Out: Girls can do anything!

In: Girls can order boys to do anything!

So "Girls rule, boys drool" and "Boys are stupid; throw rocks at them" now comes full circle. Women go around bragging about how superior they are to men, and then they can't understand why men aren't attracted to them. Women are told that they can do anything a man can do and lots more, but then they're also completely helpless to control any aspect of their existence when confronted with the presence of a male.

It leads to a lot of stereotypes that are both immoral and dangerous. How many times have you seen, in a movie or TV show, a petite-to-average woman take on a large man in hand-to-hand combat, and whip his ass? In real life, that just isn't going to happen. I may not be in the best of shape, but if I have 120 pounds on you, and there are no weapons, I'm going to win. All I have to do is get you on the floor and then sit on you.

The worst thing is that it teaches boys and men that civilized behavior doesn't pay. Postmodern feminists make it very clear that they have no use for the man who respects the values of Western civilization. The primitive man -- the low-life criminal, the high-status corporate tyrant, the Muslim wife beater -- is the best of both worlds for the feminists. Exotic, transgressive and totally hot, and when they're ready to dump the guy, they get to play victim and blame the civilized man for not preventing it.

I enjoyed the hunger games, but it was almost a perfect role reversal. The ending really stuck it for me. You have an aggressive woman who hunts with a bow sitting on a hill looking contemplative while her docile husband who bakes and plants decorative flowers cuddles with the kids. If you reversed the genders it would be a Norman Rockwell painting. And that is modern feminism, boys are girls and girls are boys.

Yeah, the "dyad" thing. Always pairing up, muttering, whispering, wtf...and if you walk up to them, they break it off. In the workplace, in the clubs, whatever.

I'm so tired of women and their paranoid conspiratorial dyads.

I agree "genius" shirts are stupid, but it's a trend that started in boys' clothing so... blame the person who started *that* trend. Maybe we shouldn't be taking any grand life lessons from children's clothing manufacturers.

Gender equality in action:

https://www.carters.com/carters-baby-girl-bodysuits-slogan/V_118G363.html

https://www.carters.com/carters-baby-boy-slogan/V_118G369.html

"Girls, on the other hand, tend to hang out in "dyads" -- twos -- and when any girl stands out, they Mean-Girl her into her place. Is it any wonder that women aren't quick to sell themselves or ask for more money?"

This is cultural, not biological and it comes from indoctrination into toxic femininity. Women do very well in large hierarchical organizations once they get that earlier shit beaten out of them i.e. they go through Basic Training.

The other thing, about not asking or speaking up, is the passivity associated with being "feminine" - more toxic femininity.

Before I address your concerns perhaps you should spend some time in your "safe" space.

I had that whole thing too, so condescending. I also hate that whenever they want to make a "powerful female character" they turn her into a knight or other physically killing character.

Put me on team Sansa. A normal person in a crazy world.

I don't know how we can make girls any more empowered, except to make it clear that it's their job to go after what they want in life, and that this will likely require sacrifice and strategy. A t-shirt that says "Genius," aside from being extremely obnoxious, doesn't teach a young woman how to compete and negotiate.

Financially successful women who try to convey instruction about how to behave at work, how to take risks, how to get more money, how to get promoted are getting shouted down by mainstream feminists because women "shouldn't have to conform to male behavior" and "women are punished for being assertive anyway." (I don't know that we are. I just think women take disagreement much more personally.)

I went to a different public school almost every year of my young life, and no matter where I went, the message was the same: "Girls, you can be anything you want. Anything. A scientist. An engineer. A construction worker. Anything." I heard it until I wanted to scream. Now popular narrative is that girls don't feel "empowered" to compete in STEM fields. Have we backslid since the 80s/90s, when girls absolutely knew we could be scientists but mostly chose not to be?

"Have we backslid since the 80s/90s, when girls absolutely knew we could be scientists but mostly chose not to be?"

That's the thing, though... thinking back to my undergrad days in the early 1980s, in most of the math and computer classes I took, about 1/3 of the class was women. These were mostly gals who had taken second-wave feminism pretty seriously, and for all of its problems, one problem that second-wave feminism didn't have was making excuses. The women in these classes knew that they weren't going to get any breaks for being female, and for the most part, they strove to prove that they deserved to be there on their merits.

From time to time I've been involved in computer education since then. And now there are a lot fewer women in computer and math classes than there were. And of the ones who are there, I'd say about half don't belong there; they don't have the chops or the prior knowledge or any empathy for the subject. And they don't seem to care that they don't. Yet, they persist, because no one in the university dares call them out. Gotta make those Title IX quotas or lose that precious federal funding.

