Posted on 12/02/2022 1:43:01 PM PST by nickcarraway
I saw a woman on TikTok say she can stump almost any man with one specific question. The question was “Name three women who you are not related to who you admire and want to be more like.” I immediately saw her point.
Misogyny generally blinds most men from seeing women as people they want to admire and, critically, to be like. So much of masculinity is about making sure we are not like women. We may love women, but we are taught to aspire to be like successful men. The qualities that most men respect in women are not the qualities that men are told to aspire to. Misogyny has also made it harder for women to be successful in many of the fields that many men look to for role models — sports, politics and business. There are all sorts of barriers that prevent women from succeeding at the same rate in these fields.
When I was a teenager, I mostly looked to athletics to find people to admire. We’re in a world where women’s sports are given far less attention and respect than men’s sports, but I grew up obsessed with tennis, perhaps the only major sport that has a professional women’s side that’s decades-old and robust. In pro tennis, every few months the men and women come together at the Grand Slam tournaments — Wimbledon, the French Open, the U.S. Open, the Australian Open — and play simultaneously. No other sport has men and women players as deeply engaged as tennis. And yet, in my young mind, my tennis idols were almost exclusively men. When I think back to the pictures I had on my wall as a kid, there were lots of photos of John McEnroe, Boris Becker, Arthur Ashe, Jimmy Connors, and Stefan Edberg, and maybe one photo of Martina Navratilova. Even in the culture of a sport where women were treated as equals, I still didn’t see many women I could look up to.
I have a problem with ‘Wakanda Forever’ Also Read: I have a problem with ‘Wakanda Forever’ Nowadays, there are women I admire, for sure. I have a list that I’ll get to, but as a way of making the question harder for myself, of trying to force myself to tell the truth, I asked myself how many autobiographies or biographies of women have you read? Damn. I read Audre Lorde’s “Zami,” which was searing and powerful, and of course, Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” but “Zami” was part of me teaching myself how to write a memoir and “Caged Bird” was assigned by a high school teacher.
I’ve also read “Seeing Serena,” a biography of Serena Williams by Gerald Marzorati, “Assata,” which is the autobiography of Black Panther Assata Shakur, and “A Taste of Power,” which is Elaine Brown’s memoir of her time in the Black Panther Party. I also loved Senator Elizabeth Warren’s autobiography “A Fighting Chance.” I haven’t yet read Michelle Obama’s “Becoming,” but I did attend an event where she discussed the book in front of a large crowd. I’ve gotten through several books about the lives of women, but the number of books I’ve read about the lives of men is much larger. That’s a bias in myself that I’m just now noticing.
I do genuinely admire and hope to be more like Serena Williams — I admire her toughness, determination, and strength. She is one of my favorite tennis players ever. I immensely respect Michelle Obama’s grace under pressure and her sense of decorum and morality — her idea that “when they go low, we go high” is seared into my mind. I think Oprah is the greatest interviewer alive and an extraordinarily talented communicator and broadcaster. It would be extraordinary to achieve even a fraction of her level of onscreen charisma. I think Toni Morrison is possibly the greatest writer of the previous century. I have studied her sentences closely to understand how they work. All of these women are role models who I aspire to be more like.
The legendary Debbie Allen is my guest on this week’s ‘Masters of the Game’ Also Read: The legendary Debbie Allen is my guest on this week’s ‘Masters of the Game’ Men have much to learn from women yet, in many cases, we’re letting misogyny and toxic masculinity block our chances to do that. There are so many things we need to take from women — we most definitely need to learn from the qualities that many women hold dear. We need to be more emotionally intelligent. We need to be better at expressing our feelings and articulating them. We can do better at nurturing others and being overt about our love. When I hear people complaining about the feminization of men, I pull my hair out because the comment is ridiculous, and besides, the whole conversation is backwards. The complainers are bemoaning that men are not like the way men used to be, but this is ultimately a defense of toxic masculinity. We should allow the feminization of men if it means men borrowing key traits from women that will help us be better people.
And if I may add - my mom. She would often be asked where she worked. Her response always was - "I'm raising the next generation!"
After getting us launched, she went on to become my city's first female council woman before women's lib made such things fashionable. And raised 3 kids and was my dad's wing.
Harriet Tubman
Marie Curie
Joan of Arc
Sod off!!
1) M*** L*****, an aircraft pilot I once knew.
2) Marie Curie.
3) L***** K*******, a colleague.
4) M*** A****, one of my HS teachers. etc ...
I worked for one of Grace's Girls for about 1.5 years. Smart lady and really funny as well.
Mark Twain
I don't think it's just feminism. Women have always envied men, since the beginning of time. It's part of the curse:
"Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee." Genesis 3:16
Yeah Hedy Lamarr is a great choice. Margaret Thatcher, Florence Nightengale and Mother Angelica come immediately to mind. I don’t think it would hard to think up a fairly long list.
I think the problem for the author is that she’s a lib. Women libs aren’t known for admirable qualities.
yeah... the problem is everyone is messed up. I know how to deal with “my” issues, but wouldn’t want to necessarily want to deal with anyone else’s.
For instance, it is my firm belief that some people are predisposed to become addicted to drugs, or alcohol, or smoking etc.
I experiemented with most of those when I was young, and decided none were for me. But that’s ME! What if I were someone else and one sip of whiskey and I have to drink it all day every day for the rest of my life?
I don’t know anyone else psychological profile, how do I know what demons they are dealing with? no thanks! I like myself and my life, and am not interested in ANYONE else’s, man OR woman.
Hmmm, I'm not sure why.
Marie Curie was amazing. She was the first person to win 2 Nobel Prizes. [There have only been three others.] She has many other prizes and medals, I think more than Einstein. And when she won them in 1903 and 1911, she wasn't just getting them because she was female, she earned them. And her daughter won a Nobel Prize in Chemistry as well. [Marie shared her Physics Nobel with her husband, but one Chemistry by herself]
I've never heard anyone say anything bad about her. Maybe scientists this brilliant are usually men, but she was in their ranks.
Weirdly, it seems like she's more admired by men. Feminists seem to go out of their way to ignore her. I've never heard a feminist praise her.
“Noah’s wife was Joan of Arc?“
You haven’t seen “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure”, have you?
LOL!!!!
No barf alert. You owe me a new keyboard.
You forgot about Ada Lovelace.
There, fixed that question. Wouldn't even try to answer the way it was stated. or the woman who would ask it.
Annie is one of my very favorite women. Everything about her is admirable.
I taught a class in high school for three years. The first year I projected her picture and asked if anyone could identify her. Nobody could. I gave them a reading assignment. The heck of it was that I was teaching Embedded Computing. The next day they wanted to know the relevance. I told them, "None, but I am proud to be an American and I love America's heroes".
Post of the day! 👍💯
Tomato juice has Vitamin C in it, so it's good for you.
So, today is Psychobabble Friday?
I typed her name, rearranged the text, and somehow dropped her out. I would never forget Ada!
Margaret Thatcher was the first one that came to mind
playmates of the month
june july august of 1968
they were my firsts
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