19. It's a fair assessment I think. I am aware of some inherent sexism in me, which actually helps me stay in tune with people around me and get by. :)
I got 21. I think, though, that many of the questions are weird. For example, I think the question of whether women or men are better at learning languages is a scientific question which I do not know the answer to. Thus I based my answer on the fact that both of my adult daughters learn languages far more easily than I do.
The quiz was made by me. :-) According to my vision of what is sexist. So I'm sure it will seem weird to many people. :-)
As to the language learning, I believe that seeing men and women as different on any level other than purely physiological is sexist. Obviously, no part of female genitals are extremely helpful in language learning. Hence, it makes no sense to suggest that women in general would be better at it.
Then I am really confused bu #10. I think a child will benefit from having a stay at home parent. It does not matter which parent. But I could not figure out what the answer should be when I felt this way, so I put "Agree Slightly." And I put the same answer to # 8, since it has been my experience in how I have been treated by women. I do not think that either personal experience or scientific data should be put aside for a belief that men and women are as alike as you suggest here. I don't see how that is provable.
kids always benefit from having a parent stay at home with them. its better than leaving them at a daycare. putting stay at home mom instead of parent screwed that question. im more progressive than you are.
I wish people who were not victimized by a stay-at-home parents would stop pontificating about things they don't know. I wish people would get off their soapboxes and stop screeching about the "benefits" of being around somebody who is constantly weepy, constantly hysterical, feels constantly exhausted and underappreciated, and constantly cannibalizes their children lives because of a total lack of a life of their own.
If you were raised by a stay-at-home parent and you have never had low self-esteem issues, eating disorders, body image problems, fear of speaking in public, high level of anxiety and/or panic attacks, then color yourself extremely lucky.
Housewives are the group of population that suffers the most from depression. Interestingly, this phenomenon is not culture specific. Google "housewives" and "depression" and you will see what I mean. If you don't have time to educate yourself on this subject, that's fine. Just don't come talking of "benefits" to those of us who have been screwed up beyond belief by these super-beneficial stay-at-home parents.
Googling two terms put together doesn't seem like a promising if one's looking for scientific information, but that's my general experience. Is there a definitive psychological study you can point people towards?
You also still haven't given explained the connection between stay-at-home parents (dads included) and sexism.
(Side note, is there anyone existing who doesn't have one of "low self-esteem issues, eating disorders, body image problems, fear of speaking in public, high level of anxiety and/or panic attacks." Who's never had a low self-esteem? These things seem to come regardless of what one's parents do.)
"Who's never had a low self-esteem? These things seem to come regardless of what one's parents do"
-This has to be the most hilarious thing I have read in the past month or so. If you believe that low self-esteem has nothing to do with one's childhood experiences, then I don't think any "definitive psychological study" of anything will be of much help to you, my friend. Psychology is definitely not your cup of tea at all.
Question #3 struck me as very odd. I wouldn’t brag about how much money my partner made (or how much money I make for that matter) no matter what my partner’s gender was (I am bisexual). For me, income is a very private matter and not something I would discuss outside of my family.
Quizes like this one reveal more about the question setter than they do about the participant. I scored 22 out of 46. Here are my answers:
"1. In the dating game, nice guys always finish last" Agree, because that has been my experience, and also the experience of many other men I have spoken too. I don't agree that this makes me sexist. To the contrary, I think it sexist to demand that men deny their own experiences in this regard in order to accord with feminist doctrine.
However, I agreed only slightly, as the issue is actually rather complex Score 4.
"2. I would feel weird if my wife and my child did not have my last name" Disagree strongly. Score 0. Yay!
But hold on. The question assumes that quiz respondents have or at least can imagine having wives, which excludes most female respondents. Seems rather sexist to me.
"3. If my romantic partner were making more money than I do, I would brag about it to everybody I know" Strongly disagree - Score 4 - though I fail to see how my respect for my partner's privacy is sexist.
What view would you take of a woman who strongly agreed that she would brag about her male partner's higher earnings to everyone she knew?
"4. Women are better than men at learning languages" My understanding is that women, on average do generally do better at learning language - with plenty of variation between individuals of course. But my agreement is slight because I haven't looked closely at the research on the subject. I'm willing to revise my views in the face of scientific evidence. What I am not willing to do is revise them to accord with political doctrine. Score 4.
"5. Talking about feelings comes easier to women than to men." Again, Agree slightly. It seems to be true, based upon my experience, but I'm willing to be persuaded otherwise if offered evidence. Score 4.
"6. Women worry more about their weight than men". Ditto. I'm not sure why my slight agreement only scores 3 this time.
"7. Women want to get married more than men do". I don't know. Because you didn't allow a "don't know" option, I chose slight disagreement. Score 2.
"8. Women say that they prefer sensitive men but in reality women despise men who are very emotional." I initially took this refer to a dating context, and gave the same answer as I did for question 1. But then I realised that the question did not stipulate this. In this wider context, the picture is even more complex and I slightly disagree. Score 1.
"9. Abortion should be freely available to women whenever they decide to have one." But darling, we're at the theatre. Can't you wait until we get to a clinic?
I'm strongly in favour of reproductive choice for women, but the language of "whenever they decide to have one" is too strong for me to give more than slight agreement. Score 1.
"10 Children benefit from having a stay-at-home mother" I initially took the phrase "stay-at-home" to refer to the time children are there themselves, and gave slight agreement, since I agree that one parent should be there. Reading the comments above, I realise that by "stay-at-home" you meant didn't go out at all. Obviously that isn't good for anyone, so strongly disagree. Score 0. Yay!
Thank you for your detailed responses, Daran! They demonstrate that my quiz works very well. Your cavalier attitude towards abortion is a perfect illustration of sexism. Sure, women make this decision very easily and the scenario you describe is very pervasive. Tons of women demosntrate and protest every day defending their right to have abortions in theatres. Sexists despise women, and your contempt towards women shines through in your responses.
I wonder, is that the kind of "niceness" that women rejected in you on the dating scene? Let me tell you, my friend, it's probably not your niceness women reject. It's the fact you dislike and despise women. Feel free to kid yourself that this kind of discourse makes people see you as "nice."
I don't care for question 3 at all. It doesn't matter how much money I make or how much money my partner makes,I don't talk about how much money I make unless someone asks, and even then, I only answer if it seems appropriate to tell them. Bragging about income? No, I wouldn't do that.
I don't see anything feminist about bragging if my man makes more than me. Incidentally, I make more than he does and I don't brag. Bragging about money seems rather tacky.
Women worry about our weight more is just about as much of a statistical fact as women make less money than men. Our society has many more requirements and expectations for women's appearances than men's. Woman's clothes are even cut in such a way that if you have any "extra" weight everyone can tell, but men's are cut to be much more forgiving. It's not sexist to recognize these facts, if anything it's sexist to ignore them.
"Your cavalier attitude towards abortion is a perfect illustration of sexism. Sure, women make this decision very easily and the scenario you describe is very pervasive. Tons of women demosntrate and protest every day defending their right to have abortions in theatres."
Of course they don't. But I was not asked to indicate my support, or otherwise, for what tons of women demonstrate and protest about, but my agreement with the statement in the quiz. That statement contains the clause "whenever they decide to have one", which I find problematic.
Even without the problematic clause, the statement is a strong one. It would not satisfied by the mere decriminalisation of elective abortion. It places an affirmative responsibility upon some entity, presumably the state, to provide abortions freely to women who decide to have them. Yet, that strong statement is one that I would support strongly.
