Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Women Are Hideous Monsters

Someone wrote a book about evil harpies:
We all know her. The "frenemy" who hugs you at parties, yet spills your secrets when you turn your back. The female boss who won't cut you a break. The feminist who scoffs at your fishnet stockings, or the stay-at-home mom who pities your childlessness.

Whether it's the mean girls on the playground or at the office, females leave lasting scars that make it difficult for adult women to form strong female friendships, according to the new book "Twisted Sisterhood: Unraveling the Dark Legacy of Female Friendships."

"There's something uniquely monstrous about the female herd," said author Kelly Valen, who surveyed more than 3,000 women for the book. "Many women told me men can hurt their body, but it's women who scour their souls."
I count myself lucky to live in the rainbows-and-unicorns world of men, where nobody holds grudges and a helping hand is extended to all.

21 comments:

M. Bouffant said...

Janis (not-Ian) agrees.

Hamish Mack said...

She got a daddy crush

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

Without fishnet stockings, how could humankind net fish?

Right?
~

J— said...

Women's first mistake is that they talk to each other. Talking can only lead to problems both immediate and future. Men understand this. Grunty is groovy.

Dragon-King Wangchuck said...

The why question is the hardest to answer.

You know, there might be some room for intelligent discussion about this - so long as we accept that intelligent discussion can only be had by a bunch of dudes speculating about the interpersonal relationship dynamics of women. Possibly involving pillow fights.

Anyways, what I was thinking was that maybe there's some structural reason for this - or at least the perception of this - problem. That the way society works now places women in a more vulnerable position than men when it comes to societal acceptance.

Bear with me here, I'm suggesting that a woman's role in society is less about who she is a person but more about how she interacts with others - at least when compared to some hypothetical generic man. For values of society that include only the middle class and up in Western democracies.

Women are stereotypically defined by who they are relative to someone else (e.g. a mother) or if they are defined by their occupations - those occupations involve interaction with other people (e.g. nurses). Stereotypical dudes OTOH get to be folks who did shit to stuff. They get to fight fires and race cars.

Sure there are plenty of exceptions, but I'm trying to sketch out some general themes and ideas.

Anyways what I'm getting at is that, yeah guys can be catty as well, but the effect is diminished because guys can regain their self-esteem by buying an oversized car or taking comfort in the fact that they are much better at scoring headshots in MW2 than their tormentors. Women don't have that luxury because the arbitrary definition that society places on their worth doesn't involve accumulating toys or being good at competitive endeavours, but rather in their ability to not be ostracized by society.

IOW, it's the bitch's own damn fault.

Substance McGravitas said...

Guys can also shoot up the workplace and everyone understands.

I don't think I have anything useful to say about the differences between male and female meanness: people of both sexes can be awful, one sex tends to be a lot more physical about it - and also gets some "boys will be boys" leeway. Of the horrible people I have known it's about even, but the women never beat me up.

mikey said...

Women never beat you up? Damn. I got attacked by a crazed woman with a knife in an elevator once.

Not even to mention getting dinged up in a hotel lobby in Denver...

Substance McGravitas said...

I have been exceptionally lucky, especially with the women who had confessed to prior attacks.

Dragon-King Wangchuck said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Dragon-King Wangchuck said...

I don't think I have anything definitive on the relative meaness of the genders. Certainly "boys will be boys" and physical violence and the extreme cases of the criminally insane are factors - but I think the article is supposed to be dealing with your average everyday catty sniping bitch. And on that count I don't know if lack of PENIS makes one bitchier or not (except at certain times of the month, amirite! LOL!)

But it does seem to me that the average guy can shrug of this kind of abuse easier than the average girl.

The obvious examples of accusations of sexual promiscuity or physical unattractiveness skew the argument in my favour. These things have far greater potential for harm when a woman is the target. I don't want to minimize the harm done to, for instance, fat guys getting called fat - it's just that when non-fat girls get called fat, a bunch of them starve to death.

But if we look at a less gender complicated accusation - say being the outsider, is it any different? I'm sure everyone has experiences with "not fitting in" and knows others who have gone through same. My experience is that even this is harder on women than on men. Most definitely harder on girls than on boys. There, I think is the real issue to look at. Well either that or the pillow fights.

On a tangential, but probably related note - the argument "but guys are total dicks to each other too" - is that relevant? It's interesting that when presented with an article about the behaviour of women (where they all stay dressed) everyone's immediate response is to compare with respect to the behaviour of men. And then to use that as a basis to determine if it's normal or not.

Maybe it's because it's a "news" article about a book. I mean, "women can be real bitches" ain't exactly BREAKING NEWS!!1! So we instinctively dig for some deeper meaning. And as we are all well aware, nothing can have meaning unless it relates to men somehow.[/Women's Studies Brainwashing]

Dragon-King Wangchuck said...

Apologies for the super-long winded multi-posts.

mikey said...

Hey Dragon, take it from me: If you're TRULY long winded (Moi?) blogger will throw you an error page telling you your comment is too long to post, but if you refresh the page it posts anyway, in it's entirety. So feel free, sez I!

And Subby, I'm getting really weird behavior on your page in both chrome and 'fox. I can see any archived post I want, but the home page only displays the latest post. Are you seeing any of that?

Dragon-King Wangchuck said...

Thanks mikey, I was wondering what happened. I didn't remember pushing Publish twice.

Incidentally, I get two posts on the House of Substance front page. I thought it was just that the Klaven Art Project was taking up too mych space. And I am using the dreaded Internet Exploder.

fish said...

Women never beat you up? Damn. I got attacked by a crazed woman with a knife in an elevator once.

You forgot the topless part, which is totally hawt.

mikey said...

Frankly, pretty much everybody involved were more concerned about the big frickin knife than the somewhat average boobage...

Substance McGravitas said...

The Klavan post's full of a zillion image tags and my assumption is that Blogger just doesn't like it much.

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

"There's something uniquely monstrous about the female herd," said author Kelly Valen, who surveyed more than 3,000 women for the book.

I originally read this as "survived more than 3,000 women".

but the women never beat me up.

That costs extra.

Smut Clyde said...

a crazed woman with a knife in an elevator

I don't know how one could stretch this concept out to a 90-minute movie, but it's certainly worth the try.

Kathleen said...

do you know what is hilarious? I used to work with her.

true story.

Substance McGravitas said...

BEANS MUST BE SPILLED.

fish said...

KATHLEEN IS A MONSTER!!!