Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
Hmmm…this is interesting:
The Rage Behind a Woman’s Stare
Yes, this is the headline of a Washington Post column (you may need a subscription to view it) about–you guessed it–women who do too much (thanks to the reader who emailed the article):
Like our love, women’s anger — the simmering rage toward our families, our mates and assorted males that can turn even the calmest woman’s expression into The Death Look — is always there. Even when it’s the last thing on our minds….
Surprised by my sudden bitterness, I asked, “Why do we keep doing so much with so little help?” “Because no one else will do it,” Ilena snorted. “Because we can’t live in a house that looks like a cyclone went through it,” I added.
Because we’re the wife, we agreed. The mom. The girl.
Millions of Death-Look-wearing women ask, “What can I do?” yet few embrace the obvious answer: “Stop!” Stop with the cleaning, the arranging, the cheerleading, the shopping, the whole relentless shebang. Some who do stop see their homes’ disarray devolve into a chaos that’s unbearable — for them, not their families..
I wonder what a Male Death Look would look like? A desperate look that says “Stop with the body guarding, fixing the faucet, mowing the lawn, earning much of the living, the light-bulb changing, the honeydo list…. and on and on.”
But we’ll probably never know because what men do is not valued by most female journalists and the white knight males who support them in their sexism. In addition, men keep their anger against women to themselves as complaining will only serve to get them tagged as a misgogynist or whiner. This needs to change.
I don’t know if I agree with that last one. Men who insist on absolute equality with all things are whiners, aren’t they? And the same goes for the women. Vive la Difference. Besides, something tells me if men are elevated to share equal privilege in bellyaching about the opposite sex, this is going to start off a chain reaction of events that will culminate in some expectation that I’ll be expected to do half the housework. That, in turn, is going to result in an inevitable lowering of standards…trust me…you do not want to go down this road.
There is a rather complex power-sharing taking place here, one we are not allowed to notice in mixed company because the first observation to be made is this: Dudes can do things chicks can’t. We all know it’s true, and we try to bury the truth deep down in all sorts of logical fallacies. The most attractive and appealing among these is to compare the impressive feats of a selected female champion against the efforts toward the equivalent by an average male…think of Mia Hamm engaged in a one-on-one against an average middle-age guy, let’s say one who luxuriates on a couch watching mens’ soccer games and was caught saying something disparaging against womens’ soccer. She’d clean his clock, of course, and all the usual suspects would smirk until their smirkers got tired…but…how fast can the fastest guy run? How much can the strongest man lift? Can the gals compete? No, not only can’t they, but we know they can’t and we customize the athletic efforts and competitions accordingly. We divide them because we know we have to.
We’re different, and it’s a product of evolution. I see the writer of the Washington Post piece figured that out for herself on page two:
More than once, I wondered, “Why can’t guys see what needs to be done right under their noses?” One day, while picking up the 700th wadded-up tissue from the floor, I realized the answer:
Hard-wiring. Prehistoric men were hunters. Stalkers of prey needed laser-like focus to track their quarry; every unnecessary detail faded. Centuries later, guys in my house were similarly riveted by SportsCenter and Playstation 2. Women, I realized, are hard-wired to be multitaskers-or multi-seers. The hunter’s mate needed eyes that could sweep vast landscapes, assess her child’s, mate’s and elderly kin’s wellbeing while locating food, medicinal herbs, poisonous plants.
And so men are physically more powerful…and to compensate, women take power…are given power…in other places. We allow it to happen, not because we’re entirely ignorant of it, or that we think women are better than men and deserve it — although there is plenty of each of those going on — but the real reason is we know it is necessary as a compensation device. Something happens at dinner that ticks a woman off, it is implicitly understood that the dynamic has been changed for everybody. Unless the woman occupies a position of very little power…let’s say she’s the girl who brings the food out and clears the plates. But if she’s one of the guests, look out. She doesn’t even have to be the most powerful woman. If there’s a mother-in-law/daughter-in-law conflict, everyone is affected. The “if she ain’t happy, he ain’t either” rule is activated.
The same does not happen at that dinner, if the males end up in conflict. They are merely asked to shush. And this is not a product of the femniist movement, it’s been going on at least since Shakespeare. Feminists absolutely hate to admit this, that females enjoyed any kind of power before 1920, but it’s true. Great-great-grandpa put his muddy shoes where the missus told him to, he didn’t dare put them anywhere else.
Men exert direct power, women exert indirect power. If it wasn’t true, the “death look” wouldn’t mean anything.
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Men are fighter pilots. Women are AWACs. It’s really that simple.
We ‘gotcher six. Now go, and conquer.
- JoanOfArgghh | 02/02/2012 @ 17:04