In an earlier post, I criticized Hugo Schwyzer’s use of the phrase “real manhood.” Amanda at Mousewords commented on my post, mostly agreeing with me; Hugo himself then replied to me, drawing on his inner Bly; and Stentor at Debitage responded to Hugo’s reply, suggesting a different approach Hugo could take to defending the concept of real manhood.
Anyway, I’m planning to respond as well; but I haven’t yet found time to write a substantive post, and rather than putting off linking to the above (especially Hugo’s reply) any longer, I thought I’d better post this update.
Update: Soulful Blogger Joe Perez, who (like Hugo) comes from a mythopoetic perspective, disagrees with me.
FYI I stepped into the fray with a criticism of your post here:
http://www.joe-perez.com/archive/2004_10_01_soulful.htm#109678896576252996
Now that I’ve read Hugo’s full position, I have way less sympathy for it. It isn’t any sort of half-hearted “redefining Manhood is useful because the term is out there,” and it isn’t the “Men have their own issues to deal with out of being raised as men, so its worth having a term for men who have figured out how to be decent human beings,” that I suggested in another thread, instead, it is indistinguishable to me from Newt Gingrich’s famous lines: “If combat means living in a ditch, females have biological problems staying in a ditch for thirty days because they get infections and they don’t have upper body strength. I mean, some do, but they’re relatively rare. On the other hand, men are basically little piglets, you drop them in the ditch, they roll around in it, doesn’t matter, you know. These things are very real. On the other hand, if combat means being on an Aegis-class cruiser managing the computer controls for twelve ships and their rockets, a female may be again dramatically better than a male who gets very, very frustrated sitting in a chair all the time because males are biologically driven to go out and hunt giraffes.” Oh, except Hugo isn’t insane, so he doesn’t say it in nearly as weird or funny a manner. Still, he is clearly saying men are strong in those wonderful manly ways, and maybe women can be strong too, but mostly in unmanly ways that we men don’t care about. Bleck.
Sorry. I really shouldn’t be so hostile. This is a difficult and complex thing to talk about, and one worth talking about, and I shouldn’t jump all over Hugo for talking about it.
I wouldn’t have a problem with what he says (nor with what Joe Perez says) if he could just stay away from talking about women. When he talks about women while trying to describe real men, he slides further and further into sexist nonsense, ending with the women can be strong but in different ways from men passage that led me to think of Newt and the giraffes.
I think that becoming a real man (and let me just say for the record that I am much more of a manly man than Amp, so I have very different manly issues to deal with than he does) is something more like this (and I reserve to myself the right to talk absolutely as much nonsense as anyone else in the world): imagine you are a wolf, and imagine that your right, front leg is caught in a trap, and imagine that you have been told for so many years that your right from leg is the essense of manhood, so you start to chew below the trap so that your right front leg will be able to get free.
Now imagine you realise that actually you aren’t your right front leg, and that you have to find some way to get your leg out of the trap (because it is useful) so that you can save your whole being.
Becoming a real woman is like being that same wolf, but it is your front, left leg that is caught in the trap.
For me, masculinity is that front, right leg, and feminity is that front, left leg. Not one of us is mostly either a front, right leg or a front, left leg, and furthermore, all of us wolves have both.
Going back to the manly man point, Amp knew all his life that if he was supposed to be a front right leg, he wasn’t a very good one, and therefore had an easier time figuring out he had two back legs, a head, a tail and a left leg. I made a passable right front leg, so it is harder for me to remember that I am not just a right front leg (although I didn’t make all that good of a right front leg). Hugo seems to want to say that I should integrate that right front leg with the rest of my body (on which point I agree), rather than just chewing it off above the trap, but then he wants to say that women don’t really have a right front leg, and that I don’t have a front left leg. He also seems to still want to say that that right front leg is the essense of my being (or maybe that is just Joe Perez who wants to say that).
I still can’t figure out where the giraffes come in.
My problem with “real manhood,” “real womanhood,” or even “real personhood” goes beyond gender role impositions. It’s that it’s a deceitful way of using the language. What they really mean is “ideal manhood,” “ideal womanhood,” and “ideal personhood.” People say stuff like, “real men can end their relationships without retrospectively poisoning the memories of their exes,” or something like that. Well, no, that’s not true: some real men end their relationships with grace and maturity, some real men end them in a very ugly, bitter way. What the person making such a statement really means to say is, “ideal men can end their relationships without retrospectively poisoning the memories of their exes.” Yet they’re afraid to use that language, because they think that if they do, men will just think, “oh, well, that’s the ideal. No one can live up to that.” So they end up saying that all real men fit what is really an ideal, and those who don’t are just sub-real men. Whether it’s used to promote aggressive dominant attitudes or respect for others (otters?), it disguises exhortation of an ideal as diminution of everything but the ideal. The same applies to even gender neutral ideas like “real personhood,” unless it realistically applies to real people.
I’m with Julian on this, the idea that there is some precise ideal/real way of behaving that is typically female or male is annoying, it’s not true to actual reality.
It’s hilarious that Hugo speaks of feminists and quote Tipper Gore. The usual “I didn’t think so until I had kids” – there, another level of “realness” as ideal, people who have kids know something more than people who don’t. Er, no, cos we’ve all been kids, and unless we’ve had a lobotomy, we know what it was like. Besides, what if you have a son who is more introvert and polite and quiet and dislikes aggressive competitive games, while your daughter is an hyperactive extrovert loudmouth who gets into fights and just won’t sit still for a minute, are we supposed to think of the boy as girly, and the girl as manly, and for some reason think it’s something gone wrong that we should blame on the mother who smothered the children and deprived them of a masculine role model? I mean, seriously, how is this view supposed to be different from archaic notions of masculinity and femininity?
Of course there are differences but there’s more that are cross-gender and at individual level, I don’t see how we can extrapolate a fixed “real” notion of manhood or womanhood if not by projecting it onto people.
There’s something I find a bit dodgy about the Bly stuff and all related movements spurred by that. Like the whole wild men thing where guys go in the woods to connect to their mythical manhood or something. And the whole enactment of rites of passage thing. What’s so innovative about that? Sounds a bit like a masonic lodge only without the politics.
There’s a level where this archetype of masculinity that all men should connect with gets taken a bit too literally. Symbols are not meant to end up like that. What if you’re put off by the whole new warrior imagery and the notion of rituals and ancient myths, does that mean you’re not a real man? What if you’re less aggressive than your girlfriend, is it her fault? People are just different from one another. We define things arbitarily as “feminine” or “masculine” but it’s reductive, they’re traits that can be present all across. If only there were less generalisations and projections, maybe these things wouldn’t be a problem and it’d be easier to grow up as individuals. But I guess they need to be made into problems so that ideologies can be offered as solutions and books sold and stereotypes upheld and so on and so forth.
see, where Hugo writes: “Countless parents have come to the same insight. These differences, whatever they are rooted in, are real and profound — and they are not necessarily frightening. (Before I go any further, I know there are plenty of exceptions to every generalization! Pace, those of you who were aggressive little girls and gentle little boys. Your own unique and special circumstances do not gender theory make!)”
Gosh, the patronising. So he’s decided that “plenty of exceptions” are just a marginal thing, not something that maybe complicates the statement that the Tipper Gore experience is universal and differencs are “real and profound” and precisely identifiable like that. “Plenty of parents” who agree with Tipper Gore count more than “plenty of exceptions”, case closed.
Why should his own special view make gender theory? Just because it’s more common and traditional?
This kind of thinking is not “frigtening”, it’s just simplistic, it’s not useful, it can be taken to levels of conditioning that confirm exactly that assumption, and it’s not a good thing, for boys as well as girls.
Also like someone said in the comments there I find the notion that role models can’t be gender-independent real reductive. We’re humans before being male or female. Values of what makes a good person are universal. Why should a kid not be inspired by someone just because it’s a different gender?
This is just the same old pap, only re-dressed to pretend it’s progressive. Give me a break.
I hadn’t noticed Hugo’s “Your own unique and special circumstances do not gender theory make!” comment until Monica just mentioned it.
The exceptions damned well better make gender theory. A gender theory that only tries to explain a stereotype of the plurality isn’t a gender theory I would want anything to do with, particluarly one that is essentialism with a twist of “special circumstances.” Hugo’s gender theory throws out butch women and femmy men and androgynous people of all sorts and transsexual people and transgendered people and everyone but the warrior men and the mothering women.
It isn’t even that that isn’t a feminist gender theory, that just isn’t even a gender theory.
Like Monica just said, it’s just the same old pap.
Thinking further, the weird thing is that it it is such junk gender theory that I have a very hard time believing it is really Hugo’s gender theory. Hugo seems like an intelligent person who has thought enough about this to be come a pro-feminist man. Surely his gender theory is broader and richer than that?
How else to explain his support for same-sex parenting? If boys need male role-models and girls need female role-models, why should same-sex parenting couples be validated? As piny asked before, if Hugo really believes all that, what does he think of transexuals parenting either sex? Surely, Hugo thinks that being a transexual doesn’t invalidate piny as a parent, right? But how does his simplistic gender theory given in these posts allow him to give that recognition?
I remain puzzled.
I agree wholeheartedly with Charles. I read Hugo’s response and thought, “Oh, another believer in rigid gender roles. Ho hum.” I find it utterly bewildering that anybody can believe that sort of nonsense, especially on cherry-picked anecdotal evidence.
Charles,
Just for the sake of argument, it is said (and before someone calls me a Newt lover, please… do yourself a favor and don’t. I don’t care for the man and that’s an understatement), what exactly is wrong with what Newt said? Seems to make logical sense.
Just curious, you know. ;)
Aurora,
You really can’t figure out from the rest of this thread what I find wrong with Newt’s statement?
What makes it somewhat unfair to compare Hugo’s statement to Newt’s is the absolutism of Newt’s statement and the bizarrity of suggesting that men have a poor attention span from being bred for hunting giraffes. The standard trope would be hunting antelope or gazelles. The idea of giraffe hunting being a major part of human evolution crosses from the dumb to the bizarre. The idea that a) hunting large mammals was restricted exclusively to men and played a large role in human psychological evolution and b) hunting doesn’t involve long periods of tensely waiting and doesn’t involve keeping a group of people in line is simply standard nonsense trotted out to prove that women aren’t agggressive. If he hadn’t felt like ceding the point of women being capable of command positions and spatial skills (for the moment, in this particular statement) as long as he figures the task is boring, he would have trotted out other aspects of hunting to prove women couldn’t do that easier. Man the hunter is the greatest cheap tool for sexists, particularly since it relies on 19th century British fantasies of hunting, rahter than actually paying attention to what we know from actual hunter-gatherer cultures (super broad brush of my own: hunting isn’t that important for most cultures, men and women both tend to hunt, although generally not together).
Also, the misogyny of the idea of women being unfit for warfare because the get infections (presumably vaginal and urinary tract infections, since all soldiers tend to get infections of wounds and feet, it is the major soldier killer pre-antibiotics) is impressive and not really present in Hugo’s statements. This is so obviously a fear of women’s genitalia contaminating the sacred male act of killing people in warfare that it is simply embarrassing to witness. Have vaginal and urinary tract infections in women proved to be a significant problem in the current war?
Besides that? Just the essentializing of gender difference with a broad brush.
Bean:
If everything has an effect on a child, a position with which I wholeheartedly agree, can we include chromosomes too? How about testosterone levels?
Aurora: I would also add that when people perpetuate the attitude espoused by Newt, that women are inherently unsuited for physical or “masculine” activities, it has a real-world effect on the lives of women: our choices of jobs are limited, our ability to pursue and advance in certain occupations is limited. When we go ahead and break those barriers anyway, we endure anything from outright discrimination and sabotage, to being ignored, to having credit for our work stolen, to having our sexuality or femininity questioned….this is real. It may have gone away in some aspects of employment, but not all. Ask female police officers, firefighters, operating engineers, electricians, pipefitters, etc. etc.
People seem to be more attached to their beliefs about masculinity, even more than femininity (like I said in the responses to Hugo’s post…there’s been quite a change in the image of women). When we women “barge in” on the last bastions of maledom, some (like Newt) take it very personally…they’ll fight tooth and claw to keep us out, even to their own detriment.
I loooved Joe’s “masculine modes of being (agency) and feminine modes (communion)”. That’d be absolutely great (it’s good to have words for modes of being and stuff), except that the terms they’ve chosen are stupid. If you want to talk about agency and communion, great: talk about agency and communion. But as soon as you use “masculine” and “feminine” to talk about them, you’re implicitly (or explicitly) claiming that certain people “naturally” have more of an affinity for one mode than another because of their chromosomes.
And that’s just not helpful…
Hi David Chess, I guess I can’t be helpful. But I can be right. Well, I don’t know if it’s JUST because of their chromosomes, but certain people DO have more of an affinity for masculine modes of being, and some for feminine modes of being. That’s a fact, not just my opinion. It seems that you may be following some rather outmoded style of feminism or other ideology that needs a refresher course on research on sex differences from the sciences in the past few decades. More recent modes of feminism and gender studies actually acknowledge typical and cross-cultural gender differences.
