The Gender Wars

Are the supposed "Gender Wars" that are in progress at the moment a new thing or have they been going on since time immemorial ? Are they due to heredity or environment ? Why have women been oppressed in the past ? Has the pendulum swung back too far ? Is each sex a prisoner of their genetics ? Will they ever end ?

Please note that in the examples below I am speaking generalities and not referring to specific examples or persons.

1) Lets go back 20,000 years when our ancestors were "simple" hunter gatherers.
It was natural that the men would become the hunters while the women, because they had prime responsibility for the children, would become the gatherers.

Is this reflected in the ability of men to sit "doing nothing" (which drives women wild) and the shopping habits of women where they go from shop to shop even if they have no intention of buying anything (which drives men wild) ? Does this reflect that men developed their ability due to having to sit waiting for something to come down a game trail while women cruised to a tree to see if the fruit was ripe, to a patch of grass to see if the seed was ready to pick and so on ?

2) Women complain that men are always looking at their breasts. But face it, breasts are are "out there" advertising. They say to a man "I am fit and I can feed your babies". Naked breasts have been a feature of art since people first started scratching on cave walls. Are the so called "fertility goddesses" that have been found in pre-historic caves featuring women with graphically enhanced breasts and genitalia just stone age porn ?

3) "Behind every successful man there is a good woman" There are many historical references of conflict in harems between women seeking for their sons to become the heir to their father or kings going on wars of conquest due to their wife's ambition for their son to inherit a larger empire ? How many times has male ambition been due to encouragement from his wife ?

4) It was once said to me that the reason mankind has progressed so far in such a short time (relatively speaking) is due to "encouragement" by women.

e.g. Cavewoman gets sick and tired of carrying water from the creek up to the cave. Therefore caveman has to learn how to build a mud hut closer to the creek. Mrs Columbus is giving Mr Columbus a hard time, so he sails off and discovers America. Mrs Cook is giving Capt. Cook a hard time so he sails off and discovers Australia. Mrs Einstein is giving Albert a hard time so he goes down to the garden shed and discovers Relativity. Mrs Thompson is giving Mr Thompson a hard time so he goes down the garden shed and invents a sub-machine gun....

5) Women are multi-orgasmic and capable of "indefinite performance", whereas a man is is "burnt out" fairly quickly. No man is ever totally 100% sure that the child a woman bares is really his. Therefore I can see why in societies where hereditary titles are passed through the male line why women are "locked up" in a harem or otherwise cloistered. Societies where such titles are passed through the female line are much more honest as most people are never in doubt as to who the mother of a child is.

How much of our current society is artificial according to nature ? In most other species the aim of the male is to pass on his genes to as many females as possible while the aim of the female is to ensure the survival of her offspring. Some species mate for life and male and female share the care and feeding of the offspring while in most the female has sole responsibility. In some species the female eats the male immediately after mating, in others the males only survive till the end of the mating season while the females live much longer.

So, how much is the relationship between men and women due to hereditary and how much due to environment. One man has the ability to impregnate every woman on Earth but one woman could not ensure the survival of the human race. Women are not just "men with boobs". There is millions of years of evolution in the works here that has shaped the off-times competing male and female psyches.

I'd like the opinions of others on this. If nothing else it will provide a diversion from the interminable "Liberal vs Conservative" fights on other threads. The only thing I ask is that posters look at the whole issue, not just nit pick on one particular point.

T.A.

Ooooh this could be a can of worms you've opened up here! I vaguely agree with most of your analogies but, I will comment upon no.5

Women are multi-orgasmic and capable of "indefinite performance", whereas a man is is "burnt out" fairly quickly. No man is ever totally 100% sure that the child a woman bares is really his. Therefore I can see why in societies where hereditary titles are passed through the male line why women are "locked up" in a harem or otherwise cloistered. Societies where such titles are passed through the female line are much more honest as most people are never in doubt as to who the mother of a child is.

Ooooh this could be a can of worms you've opened up here! I vaguely agree with most of your analogies but, I will comment upon no.5

Women are multi-orgasmic and capable of "indefinite performance", whereas a man is is "burnt out" fairly quickly. No man is ever totally 100% sure that the child a woman bares is really his. Therefore I can see why in societies where hereditary titles are passed through the male line why women are "locked up" in a harem or otherwise cloistered. Societies where such titles are passed through the female line are much more honest as most people are never in doubt as to who the mother of a child is.

I think your performance statement is probably more apocryphal, than medically proven. As for paternity, are you suggesting that generally speaking most women are not faithful to their partners?

In the case of the female line, do men have no part to play other than at procreation?.....

