Rationalization Hamsters

[Dali_tx_o]

Hello gentlemen of SoSuave.

As I immersed myself in reading Chateu Heartiste, Rational Male and old SoSuave posts, one of the repeating themes was the "Rationalization Hamster" that all women have.

Earlier today I was helping an older woman (80+ years) that I respect and have certain ties with; She needed a greenhouse refurbished, and I spent good 6 hours on this simple task before I finally left in rage - and I do not remember the last time I reacted in such way.

A little background:
I'm younger, and even though have previous experience in engineering/constructing on a lot more challenging tasks, the woman in question had her fair share of experience due to age. She was also single for last 20-30 years, after the death of her husband, thus relied on herself for last years without anyone to provide outside input/help much.

Why rage? This woman spent 80% of the time completely disregarding and not repsecting my opinion, preventing me from doing my work and bossing me around. She would not listen to me trying to explain (words, drawings, planks and nails, everything I could think of) my ideas with the excuse of "I don't have time for that, I need this built!", resulting in poor decisions that required a lot more resources (time/material wise), and for which I was blamed.

Before reading about Rationalization Hamster, I would have regarded this episode as simply something that old people do, however, now I'm in somewhat curious; Yes, this is a simple greenhouse refurbishment, and however petty it may sound, I'd like to look at it as a metaphor for my question.

Could it be that rationalization hamster extends from the dating/sexual market, into everyday tasks? Could it be that most women, when performing any everyday tasks that involve logical/practical decisions, rely heavily on their own ego preservation, without any consideration to the fallout of their (lack of) decisions/actions, to an extent that is actually damaging to the end result? If so, could it be that the hamster phenomenon be used to advantage in everyday situations that have nothing to do with dating?

I understand, this may be an age thing, and quite a few older people become stubborn and want everything done "their way", however, I found that men can often be reasoned with. Women, unless done in a very coy way, will never listen to any reasoning. Looking back to similar situations with younger woman, there seems to be a similar ignorance throughout, whereas rarely I find men acting in such way (always being "100% right" in their mind)

What is your pick on this? Or am I just confusing this with something else?

 

[Purefilth]

You are 100% correct here sir. I have noticed these things too (especially as I am in the construction trade).

I do have examples, but they would be similar to yours (ecxept for the age).

i think her age may be able to account for SOME of the stubbornness, but yeah...

 

[foreverAFC]

Could it be that most women, when performing any everyday tasks that involve logical/practical decisions, rely heavily on their own ego preservation, without any consideration to the fallout of their (lack of) decisions/actions, to an extent that is actually damaging to the end result?

YES

 

[goundra]

Just another example about how BADLY women need men. Men don't really need women at all, other than for preservation of the species, which a great many of us don't care about at all. We just want them around as decoration and ego-pump status symbols, mostly. A few women are decent companions, even if not really worth much, in practical terms.

 

[Purefilth]

Just another example about how BADLY women need men. Men don't really need women at all, other than for preservation of the species, which a great many of us don't care about at all. We just want them around as decoration and ego-pump status symbols, mostly. A few women are decent companions, even if not really worth much, in practical terms.

SO TRUE.

 

[goundra]

no,man, NOTHING I say can POSSIBLY be accurate, just ask a bunch of punks here, they will set you straight.

 

[Purefilth]

no,man, NOTHING I say can POSSIBLY be accurate, just ask a bunch of punks here, they will set you straight.

Sh1t my bad!

Ummm Thats quite a paradigm.... If nothing you say is true..... but you just got quoted for truth by me.... then is a black hole about to appear or something to put the world to rights?

 

[Zarky]

I dunno OP, the old biddy is pushing 90, I'm not sure you can generalize much to other (young) women. I mean, do women judge all guys based upon the antics of 90 year old men?

Hope not. When my gramps was in the nursing home at that age they once found him in bed with a strange woman and his underwear in the refrigerator.

 

[Dali_tx_o]

Zarky - I do think age has an important factor in this situation; However, this woman does seem to be in a very good mental/physical condition for her age, and I would not be surprised if she's got another 10-15 years left - I do not remember the last time she had any health problems, she spends the whole day working in the outdoors, does not watch TV, eats only very healthy food etc., so I do believe that this could be not just an age thing.

