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The Man Boobz Survey is up! Go take it! [UPDATE: Survey closes Thursday at 8 PM, EST]

Survey says: Actually, none of these are options on the Man Boobz survey
Survey says: Actually, none of these are options on the Man Boobz survey

Thanks to the hard work of Argenti Aertheri and the suggestions of various other Boobzers, the Man Boobz survey is now up and ready to be taken. It will give me — and all of you — a better picture of just what sort of people read Man Boobz on a regular basis. It’s completely anonymous. Go take it! It will only take a few minutes.

I will probably leave it up for a couple of days, and will report the results here as soon as the numbers are crunched.

I think pretty much any other question you might have about it will probably be answered on the survey itself, so hop to it!

Thanks Argenti!

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pecunium
11 years ago

Argenti: Not really relevant, but anyone else here encounter the assholes who assume having gone to college makes you less worthy of respect than them because clearly you’re too good for their lifestyle?

Yes. It’s part and parcel of the “American Ideal” and the Conservative attack on, “Intellectual Elites” (which is part and parcel of their oligarchic tendency: it’s not that you graduated from the top of your class which matters, it’s that you went to Andover, or Cranbrook).

So “book larnin'” is mocked, while “going to the right schools” is praised. It’s part of the dichotomous nature of our origins. I commend “Albion’s Seed” for how some of how this combines.

pecunium
11 years ago

LBT: Being fairly young, I’ve actually wanted to ask the older folks I know about this. Because I kinda assume that world is just some collective cultural fantasy that never existed, and that things have always sucked like this. Is it not so?

It is not so. From about 1940-1980 people who became adult were doing better than their parents.

Between some changes to the SEC rules under Nixon, and Reagan breaking the Unions, the trend has reversed, and it’s snowballing.

Sid
Sid
11 years ago

@Argenti: “And *scratches head* apparently people are checking multiple of the gay/lesbian, bi/pan/omni and heterosexual boxes…odd…”

Well, I was tempted to do that. I am pansexual, but I consider myself a lesbian (and call myself one) because I only date women. It’s likely that’s the case with others who’ve checked gay/lesbian or hetero and omni. No clue if you’ve got people checking all three though 😛

hrovitnir
hrovitnir
11 years ago

Well, my second screed did not happen back-to-back because I had an exam. 3/4 done for my first half of my first year! Stats was pretty shit and I will be so sad if I have to re-do it (my own fault, but seriously, I am not a fan of rote learning. I know the concepts, but why do science majors have to memorise all the formula?!?!), chem was worse than expected because I was really down and kind of gave up on studying, plus we were meant to have more organic chemistry than inorganic and physical because we didn’t do an in-term test for that and… we didn’t. I loves naming, and we only got 2 questions on it!! Still, I almost can’t fail since my course work is sitting on an A-. Just did cell bio, was pretty sweet, should definitely get an A overall unless I am much mistaken in my impressions. Just human evolution and sexuality exam to go, which requires freaking essays, but I’m not too concerned about it really. Just gotta brush up on my hominid names in the next couple of days.

RE: hrovitnir

I actually spent some time in your country! I remember just being shocked and floored that people couldn’t just get fired for no known reason. SORCERY. I remember having roughly the same issues getting hired there as I did here… but I was also on a short, one-year visa, and so that probably had a huge impact on my potential employers. Ain’t nobody wants a worker gone in six months.

Makes me so sad.  There are migrant worker jobs fruit picking and similar if you can handle it, money can be pretty good, but our job market’s still pretty bad the last few years. When were you here?

I have to say, as much as I HATEHATEHATE a lot of what our current conservative government has been doing (basically got rid of overtime and made it so your employer can demand a health certificate for *one* day off work, shit like that –oh, and asset sales. Because everyone knows what a good idea that is!), I’m pretty OK with re-allowing 3-month trial periods. As someone who is a very hard worker with a (previously) very average CV, I appreciate the opportunity to get in that way. And it doesn’t really empower dickheads to screw employees over any more than they already do.

CassandraSays | June 23, 2013 at 3:43 pm
Another factoid from Dad – he’s now hiring people who have graduate degrees for jobs that they would have been qualified for with an undergrad degree when I graduated, and the people who only have undergrad degrees are mostly having their applications disposed of in the round file.

