1) I suspect that your reasoning is PART of the issue.
2) My own personal space for people whose body language signals ‘aberrant behavior’ is even larger than for ‘random male stranger’, and I don’t think I’m alone in that.
3) I suspect that the current crop of Transgender persons runs to 10% gender dysphoric and 90% narcissist looking for attention through a fashionable trope. Narcissists are not, as a rule, subtle. They have scant tact and are bad at taking hints.
Absolute uncanny valley, yep. There's a creep out factor no matter which gender you were "born with". Unless you are VERY good at being your "current gender". But then IMO the reveal gets even creepier.
But also guys are aggressive and other guys know this, it's something they've been doing since they were in the crib. There's a reason for all that space guys give and get, it's a safety zone. A courtesy zone if you prefer.
And finally, girls still (mostly) wait to be asked, not just for dates but just do. Guys don't so you have this female(ish) thing in your space throwing off male performative habits.
Rather like militant Vegans (ie, 90+% of ‘em) they also tend to be self-righteously in your face and unable or unwilling to accept “not interested” as an answer when interacting with others.
Because I weigh 105 lbs. and I am old, indeed, I have strict rules of how close I allow (particularly) strangers in my personal space. I believe you may be on to something about a possible confusion about how far we let certain people go because of the entire trans-issue. Again, because I am old, I have little patience with it. I was recently told over a certain political debate with a much, much younger person who labeled me a “boomer,” that I wouldn’t be around much longer and she was glad. As I have considered her opinion, I am taking better care of myself so I can outlive her just to spite her.😂
That child is in for a rude awakening. If she thinks boomers are strict, she hasn't come across a ferally raised Gen-Xer yet. We can be just as cantankerous as Boomers. After all, we were raised in part by the Greatest Generation and they didn't put up with shit.
We Boomers were your parents. The Greatest were our parents. I can see where ya’ll were partly raised by grandparents, since a fair number of Boomers were the original hippies, but just wanted to clarify things for the youngsters.
I never thought of the unwritten rules of being male vs female. Since I am a female, I was raised with female "rules". And you are so right about personal space of males vs females. I liked this post...a lot. Made me think. Are these rules implicated in trans violence? I dunno, but I could think maybe so.
I think one contributor to the conflict between men and women today are smaller families. A lot more folks don't have an opposite gender sibling. So, less understanding of the opposite sex, less ability to empathize with the issues they face. As well as understanding the basic differences between the sexes.
We were 2 brothers and 4 sisters. I had no illusions about female vindictiveness and verbal skills in tearing down an opponent, my sisters understood they absolutely couldn't compete physically even with a smaller male.
It's not like anyone has to go through life always distracted looking for land mines on the path. Apply the Golden Rule and you make life easier for yourself and others. Any effort not to be an A-hole, even an inadvertent one, pays dividends. On the other hand --->
There was an unwritten rule in my Navy (1965-1991): "Never "borrow" someone else's coffee mug." The only exception to that was back in 1967 when our new LPO, RD1 Bill Ca___t, stood before us at quarters for the first time and said, "This is my coffee mug, use it any time you want". And then he unzipped and rimmed his mug. Bill retired an E-9 and later earned a PhD. He was a master communicator and an unconventional explainer of social norms and mores. Some folks have a gift of avoiding conflict. Bill was one of them.
This was aboard a Dealey-Class Destroyer Escort, pre-dating the commissioning of the JFK. I suspect Bill Ca___t had influence far and wide, even after his 30-year Navy career.
This is a subject to which I have given a lot of thought. One of the unintended consequences of the latest version of feminism is that they have convinced young women that all of the movies and TV shows that depicted a 100 pound woman kicking butt on several 200 pound men is reality. Moreover, they have caused women to adopt all of the most objectionable charateristics of men while accepting none of the responsibilities.
Depending on location, men have certain, unspoken rules regarding conflict with one another. If two men are fighting in a bar over some real or imagined affront to their honor, it is generally understood that One does not attack the gonads of The Other. To do so escalates it from conflict to combat which, in reality, neither party truly wants.
Women have been taught for centuries that kicking a man's berries is their best chance to preserve their virtue and escape. Modern feminism has neglected to inform modern women that escape is the goal, thus preserving themselves intact against a larger, stronger foe.
Add to that young men buying into the idea of Universal Equality in that, women are no longer deserving of deference in physical conflict (or anything else) and you have a recipe for disaster.
The result of this toxic mixture of Hollywood deception and Feminist delusion is that the internet is replete with video examples of women attempting to inflict violence upon larger, stronger men and ending up getting KTFO.
Unless we turn away from this trend, we will have an uptick in young men going to prison for unintentionally killing women because they reacted to female violence in the way they react to male violence.
One explanation could be that women trying to LARP (as XY) as men overcompensate in aggression to appear genuine.
As a Biologist by education, I am intellegent enough to understand that the XX vs XY difference cannot be overcome by mutilation and chemicals. I will inform you it is permanent .
