Thursday, January 01, 2009

Connie and Phil’s New Mom – Elly!!

I think the joke in today’s For Better or For Worse is supposed to be that Elly’s concern for Connie’s treatment by Phil is really Elly’s concern for how Phil’s actions with Connie affect Elly. In other words, it’s the standard “I act like I am concerned, but in reality I am selfish.” I blame the Beatles with their song:

She’s Leaving Home (partial lyric)

Father snores as his wife gets into her dressing gown
Picks up the letter that's lying there
Standing alone at the top of the stairs
She breaks down and cries to her husband
Daddy our baby's gone
Why would she treat us so thoughtlessly
How could she do this to me.

Ever since this song came out, I have seen countless others use the same thing, and I doubt it was original with the Beatles.

Aside from the overused joke, the part which confuses me is why Elly is concerned in the first place. She knows that Connie is desperate to get a man, has used sex, and even the birth of a child out of wedlock to try to convince a man to marry her. If anything, she should be worried about Phil, and whether or not Connie will use the classic, “I’m pregnant?! How did that happen?” routine so common to women in this comic strip, on her brother.

Instead Elly is concerned that Phil will injure vulnerable Connie. “Swept her off her feet” = somehow it’s Phil fault if Connie falls in love with Phil after a single date. “Taking advantage of her vulnerability” = taking advantage of the Connie’s obsessive desire for a husband. This attitude has always irritated me. The 1980s were my single, young man days; and I remember being surprised by the double standard of this attitude. If a woman offered intimacy to a man, she was showing him how much she liked him. If a man took the offer but did not eventually propose marriage to her, he was taking advantage of her. In other words, a man should not accept the intimacy offered by a woman unless he is thinking he might propose to her. Of course if a woman offered intimacy and the man refused her, then...

I expect this attitude has changed somewhat with the current young generation. For example, the young man who served as ring bearer at my wedding 16 years ago, got his girlfriend pregnant, and is now raising his daughter by himself. His girlfriend didn’t want to get married and has no interest in raising a child. If this story from the modern day younger generation is any example, then the days where a woman expected a man to start thinking about marriage with her, once they were physically intimate, are in the past.

Weighing in on the other side, Beyonce Knowles has a different opinion in her song "Single Ladies" in reference to men who do not propose marriage (partial lyric):

Cuz if you liked it then you should have put a ring on it
If you liked it then you shoulda put a ring on it
Don't be mad once you see that he want it
If you liked it then you shoulda put a ring on it
Oh oh oh oh oh oh ohhh oh oh oh oh oh oh ohh

So maybe times haven't changed that much since 1980.

5 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Now it really depends on the background/attitudes of the women in question. As mentioned before, I'm 31, from the Midwest, a total square. And there are a lot of women in my age cohort, plus or minus five years, who expect that sex = serious relationship on the way to marriage. In fact, most of my female friends have never had sex with a man other than their husband.

However, I also know that my friends aren't representative of all women 25-35. And my more casual acquaintances definitely include a large number of women who think casual sex is fine and fun.

However, it is now pretty well accepted that a woman who chooses to sleep with a man prior to marriage/engagement does so at her own risk. Her friends and family will not rally around her and say that the man "took advantage." They will say, "you took the risk, bozo, why do you want us to feel sorry for you?" if she tries for sympathy. My sister has a Connie/Liz type friend who tries to use sex to catch husbands. Each time, the relationship crashes and burns and she whines and cries about how awful it is the guy dumped her and she is left with another notch on her bedpost--why didn't he know he was The One. Even her very religious parents tell her, "Take responsibility for yourself--what do you expect when you screw on the second date?"

The only time I have seen anyone blame the man was when the guy truly took advantage of a woman who was, say, mentally ill, or when the man blatantly lied to the woman to get sex ("If we have sex, we can get engaged. Oops, we had sex, now I'm dumping you!").

As for the strip? I maintain that Elly is really worried for self-interested reasons. She doesn't really believe Phil has an obligation not to "take advantage" of a woman. Her concern is that Phil is going to leave Elly with a needy Connie who will forever after harass her with talk and questions about Phil. Anything else she says is just camoflauge for her real selfish motives.

1:23 AM  
Blogger DreadedCandiru2 said...

qnjones,

I maintain that Elly is really worried for self-interested reasons. She doesn't really believe Phil has an obligation not to "take advantage" of a woman. Her concern is that Phil is going to leave Elly with a needy Connie who will forever after harass her with talk and questions about Phil. Anything else she says is just (camouflage) for her real selfish motives.

Bingo!! She has no intention of being badgered with questions about Phil or being asked how to catch him any more than she wants to listen to him on the phone being told to keep her latest "project" on her leash. That's because I have the distinct impression that Connie wasn't the first needy, vulnerable person Elly directed Phil's way. She seems to want to make sure that Phil is "taken care of" (which, of course, means that lives his life on her terms) so she probably fixed him up with an endless array of people who weren't suitable for him. Phil managed to escape the web because Jim was able to control Elly's behavior and call her on her bullshit; with him out of the way due to ill health, Liz never stood a chance in Hell.

3:49 AM  
Blogger DreadedCandiru2 said...

howard,

She knows that Connie is desperate to get a man, has used sex, and even the birth of a child out of wedlock to try to convince a man to marry her. If anything, she should be worried about Phil, and whether or not Connie will use the classic, “I’m pregnant?! How did that happen?” routine so common to women in this comic strip, on her brother.

She's applying the same double standard that she describes as being unfair to explain away Connie's past behavior that she will use to condemn Phil. In her mind, Connie is the same sort of naive, helpless figure she believes herself to be; the contradictory evidence of her senses and memory and John's belief that there are two sides to a story must be discounted as they tend to confirm the opinions of her 'oppressors'.

This, sadly, is a pattern of behavior that endures through the strip's history. Elly is astonishingly ill-informed and thus cannot conceive of a viewpoint other than her own. That's why she doesn't read the paper; too many conflicting viewpoints.

7:28 AM  
Blogger howard said...

qnjones,

And there are a lot of women in my age cohort, plus or minus five years, who expect that sex = serious relationship on the way to marriage. In fact, most of my female friends have never had sex with a man other than their husband.

The old-fashioned justification for premarital sex is that it was with the man she eventually married. This was a commonly-held belief when I was in my single days too. And for those persons who practice religion, there is a

The only time I have seen anyone blame the man was when the guy truly took advantage of a woman who was, say, mentally ill, or when the man blatantly lied to the woman to get sex ("If we have sex, we can get engaged. Oops, we had sex, now I'm dumping you!").

Within my generation, the most common time I remember the man being blamed was if the couple had been dating for more than a certain time (a year, for example), and the man was showing no signs of proposing marriage. There was a belief that since the woman had invested a certain period of time in the man, it would be wasted if he ended up not proposing. And part of that was the physical intimacy. The phrase I heard women use over and over again was: “He’s getting the milk without buying the cow.”

Her concern is that Phil is going to leave Elly with a needy Connie who will forever after harass her with talk and questions about Phil. Anything else she says is just camoflauge for her real selfish motives.

This certainly seems to be the way the strip is written. On the other hand, Elly is extremely interested in Connie’s love life, and she could simply be concerned that she (Elly) does not know what is going on.

4:01 PM  
Blogger howard said...

DreadedCandiru2,

That's because I have the distinct impression that Connie wasn't the first needy, vulnerable person Elly directed Phil's way. She seems to want to make sure that Phil is "taken care of" (which, of course, means that lives his life on her terms) so she probably fixed him up with an endless array of people who weren't suitable for him. Phil managed to escape the web because Jim was able to control Elly's behavior and call her on her bullshit; with him out of the way due to ill health, Liz never stood a chance in Hell.

I am not so sure about this. Although Elly does send Phil to visit Connie, Connie asked her to do that. Elly has also played the “fate” card that Liz played in her romances. With Connie, that will be going to Thunder Bay, stop trying so hard and let a man pick her instead of the other way around.

4:09 PM  

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