I think it's their animus -- the masculine side of them -- that gets in the way. A really feminine woman, to me, seems to be cooperative, compliant, generous, and loving... not competitive and nasty -- something men do often.
But... I'll run this past my wife... we talked about this before... she hates those things that GGs do too.
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Love your woman within...
Know thy self -- Be your true self......
I do not consider myself an "alpha male" even though others have told me that or similar. I am just me. When I am in drab and in my work environment I am confident because I have years of experience. I am good at what I do but I don't find myself shoving it in anyone elses face unless they start trying to play the one-upsmanship game. I am Bill and friends and coworkers just know that I am the guy who can make "it" happen, whatever "it" is at the time.
When I do get femmed, I feel less confident because the same attributes that serve me as guy mode seem to subvert the image I wish to create as a CD. I want to be less conspicuous as far as size, I want to feel more petite and as such, create the illusion of "being one of the girls". I do not feel anger or petty and self-serving jealousy towards other girls who appear more "natural" than myself.
I think it may be an overstatement to say all or most GGs or CDs harbor the feelings of mean-spirited jealousy or similar attitudes.
As was stated earlier,perhaps the socio- economic "geography" that we allow to surround us has a definite negative influence on our own outlook.
As the joke says. "It is hard to soar with eagles when you are surrounded by buzzards".
Ughh!,
To many big words. Both female and male compete to be on the the top of the pile. If the competiveness seems too severe, maybe it's the group you're hanging with.
Terri
I have found sexist attitudes and aggresive cruel and unethical competition disstressingly common in young women. For several years all the ones I met had these issues thinking it ok to judge people by their hair colour, clothing and lifestyle, thinking it ok to deliberatly try and harm others emotions, holding clear double-standards and a host of other unethical things.
Thankfully i have since met a number of much more ethical women.
The problem is i believe in the culture of what is acceptible in large portions of mainstream womens culture.
I've observed many of the same problems or similar in mens culture.
Examples: Many women have said that getting pregnant by deception is acceptible.
And I just heard on a newsbreak a study has found 1 in 7 boys think its ok to force a girl to have sex with them if she'd flirted with them.
There are extreme problems in the culture of both Men and Women which it is to be expected will often be found in TG communities. We should all speak out against these whenever they are found.
Sure a lot of women have been upset when I have pointed out their sexism having assumed that being women they couldn't be. A lot of men get crestfallen when their macho sexist posturing gets my mockery instead of validation like most men reward them with in current mainstream male culture.
None of these traits are specifically male or female but there are problems in male and female culture. And as we all contribute to that culture so to are we all responisble for changing it.
There you go stereotyping women againOriginally Posted by Karren Hutton
With regards to women being "catty" all the women I have dates and have gotten to know well on a deep, entrusted level (which OK is not that many but..) have all been catty towards other women. So from my own personal experience this observation is 100% accurate. But of course I know there are women who are not like this.
The problem with generalizations are there are those which are reasonable accurate and there are those which are just stupid and divisive. The problem is nobody can agree which is which.
If anyone can attack a generalization because it is a generalization......well there is no point discussing any form of human behavior since for sure one can always find exceptions to the rule. I don't have a problem with using generalizations so long as I feel they are reasonably accurate and are being used not as an insult but as a means to explain or explore human behavior.
OH gyod yes!
Women want to be the prettiest just as some men want to be the "alpha male" Of course my fat ass is no one's competition but yes I feel jealous of other CD's, trust me.
See Tessa, you actually are quite pretty, and you are competition for a lot of girls. So yeah you are going to give and get jealousy. Take someone like me who just is not that hot, and while I am sometimes jealous, I figure "ehh what the hell, this is me, people take it or leave it..."
It is funny to see women complain about some media figure. You hear the woman say "Oh gyod her nose is crooked and her clothes are bad and she slept with... trying to point out ALL the things wrong and let's face it, it is just jealousy...My big sister is a really pretty woman but she HATES Jenny McCarthy. My wife hates J-Lo.
Plain jealousy.
But it's all good, people want to be the best and hey jealousy can make a motivated person strive a liottle harder to improve themselves.
Erin
It takes a true Erin to be a pain in the assatar.
