Woman Fighting on the frontline

Autumnbreeze; I agree completely with your post 76. However,if you think I'm a patronizing misogynist,I know that the women I've known throughout my life would disagree with you. I've been here for 10-12 years and many of my posts over the years would reflect that you are incorrect in your assessment of how I feel about women. Yes,I feel women and children should be protected when the lead starts flying and if that's misogyny,suble or otherwise,then you got me. No matter. Life goes on and as long as I'm alive,I'll continue to treat the women in my life and those I meet randomly with respect and consideration. Including you. So,I've said my piece and there's not much else to say.--------------

 

Scratcho, it is misogyny. It's really weird and subtle, but it is.

I believe that everyone should be treated with consideration and respect, unless they've shown they specifically, individually don't deserve it. Don't you? Why just women?

As for women(and children) being protected... well, protecting anyone in need is worthy. For instance, if a woman who's been training in personal combat arts sees a small and helpless man getting attacked, she should step up and defend him. If a man sees another man helpless and being attacked, shouldn't he just as readily step up to that man's defense as he would a woman? If not, why not?

Now it's true women tend to be smaller, less muscled, and less aggressive than men, as an average. Though there are plenty of women who could outdo most men in these areas, averages are what they are. This means that women are going to be more likely to be noticeably outmatched, more often. There is also the difficulty of men tending to be the more powerful and aggressive member of a relationship. And so some realization of this needs to be noted when thinking about relationships, and violence.

But when it comes down to a question of which life is more valuable? Who we can more easily afford to sacrifice, who we should be more or less distressed to see suffer and die? There really should not be a question. The notion that one gender is held higher here is deeply disturbing.

I'm not sure if that counts as misogyny or misandery or what. But as it's used to specifically -limit- the actions and options of women, it is certainly a solid piece of patriarchy. Even if it is limiting us from doing something you can't understand why anyone would want to do. Even if it's all in the name of protecting us. It doesn't matter. We are -not- children.

 

Ok.I agree that everyone should be treated with respect and we'll just have to agree to disagree on my attitude about women. Frankly ,Ive always thought women are generally a better class of people than men and have always gotten on better and had more fun with them. I guess you'll disect this statement and attempt to label me a misogynist again. I had my kids at home and caught two of them. A man cannot keep the archaic attitudes shown by many men when he sees and participates in the tremendously difficult and sometimes dangerous business of child birth. I haven't. Perhaps my choice of hyperbole in the radical post I made was influenced by my having to lay around my house for a month after a leg operation with a tremendous amount of energy going nowhere. It's driving me goofy and probably makes me go overboard with my statements. I'm certainly willing to concede that one cannot always know oneself completey,so maybe ipso-facto I am what you say, but I will yet disagree. I'm going to continue to treat with respect all those with whom I come in contact.I'm not going to the "you don't know me" dodge-maybe you do know more about me than I do. So it goes. Have some fun today--I'm going to try.

 

Thank you thedope, for understanding what I am saying.

Many women have made the ultimate sacrifice to bring somebody into the world, and they made this bloody sacrifice for their child, for their partner, their family and community, so there can be a next generation.

Many of the women may not have been happy about this, they might have been forced into arranged marriages without contraception, so they wouldnt have been able to choose whether to marry or not, let alone how many kids to have. Also limited anaesthetic, and in many cases very spartan conditions to give birth in.

Yet there are no statues or monuments or medals, to honour the women fallen in childbirth. Sexism? I dont really think it is, it is just that childbirth is so normal and ubiquitous that it perhaps never seemed to warrant one, and unlike the bloody sacrifice in battle, the reward if a woman survived was very tangible and obvious... their own child.

The thing is, no man who reads this forum will have the experience in his lifetime, of having hours of agonising pain, and then his Johnson torn in half by a baby's head, and sewn back together again. Yet, this is an experience i will have to go through if i want my own family. My partner however, will probably be sitting, reading a newspaper while this happens, and would not have to go through the pain. I am sure he would shoulder it if he could, but it is impossible.

 

I dont know if you read my post properly, but I actually said that a number of women want to join the military, and are in the military, serving in Iraq and Afghanistan right now.

I just dont think the 50/50 rule is fair, based on what i posted in my last post. Men and women just arent the same. I also dont expect a masculine man to behave like a woman.

I think people should be who they are, whatever that is. there are plenty of sporty women who would consider joining the military, and there are plenty of men who would hate to join the military.

