I had originally intended to write on something entirely different today, but I just read a post that got me thinking, so I’m going to tread carefully into the territory of women and submission instead.
Four things up front:
Image courtesy of Marvel Entertainment
- For the purposes of this discussion, I’m addressing submission and domination that are consensual in nature. Situations in which there is no consent are entirely different, and merit their own discussions.
- Sexual submission and domination are only part of what I’m looking at. What I want to focus on is the impulse – socially, emotionally and sexually – to dominate or submit.
- There are dominant women as well as dominant men, just as there are submissive men and submissive women. Many people fall somewhere in between. Because I want to try to keep this from becoming a dissertation, I am looking at the prevalence of the desire (in women) to submit to powerful men, for the purposes of this discussion.
- A disclosure. I am not a submissive woman. It’s something of which I’m neither proud nor regretful. It’s just a fact of my personality. So, while many women look at this picture of Loki and get mildly to extremely turned on, I look at it and want to punch his lovely face. Nothing personal. I just won’t be ruled.
These points made, I respect the fact that submission appeals to many women. What’s more, I’m genuinely curious as to why this might be. What is it about submitting to male dominance that, against our own modern, feminist principles, appeals?
And that’s the tension, isn’t it? The 21st century woman is openly, and some might say, defiantly, empowered. We are shattering glass ceilings and railing against the “male gaze.” And yet, BDSM fairy tales, like 50 Shades of Gray that feature the explicit submission of empathetic women to complicated, dominant man, are ubiquitous, while Twilight’s Bella Swan, whose defining characteristic is, arguably, her submissiveness, has become something of a cultural icon, (though not unexamined).
Our culture has recreated women as powerful and empowered, and this is a very good thing. But biology is stronger than society, which is why it may be that, even as women enjoy a new found social dominance, so many are drawn, individually, to fairy tales of emotional and sexual submission, ie: 50 Shades.
Allow me to suggest, up front, that this is not a bad thing. Here’s why. I suspect that submissiveness is an evolutionary trait. I suspect that, through the millennia, submission has served a valuable function, which is why women are, generally speaking, quite aware of social hierarchies, even amongst other women, (I’m looking at you, mean girls). Dominance and submission are something a silent negotiation, a way of placing one person in charge so things get done, rather than having even more wars than we already do.
Following that thread, I’d like to suggest that submission has served women, evolutionarily speaking, particularly well, while dominance has served men. At it’s most basic, submission was (and in many places still is) a type of currency – “I will submit to this demonstrably powerful male and he will protect me and my young”. We’re animals after all, and just as the males of most mammalian species vie for female attention through shows of aggression and dominance, most human women find dominant males to be undeniably attractive because that dominance signals the ability to procreate and protect. This would extend itself to being turned on, to varying degrees, by sexual domination and submission, quite naturally.
It’s something of a biological script, and those who follow it are, contrary to feminist theory and conservatives alike, simply following impulses that are evolutionarily hard-wired into the human brain. As a woman with a more dominant personality, even I can say that I see dominance in men as fitness marker. While I have no desire to be dominated, it does appeal on a very basic level, as a social indicator, if nothing else.
Biology moves slowly, much more slowly than culture. It may be that in several millennia, our wiring will catch up to our conscious minds, and questions of dominance and submission, and indeed, even of gender, will cease to be relevant. But they are relevant now. A tension exists in the social / sexual power dynamics of our culture. As a result, the relationship between women and submission remains an interesting, even pivotal, one – so much so that those of us who would punch Loki in the face, are, to some degree, aberrations.
All right, I’m looking down five discursive paths as we speak, so rather than get tangled up in an off the cuff ramble, I’ll end this post here. There’s too much to consider. Apologies for the lack of conclusion on this one, but I’ll be returning to this topic in future posts. In the meantime, I welcome comments, thoughts and input on this issue even more than usual.
Madeleine Mitchell 
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I think there’s a tremendous difference in “submission” between the “marry and be submissive” Spanish chick (who’s basically saying “dedicate yourself to the art of good wifing and you’ll be thrilled at how he reciprocates”) and the dominatrix/50 Shades sort. At the end of the day, I think a lot of folks talking over the issue make a terrible mistake when they automatically correlate dominance with aggression/aggressiveness.
