Is Popular Culture Destroying Women?

How is there this "pressure" though in some ways to be beautiful, thin, ect, when 30% of adults in the US are obese? It's not exactly a minority. Being realistic, the pressure really doesn't seem to be there unless you put the topic under a microscope....or are a high school student.

No, it is not the popular culture, it's the greedy governments and capitalists of the world who are destroying women and their ability to thrive at high positioned jobs. I'm sorry to say it but the OP also went down that road with this topic.

The thing is, if society was to take into consideration the biological aspects and differences of men and women and if they made sure every mother could do their high demanding job at unusual hours, from home, childcare at the office and hundreds of other things a mother&child need, only then would the number of women in science and management and etc. increase.

Until then most women will never fully use their potential for anything work related and instead settle for less while being a full primary caregiver. It is a case of biology, simple as that.


ps. i clearly stated most women, there will always be exceptions to the rule

man I dont think the problem with modern women is the issue of beauty. I can't speak about the rest of the world but in Los angeles most of the women one is going to meet are influenced by forces telling them to judge men only by how much money they can give them. they don't care if the guy is a dick and screws over most of humanity, is immature, insecure or even fugly and toad like in appearance. they just marry for money not love. these men make crappy fathers and even less respectable human beings. not sounding bitter since I have a great girl who is brilliant, beautiful and full of compassion...for an angeleno, I got lucky I guess. But the problem is that a lot of women in the US living in major cities are becoming more and more trite and self centered and frankly entitled for no reason other than they are influence by degenerate culture that puts themselves over the common good.

Sad too cause in LA there has got to be more women like my girlfriend and they don't get a fair shot because of the goldigging Sluts for no better term that run around prostituting themselves for money in it's various forms. seriously girls you make real women look bad who have real opinions and think for themselves take care of themselves and are models of what humanity is supposed to be.

btw, in response to the OP question. yes modern culture is destroying women. it's not like we want them to subjugate themselves to mans desires but to meet the rest of humanity half way.

Originally posted by Jessica6


I agree with you there. I get into this argument with my "Femininst" friends all the time, particularly when it comes to date rape. Women HAVE to take responsibility for themselves, and need to avoid risking getting into dangerous situations. Yes, that doesn't mean what the guy does is right either, but there are predators out there. Don't swim with sharks and you won't get eaten by them.

Well date rape is a complicated subject(well not really complicated just misstated). There is intoxicated sex(that is believed to be consensual) and then there is out and out predators who conspire to get a person intoxicated to have sex against their will(drug them out).

In merely intoxicated sex, the most that should ever be done is a very private lecture and some counseling if required(for either party). Because I am under no illusion that in hindsight such things can be traumatic.

As per someone conspiring, that get's broken down further. You have to separate the ones who merely push controlled substances willfully on another(with the recipients consent, for ex: person A keeps feeding person B shots or wine coolers) to make them more easily to influence; and those who actually drug(use date rape drugs) to render the person unable to resist.

Yeah sure common sense should be taught, but lack of common sense is not an excuse to take advantage of another person.

And in regards to feminism, let's be honest with ourselves. Feminism is a hate movement. Hate movements tend to attract psychopaths and sociopaths(if they become popular the sociopaths will jump on board). And such feminist's have no moral qualms about their long track record of pathological lies(every single feminist study has been debunked as either outright fraud, distortion or exaggeration to create a "dramatic effect". From 1 in 3 to the "wage gap" it has all been debunked. But because most feminist's with power tend to be psychopaths, they will gladly repeat the same lie over and over again.).

So feminism, and feminist's really have zero credibility when it comes to social issues and it is best to ignore them as one would ignore neo nazi, kkk or the black panthers(ignore what they say, as in do not give credence to their words. But watch what they say and do carefully*, lest history repeat itself[mass lynchings, witch trials and the Holocaust]).

Popular culture, in relation to young women, is mostly driven by the High School cliches and the abandonment of parental responsibility. Parents, fathers and mothers, are failing to be good examples for their children. So this causes children, teens and young adults to look to others to fill that void. Add in childish antics of young psychopaths and their melodramatic bs(some people just want an excuse to talk stuff on others), and you get wishy washy people chasing whatever they perceive to be a fad.

