Is There Anything Good About Men?

[plural]

You’re probably thinking that a talk called "Is there anything good about men" will be a short talk! Recent writings have not had much good to say about men. Titles like "Men Are Not Cost Effective" speak for themselves. Maureen Dowd’s book was called "Are Men Necessary?" and although she never gave an explicit answer, anyone reading the book knows her answer was no. Brizendine’s book "The Female Brain" introduces itself by saying, "Men, get ready to experience brain envy." Imagine a book advertising itself by saying that women will soon be envying the superior male brain!

Nor are these isolated examples. Eagly’s research has compiled mountains of data on the stereotypes people have about men and women, which the researchers summarized as "The WAW effect." WAW stands for "Women Are Wonderful." Both men and women hold much more favorable views of women than of men. Almost everybody likes women better than men. I certainly do.

Comments

[radiantsun.livejournal.com]

Heh. I posted that weeks ago! ;)

[plural.livejournal.com]

I musta missed it, pity too cause I really enjoyed it

[radiantsun.livejournal.com]

Me too! I read the "Pandagon" post that Ernunnus (I always mispell his lj) linked to an lj post commenting on-- that woman doesn't understand statistics. Anyway.

[pr1ss.livejournal.com]

We do like their ability to get things down from high shelves.

[geminiwench.livejournal.com]

I read this a couple weeks ago, too.

At the time I was getting LOTS of essays, speeches, articles, etc thrown at me about gender it was crazy.

This guy brought up a lot of good/ignored points,.. but I do NOT agree with many of his conclusions. I think the way he dismissively talks the "oppression of women" like it is some imaginary thing,.. and totally ignores the ownership of women by men through written history in the majority of cultures. Chattel owned for their ability to bear good offspring and purchased for political reasons may be taught dog and pony tricks like playing the piano, dancing or singing... but that doesn't mean that anyone was willing to preserve the art created by women, or pay for original art created by women (painting, writing, music) except in RARE cases, until very recent history.

Only prostitutes, the VERY wealthy, and those lucky enough to be married to a man who thought of women/wives/daughters as more than display pieces and a vessel to make children, and were willing to let their wives or daughters get educations. But then, people were only willing to PAY women for certain things,.. like sex, song/dance entertainment (which was usually a side trade of the prostitute) and chores (wet nursing, childcare laundry, sewing, weavers),... if noone would educate us or pay us,.. how much impact can we have on social culture, politics, science, art or war?

Its not that we don't have the drive to create, its that it wasn't until 30 years ago that anyone was willing to pay for or even preserve things we created on a regular basis. Women were very influential in folk and psychdelic rock,.. because finally someone was willing to pay us for what WE made, let us keep it for our own. Finally things that we made weren't owned by whomever owned us.

Not to mention violence used against women by men as a blanket action across history to keep us 'in line', where our weaker stature wasn't even enough of an advantage, but most cultures banning women from even carrying weapons or killing women who protected themselves at all.

Of course there are brain, social and genetic differences between the drives of each gender... that is how our species has been so successful... but being dismissive of the lack of education and independance women have historically endured and calling it, "women don't have the drive to create new things" is ludicrous, I think.

Although I did agree with several of his points.... otherwise. Heh.

[a-motley-fool.livejournal.com]

I've given this some thought. And yes I'm sorry for my ancient sisters. But throughout the world no one has any rights except for those we take and can defend. Women accepted this domination, personally I'd call nighttime and access to anything sharp and stabby "deliverance."

Also woman rise the children, they also get to chose what child makes it to adulthood -- if they wanted more rights and better treatment they should have chosen more wisely.

[budhaboy.livejournal.com]

Its not that we don't have the drive to create, its that it wasn't until 30 years ago that anyone was willing to pay for or even preserve things we created on a regular basis.

