From: rsrodger@wam.umd.edu (Yamanari)
Subject: Re: Language
Organization: University of Maryland, College Park
Distribution: usa
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 19:55:50 GMT

In article <1992Dec22.162122.20507@panix.com> gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) writes:
>An illustration of something I was talking about awhile ago
>-- evidence of a hostile cultural attitude toward sex, and
>possibly a hostile individual attitude, as evidenced by the
>use of terms referring to gentalia as derogatory.  To wit:

	First,apologies for the lack of " "'s, my spacebar
	seems to be broken, and I don't notice if they don't
	get typed.

	The post in question had nothing to do with the 
	cultural hostility towards sex (as in, sexual activity)
	but rather (what the author imagined was) the difference
	in number of insults against men or women that paralled
	the sex of the opposite column.


>evahramian@mta.ca writes:
>|             ... And no, I dont call women pussies,
>| i call men that act like women, pussies.

	In fact, to me, calling a woman a pussy (as in,
	"don't be such a pussy, you wimp!") is utterly
	wrong.  It makes no sense semantically.
	To me, it means "holding back" "unwillingness to 
	commit"  "fear of doing something that might hurt 
	a little" or whatever.  

>To thrash around the unfamiliar territory: why are men who
>"act like women" bad?  What does "acting like a woman" mean?
>And why is a slang term for the female genitals an insult?


	And this is the focus, isn't it?

	See below for my response.


>(After all, one could as well use such a reference to mean
>"voluptuous" or "creative" which is how I experience them.)


	Come on, don't be rediculous.  Those aren't 
	"acting".. "Creative"?  Frankly, I've noticed
	little or no difference between men and women when it 
	comes to creative capacity.  

>Or am I taking this wrong, and does evahramian admire men who
>"act like women" and wish to compliment them?  It would not
>seem so, for both male and female sexual organs were given as


	It has nothing to do with the genetals themselves.  What
	it has to do with is the cultural viewpoint assigned to
	each sex.  (right or wrong, stereotypes)


>insults immediately above.  Why?  These are not rhetorical
>questions.  In some cultures, ikons of female and male
>genitals are venerated as religious objects.   What are _we_

	Irrelavent.


	1.  "What does 'acting like a woman mean'?"
	2.  "What is wrong with a man who acts like a woman?"

	Let me try to get my viewpoint across here.  I'll wrap
	up in my asbestos blanket, but I would like to ask that
	flames like, "YOU SEXIST PIG!" simply be withheld to save
	bandwidth.

	You might call me a bit of a misogynist.  When I'm working with
	a man, I expect the man to reach answers using the same approach
	thatI do.  I cannot *stand* when a man pulls the womanly 
	"hurry up to the answer and then sit and whine about it for
	several hours because it isn't (fair, equitable, whatever)."

	When I have to work with women,I always find myself counting
	to ten at least three times an hour, because while I 
	accept that there are a vast number of women who are equally
	competent/qualified as I, as well as a bunch who are smarter,
	quicker, slicker, brighter--whatever--than I am--I cannot 
	*stand* the way most women approach a problem.  It always seems
	to me that women are crippled in some way, since they seem 
	unable to get straight through the problem solving process--
	heck, they often seem unable to even properly target the problem.

	So when I work with a man, I expect (and 99% of the time get) 
	a mind that works in the same fashion as mine--that is,
	a mind I consider rational.  I prefer working with men
	because it is very difficult to get good results when working
	with a woman--if you're working on a theory on a joint project,
	and you're working with a man, he will often work rather hard
	to invalidate or rip up your reasoning--which is very important
	when that's *precisely* what the teacher is going to be doing. 
	When you work with a woman it almost seems that, while they
	are *able* to do so, they choose not to--even if that is the
	express reason to work together.  Even when they *do* find flaws
	they will withhold mention until they've figured out a way to
	patch the theory to solve them, sometimes holding them back
	forever.

	Needless to say, this makes the work a lot less effective.  I
	*personally* can't work that way on purely technical goals, 
	and try to avoid working with women that act this way (not
	all do--just most in my experiance).  OTOH, when the objective
	is a convincing argument or paper, I generally like to work 
	with a woman--once I've *already solved the problem* because they
	give good feedback.

	To give a parallel, imagine that you have a friend who's 
	learning sign language and you two are supposed to write a paper, and 
	throughout the session this friend insists on trying to talk
	to you in sign language.  It will not only irritate you,
	it will quickly make you angry ("Quit acting like a damn idiot 
	and get to work on the PROBLEM") because you are expecting them
	to deal with you as you deal with them. For me, this is what
	it is like (often) to work with a woman--or a man who acts like
	one.

	The other thing is, women will never shut up and get to work.
	They're so busy giving greetings and catching up with you
	that they can't just put that aside until later.  It's even
	worse if you're in a library--christ, it seems like they can't 
	just nod or wave or wink and _have_ to get an entire conversation
	out of the way with every friend, teacher or even acquaintance
	that walks by.  

 	I prefer to be around women socially, because I get a little
	tired of the constant conflict (or implied conflict involved
	in any disagreement) that is omnipresent in a group of men. 
	

	I would like to end this by pointing out that I am aware that
	the woman's approach to problem solving *works*.  I am also 
	aware that women have no problem solving problems, writing
	papers orwhipping my pants off grad-wise.  I am merely trying
	to explain why I find men-who-reason-like-women frustrating
	to work with.  I've heard many of the complaints I've given above
	voiced by other men, and I've *also* heard a large number of
	similiar-but-opposite complaints given by women ("men are 
	too conflictive"  "men can't work together, they're always
	trying to tear each other's work apart"  "men always try 
	to dominate a discussion).  

	<getting out the armor>
>-- 
> )*(    Gordon Fitch    )*(    gcf@panix.com    )*(
>( 1238 Blg. Grn. Sta.,  NY NY 10274 * 718.273.5556 )


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