Hugo and Joe Perez:
Yes, there are differences between men and women. Besides the obvious anatomical ones, there are statistically significant psychological differences. Men tend to be more aggressive and to want more sexual partners than women, for example. As others have noted, there are plenty of exceptions (lots of unaggressive men and lots of promiscuous women), but the statistical differences do exist.
But, obviously, “different” doesn’t mean “better” or “worse.” So I’m still trying to figure out what the fact that men and women are different has to do with your defense of the terms “real men” or “real manhood.” Presumably, “real manhood” is supposed to be a good thing. Presumably, it’s better to be a “real man,” or at least to strive to be a “real man,” than not.
So what, exactly, are you saying that “real manhood” is? What does it mean to be a “real man?” Are you suggesting that men should strive to be aggressive, promiscuous, etc., since those are characteristically manly qualities (at least in a statistical sense)? Or what? You say you want to rescue the language of “real” manhood/manliness/men from conservative anti-feminist religious moralists, but I still don’t understand what you mean it, or why you think it’s useful.
What defines a mode of being as “masculine” or “feminine?” This is assuming, for the sake of argument, that the phrase “mode of being” is meaningful. If the argument is that masculine traits are defined as traits occurring in men while feminine traits are traits occurring in women, then what the specific trait is, in and of itself, doesn’t matter. If it occurs in a man it is masculine and if it occurs in a woman it is feminine.
On the other hand, if we start with the trait first, and say that a trait is either masculine or feminine, and that one who possesses masculine traits is a man, and one who possesses feminine traits is a woman, we can run into some rather obvious physiological inconsistencies.
The point is that, while inborn tendencies to exhibit one characteristic or another probably do exist to an extent, whether or not those tendencies are determined by sex exclusively has not only not been conclusively proven, but is probably unprovable. Therefore, to determine that one characteristic is masculine while another is feminine is, in substance, meaningless. That’s not to say that it doesn’t make for an interesting literary/symbolic/intellectual/linguistic exercise, of course.
Oh, and when I say trait or characteristic above, I am referring to social characteristics only, rather than physical.
Now, since we all agree that masculine and feminine traits (as Joe Perez defines them) exist in both men and women to varying degrees, and we all agree that there is a very broad overlap, with many women having more of the masculine traits than most men, and many men having more of the feminine traits than most women (while most women still have more feminine traits than many men, and most men have more masculine traits than many women), even if we don’t agree at all whether this state of things is “natural,” “social,” or some combination there of, and even if we don’t all agree at all whether this mild to moderate difference in distribution is something that should be emphasized and celebrated, or whether it is something which should be worked against or ignored, there still arise some questions about attempting to use these distinctions to construct categories of Real Men and Real Women.
The first question relates to the issue of what the opposite of a Real Man is. Is a fake man not like a male person in that he doesn’t have a sufficiency of masculine characteristics, or is not like an adult in that he doesn’t handle his mixture of masculine and feminine traits like a mature human being (and all of the other dimensions, since only a small part of being human can even arguably be divided out into masculine and feminine)? Can a woman be a Real Man? Can a man be a Real Woman? Can a woman fail to be a real man because she is puerile and doesn’t handle her mixture of masculine and feminine traits in a sufficiently mature manner? Is a Real Man simply the name that we call an adult with a male identity who handles his mix of masculine and feminine traits in a mature manner?
Taking Real Man as the example, if someone who has a large number of masculine traits requires a role model who likewise has a large number of masculine traits, is there any reason to think that either the modeler or the modelee needs to have a male identity? Can’t a more masculine than average woman role model healthy masculinity to a more masculine than average man? Does the role model merely need to be more masculine than average, or does the role model need to be at least as masculine as the modelee? Does the role model need to be deficient in feminine traits, or only abundent in male traits?
I guess this boils down to a much simpler question: if some people need or want to be role modeled by people of the same sex, and need or want to be taught to be a mature adult by someone of the same sex, is this really a result of some essential failing of the opposite sex, or is it a trait of the person who has this restriction? Is this restriction one which should be celebrated and highlighted as how people should be, or should it be recognized as a failing and a flaw in how we teach people to be?
I work in a university, in the sciences. Within my school, there is a significant program to try to provide mentors to teenage and pre-teen girls, to help get them interested in the sciences, to help maintian that interest, and to show them that women can be scientists. This program is very clear about the fact that it needs both male and female mentors, since the point is to show the girls what they can do, not just to show them that women can do this.
Our society teaches young men that they should not view women as equals, that they are better, stronger, more aggressive than women, that they are men. I can understand why it is necessary and useful for male mentors to work from within that system to try to change the meaning of Manliness for young men, but I think that there is a danger of becoming trapped within that system, of thinking that the system is right, that it is just that the boys haven’t learned the niceties of being manly, the addenda that say “Despite everything else society has taught you (Men want sex, Men take what they want, violence is cool and the essence of manliness, verbal communication is less valuable than communication by displays of aggression), real men don’t rape.”
The system is not right. The system is rotten and poisonous.
I say this as someone upon whom the system worked fairly well. I am pretty well indoctrinated into my gender, I score as clearly male on most questionares, and I hate it.
Perhaps all this is irrelevant.
Joe, perhaps the systems that you buy into and are working from are actually beneficial. Perhaps they construct a masculinity that is not poisonous and rotten, a femininity that is not poisonous and rotten.
But if that is so, I utterly fail to understand why it matters to you that your core traits are masculine, not feminine. Surely, you understand that there are millions of women out there who are more masculine than you, who ought to be part of your Warrior system. On this axis, those women have more in common with you than they do with Amp, or with my spouse, who is neither particularly masculine or feminine, and you have more in common with them than you do with Amp or possibly with me.
The only thing that you and Amp and I share that you don’t share with more masculine women is the experience of being raised a boy in this culture. If you based being a real man around dealing with being raised a boy in this culture, then I could understand your desire to use the term. I could accept that you meant mature-adult-human-and-male, not male-not-female. But when you base your ideas around masculinity, as a thing that belongs to men and not to women, then I simply don’t see how you avoid buying into the toxic culture of manhood that I grew up in, and that I suspect you grew up in too.
I am interested in understanding. Being a-decent-human-being and male is something that I struggle with, so I am interested in how other people try to solve this puzzle as well.
Joe Perez,
My comment on your blog was written after this comment. Re-reading your earlier comment, and your newest comment (on your blog), I think I understand your position much better now, and I think you have answered much of my questions. Your position now seems solidly distinct from Hugo’s to me, and the above questions probably relate better to Hugo’s concepts than to yours. If you have any insight into the answers to these questions (or anyway, if you would be interested in presenting your answers to these questions), I would definitely be interested in hearing them, but I don’t think you should take the post above as the scathing interogation of you that I probably intended it as.
On the other hand, I still stand by my interogation of Hugo’s position, although I should probably try much harder to be less scathing. This is not a topic in which I think anyone says much of use or interest once they feel their back is to the wall.
“If everything has an effect on a child, a position with which I wholeheartedly agree, can we include chromosomes too? How about testosterone levels?”
Except there is no absolute certainty of how exactly and how much chromosomes and hormones influence behaviour in such precise ways than can be categorised as “masculine” or “feminine”. Hormones have a physical purpose, like reproductive organs. How far does the influence on psychological behaviour extend? Which organ is bigger and more important for determining behaviour, the brain or the uterus/penis? Which organ develops with interaction with the outside world? (no jokes intended)
No one is denying the reality of biology. But there is a difference between influence and biological determinism. I don’t know if around you all men tend to behave like a herd of sheep, all the same, all manly masculine, whatever that means, but normally everyone in their lifetime experiences that the individual differences from a man to another man, and a woman to another woman, are far bigger than their common gender. What do David Bowie and Saddam Hussein have in common? Seriously, why not give the human mind a bit more credit?
So what’s the point of trying to define what behaviour or trait is supposed to be masculine and what is supposed to be feminine, outside of poetry and myths? Why be so literal and categorical about things when reality is far more complex and interesting, I don’t know.
(all this talk of “real man” reminded me of an aftershave ad from the 70’s – “Real men never need to ask”, with a real male naked chest where a real woman’s hand with real red fingernails crawled after he splashed on the aftershave, ah, the golden age of advertising…)
Oh and the hormone thing is funny, males are aggressive, but aggressive women are bitchy (or ‘power-driven’; or unnatural; or lesbians, whatever comes first); males have testosterone, an obect of fear and awe, females have PMS or menopause, an object of ridicule. Male hormones – good, mythical, warrior stuff. Female hormones – crazy, mercurial, hysterical, lunatic, moody, etc. It is the stuff for jokes, harmless if a bit tiresome, until we take it all a bit too literally.
Charles, you seem convinced that I have somehow, somewhere argued that “real manhood” involves denigrating women. I’ve reread my own post in the light of your comments, and forgive me, I don’t see where I have done this. Indeed, I’ve gone out of my way to stress that “different” does not mean “superior” or “inferior”.
The fact that essentialism has been used to marginalize women in the past does not mean that there isn’t some genuine value to it. The mythopoetic movement reframes essentialism and makes it compatible with egalitarian principles. Please don’t assume that where I say “different” I mean “unequal.”
But what is the value of essentialism? Why exaggerate the significance of the few genuine biological differences between men and women when there is no reason to believe that those biological differences have any bearing on the vast majority of human endeavors? It seems to me that it just leads to some fictional sanctification of “manhood” and “womanhood” that, as I said, exaggerates what little differences there are and does so conveniently in favor of historically proscribed gender roles. It all seems a bit too much of a distraction from the real interactions and activities of real human beings, in favor of fictional human archetypes.
This idea that we don’t need any positive definition of manhood is all very well for a feminist audience. But the people who need to be changed are, primarily, men who believe that “being a man” means being aggressive, treating women badly, possibly even rape and violence.
Which argument is going to sound more convincing to those people: an argument that gender doesn’t matter, or an argument that they would more manly if they treated women with respect and learnt to communicate instead of just hitting people. I’d bet it’s the second.
Individ., that’s the most compelling argument I’ve seen for keeping the concept of “real man” alive. But I still don’t think it’s a good one.
I doubt either argument will convince men who are already “bad” to change their ways. They’re just going to think that the people putting forth the idea that “being a man” means respecting women are just trying to turn them into wimps. But this is conjecture; it’d probably work with some people and not others, in which case, why not promote both?
When it comes to kids, however, we should definitely talk about being a good person, not a “real man” or “real woman.” If we indoctrinate boys into culturally-masculine attitudes while they’re young, we’re just going to perpetuate those attitudes.
“Charles, you seem convinced that I have somehow, somewhere argued that “real manhood” involves denigrating women.”
Hugo — I don’t think it is only Charles who read a failure of “real manhood” as being inferior. In reading many of the posts, many of the women are put off by your assertions. Of course this is not a baseless reaction given the negative connotation “real manhood” has meant for women over the last 2300 or so years.
I agree with the goal, however the label should be changed to invoke support instead of hostility. I like the idea set forth by an earlier post — the term “ideal man” is better suited to your argument in my opinion.
Hugo:
The fact that essentialism has been used to marginalize women in the past does not mean that there isn’t some genuine value to it. The mythopoetic movement reframes essentialism and makes it compatible with egalitarian principles. Please don’t assume that where I say “different” I mean “unequal.”
Well, we’re still waiting for you to explain what this alleged value of “essentialism” is with respect to your defense of the concept of “real manhood.”
We’re still waiting for you to explain what it means to be a “real man” or to exhibit “real manhood.” All the meritorious characteristics you’ve mentioned so far (maturity, love, strength of character, compassion, etc.) can also apply to women, as you have admitted yourself. You claimed that men and women exhibit these good qualities in “different ways” but you have utterly failed to explain what that’s supposed to mean. What are the “male” ways of being mature, loving, etc.? What are the “female” ways? Why can’t a woman exhibit maturity in the “male” way and vice versa? Why can’t a woman act as a mentor and role model for a boy (or a man for a girl) by exhibiting and teaching these qualities?
You just seem to have an irrational attachment to this idea of “real manhood” as a virtuous quality that men should strive to acquire or exhibit, but you are incapable of explaining what it is supposed to mean in a way that does not demean women.
jstevenson:
I like the idea set forth by an earlier post — the term “ideal man” is better suited to your argument in my opinion.
What is an “ideal man,” then? How does it differ from being an “ideal woman?” How do the characteristics of an “ideal man” differ from the characteristics of an “ideal woman?” If the characteristics that would make a man an “ideal man” are the same characteristics that would make a woman an “ideal woman,” why isn’t it a matter of striving to be an ideal person or an ideal human being, whether you’re male or female?
that “ideal thing” sounds pretty stupid all around.
“ideal (gender identifier)” sounds wholly sexualized and without any bearing on the actual conduct. as in “rock hard abs and/or 36/24/36”
if we’re actually looking for an effective gender neutral “real man” doesn’t “adult” seem to work well with the definitions we have now?
say John Q. dumbass spends alot of time making excuses. he’s generally immature and disrespectful.
now, if you say to Young Master Dumbass “Be a real man” or “be an adult” can you think of any meaningful difference there?
