Apathy is teh sexy. Can't be bothered doing much of anything, not even watching GN! On Friday, for the few hours I ventured outside, I took the lappy with me and sequestered myself in a dusty old room with a bowl of Smiths crisps and a plate of pilfered franks.

Good times.

I seriously need to consider reading my posts before I publish them; I just skimmed through the anti feminism one and... wow. Lazy me. Reading through the forums, and recalling all the scare tactic newspaper articles about boys doing poorly in school, unskilled and semi skilled positions being outsourced to third world nations, the rise of women's power in the workforce, etc, etc; all subjects I'd dismissed (well, not the outsourching) as an attempt to shock the reader into forming some sort of misguided viewpoint. Maybe it's not bull. Anecdotally, I see my friends doing very well in their uni courses, a lot of the time better than their male colleagues. I see others climbing the career ladder, particularly in traditionall male dominated industries. I also see my cousins, male, rap music fans, mid 20s with no skills, more time on the dole than off, who hate everything around them, with a particular vitriol reserved for the "sluts" who refuse their advances. I see the women on that side of the family doing better than their male counterparts.

This would have made an awesome topic (men sucking, true, false, media beatup?) for an essay I had due in a class I had zero interest in. Damnit.

Once again, I've got to ask why the lower class women aren't angrily denouncing men for screwing up their lives. In this lotso fun, new skill, every man for himself economy, only the best and brightest seem to be allowed to succeed. I'd say an equal number of women are fucking up their lives as men, yet men are incredibly vocal about it. Is it a status thing? I do realise that for men, it's still an admirable goal to be perceived as well off, and attractive to beautiful women. Not that it isn't for women, but from what I can see, the idiot women are able to rationalise and write letters to the mags when things don't go their way; their entire being isn't wrapped up in an outward facard of material status.

I think it might be bedtime for me. And this probably doesn't make any more sense (although I doubt I have readers besides Harry), but it's certainly a good way for me to record interesting things I've come across.

Women are Bitches

No TT goodness lately; just too busy to schedule my 6:30 viewing. What I have been doing, however, in the wee hours of the morning when I just can't be arsed viewing, is surfing midnlessly for an hour in between 3 or 4 hours of reading. Yes, I need to be more organised and organise my notes properly but neener neener neener, I won't!

I came across this site and was struck by the overall bitterness of its content and even moreso by the tone of the forums. Several threads were running regarding a man's education and income and its relation to his ability to date American women, dubbed "american whores" by these geniuses. Most of the men admitted to having lower incomes than were desired by the women they considered worth dating, and weren't too keen on the idea of a degree, either. The only people who mock degrees are either engineering/business types who enjoy ragging on arts students (ahem, Harry) or the uneducated. Of course, there's also the bitter student with mountains of debt who begins to doubt his course, but that just seems to come with the territory; a degree seems to be mandatory for any job worth having these days, unless you're self made millionaire material or interested in a trade.

My grasp of evolutionary psychology is tenuous, at best, especially as I think it's a load of bull, but the bloke in the sunnies, you know who I mean (and if you don't, you're probably smart enough to have passed the subject over altogether), went on for ages in one of his books about a mate's worth, and marrying up, and all sorts of kind of semi interesting theories that weren't particularly well supported by evidence and poorly written, to boot. Sure, an uneducated, low income man might think he's worth the slim, beautiful, woman simply because they exist on similar socioeconomic levels, but the number of slim, beautiful women in the west is dropping thanks to an ever rising obesity rate. If they can marry up, to a man with prestige and wealth, why would they consider (by anyone's definition) a loser? Aim low, oh jaded single men, and ye shall reep dividends.

They're all particularly keen on foreign marriage too; apparently it's the best way to find yourself young, slim, beautiful, submissive woman with dreams of homemaking and hours of hot sex. And these women, are they dreaming of rich husbands with beautiful homes and good jobs? Must be a rude shock to get home to Bumfuck, USA and realise that your wonderful, cradle robbing husband is really just a manufacturing worker with a modest apartment, nothing in savings (well, not after the trip to purchase his bride) and quite a chip on his shoulder thanks to years of rejection from women who exist far out of his league.

I've seen a few articles about this phenomenon over the years, with men who aren't worth particularly much materially being rejected by women who have the luxury of opting out of the marriage race altogether if they can't find someone to their liking. I realise that women cop a lot of flack over their decision, but I do believe that they have "choice" on their side; not having to prove their self worth with a high income, beautiful mate and expensive positions is another bonus. The man who runs the site, and the men who post on his forum probably aren't worth enough to appeal to politicians, but what happens in the future, as more and more jobs go overseas and women continue to tell themselves that they're worth more than some loser with nothing material or intellectual to offer? For some reason, men like this always seem to be against dating the sort of women they can attract: the losers, the chip shop regulars, the single mothers in low income housing, the women whose highest aspiration would be hairdresser, or perhaps shop assistant.

We've heard loads about the professional women who find that all the eligible men either marry early, to those they consider their equals, or eschew their equals altogether for the pretty girl. Hey, more power to them! Pretty girls need love too. Popular culture glorifies the single, well off thirtysomething with her 'all men are bastards philosophy' and it always has time for the pretty girl who marries up. It also seems to be down with the devoted husband and family man or the well off rake who sets his sights on the pretty girl. But losers? Tough luck, pals.

So, why aren't we seeing an army of angry, dissatisfied, lower class women who've been rejected by these men? Bring on the bogan bitches and their Websites of hatred! I firmly believe in equality (and more amusing reads for me).

Abortion

Interesting abortion story. Such a strange world we live in when an obviously mentally ill woman is turned into a political football rather than receiving the care needed to turn her into a functioning member of society. It's always struck me as rather perverse the attention given to potential lives when children who already exist die from treatable diseases in the third world and go hungry in our backyard. Following on from the RU-486 controversy, I wonder how long it will be until the anti choice brigade become such a vocal force here?

I must say, today I feel very, very zen.

Battlers!

Two nights in a row of TT bliss!

Last night the show ran a story about a group of abattoir workers whose workplace had closed down due to a big, bad evil boss who was living in luxury while they struggled along on the sniff of an oily rag.

I think I've figured out TT's approach to business: all bosses are evil bastards and big corporations are the spawn of satan, unless an overseas firm pokes their head in, in which case Australian businesses, no matter how reprehensible their practices are, become "battlers". Sensible isn't it?

TT took a group of the workers up to Palm Beach (I think that's where it was; I haven't been there in six years, but the landscape looked familiar) to see how their evil former boss lived. They were real ockers, about as Australian as a person can be, short of darkening their skin and hunting kangaroo. They took these poor fellows to see the posh houses, sit in a Mercedes convertible (conveniently unlocked and unalarmed; you'd almost think that TT had brought that Merc up themselves...), eat at a nice restaurant, and filmed them the entire way through. Lots of comments made about a lifestyle they (and 99% of the rest of the country) couldn't afford, which I suppose was the point of the whole thing. I can't help but think that a financial inducement was offered to the men to do this story, because the whole thing was incredibly demeaning. And, given their unemployment, I'm sure most of the men felt that they'd be fools to pass up the gig. The whole thing felt exploitative, as though it were "battler porn" for the rest of Australia to look at in order to feed our collective battler fetish.

Seriously, low, low, low.