Then what would you call it? If I do not have any liking or positive emotions for children, but don’t dislike them or actually have negative emotions for them either? I do not dislike them but I do not not ‘like’ them either.

It places the onus of your negative feelings upon some characteristic of theirs.”

You seem to be missing my point. Not liking something is not a negative feeling – it is a neutral one, the absence of the feeling of liking. THe absence of the feeling of liking somehting is not hte same thing as disliking it. It is neutral, not negative.

“I don’t like dealing with women in the workplace.” That isn’t really different from “I don’t care for dealing with children.”

Why?
Are women the same as children?
DO children belong in the workplace?
Are you trying to claim that childrne do NOT do things that people might not want to deal with? Personalyl, I don’t care – I don’t pay enough attention to kids to even be bothered by these things, but there ARE people who can’t abide noise, crying, high pitched noises, messes, yelling, running, and a lot of the things that do tend to go along wiht young children. children as a whole, do tend to do more ‘interesting’ things in common, than do women.

These statements would be better translated into, “I like my comfortable, male world-view too much to want to disrupt it because women require too much from me in the workplace without the usual sexual rewards that go with tolerating their crap outside of work.”

1. You really need to show how ‘women’ are equivelent to kids in any way for this to really work.
2. You seem to be assuming that I am male?

OR

“I like my comfortable adult life too much to disrupt it by dealing with kids who would just need too much from me and offer little in return for the effort.”

Or “I have little or nothing to do with kids as a whole or the concept of children, don’t think about them and don’t particularly care about them.

Of course you don’t have to have children. Men can also choose to work away from anyplace where women work.
Not sure what your point is about the workplace – what does htat really have to do with kids enough to work as an analogy. It is not like I go the the playground and get pisssed that kids play loud there!

However, how you discuss kids with others, and how that man represents his choice to other men has an impact upon society.

*shrugs* I honestly do not think or care about kids enough to discuss them as per kids.

We are all called upon to exercise a certain amount of patience, effort and expense (taxes for one) to see that kids aren’t abused and are raised to become educated, contributors to a stable society.

ok….

Red hair may or may not seem attractive to you. That’s fine.

But having pro or con feelings about redheads? That constitutes a personal remark moving away from your personal tastes to the realm of something others (e.g. redheads) are supposed to do to make your life happier.

You have netirely missed my point. My point is that there is feelign the emotion of ‘liking’ for soemthing (positive), feeling the emotion of ‘dislike’ for it (negative) AND there is also completly lacking the emotion of ‘like’ aka ‘not to like’ which is NEUTRAL. This is hte middle ground where you just don’t give a sh-it either way, and do not feel EITHER pro or con.
This is pretty much how I feel about children, just like any other group.

Interacting with the elderly can also be difficult but saying, “I don’t like old people.” is not going to express the reality of the situation and does harm to seniors.

But I DON’T LIKE ANY group of people, I don’t LIKE any group and I don’t DISLIKE any group. I only like or dislike individuals on their own merits.
And I don’t have to like anyone to assert and uphold their rights and human dignity and survival.

…..

When discussing children, think about one of them being in the room. Kids can handle the idea that people might not want to be parents. But the idea that somehow, they are not worthy of being liked?

But that kid has no more right to have me like him or her ‘just because’ than does any other person. I am not going to dislike him/her just because, either. I am going to be neutral about wheter or not I like him/her or whether I dislike him/her until I know what sort of person I am dealing with. So I am going to be neutral, I am not going to like him/her until I know if he/she is likeable. That is neutrality, not negativity.

Not their problem. So, that is my take on what appears to be your theoretical premise here. Habits of speech lead to alterations of thought and perception. Societal attitudes are often based on such phrases.

Whorfian hypothesis anyone?

Good point, but I think you missedthe point I was making :D

Sorry response took so long. I have been painting a house and working very long hours.

