The War Between Men And Women

221 thoughts on “The War Between Men And Women”

1. c4c

2. One thing: it’s not that men don’t notice slights and digs, it’s that we either A. Let it go or B. Return it in kind, while C. Not letting it interfere wih what we’re doing.

   1. You don’t notice it at the level women do. The “I don’t like her because she looked at me funny ten years ago” in women’s groups has always driven me nuts.

      1. Remind yourself that it is some women, some women get caught in the habit. Not all.

         The Spouse and I once attended a party populated that opened our eyes.

         The guys spent their time talking (and arguing) stereos, music, cars, sports, food, TV, movies, a little politics and so much more.

         The women in that group mostly bitched about men, both specifically and corporately. (It wasn’t all anti-men, they did express a problem with any woman who didn’t join them.) We wondered why they didn’t take things into their own hands, expand their horizons and stop just downgrading men. Except they knew that the others would back bit if they didn’t conform. Who was being petty and ultimately self destructive here?

         We decided that we needed a new social circle, one where women didn’t spend their whole time wallowing in misery and blaming it on men. And you know what? There are many women who don’t.

         1. Back when I lived in Townsville, the local Defense Family Association would hold the occasional family gathering, to keep the families and children from becoming hermits (well, I was well on my way to that anyway, since I didn’t drive…) and I was encouraged to try it a few times while Rhys was deployed overseas, being told I could request the duty driver to take us to and from such events. I did it so that the children would get to play and run outside for a while with other kids; but I didn’t know any of the other women there so often sat quietly off on a bench. Most of the time I found myself overhearing a group that was bitching about a woman in their social group that wasn’t there at the time, everything from her gym clothes, to supposed sleeping around.

            I endured it a couple of more times to give the kids a bit more of a chance, but didn’t protest when eventually they said the outings weren’t much fun (because the backbiting gossips were spending more time bagging on other people, and not paying attention to their children, who tended to bully the smaller ones.)

      2. Whereas two boys can be fighting about something now, and 10 minutes from now it’s settled and they’re playing together as best friends.

      3. I also think it’s because men in peer positions tend to do friendly ribbing. To a degree that would be completely unacceptable in the presence of a power/status disparity. (Pro leadership tip there…making a joke at the expense of a subordinate is cruelty, because any reply is insubordination.)

         1. It couod also be that men don’t regard it as jockeying for position, whereas women do

            1. It depends on how… feminized the men are. I’ve run into guys who behaved even more catty than the girls, and they were not gay.

               1. “they were not gay”

                  It isn’t an easy line to draw. When I was working for Time-Life Libraries I knew a nice Black guy who presented as Gay. He had all the mannerisms and speech patterns. But he was straight. He had a gorgeous girlfriend, and they were serious.

                  But he was (or had been before his family ordered him home) a highly successful Manhattan Antique Dealer. He had spent years surrounded by other Manhattan Antique Dealers, Manhattan Interior Decorators (SUCH a cliche!)., and the kind of people who shop for antiques in Manhattan (as opposed to over the river in New Jersey, where one might be able to afford something). He’d adopted the local coloration.

                  There’s “Gay in bed” and there’s Culturally Gay.

                  1. Took me, quite literally, decades to figure out why some people thought I might be gay, when I’m frankly just about as far on the straight side of the spectrum as you can get. Finally figured out it was mostly the way I walk. When you place your feet DIRECTLY in front of one another, it causes your hips to sway. Add in the fact that I have wider hips than the average man, and I looked like I was swishing as I walked.

                  2. That incredibly camp guy in Snakes on a Plane comes to mind.

                     But no, in this case, the men I think of adopt very feminized methods of passive aggressive attacks and social manipulation, but verbally and body-language wise, ‘present’ as men – not the alpha sorts, but beta types or lower.

            2. It’s low-level jockeying. Penny-ante poker. A Navy TACAIR ready room is a Thunderdome of insults…but “turn about is fair play” is scrupulously observed.

         2. On “friendly ribbing,” it runs a broad spectrum based (sort of) on respect, as I see it.

            I’ve worked jobs digging ditches and jobs sitting in air conditioned offices and a bunch of things in between. When guys give each other hell, it can be a sign of respect. I’ve seen humor used to break up a bad mood over a breakup, a death in the family, the betrayal of a spouse, and a child’s forming drug habit.

            The ones you can insult with a smile, who will give it back just as hard as they get it are good as gold. A guy who will bust his ass while trading the vilest of insults can get along most anywhere.

            Also, the rare leaders who can enjoy the comraderie of their subordinates at one moment and lead the charge at the next can sometimes get away with joking on a subordinate- so long as the latter can give it back without consequence. I’ve seen it happen before, but that’s more the exception that proves the rule.

            1. That’s one of the things that drives me bug nuts about complainypants women like some I’ve seen in the military (or “misogyny is rife on the Internet” types.) Enter a male domain, get accepted into it to the point of being treated as “one of the guys”, and then complain about *that*.

               1. Agreed. I’ve never understood that. My thought was “I’m in a guys’ world, so I adapt to the guys.” Although I’d still ask for help if I had to move a fully-fueled twin-engine plane into the hangar by hand. You see, the little ramps up to the hangars sloped uphill…

      4. I had a female manager a few years ago who would bring up stuff that happened a year prior in our monthly meetings. It would usually take about a week to recover anything resembling motivation or a desire to improve after each meeting. She was also much more concerned about the appearance of what we were doing than what we were actually doing.

         1. I hate people like that. The ‘surface’ concerns versus real results. Can’t have both, not without crippling the real results and workflow.

            1. Which was exactly what happened. When you’re more worried about what the manager down the hall thinks of what your people are doing than what and how your employees are actually doing, then things like morale go down the toilet.

            2. My Father would have regular run-ins with the type. In academia they aren’t anything like all Female, though the balance tilts that way. My Father was frequently the one who asked, acidly, ‘And what exactly, does that have to do with the question on the table?’.

               They were scared to death of him. His eyebrows came to peaks, he had a voice trained to be plainly audible at the back of a combined section lecture hall, and he had his Father’s example (Methodist Minister) for calling down fire and brimstone.

               And they couldn’t undermine him academically; he’d published easily three times what any of them had. When the PC drivel started, he was a Case Western Reserve, and had an endowed Chair; he couldn’t be fired unless they caught him committing a felony, and even then it would have been hard. Later, he moved to Iowa State, which is a Land Grant College and not much given to the usual drivel.

               By the time it had spread that far he was retired.

               1. While out driving on errands today, I was being entertained by the news that in the face of some crosswalk stick-figure icons having been changed to ‘have a skirt’ feminists have objected that it assumes that ‘all women like to wear skirts.’ The place where this was done is Victoria, which I have been mocking regularly as trying to out-soc-justice California (which is very bad given that one of the jeers is that New South Wales, especially Sydney and its’ surrounds, tries to be ‘very American’ – not a compliment, it implies trying to follow NY / US West Coast trends). And yes apparently there’s a push to ban straws too in NSW, after banning ‘single use plastic bags’; which has gotten quite a bit of backlash and complaining, from what I’ve been reading. (Laughed about the guy who put an entire shopping cart into the back of his car as a protest.)

      5. Gah! My wife is like that. Even with actors/actresses. “she was bitchy in that one movie we watched that one time. I don’t like her.” Honey, that was the point of her character. She’s done other things you know.

         The worst is the smiling/laughing with someone during a meeting and then she comes home and complains about how horrid so and so was. I have given up trying to keep who is bad/good. I just nod and agree with whatever she says now.

         1. Not really a fan of that. If I don’t like people I tend to not hide it. In a work setting it’s not like I’m being an ass to them, I just stick to work topics and only engage with that person when the job requires it.

      6. I would argue that true vendettas (multi-year, multi-generational) tend to be more of a “men” thing historically. So, if your grandfather killed mine, I not only had the right to kill you, I may have had a family-based obligation to do so. In many honor based societies, at least historically, that obligation to continue the feud/revenge our family’s fallen tended to fall more on the men — as the society was enough patriarchal that the women were exempted in part from the fight.

         Just my 2 cents.

         1. But highly likely the women would keep tabs, and make sure their men did what they were supposed to do and fought for the family honor.

