Men who won’t retire because they worry about having nothing to fill their time also because they won’t be important anymore

An acquaintance who retired a few months ago sighed that he’s not important anymore.

He was a professor at a local college. Published. Respected, I am sure.

Now he is retired.

And in his mind, he no longer matters.

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A VP at a former job worried he would have nothing to do when he retired.

A dear friend in a very high-level, high-status position is worried about filling his time when he retires and keeps delaying his retirement.

The women I know who are retired? Did it years ago and have not looked back.

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There are at least two things going on here, I think.

The first is the perceived – well probably real – loss of status from other men from leaving a prestigious job.

Maybe it’s because I was not important even when I was working that I am not bothered by not being important now.

It’s not that I didn’t want to be important in my job – it’s that apparently, I was incapable of climbing the corporate ladder. Even looking back now, I don’t see what I could have done differently. Well, except maybe keep my mouth shut. Honesty is not valued in a corporate environment.

(But even with that – I asked my male bosses what I needed to do to be promoted and they either could not or would not tell me.)

(And yet there are women who make it to the top and I was not one of them so clearly this is also very much a me issue.)

(What is the big secret that everyone but me knows about how to get promoted?)

I guess power and status are intoxicating and hard to leave. I wouldn’t know.

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The other thing is the lament of “But what will I ever DO?”

Again, I am wondering if this is a Man Thing, because my women friends have absolutely no trouble filling their time. We are reading. We are registering voters. We are knocking on doors and writing postcards for candidates who will protect our rights and make the lives of our daughters and granddaughters better. We are going for walks with our friends. We are protesting. We are traveling. We are making jam and sourdough bread and trying all those time-consuming recipes we always wanted to try. We are getting rid of junk that is cluttering our lives. We are gardening. We are binge-watching shows we missed. We are having people over for dinner.

How does someone with power reach retirement age without one hobby? Or without any ideas of what to do when he and yes I mean “he” is not at work?

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(For the record, my acquaintance who doesn’t feel important anymore is a wonderful man who is finding very important ways to fill his time – among other things, he is the excellent chief inspector at the polling place where I volunteer, which is absolutely essential for a functioning democracy but just doesn’t get the social validation it deserves.)

Maybe we will finally hear from this long-ignored group

You what we are really missing in this country? You know what is a huge mystery to us all? You know what is completely lacking from the public discourse?

The views and opinions – the needs, the wants – of the white middle-class male.

We don’t know what men want. We muddle along blindly, focusing only on our own needs – can we get that second mammogram when the first one is inconclusive covered as preventive and not as diagnostic? Can we get free tampons in school restrooms? Can we protect our basic rights as women?

We think about all these things while ignoring the chasm of lost men.

And that is why I am so, so delighted that even though there is a highly-qualified woman running for the State Assembly seat being vacated by a woman who has indeed gotten that mammogram coverage passed into law, there are now also two white men – both lawyers – running in the Democratic primary for that seat as well.

I for one am so grateful that at last, we will have this long-underrepresented segment of society represented in our government. I am so happy that not one but two men saw this gap, said to themselves “You know what we really need? We need to have someone who speaks for WHITE MEN!” and have courageously stepped up to serve the community by selflessly dedicating their time and resources to running for and possibly serving in office.

If one of them is elected instead of the woman, perhaps we can finally give the issues that middle-class white male lawyers face the attention they deserve. It’s been a long time coming.

(Can I tell you how pissed off I am that I might have to spend my summer campaigning for the woman when I thought I would get to take off before the primary? I just spent a month knocking on doors for a Supreme Court candidate. I wanted a break. But DAMN.)

It is not our responsibility to keep everyone else happy, AKA Quit blaming your daughter in law for everything talking to you my MIL

Here’s something nonpolitical and evergreen for you.

What the heck is the deal with mothers in law who expect their daughters in law to do all the emotional labor?

Wait wait I know. Because they had to do it and by God they are going to inflict that pain on the next generation.

I saw this letter to Carolyn Hax and my very first thought was, “WTF does the DIL need to ‘reach out?'” (A phrase I hate almost as much as I hate the word “littles” for describing children.)

Why can’t the actual child of these two people be the one in charge of talking to his own damn parents?

