It bears noting that those women were in a group, and the behavior of women in groups is usually much worse than their normal behavior, especially when the topic of conversation is someone outside the group. My wife has been a nurse for a long time, working almost exclusively with women, and she has frequently noted how easily the group conversations sink to the lowest common denominator---not so much in terms of vulgarity, but more in terms of bitterness and cruelty.

This is why they took your comment in the worst possible way: It wasn't that any of them individually would have taken it that way. The group made them do it.

Politically Correct etiquette would now require some parallel statement about men, for the sake an equivalence between the sexes presumed a priori. But I've never noticed a parallel with the social dynamics of groups of men, at least not with men past college.

Maybe it's group dynamics. I don't know. I'm 59, and I've heard this said almost all my life about the behavior and language of women in groups.

I don't completely disagree with Mr. Bateman. But I think this is more complex, maybe an unintended consequence of late 20th century femminism (I like "dreadful symmetry") which seems to have ended in the broad and total sexualization of women and girls and the debasement of men (The Man Show, any sitcom one chooses, etc.) None of us, men or women, seems to like it, but we react nonetheless to the stereotypes. It was particularly rude in this case, but maybe not unusual either.

If it isn't wisdom, it's certainly conventional, and the trigger is cocked with people of both sexes now (not gender, please), and almost any remark, however innocent comes with a label warning provided by the listener...or a quick double entendre for a cheap laugh.

This is the age of Jon Benet and thousands more, and men aren't responsible for THAT.

Rhod,
I'm 3/4 your age, but I don't remember hearing this generalization all that much. Then again, maybe I haven't been in the same context as you have. Not having been privy to the exchange between Justin and the others, I don't know what prompted his conclusion of the gist of their quips. I do know how easy it is to misinterpret what another person communicates. I sometimes wonder how people manage to communicate at all given that each and every one of us interprets each individual word in a different manner. Just the element of not being familiar with another person's body language and tone of voice can skew somebody's interpretation of a conversation by over 50%.

My take on it is not so much that we are two warring tribes, but that we are a combative people on all fronts. Whether acknowledged or not, self-preservation or self-protection is given top priority by nearly every one of us even at the expense of loved ones. I for one think that a statement like "The group made them do it." is too much like saying "The devil made me do it."

Justin,
Would you please elaborate on which marriage debate you see as the subject of the termendous implications?

oops, termendous should have been tremendous.

Smmtheory:

Memory is an aggregation, and while I don't recall specific instances, I believe I've heard this from women as well, but myths are passed around this way, too. Men who claim that women are vulgar in groups might have an axe to grind, so none of what I said on this matter is dismissive of women. Men are vulgar in groups, and even moreso today, I think, than ever before.

I was an adult in the 60's, or thought I was, and can recall the coarsening of women's behavior in social settings then. By "coarsening", I don't mean that it was the comparative by which only women should be judged, or that men were innocent of this or forgiven for it. Vulgarity is vulgarity, from either sex.

With women it seemed to be accompanied by an open hostility to men, some of it deserved, but the road taken since then is cluttered with impressions about men which I think are extreme and reflexive.

The reaction of a teacher to a vague and neutral inquiry about the age of a young extrovert, and its possible connection to the enquirer's sexual possibilities is, to me, irrational. I think Mr. Katz got the message, or at least correctly interpreted this response too.

First of all, institutions which bring children closely together with adults are especially suspect today, and men have more of a burden with this issue than women.

(Rhod, please, this is a first-name-basis kind of blog.)

Regarding what made me come to that conclusion about how my comment was taken, I didn't come to it until I'd finished grading my quizzes and had a moment to reflect. Given the tone of the reactions and responses that seemed bizarre, I could think of no other reason that fit as well as the one I offered in the post.

Misinterpreting such things is always a possibility — as is the existence of an expression or tone on my part of which I wasn't aware. And I'm not inclined to judge anybody involved very harshly at all.

For one thing, I've been a little surprised at the tendency of the Church's scandals of the past decade to poke their way into conversation from time to time. Especially for the older women, the scandals seem to be taken in a way to which I'm not, personally, inclined, and given the vocation of the women involved, it's just under the surface of many topics.

It would be understandable — although this is entirely speculation — for women whose practices have had to conform to the new reality to be a bit more sensitive. Mix in the gender wars, and some might take the view that men caused the problem, so it is unfair for women to feel any increased scrutiny. (Put aside that, in this instance, it was the somewhat less suspicious circumstance of a man inquiring about a girl.)

If it's true that the Scandal plays into my little anecdote, then the entire interaction indicates something even less healthy, I'd say, than just women's hidden views about men. We have the offenders to blame, in large part, but there's a culpability that accrues to lost perspective.