There’s a long standing, and in my opinion in very bad taste, joke about men. The punch line goes “Of course he’s wrong. He’s male.”
What is he wrong about? Really it doesn’t matter.
If it were about any other topic, race, religion, or even politics, a declaration like that would be considered inappropriate. In many cases it would be considered hate speach.
In a few year, or decades, or for the pesimist a few centuries, we may get to the point where an individual who is ignorant of the values and expectations of groups or other even individuals they are dealing with can be sat down with and have the problems with what they have said, or done explained in civil terms.
I do say ‘we may.’ It certainly isn’t today.
No, in today’s world it’s far more entertaining to blow up, attack the person for perceived injustices that they didn’t commit.
I freely admit that there are a large variety of different traits that I find attractive in different women. And some traits that I find attractive in some women I don’t find all that attractive in other women. I would be very surprised if a significant percentage of people reading didn’t think I was talking about physical characteristics. Face, hair, breasts, waist, hips, legs, feet, whatever. I know of people who are fascinated with hands, characteristics of eyes, and so on. That’s fair enough in that a large percentage of men are going to be first interested in another person for their physical characteristics. And there are entirely too many men and boys for whom that is the only thing of interest.
When it comes down to it though, my world is not populated by people who would be considered models. Oh there are a few, but the vast majority of the men and women that I interact with, are not likely to be walking the cat walk any time soon, unless it’s to adjust stage lighting. The fantasy of taking a hot model to bed, or wherever we take each other, is pretty much likely to stay just that. A fantasy.
I was born in the mid 60s, grew up in the 70s and early 80s. My second company commander when I was stationed in Germany in the army was a woman, and I saw entirely too much of how men and women in the company often didn’t give the respect to her that they would have given to the previous company commander, though that changed as their experience with her as a commander grew. She was very good, and one thing she didn’t accept was women in her command trying to use their gender to provide excuses.
As I was growing up, my mother helped to establish a chapter of the League fo Women Voters in Houston county, MN. She marched in support of the equal rights ammendment, and left a job she had been working at for several years because her boss hired a male fresh out of school with no experience in the field at a pay rate higher than she had been earning.
Perhaps the wisest negative view on the Feminist movement that I’ve encountered personally was expressed by a professor I had who’s experince included working for McDonald Douglas on the F-101 fighter as a design engineer. Her opinion was that the thing that the feminist movement got wrong was eliminating the stigma that women were brandes with for being free sexually. It was her opinion that instead of eliminating the stigma, the effort should have been to place an equal stigma upon men who did wrong, either by raping women or abandoning women whom they had been having sexual relations with, either because she became pregnant or because she was suddenly ‘inconvienent’ for some reason.
While I don’t entirely agree with her, I do see her point, and would note that my experience of the direction that the military was moving, regulation wise, appears to be consistent with that view. Also the way that laws and cases related to rape and stalking have gone has begun to reflect the public view that there really is no such thing as ‘asking for it’ when it comes to these actions.
A part of me is somewhat stuck in the 70’s and early 80’s. It is now almost the end of the first decade of the 21st century. I know enough at this point to believe that if effective imortality is only 20 years away as has been predicted by Ray Kurzwell and a few others, that we are very likely to be in significant trouble in the next hundred years. There are entirely too many people who will be alive then, for whom the lessons of the past 2 decades have not been learned.
I don’t know if I will be one of them. A part of me seriously dreads the possibility. I think that has to do with the fact that I’ve lived emotionally alone for the past 20 years, and part of me dreads the possibility of living this way for centuries. That’s not all of the reason by any means, just the easiest to explain.
A different part of me looks at the possibility and wants to be there to see humans as a collection go through the changes, and improvements that are possible. I would like to be a part of that. Though I will admit that I suspect that a lot of what I ‘know’ is likely to be stomped on along the way. (Hope would suggest that the better parts of that are re-learned.)
I as an indivicual can be, and in many cases are, wrong. I make mistakes in how I communicate with people, and at times will offend them. Sometimes it’s intentional, but entirely too often it’s a product of my lack of experience in a situation and being too eager to help. Most of the time if you find something I’ve said to be offensive, and you are not someone I would intentionally joke with that way (usually that’s limited to family) I’ve probably meant something else, and a quick note of ‘I find that statement or joke offensive, did you really mean…’ will be responded to with respect and consideration.
Yes I’m male. I also happen to be White, Anglo-Norse, Protistant (at some level, I grew up in a christian, non-Catholic environment) and have a whole bunch of other bagage, geneticly and environmentally. Perfect I ain’t, but the imperfections are part of Me, not who I grew up around, work out with, where I went to various schools or how they were funded, what color my eyes or hair are. I’m pretty sure that my mistakes are not specifically a reflection on my gender either. They all have input into what my makeup is, and undoubtedly have something to do with my past and future, and how my mind works. But singeling out my gender is about as silly as suggesting that ‘women are bad drivers’ or similarly inane platitudes.
We all have to make judgements on how we are going to interact with the people around us. It is a defense mechanism which protects us from cheap con-artists and the like. It’s based on our interactions with others over time. Likewise our expectations are set based on how we understand others have been affected by various people. As a result, initial expectations end up being set. Some people choose to live within those initial expectations. They measure the responses and the interactions they have with others agains those expectations but do not change their expectations as a result. That is what prejudice really is. Appropriate interaction treats each person as their own person. Their actions are their own. There may be cultural and religious or other influences on thos actions, but with the exception of a very few limited situations, you are unlikely to know what those influences are going to be ahead of time.
So yes I am guilty of being male. That doesn’t mean that I get to carry all your bagage about men on my back. I have enough damn bagage of my own that I am fighting with.
