According to a recent article in The New York Times, therapists claim a rise in household “green disputes.†It turns out some couples are experiencing what therapist Linda Buzzell calls a “values gap,†when one of them “undergoes an environmental ‘waking up’ process†before the other. Leslie Kaufman reports that Christienne deTournay Birkhahn of the Marin County-based EcoMom Alliance has noticed “disputes over how green is green enough often divide along predictable lines by sex.â€
Of course they do.
But it’s hard to blame the husbands mentioned in this article for being skeptical or a little resistant to indulging their wives’ eco-obsessions.  For many women, rational environmental concern has metastasized into a full-fledged, screaming-for-trees hysteria. This constant, ascetic struggle to erase one’s own carbon footprint is symptomatic of the ever-penitent far left’s religious conviction that the world would truly be better off if humans—especially those fat, materialistic, Wal-Mart shopping, mean, oppressive Americans—would simply disappear. And whether you believe the sky is falling or not, the idea that a coalition of middle and upper-middle class soccer moms are going to save the world by recycling their yogurt cups is patently ridiculous. Even some environmental activists on the left doubt that all of this obsessive effort will have a significant impact.
There are other reasons why men are right to remain skeptical when saner women harp on them to adopt greener practices or nag them to buy green products.
Green is a Marketing Gimmick.
“Going green†is the best marketing gimmick aimed at women since breast cancer awareness.
Just as you can slap a pink ribbon on anything from cereal to toilet paper and get women excited about buying it, savvy marketers have discovered that women will pay more for a product that is labeled “eco-friendly.†I’ve heard salespeople note first-hand how wet women’s panties get the second you tell them your company is “going green†or drop a hint that a certain product is better for the environment. It’s an easy way to turn a consumer indulgence into a feel-good buy that she can brag about to her friends.  So long as she feels morally superior for buying something, it doesn’t matter how green it really is. It doesn’t matter if the company she bought it from is only recycling its old invoices, and what she’s actually buying came over on a slow boat from some faraway land where it was made by starving children in a factory that’s dumping toxic waste in some exotic river that empties into a valley of panda bears.
Every little bit helps, right?
Extreme Green Just Moves the Problem (And Jobs) Elsewhere.
That last bit brings me to another issue. When green hysteria inspires people to “act locally†and demand extreme environmental legislation on local industry, American and international businesses simply “think globally†and set up factories in countries with fewer regulations and cheaper labor. Importing goods requires long range shipping, in addition to domestic trucking. Long range shipping creates a tremendous amount of pollution. If we all bought from domestic factories with relaxed environmental regulations and everyone threw garbage from their windows, we’d probably be doing more to save the planet than we do by obsessing over household trivialities while importing so many of our goods from factories overseas. What’s more, we’d be creating American jobs—manufacturing jobs, the kinds of jobs men are more likely to do—instead of selling our own men out and shipping their jobs overseas. If you really want to go green, stop globalism, make imports a luxury again, and be ready to pay more for American labor.
Green is a Fashion Trend.
Most American women probably haven’t taken green quite to the extreme that the women in the article have. They’re simply caught up in the emotional excitement of the green movement, and they’ve been convinced by Hollywood and the media and daytime television personalities that going green is “important and the right thing to do.†It makes them feel like good citizens. It appeals to their nurturing instinct by making them feel like good mothers who are doing something to make the world better for their children. And all of their friends are doing it.
It’s been pretty obvious since the green trend really took off that “going green†was just another way to keep up with the Joneses. The first desperate housewife with a gray-water system gets to shame all of the other women around her. Instead of gossiping about how unkempt Sally’s house is, or how Susan dresses like a whore, Mary and Jane can gossip about how they “just throw their empty bottles in the trash!†John Waters was ahead of the curve when he satirized the self-righteousness of the new, greener hausfrau in Serial Mom.
Many women are probably going with the flow, doing just enough to avoid becoming social pariahs. Going green also gives Betty and Wilma something cheerful and uplifting to talk about.
As I mentioned earlier, there’s nothing really wrong with recycling or trying to minimize waste. But it makes sense for men to avoid becoming enablers when their wives or girlfriends begin to reach what Mr. Fleming referred to in the article as the “high-priestess phase.â€
Kaufman managed to avoid portraying the men interviewed as hopeless Troglodytes, though men’s concerns were trivialized and women were portrayed as having “seen the light.†The piece ends ominously, suggesting that unrepentant husbands may someday find these petty household disputes about going green have become “deal breakers.†And that’s probably the most disturbing thing here—that women may begin seeing insufficient adherence to the green code as grounds for divorce. Men will lose, and women will lose, and their children will lose—all in the name of “going green.â€
The supreme irony of this is that the people most obsessed with “going greenâ€â€”white, educated liberals—will only hasten their imminent demographic irrelevance by sacrificing family life for a smaller carbon footprint.
Subscribe to The Spearhead Newsletter for a free copy of the Book of Zed
{ 99 comments… read them below or add one }
The majority of complaints here,
from both authors and commenters
results from disbelief that THEY
control the world.
Not us.
Masters are usually happy
Yes conserving and being economical are indeed good things and should be adopted and extended. But deep down I do have this suspicion that all this recycling will one day be shown to have been in fact a net polluter. Let me give a personal mundane example. Here in the UK we recycle tin cans. I know a woman who takes this very seriously. As she want to be regarded as a good schoolgirl she takes each can prior to disposal and scrubs it clean and removes the label. Because she does not like cold water on her hands the scrubbing is done under flowing hot water. This involves running the hot water through about 7 yards of piping. So in all quite a few pints of water have to be heated to perform this process for each can. What happens next is just as suspect.
The collection is made by a heavy garbage truck. This truck would surely have cost many tens of thousand of dollars. The collection is accomplished by driving the truck along in first gear at about walking pace as a man throws the cans into the vehicle.
