[syracusa]

Anniee,

I have to agree with you here. I am not sure I remember correctly but you were not very "excited" about what I posted earlier, I think you said that I was just drumming "man-hating" rhetoric. I respectfully disagree.
I have a wonderful husband, I adore my grandfather and no, I wouldn't mind having a little boy (though yes, I have to admit I would prefer a little girl :)

But in this previous post, you are making points that I wanted to make as well.
First, it seems to me that something that always gets "conveniently" unnoticed when my type of arguments are brought up...is that the tone is not "man-hating" but "false masculinity-hating".

It is a stupid and completely unfounded ideology that forces ALL men to behave like insensitive, primal, brute apes if they want to "live up" to the name of "real man". I have noticed this is something very typical of the anglo cultures - you would be surprised how different "masculinity" looks when you check it out in other places.

The reality is that there are more decent, nice, great male human beings out there than there are "apes". And this is good.

HOWEVER, what I do "hate" - if we really are to use this strong word - is this obstinant ideology that often leads to exactly what you mentioned in your post.
A man is very limited in what he can do or what he can report for fear that he will be put down and dismissed as a "pussy".

But you will have to agree that it is not women that do this to decent men, but it is the ideology of the apes that does this to decent men.
It is not feminists that make some bully boys abuse and beat the c*** out of normal little boys at school - but again, it is the "ape" ideology.

As for those t-shirts you mentioned...even though I disagree with the message in itself, I am sure you are getting here as "humorless" as those feminists who are accused of taking themselves too seriously all the time and lacking "a sense of humor". It's funny how the "joke" becomes non-funny when you feel attacked, degraded and put down with it, isn't it?
Just a matter of perspective.

"Girls rule and boys drool" is supposed to be a harmless joke as much as expressions like "look-at-that-hot-piece-of-ass!" is supposed to be "harmless".
It is more like a "funny" reaction to the reality that "boys have always ruled and girls have just "taken it up the A**" - metaphorically speaking.
(Sorry for sounding a little too "colorful" here).

Do I say that girls/women can never be manipulative witches? God, no!
And I have to say that G. Adams did strike a cord when he mentioned the "oppression" thing. "If you don't like it - stand up and fight".

I will confess that I've had moments when I had to ask myself honestly if there is a chance under the sun that females may actually be INFERIOR to males in some respects. Otherwise I cannot explain the extent to which a majority of women in certain cultures (not the US) are willing to take an extraordinary amount of S*** and allow themselves to be degraded by some traditional beliefs and norms that they never EVER question; and if you hint that they may be approaching the whole thing the wrong way, they give you the evil look.

I grew up with ideas such as "if a woman is not married by the age of 23 she is a complete loser and nobody will ever want to marry her after that age".

Or "if a man slaps the S*** out of you it is most probably because you did something wrong".

Or "if a man cheats, the woman who he cheated with must be the witch who needs to be destroyed; the man is not responsible, he just can't help himself".

"If you have a boyfriend - you are completely accomplished as a woman. If you don't, you are pathetic. You are not invited to any party because you don't fit in or simply because you are probably planning to steal somebody's boyfriend/husband over there anyway".

I did have to wonder at some point how STUPID you must be as a species to accept and never challenge such horrific norms that literally exploit the soul out of you. Soemtimes they say that when you are THAT stupid, you deserve your fate (G. Adams hinted to that in his post, I guess).

Very possibly.
But then again, I have seen cultures where women DID wake up.
So...I don't know...I continue to believe that it is the influence of culture...God knows.

Thanks for reading.