The Infernal Ladies Room

From my perch in a public library I often come across fascinating titles that lead me from my accustomed browsing grounds into what is (to me, anyway) the morbid esoterica of life in the world created by the enlightened modern mind. This week I read one of them, Susan Shapiro Barash’s Tripping the Prom Queen: The Truth About Women and Rivalry. Barash, a professor of Critical Thinking and Gender Studies at Manhattan Marymount College, speaks of female rivalry as a phenomenon both typical of and peculiar to her sex, contrasting it to male competitiveness in which men seem to enjoy a natural advantage through their ability to limit competition to discrete spheres of activity. Rivalry practiced by women, she notes, tends to become all-consuming, growing into envy and jealously that encompasses every area of life, causing alienation of women from each other and dissipation of the collective strength they might have had through the female solidarity envisaged by early feminism. Where men seem to be able to compete fiercely in business or on the athletic field, then retire to have a friendly drink together, women, to their immense disadvantage (against men?), once drawn into competition with other women—typically their “friends”—often will not be satisfied until they have destroyed one another.

Although Professor Barash has come to this as the result of her research, it is something observant people have always known, and one of the reasons women have tended to be relegated to subordinate roles not simply by the will of men, but of women as well. There are good reasons why both women and men tend as a rule to be more frightened and mistrustful of female superiors—the “female superior” being in all likelihood a competitive woman--than they are of males. There is something to the stereotype of the woman who, once threatened or alienated by competition or anything else, is an implacable enemy forever, while the man who, more abstractly goal- than person-oriented, is able to leave these things behind, or at least re-order them constructively, and get on with business. Despite the obvious risks male bosses pose to female employees they find attractive or male subordinates with whom they compete, it is more likely that both men and women will receive satisfactory treatment from the male superior—a commonplace of the workplace with which feminism is decidedly uncomfortable.

Men, in Barash’s study, appear in the eyes of competitive women in the dual role of sex-objects and the guardians of the privileged world to which women aspire, but from which they are occluded by the actions of men and their own lack of solidarity (a term that is used many times in this book.). By sex-objects I am not referring to the simple sexual lust of males, but the wider erotic lust of females in which men symbolize not only physical satisfaction, but gain significantly for being  rich and handsome, the potential  providers of quality children, and perhaps most of all, for the ability to provide a well-appointed stability in the world. Men, when for modern women, are things that provide them with things. When they are against women, their other natural role, they are a kind of universal, mystical fraternity of exclusionary agents, ever intent on securing their privileged place in the world by keeping women, who constantly threaten them with their brains and talent, in their places. 

Barash notes, however, that competitive women are at least partly to blame for their own difficulties in a world that continues to be unjustly dominated by men, and encourages her readers to a more desirable end in which women begin to co-operate and mentor each other rather than compete—something that approaches a generous and charitable treatment of each other. 

That would be nice, to be sure, but looming above this, in this book, is the ever-present spectre of “what women want,” in the way of scarce commodities. If their goal in life is self-fulfillment by way of high-paying, high-status jobs, personal beauty, handsome, successful, and faithful husbands, and children one can boast about among one’s friends, there are not enough of these, Barash notes, to go around. In several places she insists that something should be done to make scarce things more plentiful—like abundant daycare so that working mothers can be all they can be. (One wonders whether she might expect the government to help provide the rarest of all commodities: the “good man”—the man who will cheerfully help the ambitious woman get everything she wants.) 

The problem is that in this modern, feminist scenario, the woman is actualized, her will is satisfied, only in becoming what other men and women are not and cannot be. This can only be done by rising above them, by achieving, in hierarchies and blood-contests to which as egalitarians they profess to be naturally opposed, what others cannot, getting what others cannot--in short, winning a competition that someone else must perforce lose. Else how could these women accomplish what they take to be success?  

At the end of this road, solidarity, mentoring, helping others be as much as they can be, is always at the risk of one’s own advantage and must be subordinated to the higher end of self-fulfillment. Barash does not attempt to reconcile these two ways of life, she simply approves them both, ending her book on the charitable note, which makes it sound wiser than it is, and a good deal nicer. I find in it, however, no reason to be consistently good to everyone, but on the contrary, to be sure that every person who could possibly become a threat to what one regards as success be forcibly and finally put down. If one is to take her place—which is the end and meaning of life--the prom queen must be tripped.

The heart of the problem of these women is that they are Godless. Not that some of them may not be adherents of some kind of religion, but that they are Godless, for there is no evidence whatever in Barash’s book of existence among them of the two things that remove believing women, who are wholly absent from this feminist treatise, from their ranks: (1) the fear of a God who will finally punish them for their selfish lives and (2) hope in a God who wills that they self-actualize not through serving themselves, but others, and promises them an imperishable reward for doing so. 

What is to the feminist manifest as a self-defeating evil, belief in the male invention of a male God who rewards women for meekly putting others (like husbands and children) before themselves-- condemned before the modern women’s movement by Nietzsche as bad for the race in general-- arises unbidden from the pages of this book as the nemesis of the kind of women its author regards as just plain folk. Which I suppose they are, if you live in the environs of hell. 

Comments

[Janet C]

Aside from the lack of God, these women have given up the things that draw women together. Plunk any two mothers of toddlers together in a room and they'll have plenty to talk about and chances are they'll end up babysitting for each other, carpooling and bringing each other meals when additions to the family come along. Of course, there's some competition here, too, but there's far more benefit to working together than there is to tearing each other apart.

