Vika,

I fully agree with Bean that your statement is a sweeping one. And her point about men, sports and beer is so true. Most of the men in my community have anything but purely intellectual interests. They talk sports, farming and hunting. And even the farming, which could easily become intellectualized, isn't.

I've only lived out on the family farm for a few years of my life, but the time I've spent there has been getting to know the land and the wild plants that inhabit it. Most I can figure out with the help of books.

However, this summer I came across a beautiful weed, couldn't track it down in either books or online, so I went to the men at the feed and grain store where they advise farmers about how to get rid of certain weeds. The "expert" in the group made two suggestions, both of them incorrect. What I learned is that they had only a passing interest in names of weeds, but a practical grasp of which poisons would kill them effectively.

However, these men and their sons have keen interest in sports and hunting, and that's fine with me. But I have yet to have a single conversation with any man there that bordered on what is purely intellectual other than those conversations with ministers. A couple of ministers I've known have an interest in reading and ideas. One of them, in fact, is an intellectual. But those two ministers are the exception to the rule.

I am not criticizing these farmers' lives at all. But I again have to agree with Bean that you just cannot put men generally into a different realm of being more intellectual.

There is a place in which both men and women dwell and talk about history, science, literature and art with interest in facts and refinement of ideas. If there happen to be more men in that realm, then the only reason I can see for that being so is more men have been educated and have gone on after formal education to refine their education.

I teach hundreds of young children each year. And I've been doing so for over twenty-five years. I don't do surveys, but I can tell you some of the girls exhibit great alertness to ideas, even on an elementary level. I would never place one sex above the other.

So, take your pick: soap operas or sports and exclude nearly everything else. You're gonna have fun and you're gonna find a lot of kindred spirits. That's fine. That's just the way people are.

But you'll also find many men and women who enjoy intellectual exchange if you look in the right places--and sometimes there is that wonder of finding them in places you least expected to find them.

Your command of English, by the way, is impressive. You write here on AWAD much better than you did when you first appeared.

Best regards,
WW