But your are totally right that popular culture comes from within, not without. Hence why parents need to be childrens number 1 role models. Sure big media can influence that which is already deemed popular, but has a dismal track record of creating what is and isn't popular.

Babloyi:

"But for some bizarre reason, despite the fact that a greater percentage of women (compared to men) graduate highschool and go for further studies, very few choose these fields."

Babloyi, please read this line you wrote again. Then, ask yourself FOR WHAT BIZARRE REASON you can't find it in your heart to simply find happiness in women finally having the freedom to choose their career paths for themselves.

I'm not sure what you hear when re-reading your posts, but what I hear is "I need validation. I need validation. Please come whine o'er us lowly and pitiful women and brainstorm as to why most of them stink and I am so alone here at the pinnacle of success." Trust me, you don't want our company. We're busy taking what we want and giving what we can.

What if women actually prefer careers unrelated to math. Would that be alright with you? And if not, why would you find that so upsetting?

Go collect some of your dead skin cells, roll 'em up and smoke 'em. You'll get to your point faster.

Mostly feminism is ruining women. That and the rampant Misandry that is encouraged among feminist and young adult women from a young age.

Feminism is not Egalitarianism, which is the term that we should be striving for among both genders. But alas that's not the case, and feminists, much like any group of people who came together to have their rights given to them decades ago, have been warped and brainwashed into a method of double think that is to their detriment.

~Tenth

reply to post by chasingbrahman

Originally posted by chasingbrahman
What if women actually prefer careers unrelated to math. Would that be alright with you? And if not, why would you find that so upsetting?

Let me understand this correctly. You, as a woman, are suggesting that women actually prefer career paths unrelated to math (more so than men would)?
Just wanted to have clarity on this issue.

Society, Popular culture, feminism, etc are all factors that have led the american woman down the path to becoming a bunch of ignorant, irrational sluts.

And if you think what I said about women was harsh, I'll gladly give you my critique on the emasculation of the american male.

Originally posted by babloyi
reply to post by chasingbrahman

 

Originally posted by chasingbrahman
What if women actually prefer careers unrelated to math. Would that be alright with you? And if not, why would you find that so upsetting?

Let me understand this correctly. You, as a woman, are suggesting that women actually prefer career paths unrelated to math (more so than men would)?
Just wanted to have clarity on this issue.

No, you aren't understanding my sentence. Please read it again. I asked "What if women actually prefer careers unrelated to math?". That was my question. You didn't answer that. You responded as if you didn't understand my words, and hopefully they're more clear to you now.

If you discovered that to be true, how would you be affected by it? Would it mean anything to you? Or would you simply respond with an "oh well"?

Well, I don't know it to be true. In fact, I don't believe it at all, just like I don't believe that black people are thieves and trend towards athletics, and white people trend towards intelligence.
Do YOU believe that women generally prefer careers unrelated to math (intrinsically, as opposed to due to some outside force)?

Originally posted by babloyi
Well, I don't know it to be true. In fact, I don't believe it at all, just like I don't believe that black people are thieves and trend towards athletics, and white people trend towards intelligence.
Do YOU believe that women generally prefer careers unrelated to math (intrinsically, as opposed to due to some outside force)?

No, not at all because I have no statistics on the issue. And had I statistics on gender dispersion, I would not be able to draw conclusions on their preferences on account of correlation deeming not causation. And preference is subject to so much outside stimuli, I think it would be difficult to determine whether the preference was truly organic, or if it was shaped.

My question, re-worded this time, is:

If it were revealed via survey or other methodology, that women are not fond of professional fields related to math, how would you feel? Or would you feel nothing at all? I ask simply out of curiosity.

In case it isn't obvious yet, I'm posing a hypothetical to you. Although an answer would be appreciated, I understand if you don't want to toss around hypotheticals.