AMDG, Janet

[Nick]

Interesting comment Janet. Guarding of children does, in my experience at least, bring women together. In fact I'd argue any guarding of social order creates incredibly strong female groups.

For those interested in a humorous but sometimes tasteless take on this I suggest the movie, "Mean Girls". Its written from a feminist perspective but, bein' a youngin' I couldn't help think how well the characters resembled girls I went to high school with.

[Douglas]

Generally speaking, when men join an institution they will mold themselves to the institution, the traditions of which are passed down from one group of men to their successors. Women will seek to deconstruct and reform the institution, making it into just what the author describes: a Ladies' Room.

Of course, just as we need literal ladies' rooms, there are some institutions that should be run by women.

But outside such places, what you end up with is the Episcopal Church (or, as noted elsewhere, the education establishment), and the institution will be run by women for women.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>> Of course, there's some competition here, too, but there's far more benefit to working together than there is to tearing each other apart.<<<

I believe that there is a strong cultural component in this, which does not carry over into other cultures. For instance, in tribal or ethnically-based cultures, or in cultures based on amoral familism, the circle of cooperation can be rather constricted.

[Judy Warner]

The true friendship of women with each other is such a wonderful thing that it is a terrible pity for women to throw it away for an ideology or for impossible yearnings. That said, I had little in the way of close friendships with other females in my teens and twenties, and it wasn't until my thirties that I developed close and lasting friendships with women. I don't know if that's just me, or if it has to do with the competitiveness of younger ages and the mellowing of later years.

[luthien]

Douglas, you are too hard on women and too gentle with your own sex. The problem with the education system is not that it is dominated by women, but that it is dominated by the incompetent of both sexes; the same might be said of the Episcopal Church, if one replaces "incompetent" with "heretical."

I think Dr. Barash rather overstates her case about the unique femaleness of bitter rivalry; men have such rivalries, too-they just tend to be on a bigger scale and are often excused by "raison d'état," which is not an excuse for tripping the prom queen. The Night of the long Knives, for instance, was not the fruit of genial male competition, but of a bitter, hateful rivalry of erstwhile friends. Ditto the purges of the Communist party in the USSR in the 30s-I seriously doubt stalin ever went out for a friendly beer with his rivals. I suppose it's possible that Eva Braun and Mrs. Stalin were the real culprits, but I sort of doubt it. Now don't all come jump on me at once; I certainly agree that women are more prone to bitter rivalries and destroying their friends than are men (I probably would trip the prom queen), but to call this a peculiarly female modus operandi is hyperbolic.

[Douglas]

Luthien,

The examples you recite are of two profoundly radical and perverse political movements. The Nazi and Bolshevik regimes were not conservative institutions. They represented an extreme departure from the established order.

[dpence]

Another interesting secular book to read along this line is Odd Girl Out especially relevant if you have teen age daughters. The ability of men to compete and then agree is essential after war when we remember that "the man I fight is a man like me." All of this has something toi do with the public character of male identity. I need to know Huthschens not as my buddy SMH but as a recognizable "man". There is no female equivalence. I wish there was more understanding that this fundamental male femnale difference is the anthropological basis of the the public masculine character of Christian brotherhood and the apostolic nature of the Church.
When I talk to female confirmation groups(ages 15 -16) about female solidarity and rivalry, I use the example of Mary's visitation to Elizabeth as the prototype of protective mothers together. i also try to contrast the very real natural and particular love of mother-daughter as a much stronger reality than the fake universal sisterhood of feminism. It should not escape us that after all the sisterhood talk the only universal committment of the most powerful feminist money group-Emilys List is support of abortion. Thank you to Dr H for his good review of that book.

[Bobby Winters]

>>> encourages her readers to a more desirable end in which women begin to co-operate and mentor each other rather than compete—something that approaches a generous and charitable treatment of each other. <<<

Some have taken her up on this whether they realize this or not. I'm an assistant dean and my Dean is a woman. A better mentor, for either men or women, would be hard to find.

[Dirk Van Glabeke]

women in meetings can give a quite different, more social way of dealing with things

in my experience mixed work surroundings are best.

[smh]

One of the reasons I found Dr. Barash's book so interesting is that it resonated so strongly with my experiences in school and beyond.

Two boys (on occasion one of them would be me) would get into a bloody playground fight. It would end when in the consensus of the other boys present there was a clear winner and it was pointless to continue. Anyone who tried to carry the fight beyond that point, either as the winner or loser, was looked down upon, often restrained by the other boys, and it was quite possible that that the next day the fighters would be friends and allies. Paradoxically, the fight served to draw them together. Lewis somewhere mentions the possibility of a British and a German soldier who, having shot each other dead a moment ago, would meet immediately as friends on the other side of death. This idea would seem perfectly apt and natural to most men I know. It is how men who are acting like men view the rites of war. Women tend not to understand.

The reason reasonable people are afraid of putting women in charge of armies--or platoons, for that matter:
Two girls would get into a fight, usually over a boy, and not only would they have to be forcibly separated, since their object was not to win but to annihilate, but the battle would continue as long as they could make it last, polarizing the largest segment of the female student body they found it possible to influence.

I believe Barash is observing one of the ways this well-known phenomenon carries on into adult life.

[smh]

(By the way, the reason men in, let us say, their "unsanctified" state, enjoy observing "cat fights" is because in their minds it proves their superiority to women.)

