THOMAS F. BERTONNEAU writes:

Respecting “Game,” the very name “Game” suggests insincerity and deceit.  In that way it is an egregiously counter-productive term.  Insofar as those who use the term “Game” actually mean masculinity, decency, chivalry, constancy, moral integrity, and the classical virtues, maybe they should refer to those things explicitly by name.  When I hear the word “game” I think of Las Vegas, the casinos, the public women, the fatuous college boys who are attracted to that scene, and everything else summed up in the vulgar advertisements for Nevada’s heart of darkness. 

I have a measure of respect for a slang-term that some of my male students use: “Man up” (also, “grow a pair”).  If the advocates of “Game” spoke of “manning up” (or of “growing a pair”), then it might be possible to take them more seriously.  Words not only have meanings and consequences; they also have connotations, and the connotations have meanings and consequences. (more…)

THE BLOGGER Dennis Mangan joins the ranks of small-minded men’s rights ideologues attempting to burn me at the stake. Mangan writes about my comment that men have nothing to fear in marriage other than the loss of their honor. He comes to the conclusion that conservative women cannot possibly empathize with the plight of men.

Mr. Mangan conveniently ignores the fact that this particular statement by me occurred in the context of a discussion about comments at another website from men who said no women can be trusted and that “99 percent” of women are nothing more than materialistic whores when it comes to marriage.

In addition to failing to mention that participants in the particular discussion in question called women many nasty, unprintable names and celebrated soulless sexual conquest, Mr. Mangan also forgets to take note of the many, many things I have written against female-initiated divorce. If I am not mistaken, I have written more prolifically on the subject than Mr. Mangan. His omission of this small detail suggests some deeper motivation for wishing to excommunicate me from the ranks of anti-feminists. Could it have anything to do with my being a woman? Could it have anything to do with my frequent writings on the devastating loss of the male provider or my refusal to say that the divorce rate justifies anti-marriage campaigns by men or obliviousness and indifference to the soaring rate of illegitimacy?

The lists of my posts on the scourge of unilateral divorce by women is very long. Some (not all) can be found here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Men’s rights ideologues like Mr. Mangan gleefully search for heretics and smack their lips when they think they have discovered that a conservative woman who denounces women for divorce and yet who also points to the responsibilities of men in marriage and society is really an impostor and secretly out to subjugate men. Why do men’s rights advocates so fervently wish to prove that no woman can be trusted? Why must they burn me on their pile of pathetic rhetorical twigs? So they can bask in their One True Faith and not contemplate the complexities. So they can indulge a sense of victimization and self-love.

I repeat. I have written about female-initiated divorce at least as forcefully as Mr. Mangan has. Not only have I written about it, but I have gone so far as to call for a return to presumptive paternal custody. I agree with Whiskey, the blogger quoted by Mr. Mangan, that women must criticize other women for damaging the lives of decent men. I have made this point many times. For all I know, Mr. Whiskey got this point from me. No one has more adamantly insisted on it than I have. Oh! But all that was just an act. I am really a feminist in disguise! Burn me at the stake! I don’t deserve to speak and stand up for marriage! You’re good to go, men.

Arguing with a men’s rights fanatic is like being interrogated by the KGB. The very hairs on your head may be used as evidence against you. At any moment you might be proven an imperialist dog. Even if you have lived the life of hard-working peasant, you can still be an enemy of the people.

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AS more and more women left their traditional roles in the early decades of the twentieth century, Pope Pius XI, in his Encyclical Casti Connubii of December 31, 1930, vehemently spoke out against this immensely significant cultural shift. He called the emancipation of women from the home a “crime.”

Now many decades later, at a time when the majority of married women are employed, it is rare for members of the Catholic clergy to speak in strong terms about the spiritual devastation caused by absentee mothering. 

Pope Pius XI wrote:

The same false teachers who try to dim the luster of conjugal faith and purity do not scruple to do away with the honorable and trusting obedience which the woman owes to the man. Many of them even go further and assert that such a subjection of one party to the other is unworthy of human dignity, that the rights of husband and wife are equal; wherefore, they boldly proclaim the emancipation of women has been or ought to be effected. This emancipation in their ideas must be threefold, in the ruling of the domestic society, in the administration of family affairs and in the rearing of the children. (more…)

A. GUY MALIGNED, at his blog What Women Never Hear, continues to offer his love philosophy to women looking for husbands and to those who are already married. Marriage and courtship, he writes, founder where there is ignorance of fundamental sex differences. In one of his “Boot Camp for Girls” entries, Guy writes:

Feminine beats plain femaleness. Mystery beats full disclosure. Modesty beats masculine morality. Monogamy beats sexual freedom. All of it makes males back off from their naturally dominant personas, which helps fulfill female hopes and dreams. 

Guy also offers good advice for men. (more…)