There’s no need for women to exclusively fill the role of primary caregiver, however.

I think feminism wants its cake and to eat it too. I also think it is strongly materialistic. So, men are asked to be equal partners, but really they are asked to do all the things men in the past did–buying big engagement rings, earning more, being strong in social situations, paying bills, paying for dinner–with none of the honor that used to be the reward for that sort of thing. Worse, in married life, tired career women even deny sex, which is kind of the one thing you’re only supposed to be able to get from your wife.

We live in a lame age with ladies and gentleman but just uniform “guys.” Tom Wolfe’s Charlotte Simmons captures this perfectly. So do most episodes of Friends.

“Demands, however, for men to be more feminine whlie also castigating them for their failure to perform older masculine roles is indeed a grotesquerie of the worst kind and leads to mutual resentment.” – I am poised to completely agree, but to which roles do you refer?

Am I a flawed woman because analytic philosophy and my intellectual development as a philosopher and writer are vastly more important to me than childbearing? I find your “either spinster or mother” dichotomy a bit disturbing.

No, demands for decency in the household are not “self-absorption.” Demands, however, for men to be more feminine whlie also castigating them for their failure to perform older masculine roles is indeed a grotesquerie of the worst kind and leads to mutual resentment.

Men figure out what it takes to get in women’s pants. In the past it meant a good job, a home, and a ring. Today it means some charm, a nice dinner and a bottle of wine, and a good smile. 45 year old mothers meanwhile find their men abandoning them in pursuit of youth. This is normal enough: men value youth and beauty but in the past were unable to obtain them so easily after paring off. Chastity is a collective action thing; if enough women jump ship the whole enterprise breaks down.

However, a few observations:

1. A woman’s purpose is not childbearing, however
2. You are correct in that if not a blending, then at least a borrowing of societal traits is encouraged.
3. While I agree that female personalities are undergoing ugly shifts,
4. I hardly endorse the idea that asking my boyfriend to clean up his own fucking empty soda cans is indicative of “entitlement” or “self-absorption”.
5. No-one is entitled to anything not endorsed by an official piece of paper.

Boys who show energy and initiative are labeled as sufferers from attention deficit disorder and quickly put on Ritalin. Worse, older masculine ideals are put down as archaic, oppressive, “sexist,” and barbaric. This has led to a degradation of both sexes. Men are increasingly predatory or useless, fathering kids they quickly abandon, leaving their older wives with children, and retreating from responsibility with a cynical demand for equal treatment. If they are less anti-social, they are wimpy, insecure, and superfluous figures. Women, in the name of equal rights, find themselves barren and unattractive after investing their prime years in a career that does not live up to billing in terms of fulfillment. Even if they manage to settle down, masculine virtues like emotional self control and bearing are in short supply among their mates.

The power of women is in their purity and feminity. But both are being destroyed by our culture of entitlement, self-absorption, and androgyny.