# Who's more honorable in relationships, men or women? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 22, 2011, 7:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-more-honorable-in-relationships-men-or-women/607061 "2011-12-22T07:43:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Invisible\_Chimp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/f05b48/32.png) [@Invisible\_Chimp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Invisible_Chimp)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2011, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-more-honorable-in-relationships-men-or-women/607061/121 "2011-12-23T00:50:38Z")
> [@mister\_nyx](#): > > I think the OP illustrates part of the reason why many feminists don’t like it when men label themselves as feminists. WTF? I’m a man and a feminist. Does anybody have a problem with that? ---
**Author:** ![Untoward\_Parable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/51bf81/32.png) [@Untoward\_Parable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Untoward_Parable)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2011, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-more-honorable-in-relationships-men-or-women/607061/122 "2011-12-23T01:03:54Z")
> [@](#): > > "THERE IS LITTLE DOUBT that feminism lost ground with the last two generations of young women… > > Today I’d say it differently – money and sex are not separable as long as women look to men and marriage to secure our futures. We become wives and mothers who are sexually owned and financially dependent. Eventually, most wives will find part time or low paying work outside the home. A few might marry well or inherit money. Some choose to be professional women who remain single and enjoy an alternative sex life. A clever woman can turn multiple divorces into a lucrative business. Then there are a few women who embrace the inherent power of the female sex organ and achieve financial success with or without a partner. Only a handful of women will manage to “have it all” yet two generations were raised to believe they could have a perfect marriage, a successful career, and a happy family all at the same time. A better message would be learning to choose your priorities and spread them out over a lifetime. Most will agree that our current menu for sexual lifestyles is far too narrow in its scope." > **[Planet Waves :: Fucking Like a Feminist by Betty Dodson](http://www.planetwaves.net/feminism/fucking_like_feminist.html)** pretty awesome stuff here from a “real” feminist. (she’s even a she and stuff so she’s allowed to criticize women. Honest!) ---
**Author:** ![Untoward\_Parable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/51bf81/32.png) [@Untoward\_Parable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Untoward_Parable)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2011, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-more-honorable-in-relationships-men-or-women/607061/123 "2011-12-23T01:05:31Z")
> [@Invisible\_Chimp](#): > > WTF? I’m a man and a feminist. Does anybody have a problem with that? As long as you never take a strong stand on anything in gender issues, eventually you’ll be dismissed from feminism by one of the mutually exclusive schools of the offended. ---
**Author:** ![mister\_nyx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@mister\_nyx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mister_nyx)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2011, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-more-honorable-in-relationships-men-or-women/607061/124 "2011-12-23T01:10:52Z")
I think if you are going to identify as a feminist, Untoward Parable, you should work on not using offensive, misogynistic slurs to describe women whose relationship choices don’t meet your arbitrary standards. ---
**Author:** ![Untoward\_Parable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/51bf81/32.png) [@Untoward\_Parable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Untoward_Parable)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2011, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-more-honorable-in-relationships-men-or-women/607061/125 "2011-12-23T01:13:03Z")
> [@woodstockbirdybird](#): > > I remember when my mom married my stepdad to save us kids from the ghetto we were living in. It was a sad day when she had to commit hara-kiri for bringing dishonor upon our family name. I’m sorry she had to do that. It’s very sad. ---
**Author:** ![miss\_elizabeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/838e76/32.png) [@miss\_elizabeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/miss_elizabeth)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2011, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-more-honorable-in-relationships-men-or-women/607061/126 "2011-12-23T01:16:12Z")
> [@Invisible\_Chimp](#): > > WTF? I’m a man and a feminist. Does anybody have a problem with that? Speaking as a woman and a feminist, most likely, no. There are probably some rad-fems who would disagree, but then, they disagree about a lot of stuff. And, as you’ve seen, there’s no actual test for feminism, and then an official card, so someone calling themselves a feminist doesn’t mean a lot. \* I would say, though, that a lot of feminists raise an eyebrow when a man says he’s a feminist, if only because it is so often followed by that “…but” and we are used to it. As you can see. \*eta: by which I mean, there certainly may be people calling themselves feminists who have a problem with it, but I think the VAST majority of mainline feminists are pleased to see you in our gang. I realize that sentence wasn’t clear at first. ---
**Author:** ![woodstockbirdybird](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/woodstockbirdybird/32/7905_2.png) [@woodstockbirdybird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/woodstockbirdybird)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2011, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-more-honorable-in-relationships-men-or-women/607061/127 "2011-12-23T01:24:39Z")
> [@Untoward\_Parable](#): > > I’m sorry she had to do that. It’s very sad. Nope. Actually wasn’t sad at all. Quite an improvement, in fact. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2011, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-more-honorable-in-relationships-men-or-women/607061/128 "2011-12-23T01:51:45Z")
> [@Untoward\_Parable](#): > > Insult instead of argument. Next. You never really had much of an argument yourself, with regard to the “honor” of an entire sex. What you failed to consider in the results of the David Buss research of the differential in women to value earning potential is that it more or less evens out with the degree to which women earn less themselves. (If men earned less than women, they’d be just as “dishonorable,” in your eyes.) Moreover, Buss’s study involved “_attractive_” women only. From the study: [QUOTE=Attractive Women Want it All: Good Genes, Economic Investment, Parenting Proclivities, and Emotional Commitment (David Buss)] These results support the central hypothesis of this article—that women high in the cardinal indicator of female mate value raise their standards for the traits that are hypothesized to have been historically most critical to female reproductive success. These results support the existence of the hypothesized mate value calibration adaptation. [/quote] In other words, the more attractive a woman is, the more she’ll expect to find a mate with good earning potential–_along with all the other desirable qualities_ (including physical attractiveness, which equates to reproductive success). So much for argument. (All we can conclude is that this whole “honor” thing is just semantics stemming from the OP’s personal value system or anecdotal experience.) ---
**Author:** ![Comicenbe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/59ef9b/32.png) [@Comicenbe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Comicenbe)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2011, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-more-honorable-in-relationships-men-or-women/607061/129 "2011-12-23T03:05:39Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Or to kill other men in the name of honor, often at the urging of women. > > To answer the OP, I don’t think either gender is “more honorable”. Both genders have plenty of liars, manipulators, betrayers and cheaters; the style and goals may tend to differ between the genders but the sleaze is universal. ^ agree. ---
**Author:** ![overlyverbose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/9dc877/32.png) [@overlyverbose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/overlyverbose)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2011, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-more-honorable-in-relationships-men-or-women/607061/130 "2011-12-23T03:19:37Z")
Seriously, dude, are you just having a problem getting a date? How about this for honorable? Men are 7 times more likely to leave a woman if she’s sick than a woman is to leave a man. ([Article here](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1214051/Men-likely-leave-sick-partners-study-shows.html).) For the sake of argument, one could glean from this article that when the going gets tough, men bail. If you look at this a certain way, it appears that many men simply can’t handle difficult situations, so they decide to leave when their wives need them most instead of keeping their wedding vows. Or, if you’d like to talk about how women behave during financial difficulty, let’s talk about that. How’s about this [abstract from a book](http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/3079221/ns/today-money/t/why-middle-class-mothers-fathers-are-going-broke/): > [@](#): > > Research shows that on average, a husband is three times more likely than a wife to take primary responsibility for managing the family’s money.\*\* But as a couple sinks into financial turmoil, this responsibility tends to shift. As families fall behind on their bills, it is wives who roll up their sleeves and do what must be done.\*\* Wives who deal with foreclosure notices, wives who plead with creditors for more time to pay, and wives who insist on seeking credit counseling or legal help. And, like Ruth Ann, it is wives who ultimately decide when it is time to file for bankruptcy. Among couples who seek credit counseling or file for bankruptcy, the split over who was responsible for dealing with the bills was exactly reversed from that of secure families: three-quarters of the wives were exclusively responsible for trying to extract their families from their financial quagmire. > > This shift is not merely a mundane realignment of responsibilities within the household, a simple variation on the routine decisions that he will mow the lawn while she folds the laundry. Rather, it is a signal of serious discord within a marriage. **In financially troubled families, women who managed the money alone were twice as likely to describe themselves as very dissatisfied with the arrangement than the men who took on that task. Many women, exhausted and frustrated by all that accompanies the descent into financial ruin, find that just when they most need help, their husbands have disappeared.** (Bolding mine) So basically the women in this scenario are “rolling up their sleeves” to get their families out of financial difficulty while the men are… Doing something somewhere else instead. So it’s cool for men to wander off if there are problems, but not cool for a woman to want to avoid them in the first place? Having said that (and because I’ll probably get flamed anyway), I don’t actually think this way. In that, I don’t think that men are fickle assholes who are likely to just take off at the least little sign of difficulty. However, your argument has a whole lot of holes that you still haven’t been able to plug. So far all I’m reading is, “Women are less honorable than men because I say so. And here’s a random cite talking about women’s relationship criteria which just states that women have different criteria than men. Women are bad and I’m a feminist.” ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Gnomer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miss_gnomer/32/3466_2.png) [@Miss\_Gnomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Gnomer)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2011, 9:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-more-honorable-in-relationships-men-or-women/607061/131 "2011-12-23T09:56:57Z")
> [@Untoward\_Parable](#): > > You forgot personality, intelligence, unique qualities. You know things you’re with someone for because you love them? This seems hard to swallow: “I love you so much honey, but if you lose your job and we go into debt and it looks like we’ll have to move to an apartment and I have to sell my jewelry well, I will stop loving you.” Which of course is coooommppleeetteeeelllyyy different to men who decide that wife is old and fat and he’d like a newer younger model. :smack: :smack: No idea of actual stats - but I’d guess more men choose younger women vs women dumping men due to change in financial status! Which is more honourable/pure: dumping/choosing a partner because of looks vs money?! I’d actually say women who choose a man because of money are more honourable than a man who chooses a woman because of her looks … the former at least takes some thought! ---
**Author:** ![Terraplane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/74df32/32.png) [@Terraplane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terraplane)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2011, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-more-honorable-in-relationships-men-or-women/607061/132 "2011-12-23T16:59:17Z")
> [@Untoward\_Parable](#): > > Let me preface this by saying that I consider myself a feminist. You are so not a feminist. Good on you for believing in equal pay and equal opportunity. I mean that, but you are not a feminist because you obviously believe that women do some devious shit that men don’t and that forces the implication that there’s something less about them. > [@](#): > > A man is usually straightforward and attracted to a woman because of her looks and personality. A woman on the other hand will be attracted to a man because of how successful he is more than his looks or personality, even to the point where she’ll have relationships with some pretty awful guys and stick with them for status and/or security. Guys will go out with the inverse woman for awhile but then leave a sinking ship when he realizes she’s all looks and nothing else. I’m a poor ass schlub and I’ve had relationships with some wonderful women. You say you don’t want anecdotes, fine. Ignore mine. But there are poor ass schubs everywhere and I don’t think anybody could deny that most of them have relationships. > [@](#): > > A woman is defended socially in being angry at a boyfriend or husband who goes out with friends where the man won’t usually and if he did he’d be considered a jealous douche. I simply don’t think this is true. Andy Capp isn’t real life. A man who goes to the bar every night is a shitty mate. A woman who goes to the bar every night isn’t going to get any more sympathy. > [@](#): > > If a man and woman get pregnant but aren’t mutually committed the woman can take the baby to term and demand marriage or child support. The guy only has the condom to help him out there, and those do fail just fine, and if the couple doesn’t use one well it’s both of their choice unless something horrible is going on. You’re right. This isn’t fair. But it’s unfair because of biology, not intent. It’s her body, she can do what she wants with it. > [@](#): > > Men will generally be honest and openly pursue women he finds attractive. Women generally will set lures out and hope to be pursued but will generally not go for any man just because he’s attractive and has a good personality. A man generally has to fit into specific criteria for the woman even to see him as anything but a nuisance. This has more to do with social mores than anything else. It’s not women’s fault that they were born into a society that looks down on them persuing while elevating men who do. > [@](#): > > Theres plenty more I suppose but it’s a good start. I’ll concede that it’s a start. ---
**Author:** ![Untoward\_Parable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/51bf81/32.png) [@Untoward\_Parable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Untoward_Parable)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2011, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-more-honorable-in-relationships-men-or-women/607061/133 "2011-12-23T18:23:07Z")
Lol, if you cut out all the comments that misrepresent what I have said I think you’d have about 5% left. I’m glad the country club feminists are here to make sure that feminism can win over the Tonight Show crowd. “Why no dear I do declare a woman who marries for money is simply a smart lady and anyone who says otherwise will have my rebuke. In fact I will do my duty as a feminist and set about arranging to influence our daughter Sara to marry one of the Winchesters, the son Harry, or even better the father Harold.” I never said men were more honorable than women in totality, I said that in one area I believe that women are less honorable, but I guess that’s the same thing isn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![Lady\_of\_the\_Lake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e19adc/32.png) [@Lady\_of\_the\_Lake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lady_of_the_Lake)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2011, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-more-honorable-in-relationships-men-or-women/607061/134 "2011-12-23T18:36:23Z")
Many people in this thread have responded to you with well thought reponses, citations and reasonable discussion. You have ignored what they have said, responded with a ‘lol’, and then blathered on with more unsupported generalizations (\*‘country club feminists’ \*nailed the fact that you are simply trolling for me.) But…if you must troll, could you at least try to be a _funny_ about it? ---
**Author:** ![Terraplane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/74df32/32.png) [@Terraplane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terraplane)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2011, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-more-honorable-in-relationships-men-or-women/607061/135 "2011-12-23T18:41:51Z")
> [@Untoward\_Parable](#): > > Lol, if you cut out all the comments that misrepresent what I have said I think you’d have about 5% left. > > I’m glad the country club feminists are here to make sure that feminism can win over the Tonight Show crowd. “Why no dear I do declare a woman who marries for money is simply a smart lady and anyone who says otherwise will have my rebuke. In fact I will do my duty as a feminist and set about arranging to influence our daughter Sara to marry one of the Winchesters, the son Harry, or even better the father Harold.” > > I never said men were more honorable than women in totality, I said that in one area I believe that women are less honorable, but I guess that’s the same thing isn’t it? Nobody has misrepresented what you’ve said. Your words are there permanently for everybody to see, you are the only person who thinks you’re being wronged. That should really clue you in. You, however, _are_ misrepresenting what other people are saying. You’re taking valid points and exaggerating them to extremes to try to make yourself look more reasonable. It’s not fooling anybody. I’d be surprised if you’re even managing to fool yourself. You said that you don’t think most people deserve respect. I think that’s a shitty way to live your life, but fuck it, we’ll go with that. Why are you expecting more from women than you do from men? That a woman did you wrong, that several women did you wrong, is not an indictment against women. Anecdotes don’t equal data, maybe you just had a bad run. Men who are uglier and poorer than you have found women who made them happy, and who they made happy in return. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-more-honorable-in-relationships-men-or-women/607061.md?page=6)