Being female and being opinionated.

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Which is just another way of saying "women, you can have your opinions, but either keep them to yourselves or be nice about them, because otherwise no man will want you"

My job as a woman is not to attract a man. It is not to be seen as "nice". It is to be myself. If a man has a problem with that, if his masculinity is so challenged by the thought that I have strong opinions and that I exercise the same right to express them as he does, well that really is HIS problem, not mine. And he is not one I would choose to include in my circle of friends, let alone my love life.

More like, "People, you can have your opinions, but either keep them to yourselves or be nice about them, because otherwise no one else will want you around."


True enough. There are plenty of old maids, single mothers, misandrists, and lesbians to validate that as fact.


Nor is it to be seen as "contentious", I hope...


I hope that you'll keep in mind that the same thing goes in reverse - if a woman can not stand to be around men who have strong opinions that are based on fact and reason, then the problem is hers and hers alone.

"If a woman wants to behave like a man, then why shouldn't she want to behave like a nice man?" -- Attributed to Dame Edith Evans (1888 to 1976)

You are just proving my point, Fnord.

You are using condescension, tired tropes, and dodgy sexism apologist quotes to justify your arguments. With nary a fact or anything approaching reason to back them up.

If you ever what to actually discuss feminism and what it is or isn't (and it certainly isn't wanting to be like a man), I'm willing to talk with you. If you want to just throw up the same old social dogma about scary angry women who either don't want or have been rejected by men, then no. Not interested in that.

You know Fnord, women aren't the only ones who lose out on love on the basis of opinions.

That's the point I'm trying to make - having strong opinions and disliking people with strong opinions are not gender-specific issues.

My wife is both well-educated and devoutly religious. She has an opinion on everything, but her Asian culture dictates that she should defer her opinions in favor of mine. I don't like that. It has taken almost 20 years to convince her that I actually want and value her opinions, especially when it comes to issues involving finances, relationships and socializing.

Even now, there are times when I have to play "20 Questions" just to get her to tell me what's on her mind. It would be so much easier if she would just tell me how she feels before I make a decision, than it would be to hear her tell me later that she was hoping that I would have decided differently.

I appreciate the fact that my wife has her own opinions. I just wish she'd share them more often - especially when I need them.

Don't get any of this but I am just curious why people in this thread feel the need to sound so obnoxious against others?
I'm aware though that given my unwanted unbiased opinions i would choose where
i am at any given time and should women who choose to follow certain methods of
a separate courtship, like a 'partie' as the French call a cooling off period then men should
be forgiving and understanding about it. Its not all head-bashing science and limited portions of wholegrain 'food' that make most women strive for a better deal of adult contemplation.

Story of my life!! I am a very blunt and opinionated person with strong political views. My parents recently banned my blog (made me remove it) because they hate opinionated people (probably just opinionated women.... Because the men in the family can say whatever they want). They also say I suck at sharing opinions properly.

I definitely notice that my guy friends get away with a lot more than I do in the honestly department, because women are more likely to be gentle. I also lack empathy at times, which creates problems when sharing my opinion as i can forget to be considerate or diplomatic. For example, I wrote a blog post saying that I think people who do drugs are asking for all the consequences drugs cause because everyone knows drugs are bad and do them anyway, so by smoking your first spliff or injecting your first needle you are accepting the good with the bad, and therefore any bad things that happen to you because of the drugs are your own fault and you deserve it. Sometimes I don't even realize how inconsiderate I'm being when stating my opinion, and being considerate is much more emphasized for women than for men.

To me, rejecting drugs is an exercise in humility. I don’t want them because I very much need all my neurons

I'll have to remember that. I need to be much more outspoken and opinionated.

It's rather confrontational to post in a women's forum and imply they should keep their opinions to themselves.

I am not implying that women should keep their opinions to themselves. I am stating right now and "for the record" that when people - men and women - express their opinions in a contentious or confrontational manner, it tends to make them unpopular and drive people away.

What is this? Are you saying women's opinions in general are based on feelings and intuition, or that the idea that men don't like opinionated women is based on them?

If it's the former... just wow.

If it's the latter, I can say that for me, it's based on the experiences I've had while presenting myself as male vs. female. I encourage you to try joining another forum under a feminine name and posting there for a few months as you normally would. I'm confident you will notice the difference.

Where do you see any gender-specific terms in my statement?

Look again - "all else being equal" is the operative condition.

Yeah, but adult men can't normally respond to each other with physical aggression in most situations either. This is what I usually see happen:

Guy 1: makes a statement (say about politics)
Guy 2: disagrees and gives reasons in a civil manner
Guy 1: responds to the criticism
... this goes back and forth several times but may escalate until both guys get offended start calling each other stupid in colorful ways.

whereas:
Guy 1: makes a statement
Girl: disagrees and gives reasons in a civil manner
Guy 1: gets offended and calls girl names or simply tells her to shut up
Guy 2: agrees with guy 1 that the girl is a b***h and needs to shut up

The guys are offended because of the other guy's opinion, but are offended because the girl expressed an opinion.

I wasn't sure initially whether this impression was accurate but after years of observation I'm reasonably sure it is.

So this:


is not relevant. Do you honestly believe when women talk about this we're complaining that we can't get away with something men can't get away with either? Why would that strike us as unjust, or sexist? What, I wonder, do you think of women if you imagine we'd complain about that?
The issue, as I understand it, is that men express opinions and no one thinks anything of it, but when we express opinions in an identical way, it's suddenly inappropriate behavior. We're left with hardly any acceptable way to express opinions at all, except perhaps through some very passive-aggressive suggestion designed to trick a man into thinking he had the idea himself (ugh!)

Yes, so what is the connection between this statement and a discussion of women getting negative reactions for expressing opinions, unless you associate "women's opinions" with "feeling-based opinions"? I mean, if this is your explanation for why women get such reactions, it follows that you believe women's opinions are predominately of that nature.

Edit to add: The point is, it was already a discussion about women being opinionated. The question was never "why are some opinions not ok when others are?" but "why are *women*'s opinions not ok when *men's* are?"
So if your answer is "opinions based on fact are stronger than those based on feeling" you must believe men's opinions are (generally) based on fact and women's on feeling. Otherwise you're just making a random, irrelevant statement.

Last edited by Nonperson on 13 May 2013, 2:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Certainly not all women (or men) - just those few individuals (men and women) who seem to react negatively to any statement made by people they don't like.