Femininty is a state of continual artiface. Not only must one's clothing and coiffere be subject to obsessive self-scrutiny, but every mannerism, belief and action must be examined in the light of whatever the current ideal of a woman is. Before, a woman was coy and demure – thus every woman tried desperately to be coy and demure. The horror was in being thought easy. The current ideal is the liberated (i.e sexually) woman who is bold and has no hang-ups. The horror is in being thought a prude. One must always be up with the fashion of being.
Watch your diet, flatten your tummy, are you going out wearing that? Why don't you show more leg/less leg/more cleavage/less cleavage and for god's sake, why aren't you smiling? To conform to the ideal, one resorts to various tricks: fake smiles, fake faces, fake breasts, fake eyelashes and fake orgasms should the subterfuge pay off. To put it simply, a woman is a fake.
Why does femininity require such effort? Women are often criticised as shallow and overly fashion oriented, generally by the men who demand this from them economically or as a payment for their tepid affections. Ignored is the cardinal fact that continual artiface takes a continual expenditure of energy – femininity is difficult to maintain.
Why should femininity be difficult to maintain? Adornment is common to every known culture, but a modern woman's adornments consume her.

The answer is simple – femininity is a myth. Nothing analogous occurs in nature. Rather than fainting, crying or making appeals to virtue, a lioness welcomes the advances of the lion who has just killed her mate. A female crocodile tears apart a capybara without compunction or delicacy, and has this really cute strategy of carrying her little babies around in her mouth. The feminine qualities – passivity, supplience, helplessness and general disgustingness – do not occur in nature and are quickly wiped out when they do. The masculine does – but we'll get to this.
In other words, femininity is unnatural. The woman is a social construction – and as such a rather strange creature. Cracks often appear in her mask – occasionally, as in the case of Medea, it shatters completely and her “evil” horrifies. The common criticism is that women are disingenuous. This barely touches the surface: women are schitzophrenic.

Women are angels – but hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Women are sexually pure – but women are all whores (the sexual insatiability of women was a common theme of comedy in the middle ages). Women are selfless and devoted – but women are stunningly mercenary in their sexual negotiations with men. Women are obedient – but women are inherently insubordinate, our present sufferings being the fault of one rebellious woman. Or as Milton had it, rebellious because we are too stupid to be obedient.

The causes of schitzophrenia are not simply in the female psyche but rather in the social expectation of a woman. The definition of a woman is always precarious and subject to flippant social trends, as well as sexual double standards. A woman is a sexual being primarily – a virgin is not quite a woman, while a slut is so fully a woman (i.e fucked) that she ceases to be even a person, bearing all the stigma of her despised class. One is always – only a woman. Should one try to be more than a woman one is – not even a woman. It would seem, then, that the primary characteristic of being a woman is being unable to win. To be expected – a woman is above all defined by her not being a man. Being a negative by definition, her social role is negative by default. One of course notes that there is no such thing as a “man” - his status as a thing-in-itself is based on the slightly less arbitrary criteria of being ruthless, strong and fit. As I've noted, nature encompasses the masculine in its female creatures – nature encompasses the “masculine” in all it's creatures. Being “masculine” is thus an easy thing to achieve (though difficult to attain) – yet woe to the woman who is masculine in any sense outside the cutesy “oh look, she likes baseball” way. The natural course of her personality must be rerouted in order to maintain the illusion of femininity – just as a male's more nurturing, gentle side must be crushed in order to maintain the illusion of masculinity. Schitzophrenia sets in – healthy nihilism and a honest evaluation of gender (analogous to Nietzsche's work in Geneology of Morals) is the only cure. Oh fuck nihilism, just disagree with me 'cause I crave conflict.

Sorry Xev, but I agree with you.

Women must have many faces if they are to get what they desire. If she wants to make it in the world, she must act like a man, and then be called a 'ball breaker', and only then will she be deemed to have succeeded and gain respect in her desired profession. If she wants to find a man to mate with, she must act like the so called 'typical female' and become a feminine beast by acting and being just what the man is looking for so that she can attract his attention. Women appear to have so many disguises that in the end, the true self of the individual woman is lost and rarely shown.

Bells -

Precisely.
Masking isn't limited to women of course, men mask and need to mask on a daily basis. For him it's generally the supression of the 'feminine' (or the exploitation of that side in order to seem caring, loving or concerned) - for her it's trickier. One cannot get things done without acting as a man, but one cannot get things done by acting like a man. An aggressive woman is (as you mentioned) a ballbreaker or marginalized as dominatrix-mommy, every man's fantasy.
Society controls by having a prerogative on definition - above all things.

Makey sensey andy-roid. Your writing style is pretty but I have no idea what you're saying - to my eyes, it could be something ingenious or a recipie for bloody marys.

I should think that the homosexual is in the same damned if you do damned if you don't category. You're screwed if you're gay and yet you can't effectively fake straight-ness. Hence the development of schitzophrenia.

Anyways, the difficulty in making it in a male world isn't my concern - schitzophrenia is. 'False self' has been treated in a bizillion different ways (Dorien Gray anyone?) but I think the explanation is simply that we live in a human society rather than a natural one.

Up until the time I got to 8th grade in a Junior High in NYC, I didn't care how I was or who. Then, I was told by each teacher: "Just be yourself!" So I was myself, up until I turned 18 and my bf said I don't act like a girl nor look like one. Whoopsie.
A woman is, in reality, a little masculine, a little feminine in old-fashioned way, a little feminine in a modern way.... Bah, scratch that! It is easier to not classify "men" and "women" and simply say "individuals;" the boundaries are really hazy.
I also must add that whoever follows fashion in detail will turn, if not schizofrenic (sp), then definitely neurotic.

Men and women have approximately equal rates of schizophrenia. If you're talking about schizophrenia in the clinical sense, any way.

Hey, I thought the old "schizophrenia is caused by contradictions" thing had been debunked anyhow?

guthrie:
Hey, I thought the old "schizophrenia is caused by contradictions" thing had been debunked anyhow?

It has been - schitzophrenia seems to be 'caused' by an inbalence in the brain's ability to uptake dopamine.
However, if you had read what I wrote, you'd see that I'm not referring to clinical schitzophrenia. However, you'd have to be slightly more intelligent than a retarded hamster in order to grasp this fine point

Nasor:
See response to guthrie.

So what exactly do you mean by 'schizophrenia'? You seem to be describing some sort of internal conflict over self-image.

Xev, while you make some interesting points about the contradictions in our society regarding the role of women, you have misunderstood what schizophrenia is and how it is caused. It is not multiple personality disorder. A "split personality", is called a dissociative disorder. It is much less common than schizophrenia, occurs almost exclusively in women, and is thought in most cases to be a reaction to sexual or physical abuse in childhood.

The feminine qualities – passivity, supplience, helplessness and general disgustingness – do not occur in nature and are quickly wiped out when they do.
You equate feminine qualities with helplessness and disgustingness? Did you just get dumped or something? What about nuturing and cooperation? This happens in nature at least as often as violence. You are making a huge mistake and taking a very small part of what it means to be feminine, namely current culturally induced stereotypes, and thinking they represent femininity in its full natural context.

our present sufferings being the fault of one rebellious woman.
Our present male dominated hierarchy has set us up as territorial apes with thermonuclear weapons and a chip on our shoulder, you want to blame it all on Eve? Try again.
Feminism is a tremendously underestimated force, viewed in the present context primarily as a woman's concern. The understanding has not yet percolated throughout society that the advancement of women is a program vitally connected to the survival of human beings as a species. The reason for this is simply that institutions take on the character of the atoms which compose them, and what we are most menaced by in the twentieth century are dehumanized institutions. If women played a major role in policy formation and execution on the part of these institutions, I think they would have a far more benign and ecologically sensitive kind of character. So I see feminism not as a kind of war between the sexes or any of these stereotypic images, but as actually a kind of effort to shift the ratios of our emphasis that is expressed through our institutions.
Terence McKenna

spidergoat:
Xev, while you make some interesting points about the contradictions in our society regarding the role of women, you have misunderstood what schizophrenia is and how it is caused.

Did you miss everything I wrote, plus my explanation to guthrie?
I do not refer to clinical schitzophrenia. The word is origionally meant to refer the state of having a "split mind", which is the sense in which I meant it.

It is not multiple personality disorder. A "split personality", is called a dissociative disorder. It is much less common than schizophrenia, occurs almost exclusively in women, and is thought in most cases to be a reaction to sexual or physical abuse in childhood.

Actually, many psychiatrists are skeptical of the existence of dissociative disorders.

You equate feminine qualities with helplessness and disgustingness?

No - modern culture does. Do you not observe?

Did you just get dumped or something?

Did you just lobotomize yourself with a pencil, is that why you're so stupid?

What about nuturing and cooperation? This happens in nature at least as often as violence.

What about them?
Violence is good. It keeps morons from propegating. I'm far from advocating some wussy neo-feminist version of a "return to matriarchy". I want a return to nature "red in tooth and claw". Femininity is not necessarily bad because it "oppresses women" - it's degenerate.

"When the veil of fiction was rent, man shuddered before "Nature, red in tooth and claw." Nature had always been that and always will be, and the hands of man, even when he fashions and defends the noblest civilization, must forever be bloody hands, for this is a world in which only the strong and resolute nations survive, while the weak, especially the morally weak, who babble about brotherhood and peace, are biologically degenerate and doomed to extinction."
-Prof. Revilo P. Oliver

You are making a huge mistake and taking a very small part of what it means to be feminine, namely current culturally induced stereotypes, and thinking they represent femininity in its full natural context.

No, my entire point is that current culturally induced sterotypes are based on myth.
You fail to comprehend even the basics of my argument and you tell me I'm making a huge mistake?

Let me spell this out -

Femininity has no "full natural context". It does not exist, except in the neurotic evaluations of contemporary culture

Our present male dominated hierarchy has set us up as territorial apes with thermonuclear weapons and a chip on our shoulder, you want to blame it all on Eve? Try again.

No moron, I'm referring to the Jewish myth of the "fall from Eden". I can't believe you're not even conversent in one of the most common myths of our society. Read the third book of Genesis - or Milton - or just refer to any one of the numerous cultural monuments dealing with the tale. Jesus christ, are you American or something?

I'll clarify again -

I was referring to a specific instance of schitzophrenic valuation: obedience versus the innate rebelliousness of Eve, thought to exemplify female nature.

Do you know nothing about western cultural history? I mean christ, I dropped out of high school and I know this shit.

But then, you're not really criticising me, are you? You're simply trying to appear "smart" by disputing whatever I have to say. Unfortunately for you, it simply shows your ignorence.

Nasor:

Internal conflict as caused by the attempt to live up to a nonexistent ideal. The mind is split between mask and nature, between one value and another. Not to repeat what others have said so much better, but modern culture is sick because of this constant splitting.

