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Scott Dunlop
Sounds pretty sexist of me, and it is - I don’t actually think like that at all.
Women can be quite thoughtful. Thoughtful may describe a number of attitudes from considerate to calculating. And that’s the problem. Not all women are shallow, not all are deep and certainly no two are alike, thank goodness. Real women can’t be commoditised as blondes or brunettes, blue-eyed or brown-eyed. A human is made up of a sum of characteristics, some of which are completely indescribable. What is attractive in a woman? I have no idea, and I expect you’d get as many different answers from as many men if you asked.
Is it ever acceptable to generalise that an entire gender is doomed to homogeneity? I can’t accept that it is, which is why I found Sarah Britten’s column on the “guy curtain” to be self-defeating. In her extraction of the opinions of her friends in terms of their attitudes about women, she excludes any men who don’t frame their opinions about women in the same way.
Some men can be assholes, and some are great to be around. Some women can be a pain in the ass, while some are wonderful. Forgive the ass theme as a comparison.
If the worst thing possible has happened to you, and you’ve been treated like shit by someone of the opposite sex, it still doesn’t make sense to doom the entire sex to hell, as if they are waiting in the wings plotting for ways to hurt you.
Some men are assholes, and they probably won’t change, but not all of us. There are plenty of grades of ass-ishness, too: Moderate asshole may be a challenge but can still be a good friend, complete asshole should be avoided.
So Sarah’s friends said some hurtful things which put her off men. It’s not as though women are incapable of saying cruel things about men. The point is that physical attributes are attractive in different ways to different people, in the same way that humour, intellect, wit and kindness may all play a role in being attractive.
I’m privileged to have some great friends. Men and women whose attitudes I respect. Sometimes we make stupid jokes or ill-considered statements and we disagree. Then we accept that we’re different and help each other learn more about how other people think.
We can all learn to be tolerant of others (unless they’re stupid asshole-y assholes!) and more accepting of all of the crazy differences between men and men, women and women and so on. Human differences. Different kinds of attraction.
As Tina Fey said in Mean Girls:
“There are two kinds of evil people in this world. Those who do evil stuff and those who see evil stuff being done and don’t try to stop it.”
Wait…
To sum up, I haven’t a clue what women REALLY think about men, but it’s always fun finding out.
Follow Scott on Twitter
Women can be quite thoughtful. Thoughtful may describe a number of attitudes from considerate to calculating. And that’s the problem. Not all women are shallow, not all are deep and certainly no two are alike, thank goodness. Real women can’t be commoditised as blondes or brunettes, blue-eyed or brown-eyed. A human is made up of a sum of characteristics, some of which are completely indescribable. What is attractive in a woman? I have no idea, and I expect you’d get as many different answers from as many men if you asked.
Is it ever acceptable to generalise that an entire gender is doomed to homogeneity? I can’t accept that it is, which is why I found Sarah Britten’s column on the “guy curtain” to be self-defeating. In her extraction of the opinions of her friends in terms of their attitudes about women, she excludes any men who don’t frame their opinions about women in the same way.
Some men can be assholes, and some are great to be around. Some women can be a pain in the ass, while some are wonderful. Forgive the ass theme as a comparison.
If the worst thing possible has happened to you, and you’ve been treated like shit by someone of the opposite sex, it still doesn’t make sense to doom the entire sex to hell, as if they are waiting in the wings plotting for ways to hurt you.
Some men are assholes, and they probably won’t change, but not all of us. There are plenty of grades of ass-ishness, too: Moderate asshole may be a challenge but can still be a good friend, complete asshole should be avoided.
So Sarah’s friends said some hurtful things which put her off men. It’s not as though women are incapable of saying cruel things about men. The point is that physical attributes are attractive in different ways to different people, in the same way that humour, intellect, wit and kindness may all play a role in being attractive.
I’m privileged to have some great friends. Men and women whose attitudes I respect. Sometimes we make stupid jokes or ill-considered statements and we disagree. Then we accept that we’re different and help each other learn more about how other people think.
We can all learn to be tolerant of others (unless they’re stupid asshole-y assholes!) and more accepting of all of the crazy differences between men and men, women and women and so on. Human differences. Different kinds of attraction.
As Tina Fey said in Mean Girls:
“There are two kinds of evil people in this world. Those who do evil stuff and those who see evil stuff being done and don’t try to stop it.”
Wait…
To sum up, I haven’t a clue what women REALLY think about men, but it’s always fun finding out.
Follow Scott on Twitter
