Money and Children
Nothing symbolizes spineless deference more than a man on bended knee proposing marriage to his girlfriend. When he utters to her that timeless four-word question — “Will you marry me?” — he is taking the biggest risk of his life: disappointing her. Through this emasculating act, he’s really asking her to bury him.
And, if he should, G-d forbid, disappoint his delicate flower, one only wonders how she might retaliate. Americans, who hate to see their women disappointed, will give her lots of latitude — whether she throws his clothes out the window, slaps him in the face (as Teri Hatcher, out of petty anger, did to Pierce Brosnan in Tomorrow Never Dies), or kills him with virtual impunity, as Mary Winkler did to her sleeping husband, using the abuse or bipolar-disorder defense.
Upon receiving marriage proposals from their boyfriends in front of live TV cameras, women typically jump up and down, shriek, and shed tears. Yet, given that the divorce rate hovers at about half, that women seek at least 70% of all marital dissolutions (an accurate barometer of female disappointment), and that the inevitable court battles will destroy lives, one must suspect the ebullience women exhibit when first sliding on their sparkly engagement rings. Clearly, they’re not atwitter about the men they’ve betrothed. So, why the fuss?
Billions of men throughout history have initiated the proposal ritual, for a variety of reasons. Supposedly, the basis of marriage has changed over time — evolving from parentally arranged unions focused on property, wealth, station, and lineage to modern ones in which the fiancés freely choose each other out of love and compatibility.
In reality, the more things have changed, the more they’ve stayed the same. Marriages, in 2008, still are about money and children, as their dissolutions ultimately prove. When a baseball unravels, one can see its innards; a marriage is no different. Ironically, divorce documents don’t mention love, allegedly a marriage’s core ingredient but a concept few people understand or practice.
Perpetual Childhood
Disappointment, defined as the gap between expectation and reality, is an immutable part of life. True adults — those who are mentally and emotionally mature — accept, manage, and move past disappointments, and they don’t expect others to prevent them.
Children, on the other hand, whether 5 or 35, do not and cannot deal with disappointment. Despite all the talk about feminism and equality, Americans, via outmoded chivalry and unconstitutional reproduction, child-custody, rape, and domestic-violence laws, keep women in perpetual childhood. Yes, American women have grown accustomed to being spared risk, pain, and disappointment.
Because most men have been raised to make women happy, to close that painful gap between expectation and reality, the penalty for failing is tremendous. To help clueless men navigate these risky waters, AOL published a compass called “5 Things You Should Never Say to a Woman.” Imagine the retaliation against any man who violates even one of these rules.
I appeared the other day on Fox Business Network to debate Alexis Glick and Tracy Byrnes about a new study citing an increase in female unhappiness at age 48. I opined that misery for women begins in childhood, when they’re taught that happiness derives from shoes, jewelry, boob-jobs, and pedestals. Naturally, the Fox women reacted with outrage, accusing me of knowing the “wrong” women and living in the dark ages. Dark ages? How do Alexis and Tracy explain the PMS (princess mentality syndrome) demands of their competitor at CNBC, Erin Burnett, who penned “8 Ways to Impress Me” on MensHealth.com? Her aim: to teach men how not to disappoint her. The top brass at CNBC weren’t impressed.
Women just don’t like to admit that feminarcissism is the rule, not the exception. Why is this? Most men tolerate and enable it out of false necessity: they naïvely believe that women have weak libidos. Such ignorance about female sexuality drives all irrational male behavior, as I wrote in Under the Clitoral Hood. In fact, the opposite is true: women are more lustful than men. Until men grasp this, they will continue to grovel and please — and women will continue to demand, and get, it.
Have you ever heard the slogan, If Mom’s happy, everyone’s happy? Of course you have. This nonsense is practiced in many families, as if Mom is the “special” parent whom everyone must please, and Dad, the man, is superfluous. That’s why feminism is so successful, and men’s rights almost dead, in all Western countries. Men aren’t just automatons designed to please women; they’re willing automatons, eager to please women!
I appeared a year or so ago as a guest on a radio program in Massachusetts. The male host asked me what’s inherently wrong with men that they always screw up relationships. I was appalled. “Why do you think women are relationship experts, perfect little angels who have no faults? Why do you automatically assume men are the culprits?” I shot back. He had no response because he’s the typical self-hating man who believes that men are scum. Alas, there are many like him in our midst.
