Are women jealous of men?

[Walf]

BonsaiK:

Charisma:
You misunderstood me. I didn't say, "All women have no identity." I said, "The female gender has no identity." Individual women can have great identities. But as a group they have no baseline model to which to aspire, as men do.

Now try rereading my post free of assumptions and pre-formed accusations.

Are all women not of the female gender?

All ducks are birds, does that not mean all birds are ducks?

LOGIC FAIL.

 

[Gralian]

If you want to make a historical argument, at least do it right. Women have, historically, been just as important as members of society as men have. A peasant woman was not just the wife of a peasant, she was a woman who worked the fields with her family. Most women in cities and towns helped their husband with whatever field of work he had (and in many cases, they retained their husbands profession as widows in case he passed away before them). Who do you think ran the family business/farm when the men went out to war, the kindly leprechauns? Or the wives?

The whole "women have *always* been in the kitchen/taking care of the children" thing comes from America in the late 19th and early 20th century because of the massive increase in industrialization and worker rights. This allowed the families to sustain themselves on the income of just one person. It arrived in Sweden (where I live) in the 1950's, before then it was fully expected that a woman had a job to help support the family. This American Dream/Core-Family value is in fact not even a century old. So trust me, women have had plenty of time to establish their own identity as a gender, at least here in the western world.

That you have no idea of what the female gender identity (and let us be clear with the fact that it is just as stereotyped as the male gender identity is) is only suggests that you either haven't cared enough to find out (which isn't meant as criticsm) or that you haven't spent enough time with girls to figure it out.

It is a product of a society that has spent the last 70 years or so with telling us how strong men are and how protected women need to be. That's all there is to it. Women are not "historically" as subservient as the prevailing conception today wants to make them out to be. I could go on, but it would do no one any good. So, to sum it up, get the facts right before drawing conclusions.

You know women were barred from acting in during the time of Shakespare, right?

That's not all, women have been disallowed from having certain jobs because of their sex.
The armed forces is a good example.
And let's not forget the wage gap.
For Britain during the Victorian era, women were housewives and nothing more.

And that was the dogma for a very long time, until World War One and World War Two where suffragetes like Sylvia Pankhurst really pushed the women's rights campaign forwards and gave women a respected place in the workplace.

 

[Kiefer13]

*snip*

You've missed my point entirely.

I'm going to take something completely out of context to disagree with you.

People shouldn't be lumped together, huh? Imagine Nazi Germany in World War 2, and say two British or French folk are in Berlin just before war erupts. They're about to talk about some military plan the Allies have. Then one of them goes "You can't say that out loud, you never know how many Nazis could be listening, this is Germany after all!"

The other replies, "Oh come now, you can't possibly GENERALISE. They can't all be Nazis!"
*Looks at all the blonde haired blue eyes german folk with big swasitka banners and other symbols around the city*

Hm. Or are they. So what's the moral of the story?

You are correct. That is completely out of context. And completely irrelevant. But I'll humour you.

For one thing, It would not be a generalization to assume that there could be Nazi's around in WWII Germany. That would merely be, you know, common sense. It would be a generalization to say for example "We better be careful around here, these Germans are all Nazis." And that would be completely ridiculous and incorrect.

You need to lump people together, to create DISTINCTIONS. Without distinctions there's no way to classify anything or anyone. Jesus christ if we keep going with this expression of "individuality" we'll eventually end up in a world where the men look like women and the women look like men.

Ah, no. A world without generalization would not be a world of androgyny. It would be one where people would be free to be individuals without people making stupid presumptions about them.

Sorry, i don't want that kind of androgynous world.

Feminity and masculinity are important. Not to the point of showing off or having it "expected" of you, to the degree of fascism and being an outcast. But it needs to be there. Otherwise we end up in one big bland pangea. No thanks.

Again, you're not getting it. Assuming that everyone would be the same would be the biggest generalization of all. Everyone would not be the same. Everyone would just have the freedom to do the same.

Edit: And while we're on about integration and individuality, are you saying that we should just blend cultures together? You know. Since you don't want to lump people together. I guess it would be too much to go to Italy for example and find rustic buildings with passionate people and awesome pizzas. That would be generalising.

