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There's an article in this month's Scientific American Mind about the effects of self-image on performance which is fascinating. Most of it is on the web: look it up. One of the experiments was absolutely elegant. They took a group of Asian women and gave them a math-weighted intelligence test. Half were told that because they were women, they wouldn't do as well as men. The other half was told that because they were Asian, they would do better than average. Easy to imagine what happened, right? Right.
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Take a look back a couple of subjects to the conversation about good boys/bad boys, etc., and we get a perfect example of where the problem in examining human relationships occurs: each side (men and women) seem to believe that the other side has the advantage.
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To me, suggesting that men are running the game, and have been for twenty thousand years or so, simply isn't possible unless women are inferior mentally and emotionally. ISN'T POSSIBLE. To me, something else has to be going on. The men who resent women and the women who resent men are exactly the same in my book, and if you flipped their genders, they would behave exactly the same as the people they abhor. This is the same as whites who think blacks are intellectually inferior, or blacks who think whites are evil. Flip their race, and they'd be their own worst enemies.
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I've been down this road many, many times. Women who think men are in control ALWAYS ignore the fact that most of the victims of violent crime are men, and look at the carnage on a battle-field (generally all men) and say, "well, men start the wars..." Well that's great, but it begs the question of WHY.
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If it's nearly universal, then it's anchored in our biology. Which implies that aggression in males is a serious survival trait for an individual or society. Which relates to the survival of more children--which is of benefit to both men and women. Men didn't decide that women would be the ones who get pregnant--nature did. If men are these horrible dominating creatures, blame God, or Nature, not man.
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But I think the game is different from that, that men and women are the same animals with different wedding tackle, and that each side has a schetoma about it's negative effects on the other.
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Someone commented about how black people know more about their lives than whites, and therefore must be considered the experts. And that the same courtesy should be extended to women. That, in other words, men should be careful in having too much confidence in their opinions about them. I see the argument, but it isn't quite valid.
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A white person who grew up in a 50% black neighborhood, whose address book is 50% black, and 50% of their family (by marriage, let's say) is black and a big chunk of their employers, educators, students, co-workers and neighbors and ALL of their lovers had been black (looking at this from a heterosexual perspective, of course) I'd think that if they didn't know black people they were IDIOTS.
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Men and women SHOULD know each other as they know themselves. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that's exactly true. That, in other words, from my own point of view, the more a man or woman considers the opposite sex to be "different" and/or "to blame" for the problems of the world, the less they know themselves. Frankly, I think the major reason I've never had a problem having women as friends or lovers is that I don't seem much difference. Most of the people I talk to who think there's some huge difference have a pretty miserable record with the opposite sex.
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What is that truth? That the surest way to raise the standard of living (as well as health stats overall) is women's equality? I buy this completely. Then you have to consider the reverse to be true as well: the surest way to trash your standard of living is to REPRESS women. Afghanistan, for instance, had a dreadful record of women's rights--and, if I'm not mistaken, the highest infant mortality rate in the world. That's the road to extinction. You simply cannot sink half a boat. Men might well jocky for the FRONT of the boat, but to continue the analogy, when the ship is sinking, they know they have to protect "women and children first."
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Contrast this with race relations. Whites literally COULD kill every black person on the planet, and still survive just fine. As blacks could kill all the whites, or Asians could kill off everyone. Whatever urges to domination and control exist within the human psyche (women conditioning men to be more aggressive, men conditioning women to be more passive) that shit REALLY takes off if you actually don't need the other group--and fear that the other group might actually kill you and take your resources.
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In comparison, the "war" between men and women is a family argument. Yes, from time to time there is brutality, and feelings are hurt, and people even die. But in general, men and women LOVE each other as they love almost nothing else in this world. They need each other, hunger for each other. They yearn to spend their lives together. They move heaven and earth to be together. They die and kill for one another, and sacrifice fortune and fame to build lives together.