Demonic Daughter, I do agree about socially imposed expectations that the male and female roles are pressured to follow.
I was watching television and a commercial about Vitamins for teenagers came on. The commercial said something like "Boys are from Mars and girls are from Venus.So does a teenager girl need the same vitamin as a teenage boy? No.
Now theres a vitamin for his strong muscle developement and one for her healthy skin......"
Advertising like at the top of my list for things that really bother and anoy me.
And when ppl hear things like that all their lives they get socially impressions on what a "man" or "woman" or "boy" or "girl" is or should be.
We really are not much different. The only things that seem like huge differences are the way we act due to being socialized male or female.
[SIZE="3"]
Exactly. It isn't a matter or whether or not women are or aren't catty. Everybody is. Men included. So when its attributed to just one gender, its inaccurate.
As I said, personally, its a reaction I don't share but are there women that are? Of course. But there are just as many men that do the same thing.
I find it funny that one gender attributes specific "traits" to the opposite gender when in actuality, they do it just as often.
There are 72 basic personalities and neither of them are specifically attributed to male or female. Yes, feminine or masculine but not in conjunction with anatomy. Here's a really good article on some of the studies behind this. This is why things said to be only a female issue is not only the kettle calling the pot black, but also dividing us socially from one another erroneously.
If we only base our theories on our immediate experiences (as so many have stated with regards to the women in their lives), my own idea of people in the TG community and men in general would be pretty brutal. If I based everything on what I only experienced, I'd say anything born male is a habitual liar, incapable of loyalty, doesn't have the capacity to see beyond their own domain and are all neanderthals just waiting to drag their knuckles to the next bar to beat their chest and justify their ego. BUT I don't feel that way. I'm well aware that women can do that as well even though I've hardly had personal experience with it.
In other words, its not a female thing. Its not a male thing. Its a human thing. [/SIZE]
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
[SIZE="3"]"We're all born naked. Everything we wear is drag," said Boy George
[/SIZE]
Absolutely!
Well said!
I totally agree with Miss Tessa, and I'm seriously amazed at how many people apparently don't.
There's a huge difference between stereotyping and bigotry, and I think some of you are using the wrong word.
We all profile. We all analyze. Before someone opens their mouth, we have classified them based on their posture, apparent attitude, clothes, tattoos, piercings, and all kinds of non-verbal things. We have prepared ourself based on stereotypes. If someone is dressed like a nun I'm going to go ahead and assume she's a nun and be a little more polite. If a guy is dressed like a gang member I'm not going to be utterly shocked and indignant if he drops multiple F bombs on his cell phone on the way by. The guy who is dressed like a gang member knows these stereotypes and plays into them, and he has absolutely no reason to be offended when people hold the door for the nun but not him. If he wants to get mad at somebody, it should be at the other people who dress like he does who have had an impact so big that it is now common knowledge that people who dress like him are troublemakers who should be avoided.
This whole "acceptance" thing has gone way too far. Soon we'll see people saying that guys with shaved heads and swastika tattoos are being unfairly stereotyped. You shouldn't be tolerant just for the sake of being tolerant. That's just being a wimp. There's all kinds of anti-social behavior that people shouldn't tolerate.
Stereotypes are mostly based in fact. There's nothing inherently wrong with them. What most people call a stereotype is just using common sense. If you're hosting an event for middle-aged white guys, you'll be much more likely to hire a band that plays classic rock than a hip-hop artist. Those poor white guys have to live with listening to much more classic rock then they'd like to. It sucks. But it's no big deal.
Airport security now has to spend a lot of time harassing 90-year-old women because they're not allowed to do statistically accurate profiling. Since the invention of the airplane there has only ever been one female hijacker -- a 25-year-old Palestinian woman. Regardless, it is considered unfair to stereotype old women as people that don't hijack airplanes, so everybody needs to have their time wasted.
I'm a horrible person because I profile old ladies myself, and I refuse to get in line behind them at the grocery store. I feel terrible about that because obviously it's stereotyping to say old women like to take 10 minutes to write a check for $13.26 in groceries. I also profile men over 50 who wear hats and do everything in my power to avoid driving behind them.
