Boys' Medical And Emotional Health, or Skewed and Down the Drain

Here is a weird and depressing fact that I chanced upon recently.  Boys' medical and emotional health is f’d up, and the sad fact is that it has been f'd up for a long time.  And yet society said, "hey that's okay, boys will be boys."  For some twisted skewed form of illogic, this was seen as a good thing.

Now, instead of calling boys on this bullshyt, society now makes girls' medical and emotional health as f’d up as the boys.  They say "ohmigosh awesome girls are being empowered."

Why is this now the resort that “society” has taken?

Wouldn’t an alternate solution have been a much more healthy, morally responsible, socially responsible thing to do?  Instead of making girls as broken, damaged, emotionally stunted and shattered as boys have been, people should be saying, "Hang on a cotton-pickin’ minute."  We should be questioning the very concept that emotional abuse (or any kind of abuse) is okay.

Rather than knocking down girls a few pegs so that they are down in the gutter emotionally as boys are.  Why the hell is this okay??  Why is it okay for boys to be just as much victims of oppressive emotionally abusive men as women are, and to laud and applaud it?

Rather than lowering girls' life standards, and reducing their potential for actualization and self-realization to that lower level of boys, wouldn't the better course of action be uplifting and improving the lot in life for boys up to the healthy normal level that it used to be for girls??

Let us be totally, completely honest here.  I wish to address all the unflinching details of the true background, intentions.


Why do people think of girls as delicate pristine little angels up until the time they do something sexual with some guy?  Notice that on the contrary, people think it is "great" (well, in lower social circles, anyway) if a boy sleeps with lots of girls.  We need to ponder why this is.  How come no one thinks of a girl as "sullying" a guy?

I am not asking these questions rhetorically nor sarcastically.  Believe it or not, I truly am not revealing any latent slut-bitterness. 

I genuinely want to know.  I would like to investigate this from a psychological perspective.  I really want to get at the subconscious motives that underlie societal arrangements for so many different cultures around the globe.  It is time we offer acknowledgement of the full range of underlying motive.

The answer is a rather dark one.  Nobody dares utter this thought out loud.  But all the signs point to this proof positive.

People think boys cannot be corrupted -- because there is not a whole lot of goodness and pureness existing there to corrupt in the first place.

Nobody thinks boys were angels in the first place.  Nobody thinks boys are good, clean, moral, or disease-free.  People mostly think boys are "dirty" -- you know what I mean.


People think that boys’ souls are broken, damaged, shattered.  They think boys’ spirits are incomplete and deficient.  They think this hand that boys are dealt is the default setting with which they enter into existence is this universe.  People do not believe that boys were all that clean to begin with.

Why are male sluts hailed as being "big man on campus," ad nauseum?  It can only be because they think he is cleaning himself up.  By dint of association with more and more girls, he is making himself better.  They think that he is associating (in the grossest sense of the word) with more and more girls, so therefore his lot in life has only improved.

This is the only possible explanation I can come up with.  This is the only theory that answers all these puzzling social and psychological phenomena.  What else could it be?

This is degrading, demeaning, and dehumanizing -- to boys.  We should not be proud of this at all.  This is a sick warped way of viewing the world.

I observe how disturbed I am about this whole social and personal mess that is being lauded as "empowerment" and "liberation."  I recall how, growing up, I was taught that that sort of behavior is not okay.  As a girl, viewing myself or treating myself this way was unacceptable.  All us girls were raised to respect ourselves.

I also recall how even people that might not consider themselves feminists *still* wanted to ensure that girls do not ruin their lives by engaging in any sort of self-destructive behavior.  It seems that large portions of society are much more traumatized if a girl is given to casual, "loose" missives than if a boy succumbs to these actions.  That would include myself, unfortunately.

Maybe the *real* reason that I am not as troubled when boys engage in reckless behavior, casually disregarding their physical and medical health -- is that I do not feel that boys have a whole lot to corrupt in the first place.