         2. No. This is PERSONAL and sometimes from years ago.

            1. Not only personal, but frequently incredibly minor.

               1. Yep. Things I don’t even notice.

         3. The women have a part in that, who is it that raises the children, training them in this way from the cradle?

         4. But those are instigated by MAJOR (or blown up to BE major) incidents: Killing a family member, raping one of the women, stealing something of great worth, etc. Women hold grudges because some other woman didn’t acknowledge them when they waved at the other woman at a party. And even explaining that they simply missed it can sometimes be no excuse.

   2. Think more like that meme that has a couple laying in bed, and her thought bubble is “he seemed distracted, and didn’t say ‘I love you’ except in response when I did. And he has been late at work all week. [Insert 5 more paragraphs here.]”
      His says: where the wingding did they PUT that last part for the work project inventory?” [Or ‘what is the perfect Batman canon’ or something similar.]

      I thought I was blind to subtle, then startled my husband several times by accurately predicting his unknown to me female relative’s actions.

      I would guess that is the “mind reading” guys talk about women wanting. For is, it is just paying attention. (When it isn’t spun moonbeams.)

      1. I’ve seen that meme. It’s a fun one, especially the Batman example.

      2. Is “blind to subtle” on the spectrum of “gets the Monty Python reference” to “dense enough to have his own event horizon”? Because most people are probably a little bit on the former side when they are paying attention, but mostly are only concerned with their own little world of things that interest them at the moment or may affect them in an immediate sense.

         Things like being outside the dominant social group or being a target of said group can sharpen a person’s focus. But yeah, the art of the subtle doesn’t seem to be all that common.

         1. It’s more of a language thing…..

         2. “Dense enough to have his own event horizon.”

            My GOD, that’s good. Can I have that engraved on my tombstone?

   3. The problem is if we return it in kind to women (and if you are white to non-whites) then you are being sexiss/raciss/homophobiss/etc.

      I laugh every time a #MeToo message includes something like, “Just treat us like you do other men.”. Sweetheart, you can’t handle the toned down version so why in the hell would I risk treating you like I do other men.

      Then the same women complain, “You don’t respect women’s abilities.” Well, not feminist women’s abilities because you’ve proven you can’t take 50% of what I expect men to take as a matter of course.

      1. Yeah. One of the things that eventually stopped the very physical bullying for me when I was in West Germany was the conclusion -mostly by the guys- that I was not ‘as weak as the rest.’ I gave back as good as I got – though, looking back now, none of them tried to go for my eyes, and I wore glasses even back then.

         Part of my issues with women is that I tend not to have the same mindset or behaviour as they do – I’ve been told more than once that I’m more like a guy, or was described very frequently as ‘a tomboy.’ So it was hilarious to watch the rest of my peers when I ended up with a boyfriend in high school – and I quote – “So you CAN be courted!”

         I run into women who are no-nonsense, down to earth and practical, tolerating none of the usual flighty female shenanigans, and I get along with them just fine, even if there is nothing else in common.

         1. Another female friend referred to it as “running male software on female hardware”.

            1. This is more like what I do. Which is fine. I’m still a woman, and you can tell in my writing I’m not visual or spatial. BUT my characters don’t act like the most important thing are feelings.

            2. Yeah, and despite that, I am not lesbian, I’m sure to the disappointment of a number of people.

               1. Maybe, but they don’t matter. 🙂

               2. Me either, despite Lesbian Hands TM (I. e. my ring finger is longer than my index finger.)

                  1. *chuckle* My husband was showing me some lovely woodworking joinery – that was not just functional, but very artistic. I lamented a little that I couldn’t get into carpentry as a hobby (too expensive where I lived) and he mentioned that he’d been daydreaming about getting woodworking tools should we ever get a home of our own.

               3. When I was younger (and closer to attractive) I sometimes got asked “are you Gay”. My answer has always been “What conceivable business is that of yours?”. I have even interjected that into a conversation where a woman was asked if she were a lesbian.

                  Of course it’s far easier to sell ‘my sex life is none of your beeswax’ when you’re on the wrong side of 50, have bad teeth, and are overweight.

         2. There is a reason I consider broad a compliment. I like tough old broads.

            1. “She’s a good, tough ol’ battle-axe” is a good compliment too.

   4. Women will flat out examine other women to see if they are giving indications of not liking each other, or acting cocky, or maybe looking at their man too much, or a hundred other things. Being the invisible man (when there are women together, they often don’t notice me until I say something, then it’s like I teleported in based on their reactions), I’ve seen women do some weird crap to figure out their place in the pecking order.

3. I see now that I wasn’t meant to have children. I get hyperfocused with what I am doing. Right now staying well. When I am writing– that too. I was also hyperfocused when I was doing electronics… and thought about it all the time. Funny that. No I don’t have children. I do have steps.. Great ladies btw.

   Plus I don’t fit in women’s groups (until here). I leave instead of getting involved with the “drama.” Hate it btw. Also I end up in charge in the work force. BTW I hate that too. lol

   1. I kind of wonder if female high-functioning autism expresses that way; higher average social skills means they come across as either cold or masculine.

      1. Actually I come off as cold except when I am with good friends or when I am pretending.

         1. I suspect most of us here do; if you survive childhood basically half blind to social cues, you learn it is DANGEROUS to engage.

            1. That’s why I’m usually on my own.

4. It’s human. And unless we fix it, it will be the death of us.

   It is nonsense to think that members of a group that share one characteristic are otherwise going to be the same.

   1. Yep. I can’t even imagine how ANY adult can think that.

      1. They’re not adults. They still think and behave as children despite their calendar ages.

      2. They can’t. So when the conclusions are wrong you have to revisit your premises.

         I suggest starting with the word ‘adult’.

5. *thickest south Mississippi accent possible* “Hidden racism?” Honey, look at what the VileProgs tell Black kids who dare to excel in academics or the classical arts (classical music, ballet). And what they’ve convinced too many younger Blacks about “white” culture and success. Sweetie, that cr@p makes the KKK look pretty dang mellow. Bless your heart, you need to get out more.

   1. Since I have posted it more than once just insert my “anti-WHAM arguments argue for white and male supremacy better than all the Klansmen who lived combined” rant.

   2. There is a strong continuity of behavior in the Democrat Party. In 1861 they wanted to tear the country apart. They still do. In 1961 they thought the Darkies were childlike fools who needed some form of constraint to keep them from hurting themselves and others. They still do. In 1861, they had select Darkies who they treated as ALMOST one of the Elite; the House Niggers. And what is Al Sharpton?

      The KKK is the leftovers who weren’t sophisticated enough in their racism to PRETEND to like brown people.

6. ‘…Heinlein wonders if men and women are the same species or merely symbiotic. ”

   Larry Niven once said we’d have a huge advantage in any first contact with an alien species. Because we’ve been living with one our whole history.

   1. “Zvluuk, how.. how do your people manage? We have two sexes and it’s complicated enough. And you have to deal with three. How do you do it?!”

      “Really, Charlie? You missed the key. It’s actually a bit simpler for us. You have men – who do not understand women, and you have women – who do not understand men. We have, using your terms, men, women, and translators. Only a bit simpler, mind you. Comprehension and agreement are not at all the same thing.”

      1. I like ,

      2. I get images in my head of the translator in one of the OZ books, who translates each diplomat’s compliments and attempts at reconciliation as mortal insults.

         And, of course, both parties spoke the same language, but didn’t listen to each other because that was the translator’s job…

         1. I was rereading “The Breaking Of Northwall” by Paul O Williams and there was a scene where two men were meeting with a group of “tribesmen”.

            While the older man knew the tribesmen’s language, he knew the younger man knew it better so he’d say something and the younger man would translate it.

            Well, the older man realized that the younger man was insulting the tribesmen but the tribesmen apparently didn’t mind the insults.

            IE The younger man knew the culture of the tribesmen well enough to know that the tribesmen respected (and expected) good insults. 😀

         2. Fortunately, Jack Pumpkinhead and the Scarecrow actually did understand each other and were just fools. . . .

7. I’m reminded a a scene in “In The Heat of the Night” TV series.

   A husband (policeman) and his wife were discussing the problems of a young woman and the older Black woman (who has overheard the discussion) declares “There has to be a man involved”.

   Apparently Southern women have a low opinion of men. 😉

   1. Oh, please, read Florence King on the subject!

      1. Titles?

         1. Any of ’em. All of ’em. “Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady” and “Southern Ladies and Gentlemen” are probably the most pertinent, though.

