Nice guys and feminists

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When I was reading other posts regarding nice guys, oftentimes the women's replies to these posts would be feminist-sounding. Likewise, when men would attack said women, they would also call them "feminists". This brings me to ask the following question: the idea that nice guys should finish last assumes that men have to be strong, and this idea is OPPOSITE to feminist. So wouldn't a true feminist be saying "since men and women are equal, men don't have to be strong; thus, nice guys should be treated with a lot of understanding"?

I guess one way I can answer my own question is this. Perhaps there are women who DO want "strong men", but since none of the men they are around are strong they are basically telling them "you are not a man"; and the statement "this bunch of dudes are not real men" is logically equivalent to saying "this group of guys and that group of girls should be equal". Well of course the first version of it sounds sexist (after all, it uses the term "not a man" as a putdown, as if, being a woman is "bad" while being a man is "good") while the second version sounds feminist (men and women are equal, so no, being a woman is not "bad"). But, ironically, the two are saying the same thing!

So lets take a feminist who wants a woman president. Well perhaps the only reason she wants woman president is that men who are currently in power don't look manly enough so she can't respect them "as men". So perhaps if we were to get some real tough guy in power, like Putin, then the said feminists will no longer want a woman president; instead they would admire Putin and his masculinity as you would never expect. If thats the case, this means that they were never feminists to begin with; on the contrary they want man with power (just the opposite to what true feminist would want) and this caused them to disrespect current men because they don't have enough power.

Now going back to dating question. So suppose a woman wants a man she dates to have a power over her. Now, suppose that man in front of her is not powerful enough. Then she tells him "lets just be friends". Another way to phrase it is "lets just be EQUAL", and then of course she treats him nicely just like she treats all of her female friends. But since they are truly "equal" she no longer acknowledges that he is a man, hence she won't date the said "man" since she viewed him/her as a female and she is not lesbian.

Now, I am not advocating the male superiority over female. On the contrary, I DO want men and women to be equal. For one thing, I would prefer my female partner to have Ph.D. just like I do (quite a bit of a difference from sexist men who don't want to be with "successful" women). But I am just trying to analyze what is going on in womens minds. It seems like women are sexist against themselves in a sense that they want a man to have power over them.

Maybe women don't like to be stereotyped? Maybe men don't like it either? Maybe they don't like to be forced to confom to radically and arbitrarily different cultural conventions because of biological differences?

+1
No, men do not 'have to be strong,' any more than adults in general 'have to be strong.' Strength, however, is generally a good trait in both women and men as long as it isn't taken to that disgusting over-muscled extreme phisique seen in muscle mags, which I find disgusting on either gender, or in the emotional sense to the extreme of never showing weakness or even affection to anyone.

The problem with self-proclaimed 'Nice Guys' is that they too often think that being 'nice' means that, 'If I hold doors for women, and bring them flowers, then I should get sex.' They don't really view women any differently than does a man looking for a prostitute; they just use different currency (civility being, to them, a currency that men use to purchase women), and then they get all offended when they realize that most women aren't out to sell themselves by any currency but actually want a partner who will treat them as a human being rather than as an object.
Another type of 'Nice Guy' is a timid character who hasn't grown up and wants someone to take care of him, and wonders why women are so mean. Again, most women are looking for adult partners, not overgrown children.

And then there are a few actual 'nice guys,' who are just nice without making a show of it, and they're usually married before they're out of their 20's.

Not all feminists are women. Even more pertinent to your post, not all women are feminists. It should go without saying that 'women' in this sense, as an abstract combination of Mode observation and imagination, don't exist. Hopefully some women will come along and try and help you make sense of their capricious whims.

'Strong' and 'nice' aren't at all mutually exculsive. How do you mean, 'strong'? Physically so? Mentally? Is 'strong' here equated with some sort of bravado, a strutting Alpha male type? Using your example, is it a strong President who launches war at every opportunity? Or is it one who takes the diplomatic route, not bowing to the warmongerers?

My Grandad was of average physical build. He did ok financially. He was smart, but being from the class and generation he was, he left school at 15. He was never rude or dismissive. He was kind and courteous to all, but this came from a place of strength, not of apologetic fear or manipulation. He dressed smartly not to strut, but because of a sense of common obligation - other people have to look at us, so we should do what we can to make that as not-unpleasant an experience as possible. He had several letters throughout his career commending his level-headedness and resourcefulness in panicked situations, and I saw the same qualities in his personal life as I grew up. He was, in short, as close to a mensch as I've ever seen. He was far closer to 'nice' than 'strong', in the senses you're using them. And both men and women always appreciated it, and women loved him for it.

Women are sexist against themselves all the time. I don't know if a personal preference for cliched masculinity counts as that.