Dating Mistakes And How Not To Make Them

[[[[I’ve heard about and read about way too many stories in which a female sleeps with a male way too soon.  She thinks he seems like a great guy.  But then after she sleeps with him, he reveals his true nature.  He is an abusive stalker, etc. etc., an alcoholic, something or other.

It seems that the problem was that she slept with the male long before she actually knew for a fact whether or not he was a good guy.
]]]]

Try to find one guy who is a very nice guy.  Then wait a while until you actually *get to know* the guy.  Wait until there is a definite distinct demarcated commitment.  And then if you can truly say that you two have connected on every level, then sure, go ahead and have sex.  If he is any type of gentleman and he wants to make any sort of emotional investment into the relationship with you, then he will respect your choices.

Subtle hint:  no two people on the planet can get to truly know each other after only a handful of dates.  The only possible exceptions to that rule are close blood relatives.  And consanguineous relationships are probably not a good idea, either.

From what I can tell, most people seem to lie through their teeth on a first date with any given person.  That includes males and females.  Same goes for the second or third date.  Unfortunately the female is of the opinion that she knows enough about a guy just a couple of dates later.  You know, that he makes a six-figure income who is a motorcycle rider in his spare time and also co-founded Habitat for Humanity and rescues orphaned puppies.  And she thinks that is sufficient to justify sleeping with him.  And then of course, a while *later,* all the crapola comes flying out and all the lies are exposed and she feels like a dumbarsse, as well she should.

I remember reading stuff about this all through middle school and high school.  There were many entries in psychology magazines as well, which were very informative.  Those psychology periodicals were the rare sources where authors were actually one hundred percent truthful about the emotional consequences of promiscuity.  They straightforwardly addressed the psychological scarring, the gradual decline of people’s standards.  The gradual decline of people’s expectations in relationships.

Moving forward wwwayyyy tooo soon on the superficial stuff.  Yet still lagging and sagging behind on the abstract profound stuff.

I've seen it happen over and over and over again -- two people go forth with sex waaaayyy too soon -- before they know each other truly on any level whatsoever.  And it usually ends up biting them in the arsse.  Look around you at people who sleep together after only a few days of dating or some such.

In most cases, it is especially almost always the female that ends up getting screwed over the most.  She is the one who ends up an emotional wreck after the "relationship" fizzles out and burns out like a cheap candle.  She is the one left with more severe STDs, and chances are she is left with an unwanted pregnancy.  By all means, get an abortion.  I'm not being facetious.  You’ve already screwed up your life, no need to produce a genetic semi-copy of yourself that will probably also screw up its life.  Nip it in the bud.  I'm being dead serious, I'm all for it.

Dating Mistakes And Responsibility

Be honest with yourself.  Do you really think you are completely 100 percent blameless and without responsibility in this situation?  If a woman finds herself in this type of situation, she needs to examine all the decisions she has made that led to this point.  She would find that she has to accept responsibility.  I just find it very hard to believe that anyone would even let themselves get it this situation in the first place.

Think about all the conversations you have had with your boyfriend.  It is not realistic for you as a grown woman to deny that you are responsible for what you do in your own life.  I simply am unable to trudge up any sympathy whatsoever for a grown-ass woman that still possesses sh*tty decision-making skills, woefully effed-up poor taste in men, and general sh*tty life-management skills.

The female is not blameless, not by a long shot.  Look, you are a grown-ass woman.  Therefore you need to take some damn responsibility for your own life.  You are choosing this pathetic mediocre timeline of your own free will.  And when you start complaining that a man is the cause of all your problems, I really don't have any sympathy for you.  You started complaining about him the minute the two of you slept together, "oh why doesn't he call, why is he so bad at communication, why does he treat me like crap barking and yelling at me and having no respect or regard for me," ad ilk.

Please shut up, I don't want to hear it.  I have zero tolerance for this on-again off-again crap.  You are the one who was a horrible judge of character, who chose to let yourself fall into infatuation and cheap surface emotions with a complete stranger.  You didn't stop to think, "wait a minute, who the hell is this guy?”  Do you really know anything about him?  Have you made any kind of genuine emotional connection?  Have you truly put any effort into getting to know each other before jumping into bed together?

