Tuesday, January 04, 2005
seen in an ST news article
Smart girls get left on the shelf.
I recall watching a doc about relationships and they were interviewing a bunch of female Harvard undergrads. These girls were describing how some guys tried to befriend them, but upon hearing that they were from Harvard, did an about turn and literally fled.
Even my faculties' GUbE ( our student mag) commented that while it was desirable to announce your status as a med student if you were a guy looknig for a girl, the same could not be said for a female med student.
Funny why there is always this huge discrimination against gals. I wonder how it started in the first place. Was it coz our physical built is not suitable for strength demanding jobs. judging from how man has lived in the past. ( let's look at the apemen and their tribes) the men did the hunting, the gals picked plants and fetched the water and reared the kids. Ok, fine, we coudln't bring home the bacon, but if we didn't look after the kids, would males actually have time to go looking for the bacon? and anyway, i think if we didn't bring back the melons and the veggies, humans would have died of serious nutrition deficiency..
*oink*
Even in religions, girls have also been condemned to be the more undesirable sex. Eve was seduced by the snake to consume the apple that banished mankind from the garden of eden. Buddha was reluctant to allow females into the sangha because it would mean that the Dharma would be forgotten by sentient beings sooner. Some islamic extremist groups like teh Taliban have ordered females to cover all visable parts of their anatomy because they were sexually appealing to men. Most of the highest posts in religions have long being held by males. even today, although females have become more accepted in monasteries and orders, the higher posts seem to be occupied mainly by males.
Leadership positions always seem to be comfortably occupied by our male counterparts. We females are still expected to conform to our role of raising the family and staying at home. We aren't any less inferior than our male counterparts in terms of our IQ and in physique. (true, we may lose out in sports and rigorous activity, but we outlive males) Why then have we always been repressed? Why can't we overcome that unspoken barrier placed in front of us.
Even though we have gained voting and working rights, leadership positions remain mostly out of reach because we are tied down by our duties to our hubbies and our kids. No one would blink an eye if the guys stole out every weekend for a boy's night out, leaving the kids and the wife at home. But a mother who did the same would be labled irresponsible by her inlaws. We're expected to perform well in school, carve out a great career, juggle motherhood and looking after our husbands. With that many balls to juggle, we have to make choices. You could be a jack of all trades, but you'll be master to none. Very few ladies can cope with both job and housewifemanship. Yeah, of coz they were probably the lucky ones with supportive husbands and well-behaved, responsible kids. But tell me, how many ppl are that lucky to have the perfect family? Strong headed as I am, i know that faced with a choice between career and havnig to stay at home to do a proper job of raising kids, i'm more inclined to choose the latter. So basically, since my dad busted a fortune to educate my brain, i 'd better not get married. :P
Mebbe it's Asian mentality. I spoke to HH after meeting a Chinese doctor and his wife. I commented that the doctor seemed like a really nice guy. HH agreed but she added that he was the typical china man. He expected his wife to be totally subservient to him. Not that we were criticising him, it was simply a social expectation. A man who was henpecked by his wife was help in utter disregard by his peers. The wife had to be subservient simply for the good of the whole family.
Guys preferred their wives to be less intelligent than them. The reasons probably varied.. mebbe it milked their ego, mebbe it was coz they had a hard enuff time at work and preferred a less intelligent wife to take care of them at home. mebbe coz it placed them at a advantage. i've no idea.
On the other hand, many women also prefer their hubbies to earn more tahn they did . So like my fren j9 and I muse.. you see many male docs getting together with female nurse.. but how many female docs do you see going out with male nurses?
it's a unspoken soial norm to "marry up". Singaporean men have started to look for foriegn brides, simply because their credentials were not good enuff for their better educated singaporean female counterparts. Even . My parents constantly urge me to look for my significant otehr in my faculty. my fren's parents urge them to look for someone "better" than their current squeeze. Although I don't really bother whether my partner is a doc /holds a phD etc.,I must admit that I still do consider education as a huge pointer if i am looking for a guy. I guess wat i'm looknig for is more intellectual compatability than actual credentials. I think the notion of "marrying up" is actually working to our advantage. We females are more emotioanlly vulnerable ( mebbe due to hormones) and yez.. i admit, we are physically weaker. We're in a more precarious position in a relationship. Our income ( determined by our education) can be exploited by husbands who are unscrupuluos , unemployed and desporate. I recall a case where a man bullied and extorted money from his better educated wife. The poor lady put up with all that because she didn't wanna disrupt the lives of their children. Yeah, don't say we're the weaker sex. We just put up with that crap for the sake of the children.
