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Why Today’s Girls Might Not Want to Be Girls
After reading Susan Quinn’s post about saving our children, I may have an answer to the problem of girls not wanting to be girls. I wonder if the problem is not that they don’t want to be girls, but that they aren’t keen on the feminist’s vision of what girls must be today. Perhaps they are not eager to be an engineer, or a carpenter, or the CEO of a Fortune 500 company.
Today’s society has nearly totally bought into the feminist version of females, who not only successfully compete with men in the job market, but are simply better than men in all walks of life. Girls are told that they must go to college, get a good job, and advance in their careers to become the head of something. Girls have it drummed into them from childhood that they can be anything they want to be, and if they don’t get there it’s men’s fault, or society’s fault. Girls are told, in school and subliminally in advertising, that getting married, having children, and raising them to be productive members of society is not making use of their best talents-that can only happen when they have a degree and a job on Main Street or Wall Street.
Maybe today’s girls actually want to have a boyfriend (or two), meet Mr. Right, get married, and be a full-time Mom. Maybe they see what society insists they must want, and turn away from that future. They are very conflicted when what they actually want for their lives is continually talked down by the wider society.
I have always thought that the version of feminism that denigrates men, idolizes women with high-level jobs, and values being a mother to a family much less than paid work, has had a negative effect on society. This level of feminism has led to disastrous consequences for many middle-class men, who see themselves as subservient to women, and devalued; which leads to “diseases of despair”, drug use, and increased suicide.
Maybe Feminism itself is the cause of today’s girls not wanting to be girls.
Published in Culture
Great post!
Boys can’t be boys. Girls can’t be girls. How messed up is all that?
Exactly. A girl can dedicate her entire teen years to become a star athlete only to be told that she’ll have to compete against boys. The organizations formerly known as the Girl and Boy Scouts have completely lost their meaning. Our military has ceased to be a place where a boy is molded into a man.
So messed up…
I wonder how much girls today know about the feminist movement and the propaganda it put out? I wonder if that information is considered so archaic and useless, at least to some.
It is hard for people to aspire to something that they are constantly told doesn’t exist. Feminism has relentlessly redefined femininity as masculinity-light; now the gender identity fruitcakes have sold a vision of human sexuality that denies both masculinity and femininity.
What’s a girl to do?
I think restoring American cultural vitality is going to require a re-embrace of traditional sexual identity, of manly men and womanly women.
I just thought of something else. Today’s girls/women are presented with two completely opposite views of women. First, they are told that they are “empowered” to do, and be, anything they desire in life. If they want to be an investment banker on Wall Street, they can be one. If they want to be a chemical engineer or and architect, they can go to college, get the degree, and get the well-paying job. On the other hand, they are told that they are the perpetual victims of the “patriarchy”, always looked down upon by men, and are potential rape victims. They are essentially told that they are both winners and victims at the same time. What girl wouldn’t have a hard time processing those contradictory messages?
Something that bothers me greatly is the political and media’s catering to the “single mom.” No mention is made of an ex-husband or even an ex-boyfriend who is kept in the background as though he doesn’t exist. Were they virgin births or was a man involved? Within our own family one of the women made much of being a downtrodden single mother when the reality was she had an ex-husband who supported her in every way he could financially and was always available to help with their two children. She had one boyfriend after another, often left their kids alone at night, and when he went to court to get custody, the judge ruled that children belong with the mother. I don’t doubt that there are men who are irresponsible, just as there are irresponsible mothers who are on drugs or alcohol and let their children run wild. It’s high time men started speaking up for themselves for the sake of the family.
There are men’s organizations that have been doing that for decades. They haven’t had a lot of success.
I can only say they’re doing a poor job in the PR department. Men own most of the big newspapers and head the big cable news organizations. Have women intimidated you guys so much that you’re afraid to speak up for your own sex? I’m the mother of two men and two women. They all seem to me to have fairly equal and respectful marriages, but I would give the power edge to the men when it comes to major decisions. Maybe men have forgotten the power they really have over women. They’re bigger, stronger and braver, and if we hear the sound of an intruder in the middle of the night, we don’t run downstairs to confront him, the men do.
