My recent post on on Dr. Helen Smith’s Men on Strike: Why Men Are Boycotting Marriage, Fatherhood, and the American Dream — and Why it Matters, stirred up some interesting conversation here and on HotAir,
Comment threads tend to devolve into angry bitch sessions, but readers shared some terrific insight into the phenomenon — so interesting, that I thought I would share a few with you.
Eric Johnson, commenting at TheDC, attributed this new formation of society to the fact that it is becoming more socially acceptable to behave as we please, sexually. Marriage is less of a necessity because men can get what they want without it, and then women can rely on the government:
“Obama’s Julia said women can rely on the government till death do you part. Perhaps, the men learned that they can have the “friends with benefits” without many of the negatives since Big Brother will take care of everything.”
Someone who goes by “celticreeler” questioned whether or not marriage should be universally encouraged:
“Do you think a small fraction of each gender just isn’t cut out for marriage? Marriage certainly takes compromise, being willing to sacrifice some of your own personal time for what the other person needs, what the ‘enterprise’ (the marriage) needs, what any children might need… probably a small number aren’t meant to be married.”
And reader ‘LeighLeigh’ attributes her refusal to marry (thus far) to the lack of available good guys.
“Somebody needs to tell Ms. Helen, that there are good women like me, who have never married or had chillens, even though I wanted to, because of the good guys abandoning marriage and leaving the bad guys to be so concentrated in numbers, that they are freely having their way to cheat on their wives and have multiple partners, that make us good girls go home to our puppies at night and enjoy being left alone instead of groped by the bad guys.”
HotAir readers weighed in as well. One reader, “Resolute,” cited unfair laws as his reasoning for not pursuing a traditional home life.
“There is no point in trying to build a traditional family when it can be taken away from you without your consent. Men are better off adopting and becoming single parents so that no one has the right to cancel your family.”
‘Njrob’ mentioned the absence of good girls to find, similar to The DC reader ‘LeighLeigh’ who lamented the availability of acceptable suitors.
“There aren’t enough to go around. The ones that are good, tend to be in relationships or are impossible to find. It’s like finding a needle in a haystack.”
I’m delighted to have helped start this conversation, and thankful to the many commenters who helped advance this discussion and turn it into a (mostly) productive dialogue. Now go buy the book and listen to the podcast!
Elizabeth Dorton contributed to this post.