Log #6: Battle of the Sexes (Part 3 of 3)

Greetings. Happy Saturday. Time for another classic log! You feeling me? Tuesday I gave my own personal insight on basic female psychology (sorry for making it sound so advanced.. It's easier than saying "I took some shots in the dark on how I believe that females think"). Today I'm going to show why each sex has it's own "predetermined" social roles and why they're changing today.

If you love 80%, then why don't we just round it already? ;)

From the beginning of time; men and women have relied on each other. Before we obtained our considerably advanced knowledge that we all know today; things were very simple. There's no point in questioning the mysteries of cold fusion and black holes while your very existence is at stake. So to make things simple; cavemen, indian tribes and basic civilizations had the men and women do what they were good at.

As we touched on briefly in previous logs, different core values help determine the behavior of both sexes! So while women were for the most part non-confrontational men were the exact opposite. In order for a man to maintain power and stability in his tribe/posse he would have to be the hardest, toughest muthaluver out there.

Meme's can't always be 100% relevant!

So the men were placed in charge of leading/protecting essentially the elderly, the youth, and the women. This automatically placed disdain on the women, because though taking care of the children +elderly was an important job, it didn't seem specifically relevant to everyday life. Especially when said elderly die, and said children grow up to nurture or protect their loved ones. As the generations passed by, and defending the posse became more difficult as enemies became more numerous and powerful these negative tensions towards women grew even more powerful.

This might lead you to question that why such tensions would remain even today? However, if you pay close attention you'll notice that across the year's as more jobs were discovered and a civilizations needs grew men's role was constantly expanded; leaving the men with a feeling of superiority when compared to the meager role of the women. Because not only were the men expected to continue to fulfill the warrior role of society, they were expected to be anything from farmers, to bankers. to kings, to merchants, to sailors, to husbands, to builders, to.... I think you get it by now.

Seeing that I've stated the obvious I'll generalize the rest. Women got bored, Women got jealous but most importantly; Women hated feeling inferior. And that's the most important factor that led to the fight for women's equality. Women wormed their way into all corners of the work force and into schools. Oddly enough this only strengthened tensions because that sense of inferiority is still around today.

Your Woman doesn't need protecting. She's "Independent" now.

 So basically that being said; they'll never be an end to sexism because of this culturally forced inferiority. The inferiority derives from chivalry. Chivalry basically is the excuse as to why women shouldn't have all these rights. Just the "let-the-men-handle-it" mentality that's been ingrained in everyone pretty much since men were declared the warriors of society. The warrior/soldier role will always be dedicated to men because they built it and have held it for so long, and honestly is the reason while sexism will continue to inherently exist.Because essentially the most important thing on this earth besides the people who put food in your mouth, is the people who keep you from becoming food (or dead). So as long as men dominate the most important job in the world.... Sexism will never die.

 I think this syncs up with Carl Jungs Theory of Collective Unconscious? (Basically Pre-learned things that are passed on through each generation through the human race... Er, you should probably just look it up.) But that's all I think I was supposed to touch on this log. Sorry if it came across like an essay, but that's just how it came through my mind. It's come to me that it's most likely going to be problematic posting log's on Friday as you might have guessed. So I think I'll just start posting them Saturday. Anyways, that being said; As requested the next log will be on relationships! (Finally! One I can really have fun with. ;D ) Be sure to check it out. I don't think It'll be something to miss.

Log #5: Battle of the Sexes (Part 2 of 3)

So Saturday I gave some insight on the male perspective, now it's time for me to attempt the very complicated, very mysterious, female perspective.

Because you're hot and you're cold.

 Okay forgive me ladies. I'm short on time, and I couldn't find many resources about you online. You socially clandestine miscreants, you. ;D So I'm going to give this a shot from the recesses of my mind and the things I've noticed and experienced. Women can be broken down into a few core categories.

Beauty

Or at least.. That's what you wish would happen.

I've always asked myself.. Why the heck do girl's dress up? Especially at School. I mean, guy's are into you looking nice.. But you can pretty much win over any guy with a V neck shirt or yoga pants. So why do they try to look so good?
Social status. It's all about social status. The desire to be noticed. If men gauge each other by strength and respectability, women judge each other by looks first. Because honestly, who wants to hang out with someone who looks like crap? It makes your taste in clothes and friends look worse.
Girl's who dress nice seem to hang around with girl's who dress up seem to be more popular than those who don't. I've seen this all around school. In short, I believe that girl's dress up for girl's first; then guys. This also explains why women can take so long to get ready in the morning...

Empathy

 

Empathy, As defined by Merriam Webster's online dictionary is: " the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience"

This basically means you can feel other people's pain. Woman are more empathetic than men, it's true because they tend to think about how their actions might effect someone else. For example, if someone made really sour lemonade for you but thought it was the best thing ever, a girl would be more likely to receive it politely and say something like: "It was good.. But I think It'd be better with more sugar." This makes girl's naturally more diplomatic than boys. And also makes them less-confrontational.

Pacifist

  

Women for the most part seem non-confrontational. Which more often than not leads to their downfall everywhere. They act too empathetic often enough to the point of indecision. This is often seen in the classic "girl-in-an-abusive-relationship scenario". Oh.. He's not abusing me.. He's just going through something right now.. Oh he didn't mean to hit me.. He'd never do it again.. When it comes down to it, typically women won't fight back. Maybe it's because they're afraid of getting hurt? Because if they're facing a man typically the man will be stronger. 

But often enough this is even seen in social situations.. Women fear hurting someone elses' feelings so much sometimes that they just end up hurting themselves.. I've seen this too many times to not believe that this is true.