So smart girls get left on the shelf.
Social pressure? Self expectations? male chauvinism?
. Many of my girlfriends fall under this so -called "smart" catergory.. Yeah, they're good catches. They're wonderful caring ppl, mebbe not drop dead beauties.. but their inner beauty is truly dazzling.but... they're still on the shelf. My mom sometimes shakes her head and laments.. " the guys are blind...how come they're still single?"
*shrug* i'm trying to figure taht point out myself.
On a personal note, while like i mentioned above, I don't give a shit about wat kinda degree the guy has. It would be nice if he had a degree anyway. But then again, i don't really have the time took for guys, degrees or not. Because while my parents urge me to for a partner, they firmly told me to place my education first, something they've been telling me to do all my life. I went thru sec school as a practical nun, never exchanging a greeting a male counterpart, even when i had the chance to. My parents warned me against the dangers of mixing bgrs with school results and I heeded their warnings zealously. I recall being real icy to the guy gymnasts who trained the same time with uz. I remember my other team members made firm frens with some of the dudes that we trained with. I on the other hand, condemned it wrongfully as shameless flirting and an utter waste of precious training time. I refused to socialise with anything my age tat owned a dick and an adam's apple. I looked through them in tution classes, i ignored ex classmates. I certainly kept my part of my pact with my parents. I did well enuff at school, I was captain , I won medals, ... but i became some sort of a social ignoramus and that definitely limited my choice of partners at that point of time, a handicap that still haunts me to this day. Thing is, i've no time to deal with it.. i'm too busy still trying to perform in uni. too busy trying my darnest to be 'smart" because that's expected of me by society.. because that's wat i expect of myself.
The article said "perhaps females with high iq find males less interesting" .
nah, i don't think we find males less interesintg.. i think it's a multitude of factors tat cozes the prob. There's teh acceptance factor, the social norms,the male ego, the religious constrains , the rising expectations of uz to be super women ( all rounders in everything) and the stigma of being a female .
Smart girls get left on the shelf.
I recall watching a doc about relationships and they were interviewing a bunch of female Harvard undergrads. These girls were describing how some guys tried to befriend them, but upon hearing that they were from Harvard, did an about turn and literally fled.
Even my faculties' GUbE ( our student mag) commented that while it was desirable to announce your status as a med student if you were a guy looknig for a girl, the same could not be said for a female med student.
Funny why there is always this huge discrimination against gals. I wonder how it started in the first place. Was it coz our physical built is not suitable for strength demanding jobs. judging from how man has lived in the past. ( let's look at the apemen and their tribes) the men did the hunting, the gals picked plants and fetched the water and reared the kids. Ok, fine, we coudln't bring home the bacon, but if we didn't look after the kids, would males actually have time to go looking for the bacon? and anyway, i think if we didn't bring back the melons and the veggies, humans would have died of serious nutrition deficiency..
*oink*
Even in religions, girls have also been condemned to be the more undesirable sex. Eve was seduced by the snake to consume the apple that banished mankind from the garden of eden. Buddha was reluctant to allow females into the sangha because it would mean that the Dharma would be forgotten by sentient beings sooner. Some islamic extremist groups like teh Taliban have ordered females to cover all visable parts of their anatomy because they were sexually appealing to men. Most of the highest posts in religions have long being held by males. even today, although females have become more accepted in monasteries and orders, the higher posts seem to be occupied mainly by males.
Leadership positions always seem to be comfortably occupied by our male counterparts. We females are still expected to conform to our role of raising the family and staying at home. We aren't any less inferior than our male counterparts in terms of our IQ and in physique. (true, we may lose out in sports and rigorous activity, but we outlive males) Why then have we always been repressed? Why can't we overcome that unspoken barrier placed in front of us.
