What do Women Want


caroljane

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Francisco's kisses had real staying power!

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Michael has just mentioned on another thread that OL is growing, without promotion and without the automatic feeds that the ARI sites get. Besides being a point of affirmation for Michael and Kat, this brings up some thoughts relevant to our discussion on gender imbalance here.

The proportion of male to female regular posters is easy to discern: heavily male. What about the silent majority - members who join out of interest and never post but presumably read the forum? Are there are many more silent men than silent women, as there are in the posts?

Remember Jenna who apparently joined only to complain about an old post on Albert Ellis, got it off her chest, and was never heard from again? Does this sort of thing happen regularly enough to be factored in as essential non-membership?

Has the male/female ratio remained constant throughout the life of the forum? How does it compare with other forums? ( I know properly it is fora but it feels weird to write)

I am not asking for a breakdown of board statistics and realize that this is a kind of internet marketing question-but a guess at the answers would be good fodder for a guess at the motivations of the audience.

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Carol,

I went ahead and put the Quantcast code back into OL's code. (I have a Quantcast account.)

Quantcast is a company that gives you some basic statistics on the kind of information you requested.

I had this in before, but during forum updates, these extra codes automatically get deleted. Then you have to regenerate them and find where to put them all over again. That's irritating, so I stopped. (Now I have re-learned the wisdom of the very elementary concept: backup. This makes life a hell of a lot easier. :) )

What this means is that if you go to the Quantcast site right now and type in "objectivistliving.com", it will show all traffic and demographic stats as zero. But since it has started tracking OL as of right now, in about a month, you will be able to see some reasonable trends.

btw - I like that horse laugh story. I already knew it from a Peggy Noonan WSJ article I read a while back. It took some digging to find so I could show you, but here it is: The Hard Way. Obviously, she is not the original source of the story.

Gender-wise, here is another Peggy Noonan gem about the manliness of decking a shark: Welcome Back, Duke: From the ashes of Sept. 11 arise the manly virtues.

Noonan is a bit of a snob, which I do not enjoy, but I do enjoy her insights.

Michael

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Yes, on the surface Dagny is a strong role model, and not unrealistic - there have always been real-life Dagnys "doing a man's job" and doing it better than, or equally as well as a man. Elizabeth I comes to mind. The clash is that her singularity, combined with the AS message, gives the female reader an either-or choice: be a producer, a first-hander, or be a Cheryl, longing to worship the first-hander in the form of a husband. Otherwise you're a looter or moocher. That was the impression I took away from reading AS. I admired Dagny and Cheryl - you have to - but I felt no female affinity with them and no desire to emulate them.

No female affinity for Dagny? No desire to emulate her? I'm not sure I understand what's wrong with being a producer, a first-hander and wanting to worship your husband. Or are you agreeing with X-ray that Rand's message about the essence of being a female heroine was contradicted by Dagny's submissive sexual cravings?

I genuinely believe that the problem with a lot of women is that they have never been "kissed properly" (so to speak). . .

Dennis,

You genuinely believe wrong.

As I recall Dagny herself was not "kissed properly" for years at a time.

Uh--how many times was Dagny kissed? Incredibly, I simply cracked open Atlas (hb) and there she was getting kissed on page 107. On page 100 she gets slapped by the same guy. She liked that, after the shock had worn off a little.

--Brant

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> Has the male/female ratio remained constant throughout the life of the forum?

This board is a very tiny segment of the Oist world. In the wider world, the relative decline of females has reportedly been enormous since the NBI days. I've seen that from post-NBI Peikoff days to now.

The first thing Nathaniel Branden said in his return to an Objectivist conference after a quarter century was "What happened to all the women?"

(I think I posted in some detail on the many reasons elsewhere**. I could look it up and provide a link if I ever have time - problem is it's on my backup computer.