            (I love Florence King. My two favorite quotes are 1) “Feminists will never be satisfied until every abortion is performed on an Indian reservation, under an endangered tree, by a gay, black, handicapped doctor.”

            and a paraphrased 2) “I regret telling people about my first lesbian affair. I don’t mind being called perverted and unnatural, but I would just DIE if people thought I was a Democrat!”

            As a fellow Southerner, I’m sure you can hear the intonations. 😀

   2. Actually, they have a low opinion of women who select a certain kind of man.

      Such opinion is always expressed in sentences beginning, “Oh, bless her heart…”.

      1. “Bless your heart” is SUCH a useful phrase. When pressed, you can always contend that you were expressing your concern for the owner of the blessed heart, burdened as they are by such a terrible disadvantage…

         1. Tangent; I’ve been seeing a bumpersticker about these days that reads “God Bless Everyone, No Exceptions!”. I am sorely tempted to invest in some smaller stickers that can be placed addending the large ones that would say “According to their merits.”

            (It helps if you imagine the whole being read by Eugene Pallette)

      2. You want to see REAL family disfunction on the hoof, look for a family that has this pattern;

         Females hook onto worthless males because having a worthless husband excuses they having a career; “Poor Blanche; she’s worked her way up to CEO, but what else could she do? Harry’s a drunk!”. These same females, because they can’t be having worthwhile males in their family, or they might have to give up their jobs, castrate their sons (metaphorically, at least).

         Now, in this day and age, such a pattern has lost an awful lot of it’s raison d’être. But the pattern continues, because perpetuating pattern is one of the things that families do.

         My Lady comes from such a family. One of the reasons I can tolerate her Mother (the woman has the mothering instincts of a brick, and is totally self-centered) is that she BROKE THE PATTERN. My Lady’s Father fitted it in some ways (he was foreign and non-white), but wasn’t worthless. And that allowed my Lady to grab me (or I her).

         But I’ve seen it in others, to. I had a co-worker (actually nominally a boos, but ‘third key’, so kinda low level). Not only was he not a self-starter; if he ran through the list of things he was supposed to do, he would become destructively bored and do things like chin himself on the displays. He drove me NUTS. He inspired homicidal daydreams.Then, at Christmastime, we met his Mother and Aunt. Oh. My. Gawd!

         He’d given up. Nothing he had ever done in his entire life had been good enough. He could have married a Princess of the Blood, raised the dead, and solved the Deficit. His womenfolk would still have treated him like shit.

         And the tragic thing is, how little understanding him helped when it came to tolerating his bullshit.

         1. i was going to say that I’d never met any women like that and never met any men like that but then I thought of an older woman at a Lady’s Bible Study. Her husband couldn’t change a light bulb without doing it wrong! (Non random example, I distinctly remember her explaining how he changed a light bulb wrong. It had to do with the ladder.) She’d ask for prayer to get him to church or stop smoking. I always prayed that God would work on *her*.

            And then I recall a guy I was at my Air Force tech school with. He couldn’t do *anything*. We’d be sitting next to each other doing our quizzes on our computers and he’d keep on asking me what the answers were. I have no patience for that but would ask, “Well, what do you think it is?” And he’d say, “C”. Which was right. So I’d say, “Well answer “C” then.” “But what if it’s wrong?” “You get to do these as many times as you want, it doesn’t matter because only your final score is recorded,” says I. “But what if Sgt. XXX looks in the computer and sees I got them wrong.” OMG. He was *handicapped* somehow. We had to start our paperwork for our PCS to our permanent duty station the moment we got our orders because our school was *short*… he didn’t. We got to the end of our course and he hadn’t done a thing.

            And now, looking back, filtering him through that paradigm it almost makes sense.

   3. Eh, unsurprising. Cherchez la femme is a proverb for a reason.

8. I once worked at a place that has many gay men, including those in supervisory positions. Talk about catty!

   1. While some gay men may be catty or drama queens, please, please, please understand that it is not true of all gay men.

      1. Yes, but my younger son would probably agree that it’s pretty common.

9. The insistence that men and women are almost exactly the same has probably led to much of the increased conflict between the sexes. If your dog judged you by the standards he applies to other dogs, he likely would find you pretty disappointing.

   1. Hate to tell you this, but your dog is doing that any time he’s sniffing your butt. 🙂

      1. I have a small dog, and my butt is higher than he can reach. So, not in my case.

   2. No fangs, no tail, can’t smell anything, clearly doesn’t see the threat the neighbor’s cat poses, keeps looking at a glowing screen instead of playing fetch … yeah I can see why my dog might find me disappointing as a dog. On the other hand, she loves me anyway so it’s all good.
      Also: https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1992/11/21

      1. Supposedly, cats treat humans like retarded kittens; dogs will accept us as alphas. For good or bad.
         And they both tend to not “grow up” all the way. (Cats are less consistent.)

         1. I’m convinced my now deceased first cat treated me the same way she did her kittens. Yes, she came when I called (mostly) possibly just to see what trouble I’d caused this time. And she brought mice on a regular basis, convince, I’m sure, that I was a horrible hunter.

         2. I’ll go with Rush Limbaugh’s take: “Dogs have masters. Cats have staff.” I found it true in both cases.

         3. Which explains the half-dead mouse under the kitchen table in the morning.

            “Dang it, I’ve been trying to teach him how to hunt for 10 years and he still keeps picking it up and tossing it in the garbage can!”

            1. Mom saved an an entire 9 kitten litter of eyes-not-open barn cats one year.

               The yard was COVERED with mice, rats, ground squirrels, all summer…..

      2. Yeah, but you’re such a good hunter you bring back food without any sign of exertion. And you’re so generous with it, too!

   3. I have a cat who apparently believes I am a ‘special needs’ child who must be accompanied to the bathroom.

      *shrug*

      1. One thing about having cats – you will never be lonely in the bathroom again

      2. Oh, Lord. Havey. He must also sit on my feet all night, otherwise my feet go wandering around with my stumble-sleepy self. (Of course, he’s not precisely wrong.)
         OTOH it took three times of tripping and kicking his little head (it makes a hollow sound) that now he just meows disconsolately but lets me got o bathroom on my own.

         1. I have been raised by four cats (one each at a time) and for some reason they all think that one of my duties is to provide a pillow for them. Of course I have been lucky to have had cats that are very good at training their staff.

            1. The thing to remember about cats is that a pride of cats is a matriarchal society. So that when you bring a cat – or cats – into your house, a female in the house has to establish dominance – ie. show that she is the alpha female in (of)the (pride)house(usually not hard as there usually IS an Alpha female in the house). Likewise a male in the house has to establish that he is the alpha male in the house especially if you have both male and female cats.

10. 1. I have worked in many successful all-female groups. I had not noticed until now that they were all artistic. That’s a useful point.

    2. Several years ago, I read an article about pecking orders in certain primates, where the high-status females pick on the low-status ones until they’re so stressed that they stop ovulating. It made clear that there’s a strong evolutionary pressure for bullying, hierarchy, and the subtle fitting in that women do. Yeah, we’re all primates. Unless we choose not to be.

    1. The effects of bullying on fertility would make an interesting study, or even an experiment (assuming you could get it by an ethics board.)

       1. Spin it as the hormonal effects of stress, divided by cause.

       2. That makes a lot more sense to me than the other explanation of female-to-female bullying: to make the victim unattractive in the eyes of potential mates.

          “Let’s see…she is beautiful, and smart, and sweet, but the Queen Bee is always putting her down, so I guess I’d better pass”…said very few men ever.

          1. just because they didn’t say it doesn’t mean they didn’t do so…

             1. Ok, I’ll correct it to “thought very few men ever”

                I didn’t say “no man ever,” because I’m sure it does happen sometimes, but in general, a woman’s status among other women matters far less to men than a man’s status among other men matters to women.

          2. I think it’s less direct than that.

             If you can destroy someone’s self-confidence *they* will be… less confident. A girl who believes she’s ugly *might* be able to fake it, but will probably act out when interacting with available men in some way that actually is unattractive.

             1. Maybe in some cases: if the girl is so beaten down by the Mean Girls that she dresses and presents herself as a depressed person. But I think it’s an important point that men rarely rate a woman’s self-confidence as an essential factor to the degree that women usually rate self-confidence in men.

                1. Oh, it’s definitely a good thing to tell the girls!

                2. While I know it’s hard to prove, just because folks notice something, doesn’t mean they notice that they are noticing.

