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Several decades ago, as second wave feminism washed ashore,
women got together to form consciousness raising groups.
There they could feel the joy of sisterhood and could complain about
men.
In the process they revolutionized the culture, especially
the nature of relationships between the sexes.
Today, their daughters and granddaughters are reaping the
rewards of their success. Young women today do not attend consciousness raising
groups; they congregate with their peers in groups that are called gaggles.
Feminism has been so successful in undermining the rules of
courtship that young women have been reduced to venturing out under cover of
darkness in groups comprised of their similarly available peers.
The new term for these groups is: gaggle. As you know, a
gaggle is a group of grounded geese.
Young women still want to find romance and relationships.
Yet, as the New York Times reported the New York dating whirl is a “confusing,
messy muddle.”
The Times explains:
Now the
focus is on the so-called millennials, the young women in their 20s and early
30s, many of whom are struggling to find their way at a time when traditional
dating seems like a quaint relic.
For most young people, dating is a quaint relic. Too few
people do it; too few people even know how to do it.
The result is anomie, a feeling of being ungrounded, of having lost their bearings, of
groping around in the dark, of not knowing what is what and who is where, of
being lost in a world where you never know what anything means.
The Times describes the anomie well:
As
professional women accustomed to forging their own way, many have been struck
by how hard it has been to navigate their love lives, which seem so different
from the ones described by their mothers or depicted in movies.
“Nobody
picks me up, nobody drops me off at home,” said Anne Zelek, a 27-year-old
marketing manager, who says she has embraced Ms. Massa’s approach of simply
enjoying the company of the men she meets without focusing on finding Mr.
Right.
“Oftentimes
I don’t really know that I’ve been on a date until I get home from one,” she
said. “It’s confusing. All of our love lives are confusing.”
Nowadays,
young men and women often hang out together in groups, leaving some of them
uncertain about where friendship ends and relationships begin. A series of
hookups may or may not lead to a relationship, which can mean a longer period
of uncertainty for women who are increasingly delaying marriage.
Independent, professional women living in a world without
rules do not understand why they cannot find love.
It's easy to understand: their mothers decided that courtship was insulting to their
dignity as independent free spirits. Today no man even imagines trying to court a feminist.
The result: young women do not know when a date is a date or
when sex means something.
They do not know when it’s friendship and when it’s a
relationship.
Strikingly, in the Times article, no one even thinks about how to arrive at a defined, socially recognized relationship like a
marriage.
According to the Times, today’s dating gurus, namely Jessica
Massa and Rebecca Wiegand suggest that young women should go with the flow:
Ms.
Massa and her best friend and business partner, Ms. Wiegand, share a similar
philosophy. They urged the young women gathered at the happy hour in TriBeCa to
embrace their sexuality. If you want to hook up, hook up, they said. And
afterward, they advised, be natural. Crack a joke. Have some food. Act as if
fun, casual sex is just that: fun, casual sex — nothing more.
“We
live in this confusing, ambiguous post-dating world, and we need to embrace
that,” said Ms. Wiegand, 29, who, along with Ms. Massa, is the co-creator of the
Gaggle concept. “We cannot expect to impose upon this world a set of rules, a
set of regulations, a set of expectations.”
It’s a new world and a new reality: adapt to it. Surely, it’s
better to adapt to the world than to denounce the second wave feminists who
created the mess.
You wouldn’t want to hurt their feelings by telling them
that their glorious revolution was more
bust than boom.
In truth, it is dreadfully bad advice to tell young women that
they should embrace the hook-up culture.
Why encourage them to go down a path that is going to make
them more dazed and confused?
No one is obliged to cling to a cultural fad because it is Now.
In truth, articles like the one in the Times make it seem
that everyone is doing it. Yet, many women do not embrace it. Many women do go
out on dates, do have relationships and do get married.
When it comes to the gaggle culture or the hookup culture
young women have power. They are not the slaves to trends; they have the power to change things.
Perhaps, they should go on strike. They might try closing up
shop until men show them some respect.
