From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V8 #133 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Friday, April 9 1999 Volume 08 : Number 133 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: The linguistic differences blah blah [Joel Mullins ] Re: Linguistics of song [Joel Mullins ] random th ought [dmw ] Linguo-civilo-plastical stuff [Christopher Gross ] Re: This is going to suck Girls and boys [Charles Gillett ] Re: Linguistics of song [Joel Mullins ] Re: random th ought [Joel Mullins ] Re: The linguistic differences blah blah [amadain ] RE: Linguistics of song ["Partridge, John" ] Re: Linguistics of song [S Dwarf ] Re: Linguistics of song [Michael Wolfe ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 09 Apr 1999 18:33:34 -0700 From: Joel Mullins Subject: Re: The linguistic differences blah blah amadain wrote: > I've also noticed a distinct tendency among some males (and I'm not talking > about anyone here, necessarily, this is a -general- comment) to think > they've FOUND THE TRUTH ABOUT WOMAN'S EXPERIENCE, and get really angry at > me for not validating this belief for them by going hogwild over > Bratmobile. Get over it already. Well, how can we ever "find the truth to your experience" if we don't make any attempt to study what makes us different in the first place. It's all about communication. All I ever hear is women bitching about men, and vice versa. Well, we're never gonna learn to put the toliet-seat down, or what to do for you on your birthday, or what you like during sex until we start communicating and studying our differences in an attempt to live together peacefully. Anyway Joel ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 09 Apr 1999 18:42:17 -0700 From: Joel Mullins Subject: Re: Linguistics of song amadain wrote: > It's very insulting, patronizing, and RIDICULOUS to > be told that because of your gender, you cannot be what you in fact ARE, > because your gender isn't that, ever, and things just are that way, toots. The point is that your gender is a part of who you are!! You can't get away from that. Yes, some people are different, at least until that particular difference becomes the new fad and then everyone else jumps on the bandwagon (I really want to give an example here but I'm sacred of getting torn apart, so I'll refrain). Joel ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 09 Apr 1999 18:45:24 -0700 From: Joel Mullins Subject: Re: Linguistics of song amadain wrote: > Sure. I'm just not comfortable with the notion that it applies in toto, to > everyone, or that it be a standard that people get tarred and feathered for > not strictly hewing to. I never said there were no differences between men > and women atall. I was only expressing the opinion that when value > judgements come into the picture that can be a problem, as women often tend > to come out with the short end when that happens. Who the hell ever mentioned value judgments? My job is to study songs written by men and women and then see if I notice any trends. I'm not making judgments. I'm just making observations. Joel ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 9 Apr 1999 19:53:51 -0400 (EDT) From: dmw Subject: random th ought i bet the differences in communication styles between people inclined to get up on stage and yowl their innermost feelings or narratives, or word salad, or whatever else comes into their pointy little heads (speaking as one, mind you) and people who _don't_ are probably as significant as anything else. i.e. anything involving professional entertainers is too skewed a sample to be relevant except to other similarly skewed sampless...it takes a lot of brass to convince yourself that your yowling is somehow worth subjecting innocent parties to. not to mention the fact that a great many songwriters (certainly including robyn h., for example) consciously play with gender roles and communication styles as _part_ of their art. howl!!! - -- d. np still the wedding present. haven't even made it to disc two yet. "pictures of perfection make me sick and wicked." -- miss jane austen - - oh no!! you've just read mail from doug = dmw@radix.net dmw@mwmw.com - - get yr pathos:www.pathetic-caverns.com -- books, flicks, tunes, etc. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 9 Apr 1999 20:03:36 -0400 (EDT) From: Christopher Gross Subject: Linguo-civilo-plastical stuff On Fri, 9 Apr 1999, Joel Mullins wrote: > Give me a fucking break! Where the hell are you living anyway? Women > and men are completely different creatures. Anyone who can't see that > is blind. See, this is where you lose me. There are differences between men and women, but are we really "completely different creatures"? I don't think you can make a case for that. We're all members of the same species, after all. The times when communication between a man and a woman fail loom large in our minds *only* because they stand out against a background of communication that generally works. If I, a male, tell a female friend that I have a toothache, her reaction might be a little different than a male friend's would be; but she and I can still communicate. She won't think that "I have a toothache" means that my foot hurts, nor will she be puzzled about whether or not I'm happy about the toothache, nor will she be unable to relate my toothache to her own experience. To take another example, if men and women were completely different, their tastes in music would be completely different too, doncha think? But if you look at the crowds at concerts you'll see that while some artists appeal more to women (eg, Mariah Carey) and some appeal more to men (eg, Slayer), there are lots of others that appeal to both sexes (eg, Robyn). Sexual differences are real, and they may be significant, but they aren't all-important. And Capuchin wrote: >I'm embarrassed at some of the things I've played. But I'm no Emperor. >Phew. No way. To be honest, I've never played at Emperor either -- or rather, I did in Civ I but have yet to do so in Civ II. When I said I played "Emperor Peter Murphy," you should allow for a little artistic license. And Dave wrote: >what I don't understand is why CDs must come in plastic jewel boxes, >which >suck and break. Why don't more companies use cardboard cases? Maybe because cardboard cases get fuzzy and fray and wrinkle and get beer-soaked and require killing trees. Well, no, that's probably not the motivation that moves the record companies, but those are reasons I don't much care for cardboard cases. - --Chris ______________________________________________________________________ Christopher Gross On the Internet, nobody knows I'm a dog. chrisg@gwu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 09 Apr 1999 18:58:59 -0700 From: Joel Mullins Subject: Re: This is going to suck. (Girls and boys) Capuchin wrote: > You say that it's ok to divide folks up that way and > make grand statements about huge segments of the population. If your > initial assessment of a situation involves evaluating the race of the > individuals involved, you're racist. Same goes for sex. I do not understand your logic. And I won't even attempt to argue with this. This is utterly ridiculous. You're making snap judgments and generalities about people and calling them racist because you think they're making snap judgments and generalities about other people. This is crazy. You're no different than what you're describing. Joel > > It should also be understood that most popular music has very specific > interpretation. The songs are often written with whole sentences that > have direct denotative meaning. This isn't like Copland's non-political > "art". This is a statement of specific ideas. "I want to fuck you 'til > your dick is blue" is not about waterskiing. And these are recordings up > for sale. In other words, these are particular ideas that are meant to be > consumed. You cannot deny that there will be a certain attempt to create > an image acceptible for a man or woman to hold in a given market. > > We can take particular examples. We can compare Shirley Manson's words > (if you can separate them from those written collectively with her bands) > and Liz Phair's and Indigo Girls' and Joan Baez and Alanis Morrisette > (until you realize that her male producer wrote the songs on Jagged Little > Pill and added her credit for "interpretation and influence") with Robyn > Hitchcock and Rufus Wainright and Steve Jones and Mick Jagger and Hoyt > Axton and Kris Kristofferson or whatever. And what you'd have would be a > comparison of those particular artists. Any abstractions you made would > be extraordinarily poorly conceived. > > > Just > > because someone writes a paper (let's call this someone "Joel" :-)) about > > sex-based communication styles in song, that doesn't mean that these trends > > and similarities are necessarily being condoned. It just means they're being > > investigated. > > But he's already pitting it man against woman. What conclusion will you > find? You'll find that the stereotypes hold? Ok, so you've justified the > bullshit. You'll find some other relationship? Ok, so you've made NEW > stereotypes. If all you do is point out similarities, you're being dumb > and missing the differences. If all you do is point out differences, > you're being dumb and missing the similarities. If you point out both, > you have no conclusion and no paper. > > > Possibility the first step toward them being erased? Well, > > reform begins with understanding (either that or a good militia!). Teach us > > a little something, Joel. Help bridge that gap between the sexes! > > WHAT FUCKING GAP?!? > > If we nail down exactly the difference between the GENERAL way in which > men write songs versus the GENERAL