I’d give up my right to vote, just to take them with me:
British researchers administered a test of general political knowledge to 10,000 people in 10 countries. Sample questions asked people to identify Angela Merkel, the Copenhagen summit, and the secretary-general of the UN. In every country, the men outscored the women by a wide margin…
I take back everything bad I ever said about you.
I noticed something about 60 years ago. Men and women (boys and girls) are different. Society seems to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to prove me wrong to no effect. I am male. Despite the fact that I married a female news junkie and we watch news several times a day, my daughters are clueless about world news and my son is another junkie. Coincidence? Birthright!
Too busy watching Oprah and The View.
Many women and men seem to be incapable of applying anything
they were taught in school to the world at large. To them, math,
physics, and chemistry were three mysterious hurdles requiring
some attention at the time to pass, then never to be used again.
If women ruled the world, we’d all be back living in tents. No thank you. While I’m a woman, I know who invented what. Most important, there’d be no Corvettes if women ruled the world. Think about that! We wouldn’t even have a ubiquitous rice grinding soccermom-mobile to tool around in. We’d either be hoofing it or riding mules or the like. Shudder. Don’t bring this topic up again. Between you and Ace today, I’m really feeling the years.
Being a news junkie myself, I made sure to take great pains to provide ‘counter-indoctrination’ for my two girls (Countering some of the drivel they’re taught at school). The results being that my 14 year old scored a 25 on a survey to determine a student’s political leaning (0 being ultra conservative, 100 being ultra liberal). The closest fellow student scored a 48. She habitually comes home from Socials class rolling her eyes at what basic information her fellow students don’t know.
We get both the National Post and the Province delivered each day and both my teenagers read the morning paper with the breakfast. However, occasionally their father and I have to set them straight on some of the stories they read.
I would absolutely be in favor of a basic info test being required before voting.
I have to agree with her that it’s the gotcha politics that really turns off women. The school boy antics in the House of Commons don’t help. Also I find the comments on so many blogs and news articles so insulting and vulgar.
I got interested in politics because I became anti-Communist at a fairly young age. I also find people who have fled countries where there was no freedom are very interested in politics because they don’t want to have to change countries again.
I too am in favour of pre-vote testing. It drives me crazy that most people are more aware of the sports scores or who’s dating who in Hollywood than what the provincial debt is, or why Egyptians are rioting, etc….
Unfortunately, the fix they will propose in response to this survey will be to blame men rather than encourage women to turn off the TV and become more involved in the process. My experience has always been that men prefer confronting reality while women prefer to escape into fantasy.
women prefer to escape into fantasy.
You just described my ex-wife!
Not entirely true,TrueNorthist. I’m male,and occasionally,like today at 28C,I slip into fantasy in the pool,with a cold happy pop,and imagining a world without leftards. We all need our little dreams.
When it comes to interest in politics I am not sure that in general there is much difference between the two sexes with the younger generation. We have four adult children, two boys and two girls, and sadly only one boy (or rather man, husband and father) takes an interest. He and his wife live in the United States and have their own business, which I think explains his interest now. While in Canada he never took an interest or even bothered voting just like his brother and sisters. I should add that my married daughter’s husband has no interest either. I have voted in every election since I was old enough to vote, but I wonder at times why I bother. The reason is that I am simply fed up with politicians who do not honour their word or promises, those exploiting every crisis, real or imagined, to play partisan politics, and of course the blatant lies. I would prefer to see politicians and their parties state clearly their platform and what they offer along with honouring it if elected, instead of the childish games of making all kinds of ridiculous accusations against their opponents. Being an older male with more life experience causes me to see things differently than when I was young and single.
Now, I think vapidity is a mark of the culture affecting both genders. However, women do tend to be sillier than men. Not always but often enough to arrive at that conclusion. It puzzles me when people praise the quantity but not the quality of women in politics. Yes, women should have the right to partake in politics freely but what good does it do when they are either silly or foaming at the mouth?
Feelings! Nothing more than feeeeeeliinngs! Lalala.
Seriously, I have recently begun to wonder if the price of a freer world might not be taking the vote away from women.
Oh really, I’m a female and a conservative and I read online global papers daily. My husband, a male, never reads a paper but then again he’s a liberal.
wimin tend to be more EMOTIONALIST, thusly wimin generally tend to be more liberal, also liberal men tent be more emotional
so if we identify liberals and remove their rite to vote……….