You don’t have to be an engineer to hazard a guess that this whole process requires more expenditure of effort and energy than would ever be recouped by melting down half a dozen tin cans.
But there is no good arguing with this sort of thing. Human being are on the whole quite mad.
Which really does get to the heart of the matter, now doesn’t it.
But, in fairness, I know plenty of men who are every bit as guilty of projecting moral superiority WRT “going-green”. It isn’t entirely gender-specific, although it may tilt towards women more than towards men.
You’ll want to read this: http://sostane.com/blog/2009/09/portland-september-meeting-why-women-are-green-leaders/
“Each of us had stories demonstrating how men think in a more linear, logical, left brain way; whereas women approach things more holistically and include emotion, memory, experience and consequences to their thought process… [shared] tales about having confidence to know you can tackle a problem and needing that to be able to jump in vs. how men sometimes jump in first and try to figure out if they have the tools to solve it as an afterthought…. women are caregivers, nurturing people and how that approach is required to heal the damage we have created. We talked about the sphere of the earth and the womb and our curvy, encompassing features.”
>>far left’s religious conviction that the world would truly be better off if humans—especially those fat, materialistic, Wal-Mart shopping, mean, oppressive Americans—would simply disappear.
*raises hand*
A Green Movement that I’d support.
In my career, I’ve done quite a bit of research on “Green.” Some of it is total hype, but other Green thinking can actually help you increase efficiency and make money.
For instance, building construction according to LEED (green building) standards saves businesses and individuals a significant amount of money over the life cycle of the construction.
With that said, Jack is exactly right that Green can be B.S. In fact, the best Green advice is actually “conservative.” – CONSUME LESS. SIMPLIFY YOUR LIFE. Which of course, is a completely abhorrent concept to materialistic bitches and greedy executives.
From the item Steezer quoted:
“Blah, blah, blah, experience and consequences to their thought process” [sound of a phonographic needle being drug against the grain of a vinyl record!]
WTF!?!? I believe that it is much more observable that many women routinely fail to learn from experience (learning how to blame men instead) and seldom factor-in consequences at all. [I won't waste time on the lengthy list of examples - I'm sure everyone can think of dozens, with little or no effort]
This will no doubt play-out with many of their “green” endeavors. They won’t bother to consider event he possibility of unintended consequences, nor will their learning of those unintended consequence mange to get them to re-think what they’re doing and why their doing it.
Extreme Green Just Moves the Problem (And Jobs) Elsewhere.
Bingo. This is what I have been saying in the Misandry Bubble and elsewhere.
Feminism is not self-financing. Either the jobs women work in (where they earn more than men per unit of productivity) get shipped overseas, or the job of her husband goes (reducing her cut of asset split) or the tax base she depends on goes.
If the US economy shrinks by 20% FROM THIS POINT ON, women lose more than single men.
Well, it’s more like, they don’t have to learn from experience, precisely because they can blame men.
And similarly, all consequences can be expected to be positive, since for women, there is no link between choices and consequences – they are too mollycoddled for that. The negative effects of their bad choices are burdened onto someone else.
Good article, thankyou Jack.
Green is money,
In fucking deed.
Better to just not have a lot of that shit in the first place – but typically, women want to have their cake and recycle it.
The biggest thing women can do to really be ‘green’ is :
1) Reduce the volume of purses, shoes, and cellphones they cycle through. Get by with no more than her mother did at her age.
2) Eat only fruits and vegetables and learn to cook well at home, thereby not only avoiding the environmental damage of processed foods (meats, sugars, preservatives), but staying slim in the process.
3) Live in an apartment rather than force her husband to buy a house. A house uses far too much energy per capita.
4) Repeal no-fault asset split as a component of divorce, as two single people consume a lot more energy, metal, and plastic than a married couple. Reforming the divorce laws will result in fewer single adults, saving the environment.
So, ladies, any takers? Or is this reason #3458 that you are phonies?
The only pollution we should really be worrying about is the waste chemicals and compounds from factories and such, especially any nuclear waste. The problem is, no one wants the cement and plastic coated hole that will be big enough to store the actual problematic waste in their back yard. I vote for New Jersey, but thats just me.
Tin cans and used baby diapers are the least of our concerns. I feel pretty confident that we will genetically engineer a bacterium that will eat much of that stuff up. I know its in the works.
As per my 4 points above, ‘feminism’ is directly responsible for environmental damage. I am going to add that to my writings.
Actually, come to think of it, the 4 points I wrote above are an excellent way in which men (the few of us, at any rate) can use shaming language against women who talk about being ‘green’.
If she doesn’t want to reduce her consumption for the planet, call her on her BS. Turn that into a qualifier. This is a good tactic of ‘nonconformist Game’ that will fry her circuits and make her horny for you.
I’m going to go out and try that today.
Log on to youtube and listen to: George Carlin – Saving the Planet.
All you need to know is there.
Women are for any “noble” cause that excuses them from consequence.
Want Green? Put all your shit into a pretty colored container and have somebody else get dirty.
Want charity? Write a check to Wyclef Jean instead of driving downtown to you very own city and volunteer at a soup kitchen.
Women prefer
THE DRAMATIC ALTERNATIVE
@TFH- Your comment gave me a good laugh.
It should be noted such choices are scaling back not only cost less financially, but in time as well. We live in a small house that’s just the right size for our small family and it’s not only easy on the pocketbook but easy when it comes time to clean. The same principle applies for owning less. Less stuff makes for less clutter and a well-organized home. Money in the bank and a place for everything. What’s not to love about that?!
