[GetTheDudeDotCom]

A man I was very much involved with got me into the job I have currently. We are no long seeing each other.

I dress as neatly as the job permits, always wear earrings, often wear make up although a ton of suncreen can vanish that pretty quick. My clothing leaves no doubt as to my gender - I'm not into drab or baggy. My tools on my truck are all painted pink. I always wear gloves when doing anything messy. I tease about having to work smart cause I can't work strong.

I don't know how old you are but I've been dealing with this since I was the first girl in my school district to take drafting in 1971. I'm hardly unattractive. I'm just about sick of the BS, I'm not an airhead obsessed with hair and fingernails and I won't pretend to be. I know how to walk and move in heels and a dress - something few young women seem to know. I clean up pretty darned good.
I see this as a male insecurity issue.

You're a boomer and I'm Gen X. I've had this disconnect before when discussing relationship dynamics in these terms with boomer women. This is not how about how you dress or what you do. It's about energy and vibe. These are metaphors for how you present yourself in the world as vocal tone, body language, word choice, courting vs. business strategies, etc. And if you subscribe to the concept of chi, or energy, it goes even deeper than that.

Because you were at the forefront of the feminist movement in many ways, you bear the battle scars of the war of the sexes. Generation X does not. We just feel the confusion that resulted from our parents blurring the lines between workplace and relationships. It's something that many boomers are not aware of in their children. It's a completely different dynamic from what you experienced.

[WildChild]

You're a boomer and I'm Gen X. I've had this disconnect before when discussing relationship dynamics in these terms with boomer women. This is not how about how you dress or what you do. It's about energy and vibe. These are metaphors for how you present yourself in the world as vocal tone, body language, word choice, courting vs. business strategies, etc. And if you subscribe to the concept of chi, or energy, it goes even deeper than that.

Because you were at the forefront of the feminist movement in many ways, you bear the battle scars of the war of the sexes. Generation X does not. We just feel the confusion that resulted from our parents blurring the lines between workplace and relationships. It's something that many boomers are not aware of in their children. It's a completely different dynamic from what you experienced.

Very perceptive. I am aware of this.
But I don't know that the dynamics are so very different.
My generation experienced it but it a more direct manner. The clear message in childhood, to girls, was that your primary role in life was to marry and have children. As we got older the message changed. You may not be familiar with the old Virginia Slims commercials but they caught it in a nut shell - bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan and never let him forget he's a man and do it in an evening gown.
If you spend some time and do some reading here you will find a significant number of young women who still buy into the idea that the ring and long white dress should be their primary goals.

Yes I do bear the scars, I've taken some very direct hits for daring to step out of the gender lines and I'm still taking them dealing with men in my age group and dare I say it, some younger. Don't think for a minute that there isn't still some very strong prejudist and even animosity from a good sized segment of Gen X men toward women who step out of the lines. The primary difference I see is that the men no longer feel any shame at expecting a woman to support them financially rather than emotionally and from the home front. My guess would be that you aren't in construction or any other type of 'labor' based work?

The stats still aren't pretty for women. We actually make less to a man's dollar now than 25 yrs ago, there is still an insignificant percentage of women in top corporate positions, (you can research the law suit brought against some of the big dogs in the financial trade for retaining only men -even when they had poorer performance records - in the aftermath of the financial melt down. The book I recommened here as my must read, "book of the year" deals with the need for more female leadership and what happens when we have it.
Technolgical change comes rapidly, social change is much slower and often traumatic.

[Hopeless Dork]

We may have come along way but I think there is still a majority of women that equate getting married to achieving success as a person and fullfilling their destiny. I know we've had lots of threads on this recently, but the other day I was watching some show where the girls pick out their wedding gowns... and the mothers and the sisters help them choose and the way some of the mothers would carry on like... as if their daughter had just came up with a new vaccine, how they were beeming with pride because their daughter had been chosen to be someones wife... well... it made my stomach turn lol.

I think some moms are more proud of their daughters getting married than they are of them achieving college degrees or becoming successful at work so while that is still the attitude society has... we haven't quite come far enough. Just think of family gatherings ... if there is a single woman, she can talk about how well her school or job is going and no one cares... all the aunts want to know "when are you going to get married?" "let me set you up with this man... or that man".

There is this idea that a woman hasn't made it unless she has a husband, and its pretty sad. But everything you said WC in an earlier post ... if you ask too many questions you're seen as incompetent, if you know too many answers you're seen as a know it all in the work place situations... Nail on head there. Even the nicest woman is seen as a BWord if she is in charge of a situation.

