To impress a woman, a man.

[Anonymouse]

stop making the same point.....I think you're giving people the wrong impression of you.

Tell that the ladies, they are the ones who dragged this, not me.

[ckBejug]

I can't believe one opinion I stated on page 3 or something, turned out to reach into 2 threads. It's safe to say that some of you women really misunderstood what I said, whether intentionally or not, and in turn reflected your own intolerance toward someone that dares question mainstream wisdom or reflect what some of you may deem "ancient" values.

I define femininity as a woman who gives her power to her man in return for love. This is what makes her feminine. When a man has to barter or compromise or "share" their power for love, they become women. Men trade love for power. Whether this sturs you up or not, or whether ladies realize it or not, they can't love a man whom they can control. That is why those relationships in which women are either dominant or power is shared, always never works. A woman must look up to the man, sort of like the God principle. Lo and behold I have now officially outstayed my welcome. I gladly await the charged responses.

We don't misunderstand your opinion mouse, it's just that you state it this way:
"When a man has to barter or compromise or "share" their power for love, they become women. Men trade love for power. Whether this sturs you up or not, or whether ladies realize it or not, they can't love a man whom they can control. That is why those relationships in which women are either dominant or power is shared, always never works. A woman must look up to the man, sort of like the God principle."

If it is only your opinion and not one you are prepared to generalize then say 'if I' and 'the right woman for ME', don't say MEN, then you'e generalizing and thus you'd be wrong.

I agree that women shouldn't be too contolling of their husbands, much the same way I don't think men should be controlling their wives. This is a relationship based on love, not CONTROL! As for the relationships in which compromise is agreed upon by BOTH the man and the woman and 'power' is shared, well I didn't know you were the leading expert! I'm sorry, how many such failed relationships do you know about?

I'm glad to know you want to be with a girl who is self-sufficient and educated and smart but willing to give it all up to be powerless under your 'control'. I don't see why you can't see how difficult that would be for ANY girl with a brain to digest. You are gifting this girl your love in EXCHANGE for her power and on the condition that you can control her? Ayayay. I would love to meet this girl you fall for someday. Are you also going to make her wear a chastity belt just to make everyone know who she 'belongs' to? hahahaha.

Anyway, to each his own. When you're telling your opinion try not to generalize it like you tend to do to MEN in general and WOMEN in general because plenty of people out there are living lives that completely disagree with what you think is the way relationships 'should be'.

p.s. I didn't realize sharing our opinions and getting into friendly arguments always had to be halted when one or the other person didn't get their way. believe me, I for one UNDERSTAND that you speak only of yourself and the situation you'd like to find yourself in. I also want to put out there the fact that like it or not people are going to have a dissenting or agreeable opinion so stop complaining about it and just carry on!

[ckBejug]

CkBejug, you are such an egalitarian. Now submit to me, like a purring kitten!

- Anonymouse

Me-oW




hehehehe

[DvlzAdvocate]

To put it simply, you're wrong.

How would you know , you read the minds of forumers? Or is this another way of admitting I'm right by saying I'm wrong beacuse you don't want to admit that i'm right. huh huh huh...

[ckBejug]

How would you know , you read the minds of forumers? Or is this another way of admitting I'm right by saying I'm wrong beacuse you don't want to admit that i'm right. huh huh huh...

Now don't go using the mouses great explanation that since we disagree with him , he MUST be right Since I disagree with you, I disagree with you. Verch.

You're wrong because no one is trying to BREAK him of his positive qualities. Yes, I can read the mind of the forum members that I know and I know who wants to break mousey. muhahahahaha It's called a discussion forum for a reason. We're discussing why he's wrong. hahaha.

No really, those are lovely qualities to have, why would anyone want to break him? No one is attacking him. Sheesh. You guys need to stop being so touchy.

[Anonymouse]

We don't misunderstand your opinion mouse, it's just that you state it this way:
"When a man has to barter or compromise or "share" their power for love, they become women. Men trade love for power. Whether this sturs you up or not, or whether ladies realize it or not, they can't love a man whom they can control. That is why those relationships in which women are either dominant or power is shared, always never works. A woman must look up to the man, sort of like the God principle."