I remember when the testosterone hit at puberty I got aggressive. Having supervised many young men, high levels of testosterone in brains designed to work with high levels of testosterone still caused aggression issues.
I wonder if male levels of testosterone in brain intended for female levels of testosterone could be the proximate cause of "overcompensation in aggression", rather than a voluntary display?
I suspect that's what causes them to pick up rifles and head for schools. Pile that on top of the recently 'discovered' issue that many teen transgenders are actually misdiagnosed other mental illnesses and it's party time. For a certain value of party time.
Having worked with one relatively recently... I swear the poor thing had *no idea* that she was being an unfocused ball of anger and aggression, because she's never spent any time around 12 and 13 year old boys.
It didn't help that her influencers on Tumblr and TikTok kept telling her that anything that pissed her off was Everybody Else's Fault - she had zero self-awareness that she was pumping raw aggression into her veins.
The other problem was, as far as I could tell, her entire world online consisted of other transtrenders, who were all about "being transgender", instead of "being male" or "being female". Having known and loved some folks who were truly gender dysphoric for decades, I can tell you they applied serious study into learning the unwritten female / male rules... *and their brains were wired for the sex they were trying to imitate*, unlike the current transtrender idiots. Seriously, had a good friend who went MTF and understood female motivations better than *I* did.
The only saving grace was that *because* she spent all her time hanging out with other transtrenders and rainbow-haired enablers, she didn't get the smarmy shit beaten out of her often. (Even when she did, it was less often than you'd think, because she didn't LARP male very well at all. Men kept backing off under "something is seriously wrong with that one. Is he gay? Is he bugfuck nuts? Nothing is making sense from the unconscious sizing up to the words out of his mouth." Unfortunately, every time she or her friends did, they chalked it up to "homophobic" or "transphobic" violence, instead of a learning experience.
Serious about the brain wiring by sex... I love you guys, but y'all think very differently than women. Very linear, very hierarchical, very compartmentalized, and with a far higher baseline aggression that you know you have to control, because puberty, parents, and role models taught you that.
When not-truly-gender-dysphoric women get hit with all that aggression and *no understanding of how to control it*, no responsibility or accountability trained in, and no understanding of male thought patterns, body language, and social rules? It's trouble all the way down.
My hubby's Appalachian grandmother and great-grandmother beat the "no hat in the house" rule into him quite young. Re-enforced by the military. It REALLY annoys him when men wear hats inside. (He enforced it on our boys when young, but they do what they do now.)
I'm an odd - I never learned the girl rules, and thus never fit in with them.
A lot. It's happened a lot. I've seen the roots of it more than once and vacated the area.
A lot of women, just do NOT have a clue. The older ones usually do. Or the ones who've had crews of men working for them (doing physical jobs - not tech bro stuff).
A lot of women trying to be men are just incredibly obnoxious. The stuff they've spent their life doing and NOT getting hit, they think they can still do, and the wake up call is not pretty.
It's not *officially* Transgenderism, but that last paragraph reminds me at once of the female Drill Sgts at Ft. Jackson during my incarceration there in '99. Every single one I met, with *one* exception, was the brash-&-brassy sort who'd made it her mission to show her balls were bigger than any man's out there. "Just incredibly obnoxious" is put mildly.
I was under the impression that Drill Sergeants were supposed to be somewhat obnoxious.
Under the theory that the recruit doesn't have to like the orders being given, or the person giving them, he just has to do them since they're lawfully given.
Probably also one of the reasons why Drill Sergeants don't follow along with the recruits when they graduate.
There's hardass "I'm the stone that will whet your blade, whether you like it or not!" which described most of the male Drills, to varying degrees and in various ways. Smoky-bear hats: the Brown Rounds.
And then there's bitchass "I'm yo' mean mofo mama and doan' you g-d- forget it, 'cause I brung you in MY army an' will take you out if you cross my PMS." Green slouch-hats instead of the brown smoky-bears. And with a sampling of each the recruit learns the difference mighty damned quickly.
And by "any man's out there," I mean *any* man's, including male Drills' or in one case, just one platoon over, the young Company XO's I believe. She lost her hat and a full pay-grade over that one, and there was hardly a wet eye in the house.
As to Drills "following along with" the recruits, we were our own Sr. Drill's last rotation "On the Trail"; the last batch of kids he had to break down from shaggy snot-nosed civvies into lean U.S. Army Soldiers. I reached out to him again a few years later, and he stopped by my school during a flight layover as he PCS'd to Germany in order to pin my butterbar on when I commissioned. I wouldn't have wanted it otherwise.
I’m still bewildered about that gal picking up a stranger’s hat, let alone putting it on her head. That’s just ill-mannered in my book. Did she try on all the coats, too? Up next: pulling wheel guns out of other people’s holsters to admire the engraving.
Your squirrels are launching acorns on target. U.S. personal space parameters are much larger than other cultures (even British).As one who grew up in far southern S. America, had to tolerate people getting within a foot of nose to nose. Here it is 6 to 10 ft before the defense mechanism clicks on, however, the gender and demeanor of the approaching party make this flexible, especially in high crime zones and loss of daylight.
