And the gardening season is upon us. Unfortunately, not everyone of us is blessed with a garden, but here are some ideas for people with small balconies:
zaterdag 8 maart 2014
donderdag 6 maart 2014
Viking Women Were Respected For Being Housewives And Mothers
The popular culture and mass entertainment industry constantly distort history to promote feminism. It has been the case with Viking women as well. They were supposedly warriors running around half-naked brandishing swords and axes and kicking *ss. Movie after movie promotes the fantasy of a female warrior which some men find attractive by reasons beyond my comprehension.
As usual, the reality is very different from feminist propaganda. It's true that Nordic men respected their womenfolk and that women enjoyed more freedom than women in say, some Southern countries, but Viking ladies were respected for being housewives and mothers. They were actually prohibited from wearing men's clothes, cutting their hair short and carrying weapons! And yet they were held in high esteem by their men.
Vikings had laws against sexual harassment and it was considered extremely shameful to hit a woman. In certain cases, the wife could divorce her husband. Their women weren't slaves just because they stayed home and engaged in housekeeping and child-rearing. Vice versa, men valued their contributions. Because women normally didn't wield weapons they were considered non-combatants and in the case of an attack on a household allowed to leave.
Mothers were held in even higher regard and men would often consider women equal to them in wisdom, and yet they didn't expect them to plough the field or to go to war. The problem with modern feminism is that
feminists deny the biological reality of sexual dimorphism in human beings. Another problem is that being cultural marxists they see the relationship between the sexes as a zero sum game. I know it's an oversimplification, but basically, marxists tend to think that if someone is rich it's because he stole from the poor.
They view men and women in the same manner. If a company CEO is a man, they argue, it's because he cheated a woman out of it through his male privilege. If there were no prominent women scientists, it's because patriarchy kept them all chained to the kitchen sink, and so on and so forth. It never comes to their minds that the reason could be that women are simply uniterested in positions of power, or prefer to marry a powerful man instead. On the other hand, feminists will denigrate traditional female contributions to the well-being of their families and call housewives doormats and Stepford wives.
Vikings were much wiser about it. They didn't deny human nature. They appreciated women for being women, and didn't expect them to have the same occupations and interests as themselves.
The history once again refutes the media lies about the traditional female role. For more info on the Viking women, check this.
As usual, the reality is very different from feminist propaganda. It's true that Nordic men respected their womenfolk and that women enjoyed more freedom than women in say, some Southern countries, but Viking ladies were respected for being housewives and mothers. They were actually prohibited from wearing men's clothes, cutting their hair short and carrying weapons! And yet they were held in high esteem by their men.
Vikings had laws against sexual harassment and it was considered extremely shameful to hit a woman. In certain cases, the wife could divorce her husband. Their women weren't slaves just because they stayed home and engaged in housekeeping and child-rearing. Vice versa, men valued their contributions. Because women normally didn't wield weapons they were considered non-combatants and in the case of an attack on a household allowed to leave.
Mothers were held in even higher regard and men would often consider women equal to them in wisdom, and yet they didn't expect them to plough the field or to go to war. The problem with modern feminism is that
feminists deny the biological reality of sexual dimorphism in human beings. Another problem is that being cultural marxists they see the relationship between the sexes as a zero sum game. I know it's an oversimplification, but basically, marxists tend to think that if someone is rich it's because he stole from the poor.
They view men and women in the same manner. If a company CEO is a man, they argue, it's because he cheated a woman out of it through his male privilege. If there were no prominent women scientists, it's because patriarchy kept them all chained to the kitchen sink, and so on and so forth. It never comes to their minds that the reason could be that women are simply uniterested in positions of power, or prefer to marry a powerful man instead. On the other hand, feminists will denigrate traditional female contributions to the well-being of their families and call housewives doormats and Stepford wives.
Vikings were much wiser about it. They didn't deny human nature. They appreciated women for being women, and didn't expect them to have the same occupations and interests as themselves.