If it is only your opinion and not one you are prepared to generalize then say 'if I' and 'the right woman for ME', don't say MEN, then you'e generalizing and thus you'd be wrong.

I agree that women shouldn't be too contolling of their husbands, much the same way I don't think men should be controlling their wives. This is a relationship based on love, not CONTROL! As for the relationships in which compromise is agreed upon by BOTH the man and the woman and 'power' is shared, well I didn't know you were the leading expert! I'm sorry, how many such failed relationships do you know about?

I'm glad to know you want to be with a girl who is self-sufficient and educated and smart but willing to give it all up to be powerless under your 'control'. I don't see why you can't see how difficult that would be for ANY girl with a brain to digest. You are gifting this girl your love in EXCHANGE for her power and on the condition that you can control her? Ayayay. I would love to meet this girl you fall for someday. Are you also going to make her wear a chastity belt just to make everyone know who she 'belongs' to? hahahaha.

Anyway, to each his own. When you're telling your opinion try not to generalize it like you tend to do to MEN in general and WOMEN in general because plenty of people out there are living lives that completely disagree with what you think is the way relationships 'should be'.

p.s. I didn't realize sharing our opinions and getting into friendly arguments always had to be halted when one or the other person didn't get their way. believe me, I for one UNDERSTAND that you speak only of yourself and the situation you'd like to find yourself in. I also want to put out there the fact that like it or not people are going to have a dissenting or agreeable opinion so stop complaining about it and just carry on!

While many of these preferences reflect our opinions, the nature of the sexes do not, for they are precisely what we draw our opinions from, these iron laws of nature that have been plowed into the psyche of the human soul, hard wired and geared for its specific gender. While I recognize we argue apples with oranges, I also recognize the futility of discussing any of this when people are out to somehow recruit followers for their gender ideology, whatever that is. However, now I must disagree with you and state that you totally misunderstand me, based on the twists and turns in your whole post.

With that said, while we draw on preferences that are suitable to us, we draw them on from a vast array of observations we notice about the sexes. I, unlike you, or any of the females here, do not agree with "gender roles" being "socially constructed", and as times change, gender roles change. Such is the version of society espoused by Marxists and cultural relativists who argue that all things are relative and pliable so anything and everything really goes.

You miss the essence of my argument, and instead you twisted my words stating that I want to "control them" as if they are my little slaves. That is, for the nth time, untrue, but I do understand women fearing trust and empowering the male because of female psychology, because of a father figure, or abusive men in their lives, bad experiences, which have alot to do with shaping a womans idea of what their ideal man should be like. When that is tarnished, so is their expectation and their ability to trust that male figure. You just admitted yourself that women "shouldn't be too controlling" of their husbands, implying that there is indeed a battle, a competition. I don't know about castrated and androgynous men, but I can never make love much less feel inclined to be with or feel warmth toward that woman which does not submit to me. If she has to vie for power, doesn't want to submit, she is welcome to play roommates with "liberated men" or androgynous men.

Every month a womans reproductive system produces an egg, and this process has alot to do with female psychology and being. Whether consciously or unconsciously, a woman is devoted to seeing that egg fertilized, give birth and raise a child. All the while, her whole being is nourished by a man's spirit. Now, you can deny this as you please, but I will make a very big generalization and state that all women want to feel that warmth, power, and protection of a man, to be the only one for that man, to be his woman. Of course, that is a big generalization on my part one that I have no evidence for, other than my intuition.

If you want to be an independent career woman, fine, but you can never raise a family at the same time. It can't work. Look at Oprah. You are destined to a failed marriage and family, but at the same time I understand the quality of guys isn't all that great, and why should any of you depend on the guys of today? Independent career women are discovering that weak men want strong women, and power to them, they have a happy marriage in which the woman wears the pants. Strong men want feminine women who will amplify them to the realm of family, emotion, beauty and intimacy. If you want my honest opinion, most men either want a feminine woman, or they are too castrated to admit to it, and if they really love dominant woman, well I guess there are exceptions to the rules eh?

[ckBejug]

Strong men want feminine women who will amplify them to the realm of family, emotion, beauty and intimacy. If you want my honest opinion, most men either want a feminine woman, or they are too castrated to admit to it, and if they really love dominant woman, well I guess there are exceptions to the rules eh?

