Women - differences in culture

If you're looking of how to finish your homework, you won't find it here!

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After reconsidering what it is that a woman's role is in society with 'Self Made Man', I have been dumbstruck after reading a third into Xinran's 'The Good Women of China'. Yes, perhaps it was partially to do with the difference in style, but what shocked me the most was the difference in perception of women by these two women who were concerned (or are rather) about women.

What caught me off surprise was the fact that both were two very well educated, articulate women, but both had surprisingly varied ideas (or at least they articulated them different through suggestion) about the ideas of women in their particular country.

China and America. Two very large, two very different countries. I will not deny it, women still have a long way to go when it comes to the equality and the glass ceiling of employment.

It's funny how Xinran, talked about a young lady in her book, a university student, and saw her power (and somewhat feminist views of women) to be a result of a repression of emotion of an entire generation. It is not a criticism, it is an observation. She said this herself. I'm part of this generation. Now the question is, are we really a repressed generation? Have we slipped from emotional go-go to emotional no-go with our busy, over scheduled lives? Have we swapped romance for quick emails? Is it that easy to generalize?

I don't think so. I'm not sure whether our generation is more repressed or not as a result of ... well, a change of lifestyle. Our knowledge. Our need for security, our 'material world'.

Back to the differences. It is obvious that cultural differences will set these two books apart. Jones' talks about how women expect men to be more emotional, she talks about how men expect a wife to be a wife, and get a mistress to fulfill their 'madonna/whore' complexes. They then have both. Wife and mistress. Xinran does the same. Asian women are expected to be 'meek, gentle, shy, sweet', sexy ain't doing it. Sexy doesn't come into the picture in her generation. They got reported for doing that sort of thing during her time. It's frightening.

The Uni student provides an interesting lever for a topic. Here was a modern, Chinese woman, confident and bright. Xinran looks at her like a foreign student would look at a tourist attraction for the first time - unfamiliarity. Xinran comes from a different world. Sexuality, sex and all that jazz was something she had to be careful of, particuarly with censorship. And the uni student was the epitome of the new age open-let's-talk-about-it-now kind of girl. Which, is really more ideal.

I was fascinated with the stereotypical traits Asian women were coined with, and the differences and contrasts that Jones' talked about with women in America and western culture.

At this point in time, I began to ask myself, 'what the hell am I?'. Here I am, an Asian chick happy to be born in a western and somewhat Americanized culture. It frightened me to think about the stereotypes of Asian women, their 'submissive, soft, gentle nature'. I was nothing in this stereotype. I didn't fit this key at all. At the same time, I'm not exactly the go - getting bitch in heels that everyone expects to kow-down to when men decide to take advantage of another woman's good will. I don't need labels, but it is interesting to think of yourself as a product of a very mixed and somewhat contradictive blending of two cultures.

I've decided, in order to keep this alive I will ask women in general what they think it is to be a woman.

psych it up babe.

I remember the first time I felt a pang of guilt. I would have been 12 at least. A strange feeling.

At 14, it came and went.

Of course now...it's different.

Guilt, links up to that old emotion called regret. When people don't regret, it makes me wonder - do they not feel guilt? Some people learn, and others do not.

They jump into the fire and right back into it where they don't belong. You could say, guilt is for the people who reflect. And isn't it for the selfish, self absorbed ones who are too full of pride to think about anything but themselves? Does it belong to the innocent, the kind, the understanding? And does it detatch itself from the cold, the typical geminian level of thought 'no regrets, everything I do is correct?'.

I became fascinated with the lack of guilt geminians felt as I filtered through the people that did *not* feel guilt. Was it a self righteousness? Was it a sense of pride and confidence? Did they continue to make the same mistakes? Of course, I don't attatch it to a single sign, or a single stereotype. I was particularly fascinated with the lack of guilt my geminian friends displayed as they continued to battle on in life without the feeling of regret or resentment trailing past them. It was fascinating to watch.

No one can blame them for their lack of empathy skills. After all, they are looking out for numero uno. Themselves - a motivation that may lie deep within themselves. I suddenly stumbled across it, slapping my brains as i realized why this was so. There was a deep superficiality. I don't mean it as an insult. It's just part and parcel of what it is to be gemini. With a strong planet in one, i can vouch for this. But it's only part of a person's make up. So superficiality and a little base. It's not so bad. It's only part of who they are.

Can't have regrets, was what one said to me. I looked at him as if he were an idiot of course. If you don't have regrets, how on earth do you learn?

