The equalizer:
Posted on 11/17/2018 4:43:08 AM PST by reaganaut1
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Since the World Scrabble Championship began in 1991, all winners have been male. The North American Scrabble Championship has had one female winner (in 1987) since its founding in 1978. All eight finalists in this year’s French World Scrabble Championships were men.
Competitive Scrabble constitutes a natural experiment for testing the feminist worldview. According to feminist dogma, males and females are identical in their aptitudes and interests. If men dominate certain data-based, abstract fields like engineering, physics and math, that imbalance must, by definition, be the result of sexism—whether a patriarchal culture that discourages girls from math or implicit bias in the hiring process.
But there are no cultural expectations that discourage females from memorizing dictionaries—a typical strategy of competitive Scrabble players, often in a foreign language that the player doesn’t speak. Girls are as free as boys to lap up vocabulary. Nor are there misogynist gatekeepers to keep females out of Scrabble play; the game, usually first learned at home, is open to all. According to Hasbro , 83% of recreational Scrabble players 25 to 54 are female.
Championship Scrabble, however, rewards typically male obsessions: strategy, math, a passion for competition, and a drive to memorize facts. Mr. Richards’s mother told the Guardian in 2015 that he “related everything to numbers” when he was growing up. Feminists will need to employ circular logic to conjure forth a discriminatory barrier in Scrabble: Males’ excellence at a certain activity itself keeps females out. But that leaves unanswered the question of how males came to excel at Scrabble—or any other abstract, competitive activity—in the first place.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
Actually there is a female race car driver...
The under-25, female driver discount is an anachronism in this day of texting-and-driving. Young ladies are the worst offenders.
Fresh out of college, I was stationed in Germany for over 4 years. I really learned how to drive there: the autobahn, wintry driving conditions, black ice, etc. I developed the ability to anticipate what other drivers could do. I probably drove over 40,000 miles at speeds in excess of 100 mph, thanks to the autobahn.
Those skills were tested as I've taught my children to drive. I drilled into them the necessity of what to watch for, supplemented by one directive: put the phone down and pay attention!
I've had my share of good luck over the past 40 years: one accident (I was rear ended, with no injuries), though I recognize there could have been others. Now, I can tell when another driver is texting or otherwise distracted, and I stay the heck away from them.
I've also had a few speeding tickets over the years, but just one in the last ten years.
OTOH, I consider my wife to be a good driver, but she's too easily distracted. She can't compartmentalize while on the road, seemingly always worrying about something (kids, family, job, money, you name it). She's been involved in several accidents, not of her own making, though I wonder if she could have avoided them with more attentive driving.
Even after a couple of her recent fender benders, I'm NOT going to suggest anything to her! lol
“Men are better at driving too...”
And then the fight started....
Better being the operative word here.
If insurance stats on accidents is the only criterion we're allowed to think about, then women are better Scrabble players too. After all, female competitors probably aren't as obsessed with the game and on average suffer fewer injuries to their butts, backs, joints and circulatory systems from sitting in their chairs too long while playing Scrabble.
Women are better fighters too, because they suffer fewer injuries, since they don't (physically!) fight as frequently.
Etc. Risk is an important factor in life, and can be the crucial one when you're buying insurance. But if you need test-pilots to test the performance capabilities of your plane to pinpoint vulnerabilities and thereby save the lives of future pilots and passengers, who ya gonna call?
Risk-seeking has many funny and sometimes tragic side effects ("Hold ma beer! . . ."), but overall, it is part of the male sacrifice that saves everyone else.
And let's not even bother discussing the challenge of getting a car into a parking space. . .
Women everywhere tell me they agree that men are better at taking out the trash, mowing the lawn, and killing bugs.
Nope Sorry, Mermaid Girl, the generalizations I made about women drivers are completely accurate. Women drivers are scardy cats. You however appear to be the exception. Generalizations are exactly that...Generalizations.
I know.
My sister has been in 5 accidents in the mildest climate on earth. I have never heen in an accident despite driving in 36 countries on both sides of the road from the biggest nastiest cities, to the windiest of mountain and jungle roads. Through blizzards, hurricanes, mudslides, dust storms. Its ok though, amazingly to have her tell it, none of the accidents were her fault, despite little things like tailgating.
The only really bad women drivers I’ve ever come across have tended to be Asian — they just really don’t seem to get they’re behind several thousands of pounds of deadly metal and explosive liquids.
Maybe I am the exception, and I’m proud if I am. I’m the youngest of three big brothers (and even at 50, I’m still the boss of ‘em all...) and they all taught me aggressive/defensive driving.
That and having watched Speed Racer religiously as a kid...
This is curious. I’m a big scrabble player, and a good one, and I honed my game by playing with a lot of physicists at MIT. I’m an english/creative writing major and I was getting my a$$ kicked by them on a daily basis.
It was finally explained to me — “You’re playing to make words... we’re playing for points.”
So, instead of playing as a ‘word person’ — I went into math/logic mode and suddenly I began to really make gains. It’s a ‘word’ game, but really, it’s a logic and math game as well. Women tend to not be as logic based (strangely, I’m one of the exceptions, despite even being a ‘worder’ by profession.)
All Generalizations are Untrue!
But perhaps they would give them....while driving...
I never said that stats were not skewed. I just said that the insurance companies consider women to be safer drivers.
Over the last 3 years, FR has descended into daily women-bashing. Not even conservative women get a pass here. If you stick up for women, they start calling you a spinster, an old maid, a cat lady and ugly to boot. No one who runs this place seems to care although we girls contribute money here.
What are you doing tonight?!)
I have noticed that, as well.
Funny, that. I remember I was called a lesbian soft-ball coach (it was weird) when I argued with someone about voting for Romney in the ‘12 election. Apparently, I was a dyke because I was voting for him instead of sitting out in protest... Oh, and I was also some sort of weird leftist — because I wanted Obama out... go figure. Logic, it make this girl brain of mine hurt.
This he-man woman haters club... seems kinda... i dunno... ghey? ;-)
The equalizer:
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