The Weaker Sex?

[Spaceman McConaughey]

Let me give you all an inside look of how I work, and then feel free to debate as you please:

So, you all know the stereotype of women being the "weaker sex", yes? Of course. Well, let me tell you how I view it, with fighting as an example;
If a woman comes up to me, with the intentions of throwing a punch/scratching me, whatever the fuck they do
to fight(I personally always see them pulling each others' hair out), am I going to take it because she's a woman? Nope~!
We're all humans, we're all equal. Throw a punch at me, I throw a punch at you. I am not going to let a gender difference stop me from fighting back.
Naturally, people will frown upon this, which would only stereotype women even further.
"Women cannot defend themselves, blah blah blah." If they decided to tangle with someone who may be stronger, well, they should have been able to before they started things.
If a woman wants to fight someone, man or woman, she better be prepared to defend herself
no matter how the other person tries to defend him/herself. In this case, a man. If you're a man, and a woman is attacking you(as in, countless slaps/punches on you), and you're not fighting back? You've messed up, big time. What you do, is you fight back, and do not take that from any person, man or woman.

We're humans, we're all equal. Gender does not apply, even in such drastic situations as this. This has been a long-standing belief of mine, and it is not going to change.
This all could have been worded better, yes, but it's early. Anywho, what are all your guys' thoughts?

[winkio]

I don't live by simple rules such as 'if someone hits me I will hit them back'.  I will generally avoid punching or hurting women though.

[Ryex]

I'm of the same mind. of course, I'm a practitioner of Aikido so I'm able to take down just about anyone within the first three seconds of a fight. I'm not skilled yet so I couldn't do it with out the possibility of hurting (hyper-extension of a joint or something like that) them but the fight would end fast.

Aikido can only be use to end fights, there isn't a single attack in it. That the principle I live by, I try my best to avoid and defuse confrontations but if they escalate to the point where an attack is thrown I won't start the fight but i'll sure as hell end it.

[Spaceman McConaughey]

I don't live by simple rules such as 'if someone hits me I will hit them back'.  I will generally avoid punching or hurting women though.

What I am saying, is women should not be treated differently because they are women. I just used an example that is more extreme than most.

@Ryex: Always good to end a fight, yes.

[winkio]

I think they should be treated differently.  It's a lot easier to physically hurt women than men.  Of course, if I am actually being attacked, all of that goes out the window, but if a girl is mad or joking around, I won't do too much.

[Spaceman McConaughey]

I am at the firm belief that women be treated equally, still. And yeah, joking is all fine, but when I get hit, she gets hit back.

I am not trying to sound like a women hating dick, it is just a belief of mine.

[Ryex]

as for the original point of this topic.

No, women should not be treated differently then men. recently the "Equality laws" and such have gotten ridiculous. when significantly less qualified woman are getting jobs over men just because the employer has to be "an equal opportunity employer" it's gone too far. "equal opportunity" means something completely different recently.

that said a lot of women seem to get a lot of pleasure from being treated as delicate having use do everything difficult for them and then turn around and blow a gasket if we try to do the wrong thing for them. it's like the expect us to treat them as delicate and protective and fully capable of doing everything on their own at the same time. it's bit hypocritical if you ask me. Not all of them are like this of course but there is quite a number who do.

It's almost like they seem to want to be treated as people and lusted after in the same sentence. something that is, frankly, impossible.

[winkio]

Well, what can I say, I tried to drive the conversation away from the black hole known as the double standard discussion, but here we are.

Yes, gender issues in modern society establish double standard after double standard.  It's fucked up, but there's no simple solution like 'just treat everyone equally'.  Women get paid less.  Women get pregnant.  You can't oversimplify every problem you see in society.

[Ryex]

ok ok I'll drop that subject then. why exactly do you think they should be treated differently? and by that do you mean treated differently in respect to how we physically treat them? or how we socially treat them?

the former is something that I do think should be different if only slightly. statistically they are physics capable of doing all the things men can, there will always be the odd one out who can but for the most part it would be very hard for a woman to be any good as hard labor where the movement of large heavy objects was half the job, just as an example.

the latter however I feel should be the same. or as close as we can possible get it. The fact that there is sexual tension will mean that treatment can never be perfectly equal (that goes both ways, woman will treat men differently than than other woman and men will treat woman different than other men) but we shouldn't FORCE those social norms.

