: :
:Jenny: There's something strange about someone objecting to "sweeping generalisations about men" in one paragraph and then turning around and making similar generalisations about women in the next paragraph.: Believe it or not, it's kind of hard to categorise half the world's population.
DDN: No its not. Let me give you an example: Approximately half of the world's people have a vagina.
See? No problem.
: : DDN: No problem with you there. What I won't do, however, is lay down and take blame for EVERYTHING. What I won't do is let women get away with the evil hand they have in our collective state of affairs: their insatiable greed for material things, their twisted psychological manipulations of men, and their big, secret, nation-wide puSSy conspiracy.
: *raised eyebrow*
:Jenny: There's a big, secret, nationwide conspiracy? Damn, someone forgot to send me an invitation.
DDN: If you are from the US, your indoctrination occurred roughly around the time of your birth, hence your memory lapse. All of us belong to one form of US corporate government/media brainwashing cult or another whethe we like it or not, whether we are aware of it or not. Men belong to one. Women belong to one. Whites belong to one. Blacks belong to one. Poor people belong to one. Rich people belong to one. In this thread we are talking about women, hence the emphasis on the destructive and very secret female cult of the USA.
:Jenny: Most women don't" want it all". Of course there's a minority, but then most men are normal human beings who don't suffer from pathological greed either. People are people, and they run a whole spectrum from morally impeccable to vilely corrupt. To judge an entire gender (or any group) based on the actions of a few is repulsive.
DDN: This entire thread was spawned by a post from "Tonya" below who thinks we should erradicate all differences between men and women (or at least PRETEND like they can be erradicated). I find this to be a very ignorant, destructive, and common mindset in this culture and my posts in this thread are intended to combat this abberant, perverted, repulsive paradigm. We are ALL suffering from various pathologies in reaction to growing up in an inherently sick culture. With the popularity of male bashing always on the rise, women, more than ever, need to take account of their part in the sociological horror story we are mutually perpetuating here. I am speaking of things that transcend the superficial differences you are alluding to, and yes, in this context, generalisations not only APPLY but are mandatory in conducting a constructive philisophical discussion on such matters.
:Jenny: For example, based on your post, I could claim that all American men are narrow-minded paranoid bigots.
DDN: Or you could say that men have more of a tendency than women to become narrow-minded paranoid bigots that ought to be held in check. That would be a true and useful observation. A deeper analysis of it might teach us ALL (men and women) something about ourselves and our current socio/economic/political situation, as would an analysis of why women have a tendency to become such incredibly cruel, manipulative, and destructive bithches.
Jenny: However, since I fortunately have encountered far more American men than just yourself, I have much more positive images of the group as a whole. Furthermore, I would never pre-judge another human being just because he slotted into such a category as "American male" - I prefer to make my decisions based on individuals.
DDN: You'll make your judgements based on what you have been TAUGHT and nothing else. I'm asking everyone here to question what they have been TAUGHT about the roles of men and women in society.
: [snip]
:DDN: Not any more than the average women grows up resenting men for having penises or thinking that they themselves should be more like men than like women. If men think women are so lame then why is almost everything we do directed at attracting and appeasing women?
:Jenny: If you consider most of your life to be "directed at attracting and appeasing women", then I'm sorry for you. Because I don't spend my life trying to attract men, nor do most of the women I know. Nor are most of the men of my acquaintance obsessed with attracting women.
DDN: Everyone is spending their life chasing something - at least they ought to be. I don't know anyone that's so perfect that they couldn't benefit from aquiring something that they don't already have. Its easy to go to sleep though once you've painted yourself into a comfortable little corner as most people in this country have; a problem isn't a problem here until its in your own back yard.
I want to understand women. That's one of MY personal missions. You can deride me all you want for it, but, in the end, you'll have to wrestle with your OWN demons as I wrestle with mine. I can certainly think of less worthwhile endeavors, like the trivial bullshit that most americans tend to spend their precious time mulling over.
If you don't "NEED" a man, that's fine with me. But I'm a man, fully equiped with a strong labido and a desire to love and be loved - properly, by a set of standards that I do not see being fullfilled in this backwards, sold out culture. Maybe my standard for a mate are just HIGHER than yours - have you considered THAT?
:Jenny: What defines a woman? This seems to be your problem. I don't want a penis - I like being a woman. I don't resent men. What I do object to is someone trying to alter my way of life because I fail to conform to their idea of what a woman should be. I am an individual who has the good fortune to live in a fairly free society, I specifically chose to live within that particular society, and I will utterly defend my right to determine how I live, within the legal context of that society. In fact attempts by other individuals to prevent me from the full and free exercise of those rights would be illegal.
: : Kevin: …….and the average man grows up in a world of privelege.
: : DDN: Eh? I thought the "privileged" class was less than one percent of the world's population. How do you get "average" out of one percent?
:Jenny: Proportionally, in nearly all societies (in fact, I can't think of an exception) men are better off. They control the wealth, they own the property, they enact the laws. UN statistics show that more women around the world live in poverty than do men. Men in most societies have more freedom and safety, whether it be the statistical likelihood of assault when walking down a street at night, or the right to determine the course of one's own life - from career to marriage to parenthood - the fact is that men do tend to be the "privileged" gender. This is not a hard and fast rule of course, there will be statistical blips, but overall it does apply.
:
DNN: Isn't THAT a generalisation?
None.
