A wife as a partner

George Tsiokos∞ sent me the following via email, and I want to keep it here, just in case Slashdot disappears.

Slashdot comment
Okay, there is a little stuff in there I'm uncomfortable about, but let me talk about what I agree with:

If you're looking for a wife, get out of the US. Our angry, second-wave-feminist, crybaby boomer mothers raised our generation for men to hate themselves and women to hate men. For no good reason. Find me a man who says "women should stay home, barefoot and pregnant!" or "women make great secretaries, but that's about it." No. One. Thinks. That. But we all have to grovel and supplicate to prove we're not one of those sexist straw men our mothers made up.

As a result, American, and most Western, women have become, in my opinion, untenable as life partners. I want equality in my marriage. By that I mean social equality. I don't want to be the bad guy. I just want to be someone's husband. Partner.

Why do American guys flip over Asian women? Just as the parent says, it's because it's the first time most guys have ever had a woman treat him kindly. On the other hand, why do Asian women often flip for Western guys? Because for them, it's often the first time a guy has treated them kindly. This is why you see so many successful married couples with Western guy and Asian woman. The cultures' gender roles, in the current generation, are complementary.

BUT...

And this is where the parent has kind of fallen down...

Don't expect it to stay like that forever. It won't. It can't. It shouldn't.

East Asian households are basically run by the women. They expect to control the finances. However, in my experience (my wonderful wife is Japanese), and that of my friends, they're pretty damned good at it. It bothered me at first, but then I had to admit we were living very comfortably, I had plenty of money for toys, and we were saving over a third of our income! So I let that go. YMMV.

In the West, we've been programmed to think that a housewife or stay-at-home-mom is a slave. She's not. My wife doesn't work, and even though we could get more money otherwise, and it would of course be fine if she wanted to, it's awesome. I now see why that's been the dominant model in every society since the beginning of time. I work outside of the house, she makes sure the house is operating correctly. We get to spend a lot more leisure time together that way. We don't have to spend our weekends cleaning the house and doing laundry. We eat healthy, home-cooked food that bonds us socially. She's not a slave, she's my best friend and partner. I gladly work my ass off to make sure she's comfortable, and she gladly works her ass off to make sure I am. That, my friends, is a partnership. Just because I'm the one making the money doesn't mean I'm in a higher position. I'm in an equal position. We're taking the entire job of life and splitting it up and assigning roles.

For the record, if she could make more than me, I'd be delighted to stay at home and do the housework.

I guess what I'm saying is this:

1. If you are looking for a nice woman who wants a partnership, that's still in vogue in Asia.
2. As the parent said, don't be a dick. Learn the language and culture. This will ensure that you're not getting into something you don't understand.
3. Your preconceived notions are probably not complete. Asian women are strong and strong-willed. They expect to be given control of certain domains in your life, and you may need to go along with that, or work out a different deal, for your relationship to proceed harmoniously. Just because they don't treat men like crap doesn't mean they are Madame Butterfly. If that's what you want, um, well, you deserve to be unhappy and alone.
4. Realize that in a culture where women are nice to men, that niceness may or may not actually be indicative of anything special. I got really burned with my first girlfriend (only have had 2) in Japan. I fell head-over-heels for her, wanted to marry her, but found out that she wasn't that into me and just kinda liked the adventure of slumming it with a foreigner. Also, I was kind of an idiot, kind of assuming she was a frail little Asian girl who needed to be freed by my oh-so-enlightened Western ways. Encouraging her to work, to her, was saying "I don't like you enough to work for you." She didn't want to work. She wanted to be a mom. My crybabyboomer upbringing wouldn't let me get my head around that. She left me, and I was heartbroken. Now that I know a lot more about Japan, I kind of laugh at how dumb I was. She was sweet to me, yes, but she didn't love me, and wasn't in the market for an American husband. Don't let your head get too big. Asian women are nice to everybody. It doesn't mean they like you. They very well might like you, so don't assume they don't, either. Just be careful with your heart.

To the four female Slashdot readers:

If this upsets or offends you, I'm sorry. But in my experience, Western women make awesome coworkers, drinking buddies, friends. But after dating a Japanese girl (even though it went badly!), and watching the marriages of my friends who married American women, it became clear to me that they don't make good life partners. I'm not saying a woman's place is the home or any of that cliched bullshit. I'm not your cliche. I'm not your straw man. I'm just a guy who wanted to be treated nicely and not made to feel like some oppressor. I'm not sorry that I was born with a penis instead of a vagina. I'm a human, just like you, and I just want to be allowed to be me.

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