If the male is so bad, which he is -- I agree with you there -- then why the hell are you choosing to be with him?  You didn't have any respect for yourself, for your own body or for your own emotions.  And yet you expect the male to have respect for you.  You should have been treading a more carefully.

Feminists Who Had Respect For Themselves

Now I understand why feminists who had respect for themselves always championed the steadfastness of supreme court justices and city councilwomen.

Growing up, there were a bunch of psychology articles and news editorials that would demand, “Do women university deans carouse in promiscuity and drunkenness?  Do women doctors and lawyers chase around men or spend their lives OD-ing?”

Those feminists were actually doing this as a cautionary measure.  They were quite clairvoyant.  It seems that even back then, they knew that less scrupulous types would try to fool young females into thinking that promiscuity and drunken carousing were emblems of liberation and empowerment.

I often wondered why they felt they needed to offer us these constructive axioms.  They would tell us to look to the greats, the trailblazers, the pioneers.  Look to the women who paved the way and busted through glass ceilings so that we may seek actualization.

Back then I was always thinking, “Look, I agree completely!  I think it is wonderful that you are pointing to self-respecting women as exemplars.”  But while I definitely appreciated the gesture of them offering us role models, I felt that we didn’t even need to go to the effort to extrapolate that far for a worthy argument against treating women like sxxx objects.

Simply in and of *itself,* sexual objectification crap is unacceptable.  This is degrading demeaning unladylike behavior.  This is not respecting oneself.  -(and two) not every girl is necessarily going to be a supreme court justice or become a doctor or lawyer.  That does not mean she is any less worthy of dignity.

...which I believe is just as valid.  This is because I am not easily fooled.

But it seems that a disturbingly large number of the little girls today are easily duped.  Those earlier feminists had been trying to warn us of the false gods that would demand worship from young naiive females, much like the golden calf of yore.

And this Moulin Rouge shyte??  Is this supposed to be what passes for "girl power" these days?  Don't try that with me.  Silly child, I grew up in the era of Lilith Fair with my hero, Sarah McLachlan.  I know from women musicians who are genuinely talented, and are good people who respect themselves.

The current spate of media is especially horrifying because it has taken multiculturalism and turned it into a travesty of what it used to be.  Sick, disgusting, crass way of treating black women.  The music industry has degenerated into a sopping, raggedy, gross mess on the floor.  I saw a news segment the other day reporting on the sort of weird shyte trash that MTV is showing.  The trash part isn't new, but what is alarming is that black women are the ones being objectified, demeaned, and degraded to mere body parts.  In some very sickening, nauseating ways.  I don't even think there are words in the English language that can capture the type of fury and disgust and disappointment I feel with the human race when I see this.

Worst of all, it is disheartening how these black women musicians are treating themselves.  Whatever happened to the intelligent, truly strong, self-respecting women in my time?

Back in my day we had Lauryn Hill's wisdom setting girls straight.  She told young girls the truth and looked and sounded beautiful doing it.  I think it's rather awesome that she has a family with Bob Marley's son.  That seems so perfect and very satisfying in so many ways.  They are not legally married and I am aware that that is not ideal.  But I feel that in God's eyes they are husband and wife

Erykah Badu was also a strong female presence, time was.  She was intelligent, kind, cerebral, feminine, and she had a thread of iron wire through her soul that never wavered.
india.arie -- not the average girl from yur video.

But we have not heard from these ladies in a while, and that is extremely discouraging.

These feminists whom I grew up with were so much... smarter than the pseudo-feminists of today.  They wanted girls to have enough respect for themselves not to lower their IQs just to please males (nor for any other reason).  They wanted girls to have enough self-respect not to treat themselves as sex objects.  That was the battle cry of old-school feminism.  Women are equal human beings worthy of respect and dignity.  They are not supposed to be objectified.  No human being is.

Why Modern Day Dating Is Complete Crap

Sigh.  Okay, I have held my tongue long enough.  I have forced myself to be silent, I have held my pen in check.

