A disappointing return to the strip mining pit.

The Daily Mail has an article about a 53 year old new divorcée named “Claire” who learned the hard way that her fantasy of divorce empowerment was just a fantasy.  Claire of course didn’t ditch her boring loyal dude in hopes of finding her secret multimillionaire hunky handyman;  instead she tells us that he left her after she made it clear that she didn’t want to remain married to him:

‘Bye then,’ she said, as he walked out of the door and out of her life

Though shocked and hurt, Claire, a 53-year-old travel agent from Colchester, Essex, admits part of her was excited at the thought of being single again.

While she loved her husband, like most couples in long marriages, she felt they had become a little staid and set in their ways. Their sex life was hardly the firework display of their 20s, and sometimes she’d look over at this snoring, paunchy, greying man on the other side of the bed and wonder: ‘Is this it?’

Now that Claire has experienced the realities of the SMP, she wishes she could go back and do it differently:

To Claire, it sounded like a different world; a sweet shop filled with thrills and excitement, all available at her fingertips. Just the pick-me-up she needed.

Sadly, six months later, Claire would do anything to be back in the marital home, listening for the sound of her husband’s key in the door.

…she’d be the first to warn any married woman secretly thinking the grass might be greener on the other side to stay firmly where she is.

One of the most brutal hallmarks of older women’s declining SMP power is how open men are about seeing them as good for a quick lay, but not worthy of investment/commitment.

Claire says: ‘I’d hoped to meet some decent men in their 50s, someone with whom I could enjoy a conversation or a meal out.

‘But it was horrendous and I’ve found that it’s zapped my confidence and made me feel a lot more anxious about the future.

‘I’ve been shocked by the number of men who think it’s acceptable to send you pictures of their private parts.

…

‘What I find particularly depressing is that these men think that’s what women today have been reduced to — that it’s a normal way to speak to a woman in 2017.

Another late life divorcée named Cath describes the same dynamic:

Mike, a 49-year-old mechanic, cut straight to the chase. He pointed out that we were no more than a couple of minutes apart.

‘On my lunch break,’ he messaged. ‘Do you fancy meeting up for a bit of fun?’

The Daily Mail brought in an expert who explained the realities of Rollo’s SMP Chart (emphasis mine):

Marital therapist Andrew Marshall, author of It’s Not A Midlife Crisis, It’s An Opportunity, says he has been seeing more and more women like Claire, bored with their marriages and tempted by one ‘last hurrah’ in the seemingly exciting world of internet dating.

…

Yet the reality of starting again on the dating scene, 30-plus years after they left it, rarely lives up to the expectation, says Mr Marshall.

…

‘For any woman whose last experience of meeting partners was many years ago via friends, work or in a nightclub, she will find the dating landscape has changed considerably — and not in her favour,’ says Mr Marshall. ‘Because, though dating sites offer the prospect of meeting thousands of men, the power dynamic has shifted once you’re an older woman.

Check out the full article at the Daily Mail for much more.

See Also: 

• Not like the movies
• She needs more men!

The terrible cost of make believe.

Vox has a post up at Alpha Game titled Equality has consequences linking to a breathless Daily Mail piece: Bouncer punches a woman in the FACE after she takes a swing at him in shocking video footage, but was it self-defence or ‘disgusting’ male aggression?

We live in a strange time, as while the Daily Mail is disturbed that a man would strike back when assaulted by a mere woman, we also are told that women must be allowed into all units in the military since they are able to fight just like men.  While the Daily Mail complains about a weak man screwing feminism up by defending himself from a kickass gal, NBC News is reporting that Norway now has an all female special forces unit* where the women are just like the men:

…the female soldiers are just as capable as their male counterparts.

At the same time our entertainment is filled with images of kickass gals single handedly beating up groups of men.  Unfortunately, with even our armed forces getting in on the fantasy, many women don’t understand that this is just make believe.  This leads to tragic outcomes as women attempt to act out the feminist fantasy;  instead of beating up men they wind up dead or seriously injured.  Several years back I wrote about a female Marine in Iraq who died after attacking a Navy Sailor.

…she had been spending downtime with other Marines and a group of U.S. Navy sailors when one sailor snarled, “Marines ain’t shit” at them.

Enraged, Annie rushed the sailor. “I’m going to show you what a Marine is!” she shouted, and proceeded to knock the much larger rival to the ground.

According to the investigator’s account, the sailor then jumped back to his feet, grabbed Annie, and body-slammed her. Her head whip-lashed onto concrete.

The scuffle was broken up by witnesses, and Annie retreated without seeking medical attention. But within a few hours, she complained to commanding officers and fellow Marines of a headache. The next day, she was dead.

