If women can really multi-task, why do so many identify with Bridget Jones...?

Question

She's a bumbling idiot (and so was Jane Austen's original template).

HT: Your assumption is the false one, you assume that I base my question on viewing programmes; contraire, I refer to the hubbub around the time the film came out with women being surveyed to death in magazines and claiming affinity to the character. Don't try and pull armchair philosophy on me, you're doing a bad job of it.

Ok:
Premise 1: Bridget Jones bumbles and can't multi task (evidenced by the film).
Premise 2: Many women claim to identify with her.
Conclusion: Many women identify with someone who can't multi task, yet claim to multi-task themselves.

The syllogism works, although other evidence such as identifying partially or with other aspects of her character would moderate it.

That's a pity Wendy, but I won't attribute the shortfall to myself.

Vianka: It's a rare a woman claims to be a non multi-tasker, I applaud you. I actually can multi-task and I have no boobs.

Indeed, I fell sound asleep.

Answer 1

I am a male. I can multi-task. I saw the movie......(I laughed, I snickered, I yawned). Women said that they identified with the character for the very simple reason that, THEY WERE ASKED IF THEY DID, and because it was expedient; for the sake of communal (female) bonding, to agree with what everyone else was saying at that time. Now that the movie is 'old hat' their opinions have reverted back to a more representative response. No further peer pressure, hence no need to self deprecate are demean themselves.
There is a lot to be said for working with women. The learning curve is 'interesting'.

Answer 2

I do not identify with Bridget Jones at all. Hated the first movie and didn't see the second.


Sly Fox:

I believe that the brain is shaped early on in a person's life based on the activities they engaged in, not their gender.

I personally cannot stand multi-tasking, but I love activities where instense focus is required. I've always had a one track mind. Maybe it's because my dad used to take me hunting and fishing with him when I was a little girl.

Also, my dad lived in the country and my sister and I would go exploring all the time and make maps of the area. My dad was a pilot and he let me sit in the co-pilot's seat and sometimes let me have control of the yoke. When we were at the airport I loved watching the mechanic work on the airplanes and I loved playing with all the tools. He was also an avid sailer and taught my sister and I how to sail.

Oh yeah, I can parallel park extremely well and all of the apptitude tests I've taken say I score very high in visual spatial and analytical skills. I also like math. So whatever, dude. Just don't ask me to talk on the phone and drive at the same time!!

Thanks, Fox, I'll check it out. I'd like to see how they conducted their research. Maybe somebody will give them money to conduct research on the effects of gender specific toys and activities. We condition our children from an extremely early age. Dolls, social activities, kitchen playsets, etc... = girls, Legos, lincoln logs, guns, erector sets, etc... = boys. I remember one Christmas season some toy company was advertising a toy vacuum cleaner for girls!

Answer 3

I don't see what one has to do with the other...at all.

EDIT-(sigh)-Your syllogism doesn't "work" because it is too broad...there is missing information. Bridget Jones has MANY characteristics, "bumbling idiot" (perhaps) is just ONE. It may be that women identify with her DESPITE that characteristic. But I think the qualities that most women identify with are her tenacity, her spirit...and yes, the fact that isn't perfect, physically, or otherwise. But to make the connection to Fielding's humorously flawed Jones, and women's ability to multi-task, is quite a stretch. Again, one has nothing to do with the other.

And which of Jane Austen's character's (the template used by Fielding) was a "bumbling idiot?"

Answer 4

Interesting Oracle.
Bridget Jone's Diary- Loosely based on Pride and Prejudice; however the character of Bridget is unique to the novel and film. If Bridget was based on any character in Pride and prejudice it would have to be Lydia, Elizabeth Bennett's younger tearaway sister.
I do not believe Helen Fielding meant that to be and in no way could you attribute Austen's characterisation of any of the protagonists in Pride and Prejudice to be bumbling idiots: even Mr Collins had a little savy.
In answer to your question women identify with Bridget because her character hits the spot.

Answer 5

Yes, Bridget Jones was a bumbling, clumsy, sometimes downright foolish character. Yes, she couldn't multi-task. Sometimes she had problems dressing herself properly. The way I identified with her was that she was a woman who wasn't perfect, never claimed to be, and never felt that she needed to apologize for it.

Yes, there were "elements of the ridiculous" (or whatever the actual quote was in the movie describing her) about her, but that's the part that was refreshing! She was kind of overweight, she made mistakes, but she still got up, brushed herself off and kept on going.

I'm not saying she's any kind of microcosm for how I see myself, (I can multi-task AND I would never slide down a fireman's pole in a miniskirt) but I will admit that it was the fact that she acknowledged that part of herself and still carried on despite it that I kind of admired. Plus I got a chuckle out of it watching her because it was to such an extreme.

