It’s one of the sickest known jokes, and sure to offend many:
“Why do nice guys finish last? Because women, like other domestic animals...need a strong hand to tame them”
But has it got any truth in it? OK, disclaimer, to anybody hopping mad on their chair with disbelief. Don't come up with simple-minded objections to this. It's possible here that I'm using the word 'taming' differently to you. Men are animals, just as women are. And of course, in mating, women have selected behavioural traits in men that they liked as much as men have done in women.
So you could come up with similar jokes about men. I'm sure they exist, I was just told this one. It wasn't funny, but thought provoking. I'm weird.
The offensive part is the allegation that women (or at least a large part of the female population) have been 'domesticated', i.e selected in particular for specialisation in domestic requirements (as men, say, specialise over women in hunting). We know about the so-called "battle of the sexes", whereby genes of one sex actually have competing (and interdependent) interests with genes belonging to members of the other sex. Men could disadvantage women in a peculiar way, through physical and/or other oppression. Some lineages or tribes or cultures of men, therefore, might have domesticated some women. It may be that because women HAVE been less powerful for so long, HAVE been treated so unequally by men as a whole, that the joke is now partially true, for some women. Men may have controlled women for so long, as they have bred and controlled dogs for their own purposes, that it may be that some women have become partially domesticated too.
This doesn't imply that women are any less intelligent and otherwise able than men, by any means. Perhaps, the opposite. Certainly, women seem to do a disproportionate share of the work. This is still true to this day. According to ABS figures, women work, on average, 41 mins longer than men per day, once all reported 'responsibilities' are totalled up. But it certainly seems likely that men and women, statistically speaking, perform better in different roles. Once again, for those out there....this doesn't logically imply that a woman's place is in the home, that she lacks skills that you have, or any other misinterpretation you're likely to come up with.
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3 comments:
My observation: that "domestication" goes both ways. All the ladies in my family have their husbands completely and apparently happily at their beck and call, and have eliminated (most of) their "less-desirable" behaviorisms such as motorcycle riding, drinking and other reckless impulses.
I remember reading an Andy Capp comic a long time ago. Some new guy is trying to join the group's rugby team.
He brags about being the boss in his house -- and the guy promptly toss him to the curb on his ear, since such a statement clearly makes him a hopeless liar.
Yep, domestication certainly does go both ways, as I said.
Although many would criticise the wives of warmongers of unnecessary causes for letting them get away with it. Although I guess they'd have done it anyway. Women haven't yet controlled that side of men sufficiently
Although I personally feel quite a lot of distaste for any man who calls himself "the boss of the house", I wouldn't rush to dismiss his claim as nonsense. There are way too many extremely submissive females out there
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