                   SuburbanBanshee pointed out the example of her brother who identified women as “lame,” and the pattern that could be observed was that they were not fashionably dressed.

                   My family is rural, and didn’t watch much TV, so fashion had less of a chance… but I have noticed that the gals folks ragged on were the not-cool ones.

                3. Tyey don’t rate it as such, maybe. But it can make all the difference in her appearance. Even if it’s only body language.

                   My late wife was, I believe, in abusive relationships more often than not before I met her. (We didn’t discuss it. Much.) She was noticeably more attractive when she was focussed on something non-social.

                   Or (sometimes) after we were married. I don’t take much credit, but I did occasionally get amused at the increase in guys hitting on her (when I was out of sight). She kept saying they must be desperate or something–when she noticed…

                   1. My Lady once went on a medically supervised diet and lost 125 lbs or so. Guys he had known for years started hitting on her. Her response? “To hell with you. I have a guy who fell in love with me when I was fat!”

                      1. One of the cutest couples I know has a guy for whom the description “drop-dead gorgeous” could easily apply—but the most attractive thing about him is the way he looks at his wife, like he’s the luckiest guy in the world to get such a wonderful, beautiful woman… and he looked at her like that before she lost a lot of weight. (Mind you, she was still cute, but this was theatre, where you often can’t get cast regardless of skill unless you’re reasonably slim. And she wasn’t.)

                4. The thing about self-confidence, though, is that it changes how you act. An *insecure* person acts differently. An insecure woman might be clingy or “needy” and that’s generally not attractive. And very much in our subconscious, we do rate higher, anyone who acts as if they have other options. I’m sure that men do that, too.

             2. That’s pretty much the whole point of the story ‘Johnny Lingo’.

                Johnny Lingo is a canny Polynesian trader who travels between the different islands cutting deals that always seem to work to his benefit. Word gets around that he intends to marry Mahana, the resident ugly girl, and the assumption is that he just wants to get a wife for a cheap bride price. But instead he makes what everyone else considers to be an insanely high offer to her father for her hand in marriage. The two of them leave the island the following day, and everyone assumes that Johnny Lingo isn’t as shrewd as they’d thought.

                But when he eventually returns, Mahana is stunningly gorgeous. Johnny had always known that she was beautiful, but her low self-confidence meant that she didn’t take proper care of herself or her looks. Knowing that her husband valued her enough to pay an exorbitant bride price for her caused her to want to try and look like someone who was worth that price, and that caused her to finally start taking proper care of herself and her appearance.

                1. Yes.

                2. And it probably helped that the husband was Johnny Lingo. The supertrader. If *he* thought she was worth that much–well, then, maybe she was…

                   1. It’s more than that. There’s a scene early in the movie version that I saw that has the married women sitting around bragging about how much their husbands paid for each of their bride prices. Johnny pays about twice as much (ten cows) as the highest bride price (five or six cows) in that bragging scene. Any woman with even an ounce of self-respect is going to know that when the local women start comparing bride prices (which is clearly a form of comparing status and pecking order), she’d better at least *try* to look like someone who was worth what her husband paid for her. Otherwise she’ll be viciously attacked by all of the other women that she meets. For a woman who was naturally beautiful like Mahana, just doing some basic work to take care of her appearance (something she’d neglected in the past because she “knew” that she was ugly) would go a long way toward bringing out her natural good looks. And once that happens, the effect snowballs as she realizes that she really does look beautiful, and works harder at making sure that it shows.

          3. I’ve seen girls and women ostracized by others, and it didn’t make the outcast less attractive.

             HOWEVER, and I could just be misinterpreting the events, I do believe I’ve seen a new female friend convince a woman her fiance wasn’t worthy, causing an end to the relationship.

    2. Whenever I see a small, independent software development company (generally doing indy games), there are usually somewhere between three to seven men, and one or two women. One or both of those women invariably do the artwork. If there’s a second woman and she isn’t doing the artwork, then she’s probably one of the founders, and married to one of the other founders.

       Mind you, being an artist and being one of the founders/married to another founder are not mutually exclusive. It’s just nerd guys like nerd women. And a woman who is good at software development will probably be fairly popular with her male co-workers.

       1. Groups of nerds tend to have a GroupMom, too.

          Someone that will, sometimes metaphorically, hit them over the head and remind them they have a body, it should be fed; sleep is good, too.

          1. …yes, I am usually the Group Mom.

             I like feeding people, and I can listen.

             1. Me too. Even before I had kids, my nickname was “The Motherthing.”

                1. Oh. Heinlein. “Have Spacesuit, Will Travel.”

                   The electric grandmother from Bradbury’s, “I Sing the Body Electric” would qualify also.

          2. “Someone that will, sometimes metaphorically, hit them over the head and remind them they have a body, it should be fed; sleep is good, too.”

             No. Nope. No. That is why they have wives or girl friends or moms. Not why I was there. OTOH. Too many times it was “why can’t you stay later?”

             me: “Because … (kids, etc.)”
             Them: “Oh, the wife does that.”
             Me: “Uhhh, guys, I am the Wife …”

             I mean it was crazy cool that I was accepted as one of the guys & treated as such.

             I learned, same as anyone else does, the hard way, that I worked to live. I did not live to work. It is just we figured it out before we had kids.

             Not going back to work was not an option. Hubby’s career was such that annual layoffs were, well annual. My career once I got established should have allowed him to stay home, but it didn’t.

             Hubby & I balanced things out as much as we could. I had the before school shift, & he had the after school one. But he couldn’t leave work & go back, I could. He couldn’t work at home with a sick kid. I could. We chose early daycare as one that was more extended play date, than daycare warehousing.

          3. Heh. Normally, when I need to be hit upside the head, it gets the message through better if it’s physical first. Once I’ve been Gibbs-slapped, you have my attention. 🙂

             1. 😁

    3. Huh, the most successful group of women I worked with were artists and a helping profession (fabric store). You actually had to present a portfolio to be hired. It all fell apart when an outside woman came in and disrupted the hierarchy and put a man in charge. Who decided he’d rather replace all the female managers with other men because he didn’t understand the women who were working for him. We’d managed to build a wildly successful team and store and he trashed it in the course of a year. From what I understand, they’re still trying to figure out why sales fell precipitously.

       1. 😮😭

11. I’ve often thought it a very good thing that the “trans” fad didn’t hit while I was in school, or I would have almost certainly been forced into life as a man. Every time I read one of these “the differences between men and women,” I always find myself identifying more with the male side of the argument.

    “I sometimes wonder what in living hell is wrong with people who write the peaceful planet of women and are actually themselves women? Were they raised exclusively by males? Have they never experience female groups?”

    Best guess is that they were Queen Bees. If you were in the position of “everyone will get along fine if they all do exactly what I tell them,” you could probably delude yourself into thinking that this was all a perfect, peaceful arrangement.

    1. Hillary Clinton as queen bee; and boy does she qualify.

       Makes you wonder how many women who worked for her were able to conceive while doing so.

       1. More like queen yellow-jacket if you ask me.

    2. #metoo, but I’m actually very happy as a woman. I’m just an atypical woman.
       And honestly the “trans” fad preys on kids like us.

       1. The best thing you can do is figure out how to be happy with life as is. 80% you have no control over and if you cannot accept that you will break. Its my excuse.

          And tbh if there was a ‘try before you buy’ I wouldn’t be surprised to see 20-50% do it. But right now its effectively good makeup. A full shift be a very different thing.

          1. Yep. If a real shift were possible, it would be different.

             1. Eh, i think for 95% not so much. There is a valid case for some but many would be better served by accepting. Doesn’t need to be the 31 flavors of baskin robbins sexuality. Just accept that the boxes are made of chicken wire.

                1. I have a problem of thinking about it in terms of boxes. A simpler model is to assume that everyone has at least some level of attraction to a given sex … when the attraction to members of your own sex is minimal and the attraction to the opposite sex is very strong, you get someone who is typically characterized as cis/straight. Flip those and the person will probably identify as gay or lesbian, depending on which sex they start from. Attracted to both – bisexual, etc. There is no need for the boxes – it is more a continuum of attraction which can shift to a certain degree over time depending on the individuals – and I tend to believe that while the base orientation is probable primarily genetic, where an individual is on each spectrum can be modified by experience, influence of various fetishes, etc. At least that is what I think I saw/experienced a number of years ago (before I got married, so a looong time ago, actually).

