Should men read Harlequin romances and watch Hallmark movies

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You completely miss the historical context in my post (do you do this deliberately?). What was "more" acceptable in another era is no longer acceptable now. And if you read my post, when women dressed conservatively and spoke in a certain manner it was completely understood by the man she was not available (either from a different class, she was already taken or she was very religious). Wearing spectacles actually had nothing to do with being ugly, it meant she was somebody who reads which means she is from a well to do family, probably religious and not prone to attention from scoundrels (like my grandad) who were (at least in Australia) no different to other men of his time. Yes I'm sure your grandma was different but her example does not mean you can frame the 1920s, 1960s or even the 1980s by the current cultural climate.
On that subject you said:
How do you know what “every village girl” dreamed of? It’s a generality that’s certainly not true. Women weren’t all the same then just like they aren’t now.

I would pose the question how would you know what village girls/women thought in the medieval era? Social norms and cultural norms were much more homogenous at the time. And the celebrities of the time were not from Hollywood or the entertainment industry. Celebrities were aristocracy/royalty. So of course the village girls looked to how the rich lived and why would it be far fetched to dream of being a princess when literature of the time was full of such stories?

Last edited by cyberdora on 14 Mar 2025, 8:37 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Also didn't you say you came from a mormon family? then obviously you grandparents are going to be atypical from everyone else from their generation.

I didn’t mention either of my grandfathers although, if you’re interested, both were abusers which is why my grandmothers bonded with each other. One of my grandfathers was a pedophile.

My grandmothers became JWs when they were a bit older.

Stop making generalizations about women. You don’t know how all women thought or felt in the 60s (no matter what clothes they chose to wear - my grandmother was not a conservative dresser) or in the Middle Ages. Women aren’t all the same and never were.

Last edited by TwilightPrincess on 14 Mar 2025, 8:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Wait? aren't you making generalisations about women in eras when you weren't even born or have first hand knowledge?

I'm sorry to hear this, but it demonstrates my point, your grandparents weren't typical of the cultural/social norm of the time.

Saying that women aren’t and weren’t all the same should be common knowledge. It is not a generalization. Claiming that women/demographics of women are the same (e.g. their dreams are the same) in any epoch would be a generalization. It’s true that I wasn’t alive during certain eras, but I took various gender study classes in college, including one on women’s history, so it’s not like this is a topic I haven’t researched and studied. Actually, they weren’t that atypical. Domestic violence was very common in the 50s and 60s. Even if their experience wasn’t typical doesn’t mean that it doesn’t matter and doesn’t point to the fact that women weren’t a homogeneous group.

Big difference - I gave first hand accounts about my grandfather, my parents and myself. We were fairly typical of people at the time and our collective lived experience overrides your opinions about what these eras were like.

You can say what those anecdotal accounts were like for your family in your region, but it doesn’t mean that other experiences didn’t occur and weren’t, perhaps, common.

It’s prudent to avoid generalizing language, especially when it pertains to groups of people.

I did qualify that at the very least this was how it was in the Australian context. Australian culture was largely British so probably so probably applied in the UK as well. Bottom line this was "acceptable" and not cancellable at the time.

It may have been deemed acceptable but that doesn’t mean all women liked or were comfortable with it in any region.

Well obviously but that would be like saying segregation was acceptable but that didn't mean all African Americans liked or were comfortable with it.

I’m just saying that it’s a good idea to avoid implying that all women in an area, era, age bracket, etc. felt or thought such and such or claiming that “every village girl” dreamed of whatever because likely many girls and women did not think or feel the same. Using qualifiers can be helpful. I know that’s been mentioned before in threads, but I think it’s still a good idea.

I'm thinking probably more like a culture where women aren't encouraged to express any sort of interest in such relationships. I remember visiting a part of China where historically the way that interest was signaled was by stepping on people's feet. And in other contexts there are cultures wehre you have to say no a lot in order for it to be viewed as sincere.

And yes, if it's a place where they're distributing or broadcasting these particular materials, asking once or perhaps twice is sufficient.

Sure, some cultures are different.

I don’t think women wanting nos to be taken seriously is so much about not being encouraged to pursue such relationships or the content of certain materials, which I didn’t have access to when I was young, but, rather, about wanting to be treated as an equal.

From a logical standpoint, I think it makes sense why when a woman says no she’d prefer men to know that she means it until she says otherwise. The same could be said when it comes to just about anything else a person might say they want or feel. I did not grow up in a culture that respected women, but I still wanted to be treated with enough respect for people to assume that I knew my own mind, what I did or didn’t want, and that I meant what I said as a rational and autonomous human being. Apparently, that was unrealistic.

At any rate, it’s uncomfortable and awkward enough to reject a man once or twice, especially given the fact that some don’t take it well. Been there, experienced that. Even when that’s not the case, having to reject the same dude multiple times is awkward and starts to feel like harassment, especially when you factor in previous experiences involving other unwanted, entitled behaviors like street harassment (e.g. catcalling) or worse which are not at all uncommon according to the research.

Assuming that a woman means what she says and that her word is final unless she states otherwise should make it a bit easier for men because it removes some of the guesswork - the reading between the lines, difficulty with reading signals, and whatever else that goes along with this stuff.

Last edited by TwilightPrincess on 15 Mar 2025, 5:36 am, edited 1 time in total.

throughout most of China's history most women had their feet bound from childhood in a painful process that ended making their feet into literal stubs making it painful to walk. I guess the no wasn't an option if you were a girl.