758. Response to Viewer — Item 21b

Her Highness Abigail prompted this article. At post #751 she commented: “…your writing makes me feel like women have a very bad deal. Surely men aren’t all as selfish as you make them sound!”

Of course men are not. WhatWomenNeverHear describes the potential that men have for making women happy or miserable, and how women can prevent, avoid, or cure it. How I describe men generally has little connection to specific traits of an individual. Across an array of characteristics, every man appears differently.

However, I point out these realities about selfish/unselfish:  

• Selfishness emerges naturally. Learned behavior suppresses it as disadvantageous to one’s self-interest.
• Women promote unselfishness, because it helps bond relationships. Men have much less interest, because they are more individualistic.
• Women see unselfishness as critical to relationship harmony, and so they teach children to adopt it. They also measure the offensiveness of male selfishness by relationship standards.
• Men see far less practical use for stabilizing relationships, so they differ from females about selfish/unselfish issues. Not saying it’s fair, or that selfishness is justified. It’s just human nature in action with different sexes involved.
• We’re all born selfish. Mothers are the primary instrument by which selfishness is ‘untaught’ in childhood. Girls grasp and more easily embed it in their subconscious. Boys require more diligent programming to become generally unselfish as part of their consciousness.
• Whether a man has conquered a female or not plays a major part within a couple’s relationship. After their first sex together, he may show a level of selfishness that surprises her.
• After puberty, boys’ selfish/unselfish behavior relates to whoever else is involved. Consequently, chaste girls have considerable influence in conveying the merits of unselfishness to teen boys. Chaste single women have similar influence with men.
• Players prey on females that don’t pay much attention to masculine self-centeredness about sex.  Consequently, players learn that selfishness pays off. When they marry, it’s tough for wife to accept it and tough for him to change.

Paraphrasing Forrest Gump, Selfish is as selfish does. In the end, everyone has something about which they are selfish. Adult men and women tend to be as selfish/unselfish as their self-interest guides them.

290. Female Fortitude—106 through 110

These ‘fortitudinals’ provide special themes or summaries. Numbers match previous posts.

106.   Because of love, his words speak more loudly than his actions. Quite the opposite of his view.

107.   She must be grateful for who and what he is and does. Affection and love do not register as gratitude.  

108.   The rules for success are many, but wrongs trump rules, Nature trumps Love, and men trump women that don’t know how to make men successful at husbanding and fathering. .

109.   Women are born soft-hearted, but sometimes they get hard-hearted. They grow selfish, self-centered, and often vengeful to make others pay for offenses to their female ego.

110.   Men absolutely need only one thing: A place to flop, eat, throw his things, and prepare for tomorrow’s ‘battles’. If she does not want to maintain at least a hut for him, someone else will.

[Previous fortitudinals appear in posts 285, 280, 275, 270, 265, 260, 255, 250, 245, 240, 234, 228, 213, 203, 199, 186, 182, and 176.]

268. Weans, tweens, and teens #10 — Self-centered

          This post continues the description of subsets that make up the universal motivator, self-interest (post 223). Mature self-interest arrives after a child passes through three stages that are simplified here for clarity.

Selfish (post 239), self-centered, and self-tests are actions that motivate children at various stages of growing up. This post summarizes selfishness and then addresses self-centeredness.

In the last half of the weans, selfishness is the standard order of the day for toddlers. Such children promote their interests ahead of what’s agreeable with others. It becomes an undesirable habit, when they learn that it pays off. 

As effective parenting discourages selfishness, the child learns to think long instead of short term. He learns that spitefulness does not pay but fairness usually does. Groundwork is thus laid for the next stage after toddlerhood.

Self-centeredness arises during the tweens and takes two forms in every child. Whether viewed as good or bad, he behaves to make himself feel good about himself.

Parents consider it bad, when a child focuses repeatedly on getting others to make him feel good about himself. The child dwells on getting attention, affection, or appreciation. After repeated failures to be satisfied, he often escalates to outrageous behavior.  

Parents consider it good, when a child energizes himself to make his life better or more interesting. He depends upon himself to feel good about himself. He learns to benefit from turning off his selfish and self-centered switches when associating with others.

Self-centeredness in the tweens determines what’s ahead for the child and helps shapes his adult self-interest.

