Title: | Topics Pertaining to Men |
Notice: | Archived V1 - Current file is QUARK::MENNOTES |
Moderator: | QUARK::LIONEL |
Created: | Fri Nov 07 1986 |
Last Modified: | Tue Jan 26 1993 |
Last Successful Update: | Fri Jun 06 1997 |
Number of topics: | 867 |
Total number of notes: | 32923 |
_Surely You Must Be Joking, My Feynman!_ is a sprawling collection of memoirs of the famous physicist as told to one of his drumming buddies. It is written in the 1st person, as though Dick is telling us all of these bizarre and wonderful stories about his life. He goes into fascinating anecdotes about lock-picking, playing in a samba band, learning Portuguese, the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, drumming, drawing, drinking, teaching, numerical calculations, the nature of scientific research, nightclubbing in Las Vegas, working at CalTech, accepting the Nobel Prize (learning about it from a 3am phone call from a reporter), and many other topics. The book is fascinating and easily readable; I strongly recommend it. However, I was completely unsettled by more than a few of his observations about women...and I wanted to discuss them here. [I'm doing this by memory, so please don't pick on me if I confuse minor factoids...] Richard Feynman lost his first wife to tuberculosis in approximately 1943, during the time they were living in New Mexico; he was fairly young then, ~23. Over time, his annecdotes discuss his observations of men and women in social situations, particularly in bars and casinos. He observed that men want to be thought of as "nice guys" or "gentlemen", often for the purpose of "getting something" which Dick didn't spell out but pretty well indicated was a sexual relationship. To this end, men will buy drinks for a woman in an attempt to be appreciated. Women are on to this type of behaviour and will cynically exploit it. Discussing this observation with a chance-met self-described "master" of the bar scene, Mr Feynman took some lessons on reaching his ends more successfully. The main lesson was to drop the pose. "Don't be a gentleman, and when a woman indignantly accuses you of not being one, agree with her. Don't buy a woman anything; sandwiches, coffee, drinks, a movie, before getting one thing settled: ask her if she'll sleep with you that night." Mr Feynman was flabbergasted by the approach, but dutifully tried it; he only relates two stories about it and in his experience, it worked, insofar as when he asked a woman to sleep with him, she agreed, quite matter-of-factly, and they went on and had a good evening out first. I don't really want to transcribe any of the book, though if I've significantly misrepresented any part of the story you can cite me page numbers or quotes to correct me. I know that it doesn't read anywhere near as humorously above as I describe it, but the material is pages long and I've been reminded recently about copyrights anyway. I just want to use this thought as a launching pad for discussion. These stories fit the rest of the book well, in that they were told with the same zany perspective, they read humorously, he gives us what I feel to be one man's honest story of these situations. I'm looking for some serious male-oriented perspective on Mr Feynman's youthful experiences in the late 1940s, and what our current perspectives are in today's social climate. In particular- do we as men have the same goals? Now, we as "men of the 80s" may not choose to admit to being neanderthals in public, but how many of you know a couple of buddies who'd love to learn such an approach, if its true? Would you try it yourself and if you wouldn't why not? Will your buddies try it? Finally, just to get it on record, I know that the above statements and questions generalize about "men" and "women". Try to respond as though I'd butchered my english with the phrases "some men" or "some women", ok? I *know* we're all individuals. DougO
T.R | Title | User | Personal Name | Date | Lines |
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266.1 | HANDY::MALLETT | Philosopher Clown | Wed Aug 17 1988 15:10 | 56 | |
266.2 | Let me say this about that | GRANMA::MWANNEMACHER | Wed Aug 17 1988 15:54 | 11 | |
I feel that simply (perhaps over-simply) that the situation depicts a guy who's out for a romp in the hay. If he asks a girl who is also looking for a romp in the hay then they will both get what they want. If not he might get his face slapped. I never had much use for the barroom scene for the purpose of meeting someone. Most of the time I went to a club it was because of the band which was there at the time. I guess what I'm really trying to say is that I really don't know what I'm talking about here. :') (Here's everyones golden opportunity):') Mike | |||||
266.3 | one woman's opinion | TLE::RANDALL | I feel a novel coming on | Thu Aug 18 1988 13:09 | 9 |
If I were at a bar, I'd much rather have an honest approach. When a man asks a woman if she wants to romp in the hay, assuming he's been polite about it, not trying to force attention on her or something, there's usually no need to slap his face. She says either, "No, thanks, I'd rather not," or "Yes, thank you, do you want to get something to eat first?" depending on her inclination. --bonnie | |||||
