What is your attitude towards your gender?

@ossobuco,

Y'know, Osso, the odd thing about these 2 "Don't Like Women" co-workers is that one of them is 18, and the other is 50.

As a child and teenager, I think I identified more with males than with females. I grew out of it once I figured out I had a LOT more in common with females.

So, I can easily understand the 18-yr-old's opinions, but NOT the 50-yr-old's.

In fact, to the 50-yr-old I wanna say, "Grow UP!" Since she's actually my Boss, this is not, er, a possibility.

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Gotta trot with what you got.

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@Sglass,

Ha, ha, sglass!!

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@BorisKitten,

Well, that is a pickle.

Hey, she's young yet, she may evolve.

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@Diest TKO,

Diest TKO wrote:

Something to think about.

I think that one of the best things for women has been that the discussion on sexuality, gender and expression have become more common place and as topics are treated less and less as taboo or queer.

For men, the dialog on sexuality ends at sex. Sexuality is larger than that though. It's in how we express ourselves. It's the beer we drink, the clothes we wear. I don't think most men are as comfortable talking about sexual expression outside of things hanky panky.

T
K
O

That's interesting...because I have had lots of conversations with various men on the wider issues you mention.

There are some men I wouldn't raise those things with at all, of course (and women, too)......but could it be possible that this is something some men are more likely to discuss with women?

It's certainly discussed in the gay/transvestite/transexual community a lot, in my experience.

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@ossobuco,

That's very interesting.

I think I would have felt that way, if deprived of playmates, about spending lots of time listening to the conversation of my mother and her friends, when I was a kid/teen.

I grew up in middle class suburbia in the fifties/sixties with full time mums.

However, I DID have friends whose mothers were either working (mainly as scientists, interestingly....we kids used to help my best friend's with her research by doing stuff like taking birds from mist nets and banding them, or catching and marking butterflies or raising various native beasties that had been injured and brought to her) but also as diplomats and suchlike. Or simply better educated than my mum and her friends (she was brought up way out bush in a time when only the boys would be sent away to boarding school, and she and her sisters only had a governess).

Initially I found these women strange, because my pre-school experiences had not brought me in contact with such folk, and initially I felt kind of sad for my friends if they had to do more house-work and such.

Then I found them fascinating and their world way more interesting.

Same with their men, too....mostly.

The men I met through my family mainly talked about how the government was ruining us all, and how the japanese would attack again...''you mark my words, they''ll have another go" and the evils of the communist peril, and, in my father's case, himself and how wonderful and talented he was and how dumb everyone else was.

Some of my friend's fathers (and, in one very special and magical case, grandfather....who was a famous Professor Emeritus by that time, and perfectly happy to take us little kids around and tell us everything about nature and his experiences as a doctor/researcher in remote Aboriginal communities in the late nineteenth century/early twentieth and the stars and ANYTHING...I adored him) were interested in TALKING to us, and told us off gently and with rational explanations instead of just yelling at us, and conversed with us as equals.

I was discovering that my mum was more avant garde than she had previously let on just before she died...eg she was agnostic, had strong views about American cultural dominance, and politics generally, was interested in art, and such...just before she died.

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I like being a woman! I guess I always have and I am not ashamed to play damsel in distress when I need a tire changed or the likes. On the other hand I can
ferociously fight for what I perceive is right for me.

I also like the support system women usually have. Female friends tend to
lend their support to each other and if one has a close girlfriend to talk to,
it eliminates therapy altogether.

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@dlowan,

Oof, that's very interesting too.

I was near fried with my mother and my aunt, and who knew it would be multiply developed sometime later over years (I could wind myself up on this). But.. I still love them even now.

In my case, it was mostly the men that pulled me out of staring into space..
My mysterious uncle charlie was a tip top guy re tech at douglas aircraft, and the company owner (no kidding) used to show up once a year to speak with my aunt, after my uncle died. He died when I was four, and I've grown increasingly sorry about that. But I have the odd set of photos, and remember some tales, and think I would have liked him. I do remember him teaching me to make ice cream in oklahoma when I was four.

My father was complicated, but a man of kindness and sharp eyes. It was he who told me I could do anything I wanted to do.

Anyway, now to check out Dlowan's post.

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@CalamityJane,

Nods.

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@dlowan,

dlowan wrote:

Diest TKO wrote:

Something to think about.

I think that one of the best things for women has been that the discussion on sexuality, gender and expression have become more common place and as topics are treated less and less as taboo or queer.

For men, the dialog on sexuality ends at sex. Sexuality is larger than that though. It's in how we express ourselves. It's the beer we drink, the clothes we wear. I don't think most men are as comfortable talking about sexual expression outside of things hanky panky.

T
K
O

That's interesting...because I have had lots of conversations with various men on the wider issues you mention.

There are some men I wouldn't raise those things with at all, of course (and women, too)......but could it be possible that this is something some men are more likely to discuss with women?

It's certainly discussed in the gay/transvestite/transexual community a lot, in my experience.

Yes, I think it is more common place for men in the gay or transsexual community to be open about those topics outside of sex but still dealing with sexuality. I think it's because for them to live happily it is to live openly. A gay man isn't only gay when he is having sex, he's gay when he is buying his groceries or picking a car to buy. I think that once you've decided to live openly you are more free to express your sexuality. It could be argued that gay men are more sexually liberated than straight men in regards to expression. There is a lot of pressure to fall into predefined models of masculinity.