So much of the green living stuff seems to be hype IMHO. There are indeed good ideas that can be found in the movement, many that allow money to be saved, as well as the environment, but much of the products people are buying defeat this purpose. Buying stuff you do not really need is not a wise choice whether the item be green or not. Resources are wasted and oftentimes extra pollution is made to make the items and get them to you. What good are organic grapes from South America when I can buy in-season produce that was grown in my own backyard? Why buy top dollar organic cleaning supplies, soaps, and beeswax candles when I can make them myself and even earn money doing so? Why purchase a second car when my daughter and I can walk or ride my bike to get somewhere?
With that said, I must admit I am a bit of a hypocrite as I have found a way to profit nicely from the green movement, thanks to a home business venture my sister and I brainstormed together.
By the way.. here is the address:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=948Nm34arfA&feature=PlayList&p=D530ADE80B475DC2&index=5
Carlin is my hero.
LOL!!!
Hestia – You are a REAL woman. An endangered creature from a bygone age.
There is nothing immoral about profiting from this fad. No more so than selling $80 manicures to women.
I personally stand to make quite a bit from this, and that too from real technologies that truly save energy for people.
Wouldn’t the greenies be against having children, though? I would think that since their ideology is that humans are destroying the planet, we should have less of them. Less humans = less carbon, in theory at least. Isn’t it selfish and un-green to have children?
Wouldn’t the greenies be against having children, though?
They are. Haven’t you seen their creepy comments on this?
We are not far from a situation where some eco-nut shoots up a school in order to ‘cull the herd’ for eco reasons before they reach adulthood, after which all sorts of green nuts defend the action taken by the shooter who saw it necessary to kill other people’s children to reduce the carbon footprint.
Such insanity is not outside the realm of actually happening.
Of course, this will be the overreach I talk about. Such an event will cause the rural American families with a lot of kids to actually go on a rampage against lefto-wackos. And rightly so.
This is a great discussion.
Jack Donovan and Four Horseman make great points about “green” products being made in filthy factories overseas. I would add that a lot of “organic” produce is actually less eco-friendly than some conventional produce, because it has to travel farther to get to your table. But try telling that to the greentards who listen to Oprah or whoever.
Overall, people are fooling themselves if they think they can spend their way to be greener. With that said, green can save money and make a difference.
Some conservative “green” rules of thumb that come to mind-
1. Buy in bulk, if you can. Packaging actually adds dramatically to the negative consequences on the environment.
2. If you can make it yourself, do so. If you can’t, try to buy locally.
3. High-quality products that last are actually “green” whether or not it says so on the label. Trashy products that don’t last increase consumption, even if they’re called “green.”
4. Buy quality used cars, and keep them well-maintained.
5. Don’t buy for emotional reasons, or to keep up with the Joneses. If you are, you don’t really need it and should save the money for a rainy day.
We also moved into a much smaller house than we can afford (my husband didn’t want an apartment because he wanted a garden for the kids). It’s an older home and we’re renovating it to make it more energy efficient. So I live in a permanent construction site. We’re trying to reduce our use of energy dramatically and have cut both our heating and electricity bills by a third in one year.
I am also a big advocate of cooking from scratch and buying in bulk (to reduce waste and improve taste). Homemade cleaning supplies (vinegar, dish soap, and baking soda will clean just about anything), even sweeping instead of vacuum cleaning, or using cloth instead of paper. My husband is 2 months away from finishing his HVAC technician certification and is already coming up with some interesting ideas for redoing our room-air and water heating systems to improve air quality, increase hot water availability, and cut costs. We have 2 fireplaces (one on each floor) that we want to switch to inserts, as well. For my birthdays, holidays, etc. I usually get things for the house, like a new front door or attic insulation. My mother thinks it’s horribly unromantic but not freezing my butt off when the wind blows is worth it.
Buying less stuff is also critical. But that tends to happen naturally when you’re living on a strict budget. As for purses, I bought one at Target for $15 a few years ago and its still going strong. Plastics make it possible. LOL.
The real green things a person should do IF they really care about being green :
1) Reduce meat consumption and processed foods to an absolute minimum. Eat fruits and vegetables (which will necessitate a learning of how to cook).
2) Carpool to the extent possible.
3) Live in an apartment rather than a house
4) Don’t subscribe to paper newspapers and magazines. Read online.
5) Reuse your plastic bags.
6) Use each car until the absolute end of its life.
But most people (and certainly most women) are not willing to do this. Until a person does many of these 6 things, they shouldn’t sermonize about going green.
An endangered creature from a bygone age.
Not really. Most of the women I know are like this.
4. Buy quality used cars, and keep them well-maintained.
5. Don’t buy for emotional reasons, or to keep up with the Joneses. If you are, you don’t really need it and should save the money for a rainy day.
These are two really good points.
A good way to do the second is to just give yourself the 30-day rule before making a purchase. Most of the stuff we think we “really need to buy” we’ve forgotten about by then. And don’t buy anything on credit. If you are only purchasing with your savings then the money is more precious to you. Credit is easy come, easy go.
We’ve noticed this recently with envelope budgeting. We used to use debit cards and it seemed like we were spending astronomical amounts on groceries. This month we’ve gone cash-only and cut the expenditure dramatically (from an average of $980/month to $660). We still aren’t quite sure what in the world we were doing before, but at least we’ve managed to stop doing it before we ate our way through our bank account. And we’re eating the same food. Baffles the mind.
1) Reduce meat consumption and processed foods to an absolute minimum. Eat fruits and vegetables (which will necessitate a learning of how to cook).
2) Carpool to the extent possible.
4) Don’t subscribe to paper newspapers and magazines. Read online.
Meat is a big issue, that’s true. We used to eat meat every day but have cut down to twice a week and replaced it with other protein sources. But you have to be a really good cook to get away with doing that without your husband revolting.
It’s not just carpooling (although that’s a good point), it’s also about consolidating car trips and moving closer to your place of employment.
So, do you think the Kindle is a green machine? You’re probably right.
Fifth Horseman-
Very true. Speaking personally, I only eat meat three times a week, I live in a single room I rent, I walk to work every day, and my car is six years old.