266.4 | RANCHO::HOLT | an unlucky person is a dead duck | Thu Aug 18 1988 23:19 | 5 | |
>"Yes, thank you, do you want to get something to eat first?" Thanx for the tip... I'll let you know how this works out... | |||||
266.5 | Comedian | PHAROS::WILSON | Are Friends Electric? | Fri Aug 19 1988 11:34 | 10 |
How about Steven Wright's approach... "Do you live around here often?" Wes | |||||
266.6 | LEZAH::BOBBITT | invictus maneo | Fri Aug 19 1988 13:14 | 6 | |
an interesting line: "How about having breakfast with me...shall I call you or nudge you?" | |||||
266.7 | nudge-nudge, wink-wink, say-no-more | ANT::JLUDGATE | If I had 2 dead mice, I'd give you 1 | Fri Aug 19 1988 19:03 | 9 |
re: .6 you forgot to mention what you thought of the line. i've heard that one in radio commercials, and laugh every time. but then, that is something that i would never say....... ......................................jonathan | |||||
266.8 | New Line | MARKER::KOBS | Mon Aug 22 1988 18:08 | 6 | |
In this day and age, one might ask: ``Would you like to visit the pathology lab with me and then grab some dinner?'' -- PK | |||||
266.9 | another variation | HPSCAD::HENDERSON | This Buds 4U, London Pride 4me | Thu Aug 25 1988 18:10 | 7 |
How about "Do you come here often or do you usually wait until you get home ? " Steve | |||||
266.10 | Its quite a hack, to me... | SKYLRK::OLSON | green chile crusader! | Tue Sep 27 1988 02:36 | 85 |
First, a correction to the title of Feynman's book; _Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman_. I gumped it up in the basenote. Well, I guess I was hoping to see the discussion take on more dimensions and not merely fall into swapping bar pickup lines back and forth. Let me kick this one upside the metaphor and wrassle it around. The basenote started with my appreciation for the as-told-to memoirs of a famous physicist. While I do like his fresh approach to matters great and small, I know that Dick Feynman was a product of his times, and his attitudes towards women seem indicative of those times. I didn't like those attitudes much. I experienced some cognitive dissonance while reading. See, I wanted to like this guy, even though his attitudes towards women as revealed by these memoirs was condescending or "user"-oriented. I eventually have to shrug and say to myself, "OK. He grew up with different standards. This is a different society today. He'd be different in today's world, so I don't have to be uncomfortable about his different standards as long as I recognize them." This seems to me like a good departure point for reflection on what the differences are. I don't feel the way Feynman did. For awhile in my late teens and early 20s I may not have been averse to casual relationships but the posturing and aggression required always seemed so false that there was little point to initiating such an encounter; it was guaranteed to be worthless. [ Hindsight speaking; I couldn't have articulated why I felt so unsatisfied by those relationships during those years, but its pretty clear now. ] So its evident that in some respects my society programmed me to seek out and enjoy casual sex, as Feynman's did him; in other ways, my society has also programmed me to seek values and to exchange mutual respect through a committed long-term sharing of those values and virtues. To grow with a partner, if such is sought. These of my needs are not met in causal encounters. Jim Richards and I exchanged some generation gap reflections in the lost masculinity note (270.106-270.108) which also relate to this topic; how do we see our needs as men in a different light than men of 2, 3 or 4 decades ago? Steve Mallett did reflect on this area, and he points out: o I don't know how well that exact approach would work in today's scene, but I strongly suspect that there is a modern-day equivalent. To me, Steve is saying that much of the societal programming from Feynman's era is still around. He went on to say: o Though it's not a likely prospect, if I *were* to go to a club to meet someone, it would most assuredly not be with the intention of instant sexual encounter. Lots of reasons, some pragmatic, some emotional. Again, recasting this in my words, Steve recognizes that he's had some social programming that emphasizes other values than the "instant sexual encounter". If I'm taking undue liberties, Steve, let me know. If you'll grant me the hypothesis, then, that our roles as men in this society have changed vastly in the past 40 years, then it seems that maybe we can attempt a design review. Lets examine this big model with a few hard questions in mind. While I don't really think we'll change anything, perhaps we can get a better handle on it and learn from the exercise. So here comes this kicked-up metaphor: - Did anyone actually design this vast modification or are we caught in the culture shock of a big hack job? Now folks, I mean that as rhetoric. I'm trying to pose the image of a society in transition as like a big software project with no one in charge. Put in a wry smiley here if you like. - Can we examine how we men have had our socialization and conditioning redone? - Can we evaluate the changes for better, for worse? - Is it a viable system? Whats been lost from the design, whats been gained? - Do our male-female roles make sense? DougO |