I'm a programmer, and my field is male-dominated. I can't say I'm concerned that men select this field more than women. However, I have tossed around the idea that perhaps men gravitate to more quantifiable fields due to their thinner corpus callosum, which facilitates communication between the right and left hemisphere of the brain. The thicker corpus callosum in women may make more subjective professions, such as counselling, simply more natural to women because their brain's left hemisphere incessantly communicates with the right one, causing decisions that require creativity, emotion or imagination to be more easily reached. Sometimes this helps women, and sometimes it handicaps them. But that's true of just about every human trait that could be named. And I believe there are very real difference between men and women due to biochemistry and brain structure - and that one is no better than the other. Simply a complement.

reply to post by chasingbrahman

I don't know if it is about math specifically, but that was the whole point of my thread: that according to college/university enrolment statistics, and (to a less validatable degree) statistics about the number of women in fields like engineering and business and law and politics, women are (to a greater degree than men) actively choosing not to enter these fields. Since there is no actual verifiable survey that asks this question, I used the data I had available.

That is why I started this thread. It is my belief that this is due to popular culture (as opposed to innate physical of physiological differences between men and women).

PS: You (and popular culture, I guess ) are wrong about the thicker corpus callosum in women (and the subsequent reasoning that this is what causes women to make decisions based on creativity or emotion). While there are some morphological differences in teh corpus callosum between sexes, since the advent of MRIs and other methods of analysis of the human brain, this particular theory has been found to be false.
Sex Differences in the Human Corpus Callosum: Myth or Reality?

Originally posted by BASSPLYR
btw, in response to the OP question. yes modern culture is destroying women. it's not like we want them to subjugate themselves to mans desires but to meet the rest of humanity half way.

Are you saying that women are incapable of self agency?

Even though I am a guy I am a somewhat vain sob. And since my dietary disaster(was eating waaay too much rice that led to rapid weight gain + between work and school sleeping way too much on my days off) I have been working to get back in shape because I want to look good.

Why do I want to look good? Because I want to. Not for anyone else but me.

And I am sure a decent amount of the gal's are the same.

Sometimes people go overboard, and when that happens society is at a loss to explain it. Do you know why society is at a loss? Because society is full of stupid people. These same people in their own day to day lives engage in irrational stupidity. But when someone else engages in irrational stupidity, people as a whole just can't believe it.

Maybe because such a realization would make them realize their own irrational stupidities but that is a matter for a different topic.

In the final analysis women are human beings. Sure there might be some differences here and there, but when it comes to wreckless stupidity, us guy's do not have a monopoly. To put someone on a pedestal, to deny their humanity with all it's virtues and flaws is the very definition of subjugation.

I apologize if I am out of sync with the discussion here, I was trying to read it all but I have to leave and am itching to write down my first reactions to the original post.

The image of women in the media does have some problems, I feel- especially in the US.

But what I wanted to comment on was this-

it is fields like Politics, Law, Engineering, Business and Sciences that usually lead the way of advancement and progress as a whole. Literature and art and such are certainly important, of course, and are often of greater cultural significance in
retrospect, but it is those other fields that lead the way.

Why aren't women flocking to these fields in at least equal numbers to men?

What really advances a society is the people practicing those sciences... and depending upon the kind of people they are, will determine whether they stear it in a constructive or destructive manner- in an ethical manner, in a just manner.

Who forms the base personalities of these people? In most cases- mothers. Psychology tells us that most of our personality stucture is formed in the first two years of life, when most children are dependant upon their mother and are highly influenced by them. In french, the education before five years old is called the "maternal" education, for that reason.

It is either genetically evolved, or a common conditioning, but more females are focused upon the culture and collective values and concepts, then individual ones. The culture of a society becomes the framework within which each individual can form themself, but it is what determines the environment that individual moves within.
There are laws in each society, but they come into place after the values they enforce have already been incorporated into the collective culture.
Science will turn it's research in directions that the collective culture has already turned forcus on.
Innovations will take into account the morals and values that culture has already.

In some societies and times, the women gathered together in the market place, in front of the school, or in the field, to exchange information and come to agreements on morals and values (what is acceptable and not) that they then teach to their children. We call that "gossip" and put it in a derogatory light, because the focus on individuality caused us to reject and deny that our environment and collective culture influences who and what we are. The womens focus is useless and meaningless.

So... that inner drive to spin the forms of the collective subconscious has become canalized into things like art, music, film... even gossip tabloid media, the modern form of pantheon of avatars and archetypes for the collective.