way women write songs, what good will > that do? Will you evaluate a new artist on their gender first and then > give it a listen to see if they conform? Of course not. You're going to > judge them individually anyway, so what does it matter if 51% of female > songwriters take an aggressive stance on needlepoint. That doesn't mean > shit to the next release by anyone. > > > And, Jeme, you once said, "I love Joel!" Now you're saying "fuck you" > > to him? Such a cranky, fickle monkey you can be sometimes. > > When did I say this? Are you sure I didn't mean Joel Hodgson? > > Kind of distracted halfway through writing this. I think I just ruined > someone's life. > Je. > -- > ________________________________________________________ > > J A Brelin Capuchin > ________________________________________________________ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 09 Apr 1999 19:04:15 -0700 From: Joel Mullins Subject: Re: unprecedented dmw wrote: > there are somethings about which responsible, intelligent humans are > unable to calmly discuss, the differences of opinion run so deep. i think > we've stumbled into one of them. No kidding. I was happy to see I'd finally started a good thread, until I started reading all the posts. I guess I should have never brought this shit up. I didn't realize everyone was so damn sensitive. Joel ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 9 Apr 1999 19:12:03 -0500 (CDT) From: Charles Gillett Subject: Re: This is going to suck Girls and boys On Fri, 9 Apr 1999 14:39:54 -0700 (PDT), Capuchin wrote: > Did I ever tell you about the time I made my psychology professor cry? > She threw me out of class, wouldn't let me attend or drop, and gave me > a Very Poor grade at the end of the term. Yeah, well, you know how women are. - -- Charles "Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all week" Gillett ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 9 Apr 1999 20:26:59 EDT From: DDerosa5@aol.com Subject: Re: yip yip yip yip yip Natalie, viz the Fegmilitia, offered five words: The upper peninsula of Moose. I'm there, though Michigan already has militias. But we'd be the cool, nonmilitaristic one (well, except for the nerdy Star Trek uniforms). I wonder if we could get Robyn to design us some pretty camo? What would that look like? plus we could have a garden, plant bright fresh flowers, and use a homemade compost of the flowers of intolerance and hatred to nourish them. and shoot stuff. cool, dave ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 9 Apr 1999 20:31:03 EDT From: MARKEEFE@aol.com Subject: Re: random th ought In a message dated 99-04-09 20:05:58 EDT, you write: << i bet the differences in communication styles between people inclined to get up on stage and yowl their innermost feelings or narratives, or word salad, or whatever else comes into their pointy little heads (speaking as one, mind you) and people who _don't_ are probably as significant as anything else. >> But I'd also bet that the differences *amongst* those people who write/perform/record music is also "significant" (sorry to use a statistics term there). I'd guess that for most people, the reason for performing is basically the same: looking for some sort of validation. But different people can get this validation in different ways, even through the same medium. That is to say, one singer/songwriter type person might just want to feel that his/her thoughts and feelings are understood, while another might want to be desired/worshipped as some sort of an icon in order to make up for feelings of worthlessness felt in childhood -- at least, that's why *I* would wanna do it! ;-) But, yeah, you're probably right. Musicians probably *are* a skewed sampling of the general populace. Maybe all Joel will be able to say is that female musicians communicate in one way and that male musicians communicate in another. - ------Michael K. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 09 Apr 1999 19:30:03 -0700 From: Joel Mullins Subject: I'm out of this shit!! Linguistics This is my final word on the matter. Though I will reply individually to those of you who posted ideas about the subject instead of just complaints. Do I think men should have to act like X and women act like Y just because of their gender? Hell no! I'm not exactly what you'd call a man's man. I don't like sports. When I was in high school, I spent my Friday nights in Houston's theater district going to ballets and musicals. I like show tunes. I like love stories. I enjoy poetry and nonviolence. I even like flowers. These are not things your average American male would say. Am I weird because of this? Maybe. I don't really care. But no matter how different I might be from a lot of men in this world, I still have a lot of the same characteristics, particularly in my relationships with women. I'm scared to open up for fear of being taken advantage of or humiliated. I'm a tad selfish with my time and I always have to be in control, especially when it comes to driving. Is this bad? I don't know. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. My point is that I'm both different and the same as most American males in my age-group. I would rather not be lumped into some category. I understand that you guys don't want this either. But it still happens. A lot of people think I'm gay because I'm not into sports and I have friends who are gay. But I don't care what other people think. On the other hand, every girl I've ever been with has at some point said "Fuck you, Joel!! You're just like every other man. You're an asshole!" That may be. So, there are two different groups of people in my life placing me in two completely different categories. Now *that's* what I call interesting! I didn't create these categories. But I understand that people feel the need to place me in one. So, I'm not gonna get my feelings hurt just because someone says I'm one thing or another. I'm aware that these trends exist and that they exist in me as well as in everyone else. And I think looking at these trends is pretty interesting. Sorry I ruined everyone's day. Jesus Christ!! You guys need to lighten up a little. Smoke a bowl or something. Joel ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 09 Apr 1999 19:48:51 -0700 From: Joel Mullins Subject: Re: Linguistics of song Aaron Mandel wrote: > by the way, i think looking > at popular songs as certain kinds of linguistic behavior is a very dicey > idea due to the economic pressures (i.e. the extent to which a popular > song is not even really created by the 'songwriter') but whatever. This is exactly it! You look at the trends and then ask yourself "what does this say about the society or culture in which we live?" Something like that. Can anyone explain this better? Joel ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 09 Apr 1999 20:00:52 -0700 From: Joel Mullins Subject: Re: random th ought dmw wrote: > not to mention the fact that a great many songwriters > (certainly including robyn h., for example) consciously play > with gender roles and communication styles as _part_ of their art. And any good literary critic would be aware of this fact. The first thing you learn about literary criticism is that you NEVER say something like "when Robyn Hitchcock says [insert lyric], he seems to be....." You never assume that the author and the persona of the work are one and the same. I'm not sure this is what you're talking about. Joel ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 8 Apr 1999 21:04:38 -0600 From: amadain Subject: Re: The linguistic differences blah blah >> about anyone here, necessarily, this is a -general- comment) to think >> they've FOUND THE TRUTH ABOUT WOMAN'S EXPERIENCE, and get really angry at >> me for not validating this belief for them by going hogwild over >Well, how can we ever "find the truth to your experience" if we don't >make any attempt to study what makes us different in the first place. I'd say one way would be to ask me, rather than to tell me that Alanis Morissette is a woman's spokesperson and then get mad if I say she doesn't speak for me. If I came up to you and insisted that I had the dirt on the male experience cause I'd been listening to Leonard Cohen, and then gotten angry when you said that the fact that he's male doesn't mean he necessarily speaks for all men, you'd think I was a loon, and rightly so. >Well, we're never gonna learn to put the toliet-seat down, or what to do >for you on >your birthday, I'm also one of those weird chicks that doesn't care if you put the seat down or not, and in fact, oddly enough, I've lived with male friends/lovers for several years now and none of them have had a real problem with remembering this. I's perfectly capable of asking you, though, if that or anything else chances to bother me. You would know because I said something, not because Alanis was bitching about it and Alanis speaks for WOMYN! "Sorry to bother you in the middle of dinner, but the lid was up AGAIN, asswipe!" :) Anyways, I think that's more a matter of forgetfulness in individuals and not specifically attributable to a gender divide. As for what anyone does for my birthday, I'm pretty much honestly just happy with the thought, as long as you don't give me something that is very obviously actually for yourself, e.g., Bulls season tickets. I can't say that this has been a problem for the men I've known, but experience varies. Love on ya, Susan ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 9 Apr 1999 18:47:43 -0800 From: Eb Subject: Incidentally I had a really chilling dream last night, which seemed to predict my own demise, fast approaching. So if I don't post for a week or so in the near future, just assume I'm pushing up daisies