When I overhear young women on the bus gushing about Justin, it makes me want to puke. Sure, I thought Sarah Palin was sexy, but I would not have voted for her for that reason; it would have been her experience and her ideas. Since Justin has little of either, why these women are interested in him is pretty obvious.
So soon after the 4th of July, is it churlish to note that the Founding Fathers did NOT want a democracy? They wanted a republic, where only men of some means were allowed to vote. Universal suffrage, like ‘diversity’, is an idea that looks better on paper then it works out in practice.
I have an executive MBA graduate at home (worthless vanity degree BTW), favourite TV never to be missed-Housewifes of…..(all of them), Kardashians, Batchelor and Bachelorette, votes NDP occasionally. Political or business savvy-not so much, just spouts the usual team-building, caring-sharing nonsense, extremely well-paid in a wimmins ghetto job.
I love the last paragraph of the NP piece where the woman subconsciously exposes her head is filled with dreck.
Oh really, I’m a female and a conservative
Same here and so is my daughter. Son, otoh, thinks that Lenin, Marx, etc. were on to something.
Taking the vote away from people based on “I don’t like the way you vote” is such a bad idea that lefties would be all over it in a heartbeat. Having to show that you have some knowledge of the candidates or issues isn’t a bad idea but probably unworkable.
The only problem with administering a test is who gets to write the questions?
Question 26
Who is most responsible for destroying the Earth
a) Stephen Harper
b) George Bush
c) Koch brothers
Question 27
Stephen Harper is about to break into your house and steal your children to drink their still warm blood. The best way to stop him is:
a) Vote for Justin Trudeau and the Liberals
b) Vote for Thomas Mulcair and the NDP
c) Buy a gun to protect yourself
Note: Question 27 is a trap for conservatives, if you pick c) you immediately fail the test.
OK that’s hilarious! Touché my friend, touché
Sad to say but for a lot of females (and the general public for that matter)politics is nothing more than a beauty pageant. Charm, good looks and media hype will beat facts, figures and real issues any day. Mention any of your juxtapose items to the average citizen (or undocumented person) and you will get a puzzled look, maybe followed by a “can’t be right” rebuttal, minus any facts. I’ve long since given up trying to explain things to these oxygen breathers.
A Women’s disinterest in current events should no more preclude her from political participation than a Man’s disinterest in Oprah should preclude him from finding cool gifts under his chair…
A Women’s disinterest in current events should no more preclude her from political participation…
Heh, that makes sense…if she’s disinterested, why would she participate? Precluded, or otherwise?
Seemingly many disinterested women do participate politically…near as I can figure it’s an affinity for smooth talk and great hair…
They should bring back voter testing. They won’t, of course.
Here’s a fun, unfortunately fake one for yanks. http://blazingcatfur.blogspot.ca/2013/07/are-you-smart-enough-to-be-citizen-take.html
I scored 45…maybe I’m an American…
Most women are rarely interested in knowing how things work.
it does not matter if it is about a two stroke engine or the United Nation, they are not interested in how things work.
They don’t want to know why a car needs an oil change, they only want the car to get them to the shopping mall.
That is the way they are, most of them anyway.
Women have much less scientific curiosity than men.
Feminism, leftism and whatever else they throw at them ( and at us men ) and no matter how much they punish men will never change that.
Women are different from men.
Feminism only makes that more obvious.
Yeah well, shiny pony proves my point….
What wimin want is a stupid millionaire who likes to dance.
Kate brings up a very deep truth: the impact any man or woman has on the world through politics, including voting is not the proper measure of a well-lived human life. And any such impact is minuscule, compared to the impact we have on others, for good, or ill, through our every interaction with them in the course of the common day.
Women on the whole lack what I call the “toy” gene, and its close cousin, the “compete for competition’s sake” trait.
It’s why men invented auto racing and women, basically nothing.
Yes but we were just showing off…
Kate, the motivation to compete for men is often the EGO (bragging rights:-)))))
Being male,this may be way out in left field,but perhaps the biggest barrier against women advancining and being women, is the fem-nazis? Real women start fighting these fake women,and realize we are all equal,but different?
That is the ticket, Justthinkin! A simple truth.
Why women want to do everything better than men has always been a mystery to me. I see this mindset as plain stupid – I do know how to change a tire but men do it faster and easier than I. I would gladly iron a pile of shirts or cook a 5 course dinner in exchange for one tire change.