A Chauvinist Manifesto. [Archive]

BostonIan

05-02-2009, 12:30 AM

Where to start...

Okay, men and women: from what I understand, we have slightly different genes, chromosomes, but, basically, we start as the same embryo, look alike as babies, diverge through our prime, then start to look alike again as elderly. The culprit in the divergence is hormones. From foetal hormones into adulthood, we just have different levels, I can't find them all in one source, but, from memory: women have more dopamine, prolactin, estrogen, oxytocin, men have more testosterone. Each one of these little chems affects behaviors, brain function, body traits predictably. If you have X, then Y. There is no way for a person to inherit a behavior or evolutionary trait except for a physiological mechanism.

Important for a few reasons, one, because it's a proof that men and women are, in fact, different. Naturally, inherently, measurably. But, since I assume that everybody already knows that the sexes are different, just doesn't like to admit it, moving along. The hormone thing also matters because fits into my explanation for the riddle of how any thinking population could ever be made to believe otherwise.

My theory is that the modern environment has been lowering men's testosterone levels, which are lowering at 1% per year, 50% lower since 1940. Different factors, I'd guess that diet is a culprit, excess fat, "pace of modern living". Second is that sunlight makes testosterone, and I'd guess that people are spending less time outdoors, more time in classrooms or watching television. Third is that exciting orgasms increases prolactin and decreases testosterone receptors and gender-specific hormones. I'll go ahead and blame birth control pills for releasing an excess of estrogen into the environment and population.

Men have become less manly, less different, less like what men are supposed to be, less what they've been throughout history. Therefor the idea of gender equality holds more sway. Also, urbanization is a factor, since the natural role of men is to lead, obey and establish order. In a large community, it's harder to establish clear lines of authority, and the nesting (get along) role of women becomes predominant. The downfall of men causes women to rise in comparison, ascending to the leadership position in most homes and schools, especially since divorce and single-motherhood has removed men from homes entirely.

Therefor men become more and more patterned after women as time goes on, like a dog raised by cats. What real institutional authority that does remain establishes the morality of gender equality, with typical pecking and shaming to enforce the system, and manhood loops in on itself. The natural desire to protect women gets driven into protecting "equal rights", chivalry becomes femalry. End of explanation theory on how gender equality becomes ingrained:

Now, reality, according to me: The role and function of women in a population is to build the human, the flesh, the animal. They birth every the population, raise it, feed it, tend to its needs, install the feelings, and bind it together. That is the purpose of their emotions, the oxytocin, the estrogen, the endless chatting and empathetic problem resolution. Neither sex can exist without the other, but we are not equal.

In their natural environment, men are the leaders of society. In history, we are the kings, lawmakers, shamans, chiefs, judges, politicians, generals, lieutenants, captains, religious leaders, cult-leaders, business owners, scientists, God Himself. We've built every building, fought every war, explored every land, written every rule. What we consider a civilization is us.

Answering the question that brought this on, since men set the rules, establish the order and hold the natural leadership position, they are more responsible for their actions, and receive an unequal portion of the blame for any action done with a woman. Also, inherent differences, I expect men to be more logical and detached, women to be more hormonal and emotional. Also, with women, it's understandable that she'd shop for men if her current beau isn't living up to his natural leadership responsibility in the home, therefor a husband deserves responsibility for his wife's infidelity.

Anticipating the arguments:
Ad hominems, "what's wrong with you?" lines of thought are fun, but try to speak to the overall point as well. Where am I wrong? Prove it.
The arguments at the margins, that "not all men" are like this, "not all women" are like that, and "I know a personal anecdote that proves..." are valid, but I'm thinking more on the overall civilizational level. The bigger the picture, the less individuals matter.
That "things are so much better now" is a separate argument, I'm arguing more about natural roles, biology, civilizational chess.

darynthe

05-02-2009, 12:39 AM

Rudy

05-02-2009, 12:42 AM

Men have become less manly, less different, less like what men are supposed to be, less what they've been throughout history.

My main objection to your argument is here, the emboldening is my own.

I think there's something to the argument you make from a historical, evolutionary perspective. I'm not sure how accurate it is, but I can see how evolution would have favored the roles you are inferring.

However, you make a mistake when you go from "evolution favored these traits" to "these are the traits men are supposed to have." Biology has nothing to do with supposed tos or shoulds. You cannot get an ought from an is. There's no rational reason we need bow to biology in any area, including relationships.

Tocsin

05-02-2009, 12:58 AM

There are certainly physical, physiological, and psychological differences between men and women, but as sentient beings capable of rational thought, I would hope that we would emphasize our conscious ability to decide for ourselves who we are and what we choose to be, rather than making ourselves willing prisoners of predetermined biological perspectives.

The ideological chains forged to define people by sexual identity are just as ugly as the chains that have been have forged to define people by racial identity.

In the end, what we all have in common is probably the more essential aspect of humanity to keep in mind than the various details that make us different.

thod

05-02-2009, 05:19 AM

You are correct, we are castrated by the water, the food, the social systems. Unable to act like men, we do not become women, instead we are more like boys. This leads to frustration in the men who still feel a pull to their evolutionary role. It leads to dissatisfaction amongst the women who are unable to find the qualities they desire in a man.

Those who claim we are free floating intellects, male and female alike, are fools. We are hooked to our evolutionary past through our bodies and our brains. The most important factor for us long ago ceased to be predation by animals. We have evolved to fight off those that would take our resources and to take theirs instead. Men have evolved for warfare, not modern warfare but tribal warfare. We bond into warrior bands, we understand the idea of violence again the other, we instinctively want to protect our women. The women have evolved for their role too, they would prefer the certainties of such a world and seek such men out. The taking of women back to your own village either by warfare or by marriage has left its mark on the female mind, allowing them to rapidly integrate. We are not free, we are the product of our past.

The ideological chains forged to define people by sexual identity are just as ugly as the chains that have been have forged to define people by racial identity.

A perfect example of failure to recognise reality. We are no more able to change our nature than anything other creature. Every horse I have ever encountered acts like a horse, every dog like a dog. We are not being given the choice of what a human is, we are what we are. Force a dog to act in the manner of sea lion all you get is a very stressed out dog, you don't get a sea lion.

I contend that both men and women have natures that they would be happiest following. Not all are the same, but exceptions are not averages. My sexual identity is not a chain, it is what I am, it is what I was made for, I don't want to change it. What you seek is a reason for being what you are, if you cannot find that reason, you conclude that you need not be so. Yet this is false reasoning, there is no reason why you were born a man and not a bird, this does not mean you can be a bird by choice, you are, and always will be a man.

The main problem is that if the world were to revert to that men are designed for, we would be back to constant tribal wars. Men thus have to change and evolution is a very slow process. Likewise women have to change. Where we still have our natural conditions we have low technology. Yet I sometimes ask myself, if I gave a cat a microwave oven, would it really benefit? Surely a cat enjoys wondering around the streets do cat things. A cat given a microwave would ignore it.

Autoptic

05-02-2009, 05:57 AM

thod

05-02-2009, 06:04 AM

Why didn't the 15 women do anything? What if it were reversed? A dick doesn't make me bullet proof. Besides, just as you aren't my piece of ass, I'm not your meatshield, you know?

True, but I do think there is something deep down in guys that causes them to react differently to violence against men and women. If two guys decide to have a bar room fight, that is accepted as the way things are. Warriors fight other warriors it is natural behaviour. But suppose a guy started beating on a pretty waitress, most guys blood would begin to boil at such. They would want to intervene and say "take me on instead", or perhaps its just because I am the warrior type. I have a sense of righteousness "Men are for fighting, women for fucking".

It may seem illogical to undergo risks just to preserve righteousness, yet the fear is overcome by the anger. The other guy's behaviour is restricted simply because he knows he will will attacked in turn if he steps out of line. What is important is not only self preservation but how you shall live. Standing up, accepting risk, and taking pain are what is called courage. Courage is something many men seem to lack these days. Without it you are destined to be dominated by other men, much like the women, who will choose to mate with the other man, whilst you are regarded with scorn by all.

I know that is illogical for me to accept men hitting men but react to men hitting women, that is what I am though and I have learned to accept myself.

You're basically arguing against rational thought here.

We are not driven by pure reason. The rational man fared poorly in the real world and was eliminated from the gene pool. Game theorists always loose when the other guy is not rational.

Autoptic

05-02-2009, 06:12 AM

True, but I do think there is something deep down in guys that causes them to react differently to violence against men and women. If two guys decide to have a bar room fight, that is accepted as the way things are. Warriors fight other warriors it is natural behaviour. But suppose a guy started beating on a pretty waitress, most guys blood would begin to boil at such. They would want to intervene and say "take me on instead", or perhaps its just because I am the warrior type. I have a sense of righteousness "Men are for fighting, women for fucking".

It may seem illogical to undergo risks just to preserve righteousness, yet the fear is overcome by the anger. The other guy's behaviour is restricted simply because he knows he will will attacked in turn if he steps out of line. What is important is not only self preservation but how you shall live. Standing up, accepting risk, and taking pain are what is called courage. Courage is something many men seem to lack these days. Without it you are destined to be dominated by other men, much like the women, who will choose to mate with the other man, whilst you are regarded with scorn by all.

I know that is illogical for me to accept men hitting men but react to men hitting women, that is what I am though and I have learned to accept myself.

You just described your average stupid violent criminal while rationalizing it just like they do.

thod

05-02-2009, 06:34 AM

You just described your average stupid violent criminal while rationalizing it just like they do.

Perhaps it is perspective, and not intellect. As Sun Tzu said about warfare, Recklessness leads to death, cowardice to capture. I suggest that, like the scarecrow, you lack courage and use "reason" as your excuse for your condition.

The problem with arguing from rationality is that everything is meaningless. The truly rational man is entirely passive, there is no reason to do anything or select one option over another. Whenever an outcome is desired, that is emotion. All men die, it matters not if its 1 year or 100 years, in the end nothing matters. It matters not to the rational man if he is dominant or dominated, lives or dies. Rationality is, in the final analysis, sterile. I seek more than this now.

Chemist

05-02-2009, 07:45 AM

Given my current occupations (Chemist / Pilot) I have to disagree with a good majority of your post but I find it interesting that you view the changes in society this way.

Stratego

05-02-2009, 07:48 AM

Where to start...

Okay, men and women: from what I understand, we have slightly different genes, chromosomes, but, basically, we start as the same embryo, look alike as babies, diverge through our prime, then start to look alike again as elderly. The culprit in the divergence is hormones. From foetal hormones into adulthood, we just have different levels, I can't find them all in one source, but, from memory: women have more dopamine, prolactin, estrogen, oxytocin, men have more testosterone. Each one of these little chems affects behaviors, brain function, body traits predictably. If you have X, then Y. There is no way for a person to inherit a behavior or evolutionary trait except for a physiological mechanism. [/QUOTE]

I agree for the most part, but behaviors can also be learned from example and endless repetition, indoctrination.

Important for a few reasons, one, because it's a proof that men and women are, in fact, different. Naturally, inherently, measurably. But, since I assume that everybody already knows that the sexes are different, just doesn't like to admit it, moving along. The hormone thing also matters because fits into my explanation for the riddle of how any thinking population could ever be made to believe otherwise.

Yes, well said for the most part, (naturally, inherently, measurably, excellent point) but to suggest that hormones have such a pervasive and strong influence on behavior, while discounting other factors such as cultural or social influences, if only half the equation.

My theory is that the modern environment has been lowering men's testosterone levels, which are lowering at 1% per year, 50% lower since 1940. Different factors, I'd guess that diet is a culprit, excess fat, "pace of modern living". Second is that sunlight makes testosterone, and I'd guess that people are spending less time outdoors, more time in classrooms or watching television. Third is that exciting orgasms increases prolactin and decreases testosterone receptors and gender-specific hormones. I'll go ahead and blame birth control pills for releasing an excess of estrogen into the environment and population.

So, according to this, women that want total reproductive freedom are responsible for men becoming less manly...not sure I agree.

Men have become less manly, less different, less like what men are supposed to be, less what they've been throughout history. Therefor the idea of gender equality holds more sway. Also, urbanization is a factor, since the natural role of men is to lead, obey and establish order. In a large community, it's harder to establish clear lines of authority, and the nesting (get along) role of women becomes predominant. The downfall of men causes women to rise in comparison, ascending to the leadership position in most homes and schools, especially since divorce and single-motherhood has removed men from homes entirely.

Biology may have determined that men have greater muscle mass, less fat, and different levels of horomones, etc---but to suggest that leadership and establishing order are "natural" roles for men is going a bit too far. Leadership requires more than brute strength.

Therefore men become more and more patterned after women as time goes on, like a dog raised by cats. What real institutional authority that does remain establishes the morality of gender equality, with typical pecking and shaming to enforce the system, and manhood loops in on itself. The natural desire to protect women gets driven into protecting "equal rights", chivalry becomes femalry. End of explanation theory on how gender equality becomes ingrained:

Now, reality, according to me: The role and function of women in a population is to build the human, the flesh, the animal. They birth every the population, raise it, feed it, tend to its needs, install the feelings, and bind it together. That is the purpose of their emotions, the oxytocin, the estrogen, the endless chatting and empathetic problem resolution. Neither sex can exist without the other, but we are not equal.

While there is some science in this part of your argument, the "endless" chatting you mention and "empathetic resolution" behaviors are still more of gender stereotypes than actual behavior.

In their natural environment, men are the leaders of society. In history, we are the kings, lawmakers, shamans, chiefs, judges, politicians, generals, lieutenants, captains, religious leaders, cult-leaders, business owners, scientists, God Himself. We've built every building, fought every war, explored every land, written every rule. What we consider a civilization is us.

Whoah! Eau de sexism, here. Yes, men in history, blah blah, kings and chiefs, blah blah---but to suggest that man=civilzation is going a little far.

There are countless examples of women thinkers, artists, and leaders in history that are no less effective, or revolutionary, as their male counterparts. Let me also point out the obvious about the sheer majority of all our glorified male leaders---men wanted it that way, and did eveything they could to make it so, maintain it. From nature they took their cue, and exaggerated the differences between the sexes and magnified them beyond proportion to gain that control. And another obvious---making babies does not in any real way detract from a woman's ability to do any of the above.

Answering the question that brought this on, since men set the rules, establish the order and hold the natural leadership position, they are more responsible for their actions, and receive an unequal portion of the blame for any action done with a woman. Also, inherent differences, I expect men to be more logical and detached, women to be more hormonal and emotional. Also, with women, it's understandable that she'd shop for men if her current beau isn't living up to his natural leadership responsibility in the home, therefor a husband deserves responsibility for his wife's infidelity.

Still sexism and not science. All people are responsible for their own actions, and neither male or female deserves greater or lesser blame.

As for the big picture: let's remember that almost from the beginning of our civilization women were never able/allowed to achieve the same level of literacy, education, or self realization as men. This perhaps accounts for some of the stereotypical behaviors associated to women (i.e. irrational and emotional)--what other recourse does an ignorant, untrained, untaxed, and incomplete being have?

Autoptic

05-02-2009, 08:56 AM

Perhaps it is perspective, and not intellect. As Sun Tzu said about warfare, Recklessness leads to death, cowardice to capture. I suggest that, like the scarecrow, you lack courage and use "reason" as your excuse for your condition.

The problem with arguing from rationality is that everything is meaningless. The truly rational man is entirely passive, there is no reason to do anything or select one option over another. Whenever an outcome is desired, that is emotion. All men die, it matters not if its 1 year or 100 years, in the end nothing matters. It matters not to the rational man if he is dominant or dominated, lives or dies. Rationality is, in the final analysis, sterile. I seek more than this now.

You confusing courage with rage and claiming to justify senseless violence on your whims. I know rage. It's a family "gift" which already put two in prison. You're trying to justify—either reasoning or rationalizing, pick one—going back to dumb apes because some delusional notions of the good ole days gives you a woody. They weren't good. The closest ones to what you're thinking weren't even that old. Tribes aren't that old. Bands preceded them and didn't have alphas. Any leaders had to as rational as possible, or they'd die, and people very much knew this in a way you don't seem grasp. We're slow, weak, and soft compared to other animals. Why do you think we evolved our rational capacity?

Also, that's neither what reason nor rationality mean. Rationality doesn't define ends just means. Any valuation involves rationing and emotion. Bothering to work out patterns in sensory stimuli and draw inference from these patterns is all that reason is. All animals with anything resembling a brain do this. Humans dominate the planet only because we do this better. What the hell do you think analysis is?

"Move not unless you see an advantage; use not your troops unless there is something to be gained; fight not unless the position is critical. If it is to your advantage, make a forward move; if not, stay where you are. Anger may in time change to gladness; vexation may be succeeded by content."

"No leader should put troops into the field merely to gratify his own spleen; no leader should fight a battle simply out of pique. But a kingdom that has once been destroyed can never come again into being; nor can the dead ever be brought back to life. Hence the enlightened leader is heedful, and the good leader full of caution."

Sun Tzu had a lot of these.

reb

05-02-2009, 08:56 AM

my theory for the effect has been more along the lines of 'the best genetics have been destroyed in wars, starting in america with the war of northern aggression'. since i tend to look at genetics before i look at environmental factors, this is consistent with my thinking.

but, as far as the general effect, most men aint worth a shit nowadays. they're not 'men' by my definition-and i'm not talking about sexual orientation. i know some women that are better 'men' than some men....they have better principles of life, they are more consistent, less emotional, and they understand motivation, leverage and power far better....their sexual equipment and hormones do not bar them from correctly analyzing life. one might congeal this to mean 'the lack of principle in modern life makes humankind less valuable', and i would not disagree with that.

Jonathan Brewer

05-02-2009, 09:02 AM

However, you make a mistake when you go from "evolution favored these traits" to "these are the traits men are supposed to have." Biology has nothing to do with supposed tos or shoulds. You cannot get an ought from an is. There's no rational reason we need bow to biology in any area, including relationships.

I too would not completely disagree with your observations. However, as Rudy said, what a man or woman is supposed to be is not defined solely by biology. In most cases, people become what society or need pressures them to become. That men were initially hunters is only logical. They didn't have the option to hold an IT job and shop at the supermarket. In the same light, women kept the home because day care wasn't an option.

The real question is why we evolved in such a way as to develop new roles for ourselves. I don't think it is because of a lack of testosterone. In fact, I would imagine the lack of testosterone is the natural result of requiring less of it.

I agree, it is sad that men are not as courageous and protective as one would hope they would be. It is equally sad that a number of women view the job of raising their own children as a pathetic career path. In many ways we are destroying ourselves, but I don't believe biology can be blamed for that. The mind is where thoughts and ideas originate. We have created this world we live in and the expectations it holds for each gender.

If we were to suddenly be plunged into a world void of technology and intellectual discovery, I believe the "traditional" roles would emerge. That would be out of necessity though, and not genetics.

TheLastMohican

05-02-2009, 09:30 AM

My theory is that the modern environment has been lowering men's testosterone levels, which are lowering at 1% per year, 50% lower since 1940.

Source?

ElstonGunn

05-02-2009, 10:14 AM

thod

05-02-2009, 10:50 AM

Source?

Every so often these stories crop up. Its good journalism since no man wishes to be less of a man than his father or grandfather. Google it and you will find reports, some quoting the original scientific papers.

If you want the bigger picture, than why do you ignore the 99 percent of men who never were, aren't, and never will be kings or chiefs or leaders of anything?

Testosterone levels in males are related to status in the pack. I read papers on this long ago, and just saw it again on the wiki page. One doesn't have to be a king to have this effect, so long as he can kick the dog. A high status male will raise testosterone to breed more, such attempted breeding by a low status male would get him killed. Thus his body adapts. Women who make their man feel like he is in charge will end up getting more sex from him, the reverse is also true.

The actual cause of declining testosterone is still up for debate. Clearly there are social advantages in lowering male aggression. Yet at the same time lower testosterone can create other health problems in males. You may have seen the various studies of deformed fish. The chemicals in the water feminise them creating problems with fish stocks. Another possible cause is the ubiquity of soya in all our food which lowers it.

Although higher testosterone levels do not mean you will become a king, they do raise your willingness to compete for that position and your willingness to try again if you fail. Our brains are not separate from our bodies. Take some cocaine and you will think you are superman. Flooding your body with testosterone also effects it. The effects of hormones are less apparent to men than they are to women who must tolerate the mood swings of the menstrual cycle.

The argument about aggression being bad is not so clear cut. The passive man, unwilling to harm others, may reflect modern values but it could have been a losing strategy. After all, if the aggressive guy sticks a spear through him, he is free to mate with his ex-wife. Here is an interesting article from this weeks Time magazine To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Vagrant

05-02-2009, 11:24 AM

Chemist

05-02-2009, 11:42 AM

There's something I didn't find people addressing:

Testosterone levels may be dropping for more than just the reasons listed above.

Guess what's also been happening since the 40's? You may have guess it -- a chemical revolution. Organic chemistry, primarily. You know what you're wearing? Polymers. You know what you're eating off and drinking out of? Polymers. Hell, the stuff you wipe your ass with is polymers.

A lot of the chemicals we use to manufacture, as well as in our daily lives has been found to cause emasculation of male animals, notably reptiles and amphibians (those pollutants we dump into natural environments? Yeah, it's lowering sperm count, testosterone levels, and testes size in male animals. Amphibians and reptiles are noted for being much more sensitive to the environment than mammals, which means they are an indicator for what will happen to us). There's a very simple reason for this: Males on the whole are much more sensitive to chemical changes in the environment than women are. In chemical manufacturing cities and near chemical plants, one will find the gender ratio very badly skewed towards female children. Where are all the male children? They are naturally aborting because they are more sensitive to the chemicals in the environment. It's well known that males have a 5-25x higher mutation rate than females do. In general, men are more susceptible to the environment.

Just because we're human, doesn't mean we're immune to the effects of these chemicals. While our livers and kidneys are good, they aren't that good. Pesticides, herbicides, you name it, you're eating it or wearing it. And it is affecting you and your children.

Simply put, a lot of the causes listed above may be potential reasons, but seem superficial at best. Feminism is simply a public face to something that's existed for a while -- there are plenty of historical cases of women being more dominant than men. Being indoors was pretty common in the Victorian era. No, for such a drastic change (1% a year? That's drastic) in 60 years, something significant has to have changed. The only logical thing I see is the chemical revolution, which slowly started in the late 1800s and early 1900s, but really kicked into gear after WWII.
lol!

Those pesky polymers...
Unintended chemical uptake by the body is definitely a problem but cannot be associated with the uptake of polymers which... is certainly not the cause of lower testosterone levels in males...

this can be understood by viewing the biological pathway through which testosterone is synthesized.. Also breaking out our angstrom ruler we can see that uptake of polymers by our bodies is somewhat difficult given their size.. and for the most part when broken down into their smaller components (which requires lots of energy by the way) polymers would be easily eradicated by the body's natural defenses...

In addition... most pesticides are not polymers... they are naturally occurring metabolites from other biological sources that are then mass produced in a lab... and while being problematic for the environment they are not the cause of lower testosterone levels observed in males...

I'm not even going to tackle the rest of the post... but suffice it to say.. something would actually have to be capable of entering the biological pathway or somehow negatively impacting the biological pathway of another metabolite involved in the synthesis of testosterone for something to affect testosterone levels in males effectively...

Also.... anything that would be able to attach to produced testosterone in males would likely either be attacked and broken into the most energetically stable components i.e. testosterone and bad thing... or would aggregate somewhere nasty in the body and lower testosterone levels would be the least of your problems...

TheLastMohican

05-02-2009, 11:43 AM

Every so often these stories crop up. Its good journalism since no man wishes to be less of a man than his father or grandfather. Google it and you will find reports, some quoting the original scientific papers.

Do you know where the original papers can be found?
I find those statistics very suspicious. Low testosterone levels and sperm counts have been correlated with exposure to chemicals (especially pesticides in water), but are we really to believe that we have half as much testosterone as those living in the 40s? Shouldn't there be major declines in usage of razors and incidents of physical aggression? Have women's testosterone levels also been dropping, or are men supposed to have less than women by 2050?

JustMel

05-02-2009, 11:52 AM

Women who make their man feel like he is in charge will end up getting more sex from him, the reverse is also true.

This is the stupidest thing I have heard yet. Do you have actual data to back this up or is it one of your male chauvinist ideals?

We'll take my husband as an example. He's a guy's guy for the most part other than liking sports. When it comes to physical activities he's normally on the top of the food chain. He's tall and filled out and has huge guy hands. It's my house, his home. He'll tell you that. He is the stay at home dad. He is raising our girls. I work to support us all financially. He is raising our girls to be strong, independent women. He is getting a chance that a lot of men would like to have but it's not an option for them. He is the one that "mothers" the kids when it comes to being sick, having bumps and bruises. We are raising them to think for themselves and not have to be dependent on someone else to provide for them. He deals with anything that comes up.

Our "traditional" roles are reversed. He catches a lot of grief from his brothers for "being a pussy who is taken care of by his wife". He doesn't care. He says it's no different than it was when I stayed home with the kids. The difference is he enjoys it and I hated it. I love my kids but I'm not a stay at home parent. I can't do it. We don't use the fact that we're male and female to work things out--we use our individual and combined strengths. He defends me and the girls if he feels we're being threatened or talked to in such a manner he is not comfortable with but he also trusts me to defend myself.

We have the same amount of sex we did when I stayed home as we do now. Taking on traditionally "female" roles has not diminished his masculinity or emasculated him. He still changes the oil because he knows I'll take it to an oil change place. Not because I can't change my own oil but because I don't want to. I once rebuilt the motor and transmission in my car because someone told me I couldn't because I was "just a girl".

I'm not saying testosterone levels aren't physically changing but I don't agree that it changes your being a "man".

Tocsin

05-02-2009, 11:53 AM

The one line that really stuck out from the Time article that Thod posted a link to...

...as past studies have shown, the higher your intelligence, the less sex you tend to have...

Perhaps this desire to go back to the days of being a knuckle dragging, club weilding chauvinist are nothing more than the frustration of guys who aren't getting all the sex that they want.

Hopefully, someday in the future, it will be possible for humanity to evolve to the point where we can be intelligent and still be "sex machines" at the same time. :laugh:

Latro

05-02-2009, 12:07 PM

This is the stupidest thing I have heard yet. Do you have actual data to back this up or is it one of your male chauvanist ideals?

We'll take my husband as an example. He's a guy's guy for the most part other than liking sports. When it comes to physical activities he's normally on the top of the food chain. He's tall and filled out and has huge guy hands. It's my house, his home. He'll tell you that. He is the stay at home dad. He is raising our girls. I work to support us all financially. He is raising our girls to be strong, independent women. He is getting a chance that a lot of men would like to have but it's not an option for them. He is the one that "mothers" the kids when it comes to being sick, having bumps and bruises. We are raising them to think for themselves and not have to be dependent on someone else to provide for them. He deals with anything that comes up.

Our "traditional" roles are reversed. He catches a lot of grief from his brothers for "being a pussy who is taken care of by his wife". He doesn't care. He says it's no different than it was when I stayed home with the kids. The difference is he enjoys it and I hated it. I love my kids but I'm not a stay at home parent. I can't do it. We don't use the fact that we're male and female to work things out--we use our individual and combined strengths. He defends me and the girls if he feels we're being threatened or talked to in such a manner he is not comfortable with but he also trusts me to defend myself.

We have the same amount of sex we did when I stayed home as we do now. Taking on traditionally "female" roles has not diminished his masculinity or emasculated him. He still changes the oil because he knows I'll take it to an oil change place. Not because I can't change my own oil but because I don't want to. I once rebuilt the motor and transmission in my car because someone told me I couldn't because I was "just a girl".

I'm not saying testosterone levels aren't physically changing but I don't agree that it changes your being a "man".
I'm not agreeing with him or with you, but this isn't a statistical sample by any stretch of the imagination. Granted, he doesn't have a statistical sample to present to us either, but two failed arguments don't make a valid one.

JustMel

05-02-2009, 12:10 PM

I'm not agreeing with him or with you, but this isn't a statistical sample by any stretch of the imagination. Granted, he doesn't have a statistical sample to present to us either, but two failed arguments don't make a valid one.

I didn't intend for it to be a statistical sample. I was using it to show another viewpoint.

Statistically the number of stay at home fathers is increasing. Currently it's up to 18% in the US. To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

an estimated 159,000 stay-at-home dads, or 2.7 percent of the country's stay-at-home parents -- almost triple the percentage from a decade ago --

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The 2004 census says that there are 147,000 stay-at-home dads caring for 245,000 kids younger than 15. That’s about 1.7 percent of all U.S. parents who are taking care of children, a pretty marginal group, but it’s also double the number who stayed home in 1995, which suggests a trend. And the Bureau of Labor Statistics says that about two million dads work part-time for “noneconomic reasons” that include child care, a category into which I fit. Census data also show that homes headed by single dads are the fastest-growing family type. (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.)

Families are evolving. So are men and ideas of masculinity. Conservatives (and some feminists) argue that men are by nature conquerors, breadwinners, and emotional dolts. But when Canadian sociologist Andrea Doucet studied stay-at-home dads, what constantly surprised her about these fathers “were these clear and loud male voices speaking in what scholars would call a ‘language of care’ or an ‘ethic of care’ that embraces qualities of relationality, connections, interdependence, responsiveness, and responsibility.” As numerous studies are revealing, it seems that biology is not destiny. “Could it be that when men speak in a language of care,” writes Doucet in her book Do Men Mother?, “it creates a sense of social and political vertigo?”

In caring for Liko, never have I felt more secure in my masculinity; at the same time, never have I felt less “masculine.” I’m learning, slowly, to let go of the link between my self-worth and the contribution I make at work; more and more, I measure myself against women I see as successful mothers. Does that make me effeminate? Is there a reason why I should care? I’m not replacing my wife, who is Liko’s mother. For seven or so hours a day, I’m simply adopting a role that in my father’s day was automatically assigned to the biological female. (same link as above)

Nowhere does it say that taking on traditionally female roles correlates to lower testosterone levels or being emascualted.

thod

05-02-2009, 12:10 PM

Do you know where the original papers can be found?

here is one: To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

I recall seeing similar work on American men but can't be bothered to look for it.

Women who make their man feel like he is in charge will end up getting more sex from him, the reverse is also true.

This is the stupidest thing I have heard yet. Do you have actual data to back this up or is it one of your male chauvinist ideals?

From wikipedia: Testosterone

Adult testosterone effects

Adult testosterone effects are more clearly demonstrable in males than in females, but are likely important to both sexes. Some of these effects may decline as testosterone levels decline in the later decades of adult life.

* Libido and clitoral engorgement/penile erection frequency.
* Regulates acute HPA response under dominance challenge[16]
* Mental and physical energy
* Mantainance of muscle trophism
* The most recent and reliable studies have shown that testosterone does not cause Prostate cancer, but that it can increase the rate of spread of any existing prostate cancer.[citation needed] Recent studies have also shown its importance in maintaining cardiovascular health.[citation needed]
* Increase eumelanin and reduce pheomelanin[citation needed]
* Under dominance challenge, may play a role in the regulation of the fight-or-flight response[17]

Factors affecting testosterone levels

* Loss of status or dominance in men.[7]
* Implicit power motivation predicts an increased testosterone release in men.[8]
* Aging reduces tetosterone release.[9]
* Hypogonadism
* Sleep (REM dream) increases nocturnal testosterone levels.[10]
* Resistance training increase testosterone levels,[11] however, in older men, that increase can be avoided by protein ingestion.[12]
* Zinc deficiency lowers testosterone levels [13] but over supplementation has no effect on serum testosterone.[14]

Wiki:Libido

Testosterone is one of the hormones controlling libido in human beings. Emerging research[5] is showing that hormonal contraception methods like "the pill" (which rely on estrogen and progesterone together) are causing low libido in females by elevating levels of Sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG). SHBG binds to sex hormones, including testosterone, rendering them unavailable.

I am not saying anything controversial. The human body reacts to changes in pack status by changing hormone production. Its an adaptation that make them fitter for the environment.

True Rune

05-02-2009, 12:53 PM

Looks like Fate rears it's ugly head once again. I'm sure men needed more than just "biology" to keep "the woman" at bay for however many millennia they have. What do you do with the man who says "Change is good?" (Of course it wouldn't be if the earth is reverted to the stone age days)

On the whole, as an evolutionary defect (asexual), I can't help but be cynical.

MaleVolentworld

05-02-2009, 01:40 PM

I think you are right. I don't agree with feminism as they deny feminity. They try to create a strange drone that should be exactly a man but angry, promiscous and with different body. I reject this as I don't see anything wrong with being a woman.

It is sad indeed that I have to agree that men are less manly, especially in first world. I will put an example of this. In 1989, a spree killer got into a ingeneering class in the Politechnique of Quebec. He had a gun and ordered all the men out. It was about 30 men if I am not wrong and about 15 women. All the men complied and didn't even dream of trying to stop this guy.

The guy killed the women while the men ran scared.

Is this what the society is making of men? People who are no able to react as a man is supposed to, they became submissive and indifferent?

Funny enough, ever since, there are manifestations here in Montreal against machismo. The manifestation, in my opinion, should be against feminism.

Tell me how a man is supposed to act in that situation.

If there is a maniac with a gun and I have no gun, then to challenge him wouldn't be manly, it would be suicidal. With the numbers game, are you looking at those 30 individuals as a LUMP, and hopefully that LUMP will charge the man, several bits of the LUMP will die in the process, but overall the LUMP will survive and rescue the princesses?

Let's picture another scenario.

There is a puny small man sitting on the bus, a huge tall maniac wielding a knife says he's going to chop all the heads of the ladies. What is this man supposed to do:
a) Be an idiot and try to tackle the man, knowing he has no chance and will end up with his head on the floor
b) Get off the bus and call for men with weapons (police)

If it is manly to risk your life for strangers, ok risk as in almost certain that you'd die, then you can denounce me as a lady any day, and I can carry on my day and enjoy "just for laughs" on youtube, while the "manly" man is being eaten by worms 6ft under.

As for Bostonian, his post baffles me. I wish I could follow it, I wish there was a conclusion somewhere but...I am lazy and want to look at some funny youtube videos.

Vagrant

05-02-2009, 01:47 PM

Those pesky polymers...
Unintended chemical uptake by the body is definitely a problem but cannot be associated with the uptake of polymers which... is certainly not the cause of lower testosterone levels in males...You kinda missed my point.

I didn't mean the polymers themselves are causing problems (I'm well aware that cellulose will not kill me). My point was that a lot of the things we use nowadays in household items are made from chemicals a lot of us have little to no knowledge of. In general most polymers are harmless.

But the chemicals used to manufacture said polymers may be far from harmless. Especially if put into the water or the air. I know in Organic Chemistry lab we were using isocyanates to produce polyurethane, which is hardly a healthy substituent group. And as you are probably well aware -- there is no chemical reaction that you can get 100% yield from. Which means there are very minute amounts of these chemicals hanging around after the reaction.

Also.... anything that would be able to attach to produced testosterone in males would likely either be attacked and broken into the most energetically stable components i.e. testosterone and bad thing... or would aggregate somewhere nasty in the body and lower testosterone levels would be the least of your problems...It's not necessarily attacking the testosterone -- it would be attacking the testes, in particular. Reduced testicle size or testicle damage means less testosterone. Germline tissue, particularly in men, is susceptible to damage.

thod

05-02-2009, 01:56 PM

Back when I was a student (shortly after the fall of Rome), I did some of those drug trials. You know the ones, final testing needed on humans, lots of money to a student. One of them we had to stay on bottled water. There were so many drug residues in the London water, contraceptive pill residues being the worst, that they would have interfered with the test.

Yea, I know I must be mad, but I was poor. One advantage is that I had such a comprehensive barrage of tests done I know, I was, and am, in perfect health. We had guys being rejected for expressing too much of some obscure protein etc that they didn't even know they had a problem.

How do you explain all the fish changing sex near sewage outlets?

It was and is one of the stupidest remarks I've heard from a guy.

People that don't agree with you are not stupid. Nor I am either undereducated or poorly read. I gave you some quotes from wiki to back up my case. The original material I read is lost in time and my memory. The fact that you DIDN'T know that testosterone effects libido only attests to your education.

JustMel

05-02-2009, 02:21 PM

People that don't agree with you are not stupid. Nor I am either undereducated or poorly read. I gave you some quotes from wiki to back up my case. The original material I read is lost in time and my memory. The fact that you DIDN'T know that testosterone effects libido only attests to your education.

I didn't say you were stupid. I said the comment was stupid and I've had an excellent education and as such am well aware of the fact that testosterone levels affect libido. What you said and I still think is stupid is, Women who make their man feel like he is in charge will end up getting more sex from him, the reverse is also true

That doesn't speak to testosterone levels it speaks to "show him he's the man and you'll get more sex. Stick him in a frilly apron and you won't get any". It comes across that you're saying a woman must make her man feel "manly" to get more sex from him which I find ridiculous and have seen no statistics to back up. How could you even gather statistics to back that up?

I've seen articles that show men have lower testosterone now than in times past and they made sense at the time I was reading them but I don't see how that fits in with "making him feel he is in charge" equates with more sex or raises testosterone levels for any prolonged time.

Henry

05-02-2009, 02:24 PM

From foetal hormones into adulthood, we just have different levels, I can't find them all in one source, but, from memory: women have more dopamine, prolactin, estrogen, oxytocin, men have more testosterone. Each one of these little chems affects behaviors, brain function, body traits predictably. If you have X, then Y. There is no way for a person to inherit a behavior or evolutionary trait except for a physiological mechanism.

Important for a few reasons, one, because it's a proof that men and women are, in fact, different. Naturally, inherently, measurably. But, since I assume that everybody already knows that the sexes are different, just doesn't like to admit it, moving along. The hormone thing also matters because fits into my explanation for the riddle of how any thinking population could ever be made to believe otherwise.

Check

Third is that exciting orgasms increases prolactin and decreases testosterone receptors and gender-specific hormones.

I don't think that this is really established. The studies I've read suggest no long term effect of abstinence on testosterone, other than a spike on day 7 of abstinence.

Men have become less manly, less different, less like what men are supposed to be, less what they've been throughout history. Therefor the idea of gender equality holds more sway. Also, urbanization is a factor, since the natural role of men is to lead, obey and establish order. In a large community, it's harder to establish clear lines of authority, and the nesting (get along) role of women becomes predominant. The downfall of men causes women to rise in comparison, ascending to the leadership position in most homes and schools, especially since divorce and single-motherhood has removed men from homes entirely.

There's some merit to this, but I think that gender roles have evolved largely in response to shifts in technology.

In a hunter-gatherer society, there are very clear distinctions in the abilities of women and men. As I've outlined in another thread, men are just built better for hand-to-hand fighting. When capacity for violence (both in hunting and in combat) was a very valuable skill in the labor force, men had higher levels of status.

Today, however, capacity for close-quarters violence is not, outside of the NFL, a trait that society values. Intelligence, a pleasing physical appearance, and social skills are infinitely more valuable than the ability to beat someone up close quarters, even in the military and police forcces. Men and women are roughly equal in terms of intelligence, appearance, and social skills, and thus are roughly equal in terms of value to society.

As for relational, appearance and attitudinal shifts in many men, I think many are frightened at the prospect of being labeled a misogynist, homophobe, or paternalist if they express the masculine elements of the psyche. There are *SO* many feminists that crawl right down your throat with nasty vitriol the moment you say something that could even be construed as anti-feminism, and I think a lot of men have acquiesced with asserting any part of their masculinity for not wanting to deal with their histrionics. And actually if I go any further with this idea I'm going to be flamed/reported, so I'll stop here.

Now, reality, according to me: The role and function of women in a population is to build the human, the flesh, the animal. They birth every the population, raise it, feed it, tend to its needs, install the feelings, and bind it together. That is the purpose of their emotions, the oxytocin, the estrogen, the endless chatting and empathetic problem resolution. Neither sex can exist without the other, but we are not equal.

When it comes to playing left tackle, you are right: women are at a natural disadvantage and probably couldn't be competitive in this area. There's never going to be the female equivalent of Orlando Pace.

But when it comes to the attributes that society and the marketplace generally value for the vast majority of positions, including leadership positions, I think the natural attributes of men and women are approximately equal.

PHS Philip

05-02-2009, 02:52 PM

Ah, the smell of rationalized sexism based on prehuman biological holdovers.

Humans are by an enormous margin the animal most subject to nurture. That's why we have such a long childhood. An enormous portion of gender roles is, both based on that and based on intercultural differences, derived from nurture, not nature.

Males have historically dominated because they were the ones who went out and hit things (and other tribes) until they were dead. Males are physiologically disposed to being larger and stronger, and that made them the leaders of little bands of prehumans and humans. That translated into leadership of larger bands, then the first villages, and from there it could become permanently institutionalized because settled villages allowed for codified and solidified culture.

Much of the last 500 years has consisted of a slowing and finally reversing of the butterfly effect derived from that in European societies. The roles of women have expanded slowly, with the last 150 years showing the greatest progress toward the elimination of that bias. There is no reasonable evidence that females are less able than males at any social role, because males and females evolved in the same social structures, and their difference was in what they did outside the social roles. Anyone who has spent an hour studying mammals knows that there are alpha females every bit as much as alpha males. Dominance has nothing to do with it.

As for the biochemical argument, it's absolutely laughable. In the vast majority of areas, the chemical waste that can throw hormones out of their ordinary balance is in waste water, and is not entering the tap water system. And if not being dominant decreases male testosterone, that means that males are being pushed down into the role of every single male except the leader in our social units of evolution.

Further, this focus on testosterone is hilariously simplistic. Hormones controlling behavior are almost too numerous to count, and many of them can affect sexual behavior as well. Not only are the arguments for the enormous change in masculinity lost even to being charitably called unconvincing, not only are the arguments trying to prove that a radical change in testosterone poor, but the attempt to link the two is simplistic and poorly thought out, and throws out the window the enormous complexity of human neuro- and biochemistry, reducing it to a single hormone pair (estrogen and testosterone).

Chemist

05-02-2009, 03:54 PM

You kinda missed my point.

I didn't mean the polymers themselves are causing problems (I'm well aware that cellulose will not kill me). My point was that a lot of the things we use nowadays in household items are made from chemicals a lot of us have little to no knowledge of. In general most polymers are harmless.

But the chemicals used to manufacture said polymers may be far from harmless. Especially if put into the water or the air. I know in Organic Chemistry lab we were using isocyanates to produce polyurethane, which is hardly a healthy substituent group. And as you are probably well aware -- there is no chemical reaction that you can get 100% yield from. Which means there are very minute amounts of these chemicals hanging around after the reaction.

It's not necessarily attacking the testosterone -- it would be attacking the testes, in particular. Reduced testicle size or testicle damage means less testosterone. Germline tissue, particularly in men, is susceptible to damage.
I think you're actually missing my point....

blaming organic chemistry or the reactions is quite a stretch... and btw there are reactions that do go in a 100% yields they are called quantitative reactions....

The problem with chemistry and the environment is improper disposal of chemicals plain and simple... and it is easily overcome... Our lab does NOT eject waste into the environment... you in fact are able to pour more down your household drain then I am allowed to pour down the drain in my lab... My hood and the diffusion rate takes care of the rest...

Health issues related to chemical exposure can be traced back to hospitals which do not practice the same level of chemical safety and hazard control as labs and industry.. and it can also be traced back to individuals that pour any and everything down the sink in their house...

Now... even though this is a problem... whatever you are coming in contact with still MUST somehow be able to enter your body and disrupt a biological pathway.. or act as solvent and essentially dissolve your biomass... You pass many many natural sources of chemicals all day long as well... just because something is natural doesn't mean it won't hurt you...

We need to be more environmentally conscience.. plain and simple.. If they made you dispose of your chemicals the way they make us do it.. we'd have a lot less chemicals in our water and air...

ranwayslo

05-02-2009, 06:56 PM

Over the course of attempting to read these posts my testosterone dropped 6% but my i.q. increased 1%. I am going to the gym in a couple of hours then shower and to a woman's house for dinner where I anticipate my testosterone increasing by 300% and my i.q. dropping to 0.
:thumbsup::devilish::pimp:

JustMel

05-02-2009, 07:39 PM

The evolution of man and woman.......

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BostonIan

05-02-2009, 08:20 PM

Source?