That's such a crock of shit. I have a book writting in early 30s titled, "the book of the short story" (I can get you the author, but I'm sure it's out of print) that was used as an college english text. It consists of short stories by various authors, with critisims of their stories as well as short bios. Nearly HALF the authors are women, and many of the stories are actually ABOUT women (included in this anthology is 'the yellow wallpaper', a story I was told in FemStudies classes had never been printed).

I said all of that to say this:

In EVERY woman's bio it was stated in no uncertain terms they were either socialists or communists. Given the downside to publishing the works of known commies, do you really think the problem was that they were women, or that they were comunists?

Also, if women were nothing but chattel had no power until the FUCKING HIPPIES enlightened us, how is it we got prohibition, or women's sufferage?

[geminiwench.livejournal.com]

This wasn't a guilt trip, it was just how things worked for millenia.
Women were physically smaller. Women were physically weaker. We take on a man, even with a weapon, and we still don't have the greatest of odds, from the time when men were big game hunters in ancient history, to the time of men being warriors from then on. But, thats probably also why women, in most cultures, were also barred from carrying weapons or using weapons against a man. We could use a knife in the kitchen or dayroom for sewing, but found outside the household or accused of using a spear, knife, sword against a man (even in the case of self protection) was punishable by death in except in a few rare cultures. With women often sequestered to their homes, there was little opportunity for group movement. It kept them out of other mens beds, and it kept them unable to organize. Greek culture through medieval Europe, and what I've read about Ancient Chinese, and Indian cultures, women were only allowed out with accompaniment by slaves... for their own protection, and for their husband's sweet personal ejaculate vessel.

Women did accept this domination,... the husband usually offered some form of protection against rape and murder (unless the husband was who she needed to be afraid of... which was a problem) and pregnant young girls and women did not have to work in the laundry mills or brothel to feed and clothe themselves... because when the only way to make a living is a sequestered wife, a farm wife, a prostitute, or a laundress, well... the choice is obvious... even if the choice isn't particularly yours (I mean, most 10 yr olds sold by their father, who has the power to kill her if she does not go along with his deal... is probably going to stay a wife for at least awhile before she knows of any other option.. and by then she has infants to raise). Being controlled offered food, shelter and clothing, because we had very few other ways to get any of those.

What about the race of male slaves and eunuchs? Was it their fault for not stabbing enough people that they were castrated? Was it because they were happy to accept a life of servitude? Or was it because they had no other choice? Death or castration. Death or sexual slavery. What choice are most say... 7 yr old boys going to make? Survive or die? Yes, they accepted their domination in that role, but it certainly wasn't what they wanted or needed, and they certainly weren't given much credit as a human being. Thoughts?

At least in Greek, Roman and Norse cultures, women only raised the youngest children... girls sold/married between the ages of 8 and 12, boys taken away to be trained usually when they were between 8 and 10. Sure, she can kill her own kids if she is sly,... but, why? Does this accomplish anything? She can try to instill values and respect, but its mostly up to the new husband or the army to really control what kind of person the child becomes as an adult. We were there to breed and clean. We did our job to spare our lives.

The Greeks had socialized medicine, and the Spartan women were allowed many freedoms, which men were willing to give and the women were more than willing to use to their advantage when it came to making choices about their lives, legal ownership, and divorce... they had an extra career path as a warrior. The practice did not spread. Maybe because women decided they would rather have their entire fate decided by their father and/or husband... or because men revoked the system for their own political/domicile reasons.

Again,... when the choice for most women through history was between life and death, they chose to live and live under the conditions imposed by those who granted them life. Even if all the men in a particular city were stupid enough to kill every woman in the city, for ANY reason, there were cities nearby to rape, pillage and create a new generation with their women. We were tradable, stealable, controllable commodities, and we didn't have much of a say either way,... on the big scale.

[geminiwench.livejournal.com]

Its just... the way it was. It worked. Women, each as individuals, got to live, men got to breed the next generation for the city to grow. Life for humanity continued. But that is not to say that the reason women did not have as large as an impact on history and the arts because they didn't want to... but because the vast majority of them didn't even have a chance to,.. if they wanted to live.

