> Because Joel thinks women are weaker then men, obviously.

Well no or, maybe he does, but you can't infer that from this. What he is referring to is the tendency of little girls to like, OMG, get super excited and make squeally noises.

As a parent of both sexes and having refereed birthday parties for both I can safely say that his analogy was fair and wouldn't have worked if he had said "little boy". Of course, if he had run around the meeting room, screaming at the top of his lungs, trying to break furniture, then he had indeed picked the wrong gender.

It might be more charitable to assume that it's a reference to the perception that women are more emotional. I'm not saying that perception is valid or invalid but it's certainly more neutral than "women are weaker than men".

That said it could be an artifact of a time where it was acceptable to say that kind of stuff. Like watching old movies reading old articles can be a bit jarring at times. But getting upset with someone for posting it to support a point is unfair.

> It might be more charitable to assume that it's a reference to the perception that women are more emotional. I'm not saying that perception is valid or invalid but it's certainly more neutral than "women are weaker than men".

How is the idea that women are "more emotional" than men "more neutral" than the idea that "women are weaker than men".

Hoping this doesn't turn the thread into a male/female thing...

Assuming that your question is meant in good faith, here's an example. I have two sons. One is extremely emotional, far more so than his brother was at that age. He cries over minor incidents, take small slights to heart, gets upset easily, etc. His teacher describes him as "feeling things very deeply."

However, he is also extremely bright and very strong willed. Even at a young age, we can already see that he is not the type of person who will allow himself to be taken advantage of. Despite his sometimes irritating emotionality, there is simply no way I could ever characterize him as weak.

Does that help?

You just showed that the words "weak" and "emotional" mean two different things. No one ever questioned that.

The assumption in the post I replied to was that being emotional was seen essentially as being weak.

No, the question was in what way one was more neutral than the other.

I mean, the whole post (excluding quoted material used to show what that post was responding to) was (including the incorrect use of a period where a question mark was intended):

How is the idea that women are "more emotional" than men "more neutral" than the idea that "women are weaker than men".

No it wasn't. The question was whether one was more neutral than the other.

Let's please not take this thread farther afield than it already is.

Certainly not upset at the person for posting it, I admit i see how it could have come across that way.

To your point, this isn't from 1950 or even 1975. It's recent.

I've watched plenty of movies from the late 90's and early 2000's that have outrageous sexism and slurs against homosexuals. Watching something you remember being funny that has that type of content is incredibly awkward. It's kind of weird to think about but 2006 was 10 years ago and a lot can change in that time frame.

I'm not saying it wasn't a sexist comment or that if it was that Joel has changed. But I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

My gut is that it shows a lack of phrase turning expertise, but admits the possibility that converse could be true. To put it another way, I suspect it's more likely an example of poor writing rather than a well honed expository detail.

Doesn't change it's effects.