I have a friend in Santa Cruz, California, a virtual friend, whom I have neither spoken to nor seen. Yet now and again we have very stimulating 'finger chats', courtesy of Yahoo Messenger.
She calls me handsome a great deal, and the like. Ironic, given the dearth of visual stimuli we share, though it's very welcome anyway. I don't normally get such compliments from the ladies, he said as a matter of fact.
Anyway, narcissism aside, we had just got onto the subject of transgenderism and what it was. Then she had to fly. The next day she asked me to remind her what we'd been talking about, but I had to fly. But not before suggesting that she write me an essay. About what, she said. About transgenderism and what she thought of it. She'd always seemed interested in gender issues, after all. She said, ok Professor Tillotson, but you need to be more focussed. So I gave it some thought and, wanting to give her some choice, came up with these nine tasks.
You will note that the concept 'Transgenderism' is painted with a think, broad brush. I mean everything that challenges conventional, traditional, gender-role, mission statements.
- Give an overview of how feminism in American culture has changed in its ideology and expression since the 1960s.
- How have women in America reacted to the various ways in which men have tried, or have not tried, to respond to feminist critiques against them and to change, or not change, their behaviours towards women, both in the workplace and in the 'dating game'. Do women want pre 1960s men back?
- Does the American homosexual community in America have an agenda other than to merely not be discriminated against and oppressed?
- To what extent do modern American women want to dominate men, as opposed to just be their equals.
- Why don't women make the first move more than they do?
- Why is it both impolite and so often ineffective for a man to ask a woman for sexual relations directly, as opposed to ask her for sex indirectly through courtship rituals and discourse?
- In what ways do women not understand men.
- What do women want? (Not very original I know).
- Give an account of the reasons why the birthrate is dropping amongst Caucasian women in the Western World.
It goes without saying that if anyone out there wants to write me an essay on any of the above they should go right ahead. My email is on my profile page.
6 comments:
1.) not an easy task
2.) That’s two questions: Predictably! & No!
3.) The homosexual community’s greatest agenda has been to convince the world "you are either with us or against us." Accordingly, some, like myself, have come away disillusioned by the imbroglio of prejudice and stupidity on both sides.
4.) Domination is central to the pleasure.
5.) Advances are only condiments for the means of why. The universe is nature’s creation: its priorities and harmony, form, behaviour and order are purposive, evolutionary increments
6.) see above
7.) Men find relief in sex, women find joy.
8.) Pre-60s women wanted babies, contemporary women want independence
9.) The real motive for this has deep roots within the species’ psyche, which has nothing to do with fertility and the Caucasians as a race, but everything with economic repletion and the apogee of a species (or race) on the point of decline.
D.
Thanks Selena. To your answers, responses:
1) Nor is sewing on a button, but I try.
2) The second one was a kind of conversational addition:) By predictably I suppose you mean with howls of disappointment? Or what,pray?
3)I just dont understand why they need to be so public about what is private.
4)Really? Or do you jest? You speak in any case I suspect of bedroom antics of domination. I was referring to a desire for social dominance viz a viz matriarchy etc.
5)Now I know you are a Pagan. wasn't sure before. Not saying there's anything especially iniquitous about this but the notion that the universe was created by nature seems barmy to me, tautological and bizarre. Nature is in the universe. How can it create the universe...plese help!
6) yeah, fair cop, this question built on the last so not entirely separate, but a different emphasis. a question is ultimately. Is consciousness in control of nature or is nature in control of consciousness. I.e can we do things differently or not, etc.
7)I would like to find joy in sex, as id like to, and often do find it, in other fields and domains. Men are incredibly dishonest, with themselves as much as with women, about what they want out of sex. Wise women should be aware of this. If it was only relief we wouldn't need women.
8) Independednce from what? From the womb? From nature, from the body, from the continuation of the human race?
9)Yeah in the west it has alot to do with affluence and the perceived (paradoxically) expense of having children. Ultimately i attribute it to our overrriding cultural nihilism that one would have thought we would have begun to have got bored of/grown out of by now?
I have a couple under me belt already.. where do I get me PHD?
3)I just dont understand why they need to be so public about what is private.
Absolutely, they've become victims of their own liberation.
Nature is in the universe. How can it create the universe...plese help!
You're absolutely right. I concede the case...
D.
Hi Mutley,
Yeah, I read and enjoyed your thoughts on what women want. Thanks. I agree..it may very well be cheese, though they've not tended to appreciate my camembert, oddly enough.
What other question did you deal with and where?
3) I'm reminded of someone who said "Imagine if heterosexual married couples went on 'Marriage Pride' parades." We would think them bizarre. So why shouldnt we think gay pride rallies at least equally as bizarre? Most straight people I think couldn't give a damn about, and dont want to give a damn about, homosexuality as the 'movement' it wants, or so it seems to want, to imagine itself to be. Why do homosexuals have to get defensive and prickly about themselves and other peoples feelings about them? Why do they care what we think and why do they want us to care about who they are sexually? Another reflection that caught my eye was about the presumption in gay circles that the opposite of Pride was Shame, when in fact, of course, it is Humility.
To me intellectual chit chat isnt about argument but exploration and adventure. Changing your mind, admitting you r wrong, saying you do not know, asking for illumination. All these things are crucial to fecund and fertile intellectual joy. This perhaps why there is so little joy in Professional academe, where the ego, as it links to income, status and power, requires one to often come across as a know it all etc..or if not then most certainly to be ashamed of error or of changing ones mind. This is why the path of the amateur is often the only pure path, I think. Our money should come from elsewhere, somehow, howsoever that be possible. Make sense?
I know that as soon as I started to get paid for my writing i would be under the power, however subtly, of somebody else's ring of poiwer. I suppose it is different if one gets paid after the event.
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