Why? Because we emphasize the value of weakness. Femininity is based on a lie about nature, and the nature of women. To maintain that lie, the personality fractures into the gentle, sweet, always kind self and the true self, which is honest and fit.

Thus - splitting - schitzophrenia.

But I am not referring to clinical psychiatric disorders. If I describe anything, it's a disease of the soul.

You equate feminine qualities with helplessness and disgustingness? Did you just get dumped or something? What about nuturing and cooperation? This happens in nature at least as often as violence. You are making a huge mistake and taking a very small part of what it means to be feminine, namely current culturally induced stereotypes, and thinking they represent femininity in its full natural context.

Spidergoat, can you tell us what it means to be feminine? Because there is no true meaning to the word. The dictionary equates it to being a state of womanliness. Now what would that be exactly? We are women and we know what our sex is. Yet society defines femininity as being what can only be described as the weaker sex.

A woman acts aggressively while protecting her children, she is seen to be maternal. But that same woman acts aggressively protecting her position of employment, and she is seen to be a 'ball breaker'.

Your question about nurturing and and co-operation is a state that has been predetermined by society. Why is it that to be feminine one has to be nurturing? Just because we are women does not mean that we have such tendencies. If a man is deemed to be nurturing, he would be put down by society as being weak. Males can also be nurturing and caring, yet it is only equated to women. Why is that? Why are men seen to be weak if they act in a way that society has determined to be 'feminine', yet it is accepted and expected as being the woman's role or personality trait.

I believe Xev is trying to say that femininity, or femininity as it is described by modern culture, is a sign of a general degeneration of the species and that it is based on a sham.
The more masculine human attributes are being weeded out from both men and women making both more feminine and indistinguishable and raising homosexuality or asexuality as the next evolutionary stage.
We are slowly tuning ourselves into biological machines with no free-will, no personality, no character, and no resistance. Just simple machines running or software and harmoniously becoming non-distinct.
Feminization of man, as I put it.

I think what she’s saying is that in nature females aren’t as demure and passive as they are expected to be in our modern society but are far more independent and vicious.
But this softening of humanity can be seen in both sexes.
It’s interesting that homosexuality is now becoming acceptable behaviour and the masses are being acclimatized to sexual deviance through pop culture [T.V., movies, music, art].
In a few generations it won’t matter if you are male or female and sexual organs will be simple details of ones being, like hair color or height, and humanity will be a mass of nothingness that uses sex as entertainment, since it has lost its procreative significance through technology, and affection.
But I may be wrong.

O.k. I guess we can overlook the redefinition and misspelling of schizophrenia.


What about nuturing and cooperation? This happens in nature at least as often as violence. Violence can be useful, but so can nuturing and cooperation. Witness the ants caring for mites and harvesting nutrient fluids from them. I submit to you that it is the "tooth and claw" view of nature that is the myth. Certainly, violent interactions are the easiest to observe in nature, but the cooperation happens quietly.

"When the veil of fiction was rent, man shuddered before "Nature, red in tooth and claw." Nature had always been that and always will be, and the hands of man, even when he fashions and defends the noblest civilization, must forever be bloody hands, for this is a world in which only the strong and resolute nations survive, while the weak, especially the morally weak, who babble about brotherhood and peace, are biologically degenerate and doomed to extinction."
-Prof. Revilo P. Oliver

Hmm... What other facinating observations has this racist dickwad (http://karws.gso.uri.edu/JFK/the_critics/oliver/Oliverbio.html) Oliver made?

As might be expected of someone of Oliver’s ultraright background, he had some very strong beliefs. Here are some of them.

· The Holocaust was a hoax.
· The white race is more intelligent that the black.
· JFK was assassinated by a Communist plot in cooperation with the CIA.
· JFK was a Communist agent who was assassinated because he was about to "turn American".
· Karl Marx wrote “idiotic mumbo-jumbo.”
· All children are born unequal.
· We must encourage intelligent people to reproduce and inhibit those of lesser intelligence from doing so.
· Most “intellectuals” are just “frightened zombies.”
· The United Nations is a bunch of subhumans in a glass cage.
· Franklin D. Roosevelt was a “diseased creature” who surrounded himself in the White House with an “appalling gang of degenerates, traitors, and alien subversives.”

You get the point.

Need I go on? Read more here on the evolution of cooperation. (http://www4.tpg.com.au/users/jes999/5.htm)

Wanderer:
I believe Xev is trying to say that femininity, or femininity as it is described by modern culture, is a sign of a general degeneration of the species and that it is based on a sham.

My point is ultimately that femininity is a sham. To illustrate:
Naked, I look female. But I don't look at all feminine when naked. Only when I clothe myself in a feminine way and spend a prodigious effort looking, speaking and walking feminine do I seem feminine.

The more masculine human attributes are being weeded out from both men and women making both more feminine and indistinguishable and raising homosexuality or asexuality as the next evolutionary stage.

I think we're more or less hermaphrodites already. Society simply forces us to be one gender and exaggerate that choice.

What you're saying is - part of my point - but I see it even more a question of whether femininity does exist at all. If one could return to nature, one would see male and female organisms. I don't think one would see masculine or feminine organisms. I mentioned the lioness - what most people don't realize is that the "macho" lion does little hunting. Hunting is usually a cooperative effort between a group of lionesses. Cooperation being a feminine trait, hunting being a masculine action, why bother dubbing the lionesses as either? A group of lionesses is hunting gazelles. That's a clear statement. Masculine, cruel females are being feminine in order to preform a masculine action. How ridden with value judgements the latter statement is.

You're fond of self-analysis, make a list of your attributes and then compare them to what is socially thought to be masculine and feminine. While you're quite male - more so than most men - you'll likely find that many of those attributes are generally defined as "feminine". Hell, even self-analysis is feminine. Or is it masculine because it is analytical rather than intuitive?

At this point - why bother with gender at all?
Which is where my skepticism has led me. However, gender is a natural phenomena, so I am not sure of the solution.

We're spiritual hermaphrodites. I am not sure whether to use this observation to make love to myself or to do away with the concept of gender. I am not, however, simply male and female halves. I am not halves - I am at least quintuplets. Is the secret to self-acceptance literally to cause one's pluralities to make love to each other?

Bells:
Spidergoat, can you tell us what it means to be feminine? Because there is no true meaning to the word. The dictionary equates it to being a state of womanliness. Now what would that be exactly? We are women and we know what our sex is. Yet society defines femininity as being what can only be described as the weaker sex.

As I said - femininity is defined as the opposite of masculinity. Since it is by definition negative, the feminine is by function oppressed.
You're forced into the standard I described - one is "only a woman", but one who is, by inclination or circumstance, more than that, is "not even a woman"
On the converse, women are also supposed to implicitly accept the ugliness of being a woman - such things as "you're not like other women" and "you think like a man" are supposed to be taken as compliments. Femininity is placed upon a pedestal, any woman who does not conform to it is hounded to death. But any woman who does take her place on that pedestal is continually reminded of what a humiliating position she is in. For example - the pedestal is, "protect and cherish". But why should she be protected? She'll never be allowed to forget that the only reason she is "protected and cherished" is because she is weak, too stupid to protect herself.

Your question about nurturing and and co-operation is a state that has been predetermined by society. Why is it that to be feminine one has to be nurturing?

Seahorse mothers will eat their children (yum!) if it wasn't for the father's protection.
I do believe the "feminine" has some backing in nature - humans don't pull these things out of their asses entirely - however the "feminine" as it stands now does not exist in nature.
For me the revalation was personal. (I know, anecedotal evidence has little merit). I found that traditional 'feminine' pursuits like clothing, makeup, and gossip bored me to tears, and the female role models I was presented with (Snow White, Princess Diana, Barbie) were people I would never want to be. Wheras traditionally masculine pursuits like science, exploration, conflict and intellectual life were what drew me. And it hurt to be an outsider in the things I loved. Yet I always accepted the validity of my status as an outsider. Internally I knew what I was, but I also accepted that I wasn't supposed to be that. It wasn't until I started reading Nietzsche that I really accepted the idea that it was society that was wrong and I right.
The odd thing is, I've always seen myself as a woman. Others - when I actually start expounding or acting - don't see me as such.
That's schitzophrenia in a nutshell.

android:
But then again, I never really mattered, right?

Well now.
You responded to my "lobster" thread. I appreciated that.

My writing style is pretty? Why isn't it ugly? Why isn't it like slow moving lava drippling from a hot volcano top? But -- again -- you set the stereotype.

I don't mean to. I like your style - there's an internal structure to it. I can just see you thinking, which I love.

But I don't feel damned. I never have. In fact, when I was a kid, I taped-recorded myself in bed repeating this: "I - am - a - ho - mo - sex - u - al." That's when I discovered I wanted to pronounce the word out loud. Then I listened to myself. That was me. Yup. Cool. I never dishonoured my being. Nor did I ever feel suspicious about it. So I am not in that "damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't" category.

I accept that, but I'm saying that society does damn you.
I've never been ashamed of my peculiarity in terms of gender - I'm actually quite convinced that I'm more lovely than one who is traditionally feminine. But I know it places me at a disadvantage socially.

don't know how females respond to their femaleness but I've met women who... who were female, yes, but were above all... human beings. I don't know, is that the definition of the new liberated woman these days? That one's humanity includes one gender? And not gender including one's humanity?

I have my doubts about "gender".
Humans are primarily sexual beings - our way of relating to others is rooted first and formost in our sexuality, and so is our way of relating to ourselves (when you think about it, the way we deal with ourselves is a way of dealing with an "other" person who just happens to be us)
But gender - even on the biological level, gender is a rather fluid thing. A very small percentage of children are born chromosomally female and genitally male - or vice versa - or with the sexual characteristics of both sexes. Generally they're unhappy if raised if male or female.
On the other hand, there have been instances of boys surgically reassigned as females right after birth, growing up raised as female and always feeling like a "man in a woman's body" - essentally what they are.

But (but-but-but) it all depends how you view the world, doesn't it? Be slaves to stereotypes, or... brush them off and allow to phase in a component of one's self that will do just as fine? It is not being "false" self, but rather to understand that we have many many selves that are an integral to the whole.

Exactly.
No self is "male" or "female" because no self is inherently one thing or the other. I am at least three different people - and even those people are different people. What we call "self" is simply an overlapping matrix of organized and reacting selves.
If the woman of me is attracted to aesthetics, but analyzes them as the male of me, which gender is doing the analysis?
It is unfortunate that our society is so prosaic and focused on maintaining simple categories of being, however, it could not function otherwise. It is rather unfortunate that our society functions, but it has its benefits.

spidergoat:
O.k. I guess we can overlook the redefinition and misspelling of schizophrenia.

