I was responding to a post in another thread I started when Julie808 wrote about a woman who is highly critical of other women. This prompted me to complain about one of my big pet peeves: Women who are critical and downgrade other women based on anything from clothes to hair to age. Of course, I have an anecdote to share on this issue.
Weeks ago, I was walking into Walmart when a few yards from me in the parking lot, a man sneezed and I said "Bless you" or some other inanity in response to his sneeze. He laughed and we walked into the store together and chatted for about ten minutes about nothing in particular. I do not remember what was said and I would not recognize him if I saw him again.
A few days ago, one of the women door-greeters asked me if I had seen that "good-looking man" again. I didn't know of whom she spoke for a couple of minutes, but as she described us walking in together and chatting, I realized that she meant the sneezer.
Nope, I had not seen him again.
She gushed for a couple of minutes about how handsome he was and asked if I had any interest him. I said that at 71, I was not interested in a relationship. She carried on about him for a couple of minutes more, asked me if I knew if he were married (no, I did not), then said, "If you ever see him again, tell him that I am interested in him."
There was no way I would do that for several reasons. I did not explain that if were interested in her, he would have let know when he left the store. Instead, I explained that most likely, I would never see him again.
Then, the clincher came: "If you see him, tell him that I AM ONLY 67."
Instantly, my whole attitude toward this woman changed. She fell back on the issue of age and the older the woman, the less desirable she was. The desirability issue was moot to me; the assumption about age was irritating.
And honestly, her catty remark brought out the cat in me. I was 13 years old again and a thin girl at school was asking a boy who had spoken to me why he did so because I was "fat and ugly."
However, I did not remark to door-greeter that her gray hair made her appear older than I am nor that she has more wrinkles than do I. I could have said that good-looking men like good-looking women. Yup, I thought it, but did not say it.
Women need to build up other women, not knock them down. I consistently compliment strangers on their hair, their apparel, or their smiles. We do not need to compete with each other and we should not compete with each other. Maybe the door-greeter will figure this out by the time she is 71.
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Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.Wow, "Tell him I'm only 67!" Haha! I can not imagine myself saying something like that to edge out a 71 year old for the attention of a fella!
Yes, "women need to build up other women, not knock them down." I'm lucky with most of people around me. We do seem to lift each other up , out of habit. It's just those few nuts who I can do without!
Julie808
Level 8
June 27, 2024
1
I am sorry to say that in my opinion, the fashion industry is basically misogynistic and very influential. Its values infiltrate all of society, with the basic intention of promoting insecurity, because insecurity sells things. Make people feel bad about themselves, give them false values that require unattainable levels of perfection, and people will buy the cure you pretend to offer. It is basically the same trick that religion attempts, tell people that they are tainted by sin, and they will buy forgiveness, is exactly the same as telling people that not being perfectly equal to a fake standard of beauty, is also a sin.
I hope you like that bit, because the next bit could be interpreted as sexist, and assumes genetic differences between the sexes, (Genetic determinism, which many do not accept. ) so some women may not like it.
The other problem, which plays into that, is the factor of aggression. All animals are aggressive, and in many ways equally so, its complex, but basically all animals face equal threats and must respond in equivalent ways. However as a society we have collectively adopted the idea that, females/women are somehow less aggressive than males/men. This however is wrong, it is simply that aggression takes different forms in males and females. In social species, males assert their status, in part, by showing that they are self reliant and independent of the social network, and may be openly aggressive towards others. While females on the other hand depend much more on networking, because that helps with child rearing, and females, like it or not, invest more in producing children, and it also help with protection against overly aggressive males, etc.. So that female aggression is much more likely to take the form of passive aggression, and especially social exclusion, taking away the support of the network. In order to do that it will naturally take the form of making the network exclusive, and setting up standards of social norms, which determine how far individuals are allowed into or excluded from the network. And this is the framework into which, fashion industry and ageism etc. play.
So next time you meet with a woman like that, perhaps you should think about a female chimps, trying to determine over who gets to sit nearest the alpha male when the food is being shared. Some of us may not have come very far from that state, but at least some of us are educated and rational enough to be able to rationalize about who and what we are.
Fernapple
Level 9
June 27, 2024
1
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