Settle up, not down
I hate the phrase “settle down” its always used “at” women to force them to marry men who, if the tables were turn a man wouldn’t give a second glance at. Its always used to force a woman (often a black woman) to settle for a man she doesn’t want. Because if she wanted him, she’d already be married to him.
What I hate most about that advise is the stupidity of it. “settle down” doesn’t make a beer bellied man more attractive than Henry Cavill. The heart wants what it wants and, in my heart, I want a man with abs, a strong jawline, blue eyes and a PhD. When do I want it? Now!!! Telling me to settle down with the Ben’s and Jude’s of this world is not going to grow them abs and isn’t going to make me more attracted to them. Believe me I have tried.
My ex-husband’s double chin used to bother me so much, so did the fact that he was disproportionately shaped. His legs were too short for his body. In conventional proportions he’d be 5’11ft -6’0ft rather than pushing 5’9ft. his weak chin irritated me too (yes you can have a double chin and a weak chin at the same time, I found that out from him). You couldn’t buy him clothes because his legs were actually a “S” for short, when I needed a man with “L” for long. And regular trousers didn’t look good on him, despite his attempts to buy them in abundance when he was with his mistresses.
In every modern measurement of success, women are now outstripping men. Which is a problem because women are now being told to marry men with less money, of a lower socio-economic background and academic attainment. And we are wondering why these couples are divorcing.
Studies show that when men and women come from similar backgrounds, earn similar amounts and have similar educational attainment that the marriage works best. But we’re telling girls to be “go getters “ and boys to be “nice”.
Here is a social experiment for you. Tell a boy, around 6 years old that “boys are better than girls” and you my dears will be paraded through the streets of your capital naked, with people hurling cabbages at you and your local priest ringing a bell after you shouting “shame” Cersei Lannister style.
Meanwhile if you tell a girl of the same age that “Girls are better than boys” you will more likely get a positive reaction. Maybe a woman passing by may affirm your statement with “yeah, girls are better than boys, you go girl!” No Cersei Lannister-style walk of atonement needed.
Don’t get me wrong. I believe in women’s equality. But not feminism. I want a woman working in a field or in the army or driving a HGV earning exactly the same as her male counterparts. I want women to have equal access to the STEM subjects, and I want women to be properly recognised for their care giving duties in the home. We save society billions in unpaid work. However I want men to be nursery school teachers and nurses and support staff and be recognised for their role in society.
Newsflash, neither gender is better than the other. Which is why the gender imbalance in “graduate jobs” (read desirable) is flipping towards women we should be concerned. Women make up circa 51% of the global population, they should be 51% of the workforce, the graduates, and make up 51% of the skilled labour. Instead, we are sitting on a timebomb. Women are more likely to graduate. Women are making up more university students and starting more businesses. In the post “do not conform” I have said that there is a place for men in society. However if they are not the best then that place is second place. In some way, we’re handicapping them and thinking its feminine empowerment and we really need to ask ourselves why.
If feminine empowerment means taking power away from men, then it has a poverty mindset and I want no part in it. When has “levelling up” ever meant tearing someone else down? Lets’ call tearing people down for what it is. Emotional vandalism. Which we are praying on men. Be careful feminists. You will have sons one day and if Beyonce had sung “who run the world? Boys!” she’d have been cancelled by now. You can bet your fine ass she doesn’t sing that song to her son, who she literally named Sir.
We equate “white male privilege” to everything. My dears, it’s a bit more nuanced than that. Its “white middle class male privilege” even still more than that. it’s a whole paragraph of “perfect conditions breeding, privilege”
If you are in the UK and you are born, white and male but you are poor, your life chances for social mobility are the worst of any socio economic and racial group. Children of immigrant parents do better than you academically (its trauma, sweetie.) you are least likely to go to university or buy a house or raise your own kids in a stable, married 2 parent family.
We just assume that “white means alright” like people don’t have their own individual struggles. I have a friend whose dad was the chief economist at KPMG at school and he came from a single mother in Manchester. His story was exceptionally rare. What your father does is still in the UK the biggest indicator of what you will do. Yet (they say) intelligence comes down your mothers side (so says my mother) If you are unable to individualise people, and humanise them, please don’t come knocking on my door asking me for grace. Where was the grace you were meant to be showing other people? People love easy narratives but don’t go for what is easy, go for what is hard. Actually look at the people that you are judging, look to understand, not justify (we often skip to the justify bit and end up as enablers)
I did an interview the other day. I totally smashed it. But how I did that was talking about Finance not as an enabling function, but an empowering function. In my role as chartered accountant, it is my role to empower you to do the best job you can do. So if you succeed or fail, you it was on your head because you had the tools for success, you chose failure. It is not, however my job to enable you to make bad decisions. I remember when I worked at the RCGP my first budget, my CEO took a “red pen” and cancelled our WONCA subscription of £70k. WONCA was an organisation we’d been supporting since its inception and we were incredibly important contributors, think the BBC contributing to Eurovision. That level (top 4) of important. I begged her not to because even though I was really new, WONCA was a passion of the Director of Policy. The very next year my CEO wanted us to host the next big WONCA conference. She was surprised and pissed when they said no. Why? When you just treated them like an option should they treat you like a priority? Same for relationships. The levelling down of societies men, and the rise of the “beta males” I have so often railed against are not going to make them more attractive. East Street market is flooded with fake Prada bags. Women still go to Harrods because they want the real thing.