Cheers
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100119/ap_on_bi_ge/us_marriage_economics
More bullshit propaganda trying to sell men on marriage…while obscuring the tremendous costs associated with divorce—nearly 70 percent of which are initiated by women.
5H, online isn’t necessarily greener… http://blogs.zdnet.com/doc/?p=771
slwerner, but what about “the sphere of the earth and the womb and our curvy, encompassing features”?
Re: Cult Recruitment by Gender:
No one considered whether or not there was a gender differentiation in a person’s vulnerability to cults and cult recruitment, and, particularly, whether women were more susceptible to recruitment. Recent research, however, has consistently produced samples that are 60% to 70% female (Chambers, Langone, Dole, & Grice, 1994).
But you have to be a really good cook to get away with doing that without your husband revolting.
Culinary skills that are considered normal in France, Spain, Italy, Persia, India, or Thailand are considered nearly superhuman in America.
I am a good cook, and it is a crucial component of my Game. Forget men, most American women have zero cooking skills. I thus become a Superman with my exotic use of turmeric, cumin, fenugreek, cilantro, and basil that I grow in my windowsill AND yogurt I make by myself (again, all this was/is NORMAL on a daily for my mother and aunts). Talk about culture arbitrage being used for Game purposes……
B&G,
So, do you think the Kindle is a green machine? You’re probably right.
Remember what I wrote about the Publishing disruption.
BTW, I still don’t know why comments vanished in ‘The Misandry Bubble’, but if you want to repost what you wanted to post, please try again.
Perhaps another thing to consider would be cosmetics (and other Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care Products (PPCP)).
These, especially cosmetics, tend to be extremely environmentally unfriendly to produce, and create specific pollution problems as environmental wastes.
And, for budgeting purposes, they tend to be expensive, and provide little “bang-for-the-buck” – especially cosmetics.
Now, of course, men use some of these as well – but, again, especially with the cosmetics, they are consumed by women far more.
nearly 70 percent of which are initiated by women.
90%, actually. Beyond the 70%, another 20% of the time, women behave in a way that forces men to file.
But I really need someone (Welmer, EW, Nova, Chuck) to do a detailed piece that researches this. I got more questions about this than any other datapoint, and if we can back this up, I can GUARANTEE several thousand hits to that article.
This is high demand for the 90% number to be backed up. I’d do it myself, but don’t know enough about divorce….
I’ll keep requesting a research piece to be done on this. It WILL take the blogosphere by storm, if the number of requests I got is any indication…
Japan’s trash collection system takes the cake for ridiculous green activism. They just changed it on us last year. For the sake of the planet we now have to buy official trash bags for ech kind of trash-
Burnables-food waste, paper, cardboard boxes.
Unburnables-Batteries, shoes, coathangers,etc.
Plastics- Plastic wrap, styrofoam food trays (that meat etc come packaged in) bottles for dish soap, shampoo etc.
Cans and bottles-They can all be mixed in the same bag. They used to make us separate green glass, clear, brown, aluminum and steel.
Newspaper and cardboard boxes previously could be tied with string and left with the trash, now they all have to go in the official plastic bags. The bags don’t conform to the size of most cardboard boxes, so they need to be cut up. Even cut up only two or three boxes will fit in each bag. The bags for burnable trash are of a plastic that will split over a certain wight (light!) so I’m using up these plastic bags at a ridiculous rate.
We are required to wash all cans and bottles and all plastic food wrappings and trays and they are to be dry before they go in a garbage bag. Two Mondays a month are for plastics, two Wednesdays a month for cans and bottles, the other two Wednesdays are for unburnables, and regular trash is weekly, every Tuesday and Friday.
(Draws a breath). Since we now separate out all the food wrappings I now have very little to put out on Tuesday and Friday and neither do my neighbors, but the trucks come twice a week for that stuff. The plastic, which accumulates (does it ever!) isn’t picked up as often so it takes up space in the garage. I shudder to think of the amount of water needed to wash the plastic, styrofoam, cans and bottles. I also shudder to think of the far, far greater number of plastic bags being burned! The system almost drove me insane the first month or two.
And then I read a government website saying that 34% of Japan’s trash is recycled. If they’re just going to bury it or burn it, what’s with the busy work? Ah, but you should see the zeal of the ‘Gomi daikan’ (garbage police) housewives who stand by the communal collection points eyeing everyone’s garbage to make sure it’s up to snuff. It makes people feel useful, while accomplishing ZIP!
But it’s GREEEEEEN!
@ TFH
“1) Reduce meat consumption and processed foods to an absolute minimum. Eat fruits and vegetables (which will necessitate a learning of how to cook).”
While that is the common wisdom, it’s not so clear it’s inherently true.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/31/opinion/31niman.html?_r=1
@Fedrz,
Liberals are more likely to be superstitious and more women than men are liberals. So, it makes sense.
while obscuring the tremendous costs associated with divorce—nearly 70 percent of which are initiated by women.
Good point. The income within the marriage is simply a trade-off, with the difference that higher men’s wages leads to more stable marriages, whereas higher women’s wages leads to more divorce (as you noted).
Kindle is only green if you actually use it for a number of years. The gadgets are relatively green compared with paper, of course, but we have too many gadgets that we all use. What we need is some kind of meta-gadget that is portable enough (ie more portable than a laptop, even the netbook kinds), and has the functionality of a PC, a phone and something like Kindle. Apple’s new tablet may be a nod in this direction, we’ll have to see. But if we all had one meta-gadget instead of 3, 4 or 5 of them for different things, that would be quite green I think.
Then again, under Moore’s law we’re doomed to replace them every couple of years anyway, so maybe not.
The 9o% may be reaching a bit. That 20% of those initiated by men are “forced” by womens bad behaviors is likely off-set by those female-initiated divorces “forced” by a mans equally bad behaviors.