No, that's not what I'm saying at all. And certainly it would be ridiculous to say that there aren't any rustic buildings, passionate people or awesome pizzas in Italy. But surely not every building in Italy is rustic, not every person is passionate and not every pizza awesome. Nor should they be expected to be.

 

[El Poncho]

Anyhow, last side thought: I believe that the movie Twilight: New Moon is the first step towards the commodotization [making a product out] of the male body. The only pictures one sees of the werewolves are the shirtless kind. The men aren't being valued for too much outside of "OMG, He iz sooooo HOT! Like, HAWT!!!!" This might sound good at first. If both men and women are commodities, then we can just buy each other and the world keeps on turning. No, fail. I think if this happens then individuality goes out the window. We become sexual objects with no real power to do anything. Now, I don't think this will actually happen, but if it does, then get ready to spend several hours a day, everyday in a gym so that you, too, can one day be valuable enough to the female mind's eye to be bought like so much gum: chewed up spit out and never used again.

(I did not read for grammar/spelling errors... apologies if there are any)

But I think what the OP was saying is that the men just shrug it off and go I don't care if they are making us look like that they will just need to live with the fact we are not like that.

This may or may not be true but I think that is what the OP is getting at.

 

[Charisma]

What I'm saying isn't, All women are weak and helpless and mad about it. What I'm saying is,

Yeah, but thing is, people are individuals, not some fucking numbers.
They apparently have these strange things called "emotion" and "personality".
Generalising is the worst thing you can possibly do.

I'm not generalizing. I'm observing that women have no baseline standard to which to aspire. Men have this easy, paint-by-numbers identity available to them: The Conqueror.

What's the female version? The servant? Who the fuck wants to be a servant?

So what I'm saying is: women are jealous that men have a badass image to live up to, and that can be thought of as the source for much of the female angst we see so much.

 

[comadorcrack]

Not sure If I agree with this or not...

To be fair the sexes will always behave differently...

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

You know women were barred from acting in during the time of Shakespare, right?

That's not all, women have been disallowed from having certain jobs because of their sex.
The armed forces is a good example.
And let's not forget the wage gap.
For Britain during the Victorian era, women were housewives and nothing more.

And that was the dogma for a very long time, until World War One and World War Two where suffragetes like Sylvia Pankhurst really pushed the women's rights campaign forwards and gave women a respected place in the workplace.

I do and I would like to point out that I never said women were allowed to do everything that men did. I did say however that they were just as much members as society as their husbands were (and that it was via their husbands, in extension, that they got their profession and most of the time, their husbands got their profession from his father).
And if I recall correctly the Victorian era is 1830-1904 or so? In one country, that was at the time known for its' extreme conservatism (for the lack of a better word). Incidentially, the Victorian era also coincides with the Industrial Revolution. See how our arguments are starting to intertwine here?

 

[Mudora]

Hmm... I for one don't feel jealous of men. I don't think I ever have really. I already know what my identity is as a person. As for an identity for the female gender as a whole, perhaps we just don't need one. Either gender is full of potential, and so far both genders have shown we can do many things that weren't originally in a stereo type before.

Of course, the Media doesn't seem to help with this. It affects us while we're young - woman are supposed to be sexy and erotic, while men are supposed to be tough and strong.

When push comes to shove, I tend to blame the Media on this sort of 'subliminal messaging' bit... but I'd be stupid if I put the entire blame on just one faction out of the many that affect our lives.

 

[The_ModeRazor]

What I'm saying isn't, All women are weak and helpless and mad about it. What I'm saying is,

Yeah, but thing is, people are individuals, not some fucking numbers.
They apparently have these strange things called "emotion" and "personality".
Generalising is the worst thing you can possibly do.

I'm not generalizing. I'm observing that women have no baseline standard to which to aspire. Men have this easy, paint-by-numbers identity available to them: The Conqueror.

What's the female version? The servant? Who the fuck wants to be a servant?

So what I'm saying is: women are jealous that men have a badass image to live up to, and that can be thought of as the source for much of the female angst we see so much.

Why, exactly, are women incapable of kicking ass?

 

[Gralian]

You need to lump people together, to create DISTINCTIONS. Without distinctions there's no way to classify anything or anyone. Jesus christ if we keep going with this expression of "individuality" we'll eventually end up in a world where the men look like women and the women look like men.

