Someone stole the coil out of our central air conditioner, destroying the entire unit. It's amazing what people will steal. Of course, in our case, the thief wanted the copper.
I've never heard of someone's lawn mower getting stolen. What kind was it?
its my own fault. left the garage door open. some opportunistic thief must have just walked in and took it. how they got out between our cars i don't know. bought a reel mower to replace it. now i'm on lock down. motion lights are on and guard cats are at the ready.
When things get bad, petty crime goes up. I have an in-law whose fuel oil tank has been emptied more than once. Apparently things aren't getting better.
Friend of mine today told me someone stole the pump for their Swimming Pool. Which is a bummer with Summer just around the corner. Just another unwanted cost in life.
Yeah, and there is/was a wave of catalytic converter thefts, with somebody cutting it from your car's exhaust system ... sometimes in the blink of an eye. That's why having an SUV sucks, in more ways than one. I think it's the palladium beads, or some other metal in there, that they want.
Lawn mowers are frequently stolen here in my urban village. Usually from an unlocked garage adjacent to the alley late at night.
vado we got an electric mower. It's called Worx, I think. I love that dang mower! It's actually fun to use. The push reel was eventually not enough machine for the size of our yard - I got too worn out pushing it back and forth over the same spot 20 times!
yeah our lawn is small(er) but damn i used that Reel Mower in about 85 degree temp i was done. it mows alright and i'll probably keep it for the exercise.
You all need to sharpen those lawn movers to deal with summer's taller grass. The automakers need to sharpen the edges of those catalytic converters, so a few of those thieves might likely get cut in the process. And you WASPs need to sharpen your hot guy spotting skills. I forgot to throw this in. Someone show me an adult American male who is forced to pick between Jason Alexander, Andy Dick, and George Clooney as to who is the better looking, and if they can't answer that, emphatically saying "I REALLY don't know," then I'll show you an adult Nile Crocodile that you can pet ... and live to tell about it. (Clooney can't act, and I've only seen one of his movies - he is no Kevin Spacey or Kevin Kline, who are REAL actors).
The psychology faculties study this kind of stuff. Looks are generally positively correlated with wealth. The 9s and 10s get handed things in life, or are handed more than what their abilities should allow for. The 7s and 8s still need to work at school and at a career more diligently. No free lunch there. Now, if you see a doctor who is a 4 and his wife is an 8, you get 3 guesses as to why, and the first 2 don't count. (Hint: it ain't the looks, nor any sexual prowess). This isn't shallowness. It's life. Political correctness needs to go away. Reality needs to make a comeback.
Crap, I'm fasting and starving, because I have to go for a blood draw (check for cholesterol and sugar levels), so I'm especially ornery right now.
Seeing the news photos of the wide swath of destruction caused by the tornadoes in Oklahoma is shocking and very sad. Entire neighborhoods have been turned to rubble. We need to keep those affected in our thoughts and prayers.
hi TC, so i just read this post re: the Berlage. If just now they write "offers a postgraduate master’s degree program which is expected to be accredited this year." have they ever offered an accredited degree? if not was that the source of their cache? or did i just misunderstand. seems they had a pretty theoretically heavy list of instructors.
also hope everyone had a Merry Monday! i had a long one and am ready for bed!
Oof, that high-pitched whiny sound of a chainsaw, no fun.
I've worn painting clothes - jeans, crappy Tshirt, sneaks - to work the last two days. Probably will for the next two weeks. It's nice, but on the other hand makes me feel much less professional.
Professionalism and apparel is a thread in and of itself.
Some days, just because other clothes were dirty, I would switch out from casual pants and a polo shirt into a coat and tie. It was NOT appreciated by my peers. The vibe turned on a dime. That's kind of effed up. I'm not talking designer suits here, but $149 jackets bought at the Men's Wearhouse, with some decent slacks, and an outlet tie costing about $19. Why are some people so uptight? Periodically, I like to go buy jackets and ties, and that's my "issue," not theirs.