I was raised in a single parent home by my mother. It influences my attitudes to some degree. Early on it was violence is never a solution, don't even fight back. It only took me showing up beat up a few times in the third grade before she modified that to violence is never a good solution but if you don't fight back if attacked you will get a spanking at home also. Loved her a lot, she actually would adjust to reality.
However it left me with a weird personal space and socialization space for male interactions. Up till later in life I was way more comfortable with female friends. Anyway.. back to the aggression issue, I avoid any physical conflict up to the point that someone lays a physical hand on me or mine. Then it escalates to I'm going to put you down as fast and hard as possible till your no longer a threat. Since school years it hasn't come up to actionable events more than maybe 4 times, and that in my early 20's many years ago while in the army. 4 scuffles there with people in the platoon. Couple were just drunk idiots the other two a bit more personal. It stopped there, no one was willing to even play at it afterward.
If you pick your friends carefully, stay away from places that habitually have violence you will very rarely have issues. I have lived an amazingly peaceful life. However I really make a normal socialized male uncomfortable if I get into physical conflict and they see it. If physical conflict ensues I have no rules except put down at all costs as fast as possible. I remember in school when I got in a fair number of fights due to being picked on. 24 schools in 11 years and being 6 inches shorter and 20+ lbs lighter than everyone else my age until age 14 does that, being the new kid sucks. However I never got in fights at a new school more than twice. By the second fight I had a reputation as being flat out crazy and you don't want to touch him. Grabbing a guy by the balls and trying to rip them off in a fight is just not done, don't you know. For me I just intended to take as much of them with me before I was unconscious or dead. After every fight I would cry and many times during it. It sent really weird signals to the bullies. I intellectually understand the male pattern behavior of fighting and making friends etc.. I have had multiple people that I fought that if not friends we would give respectful nods to each other later. Rare but it did happen.
I intellectually understand but not in my heart. I mostly felt those guys were breathing wastes of space and cavemen.
Over the years I have thought about it a lot. There is a really good reason to raise boys with a code of conduct that includes physical scuffles and a constrained way of expressing it, if it escalates that far. It trys to keep the damage down to bruised and bloodied but not truly injured. It goes wrong though when you cross cultures and subcultures and then those like me that sorta made up their own with no good examples growing up. lol... I think a good chunk of mine came from Louis L'Amour books and grand masters of sci fi like Heinlein, A. E. Van Vogt, Asimov etc...
Their are a shit ton broken home people out there like me and worse. Massive percentage of the population. You never know what your going to get if you allow yourself to go physical.
At the end of the day, one of my most lived by motto's is An Armed Population is a Polite Population. I go out of my way to be very polite because of how dangerous I could be and don't want to be. I have found that even most aggressive idiots will respond to serious calm responses that make them feel as if you hear them and are seeing them as a real person, sort most stuff out quickly. However I will reiterate that I avoid putting myself in situations that lead to that.
Ian.
My hat is off to you. I was asked to become an police officer multiple times when I was younger and just out of the military. I worked for a police dept in a non officer capacity for a year or so and decided that I didn't want most of my days to be dealing with the bottom side of humanity. I knew a bunch of officers good and bad. Other than the rare one or two that could maintain some semblance of normalcy after years of dealing with that, most were burned out and tended to see everyone through the filter of the worst people that they dealt with day to day. I just made the choice to not go there. For someone that was able to do that job for years and maintain their cool and sanity, I have a lot of respect. You worked in a job that you went to the places it would go wrong on a daily basis and dealt with it. Again, hat is off.
Oh meant to say something about the male vs female. Most women are flat out broken in today's society in that they have been taught they can do anything a man can and as well. There is a lot of truth to that for a myriad of civilized jobs. However your right. The average woman is going to get hammered by the average man in nothing flat. It just doesn't happen often for most as in sports or play scuffles with mixed sex the guys do restrain their strength so as not to injure or even bruise a woman. Between modern feminism and most dealing with men with a code of conduct that protects women, even in if not respected by them, most women I have known think they can protect themselves with out "mechanical advantage" It's useless to argue it with them. I have a few friends that have experienced it and they know. They also to a person carry "mechanical advantage to equalize the playing field" :)
Same here, and being raised in a single mother household with no CLOSE male mentors to teach me how a man should act towards a woman, I ended up a tomboy. I have no filter, and call a spade a spade from the start. While working in a poultry factory for over a decade, MANY young men did not like me much, because if they tried bulling up at me, I stood up to them and gave them a gentle lesson in manners that matter - gentle only in that I never got physical with them.