I've thought about this. I've blogged about this. It is exceedingly hasty of you to infer from my use of a reductio ad absurdum argument against the problematic clause, to a general "cavalier attitude toward abortion" and thence to "contempt towards women".
I will agree with Daran on one thing: this reveals more about you than about us.
For example:
In some, you are trying to knock down the innate arguments ("women are better nuturers, communicators, etc."), and others you are trying to knock down stereotypes (6, 7, 8). But the stereotype ones are completely unverifiable. To worry about one's weight is not an innate thing; it is a result of social pressure. Are there more women who are socially pressured to worry about their weight than men? Probably. But by agreeing slightly, I got a 3. Even if I think women shouldn't have that pressure, it doesn't change the fact that the statement is still probably true and your scoring has no basis in reality.
While 2 and 10 are both issues disputed among feminists (those who want to take their husband's last name, for example, and someone who wants to be a stay-at-home mom). Indeed, I think children would absolutely benefit from having a stay-at-home mother, just as they would a stay-at-home father. But your agenda is clear (victimized I guess?) and doesn't allow for nuance.
Reminds of me CNN's "this is not a scientific poll!" and it's equally false choices.
In questions 5, 6, and 7, are you asking whether or not women inherently do action X more than men? I don't think there's anything inherently feminine about those actions, but women tend to do them more thanks to cultural pressure.
As for four, in my experience women tend to be more attracted, at least, to language-related fields. IIRC there's some structural differences between male and female brains, but I'm also guessing a big part of that imbalance is due, once again, to languages being classified as a "girl" subject while things like math and science are dudely things.
Also, out of curiosity, why did you score question three the way you did, with "disagree completely" being worth four points? I wouldn't brag about my husband/wife's income any more than I'd brag about my own.
Question two is an interesting one, and I'm always curious to see what other people think about it. My thoughts on the matter have always been that the woman's the one doing all the work to form them in the first place; therefore, her last name should be the one to stick. As such, if I ended up having kids with a dude, yeah, I'd be a little put out if the kid ended up with his last name. How would you name your kids?
I'm glad the quiz is provoking so much controversy. My brand of feminism is obviously is not the acquiescent anything-goes third-wave kind. Of course, the quiz speaks to my understanding of feminism, who else's can it possibly speak to if I'm the one who made it? I wish people would abstain from stating the obvious.
I do agree that bragging to everybody that your partner makes more than you do is as sexist as concealing it as if it were a dirty secret.
Women talk more about their weight worries than men do because it is more societally acceptable for them to discuss this in public. Privately, however, men worry about it just as much. Some worry they are too fat, some worry they are too skinny, some worry about the way their muscles look, and so on and so forth. Not acknowledging how much this issue bothers men is, in my opinion, sexist. Assuming that all women are becessarily worried about their weight is also sexist.
Galatea: As a language teacher with 20 years of experience, I have to agree that, indeed, women take language courses a lot more often for the reasons you specify. However, being attracted to language programs and doing better at them than men are two completely different things.
In my opinion, seeing the world in terms of men vs women is inherently sexist. Any statement that makes generalized assumptions about men and women and starts with "Women always..." or something similar is sexist.
As for the children's names, I don't have children but if I were to have them, one solution would be to give the boy the father's last name and the girl the mother's last name. This would go against the family tradition, though, because in my family we have our mother's last name.
Nobody's arguing that men don't worry about their weight, or that every woman ever does. The question was whether or not women worry more, and you know, I really think they do.
I think that's changing -- for example, the percentage of men with eating disorders has been going up in the last few years, although a certain part of that is simply because more people are acknowledging that eating disorders are not exclusively for rich white girls -- but the amount of shame and ridicule aimed at people who don't fit the Proper Bodily Ideal is still aimed disproportionately at women.
Also, I think you're misreading what I said. I wouldn't conceal my partner's wages like a "dirty little secret", but neither would I brag about it. That's because, outside of a few select conversations, I don't think how much we make is really all that relevant, not because I'm embarrassed that whoever I'm dating is making more or less money than me.
"Indeed, I think children would absolutely benefit from having a stay-at-home mother, just as they would a stay-at-home father. But your agenda is clear (victimized I guess?) and doesn't allow for nuance."
-Housewives are the group of population that suffers the most from depression. Can anybody please explain to me in what way anybody can possibly benefit from eing stuck at home with a permanently depressed individual?
"Anxiety, phobia, paranoia and psychosomatic sub-scale points and average of symptoms were significantly higher in the housewives. Working has a positive psychological influence on women who have a lower economic status. (4) Housewives have much more stress and depressive symptoms (5,6). The middle-aged women's psychology is positively affected when working for a salary. (5) Working women are more adapted to marriage than housewives. (7)"
http://www.aile.selcuk.edu.tr/text/article1.htm
"Comparison of a patient population of depressed housewives with a matched group of depressed working women revealed some significant differences in social functioning in relation to work roles. The psychological benefits of outside employment have been widely discussed in relation to middle-class and upper-class women; this study indicates that, for women of lower socio-economic status, work may also have a protective psychological effect."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1180337
"It appears that working mothers, when compared to full-time housewives, are less likely to become overweight, have a better level of health and a healthier relationship."
"The risk of developing major depression was predicted at the beginning of pregnancy by the presence of previous depressive episodes (odds ratio [OR] 9.5, 95% confidence interval [CI] 2.5-29.2) and conflicts with husband/partner (OR 7.8, 95% CI 1.02-62.7), whereas the risk of developing minor depression was predicted by being a housewife (OR 7.2, 95% CI 2.3-22.1), presence of previous depressive episodes (OR 4.7, 95% CI 1.4-15.3) and whether the pregnancy was unwanted (OR 2.4, 95% CI 1.0-5.7)."
I can find tons more of these studies linking housewives and depression. It shocks me that people still have the gall to screech how beneficial this institution is to women and children. Anxiety, phobia, paranoia, and depression: what child isn't going to benefit from that fantastic experience?
Galatea: we seem to agree on both issues here. :-) I also don't think that it's a good thing to brag about your partner's salary, and the quiz reflects that. I think that having some sense of pride in your partner's achievement is good. I would share it with my closest friends but not with everybody. The question was, of course, mostly aimed at those who hate the idea of their partner making even a dollar more and sit their with their lips pursed in resentment whenevr the issue arises.
As to the weight, women are, indeed, shamed more for not corresponding to the "perfect-size-zero" beauty ideal. But the question wasn't about who gets shamed more for weight issues. It was about who worries more. And everything that I have seen in life tells me that it's as much a male worry as it is female.
More on housewives and how super beneficial they are:
"The largest group of Americans who attempt suicide are housewives."
Chesler, Phyllis. Women and Madness New York: Springer Publishing Co, Inc., 1983.
I mean, who cares if this kind of existence makes a woman suicidal. What matters is that it's soooooo beneficial for the children. In reality, nobody gives a rat's ass about stay-at-home women being beneficial to the children. Depressed, paranoid, anxious and suicidal they can hardly be all that good for the kids.
The reality is, though, that the lord and master wants home cooked breakfast, fresh ironed shirt and a wife who has no life apart from him. Especially no life where she can attract and be attracted by some other man. Or even woman.
You people will be sorry that you started me on the subjects of housewives. :-)
"Results of unpaired t-test showed significant difference between depression scores of housewives and employees (t = 9.179, P = 0.003). Anxiety and depression were observed more in homemakers comparing to outside employees. In our study, anxiety and/or depression were observed more in housewives (vs. outside employees). It seems being at work outside home decreases psychological signs of anxiety and depression."
