Evolving gender roles in our societies

Get on that naughty step this instant!!!
I've said more than once in A2K that I wish Sarah Palin was US President, but apparently she's being bullied out of serious contention by the male-dominated US political establishment.
I was also surprised and disappointed that America's women didn't rally to her support, most never voted for her and John McCain, they voted for Obama instead.
Women suffragettes had a rough time a hundred years ago, imprisoned and force-fed when on hunger strike which amounted to torture, so what a great victory it'd be for women if they'd back Sarah and get her elected President one day, thereby final bringing closure to the whole suffragette thing, from a torture cell to the White House..
She's still young enough to get there if America's women get behind her.
She'd make a great President, nobody'd better mess with her..

Ok...granted, she is not a complete idiot. Unfortunately for her, she is amazingly ignorant.. I don't support anybody based on gender, or wether or not their being bullied. MCCain was a reasonably good candidate until he chose her on his ticket. It costed him the presidency in my opinion.

Johnny McCain is a nice guy but was sadly 10 years too old to be President, and the voters apparently thought so too, I was worried lest he keeled over during live televised debates.
Sarah is a sassy gal and would be a great President, nobody needs brains for the job, all they have to do is listen to the options put forward by their advisers and choose which one to run with..
Here she is aboard USS Stennis in 2009, I can almost hear her urging the captain to launch an airstrike against Putin or that chubby-chops who runs N. Korea..

She's so ignorant... He was smart...but didn't understand the times and chose her as a running mate. It ruined him.

All I can tell you is maybe Sara Palin would be good for organizing a bake sale for the Ladies Auxilliary of the Elks Club. Leader of the free world???? Oh hell no. I was stunned when McCain picked her, it actually pissed me off. Women have worked long and hard to compete on an equal footing with men. Palin is a step so far back, it's frightening. The American public decided not to put her in the White House, so maybe Romeo can think of an appropriate Royal who would enjoy having a sassy American wife to parade around in royal circles.

I hear Hilary Clintons got her eye on the White House, she's not as sassy as Sarah but she's not bad, so let's hope America's women put her in there with her finger on the nuclear button..

And that is true, of course.

My daughter is doing very well at school but I am worried about our son. He is quite young and has already internalized that girls are smarter than boys. It's like he is setting his expectations low to reflect a modern social cliché

I remember people being stunned at his choice. It made people concerned at his common sense.

I don't understand....then most of my friends have teenagers. I only had one son and, the culture may have been different at the time he was a young boy. I had noticed there was a trend in portraying men as not bright in sitcoms and movies. The joke was generally at the expense of the male, and portrayed the males as not as smart. For example: Everybody Loves Raymond, Friends, King of Queens, etc. It irritated me at the time and thought it was ridiculous. But then in the past, women tended to be portrayed as irrational and emotional beings. I thought it was simply a trend. I wonder if there is a possibility you're son is being bullied. There are also girls who bully boys.

Exactly. Same is in some of the cartoons he watches, where boys are sort of supposed to be funny and dumb, while girls are serious and smart. It's annoying. I agree it used to be vice versa at some point back in time or some other gender-based cliché at the exoense of girls, but why go overboard?

I don't know why things go overboard. Somewhere someone is thinking if the pendulum swings in the complete opposite direction, balance might be achieved. But, it's not true. Girls are pretty confused these days too. Look at the stats on bulimia/anorexia in developed countries. There is so much emphasis placed on beauty and youth being women's most important assets. Also the over-sexualization of prepubescent and pubescent children ....kids sexting even when they are still virgins. The entertainment business is disgusting for the most part.

Things go overboard because that's how our societies work: they self-regulate, and that means that only once a trend has reached a totally obnoxious level, will there be a backslash against it. And of course the backslash will risk going overboard, at which point a counter-backslash will occur, etc. So in this case, it means my boy will have to deal with aggressive miso-androus women all his life. Or become homosexual, which many young men opt for nowadays, and I can understand why.


Totally agree. Especially the beauty thing. (I see sexting as just a game) The pressures placed on women and girls to conform to some impossible beauty cannon are huge, and pain-inducing. How does that fit with feminism? It does not. It's just a money-making machine that have managed to totally blunt the feminist message on sex and owning one's own body, and even turned around originally feminist publications such as Marie Claire into some disgusting woman exploitation machine.

Now they are trying to sell the same BS to us men, with Esquire and co... But we resist better.

I don't consider myself a feminist. Many of the feminist ideas are well...the extreme swing of the pendulum, which was my analogy for society's self-regulation. Sexting is not just a game. Children of both male and female gender are receiving a message from society saying the younger you are when you start, the cooler you are. Look at the disgusting beauty pageants were young children are wearing make-up and high-heeled shoes. As far as what you say about androgynous syndrome as I call it, It was full fledged starting in the eighties. It is ridiculous today. The over- representation of gay culture (another wide swing of the pendulum) gets on my last nerve. I'm not homophobic....let me clear that from the get go. I've never liked for anyone to attempt to manipulate me or shove any idea down my throat. I can empathize with your concerns about your boy. I never had a girl...so I guess my focus has been on his well-being and preventing a maladaptive transformation. My husband says things like " it's not ok to have testosterone these days..young guys act gay". I've even been angry with him about this at times, but I realize there is a huge chasm between the generations. At the end of the day, the best thing you can do for your children is to teach them to think for themselves and expect lots of opposition.

I do consider myself a feminist, been one all my life, which is perhaps why I feel pissed-off at some of the excesses of the movement. I have a stake in that game. In fact I feel totally ready to start a masculinist movement now. Not to reclaim ancient testosterone levels, but just to say we're human beings too, and we're not going anywhere.

I'm sure my boy will make it into adulthood ok in the end, it's just that he is sensitive and can easily get hurt emotionally. Just like I am... :-)


Thais was the case when I was a kid too. I think it's fine for kids to experiment. I do agree with your disgust at the children beauty pageants, though. I fear that they will send the message (to men) that little girls are sexual objects. Dangerous.

Obviously I'm a female ... I understand the history, origins , and importance of the women's rights movement. If I didn't I'd be a blithering idiot. But just like any other movement it has created an extreme swing of the pendulum; a ridiculous polarity between the sexes. Polarity between the sexes is natural. I despise the blame game. I understand cultural shifts cause society to evolve: biological reasons, technology, opportunity. I admire many of the female activists who push for equality...not so much for the hoards of sheep that believe men are the cause of women's misery.. I'm still going to put my lipstick on and wear my high-heeled shoes....Oh yeah, and love the company of men.

A funny anecdote about me and being ok with high - heeled shoes: In my twenties I was friends with the daughter of a famous scientist, ( my father is also prominent...not like hers though) who invented a maneuver to help people from choking to death;). She had the feminist victim mentality I loathe, but still we partied together to our hearts content. She constantly mentioned her displeasure as to women doing "idiotic", and uncomfortable things to please males....meaning lipstick and heels. I reminded her there was a time when it was the height of European fashion, for males to wear heels and wigs.

Stockings, too... :-)

I especially like this renaissance fashion statement:

Nice accentuating of genitals too....good one.

Yep. It's calked s codpiece. You can open it and pee right there... Very convenient. We need to bring back this thing.

Plus deers seem to like it.

Not terribly original, but interesting:

The Confidence Gap
Evidence shows that women are less self-assured than men—and that to succeed, confidence matters as much as competence. Here's why, and what to do about it.
Katty Kay and Claire Shipman
APRIL 14, 2014

http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/04/the-confidence-gap/359815/