I've got this name brand pale green/pistachio colored tie with a "bas relief" sort of paisley design on it. Nordstrom Rack: $17. I love wearing that thing. Good taste at a bargain basement price. But, sometimes, it's not "appropriate."
and there wasn't some voice in the back of your head saying 'maybe i shouldn't define people by gender stereotype.' or that nagging voice that said 'maybe not posting would be the preferable option in this situation.'
i don't actually know there is no there. i have no idea if 'she' was correct or not.
Not the issue at all. I had just envisioned that poster to be male. With many of the handles on here being androgynous, it's hard to tell what people are unless there is a definitive read by their postings. Most of us make visual pictures of people, whether we're on line or are talking to them on the telephone at a car dealership, a restaurant, and whatnot. I certainly do that.
I signed one of my biggest contracts in shorts, flip flops and a tee shirt. What does that say about professional....now you all know why I bring blow up dolls to AIA meetings.
Nothing wrong with that Nam....piss in their face....with your bow tie and top button closed....cause that way they will never see the tat on your chest and arms... just kidding.
^^^ - that's fine, but if I've gone out and bought some of these articles, then I want to wear them every now and then, rather than let the moths eat them ... and not wait for a wedding or a funeral.
yeah - those trousers are pretty awesome. Not sure about the shoes, though... I've soured on pricey non-leather-soled shoes since I have a tendency to wear through them.
I was going to comment last night about understanding what observant meant when judging screen names as male or female. I was going to use toasteroven as an example because I used to think he was a girl, but then there was a comment and I was completely unsure. But now, with that comment about the shoes, I'm believing that toast is a guy. ...unless he's a girl that wears men's shoes, which is possible since I wore boy's Dr Martins all through college.
Why is it that we (and I'm saying we because I don't want to be alone on this) need to diferentiate between the two? I find this to be true in real life as well. If I see a person that is a bit androgynous, it bugs me just because I can't tell if I should say he or she, sir or mam. Heck, the made a whole movie about!
And I find I'm the same way about sexuality. No matter how often I tell myself it doesn't matter, and its not my business, I still want to know. Of course, I'm not brazen enough to ask, and when students ask me about other students, I tell them that I don't know, and that it doesn't matter anyway. I wish I could think about it like underwear. I have never given a single thought to whether a person wears boxers, briefs, lace thongs, or cotton bikinis. Why can't sexuality be like that?
And now that I've gone on this whole diatribe, I realize that I'm always asking students their cultural heritage and religion. I do this out of monstrous curiosity, nothing more.
Is it just me? Do I have an obsessive need to catogorize people?
Sarah, we are programmed to pattern-make. Not just you, but it is not PC to talk about that because it can come close to stereotyping and bigotry, pattern-making's evil cousins.
I just finished John Irving's latest book, called In One Person. The entire book is about gender, identification, sexuality, labels, "right" and "wrong" attractions, etc. It's really incredible, a great book but *very* much about one person's issues with all of this. Still, it raises the question of why we feel the need to categorize everyone when the categories would really need to be as numerous as there are people.
But as there is no there said, it's human nature to seek patterns, we can't help it.
toast, love that outfit. Do you suppose it comes in white? I want to look like a cloud floating above my day's work. And maybe a grey one for bad days.
I just finished two books touching on gender as well, but about the usefulness in recognizing the differences in gender. One was written by a brain surgeon. As a brain surgeon needs to know left versus right in a brain operation, he also needs to know gender of the patient to understand the architecture of their brain. The other was written by a psychologist-educator who is pushing single gender education systems.
it's not "not-PC" to talk about this stuff. that's ridiculous. If you understand your own prejudices and talk openly about them, you can work to challenge and change these beliefs. It's one of the fundamentals of cognitive development and learning. The great danger is becoming unmovable once you come to a certain conclusion.
When someone whines about how we're supposed to be "PC" it's probably because they're often being called out on their bigotry and they don't want to change (either out of laziness or lack of mental capacity). Those kinds of statements are helpful in guiding discourse because now you know who to marginalize. you can't move them, but you can move everyone else.
Toaster, I know that. I thought I was expressing frustration that people like to jump from patternmaking to stereotyping as if they are the same and they are not. I know that one is useful and natural. Most people don't.
