Funny story....my temporary (male) therapist was asking me questions about my profession. I said that on my side of things my company is all male. He asked me how I liked it and I told him....well I mean I really don't have any problems except our meetings are too long, about half a day usually when we have them.

He then said "I work with 90% females with psychology degrees. We sit around in meetings and they go around and around and around because all they do is talk about how a particular case makes them feel, or how another co-worker hurt their feelings, or how they feel in general. I doubt any of your co-workers do that. Count yourself lucky".

My reply: "No they just call each other cock-suckers when they disagree"

The relentless parade of female grievances against males in social interaction suggests that women would prefer that they be accompanied by chaperones - you know, strong women who can protect the dainty ones in the majority.

My reply: "No they just call each other cock-suckers when they disagree"

I love men for that, Ppen.

I wrote about this here:

http://www.advicegoddess.com/ag-column-archives/2012/10/apocalypse-meow.html

Women, on the other hand, evolved to be the cooperators, nurturers, and empathizers of the species, prizing group bondedness and keeping the peace. This sounds so much nicer than how the menfolk do things but actually leads to ugly indirect aggression like dirty looks, spiteful gossip, and shunning. Though it's best not to go around breaking one another's noses over who has the cutest shoes, women often end up festering with nastiness, while guys can sometimes sock each other and then go off and have a beer.

One management team I worked with loved the phrase "accomplished goal but used inappropriate methods".

They never liked it when I pushed back by asking them what "methods/options" I ignored in meeting their "drop-dead deadline". I did not get points for asking them to explain their "feelings".

I believe the difference between men and women is that for most women "feelings" are their primary goal and for men they are "tools" to be used bluntly.

This is a major reason I don't talk with my sister. She is a mechanical engineer making good money in aerospace. But every damn conversation is about how oppressed she is and how the men are keeping her down. As a man nothing I say is right and everything I say is wrong. And this has gone on for years (20+).

Back in collage I threw a little party. Surprise, surprise you put a bunch of engineers in a room together and they go geek. My roommate pulled out a hard disk he salvaged from work. A quality piece of 1970s hardware. So they disassembled it and played with the parts. Honestly a fun time was had by most. But when I walked my sister back to her dorm it was a never ending bitch fest about how I hadn't done enough to give her a good time. So that was the last time I invited her to one of my parties.

It goes on to this day. This Christmas something came up (I honestly don't remember what) and she started off on her all women are oppressed and all men are oppressing them monologue. So I stopped her saying it was enough. Please talk about something else. Which got the response, who am I to say when it is enough? How dare I tell her when to change the conversation? She didn't feel like it was enough and this conversation will continue. So I left.

She complains to my parents that she doesn't feel close to me. And about how I won't call her and hang up on her when she calls me some times. But at this point I don't care. I have no need to be lectured about how bad of a person I am.

Essentially her sense of victimhood lets her excuse any bad behavior. No matter what she does she is just evening the scales. And the scales are permanently stuck against her (at least in her mind).

Sorry for the rant.

Shaky certainty?

If it's shaky, it ain't certainty ... by definition.

No need to apologize, Ben. I get it. Feminism has become victimism -- the victimhood Olympics, really, with women competing to find offenses by men in more and more unlikely places.

Criticism is much easier than accomplishment.

"This sounds so much nicer than how the menfolk do things but actually leads to ugly indirect aggression like dirty looks, spiteful gossip, and shunning."

I was talking about this with my partner the other day: I remembered of a period in my first years in elementary school and how there was what I later perceived as some sort of dominant group of girls. I was telling him because I felt pretty shitty about not facing them at the time: they decided to ostracise this or that girl every now and then and the rest of the class had to follow suit.

So one day I had enough and confronted them about it, which prompted them to do the same to me (I should have seen that coming). I had observed that the males in our class just punched each other when they had a disagreement and I felt it was so much healthier than the days of back-stabbing and whatnot, so I just proposed that: "Why don't we just solve this with a duel and leave it at that? It sounds a lot more awesome to me."

They didn't agree, though. :/ I more or less had the same experience with that kind of group of females throughout my whole school life. Later on I did end up in a fight with some guys and we ended up getting along fairly well afterwards, even though at the time they broke my bike and I lost miserably.

I still remember that one fight as much less stressful than the continuous bickering with girls.

One thing I love about the women I'm friends with is that they are more straightforward than many women. I thought I might've offended a friend this weekend. Instead of festering over it, I emailed her and said something like, "I hope I didn't offend you by..."

She wrote back something like: "If I had been offended, I would have told you..."

And she's that type of person and I should have realized that -- and actually do realize that -- but I wanted to be sure.

Such a relief to be able to conduct friendships like this.

Aw shucks. I still don't understand why Solnit didn't just tell the guy she Wrote The Book he was gassing on about? My dad always told me that if you don't blow your own horn, don't whine about the silence.

I've had this in my random email signature file for years...

[Jerry and George describe wedgies to Elaine]
Elaine: "Boys are sick!"
Jerry: "Well what do girls do?"
Elaine: "We just tease someone until they develop an eating disorder."
==> Seinfeld.

it became all too easy for women to avoid conversations with men who disagree with them; all they had to do is charge them with "mansplaining" and case closed.

Reminds me of a former girlfriend. Whenever I'd disagree with her on some issue she'd always cry "You're just not listening to me!"

I heard a new term today (at least new to me) -- micro-discrimination. This was in a piece at work on URM and women in the work place - hiring, retention, etc.

Aw shucks. I still don't understand why Solnit didn't just tell the guy she Wrote The Book he was gassing on about? My dad always told me that if you don't blow your own horn, don't whine about the silence.

Posted by: KateC at January 19, 2015 11:19 AM
________________________________

I read the story again, courtesy of Amazon, pages 1-4. I don't see where she "whines" about him, in particular. It's just her first example, that's all.

But as to why she didn't speak up right away: That's easy enough. Since she, luckily, had a female friend there (Sallie), she knew she could count on her to point out that it was Solnit's book - and Solnit's not interrupting the man made it impossible for the man to even think of Solnit as anything but polite, since SHE wasn't the one causing him to lose face. Even so, he didn't apologize, so I'd say Solnit did the right thing - had she been the one to set him straight, he'd likely have a very negative impression of her now. "Persuasion is better than force."

Had Sallie not been there, Solnit might have quietly waited until he stopped talking before disillusioning him - but that could have taken half an hour. A very tiresome way of "being polite."

Now I just have to find a polite way to say "No, I'm not impressed by your leased luxury car and ugly Rolex. Go away."

Yes, OK - I should have stressed that either way, had she been the one to set him straight, that type of man was still going to be offended, and she presumably wanted him to change his mind and feel humbled, not just bluntly force the truth into his ears, since most of the time, one can't do both. Had her friend not been there, chances are she wouldn't have felt guilty about interrupting him on her own.

Of course, as I implied, her being "polite" didn't quite work anyway, with that clod, but at least he was temporarily embarrassed.

BTW, there was an another article in the NY Times, on a slightly different subject:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/11/opinion/sunday/speaking-while-female.html?_r=0

Excerpt:

"We’ve both seen it happen again and again. When a woman speaks in a professional setting, she walks a tightrope. Either she’s barely heard or she’s judged as too aggressive. When a man says virtually the same thing, heads nod in appreciation for his fine idea. As a result, women often decide that saying less is more."

And, in a letter from Jan. 12:

"Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant describe how women who speak up in meetings are often barely heard or judged as too aggressive. I recalled how MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow handled being talked over on 'Real Time With Bill Maher.' On the Jan. 21, 2011, show, Mr. Maher’s guests included Ms. Maddow, Stephen Moore, a conservative economist, and David Stockman, director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Reagan. At one point Ms. Maddow tried to discuss the effects of Reaganomics on the middle class — and Mr. Moore talked right over her.

"Rather than shout back, Ms. Maddow humorously raised her hand, as if she were in school asking for permission to speak. When that didn’t work, she finally just stood up. Her tactic stopped Mr. Moore cold. And then Ms. Maddow made her point.

"Women do need to 'lean in.' Women do need to firmly say, 'I’m speaking now, you’ll get your turn.' And yes, sometimes women do need to JUST STAND UP."

ELLEN S. DANIELS
New York, Jan. 12, 2015

So it would seem that etiquette is pretty necessary at all times - and you have to play your cards carefully if you don't want nasty names thrown at you later.

Lenona, don't try to convince me for a second that any of that is unique to women. It isn't. Why is it that so many women think they should be specially privileged in regard to this sort of thing? "I'm a woman, so you aren't allowed to disagree with me!" I've had the experience of listening to a woman drone on and on in a meeting for 30 minutes nonstop, and then whine afterwards that those mean ol' men wouldn't let her say what she wanted to say. Whatever sympathy I might have ever had is long gone.

Lenona, don't try to convince me for a second that any of that is unique to women.
___________________________

I never said it was. Also, the NY Times diligently printed letters to that effect on the same day. So I'm well aware of it.