I Will Never Be A Well Behaved Woman - Thoughts on this poem?

[MzAsh]

https://youtu.be/Zft4QNaNMSo

This is a short film of spoken poetry. What do you think?

[RationalMale]

Women's misbehavior can only go as far as men's proper behavior will support it.

These women want to brag about their failure to "behave" yet you can see the years of pain and suffering their poor life choices have brought them. Look at them, at their dead eyes. These are the women who end up in massive debt, trying to drink away their sorrows.

Look at them. Do any of these women actually look like they have joy or happiness?

0:42 look at the downcast look in her face. It well accompanies the huge sleeve and the nose ring. She tries to smile, but it looks miserable.
0:57 she literally looks like someone who ends up in the ER because she overdosed on drugs.
1:02 she has the look on her face of a girl who cuts because she felt rejected by a cool guy
1:12 she would rather eat alone than with married women because it crushes her to think about how long it's been since a guy actually cared about her.
1:23 she probably does smell like smoke, and her alcoholism is pretty plainly decimating her face. Any happiness and beauty she had is long gone.

[MzAsh]

Are you finished, Dr. Phil?

[RationalMale]

The video is quite a lesson in and of itself. Women who ascribe to that are either basically children, or old enough that the burn out and the misery shows on them. Akin to a fat greasy biker talking about how he'd rather eat everything in sight than be healthy.

[MzAsh]

Yeah no

[AlexanderBrunnrgaard]

Soo, just an ode to complaining about traditional gender roles? I don't get it. What's wrong with picking bridesmaid dresses? Lot's of women love doing that. And one aspect does not exclude the other, as if you can't, "bathe in bio-luminescent light", and at the same time be happily married?

Just a strange video to me. No, this is toxic. Encouraging women to despise normative society without actual reason and create conflict where there really is none. Pretending that there's some invisible force, (let me guess, patriarchy) who holds women down and tells them they can't do with their lives what they will.
And being well behaved isn't something bad. Men and women alike should have decorum. It lands very wrong to phrase it that way!

[MzAsh]

I don’t think it’s as encouraging as it is just expressive of one type of way of being. I hear no complaining, just a personal story.

[AlexanderBrunnrgaard]

"Stocks are for people who get boners from money!"
How is insulting people's profession a, "personal story"?

[MzAsh]

It’s called an opinion.

[AlexanderBrunnrgaard]

And what does it have to do with, "well behaved women"?

[MzAsh]

Well behaved women aren’t supposed to have unpopular opinions.

[AlexanderBrunnrgaard]

Unpopular opinions are unpopular whether you're male or female. It's not some exclusive female burden. And there's having an opinion, and then there's just being randomly rude. I see no reason for that woman to just blurt out that stockholders are moneyhumpers.

And being well behaved is still not in conflict with doing what you want. They're talking as if it's good to be belligerent, rude and uncouth.

[MzAsh]

I think you’re taking it out of context. It’s just saying that they don’t want to conform to the traditional expectations of society.

[AlexanderBrunnrgaard]

Maybe so. But I happen to like traditional society. And I still don't like the overall attitude in the video. It's aggressive, hostile without cause.

[supercutebutt]

I would rather take a penis in my butt than in my sniz.

[greekgirl00]

That’s Boring Being well behaved.

[MzAsh]

Indeed.

[greekgirl00]

Plus well believed women don’t make history.

[RolandCuthbert]

I tried to watch the video. But I just ended up not really caring enough to listen. Because I am not a woman. I can't relate to anything they are saying. I have never had to assert my "personhood". I have never had to feel like i needed to explain to someone my self-autonomy. I am not like the vast majority of men at GaG. The definition of my masculinity does not depend upon what women do, what rights women have or do not have. It not defined by some supposed inherited right or privileges because of me having a penis.

My masculinity is defined by what I do, by the stability, support, and security I give to to friends, family and loved ones. It is defined by my ability to provide the space for my loved ones to be creative and to fully be themselves. It is defined by how I treat others and by how I protect what is important to me and mine.

So I can't complain or whine about it. Nor can I really support it. Because again, I am not you. I have never had your issues.

I can only say do you. If you have an issue or if you have defined what you see to be an obstacle to your progress, then organize, fight, and do whatever you need to do to remove it from your path.

Because I know what I would do if I felt similarly.

[MzAsh]

Love this! Thank you!

[abananabag]

That was a sweet poem. It's like a modern take on Jenny Joseph's poem "Warning" which starts out, "When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple". youtu. be/8cACbzanitg

It is good when people are able to defy society to become their better, truer self.

