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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: The ugly reality of misandry
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
How many women could shoot six arrows a minute over ten minutes with an English longbow of draw-weight of around 600 Newton?
It's a bloody stupid example when the only reason men could do it was years of enforced practice that resulted in huge deformities. Get women to do the same training and then make the comparison.
But I think we can make the comparison. Professional sports, particularly athletics. Men and women both train for years and years to make it to the very top - to win Olympic gold and world championships.
And the men are faster than the women. The men can jump further, throw further, lift heavier weights.
I don't think it's because the men train any harder or longer than the women. It's because there tend to be physical differences between men and women.
It's completely different, in my view, when it comes to activities that are based on skill. But if you're talking about activities that involve sheer physical strength, then sorry, there's plenty of evidence that women are not, on average, going to match it with men.
This says absolutely nothing about any individual woman vs any individual man, of course, but I'm pretty sure that Ingo has recognised that and is making his point at the general level. A point that I agree with. I don't think there are many practical differences between men and women, but this is one of them.
[ 30. August 2013, 18:33: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
It's a bloody stupid example when the only reason men could do it was years of enforced practice that resulted in huge deformities. Get women to do the same training and then make the comparison.
It's a perfectly valid example. One simply could not have trained up a sufficient numbers of women for these tasks, even if one had wanted to. Sure, some women could have done it as well after gruesome training, but most men could do it after gruesome training. And that they got deformed by these strains on their body is neither here nor there for that difference: the few women that could be trained to do this kind of continuous explosive application of upper body strength would have suffered the same deformities (or worse, given the usually more fragile skeleton of women). There simply are serious physiological differences between the sexes, and they do make men better "fighters" on average. Deal.
Just because men could, on average, cope with a higher draw than women doesn't mean that insufficient women would have coped with the particular draw quoted. I'm quite agree that the former is true, but we simply don't have the data on the latter.
Posts: 2933 | From: Hebrides | Registered: Apr 2012
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
quote:
But I think we can make the comparison. Professional sports, particularly athletics. Men and women both train for years and years to make it to the very top - to win Olympic gold and world championships.
And the men are faster than the women. The men can jump further, throw further, lift heavier weights.
I don't think it's because the men train any harder or longer than the women. It's because there tend to be physical differences between men and women.
[/QB]
You're comparing athletes. I suspect that all the women athletes would be able to jump further, throw further, lift heavier weights, and run faster than the majority of men, whether those men have trained or not. There's a vast amount of overlap in the male and female bell curves for whatever ability is being measured, physical or mental. In a lot of cases, the weakest individuals can be male, as are the best.
Of course, in behaviours where testosterone is a major factor, the overlap is rather less. And I would be reluctant to draw too many conclusions from chimpanzees. Apart from them having female serial killers, as well as the killer gangs. One significant feature of their lives is that they are still forest dwellers in a rather small area, with a few tool skills involving twigs and pebbles. We aren't.
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Gwai
Shipmate
# 11076
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Posted
IngoB: You begin by objecting to my comment about men as default because it's not statistics, but by the end you particularly say you don't buy language usage stats either. So I won't bother you with any.
But the reason I challenged you to listen to when gender is mentioned around you is because I've done it and I was surprised. Beforehand I would have said about what you did that when gender is mentioned it's because it's relevant. Having listened, it's just not true. When people are described, perceived gender(and race) are used in certain circumstances regularly for no obvious reason, for instance, in workplace situations. You live in a different country than I do with a different culture. Maybe that really isn't true of where you are. Maybe where you walk people don't automatically move out of the way for men in suits the way they don't for similarly well-dressed women. Maybe you live in a world where three year old girls don't have to ask their mothers, "Mommy, why are all the people in the stories and songs always boys?"
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A master of men was the Goodly Fere,
A mate of the wind and sea.
If they think they ha’ slain our Goodly Fere
They are fools eternally.
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
It's completely different, in my view, when it comes to activities that are based on skill. But if you're talking about activities that involve sheer physical strength, then sorry, there's plenty of evidence that women are not, on average, going to match it with men.
Men do not out-compete women merely in the "pure power" sports. The close to universal separation into sexes in sports is not some patriarchal hang-over. If it could be removed in these equality-obsessed times, it would be. But is is solidly based in distributions of anatomy and physiology, and it will not be removed because that would make it very difficult for women to become outright champions in their chosen sport. Tennis is a "skilled sport" where the obvious has been confirmed, sort of - see here, in particular "Karsten Braasch vs. the Williams sisters".