Self made man

Self made man. Here is a book with answers - answers as to how and why men act the way they do - or so I thought. Jones admitted through her research that while she was *dressing* as a man, it was only a subjective response, which is understandable.

She gradually drew to a close - man as repressed, men were taught from birth not to express themselves emotionally, which when we think about it, is quite true. She stated it was a part of social conditioning - the reason as to why men keep their feelings to themselves. While men are so fascinated by the emotional/hysterical nature of women, I sometimes wonder, if it were not for the social conditioniong of 'don't express yourself, you're a man', would they not be able to empathize more with women?

Obviously, it seems a little ridiculous to be asking such a stupid question. Of course not. That's the way the world is. It just is. Years and years of that 'patriarchal bull', where a man is supposed to be the breadwinner, the strong, hard iron man is instilled in the back of men's minds, even subconciously. We can't change that.

Now we have the 'metrosexual' man though. The New Age Sensitve guy. The SNAG. However, Jones also said, that while we expect men to be both sensitive and understanding, we don't necessarily want them to be soppy when it comes to those 'difficult situations'. We want them to hold the earth under their arms, she said. So we want both the sensitive man AND the man that can hold the world under his arm, that can deal with a difficult situation and not lapse backwards.

It's asking a bit much really. At least in that department.

A man's relationship with a man was something that intrigues many people - men and women alike. There is a comraderie, she notes, a silent one at times that may seem more open, less backhanded and without as much malice or suggestion as women's relationshps can soak up. Simple, but strong.

There are only two reasons a man looks at another man, what are they?
----They either want to **** you, or kill you.

It was a strange response. An even stranger question.

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Strip clubs. What is it that makes a man go there? Women don't want to know that their husbands go there, of course not. That's natural. And a man's sexuality does not simply stop at a certain point, they don't become wholly puritanical either.

So what is it about strip clubs? They're not glamorous. In fact, they're exactly like a factory. A horrible, grey factory with women who postively detest everything about you. There is something in their eyes that says, 'I hate my job, i hate my life and i hate you for making me do this'. Do men notice? Some do. Some don't. That is not to say, that I am demeaning strip clubs. Sure they can be fun. But the atmosphere of strip clubs is like that of a production factory. There is no glamour in what they do.

That's off the track. Men go there, as Jones quite perceptively noted, because it was beyond anything normal. Everything about it was. The women, who shoved themselves into your face, would smell of nothing. Nothing. No odour. Like Barbie dolls. They would be dryer than a piece of paper. Jones wondered what it was that these women did to get themselves to be like that. Completely unnatural, looking at you with a glaze of disdain and hatred while they performed their acts. The saddest part of course, was the fact that she felt pity for them, which was unexpected. There was no hate, there was no, 'this is so cheap', just pity. And I think that says more than anything about the state of a strip club if a woman can say that about being in there.

Henry Rollins & Intensity.

Henry Rollins is good looking. Yes, however I wasn't quite sure whether i found him funny. Of course I was transfixed by his nice chin, his broad shoulders, his well sculpted face, amused by the number of women who looked on at him, pretending to laugh, whilst touching themselves delicately around the chest area as he carefully constructs his next line.

On closer inspection though, I found him to be quite an intense person. Intense in the way he described the events, and quite serious too for that matter. Obviously quite intelligent, and possibly just a tad bit insecure under the expression of intensity in his eyes.

Now that might sound like an awfully large assumption to make, but as I noticed his body language (while langouring a while on his manly arms and motorbike tattoos), he continued to reaffirm his masculinity. I don't think it's good to scrutinize to the point of cruelty, but at the same time, here was a successful entertainer, maybe not rolling in dosh, but certainly doing pretty darn well...but there is just something that was lurking underneath the masculine/intense exterior that he has so carefully built as part of his 'showtime image'.

Maybe I read too much into it.

I do believe that when we talk, we give a great amount of ourselves up to people. There is no doubt about that. We can figure if a person is insecure, confident, arrogant, from intonation of voice, from gesture, from body language, eye contact. We give everything away within the merest utterance of a single word. With performers, it's all the more interesting. As a performer, they develop manners and body language in order to divert people's attentions from the way they represent themselves internally. It's harder. Or so people would think.

Even the best actors/actresses give themselves away at times when they think they're really within 'the bounds'. Who can say though? Is it all that easy?

the first, my last, my everything.

With Great passion, there is the potential for Great anger.