It's a stat that's been kicking around the internet, but I'll have to go dig around to find the original study. On that now. And, correcting my math, the stat was 50% higher in 1940, which correlates to 33% lower since then.

Not the one I was looking for, but a tidbit, the past 20 years:
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In Denmark as well, "men studied 20 years ago had higher serum testosterone levels than men of the same age today":
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Evidence of the original meme, but still not the actual study:
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Update: That 1940's thing is looking fishy, in that the same wording is used on multiple articles, and there are a lot of "ghost links" trying to get at the original info. I'll keep trying to find the mythic 40's study, or post whatever solid info I find as penance, but, that's the update.

Sperm count nearly halved from 1940 to 1990, "growing impact of factors with serious effect on male gonadal function": To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

I don't think that this is really established. The studies I've read suggest no long term effect of abstinence on testosterone, other than a spike on day 7 of abstinence.

This is where personal experience took over. The effect was very noticeable, and felt like a classic testosterone surge which I experienced in the past seasonally and from weightlifting, but even more intense, changing facial features and bouts of extremely unusual stamina. I'd guess the testosterone receptors in the brain play a part, and, as always, I could just be an outlier.

blatant

05-02-2009, 08:29 PM

Actually, according to Bozo Sapiens (a book, look it up if you must), women actually don't like high testosterone levels. It makes man look ugly.

Deep voices, facial hair, and symmetry are all signs of physical attractiveness, not testosterone level, and women who see men with high testosterone levels see them as less attractive/less able to provide for their children.

eternaltriangle

05-02-2009, 09:12 PM

This entire debate is utter, utter poppycock created by people with zero historical perspective earlier than the late 19th century. You are also conflating a lot of what is going on... oy, where to start.

Gender roles have not been fixed throughout history, they have evolved as circumstances changed. For instance, in ancient China there were matriarchal societies where women tended to lead. Greek me did a lot of things that would be considered effete today. Viking women fought alongside men. Prior to the 18th century the European fashion industry was focused on men, while women's clothing was utilitarian and secondary. A great amount of the intellectual works of the 17th, 18th and 19th century were written by women using pen-names. Even this notion of men as the primary breadwinners really doesn't exist prior to capitalism and the industrial revolution, which remunerates traditionally male roles but not traditionally female ones. To the peasant farmer, a man ploughing the fields and a woman raising the children are both performing necessary tasks for survival. Certainly men were probably valued more than women, but you have to remember that conservative notions of the family are holistic, not individual. The family is not a group of individuals, it is an organic being of its own (which is why gay marriage challenges conservative notions of family as something larger than the individuals that make up a family). Christianity, the guiding moral philosophy of the past 1700 years or so in Europe, stands directly opposed to the notions of masculinity that many posters seem to lament the loss of. Men are supposed to be confident, proud, and aggressive - all qualities that Christianity abhors.

Gender is real and biological, but masculinity is a social construct - in many respects unrelated to testosterone - as the historical variation of our notions of what it means to "be a man" demonstrate. Are we more effete than men 50 years ago? Perhaps - though that is not what I am seeing. I am seeing a dangerous divergence, wherein upper middle class men are becoming metro-sexuals - which is fine, except that nobody is learning how to fix things. At the same time, there is a dangerous hypermasculinity emerging in working class men (the hip hop male - I don't just mean black people, for the record, there are plenty of rednecks that fall into this, or, in Britain, chavs - hip hop is but one instance of a broader trend) promoting a lack of sexual restraint, the treatment of women as objects, and unfettered aggression. With 40% of children being born to single mothers, this has a real social impact.

I am willing to argue that the Victorian man is a socially preferable creature to either of the above. The Victorian man is strong, unlike the metrosexual, but has restraint, unlike the hypermasculine hip hop male. This is not a response to our diet, it is a response to a changing technology and environment. Men will and have always displayed the qualities necessary to attract women. Technology plays a big role in this because it drives how people earn their livelihoods. The IT revolution in particular has created a very big divide between how educated and uneducated males make their livings. People growing up in the working class see physical strength as important, while those in the upper middle class see education as the key to success. Men of both groups are increasingly polarized as they try to ensure that they are not mistaken for their opposite number. The sexual revolution has allowed this to happen by unshackling men and women from their proscribed gender roles.

Ironically women's liberation probably benefited men more than it did women, because it enabled them to be promiscuous and took away their traditional obligations to support the women they bedded.

Masculinity is what you make of it. My best example of what it means to be a man comes from my father, unsurprisingly. Calmness under pressure; ability to restrain emotions and guide oneself by reason; a disinclination for showiness (ie. not buying status symbols); a duty to protect; and a quiet but self-evident authority. These to me are the qualities of maleness (they are roughly similar to the Victorian male), which I try to live up to (I am probably a bigger show off than my father, and lack his natural authority). I will never wax my hairy ass, and I will also never run away from responsibilities - even if that means letting history pass me by.

To the suggestion (which I have heard before) that the Montreal massacre represents the failure of the modern man, I have to roll my eyes a little. It is a demonstration of one thing - that guns shift the balance of power away from numbers and towards the guy with the gun. By leaving, the men were able to give the authorities much better information about the situation than the police would have otherwise. Did the police use that to their advantage? Obviously not, but had they conducted a raid, they would be damned happy that the men had left (in Entebbe, for instance, Israeli commandos had detailed intel from the non-Jews that the Palestinians had released, and were able to successfully rescue all of the hostages with only one casualty).

Repeating that baseless slur is only asserting the idiotic notion of masculinity (that, ironically, Marc Lepine, the perpetrator of the murder held) that it is manly to fight, even if certain death is the alternative. If somebody has an automatic rifle, there isn't a lot you can do - particularly in lecture halls, which give a clear berth for shooting. At any rate, 15 dead men wouldn't make me feel any better about myself and our society.

eternaltriangle added to this post, 1 minutes and 27 seconds later...

Actually, according to Bozo Sapiens (a book, look it up if you must), women actually don't like high testosterone levels. It makes man look ugly.

Deep voices, facial hair, and symmetry are all signs of physical attractiveness, not testosterone level, and women who see men with high testosterone levels see them as less attractive/less able to provide for their children.

Sort of - it varies according to hormonal cycles. When women are at their most fertile, they want a square-jawed meat-head because such features imply greater virility. When women are at their least fertile they prefer baby-faced men who they associate with better nurturing skills.

BostonIan

05-02-2009, 09:28 PM

eternaltriangle

05-02-2009, 09:52 PM

You're arguing at the margins, with the tactic of adding up a lot of margins to fill a paragraph.

An ancient Chinese tribe had woman leaders, while the majority of all tribes and civilizations had male leaders.
Viking women fought in battle, what gender did most of the fighting in most tribes?
Some British women wrote books, what gender wrote most of the books? Define a "great amount", give a percentage.

If you want to make the case that women have occupied leadership, cultural, scientific, technological, military roles in as great a percentage of men, or that there isn't a gender tendency toward those positions, have at it, but use the whole picture, and meet the argument head-on.

It is true that women have not officially led as much as men (though it is hard to judge when women dominated their husbands, for instance, or when a book was ghost-written by a woman). The simple fact that women were denied those roles, however, does not mean they are not suited to them.

Fine, lets accept your traditional notion of femininity. Women are better than men at maneuvering in social situations, and better at working collaboratively. In addition, women are better at communicating than men, and tend to perform better on tests of verbal IQ. These are among the most important leadership skills. Women should - at the very least - occupy the vast majority of middle management positions in most corporations if their inherent gender abilities were driving the situation.

Similarly, women perform better than men academically - even though they are less encouraged to do well in say, the sciences, and are not usually expected to be breadwinners. They may not always perform as well as men in visual-spatial tasks, but this should not be a major hindrance in, for instance, biology or chemistry.

Men are better at visual-spatial tasks and are physically stronger. Men are also less likely to be cooperative than women. By extension, we should see men in some of the sciences (eg. physics and engineering), but also as artists, and in manual professions.

Men have only led historically because of the importance of physical strength in military combat. Even that advantage has been withered away by the advance of modern technology. Women can learn to shoot about as well as men, and may actually be more obedient soldiers.

In other words, looking at what jobs men and women have historically done actually contradicts your notion of the particular talents of men and women. This is further evidence that masculinity and femininity are social constructs that do not conform to any underlying material reality.

schwartzie

05-02-2009, 09:55 PM

blah blah ... "Men have become less manly, less different, less like what men are supposed to be... the natural role of men is to lead, obey and establish order...
The role and function of women ... is to build the human, the flesh, the animal. They birth every the population, raise it, feed it, tend to its needs, install the feelings ... That is the purpose of their emotions, the oxytocin, the estrogen, the endless chatting and empathetic problem resolution. .....
... men set the rules, establish the order and hold the natural leadership position ... I expect men to be more logical and detached, women to be more hormonal and emotional....

*Amazed at this waste of 0s and 1s, she says, snarkily:* Well Boston, hun, happily for you, noone makes you come here, in this unnatural place where the womens are INTJs, instead of fleshy hunks of womanly F-ness. And you can be grateful that there are places on earth where men can still be like they are supposed to be, and hold "natural leadership positions." To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.):

"From The Times
April 24, 2009
Rape, beatings and bribery: Iraqi police out of control

The brief film is deeply disturbing, even in a country famed for its al-Qaeda beheading videos and sniper snuff movies. The young woman, evidently drugged, vomiting and occasionally calling for her mother, tries weakly to stop the grinning man in a white T-shirt and boxer shorts from pulling off her underwear.

She fails. The man, instructing the cameraman to shoot the scene with his mobile phone from various angles, rapes her. That is not the only shocking aspect of the film, according to Jassim al-Bidawi, former Mayor of Fallujah and now a human rights activist. He has identified the rapist as an Iraqi police officer, and says that the cameraman is one, too. They are thought to have drugged the woman as she visited her husband in a detention centre in Ramadi. Since the rapist's uncle is a senior policeman in the city the attacker is all but untouchable, Mr al-Bidawi says.
...
In many cases rape is seen as a stain on family honour and the victim is killed. Mr al-Bidawi said that was believed to have been the fate of the young woman filmed by the Ramadi police officer.

According to tribal sources in Ramadi, the rapist in the film, who apparently recorded his crime to make his victim keep her mouth shut, was detained briefly before being mysteriously freed. He is believed to have fled to Syria.

no more bloody endless chatting from her, eh.

acyckowski

05-02-2009, 10:04 PM

Repeating that baseless slur is only asserting the idiotic notion of masculinity (that, ironically, Marc Lepine, the perpetrator of the murder held) that it is manly to fight, even if certain death is the alternative. If somebody has an automatic rifle, there isn't a lot you can do - particularly in lecture halls, which give a clear berth for shooting. At any rate, 15 dead men wouldn't make me feel any better about myself and our society.

An otherwise outstanding post, but I take issue with this point.

Fighting is inherent to masculinity. Being a man implies exercising discipline over our primal urges. Discipline is not the same as denial: when the weak are threatened, a man ought to fight. The odds are irrelevant; nobility comes from purpose, not success. There were no men who escaped the massacre, only boys.

One of the more profound moments of my life was standing on the platform overlooking Niagara Falls with my then 3YO daughter on the loose. At that moment, I realized that if her dumb ass decided to go through the 2-rail fence and fall into the water, I had no choice but to kill myself in the futile attempt to save her. You can call this mode of thinking irrational, if you wish, but I've also picked up along the way that a man does what he knows to be right and doesn't concern himself about what other people think.

@BostonIan

I'm on board. Men protect and defend women and children. Period.

Men have become less manly, and I don't need statistics or academic proofs to confirm the obvious. I was fortunate enough to be raised by a real man, a man who caddied alongside his father to make sure his brothers and sisters ate, a man who dropped out of high school to fight the Axis, a man who shared the food off his own plate to make sure his children ate their fill. Thank God he was never "educated" otherwise.

Autoptic

05-02-2009, 10:09 PM

An otherwise outstanding post, but I take issue with this point.

Fighting is inherent to masculinity. Being a man implies exercising discipline over our primal urges. Discipline is not the same as denial: when the weak are threatened, a man ought to fight. The odds are irrelevant; nobility comes from purpose, not success. There were no men who escaped the massacre, only boys.

One of the more profound moments of my life was standing on the platform overlooking Niagara Falls with my then 3YO daughter on the loose. At that moment, I realized that if her dumb ass decided to go through the 2-rail fence and fall into the water, I had no choice but to kill myself in the futile attempt to save her. You can call this mode of thinking irrational, if you wish, but I've also picked up along the way that a man does what he knows to be right and doesn't concern himself about what other people think.

Self righteously contradict much do you?

schwartzie

05-02-2009, 10:13 PM

One of the more profound moments of my life was standing on the platform overlooking Niagara Falls with my then 3YO daughter on the loose. At that moment, I realized that if her dumb ass decided to go through the 2-rail fence and fall into the water, I had no choice but to kill myself in the futile attempt to save her. You can call this mode of thinking irrational, if you wish, but I've also picked up along the way that a man does what he knows to be right and doesn't concern himself about what other people think. ... I was fortunate enough to be raised by a real man... who ... ma[d]e sure his brothers and sisters ate, ... who shared the food off his own plate to make sure his children ate their fill.

acyckowski, this is not manliness, this is simple appropriate parenting. You cannot honestly think that a decent mother would do otherwise...

Prunesquallor

05-02-2009, 10:18 PM

Social stereotypes are not "Reality" grounded in biology or evolutionary theory. Why is this so hard?????? I really don't get it. It's such a simple concept.

BostonIan

05-02-2009, 10:22 PM

It is true that women have not officially led as much as men (though it is hard to judge when women dominated their husbands, for instance, or when a book was ghost-written by a woman). The simple fact that women were denied those roles, however, does not mean they are not suited to them.

The fact that women were denied these roles implies being dominated by the sex more prone to dominating. That nowhere significantly in history, for all the different sects of civilization, have women taken the lead in any of these roles is strong evidence that women aren't nearly as suited for them.

Fine, lets accept your traditional notion of femininity. Women are better than men at maneuvering in social situations, and better at working collaboratively. In addition, women are better at communicating than men, and tend to perform better on tests of verbal IQ. These are among the most important leadership skills. Women should - at the very least - occupy the vast majority of middle management positions in most corporations if their inherent gender abilities were driving the situation.

Considering collaboration and empathetic socialization leadership skills may be a product of a femme indocrination - it doesn't make clear sense to me. Picture a general talking to his troops. "How does this invasion make you feel, gentlemen? Left wing, I'm going to sacrifice you in a diversionary tactic, very sorry. Lieutenant, oh lieutenant, I have an important personal matter that needs discussing..." Leadership is a detachment, not an attachment, a distance from the led, not a closeness, a certainty of action, not a consensus.

Similarly, women perform better than men academically - even though they are less encouraged to do well in say, the sciences, and are not usually expected to be breadwinners. They may not always perform as well as men in visual-spatial tasks, but this should not be a major hindrance in, for instance, biology or chemistry.

Firstly, the "less encouraged to do well in say, the sciences" smells like propaganda, along with the idea that encouragement supersedes inherent qualities. Prove that women are systematically less encouraged to succeed in science, and that the encouragement itself could dramatically affect academic performance and self-selection.

As for school advantage overall, the superior ability to sit indoors, follow rules, and do rote work is a dubious advantage in my mind. See a classroom in your mind, picture it. Now, replace the pen with some traditional household apparatus. Big change? Little change?

Men have only led historically because of the importance of physical strength in military combat. Even that advantage has been withered away by the advance of modern technology. Women can learn to shoot about as well as men, and may actually be more obedient soldiers.

Having "only led historically because..." is a guess on your part. It ignores that men have also led in science, religion, art, philosophy, in situations where physical violence isn't important. It's also blind to the inherent function of the human male. The same thinking could be applied to the sexual divergence of roles among lions, gorillas, chimapanzees, bees, and so on. How would you create gender equality among (other) animals where it hasn't existed historically? How long would it take?

In other words, looking at what jobs men and women have historically done actually contradicts your notion of the particular talents of men and women. This is further evidence that masculinity and femininity are social constructs that do not conform to any underlying material reality.

A statement for its own sake.

altoid

05-02-2009, 11:54 PM

*groan*

It seems that you've started with the conclusion that men > women, and are grasping at some basic physiological differences and social observations you have made to attempt to justify your conclusion. Please, please, if you're going to attempt to drag science kicking and screaming into your sexist musings, at least do it the courtesy of citing it appropriately when necessary. Scapegoating birth control pills (which, by no accident here, are a strong symbol of female reproductive freedom) as a primary cause of declining testosterone levels in men is probably quite convenient for your argument. But...citations or it didn't happen.

There is a good ~20 year gap between when you say testosterone levels began their descent and when hormonal contraceptives began seeing any sort of widespread use. That would lead most people to believe that there is something else going on, at least in addition to the cause you cite. Vagrant had some good points on this topic.

eternaltriangle

05-03-2009, 12:05 AM

The fact that women were denied these roles implies being dominated by the sex more prone to dominating. That nowhere significantly in history, for all the different sects of civilization, have women taken the lead in any of these roles is strong evidence that women aren't nearly as suited for them.

If being in leadership roles is example enough of skills in domination doesn't the increased presence of women in leadership positions suggest that women are getting better at dominating men? At the very least it helps support my argument that male domination is based on superior physical strength, which is a much less important distinction between individuals in the modern era. The utility of strength is pretty small.

Considering collaboration and empathetic socialization leadership skills may be a product of a femme indocrination - it doesn't make clear sense to me. Picture a general talking to his troops. "How does this invasion make you feel, gentlemen? Left wing, I'm going to sacrifice you in a diversionary tactic, very sorry. Lieutenant, oh lieutenant, I have an important personal matter that needs discussing..." Leadership is a detachment, not an attachment, a distance from the led, not a closeness, a certainty of action, not a consensus.

Again, I find it interesting that you are turning to a military example, given that military affairs are becoming a less and less important facet of human existence. Military spending in the purportedly militarist United States is 3% of GDP. I am willing to grant that the ability to make fast and decisive decisions makes sense in limited settings - the military is one of them. Corporations and government bureaucracies, which represent a much larger proportion of our productive activities, however, do not fit that mould. If you are making long-term plans, whether it takes a committee a month or a single person a day makes little difference in the grand scheme of things. What does make a difference is whether it is a good plan. Being able to draw from the ideas of everybody at the table makes far better plans than any one person can do on their own.

Firstly, the "less encouraged to do well in say, the sciences" smells like propaganda, along with the idea that encouragement supersedes inherent qualities. Prove that women are systematically less encouraged to succeed in science, and that the encouragement itself could dramatically affect academic performance and self-selection.

As for school advantage overall, the superior ability to sit indoors, follow rules, and do rote work is a dubious advantage in my mind. See a classroom in your mind, picture it. Now, replace the pen with some traditional household apparatus. Big change? Little change?

The OECD conducts standardized tests (the PISA) of high school students. It records gender differences as well. Like all tests, it is imperfect, but it hardly penalizes women. Women tend to be worse test-takers because they are more inclined to seek the best answer, rather than answering quickly. Here are the gender differences, on average, by subject (you can get this data from the OECD country statistics if you like.

Science
Men: 501
Women: 499
(by way of comparison the gap between the highest scoring country, Finland, and the lowest, Brazil was 563 vs. 390).

Reading
Men: 473
Women: 511
(by way of comparison, Brazil got 393, Finland got 547)

Math
Men: 503
Women: 492
(by way of comparison, Brazil got 370, Finland 548)

So, women are dramatically better at reading, just as good at science, and somewhat worse at math. Overall, adding all scores together, women do better. Of course, these differences are quite small relative to national differences. Certainly, the minor differences we see in PISA results should not predict the sausage-fest that is much of the sciences. That the results in university department composition do not reflect high school results is evidence of discouragement at work.

Of course, those high school results already reflect discouragement for women. You can see evidence of this in terms of the classes women take once in high school - based on the advice of guidance counselors. What is telling is that women do just as well as men in elementary school (when everybody takes the same classes) but are less likely to take senior math classes in high school. Despite that, there is increasing evidence that women can do just as well as men even in math. For instance, this study:
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Why is that gap shrinking? In part because more women are being encouraged to take math classes if they are good at math, and enjoy numerical pursuits. We still have a long way to go, nonetheless.

Then you denigrate the accomplishment of women by saying "oh and women only do better in school because they are better at rote memorization and drudgery". Firstly, I have bad news for you, but the world of work is full of drudgery. Secondly, though, this is typical evasiveness. The evidence doesn't support you so you run away. What evidence do YOU have that men are smarter and better? I am going to guess that your answer will be "men have historically accomplished stuff." Yeah, I bet women would accomplish a lot more than men if historically men got burned as witches for knowing things.

I have a little sympathy for you though - I am willing to grant that our education system fails boys and girls. It fails both because it teaches subjects in particular ways. If you are a visual learner, for instance, the use of phonics puts you at a disadvantage, relative to say, whole language techniques. If you teach science in a very hands on way, you might get boys to do better than if it is all theory. There is a verbal, visual and hands-on way to teach everything. Our education system fails all genders because it doesn't do enough to recognize that.

Having "only led historically because..." is a guess on your part. It ignores that men have also led in science, religion, art, philosophy, in situations where physical violence isn't important. It's also blind to the inherent function of the human male. The same thinking could be applied to the sexual divergence of roles among lions, gorillas, chimapanzees, bees, and so on. How would you create gender equality among (other) animals where it hasn't existed historically? How long would it take?

Again, why is it that men's past leadership is clearly justified by reality according to your argument, while increasing female leadership must be the result of some conspiracy? The most marked difference between men and women is not mental - they perform the same on IQ tests (women do a bit better on average, though there are more extremely intelligent men... and more extremely stupid men) and in other regards. The biggest difference between men and women is in physical strength, and as that has become less important, men have lost their edge. That sounds like a pretty reasonable story to me.

Yes, men also led in many other fields, but it isn't clear to me at all that women were given anything like the same opportunities that men had. When women are given something close to equal opportunities (though, for instance, they are still socially expected to raise children, while men are not) they perform a lot better than historically.

Lets do a test case - on some supposedly unfriendly turf. Where women have been given the opportunity to lead nations - supposedly something they are bad at - have they done a better or worse than average job?

Margaret Thatcher rebuilt Britain's stagnant economy and prevented the UK from the fate of Germany and France; Indira Gandhi managed to maintain Indian democracy from terror and is regarded as one of India's best leaders; Golda Meir led Israel to victory in wartime; Corazin Aquino is regarded as the best PM of the Philippines for her management of the post-Marcos era. Benazir Bhutto, was similarly well-regarded in Pakistan. Chamorro successfully managed Nicaragua's recovery from war, while instituting economic reforms that ended hyperinflation. Helen Clark's New Zealand saw a period of stable economic growth and a marked drop-off in crime. Are there any notable failures in the group? Arguably, Bandaranaike inflamed Sri Lanka's current civil war. On the other hands, the voters seemed to like her, and re-elected her for three non-consecutive terms in office. Still, when we are talking about politicians it looks pretty good when one must strain to find a clear failure, while there are a large number of successes that rank among the greatest of the post-war era.

Modern female heads of government (ie. prime ministers with actual power)

Sirimavo Bandaranaike Ceylon Prime Minister 1960-07-21 1965-03-27
Indira Gandhi India Prime Minister 1966-01-24 1977-04-24
Golda Meir Israel Prime Minister 1969-03-17 1974-06-03
Sirimavo Bandaranaike Sri Lanka Prime Minister 1970-05-29 1977-07-23
Isabel Martínez de Perón Argentina President 1974-07-01 1976-03-24
Elisabeth Domitien Central African Republic Prime Minister 1975-01-02 1976-04-07
Margaret Thatcher United Kingdom Prime Minister 1979-05-04 1990-11-28
Lidia Gueiler Tejada Bolivia Acting President 1979-11-16 1980-07-17
Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo Portugal Prime Minister 1979-07-01 1980-01-03
Indira Gandhi India Prime Minister 1980-01-15 1984-10-31
Eugenia Charles Dominica Prime Minister 1980-07-21 1995-06-14
Gro Harlem Brundtland Norway Prime Minister 1981-02-04 1981-10-14
Corazon Aquino Philippines President 1986-02-25 1992-06-30
Gro Harlem Brundtland Norway Prime Minister 1986-05-09 1989-10-16
Milka Planinc Yugoslavia Prime Minister 1982-05-16 1986-05-15
Stella Sigcau Transkei Prime Minister 1987-10-05 1987-12-30
Benazir Bhutto Pakistan Prime Minister 1988-12-02 1990-07-06
Ertha Pascal-Trouillot Haiti Acting President 1990-03-13 1991-02-07
Kazimira Prunskienė Lithuania Prime Minister 1990-03-17 1991-01-10
Khaleda Zia Bangladesh Prime Minister 1991-03-20 1996-03-20
Violeta Chamorro Nicaragua President 1990-04-25 1997-01-10
Édith Cresson France Prime Minister 1991-05-15 1992-04-02
Gro Harlem Brundtland Norway Prime Minister 1990-11-03 1996-10-25
Hanna Suchocka Poland Prime Minister 1992-07-11 1993-10-25
Kim Campbell Canada Prime Minister 1993-06-25 1993-11-04
Tansu Çiller Turkey Prime Minister 1993-06-13 1996-03-06
Agathe Uwilingiyimana Rwanda Prime Minister 1993-07-18 1994-04-07
Sylvie Kinigi Burundi Prime Minister 1993-07-10 1994-02-07
Benazir Bhutto Pakistan Prime Minister 1993-10-19 1996-11-05
Reneta Indzhova Bulgaria Acting Prime Minister 1994-10-17 1995-01-25
Sirimavo Bandaranaike Sri Lanka Prime Minister 1994-11-14 2000-07-10
Claudette Werleigh Haiti Prime Minister 1995-11-07 1996-02-27
Hasina Wazed Bangladesh Prime Minister 1996-06-23 2001-07-15
Ruth Perry Liberia Chair of the Council of State 1996-09-03 1997-08-02
Rosalía Arteaga Serrano Ecuador Acting President 1997-02-09 1997-02-11
Janet Jagan Guyana Prime Minister 1997-03-06 1997-12-19
Jenny Shipley New Zealand Prime Minister 1997-12-05 1999-12-05
Irena Degutienė Lithuania Acting Prime Minister 1999-05-04 1999-05-18
Mireya Moscoso Panama President 1999-09-01 2004-09-01
Irena Degutienė Lithuania Acting Prime Minister 1999-10-27 1999-11-03
Helen Clark New Zealand Prime Minister 1999-12-05 2008-11-19
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo Philippines President 2001-01-20 Incumbent
Megawati Sukarnoputri Indonesia President 2001-07-23 2004-10-20
Mame Madior Boye Senegal Prime Minister 2001-03-03 2002-11-04
Khaleda Zia Bangladesh Prime Minister 2001-10-10 2006-10-29
Chang Sang South Korea Acting Prime Minister 2002-07-11 2002-07-31
Maria das Neves São Tomé and Príncipe Prime Minister 2002-10-03 2004-09-18
Beatriz Merino Peru Prime Minister 2003-06-28 2003-12-15
Anneli Jäätteenmäki Finland Prime Minister 2003-04-17 2003-06-24
Luisa Diogo Mozambique Prime Minister 2004-02-17 Incumbent
Radmila Šekerinska Macedonia Acting Prime Minister 2004-05-12 2004-06-12
Radmila Šekerinska Macedonia Acting Prime Minister 2004-11-03 2004-12-15
Yulia Tymoshenko Ukraine Prime Minister 2005-01-24 2005-09-08
Maria do Carmo Silveira São Tomé and Príncipe Prime Minister 2005-06-08 2006-04-21
Angela Merkel Germany Chancellor 2005-11-22 Incumbent
Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf Liberia President 2006-01-16 Incumbent
Michelle Bachelet Chile President 2006-03-11 Incumbent
Portia Simpson-Miller Jamaica Prime Minister 2006-03-30 2007-09-11
Han Myung Sook South Korea Prime Minister 2006-04-19 2007-03-07
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner Argentina President 2007-12-10 Incumbent
Yulia Tymoshenko Ukraine Prime Minister 2007-12-18 Incumbent
Zinaida Greceanîi Moldova Prime Minister 2008-03-31 Incumbent
Michèle Pierre-Louis Haiti Prime Minister 2008-09-05 Incumbent
Hasina Wazed Bangladesh Prime Minister 2009-01-06 Incumbent
Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir Iceland Prime Minister 2009-02-01 Incumbent

Vagrant

05-03-2009, 12:09 AM

So, women are dramatically better at reading, just as good at science, and somewhat worse at math. Overall, adding all scores together, women do better. Of course, these differences are quite small relative to national differences. Certainly, the minor differences we see in PISA results should not predict the sausage-fest that is much of the sciences. That the results in university department composition do not reflect high school results is evidence of discouragement at work.Additionally, as far as IQ tests go, women only score 1 point lower on average, which isn't significant. However, men's IQ scores have a much higher variance than women's -- meaning you get more idiots and geniuses with men.

BostonIan

05-03-2009, 12:15 AM

Altoid, I'll take your complaint about birth control scapegoating as a call on why I mentioned them. First, what's called a "birth control pill", is also known as "a continual dose of synthetic female hormones". That "a continual dose of synthetic female hormones, taken for a half-century by a large percentage of the population" may have an effect on disrupting natural hormone balance in a population, isn't abstract thought.

That those hormones later make it into the environment is not an idea I can take credit for:
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altoid

05-03-2009, 12:55 AM

BostonIan: Good. We're citing sources.

I'm not questioning why you mentioned them, and I'm very aware of what they are and how they work. I don't deny it's possible, heck maybe it's likely, that synthetic estrogens/progesterones are contributing to declining testosterone levels. But there are plenty of possible endocrine disruptors out there, including natural and synthetic estrogenomimetics that have nothing to do with birth control. Check into Bisphenol A (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.), for example, and go reread Vagrant's post regarding the "chemical revolution" (I see no need to re-outline what he already typed.)

Eleven

05-03-2009, 01:07 AM

Anticipating the arguments:
[...]
The arguments at the margins, that "not all men" are like this, "not all women" are like that, and "I know a personal anecdote that proves..." are valid, but I'm thinking more on the overall civilizational level. The bigger the picture, the less individuals matter.
That "things are so much better now" is a separate argument, I'm arguing more about natural roles, biology, civilizational chess. [/list]
These seem to be strange restrictions on your discussion. If you want to talk only about biological averages and history, then go ahead - but nothing in there is going to have any normative value. Throughout history, men may have been dominant, and women may have been more or less confined to a very restricted range of roles. There may even be on-average biological processes involved that tend to lend themselves to this set up. But that doesn't mean that change to a different dynamic is bad, and biological averages mean nothing when you are dealing with individuals.

The idea of 'roles for women' and 'roles for men' places restraints on individuals. If you're only interested in describing trends in history, that's one thing, but saying that in reality, a woman's role is to birth each generation and to instil the values, or that man's role is to lead, innovate and build, then you're describing either a situation that you think ought to obtain, or a norm to which, all being normal, people should, in some sense of 'should,' conform.

That's where I think you're mistaken.

Let's assume that there are biological factors involved, and that, on average, women are more suited to raising children, while men are, on average, more suited to pursuing competitive careers of some form or other.

Now, you would argue that, because women are on average more suited to child-rearing, they should be child-rearing. But this is an over-complicated argument. Is on average suitability for child-rearing really important for child rearing? Or is it, maybe, that suitability for child-rearing is important for child-rearing?

Because, even if women are, on average, more suited to child rearing, if Cynthia isn't, if she is more suited to a competitive career, then I think it's an unfortunate situation if she is unable to pursue what would in fact fulfil her, and what would be the path along which she would most effectively be able to contribute to the community.

It works in reverse, too. Even if men are on average better suited to career-pursuit, If Nathan isn't, then why should his self-fulfilment and usefulness be compromised because someone wanted to establish a normative role for his sex?

It just doesn't make much sense to me. Averages are statistically interesting, but making them normative doesn't generate good results. And the fact remains that averages are just averages - there are men and women who by their nature do not tend toward fitting the 'role' for their sex. It doesn't seem difficult to just say 'let's forget norms and averages. What is this person good at? What do they want to do with their life?'

And, we can of course ask whether the averages and historical trends are as significant as they might seem when they are themselves the products of systems with their own sets of norms, in many cases quite actively enforced. Throughout history, women were not encouraged to learn, they were actively kept out of certain professions, and so forth. Under those circumstances, it's not surprising at all that men dominated in public and political spheres of life.

BostonIan

05-03-2009, 02:24 AM

If being in leadership roles is example enough of skills in domination doesn't the increased presence of women in leadership positions suggest that women are getting better at dominating men?

That men are becoming less dominant, that gender disparity is decreasing, that men are less manly, that proper channels of authority have been broken and women have risen opportunistically, "when the cat's away, the mice will play", as stated in the OP.

At the very least it helps support my argument that male domination is based on superior physical strength, which is a much less important distinction between individuals in the modern era. The utility of strength is pretty small.

Or that dominance and physical strength are correlated biologically (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.). You avoided it the first time, ignore the implication for the argument, just for the thought: why are lions, chimpanzees, gorillas led by males? Mechanically, what is the physiological difference? Mechanically, why has evolution rewarded that functional difference?

Again, I find it interesting that you are turning to a military example, given that military affairs are becoming a less and less important facet of human existence. I am willing to grant that the ability to make fast and decisive decisions makes sense in limited settings - the military is one of them. Corporations and government bureaucracies, which represent a much larger proportion of our productive activities....

We're spinning off-topic, both away from the original topic and the definition of leadership. What you're describing is bureaucracy, not the definition or application of leadership, nor defending your assertion of what the "most important leadership skills" are. Whether it's military, in a home, in a school, at a job, leadership traits are the same. Again, distance, detachment, certainty are inherent qualities of leadership, according to me.

Certainly, the minor differences we see in PISA results should not predict the sausage-fest that is much of the sciences. That the results in university department composition do not reflect high school results is evidence of discouragement at work.

Or evidence of self-selection at work. What is your inherent interest level in becoming, say, a nurse? What makes, physics, biology, or any pursuit appealing or unappealing? Is it more something about your inner nature, in your mind, or some external force?

Of course, those high school results already reflect discouragement for women. You can see evidence of this in terms of the classes women take once in high school - based on the advice of guidance counselors. Guidance counselors playing a large role in what electives a woman takes in school is news to me and seems unlikely to have a played a large role in overall trends.

Can we call this "the magic guidance counselor" theory? I was unaware that guidance counselors played such a decisive role in choosing electives.

Then you denigrate the accomplishment of women by saying "oh and women only do better in school because they are better at rote memorization and drudgery". Firstly, I have bad news for you, but the world of work is full of drudgery. Secondly, though, this is typical evasiveness. The evidence doesn't support you so you run away. What evidence do YOU have that men are smarter and better? I am going to guess that your answer will be "men have historically accomplished stuff." Yeah, I bet women would accomplish a lot more than men if historically men got burned as witches for knowing things.

{School. Doesn't. Matter.} It's a separate opinion of mine, formed outside of this debate. School is sitting, behaving, and following rules, learning very important information very slowly, and then forgetting most of it by the end of the year. I personally wouldn't use the term "academic accomplishment" in a sentence, so that's what you're running into. The rest of your academic statistics hit the same wall for me, but I'll offer that the head leads, not the waistline, I'd assume that men are over-represented at the top of test-scorers.

Men are smarter and better because they have built, invented, discovered, everything. (Except kevlar and the washing machine). That women "were burned as witches for knowing things" is an emotionalized appeal, that women would have conquered, discovered, invented, led, realized an equal percentage of {absolutely everything except for kevlar and the washing machine} if not for the ever-present pandemic of "witch-burning for knowing things". After the feel of the idea burns past, the truth of it seems unlikely.

Again, why is it that men's past leadership is clearly justified by reality according to your argument, while increasing female leadership must be the result of some conspiracy?

To walk it out, I'll say that women do not have the natural authority to lead men and build systems or social organizations, though they can rise to the a position of nominal authority and have some success in learning what men have discovered in nations that men have built so long as they are protected by men with weapons created by men, especially while men lose their natural line of authority, as stated in the OP.

Switch the lines of thought, place a new man in an amazon society that has never seen a man. He invents new tech, develops new ideas, over-takes women in wrestling matches, shows the natural distance of detachment, speaks in a sexy deep voice. Two generations, when his hoards of children are grown, it's a patriarchy. We are that awesome.

The most marked difference between men and women is not mental - they perform the same on IQ tests (women do a bit better on average, though there are more extremely intelligent men... and more extremely stupid men) and in other regards. The biggest difference between men and women is in physical strength, and as that has become less important, men have lost their edge. That sounds like a pretty reasonable story to me.

Physical strength is a secondary indicator of an internal difference. The difference is hormonal, and therefor psychological, and therefor behavioral. Behavior is largely what we're talking about when we're talking about social, gender roles.

Yes, men also led in many other fields, but it isn't clear to me at all that women were given anything like the same opportunities that men had. When women are given something close to equal opportunities (though, for instance, they are still socially expected to raise children, while men are not) they perform a lot better than historically.

Being "socially expected to raise children" puts thoughts at an equal argument level with physiology. Pause to admit that women have milk-filled breasts, wombs, higher oxytocin levels, less aggression, better suited to child-rearing and social tending. As for the equal opportunity - who is allowing the opportunity? What power is being relaxed so that the opportunity is allowed? What puts women in the position of the asker at the table?

Lets do a test case - on some supposedly unfriendly turf. Where women have been given the opportunity to lead nations - supposedly something they are bad at - have they done a better or worse than average job?

Finishing off the last idea - with what weight comes any authority, from what source comes the power? That said, we're back to arguing at the margins. It was never my argument that a woman can't have been a queen or a president, or that failure is guaranteed once placed in those offices. I'm sure if we scoured the globe, we could find a small subset of suitable females that we could train for (almost) any accomplishment.

I'll restate and go with: the usual inherent traits of a woman aren't conducive to leadership, therefor it is unnatural and unwise to encourage leadership in woman. I'd assume that (most successful) women in power come to power and lead through mimicking men's attitudes and behaviors, for example "Iron Lady" Thatcher's conservatism, and speech-training to lower her voice. Off the top of my head, Hillary put on a similar "defense mom" front for national election, Merkel seems tough, I'm running out of mental images.

I can't see how the stereotypical consensus-driven, empathetic president could lead a nation or rise to the position of authority to begin with.

(And, yes, that was a lot of typing. I need to either write a book or get a hobby.)

Nemesis

05-03-2009, 02:51 AM

I recommend taking a look at this link.

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Enjoy! ;)

zibber

05-03-2009, 02:58 AM

alphawolf, except more eloquent and with crazy neurochemical knowledge? *shivers*

That men are becoming less dominant, that gender disparity is decreasing, that men are less manly, that proper channels of authority have been broken and women have risen opportunistically, "when the cat's away, the mice will play", as stated in the OP.

You still use words like "manly" and "proper" (as in: the way it should be).

I think you kind of miss the point of feminism, or have constructed something of a straw man which you feel called to battle. This just comes down to is/ought. You note some biological differences and historical realities (of a few men taking the lead (which seems to me to be a marginal affair, as you'd call it)), but then leap to some kind of universal imperative. I don't see a logical link.

Or that dominance and physical strength are correlated biologically (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.). You avoided it the first time, ignore the implication for the argument, just for the thought: why are lions, chimpanzees, gorillas led by males? Mechanically, what is the physiological difference? Mechanically, why has evolution rewarded that functional difference?

You give other animals as an example, but in my eyes it only points to your own essentialism. We are not those species. Our reality is much different from them, as we are rational and ethical. We don't confuse is for ought, or at least we oughtn't

We're spinning off-topic, both away from the original topic and the definition of leadership. What you're describing is bureaucracy, not the definition or application of leadership, nor defending your assertion of what the "most important leadership skills" are. Whether it's military, in a home, in a school, at a job, leadership traits are the same. Again, distance, detachment, certainty are inherent qualities of leadership, according to me.

Okay, so you wouldn't want a woman running your team/company/country/whatever. Based on theoretical musings and value judgements. Should we infer from this that you'd prefer not even to give women a chance to lead, a chance to prove you the male chauvinist wrong?

Or evidence of self-selection at work. What is your inherent interest level in becoming, say, a nurse? What makes, physics, biology, or any pursuit appealing or unappealing? Is it more something about your inner nature, in your mind, or some external force?

You leave out the category of external forces that shape the internal. That's kind of a big one, I think.

Can we call this "the magic guidance counselor" theory? I was unaware that guidance counselors played such a decisive role in choosing electives. They weren't for me,

Yeah, he said they DIDN'T.

There are many cultural factors that influence statistics like these. Guidance counselors are just individuals, they don't have a decisive influence. They come into play after a kid's what, 17 years of being completely and fully immersed in a culture? That's a long time to marinate and it will have its effect.

{School. Doesn't. Matter.} It's a separate opinion of mine, formed outside of this debate. School is sitting, behaving, and following rules, learning very important information very slowly, and then forgetting most of it by the end of the year. I personally wouldn't use the term "academic accomplishment" in a sentence, so that's what you're running into. The rest of your academic statistics hit the same wall for me, but I'll offer that the head leads, not the waistline, I'd assume that men are over-represented at the top of test-scorers.

I can't magically change your mind, but I seriously doubt that high school doesn't have a HUGE influence on one's social development. It's traditionally that place where children make the shift into whatever their culture's notion of adulthood is. In most cultures I know of, that comes down to settling into gender constructions. School doesn't necessarily matter, the constant interaction with peers does.

Men are smarter and better

Must.. fight.. boredom..

To walk it out, I'll say that women do not have the natural authority to lead men and build systems or social organizations, though they can rise to the a position of nominal authority and have some success in learning what men have discovered in nations that men have built so long as they are protected by men with weapons created by men, especially while men lose their natural line of authority, as stated in the OP.

Why did women not have part in those discoveries? THEY WERE NOT ALLOWED TO LEARN AND TO BECOME SCIENTISTS. Jesus Christ, man. Think.

Switch the lines of thought, place a new man in an amazon society that has never seen a man. He invents new tech, develops new ideas, over-takes women in wrestling matches, shows the natural distance of detachment, speaks in a sexy deep voice. Two generations, when his hoards of children are grown, it's a patriarchy. We are that awesome.

You're just saying that. There is no way in hell you can be certain of that exact scenario.

Physical strength is a secondary indicator of an internal difference. The difference is hormonal, and therefor psychological, and therefor behavioral. Behavior is largely what we're talking about when we're talking about social, gender roles.

Dude. Hormonal>physiological>"behavioral"? In this little formula, it's as if nurture/culture has ZERO influence. This is just dogmatic essentialism, right here.

Being "socially expected to raise children" puts thoughts at an equal argument level with physiology. Pause to admit that women have milk-filled breasts, wombs, higher oxytocin levels, less aggression, better suited to child-rearing and social tending. As for the equal opportunity - who is allowing the opportunity? What power is being relaxed so that the opportunity is allowed? What puts women in the position of the asker at the table?

Historical patriarchy? What are you getting at? I wish you'd just have addressed ET's point, it's an important one.

I'll restate and go with: the usual inherent traits of a woman aren't conducive to leadership, therefor it is unnatural and unwise to encourage leadership in woman. I'd assume that (most successful) women in power come to power and lead through mimicking men's attitudes and behaviors, for example "Iron Lady" Thatcher's conservatism, and speech-training to lower her voice. Off the top of my head, Hillary put on a similar "defense mom" front for reelection, Merkel seems tough, I'm running out of mental images.

Yeah, with paragraphs like this I kind of phase out when you use the word "inherent". You're a gender essentialist.

I can't see how the stereotypical consensus-driven, empathetic president could lead a nation or rise to the position of authority to begin with.

Empathy and an ear for concensus are qualities I very much desire and admire in a leader.

Let me propose this: what if "leadership" is as flexible a concept as we evil feminists claim gender to be? Most of your argument seems to flow from your own definition of it.

