The difference between men and women

Ruthanne said:
Social conditioning has been done since women are very young. It's not as simple as you say and you don't know what it's like because you are not a woman and have never been subjected to a lifetime of telling you that you should look better than you do or that if you don't wear make up you are a plain Jane or ugly. I don't expect you to understand unless someone gives you a big shot of instant empathy or understanding. This will be my last post because I feel you don't really want to understand what it's like for a woman.
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Sorry you feel that way, Ruthanne. Just as you have the experience of, and loyalty for, women. My experience is that of a man, and my loyalty is for men. I have great big news for you. Women are not the only ones who must carry a cross. In any event, it is certainly true that men get little or no empathy, or understanding from women. I have long since lost tract of how many times, on this site, and in other places and times that I have heard women say, "Men have all of the privileges. Men have it easy, Men are the oppressors" etc etc.

Let me ask you something. When is the last time you ever heard any feminist have the least little bit of empathy or understanding of MEN ?
Feminists declared war on men many decades ago. The main recurring theme of feminism is "We are victims". Ad Nauseam

I enjoy the company of women, BUT the minute one starts harping on how men are oppressing women, I either get up and leave, or just tune them out. I have heard it all before. Thousands of times. IMO nobody hands anything to anyone. It must be paid for in blood, sweat and tears.

Many women own property, and some have access to large amounts of cash. What is stopping them from putting it all on the line and starting up a new business of their own. Martha Stewart did it. Oprah Winfrey did it and so did J.K. Rowling . Ms.. Rowling was a welfare mom, living in poverty. Today, because of her writings, she is a billionaire many times over.

So, I say to women, who endlessly complain, find a need, and fill it. Build a better mouse trap and the world will beat a path to your door.
When women blame all their troubles on men, it only serves to give them an excuse for failure. I think it was Malcom X who said, "The future belongs to those who prepare for it --- today".
 

I am a psychologist, and approx seventy five percent of my clients are male. The majority of them are vets suffering from PTSD. If I lacked empathy, I would be working elsewhere in a much less stressful environment, earning a large pay check. I love my career, it is my vocation, but I see a lot of heartbreak, and the suicide rate among those suffering from PTSD and

CPTSD, is appalling. One of things I have learned, after a decade in university, and over two decades in practice, is that male, or female, once you hit rock bottom, the reactions are based far more on personality type, than gender. In the end, we are complex human beings, there are as many differences within the sexes as there are between them.
 
I am going to TRY to explain something about men in general terms. Please note that I do NOT say every single man.

Men are sexual creatures. From the earliest stages of our teens, we begin to think about sex. By our late teens we become obsessed with the female form. We dream about females and we have what are called "wet dreams", ie nocturnal emissions. In other words we ejaculate in our sleep. Be aware that I am NOT saying masturbation. What we experience in our dreams of females happens in our unconscious minds.
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Traveler, this discussion is getting beyond unbelievable. What planet do you think all the women on this bb have been living on, up to now?

Thank you for informing us that men have a sexual drive. And how pathetic that you think that women deliberately try to tap into that drive in order to attract male attention! What kind of woman would want that kind of attention, anyway? Well, hookers, bimbos, gold diggers, those with pathologically low self-esteem. But all of those types together still represent a minority of all women. The pictures you are posting represent one or more of the above types, not women with even a shred of intelligence.

The woman in the red dress - well, do you normally see women walking around dressed like that? The picture is clearly staged, probably with some commercial purpose.

The other picture, of the woman with her pants falling down, well, there are airheads who will wear anything. Both female AND male. This does not prove anything about your generalizations about women.

I think you have an enormous amount to learn about the female gender!
 

hearlady said:
And I can remember times when I was dressed in sweats with a cheerio stuck to my rats nest of hair and my husband thought I was the sexiest thing alive. I wish I'd appreciated that more.
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Traveler said:
Now ! Now, I understand why all of the bitter recriminations. I treaded upon sacred feminist soil. You ladies see yourselves as victims of an evil industry designed specifically to keep you financially enslaved. You do NOT see yourselves as willing, perhaps even joyous, participants working hand-in-hand with an industry designed to make you more attractive, perhaps even beautiful.