On a radio show in DC, the male host asked me what men’s rights are and why men need any rights — I kid you not. Other male hosts have robotically repeated the feminist mantra, “women haven’t even voted for 100 years, and we men should cut them a break.” Dennis Miller’s wife warned him, via text message during our exchange, not to have me back on his show. A few other hosts admitted that their wives had cut off sex for a week after hearing them agree with me on the air.
It’s sad that American men have reduced themselves to living in fear of women, causing women to feel that not being disappointed is an unalienable right. Consequences? On Fathers’ Day, when Barack Obama unilaterally criticized men for the plight of fatherless homes, he received praise. Yet, by completely giving women a pass on Mothers’ Day — for the same issue — not one journalist or TV anchor challenged, has challenged, or ever will challenge him.
Why is it that women who falsely accuse men of rape or domestic violence are never prosecuted? Why is it that Hollywood and Madison Avenue continually portray men in sitcoms and TV commercials as moronic, impotent servants to their wives? And, why is it that, when women drop off their unwanted newborns at local fire stations, no questions asked, society looks the other way? More coddling and shielding them from risk, pain, and disappointment.
After Hillary Clinton conceded to Barack Obama, on June 7, 2008, she began her victimhood campaign, blaming members of the media for engaging in sexism, which, she claimed, derailed her nomination. At the same time, Senator Clinton bragged about receiving 18M primary votes, a US record. If sexism is so rampant, how did she amass 18M votes, many from men? In fact, Clinton is a hypocrite. Her presidential campaign and Website were all about women, women, women — which is overt sexism.
Perverse Coddling
I made the point earlier that most men are raised to elevate women on pedestals and to avoid disappointing them. Let’s see an example. In this well-known video, a father surprises his daughter, Mackenzie, with a red sports car on her 16th birthday. Instead of thanking him, she whines and stomps her feet — because she hates the color. Why the ungrateful behavior? Because Mackenzie’s pathetic, appeasing father has kissed her ass since birth, shielding her from disappointment. Is there a Mackenzie in your home? Is she your daughter, your girlfriend, or your wife — or all three?
In wimpy America, Mackenzie will find many men to follow in her father’s tiptoes. And, I guarantee that the masochist who eventually proposes marriage to Mackenzie will bow before her on bended knee, because he, like Mackenzie’s father, views women as superior beings. Unfortunately, he will have lots of like-minded company across our country: husbands, cops, DAs, judges, jurors, politicians, journalists, and producers of movies, commercials, and sitcoms.
Tell a woman she’s too weak to be an executive in your company or commander in chief of the US Armed Forces, and see how fast you get a call from the EEOC. Now, tell her she’s too strong to require special protection from VAWA, the unconstitutional Violence Against Women Act that Joe Biden, the US Senate’s biggest woman-pleaser, created. Now, watch her victimhood side emerge to explain her vulnerabilities. Basically, women are strong when it suits them and weak when it suits them, and men, suffering from vaginaphobia, just go along with it.
This perverse coddling of women is rooted in the fear of disappointing them. It is, in reality, a blatant disrespect for them, a fundamental belief that they’re weak, defenseless victims. But, if women were so insulted by condescending coddling, they would protest, right? Have you ever heard one woman complain about getting special privileges?
Like Cinderella
A friend of mine recently recounted an incident where his ex-wife had violated their custody agreement. He took her to court, where the male judge ruled, illegally, in her favor. Said the judge to my friend: “I don’t want to disappoint her.” Who cares about laws when a woman’s fragility is at stake? I encounter men all the time, just like this judge, who kowtow to their girlfriends and wives out of fear of disappointing them.
Two weeks ago, I debated Lis Wiehl on Fox News Channel’s Your World with Neil Cavuto about a jilted woman who won a $150K settlement from a Georgia jury because her fiancé had broken their engagement. He did this because, after paying $30K of her debts, which he was not required to do, he then discovered that her debts are greater than she initially had revealed. In other words, marriage was her ticket out of debt. So, he decided not to marry her. Sounds reasonable, right? Wrong. Engagement is a risk-free trial before making a lifelong commitment, right? Wrong. This man had committed the sin of disappointing a woman. Even though she had no legal basis for bringing this action, the 12-person jury, half male, felt sorry for her. Had the situation been reversed, can you imagine a jury awarding $150K to a jilted man?