It is good to know your opinion. You have not stated anything you hadn't already stated before and again, it's good to know. Yet you still don't see my point. Perhaps I haven't been clear enough so I will give you my opinion just as you clearly gave me yours. A woman can be BOTH dominant in her own right, have a career at some point, be ambitious, and still be submissive to the husband in the marriage, she can be those things and still crave the body of a strong man next to her, someone she feels protected by, someone she loves and trusts with everything she has in her. Someone who makes her want to do better- do better by him, by the children she wants to give him, and the family she wants to make with him. These things are not like oil and water. One can be assertive with her opinions, debating with the best of them, well-educated and smart and successful as she wants to be, it does't mean that she will not give everything she has and more to be with the man she is in love with. It doesn't mean she won't give up everything that needs to be given up when the time comes to have children, as most women will tell you they don't want anyone else raising thier children and rearing them the way they should be with a mother and a family and someone there to kiss every scraped knee and read every bed time story from here to eternity. It doesn't mean that she won't be there too cook and clean and have a house with this man that she loves and would do anything for, just as he would for her. When it comes down to it she knows she can lean on him for support just as he can lean on her when times are rough. That's what you need to make a relationship work. Two strong people who come together knowing full well that they will be there for eachother when the tides turn. Just because a woman is strong, smart, successful, dynamic, ambitious, and driven does NOT mean she can't also be calm, patient, graceful, faithful, tender, soft-spoken, submissive, and sacrificing. There is such a thing as having a strong enough character to know when it is the time to work hard and try to succeed and do your best and when to put those things aside and cook dinner and play leggo's and help your son write his book report. In fact, some women would prefer to be all of those things and would think that it takes all of those things to be complete.

[Anonymouse]

It is good to know your opinion. You have not stated anything you hadn't already stated before and again, it's good to know. Yet you still don't see my point. Perhaps I haven't been clear enough so I will give you my opinion just as you clearly gave me yours. A woman can be BOTH dominant in her own right, have a career at some point, be ambitious, and still be submissive to the husband in the marriage, she can be those things and still crave the body of a strong man next to her, someone she feels protected by, someone she loves and trusts with everything she has in her. Someone who makes her want to do better- do better by him, by the children she wants to give him, and the family she wants to make with him. These things are not like oil and water. One can be assertive with her opinions, debating with the best of them, well-educated and smart and successful as she wants to be, it does't mean that she will not give everything she has and more to be with the man she is in love with. It doesn't mean she won't give up everything that needs to be given up when the time comes to have children, as most women will tell you they don't want anyone else raising thier children and rearing them the way they should be with a mother and a family and someone there to kiss every scraped knee and read every bed time story from here to eternity. It doesn't mean that she won't be there too cook and clean and have a house with this man that she loves and would do anything for, just as he would for her. When it comes down to it she knows she can lean on him for support just as he can lean on her when times are rough. That's what you need to make a relationship work. Two strong people who come together knowing full well that they will be there for eachother when the tides turn. Just because a woman is strong, smart, successful, dynamic, ambitious, and driven does NOT mean she can't also be calm, patient, graceful, faithful, tender, soft-spoken, submissive, and sacrificing. There is such a thing as having a strong enough character to know when it is the time to work hard and try to succeed and do your best and when to put those things aside and cook dinner and play leggo's and help your son write his book report. In fact, some women would prefer to be all of those things and would think that it takes all of those things to be complete.

If you had paid attention to my posts, in a sentence or two I summed up exactly this. Go back to the beginning and read it. Now, as far as the ambition and driven part of your post, I already defined it and the context I used it in, since I compared their ambition and drive in the marketplace to that of a man. You are driving a non-issue there.

And no one has yet answered why there is a soaring divorce rate and why millions of people are in arrested development because they cannot form a permanent relationship. I already answered it based on my opinion, and it was because of the incongruity of the attitudes, i.e. when there is an imbalance in that principle of dominant man, feminine woman. I don't see any any room in marriage and family that is left for fungibility, but a path of love and inward growth based on male and female. Man, to me, is representative of a God, and woman that of creation, and God is in love and emboldened with creation.

