Inferior Me
I’m a woman. Please forgive my small brain. I can’t help it. I was born that way.
It is a well-known scientific fact that testosterone makes a brain bigger and therefore smarter. And, that toting around a set of ta-tas is a brain drain.
Charles Murray
I am so glad to know that the man who wants to be our next Governor recognizes gender science as being valid and, you know, scientific. The Republican nominee for Governor, Greg Abbott, quotes Charles Murray in Abbott’s education plan to cut pre-K and kindergarten programs in Texas to the tune of $200,000,000. But, all those zeros are justified because Charles Murray has set American straight about things like women, minorities, and the poor.
Especially women.
“No woman has been a significant original thinker in any of the world’s great philosophical traditions,” he wrote. “Women have produced a smaller number of important visual artists, and none that is clearly in the first rank. No female composer is even close to the first rank. Social restrictions undoubtedly damped down women’s contributions in all of the arts, but the pattern of accomplishment that did break through is strikingly consistent with what we know about the respective strengths of male and female cognitive repertoires.”
Yep, women be dumb. Duh dumb. And don’t even get Charles Murray started on minorities.
In Charles Murray’s world, white rich males are the smartest. So, I guess I’m wondering how all these white rich males running our state government got us into the biggest damn mess I’ve ever seen. Maybe they’ve been over-bred, I dunno.
Honey, when all that stands between you and a rock bottom education system is the state of Mississippi, you’re in big trouble. Two more rich white boys move to Mississippi and you’re dead last.
Y’all, this is just a heads up. I don’t think I’m going to make it to November without blowing a gasket. You’re gonna show up here one day and all you’re going to see is my pounding forehead on the keyboard.
Thanks to everybody for the heads up.
“Feminism is the radical idea that women are human beings.” I have read that quote attributed to several different American women who worked hard for the right to vote.
I suspect they all said it.
Mr. Murray and Mr. Abbott seem to believe that “Human” is an exclusive club. IMO, they both are members of the “Ego Bigger than the Brain Club,” which has many members.
1JJ, those 2 move to old Miss, and maybe your educational system might recover.
2I had an elderly friend, a nurse from west Texas, who used to say, “___ just makes my butt crave a dip of snuff” – is it time for me to put Greg Nugent – err, Abbott’s name in the blank?
Writing another check to the campaign for Wendy Davis…
3Who the F is this guy, other than co-author of “The Bell Curve”
4Well this dun splain it all!
But Abbott needs to talk to me…there are a number of reasons why I married the lady that I’ve been with for the last 32 years. One of the most important reasons was that she’s one hell of a lot smarter than I am and ever hope to be!
And surprise – I’ve also been around enough to realize that there are one hell of a lot of smart women in this country that
5make a lot of us men look like we are just a few hairs short of being an orangutan.
@ Juanita, to paraphrase: “Your job is not to pound your head on your key board but to make the other guy pound his head on his keyboard”.
6Harry Belefonte is still right when he sings: “Da woman is smarter! Smarter in very way”. Of course there are still those Republican women’s clubs around who want to be bashed by their male counterparts and they vote.
7Maybe they just hang around Republican women. That would explain why they think women are dumb.
8@Larry McL
This recent article from the Guardian is a good synopsis of what Charles Murray is about, great quotes
Advice for a happy life: don’t take happiness advice from Charles Murray http://gu.com/p/3z4xm/tw
As an old white male libertarian fundie pundit he probably makes more in a year than all of us put together by pandering to other old white males who appreciate an ego stroking.
9I’ve been LIVID and on the warpath..ever since i saw this the other day..yes ..Juanita. I also may not make it to November w/o exploding.. the WAR on WOMEN ..is GOING to Stop!! I won’t stop Marching, Rallying and using every avenue i have to stop the Bullying and watr on women, children and poor!!!
10Larry & Bananas…
11You’ve got it! This reject of simply out to sell books!
I see the problem here:
“No conservative has been a significant original thinker in any of the world’s great philosophical traditions. Conservatives have produced a smaller number of important visual artists, and none that is clearly in the first rank. No conservative composer is even close to the first rank. MENTAL restrictions undoubtedly damped down Conservatives’ contributions in all of the arts, but the pattern of accomplishment that did break through is strikingly consistent with what we know about the respective strengths of liberal and conservative cognitive repertoires.”
There, fixed it!
You’re welcome.
12The mind is a terrible thing To lose err to not have at all……
Dan Quayle said it best……….and he had no idea what he was saying!
13Just to name one: Saint Hildegard of Bingen.
14If one examines the distributions curves for intelligence for men and women (it’s been years since I did so) there is a very slight, statistically insignificant difference in the mean. The more pronounced difference is the length of the “tails” on the edge of the bells. They are much longer on the male curve, the center of which is lower. This means there are more men at the extremely intelligent end of the distribution than there are women. Similarly, there are more profoundly dumb men than such women. Explains the leadership of the Republican party: the few, the proud, the clueless. And statistics have squat to do with causality.
