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Do you ever find that some of your favorite people to work with, the ones you really remember, are people who resist your efforts? I do. They really don't ask for or readily accept help. I mean they're asking for help at every turn, but not in so many words. And they fight our efforts. Those are the ones who stick with me.
Yes! I wasn't intimating those I work with come to be dressed and sensitively corrected ( "we can't stand up yell tell the C word, now we won't be allowed back in unless we apologize, and maybe not ever, those are consequences"') willingly, My Fair Lady Style, but the reward is reaching someone when they were all closed up. A "I think this girl likes me, I was calm and didn't get mad when she asked why I can't live alone. Was that good then?"
Tears to my eyes, yeah you're supposed to care if you're offensive, then no one wants to be around you. Good job not hitting anything today.
I know this is different, but I've made the difference in the life of some throw away, previously institutionalized guy with a very low I/Q-E/Q, by going over kindergarten level "how to behave" instructions for months. Reward, consequences, humor to show what it means to laugh at oneself, really whatever it takes, no one is perfect, certainly not me.
I don't get that here. So I do understand your "Are we helping anything?" Question, and today I say "no".
A "thing" being underage hookers maybe? Or at least poor, choiceless brown women. Cool story.
No, just regular women, who appreciate a man who is masculine, who compliments them, who shows his interest like a real man should. More and more men are opting to go this route.
Its always cancer. It has been cancer since day 1 of first wave and is same cancer today. You wont admit to it, because it benefits you.
Since when is advocating a life and choices that benefit oneself a problem? How is that not what everyone does, all the time?
You are constantly throwing out words like "cancer" and "hate group" about women advocating for other women (and for men) to not be locked into gender roles that stifle them without explaining what exactly about that freedom of choice is bad.
Location: RI, MA, VT, WI, IL, CA, IN (that one sucked), KY
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Quote:
Originally Posted by fleetiebelle
Since when is advocating a life and choices that benefit oneself a problem? How is that not what everyone does, all the time?
You are constantly throwing out words like "cancer" and "hate group" about women advocating for other women (and for men) to not be locked into gender roles that stifle them without explaining what exactly about that freedom of choice is bad.
Equal rights is a cancer. I can't believe some of these people. I damn wouldn't want to date a woman who doesn't demand and expect equal rights, treatment and opportunity. I couldn't respect them.
Do you ever find that some of your favorite people to work with, the ones you really remember, are people who resist your efforts? I do. They really don't ask for or readily accept help. I mean they're asking for help at every turn, but not in so many words. And they fight our efforts. Those are the ones who stick with me.
Wow, Hom. No, definitely not, and I'm not just trying to be contrary. The people from work I remember the MOST were kind friends and/or people who served as mentors. Even my very first mentor...that was in 1985...and older man of all things...I will never, ever forget him nor the things we talked about every day.
The botflys...I don't give them much thought. They didn't contribute to my life, they didn't contribute to the company, they're not as memorable.
No, just regular women, who appreciate a man who is masculine, who compliments them, who shows his interest like a real man should. More and more men are opting to go this route.
Uh? That's what women have gone for as long as I've been dating, anyway. Beginning in 1983.
Nah, that's a terrible idea. Why would you suggest that?
It won't make a difference with you, but I will try to explain: The definition of masculinity that needs to be redefined is the modern one influenced by porn, the one that combines sex, pornography, and the increased pressure on young men to live up to some mythical “player” status ... now pressurized by a thousand social media updates and dating apps.
Young Americans may not be having more sex than their parents did, but it's easy to see how a young guy can grow up believing the opposite. Sex is everywhere, but most people STILL don't really talk about it. So they internalize the messages that are dangerous: that sex is our most valuable social currency; that “boys will be boys”; that women are sluts if they put out, prudes if they don’t, and beyotches if they even dare to object.
Many young men are told that their value comes from their number of sex partners, and that is part of the same patriarchal structure that judges, values and punishes women for their sexual choices.
So you can keep throwing the word "feminist" around like it's a bad thing if you want to, but you're really only slighting yourself.
