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To: Wyätt Gwyön who wrote (153093)	10/3/2008 10:47:54 AM
From: GraceZ	Respond to of 306849

*WAY OT** then i got to know the poster, and it turned out to be a guy posting under a chick's name, LOL When I want to imagine how most men regard women, I just remember the answer from the Jack Nicholson character from "As Good as it Gets" when asked how he writes women characters so well, "I start with a man and then strip away reason and accountability" The sad thing is he isn't that far off, it is a fairly accurate assessment. The line is funny because it is so true. By using a female screen name, your male poster was just trying to take advantage of the tactical advantage that all women enjoy in any debate on that subject. Expectations for women to engage in rational thought are so low that when men engage them in debate they frequently make the mistake of underestimating their opponent, leading them to fall into set traps. I'm not thrilled with the low expectations placed on women, but I'm certainly not above using the advantage myself. Then there is the praise you get for being able to jump over a bar set low. Somebody somewhere appreciates this kind of praise, I've always found it more than a little bit condescending and in education circles low expectations are damaging because they tend to be self fulfilling. In places where high expectations are placed on women for math and science they do a much better job of living up to them. Women get the same low level of expectations in sport. I can remember many a time where some guy I was cycling with for the first time turn to me at the end of the ride where I felt like I hadn't ridden particularly well and say something like, "You are a pretty impressive rider." which basically meant, I kept up with them, they have a high opinion of their own ability and they weren't expecting me to be able to match them. OTOH I remember one ride with a couple of men friends who I could only ride "with" when they were out for a "conversational" ride and willing to let me keep up. It's considered bad form to "drop" friends on a friendly ride but it is also bad form to expect riders with superior skill to drop down to your level, so if you find yourself out of your depth you should take yourself out. Conversational for them was over the anaerobic threshold for me so I made an extraordinary effort to not be the ball and chain and I kept up with them. A few days later I heard back that the world class cyclist in the group had remarked that he'd never seen anyone work that hard on a ride. Now that was praise that wasn't the slightest bit condescending. The only way you make progress is getting in over your depth, something I've done many, many times in financial, math or science subjects. It’s the only way you get a glimpse of how much you don't know or how much work there is between where you are and where you could be. Knowledge has become so specialized that no one can have superior knowledge on every subject. The worst outcome of a debate between two people with unequal skills is when the person with the superior knowledge is dragged down to the level of the inferior. You see this over and over on SI. This has the effect of keeping those with superior knowledge from even commenting. Ideally the person who needs to learn something, does. It can be embarrassing in the extreme to look back on the record of some of my earlier arguments, but the only reason this is so, is that when I look back I can see exactly where I was wrong (even in cases where the opposing argument wasn't correct either) which means progress has been made. Anyone who isn't slightly embarrassed by arguments they made years ago hasn't made any progress. I'm certainly not alone here, I've seen many people on SI make similar progress while unfortunately I've seen many others make none or sink. Tough times can bring out the best and it can also bring out the worst.