Lessons learned take on permanence as puberty arrives. Following that, the teen years provide the third stage of developing adult self-interest—self-testing. That’s the next post in this series.

[More about childhood mental growth appears in posts 239, 223, 208, 197, 193, 192, 187, 178, and 177. Scroll down or search by the number with a dot and space following it.]

239. Weans, tweens, and teens #9 — Selfishness

Selfishness is the most junior of three subsets of self-interest. It predominantly appears in the wean years. (Post # 223)

Selfishness insists on getting one’s way at the expense of others. It’s natural to the human condition.

The need for and delivery of food and care teaches infants that being selfish pays off. Thus, long before an infant’s conscious mind comes alive, his subconscious mind gets ‘wired’ that putting self first is essential for living.

To the nurturer and observers, selfishness is unfairness. At first an infant puts too much pressure on caregivers, who quickly learn to handle or squelch the pressure. Later, it’s about sharing, especially with siblings.

Unfairness makes it an equality issue. Women, not men, favor and strive for equality. This better prepares mothers to ‘cure’ selfishness in a child. This makes it the province of nurturing, which means it’s more easily ‘corrected’ in the weans.

Later, as tweens and teens, selfishness becomes minor to the degree a child is led into making more mature decisions. By puberty selfish tendencies have been submerged behind other more beneficial habits in a child’s self-interest.

Selfishness provides one of the measuring sticks to forecast the adult from the child at puberty. The less selfish, the more mature. And vice versa.

Weaning a child from selfishness is minor compared to two other subsets of self-interest. The next, self-centeredness, follows at post 268.

[More about childhood mental growth appears in posts 223, 208, 197, 193, 192, 187, 178, and 177. Scroll down or search by the number with a dot and space following it.]

223. Weans, tweens, and teens #8 — Self-interest

Self-interest motivates adults. It flows out of three sequential stages in childhood. However, I ignore those subsets here to address the bigger, broader, and more vital self-interest itself. The subsetts come later.

☺ Self-interest is the totality of what’s important to each person as they define and weigh everything in life against their inner self. The following process lasts for life or until accident, drugs, or dementia kill it.

·        Our subconscious mind merges and integrates our instincts, self-worth, and self-image with our consciously derived hopes, aspirations, and fears.

·        This programs the subconscious mind with self-interest that motivates its owner. (Research shows that over 99% of human behavior is generated out of the subconscious mind. See more at post 193.)   

☺ Self-interest motivates each individual constantly and throughout life. It drives the bus of a person’s behavior. It’s the subconscious and conscious power behind our efforts.

☺ Life is filled with tradeoffs to do what we want and don’t want, need and don’t need, fear and don’t fear. Self-interest guides us through the maze.

☺ If something’s not in our self-interest, our subconscious turns us away from it. If in our self-interest, our subconscious moves us toward it.

☺ No one reveals their complete or true self to others. That’s why everyone has hidden agendas.

☺ People make mistakes not in their best interests.  Correction or recovery then becomes a new ingredient in self-interest. Childhood marvelously demonstrates the process.

Raising kids is all about guiding a child through programming of self-interest. This post introduces the subject, The subsets show up in posts 239, 268, and 273.

[More about childhood mental growth appears in posts 208, 197, 193, 192, 187, 178, and 177. Scroll down or search by the number with a dot and space following it.]

196. Dark Side of Feminism—Part 14

© If women refuse to honor the male gender as more worthy than the female gender, they kill what it takes for men to respect women as more worthy than men. It’s far more attitude than fact, appreciation than trust, approximation than precision. Caution: The reverse never happens, because men don’t respect women that portray no gender uniqueness.

© Feminists believe that male and female infidelity are the same and equal. Not so. He cheats, and she breaks down emotionally and seeks outside help. She cheats, and his sense of significance plummets. This makes her obsolete. He maneuvers to be rid of her—sometimes harshly or violently. Of course it’s not fair, but men aren’t females regardless of how feminists hope to change them.

© Men bond with a woman and strengthen their family responsibility by making themselves useful and proving their worth as rescuers, protectors, providers, problem solvers. But his woman’s insistence on her independence turns him toward escapism in big toys, expensive adventures, irresponsibility, females. To the degree he’s not needed, he’s free and looks to have fun. 

