Female posters incapable of original thought?

reply to post by undo


Yeah a family will always be much more stronger if one of the spouses can stay home while the other works.

Kids really need a good parent home with them for a proper upbringing.

Right now you just have families still struggling, and both running around stressed out of their minds.

It's a situation i'm desperately trying to avoid.

reply to post by Jenna


reminds me of when the hub retired, after 20 years, and the new job he thought he was going to walk right into after his retirement, went to someone else. we spent the next year with only 25% of his original pay. everything went in arrears. the credit cards, the phone, everything. just then, as if some magically evil button was pressed: WHAM! almost every appliance in our house broke. including the washer, dryer, stove/oven, dishwasher, garbage disposal, hotwater heater and air conditioner/furnace (and we live in florida!). all three of our dogs got sick, one of which died, and hubby was diagnosed as 70% disabled with a list of maladies about a mile long (he's really 100% disabled as far as i'm concerned, but some conditions are being misdiagnosed, depending on who you are, of course).

ya just never know when the unlucky stick is gonna hitcha.

[edit on 7-5-2010 by undo]

Originally posted by undo
reply to post by sirnex

 

everyone's circumstances are different. i was in a coma, when i came out of it, i was no longer fit to work, we had huge medical bills, but hubby made just enough money, that we couldn't qualify for assistance. and because i hadn't worked long enough to pay into the system, i wasn't qualified to get social security help either. i'll just leave it at that cause i don't want to drag the thread completely off topic.

Given that circumstance, I can understand what you mean. Not every situation is going to be perfect. I wish you the best of luck financially and hope the bills can get paid off. This is why we need universal health care in this country!

Originally posted by Dark Ghost

Originally posted by riley
I didn't say I was angry.. I just pointed out what you were doing and this proves I was right. "take a deep breath"?

oh I'm feeling light headed and all flustered this is all too much for me I'm getting hot flashes I must be getting my period or something..

...I'll be out of action for a couple of days. FIGHT ON WITHOUT ME MY SISTERS!! I'm just no good to you in this state! (ahem. cramps

)

[edit on 7-5-2010 by riley]

Out of every female I have ever had the opportunity to interact with, you are by far one of the most difficult to see eye to eye with. It is near impossible to gain your approval or get you to admit that you are wrong.

Why would I admit to being wrong? Don't be ridiculous. Someone admitting their wrong requires them to actually believe they are and I do not. I am not obligated to just because you throw a tanzy over it.

You have an innate distrust of men where you think they are only being nice because they want something in return.

You are making baseless assumptions about.. well my life. You do not know me yet you are making very personal judgments on me. What could they want? Oh I see.. must be sex. Why would you even go there dark ghost? This isn't a dating site so you would not have been witness to men trying to "get something in return". You're just making it up as you go along.

You put down and try to smear them at every turn. You dismiss anything they say relating to any interactions they have had with women that go against your views. You ALWAYS assume men are guilty and women are innocent on any issue that gets discussed on ATS. You are one of the most sexist members on this forum.

You are making sweeping baseless generalisations. Again. IN CONTEXT: The "guilty" man I was speaking of was in that news story. He was accused of rape and his victim had injuries to both her vagina and her anus.

That certainly does not mean I think all men are guilty and it does not mean I think all men are rapists.

There are many men on ATS that I see eye to eye with.. there is mutual respect yet you have disregarded them and are proclaiming that I have a thing against ALL men which is TOTAL bs. I don't. I just have a thing against rapist sympathisers and men who think they are inherently superior just because they have a penis. I also have a thing against anyone (male or female) who follow me around these boards pecking a my feet like ducks trying to take me down. It's like you guys are collaborating.

These just might be some of the reasons why you receive labels such as "Feminazi". Get used to it because with your current mindset, you live up to the role very well.

*bye bye sinking ship*

[edit on 7-5-2010 by riley]

reply to post by Jenna

There are some families that really can't make ends meet on one income, even if they do cut back on everything they possibly can. You and your wife are fortunate that you can raise three kids on one income and still have a decent life. Not everyone is so lucky.

I can't accept that fully. I understand that *some* people have medical expenses that need to be paid, and I feel sorry we have a backwards health care system. The only other thing I can think of (from a couples perspective), is debt, but debt is someone's own fault because they didn't live within their means. I've wanted many nice thing's in life, but I never put myself in debt to obtain those nice thing's, nor do I buy them if I can get them for free or cheaper than retail value through someone who's done with them.

If you're both at work, the house won't get dirty to begin with.