Younger girls are often catty and back-stabbing. There are plenty well-adjusted (and often tomboy-ish) girls that this doesn't apply to. Younger guys are often competitive and do extremely stupid stuff just trying to outdo each other. There are plenty guys that this doesn't apply to.
Some of the biggest complaints about society's treatment of women are perpetuated almost exclusively by other women. I've been around a lot of women well into their 30s who say terrible things about other women who are out of earshot. Most men don't know or care if a woman is wearing Prada or DG or Wal-Mart. They don't care if her makeup is MAC or Sephora or Wet & Wild. And if you ask a 5'7" woman what her ideal weight is, a lot of times she'll say 115 when her husband would prefer 140. Women are often very competitive between themselves about these things.
Likewise, a girl doesn't generally care if a guy has 20" rims or if he beat Guitar Hero on Expert, but you can't deny that there are a lot of guys out there who are competitive about things like that.
People are naturally going to stereotype. Bigotry is what's bad. Bigotry is when you don't give someone a chance to prove a stereotype wrong.
That's true. Guys are often overtly shallow. Shallow girls often tend towards affectation, then it's more hurtful when they reveal their true selves.
Ever notice how often women talk about people they don't like? I'm not saying all women are like that, but many women will express outright hatred for people, and that's something you almost never see with men.
Maybe it's just that men work their feelings out better through overt competition and aggression, whereas women just sort of let it build up.
I'm sure many of us have seen the situation at a party or somewhere when two guys get mad at each other. They might even end up going outside and beating the crap out of each other, but a lot of times they'll be acting like best friends five minutes later. Aggressive guys gain a lot of respect for people who stand up to them.
I honestly can't think of anybody I hate. There are people I don't get along with -- people who I think are anti-social, and even just people who have totally different philosophies and goals in life. I don't hate any of them. I just don't hang out with them. They get removed from my life.
Some women will continue socializing with people they dislike and stirring up drama just to have something to talk about.
And I can totally understand why these female traits that get over-emphasized by CDs would drive GGs crazy. It's all about femininity for CDs, and as a GG I'm sure you constantly look at specific things and say, "That's absurd! I'm totally female and I'm nothing like that!"
But CDs are just trying to balance out their male side by going overboard on the female side. How many CDs think petticoats are adorable? How many GGs think that's nauseating?
That's just wrong. Being catty is a human trait, but it's a trait that's much more prevalent in young women. You can't deny that, just like you can't deny that young men have aggressive behaviors they engage in much more often which tend to get them in trouble. 49% of the total US population is male, but 95% of the US prison population is male. Humans do not all have the same behaviors.
Your brain is a biological organ. We can document how estrogen and testosterone change your brain function. Even beyond the effects of estrogen and testosterone, male and female brains are different.
An African is much more likely to get Sickle-cell. A Jew is much more likely to get Tay-Sachs. A young girl is more likely to say bad things about you behind your back. A young guy is more likely to punch you in the face.
Well, after discussing this with my wife: I was wrong about the animus thingy... it's more, she thought, that women get insecure... need a GG to straighten me out on this...
Well, duh...! Debutante's not quite in the female world yet... :-)
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Love your woman within...
Know thy self -- Be your true self......
Thanks for illustrating exactly whats wrong with your argument with a perfect example.
You see the swastika has been for thousands of years one of the most sacred symbols across a large portion of the world. As one of the Etruscan Runes it's part of one of the oldest symbols of Europe. Accross most of Asia from India to Malaysia it is a sacred symbol. So yes, a person with a shaved head and swastika tattoos may be easilly unfairly stereotyped as a Nazi when he or she may in fact be a Bhuddist a Daoist a Hindu or a Pagan! You'll find Swastikas ethced into the woodwork on many Bhuddist Hindu and Daoist temples. You'll find it tattoood on the skin of monks and nuns and followers of some of those faiths. You'll find it tattoooed on mummified bodies!
Stereotyping is a common but sloppy thinking process, frequently in error. It ignores the variety of humanity.
As for 'anti-social', many 'anti-social' behaviour is freedom of expression. Only when it becomes a form of assault or harassment is it not. Plenty of people consider being different and non-conforming anti-social. Sorry, I'm not giving up my momento mori fashion accessories just because some people find it disturbing to see artful reminders of mortality. But people spitting on unwilling others? That is unethical and appropriate to condemn, because the line, the limit is others rights. Ethics, rights, thats the only valid limit of tolerance. Anything else is bigotry.