Dear Carolyn: I’m close with my ex-husband and his wife. They live in Florida. My ex and I share two children and four grandchildren. All is well.

My younger son’s wife, however, never calls her father-in-law or his wife. Does not share news about the kids. But she is always friendly toward them.

I live in New York and see my younger son’s kids all the time. My ex is upset and has asked me why she does not call.

I was visiting my ex recently, and our granddaughter called me. She does not call them. She is only 8. It was awkward to say the least.

I need to find a way to tell my daughter-in-law she should reach out. I don’t think my son should be in the middle or made to feel badly. How do I handle this?”

Facebook

Mr T’s parents didn’t like me, but I was the one expected to write all the thank-you notes for the crap they sent us that we didn’t want.

I was also expected to attempt to earn their approval. His mom wrote me a letter (which unfortunately I cannot find) in which she told me we should tell each other all the things we didn’t like about each other and noted that she had had to earn the approval of her in-laws, probably because Mr T’s dad had left his first wife for her, but honestly, Mr T’s mom was not the problem in that story, his dad was. No, she should not have become involved with a married man, but he is the one who broke his wedding vows.

Anyhow. Mr T’s mom thought that because she had been treated like crap, it was OK for her to treat me like crap.

Why should the daughter in law be in charge of the relationship?

Why shouldn’t the son be in the middle?

Why doesn’t the grandfather call his grandchildren?

Why are women so damn complicit in their own oppression?

Also may I note since I saw that letter that I have also seen several other letters and articles of the same ilk, so if you want to be crabby about how some women are helping maintain the patriarchy, read on. Here’s a good one: Why Are Women Doing Their Husband’s Job Searching

This woman is respecting her DIL’s desire not to be the scheduler but the son isn’t doing it right and the mom thinks she need to do something but she does not!

How you can defend democracy today and for years to come

I’m in the last weekend before the Wisconsin election for Wisconsin Supreme Court, so this will be short. Here’s what you can do today to help advance democracy:

1. Make GOTV phone calls for Judge Chris Taylor, the liberal candidate I am supporting for Wisconsin Supreme Court. If she wins, we will have a liberal majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court until at least 2030, which will be to the Peoples’ advantage for issues such as gerrymandering, women’s rights, and voting rights.
2. Call your state’s Republican legislators in Washington DC. The Representatives do not need to know if you are not in their district. If they ask for a name and address, make something up. I am often “Susan in Green Bay.” If you call today or tomorrow, you will get voicemail, so you don’t even have to talk to a person. Tell them to release the Epstein files or to stop this illegal war (or whatever you want to tell them). The goal is to get attention to the issues we care about.
3. Who’s running for office in November? Find the candidates you will support. For your local candidate, sign her nominating papers. Circulate her nominating papers. Volunteer for her campaign. It doesn’t have to be just knocking on doors or making phone calls. One of my candidates, the fabulous Robyn Vining, looks for people to also do things like deliver campaign swag or bake for events or sign people in at events. There are plenty of volunteer opportunities that barely involve talking to other people.
4. Join your local League of Women Voters and help register voters. Be strategic about it. The LWV is non-partisan, but I do not participate in events where the attendees are likely not to agree with me politically. Almost all citizens have the right to vote. I focus on the ones who care about democracy for all.

(So we might as well use our power for good and start teaching the jerks)

What is the remedy for a smug white teenage boy who thinks he knows better than I do?

Years ago, I got takeout at this chili place. All I wanted was some Cincinnati chili to eat at home.

At home, where I have my own silverware. Where I am not forced to eat with plastic, an experience I do not enjoy plus I do not like the waste of plastic utensils.

I told the worker, an older white teenage boy, that I did not want utensils.

He put them in the bag anyhow.

I looked at them and said, “I told you I didn’t want utensils.”

He shrugged and told me it was too late to change it.

Then I gave him the cash – a ten dollar bill plus a quarter and three pennies for a charge of $9.28.

He looked at me, keyed something into the cash register, counted out 72 cents from the cash tray, and dropped them in my hand.

I said, “I gave you change so you could give me a dollar bill back. So I wouldn’t have a lot of extra coins.”

He rolled his eyes and closed the cash drawer.

