Vitaliy Rulov and I both spoke on the subject of how to capture a man's heart yesterday. The speeches went over well with the audience. Speech evaluations were a different story. Vitaliy has a running battle – friendly but barbed – against some of the women in the club. His speech was savaged while mine was quite well received. You be the judge. Here is the text of his speech, and here is mine on Rumble. Note that Vitaliy's speech is draft only, not polished for publication. It was smoother in the oral presentation.
My theme was that a woman has to act like a lady to attract a man. Throughout the meeting five-year-old Zoriana was not acting much like a lady. She was climbing all over me like a monkey. It distracted me from the meeting, which I can tolerate. More significant, it is a behavior that will be increasingly unbecoming as she gets older. In English we call it clingy.
There is a suite of behaviors that go together: being clingy, being reluctant to enter into conversation, and being demanding. I think they are associated with shyness, a heritable personality trait. It is not something to be condemned, simply overcome. It is a parent's job to help a child overcome it.
Self-confidence, which certainly involves not being clingy, is a trait that is attractive to a man seeking a mate. I am old-fashioned enough, as you will gather from my video, to consider preparing children for marriage as one of the major tasks in preparing them for adult life.
I have made two resolutions. First, I will tell her more strongly that not climbing all over me is a condition for accompanying me to the Toastmasters meetings. If she can't control herself, I will simply leave her home. Telling her, getting her to agree, and getting her to do it are three different things, but we can start in that direction.
The second resolution is to ask her to dress like a lady. Wear a skirt instead of jeans and a T-shirt. She has attractive skirts and dresses. In addition to looking ladylike, a dress will inhibit some of this simian behavior. Modesty demands that you move like a lady when you're wearing one.
I am a book guy. In my speech I recommend the 1995 book "The Rules" about how to go about winning the love of a husband. I was disappointed in looking online for a book on how parents should teach manners to children. There are no titles at all under the word "comportment." That term seems to have gone out of usage with Mary Jane shoes and pinafores. Most books I saw on raising a daughter were aimed at creating potential chief executive officers, with a focus on self-actualization. A couple, written for Christian parents, caution you against being too prudish.
If any of you readers can recommend a book on how to prepare girls for marriage and motherhood as well as self-fulfillment, I would like to hear about it. It appears to me that in the balance between a girl's obligations to herself and society, we have forgotten the latter. My strong bet is that young women who understand what marriage is about and are confident in the company of men will be in great demand 20 years from now.
Yesterday Eddie, Zoriana and I bicycled across the river to our Toastmasters meeting. Biking is a sphere in which I can observe her maturation on a daily basis. She is better about wearing her helmet, keeping to the right, and maintaining an awareness of the traffic around her. She makes pretty good speed with an 18 inch bicycle without gears. She will be ready for the serious bicycle and a couple of years.
I was pleased that one of you readers forwarded yesterday's cross-posted a piece by Lawrence Freedman entitled slicing the salami. It is the best explanation I have seen of how Russia and communism have historically nibbled away at other societies and institutions. It echoes the history described in Why Ukraine must Win about how world communism managed to shape the United Nations and multinational organizations such as the World Health Organization. Though I can't put my hands on the pieces, other writers such as Robert Malone and Matt Taibbi have also written on this theme. Here is el gato malo. Though communism and the world economic forum are two different beasts, the approach is the same.
That's the news from Lake WeBeGone, where the strong man is experiencing a flare-up of the gastritis that bothered him last Fall. Nothing serious, but no Sunday outing today. Alas.
In a way, the feminist movement was hijacked by corporations, perhaps seeking that cheaper labor. I doubt the choice between being a businesswoman or mother is pleasant so some degree of rationalization has been necessary. In the process we have drifted toward feminisation of society itself where emotion often replaces objectivity and risk-taking.
I found https://helendale.substack.com/p/feminisation-has-consequences-iii and earlier articles quite of interest. I suspect there are occupations where the lack of testosterone can bring major benefit - stock brokers might be one along with human factors engineering, risk management as well and likely many others. Not sure CEO is one, nor head of state are all that well served. Depends of organizational goals I suppose. Apparently feminisation requires forcing females into male roles. While role stereotyping implies generalization, some females do defy them. Not sure whether that relates to nurture or the wide gene diversity.
You might also find this interesting. Before Big Pharma, there was Big Food. This book explores the rise of the food industry and the impact that had on middle class women's lives and American culture.
https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/something-from-the-oven-reinventing-dinner-in-1950s-america_laura-shapiro/323761/#idiq=6444454&edition=2244469