**one obvious reason is women tend to like the contentious, insulting, 'macho' head-butting much less than men.)

Edited by Philip Coates
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Michael has just mentioned on another thread that OL is growing, without promotion and without the automatic feeds that the ARI sites get. Besides being a point of affirmation for Michael and Kat, this brings up some thoughts relevant to our discussion on gender imbalance here.

The proportion of male to female regular posters is easy to discern: heavily male. What about the silent majority - members who join out of interest and never post but presumably read the forum? Are there are many more silent men than silent women, as there are in the posts?

Phil’s observation is a good one:

The first thing Nathaniel Branden said in his return to an Objectivist conference after a quarter century was "What happened to all the women?"

**one obvious reason is women tend to like the contentious, insulting, 'macho' head-butting much less than men.

Men are much more likely to respond to insults with guns blazing. Women will just sigh at the obvious immaturity and move on.

You want more women posting here, Michael?

Stop allowing little boys to use OL as a means of compensating for their shortages.

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Michael has just mentioned on another thread that OL is growing, without promotion and without the automatic feeds that the ARI sites get. Besides being a point of affirmation for Michael and Kat, this brings up some thoughts relevant to our discussion on gender imbalance here.

The proportion of male to female regular posters is easy to discern: heavily male. What about the silent majority - members who join out of interest and never post but presumably read the forum? Are there are many more silent men than silent women, as there are in the posts?

Phil’s observation is a good one:

The first thing Nathaniel Branden said in his return to an Objectivist conference after a quarter century was "What happened to all the women?"

**one obvious reason is women tend to like the contentious, insulting, 'macho' head-butting much less than men.

Men are much more likely to respond to insults with guns blazing. Women will just sigh at the obvious immaturity and move on.

You want more women posting here, Michael?

Stop allowing little boys to use OL as a means of compensating for their shortages.

I didn't know that the "first wave" of Objectivists had so many women.That is really interesting.

Guys, don't be so tough on yourselves. The behaviour of men did not drive women in huge numbers out of other areas like law, medicine, the military, the patriarchal churches, etc. It stiffened their spines and increased their numbers over those decades. It can't be credible as a reason for women abandoning a philosophy in which they believed.

Let's think deeper.

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Men are much more likely to respond to insults with guns blazing. Women will just sigh at the obvious immaturity and move on.

You want more women posting here, Michael?

Stop allowing little boys to use OL as a means of compensating for their shortages.

Dennis,

I have all the woman I need with Kat. So I'm indifferent.

However, I do have a suggestion.

Instead of blaming all this on other people, why not do something about it? Instead of being a creature of circumstance, become a creator of circumstance. It's not rocket science.

Here's what I mean.

Ask yourself, what do women want? Seriously. What are they interested in? What attracts them? What would make them come to a forum and start posting?

(I can give you some places to read up on this if you like.)

After you have targeted some of those things--ones that are within your reach and possibility, then simply provide it. Make sure that the things you target are things you are interested in, too. I doubt your idea is to discuss hairdressers and babies. But make sure you have done your homework and know that THEY are interested in the stuff you provide.

If you build it, they will come.

It works like clockwork. And it's ethical.

Believe me, that's a lot better than giving the impression you want women around just so you can get some dates and blaming other people for spoiling it all. That's a total turnoff to them--much more than people bickering over nonsense..

Michael

PS--Apropos, this reminded me of how we goofed on a kid once when I was in the university. This dork kept asking everybody how to get a girl into bed and finally it got irritating. We told him a lot of women like the direct approach. You don't even have to know them. Just stand on the street and ask the ones who pass by to have sex. Some will agree and others will get miffed and leave. It took some convincing, but we managed to get him out on the street. His first encounter went something like this.

A very pretty young lady approached him near the Boston University Bridge.

DORK: Hey girl! Wanna fuck?

GIRL: Whaaaaaaaaat?!!!

She took her purse and beat the living hell out of the dork. She beat him from one end of the BU Bridge to the other and he couldn't get away from her. She had a mouth like pissed off sailor, too. Could she cuss! God, that was funny! We laughed about that for weeks.