[Stuart Koehl]

>>> Lewis somewhere mentions the possibility of a British and a German soldier who, having shot each other dead a moment ago, would meet immediately as friends on the other side of death.<<<

Or, if they both missed, on this side. Especially in the Western Desert, German and British soldiers would strike up friendships that persisted after the war into their old age. The same of Axis and Allied flyers, who can be seen having drinks together at reunions. Or Yankees and Confederates after the Recent Unpleasantness (and during it, for that matter). Nothing bonds men together like the shared experience of fighting.

Kipling's "Ballad of East and West" understands perfectly, in a way, I think, that women find hard to grasp:

Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the two shall mee t
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, tho’ they come from the ends of the earth

[Mairnéalach]

C.S. Lewis notes that husbands tend to downplay a perceived slight or abuse in order to maintain neighborly relations, while the women of the house may not exercise such restraint. My memory is foggy as to the particulars of the quote. I think it was in Mere Christianity.

[Tony Esolen]

Mairnealach,

It is in Mere Christianity, and it is accurate.

In my experience, male-female groups can be social enough and friendly and pleasant, so long as there is nothing controversial or urgent or dangerous that has to be done. They can also devolve quickly into ladies' clubs. I have yet to meet a single woman in all my life who developed a friendship based upon strife; but when I ask even teenage boys whether it's true that sometimes hated rivals will beat each other black and blue and then become the closest of friends, they always nod and smile -- clearly thinking of cases in their own experience.

What's missing from most discussions of this nature is a clear sense of the difference between the group-as-family and the group-as-army. Both need clear leaders; neither one is matriarchal; but the former is what women will form, and never the latter. At least, I have never seen it.

[Ranee]

It is interesting that you bring up this book. I just saw it in the new books at our library and picked it up. Although I recognized truths in it that I had participated in or observed in my life as a female, I am so far out of that kind of vindictive competition that reading it was more like watching a train wreck and I returned it to the library.

I don't know if it is because most of my friends are also very religious women, or if it is because we are too busy with our family life to deal in those terms, but I don't see the back biting now that I recall so easily from my teenage and college years. We rejoice when others succeed or are blessed and we mourn with those who have losses. I found that even though I completely knew and understood what the author was describing, it was such a distant thing from my life now.

Between that and the obvious liberal-feminist bent (you mean behaving like we think men do is bad for us?!), it held no interest for me except the nosy desire to read about other people's screwed up lives. I put it away.

[Nick]

Mr. Hutchen's, the Cat Fight comment is priceless. Some of the bloodiest fights I watched as a middle-schooler (I went to a bad side of town to boot) were between girls. They lasted *all* day and into the next week.

Men do have rivalries and then make peace. It just not worth the effort. This becomes more pronounced in men post 30 when the testosterone quiets down. It takes an enormous amount to provoke most of us then.

As to the mixed enviornments comment I agree *when* the enviornments have married couples and when men are the nominal leaders. Those enviornments tend to run vary smoothly. If all of the parties are single the enviornment is very unstable.

[Margaret]

Girls and women form factions for the purpose of affirming themselves as insiders and backbiting outsiders, then, with a shift in the breeze, regroup under different membership, leaving an odd man out, like musical chairs. The reason for change will be the perceived transgression of some former ally over a largely symbolic, emotional matter. No real effort will be made between individuals to work it out before it gets unworkable.

Women do not want to reconcile till they've ridden their grievance as far as they can, which may literally be a lifetime. Women cherish a juicy drama and work their animosities like a dog with a bone.

But when men have the same perversity--and some do--now that's a pestilence that puts the girls to shame.

[Maggie]

<--In my experience, male-female groups can be social enough and friendly and pleasant, so long as there is nothing controversial or urgent or dangerous that has to be done.-->

In the words of one of my male friends here at school, Dr. Esolen, (albeit, one with a slightly hyper and apocalyptic imagination): "The thing about defending campus by ourselves against something like a riot would be this: you'd have to tie up and gag about half the students before we'd have a chance." I didn't have to ask which half he was talking about...

The thing about female bosses also rings true. My father had a female boss for some years whom we dubbed "Xena, Warrior Princess." She was very driven, determined, and successful, but my father's (and everyone else's) gripe was that she handled everything "like a woman:" emotional, starting everything and finishing nothing, competitive, and fairly ruthless when she thought she needed to be. Then, to no great surprise, her family and professional life imploded and my dad got a new (male) boss.

[Judy Warner]

Maybe she should move on TO a new position somewhere else, Dominic. It is dreadful to work under someone like that. It can poison your life. I have been very fortunate in my bosses, but when I have happened to get a bad one I have moved on quickly.

[smh]

When I described the contents of the book to my wife and asked her what she thought about it, she said she tended to think of the behavior Barash described as juvenile, but understood that it crops up among (chronologically) mature women in groups that lack the collective antibodies against such behavior that normally come with age and experience. (She's a Medical Technologist and often uses the lingo.) She tells me she has not been unduly troubled with any of this behavior in her own female associations of family, work, or church.

From what I have heard her say over the years, I surmise that women in my wife's groups who show the traits Barash writes about are tolerated in hopes that they will grow up, which they usually do, or "get a life," or their ambitions, if they remain at pathological levels, will carry them away to where the company is less boring and conventional. The general group dynamic, in other words, has been mature enough to absorb the janglings of the morbidly ambitious. Those who show the trait are usually viewed as in some way damaged or ill, and are treated with consciously heightened levels of understanding or even indulgence.

