Conspiracies and women

reply to post by Recouper


Yes, thank you very much you've understood the point I was desiring to bring across completely.

Whether there is a conspiracy in the making, who really knows?

reply to post by ReAlIzAtIoN


Men have more free time.

Being female, I'm expected to be dumb, have flimsy opinions, and not be able to 'connect the dots'. I don't like bringing up conspiracy theories to people first because no one (generally) has any clue what I'm talking about. So when I hear people talking about them, I join in. They seem to be facinated that I a) know what I'm talking about b) can respect both or all sides to an arguement and c) sometimes I know more about them then they do!

reply to post by Recouper


Regardless of what the OP intended with his original question, the comments he received were demeaning generalizations. I deny ignorance and abhor prejudice when I find it--even within myself. I don't tolerate my female friends making the "men are pigs" types of statements so I won't stand for the "women are gullible easily led fools" types of statements either. Perhaps we could benefit by exploring and understanding our supposed differences but time and time again I've seen promising discussions degenerate into unchecked displays of generalizations stated in an insulting fashion.

I think many people fail to see the insult because somehow we've become accustomed to permitting sweeping generalizations about both genders (and people of unspecified gender for that matter) to be presented as statements of fact, rather than opinion or anecdotal observation. If you change all of the words around to make this discussion revolve around the question of "Why aren't black people interested in conspiracy theories?" the insult will become more apparent, because we as a society have gradually moved foward to become more sensitive to racism. The ridiculousness and prejudice inherent in concluding black people aren't GENERALLY interested in conspiracy theories because they are more easily distracted by sports and rap music will become more apparent. The astounding ignorance of concluding that black people aren't interested in conspiracy theories because one's black roommate or best pal isn't interested will become apparent. Fill in the blanks with any race and provide any stereotype to support your idea why you THINK they are not interested in conspiracies and the ignorance of some of the statements in this thread will become more apparent.

Honestly I have no idea what the statistical majority of any one group thinks of conspiracy theories. If a proper survey or census has been taken, breaking us all down into our various categories, I'm not aware of it. Until that day, I will do my best to avoid assuming anything about any group just because somebody has a spouse or friend or even entire community that acts or thinks a certain way. Geography, education, politics--there are MANY factors besides gender or working in conjunction with gender that can influence our opinion of conspiracies.

I take my allies where I can find them, as I find them. Be they male or female or some blend in between, black or brown or white or reptillian, gay or straight, religious or atheist. TPTB have many means at their disposal to blind any of us. They very well might use pop culture and fashion to derail women from seeing things as they truly are. But don't think the average male, if such a creature exists, is immune. We are being divided and conquered at every turn by every means. Christian vs. Muslim vs. Jewish HUMAN BEINGS. Legal vs. Illegal HUMAN BEINGS. Male vs. Female HUMAN BEINGS.

By all means, question everything. But also question your questions. How are you asking your questions? Why are you asking your questions? Are you really asking a question in order to seek true enlightment and solicit a variety of opinions? Or are you going to just let the answers that validate your own preconceived notions further entrench you in a position that may lack validity?

Please pardon any typos. My astigmatism is getting out of hand and I need new glasses, as I discovered when I realized I spelled my own intended username wrong!

reply to post by SheeplFlavoredAgain


On a purely micro level you make a lot of sense but this isn't a discussion that is focused on an individual level.

I want to hear what you think about me viewing women as the gatekeepers of this system/"matrix" that we live in as I stated in page 3. I am actually bashing "men" in that post if you really read into it.

I absolutely LOVE women, I just can't stand the little girls that are under the control of weak men which is in the majority. This is why I generalize.

i am a woman and am very interested in conspracy theories. But I have noticed that I can talk about such things with only a handful of people both men and women. Either people aren't interested or they just think that kind of stuff is off the deep end. Some people are more into deeper things then others I guess.

reply to post by hotbakedtater


"The generalizations and misogyny in this thread reinforce my belief women ARE the superior gender on this board."
============================================

Just because people observe what surrounds them everyday doesn't make them misogynists. It just makes us perceptive and honest. Don't let political correctness and your easily offended sensibilities get in the way of truthfulness. You are obviously a misandrist.

reply to post by Enigami

Explain to me why she was your girlfriend for three years? Explain also why men aren't interested in women like me? You can't have it both ways. I find myself alone in my interest in the workings of things in most company, but more so in female company. I have also noticed men who are into conspiracies and how things work have interest in a female only if she is shaped a certain way. I'm not horrible looking. I'm normal looking. I'm not fat, but I'm not one of those women who just look incredible. They get the men. They get the smart ones and the dumb ones.
Until you are actually attracted to a highly intellegent woman, you had better think this issue over really hard.
How I hate to see my conspiracy male friends go gaga over airhead ladies with great bodies.