I am reminded of that “Julia” thing from the Obama era where the only entities that matter are Julia and her government support.
I never wanted to do girl-y things.
As luck would have it none of the other kids on my block were so inclined either.
We played cowboys & Indians, GI’s against Nazis, and enacted elaborate dramas based on James Bond movies. In those exciting off, off Broadway shows, my friend Eileen played six or seven roles. She would don many various hats: that of a snooty society matron, snooty Jezebel who sold out whichever one of us was playing Bond, the ticket taker, airplane pilot and other assorted roles. As well doing a bang up job portraying the Despicable Evil Villain, (This was always a guy, but she enjoyed that role too.) . Each part required a different accent, and she seamlessly went from one character to another.
We kids also spent our time riding bikes, climbing trees, with softball in the summer, skating, sledding and football in cold weather.
Fifteen years later, when I got pregnant with my son, I somewhat figured I’d hatch the baby, find him a day time care taker, and head on back to work.
What I had not counted on were the hormones. Or else maybe it was the over the top but normal response of an adult human catapulted into the parenthood role induced by waves of over powering love.
A friend found me a great job as office mgr for a team of shrinks, but I couldn’t focus on anything but the baby. I put in my 2 week notice within my first 3 weeks.
I’ve known women who focused in early adult hood on marriage and kids who then found out they weren’t suited for either.
It is never apparent, who will be a parent (and actually enjoy it.)
I was a classic tomboy, playing the mud, building stuff, playing cowboys-and-Indians, and having adventures in the vacant lot at the end of our street. My mother was worried about me.
I have been married twice, no kids by choice, so perhaps my mother’s worries came true halfway. My sister had the kids.
In the most egalitarian countries in the world, the portion of women going into STEM careers is lower than less egalitarian countries- ie where young women are encouraged to pursue careers that they are interested in, they tend to pick fields in care giving or languages. Amazing! When you give people the freedom to do what they want you don’t get the results the left wants- so they claim it is a sign of how strong the patriarchy is. Of course, when the left is confronted with a choice between freedom and getting the outcome they desire- freedom always loses.
What’s sad is that ’embracing’ even comes into it; early feminism was understood to mean that women have options – working was ok and the assumption that women would be forever relegated to certain jobs which were assumed to be temporary in any case was no longer a reasonable way to treat productive workers. So work. Knock yourself out. Or, like, don’t.
Working women used to be pitied. Now non-working women are.
What if we just kind of let women decide how they want to play the one life they get, and to decide for themselves what the most ‘fulfilling’ path is?
Jordan Peterson has pointed this out more than once.
Yeah, well she isn’t single then is she.
Including here, which has one of the most famous endings:
The falling birthrate will eventually moot the issue.
I have a different take not that RushBabe’s idea is wrong.
I have a 20 something daughter with many, many friends, mostly young women.
I know quite a few very well. I believe there are many causal factors to “girls not wanting to be girls”; here are just a couple:
• A very high percentage of young women have had very troubled childhoods in a very dysfunctional family, where the young woman has either a very troubled relationship with her father or no father at all. Those in this situation often have great trouble dealing with young men. They can only think of men in a sexual way or as some one to use and abuse or be abused by. They have great trouble seeing young men as human beings. All that said, those who are most troubled are the most desperate and have been led to believe often from the media that not being a woman will somehow solve all their problems and that becoming trans will lead to a more fulfilling life. These young women are the most likely in my opinion to turn trans.
• Many college age young women are very impressionable, very into fashion and often have been led to believe the absurd Marxist dogmas instilled in them from college. Being transgender is the new hot thing. Those who are rigidly into the new dogma of which there are quite a few ,want to be on the cutting edge and being trans is the biggest thing in cutting edge lifestyles. Leftist dogma teaches them not to believe in cause and effect reality and not to think about the consequences of one’s actions, so many of these young women don’t consider what will happen after that ‘sex change” and really are the consequences of that action.
I have a degree in chemical,engineering. Chem E is interesting, but baby way more interesting. Always sort of wished I’d been born male until I had a baby. Nah! God knew what He was doing.
Aren’t most trans the type where men claim they need to be women? The “women getting so frustrated they become trans” might be something of a fashion statement, but rather than actually have surgery etc, I expect most of them – once it’s no longer just a fashion statement – would become lesbian.