Still, at ~70% of the actual initiations, and usually done to gain the most possible advantage for themselves, women do seem to be far less “committed” for the long-haul.
We COULD do away with most of this nonsense by applying technology.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_arc_waste_disposal
However, if the government actually *solves* this problem once and for all, then why will need an EPA?
Bureaucrats whose jobs depend on the existence of a problem have a very strong incentive to avoid *ever* actually solving that problem.
There was that study by the two economists (These Boots Were Made For Walking) that said that the main driver of divorce initiation is who will “win” in terms of child custody and the power/financial benefits that this entails. In our current legal system, this is generally wives, so they are the ones initiating.
slwerner,
Perhaps. But we need solid research that can sustain a lot of questioning. That way, we can blow the doors off of all the ‘shaming language’ such as the article that Dragnet linked to.
Anyone who does a thoroughly researched article that shows the reality of 80-90% (or whatever) being filed by the woman (as per Devlin), will be doing a service. I will personally guarantee anywhere between 10,000 and 40,000 visits for that article (and maybe more).
[sigh] Too true.
In Dec. 2008, I bought one of my daughters a Sony E-reader. She took it, and all the paperwork with her to California. Just shy of it’s one-year coverage, the screen started to crap-out. Unfortunately, she had misplaced/lost the paper work, and Sony refused to honor their warranty without it. Net result, in December 2009, I ordered her a Nook (Barnes & Noble’s Android-powered e-reader), for delivery next month, as a birthday-gift replacement for the previous years present.
You beat me to it…I was thinking of this very product – having just read about it’s presumed additional utility as an e-reader.
BTW, sorry to see you hanging up the blogging shoes, but glad to hear you’ll still be posting commentary. You bring a lot of good insights.
We like the idea behind the Kindle, but we’re waiting for a crossover (like you describe, Novaseeker) to come out so that its more functional. We’ve already got too many electronic gadgets piling up in our house. The risks of being married to an electrical engineer.
BTW, I still don’t know why comments vanished in ‘The Misandry Bubble’, but if you want to repost what you wanted to post, please try again.
Oh, okay. I thought you were removing them to give me a not-so-subtle: “Bitch, get off my blog” message.
I’ve got an herbal garden that I use for tea and spices. I make my own buttermilk and quark, but I’ve found that homemade yogurt comes out runny unless you add expensive cultures or powdered milk to it. How do you do yours?
In my neighborhood, most of the families have large vegetable/herb gardens, fruit trees, etc. We trade jam and produce with our neighbors. Our specialty is mulberry and container-grown tomatoes but my husband wants to add some cherry and apple trees. Attract wasps, though, don’t they?
But I really need someone (Welmer, EW, Nova, Chuck) to do a detailed piece that researches this.
http://www.glennsacks.com/blog/?page_id=1000
The book I’m currently reading (You Still Don’t Understand) quotes similar statistics and lists its sources as:
E Pettit and B. Bloom, “Whose Decision Was It?” Journal of Marriage and Family, 46, 587-595
A. Zeiss, R. Zeiss, and S. Johnson, “Sex Differences in Initiation of and Adjustment to Divorce.” Journal of Divorce, 4, 2, 1980, 21-33.
HTH.
Oh, okay. I thought you were removing them to give me a not-so-subtle: “Bitch, get off my blog†message.
No, No, No. You know that I agree with many of your views.
PLUS, there are tons of hostile and misandrist comments from others that are clearly visible.
Please re-post.
OK, so my hostile and misandrist comments are also welcome?
Just kidding. I’ll go post later. Gotta go see if my munchkins are still breathing.
It needs to be said that the hypocrisy and arrogance of “going green” has been explained before:
http://www.southparkstudios.com/episodes/103216
It’s also pointed that celebrities started this trend, when they weren’t too busy snorting coke.
Green is the new red.
Great t-shirt.
What’s funny is that I just put an ad in this post to see what would pop up, and they’re selling eco-friendly jewelry. How about that? Here, ladies, I guarantee that these diamonds and this gold are 100% eco-friendly, so now you can demand that your husband buy them for you with nary a pang of guilt.
LOL
You Still Don’t Understand is quite worthwhile reading I think.
On the Nook .. hmmm. David Pogue panned it in his review last month, but I haven’t personally checked one out yet.
Charles, there are probably some people out there who would wear that shirt proudly, unfortunately.
Interesting at The Economist :
http://www.economist.com/debate/overview/163?source=hptextfeature
The question is, do women have it good?
66% say yes, and 34% say no. That is a decent result (although the readership will be largely male).
The feminst professor taking the ‘no’ view spouts the same old ‘glass ceiling’ and ‘wage gap’ myths. BUT, a lot of the commenters appear quite savvy at calling the BS.
Check it out.
@ horseman,
why need a research study to backup your %90 statistics?
you should follow the feminists steps … and just assert it until the people tbink it is true
one side always win the battle of emotional propaganda v. research statistics… and that side is not research statistics
you should follow the feminists steps … and just assert it until the people tbink it is true
a) The resistance that exists, in the form of a belief that ‘women are the biggest victims of divorce’ is to great.
b) A lot of people asked for backing of that number, with genuine interest. Therefore, there is real demand for the truth.
c) We have to be better than them. I mean it.
AFTER the data is solid, yes, we have to ram that well-backed data into everyone’s face without apology, and shoot down the only two weapons that misandrists have : calling the opponent an a) misogynist, or b) loser.
I am quick to call a white feminist a racist too, who is ‘infringing on the beliefs of my sovereign culture, and that of neighboring Islamic cultures too’.
But there are ways to do this, and ways not to do this.
5h, which is why I subscribe to The Economist — the paper version.
Last one I saw had a terrible article about Socrates — totally full of it. I didn’t see an author’s name on it, either. Why not?