But this can go on no longer.  This has gone on far enough.  I grinned like a monkey and staid my pen at the morass of dating filth all over the checkout lanes of grocery stores, on TV, and elsewhere in the media.

Geez, I figured out all this shit way back in high school.  Then the media started bombarding humans with all its filth and self-destruction.  I chided myself for not being "open-minded" enough to the realities of the dating world or whatever.  There has always been a matter-of-fact voice in my mind that lets me know that all the dating crap everywhere is self-inflicted, and I tried to force myself to consider this voice "unrealistic" or "not with the times" or some such rubbish.  It is true.  Everything in the realm of "dating" is self-inflicted.  Whatever broken hearts, cheating on people, misunderstandings that are out there -- people are doing it to their own damn selves.

Geez, I was trying to be nice.  I never said a word about the phenomenally stupid, astonishingly idiotic dating mistakes women make.  They are not just mistakes; they are out-and-out catastrophes.  In truth I had written tons of essays, but I did not publish them.  I kept hoping that this would be it, that sluts and whores would stoop no lower, that they would see the error of their ways and would wise up and fix themselves.  But that never happened.

The reason I did not publish anything in my blog is that I was nice trying to be nice.  I was trying to be liberal, open-minded, non-judgmental, blah blah blah.  Enough with this shit.

This pretty much reiterates everything I have beeeennnnn saying for years about why modern-day dating is crap.  It is obvious that communication is horrible.  In the dating arena is the worst possible place for people to neglect communication.  It has become quite self-evident that sexual relationship is the one relationship that absolutely requires=+++ good communication.

Yet the thing I'm seeing is, that non-commitment sxx causes the most misunderstandings of all time.  No other settings, it seems, cause as much grief, hurt, anger, betrayal, et cetera et cetera.  Not work or business relationships.  Not the relationship between doctor and patient.  Other personal close relationships such as family, siblings, parent-child bond -- they require communication also, but those are not sexual relationships.  Those are family and blood relations.

[[[[[[What I am seeing is that in all of these broken relationships,]]]]]?????
--but also, it is the simple fact that a sexual relationship is an intimate relationship that you chose to get into.  You chose to have sex with this person of your own volition.  No one made you do it.  See, blood family that you were born into was not your choice; you were stuck with whatever hand Jehovah dealt ya.  But this sex thing, you decided consciously to do this.

Also one more reason that honesty is paramount in a sexual relationship.  In a sexual relationship, the two people involved must be equal to each other.  I also figured this out a long time ago.  This does not mean they must be identical.  But it most certainly **does** mean they must have mutual respect for each other.  They must have similar outlooks on commitment and sex.  Polygamy does not work -- the only realistic arrangement is one man and one woman.  Anything else is not a sustained relationship; it is just playacting.

One more example.  women get mad if their
and the

(((I wonder if it is the fact that since those are blood relationships, things will patch over eventually.))))))))
(((They must come from similar socioeconomic backgrounds.  I have seen over and over and over again, that if one spouse is from an educated and cultured family, and the other spouse is from grinding poverty, it will not work.  Their outlooks on life are too different.  Their ages must be similar.

Let's be honest.  In a blood-relation family, people are not equal to each other.  They are not supposed to be.  I know popular psychology loves saying all people are equal, but that is simply a lie, plain and simple.  Children are not equal to their parents.  Aunts and uncles are not equal to children.  Parents love their own children more than they love those aunts and uncles (which are those parents' siblings).

some women might start whining and complaining, oh that's so unfair,
Oh that is so unfair.  Why are you pinning all the responsibility and work of communication on women?  Why do women have to do all the work of communication?  Why do we have to do all the talking?  Why can't men communicate?  it's not fair that
Look what we have to deal with!!!  look what we have to
It's too much work!!!
It's just so haaardd communicating with men.
""Men are stupid.  Men are horrible at communication.  Men suck at conversation.”
aaaannndd...  this surprises you why, exactly?