To me, for any marraige or relationship to find fullfillment each sex must assume its instinctive and God-given role. And hence when people "make love" it is an expression of this mystical alchemy. A couple in love with a successful marriage has no desire to have sex with other people or "cheat", if each individual adjusts to their instinctive role. Women need to be competent in this world, and develop themselves, no one argues this, no one wants a robotic lifeless entity as a wife, but not at the expense of the family. A feminine woman is motivated by love of husband and children. She is the heart of the family, the culture, the people, devoted to her husband and children's wellbeing. ( Hence the phrase "Mayr Hayastan" or cultures such as Jews identifying ones Jewishness based on the mother, or "Motherland". ) This is her career. A woman who is preoccupied with another demanding career cannot pay attention to her family.

[loseyourname]

See, Mousy, this is just the thing. You're pissing people off because you're not just stating the way things should be for you. You're telling people what they can and can't do, and telling them that to be the way they naturally are is in defiance of nature. It's pretty damn insulting to be honest, and it's sh*t like this that causes me to dislike you so much. You can't just be happy with sovereignty over your own personal life. It seems like you see women in a suit and start fuming about the end of the world. You see Mexicans walking down the street speaking Spanish and you think the US is going to fall. You continue to belittle the idea of multiracialism when you know damn well that I'm mutiracial. You belittle career women when you know damn well that ckBejug is very ambitious and aims for success in her chosen field. Your existence is offensive. Men like you belong on talk shows with wife-beaters and mullets.

I hope ck doesn't mind me saying this to the whole forum, but her and I did go out a couple of times, on actual dates, and there just wasn't any physical chemistry, but you know what I liked about her? She didn't let me walk all over her. Women are always letting me abuse them and take advantage of them. I get away with too much, but I couldn't with her. I can actually respect her, because she stands up for yourself. A relationship can certainly be one person dictating what will happen and how things will be if the other person is incapable of thinking for herself, but you're acting like relationships have to be this way. That just isn't the case. There is such a thing as a genuine parternship, where both people are equals, not meaning that they are clones of one another, which seems to be what you think I mean by equal. What I mean is that no one person stands in authority over the other, and no one person dominates the other. This whole idea of domination should be left to the bedroom. A woman's life is her own, as is a man's. They can add a lot to each other if they can respect the individual sovereignty of their respective existences. If you can't live with the idea of a woman who has her own mind and makes decisions for herself, then don't. That's fine. In fact, it's getting easier and easier to see why you've never been in a relationship. What you need to quit doing is telling all of us that we need to look at thing your way as well. Your way is your way; it is not the right way. There is no right way. Just look at how different the two of us are, despite the fact that we are both male. People have different personality types, and it is dictated by much more than whether or no they possess a y chromosome. You're way oversimplifying things here.

[loseyourname]

I found this when I was reading through the APA's web site. It shows no decrease in sexual activity or satisfaction in dual-earner households that had recently given birth to a child when compared to households with a stay-at-home mother that had just given birth. The conclusion drawn is that a woman's motivation and ambitious in totality is more important than the extent to which she stretches her obligations. Career women are better able to handle multiple tasks and don't seem to have any more difficulty with family life than does the stay-at-home mother. I think it is worth reading, because it seems to confirm beautifully what ck has been saying.

Sexuality and the Dual-Earner Couple: Multiple Roles and Sexual Functioning

Janet Shibley Hyde
Department of Psychology
University of Wisconsin?Madison

John D.DeLamater
Department of Sociology
University of Wisconsin?Madison

Erri C.Hewitt
Department of Psychology
University of Wisconsin?Madison

With the large influx of women into paid employment over the past 3 decades, some sex researchers and therapists have raised concerns about whether sexual expression will be dampened for dual-earner couples. Others have raised concerns not simply about dual-earner couples but rather about couples in which one or both of the partners is a workaholic, overcommitted to work and working considerably more than 40 hr per week (Sarrel & Sarrel, 1984). Theorist Philip Slater (1973) has argued that work (on the job) and sex are natural enemies and that the more the person becomes dedicated to work and the more time he or she spends on it, the greater the inroads on the sex life.

Despite these concerns, there is remarkably little empirical research on these questions. In one of the few relevant studies, Westoff (1974), using data from a representative sample of married women in the U.S., found that a couple's frequency of intercourse was related not only to the woman's holding a job but also to her motivation for working. Women who worked for reasons other than money had a higher frequency of coitus than women who did not work or who worked mainly to earn money. Career-motivated women had the highest frequency of coitus of any of the groups of women.

The purpose of this article is to apply theory from social psychology and hypotheses from clinical psychology to generate predictions regarding the relationship between employment and sexual functioning in marriage and to understand what variables or processes are associated with sexual functioning. The theoretical framework is role theory (Heiss, 1990). From this perspective, women who occupy the roles of wife and mother and who enter the labor force have added an additional demanding role to their repertoire.

In the sections that follow, we first review research on multiple roles and psychological functioning, followed by research on multiple roles and sexual functioning.

Multiple Roles and Psychological Functioning

Two broad hypotheses have been advanced regarding the relationship between multiple roles and psychological functioning. One is the scarcity hypothesis (Baruch, Biener, & Barnett, 1987; Bielby & Bielby, 1989). According to this hypothesis, each additional role increases the demands on the person's time and energy. This increase is especially true of major roles, such as spouse, mother, and employee. Each of these roles demands substantial time, effort, and resources every day; the individual cannot satisfy the demands of all three roles, according to the theory. The result is interrole conflict (Voydanoff, 1988). Thus, "one can only build strong commitment to work by relinquishing strong commitment to family, and vice-versa" (Bielby & Bielby, 1989, p. 777). The scarcity hypothesis, then, says that employment, especially full-time employment, should lead to negative psychosocial outcomes for women and that this effect is mediated by factors such as fatigue and role overload. Negative outcomes are especially likely when the demands associated with work and family roles are particularly high, for example, when the mother works full time or more than full time (Rogers, 1996).

Crosby and Jaskar (1993) described the situation of the working wife and mother as role expansion in the absence of role redefinition (see also Hochschild, 1989). They characterized her as a juggler "feeling constantly short on time" (p. 152). The result is increased stress and psychological distress.

The alternative hypothesis is the enhancement hypothesis (Baruch et al., 1987; Coser, 1991; Marks, 1977; Thoits, 1983). According to this hypothesis, multiple roles enhance psychological functioning. Individuals do have the resources available to fulfill the demands of three major roles. Multiple roles provide people with additional resources that help them cope with the demands and reduce stress (Wethington & Kessler, 1989). Epstein (1987) argued that there are three positive consequences of multiple roles: variety, buffering, and amplification. Variety refers to the fact that multiple roles expose the person to diverse viewpoints that are useful in maintaining a broad perspective. Buffering refers to the idea that stress, failures, or dissatisfactions in one role can be balanced by success and satisfaction in another. Finally, interaction with different groups provides the person with the opportunity to relive successes and recount satisfactions in other areas, amplifying them. Additionally, employed women have more power within the family because of their earnings, and this enhanced power leads to decreased psychological symptoms such as depression (Rosenfield, 1989). Furthermore, the woman's economic contribution reduces financial strain, which improves marital quality (Barnett & Rivers, 1996).

The results of recent studies do not support the scarcity hypothesis when the outcome variable is psychological stress. Wethington and Kessler (1989) reported panel data from a sample of 745 married women in Detroit. Changes in employment status were related to distress; women who increased their labor-force participation reported lower, not higher, levels of distress, consistent with the enhancement hypothesis. The transition to parenting?that is, the birth of a child?was not associated with an increase in stress.

Glass and Fujimoto (1994) analyzed data from the National Survey of Families and Households, a cross-sectional survey of a national representative sample of more than 10,000 adults. There were 3,846 husbands and wives included in the analyses, and the outcome variable was a measure of depressive symptoms. Paid employment was associated with reduced depression among both husbands and wives, unless the person worked more than 54 hr per week. Thus, role conflict and stress can result under some conditions of work, but the number of hours must be considerably more than 40. The presence of a preschool child was not associated with the depression scores of employed wives but was associated with increased depression among husbands.