Man I wish that were true... My two older kids are horrible with keeping things clean. We literally have to run behind them and either get on their asses to pick up after themselves or do it ourselves. lol

Not to mention all the other kids she babysits throughout the week, which knowing her, even if she had a job, she'd still babysit. lol

Men who think women are stupid or vice versa are probably very sheltered and have never encountered anyone outside of the idiots they are exposed to every day. If, of course, we are a product of our environment then we can only assume that if a woman is surrounded by stupid men that she will believe that most men she encounters are going to be too stupid to understand her. Same goes for men.

Solution:
Broaden your horizons.

reply to post by sirnex


thanks. we could use some good wishes. he finally got the job, but everything was so late, all the payments and interest rates went up. we still haven't caught up. only reason we were able to keep the internet was because the jobs he was applying for required he apply online and check frequently. anyway...

yeah the economy + unforeseen problems = reason many women end up in the work place. not all, of course, but enough that it factors into the picture. the extent of the laws regarding things like upkeep of your vehicle....and he HAD to have a car. no choice in the matter.

i can't begin to tell you how often our car broke down when we were younger. and some of the issues were down right bizaare. like the u-joint falling off while driving down the road, not once, but three different times (after being repaired no less!). after fussing about what a lemon one car was, to my friend who was in the car with me at the time, the steering wheel fell off in my hands. it was so ridiculous we both just bust out laughing at the craziness of it all. (that car was the most expensive car we had ever owned at the time, too. wasn't new, but wasn't old either. was a huge money hole)

we were thousands of miles away from family (many of which had a bunch of mechanical and technical skills that woulda been quite handy for just such occasions). so we had to pay for these things outta our own pocket. every three months or so, we went another 400 dollars or more in debt, just trying to keep the car running, not counting normal maintenance and yearly safety and emissions inspections. suffice it to say, it was rough.

i don't blame the ladies for going to work although i sympathize with men who have had to compete for the few jobs that are available these days.

reply to post by Jenna



I think it is sexism pure and simple and that you have bent over backwards not to be seen as a "Man-hating feminist" but that is a minor point.

Now brace yourself for other people to shout "PC this" and "Man-hating" and other oafish comments.

Remember this is cyberspace and many troglydytes have retired here to lick their wounds and vent their spleen on ordinary people.

Attacking PC has ben described as "demanding the right to grope your secretary whilst hurling abuse at anyone that does not look like you".

Great (and timely) OP




[edit on 7-5-2010 by Tiger5]

reply to post by undo


I wish you the best from this day forward.

I hate to think of people being in your situation, but I sincerely hope things turn for the better and you and your hubby find some peace.

Edit: Removed by User.

[edit on 7/5/2010 by Dark Ghost]

reply to post by Izarith


well thanks! i must say that another thing women are underestimated for, as far as intelligence goes, are the skills involved with running a home. that takes more than a bit of manual labor, of that there is no doubt. mom's intuit their kids misbehaving! now that's a skill you can hone to perfection lemme tell ya, and it certainly indicates the ladies are no dummies.

Originally posted by Jenna
There seems to be a persistent belief that women are somehow incapable of understanding some issues or that they should essentially know their place.

Welcome to the reason for feminism.

What you have here is a cultural "meme" that has been developing in the Western culture over the past 2 millennia. In patriarchial societies where polygamy exists (the foundation of Western culture, some 4,000 years and more ago) it is the son who is valued and given all the property and the daughter who exists to become a wife of a wealthy man. In this power exchange, men are scorned who "can't control their wives". In this kind of culture, wives are essentially oversized children who can have sons for the man and can be killed/divorced if they don't have any sons.

(Flip through the Bible and notice how often the names of daughters are given. Now notice how many times the names of sons are given. Prime example.)

Women were given power in the old days to run a business for the family while the man was away. But laws became more restrictive about what they could do (the upper class women -- nobody cared what the daughter of a poor family did (and it wasn't unusual for them to be sold into slavery at a young age)).

During the great class divides after the Dark Ages, the role of upper class women became increasingly limited (lower class women actually had more freedom and could do things that the upper class couldn't, like own a shop or make and sell products from the farm (like cheese.)) They were expected to be a sort of "yes man" to the husbands, take care of the kids (and eventually this was taken from them) and look beautiful. If they failed as "yes man" or stopped being beautiful, they were frequently set aside and ignored or sent to a convent or "met with an accident" or simply had to sit around and watch as the man paraded around with his mistresses.

Laws (and religion) were used to enforce this.

Cut to the Victorian era and the widening of the middle classes. They all emulated the upper class (wife is obedient, stays at home, works on the wifely arts, does NOT get educated or write books or paint professionally and so forth.) She does, however, manage the servants. This model persisted through the 1950's, when (in America) Black women were the ones who raised kids and held down jobs and so forth while the White women were expected to stay home and play cards with the women's club and learn to sew and so forth. Education beyond high school was STRONGLY discouraged (I grew up in those days) and I experienced bullying and taunts of "no guy will ever want you" because I was intelligent. Other women fared worse, having their research stolen and published under their male colleagues' names.

