[iamzack]

It puts us at a disadvantage in a lot of ways. We spend more on making ourselves more attractive because if we don't we're likely to make much less money in the first place. We don't have a choice about whether we send out signals with our dress, so we have to always consider what message we want to send when we get dressed in the morning. There's also the health problems that result from more extreme measures of attaining attractiveness, from botched plastic surgery to eating disorders to sprained ankles from high heels.

I hear some guys complain about the portrayal of men on some sitcoms as bumbling fools, but, hey, at least fat, unattractive actors get work with relative ease. There are almost no women in the media who are just *moderately* attractive. They all have to be way above average.

There's the entitlement this whole business breeds in some men, too. They start believing that it is the job of a woman to look good for him. So then you get all the fun comments like "hey, you're too thin, men like a little meat on the bones" and "don't cut your hair short, guys will be put off if you look too masculine" and "don't dress too sexy or we'll be forced to harass you in public" and "don't dress too conservatively or you will look like a frigid prude."

Oh yeah, and we end up with millions of women and girls who genuinely believe that their looks are the most important part of them. That being pretty is much more important than health or education or, well, anything.

It's massively dysfunctional and an all-around pain in the ass.

[Topgun]

Ok I get it.

[Titan]

I think it's sortof to do with the notion that men are supposed to do things (to be taken both as an innuendo and not as one) whereas women are meant to sit around with the young and look pretty. Men are defined as being to busy to worry about looks, whereas women are supposed to have nothing to do.

Not that I necessarily agree with that. 

[Topgun]

whereas women are supposed to have nothing to do.

In the kitchen, making a sandwich.

Speaking of which:
http://www.mylifeisbro.com/

Today I took my girlfriends driver license, when she asked me why. I told her there is no road from the bedroom to the kitchen she realized this and left the bed to make me a sandwhich. MLIB.

[Mika]

Coming from a person whose language and culture do not separate women and men much, one can't help but wonder why most European languages and cultures do. Neither do we use titles (only on very official occasions), I actually find it amusing how important they are to Central Europeans, Chinese or North Americans. I do get pissed off if somebody tries to use a title when addressing me, though, as this would usually be considered insulting around here.

The other thing to mention here now that I started writing, is that does anyone has a map of gender density superimposed on a geographical map? I mean that here women are moving towards larger cities more often than men, at the moment our capital has about 20 % more women than men. First I would like to see if this happens elsewhere too, and the second thing is to think about why this happens. Is it because women have better chances to be employed in larger cities due to differing choices of trade, or is it some sort of image of better life they are after in this case? Men are much more reluctant to move to places with denser population, if they were born in regions that have sparse population density.

[QuantumDelta]

People seriously gotta realise it's not the words we use that matter for ****.
It's the meaning behind them.

While the case may be made in the style of the author of this piece, it should only really be made to grammarians championing this sort of practise.

To the typical person on the street, they are using words because those are the words to be used, the meaning is in the expression of those words and the thoughts behind it.

To think otherwise is retarded.

*That applies in both directions on the spectrum, P.C/Feministic/Shovanistic/Outright Sexism, any of it.
It's all petty, and it's all stupid. If people in the middle stood up for sanity a little more, both sides would have to shut up - at least on occasion, and just deal with the fact that they are small minded.

And yes, P.C nazis are small minded.

[General Battuta]

I'm not sure I understand your point, QD. A word is a symbolic designator for a whole complex of meaning.

[QuantumDelta]

In text, it can be reduced to that yes, but in speech it's so rarely the subject.

I in fact have trouble due to this all the time, it's not a story I want to really go into here, but words really don't have the power of the voice and feelings behind them, which matter so much more.

[iamzack]

whereas women are supposed to have nothing to do.

In the kitchen, making a sandwich.

Speaking of which:
http://www.mylifeisbro.com/

Today I took my girlfriends driver license, when she asked me why. I told her there is no road from the bedroom to the kitchen she realized this and left the bed to make me a sandwhich. MLIB.

