* dan wonders in reaction to my high-achieving women blurb, “So what does it say about a guy who is turned on by high-achieving women? “
No way to know on an individual basis, Dan. What does it say about me that I’m 4 years younger than my wife? No one other than me and my wife and maybe one of our past therapists would have a clue. If you meant, “In general, what does it say about men who are turned on by high-achieving women — women who are higher-achievers than they are?” I’d still have a tough time making a general statement. Are they unusually self-secure? Maybe. I’d have a hard time assessing Bill Clinton as self-secure, even though he married and presumably was turned on by high-achieving Hilary at some point.
I think the safest bet is to assume there’s complementarity in relationships – personality and behavioral differences can be the spice that makes the juicy sparks. Vive la difference! So a high-achieving, goal-oriented woman and a relationship-oriented man could find each other attractive… and it means nothing more than our cultural norm of high-achieving men and relationship-oriented women finding each other attractive.
* Dana comments in reaction to my piece about emotional infidelity, “Whether you are actually being unfaithful in your marriage, of course, must be taken in context. What kind of marriage do you have? What sorts of vows have you made? These are not idle questions. Not everybody follows the same matrimonial formula, and not everybody makes the same agreements about relationship definitions and boundaries. It is entirely possible to be married to someone and yet to pursue extramarital friendships and relationships without betraying your spouse. It all depends on the level of communication and degree of honesty present in your marriage, and how well you are respecting the boundaries laid down from the beginning.”
Dana, I think it’s best for any marriage to progress towards increasingly deeper levels of mutual intimacy. People get married for a myriad of complex reasons and even though there might be boundaries and relationship definitions that are agreed on at the start of a marriage, this is both rare and not always very well-founded in the emotional realities.
“Of course, refusing to see the institution of marriage in black and white terms requires a level of discernment and discourse and planning and forethought and honesty that simply are not taken on by the majority of people today. It doesn’t help that our mainstream culture is based on the idea that all you have to do is follow the rules in a millenia-year-old book to the letter and nothing will ever go wrong in your life — or, if it does go wrong, it’s all in God’s hands anyway so it will all work out for the best. Doesn’t leave much room for critical thinking.”
I agree, but contend that the “level of discernment and discourse and planning and forethought and honesty” be deployed towards an end – the deepening of the relationship, not the mapping or description of it.
* Dana gives me a needed history lesson in my comments to commenters last week: “Um… Allah is a Judeo-Christian God. According to Islam, Allah is the God of Abraham and Arabs are the descendants of Abraham’s first son, Ishmael. (Who is mentioned in the Old Testament… look it up.) Actually, the proper term to use would be Abrahamic when referring to these religions. It’s not a word that is in heavy usage or anything, but it’s a lot more accurate than “Judeo-Christian.” Jews are not Christians, Christians are not Jews, and neither are Muslim, but they all worship the same God. “
I stand corrected, Dana, thanks. Even President Bush got this right: “The United States will work for all the children of Abraham to know the benefits of peace.”
* mwsg commented on my Underwear aspirations piece: “A friend and I were discussing this topic the other day. One interesting result of the feminist movement is not so much equalization for women in the form of power and self determination, but more of pushing the expectations placed on women onto men. Especially in the area of how we look and dress. Men are encouraged more to meet a physical ideal than we have been (at least in American culture). This ties in a bit with the increase of women who want to act like ‘men’ to gain equality and missing the point. Sleeping with a bunch of men or turning around the objectification doesn’t make you equal. Acting out the worst of someone else does not create any sort of understanding or equality. It creates a lot of anger and hurt feelings.”
I mostly agree, mwsg, but I don’t think this is a “result of the feminist movement” any more than you could say that the feminist movement was the result of a partriarchial society. Social movements defy simple cause-effect relationships. Plus, I’d argue that the objectification of men in our culture (eg, in men’s magazines like Maxim, Penthouse, and Playboy) is more insidious than the objectification of women. We’ve been grateful to Hugh Hefner, Bob Guccione, and Felix Dennis for bringing us boatloads of nekkid wimmen but we’ve not paid attention to the social disease of image that they spread at the same time.
From a practical point of view, though, it might be most helpful for us men to assume that we’re screwing ourselves because then we can more easily do something about it.