No, not a heavy post on discrimination–you know I hate arguments. But one of the previous posts on Cook! Bake! has started me off on a tangent that in no way indicates any feminist declarations will be forthcoming, no male-bashing, no roaring woman; just a subtle introspective thought on some typical–yeah, I said typical–masculine/feminine traits. Now please keep in mind that I am one who, up until Psychology I didn’t realize there is in fact a physical difference in the male/female brain, and bowed gracefully to that whilst never accepting totally that in truth, the two genders are not interchangeable in most areas of ability and very different in many others. While I have several extremely close female friends, I have always gotten along better with almost any man than I have with most women. Don’t tell me what this indicates–I don’t think I want to explore this further.
But even I must acknowledge some things as highly probably gender-related.
Tell me, do you think that if a road repair crew were composed entirely of women, that you would ever find them standing wordlessly looking down a hole? I mean, even if you kept watch all day? Yet how many male road crews have you passed by where more than 20% of the participants were actively doing something to, with, or about the hole?
I so long to pull over and hang out for a while to see what the fascination is; as well there must be one since the men don’t even appear to converse much. I like to imagine that if they did, it might follow the lines of “Hole’s fifteen feet deep now. ‘spose if I pissed down it, I could count to five before it hit bottom?” “Nah, you’d get to ten I’d say before that thing’d get it to hit.” Or perhaps, a deeper pondering: “There she is. Hole’s dug. Looks to be fifteen feet. Looks good.”
I do not mean to disparage the mentality of our honorable road crews. I believe that any random selection of ten males would produce the same result.
It’d be great to test out this theory in fact, but I do perceive the same scenario would be a hotbed of activity with an all-female crew. The hole would be dug by 9:00 am–even if some wasted an hour deciding the best way to go about it. They’d take a short break whereby they’d discuss the school lunch program, exchange recipes, pull out laptops, pick wallpaper, and be back working at 9:15. Maybe it’s nervous energy, maybe it’s something in the brain chemistry, or maybe it’s just our need to fix the ugly hole before someone sees it, but by God, that job would be done by end of day.
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I think the female crew would be slower. Men enjoy digging holes more than women do, so I’d imagine they’d have more verve to do it. In fact, my older brother is going to go to Atlanta, GA to go dig a hole. I’m told they like people from the midwest because we’re harder working than southerners. Something to do with all of the german immigrants in our region. I dunno.
Holes are good. They’re nice for putting things in, and hiding corpses and the like. A man done need a good hole.
While I agree with you Ben, that the men might indeed have the hole dug faster, I think this is where the hare and the turtle effect enter in. For many days following, the hole dug by the men would remain that–an open, empty hole. But is the purpose in the planning, execution, or completion and filling in?
No great pondering of philosphical questions here, just trying not to giggle and point out the innuendo in your last line. (Tee-hee!)