I Am Not an Easy Man

[Secular Sanity]

Q&A but without <it>, of course; are you up for it?

Topic: Social Power and Gender Differences

Me?
I don't have any social power or even a social life (see previous post for reason). I don't think I would have anything to contribute.

I don't believe that you really feel that way because you're more willing to give honest feed back and you're creative.

Say when.

[confused2]

Fire at will.

[Secular Sanity]

Fire at will.

Back in the day, this question cost me ten bucks. It went to a good cause, though.

Nymph: Why do men want power?
Greek: Because it feels good.

Moral of the story...ask more precise questions.  

1. Are men more concerned with asserting influence over others than women are?
   
2. Why do men resist female influence?
   
3. Are men more likely to assert opinions as facts.  
   
4. Are self-promoting and status seeking behavior more socially acceptable as male traits?
   
5. If men display competence, it enhances their likability.  Is the same true for women?
   

[Syne]

1. Are men more concerned with asserting influence over others than women are?
   
2. Why do men resist female influence?
   
3. Are men more likely to assert opinions as facts.  
   
4. Are self-promoting and status seeking behavior more socially acceptable as male traits?
   
5. If men display competence, it enhances their likability.  Is the same true for women?
   

Are men more concerned with asserting "influence" over others? That sounds like a more female concern.
Do you realize how much influence women have over men?
Probably, comes with being assertive.
Are self-promoting and status seeking behavior more socially acceptable as male traits? Or is there just difference in the kind of status sought?
I certainly like competent women. It's an attractive quality.

[confused2]

Your question to the Greek (who he?) failed to uncover "Because they can.". If you combine "it feels good " with "you can" and maybe, in my opinion, possibly, you have the reason why we (within the scope of this thread) are where we are today.

1. Are men more concerned with asserting influence over others than women are?
I am not qualified to answer that.

2. Why do men resist female influence?
Because they can.


3. Are men more likely to assert opinions as facts.
No.

3. Are self-promoting and status seeking behavior more socially acceptable as male traits?

Again the clue is in the question. More men seem to rise to the top so either women are less able or the odds are stacked against them. Men (my opinion here) don't care which it is as long as it works. My exhibit here is Emmy Noether ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmy_Noether ). The wiki entry has a new spin since last I looked - I suspect the earlier version was closer to the truth - they treated her like shit. Even at my level of maths/physics I can see Noether's Theorum rocks.

When looking at promotion and pay-packets I don't think integrity applies - it's dog eat dog - any advantage is there to be taken.

4. If men display competence, it enhances their likability. Is the same true for women?

Possibly relevant - in Scivillage I had many likes to start with but none after crashing and burning in an accelerated carriage. My guess (just a guess) is that an identifiable female making the same posts early on would have got less 'likes' but the crash and burn would have been less catastrophic. I may be suggesting 'the masses' would have had lower expectations of a female. If you (identifiably female) had left the carriage intact I suspect (like to think) you would have got more 'star quality' likes than I for the unexpected victory. My window into 'society' is so small that I can't really tell. My gut feeling is that you are correct (in your implication) that competence doesn't enhance likability in women in the same way as it does in men.

[Secular Sanity]

Only a French man would behave like that...and end up liking women who act like men.

Do you realize how much influence women have over men?
I certainly like competent women. It's an attractive quality.

This isn’t a dating site. I’m not asking what men find attractive or how to win a man’s heart.  Zippers aren’t that complicated.  

However, your response addresses my main concern, which is that referent power is the main source that women tend to rely on, e.g., physical attractiveness, warmth, agreeableness, and similarities.

Power (social and political) (wikipedia.org)

• Legitimate power
  
• Referent power
  
• Expert Power
  
• Reward Power
  
• Coercive Power
  

 
Because traditional gender roles prescribed men with more legitimate and expert power, they’re freer to be more direct and assertive.  If we behave in the same manor, we’re more likely than males to be disliked, and we risk losing the one power that is more readily available to us, i.e., referent power.  

Oh, sure, women can be assertive but only when we’re advocating for others. You said it yourself.  

Maybe go ask momma SS to hold your hand so you can post on big bad scary subjects.

And why is that?  We’re supposed to be supportive, and tend to other people’s needs, but self-promotion…fuhgeddaboudit.  That's just for point scoring cunts.

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Your question to the Greek (who he?) failed to uncover "Because they can.". If you combine "it feels good " with "you can" and maybe, in my opinion, possibly,  you have the reason why we (within the scope of this thread) are where we are today.

Yeah.

Not bad, C2.  Not bad at all.

Thank you!

[Syne]

Only a French man would behave like that...and end up liking women who act like men.

Do you realize how much influence women have over men?
I certainly like competent women. It's an attractive quality.

This isn’t a dating site. I’m not asking what men find attractive or how to win a man’s heart.  Zippers aren’t that complicated.  

However, your response addresses my main concern, which is that referent power is the main source that women tend to rely on, e.g., physical attractiveness, warmth, agreeableness, and similarities.

 
Because traditional gender roles prescribed men with more legitimate and expert power, they’re freer to be more direct and assertive.  If we behave in the same manor, we’re more likely than males to be disliked, and we risk losing the one power that is more readily available to us, i.e., referent power.  
 

