Ms. X Advises Women on the Niceties of Posting Like Men
You’ve had it with the condescension and the lectures and the vaguely dismissive remarks that are your lot as woman, right? You decide to change all that, courtesy of the Net, where there’s a keyboard shortcut to the level playing field of your dreams. You pick out a likely forum, type in a gender neutral screen name, and take your new persona for a spin. Sex change is easy, and reversible, on the web!
If you want to remain a man in name only, you're done. If not, read on for tips on sounding like the guy you always wanted to be. Let me spare you one disappointing surprise upfront. Gender bending doesn’t stop the patronizing and the put-downs, because that’s actually how men treat each other too. It gets worse, not better, so come prepared to talk the talk in a world where everything you need to know stems from a single, simple truth:
There is no such thing as a man among equals.
Keep that in mind and you can’t go far wrong. It’s one guy per rung on the masculine ladder, and here’s what that looks like in the not-so-wide world of web debate:
Tip of the food chain, or toast.
You’re either top dog material, which means you hand the lectures down, or you’re the underdog who’s expected to do the listening (or the sucking) up. There’s no in between, and the importance of establishing which end of the stick you get cannot be overstated.
Don’t leave home without ad hominems.
Irrefutable logic has a lulling effect and cannot be relied on to make your (superior) status sufficiently clear. You do that by casting aspersions of a personal nature. It’s a rare man who has the confidence to slice and dice his fellows with the kind of subtlety which might be missed, so don’t be discouraged if your insults seem awkward at first. Trust me on this one and give it a whirl; you have no idea how much you’re going to enjoy it.
You can start out disparaging your counterpart’s education, experience, bias, intelligence, and, in a pinch, his manhood -- all standard fare – and move on to more imaginative slams when you realize just how much crap guys give each other without going to pieces over it. Gratuitous disdain is especially effective when tossed into a deceptively reasonable missive at the last possible moment. Like an irritating wake-up call, it will jumpstart a flagging controversy every time, or derail it entirely – which still counts as a win in certain circles, even if you’ve actually lost the argument on points.
Accommodating needy people is not your job!
Got it? Not your job. Making other people comfortable is women’s work. Do not lapse into concern for the fragile ego of the guy you’re crushing, even when he suddenly reminds you of someone you care about. Let him get the encouraging words he needs from his mother. Your challenger either expects evisceration or deserves it. Making mincemeat is a man’s job, and men never waste time feeling guilty about it.
Mea culpas are optional.
The occasional “I was wrong” won’t hurt your standing (you’ll use it to demonstrate your evenhandedness later), but don’t let it become a habit. If you’re blogging, make corrections, not apologies. Link assiduously to entries where you got it right, no matter how trivial the prediction. Expressing appreciation is risky in this status-conscious universe, so confine it to gestures of false modesty.
Excise weasel words and the appearance of doubt.
Ruthlessly eliminate qualifiers and patently defensive add-ons like, “perhaps,” or “I believe.” There are far less obvious ways to secure the plausible deniability you need. Even when opining on a topic you know zip about, do not be tempted by the humble IMO, because at some point, you’re going to accuse your opposition of parading opinion as fact. Should you, despite admonition, feel compelled to issue disclaimers, the options break on partisan, not gender, lines. If you hail from the right, substitute “evidence suggests…” If you slant left, use the ubiquitous “everyone knows…”
All your demographics are belong to us.
Never go for consensus, when you can call the vote. If you can’t counter a poll you don’t like with one you do, you just aren’t trying. Lay claim to a majority of any kind, anywhere, and you rule. If you’re stuck with a minority position, devote a day to the classics, starting with How to Lie with Statistics. It will make your math phobia look downright healthy. You’ll be manipulating percentages in no time flat, and you’ll never have to accept anybody else’s numbers, on any subject, ever again.
Don’t cry uncle yet, ever.
When all else fails, seek no mercy; start standing on your rights like crazy. Men love to wrap themselves in rights, where, as noted above, women think in terms of filling needs. The sexes differ fundamentally in how they define what’s fair and what is not – but we digress! No matter the debate, if you can take an inalienable stand, you’re home free; you’d be amazed, though, at what you can successfully shoe-horn into a rights based Hail Mary pass.
If the opposition beats you to it, don’t panic. Quasiblogger may contend that Godwin’s Law should have a Santayana corollary, but to date, the helpful Mr. S still resides in your official toolbox. You can find a way to accuse almost anyone of ignoring his trusty maxim. Other nuclear options include expressing repugnance for your counterpart’s ends-justify-the-means philosophy or summarily quoting Voltaire. Pulling out Jefferson, of course, is always appropriate. What he lacks in cachet, he recoups in sheer utility; he makes John Kerry look like a piker when it comes to having taken multiple – and in Jefferson’s case, quotable -- positions on almost any conceivable issue.
And with that, we stray into non gender-specific realms, so we’ll bring this weekend exercise to a close. You spineless sisters can tune in next week, when, if I’ve got nothing better to do, I’ll outline your Peggy-Noonan-Aren’t-We-Precious options.
Poor widdle you! :P
Posted by: Towering Barbarian | March 31, 2005 at 05:55 PM