Men and Women are Different

beliefnet

Feb 2, 2015 -- 11:28PM, A Creationist wrote:

Your male-nurse-counterpart, would recognize some other differences, though.  [Women] have body parts which complement [which have different functions from him,] and [women] were designed for reproducing offspring. [Along with most other human activities.] Your body produces eggs, monthly, and you menstruate, monthly, and his produces sperm, continually.  Your breasts were designed to suckle a baby [and women have] in a womb which he doesn't have.

The two brains differ; the types of thought processes differ; the body structures differ; the emotional reactions differ; the topics of conversation differ....

If the designs differ, why fight the roles and functions, associated with them?

[Minor edits in red].

In the ERSSG with which I identify women are generally smarter and more competent at anything they choose to do than the men.  The men are smart and competent as well, the SSG selects for intelligence and competence, but the women seem to be slightly higher on both curves than the men.   Evolution selects for smart, competent women because smart, competent women produce smart, competent children of both genders which are valuable assets in the reproduction of the species. 

It is true that the women gestate the children.  It doesn't seem to slow them down much, as their men pick up the slack.  One scientist I knew was in the lab at 10am went to a scheduled medically indicated induction for her second child at 2, and was back in the lab the next day. Something about a grant application that was inconveniently due about the due date of the child.  Dad picked up the slack at home with the first child, he took a week vacation (before paternity leaves) in anticipation of extra work at home due to the grant and anticipated birth.  He also handled the middle of the night feeding: get up when the baby cried, hang the baby on the teat of the sleeping mom, change the diaper when indicated, and tuck the baby in the crib.

Home chores are usually more equally divided with men taking the more equal half.  The men take the more equal hit on accommodating their careers to the needs of the women as well.  Only proper as they are the privileged ones.  A white male MBA changes jobs and careers like underwear anyway, doing so to stay near the woman's workplace is no problem.  The only racism in that statement is in the larger society, the non-white males have more difficulty changing jobs and careers for any reason.  

Misogyny and Religion

what pray tell is sexist about stating the fact that many women prefer consensus to dominance. Is this not perhaps a reaction to millennia of dominance where they were forced to care for some rapist's kids, make and iron their clothes and otherwise do the bidding of the rapist. Might they not have sought out the company of other women to resolve issues of how to deal with their rapists. Might they not have created a more powerful entity to control their rapists. And therefore have a vested interest in God?

Misogyny bubbles through society in general. Atheism is no exception. There are islands of exceptions that are growing rapidly now that women can have control over reproduction. Men aren't stupid. But mores change very slowly. And if everything from advertising to sporting events to movies to restaurants, and most everything else promote ogling the boobs, it is hard for everybody of both sexes to realize that women are not just sex objects.

Interestingly religions are leading in some of those islands of exceptions, and also in the rearguard maintaining of women as property. Some Universities are also leaders, in both directions, generally correlated with fundamental religious influence in the area. There are no simple answers and generalizations are impossible.
If you are truly interested I would recommend this report from Blag Hag on a conference discussing the lack of women in the atheist movement. Note the panel was 5 men and one woman. In particular read through the comments. The men either attack the messengers, say "what's the problem," or blame the women.

I don't really blame the men. Thanks to Paul and the Jewish tradition, women as property is a given in most Western societies, whether they are still religious or not. Even western languages especially the gendered languages have a cruel bias against women. In a gathering to introduce a new department head from a South American country, he proudly introduced the members of his department: This is my collegue Dr. Werner, and my collegue Dr. John, and my collegue Dr. Jesus, and er, um, Dr. Mary. As I knew Dr. "Mary" very well I knew she never became a collegue. If you want an example in English, what pronoun do atheists use in referring to God?

For a long time in my life atheism was simply a position about God. I became more active mainly to combat the Christian mysogyny of Paul, which is reflected even in the atheist community, at least the vocal atheist community. Just as a minor example. Why was the London bus ad a minor blip on the radar until Dawkins was photographed with his "tongue" hanging out with the buxom instigator of the movement. Why the hell didn't he pose proudly by a bus with the ad on it? Ho, hum, no sex, no news value. She is a journalist and entertainer, so she knows what sells even to "rational" atheists.

Men are Dumb.

The Fruit of the Teaching "Males are Superior" - Beliefnet :

Men are dumb. Very dumb.
Dar

"Probably one of the major causes of misogyny. As my med professional ex frequently asserted, 'To succeed in medical research a woman must be smarter than all the men around her. Fortunately, this is a normal condition.'

Intelligence breeds true, and in the Kinder, Küche, Kirche world intelligence, including social intelligence is a key to reproductive success. It is no wonder that when women get out of the house sexism is the only advantage men have.

When you think about it, reproductive success for males has much less to do with intelligence than with power and dominance skills, including sexual dominance, one does not kneel before the male leader to get tapped on the shoulder. Physical skills as in staying alive in the hunt or the battle are important as well. Even today the Homecoming King is not the science geek, but the athlete. As my father the athlete would remind me 'Don't think, you weaken the ball club.'

So, Dar, don't hold it against men that they are dumb. You women selected them for that feature."

Mary Daly changed my life

uuworld.org : mary daly changed my life

Leaning against the opening to the living room, I called out, teasing, to the guy holding the remote, “There’s the man, in control of the whole world.” I’ll never forget the look on his face as he turned toward me. It was open, puzzled, bewildered, and a little sad. It was clear that he didn’t feel in control of much.