A casualty of TV’s highly intellectual show, The Bachelor, 22-year-old Shayne Lamas, daughter of Lorenzo Lamas, broke off her engagement to Matt Grant. Yet, she wants to keep the ring and encase it in a glass box, like Cinderella. It is customary, and legally required in most states, that, when an engagement ends, the woman return her engagement ring to the man who gave it to her. But, because Shayne lives in a country that hates to disappoint women, she believes she’ll prevail. If she is forced to return that ring, I’ll be surprised.
Last month, Cynthia Rodriguez filed for divorce against Yankee great Alex Rodriguez, also known as A-Rod, after reports surfaced that he was involved with Madonna. A-Rod and Cynthia live in Florida, a no-fault state, where infidelity is not grounds for divorce. In 2002, they signed a prenup, a binding contract detailing how their assets would be split in case of a divorce. Throughout their marriage, A-Rod, who now earns an annual base of $27M, has been spotted publicly with numerous women. Knowing this, Cynthia stayed with him and also had a second child. Because contract law apparently doesn’t apply to disappointed women, Cynthia is illegally using charges of infidelity to persuade the judge to set aside their prenup and award her much more money. A-Rod is fighting to have the judge ignore the infidelity charges (which the law dictates) and respect the prenup (which the law also dictates). Cynthia will try to claim that she signed the prenup under duress — because girls, you know, don’t understand, like, contracts. If she doesn’t prevail, I will be surprised.
The NoNonsense Bottom Line
To coexist with a woman in a land that loathes female disappointment, a man now needs a conversation contract, a date contract, a sex contract, a coworker contract, a cohabitation contract, an engagement contract, and a marriage contract — none of which is guaranteed to be enforced. A bonanza for lawyers!
A man’s welfare, in this gynocracy that men built, depends on a woman’s mood, her ethics, the state in which she lives, and the reluctance of an unknown future judge or jury to “disappoint” her. The playing field is unlevel because men — afraid of being called misogynists and afraid of not getting laid — allowed it to happen, continue to tolerate it, and won’t fight it.
Had Peter Cook been the aggrieved party in his divorce from Christy Brinkley, and elected to open their proceedings to the public, the judge, the media, and women’s groups would have universally vilified him as a cad and a terrible father. Yet, when Christy did just that, she got a pass. In fact, Brinkley’s oldest daughter was “proud” of her mother’s public circus. Society accepts irrational, ruinous emotions and behavior from women as just compensation for their disappointments.
You don’t think women expect to be coddled, to have the upper hand in life? Look around in a restaurant, the next time you go out; count how many women are buying dinner for men. Then, listen to politicians speak, on both sides of the aisle; count how many are promising to prosecute women who falsely accuse men of rape. Women demand and get coddling. And, as long as caped men keep rescuing women from their disappointments, this manipulation game shall continue.
The desire to coddle is as immature and dysfunctional as the desire to be coddled. Such codependency leads to upwardly spiraling expectations and disappointments — as the relationship between Mackenzie and her father epitomizes. The courage to disappoint women is a sign of respect for them. Accepting disappointment as part of life, and that men are not responsible for preventing it, is a sign of self-respect for women.
If you’re a man whose mantra is Thou Shalt Not Disappoint Her — with the “wrong” dinner, conversation, joke, diamond, car, house, vacation, divorce settlement, salary, or legislation — you need to grow a pair.
About the Author
Marc H. Rudov is a globally recognized radio/TV personality and author of 80+ articles and the books Under the Clitoral Hood: How to Crank Her Engine Without Cash, Booze, or Jumper Cables (ISBN 9780974501727), and The Man’s No-Nonsense Guide to Women: How to Succeed in Romance on Planet Earth (ISBN 0974501719). Mr. Rudov is a regular guest on Fox News Channel’s Your World with Neil Cavuto and The O’Reilly Factor.
Rudov’s books, articles, blog, and podcasts are available at TheNoNonsenseMan.com.
Copyright © 2008 by Marc H. Rudov. All rights reserved.