I was entertaining the idea that the age and condition (living on her own and only relying on herself for last few decades) of this woman may have caused her "hamster", for a lack of a better phrase, to be taken out to extreme. I wouldn't tend to generalize all women as such based on this lone example, however, the more I think of it, the more of such behavior I noticed in the past with younger women. Allow me to expand on this in a minute.

It is interesting to see that I am not the only one to notice this, and I'd be very interested in hearing a bit more on your experiences, Purefilth; My main occupation is in a rather masculine sphere where I rarely get an opportunity to deal with women, so I only had limited day-to-day cases of such situations. Nevertheless, recalling my conversations with friends (including one I had yesterday evening before writing this post), most of them who had women as their bosses (director positions/managers etc.) seem to confirm my thinking.

Given the anecdotal evidence, I did a bit of research and tried to draw up a small list of repeating themes where women are in power-positions (Although I tried to isolate tendencies that could not be accounted to other reasons such as plain poor leadership etc., this is in no way a proper research, more of a speculation):

1) Credit is rarely given to subordinates; More often it is taken by the woman in power, or shared with her close circle of subordinates (see point 2);
2) The positions/benefits/credit in work environment tend to be more based on inter-personal relationships with the aforementioned woman, but not on achievements of individuals;
3) Such women tend to be single, have trouble in dating market/low SMV value;
4) Such women very rarely admit to being wrong or take responsibility for bad decisions, even if it is plain obvious to everyone; Given a situation where they get cornered, they are more likely to throw ridiculous and illogical tantrums or try to shift the situation/blame on somebody else so they end up "right".
5) A person who has more qualifications/experience than them in a some field is often disregarded in decision making process, often resulting in not optimal final outcome (correlation - the more woman "thinks" she has/should have experience in the field, the more likely she is to outcast another experienced specialist)

This little list comes from my personal experience and stories of my friends. Women that were described span ages 25-80+, and have different vocations - directors, higher-up positions in governmental agencies, lecturers, managers and so on; Younger the woman with lower positions seem to have only a portion of the listed traits (one may have first three, another one last two and so on, however, given a sample of 20-30 women, these 5 themes seem to be recurring), while as their age/power increases, so does the prevalence of all five themes listed for each woman;

I should also note, I am talking about Europe, countries where feminization is not that advanced, so I'm not sure how this pans out to US, or even outside of my limited sample.

What I am interested now is finding out if this could be more than just my imagination, but perhaps an actual social occurrence.

Additionally, if it is so, exploring some possible ways of how to deal with such women to greater advantage.

Again, anecdotal evidence/limited experience, however, insinuation seems to be very effective with such women; By dropping little hints of "how something could be done for the best outcome", women tend to follow suggested ideas (of course, taking credit for everything, given the bitter stories shared); This works especially well when NOT discussing the actual topic in question, and when done from a lower-value postion (i.e., not trying to establish ones expertise in the field, but more likely when having a personal communication about something else and seeming rather vulnerable, someone who would not actually stand up and say "Hey, that was MY idea!").

Any thoughts?

 

[Who Dares Win]

My work does not involve women in that way however I may say that already from high school any woman in a position of power is a pain in the ass most of the times, even back there your marks werent much about what you create but how you fit in her "kingdom".

Partecipation marks = how much the teacher likes you mark

You have more chances of getting high marks by making questions about her personal stories shared in class then by completing a test with great answers.

 

[bluenorther]

I shoe horses at the riding stables and almost all my clients are women. In 18 years I've learned a lot that most horse owners will never deal with. I can't tell you how many times I've been thrown under the bus because some woman disagreed with a job I did or a point I wanted to make. One example was the barn bully who took it on herself to decide how my client's horse should be shod-- by having another shoer take her shoes off and leave her barefoot. The horse had never gone barefoot. I let my riding instructor/client deal with this b!tch while I went to work and produced a job that fit in with the horse's front leg arthritis. The riding instructor saw the finished result and approved. The next time I went back, the horse had been re-shod all over again and my work had been tossed in the trash.
I've wanted to talk the barn owner about it but he's never around long enough.

 

[Burroughs]

Women are designed to be the property of men

they are fit only to bear his children and care for the family

that is all

folks dis-regard Zarky's *advice*

he/she is well known to be a post opp transexual who has been trolling the internet for decades