FW30 & 31: The Second Requirement Tells Us WHY Financially Successful Women Often Fail at Marriage + Stepping into SLOW LIVING
We will be discussing Pamphlet 4 Chapter 7 “The Quality That Inspires Love” of the Original 1922 Fascinating Womanhood Pamphlets. In the first video I read the pamphlet and interject my own information, and then in the next video (FW31) “Slow Living” I go into more depth, and the transcript of that is below.
Yesterday we discussed the essentials of personal magnetism (healthy physical condition, healthy and wholesome thinking, and proper pride and respect). In addition, “for a woman to be completely and absorbingly fascinating to a man, she must emphasize the differences between herself and him, not the similarities.”
Many women try to attract men with their competence in their field, not understanding that it actually repels most men. They hate competing with you. Men are also turned off by women’s dowdy business attire. If you try to jazz it up like in the magazines, though, you will be perceived as incompetent, getting ahead by your looks.
There have been several famous women who possess great personal magnetism and are admired by men and women, but who can never change men’s admiration into love. “The average man would never think of indulging in an intimate tete-tete with her…. …such able women, healthy physically and mentally, proud and self-respecting, whom the men admire greatly but by whom they do not seem to be fascinated.”
The reason for this is evident if you have been listening to the videos up to this point. These women do not have the first and second requirements of fascination. The first requirement has to do with the angelic side of a woman, one who is noble and adorable, morally better than him in his eyes (she has a higher idealization of what is good and right when compared to his “that’s life” philosophy), and the second requirement is the human side of a woman, that compels a man to want to gather her up in his arms to cherish and protect her forever.
This second requirement has to do with helplessness. EEK! I know women everywhere are shrieking thinking back to times where women lounge on couches and can’t lift a finger. Thankfully, that is not what we are talking about.
Instead, women who display the need for a man to help her through life invoke feelings of chivalry in men. She is looked upon as much too precious to live life without his guidance and protection from the big bad world.
If she can do it all competently herself, then why does she need a man? This is the feminist’s ultimate goal. Men are completely unnecessary, except to breed. (Watch a Barbie movie compilation and you get the picture.)
Many women can successfully pass the first requirement, but they fail dismally with the second, because they perceive any type of help from a man as failure.
Do you see a toddler as a failure who cannot button her shirt or eat without making a mess? Is she a failure when she strives to do something new and topples over?
“Don’t you dare make that analogy with me, Janine. I am not a toddler! I am a competent woman!”
Of course you are. The analogy is not that you need to act like a toddler, but that men do not see women as failures when women ask for a man’s help in anything (unless they feel they are being played).
“To attract a worthy man in a worthy manner,” you must fulfill both angelic and human requirements.
The majority of financially successful women today simply cannot invoke the feeling of satisfaction that a man gets when he cherishes and shelters a woman who needs his manly care (or who at least appears to need it), because her self-reliance proves that she can obviously do very well without him. She has no real need for him. The way she then chooses to talk with him further proves this point.
A man gets no joy or satisfaction from providing for a woman who does not need it. Thus, instead of showing his love by working to provide for her, he lets her earn the income while he spends more time playing.
Masculine men want feminine women. When women take on masculine characteristics they become less attractive to men. The culture, therefore, with a plethora of masculine women, is producing feminized men. The Barbie movie, from the clips I’ve seen, seems to epitomize this feminist dream.
Masculine men need a woman to have that second requirement. When women begin married life needing their husband, but then do really well in business and become a success, marriages often break down because she has unintentionally lost much of her femininity that gave him the drive to provide for her. She doesn’t need him to provide, and so his eye begins roving for a woman who will appreciate him for providing. (This does not make it right, and if he is married then he is forsaking his vows.)
I have witnessed this time and time again. And I have also experienced it in my first marriage. If you can truly grasp what I am saying, and it will probably take repeating many times from people other than myself and these pamphlets before you do grasp it if you are a financially successful woman who is poo-poohing this, then you will begin to see in the people that surround you, and the people in church, and the people on tv, and the people on YT – everyone – that this is true. Because once you see it, you cannot unsee it.
