I’m convinced *one* of the reasons Congress wants to shut down TikTok is because of all the truth that has been revealed to WOMEN. My personal story was validated by other women of faith who “did everything right” prior to marriage and found that despite our best efforts in adhering to the tenets of our faith, we found ourselves in abusive marriages.
TikTok has pulled the cover back on marriage, motherhood, evangelical Christianity, the “Pro Life” movement and so much more. Women are saying “Fuck this” and leaving marriages that they would have tolerated before and young women are saying, “Fuck that” and are foregoing marriage and babies unless they can find a partner who is willing to be a PARTNER in every sense of the word.
It’s all falling apart which is good because I think we can create a more just society.
If Congress truly cared about citizens being manipulated or harmed, they would have done something to facebook which was compromised during the ‘16 election.
I only read the non-paywalled intro to that Atlantic piece you linked, and the final sentence I could read was "Ask any soul-baring single 40-year-old heterosexual woman what she longs for in life, and she probably won't tell you it's a better career..." What the actual??????
I was talking to a friend recently who's going thru a divorce about how we're both just "done." Not interested in another marriage, looking for a relationship, etc. And it's so much better and peaceful being single. I mentioned the statistics about how married men live longer than unmarried, but the reverse is true for women. That's made me think, any marriage / longterm relationship with a man would truly have to be worth sacrificing years of my life for. And the man who actually merits that sacrifice would never put me in the position of making it.
I am 65 years old, and just realizing how deeply conditioned I am by the patriarchy to believe that if I’m not in an intimate relationship then I’m a failure as a person. I’ve had 2 toxic marriages because I believed (unconsciously) that I should marry any man who showed interest in me. And that all our problems were my fault. My mother certainly believed this. These relationships seriously damaged my health. I am now happily single and my health is improving. Thanks so much for bringing the truth to light.
I was conditioned by my mom, from a very young age to “find someone who will take care of you” implying as a woman that I am unable to take care of myself. I spent 23 years dating and married to men that treated me like garbage, but somewhere deep inside (thanks mom) I felt I needed them. I am 3 months out of a marriage that turned physically violent, I am DONE.
It’s funny I read this today, I saw a couple of things yesterday that got me thinking. I was waiting at the beautician (she’s an awesome intersectional feminist) and she was talking to her previous patient as they were finishing up. This young woman was talking about her male partner and how she tries to discuss household equity, he gets defensive, “tries for a bit” but then reverts back to being lazy. She sounded at the end of her tether with him. As she was leaving she said something like “see you before the wedding!”. It dawned on me that she ls about to marry this guy very soon. I looked at my beauty therapist, we both shrugged, and I said “she does know it’s not going to get any better, right?”.
It made me so sad as I could imagine her immediate future and this poor thing doesn’t know what she’s in for.
Soon after I saw on Facebook a schoolmate who posted a long winded “appreciation post” for her husband. Apparently, before he flies back out to work (mining) he’d cleaned a bit and prepped some dinners “but also snuck in a cheeky game of golf! Haha”. She adds something like “I think we should show our appreciation more often”. Honestly 🤦🏼♀️ as my sister said, the bar is on the floor. It made me wanna throw up in my mouth, especially the comments “aw such a good bloke!” Or “he’s a keeper!”. I bet he never says anything about how she parents alone while he’s working away, while working full time and juggling all the home responsibilities. I wish women got appreciation posts for all the basic shit we have to do.
I've never been married and I'm childfree. I turned 40 this January. I've finally stopped imagining a future for myself that is informed by patriarchal myths and centering men.
The only time I dislike being single is when I try to date. I enjoy my own company. I've been living on my own since 18, so I've never looked to a man for financial security.
I know many women in mediocre or unhappy marriages, and the common denominator is that the woman was desperate and/or under immense social pressure to check the box of marriage and have children.
I do still have fears sometimes about my old age as a single woman with no family, but I also have great friends and a good job with a large company. I've yet to meet a man that could offer me this kind of security and care. I'm not saying none exist, I'm just saying I haven't met him.
I think that it makes even more sense on the macro scale. Our society is built to rely on a massive amount unpaid labor, and wives and women in long term relationships with men provide the bulk of that. Most of us who have tried to hire childcare, eldercare, cleaning services, therapists, professional organizers, personal assistants, etc figure out pretty quickly that we couldn't afford anything close to the level of labor to "replace" a wife. In fact, the vast majority of people couldn't afford it, which means for most people... the value of unpaid labor in the household is greater than the value of paid labor. So yeah, there's going to be a push to make sure that folks sign up to be wives. If they just stop, it hits the economy even harder than if people just stopped going to paid jobs.
