in any way. They try to get attention from men who have no interest or aptitude for marriage by showing skin and jumping into bed on the first date. They have been taught that their selfishness, i.e. – career, travel, fun, etc., is more important than pursuing marriage. Marriage-minded men are avoided because they are “sexist” for expecting her to develop the skills necessary to actually perform as a wife and mother. The feminist approach of promiscuity-not-marriage basically ruins the woman’s ability to commit to a man for life in the way a non-promiscuous woman could.

Women have a narrow window from 18-35 where they can invest their youth and beauty into the life of marriage-minded man, in order to build relationship capital with him that will keep him committed to her as she ages and loses her looks. Obviously, the more she focuses on learning useful skills, both professional and domestic, the more she will be able to attract a good man – a man with a long-term plan who is prepared to commit to a woman through all the stages of her life. Her late teens and 20s is the time to demonstrate ability to be a wife and mother. But a feminist woman’s purpose for a man has nothing to do with marriage. She doesn’t look for men who want to get married, she avoids them. She just wants to get attention and to show off the handsome men she can attract to her friends.

Older women seem to be telling younger women to not marry too soon. Older women tell the younger women to have fun with their sexuality, to focus on fun and thrills and travel and having experiences. Don’t worry about marriage, have fun with hot guys. But the truth is that women cannot waste a moment of time finding a good man early and building her value with him by investing in him. From the time a man starts to work, he can benefit from a woman’s support. As this Washington Post article notes, a wife can have an enormously positive impact on her husband’s income, career and health, during these early years. When a woman decides not to make it a priority to find a man early and apply her youth, beauty and femininity to encourage and motivate him, she is losing out on being married to a strong man who will be there for her as she ages. Men do fall in love with women who invest in them – if they are good men. It’s her job to find a good man, and to make good decisions with her life in order to attract him.

Marriage to a man is not something that a woman can “put off” with impunity. The choice to party and travel and have fun in her youth comes at a price. What sort of person would put off investing into a retirement fund early so she can waste the money of thrill-seeking and adventures? Everyone knows that sooner you find something worth investing in and start investing in it, the more of a return you will get over the long term. You can’t just hope and pray for a retirement fund to materialize at age 35, after you spent all the years before having fun and traveling around. You have to build it up over a long period of time. Similarly, you can’t just find a perfect husband at age 35 when you are ready to stop all your selfish fun-seeking and travel. You have to build that man into a competent husband, by helping him with his health, career, saving, and so on. Men and women benefit from each other, and they do better as a unit. The sooner they start to function as a unit, the more they can help each other, the more wealth they can build, the more of an influence they can have.

When you present the need to rollback feminism to man-blaming pastors and parents, typically, they will tell you that we have to keep the feminism intact, and men simply have to marry women who are acting like the women in our news story (until they reach age 35). I have had Christian men tell me that although I was chaste and industrious in my youth, I must now lower my criteria and continue to pursue marriage to women who, like the woman in the story, have not prepared themselves in any way to be content with the roles of wife and mother. I’m sorry, pious parents and pastors, but I am not on board with your “make it work out for her so she’ll be happy” plan. Women like the ones in the news story are not prepared for a life-long commitment. Pursuing fun for the first 35 years of one’s life does not prepare a woman for marriage. Feminism is not compatible with self-sacrificial love for a husband. The time to fix the new generation of young women is now, though, so you all should get started with them. Get started rolling back their feminism instead of taking it as a given. Don’t talk to me about my obligation to marry, you need to focus on producing marriage-minded women who reject feminism. Then we’ll talk.