The DNA of a human and the neuroscience of a developing baby put Chemical engineering to shame, Even Carbon looks simple compared to a baby.
Kedavis: “Aren’t most trans the type where men claim they need to be women? The “women getting so frustrated they become trans” might be something of a fashion statement, but rather than actually have surgery etc, I expect most of them – once it’s no longer just a fashion statement – would become lesbian.”
It’s (“women getting so frustrated they become trans”) true for men as well. But frustrated is not even close to the anguish these people -the truly troubled – feel. They are messed up and don’t know which way is up so they are seeking relief. Yes, the fashionistas are less aggressive in their pursuit of trans. But btw, there are so many lesbians now or those who are bi-sexual it’s crazy. It ain’t no big thing anymore for many young women. The lesbian thing is now old hat, though. Lesbian bars are actually going out of business because they are no longer cutting edge. Gotta be trans to be ultra cool now.
Well the lesbian thing might also be getting overcrowded with so many women figuring they can’t get along with men, but who knows?
E Mavis Hetherington did much of the pioneering work on the effects of divorce on children. While boys were generally more effected by divorce (having a single parent of the opposite sex was deleterious to child-and most often the mother has custody), remarriage was more problematic for the girls- perhaps the rise in divorce & remarriage may explain part of the rise in transgenderism. IIRC, Hetherington also noted that girls internalized matters more (depression, anxiety- while boys externalized) and that girls from divorced families had greater trouble relating properly to men. These problems could partly explain the great rise in gender dysphoria. She also said that the death of the father wasn’t as bad for girls- she theorized that in the family’s collective memory he was held up as a positive model, while divorced dad was held in contempt.
I very much agree. Of course, once upon a time, it wasn’t that awful that young adults happen to be quite impressionable. College often expanded a young adult’s notion of what life is about, as if the college student went away to school, they experienced a different climate, and different regional experiences, like when a city kid goes to a rural area, or a rural kid goes off to the Big Apple.
Your statements reminded me of how there is this insistence that now even 5 to 7 year olds learn about how they might be in the wrong body. Some few years ago, a CBS or NBC one hour TV show demonstrated our society’s need to step up and indoctrinate our kids on what is presented as the huge likelihood that a child needs a sexual re-assignment.
This show not only took up an hour – there was less than 7 minutes of commercials during that hour, whereas normally there are 16 to 18 minutes. So some foundation sponsored this crap.
The reporters visited households to show that some 7 and 8 year old dysmorphic children were “blessed with parents” who encouraged their child to be wearing the opposite gender’s clothing. This seemed to mostly involve kids who were created as little boys but now who wore dresses and it looked like they had applied makeup. (Whereas the Left frowns on actual women wearing makeup, apparently if some little boy wears it, he is a hero!)
Reporters quizzed the parents on when the sex hormone therapy would start, and when the sex change operation would occur. All like it is perfectly okay for parents to go along with a choice a 7 year old makes many years before they could possibly understand the implications.
I wore a cowboy outfit at age 5, spurning the Dale Evans cowgirl skirt I got as a birthday present. But adults in the Fifties saw such behavior as a phase. Thank goodness I wasn’t locked into my choice for the next eternity by parents needing to demonstrate how they are at peace with the Progressive’s movement’s insistence on tolerance.
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I’d say none of them. I know I didn’t.
I mentioned before that I’d noticed something changed from when I was in my early 20’s in the 2000’s and around about 5 or 6 years ago, definitely pre 2016. I remember having a conversation around 2011 or 2012 even remarking that the feminists of the 70’s were probably not very happy with the way feminism was currently perceived and with emphasis young women had on beauty and hooking up etc.
I started noticing the why I need feminism posts on Facebook maybe around 2014. There was a distinct change in the conversation around feminism then that’s just just gotten more loud and shrill.
” Perhaps they are not eager to be an engineer, or a carpenter, or the CEO of a Fortune 500 company.”
Wait, what’s unwomanly about carpentry? It’s visual, it’s tactile, and it’s creative, even if it does involve constructing and assembling things. It seems to use the same skill set as sewing.