Where are the Men?
Ann Althouse has an interesting post on why men don't like organized adult courses in tennis, wine tasting, sailing etc. The NYT's article Ann referred to had a wine buyer and manager explain why men didn't attend his "important" events as readily as women:
Ann sees the negativity towards men in the explanation and states:
One of Ann's commenters stated that she was "channeling Dr. Helen" in her "defense" of men's attitudes and hey, I'm not complaining. It's good to know that others are picking up on the negative depictions of men in the media and speaking up.
But what I really wanted to say in this post is that if you want to know where the men are, just look around. Go out in the world and see what men might be interested in--if you are really looking for guys, don't go to a class geared for women and their interests and wonder why the guys don't show. This week, I saw the college campus loaded with males (of all ages) drinking beer, the gun range with more men than I could count, and the Apple store at the mall loaded with guys looking for computer equipment. Now, if you are a woman and these hobbies do not appeal to you, than think how a guy must feel when walking into a wine tasting class where the instructor caters to the needs of women and sees his male students as "know-it-alls." Is it any wonder that men don't show up for class?
He offered this explanation for the disparity: “It’s argued that women are better tasters of wine than men. A higher percentage of women have more taste-bud receptors.” So maybe they are getting more out of the class. But, echoing others who lead classes, he added: “It may also come down to the fact that men think they know more about wine anyway, so they don’t need to learn more about it.”
Ann sees the negativity towards men in the explanation and states:
But it would be so easy to turn that around and present the male side as positive.
Men prefer to look at something they have decided to do and figure it out on their own. They like to observe, analyze, and discover. They accept the risks and enjoy the excitement of trial and error. They don't like sitting around having someone tell them what to do, and they aren't intrigued by the prospect of meeting women who spend so much time doing something they loathe.
One of Ann's commenters stated that she was "channeling Dr. Helen" in her "defense" of men's attitudes and hey, I'm not complaining. It's good to know that others are picking up on the negative depictions of men in the media and speaking up.
But what I really wanted to say in this post is that if you want to know where the men are, just look around. Go out in the world and see what men might be interested in--if you are really looking for guys, don't go to a class geared for women and their interests and wonder why the guys don't show. This week, I saw the college campus loaded with males (of all ages) drinking beer, the gun range with more men than I could count, and the Apple store at the mall loaded with guys looking for computer equipment. Now, if you are a woman and these hobbies do not appeal to you, than think how a guy must feel when walking into a wine tasting class where the instructor caters to the needs of women and sees his male students as "know-it-alls." Is it any wonder that men don't show up for class?
posted by Helen at 6:54 AM
40 Comments:
Dr. Helen,
Thanks for your many posts supporting a positive view of the average male.
It is refreshing. I wish you well.
Where the boys are, someone waits for me
A smilin' face, a warm embrace, two arms to hold me tenderly
Where the boys are, my true love will be
He's walkin' down some street in town and I know he's lookin' there for me
In the crowd of a million people I'll find my valentine
And then I'll climb to the highest steeple and tell the world he's mine
Till he holds me I wait impatiently
Where the boys are, where the boys are
Where the boys are, someone waits for me
Thanks Connie Francis!
Trey
The solution is dead simple: add beer-tasting to the wine-tasting.
I have to agree. Wine tasting? Sorry, too metrosexual for me. Taste, schmaste - I drink for effect.
I took a woodworking class in 2003, and it was the most fun I've had in years. We actually built things, and they looked good and we could put them in our homes and say "I made this." Since then, I've had a pleasurable, useful hobby that's given me hours of enjoyment. The wife likes it, too, when I build things for her. Maybe that's a stereotypical male attitude, but there you are.
I'll let you in on a secret: There were women in the woodworking class. Hot women. Most of them enrolled not because they were interested in wood per se, but because they had home improvement projects going and they wanted to learn more about the tools and techniques they needed. They were attentive, curious, asked lots of smart questions, and did the actual work just as well as the men. Some did better, in fact, because they were more meticulous in their measurement and construction. We all had a great time.
