What Does Woman Want

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

I did not ask to be born a woman.  At least presumably I didn’t ask.  If we look too closely at this, we get into all sorts of things about pre-existing souls, reincarnation and what not.  Neither fit into my system of belief, but neither am I absolutely sure of what happens after you die, or before you’re born, because how can I be?  Eventually I’ll find the one out, the other also if my system is wrong.  And in either case it matters very little to here and now.

However, I do know being born a woman wasn’t some sort of achievement, like I just won a race and deserve a medal.  I am a woman, and that’s fine.  My little tomboy self didn’t always think it was a good idea, this being a woman thing, but I’ve come to enjoy it.  I can still slay dragons and drink but I can also wear bitching shoes while doing it, and no one looks at me sideways.

Or to put things another way: I have my limitations, my sticking points, and things I do that make people look at me oddly.  The limitations and sticking points have bloody nothing to do with being female.  Even in Portugal, where I was presumed to be dumber than most males (it’s a cultural thing) I never found that to be an impairment, because I wasn’t and I’d eventually show it.  Also, because I’m that kind of person, I enjoyed the look of shock on their faces when I showed it.  The sticking points: I’ve gone to pot, physically for various reasons, mostly having to do with hypothyroidism and asthma, and true, I was never as strong as most males.  So in a test of strength, I’d have failed.  But I was quite strong enough when I was young to carry furniture as heavy as the movers did, and for as long (I never had to tell my husband “I can’t lift this” until my fifties.  And in a fight I just had to be twice as low-minded and nasty.  Because a fight isn’t won on a straight up context of strength.

I never found being a woman an impairment.  I did take shameless advantage of it a time or twenty.  It’s easier to get out of a ticket, if you act the ditsy woman.  It’s easier to diffuse a situation that for a male would end in a fight by smiling and talking in a “little girl lost” voice.

Do I feel bad about using the advantage that the evolutionary triggers against hurting females gives me?  Oh, please.  You are born who you are born.  You use ALL your weapons.  All of them.  Why not?  There are disadvantages that come with your advantages.  There are disadvantages for everyone.  You use all your advantages.  They’re yours.  Why wouldn’t you use them?

This morning, on facebook, in the context of talking about Saudi Arabia — keep that in mind — a woman instructed me (and the world in general) that women in America still have a long way to go.  (And yes, she did wave Trump in the general direction of the argument, though what the man has to do with anything is beyond me.  Using the word “pussy” might be crude, but holy hell, I don’t know any woman who hasn’t.  And as for his saying that women would let wealthy men grab them by the pussy, he was stating women are hypergamic.  And?  It happens to be the pure biological truth. Yeah, crudely stated, but he thought he was in an informal occasion.  It’s not like he was proclaiming it as policy that women should be grabbed by the pussy, which is what these twattwaffles seem to have convinced themselves of.
Let me add that for a man his age, in business as long as he was, if this is the worst they found of him, good lord, he’s clean.  Far cleaner than any of their idols, not even just Billy Cigar Clinton.)

This reminded me of when my son got a letter from the chemistry department saying that women had now reached 60% of graduates, so women had to keep pushing.

Keep pushing for what?  As I asked this woman, a long way to go WHERE?  Women in the US are equal under the law.  They get preferences in hiring and in being able to destroy a man’s reputation without any backing (Because hey #believeallwomen.)  They are in fact treated like angels, not made of the same mortal clay as men.

They have a long way to go?  Sure they do.  They have a long way to go to be treated as real people, and learn to compete as adults.

But that’s not what these idiots are pushing for.  They’re pushing for more and more privilege, and convincing themselves they live in a “patriarchy” and that they’re kept down.  Most of the rest of the world laughs at American women as out of control termagants.  Images of women parading with symbolic genitalia on their heads, and publicly worshiping their own sex-organs isn’t really convincing the rest of the world that equality and freedom for women is a good idea, either.  Now Arabs have something to point at and say “If we let them out of burkas.”

Look, I get it.  I DO.  Women have no experience of being men (I don’t either, but I grew up in a male-friend-group and listened to them when they didn’t even realize I was there) and therefore every blockage and issue they encounter, they attribute to sexism.  The grass is always greener on the other side of the sex divide.

Except it’s not. Men have their challenges and lack some of our advantages, and that’s before we get into insanity like preferential hiring and promoting for women.

If women bothered listening, they’d find that men aren’t some “privileged” creature who gets everything they want.  A man or two, maybe.  Those with tons of money, good looks, connections.  How many of those are there in the world.  Most men like most women struggle and are discriminated against, for myriad reasons.

And if a man not getting a promotion decides he’s discriminated against (a lot of them are, particularly in government-related projects) and women have it all their way, and therefore he’ll stop trying and wallow in his own victimhood, he’s the equivalent of these crazy women who think they live in a patriarchy.

All of us have the world rigged for and against us, and what sex we are is just part of it.  We are all born with a set of cards.  It’s the only cards we can play.  Getting daddy government to give us new cards works for a while… and infantilizes us, and destroys our ability to think clearly, as we have proof daily.

I didn’t ask to be born a woman.  All in all, I’m pretty happy with it, though, advantages and disadvantages.  I loathed being pregnant partly because I spent so much of my life ill, and pregnancy is like illness.  OTOH I love being a mother.  I hated being treated like an idiot, in Portugal, but OTOH I could use trained chivalry against everyone including the police.  I hated having to work at looking nice, but then could use that to sidestep a lot of issues that would confront a man.

Honestly, if I find I chose this body, my only complaint will be “auto-immune, really?  WHY?  JUST WHY?”

We all play the cards we’re given.  Sometimes society is overwhelmingly unfair to a sex.  The Arab countries come to mind, though I understand from private histories many women still find their place of power there.  Which doesn’t mean that the ridiculous system shouldn’t be changed.  No one should have to live life inside a sofa cover.

However, in Western countries, where we’re equal before the law, saying we have “a long way to go” borders on the insane.

What way do they want to go?  Do they want the law to prevent people from saying or thinking men and women aren’t exactly the same?  When you take in account the differences in IQ distribution and the massive differences in physical performance, how can you argue they are?  And even if you could, even if people who assume women are weaker, or tend more to the middle of the IQ spectrum were OBJECTIVELY wrong, how do you stop people thinking that?

You don’t get to control other people’s thoughts.  You don’t get to control other people’s actions.  You don’t get to dictate every moment of everyone in society.  That’s not a way you want to go.  More importantly, that’s not the way we, lovers of freedom will let you go.

Play the hand you were dealt.  Learn to improve your weaknesses.  Stop imagining other people have it better than you.  Envy is only a virtue in the despicable Marxist system.  It will win you no points here.

Learn to be adults among adults.  Or invite a backlash that I and other freedom loving females are dreading.

I don’t want my granddaughter to wear a burka, and I will fight to prevent it.  Even when the fight amounts to telling crazy women they’re out of their rocking head.

Take your head out of your pussy.  Your vagina doesn’t impress anyone except perhaps in very private situations.  “But my sex organs” is not an adult argument.