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To my knowledge, there is no case, anywhere in the world, at any point in history, of the men of a town, city, state, or nation killing all of their own women There are uncounted instances of one ethnic or racial group slaughtering and utterly exterminating another. I wouldn't doubt that men might have killed all the women--or vice versa--some little teeny village somewhere...but any imaginable human behavior has been done SOMEWHERE. The point is that slaughter of another ethnic group is just business as usual for humanity. Slaughter of all woman is SUICIDE. There is a gigantic difference, and it's easy to miss it--everyone's pain feels like Everest to them, if they lack perspective.
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Years ago, I came up with a list of requirements for racial parity. I said something to the effect that I'd consider that the playing field is level when there is parity between white and black for:
1) Life expectancy
2) Infant mortality rate
3) Inherited Wealth
4) Incarceration rates
5) Net Worth
6) Death by violence
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Look at this. When people started asking about whether, in America, blacks or women have it worse, so far as I know women have the advantage over blacks in every single one of these categories. Now, I'm not saying that my standards apply with fairness and elegance. I mention them to suggest why I PERSONALLY can't agree that women in America have it worse--I would literally have to ignore damage being done to the basic levels of Maslow's heirerarchy. Most of the things women complain about have to do with higher levels: presence in the executive board room, education (in the past), self-expression. For me to think it was worse, I would need to see something impacting women so that they DIED earlier, on average.
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Any society, anywhere in the world, that is so screwed up that it's women are dying at a faster rate than their men is a society in collapse. Period.
This is why I kinda think that in life, "men's lives are disposable, as are women's dreams."
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It's horrible. But what we're trying to do is create a world where both lives and dreams are precious for all. When you look at the different ways the mating game is played, to me, the thing to ask is: "if men and women are equally intelligent, equally moral and strong, how do their most basic human drives propagate through different reproductively weighted neurology to create the societies and customs we see?"
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Both sides tend to assume superiority, trust me. It is gloriously easy to provoke a group of either men or women into prating on about why their side is the best. In my mind, this mode of thought is precisely the same as racism, homophobia, cultural elitism, or whatever. It is the standard "we rule, you drool" crap that Octavia Butler was afraid would doom us as a species.
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We've going to get beyond it people. I hope you're around for the ride.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
More stuff on programming, and gender
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17 comments:
To me, suggesting that men are running the game, and have been for twenty thousand years or so, simply isn't possible unless women are inferior mentally and emotionally. ISN'T POSSIBLE. To me, something else has to be going on.
Yeah, violence.
Women aren't inferior mentally and emotionally; they're inferior physically. In a society where brute force is an acceptable method for solving interpersonal problems -- practically all societies throughout human history until lately -- women were little better than chattel. The best they could hope for was a pleasant master.
Civilization can be viewed with pretty striking accuracy as the process of feminizing men. In societies where men solve problems the same way women do, women have a good shot at equality. In societies where slapping the bitch is still an acceptable answer, not so much.
Thanks for writing about this, Steve.
After your comments about how many black people white people have in their address books, I checked. In my cell phone's contact list I have 17 white people, seven black people, and two South Asians. So, a little over a third are non white.
I use speed dial differently from most people, I think, since there are probably three times that many people whom I call more regularly. These, I dial from memory and have never bothered putting into my phone. I don't use speed dial at all on my landline. But, the ratios are about the same. I wish I weren't so atypical. I remember going to a family funeral in 2005 and being sad that although there were about 200 people there, all were white.
hrm...you say you know of no country / culture killing off it's women...what about the Congo?
They aren't killing their women per se...but on average 12 per provence per day are being raped and then mutilated. They haven't pinned down the exact cause...it ranges from culture to "just to do damage to the other side". But then again it is not just women...it's children too. The self-destructiveness is staggering.
I think "who has it worse, women or blacks" is a non issue. We don't need another pissing contest in the US...we need to center on making it better for all.
That the surest way to raise the standard of living (as well as health stats overall) is women's equality? I buy this completely.
