4 -The Michigan Daily - Tuesday, February 5, 2002 OP/ED Cbe wrbia1t#-7d~ll 420 MAYNARD STREET ANN ARBOR, MI 48109 letters@michigandaily.com EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN SINCE 1890 JON SCHWARTZ Editor in Chief JOHANNA HANINK Editorial Page Editor Unless otherwise noted, unsigned editorials reflect the opinion of the majority of the Daily's editorial board. All other articles, letters and cartoons do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Michigan Daily. NOTABLE QUOTABLE We have no evidence at all that Iran has any ties with terrorist organizations." - Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, in regards to President Bush's indictment of the "axis of evil" - Iran, Iraq and North Korea, as reported by The Wall Street Journal. Ivanov quickly added that he wasn't including Hezbollah and Hamas. d _ - ( at' ? pac hG's SAM BUTLER THE SOAPBOX v yj . lr _ Q t t5 *c oe 0. food Av'trict+ vt.. w*.+c.Wv5 4-V %.)Pec BOWS. The truth about cats and dogs:Los gatos DUSTIN SEIBERT THE MANIFESTO Anger. Frustration. Hatred. Confusion. Warmth. Sensitivity. Kind- ness. Compassion. f men are 100-level soci- ology classes, women are 300-level EECS classes. Men better than myself have racked their brains in an attempt to come up with a means to sum up women. Please. We will come up with a cure for cancer first. I think the best thing men can hope to do is develop some type of under- standing for them that most of us don't have so that we can better co-exist (and yes, we are doing a pretty bad job co-existing now). What is it that women want in this world? Simple - they desire everything, and their actions are dictated by their drive to get as much of it as possible. The man is left with the task of figuring out exactly what she needs at any given point in time in order to keep her happy. What worked yesterday may not work today, and it is your job to be able to properly distinguish, at the risk of imminent death. In actuality, women don't know exactly what they want, but most haven't found that middle ground either. This is apparent in most college-age women who bounce from guy to guy, breaking hearts and confusing them in the process. As I established before, guys typically know what they want from a woman ... whether it is made appar- ent at the beginning is a different story, of course ... but women will lead a man along for the longest time before he is made to realize, often painfully, that he is not in the most ideal of situa- tions. The female tendency to protect her own feel- ings by any means necessary often results in her lack of consideration for the man's feelings. How often do fellas sit waiting with their mouths wide open and their hands on their jock waiting to see what the hell she is going to do next? It's a well-known fact that men typically use logic and cognitive reasoning to dictate their actions, while women typically allow their emo- tions to guide them. Granted, I can accept the fact that either in extreme is unhealthy, but in the world that we live in, major decisions cannot be made based on the strength of emotional resolve - this may be a reason why men in our society hold almost all high-level governmental positions. Women usually have more humane means of resolving conflict, but it's only so effective in this cold world. Men may run the world from a latent stand- point, but there is, in fact, a woman influencing a multitude of the decisions that we make, small and large, basically because every woman has what every (straight) man has desired since we figured out what to do with that thing in between our legs. They know this, and many won't hesitate to use it to their benefit. This is why women are definitely shadier by design than men. For some reason, the punany makes us stupid and unable to form sound judgments and they know and utilize this! The double standard is becoming a hassle these days, as it appears that women only use it when it is convenient; it's as if women want to be feminists, but they still desire the traditional meth- ods of male courtesy. Nothing do I have against feminine empowerment, but don't expect me to pick up the check for every date or work while you stay home and think I am going to step on eggshells because yot> call yourself a "liberated woman." Sorry, no dice. T'was a wise man who said"hell hath no fury " When a woman goes off the deep end, you best bring a lifejacket should she decide to take your hapless ass with her. Some women take advantage of their title as the "weaker sex" to get away with murder when it comes to guys. Domes- tic abuse, not to undermine the problem as it exists, is not at all exclusive to men. The truth is that a woman can beat a man within an inch of his life, but let him lay a finger on her ... who's goin' .to county lockup? And there is the occasional psy- cho bitch out there who will kick a man's ass, then mutilate herself so he can't call on the police! I am a big fan of women who take it upon themselves to rage against the machine, but I cannot promote that boiling rabbit foolishness. A friend made an interesting statement to me: Women need love to have sex and men need sex to have love. Of course, this is a quite a generaliza- tion, but isn't it true a lot of times? In many form- ing relationships, every move seems to be a precursor to sex, as if it is a "hump" that needs to be eventually gotten over. Sure, men and women both want it, but we go about entirely different ways of getting it. Women often don't wish to put themselves out there so quickly ... they feel that if he can wait, then he will be the one worth doing it with. Men, however, tend to be the opposite - in the advent of a relationship, they want sex not too soon, but not too late. Sure it's kinda hazy, but I suppose the finest things in life weren't meant to be simple. Before I get a ton of foul looks from women all over campus, I should stress something that should already be obvious ... that is that I don't believe that all men or women fit the descriptions that I have placed forward. I didn't let my personal experience influence all of my words, but it is defi- nitely present in this and the last column. The best advice I can offer the fellas is to bite the bullet and put your girl on a pedestal; they all want to hear how much you love them and it is a minor sacri- fice considering the alternative. Understand, though, that as long as there are behemoths like Oprah Winfrey still walking-the earth, women will probably get even more complicated with time. Oh well. Knowledge. Dustin Seibert can be reached at dseibert@umich.edu. The world's biggest what? PETER CUNNIFFE ONE FOR THE RoAD O