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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 15 of 15. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by madeline on April 19, 2006, at 0:04:44
I have a lot of trouble with the whole male/female relationship and I'm trying very hard to understand it.
It's like I'm locked into this bad thinking that men really only view women as sex objects and don't really respect us as people at all.
Does anyone here have any insight as to how men truly view women?
Thanks for any input
Maddie
Posted by Racer on April 19, 2006, at 0:04:44
In reply to This may not be appropriate but it's bothering me., posted by madeline on April 15, 2006, at 11:54:18
I don't know about insight, but...
I'm thinking it might be more individual than that. Some men might see women as sex objects, others as substitutes for their mothers, still others see women as individuals. That would be my guess.
Also, I think most men see women they don't know quite differently than they do women they do know. So, my husband might see me one way now, but saw me differently when we first met. (VERY frightening thought to me...)
I dunno. I'll be interested to see if any men answer this one.
And it is certainly appropriate to post something like this here.
Posted by greywolf on April 19, 2006, at 0:04:44
In reply to This may not be appropriate but it's bothering me., posted by madeline on April 15, 2006, at 11:54:18
> I have a lot of trouble with the whole male/female relationship and I'm trying very hard to understand it.
>
> It's like I'm locked into this bad thinking that men really only view women as sex objects and don't really respect us as people at all.
>
> Does anyone here have any insight as to how men truly view women?
>
> Thanks for any input
>
> Maddie
In my view, women who want to be viewed primarily as sex objects will find guys happy to accomodate that desire as long as those women have the necessary qualifications.Conversely, women who prefer to be appreciated primarily for their intelligence and substance will likely find guys to accomodate that desire as long as those women have the necessary qualifications.
The difficulty seems to arise when one is attractive but without substance or intelligent without physical beauty, yet still desires to be appreciated for a quality she doesn't have. For instance, if a woman looks like Julia Roberts, but she can't name the Secretary of State or she knows who Rice is but she's more interested in what type of shoes she wears, she may be wasting her time pining away for someone who appreciates her intellectual prowess.
If a woman has both beauty and substance (which is really more than just intelligence, and includes common sense, wit, grace, compassion, etc.), she will generally be able to identify and avoid men who desire her for reasons she does not respect.
Does that make any sense?
Posted by Phillipa on April 19, 2006, at 0:04:44
In reply to Re: This may not be appropriate but it's bothering, posted by Racer on April 15, 2006, at 12:48:18
Racer you got that one right. So true. I don't think anyone will disagree. Well let's see what the guys say or are they afraid to show up and post? Challenge on. Love Phillipa
Posted by Dinah on April 19, 2006, at 0:04:44
In reply to This may not be appropriate but it's bothering me., posted by madeline on April 15, 2006, at 11:54:18
Well, I'm not a man. But I have been on intimate (in the emotional sense, not the physical) terms with more than one.
And for the most part they don't seem to view women much differently than I view men. Sure there are men who I enjoy looking at for prurient reasons. Moreso if they're in positions that tend to lend themselves to that sort of thought. Or Dr. Drew just for existing. No wait. He talks mainly of sex, so he probably falls in that category too. But it certainly isn't automatic, and it can be put aside if I am also interacting with the man in question.
I will admit however, that my intimate friends are a small subset of all men, and may not be a representative sample.
However, my first thought would be that it's not really much different to view women only as sex objects than it is to view men only as people who view women only as sex objects. :)
People are people, and they're individuals first, and men and women second. Any individual man may be more like an individual woman than another individual man, and vice versa.
Posted by crazy teresa on April 19, 2006, at 0:04:44
In reply to Re: This may not be appropriate but it's bothering, posted by Dinah on April 15, 2006, at 14:13:38
I just finished reading "Are Men Necessary". No insight there, either!
Posted by special_k on April 19, 2006, at 0:04:45
In reply to Re: This may not be appropriate but it's bothering, posted by crazy teresa on April 15, 2006, at 19:35:25
i think the answer to the question 'what do men really want in a women' is about as diverse as the answer to the question 'what do women really want in a man'.
there are stereotypes of course...
the happily ever after stereotypes
the use and abuse stereotypes
but there is a whole heap of individual variation too.interestingly enough from an evolutionary perspective...
guys are more predisposed to 'trophy wives' (young and pretty with many childbearing years ahead of them) typically to become homemakers with caring and sensitive qualities and what is upstairs is kinda irrelevant.but then the flipside of that...
females are more predisposed to taking economic / social status rather seriously (so as to have better standard of living and better support for them and their children). so looks tend to be less important to females than males (though there are exceptions of course).there are exceptions.
thank god for those, eh?
