I recommend “What Does Woman Want: a War Between the Sexless” by Mary Eberstadt, First Things.
This is a fabulous article with some compelling correlations about the breakdown of the family, the rise in women’s desires to have it all, and the corresponding disillusionment of women. Analyzing various sources on the family via articles that were written within the past year, Eberstadt ultimately ties together similar themes made throughout the articles.
She quotes an interesting point made by a disgruntled democrat woman, Loh, where she says that she is perfectly capable of being the equal and capable partner in the marriage with her spouse, but incapable of igniting love and romance:
Indeed, what also came out that afternoon [in a failed therapy session] were the many tasks I—like so many other working/coparenting/married mothers—have been doing for so many years and tearfully declared I would continue doing. I can pick up our girls from school every day; I can feed them dinner and kiss their noses and tell them stories; I can take them to their doctor and dentist appointments; I can earn my half—sometimes more—of the money; I can pay the bills; I can refinance the house at the best possible interest rate; I can drive my husband to the airport; in his absence, I can sort his mail; I can be home to let the plumber in on Thursday between nine and three, and I can wait for the cable guy; I can make dinner conversation with any family member; I can ask friendly questions about anybody’s day; I can administer hugs as needed to children, adults, dogs, cats; I can empty the litter box; I can stir wet food into dry…. [But] given my staggering working mother’s to-do list, I cannot take on yet another arduous home- and self-improvement project, that of rekindling our romance.
Many women rush off to “have it all” and fancying themselves the same as men, yet find themselves the doers and the pursuers in the romantic relationship, and men have taken on the passive role of receivers. She makes the point that there has been a rise of the pornography industry coexisting with feminist sexual liberation and a gender-equal society. The result becomes that men no longer have an interest in sex with their wives, whereas women have been encouraged to accept the porn habits of their spouses:
story of a husband and wife whose tension over marital sex leads finally to an amicable solution: She has her chocolate, and he has his Internet pornography. Might there just be a connection between all this casual talk (and use) of pornography and all those frustrated women and disinterested husbands?
It seems there might be a connection after all! To continue, Eberstadt quotes liberal author Sandra Loh who talks about the plight of wives with disinterested husbands:
To work, to parent, to housekeep, to be the ones who schedule ‘date night,’ only to be reprimanded in the home by male kitchen bitches, and then, in the bedroom, to be ignored—it’s a bum deal.
Women are rushing to do everything and have everything, meanwhile trying to make their men be romantic with them. The result is dissatisfaction for women, marriage failure, and family breakdown.
After reading the article, I couldn’t help but contemplate the correlation between the rise in our culture’s female sexual liberation agenda and the acceptance of the porn industry. It seems that with the rise of androgynous, gender-equal (read — same) relations between men and women, men have thrown themselves ever more into the porn industry, whose women appear hyper-sexualized. This leads to disillusionment and dissatisfaction with the wife who is no longer prized or desired sexually.
Perhaps our society would do well to take a step back and analyze the situation. Women are trying to be the same as men, to do everything and to be everything. In the process, something is lost – a mysterious element of attraction and genuine appreciation for sexual difference. Could it be that in the helter-skelter clamoring for equality and liberation, women have forgotten to maintain their femininity, that unique quality which attracts men to women, precisely because it is different from them. Masculine men are attracted to feminine women. The old adage “opposites attract” applies here.
Men, as a result of gender-neutral spouses, have lost interest in their wives romantically, and instead flee to hyper-sexualized porn stars. Women are capable and strong and certainly equal, yet would do well to remember that they have a unique and particular role to play in society. A heavy price is paid when women cast aside their unique feminine qualities in the name of equality. “Equality” doesn’t have to mean “same.”
The Situation: Wives are taking on so many responsibilities, they don’t have time and energy for their romantic relationship with their husbands. As a result, many husbands watch porn.
…it sounds like the husbands are the ones making unhealthy decisions. From the perspective of this post, the wives are trying, but they can’t do everything. The men…don’t really seem to be trying all that much, and retreat to porn when their wives don’t fulfill their fantasy of femininity.
I would conclude from this post that it’s time for the modern husband to step back and really analyze his life and his marriage. Because if your wife is too exhausted to be romantic with you, and your reaction is go watch porn instead of helping rekindle said romance…then you probably don’t deserve her.
‘Masculine men are attracted to feminine women. The old adage “opposites attract” applies here.’
Even if we assume that’s true, masculine women and feminine men are still “opposites”, and you can’t just wish us all out of existence because it’s convenient for you. Secondly, I’m of the opinion that porn (at least the damaging sort of porn we see in the mainstream today) is just backlash against feminism, much like blackface performances during the early-to-mid 1800s. In the US, they sprung up just before slavery was outlawed and were popular up to the 1930’s. That’s easily a hundred years of that nonsense. We probably could’ve decided that weathering that backlash was too hard, that blackface was a sign that people of color were deviating from their “unique” roles in society, roles they should return to. No doubt someone did argue that, but as you can see, it’s a proper load of nonsense — blackface pops up every once in awhile, but it’s rare and loudly rejected by most of the population. I think that deep down, you must agree that sacrificing your dignity and dreams for a man isn’t worth it, too. Part of women’s “unique and particular role”, before feminism came along, was to stay in the home. Lady doctors such as yourself were considered masculine aberrations, women who didn’t know their place and would never find a husband. If you think this is such a great role to fill, you would be filling it.
Perhaps the reason behind lagging romance in the face of women “wanting it all” is the reluctance of men to take on an equal share of responsibilities.
Not to say that men are lazy (certainly that is not divided along gendered lines), but that when women take on more work in the household many times men do not even things out by completing more “feminine” tasks. If a woman is working as many hours as her partner, is it right that she still bear the burden of most to all household chores? Should a woman, by virtue of being employed (which for many if not most is not a choice, but a necessity) have to be both breadwinner and homemaker?
As I said, I do not blame men. Women taking on these challenges is relatively new in this culture and many men and women do not have anything to compare to in their upbringing. That does not mean that things cannot change for the better.
As for those who would argue that making a man do the laundry, cook, wash dishes, etc., would be feminizing, I wonder what makes these tasks so inherently female. Does any of it change the physical or chemical state of a man’s body? Does the act of taking laundry out of a dryer impel men to do other “feminine” things, like read romance novels and cry during movies? Or could it be that because society says that women have done these chores in the past it is “unnatural” for a man to do them?
Romance is not lost because a woman gets a job like her partner. Romance is lost because of time, stress, and the day to day grind distracting partners from working on the relationship for it’s own sake. Femininity only has to do with it when that is specifically what one partner desires, and that can take on many forms. Do not let anyone trick you into thinking that you have to wear heels to make things work.
Femininity is in the eye of the beholder. Besides, “”Equality” doesn’t have to mean “same”". Remember the Supreme Court ruled separate but equal wasn’t actually equal.
Also, different people are attracted to different things. People are individuals first, men and women second.