[Blizzard]

that said a lot of women seem to get a lot of pleasure from being treated as delicate having use do everything difficult for them and then turn around and blow a gasket if we try to do the wrong thing for them. it's like the expect us to treat them as delicate and protective and fully capable of doing everything on their own at the same time. it's bit hypocritical if you ask me. Not all of them are like this of course but there is quite a number who do.

It's almost like they seem to want to be treated as people and lusted after in the same sentence. something that is, frankly, impossible.

This. In truth women say that they want to be treated differently, but they actually want to be treated equally. And with treated equally I don't means exactly the same as men, they want to be treated like women, not like men. That doesn't include treating them delicately or whatever. It means they want to be treated as humans beings, but they want to be recognized as women because this is their identity. That difference in treatment means that they want some advantages that men don't have even though they will lose some of the advantages men do have. In my opinion, this is fair treatment. It's not literally equal, but it equals out.

As far as the original topic goes, I agree. I'll give you back what you do to me. It's just that I'm a lover, I'm not a fighter so I don't care much for physical violence. I am a pacifist at heart and luckily I haven't been involved in physical violence for a long time. But because of that it's hard to predict how I would actually react if I would get in this kind of situation apart from trying to calm it down. I might have thrown the punch back myself. In that case I wouldn't regret a thing, though. It's not like I physically strong or whatever.
I considered training Aikido myself exactly for the same purpose Ryex does, but I didn't get around so far.

Also, weaker sex my ass. Women are emotionally significantly stronger than men (just like men are significantly physically stronger than women). Because women are emotional creatures, they learn to handle their emotions a lot better. Not that they are too successful in most cases, but the same amount of emotion (e.g. "broken heart") is harder to bear for a man (because he usually doesn't feel too much emotion) than for a woman (because she is experience in dealing with emotions). This excludes reactions to the emotions because women in general don't suppress or try to control their emotions much. Women usually get easier emotionally attached and detached than men. To severe an emotional attachment is harder for a man than it is for a woman.

[Daxisheart]

9 out of 10 times, women will be weaker than a man. It's a fact that women are physically weaker than men in general. Additional, taking in certain biological features like the difference in estrogen and testosterone, you can also say that women are more emotionally connected than men.
However, you have to look into the cultural aspects of this. Pretty much every culture (save those rare couple tribes or etc. that eventually get wiped out) has the idea that women are weaker, and they GROW UP like this, the entire gi joe v barbie thing. Nature and nurture sorta screws people over when you're asking for equality.

In essence, it's basically impossible to just label and entire gender or group, and say that they do one thing or another, but trends do appear. Cause of these trends, adhering to treating people based on one clear cut way or another is p stupid. There will be double standards, and people will usually have to aide by them. I remember countless cases irl and and i think on the news several times where a woman smacked a guy, and when the guy hit her back, everyone ganged up  on him. While court and etc. could prolly resolve resolve it very simply, no case is ever going to make it that far anyways. The die hard feminists sorta seem to want superiority over equality imo, with "equal" wages and etc. but keeping several double standards. But meh, I'm not well versed with many feminists so idk.

[Fantasist]

I agree with Blizzard and Daxisheart. Let's face it, men and women are not the same. But they are equal as human beings. I think when women say they want to be treated equally, I see it mainly in terms of respect, among other things.

Women are emotionally significantly stronger than men (just like men are significantly physically stronger than women).

Quite frankly, I don't get this argument. Of course, I'm not saying it's one way or the other, I'm just saying I can't say either way. It's true that most women express their emotions to others and are comfortable doing so, but I feel disinclined to agree that they are emotionally stronger. From the little experience I've had till now, I've seen women break down into tears over the smallest things. In fact, from what I've seen, women have weaker tolerance to emotional stress than most of the men I've known. I know guys who were in the deepest shit in their lives and still keep a straight enough face and mood to go about their regular lives. I'd like to believe women are more comfortable with expressing emotion and men not so much, but I refuse to believe that women are emotionally stronger. Emotional stress tolerance depends on other factors, not gender, that's what I believe.

