March 25, 2012
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"Is the Titanic Sinking?" Ask a Woman
As a competitive person, I hate admitting that women are better than men. My recent foray into Words With Friends means I'm losing a lot to various more talented women, and it's hurting my poor little ego. I'm in the fetal position as we speak, whispering "Xi?! WHAT KIND OF WORD IS XI?! XI?" over and over to myself. I'm of course plotting how to get better to once again restore my male dominance (howls at the sun, beats on chest, etc.)
But, there's one area where women are better than me, and I'm thankful for it. It's in the discernment needed to know that something no longer works. For example, women are less likely than men to hold a stock for too long as the value tanks (A 2005 study by Merrill Lynch here found that 35% of women held an investment too long, compared with 47% of men.) This can be seen as perhaps a bad trait in certain instances. Women initiate 2/3'rds of all divorces, although of course this depends on what you think of divorce.
In my Versatile Blogger post, I mentioned that I had been involved with a lot of groups and schools that started failing. I always thought that things could be fixed or that it would be a bad idea to quit. After my umpteenth poor choice (I was the one always racing to buy tickets to the Titanic's maiden voyage and getting the last ticket onto the sinking ship), I started wondering why I kept joining failing groups.
But as time went on, I realized how to spot that groups were in trouble, or that parties were going to be a waste of time. The women associated with such events would quietly and politely disappear. Oh, it would sound good: "It's not you, it's me" or "I need to spend more time in my studies, or less time in X" etc. But they had an instinctive intuition as to when something was over, and they were much more likely to leave before it was too late.
So next time, when I see a woman politely stepping into the lifeboat and saying "Oh, I like smaller vessels anyway, this Titanic ship is so large! I just want to go for a little trip" I will do my best to jump into that boat right next to her. Forget her polite talk: that woman can feel the ship sinking, and even if I can't feel it yet, I'll trust her on that point.
Comments (40)
Women are raised in our society to be self-interested and to consider their needs before others, so they are naturally more able to look out for danger signs that threaten their safety/stability. Makes sense.
More like women are used to being victims, so they recognize the warning signs sooner.
Your post gave me something to think about.
I loved it.
@QuantumStorm - This article leans a bit too much pro-feminine, but confirms my suspicions as to why: https://smartgirlsway.com/news-blogs-events65/blog5/83-women-do-focus-differently- Men focus very well on one task, women multi-task better. Thus men are less likely to give up when honed in and focused, while women are more likely to pick up other cues and think of a larger context. I feel this theory does a good job of explaining a lot of the women/men differences at work, and applies here as well. It's a good question as to WHY women are better at evacuating such situations, but I do see it does happen.
This is where men need to value and look to women as help meets, so they might evaluate situations rightly and be alerted to what they're missing (e.g. - see the story of Abigail & David).
that allegation is a bad thing, not a boon. it means they lose less, because they risk less. so women destabilize the economy while men are more predictable and invested. women cause businesses to go from struggling to die, which is good as an investor but bad as worker.
against popular culture, this is actually a valid concern when it comes to female employment and market bloat. if women having more money destabilizes teh economy disproportionally then the number of crashes and companies going out of business is proportional to the amount of material power women have. it means that charities and unneeded companies get donations (and proped up) more by men than women because men struggle to recognize the expenses as lost causes. this means more people have jobs in a male dominated oligarchy.
free market and competition, though futile and ultimately stupid is 'male' powered worldview approach which allows the personal fulfillment of a majority of the population.
i wonder what the antithesis would designate. i suspect confederate matterace hoarding... people scrambling for whatever they can get.
what if all along we have been in a matriarchy?
This sounds like good advice to me.
@QuantumStorm - is that a joke? Because I'm highly offended...
Youll.be.kicking my ass at words with friends. Cuz i suck.
Ok brother, this is all true. I won't argue it one bit. (except that women aren't better at WWF than men... it's just you.
)
But the larger problem here is that you're publicly admitting it. Dude, did you not see Rule #586, paragraph B, subpart C of the rules of the man club? It states, rather clearly, that we're "not to give them an inch, as they will undoubtedly take ten miles, and while doing so, will also find a way to guilt us into not giving them those miles to begin with."
I'm calling an emergency session of the board to discuss your infraction, and the necessary response...
I think one of the reasons women are better at things in that way is because it is more socially acceptable for a woman to "listen to her heart." I think a larger number of women than men are able to work off of their intuition without feeling they have to justify it in a logical, bullet-point way. Sadly I am not one of those women. I always go down with the ship.
@AmyDoo - that makes two of us!
Don't look at me then because I'm on the S.S. Xanga until the ship goes down
Ahh it does my heart good to see a man finally come to his senses!
I think women tend to think more with their heart and feel a need to take care of others more than men. Men feel the obligation to "support the family and be the head of the household" while women afford the protective hand that keeps things on an even keel. It's because of this that a number of American Indian tribes have placed women at the headship of the family unit. I'm thinking that iceberg was just a little close. Need a ride?
It's that intuition thing. I'm still partial to logic, but recognize sometimes it helps.