[GetTheDudeDotCom]

Very perceptive. I am aware of this.
But I don't know that the dynamics are so very different.
My generation experienced it but it a more direct manner. The clear message in childhood, to girls, was that your primary role in life was to marry and have children. As we got older the message changed. You may not be familiar with the old Virginia Slims commercials but they caught it in a nut shell - bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan and never let him forget he's a man and do it in an evening gown.
If you spend some time and do some reading here you will find a significant number of young women who still buy into the idea that the ring and long white dress should be their primary goals.

You do have the advantage of living through the changes themselves. We were born into them. So the confusion you feel is raw and you can trace the origin of it within your own life experience. We Gen Xers carry around an incoherent and sometimes intractable mishmash of beliefs and prejudices AND we don't know how we GOT THEM! You know how they got there, but we don't have the historical perspective and the first hand experience. We just run around with our own particular version of how the sexes should behave and clash with others that don't line up with us. And then we don't know why we're miserable and not connecting with each other.

Yes I do bear the scars, I've taken some very direct hits for daring to step out of the gender lines and I'm still taking them dealing with men in my age group and dare I say it, some younger. Don't think for a minute that there isn't still some very strong prejudist and even animosity from a good sized segment of Gen X men toward women who step out of the lines. The primary difference I see is that the men no longer feel any shame at expecting a woman to support them financially rather than emotionally and from the home front. My guess would be that you aren't in construction or any other type of 'labor' based work?

Very, very true. Each GenXer has inherited a set of beliefs from both parents and his peers and so each of us is different. Gen X men can be sexist too as a legacy probably from fathers who resented the changes you experienced first hand. And this weird entitlement to have the woman support him is also very strange and anti-masculine as these men probably have no purpose in their lives. But also witness the Gen X man who was raised by his feminist mother to be nice, sensitive, and catering toward women to the point of compromising his innate masculinity. That example of a man has no concept of how to appeal to a woman in a masculine way.

I am not a man who works with his hands, no. Other than computers/typing/writing.

The stats still aren't pretty for women. We actually make less to a man's dollar now than 25 yrs ago, there is still an insignificant percentage of women in top corporate positions, (you can research the law suit brought against some of the big dogs in the financial trade for retaining only men -even when they had poorer performance records - in the aftermath of the financial melt down. The book I recommened here as my must read, "book of the year" deals with the need for more female leadership and what happens when we have it.
Technolgical change comes rapidly, social change is much slower and often traumatic.

It's a sad reality that women are still not taken seriously in the workplace nor paid equally. (There are many progressive companies and organizations out there, though.) There is much room for empathy in the workplace, and the world at large too. Women don't usually wage wars as casually as men do.

[GetTheDudeDotCom]

We may have come along way but I think there is still a majority of women that equate getting married to achieving success as a person and fullfilling their destiny. I know we've had lots of threads on this recently, but the other day I was watching some show where the girls pick out their wedding gowns... and the mothers and the sisters help them choose and the way some of the mothers would carry on like... as if their daughter had just came up with a new vaccine, how they were beeming with pride because their daughter had been chosen to be someones wife... well... it made my stomach turn lol.

I think some moms are more proud of their daughters getting married than they are of them achieving college degrees or becoming successful at work so while that is still the attitude society has... we haven't quite come far enough. Just think of family gatherings ... if there is a single woman, she can talk about how well her school or job is going and no one cares... all the aunts want to know "when are you going to get married?" "let me set you up with this man... or that man".

There is this idea that a woman hasn't made it unless she has a husband, and its pretty sad. But everything you said WC in an earlier post ... if you ask too many questions you're seen as incompetent, if you know too many answers you're seen as a know it all in the work place situations... Nail on head there. Even the nicest woman is seen as a BWord if she is in charge of a situation.

Some men don't yet have an appreciation or and understanding of a woman exercising masculine energy in the name of a business goal. This is the area where women can rightfully say that these men are afraid the woman's gonna be better at "being the man" than they are. For the man, he see her threatening his birthright as a man. I say to those men, just drop it. If you can't cooperate, then what are you doing there? Is there not a common goal to serve? Women have had some lead time practicing with their masculine sides. Many men have not had much practice with their feminine sides yet to complete the picture. There is balance in there.

This duality I keep talking about is in fact the level of understanding we all need to have in order to connect and dissolve conflict. Appreciation of ourselves and others for who we are is critical. Judgement is best cast aside. I hang out here to let the women know that there are men out there like me who are working to build bridges between the sexes and heal the separation left in the wake of the "war of the sexes."