Shut up and work.

279 thoughts on “What Does Woman Want”

  1. Immediate reaction to your title is to start on more questions — Which woman? At what point in time? How about considering that woman are not a monolithic entity?

      1. Freud had a little problem.

        Well, I don’t know if it was little, but his obsession with it makes one consider the possibility.

        2. Seriously, I believe Freud did have a few “little” problems. Somewhere, in one of my college classes, long, long ago – a professor told me that someone gets into the mental health field to sort out their own obsessions.

        1. 20 plus years ago, in a letter to JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) a lady physician stated that women had pocket envy, not penis envy. I highly agree.

            1. Heh.
              I remember being a newlywed, and discovering the rule that everything I made was “our money”, and everything she made was “her money”.

              That rule didn’t survive long.

          2. That view can only be held by a person who’s never sat on a wallet for seven hours.

            If women want pockets they can be found in properly made blazers (generally at least seven: one breast pocket, two exterior pockets at about the waistline and four interior pockets, two at the breast and two at the waist. There is also ample opportunity for pockets in skirts, both inside and out. It might also be noted that a vest is essentially a pocket carrying device and women can wear a vest or wear corsets with pockets installed.

            1. The trick then becomes finding properly made blazers and skirts and vests that include actual pockets, and not faux pockets or “yeah, you can put a lip balm in this one, maybe!” pockets. Preferably ones that don’t cost an arm and a leg.

                1. My mother was a hobby seamstress with professional-level skills. My PROM DRESS had pockets, thank you very much. As does my go-to RenFaire skirt.

                  She drew the line at a pocketed wedding dress, however.

              2. True – many “Blazers” for women are more properly termed “Blazer-like garments.” No structure, no canvas stiffener, no integrity, simple cloth jackets designed to look like a blazer and be discarded in a year or less.

                Admittedly there are obvious problems with the interior breast pockets, and women are prone to dislike skirt pockets which disrupt the lines of the garments. It all comes down to the utilitarian purpose of your attire. If women <Itruly desire pockets they can always resort to the traditional source of pockets and accessorize with a gigolo.

                1. “If women truly desire pockets they can always resort to the traditional source of pockets”

                  As my wife likes to put it, when I ask her where her pockets are: “You’re wearing them.” Of course, this entire refrain is a common one between the Spousal and Female Offspring Units.

              3. I Third This (since Sarah already seconded).

                What really baffles me most about it is that clothing manufacturers somehow haven’t clued into ‘most women 14 and older have a smartphone and want to have it easily accessible’ and thereby adding pockets at least large enough to hold a smartphone.

                  1. Mom’s biggest seller, when she can find time to do her leather working, is custom sized phone holsters.

                    It’s dead easy to make a few models that can be adjusted to fit and then sewn in place, and they’ve got belt/pocket/whatever clips.

                    3. Back when scientific calculators were expensive, I made a belt case for my HP45 out of heavy leather. Using the same weight of leather, I made a two-lens case for my cameras. Both cases served many years.

                      Now I rely on cargo pants for going-to-town stuff. The left carries the checkbook and my flip phone, while the other lets me carry. If my body were suitable for an inside-the-waist holster, I’d do it (probably with a larger pistol as things get weirder). Lightweight arms don’t print in the cargo pocket. Riggs workpants for the win!

                      And yes, you are cordially invited get off my lawn. 🙂

                    4. You can craft customized pouches for your electronics. Quilting, felting, knitting and crochet are all options. There are patterns out there, if you aren’t up to drafting them.

                      In second grade The Daughter first started wearing glasses. I crocheted a little bag for her glasses case which had a strap like a shoulder bag. She never lost her glasses or their case.

                    5. It really is easy to make the pattern, too. Take a sheet of paper, lay the phone on it and fold the paper up until it makes the shape you want. Give an extra half or quarter inch for seams.

                      I’d probably go with a length of furniture fabric and whip-stitch it, or maybe do a simple x-cross-stitch, because I’m cheap.

                      Sew a “belt clip” (available in craft stores) on the back, and you’re gold.

              4. I want a decent, navy-blue blazer, fairly light weight so I can use it while running around refereeing without sweating my buns off, and still able to carry a decent concealed semi-automatic that doesn’t scream “GUN” to every snowflake out there.

              5. The only jacket I ever had, that had inside pockets, was my motorcycle jacket. I’ve had windbreakers with no pockets at all, and pants with only one. WTF?

                Pocketses. They *hates* them…

                1. Parkas (pretty popular) and other winter jackets sold here usually have at least a breast pocket inside, and two to four large ones outside the jacket. But jackets meant for summer – nope. Or not anything you could actually use to carry something, besides maybe your car keys, or with some luck, all keys. But phone, wallet, anything bigger, no.

                  Since I tend to have a lot of stuff with me most times I usually use a relatively large backpack most of the year. Most common exception are the times when there is a lot of ice. I have fallen on my back once while wearing a pretty large backpack which was pretty full and that is an experience I do not want to repeat. Looks pretty likely I got a broken rib from it, it was treated as some sort of sprain, but the lowest rib on my right side developed this noticeable bump in it afterwards. And it still bothers me, now about 20 years later, there are some positions I can’t sleep in because that area of my back feels unpleasant.

              6. I think a properly made blazer should include an actual pocket on one side and a patch of some stiffer fabric on the other, to keep your pistol from printing and (if you aren’t going hammerless) rubbing a threadbare spot on the blazer lining.

            2. Buddy in the Navy had really horrible back issues, navy just gave him vitamin M.

              He sprang for a civie doctor, who went over the stuff, then looked right at him and said “you pack your wallet in your hip pocket, right? Move it to the front pocket and come back in two weeks, if that doesn’t fix it we’ll do stuff I charge for.”

              It fixed it.

                  1. This explains the fact that, when I was dating, my cargo pants and pocket tees seemed to disappear from my closet and magically reappear in (significant female)’s closet. Not why my clothes looked better on her, mind, that’s still a mystery.

              2. Was telling a guy (don’t remember why) about my sciatica one day, and he related a similar story.

                Sadly, no such simple cure for me. I have some lumbar damage, probably from falling too hard on my ass (possibly cumulative over many such incidents over the years).

                1. *sad*

                  Yeah, it can stop irritation in most cases, but unless you’re a 20 something, it probably won’t cure it entirely.

                2. Yoga, chiropractic, and massage therapy. I also have low back problems. This combo helps a lot to keep pain to a minimum or nonexistent.

              3. I read somewhere, a long time ago, that “dippers” won’t even try for a wallet in a front pocket. I’ve always had mine there. Never been pick-pocketed. (Not a logical proof, of course. Probably more likely that I am always paranoid hyper-aware in a crowd.)

                1. I’ve heard of folks having their wallet vanish from a front pocket, but who knows the actual situation. I’m pretty sure a decent number of “I was pickpocketed” are really “I was so drunk and exhausted I left it on a counter.”

                2. Same here. Amusingly enough, it was my wife who clued me in. SHE wore pants all the time. With pockets.

                  As noted above, it’s morelcomfortable, too.