Preach! I love my husband very much, and he is a relatively enlightened guy, especially when the conversations are general, but he has mos def become complacent (in part due to how beautifully I curate his life) and his spoiled-ass behavior is starting to negatively affect me on a daily basis.
Because I'm so good at coping and managing things, he doesn't seem to know what to do when I'm struggling or impaired. If I'm fighting off a panic attack (because I lost my most wonderful little girl kitty who was in every way that is important to me, my daughter, to a sudden, inexplicable, and agonizing death at three and a half years old, two days after Christmas, and work has been exceptionally stressful lately); or successfully drunk on one of the two nights a month that I responsibly drink with my very good work bestie, he reacts with annoyance, rather than support. He has at least one drink every night, but gets weirded out when I am happily affected by the drinks I had with my pal.
I told him the other day that I can afford my apartment, and my life without his financial support, which has drastically slackened in the last six months due to his career change from a high paying job that was soul-crushing, to two months of no work that he never got around to applying for unemployment to help cover, to a much lower paying job in a field he loves - all of which I have mentally, emotionally, and financially supported at notable cost to my emotional and financial resources.
I told him I was proud of the fact that I don't need him financially, which is good, otherwise, I would have to be mining my savings to make rent while he pays the tax bill he incurred by not withholding enough while he was raking it in. He made $20k more than I did last year, even with the 2+ months with no paychecks, and withheld $1k less than I did. And he also didn't save a dime of it, something both he and I intensely regret, but I can't do it for him, so that's all on him.
So, after I reduced his (regarded as our, by the IRS) underpayment penalty by $400 through hours of tax code research, and completing a 2210 form to annualize our income (really boring, right?), I advised him that the entire $2k+ bill is his to pay, since I would be getting a nice little refund if I filed as married filing separately, which is the worst way to file. To his credit he agreed with me. I told him that since I can be independent, and he is behaving like such a spoiled asswipe lately, that if he wants to continue living with me, and being emotionally, and when necessary, financially supported by me, that "the pros have to outweigh the cons." I'm sure many socially programmed women, and a large number of men would already be clutching their pearls at what I've said. Don't care! It's the truth. It's what's right; and I don't apologize for it. Like I don't apologize for not attending a baby shower held at my workplace recently.
I hate baby showers, largely because I find them to be the most fertile ground for women to passive aggressively impose antiquated and absurd societal norms on one another. I am jealous of men for many reasons, but one of the prominent ones, is not being guilted and shamed into attending this humiliating and childish social ritual: the dreaded baby shower.
I went to the large break room after the stupid games and fake oohing and aahing were done, to grab a cupcake, to find the men in our department (who also didn't attend) already there, picking over the remains. And the very nice lesbian housekeeper for our company, wheeled the recycling bin past me, and said (only to me - not to the guys stuffing their faces with cupcakes and chocolate bars) "You're late." I responded "I hate baby showers" at the risk of being shunned. Even she acted to enforce the perceived obligation of every female in the company to attend this event, whether they know the mother to be, or not.
Why should I spend my hard earned money, and short lunch time, to give this person who I've only seen four times in passing in the hallway, a gift and praise? No one thinks the dudes who work with her should have to, then why me? Just cuz I'm a chick. Gross!
As I’ve come into the awakening later in life, I’ve made it my personal pledge to tell all young women, including my daughter, the risks of marriage especially in this country. The generation before us was mostly silent on these truths. Looking back I can see my mother’s held-in low-simmering chronic strain. I didn’t notice it as much as a younger/selfish/oblivious youth…but even though she didn’t always explicitly say the truth, she laid some rare nuggets in there that I always remembered, but never took fully to heart until now (too late):
“A husband is another child you raise”
“Children suck the life out of you”
As a boomer she saw many moves ahead in the chess game and has always controlled their finances (rare for the housewife?) although he has always been the “breadwinner” as a physician, and an emotionally absent father and husband. She played the game to her maximum advantage but … if she had gotten out years ago would I have felt the pressure to continue on in my dead marriage? I hope to break the cycle for my daughter.
I’m convinced *one* of the reasons Congress wants to shut down TikTok is because of all the truth that has been revealed to WOMEN. My personal story was validated by other women of faith who “did everything right” prior to marriage and found that despite our best efforts in adhering to the tenets of our faith, we found ourselves in abusive marriages.
