Men are always thinking of one thing: hard-learned truth, or destructive gender stereotype? Discuss.

[eclectic_boy]

"the consequences of this widespread belief that boys and men are constantly addled to the point of harm, is, of course, to punish girls and women"

And, because I ought to start with my own thoughts, I'm trying to weigh the unfairness to both the dentist and the dental assistant. What protected-class status should be given to looks? Should the dentist's attraction be considered a disability, and what accommodations are appropriate for ameliorating such a disability? Relatedly, when I think about the argument for telling the dentist to just control himself and deal with it, I get strong resonances with the notion of telling someone with depression to "just cheer up".

Comments

[eclectic-boy.livejournal.com]

Thanks for all of your responses and varied expertises! I didn't want to focus entirely on this dentist/wife/assistant example, though, so let me ask more explicitly:

Have you developed an opinion as to whether the "widespread belief" of the above quote is a dangerous, false stereotype; a frank assessment of our current culture; or neither?

[fiddledragon.livejournal.com]

Destructive stereotype, I tend to think. Mainstream culture puts too much emphasis on women to deny and/or not act on their attractions to have an accurate sense of what the comparison would be without those social pressures.

[matt-rah.livejournal.com]

It's pure sexist bullshit.