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A Woman Can Do Anything a Man Can Do (Well, Almost)
http://www.ifeminists.net/introduction/editorials/2006/0816roberts.html ^ | August 16, 2006 | Carey Roberts

Posted on 08/16/2006 5:55:37 PM PDT by CareyRoberts

Fact and feminism keep tripping over each other.

For decades, radical feminists have prostrated themselves upon the altar of androgeny, flatly declaring that all differences between the sexes are socially constructed. So when men earn more money than women, they say that’s proof of sex discrimination.

But men have the Y chromosome, while women don’t. And it turns out that one chromosome contains 78 very important genes. Those genes contain programming instructions that control a man’s brain structure, sex hormones, and a host of other functions.

These critical genetic differences play out in thousands of ways that influence risk-taking, sex relationships, and social roles. Steven Rhoads’ book, Taking Sex Differences Seriously, is an information-packed, must-read on this topic.

Women conceive babies, men can’t. Women are better at decoding facial expressions, hearing a baby’s whimper in the night, and simultaneously talking and listening. Fine.

But what happens when we insist that men and women are social equivalents, twisting like neutered cogs in a giant gender nirvana?

Last year I was talking with a woman who insisted female athletes are just as skilled as the men. A few months later, the US female Olympic hockey team played a boys’ high school team from Warroad, Minnesota. The small town boys prevailed 2-1 over the elite Olympians – and that was a non-checking game.

Then there are the women-in-combat zealots. They parade girls like PFC Jessica Lynch as living proof that women can handle the fierce demands of front line combat. You may recall that war heroine Lynch later admitted about her Iraqi mishap, “I did not shoot, not a round, nothing. I went down praying to my knees. And that’s the last I remember.”

What about women in the media? Remember, they were going to bring us a more balanced and empathic perspective on the world.

Well, that was before Oprah Winfrey predicted one in five heterosexual Americans would die from AIDS by 1990 and Meryl Streep duped the EPA to ban alar.

Let’s not forget Connie Chung’s scientific discovery that breast implants make women sick. Even though researchers could never prove the link between implants and connective tissue disease, the ensuing hysteria-driven lawsuits eventually forced Dow Corning into bankruptcy.

Of course there’s the ever-apoplectic Maureen Dowd, left to wonder why the New York Times circulation numbers tumble ever-downward. And rumor has it that once Katie Couric debuts at CBS News, she’s planning to sign up Cindy Sheehan as a political analyst for the upcoming November elections.

And women, it is said, will make the political arena more ethical and fair: “Research shows the presence of women raises the standards of ethical behavior and lowers corruption.” That quote comes to us by way of senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, which practically makes the claim self-refuting.

We were promised that women in academia would bring important new insights. But soon the ladies came to the sobering realization that Beethoven composed Ode to Joy to induce men into a sexual frenzy, and Newton’s Principia Mathematica is actually a rape manual.

We should all feel especially sorry for MIT professor Nancy Hopkins.

As a biologist, she no doubt learned how primates engage in sex-specific courtship rituals and hunting patterns. But then ex-Harvard president Larry Summers suggested that innate differences in the human species also might exist, causing the ever-delicate Dr. Hopkins to lapse into a swoon.

Smelling salts, anyone?

Those examples are mostly amusing. But there’s one variation on the woman-can-do-anything-a-man-can-do theme that’s downright dangerous. It’s the “mothers and fathers are interchangeable” mantra.

The reason is simple: little boys don’t identify with their moms the same way they bond with their dads. And girls learn different lessons from dads than from moms.

Want proof?

Look at inner city ghettos ravaged by Great Society programs that required dad to vacate the home before mom was entitled to collect her welfare check. Bereft of their loving fathers, boys looked to the media and gangs for their male role models.

Is anyone surprised when all manner of social pathologies take root and flourish?

It’s one of the conundrums of our time that while demanding fealty to the dogma of androgeny, feminists condemn the expression of masculine qualities by men and then turn around and demand that “liberated” women exemplify exactly those same attributes.

As my mother used to say, Who said women had to be logical?


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: careyroberts; genderwars
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To: CareyRoberts
A Woman Can Do Anything a Man Can Do (Well, Almost)

No woman I have ever met has confessed too passing gas in public.... Now after that , I'm going to paltalk to have some fun. :) (burrrrrrrrrrrrp, scratch) ;) ;) ;)

41 posted on 08/16/2006 6:51:53 PM PDT by mosquewatch.com (No Islam, Know Peace. www.mosquewatch.blogspot.com)
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To: uptoolate
She was a babe then, and I came upon an article weeks ago about another woman from that time called Susan Anton who performs in her fifties in Vegas today.

She also was one heck of a looker as well.