This, of course, becomes more difficult to do when the sickie becomes your boss, and something tells me Barash's feminist subjects would not appreciate the kindness.

[Ethan Cordray]

I wonder if the increase in this sort of behavior is part of the female side of the infantilization (or perhaps "adolescentification") of our culture. Truly mature women aren't as susceptible to the temptation to extreme jealousy and envy. As many posters have noted, that sort of thing is more closely associated with high school-aged girls.

But as more young people of both sexes leave school and enter work without ever being taught to resist such things, and as we remove or devalue the burdens that lead to maturity, these things turn from adolescent vices into social cancers.

If all our schools ever tell kids is "there's nothing wrong with you," we can't be surprised if they still act like teenagers their whole lives.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Truly mature women aren't as susceptible to the temptation to extreme jealousy and envy.<<<

History would say otherwise. Perhaps we are merely reverting to type after a fairly long digression.

[Peter Gardner]

I would like to suggest an alternate theory which more closely reflects my own experience:

At the bottom of the pyramid (social, business, politics, &c.), things are fairly roomy, and cooperation is normal, and people are friendly. While everyone likely wants to advance, it's clear that people can advance together. However, closer to the top, things are constricted, and there's far less room for multiple people. Thus people get nasty, and try to push each other out of the way.

Witness your typical high school: there are some there who are scrambling for grades. There are some there who are scrambling for social status. All these people tend to view high school as a closed system, which they want to be at the top of. Those people, however, who are mostly in it for the education, tend to be much friendlier, more relaxed about things, and much nicer to be around. Once you get to college, though, people tend to be friendlier, more relaxed about things, and nicer to be around: not only are they now all at the bottom of the pyramid, it's now much more obvious that the pyramid extends beyond college.

Regarding women, historically there have been fewer opportunities for them economically, and they have been more restricted, socially, than men, to greater or lesser degrees at various times. Thus, their pyramids have been smaller. In addition, there is a "glass ceiling", real or percieved -- whether it's actually there or not is fairly irrelevant, the constricted pyramid effect is all about perceptions anyway.

[Judy Warner]

Nah, women are just nastier by nature. The low-life girls with no ambitions are at least as nasty as the strivers.

[Tony Esolen]

The only sin on the mountain of Dante's Purgatory that is represented by a woman is envy.

I think that that's on target; generally speaking, and with plenty of room left for all kinds of mischief from all kinds of people, men are prone to pride, and women are prone to envy. If you consider the body and its weaknesses, you can predict that big muscular people with their adrenal systems on a hair-trigger (heating up fast, and also cooling down fast) will be prone to sins of pretended "bigness": pride and violence come immediately to mind. They will also be less likely to hold a grudge (since they cool off fairly quickly, and since they do not feel consistently threatened). They will be prone to wanting to be bigger than everybody else, but they'll take pride in being bigger than big people, and will actually welcome worthy opponents.

The sister sin of pride is envy: it's the sin of being afraid that somebody else, somewhere or other, is bigger than you are. It's not the same mentality; it's the sin that you can predict of bodies that are, hormonally, a bit touchy, oversensitive, not overpowering, vulnerable in obvious ways.

Which is worse? Pride, obviously, the root of all sins; but they do different kinds of damage. Pride can destroy a lot of good things; envy can prevent good things from being established in the first place. At least that's how I see it: pride is destructive, and envy is anti-creative.

Our typical sins are complementary, because they are the curdlings of our typical virtues....

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Nah, women are just nastier by nature. <<<

Interestingly, counter-terrorism experts unaninmously conclude that in a hostage rescue situation one must always kill the female terrorists first, because while male terrorists may hesitate for a moment or two before they begin to kill hostages, the female terrorists never do. Thus, counter-terrorism doctrine indicates that the female terrorists are to be killed immediately, even before the male terrorists when there is a choice between the two.

Why this should be is a matter of some speculation. My own belief is that in order to reach the point of becoming a terrorist, a woman must utterly reject her own inherent nature, to a much greater extent than in men. This requires a constant act of will that results in a determination to be more ruthless, more heartless than her male counterparts.

On the other hand, there are numerous cultures in which the ritual torture and mutilation of prisoners is the duty of the women; e.g., among the Iroquois and Comanche Indians and among the Afghan tribes ("When you're lying out wounded on Afghanistan's plains/And the women come out to cut up what remains/The roll on your rifle and blow out your braines/And go to your God like a soldier").

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Nah, women are just nastier by nature. <<<

Interestingly, counter-terrorism experts unaninmously conclude that in a hostage rescue situation one must always kill the female terrorists first, because while male terrorists may hesitate for a moment or two before they begin to kill hostages, the female terrorists never do. Thus, counter-terrorism doctrine indicates that the female terrorists are to be killed immediately, even before the male terrorists when there is a choice between the two.

Why this should be is a matter of some speculation. My own belief is that in order to reach the point of becoming a terrorist, a woman must utterly reject her own inherent nature, to a much greater extent than in men. This requires a constant act of will that results in a determination to be more ruthless, more heartless than her male counterparts.

On the other hand, there are numerous cultures in which the ritual torture and mutilation of prisoners is the duty of the women; e.g., among the Iroquois and Comanche Indians and among the Afghan tribes ("When you're lying out wounded on Afghanistan's plains/And the women come out to cut up what remains/The roll on your rifle and blow out your braines/And go to your God like a soldier").

