I must admit, this was what got my dander up, too. If some women are offended by a man offering his seat because it makes them feel demeaned, well, I guess that is their right. I don’t get it, but…whatever. But this nasty attitude towards pregnant women and children I just find to be completely uncalled for and rude. Especially in this case, where the person asking the OP question is pregnant. Really, really nice. :rolleyes:
In your opinion maybe, but I don’t give much of a shit about your opinion or your guidance. Correction, I don’t give a shit at all. I have no idea why you think I even care whether you consider me ‘misguided’. I didn’t ask your advice, nor do I need it. Apparently to you, misguided means I don’t agree with you.
And then there are those who like the opinion and the delivery. Those are the ones that you so snidely refer to as ‘Knights on White Steeds’. They only seem that way to you because you can’t stand the thought that someone might actually like me.
Again attempting to impart some of your so-called wisdom to me. I know you don’t intend it to come off as funny, but it does. Not your words, or even your message, it’s the fact that you think I’m interested in learning anything from you. By the way, you’re not ‘everyone’. You’re actually… closer to no one.
Do you really think that I want you tellin me a thing about trainwrecks? Why are you trying to be all mentor like now and help me avoid these situations? What in the world possessed you to think I want you as a mentor?
You obviously don’t know how to listen. Or else you delight in floating strawman arguments.
**Catsix ** never said she was offended by someone offering her a seat. She said it perturbed her when someone did it based solely on gender.
OK…so it’s not quite Kumbayah time yet. No worries. 
I do think that **catsix **needs a big group hug though. It must be bloody painful carrying all those damned logs across her shoulders all the time.
(((((((((((catsix)))))))))))))
IIRC, in the past, she has referred to young children as “crotch apples.” Lovely. (Although I have to admit, it did make me giggle).
Girl’s got more issues than National Geographic, that’s all I can say.
Oh, and before she starts, yes, catsix, I DO live at home with my parents. Yes, I AM currently unemployed, and yes, I DO have an anxiety disorder. Anything I forgot?
(Seriously, I could set my watch by this chick.)
Boy, you’re really into the imagining what someone else means by what they say or do aren’t you?
But no, that’s not what I mean by it.
On the contrary, I’m glad someone does.
COOL! Because I rarely get to do “funny”. I’m glad I can make someone laugh, I’m not that good at the type of writing that is funny.
Hmmm, well that would work had I said “me and everyone”, but I didn’t.
Don’t care one way or the other actually.
I’m not trying to “help” you do anything. It was a comment. Period. And there you are again with the imagining what someone is thinking. I’m not the least interested in being your mentor.
Why would YOU think I would want to be yours?
And she knows that they are doing it for that reason because?
She can correct me if I’m wrong, bit it is my understanding that **catsix ** is perturb at the ***notion * ** that someone would treat a healthy woman the same as a crippled man. The giving-up-the-seat issue is simply a common *example * of incident where it might – ***might ** * – occur. There are other examples.
Yes, I might call you “young lady” if you appeared to me to be the age of the young lady who offered me her seat. Assuming, of course that your behavior up to that point sustained the second half of the assessment. A woman less than half my age is young. A woman who has done nothing to prove otherwise in my presence is assumed to be a lady. If you find that insulting, that insult belongs to you, not me.
And here we reach the core of my disagreement with you. I have reservations that you routinely asses the motivations of strangers you meet in public with sufficient accuracy to return their courtesy with rudeness in perfect proportion.
Well, I apologize if I have misrepresented you here. I am not sure what you think I think you think, but if you can identify the motivating emotions of perfect strangers well enough to detect sexual bias in casual exchanges of courtesy, you are a far better judge of human character than I.
And the thing that bothers me is that I don’t really believe in your telepathic abilities. I think you think that social behavior should all be in accordance with your philosophy. I also think this will bring more misery to you than to the unenlightened men you choose to lead to wisdom.
Should they wear signs? Tattoos?
And replace it with “People who have attitudes of which I approve get the courtesy?”
Perhaps we might just all be courteous to everyone. It could work.
Tris
I know what she is perturbed at. Being unclear is not one of her faults.
My question and that of several other posters is…Where is she getting that notion?
And how does she just “know” that the mere act of a man giving up his seat to a woman means that he is being condescending?
Is he sending his motives via ESP?
Well…that’s originally what opening a door for a lady implied, so since we all know that words, gestures and traditions never EVER change meaning…oh, wait…
Because it is demeaning, or shows some kind of inequality of the sexes, or whatever. I don’t care what her reason is…it’s ridiculous.
Page six. May as well…<begins singing kumbaya>
Catsix…page six…coincidence? I think not.
And if you get the chance Catsix andZoe, I’d appreciate an answer to my questions.
The thread wasn’t about gender–or catsix, for that matter–until she predictably wrenched in her favorite direction:
Gotta love egalitarian principles that would refuse to give seats to pregnant men too.
