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On moral compasses, women, and men — 47 Comments

  1. Cappy:

    Well, women famously have a poorer sense of direction than men.

    Perhaps that’s why 🙂 .

  2. Well, wish I hadn’t seen that clip. Now I won’t be able watch her in anything without seeing her hand movement and baby-like enunciation of “my vagina”.

  3. I sometimes get the uncomfortable feeling that, for some people, the purpose of a conversation is to find an occasion to be shocking (e.g. by using a word not typically used in polite conversation).

    Personally, I associate this sort of behavior with a pre-pubescent stage of development.

    I don’t know if Ms. Blanchett was motivated by this or not. I’ll admit that I’m having trouble imagining an alternative motivation that sounds any better.

    For bonus points — imagine a masculine equivalent to what she said. Could any man, anywhere, say such a thing, and not be run out of town on a rail?

  4. Just for the record, the hypothetical median girl sitting next to the median boy is likely to have lower SAT scores, and likely to go to a fourth-tier college where she earns an associate’s degree is some pink collar specialty, such as medical billing (that is where the extra girls are in college, not at HYPSM), while the boy is more likely to go to trade school and learn welding or some such. If they are among the minority who earn four-year degrees, she is more likely to have a non-STEM major which leads to a lower-paying job. Also, the boy isn’t listening to the teacher anyway, so his psyche isn’t affected by her babbling.

  5. How cis-gender of her.

    But seriously, how much of what she said is designed to shock, not make a serious statement?

  6. I had a professor in law school who constantly said that women are smarter than men. Turned out that he had an affair with one of my female classmates and got caught (by chance) by a friend of mine in a motel on a Sunday morning.

  7. Daniel in Brookline:

    But I’ve heard it said many times—just not as a compliment, as in “thinking with your d—.”

  8. Daniel in Brookline:

    On a more serious note, men used to say they were morally, ethically, intellectually, and in many other ways superior. I believe it was one of the rationales for denying women the vote and other rights.

  9. Speaking of “caring.” I’m not sure “caring” is innately good. Caring can me actually helping people; it can also mean putting up a lot of bumper stickers on your electric car.

    While waiting for a bus, I once heard a woman crying hysterically while talking to her husband on the phone. From what I could tell from what she said, the husband did not want to give money to their drug addicted daughter who claimed she needed because she was sick. She couldn’t believe he wouldn’t do that. Having once had a cousin lie about having leukemia in order to get money for her meth addiction, I’m not sure he was doing wrong depending on whether or not she really was sick.

    I also don’t know how you can scientifically measure “caring” in order to tell if women are more caring than men.

  10. Speaking of men’s moral compass, I’ll never forget the visiting law professor who propositioned two of my female classmates (one married and one nearly engaged; both Catholic and who I knew from undergrad) after a boring lecture one night. We were their for the free wine and cheese. What a wake up call.

  11. Moral development and moral reasoning as a function of age and sex (not gender!) is an interesting study for psychologists like Kohlberg, but what about Natural Law, the basis of Judeo-Christian morality for all comers, for all times? There are Commandments such as “Thou shalt not commit adultery” which are elusive to the young. But the very young-18 months-olds- know “intuitively” that it is wrong to lie.
    As to wearing one’s vagina on one’s sleeve or on one’s head, vulgar tastelessness abides.
    The elites of former generations knew to avoid vulgarity at all cost. Negative publicity for them was a fate worse than death. Today these elites revel in their vulgar obscenities. Defining deviancy down takes many forms.

  12. Cate Blanchett is a fine actress and, no doubt a reasonably intelligent human being. But she just demonstrated that she’s no Camille Paglia, i.e. an independent thinker able to dig deeper than the current pc dogma.

    Demonstrated by her assertion that her moral compass resides in her vagina. Morality is independent of gender.

    However, if she meant her vagina centered morality is a consequence of either the seat of intercourse or motherhood, she violated feminist dogma.

    If she meant motherhood, then she implies that motherhood itself elevates women’s moral sensibilities to a higher level, hardly in keeping with feminist dogma. If she meant that her vagina as the seat of intercourse, elevates her moral sensibilities then she sexualizes her gender, a position that is an anathema to feminists.

    How shallow is reducing women to either Madonnas or sluts?