BMC Women's Health 2004, 4:9
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6874/4/9
It would take anybody with an Internet connection about twenty minutes to find all this information and a lot more. Still, people prefer to pontificate about the "benefits" of housewife status because they were told so by Fox news or by some resident preacher.
Whoops, I posted before I saw your last comment, sorry.
Re: naming -- that's a nice solution. I still would prefer to do it my way, though; I like that my sister and I have the same last name, and I selfishly hope if/when she gets hitched she'll keep our last name. Being clearly marked as belonging to the same clan has always appealed to me.
Re: generalised assumptions -- are you objecting to the use of "always" and similar modifiers, or to any generalised statement about men and women at all? Because if it's the first, sure. If it's the second, I think that's a really simplistic and ineffective way of going about things. If you work for equality you almost have to generalise huge swaths of the population (I mean, hell, you're doing it with stay-at-home-parents).
Re: weight -- honestly, I still disagree. Shaming makes women worry more, and worry harder. Men can be painfully shy about their bodies (I have a friend who goes swimming in a t-shirt because he hates how skinny he is), but body image just flat-out doesn't carry as much cultural weight (haha) as it does for women. It's not as consumingly important.
Re: finances -- we agree, thanks for clearing that up. I got stuck on the word "brag", I think.
I'm still undecided on the children's last name, though. I might choose the option of only giving them my last name. You simply can't know until you go through the effects of pregnancy and giving birth. :-)
As to weight, maybe I'm surrounded by men with body issues more than other people, I don't know. But honestly, I am yet to meet a man who wouldn't keep saying "Do I feel too fat/too skinny in these pants?" And I do know at least one woman who doesn't worry about this issue: me. :-)
Generalizing about people on the basis of characteristics they are orn with is not the same as generalizing on the basis of their chosen lifestyles.
"As to the weight, women are, indeed, shamed more for not corresponding to the "perfect-size-zero" beauty ideal. But the question wasn't about who gets shamed more for weight issues. It was about who worries more. And everything that I have seen in life tells me that it's as much a male worry as it is female."
Everything I have seen in life tells me that it's more a female worry than it is a male worry.
And that's OK. We have had different life-experiences and reached different conclusions as a result. I do not believe that my life experience is the One True Life Experience, and that anyone whose life experiences lead them to a different conclusion is necessarily sexist.
Once again: this is not about life experiences, which can, indeed, be extremely different. It's about generalizations about "all women" and "all men", which are profoundly sexist.
In the (Southern Presbyterian) Christian tradition that I grew up in, the pervasive message was "You are worthless. Your worth is, in fact, negative. Your only hope to be of even neutral worth is to accept Jesus as your personal saviour and devote your life to him utterly and completely. Thinking about any sort of sin was itself sinful.
Dancing was forbidden, for example, since it might lead to thoughts of sex, which were profoundly sinful unless and until you were married. In my teens, I trained myself, at the church's insistence, to be able to look at attractive girls without thinking of sex at all. I still have trouble fantasizing about sex for that reason, at age 66.
"It's about generalizations about "all women" and "all men", which are profoundly sexist."
None of your questions said anything about "all men" or "all women" and I didn't construe them to be making universal claims.
How many people actually believe that all women are better at languages, at talking about their feelings, worry about their weight more, etc., than all men? This sounds like a straw sexist to me.
"Once again: this is not about life experiences, which can, indeed, be extremely different."
But it IS about life experiences, by your own admission.
Your justification for saying men equally worry about their weight: "And everything that I have seen in life tells me that it's as much a male worry as it is female." Your experience.
And your argument against stay at home moms? Because you were victimized. You back it up with studies, and OK there is merit to the argument. But all stay-at-home experiences aren't with depressing mothers. According to your studies, it's not even the average (although 30% is more than enough).
By your own admission, again, this quiz is based on YOUR feminism, your subjectivity. Nothing at all about all men or all women.
Zach: I think you will have to accept that certain people consider your views to be sexist. In my opinion (to which, as you will surely agree, I am definitely entitled), your responses to the quiz qualify you as undoubtedly sexist.
Your attempts to manipulate information I provide make any discussion useless. If you somehow manage to confuse "depressed mothers" with "depressing mothers", I give up.
In your place, I would definitely ask myself why it bothers you so much that some people (me) see you as sexist.
LOL. I don't expect to see this comment posted, but I can't help but reply.
I guess I will have to accept it, just like I'll have to accept religious people delusionally think I'm going to hell. And, to be clear, it never did bother me that some insignifcant people see me as sexist, just like it didn't bother me that other delusional people feel this way or that way about me.
In my equally-entitled-to opinion, you're an over-the-top gasbag who has trouble dealing with obvious contradictions in your thoughts and write it off as "your own special brand of feminism", making it equally unnecessary to justify and unworthy of consideration as serious thinking. LOL, thanks for the laugh though.
Rage is a good, productive emotion, Zach. I truly believe that this discussion will allow you to reconsider at least some of your sexist views.
Normally, people don't spend as much time in the blogs of insignificant and delusional bloggers participating in discussions. When they do, it means that something in that "insignificant, over-the-top" discussion has struck a cord. That's good. That's what I aim for. :-) Liberation from sexism often comes accompanied with strong emotions and anger. I believe in you and your non-sexist future, my friend!
I'm coming to this debate way too late, of course, but: My mother is the opposite of maternal, but she is challenging and intelligent, she is wonderful, I adore her, she is my hero, and she has been the primary wage earner in her household (no longer my household, but it was for 23 yrs) since before I was born.
I was raised by her, AND by my stay-at-home dad, who is a JD, who has, since both kids left home, returned to practice, who is one of the wisest, kindest, and most patient people I know, and who is my other hero.
See, I was raised by BOTH parents, even if only one of them stayed home, and that is my "disagree" with question 10.
BUT. I benefited enormously from having my father at home while growing up. And not just because he could supervise slumber parties and drive me to ballet lessons; but because he could read with me, discuss things with me, talk to me, and be my friend and my dad. My brother, who got a deadly disease at age 10, and battled it til it went into remission at 17 (chemo was the beginning), and who then battled drug addiction and legal trouble, needed my dad - and the fact that he was there, always, I think (hope) played a role in how well he came out of it.
So please, parents forced to stay at home = bad. Parents unhappy staying at home = bad. But stay-at-home parents are not always bad.
Good quiz. My score was almost perfect, 40 out of 46. I think most women suffer from an abundance of self-esteem, so it sounds like a stay-at-home parent is a good thing, after all. One should not have self-esteem when one deserves no esteem whatsoever. Once you've accomplished something, such as being an honest and upstanding person, you deserve esteem, self or otherwise. As for being sexist, well, the "patriarchy" quite literally put a roof over my head and yours, so thank it. Learn about it before you bash it, in any case.
I was just opining that we should all start with a low self-esteem, until we've earned some esteem. So if a stay-at-home parent causes low self-esteem, that might be a good thing. My second unrelated point is that your quiz indirectly calls me a sexist, which to me implies a knock on the patriarchy. If there is no such knock in your mind, my bad. I admit that I wrote in such a shorthand manner, from such a foreign-to-you point of view, that I had no chance of getting my points across.