More recently Vox wrote about a college age woman who punched a man on Halloween and ended up in a coma after he punched her back.  Nearly six months later, the young woman is still in the hospital.  Her aunt maintains a public facebook page where she posts frequent status updates, including this one from yesterday:

Update. Emily continues to have good days and bad. The neurosurgeon at NYU are looking over her case, and we hope to get ideas from them on what to do next. Right now though she still has the external drain in which they are draining fluid continuously. All the fluid tested from the drain showed no signs of infection. I am currently having discussions with her neurosurgeon on where to put the shunt (pleural space of her lung or abdomen) when we do put it back in. She remains weak on the left side especially her arm, but continues to receive therapy daily to help with strengthening. Her appetite is poor lately and they are feeding her continuously right now via the feeding tube in her nose, but they do continue to try and offer her food throughout the day. The nurses did take her outside yesterday, and she enjoyed getting some sun. Hope you all had a Blessed Easter with your families. Thank you all for your continued support and prayers!

This fantasy comes at a huge price, and that price will only get higher.

*HT Lost Patrol

Sporty spice defends Springfield Armory’s legacy.

Cane Caldo found an image of the B&S guns billboard that I referenced in my last post.

Also, RecoveringBeta pointed out that Springfield Armory has a new marketing campaign focused around women:

..you might check out Springfield Armory’s new ad for their Saint AR. 6 strong (attractive) women…aaand sales to betas and omegas skyrocket.

I hadn’t been to Springfield’s site for probably a year, and I’m surprised to see that Springfield has really gone overboard in this regard.  Springfield has remade their entire brand image with a corny marketing campaign centering on their very poorly timed entry into the AR market:

With the new Defend Your Legacy site and hashtag (#DefendYourLegacy), Springfield hopes to open up a dialogue about the importance of defending one’s legacy and encourage others to share ideas on what legacy means to them. All of this seems to be leading up to a the release of a new Springfield Armory product. Named the SAINT, this new product is expected to be introduced on November 1st of this year. The website even features a countdown until the release of the SAINT. So far, little is known about what the SAINT will be, other than this new product will be unlike any other from Springfield Armory.

A week after Springfield joined the already crowded AR market with their SAINT, Trump won the election and sales of AR 15s dropped.

Jeremy S. at The Truth About Guns reviewed the SAINT in December and explained Springfield’s rebranding:

Springfield Armory is embarking on a bit of a corporate re-branding. According to the gunmaker’s marketing mavens, their “Defend Your Legacy” slogan targets Americans between 25- and 45-years-old. Buyers who know their safety is their own responsibility. Who understand that the good guys have firearms because they’re the best tool for the job of self-defense. That all Americans have a historical right to keep and bear arms. Enter The SAINT.

He added some more thoughts on the new Springfield brand image in the comments:

I really like how all of the product ads I’ve seen for this gun are geared primarily towards women, yet it’s a black, “black gun.” No pink or frilly or traditionally “girly” crap. Springfield is being very clear that it’s an excellent rifle for a woman to defend herself and her family, seek out professional training with, etc etc, and it can and should be the same rifle used by the dudes. I really do like this. I don’t know how women feel about it of course or how they’ll react, etc, but I think it’s a breath of fresh air… we all know firearms are “the great equalizer” and such, and I never liked what I perceived as the condescending nature of the industry saying “we’ve painted this gun pink because it’s for women.”

I think he is right that Springfield is going for the image of a woman’s gun that men can shoot too.  If you look at the product pages on the Springfield website, 6 of the 7 products are pictured in the hands of women (X D, XD-MOD2, XD(M), XD-S, SAINT, M1A, and 1911).  I’m not surprised that Jeremy S. is enthusiastic about this, as this was a core point in my previous post.  However, I think they have gone too far in anchoring their brand so firmly around the kickass conservative gal image.

As much as shooters love the kickass conservative gal image, positioning Springfield as a seller of women’s guns that men can shoot too goes too far.  While men will tend to support the campaign, I don’t think most men will want to identify with a product marketed as made for women.  Even worse, women want to break into the male space.  Now that Springfield is identifying itself as a female space that men can join too, the thrill of breaking into the male space is also gone.

To the extent that marketing doesn’t matter, Springfield should continue to sell well as their entire X D line has a large following.  But as marketing campaigns go, I don’t see this rebranding as helping Springfield with either men or women shooters

Kickass conservative gals.

From the discussion of both my post on manface and girlpower characters it is clear that even in the men’s sphere there is much love for “strong women”.  In my most recent post the discussion eventually turned to the question of teaching women to defend themselves (martial arts, weight lifting, concealed carry, etc).

Before I go any further, I’ll state that:

1. My own thinking on this topic has changed over time, as I started with something closer to the mainstream conservative view.
2. I’m inclined to generally respect other men’s choices regarding their own families.

Temptations of the kickass gal.

With bullet point number two above in mind, I think we need to be aware of the temptations involved.  The kickass gal is a well established conservative feminist trope, and we should be aware of this when considering how we direct the training of our wives and daughters.  Feminists know why they want our daughters to move out on their own in the big city and experience the carousel.  Conservatives on the other hand pride themselves in knowing how to make this feminist goal “safe” for our daughters to achieve.

