S
Sierrah
Guest
Yeah being a completely noncompetitive person I’ve never thought about it that way but that might be part of the problem. For me the more active I become the more enjoyment I get the more of a challenge I want to give myself. Like instead of just hiking 2 or 3 miles at a time I like to do 10 or 15 mile hikes to push myself but I’m not trying to go against anyone.I have found over my lifetime (60 years so far) that most men and boys hate competitive women who excel in something that the men cannot do. That includes sports, but also may include intellectual pursuits, playing “Trivial Pursuit” or “Risk”, or diagnosing problems with the car. I was told back in the Fifties that the way to gettaman was to always act as if you are not as smart, not as strong, not as capable and not as well informed as he is – and to oooh and coo at everything he does and says, because men just simply cannot stand to be outdone by girls. (This was when men were men and women were girls.) A man broken an engagement with me once because I correctly diagnosed a serious problem with his car that literally could have killed us both (the manifold had a hole in it and the air conditioner was pulling CO into the car) after he had contemptuously told me that “Girls don’t know anything about cars.”
I found when I got into my forties that weak, dependent, unsuccessful men adore competitive, active women because they can leach off us. A certain kind of strong and domineering man also likes competitive active women, because it is his desire to break us down.
When I passed fifty and was no longer marriage bait and could be treated as “one of the boys”, I suddenly had way more boy chums than all the other women…and I was just exactly the same as I had been all my life long.
In Mensa we girls (20% of the membership) used to say, “Dumb men like smart women. Smart men like dumb women.” You could substitute “uncompetitive” or “submissive” for “dumb” with ease, I think.