Aswad
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Joined: 4/4/2007
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As a corollary to what Orion said,
It has been observed that a particular one of the culturally conditioned differences in communication styles between genders causes problems because neither gender is socialized to expect this gender difference during the rearing period. The difference stems from women taking into account team outcomes and conflicting priorities and desires among multiple people in a social unit, whereas men consistently and somewhat exclusively consider their own needs and wants. What is this difference?
The manner in which a woman from a normal western cultural background forwards a request is generally in a more suggestive or circumspect manner that conveys with some accuracy the nuance of how important the request is to them, as well as displaying some sensitivity to the state of mind of the other person and so forth. This then initiates the process of negotiation. The manner in which a man will forward the same request is generally in a direct and demanding manner that simply conveys that the request has been made. That initiates a challenge or a process of negotiation, wherein the commitment of the other party to opposing the demand is gauged and weighed against the commitment the person making the request has.
Both genders may employ different strategies to ease the process of obtaining the result. For instance, a man in a work environment may imply that he will quit if he does not get his way. That's negotiable, as he can back out without too much loss of face. Or he may say flat out that he will not stay on if he does not get his way. That isn't open to negotiation. Women in positions of leadership who do not understand the difference will frequently either assign too much importance to the former, or disregard the latter (potentially earning a reprimand for losing a presumably valuable employee at a critical point in time). Women who have male bosses will conversely tend to imply that they will quit when they mean that they definitely will, but are culturally conditioned not to make that explicit, lest it sound like a threat. The male boss, if not sensitive to this difference, will tend to view it as a sign that the outcome of the decision is important, but not realize the stakes.
This is just one of the major differences is communication styles, and it shouldn't be too hard to see that the word "manipulative" has as much meaning and substance as "bitch" or any similar derogative. It is employed because the parties are not seeing eye to eye on something and the person using the term lacks the respect and insight to realize that there is a failure to communicate, rather than malice, at the root of the disagreement. Or, in a Gorean context, it may be used reflexively for the reasons that I mentioned initially.
One of the most significant shortcomings in the Gor series is the failure to pay as much attention to what a woman is, as to what a man is, at heart. The two have been meant for each other for ≥200.000 years, and it should be painfully obvious that any attempt to live in accordance with the nature of men and women has to dig deeper. Norman did not have cause to do so, nor the insight to do so, nor access to the data to obtain such an insight. And he was busy satirizing the idea du jour that intergender relationships were inevitably a form of slavery, by making that literal truth in the novels. Kirata, for one, has commented on how the vast majority of the slavery examples in the books are in some way allegorical. Others have made more thorough analyses of that elsewhere, delving into the similarities in narrative style with two classic ways to relate the relationships between men and women in past times when such things were not spoken plainly of in good company.
Since women are not actually covered in meaningful detail in the books, the cultures portrayed there are one-sided and two-dimensional, providing no basis for how Gorean men and women should- or even could- relate in an integrated culture that respects both genders and celebrates their differences. Furthermore, any amateur attempts we might have made at synthesizing that part of the culture for use in the lifestyles are doomed to fail to arrive at anything meaningful, as the communication between men and women is already poor, and the fact of the matter is that nature and nurture are so hard to seperate from anecdotal evidence and speculation that there is little grounds on which to establish any notion of what a woman is when stripped of western cultural conditioning. A man, yes, we can make a good guess at that. A woman, no.
That is one of the reasons I have pimped Dr. Tannen's work here, since she is to the best of my knowledge the only researcher that has made sufficient empirical work from which to draw strong conclusions about which differences are intrinsic, and which differences are culturally conditioned. Once that is known, it is possible to determine which cultural mores for Gorean women should exist as complementary to the cultural mores of Gorean men, and which should be shared by Goreans of both genders, as well as what differences necessarily must exist due to being intrinsic. That essentially involves duplicating some of the work many propose that Norman has already done.
I differ on that point. I think Norman juxtaposed ideas in such a way that they acted as a catalyst for some readers, prompting those to discover something within. Conflict and confusion arises from trying to uncritically mix in Norman's work directly, replacing one broken culture with another broken culture, rather than proceeding from those truths discovered within to create the seeds of a functional culture. That is a work in which the Gorean women should take part, and would be critically important, but which I foresee that few here will take an interest in. I also foresee that at some point in the future, most here will have done it anyway, and probably pretend it was obvious all along. That would fit the history of how advances have been made here.
It is clear that, just as modern western culture is ill suited to the nature of man, so, too, it is ill suited to the nature of woman. That assumption seems to be shared. Realizing that the natural extension of that assumption is that both genders need to reinvent themselves back to something true to their respective natures, rather than only men doing so and thereby missing some of the roles their natures are meant to fill, would seem to make intuitive sense, but it isn't happening. Yet. Though, when it does happen, there will likely be fewer accusations of manipulation flying around, on account of changes in both genders' communication styles and subcultural mores.
Norman included the passage that Tim quoted, about Goreans overcoming the Initiates when they are ready.
My position is that he is rather saying that the Goreans will overcome Gor... when they are ready.
That would be the end of the Gorean experiment, and the beginning of something greater.
Health,
al-Aswad, Manipulator of ... Yore?
_____________________________
"If God saw what any of us did that night, he didn't seem to mind.
From then on I knew: God doesn't make the world this way.
We do." -- Rorschack, Watchmen.
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