Not sure what that proves, other than do whatever you want and screw the newsies. Their job involves framing everything, turning it into a "story." Fortunately there are plenty of people who don't live inside somebody else's story.
These male-bashing people don't even hit reality most of the time. I think a lot of them are engaging in transference or projection (there's some armchair psychology for you).
Yeah, as a man, I don't want to go to a wine-tasting event because women have superior taste buds and will be superior to me in wine-tasting.
How do they even make this crap up?
Yeah... and in three years, there'll be more men than women in wine-tasting course -- just as was the case when I first took one, thirty years ago -- and someone whill be asking why men are "dominating" wine classes.
Good grief. Don't we have anything better to do than worry about the gender proportions of a stupid class?
Kim du Toit
Where are the men?
At the scotch tasting next door.
dr. ellen hit the nail on the head, guys prefer beer. But the other part of the problem is being taught the finer points of drinking alcohol. Men don't drink for the bouquet. In fact, real men only drink wine under pressure from a female.
Hold a beer tasting without the instruction and see who shows up. Plenty of guys, even if the only beer is Budweiser.
budweiser isnt beer, well maybe the czech ones the budweiser budvar.
real ales, bitters, milds, i just had some banana bread beer, it was gorgeous, different tastes, different feels.
My wife discovered this outfit neaby where you go and make wine from real grapes, not from some kit. I went along and I thought it was pretty cool, actually. Speaking as man, KDT, I do like wine (I like beer, too). But I will say I noticed something at the event: the women were picking out and designing the lables and the men were making the wine and asking the technical questions about wine-making.
Just a matter of being curious about different things, I guess. My wife and I both had fun. We'll go again this fall.
Rusty.
Could it just be that women are more into organized socialization? Wine tasting? Don't you have anything more important to learn? This is a social class to enable you to go to more social outings. These outings are with people who tend to judge all those who aren't "educated" in it. Man that sounds like fun and a woman thing to begin with(and yes I am being sarcastic;). If my husband were going to take a class it would be on something more useful, that is if he even had the time.
armchair - how many times have I heard this, "budweiser isnt beer,...?" Usually from someone who likes beer with honey or something else in it.
The top beers in the country by gallonage: 1. Bud Light, 34.8 (+8.2%); 2.
Budweiser, 32.8 (-4.6%);
Leading beer company: 1. Anheuser-Busch, 50.9% (+1.3%);
Whoa! More that all other beer companies combined!
More on Bud: "Today, Budweiser leads the U.S. premium beer category, outselling all other domestic premium beers combined. Budweiser is Anheuser-Busch's flagship brand and is distributed in more than 65 countries and reigns as the world's best selling beer brand."
Your comment is precisely why I don't like to go to tastings, etc. I don't care what you or some aficionado considers a beer or a good wine. I've been to Napa Valley a couple of times. Had a great time tasting free wine. But I want to find out what I like, not what an expert says is good.
I usually drink Stroh's at home. (Consumers Reports ranked it the best domestic lager in 2001.) Usually I drind Budweiser when out because Stroh's isn't available. But, I must admit the Hofbräu Dunkel at Hofbrauhaus is durn good and comes in liter size mugs! A bunch of us from work ate lunch there yesterday and drank beer only twenty feet from the tanks in which is was brewed.
Maybe the wine tasting class is really for people who enjoy wine and aren't desperately trying to meet members of the opposite sex through passive aggressive measures by joining an organization with ulterior motives. Hopefully one takes a wine tasting class to learn more about tasting wine and not chase booty.
We know where the men are, at the basketball game, playing softball, at the gun range, at the golf course, looking at trucks and playing video games. Women know how to find the sports emporium too. If women want to meet men they know where to go.
Wait ... you're supposed to taste wine? As in let it touch your tongue? I was taught to not taste it. That way it goes down better and stays there longer.
I think there's more to it than meets the eye.
For years my hobby was serving on charitable boards of directors. I've ran many a personel and property committee.
I gave it up. The snide, rude and sexist comments and ideas from the women just made it too uncomfortable to be in their presence. Now, when talking to the people still serving on BOD's you always get complaints about not enough men willing to serve and not enough men willing to join. I wonder why?
