Wish I could find better data on these things.
Would also like to find out how the figures vary between countries that make it easy for mothers to work (eg Sweden) and countries that make it harder for women to work (eg the US).
coffeespoons
Karma: 755
College educated women are more likely to want to work outside the home—perhaps women who can get more interesting/responsible jobs prefer that to looking after children. Women’s preferences here may be to do with many low skill jobs being incredibly boring.
What search are you using? I’m not getting those numbers.
In any case, most women don’t stay at home entirely, even after children, though they might work part time for a few years while the kids are small.
I think that a downside of the karma system is that it is likely to put off people who have good ideas but are nervous about sharing them from commenting. I think these people are disproportionately women.
However, the karma system works really really well and massively contributes to the high quality of discussion here. So I don’t have a solution!
If you mostly date within the BDSM community you might get an odd view of how many women prefer to submit.
[Actually, more BDSMers, male and female, prefer to submit than to top IME, but men who prefer to submit are more likely to learn to top as well. Also, I think female tops may well be more picky than male tops.]
I don’t really see how that follows from what he says.
It isn’t: if you’re romantically interested in someone, seeing that person going out with someone else, or hearing about how happy/unhappy s/he is with the significant other, is extremely painful, and usually vastly more so than the benefit of a friendship.
It depends. At university I remember having a crush on a guy. He started dating one of my friends. I was a bit jealous at first, but I got over it, we became good friends and the crush faded over time. By the time we shared a house in second year I was no longer romantically interested at all.
I guess It’s possible that I’m unusual or that this sort of thing doesn’t happen to men as much as women.
ETA: Thinking about this, I don’t think I’ve successfully ended up being close friends with a guy that I’ve turned down, though I remain friendly acquaintances with a lot of them.
A lot of the creepiness stuff comes from online social justice people. Sadly, there is a lot of nastiness in the social justice area of the internet (See this article). I am female and a feminist and I’ve been accused of being Worse Than Hitler on occasion. That doesn’t mean there’s no value in the social justice movement, so I still read blogs, but I discard a lot of it!
That’s a shame. I’ve had some very good close platonic relationships with men in the past (especially at university) where there’s been a lack of attraction on both sides.
[I wasn’t attracted to them, and since they were mostly single and generally pretty confident with women, it’s likely they would have told me if they had been attracted to me].
Some of the behaviours that “creepy” refers to are what I would think of as “red flags.” I’ve described inappropriate physical contact as being creepy in the past.* I tend to wonder if the guy would continue doing inappropriate things were I to spend more time with him. High status men do this as well as low status men, but I tend to think of them as being dangerous rather than creepy. I’m likely to avoid spending much time with them in future too.
*I am willing to believe that this could often be due to poor social skills/not knowing how to behave with women.
I’m sorry you feel that way.I reread and the only bit I thought unfair is the “don’t ask me for my phone number bit.” I thought the submitter was reasonable with the other things she mentioned, but maybe that’s my failure. What about this post caused you to worry?
How about women you don’t find attractive?
Ah Ok, I’d misunderstood the problem. I thought you were socially lower status than you are.
Do you feel uncomfortable/awkward around men at all? Or is is just female company that makes you feel this way?
It’s interesting. Suppose I go on a date with a guy, after which he decides he’s not interested and doesn’t want a second date. I email him a couple of days later asking if he’d like to go on another date. If he doesn’t reply I’ll get the message that he’s not interested. I’d prefer he didn’t reply at all to an email saying “sorry I’m not interested.” I get the message both ways, but the first is less awkward.
Given my preferences, I have stopped replying to guys in the past. I haven’t been dating at all recently, but when I start again, maybe I should send “sorry not interested” emails.
I understand. I would have found it less mindkilling if he’d said “women are less interesting to me” or “I find women less interesting than men.” [Edit: re-read—he does actually sort of say this.]
Mind you, not that there are any such persons out there…
I think sarcasm’s unnecessary here!
This post is really popular (at +12 right now), and I’m finding it difficult to see why. Is it because people empathise with it, or is it something else? I may be being mindkilled by the “women are less interesting” statement.
He’s said that he doesn’t really enjoy the company of women and that they make him “subhuman.” I think that’s reason enough to not want to be around him if you’re female!
Is there a reason to ask for a number at all? If you’re unsure about whether someone is interested asking if you can add them on eg facebook seems much less pushy! Then you can message them the next day saying “lovely to meet you.” If they’re interested they’ll reply.
It is easier for mothers to work in Sweden than in the US due to more childcare provision, more maternity leave etc. I’m not arguing that it’s good that the state should make it easier for mothers to work,* but they certainly do make it easier.
*I do think that that’s the case, but I’d rather not have an argument about that right now.