42 posted on 08/16/2006 6:57:21 PM PDT by A CA Guy (God Bless America, God bless and keep safe our fighting men and women.)
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To: wimpycat

The only thing that men can do that I envy, is their ability to pee outside with little bother.,/p>

How about urinating over your shoulder?...Here, hold ma' beer and watch this....

43 posted on 08/16/2006 6:58:47 PM PDT by Sarajevo (Life is a sexually transmitted disease. -R. D. Laing)
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To: CareyRoberts
Then there are the women-in-combat zealots. They parade girls like PFC Jessica Lynch as living proof that women can handle the fierce demands of front line combat. You may recall that war heroine Lynch later admitted about her Iraqi mishap, “I did not shoot, not a round, nothing. I went down praying to my knees. And that’s the last I remember.”

That's a dishonest misquoting, you left out the part about her gun jamming. I don't think women should be in combat, but a gun jam generally isn't determined by the presence or lack of a Y-chromosome.

The Palestine, Wirt County, native spoke of her childhood, smalltown life and the stories -- true and false -- that made her a household name in America's homes. "My weapon jammed," said Lynch, who was a member of the Fort Bliss, Texas-based 507th Maintenance Co. at the time. "I don't want to take credit for anything I didn't do. I had to tell the truth." Media reports had Lynch wounded by gunshots and stabbings after her capture last March. It was also reported that she used her weapon to fend off Iraqi soldiers. "It's so untrue," Lynch said. "I could've went along and told everyone I was a hero and killed all of these people. But it didn't happen."

44 posted on 08/16/2006 7:03:16 PM PDT by Diddle E. Squat
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To: uptoolate

It was the first t-shirt iron-on I ever wore...1977 that was.

I saw a recent picture of her someplace on the web (can't remember where) and she has NOT aged well at all. Better to remember her as she was then.


45 posted on 08/16/2006 7:08:00 PM PDT by NorthWoody (A vote is like a rifle: its usefulness depends upon the character of the user. - Theodore Roosevelt)
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Comment #46 Removed by Moderator

To: NorthWoody

My first iron-on as well.

Too much sun turns the skin to leather, huh?


47 posted on 08/16/2006 7:11:48 PM PDT by uptoolate (The U.N. will be the tool of the Anti-Christ)
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To: Mr. Brightside

Or have an erection?


48 posted on 08/16/2006 7:12:40 PM PDT by SALChamps03
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To: wimpycat

Uh huh....whatever.


49 posted on 08/16/2006 7:52:19 PM PDT by goodnesswins ( The Dems are so far to the left they have left America.)
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To: CareyRoberts

I bet I can pee higher up on a wall than a womyn with both feet on the ground?


50 posted on 08/16/2006 8:06:53 PM PDT by lawdude (There are limits to intelligence but none to stupidity... Hannity and Colmes)
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To: CareyRoberts

mm


51 posted on 08/16/2006 8:09:20 PM PDT by maine-iac7 ("...but you can't fool all of the people all of the time." Lincoln)
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To: cyborg

I was told once that there would never be an all women firefighting team because they can't handle the equipment on their own....Is that true?????


52 posted on 08/16/2006 9:24:13 PM PDT by fishbabe
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To: CareyRoberts
“Research shows the presence of women raises the standards of ethical behavior and lowers corruption.” Hillary Rodham Clinton

"By 1995, both Starr's prosecutors and congressional investigators were focused on the alleged coverup, which they believed involved an elaborate ruse to hide Hillary Clinton's Rose Law Firm billing records. In January 1996, Hillary Clinton became the only first lady to be called before a grand jury, convened by Starr. Starr's office subsequently drafted an indictment of Hillary Clinton but decided not to press forward with a case against her, according to recent testimony by one of Starr's top prosecutors."

washingtonpost.com/

53 posted on 08/16/2006 9:36:15 PM PDT by Daaave (The flesh eating jinn of Komari.)
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To: fishbabe

Depends on the woman. I want to say it's not true because I've done it. I knew I wasn't going to be a firefighter long when the guys wouldn't let me do a 35 foot ladder even though I lift it. Very irritating. I was also blessed with big legs and carrying heavy packs was easy for me. I'm short too and that was blessing when coming to crawling down through a basement window. Firefighting is a pure boys club and well I hate to say it but on Long Island, it's a racist club at that :( I don't wish it was easier for women in a quota way but well let's just say as a young woman with multiracial heritage I was relieved when my mom demanded I leave :(


54 posted on 08/16/2006 9:36:32 PM PDT by cyborg (No I don't miss the single life at all.)
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To: CareyRoberts

ping


55 posted on 08/16/2006 11:38:00 PM PDT by SR 50 (Larry)
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