Dear Modern Day Feminist with Successful Professional Careers

[Cardiff Giant]

Originally Posted by wellexaminedlife

I've been debating if I should respond on here or not for several days now. Yet this forum has sent hundreds of people to my website, literally 20 times more than normal so I figured that I should. Hi, I am the author of the blog post you have been discussing [or going off on tangents about as the case may be]. Thanks for reading it and thanks for reposting it even if you were not meaning it as a complement. It helped a lot of people read my post and I appreciate that. As you have probably guessed I am by no means a seasoned or professional writer though I hope to one day be both. In general I don't expect people who don't know me to read my blog so it has been interesting to hear what people who read one post assume about me. Everyone has a right to their opinion and I see no need to defend my skill or choice of topic. I would like to say however, that I did not intend to mock professional women or women who identity as feminists. Nor did I actually expect any one to read the post and fall in love with me. I just thought it was a funny thing to write about and part of me would like not have to work for a living. I have a deep respect for feminism and professional women and would like to apologize to anyone who thought I was mocking them. I think the actual reasons that some successful women find themselves single are varied and complex. For many it is choice, for others it is just happenstance and I'm sure for a few the problems I write about in the post may be part of it. I do not want to further any narratives that denigrate or put down successful women for being single or narratives that suggest any woman needs a man at all. I have written many other posts on dating, equality and capitalism that are much more serious and are better examples of what I actually believe and I invite all interested parties to explore those post. Any ways, thank you for you time and please continue to comment on your thoughts. I truly appreciate the feedback.

That's so funny, I was wondering if the author would somehow make his way here. Anyway, as someone who has been with a career woman for over 25 years now, I found your post amusing and obviously tongue-in-cheek.

Good job and thanks for being brave enough to post here. Good luck in your future efforts.

[cyberphonics]

Originally Posted by rationalmale18

The problem with this forum is that it is completely sopolistic. Even if the topic is discussing a generality, 6 posters will chime in with their anecdotal personal one off experience and claim the generality isn't true. It's obnoxious.

Anecdotes do not trump generality

I agree with this and think it's a brilliant point to make on a forum, but will add that the generalities made in those discussions are prompted by anecdotal evidence in the first place and that's where the discussions fall by the wayside. In the failure to acknowledge that generalities are anecdotal themselves.

For many reasons, people assume that one person/group's anecdotal evidence is the most accurate reflection of what's generally true. Then they insist that any anecdotal evidence that conflicts with that generality must be a "one off" and therefore wrong or otherwise irrelevant to the discussion.

I find that obnoxious because it's possible that neither opinion accurately reflects the way things generally are or that both reflect what's generally the case equally because what's generally the case doesn't actually fall on one side of the fence or the other.

I'll go out on a limb and guess based on what posters say about themselves that the majority aren't researchers who conduct studies or educate themselves on such studies on the various topics discussed here to have any basis beyond their personal experience for what is or isn't true most of the time or for the majority - which is what "general" means.

So when they say, "Women xyz..." or "Men xyz...", it isn't because they've done the legwork and discovered through meticulous objective survey and calculation that what they're about to say is indeed a fact for the majority of that group.

They're saying it because they think it's true based on their personal experience and the environment that surrounds them - the people they've known, what others have told them, what's joked about or referenced on TV, in movies, in books, on blogs. And because they believe that most people agree with them.

I'm not saying that as a criticism. That's how the mind works. I'm just making the point that it doesn't mean the generality they come up with is accurate. Even if most people did agree with them, it still wouldn't mean it was accurate. It's not hard to condition large populations to agree on something in theory that's not actually true in practice.

So I can be one of those fabled 6 posters, but I don't do it because I think my experience completely negates someone else's or that it renders their opinion false or unworthy of exploration. It's only when someone elevates their perception to the status of fact by virtue of it being theirs or being the most popular perception, then turns around and devalues, when I play devil's advocate.

And I don't bother to mention things that are actually one offs, rare exceptions. I wouldn't jump into a thread where the consensus is that people aren't turned on by someone sh-tting in their mouth to say that I've met someone who is.

I mention the contrary if it represents a significant sample of the population that's being treated as negligible when it isn't. The problem is that people will still assume they're rare anyway because that's what they think - that's been their experience - even if there are objective facts beyond them that prove otherwise.

Long story short, I think people on both sides of it would benefit from remembering that they're all just speaking for themselves.