mytfarms
Well-known member
The link is here or the text below.
http://www.themytsquared.com/?p=99
First, let me get out of the way that "stud" is where the STALLION stands. I.e., the stallion is standing at stud for a $10,000 service fee. So yes, stallions, mares, horse colts, and fillies, plus the odd gelding; I've got the nomenclature and classifications down. Here's what intrigues me.
This is simply dealing with my personal experience and the wisdom of the ages I have seen, heard, and sometimes experienced from generations of fine horsemen before me. Perhaps I ought not to even label myself as lofty a term as horseman as "animal behavior observationist."
In the cab of a cake truck or two, bouncing through the Nebraska Sandhills on my uncle's ranch, I came to learn a good deal about studs. They were the lords of their harem, fiercely defending their broodmare band from would be suitors if the fences between studs went down. Big, masculine jaws, unpredictable attitudes, and the ability to sniff out which foals were their own, often killing offspring not sired by them. Pretty ruthless picture, no?
Riding those death traps was another thing. You were a big, tough old cowboy who used barbed wire for coffee creamer and Copenhagen for seasoning if you rode the prized stud of an outfit. Bringing one to the branding pen around other studs, laid back geldings, and heaven forbid, the occasional mare in season, made for a handful before you tried to rope and drag.
Good studs of course would tuck their pride for a rider who wasn't showing any fear and knew his mount well. Same goes for a lot of ponies. But they are respected for what they got to keep that makes them extra muscular, extra powerful, and a little extra unpredictable. A local horse training outfit recently put out an ad for a rider and barn help, "with special experience around studs and young horses." They carry a bit of a reputation.
Now, stud rider I am not, but I have sat in the middle of my fair share of mares. Good gals for most of the year, but if it was "that time," and sometimes just because it was too early or too cold or too hot, you'd have attitude. Often times, I found you had to do a little sweet talking to make it through the tough days, cause digging a spur in might just get you more than you planned on.
Naturally, we invented the gelding I don't know how many millennia back. More even headed than the mare, and almost as stout as the stud but with a solemn vow to celibacy. Long as you got the "buttons" on gelding day, you'd have a pretty cool headed one if he had the right mind on him.
So, what the heck does it all amount to? I have heard theories that people are biologically sophisticated animals. I can't argue that at a biological level, we ain't all that different from a band of horses. There's a pecking order, a boss, and so on. Social order aside, we are fairly similar according to gender. See my above writing to see if there's not a little humorous truth there.
But what gets me is here in the human world, we will write, discuss, and research such idioms as the ones I outlined for the equus ilk. Not always true in every single case, but generalities that most have experienced. Women need to be shown love this way, men are visual, women are emotional, men die sooner 'cause testosterone, and on goes the theories, studies, and gender differences.
My issue comes with how we can think nature can get it right, and in the same breath talk about how we have it so wrong. Which is it? Are we meant to be hard wired to our chromosomal predisposition by evolution, or have we gotten so postmodern, we've evolved above gender confinements?
Animals are awful smart, and though I haven't been around that many in the grand scheme, I've observed them for the better part of my couple decades on earth. I've seen bulls mount each other in the development pen, only to forsake that immediately for hot cows on summer grass. I've seen studs whip bossy mares into line with teeth, hooves, and hunks of hair and dust going every which direction because he is the leader.
You ain't got to be a Nobel Laureate to draw my comparisons, and I'm sure a few of you are hot under the collar by now. I also understand that seahorse males give birth, some female animals change genders in effect to self fertilize, and other such "chinks" in this thinking. However, indulge my thought process for moment and examine your own if you would be so inclined.
Do these "roles" sound like they were constructed by social norms, capitalism, or a male dominated society? Or could it just be that outside our little sphere of crust, water, and atmosphere, there's a reason the stamp of male and female seems to repeat across species and cultures? Might it be hormones were indeed meant to influence male behavior to aggressive protection and female behavior to cycling, lactations, and mothering instinct?
I find it incredible that we can think our way to arguing why genders are pointless. I'm not saying that the human social order gets it even close to right and that "traditional" role abuses don't exist. But perhaps we ought to decide if being a "gender conformist" ought not to make you an animal by societal standards. Maybe it's you fulfilling a God given plan.