Well now, that is a horse of a different color, indeed. If what you say is true, then your argument is not with me but rather with the 10's of millions upon millions of women who buy the products to which you refer. Why ? Because those other women are not only keeping the beauty industry alive, but making it rich beyond the dreams of avarice.

There are two major flaws in that argument. One, much of the beauty industry is owned and controlled by women such as Coco Chanel, Vera Wang, Diane Von Furstenberg, Ella Schiaparelli, and that other famous billionaire businesswoman May Kay. Who I might add has 3 million sales women world-wide. The men in that industry are, predominantly gay men such as Versace.

The other, and even fatal flaw in your argument is that throughout all of human history, going even further back than 3,000 B.C. Egypt, women have gone to any lengths to make themselves more beautiful. How do I know this for a fact. Because I saw, with my own eyes, ancient beauty make-up cases, complete with dried, desiccated eye liners, lipsticks, mirrors, tools for plucking hair and various powders, in the Cairo Museum Of Egyptian Antiquities.

Such a long and storied history of women's search for beauty tells me that the root cause of this is genetic. Ladies, it's in your DNA.
That is NOT meant to be a put-down. Men also have been encoded with specific genetic traits. So, men too carry DNA baggage. Among the many genetic traits of men is to build the "nest", and two of the genetic traits of women is to decorate and populate the "nest".

It took me a very long time to understand, but Ruthanne gave me the final clue. So, now I have it. The whole thing is genetic.
I can't thank you all enough. Mystery solved ! No more questions. :clap:
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You need to read your history with an unbiased eye.
For most of history women have been subjugated to men- and still are in many parts of the world. Acquiring a mate was essential for survival (since until recently in some areas of the world, there were no occupations for women - except prostitution and servitude). A women's standard of living was determined by her mate's income earning capacity and status in his culture. High status, wealthy males tended to choose the most attractive females (as a further status symbol). A woman's very survival could depend on what male she was married to. In those cultures and sub cultures that do not allow/encourage women to be self supporting, this is still true. In some occupations, female beauty and competition on that basis are still encouraged. It has nothing to do with genetics - it has to do with survival (in some form) in a male dominated world
 
Last night I watched a British documentary filmed in a school where the attitudes of seven year olds to gender was examined. Already the children accepted that boys are stronger and that as men they would take certain occupations seen as harder. The behaviour of the teacher was also examined and it was found that he used pet names for the girls like 'Love' and 'Sweatpea' and he called the boys names like 'Mate' and 'Son'. Interestingly, he used the pet names for the girls twice as much.

An experiment was started where the children were to be treated equally and their gender stereotypes were challenged. The children were asked to draw people with the following occupations - mechanic, magician, nurse and hairdresser/makeup artist and unsurprisingly all of them drew the first two as male and the last two as female. Then they were introduced to a female mechanic and magician and a male nurse and hairdresser. Each involved the children in some aspect of their work. The hairdresser/makeup artist worked in film and TV which really impressed the boys as he turned them into characters from science fiction and the girls were fascinated by under the bonnet workings of a car. Their attitudes to their potential as adults were shifted.

Then an experiment about strength was conducted. All of the children accepted that the boys are stronger, even though at that age, size for size, there is no difference. They were challenged by a cut down version of the side show game of how hard can you hit the peg with a hammer. The scale was from 0 to 10. The boys were very confident and predicted 9s and 10s for their performance and the girls gave themselves scores of 5 or 4. The girls outperformed their own expectations. One rang the bell indicating a 10 and she burst into tears with happiness. Several boys who stepped up with confidence, after three attempts, only scored a 3 and one scored zero because he kept missing the target with the hammer. He didn't weep but he did have a anger melt down and needed quite a bit of pacification time.

The teachers learned a lot about how they had been reinforcing stereotypical attitudes by their reactions to the children. The children, especially the girls, learned that ideas such as 'boys are stronger and smarter' are not necessarily true but this realisation caused a lot of unhappiness and the teachers wondered what had been achieved by it.

The upbringing of sons and daughters within families is also very culturally gendered. It is hardly surprising that women are more conscious of their appearance and also more insecure about it while men look in the mirror only when they want to shave. (Generalising, of course). As a teen, we girls were constantly looking at ourselves and each other to make sure our stocking seams were straight, our petticoats were not showing below the hem of our skirts and the straps of our underwear were safely tucked away out of sight. Lipstick was de rigueur and had to be refreshed frequently but it must never be seen on the teeth.