But that's all in my experience. Maybe I ought to meet more women to know more :V

[Blizzard]

Don't confuse emotional strength with emotional control. Women have little to no emotional control in general. Men are a bit better in control of their emotions because they are taught to hide their emotions as kids already. You know, if you're an emotional boy, there's peer pressure of calling you a girl and stuff like that so you basically learn to hide them. This is, of course, bad. You shouldn't hide your emotions, you should express them. But you should also control them. If somebody pisses you off, you don't yell at them. Instead you calmly tell them that you are angry with them (with maybe a slightly raised voice). This is enough to express your emotion and not keep it bottled up, but still being in control of the stuff and not doing things you're going to regret.

You could say that women experience emotions stronger than men. Add the lack of emotional control on top of that and you have the emotional women that we know and love. Have you ever noticed how quickly a woman can change her mood? Men can't do that. That's because women can manipulate their own emotions easier than men. They can redirect them you could say. Women are in general emotionally stronger than men, but because of that they are also slaves to their emotions. Why would a woman stay with a guy who hits her and abuses her? Her reasoning is always that "she loves him". That "love" is not what is driving her. She is so attracted to the guy, because he's a badass in general, that she can't help herself. If it does come to an end, she will say that she doesn't know what she ever saw in that guy. If he crosses path with her again, she will fall for him again. Have you ever seen a man who keeps staying in an abusive relationship? I have seen only very weak men do that. Everything between a wuss and an average men these days (who I would still categorize as a wuss, BTW) won't stay in an abusive relationship like that under normal circumstances. There's also a big difference after the breakup. A man like this would still be "in love" with the woman while a woman would say (as I said before) that she doesn't know what she ever saw in him. See the difference? The woman is already over him, but she was way more into her man than a man in the same situation. Women are emotionally stronger, believe me. If a woman can forget the feelings she had for a guy who was beating her and she couldn't leave him because she was so attracted to him that much faster than a man can forget e.g. a control freak where he was the one who actually broke up, then I believe that women definitely are emotionally stronger and get emotionally less attached.

After all, the average woman has twice as much sex as the average man. How? Because most men don't have that much sex and there's a group of men that get laid all the time. These are also the men wifes cheats their husbands with. It's kind of a saddening fact that women are the greater cheaters and all and that they often just wait for somebody better to come along (you wouldn't believe how many women just jump from one relationship to the next when they find a better guy). But it's not that bad actually. If you accept it, it's ok. You can view the world as it is and stop idealizing women for they are not the angels that most men think. I wouldn't say worse than men, because men have their own weaknesses. In these days men are probably worse. Not because they cheat or something like that, but because they are all being wusses. If you want, you can look at it as the dark side of the genders.

Of course, what you believe is your choice. I can only offer you evidence. It's up to you whether you want to believe this, because nobody of us was ever a woman and can confirm it. And no woman was ever a man to be able to compare either. I've read and learned a lot on the subject in the past year, I know what I'm talking about.

[Fantasist]

Emotional control and strength. And by strength you mean the intensity of emotion a woman feels. Is that right? So most women feel much more than men for a same emotional stimulus, right?
Well explained, Blizz. But I'm still not ready to believe it, I have to admit I'm a bit biased due to my own reasons. I'll just take your word for it and try to look things in a new light

You know, if you're an emotional boy, there's peer pressure of calling you a girl and stuff like that so you basically learn to hide them.

So I'd like to discuss about one of these boys. Was he capable of the same emotional response as a girl of his age? And the way he grew up dulled it? If that's the case, then even if women are more capable of emotional control and strength, could it be true that they are not inherently superior to men in these aspects and men are also capable of the same level of emotional depth but just don't grow up that way? Your thoughts on this?

Rant: ShowHide

I ask because I'm an "emotional boy" and I resent women who group men together into these brainless violence-seeking testosterone-pumped barbarians, and magically declare "men are monsters with no conscience who prey on women because they're weak" (Yes, I've seen it so many times, hence my rigidness in this matter). As an extension, I also resent men who seem to enforce their claims. I'm a sensitive guy and I believe I feel as intensely as any woman but I don't get to vent it out because of the way men are stereotyped in society. I'm just frustrated is all.