And romance novels (designed for women's reading) were written by men under female pseudonyms. The only way a woman who wrote science fiction could get published was to use a male pseudonym or use her initials (so the publisher would assume she was male.) Female artists found the same results.

So it's a holdover from those times. By the end of the 70's, I could buy a car for the family (without anyone asking where my husband was and whether he wanted me to do this (this happened several times). By the end of the 80's I could walk into a trade show for computers and be treated as someone who had as much knowledge of networks, routers, hard drives and hardware as any man there.

Conservatives didn't like it. What they wanted was society as it was in the 1940's (when the only women working were the poor Blacks, who were maids and nannies to the middle and upper class and women couldn't threaten their perceived economic power or intellectual power.) Liberal and progressive men loved it (particularly the intelligent ones) -- it meant they weren't saddled with some woman who couldn't hold a decent conversation or understand family finances -- that the woman was an equal partner and could pull her weight as a team member instead of as an overaged child whose only real purpose was breeding and being pretty enough that the other men would envy the husband for having a beautiful wife.

I don’t believe that women are oppressed (not any more anyway), that we are victimized or exploited by men daily, or that women are in any way the superior sex.

I'll believe that when the pay for men and women is equal (for the same jobs, we earn 75% of what a man does), when the layoff axe hits men and women equally (it doesn't), when juries don't excuse rapes with "well, the woman was just asking to be raped", and when they report on women in politics without mentioning what she wore (honestly... can't you just see "Joe Lieberman showed up at the event wearing a conservatively tailored dark navy colored suit and matching black patent shoes. His socks were black with a tiny pattern near the ankle and his tie was a soft shade of gold. He spoke about....")

Literature, mythology, and folklore from virtually every part of the globe contains tales of women who were fierce in battle, leaders of armies, revered leaders of their people, heroines, goddesses of war, etc.

Relatively rare examples, though. And you need to look at how the culture treated its usual female citizen... not the exceptions.

Anyway, been there, got the tee shirt, joined the feminists, married a guy who is a feminist and we've been happily married for the past 38 years (compared to my FIRST marriage with a traditionalist who divorced me after 18 months because he couldn't stand being married to someone who didn't understand Her Place In Society.)

on a side note, i wrote a strange thread yesterday (which has since been put in skunk works. lol ) anyway, i don't think having an original thought qualifies your intellectual capacity, as original thinking can sometimes garner irritation from those who either haven't seen what you 've seen, disagree on some point you've raised, or consider your points to be too far out of the experience of the norm, that they aren 't based in sound reasoning.

so to justify saying women aren't original thinkers, you'd have explain why when they do have an original thought, it tends to be ignored, beat to death, or shoved in a dark corner. (or stolen)

it isn't that ladies aren't original. it's ladies aren't allowed to be original. and if they are, it scares some peeps. ya know?



[edit on 7-5-2010 by undo]

I have to ask,

What about males incapable of thought?

Say a male with a fairly high IQ and who totally respects the equality of women, but whose brain shuts down when approached by a female?

What is that?!

well if it makes a difference i personally think woman are accutly smarter ( or maby they just use what they have more then men.
If it wasn't for woman humans would still be in the STONED age.
why do i think this come on lets go back 60k years now old grog what did he want what mattered to him lets take a look see.
well a fire was nice (it was the ice age after all) a good spear was a great thing .( sure was nice having a pointed stick between you and that tiger)
and after a hard day (ok so it only took 2 hours tops ) hunting it was nice to come back to the cave and get a little from miss grog)
now old grog was happy with this arrangement and would have spent the next million years in STONED age bliss if it hadent been for woman.
and what did miss grog want well so begins civilization
miss grog wanted more food better caves better protection for grog JR.
she wanted that pesky .tiger out of the village and mostly she wanted that spider DEAD which lead to writing which lead to news papers to swat the sucker.
well im just playing at this point but realy she did want MORE of every thing ( for grog jr of coarse and just who was she going top badger to get this stuff why MR grog him self of coarse cutting him off untill he produced said iteams and that is the rest of the story

reply to post by MikeboydUS


projection! i knew a guy like that. he referred to my anatomy and then suggested that was my only valuable resource, as the one between my ears was apparently lacking. (but we know the real truth, don't we! when the blood be vacatin' his brain, he be thinkin' it were vacatin' my brain. that's what we call projection!)

