If there is a patriarchy, no one gave me the password (or the URL for that matter). In my experience, men are pretty shitty to other men. On the other hand, women are pretty shitty to men too. I suppose it's simply that people are shitty to other people, and (possibly) gender matters only in how they express their shit? I don't think people have studied this objectively, so I think my own opinion is as good as anyone's. #- That said, unequivocally, my best friends are women. They listen better, care more, share more of who they are, are less guarded than my men friends. The exceptions among men are people who have had their armor removed by life. Having a serious illness or divorce, some kind of crisis that woke them up. And this may be true of women as well. If you haven't had to deal with a personal existential crisis, at some level you feel like life is infinite. People who have evaded death, for the moment, tend to be better friends. #
- And before you blame men for having the armor in the first place, it was our families and society that forced us to have it. Be a man, man up, etc. In my experience that was a response to growing into a man's body when I was still a kid and had no idea why people were now scared of me. I was still a boy. I'm sure girls go through something similar (though opposite perhaps) when their bodies mature when they are still children. #
- I think our gender problems trace to the dissolution of the extended family. We are a social species, but many of us are told we have to be self-sufficient. This is impossible. But we cope with it somehow. If we could find ways to have more lifelong friendships, we'd probably be better to each other. #