Comments on girlfriday: "One may have a blazing hearth in one's soul and y...

I think it goes back to what girlfriday said would...

2008-05-14T13:57:00.000-06:00

I think it goes back to what girlfriday said would need to be a topic for a different blog: the lack of honorable women. As a whole, women don't demand respect from men. The "modern day woman" would rather be equals with them than insist upon chivalry. I am not removing myself from this category. It's tricky.

But I love this quote, absolutely love it.

Great post, GF! I mean, it had nothing to do with American Idol, and I still liked it! Who knew?

I think there is a real dearth of honorable men to...

2008-05-14T13:06:00.000-06:00

I think there is a real dearth of honorable men today, and as has been mentioned previously, part of this is due to way boys are raised. Part of it also has to do with society and the way relationships are portrayed in culture. Movies, TV shows, and many books make it seem as though initiating a relationship with the member of the opposite sex is simple and will quickly lead both parites into the sack, which would seem to be the primary goal according to culture. How can boys and men not be affected by these all but unavoidable cultural norms?

For me, to be honorable means several things, including:

attentiveness to the other person and his/her needs,
the practice of common courtesy (including the opening of doors for women and other forms of politeness that are not often taught today),
kindness (it was William James I believe who once told his nephew three things he wanted him to remember. The first was to be kind, the second was to be kind, and the third was to be kind). It is often a brutal world out there and kindness never hurts.
honesty - including the need to be upfront about one's wants and desires with another and to tell the other what one is really thinking (unless a woman asks if such or such a piece of clothing makes her look fat : )
and
vulnerabilty - this goes hand in hand with honesty, but to be vulnerable to another means that the other is important and cared about, and what the other says and does has meaning and impact on me.

While not by any means an exhaustive list, these traits are, for me, the foundation for being honorable.

As the mother of three boys, I strive to raise the...

2008-05-14T10:41:00.000-06:00

As the mother of three boys, I strive to raise them to be honorable men who respect women & are themselves worthy of respect. And I strive to raise my daughter to be an honorable, respectful woman whose virtue should speak for itself. And I hope to teach all I encounter that it is not only polite, but necessary, to return calls & emails promptly. But that's just me. :)

Good points, Cattle King.

Reminds me of a b...

2008-05-14T09:38:00.000-06:00

Good points, Cattle King.

Reminds me of a book I read a few years ago: The Language Police, by Diane Ravitch. She talks about the things you mentioned regarding boys in school and the suppression of their natural "boy-ishness."

Regarding women not demanding men be gentlemen...in general, you're correct.

I personally don't know how to go about demanding that for myself other than paying no attention to those who are not gentlemen. Is that the only option? Gentlemen/honorable men have qualities that are seen as detrimental in the get-ahead world now.

(I do have a long and family-famous history of teaching my nephews to use a knife and fork while we were eating pancakes, to the annoyance of my brother-in-law, who finally told them to stop because it was taking too long to eat. On a serious note, however, I do make efforts at showing them more than mere politeness and manners, but much of that needs to come from another man's example and...there you go.)

A quick response. Perhaps the problem here is not...

2008-05-14T09:27:00.000-06:00

A quick response. Perhaps the problem here is not the "lack of honorable men," the the ubiquity of boys in men's bodies (recognizing that these are different ways of saying the same thing).

We give precious few opportunities for boys to become men. Our schools now are devoted to reigning in boyish aggressiveness. It is it an accident that the vast majority of "ADD" kids are boys? They act like boys should and we so we drug them. The stories used to teach reading are now largely about personal relationships and overcoming personal problems. Where are the stories about battles and adventures that appeal to boys? Answer: not in schools. Is it any accident that boys drop out of school far more than girls and that now 60% of all college students are women?

Where do boys go to be boys? It isn't the sports field, because that would be sexist. So we must spend as much on girls sports as boys, living in the fiction that proving one's self on the playing field is as important to females as to males.

And let's not let women off the hook. If women demanded men be gentlemen, gentlemen they'd be. One reason we have a dearth of "nobility" is that no one demands it anymore.

Everywhere you look masculinity is mocked and shunted to the side. So is it an accident that we have no men, but instead a bunch of grown up boys.

Yes, that what passes for being brief in my book.

Like I always say, anyone can be "nice." Niceness ...

2008-05-14T09:15:00.000-06:00

Like I always say, anyone can be "nice." Niceness is not a character trait -- kindness is.

"A man worth being loved." Sound like it could be...

2008-05-14T07:20:00.000-06:00

"A man worth being loved." Sound like it could be a movie title.
Speaking from my own experiences, which admittedly are limited, women need to know themselves really well, try to figure out what they want in a relationship and then not be afraid to require their "lovers" to be up to their standards.
In my twenties before I was married and then after I was married as well, it was very difficult for me to know what in wanted in those uncharted waters. Of course I don't have it all figured out now, but the last paragraph would be my advice to my younger self.
Hopefully, we can all agree that we can't change men, but we can change ourselves. We shouldn't be afraid to set a high standard for ourselves. Confidence, my fellow females!!!!

P.S. I love the line ".. she has something to teach you by virtue of being a woman." They say women want to be loved and men, respected, but I would like.....both. (smile)

You have posed a question that bears some serious ...

2008-05-14T06:46:00.000-06:00

You have posed a question that bears some serious consideration. Are there no honorable men today? Or is it that they exist in much fewer numbers than times past?

I refuse to believe that honor and chivalry are dead, for if they are, then there is little hope for civilization. There are honorable men out there, although I venture a guess that most are already taken.

So the issue is why are there so many fewer honorable men? Perhaps there is no one answer. I think the courseness of our society, the crassness of popular culture, bear some of the blame. Of course, this is only a very small part (to give it too much weight would be to provide an excuse, not an explanation) of the equation.

But I also believe that it is one more reflection of theconsequences of parents abdicating their parental responsibility. There is too much emphasis on not upsetting the child, on being best buddies, on not denying any experience the child expresses an interest in having, on ensuring that the chile have the best possible self-image and self-esteem. What happened to teaching manners, societal norms, respect for oneself and for others?

I suspect that these issues may have more to do with the lack of honorable men than anything else. There are way too many preening, narcisistic, self-absorbed individuals out there. They most assuredly outnumber those who were fortunate enough to have parents who still believe in parenting.

I don't want to appear too pessimistic and discouraging for the single women out there. As I said, I do believe there are honorable men. I just believe it requires more effort to find them than in times past.