Funny enough, this popped up on Wintery Knight’s Stop telling women that God will give them husbands later if they delay marriage now too.

Re-farmer comments:

I see what you’re saying. I really do. But, as others have pointed out, there are… gaps in your argument, shall we say.

One of the things you keep stressing is that women should be marriage minded when they are young and fertile (fair enough), but also while they are “prettier.” So… what about the ugly women? Or the not-conventionally attractive women? I guess they don’t count? 😉

And then I think of the experiences of my own daughters, both of whom are in their early 20’s now. Neither has been asked out on an actual date in their entire lives. One of them hasn’t had a male show interest in her since she was 13 (the guy thought she was his own age; 19). AT work, she was frequently mistaken for a male. How, I’m not sure, considering her generous… assets, shall we say… but there it is. The other worked as a cashier and would get hit on by customers all the time. She was 19-21 at the time. They were 50+ yr old contractors. A co-worker got hit on by much older customers so often, she started wearing an engagement ring, hoping it would dissuade them. It didn’t. And she looks a good 5 years younger than my daughter, which puts it in the creepy as heck category.

I realize you are posting from a guy’s point of view, but there is an entire world young women are living in that you know nothing about. Not saying there aren’t women as you describe, but perhaps there is more to the issue then you are seeing.

I respond:

It’s very rare for women to get mistaken as a man. There’s usually several reasons involved in this:

1. She is wearing androgynous clothing like jeans and t-shirts instead of feminine oriented clothing like skirts and dresses
2. Her hair is cut short
3. She has masculine facial features
4. She has masculine mannerisms or speech
5. She doesn’t wear feminine accessories like earrings
6. Tasteful feminine makeup

All these are changeable, except masculine facial features.

You need to encourage her to dress and be more feminine.

She responds:

Or people just assume that an employee in a hardware store is male, even when most of the employees are female. Every time it happened, it was always a male customer, and they always apologized immediately. She was never offended and just laughed it off.

Why should I encourage her to dress more “feminine”? She dresses appropriately for the need. We’re getting back to blaming women for men’s responses to them.

I respond:

Paragraph 1: Hard to do with feminine clothing, long hair, female accessories, etc.

Paragraph 2: This is hilarious, honestly.

You’re the one complaining that your daughters are recognized like men, not me. You’re the one complaining that your daughters haven’t been asked out on dates, not me.

Perhaps you try something different if the same old same old isn’t working, instead of complaining that we’re now blaming women for men’s responses.

Her response:

Actually, no. I wasn’t complaining. I simply made a comment. You’re the one who is making all sorts of assumptions with absolutely zero information about my daughters, instead of addressing the actual point of my comment. Did you even catch what that was?

My girls are adults now – did you miss the part where I mentioned they are in their 20s? They are not 2 yr olds that need me to tell them how to dress. They do just fine, regardless of what conclusions you have drawn about them out of your own imagination.

There’s really no need to deign the last comment with a response, so I stopped.

In the old days, parents actually gave you useful dating advice. Now they actively sabotage your chances for relationships by giving you bad advice and doubling down on it when they’re called out.

Also, the old ‘victim blaming’ complex, lack of common sense, and combative attitude has made it into rural areas now too it seems.