I find that whole thing… bizarre. I mean, I’m bitter as shit about the fact that you need to be qualified to do bullshit jobs, but students are seen as slackers, but we need qualified people, but we’re stingy as shit about student allowances, oh and of course you can’t get a job if you’re overqualified… it’s like someone’s just tried to make being entering the workforce as difficult as possible! Never mind house prices these days… and I know for a fact our economy and job market is better than the US. It’s bad enough here. I pretty much get by because my partner makes a decent amount of money. I resent greatly that while I trust him not to be a douche if we split up, I am in a position of being unable to be independent, and if we split up he will have to keep all the animals because there is no way I can afford what housing would let me have them. :’(

@ hrovitnir
Yeah, my Dad has been mounting a campaign to get me to move back to the UK for years, and one of his main arguments is that the direction the US economy is moving in is “feudal”.

Ahh, I didn’t realise you didn’t live in the UK! Makes sense. I think so long as you have to option to go back to the UK, the US can be more comfortable? My friend moved back home to California and was rapt by the improvement in quality of life as a low-income person. But it’s because her family has money, and consumables are cheap. So no social system, no healthcare, but cheaper, comfortable accommodation and lower bills for food and clothes etc.

Where you from in the UK? Do you stay in the US because of friends/family, or do you prefer it where you are?

Hispanic is obviously a problematic category, especially cross-culturally. In the US, people generally do see it as a clear category, but demographers also classify many Hispanics as white and use categories like “white Hispanic” and “non-Hispanic white.”

That whole things is deeply confusing to me. I get the distinct impression that the number of South Americans who actually identify as “Hispanic” is perhaps low? Even if they speak Spanish? If we had time to make the best possible ethnicity options, whilst not listing every possible country, I would be really interested.

pecunium
11 years ago

Argenti: I mean, unless we have another person in Israel, Eurosabra’s dropped by

€Sob-brah is in Los Angeles.

(pretty sure neither is thrilled that I started smoking again though, but pecunium hasn’t said anything on that one

Unless you want to be close enough that I have have to smell it on your breath, we’re cool. I’m very much a personal libertarian on the, “if the only person you are risking is yourself, it’s your life,” side of things.

pecunium
11 years ago

Cassandra: Thanks for that ‘splain, BlackBloc. Obviously I had no idea that the situation I was describing wasn’t the eternal nature of all economies everywhere.

And it glosses the ways in which countries outside the US (e.g. France, Germany, the UK) made some of that transition to a middle class in the Victorian era, and the ways in which WW1 accelerated it.

pecunium
11 years ago

Re Class: I had a hard time. My living arrangement is a triad, so how shall I determine income? There is no way in hell any of us could live here on our own. There is a huge disparity in our incomes (I don’t know the real numbers, but I am the lowest income of the three of us).

We have a quasi-marxist arrangement for bills (it’s scaled to income: I am paying about 40 percent of my base income: rent and untilities,and I contribute to food to the tune of about 20 percent of my income).

So am I classed based on total household income? On living situation (technically I rent, but we own), on being “retired”, because I have a disability pension from the Army and can afford to live without a job, despite being less than 50?

I fudged, based on how I feel about my place in the the US society, my presentation to others, and my ability to do what I want/constraints of incomes/place/work.

Kittehserf
11 years ago

@hrovitnir:

Well, Kitteh, as much as the better pay and interesting animals are a real attractant to me, I’m not prepared to live in Australia specifically because you can cut the racism with a knife. NZ has the same issues but it’s so much milder… I find it mind blowing how bad the racism and politics are over there.

Too bloody true. I have white privilege so don’t experience it directly, except having to listen on occasion to the racist spoutings from my sister and BiL. But shit, the things that make it to the news … It might not be as overt as in the US, but it sure as hell is there. 🙁

I find the class/income gap in the US really terrifying. We’re heading the same way, just slower and less extreme. :/ I just can never get my head around how little people get paid in service jobs over there.

Ditto. I mean, I’m in a clerical job, on $23 an hour, which is well above the minimum wage (although being part time, my take home pay ends up under the minimum) – and I’d be struggling if I lived alone. But the wages in the US are terrifyingly low, and it’s not like the price of living is that much lower.

@Argenti –

Not really relevant, but anyone else here encounter the assholes who assume having gone to college makes you less worthy of respect than them because clearly you’re too good for their lifestyle?

Only sort of – the ones who assume anyone who doesn’t say “fuck” every other word is uni educated and therefore some sort of snob/class traitor. (I swear a lot here and at work, but not in front of strangers, and not ever the “Went down to the fucking milkbar and the fucking tool didn’t have any fucking milk” variety.) The aggressive “stupid and proud of it” variety.

Mostly online it’s the opposite: “you don’t have X degrees/ didn’t go to college, therefore why should I take any notice of you?” I saw one nasty and unexpected example of that on Pharyngula the other day: PZ was having a poke at some creationist’s number fails and lumped “people who don’t have access to a calculator and can’t do algebra” as “primitive”. Yup, primitive. Thanks, PZ, I wasn’t aware being unable to understand maths made me contemptible like that.

hrovitnir
hrovitnir
11 years ago

Kittehserf | June 23, 2013 at 6:45 pm
Too bloody true. I have white privilege so don’t experience it directly, except having to listen on occasion to the racist spoutings from my sister and BiL. But shit, the things that make it to the news … It might not be as overt as in the US, but it sure as hell is there.

Precisely. I know it wouldn’t harm me directly, but I don’t want to support a regime that is absolutely revolting when it comes to the indigenous people (not that it’s not a really hard situation but that doesn’t excuse anything) and immigrants. Ew.

Only sort of – the ones who assume anyone who doesn’t say “fuck” every other word is uni educated and therefore some sort of snob/class traitor. (I swear a lot here and at work, but not in front of strangers, and not ever the “Went down to the fucking milkbar and the fucking tool didn’t have any fucking milk” variety.) The aggressive “stupid and proud of it” variety.

This is kind of interesting. I tend to be so generally odd and analytical and use “big words” and proudly anti-intellectual mostly seem to be bemused by me. My partner did have an employee who would talk in a “bro” accent with his co-workers but not with him or outside at work. He said if he didn’t, they saw him as getting above himself.

That is depressing because it’s really quite self-limiting: it’s tied into the attitude of most of them have of “not my job”. Stuff like won’t turn the lights on in the morning because it’s “not their job”. None of them see getting a management job as even an option so wouldn’t think of trying. *sigh*

Argenti Aertheri
Argenti Aertheri
11 years ago

“€Sob-brah is in Los Angeles.”

Huh, ok then.

And I started working on wtf racial breakdown to expect given the countries the replied are coming from and yep, there are apparently no Hispanics in Argentina, needless to say I’m giving myself a headache. It does, however, explain how we’re so flippin’ white — self-ID by people outside the US, surprise surprise, won’t match inside the US.

Also, Canada is a lot whiter than I was expecting.

Pecunium — unless we end up reaching for the sugar at the same time or something, pretty sure you don’t have to worry about it! As in, sorry dude, but you’re a bit old for me.

Class…yeah, I get it, I even with the definitions it doesn’t work. And fuck me, I’m eating and typing.

pecunium
11 years ago

Falconer: Some of the atheists in the Oak Ridge Unitarian Universalist congregation were demanding that the next pastor be an atheist, recently.

Hmrn…. based on that I suspect you know my stepmother, and some of my siblings.

I had to pause to collect my brains, because the thought that there were atheists who went to church stopped me cold.

There are atheist Quakers too.

CassandraSays
CassandraSays
11 years ago

@ hrovitnir

Originally from Scotland, grew up all over the place. I ended up in the US because I came over on vacation and met this guy…I do like where I am most of the time, but if we end up with another Republican government I may have to reconsider.

Kittehserf
11 years ago

Cassandra – my bf in LA was seriously researching whether she could migrate here or NZ in ’08. I don’t know if she’d do it now, given changes in her situation, but yeah. I’m scared of how bad it’ll get here if the bloody Coalition (business stooges and redneck stooges) gets in come September. Trouble is, much as I’d love to get the hell out, I can’t. No money and no job skills/level of education that’d get me into another country. Plus, the countries I’d like to live in have governments that suck even worse than the Coalition, and much worse economies.

LBT
LBT
11 years ago

Not gonna lie, when I was in New Zealand, I considered moving there. It was one of the happiest times of my life, my time there. Alas, now it’s pretty much a no-go. But at least I got to spend time outside my country and get used to a different way of living. I do miss the odd kindness towards strangers I kept encountering.

Kim
Kim
11 years ago

@Argenti Aertheri

I saw you say on the other thread that there are over 1000 responses to the survey already. Yay! How long are you going to leave it before you start number crunching? I’m on the edge of my hard misandric seat.

Unimaginative
11 years ago

I kind of like the idea of leaving it open through Monday, to catch the people who don’t internet on the weekend. Honestly, this is the first weekend in months I’ve been able to idle away HOURS here. Unfortunately, it also going to be the last for at least a month.

Marie
Marie
11 years ago

@Emilygoddess

(He visitado a España, y me gustaría mucho volver otra vez. Also, no he hablado/escrito en español en unos años)

But you have the amazing ability to type n~’s (no idea how here XD) Jelly of the people talking in spanish to each other, but my spanish is horrible, so I’m not going to try… *nervous*

@Myoo

I also didn’t answer the class one. I’m unemployed, but I am living with my mother who is middle-class, so I have a lot of advantages other unemployed people wouldn’t have, so I wasn’t sure what to answer.

Sounds like your situation is similar to mine. I hit middle class, because that’s what it felt to me, but to each their own.

@The Spider from Mars

Hello and welcome 🙂 And sorry you had to be introduced to the mra in meat space, sounds creepier that way 🙁

@BlackSphinx

Welcome 😀

@arubakeru

I’m so glad I found Manboobz! I’m shy and socially awkward so it’s difficult for me to express my emotions without feeling that I’m being weird, but I’m having a happy day and I wanted to tell you all that I love this site and that I am learning a lot from all of you. Thank you! 😀

Yay! 😀 And yay that you’re having a happy day 🙂

@Dvärghundspossen

@Amnesia: I think you’re on the safe side if your hair bleaches easily in the sun. But you know how some people’s hair stay really dark even if they’re out in the sun and get a deep tan? They’re the suspicious ones…

Wow. pretty sure then my dad wouldn’t be considered white there, and I may not. Kinda weird to hear all the non-USian stuff, since I’ve never heard about it (good though! Knowledge is nice) but I ID as white cuz we’ve* got white privelege working for us. wow that was kinda rambly I hope I make sense.

*my family, not makiing weird assumptions about manboobzians.

@Argenti Aertheri

Not really relevant, but anyone else here encounter the assholes who assume having gone to college makes you less worthy of respect than them because clearly you’re too good for their lifestyle?

Not had the misfortune of meeting one but they sound…strange.

. (Father’s in Florida and relative decent these days, mother should die in a house fire [because she tried training the cat to be an indoor cat through pain, which meant when the house went up the kitty didn’t try to run out, so pardon me if I think she should’ve been stuck with it, I loved that cat])

That’s horrible 🙁 Jedi hugs if you want them.

And, ignore the following if a derail is off limits, but I just had the most awkward couple hours with relatives :/ Early on my dad’s fiance is yelling at her 3 year old daughter for crawling around in a dress and ‘showing everyone her diaper’ til the kid starts crying, and the whole thing was making me really uncomfy. And I was grumpy for the hour or two after so I didn’t really socialize much with relatives (not htat I wanted to much, kinda shy) and everyone probably thinks of me as the weird grumpy person now. /rant

Argenti Aertheri
Argenti Aertheri
11 years ago

Kim — yeah, at least through tomorrow, unless I start seeing refers from MRM sites, but so far so good on that.

And we’re at 1115. So. Much. Data.

BlackSphinx
11 years ago

@Falconer: There are also atheists who are Pagan! (Can’t quite recall what they tend to call themselves off the top of my head – humanistic pagans or archetypalists…) Religion can be a funny, interesting thing.

Kittehserf
11 years ago

Marie – yuk, what a crappy evening.

As to people thinking you’re weird, grumpy or whatever – stuff ’em. If they know you so little, and you’re not around them much, that’s their tough luck.

Also OT: it’s a good thing Sir and I don’t try to make porn, ‘cos we’d have had one of those Interrupted By Pet moments yesternight. Suffice to say that falling off the couch and having Quadrille come over all “Are you two-legs okay? You are? Cool, want to play?” was not conducive to sexytimes.

Kim
Kim
11 years ago

I’m not in any danger of poverty or homelessness because my parents wouldn’t let it come to that

I think that is part of being middle class. Even if you personally aren’t earning very much, you have a family with resources to help you out.

Despite being well educated I’ve a sporadic work history for various reasons, which has often led to feeling poor, but I know that I’ll never be homeless or starve because I can always go stay with my parents if I really need to and they’ll be able to afford to feed me. So yeah, being a bit of a screw up without suffering the same consequences as other people might do, is definitely middle class privilege.

Kim
Kim
11 years ago

NB: Only talking about myself as a screw up. Not meaning to say that about anyone else who gets support from their family. My brother who is decidedly not a screw up still gets a loan from my parents occasionally.

Marie
Marie
11 years ago

@kittehs

Marie – yuk, what a crappy evening.

As to people thinking you’re weird, grumpy or whatever – stuff ‘em. If they know you so little, and you’re not around them much, that’s their tough luck.

🙂 Just nice to hear, you know.

Viscaria
Viscaria
11 years ago

If I can be a little OT, I’m heading home now! Fun as it’s been to loaf around Man Boobz all Sunday XD I’m glad I can actually get to my house. I am not anticipating any flood damage or anything.

Kittehserf
11 years ago

Marie – happy hugs if you want ’em! 🙂

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