Women's Confidence Day
Apparently, yesterday was declared Women's Confidence Day by Queen Latifah and other women who feel the need to continue the tired program of promoting women's self-esteem (Thanks Allah Pundit). Haven't we drilled into most women's heads enough self-esteem already? Has anyone ever asked whether or not this "self-esteem" is helpful to women and society or not? Pumping women up with fake programs and phony self-esteem seems to do more harm than good--hence the need for books like See Jane Hit : Why Girls Are Growing More Violent and What We Can Do About It.
It seems that we would spend our time more wisely by teaching women how to actually master real skills such as mathematics, science and engineering then promoting programs that provide a fake, but worthless sense of self. "Radiating confidence" can never substitute for real knowledge and plain hard work.
It seems that we would spend our time more wisely by teaching women how to actually master real skills such as mathematics, science and engineering then promoting programs that provide a fake, but worthless sense of self. "Radiating confidence" can never substitute for real knowledge and plain hard work.
posted by Helen at 7:53 AM
26 Comments:
I'm for teaching Albert Ellis' concept of self acceptance rather than self esteem as an adjunct to teaching skills.
The college I went to a million years ago had a very radical WMST department. They convinced a lot of middle class women to become enraged about how oppressed they were as women and major in WMST. WMST taught them to notice injustice and disempowerment where they might otherwise not notice these two things.
I knew seveal women who graduated with these degrees to find they could get nothing but the shittiest jobs, the kind of jobs that tend to have the most injustices. Unlike the blue collar people who normally work these jobs and who developed attitudes growing up to cope with them these WMST graducated had skills to magnify the vissitudes of these jobs, but no skills ( and a debt from the wmst degree ) to get out of them.
You're right, it is time to start teaching women to achieve.
I just discovered this blog.
I am enjoying it very much.
Dr. Helen, you are intelligent, witty, and write clearly in addition to being a very compelling woman.
I'm guessing that means you are married, gay, or nuts.
Cheers
SteveR
With the latest research in pheromone testing, I'm waiting for the Queen Latifah Confidence-in-a-Bottle Perfume. It would be cheaper than a college education.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Steve R,
What does being married, gay or nuts have to do with being intelligent or witty? BTW, married and probably nuts. Glad you find the blog of interest.
Helen;
I was referring to my own personal experience. When I find women who are intelligent, witty, and compelling they usually turn out to have at least one of those qualities( married, gay, or nuts ).
I read more of your archives.
You are married and I do think you are nuts, but that is okay as I can handle people having different world views than my own.
Cheers
Steve R
Helen,
I think Steve R.'s point was largely "All the good ones are taken."
The potty parity thing can be taken care of by women being assertive -- which, come to think of it, could take care of many other problems as well.
For example, when my daughter was in high school she was on a class field trip to the Museum of Science in Boston -- this trip took close to two hours from the time they left homeroom until they unloaded at the museum. No facilities on the buses and no pit stop on the way. As my daughter explained to me later, she was already regretting the before school jumbo coffee before the buses had even crossed the RI/Mass border -- and dashed into the museum with her friends only to find long lines at the women's restroom.
Simple solution -- she knocked loudly on the men's room door -- announced "Females coming in!" -- and then went on in -- along with a dozen other needful teenage girls. She said there was a rather startled middle-aged fat man washing his hands who left quickly as the girls entered the restroom -- and for the next several minutes they made it a women's room by rule of occupation.
I love my daughter (who is now 24) and am very proud of her always -- but this was one of those special moments because it showed that she was a resourceful and assertive problem-solver.
As per the Albert Ellis reference above, I prefer the concept of self-respect to self-esteem. The latter is dependent on how much sleep you've had or how much alcohol you've drunk, and is always ephemeral. But no matter how far down you've gone in life, you can make your next action one that will increase your self-respect.
Two points.
One: Do these folks believe this type of silliness is effective, or are they just preying on people who do? Moonbats or Shysters? I would frankly prefer it if they realized that it was all bovine scatology and were preying on people who had less common sense. I prefer a fallen humanity to a stupid one.
Second:
What kind of directed social change has ever worked? All I can think of is HeadStart. Prohibition? Disaster. War on Drugs? See Prohibition. War on Poverty? Right. Can anyone think of a directed social change program that has worked?
As a therapist, I see people who really WANT to change, and they have a hard time of it.
Trey
Wow, can you imagine if a man found it necessary to use the ladies restroom, knocked loudly on the door, announced "men coming in!", and boldly walked in? If Jim's high school daughter were in there, can you imagine how quickly the man would find himself on the sex offender lists?
Wow, another day, another bored Instawife who just has to "share" whatever stupid thing rattled around in the old Instabrain.
Jesus, Helen...get a life.
anonymous 3.21, this is a blog, for writing anything you wish, if she wanted she could write flibble 500 times, but thats her decision as its her blog.
women are being taught they are better than men, and thats being taught in the womens studies departments the self esteem.
the women who blindly follow these ideas expect the world to bend over and help them, as they deserve it, and they look down upon the people who they feel are less, this is why so many men are saying we give up, its not worth, self esteem is good, but so long as self respect is taught as well.