Anyway, I am sexist, because I happen to believe the sexes are inherently different in important ways. For example, men take up guitar and get good at it because it gets them laid. Women take up guitar but don't have quite the same biological drive to get good at it, so far fewer do. Granted there are some good women guitarists (outliers), but ON AVERAGE men are better.
This is an example of biology determining ability in a way that will never change, no matter how much we change our minds. Women can't help what they are attracted to, no more than men can. It's biological. Yes, we can all settle for someone to which we're not attracted, in order to placate some nagging moral idea about fairness, but is that better? Or even likely?
Mind you, I'm all for women BEING ALLOWED to do whatever they are capable of, but I'm against things like quotas in the mathematical professions, for example. Men are better at math (paraphrasing Barbie here). If you disagree, I don't care, because chicks dig a guy on a motorcycle.
I finally took the quiz, and got 25, more or less on the borderline but still in the green zone (so I passed :) ) I was sure I will get more. Because I answered based on how I believe things are, not on how they would be in some kind of idealized feminist society (i.e. women do worry more than men about weight, about getting married, etc.) It is not very enlightened (both of them and of me :) ) but they do.
Elhaf, your post is a good illustration to what Pagan Topologist said above - to the idea that esteem is only earned. But this is not the only possible way. I think it is good to have enough self esteem to expect some level of dignity and goodwill even if one did not accomplish anything. Accomplishments are mostly subjective thing anyway. Not everybody considers being good at math, or owning a motorbike or even getting laid :) an accomplishment...
"(i.e. women do worry more than men about weight, about getting married, etc.):
-In TV shows, not in real life. In the past 25 years or so, statistically, men are overwhelmingly more interested in marriage than women. This stands to reason because women lose out in marriage, while men gain a lot. Women's life expectancy drops in marriage, they are stuck with the bulk of housework and child-rearing, they lag significantly behind unmarried women in their careers. So as much as shows like "Sex and the City" try to convince us that women are desperate to get married, reality is very different.
When I used dating sites, my personal observations coincided with the statistical evidence: men only want marriage. Desperately and with great insistence. There was barely a guy who didn't mention marriage until the third date.
Comedy, eh? Men do better at that too, again because it will get them laid. It will not get women laid, so they don't do better at it. If you think that is comedy and not fact, you are deluded greatly. You might wish it were another way, but it isn't.
"Men do better at that too, again because it will get them laid. It will not get women laid, so they don't do better at it."
-You do realize that with this statement you just confirmed that there are no differences between men and women, right? :-) So why would I wish it were any other way, if you are working so hard to prove me right? :-)
I believe the purpose of the TV shows is to be viewed. And they are viewed because they touch something within the people. If shows like Sex and the City, or several different variations of the weight loss shows, or of cosmetic surgery shows, etc, are being watched - they address something widespread in the collective subconscious.
Who would watch a TV show about physics professor, unless this professor either a) behaved very comically (as in Big Bang Theory) or b) slept with the students? (most likely ugly ones, as stereotypes demand) :)
By the way, there is a British plastic surgery show called "say no to the knife" where a team of a style expert and a psychologist try to influence the people (who usually just have some self-esteem issues) against the surgery.
Television is wish fulfillment. It sells us our fantasy of what we want the world to be like, not what it actually is. Women watch Sex and the City (in my opinion) because they want to imagine this simpler world where all you need to be happy is catch a husband and buy some shoes. The world isn't like that any more but they like to pretend it is while they are watching. :-)
Goes the same for the example you describe with physics professors. :-) Who wouldn't want them to be more funny and less intimidating? :-) Wish fulfillment, again. :-)
Men are different from women, which still seems to flabbergast feminists: http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201010/the-truth-about-beauty Men may worry more about weight, but women *should* worry more about weight if they are interested in men at all.
"The huge majority of stay at homes moms choose to do so and are happy with it"
-Nobody says they don't choose it, so I don't see the point of your statement. As for the happiness of housewives, please enter the words "depression" and "housewives" into Google and read the results. That will tell you who is pathetic here.
Ooh, it is fascinating how upset people got. I was raised by a depressed housewife who had chosen her fate, and did not like it, but felt it was her duty. I am still trying to recover from the effects of this.
I'm very, very late coming to this party, as I found this completely by accident searching for something else, but after going through it I had to comment.
Well I have to say, there is nothing better than seeing someone who rants against stereotyping (in this case sexism against women) who then goes right out and uses stereotypes of their own (in this case negative stereotypes about housewives) to justify their own preconceived notions based on their own experiences. And you can use all the stats you want, but I could do the same with crime rates and "prove" minorities are more violent than whites in the same way, or even find stats that "prove" mothers are dangerous because they're more likely to abuse kids than fathers. Of course that's ridiculous.
On another note, you say your poll takes into account it's sexist to brag about your wife making more than you, but it doesn't. I changed my response from "Strongly Disagree" to "Strongly Agree." Strongly Disagree gave me the full 4 points. Strongly Agree gave me 1 point. It's still a score implying sexism, to be sure, but it is a decent amount lower. Apparently it's worse to not mention it at all than it is to brag to everyone. I don't know anyone that brags about salary, which is about as arrogant as people can get, men or women alike, but that's another discussion entirely.
And I got 28/46. Fine with me, considering the tone of the blog, I was hoping for somewhere in the neighborhood of 35, but 28 will do.
However I disagree with the formulation of this quiz.
First of all, the questions don't have neutral options, e.g. "I don't know" or "Neither agree or disagree".
Question 3 and question 10 irk me in particular: I wouldn't brag because I don't brag, and because it wouldn't make a big difference to me, not out of shame; and I believe that children benefit from having a stay at home parent, so I agree completely that children benefit from having a stay at home mother.
Question 6 also bothered me because I observe that women do tend to worry more about their weight than men do, due to differing societal pressures. I think it would be better to word the question to include the word "naturally".
Sorry if this has already been mentioned in previous comments.
Judging by the questions, I'm more than sure the answer would portray me as sexist. Couldn't care about salary, or last name, but the rest of the questions are simply a moot point. Definitely agree that the quiz reveals more about the author than anyone else. Some of the questions were so blatantly geared toward the "right answer", it was ridiculous. Does the author have a right to an opinion? Sure. Should it at least have both sides of the coin to allow the reader to make a decision on his own? Keep dreaming.
64 comments:
Haha. Love it :)
19. It's a fair assessment I think. I am aware of some inherent sexism in me, which actually helps me stay in tune with people around me and get by. :)
Is the quiz for men or for women? :)
(now, that was a very sexist question... :):) )
Thank you for sharing the results, cringe-all. Other people seem to be a little shy about that. :-)
V.: like everything else in my life, the quiz is not gender-specific. :-)
I got 21. I think, though, that many of the questions are weird. For example, I think the question of whether women or men are better at learning languages is a scientific question which I do not know the answer to. Thus I based my answer on the fact that both of my adult daughters learn languages far more easily than I do.
The quiz was made by me. :-) According to my vision of what is sexist. So I'm sure it will seem weird to many people. :-)
As to the language learning, I believe that seeing men and women as different on any level other than purely physiological is sexist. Obviously, no part of female genitals are extremely helpful in language learning. Hence, it makes no sense to suggest that women in general would be better at it.
Then I am really confused bu #10. I think a child will benefit from having a stay at home parent. It does not matter which parent. But I could not figure out what the answer should be when I felt this way, so I put "Agree Slightly." And I put the same answer to # 8, since it has been my experience in how I have been treated by women. I do not think that either personal experience or scientific data should be put aside for a belief that men and women are as alike as you suggest here. I don't see how that is provable.
kids always benefit from having a parent stay at home with them. its better than leaving them at a daycare. putting stay at home mom instead of parent screwed that question. im more progressive than you are.