"Stuck-Up"/Conceitedness In Romantic Relationships, i.e., Marriage

This elitist attitude can also carry over into romantic/marriage relationships.  Which I think is probably a good thing.  I see several dating advice articles in mags that admonish people for wanting romantic relationships with successful, career-driven people.  The articles say that these people are being stuck up, shallow, superficial, conceited, materialistic.

But hang on a second.  No, it is not "materialistic" or "shallow" to value achievements.  They worked hard to achieve it!  That is not "shallow."  That is the antithesis of shallow.

I myself value accomplishment very much for myself in my own personal life.  I respect myself enough to set clear goals for myself and establish my career.  So I think, or at least I hope, that I can have a guy who respects himself enough to be goal-driven as well.  That’s not being shallow; that's being realistic.  I prefer someone who is an equal to myself, whom I have things in common with, who comes from a similar background to my own, with whom I can actually have a conversation.

Now, there are a couple of instances in which this attitude would be shallow.  If a guy is an assistant manager at Best Buy, but he expects to get a girl that is a genetic engineer with a doctorate degree.  Or a guy has an MBA and is starting his own tech consulting business, and the girl who thinks herself deserving had barely graduated with a sociology degree. Or one of them comes from a monied background and had culture and travel and breeding, and the other is from a poverty-stricken no-class background.

Romance and relationships are about emotional connection.  And how do you attain an emotional bond?  You have to get to know this person first.  That means it must be a genuine friendship.  So believe it or not, you have to actually be very practical with this.  In so-called matters of love, it is best to keep your head on straight.  I have just made a case for morals, emotions, and romance being interconnected with practicality.

If you value education, then a person that does not value education is not going to be a good match for you.  You hear people all the time claiming that if someone aims for an education and a successful career, this somehow makes them shallow.

They say crap such as, 'oh you cannn'ttt help whom you fall in love with.'  Bullcrap.  You most certainly can help whom you fall in love with.

Let us begin at the beginning.  Well, how does one fall in love with another?  Like so.  You have to get to know the person first.  Understand them on an emotional level.   Get to know them as a human being.

You have to find common ground, find something to talk about.  It is best to find someone who has similar values and outlook on life.  Also someone that has similar goals in life.  Someone that is very accomplishment-driven is not going to be a great match for someone that likes to sit around and like the hippies 'just be.'

You have to find someone you actually have things in common with.  Find some common ground.  So that you have something to actually talk about with each other.  People are best in a relationship together if they come from similar backgrounds, and had similar experiences growing up.  That way they can relate to each other and can understand where the other is coming from.  You have to be practical and reasonable about your love life.

I saw a TV show once where a guy who was a college professor wanted to ask his hot neighbor out on a date.  But then he found out she was a customer service associate (i.e., cashier) in a store, so he decided she wasn't up to his standards.  Then the hot neighbor was all mad and livid and offended that the guy turned her down for that reason.  She was insulted that the guy turned her down on the grounds of the kind of work she does.

Am I the only person who thinks that what the guy did was okay and justified?  The two of them have nothing in common.  They live on the same paved road -- that's about it.  Other than that, they would not have anything to talk about with each other.  They do not see life from similar viewpoints.  She was mad because the guy apparently thought he was better than her.

Well, I'm sorry, but yeah it's true.  He is better than you are.  You are a grown-up adult woman in your thirties and you still work in a store?  What in the world makes you think you are on the same level as that guy?  So basically you are saying that the guy planned ahead for his future throughout the course of his life.  He went to college and hopefully majored in something useful.  He managed to secure a very prestigious job as a college professor.  The TV show had this guy character as having been married previously and having a kid.  Oh well, divorces happen.  At least he and ex-wife were married when they conceived the kid.

.....And the lady has the same job that any pimply pubescent (hehe, Sabrina the Teenage Witch) high school kid has.  This demonstrates that she has very poor planning skills, very poor decision making capabilities.  She was not responsible enough to plan practical-wise for her future.  She did not bother to make sure she would be least a little higher up the social stratification by now than some adolescent's first foray into the job market that his mom probably had to help him get.  ....I don't remember if the lady character was married or not, or had a kid out of wedlock or not.

