Theos-Talk Archives (December 1996 Message tl00259)

Doss Wrote:

>We have seen several msgs on the question of superiority /inferiority.

>Some thoughts came to my mind.

>No two human beings are like.
>Am I superior to my little girl of 10? She can sing and play violin
>very well and I cannot.

and -

>Only thing we can say is that in some respects one is better at certain
>things and the other is better in other things.

>So fundamentally it seems no one is superior or inferior to any one.

That about sums it up for me as well.

Tom wrote:

>In that men are more logical than women, they _are_ superior.  The
>mischaracterization comes from assuming that I do not believe that, in other
>ways, women are superior to men, in blatant disregard for the fact that I
>have said at least 10 times (a necessity that I find disappointing in a
>group that claims to be open to dissent) that I consider men and women to be
>equal overall, but different.  That they are different means that, in every
>way that they are different, one will be superior to the other.  I do not
>care how sexist that makes me seem, since, until someone points out a
>specific way that this is wrong, instead of the consistent name-calling
>that, so far, has been the best response to it, I will assume there is no
>argument with any substance against it.  If anyone disagrees with me and
>believes that women are more logical than men, or that they are exactly as
>logical as each other, then why not simply say so?  Why discourage
>discussion?  I find it especially ironic that women respond in an emotional,
>personal, illogical way, protesting that women are really as logical as men.

Tom, here's my take on a specific way. I have never experienced a
constant perception that all men are more logical than women, or vice
versa. Many men I've met have been extremely emotional, proud, easily
hurt, whiny and immature, many others less than intelligent, let alone
logical. Dumb as fence posts, really. Still some others have been
brilliant and exacting, but never all the time and by no means has their
logic always been faultless, successful, or untouched by emotion. I see
no case for generalization in that. Nor do I see logic, whether used by
men or by women as being always the superior perception or solution to a
problem. The same can be said for the women I've known and met. There
were tons with more logic than I or the other men I mentioned, doctors,
lawyers, engineers, scholars, clergy, etc. Totally brilliant women who'd
put any number of men to shame by a comparison of mental acuity or tests
of logic. Nor would I say that some of the emotional abilities of either
sex haven't been more insightful or helpful than all the logic in the
world. The plain facts are that your generalizations are unfounded by my
experience and I can't support you in them. Each individual has to be
taken on their own terms. There are just too many exceptions to admit
any kind of black and white assessment.

I will agree that " any particular man or woman can be more logical or
emotional than any other man or woman" case by case, but find any
further gender based assumption unsupportable.

for example:

>Men tend to compete more and make comparisons more than women do,
>whereas women are more prone to accept life as it is and be more cooperative.

I'll suspect it's been a while since you've been shopping with a woman.
If you have scientific data to back this up, please present it. If this
is just your opinion, you are entitled to it, but I'll have to disagree.

Mark