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
This says absolutely nothing about any individual woman vs any individual man, of course, but I'm pretty sure that Ingo has recognised that and is making his point at the general level. A point that I agree with.
Well, yes. Although this general level does translate into likelihood at the individual level if we have no other information.
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
Just because men could, on average, cope with a higher draw than women doesn't mean that insufficient women would have coped with the particular draw quoted. I'm quite agree that the former is true, but we simply don't have the data on the latter.
Fair enough, we do not. I think with an activity so strenuous as to actually deform bones we can make some rather easy guesses, but whatever. I was not really making a point about English longbows and who can handle them with sufficient training. I was making a general point about the overall suitability of the sexes for the kind of physical combat that held sway from time immemorial to early modernity.
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
There's a vast amount of overlap in the male and female bell curves for whatever ability is being measured, physical or mental.
Well, I agree that it would be most informative to have distributions of key physical performance characteristics compared by gender. But in about half an hour of googeling, I've not come up with really useful graphs. So I would ask you on what basis you made your statement? Have you actually seen many of such bell curves for physical measurements, and if so, could you please point me to some?
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
Maybe where you walk people don't automatically move out of the way for men in suits the way they don't for similarly well-dressed women.
Around here moving out of each other's way tends to be a matter of common courtesy, and I have not seen much evidence for strong dependence of that on clothes or gender. If at all, I would say that women get given way slightly more often, as nod to old politeness rules ("ladies first" and all that).
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
Maybe you live in a world where three year old girls don't have to ask their mothers, "Mommy, why are all the people in the stories and songs always boys?"
Typical German childhood favourites of my generation include "Pippi Langstrumpf", "Biene Maja", "Heidi" and "Bibi Blocksberg" in all of which the main protagonist is a strong female. My mother (post-war) generation had as favourite book "Wunderbare Fahrten und Abenteuer der kleinen Dott", again with a female hero. Excellent book, by the way, I much enjoyed reading that as well. Obviously there were also stories with boys or men as heroes in my past, perhaps even more of them. Though that could have been my selection bias as a boy, and overall I would say that things were fairly even where I come from.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Horseman Bree
Shipmate
# 5290
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Posted
Perhaps the male who posted the OP would like to comment on exactly how this case demonstrates his complaint?
As I read it, a 14-year-old girl is being blamed for getting herself raped. She then commits suicide as a result of the stress from her peers deciding that she is a "slut" or some other vile form of person.
And the Man, who at 49 y.o., is old enough to know better is getting a 30-day sentence, because the judge decided that the male person (I can't call him a "gentleman, since he went out and tried to reoffend) had suffered enough, and it was the girl's fault anyway.
I suppose the male in question is just a bumbling cartoon fool who can't be expected to do anything but "make mistakes" under all circumstances. Putting him on trial is just an example of misandry, I guess.
Oh yeah, there's no rape culture in any of our societies.
How come no men have to be "modestly" covered so they will avoid the threat of rape from over-excited women?
Come on, EE, let's see a good argument. You haven't done anything but whine so far.
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It's Not That Simple
Posts: 5372 | From: more herring choker than bluenose | Registered: Dec 2003
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Dinghy Sailor
Ship's Jibsheet
# 8507
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Horseman Bree:
How come no men have to be "modestly" covered so they will avoid the threat of rape from over-excited women?
Because men's fashions already cover far more of the body than do women's fashions? Because most men have the natural advantage of being bigger and stronger than most women?
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Preach Christ, because this old humanity has used up all hopes and expectations, but in Christ hope lives and remains.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
Because men's fashions already cover far more of the body than do women's fashions?
That depends very much on where you are and what you're doing. Gyms and beaches were the first counterexamples to spring to mind.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
Because men's fashions already cover far more of the body than do women's fashions?
That depends very much on where you are and what you're doing. Gyms and beaches were the first counterexamples to spring to mind.
In these parts, standard male beachwear is a pair of voluminous shorts that stretch from waist to knee, and probably have enough spare room to hide a basketball.
By contrast, standard female beachwear is a few wisps of lycra just barely covering the essentials.
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by Dinghy Sailor:
Because men's fashions already cover far more of the body than do women's fashions?
That depends very much on where you are and what you're doing. Gyms and beaches were the first counterexamples to spring to mind.
In these parts, standard male beachwear is a pair of voluminous shorts that stretch from waist to knee, and probably have enough spare room to hide a basketball.
By contrast, standard female beachwear is a few wisps of lycra just barely covering the essentials.
...so you don't find it relevant that men are encouraged to walk around flaunting their uncovered chests and women aren't?