@firetyger - I'm with you, there! haha!
It depends though, some of us are more bull-headed than others and committed to seeing something through. It really depends on how passive or aggressive you viewpoint is on life.
Hmmm. Makes sense.
@QuantumStorm - makes sense, that's why women are commonly expected to care for their children and things like "maternal instinct" exist. Just women being selfish!
Ohh I'm competitive on words with friends! Everyone used to beat me, so I had to step up my game
@QuantumStorm - i actually really think the opposite is true. women are supposed to be selfless, nurturing, maternal.
There is one thing that we are much better at then women are and that is committing suicide and murder....I guess that is actually two things we are better at...They have us hands down on just about everything...and theuy want to be equal with us?why? I don't understand it...LOL...
The other day I was playing Scrabble against a female friend and she didn't know what a POLEAXE was. I told her and was happy I played some Diablo 2 on the computer. If it weren't for the game and my crazy barbarian side-kick, I would have never known the word (or object) and never made lots of points with my letter X, ha ha
@voicimessecrets - They have a vested interest in caring for their own progeny. If it were an unconditional selflessness, there wouldn't be any orphans in this world.
@corporatecrow - Not really. In terms of their immediate interests (their own children), sure, but again, it's because they have a vested interest in seeing their gene line propagate.
@GreekPhysique - I would argue that men are taught in this society to place the needs of others before themselves, and to seek value in adversity. Thus, when things go wrong or there are danger signs, they are more likely to ignore them or blow them off. It's a necessary result of using men to absorb violence and the dangers of the outside world and protect women, a trait that has evolved - and stuck - in many societies for many many years.
@QuantumStorm - unless they knew that their children would be better off in a different environment. Seriously, that argument has so many holes in it. It doesn't even make sense. Don't the orphans have men in their lives that also could have cared for them? Isn't an orphan someone whose parents are dead, anyway? You definitely just bullshitted that answer without putting a single critical thought into it whatsoever.
@voicimessecrets - Think carefully. If they were truly, unconditionally selfless, there would be no orphans in this world... BECAUSE THEY'D ADOPT THEM. Herp derp
@AmyDoo - Sorry to hear that you're highly offended, but no, it's not a joke. Think about it; who is the limiting factor in reproduction - a man, or a woman? The answer is, the woman - and thus, on an individual level from the standpoint of biology, the woman is more critical to a society's survival than a man is. The reason we're so successful as a species is that for the past thousands of years, societies have emphasized the protection of women (which didn't always translate into giving freedoms, but still emphasized her protection and provision) because they knew that a society without women providing the backbone is a dying society.
Thus, it was in a society's best interest to foster a sense of self-interest in women, because if they fostered the level of self-sacrifice in women that they already did in men, then women would have been entering the military, working in hazardous conditions earlier on, etc. And while such an arrangement may sound egalitarian, from a survival standpoint, it hurt early societies MUCH more to lose a woman needlessly than it did to lose a man.
So, by fostering a sense of self-interest in women, societies could ensure, to the best of their ability, that women stayed out of harm's way when it wasn't necessary. Childrearing is also dangerous (specifically childbirth) and requires a level of selflessness, but it also satisfies her biological desires and is the culmination of invested time and energy on her part.
I'm thinking about groups that i've been involved with and i fail to see any evidence of this theory of yours in action. Instead, my experience tells me that women will be the most adamant and over the top in attempts to get you do stick with groups that you are trying to leave.
then again i was never a part of groups that were failing only groups that became highly toxic environments.
cool post.
@QuantumStorm - why aren't men adopting them?
@voicimessecrets - Some of them are too busy working in hazardous conditions or dying on the battlefield because society tells them that's what real men are supposed to do. But I'm glad you got my point about women not being unconditionally selfless.
@voicimessecrets - Also, a side note. Whenever I see your profile, I want to say, "Merci mille fois! J'aime les secrets!" (I so need to brush up on my french...haha)
Also, something else to consider: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/series/sr_23/sr23_027.pdf
"Men were twice as likely as women18–44 years of age to have adopted a child. Among ever-married persons, men (3.8%) were more than 2.5 times as likely as women (1.4%) to have adopted (Tables 2 and 4)."
I'm not trying to argue that men are naturally more selfless than women (I think on a natural level, both men and women are equally opportunistic), but rather, society demands more selflessness out of men, because of their reduced value.
@QuantumStorm - Yea, I still really disagree but I don't really have the desire or energy to debate it. Besides I'm so self-interested and right now, I'd rather go balance my checkbook...
@AmyDoo - Heh, it's all good. ^_^
Haha! I was in your place once. My friends would play some crazy word and I would think "what the hell kind of word is that??" so I started playing random letters hoping they would be a word haha
interesting thought process here.
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words with friends =) i like to play with m. it's the only game at which i can beat her by nearly 100 points. lol
but she told me something interesting. said that some people cheat by googling "scrabble words with X" etc. !!how shameful!!
i sincerely wish we could use foreign words -- that would be "dulce"
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