ETA: Women often baffle me, but that's because they're people, not because they're women. People are weird all over the place.

Last edited by Hopper on 02 Sep 2012, 3:48 am, edited 1 time in total.

What about some of us guys who are nice by nature and just like being nice and not expect sex out of it but just being nice?

If I may interject:

What do you mean by 'nice'?

I can speak from personal experience with what LKL has said - I took my timidity for a virtue, though I never once thought women were the problem. But even that came from a default of low self esteem rather than a fair appraisal of either women or myself.

Well, if you look briefly at the National Organization for Women (NOW) website:

http://www.now.org/

They actually seem to take intelligent stands on important political issues.

They certainly aren't. They are two unrelated qualities that sometimes coincide in a person and sometimes don't. You gave a good example in your grandfather.

Other unrelated qualities that often get improperly equated in these debates are "nice" with "shy" and "extrovert" with "mean".


I also find that people in these debates talk past each other (I've done it!) because they have entirely different definitions of "strong", "nice" and so on. It's good to parse out those defintions (as you have done, though I didn't quote it) to find out if people are talking about entirely different things while using the same word.

Just being friendly although I am sometimes too nice and get used as a door mat though.

I never said that they were. Let me spell out exactly what my point is

a) Probably 30-70% of women are feminist. Don't know whether its 30% or 70% (not knowledgeable about the topic), but I am pretty sure it is neither 10% nor 90%; probably somewhere close to the middle

b) 99% of women reject me. So clearly even non-feminist reject me too, not just feminist.

c) Feminist women are a lot more likely to defend the women that rejected me than non-feminists are. At least I saw in some recent posts how feminist ideas were quoted by the women who defend the ones that rejected me.

Now, part b is something I talked about previously several times. On the other hand, part c is my recent observation, and this post is devoted to part c. Thats why I talked about "feminists". The correlation with feminism never occurred to me until I read replies to one of my very recent posts I made few days ago. But now that I made this observation I decided to discuss it.



For the most part, mentally, although physical strength might be like an icing on a cake.



That, and/or self confidence.



I don't know the general case, but I can't help but make a comment specifically about Putin. In case of Putin he is "strong" because he is not afraid of Iran, while Americans are. So Americans are so scared of Iran they want to go to war while Putin is so self confident he doesn't want to go to war because he sees no need for it. By the way back in Russia I was one of the worst students in PE class while in America I was doing okay. So judging by PE, Russians are stronger than Americans. Thats probably why Russians are not afraid of Iran the way Americans are.

But like I said, I wouldn't generalize this to other situations. Naopleon and Hitler were both strong and they both went to war. So in their case GOING to war was a sign of strength while in Putin's case REFRAINING from war is a sign of strength. So it all depends.



Agreed here. One puzzling thing about "people in general" is why is it they won't test their assumptions once their mind is made up? In men's case it affected me when professors refused to take me as their ph.d. student, while in womans case it affects me in that women won't date me. But in both cases maybe the outcomes would have been a lot better if only they were to bother to test their assumptions.

Well that is the version that describes me IN OTHER PEOPLE'S MINDS (well at least in Anne's mind) but it is simply not true. Anne rejected me because I told her my mom shelters me and she decided I expect to be sheltered by the person I date which she just can't handle. But I don't expect to be sheltered! After all, Sarah (the girl I dated half a year BEFORE I dated Anne) sheltered me and THAT WAS WHY I cut her off the moment I left to another state (she broke up with me only 3 months AFTER I cut her off). Yet Anne thought I need sheltering even though its precisely what I ran away from (by the way Anne mentioned Sarah's sheltering TOO, not just my moms, while from what I said above Sarah is actually a good example of how I DON"T need to be sheltered).

I tend to have the habit of placing women on a pedastool which people say is a bad habit as a result I get walked over and I tend to think less of my self worth as opposed to others. Like I am not important and my only purpose is for the woman to be happy.

This. Why do we have to categorize people as anything but individuals? These labels become meaningless after a point.

The awesome thing is that we can all be easily stereotyped because we're not all that diverse mentally.

This is the example of "not practicing what you preach". While no one wants to be stereotyped, everyone is stereotyping others. The evidence that women stereotype men is the simple fact that they won't date a man who made bad first impression. If they were to get him to know as individual, first impression won't be enough. But if they are to have a stereotype that men fall only into boxes A, B, and C, then first impression would be enough to "rule out" boxes A and B and "conclude" that it has to be box C. And once they know its box C, they know they wont date a given man. For example, their friend's friend had been dating someone from box C for 2 years and it never worked. So since they have a "stereotype" that everyone from box C are exactly the same, they don't have to test their assumption with a given new individual.