When someone whines about how we're supposed to be "PC" it's probably because they're often being called out on their bigotry and they don't want to change (either out of laziness or lack of mental capacity). Those kinds of statements are helpful in guiding discourse because now you know who to marginalize. you can't move them, but you can move everyone else.
There's PC that's designed not to offend certain people. There's also PC that extends to stereotyping. Stereotyping wouldn't exist if so many people didn't observe it. Also, some sociologists and social psychologists back it up. My rule is about 90:10; that is, your read on someone is accurate 90% of the time, and 10% of the time it isn't. You're obtuse when you can't admit you were wrong that 10% of the time.
Tell me that an ethnically attuned person who grew up in middle class suburbia of NYC has the same interpersonal vibe as some Nordic who grew up in middle class suburbia of the Twin Cities. They are 180 from each other. The person from the Twin Cities would consider the Easterner caustic and obnoxious, if they let their guard down. Another Easterner would consider them normal.
Two things:
a) when we were kids, we all used to make fun of each other's parents' ethnicities, their accents, and quirks ... and we all remained friends. We still laugh about these things as adults. They were sitcom material.
b) the person who makes these observations and takes them stridently is also much more apt to have a much more diverse constellation of friends, unlike someone who grew up with the passive-aggressive standard of "Minnesota Nice" (both a popular and a sociological term) for outwardly politically showing you are progressive and want to treat people in a homogenous fashion yet, deep down, you are someone else under that constipated mask.
I always though San Francisco would be PC. Well, it is. One day, I'm at one of the Market Street exits of BART with some friends and ask which bus will take us to Fisherman's Wharf. The guy, a local dude, rattled out some numbers (they were all multiples of 15) and then added "around here, we call it the 'Orient Express'," probably owing to the fact that Chinatown sits between the Financial District and North Beach. Harmless. Clever. Funny. Let it go!
My "better half" is a psychologist that used to do research in stereotyping. This was a few years ago but it was fairly taboo to research it as a useful tool in say, learning and cognitive development,, as many people think that it is all bad all the time and there is nothing useful here folks because the word stereotype has become associated with bigotry instead of the more useful tool of pattern-making by the overly PC crowd. I'll agree with observant, stereotypes are useful until they are not.
i can go along with 'stereotypes are useful until they are not.' i'm not sure observant included the part about where they become no longer useful.
this is, of course, an internet forum. speaking hypothetically and in that context, if person 'A' were to suddenly realize their assumption of person 'B's gender was wrong, i would expect that to have a fairly minor effect on person 'A's opinion of person 'B's comments. If person 'A' all of sudden realizes person 'B' has better insight to shoe color but does not really have anything important to say about say architecture, then I would suggest person 'A's use of stereotyping is not useful.
if person 'A' had a history of suggesting women should be judged by their looks while men should be judged by their ability, i might stereotype that person as the sort who uses stereotypes to unfairly discriminate against people.
if we were putting together a football team or a bikini contest, i might lean towards thinking gender could influence the outcome. we are not putting together a football team or a bikini contest.
When the "dumb blonde" in a sorority sitting next to you repeatedly gets higher grades on her tests, and you toss out that stereotype, then, in that discrete situation, you are not a prejudiced individual. However, one must apply this convention across the board.
When the "dumb blonde" in a sorority sitting next to you repeatedly gets marginal grades on her tests, whines a lot, and parties too much, then the stereotype is reinforced.
The usefulness issue is moot. It's about whether you are willing to toss out the stereotype when it doesn't apply to the case at hand. This is why I have often heard the term a "smart jock" or a "smart surfer" in conversation, with the word smart as a preface, because so many people are conditioned to think jocks are meatheads and surfers are waste cases. And, in many cases, they're correct.
so to try to paraphrase what i think the intent of your dumb blonde and smart jock analogy is:
it's good to stereotype people in such a way that you discriminate against blondes and jocks for being dumb. anecdotal evidence in your real life has suggested this is prudent. when those people prove you wrong, you should have the character to stop being prejudice and treat them as, what, equals? maybe 'equals' isn't the right word there?
so, a more real-life example, if a woman who is blonde was asking you for a job, you would assume they are dumb and it would be right for you to act on that assumption. there are probably other characteristics to be aware of, such as if her hairstyle or eye shadow supports the 'dumb' stereotype. it is up to the woman to prove that she is not the stereotype you've created.
