Coren vs the women

[millionreasons]

I like Victoria Coren. She wore a pink duffel coat and talked about words. She beat the boys at poker. She made a fairtrade porn film. She wants older chicks on the telly. Why then, does she make out that the reason she started playing poker was because gurlz are rubbish and eat Highland Toffee bars?

"Boys show off and tell jokes, and shout when they're angry. They don't smile and ask personal questions, then bitch behind your back and share your secrets with the class.

Boys say what they think to your face. Bit harsh, sometimes, but straightforward. "

I imagine some of those boys might have wanted some smiling and personal questions when their marriages broke down and they couldn't speak to their male friends about it because men only "shout when they're angry", and don't talk about their feelings. I was at a party a few months back and, in response to a man talking about walking across Brooklyn Bridge on his own in the snow at dusk, his male friend said: "Sounds romantic if you'd been there with someone. Wasn't your girlfriend supposed to go with you? Oh, she dumped you didn't she". Very straightforward.

Girls may talk about you behind your back, but their front is nothing compared to what boys have to do. In the horrid hierarchies of school, girls may have to tell the most popular girl they love her hair and the way she dresses (and then slag her off in the toilets, a reaction to this enforced leadership) but boys have to suck up to their alpha-kid far more, laugh at his jokes, pick on who he picks on, buy the same trainers without that outlet of bitching behind his back. They have to believe it. Women may feel they have to compete with clothes and so forth, but men have to compete with their lives - who earns the most, who drives the best car, who dates the hottest woman. Women are far more likely to self-deprecate, to make out their lives are a bit rubbish in order to make other women feel better about themselves. Men are far more likely to do the opposite.

Comments

[davidnottingham.livejournal.com]

Victoria Coren is the female Charlie Brooker (he thinks men are rubbish and women are great). No wonder he was making googly eyes at her on 'You have been watching'

[millionreasons.livejournal.com]

To be fair to the Coren, she was talking about schoolkids rather than grown people, but my point is that the things schoolchildren learn about interacting with their own gender can carry on into real life.

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/pickover/pc/manwoman.html

[millionreasons.livejournal.com]

Hmm, well I think differences between men and women (and I am generalising) are more learnt than innate, hormones notwithstanding.

from i-want-more

[(Anonymous)]

i have to agree re the way men have to jolly up to each other. my other half has been dragging his set of male friends about for over 20 years. i'm no longer sure that any of them really like each other - it's like they are shackled. he says that when they are together, they immediately fall into the old patterns and roles of yore. the one-upmanship is unbearable and there have been times when he has returned from an evening out, determined to cut them out of his life...only to get together with them again the following week. and so on and so forth, ad infinitum.

Re: from i-want-more

[millionreasons.livejournal.com]

Bar them from the wedding! Some men do appear to have supportive friends, but others are still in this pay lipservice to the top dog nonsense and/or semi-abusive bantering mode. I much prefer having feminine friends (of either gender) who, even though I'm aware there's probably some PMT-inspired occasional bitching (not least by me), would be there for me come a crisis and don't feel the need to prove they're better than me.

Re: from i-want-more

[(Anonymous)]

oddly enough, they will behave perfectly well if their wives/girlfriends are in the near vicinity. it's when it's all boys together that it becomes like a popularity contest. chest-beating nonsense!

Re: from i-want-more

[millionreasons.livejournal.com]

I'm sure Desmond Morris would have a field day with that. Or do I mean Johnny Morris?