[Beth]

For my part, give me a male boss any day. I've known women in charge who did an excellent job, but most of the time, I sense that they are afraid. And they are especially afraid of the women beneath them, who might more easily get above them than the men (results of feminism in the workplace that gives women an unfair advantage to begin with) and must be cut down and held down at any cost. Sad, but there it is. I've almost never been treated unfairly by a male boss, almost always so by a female boss.

Stuart, I think you're right about women having to deny their inherent nature more completely to participate in acts of violence, and thus they become more violent and cruel than men doing the same thing. They also have more to prove -- just as a woman boss has more to prove than a man. Different places on the same spectrum, perhaps.

[Buttercup]

Mr. Koehl: I read a study some time ago about how many a man will risk his life to save a stranger's, but you rarely hear of a woman doing so, which was backed up by news reports. But, if the life in question is one of the woman's children, she'll risk anything.

I think the terrorist theory is an illustration of this.

Also, I wonder how many girls dream of being the hero as opposed to boys. I suspect more boys will do this. Again, evidence of pride being the chief sin of men as Mr. Esolen pointed out.

But, wishing to be a hero can also be the chief glory of man, which is why man is susceptible to the sin of pride, because it is closely tied to his chief virtue.

If that is so, what is the chief virtue of woman, that it is tied so closely to the sin of envy?

[Judy Warner]

It's not a new phenomenon. I'm thinking about Yael and that spike through Sisera's head. It makes me wonder, why a spike throught the head? Revolting overkill? It's probably because women are weak and have to take extra-strong measures to make sure they can cope with someone larger and stronger than themselves. (Why every woman should own a gun.)

[Bobby Winters]

Here is a piece of mine on heroes and some reaction to it.

[Tony Esolen]

Buttercup,

That's an excellent question. I think of it in terms of the dynamics of a group, rather than in terms of individual aspirations. So, on the virtuous or at least innocuous side: men invent games, showcases for glory, wherein we push one another beyond our comfortable limits, and (this here is very important) wherein we agree to take the chance of losing, even the near certainty of losing, that someone (we hope it's ourselves) will win. It's a complex form of cooperation, and it's a tad dangerous -- you can get hurt in these games, but men sense that it's worth it.

Women, however, who are the sex designed to take care of small children, cannot afford to indulge in such; they want, as a group, to make sure that everybody is comfortable, everybody has enough to eat and drink, everybody feels welcome and has someone to talk to. That can't happen in the presence of gross inequalities, or of things that are flagrantly out of the ordinary. So women are the correct enforcers of those laws of everyday behavior that blur the differences between people, at a party or in someone's home.

When the competitive impulse in men goes haywire, they fall prey to pride; when the equalizing or social rule-enforcing impulse in women goes haywire, they fall prey to envy. Maybe ...

[Tar Heel Woman]

<<>>

My theory as to why women are more prone to envy has to do with bodies as well, but in a different way.

Envy is what you feel when it seems like forces beyond your control have dealt you a poor hand--when other people have more than you do and there's no good reason for it. Many women, I think, feel this way in regards to looks. Other women, due to some accident of genetics, are more attractive than they are, and there's not much they can do about it. These more attractive women get many of the things most important to women--attention, intimacy, and love--solely by virtue of their being attractive. The average-looking or less-than-attractive women see this and think, "That isn't fair!," because, frankly, it's not. Resentment builds, but, since there's no way for them to compete with the more attractive women, they resort to catty tripping of the prom queen to deal with their frustration.

Men don't have this problem as they compete not on the level of looks and popularity but in arenas where the rules and rewards are clearly defined, and where sheer genetic good luck matters less than qualities like virtue and perserverance, virtues which can be developed. A man can be bested in an athletic or academic competition and feel no rancor towards the fellow who won, because he knows he was *fairly* beaten, and that there are things he can do to improve his standing in the next contest. Men's competitions are clean. A woman whose boyfriend or husband leaves her for a prettier woman has no such solace. Fate has dealt her a bad hand.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Women, however, who are the sex designed to take care of small children, cannot afford to indulge in such; they want, as a group, to make sure that everybody is comfortable, everybody has enough to eat and drink, everybody feels welcome and has someone to talk to. That can't happen in the presence of gross inequalities, or of things that are flagrantly out of the ordinary. So women are the correct enforcers of those laws of everyday behavior that blur the differences between people, at a party or in someone's home.<<<

My wife took a leadership course at the agency where she works some time back. It was taught by a woman named Jynx Melia, who wrote a book called "Why Jennie Can't Lead". Her basic premise was men are the hunters who go out into the world to kill mammoths. This ancestral activity made men results oriented and stressed primal group bonding through shared risk taking and exposure to danger. Much male activity, from teasing and hazing, to a rather cavalier approach to rules, to a need to make fools of themselves with other men, can be traced to this behavior.

Women, on the other hand, stayed in and around the cave, tended the fire, made the food, raised the children. As such, women became security and process oriented. For women, rules are the rules, and they will insist upon following and enforcing them even in situations where it makes little sense. Women also dislike competition, and go out of their way to discourage it, either through use of the rules to hamstring innovation, or by physical and mental intimidation of those women who look likely to break out of the mold.

Thus, men fight within a group until a clear winner is determined, then they tend to fall in line or leave the group altogether. Women, on the other hand, fight each other to the death.

