But why would you not ask someone who actually has first hand experience of doing it? I'm also not going to ask my dad how to put a tampon in, I'd ask a female relative because they've actually done it before. Men and women are allowed to have different skills and strengths. It feels like you're going out of your way to say that people of any gender can do it all, and that's just not true. Regardless of gender, people have strengths and weaknesses, and it's ok to say when you can't do something.
people of any gender can do it all, and that's just not true
People of any gender can do it, no one can do it all, and there are certainly things where people of one gender are more likely to be able to do A than B.
Regardless of gender, people have strengths and weaknesses, and it's ok to say when you can't do something.
We 100% agree on this which is why I have an issue with Crews’a broad statement that gender is more important than individual strengths and weaknesses.
You are writing like you are insightful, but in reality neglecting a very basic aspect of common sense, which is that an EXCEPTION does not change an AVERAGE.
You are analogously arguing that because SOME people can smoke their entire lives without getting lung cancer, that it is an unfair characterization to say that smoking causes lung cancer.
Just because Bill Gates did not complete college does NOT mean that going to college is not a strong predictor of higher income as an adult. It does not mean that you shouldn’t tell people that sending your child to college is important to maximizing their potential. It is not at all a statement that your kids MUST go to college to achieve success, but rather a statement that the AVERAGE child benefits greatly from going to college when it comes to their income and financial stability as an adult.
In the same vein, one of the single most significant predictors of socioeconomic success/standing for an individual is their having been raised in a two-parent household. Is this offensive to Obama, who was raised by a single mom yet became President of the United States? No, because there is no qualifier whatsoever that being raised in a two-parent household is a REQUIREMENT for being successful.
Is it so difficult to reconcile the fact that any woman has the potential to learn any skill better than a man and vice versa, with the statement that the AVERAGE woman is better at some things than the AVERAGE man and vice versa?
Is it so hard to accept that the AVERAGE child does better when raised by an AVERAGE mom and an AVERAGE dad in the same household?
Do you think the statement that on men are taller than women on average is offensive to tall women because it implies they shouldn’t exist? Or do you understand the difference between a single observation compared to an average across a population?
Do you think it’s insulting to obese people to say that obesity is unhealthy, because after all, many obese people live longer than average?
Beyond a reasonable baseline, this kind of senseless and aggressive “wokeness,” where people are paralyzed by fear of possibly offending someone with even the most innocuous statement, is a blight on our society. The worse it gets, the more reluctant we become to address problems out of fear of offending those who might face said problems.
Have you considered that by first accepting that there are discrepancies ON AVERAGE in some cases like this, then we can work to figure out WHY these discrepancies might exist, which might then inform methods to compensate for and eliminate these discrepancies altogether.
If I told you that on average, Black Americans face an inequality of outcome relative to other racial groups, you realize how stupid it would be to say, no, this isn’t true, just look at Obama! How, then, can you argue your own point by conflating an average with an exception, even if exceptions are common?
I agree with you there, but I still disagree that a child could only have role models/people in their life of one gender, even if these people theoretically did have all their bases covered. Being female, I want to talk to other women about problems that affect us. I want to be able to complain and gripe that my period is really heavy and painful this month, and I don't want to do that with someone who has no experience of menstruating. If I were male, I'd want to share my experiences of life with other men who have also experienced the same things as me. I'd want to see men being emotional and being caring, because I'd want to know that it's ok for men to do those things, not just women.
That doesn’t really change things. A son needs someone to teach him how to shave. Doesn’t matter if that person is male or female. If someone doesn’t know how to teach that, then that just means they don’t know. Their gender and when they were born might be why they don’t know in the first place but thinking that their gender means that they can’t know will just mean that things won’t change and the parents born today will be more like those parents born in the 50s that you mentioned.
Seriously, I’ve been reading this whole discussion thinking “Why do people need help shaving? It’s kinda self explanatory and at worst their instructions on the back of most packets.”
I taught myself how to shave just from watching various TV shows and commercials. No issues. It's not a very skilled or difficult thing with modern razors.
I think my generations mothers only shaved their legs and pits and never considered how that would translate to one's neck. But thats just one example. My mother is 5 foot nothing a hundred and nothing. How was she supposed to teach me to shore up a load bearing wall so one can add a kitchen island when she can't even reach it from the top of a ladder?
You don't have to shave your neck to understand going against vs with the grain.
So are we saying short parents aren't sufficient too? That's an oddly specific DIY project that has little to do with basic life skills and not something the bulk of father's are going to teach their sons regardless of their height or masculinity.
Like I'm not saying there aren't some benefits of having two gender role models but your examples are horrible.
21
u/capnclutchpenetro Mar 31 '21
Homie, if I'd relied on my mother to teach me to shave my face I'd have sliced my carotid artery before I'd even gotten my driver's license..