The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
Please vote in the Forum Structure Poll. Polling will close at 2PM EST on January 21, 2025.
blaarrrrrgh. BLAAARRRGGHHHH!
Qingu
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
This is not particularly hard to explain. First of all, there is a biological explanation: in most primate species females form harems around dominant males. Biologically speaking, the behavioral role of women has evolved to be subservient to men (unfortunately for women); women are physically weaker than men (on average), rarely hunt or fight for dominance.Grid System wrote: »How could persecution of women, for example, help a society survive and grow?
Like, ever?
As you can imagine, there has always been intense competition among men for female sex partners, which often led to injury or death. Also, since women could not fight or hunt, they were sometimes a drain on resources. Some early human cultures developed rules to govern the women issue, which revolved around their development of economies.
In Mesopotamia, for example, people developed customs and laws where women are owned by their father and sold to suitors in exchange for a brideprice, which was slightly higher than the price of a slave (see, for example, Biblical laws). Women were thus tied to individual men through economic means, which meant that men no longer could fight and kill each other in competition for women. Fathers also had an interest in keeping their daughters alive (as opposed to leaving them face-down in the sand, as was common in some places).
Mesopotamian society's treatment of women seems barbaric to us today. But I think it's superior to violent sex harems in even less advanced societies and in nonhuman primate groups. Also, Mesopotamian society, thanks in part to its laws about women, was probably more stable and better-populated than surrounding societies and so survived better.
Qingu on
0
Posts
I also object vociferously to your characterisation of females as evolved to subservience. If we were, I wouldn't be calling you wrong and stupid over the internet. We're different physically because of the demands reproduction places on our bodies - you can only do so much with finite energy and matter, see. There are reams and reams of material demonstrating that biologically speaking, there's no harmony between the sexes where sex differentiation is present. Its an arms race.
But it is a fact that, on average, human and other primate females are significantly weaker than men. And in early, emerging cultures dominated by physical contests and warfare, this biological fact goes a long way towards explaining the early cultural rules governing the treatment of women.
This doesn't make sense. We also evolved to hang from tree branches, and yet here I am typing on a computer.
I think this is actually one of the coolest things about my* idea of morality: cultural/moral evolution can and often does override biological evolution.
Sexual dimorphism is a biological fact that was sculpted over thousands of years of evolutionary conditions. Males of the species are indeed stronger and typically larger because of the importance that was placed on females, and--in our own past--women. Men were responsible for providing and protecting as a means to ensure that his genes are passed on and that his offspring compose part of the following generation.
In fact any quarrel between the sexes during this part of our evolutionary history was minor. With the advent of culture and religion women were indeed more idealized and revered. Ancient religions became bound to the goddess that created the world and ensured procreation and virility.
Ironically it was agriculture that sealed women into a—as quoted—“subservient†state of being. After thousands of generations of inter-tribal warfare and the need to protect women, agriculture brought about a time of civility and relative “peaceâ€â€”most importantly, however, it brought about the concept of “ownership†and “propertyâ€. The genetic predispositions to aggression being intrinsic to the male condition did not, however, dissipate. It transformed, in short: it evolved. Aggression suddenly became directed on large scale through warfare and—on a domestic scale—targeted women.
With the advent of the Abrahamic religions i.e. Christianity, Islam, Judaism etc. we see a shift in religion: suddenly a male god is placed in power over all other gods. The catholic church even states directly that “mother Mary is to be respected, but worship the Sonâ€â€”I don’t know the actual quote—this propelled the patriarchal society to new heights.
This was where our culture as being patriarchal and the idea of women as being “lesser†than men: truly took form.
Besides the history lesson though the big thing I’m pushing is the idea that now—in this day and age—culture is the main proponent of sexual dispute and the “gender warâ€. Luckily for us all we are now reaching a period of “enlightenmentâ€, however, that will—at the very least—make us more aware. Now there are so many men and women in the world that there really isn’t any “sexual dominance†or dispute as to who is more important in a sexual relationship with intention to create a child. Laws are in place that protect the child-bearing mother and ensure that the male is responsible and—mostly—important in the child-creating process. Yet even with this sexual equality our government propels the idea that women are not equal: they cannot fight on the front lines for our wars, they cannot be drafted. The excuse is that America needs mothers which I think is ridiculous because it states that children don’t need their fathers: it downplays the importance of men in what is supposed to be an equal-sexual-importance relationship.