Please excuse the Shit Kickers...and well the long way around the story....it was just the way I was brought up....Listening to my Irish Grand Pappy tell stories for hours on end.
I guess no one has a problem figuring out if I'm a guy.
There's no sense in trying to shoehorn me. Most of us can, and do, size up someone in about 15 seconds.
Since you want to put a sexist spin on this, we can. If you walk into an elevator, and the blonde looks, gestures, and utters a few words that are REALLY "dumb," then she probably is. On the other hand, if a blonde, or a woman with any hair color, carries herself in a different manner, then she probably isn't dumb. In essence, we do perceive people based on how they carry themselves, even before specific traits.
Let's move on to the guys. If they carry themselves like dolts, then they probably are. Again, it's about carriage.
Remember, even in the architectural world, they know 15 seconds into the interview as to whether they'll hire you ... and maybe a little longer if they find something that excites them ... or torques them, to decide otherwise.
I'm not into this PC thing where you have to give everyone a chance and get to know them. That's impossible. I know that, if I walk into a Trader Joe's or a Whole Foods, I have little to nothing in common with someone who works there.
I see that our coastal vs. Midwestern sensibilities are scraping. My friends, all urban and educated, will say something like "well, I went into this Trader Joe's and this granola was helping me and ... " What's wrong with that? A picture is worth a thousand words.
Thread Central
Someone stole the coil out of our central air conditioner, destroying the entire unit. It's amazing what people will steal. Of course, in our case, the thief wanted the copper.
I've never heard of someone's lawn mower getting stolen. What kind was it?
its my own fault. left the garage door open. some opportunistic thief must have just walked in and took it. how they got out between our cars i don't know. bought a reel mower to replace it. now i'm on lock down. motion lights are on and guard cats are at the ready.
When things get bad, petty crime goes up. I have an in-law whose fuel oil tank has been emptied more than once. Apparently things aren't getting better.
Friend of mine today told me someone stole the pump for their Swimming Pool. Which is a bummer with Summer just around the corner. Just another unwanted cost in life.
Yeah, and there is/was a wave of catalytic converter thefts, with somebody cutting it from your car's exhaust system ... sometimes in the blink of an eye. That's why having an SUV sucks, in more ways than one. I think it's the palladium beads, or some other metal in there, that they want.
vado we got an electric mower. It's called Worx, I think. I love that dang mower! It's actually fun to use. The push reel was eventually not enough machine for the size of our yard - I got too worn out pushing it back and forth over the same spot 20 times!
donna, is your mower corded or battery? does the battery last after sitting in a garage over the winter, or if does the cord gets in the way?
i think there was a rash of catalytic converter thefts near my neighborhood.
since I'm too lazy to post to news: the too smart city
y'all need to get some lo-jack on your lawn mowers.
yeah our lawn is small(er) but damn i used that Reel Mower in about 85 degree temp i was done. it mows alright and i'll probably keep it for the exercise.
You all need to sharpen those lawn movers to deal with summer's taller grass. The automakers need to sharpen the edges of those catalytic converters, so a few of those thieves might likely get cut in the process. And you WASPs need to sharpen your hot guy spotting skills. I forgot to throw this in. Someone show me an adult American male who is forced to pick between Jason Alexander, Andy Dick, and George Clooney as to who is the better looking, and if they can't answer that, emphatically saying "I REALLY don't know," then I'll show you an adult Nile Crocodile that you can pet ... and live to tell about it. (Clooney can't act, and I've only seen one of his movies - he is no Kevin Spacey or Kevin Kline, who are REAL actors).
The psychology faculties study this kind of stuff. Looks are generally positively correlated with wealth. The 9s and 10s get handed things in life, or are handed more than what their abilities should allow for. The 7s and 8s still need to work at school and at a career more diligently. No free lunch there. Now, if you see a doctor who is a 4 and his wife is an 8, you get 3 guesses as to why, and the first 2 don't count. (Hint: it ain't the looks, nor any sexual prowess). This isn't shallowness. It's life. Political correctness needs to go away. Reality needs to make a comeback.