My 2 cents.
-C
http://www.themytsquared.com/?p=99
First, let me get out of the way that "stud" is where the STALLION stands. I.e., the stallion is standing at stud for a $10,000 service fee. So yes, stallions, mares, horse colts, and fillies, plus the odd gelding; I've got the nomenclature and classifications down. Here's what intrigues me.
This is simply dealing with my personal experience and the wisdom of the ages I have seen, heard, and sometimes experienced from generations of fine horsemen before me. Perhaps I ought not to even label myself as lofty a term as horseman as "animal behavior observationist."
In the cab of a cake truck or two, bouncing through the Nebraska Sandhills on my uncle's ranch, I came to learn a good deal about studs. They were the lords of their harem, fiercely defending their broodmare band from would be suitors if the fences between studs went down. Big, masculine jaws, unpredictable attitudes, and the ability to sniff out which foals were their own, often killing offspring not sired by them. Pretty ruthless picture, no?
Riding those death traps was another thing. You were a big, tough old cowboy who used barbed wire for coffee creamer and Copenhagen for seasoning if you rode the prized stud of an outfit. Bringing one to the branding pen around other studs, laid back geldings, and heaven forbid, the occasional mare in season, made for a handful before you tried to rope and drag.
Good studs of course would tuck their pride for a rider who wasn't showing any fear and knew his mount well. Same goes for a lot of ponies. But they are respected for what they got to keep that makes them extra muscular, extra powerful, and a little extra unpredictable. A local horse training outfit recently put out an ad for a rider and barn help, "with special experience around studs and young horses." They carry a bit of a reputation.
Now, stud rider I am not, but I have sat in the middle of my fair share of mares. Good gals for most of the year, but if it was "that time," and sometimes just because it was too early or too cold or too hot, you'd have attitude. Often times, I found you had to do a little sweet talking to make it through the tough days, cause digging a spur in might just get you more than you planned on.
Naturally, we invented the gelding I don't know how many millennia back. More even headed than the mare, and almost as stout as the stud but with a solemn vow to celibacy. Long as you got the "buttons" on gelding day, you'd have a pretty cool headed one if he had the right mind on him.
So, what the heck does it all amount to? I have heard theories that people are biologically sophisticated animals. I can't argue that at a biological level, we ain't all that different from a band of horses. There's a pecking order, a boss, and so on. Social order aside, we are fairly similar according to gender. See my above writing to see if there's not a little humorous truth there.
But what gets me is here in the human world, we will write, discuss, and research such idioms as the ones I outlined for the equus ilk. Not always true in every single case, but generalities that most have experienced. Women need to be shown love this way, men are visual, women are emotional, men die sooner 'cause testosterone, and on goes the theories, studies, and gender differences.
My issue comes with how we can think nature can get it right, and in the same breath talk about how we have it so wrong. Which is it? Are we meant to be hard wired to our chromosomal predisposition by evolution, or have we gotten so postmodern, we've evolved above gender confinements?
Animals are awful smart, and though I haven't been around that many in the grand scheme, I've observed them for the better part of my couple decades on earth. I've seen bulls mount each other in the development pen, only to forsake that immediately for hot cows on summer grass. I've seen studs whip bossy mares into line with teeth, hooves, and hunks of hair and dust going every which direction because he is the leader.
You ain't got to be a Nobel Laureate to draw my comparisons, and I'm sure a few of you are hot under the collar by now. I also understand that seahorse males give birth, some female animals change genders in effect to self fertilize, and other such "chinks" in this thinking. However, indulge my thought process for moment and examine your own if you would be so inclined.
Do these "roles" sound like they were constructed by social norms, capitalism, or a male dominated society? Or could it just be that outside our little sphere of crust, water, and atmosphere, there's a reason the stamp of male and female seems to repeat across species and cultures? Might it be hormones were indeed meant to influence male behavior to aggressive protection and female behavior to cycling, lactations, and mothering instinct?
I find it incredible that we can think our way to arguing why genders are pointless. I'm not saying that the human social order gets it even close to right and that "traditional" role abuses don't exist. But perhaps we ought to decide if being a "gender conformist" ought not to make you an animal by societal standards. Maybe it's you fulfilling a God given plan.
My 2 cents.
-C
