You've all seen it. Every two-bit stand-up comedian, every sitcom drained of ideas, every obnoxious adolescent girl on Facebook seems to have some fanciful, exaggerated opinion about the difference between men and women. Well, here's a shocker. It's nonsense. Yes, utter garbage.
While I can't quite say "identical", I think you'll find that outside of cosmetic and biological differences, men and women are astonishingly similar. I have determined this through years of studying social behavior. After spending far too long being surrounded by the intolerably stupid mantra "the girl/wife is always right", I, as a person who loves being right and a man of science, decided to take it upon myself to prove just how asinine this idea is, as well as the Mars-Venus mentality upon which it is based.
"The girl/wife is always right" is in fact so stupid that even hearing it once is to be exposed to it for "too long". Thanks to Mormons and high school girls, I had to hear it more than once. It was dreadful. Before I proceed to the meat of this discussion I shall expound on the unrivaled idiocy of this belief.
The most easily identifiable flaw is that "always" and, for that matter "never" hold absolutely no truth outside of a mathematics textbook. Next, if a woman is assumed to be "right" and the man "wrong", that implies several things initially. Firstly, that all men and all women share the same belief on everything. Thus, every option can be divided into only two options: the "right" option selected by all women and the "wrong" option or options selected by all men. This would mean there would always be only two political parties, one for the men and one for the women; the party run by the women would consistently make correct decisions in policy and campaigning, thus trouncing the men's party. Why men would even allowed to vote, knowing they would only make the wrong decisions, is puzzling on its own.
Taking away the "always" modifier, even though no one who supported it ever did, and substituting the much less brief and less satisfying "a statistically significant number of women are correct more often than men with statistically significant magnitude" still fails to resolve the problem. If you haven't been paying attention to the entirety of history before New Zealand became the first country to give women the vote in 1896, men are, in fact, capable of doing things. In fact, up until about the 1970s it was entirely the opposite: men were the stable, capable ones taking care of their ditzy, hysterical wives. While I'm glad that's over, I can see we've overcorrected.
It also raises philosophical questions: would a particular point of view be right because it is right, or because it is feminine? If a man consigns his opinions to a woman's, on which scale are they judged for weight of possibility of being correct? The point is, never, ever say that phrase ever again or I will scald you.
Moving on to the less-obvious and more-relevant matter, masculinity and femininity represent false dichotomy. Saying a particular action, interest, or trait is "masculine" or "feminine" is as meaningless as saying it is particularly white or blue or green. "You enjoy sports? That's an orange trait, all right!" Mentally, men and women are not so different. That's to what this all boils down.
Housework and cooking are not "feminine", they are "domestic". Playing sports is not "masculine", it is "sporty". Likewise, paying attention to sports is not "masculine", it is "stupid"*. And recalling that 40% of the Super Bowl's viewership is female year after year, it is easy to see that gender really has little impact on this. At least, that's what I would have said back when I was young and optimistic about humanity. In practice, people have yet to pick up on this.
[[*I can put a spheroid through an opening with greater accuracy and/or frequency than the layman. Give me millions of dollars!
Alternatively: You are large and can run towards other large people without being readily knocked down. Congratulations, you have all the qualifications to play football or mate with a female gorilla.]]
So what does cause those schisms that fill the repertoire of bad comedians and page after page after page of Dating Fails? Purely social stigma. This is where those years of study come in to play. As you come closer to the social norm, gender differences become more and more pronounced. The duck-faced pre-teen girls, the frat boy jocks, the long-married Mormons. The further from social norms (that is, the disaffected nerds, hippies, and counterculture) the less gender roles matter. It seems no coincidence that the only gender-integrated teams at my school of which I am aware are those populated by nerds (Quiz Bowl, Science Bowl, mock trial), though mind you, this was NOT the extent of my research. Why? Because the people already separated from the popular influence (and this plays up heavily the "nurture" end of the equation) in elementary, middle, and high school are those who are not, for lack of a better word, contaminated by the dichotomy model of gender theory.
Perhaps most frustrating is the "protector-protectee" dynamic seen far too often, which holds (in addition to "the girl is always right") that the girl is inherently special and deserves the adoring support of the boy. This is a way of simultaneously building up and insulting both genders: the girls think of themselves as the magical chalices of vague virtue and the boys as lowly servants; the boys think of themselves as noble knights protecting a valuable object, but an object nonetheless. Comforting on some level, but ever so stupid.
Boys are encouraged into sports; girls are, by and large, not. However, the worst part about this is that it is self-perpetuating. When a girl plays and enjoys sports, she is called a "tomboy", the implication being that her interest is not in sports but in masculinity, again tying into the false dichotomy.
This leads into the sexual double standard, which fortunately has been growing weaker in recent years. Truthfully I'm a little squicked by the whole topic (I also have trouble touching people, so perhaps I'm not the most reliable source on the topic), but to place one group as the "victors" and the other as the "prize" just represents building up these non-existent differences even more. And while at first glance it seems unfair to women, it also means that men are assumed, by default, to be undesirable and thus forced to rise above their lowly station to score. Yes, it strikes that rarely-seen sweet spot of stupidity where nobody wins even a little.
I am a straight male who enjoys clothes shopping and fashion, video games of most genres, Terry Gilliam and Hayao Miyazaki, alternative rock, writing, comedy (particularly dark comedy), and bashing on stuff. I hate sports, children, rap, Michael Bay, Twilight, and sensitivity. Notice a pattern?
Good, you weren't supposed to. There wasn't one, because a person's interests are, by and large, not directly tied in with one another and particularly not in such broad bundles as "male" and "female". Unless you noticed "nerdy", "tasteful", or "whiny", which are correct. If you deduced that I had just returned from Afghanistan, then I'm afraid I must inform you that Dr. Moriarty's plan has already succeeded. Moving on!
What does this mean for you? Instead of worrying, "How on earth will I talk to this girl/boy?", think instead "How on earth will I talk to this person?", and then the problem seems to diminish. Unless you have a phobia or anxiety disorder which pertains to that situation, but now I'm getting too technical.
Not that gender is meaningless, of course. There's still sex, of course. However, unless you are presently engaged in the active pursuit of someone with whom to hump, it's not much of a concern. Like I said, I can't quite call men and women identical, but society plays a far more enormous role in their differences than any actual differences.
So in short, the key to figuring out women is that they have thoughts comparable to your own. Fancy that
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