I did get quite verbal with them. Remember well one young fellow who catcalled an approximately equal aged young lady who walked off while doing what we women do. Smiling tightly while leaving the area. I called him on it. "Oh, but she smiled!! She MUST have liked it!" No, she didn't like it, she was being polite. I'm not polite. "Oh ,it isn't that big a deal." So I asked yon young dumbfoolery making fellow "Ok, do you have any kids?" Yeah, two daughters. "How old?" 4 and 6. "Now imagine they are 14 and 16 and walking down the street and some strange dude does that to them? How are you reacting?" I'mma gonna unalive the SOB. "Ok, she's someone's daughter, sister, neice, aunt, mother, girlfriend, wife, whatever....do you think you deserve a beat down now?" OH! You could see the light bulb go on. Then he calls after her, "I'm sorry!! I'm a jerk!!"
I was often the young women's outcry witness to seggsual harrassment at the plant, and happy to be such. More than once those young fellows would tell me "Man, for a lady, you act like you got some big brass ones hanging." I'd simply lift my hands and waggle the girls at said young fellow and respond with, "Why, yes, I do have balls. Mine are just bigger than your and higher up. That's why they're called chesticles."
Learned guys are a lot stronger than women when as tail end boomer (generation jones), we would play football in the neighborhood together. Tackle. We were all 11 and under though, but still at that age, guys hit harder than the girls did. Same with hockey games out on the lake on weekends
I did not know that if you grab a guys hat it means you like him in that manner. However I don't go grabbing the personal property of someone I don't know. I mean who DOES do that? And Charles Schofield has some great points and I may go append there.
A fascinating post with aspects of male/female behavior I hadn't considered as well as I should, probably because I've been either lucky enough or situationally aware enough (probably more the former than the latter) to avoid these kinds of events.
That said, I probably have a throttle like a WWI fighter, i.e., "on" or "off" (really, that's how they worked in 1918). You put hands on me in the wrong way and I respond to neutralize the threat enough to disengage without pursuit or die. I'm DEFINITELY not a brawler but if a stranger shows intent to harm and makes contact, it's open season on eyes and throats. Again, discretion and avoidance is primary mode if at all possible.
Sad thing is, these days, fighting back probably gets you jailed, especially in Portland. But probably worth the rap sheet.
In our self-defence class we approach this very mechanically. If there is a problem that cannot be handled verbally or deescalated, you do what you need to do to keep yourself and your loved ones safe. That may involve going for eyes, throat and nuts. If need be, kick the knees to keep them from pursuing you. Some attackers may be so much under the influence that pain does not register with them, you need to disable them.
If the perp is armed, compliance may be the best survival strategy. We once put red lipstick on our training blades. You would not believe how red the white t-shirts were afterwards. It takes a lot of training to learn to defend yourself properly. And seriously, there are so much YouTube videos out there that are utter bovine excrement. Nothing beats regular real training with a certified instructor, apart from avoiding getting into hairy situations in the first place.
Knew a young lady in Austin who was a power lifter, and she figured this gave her a strength advantage. She decided she wanted to trade punches with the males in our group. Most of the guys nerfed their punches, only throwing from the shoulder. She got to me and I told her if we were going to play the game, I wasn't going to nerf the punch like everyone else.
She punches me in the right shoulder (my go to arm), giving it her all.
At this point, I have to admit, I nerfed my punch, a little, throwing it from the waist, instead of getting everything involved. She fell on her ass.
She did say she finally understood about men hitting harder than women, however.
Therr are of course exceptions, there always are, but all trans-man I have knowledge of conduct themselves very carefully. They are constantly aware they are at a severe size, strength, and durability disadvantage compared to an XY man, and are not afforded the leeway in conduct afforded to a woman. Instant hospitalization is a real, constant concern, it's sure not easy mode.
Transmen and Transwomen are completely different animals. In a lot of ways transmen are choosing hard mode. (usually without being made fully aware of what they're getting into)
I wonder if the violence against transgenders isn't that they are larping, it's that they are pushing boundaries and lying.
My granddad and my dad drilled into me that a man can be forgiven a lot, but he can't be forgiven being a liar and a thief. If a guy's expecting a doll, and it's a dude in drag, there's punishment inbound for sure.
I've worn hats all my life, and it's amazing how many men don't know the rules. I liken it to what might happen in I were to wear a biker's jacket. That seems to get their attention.
As for women, they love pushing boundaries and seeing how far they can go.
Even if it gets them in trouble.
And you're right, we put up with things out of women that we wouldn't with men.
Several thoughts;
1) I suspect that your reasoning is PART of the issue.
2) My own personal space for people whose body language signals ‘aberrant behavior’ is even larger than for ‘random male stranger’, and I don’t think I’m alone in that.
3) I suspect that the current crop of Transgender persons runs to 10% gender dysphoric and 90% narcissist looking for attention through a fashionable trope. Narcissists are not, as a rule, subtle. They have scant tact and are bad at taking hints.
Absolute uncanny valley, yep. There's a creep out factor no matter which gender you were "born with". Unless you are VERY good at being your "current gender". But then IMO the reveal gets even creepier.
But also guys are aggressive and other guys know this, it's something they've been doing since they were in the crib. There's a reason for all that space guys give and get, it's a safety zone. A courtesy zone if you prefer.
