Aoefee is a very long way from being a traditionalist, but she's reached a point in her life in wanting to accept her own feminine nature:
One of the issues I see facing men and women today is a lack of understanding regarding the differences between the genders. There's too much time spent on how equal we are and not enough on inherent distinctions.
Masculine Energy:
- Goal Oriented
- External Focus/Drive
- Separate/Individual
- Penetrating
Female Energy:
- Ocean of Emotion
- Inner Focus/Process Oriented
- Not Individual/Group/Home Focused
- Open and Receptive
...I think some of the mistakes I have made have been in trying to apply male logic to my goal of meeting a significant other. Although a very feminine woman I've been using male, goal oriented strategies. Setting up seven dates in six days, specifically targeting older men, was a very driven, goal oriented approach for example.
Being open and receptive, a feminine approach, I learned a great deal about men and what they appreciated in women when I hung out in male dominated forums. I learned that men could care two toots about my job and I rarely talk about it now. I learned men like women who dress like a woman and wear heels, skirts/dresses, have pretty hair and maintain a good hip to waist ratio. A woman is allowed to be vulnerable and not have all the answers, she is also valuable when she takes the time to process information and be able to offer meaningful advice.
I believe men fail to accept women's emotional natures, they rally against it rather than accept it and figure out ways to offset potential chaos. Women NEED a strong force to guide them. We are like the ocean, still, calm and then without much warning we build tsunami waves. A man who recognizes that these things are sometimes beyond the control of the woman (hormones, stress) stays out of the storm and steadfastly keeps the ship going the right direction. He realizes giving her the wheel is a bad idea and calmly ignores her pleading for the driver seat. When a woman has a man who can't be moved by her mercurial nature she is much less likely to feel lost at sea and the storms lessen.
...I challenge you to look at your current relationship and see if you are struggling because you don't understand their energy. Are you trying to make into him into a feminine you? Are you sure the Notebook is the way you want to live your life? Are you trying to make her focused and driven to do the things you feel she should want? Are you helping her be open and receptive to you or are you closing her off?
Obviously not all relationships are going to be the same. I do think it's the case, though, that women will sometimes crash up against their men early in a relationship and find an element of calming security when the man holds firm.
I don't agree that men are "individually directed" whereas women are "not individual/group directed". Women are selfish, solipsistic, and self-directed as they come.
ReplyDeleteThat's a difficult one. A lot of women need to be part of the circle, which makes them a bit vulnerable to issues of exclusion, in a sense that wouldn't worry most men as much. Men can be a bit more self-contained. Perhaps that was what Aoefee was getting at.
ReplyDeleteAs for selfishness, women seem to have less of a sense of duty toward larger social entities. But women are sometimes changed by the experience of motherhood - it brings out family commitments and a more giving and nurturing side to women. And in a good marriage a woman can, over time, develop a wifely persona of caring for and wanting to please her husband.
Wendy Tuohy wrote a column about how children had changed her which I blogged about recently here.
I always get a chuckle out of the idea that women are "oceans of emotion" and men are calm, implacable rational actors. Yeah, right.
ReplyDeleteI've worked in a male-dominated environment for roughly ten years. And I'm intimately acquainted with my father, my grandfathers, my uncle, my ex-boyfriend, and my husband, as well as other men I've known over the years. Helloooo moodiness, grumpiness, temper, impulsivity, irrational jealousy and hysteria! The difference between men and women is that when men lose their marbles it's viewed either as an appropriate response to external stressors or an individual problem, rather than a representation of the male sex in general.
And, look, I don't think there is anything wrong with having feelings. We're all human. But please don't tell me that men have a monopoly on calm rationality. And please don't tell me that men don't have hormones. (Hello testosterone!!!!)
So basically she is saying that feminism was a tsunami of emotion and stress, which culminated in woman taking the 'driver's seat' because men were moved by womens' mercurial nature and men didn't calmly tell feminists to 'stick a cork in it'?
ReplyDeleteRighto
How wonderful. Georgina Charlotte returns again. *rolls eyes*
ReplyDeleteGeorgina Charlotte please get lost.