reply to post by truthtothemasses


I saw your post and I really just can't think of anything to say in adequate response. My own experiences and observations of the dynamics between men and women don't let me quite relate to your conclusions. Further, I haven't quite settled in my mind what I perceive the "Matrix" to be, exactly, much less decide if it could possibly have a structure that would empower women in any significant way over men or vice versa. My personal take on "it" is that "it" is a basic war on all fronts in all manner of ways between the haves and the have nots. In some cases I believe the "haves" are guarding ancient knowlege about the origins of our species and pretty much any other knowledge that we would value in the fields of religion, science, and philosophy. Then we have corporations that just get larger and more influential over individuals for the apparent purpose of enslaving us via consumerism and via the erosion of our freedoms whenever we exchange our Bill of Rights for a paycheck. And somehow, into all of that, we're supposed to fit in Saquatch and cattle mutilations and other inexplicable topics. (I'm not poking fun, mentioning Sasquatch. I've seen some odd things in my lifetime and keep an open mind). So to me, the "Matrix" is still huge and nebulous and I can't imagine anyone is being used exclusively over anyone else. I just think that where there exists ANY weakness, it will be exploited mercilessly. If I had to pick just one word to describe this all consuming "beast", it would be GREED. All caps.

And I'm really reluctant to accept bashing of either men or women. That is what TBTB would want us to focus on. What I would prefer to do is to redirect the emphasis away from the perceived shortcomings of either gender and instead put the scrutiny back on the powers that be.

I think it's perfectly legitimate to believe that TBTB do focus on promoting and exploiting stereotypes. I think they do find the little grains of truth in the stereotypes and then focus on magnifying those differences to the point that these things demean and divide us.

The OP may have had the best of intentions with the original question. The problem is it was asked in a way that would naturally elicit responses of a nature designed to relate anecdotes about thickheaded girlfriends and commiserate over the foibles of some women. While satisfying, it's not exactly productive kind of talk. We're supposed to be helping pull each other out of our respective trenches, not digging us in deeper.

So what I propose is that we rephrase the original question to ask "In what ways do powerful elements of our society attempt to stunt the development of women, limit their contributions, and narrow their world view?" Do you see the subtle difference? It's all in what you ask and how you ask it. Let's put the focus back on the exploiters rather than pick apart the exploited. For ALL of us are exploited in one way or the other. Sometimes we are complicit in our own exploitation but that's actually when we need the most patience and understanding. Where some of those thickheaded women have been, I have also trod. I was not guided to the light by ridicule, scorn or condescension.

Very interesting thread, I wonder the same sometimes... S&F.

If you were looking at it from a point of view whereas you are basing your information only on the ATS website, then you may be just a little mistaken. I am a woman, but you probably wouldn't have known that just by looking at my username/avatar. This would apply to a lot of women on ATS, however, I'm sure men defiantly come in more numbers.

Looking at it from a worldwide point of view, men are still more popular in the conspiracy field. I believe it's the way the two different sexes think. Women like things the way they are as long as their running smoothly. Men, I believe are more curious and want to put all these puzzles together.

However, that must be a bit of a stereotype, because as you can see not all people follow those guidelines. Just take me fore example! I'm a woman and I absolutely love everything ATS has to deal with, from conspiracy to extraterrestrials, from BP to religion, from 2012 to, my definite favorite, cryptozoology.

It is politically incorrect to say that women are much better at caring for small children than men are. The woman's lib movement tried to show that women are just like men when they should have shown that what women do for society is just as good as what men do. Can you think of a more important job than shaping the first five years of a child's mind? Men and women are definitely different and I think it is safe to say that when each looks at the other they tend to judge each other by what they each hold dear. So they both conclude that the other is slightly insane and maybe a little stupid. I think the reality is that when a male and female work together their diverse roles can compliment each other. Each taking care of important details that the other isn't really aware of. Individual personality problems muck this up plenty but you get my drift. So while I agree that female interest in conspiracies is less than males I believe that they have other interests that evade the understanding of males yet are equally valuable.
OP, great thread S&F

Here is a great story about feminism that I found very interesting:
Feminism

[edit on 6-7-2010 by RedPill]

reply to post by Exv8densez


Could it possibly be a security issue? Women usually want a strong foundation IMO. This could lead to not wanting to hear about anything that could comprimise thier idea's of thier security level.
Just a thought

I'm a woman, and I must admit that I find, at least in my surroundings, that more of my male friends are into and follow this subject than my female friends. I don't think this applies to everywhere though, generalising and saying 'most women couldn't care less' is wrong. True, there are too many girls out there more interested in the next fab hairstyle then in what is happening on our planet on a daily bases. However, many men are too uninterested in what REALLY goes on around us behind the thick black curtain.

