What Women Really Think of Men

[smilesammich 10,727]

i know this isn't 'the sun' or a '700 hundred club' think piece or anything but it clearly is tagged as an "OPINION" - i tend to agree with the author's disagreement overall..

At the kickoff for his postelection victory lap in Cincinnati this month, Donald J. Trump bluntly told men, “Hate to tell you,” but women, “generally speaking, they’re better than you are.”

As a feminist, I disagree. It does women, and society, no favors to grouse about female superiority as a way to let men off the hook. When society writes off men as irredeemable, we all lose.

Some 53 percent of white women voters — although thanks to minority women, not a majority of all women — rejected Hillary Clinton’s plea to break the glass ceiling and voted for Mr. Trump instead. I’ve talked to some of these women. They don’t think much of men, either.

“Trump is a narcissist,” a middle-aged white woman in East Stroudsburg, Pa., told me in the early evening on Election Day. “I know,” she added, “because my husband is one, too.” She said she disliked both candidates, but she voted for Mr. Trump.

As the country prepares to revert to white male rule, our common condition for all but eight of the last 240 years, we should think harder about why we assume so little of men, including ones we may be married to. Too many men don’t prove those expectations wrong, and are rewarded anyway with prizes like the presidency.

The persistence of sexism wasn’t usually something the Trump supporters I’ve met liked to acknowledge. But last summer, a fervent Trump fan I interviewed in Eastlake, Ohio — Patti Hall, 74, a retired hairdresser who wore a pink bow in her hair — bluntly declared that men didn’t want women in charge. “I’ll grant you that,” she said, grinning. “They don’t want a woman in as president!” She laughed at my raised eyebrows. “Now, you know that’s true!”

We both looked at the world and saw men profoundly threatened by rising female power, but to Ms. Hall, this was a fixed truth, and all women could do was roll our eyes about it.

Not long after Mr. Trump was caught bragging about how fame afforded him unlimited genital grabbing opportunities, the photographer Chris Arnade recalled, a woman in his hometown, Dade City, Fla., shrugged it off: “Oh, men, you’ve got to learn how to fight them off. They’re crazy. That’s men!’ ”

So what if Mr. Trump is known to have crassly assessed women based solely on whether he, Mr. Trump, found them attractive, or that he has shamed women for breast-feeding or gaining weight? That’s men. That’s your husband, your father, your brother, your son.

“I cherish women,” Mr. Trump has said. But this is not the same as recognizing women’s equal humanity. As Ruth Bader Ginsburg, quoting a California judicial opinion, told the Supreme Court in 1971, “the pedestal upon which women have been placed has all too often, upon closer inspection, been revealed as a cage.” When we declare that men will always be brutes and women can only shrug from on high, we engage in what President George W. Bush once called the soft bigotry of low expectations.

Feminists’ critique of male power has long been caricatured as hatred of men. But it is feminists whose fight is motivated by the belief that men can be better, if we can make clear that they, too, benefit from a safer, more equal and more just world. We have little choice but to try — men still control so much, and besides, many of us love them.

Our intimate lives, where we are the most vulnerable and the least rational, are the hardest to reconcile with politics. And the very idea that men and women can and should be equal partners is only a generation or two old. Most of us, even now, are just making it up as we go along.

In 1996, Gloria Steinem offered a theory about why so many people hated Hillary Clinton: “She and the president are presenting, at a very high, visible level, a new paradigm of a male-female relationship. And that is very much resented.” Mrs. Clinton was pilloried for her ostensibly traditional choice to stay with her unfaithful husband. It would come back to haunt her. This year, renewed attention to accusations against Bill Clinton did nothing to dispel the notion that all men are pigs, effectively defusing the many accusations against Mr. Trump. They’re crazy. That’s men.