[Bobby Winters]

>>>Women, on the other hand, fight each other to the death.<<<

And sometimes it doesn't even stop then.

[Tony Esolen]

Stuart,

I agree with that assessment entirely.

It's hard these days to specify the difference between the team, which is an overwhelmingly male phenomenon adopted, intermittently, by women, and the klatsch (I wish there were a better word for it) -- I mean a group that takes care of everyday business, including the everyday business of keeping people reasonably content and in line. The team is the basis of civilization, and the klatsch is the basis of domestication. Those are both good things, but they are different things. It would be an interesting thing to ask what happens when the categories become confused, and you try to run a college as you would run a quilting bee, or you try to turn your home into a boot camp.

[Rebecca]

You all sound so fatalistic.

So what's a woman to do who doesn't fit in to this mold?

[Judy Warner]

There are some successful women CEOs, so obviously this doesn't apply to every woman. I agree with the biological basis of male/female behavior that several have described, but there is a also a social component to workplace differences. Because women are relatively new in many supervisory and managerial roles, they are more insecure than men. They have not always been mentored to understand how to be supervisors and managers, and perhaps they are opposed or undermined in these roles. Therefore they have to do their jobs differently from men and may not be as competent.

In my previous careers as teacher, social worker, and child psychologist, I had several women supervisors who were excellent at their jobs and had good relationships with the women and men who worked for them. I wonder if this is true in other traditional women's jobs too, like nursing, where women have been in upper-level roles for a long time.

[Stuart Koehl]

Tony,

I have seen the pernicious effects of the intrusion of women into one area previously considered an exclusively male preserve: military service. There has been a lot of blather written about how well women are doing in the miltiary, how vital they are to the war effort, how they can pull their weight as well as a man. Of how women are fighting in the front lines, and therefore should be allowed to serve in the combat arms.

One word: Balderdash!

Or to quote my friend, the eminent Israeli historian Martin van Creveld, "The fact that you are even considering such a thing shows that you do not take war seriously".

There are, of course, the physical aspects to consider, such as that women have on the average only one third the upper body strength of men (among the general population: after military training, the difference actually increases, since men can add more muscle mass), and that they are prone to injuries resulting from physical strain, and that they have unique sanitary requirements, and that they get pregnant. These are important, insofar as they reduce the physical capabilities of a military unit (and let's be clear--even modern, mechanized warfare involves a lot of brute strength). More important are the social and psychological implications of these physical differences, as well as the general fact that men are men, and women, are, well, women.

First, we'll deal with the social implications, of which I will give only one example: While we live in a society that gives lip service to sexual egalitarianism, most of the cultures in which we fight do not--most are, in fact, severely patriarchical and have a low opinion of women generally. What happens when soldiers from a society in which warriors are men runs up against an army in which a significant percentage of soldiers are women? That one is a no-brainer. Even our allies in that region look down on our female soldiers and don't give them the time of day.

(As an aside, back in the 1990s, my wife's promotion and health benefits got caught up in a class action suit brought by a woman against a certain three letter agency when that woman was passed over for the position of station chief in a certain large Middle Eastern state whose first name begins with S and last name ends with -abia. Apparently this woman felt that by virtue of her seniority and qualifications, she deserved that spot. That none of her host country counterparts would ever deal with her on a face-to-face basis, therefore undermining her effectiveness in the position did not enter her mind: her rights came before fulfillment of the mission of her agency and the needs of our government).

The same people who complain about the "degrading treatment" received by some terrorist prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison probably give no thought whatsoever to the notion that merely being guarded by a woman would, for these prisoners, be considered degrading and mortifying beyond belief. The suggestion that women should not be assigned to guard male Arab prisoners would probably be dismissed out of hand by them.

Then we have to look at the issue of fairness which constantly comes up. In order to make the military "fair" for women, a double standard must be imposed, one which is inherently unfair to men. Thus, women cannot meet the physical standards required of men, so the standard is lowered--but only for women. Men must then carry the extra weight themselves (literally). Also, a certain presumption of innocense is always given to women with regard to what might be called "fraternization". When a man renders himself unfit for combat because he contracts a venereal disease, this is a disciplinary issue; the man is punished, and punished rather severely. But when a woman becomes pregnant, even if she is unmarried (indeed, even if she has been in a situation where the only way she could become pregnant was by having proscribed sexual relations with another member of the service), she is not punished or disciplined; rather, she is given the option of transferring to a less rigorous duty or even to separate from the service. Women are not stupid, and both before Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom, quite a surprising number of them used this dodge to avoid deployment (on one particular Navy auxiliary vessel. almost a quarter of the women abord, amounting to something like 10% of the crew, rendered themselves "with child" and had to be transferred out). The result was disruption within units as critical slots had to be filled at short notice. Another result was severe resentment on the part of male soldiers, who know it's a game. That a significant number of women who separate from the service then abort their babies only makes the ploy more transparent.

But the most deleterious effect of women in military units is undoubtedly psychological, and a lot of that damage comes from the inescapable fact that women are not men.

First, understand that the key to military effectiveness is unit cohesion, which is a factor of primary group bonding. Men don't fight for mom, apple pie, the flag or any such nonsense. That might be why they sign up, but what keeps them in the line when the bullets begin flying is the bonds of comradship that form within the primary group of six to fifteen or so men in the squad and platoon. The term "band of brothers" is very literal at this level: these men fight and die for each other. They fight because they don't want to disappoint their buddies, and because they don't want their buddies to bug out on them when the going gets tought. They die for their brothers because that is the kind of pure agape that forms among such groups in combat: this kind of utter selflessness is the redeeming aspect of war.