Dr Helen:
I agree with you on this post, but it leads me to ask one question:
With views like yours, how did you ever get to do work with Lifetime Television? They are the epitome of the left-wing, phony-self-esteem building, male-bashing, radical feminist creed that you discuss here.
And people like that don't impress me as exactly having a lot of tolerance for people with dissenting views.
anonymous 8:23:
I have never worked with Lifetime television unless they have rerun a show I was on. I have been an expert on the Oxygen Network, Discovery, and A & E and various talk shows. However, I find that I do less and less tv etc. because I have no interest unless they will let me discuss my views (which are edited out at times--perhaps just for brevity's sake--perhaps not--and my views are not popular). I like podcasts because no one can edit them and you can do them in your basement!
Dr. Helen:
My apologies about getting the network wrong, but you seem to think that indeed there may be political censorship of your views.
I kinda figured you were souring on television.
Of course, your views would do very well on FNC.....maybe they should have you as a consultant.
Maybe Greta Van Susteren (ironically, one of the network's liberals) could use you when discussing a case about violent kids.
(If anybody at FOX is reading this -- HINT HINT HINT!)
This is an aside to Jims comment above about how 'proud' he was of his daughter for using the mens room when she needed to.
I'm sorry but this is really unacceptable in most circumstances. As a male who needed to use the facilities a few times I've been unfortunate enough to walk into the 'mens room' only to find it's been coopted by scores of women who 'just thought the other line was too long'.
When asking them to leave becuase the three or four other guys who walked in with me need to use the urinals we are usually given shocked looks that say 'you can't tell ME what bathroom I can and cannot use.'
Self esteem often comes very close to crossing the line into selfishness. And a lot of times that line is blurred completely.
If your daughter is having trouble finding the facilities on a field trip her best bet is to complain to the administrator thats with them. Putting men in an difficult position just because 'you don't want to wait' is the epitome selfishness.
Remember, it says 'mens room' for a reason.
Sorry to be so long but I've noticed this trend more and more recently.
If women would actually LEAVE THE RESTROOM in a reasonable period of time, then there wouldn't be a problem. A lot of women seem to regard public restrooms as social forums a/o spend an inordinate amount of time re-applying make-up, fixing themselves, and generally dawdling. What's weirder is that they'll spend even longer when they know that there's going to be a line to get back in. You see this at clubs and such.
And please do not encourage young women to barge into men's rooms. Some poor schmuck is going to end-up with an indecency charge for inadvertently exposing himself.
I'd noticed that several psych professionals visit this blog.
Is there any evidence to suggest that women may be more prone than men to feelings of victimization and self-pity?
I don't mean this question as an insult, it's just that many of the assumptions underlying these 'self esteem' campaigns seem dubious.
If you look at women's literature and media, as well as marketing directed towards women, it seems that women will pay to be told that they're pitiful. This isn't a new phenomena either. For instance Queen for a Day started as a radio program in 1945, well before pop-psychology arose.
women have been told they are victims ever since the first feminists appeared, look at all the figures, and the stories all men are rapists, women need men like a fish.. all men are is defective women as they have a y chromosone instead of an X, and so on.. women have been conned into feeling put upon, and abused, by men.
the old standard of it was a matriarchal society pre history and it changed to be a patriarchal and thats what women are fighting now, the patriarchal society, that women only got the vote in x year never mentioning that ALL men only got the vote about 20 years before them, and that the MEN voted to give women the vote.
women have been programmed to be victims or at least think they are, look at the jobs, they have women only jobs lists, as women were victimised for not actually wanting to work there, look at womens only health clubs, you cant have men there, but men cant have mens only clubs thats a sign of patriarchal oppression. and so on
this is something called the transcript of the gender wars, theres some snippets from that,
http://thecfcouple.proboards37.com/index.cgi?board=OT&action=display&thread=1148322751&page=1
Women: I think it's really funny that you can no longer congregate with your own sex, but I can with mine. Men's clubs are illegal, subject to lawsuit, or boycotted, but women's clubs are protected by law and encouraged. Did you know that women's-only health clubs are legal by federal law and men's-only are not? See you at the Women's Community Building. And thanks for the taxes.
Men: Say....
Women: Better be careful how you look at me, that could be sexual harassment. I can sue you. You'll lose your job, your home, your family. That kind of threat, as sanctioned by law, has a chilling effect, doesn't it?
Men:
Women: And we have anti-stalking laws now. If you get too close, I can sue you. You'll lose your job, your home, your family.
Men:
Women: Now that we've brought about no-fault divorce, I see that more than 75% of divorces are initiated by the woman. Do you think that's because she gets the house, car, one third to one half his income, plus child support more or less automatically?
Men
Women: Men die earlier from all eight major causes of death. Yet
there's never been a federal study as to why. Isn't that funny?
But there's an office of Women's Health. None for men yet, maybe one day.