So she wasn't good enough for him.  Fine with me.  Look, you do not have any sort of 'right' to date anybody.  Noone is obligated to date you, especially not out of some weird misguided notion of forced 'equality' among the populace.  And by the way, if the guy is so stuck-up and horrible, why do you want to date him at all?  Go find a nice customer service associate such as yourself, for yourself.

On a similar note, I am not understanding why so many women are saying they do <not> want a man that is successful and good at his job.  I feel like I see this everywhere.  On TV shows;  in women's magazines, tons of them, there are articles galore that preach to women that they should not go for a guy who has clear goals in life, who had clear and substantial plans for his job goals, what he wants to pursue in his educational and career goals.

Here is the way I see it.  I respect myself enough to establish clear goals in life.  Hopes and dreams, endeavors that are clearly delineated in my choice of my educational and career path.  And I think, or at least I hope, that I deserve a guy who is on equal footing with me.

Education and a good job are not superficial things.  These things do distinguish people.  If one is an accomplished person, then he/she has a reasonable expectation that they may pursue another who is also accomplished.  That is not shallow; that is desiring an equal.  You on the other hand are an overweight, bad hygiene, pot-smoking, underemployed slacker who can barely afford his rent every month.  As much as nutjob liberals would like to have people convinced that education and employability are unimportant, it's time you faced reality.

On The Subject Of Student Loans- And A Realistic Solution

 About student loans and kids complaining that they racked up tens of thousands of dollars of student loans.  And now they can’t afford to pay back those loans.  What's really bad is when it is for an essentially useless major, such as communications, philosophy, marketing.

Here is what I don't get.  Why in the world would you pursue a useless liberal arts major like that in the first place?  Why would you actively seek student loans for something like that and make yourself horribly indebted?  Why would you create a bad entry on your credit history -- which will do nothing but increase your debt to the federal government?

Why would you screw up your credit history like that?  Reasons not to are Twofold:  1) it is a lot of money in debt for something that is frankly useless, and 2) you are never going to be able to pay that off.  You know why?  Because of reason number one -- it is a liberal arts degree.  It is not teaching you any marketable skills.  It is not increasing your employability.

Because... the economy.  The economy is always blamed as the scapegoat for the students' inability to pay back their student loans.  The news talking heads claim that in this economy it's just so haarddd to find a job.  So the recent college graduates have to accept jobs as grocery store cashiers and restaurant waiters and stuff.

The economy....  uh, no it really is not.  The economy has nothing to do with it.  What is causing your lack of being able to find a job and your lack of being able to pay back your student loans is-- your lack of employability.

They are not going to college to learn anything.  They are just going to drink and party and screw around.  So... you spent ten thousand dollars per year... to go on spring break.  To get drunk and party, to get pregnancy scares, to get date rpddd, to have an affair with the professor for a course you are failing.

Here is what I think is the best solution -- if you are going to be a liberal arts major.  You know what really would have prevented you from racking up student loan debt out the wazoo?

The best *preventative solution* is to take the first two years of college courses at a local community college.  General education courses are all introductory courses, those at the 100-level and 200-level.  They are pretty standard across the board from one college to another.

I see that an awful lot of middle-class white kids screech in stuck-up conceited disapproval at this proposal.  They think they are way too good for community college.  I have even seen in some articles that these kids are worried a community college will not offer the same level of intellectual rigor as that of a regular college.

The curriculum at one of these two-year colleges is every bit as good as that of a major university.  I know this for a fact because college courses at the one hundred and two hundred levels are transferable to most standard four-year colleges.  The community college courses have been evaluated for their course competencies.  The curriculum, syllabus, topics, and lesson plans have all been compared to those of four-year universities.  They have determined the standard equivalency exchange rate for general education courses.  This means they retain and maintain the same standards of general education as four-year colleges.

So, academic demand, rigor, standards.  Check.

Also, didn't we already establish that you do not know what your major is going to be?  Either that or you picked a fluff liberal arts major.  So why are you screeching and lambasting a community college education when you do not even know what you are getting an education for?

