Women’s Duty To Men

by JOE ZAMBONI on DECEMBER 28, 2012

The duties that American men have to American women are many, and consistently enforced by a variety of heavy-handed mechanisms such as mandatory jail-time, court-imposed fines, the yanking of your driver’s license, and separation from your children. As if that wasn’t enough to force you to comply, there is also being disqualified for financial aid in college, community shaming, and denial of sex.

The duties of men to women very importantly include the duty to protect. This more generally could be defined as the duty to be drafted, to go off to war and die, to be maimed for life, or to be tortured by the psychological harm that one suffered as a result of one’s violent military experience. On a more personal level, this duty takes the form of the man being the one who’s got the duty to fight off a burglar or intruder. Again and again I will write this: there is no comparable duty of women towards men, nothing even close.

The list of duties includes the duty to provide financial support for a woman, if she has become your wife, and/or the mother of your child, regardless of whether she does anything for you. Remember this is a duty, not a deal. You have no right to get anything in return. It is important that you be clear that relationships between men and women are not an equal deal. Instead, on the man’s side we have duties and obligations, along with a very heavy dose of accountability and responsibility, while on the woman’s side, we have rights and options, without the burden of much if any accountability or responsibility.

For men, you might furthermore include the duty to provide child support, which is really just an euphemism for further money to the woman, not based on the needs of the children, but based on whatever can be extracted from you. You could additionally include the duty to never to hit a woman, even though she may feel free to hit you without any legal penalties whatsoever. These and other male duties are enforced by law, and the full power of the state is brought to bear to make sure that every man complies. If you don’t believe me, read the instructions to the police who respond to domestic violence complaints, and read about mandatory instructions to arrest the male (it has nothing to do with who was at fault).

There are also other duties that men have toward women, such as the duty to listen to women, and treat them with respect, even if the involved women are doing stupid and despicable things. You see this in the general unwillingness of men to criticize women who are acting badly, such as bar hopping, getting pass-out drunk, having sex with multiple men they don’t know, and then blaming the men and claiming they were raped. Very few men dare to say: “Well, what did you expect?” or “Excuse me, could you have had something to do with this result?” There is no comparable duty of women to listen to men, or to respect men, and I see this in evidence at the supermarket where women publicly say the most abusive and embarrassing things to their husbands — perhaps acting sadistically, or perhaps just not giving a damn how the husband might feel to have others overhear such criticisms. Or maybe, for the wives, this is a public showing of power…

Although not generally acknowledged, there is also a duty, that many men feel, to give women the benefit of the doubt. We men, at least us traditional men, will try our best to rescue women who have screwed up big time. We may give them jobs that they aren’t qualified for, or extend the date when they would otherwise have been fired from their jobs for incompetence – and thus we hope to encourage them to get their acts together. We men are decidedly easier on women than we are on other men. This duty has even become institutionalized in many settings. For example, the physical standards for firefighters in many jurisdictions have been significantly lowered in order for women to be able to make the grade. The same lowering of standards, in order to give women the benefit of the doubt, can be found in the military. For men, if coming from women, there is no comparable benefit of the doubt, no bending of the rules, and no giving of special dispensations.

There is also a duty to be lenient on women, a duty to not force women to bear the full repercussions and impacts of their actions. You see this in the courts for example, where women are consistently given much shorter prison sentences than men for the same crime. Some of us call this phenomenon the “pussy pass,” where a woman in many instances can plead insanity, or be on her period, or suffer from post-partum depression, and use that as her get-out-of-jail-free card. Men cannot get away with such behavior or anything like this. Women do not provide any such leniency towards men. In fact, I am regularly disappointed to see how strict and unforgiving women are toward men. For example, I know several examples of women who were married to older men who have gotten seriously sick. A number of these women have promptly abandoned their husbands, apparently because their husbands were no longer able to provide the trappings of the lives “to which they have become accustomed.” I have been surprised that these women have apparently felt no duty to aid their elderly husbands. The old adage “for better or worse” doesn’t seem to mean anything anymore, except to some traditional married men that I know (but for men this behavior may increasingly be due the extremely punishing consequences of modern divorce rather than adherence to this old fashioned notion).

The more I have been thinking about this, the more surprised I have been to note the severe imbalance between the sexes in the area of duties: there are a great many duties that men feel they have towards women, but virtually none (bar those imposed by law) that modern women feel they have towards men. This is consistent with Briffault’s Law, which states that it is the female, not the male, who determines all the conditions of the animal family, and where the female can derive no further benefit from associating with the male, no further association takes place.

To really get this, and to let it in, can be disorienting but also, more importantly, emancipating. Women have no duty to provide sex, to cook, or to clean… no duty to take care of the children, or even to act like adults. They do whatever they please. And our society, most importantly the men in society, supports and allows women to do just that.

Which importantly sheds light on the advisability of men having children, getting married, or in any other way establishing a permanent commitment with a woman. In the current American environment, making such a commitment is most ill-advised. The woman involved can walk away from her side of the bargain, with virtually no consequences, in some instances in fact becoming better off than she was in the midst of the commitment. For example, a divorcing woman may do better financially if she walks away from her husband, if she collects alimony and child support from the ex, receives “gifts” from her new man, lives in the new man’s house, etc. On the other hand, if a man has a formal commitment such as marriage, he is expected to continue to observe that commitment (such as be the financial provider), even though the woman is no longer giving him whatever she had given in the past that induced him to enter into the relationship (sex, emotional intimacy, whatever). Men really need to get that, not only will a woman walk away when an arrangement is no longer to the woman’s advantage, but that the men often must continue to provide whatever it is that they committed to, even though they then get nothing in return.

This hard fact of life for a man can be seen in the plight of so many wounded male veterans. They have given a tremendous amount, and their lives are forever altered. What do they get, really? A lush life with ample benefits coming from the government? A revered and honored place in society? More attention from women? No, sorry, none of that. Their contribution is done and final. There is no going back. They are history. But they must nonetheless keep giving. You can see this as gross gender unfairness, especially when you understand that women do not need to keep giving, they can just keep taking, up until the point when they don’t want to take any longer.

Thus not only do men bear the brunt of all the duties in a heterosexual relationship, but whenever women do make agreements with men, to provide something of value (sex, cooking, child care, gestation services, etc.), they can withdraw their contributions whenever they wish, with very little if any consequences. For example, a woman can put a baby up for adoption in many states, simply by leaving it on the hospital steps, without paperwork, expense, or the need for excuses. Likewise, a woman can get an abortion without her husband’s consent or knowledge. But don’t try to do such things if you’re a man. For example, if she wants to keep the child, then you (the man) are obligated for eighteen years of child support, period, no exceptions.

In summary, the duty requirements for men contrast sharply with those of women. Not only do men have the duties, while women do not, but it is only with great difficulty that men can escape these duties. Consider the domain of money, where men cannot withdraw their giving without facing very serious draconian consequences (jail time, fines, loss of driver’s license, loss of professional license, etc.). For example, a number of states, like Florida, still have lifetime alimony laws. Men are effectively thereby made into financial slaves, working for the benefit of the ruling class (women). On the other hand, women can walk away from many of their commitments to men whenever they please. Now that’s gender fairness and equality, right?

Tags: joe zamboni, mens rights, national coalition for men, ncfm