              4. This is why when I arm up on duty days, I put my phone and such in the left thigh pocket. The holster and such are worn “lara croft style” on the right hip/thigh. I need to balance out the weight as best I can.

              5. I am a massage therapist, and worked with chiropractors. We saw this a lot. It also has a little to do with how men tend to sit with knees wide apart. Simple stretches help.

            3. Why anyone keeps their wallet in their back pocket where they have to sit on it, when they have two perfectly good front pockets available*, I’ve never understood. For me, wallet = left front pocket, keys = right front pocket, and I don’t keep ANYTHING in the pockets that you have to sit on.

              * If you’re in a situation where you’re required to wear clothing that doesn’t have front pockets, then that’s understandable.

              1. Depending on the cut of the jean, it digs in to either your bladder or your inner thigh; if you put it up high enough that it doesn’t, it can fall out.

                Back pocket, you don’t have to keep adjusting.

              2. Because of the stuff in our front pockets. At the moment is maybe a couple of pounds of keys (not a joke)*; two knives; eyeglass cleaner; two small bottles of OTC pain reliever; bandana; lighter; hand sanitizer; lip balm; ear plugs; 6′ of twine; and dental floss. When it’s real cold, I add a container of waterproof matches.

                Yes, my wife makes unfavorable comments about what I carry with me. Going through security can be interesting.

                *In addition to keys, my keyring has a small tape measure; nail clippers; a single-piece multitool; P38 can opener; and a tick puller.

              4. I keep my ID, credit, and debit cards in a badge holder ’round my neck. This is because I have to show my ID at the base gate, the ECP, and the ship itself. Easy to transfer, little risk of loss, and always on me. Bonus of not having to carry cash (especially coins. )

              1. The last I heard only female Wallabies had those “built-in pockets” but then RES has been silent on the question of being a Male Wallaby or a Female Wallaby. 😈

                1. Darn straight I’ve been silent. Some folks think a body should only think with their pocket. I don’t agree.

          3. Couldn’t prove it by me. My Lady frequently wears clothing with pockets, but she’s only started using them in the last decade or so….

          4. If there’s something in gender that *is* a social construct, it’s women not having pockets! It’s other women keeping you from those pockets, by driving your fashion. (h/t RES)

          5. Hey, I’ll openly admit to – from time to time – having purse envy. Especially on occasions where I had to go somewhere where carrying a backpack wasn’t a good option, but I wanted to carry extra stuff because to be prepared for anything that might happen. My female friends were set, they just up-sized to a bigger purse and wha-la, they were in. I ended up having to decide between stuffing my pockets and looking funny with buldgey pockets, or do without.

            And don’t get me started on movie theaters! My movie buddy (sadly she has moved away now) used to stuff all sorts of snacks etc. into her purse when we would go. Anything I could have reasonably carried they would totally have insisted on searching. Her mega-purse? NOPE, No way, No how. They would NOT search a lady’s purse.

            1. Only time I carry a purse is when I’m carrying a nicely tanned leather one with my bullets, powder flask, patches, tube of lubricant (when I’m shooting too much to use spit), and bullet starter.

            2. I often care a “bag” made for carrying tablets that’s very useful for carrying other small items as well. 😉

            3. I have a largeish purse. Nobody bats an eye when they see me carry it around, because of the general shape and “COMPAQ” molded into the side.

              Amazing, the things you can put into a laptop case.

              Yeah, you can still carry a briefcase, but it doesn’t coordinate with jeans and a T-shirt. Anyone might be carrying a laptop case.

              1. Is your laptop case wheeled? Hubby’s is. It doubles as a carry on suitcase. You wouldn’t believe all the stuff in it. I think it’s a modern Bag of Holding.

                1. I have one of these:

                  I can fit THREE standard-sized Euro board games (12×12 box) in there, along with a wide variety of card games in smaller boxes. It’s well-named.

                2. Not quite, but it does contain all the spare gear that a travelling consultant needs.

                  By now, they know me pretty well at DFW security, and when they have a new TSA guy, they have him or her inspect it. It’s quite amusing to see them look at the X-Ray image, swallow, and gingerly open it……

                3. At one point when I was taking Greek I found myself carrying a great number of reference books around in one of the large zippered canvas tote bags from Land’s End.  

                  At some point it struck me that one could get a rolling suit case and fit it out with shelves to use as a bookcase.  I even considered that one could set it up so that you fit a small desk top to it. I haven’t done it … yet.

              2. Same rule applies if you’ve got a mesh outside part– a baby toy, wipes and pump hand sanitizer, and nobody looks twice. Even when my husband was packing it.

            4. This is why you attend with your wife! I usually carry stuff for hubby that doesn’t fit in his pockets; or that he doesn’t want to carry.

            5. In Panama & Honduras, the DEA guys carried their bangy tools in what they termed a TCC (Tactical Carry container) but was actually a purse. We, of course, referred to them as Fag Bags. Because we could. }:-)

          6. I was well into my 30s when I realized (had discretely pointed out to me by a tailor) that pockets are laid into the garment early in the fabrication, and are loosely sewn shut to keep the drape of the garment . Otherwise, as he said ” the damn fabric just wants to go slippey-slide, and you can’t do a damn thing with it”. My first pair of tailored trousers, a gift in advance of my wedding (I had the tux jacket, but the trousers no longer fit. And yes, she was. Sympathy thing, I’m told). “Just shove your fist in the pocket. It’ll break the stiches and you’ll have a REAL pocket”.
            I later taught the trick to my future ex-wife, and have done so for many others.
            I have a girl friend (note: two words) with whom I go to the resale shops. “Ooooh! Chanel! Originally $1200, marked down to $3.75 But no pockets!”

            1. “I go to the resale shops.”

              Every young man (and young woman and those not entirely sure what they are but you damned well better endorse it!) should know a) how to shop for quality goods at resale shops and b) a tailor who can take those goods and adjust them to your shape. Learning to sew is all well and good, but somethings are best handled by professionals (or the truly gifted amateurs.)

              1. My ex-wife’s stepmother had an almost supernatural skill at finding cool stuff in thrift stores. She’s passed on, and my wardrobe has since suffered for it.

          7. Join me in my boycott of all clothing items that don’t have pockets!

            I’m trying to start a movement here, one XX chromosome-bearer at a time!

          8. My aunt’s solution (she was an architect and general contractor) was to wear men’s clothing — jeans and western-style work shirts. She had trouble getting fit in work boots. (This was in the ’60s.)

            M

            1. I thought that the traditional answer to ill-fitting boots was to have them custom made. When I first moved to the Metroplex, I saw businessmen wearing well-tailored suits with custom made boots. Boots aren’t just for the paddock.

        3. Pfui! Any reasonably attractive* woman (a standard easily met) can get all of those she wants and then some, and not be inconvenienced by their maintenance or the need to carry them about wherever you go.

          *N.B., this is not actually a physical standard beyond practice of good hygiene. It has more to do with psychology than physiology. The rub is that while she can get as many as she might want she cannot always get the one she wants.