Notice that it is a band of brothers, not a gaggle of brothers and sisters. We're not talking the Brady Bunch here, and for one very good reason: after a while, Greg and Marcia are going to notice how hot the other is. Armies consist of young, healthy men and women right out of adolescence. The juices are flowing and will not be denied. All of a sudden, eros is introduced into the realm of agape. Sexual dyamics disrupt the group in ways I am sure you are too aware. Women also use their wiles to get out of hard work. I have personally witnessed units on field exercises involved in nasty chores like erecting large tents or changing tires on heavy trucks, where the bat of an eyelash, the flip of a hip, and the promise of a good time in the bushes later in the evening causes men to drop what they are doing and perform tasks assigned to female soldiers. Finally, it turns out to be impossible to overcome millennia of evolutionary imprinting that says men must protect women--and thus men have foolishly risked their lives and endangered their mission to protect women from risks which, if they were borne by men, would have been considered only a fair sharing of the burden.

In short, there is a reason why war has been a male occupation for all eternity, and why those armies which have experimented with women in combat roles (and in modern war, all roles are combat roles) have quickly backpeddaled, even when ideologically they were committed to sexual egalitarianism. The salient examples are the Soviet Union and Israel, both of whom deliberately introduced women into combat and just as deliberately pulled them out of it as soon as the impact on combat effectiveness was recognized. That we still play around in this area is due only to the fact that we have not experienced a real war since Vietnam.

What I find most interesting is that agitation for a greater combat role for women does not come from the female enlisted ranks. These women know full well their limitations and are quite happy in combat service support roles and desk jobs. The push for women in combat comes from female officers, who understand that their promotion possibilities will always be limited by their lack of combat command experience. Thus, they elevate careerism over professionalism and patriotism, and with the complicity of liberal politicians and compliant, politicized general officers, they get their way to the detriment of our security and the safety of our soldiers, male and female.

[Tony Esolen]

Stuart,

You are singing my tune.

I have not been able to check my reason -- or the evidence of my senses -- at the door, when it comes to these questions.

I have a simple rule, a minimum requirement for admission to the position of soldier, fireman, or policeman (with a few exceptions in the latter case). I call it Esolen's rule: you must be at least as strong as Esolen. It's simple. I figure it this way:

Esolen is not strong enough to be a soldier, fireman, or policeman.

You, sir or madam, are not as strong as Esolen.

Therefore you are not strong enough to be a soldier, fireman, or policeman.

Since I'm a man of average build, average weight, with pretty broad shoulders, who can do 20 or so pushups one-handed, on his knuckles (though I don't work out or anything like that), that pretty much disqualifies every woman but one in ten thousand or so. Of course, after a couple of months of training for both her and me, I'd put on fifteen pounds of muscle, she'd put on five, and she'd be disqualified too.

That's just the physics of it all. The real disqualification is exactly what you've brought up: the cohesion of the team. Interesting, the spate of movies about bands of brothers -- movies popular with both men and women. By contrast, TV shows that pretend to be about bands of brothers'n'sisters inevitably morph into soap operas, despite their political intentions. Gee, I wonder why?

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>By contrast, TV shows that pretend to be about bands of brothers'n'sisters inevitably morph into soap operas, despite their political intentions. Gee, I wonder why?<<<

For the same reason the Church tried and walked away from co-ed monasteries.

[Gene Godbold]

Whoa Tony!
I can bench press upwards of 365 lbs (390 is my personal best), but I cannot do a one-handed push up to save my life.

[Nick]

Yeah...the push ups were most impressive. Mind, not *one* on knuckles but *twenty* one handed on knuckles. I bow to superior testosterone and nominate you alpha-male of Merecomments. Which means this just became a competition and I'll be working out more at home...your day in the sun won't last long! :)

[Judy Warner]

Shucks, guys, I can't even do one regular pushup, but won't you carry my packpack for me?

[Rebecca]

This stuff is getting depressing. Can we hear some good news for women, please?

It's idiotic to say that women should be in combat ... or be firefighters or any other profession that requires brawn and the ability to push on unimpeded by, er, what Mr. Kohl delicately calls "unique sanitation requirements." Most of us already know the havoc wreaked by feminism and the shortcomings of your average female boss, etc. Will someone please post something good about women now? I mean besides how women are great at being mothers -- some of us don't have motherhood as a reasonable prospect.

[Bill R]

"Since I'm a man of average build, average weight, with pretty broad shoulders, who can do 20 or so pushups one-handed, on his knuckles (though I don't work out or anything like that), that pretty much disqualifies every woman but one in ten thousand or so."

This is cyberspace. Here, I'm faster than a locomotive and can leap over buildings with a single bound. Look, up in the sky! It's.....

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Shucks, guys, I can't even do one regular pushup, but won't you carry my packpack for me?<<<

Why shur thang, little lady. What's another thirty or forty pounds to a big burly guy like me?

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Shucks, guys, I can't even do one regular pushup, but won't you carry my packpack for me?<<<

Why shur thang, little lady. What's another thirty or forty pounds to a big burly guy like me?

[Gene Godbold]

Rebecca,
At least half of the saints (maybe more?) appear to be women.