ReplyDeleteHi Elizabeth,
ReplyDeleteI am back. My husband was unexpectedly ill for several months at the beginning of this year, so I checked out for a while. He's better now.
I am not sure why you are asking me to get lost. Is that a reasoned request, and if so what is your basis, for asking? Or is it, in fact, your "ocean of emotion" talking? You may be a mere female, but I think you can do better than that. I know you can!
Georgina,
ReplyDeleteI agree, in fact, that there is a male kind of ill-temperedness. And I'm sure in some relationships it's a case of the woman trying to placate the temperamental male.
Nonetheless, it's not true that men are as emotional as women. My wife once burst into tears when watching the film Breakfast at Tiffany's. When I asked her why she said that a cat had been thrown out into the rain and she felt sorry for the cat.
Just the other week a woman I work with, who is normally at the more emotionally mannish end of the spectrum, was all teary. It turns out that her boyfriend hadn't picked up the phone a couple of times and she feared he might have met his end in some way.
But the main point is this. Aoefee is trying to explain something important about relationships dynamics to her male readers. And in my experience she's right.
Early in relationships women will sometimes push emotionally against their men. They'll angrily make irrational accusations or out of the blue insults.
That can be difficult for young men, who are looking for something sweeter and lighter in a woman, to deal with.
A man can take all the insults and accusations at face value and get offended and angry. If he applies the same standards he would apply to another man, he would return fire very hard.
But it works better if a man has an understanding that some women need to crash up against their man emotionally to see if he can hold firm. The man won't then waste too much time trying to find sense in what's being thrown at him - that's not what is being played out.
It's settling for the woman if the man doesn't collapse into her demands or isn't thrown by her outburst. He can show care and talk to her but he isn't fazed by what's happening.
I believe men fail to accept women's emotional natures, they rally against it rather than accept it and figure out ways to offset potential chaos
ReplyDeletethat's about all that men have done, just about all the time, from Eve to Amerika -- adjusted themselves to woman's constantly in-flux emotions, and following that lead, hope to stave off chaos (= woman) for another couple of weeks, or another couple of centuries
trying endlessly to adjust to womens' demands and emotions has been a disaster, culminating in global feminism, the current (and final) disaster
no . . . i think i'm about ready for something completely different, and women and their (conveniently malleable) emotions will just have to adjust to the new paradigm
dont like it? go cry in hell
alone
adjusted themselves to woman's constantly in-flux emotions
ReplyDeleteRay, the point is *not* to constantly bend to female emotions but not to let them throw you.
And if you do this - if a woman comes to a sense that you are stronger than her emotions and can caringly hold your ground - then in my experience you're likely to see the more receptively feminine side of her personality emerge more strongly.
Hmmm, that's interesting, but I just cant wrap my mind around that being a particularly gendered interaction. In my working life (litigation), I constantly deal with excitable, angry men, and the best response seems to be implacable firmness. That works with my father too. Basically anyone excitable can be most effectively soothed and handled by a calm, steady demeanor.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of who FEELS more emotional, I don't really have a dog in that fight. I cry like a baby at certain movie scenes, but I'm still a rational adult and I handle my life and my interactions with others fairly and sensibly. That said, when you get to know them, men seem to have very intense feelings about all sorts of things, just as much as women really. They are just less likely to manifest their feelings with tears or express them openly.
I also don't mean to imply that mens feelings are always negtive, I've been very fortunate to be close to many men in my life and I find myself constantly touched by the depths of their feelings of empathy, compassion, hurt, anxiety, love, all the feelings that make us human in addition to our amazing capacity for abstraction and reason.
Georgina, women are way more emotionally sensitive than men. I don't mean by that that men don't or can't have an intense inner life, for instance, in responding to nature or art and so on.
ReplyDeleteBut just consider the internet. A week or so ago Simon and I made the most polite and non-personal criticisms at a Englishwoman's blog about her claim that women in their late 20s shouldn't be worried about family formation.
The response followed a predictable pattern. First, a wave of over the top personal attacks on Simon and myself. Then claims that we had been the ones to insult or be mean. Then the declaration that in future no such comments would ever be accepted.
I have come to understand and accept this response. There are a lot of women who can't depersonalise arguments as easily as most men and who are more sensitive to even oblique criticism.