    Then again, Paglia asserted in the 90’s that given cultural trends in the West that the celebrity ‘Madonna’ was the future paradigm for women in the West…

    All of which leads me to conclude that Ms Blanchett has, at best an atrophied moral compass. Just a little girl pretending her way through life.

  13. This is bigotry. It’s not moral preening or virtue signalling or anything else. She clearly felt that she was right to have a v-compass, that she was better than someone who didn’t. That makes her a bigot.

  14. Celebrity women seem to have a highly visible fascination with their sexual apparatus these days. Is that healthy? I don’t profess to know. I am pretty certain that any man who spoke in such terms; i.e. “my penis is my moral compass”; would experience serious push back.

    I don’t know where the narrative began that young boys or men are naturally savages; although that seems to be the modern assumption. I think the Social Sciences (TIC) have concluded that boys develop socially, and intellectually at a different rate than do girls. One prong of the issue with boys, then, is that there is no longer any patience. There is no tolerance while a boy finds his place in society. I grew up with women teachers throughout elementary and junior high school. Those women had limits, and they enforced them strictly, and sometimes painfully. The point was that they were engaged, and they remained engaged with their boys. I am sure it was hard work. At home, usually a two family home, there was a cooperative effort in socializing the sons. Socialization is not necessarily a natural evolution for any animal species. Most who are involved understand the the stronger the spirit the more difficult the task, as any horseman, or a dog trainer will attest. Strangely, in those professions it is considered a worthwhile effort, while authority figures have adopted an attitude of zero tolerance toward human males. Kick the problems to another level; or out the door, is the easy way. This is clearly an approach with long term consequences. The second prong is that it seems to some with authoratative voices that girlish self esteem can only be enhanced if that of boys is diminished.

    There is a trend in some elements of society to value only academic achievement, and, then, primarily in certain disciplines. I was ruminating about the “Day of the Woman”, and the off-shoot movement “Days without Women”. The whole concept wreaks of feelings of inadequacy. Surely, the time has past, Ladies. Still, I thought about the consequences of a day without fire fighters, policemen, power company linemen in stormy weather. Days without the men who do the skilled, but unfashionable jobs, such as plumbing repairs; heavy construction; and even intricate tasks labeled handy man chores. Not to mention, of course, engineers and other graduates of unfashionable STEM programs. Well, I cannot imagine a conspiracy in which a great many men skipped work to celebrate their maleness.

  15. I recall a movie reviewer recommending Soderbergh’s “Contagion” in part for the short scene showing Cate Blanchett’s scalp being peeled back so doctors can autopsy her brain.

    There are, however, other better reasons to watch “Contagion.”

  16. For the past twenty five years, I’ve felt that among my people in my age group (born late fifties/early sixties), men have tended to be more moral, more honorable, in general. I saw more back stabbing by women, more manipulation of members of the opposite sex by women, more mentoring by men… Not to say that there haven’t been moral, honorable women and immoral, dishonorable men among my cohort. Just my little slice of life has had a general trend that I describe.

    I could go on…

    BTW, I’m a woman.

  17. “. . . she (and others) do seem to be saying that men and women don’t make moral decisions–don’t get moral guidance–in the same manner. She even may be saying they don’t come to the same ethical conclusions in the end. . . . is the moral development of the sexes somehow different? And if so, is one gender’s development somehow superior to that of the other?” [Neo]

    It would not surprise me that men and women reach moral decisions through different paths, or even that their outcomes are different. After all, men and women are physiologically and hormonally developed to value different things. But “value” is a subjective judgement. Just because male and female conclusions might be different does not mean that one is better (i.e., on an absolute basis) that the other.

  18. Well, whatever she meant and /or how ever others took it; it still doesn’t make her look/sound like anything other than stupid.

    And those that “cheer” it come across the same way.

  19. Blanchett is an actor, it’s only skin deep with most actors. She is not particularly well rounded, and lives in a bubble. I don’t cut her any slack, but then I never expect an actor to possess common sense or awareness of human nature or history.

  20. Actors/actresses are people who work very hard at being someone(s) other than themselves. That is a scathing indictment in my book. Talk about losing one’s moral compass! Or having a bodily cavity as a moral compass. Phony BS in the extreme. They live false, largely empty lives and are materially rewarded for doing so. But most of their souls are dead.

