I have no idea if we have daycare instructors here in Uibhist but looking after children is both the most important job in society and one of the most time-consuming. I do not completely accept the concept of the"high achiever" as it is a loaded political stance. I'd take my stand with Wole Soyinka on that one.
You are correct to point out the physical differences between men and women, yet despite this women are able to work in those very fields where it has formerly been the preserve of men. That most do not work in them is down to culture and opportunity, not physical strength. So yes it is sexist to claim that that this work is more suitable to men- which is what your statement about lifting implies. Times have moved on - longer handled tools, lifting equipment and opportunity mean that women can do these male preserve jobs and are doing them.Originally Posted by Clopin
The point of restating that is to refute your claim of of some innate quality that limits women regarding literature. If women can begin to move into these jobs, then what about intellectual pursuit such as writing literature?
Your original claim was that there were other reasons why women didn't produce many classic pieces of writing and we can see that you mean an innate intellectual difference. You are calling it interest in different things, but I do not accept that. There have been barriers in the past which have limited women's endeavours in literature - not least the lack of education - and some of these conditions persist today. It is still not a level playing field.
High achiever being a president or prime minister, a surgeon, concert master etc.
In Canada at least there is nothing stopping women from having the opportunity of driving rigs, working on oil pipes, in construction, plumbing, etc and yet relatively few choose to occupy those positions.
As far as intellectual capabilities I've already expressed my opinion that the different reproductive challenges men face compared to women produces a wider spectrum of intellectual ability among men compared to women. I believe that men are more likely to be highly gifted or genius level but are also more likely to be vastly sub average as well. That said there have obviously been (and still are) plenty of female geniuses who were capable of writing enduring works of literature. Again I do not doubt that the prevalence of men in literature, music, chess, mathematics and scientific discovery is in part due to hindrances women faced throughout history but I think it's only part of the story, for the last few decades nothing has hindered women from playing Chess, yet there has never been a female world champion and women make up a very very small percentage of top Chess players.
I've already mentioned by the way that women outperform men at every level of academia from elementary school through university and on average score higher than men on literacy tests. Why is that? Am I sexist towards my own gender as well as sexist towards women? Are men lacking in opportunities in schools?
Another very obvious consideration is how reproduction works. While Lord Byron or whomever can impregnate a woman, leave and go on writing poetry or working, or whatever he wants, Lady Byron in the same situation has to bear and raise the offspring alone, a very time consuming occupation.
Last edited by Clopin; 12-10-2014 at 07:26 PM.
Women are NOT less capable than men at physical labor. A high percentage of knitting, for example, is done by women. There is no reason to assume that men are innately superior to women at (as Clopin states) carpentry.
Clopin may believe that men are "innately" more violent than women. He may even be right. However, there is no way of being certain. It is clearly the case that in our culture (and most other cultures around the world) boys and men are encouraged to be more violent than women. This makes sense in more technologically primitive cultures, where men's superior physical strength makes them more effective warriors. Perhaps, however, the cultural conditioning has simply persisted when the biological rationale for it has vanished.
Last edited by Ecurb; 12-10-2014 at 06:29 PM.
Women are less capable at performing the vast majority of occupations which could be referred to as physical labour. Period, this is not an argument.
You're right I'm not 100% certain, it's usually very idiotic to be certain about almost anything, all of the differences in result that I note could be purely the result of cultural conditioning, I don't think that is the case however.
Men being innately more violent, by the way, seems to be pretty well understood scientifically, there is some contention though of course, but hey people contest the theory of evolution by natural selection as well.
Last edited by Clopin; 12-10-2014 at 05:00 PM.
Physical labour is very heavy on the body. Most modern men in Western societies cannot take physical labour for long compared to their grandparents. Very few women are built for pushing heavy barrows and very few are nutty enough to want to prove anything about themselves or their sex by doing so. That said I bet my mother's wrists were bigger than most male contributors to this forum. And most modern women have fairies' hands compared to hers. She was brought up on a croft though, not a comfortable middle class home. I doubt if, had she been given the choice, she would have spent so much of her early life between well and peat bank. Some of these "high" achieves are for me only high in the sense of well-hung game!
Plenty of women could outperform me in any number of physical tasks but that's pretty meaningless when we're talking about gender as a whole.
And I agree that high achiever is subjective, you could easily consider a happy life with well raised, happy children a high achievement, the semantics aren't important though and high achiever was just a term to describe the prevelance of men at the top of industry.
Physical labor and combat are two prime examples of the inate differences between men and women. I have worked rigorous jobs all my life, and I have never encountered another man that could physically outperform me when it comes to simple tasks such as shoveling or lifting concrete blocks for wall construction. I'm a solid 245lbs, and can work work a consistent pace all day with just a 15 minute break for lunch. I don't think there are many women alive on this planet that could keep pace with me, let alone do it day after day, week after week, month after month, and year after year. I can get scientific about a claim like this by stating that greater strength allows a person to perform tasks that Don't maximally tax them easier than a person with less strength, provided the stronger person has adequate physical conditioning. This is a scientific fact. I could also state that men, on average, recover faster than women at strenuous exercise due to a greater level of anabolic hormones which facilitate faster recovery of muscle tissue repair and nervous system restoration. I could safely state that the toughest female mma fighter wouldn't stand a chance against a top 10 male mma fighter. I could go on and on with cases where men inarguably outperform women and probably always will. Just because a woman "can" perform a role or job, doesn't mean they are equal in performance or capacity. My point isn't to belittle women, but to point out the extremely obvious fact that men and women are not equals in many things. I'm really tired of this pc multiculturalistic attitude that pervades so much of modern culture, because a lot of it is feel good garbage that cannot be backed by common sense real world observation. There's a lot of weak theories floating around .
Double post.
Last edited by Vota; 12-10-2014 at 07:12 PM.
I think a daycare instructor sounds like a croileagan playleader Eiseabhal so you probably do have em in Uibhist. It's certainly the case that my daughter has more choice about her work than my grandmother. I don't think many men spend much of their thirties and forties even now bringing up children. Anyway there are plenty examples of good writing by women. A lot of it is relatively unknown. A lot of it deals with life in miniature rather than the big canvas.
OK, we all agree that men are physically superior at Mixed Martial Arts than women are (although why anyone would want to participate in that particular sport is beyond me -- perhaps the fact that more men participate than women proves that men are stupider than women). Nonetheless, there is little evidence that men have more endurance than women. And most paid "physical labor" today does not demand size and strength (the only area in which men are undoubtedly physically superior to women). Gertrude Ederle's record time for swimming the English Channel lasted for decades.
Writing the word "period", Clopin, does not end an argument. It simply demonstrates a lack of rhetorical skill consistent, evidently, with being male.
People like Ecurb can't bear to acknowledge even the glaringly obvious and will go through the most elaborate mental hoops and gymnastics to explain away what everyone can plainly see.
Ecurb, men are more adept at physical labour period. You might as well be arguing that women are taller than men.
He may have you, Ecurb. I don't think men have periods.
I don't hold men as being superior to women. I think that both sexes have strengths and weaknesses. Men are superior to women in some areas, and women are superior to men in others. Together, men and women create a balanced whole. My only issue is when people try to say that both sexes are totally equal, or that a woman can do anything equally as well as a man can, which is as illogical as saying a man can give birth, which we cannot.
Last edited by Vota; 12-10-2014 at 07:15 PM.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