                   1. Which would mean that at least sometimes those “conversion” therapies can work. They are not really flipping a switch from gay to straight, but helping somebody who actually was more of a bi to begin with to get more focused on the until then less noticed attraction.

                      What is most irritating currently is the forcing of the idea that once somebody gets attracted to their own sex that’s it, gay forever, don’t even dare to think anything else – and especially don’t anybody straight ever dare to voice an opinion, however mildly suggested, that the person might not be completely and utterly gay… (and if the gay then dares to fall in love with a member of the opposite sex – sacrilege! Heretic!). But most times it really is a continuum, and I would bet different levels of bisexuality are way more common than strictly gay no hint of interest in the opposite sex ever individuals (although certainly they do exist too – probably a bit more common with men than women. Continuum.).

    3. I’ve always suspected that I had more of a male attitude toward … all kinds of stuff. I don’t tend to over-think stuff, the way that my daughter (and other women tend to do. Look, I’ll listen to you vent about your troubles, but then I expect YOU to go and DO something positive to solve it. The catty, junior high, Queen Bee stuff just left me cold – it left me cold in junior high, and continued to do so.

       1. My kids accuse me of being a “guy” because when they vent I try to solve the problem.

          1. And I always got along great with most guys. Comes with being able to ‘turn off’ the female and just be one of the humans. I could crack wise, not be offended … my daughter did have a bit of this, in that she said as a teenager that she didn’t have to pull her punches verbally with her guy friends, whereas with the girls from school, it was one wrong word and they were all sobby and tearful. She found it very exhausting.

       2. My dad was an engineer. My mom had studied paleontology in college. I was raised by SCIENCE, and I tend to approach problems from the engineering perspective of “how is the efficient way to fix this?”

          Given that I used that mental toolkit for social situations, that’s hardly surprising that I was always a bit “off.”

    4. Heh. 🙂 If people would only listen to me everyone *would* get along fine. It’s just never happened and I never thought I’d be the one in authority.

    5. I am similar thoughts the other direction, although perhaps not as sever. It seems anything out of “band” gets you labeled trans these days.

       I swear, progs swear up and down they aren’t biological determinists like us “alt-Nazi extremist puppies”, but then they actually express their opinions and prove otherwise.

    6. Would these sex/gender obsessed folks kindly stop appropriating and abusing hard science (chemistry) terms? Alright, ‘trans’ is understandable, but ‘cis’… and who the hell is Norma Tiv, anyway? ♉

    7. At best, I’ve always thought of the idea of Trans as being in the same category as using mercury to deal with syphilis-something that we’ll see in about 50-60 years as “that was a really bad idea, but it was the only real option we had.”

       My nominal opinion? Most people that are diagnosed as Trans would be a lot happier with a proper checkup of their hormones and the right medication, not massive physical surgery and hormone changes and a lot of other crap that has hideous side effects and scars them for life. And therapists that needed to look for a better option for their patients.

       My worst opinion? That Trans will be seen in the same way as phrenology and the luminous ether as “bunk science,” and we’ll read about the victims in horror. And curse the people that used this “treatment” in the same tone of voice as prefrontal lobotomies.

       (And this is from someone that was convinced that he was probably Trans when he was a teenager to his early ’20s.)

    8. At recess I got on better with the girls than the boys in elementary school. Cause I had no interest in sports. IIRC. Twenties? Seemed like the women interested in roughly what I was into were much rarer than the men.

       I was definitely in target demographics. But the psychological warfare was mostly filtered out. Why? I was cautious, untrusting, and fearful, and had built my defenses to resist pedophile mind games.

       I had physical evidence of what my sex was. I didn’t have psychological experiences that greatly contradicted that evidence, but if I had, I have a great distrust for psychological evidence. Sudden changes may be evidence of a developing fault. The long term stuff, well, the people with the political axes to grind don’t really know me. I definitely have problems, but boilerplate from a culture war activist would be an unreliable guide.

       I’ve recently figured out that one of my problems is loneliness. That isn’t something I would have guessed even a few years ago.

12. Men do the hierarchy thing too. It just gets done more instinctively and (usually) with less drama. Although, I’ve seen everything from posturing to outright violence used when two or more men decided they should be on top.

    1. It’s either instinctive or physical. Either folks figure out a hierarchy, it gets settled by ability or gets physical.

       1. Not completely. I can accept that someone’s been appointed to a position of authority, even if I don’t think they’re particularly competent.

    2. I think a big part of it is men tend to accept their place in the hierarchy and respect people up and down the hierarchy. I know social hierarchy values me more than a good plumber, but I’ll respect the man who gets my sewers working.

       I don’t think it is an accident that as the elite feminized they lost respect for the abilities of those below them.

       1. Mutual respect is a big thing.

13. This: “Women are non physically violent but strongly hierarchical. Group mechanics are such that often the entire energy and focus of the group is a) establishing pecking order b) enforcing conformity.” …and… “Men in groups, OTOH are more focused on task and less on personalities. Hell, men (and me) are less likely to notice slights, digs and subtle disputes. If you’re not hitting them in the face with a brick, the interpersonal will matter less, but they tend to get hyperfocused on their task. There can be bitter disputes, yes, but that’s usually because that guy down in cube b tends to never Florpz the Dbars the way they should be doing, and it’s slowing down the entire group.”

    OMG! This is PRECISELY IT. I have worked in and managed groups in nearly every area of business and this perfectly describes it. The “culture” of women in an office vs. men in a warehouse is so drastically different it’s like an alternate reality. And I’m a woman, but if I gotta be trapped in one of those realities especially in the workplace, please God let it be with the men.

    1. “I’m a woman, but if I gotta be trapped in one of those realities especially in the workplace, please God let it be with the men.”

       Amen.

       My working career has almost 100% been with all-but-me male crews. Even when there are 2 or 3 women in the crew, the other women have also normally been in positions where they were the only female in a job. So no problems.

       The only time I had another women have a problem with me, did not work for the company, but came onto the premises working for a client. Setup: This was before certain pictures were banned from decorating the work place. Personally I hated them. Realistically the ones they were putting up weren’t particularly gross, just, … No. Even the one co-worker that should have been on my side (due to wedding ring), told me to deal with it. So I did. I got nasty … I covered their pictures with kittens, puppies, horses, anything a teen girl could come up with to irritate them (I was well past being a teen girl). Did not fight fire with fire (so to speak). The result was the truck drivers were ruthless with their jibes. Guys finally gave up & WALL pictures came down. Now, back to the female truck driver who complained. Her complaint was “How can you stand those pictures?” My response was “I don’t look up.”

14. In line with comments above I often refer to men and women as two different species that require each other to reproduce.

    As far as marriage goes in American society with it’s long tradition of non-arranged marriages, marriage is what occurs when a woman catches the man who’s been chasing her…

    I believe anyone who says men and women are the same and interchangeable is lying. Deliberately. Because the differences are too obvious to be ignored. A few years ago I worked with a young lady, 27 (young compared to me) who used to complain all the time about the way other women behaved, especially during that time of month, and using that time as an excuse. She had been on birth control since age 14, suppressing her natural cycle. She and significant other decided it was time to have kids. So, off the pill she went. 2 months later she said to me “Now I understand why other women behave that way. THEY CAN’T HELP IT!” She was absolutely horrified at how her own behavior changed during that time of month.

    A bit off topic, but she was also illustrative of the difference between educated and knowledgeable. Had a BA in some kind of art. First thing I said to her when she told me she was going off the pill was -“Be sure not to get pregnant for the first 3 cycles.” She looked right at me and said “Everyone I’ve told including my OB has told me that. WHY?” I was somewhat surprised her OB hadn’t told her why. Why she chose me to ask is a mystery. SI I explained that she had been suppressing the egg drop for over a decade. And that the first few times her body was going to drop a lot of eggs, and that the chances of multiple babies was high. And not twins or triplets, but quints or more. She hadn’t had a clue about this.

    1. She had been on birth control since age 14, suppressing her natural cycle.

       Seems to me that’s an excellent reason to not go on hormonal birth control so early – it deprives you of the experience you need in order to learn to manage the mood changes, and the different emotional reactions to the same stimuli,etc, etc.

       1. Hormones are the least of it for some of us.

          When my back first started to have spasm symptoms, hubby asked why it took me so long to complain. My answer — because I thought my system was “off” for some reason, until it got worse than normal … He turned white.

