I can't get over this sentence no matter how often I read it.
"Women showed no effects when told they were masculine; however, men given feedback suggesting they were feminine expressed more support for war, homophobic attitudes, and interest in purchasing an SUV."
Applied practically in everyday life:
Car salesman:
Can I interest you in this much more expensive SUV?
Man:
Nah, I'm okay with this hatchback.
Car salesman:
Does perhaps your wife make the purchasing decisions in the family and I should be talking with her?
Man:
I'll take 7.
Well that first post took off, which I'd love to say had anything at all to do with me (😄} but is actually just really telling about the state of things. (😢).
Be kind to each other. (No, Joe Rogan bro, that doesn't make you less of a "man".)
They faked test results for half the men/women that indicated they were just inside the "average range of traits of [the other sex]".
The challenged men said they liked war more, disliked homosexuality more, wanted an SUV, and would pay $8k more for one.
The challenged women were ... unfazed.
But, women can't lead because they are emotional, right?
- an emotional man unable to control his shaking rage (guilt?), probably
This is all striking in a different way too. If the women are 'unfazed' this would imply that for both men and women, to be 'more masculine' (however masculine is defined and/or perceived) is something to strive for?
@jmcrookston you would be surprised of how many "are you sure you want to get married?" in a joking tone a man gets when he buys something expensive and says he is engaged. Including wedding stuff. Even in front of his bride.
I get now it's a sales technique. Just a version of what you're saying.
@vgoller @jmcrookston the one time we bought a car, it was like:
"we want something that is not an SUV"
Salesman1: "have a look at this SUV!"
Salesman2: "That are the colour options"
"We don't care what colour it is, what's the cheapest?"
Salesman1: *empty stare*
We didn't buy from them 🤷♂️
@jmcrookston Had a car dealer try to play that card to me because I wanted my car red and not grey, presumably thinking caring about colors is "feminine" (whatever that means) or something. Didn't end well for his deal, nor for his day.
(otoh I have now admittedly a grey car, but the reason I bought it was because of a 7K discount, and for 7000€ every color suddenly becomes beautiful)
@jmcrookston Yes.
I used to have a job selling mobile phones, and my area manager once said basically this - "if the customer says he needs to check with his wife first, then smirk and say "oh, right?" - he'll either buckle because you've questioned who wears the trousers, and if he doesn't, then hey, you've still made him look weak"
@neonsnake @jmcrookston a special fuck you to some FlexRadio rep at Hamvention 2023, who, when I mentioned that it was out of my budget, assumed that the friend that was with me was my wife, and to her face blamed her for not letting me buy a radio
(I was literally walking past the FlexRadio booth to buy a radio, too)
@bhtooefr @jmcrookston ooofff!
Yeah, there's a very odd thing in retail world where it's a "given fact" that "her indoors" controls the purse-strings.
I recall another incident where my CEO sent us all out to a particular different shop, to look at their tickets, and how well written they were, as a learning exercise (the other retailer sold bicycles, primarily)
Their tickets were, genuinely, very good, and you could easily see what you were getting for your money.
Someone described it as "if you overspent by £200, you could easily explain why to the missus when she bollocks you, amirite?"
@neonsnake @bhtooefr @jmcrookston
It was succinctly put to me by a friend who, as a young female engineer back in the '80s (when almost all engineers were men and SUVs were a wet dream stain on an automaker's bedding):
"The larger their engines, the smaller their dicks."
@neal If you abstract away so much that nothing is left, nothing is left.
@starluna @neal @maggiejk @jmcrookston Eons ago I read about which human behaviors aren't at all socially conditioned.
1) Suckling. Duh, right? Can you imagine the selective pressure (biologist-speak for "shortly being dead") against a newborn who couldn't do that?
2) Smiling. Early on, it's purely instinctive. Means nothing. But the selective pressure favoring newborns who do it is, obviously, immense. Eventually, what was originally just a meaningless thing has to be reinforced by seeing others smile. Otherwise the smiling behavior is lost. An early hint was that babies born blind didn't retain the tendency to smile at caregivers after a couple of months.
3)For the first few days (or was it hours? don't remember) after birth, there's a very strong reflex to grip fur. Disappears quite quickly.
And that, if memory serves me well, is it.
Falling all over yourself to maintain status as a member of the top caste is not remotely biological.
(Which is also why women look free of this particular nonsense. They don't have a high caste position to defend. Watch them when they do. I don't know if they perfectly match men's idiocy, but they can sure get close.)
That makes women susceptible too, but to the sly implication they don’t care enough about their kids.
Smart sales dudes *could* totally take advance of this, (even though it is more effective when it comes from other women) but sales dudes have usually duded themselves into being dumber than a tree
I also think I'm not vulnerable to it. If someone walks up to me 'to help' in a shop I usually tell them 'no thanks'. I often know more about the product I want to buy than the sales persons. I more than once asked something after which the sales person hesitated and frantically looked at the descriptions on the product cards, then reading that 😂
@neal If you're referring to the paper its main benefit is formally testing the hypothesis.
If you're just talking about the idea, then yeah, the idea that some may over compensate in exterior displays of a trait they feel insecure about is probably not ground breaking as an idea no.
@neal Yeah, the paper is basically suggesting and testing whether comically overcompensated displays of masculine traits may be a sign of insecurity. (I don't have it in front of me right now so this is just a quick summary from memory,)
Definitely some common sense to the idea, which probably arises because we can observe it around us and guess at the cause. (This is me guessing though.)
it's a little deeper than that... think of the implications beyond sales applications
attacking women's ego by saying we are masculine doesn't work-- what does that mean? well, it means we often perceive that as a compliment if only a backhanded one
but attacking a man's ego by saying he's feminine is read as an insult always
what can that mean other than we have ALL been brainwashed to accept the premise that male is better?
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