I was so astonished at his rudeness and utter disregard for what I had told him that I didn’t even know what to say.

Today, I would know what to say.

Today, I would give him my middle approaching old age lady glare and say, “Please open the register, take these coins, and give me a dollar bill.”

Today, I would say, as I handed him the plastic utensils, “I told you I did not want these.”

Today, I would say, “Why are you ignoring what I tell you?”

I would not smile.

I would not laugh.

I. Would. Seethe.

Let’s seethe together. Let’s shout together. Let’s make sure we are heard.

(PS Today is the No Kings March. Are you there?)

Oh wait I mean the Hollywood Persistent Suitor Who Deserves A Hot Woman Even Though He Is A Loser Or Is Loser-ish

I just watched this show, A Remarkable Place to Die. The main character, Anais, is a detective. She’s smart and strong and doesn’t take any crap.

Her colleague, a smart, handsome male detective, is interested in her and asks her to dinner.

She says no.

The male pathologist, who is also smart and handsome, is interested in her and asks her to dinner.

She says no.

A male witness in a murder case is a grungy, ungroomed backpacker. He asks her out at the murder scene, the scene where a fellow backpacker has been killed in his sleep, a scene that I guess made Witness think of love?

She says no.

Witness waits for Anais to come out of the police station. He is still grungy and ungroomed. He asks her out.

She laughs and says it would be completely inappropriate for her to go out with someone involved in a case she was investigating.

(Not to mention there is nothing at all appealing about Witness. Nothing. Put him next to Detective and Pathologist and he disappears in his unappealingness.)

He shows up a third time and she says no again.

In the next episode, we see her waking up in the morning. She rolls over – and guess who is next to her in bed?

Not the colleague.

Not the pathologist.

But the gross, obnoxious backpacker.

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That episode – obviously – was written by a man.

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That episode was written by a man for a show made in the Year of Our Lord Twenty Twenty Five.

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This trope is not going away.

This trope is not going away despite #MeToo. Despite everything.

This trope tells men that as long as you harass a woman – a woman you could not otherwise get, BTW – eventually she will succumb and you will get what you want.

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There is a long history of this story. Look at almost every Woody Allen movie: he plays a whiny loser who punches way above his weight. Diane Keaton? Mariel Hemingway?

(Although it turns out that Diane actually did have a relationship with Allen. Gross.)

(Although maybe she felt compelled to date him because he controlled access to what she wanted. Another example of men using sex to control access to power.)

Any other movie where the slacker guy gets the girl anyhow:

• Reality Bites (I wrote about what happens 30 years after she picks the loser)
• Knocked Up
• Something About Mary
• Etc, etc, etc

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This isn’t going to change, is it? Not while men still run everything. Men write and direct the world they live in – the world they want to live in.

From the NY Times last year:

Women Directed Fewer Box Office Hits in 2025, Report Finds

The number of female filmmakers dropped to 8.1 percent this year from 13.4 percent in 2024, according to a study from the University of Southern California.

Even this headline from Variety is not encouraging, as the gain is still not to the level of our portion of the population:

Women Make Historic Gains in Streaming, as 36% of TV Creators Are Female

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I would say we should watch only shows written and produced by women, but sadly, the show A Remarkable Place to Die *is* produced by a woman. She gets the rest of it right – it’s a show about a woman that’s not about men – the men are supporting characters and Anais’ sole purpose in life is not to Find A Man, but damn. Why did she let Anais sleep with the loser? Yes, the episode was written by a man. But it was approved for production by a woman.

I wrote to the production company to complain. I will see if I get a response.

Why you should donate to or volunteer for Judge Chris Taylor, who is running for Wisconsin Supreme Court

Last week, when I was canvassing for Judge Chris Taylor for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, I met Liz, who was raped when she was 19.

Stranger rape. She was, she said, in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I nodded in agreement. Yes, we women have to be so careful, don’t we?

Wait.

No.

There should not be “wrong” places for us.

We should not have to be so careful.

We should be able to exist in this world without worrying that someone will harm us.

He was a rapist. He chose to violate another human being. He has all the culpability.

Holy smoke it takes a lot of work to reframe my thinking.

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She ended up pregnant.