          The back spasms are caused when hips get out of alignment & stuck, stretching the tendons out of whack, which then pulls on certain (don’t know which ones, just know the damn things hurt!) muscles, ultimately triggering spasms. You can’t sit, stand, or lay down, & it hurts. But, when it first starts, it wasn’t any worse than cramps.

          The hip/spasms is something that he also suffers from …

          1. yep. I have eczema pretty much all the time, with sores somewhere. Which means sometimes it’s really bad, sometimes it’s less bad, but it’s always bad and it always hurts.

             1. I know they’ve have & done simulations for men on progressive contractions that occur during birth; that most men tap out, well before the first hour, is beside the point. But, I’d like to see simulations on monthly cramps.

                I had cramps bad. But I could “function”, & functioned while working in the woods. OTOH I’ve known women who were curl-up-in-bed-with-heat-pad, for 24 hours minimum. There wasn’t a pain killer made that worked without putting me to sleep.

                I can imagine the men now – “That’s not so bad.” Chuckle from every women in the room. “Okay. Deal with this 24 to 48 hours every 26 to 30 days, for the next 45 (ish) years. With the emotional whiplash.” The wimps.

       2. There are some conditions, such as PCOS, for which hormonal regulation is required. In fact, the Catholic Church, which is on record as being against hormonal birth control, is perfectly fine with health conditions being treated by pre-packaged hormonal doses—such as birth control pills.

          1. I’ve found that it’s really hard to get people to understand the difference between “fixing a broken thing” and “breaking something so it does what I want. Maybe.”

          2. Well, yes. obviously.

             I’d have hoped that “under normal circumstances” could be taken as understood, but since that’ apparently not the case, i hereby amend my earlier statement to include the phrase “In the absence of reproductive system malfunctions…”

    2. There was a website I saw once that had tracking charts and information on all parts of a typical menstrual cycle, and everything had been developed when the authors were working with underprivileged teens. They used these charts to teach the girls about how their hormones affected their moods, and quite honestly, to keep them from getting into fights when they were on edge. And it worked. Once they understood that they were going to be on edge, it made it easier for them to control their emotions.

15. c4c

16. “When everyone is a genius, no one is.”

    This is the current landscape of any Gifted program I have heard about, back to when I were in one – the administrators thought bubble is: “It’s really unfair to spend anything on these kids – they will do just fine bored out of their skulls in the regular classes, and everyone should really get a shot at this money, so we’re just going to put it into the college-prep track and call it done. If I spread around this money, they all have the chance to be geniuses!”

    1. Instead of challenging you get busywork. Great way to cure overachievers of that

       1. You’d almost think the public school system was *designed* to identify and squash that type of student…

          1. By the way. When and where it was designed as it (mostly) is?
             It’s treated almost like those “it seems to always have been here, except it wasn’t a week ago” magic shops.

             1. Early 1900s, IIRC. Based on a Prussian idea.

             2. Largely by John Dewey.
                He was also one of the chief philosophical drivers of the Progressive Movement. He publicly referred to that movement as a secular religion, and at very least strongly implied that the public education model he was setting up was its church.

          2. Yathink!

       2. “The school system has a Gifted and Talented program. They call it ‘Mainstreaming’.” (Said when that term was used mainly for, shall we say, what might be considered the opposite of gifted…)

          1. ‘Mainstreaming’

             Do not get my Aunt going on this one. “Mainstreaming” was intended for the physically handicapped not everyone. Their daughter was the one March of Dimes were waiting for for the legal challenge. They were not willing to have her warehoused at school & essentially given color crayons. She was very bright & was already reading. Her only problem was she needed a wheelchair & an personal aide for physical needs. If she’d have lived long enough they might have figured out a way around having a personal aide.

             1. Aye, I recall how it was supposed to work – and that most reasonable thing seemed to be the one way it was never actually applied.

             2. There was a girl in a wheelchair in my GATE classes. Perfectly intelligent. She just had legs that didn’t work. (And this was before certain areas of the school were ADA-compliant, so the rest of us figured out how to get her up and down stairs to get to the stage, for instance.)

17. When I was in high school I found the concept of an all-girl’s school horrifying. I understood very explicitly that girls/women were always in competition while I was seldom in competition with boys/men. Sure, there were a few that would get crabby if you excelled in their domain… and I’m not really ashamed of diffusing that with a few ditsy comments in Vo.Ag. when my welding bead was nicer or my lawnmower motor went together more easily. (And the small motor rebuild was *chance* more than anything else anyway.) But with other girls that would never have worked.

    Oh, and those old business battle axes tended to despise other women who couldn’t cut it, who weren’t as dedicated, who figured they ought to be able to “have it all”. And I can’t even imagine what they’d think of the current crop of “women have different ways of thinking” and “we need to remake our whole business model because logic and objectivity are the patriarchy” sorts.

    1. I went to an all-girl college. I ignored all the folly, wasn’t dating anyone, and hung out at the airport when I could. Plus there was a massive administrative disaster that managed to unify all of us…against the president. It was pretty decent, since I wanted to get away from guys for a while. That I did.

       1. I hated my all-girls school.

          1. I suspect since it was a college, and science heavy, we had self-selected to ignore each other. The profs certainly did their best to keep us busy and out of trouble! None of the “only take nine hours” foolishness you hear today.

             I’m told it is very different today—all “sustainability” and “margainalized groups” and so on.

    2. I went to an all-girl’s school. It was small, and while there were cliques, I managed to be one of those people off to the side. (Doesn’t hurt that I was the kind of person to get things done, so it was useful to not alienate me.)

       The thing I found funny is that the bathrooms were always populated at the end of the day by various girls fixing their hair and makeup. During the day there was a general air of “my uniform’s on, that’s good enough.” (The recent movie Lady Bird, which is set in my hometown, was written and directed by someone who went to the *other* girls’ school. Which is hardly surprising, since mine is gone. But it gets the feel pretty right, even if the school set itself was in SoCal.)

18. Japanese art material such as books and what not in alt culture land, often gave a modern yet not very American, conception of things. It looks the same but does not act the same.

    For example, male vs female clothing is so well enforced in Japanese uniform and non uniform code, that even in the winter, women are wearing skirts.

    “Cross” dressing would be a man wearing a skirt (Scotland, I am looking at you), or a woman wearing pants and a suit using a chest restriction band.

    Current society is disrupting the social fabric because all male and all female groups work better at certain tasks precisely because of the different hierarchies being used. Biologically, it is smoother due to epigenetics and ancestral memory.

    By disrupting this pattern due to mixed company, mixed signals, and conflict, the Deep State and other factions can benefit from the collapse of the family, which collapses the family, which allows Emergency powers to be instituted for the benefit of all in the national security context.

    Long term plans in the 100+ years, is not something Normal Mortals think much about, since it is not feasible for a single individual to activate and maintain such a lengthy long term plan. What is not possible for individuals is very much feasible for multi generational factions. Operation Paperclip is only one such.

    Eventually the US public will see the media talking about pedos and cannibalism, on top of the sex that is in damage control. Then it will become mainstream. Especially given DJT’s arrest of thousands of pedos, 2x more than Hussein did in 8 years.

    1. The increase in pedo arrests is one of the items well hidden by MSM. Only reported by people sitting around in their basements wearing pajamas. My former doctor is sitting in jail because of the crackdown.

       And at the same time- academia is pushing for normalization of same… And that is sneaking out into public consciousness. And the vast majority of that public is none too happy when they notice it or it’s pointed out to them, whichever way they find out.

       1. Much of the US public, I have found, waits for a majority of people to create a band wagon then they jump on it. Although this is not an American sheep problem so much as a human awakening problem. People like to be asleep on the Blue Pill.

    2. (Scotland, I am looking at you),

       The funny thing is, if you know what a proper kilt looks like, and are even slightly accustomed to seeing men in them… it’s women who wear kilts that look like they’re crossdressing.

       And yes, there is a distinct visual difference between a kilt and just about any other type pf skirt. Even pleated skirts in a tartan fabric.

       1. Since Scotland has a historical connection with the Egyptian royalty via Scotia the ancestor queen, I would not be surprised if the truth was that the kilt was the armored copper/iron/steel shirt attached to the legs that was converted to leather/cloth due to lack of materials. Thus it would be a warrior’s equipment, to protect the legs from glancing blows and arrows.