And finally, girls still (mostly) wait to be asked, not just for dates but just do. Guys don't so you have this female(ish) thing in your space throwing off male performative habits.
And add the narcissism.
The first transgender people were interested in actually passing, so they made really sure they acted the right way.
Most of the transgender people now seem to be interested in "passing", but really it's "freak the mundanes out"
Rather like militant Vegans (ie, 90+% of ‘em) they also tend to be self-righteously in your face and unable or unwilling to accept “not interested” as an answer when interacting with others.
Because I weigh 105 lbs. and I am old, indeed, I have strict rules of how close I allow (particularly) strangers in my personal space. I believe you may be on to something about a possible confusion about how far we let certain people go because of the entire trans-issue. Again, because I am old, I have little patience with it. I was recently told over a certain political debate with a much, much younger person who labeled me a “boomer,” that I wouldn’t be around much longer and she was glad. As I have considered her opinion, I am taking better care of myself so I can outlive her just to spite her.😂
That child is in for a rude awakening. If she thinks boomers are strict, she hasn't come across a ferally raised Gen-Xer yet. We can be just as cantankerous as Boomers. After all, we were raised in part by the Greatest Generation and they didn't put up with shit.
We Boomers were your parents. The Greatest were our parents. I can see where ya’ll were partly raised by grandparents, since a fair number of Boomers were the original hippies, but just wanted to clarify things for the youngsters.
I never thought of the unwritten rules of being male vs female. Since I am a female, I was raised with female "rules". And you are so right about personal space of males vs females. I liked this post...a lot. Made me think. Are these rules implicated in trans violence? I dunno, but I could think maybe so.
I think one contributor to the conflict between men and women today are smaller families. A lot more folks don't have an opposite gender sibling. So, less understanding of the opposite sex, less ability to empathize with the issues they face. As well as understanding the basic differences between the sexes.
We were 2 brothers and 4 sisters. I had no illusions about female vindictiveness and verbal skills in tearing down an opponent, my sisters understood they absolutely couldn't compete physically even with a smaller male.
It's not like anyone has to go through life always distracted looking for land mines on the path. Apply the Golden Rule and you make life easier for yourself and others. Any effort not to be an A-hole, even an inadvertent one, pays dividends. On the other hand --->
There was an unwritten rule in my Navy (1965-1991): "Never "borrow" someone else's coffee mug." The only exception to that was back in 1967 when our new LPO, RD1 Bill Ca___t, stood before us at quarters for the first time and said, "This is my coffee mug, use it any time you want". And then he unzipped and rimmed his mug. Bill retired an E-9 and later earned a PhD. He was a master communicator and an unconventional explainer of social norms and mores. Some folks have a gift of avoiding conflict. Bill was one of them.
I heard that same story from another sailor many years ago. I think it was aboard the JFK?
This was aboard a Dealey-Class Destroyer Escort, pre-dating the commissioning of the JFK. I suspect Bill Ca___t had influence far and wide, even after his 30-year Navy career.
This is a subject to which I have given a lot of thought. One of the unintended consequences of the latest version of feminism is that they have convinced young women that all of the movies and TV shows that depicted a 100 pound woman kicking butt on several 200 pound men is reality. Moreover, they have caused women to adopt all of the most objectionable charateristics of men while accepting none of the responsibilities.
Depending on location, men have certain, unspoken rules regarding conflict with one another. If two men are fighting in a bar over some real or imagined affront to their honor, it is generally understood that One does not attack the gonads of The Other. To do so escalates it from conflict to combat which, in reality, neither party truly wants.
Women have been taught for centuries that kicking a man's berries is their best chance to preserve their virtue and escape. Modern feminism has neglected to inform modern women that escape is the goal, thus preserving themselves intact against a larger, stronger foe.
Add to that young men buying into the idea of Universal Equality in that, women are no longer deserving of deference in physical conflict (or anything else) and you have a recipe for disaster.
The result of this toxic mixture of Hollywood deception and Feminist delusion is that the internet is replete with video examples of women attempting to inflict violence upon larger, stronger men and ending up getting KTFO.
Unless we turn away from this trend, we will have an uptick in young men going to prison for unintentionally killing women because they reacted to female violence in the way they react to male violence.
Interesting theory.
One explanation could be that women trying to LARP (as XY) as men overcompensate in aggression to appear genuine.
As a Biologist by education, I am intellegent enough to understand that the XX vs XY difference cannot be overcome by mutilation and chemicals. I will inform you it is permanent .
Hmm.
I remember when the testosterone hit at puberty I got aggressive. Having supervised many young men, high levels of testosterone in brains designed to work with high levels of testosterone still caused aggression issues.
I wonder if male levels of testosterone in brain intended for female levels of testosterone could be the proximate cause of "overcompensation in aggression", rather than a voluntary display?
I suspect that's what causes them to pick up rifles and head for schools. Pile that on top of the recently 'discovered' issue that many teen transgenders are actually misdiagnosed other mental illnesses and it's party time. For a certain value of party time.