The history once again refutes the media lies about the traditional female role. For more info on the Viking women, check this.
dinsdag 4 maart 2014
Appreciating Men
I got a very interesting email a couple of days ago the author of which observed that while women are still appreciated by men for giving birth, something which only a woman can do; the entrance of women in traditionally male occupations robs men of the appreciation of their unique male contributions to society. She asked me what I thought about it.
I think that because we live in a highly sophisticated technological society and are not fighting for survival every day it's easy to forget or disregard how essential men are for maintaining this civilisation. In fact, Western men not only maintain it, they have built it, too. Here is what Fred Reed wrote as a response to a feminist's claims that men are obsolete:
I think that because we live in a highly sophisticated technological society and are not fighting for survival every day it's easy to forget or disregard how essential men are for maintaining this civilisation. In fact, Western men not only maintain it, they have built it, too. Here is what Fred Reed wrote as a response to a feminist's claims that men are obsolete:
Listen, Corn Flower. Let’s think over this
business of obsolete men. Reflect. You live in New York, in which every
building was designed and built by men. You perhaps use the subway,
designed, built, and maintained by men. You travel at in a car,
invented, designed, and built by men—a vehicle that you don’t understand
(what is a cam lobe?) and couldn’t maintain (have you ever changed a
tire? Could you even find the tires?), and you do this on roads
designed, built, and maintained by men. You fly in aircraft designed,
built, and maintained by men, which you do not understand (what, Moon
Pie, is a high-bypass turbofan?)
In short, as you run from convention to
convention, peeing on hydrants, you depend utterly on men to keep you
fed (via tractors designed by men, guided by GPS invented, designed, and
launched by men, on farms run by men), and comfy (air conditioning
invented…but need I repeat myself?)
(Read the whole article here)
Check also this one by Camille Paglia. While I disagree with her ideas of equality or the necessity of women to assert power through sex appeal, here is what she has to say about men:
Indeed, men are absolutely indispensable right now, invisible as it is to most feminists, who seem blind to the infrastructure that makes their own work lives possible. It is overwhelmingly men who do the dirty, dangerous work of building roads, pouring concrete, laying bricks, tarring roofs, hanging electric wires, excavating natural gas and sewage lines, cutting and clearing trees, and bulldozing the landscape for housing developments. It is men who heft and weld the giant steel beams that frame our office buildings, and it is men who do the hair-raising work of insetting and sealing the finely tempered plate-glass windows of skyscrapers 50 stories tall.
Women may be in the army, but the physical requirements for them are still significantly lower than for the men doing the same job. Here is just one article on the topic. That's what a US marine had to say on the topic:
Oh, and the majority of the deaths in combat are MEN, the majority of the deaths in non combat related accidents are MEN, the majority of PTSD/depression/mental illness cases as a result of combat are MEN, majority of suicides in the military are MEN.
(Read the whole comment over here; warning: explicit language and content, read at your own discretion).
While talking about achievements of men, let's not forget the modern medicine. Take antibiotics, for instance. How many people used to die before their introduction? Discovered by a man.
I could go on but I think you get my point. It's time Western women started appreciating Western men for the amazing civilisation they built and for their daily efforts to maintain it and to make life easier and safer for everyone.
The video below perfectly illustrates just one of the many dangerous jobs men do:
(Read the whole article here)
Check also this one by Camille Paglia. While I disagree with her ideas of equality or the necessity of women to assert power through sex appeal, here is what she has to say about men:
Indeed, men are absolutely indispensable right now, invisible as it is to most feminists, who seem blind to the infrastructure that makes their own work lives possible. It is overwhelmingly men who do the dirty, dangerous work of building roads, pouring concrete, laying bricks, tarring roofs, hanging electric wires, excavating natural gas and sewage lines, cutting and clearing trees, and bulldozing the landscape for housing developments. It is men who heft and weld the giant steel beams that frame our office buildings, and it is men who do the hair-raising work of insetting and sealing the finely tempered plate-glass windows of skyscrapers 50 stories tall.