reply to post by Jenna


Well perhaps if we weren't an imbecilic species we could see that duality does exist and stop making assumptions. The way I see it we have a few problems we need t figure out how to surmount

1. Some people need to understand that men and women ARE different...to a point... Yes there are variances of strength on the whole when comparing the genders. Although exceptions sure do exist… If you want to see an amazing world of misogyny. I invite you to visit some fire departments. Not all...but some. I have seen ones where women's profiles and applications were thrown away and one where a woman DID get on duty. She was given her own bedroom (no problem there) but she had to do her own shopping...own cooking...lovely huh? Never part of the team

I get tired sometimes of people who claim we are all alike and their isn't uniqueness at all. But that doesn't mean there is a negative or positive difference...which takes me to point 2

2. Now...with that said...women ARE equal to men. It's a shame the world hasn't caught up with this concept yet. Maybe I should change it to women SHOULD be equal to men. Duality…women can be different but equal…right? I’ve seen slavery mentioned a few times now. Well…black men were once thought of as property. They were farm tools…implements. Now as we see it today equality is there (with the exception of large pockets of racism that still exist). Are they somehow different than me? Well I’d be a fool to say no wouldn’t I? Their skin is different from mine. The question is does it make a black person more or less worthy than me? No.

In the same respect I do not share the same sexual organs as a woman and I cannot have children. So that does make us different but when did difference come to mean inequality? Probably since the dawn of time I guess but it would be nice to see it end.

3. Admittance. We are boys and we are girls and we are unique in our ways. We all have tiny imperfections and differences but one thing is for sure; we are humans. As humanity goes we will do things that are deemed stupid. I’m sorry ladies sometimes a guy is going to stare at another gal. It happens…it doesn’t mean it has to be accepted practice but for the love of cake we are sometimes visual creatures! And guys, well sometimes ladies will do their stupid crap too. Maybe if we all just quit judging each other off of certain examples and admit we all do some wacky stupid stuff from time to time we might just move on a little bit.

4. Understanding. I am no superman here ok? I am not claiming what I am about to say is some amazing original thought that I came up with first but man we have GOT to try and work on understanding the other gender. I mean actual understanding that each guy has a feminine side and each girl has a masculine side. Why is that such a dangerous concept for some? It isn’t going to magically reassign your gender just because you try working on seeing their point of view. I am not saying we all need to go to a new-age gender understanding camp. Just watch the other gender sometimes. Pay attention to what they are saying and what they aren’t saying such as body language and their face. You’ll learn a ton when you tune in.

Those are my thoughts…not apologizing for them…men/women we’re all good and we’re all bad. Let’s get over this inequality thing

Women are just as intelligent as we men are. I’ve seen so many stinking examples of this.

As a side note…I have met a couple of the girls here who are the ‘drama-mamas’ who do nothing but flirt. I am fairly sure I know at least one of the names you mean and if it is her I will say that although she is very popular she is also a lovely and intelligent woman (IMO of course). And another one who is constantly looked at as stupid here…I have talked to her privately and she is a lot brighter than most give her credit for. I am pretty open minded and I realize some of the gals do some petty things from time to time (although look at some of the fine male examples we have here too…yeesh) and frankly I am not gonna let a few silly actions define those gals for me. I prefer to take the direct route and find out for myself.

my thoughts...popular or not…there they are

You women are no dumber than us men…period

Sorry for the lenghty and charged response Jenna...I am just sick of these stupid assumptions on all sides

-Kyo

reply to post by undo


I know a person sort of like that, but minus the whole anatomy thing.

There are some men who are in awe of women and for some bizarre reason are more willing to serve a female officer (or executives in the civilian world) than a male one.

For some reason bee and ant drones come to mind.

reply to post by MikeboydUS


not sure i understand what you mean by "you know someone like that minus the anatomy thing" (paraphrased)?

as far as the rest of your comment:


that's star trek's version of a bee hive. no originality. maybe that's where this thing of "women don't have original thoughts" comes from? the idea that a woman at the head of something, auto assumes hive mind. whereas a man at the head, just means man fulfilling his destiny as dominant species. interesting....

A few points:

1) Men and women think and process information differently. Trying to compare how each does it in terms of intelligence doesn't work as well as one might like but the end result is a balance. Men have strengths and weaknesses (cognitively) as do women.

2) I find that women are fully capable of comprehending complexity and can have quite insightful original thought, but do so less often than men for a variety of reasons. Most of it, as far as I've seen, comes simply from choice.

3) Women tend to have emotion (irrationality) and logic (rationality) intertwined together where men tend to have those two separated and generally not connected with each other.

This is neither good nor bad, just the way it seems to be.

Peace
KJ