Women

"Woman was taken out of man - not out of his feet to be trampled underfoot, but out of his side to be equal to him, under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be loved." - David O. McKay, ninth President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

"Women - you can't live with 'em, and you can't get 'em to dress up in a skimpy li'l Nazi costume and beat you with a warm squash or somethin'..." - Emo Philips, disturbed comedian

"Women are soft and gentle, but they hit things." - vintage Volkswagen ad

Some men think women are perfect goddesses who can do no wrong, while others think less of them than the dust of the Earth. But what is the truth? All I can say for sure is that the childish, neurotic fear of the opposite sex that characterized my adolescence is by now long gone. In its place is a far deeper and more rational fear born of experience. I hope to overcome this fear by learning more about the enemy and mansplaining, uh, I mean listing some of my findings. No, I don't think it will work either.

Beauty Standards

Circa 1937. I used to think this was funny, but now I know it's not.

Society sends assures us (correctly) that looks don't matter at the same time as it bombards us with images of impossibly perfect and gratuitously sexualized models and celebrities because looks actually do matter. Society's obsession with appearance is merely an outward symptom of our animal instincts which say that if you're not attractive then you don't mate. Most people have superseded these instincts for thousands of years and loved each other for who they are, and that hasn't changed. What has changed is the decline of morality and the inention of Photoshop and social media. The American Psychological Association has found that this objectification has a strong correlation with declining academic performance among young women, and a decrease in the number of them who seek careers in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics. It also correlates with an increase in sexism, sexual harassment and demands for child pornography. The report said: "In study after study, findings have indicated that women more often than men are portrayed in a sexual manner (e.g., dressed in revealing clothing, with bodily postures or facial expressions that imply sexual readiness) and are objectified (e.g., used as a decorative object, or as body parts rather than a whole person). In addition, a narrow (and unrealistic) standard of physical beauty is heavily emphasized. These are the models of femininity presented for young girls to study and emulate." Very little has gotten better since then.

Feminism

Generally I try to avoid labels that come with too many assumptions that piss people off if you don't live up to them. For several years I wouldn't have called myself a feminist because I didn't want people to think I support legalized prostitution, abortion on demand for any reason, and ruining innocent men's lives over false rape accusations. But in 2021 I realized (much to my horror) the extent to which sexism is engrained in human society and said screw it, I'm a feminist and proud of it. I believe in equal respect, rights and opportunities for men and women, and constructive solutions to real problems. I believe that women should be represented in all career fields and decision-making capacities. I believe that women should not have to live in fear of sexual harassment and/or assault. But I still think "mansplaining" is one of the least catchy or clever words made-up I've ever heard. Yes, I am aware that this makes me a mansplainer.

As many correctly point out, equality doesn't always have to mean sameness. Biological sex isn't quite analogous to race, which is a social construct. Men and women are fundamentally different in some ways. However, they are far more alike than different, and some of what many assume to be fundamental differences are just differences in how society trains them from childhood to think and behave. It should also go without saying that not all women are the same and not all men are the same and any generalization about one or the other will have many exceptions. Researchers summarized one 2016 study on the topic in part: "It is undeniably true that men and women are more similar than different genetically, physically and psychologically. Even so, important gender differences in personality exist that likely stem, at least in part, from evolved psychological adaptations. Some of these adaptations generate culturally-universal gender differences, and many are further designed to be sensitive to local socioecological contexts in ways that facultatively generate varying sizes of gender differences across cultures." You can almost hear them saying, "Yes, men and women are different, but it's not our fault and it's not a big deal, really. Please don't take away our funding."

I was raised in a rather patriarchal religion, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, that reserves priesthood ordination (and consequently the vast majority of leadership positions) for men and for decades enthusiastically promoted the "traditional" gender roles (male = breadwinner, female = homemaker) that took form in the United States after World War II. It fell into the same trap as mainstream Christianity and Islam - it represented a considerable step forward for women's equality when it was founded (for example, Utah was the second US state or territory to give women the right to vote, and had the first female state senator), but because people fear change and mistakenly think their religion is already perfect, it retrenched and refused to progress further along with the rest of society. It is progressing now, slower and later than I would like. Some changes may never happen. I'm agnostic on whether women should be ordained to the priesthood, and I don't know that it's necessary for equality which, again, doesn't have to mean sameness. Every role in the church is supposed to be regarded as equally important, and leadership is not supposed to be a status symbol. Everyone is entitled to the same eternal blessings. The gospel of Jesus Christ, at its unfiltered core, is the most egalitarian philosophy of all time. It proclaims that we are all the offspring of and loved equally by heavenly parents. After coming to recognize the sexism in the church, I tried to make things better from the inside for a couple years before I gave up and left.

Chivalry

Today we've taken one of the small bits of the code of chivalry that wasn't about fighting and just call it "chivalry". Given what women and girls are put through by our degrading culture, a bit of special treatment doesn't hurt, though I suspect most of it originated from men being like "Maybe if we give women special treatment, they won't notice that we don't let them vote." Of course, there's no reason not to help everyone you encounter and treat them with respect. I hold doors for anyone who's close enough to make it feasible. If they're too far away, I don't bother because I hate when someone makes me feel obligated to rush so they don't have to hold the door for too long. I'm not crazy about the whole "ladies first" thing I'm not crazy about unless the ladies in question are old or pregnant. Chivalry for its own sake is stupid when it creates more inconvenience for the recipient than it alleviates. On my first date we were in the back of the car and it stopped and my date got out. I thought "Hey, you're supposed to wait for me to get out and go around to the other side and open your door for you!" Then I realized that would be a waste of her time. And in the past, at YSA ward luncheons we always let the ladies get food first and then they tended to all sit together while the guys went up, creating a bit of gender segregation that seemed a little counterintuitive to the goal of marrying us off. It also seems unnecessary since I'm pretty sure no one is going to poison our food, which is why that tradition started in Western civilization in the first place.

Some conservative religious people still believe that it's the man's duty to initiate courtship and the woman's duty to wait for it, just because. I say that attitude has no place in the twenty-first century. It's based on the natural pattern which dictates that, in every species where females invest more time and energy in their offspring than the males (e.g. nine months of pregnancy), they get to be picky about whose genes go into that offspring, so the males have to take initiative and prove themselves. In the case of humans it's been exacerbated by sexist gender roles telling men to be aggressive and women to be passive. The evolutionary part is neutral; the sexist part is bad. But in any case, this mindset places on men the entire burden of rejection anxiety and rejection itself, and on women the entire burden of never being asked out by anyone. When both burdens are shared by everyone they may cancel each other out, like when you have a mosquito bite and you dig your fingernails into it so it hurts instead of itching.

My unsolicited advice is that if you want to ask someone out, or call them or whatever, just do it regardless of your sex. If you're a woman and insist on sticking to tradition that's your choice, but then you have no right to complain when you don't go on as many dates as you want. Maybe guys don't really notice you, but if you ask one he'll probably say yes, and who knows what could happen from there? If he says no without a legitimate reason, or gets upset with you for "emasculating" him or something like that, then he isn't worth your time and I'm truly sorry that happened but do you think only men should have to experience rejection? By the way, I'm in no way qualified to give advice about such topics, but you'd probably guessed as much. One of my friends used to look up to me for advice on women, and my reaction was "Lord have mercy on you."

​See also a page on problems faced by women in today's world, a page about the new girls I encountered at school growing up, and a page about women in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.