Women may be in the army, but the physical requirements for them are still significantly lower than for the men doing the same job. Here is just one article on the topic. That's what a US marine had to say on the topic:
Oh, and the majority of the deaths in combat are MEN, the majority of the deaths in non combat related accidents are MEN, the majority of PTSD/depression/mental illness cases as a result of combat are MEN, majority of suicides in the military are MEN.
(Read the whole comment over here; warning: explicit language and content, read at your own discretion).
While talking about achievements of men, let's not forget the modern medicine. Take antibiotics, for instance. How many people used to die before their introduction? Discovered by a man.
I could go on but I think you get my point. It's time Western women started appreciating Western men for the amazing civilisation they built and for their daily efforts to maintain it and to make life easier and safer for everyone.
The video below perfectly illustrates just one of the many dangerous jobs men do:
maandag 3 maart 2014
More On The Marriage Age
My previous post on the topic caused a lively discussion which, unfortunately, went out of hand so that I had to close the comments, however, I decided to return to the topic as I found a very interesting data which basically supports my point of view.
Below is a graph showing the percentage of never married females in England and Northern Europe around 1800 well before modern feminism) as compared to China. I found it through this blog, but it originally was posted by Erwin Schmidt.
Mr Mangan proceeds to explain it by the fact that (Northern) Europeans didn't get married and start having children until they could afford their own household.
If you look at the graph, you'll notice some interesting things: the average age of the first marriage for women was even higher in Scandinavian countries than it was in England. Also an Englishwoman not married by the age of 37 risked not to get married at all, but it was not true for Sweden and even less so for Denmark, where the percentage of never married females continued to fall till it reached its lowest point about the age of 45.
As you can see for yourself, not every woman married at 18, and some (around 20% in England vs 10% in Denmark) didn't marry at all.
A woman at the age of 45 is nearing the end of her reproductive years yet still some Northern European women married in their 40s and around 40% of Scandinavian women were still unmarried at the age of 30.
I'm by no means trying to say that it's somehow wrong to marry young, if a woman finds a suitable mate at the age of 18 I'd say, good for her, but it's hardly realistic to expect the majority of girls to find a husband by this age. Of course it's hardly wise to intentionally delay marriage until you are 45, and as Christians we know that casual sex is wrong and sinful, but falling into another extreme and stating that a woman who isn't married by the age of 24 is a hopeless spinster is hardly helpful and is not supported by the historical data, either.
Feminists surely do a lot of damage with their propaganda of "having fun" in the way caddish men do and then settling down in your 40s, but not every woman who marries later in life does it because she wanted to have a career and jump from bed to bed instead. It could be so that she simply wasn't able to find a suitable husband, and no, I don't believe a girl should accept the first man who comes along even if he is a recovering alcoholic or someone who can't hold down a job.
In fact, I think that the youthful age at which the parents of baby boomers married contributed to the rise of the modern feminism. Before the WWII most women would work before they married to save money and then marry and quit working. Marriage was seen as a woman's career and it was considered incompatible with employment outside home, more or less, though there were exceptions, of course. The mothers of baby boomers married young and often continued working until they got their first child and sometimes even later precisely by the reason that the couples got married before they were financially established.
This situation, imo, contributed to the destruction of taboo about married women being employed outside home. If you remember, the slogan of feminists used to be you will have it all together, i.e., there will be no need to choose between family and career. We all know how this worked out.
BTW, if you follow the link to the blog of Mr Schmidt, you'll see a corresponding graph for men which shows that 40 to 50% of Northern European men stayed unmarried at the age of 30, precisely for the same reason women did: a man was not supposed to marry until he was able to support his family. Nowadays, guys will marry with a full expectation that their wives will continue working and "contribute" to family finances, as the men's pride in being the family breadwinner is all but gone.
You'll also notice that some women stayed unmarried and were presumably employed in normal feminine occupations, such as teaching, nursing or domestic service. The truth is that it's unrealistic to expect that 100% of women won't work. We need female labour to some extent, though not to the extent feminists promote it. I'm not suggesting anything radically new, just the return to the old system where a woman could choose between career in the home or outside of it, and wives mostly didn't pursue paid employment.
It was probably not the ideal system, but it worked for at least several hundred of years which is more than what we can say about the present one.
Below is a graph showing the percentage of never married females in England and Northern Europe around 1800 well before modern feminism) as compared to China. I found it through this blog, but it originally was posted by Erwin Schmidt.
Mr Mangan proceeds to explain it by the fact that (Northern) Europeans didn't get married and start having children until they could afford their own household.
If you look at the graph, you'll notice some interesting things: the average age of the first marriage for women was even higher in Scandinavian countries than it was in England. Also an Englishwoman not married by the age of 37 risked not to get married at all, but it was not true for Sweden and even less so for Denmark, where the percentage of never married females continued to fall till it reached its lowest point about the age of 45.
As you can see for yourself, not every woman married at 18, and some (around 20% in England vs 10% in Denmark) didn't marry at all.
A woman at the age of 45 is nearing the end of her reproductive years yet still some Northern European women married in their 40s and around 40% of Scandinavian women were still unmarried at the age of 30.
I'm by no means trying to say that it's somehow wrong to marry young, if a woman finds a suitable mate at the age of 18 I'd say, good for her, but it's hardly realistic to expect the majority of girls to find a husband by this age. Of course it's hardly wise to intentionally delay marriage until you are 45, and as Christians we know that casual sex is wrong and sinful, but falling into another extreme and stating that a woman who isn't married by the age of 24 is a hopeless spinster is hardly helpful and is not supported by the historical data, either.
Feminists surely do a lot of damage with their propaganda of "having fun" in the way caddish men do and then settling down in your 40s, but not every woman who marries later in life does it because she wanted to have a career and jump from bed to bed instead. It could be so that she simply wasn't able to find a suitable husband, and no, I don't believe a girl should accept the first man who comes along even if he is a recovering alcoholic or someone who can't hold down a job.
In fact, I think that the youthful age at which the parents of baby boomers married contributed to the rise of the modern feminism. Before the WWII most women would work before they married to save money and then marry and quit working. Marriage was seen as a woman's career and it was considered incompatible with employment outside home, more or less, though there were exceptions, of course. The mothers of baby boomers married young and often continued working until they got their first child and sometimes even later precisely by the reason that the couples got married before they were financially established.
This situation, imo, contributed to the destruction of taboo about married women being employed outside home. If you remember, the slogan of feminists used to be you will have it all together, i.e., there will be no need to choose between family and career. We all know how this worked out.
BTW, if you follow the link to the blog of Mr Schmidt, you'll see a corresponding graph for men which shows that 40 to 50% of Northern European men stayed unmarried at the age of 30, precisely for the same reason women did: a man was not supposed to marry until he was able to support his family. Nowadays, guys will marry with a full expectation that their wives will continue working and "contribute" to family finances, as the men's pride in being the family breadwinner is all but gone.
You'll also notice that some women stayed unmarried and were presumably employed in normal feminine occupations, such as teaching, nursing or domestic service. The truth is that it's unrealistic to expect that 100% of women won't work. We need female labour to some extent, though not to the extent feminists promote it. I'm not suggesting anything radically new, just the return to the old system where a woman could choose between career in the home or outside of it, and wives mostly didn't pursue paid employment.
It was probably not the ideal system, but it worked for at least several hundred of years which is more than what we can say about the present one.
zondag 2 maart 2014
Spring Fashions,
new projects and other good things in life.
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I finally finished knitting a detachable collar/scarf for my winter cardi. Actually I did it some time ago but was too lazy to post pictures, so I'm doing it now:
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I wore the scarf a couple of times, but separately as the weather has been too warm to wear the cardigan. We have had no winter at all this year. However, I'm not discouraged and so I started working on a summer project from a new Verena magazine. It's also a twin set, a top and a cardi:
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Originally I wanted to knit this (from the same magazine) but couldn't find the yarn:
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It's very beautiful and feminine, don't you think so? Unfortunately the guy at the market where I buy all my yarn doesn't sell angora blends for needles size 2.5 , so I opted for the grey-and-pink cardi instead.