Men:
Women: I'm going to that free breast cancer screening provided by the state. I didn't see anything about prostate cancer, though. I hear that breast cancer gets 14 times as much federal funding as prostate cancer does. Prostate cancer must be pretty unimportant, huh?
Men:
Max,
I think the social pay off for women for being a victim is higher than it is for men. Think about it--if a man acts like a victim or even complains a little, he is seen as a loser with a capital L. If a woman complains and is victimized, she is rewarded with sympathy, goodies or sometimes with money. I saw an article once about women who had been abused being rewarded by a group of therapists with a spa day--they had free therapy and got their hair and nails done. I think this just encourages more of the victim mentality, not less. So much of it is social learning and positive reinforcement.
Thanks for the response Helen.
I hope that it's primarily social reinforcement.
Your perspective actually echo's that of a friend of mine who'd worked w/ battered women in San Francisco. She's a lesbian, and so was assigned cases concerning both hetero & homosexual couples. Despite a strong PC tendency, she'd eventually come to a similar conclusion - that rewarding a posture of victimization motivated people to claim victimization opportunistically. This was apparently a big stumbling block when dealing with lesbian couples as both partners could claim victim's status on multiple counts. She'd jokingly refer to the early counseling process as 'queen of the hole' ( a play on king of the hill ), because each partner was trying to get below the other in the victim hierarchy. But she claimed to see a similar phenomena w/ heterosexual women who abused their children. I think that seeing a grown woman try to blame a child for their abusiveness was what turned her around.
The entire potty parity thing is based on the observable fact that women take longer in the bathroom. Admittedly, lowering one's pants or raising a skirt and sitting on a toilet might take slightly more time than unzipping, whipping it out and using a urinal, but is the time difference significant enough to cause all those lines by the ladies' room?
One thing I do know, is that while the ladies are busy standing in line, the men are acting like men, finding solutions. At most sporting or concert events when the line in the mens' room gets too long for guys to bear, we designate one of the sinks for use.
Potty Parity = Penis Envy
I have read some sites about legislation for women to go in men's room even with men using them when the women's room lines are long. I think that would be wrong. Yes, men maybe facing the urinals doing their business but when most men see women coming in to invade their male privacy, they may do some thing to make these women feel uncomfortable: expose themselves to them, going to the closed stalls to peek at these women, do "strip shows," install video cameras in stalls (and producing these videos online), and other sexual harassment. Most men are not that mature no matter the location (even at a symphony orchestra concert. Many of those concerts serve alcoholic beverages beforehand). Women may even bring their little girls in there as well, which creates a situation for pedophilia. In other words, the entire situation can be a set up for men to get arrested for these indecent acts.
Sexual situations would arise in teenagers, which can result in the spread of diseases and pregnancy. The women's room in school might be empty but some girls may want to go to the men's room to harass, tease, or seduce the boys. These situations also breed and can increase immorality. A lot of females believe that men should not have privacy against females to pee but believe that women should have that privacy against men.
Girls are taught to be private with their genitalia. Boys are not (and they should be). That is not fair for females to invade the privacy of men in the restrooms. It is not fair for males to go into (occupied) female restrooms. Therefore, let's continue to keep them separated by law and ethics.
One solution is to build more women's restrooms. Another is to build those co-ed restrooms where there are floor-to-ceiling doors to separate each toilet. Maybe later once devices like the She-Pee" and the "P-Mate" become more popular among women, more women's restrooms could be built with urinals. These items should be introduced into American society once the female urinals are built, meaning that those companies should give them our free for the first several months before selling them in dispensers. Women should sacrifice privacy if they want to zip in and out restrooms equipped with urinals.
Oh, the thing about restroom doors especially at stadiums where the men's room door is open and they can be seen urinating, these restrooms should be rebuilt. Those sinks (and even stalls) are hidden away from public view but the urinals with the men using them aren't. The men's rooms should be built with some type of barrier to shield outside view of women passing by (or women at the door sticking their heads in calling for their little boys to hurry up). Women and girls should not be allowed to watch men and boys pee. We don't get to watch females pee. Maybe this is an issue that the ACLU should take up.
:
I think things are going to get worse before they get better.The whole dividing the bathrooms and the schools and all this other crap is nonsense.Men have penis's and women have vaginas.It has been this way for how many years???? Honestly,we are idiots.What other animal hides its body???? The only naked girl I ever saw while I was growing up was my mom.No wonder people are starting to like the same sex.Male and female dont even know each other.I feel sorry for all the other guys growing up in today's world.As far as having a healthy sex life....it sucks.In Tennessee you would serve more time by raping a girl than you would if you killed her.Also a woman named winkler blew a whole in her husband's back with a shotgun because he was sexually abusive.A few months in a mental health facility and she was free.Its tough being a guy now.I dont even date anymore.It takes so much to impress a female that I had just rather not spend the time,money or effort involved.I leave the females alone.The slightest wrong move,look or word and they can make you regret even wanting them in the first place.
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