But, there were female writers, from Sappho in 800BC to Lady Murasaki in 900AD to Ayn Rand in the 1940s.. but rare. Stories of females renoun for their textile art, musical abilities, etc etc.. but stories and few names. At the turn of the century we start getting female engineers, scientists, inventors, mathmaticians, published fiction authors, (women's diaries have been popular for some time, though). Do you think the recent surge in women in these fields not at ALL hitched to budding female independance?

And who gave us that independance? We asked our husbands, and our husbands granted it. This was also about the time when it started to be a punishable criminal offense to kill your wife. Men made the rule. Men followed the rule, and men were finally forced to either grant the favor or kill us in a rage and maybe go to jail. They, chose the path of least resistance,.. just like we had for millenia.

[geminiwench.livejournal.com]

Ayn Rand published in the 30s and 40s.
Louisa May Alcott published in the 1860s.
Laura Ingalls Wilder published in the 1880s, I believe.

Then there were all the female authors who had to have male pseudonyms to get published because noone would even read the work of a female during the 1800s.. actually Louisa May Alcott is one of them... George Eliot and George Sand being the most famous, but the Bronte sisters were among them.

Find me something before the buds of the industrial revolution where women were financially compensated for work other than prostitution, bearing sons, hard labor and chores. Or... that women weren't allowed an education ANY universities until the 1850s.... I mean, how can we have much of an impact on science and math, when we weren't allowed to learn about it until the turn of the century? How were other women to know that they had more freedom than they were taking, when they didn't know the books they were reading were written by other women? Modern freedom is VERY modern for women.

Women's sufferage, and birth control were both because we were FINALLY allowed to organize, and men were FINALLY not allowed to kill us for having our own say... in cities at least.

And prohibition was both men and women.. and it was ALL about religion. Some women were made famous by their work in the movement, but it was men who started the idea and completed the idea in the name of religious values. At least, thats what Wikipedia says. And from what it looks like, women only played a role in American prohibition. Everywhere else, it was spearheaded by men.

We didn't get paid to create under our own name, and attach our face as a female to our product, until.. well, about the 1920s.. thanks to sufferage... BUT, we didn't have much success in doing so until the 1960s.

Three thousand years of written history, and the only noticable change has been in the last 200 years.

[geminiwench.livejournal.com]

We ARE catching up, though. And catching up fast, and damned if Im not excited. Rape is FULLY prosecuteable now (in the USA, since about the 1970s) and no longer carries a shame stigma in the public (since the 1990s)... and with this new feeling of safety, and new ability to fight for what we want without getting killed or raped, well... we've started moving fast, haven't we?

[budhaboy.livejournal.com]

Find me something before the buds of the industrial revolution where women were financially compensated for work other than prostitution, bearing sons, hard labor and chores.

Umm... it was you who said 30 years, but if you insist:

Judith_Sargent_Murray
Phillis Wheatley (Also an African American... in deference to your point she was the first woman published in the US, but obviously not in the world)
Mary Wollstonecraft

Or... that women weren't allowed an education ANY universities until the 1850s....

Wrong again:

timeline of women's colleges in the united states

As for prohibition:

According to:

this the 19th century movement that ultimately led to prohibition in this country was called the Woman's Christian Temperance Union.

We didn't get paid to create under our own name, and attach our face as a female to our product, until.. well, about the 1920s

Wrong again, [cough]mary shelley[cough] Harriet Beecher Stowe [cough]...

Now you as most third wave feminists I've known will shrug off these counter examples as flukes, flighty non-sense of a man not willing to see reason... To this I reply, if the empiracle evidence doesn't fit the model, the model's likely wrong.

Don't get me wrong: Women often got the shaft, especially women prior to the creation of anything approaching a middle class in during the industrial revolution. But it wasn't entirely about keeping women down, economics played a HUGE roll in it, as did cultural stigmas based in religious doctrine...