I for one will never go back to that crowded sheep road.

reply to post by ReAlIzAtIoN


The typical male hunts while the typical female gathers. Men worry more about conspiracies as hunters and protectors, females worry less about them as gatherers and nurturers, in part because they rely on the male persona to create a safe environment for them to gather and nurture.

Now this is rather primordial in its actual programming into the human psyche, but of course modern societal expectations have broadened the traditional roles and at times even reversed them because of the nature of the corporate jungle versus the natural jungle.

In the end it all becomes a matter of focus and what an individual chooses to focus on.

Most people who develop a passion for conspiracies enjoy that as an evolution of a passion for politics and discussing politics, which inevitably leads to talk of conspiracies.

Most political discussions are though contentious in nature and often unreserved in their discourse and is not typically something most women enjoy speaking about at length.

This is not a stereotypical or sexist post, yet it is not a politically correct one either, the truth is there are real physiological differences between men and women, that are part of nature and it’s design.

I am a woman and I agree that most other women just aren't interested in anything more than what goes on in their daily lives. And that's one reason why I don't get along well with most other women. I find them to be very superficial, flat, and very linear and one-dimentional.

I'm so happy to see the other women here stand up! It's nice to see the mix of opinions on both side of the fence.

Rock on!

reply to post by WhiteMagicWoman


Could not agree more!!! In fact, it's that expectant role of mindless Stepford-wife that drove me to toward "conspiracy world". Where the majority of women in my small-town look forward to weddings and babies and mundane jobs, all these avenues force me to step back and look at why.

I'm not so much interested in how things work, but why (the systems as a whole)??? This makes being a single woman in a small town very difficult. People ask constatly, why there's no husband, no babies....why would I resign myself to that when there's obviously so much more? Seems to me like the Conspiracy-girl and the What-society-labels-normal-girl....are two very different creatures, more often than naught at odds....

I only read the first several pages of this, and people seemed to be missing something, so forgive me if this stuff was stated in the second half of the thread.

All people have, for lack of better terms, a "worldly side" and a "spiritual side". The worldly side is egocentric and concerned with self, while the spiritual side is empathic and concerned with others.

Then you also have men and women, whose brains are wired differently from the start, and since each has the two sides mentioned above, you really have four things to contend with (male worldly, female worldly, etc.).

The worldly sides most closely correspond with what one would expect out of evolution, and the ills of the world stem from this. Here are the mindless male drive to be on the top of the pack and the mindless female drive to make herself as desirable as possible. But then you have the "spiritual" (again, for lack of a better term... maybe "unselfish" would be better?) side. In this the male wants to contribute via his technical proficiency (which he probably learned during his adolescent years of mindless power-climbing) and the female wants to contribute with her empathic insight into inter-human problems (often also learned during the adolescent game of climbing all over the less pretty ones or being persecuted herself). Of course these are not hard and fast. Each person is different and there is much overlap. But in any case the worldly side is developed in adolescence; the spiritual side comes later if the person has had the courage and fortitude to grow up.

The point is both men and women are capable of superficiality and selfishness, and are also capable of growing beyond that crud and finding real meaning.

For those women blaming "patriarchy" for your own lack of depth, your intellectual sincerity is belied by the fact that you stop there and do not pursue the question further (that is, from where does patriarchy originate? etc.). In other words, it's an excuse, not the result of an honest quest for truth. There is much that is worthy of discussion in this area (e.g. "put two animals in the woods, one is much better specialized for meeting the survival needs of both, who do you think is going to be in charge?" - with of course women possessing the checks and balances stemming from their sexual power over men), but as this is not a very PC topic, it takes a certain meditative calming of the ego in order to approach this subject honestly. Which is why we never see it discussed. I'm not saying I have the correct answers, but the merely scientific question of how things got to be the way they are seems to be taboo in our culture, due to the specter of "sexism".

Men and women are specialization. Economics shows that division of labor increases productivity, and sex is one of nature's ways of achieving this. The sexes were meant to complement one another, not compete with one another.

So I've brought up a million different sub-topics in this short post, each of which probably could use a separate thread for in-depth analysis, but what I mainly want to show in this post is that the issue is more complicated than the usual caricatures of "men are arrogant and stupid, women are vapid and stupid" inter-sex slugfest. Why don't we work together and discover the laws of nature? If men are more interested in abstract systems and modularity and how things work together, and women are more interested in inter-human relations, motives, emotions, and the psychological angle of things, then why can we not each contribute our own strengths, whatever they may be, rather than blaming the other for lacking our particular strengths?

If a woman is more interested in the happiness and success of her 3-year-old son than in conspiracies in high places perpetrated by perpetual adolescents that we are all powerless to stop anyway, why does that make her any less of a person? That makes no sense at all to me.

Sorry again about the dodgy rambling of this post. I have no definite answers to provide; I just want to provoke thought on some points I feel others have failed to make.


