[respect] has to be earned - it's nobody's "right"

Had to smile - one blogfriend was speculating on whether I speak in real life as I write on the blog.

Depends on the company. When I'm with my mate, the air's pretty blue but even there I don't go as far as a DK or Eugenides. If a lady comes in, it stops. You can call that double standards but I call it part of how we were brought up. I just think there are such things as standards one maintains. Over a pint in male company, most things go. Not with ladies present.

Your nails are clipped, your ears clean, your hair brushed [if you have any] your shoes clean - that just goes without saying if you live with people around you and even if you don't. Many married men have a certain base level of hygiene and manner their wives maintain in them. On your own, you dress down but I don't have that many clothing choices any more anyway so, at home, it's a variation of what I'd wear to the beach.

On another post, I wrote that these days, you might be in a shopping arcade, say, and all you hear is a constant stream of bile coming out of the mouths of kids, especially the girls who are trying to be every bit as bad as the boys and this is their way to find acceptance. That sort of thing can be seen in the antics of bloggers like John Edwards’ harpies, this one here called McEwan:

What don’t you lousy motherfuckers understand about keeping your noses out of our britches, our beds, and our families? Oh, and I see on your shitbag website that “Hate Crimes Bills” are one of your priorities.

and Britbloggers like Caroline Hunt:

No it's not a monster - it's a fuck off big grey cloud. But hey ho. The wind and rain make the sea look more picturesque and wild 'n all that crap.

I mean, just what is she trying to prove? Whatever is she trying to be? Does she think that that gets her in better with the boys? Is that somehow her street cred, in lieu of talent? I mean, those things are just low.

There are certain very strong, subconscious urges in women [and in their less self-controlled form - girls], including the urge to get out of their clothing in public and walk about in as little as they can [imagine us doing that - why do you think men wear boxers?], the urge to be accepted by the boys as just as bad as them and even worse [it seems to be a kicking against their upbringing] - the urge to be dissolute.

Hence St Trinians, hence every boring kick-butt Joliesque movie - some sort of constant battle to be taken seriously, interpreted as being as bad as the bad boys they admire. No female today would be seen dead in a Princess Bride role. Look, girls, if you want to be taken seriously, it's very simple - take responsibility for your words and actions, just as males are expected to do, learn the word "no" and act with respect, just as you urge us to do towards you. That's all.

Do you think you can't kick butt and be the achiever everyone admires and respects without being low? How about one of my heroines - Dame Ellen Macarthur, one of the greatest achievers of all time [despite the emotion and tears or maybe even because of them]? How about another heroine - Dame Judy Dench? Would you dare to treat them without respect? Would you heck as like. Why are they Dames in the titled sense? Do you think they don't enjoy life?

If you want respect - you go out and earn it, same as men have to.

Elizabeth Fox-Genovese wrote:

It has not been easy to acknowledge that feminism has promoted the unraveling of the most binding and important social bonds. Not easy, but unavoidable. Like countless other women who cherish improvement in the situation of women in the United States and throughout the world, I was initially quick to embrace feminism as the best way to secure our "rights" and our dignity as persons.

Like countless others, I was seriously misled.

In practice, the sexual liberation of women has realized men's most predatory sexual fantasies. As women shook themselves free from the norms and conventions of sexual conduct, men did the same.

There can be no doubt that women's situation has demanded improvement -- and continues to do so throughout much of the world. But the emphasis upon individual rights at the expense of mutual responsibility and service is not the way to secure it.

Worse, it is destroying the fabric of our society as a whole because it is severing the most fundamental social bonds. Binding ties constrain women, but they constrain men as well. As Danielle Crittenden has noted, the family "has never been about the promotion of rights but the surrender of them -- by both the man and the woman".

Hear, hear. One male said, in a previous post that observing the double standard, i.e. respecting a woman and respecting her womanhood, is controlling her sexuality and treating her as a commodity. WTF?

Lord Nazh© answered him:

I, for one, will always treat a lady (be she young, old, ugly, whatever) with the respect I think she deserves until such time as she makes me take it away. If that is by holding the door, looking out for her, helping her, whatever, that is what I will do. I have never tried to control any females' sexuality, I have tried to get them to expand it a few times (successfully a lot heh) but control? That's more smoke than Britain has banned.

In came a Feminazi who shall remain nameless:

We don't want to be discriminated against for our gender nor paid less than our male colleagues or less for equivalent work. I'm not going to touch the sexuality issue except to say that if women allow themselves to be oppressed sexually it is often because they have low self esteem, possibly given to them by men. Why do you so seldom see men with low self esteem? By the way if you open the door for me that doesn't mean that you show respect for me nor defer to my opinion. It just means your mother brought you up well and you paid attention.

Sigh. A blogger called KellyMac answered her and saved me the job:

No. Wrong. What most women, i.e. feminists, want is equality of outcome, no matter how much you must disadvantage men to do it. Men and women are biologically different - gender is NOT a social construct. Honestly, that's among the most ridiculous things I've ever heard - gender being a social construct. We evolved differently because that was the most efficient way to survive.

It amuses me that feminists say we're the same when it benefits women, and say we're different when it doesn't. You can't have it both ways, ladies. Men naturally want to protect and care for us. And we naturally want to be cherished and needed, and, believe it or not, we want to make them happy. Do you ever wonder why women are so freaking unhappy these days? Because we're supposed to not be women.

That's just sick.

My own addendum is that that Feminazi is one sad person. What's with this "oppressed" bit they always harp on about? Look, Nazh said it, I say it, many blokes say it - take responsibility for your words and actions and you'll have the same respect males accord other males who accord respect to them and take them seriously.

For you to take my words on this blog seriously, I hve to say something seriously. For you to take me as a buffoon, I only need write like one.

If you one night stand, men will take advantage of it but don't ask, next morning, "Do you still respect me?" The answer is no but you were a nice piece of meat though. If you walk around with it all hanging out, then don't be surprised if you get ogled and later, in drunken company with two dozen males, if you get "raped". It's total tosh to say that the way you acted was not a factor and don't even try that old chestnut that the way you dress and the company you keep should be kept totally separate to the way you get treated.

If I dress like something out of a horror movie and go for an interview for a job in the City, what can I realistically expect? If I go for a job as Sunday School teacher and it's effing this and c--- that, what can I realistically expect? If I go for a job in fashion and dress like a Jehovah's Witness, what can I realistically expect?

If you swear like a navvy, out of some misguided desire to be one of the boys, then you're going to get beaten on, just as male does on male and how on G-d's earth do you ever think this is going to translate into respect for you?

As you give and expect in return, so you will get in return.

They're as rare as hen's teeth these days, ladies and gentlemen but I was brought up with men who respected a woman's right to be treated as a lady and taken seriously and with women who'd look askance if the man did not accord them the same respect as they showed the men.

Do you think the sex was any less good in those days? Do you think we all prayed before copulating or asked ourselves if we're oppressing each other?

Give me a break.