(YOU’re not equating male dominance with aggression — the vast majority of feminists I’ve read *do* and consider it a priori illegitimate)
Agreed on the social aspect, though. Vis-a-vis Boudicca to the Romans: “Our women consort openly with the best of men. Yours are debauched in secret by the worst.”
Happy Crow, You’re right about aggression and domination being equated among many feminists. It’s a knee jerk response that precludes discussion – ie: terribly un-useful 🙂
Those are fine reactions to open up a potential interesting exchange of ideas (not)
Spanish chick ?? Why spanish? Why chick ? To avoid “terrible mistakes” what tone of voice is this?
Then : Are the feminist the -a priory- aggressive and dominants here and already to be excluded in this discussion ? or am i, in europe , already missing some points here?
Questions :
-is Male dominance victim – from misunderstanding by feminist in the states?
-Never aggressive?
-always misunderstood?
-Not to be questioned?
Is it true that “feminist” are not willing to discuss how ” the industry” represents the female sexuality ? Or the way the industry is framing female sexuality ( submissive) for the next generations? In europe certainly not ! They find closed doors for any discussion!
Maybe we have to ask some representative’s of that vast majority if they indeed equate male dominance with aggression.( or how nature / nurture blessed us with so many talented masters , and talented slaves)
Is “knee-jerk response”, when not a priori judgment in itself ( question; based on what happy crow readed?) a useful invitation-card for an open discussion? Is this conversation -for- feminist closed already?
Let’s ask more often our louder; Let’s do our best!
Willing Slaves to find a bit respect for anybody’s opinion on sexuality ,for some truth, a bit more understanding and dignity we are! How great if this conversation , thanks to Cleverboots, may bring us some new perspectives!
♥Herrmann alone.
Herrmann, I won’t presume to speak on Happy Crow’s behalf, but I will say that while there are many forms of feminism in the US, many treat the notion of male domination as a form of cultural aggression. I say “many” because this is by no means universal among feminists.
The questions you’re asking regarding feminism, it’s different forms and how it functions, or fails to function, in the wider arena of sexual politics in the U.S. are important – so much so that they deserve their own separate post and discussion.
To keep the discussion on the matter at hand, i.e.: women and submission, I’d like to suggest that many women have a dual reaction to the notion / experience of male dominance. The first is purely reactive and often defiant – a sort of generalized “men are aggressive bastards” reaction that many women bond over (I say this as a woman), and that very often precludes logical discussion. The second, and much subtler reaction is fascination and quite often attraction. This second, more primal response, goes against many of the principles of post-modern feminism and is at the root of the cultural tension I mentioned in the post.
Important Note: Everything I’m saying here is something of a generalization since I can only extrapolate about the experience of women other than myself – it’s an inherently limited lens, which is why I’d love other women to weigh in on this…
Thank you very much for sharing these ideas . In what way did submission served women well, evolutionarily speaking ? Greetings from europe!💋 Alja&Herrmann.
Good question. I would say that it’s served women in different ways, depending on the culture in question. However, HappyCrow’s example of Boudicca and women in pre-Roman Britain will serve as a good general example. In late antiquity, women were subordinate to men, but their submission to a male (the more powerful the better), protected them from everything from rape to starvation. It’s a dynamic that you might say was mirrored in the feudal relationship between a king and his vassals – the vassal swore allegiance to the king (i.e.:submitted to the king’s rule) and, in return, was allowed to live under the banner of the king’s protection.
Although I addressed submission in women specifically in this post, submission is something that both men and women do as a result of power dynamics – often without even knowing it. The attraction that many women have to dominant men, and the desire to submit themselves to a dominant man, could be said to be the direct extension of a very human impulse to find a king, or pack leader or bellwether, and cede control to them. WIthout trying to sound pejorative, we were, way back in the dawn of our species, something like herd creatures, after all, and that impulse runs deep.
…and still runs deeps into the palaces, government-buildings, churches, boardrooms , military academies, into school classes, into the dark-and bedrooms , into human relations today …
Thank you very much for this impressive informative answer !! ( that power dynamics submits women and men !) Still some questions were risen! Submitted to -back in dawn of our species-impulses; It’s after midnight in Europe and we promise you to give your very important analyses some good thoughts that will lead to discussions over here and we guarantee soon to come back to this subject! Thank you very much for starting this eloquent exchange : for now let’s agree on : writers got the power, all power to the female writers! Hit us with your opinion’s, bind us with your knowledge; We submit ourselves to the female intellect; to the Queens of the nights..under their banner, slaves to her will and commands, we will sleep now .. if they permit us of course. “Wass will das weib” ? .:-)♥ Alja and Herrmann.
