Positive stereotypes are still stereotypes.
“All gay men have a superb fashion sense”
“All Asians are excellent at math”
“All African-Americans are GREAT at sports”
“All women are cuddle-bunny consensus-seeker peaceniks”
It’s offensive because in making the generalization, you subsume individuals into the group.
Well, the difference between those examples is that many people wouldn’t consider being “cuddle-bunny consensus-seeker peaceniks” to be a positive stereotype.
As for the rest; people are going to stereotype you; if a positive stereotype sticks, let it. Even if you get rid of it, another will take it’s place; possibly a negative stereotype. In other words, choose your battles.
But positive stereotypes can hurt people, too. An Asian kid who needs help with math might have more trouble getting it than a white or black kid, because “all Asians are good at math”.
Fewer people than the negative ones, however. As I said, I don’t believe you can get rid of stereotyping; it’s how humans are made. Damage containment is the best you can do.
Agreed, but it’s not something we should be encouraging people to do.
Didn’t mean to judge your ideas harshly, chowder, it looks like you sincerely want to redress historic gender imbalances of power, and that’s commendable. It’s just that a critique which puts the blame on one gender has been tried already–men blamed Eve and by extension all women for the Fall of Man–and look where that got us. Tu quoque won’t wash here. I would rather see a more peaceful and compassionate world brought about through full gender equality.
If you want to support women’s advancements, by all means, welcome. For example, the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom - UK.
Nowhere do they claim that women are better than men on these issues–they’re saying that as women they have something to contribute. Please consider lending your support to something like this.
Not at all. If you re-read my OP I stated thatby and large women are less power etc fixated.
I did not state all
Maybe not all women like fashion mags but again by and large most do, just as most men like sports mags
Actually, I doubt that. I’ve known lots of women, and only one reads fashion mags. And I refuse to consider her representative of the sex because she’s a chucklehead.
Let me recommend this article
Sure, it stereotypes, but the point of the OP is asking for stereotypes.
But does she take sugar on her porridge? :dubious:
I used to hang out on a Brit message board named after a common female accessory, under another name (I’d’ve used it here if it hadn’t been taken). They had loads of fora: news, politics, sport, motoring, general chit-chat, and relationships. One forum had more posts than all the rest put together. Guess which.
Stereotypes aren’t usually groundless or they’d never get started. 
I didn’t say she isn’t a woman, or a true woman, I said she doesn’t represent women. She’s in a severe minority amongst women I know, both for the mags and the chuckleheadedness.
That’s as may be. But how’d the fashion mags stay afloat then? (Or the glossy photo gossip mags, for that matter.) I personally doubt it’s on the male-consumer dollar.
The OP claimed that most women like fashion magazines. I doubt that most women do. I never claimed none do.
By and large, that’s not true, even if you didn’t say “all”.
Well I didn’t say all did I?
I haven’t read the rest of this thread, so pardon me if I’m repeating something someone else said.
I’m female. I am all about equality; if I’m doing the same job a guy does and doing the same amount of work, we should get paid the same. However, men can be fathers and women can be mothers and neither gender can do the other. So there are obviously some differences. I can’t in good conscience call myself a feminist because nowadays feminism tends to mean “I think women are better than men,” which I can’t stand. Most women have a mean streak in them that is a lot more subtle than the brute force mean streak most men have. Women are perfectly willing to ruin another person’s life over a petty feud; I know, I’ve seen it done. Men are more likely to beat the crap out of each other, and then let bygones be bygones.
Saying “The world would be better if women were in charge, because the history of the world is violent and men have always been in charge” doesn’t fly with me. I’m a big believer in the Douglas Adams theory: Anyone capable of getting themselves put in charge should in no circumstances be allowed to do so; be they male or female. And I’d rather a man be in charge than some of the women I’ve had to deal with, including myself (if I were in charge half the world would probably be dead within a week; I’ve got quite the happy trigger finger and I suspect it extends to the button for WMDs).
Saying women are more maternal doesn’t mean much; women are, on the whole, maternal towards their own children, but everyone else is just everyone else, and of course they have no problem fucking someone up if they fuck with their kids.
This BS about women caring more about the sanctity of life is just that. I know very few women who would have a problem killing someone if the situation called for it (and some even if it didn’t call for it). Sanctity of life exists only in people who believe in it; male or female, I’d say there’s a relatively even distribution in that belief across the board (no cite, sorry, just personal experience - has anyone ever done a study on this? Misanthropy prevalence in gender?).
~Tasha
Another problem with blaming all of the evil in history on men because they were in charge is : Just how much were they in charge ?. Men do things because their wife/daughter/lover/sister/etc asks them to all the time. We have no way of knowing at this late date if some king a thousand years ago conquered his neighbor not because he was ambitious, but because his queen was ambitious.
I don’t think that really helps, honestly. Having it be someone else’s idea doesn’t really excuse the behavior, or else you’d be a lot more forgiving of the religious! 
It doesn’t help men, since it at best implies they are fools. I mainly use that argument to undercut the people who go on and on about how women are perfect little angels who would never do the nasty things men have done.
Personal observation. I’m male, but I have alot of female friends. Let me tell you they fight. They’re not saints. Good people usually, but not saints. Subtle little jabs. I’ve gotten so I can recognize them. Little status pyramids. Petty social jealousy. Pissed off about what something “implied”. Took me awhile to learn as I oblivious to them apparently. Now I just choose to ignore the subtle little mind games, but if I wanna push buttons I learned from the best. Women tend to fight subtly. The best way to piss those types of women off is to wrap your poke up in a compliment so they can’t outright object. Drama just isn’t fun though so best left avoided.
This however is stereotype. I’ve seen women get just as in your face posturing as men, and I’ve seen women who just don’t get caught up in the drama because like their male counterparts they don’t notice it, or choose not to partake of it. Just like some men choose to walk away not out of fear but just not seeing the point of a fight, and men can get just as snotty and subtle too.
Drama games are just another form of posturing. If it was the cultural norm to expect women to be aggressive like men I’d bet they’d posture outright just like guys do.
The people you want in government are the ones who want to get things done, and are smart enough to not be entertained by drama games or posturing. Those come in male or female. It isn’t about gender it’s about stepping back and looking at the bigger picture.
-J. H Mcdonald’s translation of the Tao Te Ching