Should She Propose Marriage?

Just when feminists had convinced themselves that they had driven a stake through the heart of sexism, human nature has reared its ugly head.

Fighting a war against human nature is a losing proposition. No matter how hard you work to suppress it, it will always find a way to come back and bite you. And not in the good way.

Feminists are still trying to digest the bad news coming from the University of California at Santa Cruz. I daresay there is no more progressive, even radical redoubt than UC, Santa Cruz.

When a band of intrepid UCSC researchers polled a sample of students they discovered that these enlightened gender-neutered young people believed that a man, not a woman, should propose marriage.

Stephanie Pappas reported:

Two-thirds of the students, both male and female, said they'd "definitely" want the man to propose marriage in their relationship. Only 2.8 percent of women said they'd "kind of" want to propose, but not a single man indicated he'd prefer that arrangement. Notably, not a single student, male or female, "definitely" wanted the woman to propose.

If you factor out the brain static produced by years of indoctrination, you discover that no one, that is not a single, solitary human person, believes that a woman should propose marriage.

What’s a feminist to do?

If the researchers had given the matter a moment’s reflection, they would have observed that there is a word for a woman who propositions a man. Hint: it isn’t “wife.”

Customs develop for a reason. They persist for a reason. To say that they are what they are because there is a vast right-wing conspiracy to oppress women smacks of paranoid thinking.

Anyway, feminists saw the poll results and nearly choked on their chagrin.

Being radical ideologues they will never admit that reality has just given a thumbs-down to their illusions. They prefer to follow the destructive example that was set by the great totalitarian dictatorships of the twentieth century: double down on failure. 

Normal human persons know that when reality rejects your hypothesis you should try another hypothesis. If you cannot handle rejection and therefore believe that the fault lies with reality, not your hypothesis, you are a fanatic.

Survey results were so surprising that hardline feminists like Laura Beck of Jezebel and Amanda Marcotte of Slate were slightly humbled.

Beck disrespects the wishes of young women and tells them to go out and propose to men. One hopes that she is being ironic. One fears that she is not.

If you want young women to become better feminists, then you need to encourage them to suffer a few more traumatic rejections.

For her part, Marcotte says that the survey proves that these young students have not been sufficiently brainwashed. If only they would allow her to control their minds, the new Jerusalem or something like it would descend onto the earth.

Marcotte blames it on that great amorphous demon that she calls the culture. Naturally, she not understand said culture, so she ends up giving more bad advice:

Women are routinely told by the culture and media that men are reluctant to get married, that men are usually interested in women only for sex, and that women are desperate to get validated by a ring on the finger. Women are well aware that people believe that if a man actually wants to marry you, he'll ask. Given the choice between two stereotypes—the passive princess whose charm and beauty brings a man to one knee or an insecure needball who nagged a reluctant man into marriage—women will pick the former every time. In order to change that, we'd have to dramatically restructure our cultural understanding of gender and romance, away from stereotypes of promiscuous men who love only reluctantly and overeager women who just want to put a ring on it. 

Actually, men are only reluctant to get married because professional scolds like Amanda Marcotte have told women that it is bad to be a wife. These same men have been told that women want to put their careers ahead of marriage and family. Thus, a marriage proposal would insult a woman’s feminism.

In truth men do want to get married and are especially reluctant to get divorced. Most divorces are initiated by women.

It is nonsense to say that men only want women for sex. In one world where men seem only to want women for sex, what is called the “girlfriend” experience is more valuable than mere sex.

On the other side, today’s career-seeking young women seem to want to defer sex in favor of relationships. In that case, the only thing that these women are willing to offer men is sex.

Men adapt.

Marcotte believes that women have been acculturated to believe that a man who wants to marry a woman will ask her.

Perhaps they believe it because it’s true, and because it feels right.

Next, Marcotte introduces warring stereotypes, the princess whose charm and beauty brings a man to one knee and the nagging needball.

She claims that most women would rather be the first than the second.

Of course, Marcotte is demeaning women by reducing them to stereotypes and caricatures.

Consumed by the indignity of it all, she has failed to notice that a woman who receives a marriage proposal has a free choice: she can accept or reject the proposal.

Here’s a solution that will make everyone happy. A woman who wants to be a good feminist should try to undermine the chivalrous custom. She does not have to stoop to asking a man to marry her. Her best course would be to just say No whenever a man proposes.

In that way everyone will end up happy.