The Economist doesn’t do authors. By long tradition, they are like The Borg of journalism. Even their columnists use pen-names like Lexington or Charlemagne.
T5H -
You should post a comment (with references to studies) about how women don’t do “the lion’s share” of household work, and that the difference in work performed (if I recall correctly) equates roughly to the extra time a man will spend at work.
Seems more people are getting on the ball about the nonexistent wage gap.
Welmer: you mean this? http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displayStory.cfm?STORY_ID=15108704
It’s one way of really reinforcing the Economist brand. Sure, it’s at the expense of the columnists and writers, I suppose, but having The Economist on your résumé is sure to open doors…
The Economist
has been inspiring rough and hardy men
for decades
on account of the manly men
who write
there
Yes, Steezer, comparing him to Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert was a huge stretch.
And Aristophanes was fundamentally funnier and more original than Cohen. he also made some moral points, which I can’t recall Cohen doing. Read The Clouds if you have time.
Ha!
Now the ad is for Seventh Generation green paper towels and toilet tissue. Selling green religion (and products) to women, who make something like 80% of household purchases, is fantastic marketing. It’s encouraging them to shop and making them feel morally superior at the same time. Genius!
I propose that we follow the Daoist path (yes, I know that’s redundant in Chinese, but that’s the point), and let them buy all the green toiletries and jewelry they want so long as some of the proceeds flow back to us.
As long as the Chinese use green packing material
on Rhinoceros Horns, we can all sleep soundly.
OK, I went out of my way to register at The Economist, and made sure I went in with guns blazing :
http://www.economist.com/debate/days/view/449/showCommentModule:1
Let’s see if the comment is allowed to stand.
The debate itself is rigged, in that the question is ‘do women have it better than before’, rather than ‘do women have it better than men’, and neutral author is representing the pro-male side, but the feminOrc side is represented by no less than the President of NOW.
5th, that comment section got PWND.
Recommend’d
Wow…TFH
Just read your post at the Economist,
Good Job!
A-Strat,
Thanks.
I am noticing that we over here are so well-practiced in our precision strikes now that when we venture out into a place where the uninitiated are discussing the subject, all the anti-male pre-suppositions leap out at us immediately, and our own sentences are so concise yet powerful that the ‘laypeople’ as well as the misandrists truly experience shock and awe.
I bet Terry O’Neill never thought SHE would called a bigot, or that someone would talk about ‘glass floors’, or expose the corrupt pork-barreling of her own organization, NOW.
Many new people are truly experiencing the daylight shone on misandry for the first time.
By the way, AP just called the MA senate race for Scott Brown. Brown is a supporter of fathers’ rights. If the AP is correct (and they probably are) this is a huge win for men, coming from the dark era of the Ted Kennedy dynasty.
OK, this one is just too good to pass up from cross-posting here (sorry, I am fired up) :
“Let me sum up another thought this way :
This magazine is titled ‘The Economist’. It presumably stays true to economic principles.
Therefore, it is simply not possible for any worker to be underpaid relative to his or her output. Such a worker could merely go to a non-sexist competitor, who thus would outcompete the first company. Isn’t that why outsourcing happens?
Unless every single employer is biased against women, as Terry O’Neill wants to believe. Is every single CEO and Board so sexist as to forego billions of dollars in cost savings from hiring women? Is even the free market prevents female entrepreneurs from succeeding? Oprah and Martha Stewart became billionaires by selling only to women, you know.
Women do earn 75% of what men do, but they only do 70% of the work that men do. Thus, women actually earn MORE than men relative to output.
So ‘The Economist’ really should stay true to Economics 101, which proves the entire premise of this debate to be economically illiterate.
So, Adrian Wooldridge, are you going to stay true to economics, or cow to female shaming language based on economic falsehoods?
Otherwise, ‘The Economist’ should change its name to ‘The Communist’ or ‘The Misandrist’.
-TFH”
Thumbs up to that last comment TFH. Good shit.
I’ll agree that “going green” is some trendy BS although it has some merit. (You won’t get me to change my mind on global warming, though.)
Did anyone else read “therapists” as “the rapists”? As seen on SNL Celebrity Jeopardy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAPEjcQvqSk
Oh my god…..one commenter over there actually said “women are more emotionally stable than men”….
Not much can surprise me at this point, but to see someone actually say this was a surprise…
1) Reduce meat consumption and processed foods to an absolute minimum. Eat fruits and vegetables (which will necessitate a learning of how to cook).
2) Carpool to the extent possible.
3) Live in an apartment rather than a house
4) Don’t subscribe to paper newspapers and magazines. Read online.
5) Reuse your plastic bags.
6) Use each car until the absolute end of its life.
About #3. Sorry, I love having a nice quiet back yard with a deck that I can sit on and meditate in my own way. Living in an apartment is just too much to ask.
TFH, “economist” in the context of the magazine’s naming didn’t mean what it means today.
‘When the newspaper was founded, the term “economism” denoted what would today be termed “fiscal conservatism” in the United States, or “economic liberalism” in the rest of the world (and historically in the United States as well).’
@JayHammers
Don’t have to. You’ll be changing your mind all by yourself soon enough.
You’re an engineer aren’t you? Ever heard of Burt Rutan? Here’s what Burt thinks of global warming.
>>I feel pretty confident that we will genetically engineer a bacterium that will eat much of that stuff up. I know its in the works.
It’s nice that you’re so confident, but there are some things that simply can’t be metabolized chemically. It’s just lucky that we found a bacterium that can metabolize plastic bags, and that that type of plastic contains energy which those organisms can use… Albeit very very slowly.
In the case of tin cans, a metabolism that eats that is probably going to be so extremely slow that you’re better off just waiting for the damn thing to corrode away. Styrofoam will burn, so it definitely contains energy that an organism might be able to metabolize, but I don’t know that they’ve discovered a process that does that.
