A post was merged into an existing topic: Raising sons shouldn’t be and isn’t just the mother’s job
Considering that humans have managed to live in even the most inhospitable parts of the planet and thrive pretty much no matter what I think one would be hard pressed to isolate ANY behavior that’s intrinsic rather than cultural. We still have hunter gatherers living within spitting distance of urban inhabitants who seldom set foot on bare ground, people whose most advanced technology is a stick who interact with people who take pics of them on their camera phones and a very few of us have managed to survive in actual SPACE. So I think, for all intents and purposes, it’s pretty accurate to say that our behaviors are learned and almost completely culturally instilled–once we get past suckling and startle reflex and squinting in bright light anyway.
All I did to have a positive experience here was ignore or barely skim a couple of the posters. I read every word the OP said and same for you, @k9bfriender
Meanwhile, there is a LOT of positive - good mod work by @What_Exit and a brand new thread was spun off.
read (or re-read) @Spice_Weasel posts #74 and #91, or anything by @thorny_locust or @Left_Hand_of_Dorkness .
I’m going to try and get disco bot (or, wait, is it discoursebot?) to teach me to multiquote next. ETA: didn’t work
if you were listening, here, you would. women are not afraid of men because men tend to be stronger.
the fact that you insist it is means you have not learned what the man/bear hullaballoo can teach.
if this were about size, why aren’t most children afraid of most grownups?
pretty much. we can imagine a society a lot better than the one we have, that’s for sure.
It’s not sports and celebrities. Who derives self esteem and confidence from watching stuff.
Elementary school teacher gender has dropped from 30% male to 20% in the last 30 years. Why? From 2008 to 2018 ADHD medication in males has gone up from 1.26% to 4.42%, while among females it was .21% to .99%. Why?
Are we sending a message to 6 year old boys that they are broken? Are we sending a message to young male teachers that they are perverts? Are we sending a message that only women can nurture?
Some Emmett Till sounding shit right there.
Tell me about it. Life is an inaccurately titled Alanis Morissette song,
If I hadn’t been standing in the right place at the right time and met the future Ms. P I might have ended up in the same situation as OP. I was ok with my women friends, but if I had interest in dating someone I was lost. I can’t read signals of interest at all; I needed someone to be direct. Because I couldn’t read signals, I was like a deer in headlights. I’m sure that was a huge turnoff to women, even if there had initially been some interest. I’m also physically unable to look someone in the eye very long (I can’t focus anywhere long) and have had to learn to refocus quickly. At 30 I had pretty much decided just to focus on being a good friend/person and give up on dating. It had just gotten too frustrating. I was so over hearing others say that there were lots of women who would want to date me. Maybe, maybe not. I had (and probably still have) issues that made dating a lot huge challenge. It was getting to the point that the anxiety around trying to find a relationship was worse than the loneliness of never being in one.
It’s scarry when you’ve been alone so long. I too, can’t read signals. If I get any.
I didn’t say it was.
Are you going to answer my question?
Is your answer “male teachers”?
Are you making a case that we are? Because I don’t see it.
As a woman with ADHD I can answer this question. ADHD tends to present differently in women. We are more likely to be diagnosed with Innatentive Type (non-hyperactive) ADHD and because Innatentive type doesn’t involve hyperactivity, we are more likely to either not be diagnosed at all or to be diagnosed later in life. I was 34 when I was diagnosed.
Also I can’t help but note in your statistics there was a greater increase in ADHD medication for females than males, so I’m not sure how that supports your argument. If anything those statistics indicate that the disparity in diagnosis and treatment for girls is starting to be addressed.
Lol. I’m not disputing the general data trend here, but according to that link a whopping 50.5% of medical school enrollees are women. That’s barely more than half. Don’t women make up a small majority of the population?
In a just society, wouldn’t we expect an outcome like this?
Also, it’s getting financially harder to be a doctor these days, what with outrageous student loan bills. How many women are going into business school?
Well yeah, it wasn’t meant to be “Walk up and ask a girl out for coffee out of the blue without striking up a conversation first.”
The point was twofold- get to where you can strike up a conversation without it being a daunting thing, and second, get to where you can ask for a quick coffee date (if the conversation goes well) without being intimidated by it. The point is that if it goes badly, or you choose not to ask her out, you still did it and it’ll help you be comfortable with it.
Of course this takes some social awareness- you have to have a reason or at least a reasonable pretext to strike up the conversation in the first place. Maybe ask a question about how to pick a good apple if you’re at the grocery store for example. Don’t just walk up out of nowhere like some sort of socially inept weirdo and blurt out some sort of half-baked attempt at asking someone out for coffee. That would be strange and threatening.
It wasn’t a whole lot of people- it was a small handful on Reddit who were very agitated about it, as if this was somehow inherently threatening because it’s men, not because of anything to do with the situation. Their take was essentially that this might be threatening to a trauma survivor, so it was automatically bad.
But there’s nothing inherently threatening about a man trying to strike up a conversation with a woman in a public place. That’s the argument that the people on Reddit were effectively trying to make, or so it seemed. And really, you can’t live your life tiptoeing around other people’s unknown traumas. Don’t be an asshole, but it doesn’t mean you can’t bring your dog to the park because someone else you don’t know has some sort of past dog-related trauma and might get triggered either.
I’ve long wondered if I have that. I had/have a hard time focusing, but in school I was a “look out the window daydreaming” type. I was never disruptive. Not that it matters much anymore, since I’m near retirement and my lack of focus has actually helped me as a librarian. 10 students with 10 different questions? No problem.
Men can definitely have it, too. I was the consummate daydreamer in school but I did well despite not paying attention. So I was very confused when everything fell apart in college - ya know, when I had to manage my own shit without imposed structure. My therapists assumed it was depression, but it turned out to be more, and medication has made a world of difference for me.
I thought you were making some points we could talk about but then you got all disrespectful.
so: you are saying if I am in public, I don’t get to go about my business without being “available” for talking or whatever?
I don’t want to further hijack this thread but wouldn’t mind discussing my ADHD symptoms - only realized that’s what it could be lately and I’m not young. we could start another thread but maybe there already is one.
Moderating:
This is unnecessarily inflammatory. I’m instructing you to avoid needlessly provocative comments and/or accusations in this discussion. It’s is a difficult subject that is already fraught with strong feelings. Be mindful of this when making your posts.
Are you saying that a subgroup of human beings is so loathsome that they don’t have a right to talk to a respectable woman, while hinting that they are all violent rapists?
Because if you are linking the man/bear argument with not being a approached, that is what you are saying.
It’s equivalent to white women during Jim Crow saying “I’d rather die than be subject to those animals.”
This is the same argument I heard in the 1980’s about women, just reversed.
The old bigoted ideas of women being meek and mild people pleasers. We reward that in school now with standardized testing, memorization, rules for essay formats.
The old idea of men being courageous leaders, thinking outside the box, taking a chance, working with there hands. We removed all that from school.
We’re still treating our kids poorly, we’re just rewarding the other gender.