//The attraction that many women have to dominant men, and the desire to submit themselves to a dominant man, could be said to be the direct extension of a very human impulse to find a king, or pack leader or bellwether, and cede control to them.//
You know, I often wonder if that’s at the root of the desire (or the myth of the desire)for a large cock. I know that among men it’s considered a status symbol; and I wonder if women don’t subconsciously (or not) also make that same association. I’ve read, in some women’s erotica, the idea of the large cock “impaling them”, controlling them, and of the pain, submission to, and reward of being penetrated by a large cock.
Since we’re talking in evolutionary terms, one does have to wonder why, among primates, the human male’s cock is so absurdly large and if it wasn’t, by females, selected for largeness. I know this sound completely digressive, but I think the subject isn’t unrelated to questions of dominance and submission.
Will, that’s a really interesting point. I read an article a while back that suggested that large cocks are, in fact, selection markers. I wish I could remember exactly what was said, but the take-away was something along the lines of, “wow, that male is *so* physically fit and genetically awesome that he’s got energy to spare on growing a huge cock. I want that one.” That, plus the fact that as soon as humans got bi-pedal everything went on display, makes me think you’re on to something.
You’re point about women’s erotica is also apt. I don’t know if women are as conscious of cock size as men are, but I can say with some degree of confidence that we’re pretty damn conscious of it. While most of the women I know would agree that prowess is more important than size, if prowess is paired with an average to above average sized cock, so much the better. Even the language we use to describe sex erotically (impaling, penetrating, thrusting etc.) evokes a certain amount of contextual dominance. Which, to me, implies that, far from being something unnatural or deviant, domination and submission are, to some degree, impulses that are as natural or basic as sex itself…
This is something I have thought about often, as well. I have also long-wondered if perhaps a part of this is due to our actual physical structures—by the sheer nature of having all sexual parts on the inside, are women automatically rendered submissive, to a degree? This could be debated, surely, but the “taking in” of something is itself a form of surrender, even when the power dynamic is not structured in that way. I haven’t completely worked this theory out yet, and I imagine some would disagree, but it’s an idea I toy with… Great post, Madeleine.
Great point, Jade. I’m a little embarrassed to admit that I hadn’t considered the question from the angle, despite my attention to biology and evolution. I think that the notion that we are physically built to receive penetration (which requires us to submit, in a very basic way, even in the most un-submissive of sexual situations) is terribly interesting. I want to mull on that. I think that there might really be something there – a sort of mental and emotional proclivity that harmonizes with our physical structure… Thanks for that thought, Jade. I really appreciate it!
This is something I think about all the time and, in typical male fashion, it’s something that arouses me. The idea that penetrating a woman requires her submission, her surrender, her holding still (missionary or doggy style) while I inseminate her is so hard-wired into my masculine sexual identity that it’s embarrassing — but there you have it. Wanting a woman to submit while I penetrate her started from the moment I discovered that women weren’t just weird human beings who ran funny, cried when they played dodge-ball, and couldn’t throw.
What am I getting at?
Almost to a woman, I think, I learned that women (though they may enjoy fucking the man) mostly want to be fucked. They want me to hold them still, position them, lay them on their backs, turn them on their belly or on all fours (a favorite position that really brings out a rawness of feminine sexuality in many) while they open their legs, welcoming and absorbing my thrusts. That element of biological submission extends all they way through sexual positions and, as Jade suggests, really is built into the biology of a woman’s body — her need to “submit” in order to be inseminated.
However, having said all that, the element that I really enjoy brining out in my stories is just how much power women have in this dynamic. Submission is too often equated with powerlessness (by feminists among others) and this is simply not true. We are limited by our words (even as we are aroused by them). How can “surrender” mean anything other than “capitulation”? But in a sexual sense (a healthy and lively one) it means so much more. I think it often happens that our discussion of sexual dynamics is defined, naturally, by the language we use without acknowledging the context in which we use the words.
(If I’ve made a typo, feel free to edit.)
