Man Alive!

I started a thread yesterday about men being women. I dont want to hog teh threads but, to be fair, I think men have a right to be heard as men. What do young women liek myself misconstrue about men? What might I consider if I become a man for an hour or two? Is SL as sexist a world as reality or are we becoming more tolerant of genders? Are we tolerant of "two-spirit" people - teh gays and lesbians, teh transgenders and the people whose spirits are too strong to have only one gender within them?

http://www.lewrockwell.com/block/block112.html

"I gave several bits of evidence, or proof, or illustrations, of this. For one thing, when you compare not all men and all women, but only the never-marrieds, the wage gap between males and females virtually disappears. When you take only young people, aged 18–24, again the male-female wage gap cannot be found, since most of them have never been married. And this entirely reasonable. After all, while women’s productivity on average may well have been lower than men’s in past centuries, when physical strength was important in this regard, in the present century this is no longer true. For another thing, if (all) women really had the same productivity as men, nowadays (they don’t, due to marriage), then there would be additional profits available to any firm that specialized in hiring females. Surely this is a situation that could not long endure.

Now consider the glass ceiling, where Austro libertarians have an even more radical explanation. While men and women, on average, have equal productivity in the market (apart from the influences of marriage), their variance is not at all the same. Rather, men are God’s, or nature’s, "crap shoot": they are all over the lot, ability-wise. In comparison, women are God’s, or nature’s, insurance policy: they are for the most part bunched toward the middle of the IQ, or productivity, frequency distribution. Their standard deviation is very low. I gave examples of this. Take, first, the left-hand part of this bell curve. Men vastly outnumber women in prisons, as homeless street people, in mental institutions, and cemeteries at early ages (that is, men die way before women, not only from natural causes, but also as murder victims). At the other end of the spectrum, there are also precious few women to be found. There are very few female chess grand masters, Nobel Prize winners in hard sciences or economics, top physicists, chemists, mathematicians. Larry Summers was booted out of his Harvard presidency for speculating that part of the explanation for this state of affairs was biological in origin. I went him one better by claiming that this was an important part of the cause, and made the socio-biological case that low female variance allowed our species to out-compete others. E.g., if females were now found in disproportionately high numbers in prisons, on the street, in mental institutions, etc., they would have been incapable, a million years ago, of raising babies. Such a species would have lost out to our own, where very few women are not able to raise the next generation."

I agree that the single urban female wage-owner who is middle to upper-middle class can earn an equivalent salary to a male (tho' I am NOT certain of that) but that is not the case in teh devloping world - and we do have females who are logged on from there, I believe.

Married urban female, mid 40s and I work in IT. I make 49% of our income, within a couple thousand of my husband's salary. I make as much or more than almost every man I work with. I actually think that this holds true for the majority of that industry, in almost all age brackets and married or single.

And yes I did have children - they are now 20 & 22.

Then they need to start civilizing their lands and making them developed. Capitalism and property rights will bring their standard of living up.

"death By Snu-snu!!"

Jig, you're the kind of person that goes to a party and has everybody discussing child abuse.

If you are asking what it's like to be a man in world, you can enjoy a freedom to move around almost anywhere and be utterly ignored. No hokey pick up lines. No pointed questions about your real life. Nothing. Unless of course you accidentally stumble into a brothel or a strip club. Then you will be lavished with fake attention.

I think men are more ignored because they have traditionally been the agressors and there will always be a little sexual tension in any human interaction. Women will not want to appear too friendly for fear it will be mistaken as an open invitation to hop on a pose ball. Men may not want to get too close out of some ingrained homophobia that still lingers in many cultures.

Go in world as a puppy dog, a robot, or maybe an anteater, and there is likely no sexual tension. Everyone then opens up to you far more than if you are a man, and far less smarmily than if you are a woman. I've been completey surprised that the truest, freest interactions take place with non-gender beings, but perhaps I shouldn't have been.

More and more I'm opting to be the puppy dog.

Not much time to answer this in full (I have to leave for work in a few minutes) but in reply to this part of your question, I would say: it depends (as in RL) on where you go. I would also say the level of tolerance is (again, based on where you go, and also on what you do while there) roughly similar to that in RL.

Then again, I've never stood with a lover in a store (not holding hands, not kissing; just standing there) in RL and been greeted with a volley of abuse ("you will die of aids," "f*cking fags should get a tumour and die" from some macho nerk who has right-clicked on me and read my profile.

Lucky, that

No, but they've come onto our land and done it. And then there was that store where some jerk was hitting on newb girls and we warned them and then he basically said exactly that in Portuguese.

What do young women liek myself misconstrue about men? MOST THINGS, IN PARTICULAR THAT WE ARE PRIMARILY DRIVEN BY SEX RATHER THAN THE NEED FOR AN UNOBSTRUCTED VIEW OF THE TV WITH A COLD BEER IN OUR HAND

What might I consider if I become a man for an hour or two? NOT CHANGING YOUR CLOTHES FOUR OR FIVE TIMES DURING THAT PERIOD

Is SL as sexist a world as reality? NO, BUT THAT IS BECAUSE MOST PEOPLE REALISE YOU CAN'T TRUST THE APPARENT SEX OF OTHERS

Are we tolerant of "two-spirit" people? IN THE SAME WAY WE ARE TOLERANT OF ANYTHING DIFFERENT THAT WE DON'T UNDERSTAND, WHICH MEANS YES UNLESS THEY DEMAND SPECIAL ATTENTION

Pep (Not shouting - using a different method to differentiate questions and answers)

Easy question to answer, make a male avatar and use it for a week or two in populated areas(assuming there are any left), behave as you wish to behave but dont tell anyone you are not a man(not that you will have any reason to, people tend to accept what they see)

I have a female friend who tried this, she said it made her feel "powerful", also made her feel the need to be protective of the female avs around her, she also said found it rather boring because she felt she was constrained in what she could say or do.

Society in general has an expectation of certain behaviour for each gender, people who behave vastly differently from these expectations tend to not "fit", she said she felt the need to behave a certain way.

Oh she also said she was not sure if it was her wanting to behave that way, or if she was doing it because she felt others expected her to behave that way.

Men are nice.

/me rubs the men down with dried grass and feeds them bacon.

I made a male avatar just to check this out - - that and how the new-user experience was coming along.
There certainly was an issue with hair and clothing. This was accentuated by RPing as a noob.

I don't think it is possible to know what it's like to be of the opposite sex just from appearing to be of that sex. One gets a flavour, but only through the reactions and behaviour of others.

I got bored with that male avatar.
He's a tiger (from Grendel's) now.
Being something like a tiger, puppy or whatever removes a whole load of preconceptions and prejudices from both oneself and others.
Although - there are people who just can't bring themselves to interact with a non-human avatar.


I would recommend that people just go into SL and do things that interest them. The odds are that like-minded people will gravitate towards each other.

First, you are asking the wrong questions if you want to be a guy.

Have you ever seen Mercat Mannor? That's about where you need to be on the evolution scale. Then, when confronted with anyone or anything, you ask yourself these questions:
Can I eat it?
Can it eat me?
Can I put my pecker in it?

Honestly, women over analyse everything when it comes to men. The truly forward thinking and ambitious men also ask one additional question: Can it help me put my pecker in something else?

Well for one, I am not a 13 year old girl with a freaking Blackberry, I don't speak textmessaging, so I have no clue what half that original post was even about. As a gay man, I have never wanted to be a woman, nor have I wanted to be a female avie, nor do anyone I know of.

Crossdressing is largely a hetero thing, I don't know why, but it so is. Keep your gross generilisations to yourself please, especially if you have no clue what you are talking about. I am sorry for the venom in this post, I am just over this inscinuation that gay men are posing as females to try and con the guys, because this is largely false. And yes about 50% of females in SL are really guys.