I see some people in the comments didn't get that the message is not binary: it is not saying *every* woman must now hate choosing bridesmaid dresses, or even that there's something wrong with doing so. It was saying that that individual woman wants to have the *choice* to not get married, to not have children, to not sit in church. Our society pressures women to be "well behaved" and the poet is stating some of the ways she will refuse.

Personally, I prefer some other poems for defiance against the system. For example, Maya Angelou's "Still I Rise". There are a lot of good readings of it, but here is one of my favorites: youtu. be/7WZxb7lrhx4 . It was filmed at MIT by Indian dancers to raga music. Their description: "This is an allegory of the daily subjugations that women face in society when they try to break their traditional roles." As you may know, women in Indian society have even more pressure to be "well behaved" than in America. Women there face physical abuse and even death if they break the role they are given.

[JoseJr]

All im able to take from this is they dont want to be the society standard. But to remind people are social norms are the unwritten behavior that are considered acceptable in a group or society. They are common which is why they are a standard. You dont have to be a standard. You can be whatever you want and do whatever you want. We have laws and society's standards, laws have to be followed because they are common standards which we agree are needed. Society standards are what we would say is what most people do

[Anonymous]

I agree. And I'll never be a well- behaved man. Society's insistence that I be married to be complete or honest doesn't affect me. My emotions, positive or negative, will never rule me. I will not give without expecting something in return. I won't be useful to people who are no use to me. I won't be criticized and then ignored when I have something to say.

[abananabag]

You may think you are being rebellious by saying things like your emotions won't rule you, you'll see others in terms of profit without empathy, and you will insist on never being ignored. However, those are some of the exact messages our society tells men they *should* do to be masculine. If you want to actually rebel and not be a "well-behaved man", then you should be fighting against the societal pressures which deny us men our emotions ("boys don't cry!"), tell us to be aggressive not empathetic, and put us in zero-sum dominance games where we must scrape our way up by pushing others down. That system we men must fight is called "toxic masculinity". It is our equivalent to what the women in this poem are standing up against.

[Opinion Owner]

@abananabag I don't care about what society wants. I have my own expectations of myself. It's not rebelliousness, it's a rejection of social pressures. And not letting emotions rule you isn't the same as not having them. I won't be manipulated by love, hate, fear, envy, etc... that doesn't mean I don't feel them, it just means I temper them with reason.

I also don't reject ideas solely because they're popular or expected. That's just another form of not being in control.

[abananabag]

You're right, of course, that being a knee-jerk reactionary and just rejecting everything would be as bad as accepting the role given to you by society. If those stereotypically masculine traits you listed fit you, then you go ahead and try doing you.

However, I would suggest considering that you may not end up very happy; a man who uses other people, shows no empathy, suppresses his emotions, and demands to be heard when he feels criticized is not going to make many friends. In fact, it will drive people away. Is that the path you want in your life?

[Opinion Owner]

@abananabag your reasoning is skewed here. I didn't say I would use people, I said I won't be used. I didn't say I can't handle criticism, I said if you criticize me and expect me to accept it, you better be willing to accept criticism in return. I didn't say I don't have empathy, I said I won't be manipulated by it.

I do want to drive away people who are only in my life to take advantage of me. Someone who's willing to give as much as I do is welcome to stay.

[GuidoThePizzaMaker]

This is so cringey to me lol
Its the rebellious child "Look at me mom! I am being bad!"
its all just desperate attempts to feel unique and garner attention.
Women have been propagandized to be in a eternal state of rebellion, i am not surprised

[ronaldo75]

Misbehaved men have a pretty good lock on things. Be bad all you want. It's not doing much. Global corporatism is eating the world alive despite of all this non-stop "women who won't be silenced" bullshit.

[MzAsh]

In what ways are you referring to?

[ronaldo75]

Referring to what?

[MzAsh]

How are men in global corporate eating the world alive?

[ronaldo75]

That's a serious question? Women in the west now just have big mouths and bigger egos but feminism is doing NOTHING to help women areas where they are truly being oppressed. The western governments are becoming more tyrannical than ever. Corporations are taking control of these governments without ANY pushback from the left, let alone feminists. All these videos are nothing but words. Women's rights are actually receding back to the 1970s, ironically with a HUGE push from conservative women. It actually couldn't have been done without conservative women as women make up the largest voting block in the USA while having a voice weakened by the fact that SJWs have their heads up their ass, feminism is now some sort of cartoon and women,. especially white women are going republican in DROVES. We're actually going into one of the ugliest phases of male-dominated corporate power the world has seen in probably 70 years. The left today is incredible short sided. Humanity is fucked. 3rd wave feminism failed women bigtime.

