Saturday, July 07, 2007

Heh. I Hate It When I'm Right

Yesterday, I made a rather disputatious claim over a news item that has been heralded as a "See? I told you so" moment, to-wit:
12) Men talk as much as women? This study is deeply flawed. They used college kids, which is a little like asking someone on cocaine to do a sleep study. Better they should have asked married men, who have learned to shut up if they want to have sex.
Never trust a scientist when you have me around, folks...

Today comes this little item from the University of Iowa:
NEW YORK, July 6 (Reuters Life!) - Men might still dominate most workplaces but a study has proven what many happy couples know -- the wife runs the roost at home and the husband is happy to let her.

A team of researchers from Iowa State University studied 72 couples and found that the wife's view on how to solve problems within the marriage or the home took precedence over the husband's opinion and he was happy to accept that.

"The women were communicating more powerful messages and men were responding to those messages by agreeing or giving in," Associate Professor of Psychology David Vogel, one of the leaders of the study, said in a statement.
In other words, the men were, um, shutting up because they wanted to have sex. *Ahem*

What's particularly gloating in this little iconoclast's demeanor today is the fact that any number of female conservative bloggers were dumb enough to swallow the original story whole, as if, *poof* somehow at 20, a boy becomes a man, and wringing their hands with glee. (Don't follow the link unless you're really in need of a laugh)

If they fucked this obviously flawed story up, is it any wonder they could swallow bigger fish stories that they were fed at the zippers of their patriarchs, like somehow, Iraq had anything to do with 9/11?

I will admit and give credit, of course, that the interactions of conservative women tend to be around conservative males, and that conservative males tend to be, well, less manly and more womanly, and then, too, there's the whole thing on the right about women being "seen and not heard" to be dealt with, but still, it's OK to hold two divergent thoughts in your head at the same time, ladies, and realize that maybe your personal experience is not how the world itself works.

For me, I've learned across the span of my life, from my mom and my sister to any number of partners, right down to my daughter, that on the whole, women are smarter and savvier than men, so I shut up and listen to them.

Because, you see, I am a man.