I don't doubt it is similar for women.

T
K
O

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@Diest TKO,

I'll nod to that. BUT If I lived around it, I'd get well tired of assertiveness demonstrations.

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@CalamityJane,

CalamityJane wrote:

I also like the support system women usually have. Female friends tend to
lend their support to each other and if one has a close girlfriend to talk to,
it eliminates therapy altogether.

I have observed this support system for years, and my own opinion is that the payoff to many women might be that it allows them to live vicariously through one more life. In other words, having a coterie of friends that one can assist, is also like having many more soap operas to follow. This is based on my belief that many women have some hard-wired need to worm their way into others lives. Probably a survival adaptation from the cave days? It might be a compensation for the fact that women do not have the "pack animal" mentality of many men that served them well on the hunt for game.

The bottom line, again in my opinion, men and women that seem to have more or less traditional identities may also have fairly different brains. The difference in strength, or other physical characteristics might actually be secondary to the difference in brains. Men, I believe, tend to think macro; women, I believe, tend to think micro. So, it is no surprise that many more men like politics, while many women luxuriate in their personal relationships, while many men think of personal relationships as albatrosses.

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@Foofie,

This statement makes it all the more prevalent that you've been living exclusively (and narrow minded) in the 1940s, Foofie.

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@CalamityJane,

No Foofie is correct. Saying such seems antique because we are living through an age of gender confusion, where women have needed to act more masculine than is good for them because the males have not provided the required masculinity, and where we are well practiced in denying truth that we don't want to be real. There is a bit of a movement on to get back to basics, my favorite proponent is David Deida, so those of you who want to pretend like this stuff is silly old thinking have a problem.....that which you want to color as hopelessly outdated is considered by some to be new age thinking. The other problem you have is that guys like me who pick up the baton find that being a masculine man works in life, especially with the ladies.

And this brings up another thing about men.....we do what works even if we don't understand why it works or even if we think that in a perfect world it should not work.

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@hawkeye10,

Oh yes hawkeye, in your "required masculinity" you're also a proponent of marital rape.
I don't need masculinity to hold my ground: an ordinary frying pan will do it too!

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@CalamityJane,

Quote:

Oh yes hawkeye, in your "required masculinity" you're also a proponent of marital rape

I argue that the concept of rape has been hijacked by the feminist political forces and by the social engineers, it has been so expanded and mutated that it is no longer useful. It is time to go back to the drawing board on sexual relationships, and what right the collective has to intrude upon sexual relationships, and if the collective is to intrude how the collective should go about it.

Given that I know that it is idiotic for a man to do anything to a woman that will not work with that woman I don't believe in marital rape in the way that I am sure that you mean. I would however condone doing something to a woman that she claims that she does not want under very limited conditions, like the man knows her very well, and knows that she will in the end be happy that her man took charge.

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@hawkeye10,

hawkeye10 wrote:

I would however condone doing something to a woman that she claims that she does not want under very limited conditions, like the man knows her very well, and knows that she will in the end be happy that her man took charge.

oooh, marital rape and clairvoyance, is there nothing you can't do

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@djjd62,

Quote:

oooh, marital rape and clairvoyance, is there nothing you can't do

the man has to be right. The woman decides if he is right. That is a 50/50 split, there is no man running over a woman.

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@hawkeye10,

hawkeye10 wrote:

Quote:
Oh yes hawkeye, in your "required masculinity" you're also a proponent of marital rape

I argue that the concept of rape has been hijacked by the feminist political forces and by the social engineers, it has been so expanded and mutated that it is no longer useful. It is time to go back to the drawing board on sexual relationships, and what right the collective has to intrude upon sexual relationships, and if the collective is to intrude how the collective should go about it.

Given that I know that it is idiotic for a man to do anything to a woman that will not work with that woman I don't believe in marital rape in the way that I am sure that you mean. I would however condone doing something to a woman that she claims that she does not want under very limited conditions, like the man knows her very well, and knows that she will in the end be happy that her man took charge.

I have had the experience of a woman telling me something like:
" this bra is attached with cement " or ". . . is as strong as cement "
with clear negative implication. I responded cordially, as a mello fellow,
that it was getting late and I had to go to court early the next day,
to which she responded that I shud go OR she 'd make me so tired
that I coud not work the next day; (i.e., she changed her mind
about the bra). After good sex, while lying in her bed she giggled
and reminded me that earlier in the evening, at our dinner restaurant,
she 'd indicated a desire for sexual satisfaction.

However that may have been, I was not going to assume the role of a rapist,
even if we had not been directly across the (narrow) street from a Manhattan police precinct.

In MY mind, when a chick says NO that means no,
and I say OK, so long, see u around.

I grew up with the idea of marital rape being an oxymoron; a contradiction in terms.
In other words, sexuality -- mating -- was an essential element of the contract of marriage.
Refusal thereof constituted abandonment.

I am very pleased that I never got married.

David

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@OmSigDAVID,

what women want is very often different from what they say that they want. How this is dealt with in the collective should take into consideration the nature of the relationship. Long term/short term should factor, so should married/not married.

given that in my opinion a man does not have the right to go against what a woman says that she wants unless he knows her very well, I would say that in your situation you had no choice but to take this woman at her word about what she wanted, as frustrating and as unnatural as this is. The woman was clearly frustrated with the need to supply overt consent, it did impede the natural flow of the evening.

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What is your attitude towards your gender?

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