No, I understand your intent--and you're right, I'm glad that you're trying to make him feel better.
I don't want to construe your whole post as anti-woman so that I can get my righteous indignation going. There's a reason why I listed "eugenicism" first (a word that should have probably been "elitism" to curb the possible fight ahead, but I was overly tired and they both started with e; that, and I have a kneejerk reaction to talking about other human beings as "worthless"). I essentially said it had messages I didn't feel comfortable with as a woman, not that the entire thing contained one unified message. Of course I wouldn't say "Oh, hurr durr, you're a man and too aggressive and hostile." You are, at the worst, misguided.
I do care if people are sexist. One of the reasons why I care is because I am the recipient of all of this crap, and it is the gift that keeps on giving. I suspect that you can say "this society is more misandrist than misogynist" because you are on the other side of the divide, or possibly because you live somewhere other than the United States. Or, perhaps, you are simply of differing opinion, and have already educated yourself about all the nasty crud like rape statistics, current bans on medically necessary abortions, and non-portrayal of women in media. I don't want to make any assumptions.
In any case, this is not the Oppression Olympics.
You don't have to explain evolutionary psychology to me. I understand it well enough, though there are portions with which I disagree--largely, that our continuing reliance on these stereotypes is genetic, rather than cultural. Saying that it's all written in our genes seems a bit defeatist, to me. This is especially true in light of all the studies going on right now about cultural influences on gender roles, abilities, and so on.
I dislike the "nerd elite" social model--
despite being an extreme beneficiary, including in such things as looking for dudes--because to me it has grown to seem like a sort of masturbatory system that rewards tech skills and completely removes any onus to gain people skills or obey any portion of the usual social contract. Note that I'm not saying "being popular," but gaining the theoretically basic talents that can really grease your way through life. I say this as a person who has been diagnosed with Asperger's a couple of times, which is the level of deficiency I tend to sort of expect when people are complaining about a
total inability to fit in--maybe we're discussing different phenomena. You don't have to fit in or be well-liked at all, but if you can gain enough social understanding to get along with the rest of society in a reasonable way, make a few friends, life gets much easier.
That, and I think branding intelligent people as automatically superior to stupid people is hurtful. It takes all kinds. As one of my professors told me, you don't get an Aristotle without a thriving mathematical community; the Aristotle will go elsewhere or never be stimulated enough to flourish. A genius is only as valuable as the extant infrastructure.
Again, I'm not saying he should buy into the social positioning games. I hate those and think they cause a lot of problems for people who don't deserve them. But I don't know that the right answer is "fuck them all and don't ever listen to them about anything." Considering, at the least, that someone else might have a problem with you is kind of a good thing to do.
I never said that I thought men who "can't get laid" are losers. I never said that I thought the OP was a loser. I said, simply, that I thought you'd gone too far out the other side. It was my interpretation that the OP was speaking about some other difficulty than that women weren't interested in having sex with him. Seeming "off" is different from being undesirable for nerdy reasons. Trust me, I am uncomfortably familiar with both.
Perhaps the chief difficulty here is that I didn't assume the OP was having difficulties due to lack of perceived sexual prowess.
As far as female sexuality goes, I don't give a damn about other folks' consensual sexual activities. I care about a woman being branded inferior based on something so trivial as her choice in sexual partners.
I don't think I've ever heard of any man being called inferior for liking stereotypically beautiful women. I distinctly remember being told by the women and men in my life that there were men out there who liked flat-chested women, not that the men who thought otherwise were apes or otherwise deficient.
Similarly, I get the feeling that plenty of men are self-congratulatory for preferring smart women, despite still treating the people in question like objects in the end. Just... smart objects, not pretty ones. That's not so good, either.
It flies over 99% of the population's head. Also I'm kind of surprised fifty galloping whiteknights didn't charge in with a misgony accusation for my post. Maybe they're still typing. Is that you, still-typing whiteknight who sees this post during the "while you were typing" alert? Fair warning bro. I've got one in the chamber.
I understand the principle, but I didn't understand that it was supposed to relate to that quotation in question. I guess it was kind of like the "the average American has one ovary and one testicle" quotation, huh! Now I get it.
In any case, it didn't have anything misogynistic in it, so... there's no reason to be surprised. And any white knights 'round here had better know by now that I can more than take care of myself :I
The purpose of feminism isn't to say that natural differences don't exist, but that many of the differences we have posited as natural (outside of the obvious things like, say, anatomy) are interwoven into cultural messages--and furthermore that these cultural messages cause us to ignore who a person actually is in favor of reliance on that messaging. Embrace diversity and its inherent chaos, rather than maintaining as a moral good some absolutist order that doesn't even exist.
That's what I think, anyhow.
This post made my day but I'm still waiting for a better signature. COMING SUMMER 2011: NIKOV TAUNTS BROS INTO COMING AT HIM
I would warn MrGimp about something but it's too late for him.
Hoho. If I were a sigger, I'd sig him, too.
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Topic: Socially Retarded (Read 14081 times)