  21. Lee – I’m a man of a similar age. I know what you mean. What has always struck me is the “queen bee” syndrome. I’ve known a few women who talk about the importance of women, wear their womanhood as a matter of pride, but will do anything they can to make sure they’re the only woman who succeeds within an organization.

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  23. More fun watching the wackaloon communist womens movement selfexterminate by watching Ashley Judd!!

    ‘Women’s March’ Crashed By Crowder… IN DRAG! (Featuring Wendy Davis)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUDtoDAGVE8

    Top 5 Anti-Trump Feminist Meltdowns!
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLgsmrzYPbQ

    it features Judd giving one of her great feminist we will improve the world speeches…though i dont know what it means or what the hell she was saying about period blood and wacko stuff.

    her mother and sister really really dislike her too!
    so its perfect. the more htey hate her, the more wacko she gets thinking she is making a change.

    WYNONNA JUDD HAS EPIC RESPONSE TO ASHLEY’S DISGRACEFUL BEHAVIOR AT WOMEN’S MARCH
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmP2f5K7aXw

    and if anyone wants to find out about the mens movement i was key in starting ove 14 years ago, you can look up MGTOW… i was hoping to start an anticommunist one through, here, but it was easier to make that work internationally than to get ppl here to respond, and do things.

    i was quite famous then, and got tired of it
    then they appeared on my lawn and threatened my family… which is why i dont post on my own any more.. despite people asking or offering me a forum!!

    mgtow on google
    About 2,170,000 results

    there are About 348,000 results for youtube

    so, tell me again i dont know how to make change copying the socialsits and their games and all that?

    MGTOW is big…
    there is mgtow in france now
    MGTOW FRANCE (Hommes libres) – YouTube
    MGTOW Germany | Facebook

    germany, canada, england, japan, china, france, italy

    i failed here so thats why i dont post much
    going back to more effective places.

    but if you look you can find my work, though few look.

    read about me on REDDIT
    https://www.reddit.com/r/GamerGhazi/comments/2ycv6a/gator_describes_mgtow_as_quirky_bunch_of_guys/

    Their original platform is nothing more than “America is doomed, expat now.” That was IT I recall the days when Khankrumthebulgar and AngryHarry were the only ones who went all out fire&brimstone. MGTOW used to hate the likes of Rush and Hannity. Not anymore…not anymore. When Khan died suddenly…it seems like everyone else became like him. The fashion photographer from NYC used to be my favourite, something like artfldgr, followed by the ‘technocrat kaczynski anarchist’ Biomech. I really didn’t follow outliers enough to know why it changed, though. Left for two years on business and then they were indistinguishable from the Tea Party and /pol/ when I returned. Some time around ’06 they really radicalised. Who knows, maybe it’s as simple as the ones that could expat did, and the ones that couldn’t remained behind, becoming even more bitter.

    yeah, he died.. biomech is good.. i was king of the hill and then there was the mancoat men…

    they went more wacko when i left and others did as i was usually the reasonable voice against hating all women, and all that crap that no one sane would support and for good reason.. (for both sides)

    without reigning them in on their thing, they went a bit wilder, but now its a bit better, and they have a whole big LGBTQ section that supports the men and do not like the feminsits and that stuff and more..

    but thats the women of MGTOW
    as they dont like things like this either
    REPOST: Feminist Banana Girl Says Sterilize All Men
    Teenage girl what’s Important? MGTOW says freedom let’s see what …
    Virgin Woman Living The Feminist Dream MGTOW

    one of the BEST to listen too, very smart, very measured, i thougth neo would at least find her points interesting as she is not one of the lesser hangers on that like to use computer voices and are really what would be fringe if not for the catechism of the revolutionary… they are as harmful to good things as wackadoodle feminists are

    Her name is karen straughan, and no, i have never met her, never talked to her, and would love to…

    she has about 300 videos on this subject online
    https://www.youtube.com/user/girlwriteswhat

    i wonder if anyone will look?
    i wonder if anyone will let us know if they do?
    actually, i dont wonder much, as i am pretty sure
    though, that small doubt makes me wonder, cause you have to at leat give it a chance they will suprise you and be wrong.. which is ok..

