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.
Women are beautiful scenery, if scenery.
The equating of “admiration” with “be like” is odd. I admire Sarah Huckabee Sanders. I always admired the hell out of Margaret Thatcher. I also admire Kate Bush even though I don’t want to “be like” any of them.
“Could not name 3 men I admire either.”
I can only name one man.
Jesus.
I dearly love women,
I’m married, 45 plus years, I have a daughter
Look up definition of admire.
I admire most all women.
As long as they aren’t Democrats.
In before the sexist misogyny…nope, more than 50 posts, that’s Impossible.
Mother Theresa
Margaret Thatcher
Ashli Babbitt
Oh boy, unfortunately this is from a whiny liberal.
I actually agree this kind of attitude exists, but it includes females. Also ask yourself how it’s been ok for females to “be like” males, but not the reverse (LGBTQ nonsense notwithstanding). Going to men’s dress, boy’s toys, etc, all ok. Totally unacceptable for males to do the opposite.
Back to the liberalism, not one mention of Maggie Thatcher.
This brainwashed tickertocker completely misses the point (as does the rest of our woke society):
Decency, virtue and greatness aren’t defined by our chromosomes, they’re a product of our character.
When I was a kid I chose her to do a report on. Dad thought she was the exception to the rule of the unsatisfactory mediocrity of women (yes, he did spell it out, and yes he loved us anyway, and we all love him back. He was afraid for his female family members for this reason and went out of his way to teach us all useful skills!). Mom otoh thought she failed on the point of ending up with radiation poisoning.
Yes, I believe both she and her daughter did die of radiation posioning.
No, I didn’t. Second Tuesday of October. :) But the list has to stop sometime! Oh, something of interest... my TRS-80 had a “compiler” for Ada which was my first exposure to her and Babbage.
I’ll never forget this once scene from Star Trek where Nurse Chapel, Dr. McCoy, Mr. Spock and Captain Kirk are having a serious scientific discussion. Nurse Chapel leaves the room and all the men pause to admire her walking out the door, even the supposedly super-logical Spock! Just standard procedure in the ‘60s.
I believe studies show female intelligence is more clumped in the middle, while more men are at the extremes: both very intelligent and very unintelligent. Of course, there are exceptions.
I will bet the author despisesevery female republican politician with volume 11 disgust
I will bet the author despisesevery female republican politician with volume 11 disgust
I will bet the author despisesevery female republican politician with volume 11 disgust
This is insistence on admiring women according to the qualities of feminism. There are many ways and traits and yes, physical qualities that can be used to exclaim feminine virtues, that are as wide as the sky itself.
Well, until they hit 40 or so. Many is the bitter former cheerleader thrown over for a younger woman that I have worked with.
If you listen to Hollywood you end up in an aging arms race, if you listen to God you know the value of being a help mate:)
Speaking of computing, Ada Lovelace was pretty cool, too.
Speaking of computing, Ada Lovelace was pretty cool, too. And that naval lady who created COBOL.
Easy. Lia Thomas, Rachel Levine, Caitlyn Jenner
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