But how many guys are really gals. i can't seem to find that info, it is like nobody cares.

And yes, to answer RL and SL are both hugely sexist, obviously if this seems to be a on stop rant in these forums. And I still don't know why guys pose as gals, I don't know why guys dress up as gals in general. And I do know a few transgendered people, and I must say, they seem to fall way out of bounds for these types of things. So I don't know who is dressing in 'drag' in SL, but I know it isn't me.

QFT!!!!!

But us alpha males usually leave out the "Can it eat me?" question.

Jig, have you ever read "Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr? If so, how does it fit into your world view?

Should the government take steps to enforce "equality" and "tolerance"? Should they be as drastic as the ones in the story? If not, why not? Where do you draw the line?

Should certain areas of human behavior be off limits for scientific study? In particular the differences between the sexes and races? What if they show results you don't like?

You have three hours. Write on one side of the paper only using a pen or a pencil. Raise your left hand if you need to use the rest room. Use your right if you have any other questions. No-one will be allowed to leave the examination hall in the first or last half hour of the examination.

Pep (Marks will be deducted for taking the subject too seriously)

Try it for a while Jig. But give it more than just a few hours, and go to more than one or two places. Hang out in a sandbox, go to Franks, hit a newbie spot, gnash your teeth trying to put together a good avatar, really hop around. Then...corner one of your guy friends and pepper him with questions about what happened.

If you give it a good honest go, you might end up with insight into what guys do/don't have to put up with in SL. You'll miss out on the most important lessons...like men's room ettiquette, and how to always leave that buffer seat at the movies...but the experience can't hurt, can it?

Jig is asking serious questions, so I make a serious post.

That is bound to change as we approach an age where men are little more than sperm donors and are useful where warmongering and heavy labour is required. As little more than beer and football is required to amuse them, it should not be difficult to keep them out from underfoot so we can get on with things.

But we're keeping football right? and beer? Ok..fair deal.

Wait! Bacon! I demand Beer, Football....and Bacon!

After reading this far in the thread I kinda forgot what the original point was, but I think SL is reasonably reflective of RL. I've found intollerence of others in SL, and i've found widespread acceptance.

What there is in SL however that is missing from RL is the outright expressionism. I'm RL lesbian, but in RL the only "gay bar" per se is a club about an hour away. I go about my daily life with the fact that i'm a lesbian being of no real consequence, even though i'm quite open about it, the subject is as far removed from my daily life as the chemical composition of tarmac.

In SL however I find I gravitate mostly toward gay and lesbian places, where i'm more comfortable and able to express my sexuality - despite in no way being interested in an in-game relationship or SLex and not having my sexuality detailed on my profile (except maybe by association to some groups i'm in).

Obviously in such places intollerence is rare, away from 'gay' places i've found a high degree of homosexuality in SL, most noteably there seems to be a disproportionate number of lesbians couples mingling amongst the general SL population, this is less true of male same sex couples. None-the-less I have on ocassion bumped into some intollerance, but mostly this is mild non-targetted homophobia rather than direct abuse, the same kinda stuff that is common in RL and usually gets less common when people realise that somebody in the room actually is gay.

In short, I dont think peoples world view changes when they enter SL, but I think that to some extent our natural tendancies bring us to involve ourselves in communities where we'll feel comfortable and welcome, in effect, making intollerance somewhat self policing.

I think that SL as a whole is a community more tolerant of diversity than the norm. I also agree with Bekka that even greater tolerance can be found in the GLBT-friendly places.

There are exceptions. I see a lot of very intolerant avatars come through Help Island. I think that these people will not stay in SL long. They will find its diversity too upsetting to their world view.

And the most intolerant person I ever encountered, I ran into at a place where the norm starts at "very kinky" and escalates rapidly from there.

As for understanding men...it will never happen, not to me. I'll just settle for appreciating them.

/me hands the Jerboa a plate of crispy bacon.