SurpriseMe

05-03-2009, 02:59 AM

Very well said, eternaltriangle. You eloquently and intelligently made every point my brain was screaming to write as I read through this thread. I was really starting to lose faith in MANkind, and almost plotting a hostile takeover until I came across your posts. (Make that a cordial takeover.) ;)

A couple other points I wanted to make are that the importance of prominent roles women held in ancient pastoral societies should not be overlooked. Bostonian argued that this was insignificant because pastoral societies were less common than settled societies. Frequency of occurrence had nothing to do with which sexes were suited for what roles, it had to do with the habitability of the environments these societies inhabited. Large plane country without much arable land did not support agriculture well, so nomadic tribes developed as the norm instead of sedentary urban centers. Women played much more prominent roles in these nomadic groups, often as warriors, leaders, and they could own property, divorce, and had more independence from their male counterparts. This was also the case before the Neolithic Revolution, in which agriculture was invented.

Upon the advent of agriculture and settled societies, more labor was necessary for working the land so women had to deal with more and more children being born. They were relegated to the household in order to take care of them while the men who were old enough could work the farms. Being in the household and having a focus on the children's care meant they participated less in society in general. Over time, a social construct developed where women were viewed as secondary, subserviant, even property. Men and women were socialized to believe men superior and women inferior. The "superior" sex was allowed to learn to read, to hold property, to take on leadership roles, to commit adultery without consequence or shame, to vote, and to determine whether the "inferior" sex would live or die.

All of these things are attributable to environmental circumstances, which change over time as knowledge, technology, and our constructed environments change. In terms of human history, it's only a recent development that women were allowed to participate in academics, vote, hold management/leadership positions with relative security - so of course there's evidence that women were/are discouraged to pursue higher education, much less the kind of careers that might result.

The question of percentages of men vs. women in leadership roles throughout history doesn't do anything to support your argument. Circumstances leading to patriarchal societies have created the myth that women are unfit to lead. The fact that there were women leaders, and very effective ones, throughout history is evidence that women are quite capable of leading - and in the face of prohibitive obstacles.

Now, who would you respect more? A successful leader who was granted the opportunity by the accident of birth, or a successful leader who had to overcome bigotry and prove herself worthy not once, but daily in order to maintain the status she achieved?

And don't be so quick to dismiss women's ability to lead based simply on their capacity for emotion, regardless of how it relates to men's. People express (or don't express) emotions differently, not just based on chemical balances but also on social nurturing. Psychology is much less cut and dry than biology. Women are just as capable of stoicism as men. (And I can't believe I'm actually having to explain that.)

BostonIan, I think it's clear that despite all the scientific and rational evidence anyone could offer you here, this would still come down to the issue that you feel threatened by the idea of a strong woman. Ever stop to ask yourself, if a woman is so inferior in so many capacities, then why is it you still feel threatened?

Could it be that women are in fact capable of success as authority figures? No, of course merit has nothing to do with it. The rise of woman can only be explained by the fall of man due to depleting testosterone levels.

**Edit**

That men are becoming less dominant, that gender disparity is decreasing, that men are less manly, that proper channels of authority have been broken and women have risen opportunistically, "when the cat's away, the mice will play", as stated in the OP.

Being "socially expected to raise children" puts thoughts at an equal argument level with physiology. Pause to admit that women have milk-filled breasts, wombs, higher oxytocin levels, less aggression, better suited to child-rearing and social tending. As for the equal opportunity - who is allowing the opportunity? What power is being relaxed so that the opportunity is allowed? What puts women in the position of the asker at the table?

Who's allowing the opportunity? Who has had the power to decide what roles a woman should fill? How about the cat in your "when the cat's away" metaphor. Or the man instigating an "awesome" patriarchal society in your ridiculous Amazon analogy. You even used the word "patriarchy" yourself - are you really trying to deny the existence of the power you espouse in the same post? You're like a dog chasing it's own tail.

{School. Doesn't. Matter.} It's a separate opinion of mine, formed outside of this debate. School is sitting, behaving, and following rules, learning very important information very slowly, and then forgetting most of it by the end of the year. I personally wouldn't use the term "academic accomplishment" in a sentence, so that's what you're running into. The rest of your academic statistics hit the same wall for me, but I'll offer that the head leads, not the waistline, I'd assume that men are over-represented at the top of test-scorers.

School. Does. Matter - especially as a scientific measure of aptitude. You remember the scientific method, right? The idea of controlled data collection, and the tendency to consider a generalized theory disproved once contradictory evidence arises. Consider eternaltriangle's generous offering of evidence as proof of the vast invalidity of your theory.

Men are smarter and better because they have built, invented, discovered, everything. (Except kevlar and the washing machine). That women "were burned as witches for knowing things" is an emotionalized appeal, that women would have conquered, discovered, invented, led, realized an equal percentage of {absolutely everything except for kevlar and the washing machine} if not for the ever-present pandemic of "witch-burning for knowing things". After the feel of the idea burns past, the truth of it seems unlikely.

Would you like to go learning things knowing your town and family would burn you alive for it? Kind of a deal-breaker, eh? Now that people have caught up with the idea that more educated people is actually better for society and more efficient regardless of sex (again, a relatively new development in human history, and not exactly uniform even in the 1st world), women are able to demonstrate the abilities they've possessed all along. The difference is we have the opportunity to do so safely and easily. (And we're not just talking witch hunting, we're talking long held social beliefs ingrained in children, and laws specifically designed to keep women uneducated and without monetary means to gain education or authority.)

So yeah, you hit it on the head there Sherlock, the members of society allowed to learn stuff sure have made use of their knowledge by inventing things.

Switch the lines of thought, place a new man in an amazon society that has never seen a man. He invents new tech, develops new ideas, over-takes women in wrestling matches, shows the natural distance of detachment, speaks in a sexy deep voice. Two generations, when his hoards of children are grown, it's a patriarchy. We are that awesome.

This ridiculous fantasy assumes the new man would be more prone to invent than the women of the established society would be. All you're saying is "men are better, na-ne-na-ne-na-na" without any sort of intelligent or scientific support - just your own indulgent fiction.

BostonIan

05-03-2009, 03:33 AM

A couple other points I wanted to make are that the importance of prominent roles women held in ancient pastoral societies should not be overlooked. Bostonian argued that this was insignificant because pastoral societies were less common than settled societies. Frequency of occurrence had nothing to do with which sexes were suited for what roles, it had to do with the habitability of the environments these societies inhabited. Large plane country without much arable land did not support agriculture well, so nomadic tribes developed as the norm instead of sedentary urban centers. Women played much more prominent roles in these nomadic groups, often as warriors, leaders, and they could own property, divorce, and had more independence from their male counterparts. This was also the case before the Neolithic Revolution, in which agriculture was invented.

I've never heard that, what's your source? And, define "much more prominent roles?" Among modern nomads, I was under the impression that nomads are mostly old-time patriarchal, Bedouins are in my head as such, for example.

Now, who would you respect more? A successful leader who was granted the opportunity by the accident of birth, or a successful leader who had to overcome bigotry and prove herself worthy not once, but daily in order to maintain the status she achieved?

In the moment, I would respect the man, since he is naturally respectable, so long as he is worthy of that respect. The other commendable as an abstract of a person who over-comes obstacles as a story, but the reaction to her persona in the present might be otherwise.

BostonIan, I think it's clear that despite all the scientific and rational evidence anyone could offer you here, this would still come down to the issue that you feel threatened by the idea of a strong woman. Ever stop to ask yourself, if a woman is so inferior in so many capacities, then why is it you still feel threatened?

The "scientific and rational" evidence has been lacking, especially in countering the main point. Arguing around the edges, at the margins never feels like a defeat, even when a point hits home.

The "personally threatened" part is a psychological accusation, a tool to silence debate. The big picture motivation is more being right when everybody is wrong, and saying what people observe and know but don't say.

I have almost no experience with strong, dominant women, I can think of one off-hand, and her father was a chauvinist patriarch. I've met some who are stressed or angry, or more facile with insults, but I don't consider that authority. The main "threat" of this lifestyle isn't to me, more to a civilization. If women simply can't function as "equals", a civilization founded on that principle has a shaky foundation.

Could it be that women are in fact capable of success as authority figures? No, of course merit has nothing to do with it. The rise of woman can only be explained by the fall of man due to depleting testosterone levels.

A woman is capable of (almost anything). Women, on the other hand, are capable of having predictable traits and behaviors, separate from those of men, better suited to separate roles.
....

Nemesis, the study provides its own counter, at its end. Also, my thoughts are that the study awarded women objective leadership points based on "mentoring, empowering, encouraging, and rewarding", which seems a little touchy-feely. If women really can provide better leaders, history will (future, not past) bear it out into the future and women will lead the most successful companies, should they have the internal drive to do so.

Eleven

05-03-2009, 03:46 AM

A woman is capable of (almost anything). Women, on the other hand, are capable of having predictable traits and behaviors, separate from those of men, better suited to separate roles.
I'd like an explanation of this.

Why do the merits of an individual become irrelevant, simply because they are not average for, not common amongst, some class that individual belongs to?

You're effectively saying that women should not be allowed to lead because their class, on average, is not good at it. But if we assent to that, we may as well say that people should be punished for having very high or very low IQs, because it's not average or common in the class of 'humans'. It's ridiculous. If a person has an ability and a will to use it, then restricting them on some arbitrary property, like their sex's average performance in the field, is just that - it's arbitrary. It's not just, and I don't see how it can be thought to be right.

And all of that is assuming that drastic and significant differences exist on average.

BostonIan

05-03-2009, 04:00 AM

I'd like an explanation of this.

Okay, to explain the quote: there will always be individual people around the edges that counter expectations.

Why do the merits of an individual become irrelevant, simply because they are not average for, not common amongst, some class that individual belongs to?

Because, when you're talking about the overall picture, one person is an ant.

You're effectively saying that women should not be allowed to lead because their class, on average, is not good at it. But if we assent to that, we may as well say that people should be punished for having very high or very low IQs, because it's not average or common in the class of 'humans'. It's ridiculous. If a person has an ability and a will to use it, then restricting them on some arbitrary property, like their sex's average performance in the field, is just that - it's arbitrary. It's not just, and I don't see how it can be thought to be right.

And all of that is assuming that drastic and significant differences exist on average.

And this is the crux of the thread. How could a person who exists and observes humanity for decades not have a well-formed opinion on whether or not there are gender differences, and whether those differences generally give each different traits, better to pursue different roles?

The people who have agreed with the main point, and made the counter point that individuals can not be type-cast, exceptions to rules, their posts passed unargued. I'm mostly arguing with the people who are putting forth the social orthodoxy.

Alright, I've gotta do the morning routine. Back in a few hours.

Eleven

05-03-2009, 04:14 AM

I get that you keep ignoring individual cases, but what I'm saying is this: the overall picture isn't that women are good at caring for children while men are good at leading and doing everything else. The overall picture is that some women are good at some things, others are good at other things, and the same goes for men. So, as an overall norm, enforcing some standards on some and others on others is A) bad for some individuals, and B) bad for the community as a whole if it means some individuals can't be as effective as they might otherwise be.

The 'big picture' isn't that of a norm with marginal cases that can safely be ignored because they are 'ants'. The big picture is that people differ vastly. Why can't we have a normative principle that takes this into account?

If you're right - if the vast majority of women really are that much better at caring for children, and really are biologically driven to want to care for children, and are totally disinterested in pursuing careers, then a principle that allows the individual to do what they prefer and are better at should suit you perfectly - women will be taking care of children in the vast majority of cases. But I suspect that that's not what would happen on the employment of such a principle...and if I'm right, then it means that the average differences aren't as significant as one might have thought.

How could a person who exists and observes humanity for decades not have a well-formed opinion on whether or not there are gender differences, and whether those differences generally give each different traits, better to pursue different roles?
When circumstances are such that women can't enroll in a medicine course without impersonating a man, female doctors will be very, very rare, no matter what a given woman's disposition might be. History is not an easy thing to draw statistical examples from, because enforced norms have been present in varying degrees throughout.

Nemesis

05-03-2009, 04:29 AM

Nemesis, the study provides its own counter, at its end. Also, my thoughts are that the study awarded women objective leadership points based on "mentoring, empowering, encouraging, and rewarding", which seems a little touchy-feely. If women really can provide better leaders, history will (future, not past) bear it out into the future and women will lead the most successful companies, should they have the internal drive to do so.

I have no clue what "counter" you are seeing at the end. Please explain.

I'm not sure if you noticed, but that was a meta-analysis of 45 studies over the course of a decade that revealed a significant trend. The trend is established pretty well.

I question your source for the dominance/testosterone link. I took the liberty of actually reading the entire full-text article and... well... I think you probably should have done the same.

Here's a quote from your own source.

It seems likely that in the near future, properly controlled experiments will convincingly test whether or not T is a cause of dominant behavior in men. At present, however, this remains an unconfirmed hypothesis.

Here is a link to the full text version of your own source... if you care to read it.

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SurpriseMe

05-03-2009, 04:33 AM

FYI: I edited my last post two minutes ago to respond to new post and to avoid double posting. Just pointing you to those additional points.

Nemesis, that article is a perfect example of the social limitations women have been and are dealing with. I for one, read it.

I've never heard that, what's your source? And, define "much more prominent roles?" Among modern nomads, I was under the impression that nomads are mostly old-time patriarchal, Bedouins are in my head as such, for example.

You've never heard of which part in that quote? I heard of all of it from my history professor and from the text, Encounters In World History, Sanders, Nelson, Morillo, and Ellenberger. I meant "more prominent roles" compared to the ones women had in sedentary societies. I was making the point that environmental circumstances are important and should be considered as influences on social values. Physical strength was more important then than it is now, but even then, different environmental circumstances led to societies where women could have authority. (The ancient Monguls, for example.) I never said nomadic societies weren't also patriarchal.

In the moment, I would respect the man, since he naturally respectable, so long as he is worthy of that respect. The other commendable as an abstract of a person who over-comes obstacles as a story, but the reaction to her persona in the present might be otherwise.

Yeah, well that figures coming from a sexist. Can't say I'm surprised, but it is a little amazing that you forego the simple exercise of logic I laid out for you. The analogy was meant to illustrate the disparity in effort, skill, and fortitude required of the two different leaders I described. And still, ever so adept in chasing your own tail, you choose to respect the man more even stating outright it's because he is "naturally respectable". That in itself is an admittance that your argument has no basis in logic or science as you claim, but in a personal bias.

You even undermine your own statement by attempting to qualify the supposedly "naturally respectable" man depending on his worthiness. What is that? You're contradicting yourself - he's respectable by birth unless he is lacking in merit? That essentially negates superiority by birth, leaving you with the question of merit, leading to my argument that women are just as possessive of merit regardless of birth. So, um, wow.

The "scientific and rational" evidence has been lacking, especially in countering the main point. Arguing around the edges, at the margins never feels like a defeat, even when a point hits home.

The "personally threatened" part is a psychological accusation, a tool to silence debate. The big picture motivation is more being right when everybody is wrong, and saying what people observe and know but don't say.

I have almost no experience with strong, dominant women, I can think of one off-hand, and her father was a chauvinist patriarch. I've met some who are stressed or angry, or more facile with insults, but I don't consider that authority. The main "threat" of this lifestyle isn't to me, more to a civilization. If women simply can't function as "equals", a civilization founded on that principle has a shaky foundation.

Oh, there's been plenty of scientific data offered in direct correlation to your opponents' arguments. As opposed to the random facts you pair with extrapolation.

That's probably because a strong woman wouldn't give you the time of day.

At least the point hit home. It's interesting though that you consider "home" to be marginal.

It's not an accusation, but an observation of a theme stemming from internal rather than external elements. After all, you live as a member of the society you imagine to be toppling into disarray. It'd be great if this debate were silenced, as in tired generalizations could finally be put to rest. I'm not trying to shut you up, though. I've already acknowledged that nothing I or others can say will make an impact on you. Talking about these issues with you is healthy for those observers who are willing to learn.

A woman is capable of (almost anything). Women, on the other hand, are capable of having predictable traits and behaviors, separate from those of men, better suited to separate roles.

Better suited because they have muscles? The implication of violence to enforce will = merit? Hardly. Violence creates fear, merit creates respect. Each are different tools for control. Each have had varying degrees of effectiveness, though I'd say respect creates far more loyalty and long term leadership success. Additionally, the fact that a habit has persisted does not automatically mean it's a good one. People evolve, and certain things become outdated with advancement. Perhaps more female leaders are just the thing the modern world needs. It would benefit everyone if only because it would do away with old prejudices and encourage a higher percentage of our population (who actually represent the numerical majority) to pursue greater intellectual and professional development. Once that's achieved, maybe we can get to a nice healthy balance of power.

Yay, happy ending, peace and justice, I'm going to bed.

BostonIan

05-03-2009, 05:51 AM

I have no clue what "counter" you are seeing at the end. Please explain. I'm not sure if you noticed, but that was a meta-analysis of 45 studies over the course of a decade that revealed a significant trend. The trend is established pretty well.

Its own counter: A transformational leadership style may be especially congenial to women because this way of leading is relatively androgynous and has some nurturing, feminine aspects. A considerable body of research has shown that women can be disliked and distrusted in leadership roles, especially when they exert authority over men, appear to be extremely competent or use a dominant style of communication. Transformational behavior may lessen suspicion of female leaders and alleviate problems of lesser authority and legitimacy that they sometimes face.

Another reason women may favor a transformational style is that such a leader operates more like an excellent teacher than a traditional boss. Women's past socialization may give them more ability to lead by teaching -- that is, by developing and nurturing workers' abilities and inspiring them to be outstanding contributors.

And the glass ceiling itself may produce more highly skilled female leaders. Research shows that higher standards are often imposed on women to attain leadership roles and to retain them. Because transformational leadership constitutes skillful leadership, women may be more skillful leaders than men because they have to meet a higher standard."

"A considerable body of research" has shown that woman are disliked and distrusted in leadership roles. They have to work to lesson suspicion of their competency, perform less like a traditional boss, and more like a teacher. Also, the women who have reached leadership standing may be of a higher quality because they have to meet a higher standard.

And, as I said, the traits that the study reports to be "leadership roles" were nurturing and not exactly intuitive. For example, "negative rewards" was listed in equal quality with aspects like "empowering", "encouraging", and "rewarding". Observationally, watching something like unioned government workers with entrenched jobs, I'd say consequences play a larger role in performance than mentoring.

But, until you counter the main points on the first page in their totality, you're doing what I call "ankle-biting", and playing the "gotcha game". It's good to keep me honest, but its main function is as a nuisance giving me busy-work while avoiding the main topic.

I question your source for the dominance/testosterone link. I took the liberty of actually reading the entire full-text article and... well... I think you probably should have done the same.

That testosterone contributes to dominant behavior I assumed was pretty well established. For example, googling "+testosterone +dominance" will get you 200,000+ results, not newfangled theory.

Latro

05-03-2009, 06:35 AM

Social stereotypes are not "Reality" grounded in biology or evolutionary theory. Why is this so hard?????? I really don't get it. It's such a simple concept.
In theory, if you could freeze time and space and travel through time and space at will, and spend eons studying these things, EVENTUALLY you would be able to trace every social norm or movement down to some biological aspect. However, this would be the sociological equivalent of explaining the phenomena that govern the entire universe (and by that I mean explaining every last individual event that has occurred since the Big Bang, not just explaining how the fundamental forces work) using quantum effects.

In the end, though, the intricate web of causation is far too intricate at this point for it to be practical to even consider doing this; even if you had this information, it wouldn't really give you very much practical knowledge, because you'd have to keep on updating your web as things changed more and more. So it's better to just consider things from a general sociocultural perspective (like the social scientists do!) instead of trying to emphasize biology in all of these matters (even though in the end biology IS at the heart of them, just as biology is at the heart of every scientific discovery or artistic accomplishment we've ever achieved).

Chemist

05-03-2009, 10:57 AM

(even though in the end biology IS at the heart of them, just as biology is at the heart of every scientific discovery or artistic accomplishment we've ever achieved).

Yikes I'd like to sit back and watch you explain to me how biology is at the heart of (lets just pick some things out of hat at random)...

1. the atomic bomb
2. mastery of flight
3. jet propulsion engines
4. Molecular Orbital Theory
5. Quantum Mechanics

Latro

05-03-2009, 11:04 AM

Yikes I'd like to sit back and watch you explain to me how biology is at the heart of (lets just pick some things out of hat at random)...

1. the atomic bomb
2. mastery of flight
3. jet propulsion engines
4. Molecular Orbital Theory
5. Quantum Mechanics
I'm not saying that the explanation would be of any reasonable length. I'm not saying it would have any practical value. I'm not saying it would even entirely make sense (there could wind up being some serious twists and turns in the logic required for an explanation like that). I'm just saying that when you're dealing with a living system, on some level everything has to trace back to biology. By the same logic, on some level our entire universe has to trace back to some kind of ruleset, be it quantum mechanics or something entirely different.

But as anyone who has studied dynamical systems for even five minutes can tell you, there is no point in trying to explain things this way. It would be virtually impossible to successfully get any information out of trying to merge everything in the universe (or even in human interaction) down to some sort of formal set of rules. Does that necessarily disprove the existence of those rules? No. Does it mean that they would wind up being extraordinarily lengthy, complicated, and probably exponentially more complex than we humans could possibly imagine? Probably, yes.

In the end all I'm saying is that, on some level, our social constructs are linked to biology, evolution, etc., unlike what Prunesquallor was saying, but that the links between the two are FAR, FAR more complicated than those described in the original post, or even in any writing by any human ever made.

I should also say that, in case there was some misinterpretation, that biology was at the heart of the DISCOVERIES. This does not mean that it was at the heart of what was discovered. That is, biology is most definitely not related to the hypothetical existence of the atomic bomb, but it IS (on Earth anyway) related to the actual, real life existence of the atomic bomb, on some twisted, convoluted, pointless-to-try-to-address level.

Chemist

05-03-2009, 11:08 AM

lol! I can assure you that I have studied dynamic systems given my multiple undergrads in chemistry/physics and computer engineering and now as a graduate student working on my PhD in chemistry (mostly dealing with DFT and other theoretical applications of quantum mechanics to organic chemistry)....

As anyone who has spent a lot of time studying anything even remotely scientific will eventually tell you it is never a good idea to make blanket statements...
Biology is after all just an extension of chemistry which is after all just an extension of molecular physics.. which is an extension of complex mathematics etc.. etc...

furthermore.. yes the explanations to these questions are complex and that is why we mere humans who choose to undertake science attempt to answer them as best we can.. thereby providing knowledge for future generations of scientists to build and so goes the way in which humans make scientific discovery and technological advancement...

Nemesis

05-03-2009, 02:46 PM

That testosterone contributes to dominant behavior I assumed was pretty well established. For example, googling "+testosterone +dominance" will get you 200,000+ results, not newfangled theory.

The number of google results you get means nothing. Assuming a trend is also meaningless. You really have no solid basis for your argument. If you intend on using sources, I suggest that you actually read through them instead of assuming a conclusion and stating it as fact.

thod

05-03-2009, 03:55 PM

It should be clear that the argument is not about inherent gender differences but about equality of opportunity. The ladies are not saying they would make great leaders, but they want the chance to be so, if they had those qualities rather than being dismissed before getting to try.

I do not believe that we will reach the situation where there as many female leaders as male. The point about leadership is that it is not about average individuals, but exceptional individuals. The merely average has no chance of becoming president. There is extensive research backing up the idea that in almost every area, variance in males is greater. Thus you will have a greater number of exceptional males as well as totally hopeless ones. Since women are much of a muchness, they will simply produce fewer candidates for these elite positions. I maintain that the gender imbalance at the top is down to this factor.

The question of why you have such variance in males is easy to understand from an evolutionary perspective. Every female is pregnant her entire life and is only able to produce as many offspring as the others. By contrast by producing variant males, some will be fitter for their environment. These are able to father disproportionate numbers of offspring, moving the population to fit its environment rapidly. You have two reproduction strategies. The safe option is to produce a daughter, the high risk is to produce a son. You may get a good son, that is able to impregnate lots of females leading to a rapid spread of genes, or you may get a dud that never reproduces as other males out compete him.

Latro

05-03-2009, 04:01 PM

Every female is pregnant her entire life and is only able to produce as many offspring as the others.
Wha? You seriously think this ever actually happened in the evolutionary context? Have you taken even introductory biology? Have you ever stopped to think what the resource implications of someone spawning 20+ children would be?

Chemist

05-03-2009, 04:06 PM

Sigh....
I couldn't agree with Nemesis more...

here are some articles for those actually interested in reading up on what science has to say about this issue.

OMG! It's the chemicals! No it's birth contol! No it's the social advancement of women!
Yikes..
While it's easy to speculate it's quite another thing to actually prove it...

Although it seems that if chemicals are in fact the cause bostonian might want to worry more about his exposure to deodorant and shampoo and less about randomly being exposed to extremely low levels of birth control hormones as it seems the phthalates (if they are the cause and haven't been scientifically proven to be) might get you before the birth control hormones do...
Or are they? lol!

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Another source pthalates...
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"Although adverse effects on male reproduction are suggested, research findings remain inconsistent (Kumar 2004)"

"Thus findings from epidemiologic studies are not conclusive as to whether exposure to environmental levels of PEs can cause sperm damage and/or disrupt the gonadal hormone balances in adult males."

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"High doses of some phthalates can interfere with normal sexual development in male rats, but this is not true in mice, nor in monkeys, and therefore highly unlikely in humans given that there are significant differences in the male reproductive tract of rodents and primates. Studies have suggested that reactions to phthalates exposure vary from species to species because primates simply do not absorb phthalates as efficiently as rodents do. "
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Here is a good one from Harvard as well...

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Another article to explain the methods utilized in the Harvard study
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thod

05-03-2009, 04:48 PM

Wha? You seriously think this ever actually happened in the evolutionary context? Have you taken even introductory biology? Have you ever stopped to think what the resource implications of someone spawning 20+ children would be?

20+ would be a good number. Most women would be dead from complication, made sterile, or simply worn out long before. Given that most people died around 30 years old it was necessary to reproduce like this. Most children died young, for example 75% of all babies born in London in 1750 died before reaching 5. Average life expectancy was only slightly above 30 at the turn of the century.

As populations rise and resources are stretched they begin to die of disease, starvation, or the inevitable wars over resources. Even menstruation and miscarriage are effected by calorific intake. The model was pop them out, do your best to care for them, hope they make it. There was no fertility control, the contraceptive pill was introduced in my lifetime. I have met people from families of 15 kids where the old models were used but they all survived due to modern changes.

Perhaps you have not read our history. Animals still follow this model, the females produce young each year, they have no choices. We were the same until very recently.

P.S. I recall old guys grading women by hip size. The modern small hipped type would be no good for more than 2 or 3. A good one would have hips wider than her shoulders.

Deliberator

05-03-2009, 04:51 PM

Answering the question that brought this on, since men set the rules, establish the order and hold the natural leadership position, they are more responsible for their actions, and receive an unequal portion of the blame for any action done with a woman. Also, inherent differences, I expect men to be more logical and detached, women to be more hormonal and emotional. Also, with women, it's understandable that she'd shop for men if her current beau isn't living up to his natural leadership responsibility in the home, therefor a husband deserves responsibility for his wife's infidelity.

Your facts about hormones and biology are fine but your argument falls apart when you use the terms "supposed to" and "should".

Let me organize some of these assertions of yours:
"Men should be leaders because they have more testosterone and because this has been the case historically"
"Women should leave men to do manly things because they are better suited for having babies and being domestic"
"Men have more responsibility for their actions because more important things are expected of them"
And this is the implication I'm seeing... that feminization of society is bad. But I'm trying to figure out exactly why you think it's bad. Sure, you can complain that you don't like it for whatever reason, but how can you convince me that it's bad for society in general?

The most disturbing assertion you've made is that you hold men more responsible for their actions than women. I find this quite absurd and completely unfounded in science; there is no proof that estrogen exposure during development causes irreversible naivety and impressionability. I assert that women and men don't differ in their consciousness of right and wrong. You'll have to do better than that.

I do understand your frustration with the stupidity that is modern feminism. I've written my own thread on that. But instead of asserting that society should give women more slack, I simply want women to be given the opportunity to prove themselves and be allowed positions in traditionally male roles if it so happens that they are suited to them. Not all women are created the same after all. But I'm not ever going to claim sexism because leadership roles are dominated by men... I expect that.

It sounds like mostly you are whistful of things that have been, when "men could be men" and "women could be women", each with their own role and territory. But that's your personal preference, it's subjective. If you have a more practical argument as to why increased feminization and equal rights are bad, articulate that. My personal worry, and this has been evident in history, that such a society where gender roles are strictly defined is limiting to personal freedom.

"the usual inherent traits of a woman aren't conducive to leadership, therefor it is unnatural and unwise to encourage leadership in woman."
A sloppy shotgun approach to life. If women who would make good leaders (yes, however few they may be) are discouraged you deny the principles of true meritocracy. When you lump women into one group a large number of us will be disadvantaged.... so how exactly does it hurt society to be open to those few women who are capable of male-type roles?

Latro

05-03-2009, 05:18 PM

20+ would be a good number. Most women would be dead from complication, made sterile, or simply worn out long before. Given that most people died around 30 years old it was necessary to reproduce like this. Most children died young, for example 75% of all babies born in London in 1750 died before reaching 5. Average life expectancy was only slightly above 30 at the turn of the century.

As populations rise and resources are stretched they begin to die of disease, starvation, or the inevitable wars over resources. Even menstruation and miscarriage are effected by calorific intake. The model was pop them out, do your best to care for them, hope they make it. There was no fertility control, the contraceptive pill was introduced in my lifetime. I have met people from families of 15 kids where the old models were used but they all survived due to modern changes.

Perhaps you have not read our history. Animals still follow this model, the females produce young each year, they have no choices. We were the same until very recently.

P.S. I recall old guys grading women by hip size. The modern small hipped type would be no good for more than 2 or 3. A good one would have hips wider than her shoulders.
OK, I'll take your word on the above, though your biology is still wrong, as it is quite difficult for a woman to become pregnant and successfully go through her entire term within about 2 or 3 months of giving birth, which means that a woman isn't pregnant for at least 1/4 of her "childbearing years." Then clarify "and is only able to produce as many offspring as the others." A talented female would ostensibly be able to (on average) keep more of her offspring alive. This would indicate an increased evolutionary ability, which runs directly contrary to your notion of "women do not need the evolutionary diversity that men do."

I also didn't mention the fundamental flaws in ever saying "every x satisfies condition y" about a large set of individuals (and I think women up to about the year 1900 are a VERY large set of individuals). I don't even think those warrant mention, as they are so blatantly obvious.

dalidaisy

05-03-2009, 06:02 PM

The question of why you have such variance in males is easy to understand from an evolutionary perspective.

I don't understand. We are looking at this from an evolutionary standpoint, but then failing to realize that evolution is still happening. Are you suggesting that we go back to life without technology & significant intelligent thought? Would you prefer to hunt & kill your own food (enough to feed your 20+ kids with all the women you impregnated)? There's a reason we have come to this place in society where humans have evolved to such an extent that stereotypical gender roles aren't as significant as they once were.

Latro

05-03-2009, 06:28 PM

but then failing to realize that evolution is still happening.
I disagree with this, at least in reference to genetic evolution. Desirable traits change far more rapidly than evolution can keep up with, these days, due to changes in culture, technology, etc. There's no possible way for our genes to keep up. Look at obesity, for example. A major cause of obesity a trait that saved our ancestors' lives many times, namely the ability to trap fat quite well, compounded with the way that our hunger system is structured (which is more complicated than I'd want to get into here; suffice it to say that we eat until LONG after we are full, because of this). This is a trait designed for situations where food emerges in bursts, being present briefly in large amounts, but being unable to be stored, and then often being almost completely absent for a week or two at a time after that. This is EXACTLY what happened before the Neolithic Revolution, and that period of time comprises most of human history, in terms of time. Now, with famine all but banished in the Western world, this is not a problem, but the behavior and capacity for trapping fat is still present, genetically. And voila! You see people weighing 300 pounds left and right. (Any heavier than 300 pounds and I'd argue there's more to the story than just genetics).

There is also the fact that natural selection is not really that effective anymore. With us living so long, a vast swath of us have the ability to have children, compared to ancient times. Natural selection primarily weeds out only those that don't want to have children these days, really. Without natural selection there can be no genetic evolution.

But then, if you were referring to social or cultural evolution, I 100% agree, and all of the above should be disregarded.

Chemist

05-03-2009, 07:05 PM

I disagree with this, at least in reference to genetic evolution. Desirable traits change far more rapidly than evolution can keep up with, these days, due to changes in culture, technology, etc. There's no possible way for our genes to keep up. Look at obesity, for example. A major cause of obesity a trait that saved our ancestors' lives many times, namely the ability to trap fat quite well, compounded with the way that our hunger system is structured (which is more complicated than I'd want to get into here; suffice it to say that we eat until LONG after we are full, because of this). This is a trait designed for situations where food emerges in bursts, being present briefly in large amounts, but being unable to be stored, and then often being almost completely absent for a week or two at a time after that. This is EXACTLY what happened before the Neolithic Revolution, and that period of time comprises most of human history, in terms of time. Now, with famine all but banished in the Western world, this is not a problem, but the behavior and capacity for trapping fat is still present, genetically. And voila! You see people weighing 300 pounds left and right. (Any heavier than 300 pounds and I'd argue there's more to the story than just genetics).

There is also the fact that natural selection is not really that effective anymore. With us living so long, a vast swath of us have the ability to have children, compared to ancient times. Natural selection primarily weeds out only those that don't want to have children these days, really. Without natural selection there can be no genetic evolution.

But then, if you were referring to social or cultural evolution, I 100% agree, and all of the above should be disregarded.
lol! OMG! : (

Please... Please... Please.... crack open a science book.

"natural selection is not really that effective anymore"...
WTF are you talking about?

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"In addition to its effects on allelic frequencies within populations, natural selection is expected to affect the extent of divergence in gene frequency between populations. Therefore, when samples are derived from historically distinct subpopulations, examination of the pattern of interpopulation divergence at SNP sites potentially provides a novel source of information about past natural selection that can be useful in guiding the search for candidate loci in disease-association studies. "

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sigh... : (

Latro

05-03-2009, 07:31 PM

lol! OMG! : (

Please... Please... Please.... crack open a science book.

"natural selection is not really that effective anymore"...
WTF are you talking about?

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"In addition to its effects on allelic frequencies within populations, natural selection is expected to affect the extent of divergence in gene frequency between populations. Therefore, when samples are derived from historically distinct subpopulations, examination of the pattern of interpopulation divergence at SNP sites potentially provides a novel source of information about past natural selection that can be useful in guiding the search for candidate loci in disease-association studies. "

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sigh... : (
OK, in terms of genes changing in some appreciable way from generation to generation, the effect is pronounced, yes, I didn't need to be told that. I'm referring to long-term influences of natural selection; the efficacy of natural selection in causing increased prevalence of "favorable" traits. When large percentages of individuals can reproduce, instead of just the "best of the best" living long enough to do so, the influence of natural selection to "favor the best genes" can't possibly occur. The effect of weeding out the absolute worst genes is improved, to some extent (since that little segment is the one that is largely excluded from reproduction), but the "positive" genes are less likely to become prevalent on average.

This is all the more pronounced because the "positive" traits, to a substantial extent, are rapidly changing. While tendency towards cancer, heart disease, etc. are uniformly negative genetic traits, favorability of many other traits (the traits that actually HAVE SOMETHING TO DO WITH THE TOPIC, unlike traits like dental reduction) is influenced largely by culture and social norms, which in modern human society change substantially from one generation to the next. In contrast, natural selection takes quite a lot of generations to have broad scale effects, as one learns in an introductory biology course (and yes, I have cracked open a science textbook a few times; try not patronizing people next time, it doesn't end well).

Try a little common sense, and a little bit of work to understand what someone coming from the side of common sense instead of the side of advanced biochemistry is trying to say when they talk about things that are partially related to biochemistry. People aren't always literally saying "this biological phenomenon has stopped working" when they reference it outside of the biological context; often, they're referring to the aggregate effects of it, and how those are no longer working in the sense that we traditionally understand them. Or, to put it bluntly: I think you've been in academia a little too long for your own good.

The above analysis seems quite sound to me, despite your biological explanation; feel free to present more analysis to contradict it. I'll happily change my stance if you can present evidence that actually contradicts the claim I was actually making. Until then, I'll be sticking to my common sense/high school biology/introductory anthropology/real world observation-based stance.

Sinequanon

05-03-2009, 07:43 PM

Try a little common sense, and a little bit of work to understand what someone coming from the side of common sense instead of the side of advanced biochemistry is trying to say when they talk about things that are partially related to biochemistry. People aren't always literally saying "this biological phenomenon has stopped working" when they reference it outside of the biological context; often, they're referring to the aggregate effects of it, and how those are no longer working in the sense that we traditionally understand them. Or, to put it bluntly: I think you've been in academia a little too long for your own good.
This was a beautiful, passionate defense of someone completely out of their depth claiming someone who actually knows what they're talking about is wrong. You don't see this every day. I think you may have actually invented a new logical fallacy (we can call it a "argumentum ad gluteus loquitur"). :)

Nemesis

05-03-2009, 07:47 PM

Try a little common sense, and a little bit of work to understand what someone coming from the side of common sense instead of the side of advanced biochemistry is trying to say when they talk about things that are partially related to biochemistry. People aren't always literally saying "this biological phenomenon has stopped working" when they reference it outside of the biological context; often, they're referring to the aggregate effects of it, and how those are no longer working in the sense that we traditionally understand them. Or, to put it bluntly: I think you've been in academia a little too long for your own good.

The above analysis seems quite sound to me, despite your biological explanation; feel free to present more analysis to contradict it. I'll happily change my stance if you can present evidence that actually contradicts the claim I was actually making. Until then, I'll be sticking to my common sense/high school biology/introductory anthropology/real world observation-based stance.

It's okay, the facts can be confusing... who wants them anyways. It's fun to pretend!

Chemist

05-03-2009, 07:49 PM

Latro...

You're not even correct in a broader more general sense... natural selection is still happening all around you... therefore genetic evolution is still happening all around you...

It has been observed that some people have natural immunity to certain diseases like HIV/AIDS or cancer.. etc.. etc... so you will have natural selection in the form of these things... and since technology has not completely cured all disease we will certainly have natural selection keeping up with us on this front.. and this is just one of the many...

Latro

05-03-2009, 07:49 PM

This was a beautiful, passionate defense of someone completely out of their depth claiming someone who actually knows what they're talking about is wrong. You don't see this every day. I think you may have actually invented a new logical fallacy. :)
Perhaps...I think in this case it's more that what she is talking about and what I'm talking about are really different facets of the same thing. She was talking about relatively specific effects of natural selection; that is, about the rise of particular alleles in relation to particular, specific traits. I was talking about broad-spectrum effects, things that affect us in ways that stretch beyond our biology. The things he was talking about primarily had to do with things like (and I quote her first link): "immunity, sperm and egg production and sensory perception." The things I was talking about had to do more with far more broad changes; the kind of changes that "advance the species" and are thus more directly related to the main topic of the thread, and less to things like disease prevention and fertility. The kinds of things that were relevant to human evolution 20,000+ years ago, and are (again, from a common sense perspective; as I said, I could be wrong) substantially less relevant to human evolution now.

Yes, obviously she is right about traits like those I listed above, and I should have probably clarified that in my first post. The fact that several people appear to have already misinterpreted my main point makes it rather obvious that I should've clarified that, in fact. That doesn't make my main point any less valid, because it pays little attention to my main point in the first place.

I apologize for the snide paragraph at the end of my last post, that was overkill, especially considering my failure to clarify what I was talking about at the start of this sub-discussion. This time the failure to properly communicate was mine, not yours.

Chemist

05-03-2009, 07:58 PM

Latro...

I'm a she...

and you're still not making sense... : (

Latro

05-03-2009, 08:11 PM

Latro...

I'm a she...
My apologies, I'll correct that in the future.
and you're still not making sense... : (
The areas of natural selection that I've been talking about here operate on larger scales than increasing immunity to HIV/AIDS and cancer, or sperm/egg production, and so forth. The things that I've been talking about are things like, for example, increased overall function of the cerebral cortex. The kinds of things that create the sorts of evolution that we think of as "advancement" (such as in the diagram that we see all the time, of man rising up from ape, albeit not necessarily on THAT large of a scale) of organisms. Smaller "advancements" would also be included; things wouldn't need to be THAT pronounced, but some sort of sociocultural effect, or some kind of benefit in our ability to directly accomplish things, would need to be present in this category. With life expectancy as high as it is in the developed world, immunity really doesn't fit very nicely into this category (although of course the handful of individuals whose brilliance is lost to HIV or early cancer fall into this category, they just aren't that numerous, comparatively speaking).

This sort of evolution is, by what seems to me to be rather straightforward logic, less likely to occur when large percentages of the population, instead of relatively small percentages of the population, are successfully reproducing (as "the best of the best being successful in reproduction" is really the basic mechanism of natural selection), and are also less likely to occur when the favorability of such traits varies from generation to generation, due to changes in what society favors from one generation to a generation. This doesn't mean it just grinds to a halt outright, but it does slow it down considerably. Again, perhaps I'm wrong; I don't have anywhere near all the numbers. But data about changes in immunity, sperm and egg production, and tooth size doesn't contradict or even address this point.

Chemist

05-03-2009, 08:35 PM

My apologies, I'll correct that in the future.

The areas of natural selection that I've been talking about here operate on larger scales than increasing immunity to HIV/AIDS and cancer, or sperm/egg production, and so forth. The things that I've been talking about are things like, for example, increased overall function of the cerebral cortex. The kinds of things that create the sorts of evolution that we think of as "advancement" (such as in the diagram that we see all the time, of man rising up from ape, albeit not necessarily on THAT large of a scale) of organisms. Smaller "advancements" would also be included; things wouldn't need to be THAT pronounced, but some sort of sociocultural effect, or some kind of benefit in our ability to directly accomplish things, would need to be present in this category. With life expectancy as high as it is in the developed world, immunity really doesn't fit very nicely into this category (although of course the handful of individuals whose brilliance is lost to HIV or early cancer fall into this category, they just aren't that numerous, comparatively speaking).

This sort of evolution is, by what seems to me to be rather straightforward logic, less likely to occur when large percentages of the population, instead of relatively small percentages of the population, are successfully reproducing (as "the best of the best being successful in reproduction" is really the basic mechanism of natural selection), and are also less likely to occur when the favorability of such traits varies from generation to generation, due to changes in what society favors from one generation to a generation. This doesn't mean it just grinds to a halt outright, but it does slow it down considerably. Again, perhaps I'm wrong; I don't have anywhere near all the numbers. But data about changes in immunity, sperm and egg production, and tooth size doesn't contradict or even address this point.
Latro... I'm not sure what time scale you believe natural selection/evolution happens on...
Humans haven't even had technology long enough to significantly affect our genetic evolution... how long exactly do you think it took hominids to walk upright? and if you put that into comparison to how long we've had modern technology (and by the way I am completely ignoring the fact that technology is not slowing down natural selection because that is not how that works... more on that later) how can you make the assertions you're making?

I'm not quite sure how to make you understand that what you're saying doesn't make any sense because quite frankly you don't have the background to comprehend this...

Technology simply changes the selective pressures.. as would changes in the climate.. and anything else that can significantly impact our environment... therefore it is ludicrous
to assert that technology is slowing the process of natural selection...
Technology is simply (adding and removing) selective pressures that influence natural selection.. no more... no less..

To your other points.. let me just say that.. this entire thread is based on some sort of pseudoscientific assertion that society (among other things) is somehow causing very drastic changes in male testosterone production... As presented by the many many arguments... that would be an environmental factor contributing to changes in males and therefore natural selection if certain males were able to somehow maintain normal levels of testosterone (and we know that they are as not all males are exhibiting lower testosterone levels) despite the levels of other males dropping all around them...
because of the birth control pills or the chemicals in the water.. wait have we blamed internet porn yet?! ; )

Yikes... I'm sorry but you're simply not making any sense...

Polymath

05-03-2009, 08:36 PM

Latro HAS been making sense... now I'm starting to see the "INTJ's can be too literal" thing. You guys are arguing different things. :laugh:

Latro

05-03-2009, 08:51 PM

Latro... I'm not sure what time scale you believe natural selection/evolution happens on...
Humans haven't even had technology long enough to significantly affect our genetic evolution... how long exactly do you think it took hominids to walk upright? and if you put that into comparison to how long we've had modern technology (and by the way I am completely ignoring the fact that technology is not slowing down natural selection because that is not how that works... more on that later) how can you make the assertions you're making?