Having worked with one relatively recently... I swear the poor thing had *no idea* that she was being an unfocused ball of anger and aggression, because she's never spent any time around 12 and 13 year old boys.
It didn't help that her influencers on Tumblr and TikTok kept telling her that anything that pissed her off was Everybody Else's Fault - she had zero self-awareness that she was pumping raw aggression into her veins.
The other problem was, as far as I could tell, her entire world online consisted of other transtrenders, who were all about "being transgender", instead of "being male" or "being female". Having known and loved some folks who were truly gender dysphoric for decades, I can tell you they applied serious study into learning the unwritten female / male rules... *and their brains were wired for the sex they were trying to imitate*, unlike the current transtrender idiots. Seriously, had a good friend who went MTF and understood female motivations better than *I* did.
The only saving grace was that *because* she spent all her time hanging out with other transtrenders and rainbow-haired enablers, she didn't get the smarmy shit beaten out of her often. (Even when she did, it was less often than you'd think, because she didn't LARP male very well at all. Men kept backing off under "something is seriously wrong with that one. Is he gay? Is he bugfuck nuts? Nothing is making sense from the unconscious sizing up to the words out of his mouth." Unfortunately, every time she or her friends did, they chalked it up to "homophobic" or "transphobic" violence, instead of a learning experience.
Serious about the brain wiring by sex... I love you guys, but y'all think very differently than women. Very linear, very hierarchical, very compartmentalized, and with a far higher baseline aggression that you know you have to control, because puberty, parents, and role models taught you that.
When not-truly-gender-dysphoric women get hit with all that aggression and *no understanding of how to control it*, no responsibility or accountability trained in, and no understanding of male thought patterns, body language, and social rules? It's trouble all the way down.
My hubby's Appalachian grandmother and great-grandmother beat the "no hat in the house" rule into him quite young. Re-enforced by the military. It REALLY annoys him when men wear hats inside. (He enforced it on our boys when young, but they do what they do now.)
I'm an odd - I never learned the girl rules, and thus never fit in with them.
Oh yeah, the no hat's inside rule. Did he also get the "Wear your hat/cap the right way," talk.
Nothing bugs me more than seeing a backwards cap.
Well. Wearing it backwards is stupid. Except for cause, maybe, like when the brim keeps hitting the top of the 'scope...
Re wearing it inside, I was taught that was a signal you were armed.
I was taught to never wear one indoors. It was a lesson grandad strenuously enforced.
Take the hat off indoors, wear it the right way, maybe tip it slightly to the left. Tip your hat to a lady, and never pick up another man's hat.
In the military, being under arms is the only reason to not uncover.
Not everyone can read the instructions..
Yep! No backwards, not tipped, etc.
I always thought it was acceptable for cowboys to wear hats indoors and mandatory for Orthodox Jews.
A lot. It's happened a lot. I've seen the roots of it more than once and vacated the area.
A lot of women, just do NOT have a clue. The older ones usually do. Or the ones who've had crews of men working for them (doing physical jobs - not tech bro stuff).
A lot of women trying to be men are just incredibly obnoxious. The stuff they've spent their life doing and NOT getting hit, they think they can still do, and the wake up call is not pretty.
It's not *officially* Transgenderism, but that last paragraph reminds me at once of the female Drill Sgts at Ft. Jackson during my incarceration there in '99. Every single one I met, with *one* exception, was the brash-&-brassy sort who'd made it her mission to show her balls were bigger than any man's out there. "Just incredibly obnoxious" is put mildly.
I was under the impression that Drill Sergeants were supposed to be somewhat obnoxious.
Under the theory that the recruit doesn't have to like the orders being given, or the person giving them, he just has to do them since they're lawfully given.
Probably also one of the reasons why Drill Sergeants don't follow along with the recruits when they graduate.
That's where you're missing the point:
There's hardass "I'm the stone that will whet your blade, whether you like it or not!" which described most of the male Drills, to varying degrees and in various ways. Smoky-bear hats: the Brown Rounds.
And then there's bitchass "I'm yo' mean mofo mama and doan' you g-d- forget it, 'cause I brung you in MY army an' will take you out if you cross my PMS." Green slouch-hats instead of the brown smoky-bears. And with a sampling of each the recruit learns the difference mighty damned quickly.
And by "any man's out there," I mean *any* man's, including male Drills' or in one case, just one platoon over, the young Company XO's I believe. She lost her hat and a full pay-grade over that one, and there was hardly a wet eye in the house.
As to Drills "following along with" the recruits, we were our own Sr. Drill's last rotation "On the Trail"; the last batch of kids he had to break down from shaggy snot-nosed civvies into lean U.S. Army Soldiers. I reached out to him again a few years later, and he stopped by my school during a flight layover as he PCS'd to Germany in order to pin my butterbar on when I commissioned. I wouldn't have wanted it otherwise.
I’m still bewildered about that gal picking up a stranger’s hat, let alone putting it on her head. That’s just ill-mannered in my book. Did she try on all the coats, too? Up next: pulling wheel guns out of other people’s holsters to admire the engraving.
