"many of these 18-22 year old women are donning ponytails with big grosgrain pink polka dot ribbons"
REALLY?? Ugh. Shades of the '80s all over again.
NO WHINING!
I think part of the problem is that they do not hear themselves whine. I know I always thought I was communicating with my parents in adult tones... but I know realize i was whining. Same thing happens when my kids whine to me, they think they are just communicating with me. When you tell them not to whine, they are really puzzled. In short, it may not be a conscious means of control, but an unconscious response to negative stimulus.
As to the content... they will whine about how much work they have IF they think there is a chance you will reduce their work. And I am sure it has worked before. I get it more from men, actually. And my response to all the tales of woe is 'Good.' 'But i have so much to do!' 'Great!' A little lecture on how good it is to have lots of work to do may follow. Education is in the work. 'I studied sooo hard for this test' 'Great!'
Just put it in your syllabus: "If you whine in my class you will be shot". Then by attending the class they have agreed to said contract, and it is therefore not murder. Done.
There's a difference between being pushed to an uncomfortable point, and being pushed to the point of breaking. Nervous breakdowns are not good for you. Anxiety attacks are not good for you. Those both seem to come far after whining starts, however.
A little lecture on how good it is to have lots of work to do may follow.
It's only good if it does not push you too far. Of course, the vast majority of occasions it's not going to do so, and thus it's good, because it pushes you to excel, and go beyond your comfortable limits. Some people will throw their hands in the air. You can't help those people. Others will improve because of the experience.
In short, it may not be a conscious means of control, but an unconscious response to negative stimulus.
Then you must unlearn what you have learned.
Um, boys whine, too. I found male students expected me to mother them much more than did the female students. And when you won't mother them, they get ANGRY!
Agreeing with Hecate here. In fact that irritating sense of entitlement shows up more often (in the decidedly skewed sample of my hazy recollection, pretty much exclusively) among boys. But then my ear interprets "but you have to let me do X" as whining, just like "but it's so HAAARD!" - just different vocal registers.
But Spaaaaaaaazzzzz...(sigh) Sure, take it out on us passive aggressives...
I think Laurel has nailed it on the head. It's one thing to be having a melt down, to need to blow off steam, or to look for comfort from someone you trust, but I think the operative factor in your reaction is entitlement. You are getting whined at by people who aren't working as hard as you are and are complaining about how much work they have to do and using time that you now don't have to do the work you need to do. Those who have legitimate cause to whine often don't, they've learned how to suck it up and get done whast they need to because of their place in life. On the other hand, the person whining is often doing so precisely because he or she has never really had to work hard before. It is the lack of understanding about the larger picture and the inability to understand the irony that makes certain whining annoying.
Ummm...confession time. This is one thing that bugs me about myself...I do whine occassionally, but for me it's not that I want someone to take the load from me or even console me, it's more of an ego building activity. Whining as bragging, I suppose. I enjoy having lots of work deep down inside, I take it as a badge of honor that I stay up until 1 am reading most nights and spend hours on end in the library, plus work almost full time, and try to maintain at least the illusion of a social life. So...I bitch about having all this work to do and having no free time b/c, I suppose, deep down I want other ppl to acknowledge how much work I'm doing, not to take it from me. As I said, this bothers me about me...b/c I don't particularly like boastful ppl and don't aim to be one myself, but I suppose this is my subverted way of doing just that...
Plenty of men whine. In fact, one of my favorite buttons says, "Dead men don't whine."
That's so odd. I've never seen any girl whine in front a class before - well never that I can recall. I've heard people do it while I've waited outside a professor's office, but never in the middle of class.
Are you sure that dead men don't whine? Maybe you just can't hear them.
REALLY?? Ugh. Shades of the '80s all over again.
At least in the 80's their was irony.
For the record, men certainly do whine, but I was talking about the irritating whining that I associate with women. I am irritated in particular by young women whining because it is such a bad bad skill to use in wider world of work. It will infantilize them further and irritate non-feminists a great deal more.
More than twice this week, while on campus, I heard what I thought were very loud children, and when I turned to look, found young women "talking" to one another. No kidding.
I am a seventh grade social studies teacher...you have no concept of what whining is until you have done my job!
That being said, I pin the whining epidemic back to a sense of learned helplessness perpetuated by larger society. We expect life to be easy. We expect people to pave the way for us, to cater to our every whim. Government, parents, the media, etc, all focus on fulfilling "needs" that often are not needs in the first place. When a student told me they got a new iPod the other day because they had C's on their progress report, I nearly choked. We expect and reward mediocrity. Why wouldn't you whine if it means you have to work/do even less than what is considered mediocre. I have a big "No Whining" sign in my class. It doesn't solve the problem, but it sends a clear message. As a recent college graduate, I am sure I did my share of whining, but in the end sucked it up and did the work. I expect the same out of my 11-13 year olds, which is often very different from what is expected at home. I trace this one back to enabling parents and an overall sense of societal dependence on OTHERS to make our lives what we should make them ourselves.
Isn't it worth distinguishing between a sincere and an insincere whine? Between being plaintive and being pleading? To me, a sincere whine implies a sincere pain, and in fact whines convey sincerity more effectively or efficiently than words do. If custom in formal affairs calls for us to keep certain sources of pain to ourselves, a whiner might not know the custom or not recognize formality or not assess the circumstances as being formal like you do. Compassionate communication seems more apt for such cases than a tough love policy of either ignoring or chastising the whiner. It also seems like unjust sentencing to penalize both kinds of whines the same. Of course, the call for compassion is liable to depend on how one's own day is going.
Isn't it worth distinguishing between a sincere and an insincere whine?
Would we refer to a "sincere" whine as whining? Maybe we should distinguish amongst complaining, whining, and kvetching.
I agree with this post. The female whining thing drives me absolutely nuts (Now I am whining!) What gets me down about it is the negativity they inflict on others and the refusal to take control of their lives. They are helpless and expecting you to solve their problems for them. The are presumptuous and take away time you need for your own life, just to dump on you...Most have no interest in constructive feedback or in solutions. They just want support, attentionl, affection. I was so disgusting with this whining that I googling the term -- and your brilliant post came up. I read a few others like this -- and one strategy given is to whine back at the whiners. (That usually shuts them up.) The key is to take control of your life and not allow them to take control of yours. Giving them something to whine about is a good strategy.
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