[MzAsh]

How conservative are women who are voting anyway? There are no true conservative women left. Only feminists wearing masks.

[MzAsh]

Most women who claim to be anti feminists still enjoy the benefits feminism and leftism has afforded them.

Even the Christian Church is going feminist. magazine.biola.edu/.../

dalrock.wordpress.com/.../

[ronaldo75]

Look up the origin of a lot of these abortion bans in the US. Some are written by women and the Alabama governor who signed the state ban was a woman. Trump had 64% of the white female vote in 2016. He's expected to do about the same this time.

[ronaldo75]

The Christian Church in the US has had huge amounts of women in admin positions for years. This is nothing new. They're making noise now to keep up with the times but that accomplishes nothing. There are a LOT of conservative women out there now and most of them are supporting Trump and the conservative party because the left has lost it's mind. Look up the Bradley effect. 2016 saw that in a MAJOR way.

[MzAsh]

Trump won because he’s a good salesman to the common idiot. And the fact that Obama was so far left that we went and overcorrected and knocked the pendulum clear to the other side. When these foolish pseudo “conservative” women wake up and realize that their needs aren’t going to be served, they’ll reconsider their position just like I did.

[MzAsh]

I replied also to this in the other comment you left.

[abananabag]

Women are *not* going Republican in droves. Did you even look at the results of the last election? There are record numbers of women interested in politics, voting, running for office, and even a "tidal wave" of women now serving in Congress. Sadly, all of them are Democrats. The Republican side actually lost women in Congress.

I don't care if you're Democrat or Republican, but Congress should represent the people. There are more women than men in America, but only 23.7% of congress is female. Both parties need to do better, but it's crazy to say things like "women are going Republican in droves". There are 127 women in Congress, but only 19 of them are Republican.

[MzAsh]

^^^ Completely after abananabag

[MzAsh]

I mean agree

[ronaldo75]

@abananabag Look up the Bradley effect. If you're so smitten by all the women who were voted into congress during the midterms you're seriously disconnected from reality.

[ronaldo75]

He's using female presence as a sign of female support. That's where the logic is flawed and it's the type of shortsidedness that's killing the left. Women DONT ONLY VOTE FOR WOMEN. So all those women that just made it to congress were voted in by both men and women. Same for republicans - just because there are less women on the red team doesn't mean the men that won weren't voted in by women. Banana is like the mouthbreathers that said "black people put Obama in the white house" when there aren't enough black people in the US to vote anyone into office and black turnout in 2008, whlie high, wasn't so astronomical that blacks put Obama in the white house without overwhelming support by whites.

[abananabag]

@ronaldo75, Yes, you'd be correct that, while my numbers were strongly suggestive, one cannot conclusively deduce who voted for those women by only by the data I mentioned. However, your argument was weakened when you did not give any evidence to the contrary. Your use of ad hominem attacks also did not help your position.

I'm betting you didn't give any contradictory data because there is none. The "droves of women" you mentioned overwhelmingly disapprove of Trump. Read: apnews. com/480eea7061f44afaa72f652f515c14d3

What's more, as you could have guessed, there are studies that show that women are more likely to be active in politics (e. g., voting) when they are represented by women. www. jstor. org/stable/pdf/10.1017/s0022381614000589. pdf

And, for the coup de grace, there is the exit polling which shows that, yes, the democrats won because they had 59% of women (the highest margin ever!) voting for them:
www. washingtonpost. com/politics/2018/11/07/why-did-democrats-win-house-one-word-women/

[grewast]

Cringey and narcissistic as fuck. Who the FUCK cares? If you don't care what others think, why this pathetic need for recognition? If you're gonna do you thing, do your thing, you self absorbed attention whore. ME, ME, ME, ME, ME, ME, ME!!!

[MzAsh]

You obviously care a lot.

[grewast]

Not about what they have to say. About how much that makes my blood boil, yes.

[grewast]

Sorry if I hurt YOUR feelings though, I just really dislike this clip. Didn't mean to insult you by proxy... sorry

[MzAsh]

I’m not insulted. I just think it’s strange that you’re so offended by a poem.

[grewast]

Not offended, and it's not the contents of the poem...
It's that its existence contradicts its message. It's a call for social acceptance for socially unacceptable behavior. It doesn't make sense.
If its message is sincere, the poem doesn't have a reason to exist.