This is what kids should do, especially when they no idea what major they will choose.  Let's be honest; an awful lot of college kids do precisely that.

Two-Year Technical Training Programs

I have far greater admiration for someone that, say, completes a two-year technical training program at a vocational college, than I have for someone that graduates with a four-year degree in Psychology and then whines and complains about how they can't find a job.

Nurse, RAD tech, surgical tech, automotive smth, plumbing.

This usually culminates in an associate degree.  That associate degree is worth immensely more than a degree in English Literature ever is.  It is worth more to society, and it is worth more to themselves and their families.

Middle class whites -- they would never deign to humble themselves by working in any of the skilled labor fields.  Auto mechanic, plumber, construction worker.  They think that learning one of the skilled trades is beneath them.

The Related Subjects Of: Happiness Supposedly At Odds With Accomplishments, Pop Culture Books, And Authority Figures

Let us expound a little more on this subject of happiness.  Let us talk about the growing contagion that aggravatingly puts laughably naïve greedy, selfish pursuit of the unique individual and their false "happiness" -- at odds with contributing to society.

There is a children's book called "The Giver" that is basically "1984" for kids.  It is supposed to be another one of those cautionary tales about what happens if we let people that know what the hell they are doing to take too much control over dumbasses' lives.  It talked about a ruling dictatorial government that controls every single aspect of people's lives.  I admit, there were some weird parts; for example like how biological children were not allowed to live with their birth parents.  As a matter of fact, physically-strong, well-balanced women were assigned the role of birth mothers, and then those newborns were taken away by force to be raised by an apparently adoptive couple.  That part I take issue with, sure.

But the thing that struck a chord with me was, other than that weirdness, how exactly the authoritarian government controlled people's lives.  In this book, if citizens displayed an affinity for some type of job duties, they were then steered into that direction to pursue that particular career path.  They were encouraged to study that track of education and training.  And they were discouraged from practicing other career paths that they might not be as good at.  Or they were discouraged from "following their hearts" and pursing some drippy, dragging, useless job that probably is not very useful to society, but which makes the person "happy."

Erm, maybe it's just me, but I do not see a problem with this.  People should pursue careers and life choices that are useful so that they may be productive.  So that they can become positively contributing members of society.  Rather than just doing whatever the hell they want and inevitably becoming leeches to society.

What is this bullcrap notion that if people are encouraged to [[pursue]]] a future job that they would actually be good at, this somehow comes at a compromise to their happiness?  "Oh no I am working in a job I am good at and making excellent leaps and gains; ohhh I'm so unhappy oh woe is me...""  Give me a damn break.

There's that idiotic idea again that a person could not possibly be happy with a job that is useful to society, in which they could probably accumulate a good list of accomplishments because they are good at it.

"How dare you tell this kid to pursue a career for which she displays an affinity!!  How dare you encourage them to get a career that would make them actually useful to society such as scientist, fireman, doctor, teacher!!  How dare you try to precaution this kid to get a job that would allow them to pay their bills and put food on the table!!  How dare you <not> encourage this kid to pursue their 'passions' such as being a starving artist or puppeteer or musician!!"

Let us take a gander at the source material and see if it is any better.  That "1984" book is often worshipped as an anthem for so-called "free-thinking" types that claim themselves to be against the "establishment" and think "outside the box."  Bluh.

Have any of the people that worship at the altar of George Orwell actually read the book and stopped to truly analyze how incredibly stupid it is?  Especialmente when taking into consideration all the numerous permutations of rebel nonsense.  We see pop culture drivel on a daily basis where self-proclaimed rebels screw up their lives by having horrible life management, because they rebelled against their parents' advice, their parents being the "evil overlord establishment.  Anyway.

This sniveling little wimp is apparently supposed to be the rebel hero of the book who tries to overthrow The evil overlord empire.  He is supposed to be the "normal guy" that the reader is supposed to identify with and relate to.  You know, how a lot of authors use this as a convenient literary device-- they stick in a character that has no personality nor purpose in the story, and they are present only to advance the author's "radical," "trailblazing" political opinions or whatever.  They usually exist in these books that try to rebel against some evil government.