I wish people who were not victimized by a stay-at-home parents would stop pontificating about things they don't know. I wish people would get off their soapboxes and stop screeching about the "benefits" of being around somebody who is constantly weepy, constantly hysterical, feels constantly exhausted and underappreciated, and constantly cannibalizes their children lives because of a total lack of a life of their own.
If you were raised by a stay-at-home parent and you have never had low self-esteem issues, eating disorders, body image problems, fear of speaking in public, high level of anxiety and/or panic attacks, then color yourself extremely lucky.
Housewives are the group of population that suffers the most from depression. Interestingly, this phenomenon is not culture specific. Google "housewives" and "depression" and you will see what I mean. If you don't have time to educate yourself on this subject, that's fine. Just don't come talking of "benefits" to those of us who have been screwed up beyond belief by these super-beneficial stay-at-home parents.
Googling two terms put together doesn't seem like a promising if one's looking for scientific information, but that's my general experience. Is there a definitive psychological study you can point people towards?
You also still haven't given explained the connection between stay-at-home parents (dads included) and sexism.
(Side note, is there anyone existing who doesn't have one of "low self-esteem issues, eating disorders, body image problems, fear of speaking in public, high level of anxiety and/or panic attacks." Who's never had a low self-esteem? These things seem to come regardless of what one's parents do.)
"Who's never had a low self-esteem? These things seem to come regardless of what one's parents do"
-This has to be the most hilarious thing I have read in the past month or so. If you believe that low self-esteem has nothing to do with one's childhood experiences, then I don't think any "definitive psychological study" of anything will be of much help to you, my friend. Psychology is definitely not your cup of tea at all.
The low self esteem I grew up with had more to do with Christianity than with my stay-at-home mother, as far as I can tell.
This is very interesting. How do you think Christianity led to low self-esteem for you?
Question #3 struck me as very odd. I wouldn’t brag about how much money my partner made (or how much money I make for that matter) no matter what my partner’s gender was (I am bisexual). For me, income is a very private matter and not something I would discuss outside of my family.
I agree with you, Aaron, and the quiz reflects that. :-)
Quizes like this one reveal more about the question setter than they do about the participant. I scored 22 out of 46. Here are my answers:
"1. In the dating game, nice guys always finish last" Agree, because that has been my experience, and also the experience of many other men I have spoken too. I don't agree that this makes me sexist. To the contrary, I think it sexist to demand that men deny their own experiences in this regard in order to accord with feminist doctrine.
However, I agreed only slightly, as the issue is actually rather complex Score 4.
"2. I would feel weird if my wife and my child did not have my last name" Disagree strongly. Score 0. Yay!
But hold on. The question assumes that quiz respondents have or at least can imagine having wives, which excludes most female respondents. Seems rather sexist to me.
"3. If my romantic partner were making more money than I do, I would brag about it to everybody I know" Strongly disagree - Score 4 - though I fail to see how my respect for my partner's privacy is sexist.
What view would you take of a woman who strongly agreed that she would brag about her male partner's higher earnings to everyone she knew?
"4. Women are better than men at learning languages" My understanding is that women, on average do generally do better at learning language - with plenty of variation between individuals of course. But my agreement is slight because I haven't looked closely at the research on the subject. I'm willing to revise my views in the face of scientific evidence. What I am not willing to do is revise them to accord with political doctrine. Score 4.
"5. Talking about feelings comes easier to women than to men." Again, Agree slightly. It seems to be true, based upon my experience, but I'm willing to be persuaded otherwise if offered evidence. Score 4.
"6. Women worry more about their weight than men". Ditto. I'm not sure why my slight agreement only scores 3 this time.
"7. Women want to get married more than men do". I don't know. Because you didn't allow a "don't know" option, I chose slight disagreement. Score 2.
"8. Women say that they prefer sensitive men but in reality women despise men who are very emotional." I initially took this refer to a dating context, and gave the same answer as I did for question 1. But then I realised that the question did not stipulate this. In this wider context, the picture is even more complex and I slightly disagree. Score 1.
"9. Abortion should be freely available to women whenever they decide to have one." But darling, we're at the theatre. Can't you wait until we get to a clinic?
I'm strongly in favour of reproductive choice for women, but the language of "whenever they decide to have one" is too strong for me to give more than slight agreement. Score 1.
"10 Children benefit from having a stay-at-home mother" I initially took the phrase "stay-at-home" to refer to the time children are there themselves, and gave slight agreement, since I agree that one parent should be there. Reading the comments above, I realise that by "stay-at-home" you meant didn't go out at all. Obviously that isn't good for anyone, so strongly disagree. Score 0. Yay!
Thank you for your detailed responses, Daran! They demonstrate that my quiz works very well. Your cavalier attitude towards abortion is a perfect illustration of sexism. Sure, women make this decision very easily and the scenario you describe is very pervasive. Tons of women demosntrate and protest every day defending their right to have abortions in theatres. Sexists despise women, and your contempt towards women shines through in your responses.
I wonder, is that the kind of "niceness" that women rejected in you on the dating scene? Let me tell you, my friend, it's probably not your niceness women reject. It's the fact you dislike and despise women. Feel free to kid yourself that this kind of discourse makes people see you as "nice."
I don't care for question 3 at all. It doesn't matter how much money I make or how much money my partner makes,I don't talk about how much money I make unless someone asks, and even then, I only answer if it seems appropriate to tell them. Bragging about income? No, I wouldn't do that.
I got number 3 and 6 "wrong".
I don't see anything feminist about bragging if my man makes more than me. Incidentally, I make more than he does and I don't brag. Bragging about money seems rather tacky.
Women worry about our weight more is just about as much of a statistical fact as women make less money than men. Our society has many more requirements and expectations for women's appearances than men's. Woman's clothes are even cut in such a way that if you have any "extra" weight everyone can tell, but men's are cut to be much more forgiving. It's not sexist to recognize these facts, if anything it's sexist to ignore them.
"Your cavalier attitude towards abortion is a perfect illustration of sexism. Sure, women make this decision very easily and the scenario you describe is very pervasive. Tons of women demosntrate and protest every day defending their right to have abortions in theatres."
Of course they don't. But I was not asked to indicate my support, or otherwise, for what tons of women demonstrate and protest about, but my agreement with the statement in the quiz. That statement contains the clause "whenever they decide to have one", which I find problematic.
Even without the problematic clause, the statement is a strong one. It would not satisfied by the mere decriminalisation of elective abortion. It places an affirmative responsibility upon some entity, presumably the state, to provide abortions freely to women who decide to have them. Yet, that strong statement is one that I would support strongly.
I've thought about this. I've blogged about this. It is exceedingly hasty of you to infer from my use of a reductio ad absurdum argument against the problematic clause, to a general "cavalier attitude toward abortion" and thence to "contempt towards women".
I will agree with Daran on one thing: this reveals more about you than about us.
For example:
In some, you are trying to knock down the innate arguments ("women are better nuturers, communicators, etc."), and others you are trying to knock down stereotypes (6, 7, 8). But the stereotype ones are completely unverifiable. To worry about one's weight is not an innate thing; it is a result of social pressure. Are there more women who are socially pressured to worry about their weight than men? Probably. But by agreeing slightly, I got a 3. Even if I think women shouldn't have that pressure, it doesn't change the fact that the statement is still probably true and your scoring has no basis in reality.