  24. on another note…

    CHINA WARNS OF NUCLEAR FIRST STRIKE IN RESPONSE TO THAAD DEPLOYMENT…

    and how Obama punked the next administration setting up WWIII by ignoring the chinese taking japanese lands the way they ignored russia seizing the best parts of another country.

    magic is fun
    you get tricked cause you watch BS and not pay attento to whats NOT bs… while arguing what is not, is, and what is, is not, cause ignoring it, is much more entertaining, and thats what its about, or did we all read aldous huxley?

    on another note
    Obama brother Malik released Obama Kenyan birth certificate original, which unlike the hawaii one, is not fake and has no questions about it (doesnt have photoshop layers, has the right marks, doesnt have a gray copier scan curve to it, with photoshop border obviously over it, doesnt have the wrong issue numbers and a whole lot more)

    what i think happened and does happen is that he never thought he would get to a place where that mattered… so he played loose, and eventually, when he became president candidate, the left went nuts scrambling with WTF, and did what socialsits, communist, and such have ALWAYS done and never did otherwise, hide the truth, attack everyone, make fake stuff to prove, and set people in opposition

    what part of that almost 200 year old behavior doesnt get remembered..

    its like forgetting your talking to the devil and dont want to insult them by being skeptical.

  25. Neo:

    Agreed, both that the expression “thinking with your d**k” is common enough, and that it’s rarely (if ever) used in a complimentary fashion. (My understanding is that Ms. Blanchett expected HER comment to be seen positively, with responses e.g. “you go girl”.)

    Likewise I acknowledge that men used to claim superiority over women, and use this as a reason to keep women down. I would not want to minimize that. On the other hand, my understanding is that the excuses usually given for this had to do with fallacies about intellect, or about emotionalism and “hysteria”, or even circular arguments about women being undereducated (which was an excuse not to educate them).

    I’m not aware of any serious argument that e.g. “a man is morally superior to a woman because his moral compass is in his d**k”. Even by the sexist standards of Ancient Rome, or of Greece, or of medieval Europe, such a claim would have been ludicrous. (These days, of course, claims of male superiority, in anything, for any reason, are met with raucous laughter, at best!)

    My point is that, if such a claim is laughable when made by a man, should it not be so when made by a woman?

  26. Beginning with two axioms: individual dignity and intrinsic value, the religious/moral philosophy I have adopted is the result of reconciling moral, natural, and personal imperatives. While it can be emotionally influenced, it can also be rationally derived.

  27. certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness

    .. and abortion rites.

    Unfortunately, the vagina is both a source of life and death by Choice. Fortunately, most women do not indulge in this narcissistic pleasure.

  28. Daniel –

    “a man is morally superior to a woman because his moral compass is in his d**k”

    Not a compass, but it can be a sundial, which is also useful in navigation.

  29. Daniel in Brookline:

    Indeed, I’m not arguing that the reason men considered women inferior was that men “thought with their dicks” and that such a thing was superior. Certainly that was not the literal reason.

    Nor, of course, did Cate Blanchett literally mean her moral compass was in her vagina. She meant her moral compass was superior because she’s a woman. And men meant their judgment was superior because they were men. Women were thought to be too emotional (and their emotions were at one time thought to be seated in their uteri) to be given the vote, for example.

    And that’s one of the reasons Gilligan’s theories about moral development and caring and women are interesting. They fit in with this criticism of “too emotional,” although nowadays emotion is felt (by some women, anyway, such as Gilligan) to be a good alternative (and perhaps even superior) guide to moral decisions—in women, anyway.

    The whole thing makes me think of this famous quote from Boswell:

    I told [Johnson] I had been that morning at a meeting of the people called Quakers, where I had heard a woman preach. Johnson: “Sir, a woman’s preaching is like a dog’s walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.”

  30. I was never that liberal, but I used to have a lot of liberal intellectual friends, mostly grad students, and one of the difficult things about being a liberal intellectual is that all the Hollywood stars embrace the same political positions as you, and they are all such total airheads that it’s embarrassing. It makes you doubt yourself, when you hear people that stupid agreeing with you. I don’t know if neo ever used to have this feeling, but I knew a lot of people who did.

  31. Actors are little more than very attractive parrots. We find them amusing because they can say someone else’s words in an interesting way.