It has not been "redefined"
The word is of Greek etymology, like many medical words. "Mind" in classic Greek is sometimes denoted as "Phrenos" or "phren" and "schiz" denotes "split" or "fractured".
I am using the word in a way true to it's definition, you illiterate douchebag. Do not pick upon my spelling when you don't even know what words fucking mean.

What about nuturing and cooperation? This happens in nature at least as often as violence. Violence can be useful, but so can nuturing and cooperation. Witness the ants caring for mites and harvesting nutrient fluids from them. I submit to you that it is the "tooth and claw" view of nature that is the myth. Certainly, violent interactions are the easiest to observe in nature, but the cooperation happens quietly.

Who says nurturing and cooperation don't occur? Nobody. Who brought them up? You (synonmous with "nobody").
Cooperation often happens for the sake of violence (hunting)
Nobody disputes cooperation or nurturing. You're trying to argue a point which nobody disputes.

Hmm... What other facinating observations has this racist dickwad Oliver made?

Ad hominem. I quoted him because I like the way he wrote that. That doesn't make me wrong, and it doesn't really have any relevence to anything. Shut the fuck up if you can't contribute. Here's another quote (have fun with the source)

"It is different with the second type of morality, slave morality. Suppose the violated, oppressed, suffering, unfree, who are uncertain of themselves and weary, moralize: what will their moral valuations have in common? Probably pessimistic suspicion about the whole condition of man will find expression, perhaps a condemnation of man along with his condition. The slave's eye is not favorable to the virtues of the powerful: he is skeptical and suspicious, subtly suspicious, of all the 'good' that is honored there - he would like to persuade himself that even their happiness is not genuine. Conversely, those qualities are brought out and flooded with light which serve to ease existence for those who suffer: here pity, the complaisant and obliging hand, the warm heart, patience, industry, humility, and friendliness are honored - for here these are the most useful qualities and almost the only means for enduring the pressure of existence. Slave morality is essentially and morality of utility."
-Nietzsche

Suck it.

No, my entire point is that current culturally induced sterotypes are based on myth. You fail to comprehend even the basics of my argument and you tell me I'm making a huge mistake?
Let me spell this out - Femininity has no "full natural context". It does not exist, except in the neurotic evaluations of contemporary culture
Let me spell this out for you too, I got your argument, and I disagree, cultural stereotypes are not based on myth, but are exaggerations of natural feminine qualities, such as cooperation and nurturing, as opposed to territoriality and aggression.

I am using the word in a way true to it's definition, you illiterate douchebag. Do not pick upon my spelling when you don't even know what words fucking mean. I know full well what the word means. In the context of science/human science, which is the title of this forum, using that word was misleading. The dictionary definition of schizophrenic is also misleading, reflecting a historical misunderstanding of the phenomenon.

Who says nurturing and cooperation don't occur? Nobody. Who brought them up? You did, ...for this is a world in which only the strong and resolute nations survive, while the weak, especially the morally weak, who babble about brotherhood and peace, are biologically degenerate and doomed to extinction." ...quoting well known racist and professor of classical philology, Spanish, and Italian, Revilo P. Oliver. I guess he would know all about how things work in nature! :D

I say...you want to blame it all on Eve? and you reply...No moron, I'm referring to the Jewish myth of the "fall from Eden". Oh, ok THAT myth, not the one about Adam and Eve. Did you even notice the word EVE? Or were you too focused on being incensed and self-rightous?

Do you think quoting Nietzsche makes you smart? ...here pity, the complaisant and obliging hand, the warm heart, patience, industry, humility, and friendliness are honored - for here these are the most useful qualities and almost the only means for enduring the pressure of existence. This only confirms my argument that qualities associated with the feminine- both in nature and society, are useful, not "quickly wiped out".

If I describe anything, it's a disease of the soul. Yes, your's.

"And it hurt to be an outsider in the things I loved."

Hey what do you know.. you are a girl. ;)

Why do you concern yourself with such trivialities as gender roles? You is what you is, fuck whatever you like... but be mindful of the potential downside eh? Do you really expect that anyone can "live up" to the role placed on them by society? Ultimately, society doesn't 'do' anything. If you take a role someone gives you, it's really you who chooses to play that part. Some people are okay with that, YOU are not. You are strong and choose your own role. I suppose I can see that part of doing so is the examination of the role you are offered, or that you percieve to be expected from you... but now you realize, live up to the role you choose for yourself and you will kick ass and you will be respected by those who you would want to respect you.

Maybe that was too quick and shallow. If so, pardon - seemed pertinent.

EDIT - oh, and I meant to mention: I think that most of the reason that roles as such are there is because the majority of people need them, as they are likely unable to find a role for themselves. Basically, if you are sucker enough to buy the bait, then being trapped is what is right for you... ya know?

""""Do you really expect that anyone can "live up" to the role placed on them by society? Ultimately, society doesn't 'do' anything.""""

Yes, culture is not your friend, it is that which resists change, and should be regarded with suspicion.

Let me spell this out for you too, I got your argument, and I disagree, cultural stereotypes are not based on myth, but are exaggerations of natural feminine qualities, such as cooperation and nurturing, as opposed to territoriality and aggression.

Good point.

Xev. Can you deny that the roles of man and woman that developed post-ag revolution are still apparent today in behavior?

spidergoat:
Not much in your last message was worth attention, so pardon the lack of quotes.
You say - that my argument is invalidated by "natural feminine" traits such as nurturing and cooperation. On the contrary, my argument is strengthened by them, since they occur in both sexes. If (and I do not stipulate that it is) "nurturing" is more common in females, it is simply because females are by definition those who bear young. Other so called feminine traits occur frequently in males - such as cooperation - thus what you think invalidates my argument simply strengthens my case.
You did not understand my argument, being too focused on "bringing Xev down".

You say "femininity" exists in nature. Possibly, but it's not confined to females. Exhibit A: the peacock.

wesmorris:
Can the Deepak-Chopra-cum-wannabe-Immanual-Kant bullshit. You reek of the bourgeois.

15ofthe19:
Xev. Can you deny that the roles of man and woman that developed post-ag revolution are still apparent today in behavior?

Developed when post-ag revolution? What makes you think they developed that late?
I'm not sure of your challenge.

I'm not really offering a challenge. You're probably right in that those roles were being developed pre-revolution, but the jury is still out on that verdict. Bottom line: Man and woman developed distinct behaviors as a result of their distinct roles within pre-historic tribal cultures.

Germans bomb Pearl Harbor.

Xev:
The causes of schitzophrenia are not simply in the female psyche but rather in the social expectation of a woman. The definition of a woman is always precarious and subject to flippant social trends, as well as sexual double standards. A woman is a sexual being primarily – a virgin is not quite a woman, while a slut is so fully a woman (i.e fucked) that she ceases to be even a person, bearing all the stigma of her despised class
A state of continual artifice indeed and should I point out the culprits?

Those Romantics and thier midieval conceptions- that is what started this long process of degrading what a human is, and I will not be one to blame her since it isn't her fault, as much as I hate her sometimes. She could not escape this conception since it was elegant and amusing for the leasure class at first but little by little like all other social constructs did this idealism trickle down to the lower classes- that's where, to me, a social 'truth' is established, not higher up since their voices are small and few. And so its not until the peasent girls curl their hair that feminity is officialized.

And it really is a sham come to think of it. Never thought of it that way- naked, one is female. But not feminine. You're beastly, like an animal.

Know what eats me though? The pattern- at first its a new phase to establish elegance and distinction, then an innovative way for the commoner to detach himself from any notions of barbarism- he can only rebel through artifice (and it was not only the females doing this- lotsa dick had tights on), but then somewhere around the 19th century commercial possibilities were perceived, entrepeneurs got sneaky and then the twentieth century finally arrived to exploit it with televion and radio. THIS, to me, is malice.

They needed mass consumers, so they needed and image and what better way than to feed on her insecurity? Romance.

You must never be allowed to forget your sex if you shoot for normalcy.
You must always be reminded that you're nothing without a man, albeit through hints here and there and not said outright to your face.
You must never be allowed to be anyting other than your sex if you don't want to be singled out as eccentric.
And even myself- how odd that I find I think better when shrouded? As in rough and unkempt? Even I negate myself in feeling more human when 'masucline'.

Evreything has to have a fucking femine angle. Romance is in everything- from the clothes on must wear, to the books one must read, to how one must walk and talk, carry that handbag. Ever seen those 5O's commericials? Even kitchens and vaccums were glamorized and romanticized, for crying out loud.

Violence is good. It keeps morons from propegating. I'm far from advocating some wussy neo-feminist version of a "return to matriarchy". I want a return to nature "red in tooth and claw". Femininity is not necessarily bad because it "oppresses women" - it's degenerate
Yes and no. Blood and gore, nautral living- thrilling. But I'm a sucker for techonolgy and art....stuff.


Nasor:
Nasor:
So what exactly do you mean by 'schizophrenia'? You seem to be describing some sort of internal conflict over self-image

Caching!

Took you this long to figure out women are not all psychopathic fucks, huh?

Schizo, I gather, is a description- a neat little way to describe how the female is forced to split herself from her true humanity by nailpolish and facepowder. Illusions.


Spidergoat:
What about nuturing and cooperation? This happens in nature at least as often as violence. Violence can be useful, but so can nuturing and cooperation. Witness the ants caring for mites and harvesting nutrient fluids from them. I submit to you that it is the "tooth and claw" view of nature that is the myth. Certainly, violent interactions are the easiest to observe in nature, but the cooperation happens quietly


A myth? You're kidding right? So we're sitting here in warmly lit room in front of computers because men have always played nice with the climate, yes?

We're all so civil here, my, its a wonder we ever find anything to talk about.

Bells:
A woman acts aggressively while protecting her children, she is seen to be maternal. But that same woman acts aggressively protecting her position of employment, and she is seen to be a 'ball breaker'.
Indeed. Indeed. Indeed. Indeed.

Think how silly this is: the modern world is liberal and freely grants her her rights. She's allowed to do what he does and just as loudly but she gets her eccentricites socially rubbed in her face. She's subject to having her birthright taken from her unless she's married.
Its like in mothers- she'll hold the daughter who's engaged in higher esteem than the rebellious one even though she loves them both. She'll never voice her resentment towards the free one but unkowingly treat her cruelly by forced kindness.
What the mother has bought into is a social agreement based on intimidation and she does not know how far she is degrading her free daughter becauae she thinks of it only as helpless, harmless Romance- the stuff of babies and family. Follow?

Conflict. Right.

I have to do it enough that I don't seek it, so I'll just leave.

Good point about the tribes and such there 15.

Wes:
Conflict. Right.


?

(noting the close of the opening post)

Xev:

Violence is good. It keeps morons from propegating. I'm far from advocating some wussy neo-feminist version of a "return to matriarchy". I want a return to nature "red in tooth and claw".

and, later in your post...