      3. Wait, I thought Freud assumed you wanted a penis? That whole ‘penis envy’ thing?

        Personally I’d think it would have more to do with being able to get ready in 15 minutes or less 🙂 Not having to worry about make-up, nails, shoes, and all the other things that women observe in other women and guys (mostly) completely fail to notice.

        1. The only time I wanted a penis was when I was about six. I wanted a penis, because my little friends could pee against a tree. I had to go back to the house to pee (girl, wearing pants) and that meant when I came back I’d lost tons of the play. Eh.

            1. Couple of my camping friends swear by a gizmo called ‘Go Girl’ that I understand works similarly.

            2. Outdoors girls who do a lot of hiking, camping and roughing it, for work or play. I heard about that funnel thing when I was living in Idaho. Never did try it, though. I’d rather not have to carry something like that around, which I’d then have to worry about rinsing out after each use. Yuck. I’ll just drop my pants like normal gals. Haha! Or wear a skirt. That must be why women have worn skirts since forever! Makes peeing in public a little less inconvenient!

          2. You should have practiced peeing like a boy. It can be done. I managed it, though only my little sister ever saw me do it. Haha!

      4. Looking at what feminists are demanding (traditionally male roles and freedom from pregnancy) I’m not entirely convinced anymore he was entirely wrong. 😈

      5. Fortune! Glory! Wealth! Power! The undying affections of at least one inordinately attractive member of the opposite sex! Worthy heirs of your body!

        About what men want. 🙂

    2. And how do I know she’s changed her mind before she excoriates me for getting it wrong?
      😉

      1. A certain type of woman claims to “never change her mind”. It’s always the man “not understand what she wanted”. 😉

          1. Smile When You Say That. 😀

            Oh, thinking of this, I remember one conversation I read.

            Quote

            “You’re right.”

            His big gash of a mouth smiled. “May the fates witness this historic moment—a woman admits she is wrong.”

            “It was my turn to laugh. “Not so! I did not say I was wrong—I said you are right.”

            End Quote

            Oh, it’s from “Dread Companion” by Andre Norton.

            1. “I did not say I was wrong—I said you are right.”

              A man is always right to agree with a woman, never right when he disagrees, no matter what the math and laws of physics say.

              This is part of the “Tails I Win!” Thesis.

          2. Oriental dragons have whiskers. Cats have whiskers. Ergo, oriental dragons are cats. And yes, I’m smiling as I type that. 🙂

              1. Kung Pao chicken or General Tso’s?

                One of my personal antipathies toward the Center for Science in the Public Interest is that I’ve not been able to get a decent dish of Kung Pao Chicken ever since their “study” of it as hideously laden with “bad” fats. Of course it was laden with things that are “bad” for us — that’s why it tasted so delicious and why a sensible person ate it only occasionally.

                  1. When I was young I worked in a law office. One guy was constantly complaining about his back. (I was a clerk, he was a partner.) I told him I could probably fix that for him. “Whaaa?!” “Show me your wallet” I replied snappily. “I’m serious”. Reaches into his back pocket and by gawd if he didn’t have every damn credit card ever issued, including Diner’s Club, but pictures of his wife, his kids, his parents his grandparents his dog the kid’s dog and every dog that had ever liked his face. A good 3 inches thick.
                    I suggested he carry his wallet in his jacket breast pocket.
                    A week later he gave me a $20 bill (for me at the time a day’s wages). Back pain gone!

                    1. Pshaw! Three inches thick? Poser. 🙂

                      Mine is about three and a half, AFTER I switched over to a double-tall one.

                      Only three “credit” type cards (credit card, debt card, insurance company “take our stupid health survey” credit card), the rest are either insurance or required identification. Two pictures, the “heck my phone is dead I need a number” list, and then some business cards. A really annoying number of child related things require a membership card for each.and.every.dang.kid. Plus mom.

                    2. Before I retired, I had a sort-of purse that held a pocket day-timer and miscellaneous flat stuff. It folds to 6 x 7 and can squeeze into a cargo pocket. I still have it, and think I’ll use it the next time I’m at the day-surgery center. Two more procedures to go, I think.

        2. With, as all flaws, the complementary flaw of folks who stop listening as soon as they “know” what you want.

          And no amount of explaining, even in writing, will make them change their mind.

      2. I have been married for more than a third of a century, mostly happily, and I still say;

        “ how do I know she’s changed her mind before she excoriates me for getting it wrong?”

        Is she breathing?

        Seriously; this is something society teaches women is expected and normal. I’m doubly lucky. My lady and I have had multiple couples therapists who held the position that expecting ESP is unfair, and my lady has (mostly) stopped because she loves me….and is stubborn about eradicatng behaviors that could hurt that.

        But it is far too goddamned normal.

      3. A study done several years ago concluded that men actually change their minds more often than women, but that women take longer to make up their minds than men. This would seem to indicate that “thinking out loud” can be misunderstood as “changing their mind”

          1. Oh, I don’t know. My grandmother was about as moveable as Mount Everest once she’d decided something.

              1. Not really. Moving the basins into which they eventually flow is what takes things like nukes. The oceans themselves move constantly. (We just got a bunch of ocean the other day. 😉 )

        3. Oh don’t remind me of that… okay, I can use a lot of time deciding on what I see as important, but damn it, if it’s what to eat in a burger joint or what movie to choose in a theater or something similar I just. Pick. One.

          And then when I am in that burger joint or pizza parlor or restaurant with a certain female friend stare at a wall or go to a table and start eating while she ponders for minutes – mostly out loud – as the line behind her gets longer and longer, or the waiter suggest that what if he comes back after she has decided when it’s a place with table service.

        4. Women do think out loud. I had a teacher once talk about the difference in the way females process information. We need to verbalize it to fully comprehend it and take it in. Makes sense. But when it comes to making decisions, I’m the one who makes up my mind quickly and I tend not to change it easily, but my husband takes FOREVER to come to a decision, and then is plagued by uncertainty! In my experience, the problem isn’t that I expect my hubby to read my mind. I expect him to listen the first time I tell him what I want. I get pissed off after about the tenth time of repeating myself. Haha!

          1. Like many of the women here, then, you’re an outlier. Many women seem to expect their significant other to not actually read their minds, but rather learn their preferences and their decision-making processes so that they will come to the same conclusions that the woman would.

            As for length of time to make a decision, I suspect it’s related to the conundrum of the perfect being the enemy of the good. And if the study I was referring to is correct, then women probably make more effort to make the best decision the first time, while men are more willing to change their decision later.

  3. Thomas Sowell – Quest for Cosmic Justice:

    In a sense, proponents of “social justice” are unduly modest. What they are seeking to correct are not merely the deficiencies of society, but of the cosmos. What they call social justice encompasses far more than any given society is causally responsible for. Crusaders for social justice seek to correct not merely the sins of man but the oversights of God or the accidents of history. What they are really seeking is a universe tailor-made to their vision of equality. They are seeking cosmic justice.

    http://www.tsowell.com/spquestc.html

    1. I have yet to see anything resembling ‘justice’ in anything they want or say. They seem like they’d be much happier if justice were actually both racist and sexist.