          

          This isn’t quite exactly, since the chainmail needs to be light for mobility, but Egyptian noble charioteer warrior class could wear extremely heavy metal protection armor as they are just standing in a chariot riding people down with blades on the wheels. The temperature is so hot in egypt, however, that the leg covering is flared for air movement, and the top is usually fabric (heat kills), rather than metal.

19. What the media has allowed the American public to see of the evil machinations in Hollywood and District of Columbia, is merely 1% of the iceberg. There is much, much more, America.

    People prefer to wait for the MSM to tell them when they can start thinking, of course.

20. There is probably out there a group of men that are more into the brow beating, psychological warfare and pecking order than a room full of seamstresses.

    Every gay club/organization I’ve ever seen. It’s awful. That probably means something. What is harder to determine.

    1. Female hierarchies specialize in verbal violence and indirect conflict, the British ton cut, or psychological warfare. Males can utilize the same, but the physical strength priority tends to favor direct physical violence as a way of resolving conflicts.

       Homos of the male bent, are particularly interesting because they still have the physical power, but they prefer to engage in sexual and verbal violence instead to figure out what is what. This is perhaps “more female orientated” due to homo males wanting to portray their sexual availability, which is getting a lot of conflict from other homos, women, and so on. Women only need to compete with other women. Killing potential mates and sexual partners is not the point, so people have to find other ways to judge and rate the totem pole.

       As Aries ascendant, they tend to favor the direct solution, like Trum.

21. c4c

22. I’ve noticed that Facebook groups that are all female MUST have strict rules and be strongly and even-handedly enforced or else it will splinter into 100 smaller spin-off groups because of the in-fighting, back-stabbing and gossip. If the rules are enforced, spin-offs and flounces still happen but the group itself doesn’t fade away.

    I’ve also noticed that in groups of women, calm, rational discussion of risk vs benefit doesn’t happen often, or rather, the greater the risk, the less calm the discussion and the more that emotion rules the day. Those that do try to be calm and rational are shouted down by the “my mother’s cousin’s friend’s (insert specialty here) said” and everybody believes that or counters with their “brother’s boss’s neighbor’s” story that totally refutes it. Because the emotional content of the stories is what trumps facts. I have had to roll my eyes and scroll past multiple discussions. Unfortunately, some of those discussions feed into the stereotype that the left has of conservative/religious/homeschooler/pick your group.

    1. I’m a member of one female group that hasn’t, probably because it’s private and we only invite people who we know aren’t jerks.

23. Sarah said: “Hell, to a great extent, it’s turned into a matriarchy, with the women conquering the world of men, integrating men in their hierarchy and bullying them, at the same time they control the house.”

    Go to a hospital and count the number of males. Look hard, there will be a few there. Usually in the maintenance department. Running the boiler, for example, will be some crusty old man with a chip on his shoulder the size of Gibraltar. Because doctors are a dime a dozen, but a licensed boiler man is a pearl without price.

    “…an all-women group: “All I want to do with my life is heal the sick” and you might get a decent work group.”

    You’d think so, but in actual fact the pecking order and counting coup takes first place. Patient care is a distant third or fourth behind breaks, lunch and preferred parking spots. And this is licensed healthcare professionals we’re talking about, not the cleaning staff. All they do is have girl-fights and pissing contests.

    In a male establishment, the behavior I’ve seen going on over the years would be settled in a stairwell with some harsh language and a healthy shove against the wall. But in hospitals its all women, and they pursue their vendettas and purges to the exclusion of all else.

    You get sick, you make bloody sure there’s a competent relative covering your back in the hospital.

    And that’s the USA. Canada is much worse. In Canada all of the above is government policy.

    1. I’m 63, running a boiler- but I am not a crusty old man.

       And young boiler operators are getting harder and harder to find since the Navy has gone gas turbine for combatants and large slow speed diesel for auxiliaries.

       1. It didn’t take an act of congress to make you a gentleman, eh? ~:D

          I’m only 62 but I’m crusty as all hell. Its not the years, its the mileage.

       2. One reason for the shortage of licensed boiler operators is regulatory creep. Here in Arkansas the test and licensing fees are nominal… but there’s the poison pill: “6 months training/experience under a licensed boiler operator is required.”

          Boilers aren’t really a thing here, and I don’t know of any place that would ordinarily have more than one operator on duty; the few I’ve seen, the operator spent most of his time twiddling his thumbs. So you have to find someone willing to pay for a second operator; liability and insurance issues would probably bar working six months “for free” to get your required time in.

          1. Boiler operators are like firemen. You don’t pay them to be busy all shift. You pay them to know what to do when something goes wrong.

             There’s a lot that can go wrong. The following report shows what happens when boilers are operated without full time boiler operators devoted to the boiler and nothing else. http://www.ipemaritimes.com/bxpl.pdf Virtually every boiler explosion I’ve looked at occurred in a boiler run by operators for whom boiler operation was secondary to their “real” job. None of the material conditions outlined in the report that caused the explosion would be tolerated by any full time operator with his carcass parked next to the boiler.

             1. Forgot to mention- this was with 7 year old boilers. The ones I’m operating now were built in 1966. Over 50 years old and still being operated. Safely.

                1. Inspect, reinspect, test and retest.

             2. That boiler going thru the wall and 100′ more would get anyone’s immediate attention…if they lived to see it.

             3. Heh. The steam plant at the local university apparently ran into this with the local volunteer firefighters.

                All the boiler operators are trained to not leave their posts in case of fire (except under special circumstances such as the fire being right on top of them, I guess), so when a damaged part in the wood chip feed belt started a fire three floors up, near the top of the chip silo, the firefighters (who apparently didn’t understand that a boiler explosion would take out the steam plant and the three buildings across the streets) kept insisting that the boiler operators evacuate the building, and had the hardest time understanding why they wouldn’t move.

    2. Go to a hospital and count the number of males. Look hard, there will be a few there.

       At least three in the pediatric NICU. Both are mid to high priority.

       Two of them are very, very obviously straight, too, and the third sure seemed to be play-flirting with his lady co-workers.

       Of course, the closest to standard gossip that I heard was a gal who use to work at the bright and shiny nearby hospital, who pointed out that part of why they are there is that the other is a rabid snakepit of nasty. So the very-much-70s buildings were worth it.

       Possibly it’s just a filtering issue?

       1. Institutions and buildings have their own cultures. Hospitals do as well. Clearly not all are created equal, some will be worse than others. Some will be -much- worse.

          The thing is, to keep a hospital from becoming a full-time dominance display requires a very strong personality at the top. An alpha female that all the other women admire and want to work for. We’re talking Florence Nightingale level of personal power and commitment.

          The largest difference between male and female dominance that I’ve seen in my time on this Earth is that males commonly include job competence and performance in their dick-measuring.

          Example above was master boiler operator. The guy with the nice hair and the nice car has zero standing in that crowd. The guy whose boiler operates flawlessly, his kit is always squared away, he’s got cred. The guy who rescued the building from catastrophic boiler malfunction, he’s alpha-dog. Job performance aids dominance. In construction its the same deal. The older guy that knows everything and goes faster than everybody else, he’s top dog.

          Women, I don’t understand what the hell they’re doing most of the time. None of it has a damn thing to do with the job at hand, I can tell you that. Tell you something else, my inability to understand their dominance web gets me in trouble every time. I’m a PT, my job is patient care, I have no time or attention to spare for female dominance crap, which drives the dominant ones -CRAZY-. And, to be fair, I can be pretty annoying. So they go after me, every time. Usually on first sight, which does not improve my social anxiety. Some strange lady getting up in your face day one of the job, pretty stressful.

          That’s why these days I’m the boss. When you’re the boss, women can take their dominance nonsense and cram it where the sun don’t shine. But I can see it happening even in my little sphere, we have our jostling for domination too. People try you on. Its just that unlike the old days, I always win. ~:D

          1. The gals you’re driving nuts are the girl version of that guy who does CONSTANT pissing contests about every dang thing.
             Yes, they do seem more common. Not sure why. I find them more annoying (can’t ignore) than the guy idiots, so might be sample bias.

             1. Guy-idiots, you just stare at ’em and they back off. Guy dominance essentially boils down to “even if you win you’re going to get hurt bad.” The ones that don’t back off have a screw loose. They generally don’t last, eventually one of the higher-testosterone types will corner them in the stairwell for a “chat.”

                The relentlessly unpleasant female version, I’ve never found a solution to that. #walkaway

                1. *chuckles* No, YOU can do that. If I do, I have to prove it. And it is seldom worth it. But I do get to ignore them.

