A houseful of men

[icarus]

I have one kitty snoring next to me. Yes, he snores. We call it the snore-squeak.

In the kitchen I have neatly arranged two men, happily playing with outdoor catalogues and making gruff noises at eachother. "It's a fucking shit pack. They say this is some great outdoor bag..."

"Did you use it on your PCT trip?"

"Oh, it was all right on board the ship, but not for on the fuckin' trail. I don't need a four season tent either. Four season's a waste a time unless you're a mountaineer."

"Well actually at MSR they have some light four-season tents. But there's no point unless you move up here. Where you are now, you can get away with a three-season year round. You need to deal with the chiggers and ticks though, so you need free-standing."

All delivered in a monotone, in what I call the 'outdoorsman's mumble.' *smirks*

Ah, men. *listens to the kitty snore*

Comments

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

LOL! You have me grinning from ear to ear. Bring on the fandom inquisition!

In all honesty, I don't have an answer to the gender question. But I have observed that some girls reared in very 'gender-neutral' social environments still act extraordinarily feminine and espouse the most amazing "girls don't act like that" beliefs. Meanwhile, the sister raised in the same environment is every bit the strong, aggressive confident kid the parents expected.

My opinion? When we look at something as deceptively simple as gender, we're really looking at a vastly complex web of genes, individual predisposition, and social matrices, with event-driven sideroads and personal choice thrown in there for good measure. All mixed together in an incredible incomprehensible mess.

The Buddhists call this "karma" though I think karma could be accurately translated to "complexity" or "complexity in flux." Interdependently-driven complexity, but the simplistic idea that most people have attached to the word karma is wrong. The verbatum translation from the Tibetan word for karma, "Leh", is "Action," with implies action necessitates result. Thus, change. Something other religions will call something else, but mean something in the same ballpark.

I think psychology can help with the event-driven part of this mess, while spirituality in all various brandnames ideally helps increase free will. Something that also goes against common wisdom, but folks don't understand the inner freedom of a spiritual path, because they mistake the discipline of the methods with the freedom of the results. They only know that they tend to respect the calm of those who are good at it.

Then individual predisposition is important for people to recognize in themselves, so they don't try to travel paths inappropriate to them. Like the Tomboy miserable in the pretty pink dress, my my friends' feminine daughter forced into that karate class... so wrong for her, though they meant well.

The ideal world in my mind allows for women in the military as much as women at home caring for the kids and baking bread. It's a pity the feminist movement wishes to leave out women who don't fit their pictures through their obstinant refusal to accept individual choice (for all that the purport to support it) can include religious vocation, or the formerly 'ladylike' pursuits. But this is the social matrix I mentioned, and it's human for these to be created no matter how hard we try to avoid them. The result of each and every social matrix is going to be bad for someone. The problem arises when we try to change the social matrix without taking into account the rest of human equation. You might as well do Confucianism then.

Bring on the inquisition. I can have a dissertation ready for them in a week.

Icarus *that was fun!*

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

Hear hear!

Let's all do what we are best suited for and help others do the same.