TikTok has pulled the cover back on marriage, motherhood, evangelical Christianity, the “Pro Life” movement and so much more. Women are saying “Fuck this” and leaving marriages that they would have tolerated before and young women are saying, “Fuck that” and are foregoing marriage and babies unless they can find a partner who is willing to be a PARTNER in every sense of the word.
It’s all falling apart which is good because I think we can create a more just society.
If Congress truly cared about citizens being manipulated or harmed, they would have done something to facebook which was compromised during the ‘16 election.
I only read the non-paywalled intro to that Atlantic piece you linked, and the final sentence I could read was "Ask any soul-baring single 40-year-old heterosexual woman what she longs for in life, and she probably won't tell you it's a better career..." What the actual??????
Know, Women, the life's work of Californian, Dr Bella DePaulo = https://belladepaulo.com/ and https://www.psychologytoday.com/nz/contributors/bella-depaulo-phd?page=2.
I was talking to a friend recently who's going thru a divorce about how we're both just "done." Not interested in another marriage, looking for a relationship, etc. And it's so much better and peaceful being single. I mentioned the statistics about how married men live longer than unmarried, but the reverse is true for women. That's made me think, any marriage / longterm relationship with a man would truly have to be worth sacrificing years of my life for. And the man who actually merits that sacrifice would never put me in the position of making it.
I am 65 years old, and just realizing how deeply conditioned I am by the patriarchy to believe that if I’m not in an intimate relationship then I’m a failure as a person. I’ve had 2 toxic marriages because I believed (unconsciously) that I should marry any man who showed interest in me. And that all our problems were my fault. My mother certainly believed this. These relationships seriously damaged my health. I am now happily single and my health is improving. Thanks so much for bringing the truth to light.
OMG David Brooks, Captain Audacity, splits from his first wife in his early 50s and at age 55 marries his 32 year old researcher https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/reliable-source/wp/2017/04/30/new-york-times-columnist-david-brooks-weds-his-former-researcher-anne-snyder/. Then decides he should be lecturing people (women) on why they should get married young. I don’t think so mate. Take your red flag parade somewhere else.
I was conditioned by my mom, from a very young age to “find someone who will take care of you” implying as a woman that I am unable to take care of myself. I spent 23 years dating and married to men that treated me like garbage, but somewhere deep inside (thanks mom) I felt I needed them. I am 3 months out of a marriage that turned physically violent, I am DONE.
F&$?ing DONE.
It’s funny I read this today, I saw a couple of things yesterday that got me thinking. I was waiting at the beautician (she’s an awesome intersectional feminist) and she was talking to her previous patient as they were finishing up. This young woman was talking about her male partner and how she tries to discuss household equity, he gets defensive, “tries for a bit” but then reverts back to being lazy. She sounded at the end of her tether with him. As she was leaving she said something like “see you before the wedding!”. It dawned on me that she ls about to marry this guy very soon. I looked at my beauty therapist, we both shrugged, and I said “she does know it’s not going to get any better, right?”.
It made me so sad as I could imagine her immediate future and this poor thing doesn’t know what she’s in for.
Soon after I saw on Facebook a schoolmate who posted a long winded “appreciation post” for her husband. Apparently, before he flies back out to work (mining) he’d cleaned a bit and prepped some dinners “but also snuck in a cheeky game of golf! Haha”. She adds something like “I think we should show our appreciation more often”. Honestly 🤦🏼♀️ as my sister said, the bar is on the floor. It made me wanna throw up in my mouth, especially the comments “aw such a good bloke!” Or “he’s a keeper!”. I bet he never says anything about how she parents alone while he’s working away, while working full time and juggling all the home responsibilities. I wish women got appreciation posts for all the basic shit we have to do.
I've never been married and I'm childfree. I turned 40 this January. I've finally stopped imagining a future for myself that is informed by patriarchal myths and centering men.
The only time I dislike being single is when I try to date. I enjoy my own company. I've been living on my own since 18, so I've never looked to a man for financial security.
I know many women in mediocre or unhappy marriages, and the common denominator is that the woman was desperate and/or under immense social pressure to check the box of marriage and have children.
I do still have fears sometimes about my old age as a single woman with no family, but I also have great friends and a good job with a large company. I've yet to meet a man that could offer me this kind of security and care. I'm not saying none exist, I'm just saying I haven't met him.