You’re probably going to think I’m a feminist, a left-winger, or whatever for saying this, but really the solution to our problem is just to control human population. Seriously, we do more damage just because there are so damn many of us, and we can’t stomach seeing people die even when their way of life isn’t sustainable at all.
Of course, when I tell you that this excess population is mostly people in third world countries, you’ll probably become excited about the idea. Who needs darkies and cow-worshipers and slant-eyes? Not I! You’re probably proud of this point of view, pragmatically believing that your ethnic group is a gift to the world. Blegh.
>> Log on to youtube and listen to: George Carlin – Saving the Planet.
>> All you need to know is there.
It makes sense if you think the world would be better off not overrun by pesky humans.
Steezer,
Their their current propagation of the ‘women are underpaid’ myth is even MORE of a violation of their original mission than I thought.
Think about it.. fiscal conservatism has no place for overpaying women for low productivity simply because they whine. Woe is the business that caves to such a shit test.
*THEN their…
Over what fully-depreciated lifetime and at what discount rate? My experience is that you “save money” going green, but that the capital costs are never fully recovered even assuming a discount rate of zero. Even among those items that claim to fully recover capital costs, the assumed discount rate is so low you’re still losing money because the value of the project is lower than any reasonable cost of capital. In other words, green projects have negative NPV.
I could go on for hours about this, as I post on an environmental forum, but I must point out that it was a woman in our area that opposed a recycling plant. Even to the extent of a full on campaign. It was next to a major road (ideal), and the noise/smells would of affected no residents. It was pure NIMBYism.
Green wash is often aimed at women, but then most consumer goods are anyway.
The UK is decades behind on waste issues, and recycling is not a simply solution. Reuse is a not helped when you live in such a consumerist society (“oh shiny new thing!”). While it is often women who have the organic garden, it is usually men who take the used PCs and restore them preventing those nasty metals from leaching into the ground.
We can generalise all we want, but both stereotyped gender roles can have benefitial and detremental aspects when it comes to the environment. Of course its feminists who usually try to claim the moral high ground.
A “deal breaker” huh? What exactly is this “deal”. A contract where you are encumbered with responsibilities but no rights isn’t my idea of a deal – it’s just simple exploitation.
Once again the answer to the issue is the same – don’t enter into the “deal” in the first place.
Take 10,000 students. They all print out a 4 page article for their reference. That’s 40,000 pieces of paper.
If the students print double-sided they save 20,000 pages. If they zoom-print and don’t mind smaller text, they can fit the whole 4 page document onto 1 page. That’s 30,000 pages saved.
That’s 50% or 75% of a resource saved.
‘Acting’ green is based on hope, in the hope someone else is doing their part and that your supposedly collective effort is having an impact.
Acting green reminds me of that same feeling you get when going to the poll booth, voting and questioning your own ant-size significance.
Just do what you can and at least you won’t be made to feel guilty by them green people. Certain areas of your life you can see the results but I’m not sure about recycling, they just dump the lot. I think ‘saving’ (using less, like with the students printing) has more impact at present than ‘reycling’. I think recycling hasn’t been mastered yet.
Mind you, if all those students print out the wrong article (lol) they can use the recycling waste paper basket…
Energy-efficient building and renovating is about economic stability and comfort, more than saving money. You invest a defined amount in the construction and then are less dependent on low energy prices or favorable weather.
We insulated our attic, have HE windows, deep overhangs, etc. This means that our air conditioning only runs about twice a day for 15 minutes, even in 90 degree heat, and there are whole days when the heater doesn’t run at all (when the sun is out), even in the middle of winter. In winter the living room often becomes so warm we have to open the windows to cool off! The rest of the time it’s quiet and peaceful and we have the ceiling fans moving the air.
Also, remember that many energy efficient tactics don’t actually cost anything or only very little, they just require some forethought about window size and placement, overhang depth, house orientation, landscaping (think: deciduous trees), etc. We studied The Solar House and similar books before purchasing, to select a house that fulfilled most passive solar requirements. Many of the older houses do that already, as they were often built before air conditioning. For example, the kitchen, bathrooms, and bedrooms are on the NE side and the living spaces are on the SW side.
@Suigintou-
It was more a broad, general statement. I don’t know the specifics about using bacteria to dispose of garbage, but if we found some that eat plastic, that takes care of a lot of stuff, and I believe they are working on one to eat oil (to eat oil spills I think) which is essentially raw plastic. Metals we can always recycle, even if we bury them and then decide to dig it out later.
As far as bacteria eating wierd non-organic stuff, I can believe in the possibility. We have found bacteria extremely deep in the earth, and think of all the extremo-life forms, or whatever they’re called, that live around hot vents in the ocean and eat sulfur or something. I’m not saying it would be soon, but in enough time to help us out.
And I totally agree that the answer is less people. I don’t think that is leftist, liberal as it sounds like a conservative thing to do in my opinion. I know this is a slippery slope to eugenics, and this is off the top of my head, but I don’t think anyone should be able to have more than 3 kids without meeting an extremely low socio-economic and criminal back ground check bar.
A: Must not accept welfare or foodstamps.
B: Must not have been convicted of two seperate felony offenses requiring jail time.
The only way to circumvent these would be to serve for three years in the military.
How do you enforce it? Fourth child equals instant tube tying. That still leaves some shmuck with four kids, way too many in my opinion.
Pie in the sky? Sure. I’m not saying its realistic, or even practical.
I think our best chance is a super disease that will wipe out a fourth of the worlds population that triggers a resource war that wipes out another fourth.
Obviously I would be immune to said disease, and the US would subsequently take over the middle east as they would foolishly see it as an oppurtunity to consolidate power by conquering chinese territory. Okay, the above scenerio is not very likely either.
Lets just start by killing all the feminist. We can go from there.