If there were no gaggles of available women roaming about
town, then a man might eventually get the idea that he wants to see a woman he might have to
call her.
In today’s dating culture, informality rules. One does need
to take it into account, but women do have a right to insist on a certain level
of formality. After all, formality signifies respect.
I hope I do not have to explain it, but dropping your date off on a street corner at 1:00 a.m. is
disrespectful.
You can see that I am somewhat out of touch with reality. So
be it.
While waiting for my wishes to be fulfilled, I will point out that when dating and courtship is not controlled by a clear set of
rules—you know, the kind that defined the ritual for Jane Austin—then young
people fall back on plan B.
In the world of relationships, plan B is drama. Its the last available way for young people to try to transform informal get-togethers into relationships.
In today’s dating world, you need to know drama. You need to
understand why there is so much of it. And you need to understand why it
creates so much heat and so little light.
Drama can be a salient characteristic of modern relationships without being a good thing. If your life is so chaotic and disorganized that you can only get together by indulging in drama you are doing something wrong. Better to try clearly defined rituals and routines.
Drama is neither liberating nor therapeutic. When drama
rules your life you might feel that you are expressing your emotions freely.
Unfortunately, when you are playing a part in a drama the emotions you express
are not really yours.
Of course, there is hope.
Writing on her Hooking Up Smart blog yesterday, Susan
Walsh offered some guidelines that will help you to learn how to deal with
relationship drama. Better yet, she shows how you can move away from drama and
toward a more defined relationship.
7 comments:
Excellent column.
I am watching high school girls choose to be in relationships at least in part because it is protection from anarchy and the hook up culture that they can't quite ignore, (no matter what they have been taught at home).
There is a part of me that finds this amusing and interested by what drives people to do what they do. One wonders why young women, in this case, keep following the advise of their feminist sisters when it appears that it leaves them wanting and missing something? At what point does one begin to question the advise they are receiving?
The same thing happens to minority voters. Over and over the Democrat party keeps telling them that if they vote for them then things will get better, but it never does. If unemployment is any example it gets worse for both women and minorities.
In both cases neither young women or minorities get respect because they sell themselves short and they can be taken for granted.
Respect goes both ways. One has to give respect in order to be respected. That means one has to act in a manner that gains respect and also treat others, men, et al, with respect. Allowing oneself to be basically a "throw away" item does not seem the way to attain respect. Being "barefoot and ready" does not improve one's odds. Looking for the government to provide one's needs does not demonstrate that one has the wherewithal to merit respect. If one does not demonstrate respect for one's self then to expect it is foolish.
I have stated this before, "The sins of the mothers are visited upon their daughters." It has never been more true as it is today. How will one's children ever find happiness when those who give birth to them cannot?
Perhaps this is endemic to colleges and big cities; I would not know. I suspect that in our great fly-over small cities and towns, this occurs much less.
But then, I'm old, so all tis is unfamiliar to me.
This is a great post, Stuart, thanks for the link.
In truth, articles like the one in the Times make it seem that everyone is doing it. Yet, many women do not embrace it. Many women do go out on dates, do have relationships and do get married.
Hannah Rosin did the same thing when discussing hookup culture, never acknowledging that the women who so eagerly embrace it are less than 20% of the population.
Men do it when they claim that women hate beta males. Who do they think is getting married?
Perhaps, they should go on strike. They might try closing up shop until men show them some respect.
I've often toyed with the idea of trying to mount some kind of Lysistrata demonstration - perhaps on campuses. The antidote to Slut Walks. Whenever I raise the issue, my readers assure me it can't be done, but I'm not so sure. I would surely be opposed by the Women's Studies profs.
You have much more influence in that world than I do, but I think it would be a great idea. Do I recall correctly that you have hinted at in on the blog?
I wonder whether any organized groups would support it... like the Network for Enlightened Women.
It's true, I have hinted at it on the blog since the early days. That's a great suggestion about NEW! You've motivated me to make some inquiries, Stuart, thank you.
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