Comedians would kill for material like this.
Yes. To be fair, though, I’m sure if there were a visible sign that allowed her to discriminate against male breeders too she’d be thrilled.
Harborwolf, my comments to you about the sexist questions that seemed off topic were prompted by this statement earlier from you:
What you may not realize is how much prejudice against women is still out there. (I wish you could have been present when I went to buy a Jeep Wrangler and my husband accompanied me. One salesperson literally lost out on a sale because he either would not or could not direct his comments to me and he did not know as much about the model as I did and he couldn’t handle that. I can’t tell you what that feels like.)
In my earlier posts I indicated that I am pleasant about having doors held for me and I hold doors for other people if I get there first regardless of their gender. The exception is when I am with my husband. He prefers always to hold the door and I don’t mind.
I cannot know another individual’s motives. You assume that doors are held for women these days mostly out of courtesy. Someone else might think that it is mostly out of training or habit. Whatever the reason, I think it **subconsciously **perpetuates the notion that women are somehow less capable.
Something is perpetuating that attitude and I don’t always know who notices it. That’s why I asked you those two questions. I was hoping that you would think about them and ask yourself why people still think about women differently.
But I’m all for playing nice and assuming the best (until someone picks on my home state)…
Now that I think of it, any of my classmates melt my heart when they call me “young lady.” But they do it as a reminder that we are all senior citizens now. And it’s a way, I think, of letting me know that they still remember the merriment behind the wrinkles.
Oh my. I’ve wandered away.
It’s not ‘prejudice’ when the car-salesman focusses on the bloke during a sale, it’s bad salesmanship. As no doubt your fool found out, to his detriment. 
How much prejudice is out there really Zoe? I mean REAL discrimination and prejudice, that seriously affects womens’ lives and life choices?
You and catsix talk about the ‘little’ things that are indicative of a greater phenomenon affecting women in western society, but I just don’t get it. I’m an old broad, living in modern western society, and if anything my opportunities are greater than those of many blokes in the same situation. I don’t encounter prejudice or discrimination on a daily basis (except when some cheeky young punk offers me a seat on the tram on my way to work…thanks!).
The little things AREN’T indicators, and the big things aren’t really applicable nowadays. Not really.
Just to add some more stuff:
From my reading of many of her threads/posts, **catsix **reviles the notion of victimhood with a passion…yet her posts in this thread alone seem to portray her willingness to be a true victim of unspoken mores and theoretical male chauvinism because she believes it to exist, rather than from any empirical evidence that it DOES actually exist in real life. It’s like being paranoid about being anally probed by an alien. I’m sure it’s a scary prospect, but IT’S ALL IN YER’ MIND, not up yer’ bum.
Bitterly aggressive people also refer to pregnant people as breeders and sick or disabled people as “nothing special.”
Yes, Catsix…“breeder” is insulting and disparaging. Not all the time, mind you. Just the way *you *use it. Your intention is to insult.
But she has yet to concede that she has no way of knowing what the person’s motivation is, outside of a few people in this thread. In real life, she can’t possibly know, yet she continues to lump all the door holders and seat givers in with the handful of people who dole out kindness according to gender. Far more people have aligned with the “kindness to all” approach, but she still harps on the few who do it to keep da wimmins down.
Classic. Absolutely classic catsix --it’s her whole “I can disagree with your POV and of course, in my greater wisdom I am right, but you cannot disagree with me because then I will put you down and insult you, because you are not me and therefore wrong.” gambit. It’s so old. From rape to kids to life in general–she may be Mother Theresa in person, but she comes across here as one bitter, contemptous, narrow minded dick. (I think she’ll take the dick bit as a compliment).
It would be nice to know what general region of the country she hales from, if only so that I can be on the lookout next time I’m there, for the courteous thought policewoman (self appointed)…
Off to work, where some elderly men will most likely call me “young lady” and I will like it–because, unlike catsix -I appreciate courtesy. Since the term is not used in a deragotory fashion by these 80+ year old men, no offense is taken.
As to her general point (and Zoe’s )–I agree. Gender discrimination does indeed still exist–but I also don’t think that one can generalize from offering a pregnant woman a seat on a bus that women are still held down by men.
And the delicious irony of the whole thread is that catsix usually insists that women’s claims of discrimination and poor treatment are not valid --the infamous rape thread comes to mind. She is rabidly anti-feminist. In another thread, she states adamantly that no man would have ever held her back from graduating from college* etc, even if she lived in colonial or Victorian times. Social mores and changing values don’t seem to sink in with her.She is law unto her own self; catsix’ RULES!
I do enjoy the added irony of her chaveliers, that and her strident defense of them as “friends”. Chivalry is indeed NOT dead, not even for catsix…
*no, I am not going to search for these threads. I am off to work.