RoR: Forum

Marcus wrote:

I don't generally get on romantically with Anglo-Saxon women. Be they in NZ or England (and probably America). They seem to be too uptight and dull for my liking.

I'll second that.

David

Post 41

Monday, January 31, 2005 - 11:29am

Thank you, Marcus. (And thank you too, John and Danny.)

I've said this elsewhere, but I think the point of differentiation may have something to do with my parents being non-American. Their values were quite different.

In any case, I find it as no surprise that one of my brothers is hooked on a girl from Latvia, and the other has turned to "NoMarriage.com" on my advice. ;)

Jennifer

Post 42

Monday, January 31, 2005 - 6:30pm

This is proving to be quite an interesting thread.

I suspect my marriage story might be a bit different from the aforementioned sterotype. Highlights included six years of courting, much contemplation, and a spontaneous proposal followed by a presentation (yes, a business-style presentation, complete with notes) explaining:

- why I wanted to marry, i.e. what I'd get out of it
- what Ande would get out of it
- how the concept of marriage would square with a rational, self-interested philosophy like Objectivism (although Ande isn't an objectivist herself, she was keen to check that I'd fully integrated the concept of with the philosophy I've adopted)

We then wrote our own marriage vows, based upon some old pre-Christian Celtic vows, ensuring that we covered all the things we wanted out of marriage, expected of each other, and were prepared to offer of ourselves. Key to this IMO was the start of the vows:

You cannot possess me for I belong to myself
But while we both wish it, I give you that which is mine to give
You cannot command me, for I am a free person
But of my choice, I pledge to you my fidelity and loyalty ...

The idea being that we both see marriage as a means to strengthen our relationship & love for each other, not a bond to tie us together should we drift apart emotionally. IMO people who are opposed to the idea of marriage simply haven't found the right person, and / or worked out what exactly they want their marriage to be.

Whinging about women being irrational hags, as opposed to working out what you want, finding the right woman, then moving heaven & earth to keep her, is every bit as wrong as the behaviours exhibited by the aforementioned irrational hags.

Post 43

Monday, January 31, 2005 - 8:16pm

Duncan,

Could you post your vows as a SOLO article for us to peruse?

Luke Setzer

Post 44

Monday, January 31, 2005 - 8:51pm

This whole thread has been making me feel irritated. I am 56 years old, in my life I have been very fond of perhaps a couple of dozen women, flat out in love with two, perhaps three of them. I am presently married to one of the women I am flat out in love with. She has two gorgeous daughters. I have two sisters who are very smart, they both have daughters who I am very fond of. All of these women are American and mostly Anglo Saxon. This blathering about stupid, ugly American women is offensive claptrap. I have formed virtually none of my opinions about American women from movies or media hype but from personal experience. I choose not to include the behavior of drunken women in bars or at "spring breaks" as my role models for evaluation purposes, but the real women I have encountered and had friendships and relationships with. I adore American women.

Post 45

Monday, January 31, 2005 - 10:58pm

Alec said:
My namesake, after all, was also a Sir. I am referring of course to Guinness. (Not the beer -- although that was a member of the menage a trois from which I was conceived.)

I say:
Ah yes Guinness! That brings back many fond memories of kindergarten... I don't think she got over that nasty rash though... from then on I never looked at corpral punishment in the same way.

Pianoman

Post 46

Monday, January 31, 2005 - 10:52pm

I never once said that American women are any stupider and uglier than any other women.

However, I did and will continue to say that American women are mostly tyrannical, subjectivist steam-rollers. That's the status quo here in America, right here, right now.

If you meet an American female who is NOT this way, then you can rest assured that she is not popular among other American females, because she isn't "joining the cause"... of subjugating all males -- men and boys alike -- for nothing more than sheer sport.

Post 47

Monday, January 31, 2005 - 11:46pm

If you meet an American female who is NOT this way, then you can rest assured that she is not popular among other American females.

True indeed. Though that is one popularity contest I never hope to win.

Mike, I applaud your being surrounded with quality women. I don't understand why you are offended, however, since you have no cause to be. I have several close American friends, and I am an American female, and take no offense to what has been offered. If the shoe doesn't fit, I'm not wearing it.

I call things as I see them, and my experiences have been enough for me to write off most American women. We can agree to disagree, but short of some sort of miraculous cultural change, my opinion will stay as it is.

And lest you have misunderstood me, I am not simply referring to the women in bars and at spring break. I have discovered such beasts in corporate America, in "society" circles, in the Objectivist movement (my last bastion of hope), and anywhere else feminist poison has seeped into the fibers of our culture.

Post 48

Tuesday, February 1, 2005 - 5:28am

It's the generalization that I find offensive. Look, the United States has about 5% of the world population. We produce something over 50% of the wealth. I'm not sure of the exact statistics, but I think that's generally true. If you take US women as a group and compared them to world women as a group I think the difference in productivitity [USA women vs world women] would be even greater. USA women kick ass. As far as your personal experience with women [or anyone for that matter] it completely matters the context of where you meet and what you're doing. And your impression is colored by your interaction, that means you are half of the equation. It's totally subjective. And this is an Objectivists website.

Post 49

Tuesday, February 1, 2005 - 10:53am

Mike, I agree with you. I've met American men and women and people from other counties as well. If I can generalize one thing, I would say that individual differences are far more predominant than racial differences.

Post 50

Tuesday, February 1, 2005 - 11:09am

Mike, I didn't say they weren't productive. I said they tend to be neurotic and manipulative. Just because a woman succeeds in industry does not mean she is a well-adjusted human being.