Posted by jay on April 19, 2006, at 0:04:45
In reply to This may not be appropriate but it's bothering me., posted by madeline on April 15, 2006, at 11:54:18
I am in the middle of 'dating season'...lol,,,doing the "webdate" thing. I put some very meticulous work into creating my 'profile' that shuns away the superficial and skin-deep female types. Let me say, there are also many women (no, not all...) who are attracted to men just because of their chiselled looks, income, type of car driven, prestige, how many rich friends they have, etc. I've encountered it plenty of times year after year. So, it goes both ways.
Jay
Posted by jay on April 19, 2006, at 0:04:47
In reply to Re: This may not be appropriate but it's bothering, posted by special_k on April 15, 2006, at 20:17:34
Now this helps blow apart the stereotypes too...GEORGIE BINKS:
Violence by girls uncoolCBC News Viewpoint | March 17, 2006
Last week, five Manitoba girls attacked a teacher's aide, beating her with a flashlight. A school principal and teachers were punched and hit as they tried to intervene.
Teachers and the community have been shocked by the attack. It's not the first time we've heard about girls turning violent. There was the terrible murder of Reena Virk, 14, beaten and drowned in 1997 on Vancouver Island. The attack was committed by a group that included teenaged girls.
Is there actually an increase in violent acts committed by teenaged girls these days? And if so, what are the reasons, and are we dealing with it?
In the 10 years leading up to 1998, there was a steady and significant increase in girl violence – it jumped by nearly 130 per cent. Then, according to the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, from 1999-2004 the total number of violent attacks (murder, assault, robbery) by girls stabilized at approximately 5-000 to 6,000 a year. The numbers are one-third of what they are for boys. Still, they are disturbing.
It's not surprising in a world whose mantra has been "Girl Power" ever since the Spice Girls popularized it, that young females are taking matters into their own hands.
Simon Fraser psychology professor, Marlene Moretti, lead investigator on the Gender and Aggression Project for the Canadian Institutes of Health Research cautions that: "There are programs aimed at teaching girls to be assertive, to believe in themselves, have a sense of self-esteem and not allow themselves to be pushed around or intimidated or drawn into a peer group.
"That's great if it's done appropriately. However, some families don't understand the difference between aggression and assertiveness."
There's no simple reason girls become aggressive and violent. Moretti says, "One size doesn't fit all. There are marginalized girls with low self-esteem who fall into the wrong crowd and become aggressive. They are girls who are both victimized and bullied by others. Then there are girls who are popular and are very oppressive – those girls often grow out of it."
Rebecca Godfrey, author of Under the Bridge: The True Story of the Murder of Reena Virk, learned a lot about violent girls when covering the trials of those charged in Virk's murder.
She says, "A lot of these girls came from violent environments. The fathers of two of the girls had been murdered and they were in very violent situations. There was nobody who came through for them, like a social worker or a program. The pop culture they were interested in was glorified violence, which influenced their sense of what was glamourous and powerful."
The media definitely plays its part in glamourizing tough girls. Think of the women in the Charlie's Angels movies taking down their opponents or Kill Bill's Uma Thurman meting out justice. Tough girls kick *ss, right?
Moretti says if a girl doesn't have a lot to hang onto, images like these convey the message that this is a great way to be respected.
Of course, with female violence, as with just about everything else female these days, it's become sexualized. Think of the Seinfeld episode where Jerry drooled over thoughts of a "catfight."
When you combine these images with girls who already are dealing with the pressures of puberty you can easily create a ticking time bomb.
"Girls are already under pressure as they enter adolescence. They're competing for social status, and trying to be attractive. Wanting to feel part of a group, they can drift into groups of girls where they feel they can compete. Often that means being involved in aggressive behaviour with each other," Moretti says.
In his book See Jane Hit James Garbarino praises the physical outlet that sports has given girls for their energy and aggression, which he views as a positive thing. However, sports cultivates physicality that could translate into physical aggression, he says.
Still, the benefits outweigh the risks. Girls feeling good about themselves on a soccer field usually aren't the same girls angrily beating up another girl in the playground.
The other day I spoke with a teenaged girl who had fans cheering in the bleachers last year as she stood her ground in a fist fight with a male hockey player. However, a five-minute penalty for both players is certainly not what would happen in real life. Last week, when confronted with a female who wanted to settle things physically over a guy, the reality of possible assault charges and a fight with no hockey gear convinced that same girl that walking away was the best solution.