[ 31. August 2013, 05:35: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
...so you don't find it relevant that men are encouraged to walk around flaunting their uncovered chests and women aren't?
Like I said, standard female beachwear reveals much more skin, and is much more form-fitting, than standard male beachwear. I don't think I know too many women or gay men who have a thing for men's nipples (which is about all you see in a man that you can't in a woman on the beach). Heading south, in the standard beach attire, one can discern the form of a woman's hips, buttocks and thighs, whereas these features are obscured in the shorts-wearing man.
(And if you're not at the beach, or the swimming pool, I'd rather you wore a shirt, with sleeves, whatever sex you are.)
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
I don't think I know too many women or gay men who have a thing for men's nipples
Ah well, given that I spend a lot more time in gay bars than you do, your relative deficiency in at least one part of this list is understandable.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
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goperryrevs
Shipmtae
# 13504
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
Nope, not seeing it at all. I don't think I've ever been in a situation where I've been treated less favourably for being a man
I'd say the only one I can think of is the sometimes unfair way fathers are treated in terms of access to their children. Hence Fathers for Justice etc.
But even this is a by-product of society's expectation that it's women that do the child-rearing while the men go off to work, so you could easily see it as an off-shoot of misogyny anyhow.
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"Keep your eye on the donut, not on the hole." - David Lynch
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
Nope, not seeing it at all. I don't think I've ever been in a situation where I've been treated less favourably for being a man
I'd say the only one I can think of is the sometimes unfair way fathers are treated in terms of access to their children. Hence Fathers for Justice etc.
But even this is a by-product of society's expectation that it's women that do the child-rearing while the men go off to work, so you could easily see it as an off-shoot of misogyny anyhow.
Orfeo has already pointed out one of the ironies of that video in the OP. There's another one there too, which involves the use of "misandry". Just take another read through these three threads (2 purg, 1 hell) on related topics and see who is laying down the law on what men can and can't do or call themselves. It's almost exclusively other men!
It's not that misandry doesn't exist at all. And as a matter of fact there are various other ways that men can suffer under the status quo and other shipmates have already identified some. I have been known to post on the complexities of domestic violence. The thing is that the twit in the video accuses feminism of misandry. If it exists there, it is located within the works and writings of the more extreme second-wave writers, most of whom are now either so decrepit or dead that they are history. To accuse feminism of misandry is to make exactly the same error that caused all that grief on the other threads - describing an entire group by the properties of the derelict few.
As a matter of fact, doing that has a name. It's called demonization. It's a form of essentialism, and usually says more about the perpetrator than anything else. It never ceases to amaze me that people are startled by others going into orbit when it is done to them. If people were to follow the wise advice given by RuthW and QLib in how to avoid it, we could have saved ourselves a lot of grief in every direction over three separate threads.
[ 31. August 2013, 10:23: Message edited by: Honest Ron Bacardi ]
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Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
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Horseman Bree
Shipmate
# 5290
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Posted
Since the minor tangent in my post seems to be the only one getting any attention, I am offering
a discussion of "Which one is oppressed?"
Both examples are clearly in response to male needs, just as high heels are.
Men do not have to subject themselves to such scrutiny.
Men do, OTOH, have to cover up the fact that the significant majority of them are deficient in the looks department, particularly the area covered by the baggy shorts. Being embarrassed beats actually doing something about the flab. Most men do not wear budgie smugglers, thankfully.
And how many men, of any appearance, going topless, would have to deal with this sort of situation as a threat: "Still not asking for it" ?
Unlike the US, it is legal in Canada for a woman to go topless in public. (Given the idea of winter, topless is quite often not a good idea!)
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It's Not That Simple
Posts: 5372 | From: more herring choker than bluenose | Registered: Dec 2003
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
Initially, IngoB, I thought "how on earth can I find an online source for what I have known since college, rather a long time back, and seen backed up on various occasions, in places I can't recall.
But first I found this:
quote:
11. The best male long jumpers for State College since 1973 have jumped an average of 263.0 inches with a standard deviation of 14.0 inches. The best female long jumpers have averaged 201.2 inches with a standard deviation of 7.7 inches. This year Joey jumped 275 inches and his sister, Carla, jumped 207 inches. Both are State College students.
(a) Find the standardized values for Joey’s and Carla’s jumps. Which athlete had the more impressive performance? Explain briefly.
(b) Assume that male and female jumps are Normally distributed. Find the percentiles for Joey’s and Carla’s jumps. Interpret these percentiles in context.
A test from themathlete.weebly.com
It clearly refers to what I believe to be true.
