Women Are Sort Of More Tentative Than Men, Aren't They?
sciencedaily.com
sciencedaily.com
So I ask again, why is it a masculine topic? (Yeah, I know the answer, but it depresses me.)
I feel that eliminating gender-based barriers is almost universally a good thing. But why be bothered when the majority of a gender expresses its preference not to do something?
EDIT: My aunt Sue makes a damn fine green bean casserole. I look forward to it every Thanksgiving. She also does a lot of needlepoint embroidery, often pictures of cats. She is vice president of a bank. Let people do what they want.
Because by strongly gendering arbitrary actions, you effectively do constrain people. You make it difficult for anyone to perform the action and still be considered masculine/feminine, when that action should have nothing to do with it.
Not sure I think the gendering of changing car tires is really a terrible offense (or in need of change at all), but that would be the justification for why you should be bothered.
But what if it isn't me that's "gendering arbitrary actions" -- what if a majority of the gender itself is doing it?
Why are boys more likely to play with firetrucks and police cars? Why are auto mechanics overwhelmingly male? Men see a flat tire. It's a problem with a clear outcome. So they take action and solve it.
I'm not saying that women can't do it. But I can see why it's something men are more inclined to do.
There is a huge difference between...
1. Observing aggregate facts, or even trends, that say "Population Y doesn't do X much," and commenting on them.
2. Extrapolating from those aggregate facts/trends, and saying to an individual (as opposed to an aggregate population), "You can't / shouldn't / won't / won't be good at x."
There is a big, huge, fat, hairy difference between the two. And #1 is totally blameless, even innocent, and that's what's happening here.
You can be angry that the facts show that more men than women know how to / will change a tire. But you should keep that anger to yourself and certainly you shouldn't blame somebody who points it out. Unless they are saying "And this goes to show, women are useless with cars!" Which the above poster isn't.
* Changing a tire requires a lot more physical strength than either of those two things. And...
* Changing a tire has a much higher injury rate than calling for a tow truck.
It is not an arbitrary chore, it's messing with a giant machine that can kill you... directly toying with that machine's only mode of contact with the thing it has to touch to keep you safe... on the side of a place for other giant machines that are moving that can also kill you. And it's dirty.
There's nothing wrong with women who don't want to change a tire.
First, because it mostly isn't true. I don't know any women of my generation who have waited helplessly for someone to stop and help them; that's an absurd thing to even imagine. I do know women who changed their first tire by following the owner's manual in the glove box -- women aren't helpless in the face of technology (except when they decide to be.)
Second, because when it is true, it's an abominable thing. Being able to change a tire, via instructions or otherwise, is an important skill for anybody who drives. Any woman who accepts this limitation for herself (or anyone who encourages it in a wife or daughter) shows a blatant disregard for her safety. It just isn't safe for a woman to hang out on the side of the road waiting for a man to notice her helplessness. Let's set aside the indignity of a woman needing to solicit help from a strange man for a job she could physically do herself, simply because a flat tire falls under mens' purview. Let's not consider the absurdity of a woman standing beside her car for an hour waiting for a tow truck driver to come do a job she could handle herself in ten minutes. Forget about all that. It just isn't safe not to be able to change a tire. What if the guy who stops to "help" her is attracted to her helplessness for the wrong reason? (It's always dangerous to act like a potential victim. A woman who can't change a tire screams, "I can't take care of myself; take advantage of me.") What if you get a flat tire on a busy highway where you can't pull very far off the road? (The faster you get the tire fixed, the less time you spend on the shoulder waiting for an inattentive driver to drift over and hit you.) What if you get a flat tire in a remote area? I don't object to women being different from men; I don't even object to them valuing the difference and actively cultivating their femininity. Sacrificing safety (not to mention independence) for the sake of gender roles is an entirely different thing.
Most women I know don't know how, or won't change a tire. Oh, and I'd rather let somebody else do it for me, if given the chance. (I'm a woman and I know how to change a tire.)
However, one thing bothers me: Palomares is so smug about knocking down stereotypical differences between the sexes, but his analysis depends on stereotypical differences between the sexes. He's just shuffling the stereotypes around, discarding one by depending on another. It's hardly something to be self-righteous about.
I hedge a great deal although I'm male; I'm more assertive and direct online than in person. This is learned behavior often a handicap, though not without its uses. It would be interesting to see how this conversational behavior correlates with something like a Myers-Briggs, or in pairings with different power levels (eg an undergraduate being told another experimental particiapant holds a PhD, with both assigned to solve some problem outside of their academic expertise). Or maybe it wouldn't :-|
Women are going to know more about stereotypically female tasks and men are going to know more about male stereotyped tasks...otherwise those tasks wouldn't be stereotyped to begin with.
And it makes sense someone would hedge more when they are talking to the opposite gender about something they think that gender knows well. If I don't know something and I think someone else does, I'm not going to talk about it like I know it.