Also, men are more likely to consider a career in the military, because of biological wiring. A lot of little boys grow up playing with guns and vehicles because they are wired that way- men are more likely to want to join the military full stop. Men enjoy war movies more than women, and they enjoy crime-based video games with guns. So it is unrealistic to expect a lot of women to say "Yes, I will join the military- my dream career...."

Many males are not into war though. My male partner, for instance doesnt want to go to war any more than I do. If there was world war 3, and i am still childless, we would perhaps both go because it would be the right thing to do.

But right now I dont support the war in iraq and I think both wars in the Middle East were not necessary. I think that the world's governments should stop acting like a bunch of little children fighting in a sandbox, and actually negotiate, build bridges and discuss things. Perhaps that is unrealistic, but I hate wars.

 

I still question how much of this in particular is nature versus nurture. I mean, you say more little boys grow up playing with guns because they are inherently wired that way. I see them being more prone toward violence in part because they're handed toy guns and crime-based video games as toddlers. It does seem there might a slight natural tendency in that direction, but the fact that there is still such a huge delineation in how little boys and girls are raised has a big impact on this.

A huge aspect of our cultural mythos revolves around teaching little boys that a major defining aspect of what male -means- is related to violence.

But yeah, regardless of why, way less women see joining the military as a goal, as something to aspire to.

 

Tetosterone is a powerful determinant for the propensity to violence. You can see it from world events to the school yard right down to the crib. When my boys were 6 and 4, the cry went up for --"guns ,daddy.We want some guns". I had no guns,had never mentioned guns and had no TV pushing guns, as they do. I steadfastly told them that they didn't need any guns,but they would mention it every few days. I finally tired of their constant badgering ,went to a thrift store and bought a cardboard box full of toy guns. Probably 15 or 20 of 'em. I un-ceremoneously dumped them on the ground before the boys and just said-"guns". Within 2 weeks,the novelty wore off and the guns were spread around the property in the grass,in the bushes and who knows where else. All interest in them was gone. That's how I handled the gun situation and it worked out just fine. There's a big differance in how male and female interactions are determined at birth and to a degree--how they are raised.

 

Well, it doesn't compare to getting married.

 

Well, i am not sure it is a slight tendency. As an example, i had a friend a few years back who was a single mother to a baby boy.

She said to me "If he wants to wear a dress here I will let him. He can play with whatever toys he likes, even if that means he will dress dolls. I will not force gender roles on him.

Anyway the boy turned 1, then 2, and his first word was "Car" followed by "Plane" and he seemed particularly interested in fixing his toys that he had that got broken. I said to my friend, "How funny, you didnt want him to grow up with any gender role, and the first thing he does is reach for the toy cars and toy boats..."
She said: "Noone was more surprised about this than me."

I know another man who has a little boy who he shares custody of, the boy was over at the house and he seemed to be designing airports, drawing planes, building rail sets and buildings... one time I was building a house and he said "There are no stairs. how can the people enter the house?" He was 3 and a half and better at designing houses than me.

In the womb, baby boys can get a bit of a testostorone cascade, and this brings on these behaviours that can be seen in early childhood. Not all boys have this happen of course, varying things happen in the womb so some boys will turn out more feminine...

I agree with Scratcho on the gun thing. I once visited a woman who was a hippy and vegan and she had two little boys. The youngest, 3, seemed to have a strong interest in making guns out of things, much to the mother's annoyance- she hated guns...

 

4 and 6 year old boys have almost identical amounts of testosterone as 4 and 6 year old girls. The sex glands don't start producing hormones until early puberty, until then it's all the thyroid, which creates pretty much the same mix for everyone. It's not until puberty that the levels have a huge split.

Regardless of what you teach your kids, if they watch tv, or movies, or interact with -anyone- who does, or anyone who has taken in subconscious conditioning about what boys 'naturally' are like(like apparently you), they will pick up notions about what being male means in our society. I mean, their fascination with guns came from -someplace-, it did not arrive full-formed on it's own. Little boys do not 'naturally' desire guns, because guns do not naturally exist. So they picked up the desire from someone. That desire was imparted to them by someone, or someones who were excited about guns and thought they should share that excitement with little boys.

The difference between how little boys and little girls are treated starts at birth, and is constant and pervasive. And regardless of what modern evo-psych wants to say about natural tendencies, in societies that don't make a big deal about gender before puberty there actually tends to be very little difference between little boys and little girls. It's only here where we stick pink ribbons on baby girls so that everyone can know absolutely certain to treat her different than the little boy that there tends to be such extreme variance between the genders at an early age.

