"I Want To Be A Girl, Because Girls Can Do Anything"

a reply to: Bluntone22

Yes! Star for you!

Kids are often smart enough that they can see through the BS. I'll never forget watching little league "winners" smashing their participation trophies after the award ceremony.

You cannot GIVE a child self-esteem. Self esteem is a reactive emotion, the realization that you have skills or aptitude on your own, and that you succeeded through your own efforts.

The way to build a child's self-esteem is help them try different things so they can find a few things they are good at and enjoy. Self-esteem comes from earning success.

I can buy a "traditional" (actually laminated fiberglass) recurve bow for under 300 dollars, and it'll be the best, rain-proof bow you'll ever shoot. Of course, it will vibrate all over hell and never be silent. But it'll drive tacks like a hammer.

The bows I make by hand take me 6 months or more and are definitely temperamental. But they don't cost a penny, and I understand the wood and the string at the end of it all.

This is one of my core issues with this new type of fanatical feminism spreading in recent times. It's no longer just about equality, it has become about degrading men and telling boys that masculinity is toxic. The girls are given all the encouragement a parent can muster, the boys are constantly warned about their own nature and how men are responsible for all the problems in the world.

Luckily I had a great mother who loved me the same as my sisters, and as a child I never really understood the "men vs women" thing. I had 3 sisters and no brothers, to me girls were not some incomprehensible mystery or a separate species, they were people just like anyone else, and they can be just as evil or just as loving as men. When you get down to it most of these divisions are merely psychological tropes created by society.

To this day I still mostly feel the same way, and I feel sorry for those people who have to make everything about gender or race. It's just sad and all it really shows is just how much they focus on these artificial surface level characteristics instead of trying to see people for who they really are on a deeper level. Everyone deserves love and support and to believe otherwise is callous and inhumane.

Well, good thread, but I'll say this somewhat tongue-in-cheek:

You can be an Olympic Decathlete and win medals a grow rich from endorsements and smarmy TV and then you can become a passable woman and also have a smarmy TV show and a following and more.

But AFAIK, you can't start out a woman and then have surgery and end up being an Olympic Decathlete - at least not right now.

Most people would rather 'emulate' Brad Pitt (or maybe Tom Cruise) than they would Angelina Jolie, a female covered in tats and an alleged durg user, I think. Guys can do a lot more, women kind of end up depending on men to get places, but YMMV.

So just be yourself and if you're bright and work hard you can become anything if you believe in yourself. The world is wide-open right now.

a reply to: Maverick7

Most people would rather 'emulate' Brad Pitt (or maybe Tom Cruise) than they would Angelina Jolie, a female covered in tats and an alleged durg user, I think.

In my mind (a guys mind) Angelina Jolie is more badass and more likable than either of those guys. Sure Mission Impossible is cool but Tomb Raider is cooler and Angelina Jolie will always be the true Lara Croft. People don't always prefer the person who seems perfect, often times we prefer the diamond in the rough. Yes I watched Aladdin yesterday.

originally posted by: Maverick7
Most people would rather 'emulate' Brad Pitt (or maybe Tom Cruise) than they would Angelina Jolie, a female covered in tats and an alleged durg user, I think.

I'd rather people think of me as a tattooed drug-user than a Scientologist nutcase like Cruise.

a reply to: IAMALLYETALLIAM

No matter the sex, teaching your child it can be anything it wants to be amounts to nothing more than wishful thinking on the parents part.

Then again sometimes lies are far more palatable than the truth.

The fact of the matter through, situation and geography dictate ones position and station in life far more than your sex in this day of age.

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus

originally posted by: Maverick7
Most people would rather 'emulate' Brad Pitt (or maybe Tom Cruise) than they would Angelina Jolie, a female covered in tats and an alleged durg user, I think.

I'd rather people think of me as a tattooed drug-user than a Scientologist nutcase like Cruise.

Well, I hope that doesn't happen to you. To be fair to Mr Cruise, he's not exactly a Scientologist nutcase, arguably he's the HEAD of Scientology, and he's go amazing skills. I would be him in a heartbeat. You know he can always quit.

How do you 'un-become' a tatted up drug-abuser?

originally posted by: randomtangentsrme
a reply to: IAMALLYETALLIAM

Saying a girl can do anything, doesn't negate that a boy can also do anything.
Positive reinforcement is key for any one.
Just keep things positive.

It's the weakness of the mindset of people who do things like this. They operate from the assumption that the over-riding culture constantly sends the message that men are all-powerful and all-conquering, so the little boy naturally doesn't need to be told, his day-to-day existence is steeped in the manly patriarchy where he just assumes it's all his for the taking.

So they ignore him and his needs in favor of fighting the toxic world to salvage the daughter who is also growing up in this horrible hopeless existence that so affirms the boy but would constantly deny her.

Reality, of course, is something else.

a reply to: andy06shake

I think it's wrong to teach your child they can't try anything they want to try in terms of discovering who and what they are talent wise though.

Do I think my son is Bruce Lee? No, but he enjoys the martial arts and has some small talent at it, so I will continue to encourage him to pursue it.