Could some of the men please tell me what aspects of their teenage appearance were emphasised as being ultra important and always front of mind or were your minds, as Traveller has said so explicitly, always on the *******ia?
 
I agree that boys are judged less on their appearance than girls. No question about it. To argue differently would be an exercise in futility. Boys, however, have a different load to carry, but one no less burdensome. He must, above all else, be competent, and stoic. God help the boy who breaks done and cries in public, even once. He will, forevermore, be constantly humiliated, made fun of and called a sissy or worse, a girl. For a boy, being called a girl is the ultimate put down.

As boys, our heroes, are competent and never yielding. In high-school, sports reign as the end all, be all, of the masculine ideal. To take one of many examples, football (no not soccer), is a test of his ability to be: rugged, tough and skilled. He must not just beat his opponent, he must dominate him. Not just as a team vs. team but more importantly as individual vs. individual. He is required to out-man his opponent. In other words, he must be stronger, faster and tougher. Tougher is very, very important. He must ignore pain and blood and come back stronger than ever.

The boy who can cut the mustard as a quarterback or receiver or running back, is a boy who will receive adulation, And even more importantly, will be admired by the girls, which, naturally, will be rewarded by dates with the girls.

Warrigal asked about teenage boys. The above is but one example of many.

This is by no means a recent phenomenon. In ancient Greece the boys would enter the playing field, naked as the day they were born and compete boy against boy. In contests of boxing and wrestling, pain be damned, blood be damned. He must dominate his opponent. In todays phrase, he must --- "man-up".

Truly, his burden, is much, much more difficult than merely spending time on make-up and hair care. To be a champion, or even merely competent, requires years and years of unrelenting toil, sweat, pain and blood.

So, ladies, don't think, for one moment, that females are the only ones who must live up to societies expectations.
 
Interesting. My fiancé, SifuPhil, is a martial arts master, you can’t get much more stereotypically macho than that. Yet, he is also a scholar, and very much in tune with his emotions. He was once a celibate Taoist monk, which requires focus and discipline, but he is very comfortable with women.
 
This might only apply to young people but I read recently that around 80% of women like thick platform shoes but only 10-20% of men. So who are the women wearing them for?
 
IKE, it is not important whether you or I, both old men, would select the blonde with the ultra low cut jeans. The entire point is that she is dressing to attract attention. And that is a major point of this thread. Tens of millions upon millions of women, especially young women, dress provocatively in order to get attention. There can be no denying that. Very few women would wear those jeans BUT millions of other women, young and older, DO expose a great amount of cleavage. No denying that either.
 
Traveler said:
As boys, our heroes, are competent and never yielding. In high-school, sports reign as the end all, be all, of the masculine ideal. To take one of many examples, football (no not soccer), is a test of his ability to be: rugged, tough and skilled. He must not just beat his opponent, he must dominate him. Not just as a team vs. team but more importantly as individual vs. individual. He is required to out-man his opponent. In other words, he must be stronger, faster and tougher. Tougher is very, very important. He must ignore pain and blood and come back stronger than ever.

The boy who can cut the mustard as a quarterback or receiver or running back, is a boy who will receive adulation, And even more importantly, will be admired by the girls, which, naturally, will be rewarded by dates with the girls.
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Some girls, Traveler. Don't be too ready to absorb the values of teen movies about college football. While the boys may think these qualities are admirable there are plenty of girls who find them a turn off. Jocks are not universally admired by females. For one thing they are far too self absorbed and too focused on their sport, training, physical strength to be interesting people to talk to. I would point to the counter idea espoused in the movie Revenge of the Nerds. Also something of a male fantasy but closer to the mark IMO.

As for domination - for me personally this is a red light. I remember being absolutely repulsed by a man who worked with my husband. He had a great dane and I reckon the only reason was that he wanted to dominate it. It was ugly to watch and rather than being impressed by his masterful masculinity, I felt very sorry for his wife. Especially after he dared to put his hand on my knee under the dinner table. I'm sure he imagined himself to be an alpha male but to me he was a total loser. The look I gave him was intended to convey that evaluation of his value as a human being.
 
