Monday, May 01, 2006

Top Ten Things Every Man Should Have - III

Because this one is such a personal bugaboo, it gets its own post.

7. Personal responsibility.
I've got news for you. Come here. Closer. So I can whisper it in your ear. WOMEN ARE NOT THE BETTER GENDER. This one's a pet peeve of mine so I will try to be fair, but forgive me if I come off a little angry. [rant] That defense about men having been biologically programmed to spread their seed to as many women as possible? That you know you're dogs but can't help it? That you're just built this way? I find a lot of men using this scientific “fact” to justify much cruel behavior. Like having sex with women who like them even though they don't reciprocate those women's feelings; or avoiding the stupid “I'm breaking up with you” conversation by treating women so badly that they'll initiate it instead. Similar to 6. above? These behaviors are just plain laziness, and the statutes of limitation on the biology excuse expired back when we started civilizing ourselves. When we set aside our biological imperatives long enough to study the stars, build skyscrapers and draft laws. Knowledge itself is never the problem - we should look to science for potential biological reasons for human behavior. But knowledge alone is not wisdom, and when knowledge is used to avoid wisdom? That's what causes the problems. Who's going to grow and become wiser faster: the guy who realizes that what he's done makes him an asshole and then uses the biological programming data to help him understand himself better, which will, in turn, lead him to making better choices in the future; OR the guy who uses the biological programming data to shield himself from ever admitting he's being an asshole? The latter never has to change. He's not an asshole. He's just being what he was biologically programmed to be. Where's the wisdom in that? And who wants to be the same guy at 40 that he was at 25? The lazy guy, that's who. L-A-Z-Y. And that's not the only damage this piece of crap causes. Implicit in the assertion that men are biologically driven to sex and can't help themselves is that women can. Help themselves that it is. If we have only two genders, and neither one of them can help themselves, who would stop fornicating long enough to raise the children and feed the clan? By using biological programming as an excuse, men take every shred of responsibility off themselves and burden women with it. And I've found this little factoid underlining so many male excuses, that I can't help but wonder if there wasn't some men's lobby somewhere who financed the male scientists who conducted this study and came up with this result for the specific purpose of making women do all the work. Well we, or at least this particular woman, will no longer shoulder your responsibilities for you. So knock it off with using this excuse. I don't buy it. [/rant]

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hear, hear! Biology does not equal destiny. And the misapplication of these biological theories just makes the public less willing to accept them.

I'm sure the male and female biologists, anthropoligists, and evolutionary psychologists who develop these theories are even more fed up with the lazy excuse-makers than you are.