Crap, I'm fasting and starving, because I have to go for a blood draw (check for cholesterol and sugar levels), so I'm especially ornery right now.
Seeing the news photos of the wide swath of destruction caused by the tornadoes in Oklahoma is shocking and very sad. Entire neighborhoods have been turned to rubble. We need to keep those affected in our thoughts and prayers.
hi TC, so i just read this post re: the Berlage. If just now they write "offers a postgraduate master’s degree program which is expected to be accredited this year." have they ever offered an accredited degree? if not was that the source of their cache? or did i just misunderstand. seems they had a pretty theoretically heavy list of instructors.
also hope everyone had a Merry Monday! i had a long one and am ready for bed!
It's usually nice and quiet here, but the neighbor directly across the road is having his very large acreage of pines logged.
Oof, that high-pitched whiny sound of a chainsaw, no fun.
I've worn painting clothes - jeans, crappy Tshirt, sneaks - to work the last two days. Probably will for the next two weeks. It's nice, but on the other hand makes me feel much less professional.
every day I feel less and less professional.
Professionalism and apparel is a thread in and of itself.
Some days, just because other clothes were dirty, I would switch out from casual pants and a polo shirt into a coat and tie. It was NOT appreciated by my peers. The vibe turned on a dime. That's kind of effed up. I'm not talking designer suits here, but $149 jackets bought at the Men's Wearhouse, with some decent slacks, and an outlet tie costing about $19. Why are some people so uptight? Periodically, I like to go buy jackets and ties, and that's my "issue," not theirs.
I've got this name brand pale green/pistachio colored tie with a "bas relief" sort of paisley design on it. Nordstrom Rack: $17. I love wearing that thing. Good taste at a bargain basement price. But, sometimes, it's not "appropriate."
hmmm, interesting. Almost.
Hey, does Rusty come around here any more?
hmmm, interesting. Almost.
Hey, does Rusty come around here any more?
You're more than welcome to make well articulated posts. They're easier to read and get visuals from than are the cryptic, "way cool" ones. Cheers.
i found the question about Rusty to be quite articulate and understandable. your answer does not seem to adequately cover what she was looking for.
^
Like they say, "You learn something new every day."
I just learned "there is no there" is a woman. While acquiring that knowledge didn't make my day, it did illuminate a light bulb.
Thanks, curt.
hmm. that's what you got out of that?
and there wasn't some voice in the back of your head saying 'maybe i shouldn't define people by gender stereotype.' or that nagging voice that said 'maybe not posting would be the preferable option in this situation.'
i don't actually know there is no there. i have no idea if 'she' was correct or not.
gender stereotype
Not the issue at all. I had just envisioned that poster to be male. With many of the handles on here being androgynous, it's hard to tell what people are unless there is a definitive read by their postings. Most of us make visual pictures of people, whether we're on line or are talking to them on the telephone at a car dealership, a restaurant, and whatnot. I certainly do that.
I signed one of my biggest contracts in shorts, flip flops and a tee shirt. What does that say about professional....now you all know why I bring blow up dolls to AIA meetings.
snooker, oh is that why :P
personally, i like to keep my top button always buttoned at work. it's like my final piece of kit to face the day.. many coworkers can't stand it.
Nothing wrong with that Nam....piss in their face....with your bow tie and top button closed....cause that way they will never see the tat on your chest and arms... just kidding.
s-d-d:
^^^ - that's fine, but if I've gone out and bought some of these articles, then I want to wear them every now and then, rather than let the moths eat them ... and not wait for a wedding or a funeral.
of course nam is referring to his trousers. it definitely makes it harder to kiss his ass.
This is what I typically wear to work:
^
I see several scoops of a tangerine sorbet gelato.
it was the final model for my masters thesis.
now it's fashion.
yeah - those trousers are pretty awesome. Not sure about the shoes, though... I've soured on pricey non-leather-soled shoes since I have a tendency to wear through them.
Why is it that we (and I'm saying we because I don't want to be alone on this) need to diferentiate between the two? I find this to be true in real life as well. If I see a person that is a bit androgynous, it bugs me just because I can't tell if I should say he or she, sir or mam. Heck, the made a whole movie about!