I think that it makes even more sense on the macro scale. Our society is built to rely on a massive amount unpaid labor, and wives and women in long term relationships with men provide the bulk of that. Most of us who have tried to hire childcare, eldercare, cleaning services, therapists, professional organizers, personal assistants, etc figure out pretty quickly that we couldn't afford anything close to the level of labor to "replace" a wife. In fact, the vast majority of people couldn't afford it, which means for most people... the value of unpaid labor in the household is greater than the value of paid labor. So yeah, there's going to be a push to make sure that folks sign up to be wives. If they just stop, it hits the economy even harder than if people just stopped going to paid jobs.
Preach! I love my husband very much, and he is a relatively enlightened guy, especially when the conversations are general, but he has mos def become complacent (in part due to how beautifully I curate his life) and his spoiled-ass behavior is starting to negatively affect me on a daily basis.
Because I'm so good at coping and managing things, he doesn't seem to know what to do when I'm struggling or impaired. If I'm fighting off a panic attack (because I lost my most wonderful little girl kitty who was in every way that is important to me, my daughter, to a sudden, inexplicable, and agonizing death at three and a half years old, two days after Christmas, and work has been exceptionally stressful lately); or successfully drunk on one of the two nights a month that I responsibly drink with my very good work bestie, he reacts with annoyance, rather than support. He has at least one drink every night, but gets weirded out when I am happily affected by the drinks I had with my pal.
I told him the other day that I can afford my apartment, and my life without his financial support, which has drastically slackened in the last six months due to his career change from a high paying job that was soul-crushing, to two months of no work that he never got around to applying for unemployment to help cover, to a much lower paying job in a field he loves - all of which I have mentally, emotionally, and financially supported at notable cost to my emotional and financial resources.
I told him I was proud of the fact that I don't need him financially, which is good, otherwise, I would have to be mining my savings to make rent while he pays the tax bill he incurred by not withholding enough while he was raking it in. He made $20k more than I did last year, even with the 2+ months with no paychecks, and withheld $1k less than I did. And he also didn't save a dime of it, something both he and I intensely regret, but I can't do it for him, so that's all on him.
So, after I reduced his (regarded as our, by the IRS) underpayment penalty by $400 through hours of tax code research, and completing a 2210 form to annualize our income (really boring, right?), I advised him that the entire $2k+ bill is his to pay, since I would be getting a nice little refund if I filed as married filing separately, which is the worst way to file. To his credit he agreed with me. I told him that since I can be independent, and he is behaving like such a spoiled asswipe lately, that if he wants to continue living with me, and being emotionally, and when necessary, financially supported by me, that "the pros have to outweigh the cons." I'm sure many socially programmed women, and a large number of men would already be clutching their pearls at what I've said. Don't care! It's the truth. It's what's right; and I don't apologize for it. Like I don't apologize for not attending a baby shower held at my workplace recently.
I hate baby showers, largely because I find them to be the most fertile ground for women to passive aggressively impose antiquated and absurd societal norms on one another. I am jealous of men for many reasons, but one of the prominent ones, is not being guilted and shamed into attending this humiliating and childish social ritual: the dreaded baby shower.
I went to the large break room after the stupid games and fake oohing and aahing were done, to grab a cupcake, to find the men in our department (who also didn't attend) already there, picking over the remains. And the very nice lesbian housekeeper for our company, wheeled the recycling bin past me, and said (only to me - not to the guys stuffing their faces with cupcakes and chocolate bars) "You're late." I responded "I hate baby showers" at the risk of being shunned. Even she acted to enforce the perceived obligation of every female in the company to attend this event, whether they know the mother to be, or not.
Why should I spend my hard earned money, and short lunch time, to give this person who I've only seen four times in passing in the hallway, a gift and praise? No one thinks the dudes who work with her should have to, then why me? Just cuz I'm a chick. Gross!
As I’ve come into the awakening later in life, I’ve made it my personal pledge to tell all young women, including my daughter, the risks of marriage especially in this country. The generation before us was mostly silent on these truths. Looking back I can see my mother’s held-in low-simmering chronic strain. I didn’t notice it as much as a younger/selfish/oblivious youth…but even though she didn’t always explicitly say the truth, she laid some rare nuggets in there that I always remembered, but never took fully to heart until now (too late):
“A husband is another child you raise”
“Children suck the life out of you”
As a boomer she saw many moves ahead in the chess game and has always controlled their finances (rare for the housewife?) although he has always been the “breadwinner” as a physician, and an emotionally absent father and husband. She played the game to her maximum advantage but … if she had gotten out years ago would I have felt the pressure to continue on in my dead marriage? I hope to break the cycle for my daughter.