[James A. Altena]

"Shucks, guys, I can't even do one regular pushup...."

And I suspect that Judy's well ahead of me....

And Gene, I could probably bench press maybe 3 pounds -- if I really tried....

Tony, if you ever come up with a scale for male physical ineptitude, you can name its measurement units after me.

Altena's Law of Inertia: If a job really needs doing, it's worth paying someone else to do it for you. And if you can't afford it, it doesn't need doing.

:-) :-) :-)

[Beth]

Rebecca, you might want to re-read Tony's posts. In several places he's pointed out women's strengths and why they are needed, and not in relation to motherhood only.

[Gene Godbold]

Bill makes a good point. What might go unmentioned is the fact that I am morbidly obese, weighing close to 800 lbs. This does relativize the achievement. :-)

[Judy Warner]

Well, Rebecca, I'll give you a little tables-turned story if that's at all relevant. When we were homeschooling our daughter and she was about 5, some of us mothers had a weekly time at the park for our children to play and for us to socialize. Then a father started to come with his daughter. He was a stay-at-home husband and his wife supported the family. He was nice enough, but with him there the whole tone of the get-together changed. For myself, I felt, Eew, why doesn't he get a job, he's a man. Some of the women were feminists who thought, or claimed to think, it was so cool that he and his wife could exchange roles. But everybody was sort of careful around him; we weren't as spontaneous and something was lost.

Not as serious as ruining our military capability, but despite the catfight comments above, women do have bonds, and bringing men into the situation changes them.

[Judy Warner]

James, that was hilarious.

[Gene Godbold]

James,
That is a good law. Of course, I am now at the point where I can command my oldest children to do things that need doing.

Sometimes I pay them.

[Tony Esolen]

Gene,

365 pounds?? I hereby nominate you Andro-Man of the Theologosphere!

I once actually won a free dinner by doing 25 such one-handed knuckle pushups. It was fun, put you could see the indentations of the stone floor in my joints for a while after that. Very cool. My daughter still tells the story. It's 60% balance, 30% strength, and 10% silliness.

James,

I once had a dear friend -- an elderly priest -- who told me that his ideal in life was to get through every day without any sweating, as he put it with evident disdain. But he was a true man anyhow. Just not of much use on the gridiron. Unless it was a pancake gridiron.

Judy,

I know what you mean about stray men messing up the comfortable relations among women. We're homeschoolers too, so we've seen these dynamics at work. Here are the setups that meet with everyone's approval, and that actually can get things done (depending on what things you are talking about):

All women (for most purposes)
All men (the fathers are mainly at work, but we have football teams, baseball teams, and so forth, and it is CRUCIAL for their success that there be no mothers on the field)
Mixed couples

[James A. Altena]

Dear Tony,

A priest friend of mine told me of a clergy meeting where the Gospel passage was the parable of the unjust steward. When it came to the words, "What shall I do? I am too weak to dig; to beg I am ashamed," one priest brought down the house by rapping on the table to get everyone's attention and then pointing to his clerical collar.

Dear Judy,

As a devotee of Murphy's Law (I own at least five books of collected ancillary laws), I have several such Altena's Laws. Here are three more for your delectation:

Altena's Law of Election Campaigns:
The half-life of a political campaign sign is 30 days after the corresponding election.

Altena's Law of Inteviews and Exams:
1) No matter what, how much, or how long you prepare, it is never sufficient.
2) No matter how many times you have gone to the bathroom, you will still have to go to the bathroom. (Also known as "Altena's Law of the Nervous Bladder")

Altena's Law of IQ:
No person is so stupid that he cannot become even more stupid.
(Hey -- I'm living proof....)

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>No matter what, how much, or how long you prepare, it is never sufficient.<<<

Koehl's Corollary: There is never enough time or money to do it right, but always enough to do it over.

>>>No person is so stupid that he cannot become even more stupid.<<<

Murphy's Conundrum: Designers of foolproof systems always underestimate the ingenuity of fools.

I am also reminded of the "Dispair.com" "demotivational poster": Meetings: Because all of us are dumber than one of us".

[Tony Esolen]

Meetings, Stuart! Reminds me of the purpose of higher education:

Nature endows each one of us with a certain measure of dullness, which through hard work and determined reading we can deepen into outright stupidity.

[James A. Altena]

I do quite well in my own little vacuum, Tony.

Mr. Punctilious Accuracy Man says: the www.despair.com poster (which hangs over my desk) actually reads: "Meetings: None of us is as dumb as all of us."

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Mr. Punctilious Accuracy Man says: the www.despair.com poster (which hangs over my desk) actually reads: "Meetings: None of us is as dumb as all of us."<<<

I should think that IRS employees must account for almost half of their business.

[James A. Altena]

Actually, statistics prove that consultations with free-lance military analysts account for 99.44%. It would be 100% if they met with IRS employees, who are too busy flogging taxpayers to hold meetings. :-)

[Dave]

Virtually every poster at despair.com says that they are:
"Perfect for disaffected college students"
So true that it hurts...

[Bobby Winters]

>>>Actually, statistics prove that consultations with free-lance military analysts account for 99.44%. It would be 100% if they met with IRS employees, who are too busy flogging taxpayers to hold meetings. :-)<<<

Consultants: When there is no solution, there is money to be made in prolonging the problem.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Consultants: When there is no solution, there is money to be made in prolonging the problem.<<<

I take all my cues from "Dogbert's Guide to Management Consulting".