  32. Men abstract away from details, women complexify in additional details.

    So men get at what governs systems better, women get at exceptions and special cases better.

    See Vicki Hearne, _Bandit_, the chapter “Beastly Behaviors,” on corrections to feminism. Ignore the cover blurb completely. The blurbist didn’t read the book. Hearne takes no prisoners.

  33. “…Gilligan’s theory of moral development does not focus on the value of justice. She developed an alternative theory of moral reasoning based on the ethics of caring. ”

    Justice is blind, but caring is not. Caring for the anonymous as well as your tribe is extremely, extremely rare. As such, it is an insufficient foundation for a society.

  34. Also, what’s up with the aversion women have with Google (i.e. looking something up and answering their own questions)? I tire of having the wife ask me some simple question only to fly into a state of rage when I suggest that she “Google it” on her smart phone.

  35. Inquiring minds want to know:

    Is the compass illuminated, or does it glow in the dark?
    If it is illuminated, is it battery, or rechargeable?
    Do you have to charge the batteries?
    if so, how?
    How do you zero out the compass?
    Does moving close to metal objects show it off?
    Do you have to remove it for an MRI?
    Does it give you trouble at airport screenings?
    Does it constantly “alert” the owner by some sort of tactile sensation, such as vibration?

    I think my ex girlfriend had one, it was the kind that vibrated, and was constantly communicating with her.

  36. Being kind with regard to Ms. Blanchett’s phrasing, I will conclude that she is preening that her morality comes from being a woman. In this case, she needs an anatomy lesson, because it is really her ovaries and uterus which makes her a woman more than her vagina.

    But the verbal effluence from actors playing make-believe with other people’s words is a dubious source of wisdom.

    It is foolhardy, if not bigoted to make broad generalizations about women or men to establish that group as morally superior due merely to their gender.

    There are enough instances of moral depravity among either gender to invalidate gender as a defining characteristic of morality.

    The contemporary misandry meme among feminists is to claim to be somehow more moral than men. Yet, they ignore the mendacious corruption of someone like Hillary Clinton, the vile sluttery of Madonna, and the sexual predatory behavior of Boll Clinton, etc. because it is convenient for their claim.

    Consequently, feminists have no credibility due to their lack of intellectual integrity.

    Ironically, SJWs and feminists DO have hysterics.

  37. When I was young I was a feminist and I assumed we’d all be aiming for the same lofty moral heights together, gender-free. Women could be just as noble, honorable, reasonable, logical, impartial etc as men and now it was time to prove it. And then the likes of Gilligan and her coven came along, and they gendered morality. We weren’t going to aim for the highest human ideals any more, we were just gonna aim about half-way up and pretend the heights were only for phallocentric brutes and nobody should go up there. This way of thinking slowly infected everything, even physics and mathematics (is the number 7 odd, or just slightly different?). To conclude, now we’re screwed.

  38. Paul A’Barge:

    I haven’t noticed that trait in women. Perhaps it is an idiosyncrasy of your wife. Perhaps she just defers to your superior Googling panache.

    I’m a woman, and people tease me because I love to Google just about everything.

  39. Clioman:

    The great actors do a lot more than that. The illuminate the human condition. They can move us to deep laughter or tears. They can transform themselves endlessly in ways that seem magical. They also tend to be beautiful, which has its own fascination.

    I’ve never known a parrot to get that far.

    Many actors are bad actors, or mediocre actors, and/ or messed-up people as well. But I wouldn’t lump them all together and call them parrots as a group.

  40. @ neo: “Well, women famously have a poorer sense of direction than men.”

    This happened to me twice. I listened to my mother and then a female peer. The female peer said to keep turning left. I had my doubts but I listened nonetheless. We were going in circles. I had enough and said to her, “Why not this street. Let’s see what happens.” We got to our destination in time. My mother? My mouth is shut.

  41. The thing next they are going to be told to say is that inter dimensional aliens are more moral and have a better Gospel than we do.

  42. 1. I can use an actual compass. I can find north.

    2. If you ladies want me to stop objectifying you there are better ways of doing it than constantly droning on about vaginas. I’m trying to drink a beer, here.

    3. Who the **** is Cate Blanchett?

  43. It would seem that Cate and Bubba Clinton (the first Trailer Trash President) are uniquely suited for each other.

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