Your squirrels are launching acorns on target. U.S. personal space parameters are much larger than other cultures (even British).As one who grew up in far southern S. America, had to tolerate people getting within a foot of nose to nose. Here it is 6 to 10 ft before the defense mechanism clicks on, however, the gender and demeanor of the approaching party make this flexible, especially in high crime zones and loss of daylight.
I was raised in a single parent home by my mother. It influences my attitudes to some degree. Early on it was violence is never a solution, don't even fight back. It only took me showing up beat up a few times in the third grade before she modified that to violence is never a good solution but if you don't fight back if attacked you will get a spanking at home also. Loved her a lot, she actually would adjust to reality.
However it left me with a weird personal space and socialization space for male interactions. Up till later in life I was way more comfortable with female friends. Anyway.. back to the aggression issue, I avoid any physical conflict up to the point that someone lays a physical hand on me or mine. Then it escalates to I'm going to put you down as fast and hard as possible till your no longer a threat. Since school years it hasn't come up to actionable events more than maybe 4 times, and that in my early 20's many years ago while in the army. 4 scuffles there with people in the platoon. Couple were just drunk idiots the other two a bit more personal. It stopped there, no one was willing to even play at it afterward.
If you pick your friends carefully, stay away from places that habitually have violence you will very rarely have issues. I have lived an amazingly peaceful life. However I really make a normal socialized male uncomfortable if I get into physical conflict and they see it. If physical conflict ensues I have no rules except put down at all costs as fast as possible. I remember in school when I got in a fair number of fights due to being picked on. 24 schools in 11 years and being 6 inches shorter and 20+ lbs lighter than everyone else my age until age 14 does that, being the new kid sucks. However I never got in fights at a new school more than twice. By the second fight I had a reputation as being flat out crazy and you don't want to touch him. Grabbing a guy by the balls and trying to rip them off in a fight is just not done, don't you know. For me I just intended to take as much of them with me before I was unconscious or dead. After every fight I would cry and many times during it. It sent really weird signals to the bullies. I intellectually understand the male pattern behavior of fighting and making friends etc.. I have had multiple people that I fought that if not friends we would give respectful nods to each other later. Rare but it did happen.
I intellectually understand but not in my heart. I mostly felt those guys were breathing wastes of space and cavemen.
Over the years I have thought about it a lot. There is a really good reason to raise boys with a code of conduct that includes physical scuffles and a constrained way of expressing it, if it escalates that far. It trys to keep the damage down to bruised and bloodied but not truly injured. It goes wrong though when you cross cultures and subcultures and then those like me that sorta made up their own with no good examples growing up. lol... I think a good chunk of mine came from Louis L'Amour books and grand masters of sci fi like Heinlein, A. E. Van Vogt, Asimov etc...
Their are a shit ton broken home people out there like me and worse. Massive percentage of the population. You never know what your going to get if you allow yourself to go physical.
At the end of the day, one of my most lived by motto's is An Armed Population is a Polite Population. I go out of my way to be very polite because of how dangerous I could be and don't want to be. I have found that even most aggressive idiots will respond to serious calm responses that make them feel as if you hear them and are seeing them as a real person, sort most stuff out quickly. However I will reiterate that I avoid putting myself in situations that lead to that.
Ian.
My hat is off to you. I was asked to become an police officer multiple times when I was younger and just out of the military. I worked for a police dept in a non officer capacity for a year or so and decided that I didn't want most of my days to be dealing with the bottom side of humanity. I knew a bunch of officers good and bad. Other than the rare one or two that could maintain some semblance of normalcy after years of dealing with that, most were burned out and tended to see everyone through the filter of the worst people that they dealt with day to day. I just made the choice to not go there. For someone that was able to do that job for years and maintain their cool and sanity, I have a lot of respect. You worked in a job that you went to the places it would go wrong on a daily basis and dealt with it. Again, hat is off.
Oh meant to say something about the male vs female. Most women are flat out broken in today's society in that they have been taught they can do anything a man can and as well. There is a lot of truth to that for a myriad of civilized jobs. However your right. The average woman is going to get hammered by the average man in nothing flat. It just doesn't happen often for most as in sports or play scuffles with mixed sex the guys do restrain their strength so as not to injure or even bruise a woman. Between modern feminism and most dealing with men with a code of conduct that protects women, even in if not respected by them, most women I have known think they can protect themselves with out "mechanical advantage" It's useless to argue it with them. I have a few friends that have experienced it and they know. They also to a person carry "mechanical advantage to equalize the playing field" :)
Heinlein, Asimov, Bradbury- all foundational models for me as an adolescent. I read a *lot* and their philosophies shaped me. Now a Pratchett fan.
Same here, and being raised in a single mother household with no CLOSE male mentors to teach me how a man should act towards a woman, I ended up a tomboy. I have no filter, and call a spade a spade from the start. While working in a poultry factory for over a decade, MANY young men did not like me much, because if they tried bulling up at me, I stood up to them and gave them a gentle lesson in manners that matter - gentle only in that I never got physical with them.