Successful career women rob men of their sense of manliness. When women begin out-earning men in a marriage, many men “give up.” Their intimate life will decrease and be unfulfilling for them both. She will begin talking to him differently, with superiority. She gets bossy and controlling. She wants things done her way. Then, because the job is so demanding, she gets stressed. She’s anxious. Then she’s depressed. She’s torn between family and making money. She neglects the home and her spouse because the children, she feels, need her more, and why won’t he just grow up? Why is he always around bothering her while she’s trying to work? Doesn’t he see how stressed she is? Why can’t he just do it himself?
Because that isn’t how men are wired. He wants to be front and center in her life. He wants her help at home, and he also wants to be the provider. That is how many men think. When his wife isn’t available for him he says that life is too short to be ignored by his wife, he’s sick of the constant bickering, and he will find a woman who wants to be at home and live on what he can provide. So he goes looking.
Then, the WIFE will divorce him. If he won’t be faithful, then she doesn’t have to stay married to him. All spouses deserve monogamy through thick and thin, for richer and for poorer.
But ladies I want you to understand that it is the wife who sets the tone of the home, and the world teaches her to tear down her own home by her actions and her words, and her work. Men react to the home life women create.
Men are seeking women who possess that second requirement. Women with a “meek” (gentle) and quiet spirit who delight in living off of what he can provide, who delight in the home, and most importantly, who delight in him.
The flip side for him though, is that in many cases he can no longer find a woman like that in America, so he goes off the continent to find a wife who will be content at home. It reminds me of an old I Dream of Jeannie episode where Jeannie learns from women’s magazines how an American woman is supposed to behave, and instead of being her own adorable self, she becomes intolerable. Unlike the romantic movies of today that are written by women for women and feature “strong, successful, independent career women,” the tv shows and movies of yesterday were written by men, and reveal how men think.
Years ago every single Christmas movie featured a worn-out working mom who gets to see how much better life would be if she only stayed at home with the children. Or, like in The Christmas Clause with Lea Thompson, she’s a harried SAHM who wishes she was a successful lawyer and gets her wish, only to regret her choice. Or how the main character in The Family Man regrets his choice of not having a wife and children and desperately wants what could have been.
If you really want to be a nurse, or a teacher, or whatever, wait until after your children are grown. You’ll be a lot more competent with real-world experience. To do the career first means you may never have children! And you certainly won’t be able to enjoy them as much as an at-home mother can.
“But what if I don’t find a man right away in my 20’s?” “What if my spouse then dies and I cannot support myself?” These are the two questions I get asked the most. To the first one, if you live FW you will have no problem finding Mr. Right. To the second one, chances are high that he won’t die. If he does and you have children under 18 then you will receive social security survivor’s benefits if you live in America and he had a job. Don’t be afraid of that “what if.” When you are in step with the world, you are out of step with God. Rely on Him. He is your true provider.
“I want to be a role model for my children. I want to show them what is possible.” I read this all the time in magazines. Actresses, especially after their divorces, love to say that line as they abandon their children to nannies and daycares. It’s pure selfishness though. Your children do not want you to work. They don’t want you to be a working mom role-model.
I’ll never forget a tv special in the 1980s where women went into the classrooms to tell the children that now their moms would be carrying briefcases and working like their daddies. They would not be home after school (a few sobs were heard). The children were told that this was to be celebrated! And that they could help their moms by: cleaning the house, cooking dinner for their poor tired mom, doing their homework at the kitchen table while their mom did the paperwork she brought home from the office, and never complaining. There would only be play time and parks and board games on the weekends from now on. I remember thinking that I was so glad my mom didn’t treat us that way. She worked for awhile, but was always home before we got home from school and was home during our summer vacations, because she loved being home with us. She enjoyed our summer vacations and made them fun at home. We weren’t rushed here and there. One year my parents even made a beach for us in the backyard! My mom was good at what she did, so she called the shots on her work schedule. If they didn’t want her on limited hours, fine. But those were her parameters and she stuck to them.
