Najakcharmer
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Joined: 5/3/2004
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quote:
ORIGINAL: xBullx
Wouldn't it be nice to find that man of such strength and noble character that you could let go and be the woman you may very well long to be. In the novels, females were given no choice once enslaved. They had to surrender their will absolute. Not all females were slaves, even nearly all women have it in them to submit to strength, perhaps all men do as well. Strength being the unknown. Who has it. I soldier submits to the commands of those over him. A laborer does the bidding of an employer. A slave in her role sees to the desires of a master.
I tend to view leadership in a practical sense based on who is the most competent to lead in a given situation. If Bull and I were entering a pen of cattle to perform maintenance tasks on the animals, I would absolutely defer to his leadership, move when he said move, jump when he said jump. Not because of anything sexual, but because he has extensive experience with hoofstock and I do not. He is the fitter, more competent leader in this case and I would follow and obey instantly, because to do otherwise would put both of us at unacceptable risk. Also he is much larger and better suited to deal with bigger animals that are suitable for managing by direct/unprotected physical contact. (The critters I work with emphatically aren't suited for those tactics).
Is mine the easier task in this case? In a way, yes, it is. And in a way it isn't. It is the correct response to follow and defer in this situation, but not the "natural" one for me personally. So in a way it is the harder job *not* to assess the situation with my own judgement and assume responsibility for managing it safely and making the best decisions that would protect others. It would be difficult for me not to jump in and start wrangling if a critter got uppity, even though hoofstock is not my area of expertise and I'd realistically just be getting in the way, so I'd be stepping on my own gut instincts and exercising self discipline in order to do the right thing and defer to more competent leadership. But I'd do it, because Mama didn't raise no dummies, and I can shut up and take orders when everyone's safety depends on it.
If Bull and I were proposing to enter a wild animal enclosure to perform similar maintenance tasks together, I would not permit him to enter unless I was sure that he had exactly the same understanding and acceptance of my absolute leadership in this situation. He would have to defer absolutely and make no moves on his own until he was told to move. I don't want to get hurt or put the animals at risk of getting hurt because an inexperienced assistant did something ill-advised. So unless a trainee keeper has the right mindset of absolute and instant obedience to the senior trainer, he's never going into a cage on my watch.
There are right moves and wrong moves to make with some species of animals, and not all of them are intuitive. Some fairly simple things that a person might do naturally can be seriously wrong moves that will trigger undesired behaviors. When this happens, somebody's likely to get hurt and it will probably be the human. With some species, physical size and strength is really not an asset. Either you can manage the animal behaviorally or you're completely screwed. So the big guy who doesn't have species specific training had better be following in the exact footsteps of the experienced trainer who does. Is mine now the harder task? In a way yes, and in a way no. It is more work and more responsibility, especially when you have to be responsible for essentially driving someone else's feet around the cage step by step and controlling their every move. But it is also a "natural" role for me, so in some ways it is actually easier since I'm not fighting my instincts.
quote:
There may be a few around here that declare all women to be slaves. My bet is that person is enslaved to rigid ideals of they spend all their days defending.
I think that all primates, Homo sapiens included, have the potential for both dominance and submission, leading and following, neurologically hardwired into their brains. The tendency to follow is more common than the tendency to lead in both sexes, because it has to be. Too many chiefs and not enough Indians causes problems in any social group, and we are a social animal.
It's not quite as simple as "all men follow, all women lead", as becomes obvious by looking at the actual cultural patterns that are expressed in variable ways around the globe and throughout history. Overall benefit to the social group, the breeding unit and the resource pool is what must determine leadership. Where physical strength makes the primary determination in the abundance and quality of a group's available resources, more men than women will lead. That economic situation is actually rarer than it seems however, as the ratioof subsistence calories gained from hunting as opposed to gathering is surprisingly low. Where discriminatory tasks provide a high percentage of group resources, women will be found more frequently in situational leadership positions. Since physical strength has almost always been a factor in group defense if nothing else, very few groups will be wholly or primarily female led. They do occur, and they tend to be tied to the economy of maximizing group resources according to ability. Where cultures "detach" from the basics of direct subsistence gathering by the individual social unit, additional social patterns form. Interestingly enough this is actually where sex roles tend to be even further demarcated.
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RE: Why are you 'NOT' Gorean? - 
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