:)

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Michael has just mentioned on another thread that OL is growing, without promotion and without the automatic feeds that the ARI sites get. Besides being a point of affirmation for Michael and Kat, this brings up some thoughts relevant to our discussion on gender imbalance here.

The proportion of male to female regular posters is easy to discern: heavily male. What about the silent majority - members who join out of interest and never post but presumably read the forum? Are there are many more silent men than silent women, as there are in the posts?

Phil's observation is a good one:

The first thing Nathaniel Branden said in his return to an Objectivist conference after a quarter century was "What happened to all the women?"

**one obvious reason is women tend to like the contentious, insulting, 'macho' head-butting much less than men.

Men are much more likely to respond to insults with guns blazing. Women will just sigh at the obvious immaturity and move on.

You want more women posting here, Michael?

Stop allowing little boys to use OL as a means of compensating for their shortages.

Boo, hoo, hoo!

Where will I go?

What will I do?

--Brant

glad to be young again, though--I remember the first time my underwear got too tight--and I remember the girl on the beach who gave me my first har_ __!--I had to run over the dune and hide (this happened in Rocky Point, Mexico in 1957--I love Mexico, a great country not to visit!)--and I remember the hospital nurse who got the hots for me when I was 14 and insisted on stripping me naked for my massage: I was lying on top of this big har_ __ looking back at her over my shoulder seeing her licking her lips, but she stopped short of criminality, damn it!

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> I didn't know that the "first wave" of Objectivists had so many women. That is really interesting. [Daunce]

I remember attending Peikoff's lecture series year after years in a giant ballroom in the MacAlpin hotel in New York. There were always about 300 people. And it seemed nearly half of them were regularly women.

Brant, you were there...am I mis-estimating?

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> I didn't know that the "first wave" of Objectivists had so many women. That is really interesting. [Daunce]

I remember attending Peikoff's lecture series year after years in a giant ballroom in the MacAlpin hotel in New York. There were always about 300 people. And it seemed nearly half of them were regularly women.

Brant, you were there...am I mis-estimating?

I just can't say. I speculate that so many relationships were destroyed by The Break more women than men took leave of the entire situation. As for Peikoff's lectures, I only went to a few and nothing after 1972.

--Brant

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PS--Apropos, this reminded me of how we goofed on a kid once when I was in the university. This dork kept asking everybody how to get a girl into bed and finally it got irritating. We told him a lot of women like the direct approach. You don't even have to know them. Just stand on the street and ask the ones who pass by to have sex. Some will agree and others will get miffed and leave. It took some convincing, but we managed to get him out on the street. His first encounter went something like this.

A very pretty young lady approached him near the Boston University Bridge.

DORK: Hey girl! Wanna fuck?

GIRL: Whaaaaaaaaat?!!!

She took her purse and beat the living hell out of the dork. She beat him from one end of the BU Bridge to the other and he couldn't get away from her. She had a mouth like pissed off sailor, too. Could she cuss! God, that was funny! We laughed about that for weeks.

I hope he stuck with it for a while. This technique eventually will work.

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PS--Apropos, this reminded me of how we goofed on a kid once when I was in the university. This dork kept asking everybody how to get a girl into bed and finally it got irritating. We told him a lot of women like the direct approach. You don't even have to know them. Just stand on the street and ask the ones who pass by to have sex. Some will agree and others will get miffed and leave. It took some convincing, but we managed to get him out on the street. His first encounter went something like this.

A very pretty young lady approached him near the Boston University Bridge.

DORK: Hey girl! Wanna fuck?

GIRL: Whaaaaaaaaat?!!!

She took her purse and beat the living hell out of the dork. She beat him from one end of the BU Bridge to the other and he couldn't get away from her. She had a mouth like pissed off sailor, too. Could she cuss! God, that was funny! We laughed about that for weeks.