Bonus: Hypatia of Alexandria, Ada Lovelace, Marie Curie
15DaChipster, you’re observant and so talented!
16NOT OVERBRED! INBRED!
17Just because Charles Murray doesn’t know of any important women philosophers, artists or composers does not mean there are or were none. In history women’s accomplishments have mostly been ignored by men historians because the men weren’t interested in and did not care about women’s achievements. It’s as simple as that.
18Virginia Woolf wrote, Let’s assume that Shakespeare had a sister as intelligent and talented as he was. She wasn’t sent to school, because she was a girl. If she got to London and tried to join a theater, nobody would hire her because it was illegal for women to act on stage. Nobody would look at anything she wrote. One man offered to help her and she ended up pregnant and died in childbirth.
Yep, women are just dumb, that’s why we haven’t had their creative output for millennia.
19Does this mean I have to get rid of all my Joni Mitchell, Janis Ian, Bonnie Raitt, Lucinda Williams, Sandy Denny, Susan Tedeschi, Marcia Ball, and Alison Krauss albums?
And I sure am going to miss re-reading Jane Austen. But I’m glad Murray set me straight. Until today I always thought she used the English language to greater effect than anyone who ever lived. Now I know better..
20Not only is this guy completely scientifically, artistically and socially ignorant, he is stupid enough to open his mouth and confirm it.
21Such inspirational men! Bless their hearts.
I immediately went to Act Blue and donated to Wendy, Leticia and Alison.
22Well now, I swear by Marie Curie! This guy reminds me of old Leander Perez who wandered around the legislative chamber of his state mouthing off about how the Nigra brain was so much smaller and therefore the owner of said brain was inferior. He became such a caricature of himself that nobody, even the other racists, ignored him. At length, he died. We have the Civil Rights Act and now the first non white President of the United States. We have had 3 women as Secretary of State. There is no real way anyone can deal with Murray’s fantasies and that is exactly what they are. The fact that he is associated with Ab-butt speaks reams. Fish of a feather cohabit together.
23Maggie, I once attended a science education conference where some dude stood up and said Marie never would have amounted to anything if she hadn’t been married to Pierre. The boos were thunderous. She won two Nobel prizes, the second after his death.
24I’m a 63 year-old male, sixty years ago my Dad(a baby boomer), hit the road, leaving a twenty year old with three baby’s. He stayed drunk and she went to work to feed her kids. He was ordered to pay child support($100.00 a month), he never did.
Without any help from any outside source she made sure we never needed anything. There were a lot of things we wanted but nothing we needed.
She always had a good car and was buying the house we lived in.
Deadbeat dads.
But this is about the girls, they spend twenty years feeding clothing and providing shelter to some losers kids, usually unassisted, just to be brow beaten by some asshat in Texas that thinks he’s better.
I’ve seen girls do some pretty sad things to feed their kids, and it would be held against them.
As soon as one of these fine lady’s is able to get out on their own, maybe run for office, try to make a difference, the whisper campaigns start.
Promote the Blond Joke. There is so little good said about these powerful women. My mother said years ago they are not Hot Flashes, they are Power Surges. Betty White could have said this.
Instead of putting them down, we should get them to run our Government.
25These are the kind of people we need to run our Government.
Not afraid of a few Fat Cats that get too much Media.
I can’t read all that about Charles Murphy again. I’ve been busy telling all my libertarian etc. friends about Greg Abbott’s opinion of women and people who are not white males. Blech. Look, you folks, think about it. You have a very smart woman whose survival depends on a dumb man thinking he is smart. Think about it. You can mAke a check list of what it takes. I’ve gotta go make a meatloaf.
26How does it go???
History is written by the winner (or the oppressor?). What this clown should be stating is that, to the best of our knowledge, the persons that have all of their fundamental needs cared for (food, drink, sex, clean house and clothes) are better able to create masterworks without distraction.
Aaannnddd, if nobody supresses, destroys, or steals your work, it seems more likely to become well known.
27One of us brothers, at a rare moment we were all married at the same time, got mad and said something which besmerched a wife and all other women. My sainted father was livid. He said “You got a wife, a momma, and a sister. They’re all women. Shut up.” 40ish years later I can still hear him.
28Y’know, I’ve known some men who’ve gotten right stupid when an attractive set of ta-ta’s entered the room. I’m just sayin’…
29I like to think of one fact that relates to this, All the men now in power were toilet trained by women.
30The fact that their aim is not so good at the commode is not their fault (the women) that was learned by the men (bless their hearts) later.
Holy Hypatia!
31feminism is the radical notion that women are people–rebecca west. british suffragist
32