Warrigal, I was speaking from personal experience NOT some silly movie. But you are right about one thing. Some girls are turned off by athletes. However, I should point out that as long as there are ANY pretty girls who admire young alfa males, the young males will continue to engage in what comes naturally. This is exactly the same thing as young girls being attracted to young guys who have cars and can take those girls to new and exciting places. Many young girls, perhaps even most young girls, will always be attracted the bold and confident male. Now that I think about it, many women are the same way. You'll recall the old saying, "Faint heart never won fair maiden".

P.S. The jerk who was your husbands friend may have thought of himself as an alfa male but in the end he was just an *#!ing idiot.
 
Traveler, maybe you have just been unfortunate in associating with a lot of very shallow people. The cards would be stacked against you, in expecting to find a good relationship, if you are attracted to people like that.
 
NancyNGA said:
Traveler, maybe you have just been unfortunate in associating with a lot of very shallow people. The cards would be stacked against you, in expecting to find a good relationship, if you are attracted to people like that.
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The thread has become rather more wide ranging than I had intended. Which post, which people do you refer ?
 
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Thankfully, one of the main advantages of being a senior...
I am able to enjoy my independence... and just being me...
and couldn't care less about attracting the opposite sex.
 
KingsX said:
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Thankfully, one of the main advantages of being a senior...
I am able to enjoy my independence... and just being me...
and couldn't care less about attracting the opposite sex.
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I feel the same way. I just enjoy observing people and asking myself why they do the things they do.
 
I recall an experiment done by the Stanford University Department of psychology. The experiment was designed to see how women would rate men based exclusively on his potential as a possible mate. (ie would she date him ?) The experiment worked like this: color photographs were taken of 10 men, of average to slightly above average looks. All men were well groomed and neatly dressed but not in suits and tie. At the bottom of the photos were a made-up name and his occupation.

There were two piles of identical photos. The only difference was that in pile # 1, the men had occupations listed as: artist or musician, restaurant manager, new car sales man, photographer etc etc. The 2nd pile had the exact same photos but this time the occupations were changed to: dentist, computer designer, recent law school graduate, son of major dept store owner, certified public accountant etc etc.

Four young female graduate students were chosen to be the "survey takers". On the test days, two women went down one side of a street in downtown with photos of pile #1. At the exact same time, the other two young women went down the other side of the street with pile #2.
The young grad students walked down the sidewalks and stopped other youngish women and asked then to rate the men in the photos as potential mates.

The results of the test demonstrated that, overwhelmingly, the women who saw only pile #2 rated the men as much higher than the women who saw only pile #1. Keep in mind, that it was on the same day, on the same downtown street, and presumably the same occupational/educational levels of the women.

Why did the women rate the men from stack number 2 higher ? Because the young women saw that the men in pile # 2 had a greater lifetime earning potential.
 
Traveler said:
Warrigal, I was speaking from personal experience NOT some silly movie. But you are right about one thing. Some girls are turned off by athletes. However, I should point out that as long as there are ANY pretty girls who admire young alfa males, the young males will continue to engage in what comes naturally. This is exactly the same thing as young girls being attracted to young guys who have cars and can take those girls to new and exciting places. Many young girls, perhaps even most young girls, will always be attracted the bold and confident male. Now that I think about it, many women are the same way. You'll recall the old saying, "Faint heart never won fair maiden".

P.S. The jerk who was your husbands friend may have thought of himself as an alfa male but in the end he was just an *#!ing idiot.
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It's 2018. I'm pretty sure the girls have their own cars. There are a lot of facts in the things you say Traveler but they are mixed in with the point of view from someone who has only traveled in certain circles and is very out of touch with the real world. You have pointed that out yourself.
You should totally go to a church social. You might learn a lot. Maybe you should travel to some rural towns and places and be exposed to"real folk".
 
hearlady said:
It's 2018. I'm pretty sure the girls have their own cars. There are a lot of facts in the things you say Traveler but they are mixed in with the point of view from someone who has only traveled in certain circles and is very out of touch with the real world. You have pointed that out yourself.
You should totally go to a church social. You might learn a lot. Maybe you should travel to some rural towns and places and be exposed to"real folk".
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Only traveled in certain circles ? And what "certain circles" do you imagine that I have traveled in ?
 

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