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Control or dominate? No. Exercise leadership? Yes. There is a big difference. As a few earlier posts have commented, the ages of the men may determine their attitude. Older men raised in the era of much more sharply defined male/female roles quite likely will be more insistent on assuming leadership.
My now former lady friend was one of those "My way or the highway" controlling types. She had dominated every man in her life up to then; former husbands, boyfriends, and casual dates. She actually gave me a sort of backhanded compliment just before our split when she commented that she had never before known a man like me. I was the first man that refused to put up with her constant nonsense, and she could not handle the fact that I was too strong for her to control.
Most women push for marriage and kids because that is absolute control over a man. If a man is married with kids in this day and time and when his wife says jump he does not say how high she can take him to the cleaners. Strong non pusy men will refuse to get married or have kids, that way they maintain equal footing to their female conuterparts.
Having grown up around very effeminate and weak-willed men, I feel like I have a skewed sense of what men's needs are. One of the themes that keeps popping up in my dating life is men's desire to feel in control. They want to have control - need to have control - and this is a new concept for me...considering I've been dating pretty weak-willed men .
So my question is, do guys need that? To feel like they are calling the shots, either in dating or in relationships in general? Is it a big blow to a guy's ego if the woman is too assertive and doesn't let him dominate? Does he get resentful if a woman is stronger willed than he is?
Actually, if anyone has a need for certainty, it's more likely to be a woman. Men tend to be more comfortable with gray areas than women. Twenty-five years of planning vacations with my wife is ample proof of that.
The level of personal variance when it comes to how much control a person wants probably hasn't changed over time. However, back in the old days, men had more institutional power over women. A weak willed man in the 1960s will have a higher status in society than a similar man today. Men complain because they have lost a lot of the gender advantages they used to take for granted.
Location: Subconscious Syncope, USA (Northeastern US)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by highlife2
Yes, but our society has almost completely stripped men of any real control. That's why the dating scence is so messed up. It used to be men had real power, now they only have power that their women give them. IF she gets pissed off and things start to go down the drain you will see in the family law courts or domestic "violence" courts who has the power.
Its why men are less likely to commit now more than ever. In the mid to late 40's it made sense for a man to get married now it makes no sense.
"In the '40's, President Franklin D Roosevelt, a liberal Democrat President, was keenly interested in farm issues and believed that true prosperity would not return until farming was prosperous."
The thing is money. Farmers married for cheap labor (i.e. the 12 kids they would have with their wife). Only the wealthy could afford not to put their children to work on their farm, and substitute migrant workers, and truck farmers for the labor the children would produce. Back then, a migrant worker was a viable job for an American.
There was also plenty of manufacturing, mining, etc. Jobs were no where near as hard to find as they are now. Even if a woman has a stay-at-home man, she still needs to know how to treat him like a man. He needs to know how to act like a man. Neither is very likely to happen when most of the children are growing up in a single-mother household. Male or female, they will learn to act like and face the world like their single, frazzled and disenfranchised mother does.
That leaves everyone like I was - clueless and having to learn how to do it the hard way.
Then we had women's liberation. This was a necessity for the bored and wealthy 'empty-nest' women, to feel like their life had a purpose now that the kids were grown and on their own. Maids and butlers and cooks took care of the ways a working class woman showed her man she cared about him, so the only thing left was a career.
It was a necessity for the poor single-mothers of the country as well. They needed money to support their children. Poor women dont really have careers. They dont look at the work they do as a career. It's pure and simple survival.
There are really very few farmers left in the country, so a man's need for either muscles, children or a wife has dwindled. It's just not as profitable to grow our own food, when we can import - as a nation.
Everyone needs to feel rewarded for the work they do. Mom needs the day at the hairdressers. Dad needs the cool new car. Neither needs kids cause kids no longer contribute to the family income like they did when most Americans were farmers.
I guess you could say that dating is screwed up, and either side is really lucky if they have been able to grow up realizing what their role in the big picture is, simply due to sheer greed.
Even today, rich or poor, a woman will tell you a man with a job is sexy. Why is he sexy? Simply because he has a job.
"In the '40's, President Franklin D Roosevelt, a liberal Democrat President, was keenly interested in farm issues and believed that true prosperity would not return until farming was prosperous."
The thing is money. Farmers married for cheap labor (i.e. the 12 kids they would have with their wife). Only the wealthy could afford not to put their children to work on their farm, and substitute migrant workers, and truck farmers for the labor the children would produce. Back then, a migrant worker was a viable job for an American.
There was also plenty of manufacturing, mining, etc. Jobs were no where near as hard to find as they are now. Even if a woman has a stay-at-home man, she still needs to know how to treat him like a man. He needs to know how to act like a man. Neither is very likely to happen when most of the children are growing up in a single-mother household. Male or female, they will learn to act like and face the world like their single, frazzled and disenfranchised mother does.
That leaves everyone like I was - clueless and having to learn how to do it the hard way.
Then we had women's liberation. This was a necessity for the bored and wealthy 'empty-nest' women, to feel like their life had a purpose now that the kids were grown and on their own. Maids and butlers and cooks took care of the ways a working class woman showed her man she cared about him, so the only thing left was a career.
It was a necessity for the poor single-mothers of the country as well. They needed money to support their children. Poor women dont really have careers. They dont look at the work they do as a career. It's pure and simple survival.
There are really very few farmers left in the country, so a man's need for either muscles, children or a wife has dwindled. It's just not as profitable to grow our own food, when we can import - as a nation.
Everyone needs to feel rewarded for the work they do. Mom needs the day at the hairdressers. Dad needs the cool new car. Neither needs kids cause kids no longer contribute to the family income like they did when most Americans were farmers.
I guess you could say that dating is screwed up, and either side is really lucky if they have been able to grow up realizing what their role in the big picture is, simply due to sheer greed.
Even today, rich or poor, a woman will tell you a man with a job is sexy. Why is he sexy? Simply because he has a job.
This is America baby! Blame it on the capital $ !
But why did they have to wreck the institution of marriage on their rampage through.
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