So I'm inclined to chalk it up to his farm experience.

Probably a good bet.

People who grew up farming, in my experience, which granted is basically limited to my mother and her sisters, have certain qualities that can be seen in Mal.

People who grew up farming, in my experience, which granted is basically limited to my mother and her sisters, have certain qualities that can be seen in Mal.

Like what?

Like what?

Said the man who grew up on a farm.

Said the man who grew up on a farm.

Well, I don't see Mal liking penguins, or driving an old car....

Well, I don't see Mal liking penguins, or driving an old car....

Well, I'd Serenity is the equivalent of an old car (though Mal's not really the driver most of the time).

And penguins are funnier than space monkeys, so who knows.

Any gender generalizing always gets hammered.

Hammered is one thing -- getting everyone on the same semantic page is more how I saw that question.

I'm guessing the word "cultures" is being used on a smallish scale, to define the characteristics of interaction in environments dominated by one gender or the other, as opposed to a country-wide thing.

t wishes PMM would enumerate those qualities

I get the military as being "male defined", DavidS, and agree. It troubles me some that I don't know why I agree, though. Were the Amazons less authoritarian than any other martial group? I really don't know.

edited, 'cuz "Amazonians" might be my own private word.

I'm guessing the word "cultures" is being used on a smallish scale, to define the characteristics of interaction in environments dominated by one gender or the other, as opposed to a country-wide thing.

Yes, that's how I'm using it. So we're on the same page. Military culture. Ballet culture. Construction work culture. Farmwork culture. Subculture environments dominated by one gender.

Like what?

Keeping in mind that the farming my mother and her sisters did was very, very rural and about 20 years behind the times (they didn't get running water until after she left home in 1954, and I'm not totally certain when the got electricity), so their farming experience would most like be wildly different from modern farming, I'll try to articulate it.

There's a lack of softness that's not a lack of caring. Life's rough, they know it, they'll deal as best they can with the hand dealt. Fairness. They're all big on fairness and everyone doing their share, though of course, they'd be the first people to bust out with, "Who told you life was fair?" in the event that you'd complain about lack of fairness. It's not so much that they're hard people as they are firm people. No-nonsense, and no time for it, either.

Well, I can see that in my parents (who both grew up on dairy farms as well). Maybe not so much in me and my siblings....