What are your thoughts on this?
Secondly, while agriculture certainly engendered the concept of "property," there were/are non-agricultural societies with that concept (the Shoshone Indians in the northwest U.S. and Canada, for example).
Thirdly, I don't think it's fair to say that Mesopotamian religions (including the big three Abrahamic religions) turned their aggression towards women.They were also quite aggressive towards men; and other religions (such as Hinduism) place women in a subservient role as well. Rather, the important point here is that in the organized, legalistic religions, women came to be understood as the property of men, like slaves. This is where the idea of marriage comes from. The literature about women in the Bible and the Quran often compares them to jewels—treasures to be guarded. This is certainly (to our modern eyes) despicable, but I wouldn't characterize it as "aggressive."
I largely agree. Technology has mostly erased the practical differences between genders. At the same time, women who do choose to get pregnant face a fundamentally different situation than men who choose to have kids—nine months of discomfort followed by however long a period of nursing and recovery. I think this is a fundamental inequality that requires unequal considerations (for example, pregnancy leave for mothers but not for fathers)—unless we ever invent in vitro babies or whatever.
On the contrary the oldest figurines depicting any form of deity are indeed female in nature. I was wrong--in saying they were entirely matriarchal though: the earth mother goddess which is believed to be derivative of the Greek's "earth mother" did have a male counterpart which was represented in the form of sky.
Concerning the Mesopotamian religions I was referring to them as they are widely accessible fundamentally and therefore a good representation of how they could have influenced the patriarchal societies rise to dominance. You make a very good point about the additional religions that contributed to this ideology and how some societies that do not practice agriculture do still have a patriarchal class system. In fact I think that there are many examples available that are not congruent with the agricultural-thesis. For example one society in--Africa I believe--is completely switched: women dominate the society as hunters and protectors while the men are prone to what is considered "feminine tasks" such as cooking, gathering even gossip and shopping.
I can't find the tribe name, bullox.
I completely agree with the idea that pregnancy needs to be examined in very different ways, because--well--it's a biological fact that the female's experience through pregnancy is different from that of a male's.
What a fascinating topic... I love this stuff. Great for debate and whatnot, I recently wrote a thesis paper on the gender-war and it's possible transcendence into "the singularity", which I'm sure you're familiar with. Really interesting stuff.
No, this doesn't make sense. You can't go around claiming to have surpassed your biomechanical inclinations while claiming that women can't get past theirs. This is the classic fallacy of characterising females as biological robots. Knock it off, and could you do us a really big favour and try learning something about evolutionary history of humans instead of spouting pop-sci bigotry? That would be super.
Swift kick to the nuts!
Minor in potential, exaggerated by cultural imperative. I know sweetie, it hurts to think about. Just be strong, you'll get through it.
Thanks for contributing to the discussion on morality.
I'm coming in very late to this discussion so apologies. That said, you should read Gibbon. His gist is one of suprise about how the "barbaric" germanic women were venerated in their culture as opposed to the Roman culture. Violent "sex harems" were not the norm and women were to be reckoned with, would take up arms if necessary, and would kill themselves rather than be taken captive. One could speculate that an agricultural society is going to have a different attitude toward women than a pastoralist/hunter gatherer society. The Mesopatamian model is agricultural. It devalues women to some extent and creates power relationships that foster things like dowrys and treating women as chattel. On the other hand one could argue that such attitudes toward women are just roll of the dice cultural arrangements. I don't know the answer.
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
Honey, you're letting your prejudices make you stupid.
Huh? Men are larger than women. Less so in our species that in the other ape species but still there is a difference. In the modern world this is largely irrelevant but during the last few thousand years it could have had some impact on culture. Tons of other stuff in the equation like reproduction makes this difficult to pull out on its own, but it is a legitimate thing to think about.
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
Men and women tend to have very different dietary habits and physical activity regimens, at the most basic.
This is ridiculous. Men are bigger and stronger than women. It is a fact and is not uncommon in species that use sexual reproduction. Interestingly, the difference in size between the male and female of our species is rather small compared to our ancestors. It still exists and while it is an almost impossible task to disentangle other externalities and figure out its impact on our culture, it is impossible to just ignore.
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
Yes, I'm sure this is natural:
http://starlablogtique.files.wordpress.com/2007/04/kate-moss2.jpg
It's true that men have some degree of muscular advantage, but most of that is cultural, not genetic.