That makes it almost impossible to carry on a real debate at a lot of feminist sites - political criticism is taken as a kind of wounding and intolerable personal attack.
That's almost the opposite of what happens in a masculine environment. At the boys' school I attended, the more robustly you insulted each other the closer the friendship.
Ha ha! Gotta love an exchange of robust insults!
ReplyDeleteBut seriously Mark, what you're describing is not a feminist tendency or a female tendency. It's what happens when you argue with people on the Internet. Go hang out on some MRA sites under the guise of a polite feminist and the screeching monkeys will absolutely come at you.
Those screeching monkeys are routinely hurt by women such as yourself Georgina Charlotte and your delusions.
ReplyDeleteGeorgina Charlotte = Doomed harlot ?? If so why two web handles?
ReplyDeleteGeorgina Charlotte seems to be describing male-female relations generally, whereas Mark and others are focusing on the intimate relations of a couple. This doesn't explain all of their disagreement, but it may explain some of it. The women with whom I work are not exceptionally emotional, but they are also not at all like the men. For instance, they almost never seek to get their way through open conflict, but instead use devious methods. This means that, with women about, there is less shouting and chest-thumping, and the workplace seems less emotional. But there is way more spite and there are way more rumors.
ReplyDeleteWith respect to intimate relations, however, what Mark and others have to say is entirely correct. Of course men can be moody, but when they are they normally withdraw. They do not, as a rule, hunt down their spouse and drag her into the pit. When a woman is in a mood, she wants everyone to come along for the ride. Learning how to deal with this is one of the great challenges for every young husband. Unfortunately the dogma of sexual equality has made it difficult for us to talk about this, so most young husbands are completely unprepared for these emotional typhoons and must learn to deal with them on their own.
The advice in the original post and many of the comments is good. For any young husbands who may be reading, I would summarize it this way. (1) Always listen to these rants. (2) Never allow yourself to be drawn into them, so that her rant becomes a quarrel. She will try to draw you in with incredibly ugly accusations, but these are just taunts and she doesn't mean any of it. (3) If there is a real underlying problem, propose your solution later.
Georgina,
ReplyDeleteYou strike me as being a kind of Wollstonecraftian feminist.
Wollstonecraft followed the thought of her time in which it was believed that it was reason which was the distinctively human quality.
Given that it was men who were thought more rational, she concluded (reasonably enough) that this made feminine virtues second rate compared to masculine ones.
And so she was determined to pursue the idea that women should not be thought feminine but rather that everyone should be thought masculine.
But she could have pursued another line of thought. She could have embraced a more sophisticated concept of what it means to be human, one that included aspects of the human spiritual and emotional life.
Do we really think, for instance, that someone who is coldly rational but who has lost all responsiveness to life is the more human person?
I don't think that women have to aspire to the masculine model in order to have valid lives. It's OK for a woman to be a bit more emotional. It doesn't mean that all reason is lost. Laura Wood at The Thinking Housewife is one of the best trads around, and she puts her arguments clearly and rationally. But I don't just admire her for this. I admire her because she represents an older and deeper Western personality which was responsive to painting and poetry, to nature, to home and family, to a religious tradition and to people and place.
You can be a bit more emotional and still live richly through these things.
JMSmith,
ReplyDeleteThat's well put. I'd underline your number 2 point. I wish I'd understood that at the start of my marriage. I did learn through experience and started to handle such situations better. And they don't seem to happen anymore.
Mark,
ReplyDeleteI am fond of Mary Wollstonecraft, but no, I definitely believe that our emotional responses (whether we are male or female) are often legitimate and should be honored. So no, I don't believe that cold rationality is the only valid approach to life. What I disagree with is the notion that women are generally more helpless and irrational than men in the face of strong emotion.
Whenever I have an emotional response to something, I step back before acting on it and ask myself: why do I feel this way? Is this feeling legitimate? If I act on it, what will be the result? Is acting on my feeling fair to others?
I favor applying a sensible mix of emotion and rationality to life's problems. Finding the right balance takes experience and wisdom. It may also depend on the situation. Feelings and emotional response may be very important in choosing a life partner, not important at all when working on a math problem.
