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From: edhall@randvax.UUCP (Ed Hall)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Re: More women than men
Message-ID: <2596@randvax.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 13-Jul-85 12:46:29 EDT
Article-I.D.: randvax.2596
Posted: Sat Jul 13 12:46:29 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 17-Jul-85 21:19:03 EDT
References: <210@cuuxa.UUCP>  <462@unc.UUCP>
Reply-To: edhall@randvax.UUCP (Ed Hall)
Organization: Rand Corp., Santa Monica
Lines: 46
Keywords: egotism, chauvinism
Summary: Stereotype time again...

Ross Greenberg seems to feel (along with several other men on the net)
that women initiate breakups because they can so readily find a replacement.

I wish I knew what his sources were, because my experience has been quite
different.  This is a generalization, and is subject to all the caveats
pertaining thereto, but it seems to apply to a lot of the relationships
I've seen break up, and even some I've been in that break up--so I'm
damning myself here, too.

Quite simply, men--in our society--tend towards an insensitive egotism
that is antithical to the care and feeding of relationships.  The reason
this is not particularly apparant is that it is considered ``normal''.
It comes from the fact that boys are steered toward an object-oriented
viewpoint towards the world, while girls are steered toward a more
people-centered viewpoint.  At least these are the traditional roles.

There is another tendency--again considered fairly ``normal''--for men
to look at the emotional support they get in a relationship as something
they expect from the woman, while the woman is expected to either earn
the support she gets and/or put up with less of it.  After all, it is
the woman's role to nurture.  It's expected, whereas for a man to
provide nurturing involves him giving up some measure of ``manliness''.

Thus it should be no surprise if women are often more ``tuned-in''
to the health of their relationships, are more able to give themselves
the emotional support needed in terminating one (or find such support
among their friends), and are more likely to feel they are getting
the short end of the stick in a man/woman relationship.

Quite simply, our attitudes towards male/female relationships are
antiquated and fraught with self-perpetuating injustices (not all of
which are injustices against women, BTW).  We're in a transitional phase,
where women now feel more free to leave a situation that is bad for
them--both because of increased independence and because of a greater
belief that egalitarian relationships are possible.  But people still
play the old games--even some people who are trying to escape them in
other ways--and increased expectations often fall far short of reality.

In conclusion, I'd like to contradict Ross & Co. with the observation
that almost all women I've known who have broken up a relationship
have done it for one reason: disillusionment, and with the observation
that men, not women, tend to be the ones who need someone ``waiting in
the wings'' before they are willing to have things break up.

		-Ed Hall
		decvax!randvax!edhall