While 2 and 10 are both issues disputed among feminists (those who want to take their husband's last name, for example, and someone who wants to be a stay-at-home mom). Indeed, I think children would absolutely benefit from having a stay-at-home mother, just as they would a stay-at-home father. But your agenda is clear (victimized I guess?) and doesn't allow for nuance.
Reminds of me CNN's "this is not a scientific poll!" and it's equally false choices.
Huh. This is a confusingly worded quiz.
In questions 5, 6, and 7, are you asking whether or not women inherently do action X more than men? I don't think there's anything inherently feminine about those actions, but women tend to do them more thanks to cultural pressure.
As for four, in my experience women tend to be more attracted, at least, to language-related fields. IIRC there's some structural differences between male and female brains, but I'm also guessing a big part of that imbalance is due, once again, to languages being classified as a "girl" subject while things like math and science are dudely things.
Also, out of curiosity, why did you score question three the way you did, with "disagree completely" being worth four points? I wouldn't brag about my husband/wife's income any more than I'd brag about my own.
Question two is an interesting one, and I'm always curious to see what other people think about it. My thoughts on the matter have always been that the woman's the one doing all the work to form them in the first place; therefore, her last name should be the one to stick. As such, if I ended up having kids with a dude, yeah, I'd be a little put out if the kid ended up with his last name. How would you name your kids?
I'm glad the quiz is provoking so much controversy. My brand of feminism is obviously is not the acquiescent anything-goes third-wave kind. Of course, the quiz speaks to my understanding of feminism, who else's can it possibly speak to if I'm the one who made it? I wish people would abstain from stating the obvious.
I do agree that bragging to everybody that your partner makes more than you do is as sexist as concealing it as if it were a dirty secret.
Women talk more about their weight worries than men do because it is more societally acceptable for them to discuss this in public. Privately, however, men worry about it just as much. Some worry they are too fat, some worry they are too skinny, some worry about the way their muscles look, and so on and so forth. Not acknowledging how much this issue bothers men is, in my opinion, sexist. Assuming that all women are becessarily worried about their weight is also sexist.
Galatea: As a language teacher with 20 years of experience, I have to agree that, indeed, women take language courses a lot more often for the reasons you specify. However, being attracted to language programs and doing better at them than men are two completely different things.
In my opinion, seeing the world in terms of men vs women is inherently sexist. Any statement that makes generalized assumptions about men and women and starts with "Women always..." or something similar is sexist.
As for the children's names, I don't have children but if I were to have them, one solution would be to give the boy the father's last name and the girl the mother's last name. This would go against the family tradition, though, because in my family we have our mother's last name.
Nobody's arguing that men don't worry about their weight, or that every woman ever does. The question was whether or not women worry more, and you know, I really think they do.
I think that's changing -- for example, the percentage of men with eating disorders has been going up in the last few years, although a certain part of that is simply because more people are acknowledging that eating disorders are not exclusively for rich white girls -- but the amount of shame and ridicule aimed at people who don't fit the Proper Bodily Ideal is still aimed disproportionately at women.
Also, I think you're misreading what I said. I wouldn't conceal my partner's wages like a "dirty little secret", but neither would I brag about it. That's because, outside of a few select conversations, I don't think how much we make is really all that relevant, not because I'm embarrassed that whoever I'm dating is making more or less money than me.
"Indeed, I think children would absolutely benefit from having a stay-at-home mother, just as they would a stay-at-home father. But your agenda is clear (victimized I guess?) and doesn't allow for nuance."
-Housewives are the group of population that suffers the most from depression. Can anybody please explain to me in what way anybody can possibly benefit from eing stuck at home with a permanently depressed individual?
"Anxiety, phobia, paranoia and psychosomatic sub-scale points and average of symptoms were significantly higher in the housewives. Working has a positive psychological influence on women who have a lower economic status. (4) Housewives have much more stress and depressive symptoms (5,6). The middle-aged women's psychology is positively affected when working for a salary. (5) Working women are more adapted to marriage than housewives. (7)"
http://www.aile.selcuk.edu.tr/text/article1.htm
"Comparison of a patient population of depressed housewives with a matched group of depressed working women revealed some significant differences in social functioning in relation to work roles. The psychological benefits of outside employment have been widely discussed in relation to middle-class and upper-class women; this study indicates that, for women of lower socio-economic status, work may also have a protective psychological effect."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1180337
"It appears that working mothers, when compared to full-time housewives, are less likely to become overweight, have a better level of health and a healthier relationship."
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/43421.php
The same happens in other countries, such as Turkey: 'There was an excess risk of depression among housewives (OR = 1.41, 95% CI: 1.05–1.90)."
http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/31/6/1201
"The risk of developing major depression was predicted at the beginning of pregnancy by the presence of previous depressive episodes (odds ratio [OR] 9.5, 95% confidence interval [CI] 2.5-29.2) and conflicts with husband/partner (OR 7.8, 95% CI 1.02-62.7), whereas the risk of developing minor depression was predicted by being a housewife (OR 7.2, 95% CI 2.3-22.1), presence of previous depressive episodes (OR 4.7, 95% CI 1.4-15.3) and whether the pregnancy was unwanted (OR 2.4, 95% CI 1.0-5.7)."
http://journals.lww.com/greenjournal/Abstract/2009/06000/Major_and_Minor_Depression_in_Pregnancy.15.aspx
I can find tons more of these studies linking housewives and depression. It shocks me that people still have the gall to screech how beneficial this institution is to women and children. Anxiety, phobia, paranoia, and depression: what child isn't going to benefit from that fantastic experience?
Galatea: we seem to agree on both issues here. :-) I also don't think that it's a good thing to brag about your partner's salary, and the quiz reflects that. I think that having some sense of pride in your partner's achievement is good. I would share it with my closest friends but not with everybody. The question was, of course, mostly aimed at those who hate the idea of their partner making even a dollar more and sit their with their lips pursed in resentment whenevr the issue arises.
As to the weight, women are, indeed, shamed more for not corresponding to the "perfect-size-zero" beauty ideal. But the question wasn't about who gets shamed more for weight issues. It was about who worries more. And everything that I have seen in life tells me that it's as much a male worry as it is female.
More on housewives and how super beneficial they are:
"The largest group of Americans who attempt suicide are housewives."
Chesler, Phyllis. Women and Madness New York: Springer Publishing Co, Inc., 1983.
I mean, who cares if this kind of existence makes a woman suicidal. What matters is that it's soooooo beneficial for the children. In reality, nobody gives a rat's ass about stay-at-home women being beneficial to the children. Depressed, paranoid, anxious and suicidal they can hardly be all that good for the kids.
The reality is, though, that the lord and master wants home cooked breakfast, fresh ironed shirt and a wife who has no life apart from him. Especially no life where she can attract and be attracted by some other man. Or even woman.
You people will be sorry that you started me on the subjects of housewives. :-)
"Results of unpaired t-test showed significant difference between depression scores of housewives and employees (t = 9.179, P = 0.003). Anxiety and depression were observed more in homemakers comparing to outside employees. In our study, anxiety and/or depression were observed more in housewives (vs. outside employees). It seems being at work outside home decreases psychological signs of anxiety and depression."
BMC Women's Health 2004, 4:9
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6874/4/9
It would take anybody with an Internet connection about twenty minutes to find all this information and a lot more. Still, people prefer to pontificate about the "benefits" of housewife status because they were told so by Fox news or by some resident preacher.