Then why are most Goths happy, positive, mentally stable people as shown by large sociological studies whose findings run totally against the stereotype? Why are there so many masculine and mucho gay men? Why are there so few Gay pedophiles? After all the steroetype used to be that all Gays were pedophiles!Stereotypes are mostly based in fact.
Hogwash!There's nothing inherently wrong with them. What most people call a stereotype is just using common sense.
The stereotype that woman are not killers or rapists or molesters has resulted in women suspects being ignored till they kill again, women suicide bombers getting to their targets, women rapists getting away with rape and child molesters molesting.
I know of one example of this where a 14 year old boy a few years older than me in a town I used to live in complained to the police about being raped by a 30 year old woman. They laughed at that and the kid killed himself. Thats what stereotypes do.
This 'common sense' you think is valid is really infused with myths and lies that hurt people!
Hijacker yes, attempted bomber? Did you forget the couple with their child who tried to get a bomb on a plane? Noticed the female suicide bombers? They are growing swiftly in numbers.Airport security now has to spend a lot of time harassing 90-year-old women because they're not allowed to do statistically accurate profiling. Since the invention of the airplane there has only ever been one female hijacker -- a 25-year-old Palestinian woman. Regardless, it is considered unfair to stereotype old women as people that don't hijack airplanes, so everybody needs to have their time wasted.
The only people i know who play guitar hero are women!Likewise, a girl doesn't generally care if a guy has 20" rims or if he beat Guitar Hero on Expert, but you can't deny that there are a lot of guys out there who are competitive about things like that.
So holding a stereotype is good but acting on it is bad? Because the instant you act on it you have just prevented them from having and using that chance to do so without your action interfering with their behaviour. If you act on it you risk setting up a self-fulfilling prophecy. The angry black man or stand-offish withdrawn Goth could just be reacting to your behaviour as you expect them both to be potential threats, your body language and personal space negotiation being defencive they will then react to that.People are naturally going to stereotype. Bigotry is what's bad. Bigotry is when you don't give someone a chance to prove a stereotype wrong.
Many women I've known that is true for including my ex. But it is true for none that I know right now!Ever notice how often women talk about people they don't like? I'm not saying all women are like that, but many women will express outright hatred for people,
My experience refutes that utterly. Racism, sexism, homophobia, hatred of specific religious beliefs or subcultures and even hatred of children, dogs or cats I have all seen expressed outright by men. Some of that in the last week.and that's something you almost never see with men.
Nope.Maybe it's just that men work their feelings out better through overt competition and aggression, whereas women just sort of let it build up.
I have been in physical combat with more than 30 males. I stopped counting halfway through highschool and so thats not counting the third Highschool. And that respect thing has happened to me just once.I'm sure many of us have seen the situation at a party or somewhere when two guys get mad at each other. They might even end up going outside and beating the crap out of each other, but a lot of times they'll be acting like best friends five minutes later. Aggressive guys gain a lot of respect for people who stand up to them.
I know as many men who do that as women.Some women will continue socializing with people they dislike and stirring up drama just to have something to talk about.
Thats cause everyone is a mixture of masculine and feminine and no-one is 100% of either.And I can totally understand why these female traits that get over-emphasized by CDs would drive GGs crazy. It's all about femininity for CDs, and as a GG I'm sure you constantly look at specific things and say, "That's absurd! I'm totally female and I'm nothing like that!"
But CDs are just trying to balance out their male side by going overboard on the female side. How many CDs think petticoats are adorable? How many GGs think that's nauseating?
The proportion of violent and sexual crime perpetrated by women is on the rise. Some of that is a willingness to consider women as suspects so more is discovered. Some of that is greater reporting as more men women and children raped by women are reporting the crimes. And some is believed to be a result of women shrugging off the psychological internalised sexism and realising that they can actually do these things rather than just think about doing them.That's just wrong. Being catty is a human trait, but it's a trait that's much more prevalent in young women. You can't deny that, just like you can't deny that young men have aggressive behaviors they engage in much more often which tend to get them in trouble. 49% of the total US population is male, but 95% of the US prison population is male. Humans do not all have the same behaviors.
It may well be that the crime rate ends up 50/50! At the least the truth of a hidden epidemic of domestic violence, rape and child molestation perpetrated by women is slowly coming out, it may still be significantly less than those crimes committed by men but it is vastly higher than society had ever dreamed or will still acknowledge!
And women pedophiles, rapists etc often receive lighter sentences or are aquitted because of sexism in the legal system so using the prison population is an invalid source as the data is biased.
on average the average male brain is different from the average female brain. But the average difference between two common male brains or two female is greater than the difference between the average male brain and the average female brain (according to two Australian neurologists on the episode of Insight on male/female brain science) and there is wide diversity amongst all human brains.Your brain is a biological organ. We can document how estrogen and testosterone change your brain function. Even beyond the effects of estrogen and testosterone, male and female brains are different.
These are known genetic traits. But the stereotype that the African will kill and eat you and the Jew will sacrifice christian babies are perfect examples of the lies propagated through stereotypes that have killed people and not just a few but thousands of people.An African is much more likely to get Sickle-cell. A Jew is much more likely to get Tay-Sachs.
And as some of my ancestry is Carpathian Gypsy and therefore I had distant relatives murdered in the holocaust in the Nazi Death Camps because of a stereotype I'd like to point out what accepting stereotypes leads too.
Considering the oppression of Gypsies in many European Countries right now, considering the oppression of Goths in Russia right now I think I can comfortably condemn the accepting of stereotypes as sloppy, lazy, frequently incorrect thinking based not just on averages ignoring diversity and variability but often on lies!
Guys gossip behing peoples back a plenty. Women are often violent and are gaining ground.A young girl is more likely to say bad things about you behind your back. A young guy is more likely to punch you in the face.
Stereotypes and generalisation were good tools for evading Smilodon and Dire Wolves and 40-foot long goanna, they improved the odds in imediate life-or-death situations so long as they were right. In a life-or-death imediate situation it made evolutionary sense.
But for most of us this is not the case so we do not have an excuse for sloppy lazy thinking that causes harm to other people, especially when based of untrue myths and lies.
[SIZE="3"]Well I think Batty pretty much covered anything I would have stated except...
Many people that post here snicker about each other. I've gotten several PMs from people going on tangents about others here. And about clothing, looks, hair, makeup, etc.
Just because there might be a different way of saying it, doesn't mean its not being catty.[/SIZE]
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
[SIZE="3"]"We're all born naked. Everything we wear is drag," said Boy George
[/SIZE]
I really don't think I need to explain how Hindu swastikas look significantly different from Nazi swastikas, and that there's a big difference between the way a monk dresses and the way a Neo-Nazi dresses. Very few people are dumb enough to apply Nazi stereotypes to monks.
I was really equating anti-social activity with harassment. Beating the hell out of someone is a way of expressing yourself. There's a lot of Mapplethorpe art that is blatant harassment of Christians. Freedom of expression only goes so far. Just because something's technically legal doesn't mean we are morally obligated to tolerate it.
That's true. I probably shouldn't have even used the term "anti-social." But I've always been totally confused by people feeling it takes effort to tolerate people who are different. What do you care if someone's gay? Or if they're just plain weird? If they're not hurting you, what exactly is there for you to tolerate? The whole idea that some people need to be "tolerant" of someone's lifestyle implies that mere knowledge of their existence is hard to stomach.
Those are some really negative stereotypes, though, and I don't know anybody who holds any of them. Maybe some people think all gay people are pedophiles, but I never met one.
But I suppose maybe that's more of what people are talking about when they say stereotype, so maybe I was using the term wrong.
I was thinking more along the lines of people who accuse others of stereotyping when they follow actual demographics, like guys like action movies and girls like love stories. Those stereotypes aren't always true, but there's not any reason to get bent out of shape about them.
That's not something you can blame on a stereotype. That's something you can blame on the police being idiots. It's the police's fault for not believing the kid. We all know that stereotypes aren't true all the time. Pretending a stereotype is always true is a horrible thing.
But you have to look at the other side of the story. It's a fact that men are a few orders of magnitude more likely to be rapists than women. It's a fact that lonely white guys are much more likely to be serial killers. Are you honestly suggesting that police put the resources into investigating as many women as they do men in these crimes?
