Following the reading of
this article, a man by the name of Cesur wrote
this comment. (The one at the top, highlighted in yellow. ;-) I recommend at least reading the comment, for that, essentially, is what I'm basing this post on.
The comment was so
interesting at least, I knew I'd want to talk about it.
If you don't want to read the whole thing, here's the guy's short version.
In most of the animal kingdom; and certainly for the primates; sexual selection is done by the female. Males first have to compete amongst themselves so they can later even have a shot at trying to impress the females enough to have a chance to procreate. For different animals, all this competition means different things. Longer horns here, brighter feathers there, a hit song in the charts or a huge bank account. Like we still see today at bars, all the female has to do is sit tight and chose.
Think about the "sexist double standard" of promiscuous men being called the positive "studs", and promiscuous women being called the negative "sluts". As Jim Jefferies points out, it's very easy to be a slut. Being a stud, however, is fucking hard.
To be a stud you have to be witty, charming, well-dressed, have nice shoes and a fake job. To be a slut you just have to be there. There are fat-ugly sluts out there; there are no fat-ugly studs. I've met slutty dwarfs; I've never met a stud dwarf.
This was actually his original comment.
Why aren’t the women who are outnumbering men in undergraduate institutions leading the information economy? “Because they’re dabbling,” she snaps.
I think she really nailed it. Women have so many options that they aren't really motivated to excel in anything. Especially not to find a suitable partner.
Is that so? The guy also cites individual acts that men do to try and set them apart, like the rednecks jumping off higher and higher roofs into a pool...
Now, anecdotally, I can say, "that's not true at all. I can think of plenty of women in my life driven to excel professionally. My own girlfriend, for instance."
But the truth is I don't know
that many, and anecdotal evidence is irrelevant anyway.
What about on a larger scale? Is this difference real at all?
Most of his point is based on Evolutionary Psychology, which I know isn't... isn't the
firmest ground to stand on. How much of this behavior, then is societally imprinted, and how much of it
is directly related to our biological modus operandi?
Is testosterone and sexual competition in men why men seem driven to succeed more than women who are have, on the large scale, less need to have large bank accounts to compete sexually? Or is this just pseudo-scientific bullshit?
Posts
There's nowhere near enough information on the functioning of ourselves or our society, or on our evolution as a species, to make any certain conclusions.
Also, it's silly to compare "studs" to "sluts", because "studs" generally have the additional connotation of only bedding attractive people.
1. Happily married couples often continue to push boundaries and achieve in society despite their sexual desires weighing more closely to fulfilled.
2. Musicians, often tied directly to sexual nature (e.g. the archetypal rock star), don't tend to display any sort of gender discrepancy when it comes to pushing boundaries or achieving in creative self-expression.
Our first game is now available for free on Google Play: Frontier: Isle of the Seven Gods
Attention Dr. The Cat, please pick up the white courtesy phone.
Likewise one is generally considered a compliment, while they other is an insult.
Our first game is now available for free on Google Play: Frontier: Isle of the Seven Gods
Birds, though.
Honestly, I think there is a complete lack of evidence for any kind of genetic or instinctual basis for any kind of human behavior with the possible exception of 1) fear of snakes 2) repulsion or fear of the smell of most kinds of rotting flesh and 3) nursing (edit: just to be clear I mean the instinct on the part of newborns to nurse).
Maybe someday there will be sufficient data to even begin to try and make arguments for more complicated inherited behavior but I doubt it. Just figuring out how to knap flints is hard enough.
So what does this mean? If indeed a significant number of people behave in the way outlined in the OP then it is for the very simple reason that it is how they were taught to behave. Not because of any bullshit evo-psych nonsense.
Likewise I'm sure many women who are average weight have been referred to as "hot", but terms like "supermodel" are reserved for tall, well-dressed women who are generally underweight.
Our first game is now available for free on Google Play: Frontier: Isle of the Seven Gods
OH SHIT!
pleasepaypreacher.net
Xenophobia is instinctual.
Otherwise, sure.
So he's saying that most of the animal kingdom does a thing CULTURALLY?
Isn't that the point?
The guy quoted in the OP is the one who went all pseudo-science evo-psych on it. All trying to draw parallels between the "animal kingdom" and bar-hopping.
She works hard. At everything. More than I do, and she probably gets paid less to do it. (Different industries, but still.) She does have a lot of options, but I think she's worked and is working for them. I don't every see her becoming a 'leisure-class wife'
At any rate something tells me the commenter in the OP is wishing hard-working ladies like my friend would date nice guys like him instead of stockbrokers or whatever.
I think he's saying that human males approach everything with the intention of evolving our species.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go circle a mammoth and suck the marrow from its bones to replenish my energy. I must spread my seed far and wide this night, lest my inferior brood perish in obscurity, clawing at the earth with their ineffectual, girly hands.
Strana was later crushed by the massive bulk of the creature, thus forever eradicating from the human genome the inherent desire to fraternize with mammoths.
Our first game is now available for free on Google Play: Frontier: Isle of the Seven Gods
If people are going to pull the evo-psych crap they had better get their goddamn zoology right first.
Go ask the ancient greeks, or even the earlier arthurian legends whether a woman can control who she has sex with.
Also yeah, the whole total ignorance how things actually go down in the animal kingdom.
The problem is when you take something that's statistically true (for the sake of this argument) across a large group and start to make assumptions about individuals and their motives based on it. It's like saying "statistically, blacks attend college at a lower rate than whites or asians, so being black is a reasonable strike against you when interviewing for a job that requires a college education."
Life's not all about attracting a mate; most people's goals come down to living in some way that brings self-respect. And in my (well-educated, swanky) community, self-respect comes from pursuing a high-status activity. That's why some men and women do things that are high-status but don't necessarily bring in money (volunteer service, art, graduate study in non-lucrative fields) but nobody seems to want to be an accountant or
a housewife.
The article linked in the original comment -- about the differences in women and men being explainable by the fact that men are so much more expendable than women and therefore have higher genetic variance in just about everything -- is actually interesting. Normally I resent evo-psych because it's so reductionist. (Don't I have free will?) But this guy, perhaps because he doesn't read as so much of a woman-hater, actually presents the idea as pretty compelling.
But just because there might be a good evolutionary reason for men to have been more creative and more powerful historically -- a good evolutionary explanation, in fact, for sexism -- doesn't really imply that it holds in modern developed countries. After all, a plague or war isn't likely to wipe out half our men, and I think hardly anyone in my graduating class is likely to sire hundreds of children. I'm going to get as much benefit from my math degree as a man would; possibly more, on the margin, since it's a rarer skill in women and these days math girls are a hot commodity. Hell, I think it even helps on the dating front, depending on who you date. Evo-psych works better, I think, as an origin story than as a current prescription for sex roles.
http://numberblog.wordpress.com/
Or many current cultures.
On that note, too, women have the freedom to pursue economic success, but they aren't pressured to value themselves and define themselves by it in the way men are. And thank god for that, because it kinda sucks. (Luckily, I don't have to be pretty all the time, either.)
The ideal situation would be one where the following passage from the original article could have been written by a woman or a man:
I see no reason to lament any state of affairs that gives any human being the freedom described here; if I must lament anything about this kind of freedom, it is that too few people get to enjoy it.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
...I'm probably broken or something, but is it supposed to be obvious if the above is written by a woman or a man?
It's supposed to be obvious that it's written by a woman.
http://numberblog.wordpress.com/
I didn't see any of that.
It was just how freaking vicious they were to each other.
It's kind of funny because before I started working there my mom warned me about it, saying she doesn't like to work with women either because of that. I thought she was kidding.
I'm not a fan of those roles. I think they are anachronisms that are pretty much universally harmful to society and the folks that make it up. The only thing I bemoan is that their isn't much of an effort to rid ourselves of the ones that apply to males. It's still an issue of feminism, but most of the folks involved with feminism have other things higher up on their list of priories. While I don't disagree with such notions, I don't think any amount of waiting and supporting other issues is going to change them much. There is an ever growing and ever more visible number of males involved with feminism, I'd like to see more of them take a more significant interest in issues that directly affect them. I'm one of them to some degree, and it's not like I actively do anything even remotely about it either. meh.
FyreWulff:What sort of work?
I missed that, too... I can see why it is supposed to be obvious after the fact, but at first reading I see no problem either way. I think according to some other studies, it is no wonder that I am underpaid compared to other guys.
I think you're giving the national norm too much credit.
At least we're not Saudi Arabia, though.
Indeed.
http://newsinfo.iu.edu/tips/page/normal/11558.html#7
So about 50% of respondents supported the idea that women should be legally required to change their name at marriage.
At least they aren't saying she can't drive.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/14/AR2009081401598.html
Personally, I like when a couple creates a new and interesting last name for themselves.
Keeping your maiden name is a necessity if you've published anything before marriage; otherwise just pick something, and don't multiply hyphens, for Pete's sake!
http://numberblog.wordpress.com/
if by combo name you mean hyphen, the I think it's awful. I knew too many kids in grade school with six syllable last names thanks to those.
What I'm talking about is a couple picking out an entirely new last name for themselves, either by hybridizing their previous last names, or just picking something that they both like. It seems like a neat thing to do to me.
Then again, my last name has only been in my family since my great grandfather, so I don't really feel much of a tie to it.
I wonder how many of the people who want government regulation requiring name change want to government to stay out of healthcare, and away from their guns etc.
I bet the answer won't surprise anyone.