Super Gnat said:
...Now that I'm all grown up, I'm about to graduate with a degree in engineering. I'm like the quintessential engineer; I'm really a problem-solver at heart, and I'm not all that good at directionless things like making small talk...
Well, supposedly men are intimidated and/or threatened by intelligence, power and affluence in women.
Not me. I admire women in fields such as engineering.
But it does not really matter what field a woman is working in. I admire any woman when she applies her knowledge, her problem solving skills, her critical thinking skills, etc. to tasks.
And while I am not particularly impressed by power or wealth, I am not intimidated or threatened by a woman who possesses them or who possesses more of them than I do. What is impressive is when a person uses power and wealth to do a lot of good. Intimidated? Threatened? Me? Nothing could be further from the truth. On the contrary, I would be
honored to be the partner of a woman who does a lot of good with power and wealth.
Frankly, it saddens me that from the moment of birth girls are discouraged from realizing their full potential.
On a more positive note, what would I do without the copy and paste functions? I wrote this a few years ago, and I will probably never again say it better:
AMBITIOUS WOMEN
I have an image in my head of the woman I could fall in love with. I see her demeanor. I hear her voice. I see her smile. I see her physical features. I searched the depths of my imagination to try to honestly, truthfully extract what I would find attractive. I tried to put political correctness and theological correctness aside. Once I had a fairly pure picture, I tried to honestly, truthfully answer why I would find such qualities attractive.
To put it as simply as I can: I want a hard working, ambitious woman who wants to realize her full potential.
I've had plenty of female co-workers, and I've done more than my share of reading and studying the many different viewpoints and takes on social life. So I know that not all working women are the same. There are...
1.) Those who are in it for the money, status, etc., not for the work. If they were to somehow instantly have a lot of money, like winning the lottery, they'd probably leave the workforce in a heartbeat.
2.) Those who are doing it to survive. If they could survive without it, they'd probably gladly give up employment.
3.) Those who work to cure boredom. They choose their occupation for enjoyment. If they like working with kids they work in day care, elementary education, etc. They choose workplaces where they will have lots of friends, among other benefits.
The above is a general outline. Anybody who takes offense and accuses me of stereotyping or some other offense is nitpicking. The point is to explain myself, not to search for the truth, advance some ideology, or persuade.
Now, how would my ideal partner be different from those above? What exactly would this ambitious woman be like? Well, ...
1.) She would be realistic. She wouldn't, for example, find herself in her mid-thirties hearing her biological clock tick and saying "I didn't know that pregnancies are high risk after the age of 29 or so. If I'd known that I wouldn't have gone to medical school. If I had known that I would have settled down years ago and had kids." She would know the risks and sacrifices of her life choices, and have no regrets.
2.) She wouldn't have work ranked somewhere in some list of priorities. She would appreciate the fact that work isn't just some means to an end. She wouldn't think that work is something you do to afford having "a life". She would believe that work is an end in itself; that you can make a life out of work.
I believe that it can be rational to make choices solely for the sake of one's life of work. It can be perfectly rational to, say, put aside concerns about losing all of one's friendships or interrupting your children's friendships and education in the same school system, and to make a choice based solely on further realizing one's potential through work. It can be more rational to relocate to the other coast to take a job with more responsibility, for example, than to stay put so that you don't interrupt your kids' schooling. How can it be more rational? I would argue that the kids would be better off with parents who realize their full potential.
We make everything child-centered nowadays, it seems. It's not necessarily good for children. An alternative is to make work-centered choices. My ideal partner would be a woman who makes work-centered choices. (Spare me the theology about
Christ-centered; that is nitpicking, and is beside the point)
If a woman gives priority to things like money, friends, living comfortably, etc., then she's not the ambitious woman of my dreams. It doesn't mean that the woman of my dreams doesn't want those things; they simply are not a priority of hers.
3.) She's focused and determined. No chip on her shoulder. No complaining about glass ceilings. No politics, period. Her work is what she values and is what motivates her, not liberating herself, defying the system, etc.
There it is. No politics. No theology. Just who I am, the kind of people I would best connect with, and the kind of woman I would love to call my wife.
It's not like I am a lone wolf, though. In his essay/lecture
Christianity and the Survival of Creation, Wendell Berry theologically articulates some of what I think about work. I don't know if he agrees with me about women.
Whether it is supplying labor in the labor market, or owning an enterprise and buying from the labor market, it doesn't matter. Whether it is in the formal economy or the informal economy, it doesn't matter. Self-employed or employed by someone else, it doesn't matter. Whatever shape or form, it is work. And it is good.
I don't know that the Bible means by "toil". Whatever it means, it is unrelated to work.
Recreation? Play? Having a good time? They are not priorities of mine, and would not be priorities of a woman I am attracted to. They're nice things, but if one experiences them only minimally, it doesn't mean he/she has not "lived".
So, what if a woman wants to be a homemaker? If that's the work that she wants to do, and if that's how she can best realize her potential, then go for it!! But, if she juxtaposes "staying at home" and "working", and if she thinks that a woman's role is one while a man's role is the other, then you won't find her in my dreams.
This is complex subject matter. I am well aware that there are concepts like leisure, and that leisure is different from "play". But that's nitpicking and going off on a tangent. Now, if only I could get the chance to do more of the work I like best: Academic work. If that were happening, there'd be a much happier me and I'd be ready to try to find and hook up with my dream woman.
