The Cellar - What do men want?

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Female colleagues of mine, from far further up their various career-ladders have told me that one of their biggest considerations when it came to choosing said path was taking future children into consideration. I mean they were thinking about it even before they went to Uni.

This includes pharmacists and lawyers, and both of these professions need to keep learning and training and staying up to date on recent developments for as long as they are working. Male colleagues in general still have a good chance of being looked after at home. Laundry done for them, meals cooked, house cleaned and still able to go to work when the children are ill. With no need to work part-time they are able to progress further and faster. Amen bring home the bacon, but who shovels the pigshit?

Not me. I get to work part-time even without children. Yay.
Hmmmm. Okay, I'm not a good advert.

Anyway I'm not saying that planning for children is specifically girl-thinking. Not at all. The majority of straight people work on the assumption that they will procreate. I'm just saying that the choice of career involves gender in many ways which do not involve brain development at all.

Talking about the probability of a type C brain seems like we are on a similar boat.

I feel like I should add that in comp sci, I have worked for female bosses and I have hired female employees; after the preference is found, we are all equals.

The real terrible inequality in comp sci is AGE. (The worst inequalities in the world are the ones happening to US)

Get in the coffin gramps

Quote:

Originally Posted by DanaC (Post 889209)

Someone has a chapter on interpersonal violence between soldiers, to write :p

I really, really have to stop getting distracted with this stuff

Honestly, I'd be 10x more fascinated to read that than this discussion only because I haven't heard or learned anything new on this topic.

Sign me up for your other work though.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sundae

Anyway I'm not saying that planning for children is specifically girl-thinking. Not at all. The majority of straight people work on the assumption that they will procreate. I'm just saying that the choice of career involves gender in many ways which do not involve brain development at all.

This is THE reason I rejected being a pre-med major when considering my college options. I knew I wanted children, and I wanted them before I finished my residency at age 30.

Quote:

Originally Posted by footfootfoot (Post 889260)

Honestly, I'd be 10x more fascinated to read that than this discussion only because I haven't heard or learned anything new on this topic.

Sign me up for your other work though.

My experience points at more interpersonal violence between soldiers of different nations. Especially different nations with different religious populations.

Sent from an undisclosed location.

Seems largely to hold true for the 18th/19th century British army.

Given the dynamic of lots of trained, armed men hanging about for long periods of inactivity in camps, there seems surprisingly little serious violence between soldiers of similar rank and service. Obviously, there's a level of day to day violence that doesn't make it into the justice records - dealt with summarily by officers, or self-policed through company structures. But they don't appear to have been any more violent amongst themselves than a comparable civilian population of the day.

Non-comms, though. They're a different story. So far I am getting the distinct impression that NCOs were disproportionately victims of violence.

Quote:

Originally Posted by regular.joe (Post 889343)

My experience points at more interpersonal violence between soldiers of different nations. Especially different nations with different religious populations.

Sent from an undisclosed location.

cracking me up, Reg.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DanaC (Post 889350)

Non-comms, though. They're a different story. So far I am getting the distinct impression that NCOs were disproportionately victims of violence.

Private: Ah, now we see the violence inherent in the system!
Captain: [shakes Private] Shut up!
Private: Oh! Come and see the violence inherent in the system! Help, help, I'm being repressed!
Captain: Bloody Private!
Private: Ooh, what a giveaway!

Dana, I thought you were kidding. Are you really writing a paper on interpersonal violence between soldiers?

Your comments on brain wiring has me thinking. Men and women are different starting at the genetic level. Genetically, hormonally, different. Do you mean that our brain processing is essentially the same? I suppose we all look similar when we process 2+2. The method of neurons processing information does not take into account the delicate play of brain chemistry, hormones, and genetic markers.

Sent from an undisclosed location.

Joe, I think that is a chapter in her PhD thesis. Somewhere Dana goes into detail about the whole thing, but I believe it has to do with the British Army in the 1800s.

Probably, I'll just wait for the movie...

That is very interesting. I suppose I should stop baiting her in this forum and let her have a little peace to write her thesis.

Quote:

Originally Posted by regular.joe (Post 890210)

That is very interesting. I suppose I should stop baiting her in this forum and let her have a little peace to write her thesis.