                   Women I can sometimes verbal kungfu, the trick is to remove yourself from targets, and I don’t mind being ‘ignore her’ boxed; probably won’t work for guys without going all “he is too crazy to target.”

                   1. “the trick is to remove yourself from targets, and I don’t mind being ‘ignore her’ boxed;”

                      Personally very familiar with the ‘ignore her’ box.

                   2. I can’t use kung fu on people any more. I have gotten to the point and level where I can’t feel the weight resistance to pull it any since my engine is neigong, no longer based on external western boxing, speed, weight/mass. The last time I demoed on a tallish male, I did a rotation around the elbow, over and around a block, and made contact using the force equal to a light door knock. I felt no resistance, and no push back that would be felt hitting or pushing a bag. He however, hunched over and backed off, looking like I had sneak hit him in the ribs with brass knuckles.

                      I was standing there looking at him and going mentally, what is wrong with you.

                      Many internal martial artists at certain personal development levels, figure this out if they have training partners or students. After that, I dared not even touch anybody, even in light sparring. I would bypass their hand defense blocks, and put my palm at their TMJ/neck/jaw/chin, and stop before touch. I cannot guarantee that a slight movement won’t send a shockwave force that I cannot feel thus stop, from transmitting upon touch.

                      Some people who lack a famous name, are often challenged by warrior pilgrims (those going around sparring to improve themselves), because they don’t feel internal power exists. One of the instructors I know by association, applied 75% of his skill power and because he hit on the center left side of the upper chest, the subject’s heart stopped and started having problems. An ambulance needed to be called. That’s not particularly all that hard to do given modern training methods and builds.

                      1. After long practice of Tai Chi, people fall over when they run into me. I’m not even paying attention, usually, they try to push me out of the way and they fall down.

                         This is why we stare idiots down instead of smacking them. Its safer. ~:D

                         1. Who were some of your instructors?

                            Ian Sinclaire, Tim Larkin’s group, Jin Young (from Hawkings Cheung, martial brother of Bruce Lee), Wall Practice. Got to mention the wall, since I spent many hours on a wall.

                            1. Moy Lin Shin. Taoist Tai Chi Society. In the 1970s. It was a long time ago, but it never really stops.

       2. I still live in an area where the vast majority of doctors are men (at least at the hospitals – most of my wife’s specialist doctors were women). Not sure about the family doctors in the area. I go to a practice that has 3 or 4 women and one man. And the man is not very good. But this overall discussion has me thinking that, if I can remember, next time I see my GP, I’ll ask her if she’s more female-normative, or “male software on female hardware”, because I suspect the latter.

24. “… that guy down in cube b tends to never Florpz the Dbars the way they should be doing”

    This is absurd. Everybody who knows anything knows that the Dbars are NOT supposed to be Florpzed, they must always be Morfled. You Florpz the Qbars, with a properly registered Tarnic Spanner..

25. I mentioned to Kid (she’s 12) that somebody was considering a gender-swapped remake of “Lord of the Flies”.

    Her jaw dropped. “That’d be WORSE!”

    And then we spent an amusing hour or so trying to figure out if Brittany would cut Suzanne’s power base out from under her, or if Kinsleigh would accidentally find a bear’s den with Brittany, or if Suzanne would cut right to the chase and poison Whoever…

26. The house was the realm of women, and in it men were treated somewhere between nuisances and children.

    Almost per terribly reactionary evolutionary biology. Heh.
    IIRC in the Mongolian tradition yurts belong to the women, horses/saddles/etc to the men. Though of course not quite this simple.

27. BTW – how are things coming with Patreon? It would gladden me to dispense with PayPal and eschew the task of remembering to ante up at the beginning of every month.

    1. They’re not. I’m hoping by end of year.

28. c4c

29. Heinlein had that phrase from Lazarus Long to Hilda (The Number of the Beast : Chapter VI).

    Quote “Are men and women one race? I know what biologists say – but history is loaded with “scientists” jumping to conclusions from superficial evidence. It seems to me far more likely that they are symbiotes. I am not speaking from ignorance; I was one trimester short of a B.S. in biology (and a straight-A student) when a “biology experiment” blew up in my face and caused me to leave school abruptly.”

30. “Gentlemen, I propose that we win the war between the sexes.”

    *A long detail proposal is carefully outlined.*

    The replies in chorus “You have got to be kidding me. Are you fucking insane?”

    “I’m quite serious, and that seems to be the consensus.”

    1. Are you fucking insane?

       Are you a heterosexual male? Then probably. (Raises tiny umbrella and waits for incoming load of carp)

31. One year, as of today, at my newest job and I’ve learned a few things.

    I have a reputation as a sweetheart.
    I’m the person you hand a project to when you want it done right, now and efficiently.
    I’m the only person who can get any person in any other department to drop what they’re doing and help me.

    Example: We’re all responsible for emptying the trash in our areas. Depending on the time of day, there can be as many as 20 people waiting to dump their trash. One of the department managers was struggling getting her bag out of the can and one of the other women, making no move to help, chided the men for not helping her. The response was “it’s 2018, they want equality, she can handle her own trash.” Batting my eyelashes, I turned to the guys and said “Not me, you are welcome to do my work for me anytime.” I got a smile and “just say the word”.

    The biggest thing I’ve seen that sets me apart is I’m not trying to behave like a man. Or, rather, the way a lot of women seem to think men behave. I’m polite, I work hard, and I treat everybody around me like they’re worth something beyond what they can do for me. You wouldn’t think that would be that big of a thing but I’ve been told flat out that it’s the reason I’m the only person people are willing to go out of their way for. Both of my bosses are women and I’ve turned around to see them with their jaws on the floor like I’d just worked a miracle by talking to somebody.

    I don’t play games. I don’t take part in the backbiting. I do my job and get along with my coworkers. It’s amazing how far just being a decent human being without an agenda will get you.

    1. “I don’t play games. I don’t take part in the backbiting. I do my job and get along with my coworkers. It’s amazing how far just being a decent human being without an agenda will get you.”

       This. I was never trying to be a women in a mans field. Was me working on the program to the best of my ability & learn something along the way.

       I may not have been the mother hen. But I was the one to say “why” something worked the way it did, without being asked. Great when I helped clients, not always so much with my co-workers or others … usually get “If I had wanted to know why, I would have asked.” This feature does not have an off switch.

       1. It’s amazing what you can find, or get done, by being polite and conversing with the custodial staff.

          1. I like janitors. They know everything, see everything, and enjoy getting thanked.

          2. I remember reading this story by Nancy Ortberg, Nancy Ortberg, a Presbyterian minister who was once a nurse:

             “It was about 10:30 pm. The room was a mess. I was finishing up some work on the chart before going home. The doctor with whom I loved working was debriefing a new doctor, who had done a very respectable, competent job, telling him what he’d done well and what he could have done differently.

             Then he put his hand on the young doctor’s shoulder and said, “When you finished, did you notice the young man from Housekeeping who came in to clean the room?” There was a completely blank look on the young doctor’s face.

             The older doctor said, “His name is Carlos. He’s been here for three years. He does a fabulous job. When he comes in here he gets the room turned around so fast that you and I can get our next patients in quickly. His wife’s name is Maria. They have four children.” Then he named each of the four children and gave each child’s age.

             The older doctor went on to say. “He lives in a rented house about three blocks from here, in Santa Ana. They’ve been up from Mexico for about five years. His name is Carlos,” he repeated. Then he said “Next week I would like you to tell me something about Carlos that I don’t already know. Okay? Now, let’s go check on the rest of the patients.”

             I remember standing there writing my nursing notes–stunned–and thinking, I have just witnessed breathtaking leadership.”

    2. “I don’t play games. I don’t take part in the backbiting.I do my job and get along with my coworkers.”

       I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that you’re pretty much unique in that company. Everybody else is playing dominance crap instead of working. That’s why the boys are letting co-worker get her own garbage bag. She feminazis them, they let her swing in the breeze.

       That’s not a good sign, usually. Keep a resume polished and ready for emergency deployment.

       1. It’s a big store and part of a huge company. I’m pretty solid and have options if it gets too toxic. Keeping the resume polished isn’t a bad idea anyway, though.

    3. … I treat everybody around me like they’re worth something beyond what they can do for me.

       This makes a difference for men, too. While there are some people who will treat politeness as a form of weakness, most of the time it really makes a huge difference.

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