But to say without qualification that women were chattel until ONE point in time is absurd, and (as I've hopefully shown) wrong. Women did have productive lives, it was possible for them to be heard prior to THEFUCKINGHIPPIESENLIGHTENMENT... the whole world didn't start in 1965... just color television, and by extension the history according to people who were too lazy to read or do research.

[geminiwench.livejournal.com]

Haven't you ever heard that the exceptions can prove the rule? Lets say that... 1-3% of non-self-published authors through the turn of the 20th century were women... with some quick searching I could only find this list of female authors through history (although some honorary women included;) which are currently in print...

What do you reason to be the reason for the gap in proliferation between published men and women until recent history?

The link you gave me for women's colleges in America was great and full of information stretching farther back than I had thought. It also contained this:
The formal education of girls and women began in the middle of the nineteenth century and was intimately tied to the conception that society had of the appropriate role for women to assume in life. Republican education prepared girls for their future role as wives and mothers and taught religion, singing, dancing and literature. Academic education prepared girls for their role as community leaders and social benefactors and had some elements of the education offered boys. Seminaries educated women for the only socially acceptable occupation: teaching. Only unmarried women could be teachers. Many early women's colleges began as female seminaries and were responsible for producing an important corps of educators. [1]

And

women's colleges were founded during the mid- and late-19th century in response to a need for advanced education for women at a time when they were not admitted to most institutions of higher education."[2]

Mmm seminary schools that only taught women how to be good Christian wives or good Christian teachers! Sounds like real freedom and a real education to me. There were early-adopters of coeducation, coordinate colleges and truly advanced education for women, which were started, o yeah,.. around the 1850s. So, I stand corrected, women were admitted to a form of college before then... an actual advanced education was not available to women in the US starting.. it looks like 1833. Sorry I was so terrible inaccurate.

I never claimed that it was planned by men to oppress women... but it was religious and cultural doctrine which was passed from generation to generation that excluded women, controlled women, and bought/sold women as property. There weren't secret meeting rooms of men saying, "Ok, we're having our annual vote. 'Should we still be able to sell our young daughters to slave traders, potential husbands or... whoever wants to pay for them?' Ok, ok, ok, looks like a considerable majority, again. Lets adjourn." No.

But, women's chance to lead productive lives were considerably lower than a man's... for no other reason than fear, religious dogma, hatred/intolerance/lack of consideration, and historical precedence.

I was saying that women only had a REAL shot at success (as more than a fluke, as more than a .00001 chance) in the 1960s. There were successful women before then,.. but they were definitely the exception to the rule. Where before it was abnormal to see a successful woman, now its abnormal to see only successful men. Changes in law, women organizing themselves and farther spread education in both men AND women in the most recent generations is what provoked the surge of change.

R: prohibition, although the Womens Christian Temperance Union was one of the spearheads, the other was the Prohibition Party which was both men and women, although consistantly headed by men. It was about religion, not gender... along with abolition it was really one of the first times women became so politically active and probably gave women the idea that they should not only have the right to vote, but that they actually had the right to FIGHT for the vote.

[a-motley-fool.livejournal.com]

Thoughts

Only that this is too stupid to read. Perhaps you need to feel like a victim to have some validation in your life. I don't know.

I don't understand people like you whining about how other people have suffered in the past. Why? You're not suffering --do you wish you were, is that it? What have you had to endure? Did someone force you into a marriage, guilt you into sex?

If so they're your own fucking problems. You live in a free society you have every right to say no and to seek redress.

Sure woman had a raw deal 1000 years ago. So did men. So did anyone. Christ.

[budhaboy.livejournal.com]

Where before it was abnormal to see a successful woman, now its abnormal to see only successful men.

Heh.

You should take my challenge... do you honestly think that media today is 'fair' to men?