Or as Melania Trump put it in an interview after the “Access Hollywood” video surfaced: “Sometimes I say I have two boys at home — I have my young son and I have my husband. But I know how some men talk, and that’s how I saw it.”

http://nyti.ms/2h5E86G

Edited December 12, 2016 by smilesammich

[elmcitymaven 9,711]

I read this piece over the weekend and I tend to agree with it. As a feminist, I believe that just as men in general are no better at being human than women, so too are women in general no better than men. This is mainstream third-wave feminist thinking, and there's nothing too outlandish about it. When I hear a man talking about women as being "angels" or that we are somehow more moral simply by dint of being female, my estimation of him is lowered. It is not our role to tame or domesticate men. They are adults who should be doing this for themselves. Just as I have agency to direct my life and need no protection by a man, so too does my beloved not need me to direct his. We are equals, for whom the balance of power tilts from time to time as life dictates.

And as for Melania's quote, what straight woman wants a boy at home? I much prefer having a man.

[The Nature Boy 7,659]

That was cute. Bless your heart.

I don't want a woman in charge either but I am married.

Seriously my wife is so much better a person than I am, it's not even close. Not to get all Gary on everyone, the woman is truly an amazing efficient women and is smarter than I will ever be.

She is a wizard with money. Walks into a store and walks out with 45 bucks of merchandise and they owe her money. She just started working and still refuses to let me help with laundry.

The other day our sink was leaking. She went to Lowes , bought a rebuild kit and repaired it

She buys coupons and resells them to people all over the country.

She recently helped a single mom, who had no way to get to work buy a car.

And she does it all while wearing high heels lingerie cooking dinner. ? That part is a joke. She would slap me silly if I suggested such nonsense.

A big salute to strong smart independant women everywhere. Especially my friends here in the MDL. You know who you are.

[smilesammich 10,727]

I read this piece over the weekend and I tend to agree with it. As a feminist, I believe that just as men in general are no better at being human than women, so too are women in general no better than men. This is mainstream third-wave feminist thinking, and there's nothing too outlandish about it. When I hear a man talking about women as being "angels" or that we are somehow more moral simply by dint of being female, my estimation of him is lowered. It is not our role to tame or domesticate men. They are adults who should be doing this for themselves. Just as I have agency to direct my life and need no protection by a man, so too does my beloved not need me to direct his. We are equals, for whom the balance of power tilts from time to time as life dictates.

And as for Melania's quote, what straight woman wants a boy at home? I much prefer having a man.

yeah, me too.

trump saying “Hate to tell you,” but women, “generally speaking, they’re better than you are.” he was throwing us a bone (no pun intended). just like all those sitcoms where the dad/boyfriend/son is a complete idiot and the mom/girlfriend/daughter hits with constant one liners. it's murican culture telling women, hey you might not actually be considered equal here but you sure get all the good jokes during tool time!

[Amica Nostra 4,803]

I read this piece over the weekend and I tend to agree with it. As a feminist, I believe that just as men in general are no better at being human than women, so too are women in general no better than men. This is mainstream third-wave feminist thinking, and there's nothing too outlandish about it. When I hear a man talking about women as being "angels" or that we are somehow more moral simply by dint of being female, my estimation of him is lowered. It is not our role to tame or domesticate men. They are adults who should be doing this for themselves. Just as I have agency to direct my life and need no protection by a man, so too does my beloved not need me to direct his. We are equals, for whom the balance of power tilts from time to time as life dictates.

And as for Melania's quote, what straight woman wants a boy at home? I much prefer having a man.

As a person they are no better or worse, as an object they are superior and fragile.

[elmcitymaven 9,711]

As a person they are no better or worse, as an object they are superior and fragile.

That's nice, dear.

[The Nature Boy 7,659]

so if you compliment a feminist it makes them mad

If you tell them to smile and be happy it makes them mad

If you tell them they are strong and smart it makes them mad

I have concluded feminist are just mad

[Ban Hammer 12,829]

so if you compliment a feminist it makes them mad

If you tell them to smile and be happy it makes them mad

If you tell them they are strong and smart it makes them mad

I have concluded feminist are just mad

do we still get sammiches?