Whoops, I posted before I saw your last comment, sorry.
Re: naming -- that's a nice solution. I still would prefer to do it my way, though; I like that my sister and I have the same last name, and I selfishly hope if/when she gets hitched she'll keep our last name. Being clearly marked as belonging to the same clan has always appealed to me.
Re: generalised assumptions -- are you objecting to the use of "always" and similar modifiers, or to any generalised statement about men and women at all? Because if it's the first, sure. If it's the second, I think that's a really simplistic and ineffective way of going about things. If you work for equality you almost have to generalise huge swaths of the population (I mean, hell, you're doing it with stay-at-home-parents).
Re: weight -- honestly, I still disagree. Shaming makes women worry more, and worry harder. Men can be painfully shy about their bodies (I have a friend who goes swimming in a t-shirt because he hates how skinny he is), but body image just flat-out doesn't carry as much cultural weight (haha) as it does for women. It's not as consumingly important.
Re: finances -- we agree, thanks for clearing that up. I got stuck on the word "brag", I think.
I'm still undecided on the children's last name, though. I might choose the option of only giving them my last name. You simply can't know until you go through the effects of pregnancy and giving birth. :-)
As to weight, maybe I'm surrounded by men with body issues more than other people, I don't know. But honestly, I am yet to meet a man who wouldn't keep saying "Do I feel too fat/too skinny in these pants?" And I do know at least one woman who doesn't worry about this issue: me. :-)
Generalizing about people on the basis of characteristics they are orn with is not the same as generalizing on the basis of their chosen lifestyles.
"As to the weight, women are, indeed, shamed more for not corresponding to the "perfect-size-zero" beauty ideal. But the question wasn't about who gets shamed more for weight issues. It was about who worries more. And everything that I have seen in life tells me that it's as much a male worry as it is female."
Everything I have seen in life tells me that it's more a female worry than it is a male worry.
And that's OK. We have had different life-experiences and reached different conclusions as a result. I do not believe that my life experience is the One True Life Experience, and that anyone whose life experiences lead them to a different conclusion is necessarily sexist.
Once again: this is not about life experiences, which can, indeed, be extremely different. It's about generalizations about "all women" and "all men", which are profoundly sexist.
In the (Southern Presbyterian) Christian tradition that I grew up in, the pervasive message was "You are worthless. Your worth is, in fact, negative. Your only hope to be of even neutral worth is to accept Jesus as your personal saviour and devote your life to him utterly and completely. Thinking about any sort of sin was itself sinful.
Dancing was forbidden, for example, since it might lead to thoughts of sex, which were profoundly sinful unless and until you were married. In my teens, I trained myself, at the church's insistence, to be able to look at attractive girls without thinking of sex at all. I still have trouble fantasizing about sex for that reason, at age 66.
"It's about generalizations about "all women" and "all men", which are profoundly sexist."
None of your questions said anything about "all men" or "all women" and I didn't construe them to be making universal claims.
How many people actually believe that all women are better at languages, at talking about their feelings, worry about their weight more, etc., than all men? This sounds like a straw sexist to me.
"Once again: this is not about life experiences, which can, indeed, be extremely different."
But it IS about life experiences, by your own admission.
Your justification for saying men equally worry about their weight: "And everything that I have seen in life tells me that it's as much a male worry as it is female." Your experience.
And your argument against stay at home moms? Because you were victimized. You back it up with studies, and OK there is merit to the argument. But all stay-at-home experiences aren't with depressing mothers. According to your studies, it's not even the average (although 30% is more than enough).
By your own admission, again, this quiz is based on YOUR feminism, your subjectivity. Nothing at all about all men or all women.
And, again, I agree with Daran. It's just a simple straw man fallacy.
Zach: I think you will have to accept that certain people consider your views to be sexist. In my opinion (to which, as you will surely agree, I am definitely entitled), your responses to the quiz qualify you as undoubtedly sexist.
Your attempts to manipulate information I provide make any discussion useless. If you somehow manage to confuse "depressed mothers" with "depressing mothers", I give up.
In your place, I would definitely ask myself why it bothers you so much that some people (me) see you as sexist.
LOL. I don't expect to see this comment posted, but I can't help but reply.
I guess I will have to accept it, just like I'll have to accept religious people delusionally think I'm going to hell. And, to be clear, it never did bother me that some insignifcant people see me as sexist, just like it didn't bother me that other delusional people feel this way or that way about me.
In my equally-entitled-to opinion, you're an over-the-top gasbag who has trouble dealing with obvious contradictions in your thoughts and write it off as "your own special brand of feminism", making it equally unnecessary to justify and unworthy of consideration as serious thinking. LOL, thanks for the laugh though.
Rage is a good, productive emotion, Zach. I truly believe that this discussion will allow you to reconsider at least some of your sexist views.
Normally, people don't spend as much time in the blogs of insignificant and delusional bloggers participating in discussions. When they do, it means that something in that "insignificant, over-the-top" discussion has struck a cord. That's good. That's what I aim for. :-) Liberation from sexism often comes accompanied with strong emotions and anger. I believe in you and your non-sexist future, my friend!
Good luck in everything!
I'm coming to this debate way too late, of course, but: My mother is the opposite of maternal, but she is challenging and intelligent, she is wonderful, I adore her, she is my hero, and she has been the primary wage earner in her household (no longer my household, but it was for 23 yrs) since before I was born.
I was raised by her, AND by my stay-at-home dad, who is a JD, who has, since both kids left home, returned to practice, who is one of the wisest, kindest, and most patient people I know, and who is my other hero.
See, I was raised by BOTH parents, even if only one of them stayed home, and that is my "disagree" with question 10.
BUT. I benefited enormously from having my father at home while growing up. And not just because he could supervise slumber parties and drive me to ballet lessons; but because he could read with me, discuss things with me, talk to me, and be my friend and my dad. My brother, who got a deadly disease at age 10, and battled it til it went into remission at 17 (chemo was the beginning), and who then battled drug addiction and legal trouble, needed my dad - and the fact that he was there, always, I think (hope) played a role in how well he came out of it.
So please, parents forced to stay at home = bad. Parents unhappy staying at home = bad. But stay-at-home parents are not always bad.
I fall between the 16-24 range, and I agree that some of the questions were aimed at men, rather than both sexes.
Stay-at-home mother, for instance, rather than stay-at-home parent, which I think is good.
I love you still, and I hope that my observation doesn't make more more sexist that the result poll already does :) :)
I wrote a little something about this post on my blog.
Not all stay-at-home mothers are depressed and not all stay-at-home mothers abuse their children.
Having a stay-at-home parent could be beneficial for the children. This is most certainly not a black-and-white issue.
Good quiz. My score was almost perfect, 40 out of 46. I think most women suffer from an abundance of self-esteem, so it sounds like a stay-at-home parent is a good thing, after all. One should not have self-esteem when one deserves no esteem whatsoever. Once you've accomplished something, such as being an honest and upstanding person, you deserve esteem, self or otherwise. As for being sexist, well, the "patriarchy" quite literally put a roof over my head and yours, so thank it. Learn about it before you bash it, in any case.
I haven't had anybody on this blog who writes as poorly as you and whose ideas are so jumbled and unintelligent for a while. So welcome, I guess!