As you have noticed, flowers and short skirts are in fashion, but also very long ones, like this knitted dress:
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Isn't it romantic? Too bad that my husband simply hates dresses this long, he calls them "garments" and thinks they are only suitable for hippies:)
This length he approves of, though:
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May be when I have more time, I'll knit the skirt, only in a different colour. It can actually be worn as a blouse, with the pockets functioning as (short) sleeves!
I'm also planning to make some decorations for the Easter tree:
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Chickens and rabbits and I already bought felt in different colours:
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(This is what my husband calls "useful ladylike activities", and also thinking about embroidery and kittens:)
Actually I bought this magazine (it's a German one called "Anna") because of this:
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Isn't it a darling little red dress? I like the new fashions, they are very colourful and feminine. What project are you working at?
I finally finished knitting a detachable collar/scarf for my winter cardi. Actually I did it some time ago but was too lazy to post pictures, so I'm doing it now:
Originally I wanted to knit this (from the same magazine) but couldn't find the yarn:
As you have noticed, flowers and short skirts are in fashion, but also very long ones, like this knitted dress:
This length he approves of, though:
May be when I have more time, I'll knit the skirt, only in a different colour. It can actually be worn as a blouse, with the pockets functioning as (short) sleeves!
I'm also planning to make some decorations for the Easter tree:
(This is what my husband calls "useful ladylike activities", and also thinking about embroidery and kittens:)
Actually I bought this magazine (it's a German one called "Anna") because of this:
Isn't it a darling little red dress? I like the new fashions, they are very colourful and feminine. What project are you working at?
vrijdag 28 februari 2014
Choosing A Mate
In her book The Fascinating Girl Helen Andelin devotes a whole chapter to the topic of choosing a mate. She starts with suggesting to pray for God's help in choosing a husband, but also points out that the woman should do her part, too.
Mrs Andelin reminds her readers about the importance of making the good choice as your future husband will be your companion and the father of your children, and states that a young woman should seek a man of a worthy character, but also that she should strive to become a woman of worth herself.
There are things which aren't really important to marital happiness, such as the colour of a man's eyes or his height, or his popularity with women. More important are such virtues as honesty, integrity and high moral standards. An ideal man is the one who has a sense of right and wrong and moral courage to follow his convictions. He respects the higher authority, keeps his commitments, is diligent and unselfish, free from arrogance and has consideration for others.
Mrs Andelin also suggests to look for intellectual skills and abilities, such as a good basic education but also wisdom and good judgement. The next on the checklist are his masculine traits:
Does he look and act like a man? Does he face life with manly courage? Would he make a good father, a good leader of his family? Is he aggressive and decisive...?Is he planning a career which would provide for his family adequately? Is he...chivalrous? (p. 186)
When evaluating the prospective husband, Mrs Andelin advises to discuss different topics with him, so that you will discover his attitudes about such important things as family life and his future plans, his ideas about religion, raising children and money. Is he materialistic and worldly? Does he have an unwholesome drive for status and money? Is he selfish or does his life have a higher purpose?
I'd like to add to this that if you want to be a housewife, you should make it clear beforehand that you are not planning to work after your marriage. If his idea of a family is a dual income household, you should probably find someone else. The same goes for men who explicitly state that they don't want to have children. Men generally mean what they say, and if you think you are going to make him change his mind you might be in for a rude awakening.
The next post on this topic will be about which men to avoid. .
Mrs Andelin reminds her readers about the importance of making the good choice as your future husband will be your companion and the father of your children, and states that a young woman should seek a man of a worthy character, but also that she should strive to become a woman of worth herself.
There are things which aren't really important to marital happiness, such as the colour of a man's eyes or his height, or his popularity with women. More important are such virtues as honesty, integrity and high moral standards. An ideal man is the one who has a sense of right and wrong and moral courage to follow his convictions. He respects the higher authority, keeps his commitments, is diligent and unselfish, free from arrogance and has consideration for others.