"When the veil of fiction was rent, man shuddered before "Nature, red in tooth and claw." Nature had always been that and always will be, and the hands of man, even when he fashions and defends the noblest civilization, must forever be bloody hands, for this is a world in which only the strong and resolute nations survive, while the weak, especially the morally weak, who babble about brotherhood and peace, are biologically degenerate and doomed to extinction."
-Prof. Revilo P. Oliver

Along with Oliver, you are falling prey to the <b>naturalistic fallacy</b>. Even if nature is "red in tooth and claw", that does not mean that human beings <b>ought</b> to act that way.

Most people would disagree stridently with you that violence is good. No commonly-accepted human moral system asserts that violence, in and of itself, is good.

Femininity is not necessarily bad because it "oppresses women" - it's degenerate.

It sounds like you want women to be the same as men. Is that true? If not, what do you want from women? In what ways should they be different from men, do you think?

Femininity has no "full natural context". It does not exist, except in the neurotic evaluations of contemporary culture

Surely, femininity is simply a label for a set of traits commonly shared by females. If the traits exist, so does the label. That doesn't mean, of course, that all women have all the traits, or that no men have any of those traits, or that these traits are fixed and invariable for all time in all people.

Internal conflict as caused by the attempt to live up to a nonexistent ideal. The mind is split between mask and nature, between one value and another. Not to repeat what others have said so much better, but modern culture is sick because of this constant splitting.

Fair comment, though not everybody would agree with you.

gendanken:
Those Romantics and thier midieval conceptions- that is what started this long process of degrading what a human is, and I will not be one to blame her since it isn't her fault, as much as I hate her sometimes. She could not escape this conception since it was elegant and amusing for the leasure class at first but little by little like all other social constructs did this idealism trickle down to the lower classes- that's where, to me, a social 'truth' is established, not higher up since their voices are small and few. And so its not until the peasent girls curl their hair that feminity is officialized.

Ever notice the peasent girls curl their hair more?

And it really is a sham come to think of it. Never thought of it that way- naked, one is female. But not feminine. You're beastly, like an animal.

Hell yeah. Primal and wild and powerful as hell.
You're not feminine when you're being. You're simply being.

Know what eats me though? The pattern- at first its a new phase to establish elegance and distinction, then an innovative way for the commoner to detach himself from any notions of barbarism- he can only rebel through artifice (and it was not only the females doing this- lotsa dick had tights on), but then somewhere around the 19th century commercial possibilities were perceived, entrepeneurs got sneaky and then the twentieth century finally arrived to exploit it with televion and radio. THIS, to me, is malice.

Precisely there.
The commoner gets his home and his yard of grass with no cow. Then he gets his useless whore to fluff her hair and primp. Then he becomes the cow, and starts primping himself. Then he'll start demanding that she act more like his hysterical creation in order that he feel virile.
Ever notice it's the weakest men who seek the feminine? Water seeks its own level.

You must never be allowed to forget your sex if you shoot for normalcy.
You must always be reminded that you're nothing without a man, albeit through hints here and there and not said outright to your face.
You must never be allowed to be anyting other than your sex if you don't want to be singled out as eccentric.
And even myself- how odd that I find I think better when shrouded? As in rough and unkempt? Even I negate myself in feeling more human when 'masucline'.

Odd? Free.
We're the designated negative.

What the mother has bought into is a social agreement based on intimidation and she does not know how far she is degrading her free daughter becauae she thinks of it only as helpless, harmless Romance- the stuff of babies and family. Follow?

Keeping with the schitzophrenia metaphor - it's a double bind. The parents of schitzophrenic children were thought to be verbally affectionate, body cold. Here's Bateson:

(1) The individual is involved in an intense relationship; that is, a relationship in which he feels it is vitally important that he discriminate accurately what sort of message is being communicated so that he may respond appropriately.
(2) And, the individual is caught in a situation in which the other person in the relationship is expressing two orders of message and one these denies the other.
(3) And, the individual is unable to comment on the message being expressed to correct his discrimination of what order of message to respond to, i.e., he cannot make a meta- communicative statement.

Same fucking shit.
Constant words about how great it is that you're just the way you are - then the interminable shit about why you aren't a proper girl.
Why I hate men. "How great that you're not like other women!" and then the constant attempts to get you to be their idea of some airheaded fluffbucket. 'Course if you resist that, you're just so cute and wanting to be tamed.

15ofthe19:
Your point being....?

wesmorris:
I have to do it enough that I don't seek it, so I'll just leave.

No, you're an idiot so leave

James R:
Most people would disagree stridently with you that violence is good. No commonly-accepted human moral system asserts that violence, in and of itself, is good.

Appeal to popular prejudice.
I don't argue as Oliver does. I do, however, see value in that quote.
The funny thing is, I just stumbled on that looking up some random Hellenic NSBM band and they had it quoted.

It sounds like you want women to be the same as men. Is that true?

Far be it from me to be so awfully unpleasant. Why, if we were the same, where would there be love and snuggles and cuddly cuddly teddy bears?
No James, I'm talking about a self-artist. I'm talking about a nihilist. I'm talking about a master moralist. I'm talking about someone who has the literal or metaphorical balls to break their conditioning and see things as they really are. Think I care if Betty Sue Who wears tights or pantyhose and fucks so her date will pick up the tab? Think again. I'm not a feminist - I despise women. I want what Morbid Angel puts it as "clense this world for those who deserve". That's all.

If not, what do you want from women? In what ways should they be different from men, do you think?

Not my call, is it?
The truth - is worth seeking on its own, and if "femininity" falls by the wayside I'm going to be laughing at its death. Don't see this as social engineering.

Surely, femininity is simply a label for a set of traits commonly shared by females.

No, my argument is in part that it's not.

Fair comment, though not everybody would agree with you

My desired audience is not "everybody". It's gendanken and the few who share her mental agility.

Sorry. I thought it was obvious.

I believe that male/female behavior can be attributed to the ancient roles established 10,000 years ago. That point has always seemed obvious to me, but I don't peddle it as natural law. Tis only my opinion.

wesmorris:
Quote:
I have to do it enough that I don't seek it, so I'll just leave.

No, you're an idiot so leave.


*sniffle*

I didn't realize you wanted me to stay. I suppose you couldn't have just asked. I'd consider it Xev, but you're really just looking for a whipping boy and there are plenty of people who would volunteer, though I realize the unwilling prey is so much sweeter to you.

I don't seek conflict, but I admit it's difficult to walk away from it once someone starts sticking their chest out. You're man enough Xev, it's okay.

*pats Xev on the head*

It is sometimes difficult to be a good parent.

Xev:

Ever notice it's the weakest men who seek the feminine? Water seeks its own level.

It seems you think <b>you've</b> noticed this. Would you care to elaborate? In what sense do you think that a man who "seeks the feminine" is weak?

Why I hate men. "How great that you're not like other women!" and then the constant attempts to get you to be their idea of some airheaded fluffbucket. 'Course if you resist that, you're just so cute and wanting to be tamed.

So, let me get this straight. You hate men, and even more than that you hate women. It seems to me you have a lot of unresolved issues.

Appeal to popular prejudice.

Yes, I did appeal to popular prejudice, but at least I have a reason for saying what I say. All you have given us by way of justification for your argument so far is <b>your own</b> prejudice. Doesn't appeal to popular prejudice trump that?

No James, I'm talking about a self-artist. I'm talking about a nihilist. I'm talking about a master moralist.

How can one be a master moralist and a nihilist at the same time? That would seem to be a contradiction in terms.

I'm talking about someone who has the literal or metaphorical balls to break their conditioning and see things as they really are.

Like you, you mean?

Think I care if Betty Sue Who wears tights or pantyhose and fucks so her date will pick up the tab? Think again. I'm not a feminist - I despise women. I want what Morbid Angel puts it as "clense this world for those who deserve". That's all.

Who deserves? People who care nothing for others? Why?

My desired audience is not "everybody". It's gendanken and the few who share her mental agility.

Preaching to the converted?

I'm not sure about this one Xev. There are identifiable feminine and masculine attributes but they are not necessarily gender based, the identifiable terms are based on culture or society but I do think they have some commonality one would find in every human society. If you question whether those qualities are natural or set by society why does the answer have to be either or? Why not a melange? Havent you ever seen a picture of a young man and thought how 'effeminite' he looked? When I take off my clothes I see a female but I also see a feminine female (its the curves and the softness that make the image so). One can look at anything and ascribe to it masculine and feminine qualities, society reinforces those qualities...but I do find them to be basically innate; of the thing itself. Some women will never look masculine no matter what attire you dress them. Gay men who display distinct feminine behaviour are not considered masculine no matter how imposing their bodies; to the point where women even forget about their masculinity altogether in their presence. Its late I should probably read your opening again, maybe I just don't see what you are getting at. Though I have some masculine 'attitudes' or qualities they still do not dominate or even counter-balance what most would characterize as an overriding femininity; and it wouldn't matter what I am wearing either; it is innate to who I am, but I do not perceive this as a weakness. Specific activities can have masculine and feminine qualities as society shades them but that doesn't mean they are gender specific.

I do agree that women within certain societies are forced into a sort of 'artifice' but it would only seem unwelcome if one doesn't perceive that as part of their identity; if they are not naturally drawn to it for example. I mean no one has to convince me to buy a pretty dress or buy perfumed soap. On the other hand nothing would possess me to force my feet into a pair of needle-pointed high heeled shoes and I don't feel less feminine in my Doc martens. I do think society creates a schizophrenic 'image' or 'identity' problem for women but that doesn't mean natural masculine or feminine qualities don't exist.

Sleepy now. Goodnight.

James R:
It seems you think you've noticed this. Would you care to elaborate? In what sense do you think that a man who "seeks the feminine" is weak?

Yes, it's a matter of personal observation. No, I con't care to elaborate - people are boring. Ideas are interesting. People are interesting to the extent which they incorperate ideas.

So, let me get this straight. You hate men, and even more than that you hate women. It seems to me you have a lot of unresolved issues.

*Chuckles*
James R, do you really think I am Xev? Xev is a mirror. Everyone takes from my words what they please.
Do I hate people? Maybe in a Sartrean sense, but it really depends on my mood. But who cares?

Yes, I did appeal to popular prejudice, but at least I have a reason for saying what I say. All you have given us by way of justification for your argument so far is your own prejudice. Doesn't appeal to popular prejudice trump that?

No, I cited example in nature. I'm expressing skepticism, James. I don't necessarily have to give a reason to be skeptical - I only have to show the bankrupcy of the thing I am skeptical of. Annoying, isn't it?
I've given reasons to be skeptical of the "feminine". I have not, yet, absolutely decided on its nonexistence. I might even decide to revaluate things by the standards of some noble society like the Norse.