“Adult” already has ALL the “positive” connotations of “real man” without the baggage of misogyny.
in other words, there ARE negative connotations to “real man:” no one has ever committed an act of domestic violence under encouragement from friends and coworkers to be more like an adult when dealing with his spouse. and we already have a word that does EVERYTHING positive we could possibly want out of the phrase “real man” or “real woman.”
so what’s the point of this mootness again?
“The fact that essentialism has been used to marginalize women in the past does not mean that there isn’t some genuine value to it.”
Well I suppose someone of a certain persuasion could eagerly apply the same reasoning to racist mentalities. ‘Just because the notion of racial differences has been used to discriminate minorities, doesn’t mean there’s no genuine value to it’.
You can’t pretend it’s not essentialist reduction of individual behaviour to biological gender that is the source of gender stereotypes that are still of no benefit to people of *both* genders in a modern society.
“The mythopoetic movement reframes essentialism and makes it compatible with egalitarian principles. ”
Or maybe, it just makes it compatible with ego-stroking via fancy renditions of selected ancient myths of masculinity. Just a thought.
“why isn’t it a matter of striving to be an ideal person or an ideal human being, whether you’re male or female?”
Yeah, exactly.
I personally don’t automatically interpret the phrase “a real man” as mysogynistic, if it’s in a context like karpad’s example, I take “man” to be neutral and generic, “human”, “person”, etc. – something like, Mensch (I suppose it’s also a language thing) – but in Hugo’s post, all that essentialism, reductionism, men are this, women are that, the exceptions confirm the rule, it’s simplistic, arbitrary, patronising, to both men and women, to the notion of what makes a person a person.
Individ- what would you think of the suggestion that the argument that you should treat ethnic minorities with more respect instead of beating them up is more “convincing” to some people than the notion that race and ethnic differences are not a matter of essentialism?
It’s a clumsy comparison, ok, it’s different context, I’m not drawing any direct parallels between gender and race, which is arbitary, whereas gender in the biological sense (sex) is not – but you know, saying that kind of argument is convincing means you assume you’re talking to a mass of racists/mysoginists, and that you have to concede their entirely flawed point to get across yours. It’s rather sad.
I don’t think gender doesn’t matter at all. I think it does. It’s just not something you can ascribe arbitrary traits to – positive or negative, doesn’t matter. It’s just not something by which you can exclusively define a person. Just like, in different ways, belonging to one or the other ethnic group does have an influence on you, it’s part of who you are, it’s part of your culture, background, etc. but you can’t put either gender or ethnic group *before* being a person with your own individual traits.
What I find objectionable in Hugo’s position, basically, is at the conceptual level first of all. Excess of categorisation.
Hestia and Monica, I largely agree with both of you. I’m really not big on essentialism, particularly not gender essentialism. I was trying to be pragmatist about this, but it’s always a dangerous path to use means not in line with your ideals to achieve those ideals.
I just feel like, if someone is deeply afraid of “losing his manhood”, there’s no way he’s going to have time for someone telling him his manhood isn’t worth protecting. It plays right into the stereotypes that feminism is emasculating and so on. I guess what the aim should be is to take away that fear altogether, but I’m afraid I don’t have a very good idea how to do that.
Individ-ewe-al, I understand what you mean there. I wouldn’t say “manhood isn’t worth protecting”, though, I’d say simply manhood is not some platonic shape outside of yourself that you’re supposed to fit in to be “real”.
I don’t really see the need for stereotypes, or how they can be of any use to men as well as women. The fear of emasculation from feminism is a ridiculous reactionary paranoia, anything is used to play into that stereotype. It’s not a genuine “fear”, it’s ideological, and political. It’s unfounded. Guys who think that feminism is about what, turning men into eunuchs or something, are just barking mad.
I don’t see how a man can lose his “manhood” if not in the physical sense. What’s abstract manhood? what’s ‘real’ manhood, what’s fake manhood? everyone has their way of being a person first of all, and then a man or a woman. There is always a pressure and a sort of instinct to conform to abstract stereotypes of behaviour, just because they’re there and they offer some precise categorisation of the world, all neat and easy, group A, group B. It just does more harm than good to individuals.
That’s what I’d say, if I were to argue with “Real Man”, though first, we’d have to find him, and the thing is, “real man” is not real in the “real” sense. He’s just pure abstraction. But there’s billions of real-real men and real-real women, which is a lot more interesting.
I see on Hugo’s blog that he has now promised yet another post, in addition to the two lengthy ones he has already written, attempting to explain and justify his defense of the idea of “real manhood” or “authentic masculinity.”
I am not optimistic that his new effort will be any clearer than his previous ones, but perhaps he’ll surprise us. I would also suggest that if you cannot provide a clear and concise defense of a term or an idea that is sexist and demeaning on its face, you probably ought to take that as a sign that it’s not worth defending.
Hi Joe, and thanks for the reply. I think you’ve rather misread my comment, though. As others here have said more eloquently than I, there may very well be a statistical correlation of whatever strength you like between human gender and affinity for certain modes of being. But that doesn’t mean that it’s good or sensible to *identify* those modes of being with those human genders. When you say “masculine modes of being (agency) and feminine modes (communion)”, you’re not just making a value-neutral statement about statistical correlation, you’re endorsing a value statement, that male humans OUGHT to partake more in agency and females OUGHT to partake more in communion, and that any individual who does the opposite is abnormal, is different, is marked. And that’s not a value judgement that I can support.
There’s gender theory and there’s gender theory. There’s gender theory that analyzes and critiques and offers alternatives to traditional gender stereotypes, and there’s gender theory that takes those stereotypes as a given and elevates statistical correlation into judgements of value.
(To be clear, the value judgement that I’m concerned with here isn’t “male better than female”; it’s “male in the mode of agency better than male in the mode of communion” and v-v. I consider both odious, but the latter is the one that I see in your gender essentialism.)
I don’t know, or care at the moment, which kind of gender theory is currently trendy where. But I know which one I like… *8)
“Men tend to be more aggressive and to want more sexual partners than women, for example.”
You know, I’m heartily sick of hearing the above steretypes expressed, especially the latter one. Most men I’ve known personally in my 41 years on this planet have been about as aggressive as a wet dishcloth unless they’ve been a) drunk b) in groups or c) both. In other words, unless they’ve been in situations where *culturally* they’re expected to be aggressive, they haven’t been. Yeah, there have been exceptions, but I’ve also come across a hell of a lot of really aggressive women.
Secondly, who the hell says men want more sex partners than women do? Every study I’ve read recently has gone on about the fact that women are far hornier and gung-ho about sleeping around than anyone previously suspected. In my experience, my friends and I have always expressed the desire to sleep with lots of guys–and those of us who haven’t done so usually haven’t due to fear of being physically hurt by choosing a nutcase or of social censure (“BAD slut!”)…in other words, if women don’t fuck around as much as men, it’s largely due to cultural reasons.
The problem with certain studies that have been done–funnily enough, the only studies that seem to count amongst those who believe in “real men” and “real women”–the “scientists” involved seem to look at their data at face value, with seemingly no clue that there is something called society which exerts pressure on individuals to conform to certain patterns of behaviour. Didn’t Amp recently post a link to a study in which the exact same sort of sexual behaviour in men and women was interpreted as having a different root cause for each sex? That is due to scientists looking at their data through the lens of sexism and not even being aware of it. And that is where ideas of “real”ness come from.
Rigid gender roles are not only destructive to our mental health and therefore our society, they aren’t even based on anything like good science.
That stereotype particularly annoys me, Crys–how daft do you have to be to see that women might be afraid to sleep around because it will ruin their reputations and possibly cause some physical harm?
Don P: I am not ignoring you. Been sick for the last week or so — San Diego gets awful when the tempature drops below 85 F. :-)
As far as is an “ideal man” and how does it differ from being an ideal woman. I must give my opinion on the second question in order to answer the first one.
An ideal man differs from an ideal woman in that an ideal man is first required to have the genetic make-up of a human male. As much as we may want to ignore the differences between men and women, nature will not let us. Both a woman and a man can be an ideal human. But what is an ideal human? There is a domestic violence commercial airing in California that provides an excellent example of the need to differentiate between the two. The essential tagline is that you must set the example for young men on how to treat women. Of course a mother can teach her son the female view of how to treat women (that would be a characteristic of an ideal parent and an ideal mother). However, a mother cannot bestow upon her son a man’s perspective on how to treat women properly. In an ideal world we would be asexual and there would be no difference in how men see the world and how women see the world, but we are not asexual and along with a nurtured development handicap we suffer from a natural development handicap that will, in my opinion keep a man from viewing things in the female perspective and a woman from viewing things in the male perspective. Both society and nature are hinderances to acheiving asexuality. For example, someone who has not been a rape victim says — “I know how you feel,” may receive an unapologetic bitter response from the target of “his” statement (“What the fuck do you know, you’re a man!”). The proper statement would be I empathize with you. A male feminist cannot know what women go through, but can empathize with their plight.
As such an ideal man is an ideal human, parent, citizen who lives under the unique experience of being a man. Since a woman does not labor under the unique experience of being a man she cannot be an ideal man. The same goes for a man’s infirmary of being an ideal woman. An ideal woman is not less than an ideal man. An ideal woman would strive to be an ideal human who deals with the with the unique experiences and life challenges of being a woman. Is striving to meet the standard of ideal human with the unique experiences, perspectives and challenges that face us do to our gender differences a bad thing, only if we in society make an ideal man or woman out to be something less than an ideal human, parent, citizen.
Crys T: “Most men I’ve known personally in my 41 years on this planet have been about as aggressive as a wet dishcloth unless they’ve been a) drunk. . .”
Your statement contradicts your point. Alcohol is widely known to releas people from societal/ nurtured constraints and exaggerates their natural tendancies.
“Smokers are cautioned not to drink, as it undermines willpower and the determination to quit. Alcohol releases both social and personal inhibitions.” (“The Last Puff,” Farquar, MD and Spiller, PhD, 1990}
If most of the men you know are not aggressive unless they are drunk or drunk and in a group, and once their “id” is released through alcohol most men you have known in your 41 years actually fit the presumption. Since alcohol releases cultural inhibitions, then it would be logical to say that they are not culturally required to be aggressive, but instead are naturally aggressive. So maybe there is something to the stereotype, at least with most of the men you have met in your life. Just a thought.
“The essential tagline is that you must set the example for young men on how to treat women. Of course a mother can teach her son the female view of how to treat women (that would be a characteristic of an ideal parent and an ideal mother). However, a mother cannot bestow upon her son a man’s perspective on how to treat women properly”
You know, I honestly don’t understand this kind of reasoning.
To me, it’s pretty apparent the “tagline” about violence is you don’t go round beating people up and treating them like shit, no matter if they’re women, or men. There’s no male view that is different from the female view on “how to treat women properly” in the sense of “avoiding abuse”. The things a mother can’t teach his son is how to make love to women (assuming that’s his preference), how to “treat a woman properly” in the sexual sense, because that’s something for him to find out on his own, and sexual behaviour is where the male-female difference matters. So if he feels he needs to talk about it he’ll more likely go to other guys, just like girls will talk to other girls about sex. But outside of the area of sexuality, surely one of the main things any parent should teach their kids is how not to be bullies and assholes, and that’s got nothing to do with gender differences. It’s basic stuff.
In an ideal world we would certainly not be “asexual”, we just wouldn’t credit sexual and biological differences more power on our behaviour than all other factors and variables and our own different characters and capacity to make individual decisions.
In an ideal world, we also wouldn’t have Ann Coulters elevating Dick Cheney to a paradigm of Real Manhood and resorting to “pretty boy with girlish hands” as a definition of He Who is Not Man Enough To Be Vice-President during a war on terror. We wouldn’t have Uber-Manly Fox News making dumb jokes about a man getting manicures, oh the horror, as if it was the ultimate insult to masculinity. There’s enough of this ridiculous right-wing rhetoric about tough real men vs. “girly-men” to make you want to puke these days. We can’t pretend that’s not what “real man” means for a lot of people with that kind of mentality.
Crys T:
You know, I’m heartily sick of hearing the above steretypes expressed, especially the latter one.
Too bad. They’re stereotypes because they’re true. The facts won’t change simply because you don’t like them.
Most men I’ve known personally in my 41 years on this planet have been about as aggressive as a wet dishcloth unless they’ve been a) drunk b) in groups or c) both. In other words, unless they’ve been in situations where *culturally* they’re expected to be aggressive, they haven’t been. Yeah, there have been exceptions, but I’ve also come across a hell of a lot of really aggressive women.
Your anecdotes and personal experiences are irrelevant. Men tend to be more aggressive than women because they evolved that way. Males competed for sexual access to females, producing greater aggression, greater body size and greater strength in men. The same basic difference is observed in other species that share our reproductive model.
Secondly, who the hell says men want more sex partners than women do?
Science says it. There is a mountain of scientific evidence that men want more sex partners than women, and that this difference is largely innate (that is, a matter of genes).