I'm not quite sure how to make you understand that what you're saying doesn't make any sense because quite frankly you don't have the background to comprehend this...

Technology simply changes the selective pressures.. as would changes in the climate.. and anything else that can significantly impact our environment... therefore it is ludicrous
to assert that technology is slowing the process of natural selection...
Technology is simply (adding and removing) selective pressures that influence natural selection.. no more... no less..
This supports my point more than anything. Think of the world now. Consider the list of traits that are 100% ideal in an individual right now. Consider the list of hypothetical changes that would be useful to an individual's genetics right now. OK. Now think of the world 500 years from now, and make a similar list. Those traits are probably significantly different, yes? Of course, a few things, like immunity and fertility, are still strongly favored, but these traits don't hold constant.

The fact that these traits change is one of the points I've been trying to drive home here. With strong natural selection, some trait has to be rather strongly favored (or some niche unexploited, or something like that) for a LONG period of time before it becomes prevalent. The useful facets of walking upright, for example, are myriad. One, as I recall, is the ability to increase cognitive function beyond what non-erect organisms can achieve. Another, which I learned about while reading about what is called "the persistence hunt", is increased overall stamina. Simply put, 4-legged animals will wear out after somewhere around 6 hours of continuous running, in most cases. 2-legged animals, if they are well-built and can keep following the animal using tracking skills (which are enhanced by the aforementioned increase in cognitive function) can actually keep following the faster 4-legged animal for all this time, and wind up catching them. This is just a tiny sample of the benefits. The important thing is that these benefits were present for thousands upon thousands of years of human evolution. These traits would've been useful for an extraordinarily long amount of time, and finally they did become prevalent.

By contrast, when traits DON'T remain favorable for long spans of time, as I'm arguing is the case now (from the little thought experiment in my first paragraph) they don't become prevalent in general; a few allele gets favored in one generation, and starts spiking a bit, but then the next generation has an entirely different favored set of alleles, and so things keep on circling around, and eventually no particular trait is very strongly favored. This is then exacerbated by vast swaths of people reproducing. When the traits of a huge number of genetically different individuals are all entering the gene pool in a single generation, very little gets filtered out. This means that those alleles which DO wind up being favorable in a given generation don't actually increase in prevalence all that much, whereas if only those with that allele succeeded in reproducing, that allele would obviously increase in prevalence tremendously.

To your other points.. let me just say that.. this entire thread is based on some sort of pseudoscientific assertion that society (among other things) is somehow causing very drastic changes in male testosterone production... As presented by the many many arguments... that would be an environmental factor contributing to changes in males and therefore natural selection if certain males were able to somehow maintain normal levels of testosterone (and we know that they are as not all males are exhibiting lower testosterone levels) despite the levels of other males dropping all around them...
because of the birth control pills or the chemicals in the water.. wait have we blamed internet porn yet?! ; )
I suppose I was talking more about the last page or so of the thread rather than the earlier portions.

Yikes... I'm sorry but you're simply not making any sense...
Hopefully this post clarifies some things.

Chemist

05-03-2009, 08:59 PM

Latro HAS been making sense... now I'm starting to see the "INTJ's can be too literal" thing. You guys are arguing different things. :laugh:
Actually we're not...

The bottom line is simply that natural selection and evolution are continuing now as they always have despite our technological advances.. despite the larger number of people producing.. etc.. etc...

he may think that what we are arguing is somehow separable but it is not...
Population size (i.e. the number of people able to reproduce has absolutely no effect on the presence of selective pressures)....

Moreover... immunity would definitely fit nicely into Latro's categories if the swine flu takes out 85% of the population (btw this is just an example.. not saying that can happen)... Look back at all the MAJOR "advancements" in evolution and you will see that certain traits allow certain species to thrive while others did not... and and these traits are being woven into the genetic code at the same rate that they've always been...

If Latro is not referring to "evolution" and "natural selection" then he may wish to use different terms to describe whatever it is he is talking about...

as large evolutionary advancements and small ones are NOT mutually exclusive....

sigh...

Furthermore.. perhaps this next statement will make what I am trying to say more clear...

Latro.. since you do not have a crystal ball and cannot predict what events will take place in the future you should understand that...
today's minor evolutionary change is just one major natural disaster (or some other similar event) away from becoming tomorrow's MAJOR evolutionary advancement...

Latro

05-03-2009, 09:04 PM

Actually we're not...

The bottom line is simply that natural selection and evolution are continuing now as they always have despite our technological advances.. despite the larger number of people producing.. etc.. etc...

he may think that what we are arguing is somehow separable but it is not...
Population size (i.e. the number of people able to reproduce has absolutely no effect on the presence of selective pressures)....

Moreover... immunity would definitely fit nicely into Latro's categories if the swine flu takes out 85% of the population (btw this is just an example.. not saying that can happen)... Look back at all the MAJOR "advancements" in evolution and you will see that certain traits allow certain species to thrive while others did not... and and these traits are being woven into the genetic code at the same rate that they've always been...

If Latro is not referring to "evolution" and "natural selection" then he may wish to use different terms to describe whatever it is he is talking about...

as large evolutionary advancements and small ones are NOT mutually exclusive....

sigh...
As I mentioned, I've been failing to properly clarify what I've been talking about for a while, and I apologize for that. But again, that doesn't affect what I'm actually saying, it just affects the effectiveness of the delivery of it, and thus the extent to which it is accepted by its audience.

I do still disagree, however, with your assertion that large numbers of people reproducing does not affect selective pressures. That seems rather silly. Consider a selective pressure where 95% of the population is made to be unable to reproduce because they don't have allele X (this is obviously an exaggerated example). That's going to make allele X really heavily favored, yes? OK, now consider a selective pressure that rules out 1% of all reproducers (which is far larger than probably any one selective pressure these days) for not having allele X (and rules out, in total, say, 5% of those without allele X in total from reproducing). That's not going to favor allele X all that much, is it? Yes, the pressure is there, and if it sticks around (which again, it probably won't, but bear with me) eventually it will have its effect...but is that anywhere near as pronounced an effect as the sorts of effects that we probably were seeing 50,000 years ago? I kinda doubt it.

Again, I might be wrong, but what you're saying seems contrary to common sense, and so a simple assertion, even by someone with a compelling academic background, doesn't seem like a sufficient argument to me.

Chemist

05-03-2009, 09:29 PM

Latro.. if you read my post carefully you will see that I said large populations do not affect the PRESENCE of selective pressures...

Latro

05-03-2009, 09:41 PM

Latro.. if you read my post carefully you will see that I said large populations do not affect the PRESENCE of selective pressures...
My apologies, it's after midnight and I've been procrastinating all day (and still am, actually) and wound up reading that sentence a bit faster than I should have.

Nonetheless, yet again, we've been talking about different things. You've been talking about mechanism and the LITERAL continued function of natural selection; I've been talking about what I see as a "failure" of natural selection to continue to cause substantial change in humanity, and talking about broad-spectrum factors that I think, based on the knowledge and experience that I have, will cause this "failure" to continue. From a scientific perspective, these are really not all that different, as you've noted; a scientist would look at what I'm describing and discover that individual shifts in alleles are behind all of these big, sweeping changes, just as they are behind all the more minor changes.

This discussion is not scientific in nature, however. Until this lengthy digression, the discussion was more about sociology, and I was just interjecting an idea about genetic evolution as a side note. In the end, my interjecting this side note in the first place wound up being a combination of me being just a wee bit too confrontational (a bad habit I've had for many years) and me wanting to see a response to an idea of mine (one that I've actually held for a few years; this isn't some bullshit I threw together to stroke my ego on an Internet forum).

This has been the 3rd time I've been misunderstood on this forum. I evidently do need to work on my communication skills. This has been duly noted, and thank you for making me realize it.

ATCGs

05-03-2009, 09:42 PM

Latro

05-03-2009, 09:43 PM

Wow, the abuse of evolution in this thread is pretty nasty.

you can't say this "Now think of the world 500 years from now"

and claim to understand how evolution works. The question of the strength or presence of selective pressures on this time scale is not relevant, unless the selection you wish to consider is an extinction-level event.
...OK, make it 50000 if you like. The effect I was trying to emphasize would only be more pronounced. My point was simply that the pressures that drive changes in our species are changing so rapidly that most of them won't likely wind up being appreciable as time goes by--at least on "normal" evolutionary time scales. The ones that will will probably wind up being those that don't cause the kind of pronounced change that I've been talking about this entire damn time.

If you want to see my point a little more clearly, imagine the changes in humanity between 98000 BCE and 48000 BCE, and compare them to the changes in humanity between 48000 BCE and 2000 CE. The differences should be self-evident. And those are the kinds of differences that I'm looking at. When the pressures are all bouncing around in different directions from century to century, you don't achieve the kind of advancement that you would get when a new set of traits would very nicely fill a niche for 50,000 or more years.

Chemist

05-03-2009, 09:49 PM

...OK, make it 50000 if you like. The effect I was trying to emphasize would only be more pronounced. My point was simply that the pressures that drive changes in our species are changing so rapidly that most of them won't likely wind up being appreciable as time goes by--at least on "normal" evolutionary time scales. The ones that will will probably wind up being those that don't cause the kind of pronounced change that I've been talking about this entire damn time.

If you want to see my point a little more clearly, imagine the changes in humanity between 98000 BCE and 48000 BCE, and compare them to the changes in humanity between 48000 BCE and 2000 CE. The differences should be self-evident. And those are the kinds of differences that I'm looking at. When the pressures are all bouncing around in different directions from century to century, you don't achieve the kind of advancement that you would get when a new set of traits would very nicely fill a niche for 20,000 years.
Latro...
please read this..

To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

I think that this will help you better convey whatever it is you are trying to convey...

ATCGs

05-03-2009, 09:49 PM

My understanding of this thread is that it discusses the male and female roles in society, and the way in which they have changed over the last 50-100 years.

If you want to talk about evolution and its effect on humans over the course of 50,000 years, you can, but there won't be enough evidence to come to any conclusion.

Polymath

05-03-2009, 09:51 PM

This has been the 3rd time I've been misunderstood on this forum. I evidently do need to work on my communication skills. This has been duly noted, and thank you for making me realize it.

Making certain types of abstract arguments with complete rigor and exactness can often require a really excessive amount of talking/typing, so people have developed certain linguistic conventions for getting their points across which require the other to just kind of "get" much of what's being argued without it being stated explicitly. It usually works fine, but according to a bunch of threads on here, a lot of INTJ's have a "problem" with thinking too literally and not mentally filling in the blanks as intended by the arguer, hence getting carried away with all the missing/"wrong"/out-of-context details in the argument.

Being really rigorous is a pain, but it actually ends up saving typing in the case of INTJf, I guess. It's all good. :cheesy:

Latro

05-03-2009, 10:15 PM

Latro...
please read this..

To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

I think that this will help you better convey whatever it is you are trying to convey...
I've read over it, and that really didn't teach me anything I didn't know. Just some talk of elementary genetics, some application of introductory statistics to elementary genetics to explain genetic drift, and some discussion of genetic bottlenecking and the "founder effect." All of this is, as I've been saying for like 5 posts, dealing with individual mechanisms more than anything, which is not what I'm discussing here.
My understanding of this thread is that it discusses the male and female roles in society, and the way in which they have changed over the last 50-100 years.

If you want to talk about evolution and its effect on humans over the course of 50,000 years, you can, but there won't be enough evidence to come to any conclusion.
Not what I've been talking about at all, jeez. Not only can I not get my point across, I can't even get the topic I'm addressing to begin with across! I've been talking about the future of human evolution in a broad sense, and about how I don't think we're going to see the kind of pronounced genetic change that we would've been seeing many millennia ago, except perhaps on a much, much wider time scale. I'm arguing this because:
1. the ability of large numbers of individuals to reproduce means that what evolutionary pressures are present are weaker than they would've been in millennia past. That is, those individuals which would previously have been filtered out in large numbers by these pressures are instead filtered out only in relatively small numbers. This has the effect of slowing evolution, but it on its own cannot halt it, because eventually the pressures would begin to build up and we start to see pronounced change. I'm arguing that even this isn't going to happen on a reasonable evolutionary time scale (i.e., say, 200,000 years) because:
2. the evolutionary pressures themselves rapidly change from generation to generation. While certain traits do remain favorable, many of those that we might've seen held constant in millennia past are no longer constant at all, due to rapid changes from one generation to the next. These changes include a wide variety of things, including sociocultural change, technological change...etc. This means that the forces, already weakened by their inability to filter out people in large numbers from one generation to the next, now don't even wind up being present in the same form for longer than a generation or two anymore. Again, there are a decent number of exceptions, but these don't tend to cause the kind of pronounced change that I've been discussing.

If this isn't clear enough, I don't really know what is.

I'm getting the impression that you see me as this closed-minded person with no interest in all the facts that you have to offer. This is not the case. I just get plenty of facts to mess with in university (and I'm myself a chemistry major, by the way, although I'm somewhere between 3 and 8 or so years behind you). This isn't a place where I'm looking to deal with back-and-forths about elementary genetics, or the basic mechanisms behind natural selection; I've already waded through that in high school biology 5 years ago.

Here I'm trying to talk about a couple observations that I've made about modern human society, and trying to draw some possible conclusions about what these observations may imply about future human evolution. That's all. I've probably been asserting my conclusions too strongly for my own good (again, bad habit of mine), which may be where you're getting this closed-minded view of me from, but in the end, this is all I'm putting down; a theory that I have, with some common sense evidence alongside a relatively basic knowledge of genetics and evolution to try to back it up. I've said several times that I might be blatantly wrong.

Chemist

05-03-2009, 11:11 PM

Latro...

Sorry if this post seems cold.. I am unfortunately still at my lab waiting on this data to compile (after having been here for 26hrs already) and now have no idea why I'll even bother going home since I have a meeting at 8:30 anyway and this is nowhere near done...

Ok... to my point...
I don't know enough about you to view you as "closed-minded". You seem like a smart kid but I think you'll need a more sophisticated understanding of evolution before you can utilize any portion of that area of science to assert whatever "observations" and ideas you are trying to assert.

Maybe (and I don't know this for sure) ATCGs would be willing to help you better express whatever you're trying to say... because you are in dire need of some expert knowledge..

You're an undergrad so you've got limited experience expressing/defending you're ideas on a purely scientific basis.. this is solely because you don't have enough of a background in anything yet to really know exactly what you're talking about...

If you disagree with what I'm saying that is completely fine... but if I were to ever come across you in 10 or so years and I ask you if you view chemistry and/or whatever else you are currently studying the same way that you view it now.. I really hope that you response to me is... no (that is of course assuming that you've continued to study it)

If you want to try to explain whatever you're trying to convey here to me some other time.. I'm all ears but maybe we should start another thread.. : )

BostonIan

05-04-2009, 01:08 AM

And this is the implication I'm seeing... that feminization of society is bad. But I'm trying to figure out exactly why you think it's bad. Sure, you can complain that you don't like it for whatever reason, but how can you convince me that it's bad for society in general?

Yeah, that's an argument I haven't made yet. But, to get into it, the problems of feminization:
The assumption of equality gave women the vote, doubling the electorate, canceling out every man's vote. If men are inherently better suited to leadership, then the structure of our civilization has been damaged. Evidence of a woman's influence on democracy would be politicians elected on emotional, "for the children" appeals, increased nannying role of government, and a lessened focus on functional, mechanical aspects of a civilization.
If men are largely responsible for the technology, innovation, defense, morality of a country, then men becoming more effeminate limits the advancement of a society. If the phenomenon of men being unduly influenced by women in a feminized social order, without masculine leadership, contributes to a feminizing effect on men, there seems the obvious threat of killing the golden goose.
A feminine mindset in a complementary role to the masculine one serves the purpose of binding a group together while it's being led and ordered. Masculinity removed or diminished, it becomes binding for the sake of binding, what remains is the "morality" of not upsetting or offending the group, non-judgment - "do your own thing, be yourself, try not to hurt anyone else". Metaphorically, if civilization is a march, nesting seems like a permanent camp, unable to drive toward any purpose. Unpopular controls on behavior, contrary to an individual wants, requiring unsympathetic enforcement would be highly at risk, regardless of their value to civilization.
The full implication of my "civilization is men" observation is that, when men fall, I expect civilization to fall with them. From a limited experience going town-to-town across a few states, I consider pockets of the nation to have already collapsed, and I expect much of the rest to collapse in the near future, at least on a historical timeline.

Tangent, but, to quote a new immigrant I worked with, "Back home, nobody's crazy. I never saw a crazy person until I got here. Here, everybody's crazy." Northeast location bias, maybe, but I see the same thing. Playing the thought-game, what actions would you undertake in order to sabotage a nation? Why do civilizations fail? Not a source for my ideas, but, just to read another person playing the game, here's a few Barnies' interpretations of societal prerequisites:

* Every society must be able to answer the basic biological needs of its members: food, drink, shelter, and medical care.
* Every society must provide for the production and distribution of goods and services (perhaps through a division of labor, rules concerning property and trade, or ideas about the role of work).
* Every society must provide for the reproduction of new members and consider laws and issues related to reproduction (regulation, marriageable age, number of children, and so on).
* Every society must provide for the training (education, apprenticeship, passing on of values) of an individual so that he or she can become a functioning adult in the society.
* Every society must provide for the maintenance of internal and external order (laws, courts, police, wars, diplomacy).
* Every society must provide meaning and motivation to its members.
My reading: the basics of animal needs are provided by order, rules, values, function, motivation, the impersonal. When those break down, it's back to the huts and spears

The most disturbing assertion you've made is that you hold men more responsible for their actions than women. I find this quite absurd and completely unfounded in science; there is no proof that estrogen exposure during development causes irreversible naivety and impressionability. I assert that women and men don't differ in their consciousness of right and wrong. You'll have to do better than that.

It's more increasing blame for men, based on their responsibilities, than it is decreasing blame for women, based on their emotionality. The wrong of the abuse of status and/or inherent trust/authority is a wrong on top of whatever other wrong was committed. When women do have that trust, as in a teacher/student format, the blame is reversed.

The consciousness of right-wrong I'd guess is somewhat equal, following the usual lines of "men are best and worst", women in between. How that consciousness is acted on, which internal forces act on it, and how external things play a role, there I'd guess men and women are different. I'm not sure how to quantify how different.

So how exactly does it hurt society to be open to those few women who are capable of male-type roles?

It doesn't. For example, while universal suffrage is likely a foundation bomb, merit suffrage likely would not be; may even improve voting quality. The problem is, in reality, and in argument, nuance is clumsy. Whatever the issue, any action would come back to the civilizational decay game. In what numbers do the returns diminish, what's the long-term chess of it?

Overall, there's a fine line between being open to the reality of individual merit and having the unreality of gender equality enshrined as an ideal. We can only actually be equal by becoming a (much) lesser versions of ourselves, and the idea of neutrality provides a built-in excuse for being a lesser version of ourselves. There's the curiosity, how much do people actually believe in it? Why, how deeply?

invicta

05-04-2009, 07:54 AM

Prunesquallor

05-04-2009, 09:23 AM

Evolution is not teleological, directed at making the population "better." A common fallacy, but a fallacy nonetheless. Thus, even if traits that would normally be pretty much a guarantee of a failure to pass on one's genes are now more common in a more forgiving (in certain senses) environment, this would be a sign that evolution IS working, rather than the opposite.

ATCGs

05-04-2009, 09:48 AM

I've been talking about the future of human evolution in a broad sense, and about how I don't think we're going to see the kind of pronounced genetic change that we would've been seeing many millennia ago, except perhaps on a much, much wider time scale. I'm arguing this because:

This is fine to talk about, but because of the way evolution works, there simply won't be enough evidence to help us form a consensus either way - we don't know what the mutation rate was 100k years ago, and we don't know what the mutation rate is now (and we really can't go find out).

Further, evolution doesn't deal in the small change of socially perceived traits that change on a generation-by-generation basis. Evolution has no bearing on traits such as... being able to lead a cavalry charge in the 12th century, being able to paint, draw, or compose in the renaissance, owning land in the early united states, or being a successful businessman in the past few decades. It never has cared about these things. You could make a case for evolution favoring those with increased capacity to store knowledge and information, as successful humans of all types have been doing that for a long long time.

Also, increased effective population size (those that are reproducing) => increased natural selection. The greatest rate of retained deleterious mutations occurs when a population goes through a bottleneck, and the most stringent, purifying selection occurs when the population size is upwards of the hundreds of billions (bacteria, the most efficient organisms on the planet).

dalidaisy

05-04-2009, 10:02 AM

The full implication of my "civilization is men" observation is that, when men fall, I expect civilization to fall with them. From a limited experience going town-to-town across a few states, I consider pockets of the nation to have already collapsed, and I expect much of the rest to collapse in the near future, at least on a historical timeline.
So? Is civilization as we know it the way it should be? Who decides? Just because "historically" (you seem stuck on this) things were a certain way, does that mean they should always be that way? I think not.

If civilation falls (as you say), then what are we left with, in your mind? Do you not think that something else will spring up to replace it? Are you not happy with what you see?

firebee

05-04-2009, 12:06 PM

So? Is civilization as we know it the way it should be? Who decides? Just because "historically" (you seem stuck on this) things were a certain way, does that mean they should always be that way? I think not.

And I'm interested in just how one defines "collapse". From what I've seen, the areas that I'd use that word for are the ones that for one reason or another have changed less -- where gender roles are more entrenched, et cetera. If the erosion of the male role is not adaptive, why is it that the metrosexuals are prospering in the metropolis while in... say, Pueblo, the men are men, the women are women, and the cars are up on blocks in the front yard which has no grass?

As per usual, this whole conversation strikes me as a tad bit fetishy (actually, it reminds me a lot of a certain Type of Person who Calls Himself by Lots of Capital Letters), but YKIOK, YKIOK, really it is... Two things I note: Why is it that when these things are divvied up by supposedly 100% rational biological reasons, the men always seem to get the respect and the women get the washing machines? Wouldn't it be more efficient for the men to be practicing putting swords in things and not bothering their little heads about the running of the community? And, given that our current living situation is one that has less need for putting swords in people as well as less need for cranking out babies -- why isn't it adaptive that we have become less sex-differentiated in response to our environment (presuming this is so)?

firebee added to this post, 78 minutes and 4 seconds later...

And something I'll throw in just for giggles and because I feel like putting off finalizing my blasted report just a little... bit... longer...

While I'm sure that somewhere you can find someone who claims that men as a population and women as a population should be exactly equal in terms of physical and mental attributes, social role, et cetera, I'm inclined to think that it's far more popular as, well, a strawperson than as an actual position that people hold. And in its own way, it's pretty much the same as gender determinism in that it holds up a One True Way that should be applied to all people regardless of their personal implications -- just that this One True Way is singular and somewhat closer to the mean of the population as a whole.

Personally, I am not necessarily wedded to the equality of outcomes. My suspicion is that given a hypothetical wholly gender-neutral society, detectable differences will remain between the male and female populations -- I just don't quite know what form those differences will take. I suspect that the differences will be relatively small, while some folks seem to think that the differences will be substantial -- that, for instance, the number of women who are truly suited to become engineers are complete outliers (well, that's true -- but also for men!). But if we have a society that seeks to put individuals in the places that they're best suited, then it works regardless of which of us is correct.

There's this gulf of understanding here that may come down to wiring -- I'm not a gender-binary person, and that makes it hard for me to understand thems what are. But I really don't get this attachment to gender as the best and most right way to differentiate among people. And it seems to me that there are some big assumptions floating around here -- if you assume that giving women political power will break the world, then giving women political power will break the world. True. But if you assume that enforcing a strongly gendered society will make pigs fly out my ass, then if you enforce a strongly gendered society pigs will fly out my ass. Trouble is, I'm not seeing any great reason why we should believe either is the case.

nacht

05-04-2009, 12:24 PM

SpaceCadet

05-09-2009, 01:26 AM

BostonIan

05-09-2009, 05:27 AM

Re:So, paragraph one and two, throwing out a host of emotionally charged words: {nazi, holocaust, racism}, squid ink, the words most commonly used to muddle any issue and silence debate. Closing sentence, a banality, that "human society is changing, and the roles people play with it are changing". Sort of a non-post, to my reading.

"Believe me, it's not a bad thing", you didn't try to explain. Allow yourself to think about the actual subject at hand without the emotional land-mines, then argue the physical reality of gender equality or the practical value of playing at it.

And it seems to me that there are some big assumptions floating around here -- if you assume that giving women political power will break the world, then giving women political power will break the world. True. But if you assume that enforcing a strongly gendered society will make pigs fly out my ass, then if you enforce a strongly gendered society pigs will fly out my ass. Trouble is, I'm not seeing any great reason why we should believe either is the case.
Dang, my computer crashed while I was writing a long response, this next one is gonna be kinda staccato.

Okay, women given the vote in 1910, one generation later, the great depression, caused by an over-reaction to an economic downturn. The greatest expansion of government in history, programs, gifts, feeling, nannying federal government. Next generations later, more nannying expansion of the federal government, a cultural mutiny during a war, a "sexual revolution", crime rates begin to triple and quadruple, divorce goes through the roof, along with out-of-wedlock births, drugs become commonplace, etc. Now:

Playing culture doctor, checking the symptoms:
Politics, the current string of presidents is Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush2, Obama. Prominent politicians, Pelosi, Reid, Frank, Frist, Rove, Gingrich...ask me, it's an unimpressive batch. In terms of an informed electorate, the majority of laws and government action go unreported by the media. Public attention, even knowledge about the structure of government has dropped. The majority of government spending goes to entitlement programs which didn't even exist in the past: Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, something like 30+ trillion promised, eventually becoming the entire budget, completely unsustainable.
Economy, gold standard dropped in the 70's, there's an Austrian strain of thought that the entire recent boom was an artificial one, that our real economy degraded while the artificial one took root, and we're heading into the worst Depression in history. Right now, the government is borrowing money to pay for itself (entitlement programs, mainly), we're ten trillion dollars in debt, increasing, and the Fed has been printing money to cover expenses. Industries which we invented have gone overseas, have to be imported, even labor for growing our own crops has to be imported.
Social: Families, form less quickly, break easier, less people in houses, spending less time together. Children are left to be raised by schools, friends, and televisions. Young animals, removed from parents causes negative psychological results. An aside, but monkeys not birthed vaginally (i.e., C-section) become rejected by their mothers, since there isn't proper hormonal bonding at birth. Our women are birthing while drugged, births are induced by artificial hormones, and C-sections are becoming common..
Churches, most of the Western world has gone atheist, even in America nominal theists don't abide by the guidelines of the faith, the preaching remaining is mostly banal and neutered. Any cultural benefit that a belief system had is mostly lost.
Deviancy, mental illness seems to be increasing, prescription drugs for mental illness has become an industry, a third of women are sexually assaulted. Crime, doubled and tripled from 1960-90, drug use became commonplace. Sex, the overall number of sexual partners has increased, pornography has gone mainstream, sex is fully removed from it's purpose and function.
Schools have become a punchline, especially public ones, mostly fail at their main goal (education), education has become politicized (predictably, since government pays for it and teachers are government employees), contrary social training has been implemented in a fair amount of colleges, which now cost $15-50k per year, and are 60% populated by female students.
Art, for its part, is subjective, but, ask me, we don't appear to be in a Renaissance.
Nations, a fair amount of nations have dissolved their military entirely or maintain one that's not able to defend itself. Even the concept of nations is subject to debate in most circles, and migrations of populations across borders aren't challenged. Population, most western nations are below replacement, and at a slower rate in terms of births per year (had at older ages), some places at less than half replacement, the definition of inevitable cultural destruction, if the trend is carried into through history.
Read back to the spoiler about social prerequisites, and compare the trends to the necessities for a civilization. While it's not a total sweep and something very useful like technology has increased, without the rest of the requisites, tech is only a tool to be used by the population, as it exists.

If civilization falls (as you say), then what are we left with, in your mind? Do you not think that something else will spring up to replace it?
A civilization that fails will be replaced, conquered or colonized, likely by a society with a more successful structure, likely more similar than not to the structures of the past, likely how they became traditions in the first place. For example, there has never been an inherited tradition of slow and below-replacement population, and the answer why is obvious. In a way, nothing ever changes, but I'd prefer not be on the wrong side of inevitability.

Are you not happy with what you see?
No.

Tocsin

05-09-2009, 06:11 AM

BostonIan

05-09-2009, 06:38 AM

And what a fine example we have here of a post hoc (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.) fallacy. It might also be useful to consider the fallacy of cum hoc ergo propter hoc (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.) in this regard as well.

Granted, but it would be predictable that the largest expansion of the electorate in history, canceling out existing votes with those that are more emotional, less detail-oriented, and more, say, maternal, would have the effect of, say, increasing social spending to levels that are beyond sustainability. Especially if the social spending didn't exist before, or was changed largely after, the causation seems there.

Same, it would be logical that sexual equality would have some role on family structure, that female "empowerment" can lessen the sting of divorce and single parenthood, or that delaying marriage age could increase the latter, since it's expected that there will be at least a decade between onset of sexual activity and marriage. If divorce and single-parenthood is proven to increase the likelihood of certain negative outcomes, then, tic-tac-toe.

Sinequanon

05-09-2009, 07:14 AM

Granted, but it would be predictable that the largest expansion of the electorate in history, canceling out existing votes with those that are more emotional, less detail-oriented, and more, say, maternal, would have the effect of, say, increasing social spending to levels that are beyond sustainability. Especially if the social spending didn't exist before, or was changed largely after, the causation seems there.

Same, it would be logical that sexual equality would have some role on family structure, that female "empowerment" can lessen the sting of divorce and single parenthood, or that delaying marriage age could increase the latter, since it's expected that there will be at least a decade between onset of sexual activity and marriage. If divorce and single-parenthood is proven to increase the likelihood of certain negative outcomes, then, tic-tac-toe.
Hello?

The fundamental question is whether women are independent human beings entitled to the same rights as any other human being. If they are, then the power shifts of the 20th century are corrections to a completely arbitrary and artificial structure. Women weren't suddenly inconveniently "invented" in the 20th century to tick you off or to ruin your vote.

Prunesquallor

05-09-2009, 08:03 AM

nacht

05-09-2009, 08:16 AM

Synamon

05-09-2009, 08:23 AM

Gosh, can I link women voting to increased standard of living, increased life expectancy, space exploration, advances in medicine, etc. etc. etc.?

Wow, just wow.

nacht

05-09-2009, 08:50 AM

Gosh, can I link women voting to increased standard of living, increased life expectancy, space exploration, advances in medicine, etc. etc. etc.?

Wow, just wow.

On the surface it is pretty much a textbook example of post hoc ergo propter hoc, combined with a retroactive justification and causal oversimplification. If I were still tutoring for formal logic I would seriously consider borrowing it.

Deliberator

05-09-2009, 09:25 AM

The assumption of equality gave women the vote, doubling the electorate, canceling out every man's vote. If men are inherently better suited to leadership, then the structure of our civilization has been damaged. Evidence of a woman's influence on democracy would be politicians elected on emotional, "for the children" appeals, increased nannying role of government, and a lessened focus on functional, mechanical aspects of a civilization.

This makes the assumption that democratic/liberal/feminine/"nannying" roles of the government are all bad. Perhaps they aren't. Perhaps a balance philosophies is healthy for a government, but that's an entirely different argument. Still, point is, you make an assumption that is based on a value system, meaning it will never come to a logical conclusion.

If men are largely responsible for the technology, innovation, defense, morality of a country, then men becoming more effeminate limits the advancement of a society. If the phenomenon of men being unduly influenced by women in a feminized social order, without masculine leadership, contributes to a feminizing effect on men, there seems the obvious threat of killing the golden goose.

lol, now this one is funny. Men are responsible for the morality of a country? Not last I heard... women freakin' run that shit, I don't care who you are. We know who's really behind the wheel of the morality wagon. You know, a lot of men in leadership positions are influenced to a HUGE degree by their mothers and spouses... maybe women have been ruling the world all along!

Also, you make the assumption that technology, innovation, and defense would be stifled by feminization. How is this? Well, we've been slowly feminized over the past 80 years but I have not yet seen any break in technology and innovation yet... when do you expect it to make the plunge?

A feminine mindset in a complementary role to the masculine one serves the purpose of binding a group together while it's being led and ordered. Masculinity removed or diminished, it becomes binding for the sake of binding, what remains is the "morality" of not upsetting or offending the group, non-judgment - "do your own thing, be yourself, try not to hurt anyone else". Metaphorically, if civilization is a march, nesting seems like a permanent camp, unable to drive toward any purpose. Unpopular controls on behavior, contrary to an individual wants, requiring unsympathetic enforcement would be highly at risk, regardless of their value to civilization.

Your metaphor doesn't make sense to me. Allowing diversity and demanding tolerance is actually bad for binding and harmony, because there will be inherent riffs in personal philosophies. In countries where one has no choice in religion, values, roles, or behaviors, people tend to feel more unified. This doesn't have anything to do with feminine versus masculine, this is simply open minded versus close minded. In fact, I believe women are more likely to be close minded and more likely to expect others to adhere to social norms. In other words, the average female is actually less tolerant than the average male. So, it seems like you're actually arguing that our society has become too masculine on this point.

You also assume that there are no other variables that may save society from mass destruction. We are heading for breakdown, it's coming... oh yeah, and there will also be widespread global panic and shutdown when the year 2000 hits!

It's more increasing blame for men, based on their responsibilities, than it is decreasing blame for women, based on their emotionality. The wrong of the abuse of status and/or inherent trust/authority is a wrong on top of whatever other wrong was committed. When women do have that trust, as in a teacher/student format, the blame is reversed.

Women have huge responsibility as mothers and as spouses. Women also dominate the healthcare and education, both carrying huge importance on the success of our society. Sure, they are less likely to be in big leadership roles, but that doesn't make sense to discriminate based on sex because most men, (ie most people) don't have those leadership roles. You really give more responsibility to Joe the factory worker than to his wife and mother of his three kids? Wouldn't it be better to simply say, "I give more responsibility to people who are in positions of greater power, who are somewhat more likely to be men than women"?

Overall, there's a fine line between being open to the reality of individual merit and having the unreality of gender equality enshrined as an ideal. We can only actually be equal by becoming a (much) lesser versions of ourselves, and the idea of neutrality provides a built-in excuse for being a lesser version of ourselves. There's the curiosity, how much do people actually believe in it? Why, how deeply?

I don't think most people want or expect men and women to be equal. Sure, people may ponder lazily about why you don't see any women in engineering, or why fathers aren't as likely to stay at home with the kids, but most people are just living their lives. And most importantly, they can live their lives the way they want to even if it happens to be out of the norm. I absolutely agree that affirmative action and its principles are destructive, but not that women should be barred from anything that men would like to think that they own.

I do wish you would give a specific example of how gender equality would cause someone to be a lesser version of him/herself.

SpaceCadet

05-09-2009, 11:36 AM

So, paragraph one and two, throwing out a host of emotionally charged words: {nazi, holocaust, racism}, squid ink, the words most commonly used to muddle any issue and silence debate. Closing sentence, a banality, that "human society is changing, and the roles people play with it are changing". Sort of a non-post, to my reading.

"Believe me, it's not a bad thing", you didn't try to explain. Allow yourself to think about the actual subject at hand without the emotional land-mines, then argue the physical reality of gender equality or the practical value of playing at it.

LOL. I knew you would say exactly this and that's why I posted in the style that I did. I just like seeing how right I will be, it amuses me. I think the OP is sort of a non-post in itself, so...

The examples that I chose to use are no less valid for sounding emotionally charged. The first responding post in this thread brought up the L'Ecole Polytechnique massacre and was very emotionally charged and manipulative in it's perspective, but apparently you had no problem with it because it seemed to somehow support your position.

As for neglecting to argue the physical reality of anything, that was a conscious omission. Believe me, I've read the entire thread and have thought about the "actual subject at hand". I have no intention of getting into a long winded debate that is truly going nowhere, I only posted to express my point that the actual subject at hand is this and only this:
You want to somehow prove (on your terms only, of course) why one biologically defined group of people should have dominion over another. Where did you think this thread was going to go? Did you honestly expect that a bunch of other forum members (INTJs mostly, no less!) were going to hear your convoluted arguments and say "Hey yeah, women shouldn't be allowed to do stuff"!?

BostonIan

05-09-2009, 03:35 PM

The fundamental question is whether women are independent human beings entitled to the same rights as any other human being. If they are, then the power shifts of the 20th century are corrections to a completely arbitrary and artificial structure. Women weren't suddenly inconveniently "invented" in the 20th century to tick you off or to ruin your vote.

I agree, that's the primary question. An individual's answer to that takes precedence, so, even if women voting leads to a badbadthing, the vote itself might be considered a goodgoodthing, maybe an unassailable one. This side's answer is no, women aren't entitled to the same rights as any human being and aren't entirely independent, in that we're two halves of one whole, a society, with non-arbitrary separate functions to it.

Wait, this is so out there it needs confirmation, are you seriously claiming that the only reason that social spending levels are implemented by a set of predominantly male bodies is to pander to women--as a group--all because they can vote?

Yes, but not because women can vote, because they do vote. With those votes, they do elect a different set of politicians than would be elected by men, who do attain their offices differently, who will act in ways to get themselves and members of their party elected. If not, they lose their jobs, and evolution creates a class of politicians more suitable to an emotional electorate that isn't over-picky about details.

Gosh, can I link women voting to increased standard of living, increased life expectancy, space exploration, advances in medicine, etc. etc. etc.?

Sure, if you can find a link. For example, I assume a country is more productive with the other half of the population working and brings more good stuff faster. So, there's a plus, going into the "benefit" column of equality.

- --- --- .-.. --- -. --. .--. --- ... -,
Deliberator Section: This makes the assumption that democratic/liberal/feminine/"nannying" roles of the government are all bad. Perhaps they aren't. Perhaps a balance philosophies is healthy for a government, but that's an entirely different argument. Still, point is, you make an assumption that is based on a value system, meaning it will never come to a logical conclusion.

I don't understand the "perhaps", as if political opinions can't be right. In terms of expense, efficiency, sustainability, gun ownership, size and reach of government, logical conclusions can be reached, different actions can be right for different ends. You seem to allow that women voting leads to nannying government, therefor those who have decided that nanny-gov is bad/wrong should be in favor of denying women the vote, unless they value female suffrage for its own sake. You didn't make the argument that a more emotional electorate with less systematic understanding of government is a good idea, or that women aren't more emotional and less function-minded, less systemizing, or whatever the right word is.

lol, now this one is funny. Men are responsible for the morality of a country? Not last I heard... women freakin' run that shit, I don't care who you are. We know who's really behind the wheel of the morality wagon. You know, a lot of men in leadership positions are influenced to a HUGE degree by their mothers and spouses... maybe women have been ruling the world all along!

Who "is", is different and separate from who should be. Men have written most laws, headed most religions, and I assume have led most women in homes. I have a hard time believing that men have always and everywhere as femininely influenced as they are in America, currently.

A child led by a woman led by a man, is still led by a man. I marginally agree that women have had a influence on history, "hand that rocks the cradle", and all that. Babies and mothers have one mind, a large part of manhood is separating from that and overcoming it. Fathers help in that function.

Also, you make the assumption that technology, innovation, and defense would be stifled by feminization. How is this? Well, we've been slowly feminized over the past 80 years but I have not yet seen any break in technology and innovation yet... when do you expect it to make the plunge?

I'd have to research the science stats, though I'm not likely to. Assembling a few connected details, I've already heard that math and science scores are dropping, that there aren't enough engineers being trained, and that students form single-mother homes do more poorly in school. Single-motherhood is only a generation or two old in large numbers and hasn't become the majority yet. But, I'll agree, the connection isn't obvious. In fact, the lack of clear authority probably fuels innovation. In my society, liberal men will still be allowed to exist and vote.

As for defense, America doesn't follow the pattern, but, Europe, as an example, has limited its defense entirely, and the countries are basically unable to defend themselves. I'd also guess that people are less likely to serve for the military than years before, die for their country, tolerate a draft, etc.

Your metaphor doesn't make sense to me. Allowing diversity and demanding tolerance is actually bad for binding and harmony, because there will be inherent riffs in personal philosophies. In countries where one has no choice in religion, values, roles, or behaviors, people tend to feel more unified. This doesn't have anything to do with feminine versus masculine, this is simply open minded versus close minded. In fact, I believe women are more likely to be close minded and more likely to expect others to adhere to social norms. In other words, the average female is actually less tolerant than the average male. So, it seems like you're actually arguing that our society has become too masculine on this point.

Yeah, I didn't explain that one very well, and the word choice "binding" confuses things, I should have said "empathy", binding people emotionally, putting the nice-feel in the group. When a clear morality isn't rightly imposed, or becomes unimposible (as in large, diverse, city environments), the accepted new morality became not to rock the boat, and not to disrupt others with your own "choice" of actions, personal morality. Actual moralities, proper ones that guide behavior for a constructive purpose, those now run contrary to the "peace-making" morality. Whether that's feminine, it registers that way in my mind, but it may just be a lack of the masculine.

The issue of men/women, closed/open-mindedness, you must have made a good point, because I can't make sense of it in my head. I'm calling the "tolerant" morality feminine, so inherently intolerant women are intolerant of an intolerant morality, and inherently tolerant men tolerate the intolerantly tolerant women. See my headache? It feels right that women are more interpersonally "pecking" in defending the established rules. Maybe the group nature, maybe a public display of personal goodness, maybe a symptom of the unmanned times.

You also assume that there are no other variables that may save society from mass destruction. We are heading for breakdown, it's coming... oh yeah, and there will also be widespread global panic and shutdown when the year 2000 hits!

Doom, Deliberator, doom! Yeah, if the economy rebounds any time soon, or if anything approaching prosperity returns without a change in government policy, the financial side of my argument takes a major hit, and I'll be very confused. I'm relying on an economic collapse for an "I told you so", the other stuff will mostly happen when I'm too old to care anymore. Still, I'd be interested in you looking at society as a machine, and asking what, functionally, one requires in order to function, and function competitively with other machines. For me, that's the important point, where a personal sensibility becomes an ethic I'd be willing to impose on the rest of you, for your own sakes.

Women have huge responsibility as mothers and as spouses. Women also dominate the healthcare and education, both carrying huge importance on the success of our society. Sure, they are less likely to be in big leadership roles, but that doesn't make sense to discriminate based on sex because most men, (ie most people) don't have those leadership roles. You really give more responsibility to Joe the factory worker than to his wife and mother of his three kids? Wouldn't it be better to simply say, "I give more responsibility to people who are in positions of greater power, who are somewhat more likely to be men than women"?

Mother is a responsibility, a natural one: Women > children; check. However, wife > husband; no check. Wife = husband; still no check, not from me. Joe, so long as he is healthy and able, is in charge of his wife and kids while the wife is only in charge of his kids, therefor Joe has more responsibility. The student-teacher I made, was mainly made towards the idea of authority's influence on responsibility. Unsaid was that I consider men all responsible for all women as a general rule.

As for education and healthcare, kicking it around, education serves society by transferring the information beneficial to the society, in terms of tech and whatnot, so long as it's learned. The other half of it is in establishing a set of behaviors and values that are beneficial to the country over the long haul. So, not valuable for its own sake, it must achieve its purposes. Healthcare is valuable how? Maybe making sure that valuable people survive long enough to benefit civilization, improving the lives of people so that their function of life benefits overall.

So, neither contribute to the success of society unless they succeed at their own goals. Schooling, here, I'm not sure is teaching information well, and I'm not sure the morality it imposes is a wholly beneficial one. Healthcare, I'm not sure hospitals always act in the best interest of social health. With both, government syrup attracts ants, and business considerations come along with health interests. The moral ethic guides behavior, to me, it's the most important component of a society, but, I guess that's mainly a tangent.

I do wish you would give a specific example of how gender equality would cause someone to be a lesser version of him/herself.