[Blizzard]

Maybe I haven't explained it that well. Let me put it this way: A woman can get over something emotional much easier than a man. I'll take the example from before and try to explain it in a different way.

The woman:
She was so attracted the her boyfriend that she couldn't help it. He beat her, but she still stayed with him. Once he broke up, she was crushed, but she recovered very quickly and is now saying that she doesn't know what she saw in him. If the guy comes back, she will be attracted to him again and basically she will end up with him if that's what the guy wants. She is emotionally stronger (she gets over the relationship quickly), but she is a slave to her emotions (she falls "in love" with him again).

The man:
He has an abusive girlfriend who makes him run errands and do stuff for her all the time. She doesn't hurt him physically, but she is basically just using him, because she only wants his services and barely every has sex with him. On the side she cheats him with some other guy (e.g. somebody from the story before). When the woman has enough, she will end the relationship. The man will still be "in love" with the woman and it will be difficult for him to get over her, because he is emotionally weaker than a woman. But once he is over her, he will avoid getting into a relationship again with the same woman, because he is not a slave to his emotions.

Can you see the differences? You could draw an analogy with physical strength. A man is by default stronger than a woman and can take more physically. It's not just the intensity of emotion, it's also the change of emotion.

As for the rest:

The same way a woman can train and gain physical strength, a man can learn to become not only emotionally strong and in control of his emotions, but also change his own state of mind within seconds. I would even say that a man has more potential for this than a woman. In fact, it is necessary for a man to do that in order to become a man. If you don't possess that kind of inner strength, then you're not a man yet.

For your rant: ShowHide

I should be categorized as hypersensitive myself. But that didn't stop me from getting myself under control and becoming strong. As a matter of fact, it's probably because of this hypersensitivity that I am as strong as I am now and that I have the potential to become even stronger. This is what actually attracts women: men. And a man is naturally strong in body and mind (though, the mind is more important). A strong mind creates a lot of self-confidence and self-confidence allows you to take risks and be bold. Not that you can't be bold without self-confidence, but at some point it will become more obvious that you are faking it.

Don't hate women, this is only going to make you unhappy. Embrace the image that you are given. Woman don't know what they want. They tell you to do something for them, then they don't want it. Women say they want a nice guy as boyfriend, then they cheat him with some bad-boy. Women say they don't like it when a guy is sexual and they want a connection first and blablabla, but then next Saturday night she makes out and goes home with some guy she just met. The truth is that mostly what woman say that they hate about men is what they love about men. Women are attracted to men and what men are by nature. Don't idealize women and accept your place. If a woman says she thinks men are just sexual predators, tell her that you're a sexual predator with a sly smile on your face. "So what? I am a sexual predator. What are you gonna do about it? If I grabbed you right now and kissed you, what would you do?" and watch her blush. Imagine James Bond / George Clooney in a bunch of movies, that's basically it. This demonstration of you having the balls to say whatever you want regardless of what she will think of you will turn her on. She can't help it, it's her nature as a woman. Have you ever got success with a woman by sucking up? No. It's boring and predictable. Instead play, they like it.

This isn't even a rough outline of what can tell you about this topic. I can tell you more in private.

All in all both genders have their advantages and disadvantages. Accepting that is the first step to some sort of equality.

[Fantasist]

It's not just the intensity of emotion, it's also the change of emotion.

Ah, that makes it clear. And I admit it's true in my case. I just can't get over stuff easily.

End of rant: ShowHide

You're right, acceptance is the first step towards progress. I feel better now, thanks

[AliveDrive]

I've known more than a few girls that turn out to be users. Once I have identified that trait in them, they quickly become undesirable to me.

But it usually takes me a while to admit it I think.

[Blizzard]

There will always be users to some degree. The point is to make sure she likes you for you, not for your favors/money/whatever. That way you avoid the problem altogether. (I usually don't even tell girls what I do for work, that I make music, etc. until I have made sure they like me for my personality.) But when you find out she is a user, you can always end it yourself. You have to learn how to distinguish between her showing real interest and her faking it. The difference is actually very obvious once you learn it. When she's faking it, she going over the top and you can see that it's just an act. You can look at it her being overly impressed with you versus her trying to impress you. The latter means she's interested for real.

[AliveDrive]

Right usually it's pretty obvious.

But some can be tricky...