And no - popular prejudice is almost an indication of the ugliness of an idea.

Who deserves? People who care nothing for others? Why?

You're a hysterical little Christian, James. You take this more seriously than I do.
Where on earth did I say "people who care nothing for others"?
No - those who deserve are the genius, the creators, the scientists and researchers. The rest are all fodder.

Lucysnow:
I'm not sure about this one Xev. There are identifiable feminine and masculine attributes but they are not necessarily gender based, the identifiable terms are based on culture or society but I do think they have some commonality one would find in every human society.

They're gender linked, yes?
That's rather what I was getting at when I mentioned spiritual hermaphrodism.
What I'm bouncing around on (when I actually think of this, I've seen my muse elsewhere and I'm running after him) is whether they're properties of the thing in itself or attributes.
As I said elsewhere, society doesn't pull these things out of its ass entirely.
Gendanken gave a good geneology of the concept.

I mean we live, always, outside our essence. If this is true, then asking whence our self-apprehension as feminine or masculine beings comes from is irrelevent. If, however, we have actual self known from self, then the question is of utmost relevence.

*Xev*

I'll have to look for the gendys geneology because i was really too tired to absorb everything early this morning.

Quote:I mean we live, always, outside our essence. If this is true, then asking whence our self-apprehension as feminine or masculine beings comes from is irrelevent. If, however, we have actual self known from self, then the question is of utmost relevence.

Live outside our essence how? If the self is known from self then it would naturally revolt against that which does not represent its actual self or 'essence' and there would be no conflict. Conflict only arises is the 'split' exists which outlined in your essay or the essence can conflict with the external ie: society or culture. You, we all, have both masculine and feminine qualities many times one aspect being more dominant than the other, the dominant characteristic does not always coincide with the designated gender it is assumed to be assigned to, but this doesnt mean the generalizations concerning gender and their prescribed characteristics aren't correct. Exceptions only serve to reinforce the 'rule'.

One idea I definitely disagree with is feminine men seeking feminine females. I have noticed the opposite phenomenon ie:the very masculine seeking its opposite and vice versa. Even among lesbians one can notice the butch female choosing a 'fem' female partner, I notice the same with homosexual men. I would describe myself as feminine but men who predominantly display those qualities are repulsive to me as lovers or partners. Also I do not think feminine connotates 'weakness'.

You chose an interesting topic Xev. Much to consider here.

*Gendy*

Quote:Those Romantics and thier midieval conceptions- that is what started this long process of degrading what a human is...

Could you delineate this further please? And what was the state of the human before Romanticism?

Quote:They needed mass consumers, so they needed and image and what better way than to feed on her insecurity? Romance.

Absolutely. I think you're dead on.

Xev:

Ever notice the peasent girls curl their hair more?
Of course- its symptomatic of the lower class to exaggerate in the scraps that are thrown down from below- everyone suddenly wants a Luis Vuitton (sp?) bag and so they carry one everywhere and run it quickly out of fashion since their ignorance and lack of grace kills it, even though the artifice of fashion never wears off.

I ask myself why this is- why is it that those peasent girls would curl their hair more? Do everthing to extremes? A difference in quality perhaps- imagine competing with ideal beauty when all one could afford is cheap pharmacy makeup and plastic, you'll never get it right and and fear of banishment will keep you from seeing that you don't have to do anything.

A heartless exploitation of the weaker willed majority insisting on romantic absolutism, I say. Peasent girls will never get their curls to bounce like those curls in the magazines, that's why they'll curl it more.


Hell yeah. Primal and wild and powerful as hell.
You're not feminine when you're being. You're simply being
Stood buttnaked last night after logging off and noticed something- if you stand upright with your chest out, hands at your side its beastly and primal.

But move one foot out and front and point it, then shift to the side like women do to look slimmer- and watch all that beastiality shatter. Its as if that one gesture alone is a blemish on the power of human command, its recepitve and naive. One gesture- screw the lipstick. I'm going to have to part with you in thinking this artifice only comes from external objects.

Unless we can call this an external influence- I have yet to find one Zoe woman buttnaked looking as stupid as one does just by her gesture.


The commoner gets his home and his yard of grass with no cow. Then he gets his useless whore to fluff her hair and primp. Then he becomes the cow, and starts primping himself. Then he'll start demanding that she act more like his hysterical creation in order that he feel virile.
Ever notice it's the weakest men who seek the feminine? Water seeks its own level.

Well, due to .................recent ~unpleasentness~....... I'd have to say there are some, of the lowest caliber, weak, insecure little worms that seek out women far from feminine. Yes, what to say of those seeking fortitude elsewhere for lack of spine? Hmm.....tis a paradox, yes?


Odd? Free.
We're the designated negative.
Yes, odd. It..disturbed me to notice my value systems. I enjoy others taking me for a male around here- what does that say about me?

(1) The individual is involved in an intense relationship; that is, a relationship in which he feels it is vitally important that he discriminate accurately what sort of message is being communicated so that he may respond appropriately.
(2) And, the individual is caught in a situation in which the other person in the relationship is expressing two orders of message and one these denies the other.
(3) And, the individual is unable to comment on the message being expressed to correct his discrimination of what order of message to respond to, i.e., he cannot make a meta- communicative statement.
Nothing beats scientific analogy- ditto.

I'm sure you remember the wire monkey experiments, yes?

"The same results are obtained when infant monkeys are placed in a strange test room with unfamiliar toys present. Quoting from Bowlby: "So long as its cloth model (for touch) is present, the young monkey explores the toys, using the model as a base to which to return from time to time. In the absence of the model, however (which means "no touch"), the infants would rush across the test room and throw themselves, face downward, clutching their heads and bodies and screaming their distress.. The presence of the wire mother (also "no touch") provided no more reassurance than no mother at all. Control tests on monkeys that from birth had known only a wire nursing mother revealed that even these infants showed no affection for her and obtained no comfort from her presence"

Source: http://www.eabp.org/sc.ans-append2.htm

All one has to do is replace the word "touch" that I've bolded up there with "membership" and its easy to see why it is romantic idealism has been running us dry and splitting us up for years. Ignorance despises alienation.

James:
Most people would disagree stridently with you that violence is good. No commonly-accepted human moral system asserts that violence, in and of itself, is good.
Of course they don't- but watch how fast they stop wagging that finger and looking their nose down on "depravity" as soon as they're no longer comfortable. Let the heat get just a little too hot and watch them strike back with all the 'wickedness', hate, and bloody vengenace everyone is so quick to put away as 'vile' and non productive.

You're beginning to sound like Tiassa, and you have *no* clue what that does to me.

Surely, femininity is simply a label for a set of traits commonly shared by females
Negetive.

Feminity is simply a label for a set of traits commonly demanded of women.

LucySnow:

There are identifiable feminine and masculine attributes but they are not necessarily gender based, the identifiable terms are based on culture or society but I do think they have some commonality one would find in every human society. If you question whether those qualities are natural or set by society why does the answer have to be either or? Why not a melange? Havent you ever seen a picture of a young man and thought how 'effeminite' he looked? When I take off my clothes I see a female but I also see a feminine female (its the curves and the softness that make the image so). One can look at anything and ascribe to it masculine and feminine qualities, society reinforces those qualities...but I do find them to be basically innate; of the thing itself. Some women will never look masculine no matter what attire you dress them. Gay men who display distinct feminine behaviour are not considered masculine no matter how imposing their bodies; to the point where women even forget about their masculinity altogether in their presence
Precicely.

I saw it in the gesture last night, there's something inherently female one can never escape- its in the voice, the face, the hands, the frame. I've said it before and will say it again: no matter how loud she cried, how big her weapons and armor were or how vehemently she took up her cause on the battlefield, Joan or Arc was probably still sexy. You can hide it but its always there- if you're toned down and bold, they make you a lazy muse with girl power.
Made up and bold, one's a either sexy or 'cute when pissy'.
And then you have those irritable bunch of proles who praise your independence but then shun you for not "wearing pink." Fuck them all.

Never do they fear your persona or respect it as they would a man's.

Could you delineate this further please? And what was the state of the human before Romanticism?

Correct me if wrong, but weren't women just as filthy and ragged in nomadic days? I'm picturing a Visigoth village- women are just as unkempt as the men and when done up both were neithter flamboyant or flashy.

Both are nurturing, civil, cooperative, no?

15of19:
I believe that male/female behavior can be attributed to the ancient roles established 10,000 years ago. That point has always seemed obvious to me, but I don't peddle it as natural law. Tis only my opinion.
Intersting.

So- according to you, primitive animalism is only a 10, 0000 year old story...........?

Gendy it's not that I would attempt to exclusively limit behavioral patterns to a narrow time frame like 10,000 years, but I use that number because that seems to be the accepted time frame of the agricultural revolution, which occured simultaneously at different points around the globe. You must understand, I haven't had an anthropology class in ten years, so I'm going from memory, but didn't the revolution quickly alter the roles of the male and female in the tribe? I thought that within a a thousand years or so that we had evolved to a point where the men almost exclusively did the hunting, and the women stayed close to the settlements. This gave rise to differences in the way men view men and women view women.

It's probably bullshit, but that's my current theory on why women are so nasty towards other women that they feel are competing against them. 10,000 years of viewing your fellow woman as competition for your man has got to have its lasting consequences, right?

!5of19:
Gendy it's not that I would attempt to exclusively limit behavioral patterns to a narrow time frame like 10,000 years, but I use that number because that seems to be the accepted time frame of the agricultural revolution, which occured simultaneously at different points around the globe
But even if so, this is beyond the point of this thread.

Consider: the world keeps going around for the rest of the world- other mammals, the fish and insects, unicelled slime and the platypus- "traditional" male and female roles propogating each spieces. None of these glomorize their sexuality- and if you throw me some bower bird bullshit I'll throw it right back.

In any of these speices, how many do you see clumsily strutting around as someting they're not just to embrace an ideal?

I'm waiting for the punchline here Gendy?

You're not trying to equate humans to animals are you?

My post is totally on point in this thread. Your response is a non-sequiter.

The answer is simple – femininity is a myth. Nothing analogous occurs in nature. Rather than fainting, crying or making appeals to virtue, a lioness welcomes the advances of the lion who has just killed her mate
And children, don't forget that.
Although she doesn't immediately welcome the advances, not to the untrained eye anyway, she'll play hard to get by attacking him for a while. As will many animals.
And I personally love this myself in real life. Like everyone says they want a nympho begging them for sex, I've come to believe the fantasy is alot more appealing than the reality.
In truth i like the girls that punch me when I touch their leg, and tell me to "fuck off! jesus", untill i have provided the adequate amount of harrassment.
Its a courting ritual you'll see everywhere in the natural world, and it feels right to me.
I know this is frowned upon but- frankly, if a girl acts too keen for sex she seems like a slut and it turns me off.
Its not a sign that a girl likes you alot, girls I've just met have acted like this and girls I knew really liked me would resist my advances. It depends on the kind of girl, and I prefer the latter. There's something so phony about a girl desperate for sex, like yeah right, show some class whore.