      1. That’s why, whenever someone says something like “how could anyone oppose social justice,” I always said, “I prefer my justice unmodified.”

  4. What way do they want to go?  Do they want the law to prevent people from saying or thinking men and women aren’t exactly the same?

    They do, despite all the evidence to the contrary (some of which is mentioned after this statement).  

    The more perceptive among them know they cannot legislate  thought.  Still you can legislate expression.  It won’t prevent people from breaking that law, but it will allow you to begin a process of culling from general society those who will openly challenge you.  As there is less outright challenge fewer people will be exposed to ideas that you wish them not to think, and thereby less challenge.  

    Yet, once you enter this path there will always be candidates for the Gulag…  

  5. Men and women have different burdens. Both heavy. But I think men have more empathy toward a woman’s burdens than many women have toward men.

    And the feminists…If our Patriarchy was so all-powerful, they’d be eating off the mantle after chastisement for rude and insolent behavior.

    1. I recommend the 2006 book “Self-Made Man,” in which tuchis-kicking lesbian Norah Vincent disguised herself for about six months as Ned Vincent, regular guy, and went out to get a job, go on dates, join a sporting club, etc., as a man. (FWIW, I wish she’d chosen the alias “Vincent Norah.”) She had no idea what men put each other through – and even less about what women expect of them.

      But also: If the Patriarchy were even there, the women who are its loudest opponents today would probably be its loudest defenders, not to mention its most eager and fawning toadies. Power-seekers seek power; it’s what they do.

      Wish I could stay for further discussion, as this topic is close to many of our hearts, but the weremate and I are off to Heliosphere today. A rockin’ weekend to everyone!

        1. Well, she was probably coming from a position of having been spoon-fed feminist propaganda most of her life. In the video I’ve seen, I remember her becoming embarrassed that she was lying to the men she was hanging out with, and I seem to remember that she cut her experiment short because she couldn’t stand it any more.

            1. Well, here’s the video I was referencing. I’m not sure I can boil down the “discoveries” very easily. The video is her interview with a journalist about her experience, plus talking to the people she had been learning about:

              1. I mean, there’s the differences in male comradery, sexuality, the different experiences in dating as a man compared to from the woman’s perspective. Mostly things like that.

            2. IIRC, what surprised her the most was how invisible men are to many women. And how much effort a man had to put into getting a date.

    3. I found a quote from shame researcher Brene Brown which I thought touched on a very underconsidered role in maintaining certain stereotypes (this is from her book Daring Greatly):

      “I was not prepared to hear over and over from men how the women—the mothers, sisters, girlfriends, wives—in their lives are constantly criticizing them for not being open and vulnerable and intimate, all the while they are standing in front of that cramped wizard closet where their men are huddled inside, adjusting the curtain and making sure no one sees in and no one gets out. There was a moment when I was driving home from an interview with a small group of men and thought, Holy shit. I am the patriarchy.”

      It is a fair enough criticism to point out that Brown was working from a self-selected and self-reporting sample, but the basic, too-often-unasked question remains: If all habitual behaviour patterns are adopted because they produce what, on some level, the adopters recognize as a payoff, and we want somebody to abandon a particular pattern, then why aren’t we asking who is providing that payoff?

  6. Off-topic, though not quite as off-topic on this post as it would be on many other posts:

    My wife and I would like to announce that we’re expecting our first child in about two months (i.e., the due date is more or less two months from now). Before anyone asks, we did choose to know whether the baby is a boy or a girl, but we won’t announce the baby’s sex on the Internet until after the baby is born, because some members of her family (who know how to use Google) would rather not find out until the baby is born.

    And while I’m hijacking the comments thread to make announcements, one more announcement: although we live overseas, we sometimes travel to the U.S. for extended periods of time (on the other of months), and we’ll be in the U.S. in the second half of 2018 and the beginning of 2019. If anyone would like to meet me, my wife, and the new Munnion*, please email me at (my first name) dot (my last name), courtesy of Google’s well-known email service, and let me know the general area you live in, and I’ll tell you when we’re going to be passing through your state (if we are: we’ll only hit about half the states in the Union, and we don’t plan to be in Alaska or Hawaii). If you put the name Hoyt somewhere in the subject line, that will help me ensure your email doesn’t end up in the spam folder.

    We now return you to your regularly-scheduled blog programming.

    * Shorthand for “Munn minion”. Credit to my colleague at work for coming up with that one.

    5. Well, good on ya! Prayers that all end up safe and healthy.
      And I love “Munnion”! 🙂

    6. Mazel tov, enjoy the ride as your life becomes more interesting than you ever imagined.

    13. Congrats! Are you aware of the fish named the grunion? Old saying, the grunion are runion. Your Munnion will be runion before you’re ready for it.

    17. Congratulations to the two of you, and may you continue to grow in love. Kidlets are amazing. Try to stock up on sleep now. You will be running short later… for about four or five years, possibly. The rest, you can buy.

      Take care, and blessed be.

    22. “Off-topic, though not quite as off-topic on this post as it would be on many other posts:”
      Not at all off-topic: kids is what lots of womans (and mens) wants.
      Congratulations!

  7. “They have a long way to go? Sure they do. They have a long way to go to be treated as real people, and learn to compete as adults.”

    The first step would be to [EXPLETIVE DELETED] act the part of adults. Accept who you are, accept how the world is, work to understand the deeper structures of society instead of buying wholesale some glib explanation for why we aren’t in an Earthly paradise.

    And that means living without ubiquitous faux “safe spaces” where never is heard a triggering word. Learn to say what you want, to negotiate, without resorting to tears, tantrums or coyness.

    Meet Reality and learn to live with it.

    1. > act like adults

      In a culture where John Wayne’s name is used as an insult, what is an “adult”?

      1. An adult would be those unhappy few who’ve rolled their eyes so frequently and often over the course of the last few years that we’re calling in reinforcements to help move the fridge to find the other eye. . .

      2. Find the ones who watch and like John Wayne movies, at least Rio Bravo, and in a totally non-ironic way? (And if it’s McLintock!… 😀 )

            1. Mmm, yes. Although sometimes an actor’s best movies are not the most comfortable to watch. (Extend that to all arts. I think that “The Scream” is Van Gogh’s best piece – but I can’t view it for very long, whereas “Starry Night” can entrance me for quite a while.)

              1. Be ye talkin’ ’bout Red River or mebbe The Searchers?

                I’m not about to say True Grit his best, even if Oscar thought it might be, but I can always sit and watch a bit.

        2. Find the ones who watch and like John Wayne movies, at least Rio Bravo…
          Which is slightly different from the group that likes Johnny Bravo.

      3. There are people who invoke John Wayne as an insult?
        My mind is boggled.

        I am moved to quote Dennis Leary:
        “John Wayne’s not dead-he’s frozen. And as soon as we find a cure for cancer we’re gonna thaw out the Duke out and he’s gonna be pretty pissed off. You know why? Have you ever taken a cold shower? Well multiply that by 15 million times, that’s how pissed off he’s gonna be. I’m gonna get the Duke and John Cassavetes and Lee Marvin and Sam Peckinpah and a case of whiskey and drive down to Texas.”