Every study I’ve read recently has gone on about the fact that women are far hornier and gung-ho about sleeping around than anyone previously suspected. In my experience, my friends and I have always expressed the desire to sleep with lots of guys–and those of us who haven’t done so usually haven’t due to fear of being physically hurt by choosing a nutcase or of social censure (“BAD slut!”)…in other words, if women don’t fuck around as much as men, it’s largely due to cultural reasons.
No it isn’t. There is a mountain of evidence that men are genetically disposed to be much more sexually promiscuous than women. There is also an elegant evolutionary theory to explain that difference. It follows from the different minimum investment that men and women make in reproduction. A man’s minimum investment is a few minutes of sexual activity and a small amount of semen, of which the supply is essentially inexhaustible. A woman’s minimum investment is a precious egg, nine of months of pregnancy, childbirth, and (in the ancestral environment in which we evolved) breastfeeding. This difference has enormous implications for the optimum reproductive strategy of men and women. Men’s reproductive success is best served by a strategy that emphasizes quantity over quality. Women’s reproductive success is best served by a strategy that emphasizes the opposite. Thus, men evolved a sexual psychology that causes them to want lots of different sexual partners and to be relatively indiscriminate in their choice of sexual partners, while women evolved a sexual psychology that causes them to look for fewer partners and to emphasize good genes and a willingness to stick around and help raise the children. This same basic difference between males and females is observed in virtually all other mammal species, including our closest evolutionary relatives, the great apes.
Anthropolgists classify this difference between men and women as a “human universal,” a difference that is observed in all human cultures, which is further evidence that it is innate.
Yet another line of evidence comes from studies of gay men and lesbians. Heterosexual relationships tend to minimize gender differences because they represent a compromise between the desires of a man and the desires of a woman. But gay relationships involve no such compromise, so they showcase differences in sexual psychology between men and women in purer form. And the difference is enormous. Gay men tend to be vastly more promiscuous than lesbians. Gay male culture is extremely sexualized compared to lesbian culture.
Other sexual behaviors characteristic of men, including an interest in prostitution, pornography, and a greater emphasis on youth and physical attractiveness in their sexual partners provide still more evidence for the differences. Consumers of pornography and prostitutes are overwhelmingly male (gay and straight). There is virtually no market for these products and services amoung women.
Culture may act to either amplify or suppress these innate differences between the sexes, but it does not create them, and it cannot eliminate them.
“Your anecdotes and personal experiences are irrelevant.”
Oh, okaaaaaaayyyy…..so, when people’s real-life experiences don’t square with your bullshit *theories*, you toss out the experience because, hey, the Theory is Supreme??? That is exactly why over the years, there has been so much laugable rubbish accepted as “fact”: people have fallen so in love with their theories that they can’t accept any data that contradicts them–even when those data are coming in in droves.
I bet most of the men you know in your own life wouldn’t say boo to a goose, let along caper about like mad cavemen, slinging their women over one shoulder and a haunch of giraffe over the other. So why on earth are you clinging to this silly fantasy?
“greater body size and greater strength in men”
Again, utter bullshit. What men, where? As compared to which women? If you were paying even minimal attention, you’d note that not only are size differences that you can witness in despised Real Life getting smaller, but that your precious scientists are also noting the fact that the gaps in both size and strength are closing.
“There is a mountain of evidence that men are genetically disposed to be much more sexually promiscuous than women.”
No, there isn’t. There is a mountain of evidence that shows it is more culturally acceptable for men to admit to being promiscuous or to pretend that they are. However, as cultural values change, studies are showing less and less difference in the way that males and females are responding. Like it or not.
You seem to have a lot of emotional investment in this theory, but I’m sorry to tell you, it’s a load of outdated, sexist crapola.
I love the way that misogynist men are always coming up with “scientific theories” to justify their hatred, contempt and fear of women….and their own shitty behaviour. I’m guessing that for you, any man who doesn’t act like a total pig is some sort of aberration that is less than a “Real Man”.
Don: Science says it.
No, “Science” doesn’t say anything; science is not a person. Some particular scientists say it; other scientists disagree.
Of course, the nice thing about sociobiology is that it’s just storytelling. Almost nothing that Don just said is subject to objective falsification, which is awfully convenient. And which makes it bad science, in my opinion.
In fact, despite what Don says, in the vast majority of human cultures men mate for life, and there are strict sanctions to prevent women from sleeping with more than one man – sanctions that either don’t apply to boys or don’t apply as strongly. (Even the USA still has this, informally – men who sleep around are “players,” women who sleep around are “sluts.”).
Question: If sleeping with as many women as possible is a biological, universal trait of men, then why does marriage develop at all?
Question: If women are naturally uninterested in sleeping around, then why is it necessary to create strict control systems to prevent them from having sex with more than one man?
You can tell a “just so” story to account for this, of course. Since men have no way of knowing for certain that they’re the parent of a child, it benefits them to try and get into an exclusive relationship with a woman and stick with her; otherwise how can he know that he’s reproducing? Furthermore, it benefits him to stick around and help raise the child, thus making it more likely that his genes will survive and be passed on.
This is a “just so” story that explains a great deal of human behavior, found in most societies, quite well.
By the way, among the Bonobo chimps, one of humanity’s closest relative, the female chimps sleep around constantly. (“Just so” story: it benefits females to sleep around a lot, so that more males will be invested in protecting a female’s offspring).
Crys T wrote: I love the way that misogynist men are always coming up with “scientific theories” to justify their hatred, contempt and fear of women….and their own shitty behaviour. I’m guessing that for you, any man who doesn’t act like a total pig is some sort of aberration that is less than a “Real Man”.
Crys T, I really appreciate your posting here – and obviously, I agree with you on the issue of what “science says.” But I ask that all posters on my blog remain civil on my blog, and try not to make personal attacks. Please try to respect that. Thanks!
ampersand:
No, “Science” doesn’t say anything; science is not a person. Some particular scientists say it; other scientists disagree.
For goodness’ sake. Yes, I mean scienTISTS say it, of course. But it’s not a matter of “some scientists say it and others disagree.” There is no serious dispute in the scientific community about the differences I have described. The only people who really dispute it are feminists and sociologists with a predetermined ideological committment to the notion that there are no significant psychological differences between men and women.
Of course, the nice thing about sociobiology is that it’s just storytelling.
Utter nonsense. You don’t know what you’re talking about. Evolutionary psychology (or sociobiology, if you prefer to call it that) is an established branch of evolutionary science and involves the same scientific processes and standards as any other branch.
Almost nothing that Don just said is subject to objective falsification, which is awfully convenient.
More nonsense. Of course it’s subject to falsification. Evolutionary psychology has produced numerous testable predictions that have been confirmed through experiment and observation.
In fact, despite what Don says, in the vast majority of human cultures men mate for life, and there are strict sanctions to prevent women from sleeping with more than one man – sanctions that either don’t apply to boys or don’t apply as strongly. (Even the USA still has this, informally – men who sleep around are “players,” women who sleep around are “sluts.”).
I’m not sure what “men mate for life” is supposed to mean. The vast majority of human cultures are polygamous, in which one man has multiple female sexual partners. Institutionalized monogamy–public recognition of an exclusive right of sexual access to a woman by a man–is believed to have arisen primarily to reduce conflicts amoung men for sexual access to women. Behavioral monogamy–lifelong sexual exclusivity between one man and one woman–is extremely rare.
Question: If sleeping with as many women as possible is a biological, universal trait of men, then why does marriage develop at all?
I assume by marriage you mean “institutionalized monogamy.” See my explanation above.
Question: If women are naturally uninterested in sleeping around, then why is it necessary to create strict control systems to prevent them from having sex with more than one man?
Women are not completely uninterested in sleeping around. They do have some incentive for non-monogamy. But it is vastly weaker than the incentive for men to be non-monogamous. The “control systems” are imposed by men on women to prevent sexual access to them by other men.
You can tell a “just so” story to account for this, of course. Since men have no way of knowing for certain that they’re the parent of a child, it benefits them to try and get into an exclusive relationship with a woman and stick with her; otherwise how can he know that he’s reproducing?
Huh? He doesn’t know for sure that it’s his biological offspring whether he sticks with her or not. Men do have some evolutionary incentive to stick around and help women they impregnate raise the child they have sired. But a reproductive strategy of sexual monogamy is an evolutionary loser for men. They have a higher chance of producing more offspring if they impregnate lots of different women. The physical investment is small and the genetic payoff potentially enormous. No such incentive applies to women. A woman can conceive only one child a year (or in very rare cases two or three). A man can sire thousands.
By the way, among the Bonobo chimps, one of humanity’s closest relative, the female chimps sleep around constantly.
In bonobo society, sex serves important social functions that it does not serve in human societies. This is also believed to be why homosexual sex is more common amoung bonobos than amoung human beings.
Sorry Amp: I let my blood get up and posted immediately, instead of cooling off first.
Monica — I did not write the script for the commercial. Of course we should teach people not to be bullies, but to ignore reality is to invite trouble.
The reality is that the sexes are different in how they perceive life (different through experience and nature). You acknowledged as much when you commented — “Guys who think that feminism is about . . . turning men into eunuchs, [figuratively]. . “ I would be disingenuous if I said that is not a widely internalized perception among men. Correct me if I am wrong. It seems by your analysis(stark raving mad) that women do not hold figurative castration as a goal of feminism.
Children form their ideas of how to treat others AND how they should be treated from the time they are born. They don’t just start forming these opinions once they have friends. A young boy or girl is going to look to the actions of men in their lives, initially, when they form their opinion on how a man treats a woman or other men. Personality formation begins even before parents and others provide their children with musings on life relationships (tell me a parent who is going to sit their one year old down and tell them how people should be treated). Children form their personality in this sense before they are five years old, well before adults verbally counsel them or their friends have influence on them. I think that is what the commercial was trying to convey. In that sense, a woman is at an infirmary when it comes to showing children how a man should treat a woman and reducing domestic abuse.
Actions play a greater role in early childhood development than any verbal musings could ever play. To strive to be an ideal man or woman does not elevate gender differences above personal choices. In striving to be an ideal human being one should take into account that their experience will be different than that of someone of the opposite sex. In striving to correct past injustices against women due to institutionalized sexism a characteristic an “ideal man” would strive for is treating the women in his life in a positive manner.
In an ideal world where children were manufacured already developed with the ability to have a cognitive conversation, a woman could tell a child how to treat women, as an ideal man should treat them. We live in reality where, for the most part, from conception to at least 1.5 years after, people do not sit down their kids and explain interpersonal relationships. Even if they did, that “talk” would not have as much effect on their development as the actions of those around them. In reality, all a woman can can do is tell her daughter or son how a woman should be treated by an ideal man. Just as a man cannot show a child how an ideal woman should treat a man. The actual general characteristics of how an ideal man or woman treats the opposite sex are not different than how human beings should interact (respect their desires, respect their body, etc.). One material difference is that a woman is not a man and a man is not a woman. It would be ignorant to say that young children do not see that this person who is beating mommy is a man and come to the conclusion that is how men treat women (most abusers and abused come from abusive households). Of course, the same would be true if mommy were beating daddy or if mommy were beating mommy, but the point here is that those scenarios will not SHOW a child how mommy is to be treated by daddy.
Therefore, striving to be an ideal man does not elevate the gender differences over personal choice. Merely does not ignore gender differences. The fact of the matter is that only men can show children, by their actions, how a man should treat a woman. It is a personal choice if men make that a positive goal or a negative goal. An ideal man would show children a positive image of the treatment of women. All the talking in the world by women would not overcome the cycle of violence that would result if a characteristic of an “ideal man” was that he beat his wife. To ignore this fact for some utopian feel-good way things “should” be only invites those who think like Ann Coulter to continue their damage to society.
Crys T:
Oh, okaaaaaaayyyy…..so, when people’s real-life experiences don’t square with your bullshit *theories*, you toss out the experience because, hey, the Theory is Supreme???
No, your anecdotes don’t square with established scientific facts. That’s why I toss them out.
Again, utter bullshit. What men, where?
Men in general. Everywhere. I am amazed that you would seriously dispute even this obvious fact. Are you seriously claiming that there is no average difference in body size and strength between men and women? The difference is both real and significant, and is a reflection of the polygamous nature of human sexuality. It is primarily the product of an evolutionary arms-race in which males competed for sexual access to females. The same difference exists in other species.
If you were paying even minimal attention, you’d note that not only are size differences that you can witness in despised Real Life getting smaller, but that your precious scientists are also noting the fact that the gaps in both size and strength are closing.
Um, you’re the one who seems to despise the differences between men and women that exist in Real Life, not me.
Show me your evidence that size and strength differences between men and women are getting smaller. Not that it would be relevant even if they were, since the evolutionary mechanism I described is not the only factor influencing that difference.
Amp: “Question: If sleeping with as many women as possible is a biological, universal trait of men, then why does marriage develop at all?”