Let us take a closer look at this character.  He is a sick ahole that fantasizes about raping and murdering a woman who has sworn some sort of celibacy.  He is generally useless, has a useless life, has a useless job.  He was probably put into that job because he had displayed some affinity for it, and therefore because he does a job he is good at, the evil overlord is to blame and this somehow makes this excuse-for-a-human's rppee fantasies okay.

This is the person that is supposed to be a hero???  This is supposed to be the spokesperson for average hard-working people???  This is no replacement for a genuine leader that is supposed to guide and usher the common people to the dawning of a new era.  This pathetic sop, that for no apparent reason is a sick misogynist, is a sad sorry excuse.  Screw this.  I'd rather rule over him as the overlord.

More On The Lack Of Interesting Women Characters, J. K. Rowling Addition

I even must voice my disappointment w J. K. Rowling.

Harry Potter is a completely fictional, mythological, and very complex universe. These are my honest concerns.  We need to address the fact that her created "wizarding" world remains stiflingly backwards and not particularly progressive.

The creative license, all the methodology n planning in building this universe— all of it was J. K. Rowling's conscious decision-making.  Yet she falls disappointingly shirt on several counts. She could have made it a lot more well-balanced n egalitarian.

For one thing, why the constant insistence on monikering ir the "wizarding" world rather than the-what-seems-like-it-should-be-far-more-appropriate "witching world." This has far more profound implications than one might realize at cursory glance.  All throughout human history, documented across different societies, cultures and time eras, women have demonstrated a propensity for being able to manipulate the natural world for the benefit of people.

And yet, still the governmental and institutional leaders created by J.K. Rowling are all male.  She stills stays it as stiflingly, oppressively traditional.  This is not a good thing.

Medicine women have discovered the propensity for specific plants to heal and nurture sick people.  Women have cultivated and gathered crops for the express purpose of keeping people fed.  Unfortunately, ignorant bigots existed in those same societies that were too stupid and too drowned in their own stupidity to acknowledge the vital contributions that women made to society.  These women have been vilified, demonized, murdered for the crime of having special skills and deftness in helping their fellow humans.

Witness how massively, wildly popular, not to mention critically acclaimed, the Harry Potter book series is. J. K. Rowling has been given a golden opportunity to use her fame and influence to change the tide of human consciousness.  She could make it to something far better than it has been.

I've heard several critiques sating that J. K. Rowling has ushered in a new era of a return to reading the written word, ink printed on tree. Perhaps this is so. I've always been a voracious reader my entire life, so I would not know anything about that.  But if it is true, then good on her.

J. K. Rowling had a real chance to shed some much-needed positive light, and portray magically-adept women in a positive light.  She could have them take on roles, volunteered, and wear the mantle of much more prominent roles of authority and power in the magical world.  J. K. Rowling had a chance to portray a world much closer to golden standards of morals and human status in relation to each other, that we humans should be striving to reach.

The magical world is supposed to be an analogy for exceptionally talented, gifted, intelligent people.  But now we discover that the "wizarding world" as she calls it, is not much more progressive than the ordinary human world.

She could have more assertively embraced the chance to alight the hearts and minds of the generation of children and young adults devouring her books.

The most interesting, complex, morally gray character is a male.  His loyalties and motivations are very fluid, one cannot necessarily determine what his motivations are in any given moment.

Look, it’s good that they have some intelligent, able, steadfast, noble, and true characters that are women.  I definitely am a fan of Minerva McGonagall and Hermione Granger.

But unfortunately there is a whole entire ministry of magic governing board, a whole entire history of that society, and a whole entire universe that is comprised almost exclusively of males.  There were several chances wherein J. K. Rowling should have written in a number of female characters.

Look at the revered historical figures who are mentioned in magical history class and/or (don’t laugh; this is a real thing) commemorated on chocolate frogs packaging.   Look at how shockingly few women there are in the hallowed ranks of worthy annals of the witching world history.  And look at the flippant not-even-disrespect with which the characters regard them.