When the american society decided to focus mainly on the value of developing individual consciousness, and rejecting social consciousness, we lowered the value we placed on women and on their role in a society.
By placing a lower value on the liberal arts than on sciences and engineering, you have just added your voice to that sexism. But as much as we'd like to think we are makign our choices free of influence from our subconscious and the values and ideas gathered their from our maternal education, from the art, music and literature around us, I don't think it is true. They are influencing us all the time, and so are just as important as what we consciously choose to take in.

I'm not saying your wrong because your not wrong....at least not entirely but some of the points you are making could easily be explained away as classic gender rolls I think. At least for some points I would have to argue that men are simply designed more for them. Particularly engineering and law. I find that most of the time men are more left brained woman more right brained. That isn't to say there aren't exceptions or certainly even the low percentages you listed wouldn't even be present but well....let me put it another way? How many woman do you know are really good at math in your personal life. I'm probably going to make myself look like an ass but in my personal life...through-out my life time I've only met a handful of woman that were better at math then myself and I am not a genius. That isn't to say woman can't be good at math but typically they are better at understanding their emotions and well liberal arts types of things like you mentions before. Creative things. Now I am by no means saying that woman aren't capable of being equals to men even in the fields that are typically dominated by men. I'm just saying there is a reason woman tend to follow certain trends and there is a reason men follow certain trends. Your statistics paint a one sided pictured but it would not surprise me at all to find those same percentages reflected in creative fields with men. Even things like psychology have been in the past dominated by men but because I believe woman typically are right-brained more (creative, emotional) they are definitely becoming the stronger force in this field. Medical fields there is certainly more balance as women have often been care-givers and in the past would be the "doctor" of the family quite often. I also believe men are inclined to "build" things more because in the past their traditional roll would be to protect their family and make work they did easier so they would build shelters, weapons, and what have you to perform those rolls and since often those rolls required some amount of strength woman were left to do what they needed to do which typically was take care of the family/food. While that certainly is no longer the requirement of our society it is very difficult to change the way the human brain has evolved to stick to certain rolls most of the time. I would argue that this is changing but it is usually in people personal lives that the changes are felt. They aren't felt as often in the mainstream. Typically in the past for example woman have had the roll of staying home while men go do the work and make the money. Now, though it is not unusual to hear of the opposite were a woman goes to work and you have a stay at home father. While this isn't probably the average in the American household I would argue that many times both parents work these days and if looked at purely from a scientific point of view this is obviously the beginning of a observable and slow change in the opposite direction as in the 50's a stay at home father with a working mother would have been quite taboo.

SO...I guess you could summarize my response by saying that I don't believe things are always tilted as intentionally as you would have me believe even though that does happen sometimes I believe we as animals who have evolved to perform certain rolls have difficulty not falling into gender rolls imposed by thousands if not millions years of evolution. While that certainly doesn't make either gender any less capable of performing the opposite genders rolls; it does make it less common.

Originally posted by babloyi
reply to post by chasingbrahman

 

I don't know if it is about math specifically, but that was the whole point of my thread: that according to college/university enrolment statistics, and (to a less validatable degree) statistics about the number of women in fields like engineering and business and law and politics, women are (to a greater degree than men) actively choosing not to enter these fields. Since there is no actual verifiable survey that asks this question, I used the data I had available.

That is why I started this thread. It is my belief that this is due to popular culture (as opposed to innate physical of physiological differences between men and women).

PS: You (and popular culture, I guess

) are wrong about the thicker corpus callosum in women (and the subsequent reasoning that this is what causes women to make decisions based on creativity or emotion). While there are some morphological differences in teh corpus callosum between sexes, since the advent of MRIs and other methods of analysis of the human brain, this particular theory has been found to be false.
Sex Differences in the Human Corpus Callosum: Myth or Reality?

Here, in a 2007 MRI study, it would appear we are both correct! There are regions of the corpus callosum which have a statistically significant difference between men and women, with other regions having no difference.

Thanks for making me catch up on the latest! Turns out there's been a ton of studies on this topic since initial results were published in 1982.