The example is the modern man. Generally, I think men have a greater capacity for action, leadership, morality, wisdom, right-thinking, nobility, much greater than we now show. My own line goes back to Vikings, then a bunch of country-hopping Normans - what would they look like if I met them in Valhalla, how would I match up? Even watching old videos, men seemed to have different quality. Instead of becoming the best man possible, trained by a line of men in the fine art of mannishness, we're mixed, minimizing gender roles.

On the girl side, who knows? I see a "can-too" streak of stereotype-rebellion for its own sake, and I'm sure that your own maternal lines would throw a tisk-tisk or twelve at you, but that's less fleshed-out in my mind.

Restating the idea, if men and women ever become actually equal, it'll be from diminishing our own strengths, stunting our own growth, and cutting off our jiggly bits.

DanteFalling

05-09-2009, 04:25 PM

Great, so if men stop needing women to be defined as a lesser other (in order to negatively define their own elusive masculinity), then it won't be profitable for women to be congratulated for and raised to be stereotypically "female."

hahahahahaha

darynthe

05-09-2009, 04:54 PM

Tell me how a man is supposed to act in that situation.

If there is a maniac with a gun and I have no gun, then to challenge him wouldn't be manly, it would be suicidal. With the numbers game, are you looking at those 30 individuals as a LUMP, and hopefully that LUMP will charge the man, several bits of the LUMP will die in the process, but overall the LUMP will survive and rescue the princesses?

Let's picture another scenario.

There is a puny small man sitting on the bus, a huge tall maniac wielding a knife says he's going to chop all the heads of the ladies. What is this man supposed to do:
a) Be an idiot and try to tackle the man, knowing he has no chance and will end up with his head on the floor
b) Get off the bus and call for men with weapons (police)

If it is manly to risk your life for strangers, ok risk as in almost certain that you'd die, then you can denounce me as a lady any day, and I can carry on my day and enjoy "just for laughs" on youtube, while the "manly" man is being eaten by worms 6ft under.

As for Bostonian, his post baffles me. I wish I could follow it, I wish there was a conclusion somewhere but...I am lazy and want to look at some funny youtube videos.

Ok, I am not saying that men are bulletproof.

Here are the facts, I just read the actual account of the story. There were in the room fifty men and the teacher and nine women. All the men went out knowing that the killer only wanted to hurt the girls, and didn't want to hurt any man. With this in mind, I think that men from other cultures wouldn't have dreamt of leaving the handful of women to their lot without at least trying to talk sense into this man.

Fifty against one.

Secondly, even if it was scary for them to tackle him on the room, they could have waited for him outside and jumped at him from the sides of the doors or something of the like. Throw at him something. They just ran out of the school.

I know for a fact that *I* would have done something. I will tell you why.
I am a feminine woman but when it comes to being attacked my first reaction isn't usually to run.

Someone attacked me in a bus in Mexico DF. It was a big man, who was drugged. He tried to take away a necklace. I didn't react nicely, as I should. I took him and fought him. Nobody moved to help. They all just watched.

When I had the man dominated and in the floor, then the bus stopped and all the men got up from their seats and took the man outside and proceeded to almost kill him.

I call this a fucking cowardice. The man was down. THey kicked a man who was down.

Damn them.

Anyway. I am saying that in general, without thinking of the details, men are better equipped to fight than a woman. I am 5'1''. My attacker was about 6'.

Men have testosterone which helps with being combative and stronger. I am much weaker than almost all men. Usually women also wear high hells and clothes that are not as comfortable as men's.

All this taken into account, I think that men are better equipped to defend themselves.

As for being stupid defending yourself against a crazy person: The guy has a gun. You don't really know if he will kill you. What would you rather do? Attack him in group and have a chance of suriviving by being actively protective, or not attack him and relying on his not being crazy enough to kill everyone in the room?

I think that attacking is the best defense with a crazy person. Maybe with a regular mugger the best way to go is simply to give your money.

Sinequanon

05-09-2009, 05:10 PM

I agree, that's the primary question. An individual's answer to that takes precedence, so, even if women voting leads to a badbadthing, the vote itself might be considered a goodgoodthing, maybe an unassailable one. This side's answer is no, women aren't entitled to the same rights as any human being and aren't entirely independent, in that we're two halves of one whole, a society, with non-arbitrary separate functions to it.
Fine, that much is fairly obvious. But this is also the beginning and end of it, as well. The rest of the irrational, psuedohistorical screed is fairly nakedly obviously a cover for your own subjective belief structure.

darynthe

05-09-2009, 05:12 PM

It is interesting that you talk about how you "don't agree with feminism" and then in the same breath talk about the École Polytechnique massacre, where the killer is noted to have said "I am fighting feminism" and "You're women, you're going to be engineers. You're all a bunch of feminists. I hate feminists" before opening fire.

What is the problem? Honestly I don't get your point. Feminism has made also a disservice to men. Not sure if the crazy man could be a good example, probably not. But in general, it hurts men, as much as it hurts women.

Also, why do you lay this at the feet of the men? The women were just as--if not more--capable of defending themselves.

My point is not that women cannot defend themselves. We can, of course. In fact one of the killed women talked to the guy and tried to reason with him.

My point is that it is expected that fifty adult men can take down one man, even with a gun instead of run away scared.

TravelnTrain

05-09-2009, 06:16 PM

Look, BostonIan, I think your OP makes some valid observations, but I mostly just want to bitchslap some sense into you - and I'm being kind. And, no, I'm not being sarcastic (this time). You're missing a key blindspot.

I agree that there are valid, observable differences between the genders that should be lauded, not denigrated. For example, little boys who want to run and jump and squirm in their seats should have the same opportunities to learn and advance as quiet girls who mature faster, without being given drugs to subdue them. Schools are failing miserably to cater to legitimate learning differences between the sexes and boys are falling behind as a group.

But what you are proposing isn't chauvinism, it's paternalism. That's part of the blindspot. Let's all bow before the all-wise straight guys who really know what's best for all of us and we'll keep our place. You're celebrated past also meant only men went to school, too, or had you forgotten that part? Why educate the women since the men are the ones who should decide anyway? Why don't you take off the rose-colored glasses (and pause to scratch yourself), so we can consider a few things?

If you honestly believe that civilization has been better off in the past when "real men" were in charge and made all the decisions, you better go back and read some more. What we mostly had was unbridled aggression. Funny thing how when you put all these testosterone-laden guys exclusively in charge, we end up with factions and pissing contests. And large-scale deaths, irrational decisions and conquests, rape, pillage and plunder. Go Vikings! More recently it was Cowboy Bush's Iraq war, but I digress...

There's a reason you hear, "Behind every great man there's a woman." (or a gay guy who does his tailoring) Yeah, it's called balance. And I'm not just talking marriage or partners.

Civilizations can succeed and prosper much better with the combined perspectives of the two genders. Oh, wait, that's right. Straight guys do better in life when they're married. Hmm...I wonder why that is? Maybe they need a little feminine perspective to get through life?

It's not all about protecting their woman. It's also about learning how to admit you're wrong and stop the pissing contests, which guy's guys never get. Your very nice comments about your Dad weren't about his testosterone level - they were about maturity. (Wait! What am I saying? You're right. In fact, let's let 2 guys get married and raise kids because then the kids will REALLY be reared correctly.)

That joke about wives making the decisions in the marriage is as old as civilization. (Do you think your Dad did all this on his own or didn't have some stupid notions about fatherhood along the way that Mom corrected?) I think what you're really advocating is a place where guys can retreat and feel like they're in charge. Feeling powerless?

So open up your eyes to the fact you don't know what's best (paternalism), that oppression of other viewpoints that don't match your testosterone level isn't an advancement, and equal contributions to outcomes across gender lines can actually improve the results. I'm just glad Madame Curie was allowed to go to school and contribute. Didn't she fundamentally rewrite the known laws of physics at the time? I'm not a science guy, but I believe her contribution was really, really big. I guess it would have been better if she had had some balls.

demaugustus

05-09-2009, 09:13 PM

In their natural environment, men are the leaders of society. In history, we are the kings, lawmakers, shamans, chiefs, judges, politicians, generals, lieutenants, captains, religious leaders, cult-leaders, business owners, scientists, God Himself. We've built every building, fought every war, explored every land, written every rule. What we consider a civilization is us.

You need to learn more about anthropological theory. You're assuming the agricultural basis for civilization is natural when, in fact, it is hardly "natural" at all. One could say that agriculture was the greatest catastrophe of the human race, let me explain why through the writings of the anthropologist Diamond:

Diamond wrote an article in which he believes that archaeology is demolishing the strongly held belief that human history has been a long steady progress. He says that recent discoveries suggest that the adoption of agriculture has been a step backwards, a total catastrophe from which we have never recovered. Agriculture has created gross social and sexual inequality and despotism – the curse of our existence.

He attacks the progressives who point out that agriculture provides a more efficient way to get more food for less work. They claim this allowed for advances in society to happen because people had more time. Diamond asks: “While the case for the progressive view seems overwhelming, it’s hard to prove. How do you show that the lives of people 10,000 years ago got better when they abandoned hunting and gathering for farming?" Diamond points out that hunters and gatherers only spend around 12 to 19 hours a week looking for food. They eat better than those who are farming.

How do you tell if the lives of hunter-gathers before the switch were better or worse?
- Paleopathology: The study of signs of disease in the remains of ancient peoples.

A skeleton reveals its owner’s sex, weight, and approximate age.
With many skeletons, one can construct mortality tables.
Changes in height over the years.

- Some skeletons have shown a drop in height from pre-agricultural hunter-gatherer societies to agricultural societies.

3 reasons agriculture was bad for health:

Varied diet to nearly all carbohydrate.
Dependence on limited number of crops, risking starvation.
Crowding together and spreading diseases.

Diamond points out that agriculture likely created divisions into social classes because of limited land. May have encouraged inequality of the sexes because women are forced to produce more young to work in agriculture, thus putting men in positions of authority. As population densities of hunter-gatherers slowly rose at the end of the ice ages, bands had to choose between feeding more mouths by taking the first steps to agriculture, or else finding ways to limit growth. Agriculturalists, in the end, could force out hunter-gatherers by numbers and populations today and throughout history show this trend.

Diamond’s article paints a picture of agriculture being a utopian paradise, however it does have some flaws. For example, Hadza and !Kung work more than estimated (processing time), but then again they are arid foragers and not even typical. Farmers may suffer more disease, but also have more kids, thus having a numerical advantage over foragers (overpowerment). Diamond ignores that there is no good evidence foragers were/are more peaceful than farmers. He also ignores the fact that the status of women in some foraging societies is hardly good.

Chayanov’s model shows a different story compared to what Diamond is explaining in regards to working time. It is said that hunter-gathers don’t work that much, but the Chayanov model shows that, at first, when there are only few children and they are being reared, agriculture is very laborious. But as more children are born and grow old enough to work there is less labor per individual, assuming they don’t expand.

We can throw around all kinds of theories about what is "natural", but perhaps the most "natural" state of humanity is that of the small populations of humans from which we evolve. If you believe in the 'Out of Africa Hypothesis', it is likely that most of our genetics seen today comes from a very small population of humans in South Africa as seen from mtDNA from the "mitochondrial Eve" (humans are, genetically speaking, clones of one another compared to other mammals). How exactly were these people living at the time of their establishment as Homo sapiens we may never know, but it's likely it resembled a hunter gather society more than an agriculturalist society. Most hunter-gather societies are extincted today and fossil remains of those populations are too scarce to create an accurate picture.

Henry

05-09-2009, 09:53 PM

Okay, women given the vote in 1910, one generation later, the great depression, caused by an over-reaction to an economic downturn. The greatest expansion of government in history, programs, gifts, feeling, nannying federal government. Next generations later, more nannying expansion of the federal government, a cultural mutiny during a war, a "sexual revolution", crime rates begin to triple and quadruple, divorce goes through the roof, along with out-of-wedlock births, drugs become commonplace, etc. Now
Playing culture doctor, checking the symptoms:
Politics, the current string of presidents is Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush2, Obama. Prominent politicians, Pelosi, Reid, Frank, Frist, Rove, Gingrich...ask me, it's an unimpressive batch. In terms of an informed electorate, the majority of laws and government action go unreported by the media.

Quality of politicians has been on the decline since the late 1960s. I would not attribute it to the expansion of women's roles in government.

Public attention, even knowledge about the structure of government has dropped. The majority of government spending goes to entitlement programs which didn't even exist in the past: Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, something like 30+ trillion promised, eventually becoming the entire budget, completely unsustainable.
Economy, gold standard dropped in the 70's, there's an Austrian strain of thought that the entire recent boom was an artificial one, that our real economy degraded while the artificial one took root, and we're heading into the worst Depression in history. Right now, the government is borrowing money to pay for itself (entitlement programs, mainly), we're ten trillion dollars in debt, increasing, and the Fed has been printing money to cover expenses. Industries which we invented have gone overseas, have to be imported, even labor for growing our own crops has to be imported.
Social: Families, form less quickly, break easier, less people in houses, spending less time together. Children are left to be raised by schools, friends, and televisions. Young animals, removed from parents causes negative psychological results. An aside, but monkeys not birthed vaginally (i.e., C-section) become rejected by their mothers, since there isn't proper hormonal bonding at birth. Our women are birthing while drugged, births are induced by artificial hormones, and C-sections are becoming common..
Churches, most of the Western world has gone atheist, even in America nominal theists don't abide by the guidelines of the faith, the preaching remaining is mostly banal and neutered. Any cultural benefit that a belief system had is mostly lost.
Deviancy, mental illness seems to be increasing, prescription drugs for mental illness has become an industry, a third of women are sexually assaulted. Crime, doubled and tripled from 1960-90, drug use became commonplace. Sex, the overall number of sexual partners has increased, pornography has gone mainstream, sex is fully removed from it's purpose and function.
Schools have become a punchline, especially public ones, mostly fail at their main goal (education), education has become politicized (predictably, since government pays for it and teachers are government employees), contrary social training has been implemented in a fair amount of colleges, which now cost $15-50k per year, and are 60% populated by female students.
Art, for its part, is subjective, but, ask me, we don't appear to be in a Renaissance.
Nations, a fair amount of nations have dissolved their military entirely or maintain one that's not able to defend itself. Even the concept of nations is subject to debate in most circles, and migrations of populations across borders aren't challenged. Population, most western nations are below replacement, and at a slower rate in terms of births per year (had at older ages), some places at less than half replacement, the definition of inevitable cultural destruction, if the trend is carried into through history.

Wow this is kind of a laundry list of things radical conservatives think are wrong with the world...and then you blame them all on women? You list many things that are ambiguous (the rise in government spending) things that many others consider positive trends (the rise in the number of average sexual partners) and others that don't belong within the realm of "good" or "bad" (the decline in church participation).

And in the one area I would claim to have specialized knowledge in, economics, you list going off the gold standard as a negative. Its not. You go on to mention that an obscure, ideologically-motivated group of economists thinks that we're on the precipice of depression. And then you go on to complain about 10t in debt but ignore the fact that this is a paltry 60% of GDP and financed at a 1-2% real rate of interest.

Look, the rhetoric many feminists use is intentionally annoying, and it doesn't serve any purpose other than to satisfy the needs of inflated egos. But responding to this puerile bullshit by suggesting that women are to blame for everything makes no sense. Use the ignore feature.

A civilization that fails will be replaced, conquered or colonized, likely by a society with a more successful structure, likely more similar than not to the structures of the past, likely how they became traditions in the first place. For example, there has never been an inherited tradition of slow and below-replacement population, and the answer why is obvious. In a way, nothing ever changes, but I'd prefer not be on the wrong side of inevitability.

So, like, who is the potentially conquering or colonizing entity? The one with 1/8th our GDP and a military composed mostly of technology from the 1960s and 1970s?

Mader

05-09-2009, 09:55 PM

wait, i just read each and every post, i want my time.

Male/Female is based on reproduction. Everything we create is somehow , tied to reproduction.
In most of history, pregnancy and birth were very dangerous.
Depending on your study, %50-75% of all children died before the age of 3.
It would make sense to do whatever it took to ensure your children survived.
Some women recover from pregnancy quickly, others less so. Pregnant women can be injured/damaged by participating in certain activities, , children do better when kept quiet, well fed, and secure. So it is logical that women take on work that keeps them near to home. Over 10's of thousand s of years, it is possible that woman developed true interest in the "domestic" skills by being totally immersed.
Guys want to procreate. Every display of dominance ties to this desire to procreate.
As more people entered the world, we had to develop social groups and skills to live together. But unlike lower animals, we didn't get stuck with the harem group. Mostly, one man, one woman, but within social groups. What to do when someone wants to change partners? Someone would fight. After awhile the social group probably comes up with an acceptable way to handle such problems.

I don't know why God made men tall and more muscular or more agressive, but society has used that desire to reproduce and that aggression to create larger, more organized societies You can't just let these men walk around town.
I don't know why God made women smaller, a babies' head the size of a grapefruit and the birth canal the size it is But it was common until recently, in most societies, for children to stay on mother's milk for upwards of 3 years. Can't fight too many battles when your breasts are really full. Can't nurse a baby with bad guys chasing /hurting you so it was in fathers's best interest to protect the mother and child.

Add years and the rules develop, mostly to keep babies born and living. When men are not physically protecting their children, the men can be pulled together to establish additional laws and customs designed to protect our tribe/clan/children. It is in everyones best interest to cooperate.

Well, babies need houses. Sexually active young women may not be able to reproduce or may produce someone else's baby, so virginity became valuable in young women.

All so far can be tied to male aggression, desire for control, protective behaviors.

Chivalery, honor, religion, all developed from the base of procreation.
Vanity in men comes and goes, sometimes it was a show of wealth, status, sometimes an effort to be superior, sometimes to attract women.

Manly hormones, some are always present, others kick in under stress
Your theory that men are becoming less manly, mmm, I am not looking for a metrosexual myself At this time, in the Western World, a successful man is not the large knight on his horse with sword. And most American/Western European men are not in threatening situations which require the firing of the big gun hormones.

Recent change. I believe there is no one source, but several:
-The end of WWII and the damage done to the human soul. Accepted norms had been shattered.
-The birth control pill. Suddenly, for the first time in history sex was freed from procreation. Both men and women were very happy with this.
-Vatican II. A very slight change in the definition of marriage caused a change in paradigm. Before VII, marriage was for procreation and raising of children, mutual love, and so on. VII changed that , saying that marriage was for the mutual love and care of spouses, procreation and raising of children. They flipped the definition around, at the time this was a big, huge, hairy deal.
-Feminism. It had potential, but has done as much harm as good. It was to give women freedom to follow their dreams, as long as your dreams included a career, voting correctly, putting the kids in daycare. Men stopped opening doors because they would get yelled at for merely showing good manners. Women said "we are equal", men said, "OK, you want to be equal, here ya' go" Early feminism also required a great deal of anger towards men as oppressors. By the 1980's women were ridiculed for staying on to raise their own children. They were lazy, uneducated, oppressed, wasting their educations and their lives. Well, what about women who CHOSE to be a stay-at-home Mom, caring for their own children

So, since the 1960's we have separated sex from procreation, sex from love, sex from a binding agreement. No fault divorce also carries a heavy responsibility for fatherless homes and children living in poverty. For some reason I do not understand, society says it is OK for Dad to bail on his children. Kids grow up without fathers, do not learn what a father teaches so passes down incomplete information. The family is no longer the center of focus.

Finally, I believe that separating sex and procreation has been the largest change humans have dealt with since we left the caves. Noone knows what to do. Nooone knows how this is to work, but the focus is no longer on procreation. Sex, fun, freedom, autonomy, overpopulation theories, but not procreation. Support of procreation requires a different set of society rules.

Latro

05-09-2009, 10:44 PM

Okay, women given the vote in 1910
Wait, what?
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...

Gabrielle

05-10-2009, 08:06 AM

I didn't bother reading through the entire discussion but I have to disagree with the topic starter on one thing that he had said.

"We are not equal".

For some reason I can't agree with this. I am not a feminist (no way), and my boyfriend has a rather Victorian view on sexuality. No doubt that if I get married to him or any other, I would not be working, but rather staying at home and raising children. I like clothes, shoes, I'm a diet freak.

But not equal? I think not.

Different? Yes. Weaker in some points? Of course, but then so are men. While we are better at computation men are better at spacial reasoning. Does that make one more superior than the other? Of course not. It just makes us different.

As for the "men turning girly" thing - urbanisation is partly at fault, but I think it's all very relative. Most of my friends are more masculine looking than I am (I can, in no way, be mistaken as a male, even if I tried to look like one), and I tend to like the feminine types, because they look masculine to me in comparison. They have a little more masculinity in their appearance level, and hence go for a little more masculine types. I'd say it's all relative.

Lucid

05-10-2009, 08:42 AM

Okay, women given the vote in 1910, one generation later, the great depression, caused by an over-reaction to an economic downturn. The greatest expansion of government in history, programs, gifts, feeling, nannying federal government.

You should learn more about American History. The Great Depression of the 30s was neither the worst, nor the first such depression in American History. Nor was the governmental expansion the first or the largest in history either. These things happened plenty when it was just men who could vote.

Also, as someone else pointed out, women got the vote in 1920, not 1910. If I recall correctly, the 1920s were a time of economic boom.

I guess if you were more educated about these and other subjects you wouldn't hold the beliefs about women that you do. Unfortunately, you're cherry picking and making false claims of causation to support an irrational belief you already hold.

Thus, arguing with the likes of BostonIan is an exercise in futility and I wonder why so many of you (and me too, in light of this post) choose to do so. His belief is irrational and driven by prejudice and emotional reaction. Logical arguments, science, historical fact, etc. will not sway him from his opinions because he has an emotional investment in the idea that men>women. His identity and ego are dependent on this idea and he would sooner twist facts and reality to support this idea than give it up in the face of rationality. Much like people who are convinced that aliens have abducted them and probed their naughty bits.

There are many people on this forum, both male and female, who prefer more traditional gender roles, and many who prefer more modern gender roles. There's nothing wrong with either and both preferences are grounded in just that idea: personal preference. However, the position that BostonIan is advancing is not only ignorant but also irrational.

Let us leave these irrational ramblings to those who need them for self-worth and self validation. Their idea of civilization has been usurped and taken over by a stronger and more logical civilization - one that bases its theories more soundly in science and critical thinking and rationality than in ignorance, religion and bigotry. Theirs is a weak and dying ideology.

A civilization that fails will be replaced, conquered or colonized, likely by a society with a more successful structure.

As evidenced by the fact that your civilization has been replaced with the modern civilization.

nacht

05-10-2009, 08:56 AM

What is the problem? Honestly I don't get your point. Feminism has made also a disservice to men. Not sure if the crazy man could be a good example, probably not. But in general, it hurts men, as much as it hurts women.

You are arguing against feminism by using an example from someone who committed a mass murder in the name of... combatting feminism.

My point is not that women cannot defend themselves. We can, of course. In fact one of the killed women talked to the guy and tried to reason with him.

You do realize nine individuals--male or female--are more than capable of taking down a single individual with a gun, right?

My point is that it is expected that fifty adult men can take down one man, even with a gun instead of run away scared.

I repeat.

You do realize nine individuals--male or female--are more than capable of taking down a single individual with a gun, right?

blatant

05-10-2009, 10:09 AM

Just a quick 2 cents :), and not meant to really offend anyone personally. In fact, if you are offended, then you're just too sensitive. Such is weakness:

Why the hell should men become leaders or have more rights? In my entire life, men have done nothing but screwed me over and have never made me happy or supported me. (note: I was raised with a single mother but knew my dad throughout my life)

I have never had a good male role model or figure in my life. I don't think that I'll ever find him.

I'm sorry. I don't buy that you guys should have a better position in society merely for being men. You guys SUCK. :( I wouldn't trust you guys to take care of my goldfish. Let alone the world.

nacht

05-10-2009, 10:19 AM

Anyway. I am saying that in general, without thinking of the details, men are better equipped to fight than a woman. I am 5'1''. My attacker was about 6'.

Mate, I am 6'2", train in a korean self defense martial art, trained in a Japanese knife fighting art, carry a blade (as a tool, but still), and have nearly six years of practice with how to read a body in a fight. I have trained--if slightly rusty--reflexes.

If someone 6'0" and clearly on drugs (especially certain drugs, such as Angel Dust) just wants my necklace, I give it to them and hope for a head start. That's because of my self defense training, not in spite of it. This goes double if they are armed.

Men have testosterone which helps with being combative and stronger. I am much weaker than almost all men. Usually women also wear high hells and clothes that are not as comfortable as men's.

All this taken into account, I think that men are better equipped to defend themselves.

Women have lower centers of gravity and a high degree of coordination. If they have any martial training, they tend to get better at it than the men because they can't substitute muscle and they have larger men to train against so they aren't easily intimidated and--knowing their limits--go for kill strikes much faster than men do.

After training, I would much rather fight a male than a female, because with even an ounce of training that female would kill me. Without training, she may still fight me without reservations and I am almost guaranteed to walk away injured.

Strength and testosterone are only of limited use.

TheLastMohican

05-10-2009, 10:19 AM

You guys SUCK.

If you wouldn't object to broadening that to "everyone sucks," then fair enough. But if you mean to declare your own sex superior, then you're just being sexist.

blatant

05-10-2009, 10:24 AM

If you wouldn't object to broadening that to "everyone sucks," then fair enough. But if you mean to declare your own sex superior, then you're just being sexist.

I wouldn't say that females are superior. But it is a fact that in my life, to the 1st degree of relationships at least, men have done very little to support me or help me.

I was raised by a mother, and all of my closest friends and mentors are all female.

Men have never really made a direct (positive) influence in my life, or at least not a major one. It also didn't really help that I grew up to be rather physically attractive so I got to see their superficial and predatory side.

Thus, according to my subjective reality, I wouldn't entrust even a goldfish to a man. Sorry? I mean, I don't know what to say. I don't feel any love or trust or joy when I think of any man in my life :)

I mean, I suppose you can argue that I'm a special case and that I'm really not all that normal. I've had ....friends who loved men too much. What happened to them? Cheated on. Raped. Betrayed. Screwed over.

Certainly, females can screw you over a lot. I've had my fair share of toxic females in my life. But the ones who loved and raised and supported me have all been female.

And...this may sound absolutely horrible, but if all the men that I associated with on a personal level (not professional) all stopped talking to me.... I don't think that I would be sad or too affected.

Lucid

05-10-2009, 10:24 AM

If you wouldn't object to broadening that to "everyone sucks," then fair enough. But if you mean to declare your own sex superior, then you're just being sexist.

Agreed, that kind of statement is really no different from the one BostonIan is making, just from the other side. There's enough of both male and female suckage to go around.

men have done very little to support me or help me.

Why is it the job of men or any particular man to support you or help you?
Also, while I'm sure your personal experiences are the reason for your opinions, BostonIans' are the reasons for his. Just because men you have known have failed you in this regard doesn't mean that all of them, or even a majority of them, are irresponsible or of less worth than women.

Your assertion is as illogical and irrational as BostonIan's. Please re-evaluate your position.

TheLastMohican

05-10-2009, 10:30 AM

And...this may sound absolutely horrible, but if all the men that I associated with on a personal level (not professional) all stopped talking to me.... I don't think that I would be sad or too affected.
That's fine; it's just important that you realize that you are a special case. The bias that arose from your life experiences will not prove accurate for the general population. The men currently around you might be less competent than the women, but you cannot rely on that trend to hold up if you move to a different state.

blatant

05-10-2009, 10:46 AM

That's fine; it's just important that you realize that you are a special case. The bias that arose from your life experiences will not prove accurate for the general population. The men currently around you might be less competent than the women, but you cannot rely on that trend to hold up if you move to a different state.

Either that or I'm more honest and less afraid to declare what I see. It's a huge taboo to say what I'm declaring and I would never admit it in real life. I doubt that it's an exception. It's just that others in my situation go around and enter into stupid relationships b/c they've never been loved by a man...whereas I've just decided to go "fuck you" and happily live my life without them.

I think mine's the smarter idea, but who knows??

TheLastMohican

05-10-2009, 10:49 AM

nacht

05-10-2009, 10:50 AM

Either that or I'm more honest and less afraid to declare what I see. It's a huge taboo to say what I'm declaring and I would never admit it in real life. I doubt that it's an exception. It's just that others in my situation go around and enter into stupid relationships b/c they've never been loved by a man...whereas I've just decided to go "fuck you" and happily live my life without them.

I think mine's the smarter idea, but who knows??

I know.

Past trauma is not a predictor of future successes unless you make it such. Many people do make it such, but that isn't a universal truth and that's usually because they select for it (this doesn't make it their fault, but pattern recognition is necessary).

I have dated a borderline personality, do you think I should therefore think of everyone else as borderline and say "screw you" to the world, or do you think I should examine what went wrong and understand my parts of it?

BostonIan

05-10-2009, 11:02 AM

...

A lot of typing going on here, so I can't go point by point. First, I appreciate the common ground. Getting to the disagreement, the paternalism isn't a blind spot, I'm fully aware of it. Women being educated I consider more minor, not the "Jenga block" I care to pull one way or another. Women training for careers and becoming "accomplished" has always existed, in some respect, at least according to Mr. Darcy...The inherent violence of masculinity is still with us, there are still wars, rape, and pillage. The violence is to be channeled, not wished away. Observing men, when they're not part of the national or religious gang, they form into street gangs, more likely when there's no father present. Elephants act the same way...The social balance doesn't come through equalness, or equal participation in equal actions, it comes through complementary roles. It's been mentioned that women exert influence in raising all people...Marriage is still good, women give us the lurve hormone, which settles us down and improves our health. Marriage and baby-rearing also decreases testosterone, which I guess makes us less safer and less dumb...I don't remember what nice things I said about my dad, but it definitely was his testosterone levels that I appreciated, the completely safe feeling of growing up having a very dangerous, powerful man defending the family, living by (certain) principles, and leading the house with natural authority. My dad is dreamy, and knowing him informs my opinions...If I seem like I'm advocating only that men "feel" empowered, then, that's a problem. Actually, I'm advocating that men fulfill their natural potential, and, by doing so, other things will fall into place, and what I'm saying would become something obvious, an "oh, of course." Right now, frames of references, the topic brain-morphs into {female grad student} submitting to {pot-smoking boyfriend}...Curie is one of the outliers I mentioned, exceptions that proves exceptions exist.

You need to learn more about anthropological theory. You're assuming the agricultural basis for civilization is natural when, in fact, it is hardly "natural" at all. One could say that agriculture was the greatest catastrophe of the human race, let me explain why through the writings of the anthropologist Diamond:

Interesting, cool idea.

In Diamond's (or your?) thesis, the words "progress", "inequality", "despotism", "curse of our existence" are touch-words, meant to evoke a response. Our personal existence doesn't even exist to be theorized about or cursed without agriculture or the changes that came with it. In the thousands of years, agricultural circumstances had an effect on breeding and gene selection, for example, developing extra enzymes for digesting grain and dairy, immunities to diseases. I've dabbled reading a site called neoteny.org (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.) which makes the case repeatedly that inherited hormone levels affect social structures, and, in turn, those social structures affect inheritance.

Using monkeys as an example: gorillas and chimps are male-dominated, while bonobos (baboons too?) are the opposite. I assume they all have common ancestors with different structures, but they are what they have become. Silverbacks are despotic, chimps beat their wives (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.), orangutans are notorious rapists. Most (all?) animals guard, mark, and fight over territories, we just have better tools.

The explanation for the health decline is diet. Through the years, I dev'd a sixth sense for food effects, went piece by piece putting together my own diet, and it turned mainly into light raw proteins, organ meats, fats, probably seafood (if it was cleaner) or insects (if they were less like insects), along with a fair amount of seeds, greens, seaweeds, fruits. Grains never felt like food, it has the same non-feeling in the stomach as tree cambium or (I assume) tire rubber. Thing is, when I try to survive without grains, my brain eventually shuts down, from lack of energy. I've done foraging, and, while it can be easy sometimes, it tends not to be calorie dense food. 2,000 calories is 21 apples/32 eggs/143 mussels, as opposed to three to five cups of dry gain. Eating the former diet will get you more nutrition (health) with the calories, eating the latter will get you the calories more efficiently.

We almost definitely couldn't sustain a population on non-grain crops. Wet food is heavier, more bulk per calorie. In foraging, you (all) have to be near (all) food. Agriculture and grains allow more people to be concentrated away from their food, and allows cooperation where, while some people are gathering the food, others are building tools and exchanging them for food. It's hard to imagine what most people call "progress" - {science, philosophy, technology} without grain-based agriculture.

We still live in an agricultural-based society, so the structures and adaptations to it are still valid, and likely still in our blood. In my own blood, male authority holds a sort of brain magic to it. Like, I remember seeing my head football coach for the first time in high school, he seemed like the pope. My own father, peers who had reputations as fighters or athletes, accomplished elders, there's a spell in it like no woman ever had. No question in my mind, I'm a gorilla, not a bonobo, so to speak.

...

The 1960+ decline, if something changes, it's because something happens to change it, otherwise we're in miracle territory. So, what happened to change the quality of politicians? For that matter, what happened to change the quality of the society? It wouldn't be "blaming women" any more than it'd be blaming television, birth control, or urbanization. The overall subject is enmeshed in the trends, causing some, caused by others...As for whether the things I mentioned are good or bad, nothing's good or bad except for some end. I narrowed the end to the mechanical function of a society, the "prerequisites" for a civilization...The colonizing entity is any better breeder. Below replacement sects will age and shrink, make less stuff, be less able to use it, have less soldiers. I've been meaning to make a model to see how quickly the rates work. The conquering entity is any society that has the numbers plus the money, plus the advantage. It doesn't have to be a current threat, though China is my boogieman of the moment. In the civilization game, every generation is only one move, and a place like France was a world power in our grandfathers' times. Things change.

As for the economics, I also tell doctors they're wrong about health - part of my charm. So, my wisdom of economics, there is no way to hyperinflate a currency, or "destroy the existing basis of society" without using paper currency. An economy based on a paper currency is inherently managed; money created by an institution, cosey with the government power group, lent out at interest to and from banking groups, eventually received by bank-selected groups. What system could be more corruptible, more tenuous? Picture two people negotiating a price for a good or a service, $4,000 exchanged, $400 profit on one side. A thousand miles away, an institution creates $1,000,000,000,000 out of the air, not even for the cost of paper. The idea of money from nothing raises a red flag, and while I'm sure you can do some wizardry with printing power, what else could you do? What are you likely to do, over the years?...The 10t dollars in debt, 60% of GDP being "paltry", Austrian versus other schools, I'll defer to the coming years. Austrian gains credibility with me, for the moment, for being righter in predicting the current slide, and less "head-hurt" in the reading of their material.

Wait, what? [about suffrage year]
Good catch. 1920, suffrage started in 1920.

blatant

05-10-2009, 11:10 AM

I know.

Past trauma is not a predictor of future successes unless you make it such. Many people do make it such, but that isn't a universal truth and that's usually because they select for it (this doesn't make it their fault, but pattern recognition is necessary).

I have dated a borderline personality, do you think I should therefore think of everyone else as borderline and say "screw you" to the world, or do you think I should examine what went wrong and understand my parts of it?

Ah, but the incidents that largely came to me weren't my choice.

1) abusive father

2) sexually molested as a child by a male friend of my family's.

Those two things weren't my fault and I can't look back on them and determine what 'went wrong"

And all I see is the men in *my* life fucking up over and over again. I have never felt genuinely love or affection or caring from them. And in return now I keep them at arms length.

EDIT:

No, I wouldn't be offended by Bostianian if he said the same things that I did, only with the genders reversed.

I have no interest in repressing men.

As long as you leave me alone and leave my loved ones unharmed, then you can do what you wish and act however you want. I just won't care for you or show you any affection and consideration or trust. Like I said, I wouldn't even entrust a goldfish to any guy.

Jinxu

05-10-2009, 11:17 AM

Good catch. 1920, suffrage started in 1920.

I can't believe I'm using this quote for the first time:

"Correlation is not causation"
(You seem to be doing a lot of the opposite)

The rise in feminism may have coincided with the Great Depression, but it does not mean it is the cause of it. I know the cause, obviously you don't. If you want to know more, just ask...; )

firebee

05-10-2009, 11:28 AM

All this taken into account, I think that men are better equipped to defend themselves.

Then try this: Let's say that you're attacked on the bus with a woman present along with the men. She does the exact same thing as they do minus the superfluous kicking of the guy once he's subdued. She wouldn't get blame, would she, for not coming to your aid? However, this particular woman, let us say, is six inches taller than you, lifts weights, has teaching responsibilities in the martlal art she's been practicing for years, and is wearing steel-toed boots. She is likely more capable of assisting you than at least some of the men, yet she escapes criticism because she looks less capable than a former defensive lineman with bad joints and a heart condition. Is it not deserving of harsher judgement, that she not only throws you to the wolves but takes advantage of her gender to avoid criticism for it?

As for being stupid defending yourself against a crazy person: The guy has a gun. You don't really know if he will kill you. What would you rather do? Attack him in group and have a chance of suriviving by being actively protective, or not attack him and relying on his not being crazy enough to kill everyone in the room?

The nine women who were trapped in the room would have indeed been better served by rushing the guy. They likely would have killed him, although at least one of them would likely have been injured or killed in the process. However, it's likely that nobody involved were taught what to do -- and many of them, especially the women, were likely taught that they were 100% incapable of repelling an armed attacker.

I once read an essay by a female martial artist about teaching inexperienced students. She noted that she was often injured by new female students who showed no caution whatsoever about hurting her -- they would punch recklessly at her, kick her in the groin, et cetera. They seemed to be entirely uncomprehending of the idea that they could break someone's nose by punching them in it -- their fists were made of female, not of flesh and bone.

Women are taught that they're incapable of self-defense -- and "feminism" takes the blame for the result. So convenient!

dalidaisy

05-10-2009, 11:47 AM

Women are taught that they're incapable of self-defense -- and "feminism" takes the blame for the result. So convenient!

When I was in the Army & they were teaching us hand-to-hand combat, we (me & the 30 other females in my platoon) were astonished at our natural abilities when asked to fight. This is before we were ever trained. They first sent us out in a ring & told us to put a guy in padding & a protective mask down. Our strength & our ability to injure our opponent & take him out so quickly was amazing. Then, they trained us how to be more effective with our moves. I can now kill you, any of you, with my bare hands (not that I've ever killed anyone, I just know how & no, I don't fight "fair"). It's actually not as hard as you think.

I think that the female gender has taken a back seat & relied on the male gender for far too long. We have passed on bad information that we are somehow inferior to them, through many generations. Just because we are smaller (usually), it does not make us any less able to do anything that they can do. It's been proven time & again. I've seen a 5' woman take down a man who was easily 6'2/240lbs. It takes brains as much as it takes brawn. This is just an example of the physical aspect. Women have proved themselves mentally as well.

Whether you like it or not, the sterotypes are crumbling. It's best to accept it. I'm no feminist & I actually like men. I just don't need a man to support me, make me happy, or anything of the like. I am a very independent woman & function completely fine without any help from the male gender.

I have to say, in regards to the OP, that though I don't agree with most of his arguments, I much prefer a male boss to a female one. I am more likely to take the submissive role in an environment with a (capable) male leader & would likely challenge any dominate female. I think that if the roles were reversed, there would be a similar outcome as we have seen with dominant males. I mean, if there was predominance of female leaders in the world, there would still be wars. I don't think we would all get together for tea & discuss peace where everyone was walking away with warm-fuzzies.

nacht

05-10-2009, 11:55 AM

Ah, but the incidents that largely came to me weren't my choice.

1) abusive father

2) sexually molested as a child by a male friend of my family's.

Those two things weren't my fault and I can't look back on them and determine what 'went wrong"

I never said "fault" except to disclaim things from being people's fault. It wasn't my "fault" I dated a borderline personality, it would be a mistake to say that all women are borderline because I dated one, and it would be a mistake to say that all men have dated at least one borderline personality and thus have a shared experience in this area.

Again, past trauma is not an universal indicator.

And all I see is the men in *my* life fucking up over and over again. I have never felt genuinely love or affection or caring from them. And in return now I keep them at arms length.

...and you therefore believe this extends to all men why?

Past trauma is not a universal indicator.

blatant

05-10-2009, 12:04 PM

I never said "fault" except to disclaim things from being people's fault. It wasn't my "fault" I dated a borderline personality, it would be a mistake to say that all women are borderline because I dated one, and it would be a mistake to say that all men have dated at least one borderline personality and thus have a shared experience in this area.

Again, past trauma is not an universal indicator.

...and you therefore believe this extends to all men why?

Past trauma is not a universal indicator.

Well, not your fault, but you could have decided NOT to date them. I couldn't decide any of those 2 things for myself. Those came to ME.

And for the second quote: then what's experience?

SpaceCadet

05-10-2009, 12:30 PM

Switch the lines of thought, place a new man in an amazon society that has never seen a man. He invents new tech, develops new ideas, over-takes women in wrestling matches, shows the natural distance of detachment, speaks in a sexy deep voice. Two generations, when his hoards of children are grown, it's a patriarchy. We are that awesome.

Or maybe the women overtake him on sight, tie him up, and then the amazon queen holds a ceremony in which she cuts off his nads and eats them in order to absorb his mojo. Who knows?

As long as outright fantasy is apparently considered a legitimate way to somehow provide evidence in this thread, from now on whenever I have a point to make I'm just going to post YouTube clips of various Xena:Warrior Princess episode scenarios.

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I hereby declare this the Fictional Amazon Society debate thread!

Tocsin

05-10-2009, 12:35 PM

It is sad indeed that I have to agree that men are less manly, especially in first world. I will put an example of this. In 1989, a spree killer got into a ingeneering class in the Politechnique of Quebec. He had a gun and ordered all the men out. It was about 30 men if I am not wrong and about 15 women. All the men complied and didn't even dream of trying to stop this guy.

The guy killed the women while the men ran scared.

Is this what the society is making of men? People who are no able to react as a man is supposed to, they became submissive and indifferent?

Funny enough, ever since, there are manifestations here in Montreal against machismo. The manifestation, in my opinion, should be against feminism.

It may be late in the day to react to the second post on this thread, but I finally got curious enough about the incident cited as the impetus for this condemnation of feminisim to investigate it a little.

The following quotes can be found on the following pages:

École Polytechnique massacre - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.Ã‰cole_Polytechnique_Massacre)

Marc Lépine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.Ã©pine)

The École Polytechnique Massacre, also known as the Montreal Massacre, occurred on December 6, 1989 at the École Polytechnique in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Twenty-five year-old Marc Lépine, armed with a legally obtained semi-automatic rifle and a hunting knife, shot twenty-eight people, killing fourteen and injuring the other fourteen before killing himself. He began his attack by entering a classroom at the university, where he separated the male and female students. After claiming that he was "fighting feminism", he shot all nine women in the room, killing six. He then moved through corridors, the cafeteria, and another classroom, specifically targeting women to shoot. He killed fourteen women and injured four men and ten women in just under twenty minutes before turning the gun on himself.

Lépine was born Gamil Rodrigue Gharbi, the son of Algerian immigrant Rachid Liass Gharbi and Monique Lépine, in Montreal and was baptized a Roman Catholic as an infant...

Gamil's father had contempt for women and believed that they were only intended to serve men. He was verbally and physically abusive to his wife and children, once striking his son so hard on the face that the marks were visible a week later. He discouraged tenderness between mother and child, as he considered it spoiling. When Gamil was seven, his parents separated and were subsequently divorced in 1976. He lived with his mother and younger sister Nadia, seeing little of their father of whom they were afraid. Rachid Gharbi subsequently ceased contact with his children and moved abroad.

Gamil attended junior high and high school where he was described as a quiet student who obtained middle to above average marks. He developed a close friendship with another boy, but did not fit in with other students. Gamil spent some summers as a youth learning to hunt with his uncles, and also enjoyed designing and building electronic gadgets. He took considerable responsibility at home, including doing cleaning and repairs while his mother worked. During this time he began to insist on being called Marc Lépine, giving his hatred of his father as the reason for wishing to take his mother's name.

He applied to join the Canadian Forces in late 1981 at the age of 17, but was rejected during the interview process. He reported in his suicide letter that it was because he was "anti-social". An official statement from the military after the massacre stated that he had been "interviewed, assessed and determined to be unsuitable".

