Boy bashing: Some say girl power movement may have gone too far

Alameda Times-Star ^ | Sunday, January 11, 2004 | Monique Beeler

[Old Student]

"When I first saw that, I was taken aback," says Greene, 51, a long time volunteer with her son's former Boy Scout troop in San Leandro. "I remember thinking, 'Why?"'

The image on the shirt shows a row of rocks hurtling through the air toward a stick-figure boy's head.

Harmless humor or injurious insult?

Opinions differ, but consumers have embraced anti-boy products, such as the "throw rocks" T-shirt created by

Clearwater, Fla.-based David and Goliath, which also markets journals with the same slogan, pajamas that read "Boys are smelly" and T-shirts emblazoned with "Lobotomy: How to train boys."

It's a chorus of messages that some parents, psychologists and parenting experts worry undermines the self-esteem and healthy development of young men in a society that subtly and sometimes overtly questions their worth in areas from education to child rearing.

[Old Student]

The Frontal Lobotomy might have worked better for me than thrown rocks did, but I guess my mother had more rocks than scalpels. ;)

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[Lizavetta]

Clearwater, Fla.-based David and Goliath, which also markets journals with the same slogan, pajamas that read "Boys are smelly"

Like little girls aren't? They haven't met my 7 yr. old daughter, arguably the most gaseous, soap-avoiding individual around.

That said, the whole 'girls rule, boys drool' attitude today s*cks. I'm sure the world would be quite riled up if the t-shirts said "Girls: Will screw for attention" or something equally as offensive.

[squidly]

No worries. Condescending misogyny and chauvinism are alive and well within me.

[StatesEnemy]

Just have your boys read this:

Kierkegaard, the great Christian philosopher, says that "Woman is personified egotism," but that she can never know it because of her lack of penetrating thought. Nietzsche observes that "woman is first and foremost an actress.", and describes an actor as "a person who is skilled at combining falseness with a good conscience." Schopenhauer, in his renowned essay "On Woman" states that women . . . "are their whole life - grown-up children . . . She is an intellectual myope whose intuitive understanding sees distinctly what is near, but has a narrow range of vision, which does not embrace the distant." Schopenhauer finds that her basic tools of trade are a subconscious and automatic tendency towards "cunning and deception," and that the woman's basic failing lies in her injustice. Others agree on this point. Freud says that "the poor sense of justice in women is connected to the preponderance of envy in their mental life." And Plato makes his view clearly known when he says that "Woman's nature is inferior to that of men in capacity for virtue."

Women are singled out for special attention in the philosophic religions. In Hinduism, women are known as the embodiment of maya (illusion), and avidya (the power of delusion). Buddhism regards women to be so far away from the requirements for spirituality that the task is especially difficult for them. One famous Buddhist leader, Nichiren, said that "women can no more attain Buddhahood than can a dried-up seed sprout." And finally, Carl Jung points out that "Nature has created an extreme difference between man and woman, so that he finds his opposite in her, and she in him." Is all this pointing towards equality of the sexes? I say not.

Are all the men referred to above ordinary and ignorant cloddish males? Are they so insecure that they cannot think clearly, and are disparaging women to reinforce their own possibly fragile male egos? I think it would be naive to conclude such, no matter how inviting. They are simply facing reality.

But let us put things back in perspective before you get too angry. Ultimately, woman and man are equal, in that we have evolved in Nature together and to be dependent on one another. We are equal in the eyes of God if you please, but we are certainly not equal in everyday things. For example, woman does not have the physical strength of man, due to her genetic inheritance. In the same way she is less qualified for the rigours of life as an independently thinking person, though as a result of her upbringing.

While women are brought-up in our society to be submissive and emotional, men are reared to be competitive, more courageous, and to be risk-takers. While submissiveness and emotionality are ideal skills for avoiding suffering, they are useless for living in reality. They prevent women from having any stomach at all for hardship. In contrast, man is constantly exposed to hardship, worry, and stress, as they are an integral part of the competitive male world. Therefore, woman's strength is that she is expert at avoiding suffering, while the strength of man is that he can bear-up under it. It is not of his own doing, but man thereby gains what qualifies him for a life of thinking, and for a life of spirit. He has the ability to withstand the mental hardship necessary for real thought.

In this respect then, man and woman are worlds apart. A woman is severely restricted in her thinking. She has no mind for irony, contradictions and paradoxes. She has no mind for the dialectic. There is no use in forcing a woman into a good that hurts - it would break her. Only men, true men at least, have the toughness, born out of their egotistic competitiveness, to endure the intense agonies of the true philosophic life. A life of honesty.

Source

[baltodog]

I'm sure that if they had to, my two boys would be able to any girl's ass in their class.

[Old Student]

Someone here order a windmill?



http://www.blackjackinc.com/productgroup.asp?33=4

I'm sure there's some boy-bashing here somewhere, since this article says there is....

[Old Student]

Maybe you want to have the admin moderator remove that post so you can restate that?

[Richard Kimball]

At my college, we recently had a professional staff development day. The first half or one of the sessions was a presentation of student demographics. Our college, which is not unusual, and used to have roughly a 50/50 split, is now 68% female. The second half of the presentation was one of the credit faculty giving the same moldy 70's speech about how colleges are male dominated, and about how to make female students more comfortable in the classroom. (if you haven't heard the speech, it's basically that males are competitive, females are collabaritive, and you have to draw the females out and make them feel comfortable).

I've never been to a professional development meeting about how to make males more comfortable in a classroom environment.

The movement is still in the "Prophets, Radicals, and Fruitcakes" stage, which means that people like me, that have already started making waves on campus, are taking a little bit of a risk (BTW, I'm more of a Radical). However, within a few years, I think we'll start making progress. Remember the #1 rule, Challenge, challenge, challenge.

[StatesEnemy]

"Now she loves him, and looks ahead with quiet confidence - like a cow" reflects Nietzsche. Woman's greatest love is when she possesses one man, or when she possesses a child. Relationship is her basic need. This is why women are so very much under the control of such vanities as fashion, fun, and friends. Willingness is woman, she lives only for the crowd, and finds her identity only with them. For her, to be alone, without a man, without child, without family, is the most terrible plight imaginable. She would perhaps rather be dead than live in this wretched condition. But one must be alone if one is to follow the path of reason. Only alone can one truly live.

Source

[baltodog]

Arggg...bad joke gone worse....please insert the word "kick" in there.

[hocndoc]

Bad taste and poor judgement evidently transcend gender.

[independentmind]

I hope you don't believe what you've just posted. I suggest you try Edith Stein.

[Old Student]

Don't tell me, tell the guy who has the power. :)

You could always change it to "kiss" if you wanted, right?

But verbs do matter....

[Scenic Sounds]

Schopenhauer finds that her basic tools of trade are a subconscious and automatic tendency towards "cunning and deception," and that the woman's basic failing lies in her injustice. Others agree on this point. Freud says that "the poor sense of justice in women is connected to the preponderance of envy in their mental life." And Plato makes his view clearly known when he says that "Woman's nature is inferior to that of men in capacity for virtue."

What in the hell are these people talking about? It sounds like so much gibberish to me.

[Paleo Conservative]

I'm sure the world would be quite riled up if the t-shirts said "Girls: Will screw for attention" or something equally as offensive.

Like this one?

[Old Student]

That's because they translated it from the original languages.

;-)

[annyokie]

What horseshit.

Neitzche was in love with his sister; Kierkegaard was a eunich, and Schopenhauer was half-baked.

[Old Student]

His sister loved him back, too. She's the one who edited his work and made it so very acceptable to the Nazis.