girls who play dumb around their boyfriends - C or D

Women aren't historically valued for their intelligence. They are valued for nurturing qualities and baby making and getting whites white and brights bright. Thus, it's socially ingrained in men to select for women who possess homemaking qualities. Homemaking qualities are perceived by the public as requiring less smarts than say, being a business woman. (There's a Joan Williams law review article that provides stats on this somewhere in this universe.) Therefore, since men are trained to select for homemaking, they are trained against selecting for smarts.

Okay, so, now (especially now, there's a Bitch magazine from the last issue, not the current one that talks about this) these days despite feminism and the sexual revolution, etc. (personally I would blame it on the erosion of reproductive rights and a lack of sovereignty in our own bodies, but that's just one radical feminists opinion), women are really pressured to find a mate and settle down and get to the important task of making babies. (See: fetishization of pregnant celebrities, unless you're Brit. Spears, because she had too MANY babies, which see lack of women's sovereignty over their own bodies BUT I DIGRESS.)

So you have two factors here:
1. Men's general preference for women who with homemaker qualities.
2. Societal pressure on women to get married.

How, how you gonna get selected as a mate if yr smrt? You're not. Thus: act dumb. Then you get to be married, which we ladies are led to believe is the pinnacle of happiness.

Note: Dudes, you're clearly not all like the men I describe so don't get defensive, okay? Obviously not all women act dumb around their boyfriends, either.

right? I mean, this would be my problem with this thread. I know no women who do this. I knew some in high school, but I'm pretty sure they grew out of it.

i'm so sick of women who allow themselves to be manipulated by men but are too afraid of being alone to stand up for themselves/break the cycle.

i should do a little experiment and see if acting dumber gets me a boyfriend.

okay, maybe, but I think that's a slightly different issue than the "playing dumb" one. one seems to have to do with what role intelligence plays in attraction and the other seems to have to do with the day to day maintenance of a relationship, or something.

but only with a certain kind of dude, right? an unattractive kind.

but sometimes it's fun to talk to someone who doesn't know you and be all "i don't know ANYTHING about X!" even when you do know a lot about X just to see what they know or what they'll say in that situation (where they have the 'upper hand'). I don't do that very often but do get in moods where that is 'fun' (where mood = whiskey). But in essence, dud.

What is more fun is when you don't actually know about a topic, e.g., "I don't know anything about guns!" and then you learn about guns. This is classic. HAHA SUCKA I HAVE STOLEN YR INFORMATION FOR MY OWN!!

I have no idea why I read this thread, I have never even noticed this much less experienced it?

ie, a subconscious playing the percentages, dont take a risk, let the guy feel hes smart, and can fulfill that role

but yeah, losing games on purpose?! i don't have any female friends who would do this (maybe i did when i was 15?). i have ditched games b/c people were being jerks (MONOPOLY, I'm looking at you) but it's a GAME, the point is to WIN.
I totally want to play Risk now.

xpost

I feel like that's also partly about maintaining a homosocial world in that book--attractive women belong in a certain sphere, so that men can get things done, and Newland, pre-Madame Olenska, doesn't seem to really expect a woman who's his intellectual equal. whether a desire for that homosocial world is still around and informs the gendered "playing dumb" dynamic IF IN FACT SUCH DYNAMIC EXISTS...well, I don't know.

Women aren't historically valued for their intelligence. [...]Homemaking qualities are perceived by the public as requiring less smarts than say, being a business woman.

The problem with this argument is that it wants to walk on both sides of the street. Historically speaking, homemaking was as much of a skilled job as, let's say, farming. And you damn well betcha that an intelligent woman will make a better cook, seamstress, nursemaid, teacher, financier and protector of the hearth than a stupid woman.

The historical divisions between so-called men's work and women's work were fairly equitable and sensible back when the social framework was tribal, or even feudal. It was the development of specialization and technology that multipied the diversity of choices within the province of 'men's work', and the creeping monetization of all kinds of work that has cheapened 'women's work'. These are very recent problems, really.

A woman's intelligence is always going to be valuable for exactly the same reasons why a man's intelligence is valuable. It is only a series of accidents that have marginalized 'woman's work' in modern western society. Women are quite right to want to remedy this situation, but there is no reason to falsify the process by inventing an exagerated history of oppression.

dunno, depends if they were hot

If you feel this way then I'm sure your opponent would never lose on purpose. HOWEVER, there are males out there who are so insecure about their intelligence that losing a game of computer Jeopardy produces a semi-violent reaction. After said male punched the computer screen, stormed off, then demanded a rematch I decided it would be better to let him have a win and then never play again. So if that makes me dumb, weak, non-competitive and dump-worthy, I guess I'm okay with that.

i play dumb when first meeting girls, and people in general, because i have to humanize myself after they find out im a "phd student" and look at me like im an alien, like im silently judging how stupid they are.

lots of people are very insecure about their intelligence, playing dumb is a way to put them at ease with you. it's not always playing either--just admit some ignorance about something they know about.