I see what you did there:eyebrow:

Ah come now Three Foot, you have to admit it is the perfect word for the occasion, works on any level. It's a hard feat for us low context Mericans to pull off.

Hard feet? Hardly. I thought it was just your regular genius and I haggised.

Quote:

Originally Posted by regular.jose

It's a hard feat for us low context Mericans to pull off.

I read this sentence three times before I figured out that it didn't say Mexicans.

I didnt realise it said mercans and not mexicans till clods post.

What is this? Some kind of weird bias? What do you have against Mexicans?

Me too... or three... or whatever. :haha:

Why do you hate America?

Apparently i have always hated america...

From Arthur Schopenhauer's essay Of Women, published in 1851.

Quote:

One need only look at a woman’s shape to discover that she is not intended for either too much mental or too much physical work. She pays the debt of life not by what she does but by what she suffers—by the pains of child-bearing, care for the child, and by subjection to man, to whom she should be a patient and cheerful companion. The greatest sorrows and joys or great exhibition of strength are not assigned to her; her life should flow more quietly, more gently, and less obtrusively than man’s, without her being essentially happier or unhappier.

Women are directly adapted to act as the nurses and educators of our early childhood, for the simple reason that they themselves are childish, foolish, and short-sighted—in a word, are big children all their lives, something intermediate between the child and the man, who is a man in the strict sense of the word. Consider how a young girl will toy day after day with a child, dance with it and sing to it; and then consider what a man, with the very best intentions in the world, could do in her place.

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The nobler and more perfect a thing is, the later and slower is it in reaching maturity. Man reaches the maturity of his reasoning and mental faculties scarcely before he is eight-and-twenty; woman when she is eighteen; but hers is reason of very narrow limitations. This is why women remain children all their lives, for they always see only what is near at hand, cling to the present, take the appearance of a thing for reality, and prefer trifling matters to the most important. It is by virtue of man’s reasoning powers that he does not live in the present only, like the brute, but observes and ponders over the past and future; and from this spring discretion, care, and that anxiety which we so frequently notice in people. The advantages, as well as the disadvantages, that this entails, make woman, in consequence of her weaker reasoning powers, less of a partaker in them. Moreover, she is intellectually short-sighted, for although her intuitive understanding quickly perceives what is near to her, on the other hand her circle of vision is limited and does not embrace anything that is remote; hence everything that is absent or past, or in the future, affects women in a less degree than men. This is why they have greater inclination for extravagance, which sometimes borders on madness. Women in their hearts think that men are intended to earn money so that they may spend it, if possible during their husband’s lifetime, but at any rate after his death.

As soon as he has given them his earnings on which to keep house they are strengthened in this belief. Although all this entails many disadvantages, yet it has this advantage—that a woman lives more in the present than a man, and that she enjoys it more keenly if it is at all bearable. This is the origin of that cheerfulness which is peculiar to woman and makes her fit to divert man, and in case of need, to console him when he is weighed down by cares. To consult women in matters of difficulty, as the Germans used to do in old times, is by no means a matter to be overlooked; for their way of grasping a thing is quite different from ours, chiefly because they like the shortest way to the point, and usually keep their attention fixed upon what lies nearest; while we, as a rule, see beyond it, for the simple reason that it lies under our nose; it then becomes necessary for us to be brought back to the thing in order to obtain a near and simple view. This is why women are more sober in their judgment than we, and why they see nothing more in things than is really there; while we, if our passions are roused, slightly exaggerate or add to our imagination.

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It is because women’s reasoning powers are weaker that they show more sympathy for the unfortunate than men, and consequently take a kindlier interest in them. On the other hand, women are inferior to men in matters of justice, honesty, and conscientiousness. Again, because their reasoning faculty is weak, things clearly visible and real, and belonging to the present, exercise a power over them which is rarely counteracted by abstract thoughts, fixed maxims, or firm resolutions, in general, by regard for the past and future or by consideration for what is absent and remote. Accordingly they have the first and principal qualities of virtue, but they lack the secondary qualities which are often a necessary instrument in developing it. Women may be compared in this respect to an organism that has a liver but no gall-bladder.9 So that it will be found that the fundamental fault in the character of women is that they have no “sense of justice.”