A female crocodile tears apart a capybara without compunction or delicacy, and has this really cute strategy of carrying her little babies around in her mouth. The feminine qualities – passivity, supplience, helplessness and general disgustingness – do not occur in nature and are quickly wiped out when they do. The masculine does – but we'll get to this.
In other words, femininity is unnatural. The woman is a social construction – and as such a rather strange creature. Cracks often appear in her mask – occasionally, as in the case of Medea, it shatters completely and her “evil” horrifies. The common criticism is that women are disingenuous. This barely touches the surface: women are schitzophrenic.
Perhaps it could be argued that what society asks of women is unnatural, but obviously femininity in its raw form is natural. The word means female characteristics or something right?
All social animals have clearly defined roles for each gender, and I'm afraid it is usually the males that provide the muscle. Yes female lions do the bulk of the hunting, but you better believe if they need a home run hitter to pull down a girraffe or save them from a pack of hyenas the male is called upon.
Speaking of hyenas, there's an odd case, very masculine females in hyena society, and guess what? They have high levels of testosterone, an elongated clitoris and bumps that resemble testicles.
It seems its not 100% necessarry to be a male in order to be masculine, but you at least need a penis.

The level of patheticness paris hilton displays obviously transcends femininity and goes into the realms of being an incomplete incompetent living organism, but girls are basically supposed to be girlie, how girlie I'm not sure, I generally tend to believe in the "men were hunters, women gathered fruit and kept the cave clean", it might not be very flattering but thats what is seen in most primitive tribes remaining on earth.
There are exceptions, australian aborginal women run down wild cats in the desert and beat them to death with sticks for food, but usually the men hunt, have wars and controll everything while the women look after the children and cook etc.
I'm not saying this is how we should be, but thats how unspoiled populations of humans naturally are.

A woman is a sexual being primarily– a virgin is not quite a woman, while a slut is so fully a woman (i.e fucked) that she ceases to be even a person, bearing all the stigma of her despised class. One is always – only a woman. Should one try to be more than a woman one is – not even a woman. It would seem, then, that the primary characteristic of being a woman is being unable to win. To be expected – a woman is above all defined by her not being a man.
Hmmm, I'm starting to understand this whole "womens revolution" thing.

But here's an interesting thought for you to play with xev;
What if female humans naturally are pathetic? yes female lions and crocodiles do all righteous cool tough things but what if thats not what the animal humans are. What if YOU are the anomoly? What if as a female human all you are supposed to act like is that stereotype you despise so much? Perhaps the feminist movement only occurred after human breeding had escaped natural selection for some time, allowing billions of experimental variations to pop up, and inevitably some of these variations were less-feminine-females?

Not saying this is the case, just entertain the concept, when you think about it its not that far fetched.

Who says females used to be more masculine? There is no historical record of this, it seems if anything women used to be much more feminine, I understand historical literature doesn't go back far enough to tell us of the behaviour of early man, but why are you so sure that women were more masculine then?

Looking to lions and crocodiles might be misleading, how about chimps and gorrillas?
Have you seen a series called "chimpanzee diaries"? Its like a reality show but with a clan of chimps in the wild.
The gender line is thick and blindingly apparent. The males run around loudly acting all tough pulling branches off trees and making a raquet, while the females litterally quietly watch them with a sheepish little smile. Frankly, the word "demure" describes them quite well.
The males do the hunting, if the females are well liked(ie a good fuck) they might be given a scrap of the meat.

This is the reality, i'm not trying to prove a point as much as tell you how it is. But which is a more reasonable assumption? That we were like chimpanzees in our early days or like crocodiles or lions?
Out of those options I think chimpanzees would be the ones we most closely resemble.

I'm beginning to really think women have become more masculine if anything.
You are correct to consider the current state of how females 'need' to be a certain way as pathetic, and I don't see a problem with not joining them in being pathetic, that is definately a good thing, but I don't know if your focus is on the correct evil.
I suspect you might be rebelling a little too hard in the wrong direction, instead of trying to be masculine, why not create a new kind of feminine where beating hobo's to death with hammers is the norm.... oh god, please do that, that would be so hot.

Physical competence should not be mistaken for masculinity, it can be very feminine.
It seems it often is mistaken for masculinity though, and gross incompetence(paris hilton) is seen as the height of femininity.
And you are correct to have a beef with that xev, I certainly would feel insulted by that if I was a girl.
But I think all hetero-sexual females should be feminine, they're females so as far as I'm concerned thats what follows- being feminine.
BUT I think they should challenge what they've been told feminine is, i think they should be free to wear hessian bags and murder hobo's, while retaining their feminine-image perfectly.
Masculine to me is looking like a guy, sounding like a guy, smelling like a guy etc, thats the "uprisal" from women I don't want to see.
Wrestling bears or whatever would be fine, arousing even.

gendanken:
I ask myself why this is- why is it that those peasent girls would curl their hair more? Do everthing to extremes? A difference in quality perhaps- imagine competing with ideal beauty when all one could afford is cheap pharmacy makeup and plastic, you'll never get it right and and fear of banishment will keep you from seeing that you don't have to do anything.

Good point.
I was thinking maybe there's more. If she's pretty enough, she thinks, she can snare the prince and better her economic situation.
I was thinking about this today, reading Beyond Good and Evil (Nietzsche was a sexy beast) and you know, "love" is just another slave-revolt in morals.

Love is a form of parasitism in which the weaker seeks to dominate the stronger by inspiring love, that tenderness and desire to protect. Instead of being understood as vile, the loved turns aesthetics on its head and insists that vulnerability, stupidity and helplessness are things that should be honored. They find that center in the Other and force the other to protect them in order that they not be harmed by them.

Stood buttnaked last night after logging off and noticed something- if you stand upright with your chest out, hands at your side its beastly and primal.

You mean like that study Da Vinci did - hands out, feet out? It is.

But move one foot out and front and point it, then shift to the side like women do to look slimmer- and watch all that beastiality shatter. Its as if that one gesture alone is a blemish on the power of human command, its recepitve and naive. One gesture- screw the lipstick. I'm going to have to part with you in thinking this artifice only comes from external objects.

It's not external. That's what I meant when I talked about behaviour and false smiles.
Put Xev in a frilly white dress and you'd have Xev in a frilly white dress. Put Brooke Sheilds in my torn jeans and Morbid Angel t-shirt and she'd still be girly.

Well, due to .................recent ~unpleasentness~....... I'd have to say there are some, of the lowest caliber, weak, insecure little worms that seek out women far from feminine. Yes, what to say of those seeking fortitude elsewhere for lack of spine? Hmm.....tis a paradox, yes?

It is.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't. The miserable little fucks won't ever realize that you're just what you are.
Armor. Problem is when they get you to loosen it.

Yes, odd. It..disturbed me to notice my value systems. I enjoy others taking me for a male around here- what does that say about me?

*Shrugs*
I came to the same realization once when I realized how much I disliked women, and not just my normal dislike for people, but it was as women that they were disgusting and slavish.
You show some of the traits of schitzophrenia - it's unavoidable really. I mean deep down you don't hate yourself, but you do end up splitting to distance yourself from that.

All one has to do is replace the word "touch" that I've bolded up there with "membership" and its easy to see why it is romantic idealism has been running us dry and splitting us up for years. Ignorance despises alienation.

And knowledge gets fucking lonely.
Which'll cause another split. You can't deal with that need as a woman - they'll fuck you over before you can bat your eyes. You deal with it as a man and you're lying to yourself about what you are.
God help you if they ever figure out that you've got a soft side, you're royally fucked then.
Schitzophrenia.

Lucysnow:
Live outside our essence how? If the self is known from self then it would naturally revolt against that which does not represent its actual self or 'essence' and there would be no conflict.

What makes you think "self" exists?

Conflict only arises is the 'split' exists which outlined in your essay or the essence can conflict with the external ie: society or culture. You, we all, have both masculine and feminine qualities many times one aspect being more dominant than the other, the dominant characteristic does not always coincide with the designated gender it is assumed to be assigned to, but this doesnt mean the generalizations concerning gender and their prescribed characteristics aren't correct. Exceptions only serve to reinforce the 'rule'.

No, they don't. Exceptions may reinforce the rule for the herd, but any human is an exception. They're a rule onto themselves - to those that see them, an exception.

One idea I definitely disagree with is feminine men seeking feminine females. I have noticed the opposite phenomenon ie:the very masculine seeking its opposite and vice versa.

Well yeah, they may outwardly appear "tuff" but they're complete fucking pussies. I had a discussion about this with a friend today - men who buy those 4 by 4's? We're talking about how any man with an SUV just might as well put a decal that says "overcompensating" on it.
Speaking of myself, I tend to attract predominantly "masculine" males. Speaking of my friends, they tend to end up with people who are roughly their equal or superiour when it comes to strength. Maybe it's something more common to gen-x and gen-y.

Also I do not think feminine connotates 'weakness'.

Femininity means weakness in our culture. If you've redefined it and taken it onto yourself - good for you. But to others it means that.
It's a form of slave morality, really.

15ofthe19:
It's probably bullshit, but that's my current theory on why women are so nasty towards other women that they feel are competing against them.

Isn't it funny how the men who remark on how competitive women are are never the sort of men one would compete for?

My post is totally on point in this thread. Your response is a non-sequiter.

No, your post is based on the most boring literal reading of the thread.

*Gendy*

Quote:I say. Peasent girls will never get their curls to bounce like those curls in the magazines, that's why they'll curl it more.

Tis true Gendankan. The girls who curl their hair more do not understand the amount of time, expertise and money that went into the model to begin with. The average model begins her career in her teens and is considered ancient by 25. That's the shelf-life. Perpetual youth. In short they take those who have near perfect features and embodies a certain style or attitude for photoshoots (not necessarily the most beautiful but the most photogenic) and then they apply the best hair stylist, make up artists, designers, products, photographers, light and location. When this is all done they then go about air brushing the slightest blemish so what we see in the end is a beautifully manufactured fiction. A model waking up in the morning isn't allowed to do anything except wash herself before showing up for a shoot because everything will be done for them. No one can reproduce this. But if one has money one can approximate the 'look' and it takes a hell of a lot of time. For all these reasons a poor woman cannot keep up with these ideals; pity she doesn't know that no makeup is far more attractive and healthier for the skin, and teasing, coloring, bleaching, perming ones hair over time will only damage it. In short natural low maintenance is high maintenance. Fashion is selling myth, its an art form really in the higher echelons of the industry. They sell an image of perfection, a dream one would like to emulate. Who wouldn't want to be that oh so perfect image with the oh so perfect body and hair wearing that just right outfit on the beach in the Seychelles, or Paris, or whatever location they choose? Looking oh so 'happy' or serenly content I may add! Though interestingly enough 'smiling' in most photographs is considered a faux pas. One must exude a cool aura of 'entitlement'. Ever notice how important the location is in the shoot? The grand apartments or mansion courtyards, perfect beach etc. that is used as backdrop? Notice how runway designers create clothes that are too impractical for the everyday woman? Well they are not meant for the everyday woman! Hello!! They are meant for those who live a certain 'lifestyle', a lifestyle affordable by so few it is laughable. Its Fredrico Fellini's La Dolce Vita. Rent it if you have never seen it Gendy its all about that lifestyle, those who live it and the artifice necessary to it and those who can only gaze at it longingly.