As a couples counselor for many years, I heard countless women say they felt controlled by their partners. Countless men told me they felt controlled by their partners. As more same-sex couples came to me, many of them felt controlled by their partner. “If everyone is feeling controlled,” I thought, “who is doing all the controlling?” Maybe the culture controls everybody who doesn’t struggle to wake up. Maybe it’s patriarchy, maybe it’s the archetypes. Maybe it’s what people name the devil. My anger dissipated. The culprit had become more complicated.
Meg Barnhouse.

I almost pasted the whole article and recommend it highly. But the above caused me "grievously to think."

Are not the men impacted just as much as the women by the prevailing misogyny of the dominant Abrahamic religions? Are not the Islamic men who are conditioned to believe that all men including themselves are such slaves to their libido that merely the glimpse of a woman's flesh would cause an uncontrollable urge to rape just as controlled by the burkha as the women? Are the Catholic men who are conditioned to believe that any family planning that would free them as well as their wives from the tyranny of producing endless Catholics just as controlled by their church as their wives?

It seems to me that the only way out is to treat people as people. Not male people or female people, but people. This would relegate sex to an enjoyable recreation with the usual provisions for STD and pregnancy protection and certainly the expectation of consent on both sides. Two people, no longer driven by libido might decide to take the next step in real living and join to provide a home for a next generation. The only involvement by the state or religion would be to issue a procreation license or perform a parenting ceremony, which would establish stringent obligations on the partners to provide financially and emotionally for the anticipated children.

Certainly a dream world for the population in general, but I see a small segment of the society where this is working well right now. "I'm learning Chinese, says Wernher von Braun." It is no accident that these are the people that are driving the intellectual capital of the world. And it is the intellectual capital that will make it possible to provide for masses that are stuck in the misogynistic religious paradigm.

Yeesh... you'd think a little more social conditioning and self-control would be expected from the Muslim male, but no.. it's all the fault of a woman.
Agnosticspirit

No. It is the fault of the religion. The males are as imprisoned by the burkha as the women. The men cannot access the wisdom of half their population without some woman's protector threatening to kill him. He cannot choose the mother of his children on any basis but what he can pay the father. He can know nothing about her except what the father tells him and the father is trying to increase the value of the product, so can be trusted to lie like a used car salesperson to make the sale.

If your choice of a mate as a male or female is unrestricted to a small group of religiously approved mates, think of the choice you have for the other half of your children's genes. True it is a reciprocal choice, but is this bad? Both have to impress the other as having desirable genes.

Two Careers, two children '70s

Ontological Inferiority of Women in Paul and the OT - Discuss Atheism - Beliefnet Community:

Men want to take a more active role in caring for their children, but two out of five admit they do not spend enough time with their sons or daughters.
Kwinters

As an early adopter of the concept of a two high level career household with children, I found many social norms to be totally incompatible with the concept, in two cases costing me my job and career prospects due to role issues for males and females. I chose to take the hit as I had the social (male ease of job movement) and educational resources, to be able to. The fact that my wife was not paid a head of household salary in spite of having a head of household job made the choice harder, but we both knew what we were up against in both large and small social issues. Just being the only adult male in a preschool area of a park was frequently an interesting experience. I would occasionally have to call my kids to justify my presence there, a few times to cops. Not complaining, mind you, we both chose the road with clear knowledge of the ruts and potholes. And believe me, the gender ruts were obvious and unavoidable.

It started when we were admitted to a big name U for Grad school, she in medicine me for an MBA. We went to financial aid and said "We are broke, how do we do this?" The aid guy said its easy she gets a job and puts you through the MBA then you get the big bucks from the MBA and put her through med school. We said we are both starting in the fall, what part of that don't you understand? To their credit they found a way, a grant for her tuition and a crippling loan for tuition and expenses for me. Abject poverty is good for the soul and for concentrating on studies, a movie was off the budget even if we smuggled in our own popcorn.

Tenure track medical education was no walk in the park in those days or now for women, which is why I had to use the MBA connections many times involuntarily. Like the time the boss said your wife must be at this party for the sake of your career. Guess what? He was right. She wasn't there (professional obligations) and I had to find another opportunity. I suppose if the promotion had been more important to me I could have arranged it, but I was pissed. It wouldn't have worked anyway as the company culture was wife as help mate in company politics.

The idea of social structures without a sexual division of labour is an interesting one...
Kwinters

It can be done. It just takes a major commitment on both sides. Mom was in her lab 'till lunch time in prep for a planned 2:00 induction for our second. In return I had to handle the middle of the night feeding. That is get up, get the kid, hang him on the teat, wait till he pooped, change the diaper and put him back in the crib.

God Is Also a Flower

Thich Nhat Hanh Quotes | www.qsangha.org: "'God is Black.
But God is not only Black.
God is also White,
God is also a Flower.
So when a lesbian thinks of
her relationship with God,
if she practices deeply,
she can find out that
God is also Lesbian.
And God is Gay, too.
God is no less.
God is Lesbian,
and also Gay,
Black, White,
a Chrysanthemum.
And when you
discriminate against
Black or White
or Flower or Lesbian,
you discriminate
against God,
which is the basic
Goodness in you.'"

The God gene. How long to extinction.

The God gene causes behavior like basing education including science education on bronze age mythology and keeping the female half of the population in uneducated sexual slavery. In some parts of the world the gene is so dominant that they have to recruit those without it to build infrastructure, provide their transportation, and market their products. How long will this gene last in the human pool? Since warfare between God followers is all too common, my guess is very few generations.
Big Big problem for Evo's - Beliefnet Forums: "Beliefnet Forums > INTERESTS & TOPICS > Science & Religion > Origins of Life > Big Big problem for Evo's"