I think generalizations are fine and they don’t bother me. Men are better at somethings then women and women are better then men at somethings most of the time. There are anomalies where it can be the other way around.
True to my sex I am empathetic and tend to think with my feelings more then my brain. This has gotten me into trouble!
I never talk when the TV is on and find it annoying.
I can’t remember dates to save my life and need a calendar.
I get lost easily.
I don’t notice when someone changes their hair as often as I should.
I can use power tools better then most men and can fix things when they break.
I love to shop and for clothes and shoes and the girlie stuff.
I like watching sports over Lifetime for women and the Hallmark channel. I can’t watch the Stepford Wives or whatever that show is? That is the epitome of what I have never wanted to be as a woman.
I am not as physically strong as a man.
Generalizations don’t bother me because I have both male and female traits.
Generalizations are useless - once you have enough knowledge about a specific individual to know their particularities.
Where they can be useful is when your actual knowledge of the individuals at issue is limited or non-existant. Of course, as with anything else, the generalizations can be untrue, or be misused. They are however a part of the tool-kit of everyday life, and pretty well everyone uses at least some at some point.
As someone who is completely at odds with female stereotypes, and for that matter many male stereotypes as well, I hate generalizations. No, I’m not interested in makeup and clothing, I hate soppy books about people’s feelings, don’t even talk to me about shopping, and I love creepy crawly things. The way things are in my house, if a bug gets in my dad and brothers freak out and call me to get rid of it. I was skimming through Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, and from what I saw there I’m a Martian in a Venusian body. Etcetera.
Personally, I’d be happy to live in a world where gender was private and discreet, like Terry Pratchett’s dwarfs. What’s in my head has nothing to do with what’s between my legs.
I don’t like generalizations, but I have to admit they exist for a reason. Many people I know do more or less fit into a general gender stereotype. Then again, many people I know don’t.
I fit the feminine stereotype in a lot of ways. I love makeup and clothes. I enjoy shopping (to a degree). I freely admit to enjoying books like Outlander. I hate bugs and I will never ever eat one. I cry at Disney movies. But I also like console/PC games and beer and making inappropriate jokes, and I have the mouth of a sailor.
Wow, can’t believe I am the lone female vote for liking/using gender sterotypes. And I’m a militant feminist.
I find assuming certain things about people based on their gender is highly likely to be correct. Men and women are, in general, different from each other as groups in many ways, and more similar to ‘average’ people of the same gender than they are to the opposite sex. There are many exceptions to every rule and while I fit the general perimeters quite well, I don’t fulfill every stereotype out there by a long shot.
I only wish most men would validate my (mostly negative) assumptions a bit less reliably. I don’t get along very well with men, or enjoy the company of most. I am delighted to find exceptions (such as my darling boyfriend). Women are much, much easier for me to relate to and get along with. Oddly, it was the opposite when I was a child - then puberty happened to everyone else (and me a bit later on) and all of a sudden I couldn’t find a single (straight) male friend I could stand.
My dad’s always going on about these, which is hilarious in context, because all the things he says men are supposed to be better at, Mom beats the pants off him. Or rather, beats the pants onto him, I suppose: Since the divorce, I don’t think she’s been eager to get his pants off.
There are a few that are directly related to reproductive roles that seem to hold up pretty well, but only a very few. The rest of them, even if there’s some difference on average (which takes some proving to begin with), the differences within a gender are far greater than the differences on average between the gender. So on the whole, they’re not really useful.
Wow, are you me? I’m exactly the same way. I fit almost no stereotypes about women (okay, I love cats and kittens–but that’s about it!) I like action movies, computers, RPGs, motorcycles, hockey, and jeans/T-shirts/leather jackets. I don’t like babies or small children at all, and have no interest in makeup, feelings, celebrity gossip, cooking, or fashion, and I resent it when people who don’t know me make assumptions about me based on nothing but my gender. Sheesh–get to know me a little bit first–just looking at me should be a pretty big clue!
When I was younger, I might have insisted that generalizations were bad, and that people should be considered solely as individuals and not according to what sex—or other broad group—they belonged to.
But the older I get, and the more experience with people I get, the more I become convinced that
[ol]
[li]There are genuine differences between men and women (or between boys and girls).[/li][li]These differences are general tendencies or averages and do not necessarily apply to individuals (in the way that, for example, men in general tend to be taller than women, but an individual woman may well be taller than an individual man).[/li][li]These differences are a combination of nature and nurture. That is, they are to some extent built-in, but many are caused or heightened by social expectations and conditioning.[/li][li]Neither sex is superior in any significant way to the other. “Different” isn’t better or worse—it’s just different.[/li][/ol]
I have gained a lot of useful insights from reading “how to understand your wife/girlfriend” or “the differences between men and women” types of books, but I always make sure to take everything I read with a grain of salt. For one thing, they help me be aware of the differences among people, and that not everyone sees things or does things the same way I do—and that I ought to watch out for and be aware of such differences in general, but maybe even more so when dealing with people of the opposite sex.
