[maybelsyrup]

There's a book about male domestic violence perpetrators which you really ought to read. It's called "Why Does He Do That?". Author is Bancroft. The vast majority of men in the US are not abusers. But he describes a degree of entitlement to women -- their bodies and minds -- that, in my decades of clinical experience with families and couples, applies to most men in our culture. It's a little parable:

> Once upon a time, there was a boy who grew up with a happy dream. He was told when he was very young—as soon as he was old enough to understand anything, really—that a beautiful piece of land out on the edge of town was in trust for him. When he was grown up, it would be his very own and was sure to bring him great contentment. His family and other relatives often described the land to him in terms that made it sound like a fairy world, paradise on earth. They did not tell him precisely when it would be his but implied that it would be when he was around age sixteen or twenty.

> In his mid-teens, the boy began to visit the property and take walks on it, dreaming of owning it. Two or three years later, he felt the time had come to take it on. However, by then he had noticed some disturbing things: From time to time, he would observe people hiking or picnicking on his acres, and when he told them not to come there without his permission, they refused to leave and insisted that the land was public! When he questioned his relatives about this, they reassured him that there was no claim to the land but his.

> In his late adolescence and early twenties, he became increasingly frustrated about the failure of the townspeople to respect his ownership. He first tried to manage the problem through compromise. He set aside a small section of the property as a public picnic area and even spent his own money to put up some tables. On the remainder of the land he put up “No Trespassing” signs and expected people to stay off. But, to his amazement, town residents showed no signs of gratitude for his concession; instead they continued to help themselves to the enjoyment of the full area. The boy finally could tolerate the intrusions on his birthright no longer.

> He began screaming and swearing at people who trespassed and in this way succeeded in driving many of them away. The few who were not cowed by him became targets of his physical assaults. And when even his aggression did not completely clear the area, he bought a gun and began firing at people just to frighten them, not actually to shoot them. The townspeople came to the conclusion that the young man was insane.

> One particularly courageous local resident decided to spend a day searching through the town real estate records and was able to establish what a number of people had suspected all along: The property was indeed public. The claim made by the boy’s family on his behalf was the product of legend and misconception, without any basis in the documentary record. When the boy was confronted with this evidence, his ire only grew.

> He was convinced that the townspeople had conspired to alter the records and that they were out to deprive him of his most cherished dream. For several years after, his behavior remained erratic; at times it seemed that he had accepted having been misled during his childhood, but then he would erupt again in efforts to regain control of the land through lawsuits, creating booby traps on the land to injure visitors and employing any other strategy he could think of. His relatives encouraged him to maintain his belligerence, telling him, “Don’t let them take away what is yours.”

> Years went by before he was able to accept the fact that his dream would never be realized and that he would have to learn to share the land. Over that period he went through a painful, though ultimately freeing, process of gradually accepting how badly misled he had been and how destructive his behavior had been as a result.

I'm praying for you, internet friend!

[redhed]

I understand the majority of the story, and through some personal experience really feel for women who have a controlling and abusive man. I find the story a bit strange though. It begins describing how boys inherit the idea of some beautiful woman that they are owed instead of it being something that requires constant work and effort. I agree/understand this part. But then it describes him trying to limit public access, how he has no document showing ownership, etc and this is where I get lost. To me that is what marriage is, giving up freedom for a partnership. To turn my husband self into a park, I feel like it is completely understandable my wife wants some space that is "public" and other that is "private". The key is healthy boundaries, ones set by compromise and understanding through honest communication. That's what separates healthy and abusive relationships, not the boundaries in the first place.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the story and if I am let me know, I just feel like it describes the ideal situation as one's partner entirety is open to the "public", and where setting boundaries itself is abusive, which I feel like is not really how most people feel nor what they want in a relationship.

[maybelsyrup]

Thanks for your comment!

I'm not the author, of course, so I can't say for certain that I have the most correct reading of it. But, if I'm reading your interpretation right, here's what I'd say:

The story analogizing women to land -- which has no voice, no agency, no mind -- is the critical part. If one is consensually "limiting public access" with another sentient human being, that's wonderful -- because you'd be doing that in dialogue, in true partnership, on the same footing, etc. "Hey, we're in a marriage now, that means we agree to not sleep with other people. Deal? Deal." I think the author (and certainly I) would heartily endorse that sort of "wanting some space that is public and some that is private".

The key word in your comment, to me, was "healthy" -- as in "healthy boundaries," and honest communication etc. You're right, it's not boundaries as such that describes abuse or even the entitlement on which abuse rests. It's the kind of boundaries.

What Bancroft is saying in the parable is that, if men see women as pieces of land -- private land, at that -- that they have a god-given right to, then anything healthy between men and women is by definition impossible. That's why, in the parable, the boy's compromises and concessions are in fact no such thing: because they're still founded on inhuman premises.

There are aspects of the parable here that the book goes into a lot more detail on -- male jealousy, in particular -- that overlap a lot with what you and me are talking about. I urge you to read it! The boy limiting public access on these entitled premises is what a lot of men will do, on either side of the "abuse" line: losing their shit when their attractive girlfriend, who they chose in part because of her attractiveness, goes out in public looking attractive, and he sees other people (other men) looking at her. Maybe next time he tells her "you're not wearing that outfit", thus "limiting public access" but not in the healthy sense that you mean it, because she's not treated as sentient, she's not part of a conversation. She's just coerced. (This is excused or minimized as "culture" or "values" by many!)

But again, if I'm reading you right, I think the part where you got lost is just that. Ironically, it's probably because you have a pretty healthy view of relationships that just how fucked up the boy in the story is confused you!

(If I haven't read you right, let me know.)

[jvandreae]

IME, women are overwhelmingly more entitled (in a general sense) than men, sorry.

Sure, women having to deal with a few "entitled" "predators" sucks and we should do something about that but the vast majority of men have no such entitlement - although obviously this is different in the context of a marriage.

There have always been certain rights granted to and duties expected from men and women. Leftism and feminism have weakened the expectations placed on women (and to a lesser extent men) and now the scales are unbalanced.

[hofrogs]

Thank you for posting this. This parable does sadly ring true.

[dh2022]

Huh? How does your tirade have anything to do with lower birth rates?

[maybelsyrup]

Here’s how:

1. American men feel entitled to women, as from birth they’re told that they are.

2. Women know this, and (rightly!) hate it, and thus some of them pull away from relationships with men — or with entitled men. Unlike before, women can now survive (and even thrive) outside of a relationship with a man, especially an entitled one.

3. As a result, there are fewer babies.

OP’s point was that men ought to look at themselves in the mirror when they’re clutching their pearls about lower birth rates. I agreed, and proposed that the specific mechanism for men being shitty partners to have a kid with in so many cases is male entitlement: guys don’t believe they need to put in the work to be good partners and instead simply deserve a woman to bear their children. (Men are, by far, the more emotional / hysterical sex.)