In all seriousness, when is this going to die? It's about as funny as blackface, and twice as tired.

[Mika]

People seriously gotta realise it's not the words we use that matter for ****.
It's the meaning behind them.

While the case may be made in the style of the author of this piece, it should only really be made to grammarians championing this sort of practise.

To the typical person on the street, they are using words because those are the words to be used, the meaning is in the expression of those words and the thoughts behind it.

To think otherwise is retarded.

*That applies in both directions on the spectrum, P.C/Feministic/Shovanistic/Outright Sexism, any of it.
It's all petty, and it's all stupid. If people in the middle stood up for sanity a little more, both sides would have to shut up - at least on occasion, and just deal with the fact that they are small minded.

And yes, P.C nazis are small minded.

If this was aimed at my general direction, the thing is that we really don't differentiate between men and women in speech, and the culture is rather advanced on gender equality. I'm well aware of the fact that words do not tell the whole story. But when you are faced with that in different languages and different cultures, the question naturally rises that why do they differentiate genders that way, since I already know it is unnecessary.

What it comes to the attitudes behind the words or appearances then, that's another story. I'm not yet sure of the tone of the original article, whether it was supposed to be just neutral observations, or something that could change attitudes in the end. What I see in Central Europe is that men do have clothing and equipment trends there that are similar to women trends - that doesn't mean that the clothes would be similar though. When I was a kid, we used to identify persons from a distance by the clothes they had, men or women. Whether that tells something about clothing selection, or differences in locations, I don't know.

The feeling I get from that article is that it suggests that women are coaxed to wear certain types of clothes, or that they should behave with certain limits. What I see is that the same applies to men too, but there's not so much discussion or research about that.

What foreign men say here is that Finnish women are wonderful because they are very independent, which tends to change when they start to date one.

[NGTM-1R]

The author's contention here is that women are deprived of choices because they are unable to act without disclosing information which is then used against them.

One could make this contention about nearly any form of interpersonal interaction, regardless of gender. I am unconvinced of the thesis that women are somehow more limited in this regard. Given that they actually have the option to introduce themselves in at least three separate ways as opposed to a man's two, and one of them can be specifically exploited to redirect unwanted attention, it actually seems a rather silly contention.

The paper seems to be making an assumption that women will play the truthful victim rather than, as zack is cheerfully alluding to throughout the thread, manipulate the audience with their array of options. That assumption speaks to a far greater danger than anything the paper has "uncovered".

[General Battuta]

The amount of information you're giving out as a woman when you choose an honorific prefix is higher than as a man because you're selecting between options - this introduces an element of intentionality. Men just have 'mister'.

I don't think it's a paper at all either, this looks like an opinion piece from a layperson.

[LordMelvin]

I don't think it's a paper at all either, this looks like an opinion piece from a layperson.

It's pretty clearly neither. It's original publication at the top clearly places it as an opinion piece, rather than a serious research piece, but the context given in the closing anecdotes places the author as a professional academic researcher. This is a popularization of her previous academic works, no more, no less.

[NGTM-1R]

The amount of information you're giving out as a woman when you choose an honorific prefix is higher than as a man because you're selecting between options - this introduces an element of intentionality. Men just have 'mister'.

That's the same assumption of the truthful victim vs. the intelligent woman again. My point is all about intentionality; you can intentionally use the variety of options available to you to manipulate the audience. Zack is complaining about doing just that. In essence, you are saying that because women have more tools at their disposal to manipulate others' perceptions of them than men, they are victimized.

However there is another issue. Men don't just have mister; they can chose to use no prefix. So can women. So there are multiple options for males as well. There is always, for everyone, an element of intentionality, and it's usually quite revealing of personality as to whether someone does or does not adopt the prefix as a matter of habit. (For that matter you could also introduce yourself in all manner of other ways with a prefix that may or may not be true, and some people do.)