I have to say, even on so-called feminist, liberal sites, if you EVER bring up the topic of chosen non-parenthood and that the people who are not mothers are sneered at in the workplace, you NEVER hear the end of it. It is not true that childless women are not discriminated against. There was on a study, I believe, posted on Enchine of the Snakes, where women with and without children experienced pay and promotion discrimination, which “surprises” conventional wisdom that if only women didn’t take off time to have children, they would not be discriminated against.

And I can testify, when it came to the layoff I experienced this Spring, the men with kids were protected because “they needed the jobs.” The women, with kids or without, are seen as working as an optional thing. Gee I can’t wait until I’m an older “spinster” – people LOVE the older graying woman at work without kids, don’t they?

There is some back-handed bitchiness about women in that new book “Womanomics” where, basically, these rich ivy-schooled chicks blame other women in the office for working so hard and making the women with kids look bad. They blame all of the overtime and horrible working conditions on women making choices – to take it. As if, there were one woman slot to be promoted and their “real” competition is to beat out other women, not men.
And they make the argument that healthy women should live kid-centered lives. When they write “women,” they really only think of mothers. You know, regular people. Not childless women.

Sure. “Womenomics” makes it a psychological magazine issue like pleasing your husband and having a great marriage and sex life by just attitude. Oh! It’s all just because women created this problem and if we’d snap out of it, work would be a delight! Whatever happened to mentioning unions and legal protections from abuse?

There is some bitchiness from mothers – ok, I’ll say, some mothers, (but just try to mention that on other feminist sites) where they believe it is unfair that childfree women achieve while they would, if only they didn’t have to devote time to kids. And instead of celebrating choices, they take it out on the childfree women, as if, if they can paint them as “unnatural” women in their competitive office, they can take them down a peg in the office political race.

This is some woman on woman hate and we ought to call it out. If a childfree or single woman hated on mothers, you’d never hear the end of it on women’s forums. Yet. Here we are.

There is a suspicion of wonton women who do not have kids and are “out” about it by women who have kids. It’s easy to call it out when it is men doing it. But a surprise when there is woman on woman hate.

But it is a patriarchical trick and these mothers in the office cozying up to it thinking they are buying themselves some protection. How can you lay off the “good mother” or expect a high level of competion from a “good mother?” They are arguing they should be given a weight handicap in the horse race that is office politics. They do not want to compete against women that mythically have all this energy to show them up at work and sexually. (as if, women can only compete for the token rewards only given to…token women) They do not want the alternative lifestyle of childfreeness to be throw in their face. I’m surprised they don’t want single childless women to throw a tarp over themselves as the patriarchy does women in backward countries. Can’t see the mythical wonton woman. She’s comin’ to take your man and your job!!!!!!

Meanwhile, I have to say, I’ve seen FAR more support from childless women supporting mothers on forums and at the workplace, than mothers supporting childfree women. It is so engrained and hypnotized into women that otherwise liberal women can’t see it.

Reclaiming a word is recasting it as a positive. Using it as a negative allows all the patriarchal bullshit imbued in the word to live on, whether you want it to or not. Like “douche.”

That said, I still love Twisty, whether she apologizes to anyone’s satisfaction or not.

Okay, let’s try this again. This is about the theory you have posed here, whether or not it represents your personal views.

”I do not want kids.”

Excellent judgment. It’s damned hard and you really have to want it badly to do it well. That statement says nothing negative about children or yourself.

“I don’t like kids. This is not the same things assaying that I *dislike* kids… I do not like red-heads. This means that I do not have the specific emotion of ‘liking’ for all red-heads,
it does not mean that I specificially dislike redheads.”

Whorfian hypothesis anyone?

I do not want kids
htis is not the same thing as saying that I do not like kids:

I don’t like kids

This is not the same things assaying that I *dislike* kids

and it is certainly not the same hting as saying that I hate kids

I do not like red-heads
this means that I do not have the specific emotion of ‘liking’ for all red-heads,
it does not mean that I specificially dislike redheads.

When it coems to children, many of them do share certain characteristics that I either find to be irritating or can’t stand to deal with.
This does not mean that I hate them,
it does mean that I am not going to share much of my own space and time to take care of them