Anyway, you're just rambling on and on and on. If I somehow did have concrete statistics saying young women are 3X as likely to be "catty" as young men and young men are 3X as likely to start physical fights as young women, you'd still just go on pointing out cases where that's not true.
We all know there are plenty cases where it's not true, though. We all know nice girls, and we all know nice guys, and hopefully those are the ones we hang out with.
I'm confused as to what your motivation is to try to pretend that men and women are socially identical and are equally as likely to exhibit certain behaviors. I'm sure you know that's untrue. What's your agenda?
Wow. So there are just as many female rapists as males, but this is being covered up by some sort of massive conspiracy? I didn't realize you had gone totally insane. I guess I'll just let it go, then.
Well, they are trying to be girly ... a lot of these CDs would be totally flattered if you said "Meow!" to them. Besides, a lot of people say things around here that are worth snickering at
not to backtrack too much but i liked this. DD has ever said so much for me and to me, as if knowing me better than my own family and closest friends, in a demonstration of how very different people from utterly diverse locations and paths can share and edify.
i'm sometimes frothy dizzy; my silly response to all the potential stereotyping and overcompensating is to suggest that, since its socially imposed on us by some or would be that ggs are ___________, call it "venusian," some try so ardently to live up to it that they overshoot and approach a "mercurial" state? perhaps some ggs wanting to be more "alpha," more "assertive" aim too fervently for "mars" and end up an asteroid? somewhere in the belt.
but very sincerely, i appreciate so much the moderating insights found in this thread. rather than, "women are _________, men are _________," isn't it liberating to see that, seeming majorities or trends be hanged, there are hard and calloused men and women, catty, forceful, snide, vindictive, manipulative, etc. all about us. and also "sensitive," "creative," "intuitive," gentle, empathic, caring and edifying, too, wherever we go? thank God for kindred spirits.
all i ever wanted to be was to be attractive, as DD said. but not as sexual bait. to see and receive and approve of myself, to forgive myself for not being the person i wished i were.
all of you help me to embrace what is gracious and appealing, in myself and in all of you as well.
thank you,
jessie
butterfly girl,
[SIZE="3"]Jessie[/SIZE]
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
when i have a brand new hairdo
with my eyelashes all in curls
i float as the clouds on air do
i enjoy being a girl!
o. hammerstein - flower drum song
Except that these things HAVE occured. Temples damaged because people thought the swastika was pro-nazi. And a follower of bhuddism can also be a punk! In fact bhuddism is popular amongst the punks I know. Someone seeing a mohawked punk with a swastika on his back wreathed in blue flames did not get the difference and through a drink over them.
But no use of a right is valid when it violates anothers right. Thats the only way all rights can be equal.I was really equating anti-social activity with harassment. Beating the hell out of someone is a way of expressing yourself.
Got a link on this? Also there is a difference between blaspheming against and criticisng religion in art literature etc and harrassing observers of that religion. Freedom of religion does to a large extent require freedom to blaspheme and freedom to criticise religious beliefs.There's a lot of Mapplethorpe art that is blatant harassment of Christians.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/religionrep...08/2397051.htm
Absolutely! When the law errs against rights the law must be reformed.Freedom of expression only goes so far. Just because something's technically legal doesn't mean we are morally obligated to tolerate it.
Indeed it is bizarre to those of us without that mindset. This is one line of thinking on the issue http://www.abc.net.au/rn/philosopher...08/2416020.htmThat's true. I probably shouldn't have even used the term "anti-social." But I've always been totally confused by people feeling it takes effort to tolerate people who are different. What do you care if someone's gay? Or if they're just plain weird? If they're not hurting you, what exactly is there for you to tolerate? The whole idea that some people need to be "tolerant" of someone's lifestyle implies that mere knowledge of their existence is hard to stomach.
I've met heaps,a nd being goth and effeminate and therefore gay to many I've suffered because of those stereotypes.Those are some really negative stereotypes, though, and I don't know anybody who holds any of them. Maybe some people think all gay people are pedophiles, but I never met one.
Aren't they all still stereotypes?But I suppose maybe that's more of what people are talking about when they say stereotype, so maybe I was using the term wrong.