While this might not have been my longest log, I believe it was a good shot at trying to determine the female perspective. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about anything. I'd love your input. Friday, I shall conclude the "Battle of the Sexes" mini-series with "Comparison" and how these factors influence direct comparison.

 

Log #3: Degrading of Women in Society

When I was first going to write this "log".. I was going to come at it at a completely different, partially sexist angle. (As hinted at the bottom of log #2) But upon further discussion with among namely my father, some friends and some researchers on the internet I've come to an entirely different conclusion. In fashion and the media, I don't believe that women degrade themselves. (At least the percentage of the female population dedicated to not dressing inappropriately.) But before I address these matters let me just say one little thing...

See?.. I even got a panda for you!

I really am.. But I'm not going to spend this whole log trying to reestablish my "ethos". You're just going to have to believe that I'm sorry. But now back to the matter at hand. Coming back to last weeks point of women basically remodeling their clothes during the sexual revolution to be more provocative I must correct. While there were some controversial styles during this time period, the change of clothes was designed to make clothing for women more comfortable, and functional.

Today, Women's clothes are still mostly designed by... you guessed it; Men. That helps explain, A LOT. And actually brings a lot into the Women's defense for the way some of them are forced to dress. Women beginning to finally make a footprint in their own sector of the fashion industry was such a big deal, that even BBC News had to post an entire article on the subject. ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15088308 )

I honestly can't say I'm complaining. But maybe it's because I'm a boy?

Women are degraded pretty much everywhere, mostly by the miraculous idea that being female means you're: Weak, Emotional, incapable, stupid, and essentially just baby-makers. None of these factors come along with being a woman, except maybe the second one. Because girl's typically have more empathy than guys. But all of the rest are not true, and if they are true for an individual woman, they could easily be just as true for the individual man. Guys have an advantage biologically with being stronger, but that strength can't be maintained without exercise, and both sexes can easily exercise, right?

These thoughts and ideas are generally force-fed to us by the media. It's ingrained into everyone that woman are basically coveted sex-trophies. From basic children's stories, to children's media, to adults stories, to adult media. A Woman can't be strong, she can't lead and she most certainly doesn't have a future beyond the kitchen. These ideas all stem from the ideas that women are the more "submissive" sex. While on a universal basis this may be partially true it's not a 100% constant.

Does she look like she wants to take any crap from you?

 The Media is sneaky with this kind of thing. They try to brainwash you since you're little. Too little to understand what "sexism" really is. Take for example beauty and the beast. You watch the movie, you're all "Nice start.. Songs are a little cheesy.." *Belle puts off the typical chauvinist douchebag that all the Disney princess' fall for... Good, good.. We might actually like this one. She reads books, dang she even has a brain too! 

And then..... BAM!

 A few scenes later and we've got this smart, forceful girl kidnapped by a monster and TRAPPED inside of a castle inhabited by talking furniture. (Because this is normal in the land of Disney) I know that there was the obvious trouble with the forest, and the wolves being between her and the town but come on... An 8 foot tall bear, dog, demon-thing has you trapped in it's house, with it's even scarier piano and eerie talking furniture.. And you wouldn't rather risk going back to town through the woods?... No. She's going to sit forever in the castle and read to herself while she develops a grade A case of "Stockholm Syndrome".

Seriously?

Disney is famous for indoctrinating the children into these ideals. But it's not just Disney, almost everyone does it because it's universally accepted that if a female is going to be in your story she's got to fulfill the "damsel-in-distress" archetype at least once. But come on CK.. That's just a children's film? I've seen plenty of badass women in the movies.. I mean just look at "Kill Bill", or "Columbiana". (Both ironically about women seeking revenge and going on to kill men.) But yeah. I'll give you that, it's getting better. We're a bit past horrors of seeing "Princess Leia" victimized in star wars. (She plays an epic role in the films, but come on.. Was what they did to her in Episode VI necessary?)

I actually came across a blog post which talked specifically about this particular scene... They were disturbed that this was all that was to be remembered of Princess Leia, besides her weird haircut. Their was the inherent symbolism of Slave Leia strangling the fat nasty snail guy: "Jaba the Hutt" to death. But as said by the author of the piece in "Slave Leia's" popularity she is only relished as a sex object. A Woman of high-standing who is basically made into a Sex-Slave and has to be rescued by men. (To see the blog I'm referencing click here: http://www.socialjusticeleague.net/2011/10/how-do-you-solve-a-problem-like-slave-leia/ )

These are some very sexist and offensive overtones. Would we have felt differently if let's say, it was "Han Solo" stuck wearing a speedo, while chained to Jaba the Hutt? And Leia frozen in the carbonite? Yes.. We would have. It probably would have ruined the whole movie. This just shows how hardwired we are to attribute women with sex, and how we've been desensitized to thinking that this kind of behavior is okay.

Star Wars ain't special. Apparently Star Trek's had it's own slave variant.

Women are also degraded in the workplace. Oftentimes getting paid less than men for the same job. And being treated like they couldn't possibly understand what's really going on. Even if they hold a higher degree than their fellow man.. And if they're put in charge; They're generally not well respected. Because somehow being a woman will automatically make you incapable in business. Even if you own the whole damn company.

Yeah. Some cookies and Equal Pay.

But the reason for the degrading of women all boils down to one issue. Comparison. If men and women were not constantly being compared this wouldn't be an issue. Now it's impossible to not compare, but could the comparisons be more balanced? We should all know that men and women AREN'T equal. But we should recognize that we both hold different qualities in different areas that make us naturally superior to the other sex. Not saying that with dedication that these factors cannot be changed.

But that would lead us into Friday's topic... Log #4: The Battle of the Sexes. That wasn't cliche at all, right? ;)