"But seriously Mark, what you're describing is not a feminist tendency or a female tendency. It's what happens when you argue with people on the Internet. "
ReplyDeletesomebody should have told Larry Summers to lay off Nancy Hopkins's internet then. If you are seriously going to argue that feminist/female histrionics are a bug, not a feature then you are lying outright.
"But please don't tell me that men have a monopoly on calm rationality. "
And somebody should tell you what essence means.
I think the Nancy Hopkins example proves my point. She is one person but when she shows emotion about an important issue, she is portrayed as a representative of female irrationalism. But if a man gets angry or huffs off (and I see this happen every day), no one interprets it as particularly representative of male behavior in general, nor does anyone assume that men are irrational.
ReplyDeleteThe fact is that Nancy Hopkins WAS angry at Larry Summers's speech. And she was quite capable of explaining lucidly why his speech was both incorrect and inappropriate in that context. Her anger was neither irrational nor inappropriate, nor did it appear to make her unable to engage rationally and lucidly with the subject matter at issue -- except for the fact that an anti-feminist and soundbite happy media preferred to focus on her emotional state rather than her critique of Summers.
Georgina wrote,
ReplyDelete"...when she shows emotion about an important issue, she is portrayed as a representative of female irrationalism. But if a man gets angry or huffs off..."
Hold it right there. See, these are the kinds of statements, I'm guessing, that make people like Elizabeth Smith not want to talk with you. They are dishonest, and dishonesty in debate is like cheating in a ballgame. Nobody likes a cheater, Georgina.
Nancy Hopkins' showed emotion by proclaiming loudly that she "felt physically ill" as a result of Mr. Summers' speech. This you equate to a man's getting angry, and claim you just can't tell the two apart.
You're smarter than that. A.) Men don't "feel ill" after hearing something they think is wrong; indeed, it's significant that no man in the audience behaved as Hopkins did. B.) Even if they do lose their temper, they put on displays of strength, not weakness. If men really get as upset as Hopkins (and, again, no man did), he might punch you in the face. He isn't going to get queasy and crawl into a corner.
You are therefore wrong to say that women are no more helpless in the face of strong emotion than men. You are wrong because women are more likely to have strong emotions than men; and because when they do, they respond by becoming physically even weaker (nauseous) and thus unable to deal with whatever caused the emotion in the first place.
As an aside, I dislike talking about these things with women. Because they pretend not to know the obvious, we have to spell it out in unmistakable, and unflattering terms. At the heart of this debate between feminists and traditionalists, after all, is a zero sum game. Either feminists admit that they're incompetent (and thus underachieving) or traditionalists admit that they're immoral (and thus oppressing). They're isn't a reasonable middle ground, unfortunately. And it's the same game in any liberal debate (anti-racists vs whites; homosexuals vs normal people; etc.)
ReplyDeleteJMSmith:
ReplyDelete"For any young husbands who may be reading, I would summarize it this way. (1) Always listen to these rants. (2) Never allow yourself to be drawn into them, so that her rant becomes a quarrel. She will try to draw you in with incredibly ugly accusations, but these are just taunts and she doesn't mean any of it. (3) If there is a real underlying problem, propose your solution later."
Very good advice. Being a good husband is hard, and few of us have had very good role models these days. Some times you need to be a rock to her ocean, and let the waves break against you.
Bartholomew:
"Men don't "feel ill" after hearing something they think is wrong"
Real men don't, but in the past few years I've often come across contemptible creatures on the Internet who reply to any statement they dislike with "I just vomited in my mouth a little" or words to that effect. If you've not come across them yet, you're a lucky man.
if a man gets angry or huffs off (and I see this happen every day), no one interprets it as particularly representative of male behavior in general, nor does anyone assume that men are irrational.
ReplyDeleteAnger is not always irrational.
"And please don't tell me that men don't have hormones. (Hello testosterone!!!!)"
ReplyDeletewhich dulls pain, weakens immune response and allows men to not go running to doctor for every ailment, or think about that. Helps a fair bit in having exernal focus.
"I think the Nancy Hopkins example proves my point."
Indeed, it proves your point.
"she is portrayed as a representative of female irrationalism. "
She wasn't. otoh millions were earmarked to increase female participation.