[edit on 6-7-2010 by NewlyAwakened]

reply to post by SheeplFlavoredAgain


Well, I don't concern myself with comments which I consider too shallow, pathetic and therefore harmless to be worth acknowledgement. I don't have the time. People who are uselessly wasting precious moments of their lives to shoot of clumsy derogative attacks against the opposite gender which have nothing to do with the topic as introduced by the OP simply aren't worth or deserve any sort of acknowledgement. So I ignore them, let the world pass them by, and converse and debate with people who are worthy... or dangerous... or actually successful at being subtle...
I say raise above "displays of generalizations stated in an insulting fashion" and let us move on. Well, that's what I say anyway. Maybe you see it differently and perhaps I could understand why.

Is the OP's observation based on a roommate, or best pal? Or is it based on life long repeated experience? We'd have to ask the OP.

I can promise you that I'll do my best to avoid assuming anything about an individual and I hope you approve. I'll also avoid assuming anything about any group. But if I can know truthful generalisations about one or the other gender and understand why those differences generally exist, I would like that information as a father of both a son and a daughter, as a husband and as a member of a community.

Understanding the differences between the genders may lead to us preventing TPTB from blinding us, females and males. In this thread we are discussing whether females are more likely to be uninterested in things like conspiracies and what that can tell us. Might I suggest to you that such a line of discussion may lead us to acknowledge an aspect generally found in males that is used against us (the general populous, as we are all in this together) by TPTB.

This doesn't have to be an "Us vs. Them" event, this doesn't have to be dividing. Why should it be so taboo to investigate?

And I will question everything I think is genuinely worth questioning. But do you have an issue with me asking those questions on an open forum? Should I keep them to myself? Should I keep silent in case I have a question you don't approve of? Or maybe I should choose my words based on what you would find admissible?

Sorry if I'm coming across harsh. I'm pretty sure you are somebody I should like, but I feel the debate must be had for you and me and anyone who will read.

Woman are conditioned and brainwashed from an earlier age than most men, so they are the gender that is usually deeper in the stupor. As a little girl I did everything possible to rebel against the media of images of little girls: I wore skate shoes and t-shirts, skated, surfed and fought just like a little boy. Woman are STILL conditioned to be bare-foot and pregnant.

reply to post by Recouper
I think the board just ate my post. I typed a whole response and went to add one last sentence and the whole text just vanished out of the box. Great. I didn't have much spare time today to post and now to have to retype makes me want to slam my head on the desk.

Well, LOL, I'm sure you would like me. What's not to like. I'm a nice person. Unfortunately I seem to have had the unintended effect of seeming to attempt to impose political correctness on this discussion and to put a chill on open discourse. Not my intention at all.

The OP did not in fact bring up the topic of females he personally knew. He did not get personal or insulting at all. That all came up in the replies. It's easy to say rise above it or ignore it. But I try to read all the posts in a thread to make sure I'm not missing a gem of wisdom. Also, when it's your own specific group you feel is under fire and being hit with generalizations and boxed in, it's not just that easy to "rise above it" and let it all pass without comment.

My intention, not well executed perhaps, was to put the focus back on the elements that exist in society and interpersonal dynamics that could push women into silence over subjects that could secretly interest them. I saw the discussion going in the direction of a general assumption that women as a group are not interested, and because of our innate differences appear to lack even the capacity for interest in conspiracies altogether, especially if our personalties tend toward the more "girly" characteristics. Of course not everyone was saying this, but there were enough replies from both men and women to suggest that and give me pause.

I understand where generalizations can be useful and necessary but we have to be careful in that they can also be self fulfilling prophecies. I think it's human nature that when we are not sure of our place in the company we are keeping, we revert to the most basic roles expected for our age, race, class and gender. For example, if I'm just standing around with a bunch of other women I see only casually and know superficially, I will not in my right mind start talking about the Norway Spiral or chupcabras or shadow entities. Yes, I will be exchanging recipes and talking about our kids. If I'm with a group of men, the talk invariably turns to movies and video games. In mixed company, we stick to very general topics like the weather and the remodeling of the local library or what have you.

As we get more familiar with each other, differences like race or gender seem to fall away entirely and our true selves emerge to speak freely on the things that deeply interest us. As our local govt. screws us over ever harder, as strange military aircraft fly over us lower and louder more than ever before, even neighborhood talk is turning more toward the nature of topics we used to only see here on ATS. In fact it wouldn't suprise me in the least if most of the people in my neighborhood know of ATS. Everything seems to be coming to some sort of head at this point and even generally preoccupied people seem aware things seem purposely mismanaged to herd us into a drastic change from the existence we have known.

True, some people seem to have no depth to them, ever. True, some of them are women. True, I would be considered one of them if you ran across me in person. I open up here in the relative anonymity of the internet or when I'm fighting crap in my community. Otherwise, I'm pretty much a potato, as far as outward personality goes. A very kind and polite potato.