Rogers (1996) tested the scarcity (stressor) and enhancement (resource) hypotheses by using data from 1,530 mothers from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth. Using indices of marital happiness and marital conflict as outcomes, she found that marital happiness was lower for mothers who worked full time; however, marital conflict was not associated with work hours or number of children.

Current research and theorizing framed by the enhancement hypothesis no longer focus simply on the number of roles but also on the quality of roles (e.g., Barnett, Marshall, Raudenbush, & Brennan, 1993). According to this view, a woman's psychological distress is influenced not by whether she is employed but rather by the quality of that work role. Greenberger and O'Neil (1993), in a study of men and women in dual-earner marriages and parenting a preschool child, found that lack of satisfaction in the parental, marital, and work roles were particularly potent predictors of distress (depression and anxiety) for women. Similarly, Barnett et al. (1993) found that job-role quality and marital-role quality were significantly negatively associated with psychological distress for women in a sample of dual-earner couples.

Multiple Roles and Sexual Functioning

Although much research has been done on multiple roles and psychological distress, little research has been done on the relationship between multiple roles and sexual functioning. Several authors have suggested that sexual expression will suffer in dual-career couples. As noted earlier, sociologist Philip Slater (1973) has argued that work (on the job) and sex are natural enemies and that the more the person becomes dedicated to work and the more time she or he spends on it, the greater the inroads on the sex life. Others have raised concerns about couples in which one or both of the partners are workaholics, overcommitted to work, and working considerably more than 40 hr per week (Sarrel & Sarrel, 1984).

Sex therapists have speculated that multiple roles, particularly those in dual-career couples, lead to inhibited sexual desire, or ISD. LoPiccolo and Friedman (1988) identified several causes of ISD. One is anhedonic style, the lack of a capacity for play. Patients characterized by this style include very ambitious, task-directed high achievers, that is, workaholics. According to Renshaw (1993), stress and fatigue due to overwork are common causes of sexual dysfunctions.

Kaplan (1979) suggested that stress is a major cause of decreased desire and specifically mentioned the stress associated with the birth of a child. Reduced sexual activity following the birth of a child is a staple of popular magazine articles, with titles like "Is There Sex After Baby?" The birth of a baby, especially the first one, necessitates changes in family organization and functioning, and these changes may be stressful. In terms of role theory, a major role has been added. Call, Sprecher, and Schwartz (1995), in a well-sampled national study, found that the presence of young children (ages 0?4) was associated with a lower frequency of intercourse. Furthermore, an often-noted consequence of the presence of an infant in the house is fatigue, which can cause reduced sexual desire (Bullard, 1988).

There is little published research on the effect of the birth of the first child on sexual functioning (for an exception, see Hyde, DeLamater, Plant, & Byrd, 1996). There is no published research regarding the effect on dual-career couples. On the basis of the literature reviewed above, the scarcity perspective suggests that the frequency of sexual activity will decline. Dual-career couples have two demanding roles, spouse and work/career. The addition of the parent role, especially the parent of an infant, should be even more likely to result in an overload. As suggested by the clinical literature, the resultant stress and fatigue might well lead to inhibited sexual desire and a decline in the frequency of sexual activity with the partner.

The Current Study

Clearly, given the dire pronouncements of some theorists and clinicians, there is a need for empirical data on the sexual functioning of dual-earner couples. The current study reports data from a longitudinal study of more than 500 couples, interviewed on three occasions from pregnancy through 1 year postpartum. This study has a number of substantial advantages: (a) The data set includes reports from both husbands and wives. (b) The data were collected during pregnancy and the first year postpartum, a time when the demands of multiple roles should be especially salient for both women and men. If negative consequences of multiple roles are to be detected, this should be a sensitive time for detection. (c) The respondents were not recruited for a sex survey but rather for a study on far less sensitive topics: maternity leave, work, and families. Therefore, volunteer bias that has plagued sex research (e.g., Morokoff, 1986; Wiederman, 1993) should be minimized with this data set. (d) We collected data on a richer array of sexuality variables compared with most research, which typically asks only about incidence and frequency of intercourse. We also inquired about sexual satisfaction, sexual desire, and three additional behaviors: cunnilingus, fellatio, and masturbation.