Historical study suggests that the reason the Judeo-Christian model of marriage developed was to improve society and the treatment of women in society. The construct that Don alludes to — women have a genetic desire to seek a sexual mate who will be around for child rearing — supports this reasoning.
If a man digs deep down into his psyche and rids himself of the social constraints he will see that for the most part, at 13 – 24 years old he would have had sex with every girl if she let him.
Loss of consortium laws originated from men punishing their wives for not having sex. Another hypothosis for marriage I remember from my undergrad sociology and the law class was that marriage evolved as a contract. “In exchange for me staying around and supporting you and all these kids you agree to have sex with me whenever I want.” Not trying to cause any ruckus just answering the question. I don’t necessarily agree with these theories, but it is odd that the same theories did not develop regarding the female sexual desires over the course of 2300 years.
I am actually quite willing (eager, even!) to get into a long, detailed argument about this topic. But I don’t have time this week, plus I have about 20 pages of “stuff I’m intending to blog” open on my web browser, so I’ll hope you’ll indulge me if I put off getting into this topic further.
“There is a mountain of evidence that men are genetically disposed to be much more sexually promiscuous than women.”
If this were truly the case, the institution of marriage would never have needed to be initiated. Nor the witch burnings.
Can you point us in the direction of the mountain of which you speak?
As interesting as the nature v. nurture question is, I’m even more interested (at least in the current context) in making the point that IT DOESN’T MATTER: even if it were a deep biological fact that the average man is three sigmas more aggressive than the average woman, and the average woman three sigmas more nurturing than the average man, it would still be a bad idea to label aggression as “masculine behavior” and nurturing as “feminine behavior”, and say that Real Men are aggressive in ways that Real Women aren’t, and Real Women are nurturing in ways that Real Men aren’t.
(Read whatever more complex set of adjectives you like for “aggressive” and “nurturing” herein; I’m just using them as shorthand.)
It’s uncontroversial, surely, that there are some female persons who are more aggresive than some male persons, and some male persons who are more nurturing than some female persons. Unless we’re comfortable labelling all such individuals as abnormal, as deviant, as marked, as Different, we should (we must) avoid identifying certain sets of personality-flavored adjectives with certain biological genders.
REGARDLESS of how strong or biologically determined the correlations in question are, the fact that there are numerous (really really numerous) exceptions to the generalization means that if we do the gender identification that I’m disrecommending, we will be hurting people (in ways that others have eloquently attested here), and we’ll be doing it in no particular cause other than a lazy desire to have neat generalizations.
If you want to talk about agency and communion, go right ahead. If you want to objectively note some evidence for a correlation with biological gender, also fine. But there doesn’t seem to be a compelling case for labelling those modes of being as “male” and “female” that would make up for the real damage to real humans that that labelling does.
No matter how strong the correlation (and I don’t have enough evidence to have a strong position on nature v. nurture myself), the underlying question remains: we can note the correlation, but what could justify taking that extra step into labelling / identification and the value judgement that it inevitably leads to? Nothing that I can see.
Crys T:
No, there isn’t. There is a mountain of evidence that shows it is more culturally acceptable for men to admit to being promiscuous or to pretend that they are. However, as cultural values change, studies are showing less and less difference in the way that males and females are responding. Like it or not.
Look, you’re just spouting nonsense. You obviously don’t know what you’re talking about. As I said, culture can influence human behavior, but it does not and cannot change innate behavioral tendencies and predispositions created by evolutionary processes. Those tendencies have been programmed into our genes by millions of years of natural selection. Amoung those tendencies are huge differences in male and female sexual psychology. These differences exist not only in our own species, but in countless animal species as well. The existence of these differences has been established by multiple, independent lines of evidence from a wide variety of scientific disciplines including evolutionary biology, cultural anthropology, sociology, zoology, psychology, and genetics. The relationship between genes and environment is complex, and the strength and expression of an organism’s genetic tendencies can differ depending on its environment, but the genes are there regardless. This includes the genes that program men, and the males of other species, to be sexually promiscuous.
I suggest you try actually learning something about the science you are attacking. You might start with UCSB’s Center for Evolutionary Psychology. Another good online resource is the Human Behavior and Evolution Society, which contains an extensive list of scientific papers and articles on the evolutionary basis of human psychology and behavior.
ampersand:
The material I cite above is an example of the published, peer-reviewed scientific literature that you have dismissed as “just-so stories.” It is obvious from your remarks that you have no familiarity at all with the actual science of Evolutionary Psychology and are just parrotting the dismissive statements of others.
S. Ellett:
If this were truly the case, the institution of marriage would never have needed to be initiated.
Huh? Why not? As I said before, marriage in the sense of institutionalized monogamy is believed to have arisen as a means to reduce conflict between men for sexual access to women.
Can you point us in the direction of the mountain of which you speak?
See my last post for some pointers.
David Chess:
As interesting as the nature v. nurture question is, I’m even more interested (at least in the current context) in making the point that IT DOESN’T MATTER: even if it were a deep biological fact that the average man is three sigmas more aggressive than the average woman, and the average woman three sigmas more nurturing than the average man, it would still be a bad idea to label aggression as “masculine behavior” and nurturing as “feminine behavior”, and say that Real Men are aggressive in ways that Real Women aren’t, and Real Women are nurturing in ways that Real Men aren’t.
Right. I wouldn’t say that it “doesn’t matter” why men are more aggressive than women, but the fact that there is an innate tendency in men for greater aggression does not imply that we should encourage or condone it. To explain is not to justify. It is the false assumption that explaining human behavior in terms of biology constitutes a justification of that behavior that motivates much of the opposition to Evolutionary Psychology.
“[I]t would still be a bad idea to label aggression as “masculine behavior” and nurturing as “feminine behavior”, and say that Real Men are aggressive in ways that Real Women aren’t, and Real Women are nurturing in ways that Real Men aren’t.”
I think that the presumption that “real men” are aggressive is why I disagree with Hugo that men should attribute positive characteristics to the term “real man” for young boys to emulate.
My perception is that the term “real man” invokes hate and fear in more women than women who derive love and security from the term. In my opinion a “real man” is such a problem with the “progressive” culture that any attempt to accentuate the positive aspects would be destroyed by those who just don’t like the term (as evidenced in these posts). That is why I believe the better term for feminist purposes would be for men to strive to be the woman’s view of an “ideal man”.
Of course only women can teach that to men, who will in turn, by their actions, show young boys what it means to be an ideal man.
For centuries, history has told us that women have spent their lives trying to be a man’s version of an “ideal woman” by asking them — “what are you thinking”, “how do you feel”, “what do you want” — rarely, in my opinion, have men cared to ask women “what their view is of an ideal man”. “Real Men” basically assumed she wanted a “Real Man” (strong, aggressive, resourceful).
I do not believe that women should cease their noble cause, however, I do believe that it is a positive thing that “real men” seek to be an “ideal man”. In that they will become an “ideal” role model.
bean, you seem to be conflating “evolutionary psychology” and “evolutionary sociology” (is there such a field?) with evo biology in general. that may be unwise. evolution in biology is extremely well established and supremely well evidenced, but its application to more complex and subtle behavioral and psychological sciences is not, at least not as yet.
(if you like a good, high-sulfur rant, go ask PZ Myers about evo psych some time. he’s far better qualified to speak on evo bio than i.)
Bean:
Don P. — if you really think that there is no discord within the scientific community regarding the “facts” you have written, then you must have extremely limited your scope of scientific reading.
No serious “discord,” other than by certain social scientists, no. I am sure there are some dissenters in the natural sciences, just as there are in other areas of evolutionary science, but the basic differences I have described and the theory that accounts for them are so well supported by evidence that they are not seriously disputed. If you disagree, show me this alleged “discord.”
… there is a huge number of scientists in the natural sciences and in the psychology field who wouldn’t even bother to spit in the direction of “evolutionary biologists,” “evolutionary psychologists,” or any other person working in that field.
Show me a list of these scientists, then. Since there are a “huge” number of them, you shouldn’t have any trouble coming up with evidence to support your assertion.
The fact is, there are many scientists out there who don’t consider that particular field to even be science.
Your claims are getting increasingly ridiculous. Show me evidence of these “many” scientists who don’t even recognize Evolutionary Psychology as valid science.
You sound exactly like a creationist who insists that evolution is controversial and that many scientists doubt or reject it. When challenged to substantiate these claims, no proof is ever forthcoming.
Bean: “[Parents are] a bit rougher and more aggressive with baby boys than baby girls. How can one say definitively that that’s not what causes men to be more aggressive?”
Good point. A micro case study. My wife was the primary caregiver of our oldest daughter when she was 1-2 y.o., while I was away for a year. My wife (an aggressive woman BTW)really coddled her — everytime my daughter fell my wife immediately picked her up and held her. Before we had kids we stated these actions tend to make a “cry baby” (our 22 y.o. opinion). Well, my daughter, six years later, still lies on the ground waiting for someone to come and see what happened and help her up.
Now my middle child (another girl), I was the primary caregiver between 1-2, while my wife was in the Persian Gulf. I did not pick her up when she fell. I don’t know if it is in her individual nature (which is a distinct possibility), but she will fall and as long as we get excited about her “cool fall/jump/scab” she will not cry and try again.
I think people treat all boys the way I treated my middle daughter. Personally, that provides a strong indication that nurture has a lot to do with development. Another sociological phenom is girls who are raised by a father who wanted a son or girl’s born in the middle of several boys.
Bean:
The fact is, evolutionary theories change to fit with the current cultural beliefs about theories.
Robert Trivers’ evolutionary theory explaining sex differences is over 30 years old. Every year, additional evidence is discovered that further confirms it. Substantiate your claim that this theory is just a matter of “current cultural beliefs.”
Less than 100 years ago, it was believed that women were more promiscuous
Gee, less than 100 years ago, you say. Glad to see you’re so current. In case you didn’t realize it, the vast bulk of modern evolutionary science didn’t exist 100 years ago. Relativity and Quantum Mechanics didn’t exist 100 years ago. Nuclear physics didn’t exist 100 years ago. Genetics didn’t exist 100 years ago. Are you also going to dismiss those sciences as cultural fads? You’re hilarious.
And, for that matter, there is simply NO way to prove (or disprove) whether it’s fully or mostly biology or evolution or culture without removing someone entirely from cultural and societal indoctrination.
Nonsense. Of course there is. Again, your claim here is virtually identitical to the nonsensical claims made by creationists. Claims like “You can’t prove that human beings are the product of evolution because it happened in the past.” You’re betraying a basic ignorance of the scientific method.
Are men biologically more likely to be promiscuous?
Yes.
Or are they raised in a culture that is more accepting of that fact, and therefore become that way?
As I said, culture may either amplify or suppress biological tendencies. Greater cultural acceptance of male promiscuity is, in part, a consequence of the biological tendency.
Are men biologically more aggressive, or are they raised to see aggression in men as more acceptable than it is in a woman.
Regardless of cultural influences, men are biologically more aggressive than women. There is a mountain of evidence for it. As I said, greater aggression in men is one of anthropology’s “human universals”–a trait exhibited in all human cultures, without exception. It is highly unlikely, to say the least, that this is an accident. It is overwhelmingly likely (even ignoring other evidence) that a behavioral characteristic exhibited by all human cultures has a biological basis.
Want to look at cross-cultural studies?
I just told you: Greater aggression in men than women is a universal characteristic in human cultures. “Cross-cultural studies” support by claim and refute yours. And cultural anthropology is just one of the scientific disciplines supporting the theory I described.
Want to look at animal studies?
Animal studies also support my claim and refute yours. In virtually all animal species that share the human model of reproductive investment, males are bigger, stronger and more aggressive than females, which is exactly what Trivers’ theory predicts and accounts for.
Try learning something about the science you’re attacking.
Don: You sound exactly like a creationist who insists that evolution is controversial and that many scientists doubt or reject it. When challenged to substantiate these claims, no proof is ever forthcoming.
Don, this is very over-the-top insulting. It’s especially apalling considering that you accuse Bean of refusing to back up her views in the same post that you first ask her for citations. Criticizing someone for not providing substantiation before they’ve even had a chance to reply to your request for substantiation is extremely illogical, not to mention rude.
Offhand, I know that S.C. Strum (anthropologist at UCSD), B. Latour, Anne Fausto-Sterling (Biologist at Brown), Z. Tang-Martinez (Biologist at U of Miss), Johathanb Waage (Biologist, Brown U), Jane Lancaster (primatologist, U of NM), Marlene Zuk (biologist, U of Cal), Patricia Gowarty (behaviorist, U of Georgia) and Virginia Sork (Biologist, U Miss) have all expressed doubt about the sort of evolutionary psychology thesis you’re advocating, and I’m sure they’re not the only ones.
Don: Try learning something about the science you’re attacking.
Don, you either have to tone down the obvious contempt that you hold for people who you disagree with, or you have to stop posting on my blog. Your decision.
[Edited it tone it down from my first response.]
jstevenson acknowledges that the term “Real Man” provokes negative reactions and is therefore politically undesirable; he proposes using the term “ideal man” instead. Whatever the merits of substituting “ideal man” for “Real Man,” however, it misses the point made by David M. Chess and others.