In any case, we are not going to arrive at a point of agreement, whether you shoot barbs about objectivity or not.

Post 51

Wednesday, February 2, 2005 - 5:32am

Folks,

I finally received a reply to an e-mail I sent the author last week. From this, I learned that he was born and raised in the Soviet Union and moved to the United States at age 19. He had some people proofread the book for spelling and grammar but admitted they did not do a good job. He thanked me for posting the review here and said Objectivism made perfect sense to him. He said he did not purposely omit discussions of ethics and so forth from the book but that his upbringing in the Soviet Union did not encourage this sort of discussion.

You can contact him via his web site if you would like to engage him further.

Luke Setzer

Post 52

Wednesday, February 2, 2005 - 8:30am

Jennifer,

Introducing the productivity of women was my attempt to find common ground, that is, some starting point of agreement that we could expand on and use to resolve our differences or at least understand our differences on this subject. You have stated definitively we are not going to reach agreement so I guess our discussion ends now.

Post 53

Wednesday, February 2, 2005 - 9:17am

Mike, I misunderstood your point, so please accept my apologies. You are correct that productivity is one interpretation we both share.

Post 54

Wednesday, February 2, 2005 - 11:27am

Jennifer,

There is a book that you might find agreeable... It's by Carol Tavris, and it's called The Mismeasure of Woman: Why Women Are Not the Better Sex, the Inferior Sex, or the Opposite Sex.

The title says it all, I think. I really am enjoying the book, although certain things she says do rankle me.

I wonder how you in particular would evaluate this book, since you are not just female, but what I consider to be a deviantly fair one, in contrast to the typical female of today.

Post 55

Wednesday, February 2, 2005 - 11:37am

Mike,

You should know that I avoid declaring statistical figures in conversations like these, because too often, people just repeat hearsay statistics as fact, or just make up numbers to win an argument. So, telling me "5%" or "50%" in places, when I have no way to really verify all that (even if I did a wild-goose chase on google or something and found all kinds of contradictory statistics) does not move me very much.

I think it's you who isn't living in the real world and who isn't being objective... I think you're putting your admirable need to promote the greatness of America over any desire to really see American women for the way they really are, right here, right now. And I think that this strategy of yours, while admirable, is misguided and ultimately detrimental.

This is because you have to first admit where you really are, when you're trapped in a maze, before you can begin to navigate your way out.

In other words, you might not like the idea that most American females today are tyrants, because you think that such an admission undermines America, but the truth is that until you admit the problem, you can't fix it... and thereby build the sort of country that you don't have to FAKE being proud of, but that you can REALLY be proud of.

Post 56

Wednesday, February 2, 2005 - 1:45pm

I finally received a reply to an e-mail I sent the author last week. From this, I learned that he was born and raised in the Soviet Union and moved to the United States at age 19.

Hmm, this information put the whole thing in a completely different light for me. I've known a few Russians, I'd say rather intimately. I think I know exactly where Mr. Hertzog's come from.

More later.

(Edited by Hong Zhang on 2/02, 1:46pm)

Post 57

Wednesday, February 2, 2005 - 6:25pm

Danny,

Regarding my statistics; off the top of my head I conservatively estimated the US population at 300 million and the world population at 6 billion. The most recent up to the minute estimated numbers are here:

http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html

giving these numbers:

US population: 295,383,980
World population: 6,416,410,619

From which I calculate:

US percent of world: 3.14% [somewhat less than 5%]

Productivity is somewhat harder, but I quickly found this website:

http://www.us.capgemini.com/ind_serv/industry/finance/WWR04_StateWealth.asp

Which report HNWI[High Net Worth Individual] wealth distribution by region, which shows $8.5 trillion for the US compared to $28.8 trillion world which works out to, alas, only 29.5% of world wealth. I would add that my impressions of these numbers is probably quite outdated perhaps even 10-20 years and probably the world has 'caught up' since I first heard about these types of comparisons.

I would like to say that when you use words like "mostly" and "largely" and "tends to" and then announce that as the "status quo" you are just begging for a statistical rejoinder. Those are words that describe interpretations of statistical data. Of which you have none supporting your assertion. Only subjective opinions. And what do you call generalizations based on subjective opinions? I suggest that it is your strategy that is misguided and ultimately detrimental and that it is you that is "caught in a maze".

Post 58

Wednesday, February 2, 2005 - 7:22pm

Jennifer,

Thank you, there was no apology necessary, but that was very nice. I was going to suggest that American women have participated more in all aspects of life, in all kinds of jobs, in politics, the sciences. In engineering it's majority men, but if I think of the top 10 engineers I have known, 2 of them are women. And it's a new thing, just the last couple of generations. Maybe because of the newness of this participation, some women haven't quite got it right yet. It'll take a while for much of the rest of the world to catch up, and only IF THEY WANT TO. That participation has to effect how American women are perceived. But that doesn't necessarily indicate neurosis does it? As to why it matters if we accept this generalization or not: the United States embarked on a great experiment involving equality, individual freedom and liberty. How are we to offer this to the parts of the world that haven't experienced it yet? "Free your women, educate them, give them the vote, welcome them into the workplace, and by the way, they'll become tyrannical, castrating neurotic bitches." By the way, I have met some women I haven't liked, as well as men, but I am convinced people as a whole, men and women, are rational and likeable. Like I said, it's the generalization I found offensive.

Post 59

Thursday, February 3, 2005 - 12:35am