amaranta- first off, let me say that I understand that I’m going to lose this argument, that I’m going to be shot down and crushed by a board that won’t tolerate anything seen as offensive or biased towards anyone: although, I read a thread recently in which a pizza delivery man complained about a population of African Americans in his city who did many disagreeable things, including
- complaining about their orders being late, even when they weren’t
- never tipping- even the well-to-do ones
It was pointed out in said thread that there’s a difference between racism and ‘calling it like one sees it’- and the fact is that many populations of African Americans can be seen to exhibit these characteristics. This is a cultural tendency observed in many populations of Blacks in America. ‘Racism’ would be generalizing all African Americans as non-tippers who complain about orders and put rims on their cars, etc.- this is too broad. But ‘calling it like one sees it’, having observed a widely-observed trait verified by numerous sources over a long period of time and backed up by evidence, is OK- in fact, not doing so is just plain bullshitting.
If the members of this board were to suppress all talk of African American populations being stingy in defense of that being ‘hate speech,’ that would suck. That would be bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.
:: sigh :: amaranta, I am not a sexist; in fact, I think very highly of women. I say this not because I have to present any political-corectness to anyone, but to be honest.
As I said, I’m willing to believe absolutely that women are, on the whole, better drivers- they are more considerate, they don’t drive as recklessly (although many certainly do), and they don’t generally do things like road rage. I’d bet $100 bucks that the statistics show they do indeed cause far fewer fatalities than men do- and BTW, does anyone have those stats?
Anyways- it is widely observed, however, that many women are not as good at handling their cars as many men are. Now of course many female users are going to respond to me explaining how well they drive, how they handle their cars, never been in an accident, etc., and how I am a sexist despicable pig for even daring to say such a despicable thing. We are too bound by political-correctness on these boards and in this country.
But many of us can relate to what I’m saying, even if they don’t speak up about it for fear of being shouted down and seen as sexist (as is happening to me right now). And I understand that pressure, and how I probably won’t get any support for this; but we all know women who don’t handle their cars as well as many men we know. There are also a lot of women who don’t know much about their cars and how they work, but then again, there are many men who don’t either, myself included; it’s just to say that many men have an interest in both how their cars operate and therefore a better understanding of how to control it. Of course, now responses will come explaining how bad some guys you know drive and how good your wife or other women drive, and I understand; but there is truth to criticisms of women’s driving skills.
A poster in a thread a while back pointed out that young girls, teenage girls, are the ones who are in traffic court the most of all teenagers, pointing out that they are not prepared to drive, and we all know many (or have known) young girls who fit this description. They have little to no knowledge of the cars they drive (not even of their own license plate numbers), they don’t know the surrounding area or how to navigate from place to place, they don’t know many laws or accepted traffic behaviors- this is why we MUST push for tougher training of American youth!
I did learn a lot from my pitting in the past, and the main thing was: only post was you truly believe. I mean these things 100%, and I don’t care that they are not politically-correct or popular ideas, they have been observed many times in many places, they are ‘calling it like it is’, I am NOT a sexist, I like women very much, and I’m willing to face the flaming and lack of support I’m going to receive for my claims. But please, if you find any truth in what I’ve observed, speak up- don’t let the pressure of the political correctness of the other users hold you back from speaking what you see as the truth.