Ralph Peters touches on this in his essay "Seven Signs of Non-Competitive States"; Subjection of women is an indicator of a failed state/culture.
http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usawc/Parameters/98spring/peters.htm
We've going to get beyond it people. I hope you're around for the ride.
"Things' seem to be getting better. We've gone from the attitudes my grandparents held to .. well now. Racial slurs were common in my parents day, whispered or something to ashamed of saying when I was a child to .. whatever my kids think about the issue; I don't think it comes up as a problem for them.
As long as we can maintain our civilization, I don't see why it won't get better.
I said "killing ALL their women." the comment stands.
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As for violence, Dan--no doubt that women suffer more violence at the hands of men than vice versa. But the great equalizer is killing your husband in his sleep. Do you think slave masters routinely slept next to their brutalized slaves? No--THAT'S oppression, when you push someone to the point that they feel they have nothing to lose. And women kill brutal husbands every day, but I know of not a single instance of women rising up and killing all the men of their village in their sleep. If its never happened in recorded history, to me it makes sense that the motivation simply isn't there. That women get something from the current arrangement that it is hard to see, because it is the water in which we swim. I think women are just as courageous and intelligent as men, just as real in the matter of GENUINE life and death conflict. It is in the social games that they defer to men's aggression, more than anything else. Outnumbering us, outliving us, and being responsible for training male children during the most imprintable period of their lives gives them fantastic power multiplied over centuries and generations. Physical strength just isn't enough, and hasn't been since the invention of the knife. I just don't buy it. I think you can only believe that, as a rule, women haven't had a major part in making men and women what they are if you somehow discount the fact that most male violence is against other men. The human race bifurcated into a yin-yang configuration where men not only are trained, bred, and selected to do the dangerous and violent tasks but are blamed for the aggression that makes it possible. That's exactly like blaming women for being "weak and passive" if they want peace and security in their homes. Men don't want to march into cannon fire--but they do want the approval of men, and the affections of women. And the instant I stop seeing women attracted to aggressive, powerful men I'll start agreeing with you.
There are no more violent, aggressive men than there are women who desire them. Men will do ANYTHING to get laid. If being more passive or less aggressive got them more sex, they'd do it in a heartbeat.
By the way, that last comment wasn't to say "women make men aggressive." It was to say "both men and women collaborate in creating the current gender roles. And always have."
When I stop seeing women using every tool at their disposal to dominate their environment--just like men--I'll believe that this is a "male" thing instead of a "human" thing.
http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usawc/Parameters/98spring/peters.htm
That link doesn't work. I looked in Google, though, and found the essay you reference at this link: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/975857/posts.
And the instant I stop seeing women attracted to aggressive, powerful men I'll start agreeing with you.
Ah, but, "women are attracted to aggressive, powerful men" is a different claim from "women are attracted to bad boys." There are both constructive and destructive ways of being aggressive and powerful. The "bad boy" framing makes it sound as if the fact that men mistreat women is the source of the appeal. (Not all women are attracted to aggressive, powerful men, but a heck of a lot more women are attracted to a man's power than are actively attracted to a man's bullying of them.) Hillary Clinton may have many reasons for being with Bill Clinton, but odds are good that "because he cheats on her" isn't the primary reason.
When I stop seeing women using every tool at their disposal to dominate their environment--just like men--I'll believe that this is a "male" thing instead of a "human" thing.
Sure, practically everyone uses every tool at her (or his) disposal to dominate the environment. And we're more alike than not, and we'd largely do the same as the other were we in the other's role. I do still think, though, that the power balance between men and women is more lop-sided than you would have it, for the reasons Dan gives, especially if I'm looking at all of world history, and have to count places like Afghanistan. (At the same time, I also agree with you that the sexes' mutual need of each other mitigates such domination, in ways that don't happen with other forms of domination. And, if I narrow the field to my own time and place, and to the area of dating and mating, as in the other thread, my position isn't so much that women are severely disadvantaged relative to men as that women's position has some drawbacks that men often miss seeing - I'll allow that vice versa is also true.)