And I find I'm the same way about sexuality. No matter how often I tell myself it doesn't matter, and its not my business, I still want to know. Of course, I'm not brazen enough to ask, and when students ask me about other students, I tell them that I don't know, and that it doesn't matter anyway. I wish I could think about it like underwear. I have never given a single thought to whether a person wears boxers, briefs, lace thongs, or cotton bikinis. Why can't sexuality be like that?
And now that I've gone on this whole diatribe, I realize that I'm always asking students their cultural heritage and religion. I do this out of monstrous curiosity, nothing more.
Is it just me? Do I have an obsessive need to catogorize people?
Now THAT is interesting, toaster.
Sarah, we are programmed to pattern-make. Not just you, but it is not PC to talk about that because it can come close to stereotyping and bigotry, pattern-making's evil cousins.
I just finished John Irving's latest book, called In One Person. The entire book is about gender, identification, sexuality, labels, "right" and "wrong" attractions, etc. It's really incredible, a great book but *very* much about one person's issues with all of this. Still, it raises the question of why we feel the need to categorize everyone when the categories would really need to be as numerous as there are people.
But as there is no there said, it's human nature to seek patterns, we can't help it.
toast, love that outfit. Do you suppose it comes in white? I want to look like a cloud floating above my day's work. And maybe a grey one for bad days.
I just finished two books touching on gender as well, but about the usefulness in recognizing the differences in gender. One was written by a brain surgeon. As a brain surgeon needs to know left versus right in a brain operation, he also needs to know gender of the patient to understand the architecture of their brain. The other was written by a psychologist-educator who is pushing single gender education systems.
it's not "not-PC" to talk about this stuff. that's ridiculous. If you understand your own prejudices and talk openly about them, you can work to challenge and change these beliefs. It's one of the fundamentals of cognitive development and learning. The great danger is becoming unmovable once you come to a certain conclusion.
When someone whines about how we're supposed to be "PC" it's probably because they're often being called out on their bigotry and they don't want to change (either out of laziness or lack of mental capacity). Those kinds of statements are helpful in guiding discourse because now you know who to marginalize. you can't move them, but you can move everyone else.
Toaster, I know that. I thought I was expressing frustration that people like to jump from patternmaking to stereotyping as if they are the same and they are not. I know that one is useful and natural. Most people don't.
... like the author of Donna's book saying that categorization is NOT so useful.
When someone whines about how we're supposed to be "PC" it's probably because they're often being called out on their bigotry and they don't want to change (either out of laziness or lack of mental capacity). Those kinds of statements are helpful in guiding discourse because now you know who to marginalize. you can't move them, but you can move everyone else.
There's PC that's designed not to offend certain people. There's also PC that extends to stereotyping. Stereotyping wouldn't exist if so many people didn't observe it. Also, some sociologists and social psychologists back it up. My rule is about 90:10; that is, your read on someone is accurate 90% of the time, and 10% of the time it isn't. You're obtuse when you can't admit you were wrong that 10% of the time.
Tell me that an ethnically attuned person who grew up in middle class suburbia of NYC has the same interpersonal vibe as some Nordic who grew up in middle class suburbia of the Twin Cities. They are 180 from each other. The person from the Twin Cities would consider the Easterner caustic and obnoxious, if they let their guard down. Another Easterner would consider them normal.
Two things:
a) when we were kids, we all used to make fun of each other's parents' ethnicities, their accents, and quirks ... and we all remained friends. We still laugh about these things as adults. They were sitcom material.
b) the person who makes these observations and takes them stridently is also much more apt to have a much more diverse constellation of friends, unlike someone who grew up with the passive-aggressive standard of "Minnesota Nice" (both a popular and a sociological term) for outwardly politically showing you are progressive and want to treat people in a homogenous fashion yet, deep down, you are someone else under that constipated mask.
I always though San Francisco would be PC. Well, it is. One day, I'm at one of the Market Street exits of BART with some friends and ask which bus will take us to Fisherman's Wharf. The guy, a local dude, rattled out some numbers (they were all multiples of 15) and then added "around here, we call it the 'Orient Express'," probably owing to the fact that Chinatown sits between the Financial District and North Beach. Harmless. Clever. Funny. Let it go!