 

Which societies would those be?

Really?

 

Shrug. I've babysat a -lot- of kids over the years. Really young boys tend to like dolls just as much as really young girls, pretty much across the board. Little girls are just as likely to play with toy cars as little boys. But only in the very earliest stages of play. They grow out of it incredibly quick.

People seem to think that it takes overt action to train gender roles. It doesn't. Children learn by watching, and they are watching -everything-. They watch other children. And in our culture gender is the -first- categorical system for differentiating people that children tend to learn. Often even before 'adult vs child', or 'family vs stranger' are clearly understood. Children are taught to identify with their gender and tend to imprint, watch memorize and mimic, other members of their assigned group.

The child you speak of who's first word was 'car' wasn't following normal behavior for a boy. What you describe is actually extremely unusual early childhood behavior for either gender.

Btw, baby boys do get small testosterone cascade in the womb, but it's very mild. High levels here tend to have a co-concurrence with autism. There certainly is some effect from the biological differences between boys and girls, and even more so between men and women. But all indications show that the differences created by biology are very small compared to those introduced by social conditioning.

 

I'm going to research the statement you made regarding testosterone being equal in 4 to 6 year old boys and girls. Not being a scientist or in the medical field,I only know what I have observed throught my life regarding this----I'll return another day. Busy-busy.

 

Basically every non-industrial society that hasn't been Judeo-Islama-Christianized that we've studied in the past 100 or so years.

 

Baby boys get a wash of testosterone at about 6 weeks into pregnancy. After that the levels drop down so that they and girls have fairly similar levels. This by the way does have some interesting effects on non-identical different sex twins that are currently being studied. There is no similar wash of estrogen, so it's mostly the girl in such twinings being studied.

After birth though, it's all thyroid. Until puberty the sex organs sit dormant. And the thyroid produces about the same levels of sex hormones regardless of gender.

 

Study of various cultures shows over and over that although most cultures do designate gender roles, and have traits they associate with each gender, that those roles and traits are, when looked at across a spectrum of different cultures, effectively arbitrary. What's considered masculine in one cultures is specifically feminine in another and vice versa. Name any trait, any at all, that any culture genders, and you can find another cultures that genders that trait the opposite way.

And yes, this most certainly includes 'warlike', 'violent', and the like being seen as specifically female traits. Cultural anthropology is a fascinating subject. And basically all the information that actual study of cultures that didn't arise out of the Tigris/Euphrates river valley is showing us that a lot of our assumptions about what is 'natural' in humans are actually purely cultural artifacts.

 

No, they aren't. Someone should tell the heavy petted feminists.

Subjective. That's my point about double standards. If that's fair i'm allowed to say women should stay at home and have a family.


I think if women want the world, they should be prepared to join the army and fight. I will reiterate what you said, no one wants to go to war- so that makes both men and women equal when considering reason to join.

In my humble and honest opinion though, I don't believe in my heart women should. In an ideal world I hope feminists finally accept women play a different role, whether it's 'sexist' or not. You can't deny biology, women should have kids and raise a family. Work is fine, but let the man do his bit.

It's never fair when you consider the fact that these extremists, if they had a chance, would love the opportunity to have the world run solely by females.

THAT, is sexist. It makes me feel like a cheap, walking sperm bank.

 

Womb testostorone does happen to little boys, and it is not a small amount, it is as significant enough amount to bring down and grow the male genitals, and it also often creates a male brain too... so many little boys will display behaviour that is more rough, and more physical... though some girls are tomboyish too.. the genders arent completely binary there is a fair bit of overlap... but there are 2 distinct genders that arise from this.

i never played with dolls as a child- i wasnt interested in them... but my little female friends played with their dolls and my little ponies a lot. they could have chosen not to play with them but they didnt. I know that most of them were more feminine than me anyway.

Millions of years of evolution have created human tribes, the majority of which have 2 distinct gender roles.. males have been the warrior gender for a long time. Yes there are matriarchal societies but these are less common.

And noone said that women were non-violent, but they are less physical than men, and their violence tends to be verbal and psychological rather than the more physical violence of men.

 

I wish I could climb on board but I've studied too many African and Asian cultures to concur. Bound feet, circumcision, segregation, et al

 

I think it's fair to say we should line up all the women on the front line

when the football is on


Then everybody is happy :hurray: