Sally Field won an Emmy last night and :
“At the heart of [her character] Nora Walker, she is a mother,” Field said. “May they be seen, may their work be valued and raised, and to especially the mothers who stand with an open heart and wait – wait for their children to come home for from danger, from harm’s way and from war. I’m not finished. I have to finish talking … if the mothers ruled the world there would be no goddamn wars in the first place.”
When she said “goddamn” onstage, however, Fox censors apparently took the opportunity to bleep the rest of her comments.
“I wanted to say something about the mothers who wait for their military children to come home from harm’s way,” she said backstage. “I said at the end that if mothers ruled the world, there would be no wars.”
When asked if she minded that her comments may have been cut off, she said, “Oh well.”
“I’ve been there before,” she added. “If [mothers] ruled the world we wouldn’t be sending our children off to be slaughtered. I shouldn’t have said the ‘god’ before the damn.”
Jesus H. Christ.
I remember the first time I encountered this sort of opinion – that if women were in charge, humanity would live in peace. I was 11 or 12 years old and read it in a book, and I swear to god, I actually laughed out loud. I remember thinking, this fool has obviously never met any females.
It starts in about 4th grade, when girls start engaging in what can only be called a war of attrition via emotional abuse. They form evil little cliques and set about utterly destroying each other’s self-esteem and pride. I got glasses when I was 11, and the first dozen people to call me “four-eyes” were girls. When I didn’t start growing boobies as early as some of the others, it was the girls who snickered at me on the playground and called me President of the Itty-Bitty Titty Committee. There was a fat girl in my neighborhood back then, and guess who shunned her and called her “pig” and “lardbutt” on the bus? Not the boys. (Granted, they just ignored her. But which is really worse?)
Then you move on to the nightmare-scape called junior high school, where the females carefully hone their craft and the sabotage is raised to a whole new level of hate. During my soul-ripping years there, I had one boy who “bullied” me but there about five girls who did, and they were ten times meaner about it. Sneaky and manipulative. At least when boys pick on you, it’s all out in the open. Girls? Oh god no. They use subterfuge and reconnaissance. Girls will pretend to be your best friend just to discover your weaknesses, which they’ll then employ to bring you down.
Like the bitches in my 7th grade homeroom class. For reasons known only to Satan, a group of them decided they hated a girl named Cassie, who lived near me and was actually a really sweet kid. These girls befriended her for a while, let her into their “friend”ship ring of evil, and then suddenly one day when she walked in, they completely ignored her. I remember her crying later at lunchtime, and I heard that she’d told them that her stepdad drank beer in the evenings and now those little snots were telling the whole school he was an alcoholic. That rumor never died.
But that’s nothing. Wait until high school, when the competition for boys gets serious and the rumor-mongering takes on apocalyptic proportions. This is when the girls start calling each other sluts just because they like the same guys. There was a cheerleader at my high school who got pregnant in 11th grade and she went from being the one all of us envied to the one we all called dirty, dirty names. The boys never really said anything but the girls, oh sweet Jesus, we were brutal. On the bathroom wall, someone wrote in lipstick, “Tiffany is the WHOREleader! Keep your legs closed SLUT.”
Sugar and spice, my ass.
Then we grow up and start having babies, becoming those sainted “mothers” Sally is talking about. You know, like Britney. Or more seriously, like or or .
I’m not trying to say men are any better, because they’re not. They commit most of the murder and mayhem on this planet but frankly, I think that’s just because they have more time on their hands. It’s absurd to think that putting women in control of the world would make any difference; women have just as much hate, spite, and pure evil in them as men do. We simply express it differently most of the time, but not always. There have been times when mothers held vast power, and did they bring peace to all lands? Ask Cleopatra.
Anyway. I know I’m opening up a big nasty can of political incorrectness, but what bugs me the most about the idea that “there wouldn’t be any goddamn wars in the first place” if mothers were in charge is that it ignores the fact that there probably wouldn’t be any goddamn technology, either. Or modern medicine or modern cities or most all the shit we take for granted, 99.9% of which was invented, built, and maintained by men. I wonder if people like Sally Field would have mothers “in charge” but still let the men do all the dirty hard work.
Not that we’d still be living in caves necessarily but really, it deserves some thought. The exact same testosterone-fueled drive that makes men fight wars also makes them build bridges and tall buildings and computers. Made them hunt animals to feed the tribe, made them relentlessly experiment with domestication of animals and crops, made them invent metallurgy, made them invent the fucking wheel. There is no doubt that women are intellectually capable of all of these things, but the fact is that we did not do them on any kind of meaningful scale throughout all of human history.
And it’s not just because we’ve been too busy making babies for 150,000 years. It’s because we don’t have as much testosterone, and therefore we aren’t as big, as strong, as daring, or as experimental as men. And this really is okay to admit. Who knows what would happen if women didn’t have to carry pregnancies and raise children and so had more time on their hands; I’m sure it could be a piquant debate. But if you want my personal opinion, I’m gonna have to go with: it wouldn’t be much different than it has been.
Nor would it be different if “mothers” were suddenly put in charge. I feel vicarious resentment of that claim because if I were a man with children, I’d really like to know just what in the hell makes Sally Field think women love their children more than men do. Human nature is what it is, and we will fight over shit until we go extinct. Even if the best mother EVER was Queen of the Planet, someone somewhere would still need to have their ass kicked, and she’d have to send somebody’s child to do it.
You wrote a great post but this:
…just what in the hell makes Sally Field think women love their children more than men do.
is the best point of the whole thing. I truly wish stupid people would have to wear shock collars.
Can I gets a Hells yea!?!?!
You know what there wouldn’t be if Mamma ruled the world?
There wouldn’t be any of this galldurned “Foosball”. Mamma says it don’t make no sense, me running around in tight pants and tackling each other, just to see who can get an undercooked pork rind the furthest down the field.
Of course, Mamma also says, Alligators is ornery ’cause they gots all them teeth and no tooth brush.
I think it was Robin Williams who said that if women were in charge, there wouldn’t be any wars, but there would be some serious negotiating every 28 days.
Growing up, some of my female friends preferred spending time with their male friends, because they believed that the boys/men were more honest about whether or not they liked or disliked you. I kind of think that those girls were entirely correct.
Here is a shout-out to war. Quite a few items throughout history that have increased our quality of life were developed for or during wars.
*Applauds* I love your rants.
I do have an idea of what would happen if moms ruled the world: John Edwards would be normal.
Seriously, which of your parents babied you when you fell off your bike and skinned your knee and which told you cowboy up and to “get back up on that damn bike and you ride it, because I didn’t spend $100 plus 3 hours of my life putting that stupid thing together so it could rust in the driveway!”?
Good post Rachel, I agree completely.
My observations on these differences is a matter of directness. Men tend to like things emotionally simple, women tend to not be able to simplfy them.
As far as cruelty, well, seeing two girls fight (either physically or verbally) is one of the most brutal things I’ve seen. Further, look at Queen Boudica for another representation of a woman in a position to command. Her fight and the revolt she led is a bloody story.
Amen, Sister! I couldn’t possibly add anything to that rant; sheer beauty!
Semper Fi,
Mattski
With all this focus on the talents and accomplishments of mothers, Ms. Field seems to have forgotten the role of fathers.
Mothers may comfort their children when they feel sad, shelter them from danger, and occasionally protect them from harm, but what of the FATHERS?
Fathers prepare their children to overcome obstacles. Fathers teach their children how to be strong in the face of adversity. Fathers prepare their children to be adults and to be successful in an adult world.
Ms. Field’s emphasis on mothers over fathers suggests that perhaps she did not have a proper father herself.
Has Sally heard about Susan Smith, Catherine the Great of Russia, Lucrezia Borgia? Another example of a brain dead Hollywood celebrity.
Sally Field is, after all, the raging narcissist whom, upon receiving an Oscar cried …
This is so the standard argument among two primary classes of women: the “Hippy-Dippys” a la Cindy Sheehan and Susan Sarandon, and the “Smug Mommies” who think they have absolute intellectual authority because they stay at home watching Anderson Cooper & CNN whilst breast feeding their latest babe. I know far, far too many who belong to the latter group, and they are the definition of insufferable.
Like you, Rachel, I know all too well the fatuousness of Field’s assertions. I shudder to think what the world would be like if women ran it exclusively. If they were more like Maggie Thatcher well, I’m in: unfortunately, they are far too often flakey, self-aggrandizing figureheads for the so-called “Sisterhood”, a concept with underpinnings as solid as a newly-poured tub of Jell-O.
Women have such remarkable potential! Unfortunately, we are our own worst enemies, and we are far better at ‘talking the talk’ than ‘walking the walk’.
Great rant. My wife would agree with you. It’s amazing how often she’ll come home in a bad mood, muttering about the “gawdamn women” who spend huge amounts of work time undermining each other, as well as my wife herself, the office manager, whom they resent being the boss of them. She spends more time settling cat fights than doing payroll and scheduling and all that work stuff.
Well said Rachel! It’s about time that tired old chestnut was laid to rest. (The idea that there would be no wars if women were in charge, not Sally Field.)
In this day of political correctness it’s interesting that so many who would see red if anyone dared to question women’s intellectual capacity or their right to equal opportunity and pay still promote the antiquated fairy tale that women are ‘nicer’ than men.
Fact of the matter is this notion that “If mothers ruled the world thing would be better” is pure hokum. I have seen women do things to other women that would have the likes of Saddam Hussein go “Dayum that was just cold”, and OMG don’t get even me started on the joy some women take in an attempt to emasculate men. Some of those poor boys still can’t stand fully erect as the result of the emotional castration they suffered at the hands of a mean-spirited woman. Somehow I am not seeing how Motherhood is apt to reduce those tendencies, and in truth it only really gives a bitchy woman one more thing to bitch about.
We have Bastards and Bitches for good reason. Evil puts on its pants one leg at a time despite what is or is not hanging between its thighs as it does so. To think otherwise only invites further insanity to the dinner table. So pass the potatoes and don’t be stingy with the brown sauce.
Have fun ;)!
My moonbat sister: “If it wasn’t for men there wouldn’t be any wars!”
Me: “Or buildings.”
There was a “Survivor” where they divided the tribes into men and women. The men build stuff like a hut and a dock, and the women sat around socializing and making jewelry out of twigs and they wasted their drinking water on washing out their panties. It was hilarious.
This article that Dr. Helan linked recently has some really interesting insights about men and women and why they are how they are.
I read a book, a long time ago, called “Shoot the Women First”. It was about terrorism in Europe in the 60s and 70s and shoot the women first was the advice they gave the police for encounters with groups of terrorists. They said the women were much more ruthless and would fight longer, so you had to shoot them first.
And don’t even get me started on the tortures my daughter endured in 6th grade at the hands of her alleged friends.
Actually I think that’s true.
If women ruled the world we would have no war.
We wouldn’t have a moment’s peace, but we would have no war.
I think that the mother’s in Darfur, the Balkans, Cambodia, Auschwitz, Nanking and every other frickin place where their children are tortured to death, raped to death and starved to death are up for a bit of invasion, bombing and war if it means that the bastards who inflict that torture, rape and starvation and taken from power.
Idiot.
Brian Thorn:
I am soooooooooo laughing out loud at the images in my mind that sentence conjured up!
Damn Rachel, just dayum (or goddayum as the day requires). Perfect rant, no disagreement here either. I had similar – and worse – experiences with girls in school as well. Women can be more vicious, conniving, manipulative and mean-spirited than men, no doubt about it.
I think what Ms. Field really meant to say is this:
“I’m not finished. I have to finish talking … because I’m so important, don’t you see, because you all like me, you really like me … I have to be allowed to finish. I’m an actress, I have so much to say to the world, so much to give of myself. Don’t you understand? I want to RULE THE WORLD. My self-involvement would be SO good for the world – then it really can be all about me.”
You had me at “this fool has obviously never met any females.” AMEN!
Sally F continues to dingbat a thousand.
Kudos, Rachel.
Give me the relative simplicity of men any day. That’s why I hung out with guys during college and still prefer their company. They’re often simpler than women — and “simpler” is *not* pejorative.
If mothers ruled the world there might be fewer wars, but most of them would be genocides.
{Long geeky theory paragraphs excised. Suffice to say it has to do with evolutionary theory of sex differences and parental investment strategies. No need to elaborate unless anyone thinks Sally Fields’ claim is more accurate than mine…}
When I was considering dissertation topics, as a decidedly politically incorrect PhD candidate, one of those that I liked (but rejected because it was suicidal) was based on the theory that men are less likely to jump to conclusions about the character and intentions of strangers than are women, simply because their role has always involved a wider radius from “home central.” Since they actually meet and interact with more strangers in more varied conditions they’d tend to be more open-minded and accepting. This is countervailed by the fact that the radius of female authority is also smaller, so whatever their inclinations they’d be less likely to act on them directly (though they might, and probably do, influence their men to do so). Note that this thesis suggests that women play a principle role in *causing* distrust and war, albeit indirectly.
The “distrust inclination” of women (should we call it role-determined bigotry?) might also be countervailed by the fact that they deal with children… who aren’t all that threatening until they’re older than 7 or 8. So the actual experience of women would tend to damp the fires of distrust and prejudice simply because they’re more used to trusting, or at least not being threatened.
My guess is that the two tendencies would be a wash, so women and men would ultimately come out about the same.
By the way, one of the interesting tangential issues is why feminists are so distrustful of the other gender. Perhaps they’ve just shifted the “home-center” to the “movement,” and there aren’t as many children to countervail the tendency for mistrust and prejudice? But I don’t really know. Maybe someday someone will have the guts to find out? Or maybe not, given what happened to Larry Summers.
BTW, are you going to reinstall your RSS Feeds?
As the mother of three daughters, I would have to disagree with Sally Field. Those girls can cut you to smithereens just by opening their mouths! Not having had sisters, I grew up preferring the company of males…I still do today. At a funeral recently, I hung out at the bar drinking scotch and smoking cigars rather than particpate in the Estrogen Fest at the next table.
It’s funny, one of the commenters said “Mrs. Field” and I thought the cookie magnate had weighed in on the topic.
Dominance is an element of opportunity. Wipe all the men off the earth. The next biggest female will turn aggressive. Wipe all the men and women off the face of the earth. The next biggest child will become aggressive. No matter the demeanor or status previously.
Given an opportunity – anyone can and will try to be dominant.
Plus.. hasn’t Sally seen any of those bitches fight outside of Le Deux?
I have a friend who’s a conservative academic in the Ivy League who often discusses a theory that the New Left political movements of the 1960s were primarily created by young men, in order to get laid. The idea was that “free love” (meaning sex without attachment) isn’t all that attractive to most women most of the time, so the only way they’d be likely to overcome their natural conservatism about sex would be to have their allegiance shifted to a political or ideological movement.
Makes sense to me.
snarkolepsy: As soon as I finished reading your comment my first thought was, “Lord of the Flies”. Good point.
Rachel, you are right on the money. I have a niece and nephew. The nephew would get into the occasional shoving match/fist fight. The niece tells stories of incredible psychological mind games designed to turn girls into emotional roadkill.
Oh that was KICK ASS!!! 100% agreement. Ought to be force read over and over (I picture a Clockwork Orange-ish type situation) to Sally and her dipwad liberal pals.
Maybe Sally should talk to the mothers in Middle East who raise their children to be suicide bombers. My son’s in the Army and I damn sure prefer that he fights as a man and not as a coward.
Serenity: Yeah, Lord of the Flies and Kid Nation. Can hardly wait to see how warm and fuzzy that will be.
I will hereby add my voice to those saying “Amen” to your rant, Rachel.
My father moved us around sometimes as often as three time per school year, so every place we went, we were the “new kids in town” and therefore targets for the snarky little bitches.
I ended up very tall but late-blooming… and I well remember how often the little bitches ended up picking on me for being a member of the small-tits club and for being nearly 6 feet tall at 14 years old. Oh yeah, and also for having more than half a brain in my head.
In one junior high school I attended, there was a pair of tiny twin girls who would actually follow me into the bathrooms so as to pick on me some more. In another junior high school, any time we were herded into the locker room and kept there (when there was bad weather) was torture time… I could probably have beat the shit out of any one of the little bitches, but not a whole herd of them.
And yeah… the nastiest things people have said about my being 6’1″ have nearly *all* come from very small women (the guys would mostly just ignore me). “Gee, I’m so glad that *I’m* not too tall!” Or, “Gee, I’m so glad that my daughters are not too tall!” Like, WTF is “too tall”?
Most of this shit ended when I finally got to high school–not sure exactly why, but it did.
In junior high school, if a particular item of brand-name clothing was fashionable, it was very likely to get stolen during the time it was in your phys. ed. locker. One girl had her Gant shirt get stolen that way. Probably had to call home for more clothing. Made me glad my family couldn’t afford that shit. No one ever took my clothing.
Most of the knives I have in my back were put there by other women. AMEN AMEN AMEN to every word you say. Men aren’t perfect, but they at least have a sense of honor. The only thing worse than a woman ripping apart another woman is a MAN who uses female tactics. I never know if I should feel sorry for them. The day women declare themselves rulers of the world is the day I seek out rebel groups of men to be a part of. I want nothing of a woman’s tyranny.
Snarkolepsy: Dominance, among women, isn’t always determined by size. Some of the meanest, nastiest little bitches I’ve ever had the displeasure to meet were only about 5 feet tall. One of them was extremely aggressive and nearly destroyed the lives of several men of my acquaintance, even though her strong suit was playing helpless.
Oh my I totally agree.. I was the girl in 7th grade that the most popular girl decided to hate.. My name was Miss Piggy, they picked fights with me.. there even was a spitting episode. Looking back on it, she must have been supremely jealous cause I was nice, smart and cute (of course, I didn’t know it back then).
I’ve never been close with femailes since then, my favorite company is men, and will always be men. They let you know exactly how things stand, no bs, no backstabbing.
Hey Rachel, did we go to the same school? ;-) LOL
Awesome rant! As usual captured my thoughts better than I ever could have. What Sally doesn’t get is that women couldn’t rule the world, they’re too willing to hand over control of their lives to others, too willing to disenfranchise themselves and use “lack of time” as their excuse for being politically uninformed. Might fly when our kids are infants, but when they’re 10 and wiping their own asses for a change? Spare me.
Oh yes peace loving women, esp. Mothers, never do anything hateful or spiteful! When I was younger and dumber I thought all the passive-agressive games that us girls play would stop. Then I met my future mother-in-law. My man and I lived together for 13 years before we finally got married last year. We had the choice of paying for a free booze party for a bunch of relatives we see only once every 5 years or an awesome honeymoon. Which do you think we chose?
Understand that my MIL has sucessfully stunted her two twin daughters, both 31 year old high school drop outs, neither of whom have held onto a job or a man sucessfully, so the MIL knew that her son getting married was her only chance for the big princess party.
My ideal wedding was a small gathering of immediate family ONLY at the courthouse and then a rented wine cellar at a nice restaurant afterwards for lunch. So the 3 months or so leading up to the day were filled with whining phone calls about things like, “Aren’t you going to have a wedding shower?!?!” Lady, we’ve lived together for 13 YEARS, I can’t fit another FORK in my house! “What about flowers!!?” And “Aren’t you going to have a wedding cake!!?” This from a f’n diabetic who’d just had HEART SURGERY.
Well she got her revenge on us by inviting someone to our wedding as a “suprise” for my man, an old high school friend he hadn’t talked to in 12 years. Who does this?! This is just the tip of the iceberg of her antics on that day, but I’d need my own blog to recount them all.
Thank God my husband was basically raised by his grandparents or he wouldn’t even be remotely normal.
Two quotes:
“Without men, civilization would last until the oil needed changing.” – Fred Reed
“When the Himalayan peasant meets the he-bear in his pride,
He shouts to scare the monster, who will often turn aside.
But the she-bear thus accosted rends the peasant tooth and nail.
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.
When Nag the basking cobra hears the careless foot of man,
He will sometimes wriggle sideways and avoid it if he can.
But his mate makes no such motion where she camps beside the trail.
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.
When the early Jesuit fathers preached to Hurons and Choctaws,
They prayed to be delivered from the vengeance of the squaws.
‘Twas the women, not the warriors, turned those stark enthusiasts pale.
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.
Man’s timid heart is bursting with the things he must not say,
For the Woman that God gave him isn’t his to give away;
But when hunter meets with husband, each confirms the other’s tale —
The female of the species is more deadly than the male.
Man, a bear in most relations-worm and savage otherwise, —
Man propounds negotiations, Man accepts the compromise.
Very rarely will he squarely push the logic of a fact
To its ultimate conclusion in unmitigated act.
Fear, or foolishness, impels him, ere he lay the wicked low,
To concede some form of trial even to his fiercest foe.
Mirth obscene diverts his anger — Doubt and Pity oft perplex
Him in dealing with an issue — to the scandal of The Sex!
But the Woman that God gave him, every fibre of her frame
Proves her launched for one sole issue, armed and engined for the same;
And to serve that single issue, lest the generations fail,
The female of the species must be deadlier than the male.
She who faces Death by torture for each life beneath her breast
May not deal in doubt or pity — must not swerve for fact or jest.
These be purely male diversions — not in these her honour dwells.
She the Other Law we live by, is that Law and nothing else.
She can bring no more to living than the powers that make her great
As the Mother of the Infant and the Mistress of the Mate.
And when Babe and Man are lacking and she strides unclaimed to claim
Her right as femme (and baron), her equipment is the same.
She is wedded to convictions — in default of grosser ties;
Her contentions are her children, Heaven help him who denies! —
He will meet no suave discussion, but the instant, white-hot, wild,
Wakened female of the species warring as for spouse and child.
Unprovoked and awful charges — even so the she-bear fights,
Speech that drips, corrodes, and poisons — even so the cobra bites,
Scientific vivisection of one nerve till it is raw
And the victim writhes in anguish — like the Jesuit with the squaw!
So it cames that Man, the coward, when he gathers to confer
With his fellow-braves in council, dare not leave a place for her
Where, at war with Life and Conscience, he uplifts his erring hands
To some God of Abstract Justice — which no woman understands.
And Man knows it! Knows, moreover, that the Woman that God gave him
Must command but may not govern — shall enthral but not enslave him.
And She knows, because She warns him, and Her instincts never fail,
That the Female of Her Species is more deadly than the Male.”
Rudyard Kipling – 1911
One more AMEN Rachel… I hate that sanctimonious feminist BS.
That said though would you rather find yourself in a men’s prison or a women’s? Snarky, manipulative emotional cruelty sucks but I still think men have the edge when it comes to outright savagery.
Girls will pretend to be your best friend just to discover your weaknesses, which they’ll then employ to bring you down.
So maybe men should be warriors and women should be diplomats.
Just sayin’.
Demosophist Says:
September 17th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
“I have a friend who’s a conservative academic in the Ivy League who often discusses a theory that the New Left political movements of the 1960s were primarily created by young men, in order to get laid.”
I experienced that time period up close and even flirted around the edges of that culture, but I could never really buy into it. I suspect that Demosophist’s friend is more on target than he realizes.
Adding another AMEN to the list!
I’ve heard the saying “if women ruled the world there would be no wars blah blah blah”before and it made me laugh my ass off!
personally women scare the shit out of me and I lable them as crazy often (I’m less crazy than most though)
I’ve got three female friends and the rest are all guys and thank God for that,surprisingly theres not alot of BS with guys..they’re upfront,women on the other hand..well everything you said rings true.
So another AMEN and another ‘Sally Field is a nutjob’
When women gained the right to vote this country started going to Hell in a handbasket.
I love you Rachel Lucas! You keep me from losing all hope for your gender.
When I was just a young pup my grandfather told me “If you make a man angry you will know it when he comes straight at you and tries to beat the tar out of you. But if you make a woman angry you will probably not know it until three years later when she sticks a knife in your back while you are sleeping.”
As a father of three children your comment “just what in the hell makes Sally Field think women love their children more than men do.” really struck home for me. You really hit the nail on the head with that one.
By the way, if my wife were in charge we would have used nukes as a response to 9-11. All she saw on 9-11 was a threat to her children and she wanted “The bastards who did that and anyone who supports them and anyone who might try that again, dead, NOW!”
I’m not defending the backstabbing that women do, but in light of the size and strength differences between men and women, it’s understandable that while a man might beat the crap out of you, most women can’t do that, so instead they will verbally rip their opponents to shreds.
Supposedly nearly equal numbers of women and men start fights within marriages or other relationships… but while the men might be able to do grievous bodily harm with just their bare hands, usually the women can’t. So if a woman attacks a man and does physical damage, most likely she had a weapon of some sort… frying pan, gun, poison, or whatever. And some women get infatuated men to do their dirty work for them (e.g., Pamela Smart and her ilk).
Great rant, Rachel. And it is precisely for the reasons you outline that we know God is a man. If God were a woman, all us guys would be walking around with our dicks on our chins.
My “new kid at school” girl has recently been introduced to the horrors of the “friends” who befriend you just to find out what they can spread around. I’ve told her how vicious girls can be (especially to the cute new girl), but she just doesn’t hear me because I’m “mom”, you know. Rachel, I wish you could sit down for 15 minutes with her and tell her your story too so she doesn’t feel so alone with it.
As a mother of two girls, I saw the bitchy female behavior start young. Like kindergarden young. Scary. Being military, we’re always the newbies. And it ain’t just the girls in school you have to watch out for, but the grown women as well.
You rants are magical. Women befriending you to find your weaknesses then using them againest you isnt limited to other women.
Amen. The above is best proved by two words — Michelle Malkin.
No, no, you are all wrong. If women ran things, it would be all sunshine and sweetness. I mean just look at the Iraquois Confederation Clan Mothers, the Confederation never went to war at their behest against say, the Huron. Golda Meir, Margret Thatcher, Hatshepsut, Elizabeth I of England, Margaret Tudor, Mary Queen of Scots, Verónica I of Matamba, Olga Prekrasa, Durgevati, the Nazi SS-Gefolge Aufseherinnen, Theresa of Portugal, Tomoe Gozen, Ibn Battuta, Joan of Arc, Lady Knyvet… all of those are mearly abberations.
Right on Rachel! Have my babies. ;-)
===Growing up, some of my female friends preferred spending time with their male friends, because they believed that the boys/men were more honest about whether or not they liked or disliked you. I kind of think that those girls were entirely correct.===
You have to ask yourself, which would you prefer, the horrors of war (with people shooting and bombing you) or the snarkiness of girls being in charge (high school on a global scale).
There is a certain… honesty to germans just shooting at you. I’d rather storm Normandy than deal with a gaggle of girls.
True, but in an age of firearms and nuclear weapons, I’d say that gulf in strength is largely irrelevant.
And speaking as a student of history and of martial arts, the type of combat where a man’s strength and size would be the most advantageous (unarmed combat) is actually very rare. Despite what kung fu movies would have us believe, hand-to-hand fighting styles were considered a weapon of absolute last resort, even in countries like China and Japan.
Right on, Rachel. I, too, had glasses at 11 and was a bookworm. My life was a living hell until 1971, when I graduated high school and it all just stopped. I avoid high school reunions like the plague, haven’t seen or heard from any of those !$^$@# in years, and if I could meet my chief tormentor in a back alley with no witnesses, she wouldn’t be alive.
And if I was in charge, Tehran and possibly Gaza would be glass. You can’t talk to these people, you can’t reason with them, we’re trash in their eyes and they do not respect anything but a boot on their neck.
Elizabeth
Imperial Keeper
If it is emotion/hormonal bias that most if not ALL of the Neanderthals on these blogs are refering to, where have you been in the last century? Bludgeoning, perhaps from your own life experiences is outdated boys. Though I thought it unbecoming to use the GD word, use common sense and in the context in which this “blooper” came out, ( she was excited with her win, and messed up her words). This is not an unpardonable sin! WHERE ARE YOUR BRAINS? I won’t qualify that! The goodness/simplicity of the male make up, supports most of the blogs, but HELLO, multi tasked, detailed women, that far outdo what “the task” calls for, and in addition with pazaz/ hudspa, that you call manipulation is in order for this day and age? The right individual, be a mother, male, daddy, female, can change a NO, into a YES, change the world, and create better quality of the life of you and me. Together, we need to accept this as fact not fiction. I take offense to being called a slut? What were you thinking?
I’m sure that Indira Ghandi, Golda Meir and Margaret Thatcher agree with Sally.
Oh…..
Wait……
Heh.
One of Robert A. Heinlein’s characters quotes said character’s grandfather (a cantankerous old bastich) as saying, “The vote, hell, we shoulda never have given them shoes!”
Here’s a thought to keep you up at night: when women spend a lot of time around each other, they start cycling together. So if in the future all the leaders of the world are women, that means once a month all the people with their fingers on the triggers of the nuclear weapons will be PMSing in sync.
I always wondered why girls often deserted all of their friends when they got a boyfriend and boys never did so. Seems related.
My Wife is learning a hard lesson about this right now. She worked in an Office where everyone, including the Doctor, was female (I was told it was “because men can’t be trusted”). We also rented a house from the same Doctor. My wife worked there for almost 4 years, then found another job. She turned in her 2 weeks notice, and was “fired” three days later. The same day she was “fired”, we got a letter from the Doctor/landlady saying she was evicting us, and wanted us out of the house within three days. BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE! About a week after all this, the Police showed up at my wifes new job–Dr/Landlady told them my wife had stolen over $6,000 from her. I’ve worked for some jerks in my time, but nothing like this…
Great rant Rach! Thanks for taking the time to write what many of us are thinking but didn’t put in to words. Some of the girls in my high school were definitely mean girls.
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It’s axiomatic among dog trainers that males fight to make a point, but females fight to maim and kill. Most of the ones I know visibly relax when they learn the dog aggression problem they have to sort out is only between males; once a pair of bitches decide they don’t like each other, they are often unwilling to let the grudge go until one of them is dead. I understand it’s much the same with horses.
If you think about it, from an evolutionary standpoint it makes some sense. Males in a group of social primates fight often, but mainly over status; it does them little good to be constantly recovering from major wounds, so the damage tends to be self-limiting. Males also have the option of leaving- in most species, the females stay with the same troop all their lives and are related to most of the others, but the males will seek out new troops. (The females keep their family bonds and support, but they also keep the same enemies for life.) Therefore, when the females do fight, it’s usually over something deadly important- defending their children or defending their own lives. They need to be playing for keeps when they fight more than the males usually do.
Terrific post and it needed said!
Heinlein noted “All societies are based on the rules to protect pregnant women and young children.” I would go so far as to say that wars, when boiled down to their bare-assed basics are for the same reason.
It’d be nice if women like her could figure that out and appreciate it – and men – for what it is and what they are. (Mind, all that said still with a tip of the beanie to the women in the trenches.)
Go back 150 years to the days when the Indians roamed most of the western half of the nation. It was a well known fact that if captured by the Indians, the worst possible outcome would have been to be turned over the the Squaws. If you were lucky, they would only flay you alive. After that, they got creative.
Uh, WTF? (I read Fia’s first post – September 18th, 2007 at 8:36 am – all the way through three times; still makes no sense. Are we dealing with ESL here or just general incoherence?)
Yeah, that post was all over the map.
rocinante – no kidding! I think we may just have our very first troll.
We used to live in a neighborhood where there were all girls, except for our 2 boys. If one girls was by herself at our house, she would be respectful and pleasant. But when they were together, and especially if one was missing, the claws started to show. And these girls were 5-12 years old! I’m glad we moved.
Um, mightysamurai: Nuclear arms notwithstanding, the average man is still stronger than the average woman, and the average woman has no access to personal nuclear weapons.
My significant other is a guy who is only 5’6″ when he’s been put on the rack, yet he is stronger than I am–and I used to be fairly strong for a woman who did not deliberately work out or take steroids.
If it is true that at least some of the differences in male and female behavior in this regard are hard-wired in, then the mere fact that this is the age of nuclear weapons (for governments), IMO, probably doesn’t have much bearing on the behavior of individual men and women.
Just my two cents.
True, but remember I said firearms and nuclear weapons.
My point was that physical strength is only a significant advantage in unarmed combat. If you put an unarmed man against a woman with a knife or a gun, the man’s physical advantage is negated by the fact that the woman is armed. Even the strongest man in the world will go down in seconds after one well placed bullet or knife-thrust. And before you say it, disarming techniques are iffy at best and NOT foolproof.
Mightysamurai: Point taken in regard to women having access to firearms (personal weapons)… assuming, of course, that women are familiar with their weapons of choice and not going to wimp out at the moment of truth.
However: Although I outgrew my father by an inch, the bastard was always a lot stronger than I was… and one of the few times I dared talk back to him, he picked me up by my collar and made it pretty clear that he wanted to throw me through the wall–but my mother made him stop.
Was I scared? Yeah–bet your ass I was scared.
In the intervening years, I have noticed that some men have been pretty scared of me if I get angry… and that’s before I decide to start throwing things (not at them, just throwing them). So I guess a woman’s size is something of a deterrent to some men, at least some of the time.
And I assume that a man’s size is a deterrent to some women, at least some of the time, at least in regard to a direct attack without weapons. I would assume that women’s indirect manipulations are a sort of counterbalance to men’s greater size.
Though I’m not good at it myself, I’ve seen some women twist men around their little fingers with manipulation of one sort or another. The indirect approach works with a lot of men–it actually may save face for them, and it also lets them give in and perhaps pretend to not know what’s going on.
Another comment regarding women’s backstabbing and jealousy…
I’ve been in situations–say, a regular meeting of some club–where I got more or less regular attention from the men in the club. None of them was asking me out, but I would get attention, or sit next to them during the meeting, chat with them, etc.
Along comes a new woman member, and she’s the type who seems to need to be the center of attention, all the time, even though she’s already either married or in a committed relationship.
The men oblige her (she’s new, after all). The rest of the women, including me, are, well, kind of left out. At that point, women like me are lucky to get to sit next to the old, smelly he-goats. All of the half-way attractive men have gone to pay court to the new woman and are ignoring the rest of us women.
At that point–yes, I will admit it–I for one would feel jealous of the new arrival. Who among the women wouldn’t? And what are we supposed to do–concede victory to the new Queen Bee?
Not blaming either the men or the women–and I’m trying not to whine (too much) about life not being fair.
Regarding status: I think that both men and women are aware of status and hierarchy–and both men and women fight over it, just in different ways.
The woman may get a lot of status from marrying, say, a doctor or lawyer rather than a plumber… but the man also gets a lot of status from marrying, say, a woman who looks like a model, rather than one who resembles Rosie O’Donnell.
Regarding Fia’s incoherent comment: I don’t think she’s a troll. She’s just a product of the “publick skool sistem.”
Now that’s a real scary thought, Kacie..
Definitely agree with you, Rachel. I’m not looking forward to my two daughters getting older and enduring the petty BS girls seem to inflict on each other.
Sex is the driving force behind your other point about things “invented, built, and maintained by men.” To paraphrase Richard Jeni (and why the hell did he have to kill himself?), “men will do just about any dirty, dangerous, unpleasant job you can dream up, as long as it’s followed by the phrase, “and then you get laid.” I think what you are talking about is covered by No. 7 on list previously linked by Instapundit.
I had a girlfriend once that told me that all I ever cared about was sex. I replied that her statement was wrong. Sex wasn’t ALL I that cared about, but that it was always in the top 5. And that if a guy told her differently, it was because he thought it would help him get her into the sack. Which ties back in to Demosophist’s point earlier about the political movements on campus in the 60’s being primarily motivated by sex.
All of which reminds me why I don’t miss being single for a moment.
I agree with Rachel completely. I had to deal with a lot of nasty girls while in school, being a physically handicapped girl. After standing up to one in particular, we became good friends. Many years later, I gave birth to a girl and a boy. My son has ADHD, and my daughter used to delight in pushing all the right buttons to set him off, then sit back and watch the fireworks. However, you know about payback. She has two of each herself now, and her girls are every bit as sneaky and vicious as she used to be, if not worse!
I think that it is generally true that men are more straightforward, honest, and always let you know where you stand with them–as long as you are just friends and intend to keep things that way. If sex is involved, I think there is a lot more pressure on the men to tell women what they think we want to hear.
At least that’s been my experience. I have known a few men who were every bit as devious and indirect as women are supposed to be.
Well, I don’t know about honest (I’ve told some real whoppers in my day), but I’d say that on the whole we’re definitely much more direct than women are.
I’ve never gotten why men caring so much about sex is supposed to be such a huge fucking indictment. Humans deeply concerned with basic biological drive! Film at eleven!
Okay, now that I’ve said my token relevant thing: mightysamurai, are you the guy who runs Superdickery, or just a fan? ‘Cause I LOVE that site.
The men oblige her (she’s new, after all). The rest of the women, including me, are, well, kind of left out. At that point, women like me are lucky to get to sit next to the old, smelly he-goats. All of the half-way attractive men have gone to pay court to the new woman and are ignoring the rest of us women.
At that point–yes, I will admit it–I for one would feel jealous of the new arrival. Who among the women wouldn’t? And what are we supposed to do–concede victory to the new Queen Bee?
So Pam pulls back the curtain and reveals the truth–ugly hatred driven by insecurity and jealousy.
Yup. Stinks just as bad as I thought it did…
To Desert Cat:
So… what the hell are other women in that situation supposed to do? Bow and scrape and worship at the feet of the Queen Bee? Kiss her ass? Concede victory, because the men have obviously made their choice that she’s the only one worth noticing?
BTW, I didn’t even mention “hatred.” But under the circumstances, it’d be pretty hard to stay friends with such a woman. And the snubbed women would be pretty pissed at the men too for having been abandoned in favor of “fresh meat.”
So… are you saying that men never get jealous or insecure, or that men never have ugly emotions? Because I know for a fact that men are HIGHLY prone to jealousy and insecurity too. Just think O.J.
Pam Maltman:
I didn’t know you’d met my Wife, Pam … LOL
If women were in charge, abortion would be subsidised, all of our Presidents would be sociopathically charismatic pretty boys, ex-husbands would have to pay their ex’s money for an indefinite period after being betrayed by them, and there would be an influential political movement to eliminatie the requirement for any kind of evidence whatsoever for rape accusations.
Last I heard, it was politically incorrect to refer to women as “passive-aggressive”. The correct term is now “non-assertive”.
Pam dear, do you really need to be the center of attention at all times?
And if not, then why such resentment at someone else who happens to be at center stage at the moment?
Really now, what does it say about you that you cannot be so gracious?
Yes, let her have her moment of glory. It will fade. And in the mean time, perhaps you should strike up a conversation with one of those “old smelly he-goats” that you’ve been so determined to snub. You might find you’ve been acting pretty shallow toward them.
And BTW, thanks for providing a *wonderful* illustration of Rachel’s point. :)
Ah, Desert Cat, you’re so snarky, I shouldn’t even dignify you with an answer. Have you been taking lessons from the little girls, or what?
No, actually, I don’t have to be the center of attention at all times. I’ve met people who are like that–usually budding entertainers–and I’m not like them.
The smelly old he-goats I mentioned actually did smell bad–and no, I’m not making this up. Especially one of them who would come to a meeting without having showered or washed his clothes, and then he’d rub himself all over the women. His smell made me gag. Several people did talk to him about it, but it had no effect whatsoever. Eeeuuwww.
I wasn’t being shallow–I was acting in self-preservation. I’m not opposed to older men… in fact I was friends with most of them–but decent personal hygiene is not optional with me.
It’s so interesting to note that based on one comment of mine, you’ve apparently decided that you know everything there is to know about me. You must be omniscient or something.
And as for the men… in one club, there was this guy who would jump all over the “fresh meat,” to the extent that the other men eventually asked him to back off, partly so that they would have a chance to get to know the newcomers before they ran away.
You seem to imply that men never have these “unbecoming” emotions such as jealousy, resentment, etc. But you’re wrong, and you know you are. Maybe men beat the shit out of other men instead of doing what women do. Is that somehow nicer, or more “honest”?
For your information, I did try to be friends with the Queen Bee–but it wasn’t worth the effort. I eventually got involved with the only other man in the club who was (1) around my age and (2) not standing in line for her.
In later years, she made some sort of remark to the effect that she wondered why I had gotten involved with him, and there was a hint that she wondered which way I “swung.”
The answer, which I never told her, was: Because he wasn’t standing in line for you.
So… as far as I’m concerned, you can blow it out your ass.
To Pete in Midland:
The mean female I was referring to was an ex-girlfriend of an ex-boyfriend of mine. He was raising her first kid–not even his biologically–and one of the main reasons I dumped him was because I didn’t want to have to put up with her for the next 12 years, or until the kid turned 18. I had no problem with the kid himself, because we got along fabulously.
This female was only five feet tall, busty, with blue eyes and bottle-blonde hair. She was a frigging maniac. She was also extremely good at playing helpless, which worked on an amazing number of men. Oh yeah, and her blue eyes got very bright blue when she was in a rage.
Men may have lusted after her, and she after them, but she was so promiscuous that there was a question of paternity *every* time she got pregnant. And she grabbed ’em by the short hairs and held on for dear life–she made their lives hell. And if she had once bedded them, she more or less considered them her property forever.
When I met my ex, he told me he was “single with complications.” And boy was it ever complicated.
He couldn’t stand up to her because she was forever threatening him with taking the kid away. She threatened to denounce him as the father, even though his name was on the birth certificate.
They had split up a couple of years before I met him, but he had allowed her to stay with him again just before I met him, out of pity. She had claimed to have been beaten up (untrue–she started the fight).
When we found a nice old rambling apartment to move into together, he didn’t have the guts to tell her to find another place to live. We ended up having to move again because of her.
I ended up failing four college classes because of the turmoil she put us through… we ended up living in hotel rooms for a month. I couldn’t handle working, hiding out, and the college classes under those conditions.
I don’t know how many times she ended up pregnant, but she gave birth five times and had some abortions besides. I feel sorry for her kids. The oldest kid got killed a couple of years ago by an illegal alien drunk driver.
She stayed at battered women’s shelters several times–but she had always started the fights, and the men were literally emotional basket cases for a long time after having known her.
I knew several men whose lives were just about ruined by having known her.
The father of her last kid was a long-time friend of mine. One of the reasons I would never date him was because of her. Didn’t want to follow in her footsteps a second time!
At any rate, when my friend died suddenly, this bitch decided not to tell the kid that his father had died. As far as I know, it’s been several years, and the kid is still in the dark about his father.
And oh yeah, no matter how many men she put through the meat grinder, there were always more willing suckers to be found, even if they knew her exes. Things didn’t slow down until the mileage started showing and her looks went.
And it wasn’t just me… he had trouble dating other women after my time too. The woman he eventually married found this ex to be a royal pain in the ass too. They eventually moved to another state, probably just to get the hell away from her.
Over the years since, I’ve been just freaking amazed at how much she could get away with, and at how many men will fall for crap like that.
Only a fan, I’m afraid. The superdickery url is just a placeholder for whenever I get around to making my own damn blog.
That’s not an easy question to answer.
Certainly slugging someone is a lot more honest than that passive-aggressive thing that women do. But is it nicer? I suppose it depends on how you look at it.
I mean, take the “mean female” you describe. Would it have been better or worse if your ex had just gotten in a fist fight with her, rather than letting her drag him through that horrendous ordeal? (It would have been over and done with a lot faster, for one thing.)
Mightysamurai:
Hell, *I* wanted to beat the shit out of that mean female whom I described–for what I saw her doing to her kid and to my ex, let alone for how she treated me.
But I didn’t do that, because it would have made my ex’s situation regarding the kid much more tenuous. He eventually had to go to court to preserve his parental rights to the kid, which is something he had been trying to avoid doing… but obviously she could not be dealt with rationally.
She did start fights, and she also got walloped by more than one man–and IMO she royally deserved to have the living shit beaten out of her.
Yes, women are capable of getting just as angry, mean, resentful, and spiteful as men. And sometimes it gets physical. But *usually* a woman does not seriously damage another physically grown woman or a man just with bare hands, whereas a man *can* do serious damage with just his bare hands (due to the usual size/strength differential between average-sized men and women).
For the woman to do serious damage to another female or to a man, it usually takes a weapon… or some infatuated sucker to do her dirty work for her.
And since women usually know they are not capable of beating the living shit out of another grown human being–I think that’s one of the main reasons why a lot of them resort to snarkery and bitchery. Just my opinion.
Now, if you’re talking child abuse, that’s another whole ball of wax, because a woman *is* perfectly capable of doing serious bodily harm and/or death to a small child with her bare hands.
And one more comment from me on this subject… yes, I will admit to having had feelings, over the years, of jealousy, resentment, sibling rivalry, spitefulness, and all the rest of those ugly emotions to which the human race is heir.
That doesn’t mean, however, that I have always *acted* on these feelings. I do know the difference between feeling something and acting on it. Although I cannot claim to be perfect in this regard, for the most part I have *not* gone around cutting other women with the kinds of snarky things which have been listed in this thread, although I might have been thinking those thoughts, and although I have been a target of such crap on more than one occasion.
And I didn’t go around snarking on Miss Queen Bee, even though she obviously didn’t care one whit for the possibility that she might be hurting my feelings; there’s more to this story, but that’s about as detailed and personal as I want to get.
Another of my erstwhile acquaintances, Ms. X, really hates Miss Queen Bee; in fact she was rather well known for it among circles in which I used to travel. I asked her once why she hated her so much… what she replied was this:
There was a party at which there were, in addition to the Queen Bee and Ms. X, also Mr. and Mrs. Y. Miss Queen Bee, although knowing that Mr. Y was already happily married, was reportedly coming on to Mr. Y in front of his wife. The Queen Bee was also in a long-term relationship at the time, so basically she had no business soliciting Mr. Y in that manner.
Ms. X, after witnessing this episode, has hated the Queen Bee to this day.
And the fellow who died suddenly? He told me that from what he had heard, even “close female friends” of Ms. Queen Bee usually felt like they were competing with her (rivals for men’s attention) and not just “friends.”
So it isn’t just my perception.
Pam,
I think you misunderstood me.
Forget about things like physical superiority or possible legal repurcussions. Just pretend they don’t exist for a moment. Is it really better to *not* inflict grievous bodily harm, and instead spend years slogging through a loveless relationship? Is emotional manipulation really “better” than beating someone up, if only because it’s less physically harmful?
Mightysamurai:
I don’t think I misunderstood you in the least.
I can’t speak for everyone else on the planet, but I for one would ditch any relationship in which I had only the two options of either beating the shit out of them or manipulating them.
There are more options for behavior than those.
I’m not going to forget either size/strength differentials or legal repercussions, because they truly exist. I’d have beaten the shit out of that mean little ex-girlfriend of my ex-boyfriend (I was *really* tempted), but for the possible legal repercussions to my ex and to me.
It wasn’t worth going to jail for the fleeting satisfaction of beating her up. It ultimately wouldn’t have helped my then boyfriend in his quest to raise the kid either.
But I wouldn’t shed a single tear if I heard tomorrow that she ended up dead in a dark alley somewhere, assailant unknown. I’d figure that she finally got some payback for what she’d done to other people.
My father was a mean bastard who would slap any of us kids in the face for talking back. He would also use his belt on us at his whim. He nearly threw me through a wall. I was not able to fight back because he was stronger.
My fraternal twin sister was one of those women who could wrap men around her little finger with manipulation.
I didn’t have the option of beating the shit out of him because I couldn’t. I didn’t have a weapon, but if I had, I’d have been too scared to use it. (So… when my parents split up, there was more peace and quiet in my life. I was actually relieved. I actually hated it when they kept trying to get back together.)
And no, I wouldn’t have shed a tear either if someone had nailed his ass before he finally expired when he did.
I think you *way* underestimate the intimidation potential for a small woman and a big man. I’ve heard/read some women’s comments regarding this.
The small women *know* that there is a potential for injury if the relationship ever gets violent.
I know for a fact that some men have been intimidated by my sheer physical size at 6’1″ (just height–even when I was still slim). I know for a fact that many large men won’t date a woman my size. I know that many large men and many tiny women prefer each other.
Even an average man might have no clue that a small woman could be intimidated by the sheer size differential. She would probably be more aware than he would be, of that potential.
And no, I’m not trying to make women out to be victims and wimps.
My size may be a deterrent as far as dating men goes (thank gawd I’m not dating anymore)… but it also allows me to do things like drive across country by myself and not be too worried beyond taking basic precautions.
I am literally sobbing right now. I dealt with the child abuse, and hence, the juvenile-based torture gamut that defined the early Reagan years.
Jesus. Thank God my two girls are growing up stable.
I can’t stop reacting to your post. I am alone, and usually unemotiontal regarding my past, but got-dam.
God bless you. I’d have your children, if we were both so inclined. :)
Wow. BTW — Ms. Lucas, you have a few megalomanicial posters, doncha?
No matter. Thanks anyway