Men need to be going to university. We need to take action in the education system to make a system geared towards both genders, not just women. We need to pull the plug on “computer games culture” we’re breeding man boys who don’t see the sun and will become an osteoporosis problem for society in 40-50 years. We’ve extended adolescence too long and it is now time to “rip off the band aid” you are 37. Grow the fuck up. Why are men not reading books yet almost all the famous authors you can name except J.K Rowling male? Men need to read books, we’re breeding illiterates. Knowledge has never been so cheap. They also need things like contact sports (any Goddamn sport will do) because we as a society (women too) are too fat and lazy to be sustainable in the long term. I see an obesity crisis yet people are whole ass buying scooters rather than walking places. What are you? 7 years old?
The ”little dicks” need to stop telling us what a man is and isn’t and what a woman is and isn’t because they’re rigging the game in their favour. And we need to stop listening to the “little dicks” We need to take down the internet because we have started to believe that our truth is a universal truth. The internet is an echo chamber for our most craven ideas and ideologies. You want to gain an opinion? Research. Don’t just absorb the opinions of others like a human sponge, you are better than that.
More things that benefit men need to be encouraged. Exploring things by breaking them down, and wilder play so that boys can keep their testosterone levels high. As the wise adage says. We don’t rise to the occasion, we fall to our standards. And the standards we are setting for our sons is too low. Way too low. Don’t go to prison, get a job and its not a requirement for you to marry the women you impregnate or even financially provide for the children. How do we want to get a society where we get men who provide for their women and children in every way if the main components of success is barely “get a job?” this is how we end up telling our daughters to “settle down” because we are too afraid to tell our sons to “rise up” Get up off your ass and move, be a man. If you want to be a woman, please accept the periods, 10% less wages, constant threat of sexual assault that come with it. Don’t try and have your cake and eat it too.
I stated in a post that a man I went on a date with who had 2 kids didn’t go see them father’s day weekend. If I was the ex wife I’d have raised almighty hell. The good people of Norway would have put in a noise complaint to the Hauge, I’d be shaming this man so loud. I’d have a petition with 100,000 signature to get this man to see his kids on Father’s day. I’d get Parliament to pass a law. This is a prime example. I left this weekend free trying to encourage him to go see his children. Who are 2 and 5 and he decided he was “tired” and “had too many things on” to drive 1 hour to the midlands to see his kids. “Plans fell through” for him to see his kids 3 weekends in a row. That’s not shit planning. That my dears, is excuses. Meanwhile, I travelled daily 2 hours each way to go to work before the pandemic, and even during it. Weakness. If he needed money, he has a sister, a mother and a brother who would have given him the money for petrol. Hell, I’d have given him money to see his kids on Father’s day. But it wasn’t money. It was lack of love, lack of effort and I’d go to town on his ass if I was the ex wife. This is the energy that is messing up society. When a man is a “grown boy” who is mentally 3 years old so can’t empathise with his 2 year old son and his 5 year old daughters need for a father, because he just wants to play. Once again, it pisses me off because it would have been my fate if I’d had children with my ex. And this is what the internet calls a “good guy’.” Wrong, he’s callous and that God I didn’t end up with him. With my history? Just like my ex I drove him away before it got to children because my womb would have rejected any of his weak ass children. Breed from strong stock my dears. Do not take shit. It is not your job to pity “man boys” read mental paedophilia. If you are a mental paedophile, go to therapy or have yourself chemically castrated because I don’t want your unnatural genes in the gene pool. Before there wasn’t an awareness of what mental paedophilia was, I have brought that awareness to you. Therefore it is your duty if you continue to offend, to turn yourself over to the police. I mean that.
Once men have been given every realistic opportunity to succeed, regardless of their socio-economic background, if they continue to fall behind, we abandon the carrot and go with the stick. (I personally believe we should do this simultaneously) no sex. stop breeding with these men. Your man is lazy? Let him be lazy and celibate, we don’t need more lazy men. We have enough of them in society. Stop trying to get him to fix his life and get on with yours. Exactly the same idea if you are a man and you have a woman trying to live off you. No sex. Don’t breed a baby mama and then be mad when your pay check is missing 25%. When you stop gratifying these people they either reform or die. And if they die that isn’t your problem. You aren’t the messiah; you aren’t here to save souls.
We only get one life and so we should be only offering ourselves to get the highest price possible in the game of love. not the lowest.
So here’s to normalising the phrase “settle up, get married and have kids”
Grace and Courage.
Annetta Mother Smith.