somewhere. Hmm...I'm driving all the way up to Pasadena tomorrow, for the wedding. Perhaps I'll get zapped by the drunken Saturday-night drivers on the way back. Signing off (?), Eb ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 9 Apr 1999 18:47:42 -0700 From: "Partridge, John" Subject: RE: Linguistics of song I applaud everyone's effort at charting the wide range of opinion on this topic but feel that at least one extreme has remained unarticulated. I put it to the group that value judgments are good, especially when they result in a conclusion about right and wrong. To avoid passing judgment with a wave of the "it's not right or wrong it's just different" hand is to betray yourself and your capacity for intelligent thought. The reason value judgements (I'm spelling it with an 'e' this time to hedge my bets) are so important is that they enforce intellectual honesty. That is, if I find myself concluding that X is bad but reflect that many things very similar to X are good, then I've got some more analysis to do. Or, if I find that others whose opinion I respect believe X is good, then I have to identify where my analysis departs from their's. So, on to specifics: > I mean, people express themselves individually and any generalization you > make about "the way women communicate vs. men" is just so much contrived > bullshit. It's like saying "the way people with freckles communicate vs. > those without freckles". > What's so contrived about it? If you can find any attribute that yields a differential response between the sexes (e.g., "Do you like Three Stooges") then you've found an empirically proven generalization. Personally, I think it's trivially simple to find sex-differentiating questions and quite hard to find freckle-differentiating questions. Consequently, I don't yet believe people with freckles communicate any differently. > So there you have it. For each non-biometric trait you can point out > about women in general, I can find a man who shares that trait. You > cannot speak of particular things like "the way one communicates" in > general terms. You MIGHT be able to make some kind of guess as to what > MOST do, but what good is that when each individual works on their own > principles independent of the majority? Fooey to that. We're talking about groupings, trends, etc.; not the fact that there's overlap between the normal distributions of both groups. And the good it does me is it saves me time, effort, and other resources. For example, I've noticed that most pieces of green bread taste a lot worse than white bread. So now if I see a piece of green bread, I don't even try it. I don't even give it a chance. I don't spend any time getting to know it. I don't learn what the piece of bread is *as an individual*. This works fine for bread and it works fine for people too (whether you admit it or not). Statistically speaking, southpaws live shorter than right-handed people. So I conclude that it's better to be right-handed. That's my value judgement. Statistically speaking, females care about interpersonal relationships more than men (I'm reffering to Carol Gilligan's research). So I conclude females make better psychologists. (Never mind that I despise psychology as a profession.) Find me a difference and I'll find a value judgment to match it! Anyway, by this time you should be as bored with all the sturm und drang as I am. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 9 Apr 1999 18:54:18 -0700 (PDT) From: S Dwarf Subject: Re: Linguistics of song Christopher Gross wrote: > Two comments. First, I tend to think that there may > well be differences between men's and women's styles > of communication, but I think they will be in the > form of *tendencies*. In other words, you might find > that men are more likely to [x] and women are more > likely to [y], but you won't find that men never [y] > and women never [x]. shouldn't this be verse visa? ;) as for the differences between men and women, well i'd just say that 90% of them are because people don't fight their programming in any way. they just listen to their celine dion record, drink their skim soy decaf lattes with sweet'n'low, and then moo. _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 09 Apr 1999 22:23:27 +0000 (GMT) From: Michael Wolfe Subject: Re: Linguistics of song Okey. Let me just preface this by saying that I'm in complete agreement with what Michael Keefe said, 100%. I do think that it's possible to add to what he said, however. >So there you have it. For each non-biometric trait you can >point out about women in general, I can find a man who shares >that trait. Ok, maybe. But as long as we're talking about biometric and non-biometric traits, let me just assert this: there is no such thing as a disembodied intelligence. How we think and how we communicate is inextricably linked to our physical presence. More than