My "better half" is a psychologist that used to do research in stereotyping. This was a few years ago but it was fairly taboo to research it as a useful tool in say, learning and cognitive development,, as many people think that it is all bad all the time and there is nothing useful here folks because the word stereotype has become associated with bigotry instead of the more useful tool of pattern-making by the overly PC crowd. I'll agree with observant, stereotypes are useful until they are not.
i can go along with 'stereotypes are useful until they are not.' i'm not sure observant included the part about where they become no longer useful.
this is, of course, an internet forum. speaking hypothetically and in that context, if person 'A' were to suddenly realize their assumption of person 'B's gender was wrong, i would expect that to have a fairly minor effect on person 'A's opinion of person 'B's comments. If person 'A' all of sudden realizes person 'B' has better insight to shoe color but does not really have anything important to say about say architecture, then I would suggest person 'A's use of stereotyping is not useful.
if person 'A' had a history of suggesting women should be judged by their looks while men should be judged by their ability, i might stereotype that person as the sort who uses stereotypes to unfairly discriminate against people.
if we were putting together a football team or a bikini contest, i might lean towards thinking gender could influence the outcome. we are not putting together a football team or a bikini contest.
^
When the "dumb blonde" in a sorority sitting next to you repeatedly gets higher grades on her tests, and you toss out that stereotype, then, in that discrete situation, you are not a prejudiced individual. However, one must apply this convention across the board.
When the "dumb blonde" in a sorority sitting next to you repeatedly gets marginal grades on her tests, whines a lot, and parties too much, then the stereotype is reinforced.
The usefulness issue is moot. It's about whether you are willing to toss out the stereotype when it doesn't apply to the case at hand. This is why I have often heard the term a "smart jock" or a "smart surfer" in conversation, with the word smart as a preface, because so many people are conditioned to think jocks are meatheads and surfers are waste cases. And, in many cases, they're correct.
observant, so what changed about your opinion of me when you found out that I am female?
^
Nothing. I never got a read into what you're all about, and still don't have a read. I just assumed you were a guy.
so to try to paraphrase what i think the intent of your dumb blonde and smart jock analogy is:
it's good to stereotype people in such a way that you discriminate against blondes and jocks for being dumb. anecdotal evidence in your real life has suggested this is prudent. when those people prove you wrong, you should have the character to stop being prejudice and treat them as, what, equals? maybe 'equals' isn't the right word there?
so, a more real-life example, if a woman who is blonde was asking you for a job, you would assume they are dumb and it would be right for you to act on that assumption. there are probably other characteristics to be aware of, such as if her hairstyle or eye shadow supports the 'dumb' stereotype. it is up to the woman to prove that she is not the stereotype you've created.
is that right?
Please excuse the Shit Kickers...and well the long way around the story....it was just the way I was brought up....Listening to my Irish Grand Pappy tell stories for hours on end.
I guess no one has a problem figuring out if I'm a guy.
^
There's no sense in trying to shoehorn me. Most of us can, and do, size up someone in about 15 seconds.
Since you want to put a sexist spin on this, we can. If you walk into an elevator, and the blonde looks, gestures, and utters a few words that are REALLY "dumb," then she probably is. On the other hand, if a blonde, or a woman with any hair color, carries herself in a different manner, then she probably isn't dumb. In essence, we do perceive people based on how they carry themselves, even before specific traits.
Let's move on to the guys. If they carry themselves like dolts, then they probably are. Again, it's about carriage.
Remember, even in the architectural world, they know 15 seconds into the interview as to whether they'll hire you ... and maybe a little longer if they find something that excites them ... or torques them, to decide otherwise.
I'm not into this PC thing where you have to give everyone a chance and get to know them. That's impossible. I know that, if I walk into a Trader Joe's or a Whole Foods, I have little to nothing in common with someone who works there.
I see that our coastal vs. Midwestern sensibilities are scraping. My friends, all urban and educated, will say something like "well, I went into this Trader Joe's and this granola was helping me and ... " What's wrong with that? A picture is worth a thousand words.
So, you're a dick?
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