This makes too much sense, BirdieBelle. The pressure to be something that most men simply can't be is a disaster. Too many young men think in all or nothing terms, where they either have women seeking them out for NSA sex or they're destined to be 40 year old virgins, or they buy women mansions or they're relegated to some untouchable caste.
Karen Horney was a psychoanalyst and pretty freudian, but taking away some of the freudian nonsense that underpinned her theories, her ideas are still a really clear lens to view the world through some 60-80 years after she first published them. My understanding of her thoughts is that most of us have an idealized self in our minds. For most of us that idealized self is at least somewhat realistic and so it serves as something like a touchstone, maybe one that's just slightly beyond our grasp, but still relevant and mostly helpful.
When people are damaged or floundering, their perception of their real self often gets distorted into something less than what they really are. As a defense, some of those damaged or floundering people develop an over done idealized self to compensate for feeling less than. She described this and a commenter added thoughts it in this brief quote.
"The idealized image gives individuals "a feeling of identity" that compensates for their self-alienation and inner division and enables them to achieve "a feeling of power and significance." With the help of imagination they endow themselves with exalted faculties. The individual becomes "a hero, a genius, a supreme lover, a saint, a god." Horney calls self-idealization "a comprehensive neurotic solution." It promises to satisfy all needs, to rid people of their "painful and unbearable feelings," and to provide "an ultimately mysterious fulfillment" of themselves and their lives. In the course of neurotic development, the idealized image assumes more and more reality. It becomes the individual's "idealized self," representing to him "what he 'really' is, or potentially is--what he could be, and should be".
First of all, in an extreme distortion of things doesn't the first several sentences sound like Elliot Roger? But beyond that, to the extent that this or something like it occurs, doesn't it seem like many young men take BirdieBelle's description of a distorted masculinity as their ideal? And Horney explains what this does for them, even as they fail to meet those ideals as almost all of us would. The gap between their ideal and real selves serves as sort of a taunt against them, which makes them feel worse and to be more likely to escape into that ideal. This makes them more neurotic, in her terms.
"Neurotic individuals have the same problems that affect normal people except they experience them to a greater degree. Normal individuals are able to use a variety of defensive maneuvers against rejection, hostility and anxiety, neurotics compulsively repeat the same strategy in an essentially unproductive manner. Horney insists that neurotics do not enjoy misery and suffering, they cannot change their behaviour by free will and they must continually protect themselves against basic anxiety. So their defensive strategy traps them in a vicious circle in which compulsive need to reduce basic anxiety leads to behaviours that perpetuate low self-esteem, generalized hostility, inappropriate striving for power, inflated feelings of superiority, persistent apprehension, ALL which lead to MORE basic anxiety."
That sounds really familiar.
Horney also addressed cultural influences.
"Western society contributes to this vicious cycle:
1. People are imbued with cultural teachings of kinship and humility but these teachings run contrary to another prevailing attitude, aggressiveness, and the drive to win and be superior.
2. Society demands for success and achievement are nearly endless, so even when people achieve their material ambitions, additional goals are continually being placed for them.
3. Western society tells people they are free and can accomplish anything through hard work and perseverance, but in reality, the freedom of most people is restricted by genetics, social position, and the competitiveness of others."
Sounds a lot like a general outline for the specific details BB wrote about. And does anyone think we're less like this now as opposed to 60-80 years ago when it was written?
Wow, Hom. No, definitely not, and I'm not just trying to be contrary. The people from work I remember the MOST were kind friends and/or people who served as mentors. Even my very first mentor...that was in 1985...and older man of all things...I will never, ever forget him nor the things we talked about every day.
The botflys...I don't give them much thought. They didn't contribute to my life, they didn't contribute to the company, they're not as memorable.
I'm not really talking about co-workers. I've got a few of them who are difficult and I hope they become less difficult, but unless they violate some policy I don't much engage them beyond what's necessary. If they're so difficult that they disrupt others then we talk about that.
I'm talking about a context where I see myself as being here to help someone. I play a very different role then, and that role informs the role I play here to some extent. There are differences, but what's common is that I try to engage people, even when they're being obnoxious. I usually recognize that to engage people who are in a tough spot, I need to meet them more than half way. That's just my reality.
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