        1. I’ve not heard it as an insult, per se. But it was used in resistance training to describe a less effective method of resistance. It meant someone who simply defied their captor/interrogator, often with a bit of bravado. It was considered a good way to get yourself very hurt. A lot.

          As compared to a more nuanced approach of … well, almost any other ploy that might occur to you. (Crazy seems to work well.)
          It did work for guys like Chad Hennings, though.

    2. Found en route to looking for something else:

      Peterson & Paglia, together?* Doesn’t that constitute a critical mass of sanity? Key phrase (at about 2’15”) — “Most of the women I know who are sane are busy doing sane things.”

      *Apparently this is part of an hour and forty-five minute conversation, but who has the time?

      2. I have been watching Peterson’s Maps of Meaning (2017) course online while doing minor chores and it (the course, not the chores) is really eye-opening to me on things I assumed were crazy head-shrinker fairy tales. I may have to go and read up on Jung now. One thing especially interesting was how his notion of why we listen to stories matches with the Human Wave desire to help save civilization by telling better stories. I highly recommend the videos, but they are long.

  8. Congrats on the new kid – always a wonderful time.
    As far a traffic tickets, yeah. I ALWAYS play the confused little woman. It USUALLY works.
    When I was younger, I used to get all feathers-awry at the thought that the men didn’t give me credit for being smart.
    Now, it’s just one of the stealth tricks I keep up my sleeve.

  9. From 1969 to 1974 I worked for a major corporation at one of their local factories. 2500 employees, 2000 of them female. Men mostly did the heavy lifting while the ladies were much better at repetitive assembly tasks requiring fine motor skills. Mix of moms, grandmoms, single girls, all just trying to make a living for themselves and usually their families. And those ladies taught me how to talk smack with language that could make a sailor blush.
    Last year I was there at my performance review my supervisor told me how much he appreciated my hard work and dedication, but that unfortunately corporate was taking heat over numerous government contracts due to a lack of diversity in our management. So as a young white male I was for all intents and purposes unpromotable. That was in 1974.
    I left shortly thereafter and in ten years with the next employer worked my way up; from entry level to company officer.
    After which I went back to college, got a STEM degree, and played rocket surgeon for 25 years.

    1. I did consulting for a company a few years ago that actually prioritized ‘single white men’ when they needed to cut employees. I hated working their, moral was about 20′ below the lowest basement. Everybody seemed to be waiting on their number coming up and getting ‘right-sized’.

  10. > Do they want the law to prevent people from saying
    > or thinking men and women aren’t exactly the same?

    “If men and women are exactly alike, what does a company gain from increasing diversity?”
    – Sarah Hoyt, accordingtohoyt, 08/17/2017

  11. *snickering to herself*

    Have only read the title, because teaching right now– and brain popped this up:
    Woman wants you to listen to her son and do whatever he tells you.
    (and you should, because dude, hundreds of gallons of wine!)

        1. Both my kids will say that when they don’t want to do something, but know they’ll do it in the end. “Woman, what is this to me?” And then they do it.

          1. Now I’m hearing Jesus in Samuel L. Jackson’s “Where’s my supersuit?” voice.

  12. There’s a problem with “always believe the woman in a case of sexual abuse,” despite the need to believe women who have actually been assaulted. (And I have an unfortunately large number of friends who were both abused and disbelieved.) That problem is that you can point to the large number of lynchings that happened when a white woman, for whatever reason, decided to take out a black male. IOW, when it becomes a weapon, it will be used as one.

      1. The definition of SJW includes Unlimited, Uncontrolled Privilege.

        Because their cause is Just and the World is not.

    2. This, more than any other reason, is why the Powers That Be are banning To Kill A Mockingbird from school reading lists.

      1. Frequently.

        Those tend to get buried, fast, these days; use to be they’d just publish it as a perv who was disguising himself to get near the prey.

        Rather notorious one that went to homeless shelters up in Canada after they (I don’t know what level of gov’t, think it was all in one city) made it policy that you went with the group you “identify” with.

        Had a couple of attempts similar in the Seattle area when the YMCA declared the same thing. Starting with a dude walking in during the pre-teen girls’ swim time and disrobing in their shower room. Mom who objected was informed she could leave.
        She did, so did every other responsible parent. Don’t know if they had to offer refunds, since the policy was new then, but I do know that the gym teacher my co-op hired suddenly had more job offers than she knew what to do with. (Wonderful retired phys ed teacher, very good with the kids.)

  13. Honestly, if I find I chose this body, my only complaint will be “auto-immune, really? WHY? JUST WHY?”

    Limited selection at the affordability level. lousy option package bundling. The usual issues selecting a personal conveyance. Or so I might guess.

    2. OH, I’d venture a guess that Sarah told the Big Guy, “I don’t want a perfect body! Give me a challenge for Your sake!”

      1. And now I am reminded of the joke about a particularly argumentative physicist (have long forgotten the fellow’s name in this) who after his death is informed he can ask G_d one Question and get The Answer, explained at length if need be.

        The time comes and he asks, “Why did You give the electron the charge it has?”

        And there follows a lengthy, detailed reply, going from Very First Principles to the workings of pretty much everything, as the electron charge is critical to so much and has to be just right or else. And finally the explanation ends.

        Upon which, said physicist leaps up to declare, “No! You are wrong!”

        1. I’ve always wondered why so many fundamental relationships come out as irrational numbers.

          I mean, if your number system can’t express a something as simple as the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter, doesn’t that suggest some of your fundamental assumptions are broken?

          1. But e^iπ = 1. That right there is weird and hints at something; what I have no idea.

            1. Apoologies for nitpicking, but my math-oriented brain won’t allow me to let a mistake slip past when I could correct it: e^iπ = -1, not 1. It’s e^iτ that equals 1, where τ = 2π.

              BTW, if you’re wondering where that constant τ came from, see https://tauday.com/ for why many people (myself included) think τ is a better mathematical constant to use to teach trigonometry than π. It makes radial angles dead-easy to understand instead of being a complicated mess, for one thing. Quick, what’s 90° in radians? No, don’t look it up. Do you remember? Well, 90° is one-quarter of a full 360° turn, so that should be π/4 radians, right? Nope: it’s π/2 radians. BUT it’s τ/4 radians. One-sixth of a turn is 60°, and that’s also τ/6 radians. (But it’s π/3 radians). Like I said: dead-easy, and there’s basically nothing to memorize if you teach radian angles in terms of τ. But if you teach them the standard way, in terms of π, then the kids have to memorize all the “common” radian angles (60°, 90°, etc) separately, and most of them won’t grasp the underlying relationship, because it’s NOT obvious that π/2 = 2π/4 = one-quarter of a full circle = 90°. But if you write it in terms of the τ constant that’s equal to 2π, then it’s immediately obvious that τ/4 = one-quarter of a full circle = 90°. And so radian angles become much, MUCH easier to understand.