But often they are false. Lots of women like watching porn, but few admit it because they aren't supposed to like watching porn. There are guys who don't but if they say so people will think they are gay so they dont. Same with romance. I know a very straight guy who hates porn except for rare pieces of hentai and loves Jane Austen movies and books.I was thinking more along the lines of people who accuse others of stereotyping when they follow actual demographics, like guys like action movies and girls like love stories. Those stereotypes aren't always true, but there's not any reason to get bent out of shape about them.
And other than that it is also true that many people are not the average of their group but to one side or the other of the bell curve. As such if there are 5 guys and you assume all like action movies but only three do and two don't then while the average is true you just made two simple mistakes you could have avoided if you just asked first.
Thats why screening based on demographics is a risk to national security as all the terrorists need to do is recruit bombers outside of the demographics, which is why they started recruiting female suicide bombers.
There are enough exceptions to every generalisation to make acting on the generalisation a potentially great error.
Stereotypes inform sexism and errors like this. How far should people act as if the stereotype is true?That's not something you can blame on a stereotype. That's something you can blame on the police being idiots. It's the police's fault for not believing the kid. We all know that stereotypes aren't true all the time. Pretending a stereotype is always true is a horrible thing.
The current data has men more often perpetrators. But it has been in the past very rare for men to report it, even moreso than for women to report it. So the numbers could be closer than has been suspected in the past.But you have to look at the other side of the story. It's a fact that men are a few orders of magnitude more likely to be rapists than women. It's a fact that lonely white guys are much more likely to be serial killers. Are you honestly suggesting that police put the resources into investigating as many women as they do men in these crimes?
What I'm suggesting is simply letting the evidence lead the investigation irrespective of using demographics to screen suspects.
Of course. Because such a point is valid. Have you ever played a roleplaying game or wargame (the ones with dice)? It's a great way of learning to respect the consequences of dice not falling on the average number. You see to act only as if the average were true is dangerous. You must be prepared for the possibilities on the rest of the bell curve to show up.Anyway, you're just rambling on and on and on. If I somehow did have concrete statistics saying young women are 3X as likely to be "catty" as young men and young men are 3X as likely to start physical fights as young women, you'd still just go on pointing out cases where that's not true.
I have not said that at all. Firstly I never said men and women were socially identical. Nor did I say they were equally likely to exhibit certain behaviours, though it only takes a brief glance at Anthropology to see that almost all of these are culturally specific, but what I did say was that even if some behaviours are more commonly male than female (as per brains being different) that there are huge variations and large numbers of maleish females and femalish males.I'm confused as to what your motivation is to try to pretend that men and women are socially identical and are equally as likely to exhibit certain behaviors. I'm sure you know that's untrue. What's your agenda?
Do you understand ranges? The average roll of a 6 sided dice is 3.5. Something that can't actually be rolled. But gender variation is more like rolling a 20-sided dice. The average is 10.5. Now if you say that me add 2 to their dice rolls and women subtract two you get a good measure of how gender and neurology appears to work.
Average male 12.5, average female 8.5 but plenty of men will roll 1 for a result of 3 and plenty of women will roll 20 for a result of 18.
Now have a second dice roll for sexuality. And another for aggression.
See the pattern? A small sex based distribution of averages but plenty of people individually all over the place!
If you still have trouble with the idea find Zoe Brain's blog and search for the post Bi-Gender and the Brain for the latest on sex-differences, sexuality, Intersex Transexuals and brain-neurology.
I didn't say that. Domestic violence is being estimated at close to 50/50 but with women causing less lasting or hospitalisable damage.Wow. So there are just as many female rapists as males, but this is being covered up by some sort of massive conspiracy? I didn't realize you had gone totally insane. I guess I'll just let it go, then.
Rape appears still far behind but the social pressure not to admit to being raped by a woman is very strong, Still I know men that have been, even violently, and never reported it. A lot of criminalogists have put estimates at about 10-1 men to women rapists!
And as I said numbers are rising. So they may reach 50/50. Not are 50/50 now but may reach 50/50.
The difference in what i said and how you read it is significant.
Last edited by battybattybats; 11-18-2008 at 02:21 AM.
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