Thanks for bringing up the power women exercise in sexual submission, Will, (because at this point in the discussion, I think it’s safe to say that women, even those of a dominant stripe, experience some form of submission in consenting to and enjoying even the most vanilla ofsex, if only through the fact of our physical make-up). Even as we capitulate or even beg to be penetrated, we wield a power over our partners (in healthy sexual relationships where consent is being asked for and given). Whether a woman is fairly passive in the act, (allowing her partner to move her or hold her still), or more aggressively engaged, (meeting him bite for bite, so to speak), the woman is validating her partner’s desirability and his positive effect on her when she invites penetration. And that’s damn powerful.
//“wow, that male is *so* physically fit and genetically awesome that he’s got energy to spare on growing a huge cock. I want that one.”//
Okay. That last little quip — “I want that one” — cracked me up, then cracked me up again. I’m still laughing. I can see that sweety in her petticoat, one had on hip, biting a lower lip, tapping her chin with her index finger, then pointing. I just have to fit that into a story. The first thing that occurs to me is a retelling of Goldilocks & the Three Bears. I just know someone’s already done this, but here goes. 🙂
You’re most welcome to it! I’d love to see what you do with it. And I think Goldilocks is a very natural choice. All those Bears…. 😀
Another interesting discussion. Is it any wonder woman are seen as just a little bipolar when it comes to submission? Modern “feminists” are bombarded by images of submission. TV programs and ads, magazines, movies and cultural norms. Is it any wonder that there is such a mishmash? Bitch in the boardroom and slut in the bedroom? Or better yet, Be Empowered while wearing this Sexy dress! Show him who’s Boss. It’s enough to make you run screaming into the night. While chatting with your girlfriends on how fantastic it is to be ‘in charge’, when the lights go out, so many turn to the pillow, cry and just want the kind of relationships they are bombarded with via the media. And don’t Even get me started on the toys…. Disney, you have a lot to answer for…
I grew up in the 60’s and 70’s. I’m a tree hugging dirt worshiper with a gender bender first name, so I am always perceived as Male, until people met me. I understand the power dynamics. I’m a CEO of a small company and president on a local level government board. I’ve raised sons, and there is no way you can be submissive around them and survive. Their nickname for me is She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed. (yes, a Haggard reference) And yet… there are times I Don’t want to be in charge.
I want to drop all the reins of power and just be. I want to drop all the baggage of the day at the bedroom door and let my partner be in charge. Submission is about expectations, control and trust. My ex didn’t get it. My present partner, Wolf does. We live a ‘vanilla’ life sprinkled with D/s dates. It balances our lives. Yin and Yang. We understand what it brings to the relationship and enjoy ourselves. It is a spice to our lives, not our total existence. It’s Nature and Nurture.
Oh, and for the record, I’m a Switch.
Wordwytch, thank you so much for coming on over and adding your perspective. Your experiences, as a Switch, a mother, a CEO, and a partner, are a valuable lens through which to view this. And you brought up two extremely important points. The first, about media and the conflicting expectations, is, I think, at the heart of that crazy tension a lot of women feel between who they are, as individuals, and what a million different messages tell them women are supposed to be. Empowered AND Sexy! Wow! It’s exhausting, which brings me to the second point you made.
It makes a great deal of sense to me that, at the end of the day, ceding control, even for a finite period of time, would be an intense relief. I just wish that there weren’t such a polarity between the notion of female strength and female submission. They are not and have never been mutually exclusive. Though my tendencies run much more towards the dominant, I don’t consider myself to be “stronger” than women whose tendencies run to submission. There is potential strength and potential weakness in both, and I don’t see why women (or men, for that matter), should have to defy expectations set by media culture in order to be whatever is organic to them, as individuals.
That’s probably just a stray speck of idealism on my part though 😉
I enjoy good conversation. 🙂
I’m right there with you on the “polarity between the notion of female strength and female submission.” They cannot be mutually exclusive. For anyone to say otherwise, has their head in the sand. You have to look at the whole picture. It takes strength to let go. It takes strength and gentleness to be strong. To let go of “being in charge”, can be difficult. The whole ‘what if I give up to much? Go to far? Can’t come back?’ Just as for the dominant partner, there is the mix of ‘Have I given him/her what they needed? Is this the best lesson? The best release? Could I have done better?”. Was this fun for both parties?
The psychology of D/s relationships is so intriguing. It is also so intertwined in our natures as human beings. It is only when it is singled out or made parody of that people go “Oh! That’s smutty!”