This was before Roe. “It was when you had to go in the back streets to get an abortion,” she said.

Which is what she was forced to do.

Liz lived to tell the tale, as did another woman I know, Jane.

Jane had gotten pregnant when and her boyfriend were in college. He said it was not a good time for them to get married. She flew to Mexico for the abortion, calling her sister once she had arrived to tell her exactly where she was in case she didn’t return and her family needed to find her body.

She got the abortion and lived.

It’s been a while since Jane told me her story, but I think the boyfriend later asked her to marry him and she said nope.

(Yes! I found the post I wrote about Jane two years ago and I remembered correctly.)

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I met Lucy, 76, yesterday when I was canvassing. When I told Lucy that Judge Taylor used to be an attorney for Planned Parenthood (which is one of the reasons I want her on the Wisconsin Supreme Court – her opponent is anti-choice), Lucy didn’t miss a beat.

“I am for abortion,” she said.

Two of her college roommates had needed abortions late in much-wanted pregnancies.

One fetus didn’t have a skull and was aborted at six months.

The other fetus – seven months – had multiple anomalies and was going to die in utero. Her parents named her Abigail and held a funeral.

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This world where women have to fly to Mexico or risk their lives in back alleys? This world where a wanted baby has to die in your uterus for you to get the medical treatment you need?

We are returning to this world and worse.

We can’t depend on the US Supreme Court, but there are state courts doing the right thing.

Send a few bucks to Judge Taylor or phone bank for her so we can continue the fight for women’s rights – for all rights.

PS I changed the names and identifying details of all these women, but the stories themselves are real.

Which, alas, is probably the only thing I have in common with Nora Ephron

Remember Nora Ephron’s essay about how she hated her neck?

I hate my neck, too, but I hate my hands more.

Probably because I see my hands more than I see my neck, but whatever.

I hate my hands.

I hate how dry and wrinkled they are. I hate how thin the skin is. I hate the dark blotches.

I hate my hands.

Yes, they still work just fine.

Yes, I can hold things and carry things and make brownies and bread and wash my face and open doors and I can do all these things without pain.

But I hate them.

They are so ugly.

They look so old.

*I* look so old.

I cover them in vaseline before I go to bed.

Vaseline, it turns out, is not a magic potion that will restore youth to my skin.

I use sunblock on them.

Sunblock allegedly prevents further damage, but does not cure age.

My hands look old.

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I scold myself for being so vain.

When did I become so vain?

I wasn’t vain when I was younger because, I thought, I had nothing to be vain about. My friends always attracted more attention than I did. I had eyes. I knew who was pretty and who was not.

On a date once in college – we had gotten to the underwear-only stage – this guy told me that I would be cute if I lost some weight.

I still am not sure how to take that. Was I cute? Or was I just chubby and hence not cute?

Some additional context for this guy: He had a massive crush on one of my roommates/best friends. People always mixed us up – we were the same height, with the same hair color, and we lived together. Also, our names IRL are very similar: Think Danielle vs Danette.

(But really people are just lazy.)

She did not reciprocate his feelings.

He once offered her all of his money if she would sleep with him.

Over 40 years and I still remember that.

(She did not accept.)

(She laughed in horror.)

(I think he asked me out because he thought I was kind of a substitute for my friend.)

I knew I wasn’t vain and I saw that as a good thing.

I was proud about my lack of vanity.

I was vain about my lack of vanity.

Now I know it’s not that I was morally superior.

It’s that I was clueless, sailing along on the beauty of youth.

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I don’t have a happy ending for this story, an aha! moment where I am grateful just to be alive.

Because my hands do look old.

And my neck does look old.

But I will say that when I saw a friend at my college reunion, a friend who has always been so, so beautiful, and I told her she hasn’t aged, she laughed and said that oh yes she has.

She is still gorgeous.

Are there bushes?

The town of Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, removed the provision for public restrooms in the plans for a new city park.

Some, including Alderman Chaz Schellpeper, simply feel a large restroom structure shouldn’t be so close to the park. “I’m totally opposed to building the restroom on the Green,” he said.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The same council member above also tried to remove a provision to include plumbing from the budget, simply so no later representatives of the people, people including women and children, would be tempted to add restrooms later:

Schellpeper unsuccessfully tried to eliminate the inclusion of laterals, which would be installed underground to allow restrooms to be added back into the project, from the concept plan. He acknowledged his intention was to “hamstring” future aldermen from “making a bad decision” for restrooms near the oval space.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Are you as shocked shocked as I am that a man would not see any need for a public restroom?

Are you shocked shocked that a man would not even consider the needs of anyone who doesn’t have a white penis?

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Last Saturday morning, as we were standing in line waiting for the library to open, an older white woman said: That Mamdani sure can spend money.

(This was not completely out of the blue – another woman and I were talking about how great Mamdani was.)

Me: What do you mean?

Woman: He paid people $50 an hour to shovel snow!

Me: First, he paid them $30 – three zero – not fifty. But even so, so what? He got the streets clear in a day. That’s a big deal.

Woman: Wasting taxpayer money.

Me: But that is the exact purpose of taxpayer money – to make life better for all of us. How much would it have cost for the streets and sidewalks to be covered with snow and people not able to get anywhere?

Woman: It’s a waste of money!

Me: We are at *the library,* which is funded by taxpayer money. The sidewalks and roads you used to get here – taxpayer money. Our public schools – taxpayer money. This is socialism – where we use our money to improve the community.

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Who are these people who think that the purpose of taxpayer money is to be saved? To be hoarded?

They’re OK with the regime spending one billion yes billion with a B dollars a day on an illegal war against Iran, but not with spending a few maybe tens of thousands of dollars to do things that actually serve us? That make our lives better?

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When you plan to attend a public event – a festival, a concert at a city park, a fair – what’s one of the first things you think of?

I can tell you what I think of: Will I be able to pee? Will there be public restooms?

If the answer is no, then I have to do some hard thinking. Maybe I just don’t go. Or, if I go, I stop drinking fluids several hours before the event.

If I had children, I would stop at the “Maybe I just don’t go,” because it is not reasonable to dehydrate children.

I don’t think men ever go through this process.

When the entire world is your toilet, you don’t have to care about anyone else.

PS I did email the reporter for the story and asked him if anyone had asked the council member where women and children were supposed to pee, but I have not heard back from him.

Some people are born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple

It’s always the same thing with these guys, isn’t it? The ones who complain about women being golddiggers or sleeping their way to the top are the very ones who got their money and power through connections – marrying the boss’ daughter, playing tennis with the nephew of the guy who owns the company, inheriting from a slumlord father.

(Or they are just bitter and angry because they have not reached those levels and don’t understand why their white penises have not given them the power they think they rightly deserve.)

Every accusation is a confession.

It’s a story as old as time.

Many Europeans crossed the sea, including large numbers of poor women who came to seek their fortunes. Mothers were frequently disappointed. Since these immigrant women brought no resources, many of the young men who came to the colony to get rich preferred to marry girls of colour, whose dowries included land and slaves they could use profitably. Such preferences began to inspire jealousy in white women.

Source: Julien Raymond, Observations on the Origin and Progression of the White Colonists’ Prejudice against Men of Colour (1791), quoted in Empire’s Crossroads, by Carrie Gibson

(True, women have long had to marry financial security because marriage has long been one of the only ways for women to sleep safely. But despite the way Julien Raymond, an indigo grower on Haiti – who inherited his plantation but who later became an abolitionist, so that’s awesome, Julien! – wait he sold his slaves to become a full-time abolitionist? Couldn’t he have freed them? – phrases it, I would suggest that women were seeking survival, not a fortune, via the only route available to them.)

(Also, although I question the interpretation of women’s sentiment by an 18th century man, abolitionist or not, I must comment on the apparent misplaced jealousy. My sisters in Christ! Other women are not the enemy – the patriarchy is the enemy. )

(Whoa the Julien Raymond/Raimond plot thickens! I found this on wikipedia. Racism has entered the chat! Like – his dad married his mom despite her color because she had money? Julien is sounding more and more like Arthur Schopenhauer, a bitter old German philosopher who thought women were inferior and, as it turns out, was outshone by his mother, who wrote books that sold better than his did.)

He (Julien Raimond) was born a free man of color; the son of a French colonist and a colored mother born to a planter in the isolated Sud province of the colony. His mother, Marie Bagasse, was significantly wealthier and more educated than his father, Pierre Raimond, providing an economic incentive for their interracial marriage. 

(Also, I saw that Julien was an activist for voting rights for free people of color – the author uses the word “people” but I bet she meant “men,” – on the basis that they were taxpayers. As in, if you had money, you should be able to vote. Which I guess was the prevailing philosophy at the time looking at you United States but still, people are awful.)

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Sleeping your way to the top started way before 1791. You probably were taught that Christopher Columbus was a plucky explorer who happened to convince the king and queen of Spain to finance his expedition just because he was so cool.

Ha.

No.

He married the daughter of a man with connections to the Portuguese court – the very court that had kings and princes related to Queen Isabella – and those connections played a part in Isabella’s support.

Many of the crown’s advisors, however, were reluctant to believe this unknown Genoese sailor. Although he had made some important connections in Portugal and had married well, his relative obscurity did not inspire confidence….Still the queen was intrigued. Perhaps it was the promise of wealth, or the crown’s own spirit of adventure, or a simple post-Reconquista confidence. Perhaps, as some historians have argued, Columbus won over the queen for more sentimental reasons – Isabella’s great-grandfather was King John I of Portugal, her grandfather was Prince John, and her great-uncle was Prince Henry. Although Columbus was Genoese, his Portuguese connections did him no harm.

Source: Empire’s Crossroads, by Carrie Gibson

But how could such a humble man marry someone with such connections? Historian Samuel Eliot Morison had theories about it decades ago. The wife was an ancient 25 years old and didn’t have a dowry, which I guess means she was desperate. (Speaking of women needing marriage for survival.)

Discussing the question of how Christopher Columbus, the son of a Genoese wool weaver, could marry the daughter of a Portuguese Knight of Santiago, a member of the household of Prince John, Lord of Reguengos de Monsaraz (Master of Santiago,) and of Prince Henry the Navigator’s household, Samuel Eliot Morison^[4] wrote that this is “no great mystery.” Filipa was “already about 25 years old,” her mother was a widow “with slender means,” and “her mother was glad enough to have no more convent bills to pay, and a son-in-law […] who asked for no dowry.”

Christopher Columbus slept his way to the top

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And this practice has carried on. Wisconsin senator Ron Johnson, of course, is one of the most egregious examples. Bless his sweet heart he’s kind of dumb, but he married the boss’ daughter and then went into business with the boss’ son and then the boss, who happened to be an F500 CEO, threw a ton of business at Johnson’s/son’s company, which definitely violates ethical practices and is probably illegal and I’m surprised the auditors never said anything.

Point is, Johnson would never have amassed the fortune he did had he not married into a very good situation.

Wisconsin representative Jim Sensenbrenner also had the sense to be born to riches, but at least he was smart enough to graduate from Stanford.

You would think that someone who came from this background would have fought more for women’s rights, but I guess no.

Sensenbrenner was born in Chicago, Illinois. His great-grandfather, Frank J. Sensenbrenner, was involved in the early marketing of Kotex sanitary napkin and served as the second president of Kimberly-Clark.

Source: Wikipedia

Inheriting your fortune. Sleeping your way to the top. Making the right friends. It’s what white men do. They connect to power and money and then they think they got there on their merits.

Howard Lutnick? The current secretary of the treasury and one of the regime’s useless idiots?

He came from a middle-class family. But yet got a Wall Street job where soon, he was making a ton of money. How did he get such a job, you ask? Aren’t those Wall Street jobs widely coveted?

Why yes they are but when you make friends with a partner at the firm who also happens to the the boss’ nephew? It sure makes it a lot easier to get that interview.

After graduating, Lutnick worked at Noonan, Astley & Pierce as a broker for the United States dollar–Japanese yen exchange, where he met B. Gerald Cantor.^[13] In 1983, Cantor took Lutnick as his protégé and hired him at his eponymous firm, Cantor Fitzgerald, encouraged by Rod Fisher, a partner at the firm and Cantor’s nephew.

Source: Wikipedia

Men. Marry. Money. And. Power.

But assume women don’t accomplish anything on our own.