Quote:One gesture- screw the lipstick. I'm going to have to part with you in thinking this artifice only comes from external objects

Absolutely. Kate Moss became famous from a set of black and white photographs where makeup wasn't even required. She symbolized a new type of youth that didn't glam themselves like those in the 80's (remember calvin klein's grunge faze?). The irony about modeling is that not every one, even the most beautiful photogenic woman can pull it off. What they look for is a face and body that can transmit those 'gestures' NATURALLY! Artifice on the part of a model showing through would kill a picture. Its a natural talent like acting, you know where the best are those who make something look effortless and one cannot see the process or sense artificiality.

Quote: Correct me if wrong, but weren't women just as filthy and ragged in nomadic days? I'm picturing a Visigoth village- women are just as unkempt as the men and when done up both were neithter flamboyant or flashy. Both are nurturing, civil, cooperative, no?

I wasn't opposing you just looking for a more detailed explanation.

I'm waiting for the punchline here Gendy?

You're not trying to equate humans to animals are you?

My post is totally on point in this thread. Your response is a non-sequiter.

Maybe you just wanted to use the word non-sequitor?
This whole thread, I think, is a focus on idealism that has women-not men- sacrificing their humanity for the sake of membership.

I say again: In any of these species, how many do you see clumsily strutting around as something they're not just to embrace an ideal?


You said this:
You must understand, I haven't had an anthropology class in ten years, so I'm going from memory, but didn't the revolution quickly alter the roles of the male and female in the tribe? I thought that within a a thousand years or so that we had evolved to a point where the men almost exclusively did the hunting, and the women stayed close to the settlements
.....And fail to realize that the roles have always been established- show me a Caveman 100, 000 years ago and I'll show you his woman inside breastfeeding her child. Show me a Neanderthral or a Neolithic man and I'll bet there's a woman behind them nursing the children.


We're talking, I think, of the unnecessary flamboyance required in being a woman and I believe we can safely put the blame on propoganda- not nature. Yes?

This whole thread, I think, is a focus on idealism that has women-not men- sacrificing their humanity for the sake of membership.

what gets me is that you really have to buy into it for that to be true, in which case you are endorsing what you loath. the most impressive people i've seen (in this regard at least), men or women, have all had a common trait: they may recognize that many people are flawed in the way that you complain about.. the way that causes them to see you as that piece of meat and nothing more (for example, amongst the other perceived injustices)... but those impressive people I mention, they show people what it's like to live outside that type of system because they, while still interacting on whatever level they need to.... remove themselves from that system by simply refusing its burden. you can see it in someone's eyes I think. it's fucking beautiful. knowing confidence? something.

it's not denial, it's a power to simply crush offers (to interact) that are less than dignified. IMO, the best do it such that people tend to realize "why the fuck was I acting like that, this person rocks". that kind of thing is infectious. perhaps it's grace? i suppose some prefer blood and conflict, or simply haven't seen how to move past it. I'd guess that to some blood and conflict are the only things that make them feel alive.

i can't really find the words to explain it. anyone know what I mean?

Isn't it funny how the men who remark on how competitive women are are never the sort of men one would compete for?

Xev, you're going to have to get better than that. I would submit that I apparently know more about women than you do if you can't see the obvious truth in what I said. I could give a squirt of piss if you like me or not, that's not the point. I'm talking about observed behavior. Good luck with your theories.

Xev:
Good point.
I was thinking maybe there's more. If she's pretty enough, she thinks, she can snare the prince and better her economic situation.
I was thinking about this today, reading Beyond Good and Evil (Nietzsche was a sexy beast) and you know, "love" is just another slave-revolt in morals.


And all the while these relations between humans thrive saying love, compassion, caring, sacrifice, commitment... all the words in the dictionary without using the real one: slave. If she's pretty enough she can dream of a king's ransom in slaves.

Not saying all relations are this way- only those established in need reinforce this ugly practice in humanity.

Love is a form of parasitism in which the weaker seeks to dominate the stronger by inspiring love, that tenderness and desire to protect. Instead of being understood as vile, the loved turns aesthetics on its head and insists that vulnerability, stupidity and helplessness are things that should be honored. They find that center in the Other and force the other to protect them in order that they not be harmed by them.

This "brand" of love comes a dime a dozen. What's.....dangerous is one based on behavioral psychology- the kind where with sleight of hand positive reinforcement you can be duped into thinking you still have free will.

Always beware of the power hungry, says I. I know, I know I'm guilty of this shit myself but I'm working on it.

You mean like that study Da Vinci did - hands out, feet out? It is.

Its beautiful.

It's not external. That's what I meant when I talked about behaviour and false smiles.
Put Xev in a frilly white dress and you'd have Xev in a frilly white dress. Put Brooke Sheilds in my torn jeans and Morbid Angel t-shirt and she'd still be girly.

Yes- now you see why LucySnow made a good point? Joan of Arc, no matter what she wore or how loud she bitched was probably still sexy and waifish.


And knowledge gets fucking lonely.
Which'll cause another split. You can't deal with that need as a woman - they'll fuck you over before you can bat your eyes. You deal with it as a man and you're lying to yourself about what you are.
God help you if they ever figure out that you've got a soft side, you're royally fucked then.
Schitzophrenia

Lying to myself indeed- which is why I found it odd that I had to question my value systems. Like a burnt slab of meat on the outside but pink in the middle .............meh.

Whatever.


Lucy:
The average model begins her career in her teens and is considered ancient by 25.

EEEK!

Good lord, woman!. How durst you speak such blasphemies?! 25? Ancien???

(please take it back)

gendanken:
And all the while these relations between humans thrive saying love, compassion, caring, sacrifice, commitment... all the words in the dictionary without using the real one: slave. If she's pretty enough she can dream of a king's ransom in slaves.

Ha ha. Control.

This "brand" of love comes a dime a dozen. What's.....dangerous is one based on behavioral psychology- the kind where with sleight of hand positive reinforcement you can be duped into thinking you still have free will.

And it's just about being that stupid.
The sad part is that you fucking know better and yet you don't want to feel that knowledge.

Always beware of the power hungry, says I. I know, I know I'm guilty of this shit myself but I'm working on it.

Hell Gendanken, I'm power hungry myself. Otherwise I could accept that suppling through kindness.
It's the dishonest about their hunger - those are the ones you fear.

Lying to myself indeed- which is why I found it odd that I had to question my value systems. Like a burnt slab of meat on the outside but pink in the middle .............meh.

Yeah - it never stops. And no way to stop it but seperating completely.

Dr. Lou:
Nice post.
I'm not saying that sex roles are just some social shit. I'm saying that our sex roles are dysgenic. Sorry - when you're elevating weakness to a pedestal, your society is fucked.

15ofthe19:
Xev, you're going to have to get better than that. I would submit that I apparently know more about women than you do if you can't see the obvious truth in what I said. I could give a squirt of piss if you like me or not, that's not the point. I'm talking about observed behavior. Good luck with your theories.

Boring. Fucking. Shit.
Sorry dude, but I'm beginning to think that any man who opines on "women" deserves to be sentanced to three months hard labor in the tampon factories. Observed behaviour my ass - I've never competed for a man and I've never seen two women fighting over a man who weren't fighting each other using him as a pawn.

*Xev*

Quote:What makes you think "self" exists?

What makes you? Look back at your post, the words were yours not mine. I was simply using your words to ask a question.

Quote:No, they don't. Exceptions may reinforce the rule for the herd, but any human is an exception. They're a rule onto themselves - to those that see them, an exception

That was not my meaning. Just because there are 'exceptions' in the display of gender and its feminine or masculine characteristics does not lesson the general rule of how those characteristics present themselves.

Quote:Well yeah, they may outwardly appear "tuff" but they're complete fucking pussies. I had a discussion about this with a friend today - men who buy those 4 by 4's? We're talking about how any man with an SUV just might as well put a decal that says "overcompensating" on it.Speaking of myself, I tend to attract predominantly "masculine" males. Speaking of my friends, they tend to end up with people who are roughly their equal or superiour when it comes to strength. Maybe it's something more common to gen-x and gen-y.

But I am not referring to the appearances of being tough or rather the 'toys' people employ. I am speaking of opposites attracting, of balance. It is why I used the butch female who generally seeks what is called a 'fem' or 'lipstick lesbian'. The equal or superior strength you speak of is intellectual or ideological I imagine and not physical? I am referring not just to the physical but also the 'attitude'. One can find their equal or a superior in another who does not display masculine qualities, one can find it in the effeminate male, masculine male, masculine or feminine female but that doesn't mean one will be attracted physically/emotionally/psychologically.

Quote:Femininity means weakness in our culture. If you've redefined it and taken it onto yourself - good for you. But to others it means that.
It's a form of slave morality, really.

As I have noted in another thread I belong to long legacy of matriarchs so no feminity doesn't connotate weakness from my point of view. Anyone can display weakness even the 'masculine'. What society 'thinks' of the feminine is not as important as how the feminine perceive of it. In other words it is not the responsibility of the feminine to react in rebellion from it, that would be a weakness. Women who are not feminine because 'that is who they are' are not in rebellion, they do not need to feel scorn for what is feminine. Those who are feminine simply because 'that is what they are' are not in conflict with their feminity. I don't wear makeup just because I don't feel the need for it, not because I am rebelling against the fashion industries notion of beauty.

This discussion has made me think of this little controversy concerning female soccer players and their uniforms:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2004/soccer/01/16/bc.sport.soccer.womens.blatter.ap/index.html?cnn=yes

Wes:
what gets me is that you really have to buy into it for that to be true, in which case you are endorsing what you loath. the most impressive people i've seen (in this regard at least), men or women, have all had a common trait: they may recognize that many people are flawed in the way that you complain about.. the way that causes them to see you as that piece of meat and nothing more (for example, amongst the other perceived injustices)... but those impressive people I mention, they show people what it's like to live outside that type of system because they, while still interacting on whatever level they need to.... remove themselves from that system by simply refusing its burden. you can see it in someone's eyes I think. it's fucking beautiful. knowing confidence? something.
Of course. Confidence- men wear it well, don't you think? He looks like Mufasa. You respect him and almost deify his dignity in the pigsty, so to speak.