This arises from their deficiency in the power of reasoning already referred to, and reflection, but is also partly due to the fact that Nature has not destined them, as the weaker sex, to be dependent on strength but on cunning; this is why they are instinctively crafty, and have an ineradicable tendency to lie. For as lions are furnished with claws and teeth, elephants with tusks, boars with fangs, bulls with horns, and the cuttlefish with its dark, inky fluid, so Nature has provided woman for her protection and defence with the faculty of dissimulation, and all the power which Nature has given to man in the form of bodily strength and reason has been conferred on woman in this form. Hence, dissimulation is innate in woman and almost as characteristic of the very stupid as of the clever.

Accordingly, it is as natural for women to dissemble at every opportunity as it is for those animals to turn to their weapons when they are attacked; and they feel in doing so that in a certain measure they are only making use of their rights. Therefore a woman who is perfectly truthful and does not dissemble is perhaps an impossibility. This is why they see through dissimulation in others so easily; therefore it is not advisable to attempt it with them. From the fundamental defect that has been stated, and all that it involves, spring falseness, faithlessness, treachery, ungratefulness, and so on. In a court of justice women are more often found guilty of perjury than men. It is indeed to be generally questioned whether they should be allowed to take an oath at all. From time to time there are repeated cases everywhere of ladies, who want for nothing, secretly pocketing and taking away things from shop counters.

This encapsulates a lot of the 'scientific' approach to gender difference during late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Similarly dodgy reasoning was used to define the races.

This mix of enlightenment ideas about biological determinism with pre-existing notions of innate female inferiority was a staple for philosophical, political and scientific discourse across Europe and America from the beginnings of the Enlightenment through to....

Well, hello, Men are From Mars; Women are from Venus.

The tenor has altered somewhat. It's no longer about proving that the female sex is the lesser sex. It's now about nailing down the dividing lines to the exact contours of the male and female brain, in order to fortify our existing assumptions that there must be an unbridgeable gulf between us. Surely there must.

And if we can tie it to our hunter gatherer past, like our forebears tied it to God's great plan, well, that works fine. Makes sense. Men read maps because they hunted. Women are communicators because they existed in a more social setting.
Except that many men are excellent communicators and many women read maps as easily as I read books.

I actually used to subscribe somewhat to that. I did. It fit my experience of the world. My brother and my father both have/had very strong spatial and mapping skills. Both at a meta level, in navigating and mapping their world, and at a smaller level, designing and using spaces. I, my mother, and my best friend all sucked at that stuff. I have no internal map or sense of direction and neither does Mum. My friend Maddy used to have to check which fingers had rings on them to tell left from right.

I knew it was something I could probably learn (reading maps) but found it very, very difficult. It made sense to me that the men in my life had better map reading skills, because you know...hunter gatherers blah, blah. It made sense that it owuld be something, not that only men could do, but that men would find easy and women harder.

Then my brother had two daughters, both of whom have exactly the same internalised sense of space and direction that their dad has. And, indeed, their mother.

So, maybe my brother wasn't so good at maps and all that spatial stuff because of his maleness, but because he got the genetic inheritance from my Dad that produced such a talent. And maybe when he met Jen, who also has that ability, between them they gave my nieces that genetic heritage. Maybe I didn't take after mum because I am female, but because of when I was born in relation to my brother.

Or maybe, because I followed Mum, as my female role model early on, I just never developed those skills. And Martin, following and watching our dad, took all that on board in a way I hadn't. And maybe his kids now have as well.

Some of the differences we assume to be because of our gender, may be because of other factors. And it so very easy to spin out a rationale that says yes, this is so because it must be so; and it must be so, because it is so.

Oh, and as a slight side point, notice this bit:

Quote:

for their way of grasping a thing is quite different from ours, chiefly because they like the shortest way to the point, and usually keep their attention fixed upon what lies nearest; while we, as a rule, see beyond it, for the simple reason that it lies under our nose; it then becomes necessary for us to be brought back to the thing in order to obtain a near and simple view. This is why women are more sober in their judgment than we, and why they see nothing more in things than is really there; while we, if our passions are roused, slightly exaggerate or add to our imagination.