I agree "genius" shirts are stupid, but it's a trend that started in boys' clothing so... blame the person who started *that* trend. Maybe we shouldn't be taking any grand life lessons from children's clothing manufacturers.

Renee at April 19, 2016 8:09 AM

I never wore clothes with writing on them as a kid. No one told me it would have been juvenile to wear or ask for such clothes; all I had to do was notice what my relatives did or didn't wear. Including my extended family, as a rule.

Miss Manners once said (page 39 from her child-rearing book) that for Christmas, she would like to see certain practices put back into place, such as the following (check out the other things she'd like too, such as corporate apologies and a ban on certain dinner conversation - not the kind you might expect):

https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1320&dat=19831219&id=OakRAAAAIBAJ&sjid=m-kDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5268,1337742&hl=en

"A ban on reading material on clothes and, in fact, on clothes making personal statements of any kind. Miss Manners is for freedom of speech for all people, but believes that it is time that clothes shut up."

And from Fran Lebowitz: "If people don't want to hear from you, what makes you think they want to hear from your sweater?"

> I never wore clothes with writing on
> them as a kid. No one told me it would
> have been juvenile to wear or ask for
> such clothes; all I had to do was notice
> what my relatives did or didn't wear.

☑

Relatives and others— Calvin Klein never wore the names of people I admired on his clothing, and they didn't wear his. Reliance on brand names to betoken elegance is one of the things that makes rap and inner city culture disheartening.

"From time to time I've been involved in computer education since then. And now there are a lot fewer women in computer and math classes than there were. And of the ones who are there, I'd say about half don't belong there; they don't have the chops or the prior knowledge or any empathy for the subject."

I don't know what to make of this. I could explain why fewer women than men are interested in these subjects, but I can't explain why interest among women has actually dwindled over time.

I wonder if it's the luster of other jobs recently "invented."

"I can't explain why interest among women has actually dwindled over time."

Why strive to excel in a field when you can relax and skate by on quotas and set-asides?

I find it interesting that they would put "gifted" on a shirt. In gifted circles (using the word in the poorly-phrased educational context) there's a lot of talk about kids - especially girls - who HIDE their giftedness because of social pressures.

Also, parents of gifted kids often feel they cannot share their kids' accomplishments. They are told they are "bragging" or "rubbing it in" (winning the chess tournament = bragging, but winning the state football championship is ok).

Now it's on a t-shirt. So, does that mean it's ok to talk about now? Or are we saying "everyone is gifted" (which, as pointed out in The Incredibles, means nobody is)?

Are girls going to want shirts that make them "stick out?"

When I went to OU the electrical engineering program was something like 60% male and 40% female. Which seemed really weird to me when I read it because there was only one or two women in any of my EE classes (and ~18 guys). Apparently the program was actually majority female the first year and the percentages dropped dramatically each year after till by the third year we were at ~95% male.

But I don't buy a fear of math as the driving force. Chemical engineering is every bit as math intensive and mentally rigorous. Their program was a 50/50 split. And it wasn't professors pushing women out. You got a letter grade bump for just having tits in most classes, which was all title ix driven. Best I can tell women just didn't find the material interesting so they moved on.

Speaking of The Hunger Games, ever notice that the heroine is the strong, silent type?

Shannon: "Also, parents of gifted kids often feel they cannot share their kids' accomplishments."

But I see a lot of cars with bumper stickers that say something like "Proud Parent of a Gifted Student".

Seems like feminism has degenerated into political penis envy.

Yep CateC. She is completely a male archetype. And Peeta is a female one. She is the hunter, he is the gatherer.

Renee, I don't know that baby clothes matter. One year olds can't read. They don't get to pick their clothes. Teenagers are a different story. If your teenager is running around with a t-shirt that says 'Genius' or 'Mommy's little scientist' on it something is wrong.

Wearing a shirt that says "Genius" or "Gifted" (or "Hottie") makes a you a walking target for people who now want to take you down a peg. Every mistake you make will be noted and laughed at.

I have a vested interest in this discussion of women and computer education; I'm a senior computer engineer at a cloud start up company.

When I went to school in the 90s, there was maybe 30% females in my classes... enough that I didn't much notice at the time.

Most of these women when into 'soft' technical areas... project management, some operations, some account management type roles. Very few went into 'hard' technical areas that required regular training and improvement of your technical knowledge. I have been the only woman in every technical training class I've taken since 2000.

Why does this happen? I can't speak for every woman, but sexism is alive and well in technology. I've had male coworkers demanding that I quit my job and have babies 'Like I'm supposed to', make regular public demands of sexual favors, reference my breasts in staff meetings, be allowed to bully and harass me when I disagree. Negatively treat me for things that the men around me do regularly (lose my temper, etc). In addition, it is a constant fight not to be pigeon holed into doing work 'house' work. It is assumed that I will take on the documentation, planning holiday and birthday parties for the team, comforting a saddened coworker. I've had so many people assume that I was available for hugs that I had to designate a specific toy on my desk for people who need 'physical reassurances'.

