h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

There's another one where the men emulate menstruation by cutting their inner thighs or nearby areas. Some have suggested that all those daft male Rites Of Passage are a cheap substitute for the inbuilt one that girls-to-women have.
I don't really care, but it's interesting nontheless.
BTW, not all women think that endless make-up and shopping is paradise. We don't all wear pink, either. And shopping's especially bad if there's a complaining man around... shop for things you both like.
Problem solved.

Hear hear!
The stereotypes can get a little tired at times. For example, I'm a cosmetina by profession. I hate shopping. I love to go fishing and camping. I like to smell good. I can build things and work on a car. I love shoes... the sexier the better. I buy my own cocktails.

I think most interesting people are like that... lots of different hobbies, don't fit into any particular stereotype. All it means is we're all people, and kinda diverse. I'm not fem or butch... I'm just me.

Absolutely.
Very few people I've ever met have fitted the stereotypes... those that did, I didn't like.

Let me say one thing! Pink is evil!

Hehe, now that I've got that out of my system Let me say, I love to shop, but as Mandragora said, it's no fun with a complaining male around... Or complaining anyone around for that matter! Make up is not a thing I enjoy much, but I am working on perfecting the fine art of putting some on and not looking like I have any on.

I've met plenty of people who fit the sterio types... all of them were asses I knew in High School, and I'm more than happy to be rid of them!

Also I most definately don't fit the mold of a typical female, I'm the most technologically knowledgable in my family, I work at Radio Shack (a place where I'm payed to help everyone else with their technology troubles). The sterio types say I'm not supos'ta be technologically smart, but I am.

Yeah, stereotypes are not much fun to be around. As for male Rites of Passage, many of them are to show things like courage and ability to cathc animals. With women they don´t really show anything, it just happens.

However the fafafine-thing probably isn´t a good idea. I watched a few minutes of it(taped it) and often when they asked a mother how many sons or daughters she had she couldn´t remember it properly.

Hello All.
I've read most of the backlog, and it's been very interesting.

I'm from a minority, often misunderstood, feared and discriminated against - but, unlike most of the people who would have a problem with me, I've seen some of this from both sides, as it were. That's because I was born male, and made a conscious decision to change sides - I am now a gender-female.

Quite a few people assume I'm gay, but I'm not, and most others that make the transistion never think of themselves that way. It doesn't stop us being subjected to a number of -isms. As it happens, I'm not anything - I'm celebate without sexual desires for either sex (and was the same way before I transitioned).

I want people to take take me as they find me - another human being, and that's the way I try to react to others - completely without prejudice. It isn't always easy - sometimes there is an unconcious reaction, but I always feel very guilty about it. I don't have any trouble where I currently work. There were a few people who felt uncomfortable at first (those that were told). Most of the organisation weren't given any advance warning (god, that makes me sound dangerous !!). I'm probably the first one of my type many of them have ever met (High Wycombe is a conservative, provincial town).

As people have got to know me, they find I'm a nice person - which is what actually counts. Quite often with -isms, if a person allows themselves to get to know the other person, they find there is no threat. I'm at quite a senior level in the organisation (2 steps down from the divisional director), and I'm quite well know after 4 months. When I go somewhere new, I'm always greated warmly, because they've heard I'm a nice person. Any fears and prejudices they may have had have been defused.

It is true - men are worse with -isms than women. As has been mentioned above, there is some in-built insecurity and fragility in the male identity (a better word than ego). Remember, when I generalise, I mean everyone is different, but there is a noticable prominence of this characteristic in men. Curiously gay men are often less troubled in that way. My ex.partner says she thinks men are homophobic because there is something deep in side that (subconciously) is sympathetic, and this is what scares them into being homophobic.

My last point on the subject (for this post at least) is that these prejudices often have a two-way affect - the person being discrminated against reacts in a way that makes it more difficult to overcome the fear and lack of knowledge. I don't say this from any conviction, rather from observation.

There is so much potential for good in people and the world, it makes me quite sad sometimes.

I used to think people were basically nasty, petty and stupidly narrow-minded. However, now I've met a large group who just don't care, I split the world into people who stare and point and those who do not. I still treat the General Public with suspicion, though, since that way I won't be disappointed.
I reckon that the reason I don't encounter prejudice or isms much is that all my friends are... a little unusual, and we stick together. Sometimes it's good to be insular.

High Wycombe- oh, you poor thing. Although can it be worse than Nuneaton, where even wearing odd earrings makes you an object of curiosity and fear?
(Thinks about starting self-sufficient community in the hills...)

I'm very cynical about society... and I am always saying how I think earth would be better off blown up to make way for an intergalactic expressway. But I also work in retail, and I deal with people all the time, and I somehow manage to not get annoyed with most of them. Actually, a lot of them are pretty nice, but then maybe Radio Shack gets more good customers than bad? *shrugs* Who knows....

Hi Nikki-D,

I liked your statement "I want people to take me as they find me - another human being", if everyone did that then a lot of the isms would disappear. I try to do that and yes it takes a conscience effort it do, but I find it's a better way to live. I have found people the fit their stereotype and people who are nothing like their stereotype.

So I challenge everyone to get rid of their pre-conceived ideas about people who work as ???, or people of ??? Nation/town, or people of ???, or people who sleep with ???. Maybe we can start a worldwide trend and make it a little better place to live.

Mostly

I'm from Essex, it's difficult trying to explain to people that I'm not the s**t I'm stereotyped to be. In fact I'm a catholic who doesn't believe in sex before marriage

It really comes to something when people ask you where you live and you say, the south east coast, east anglia, etc......

Mel

Thought you might all be interested ...

The BBC have a programme on Radio 4 this week called "Roots of Homophobia". It's on Tuesday 21st August at 8pm, repeated Sunday 26th at 5pm. It lasts 40 mins.

For those who can't receive Radio 4, it's available on the Internet at

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/

So did anyone here participate in the gay parades? Here in Denmark there were muslims throwing stones at them sadly.

I have a friend who partricipated in the first Pride March in Washington D.C. in the early 1980s.

As she describes it, the city had braced for rioting. There were tens of thousands of marchers. Police in full riot gear were everywhere, many on horseback. Seems that they ended up mostly giving directions to tourist attractions and watching the more effeminate gay men coo to the horses.

Here's an interesting proposition (don't know the source).

According to one scientific study, the chances of a boy-child being gay increases the further down the line of (male) children he is. They are also said to be more asymetric.
I have six older brothers so, in theory, I should be a screaming queen with wonkey eyes.

Hm, so as a first born (male) only child then im statistically unliekly to be gay?

How many elder brothers has your father got?

***B

(That was addressed to Andy, btw)

***B

Most the gays I know are only boys if not only children.

Mel

I think my dad had a few older brothers (not a particularly close family).

Just trying to work out if you are the 7th son of a 7th son...

a reader of fairy-tales called Ben