Re: momentary lapse of reason...

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: : To Zen Cowgirl and Robin--Thanks for the support. It's nice to know that you don't think I'm a freak. I think I was "feeling exposed" after saying what I did, so your responses were most soothing. : ~~~~~Hey, if you're a freak, so am I. Sometimes I look at what "normal" people do, and figure that freakiness ain't such a bad thing. And I want to thank you for taking the risk and saying what you did; it's provided a lot of food for thought. : : Z.C.--I'm thankful for your words. I think we *should* talk about the difficulty of being a female five. In a post below, I talked about my stance, as a female five, on having children. I didn't get any response. : ~~~~~I may have come in a little late and not looked far enough down the list of messages--I'll check it out and reply there. : : I think relationships with men are difficult because there are so few men who appreciate a woman with a strong, critical mind. : ~~~~True--there are very few men out there who truly like a strong-minded woman. Most are truly frightened of one, which is understandable; most men go out in the world and constantly compete with each other. They are always "watching their backs" and making sure the next guy doesn't get something on or from them. I think that's one reason why so many men prefer "feminine" women; they don't want to have to compete on the home front, too. : ~~~~~Many men are often fascinated by, and drawn to, a woman who is a straight shooter; I've had a lot of men show interest in me, and I have to resist the temptation to join in when they say the inevitable, admiring words--"I've never met a woman like you." The fascination quickly wears off when they realize that I'm like this *all of the time*--my mind doesn't go home and slip into something soft and pink (hell, my body doesn't either). I know the end has come when the other inevitable, resigned words--"what am I going to do with you?"--come forth. : ~~~~~I've managed to meet quite a few men who can stand up to me, mainly by working in bookstores and making friends with faculty members from the college in my town. I go where I'm likely to find like-minded people. That nothing has turned out to be long-term usually is because of other conflicts--Mr A. likes to travel all the time, I don't; Mr. B wants children, I don't; Mr C. and I like each other very much, but I have no interest in his area of expertise, and he has no interest in mine, and that leaves us with unfortunate conversational gaps. Mr D. is brilliant, witty and charming, but has an odd pear-shaped body and a strange way of twitching his nose that leaves me absolutely frigid. Eventually, I may meet Mr X., and things will be just ducky, but then again I may never meet him--and I've accepted the fact that I may not. : :It seems culturally and socially women who don't fit the emotional and nuturing mold are viewed as some sort of feminazis. It's a shame men should feel that way. The problem I see with that is, when it comes right down to it, female fives (and 8s) are outnumbered. : ~~~~I think 5s tend to be outnumbered anyway; I don't know what percentage of the population is type 5, but I do know that INTP and INTJ, the two Myers-Briggs types that fit the 5 description most closely, represent maybe 4% of the population (and this 4% is for both types, mind you). There is a definite male majority among the MBTI Thinking preference, too--60% of Thinkers are male, according to Keirsey. From a strictly anecdotal view, I know a lot of 7s, 4s, 3s, and 2s, but very few 5s, even though I move in a social sphere that draws 5s in the first place! So I'm going to make a leap here, and say that if 5s are indeed a minority, female 5s are a double minority. : :I don't know about your political views, and I don't mean to offend, but the women's lib thing doesn't help people like you and me. As a direct result of it, things are worse for us (female fives) because now there are even more negative connotations to being strong and independent. : ~~~~~My political views? Conservative in some ways, Liberal in others--your basic independent. : ~~~~I can't tell you how many times I've been accused of "having a chip on my shoulder," or being a "man-hater," or a "ball-buster," which are so far from the truth it isn't remotely funny. I really *like* men--nearly all of my friends are men--but I also tend to challenge them when they try to use macho bullshit to get their way, or jump in and debate with them if I think they are just plain wrong. Very, very few women do that. There is a certain acceptance of strong, independent women, but we're still not supposed to challenge men in certain ways, especially within love and family relationships. Even in business--a man may be a good businessman, but a woman who does the same things is a bitch. : ~~~~~I am glad for many of the gains brought about by feminism, and appreciate the struggle that brought them about. I can go into virtually any field of study or employment, and do things my mother would never have dared dream about because of the strides that have been made. But there have been feminist theorists, such as Andrea Dworkin and Catherine McKinnon, who have given feminism a bad name--the struggle for equality is now viewed as whining about victimization. They have acted like Riso's low-average 5s by forming their own twisted conclusions, carving them in stone, and then doing the research in order to support them. So now, the image of feminism is tainted by the Women's Studies crowd, by the sex-is-rape and women-as-passive-victims-of-patriarchy moaners. I see a much more positive feminist movement emerging among young women just on a street level, but the press likes to look at freak shows, and academic feminism is pretty damn freaky. These are the true "feminazis," although they are but a tiny--albeit very noisy--minority. I don't think they are even feminists, really, but anti-masculinists. : : :Let's face it, we're *still* outnumbered, even after the w.l.m. because human nature hasn't really changed in the last thirty or so years. There are just as many nuturing/emotional girls as ever. I see our situation is one that defies culture, social standards and even biology (to a certian extent). I agree with you entirely, five women ccan have a hard time of it--it's lonely to be who you are and not be accepted for it because it doesn't really fit into people's perception of the world. : ~~~~~We're always going to be outnumbered, and always be forced to swim upstream, but men who are 2s and 4s are faced with the same problems. Human nature won't change--it is only how a culture responds to it that does. : ~~~~~I do feel like I have had to drop out of mainstream culture, and reject most of its rules, just in order to function as a female 5; if I worried about whether I was being perceived as "feminine," or if I was being too blunt, I'd be paralyzed. I do feel like an observer, rather than a participant; I'm an anthropologist within my own culture, studying its rituals and belief systems, its social hierarchies and its obsessions. When I read accounts of obscure tribes--the Yanomamo in the Amazon basin, for example--I don't see anything bizarre about their culture, because I've been looking at my own from an outsider perspective for so long. : ~~~~~I also feel like I belong to a third, unacknowledged sex, really--a female body with a male mind, some sort of strange androgyne (I've occasionally half-joked that I am really a gay man trapped in a woman's body, and stripped of all fashion sense). : ~~~~~I operate alone, and understand that I always will. That can be incredibly lonely sometimes, but in a way it is very liberating. If you aren't working with a team, or by a set of rules, you can explore different avenues and take risks and come up with something entirely new. : : It's not just in intimate relationships with men, but with the world at large. Women can be the perpetrators, too. For me, it's almost worse to hear "you're not very lady-like" from a woman. : ~~~~Yes, having other women judge me is more annoying that when men do it. With men, I can just say, "who are you to tell a woman what a woman should be?" But with women, I feel like saying "no, it's not fucking lady-like--it's WOMAN-like. Learn the difference!" It's *ladies* that have helped hold *women* back all these years. : :I agree with what you said earlier about femininity--having the required plumbing and hormones to be female equals being feminine. No one would look at me and have to guess what my gender is. I see that makes me just as feminine as the emotional/nuturing types. I've always survived it by telling myself that men and women alike are just jealous, but somehow it doesn't always help. I think it's more lonely than anything else. : ~~~~~It does get lonely, and I do think there are some people, particularly other women, who are indeed jealous of the freedom I've granted myself. But the endless questioning of the world around them that 5s do isn't present with the other types. The idea that women are this and men are that is accepted by other types much more than it is by 5s, *especially* by 5 women (5 men, after all, aren't faced with the problems of 5 women, and have less need to question gender roles). When you "know" what feminine behavior is--how women dress, speak, act--what do you do with a woman who doesn't exhibit those expected behaviors? Most types will not sit back and think, "well, maybe some women are just that way, and while there aren't many of them it doesn't make them any less feminine--just a little different." Instead, they will say "wait a minute--women are like *this*! Everybody knows it. So if she's acting so different, there must be something wrong with her, or she hates men, or is a dyke, because I tellya, that's not what real women are like!" : ~~~~~It's funny, but I really am very emotional and nurturing; I just don't display it outwardly, or in the areas that women are expected to do so. I have five cats, whom I see as my children, and anyone who has seen me interact with my cats knows I can be very emotional and nurturing. The same goes for close family members--my mother and younger sister in particular. : ~~~~~I also am nurturing toward others in less direct ways, ways that don't seem so warm and fuzzy. I'm back in school, and hope eventually to teach History at college level. I encounter a lot of "kids" in their late teens and early 20s as a result, and a lot of them haven't a clue regarding what they want to do, or are torn between different career paths. One 5 strength that I like being able to use is the ability to conceptualize, to ask the right questions in order to get to the heart of the matter. I try not to dispense a lot of straight-out advice, but I do ask them questions that might help them clarify what it is they really want to do. I see too many people who hate what they do for a living, and if I can help someone, once in a while, see their own path with more clarity that's great. I'm also very nurturing of other people's dreams--if they want to do something, I encourage them, and help them find ways to make it reality. Part of my desire to teach also has a nurturing aspect--teaching the subject matter in the books is one thing, but opening up a mind, feeding curiosity, helping someone see the world in a different light is also part of it. : ~~~~~Maybe we should start a discussion group for female 5s somewhere like eGroups? It could be a members-only, moderated group, and the messages can be delivered via email, rather than read off the Web...

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