So the next time we played I purposely avoided a couple of moves I knew would give me victory, just to let him gain a little gaming dignity back.

For me, playing games is about having fun, not winning Having him happy and in a good meant a much more fun evening for me. I had already proved that I could beat him, many times over, so my ego needed no more stroking. His was wanting a little pat.

I don't think I've ever acted dumb around my boyfriends. However, I can certainly think of plenty of times when I've out and out refused to back down or concede a point that I may have let go if the other person was just my friend (male or female). So, er, girls who play clever around their boyfriends - C or D?

(Many x-posts)

The last four years of my life to thread.

xpost

Me too. Wait, what are you talking about?

Ha ha, thinking about it, I'm such an obnoxious cow that I probably don't ever back down. Ah well.

He dumped me because I wasn't smart enough to discuss the damage modifier of a seventh level dark mage, or something like that. I was really torn up about it.

Sometimes playing dumb is to your advantage when it's mild, like what ryan explained way up there, but I think only at first. I can't imagine feigning ingorance to my husband, that would make me (and him, eventually) feel like I didn't respect or trust him enough.

What if the woman is better at most games at beats you consistently and always rubs your face in it? Is that still hot? When does it get old?

XP: Well, specifically something you know NOTHING about, and asking questions specifically for the purpose of adding the information to your storehouse without having to do yr own research. Plus with any luck you get the color commentary and the benefit of the presenter's OWN side-branches of related knowledge.

Did we ever agree on precisely what the "alderman" designation was meant to MEAN in that passage? Ie corpulent & corrupt vs abstentious & strictly moral?

My girlfriend once told someone that she liked me because I'd never let her win at Go, it was definitely a "right, that's me married" moment.

embolus?

impedance?

I can't say I have ever done this. I'm too stubborn and unafraid to spout shit. I don't think I'm right or smarter than anyone, it just doesn't register. Plus - what are smarts? I can cook 5 things at once, but my other half would freak out tryin to boil eggs probably. He can program his own PC games engine in C++ and I wouldnt know "hello world" from a dog's arse. That said, I've made a point of learning a lot about games and gaming cos he makes it really interesting, and I'm showing him how to cook shit and a lot about networking and music.

Give and take, thats the key.

Well, then it can't be 'occlusion'.

Coagulum?

there's a lot more where that came from. sayin'.

but you see what i mean.

this is what laurel and i are a part of, epistemological power biatches that we are:

'Finally, there is a fourth characteristic of power - a power that, in a sense, traverses and drives those other powers. I'm thinking of an epistemological power -that is, a power to extract a knowledge from individuals and to extract a knowledge about those individuals -who are subjected to observation and already controlled by those different powers. This occurs, then, in two different ways. In an institution like the factory, for example, the worker's labor and the worker's knowledge about his own labor, the technical improvements - the little inventions and discoveries, the micro adaptations he's able to implement in the course of his labor - are immediately recorded, thus extracted from his practice, accumulated by the power exercised over him through supervision. In this way, the worker's labor is gradually absorbed into a certain technical knowledge of production which will enable a strengthening of control. So we see how there forms a knowledge that's extracted from the individuals themselves and derived from their own behavior.'

Michel Foucault, 'Truth and Juridical Forms'. In J. Faubion, ed., Power (New York: New Press, 2000), Translated by Robert Hurley. pp. 83-4

ohnoes!!
haha. see, it is fun to take foucault out of context and do this to it.

--Mike Skinner

Robyn, when are we going to move in together and start fighting crime? I want your library & yr brain close at hand -- I will cover kid's lit and d'you mind covering the heavy stuff? I R not that SMRT.

I know many many MANY more guys who do this stuff around their girlfriends than vice versa.

(I've not read the rest of this thread yet)

I'm sorry dude. Nothing worse than a stale mate.

I certainly know men who THINK they "give in" to their wives' nagging or whatever, but they aren't there when the wives confide over tea & cookies that the marriage is in trouble because she finally got a job or a hobby or a spine and the husband can't handle her independence (aka his dinner not being on the table at 5.20 SHARP). So I apologize for my approach to the subject being a) anecdotal and b) not unbiased.

HAHAH Paul you are a treat.