"But if a man gets angry or huffs off (and I see this happen every day)"
Pretty sure you do. It's funny to watch men get all red just because they were had by some small lies. Such dolts! No imagination whatsoever, nor the humor to appreciate it.
"nor did it appear to make her unable to engage rationally and lucidly with the subject matter at issue"
Indeed it didn't, except for the small matter when she claimed that she had to leave or, "I would've either blacked out or thrown up."
As she later explained, the enchiladas had been unusually heavy that day.
"that an anti-feminist and soundbite happy media "
The media is anti-feminist only for those who are so feminist in their views that even the majority of feminists don't measure up to their high standards.
"contemptible creatures on the Internet"
Even on internet, women are more likely to state their opinions with "I feel" rather than "I think".
I think JMSmith got it right. Georgina and I aren't really connecting in this debate, in part, because we're focused on different things.
ReplyDeleteI'm guessing that Georgina is worried about accepting the idea that women are more emotional and benefit from a man who knows how to calmly handle her emotions because she fears that this will make it seem as if women can't cut it in the workplace in professions like law.
But that's not my interest. In fact, I'm happy to accept that women can be good lawyers (though I don't really know). If I have reservations about women being lawyers it's for other reasons (e.g. disruption to family formation).
My interest is successful personal relationships between men and women. And I stand my ground here. I think it's a common thing that women will push and push and if a man doesn't know how to calmly hold firm it will either end in unnecessary blow-ups or if he is too acquiescent it will likely end in the wife resenting and losing respect for him.
A husband wants his wife to relax back into her feminine self. You don't do that by capitulation when she is in her "push" mode. Let her break against you, don't lose your cool, keep your masculine frame.
It's true that my comments focused on workplace situations, whereas, Mark, you and the author you quoted were focusing on personal (romantic and/or marital) relationships between men and women.
ReplyDeleteAnd you are quire right that I'm skeptical that a world that views women the way we are described here could take women seriously in the professions. But I'm equally worried about women's status at home. It saddens me to think of some women accepting "being kept in line" by their menfolk because they think that's just the nature of the relationship between the sexes.
Now certainly, I think that calm, implacable firmness is a legitimate (and excellent!) response to someone who is in the grip of strong emotion that is leading him or her to make unreasonable demands. But there is no reason women shouldn't adopt that tack when appropriate too. I do! There's nothing inherently masculine about it, and it's a fairly easy skill to master. (Actually, there is even some cultural recognition that women are pretty good at this. Think of the stereotype of the crisp, efficient British nurse managing a whiney, intractable patient.)
Now, I will say that in sharing my observations that men can be equally emotional and unreasonable, I can't claim to have conducted a scientific study on the topic.
But let's say you're right and women routinely act like little girls throwing a temper tantrum. There's an easy fix for this: stop treating your daughters differently than your sons. When your little girl comes to you crying, do you treat her the same as you treat your little boy when he cries? I'd wager not. I do think children of both sexes should be treated with kindness and affection when in distress, but there is room to help them learn to buck up, and use their brains to try to figure out a solution to whatever is ailing them. Girls should receive this kind of training as much as boys, rather than being coddled unduly out of a misguided sense of kindness towards them.
Meh, Anonymous, "I feel" and "I vomited in my mouth" a bit are just turns of phrase.
ReplyDeleteAnd it may be that Nancy Hopkins revealed some sort of "weakness" by talking about feeling ill. But I guess, my response is, so what? She did, in fact, issue a well-reasoned counterpoint to Summers's goofy speech. There's no reason to think she is "irrational" just because she had a physical or emotional response to something. And, again, she's just one person.
She is certainly no more "irrational" than Summers himself who thinks that his daughters' playtime habits (the Mommy truck and the Baby truck!) are somehow evidence of inherent female weakness in science relative to men. Basically, Summers just spouted off about his personal "beliefs" even while admitting (within the speech itself!) that he knows nothing about it and was just basing his thoughts on random, personal observations. That's fine for all of us to do when chewing the fat in a blog forum, but not when you are speaking in a formal setting as the President of Harvard with substantial influence over tenure and hiring decisions. In terms of criminal stupidity and irrationality, it's a pretty tight race between Summers and Hopkins, honestly.