I acted for years: Mostly community theatre, but some stock (semi-pro).
I stopped. The reason is similar to why I stopped serving on BOD's. I don't like the comments and ideas.
My reasons and experience must be added into the thing. It's not only the 'what,' but the 'why' which must be considered.
My reasons and experience must be added into the thing. It's not only the 'what,' but the 'why' which must be considered.
This is why it's not really good to encourage women to go skiing, take up golfing, or start hanging out at the gun ranges or stock car races if they are only interested in meeting men there.
All I know of wine is the worse it tastes, the more it costs. It is an acquired taste. Like all alcohol. I don't like, or consume, alcoholic beverages. I suppose that makes me more snooty than anyone in a tux swirling wine around in their mouth and spitting it back out. Or unrefined, depending on your personal viewpoint.
I drink what I like right off the bat.... Yoo-Hoo, iced tea,cranberry juice, water with a twist of lemon (at dinner), and of course the king beverage, Columbian coffee. And to some, coffee and tea are too strong. Whatever fluffs up ones skirt, I suppose.
If women have more taste buds than men, I God shorted at birth. Hubby taste tests the meat spices (esp on the grill) and the spaghetti sauce. I taste test desserts during the mixing process, but that's as much for pleasure as necessity.
Yesterday, with another family, we went to a World Fair: a local celebration thing of different country ethnicities. We wifes/moms and children were watching the dancing on the formal state or taking a turn trying to learn a dance at the informal stage. Our husbands/dads were tasting the imported beers.
Hubbies has done *spontaneous* drink tasting: wine during a winery tour day-trip, beer at events such as above, scotch originally with some co-workers (and now he'll lead a dinner guest through it at home about once a year). But I seriously doubt I could get him to *a class*, whether it was for wine, beer or scotch.
I don't know about the rest of the men, but I am routinely to be found avoiding Femi-lepers and their lickspittle Mangina lackeys. Naturally it does not occur to them to seek after us in such places; they lack Imagination. If it were not so they wouldn't be thoroughly programmed Ideologues to begin with.
jw: Too many productions of "Oleanna?"
Sometime last year, this subject came up on the Rush Limbaugh show. He said when he was a young bachelor in Sacramento, he couldn't figure out how to meet women until one day it struck him: he went to the store and bought a stack of women's magazines to find out where he was supposed to be.
Recently, let's just say a woman I know told me about another woman I know who had taken up Ballroom dancing in order to meet men. Men, I asked? Men. I couldn't stop laughing. As explanations, I think both Darwin and Intelligent Design strike out. I think God is a prankster and a practical joker.
Having read the NYT article, I would venture that the real reason men are turned off all these classes is that they seem to be predominantly run by misandric oafs who have no understanding of what really makes men tick. Instead they prefer the lazy option of pandering to the prejudices of the dismal women who attend their classes and of course therefore pay their wages. So they create their own female-oriented vicious circle that is guaranteed to keep men away.
flint's gunner 10:36: No need to lighten up. You'll fit right in here.
Ladies, two words - trap shooting. Wealthy men, cute outfits, what's not to like?
That said, the reason that you're not going to find many men at classes or other organized events dominated by women is that these settings tend to be uncomfortable for men - by which I mean unbearable. The only way that I'd ever consider taking a wine tasting class is if I had a girlfriend who really wanted to go. Then we could talk about wine while we were trap shooting.
jw,
What a sad situation! Maybe it's the area you live in or something; here in the Puget Sound area, I served for 9 years on an nonprofit board (classical music organization) and never saw any anti-male stuff of any kind.
Helen,
Hope you didn't think that reference to you at Althouse's was disapproving; it was certainly meant to be complimentary!
bugs: Nope. Just normal human behavior. If X is socially accepted, than more X will show up in social situations. Contempt for men is either socially acceptable or not-commented on, depending on the group in question. Thus, there is a lot of it. I don't like it.
kirk: I've had some men say they've never heard any contempt and other men say they no longer serve as there is too much contempt. Both seem to be true. I'm not at all sure what the difference is or why it exists.
I've served on the boards of two different mental health organizations, a community food bank, a community information service, a community theatre group and a single parent's group. All were much the same. All were in southern Ontario.
Interestingly, the worst of all --the Canadian Mental Health Association-- demand that they would never allow contempt for men! They are really VERY loud in their demand, all the while spewing forth hate that would make a Klan's-man blush.
If women want to meet men, all they have to do is pretend to like us, be nice and toss a compliment now and then.
You won't have to go anywhere to meet us, since the experience of interacting with you will be so refreshing, we'll flock to you.
The problem I always encountered was that "women" did want to meet "men" - they just didn't want to meet ME!
There was some standup guy who had a bit about that. You're best friends with a woman and she says "Someday I'd like to marry a man just like you - but not you."
Girls are weird. And they have cooties, but that's a different discussion.
I never had any trouble meeting guys. I used craichead's approach. Funny, how treating people like people usually turns out okay.
However, meeting a guy I wanted to marry...that required me to go somewhere else to meet men. (I didn't go there to meet men, but I did meet my husband in a place outside my usual orbit.) Perhaps these women are simply trying to meet a type of guy different from the type they usually meet.
Where do guys go to meet women?
"armchair - how many times have I heard this, "budweiser isn't beer,...?"
It isn't beer, but thank God for it. One of the Midwest's main contributions to American food are those blessedly unsugared sodas.
Wine-tasting classes are no substitute for "independent study." heh heh.
And the best way to study and discuss wine is in the course of a dinner - random comments mixed in with comments about the food, rather than some ponderous (and pompous) discussion of the wines in a foodless vacuum. So a wine tasting class is probably worthless for learning about wine. It is certainly worthless as a way to find men.
If a woman is so desperate to find a man, a street corner is a better place to hang out than a wine tasting class.
Come on, Jim. Women don't have to be desperate to want to meet decent guys, do they? Surely there are men out there with the same problem--the women they meet at the usual places just aren't the kind they want to spend time with. The obvious solution is to look for them somewhere else, right? I don't know anything about wine tastings and whether the people there are worth meeting. Never been to a tasting.
Wine? Men aren't into wine all that much.
But I'm shocked that nobody has mentioned martial arts courses....particularly fencing classes. A woman looking for eligible men would be hard-pressed to find a better hunting ground.
Why don't men ask for directions?
My standard answer has been
"Because when faced with a problem a man's first impulse is to try and solve it for himself and to stay with it even after initial failure and to take responsibility for the outcome.
When faced with a problem a woman's first response is to be disheartened by an initial failure and to see if she can get someone to solve it for her, or at least to collaborate with her, so as to share responsiblity for the outcome."
I get in so much trouble with that.
I second locomotive breath's comment, the impulses of men and women ae different. My wife and I had three sons then two daughters.
When I would play with the boys and chase them into a corner, without fail, each of the boys would attempt to fight his way out of being trapped. In the same kind of play, when trapped both daughters would curl up in a ball or the fetal position and attempt to hide.
I'm not a psychologist, but this behavioral difference was evident in my kids from a very early age, so early that it seemed it must have been in their nature.
We have boy-girl twins. That would disabuse anybody of the notion that they start out alike.
Nuts.
IMO, the problem with winetasting is that there is far less to it than the experts like to pretend.
I recall hearing of a study where a bunch of oenophiles were recorded as they tasted both red wines and white wines. Then they were given white wines with red food coloring. They used the descriptors they'd previously used for red wines.
It's tough to sit there and pretend to believe obviously bogus crap. It's demeaning.
And to sit there and be demeaned does little for the testosterone and the chase instinct.
I favor a really cheap port. I once treated myself to half a dozen far more expensive ports. I liked the cheap stuff better and I haven't gone back. Cheap port and a book.
To that I would have to add a smoking jacket, slippers, fez, and favorite pipe full of Devonshire #2. It also helps to have a spaniel of some sort lurking around.
nice post, it's really interesting for me today, thx
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