Don't get me wrong... I keep fighting. I address each issue calmly and with the person in question. But having a real career in technology requires diving head first into the awkward men's locker room that is computer engineering. I can completely understand why some women get exhausted, and just give up. After 20 years I have created a career were I am a technical escalation for an entire cutting edge cloud technology company. But I'm at the point where I contemplate if I can do this for another 30 years.

Julie

Julie you must work at some horrible places. I have absolutely never experienced any of that. Maybe it is location based? I am in NYC.

I am primarily a developer currently but have worked in all areas over 20 years.

I both worked as an employee and as a consultant. I've worked in places with all kinds of ratios of men to women. I've been the only woman and I've been on teams that were mostly women. I've worked in places that had to be business professional and places that I could wear sandals. I've worked at enterprise and financial companies and government and startups.

I am usually quite uncomfortable being in a woman only group (in any context) as all phony displays of respect for men are gone. Not all women do this but the ones that do feel comfortable doing it when there are no men. I think it doesn't occur to them that anyone could feel otherwise.

I have never heard a male coworker generalize about women negatively. The male coworkers are more likely to generalize about men negatively. I hear women do it all the time.

I've had one woman tell me I should take her side against a male coworker because I was a woman.

I had a former boss tell me how she loved X movie because the husband was so typically clueless like all husbands while I stared at her blankly. She says similar things all the time and I bite my tongue.

I've had women say to me, "Glad a woman is here to get the job done."

I get tired of hearing mothers complain about their husband not doing enough childcare or housework. You chose him. There is a good chance you did because of his position and earning power.

I've had to justify why I didn't want to participate in Women's History month event.

I've seen significantly more female chauvinism than male chauvinism.

Generally men don't show any difference in working with me than a male coworker (except maybe opening doors or letting me off the elevator first--which early on in my career I resisted because I wanted to be treated exactly the same as a man--I've gotten over that and simply say thank you).

I've never not been taken seriously (due to being a woman). I've had some difficult coworkers; they were difficult to everyone.

all I had to do was notice what my relatives did or didn't wear.
_______________________________

I should add that it was the 1970s, so I'm pretty sure that most of my little classmates didn't wear clothes with writing on them either - or even that many cartoon characters, during school hours. Clearly, that would have made a big difference. Not to mention that if they'd tried to wear clothes that the teacher considered to be boastful or obnoxious, teachers in elementary schools, then, had more power and got more respect from parents than they do now.

Since when is bragging polite, anyway?

BTW, there's an article in the Washington Post, today:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/04/21/why-women-dont-use-a-certain-rude-word/

It's about how men supposedly don't think certain behaviors are rude and women do. Trouble is, that doesn't fit in with what at least some men complain of - that men are expected to put up with rudenesses from women that they'd never accept from a man - but maybe that has to do with the difference between workplace situations and social situations.

The mistake women make when they are in a bad environment is to think that their experience is unique. If the men are treating the woman badly, well, they're probably treating each other badly too. I've been in bad environments. I've experienced getting into an argument with someone in a meeting, and then have him challenge me to "take it outside" afterwards. I've been made fun of for my sometimes poor state of health, my Southern accent, my geekiness, and not being in the "cool people" department.

I've had women mock my manliness for not being forceful enough with them (in a situation where doing so would have doubtless resulted in a harassment charge), and I've had them hold their affirmative-action status over me. I quit one job because the supervisor was an AA queen who made it absolutely clear that she wanted to get rid of all of the men on her team. If the situation had been reversed, I could have made a lot of money suing the company, but being a white male and therefore legally a second-class citizen, my options were to throw away my self-respect, or walk away. I left.

Some environments are bad. Some people are just evil.

CD "Some environments are bad. Some people are just evil."

Sometimes the chemistry between people sucks too. I worked as a consultant in one place where it turned out I could be more effective keeping 2 people out of the same room. I would go back and forth between the Finance Director and the IT director. They both respected me. The FD was a bit of condescending jerk to many people and was just technically savvy enough to try to tell how something should get done rather than what he wanted.

I was good at (and much better the consultants hired as BAs--who if not stopped would tell their developers to do exactly what the FD told them to do) to translate and find out what he was trying to accomplish. My boss complimented me on how well "I managed him".

Just bought one of my girls a "genius" shirt. It's spelled out in elements of the periodic table, and it's part of a pajama set. It's quite cute, and she wanted it, and needed jammies. It made me laugh, though, after seeing this post.