Yesterday, as I was catching a few minutes of a couple of panel discussion shows on a conservative news network, I chanced to hear the ladies offering their commentary on the divorce of Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen.
Keep in mind, these are not movement feminists. They are presumably of a rather conservative bent. And yet, their sympathies clearly lay with Gisele. By their lights, Tom Brady blew up his marriage because he failed to obey the imperious command of his Amazonian wife. They did not understand that, being one of if not the greatest of all time, he could not just abandon the game because his wife had issued an ultimatum.
As it happened, she called it an ultimatum-- me or football? As a general rule, and I suspect that all couples counselors agree, it is a very bad idea to launch ultimata-- in the all-or-nothing sense of the term. Effectively, you cannot win.
If a woman’s husband gives in to the threat, she will no longer respect him. And she will resent him. If he does not give in, she will be facing the need to follow through on her threat.
In principle, Gisele wanted Brady to give up playing football in order to spend more time at home. She wanted to make him a house husband. As the talking female heads kept saying, she has more money than him, and she has done her fair share of childrearing. Thus, he needs to languish around the house, letting his talent go to waste, because some feminist guru invaded and occupied her mind.
We note that these women offered not the least recognition of the importance of a man’s work, for his pride. And they did not understand the notion of loyalty to the team. There is more to life than money. And obviously, given the piles of cash lying in the respective bank accounts, in the hundreds of millions, we may dismiss the notion that Bundchen was exhausted for doing too many dishes and for mopping too many floors.
So, it was not about sharing tasks equally. And it was even less so since Bundchen had retired from the catwalk. She was no longer working. And we must also remark that once Tom Brady retires from playing football, he will take up his new duties as a sportscaster and announcer. For that he will be paid a bit less than $40,000,000 a year. We assume that his new duties as a sportscaster will require him to be away from home during the season, roughly as he is now.
The more you put the pieces on the board, the less sense it all makes.
But, consider this. Brady has not been playing exceptionally well of late. His Tampa Bay Buccaneers have had a very shaky start. So, Gisele threw Tom’s life into chaos, she disrupted all of his family routines and might very well have made it more difficult to focus on his game. The result: poor performance. Surely, it happens. Is this what feminist empowerment means?
What does make sense is that Gisele, a newly minted feminist culture hero, discovered a need to show the world that she is not just another pretty face and lithe body. One understands that a good feminist can very easily seduce a sufficiently insecure woman by telling her that there is more to her than her face and figure. Beneath that wondrous exterior lies a great mind, waiting to be exposed to the world. And, of course, if Gisele wants to show off her great mind she must become a feminist true believer. If you think what we want you to think you will demonstrate to the world that there is more to you than your body.
As for that other burning question, whether or not Gisele is going now to find a new lover, a new husband, a new whatever. Obviously, we cannot preclude the possibility. With that level of wealth you can probably buy yourself a husband or a wife, or a husband and a wife.
The marriage was over much quicker than I thought. Gisele basically decided she has better things to do and quit. What a sad example to set for marriage and children.
ReplyDeleteMy problem here is that Tom appears to have broken promises. He seems to have told her a few years ago that he would retire at a certain time, and then did so last year. And then changed his mind.
ReplyDeleteWhen you are married, and especially when you have kids, there are trades to be made. Neither Dad nor Mom can have it all. It appears that Giselle made a significant number of compromises, while Tom begged them off. Now, he has made the ultimate promise "I've done what I can, I'll back down and do something healthy/safe/etc. for the family." And he broke it, for personal reasons. Even the ultimate blue-pill anti-feminist man would say "you have to keep your promises".
IMHO, Tom's problems this year are from ignoring God and family, and focusing on self. When you do that, God takes away His blessings, and life starts smacking you across the face. Tom has thrown away his promises and responsibilities to his family for fool's gold (one more shot at the fame).
Tom should quit today and go back into real family counseling with Giselle and his kids. He needs to realize that he's not a sex adulterer, he's a fame whore, and try to rebuild his family like any other adulterer would have to do.
Excellent analysis. Feminism, what thou wrought?
DeleteWhat are we to believe? That Gisele was so concerned with her husband's health and safety that she... divorced him? Talk about a willing suspension of disbelief! If she really cared that deeply, shouldn't she have just murdered him instead? What a load of BS! What happened is that she saw his continued fame and productivity as a threat to her own waning value as his companion; his light burned brightly while hers was sputtering and guttering with the loss of the only thing of value she possessed, viz., her physical attractiveness. (OK, so she did have a big nose, but who was looking at that when she paraded around in a bathing suit or revealing evening gown?) I now await her announcement of a liaison with another woman, or perhaps a man of another ethnicity, just so's she can complete the humiliation she so very deeply wants to heap on him. She has already announced her intent to do something "socially redeeming," and "meaningful" with the rest of her soon-to-be forlorn existence. A future containing many cats is in the offing.
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