They (and I) ask: What purpose is there in attaching gender to attributes? Yes, the average man is taller than the average women. And, yes, I guess we could assert that Real Men (or ideal men, if you prefer) are 5’8″ and taller, because that is a “masculine” height, and that Real Women (or ideal women) are shorter than 5’8″ because that is a “feminine” height. And such generalizations might fit 50+% of the population. But such generalizations are obviously harmful because they stigmatize tall women and short men. Is there some offsetting social benefit? I can’t see it.
I occasionally hear that academically-successful black kids are teased for “acting white.” And perhaps the average white kid scores better than the average black kid on standardized tests. But to turn such a generalization into a source of identity? THAT’S JUST SICK. Why would anyone choose to inflict similar limitations on their own children?
If we think bravery is desirable, why can’t we encourage our children – boys and girls – to be brave? If we think aggression is desirable, why can’t we encourage our children – black and white – to be aggressive? If we think nurturing is desirable, why can’t we encourage our children – short and tall – to be nurturing? Is there any benefit to telling girls that they should be ashamed of being aggressive or tall? Is there any benefit to telling boys that they should be ashamed of being nurturing or short?
Sorry, jstevenson, but I don’t see anything ideal in your proposed ideals.
ampersand:
Offhand, I know that S.C. Strum (anthropologist at UCSD), B. Latour, Anne Fausto-Sterling (Biologist at Brown), Z. Tang-Martinez (Biologist at U of Miss), Johathanb Waage (Biologist, Brown U), Jane Lancaster (primatologist, U of NM), Marlene Zuk (biologist, U of Cal), Patricia Gowarty (behaviorist, U of Georgia) and Virginia Sork (Biologist, U Miss) have all expressed doubt about the sort of evolutionary psychology thesis you’re advocating, and I’m sure they’re not the only ones.
I think you’re misrepresenting what they have said. They may have criticized particular claims of particular evolutionary psychologists, but it is unlikely that they seriously dispute the parental investment theory I have described or the idea that evolutionary psychology is real science. It is also unlikely that they dispute that there are significant psychological differences between men and women caused by biology (genes) and that these innate differences include differences in sexual psychology. It is also unlikely that they dispute that men are on average bigger, stronger and more aggressive than women and that these differences also have a biological basis.
But if you’re claiming that they do dispute these things, show me the statements where they have done so.
Don, this is very over-the-top insulting. It’s especially apalling considering that you accuse Bean of refusing to back up her views in the same post that you first ask her for citations.
Well, I’m sorry, but statements to the effect that “huge” numbers of scientists dispute this or that “many” scientists dispute that, made about basic evolutionary theories and unsupported by even a single citation is exactly the kind of game that creationists play.
Another feminist sacred cow that has been challenged by evolutionary psychology is the mantra that rape is about violence rather than sex, and that it is a product only of cultural patriarchy, not of a biological predisposition. Rape is certainly experienced as violence by the victim, but the primary motives of the rapist are sexual, not violent. Again, there is a mountain of empirical evidence supporting this, and natural selection provides an obvious theory to account for it. Rape can be an effective strategy to enhance the reproductive success of low-ranking males. Rape is also common in numerous animal species, including many of our closest genetic relatives.
But the mantra has done significant damage to serious efforts to understand and reduce rape. Here’s how Steven Pinker puts it in The Blank Slate:
“I believe that the rape-is-not-about-sex doctrine will go down in history as an example of extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of crowds. It is preposterous on its face, does not deserve its sanctity, is contradicted by a mass of evidence, and is getting in the way of the only morally relevant goal surrounding rape, the effort to stamp it out.”
I think part of the problem here is with the ambiguity of statements like “Greater aggression in men than women is a universal characteristic in human cultures”. This isn’t really a scientifically precise statement, if I may say so without offense. (These comments apply to a number of similar statements that have been made here as well; I’m just picking this one more or less at random as an exemplar.)
What it really means (I think) is something like “there is convincing evidence that, if you were able to factor out all the effects of cultural upbringing, and then draw graphs of the underlying aggression levels, the distribution for males would have a significantly higher mean than the distribution for females.” Put that way, it might be somewhat less controversial?
Baldly stated as “Greater aggression in men than women is a universal characteristic”, it’s much easier to read as saying, or at least endorsing, that ALL men are more aggressive than ALL women (obviously false), or that EVERY man would be more aggressive than EVERY woman if only their “true natures” were allowed to express themselves (certainly false also, IMHO), or similar objectionable statements.
I suspect that some (much? most?) of the heat here has to do with the way various ideas are being phrased, rather than the truth or otherwise of the ideas themselves. Not that that’s unusual on the Net… *8)
What it really means (I think) is something like “there is convincing evidence that, if you were able to factor out all the effects of cultural upbringing, and then draw graphs of the underlying aggression levels, the distribution for males would have a significantly higher mean than the distribution for females.” Put that way, it might be somewhat less controversial?
No, it doesn’t mean that. It means what it says: In all human cultures, men are more aggressive than women. I assume that you and others understand that this is an overall, statistical difference. It’s not true of every single individual in each culture. In all cultures, there will almost certainly be some women who are more aggressive than some men.
We can infer from the universal nature of this male-female statistical difference that it almost certainly has an innate, biological cause, that men are innately, genetically disposed to be more aggressive than women. If that were not the case, the probability of all human cultures exhibiting the same gender difference would be infinitesimally low. If it were not biological, we would expect to find many cultures in which women exhibited more aggression than men. But we don’t. We don’t find even one such culture. As evidence goes for traits that are independent of culture, that’s about as overwhelming as it gets.
And the same principle applies to any other difference between men and women that is found in all human cultures. Even differences that are not universal, but that are present in a large majority of cultures, most likely have a biological cause.
And the biological nature of the difference is independently supported by evidence from zoology, psychology, evolutionary biology and other disciplines, as I have said.
In all human cultures, men are more aggressive than women
As aggression has currently been measured, anyway. When anthropologists do not consider girls calling each other names to be ‘aggressive’ because, well, they’re not *hitting* each other, or when smacking a child is abuse (when done by a man) but discipline (when done by a woman), you’re gonna skew the statistics.
That aside, the problem is that on the pop-sci level, nobody makes thoughtful statements about groups of people and averages. It’s not “overall, on average, men are more likely to be physically aggressive than women, though of course individuals vary greatly”, but “Men are aggressive and women are passive,” and everyone nods behind their copy of the latest John Gray book.
FWIW, the rape-is-not-sex line was intended to be a counterargument to the myth that rape is simply an amplified version of They Just Cain’t Help Theyselves, They’re Men.
jstevenson – “The reality is that the sexes are different in how they perceive life (different through experience and nature). You acknowledged as much when you commented — “Guys who think that feminism is about . . . turning men into eunuchs, [figuratively]. . “
No, I don’t think so, I didn’t acknowledge anything of the sort any more than if I’d said “guys who think the left-wing is pro-terrorist are barking mad”. There are some people who think that, many others who don’t, as with anything.
I would be disingenuous if I said that is not a widely internalized perception among men. Correct me if I am wrong.
It depends what part of the world and what part of that part we’re talking about. I have difficulty with any such blanket statements about “men” or “women” as an absolute grouping. I personally don’t see the barking mad “feminism as castration” view as the prevailing or mainstream one around me, even if forms of sexism and stereotypes exist.
It seems by your analysis(stark raving mad) that women do not hold figurative castration as a goal of feminism.
No, actually, that’s exactly what feminism is about. Figurative castration. Absolutely.
…In that sense, a woman is at an infirmary when it comes to showing children how a man should treat a woman and reducing domestic abuse.
At an infirmary? What the hell does that mean?
To strive to be an ideal man or woman does not elevate gender differences above personal choices. In striving to be an ideal human being one should take into account that their experience will be different than that of someone of the opposite sex.
In so far as sexual relations go, yeah, to a certain extent. In so far as BASIC civility and decency and being an average law-abiding respectful responsible citizen who doesn’t resort to violence towards others, NO. Otherwise we’d have separate laws for men and women, separate voting, separate parliaments, separate everything.
In striving to correct past injustices against women due to institutionalized sexism a characteristic an “ideal man” would strive for is treating the women in his life in a positive manner.
Well gosh I had this weird impression that beating up anyone was bad as well as illegal. So any *normal*, not “ideal”, person should just be expected to be a decent person who doesn’t go round picking fights and punching people. It’s not just about sexism, it’s not just about women and men, it’s not just about feminism, it’s not just about the past, it’s basic individual and social behaviour. You’re the one making it sound as if men *by nature* are instinctively drawn to abuse and violence, and only the “ideal” can be different, and only by learning from other men, and through specific instructions on “how to treat women”. I don’t know any single male who needed specific instructions or exclusively male role models to not grow up to be a violent jerk. As if “treating women” was a separate category from social behaviour.
We live in reality where, for the most part, from conception to at least 1.5 years after, people do not sit down their kids and explain interpersonal relationships.
But children are not wild animals that need to be tamed, they do pick up how relationships work by seeing what’s around them, they develop as human beings, we all have the capacity to empathise and learn very early on that punching your little sister or brother or kindergarten mates in the face is not a good thing.
An ideal man would show children a positive image of the treatment of women.
A *normal* – averagely decent – person, male or female, would show children a normal, decent image of the treatment of other human beings – and any averagely decent society would provide lots more examples and role models than simply confined within the nuclear family.
Why do you think children who see their mommy beaten up by dad are going to assume that is the good way of behaving? don’t you think they would suffer too if abuse is going on? It also depends on what kind of environment they live in, what’s around them, but it’s not that automatic for a *male* child to only relate to his father no matter how he behaves, there’s plenty of people who had an abusive father and didn’t need any other males to tell them it was bad and to sympathise with their mother. I genuinely don’t understand by what kind of reasoning male children and male children only are supposed to live in a vacuum where only their father or male father figure is the one person they grow up to imitate and care for, no matter if he’s a jerk. Maybe on Pitcairn Island?
mythago:
As aggression has currently been measured, anyway. When anthropologists do not consider girls calling each other names to be ‘aggressive’ because, well, they’re not *hitting* each other, or when smacking a child is abuse (when done by a man) but discipline (when done by a woman), you’re gonna skew the statistics.
Given that the consequences of physical violence are rather more serious than the consequences of name-calling, I am at a loss to understand why you think it would be more useful or statistically valid to ignore that distinction in comparisons of male and female behavior, by using a definition of aggression that encompasses both physical and verbal forms, than to recognize it. If you like, you can call the former “physical aggression” and the latter “verbal aggression.” Men are more physically aggressive than women.
That aside, the problem is that on the pop-sci level, nobody makes thoughtful statements about groups of people and averages.
Nonsense. I suggest you read any of the many excellent popular treatments of evolutionary psychology, which are full of thoughtful statements about groups of people and averages. Try The Blank Slate and How The Mind Works by Steven Pinker, or The Moral Animal by Robert Wright, or The Third Chimpanzee by Jared Diamond.
It’s not “overall, on average, men are more likely to be physically aggressive than women, though of course individuals vary greatly”, but “Men are aggressive and women are passive,” and everyone nods behind their copy of the latest John Gray book.
No, everyone does not do that. I rather doubt that there is much overlap between John Gray’s readership and the readership of books such as the ones I mentioned in the previous paragraph. It would be a mistake to lump together New Agey pop-psychologists like John Gray with serious scientific writers like Pinker and Wright. Pinker, especially, emphasizes again and again in his writing about biological differences between male and female psychology and behavior that there are many individual exceptions to the general rule. But they are exceptions.
FWIW, the rape-is-not-sex line was intended to be a counterargument to the myth that rape is simply an amplified version of They Just Cain’t Help Theyselves, They’re Men.
Whatever the intent, the claim is simply false. If someone makes the claim that rapists are unable to control their behavior, the proper response is to show that that claim is false, not to make the equally false claim that the motive for rape is violence rather than sex. Science should not be subordinated to ideology, whether the ideology is right-wing religious doctrine or left-wing political and social doctrine. The nature of the world is what it is, which is not necessarily what we would like it to be.
“No, it doesn’t mean that. It means what it says: In all human cultures, men are more aggressive than women. I assume that you and others understand that this is an overall, statistical difference.”
I’m not sure if you’re denying that “In all human cultures, men are more aggressive than women” is ambiguous? Because it certainly is. The most natural reading (or at least one possible reading; I think it’s the most natural one, but there’s room for disagreement) is that all men are more aggressive than all women; when I say “tigers are mammals” I don’t mean that *most* tigers are mammals, or that it’s a statistical fact; I mean that all tigers are mammals.
If people stop to think about it, with calm rationality, they’ll realize that you’re making a statistical statement. But, to minimize misinterpretation, it would be preferable to make the more precise statement, whatever it is. “The mean of the distribution of male aggression is higher than the mean of the distribution of female aggression”, or “The majority of cultures encourage male aggression more than they do female aggression”, or whatever the data actually supports.