This is almost a complete reversal of what we now suggest to be the innate difference between male and female thinking. We've replaced the above simple and focused female, unconcerned with past or future and imaginative male, whose thoughts need to be reined in to the matter at hand, with the male 'math brain', not cut out for multitasking, but honed by evolution to be a focused problem solving machine, and the imaginative, multitasking female able to juggle lots of different things at once.

Wow, I get it that for the most part the quoted scholarly paper from 1851 is a load of bullshit. This is why there has to be a divider between a performer and judges who will decide wether or not a brass player will play for large orchestras or symphonies. For a very long time women were thought to be inferior at playing brass instruments, and would never even have been considered for 1st chair in a large orchestra or symphony. Put up the divider at auditions and women play just as well if not better than men. There are still judges who don't like the stupid divider and want to hire only men to play brass. Knowing this does not mean that there are no differences between men and women at some very basic levels. Women and men have equal ability as far as cognitive skills, math, music and spewing the bullshit of philosophy.

I guess what I've been trying to say in answer to the original question is that this man wants a WOMAN. And a woman in my book is a hell of a lot more then a vagina and breasts. Although a vagina and breasts are a pretty cool part of the package and should definitely not be dispensed with.

Oh, I agree. A Woman is something much more than that simple biological difference. And a Man, likewise is more than that simple biological difference.

Gender roles have a purpose in our society. And, at a personal level they are one of the ways we understand and navigate our selves, our worlds and each other. Amongst the various things that gender may or may not be, it is performed and also negotiated. Whatever the particular mix of genetics, biological sex, performed understanding and social conditioning led to our current gender roles, that is what we have to work with.

If I go out with a man, I conform to certain understandings of gender. In social situations, with men and women, I conform to certain undertandings of gender. It's about signalling masculinity or femininity. Signalling and performing gender, in all sorts of ways. Because in our world and society being male or female has meaning beyond simple biology.

There's nothing wrong with that. There is nothing wrong with wanting to display gender. Or in wanting to hook up with someone who displays gender in a way that appeals to your own conception of the other sex.

You remember that "political compass" quiz that we've done a few times in the past?

I want a "gendered behavior" compass, and also a "gendered behavior you are most attracted to" compass. Would the relationships be mostly diagonal, or are there different sets of us, people with a certain characteristic who are generally attracted to that same characteristic, instead of the maxim that opposites attract? Dana, get right on that, please.

I expect a lot of people would be afraid to take such a test. Or they would lie when taking it, hoping to get the results they would be comfortable with.

Oddly enough, I only recently posted that I am more passive in Limey and Dana's company and blamed it on pheromones.

I'd take that test.
But it would have to be very detailed to cover all possible scenarios.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clodfobble (Post 890355)

You remember that "political compass" quiz that we've done a few times in the past?

I want a "gendered behavior" compass, and also a "gendered behavior you are most attracted to" compass.

I looked for it.
http://www.behavioralcompassgroup.com/

Yeah. That doesn't offer a quiz.

@Clod: what an awesome idea.

I see Schopenhauer, in a posh German drawing room, mimicking the blind man describing the elephant. He knows jack-shit about women... except they may scare him.

Tell me again about these intellectually short-sighted, crafty perjurers, with no sense of justice. Do you mean the ones who tamed North America, Australia, and South Africa? Yeah, delicate flowers that bunch. :eyebrow:
http://cellar.org/2014/pioneers.jpg

Oh, you say, they were just a handful of women who chose to pioneer, and not representative.

OK, I'll bet these ladies from the more civilized towns and cities of each continent's coasts, could cook supper, change the baby, and kick your ass at the same time.

http://cellar.org/2014/cityfolks.jpg

I watched my grandmother, and her peers, do an incredible amount of work, day in and day out. No electricity, no conveniences, heating/cooking with wood, and for the first 50 years, no running water. Doctor? Say what? The butter & egg money doesn't allow for a doctor, unless we can't staunch the bleeding.

Wait, was his point that women were strong, but men stronger?
Nah, not buying that... down you go Schopey. :Flush: