From: donb@igor.tamri.com (Don Baldwin)
Newsgroups: alt.peeves
Subject: Re: Take up a hobby, instead
Keywords: Losers
Date: 20 Nov 92 18:40:48 GMT
Organization: TOSHIBA America MRI, South San Francisco, CA

In article <1ehvurINNg38@talon.UCS.ORST.EDU> tim@physics.orst.edu (Tim Mefford)
writes:
>>Elaine, surely you're too intelligent to really BELIEVE in such a
>>simplistic explanation.  I mean, the idea that men are only out to
>>"get it" is about as on-target and thoughtful as my saying that
>>women are only out to find someone with Ross Perot's bank account
>
>In this ever so Pollyanna Climate in which we live it has become unthinkable
>to state certain things just because they are not the way we would like
>things to be, never mind that they happen to be facts.  (Save the reality
>is all a matter of perception arguments.  According to Dwayne the crackhead,
>I may very well have wings, but my "flight" off the roof will still be over
>in 4.5 seconds)

No no no, let me explain.

>One example is to say that a woman is behaving erratically because of her 
>period.  The overwhelming majority of women that I have known have, at most,
>become irritable, and understandably from what I hear.  A small minority,
>whether it be due to poor diet, heredity, or whatever, become irrational.
>Some women that I've known have gone back on every thing that they had said,
>done, or worked for in the preceding 27 days.  I regret that this happens.
>It is unfortunate that many men will use this as a default excuse to blame
>women regardless of the circumstances.  Nevertheless, it still happens.

No one is saying that womens' periods have no effect on their emotional
state.  Hell, Gillian sacrifices chickens to Pan once a month but that's
just "her way".  However, to go beyond the idea that some women become
irrational during "that time of the month" to say that women in general
become too irrational to hire for responsible jobs...or that they cannot
be held responsible for, say, shooting people on a whim then...is pretty
absurd.

>As stated above, the male stereotype is loud, aggressive, and a hounding 
>plague to most women.  Well, face facts, testosterone, the hormone that
>causes most masculine traits is toxic.  It destroys nerve cells.  Aside 
>from this, male hormone levels fluctuate also, and when the testosterone 
>gauge pegs out at saturated, the so-called rational sex is about as capable
>of objective thought, and as well behaved, as a rabid dog.  

No no no.  Some men and women are driven to emotional excesses by their
hormones; some are completely unaffected.  Some feel the pressure of
those hormones and act irrationally or criminally due to them; others
learn to deal with them.  Hell, I sometimes have the urge to quit my job
and drive down the coast naked on my motorcycle at 140 mph, shooting at
seals all the way, but that wouldn't excatly enhance my career, would it?

The bottom line is, you can't say men (universally) are sex hounds or women
(universally) become bitches 7 days out of the month.  True, we have
primitive impulses but our civilized state helps MOST of us deal with them.

>Grudging !peeve: The recent release _Of_Mice_and_Men_, left me feeling as if
>                 I'd been hit in the stomach.

Well, Steinbeck is, after all, the best writer who ever lived...
Newsgroups: alt.peeves