Marc Lépine was described as a shy and uncommunicative person who showed little emotion. He was very organized and precise, and had problems accepting authority which caused some difficulties at school and work. He did not drink or take drugs. Lépine was ill at ease around women, and had no known girlfriends. He tended to boss women around and show off his knowledge in front of them. He spoke out to others about his dislike of feminists, career women and women in traditionally male occupations, such as the police force.

****

Sometime after 4 p.m. on December 6, 1989, Marc Lépine arrived at the building housing the École Polytechnique, an engineering school affiliated with the Université de Montréal, armed with a semi-automatic rifle and a hunting knife. He had purchased the Sturm, Ruger brand rifle, Mini-14 model, on November 21, 1989 in a Montreal hunting store, telling the clerk that he was going to use it to hunt small game. Lépine was familiar with the layout of the building since he had been in and around the École Polytechnique at least seven times in the weeks leading up to the event.

Exterior of École Polytechnique de MontréalLépine sat for a time in the office of the registrar on the second floor. He was seen rummaging through a plastic bag and did not speak to anyone, even when a staff member asked if she could help him. He left the office and was subsequently seen in other parts of the building before entering a second floor mechanical engineering class of about sixty students at about 5:10 p.m. After approaching the student giving a presentation, he asked everyone to stop everything and ordered the women and men to opposite sides of the classroom. No one moved at first, believing it to be a joke until he fired a shot into the ceiling.

Lépine then separated the nine women from the approximately fifty men and ordered the men to leave. Speaking in French, he asked the remaining women whether they knew why they were there, and when one student replied "no," he answered: "I am fighting feminism". One of the students, Nathalie Provost, said, "Look, we are just women studying engineering, not necessarily feminists ready to march on the streets to shout we are against men, just students intent on leading a normal life." Lépine responded that "You're women, you're going to be engineers. You're all a bunch of feminists. I hate feminists." He then opened fire on the students from left to right, killing six, and wounding three others, including Provost. Before leaving the room, he wrote the word shit twice on a student project.

Lépine continued into the second floor corridor and wounded three students before entering another room where he twice attempted to shoot a female student. His weapon failed to fire so he entered the emergency staircase where he was seen reloading his gun. He returned to the room he had just left, but the students had locked the door; Lépine failed to unlock it with three shots fired into the door. Moving along the corridor he shot at others, wounding one, before moving towards the financial services office where he shot and killed a woman through the window of the door she had just locked.

The third floor classroom in the École Polytechnique in which the attack ended. He next went down to the first floor cafeteria, in which about a hundred people were gathered. The crowd scattered after he shot a woman standing near the kitchens and wounded another student. Entering an unlocked storage area at the end of the cafeteria, Lépine shot and killed two more women hiding there. He told a male and female student to come out from under a table; they complied and were not shot.

Lépine then walked up an escalator to the third floor where he shot and wounded one female and two male students in the corridor. He entered another classroom and told the three students giving a presentation to "get out," shooting and wounding Maryse Leclair, who was standing on the low platform at the front of the classroom. He fired on students in the front row and then killed two women who were trying to escape the room, while other students dove under their desks. Lépine moved towards some of the female students, wounding three of them and killing another. He changed the magazine in his weapon and moved to the front of the class, shooting in all directions. At this point, the wounded Leclair asked for help and, after unsheathing his hunting knife, Lépine stabbed her three times, killing her. He took off his cap, wrapped his coat around his rifle, exclaimed, "Oh shit," and then committed suicide by shooting himself in the head, twenty minutes after having begun his attack. About sixty bullets remained in the boxes he carried with him. He had killed fourteen women in total (twelve engineering students, one nursing student and one employee of the university) and injured fourteen other people, including four men.

Marc Lépine's suicide letter:

Forgive the mistakes, I had 15 minutes to write this. See also Annex.

Would you note that if I commit suicide today 89-12-06 it is not for economic reasons (for I have waited until I exhausted all my financial means, even refusing jobs) but for political reasons. Because I have decided to send the feminists, who have always ruined my life, to their Maker. For seven years life has brought me no joy and being totally blasé, I have decided to put an end to those viragos.

I tried in my youth to enter the Forces as an officer cadet, which would have allowed me possibly to get into the arsenal and precede Lortie in a raid. They refused me because antisocial (sic). I therefore had to wait until this day to execute my plans. In between, I continued my studies in a haphazard way for they never really interested me, knowing in advance my fate. Which did not prevent me from obtaining very good marks despite my theory of not handing in work and the lack of studying before exams.

Even if the Mad Killer epithet will be attributed to me by the media, I consider myself a rational erudite that only the arrival of the Grim Reaper has forced to take extreme acts. For why persevere to exist if it is only to please the government. Being rather backward-looking by nature (except for science), the feminists have always enraged me. They want to keep the advantages of women (e.g. cheaper insurance, extended maternity leave preceded by a preventative leave, etc.) while seizing for themselves those of men.

Thus it is an obvious truth that if the Olympic Games removed the Men-Women distinction, there would be Women only in the graceful events. So the feminists are not fighting to remove that barrier. They are so opportunistic they neglect to profit from the knowledge accumulated by men through the ages. They always try to misrepresent them every time they can. Thus, the other day, I heard they were honoring the Canadian men and women who fought at the frontline during the world wars. How can you explain then that women were not authorized to go to the frontline??? Will we hear of Caesar's female legions and female galley slaves who of course took up 50% of the ranks of history, though they never existed. A real Casus Belli.

Sorry for this too brief letter.

Marc Lépine

The letter is followed by the list of nineteen names, with a note at the bottom:

"Nearly died today. The lack of time (because I started too late) has allowed these radical feminists to survive.
Alea Jacta Est."

This violent, disturbed fool; the abused child of an abusive and mysogynist father; wound up becoming the grostesque xerox copy of his father by adopting the same contempt and inability to relate to women that his father had.

Looking through several of his comments about feminism and his attitude towards women, it's not hard to see how well they would fit in with the ethos of chauvinsim expressed here.

If you want a good example of a chauvinist, Marc Lépine certainly seems to fit the bill.

dalidaisy

05-10-2009, 12:36 PM

Or maybe the women overtake him on sight, tie him up, and then the amazon queen holds a ceremony in which she cuts off his nads and eats them in order to absorb his mojo.

Would it not be better to just cut out his tongue & keep him for reproductive purposes?

nacht

05-10-2009, 12:38 PM

Well, not your fault, but you could have decided NOT to date them. I couldn't decide any of those 2 things for myself. Those came to ME.

I didn't know she was a borderline personal until after I started dating her (people don't wear a tag that says "I have BPD"). It was only after having my entire basis for reality undermined, my self confidence destroyed, and being quite thoroughly manipulated that I realized what was going on because of friends in my life.

Now, it is true that I had more power to leave that circumstance once I knew what was going on, but so does anyone over the age of 18 who is in an abusive relationship.

And for the second quote: then what's experience?

Not something that generalizes into universal indicators.

Having dated a borderline personality, I know what to look for in future relationships and can better handle people in general, because it forced me to do a lot of self-work to understand what had happened and what was going on. I have subsequently met other borderline personalities, and I now better understand them and know how to handle myself around them. It also has helped tremendously in how I deal with other humans and how I see and respond to people when they are having their own issues and lash out as a result.

That is the value of the experience.

It would be a mistake to say "every woman is borderline," it would be a mistake to say "every male has dated a borderline at some point," it would be an even bigger mistake to say that "every male has both dated a borderline and has taken away the same lessons I did."

Yes, you are a survivor of some fairly awful things, and no one is taking that away from you. That doesn't mean, however, that all women have had your experiences, that those who have had your experiences have walked away with the same lessons, or that your observations of "men" (as you see them) are either universal or even correct.

SpaceCadet

05-10-2009, 02:00 PM

Would it not be better to just cut out his tongue & keep him for reproductive purposes?

Sure, why not? Anything goes in fantasy amazon land!

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AieeAieeAieeAieeAiee!!!

Synamon

05-10-2009, 02:06 PM

It may be late in the day to react to the second post on this thread, but I finally got curious enough about the incident cited as the impetus for this condemnation of feminisim to investigate it a little.

<snip>

This violent, disturbed fool; the abused child of an abusive and mysogynist father; wound up becoming the grostesque xerox copy of his father by adopting the same contempt and inability to relate to women that his father had.

Looking through several of his comments about feminism and his attitude towards women, it's not hard to see how well they would fit in with the ethos of chauvinsim expressed here.

If you want a good example of a chauvinist, Marc Lépine certainly seems to fit the bill.
If anyone is interested in reading more on this incident and a discussion about it they can check out this December 6th Memorial (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.) thread.

Darynthe using this tragedy as an example of the failings of feminism turned my stomach and I could not respond to her post. Thank you for taking the time to do that, nacht and Toscin.

demaugustus

05-10-2009, 02:31 PM

Interesting, cool idea.

In Diamond's (or your?) thesis, the words "progress", "inequality", "despotism", "curse of our existence" are touch-words, meant to evoke a response. Our personal existence doesn't even exist to be theorized about or cursed without agriculture or the changes that came with it. In the thousands of years, agricultural circumstances had an effect on breeding and gene selection, for example, developing extra enzymes for digesting grain and dairy, immunities to diseases. I've dabbled reading a site called neoteny.org (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.) which makes the case repeatedly that inherited hormone levels affect social structures, and, in turn, those social structures affect inheritance.

The species of Homo sapiens is estimated to have existed for 200,000 years, compared to the recent application of agriculture in human history in the last 10,000 years, which has originated in only a few select centers throughout the world. You seem to be taking on the neo-evolutionism stance that humans are largely the way they are through genetic mutation, drift, selection, and so on. If so, you should take into account that the time of biological evolution in humans occurred roughly 190,000 years longer than the 10,000 years of hit and miss agriculture. Meaning, based on your logic, humans would still posses traits similar to that of hunter-gatherer societies by which archeology knows relatively little about.

Using monkeys as an example: gorillas and chimps are male-dominated, while bonobos (baboons too?) are the opposite. I assume they all have common ancestors with different structures, but they are what they have become. Silverbacks are despotic, chimps beat their wives (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.), orangutans are notorious rapists. Most (all?) animals guard, mark, and fight over territories, we just have better tools.

The difference between Homo sapiens and the other varieties of apes mentioned above is that humans possess a much higher degree of cultural breadth. If cultural breadth can be related to cranial size, in which case most anthropologists make this correlation, a human skull of about 1400cc is significantly larger than any of the ape species you listed above by about 900cc, with the gorilla, chimp, bonobos, and orangutans all being about 500cc. Modern day archeologists are dropping the neo-evolutionary outlook and are now applying evolutionary theory that basically concerns the transmission of traits through time and space via culture, rather then through biology, because the cultural envelope of humans is significantly larger. Cultural mechanisms are distributed through human populations in a matter of months to a few hundred years, when biological traits take thousands to millions of years. The species of apes you listed above are also poor examples to draw upon because they branch away from human evolution around the time of Australopithecus, not taking into account the various forms of extinct social structures prevalent in extinct humanoids by which no societies remain (Homo neanderthalis, Homo erectus, & Homo hablis).

The explanation for the health decline is diet. Through the years, I dev'd a sixth sense for food effects, went piece by piece putting together my own diet, and it turned mainly into light raw proteins, organ meats, fats, probably seafood (if it was cleaner) or insects (if they were less like insects), along with a fair amount of seeds, greens, seaweeds, fruits. Grains never felt like food, it has the same non-feeling in the stomach as tree cambium or (I assume) tire rubber. Thing is, when I try to survive without grains, my brain eventually shuts down, from lack of energy. I've done foraging, and, while it can be easy sometimes, it tends not to be calorie dense food. 2,000 calories is 21 apples/32 eggs/143 mussels, as opposed to three to five cups of dry gain. Eating the former diet will get you more nutrition (health) with the calories, eating the latter will get you the calories more efficiently.

The implications you've made with your so called "sixth sense" are incorrect. The remaining hunter-gatherer societies today, and the ones documented in the past, may have been just as socially complicated as agricultural society, requiring still the same amount of intelligence. However, with the advent of agriculture, the focus of human intellect is focused in a different direction leading to the societies you see today. Hunter-gatherer societies are not thought of existing entirely without some kind of carbohydrate to replace the grain either.

We almost definitely couldn't sustain a population on non-grain crops. Wet food is heavier, more bulk per calorie. In foraging, you (all) have to be near (all) food. Agriculture and grains allow more people to be concentrated away from their food, and allows cooperation where, while some people are gathering the food, others are building tools and exchanging them for food. It's hard to imagine what most people call "progress" - {science, philosophy, technology} without grain-based agriculture.

Perhaps with technology and the incorporation of a few cultural mechanisms we could create a culture which doesn't have to structure itself around the culture of ancient agriculture. Perhaps if there was a way for everyone to have access to food resources, such as the food creation devices that can be found in Star Trek movies, we could end the agricultural tyranny and move back to our hunter-gatherer roots. If such roots are really a utopian paradise, which I can assure anyone, likely isn't the case.

(Notice how I'm not claiming to know any absolute truths on this).

We still live in an agricultural-based society, so the structures and adaptations to it are still valid, and likely still in our blood. In my own blood, male authority holds a sort of brain magic to it. Like, I remember seeing my head football coach for the first time in high school, he seemed like the pope. My own father, peers who had reputations as fighters or athletes, accomplished elders, there's a spell in it like no woman ever had. No question in my mind, I'm a gorilla, not a bonobo, so to speak.

Read above.

Lucid

05-10-2009, 02:41 PM

Darynthe using this tragedy as an example of the failings of feminism turned my stomach and I could not respond to her post. Thank you for taking the time to do that, nacht and Toscin.

Darynthe using this as an example of the failings of feminism not only completely distorts the facts as they happened, but by the same logic, the civil rights movement is wrong and bad because many blacks were lynched, etc.

Blaming the victim, despite what Darynthe would like to believe, does not justify the crime.

darynthe

05-10-2009, 02:58 PM

You are arguing against feminism by using an example from someone who committed a mass murder in the name of... combatting feminism.

The example pertained the way men reacted to an attack. I won't rehash.

You do realize nine individuals--male or female--are more than capable of taking down a single individual with a gun, right?

I said as much in my previous post. I think you may have missed that part. Again, I am not saying that women cannot defend themselves. I put up an example showing we do. My point is seeing how the natural instincts driven by testosteron, rationality and physical height, weight and muscle may mean they are more prone and efficient to do it.

I repeat.

You do realize nine individuals--male or female--are more than capable of taking down a single individual with a gun, right?

Why do you repeat? I will repeat read again.

Mike

05-10-2009, 02:59 PM

Lucid

05-10-2009, 03:00 PM

Feminism hasn't failed in any way shape or form. It has no only succeeded in achieving equity, it has gone on to establish privilege. Any man he who sees it will quickly becomes disgusted.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say... perhaps you can try again in a more legible fashion? (No offense intended)

darynthe

05-10-2009, 03:04 PM

Darynthe using this as an example of the failings of feminism not only completely distorts the facts as they happened, but by the same logic, the civil rights movement is wrong and bad because many blacks were lynched, etc.

Blaming the victim, despite what Darynthe would like to believe, does not justify the crime.

Blaming the victim. WTF? I think I am done with this thread. I thought people here could discuss and isolate aspects of a situation independently and without emotion.

It seems that since I mentioned this as an example now you seem to think I am saying it was ok to kill women or that crazy nutjob was some kind of hero. I am starting to seriously doubt the ability to abstract of some INTJs.

Just for the record, I am a woman and I am not inferior to anyone, not men nor women. Therefore I don't feel threatened by discussions such as the one proposed here. I can discuss calmly and theoretically. I can learn, I have read excellent posts from both sides. Too bad this is not the case with so many others who like to witchhunt on Sundays.

Lucid

05-10-2009, 03:11 PM

Mike

05-10-2009, 04:28 PM

I'm not sure what you're trying to say... perhaps you can try again in a more legible fashion?

Fair enough:

Women only parking bays (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.)

This is blatant discrimination against men but it's OK, because women are victims.

If women ruled the world... (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.)

Some women MPs have claimed that the 'testosterone-fuelled' financial meltdown could have been avoided if there had been more women in decision-making positions.

...Because women are superior to men in everything. :rolleyes: But later, back to the victim position:

On average, women earn 22.6 per cent less than men.

This statistic has been wildly abused because, it the context they are using it, it is completely wrong. But, it's successful in that it makes it political suicide to hold to reality.

Here's a little taste of reality:

Why men earn more than women (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.)

But what happens when women make the same lucrative decisions typically made by men? The good news--for women, at least: Women actually earn more. For example, when a male and a female civil engineer both stay with their respective companies for ten years, travel and relocate equally and take the same career risks, the woman ends up making more. And among workers who have never been married and never had children, women earn 117% of what men do. (This factors in education, hours worked and age.)

Without husbands, women have to focus on earning more. They work longer hours, they're willing to relocate and they're more likely to choose higher-paying fields like technology. Without children, men have more liberty to earn less--that is, they are free to pursue more fulfilling and less lucrative careers, like writing or art or teaching social studies.

Yet, even in this last election, Hillary Clinton rolled out that same tired myth of women being the victims of the evil patriarchy.

Don't even get me started about the domestic violence bulls:lipsrsealed::angry:

A lot of what I've seen is very idealistic in nature and a lot of it I agree with. The trouble is, the reality is, radical feminist are successful in going well beyond equity and establishing privilege. I have a feeling that's the essence of BostonIan's position.

One last thing that I find disgusting about radical feminists. There was a story about some feminist magazine's campaign not too long ago about that struck a blow against the evil patriarchy in Atlanta. They successfully coerced the city into spending 10s of thousands of dollars to make sure that all, "Men working" signs were changed to something less offensive. Sure the construction work force was something like 94 to 96% was male but hey, that doesn't excuse this behavior you f:lipsrsealed:g bigot!

PINK Magazine ... (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.)

A week earlier, Atlanta began prosecution of one of it's first honor killings. What I love the most is how devastated he is about the whole thing. The whole thing would be hilarious if the story wasn't so tragic.

Dad charged with murdering reluctant bride (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.)

"The victim was not interested in marrying, nor remaining married to her husband," the police report said, citing information authorities received from Rashid's wife." I bet she had the audacity to dress like a western woman too! The nerve!

Obviously, she had to die.

Not a word from NOW about that honor killing. I guess fighting those evil signs take priority over the lives of young women. :blank: And yeah, those who want to roll in with the logical fallacies can save it. I have contempt for NOW and its mission of establishing female privilege.

edit - Lucid, I wanted to say I'm not singling you out on this. Your post reminded me of some of the arguments I've gotten into with women's studies majors which really struck a nerve. Nothing against you personally.

Synamon

05-10-2009, 04:35 PM

Blaming the victim. WTF? I think I am done with this thread. I thought people here could discuss and isolate aspects of a situation independently and without emotion.

It seems that since I mentioned this as an example now you seem to think I am saying it was ok to kill women or that crazy nutjob was some kind of hero. I am starting to seriously doubt the ability to abstract of some INTJs.

You blamed feminism in society for causing men to follow the instructions of a lunatic with a gun. Huge and faulty leap. You also chose an example where the lunatic hated women and feminists and in fact killed 15 women who were training for a non-traditional role in society, to add insult to your fallacy.

A lot of people on the forum weren't even born when the incident occurred and most didn't know anything about it so almost no one bothered to respond to your example. I chose not to respond because it was ludicrous. If you are getting flack for the poor judgment you used in choosing this example, that's on you. I'm not sure it's even possible for you to have chosen a worse example.

You blamed the innocent bystanders for the tragedy. You blamed feminism, which created the opportunity for the women to attend university and study engineering in the first place. So yes, by extension, you were blaming the victims.

Feminism was not to blame, the men were not to blame, the crazy person with the gun was to blame.

Your words:
In 1989, a spree killer got into a ingeneering class in the Politechnique of Quebec. He had a gun and ordered all the men out. It was about 30 men if I am not wrong and about 15 women. All the men complied and didn't even dream of trying to stop this guy.

The guy killed the women while the men ran scared.

Is this what the society is making of men? People who are no able to react as a man is supposed to, they became submissive and indifferent?
Since you didn't understand Lucid's analogy, try this one. Your example is akin to blaming the people on the hijacked planes for all the deaths on 9/11 because they "allowed" the hijackers to crash them into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon.

Lucid

05-10-2009, 04:41 PM

Ok... so you're upset that women are trying for equal rights or that some are just as sexist as some men are?

If you're trying to say that because some women are sexists or because some want more privileges than men do that all women and all feminism is wrong and bad... then ok... There are sexists of both genders. There's also discrimination against both genders, though on different topics.

You seem to be ranting only against radical feminism - which I don't think is what's being argued for by anyone here.

The trouble is, the reality is, radical feminist are successful in going well beyond equity and establishing privilege. I have a feeling that's the essence of BostonIan's position.

No, BostonIan is actually arguing that men are better intellectually, physically, etc. than women. That women are less intelligent, less rational and should be subservient to men. He is arguing a fringe position and as you can see, most of the responders (even those who have as much a problem with radical feminism as you) are disagreeing with him.

You seem to be jumping in without having read the entire thread and jumping to the conclusion that BostonIan is stating something normal and reasonable and that a bunch of feminazis are jumping all over him for not saying that females are superior in every way. This is not the case, though of course your perspective may be different depending on your views of women.

And don't worry, I don't feel that your beliefs or arguments are personal attacks against me. Even if we disagree I certainly won't be offended by your holding and expressing a different opinion than my own. :)

Your post reminded me of some of the arguments I've gotten into with women's studies majors which really struck a nerve. Nothing against you personally.

The one women' studies class I took left me a little frustrated and disgusted myself honestly. I'm not sure what I said that reminded you of it unless you didn't read Darynthe's initial argument about why it was due to feminism that 15 female engineering students got shot because they were enrolled in a traditionally male dominated course of study. I'm certainly not saying that men are evil oppressors and I wish that you would read my other posts in this thread (and others) before you jumped to that conclusion, if that is in fact what you have done. If I'm misunderstanding you, then correct me.

firebee

05-10-2009, 05:03 PM

No, BostonIan is actually arguing that men are better intellectually, physically, etc. than women. That women are less intelligent, less rational and should be subservient to men. He is arguing a fringe position and as you can see, most of the responders (even those who have as much a problem with radical feminism as you) are disagreeing with him.

Asserting, actually, not arguing. I haven't seen any actual attempt at proving that the gender which has less testosterone is more ruled by emotions, or that leadership by such people would even be a bad thing. Note that listing off a sampling of developments after women's suffrage (and after minor events like, say, the Great Depression, the Second World War, and the Baby Boom) without even proving that some of those things happened, were negative developments, or were caused by changes in gender roles is not actually an argument.

Or if it is, I'll be glad to take credit on behalf of my gender for Southwest impressionism and the personal computer. Whichever.

What evidence do we have that women are intrinsically "more emotional", whatever that means?

Sinequanon

05-10-2009, 05:15 PM

Fair enough:

Women only parking bays (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.)

This is blatant discrimination against men but it's OK, because women are victims.
Just for the record, I'm all for this idea if it means that my mother, sister and girlfriend feel (or ARE) safer when they're leaving a shopping mall at night. Let's take a view to the larger point. There are things you don't experience or ever worry about by virtue of being a man that women deal with all the time. Learn to shut up and listen.

nacht

05-10-2009, 05:20 PM

Just for the record, I'm all for this idea if it means that my mother, sister and girlfriend feel (or ARE) safer when they're leaving a shopping mall at night. Let's take a view to the larger point. There are things you don't experience or ever worry about by virtue of being a man that women deal with all the time. Learn to shut up and listen.

...and a step too far.

Women need to be taught not to live in fear of low probability threats, as do men. The statistics indicate that men are more likely to be victims of violent crime than women.

Stormy

05-10-2009, 05:24 PM

Can you give a link to this statisitic?

Lucid

05-10-2009, 05:26 PM

...and a step too far.

Women need to be taught not to live in fear of low probability threats, as do men. The statistics indicate that men are more likely to be victims of violent crime than women.

This may be true. But women are very much more likely than men are to be raped, and they are also less physically able to defend themselves from such an attack. Are women only parking areas going to solve that problem? Probably not. Are women only or men only parking bays something to get worked up about? I'd say no.

nacht

05-10-2009, 05:28 PM

Can you give a link to this statisitic?

Bureau of Justice Statistics (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.)

You can also check out this thread on rape (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.).

darynthe

05-10-2009, 05:39 PM

I'm not sure what I said that reminded you of it unless you didn't read Darynthe's initial argument about why it was due to feminism that 15 female engineering students got shot because they were enrolled in a traditionally male dominated course of study.

I said that???!! LMAO!!!!! I have no words. They really fail me. Where did I say such stupidity? If I said such a thing somebody please call the men of the white robes because I need to be institutionalized. Thank you.

nacht

05-10-2009, 05:39 PM

This may be true. But women are very much more likely than men are to be raped, and they are also less physically able to defend themselves from such an attack.

The statistics indicate that rape in parking lots is very very rare. They make up ~3.4% of the cases where the rapist is a stranger, which is already the minority group (in 73% of rapes the victim knows the attacker).

I also am not sure about being less "physically able." If the attacker is armed, the playing field is roughly equal regardless of whether you are male or female. If the attacker is unarmed, the woman's lower center of gravity makes up for a great deal of upper body strength.

I don't have self defense numbers broken down by both crime type and gender, however.

Are women only parking areas going to solve that problem? Probably not. Are women only or men only parking bays something to get worked up about? I'd say no.

This I'll agree with.

I consider them a useless expression of security theater (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.), but don't really care enough to get worked up about them.

Lucid

05-10-2009, 05:39 PM

@Mike -

Oh, did you think I was saying that women are victims of society or something like that? No. By 'victims' I meant the women who were shot as the result of pursuing engineering degrees. Being the victims of a shooting. Not of society.

The statistics indicate that rape in parking lots is very very rare. They make up ~3.4% of the cases where the rapist is a stranger, which is already the minority group (in 73% of rapes the victim knows the attacker).

Yes, this is why I doubt that women only parking bays will be helpful.

I also am not sure about being less "physically able." If the attacker is armed, the playing field is roughly equal regardless of whether you are male or female. If the attacker is unarmed, the woman's lower center of gravity makes up for a great deal of upper body strength.

I mean less physically able to defend herself against an unarmed male attacker if she herself is unarmed (and often if she is armed as well) because she has less mass and less upper body strength, on average. I think you know what I mean though and you're just shredding the toilet paper for the love of doing so :p :)

Stormy

05-10-2009, 05:42 PM

Interesting (at Nacht's link)...then again, guys like to fight amoungst themselves =) In all seriousness, I would agree the women only parking bays probably won't change much, and will probably not catch on. Other protection methods would be just as reliable (ex. having security escorts) without the gender bias.

Sinequanon

05-10-2009, 05:45 PM

...and a step too far.

Women need to be taught not to live in fear of low probability threats, as do men. The statistics indicate that men are more likely to be victims of violent crime than women.
As I said, even if the benefit is purely psychological, it still has an overall benefit in that I don't want the people I care about feeling afraid for their lives, rationally or irrationally, just because they want to buy some shoes at 8 PM. I don't care where I park in a garage but I admit that this is a luxury of being an able-bodied and fairly large male, who looks less like a target than my girlfriend who is half my size, 6 inches shorter than me and has no special training of her own. Now obviously such an attitude can stretch too far into paternalism, but I think that this is such a thing that doesn't (we can evaluate these things on a case-by-case basis); what I do know is that it doesn't satisfy Mike's claim that men are somehow being oppressed by being excluded from parking spaces closer to exits in some shopping malls. Boo-fucking-hoo. 3.2% of rapes occuring that way is still 3.2% too many.

Mike

05-10-2009, 05:45 PM

You seem to be jumping in without having read the entire thread and jumping to the conclusion that BostonIan is stating something normal and reasonable and that a bunch of feminazis are jumping all over him for not saying that females are superior in every way. This is not the case, though of course your perspective may be different depending on your views of women.

Yeah, that's exactly what I thought was going on. I read the first 40 or so posts then flipped to the last page. It looked like BostonIan was having a rational discussion about gender which got hijacked by feminazies.

I suppose I have been properly chastised ;)

darynthe

05-10-2009, 05:49 PM

You blamed feminism in society for causing men to follow the instructions of a lunatic with a gun. Huge and faulty leap. You also chose an example where the lunatic hated women and feminists and in fact killed 15 women who were training for a non-traditional role in society, to add insult to your fallacy.

A lot of people on the forum weren't even born when the incident occurred and most didn't know anything about it so almost no one bothered to respond to your example. I chose not to respond because it was ludicrous. If you are getting flack for the poor judgment you used in choosing this example, that's on you. I'm not sure it's even possible for you to have chosen a worse example.

You blamed the innocent bystanders for the tragedy. You blamed feminism, which created the opportunity for the women to attend university and study engineering in the first place. So yes, by extension, you were blaming the victims.

Feminism was not to blame, the men were not to blame, the crazy person with the gun was to blame.

Your words:

Since you didn't understand Lucid's analogy, try this one. Your example is akin to blaming the people on the hijacked planes for all the deaths on 9/11 because they "allowed" the hijackers to crash them into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon.

Your analogies are terrible. If there is any analogy to make here is how some of the men on the plane on Pensylvania actually acted and tried to stop the hijackers, which is in fact, a counterexample to the one I did. They sacrificed themselves to save many lives. You should be proud of them.

If you were a little more calmed you could have used this analogy to anihilite my example without having to put words in my mouth.

The conclusions you reached are your responsability. Most people understood that I criticised how society has taken away the protector and active role of men, that piece of irrationality and heroism that has made them the head of the traditional family in the last few centuries at least.

But your reaction is visceral and emotional to a strange extreme. Your conclusions are totally illogical.

Prunesquallor

05-10-2009, 05:53 PM

nacht

05-10-2009, 05:54 PM

As I said, even if the benefit is purely psychological, it still has an overall benefit in that I don't want the people I care about feeling afraid for their lives, rationally or irrationally, just because they want to buy some shoes at 8 PM.

I don't like pandering to irrational fears in the name of making people "Feel safer," that's how the worst idiocy at the TSA gets started.

Stormy pointed out the idea of an escort, which is a brilliant idea since it would actually increase security, and not pander to people's irrational fears.

I don't care where I park in a garage but I admit that this is a luxury of being an able-bodied and fairly large male, who looks less like a target than my girlfriend who is half my size, 6 inches shorter than me and has no special training of her own.

I have had my ass kicked by a 16 year old girl who I have a good foot on. Yes, she is trained, but then, so am I.

The solution involves getting proper training in a good self defense (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.) martial art (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.), not putting in feel-good measures to feel better about things.

Boo-fucking-hoo. 3.2% of rapes occuring that way is still 3.2% too many.

3.4% of rapes where the rapist is a stranger. So ~0.91% of all rapes, < 1%.

Perhaps too many, but we can further narrow that by the kind of parking lots they happen in, and my guess is we'd find almost none in the situation described here that this is designed to protect against. This goes double, because I suspect that such methods won't actually protect anyone in practice even in said parking areas.

It isn't an expression of radical feminism or any such nonsense, it is an expression of a company pandering to people's irrational fears with security measures that don't work.

Tocsin

05-10-2009, 05:56 PM

Hey! I almost forgot!

IT'S MOTHER'S DAY!

I'm sure all of the chauvinists... well... maybe both of them, I should say... would want to extend their heartfelt gratitude to the devoted breeders who gave them life... even if they forgot to mention it.

I'm sure the women here also have their sympathetic pity that they were born lacking the intellectual prowess, reasoning ability, and capacity for innovation, leadership, and original thought that are nature's gifts to men.

We do appreciate your cooking, though... well... usually.

(p.s. I hope most of you can recognize sarcasm when you see it. Just writing the words made me think: :yuck: I would have used a puking smiley if we had one.)

Lucid

05-10-2009, 05:56 PM

Most people understood that I criticised how society has taken away the protector and active role of men, that piece of irrationality and heroism that has made them the head of the traditional family in the last few centuries at least.

Did they? All you have to do is clarify your point for the people who misunderstood what you're saying. There's no need for hysterics. Besides, you're telling me that it's normal behavior for people to mob a guy with a gun? Remember the guys on flight 93 had box cutters, not guns. You're saying that because women have equal rights men suddenly can't defend people in trouble? How does that follow exactly? If we allow women to vote and to be engineers men lose their will to live? What does your view here say about men?

Quite frankly, I think most of them are much better than you seem to give them credit for. Men are still providers and protectors in many ways and the ones I know don't feel that their own roles or self worth are harmed or diminished by the fact that their girlfriend knows how to change a tire and works outside the home. Those same men are not cowards or weaklings, as you seem to be describing them.

But your reaction is visceral and emotional to a strange extreme. Your conclusions are totally illogical.

Which is funny in light of:

I said that???!! LMAO!!!!! I have no words. They really fail me. Where did I say such stupidity? If I said such a thing somebody please call the men of the white robes because I need to be institutionalized. Thank you.

And here you are trying to tell people to be reasonable and unemotional.
Instead of getting hysterical, why don't you try to explain your actual position calmly and rationally? Who knows, once you stop foaming at the mouth, we might even agree.

Stormy

05-10-2009, 06:10 PM

Perhaps too many, but we can further narrow that by the kind of parking lots they happen in, and my guess is we'd find almost none in the situation described here that this is designed to protect against. This goes double, because I suspect that such methods won't actually protect anyone in practice even in said parking areas.

It isn't an expression of radical feminism or any such nonsense, it is an expression of a company pandering to people's irrational fears with security measures that don't work.

Agreed. I will also make a note that effective protection measures should benefit both genders, not just women or just men. Women probably aren't the only ones who worry about getting mugged or car jacked.

Tocsin

05-10-2009, 06:17 PM

Is this what the society is making of men? People who are no able to react as a man is supposed to, they became submissive and indifferent?

It really doesn't take much imagination to see how women in an engineering school would fare if ((men)) had been taught to act like... REAL MEN!!!

If more "real men" in the world shared Marc Lépine's convictions that women should not compete in "traditionally male" roles, and that men should be the ones in control over - and protective of - women, what would that kind of "chauvinist" world looke like?

Taleban threaten to blow up girls’ schools if they refuse to close (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.)
Zahid Hussain in Islamabad

The Taleban have ordered the closure of all girls’ schools in the war-ravaged Swat district and warned parents and teachers of dire consequences if the ban is flouted.

In an announcement made in mosques and broadcast on radio, the militant group set a deadline of January 15 for its order to be obeyed or it would blow up school buildings and attack schoolgirls. It also told women not to set foot outside their homes without being fully covered.

“Female education is against Islamic teachings and spreads vulgarity in society,” Shah Dauran, leader of a group that has established control over a large part of Swat district in the North West Frontier Province, declared this week.

Teachers said that they had little choice but to comply. The Taleban have destroyed more than 125 girls’ schools in the area in the past year. Swat, once a relatively liberal area and a popular tourist destination, has in the past few years become a heartland for Pakistan’s Islamic militancy, which fashions itself on the conservative Taleban movement in Afghanistan.

According to the local authorities, 50 per cent of girls have stopped attending school because of the militants’ threats. Hazir Gul, a teacher, said that the inability of the authorities to provide protection against attacks had emboldened the Islamists. “Militants can burn the remaining schools whenever they want,” he said. In some areas state school buildings have been turned into madrassas, or religious seminaries.

Attacks on girls’ schools are not confined to the Swat district. In the past two years another 100 schools have been burnt down in Waziristan and other tribal areas, leaving tens of thousands of children between the ages of 5 and 15 with no access to education.

Taliban Wages War on Afghan Girls' Schools (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.)
by Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson

All Things Considered, April 5, 2007 · The re-emergence of the Taliban is threatening one of Afghanistan's greatest achievements in the post-Taliban era: education. Female students, whom the Taliban denounces as un-Islamic, are at greatest risk. Their teachers are kidnapped and killed. Their classrooms are torched. Their parents are threatened.

In the southern Afghan province of Helmand, the Taliban is waging war not only on foreign and Afghan troops, but on education. Of 224 schools that opened after the Taliban fell, at least 90 have been forced to close because of threats and attack — especially schools that teach girls.

The only remaining schools for girls are in the provincial capital Lashkargah, where the principal of one school, Jamila Niazi, says she endures repeated threats to her life.

If you want an example of where the "traditional and proper" roles for men and women are embraced by men and enforced on both men and women - here it is... hope you like it.

darynthe

05-10-2009, 06:19 PM

And here you are trying to tell people to be reasonable and unemotional.
Instead of getting hysterical, why don't you try to explain your actual position calmly and rationally? Who knows, once you stop foaming at the mouth, we might even agree.

The worst I have said is that you are putting words in my mouth. The worst you have said is that I think that fifteen women deserved to die for studying engineering.

If I have gone into hysterics I think I have a better reason. Honestly I don't see where we can get a middle ground. I respect you but I feel that I cannot really discuss things rationally with some people here right now as they attacks are vitriolic and anything I say is taken to very negative connotations, to say the least.

I think women and men are complementary. I think women shouldn't be maligned because they want to take a traditional role. I think that society now is asking too much from women. If they decide to stay home and take care of the kids they blame them and call them lazy. We have to be supermoms. Have a good job with perspectives, at least one degree, have a great social life, family, friends, contribute money to home, keep the traditional roles at home too of cleaning,cooking, taking care of the kids, everything.
I think this is very difficult and short of psychotic.

On the other hand, men have now less responsibilities too, they are told that sex does not have any associated responsibility. If the woman gets pregnant it is her fault and if she has the kid it is her fault took, as abortion is available. They don't need to share a moral responsibility. Marriage, if ever entered into, is only on a pleasure basis. Not a real commitment. You just leave if something bothers you.

This leaves the woman with a very high economic and familiar responsibility. After divorce, women's economy goes down about 28% if I remember correctly, while males get a boasted wealth.

Boys in schools are given all this same stuff, and lose a sense of their own identity, especially without the masculine figure as a father to raise them.

The cell of society is family. It is dissapearing. This century is quite strange and I just can wonder at how it will look like in 70 years down the road. Probably there will be just such dissolution in every sense in society that everything will simply roll back into traditional roles again, like a pendulum.

TravelnTrain

05-10-2009, 06:20 PM

darynthe

05-10-2009, 06:33 PM

Lucid

05-10-2009, 06:35 PM

The worst I have said is that you are putting words in my mouth. The worst you have said is that I think that fifteen women deserved to die for studying engineering.

Please try again.
No, it seems like you're saying that because some people are crazy misogynists (or racists or homophobes or whatever), women (and other groups who have been oppressed in the past) should not try to change things or to stand up for themselves for fear of getting shot, beat, lynched, other bad things. I don't think you're implying that it's ok to kill women (or anyone), but that these groups invite this violence upon themselves and to avoid it, should just quietly sit down and shut up and continue to be oppressed.

Who's putting words in whose mouth darynthe?

If I have gone into hysterics I think I have a better reason. Honestly I don't see where we can get a middle ground. I respect you but I feel that I cannot really discuss things rationally with some people here right now as they attacks are vitriolic and anything I say is taken to very negative connotations, to say the least.

All you have to do is explain your actual meaning. There's no need to take it personally when someone misunderstands you and - in light of what it seemed you were saying - reacts strongly.

I think women and men are complementary. I think women shouldn't be maligned because they want to take a traditional role.

I don't think anyone here is doing that:

There are many people on this forum, both male and female, who prefer more traditional gender roles, and many who prefer more modern gender roles. There's nothing wrong with either and both preferences are grounded in just that idea: personal preference.

I think that society now is asking too much from women. If they decide to stay home and take care of the kids they blame them and call them lazy. We have to be supermoms. Have a good job with perspectives, at least one degree, have a great social life, family, friends, contribute money to home, keep the traditional roles at home too of cleaning,cooking, taking care of the kids, everything.
I think this is very difficult and short of psychotic.

Yes, part of equal rights and freedoms is an uncomfortable period of transition in which women will be expected to work full time outside the home and full time inside the home. I think this is changing though. I don't know much about your personal life, but I have the (possibly mistaken) impression that the people with whom you are surrounded are somewhat more socially conservative than, for example, the ones with whom I am surrounded. In my experience, most people think that house work and child rearing should be shared equally by both parties if both choose to work outside the home.

On the other hand, men have now less responsibilities too, they are told that sex does not have any associated responsibility. If the woman gets pregnant it is her fault and if she has the kid it is her fault too, as abortion is available. They don't need to share a moral responsibility. Marriage, if ever entered into, is only on a pleasure basis. Not a real commitment. You just leave if something bothers you.

This has not been my experience. Again, we may come from very different social backgrounds, but in my social circle the men with children take responsibility for them. All of them that I know, in fact. That the fault for an unwanted pregnancy is shared by both parties.

This leaves the woman with a very high economic and familiar responsibility. After divorce, women's economy goes down about 28% if I remember correctly, while males get a boasted wealth.

Traditionally, yes. But this is changing as women take a larger role in the workplace and men take more responsibility for their children.

The unity of society is family. It is dissapearing. This century is quite strange and I just can wonder at how it will look like in 70 years down the road. Probably there will be just such dissolution in every sense in society that everything will simply roll back into traditional roles again, like a pendulum.

I disagree. My parents divorced and we were all much happier. Really. Then my father remarried and my family became larger. My mother didn't remarry, but has had a long term boyfriend so it's almost as good as and my family grew again.

Change can be scary, but I would never trade the increased responsibility and the multiple options for my future that these changes in society have brought for more surety. I would choose freedom over protection any and every day. If you would not, there's no need for you to do so. Part of what these changes in society mean, is that you can choose your own path with regard to career, children, marriage, etc. If what you want is something more traditional then by all means it is what you should have.

Tocsin

05-10-2009, 06:57 PM

My point is that men are called to protect the weaker, how exactly the taliban culture does this?? They stone women, they burn young girls and women. They deny them basic human rights. It is hell on earth. These are monsters created by the twin brother of feminism.

HUSH, little woman! Dare ye question the decisions of men?! Remember your place! Men lead - women follow. That is the way of things. What men do to women they do for their own good! A man would have been smart enough to see that for himself! But you shouldn't worry your pretty little head over it... now... get me my slippers and finish cooking the meatloaf... I'm HUNGRY!!! :shout:

(You might want to consider this : protection and control are two sides of the same coin. A cage might be safe, it might even be comfortable, but if you choose to live in it, you might be disappointed that you may not get to do or speak as you please.)

Lucid

05-10-2009, 07:06 PM

My point is that men are called to protect the weaker, how exactly the taliban culture does this?? They stone women, they burn young girls and women. They deny them basic human rights.

If you are helpless at the hands of the protectors, you are also vulnerable to abuse and oppression. Maybe you don't know, but it used to be that women would stay in abusive marriages because their options as single mothers were bleak. Single mothers still have a rough time of it, but it's better to be over worked than to be beaten.

Women can care for and protect themselves. While I am physically weaker than a man, I don't live in a society where physical strength is all that necessary for safety (hence the uselessness of the 'women only' parking areas). And I am just as mentally strong as men are and I am just as capable of taking care of myself.

Utopia. We are all respected with our differences, we don't think the other is the enemy. We don't get off on feeling the other is inferior.

Wanting equal rights and opportunities is not the same thing as thinking the other is the enemy. 'Feminism' can mean many things, and there are a myriad different kinds of it. You're defining it only as hating men, but the reality is that almost no 'feminists' feel that men are inferior, or hate them in any way. If you have a job, darynthe, if you can vote, if you think you are equal to men, you yourself are a feminist.

The idea that it's either men in control or women in control is a false dichotomy.

Sinequanon

05-10-2009, 07:07 PM

I don't like pandering to irrational fears in the name of making people "Feel safer," that's how the worst idiocy at the TSA gets started.
Okay, and I think that each idea is capable of being evaluated on its own merits, and need not descend into a slippery slope.

Stormy pointed out the idea of an escort, which is a brilliant idea since it would actually increase security, and not pander to people's irrational fears.
Such a policy panders to people's pocketbooks too. You have customers who feel safer at mall X vs mall Y, it would likely stand to reason that they're going to do their late night shopping at Mall X. Since shopping malls tend to get more female customers than male customers, such a policy is in the interests of the business owners as well (from a capitalistic stance, never mind the humanistic "Our mall has had less women get assaulted in the parking lot" stance you seem to dismiss as irrelevant).

A posted security person doesn't accomplish the same thing, and is overtly paternalistic, and costs the business more money.

We are falling far astray of the point, however. The question isn't whether such policies increase safety (though I will get to this in a second), but whether they are oppressive to men as Mike claimed. I find the argument that they are oppressive to men to be, on its face, absurd. Do you want to defend that, or continue to argue about how irrational women are about their personal safety?

jhbowden79

05-10-2009, 07:18 PM

Harvey Mansfield recently wrote an apology for manliness titled, well, Manliness. It isn't as great as Maddox's definitive text, though I highly recommend it.

Stormy

05-10-2009, 07:25 PM

We are falling far astray of the point, however. The question isn't whether such policies increase safety (though I will get to this in a second), but whether they are oppressive to men as Mike claimed. I find the argument that they are oppressive to men to be, on its face, absurd.

I'll just throw my own opinion out there. I would not say that "oppressive" is a good word to describe this parking policy. It is biased in the same way handicap parking is biased against the non-handicapped. So the policy is biased against men. What is of concern is the fact that women aren't the only ones who might not feel safe walking out to their cars. Men can have this problem too. I will agree that the reason why the mall implimented this policy (to appear more favorable for women) is probably true. There are just more efficient measures that can be taken. But since we aren't discussing safety at the moment, I'll bypass this. This parking policy can also have a reverse effect, as now all the muggers, rapists, etc. know where all the women will be, since they've been singled out to a specific area. Sorry, this is straying from the original question. In conclusion, no, it is not oppressive, it is just biased.

Zsych

05-10-2009, 07:30 PM

It really doesn't take much imagination to see how women in an engineering school would fare if ((men)) had been taught to act like... REAL MEN!!!

If more "real men" in the world shared Marc Lépine's convictions that women should not compete in "traditionally male" roles, and that men should be the ones in control over - and protective of - women, what would that kind of "chauvinist" world looke like?

Taleban threaten to blow up girls’ schools if they refuse to close
Zahid Hussain in Islamabad

The Taleban have ordered the closure of all girls’ schools in the war-ravaged Swat district and warned parents and teachers of dire consequences if the ban is flouted.

In an announcement made in mosques and broadcast on radio, the militant group set a deadline of January 15 for its order to be obeyed or it would blow up school buildings and attack schoolgirls. It also told women not to set foot outside their homes without being fully covered.

“Female education is against Islamic teachings and spreads vulgarity in society,” Shah Dauran, leader of a group that has established control over a large part of Swat district in the North West Frontier Province, declared this week.

Teachers said that they had little choice but to comply. The Taleban have destroyed more than 125 girls’ schools in the area in the past year. Swat, once a relatively liberal area and a popular tourist destination, has in the past few years become a heartland for Pakistan’s Islamic militancy, which fashions itself on the conservative Taleban movement in Afghanistan.

According to the local authorities, 50 per cent of girls have stopped attending school because of the militants’ threats. Hazir Gul, a teacher, said that the inability of the authorities to provide protection against attacks had emboldened the Islamists. “Militants can burn the remaining schools whenever they want,” he said. In some areas state school buildings have been turned into madrassas, or religious seminaries.

Attacks on girls’ schools are not confined to the Swat district. In the past two years another 100 schools have been burnt down in Waziristan and other tribal areas, leaving tens of thousands of children between the ages of 5 and 15 with no access to education.

Taliban Wages War on Afghan Girls' Schools
by Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson

All Things Considered, April 5, 2007 · The re-emergence of the Taliban is threatening one of Afghanistan's greatest achievements in the post-Taliban era: education. Female students, whom the Taliban denounces as un-Islamic, are at greatest risk. Their teachers are kidnapped and killed. Their classrooms are torched. Their parents are threatened.

In the southern Afghan province of Helmand, the Taliban is waging war not only on foreign and Afghan troops, but on education. Of 224 schools that opened after the Taliban fell, at least 90 have been forced to close because of threats and attack — especially schools that teach girls.

The only remaining schools for girls are in the provincial capital Lashkargah, where the principal of one school, Jamila Niazi, says she endures repeated threats to her life.

If you want an example of where the "traditional and proper" roles for men and women are embraced by men and enforced on both men and women - here it is... hope you like it.

I'm not sure the Taliban really constitute a traditional version of anything. And I don't think they are the reverse of feminists either. The Taliban back in the days of the cold war, were created to be a weapon. Their views aren't supposed to be the views of a society that would be stable, but those of people who will fight. Children were indoctrinated with a twisted subset of Islamic teachings to help use religion to motivate ignorant people towards war.

According to Mohammad, the Muslim prophet, "Seeking Knowledge is obligatory upon every Muslim". Women are included in that. Women are also allowed to hold jobs, and in fact his first wife was a business woman.... starting to deviate from the point.

The Taliban are an unstable construct that was never meant to have qualities that would lead to a stable civilization. Using it as an example of anything long term is meaningless. Maybe you can say something once they've stablized in a few hundred years (not that I expect they'll be allowed to evolve on their own)

So to boil it all down to a few sentences, in your natural order...

1) Men should have exclusive leadership control over society at all levels; men inherently make better decisions.
2) Leadership should always be top - down; collaborative decision-making is unnatural.
3) Women can be educated in all areas; however, women cannot use their education to lead or decide on behalf of others because they can only complement leadership roles held by men.

Did I get that right, because I'm trying to be fair to your views? How can you ignore the obvious issue on an INTJ board of NT's as leaders or decision-makers, regardless of gender? Our bent propels us to become competent leaders/decision-makers capable of deciding on behalf of others (small groups, large groups, local, national), and yet you would suggest that only the males are naturally leaders or naturally better leaders? I find that baffling.

I personally believe that everyone should be judged on their own merit, by their own ability. So I can't say that I support strict gender roles. I think gender roles did have some level of value in stable human societies of the past. Right now, I think our civilization is evolving and is currently unstable. I don't know where exactly it will end up, or whether where we are going is something stable in the long run.

As far as INTJs go though. 2.5% or men are INTJ vs. 0.5% of women? .... The injustice of it all!! :P

I think the stereotypes are not without reason though. Even in IQ tests for example, where women score approximately the same totally on average, men score better in different sections on average than women, because men on average do think differently and have a different set of basic skills.

... I also agree that the idea of countless men primarily being raised by single mothers is not something I find to be particularly appealing. Human minds are malleable, our instincts weak and easily overriden. You can train people to be something that contradicts their natures.

---

As for the case of 30 men leaving against a gunman, or the sheer lameness of airliners being highjacked by people with box cutters... I admit to finding that a little pathetic. Especially the latter scenario. I'm not sure I would've done anything either in the former scenario if I didn't expect the women to be killed though. If I knew the women were going to be attacked immediately after the men left (or even if there were only other men in the room), I'd probably try to do something... Perhaps because I wouldn't really expect to die (even if there would be a possibility of it) Can't say more without actually being in that situation and being able to assess my options. I admit I probably wouldn't act if I was certain that I was heading for a guaranteed and meaningless death.

Sinequanon

05-10-2009, 07:32 PM

I'll just throw my own opinion out there. I would not say that "oppressive" is a good word to describe this parking policy. It is biased in the same way handicap parking is biased against the non-handicapped. So the policy is biased against men. What is of concern is the fact that women aren't the only ones who might not feel safe walking out to their cars. Men can have this problem too. I will agree that the reason why the mall implimented this policy (to appear more favorable for women) is probably true. There are just more efficient measures that can be taken. But since we aren't discussing safety at the moment, I'll bypass this. This parking policy can also have a reverse effect, as now all the muggers, rapists, etc. know where all the women will be, since they've been singled out to a specific area. Sorry, this is straying from the original question. In conclusion, no, it is not oppressive, it is just biased.
Fair enough. If you read the article, you can see that the spaces are both well-lit and in view of the security station which should lessen the "hunting ground" aspect. You'll also see tons of quotes from women saying that they absolutely do feel safer in such environments. Again, as a business owner, it would seem that it should be something you might want to look at if your business primarily caters to women. But yes, I agree it's biased but not oppressive.

Mike

05-10-2009, 07:46 PM

As I said, even if the benefit is purely psychological, it still has an overall benefit in that I don't want the people I care about feeling afraid for their lives, rationally or irrationally, just because they want to buy some shoes at 8 PM. I don't care where I park in a garage but I admit that this is a luxury of being an able-bodied and fairly large male, who looks less like a target than my girlfriend who is half my size, 6 inches shorter than me and has no special training of her own. Now obviously such an attitude can stretch too far into paternalism, but I think that this is such a thing that doesn't (we can evaluate these things on a case-by-case basis); what I do know is that it doesn't satisfy Mike's claim that men are somehow being oppressed by being excluded from parking spaces closer to exits in some shopping malls. Boo-fucking-hoo. 3.2% of rapes occuring that way is still 3.2% too many.

Did you miss the part where the someone who can literally affect policy in the UK is making in known she intends to deny men employment because they are men? If I were a British national, I'd be...upset about her position.

Since you brought up rape, I'll ask, do you believe that only 2% of all rapes are fake? I ask because that's the number that radical feminists use to drive policy. In the book, "The Rantings of the Single Male," the guy interviews a retiring sex crimes detective and he says, in his estimation, that number is probably 50%. The last time I heard a study on false rape claims, that number I think was close to 30% though I can't recall for certain. Given the uncertainty, should I take a woman at her word when she tells me she was raped?

I'll give you another story, this occurred in either Maryland, Virginia or Massachusetts. Man and woman are having sex. Both parties agreed that when the sex began it was consensual. At some point, the woman decided she no longer wanted to have sex. She told him to stop. He continued having sex with her for as few as 16 seconds and as long as 44 (the number seemed odd to me and unrealistic in that she counted out the seconds) before stopping. The ruling which made me think I was reading the Onion, was that because he kept going longer than 10 seconds, he was guilty of rape. That's right, in that state there is literally a 10 second rule. Do you consider him a rapist?

Another in Massachusetts or Maryland, girl meets a cop at a bar. Pretty sure he was off-duty but I can't recall. Eye witnesses say the girl was all over him grabbing his crotch, flirting with him, etc. Eye witnesses also say her walk was steady and she did not stagger at all, though her speech might have been slightly slurred (I'm positive on the walk, no the speech). She and the cop have sex in the back seat of his cruiser (positive on that because I thought of the movie Supertroopers and them getting stuck). At no time does she pass out. 2 hours after, she "sobers up," and files a complaint. Long story short, cop is convicted of rape. Do you consider him a rapist?

I ask about these two cases because, as a single guy, I was appalled at the rulings. Both of these are now established law and men can (and will) be thrown in jail because of it. The first one I found so appalling because, lets face it, if you're seconds away from the big O, do you think you could stop? What about the moment the big O started? Does the legislation need to write new laws to protect the right to orgasm? I consider such a conversation absurd but apparently it needs to happen.

The second case is more troubling to me because that was my standard for deciding if a woman was "too drunk" or not. The obvious comeback is, you should know when a girl is too drunk for sex. I can promise you, that cop thought he knew and will be thinking about it for the next 6 or 7 years of his life while in prison.

Work in the morning so I can't go on. I'll say this though, I've read about men being found not guilty because they filmed some or all of the sex acts between them and women they took home. Should men record all of their sex acts in order to stay out of prison? Should all women accept that? Shouldn't they if they really loved him? :devilish: Again, absurd, but...

Stormy

05-10-2009, 07:52 PM

Fair enough. If you read the article, you can see that the spaces are both well-lit and in view of the security station which should lessen the "hunting ground" aspect. You'll also see tons of quotes from women saying that they absolutely do feel safer in such environments. Again, as a business owner, it would seem that it should be something you might want to look at if your business primarily caters to women. But yes, I agree it's biased but not oppressive.

Ok, that's settled. Now for the security aspect. Indeed, women feel safer with this policy, from their quotes. However, they would also feel safer if the mall did something like increase the lighting, add security cameras, etc. which are not gender specific. Effecient security measures should benefit the majority of people, and while it's true that women are the majority of shoppers at malls, a greater amount of people (women and men) could enjoy added protection through alternative means. Whether these alternative methods are more or less effective is subject to debate, and it might depend from place to place. These added security measures could cater to women just as much if the buisness owner specifies that it decreases the chance of being mugged, assaulted, etc. Convenience for women is more likely the reason to impliment that policy than simply security.

On a random note, it seems a bit odd to me to have specific women only parking, given that women are the majority of mall patrons. This can mean the demand for this type of parking is greater than the supply, but then again, since I have no statistics or concrete facts, I can only speculate.

I'll add something for Mike to think about as well. A good percentage of sexual assaults are also NOT reported. To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Lucid

05-10-2009, 07:54 PM

Mike -

What are you upset about exactly? Tell us the overall situation, as you see it, and why it upsets you.

Zsych

05-10-2009, 08:02 PM

A friend of mine was telling me that of the fifteen or so women he's had sex with, twelve say that they were raped... In their opinion. Mostly cases like the above mentioned case with the cop.

I remember an episode of Lie to Me, where a military officer ends up charged with Command Rape. Apparently the guy is interested in someone in his command, shows interest. She doesn't refuse him because she thinks that if she refuses him he might give her dangerous duty. So she stays his girlfriend for quite a while, and eventually goes AWOL. So the main character looking at her expressions in pictures realizes that she isn't too happy and her smiles are fake, and thus she was being raped.

... Okay... but the guy supposedly doing the raping doesn't realize it, and its essentially based on the woman having a fantasy in her head of what the guy could potentially do if she refused him.

Now aside from the fact that I can't say I approve of men in a position of power approaching women too casually when there's a chance that women will respond to them because of their position over them... The woman imagined the whole thing up, and chose to act in a way that the guy didn't realize something unfortunate was happening. How is that rape? You can't be held accountable for what other people think, especially when so many people aren't even all that rational.

Sinequanon

05-10-2009, 08:05 PM

On a random note, it seems a bit odd to me to have specific women only parking, given that women are the majority of mall patrons. This can mean the demand for this type of parking is greater than the supply, but then again, since I have no statistics or concrete facts, I can only speculate.
It's no more odd than having a sale at a mall, where commerce is obviously the only point of the entire enterprise. It's about getting more people of a specific type, however that means catering to them.

nacht

05-10-2009, 08:07 PM

A friend of mine was telling me that of the fifteen or so women he's had sex with, twelve say that they were raped... In their opinion. Mostly cases like the above mentioned case with the cop.

Funny, none of the women I have slept with have ever thought they were raped even once.

I remember an episode of Lie to Me, where a military officer ends up charged with Command Rape. Apparently the guy is interested in someone in his command, shows interest. She doesn't refuse him because she thinks that if she refuses him he might give her dangerous duty. So she stays his girlfriend for quite a while, and eventually goes AWOL. So the main character looking at her expressions in pictures realizes that she isn't too happy and her smiles are fake, and thus she was being raped.

Do not sleep with people who are under you in a chain of command. Simple, and goes for men or women.

An inferior is in a situation where s/he is incapable of truly giving consent. Thus, it is in the CO's best interest not to go there in the first place.

Now aside from the fact that I can't say I approve of men in a position of power approaching women too casually when there's a chance that women will respond to them because of their position over them... The woman imagined the whole thing up, and chose to act in a way that the guy didn't realize something unfortunate was happening. How is that rape? You can't be held accountable for what other people think, especially when so many people aren't even all that rational.

It is rape because she is in a position where she cannot give consent. This goes regardless of the genders of the involved individuals: the person farther down cannot give consent because the person asking is in a relative position of power and can theoretically do a great deal to her if she refuses.

Don't date down a chain of command.

Lucid

05-10-2009, 08:09 PM

A friend of mine was telling me that of the fifteen or so women he's had sex with, twelve say that they were raped... In their opinion. Mostly cases like the above mentioned case with the cop.

Yeah, I've had sex with more people than your friend and never once thought I was raped. It's funny how that works.

It's unacceptable for women in a position of power to have sex with men under that power. For example, female prison guards having sex with their charges. Or female teachers having sex with their male students.

Stormy

05-10-2009, 08:10 PM

It's no more odd than having a sale at a mall, where commerce is obviously the only point of the entire enterprise. It's about getting more people of a specific type, however that means catering to them.

True, but then security really isn't the reason behind the policy. That just seems dishonest in my opinion, but then again, I'm sure this is how most buisnesses are run.

Zsych

05-10-2009, 08:20 PM

firebee

05-10-2009, 08:21 PM

That horrible twin brother called machismo that is even worse.

Are you claiming that feminism is equivalent to machismo?

Utopia. We are all respected with our differences, we don't think the other is the enemy. We don't get off on feeling the other is inferior.

Precisely so. We also do not make up strictly defined roles for the other which we force them to conform to regardless of their preferences or abilities. I like this idea. How is holding men but not women responsible for not taking defensive measures which they were capable of consistent with this concept?

Harvey Mansfield recently wrote an apology for manliness titled, well, Manliness. It isn't as great as Maddox's definitive text, though I highly recommend it.

I have this book; I need to either read it or give up on it that I might return it to my ex-boyfriend. From my initial reading, the problem I have with it is the same problem I have with my distinguished opponents here: All the things that Mansfield cites as "manly virtues", I think look equally attractive on women. Cowardice? Don't look so good on a woman either. Confidence? Damn sexy, regardless of the gender of the bearer. Assisting and defending the weak? I'm for it. I've done it. For a man.

I don't see anything that men should aspire to because of their gender.

I don't see anything that women should aspire to because of their gender.

I do see values that all people should strive to incorporate into their lives.

nacht

05-10-2009, 08:32 PM

@nacht: The chain of command isn't really my point. That situation could as well have been one of actual interest from the woman. The point is that some people are irrational. The cop in the earlier example, had no power over the woman, probably didn't realize he'd done anything wrong, and with most women, he wouldn't have been considered to. This woman *thought* otherwise.

She was drunk, ne?

Alcohol is--by itself--a date rape drug, even if used unintentionally in this capacity. The woman in Mike's cop example was quite likely incapable of giving consent because she was drunk, whether she "passed out" from such is entirely irrelevant, but without knowing all of the facts of the case I'm guessing this was the argument.

I have slept with women on the first date. I have also made sure they were stone sober before consenting every time. I have an iron rule on that, and it has served me very well.

See also, An Open Letter to Bi-curious Drunk Girls (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.).

If let's say a small woman overly conscious of her size feels threatened (not in a chain of command situation), where no threat exists, maybe because the guy she's talking to is just very big and that scares her on some level... is it the dude's fault that she's imagining up crap? Ahh but wait.. by virtue of his superior size, he has power over her, and thus should not be trying to get her to begin with!!!...

Yes, her and Bob Allen. :rolleyes:

You need to get your examples straight.

If there is a power dynamic involved in a relationship exterior to the romantic entanglement, then consent cannot be freely given (e.g., chain of command, the boss with his own secretary, etc).

If one person is impaired in their mental functioning (drugs, alcohol) then they cannot give consent. It doesn't matter if they seem lucid to you, they cannot give consent.

If they are under a certain age in both relative and absolute terms to you, then they cannot give consent. It doesn't matter how much they want it, they are incapable of giving consent in that situation.

This is somewhat different from the "I was intimidated by the big black guy" story of Bob Allen, but then, you keep moving the goal posts around in your examples to things that happen less and less often.

Zsych

05-10-2009, 08:33 PM

A guy not having those qualities is a greater crime from an evolutionary perspective though. If a woman puts more effort into protecting herself and her kids as opposed to fighting, we don't really object.

Also, the greater question is not whether things apply to individuals, but rather whether they apply to society.

Where this is an simplifcation of sorts... I for example, am not too happy with how unstable marriages have become of late, and how many kids end up raised by single mothers. Its because society's values have changed, but seriously if countless children and thus the future of the society are hurt, were the changes that led to this situation necessarily good changes?

Ultimately what matters is what works well, and not theoretical concepts that don't fully apply to humanity. If you go with democracy and equality, the greatest social and political genius is considered equal to some dumb shit who can barely tie his shoe-laces? The point here is merely that some people feel it would be a more *just* world if everyone was equal, but really its not natural for everyone to be equal. In this case, the genius deserves to be given a greater vote than the moron. That choice potentially leads to greater benefit for the society than an equal vote. And ultimately if you somehow create a society where most people are happy, and is sustainable long term, that should be considered preferable to one where most aren't and one that isn't sustainable long term.

@nacht: Actually the example of the big black dude is not much different from the command rape situation. In either situation it is a matter of perception. The dude could be perfectly decent, and if someone is imagining themselves into a corner, its their own fault. As for a drunk person, if a woman is knowingly drunk at a bar, and doing something she wants to do because she's a little less inhibited.. its something she wants to do. Being drunk doesn't actually give you a completely alternate personality.

... Anyway, I don't really disagree with the idea that you shouldn't try to form a relationship with someone under your command, at least not carelessly.. businessmen for example have married secretaries and both parties have been happy enough. You would rob all of those people who could find decent relationships of the chance that they might, for the few cases of people who are indecent?

... You see, the basis of such laws is that you actually expect the majority of people to be scum, rather than the minority, and thus you act on that basis. Also, practically, very rarely do people have any serious power over other people, and of those people not that many could use it wrongly without the person under them being able to fight back if they so choose.

Let's say the military woman from the Lie to Me example, if she was put on dangerous assignments more often than anyone else, she could easily file a complaint, explain the situation and likely end her superior's career if he chose to be so stupid as to actually do something like that to her. The government really needs to stop acting like an overprotective mother. People should be fighting back and standing up for themselves if they have a problem.

Lucid

05-10-2009, 08:50 PM

@Zsych:

Let me first make it clear that both rape and the false accusation thereof are unconscionable acts. The latter is almost doubly immoral because it makes it that much more difficult for actual rape victims to be taken seriously.

Having said that;

So women have to be careful what situations they put themselves in to avoid being raped and men have to be careful what situations they put themselves in to avoid being accused of rape.

Oh the injustice of it.

Zsych

05-10-2009, 09:01 PM

I'm objecting more to definitions that are unclear and not fully provable... that change from person to person.

If that cop had been with another woman who acted the same, they could as well have ended up going out together later.

If a woman refuses clearly, that's one thing, she imagines up crap, or changes her mind afterwards on how she views things, a guy has no way of knowing that.

I'm going to say something a little ridiculous but just the same:
Woman: I'm loyal to my husband, but that guy was so attractive, and he was so charming, and he knew exactly what to say to me to make me want him, and so I had sex with him. It's all his fault. He forced me to do it, I would never have betrayed my husband! Really, it was rape!!

People make choices for often bullshit reasons. What they are thinking, that they do not communicate, you can't be held accountable for.

firebee

05-10-2009, 09:05 PM

A guy not having those qualities is a greater crime from an evolutionary perspective though. If a woman puts more effort into protecting herself and her kids as opposed to fighting, we don't really object.

Protecting herself and her kids with what exactly? Cowardice? Timidity? Passivity?

Also, slapping "evolutionary" on an assertion does not a proof make. We are hairless apes with tiny teeth and laughable claws. We use our ginormous brains to make things like knives and wool coats and atom bombs so that we can exist in environments entirely unsuited to our bodies alone, and so that we can adapt to rapid change through culture, rather than through breeding.

Also, the greater question is not whether things apply to individuals, but rather whether they apply to society.

And society is made up of what, exactly?

Where's the "evolutionary" benefit of half of a community not being held responsible for defending the weak, developing their minds, or providing for the security of their families?

And ultimately if you somehow create a society where most people are happy, and is sustainable long term, that should be considered preferable to one where most aren't and one that isn't sustainable long term.

Yep. We should certainly not, for instance, let our prosperity fool us into thinking that we can afford to wedge people into roles that don't fit them well and are inefficient and damaging. That doesn't make people happy and it is not sustainable for the long term.

The dude could be perfectly decent, and if someone is imagining themselves into a corner, its their own fault.

Don't let me burden you with extreme obligation or anything, but it strikes me that a decent man might pay enough attention to what he has his dick in, to ensure that he isn't unwillingly terrorizing his partner.

Also, practically, very rarely do people have any serious power over other people, and of those people not that many could use it wrongly without the person under them being able to fight back if they so choose.

Military command is based on the idea that people have the power of life and death over their subordinates. That serious enough for you?

Zsych

05-10-2009, 09:36 PM

Jinxu

05-10-2009, 10:35 PM

Where's the "evolutionary" benefit of half of a community not being held responsible for defending the weak, developing their minds, or providing for the security of their families?

This sound like a fun debate. It's like every week there is one or two on this forum. Too bad this week is an important week for me as I have to focus on my other work.

But I would like to make a comment on this statement since many NTs here like to play the evolution card in their rational arguments. What makes you all think that evolution is 100% efficient?

Zsych

05-10-2009, 10:40 PM

I think the results of evolution are nowhere near what things could be if clear design decisions were underlying it as opposed to the creation of something that kinda works.

However, when a thing works, it works because of specific reasons. With evolution additionally, the resultant construct is likely to also have weaknesses that need to be adapted to.

nacht

05-10-2009, 10:54 PM

I finally got a chance to reply to the first post here, but I'm not going to reply to all of it at this point. Just this one bit needed refutation:

In their natural environment, men are the leaders of society. In history, we are the kings, lawmakers, shamans, chiefs, judges, politicians, generals, lieutenants, captains, religious leaders, cult-leaders, business owners, scientists, God Himself.

Kings:
Hatshepsut
Empress Theodora
Zenobia

Lawmakers:
See above.

Shamans:
Korean Shamanism (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.) is almost entirely female.
Seiðr (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.) was predominantly practiced by women and was considered "unmanly" for men to practice.
Inca shamans (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.) were trans.
Himiko (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.) was a Shaman-queen of part of Japan (see also, Kings)

Chiefs:
See "Kings" and "Shamans"

Judges:
Deborah (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.)

Politicians:
No comment.

Generals, Lieutenants, Captains:
Tomoe Gozen
Joan of Arc
Princess Píngyáng
Empress Jingū (see also, Kings)
Gwenllian ferch Gruffydd
etc
etc
etc

Religious Leaders:
See Shamans.
Mirabai
Sarada Devi
See also (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.).
See also, Greek temples to Artemis, Oracle at Delphi, etc.

Cult leaders:
See religious leaders.

Business owners:
See Egypt, see also Kings.

Scientists:
Diotima of Mantinea (Socrates Mentor)
Hypatia of Alexandria
Marie Curie
Hildegard of Bingen
Ada Lovelace

God Himself:
See Egyptian Pharaohs
See also, Goddesses and YHVH Elohim.

Zsych

05-11-2009, 12:06 AM

Overall, the exact dynamic of human societies and what should be is somewhat iffy, because we can learn and override our instincts, and things can actually change rather suddenly(like with the Greeks and Socrates)

I think power instinctively means something to men - more so than to women.

firebee

05-11-2009, 01:11 AM

@firebee:
As far as evolution goes - that's where we derive from, what we and are more easily designed to support. I'd kind of think of it as akin to running a PS2 emulator on a PC. It's not that you can't simulate the PS2's functionality with the PC, but the PC really isn't the PS2, and PS2 programs are not what it is intended to support.

Oh, do let's get the electrical engineer talking about specialized vs. general-purpose computing tools.

I have here a most convenient lap-warmer. When I need an entertainment center, it serves as an entertainment center. When I need to pester my friends, it lets me do that too. I can develop scientific computing applications, I can typeset documents about scientific computing applications, and when I am sick and tired of scientific computing applications I can bounce colored balls off of each other. Or post on the forums, as is my desire. All without the use of a soldering iron.

This is because the device I have, like me, is designed to be readily adaptable to a number of tasks. As a wise man said: "Specialization is for insects."

As for the specific case of a woman. Fight or Flight? Assuming both are options?

That would be a poor assumption.

The essential questions being what is better short and long term? Which is it more okay for the species to lose... a man or a woman? Assuming a more tribal past situation, I'd say losing the man is less of an issue as long as there are plenty more.
Men are generally stronger than women, more suited to combat.

Women are generally more dextrous, more agile, respond better to stress, and have a lower center of gravity. Depending on the situation and their training, this may give them the advantage. Furthermore, if they are the one being attacked, they are by definition present -- which gives them an infinite advantage over the Navy SEAL who is not actually there.

Also combat is not necessarily meaningless. Can't fight all the time, but can't fight too little either lest you be victimized.

Actually, I'm assuming that "combat" is, in fact, meaningful, and that we do not always have the luxury of being able to choose who engages in it.

As for whether both men and women should be courageous. I'd say yes both should be. Whether they should make the same choices in the same situation... perhaps not.

Whether any two humans should make the same choices in the same situation... perhaps not. I'd be an excellent asset to the military were it not for two characteristics, neither of which is my gender and both of which are found in some men and some women.

On society being made up of people: There are people's wants, and then there are things that benefit the society as a whole. When decisions that serve people's wants are to the detriment of society those decisions are wrong. Also some issues have more long term effects (like the blunders that led to the current economic crisis). Some of our decisions effect future generations of humanity. Decisions that make our lives better and our descendents' lives worse violate the fact that we are a part of a species, not just individuals serving our own desires.

Like "evolution", the convenient thing about "society" is that it seems to always agree with the speaker. Kind of like the guys in white hard hats in the Verizon commercials.

Its hard to be sure what the optimal method would be. From the perspective of women being mothers and better care-takers, you can afford to lose men more. Can't say I approve of anyone not developing their minds, and as long as no additional harm is occuring, obviously women providing for greater security for their families is a good thing.

So women should be taught to defend themselves and others ferociously, should develop their innate capacities, and should use those capacities to their best advantage so as to benefit their kin and community.

Which of these things should men not do?

I'm not one to jump into relationships. Not really one for casual sex either. My own objection is mainly just that we can't be expected to be reading people's minds. We can only act on what we know, and holding us accountable for decisions we should've made based on what we don't know is ridiculous.

Holding you accountable for decisions you should've made based on what you should've found out is not ridiculous.

Amazingly, we can actually read each other's minds to a limited extent. For instance, at the moment I am generating electrical fields in such a way that many people in remote locations will shortly be able to discern what I am thinking. If one is physically present, one can make determinations based on how I reflect light and vibrate the air -- using this process, one can read my mind and determine whether I am fearful or enthusiastic about the prospect of imminent sexual congress.

If you don't have sufficient command of the mindreading abilities detailed above to ensure that you don't physically intimidate someone into having sex with you -- don't have sex until you fix that problem.

As with the example of the cop, with a different woman, it could've been perfectly fine what he did.

Yep, and if someone whacked me one with a signal whip without my permission, they'd shortly be seeking services to have it unthreaded from their digestive tract. Terribly unfair of me, I realize, because with a different woman -- a consenting woman -- it could have been perfectly fine what they did.

She may even have changed her view of the situation after the fact. Even sober people can change their view of things after the fact.

It's certainly not impossible for this to happen, and we do have to protect the ability of people to make meaningful and binding consent. That said, my point is that we have an ethical obligation to avoid taking advantage of our partners, and if we diverge too far from ideal negotiation we leave ourselves at risk to be found legally liable.

Unless you're expecting the person to send you to a guaranteed death for refusing his/her request... you still have plenty of options, if you believe you're being treated unfairly.

The point is that the regulations governing the military chain of command are constructed on the basis that one party has substantial power over the other party. The junior person is trained and obligated to follow the orders of the senior person, and while this obviously does extend to the matter of having sex, it does create an intrinsically unequal relationship between the two.

While it might be possible in some cases for a senior person and a junior person to have a sexual relationship in that environment, the military nonetheless prohibits it absolutely -- hence, people lose out on the possibility of wonderful relationships because of a few weak people.

And also, if you're going to mine television shows for anecdotes, I call dibs on Dollhouse.

But let's switch to school teachers and their students, as an alternative case of someone with supposed power over the other. What can the teacher really do that you can't resist? Heck just the accusation that he is treating a student unfairly is probably bad for him.

If the teacher is treating the student fairly and screwing him, what message does that send to the other students?

... My basic view here is really that people themselves should be expected to be, and taught to be stronger, rather than creating rules to protect some weak people.

And my point of view is that it's utterly unreasonable to expect someone to have a sufficiently objective view of someone they're sleeping with, to be able to hold direct authority over them. I think that an organization that permits such relationships is hopelessly naive, and I think that individuals who pursue such relationships had darn sure better communicate well. And have their resumes polished.

Its similar to my view on latter day parenting. Many people are far too over-protective of their kids, which in my opinion damages their development as people.

The legal system shelters us from unregulated revenge. In its absence, you would have more motivation, not less, to ensure that your girlfriend was willing, enthusiastic, and satisfied. Reason being that if she changed her mind in the morning you could end up being hauled off in five buckets.

I admit, this does apparently impair peoples' development. But that strikes me as a reasonable tradeoff for having our carpets last longer.

SpaceCadet

05-11-2009, 08:06 AM

Am I the only one who thinks that in the old male dominated way of doing things a lot of men were also held back from living life as their genuine selves and finding their best place in society? To hell with the manly man, I'll take the delicately built nerdy type over the brawny hero type any day.

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invicta

05-11-2009, 09:11 AM

Using monkeys as an example: gorillas and chimps are male-dominated, while bonobos (baboons too?) are the opposite. I assume they all have common ancestors with different structures, but they are what they have become. Silverbacks are despotic, chimps beat their wives, orangutans are notorious rapists. Most (all?) animals guard, mark, and fight over territories, we just have better tools.

I love this. The anthropomorphising is great. Chimps have wives? They get married in chimp church?

Marriage is still good, women give us the lurve hormone, which settles us down and improves our health. Marriage and baby-rearing also decreases testosterone, which I guess makes us less safer and less dumb...I don't remember what nice things I said about my dad, but it definitely was his testosterone levels that I appreciated, the completely safe feeling of growing up having a very dangerous, powerful man defending the family, living by (certain) principles, and leading the house with natural authority. My dad is dreamy, and knowing him informs my opinions...If I seem like I'm advocating only that men "feel" empowered, then, that's a problem. Actually, I'm advocating that men fulfill their natural potential, and, by doing so, other things will fall into place, and what I'm saying would become something obvious, an "oh, of course." Right now, frames of references, the topic brain-morphs into {female grad student} submitting to {pot-smoking boyfriend}...Curie is one of the outliers I mentioned, exceptions that proves exceptions exist.

This is deeply nostalgic and sentimental. I think nostalgia and sentiment have an important place in human life, and would never want to see these qualities diminished in the social sphere. I hope that you satisfy the longings of your heart.

This being said, I thought the manifesto was against using these qualities in decision making, as these emotional qualities are gendered as feminine, and are ruining society?

Ekagra

05-11-2009, 08:38 PM

And now, Ekagra's wisdom regarding chauvinism:

1000s of years of conditioning leave their mark - no doubt, no doubt. One does not make a silk purse from a sow's ear however and yes, it is true that the differences between men and women are by in large systemic, the nature of the conditioning only following from that fact. It is perhaps correct to say that the conditioning has amplified the differences between the sexes but that is all well and proper. One does not train a rabbit to do the work of an elephant.

As for the lack of testosterone in the world today: Mebbe, but it makes no difference to me: in some quarters there is too much, others not enough. It is the values that count: 'whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is fair, whatever is pure, whatever is acceptable, whatever is commendable, if there is anything of excellence and if there is anything praiseworthy-keep thinking about these things". Testosterone is a means not an end.

darynthe

05-11-2009, 09:12 PM

Please try again.
Yes, part of equal rights and freedoms is an uncomfortable period of transition in which women will be expected to work full time outside the home and full time inside the home. I think this is changing though. I don't know much about your personal life, but I have the (possibly mistaken) impression that the people with whom you are surrounded are somewhat more socially conservative than, for xample, the ones with whom I am surrounded. In my experience, most people think that house work and child rearing should be shared equally by both parties if both choose to work outside the home.

I consider anything we say from this moment on just a rehash and I usually just post once or twice in a thread because of the rule of 80/20 but I will answer this.

I am talking of society at large in western world.. I am not marked by any kind of personal problem or situation. My personal background is a mix of both sides of this issue.

I have had the fortune of having everything I have wanted in my life. I have two bachelor degrees, speak three languages, have read thosuands of books, travelled a lot, I moved to another country all alone.

I don't need protection. I am not asking for it. You basically misunderstood again all I said. My whole point was very small. It had to do with the way society is not allowing men to be what they are. How coming soon even there won't be any more gender differences but andoginous will be the only acceptable way to be.

At no moment I said that a woman should not be allowed to follow a career. It mystifies me that you and others have concluded this. Women should follow their dreams.

If I detest feminism is because I care a lot about women, children and men and think that a way to develop everyone healthily should be found without some using propaganda to forward certain agendas. Why is politically incorrect to denounce feminism?

And feminism has abortion as one of the top most important points of their agenda. I will never belong to such movement.

I disagree. My parents divorced and we were all much happier. Really. Then my father remarried and my family became larger. My mother didn't remarry, but has had a long term boyfriend so it's almost as good as and my family grew again.

Here in Canada , all the men I have met and come from divorced families have big problems believing that any relationship will last more than a year or two. A lot are looking for fuck buddies. Many more don't work and live off welfare. Many others suffer sequels of big problems with their mothers rejection and broken families and have mental illnesses.( 1 out of 6 people in this generation in Quebec suffeer mental illness).

This country doesn't want to have kids anymore. They live to enjoy themselves. The replacement and workforce comes from the immigrants who come from traditional countries and have families with loads of kids. Without them this country would collapsei n a few years with baby boomers retiring and nobody taking over work.

I would choose freedom over protection any and every day. If you would not, there's no need for you to do so. Part of what these changes in society mean, is that you can choose your own path with regard to career, children, marriage
, etc. If what you want is something more traditional then by all means it is what you should have.

No, seriously? Thanks, I didn't know.

Change can be scary, but I would never trade the increased responsibility and the multiple options for my future that these changes in society have brought for more surety.

Change for change sake is stupid. Planned change, and a vision of what a certain policy does to society is better.

Lucid

05-12-2009, 05:55 AM

Darynthe, I think you're actually misunderstanding me, not the other way around. What I'm saying is that nobody is trying to stop you or others from leading a more traditional lifestyle. I never thought, said or implied that you were trying to argue against women having careers or being educated or taking care of themselves. Only that just because some people want less traditional gender roles in their lives, doesn't mean that anyone is trying to tell you that you should also want less traditional gender roles in your life, or that even if they were, you have to listen to them.

I'm sure there's more I could respond to in order to clarify, but I have to go to work, and that was the really important part that you misunderstood.

Mike

05-17-2009, 12:18 AM

Mike -

What are you upset about exactly? Tell us the overall situation, as you see it, and why it upsets you.

Lucid, I've been trying to think of a way to not hit you and others with about 30 pages of text. I think this link here is the best example of what angers me about American society.

Women only hotel floors (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.)

On the one hand, you have the idea that no woman is safe around a man EVER and on the other, women are completely incapable of taking care of themselves. Both positions disgust me yet that's what this company wants us to accept.

But it's more than that. Every time they say it's not discrimination, I laugh. When you directly exclude one group from a floor, it is discrimination. How many Women's studies classes does it take to not arrive at that position? Yet it's implied that this, like the parking spaces I mentioned earlier, is no big deal. They just want to keep women safe. You do care about women right? :rolleyes: I should just shut up and take it like a man. :blank:

A few months back I applied to a position with a government agency. I kid you not, there were 8 people in the group and 2 supervisors. All of the 8 workers were female, mostly non-Whites. The first level of supervisor was a White female and the 2nd, was a male (I don't know the race). Right when I saw the demographic make-up of the office, I knew I wasn't getting the job. I was actually annoyed they wasted my time interviewing me.

I'm increasingly seeing men treated as though men's only role in this society is to please women or that men or just trash that women have to endure. I guarantee you on Father's Day, men will again be lectured by Obama about how we need to be better fathers. Yet, no mention on Mother's Day about how women need to stop using the courts to separate us from our children.

I'll leave you with that and this.

Hell on earth! (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.)

The Lie That “Just Happens” (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.)

Becoming Steve or Bekele is one of the greatest fears of my life. It seems like the only way to avoid both those fates is to avoid women entirely. But where does that get me and every man on the planet?

I suppose in short, I'm tired of the way this society treats men and I'm confident it will only get worse.

Henry

05-17-2009, 12:34 AM

Lucid, I've been trying to think of a way to not hit you and others with about 30 pages of text. I think this link here is the best example of what angers me about American society.

Women only hotel floors (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.)

On the one hand, you have the idea that no woman is safe around a man EVER and on the other, women are completely incapable of taking care of themselves. Both positions disgust me yet that's what this company wants us to accept.

But it's more than that. Every time they say it's not discrimination, I laugh. When you directly exclude one group from a floor, it is discrimination. How many Women's studies classes does it take to not arrive at that position? Yet it's implied that this, like the parking spaces I mentioned earlier, is no big deal. They just want to keep women safe. You do care about women right? :rolleyes: I should just shut up and take it like a man. :blank:

A few months back I applied to a position with a government agency. I kid you not, there were 8 people in the group and 2 supervisors. All of the 8 workers were female, mostly non-Whites. The first level of supervisor was a White female and the 2nd, was a male (I don't know the race). Right when I saw the demographic make-up of the office, I knew I wasn't getting the job. I was actually annoyed they wasted my time interviewing me.

I'm increasingly seeing men treated as though men's only role in this society is to please women or that men or just trash that women have to endure. I guarantee you on Father's Day, men will again be lectured by Obama about how we need to be better fathers. Yet, no mention on Mother's Day about how women need to stop using the courts to separate us from our children.

I'll leave you with that and this.

Hell on earth! (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.)

The Lie That “Just Happens” (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.)

Becoming Steve or Bekele is one of the greatest fears of my life. It seems like the only way to avoid both those fates is to avoid women entirely. But where does that get me and every man on the planet?

I suppose in short, I'm tired of the way this society treats men and I'm confident it will only get worse.

I think you bring up some valid concerns. Rape fears are insanely exaggerated, and as a consequence some women do really stupid things. There are relational imbalances, but this probably goes tit for tat. Female chauvinism/crankism has seen a sharp rise even in my brief 10 years on the dating market, but we have the power to avoid these women in every place except the workforce, and, well, dealing with people you don't like is part of work.

Still, look at what we're talking about - in low level positions we suffer minor discrimination, a minority (except on INTJf) of women are egocentric cranks, and some women run to the other side of the street when we are about to cross paths at 3:00 am. None of these are really "big issues".

Other than divorce peonage, which we have the power to avoid by not getting married, I don't really think these are substantive issues compared to many legitimate feminist concerns.

Mike

05-17-2009, 07:50 AM

Other than divorce peonage, which we have the power to avoid by not getting married, I don't really think these are substantive issues compared to many legitimate feminist concerns.

What legitimate concerns are there? I ask because, have they not achieved equity with us? What would more equal to us look like? In the same job, they make more money than us. They now get the majority of college degree in the US, at 58-60%. In divorce, they get the children 86% of the time. Their word carries more weight than ours in court. With sexual harassment laws, they have the power to terminate us on their word only.

What are these legitimate concerns?

Prunesquallor

05-17-2009, 08:10 AM

But it's more than that. Every time they say it's not discrimination, I laugh. When you directly exclude one group from a floor, it is discrimination. How many Women's studies classes does it take to not arrive at that position? Yet it's implied that this, like the parking spaces I mentioned earlier, is no big deal. They just want to keep women safe. You do care about women right? :rolleyes: I should just shut up and take it like a man. :blank:

See, that's where it gets more complicated. Again, the analogy to handicapped stalls comes up. These are not "discriminating against" healthy people. These are providing necessary services for those more in need. This is not discrimination. Male/female washrooms are not discrimination, they are simply a separation that respects social custom. Should I be up in arms because I cannot use a men's washroom? Separation does not entail discrimination.

You can, however, argue that these services are not necessary, and that the fear of rape, etc. is overexaggerated. It is, yes, but understandably so. Because of certain social issues, the "You're a GIRL so you should be AFRAID" message is propagated like mad, and so some irrational "solutions" address this exaggerated fear. The fear, however, is real, and it disproportionately belongs to women, which sucks a hell of a lot more than having trouble finding a parking spot. In addition, private companies are perfectly entitled to profit off of it, by offering a service their clients might value. I don't like it either, or take advantage of paranoia-based initiatives, but it's really not discrimination. Obviously, reducing the fear to reasonable levels and offering genuine solutions rather than bandaids is preferable. And, obviously, it can be taken too far. But to claim you are discriminated against because of women-only hotel floors or parking lots, no. That's silly. In terms of child custody in divorce cases - yes, there you have a valid point.

In terms of jobs...no one's going to not want to hire you because you have the potential to be a father, but failing to hire a woman due to her ability to get pregnant and then leave and stay home forever, since obviously that's what all women do!! is pretty normal discrimination. There's more of that then what you dealt with.
There are certain places that are female-heavy - some of them want more men, others really don't, and the discrimination that goes with that sucks, yes. But a sense of perspective is good.

Essentially, there will always be people with prejudices and they'll apply them where they can. But co-opting the argument when overall you belong to the privileged party, which has a hell of a lot more injustice in it's favour than we do, is kind of...well...
Attacking stupid situations is always fine, but an attention to context is important: if you don't realise that you're already winning, then you come off sounding a little ridiculous. That's all.

Prunesquallor added to this post, 0 minutes and 38 seconds later...

What legitimate concerns are there? I ask because, have they not achieved equity with us?

You're kidding, right?

Zsych

05-17-2009, 08:20 AM

@Lucid: The problem with allowing social changes is ideas that seem ridiculous now can become common place - so that more people do them. In other circumstances most people would not have those beliefs. New is not necessarily better. In the end people should be standing up for what they believe to be right, and trying to maintain what they believe to be worthwhile, because as far as they know, the alternative may well be harmful... Beyond that its a matter of who survives the war of different beliefs :)

Oh, do let's get the electrical engineer talking about specialized vs. general-purpose computing tools.

I have here a most convenient lap-warmer. When I need an entertainment center, it serves as an entertainment center. When I need to pester my friends, it lets me do that too. I can develop scientific computing applications, I can typeset documents about scientific computing applications, and when I am sick and tired of scientific computing applications I can bounce colored balls off of each other. Or post on the forums, as is my desire. All without the use of a soldering iron.

This is because the device I have, like me, is designed to be readily adaptable to a number of tasks. As a wise man said: "Specialization is for insects."

Its not that humans aren't necessarily adaptable, but that some things are inconvenient since they aren't what the system is designed for. If you were to define the optimal system for humans, it wouldn't be some theoretical system based on some general sentience, it would be a system that took into account that it was made up of humans(a species I am thoroughly unimpressed by, despite being one :P )

Women are generally more dexterous, more agile, respond better to stress, and have a lower center of gravity. Depending on the situation and their training, this may give them the advantage. Furthermore, if they are the one being attacked, they are by definition present -- which gives them an infinite advantage over the Navy SEAL who is not actually there.

You know I'd almost suggest martial arts training for everyone, but that would be equivalent to saying marital arts training for no one. If you're better trained, or if you have a gun, you're more of an exception than a rule. Can't really deny the more dexterous. More agile I'm not sure about. Respond better to stress? I think I've actually met a much greater number of women than men, who actually imagine themselves having problems that are almost not there. I suppose they may be handling those supposed problems better than I might. I think that might be more emotion based thinking(which I avoid in both men and women as far as possible)

Actually, I'm assuming that "combat" is, in fact, meaningful, and that we do not always have the luxury of being able to choose who engages in it.

Agreed. I have no objection to women defending themselves when attacked. As a general question of which gender would be preferable if you were going to war. I'd still say that men are more attuned to it... and more expendable :P

Whether any two humans should make the same choices in the same situation... perhaps not. I'd be an excellent asset to the military were it not for two characteristics, neither of which is my gender and both of which are found in some men and some women.

I wonder if they are more common in your gender. Hmm... I like military women :P (the few I've known anyway)

Like "evolution", the convenient thing about "society" is that it seems to always agree with the speaker. Kind of like the guys in white hard hats in the Verizon commercials.

I actually don't think that society necessarily agrees with me. That's the problem with independent thought, you come to conclusions that are different from other people's. Modeling what should be, is doable though. When talking in terms of how society should be, its a matter of defining criteria that you think constitute a worthwhile society and then seeing how that could be reached.

So women should be taught to defend themselves and others ferociously, should develop their innate capacities, and should use those capacities to their best advantage so as to benefit their kin and community.

Which of these things should men not do?

The point is not necessarily training but correct application. Between one person with an aptitude for engineering and one with an aptitude for art, which should you train to be an engineer. It's not like the one with the art aptitude couldn't be taught. Ultimately, as I've said before, it’s not about theoretical morals, its about what works better.
(which reminds me of something that made me very angry at a job interview. Guy asked me why he should pick me, and not instead give a job to some talentless idiot and train him for six months or more till he could do the job. As if all people are born equal... but he was a religious guy, and putting forward his view of good and helping those who are less fortunate, since he had money and essentially could choose to give it to whoever he wanted... I'm happy that company died :))

Holding you accountable for decisions you should've made based on what you should've found out is not ridiculous.

The question obviously being whether you can easily find it out, in all cases. Human thoughts and feelings are a mess. Most people don't themselves really know what they're thinking. Of course, part of my annoyance on this topic is from a personal experience with a girl (not that any sex or anything was involved). She was just not rational. Her comprehension in general was low, and her thoughts were incredibly perverted. Practically everything she thought about me was wrong, didn't fit the facts, and worse, based in strange emotional concepts that I couldn't really understand or relate meaningfully to any of my actions :P

Amazingly, we can actually read each other's minds to a limited extent. For instance, at the moment I am generating electrical fields in such a way that many people in remote locations will shortly be able to discern what I am thinking. If one is physically present, one can make determinations based on how I reflect light and vibrate the air -- using this process, one can read my mind and determine whether I am fearful or enthusiastic about the prospect of imminent sexual congress.

The problem in the cop's case was that the woman was seriously coming onto him. She flirted with him, she touched his crotch. She did not seem to be very drunk. She happily went with him. They had a good time. Afterwards, she decided that she hadn't wanted to do it and her intoxication at the time made it rape.... only she wasn't all that drunk as far as anyone else could tell. Part of the point of drinking is so you can be less inhibited. If any other normal woman had been in her place and acted the same way, the dude would probably have been fine in the assumption that she liked him. Its not like drinking gave the woman a whole new set of emotions that are a reverse of what she feels.
Lets assume a simple hypothetical case here for why she changed her view of things afterward. That woman had a boyfriend, and didn't want him to think that she cheated on him... not to say that she didn't want it, only that she thought it could negatively effect her relationship if she was thought to have done it willingly, and so she chooses to accuse this guy who she doesn't really care about, of rape, making her seem a victim and thus not responsible for what happened. Yeah, if I were her boyfriend, and knew that she wasn't overly drunk, was flirting with the guy, and went with him willingly, I wouldn't believe that crap story for a second.

If you don't have sufficient command of the mindreading abilities detailed above to ensure that you don't physically intimidate someone into having sex with you -- don't have sex until you fix that problem.

Another example of irrationality. An ESFJ friend of mine told me that in his late teens, whenever someone close to him disagreed with him or opposed him, he would automatically start thinking of them as being some kind of overly clever person who was only pretending to be a friend to take advantage of him. In retrospect he realizes it was ridiculous, but at the time, it seemed completely real to him. Those friends of his that he was suspecting of such stuff while still acting normally, would have had no reason to assume that he was thinking such thoughts because they had not done anything to cause them, and he had not communicated his thoughts. (the overly extraverted are usually good at displaying only what they want to display)
Also, although I feel a little indecent revealing this even though you don't know him... that friend of mine is really quite well liked by a lot of people. What most of those people don't realize is that he in fact respects and likes almost none of them. He's actually told me so. With some people its just not easy to tell what they're thinking. They're good at not letting other people know how they feel.

Yep, and if someone whacked me one with a signal whip without my permission, they'd shortly be seeking services to have it unthreaded from their digestive tract. Terribly unfair of me, I realize, because with a different woman -- a consenting woman -- it could have been perfectly fine what they did.

Except that that would not fall under normal behavior, and they would not have any previous indication that you would appreciate it or are willing to be treated that way. What if he asks you to let him do it, and you smile and give him a nod to say go ahead, and then he does it (ridiculous as that scenario is). Ah, but wait a second, when you nod up and down, you actually mean 'No, don't do it'. Admittedly not everyone's body language falls under the same mold and not everyone can read it well. (thus a lot of us INTJ's being considered as looking sour when we're just thinking or something)

It's certainly not impossible for this to happen, and we do have to protect the ability of people to make meaningful and binding consent. That said, my point is that we have an ethical obligation to avoid taking advantage of our partners, and if we diverge too far from ideal negotiation we leave ourselves at risk to be found legally liable.

I agree that we should not be making our partners unhappy, and that is usually not the intent, and I agree that we should be careful not to unintentionally hurt people.

The point is that the regulations governing the military chain of command are constructed on the basis that one party has substantial power over the other party. The junior person is trained and obligated to follow the orders of the senior person, and while this obviously does not extend to the matter of having sex, it does create an intrinsically unequal relationship between the two.

In that episode of Lie to Me, the dude said that he was willing to admit to fraternization, but not rape. Normally it would be that except that this dude couldn't read emotions on the same level as the main character, and thus didn't realize that the woman's smiles were off, and that she was thinking something else underneath her smiles.

I agree with the basic idea that someone in a position of power shouldn't be forming relationships with those under him. Especially in a military environment, the idea just feels dirty. It disrupts the manliness of the institution! Men fighting alongside their fellow men to do great things!!! :P
(I'll let women be added to that 'fellow men', but then they should be treated like 'fellow men' and not women)

While it might be possible in some cases for a senior person and a junior person to have a sexual relationship in that environment, the military nonetheless prohibits it absolutely -- hence, people lose out on the possibility of wonderful relationships because of a few weak people.

Where I again disapprove of the idea even of sexual relationships between superiors and inferiors in the military... The majority suffering because of a minority does not seem acceptable to me. Rules made based on the assumption that people are weak, I find insulting. I believe that people in general need to be held to higher standards. People who are turning out weak, need to be put in therapy so they can learn to live their lives better.

And also, if you're going to mine television shows for anecdotes, I call dibs on Dollhouse.

Granted.

If the teacher is treating the student fairly and screwing him, what message does that send to the other students?

Implying the teacher as female there. Lets add attractive to that. if she's treating him fairly, then in terms of.. well, my old teenage PoV... that sounds epically cool.

Otherwise, if there's no unfairness happening, and they keep it private(out of the classroom), I can't say I have any objections at all. One of my friends married a student of his, and they've been happily married for 10+ years now.

And my point of view is that it's utterly unreasonable to expect someone to have a sufficiently objective view of someone they're sleeping with, to be able to hold direct authority over them. I think that an organization that permits such relationships is hopelessly naive, and I think that individuals who pursue such relationships had darn sure better communicate well. And have their resumes polished.

Its risky business that I'm sure I would avoid (at least while someone was my student). As for being objective with regard to someone I'm sleeping with. Never question my ability to be detached and analyze things logically :P
But then I suppose that's the point. The people who would start such relationships are typically the more emotional types.

The legal system shelters us from unregulated revenge. In its absence, you would have more motivation, not less, to ensure that your girlfriend was willing, enthusiastic, and satisfied. Reason being that if she changed her mind in the morning you could end up being hauled off in five buckets.

That sounds interesting. I think the legal system is largely a deterrent though, and not always just. I think no seriously intelligent person is ever really constrained by the law or the danger of being caught, if he doesn't choose to be.

I admit, this does apparently impair peoples' development. But that strikes me as a reasonable tradeoff for having our carpets last longer.

:)

I don't really like weak personalities, or the weaknesses in myself. I would prefer that they not be there. The side of me that is individualistic wants people to be the most that they can be. To be strong respectable human beings. I'm disappointed by the fact that there are not that many people I can really respect.

Sinequanon

05-17-2009, 08:58 AM

How many Women's studies classes does it take to not arrive at that position?
Isn't the Bush era over? Can we stop appealing to anti-intellectualism now? The fact is that these issues have been studied, extensively, and there's a lot of theoretical and practical discourse on the matter - so either deal with it, and explain why 51% of the population doesn't have 51% of the power, or do what I said earlier - shut up and listen; because you're obviously not prepared to really engage with the subject.

Henry

05-17-2009, 10:52 AM

What legitimate concerns are there? I ask because, have they not achieved equity with us? What would more equal to us look like? In the same job, they make more money than us. They now get the majority of college degree in the US, at 58-60%. In divorce, they get the children 86% of the time. Their word carries more weight than ours in court. With sexual harassment laws, they have the power to terminate us on their word only.

What are these legitimate concerns?

Again, I agree that divorce is something grossly biased in favor of women. But ultimately, its something we have the power to avoid entirely by not getting married. Sexual harassment policies are another area where women are favored, but then again, I think sexuality and romance have zero place in the workforce, and that if there's absolutely zero substance to a sexual harassment claim then it will be seen as not having merit. I also have not seen the numbers that say that women are making more money than men in the same position.

Yes, women are getting undergraduate degrees and graduate degrees in humanities in much higher numbers. Men continue to dominate the fields of math, engineering, physics, and economics - ie the ones with high impact/income potential - in large part because women don't appear as interested in these subjects as men do.

In spite of this growing education gap, women are still earning considerably less than men. Its not as bad as many in the histrionic movement are suggesting as its mitigated by several choice issues, but its a legitimate complaint. Obama's modification of the statute of limitations on wage complains should go a long way to address this.

Rape, especially acquaintance rape, is another valid but frequently exaggerated concern. Stranger-throws-you-in-a-closet-and-analize-you rape is still something that happens. Its a valid concern, although occurs far less often than many women perceive. Its really not something men have to worry about unless you're in a modernist gangster movie.

Isn't the Bush era over? Can we stop appealing to anti-intellectualism now? The fact is that these issues have been studied, extensively, and there's a lot of theoretical and practical discourse on the matter - so either deal with it, and explain why 51% of the population doesn't have 51% of the power, or do what I said earlier - shut up and listen; because you're obviously not prepared to really engage with the subject.

That's at bottom an ad hominem argument, and you slap on a paternalistic "I don't agree with you so you shouldn't be talking" rationale to boot.

Mike

05-17-2009, 11:25 AM

See, that's where it gets more complicated. Again, the analogy to handicapped stalls comes up. These are not "discriminating against" healthy people. These are providing necessary services for those more in need. This is not discrimination. Male/female washrooms are not discrimination, they are simply a separation that respects social custom. Should I be up in arms because I cannot use a men's washroom? Separation does not entail discrimination.

You can, however, argue that these services are not necessary, and that the fear of rape, etc. is overexaggerated. It is, yes, but understandably so. Because of certain social issues, the "You're a GIRL so you should be AFRAID" message is propagated like mad, and so some irrational "solutions" address this exaggerated fear. The fear, however, is real, and it disproportionately belongs to women, which sucks a hell of a lot more than having trouble finding a parking spot. In addition, private companies are perfectly entitled to profit off of it, by offering a service their clients might value. I don't like it either, or take advantage of paranoia-based initiatives, but it's really not discrimination. Obviously, reducing the fear to reasonable levels and offering genuine solutions rather than bandaids is preferable. And, obviously, it can be taken too far. But to claim you are discriminated against because of women-only hotel floors or parking lots, no. That's silly. In terms of child custody in divorce cases - yes, there you have a valid point.

I wanted to separate this part out because I thought that was a very good argument. The reason why a lot of my examples come from the UK is because I've seen what happens when you accommodate certain groups over others. I don't want to cloud the argument here so I'll leave it at that.

However, I will give you two scenarios why the hotel rooms is a problem. Recently, I was thinking of attending a conference in DC. As I'm sure you know hotel prices are based on supply and demand. I thought the price of hotel rooms was outrageous at the venue and looked else where because the demand was high. Now imagine the the supply is further cut because an entire floor (or floors) are made women only. I can't see how that won't affect me in order to address women's safety concerns.

Now consider you're an employer who can only send one employee to a conference. Do you send the man or the woman given the supply and demand? I know, the guy said women will have to pay more for this service, but I simply don't believe him.

In terms of jobs...no one's going to not want to hire you because you have the potential to be a father, but failing to hire a woman due to her ability to get pregnant and then leave and stay home forever, since obviously that's what all women do!! is pretty normal discrimination. There's more of that then what you dealt with.
There are certain places that are female-heavy - some of them want more men, others really don't, and the discrimination that goes with that sucks, yes. But a sense of perspective is good.

I'll research that. I'm skeptic of that claim but I'm will to accept it happens. The thing is, I saw a job ad that blatantly said they were looking for someone from a disadvantages background which was code for white males need not apply. If I put an ad out that women need not apply, would that be equal?

Essentially, there will always be people with prejudices and they'll apply them where they can. But co-opting the argument when overall you belong to the privileged party, which has a hell of a lot more injustice in it's favour than we do, is kind of...well...
Attacking stupid situations is always fine, but an attention to context is important: if you don't realise that you're already winning, then you come off sounding a little ridiculous. That's all.

In my second job, I was told I could not be promoted because there weren't enough women in that position. In my fourth job, I was told they were only looking to promote minorities. In college I was denied financial aid because I'm White and male. Lastly, I'm for more likely to die of violent crime than a woman is.

I'm not seeing how being male is really helping me in this society. I can assure you, I'm smoking cigars and swilling brandy laughing with a bunch of old White guys at how we control the world.

You're kidding, right?

I'm not, that was a genuine question. I've seen how women are treated in Afghanistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia and those woman are oppressed. I've saw a video of a young Iraqi girl being stoned to death for having the audacity to date a Muslim from a different sect. I've read the story of a woman, in Iran was was caught by the religious police outside without a male relative. She was gang raped by 8 men and then sentenced to death for adultery. She got off light and was only sentenced to 100 lashes and a little less than a decade in prison.

I think about that and compare it to my own rude behavior of holding doors open for women (and men) and think, NOW needs to combat my behavior?

I've enjoyed this discussion Prunesquallor and look forward to your reply. Most of the time, at this point, I'm told to shut up or called a bigot. Oh wait, that's a few posts below ;)

Sinequanon

05-17-2009, 12:11 PM

That's at bottom an ad hominem argument, and you slap on a paternalistic "I don't agree with you so you shouldn't be talking" rationale to boot.
"Shut up and listen" is an advised methodology, given a conditional that if he wasn't prepared to discuss the issue at the level that it requires being discussed at, he should take. Everyone is of course entitled to give their opinions, but not everyone is entitled to appeal to ignorance. Nor should we take that ignorance or anti-intellectualism is an argument in and of itself. As such, Mike is "paternalistically" shelving about 90% of the argument as irrelevant because he does not want to (or isn't capable of) addressing it directly. Would you rather the level of discussion be lowered or raised? Hm.

Mike

05-17-2009, 12:22 PM

Isn't the Bush era over? Can we stop appealing to anti-intellectualism now? The fact is that these issues have been studied, extensively, and there's a lot of theoretical and practical discourse on the matter - so either deal with it, and explain why 51% of the population doesn't have 51% of the power, or do what I said earlier - shut up and listen; because you're obviously not prepared to really engage with the subject.

Yeah, you're right. We're now in an era where we have a president who wants to get rid of earmarks and does so by signing a bill with 8,000 of them. That takes a certain kind of intellectualism to understand that, I fear, I will never be able to obtain.

What's your position on Camille Pagila? Because that's a feminist I will listen to. I won't listen to ones who say:

"Whatever they may be in public life, whatever their relations with men, in their relations with women, all men are rapists and that's all they are. They rape us with their eyes, their laws, their codes."
Marilyn French

"And if the professional rapist is to be separated from the average dominant heterosexual [male], it may be mainly a quantitative difference"
Susan Griffin

The 51% statement, what do you consider power? A woman can force fatherhood on a man when she chooses. I've seen men fired for offending a woman's feelings. In the Duke LaCross fake rape case, I've seen men spend millions in order to defend themselves against completely unfounded accusations of rape.

Is that not power?

Zsych

05-17-2009, 12:26 PM

Yes, women are getting undergraduate degrees and graduate degrees in humanities in much higher numbers. Men continue to dominate the fields of math, engineering, physics, and economics - ie the ones with high impact/income potential - in large part because women don't appear as interested in these subjects as men do.

Hmm... I'm going to be politically incorrect here, and say that the reason behind that is probably along the same lines as why men and women score differently in IQ tests. Even if men and women have the same IQ overall, men and women on average consistently do better in different sections. Women usually doing better in language based stuff, and men usually doing better in pattern based stuff for example. The total number of guys naturally suited to math related jobs is probably higher than the number of women.
(Probably similar to the suckage of 2.5% of men being INTJ, but only 0.5% of women :( )

In spite of this growing education gap, women are still earning considerably less than men. Its not as bad as many in the histrionic movement are suggesting as its mitigated by several choice issues, but its a legitimate complaint. Obama's modification of the statute of limitations on wage complains should go a long way to address this.

I read this article a while back, you might find it interesting: Are Women Earning More Than Men? (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.)

I also recall reading some research by a Harvard professor. She said that if you compared Harvard male graduates and female, and the fact that the females were getting paid less on average... the reason came down to how well they negotiated when they started a job. Men were just more aggresive.

I'll research that. I'm skeptic of that claim but I'm will to accept it happens. The thing is, I saw a job ad that blatantly said they were looking for someone from a disadvantages background which was code for white males need not apply. If I put an ad out that women need not apply, would that be equal?

In my second job, I was told I could not be promoted because there weren't enough women in that position. In my fourth job, I was told they were only looking to promote minorities. In college I was denied financial aid because I'm White and male. Lastly, I'm for more likely to die of violent crime than a woman is.

I'm not seeing how being male is really helping me in this society. I can assure you, I'm smoking cigars and swilling brandy laughing with a bunch of old White guys at how we control the world.

I acknowledge your pain. For all that I haven't experienced it myself, I've always believed that career growth should be purely merit based. If that means that all men or all women or some other classifiable group get to the top, so be it.

I'm not, that was a genuine question. I've seen how women are treated in Afghanistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia and those woman are oppressed. I've saw a video of a young Iraqi girl being stoned to death for having the audacity to date a Muslim from a different sect. I've read the story of a woman, in Iran was was caught by the religious police outside without a male relative. She was gang raped by 8 men and then sentenced to death for adultery. She got off light and was only sentenced to 100 lashes and a little less than a decade in prison.

I think about that and compare it to my own rude behavior of holding doors open for women (and men) and think, NOW needs to combat my behavior?

I've enjoyed this discussion Prunesquallor and look forward to your reply. Most of the time, at this point, I'm told to shut up or called a bigot. Oh wait, that's a few posts below ;)

Alright, I'm going to comment on this, since I've actually lived in Saudi Arabia. First, the media can make something seem much bigger than it is. Even one murder seems significant when its on the news for days, but really, one murder in a city of ten million for example, is not necessarily cause for great concern.
Two, people in different countries have different beliefs, and choose to live life in different ways. My mother is a Muslim and she chooses to wear a scarf and cover her face... not because there is a law requiring that where she lives, but merely because she believes it to be more pious. Our dad didn't like the idea, we didn't like the idea, but she still did it.
So as far as Saudi women go, they are somewhat limited in how easily they can move around, but they also get raped far less often than American women. Ones I met while I was a kid, seemed normal enough. They were well educated women if nothing else. (I won't claim independent minded, because I don't know and because independence of thought is a rare quality anywhere)
One good thing about Saudi Arabia at least is that the crime rate for example, is really low in comparison to here.

The story of the woman in Iran you talked about seems interesting. I'm going to assume that she wasn't gang raped by the religious police itself. I didn't think that law about women needing a relative with them existed there, so I googled, and found: Sex Slavery in Iran (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.)??? 250 Brothels in Tehran? 80,000+ prostitutes. Yikes!

Now that's definitely un-Islamic. Jail time isn't part of Islamic law, although the lashing is for having sex, when you're not married. If the woman you mentioned was married, adultery would lead to execution, although rape usually falls under a different law, and its the guys doing the raping that are supposed to all get killed by default. I wonder what happened to them. I rather expect they wouldn't have gotten off easy if a woman got lashing.

Sinequanon

05-17-2009, 12:32 PM

The 51% statement, what do you consider power? A woman can force fatherhood on a man when she chooses. I've seen men fired for offending a woman's feelings. In the Duke LaCross fake rape case, I've seen men spend millions in order to defend themselves against completely unfounded accusations of rape.

Is that not power?
Of course it is. But when you ask a woman where she sees power imbalances, it should not be a rhetorical question. I have said before, I am not a feminist. There are a LOT of issues I have with feminism. Quotes like the ones you mention are a result of an ideology whose course has clearly run. That said, I don't pretend to have some sort of comprehensive understanding of women's experience, and I fight, hard, when a woman claims that she has comprehended my own. A person fighting for equality fights against legitimate discrimination wherever they see it, not when it's only politically convenient or self-beneficial. It's a problem I have with feminists and with people who advance your types of arguments. Neither side should have to "prove" they're discriminated against. You are starting from the premise that there is equity, and someone like Prunesquallor is starting from the premise that men have, almost a priori, more advantages. I think it's more complicated than that. It's quite clear that discrimination exists all over the place. The question is how to go about making solutions, if they can be made, not piling up grievances on a scale to see who has it worse.

Synamon

05-17-2009, 12:38 PM

Hmm... I'm going to be politically incorrect here, and say that the reason behind that is probably along the same lines as why men and women score differently in IQ tests. Even if men and women have the same IQ overall, men and women on average consistently do better in different sections. Women usually doing better in language based stuff, and men usually doing better in pattern based stuff for example. The total number of guys naturally suited to math related jobs is probably higher than the number of women.
(Probably similar to the suckage of 2.5% of men being INTJ, but only 0.5% of women :( )

This myth was discussed comprehensively in another thread (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.) and this post refutes your claim:
I found this article (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.) very interesting, particularly this statement:

So the between gender differences in a single discipline—reading or math—certainly appear to be influenced by social features, but the within gender differences between reading and math, and between arithmetic and geometry, appear to be much more stable across environments, suggesting possible biological roots. They looked at gaps in math scores world wide and found some countries where there was no gap in math and some where the girls performed higher. They also compared reading scores and the boys didn't fair very well. In fact, there were no countries where the boys performed higher. (I mention this because I happen to be equally annoyed that boys are often discouraged against reading as much as I am annoyed by girls being told it's okay to suck at math)

It did not explain why girls do not continue with math or prove why there is a gap in performance differing between countries, only that there is a gap in performance and in some countries girls out perform boys.

There were countries where no gap existed in math scores by gender, so social influences appear to be to blame, not biology.

Mike

05-17-2009, 12:58 PM

In spite of this growing education gap, women are still earning considerably less than men. Its not as bad as many in the histrionic movement are suggesting as its mitigated by several choice issues, but its a legitimate complaint. Obama's modification of the statute of limitations on wage complains should go a long way to address this.

Rape, especially acquaintance rape, is another valid but frequently exaggerated concern. Stranger-throws-you-in-a-closet-and-analize-you rape is still something that happens. Its a valid concern, although occurs far less often than many women perceive. Its really not something men have to worry about unless you're in a modernist gangster movie.

As to the first, I've seen two researchers now (both ignored by the media) which found women in the same job earn more than men.

As to the later, I'll share a story of my own. I was walking on a college campus around dusk. The lights were just starting to come on and she was walking towards me on a sidewalk that crossed mine. At a distance so far I still couldn't make out her physical features, she looked at me and stopped. She turned around and walked the opposite direction. she ended up taking a different pathway that went parallel to mine with about 300 feet separating us. At the time, I was confused by it and laughed it off. Now I realize she expected me to attack and/or rape her. That attitude seems to be the default these days and I think it's wrong.

But you're right that is a legitimate issue for women to consider. I definitely don't want to leave you with the impression that I think it isn't. One of the worst experiences in my life was begging an aquatint to go to the police after she was raped. I don't ever want a girl like her to not be believed. Yet, in pursuing that, it's not right that men's lives should be destroyed by vindictive women.

Zsych

05-17-2009, 01:10 PM

@Synamon: I think the fact that IQ tests... something for which you don't really prepare all of your school life, are a more obvious indicator of difference since that is not what you have learned, but how you think and solve problems for which you aren't necessarily trained by actual schooling. If women and men do differently in different areas, then that's a difference in nature.

As for schooling... honestly, I think women are a little more conformist than men... from a certain PoV, a little more mature. A little more likely to be willing to put in effort into stuff like school than us. There are gender differences like girls learning to talk a little earlier on average.

Anyway, IMO, if there is a difference in talent, it shouldn't really be showing at the lower levels all that easily unless you somehow measure speed of learning new material as opposed to testing everyone at the same time. I usually didn't put in full effort into school stuff, and you're judged not for the best you could've been but for how much you bother with. At the upper levels though, where you're creating new things, where you have to understand very complex ideas in a specific field, then it would matter how much aptitude you really had in that area. When its no longer a matter of learning from others, but rather figuring out for yourself.

As to the later, I'll share a story of my own. I was walking on a college campus around dusk. The lights were just starting to come on and she was walking towards me on a sidewalk that crossed mine. At a distance so far I still couldn't make out her physical features, she looked at me and stopped. She turned around and walked the opposite direction. she ended up taking a different pathway that went parallel to mine with about 300 feet separating us. At the time, I was confused by it and laughed it off. Now I realize she expected me to attack and/or rape her. That attitude seems to be the default these days and I think it's wrong.

Just wanted to say that I completely agree that expecting ill intent from others is not something to be approved of, and not a viewpoint that should be allowed to spread. IMO, if you have high expectations of others, and that's the common viewpoint in the society, people will find it harder to commit crimes, because that's just now how they view reality.

What a very honorable man considers undoable and a sin, is not the same as what someone completely without morals considers undoable and a a sin.

But you're right that is a legitimate issue for women to consider. I definitely don't want to leave you with the impression that I think it isn't. One of the worst experiences in my life was begging an aquatint to go to the police after she was raped. I don't ever want a girl like her to not be believed. Yet, in pursuing that, it's not right that men's lives should be destroyed by vindictive women.

Annoying problem this, and why honesty is an important thing to have ingrained in everyone.

Hmm... this is getting off-topic, but IMO, what prevails in societies is what everyone believes to be common place. If rape is considered to be common place, those who want to do it, will consider it normal enough that they will. News would have you believe that there is a shit ton of crap going on, thus lowering your expectations of other people... only a couple of cases in a large city, is usually negligible. It doesn't effect most people, they can't do anything about it even if they know, so in what way does it benefit you to have that information? If the media weren't making it seem common place, I expect even fewer people would be able to commit such crimes, because it just won't be part of reality as they know it.

Grow up in a perfectly goodie goodie society, and the common expectation may be such that even lying might seem like much more than you can do... which would be kinda cool.

Henry

05-17-2009, 01:11 PM

\
As to the later, I'll share a story of my own. I was walking on a college campus around dusk. The lights were just starting to come on and she was walking towards me on a sidewalk that crossed mine. At a distance so far I still couldn't make out her physical features, she looked at me and stopped. She turned around and walked the opposite direction. she ended up taking a different pathway that went parallel to mine with about 300 feet separating us. At the time, I was confused by it and laughed it off. Now I realize she expected me to attack and/or rape her. That attitude seems to be the default these days and I think it's wrong.

I've had this several times, as I like to walk late at night and am about 6'4". Yeah, it hurts my feelings and, yeah, she's clearly exaggerating the probability of a rapist.

But can I blame said individual? Not really, its an exaggerated but valid fear. I can say that she's a not-so-intelligent and very fearful person, but that's 80% of humanity.

But you're right that is a legitimate issue for women to consider. I definitely don't want to leave you with the impression that I think it isn't. One of the worst experiences in my life was begging an aquatint to go to the police after she was raped. I don't ever want a girl like her to not be believed. Yet, in pursuing that, it's not right that men's lives should be destroyed by vindictive women.

I think maybe you're exaggerating the seriousness of this event. Similarly immature events have probably happened to me a half a dozen times in my life, and although its jejune and slightly hurtful, its ultimately a semi-rational action for a woman to engage in.

Are there some daddy issue, chauvinistic, out-to-shit-on-men-however-they-can feminists? Or narrowly crank on tit-for-tat gender "inequalities"? Or ones who exaggerate the frequency of modern discrimination? Or who ignore the context of past discrimination? Sure, and it sounds like you've had some personal experiences with this "suck it" brand of feminism. There are a handful of these who post on this forum, but there are a lot of women who discuss genuine, objective gender inequalities. Because of that I'm reluctant, much as I don't like the above-referenced brands of feminists, to generalize about women or feminism.

Mike

05-17-2009, 02:25 PM

The story of the woman in Iran you talked about seems interesting. I'm going to assume that she wasn't gang raped by the religious police itself. I didn't think that law about women needing a relative with them existed there, so I googled, and found: Sex Slavery in Iran (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.)??? 250 Brothels in Tehran? 80,000+ prostitutes. Yikes!

Now that's definitely un-Islamic. Jail time isn't part of Islamic law, although the lashing is for having sex, when you're not married. If the woman you mentioned was married, adultery would lead to execution, although rape usually falls under a different law, and its the guys doing the raping that are supposed to all get killed by default. I wonder what happened to them. I rather expect they wouldn't have gotten off easy if a woman got lashing.

No sir, that most certainly is Islamic: It's all in how you justify it ;) Search google and use the terms "marriage" "contract" "Iran." The story you should read is called, "Love Finds a Way in Iran: 'Temporary Marriage'" and was the second link for me. Here's a quote;

The couple could have gotten married for as short a time as a few minutes or as long as 99 years. They could have specified whether and how much money Maryam would be paid as a kind of dowry, or how much time they would spend together. Instead, they decided on a straightforward contract of six months, which they renewed again and again.

I find the idea of a temporary marriage amusing. But, I am a kafir so what do I know ;) I actually wonder if American women would be willing to accept such an arrangement. Perhaps a topic for another thread.

Lucid

05-20-2009, 11:14 AM

Mike

05-25-2009, 08:16 PM

Mike, I think your take on women and on gender inequality is actually just the same as most of what you complain about from feminists - just with the gender pronouns reversed. You seem to be finding a lot of small things to fixate on. Gender inequality works both ways and it hapens to both sexes unfortunately. There are some ridiculous things that men have to deal with from women and some ridiculous things women have to deal with from men. A woman crossing the street so you won't rape her is stupid but really no different from men tending to take me less seriously than other men. I'm not trying to say that you have nothing to complain about, but that you don't appear to have any more to complain about than women do.

I've been thinking about how best to reply to this. I guess the short answer is, I don't agree. When I said I watched a video of a girl in Iraq get stoned to death because she chose to date a Muslim of a different sect, I didn't say it because I enjoyed it. I said it, because it angered me. That's a situation where Western Women's groups should be all over. I'm pretty sure that story made it to Fox (though not the major networks) so it's not like they missed it somehow. It makes me angry thinking about it months later thinking that her male relatives were in the crowd throwing stones.

Are Men the Second Sex Now? (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.)

I found this article at one of my favorite sites. Here's three paragraphs that I thought directly related to my position.

Fast forward to 2009, and you find that women are now fully half of the American workforce. They earn 57 percent of bachelor's degrees, 59 percent of master's degrees, and half the doctorates. Females have achieved parity with males in law school and medical school and left their male counterparts in the dust in fields like veterinary medicine and psychology. Women serve as presidents of Harvard, MIT, Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania, and many other leading research universities. Today American women are among the healthiest, freest, best-educated women in the world, and they score near the top on international surveys of happiness and life satisfaction.

And later...

In Friedan's day, women were clearly the second sex. Not so today. Yes, many women are struggling with the challenge of combining family and work. But men do not have it easy either. They are increasingly less educated than women. They are bearing the brunt of the recession. The New York Times recently reported that "a full 82 percent of the job losses have befallen men." Reuters referred to the surging male unemployment rate as a "blood bath." Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's "FastStats" show that men are less likely than women to be insured—and more likely to drink, smoke, and be overweight. They also die six years earlier than women on average.

Why are there no conferences, petitions, workshops, congressional hearings, or presidential councils to help men close the education gap, the health care gap, the insurance gap, the job-loss gap, and the death gap? Because, unlike women, men do not have hundreds of men's studies departments, research institutes, policy centers, and lobby groups working tirelessly to promote their challenges as political causes.

When I read an article like this, I thought to myself, here's someone who gets it. If she takes that and adds the hysteria surround rape and domestic violence she'll know exactly what it's like to be male in American society.

Now, given that, don't I have the right to be annoyed when I hear how oppressed American women are?

Lucid

05-25-2009, 08:23 PM

Now, given that, don't I have the right to be annoyed when I hear how oppressed American women are?

I'm not sure you're getting my point. I'll try one more time.

1. You have the right to be annoyed at anything, reasonable or no.
2. You appear to be making the case that American men are oppressed. Whether one gender is more or less oppressed than the other in America is debatable and, for the purposes of my point here, irrelevant. What I'm saying is that given what is commonly held to be true about gender inequality in the US, and with the information that most people have access to, don't they have the right to be annoyed when they hear from you how oppressed American men are?

That is all.

Henry

05-25-2009, 08:28 PM

I've been thinking about how best to reply to this. I guess the short answer is, I don't agree. When I said I watched a video of a girl in Iraq get stoned to death because she chose to date a Muslim of a different sect, I didn't say it because I enjoyed it. I said it, because it angered me. That's a situation where Western Women's groups should be all over. I'm pretty sure that story made it to Fox (though not the major networks) so it's not like they missed it somehow. It makes me angry thinking about it months later thinking that her male relatives were in the crowd throwing stones.

Are Men the Second Sex Now? (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.)

I found this article at one of my favorite sites. Here's three paragraphs that I thought directly related to my position.

And later...

When I read an article like this, I thought to myself, here's someone who gets it. If she takes that and adds the hysteria surround rape and domestic violence she'll know exactly what it's like to be male in American society.

Now, given that, don't I have the right to be annoyed when I hear how oppressed American women are?

Actually I would criticize this view in the same way that I criticize radical feminism: There's a kernel of truth in what you're saying, but you're exaggerating the seriousness of the concerns, overstating the importance of government and policy in impacting social outcomes, and understating the role of personal choice.

JohnDoe

05-25-2009, 08:29 PM

2. You appear to be making the case that American men are oppressed. Whether one gender is more or less oppressed than the other in America is debatable and, for the purposes of my point here, irrelevant. What I'm saying is that given what is commonly held to be true about gender inequality in the US, and with the information that most people have access to, don't they have the right to be annoyed when they hear from you how oppressed American men are?

That is all.

Rights of fathers in divorce court is all I have to say to #2.

Kamnak

05-25-2009, 08:53 PM

I think the trend is actually leading both sexes towards a state of sexual ambiguity.

We are not, as a civilization, getting progressively more feminine. It's now okay for women to wear pants, and it's still somewhat socially incorrect for men to wear skirts. If anything, women have become more masculine than men have become feminine. As some men start being less abrasive, some women start being more so and as less women are staying in the home, more men are. Those who are attached to traditional gender roles will find others like themselves and each side is complimented in the correct manner.

I don't honestly see the problem with evolving as a species towards a sexually ambiguous state, but perhaps I read too much sci-fi. (It always seems to work out well for the aliens / our future selves!)

Lucid

05-25-2009, 08:58 PM

Rights of fathers in divorce court is all I have to say to #2.

Whether one gender is more or less oppressed than the other in America is debatable and, for the purposes of my point here, irrelevant.

However, it is my experience that men are more oppressed than women in come cases, women more than men in others.

Vagrant

05-25-2009, 09:02 PM

some women start being more so and as less women are staying in the home, more men areActually, considering the economy, I think everybody is out there working. That's equality for you -- universal poverty! :D

I don't honestly see the problem with evolving as a species towards a sexually ambiguous state, but perhaps I read too much sci-fi. (It always seems to work out well for the aliens / our future selves!)We're not evolving towards a sexually ambiguous state, not by a long-shot. If anything, we're undergoing stronger and stronger sexual selection, aka the Sexy Son hypothesis (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.) and runaway sexual selection (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.). Sexual selection will almost always cause a gender difference, physically and mentally (except in the face of an exceptionally strong external selective pressure. Additionally, some asexual [or unisexual] species do exist, but often they don't last long in the fossil record, thanks to Muller's Ratchet (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.) and the lack of recombination).

However, I don't disagree when you say culturally that we're evolving to a more gender neutral area. But physically? No way. In fact I'd offer to say that we're physically moving towards greater attractiveness in both genders (notice the prevalence of natural blonde today as opposed to 300 years ago? Blue eyes too? And those are just obvious characteristics in both genders)

Kamnak

05-25-2009, 09:11 PM

However, I don't disagree when you say culturally that we're evolving to a more gender neutral area. But physically? No way.

Aaaah, good point. I hadn't considered physical differences at all, stupidly. I was mostly pondering the OP's discussion of men acting in a more feminine manner and thus branched off on women acting more like men.

Your articles prove your point rather well.. the only thing I would like to see is more research done on sexually ambiguous subcultures. Emo / Goth / Punk all seem to lean a bit that way, but perhaps we could write off attraction to this type with the title "fetish" and not consider it a cultural leaning.

Vagrant

05-25-2009, 09:26 PM

Your articles prove your point rather well.. the only thing I would like to see is more research done on sexually ambiguous subcultures. Emo / Goth / Punk all seem to lean a bit that way, but perhaps we could write off attraction to this type with the title "fetish" and not consider it a cultural leaning.

Well, I'm certainly no expert, but I went to high school in Orange County, California, where I saw all those types except punk, and I've picked up on punk more since I started longboarding.

Goth to me was never sexually ambiguous. Yeah, the idea behind the style was the same -- goths tended to wear dark, lacey clothes with plenty of chains and whatever BDSM-style addons they could. But the goth girls typically wore skirts, and the goth guys typically wore long, baggy pants. If anything, the gender difference was fairly pronounced in the subculture. Often people of either gender were Goth simply because there were some hot people of the other gender who were goth. Same goes for punk, although you do have a few more butch women.

However... emo culture in particular showed a very sexually ambiguous subculture. Almost all clothes and hairstyles were identical. The emo subculture is also well-noted for gay men, and lesbian women, which to me suggests a strongness of sexual ambiguity.

Mike

05-26-2009, 04:50 PM

I'm not sure you're getting my point. I'll try one more time.

1. You have the right to be annoyed at anything, reasonable or no.
2. You appear to be making the case that American men are oppressed. Whether one gender is more or less oppressed than the other in America is debatable and, for the purposes of my point here, irrelevant. What I'm saying is that given what is commonly held to be true about gender inequality in the US, and with the information that most people have access to, don't they have the right to be annoyed when they hear from you how oppressed American men are?

That is all.

As to your second, they certainly do and I'll challenge them to prove that my life as a man is vastly superior to that of a woman.

The other issue which you aren't addressing is the role of women's groups and their unwillingness to (in my opinion) fight for anything that does not involve privilege for women. Here's an example:

"If We Now Kill Schoolgirls, You Shouldn't Be Surprised" (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.)

The story is appalling and screams of the cowardice of the Taliban. One of the comments has it best:

Again I am deafened by the crickets of silence from the western feminist movement. Like many of the "progressive" organizations in the west not a peep is whispered about the implications and ugly reality of Sharia. Do they hate the west so much that it is better to stay silent in death than to stand up for what is right?

When are the cultural relativists going to stand up and say enough is enough? How many more must suffer and die and to what ends?

lan astaslem!

Amen

Where is NOW encouraging Obama to increase the number of troops in Afghanistan to fully pacify this area? Too busy fighting to make sure Atlanta road sides say workers ahead rather than Men working.

Mike added to this post, 22 minutes and 55 seconds later...

Actually I would criticize this view in the same way that I criticize radical feminism: There's a kernel of truth in what you're saying, but you're exaggerating the seriousness of the concerns, overstating the importance of government and policy in impacting social outcomes, and understating the role of personal choice.

Sonia Sotomayor’s greatest hits (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.)

“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion [as a judge] than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.” — Judge Sonia Sotomayor, in her Judge Mario G. Olmos Law and Cultural Diversity Lecture at the University of California (Berkeley) School of Law in 2001

A more racist and sexist statement will be hard to find. This woman will be the next supreme court judge. Do you think any man has an equal chance to a woman before her?