[yuna628 9,527]

so if you compliment a feminist it makes them mad

If you tell them to smile and be happy it makes them mad

If you tell them they are strong and smart it makes them mad

I have concluded feminist are just mad

Ask yourself: are you complimenting said feminist for the right reasons? Are you doing so just because you are merely expected to do so out of some bred-in social role that men must flatter a woman to make her feel all special-like? Or do you compliment with sincerity and in no way that implied condescension? Keep in mind a woman may be used to 'backhanded compliments' and condescension, so therefore it can be hard to accept a compliment when it's coming from a place of genuine sincerity.

If you're telling a woman to smile and be happy, why do you need to? Do women feel the need to tell you to do the same? Chances are they don't. Not because you're a 100% barrel of laughter and smiles, but because we don't feel the need to tell others when they should or shouldn't be happy. If a woman frowning upsets you, perhaps inquire why she is frowning in an empathetic manner of care. If you inquire about the frowning just out of some sense of duty, it's probably best you not try. If a woman notices a man frowning she doesn't tend to say ''I wish you'd smile more'' or ''be happy would you? god you look so dowdy when you don't smile" etc, she'll gently ask if there's something troubling them. If they don't want to talk about how they feel, that's fine. But there really is no need to tell someone how they should feel and to smile if they don't feel like doing so and have no need of doing so.

If you tell a woman they are strong and smart that's fine, if it is true, though we really don't need someone to tell us this (no one does - we need to realize it and claim it for ourselves) and it's again not coming from a place of condescension. Same problem with the first thing, it can be hard to tell and accept for those reasons. If you've just done the second thing though, you've already shot yourself in the foot with expectations that will more than likely meet you with a prickly response.

Edited December 13, 2016 by yuna628

[The Nature Boy 7,659]

Ask yourself: are you complimenting said feminist for the right reasons? Are you doing so just because you are merely expected to do so out of some bred-in social role that men must flatter a woman to make her feel all special-like? Or do you compliment with sincerity and in no way that implied condescension? Keep in mind a woman may be used to 'backhanded compliments' and condescension, so therefore it can be hard to accept a compliment when it's coming from a place of genuine sincerity.

If you're telling a woman to smile and be happy, why do you need to? Do women feel the need to tell you to do the same? Chances are they don't. Not because you're a 100% barrel of laughter and smiles, but because we don't feel the need to tell others when they should or shouldn't be happy. If a woman frowning upsets you, perhaps inquire why she is frowning in an empathetic manner of care. If you inquire about the frowning just out of some sense of duty, it's probably best you not try. If a woman notices a man frowning she doesn't tend to say ''I wish you'd smile more'' or ''be happy would you? god you look so dowdy when you don't smile" etc, she'll gently ask if there's something troubling them. If they don't want to talk about how they feel, that's fine. But there really is no need to tell someone how they should feel and to smile if they don't feel like doing so and have no need of doing so.

If you tell a woman they are strong and smart that's fine, if it is true, though we really don't need someone to tell us this (no one does - we need to realize it and claim it for ourselves) and it's again not coming from a place of condescension. Same problem with the first thing, it can be hard to tell and accept for those reasons. If you've just done the second thing though, you've already shot yourself in the foot with expectations that will more than likely meet you with a prickly response.

You are just so gosh darn nice, it's hard to get snarky with you

[Voice of Reason 10,298]

25% of women all over the world are on prescription medication to help them stabilize their mood.

The downside to this? That means 75% of all women are walking around untreated...

[OriZ 3,157]

25% of women all over the world are on prescription medication to help them stabilize their mood.

The downside to this? That means 75% of all women are walking around untreated...

Damn, you're a brave soul.

[TBoneTX 43,019]

I am married.

Socrates died from an overdose of Wedlock.

[Jacque67 7,328]

25% of women all over the world are on prescription medication to help them stabilize their mood.

The downside to this? That means 75% of all women are walking around untreated...

Lol!

[MarkPerry 488]

25% of women all over the world are on prescription medication to help them stabilize their mood.

The downside to this? That means 75% of all women are walking around untreated...

I bet you that rate is much higher in USA