I don’t think anyone is doubting that statistically verifiable information shows differences. Gee, who thinks that? Of course men tend to be larger and stronger. Women in Western culture tend to wear more skirts. Women tend to have bigger breasts. It’s the stereotypes that need questioning if we want to fight ignorance.
But some of you stretch that way too far. I can remember standing at a funeral visitation with a group of old girlfiriends that I hadn’t seen in forty years. There were five or six of us and the topic was cars. I called attention to how little we fit the stereotypes of our childhoods in our conversation. That got grins from all the women – all over age 60.
At a club for women that I belong to, the meeting that is scheduled for one of the Saturdays each month always has low attendance starting in about August and lasting until January. A very frustrated leader of this particular group asked why we couldn’t get the members to attend. The responses of SEC! and FOOTBALL! were loud and clear. Most of these women are over 70. “It’s the sport of kings…better than diamond rings…”
I always watch at least two football games a week. One woman who is in her mid to late eighties has never missed a Titans home football game. She must weigh all of 90 pounds and on a snowy, windy or cold day, I worry she will blow away.
Maybe it’s different in the South, but it’s common for women to like sports here. My mother is 97 and watches the Braves faithfully. I know another lady almost the same age who is a Cardinals fan. I watched every minute of the Olympics that I could cram in – prefering the Winter games to Summer games. I get rabid at World Cup Soccer time. And a lot of my girlfriends like Tennessee women’s basketball.
Nancy Pelosi is turning 70 this weekend and wants a pool table for her birthday. Now I want one.
I’m a very girlie girl in traditional ways, but I just try to be myself. I don’t feel that liking sports or technology or railroad history is “masculine.” They are just traditionally masculine activities.
I wanted a train and a chemistry set and a doll for Christmas. Girls didn’t usually get two of those in the 1940s.
Sorry to crusade about this, but I do remember a Great Debates thread that referred to the other participants as “Gentlemen.”
Since I don’t own a copy, and I assume you do, could you please go to the bibliography and actually cite the studies that show difference in brain structure between males and females?
I think if you’re speaking scientifically, biologically or from a social psychology standpoint, generalizations are fine. Woman brains are in fact structured differently than man brains, in general (keep in mind all the people those studies tend to exclude, such as southpaws like me.) The problem is when people make assumptions about specific individuals based on their gender, or conflate their experience/personal observation with actual science.
I’ve never felt like I fit the stereotype of a woman OR man, and I don’t like being generalized about. When people say shit like, ‘‘In a marriage, the woman always has to be right’’ it makes me want to punch something, because I feel like someone is making negative generalizations about me and my gender based on his own poor decision to marry some woman who always has to be right.
I was a tree-climbing, dirt-loving, insect-inspecting kid who used to ride her bike and pretend to be a sexy lady motorcycle cop. I would play with my vast collection of plastic dinosaurs, but they would marry each other instead of eat each other. I like frilly dresses and sparkly jewelry and RPGs and Cthulhu and slugs and spiders. I can be emotional as hell and I can also be extremely rational, I want kids but I’ve always been interested in professional advancement more than having children. I don’t find sports or cars all that interesting, but I was born with a brain capable of figuring stuff out and fixing broken objects and I’m hoping someday to have my own woodshop. I love purses and shoes and the color pink, but I hate malls and fashion magazines. I write my best fiction from the first person male perspective, and let me tell you it is some violent, angry, indelicate stuff.
In other words, I’m a human being, not a stereotype.
And we both have synesthesia, too, right? If you’ve got blue eyes and light brown hair, I’m going to have to have a talk with the people at Clones 'R Us.
The only real harm in using them is risking offending the people that like to get offended by it. I really don’t see it as different from any other social aspect.
I do get offended when someone starts a thread and indicates quite clearly to be offensive, and certain people like to hijack that thread with their offense. If it bothers you so much that you can’t keep the civil tone already set up in that thread, start a pit thread.
I checked ‘loathe’ because while I can appreciate their usefulness in situations where generalizations are needed, I find that they are almost always used for sexism, like so:
–Enforcing gender stereotypes and limiting individuals who don’t conform (i.e. “you can’t cry, you’re a man!”, or “They won’t hire you, you’re a woman!”)
–Belittling or accusing wide swaths of people with little or no evidence (i.e.
like that.)
Neither of these things are good things. And, personally speaking, they are the first things I associate with gender generalizations, as opposed to, say, ordering food for 10,000.
Even if we are, that doesn’t mean we have to like it.
I’m exactly the same way. I fit almost no stereotypes about women (okay, I love cats and kittens–but that’s about it!) I like action movies, computers, RPGs, motorcycles, hockey, and jeans/T-shirts/leather jackets. I don’t like babies or small children at all, and have no interest in makeup, feelings, celebrity gossip, cooking, or fashion, and I resent it when people who don’t know me make assumptions about me based on nothing but my gender. Sheesh–get to know me a little bit first–just looking at me should be a pretty big clue!
If you’ve got blue eyes and light brown hair, I’m going to have to have a talk with the people at Clones 'R Us.