“[M]en are more aggressive than women” sounds like, and can easily and honestly be read as, a statement about individuals. Read that way, it is of course false. I would suggest, therefore, that people interested in minimizing pointless debate avoid such constructions. People interested in maximizing pointless debate, of course, should please announce themselves as such so the rest of us can killfile them… *8)
Pft. I don’t think that all evolutionary psychology is nonsense, but I’m waiting for the day that one of them can explain to me why women’s desires to be promiscious are ignored before I start listening to this nonsense.
You know, I don’t claim that “rape is about violence, not sex.” No feminist I know has claims that “rape is about violence, not sex” in the literal fashion that Pinker describes (some might say it talking about what’s going on from the victim’s point of view – but Pinker himself concedes that that’s true). Feminist experts on rape like Mary Koss or Patricia Tjarden don’t claim that. Neither do popular feminist writers like Katha Pollitt or Susan Faludi or Naomi Wolf. Neither do radical feminists who write about rape, like Andrea Dworkin or Catherine MacKinnon.
In other words, calling “rape is about violence not sex” a “feminist sacred cow” is bullshit. The phrase implies that virtually all feminists believe it, and no feminist would dare say anything different; on the contrary, hardly any feminists believe it, aside from undergraduates who don’t fully understand the classes they’re taking yet. And it’s commonplace for feminists to write about rape in terms that make it clear that for many or all rapists, rape is about sex (and ALSO about domination and control and violence).
Can you name any prominent, published feminist who has said “rape is about violence, not sex” in the past ten years, and who (read in context) meant it in the simpleminded way you describe? Not an anti-feminist like Pinker who says that feminists say it – a direct quote from a publsihed, well-known feminist.
As for Pinker, I thought Language Instinct was wonderful. But every quote I’ve seen from Blank Slate about feminism – and due to the kind of writing I do, people have quoted Pinker on feminism to me quite a lot – is just the same old tired arguments from anti-feminists like Christina Hoff Sommers, recycled yet again. I’m reserving full judgement until I read the book, but from the passages people have quoted me, I’m not impressed.
The funny thing about the “rape is about violence, not sex” thing is that, in my experience, it’s most used to explain to skittish men and women who are afraid that feminists think *all* men are rapists that we are making distinctions between regular male sexuality and violent male sexuality. I cannot believe that anyone thinks this is worth arguing about–rape is using sex to get power over and humiliate someone, and that also means that someone is getting off on humiliation and power. What’s so hard to understand about that?
To add to what Amanda said, rape as a crime of violence rather than a sexual offence is also a relevant distinction in legal terms, to classify it properly, and increase its severity. Advocates of that kind of legal change have used the “crime of violence, not sex” argument to that end. Especially in contexts where rape used to be considered a crime of passion or honour.
Of course it’s not “either/or” and it’s rather obvious it has to do with using sex for violence, so, yeah, of course no one is literally saying it has nothing to do with sex. I can’t believe anyone would say it has nothing to do with violence, though. I thought I’d heard every kind of crap about this but the notion of “rape as evolutionary strategy for reproductive success” takes the prize.
Nobody:“But such generalizations are obviously harmful because they stigmatize tall women and short men. Is there some offsetting social benefit? I can’t see it. . . I occasionally hear that academically-successful black kids are teased for “acting white.””
There is no redeeming characteristic for the ideal man to aspire to regarding height therefore it is an irrelevant generalization and serves no purpose. Unless Twins has come to fruition and men can get pregnant the fact that women can get pregnant is a generalization about the difference between women and men. So we can choose to say that is an irrelevant difference or we can ask women — what qualities a pregnant woman would ideally want from a man. I am sure many of these characteristics would be the same for a woman, pregnant or not. The fact of the matter is that an ideal man should empathize with the difficulties of pregnancy and act accordingly. For instance, a woman who is not pregnant may be insulted if she dropped something and a guy came over and picked it up (especially those who see misogynistic ulterior motive in every nice gesture from a male). On the other, hand many eight-month pregnant women would be insulted if she dropped something and the guy said – “yo, ya dropped something” and went on his way. Empathy for the infirmed is not a traditionally male characteristic. We typically eat the weak (a statement of truth, of course there are differences, but that fact is proven repeatedly by those in power). You cannot change the male psyche by saying all people should act this way. From my experience, most men want to distinguish themselves from others, want to be better than others. This desire is only reduced by failure and defeat. Give a the weak boy the chance to be the King of the Hill, he will quickly forget what it was like to be picked on in the thirst for revenge. As such, if there is a desire to change the system, it must be done slowly within the confines of reality and not assumptions of utopia. That would be a fantasy land that would do more harm than good. Ignoring reality never did anyone any good.
What works for men does not necessarily work for women. What works for short people does not necessarily work for tall people. What works for blacks does not necessarily work for whites. If black kids on average score lower on standardized exams than white kids — do we make the test easier for the black kids? Or do we change the methodology of teaching them. If you put the same inputs into the same process you will get the same results. You must modify the process to get different results. To do that requires us to acknowledge and embrace our comaparative advantages to succeed as a population.
My daughter did very well in spelling and math. But did not do so well in reading comprehension. Should I ignore the fact that she did not do well and continue the same teaching. Should I blame the fact that the average black student does not do as well on standardized tests as whites? That is ridiculous. Me cannot ignore the unique differences of our genders when it comes to making good men out of young boys?
Correction: “We cannot ignore the unique differences of our genders when it comes to making good men out of young boys!”
David: “I suspect that some (much? most?) of the heat here has to do with the way various ideas are being phrased, rather than the truth or otherwise of the ideas themselves.”
Excellent point and an excellent way to frame the issue.
David Chess:
I’m not sure if you’re denying that “In all human cultures, men are more aggressive than women” is ambiguous? Because it certainly is. The most natural reading (or at least one possible reading; I think it’s the most natural one, but there’s room for disagreement) is that all men are more aggressive than all women; when I say “tigers are mammals” I don’t mean that *most* tigers are mammals, or that it’s a statistical fact; I mean that all tigers are mammals.
I’m not sure why I’m wasting time on this silly point. Yes, the statement is ambiguous. All statements are ambiguous. But it’s only ambiguous in the same sense that a statement like “Men are taller than women” is ambiguous. It is highly unlikely that anyone with even a modicum of common sense would interpret the statement “Men are more aggressive than women” to mean that every single man is more aggressive than every single woman, any more than they would interpret “Men are taller than women” to mean that every single man is taller than every single woman. Everyone knows that there are some tall women and some short men. Everyone knows that there are some aggressive women and some meek men. People understand that statements of this kind refer to group-level differences, not to differences that apply to every single member of the group. Your comparison to the statement “tigers are mammals” is specious because “mammal” is not a characteristic that applies to some members of a species but not others. A species either is a mammalian species or it is not.
Monica: “At an infirmary? What the hell does that mean?”
It was an infirm attempt at sarcasm, but I said “hospital” instead of disability as I intended to say.
Monica:“A *normal* – averagely decent – person, male or female, would show children a normal, decent image of the treatment of other human beings – and any averagely decent society would provide lots more examples and role models than simply confined within the nuclear family.”
This is true. The bottom line is that boys are going to look at male role models. They do that to learn how to be a man or to satisfy their curiosity of being a man. Telling a boy that this is the way humans interact with each other is great, but men showing them, through their actions is much more effective (I say boys, not as an exclusion of girls. I don’t know what is necessarily effective for them). I do know that boys will look first to men on how to treat people and how to be a man (DSM IV gender id disorders aside). That is evident in the anguish that young men who do not fit the “macho” mold and the 9.9 out of ten boys that stand in front of the mirror or somewhere and try to talk with a deep voice or try to find the hair on their body as they go through the transition to “manhood”.
Amanda:
Pft. I don’t think that all evolutionary psychology is nonsense, but I’m waiting for the day that one of them can explain to me why women’s desires to be promiscious are ignored before I start listening to this nonsense.
Women in general do not desire to be promiscuous. Yes, some women desire it, but they are the exceptions. The existence of exceptions does not invalidate EP theories of differences between male and female sexual psychology, since those theories do not require every single man and every single woman to exhibit the difference that applies to men and women overall.
As I said before, the EP parental investment theory does predict some propensity for polygamy amoung women, but it is much, much weaker than the propensity for polygamy amoung men. And the theory is overwhelmingly confirmed by cross-cultural studies of human sexual desire and behavior, not to mention animal studies, genetic studies, psychological studies and the other lines of evidence I have mentioned. In all human cultures, sexual promiscuity is overwhelmingly a male preoccupation. EP also explains why pornography (especially visual pornography) is an overwhelmingly male interest. It just makes no sense in evolutionary terms for women to be easily aroused by sexually explicit imagery, whereas it makes perfect sense that men are so aroused, given the different investments that men and women make in reproduction.
Monica:” I genuinely don’t understand by what kind of reasoning male children and male children only are supposed to live in a vacuum where only their father or male father figure is the one person they grow up to imitate and care for, no matter if he’s a jerk.”
That is not what I said. Male children and female children will look to the people in their lives to determine how to act. They may see, like in my case that abuse is bad. I saw that it was bad and unfortunately I have struggled not to act out in violence, even though I knew it was bad. I am sure someone who did not grow up in the same environment that I did would have the same challenges in suppressing abusive behavior. Just like someone who is overweight, generally their parents were overweight. Should we not take this into consideration when forming societal norms? Perhaps we should treat those who grew up in a household where tv watching, eating fast food and non-activity were the norm, just like the Mannings (Pro Football quarterback family). “He fatso, you just need to be active.” We tell people that everyday, does that change the situation. Trust me, I am a Marine and work out fifteen hours a week just to stay under 15lbs overweight. Sure, treat boys as if differences don’t exist. The bottom line is that redefining the ideal man is a good tool for teaching young boys. Because they don’t necessarily respond as well to “well, just be nice to them” crap. We have been telling boys to be nice for years while bombarding them with images of “real men” who are not so nice. Are they going to listen to what a woman tells them or what they see. Trust me — their mother figure is the only woman who will have a significant impact and that is not even close to the impact that their father will give them. Whether they look at him and say “a real man does not do that” or “that’s a real man” does not matter because they are going to look at him for the majority of their formation — period.
Why you can’t see how that is the case exemplifies the point that men have different perspctives that women will not understand. Defining the “ideal man” is a good thing if it makes an “ideal citizen”.
Don P: “I’m not sure why I’m wasting time on this silly point.”
It’s surprising how much difference “silly” things like phrasing and word emphasis have in debates, especially in debates where people feel themselves to have a really personal stake in the issue.
I mean, I’m a rational person myself, but I can tell you firsthand that someone saying “men are more aggressive than women” bothers me and leads me to tend to object in ways that “in the majority of statistical studies, the mean of the aggressiveness distribution for males is significantly higher than the mean of the distribution for females” does not.
Connotation is at least as important as denotation, especially in online discourse. I apologize if you feel the issue has wasted your time; but I comfort myself with the thought that by spreading the idea I may be helping to make some future debate more civil and on the issues, rather than heated and distracted by phrasing…
*8)
Pft. I don’t think that all evolutionary psychology is nonsense, but I’m waiting for the day that one of them can explain to me why women’s desires to be promiscious are ignored before I start listening to this nonsense.
So true. And I’d like to see a serious discussion of why the social consequences of sex for women across cultures are so much greater than for men — in some cultures, a woman who has been “dishonored” can be killed (Nicholas Kristoff wrote a recent column about a Pakistani woman who’d been gang-raped by members of a higher-status clan for something that her male relative did, and when she didn’t do the honorable thing and commit suicide, she had to be placed under government protection because she is in danger of being killed).
Why is there so much control of female sexuality across cultures if females are not inclined to promiscuity? I certainly don’t buy that it’s because they’re being protected from men — you’d think that the consequences would then fall on the men who violated the woman’s chastity rather than the woman herself. Why is virginity prized? Why is family honor bound up in a woman’s chastity and modesty, while a man is encouraged to sleep around? And why is the control of female sexuality greater in those cultures that view the differences between the sexes as absolute?
It would seem to me that when inclination to be promiscuous butts up against dire consequences (shame, exile, death), the consequences will win out and your sample will be skewed. But whence the consequences in the first place?
If there’s been any serious discussion of these issues, please let me know.
David Chess:
I mean, I’m a rational person myself, but I can tell you firsthand that someone saying “men are more aggressive than women” bothers me and leads me to tend to object in ways that “in the majority of statistical studies, the mean of the aggressiveness distribution for males is significantly higher than the mean of the distribution for females” does not.
So whenever anyone says something like “blacks face more racial discrimination than whites” or “women earn less than men” or “blacks have a lower life expectancy than whites” you are bothered by those statements, too, are you? And you think instead that the speaker ought to say things like “in the majority of statistical studies, the mean of the income distribution for men is significantly higher than the mean of the distribution for women.”
I think you’re being ridiculous. Yes, in a technical paper on income disparities by sex, such precise language may be justified. But in ordinary public discourse, it’s just silly. Do you really think that people–especially the readers of this blog–don’t realize that a statement like “women earn less than men” is intended to mean that overall, in general, on average, women earn less than men, rather than that every single woman earns less than every single man?
zuzu:
Why is there so much control of female sexuality across cultures if females are not inclined to promiscuity?