For example… Imagine a situation where a woman repeatedly submits to having her nipples abused. They are pinched, bitten, sucked. Sometimes until they are raw and bleeding. Is this kinky? Sexual? Submission? Abuse? Maybe.
Or maybe she’s just a nursing mother.
Yes! Thanks Wordwytch for your example – it’s stellar. I remember gritting my teeth as I nursed my daughter because sometimes it just f-ing hurt. But I submitted to the pain of the experience though it often felt physically torturous, (and submitted gladly), because it meant I was feeding my daughter. Talk about a basic biological imperative!
The lines between strength and submission and dominance are flexible, and I think it’s important that they remain so. It’s that flexibility that allows mothers to find the strength to submit to to their baby’s physical needs above their own, and it’s that flexibility that allows so many D/s relationships to be both emotionally and sexually fulfilling. It also enables people to negotiate complex social waters without starting blood feuds.. most of the time 🙂
Exactly.
For your enjoyment, I just noticed that lifeofalovergirl also recently posted on this subject.
Thank you for the link! I’ll pop over and check it out.
The “You Were Made To Be Ruled” photo totally turned me on Haha 🙂 I wish men in real life would notice this is what I was made for, too. If I were to pick the perfect dynamic in a romantic relationship it would almost be parental in nature – like a stern parent telling me what to do. I enjoy serving and supporting.
I’m happy people are having these discussions. Growing up in a time when women were asserting themselves and breaking the glass ceiling, I often felt looked down on, considered stupid and naive because of my disposition. These discussions make me feel less ashamed.
Cecilia, I can’t tell you how happy your comment made me. In fact, you pretty much made my day. My hope is always to discuss a topic in such a way that everyone feels comfortable, regardless of where they sit on an issue. And thank you for sharing your perspective – I’ve known many women who felt exactly as you do, and while I live on the other side of the coin, I think it’s a wonderful dynamic for those who want it.
What I can’t stand is rhetoric that makes women feel like less for wanting what might be a more traditional role, whether it’s being submissive in a relationship or staying home to raise her kids. They’re all valid choices. The goal is always to find fulfillment. Whether you do that by serving and supporting, or by taking a more dominant role, doesn’t matter, so long as you, and the people in your life, are happy, healthy and safe. 🙂
Awww..thank you for making me feel so welcome. 🙂 I’m looking forward to reading your blog more!
My pleasure! And your comments are *very* welcome 🙂
Must be in the air.
Here’s an article at Slate on the absurd sizing of the human male penis — mentions status but also something else that was interesting:
“Feminists incline to the view that it happened because females wanted it that way; that when femina became erecta, the angle of the vagina swung forward and down, moving deeper into the body, obliging the penis, as Rosalind Miles put it in The Women’s History of the World, to follow the same principle as the giraffe’s neck: “it grew in order to get to something it could not otherwise reach.” ”
I happen to not buy this explanation, but it’s so erotically compelling that I love it. 🙂 Even with extenuated equipage, we still have to bend you over — again.
I love this! I just had a completely absurd image of fumbling and groping while vaginas spontaneously swung forward and penises tried to catch up. I’m not sure how much I buy it (I’d lean harder on the status end of things as I suspect there was more going on with the penis than just the attempt to increase its “reach”… that just doesn’t stop cracking me up), but I like that it’s in the air. I like even more that there are scientists out there whose whole goal is to figure out the evolutionary patterns of the penis. Nice work if you can get it 😉
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The ‘feminist victim narrative’ tells us that submission = no power and no advantage. But as you point out, submission (to whatever degree) can often just be a matter of practical convenience. In daily life we’re always allowing others to take the lead and deferring to their authority simply out of convenience (riding public transport, visiting the dentist, seeking legal advice).
I would go even further and suggest submission can even become a strategy of dominance where the woman, in effect, holds *herself* hostage thereby forcing the man to sacrifice himself for her on account of her passive, vulnerable, victim state.
Babies are also totally powerless and ‘submissive’ (although not through choice, obviously), and this is precisely HOW they are able to control the behaviour of their parents, even though on the surface their parents have much more obvious power and control in the relationship.
An infant’s parents are compelled to attend to that infant’s needs night and day (giving up their own identity and their own needs in the process). If babies also wrote books about how terribly helpless and dominated they are and constantly attempted to shame their parents for being so oppressive and all-powerful then they would be a bit like feminists.