Ah, no. A world without generalization would not be a world of androgyny. It would be one where people would be free to be individuals without people making stupid presumptions about them.

[

There was a reason for me saying this. Have you noticed that over time, the female struggle has given women a more masculine identity? Women are now just as loud and obnoxious in pubs as men, for example. And men today seem to really go for this "expressing your sensitive" feminine side nowadays. Metrosexuality seems to be a big part of expressing individualism, breaking the "generalisations" of what is masculine and feminine and what is expected of each gender. Hence why i made the passing comment about androgeniety, because that where it seems to be headed.

And as for freedom, is having too much freedom really a good thing? We have freedom of speech for example, but that gives racists and sexists the right to spew hatred. Again, another out of context analogy (No need to restate the obvious again.) but i can't think of any better example. Can people really be trusted to make the most sensible choices with all this "freedom"? Perhaps not for them, but for society as a whole.

 

[clairedelune]

The idea that most women are insecure, more so than men, is a funny thing to say specifically on this forum, which is mostly composed of men who seem to admit much of the time that they are insecure, have low self esteem, etc. Including the OP. Hell, look at the fear thread! I saw several posters who said they were "afraid to talk to new girls."
To me, the description the OP gives of women being petty and catty and throwing tantrums sounds like it's a depiction of women given off from the sitcoms. Well, what is the depiction of men given off on sitcoms? Usually slower, usually "whipped" by their spouse, usually obsessed with masculinity and fearful of exploring the more feminine areas. This is not how I see most men, with the exception of the latter. I was about to write that I think men are much more afraid of being mistakenly perceived as gay than women are, but thinking about my guy friends, they aren't really like that. They are all really different from each other, most of them have a mix of masculine and feminine characteristics.

This is true for my girl friends as well. I legitimately can't think of a single one who gets catty and controlling. I definitely KNOW girls like that, but I know guys like that as well. In fact, a lot of my guy friends who are more athletic get pretty overreactive over sports related issues and other guys being dicks to them and hooking up with ex girlfriends and what not... So, I don't know how much experience you have with women in general, but it seems like you have bought into society's projection of how they are rather than actually getting to know a lot of them personally.

I'm jealous guys don't have to have periods, deal with pregnancies, get respect for hooking up with women rather than losing it. I'm not jealous that they have an enormous pressure from society to fill the masculine role, that they are seen as girly if they delve too much into the arts area, that they have the traditional job of being the pursuer in relationships, that it isn't accepted for them to publicly (as in in front of anyone, not being alone) show signs of weakness and emotion... I mean you could make the list endless on both sides, it's dependent on each person. I'm really happy to be a girl. I wouldn't want to be a guy. I get free stuff for smiling at the cashier. I haven't met a guy who has gotten that, but I've met plenty of other girls.

TLDR: It's human, it's seen in both genders, acknowledging that there are exceptions doesn't change that you made a huge generalization. Lay off the sitcoms because that seems to be where you are drawing your conclusions from (this is purely speculative).

 

[ThreeWords]

You forgot the part about pissing while standing.

As I hear, this faculty is widely-envied among the female population. I'm not entirely sure how serious they are when they claim it, however.

Snip

Sounds wise. However, I put it to you that you don't want to be male, at least in part, because of an unconscious fear of the unknown.

For example, though I can see the advantages of being female, I myself would prefer to remain as I am (male, by the way, for the slow of thought). This could be because it genuinely is better, but I think it's also a feeling of "I'm happy here, so I'd rather stay"

Also, any views on my other quotee?

 

[Silk_Sk]

"I have a hammer! I can put things together! I can knock things apart! I can alter my environment at will and make an incredible din all the while! Ah, it's great to be male!"

One of my favorite quotes. Also "Dad, how come you live in this house with mom? instead of in an apartment with several scantily clad female roommates?"

 

[Charisma]

Again, you're not getting it. Assuming that everyone would be the same would be the biggest generalization of all. Everyone would not be the same. Everyone would just have the freedom to do the same.

Actually Kiefer, you have some solid points and you inspire me to go off on a tangent and make an interesting observation about generalizations: they aren't entirely bad. They are useful tools in humanity's social toolbox, and like all other social tools (praise, friendship, monogamy, murder, and everything else you can imagine), it can be used for good or bad.