Because men are inclined to promiscuity, of course, and women are the object of their desire. The primary risk to a husband from failing to control sexual access to his wife is not that she will coerce or seduce other men into having sex with her, but that those men will coerce or seduce her into having sex with them. The overwhelming pattern, not only in human cultures but amoung virtually all mammal species, is competition between males for sexual access to females, not the other way around.
I certainly don’t buy that it’s because they’re being protected from men — you’d think that the consequences would then fall on the men who violated the woman’s chastity rather than the woman herself.
The consequences fall on both of them. In most cultures, both the man and the woman are punished for adultery. A married woman who commits adultery is usually punished more severely than a married man because his act imposes no bastard on his wife, but hers may impose a bastard on her husband.
Why is virginity prized?
Because there is no risk that a virgin is carrying, or has already given birth to, another man’s child.
Why is family honor bound up in a woman’s chastity and modesty, while a man is encouraged to sleep around?
Married men are not encouraged to sleep around. As I said, institutionalized monogamy probably arose primarily as a way of reducing conflict between men for sexual access to women. If each man gets only one woman, then every man can have one. If some men each get more than one woman, then others will go without, which incites conflict. Unmarried men are encouraged to find an eligible woman, preferably a virgin, and marry her. Family honor is bound up in a woman’s chastity and modesty because men don’t want to marry women non-virgins (for the reasons I explain above.) The word “adultery” is related to “adulterate” and refers to making a woman impure.
And why is the control of female sexuality greater in those cultures that view the differences between the sexes as absolute?
I don’t know what “view the differences between the sexes as absolute” is supposed to mean. Control of female sexuality is greater in cultures in which women are subject to greater subordination to men, because those cultures view women more as property (first of their fathers, then of their husbands) than cultures in which the social status of women is higher.
“Why you can’t see how that is the case exemplifies the point that men have different perspctives that women will not understand.”
Oh great. Now I’m a token representative of all women. Yeah, and you won’t find a man who could be saying the same things I’m saying. Nope. I believe you, because you are a Male and I of course being a Female have no knowledge of the Male species. Any more generalisations? Pretty please? There’s not enough in this thread!
Jstevenson, I’m sure we come from different backgrounds, as well as different cultures and countries and continents, which is probably the more relevant thing here, as I’m starting to suspect more and more, but see, I don’t think you represent anything other than your own views, and if they are different from mine, I won’t ascribe it to your being a different sex. Maybe I should, just so we can break the cliché-meter.
Maybe I misread your point about role models, I’m genuinely still not sure what it is, but you seem to have misunderstood my view too. I never said gender plays NO part in someone’s life, I never said, let’s “pretend differences don’t exist”. Ridiculous straw men. I’m only saying, the male-female difference is not the main factor influencing a person’s overall behaviour and choices and preferences as different from another person’s. I’m disagreeing with the notion of a real manhood, real womanhood, or even ideal, of a precise set of traits that are supposedly predominantly male or female, and ascribed to biology.
That’s not even feminism, that’s the basic observation that individual differences – as well as social, cultural, religious, national, political, economic, etc. – count a hell of a lot more than gender differences. That’s difficult to deny, yet it’s very easy to ignore.
Boys hang out with boys and girls hang out with girls as well as mixing with each other as they grow up – so? how is that supposed to confirm that there’s a real manhood and a real womanhood? You’re talking of men and women as if they were different species, not different sexes.
The bottom line is that boys are going to look at male role models.
Yeah, but surely that’s not something so fixed and categorical as to require exclusively male models for learning something like basic behaviour in a civil society?
The original discussion was on rape and manhood. Unless you too like Don P consider rape as a sexual instinct, then I don’t know how you can claim it takes a man to teach another man not to rape or abuse. As if the default was abuse. As if men are by nature wild beasts and need male-specific ideals to correct that. I don’t think that’s what you’re saying, is it? Then *what* exactly are you saying?
I don’t get your parallel between being overweight, and being abusive. Very confusing. Attribute my confusion to my chromosomes, if you will.
The bottom line is that redefining the ideal man is a good tool for teaching young boys. Because they don’t necessarily respond as well to “well, just be nice to them” crap.
Oh ok, so young boys as these wild feral creatures faced with the alternative of either listening to patronising victorian speak about women or behave exactly like some macho movie action figure. No in between! Fathers have this absolute magic power of mesmerising over their male offspring’s behaviour *even if* they happen to be psychos who use their mother are target practice. Nevermind that spousal abuse often goes hand in hand with child abuse so it would make it even more obvious, first-hand, that violence is not a pleasant way to treat people.
What kind of ideal of manhood is that, considering men like idiots?
“Married men are not encouraged to sleep around.”
I strongly suspect Don P has been secretly sent here on a satirical mission.
I think we should sacrifice two virgins to his powerful wit. Where can we find volunteers?
evolutionary psychology is so much fun!
It just makes no sense in evolutionary terms for women to be easily aroused by sexually explicit imagery, whereas it makes perfect sense that men are so aroused, given the different investments that men and women make in reproduction.
i’ll be sure to mention this to my women friends who enjoy & use pornography… i’m sure they’ll be very interested to know that they are out of step with evolutionary psychology theory.
luckily, they can take comfort in the fact that they are exceptional – just like all the trannies, sissyboys, bulldaggers & other freaks who don’t fit into the tidy little categories of such theories & who are therefore statistically insignificant… which is, it seems, less than a step away from plain ol’ insignificant.
including, incidentally, me! at least, according to Mr. Pinker, who talks about how the “fear of snakes” is hardwired into our DNA… except i’m not & have never been afraid of snakes, even when i was just a wee babe. wait… maybe i don’t have any DNA!!!
well, whatever, i can deal with being exceptional too…
ampersand:
Everyone agrees that rape is a crime of violence in that the nature of the act is violent. Forcing a person to have sex, whether that person is a man or a woman, is an act of violence.
The “rape-is-not-about-sex” line refers to the feminist claim about the motives and intent of the rapist (for male rapists of women, at least). The claim is that men rape women not because of a biological urge to have sex, but because of an urge to dominate, subjugate and hurt women, and that this urge is the product of socialization by a patriarchal culture. The mantra was first announced, or at least popularized, by Susan Brownmiller in the 1970s, and has become the conventional wisdom amoung liberal feminists since then.
The problem is that the claim is simply not supported by the evidence. It is contradicted by the evidence. The overwhelming conclusion from the evidence is that the primary motive of men who rape women is the urge to have sex with them, and that this urge is biological, not socially conditioned. There may also be some degree of desire to dominate and harm the victim, in some cases at least, but the central motive in most cases is sexual gratification.
Because men are inclined to promiscuity, of course, and women are the object of their desire. The primary risk to a husband from failing to control sexual access to his wife is not that she will coerce or seduce other men into having sex with her, but that those men will coerce or seduce her into having sex with them.
Don, you keep saying that men are inclined to promiscuity and women are not. What’s the basis for this? What kind of data sampling was used?
How do you account for higher rates of sexual activity, with more partners, among young women post-sexual revolution? Are you seriously going to argue that every last one of these women was seduced or coerced, that desire had nothing to do with it?
I also think your reasoning is tautological, if what you’re saying is that because men have sex more often with a greater number of partners than do women, that means that women lack the desire to engage in sex? How does that fit in with societies where women are not permitted to see men they are not related to? How does that fit in with the pressure to be a “good girl?” How does that fit in with being labeled a slut and a skank ho for following one’s desires?
Saying that women are locked up for their own protection against those rascally other men is a convenient way to explain a phenomenon, but it doesn’t explain why the women are locked up instead of the men. It doesn’t do anything to explain why women’s sexuality is hemmed in and controlled instead of men’s.
Your explanation of why virginity is prized:
Because there is no risk that a virgin is carrying, or has already given birth to, another man’s child.
But that doesn’t at all address the woman’s desire and why it must be squelched by making the consequences for loss of virginity so serious. All it does is address a man’s property interest in a woman’s body.
So whenever anyone says something like “blacks face more racial discrimination than whites” or “women earn less than men” or “blacks have a lower life expectancy than whites” you are bothered by those statements, too, are you?
Now, this is dishonest because aggression is an innate characteristic susceptible to interpretation, and discrimination, pay rates and life expectancy are all measurable external factors.
Monica:
I strongly suspect Don P has been secretly sent here on a satirical mission.
I assume this is your obtuse way of saying that you disagree with my claim that married men are not encouraged to sleep around.
Please show me your evidence that married men are encouraged to sleep around, both in our own culture, and in human cultures generally. The simple fact that adultery is socially stigmatized and legally punished in virtually all human cultures illustrates that such behavior is strongly discouraged.
Monica: “[R]eal manhood, real womanhood, or even ideal, of a precise set of traits that are supposedly predominantly male or female, and ascribed to biology.”
Perhaps I see the disconnect in our positions. As in traits, there are characteristics good and bad in all people. Are those characteristics a part of nature, perhaps — perhaps not.
My point of the portrayal of an “ideal man” is situational in manner not necessarily characteristic.
I just use this as an example of my opinion. Boys will look to others on how to treat a woman. They will look to all types of people with varying perspectives on life. Most importantly they will look to those people who share their experiences.
Men went through puberty just like boys will. If they want to know what is going on with their body, they will took to other boys and men for advice. Why because they know (as opposed to read or seen before) what they are going through. So the characteristic of how one should treat another human is more relevant to boys from the man’s perspective, because someday they will be a man. Now is being good to people a trait monopolized by a “man” or “woman” it is common to both sexes. However, a woman cannot “show” a boy how to be a good man. She can only give what she thinks are the cultural and biological inputs that make a boy a man. He will not look to her regarding the outcome of the traits necessary to be an ideal man. That does not mean that the traits are different — be good to people. What it means is that the biological and cultural inputs that create those traits are different. It is not like telling someone who is short that they can’t play basketball. It is more, saying you are short and therefore must jump higher, but you can use your height to ensure you maintain possession of the ball.
Take their genetic difference and use it to their advantage in teaching. Ignoring the genetic difference will only cause them to disregard that fact when making personal decisions and lead to failure.
Don P:
for starters, there’s the definition of adultery in biblical law (and, therefore, most western law up until fairly recently) wherein adultery is the crime of a married woman having sex with another man.
a married man having sex with another woman is just doing what’s natural. any man having sex with a married woman is an adultery, and only those men.
there’s the institution of prostitution, which is historically excused by everyone (even the Church) as being nessicary. because “men want sex constantly, but women don’t really, so it’s ok for men to cheat on their wives.”
men are allowed to cheat. it’s still more socially acceptible for a man to cheat on his wife.
and that’s not “sleep around” which hands down, women get the raw deal on. think about how often you hear about people celebs, noncelebs, and others, where some guy cheats on his wife. “that dog, tsk tsk, the poor girl” everyone says. and no one is surprised when he gets remarried to someone else. he may even cheat on HER then, and the cycle will repeat, but it’s pretty rare that you hear “no one should marry that man, because he’s cheated so many times.”
a woman getting remarried after being publicly exposed for having cheated on her husband? rare.
I think Fergie. maybe.
Monica: “Yeah, but surely that’s not something so fixed and categorical as to require exclusively male models for learning something like basic behaviour in a civil society?”
I am not advocating exclusive male models for learning. I am recognizing that males will be the primary role model in early childhood development of boys on what happens when they grow up and how should they act. That does not mean women do not play a role at all. Of course, women could shave their face everyday, thereby showing their son from the time he is two that men shave their face. I am sorry, but that is ludicrious. Boys from the time they make cognitive thought look to the people in their lives both male and female to determine their course. We can say that we should teach boys that there is no difference in men and women. When do you suggest that start? As he is looking at his mother pulling out her penis and peeing? All she can do is tell him how to do it. Is that a bad thing, will her words not have affect on him? That is not what I am saying. What I am saying is that boys look at what the males in their life do. The basic fact that boys will become men will never change. We can define, by our actions what is a man or we can allow boys to naturally come to that conclusion. We have been trying the natural approach since the beginning of time and most modern, western women are not happy with the outcome of that approach. Don’t you think it is time to try something different, like redefining what is manhood?
jstevenson:
Now is being good to people a trait monopolized by a “man” or “woman” it is common to both sexes. However, a woman cannot “show” a boy how to be a good man. She can only give what she thinks are the cultural and biological inputs that make a boy a man. He will not look to her regarding the outcome of the traits necessary to be an ideal man.
Why the disconnect between “man” and “person”? A woman can certainly show a boy how to be a good person, and that’s really what you’re talking about, isn’t it? When you get right down to it, the basics of being a decent person are common to both genders. The rest is social construct.
Don, I still have to question if you know that women really don’t desire mulitple partners like men or if they simply don’t feel as free to act on or even admit that desire as men. Because I myself have access to the inner feelings of exactly one more woman than you, I am inclined to think that it’s a safe bet that some of us are just lying when we say we don’t have those thoughts/behaviors.