Whoa! You think the only way a woman can appear competent to a man is through sex? O_o
Likeability between the sexes often involves attraction, but not all attraction is physical.
I've met women who demonstrate a mastery in some skill that sparks some attraction their physical appearance would not.

The simple fact is that if men were attracted to male behavior, they would be gay.
They are not just traditional gender roles when research has shown that the more egalitarian the society, where you might expect less difference between the sexes, you actually find more difference between the sexes than in societies with more gender inequality.

Women can be assertive, but just like men, they have to calibrate it to their goals. A man can be so assertive that he is widely seen as an asshole or chauvinist, which usually doesn't serve many goals. A woman can be so assertive that she is seen as bossy or haughty. It depends on your goals, and especially what means you use to pursue them. Even among men, cooperation is useful, so some amount of agreeableness is as well.

Yes, people are use to certain strategies used by each gender, because those strategies have evolutionary origins. Outliers always face obstacles.

Oh, sure, women can be assertive but only when we’re advocating for others. You said it yourself.

Maybe go ask momma SS to hold your hand so you can post on big bad scary subjects.

And why is that? We’re supposed to be supportive, and tend to other people’s needs, but self-promotion…fuhgeddaboudit. That's just for point scoring cunts.

No, I said that because you had developed a habit of jumping in on MR's trolling and defending his behavior. Just as you did in your reply:

Maybe go ask momma SS to hold your hand so you can post on big bad scary subjects.

I could be wrong but I think MR may be older than me. I think he handles you just fine on his own. In fact, whenever I peek in on your little squabbles, I think "Oh, yeah! Who's your daddy, Syne?"

Like that MR thread that he deleted from the Vacuum Chamber.

And P.S.C. sounds like catty female talk. I've never heard a guy say it, nor do I know any equivalent phrase specifically referring to women.
A lot of your problems seem to be of your own making.

[confused2]

I was puzzled by SS's reference to self promotion until I remembered your POTUS is (by his own account) the fittest and best qualified president in the history of the United States. In the UK anyone over the age of five making such claims would be laughed out of court on the grounds of being an arrogant twat. My claim (elsewhere) to nascent expertise in the field of sociology failed as parody because that is exactly what you guys in the US would do.

Possibly closer to the topic...
Means, motive, opportunity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Means,_mot...pportunity

Where means, motive and opportunity exist together you have a crime waiting to happen. In the absence of a law-abiding ethos or even some tendency in the direction of common decency you have to ensure means, motive and opportunity never exist together.

Thus speaks confused2.

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Many years ago (early 1970's) I worked with a young Asian male. He explained how to get sex from an Asian girl. You take a photograph of the girl on her own with a boy.. If the photograph were shown to her parents she would be 'disgraced' - thrown out of the home - I don't know. That's it.

Those guys really don't like anyone interfereing with that culture - it works too well.
Indian girl raped and burned alive:-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-44022550

[Syne]

I was puzzled by SS's reference to self promotion until I remembered your POTUS is (by his own account) the fittest and best qualified president in the history of the United States. In the UK anyone over the age of five making such claims would be laughed out of court on the grounds of being an arrogant twat.

Oh, he's laughed at here too. But it's a nice change of pace from Democrats constantly losing their minds.

[Secular Sanity]

And P.S.C. sounds like catty female talk. I've never heard a guy say it, nor do I know any equivalent phrase specifically referring to women.
A lot of your problems seem to be of your own making.

I’m pretty sure he’s a 63 year old male.  I simply mimicked his behavior to a tee.

It is true I did once describe SS as a "point-scoring c--t" but quite frankly, looking at this exchange, I think this was no more than a simple statement of fact.

---

I was puzzled by SS's reference to self promotion until I remembered your POTUS is (by his own account) the fittest and best qualified president in the history of the United States. In the UK anyone over the age of five making such claims would be laughed out of court on the grounds of being an arrogant twat. My claim (elsewhere) to nascent expertise in the field of sociology failed as parody because that is exactly what you guys in the US would do.

Power is simply the capacity to make others do what you would have them do. It’s a resource and it is unequally distributed.  Men have more, a lot more.

Eric Liu said that power has a negative connotation. It seems inherently evil. But in fact power is no more inherently good or evil than fire or physics. But people are profoundly illiterate in power— what it is, who has it, how it operates, how it flows, what part of it is visible, what part of it is not, and why some people have it, and others don’t. And as a result of this illiteracy, those few who do understand how power operates are perfectly happy to fill the vacuum created by the ignorance of the great majority.

I’m having a property boundary dispute with a "save the forest" type corporation. My property boarders the quarter section. I asked them if they knew how townships, sections, and quarter sections were laid out.  They said, of course, we’ve been doing this for years, but originally our forester staked it out.  I walked the property and found official surveyor markers with a license number.  It wasn’t a forester. The area contains a lot of surveying errors, but what they don’t know is that once established, even an imperfect grid remains in force and holds legal precedent over subsequent resurveys. I almost feel like I need to download a female to male voice converter App to resolve this issue.

You’re parody didn’t fail but you’re right that sort of thing is very common here.