Double standards

[Aprilrain]

Thank you Adina, that was refreshing.

[KatieV]

Adina,

As in spring - love that name.
You're right, that's not what I intended. I have no envy of 'easier' - it's just my observation on societal acceptance. I'm definitely not politically correct, far from it.

katy

[Alice Torn]

We are living in the 20teens, not the 1950's. The pendulum has swung, swung swung. Colleges and universities are over 60% women, as is grad school. There is a book that came out4 or5 years ago, written by a woman, "The War On Boys." During the 1990's Poet Robert Bly led the "mens' movement, and wrote a book, "Iron John." He wrote and talked about the male energy "going down into the ashes" under ground. American women may still be under some "glass ceilings" in some cases, but, for the most part, women are flying high, at least as far as single women i have known, while I know more and more men "going down in the ashes". Of course there always will be individuals , men or women, who suffer discrimination. But the trend has been to exalt the girls, and fluster the boys for a while now. Just listen to most radio advertisements, where the male si the bumbling doofus, corrected by the smart woman. I love women, don't get me wrong! But, in my reality, this is the case, and i am well informed, on shortwave radio, AM and fm radio, internet, some television,not much. Watching old shows, then new shows, what a contrast in attiudes. They had an all day "Father Knows Best" thing on meTV on Fathers Day. Culture shock!!!

[Hermana]

Does it make a difference, what the imagined "standards" are? If we have a passion for something... anything... why would we not ignore the opinions of other people who are never going to help us achieve our goals anyway?

I suspect there are very few people in this world who would be utterly friendless if they just went out and pursued their goal. Perhaps there is not a double standard, so much as another social phenomenon which masquerades as one.

Perhaps instead, what some people call "double standards" is this: Whatever we do in this world, however we choose to live life, there are always people who will support us, and others who will criticise us. For whatever we do. Why then, would we choose to stay around criticisers and then complain of suffering from apparent double standards? Perhaps, and this is just my suggestion, we simply need to do a sideways social shift and find the company of those who happen to be walking a similar or sympathetic life path to our own.

Yes, there are those who may say that struggle and criticism are character-building. Er - yes - perhaps, but not if it is in a destructive context. We can complain of how hard life is, or we can move the context (ie.find our friendly fellow travellers), and then never have to give up our passion - for that is what makes us truly alive.

Travelling with friends, we still hear the critics, but the criticism no longer hurts, nor holds us back.

Love