The culture tells you to be a confident, capable career woman. But men really prefer a confident, capable homemaker who is a smiling, joyful, fun-loving, radiant doll of girl on whom they can lavish their affections. She is happy with herself and happy with him. She chooses to be happy. She learns how to be happy.
If you are at home and not happy, that is on you. You need to find out what makes you happy at home. The world is at your fingertips. I don’t see how any woman can say she is bored at home. Being at home is not about constantly cleaning. Not at all. A full life is lived at home, and you are the creator of that home life.
If you are married and feel you must work, try reducing your hours. You cannot do it all. And, women, you set the tone for your home. If home is not your focus, then chances are higher that your home life will fail, and no career will ever make up for that failure.
If you are considering divorce, I beg you to listen to LauraDoyle.org. Listen to her podcasts, read her books, sign up for her life-coaching service, if only for one month! Marriage counseling never works. Laura’s methods DO.
Also, ladies, GET OFF THE PILL. Sydney Watson just came out with a very balanced video (below) on the subject. I know what she talks about is true because I’ve experienced it, too. The Pill messes with your body and mind. If you are on the Pill, you will be attracted to more “boyish” men because the Pill decreases your estrogen. If you aren’t on the Pill, you will seek out and admire a more masculine man with higher testosterone because your estrogen levels will be higher. This means that once you are married your intimate life will be IN BALANCE with each other (as long as you stay off the Pill). If you are married and on the Pill, he wants you, but you don’t want him. The next thing you know, you are roommates, and so he goes looking for someone else.
When you get off the Pill you will notice that your body had been numbed! I remember this feeling so well – I was astonished. I thought I was the only one, but now women talk about this openly. I could feel cramps again (boo) but I also was sharper in mind, and better able to sense what was going on around me. I also became more interested in feminine ways, began to prefer the color pink which I had previously avoided, I wanted to stay home and not work, and I went from admiring men with boyish features to bigger, more masculine “Marlboro” men. I remember being surprised with myself, and wondering if it was because I was off the Pill. And YES, indeed, it was.
My feelings were also more sensitive and I cried more. But this is okay! It is good for men to see real tears when they are being big brutes with their barbs.
When your boyfriend or husband gives you constructive criticism you won’t cry. But then when he ends his talk with an insult (!) you simply tell him, “I appreciate what you were telling me, but now that you have insulted me, I am going to go cry.” No name calling or “but YOU!”s, just call him a big meanie and go have your cry. He WILL apologize and learn to treat you better. But he will never be perfect. And neither will you.
Let go of your illusions and accept him as he is. If you are not married and you can’t accept your boyfriend as he is, then let him go.
How’s life with you? “Crazy.” “Chaotic.” “I can’t relax.” This is what I hear from working women today.
Step off the treadmill with the scurrying women who want more, faster, and better. Step into slow living, which will entail incorporating this second requirement. Focus on your home life. Get more sleep. Raise your kids like it was 1976.
Recently my son took an online quiz to guess his age. It asked him questions like what tv shows he watched as a child, what his first video game was, and what toys he played with. The game guessed that he was 45 years old (he’s 17) because I raised him “the old-fashioned way” – slowly – with plenty of play time, reading time, field trips, park days, and wholesome entertainment. I raised him how I was raised in the 1970s and 80s. He was not over-scheduled.
One little girl would always thank me every time she came over, absolutely delighted with our toys. One time she said, “Oh, thank you for inviting me! I’ve always wanted to attend an ‘old-fashioned’ birthday party. It’s right out of a storybook!” We had played pin the tail, bean bag toss, hot potato, and other outdoor games. There was no bounce house and the cake was homemade. And that’s how I began talking about “storybook mothering” on my blog.
Remember ladies that research done in nursing homes says that women’s biggest regrets are 1) not staying home with their children, 2) not having more children, and 3) not being content with what they had. They traded in being at home for working for a house payment.
Can you answer this question? What is your purpose in life?
May God bless you as you learn the balancing act of the second requirement and step into SLOW LIVING.
Janine
Resources I mention in the first video are Catfished on YouTube, LauraDoyle.org, and How to Thrive on On One Income. Suzanne Venker also has help for alpha women with her podcast, etc.
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