I did get quite verbal with them. Remember well one young fellow who catcalled an approximately equal aged young lady who walked off while doing what we women do. Smiling tightly while leaving the area. I called him on it. "Oh, but she smiled!! She MUST have liked it!" No, she didn't like it, she was being polite. I'm not polite. "Oh ,it isn't that big a deal." So I asked yon young dumbfoolery making fellow "Ok, do you have any kids?" Yeah, two daughters. "How old?" 4 and 6. "Now imagine they are 14 and 16 and walking down the street and some strange dude does that to them? How are you reacting?" I'mma gonna unalive the SOB. "Ok, she's someone's daughter, sister, neice, aunt, mother, girlfriend, wife, whatever....do you think you deserve a beat down now?" OH! You could see the light bulb go on. Then he calls after her, "I'm sorry!! I'm a jerk!!"
I was often the young women's outcry witness to seggsual harrassment at the plant, and happy to be such. More than once those young fellows would tell me "Man, for a lady, you act like you got some big brass ones hanging." I'd simply lift my hands and waggle the girls at said young fellow and respond with, "Why, yes, I do have balls. Mine are just bigger than your and higher up. That's why they're called chesticles."
Learned guys are a lot stronger than women when as tail end boomer (generation jones), we would play football in the neighborhood together. Tackle. We were all 11 and under though, but still at that age, guys hit harder than the girls did. Same with hockey games out on the lake on weekends
Got knocked out in high school via dirty hit playing football at lunch. Dude got mad I had tackled him in the previous play and gunned for it.
I did not know that if you grab a guys hat it means you like him in that manner. However I don't go grabbing the personal property of someone I don't know. I mean who DOES do that? And Charles Schofield has some great points and I may go append there.
A fascinating post with aspects of male/female behavior I hadn't considered as well as I should, probably because I've been either lucky enough or situationally aware enough (probably more the former than the latter) to avoid these kinds of events.
That said, I probably have a throttle like a WWI fighter, i.e., "on" or "off" (really, that's how they worked in 1918). You put hands on me in the wrong way and I respond to neutralize the threat enough to disengage without pursuit or die. I'm DEFINITELY not a brawler but if a stranger shows intent to harm and makes contact, it's open season on eyes and throats. Again, discretion and avoidance is primary mode if at all possible.
Sad thing is, these days, fighting back probably gets you jailed, especially in Portland. But probably worth the rap sheet.
In our self-defence class we approach this very mechanically. If there is a problem that cannot be handled verbally or deescalated, you do what you need to do to keep yourself and your loved ones safe. That may involve going for eyes, throat and nuts. If need be, kick the knees to keep them from pursuing you. Some attackers may be so much under the influence that pain does not register with them, you need to disable them.
If the perp is armed, compliance may be the best survival strategy. We once put red lipstick on our training blades. You would not believe how red the white t-shirts were afterwards. It takes a lot of training to learn to defend yourself properly. And seriously, there are so much YouTube videos out there that are utter bovine excrement. Nothing beats regular real training with a certified instructor, apart from avoiding getting into hairy situations in the first place.
Knew a young lady in Austin who was a power lifter, and she figured this gave her a strength advantage. She decided she wanted to trade punches with the males in our group. Most of the guys nerfed their punches, only throwing from the shoulder. She got to me and I told her if we were going to play the game, I wasn't going to nerf the punch like everyone else.
She punches me in the right shoulder (my go to arm), giving it her all.
At this point, I have to admit, I nerfed my punch, a little, throwing it from the waist, instead of getting everything involved. She fell on her ass.
She did say she finally understood about men hitting harder than women, however.
"I’ve got to wonder"
Therr are of course exceptions, there always are, but all trans-man I have knowledge of conduct themselves very carefully. They are constantly aware they are at a severe size, strength, and durability disadvantage compared to an XY man, and are not afforded the leeway in conduct afforded to a woman. Instant hospitalization is a real, constant concern, it's sure not easy mode.
Good information to add to the cogitation.
This does not seem to apply to the ones who get involved in women's sports. They don't care about the collateral damage.
Transmen and Transwomen are completely different animals. In a lot of ways transmen are choosing hard mode. (usually without being made fully aware of what they're getting into)
I've seen the videos where they melt down upon discovering just how hard things are for men.
I wonder if the violence against transgenders isn't that they are larping, it's that they are pushing boundaries and lying.
My granddad and my dad drilled into me that a man can be forgiven a lot, but he can't be forgiven being a liar and a thief. If a guy's expecting a doll, and it's a dude in drag, there's punishment inbound for sure.
I've worn hats all my life, and it's amazing how many men don't know the rules. I liken it to what might happen in I were to wear a biker's jacket. That seems to get their attention.
As for women, they love pushing boundaries and seeing how far they can go.
Even if it gets them in trouble.
And you're right, we put up with things out of women that we wouldn't with men.