by ubercynicmeister » Thu 08 Jun 2006, 23:01:08
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PenultimateManStanding', 'D')amn, uber, you made some good points,
Thankee, I try, but it seems I offend people at the same time, mostly unintentionally. Sometimes I tease people, but I label that as teasing (see above post). I suppose this posting will also be deemed to be offensive. OH, well.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'b')ut shit, can you remove yourself from this misogyny?
Question: why is pointing out what is accurate classed as "mysogyny"? The point is made time and time again that "women are more peaceful than men"...but it's shown by history that this is simply not true. In essence, you're not objecting to me, you're objecting to what has been shown (once again, time and time again) to be fact: women get others to do their fighting for them. Take those tourneys in the Middle Ages. Think about it: the guy took an awful chance - of having his life taken away, or his money (ransoming), or his physical mobility (ie: he could end up a cripple). If men were the ones instigating and perpetuating this, why the blue blazes would a man be
INeligible to fight if he did not wear a "woman's colours" ? That is if he did not have the express permission - and insistance - of a woman to fight? Is this not the example of the ultimate form of co-operation - ready to recieve punishment, especially injuries or death, and by a (gasp) man at the behest of a woman? It was the man who got the worse end of that deal - he had to thump someone else into the dirt - someone he had probably never met before and would have neither liked nor disliked. First, he had to ask a woman's permission to do so, and that meant he couldn't seek another lady's approval (until sheditched him). But for the Lady, she got her pick of Knights clamouring for her attentions, showering gifts on her and then - to top it all off - she got to call the shots when the guy was out there soaking up blows intended to kill or seriously maim. And if the guy got killed, well, there's plenty more where he came from. But the guy still had to ask the woman's permission to marry her...and that's AFTER the tourney's over, if he is still capable of speaking & walking that is. The woman could then refuse the offer of marriage, and the man would be back to square one.
OK, think about this in the opposite way around: what would we have said if it had been the women who had to go out and fight, while the men stayed in the stands (an assuredly safer place)...had to secure enough income to (firstly) buy the armour and fighting lessons and then the equipment, THEN, they had to to go and find some guy (who, may I remark, would have had his pick amongst possible suitors) who would allow them to fight on the man's behalf...knowing full well, that she would have only earnt the right to ask permission to marry and that refusal was more likely than consent...? Surely we'd call THAT "exploitation" of the woman by the man. But why don't we call it "exploitation" of the man by the women when it's the opposite to the way I've just described?
We can adopt, (if you like) the ideas from Evolution. I'm not trying to offend you, you may not be an Evolutionist, and if you are not, accept if you could, my apologies for dragging up an idea that must stink to high heavens for you. In any case, at least some of those reading this may well not be evolutionists, so I will extend that apology to them, too.
Evolution says that one has to choose a way of propagating one's DNA most successfuly (success worship, under a different name). For a woman, whichever partner can subdue and eliminate every possible threat to her DNA (ie: in the form of her children) is likely to be the one she chooses as the means to propagate her DNA. Also, the less work she, the woman, has to put into subdueing the threats means the more effort she can put into propagating her DNA, via multiple partners. This is a fairly brutal way of securing the next generation's supposed well-being (both for men and females), but it would tend to erm...."naturally select" for aggression in males. Men who don't beat the living tripe out of others don't get the woman's approval, therefore they don't have a chance of passing on their traits (of non-aggression, I mean) therefore the Human Race ends up with "Natural Selection" at work and those non-aggressive traits become extinct in men, just like the men who happen to possess them. This is one of the reasons why Aristrocracies tend to become so...aristocratic and why "arictocrat" is another word for neurotic. The charectoristic approved of by members of any given aristocracy tends to be bred for in every generation, thus exaggerating continually that charetoristic, which then becomes a neurosis. This leaves the aristocrcy unprepared for the real events of the real world and ends up with such howlers as Marie Antoinette's "Let them eat cake" (upon being told that the starving populace of France had no bread....it seems it may not have been ole Marie who said it, but she's the one credited with it).
Bye The Way: in case you think women had no option but to accept a man's offer of marriage in the Middle Ages, no less a tyrant than King Henry the 8th had to wait for ALL of his wives to say "yes" before he could consumate the relationship. His regular letters bemoaning how difficult this was (to get 'em to say yes) are on the record, too. If the man was in charge, the the woman could not have said no, and ole Corruption Incarnate Henry would never have needed to bemoan this if it did not exist.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')t was tough on me too when I was an adolescent,
LOL, I ain't an adolescent, I can assure you.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', ' ')and we all know the balance of power from those early days, but they get ugly a lot sooner than us.