I've been watching the show 'weeds' on DVD recently and while I love the show, it's amazing to me how such a show would be viewed if even ONE of the women were as idiotic as most of the men on that show... and the sex scenes where with the brother in law? NEVER happen.

[budhaboy.livejournal.com]

What do you reason to be the reason for the gap in proliferation between published men and women until recent history?

I alluded to it in my original post: from the depression to the 60's there was a stigma of 'communist' to women authors, and the red scare kept women from developing a voice of thier own for most of this century. As for writers of the 19th century... It's important to note that prior to the industrial revolution two things were happening: 1) most people didn't read, because books were insanely expensive
2) most people were illiterate. Links I found last night to bolster this argument (I was puting the boys to bed, and I didn't include them, and I'm at work now so I don't want to spend the time finding them) suggest that in the 18th century LITERACY rates were about 40% and 50% for women and men respectively. In the nineteenth century the expansion of seminaries, and other religious based schools tasked with rising literacy and education in general rost that number to about 80% 90% by the end of the century. Now, given the industrial revolution was in full swing at this point, it was actually reasonable create a market for books (by teaching both men and women to read) as they'd actually have something to read other than the bible.

I refuse to believe, and you've not offered a shred of evidence to suggest that the publishers arguably mostly men had any reason to go against their economic best interest by not printing books by women authors. It is far more likely (IMHO) that

1) there was little demand for books as most people could either not literate or not able to afford them. This lead to a preponderance of 'academic' texts as they'd be 'worthy' of someone ponying up the dough to buy them. Now why are there few women 'academic' texts? I'm guessing it's because women, like all people really, really like having sex, and given the lack of birth control they were likely to get pregnant. Now while women who were able to afford books likely had servants to care for the children, motherhood still smokes women, and given they'd likely have 3-6 kids and have an insanely high risk of dying at each instance, who'd have the time to a) get an education as it was very expensive, b) stay focused long enough to have something to say.

2) 1) above lead to not having any sort of 'literary' tradition to speak of on any sort of mass appeal, women or otherwise, until well towards the end of the 19th century, when you see a burgeoning of both male and female. It hit a high point in the early 20th century (see my orginal post for that anthology I was refering to... with the exception of 'the yellow wallpaper' none of the authors you lised are in the book), and tragically according to my (albeit single) source they were almost uniformly socialists or communists. It's my suspicion that woman writers were far more likely to be communists than male, and hence far more likely to get blackballed then men.

Mmm seminary schools that only taught women how to be good Christian wives or good Christian teachers!

You are rewriting history with a decidedly modern bend... Most men attended these same colleges. In fact until Lincoln created the land-grant act that founded state institutions, ALL colleges had religious affiliations. There was a time, when 'Christian' was synonymous with 'Liberal' as the teaching of Christ were usually associated with forgiveness, not venom as it is today.

Also, think of the times pre darwin, when EVERYONE believed that the world was 5000 years old, Adam and Eve were the first two people, etc... the age of science hadn't yet killed off God...

But, women's chance to lead productive lives were considerably lower than a man's... for no other reason than fear, religious dogma, hatred/intolerance/lack of consideration, and historical precedence.

Nonsense. It was fear of death in childbirth, and women seeing the need of some support during pregnancy being pragmatic about their chances of survival without someone who had a direct stake (i.e. the father of their children) in their survival.

[budhaboy.livejournal.com]

Sorry about the out of order double posts... I ran over the character limit for comments and screwed up breaking it up.

[geminiwench.livejournal.com]

Sex scenes WITH the brother in law? Lead lady never slept with brother in law. (I have the worst time with character names)

The blonde neighbor is QUITE idiotic. She's savvy, but not terribly smart. She spends her time making bad decisions for herself, bad decisions for the neighborhood and bad decisions for any individual she can get her hands on.