But what of the liberated women just as confident as he- she's got her head just as high but she's more like Cleopatra, a thing to woo down from her throne until you've tired of her and move elsewhere. The respect in that is where, exactly?

People are so quick to question the freedom before them if its got tits, my friend. She's either a prude, posing, lacking, or hiding something . They can't just be what they are

it's not denial, it's a power to simply crush offers (to interact) that are less than dignified
What makes you think so?

I'm not saying that sex roles are just some social shit. I'm saying that our sex roles are dysgenic. Sorry - when you're elevating weakness to a pedestal, your society is fucked
Perhaps it is a magnification of what humans naturally are though. When a species becomes social wierd things can happen.
Like obviously it makes no sense for a solitary animal to be weak or helpless in any way, but in a social species an adaption could concievably happen where one sex becomes less independent and the other finds this charming and is urged to protect such individuals.

Similarly to how babies are made cute to inspire over-protective tendencies.
Maybe the human species was headed in this direction, where females are prized for requiring a knight in shining armour, in a way your observations could be looked at as evidence for this.
Perhaps it was the dysgenics that saved the females from becoming nothing more than possessions.

With natural selection in process perhaps the competent females would gradually be plucked out of the gene-pool, their tribe might be less likely to come to their aid than they would the clutz who exudes helplessness.
Whether or not you think this is what has happened, can you picture how this could happen to a species?

I never thought about it before but maybe the human species has never been admirable in its essence. I'd always taken the dysgenics of modern humans into account and then assumed one of the better strains of human would be the natural one, but maybe the helpless fragile bimbo and the insecure loser who feels validated by playing the role of hero are THE female and male respectively, with all the other types of people we see today being the offshoots produced by dysgenics.

As depressing as it is, its not out of the question. Because a clan comprised of males and females of this type could be successful.
Maybe the females weren't AS exagerratedly useless as what is prized today,(and there is no denying they are- in this aspect you are correct), nature might not have let that slide(nature would have forced them to say "ewwwww" too many times for them to not get a little used to it), but as I said, today's society might be a magnification of the rough outline of what the wild homo-sapien is, the relationship of the fragile flower and the knight in shining armour that you so rightly decree as pathetic.

*Gendy*

Quote:But what of the liberated women just as confident as he- she's got her head just as high but she's more like Cleopatra, a thing to woo down from her throne until you've tired of her and move elsewhere. The respect in that is where, exactly?

One would have to establish motive. I mean if the motive is to woo someone off the throne just to move elsewhere then there isn't any respect, but what if one is in earnest?

Xev:

No, I con't care to elaborate - people are boring. Ideas are interesting. People are interesting to the extent which they incorperate ideas.

Ok. For a minute there I thought we were talking about ideas.

James R, do you really think I am Xev? Xev is a mirror. Everyone takes from my words what they please.

I'm sorry, Xev, but I'm fairly confident we get to see the real you here. I don't buy your argument that what you present here is simply a front. Only a true sociopath would do that, and that description doesn't fit you, from what I've seen. But that's ok; I'm happy to play along. And what would I know, anyway? I'm only a pop psychologist.

I'm expressing skepticism, James. I don't necessarily have to give a reason to be skeptical - I only have to show the bankrupcy of the thing I am skeptical of. Annoying, isn't it?

No, not really. It's quite diverting. I do it myself regularly.

I've given reasons to be skeptical of the "feminine".

From my reading, you have said <b>that</b> you're skeptical of the feminine, but you've only touched briefly on <b>why</b>, so far.

I have not, yet, absolutely decided on its nonexistence. I might even decide to revaluate things by the standards of some noble society like the Norse.

What makes the Norse noble, in your opinion?

And no - popular prejudice is almost an indication of the ugliness of an idea.

Hmm... I can think of examples of ideas which have proven to be both immensely popular <b>and</b> useful.

You're a hysterical little Christian, James.

You must have me confused with somebody else.

You take this more seriously than I do.

Perhaps I am more interested in what other people think and why they think it than you are.

No - those who deserve are the genius, the creators, the scientists and researchers. The rest are all fodder.

Such people are a very small portion of society. Why should they form a deserving elite?

*an.droid*

Quote:So she went on to describe how a lion and a gazelle will merge together during a chase as in a communion, and that the kill itself will be experienced by both as a sort of orgasm.

How is that any different from what the German cannibal and his willing victim chose to experience together?

So she went on to describe how a lion and a gazelle will merge together during a chase as in a communion, and that the kill itself will be experienced by both as a sort of orgasm

I've tried to think of a tactful way to say this, but I'm coming up blank, so here it is: Your friend is full of shit. I totally agree that watching a predator hunt down a prey is not violent act in a natural context, but to suggest that the hunted is experiencing a pleasurable sensation while being suffocated is ridiculous. I've witnessed a lot of killing in the wild, and the shrieks and screams emanating from the prey are not happy sounds. Sounds like the kind of thing someone would say when they were high.

*an.droid*

Quote:So she went on to describe how a lion and a gazelle will merge together during a chase as in a communion, and that the kill itself will be experienced by both as a sort of orgasm.

How is that any different from what the German cannibal and his willing victim chose to experience together?

You people make my sex life look normal and healthy.

android:
She always detested how man will attribute human qualities onto Nature, and base their findings upon those ideas. Modern man would be seeking not to interpret Nature but to devaluate Nature in man's idea of a definition -- as man is, in effect, the predator wishing to dominate Nature's mysteries. From outside of Nature. Or use Nature to attribute qualities onto himself.

I agree.
Man seeks to dominate not only the physical world but the moral world, and the physical world through the moral world. Nice effort, but it ends up ugly.
The naturalist of the Ragnar Redbeard variety sees nature as something cruel and savage, and sees this as a confirmation of his values.
The Christian sees nature as something in which mommy lions lick their baby lions clean, and sees this as a confirmation of his values.

In truth, nature simply is and those judgements are simply interpretations at best. As Immanuel Kant says:

"Undoubtedly, I should say, that the representation of space is not only perfectly conformable to the relation which our sensibility has to objects-that I have said-but that it is quite similar to the object,- an assertion in which I can find as little meaning as if I said that the sensation of red has a similarity to the property of vermilion, which in me excites this sensation."

gendanken:
People are so quick to question the freedom before them if its got tits, my friend. She's either a prude, posing, lacking, or hiding something . They can't just be what they are

They'll question anything if it has tits, yes?
Makes me remember something. I talked to someone way back long ago who said that he felt more sexual - not horny, but just sexually free and hungry - when he was alone. Started recognizing the feeling now. You're just more *anything* while alone.

Lucysnow:
As I have noted in another thread I belong to long legacy of matriarchs so no feminity doesn't connotate weakness from my point of view. Anyone can display weakness even the 'masculine'. What society 'thinks' of the feminine is not as important as how the feminine perceive of it.

That may be, but I'm dealing with the way society percieves, manipulates and perhaps even creates it.

Dr. Lou:
Perhaps it is a magnification of what humans naturally are though. When a species becomes social wierd things can happen.
Like obviously it makes no sense for a solitary animal to be weak or helpless in any way, but in a social species an adaption could concievably happen where one sex becomes less independent and the other finds this charming and is urged to protect such individuals.

Urged - no. Forced, I see that happening. If one is moved to protect the "cute" that one owns, one's genes have a better chance of surviving through that "cute" thing. A man has fairly little need to take care of his children, he can have others, but on the whole (given that chances for procreation would be limited by mobility and the high infant mortality rate) he's better off making the extra effort. Which could well be where we get the "family".

There's another impetus - an incompetent organism is an organism that has fewer choices. The female we describe may be desireable for the additional reason that she's less likely to screw around. She can't upset the gravy train, right?

Similarly to how babies are made cute to inspire over-protective tendencies.

Maybe I'm weird, but I think that's conditioning. I never thought of babies as cute - they're cool, in a weird way, but they're not cute. Nothing that can't control it's bowel movements and has a lumpy head is cute.

Maybe the human species was headed in this direction, where females are prized for requiring a knight in shining armour, in a way your observations could be looked at as evidence for this.
Perhaps it was the dysgenics that saved the females from becoming nothing more than possessions.

But they *were* nothing more than possessions. Dysgenics might have spared them death from incompetence.

I never thought about it before but maybe the human species has never been admirable in its essence. I'd always taken the dysgenics of modern humans into account and then assumed one of the better strains of human would be the natural one, but maybe the helpless fragile bimbo and the insecure loser who feels validated by playing the role of hero are THE female and male respectively, with all the other types of people we see today being the offshoots produced by dysgenics.

I don't know, Dr. Lou.
I used to think of man as a rather successful animal, but he's rarely an aesthetically pleasing animal. For every Da Vinci there are thousands of morons who drool and think Thomas Kinkaid paintings are "purty"
One suspects that man is too smart, and wasn't sufficiantly refined through natural selection because he too soon discovered dysgenic solutions to his problems. But you may be right and the race is rotten at the core.

Gendy:

Do you think this little girl isn't confident because she's a girl?

http://jwesmorris.home.mchsi.com/images/Family/em.jpg

Can you see it in her eyes?

Shit maybe it's just me.

You think she's gonna have to sacrifice her humanity to participate? I don't think she has to. I think it's a matter of her refusing to in a manner that basically disallows anything but dignity.

I'd swear I can see it in people's eyes... feel it in their presence. It seems to me that utter comfort with one's self and self-assigned purpose pretty much dissallows the idea that "i have to pay more of a price than the other person". You pay what you pay and get what you get. I can't help but think that gender, if thought of as an obstacle or burden, will be so.

Maybe it's just that all these issues are so far behind me that I just don't give them much credence anymore. At some point I think I let it go because I realized I was focusing on bullshit. I wonder if what I said above is where I left it the last time I thought about it, or if it's just part of a solution to a set of problems that seem alike to me and so I just bust it out when I hear it. Oh well. Hey I do mean well. It's mostly that I'm a happycentric individual and don't like to see pain in the people I enjoy. I have a hard time accepting that some people seek that pain. It's easy for me to understand why they are that way, but difficult for me to relate to it and relations generally take precedent in my dealings with people, since I don't dig what I think of as unnecessary drama (excepting for like, x-files and movies and such).

I guess I'm just trying to say that I think: Once you know about "your humanity" as you put it in the first place, you can no longer sacrifice it unwillingly.

Wes

Quote:It seems to me that utter comfort with one's self and self-assigned purpose pretty much dissallows the idea that "i have to pay more of a price than the other person". You pay what you pay and get what you get. I can't help but think that gender, if thought of as an obstacle or burden, will be so.<