Even though we have gained voting and working rights, leadership positions remain mostly out of reach because we are tied down by our duties to our hubbies and our kids. No one would blink an eye if the guys stole out every weekend for a boy's night out, leaving the kids and the wife at home. But a mother who did the same would be labled irresponsible by her inlaws. We're expected to perform well in school, carve out a great career, juggle motherhood and looking after our husbands. With that many balls to juggle, we have to make choices. You could be a jack of all trades, but you'll be master to none. Very few ladies can cope with both job and housewifemanship. Yeah, of coz they were probably the lucky ones with supportive husbands and well-behaved, responsible kids. But tell me, how many ppl are that lucky to have the perfect family? Strong headed as I am, i know that faced with a choice between career and havnig to stay at home to do a proper job of raising kids, i'm more inclined to choose the latter. So basically, since my dad busted a fortune to educate my brain, i 'd better not get married. :P
Mebbe it's Asian mentality. I spoke to HH after meeting a Chinese doctor and his wife. I commented that the doctor seemed like a really nice guy. HH agreed but she added that he was the typical china man. He expected his wife to be totally subservient to him. Not that we were criticising him, it was simply a social expectation. A man who was henpecked by his wife was help in utter disregard by his peers. The wife had to be subservient simply for the good of the whole family.
Guys preferred their wives to be less intelligent than them. The reasons probably varied.. mebbe it milked their ego, mebbe it was coz they had a hard enuff time at work and preferred a less intelligent wife to take care of them at home. mebbe coz it placed them at a advantage. i've no idea.
On the other hand, many women also prefer their hubbies to earn more tahn they did . So like my fren j9 and I muse.. you see many male docs getting together with female nurse.. but how many female docs do you see going out with male nurses?
it's a unspoken soial norm to "marry up". Singaporean men have started to look for foriegn brides, simply because their credentials were not good enuff for their better educated singaporean female counterparts. Even . My parents constantly urge me to look for my significant otehr in my faculty. my fren's parents urge them to look for someone "better" than their current squeeze. Although I don't really bother whether my partner is a doc /holds a phD etc.,I must admit that I still do consider education as a huge pointer if i am looking for a guy. I guess wat i'm looknig for is more intellectual compatability than actual credentials. I think the notion of "marrying up" is actually working to our advantage. We females are more emotioanlly vulnerable ( mebbe due to hormones) and yez.. i admit, we are physically weaker. We're in a more precarious position in a relationship. Our income ( determined by our education) can be exploited by husbands who are unscrupuluos , unemployed and desporate. I recall a case where a man bullied and extorted money from his better educated wife. The poor lady put up with all that because she didn't wanna disrupt the lives of their children. Yeah, don't say we're the weaker sex. We just put up with that crap for the sake of the children.
So smart girls get left on the shelf.
Social pressure? Self expectations? male chauvinism?
. Many of my girlfriends fall under this so -called "smart" catergory.. Yeah, they're good catches. They're wonderful caring ppl, mebbe not drop dead beauties.. but their inner beauty is truly dazzling.but... they're still on the shelf. My mom sometimes shakes her head and laments.. " the guys are blind...how come they're still single?"
*shrug* i'm trying to figure taht point out myself.
On a personal note, while like i mentioned above, I don't give a shit about wat kinda degree the guy has. It would be nice if he had a degree anyway. But then again, i don't really have the time took for guys, degrees or not. Because while my parents urge me to for a partner, they firmly told me to place my education first, something they've been telling me to do all my life. I went thru sec school as a practical nun, never exchanging a greeting a male counterpart, even when i had the chance to. My parents warned me against the dangers of mixing bgrs with school results and I heeded their warnings zealously. I recall being real icy to the guy gymnasts who trained the same time with uz. I remember my other team members made firm frens with some of the dudes that we trained with. I on the other hand, condemned it wrongfully as shameless flirting and an utter waste of precious training time. I refused to socialise with anything my age tat owned a dick and an adam's apple. I looked through them in tution classes, i ignored ex classmates. I certainly kept my part of my pact with my parents. I did well enuff at school, I was captain , I won medals, ... but i became some sort of a social ignoramus and that definitely limited my choice of partners at that point of time, a handicap that still haunts me to this day. Thing is, i've no time to deal with it.. i'm too busy still trying to perform in uni. too busy trying my darnest to be 'smart" because that's expected of me by society.. because that's wat i expect of myself.
The article said "perhaps females with high iq find males less interesting" .
nah, i don't think we find males less interesintg.. i think it's a multitude of factors tat cozes the prob. There's teh acceptance factor, the social norms,the male ego, the religious constrains , the rising expectations of uz to be super women ( all rounders in everything) and the stigma of being a female .
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