In the same episode, she justifies her exploitation of Leonard as "that's his job as my boyfriend, right? to make me happy"; her friends ask "what is your job then, as girlfriend?" "to let him make me happy", she replies without missing a beat.
With a tiny adjustment, this is actually a quite standard, old fashioned view of a heterosexual relationship, which largely resonates with me.
I'd exchange "make her happy" for "help and encourage her in her pursuit of happiness", but other that, I'd say it's about right. I remember reading that Men are from Mars marriage counselor author years ago, and was rather ideologically offended that he basically painted a man's job as taking care of a woman, and a woman's job to let him. But that seems about right to me these days.
I did some brief internet searches for traditional marriage vows, just as a point of reference to a difference in gender roles, and was surprised that the first half dozen were gender symmetric. WIkpedia had a section on the vows in the Book of Common Prayer, and how they've changed over time.
I for one went through the exact opposite trajectory.
A couple is an association of equals whose goal is to satisfy each of the parties' values through love.
My values say that women are not children to be catered to or made happy by men. They are our equals, and we help and cater to each other, and we both let each other do that.
If, however, what satisfies your values is to be the altruistic party in the relationship, and the girl be the egoistic party, I'm not going to tell you you're wrong; suit yourself.
This is my first attempt at starting a casual conversation on LW where people don't have to worry about winning or losing points, and can just relax and have social fun together.
So, Big Bang Theory. That series got me wondering. It seems to be about "geeks", and not the basement-dwelling variety either; they're highly successful and accomplished professionals, each in their own field. One of them has been an astronaut, even. And yet, everything they ever accomplish amounts to absolutely nothing in terms of social recognition or even in terms of personal happiness. And the thing is, it doesn't even get better for their "normal" counterparts, who are just as miserable and petty.
Consider, then; how would being rationalists would affect the characters on this show? The writing of the show relies a lot on laughing at people rather than with them; would rationalist characters subvert that? And how would that rationalist outlook express itself given their personalities? (After all, notice how amazingly different from each other Yudkowsky, Hanson, and Alicorn are, just to name a few; they emphasize rather different things, and take different approaches to both truth-testing and problem-solving).
Note: this discussion does not need to be about rationalism. It can be a casual, normal discussion about the series. Relax and enjoy yourselves.
But the reason I brought up that series is that its characters are excellent examples of high intelligence hampered by immense irrationality. The apex of this is represented by Dr. Sheldon Cooper, who is, essentially, a complete fundamentalist over every single thing in his life; he applies this attitude to everything, right down to people's favorite flavor of pudding: Raj is "axiomatically wrong" to prefer tapioca, because the best pudding is chocolate. Period. This attitude makes him a far, far worse scientist than he thinks, as he refuses to even consider any criticism of his methods or results.