After your comments about how many black people white people have in their address books, I checked.
About 16% non-white in my cell phone contacts, FWIW. Which actually sucks, given that I live in California. But is something of an underestimate for how many non-white people I'm in contact with, since a) my numerous siblings are all there and all white, but their spouses, who aren't in the contacts directly, are of various races, and b) a lot of my coworkers are non-white, but my boss is white, and that's the person I'd be calling in sick to (likewise, a lot more of my former bosses are white than of my former coworkers).
"The "bad boy" framing makes it sound as if the fact that men mistreat women is the source of the appeal"
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Not what I meant. Most of the women I know who were attracted to "bad boys" were talking about non-conformist, rebelious, I-don't-give-a-fuck types, not guys who hurt women. I've actually known VERY few women who were actively attracted to brutal men.
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I grant that we might not agree on the lopsidedness of power. Got it.It's the fact that an extreme level of domination of women simply is dangerous for a culture--Afghanistan's poverty and scathingly high infant mortality rate is simply evidence (to me) that it doesn't work. That, in essence, on the average, a group of men who treat women badly will, over time, be out-bred and out-competed by men who allow women to rise to (or closer to) their levels of natural capacity. You can't say its good for women to be equal, unless its bad for them not to be, can you? I'm just taking it to its conclusion.
A question: if violent behavior comes largely from men, but is also primarily focused upon other men (all crime or war statistics would bear this out), then do men really benefit from it? Really? I consider them to be as much victims of their programming and biology as benificiaries of it, constructed to be short-lived worker-fighter drones, often unable to express their emotions or open themselves to love and intimacy. I fail utterly to see how this "benefits" men, unless you take the position that money and power is better than intimacy and love. I can buy that men have been conned into believing that they have to be this way...but surely there was never any conscious decision there, was there? Something else happened, something that programmed men and women to behave in a way that produced maximum children and protected those children until they themselves become parents. Whatever it is that makes men more violent, I fail to see how this operates much to the real benefit of men--although I grant that I know plenty of men and women who consider the superficial values to be worth striving for. To me, whatever bonus points guys get is pure fool's gold. They may think they're winning, but they're not. THAT'S how you program men to march into cannon fire. Shake off the programming. It's bullshit. We simply aren't two different species joined together. We are one species playing a nasty game of one-upmanship on each other to distract from the real inner work.
That link doesn't work.
My bad. Here is the real-deal link from Parameters
http://www.carlisle.army.mil/usawc/Parameters/98spring/peters.htm
After your comments about how many black people white people have in their address books, I checked.
Everyone in my cell-phone address book is white - but that's just immediate family plus some work numbers. That's really all I use my cell phone for.
My IM list is more instructive - I've people there from all over the world - most of them I've never met f2f, but I have worked with. While it's pretty certain that Anuja from Mumbai is Indian ... what about Nic from the UK? Vig from Romania? Spider_b from who-knows-whereI have no idea.
But .. Nic is a kick-ass programmer so it doesn't matter.
never mind - it's blogger truncating the link. I give up (smile).
"There's an article in this month's Scientific American Mind..."
Speaking of interesting articles, here's one from Sunday's Boston Globe:
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/04/20/shackled_to_the_past/
"Shackled to the past : New research from a Harvard scholar suggests that Africa's economic woes may have their roots in the slave trade" by By Francie Latour,
April 20, 2008:
"...Sensing it is one thing. Proving it is another. Could there be a direct, quantifiable link between the African countries most ravaged by slavery and those that are the most underdeveloped today? And if there were such a link, could it be measured?...
"...Where some find Nunn's proposition outlandish, others are bound to see it as courageous. He has attempted to put plot points and statistical weight behind slavery's global aftermath...."
"each side (men and women) seem to believe that the other side has the advantage."
Personally, I believe that it's way more complex and not always limited to 2 sides.
2 different kinds of men competing for 1 kind of woman: 3 sides.