I hope he stuck with it for a while. This technique eventually will work.

Yes the old sales is all about numbers lesson...

Boy you must get slapped a lot...

Sure, but I get laid a lot...

It is all about the numbers.

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I hope you won't mind a short disquisition on fascinating old Me, as I started the topic and it is one of interest that is developing in interesting ways. Maybe to explain where I am coming from will add to it.

I have spent my whole life in all male households, except for childhood and adolescence, at some and crucial times of which it was just my father and me due to my mother's illness. My first job out of university was in an all-male environment; being hetero I had boyfriends; husband, sons, grandson, male granddogs, you name it. It was always love them or leave them. In my case I chose to love them, but it was really no choice. My luck in life has led me to think that (most) men are so great that if they did not exist, we would have to invent God so that She would create them.

Entering adult life in the 70s I set out on the usual search for Love and Work feeling that there was very little difference between men and women, except mysterious desirable

differences. I now think that the differences are greater than I believed, for many reasons, but that the bridge between them is wider and stronger than I knew then.

Having always wanted a brother I tend to adopt them, and to cherish them.Even when they don't call or write, you know who you are!. I was fortunate enough to never have been beautiful, which I believe too be a burden on all but the strongest women, but i was never so unattractive as to suffer scorn or rejection on physical grounds.This attitude was something of a handicap in relationships, as I only interacted with men on an intellectual level and however mad a crush I had on a guy, I never knew if he was attracted to me unless he actually jumped on top of me. I also had no gaydar. I still don't have those abilities, but at my age it doesn't matter.

I was never much attracted to the Hemingway-Mailer masculist American stream of literature, although I read it dutifully. Its message seemed to be that women are mysterious alien creatures who exist to either enable and admire, or manipulate and denigrate men. A dichotomy with an excluded middle. I can see its attraction for Objectivist thinkers. I certainly do not deny that there are many women who "play" men for narcissistic reasons, but I do not see them as any different as men who "play" other men for the same reasons. Narcissists and con artists play with the tools at hand, and sexuality is a powerful tool.

On thing I like about OL is that I can use the generic "he" and everyone understands I mean "he or she" without semantic fuss. I don't don't use it anywhere else, I pluralize or use passive voice, and "we" is not always appropriate. But I think it is here.

I'll just end with a great quote from Tony.

"We few, we happy few, we band of brothers"

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I hope you won't mind a short disquisition on fascinating old Me, as I started the topic and it is one of interest that is developing in interesting ways. Maybe to explain where I am coming from will add to it.

I have spent my whole life in all male households, except for childhood and adolescence, at some and crucial times of which it was just my father and me due to my mother's illness. My first job out of university was in an all-male environment; being hetero I had boyfriends; husband, sons, grandson, male granddogs, you name it. It was always love them or leave them. In my case I chose to love them, but it was really no choice. My luck in life has led me to think that (most) men are so great that if they did not exist, we would have to invent God so that She would create them.

Entering adult life in the 70s I set out on the usual search for Love and Work feeling that there was very little difference between men and women, except mysterious desirable

differences. I now think that the differences are greater than I believed, for many reasons, but that the bridge between them is wider and stronger than I knew then.

Having always wanted a brother I tend to adopt them, and to cherish them.Even when they don't call or write, you know who you are!. I was fortunate enough to never have been beautiful, which I believe too be a burden on all but the strongest women, but i was never so unattractive as to suffer scorn or rejection on physical grounds.This attitude was something of a handicap in relationships, as I only interacted with men on an intellectual level and however mad a crush I had on a guy, I never knew if he was attracted to me unless he actually jumped on top of me. I also had no gaydar. I still don't have those abilities, but at my age it doesn't matter.