The kickass conservative gal trope is easiest to spot when it comes to guns.  Conservative shooters love the idea of guns as a realization of the feminist dream.  If you aren’t familiar with the subculture, go to any online forum on guns and you will find a group of men eager to explain how tough their pistol packing wives/daughters are.  One of the local DFW gun ranges understands this culture well, and features pictures of a kickass gal with a pink gun on their website.  This is not, I should add, a range dedicated to women shooters.  I’ve been to their store, and their target customers are the same group of men every other range/store in the area caters to.  The same is true of another gun shop just a few miles away, B&S Guns.  They have a billboard* by the freeway with a picture of a woman shooting a rifle that says “We won’t tell your HUSBAND.”

If you decide you want to teach your wife/daughters to shoot, keep in mind that the entire culture you are bringing them into is designed to tempt them into a feminist rebellious frame of mind.  This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it, but you shouldn’t kid yourself about the temptations you are throwing their way.

There is also the reality of the difference between men’s and women’s interests when it comes to masculine pursuits.  All of the men I know who shoot enjoy going to the range to practice, and even enjoy breaking their guns down to clean and maintain them.  I have yet to observe a wife or daughter who takes this level of interest in shooting.  They may embrace the “empowerment” of it, or simply enjoy infrequently going to the range for a bit of shooting, but I’ve yet to come across a woman who really “got into it” the way men do.  This, plus the realities of men’s and women’s different instinctive response to violence means that training and arming women is going to be much less effective than gun owning feminists desperately want to believe.

Again, I’m not saying you are wrong if you decide to teach your wife or daughters how to shoot.  My wife enjoys coming to the range with me from time to time, and I plan on teaching our daughter to shoot.  However, we need to be realistic about the risks and benefits involved with this.

We’re so manly, even our women are like men!

There is another temptation involved with this, and this temptation is for the men involved.  Part of the appeal of the kickass conservative gal is the idea that the man who masculinizes his women is proving how much more manly he is than other men.  This tends to start with selecting a specific masculine pursuit and declaring it to be the very definition of manliness.  In a general sense this could include marriage and fatherhood or even the ability to attract women, but for this specific example it is something like shooting, hunting, rebuilding an engine, weight lifting, or martial arts.  These are all positive pursuits for a man (in the right context), but none of them are essential for being a “real man”.

The base temptation for men is to declare that one of these manly pursuits is the real test of a man, and any man who doesn’t do them isn’t a real man.  The tie in temptation is then to add another layer cementing the man’s status as the only real man in the room, by declaring that any man who doesn’t think highly of masculinizing women in this specific way is merely too much of a girly man to appreciate strong women.  This is a standard feminist slogan, but it comes from a conservative I’m more manly than you are position.

*Thanks to Cane for finding an image of the billboard.

How much girlpower is too much?

Trailer #2 for the upcoming Transformer movie includes an industrial strength dose of girlpower:

The comments on youtube are brutal, including this one from Infamous Greed:

I was hoping for some robot on robot beat down, then they had to cut to the girl every few seconds, I mean damn! I get it, I get your point! you’re a strong girl! now let me see some robot action in peace!

And this one from AFiveSeven

Why is she talking to the camera like she’s trying to sell me her stank ass deodorant? Feminism really is cancer, how hard is it to just make her badass without the arrogance of “AND I A GURL TOO”

And perhaps best stated by MrGojira95:

This girl is giving me bad memories of Scrappy Doo. (Cringe) >_<

Modern audiences will accept a mountain of SJW nonsense, but as Marvel recently admitted, there is a limit.  Push too far and eventually they will push back.

What we heard was that people didn’t want any more diversity.  They didn’t want female characters out there.  That’s what we heard, whether we believe that or not.  I don’t know that that’s really true, but that’s what we saw in sales.

This doesn’t mean the new Transformers movie won’t be a smashing success.  The movie could bomb the way that Ghostbusters did last year, or it could be a huge success like Logan was this year.

However, the main Logan trailer focuses on the pathos of two aging and well loved superheroes.  This accurately depicts the bulk of the focus of the movie:

But Logan was also a feminist dream, with unintentionally hilarious scenes of a shrieking snarling little girl (Laura) flying through the air and slashing men to bits.  Like the Transformers girl, she embodies the same comical spirit as the statue on Wall Street.

However even in Trailer 2, which features Laura, the marketers of Logan understood that they couldn’t include the most hilarious scenes feminists are sure to love.  While Trailer 2 gives you a bit of a taste, you’ll have to watch the movie to see the most unintentionally comic scenes:

But the fact remains that while audiences will accept a huge amount of feminist propaganda in movies and other forms of entertainment, there is such a thing as too much.  Cross that line and your product will flop at great expense.  It will be interesting to see which side of the line audiences decide the upcoming Transformers movie falls on.