© We all tend to become like those with whom we associate. Feminists for three decades claimed men to be selfish lovers, inadequate mates, and poor responders to female needs. Now, women accuse men of being irresponsible lovers, mates, fathers, and family men. They also claim that men are ignorant of female needs, wants, hopes, dreams, and relationship-building. ♫ Ta da ♫ Men no longer make good husbands. Just as feminists claimed.  

© Feminism makes the worth of women decline in male eyes. Women receive less respectful, harsher, and even abusive treatment.

© Females treated badly further lowers the value of men in female eyes, which helps the political agenda of feminists. Unintended consequence: It hurts the majority of women trying to keep their man.

[Other posts about the Dark Side are 180, 168, 157, 146, 134, 129, 123, 103, 92, 71, 50, 47, and 23. Scroll down or search by the number and then click the title.]

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115. The Essence of Feminism

Feminism is an ideology. It tells other people how to live according to politically inspired values, but it generates social illnesses. (I applaud the legal, political, and economic gains wrought by Feminism. Instead, I focus on the damaging social consequences inflicted on couples.)

 The feminist ideology wraps the female heart with meanness toward men. It breeds selfishness and self-centeredness, which puts mental ugliness into the mainstream of life. It makes women stand up inside and shake a fist at men. It pushes men to fight back with what often becomes abuse and violence.

Early feminists buried as trash the female-friendly concepts of the Lady and the Gentleman. They spiked tenderness into the hardened turf of politics, which sacrificed the female desire to be cherished by a man. They uplifted sexual freedom as equality with men that women deserved.

How did it happen that Feminism prostitutes the female nature and turns men away from family responsibility? Simple. The roots lie in politics with people that wanted to change the world to their image. They wanted to make a difference and strategized without input from men. 

Two world views separate those that did it from those that would not have done it—the political Left from the Right, the political females from the natural females, the feminists from the feminine.

“One view, the Anglo-American, holds that human ability to comprehend, adjudicate, and arrange the world around us is limited; that the only attainable goal is continuously to improve the conditions which enable individuals to achieve their personal best.”*

Those who hold this world view occupy the right side of the political spectrum. Their beliefs foster leadership by example rather than using politics to tell others how to live.

“The other view, predominantly Franco-Germanic, places human reason at the center of our existence, claiming that certain people are capable of comprehending, adjudicating, and arranging the world around us; and that such people are called upon to guide all others toward an increasingly perfect and just world in which all desires will have been either eliminated or satisfied.”*

The early feminists, and those that helped propagate their ideology, hold the latter world view. They empower themselves with feminist theory, dogma, and propaganda and adjudicate and arrange the world for the rest of us.

They thought themselves elitist enough and capable of changing how men treat women by telling women how to mistreat men.

As a result, modern women fish with bare breasts and net a man with sex. But, they can’t hold him. Thus, women pay the price of feminist elitism that substituted Feminism for Femininity.

* My thanks to Balint Vazsonyi for the two quotes. They’re from his book America’s 30 Years War, Who is Winning? (p.106) 

109. Women, where art thou?

Women can be anything they want, but they have two distinct strengths that work against them, unless they know how to focus those strengths for dealing with a man.

Women are born hard-headed. This means they possess all the logic and reasoning power needed to inject virtue in themselves and impose moral standards on their immediate environment. They have what it takes to impose the female will whenever appropriate and wherever needed.

But, sometimes they get soft-headed associating with members of the opposite sex. They give up their strength, and when it happens their man takes advantage. She can’t hold her own, so she loses.

Women are also born soft-hearted. This side of her nature strengthens her with empathy. It provides natural skills for encouraging, nurturing, and nursing mental wounds.

But, sometimes women get hard-hearted. They grow selfish, self-centered, and often vengeful to make others pay for offenses to their female ego. They grow short on empathy, nurturing, encouraging others, and nursing the hurts of others.

The women most successful dealing with a man assertively emphasize their hard-headedness before marriage. After marriage, when keeping their man is most important, they emphasize their soft-heartedness and push their hard-headedness into the background.

This works on a very simple natural principle: Her soft-heartedness does not challenge or compete with her man. Her hard-headedness does, and when she lets it loose, he resents, resists, and often retaliates.