Mrs Andelin also suggests to look for intellectual skills and abilities, such as a good basic education but also wisdom and good judgement. The next on the checklist are his masculine traits:
Does he look and act like a man? Does he face life with manly courage? Would he make a good father, a good leader of his family? Is he aggressive and decisive...?Is he planning a career which would provide for his family adequately? Is he...chivalrous? (p. 186)
When evaluating the prospective husband, Mrs Andelin advises to discuss different topics with him, so that you will discover his attitudes about such important things as family life and his future plans, his ideas about religion, raising children and money. Is he materialistic and worldly? Does he have an unwholesome drive for status and money? Is he selfish or does his life have a higher purpose?
I'd like to add to this that if you want to be a housewife, you should make it clear beforehand that you are not planning to work after your marriage. If his idea of a family is a dual income household, you should probably find someone else. The same goes for men who explicitly state that they don't want to have children. Men generally mean what they say, and if you think you are going to make him change his mind you might be in for a rude awakening.
The next post on this topic will be about which men to avoid. .
donderdag 27 februari 2014
Horatio Hornblower
It took me a long time but finally I finished a book called Mr. Midshipman Hornblower, which is a story about the adventures of a Royal Navy officer during the Napoleonic Wars. The first Hornblower novel The Happy Return was written in 1937 by Cecil Scott Forester, an Englishman born in Egypt. Mr. Midshipman Hornblower was written much later, in 1950, but if you read the series in chronological order, you should start with this one as it covers the period of time from 1794 till 1798.
While later in life Horatio goes on to become an admiral, we first meet him when he is just 17 and goes to sea for the first time. He is taunted by other midshipmen who are all older than him and even thinks of committing suicide but it all changes when he challenges his principal enemy to a duel. Though nobody dies, Horatio gains a great deal of respect, is soon transferred to a better ship and thus embarks on his brilliant career. In the end of the book he is 21 and already a lieutenant.
The book was great fun to read and having been written a long time ago it was rather politically incorrect as well, which naturally added to its charms. It consists of 10 chapters which are a separate story each of them. There was a great deal of fighting, though no gory details, but also no romance, though from other books we know that Horatio will marry and not once, but twice.
There was a 1951 movie with Gregory Peck called Captain Horatio Hornblower which shows an older Hornblower and tells us the story of his love affair with Lady Barbara. I watched it on YouTube last year but it disappeared ever since and the only thing I could find was a trailer. It was a nice film with good actors and I can recommend it to anyone. There was also a recent TV series which is also on YouTube, which I haven't watched so I can't say anything about it, good or bad.
Mr. Midshipman Hornblower is a nice old-fashioned adventure story and it's suitable for anyone to read, yound and old.
While later in life Horatio goes on to become an admiral, we first meet him when he is just 17 and goes to sea for the first time. He is taunted by other midshipmen who are all older than him and even thinks of committing suicide but it all changes when he challenges his principal enemy to a duel. Though nobody dies, Horatio gains a great deal of respect, is soon transferred to a better ship and thus embarks on his brilliant career. In the end of the book he is 21 and already a lieutenant.
The book was great fun to read and having been written a long time ago it was rather politically incorrect as well, which naturally added to its charms. It consists of 10 chapters which are a separate story each of them. There was a great deal of fighting, though no gory details, but also no romance, though from other books we know that Horatio will marry and not once, but twice.
There was a 1951 movie with Gregory Peck called Captain Horatio Hornblower which shows an older Hornblower and tells us the story of his love affair with Lady Barbara. I watched it on YouTube last year but it disappeared ever since and the only thing I could find was a trailer. It was a nice film with good actors and I can recommend it to anyone. There was also a recent TV series which is also on YouTube, which I haven't watched so I can't say anything about it, good or bad.
Mr. Midshipman Hornblower is a nice old-fashioned adventure story and it's suitable for anyone to read, yound and old.
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