A single man and single woman considering each other while their families play matchmaker with ulterior motives: at least 4 sides (unless they're cousins and his family is already her family).
Gay, lesbian, and intersex people: not the same sides as the straight men and straight women.
Polyamorous people who feel you'd be cheating on the other 2 people in your committed threesome if you have a one night stand with a 4th person: break out the calculators! ;)
"To me, suggesting that men are running the game, and have been for twenty thousand years or so, simply isn't possible unless women are inferior mentally and emotionally."
...and isn't possible unless they're all playing the same game in the first place.
"Yeah, violence.
"Women aren't inferior mentally and emotionally; they're inferior physically...
"...In societies where men solve problems the same way women do, women have a good shot at equality. In societies where slapping the bitch is still an acceptable answer, not so much."
See, that's at least 2 different games right there.
"I think "who has it worse, women or blacks" is a non issue. We don't need another pissing contest in the US...we need to center on making it better for all."
Yeah!
"As for violence, Dan--no doubt that women suffer more violence at the hands of men than vice versa. But the great equalizer is killing your husband in his sleep."
Only if you have an opportunity to feed yourself afterwards and/or you're suicidal. It's not as much of an equalizer if there's no way for a local widow to earn a living, his heir will inherit custody of you, etc.
"Outnumbering us, outliving us, and being responsible for training male children during the most imprintable period of their lives..."
BTW, how imprintable is that? I've heard of black women being responsible for training white boys during some very early years and still seeing those boys grow up to take racist cues from their slaveholding white fathers.
"The human race bifurcated into a yin-yang configuration where men not only are trained, bred, and selected to do the dangerous and violent tasks but are blamed for the aggression that makes it possible. That's exactly like blaming women for being 'weak and passive' if they want peace and security in their homes."
Great points.
Also, isn't it not only unfair but kinda pointless to try to breed for a big increase in sexual dimorphism when fathers can pass on genes to daughters and mothers can pass on genes to sons? I mean, the X chromosome that makes me female definitely came from my father's mother, but it's a new roll of the dice for each chromosome pair when gametes are formed, and so for all I know my other 45 chromosomes all came from my grandfathers.
"Most of the women I know who were attracted to 'bad boys' were talking about non-conformist, rebelious, I-don't-give-a-fuck types, not guys who hurt women."
Good point. It also shows how arbitrary that "bad boy" label can be. How many non-conformist, rebelious, I-don't-give-a-fuck types get labelled "nice guys" instead of "bad boys" just because their not-so-average behavior includes high grades and 20-sided dice instead of low grades and motorcycles?
"A question: if violent behavior comes largely from men, but is also primarily focused upon other men (all crime or war statistics would bear this out), then do men really benefit from it?"
That depends on *which* men, of course.
"I fail utterly to see how this 'benefits' men, unless you take the position that money and power is better than intimacy and love."
And/or unless one takes the posituion that having food and shelter is better than not having food and shelter, and considers what it takes to afford those...?
Also, who has which advantage in the Get Satisfying Sex game can be even harder to tell when they're all also playing the Get Enough Food game and some of them can't play those 2 games separately.
For example, suppose a village
tells its girls "don't have sex outside marriage!" and "you don't need a job, your husband will provide!" but teaches its boys some ways to earn a living even when single. What if a woman stuck there has only 2 men available, is turned on by the struggling bachelor her own age and turned off by the rich widower her father's age, accepts the the rich widower's proposal since her family says they can't support her forever, and then lies back and thinks of her stomach while her vagina hurts? Winner, loser, both, or neither?
Not what I meant. Most of the women I know who were attracted to "bad boys" were talking about non-conformist, rebelious, I-don't-give-a-fuck types, not guys who hurt women.
OK, then we may not disagree on this one after all. I've heard guys go on about the "bad boy" thing who sounded as if they really did think women went out of their way to pick men who hurt them; that always struck me as jealousy and a distorted lens. But rebellious, I-don't-give-a-fuck non-conformists, yeah, lot's of women go for those (especially when young).