See: The Poindexter Stereotype.
I'm larger than my sister, certainly, clearly it's only because I am male.
Oh no wait it's mostly because I grew up eating large amounts of meat while chopping oak trees with a dull hatchet and carrying around lumber while she ate refined sugar and did aerobic sports.
Yes, there is a genetic component, but it's vastly inflated by culture, much like race.
I'm not saying there isn't a cultural aspect to it. Mix a tiny bit of sexual dimorphism and the law of comparative demand and you can go crazy. The fact remains that in OTHER animal species sexual dimorphism is not uncommon and we are clearly sexually dimorphic--body hair, external v internal reproductive organs no one will disagree with. I suspect few would disagree with size. The differences are undoubtedly exaggerated by culture but they are there.
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
OK, I suppose we are arguing about definitions now. Does agreeing that I cannot ever truly KNOW anything make me an idealist or a physicalist?
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
--
Mental differences are essentially impossible to control for, and thus impossible to compare.
The closest thing you could do to testing it would be INCREDIBLY unethical.
There clearly are mental differences although those are even harder to extricate from culture. The male and female brain size difference is far smaller than the body size difference.
Plus back to the law of comparative demand--I'd get fired as President of Harvard for saying this: women are better at raising children than men. This, if true, can lead to a number of cultural consequences.
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
Doesn't the second bit kind of render the first to be baseless?
I want you to consider how you would determine the aspect of a tremendous number of highly-variable brain chemistries in such a way as to be completely free from cultural bias.
You could never create a proper control because history is part of our chemistry, and anything vaguely resembling a controlled situation amounts to slavery and abusive isolation.
Women produce more white blood cells and are better at staving off infections. I don't know what role testosterone plays in longevity but I'm not willing to slice off my biggest testosterone producers to find out. In the modern age, in western democracies, both men and women live far longer than necessary (from a gene centered view).
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
We just count the number of Nobel Prize winners. Oh look MEN MEN MEN. We win. Girls are dumb.
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
Also, consider that at the highest levels of performance, women can alter their hormonal chemistry to be more like men. Of course this begs the question: why consider some outdated notion of gender in a world where we can do this body chemistry stuff? Don't they have some weird rules in international competitions defining gender is ways so as to exclude male to female transgendered people from competing with women?
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
That's a big carve out. Women aren't as good at science and maths by a lot of criteria. The question is whether this is cultural or not. The default view is that it is cultural but it isn't a settled question. I've read papers on how men have fatter tails on the bell curve where women center closer to the mean. My personal view is that gender is a very, very, poor predictor of intelligence and it is quite possible that the question itself is unethical but what if you are the head of a faculty of physics and are concerned that not enough women are Ph.D. candidates? Does asking why hurt women because one of the possible answers is that women aren't as good at physics or does asking help women because it roots out the cultural and organizational problems that are holding them back?
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
I blame my sources. I read that somewhere and just assumed it was true. I'm sticking to my external v internal genitalia argument for sexual dimorphism though.
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
Even if Joe Stupid was slightly less stupid than Jane Stupid, he's still stupid.
Between Joe Genius and Jane Genius, you know what, they're fucking Geniuses.
I agree. That is my prediction. The reason I brought it up was that not so long ago Lawrence Summers got into a shitstorm over his remarks about women's abilities because either a) he had a sexist agenda or b) he was genuinely concerned that there weren't enough women in high level positions in science and engineering. My view based on my limited experience is that the reasons are cultural, but as I said, it isn't settled. In 50 years it probably will be but today, if I was president of a major university and kept finding that the male candidates were better qualified, I would be concerned and I would make an effort to find out why.
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
http://www.jewishmag.com/45mag/basketball/basketball.htm
Shit like this is why these "are naturally better" comparisons are so retardedly wasteful.
There is a big difference between making predictions about an individual based on gender and whether or not one gender is, on average, better than another gender at some particular task. The latter question is fraught with peril because (like physicalism v idealism) what can you possibly learn? If you learn women are on average better (or worse) at math, how does it help you with your real world concern of choosing who to hire to design your microchip? It doesn't help at all. The cynical view is that the question is posed to excuse the existing (male dominated) culture. The non-cynical view is that the question is posed in the context of finding out whether your (male dominated) culture is fucked up in some way and needs to be reexamined.
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck