Finishing School For Young People
Growing up in WASPy New England, I was introduced to the concept of the finishing school for girls. Such schools existed to teach girls the traditionally feminine arts of manners, comportment, domestic skills, etc. In effect, they were learning “wifely” skills. Since we’re all nicely modern now, the finishing school is seen as an anachronistic throwback to a society where women were oppressed into rigidly defined gender roles and to the obligations of wife and mother.
Instead of a finishing school, girls now attend a four-year university where they can learn about drunken sexual hook-ups with frat fellows and jocks. Upon graduation and armed with a shiny new degree in a humanities subject, the girls can launch themselves into the wacky world of masculine-oriented capitalism. There’s no femininity in capitalism just as there was no femininity as these cupcakes took sufficient classes to snag the degree.
So, perhaps it’s time to re-introduce some basic life skills into the high school and college curriculums. Consider it a modern-day finishing school. Girls could actually learn to be feminine. I don’t mean the modern femininity of sassy sarcasm. I mean femininity that is actually attractive to masculinity, the femininity that maintains relationships. This should be the new women’s studies in colleges and universities.
As a related aside, the dearth of true femininity is so vast that women who seek it have turned to the Manosphere and other independent bloggers so they can learn how to be feminine. Yes, it’s really that bad. When it comes to relationships, two generations of blue pill political correctness in the media and spread in school have dashed women upon the rocks of weak men and charismatic cads. Some women are tired of it and want to address the issue.
The men would also receive training in masculinity. Nerds, doormats, white knights, and sundry pedestalizers would be required to take classes on feminine nature, marriage law, social skills, and Charisma in the field. The jocks, tall and good-looking frat fellows, and the naturally confident guys would only need classes on marriage law and advanced divorce law.
The traditional finishing school really did serve a useful function. As social limitations on women have been effectively removed over the past two generations, we’ve seen their strengths as quasi-men but also their darker natures. Back in the day, a finishing school served to help keep women feminine and also help keep those darker characteristics at bay.
OK, let the strawman arguments commence. “OMG! He wants society to return to the 1800s!” say the idiots who lack the ability to learn logic and reason.
The Private Man 
I’m with you, 100%. We got so caught up in equality (which I’m all for) that we lost sight of our individuality as a sex or gender or whatever the EFF it’s supposed to be these days.
Reblogged this on Bon Bons & Martinis: The Girl with the Glowing Ovaries and commented:
YES. This guy’s got it. We need to go back to basics.
Required textbooks: http://tinyurl.com/9nhcqjf
Women back then – all of them – were beaten daily by their husbands.
Is that what you want? Of course it is.
You should get your vasectomy reversed, and then get it done again, you misogynistic brute.
Lulz.
They probably deserved it. 😉
TPM, your first student. She may need remedial studies or a class with the “special” kids…
Mystery Science Theater 3000, and its offspring Rifftrax, had fun with a lot of shorts from the 1950s that taught stuff like how to buy food for your family and how to act at the dinner table (Dad talks first). Show them now, and people would think it was a joke, but at the time people took those things seriously. That wasn’t really that long ago, but all it took was one generation to discard it.
I know homeschoolers who are banding together to start “home ec” classes to teach their kids everything from cooking and sewing to cleaning and budgeting. Many of the mothers weren’t taught those skills, but they recognize the problem, so they find a retired lady who’s willing to teach (and sometimes the mothers take the class right along with their daughters.) I have a feeling that when they reach enough of a critical mass, they’ll start forming complete finishing schools for girls.
I never knew that about homeschooling. Cool.
Some women are tired of it and want to address the issue.
Hmmmm, Is self promotion unfeminine? My attempts at addressing this issue.
Promote away! I like your blog.
Haha Stingray, I was about to refer back to when I said I would be sending future wife material to you for just this type of training.
PrivateMan and Leap,
Thank you.
Well, maybe we can improve everyone while we’re at it. You wouldn’t object to that – perhaps even you could use some improvement.
But there’s a little problem. When men get their spine back, they’re going to use it.
All those diversity issues, affirmative action, equal opporunity go right out the window. You know – all those “equal” men who need a nice handout from uncle sugar. Then the negros, mexicans, asians and everyone else cashing in on the liberal guilt complex will be out of luck.
Maybe we could even provide the full dose of the red pill. It doesn’t stop with women or divorce courts. We could teach the truth about WW2, the holocaust fable, race and so on. Of course, only the bravest and most masculine men could venture into such waters. Let’s set it up and see who’s got what it takes.
Let’s not get off track here…
Sky blue, water wet, Ryu moron
Great idea PM. You need to confer with Rollo and Professor Mentu (now that he doesn’t have to worry about kids) and come up with an online curriculum. You guys would kill it. And Susan would endorse it.
I taught classes in sewing and cooking/baking in a few homeschool groups I was in through the years (we homeschooled for almost twenty years). The best thing was the girls loved it and were always eager to learn the next thing related. There is a sense of accomplishment and self-satisfaction in putting together something from nothing and the current generation is essentially robbed of that. In most of the groups none of us mom’s(including myself) had been taught these skills from our mothers. I had learned them for myself from books and such through the years and was the one with the most experience to lead the classes. Most times I had mom’s join the classes as well and learn along side their daughters.
A return to finishing schools would be useful. My grandmother was offered a teaching position at one when she was younger, and she probably would have been perfect for it. Sadly, many of these schools have closed down.
Unfortunately, there are so many women out there who see femininity as weak and useless. They really don’t fathom how men would find it attractive. Everything in the culture bombards them with the message of turn up the sexy not the pretty.
Though I suspect that changes in courtship rituals contributed to the demise of the feminine arts. My grandmother and her sisters had years of dance, music and singing lessons and entertained frequently. This also imbued them with graceful movement and an ability, in later life, to project their voices across a playground with out yelling, lol.
Now days, a case of beer and well….good to go.
Yeah, if you go to a wedding reception, the old folks can get out there and do a basic waltz or whatever, because learning those social skills was just part of their upbringing, and every now and then they get a refresher. Most of their kids rejected all that as old-fashioned, and now my generation stands on the sidelines or crashes around to the Electric Slide. (Though I do a pretty good Fonz, if I say so myself.)
I, too, grew up in WASPy New England. And being a WASP, my brother and sister and I actually had to go to dancing school (grey flannel slacks, blue blazer, white cotton gloves) to learn waltz, fox trot, etc. We even had cotillions back then. Mom only attended junior college where she “majored” in Home Ec. Though, surprisingly, she was never a very good cook, which I why I learned how to cook myself at a young age, mostly out of self-defense.
Finishing schools would be a great idea, especially Red Pill schools for boys. But, alas, I fear it will never happen. Can you imagine setting up a Boys Academy (“Masculinsim: Teach Your Sons to Be Men!”) and the tsunami of approbation it would receive…
Uh…I’ll be back. Think I’m going to set up a Kickstarter account for this one.
It’s interesting to read the comments here about dancing. I’ve gotten the impression on some other sites that it was considered more Beta and maybe looked down on for a man today to take dancing lessons. It’s something I never had the opportunity to learn but would love to dance a waltz or something other with my husband. I personally consider many of the men who danced in the old films very sexy for it.
Lessons may be Beta. Don’t tell anyone. But the thing about formal dancing is that the man leads. Being able to take to the dance floor and effortlessly lead a woman through the steps, whether she knows them or not, is pretty Alpha. Especially since these days pretty much no one knows how to do it.
OMG! He wants society to return to the 1800s!
(Couldn’t resist.)
Cavalcade of lulz
Legion,
You forgot to add, “Yay! About time!”
Dalrock himself couldn’t have put it better.
“I was introduced to the concept of the finishing school for girls. Such schools existed to teach girls the traditionally feminine arts of manners, comportment, domestic skills, etc. In effect, they were learning “wifely” skills… Instead of a finishing school, girls now attend a four-year university where they can learn about drunken sexual hook-ups with frat fellows and jocks.”
Damn this is profound. People who don’t want to have values ‘forced’ on them so often end up promoting a culture that is FAR WORSE on every objective level. The feminine and the masculine have been so confused in our day and age, it’s terrible.
Let’s compare and contrast what we could have to what we do have.
Finishing school:
men learn table manners, public and workplace etiquette, money management, women’s natures, how to date women
Women learn public and private etiquette, home economics, the care of a home, and child care.
What do we have now for finishing school?
For women:
1. Blowjob 101
2. Alcohol consumption 201 (with sections on navel shots and beer bonging)
3. Advanced sexual technique
4. Shopping and credit card usage (beginner, intermediate and expert)
5. Lesbi-curious (introductory course, elective, and pass-fail only)
6. Party administration and organization
7. Fraud 101 — all you need to know how to lie, and what to lie about
For men:
1. Introduction to video games
2. Advanced remedial driver’s education
3. Call of Duty (gets its own class)
4. Workplace etiquette (50 inflections for “Want fries with that” and “Supersize” and “Welcome to Wal-Mart. Here’s your cart.”)
5. Women 101 (in three sections: 1. Rejection; 2. Beta orbiting for experts; 3. Decorating her pedestal
6. Divorce 201 (recipes for ramen noodles, feng shui for studio apartments, and how to live on 20% of your income)
Except were a free country, we couldn’t possibly require people to submit to good ideas and limit their ability to make stupid ones.
It’s no wonder why everything seems so frustrating these days.
«As social limitations on women have been effectively removed over the past two generations»
Those social limitations were never as stong as people think, and “independent, strong” women could take the path less traveled even if they had to do it discreetly and with a bit of skill.
What really mattered until around 50 years ago was the risk of pregnancy and its consequences, that is the need for Male Parental Investment, something that curiously is rarely discussed in gender discussions.
This article referred to by HookingUpSmart is a get, as it is a realistic description by a college educated woman of attitudes to sex and life of college girls, written in 1957:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1957/11/sex-and-the-college-girl/305753/
All the usual themes are there: the typical college girl of 1957 wants to “experiment”, craves the exciting flighty bastard, is prepared to settle for a not-so-exciting sucker and wants it all (but in 1957 at least the author was aware getting it all is unlikely).
The major theme that comes out is that then as ever those girls come across as sex obsessed and amorally opportunistic.
The other related major theme is the statement that pre-contraception all those girls were terrified of getting pregnant before getting married, and thus without Male Parental Investment, and as a result most (IIRC around 90%) were virgins on engagement. More precisely demivierges having done most sex acts except penis-in-vagina.
That is the really big change (as well as rates of child mortality): with contraception women can become men, or rather twinks, as the vagina becomes the new ass.
When feminists say usually inadvertently that it is motherhood rather than the patriarchy that has kept women in the role of ahem, mothers, they are saying something that is quite realistic for a change.
A very high risk of something as expensive as pregnancy makes women want to secure financial support from a man beforehand, and to make an effort to keep him around, to provide Male Parental Investment.
And this leads straight to men wanting to marry virgins, as every man knows (or should know) that women who want to get married in a hurry may be carrying the child of a man who has disappeared and they need to secure financial support from someone else quickly, and that only a virgin bridge gives a good chance of their being the father of the firstborn (because especially alpha men have always knows how faithful other men’s wives were)..
What feminism of the 2nd and especially 3rd wave got catastrophically wrong was to be envious of men and pushing for women the ideal to have a life like a man, instead of leaving the choice free between motherhood and career and working to make motherhood a better job.