Historically, women (mothers, aunts …… and more recently teachers, and daycare staff) have always played a HUGE role in defining male identity to boys growing up. Women have always raised boys to *want* to be be assertive, aggressive, dominant, powerful and decisive and women have always let teenage/ adult men know how attracted they are to these qualities (so if you want to get sex you need to be like this, boys!).
The reason for this is that for most of history life was extremely tough (no technology) and we all lived under constant threat of starvation. This type of dominant, aggressive, assertive man was best able to go out and gather resources for the family and community and defend the family/ community from outside threats. If women raised (or simply allowed?) men to desire comfort, security, protection, self expression, individuality, health, soft skin, nice hair and nails, empathy and emotional sensitivity then there’s a good chance the whole community would ALL starve to death because men would be less inclined to sacrifice their health, safety or even lives to go out and gather resources in the harsh and unforgiving environment. (working down mine shafts, building roads by hand, going to sea to catch fish etc).
In return for encouraging men to go out and do all the dirty and dangerous work women were willing to give up a degree of agency and ‘importance’. ‘Social importance’ is really how women bribe men to get them to do unpleasant things like go to war. Men who refused to fight in the first world war were given a white feather by women. This meant “Women will now ostracise you and you can forget about getting any sex from us!” (all wars would end overnight if enough women closed their legs to government hired contract killers AKA ‘soldiers’ …. instead of drooling over men dressed up in their assassin costumes AKA ‘uniforms’, but I digress….)
Would you rather be an ‘important’ man having his legs blown off in the trenches in stupid wars which only profit international bankers and the military industrial complex, or a ‘second class citizen’ woman at home cooking up a meal on the hot stove? I know which I’d prefer.
The equal opportunities, and the equal rights which came with them, are a natural consequence of *technological* advances, rather than solely as a result of any real feminist battle. It’s no coincidence that women only fought to get into the workplace AFTER the workplace became a largely indoor, safe, comfortable, centrally heated environment (ie modern factories and offices). Sure, there was a period of renegotiation and a lot of people found it hard to adjust to a less harsh lifestyle which did not require traditional M/F roles as much. But those generations are all dead now.
And so my point is… to carry on playing the role of victim and/ or the passive, submissive, fragile ‘acted upon’ female is now 100% a matter of CHOICE. And more often than not women who play this role do so to manipulate men and society (whether they are consciously aware of this or not) as part of a strategy to get resources and wield power.
“When a man submits his power ends…. when a woman submits her power begins”
Here’s a short video which explains it better than I can
Female Submission as Emotional Dominance
Anyway, fascinating subject 🙂
Okay. Wow. First of all, you just beautifully expressed my own thinking.
Second, if you had a blog, I would add it to my blogroll over at Erotic Writer.
Third, you beautifully explained the following (from the most recent edition of “Real Simple Magazine”:
“3.9 About how many times a month married couples have sex when both partners help with everyday chores, like cooking and cleaning, as calculated in a 2013 American Sociological Review study. You might think that the number would go up the more dishes men wash, but the opposite is true. When women do all the housework and husbands stick to traditionally male tasks (lawn mowing. auto care), couples get busier in the bedroom—4.8 times a month on average. Apparently sticking to gender roles is sexy.”
Excellent point, and important too. While submission isn’t always a choice, if we exclude instances of criminality and / or non consent (like rape, murder, abuse and physical attack), to which members of both sexes are vulnerable, submission is very often a choice and, historically speaking, a position of potential power for women.
I also appreciated your observation about equal rights and equal opportunities stemming as much from technological advances as from feminist political rhetoric or protests. After all, the advent of the washing machine, the dish washer and the convection oven freed up a lot of time in the days of women who had previously spent most of their time grinding out chores that, today, take less than an hour to do. Suddenly, work outside the home became possible, because work *in* the home became so comparatively streamlined.
But going back to submission. The “feminist victim narrative” as you so aptly called it is doing no one any good. For men, it sets up an impossible challenge – treat a woman like an equal, defer to her authority but do so with the appropriate amount of chivalry and charm. And for women, it fosters the notion of natural victimhood, a dangerous notion that I (and many others) reject. In short, it’s a mess, and needlessly so..
It is a fascinating subject and there seems to be no end of things to say. Thanks for posting your comments here (and for the video link – I’ll go check it out). I appreciate your thoughts 🙂
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