It was a movie meant to be a comedy, so her character was over the top.

Answer 6

I DO NOT identify with either one of those weak, helpless, cant do anything without a man women, Jane eventually got a spine, but not much of one. Too many years taking care of myself I suppose. I multi task all the time and hate laziness, unless it is Sunday in front of the football! Or have to choose between the gym or the studio...studio always wins...I don't get how modern women can identify with Jane Austen at all, I have never seen the Bridget Jones movies, too popular and too much of that whole bumbling idiot you mentioned. I hate chick flicks, whiny, weepy, weak.

Answer 7

In the same way that we like for example, Jim Carrey in the Mask film or Mr Bean. They arwe lovable characters. Women don't connect with bridget jones because she is a little hopeless it's because she's likable and she's had a hardx time with love, and gets irritated by her parents etc. It's a comedy!

Answer 8

Oo, and you worry about TD, Hell Hath no fury and all that!

Just remember what happen to poor old JWB!
Ooch!

ok. for the reason why.
It's only fair that we look into it!
This is just a very generalised MSP point of view, please Ladies I've put the true science stuff at the bottom!


Multi-tasking is great but being good at one thing generally means that your not so good at others.
Women can thick about many things at the same time as doing the Ironing and watching TV while talking on the phone.
They are so good at it in fact that they can over load the information system. so to compromise they split processing power and this can cause poor concentration.
Whereas us men we can hold one thought process it and then move on to the next. One piece at time.
Other interesting common ability or lack of in parking!
Men who are better wired in general for spacial task can park a car with no real problem whereas women can takes ages and still not get it done.

OK now for the Science this comes from notes made during my personal research.

An interesting consequence of early human male and female rolls maybe the difference in brain structure. The male brain is ten percent bigger than that of the female, but this is only due to the fact the average female is ten percent smaller than the average male, this does not make for more intelligent males however, size isn't everything, the theory of brain capacity seem to be related to cranial size and the ratio between brain and spinal cord weight but it also very much depends on what's inside and how it's made up, studies by Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Centre[6] which examined the ratios between cranial volume and the amounts of grey matter and white matter in males and female the results of which show that Women have a higher proportion of the former and a higher proportions of the latter in men. Grey matter communicates on a local level and is where computation takes place. white matter is used to communicate between cell groups in different areas of the brain and seems to aid in the performance of spatial tasks (knowing where you are in relation to the world around you). Though the female brain has less overall white matter than the male, it does a larger corpus callosum which connects the two hemispheres of the brain. The overall result of these difference in male and female brain structure this that males perform much better in activities which involve a high level of concentration to one particular activity and judging the distance and location of objects, where as females perform much better at multi tasking and communication. This makes men very suited for hunting where the ability to track, circle, and kill prey without impeding the other members of the party depends on knowing where you are, where your fellow hunters are, which way the animal is moving now and where it will move next. The same skills are used when playing football. Women on the other hand needed to multi process in their daily activities not only would they have been looking for fruits, nuts, barks, vegetables, and herbs they would have been caring for, watching and teaching the young while watching for any danger, in contrast to the hunting activity of the men where moving in a close group and making noise was generally not conducive with good results, women would stay close and talk giving detailed descriptions of things they found or things to look for and where to look.

ADDED
oh, sorry I didn't think about the film, I was too busy working on the one track, Oops!!

I suppose there is a point there, after all when we have male roll model identification, such with Rocky or Rambo you don't get all the magazine stuff.
They just leave the testosterone level to take their course
"Aderanna!!!!"

"What is he, a God!
No, A God would have mercy"

It's ok I'll be fine in a minute!


ADDED
Vianka I do apologise for not pointing out that this is the average male and the average female and of course over a period of 10,000 year the selective processes have changed.
However the brain starts to form in the womb as with the body, And as to the research please feel free to correct The University Of Pennsylvania Medical Center in REF: (1999, May 18). Sex Differences Found In Proportions Of Gray And White Matter In The Brain: Links To Differences In Cognitive Performance.
Or visit ScienceDaily. Retrieved November 15, 2007, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­/releases/1999/05/990518072823.htm
For further information

P.S. try to read between the lines to see the irony

Answer 9

What? Bumbling idiots can multi task?

You are connecting two different things. Use some logic my dear.

Answer 10

Faulty assumption. Just because women WATCH Bridget Jones doesn't mean they IDENTIFY with Bridget Jones. You might have watched the Flintstones growing up, I'm not sure that makes you a caveman. You might watch Matrix, but that doesn't mean you identify with it. Actually, if you call yourself 'Oracle,' my point may be lost on you. The point being, there is such thing as entertainment, and that's all it is.