virus: Re:[genius] Sexism

joe dees (joedees@bellsouth.net)
Sat, 20 Feb 1999 20:34:16 -0500

At Thu, 18 Feb 1999 21:52:51 +1000, you wrote:
>
>Joe Dees wrote, to Leo:
>
>>However, you seem to have no problem with condemning an entire gender
>>of the human race as subhuman. Tell your mother, half of whose genes you
>>share, that she's inevitably mentally defective due to having more of a
>>chromosome (the XY is shorter than the XX). The lies you tell are not to
>>flatter preeners into bed, but to convince half the human population that
>>there is no reason for them to strive for cognitive excellence, since
>>such a goal is unattainable simply because they have an innie instead of
>>an outie.
>
>I agree that it would be pretty foolish to dismiss half the world's
>population simply because they have a vagina, instead of a penis. That
>would hardly be an example of cognitive excellence!
>
>It's a bit more involved than that. The real culprit is femininity,
which
>I define to mean that part of our personality which is passive, loves going
>with the flow, yearns for the comfort of others, and is easily satisfied
>with mediocrity. Masculinity, by contrast, is that part in us which
>strives for greatness, desires to stand alone and be counted, and seeks to
>dominate imperfection and ignorance. It is that part in us which values
>truth, and which willingly accepts responsibility for the future
of the world.
>
>Of course, we all possess a certain amount of masculinity and femininity
>within us. Yet it is plain (to me at least) that the amount
of masculinity
>in women is very small, and that they are almost entirely feminine. (I
>grant there may be exceptions.) Men are also very feminine, but there is
>enough masculinity inside them to make a significance difference to their
>personalities and lives. The presence of this extra smidgeon
of masculinity
>is the primary reason why men are the ones who create, sustain and influence
>civilization, create the new technologies and artistic masterpieces, and
>continue to dominate and rule in most areas of society to this very day.

>
>Because of their relative lack of masculinity, women in general are at a
>huge disadvantage when it comes to philosophy and spirituality. It is not
>their not fault, it is the way Nature (i.e. evolution, genetics, upbringing,
>etc) has made them. But if we truly want to help women achieve their full
>potential and attain "cognitive excellence", then we have to *recognize*
>their current plight and work out ways of changing the situation. It
>doesn't do them, or us men, any good to deny the reality that is staring us
>in the face and to pretend that women are the equal of men. Because
>they're not.

So you try to lend some rational justification to your bigotry by means of sophistries, ay? Would the fact that, until recently everywhere, and to this very day in lots of places, women were and are regarded as chattel and forbidden to attend school, make any difference to you or your opinion? Of course not. Your mind, such as it is, is made up, and no one can confuse you with facts. You have your head up the ass of your own male ego and are reading patriarchal Gospel off the colonic villi much as a witch doctor might interpret chicken entrails and thrown bones.

>>One should also remember Marie Curie (dead), co-discoverer of radium, who
>>died for her scientific passion, Candace Pert, who was denied a Nobel for
>>her discovery of endorphins for no other reason than her sex, Barbara
>>McClintock, who won a Nobel in science for her revolutionary work in the
>>synergistic genetics of corn, Simone DeBeauvoir (dead), who followed both
>>her heart and her head by having a lengthy and torrid affair with Sartre
>>while, in THE ETHICS OF AMBIGUITY, intellectually (correctly) choosing >his
>rival, Merleau-Ponty (as well as founding modern feminism with THE
>>SECOND SEX), and Marian Dos Savant (an interesting consilience of name),
>>the human with the highest measured I.Q.
>
>I realize that lists of this kind are supposed to refute the claim that
>there have been no women geniuses in history, but, funnily enough, it
>actually does the opposite. It reaffirms the view that the most
>extraordinary of women are still vastly inferior to the most extraordinary
>of men. The truly great scientific figures of history, for example -
>Copernicus, Newton, Darwin, Einstein, etc - were great because they achieved
>a major conceptual breakthrough which revolutionized the way humanity viewed
>the world. Their greatness stems from the fact that their achievements were
>essentially abstract, philosophical and over-reaching in nature. In
>comparison, things like the discovery of radium and endorphins pale into
>insignificance.

And during the periods that all these great things were done, women were tied to hearth and home; this sad reality has cost us countless inventions and discoveries, the lost fruits of their nipped rather than nurtured genius, and your medieval attitude would only perpetuate this travesty. Can you say "self-fulfilling prophecy'? I know you can.

>David Quinn
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Joe E. Dees
Poet, Pagan, Philosopher



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