              1. The ISO was pushing replace “revolutions per minute” with “radians per second.” If they’re still at it, it’s undoubtedly a named unit now, and will be called a “Petain” or “de Gaulle.”

                1. of course they need to replace an easily countable unit with their ‘scientific’ metric units… that are still earth-based and therefore just as arbitrary as feet and miles and pounds etc.

                  1. Wanna piss someone who’s in love with that sort of scientism off? (I’m pretty sure that you wouldn’t want it unless they REALLY deserved it.)

                    Point out that, assuming the universe is infinite and “center” is dependent on where you’re observing from, the earth is just as accurately the center of the universe as anywhere else.

                    I would suggest alluding to Galileo over Copernicus, since he’s much more of a fetish for the really obnoxious ones.

                    Figuring out various math is easier if we use center of gravity between various objects, but watch a few of the “theory of relativity” explanation videos so you get the phrases correct; I can’t remember the right words and I’m late for bedtime rituals already, but it was roughly based on the whole point that there isn’t a “center” of the universe.

                    2. I can’t say that I buy the infinite idea myself– although I’ll freely admit to “larger than we can imagine” as well as “larger than we can measure”– but it is kind of like pulling out the Einstein praise of the Vatican to the similarly obnoxious when they (as seems invariably to be so) are busy demonstrating their irrational hatred of the Catholic church with some variation of the pope being more guilty than Hitler himself.

                      It’s probably good for them, and dang is it amusing.

          2. That’s what happens when you try to explain n-dimensional reality with 3-dimensional mathematics.

            I wonder whether the problem goes away when you express pi in binomial form?

          3. Why would the size of a string you can pin, and then drag around until it meets the mark again, come out even when divided into the size of the mark that results?

          4. I’ve always wondered why so many fundamental relationships come out as irrational numbers.
            FIFY 😉

  14. It is often asserted that women have more ’emotional intelligence’ than men (on the average, of course), and it may even be true. In any event, it is clearly a politically-correct thing to say

    If as a thought-experiment we assume that female EI superiority*is* true….and the also, women are *absolutely equal* to men in other things such as math skills, risk-taking orientation, etc etc, then what might the consequence be?

    It should be obvious that under the above assumptions, the mix of jobs chosen by men and by women will be quite different. This is merely an application of the principle of comparative advantage.

    So, in order to believe that the job mix should be equal between the sexes, one would have to believe that not only are there no skills at which men are better than women…but also that there are no skills at which woman are better than men.

    1. There you go, trying to us Logic, the Patriarchy’s Crowbar. It isn’t about the facts, it isn’t about the reasoning, it is about Teh Feelz!

  15. You have men saying (and thinking, and believing) they’d be better off as women. You have women saying (and thinking, and believing) they’d be better off as men. The first question that pops into my mind is, if you can’t figure out how to make it in life as the sex you’re born into; what makes you think you can make it as the other sex you weren’t even born as, much less lived in? And yeah, I know they’ve been brainwashed into thinking boys and girls are all the same, except when it comes to handing out benefits.

  16. There’s this interesting dynamic where those who have some vague unfulfilled lack in their lives ascribe that lack to some corresponding vast and pervasive societal fault, but any advantages to which they are the recipient are wise and just and fully proper collective societal acts.

    When these assumptions collide we get things like feminists-of-slight-color insisting that feminists-of-slightly-more-pallor are so privileged that they cannot possibly be true feminists, due to their overwhelming privilegyness swamping out their genderyness, and thus should be ejected from the victim group of feminist, reducing their privilege-score by 400 points.

    And then there are the Issues That Must Not Be Discussed, like that whole slavery thingee in those quaint far off places, and for those victims in the gender-electable groups, the killing-sexual-preference-nonconformists thingee in coincidentally those same far off places. But those inconvenient facts are not relevant when Someone Here Feels A Lack.

    But if someone were to note that said underlying lack might just be specific to the person with that lacky feeelz, and whoa Nellie, look out, as The Feeelz Must Not Be Questioned.

    1. This is why Mean Old Miss Red™ hammers those things in her history class. Because they might not remember it, but at one point they heard it.

  18. You use all your advantages. They’re yours. Why wouldn’t you use them?

    While I know you have this baseline already in there– the rules of war do come into it, don’t use anything on someone else that you wouldn’t want used against you!

    1. No, no, no, no. That’s for fair fights. That’s aim of war/survival fights is to WIN and get it OVER WITH as fast as possible. And ideally WIN so overwhelmingly that anybody else understands that to start something is a Bad Idea that will absolutely NOT “end well” for them.

      1. If it’s in an attack situation, the rules have already been established and you’ve got to respond in kind.

        Kind of like “wouldn’t hit a girl*” rationally goes out the window when she comes at you with a knife.

        *amusingly, I actually follow this, until they use an attack that can reasonably be considered attempting harm

      3. “Pull-yourself-together! … Go, confront the problem. Fight! Win!”

        Okay, I know Edna Mole was written and voiced by a guy. But it succeeded. She was hilarious!

  19. This seems pertinent here …

    The key thing is that these are not actually questions, they are traps {insert Admiral Ackbar meme].

  20. Oh, slightly related on the “yay, baby!” and the whole empathy thing– the Chief has reached a new level of empathy!

    He now routinely demands anything that mommy is eating, but doesn’t even try with anyone else in the house.

    We are currently eating cheese pizza, one slice at a time. I take on`E

    1. *chuckle* Somewhat tangential, my quaker parrot has discovered that ‘whatever mummy is eating tends to be delicious’ when he once walked down my arm and sampled a forgotten egg sandwich. So he tries to beg for samples of what I am eating, and gets upset if I refuse (especially if the food is chocolate.)

        1. Nope, it’s not good for them. It’s why I don’t let him eat any and as a result Riley gets grumpy at me. I just had to set him flying back to his perch because I’m having chocolate-flavored cereal and now I’m getting “Grrf” sounds from behind me.

          If I had toast with some honey on it, then he would’ve gotten a bit of crust.

  21. Let’s take on the whole ARGUMENT thing.
    What the General Statement is doesn’t matter.

    Best seen in the Allstate commercial.
    Woman says “You said men are better drivers. I got this good driving check. So you are wrong.”

    Man arguing a GENERAL Rule.
    Woman thinks that an exception to the rule means that the General Rule is WRONG. And will NEVER be convinced that she is wrong.

    Many years I wrote online that women argued this way. One of the FIRST comebacks was “I don’t argue that way so you are wrong.”.

    This I believe causes WOMEN massive problems with general rules. They hear of exceptions to those rules and then believe the rules are wrong.
    Example: Don’t marry FELONS. “But my friend Mary married a Felon and she is as happy as can be” The rule is wrong.

    1. One of the FIRST comebacks was “I don’t argue that way so you are wrong.”
      *facepalm*
      This is how feminists have argued for ages. A woman can beat some number of men at X, therefore all women should be allowed to do X.