The only idiotic men are really Kevin Nealon, who is still portrayed as smart and capable, although occasionally ineffectual... and the brother in law, who is just a doofus. Brother in law's former girlfriend (the hippie who let the youngest son come on her roadtrip last season) was also a completely insane doofus, by the way.

[geminiwench.livejournal.com]

You didn't explain the gap between the proliferation of male and female authors.

Copied from wiki article "literacy" sub cat "history of literacy": England in 1841, 33% of men and 44% of women signed marriage certificates with their mark as they were unable to write. of course that is England but its what I found first.

So, more than half were able to read/write... at least, a little. The 11% drop in literacy rates for women does not translate into authoring only 1-3% of published works of the time. Women were mostly socialists authors? That may make some sense for the early 20th century era (Socialism didnt really get a bad name until the 30s) but I think I mentioned SPECIFICALLY the gap until the beginning of the 20th century when women started to really take a foodhold in the publishing world and became more than the rare case.

If companies don't think it will sell, they won't invest in it. Companies have shot themselves in the leg MANY times making the wrong decision about particular people or particular products. If publishers didn't think books authored by women would turn a profit, they wouldn't bother with them. Publishers were willing to publish letters and diaries of women, but fiction was another story until the 1870s.. and even then was exceptionally rare... until they noticed the profit and interest and started publishing more female authors... which snowballed for decades as they realized people didn't care WHO wrote the book as long as it was good.

No, books were not "average" for the lower class families to own. There were only the two classes until the industrial revolution. You either had money or you didn't. People who could eat while NOT working a hard labor job, were oftentimes academics, though. Libraries were a sign of status and education was becoming a notable pursuit at a time when science and world travel were changing the way people thought about life and their world.

You linked me to the history of colleges in America... I read it. Did you? First truly academic co-ed college was 1833. Women and men MOSTLY went to other colleges,.. which is why many of the top colleges started coordinating women's colleges. It was rare for men and women to attend the same college. And the training given to women in most seminary colleges was not the same offered at academic colleges/universities.... and most women went to seminary colleges, which, like a quoted, was meant to train women for two things: to be Christian wives and Christian teachers. SOME classes taught to men were also taught to women in these universities, but the crossover was not wide.

this book seems to hold alot of the information we're looking for. Hehe.

It wasn't until the mid 19th century that married women owned their own copyrights/patents, own their wage, or inherit directly from their father/husband... and it seems like THATS when women started getting educations, going to advanced/academic universities and organizing themselves. It looks like a perfect catalyst for women to LEARN... they had money of their own for the first time and didn't have to ASK to go to school, they could just go if the funds were available. That IS when everything blossomed, women started writing, most colleges for women popped up and the ball got rolling.

Christian was always Christian, mid line just like today. Its the affilation with sects that leans liberal/conservative. Deists were liberals, transcendentalists were liberals... the academic colleges like Harvard were affiliated with such things, but the smaller seminary schools you're referring to were most likely Roman Catholic or Methodist who were the conservatives of their day.

[geminiwench.livejournal.com]

Pish posh on your last statement. Women were owned THROUGHOUT their lives until the early 1800s. First their fathers or brothers, who sold them to a husband. Where does fear of childbirth and pregnancy calculate into an 8 yr old girl being OWNED and accepting it? Or a 60 yr old woman being OWNED and accepting it? For the rich, it was protection from poverty, (Disownership was possible, but when you cant own property, being on your own means death, sickness and/or prostitution) for the poor it was... "this is what life is". And if they DIDN'T accept it and their owner wanted to enforce it... then, beatings, rape, sold into white slavery, or their death happened. Rich AND poor.

Also, just so I don't sound like a feminazi... heh,... many women DID want families, did want husbands and were perfectly ok with having no property rights, no rights to their children and no right to vote, no right to an education, and no right to choose their own husband. It was the way things were, it was accepted and many were fine with the way things were. Not ALL women wanted to write or go to school,... lucky women with forward thinking owners husbands/fathers were given many benefits outside the accepted system, too.