First important point – women as sex objects:  As a warm-blooded male, I have to concede that yes – I look at women as objects of sexual desire.  But this is a purely gutteral and instinctual assessment that I personally do not allow to cloud my judgment of anything else that comes from any such subject.  And while not being telelpathic, I doubt many of my male colleagues do either to any great extent.  Sure, I work with single men and women and the single guys I work with occasionally will consider “their chances” with this or that female co-worker.  But any such interactions, positive or negative, don’t seem to affect their working relationships.  In short, there would be something wrong with a guy if he didn’t think about whether a woman was sexually attractive or not.  But very few (if any) of the people that I’ve worked with or for have treated women differently professionally as a result.

Second – looks vs. smarts:  I’d be lying if I said I’ve never suggested we look for more “talent” in our recruiting efforts – again, I’m a guy.  But such comments were always given (and as far as I was aware, taken) as jokes.  Working in a relatively young company, there are plenty of young women (of both the attractive and … nice varieties) around me with which I must maintain a professional relationship.  But my respect for any of these women is strictly based on real smarts and ability in their roles.  And while I know many of my male colleagues might strive to work with the cute ladies, I can think of few guys that I work with who would discriminate against a woman who had a good head on her shoulders simply based on looks.  And there are very few women that I’ve ever worked with who were pretty without smarts – in the few cases there were, they didn’t last.

So, to sum up – yes, I admit that I’m part pig.  But that piggishness only goes as far as enjoying the scenery.  I’m happily married (at least so far – my wife hasn’t read this yet) and I don’t allow such fleeting hormonal reactions to cloud my long-term judgment of people.  When you work with people, it is and should be about being able to work with those people.  And in my experience, there are only so many jobs in the world where looks are a viable asset, and most of them don’t necessarily require smarts.  Most jobs in the real world do require the latter (in some form), and I’ve seen little evidence to support the former playing a strong factor.

Liz’s blog is an interesting collage of thoughts on technology, poetry and feminism of which at least the first and last are expressly important to me (I used to be more into poetry, but I’m happy to find time to read my emails these days).  “Why is feminism important to you?” some may ask me.  In truth it always has – in my life I have almost always made it a point to treat all people with equal respect without prejudgment, or in the least the respect that they earn for themselves.  Now having kids – especially having a daughter – I hope that I can set a better example for them than they may see in the world.

I’m already finding myself facing gender definition issues with my daughter – she recently picked up from her older male cousin that girls that are really cute are referred to as “hot”.  And to be honest, I sometimes worry that my wife’s own body image issues may rub off on her.  So there are battles even here at home.

The root question is “what differentiates men and women?”  When asked by my male friends how to better understand women (as if I have a firm grasp on the matter), I often find myself saying lightly imagine going through life without a penis.  While this is obviously a simplistic and crude explanation, it seems to be effective for men because, frankly, a lot of how we spend our time is influenced by the fact that we have one.  So to take a moment to think about what one would do without it is hard enough for most men (at least the ones I know).

I remember back in high school when learning about genetics how the difference between men and women at that level is miniscule – the presence (or absence) of a single, small chromosome.  I remember thinking at the time that by that measure, the female gender is actually the baseline and the male gender is essentially a genetic defect.  It is oddly not that far fetched to think of men as defective women (though part of that defect may often trigger rationalities about that defect being an improvement or urges to compare these Y chromosomes to each other in length and girth).  So thinking about that side of things, I hope that I may also do right in raising my other child as well – so that both he and she will learn respect for all without prejudice regarding any trait.

Thanks again to Liz for inspiring me to think about a few things in a different light.  I hope that others may be similarly inspired – I like to think that change can be contageous.  Only time will tell.