I don't think it's a paper at all either, this looks like an opinion piece from a layperson.

It's printed! But yeah, I was unsure how to refer to it.

[General Battuta]

I think the signals you're giving off by selecting (or refusing) a prefix as a woman are more powerful and informative than those for men. I'd even be interested in checking it out experimentally.

There's no question that social signaling can be used for manipulation, but introducing the notion of women as manipulative social climbers just seems to compound the issue. Nor would anyone here contend that anyone goes utterly unmarked, but again, the interesting thing here is the disparity.

[iamzack]

The amount of information you're giving out as a woman when you choose an honorific prefix is higher than as a man because you're selecting between options - this introduces an element of intentionality. Men just have 'mister'.

That's the same assumption of the truthful victim vs. the intelligent woman again. My point is all about intentionality; you can intentionally use the variety of options available to you to manipulate the audience. Zack is complaining about doing just that. In essence, you are saying that because women have more tools at their disposal to manipulate others' perceptions of them than men, they are victimized.

The problem is where we don't get the option to just be. Miss, Ms, Mrs, all mean something. They have enough meaning that people can draw conclusions about you. Mr means nothing except that you are a man. I frequently leave the option blank if permitted to, but on occasion this results in being addressed as Mr.

Women are almost treated like a minority in this issue. Any woman frequently represents all women, whether doing a math problem in front of people or parallel parking. The way one woman dresses, speaks, acts, etc too often brings on comments about the way "women" are. We get token females across genres the same way we get token blacks or gays, but the difference is that *half* the population is female.

[NGTM-1R]

The problem is where we don't get the option to just be. Miss, Ms, Mrs, all mean something. They have enough meaning that people can draw conclusions about you. Mr means nothing except that you are a man. I frequently leave the option blank if permitted to, but on occasion this results in being addressed as Mr.

And they can be manipulated to make people draw the conclusions you want. Everyone should try doing the whole turn-the-tools-of-social-repression-on-their-makers thing wherever possible. It discourages their use.

Mister can also be taken to mean you are a pompous asshole as well as male, particularly when it's clearly not necessary to distinguish your name as masculine. (Of course, this is true of prefixes for females as well.) If I were to be putting it on my business cards I don't think that conclusion would be unjustified considering who I work with.

Women are almost treated like a minority in this issue. Any woman frequently represents all women, whether doing a math problem in front of people or parallel parking. The way one woman dresses, speaks, acts, etc too often brings on comments about the way "women" are. We get token females across genres the same way we get token blacks or gays, but the difference is that *half* the population is female.

I could make the same commentary on men and getting proper directions, or matters of fashion, social interaction, and good taste. (Would you enjoy being assumed an uncultured brute because of your gender?) No one has an exclusive on bad generalizations. I still get shocked commentary on the fact that I get directions and/or RTFM from people.

[General Battuta]

You're arguing for conceptual symmetry here, which is fine and good, but the data from the lab paints a very broad picture of differential, asymmetrical social treatment towards men and women in domains including the linguistic. You're painting a fine theory but it's not grounded in the empirical.

It's a common argument to say 'oh men can do/are treated in this way too', and it's not incorrect, but it assumes that categorical symmetry implies quantitative symmetry in outcomes, which is so far apparently false.

[NGTM-1R]

It's a common argument to say 'oh men can do/are treated in this way too', and it's not incorrect, but it assumes that categorical symmetry implies quantitative symmetry in outcomes, which is so far apparently false.

I don't believe in conceptual symmetry either, but I do believe that zack needs to apply a more rigorous standard than anecdotal one in action, which is why I countered it.

As I said, my main point here is that you have been given the means to subvert the existing social setup, and you supposedly don't appreciate it, you should be subverting at every opportunity rather than merely condemn.

[General Battuta]

The fact that subversion is necessary at all points to the existence of a problem, which is the central argument of this article.