Its usefulness, as far as I can theorize with my napkin science, lies in serving as a shortcut for social interactions. Without generalizations, every social interaction would take an absurdly long time. People need to be able to make certain assumptions when dealing with strangers.

So all you posters hating on generalization, maybe you should reevaluate your positions.

 

[DMonkey]

300 wasn't homoerotic, it was incredibly manly. Real men staring death in the face and smiling.

And you'll notice that there are two types of people who say "that's so gay" when men who are secure in their heterosexuality allow themselves to bond: Women and little boys who don't have strong male influence in their lives.

Turning the act of being masculine into something "homoerotic" emasculates men, which is a key goal of the feminist movement. The implication is not that homosexuality is itself a bad thing ("not that there's anything wrong with that"), but that heterosexual men should not have to defend their sexuality in order to be masculine.

I completely agree with the first part, but find the second to be another case of the loud extreme minority drowning out the sensible majority... the hard-cores are more interested in superiority over the male gender, and destroying it all together, then they are about equiliaty, and it really hurts the message, and it is causing A LOT of resentment from many men...
One of the things that really stuck in my craw lately was the switch from "founding fathers" to "the founders" simply because some hard-cores got their granny-panties all in a twist because of the male identification... sorry ladies, it was a sausage party!
Buuuuuut, I digress, there's a difference between a true feminist, and uterus wielding oppressor...

OPs message seems very valid in my experience, in that most of the strong women I know, and have seen and heard proclaim they are strong because they are a woman, but act more like its despite of it... I know that that's a gross generalization, but it is a characteristic shared by all the women I *have met*... could be wrong, I'm not a woman so I don't know what goes in their heads, but would also make the argument that they really don't know either.

 

[Brendan Main]

I read this post through, and my hair stood on end. The cold, unerring logic. The clinical parsing of data. But the world he describes is foreign to me... somehow otherworldly. Then it hits me: The poster is a space alien. This is a historic occasion for interplanetary diplomacy, so I hope I don't muck this up.

Hello from Earth! We are the blue-green planet, third from our sun. It's not perfect, but we like it.

I'm sorry to hear about your space-women. It sounds like they have their work cut out for them. Our earth-women are doing a bit better. Just a little while ago, a bunch of them noticed that they couldn't vote. This was a little strange, because "everyone" is supposed to be able to vote. I guess they meant "everyone else."

So they asked for it, and they got ignored. So they asked again, and we put some of them in jail. They kept on asking, and asking, and Mr. Alien, guess what? They got it! This is the kind of gender-wide progress that I guess just doesn't happen in space.

But on Earth, things were cookin'! More and more, earth-women were beginning to realize that ideas like "natural" and "traditional" were just fancy ways of saying "do what we tell you." One by one, they decided to do things their own way. They got new kinds of jobs and did new kinds of things.

One earth-woman became an accomplished scientist and learned all sorts of neat things about something she called "radioactivity." The radiation ended up killing her. Today we can't even handle her cookbook without wearing a lead-lined suit.

Another earth-woman became an activist. She said "I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired." It sounds silly, but lots of earthlings knew what she meant. Turns out, they were too.

A third earth-woman decided that just because her skin was a different color, she shouldn't have to move to the back of the bus. (Do your people have colors too, or are you all just grey, like in the X-Files?)

It's a shame that your space-women didn't do any of these nice things, because they were too busy not finding your space-jokes funny. Maybe they have less to laugh about, out there.

Your space-men sound interesting, too. Burping and farting and eating meat! We used to have a lot a lot of those types, only we called them Cro Magnons. There were thousands of them, and they ruled the European Upper Paleolithic!

They aren't any more Cro Magnons ruling much of anything these days, Mr. Alien. Because something magical happened. Something happened that takes time - millions of years, millions of births and deaths. Something that is always happening, just slowly, too slowly to even recognize for years and years. Can you guess what it was?

Mr. Alien, we evolved!

 

[President Moocow]

Wow, Charisma? Ironic. Anyways, I got a response for you:

Ignoring the fact that you simply used countless stereotypes to try and prove a point by calling it an "identity", going so far as to say that all women are insecure trying to find an identity.
Ignoring the incredibly biased double standard that you used claiming that men have an identity and women do not.
Ignoring the fact that you took the most vocal response and just assumed every woman felt like that (conformation bias? I think that's what it's called).
Ignoring the fact that your entire post is an incredible display of your contemptuous, sexist, ignorant, immature and misogynistic view on how people act due to a deeply-rooted insecurity over your complete lack of understanding of social human interaction.
Ignoring all of that, there's one important point that you as well as some other people in this thread completely fail to understand:

Emotions, whilst illogical, are NOT and should NOT be considered inferior to logic. Only portraying emotional thinking as negative is simply ignorant and incredibly biased.