I was never much attracted to the Hemingway-Mailer masculist American stream of literature, although I read it dutifully. Its message seemed to be that women are mysterious alien creatures who exist to either enable and admire, or manipulate and denigrate men. A dichotomy with an excluded middle. I can see its attraction for Objectivist thinkers. I certainly do not deny that there are many women who "play" men for narcissistic reasons, but I do not see them as any different as men who "play" other men for the same reasons. Narcissists and con artists play with the tools at hand, and sexuality is a powerful tool.

One thing I like about OL is that I can use the generic "he" and everyone understands I mean "he or she" without semantic fuss. I don't don't use it anywhere else, I pluralize or use passive voice, and "we" is not always appropriate. But I think it is here.

I'll just end with a great quote from Tony.

"We few, we happy few, we band of brothers"

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I hope he stuck with it for a while. This technique eventually will work.

It works best to clothe appropriately. You know, like football gear.

~ Shane

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section.

2. The overall lack of women in Objectivism and philosophy in general. I believe this reason is valid. I have no statisticss, no empirical evidence at all, but my impression is that philosophy, as an avocation, is like chess --preponderantly a male recreation.

I am well aware that this is especially interesting to Objectivists, whose revolutionary founder was a woman, and whose best contemporary writer is a woman.

Who is this best contemporary writer?

MSK, post # 6:

"Every woman, deep in her heart, truly wants to be in charge of her own life."

So very true and it confirms what I have been convinced of ever since I consciously reflected on it:

There is no difference whatsoever when it comes to men and women here.

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section.

2. The overall lack of women in Objectivism and philosophy in general. I believe this reason is valid. I have no statisticss, no empirical evidence at all, but my impression is that philosophy, as an avocation, is like chess --preponderantly a male recreation.

I am well aware that this is especially interesting to Objectivists, whose revolutionary founder was a woman, and whose best contemporary writer is a woman.

Who is this best contemporary writer?

MSK, post # 6:

"Every woman, deep in her heart, truly wants to be in charge of her own life."

So very true and it confirms what I have been convinced of ever since I consciously reflected on it:

There is no difference whatsoever when it comes to men and women here.

1. Why it's Dr Mrs Dr Hsieh of course - don't you see her credentials? Too bad she doesn't have an outlet for her seminal works.

Seriously, I was not thinking of scholars like Tara Smith or David Kelley or the writers in the Corners here on OL. but of writing in the forms I am more familiar with. Barabara Branden's beautifully=wrought biography.

2. Your last comment is entirely, personally, impersonally, and universally true.

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What is really sad is that the implication is that it should be a once a year event.

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Not to be crude, but you might want to review Ms. Hsieh's version of celebrating love (see here) before pegging her attitudes.

What is really sad is that the implication is that it should be a once a year event.

What I don't get is: why steak? I vote for oysters on the half shell and spicy chicken wings, washed down with copious amounts of beer. That's right, Hooters cuisine! If only they served conch chowder, and had a proper Bavarian Hefe-Weizen among the beer selections, but, I can settle for Heineken.

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Phil's observation is a good one:

The first thing Nathaniel Branden said in his return to an Objectivist conference after a quarter century was "What happened to all the women?"

**one obvious reason is women tend to like the contentious, insulting, 'macho' head-butting much less than men.

Men are much more likely to respond to insults with guns blazing. Women will just sigh at the obvious immaturity and move on.

You want more women posting here, Michael?

Stop allowing little boys to use OL as a means of compensating for their shortages.

Boo, hoo, hoo!

Where will I go?

What will I do?

--Brant

Aw, cheer up, dude. Some women say it isn't that important. (Of course, some women also lie. . .)

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> Why it's Dr Mrs Dr Hsieh of course

When I was debating her on SoloP, I used to call her Diana Mertz Brickel Hsieh and then shorten it to an acronym in the heat of battle :-)

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I'm here once in awhile.... just to peek to see what's happening in my kid's room.

Michael, nice story but the way you ended it sucks. That chauvinistic attitude drives women away!

I'm never posting again!

Kat

men are pigs

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