Women of the world, take over

[FourthBase]

Fourthbase, you know the rules about calling people provocateurs.

Sigh, I didn't really mean it. Sorry.
But the implication that only violent revolution works can't be tolerated.

You've eclipsed me as forum hothead by a couple degrees of magnitude this week. Go dig a hole and bury your angst in it and please refrain from the back alley street fighting thing. I can play that game just as well as you can, but this just isn't the place for it. Has it occurred to you that you might be foul mouthing women here? Kinda funny you have a thread asking them to take over and then bludgeon everyone in sight..

You are right, Et. My nerves are totally fucking fried lately. I've regressed into a former self, the hot-blooded Southie punk. I apologize to anyone and everyone I insulted. As for foulmouthing women, I'm not a chivalrous type of male feminist, I'm an equal opportunity raging jackass.

[AlicetheKurious]

This thread is hilarious.

Early on, I was going to post my agreement with FourthBase that women SHOULD run the world.

Then, the whole discussion went nuts, with FourthBase melting down and hurling nasty obscenities at those who disagreed with him, many of them women, who refrained from responding in kind, but continued to make generally rational arguments for their case.

If this argument were face-to-face, it's not inconceivable that physical threats or actual violence would have ensued.

Huh. In my defence of FourthBase's proposition, I would present this thread as anecdotal evidence that he is right.

P.S. Yathrib, you're a GIRL? Cool.

[Et in Arcadia ego]

My nerves are totally fucking fried lately.

Hey, I know the feeling, man, honestly. There's only one cure for that malady when it hits and manifests inside your online persona:

Take a Break.

Don't worry; things will still be fucked when you get your perspective back.

[yathrib]

Yes, although I've been told that my style of discourse and argument is "male" by some.

P.S. Yathrib, you're a GIRL? Cool.

[sunny]

There are all kinds of women. Most of the women I know or have known are kind, generous, empathetic, and proactively loving.

There is a small minority who are so self-absorbed and vain you get the impression that their children, never mind wider political issues, amount to major annoyances in their lives. These types of women don't have female friends, for the most part. You know the ones I'm talking about. The kind that take pleasure in "besting" other women by going after their men. They know jack shit about what is going on in the world and could care less. Anything they do in or for the community is strictly for show and self-aggrandizement. I'm not just talking about pretty air-heads, this goes for some well educated women as well.

But I'm with Sally Field- if good mother's ran the world, there would be far fewer wars. The thought of the bodies of our precious children being bloodied and mangled is just beyond what we can bear. We don't want our children going to war, period, for good reasons or bad. The thought of my son, or my daughter for that matter, getting drafted into the war we are in right now makes this pacifist mom want to turn into a world destroying beast and go on an apocolyptic rampage.

That'll teach 'em.

[Jeff]

Women of the world, take over this thread!

[Doodad]

Women of the world, take over this thread!

Or, as an intermediate step.......calling all transvestites!!

[yesferatu]

Ugh. I'll pretend I still care.

IF women were in power globally, WOULD it be a better planet? It depends on who the women in power are - individuals.....you know the old line: Why should I hate people based on their race, when there are so many reasons to hate them on a one-to-one basis. That is true with race, it is true with gender.

Right. I know. Pretty sure I already acknowledged that.

Where you're coming up with the "Goddess" stuff, I have no idea.

Here's you feigning wide-eyed bafflement: "where you got that I have no idea."

Maybe from the "Woman as the Answer" as the conscensus of this thread until I piped up and offered my opinion. (Oh, and again, sorry for my having one.)
Where did I get that idea from? From the thread!
It comes from new-agey faux-goddess beliefs. It works its way into consciousness whether you are new agey yourself or not.
The thread began introducing that concept, so I added my two cents objecting to it.

Not only did I disagree with that overarching Woman as Answer (the Wise Sophia) general theme, but I also disgreed that individual women were the answer...I gave an example of one such bitch who would be in power if it were that kind of world. But she is relegated instead to talking head spokeswoman, and not in a position of real power. Takes what she can get I guess.

Human nature predates Western industrial societies.
Women, in general, are more empathetic.
Empathy leads to a moral conscience.
This is, like, anthropologically-based.
And chemicals in the brain, etc.

...Didn't realize that wasn't commonly accepted knowledge.

You write the above RIGHT AFTER you ask where I possibly could have gotten this idea of The Goddess as the Answer to the Planets Woes??
Brother. I mean "Sister".

Societies, communities, villages led by women have been generally far more peaceful and egalitarian. Forget modern Western societies "led" a token figurehead like Thatcher, forget a mere transferral of power from the pigs to their power-hungry and politically-identical wives. That's not what I'm talking about.

Right. What you are talking about is some archetypal goddess-led community....not this modern western kali yuga.
But that is not where we are. Where we are has the Brigitte Gabriels, Lynne Cheney's , Jean Kirkpatricks, Golda Meirs, Thatchers, and much worse.

So what are you asking? Are you asking "Wouldn't it be idyllic for our planet if women who channelled the goddess impulses were the ones in charge?" Well, yes!! I agree.

But then it ALSO would be an idyllic planet if men who channeled the Wise Knight archetype and led as compassionate philospopher-kings were in charge.

This will never be an idyllic planet....it will always be The Black Iron Prison. And further: If the goddess religions reappear and sweep the planet, it will still be a B.I.P. with asshole women ruling instead of asshole men.

[yesferatu]

But I'm with Sally Field- if good mother's ran the world, there would be far fewer wars.

I'm with you and Sally on that. Yes, we would have far fewer wars.

The ones we would have would just be bigger and nastier.

See how gender-neutral Evil balances itself out?

[theeKultleeder]

We don't necessarily need women running things. We need them to be better mothers...

[chlamor]

[AlicetheKurious]

Yesferatu said:

This will never be an idyllic planet....it will always be The Black Iron Prison. And further: If the goddess religions reappear and sweep the planet, it will still be a B.I.P. with asshole women ruling instead of asshole men.

Oh, I don't know. I personally believe that it's only under the rule of asshole men that asshole women achieve that kind of 'success'.

All your examples are cases in point. I just don't see them as big admirers of women, and I suspect most women wouldn't like them much, either. I seem to remember reading something about Margaret Thatcher having "iron balls" -- not exactly a poster-girl for the feminine principle.

The overwhelming majority of the world's women are the unsung heroines who do the thankless labour that keeps this world going, despite the big mess that men are making of it. They're the ones who pick up the pieces, see what's salvageable, figure out how it can be useful anyway. They're the ones surviving on left-over crusts and milk left in their kids' glasses. They're the ones cleaning cuts and changing wet sheets, calming frightened children even when they're terrified themselves. They're the ones getting raped and killed in senseless wars. While men are busy figuring out new ways to make a living hell, women are figuring out ways to feed their families when there's no money and no food.

The worst women, the kind of women you're thinking of, yesferatu, are the ones who are willing to deform themselves in order to please men, whether physically or mentally, by suppressing their own intelligence, or spiritually, like your examples.

Even so, in our sick, male-dominated, distorted world, you'd still have to look real hard to find women willing to take food out of their childrens' mouths to buy weapons, or whooping with joy at wanton destruction and killing. That Lynndie England (sp?) creature was a true product of a male-dominated culture if ever there was one.

Yesferatu, where on earth do you get the idea that wars would be "bigger and nastier" if women ran the world? That is just so inconceivable, I would really like to know how you figure that.

It's not about goddess this or that, it's about reality: women just don't have as much mind-bending testosterone.

Reminds me of an old joke:

Guy: My wife and I never argue, we have a very happy home.

Friend: Really? How come?

Guy: We've agreed that I'm the boss, I make all the big, important decisions, and I leave the little things to her.

Friends: Like what kind of decisions?

Guy: I get to decide things like who should be President, whether we should go to war, and whether the economy is healthy or not. She gets to decide where we live, what we should buy, how our kids are raised... you know, the little things.

I know, it's a very old joke...

P.S. Before someone accuses me of hating men, I really don't: I have a husband I adore and magnificent sons. Lots of male friends too. I'm just taking the macro view here.

[mentalgongfu2]

from Wikipedia

Lysistrata (Attic Greek: Λυσιστράτη Lysistratê, Doric Greek: Λυσιστράτα Lysistrata), loosely translated to "she who disbands armies", is an anti-war Greek comedy, written in 411 BCE by Aristophanes.

Led by the eponymous Lysistrata, the story's female characters barricade the public funds building and withhold sex from their husbands to end the Peloponnesian War and secure peace. In doing so, Lysistrata engages the support of women from Sparta, Boeotia, and Corinth. All of them, at first aghast at the suggestion of withholding sex, finally agree swearing an oath of allegiance to the cause.

The play was originally performed at either the Dionysia or a smaller Festival of Dionysus, called the Lenaia festival. A different comedy by Aristophanes, Women at the Thesmophoria, was also produced that year, and it is not clear which play was produced at which festival.

The play also addresses the contributions women could make to society and to policy making, but cannot because their views are ignored as all such considerations are the prerogative of men only. See the exchange between Lysistrata and the magistrate who comes to try to browbeat the women into giving up their plans.

Lysistrata touches upon the poignancy of young women left with no eligible young men to marry because of deaths in the wars: "Nay, but it isn't the same with a man/Grey though he be when he comes from the battlefield/still if he wishes to marry he can/Brief is the spring and the flower of our womanhood/once let slip, and it comes not again/Sit as we may with our spells and our auguries/never a husband shall marry us then."

As with all Greek comedies, the actors portraying male characters wore phalluses, but since audiences of the day were accustomed to this convention, there would be no shock-humour as might be experienced by the modern audiences of today.

[/quote]

[FourthBase]

This thread is hilarious.

Early on, I was going to post my agreement with FourthBase that women SHOULD run the world.

Then, the whole discussion went nuts, with FourthBase melting down and hurling nasty obscenities at those who disagreed with him, many of them women, who refrained from responding in kind, but continued to make generally rational arguments for their case.

Sorry.

If this argument were face-to-face, it's not inconceivable that physical threats or actual violence would have ensued.

No way, Alice. I'm a just barker.

Huh. In my defence of FourthBase's proposition, I would present this thread as anecdotal evidence that he is right.

Sigh.

[Joe Hillshoist]

The overwhelming majority of the world's women are the unsung heroines who do the thankless labour that keeps this world going, despite the big mess that men are making of it. They're the ones who pick up the pieces, see what's salvageable, figure out how it can be useful anyway. They're the ones surviving on left-over crusts and milk left in their kids' glasses. They're the ones cleaning cuts and changing wet sheets, calming frightened children even when they're terrified themselves. They're the ones getting raped and killed in senseless wars. While men are busy figuring out new ways to make a living hell, women are figuring out ways to feed their families when there's no money and no food.

If you were to look at the majority of indigenous communities in Australia you would find this is true, and that much of the leadership comes from women too. There are plenty of high profile male leaders, but in the vast majority, if not all communities its women, especially women who are in their 40s and over (ie have children who are in their teens or older and in many cases grandchildren) are what keeps those communities going despite a wealth of bullshit.