J, was that a Shakespearean paraphrase?
The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.
Great to see more posters out here in Japan!
Garbage police and ludicrous over-wrapping aside, there’s one great thing about average Japanese consumers: they don’t use automobiles all the time.
It never ceases to amaze me to see not just the hoary cliche of the dieter driving to an evercise gym just to run in place on a treadmill, but also the pollution-conscious person who will refuse double-bags at the supermarket for heavy items, citing environmental concerns about dioxins, after having driven a car to do their shopping.
In urban Japan, the average person doesn’t drive a car, and will visit the supermarket several times a week on the way home from the train station. Women in particular who do this get fit and look great. Compare this to their Anglosphere counterparts who not only drive, but insist on “safe” SUV-like assault vehicles that consume immense amounts of gasoline, just to get them to the local shopping district. Ride a bike or walk!
“Black&German January 20, 2010 at 06:45
J, was that a Shakespearean paraphrase?
The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.”
Nope. But I’m of the belief that most ideas are not truely original anyways, they are simply formed by the combining or dismantling of other people’s ideas. In this sense, most creativity is second hand creativity. Who knows how many of the thoughts we believe to have originated within our own mind are rather just new spins on passed down ancient wisdom. I wouldn’t be surprised if Shakespeare had stolen that line from a joke he heard in a pub. Creativity is actually a complex interaction of the individual and his environment. It is rarely a singular, isolated endevour. (Creativity is one of my intellectual niches of interest. Don’t get me started. That is reverse psychology for anytime, any place, I’m ready to rant about it.)
Eco-shrews…LOL!!
Nowadays I get a real kick out of flying between london and germany just to get drunk or get laid. Burn up all that fuel and release all that carbon dioxide messing up the planet just because I have money and can do so in wreckless abandon destroying the planet for the grandchildren I won’t have? Just great.
Hell, I just flew right around the world merely to be present at my so called court hearing. Didn’t hear any femnazi eco-shrews telling my ex that was a complete waste….she and my former two children also went right round the world….how much CO2 was that?
I love using plastic bottles and not returning them. Put the platic in the ground. Poison the whole planet and let the next generation suffer I say. I have no stake in it now! That’s the attitude you breed when you kidnap a man’s kids from him and he dis-owns them.
Such men care about the planet about as much as our ‘society’ and our women cared about us, which was not at all..
dragnet January 19, 2010 at 12:58
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100119/ap_on_bi_ge/us_marriage_economics
Guys must be dumber than rocks to believe any shit like that. Who do these people think they are fooling?
“They” are in fact, successfully fooling the mass majority of Americans.
Yes, most guys are dumber than rocks.
Watch your local TV news.
Most do not have the wisdom we have.
That is the main problem.
“Christienne deTournay Birkhahn” is not the name of a person who can be taken seriously.
“Christienne deTournay Birkhahn of the Marin County-based EcoMom Alliance” is the title of someone who should be drawn and quartered.
Heh. Women going green.
A conversation I had with my guy, back when he was in SF and I was in NYC:
Me: What are you doing?
Him: Oh, I’m going to recycle this.
Me: Oh. California-environmental crap.
Him: Yeah, if I lived in a shithole, I probably wouldn’t recycle either.
–
Tood:
Epoxytocin wanted me to send you this…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YOEO7jtIs4
He’s got a point there.
Actually MGTOW is more green than green. In order to be free we generaly do the following…
1. Find our who we are and what we need.
2. Reduce consumption of crap. Buy quality, not quantity.
3. Reduce the hours we work. Live a full life.
‘Green’ is actually a designer label that women tend to buy into. MGTOW is more cost efective.
From http://www.theabsolute.net/misogyny/tangents.html
“For the first while, I couldn’t figure out what was wrong. Ask the hard questions, narrow the list of possibilities and work with the resulting template. As it turns out, nothing in the feminist psyche conforms to this model. All women are feminists and all feminist evidence is anecdotal. Ask them a question and they will tell you a little story. Ask them a question to clarify what you infer is the point of the story and they will tell you another story. When they do attempt to draw a conclusion or a larger inference from an anecdote they will often ask, “Does that make any sense?†And the answer, of course is (almost invariably) no, it doesn’t make any sense. And since I wasn’t trying to get any of them into bed, I would say so (if you’re trying to get them into bed, you always say “yes, that makes perfect sense†or manufacture some sensible interpretation that has nothing to do with what they said). Telling them that they don’t make sense, I found, is like telling them that not only do they not win the trip to Hawaii, they don’t even get the Samsonite luggage. They become forlorn and uncommunicative. That was when I realized that it was impossible to engage them on an intellectual, reasoning, “writerly†level – that is, in a purely matter-of-fact fashion. I had to act, had to portray myself as being happy, sympathetic, interested and cheerful in order to maintain a level of . . .
. . . I don’t know what you would call it. It wasn’t communication in any meaningful sense of the term as I understand it. It was a kind of “emotional badminton.†I acted happy, sympathetic, interested and cheerful and then it was her turn to act happy, sympathetic, interested and cheerful and then it was my turn, etc. She might accidentally say something interesting where I could, with sincerity, say that I found what she had just said interesting. This temporarily escalated the level of her cheerfulness but, alas, that is all that it did: whatever was being said ranking a very distant second to maintaining and escalating the level of cheerfulness. A very, very distant second. I realized that this is where the “henhouse cacophony†originates. If “communication†within a group of women is working properly (as women see “working properlyâ€) everyone should be talking faster and faster and faster and in a higher and higher musical range – either portraying themselves or being (the two states being deemed interchangeable in the female world) cheerful, more cheerful, “cheerfulest†– until, maximum cheerfulness having been achieved, a glass breaks or something.“
@asdfasdfa
Thanks for the link. I like Dave Sim.
Eco-Shrew confirmed.
{ 2 trackbacks }