Georgina, the irony is that it's the more feminist, independent-minded, careerist women who seem to be most likely, in their personal lives, to need a man to stand up to them - to establish the masculine/feminine dynamic. A lot of men, I expect, just don't want to take on the role - they're put off by the initial strong-willed challenges.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it's this. If you're a woman and you've cultivated this really full-on work persona, in which you're strong-willed, in charge and with a tough exterior, then you're going to be asking a lot to find a man who can confidently stand up to you, not let you get your way in everything - a man you can respect and melt into your feminine personality at home.
There are plenty of very frustrated feminist women out there complaining about the lack of such a man on their websites.
"There's nothing inherently masculine about it, and it's a fairly easy skill to master. "
ReplyDeleteIndeed, once women have been taught by men, there's nothing inherently masculine about what they have been taught.
"Meh, Anonymous, "I feel" and "I vomited in my mouth" a bit are just turns of phrase. "
the worm turns..
"But I guess, my response is, so what?"
after digging myself into a hole, I guess, why not dig further.
"And, again, she's just one person(female)."
a female student getting angry at her professor's anti-feminist vibe is another. Need I remind you of the slut-walks? But I guess, that's like, totally rational.
"That's fine for all of us to do when chewing the fat in a blog forum, "
In academic speak, he should have said femininity is fragile.
"speaking in a formal setting as the President of Harvard with substantial influence over tenure and hiring decisions"
Indeed, while he has to apologize, she gets some grant or some stuff. some 'influence'. Nor is she some slouch when it comes to that
"She is certainly no more "irrational" than Summers himself"
Certainly, for even her irrationality is rational, and Summers rationality is irrational. So how can it not be.
"I can't claim to have conducted a scientific study on the topic. "
ReplyDeletewhy, thank god for that.
"There's an easy fix for this: stop treating your daughters differently than your sons."
Or beat the crap out of them. Destroy their self-esteem and whatever dreams they learn from TV.
Would surely make them more rational and teach them to keep their stupidity to themselves.
"Girls should receive this kind of training as much as boys, rather than being coddled unduly out of a misguided sense of kindness towards them. "
Indeed, the parents can be encouraged towards this behavior by shutting down every piece of legislation and governmental machinery that gives females a leg-up. Further, every avenue of power closed to them so that their temper tantrums don't rise beyond their own pathetic selves.
Then they can be sent to some place where they can build up their own civilization with their rationality.
"Think of the stereotype of the crisp, efficient British nurse managing a whiney, intractable patient."
ReplyDeleteYou are deluded if you think this is a model for a woman dealing with her husband. The nurse can deal crisply with whiny patients precisely because she has power over them and does not have romantic feelings for them. A woman who treated her husband the same way would despise him (and her romantic feelings for him would die) and he would despise himself as well.
"let's say you're right and women routinely act like little girls throwing a temper tantrum. There's an easy fix for this: stop treating your daughters differently than your sons."
This is moronic. Obviously you have no children. I treat my daughter differently than my son because boys and girls are different. You don't need a degree in neuroscience or psychology to figure this out -- simple observation will do! Unless you're an idiot Leftist and your ideology blinds you to the obvious truth, of course.
Georgina wrote,
ReplyDelete"Nancy Hopkins revealed some sort of "weakness" by talking about feeling ill...so what?"
Georgina, that's the entire point. What do you mean "so what"? When feeling emotional, women show weakness and men show strength. Full stop.
This is why women make poor commanders, leaders and any other kind of profession where composure under extreme stress is required. The spectacle of a Harvard professor running out of a meeting, ready to faint, simply because she heard something she didn't like is pathetic and unbecoming of someone in that office. The media rightly excoriated her, and if you think they were harsh. Men don't do that. Find me an example. And as for Simon's Internet drama queens, there's a reason they only do that on the Internet. I have never seen a man do that where he could be identified and called on it.
You assert that this difference in hardness is simply a function of environment. I think that's false and the evidence is on my side, but let's say you're right.