      1. In general, women do not understand grasp statistics.

        I grasp statistics, so that proves you are wrong!
        vs
        I grasp statistics, so that makes me an outlier.

        I know men who don’t grasp statistics, so that makes you wrong!
        vs
        Any statement about men would be irrelevant to your assertion.

        LOGIC: it’s not just for the Patriarchy!

        (Besides, an appalling number of men don’t understand principles of logic even though they don’t get to make “Sour Grapes” arguments about their lack of comprehension (and the fact their lack of statistical understanding condemns their Fantasy Sports to also ran status.)

    2. Oooh, I HATE that commercial, because it’s so stupid– the idiot twit can’t figure out that being a better driver doesn’t mean you’re going to have a lower crash rate.
      Being a driver who is better than they think they are will do that!

      Women are notorious for being over-cautious drivers– of course they’re going to, on average, have a lower crash rate.

      1. That one’s on my list with the Kay Jeweler commercials in, “Things that will get me to change the channel even if all I can find is a different commercial.”

        1. Jonah Goldberg liked to say “If every kiss begins with Kay, your wife is a high-priced whore.”

        1. *shudder* Different kind of horrible driver, there.

          Mom taught us to look for those– not the person who is in the accident, but the one that is causing the problems that will make one. It is not infrequently worth it to just pull over for ten minutes and get away from the SOBs– or do 90, if tha’ts what it takes, to get around them.

          1. Encountered one of those the other day. Very nearly caused a major accident on the interstate by abruptly changing speeds from”significantly slower than traffic” to “under half the posted speed limit”.
            My wife was in the passenger seat and started ranting about dangerous drivers. I emphatically agreed with her, right up until she identified the guilty car as one that had had to react dramatically to avoid hitting the idiot.

            1. I’d be more upset if the one that wasn’t paying as much attention was the driver. *grin*

              Sort of like why I don’t honk my horn at folks trying to turn right on red when I “know” they can go– every time it happens to me, it would involve either being a hazard, or running over someone.

              1. Once upon a time I had some doofus honking at me as I was going to make a right turn, and so why didn’t I? Well, the big vehicle blocking my view meant I could not safely do so unless the signal was with me, and other traffic was proving it safe. The honking continued. I finally shifted into Reverse until the light changed to see if THAT made the dolt think it over. Alas, too stupid to even figure that out.

            1. Once upon a time:

              “How long does it take you to get to work?”
              “Oh, a bit over half an hour.”

              “WAIT! It takes me that long to get here and I live in town. You live beyond the next town of any size. How?!?”
              “You complain of hitting every light as it turns red, and no matter what time you start, Mr. Slow is always somehow in front of you. I have a single stop sign at the beginning, and a single traffic light at the end, and miles of nearly empty highway – at highway speeds – in between.”

              1. That’s why we use the medical services in a town 45 miles away, vs. the ones at the town 10 miles away.

                Given that fuel economy is zero when you’re stuck in traffic, the longer drive can save gas…

          3. About every two or three years, when we had thick fog (as in drive no faster than 25 even in a 50 because you can’t see more than 25 feet ahead of you thick), there would be a chain-reaction wreck on a state highway leading out of Amarillo. Why? Because of a driver who even in good conditions drove no faster than 15 under the posted limit (I got behind him several times myself, in good weather). People would come up on him, slam on their breaks in the fog, and boom-crash-bang. He’d get to work without trouble, leaving a 15-45 car heap in his wake.

            Then the wrecks stopped. Why? The driver retired.

  22. Why women can’t get what they “SAY” they want.
    They cannot follow logic.

    I have seen this happen:
    Good looking guy goes up to a woman and gives his line.
    She shoots him down in flames and freezes him before he hits the ground.
    He crawls away.

    Slick Player goes up to a woman and gives his slick line,
    She is entranced, leaves with him.
    Couple of days later hear that she is wondering WHY HE HASN’T CALLED.
    Logic
    1. Men are not naturally slick players.
    2.This Man is a Slick Player.
    3. How did he become a Slick Player? PRACTICE, Massive Practice.
    4. If he was interested in a relationship he would have had one many years ago.
    Answer: The Slick Player will NEVER call you.

    Next:
    Woman goes to a FRAT party gets very drunk (She chooses to drink a lot) and is surprised when she wakes up in bed with someone.
    There is NOT a Woman out there that doesn’t know what is likely to happen if she gets very drunk at a FRAT Party.
    The woman blames everybody but herself.
    And I don’t want to hear any BS about spiked drinks, etc. It doesn’t happen often enough to matter and it is Rape no if ands or buts. When SHE goes hand in hand up stairs with the guy (who is equally drunk) that is NOT Rape.
    Only the Victorian Feminist want to put 100% of the Blame on the guy. They want it so if a woman has ONE Drink then the MAN is 100% responsible.

    Ladies, that means IF YOU have one drink at lunch and then sign a contract after lunch, the contract is INVALID because you are NOT RESPONSIBLE for your actions after 1 drink.

    Let the Flames begin.

    1. In conjunction with your rant about women not understanding the difference between individual examples and a general rule, this is flippin’ hilarious, in a genuinely ironic way.

      Looks like you’re upset about a human inability to tell the difference between an example that annoys them, and a general rule.

  23. BTW, this has been niggling at me all day: The grammatically correct form of the title for this essay ought be “What Do Woman Want?”

    1. Oh! I saw though. I even liked Mel Gibson in that role. (I think, I watched it once in the theater when it came out).

    3. “Woman” is clearly a proper noun. As in, “I am Woman! Hear me roar!” The singular is therefore appropriate.

  26. 1) Shoes that are comfortable and attractive at the same time. 2) Peace, quiet, and time to read. 3) Plentiful, clean, public restrooms that do not require types of coins rarely found any more (or that have change machines OUTSIDE the entry, not inside the gate *facepaw*. Oh, and half and inch of rain per day for the next eight days would be wonderful, so long as it doesn’t all fall in half an hour per day.

    2. Shoes that are comfortable and attractive at the same time.

      Momma would often quote a French phrase, which she translated variously as, ‘It is painful to be beautiful’ and ‘To be beautiful requires pain.’  This would come up every time she heard a girl complain about all the various items and practices of torture that fashion dictated.

  27. Side note: part of the reason they can’t get Trump for anything worse than his remark about vaginas is that to do that, they’d have to look into his association with Jeffrey Epstein. And if they did that, someone would point out that the Clintons were also associated with that particular bit of human garbage.
    So they won’t do it.

    1. So they’ll just pay accusers. Gloria Allred’s daughter has already been caught hitting up DNC donors for exactly that purpose,

  28. Completely off topic: I was reading Chandler’s To Keep The Ship this week and it made mention of Fado. Thanks to Grant and his author I understood the reference.

    2. *facepalm*
      The Wikipedia entry for fado music actually used the word “proletariat”. Ugh.
      This connection to the music of a historic Portuguese urban and maritime proletariat (sailors, dock workers, port traders and other working-class people in general) can also be found…

  31. Yep– and being fifty does have its advantages. The younger women forget you are competition and the men are more comfortable with you. 😀

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