I was just opining that we should all start with a low self-esteem, until we've earned some esteem. So if a stay-at-home parent causes low self-esteem, that might be a good thing. My second unrelated point is that your quiz indirectly calls me a sexist, which to me implies a knock on the patriarchy. If there is no such knock in your mind, my bad. I admit that I wrote in such a shorthand manner, from such a foreign-to-you point of view, that I had no chance of getting my points across.
Anyway, I am sexist, because I happen to believe the sexes are inherently different in important ways. For example, men take up guitar and get good at it because it gets them laid. Women take up guitar but don't have quite the same biological drive to get good at it, so far fewer do. Granted there are some good women guitarists (outliers), but ON AVERAGE men are better.
This is an example of biology determining ability in a way that will never change, no matter how much we change our minds. Women can't help what they are attracted to, no more than men can. It's biological. Yes, we can all settle for someone to which we're not attracted, in order to placate some nagging moral idea about fairness, but is that better? Or even likely?
Mind you, I'm all for women BEING ALLOWED to do whatever they are capable of, but I'm against things like quotas in the mathematical professions, for example. Men are better at math (paraphrasing Barbie here). If you disagree, I don't care, because chicks dig a guy on a motorcycle.
I finally took the quiz, and got 25, more or less on the borderline but still in the green zone (so I passed :) ) I was sure I will get more. Because I answered based on how I believe things are, not on how they would be in some kind of idealized feminist society (i.e. women do worry more than men about weight, about getting married, etc.) It is not very enlightened (both of them and of me :) ) but they do.
Elhaf, your post is a good illustration to what Pagan Topologist said above - to the idea that esteem is only earned. But this is not the only possible way. I think it is good to have enough self esteem to expect some level of dignity and goodwill even if one did not accomplish anything. Accomplishments are mostly subjective thing anyway. Not everybody considers being good at math, or owning a motorbike or even getting laid :) an accomplishment...
elhaf, buddy, you rock. If you ever try a career in standup comedy, you will be hugely successful.
"(i.e. women do worry more than men about weight, about getting married, etc.):
-In TV shows, not in real life. In the past 25 years or so, statistically, men are overwhelmingly more interested in marriage than women. This stands to reason because women lose out in marriage, while men gain a lot. Women's life expectancy drops in marriage, they are stuck with the bulk of housework and child-rearing, they lag significantly behind unmarried women in their careers. So as much as shows like "Sex and the City" try to convince us that women are desperate to get married, reality is very different.
When I used dating sites, my personal observations coincided with the statistical evidence: men only want marriage. Desperately and with great insistence. There was barely a guy who didn't mention marriage until the third date.
Comedy, eh? Men do better at that too, again because it will get them laid. It will not get women laid, so they don't do better at it. If you think that is comedy and not fact, you are deluded greatly. You might wish it were another way, but it isn't.
"Men do better at that too, again because it will get them laid. It will not get women laid, so they don't do better at it."
-You do realize that with this statement you just confirmed that there are no differences between men and women, right? :-) So why would I wish it were any other way, if you are working so hard to prove me right? :-)
I believe the purpose of the TV shows is to be viewed. And they are viewed because they touch something within the people. If shows like Sex and the City, or several different variations of the weight loss shows, or of cosmetic surgery shows, etc, are being watched - they address something widespread in the collective subconscious.
Who would watch a TV show about physics professor, unless this professor either a) behaved very comically (as in Big Bang Theory) or b) slept with the students? (most likely ugly ones, as stereotypes demand) :)
By the way, there is a British plastic surgery show called "say no to the knife" where a team of a style expert and a psychologist try to influence the people (who usually just have some self-esteem issues) against the surgery.
Television is wish fulfillment. It sells us our fantasy of what we want the world to be like, not what it actually is. Women watch Sex and the City (in my opinion) because they want to imagine this simpler world where all you need to be happy is catch a husband and buy some shoes. The world isn't like that any more but they like to pretend it is while they are watching. :-)
Goes the same for the example you describe with physics professors. :-) Who wouldn't want them to be more funny and less intimidating? :-) Wish fulfillment, again. :-)
Disgusting that you bash stay at homes moms. The huge majority of stay at homes moms choose to do so and are happy with it. You are pathetic.
Men are different from women, which still seems to flabbergast feminists:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201010/the-truth-about-beauty
Men may worry more about weight, but women *should* worry more about weight if they are interested in men at all.
"Men are different from women, which still seems to flabbergast feminists:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201010/the-truth-about-beauty"
-If you fidn that a respectable source, soon you'll be quoting Dr. Phil to support your opinions.
"women *should* worry more about weight if they are interested in men at all"
-Just like men should worry more about weight if they are interested in women at all.
"The huge majority of stay at homes moms choose to do so and are happy with it"
-Nobody says they don't choose it, so I don't see the point of your statement. As for the happiness of housewives, please enter the words "depression" and "housewives" into Google and read the results. That will tell you who is pathetic here.
Ooh, it is fascinating how upset people got. I was raised by a depressed housewife who had chosen her fate, and did not like it, but felt it was her duty. I am still trying to recover from the effects of this.
I'm very, very late coming to this party, as I found this completely by accident searching for something else, but after going through it I had to comment.
Well I have to say, there is nothing better than seeing someone who rants against stereotyping (in this case sexism against women) who then goes right out and uses stereotypes of their own (in this case negative stereotypes about housewives) to justify their own preconceived notions based on their own experiences. And you can use all the stats you want, but I could do the same with crime rates and "prove" minorities are more violent than whites in the same way, or even find stats that "prove" mothers are dangerous because they're more likely to abuse kids than fathers. Of course that's ridiculous.
On another note, you say your poll takes into account it's sexist to brag about your wife making more than you, but it doesn't. I changed my response from "Strongly Disagree" to "Strongly Agree." Strongly Disagree gave me the full 4 points. Strongly Agree gave me 1 point. It's still a score implying sexism, to be sure, but it is a decent amount lower. Apparently it's worse to not mention it at all than it is to brag to everyone. I don't know anyone that brags about salary, which is about as arrogant as people can get, men or women alike, but that's another discussion entirely.
And I got 28/46. Fine with me, considering the tone of the blog, I was hoping for somewhere in the neighborhood of 35, but 28 will do.
Came across your quiz and some of the comments here made me laugh to myself.
Great quiz.
21/46
However I disagree with the formulation of this quiz.
First of all, the questions don't have neutral options, e.g. "I don't know" or "Neither agree or disagree".
Question 3 and question 10 irk me in particular: I wouldn't brag because I don't brag, and because it wouldn't make a big difference to me, not out of shame; and I believe that children benefit from having a stay at home parent, so I agree completely that children benefit from having a stay at home mother.
Question 6 also bothered me because I observe that women do tend to worry more about their weight than men do, due to differing societal pressures. I think it would be better to word the question to include the word "naturally".
Sorry if this has already been mentioned in previous comments.
Just as I suspected; I scored a 25. Don't see why i should "reexamine" my values though.
Judging by the questions, I'm more than sure the answer would portray me as sexist. Couldn't care about salary, or last name, but the rest of the questions are simply a moot point. Definitely agree that the quiz reveals more about the author than anyone else. Some of the questions were so blatantly geared toward the "right answer", it was ridiculous. Does the author have a right to an opinion? Sure. Should it at least have both sides of the coin to allow the reader to make a decision on his own? Keep dreaming.
«Wow! You are one raging sexist, my friend. I hope this blog helps you educate yourself and curb your sexist tendencies»
That what it said to me. :(
Not sure how much attention I would pay to it tough. I may be a pain in the ass, but I am not a huge sexist guy....
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