Let's imagine that we treat boys and girls exactly the same when they are upset. And let's say that you're right, and the result is that girls and boys learn to act exactly the same when they are upset. Let's take this further and say that we treat boys and girls exactly the same not only when they are upset (after all, why should equality be limited to unhappy times?), but when they are happy, proud, discouraged, disobedient, diligent, etc. And let's say that the girls and boys learn to act exactly the same in all of those circumstances, and that this continues into adulthood.
Now what are these young men and women supposed to find sexually attractive in one another? The general, emotional restraint you recommend for both sexes? But Georgina, now that you have generalized this behavior to both sexes, there is nothing sexual about it. If it's attractive, it's attractive in a friend as much as a lover. In the end, you'll end up with men and women who differentiated only by their bodies, not by their minds and spirits. And you'll end up with a crass men and women who are sexually turned on solely by the other's body. You'll end up with a very crass, physical sexuality.
Such is your equality. That is despicably evil. You will pay a severe price if you persist in approving of such evil and encouraging it in others (Romans 1).
Mark what is the significance of the partially obscured red/orange sphere in the upper left corner of your blog? At first I thought it was just a programming error, but this morning I noticed that less of it was showing than usual. Does it have something to do with local Australian time?
ReplyDeleteIs it the blogger logo?
ReplyDeleteI don't think so, as what I can see of it is round. I think it *is* some kind of programming error. When I hit the refresh button, that line is replaced with the Blogger menu bar, the one that has a search field and also says "Share Report Abuse Next Blog".
ReplyDeleteI was responding to the notion that women who respond emotionally to a situation (such as Summers's speech) are somehow incapable of rational thought. You can have an emotional response AND still be able to marshall the evidence and follow it to its logical conclusion, and engage in abstract reasoning and rational disputation.
ReplyDeleteThe issue of whether an emotional response manifests itself as "weakness" is different, but also important. I agree that you don't want a CEO or military leader buckling under pressure. But I can't imagine any reason why women would be more likely to buckle emotionally than men -- other than possibly cultural conditioning. (And, again, Nancy Hopkins is ONE person, hardly representative of the female sex.) After all, we all had to survive throughout most of history under harsh circumstances. We wouldn't have done as well as we have as a species if women were inclined to cave under stress.
Bartholomew says that it would be ridiculous to treat boys and girls the same. But it's completely ridiculous to treat them differently and then say, "See, girls are inherently more cowardly." Socialization starts from birth, and children respond to your biases from babyhood. (Remember the studies that show that even liberal parents are likely to identify a picture of a crying baby as "angry" if it's a boy and "scared" if it's a girl? Or the studies of parents who sat outside a ring of cushions with their babies inside -- the parents of boy babies encouraged them to climb out on their own, whereas the parents of girl babies lifted them out.) This stuff starts YOUNG!
Bartholomew then questions how the sexes can ever be attractive to each other, beyond the physical, if they have the same personal qualities. I find it hard to believe that such terrible qualities as cowardice and irrationality can possibly be attractive in women. Besides, no two people are alike, and there is plenty of room for opposites to attract without a rigidly enforced gender binary that insists women have one set of characteristics and men have an opposite set.
With the liberal influences contaminating child rearing in the last few decades, very few babies to adults are raised as you describe, Georgina.
ReplyDeleteThey are raised as identical to each other, and girls and boys by a majority are still predisposed to their inherent gender traits.
A rather adorable quote from the son of a gynecologist in "Kindergarten Cop" disagrees with you with more common sense in that we are different. There is biological gender differences, physically and psychologically that determines men and women as having different sets of characteristics. Because a man is a man and a woman is a woman.
We get terrible results when we go against our inner nature. Instead of fighting it, embracing who you are is much more fulfilling and natural. I become emotional and despite my reason, I can't control it and need someone to be a steady rock. And not let me become a full fledged storm.
When you write Georgina, I get the sense you possess a great deal of antipathy to real girls and women. It's one of the hypocrisies of feminism where they accuse men of treating women a certain way, and then slam their gender for what comes naturally.
Georgina Charlotte, could you be any more dumb?
ReplyDeleteThe point of focusing on her irrationality was that her reaction was completely out of proportion: fleeing from the room, on the verge of blacking out or vomiting?
Because of a comment? Really?