But until the advent of DNA testing no man could be absolutely sure a child was his. He could believe and even be "sure" he was the true father but there was always a small element of doubt

But until the advent of DNA testing no man could be absolutely sure a child was his. He could believe and even be "sure" he was the true father but there was always a small element of doubt

Why? If two people have a loving and trusting relationship, why would there be any reason to have doubt? Again, are you suggesting that all men secretly distrust women? Blissful ignorance may have a place.

In the case of heirs to a throne, you may have a point, and I'm quite sure that certain safeguards are probably in place.

You seem to have little faith in women, and and not much self-worth in men. That is a bit of a sad view of the world isn't it?

I know of no species where the females will regularly fight to the death over a male.

Quick men, run for your lives
____________

Es will chop you up and feed you to the cats for that one ....... and her mum !!!

No, I'm sure that the majority of partners are faithful to each other.

Patrick McCarthy was floored to learn after his divorce that his 14-year-old daughter had been fathered by another man. He was even more stunned to find out that he would still have to pay $280 a month in child support.

Es will chop you up and feed you to the cats for that one ....... and her mum !!!

Interesting links but I did not want this thread to concentrate on the fidelity issue. I'm more concerned about how and why each gender feels put down by the other, the "All women are b*tches, All men are b*stards" syndrome.

I compare the issue to the difference between Apple MACs and IBM PC's, equal, but totally different in the operating systems. Each has some minor advantages over the other. MAC's have the advantage in multi-media (which is why most video and audio editing suites are MAC based) while the IBM PC has an advantage in heavy duty number crunching.

There is no way you can get a program written for a MAC to run natively on a PC and visa versa. In the same way women and men do not understand each others way of thinking.

e.g. In the same way that MAC's are better at multi media, women are much better with words and the subtlety of language than men. Watch two women who have worn the same dress to a party, they can cut each other to pieces verbally, yet most men would not even notice there was a "knock down, drag out" battle going on. A man's "speech processor" is just not fast enough to follow the cut and thrust of it. In the same way, a woman can get frustrated at the way a man can sit "doing nothing" when he's watching a football match on TV. To the man, he is not "doing nothing", he's watching the game.

I see the problem as being due to the fact that women "parallel process" tasks while men "serial process". Maybe what we need is a human version of Java. :-)

T.A.

Es will chop you up and feed you to the cats for that one ....... and her mum !!!

Why's that? I didn't publish them, they're more your era than mine!

Tailor made for our prime minister.....

"not content with shafting the country......."
...

Es will chop you up and feed you to the cats for that one ....... and her mum !!!

Why's that? I didn't publish them, they're more your era than mine!

Tailor made for our prime minister.....

"not content with shafting the country......."
...

They should be published so people don't forget how shockingly women were treated not so long ago.

Interesting links but I did not want this thread to concentrate on the fidelity issue. I'm more concerned about how and why each gender feels put down by the other, the "All women are b*tches, All men are b*stards" syndrome.

I compare the issue to the difference between Apple MACs and IBM PC's, equal, but totally different in the operating systems. Each has some minor advantages over the other. MAC's have the advantage in multi-media (which is why most video and audio editing suites are MAC based) while the IBM PC has an advantage in heavy duty number crunching.

There is no way you can get a program written for a MAC to run natively on a PC and visa versa. In the same way women and men do not understand each others way of thinking.

e.g. In the same way that MAC's are better at multi media, women are much better with words and the subtlety of language than men. Watch two women who have worn the same dress to a party, they can cut each other to pieces verbally, yet most men would not even notice there was a "knock down, drag out" battle going on. A man's "speech processor" is just not fast enough to follow the cut and thrust of it. In the same way, a woman can get frustrated at the way a man can sit "doing nothing" when he's watching a football match on TV. To the man, he is not "doing nothing", he's watching the game.

I see the problem as being due to the fact that women "parallel process" tasks while men "serial process". Maybe what we need is a human version of Java. :-)

T.A.

Es will chop you up and feed you to the cats for that one ....... and her mum !!!

Why's that? I didn't publish them, they're more your era than mine!

Tailor made for our prime minister.....

"not content with shafting the country......."
...

They should be published so people don't forget how shockingly women were treated not so long ago.

Is that a fact! So why post the above?

& what about the ill treatment they're getting today?

Damn good post Es, Well done. :-)

Thanks for the reply Es. I was waiting to see your opinion on the matter.

I'll dispute you on a couple of points.
First off I was talking about how women shop, not why.

Men and women are conditioned to be different form a very young age. Just go to Toys R Us and you can see what each is being trained to be, with separate toys for girls and boys.

My first born was a girl, being "new age" parents her first toys were non gender specific or even "boy's" toys. She had a teddy bear but no dolls. However once she was old enough to decide on her own what toys she wanted, it was straight to the dolls aisle.

Just how much TV had she absorbed by then?