Comments on: Men are from Earth. Women are from Earth. And so is Power.

By: Gail

Gail — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 22:37:00 +0000

A good electrician might understatedly suggest a single-wire earth return! And I would just say, grounding is critical!

By: Moty

Moty — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 13:18:58 +0000

I agree terrible stereotypes are destroying our world, such as black and white even other as if ANYONE is 100% the same as a PhD sheet of plain white or black copier paper. So if you cannot match the PhD copier paper you are fooling yourself and exalting yourself wrongly above others that will get you now-here. Men are from Womb as Women are from Womb and yes it is earth we all stand on. Nominate your Mother or motherly figure http://www.mother-of-the-year.com today and make your world a better place.

By: Matt Hart

Matt Hart — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 17:55:23 +0000

At the first hint of “desperation”, e.g. “Hello?”, run. Relationships aren’t, imho, about that “deep relationship based on mutual yak yak yak”, it’s about fun. My wife and I have a lot of fun together, still, after 14 years. If it isn’t fun… run.

- Matt H

By: hypatia

hypatia — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 01:08:51 +0000

On the "nice guy" thing... I think that the reason the "niceness" so often turns into hostility from dudes when it comes to dating comes down to one thing: entitlement. There's a fairly hilarious compendium of resources on the topic of fake-nice-guys here if you haven't seen it already... and another good rant here that I think does a good job of detailing the genderedness of the issue.

By: occhiblu

occhiblu — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 21:41:58 +0000

I came to a similar conclusion when I realized that almost all the terms used to describe any currently oppressed group have, throughout history, been used to describe every other oppressed group. I was studying Venetian history at the time, and Venetians were looked down upon for being greedy, gold-digging, mysterious, manipulative, secretive, back-biting, overly emotional, and hard to read — all of which are pretty necessary traits if you’re trying to succeed in a world in which you don’t have as much firepower as the empires around you. I’ve heard variations of these same terms used to describe women, blacks, Jews, Asians… and again, it seems that these are not inherent characteristics of any race/gender/religion, but instead REALLY SMART SURVIVAL STRATEGIES for people who don’t have the power to ask for things directly or the expectation that their reasonable requests will be honored.

By: The definitive linkspam of this decade (1st January, 2010) | Geek Feminism Blog

Thu, 31 Dec 2009 22:31:58 +0000

[...] Men are from Earth. Women are from Earth. And so is Power.: on questioning rather than accepting power imbalance in gendered interactions. [...]

By: dan

dan — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 00:05:54 +0000

this is a fascinating perspective. I’ve been told by women many times that they wanted the “rogue,” the guy who was pushy and broke rules to get what he wanted – I’ve even been dropped for not being forceful enough. Meantime, I don’t know any guys who actually *like* bitchy behavior, though they all seem to appreciate a woman who isn’t shy about asking for what she wants.

Could it be that some of the jerk behavior you’ve experiencing has to do with the safety and insularity of being on-line, in the same way that people write comments on blogs or on-line articles that are much harsher than they’d be willing to articulate if forced to “own” their words in a “real life” context? Okay that’s too many quote marks, but I think concurrent with the inherited power-structure relationships that burden us all, being on-line adds the complication of perceived imperviousness – I think a lot of people go further on line than they would in person, both amorously and confrontationally. And once you go too far out on the first of those limbs, it’s awfully easy for it to turn into the second…

Good luck with the dudes. Mostly they’re like people, more or less… it’s the jerks who get noticed, though!

By: Jenny

Jenny — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 21:18:55 +0000

I’ve not dated online, but do recall similar encounters where I could confidently approach a bruised ego with “some friendly advice” on how to approach the next woman. I’ve realized too that the shifting balance of power doesn’t change once you’re in a relationship, however I think the difference is that both parties at that point realize this, and hopefully you can navigate the dynamic politically instead of contentiously. Relationships – whether it’s a first date or a 40 year marriage – are just a series of negotiations, and neither party should ever hold all of the power all of the time.

By: Jorge

Jorge — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 14:42:32 +0000

I have not much experience dating. But I’ve been in a couple of situations where the girl i was dating had more power, because she was a couple of years older, which at age 20 is like a whole deal because of how fast you can grow in a couple of years. I believe that you’re right sometimes when we are not in power we can turn defensive and ‘emotional’ and it’s not about genders. My experience went well because I knew I had to go through a process sometimes it takes a little sometimes longer. We all need to go trough this process if we want a true, good and lasting relationship. Finally what matters is that the power find a balance where the woman is what the man wants and the man is what the woman wants (or at least they try hard to be).

Well to make it short I felt pretty bad because I thought the process was supposed to be fast and that I could control it (mainly because somehow all the media and history tends to tell us we can in every situation and reality is we can’t). Finally I ended up realizing that getting in a relationship is a team work and you need to think of what process the other person wants and is going through and be patient sometimes you have control and sometimes you don’t ( though you never really have control over other person). I hope to mature more in this area as I grow older.

Thanks for sharing this with us Tara it sure will help us think and question stuff we don’t usually think about a lot.

By: Dave Doolin

Dave Doolin — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 16:12:20 +0000

Dating is easy and fun, but can very time consuming as well. Tough when starting a business.

OkCupid works really, really well for me. Best online site so far.

Having dispensed dating advice in the past (to both men and women), my experience is largely that they don’t want to hear it. What they want is validation for what they already believe (which isn’t working, which is why they asked). Nowadays I just mumble something like “You’ll figure it out” and change the subject.