More importantly, I mistook you for the user SexyAshh, and felt the need to boycott whatever the post was. I don't like her.

[grewast]

I realized my mistake to late. And maybe I shouldn't be so petty.

[grewast]

*too

[MzAsh]

Socially unacceptable behavior is often pretty subjective. I believe some of it needs to be challenged.

[grewast]

Well if it IS challenged, it becomes socially more acceptable in the process.

[MzAsh]

Yeah that’s the point.

[Anonymous]

MzAsh, having read more than enough of your posts here at GAG to get a good sense of what you are about, it's pretty clear you are a very damaged woman. I genuinely feel sorry for you.

[MzAsh]

What does this topic have to do with me?

[Opinion Owner]

To what topic are you referring?

[MzAsh]

The video, poem. Why do you think this would be a good opportunity to take personal stabs at me?

[Opinion Owner]

It's as good an opportunity as any, wouldn't you say?

[MzAsh]

For an anonymous coward, maybe. What makes you think I’m damaged?

[Opinion Owner]

What makes you think you're damaged? Pretty much everything you write here. Only a very insecure human writes the kind of stuff you do here on a daily basis.

[MzAsh]

Like what kind of stuff?

[Opinion Owner]

The kind of stuff you do here on a daily basis.

[MzAsh]

I remember you. You went after about a month or so ago in another one of my old threads. Get a new hobby.

[Opinion Owner]

Wasn't me. I have not talked with you before.

[MzAsh]

Riiight.

[Opinion Owner]

Sorry to burst your bubble.

I hope you feel better.

[MzAsh]

I don’t need to feel better. I have everything I need and want in life.

[Opinion Owner]

No one who is mentally stable and emotionally healthy feels the need to say some of the things you do. That's just a fact of human psychology.

[MzAsh]

Like you know lol

[DWD94]

Women have a right to embrace a life of hedonism. They shouldn't complain though when no man wants them.

[MannMitAntworten]

I have no opinion in either direction. women, as with men, should live as they wish. Zero argument can be had. Go do it.

[name_is_eric]

Very gay. Those women are completely lost in life.
Then women wonder why they're not respected, grow up

[MzAsh]

I respect them. I don’t think they’re lost. Maybe they don’t live the way you do but I don’t think that means they are lost.

[name_is_eric]

If they think they don't have to be well-behaved just because they're women, they are in fact lost.
Being a respectable person and taking responsibility isn't a gender issue, it's just being a decent human being. Women shouldn't get a pass on that.

[MzAsh]

Who says they’re not responsible or respectable? I think you’re not considering what context being well behaved means for this piece.

[GreenGold1992]

We get it, do what makes you happy, go girl power, bla bla bla, whatever

Don't see what any of that has to do with being "well-behaved"

[esotericstory]

Sounds like a bunch of women who have a lot of maturing to do.

[MzAsh]

How so?

[esotericstory]

In the video they make a negative comment about the stock market, I dont know how this is related to behaving well.

[ronaldo75]

Dude these videos are made by people who have no clue what to say or what's happening in the world. It's just yet another "girls are warriors" fluff peace to spread on the internet. It's partly all the crap that women buy that drives retail and keeps wall street going. 70% of American Retail is spent on products purchased be women and men spend up to 35% of their income on products that ultimately end up in female hands. But they talk shit about wall street. Stop buying shit and you'll see wall street collapse overnight.

[MzAsh]

I’ll agree that part of the left has lost its mind. You won’t catch me calling all men trash since I learned how to get a good one. You won’t find me going on twitter and hash tagging #metoo because Id come undone onto the fool who decided to rape or assault me. I’d have to keep a low profile after what I’d do to them. You’re not going to find me saying Trump “isn’t my president” because every turd has his day to be flush out of the way. He’ll be gone soon enough.

There are idiot extremists on the right and left. The bans on abortion are one example. I mean what kind of piece of shit says women who are raped shouldn’t have a choice of abortion? And not only that, but to punish them and even put them to death. Only batshit holy rollers trying to appease “God” that who’s.

That’s even pissing off conservative prolifers such as Ashley StClair who spoke out against it publicly.

[DDpsy]

I support women's hedonism if it's not even on one cent of my money.

[Jackblue]

I understand most of the stuff but these women are proud to say they don't want degrees, seriously?

[JohnAlaska43]

I liked hearing it in diffrent languages.

[MzAsh]

I love that too.

[loveslongnails]

It really didn't move me one way or the other.

[Anonymous]

Seems pretty dumb.