We don't all have to end up the greatest or best at something in order to pursue it. No. Not everyone will end up president or an astronaut, but plenty of people have tried for it and found they have useful talents and productive careers inspired by their interest.

a reply to: ketsuko

We both live in first-world nations ketsuko, my own with around 320,000 homeless poor souls and your own US with around 554,000.

There is mass poverty, drug use, major crime in just about every town and city nevermind a multitude of other socioeconomic issues to contend with.

Plenty of people can and do manage to pull themselves out the gutter or grow up utilizing their talents then do indeed go on to have productive careers.

It's certainly not wrong to encourage one's children to be all they can be but the fact of the matter is its hardly a level playing field for some no matter how much we try and pretend the glass in half full.

I always wanted to be an astronaut myself, but that would be rather hard with a nation that currently has no space program, which kind of illustrates my point.

Not that i imagine i would ever have actually had the minerals for such. LoL

Not saying you are wrong and im and right, suppose there is a happy medium somewhere in between.

a reply to: andy06shake

Sure the reality is that most won't make it, but it's a defeatist attitude to decide that because most won't, none should ever be told to try.

originally posted by: Maverick7
You know he can always quit.

Sure he can.

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus

originally posted by: Maverick7
You know he can always quit.

Sure he can.

I sense sarcasm font. Why not? Who's going to stop him? Tiny Dave Miscavage? He'd just start the "Cult of Tom' and obtain many followers.

I'm re-watching all of his MI series - excellent. He flies the helicopter, spent a year learning how to do a HALO jump (with oxygen) AND do dialog. He did the jump 50 times to get the cameraman's angle right.

He does all his own parkour jumping and running, with an awesome railing jump to a silent landing in Ghost Protocol. The guy may act out now and then but he's authentic, which is more than I can say for most people. Sounds like some people take a one-dimensional look and lock into an opinion based on Oprah's Couch.

YMMV.

a reply to: Maverick7

Tom Cruise is odd in real life, no doubt, but the guy can do impressive things and act. He had my husband completely fooled in Tropic Thunder even after I pointed out that it was him. Husband needed to see the credits, then go back and watch and listen to the part to really pick it up.

originally posted by: Maverick7
Tiny Dave Miscavage? He'd just start the "Cult of Tom' and obtain many followers.

Right. Because normal people want to be in the Tiny Tom Cult.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus



Hey, that's a pretty cool cult to be in.

a reply to: ChefFox

how funny you seem to see this "duality" everywhere in nature

you cant have one without the other and you cant understand one without the other .

I am happy for boys and girls to do anything as long as it doesnt involve oppressing each other when they grow up !

a reply to: ketsuko


Tom Cruise looks like the trophy they give out for being Tom Cruise.

a reply to: ketsuko

There is a defeatist attitude through, and then there is a realistic one.

Shooting for the Moon is one thing, but probably best to have a backup plan or alternative in mind for when the world decides not to facilitate the parents or children's desire.

Some wee lassie from the likes of a third world nation that has to travel 20 miles to find clean water every day, receives no education and is married off to some dude 4 times her age at 12 years old is hardly likely to grow up to be a Doctor or the like.

Far too few haves and far too many have nots in this world is the problem.

None should be told "not" to try indeed, but it should be made a hell of a lot easier from them to realize their goals, thats a given.

a reply to: ChaoticOrder

the patriarchy hurts males too , I dont see why feminism doesnt see this also ?

Man at the top means there are men at the bottom , and boys underneath !
if feminism is about ending the patriarchy then they need to support men too!

I also see the same with race, its a load of #e
people believe in race, but there is no biological evidence as such for race, just many different ethnicities based on our phenotypical gene expressions. We are one species , homo sapiens sapiens just divided by geographical regions which have given rise to adaptations in our melanin production.

I was watching Dr Cornel West on joe rogan , and he was speaking about race etc. But then goes on to say "black music" a number of times, what is it specifically that makes that music any different to the music anyone else makes ?

Did they make that music , solely because of their skin tone, or was it because of their human brain and access to consciousness ? I believe that culture is human culture , and is ours to share.

we as a species , need to do a whole lot of soul searching and come together , because we are creating divisions where there are literally none !


Then I recently seen an Article about he Green party MP and how she wanted to invite only women to her emergency cabinet , she was criticised as being sexist . Her critics stated

"Is there anything more sexist than claiming your gender determines your worldview/behaviour/attitude?"

then again she was criticised for not inviting any member of "colour"

Ethnic composition criticised Ms Lucas has also faced criticism for the fact that all ten women she invited to join her proposed cabinet are white.

One of her critics, Labour MP Clive Lewis asked: "Where are the BAME [black, Asian and minority ethnic] women politicians?" In a statement posted on Facebook on Monday, Ms Lucas wrote: "An all-white list of women isn't right". "I should have reached out further and thought more deeply about who, and what kind of politics, an all-white list represents. I apologise." "There are women of colour colleagues who are standing up to this government's reckless gamble with Britain's future, and it was wrong to overlook them."

So on one hand it isnt right that you only have women , and that your gender doesnt determine your worldview, your attitiude or behaviour , yet your skin colour apparently does !


we have a long way to go it seems