apocalypsos | Yes, be proudly stupid.

customers_suck brings us a story about a woman who told her daughter not to buy thick books because boys don't like smart girls.

I'm both pissed in a "are we still on this?!" kind of way and an unsurprised way that means I answered myself with a sigh and a, "Yeah, unfortunately." If I had been the clerk I'm not exactly sure what I would have done, although laugh out loud would probably have been the first response. I'd like to think I would have followed it up with, "Are you kidding? I've been reading nonstop since I was four and I get hit on all the time," but I imagine that urge to cause violence would have won over and I would have had to walk away, too.

I guess I'm still floating on the family love because my parents encouraged the hell out of me loving to read. When we went to visit my grandfather in Boston the last time he came to the hotel one morning to have breakfast with us and walked in as I was engrossed in some novel or history book or something. He said to my dad, "Is she always like that with books?" and my dad said, "Yeah, we used to just be able to give her a book and she'd go sit in a corner for two hours and read and we wouldn't even hear a peep from her," although I really hope that wasn't WHY they were doing it. :)

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I'm really surprised she didn't say something like, But this is a good girls book, and very popular, or something along those lines. I would have at LEAST done that :(

Urgh, that link makes me want to throw things. My father left school at 14, self-educated himself up to the point where he qualified as a vet, and was adamant that my older half sister go to university (not something that happened to girls in rural Scotland in the 50s). When my siblings and I came along, money was very tight, but one thing we always had was books.

I see the same pattern in myself. I can easily say 'no' when the Spawn want toys or sweets, but as soon as they wave a book at me... out comes the credit card.

I now live in an area of England that is gleefully ignorant. Please seem to take great pleasure in boasting about how little they know, and are stunned that I can be both working class and university educated. It's unbelievably frustrating.

I would have either stayed quiet out of sheer mortification or started arguing very aggressively, as is my tendency when I'm REALLY FREAKING PISSED. So yes, hurray for parents who encourage you in what you love. My mom the librarian taught me how to read when I was four, and I haven't looked back since. (Nothing like other people's parents to make me appreciate my own.)

-blue

My mom used to tell me that I looked smart, and that boys would be scared of me because they're scared of smart girls. And then she would tell me to study hard, read a lot, and get as smart as I could, and never ever stop learning.

I think I would have blown a gasket if someone said something like that in my vicinity. RARR.

I've never once been told that boys are afraid of smart girls. Oddly enough (ahem), that's because the ones I know aren't. Cue various anecdotes here about the accelerated classes I was always in with lots of kids of both genders, the year I went into biology as the only freshman and still got elected class senator, the fact that in an department full of techies at an Internet company we used to joke about our token male because there was, quite honestly, only one....

I dearly hope my experience isn't that much of an edge case, because dear God, the alternative freaks me out.

(We all got along just fine with our token male, by the way, and I'd like to hope he wasn't scared of us. *grin*)

Men who know they're smart, and aren't paranoid about being seen as stupid and aren't threatened when someone else is smarter than they are, seem to be very much thrilled with/turned on by smart women. He can actually have a conversation about interesting things with her. I must admit that what got me interested in computers and IT was that I was studying up on geek culture and getting familiar enough with the concepts that I could have an intelligent conversation about it with a male-type, and once I'd gotten to know the culture, it was like coming home. I've been known to do that, to study up on something that a smart male that I'm interested in is interested in, so we can have an intelligent conversation about it and I have the groundwork to find out more about it and to allow him to politely go off on advanced tangents; he won't have to teach me from the ground up in order to converse with me. (I've been known to teach people the elementary concepts in a field that I was working on at the moment just so I'd have someone to talk to about what was on my mind at the moment.)

Stupid boys are scared of smart girls.

Stupid people are scared of smart people. Or feel threatened. Or something.

The first time I read this, I thought she wasn't to buy thick boots, which made no sense.

Tragically, now it makes entirely too much sense, and I am stepping up my plans for taking over the world, just so I can smack this woman. Personally.

a woman who told her daughter not to buy thick books because boys don't like smart girls.

::rolls eyes::

::points to husband who reads much less than I do yet somehow was attracted to my book-nerd self::

I'm too disgusted by that woman to see.

And this is why when people tell me sexism has ended and we're just all trying to take over men now, I spit in their face.

Someone's never heard of that Sexy Librarian kink.

omg, I would read that? but I suspect I'd go off on a rant that'd last for weeks so, not looking. If a guy's going to be scared off by my brains? Then fine and dandy, I'll just buy a vibrator. It'd be the same thing as hooking up with him anyway. Only, you know, more satisfying.

And yeah, this is a moment of "god, I love my mother". She saw to it I was a book geek and zomg, fun! Letting us loose in a bookstore is, well, dangerous to our wallets. We both hate clothes shopping, but bookstores get us drooling. (The day she discovered Amazon.com? omg, it was right up there with underwire bras*G*)

Okay...I haven't clicked that link. I don't intend to. Just from reading your description of it, I'm fairly sure reading the whole story would render me speechless with rage.

In other news...I have absolutely no problem with smart women. Hell, every woman I've ever fallen in love with has been smarter than me. I actually have trouble accepting that there are men out there that don't want to date smart women.

Just telling the girl to avoid thick books isn't very proactive. If she really wants her daughter to get guys, she should try shoving an icepick in the girl's eye socket. It's the only way to be sure ~~that her daughter grows up to be a moron~~.

That's just... O.o

WTF? The ignorance is painful.

The most important thing I look for in a woman is intelligence. I can't be with a dumb woman. I've tried (due to various other reasons I wanted to be with them and thought it might work). If a woman cannot hold an intelligent conversation; I don't care how sweet she is; what she looks like; how good she is in bed; whether she likes all the same things I do. It's just not going to work.

Guys who want a dumb, uneducated woman are either dumb and uneducated themselves; looking for a door mat; or both.

Yes, be proudly stupid.

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