just because of the fact that our thoughts and feelings are the direct result of brain physics and chemistry, the way that we talk is indelibly marked by our connection to the physical world. If you were to write me an email, saying that you wanted to catch a movie on Friday night, I might say something like "sounds pretty good", even though no auditory stimulus was actually registered (heck, even "catching" a movie is an expression mired in a physical manifestation.) Or if I get a note saying that the Fremont bridge is on fire, I might say that it "looks bad", even though I can't see the bridge on fire at all. In order to communicate how I feel about something, I have to artificially generate a proxy physical experience -- an act of perception that never took place! Our language is full of such idioms, too. Get your foot in the door. He dropped the ball. This situation stinks. Twist my arm. We're _always_ referencing the physical. Of course, it's natural that most of these references go directly through a particular sense, as our senses are our connection to the physical world. But the point is, you can't just take the mind out of the body, and that indeed, because ALL of the information that the mind gets comes through the body, the body is really the ONLY thing that defines the mind. And, conversely, when you consider this very intimate connection between body and mind, it becomes apparent that everything that the body experiences will have a hand in how the mind works. Now, for perceptual purposes, both sexes are identical. Two eyes, two ears, two nostrils, one tongue, and gobs of tactile nerves. No problem there. Because of this, I think that there is no reason why there should not be a huge overlap in the ranges of personalities of men and women, or, in fact, a complete overlap (just with different distributions for different sexes.) But the inarguable fact is that men's and women's bodies are different. I don't think for a minute that having a menstrual cycle is THE defining characteristic for half of humanity's minds, not at all. Or that having to deal with facial hair is for the other half. But because our minds and our bodies are so inextricably linked, I think that these traits (and all of those that are peculiar to one sex or the other) do exert a force on their respective genders' mental development. It's not defining, and it doesn't overwhelm the huge contributions made by the characteristics that we all share as humans. But it is there. >You cannot speak of particular things like "the way one >communicates" in general terms. You MIGHT be able to make some >kind of guess as to what MOST do, but what good is that when >each individual works on their own principles independent of the >majority? Well Jeme, a guess about what most people of a certain gender (or whatever) do is useful because it gives some kind of indication of what forces are being exerted on those people. If I say, "Aha! There is a statistically significant correlation between people with red hair and tiddly-wink players!" this is useful. NOT because I can then make predictions about individual people with red hair ("Geena Davis must be an awesome tiddly-wink player!") but because then I can say, well, what societal (or physical, or historical, or what-have-you) force pushes on red haired people to become tiddly-wink players? If tiddly-winking is thought to be a social evil, and William Bennett gets appointed to be Tiddly-Wink Czar, this can be very useful. And then, studying the red haired people who haven't got the slightest interest in tiddly-winks can be useful, too, because you can look at that population and see what variety of forces THEY experienced to "Just Say No to Tiddly-Winks." Of course, you will also have some non-red haired tiddlers, and then you can see if there is some pressure that the blonde tiddlers feel similar to what the red haired tiddlers feel, or if the blondes tiddle for entirely different reasons. Of course, my example is tongue in cheek, but I hope that you can see what I'm getting at. For a more concrete example, replace "tiddly-winks" with "bulemia", and "red haired people" with "women." I think that it's a pretty well accepted fact that more women are bulemic than men. Is that a sexist statement? Technically, perhaps, I suppose. But knowing that, I don't automatically assume that any individual woman that I meet at random is bulemic. I think that the point of the research in that area is very much what I just described: to figure out what forces are exerted on women (and not men) that cause this correlation to exist. Acknowledging this does not mean think that it's their (women's) fault, or that all women are bulemic, and it's not evidence of some character defect or any of that rot. - -Michael Wolfe ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V8 #133 *******************************