Boys are taught how to fight fair and are also cautioned about the implications. Godfrey says girls aren't that familiar with the rules of fighting.
"Boys know you only do one on one, and girls simply go wild. With the Reena Virk case, these same girls had attacked another girl several weeks before in a similar way, setting her hair on fire. In this attack, one of the girls was a kickboxer. You wouldn't have seen that 20 years ago."
Right now, the first step is to take the issue seriously. Godfrey maintains that, "Anything about teenaged girls seems to be trivialized and sexualized, and it shouldn't be."
Violence among teenage girls isn't sexy or funny or cool. But until society starts seeing that, it's going to be pretty difficult to deal with it.
Posted by caraher on April 19, 2006, at 0:04:48
In reply to This may not be appropriate but it's bothering me., posted by madeline on April 15, 2006, at 11:54:18
There are certainly as many ways men view women as there are men and women for them to "view..."
The closest I come to viewing women as "sex objects" (among women with whom I actually have any kind of genuine interaction) would be those I find personally unpleasant but physically attractive. I don't think the latter has ever outweighed the former for me, so I tend to interact as little as possible with them beyond looking at them.
It's just different in every case, with different amounts of sexual desire mixed in. If anything I tend to exaggerate in my mind the positive nonphysical attributes of women I'm attracted to, rather than strip those away in deference to pure "animal attraction." At the same time I don't doubt that there are men out there who tend to frame their interactions with women in primarily sexual terms.
I guess I'd say the bottom line is that it is not true that "all men just want X" any more than it would be true to claim "all women just want Y." There may be trends but if you want to be treated as an individual by men you ought to accept them as individuals as well.
Posted by muffled on April 19, 2006, at 0:04:48
In reply to Re: This may not be appropriate but it's bothering, posted by caraher on April 17, 2006, at 9:52:19
Yeah, alot of men look at women as meat to be consumed.
When we went unerage drinking, we had to goto 'meatmarket' bars cuz they were the ones that let underage girls in. The men there were not looking for friends, they were looking to get laid, thats all.
OTOH I have met many men who are very decent and never would look upon women as meat.
Sadly my dear husband who is a very good and kind man. He still will occasionally come home and tell me a joke one of his friends has told him thats makes women seem like meat.(I give him sh*t and say, what would you think if that girl was your daughter?......not so funny eh.)
So I think there are all kinds out there.
And you can't tell just to look at them.
I am not meat. I am a human being.
muffled
Posted by linkadge on April 19, 2006, at 20:34:29
In reply to Re: This may not be appropriate but it's bothering, posted by muffled on April 17, 2006, at 13:02:37
I dunno. I think it is a sterotype that gets fed from many different spoons.
I know tons of guys who see women as individuals. Gentlemen exist, its just a few who give a bad reputation to the rest.
As mentioned, it does work both ways. I know a lot of women who just see men as sex objects, you know the Blanch Deberaux's (Golden Girls), they exist, and they give the rest of women a bad reputation.
Linkadge
Posted by madeline on April 23, 2006, at 12:18:10
In reply to Re: This may not be appropriate but it's bothering, posted by linkadge on April 19, 2006, at 20:34:29
But thank you all for your input.
I think sometimes it is a lot easier to just pigeonhole people as "all this" or "all that". I am the queen of the black and white thinking.
I will be honest and admit that there are times that I have allowed myself to just be treated as meat, and I think I am more mad at myself than at men for that.
I don't know.
Posted by bandmaster on May 1, 2006, at 16:32:25
In reply to This may not be appropriate but it's bothering me., posted by madeline on April 15, 2006, at 11:54:18
Hey just joined this little psychobabble thingy. i'm 24 and spent the first 23 years of my life a virgin. W/ that in mind I want to let you know that there are plenty of men out there who see women as a very special thing and addition to this world. Music, beautiful smells, colors, crisp air. all are things that men experience that immediately take us (in our mind)to a woman in our lives. Some of the most perfect things in our lives remind us of you
Posted by madeline on May 9, 2006, at 5:21:29
In reply to Re: This may not be appropriate but it's bothering me., posted by bandmaster on May 1, 2006, at 16:32:25
Wow! Thank you so much for your beautiful post. I'm just sorry it took me so long to find it.
I think I'll print it out and carry it with me for awhile if you don't mind. I think it just take me that long to process it.
I know it may not be true of all men, but you showed me that it is true of some.
Thank you bandmaster.
This is the end of the thread.
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