I'll start off with an generalization of my own (except mine is actually true): Men have a tendency to behave according to logic and women have a tendency to behave according to emotions. That much is generally accepted. But that is, by no means, an absolute.

Note that I said TENDENCY, not just one or just the other. Normal people (regardless of gender) can think of a situation in logical terms and in emotional terms. Sometimes, logic is a better option and using emotions will not be as effective (or detrimental), for example, if you were trying to write computer code. Other times, emotions and feeling are a better way do proceed and logic will end up being detrimental, for example, interacting with a girl at a party. For most decisions, however, most normal healthy mature people use a certain degree of logic and emotions in most of their decisions.

This is more of an anecdote but I think it can help explain some stuff. The Meyers-Briggs personality shows this relationship as 1 (out of 4) aspects of the personality spectrum: Thinking vs Feeling (look it up) and just so I don't sound like someone who generalizes, remember that ALL PEOPLE ARE STILL DIFFERENT AND ALL OF THIS VARIES FROM PERSON TO PERSON. Basically thinkers use logic and feelers use feelings and emotions in judgment. When faced with a decision involving someone, thinkers will treat the person fairly in terms of logic (i.e. If he is responsible for me car he should pay me back if it breaks.) whilst feelers treat a person fairly in terms of the individual (i.e. Was he in an accident? or did he intentionally break it?) BOTH are viable ways to make a decision and both should be considered. Note that either way could be a viable solution depending on context. However here's where we can get conflict and misunderstanding, for example, Feelers may very well reject a logical reasoning whilst it makes perfect sense to a Thinker and then you have conflict!

Now that I've established people are both logical and emotional and people sometimes have a preference for one over the other and conflict arises from misunderstanding let's look at how this works in genders. As I said, women favor emotions and men favor logic. That does NOT mean that women can't be logical (some are, even more that men), and that does NOT mean that men can't be emotional (some are, even more than women). Hell, once, a girl asked me "why do you care about how you feelings so much?" I couldn't explain, it just made sense to me and not to her and we left it at that.

Overall, when it comes to human interactions, women in particular, you have to stop trying to expect to find logical and rational explanations for everything. Often times you just have to stop worrying and try to understand. That's how you will truly become a secure and confident man. Not by propagating sexist stereotypes and being ignorant.

Now, what I see is that a lot of people in this thread have a preference for using logic over emotions (which, let's be honest, is to be expected). But here's a fun fact: Just because you're less emotional does not mean you are any better. Here's a good example:

if they're not they should be. men can look at a situation without being swayed by emotion. (this is just the usual trend i see. i knonw a few outstanding exceptions)

Implying that being swayed by emotion in a situation is negative is completely ridiculous and simply shows to me that you don't understand emotional thinking, but your insecurity has made you believe that being swayed by emotion is a negative thing. Ironic too, since unless you are 100% logical yourself (in which case you would be incapable of interacting with human beings), you are also swayed by emotions. That makes you a hypocrite in addition to someone who isn't comfortable around women.

Wow.

 

[TPiddy]

I believe one of the biggest problems facing today's women is that many of them are willing to partake in their own stereotypes and a large part of the world has not advanced when it comes to gender equality.

Places like Japan and countries with large Muslim populations have a long way to go before they can say that men and women are treated equally. There are still places where women are seen as property. This has to stop first before they can advance.

The other major problem is that many liberated women still choose to perpetuate their stereotypes. It's hard not to think of women as sex objects when a large percentage of them will use their sexuality for their own personal gain. Prostitution, stripping and voyeurism are becoming more and more popular now as they are safer than they once were and still avenues where women can make a lot of money. Sex still sells in advertising, in Hollywood, in sporting events, etc.

It's hard to develop an identity when you see teenage girls dressing like sluts, Muslim women covered in garb from head to toe and then your perfectly normal 'girl next door' all in the same day.