To a degree, I've even found some of those things attractive - not so much the I-don't-give-a-fuck part, but a degree of creative non-conformity. I find attractive men who dream big and are willing to take risks for their dreams. But, you know, more political activists or people interested in creative professions than motorcycle riders. Though motorcycles are OK if they come in conjunction with brains and a good education.
That, in essence, on the average, a group of men who treat women badly will, over time, be out-bred and out-competed by men who allow women to rise to (or closer to) their levels of natural capacity. You can't say its good for women to be equal, unless its bad for them not to be, can you?
And I think it is something that hurts a society's competitiveness, over the long run. I see it as possibly an artifact of the move from hunter-gatherer societies to agriculture. Hunter-gatherer societies, OK, have their variations like any type of society, but tend, as I understand it, to be relatively egalitarian in their sex roles. Not, I mean, the utopian feminist paradise, but not Afghanistan. Because, in small groups, where people are all familiar with each other, strength and brute force have their value, but so do other things.
But you move to agriculture, and more concentrated populations, beyond the size of groups that we're evolved to be able to know and trust, and you get new organizational problems. And, to deal with that, more hierarchy, and more organization for defense against the Other. And one of those defense against the Other things is greater focus on protecting Our Women against the Other, hence more rigid sex roles, and more control of women by men, who can control women because of the strength differential.
But over time, those cultures that can develop more democratic and egalitarian ways of managing that larger social organization, and especially ones that aren't wasting large amounts of their resources by suppressing women, are more competitive. Especially as technology develops such that brains can more readily compete against brute force, and as more effective birth control is available.
Whatever it is that makes men more violent, I fail to see how this operates much to the real benefit of men
Maybe to the real benefit of a small minority of men at the top, but, no, you're right here, it's largely to both sexes' disadvantage.
"But rebellious, I-don't-give-a-fuck non-conformists, yeah, lot's of women go for those (especially when young).
"To a degree, I've even found some of those things attractive - not so much the I-don't-give-a-fuck part, but a degree of creative non-conformity."
Especially when and where conformity means rejecting her instead of accepting her attraction.
For example, suppose that you and your brother are the only Asians in your otherwise-all-white small-town high school and that you have severe acne. Even something as basic as wanting to date a classmate who wants to date you is wanting a nonconformist if conformity at your high school includes wanting to date only white girls and/or having a fetish for Asian girls with clear skin...
Meanwhile, the "hand that rocks the cradle" stuff earlier reminded me a bit of this. The nose that rocks the baby who's out of the cradle definitely doesn't rule the world, but how much influence could it have on someone that young and small?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7FJRbSGb5c
"To my knowledge, there is no case, anywhere in the world, at any point in history, of the men of a town, city, state, or nation killing all of their own women"
Does increasing the odds of "their" girls dying in childbirth before reaching adulthood count as leaning in that direction?
http://www.endfistula.org/family_planning.htm
"...Young married girls are often pressured to get pregnant soon after marriage and may face a variety of barriers to accessing contraceptive services. In spite of laws against early marriage, 82 million girls in developing countries will be married before they turn 18. About half of all teenage girls will have their first child by the time they turn 18..."
Years ago I saw someone label temporary-contraception access for teen girls as genocide against his community. Then there are the ones who seem to think letting girls refuse sex right after menarche and marry later is cultural genocide. It's as if they want their communities to rely on girls instead of women for babies. Obviously not all men agree! Meanwhile, how common or rare is their attitude, and do they envy or condemn other communities with lower teen pregnancy rates?
No doubt many cultural decisions are made that damage women and their health, shorten their lives, and so forth. But that core statistic of life expectancy says a lot to me. I'm sure there's a country somewhere where the average woman lives a shorter life than the average man, but I don't know what it is. Yes, all of the problems are there--but it doesn't seem to impact that most important stat very much. So I think that what happens is that people are sensitized to see the shit that happens to women, and are blind to equal and opposite shit happening to men.
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