And then I found this:
Overlapping curves
And then, with an illustrative curve of marathon times:
War and gender
There is supposedly a link to a Fig on lifting capabilities, but I couldn't get it.
The article bears reading in the context of this discussion.
It also refers to other primates, which reminds me that we have a major difference from them, in that the sexual dimorphism among humans is much less than that in the others. So much less that in some communities, it is barely distinguishable. (I used to do people watching round the local shopping centre, and looking at sizes was fascinating. Couples where the dimorphism was almost as great as in gorillas. Couples where heights and builds were equal. Some where the woman was taller.
(It also occurred to me that in earlier times, a village of very small, but normal, people could find the occupants of another normal village where people were bigger to be giants. And the "giants" might think of the small ones as elves. The differences were that great. But not to do with gender.)
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Cod
Shipmate
# 2643
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
But even this is a by-product of society's expectation that it's women that do the child-rearing while the men go off to work, so you could easily see it as an off-shoot of misogyny anyhow.
One should be very cautious with that analysis. An alternative analysis is that increased acceptance of women in the workplace has not been matched by an equivalent increased acceptance of men's increased parental roles. I feel very much like a second-class parent despite my efforts and believe also that my children are encouraged to see fathers as second-class parents by by society in general and their school. For example, some while back I checked through my children's school books and worked out that references to mothers outweighed fathers by about 5 to 1. This lopsidedness is not deliberate. It is the result of unexamined attitudes. Nevertheless, I think is real enough, and to categorise it as a result of misogyny trivialises the very real harm it causes.
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"I fart in your general direction."
M Barnier
Posts: 4229 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Apr 2002
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goperryrevs
Shipmtae
# 13504
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Posted
Sure, I agree that the harm is very real, from personal experience too. I was musing the roots of the problem. Whatever those roots are, for an individual dad facing prejudice, or even separation from his kids, it doesn't really matter. The situation is shitty and unfair, however it came about. That needs to change.
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"Keep your eye on the donut, not on the hole." - David Lynch
Posts: 2098 | From: Midlands | Registered: Mar 2008
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Dinghy Sailor
Ship's Jibsheet
# 8507
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
Initially, IngoB, I thought "how on earth can I find an online source for what I have known since college, rather a long time back, and seen backed up on various occasions, in places I can't recall.
But first I found this:
quote:
11. The best male long jumpers for State College since 1973 have jumped an average of 263.0 inches with a standard deviation of 14.0 inches. The best female long jumpers have averaged 201.2 inches with a standard deviation of 7.7 inches. This year Joey jumped 275 inches and his sister, Carla, jumped 207 inches. Both are State College students.
(a) Find the standardized values for Joey’s and Carla’s jumps. Which athlete had the more impressive performance? Explain briefly.
(b) Assume that male and female jumps are Normally distributed. Find the percentiles for Joey’s and Carla’s jumps. Interpret these percentiles in context.
A test from themathlete.weebly.com
It clearly refers to what I believe to be true.
What's the point in this?
The answer to the question is that the standardized Z scores are Z=0.857 for Joey and Z=0.753 for Carla. That means that Carla jumped further than 77% of "the best female long jumpers" in this presumably fictitious college league and Joey jumped further than 80% of "the best male long jumpers" in this same fictitious league.
The figures were almost certainly made up for the exam but even if they weren't, I think you're mistaken about what they mean. What they say is that half of "the best" male athletes in this league will jump at least 263 inches and that 68% of them will jump between 249 and 277 inches. Half of "the best" female athletes will jump at least 201.2 inches and 68% of them will jump between 193.5 inches and 208.9 inches. 95% of the male athletes will jump between 235.5 inches and 290.5 inches, while 95% of female athletes will jump from 186 to 216 inches. That's a pretty large difference between the sexes!
Again: what's the point of this anyway? The abilities of both men and women are distributed on curves: well yes, anyone will tell you that. It would take a complete ignoramus to say that every single man has been faster, and stronger than every single woman ever. The point is that men are on average faster and stronger than women, these effects are very reproducible and anyone who thinks that there aren't real phyical differences involved is denying reality.
I am a (very) amateur bike racer. Could Lizzie Armitstead or Marianne Vos beat me any day of the week? Of course they could, but they train all day while I work for a living. Could they beat me even if that wasn't the case? Probably yes too, because they're the top of the genetic pile. However, once we get the same bunch of amateurs of both sexes together, my golden rule is that while I hardly ever win, I've done okay if I beat all the ladies - and I usually do, despite some of them training harder than me.
Take some real data: if you look at the British time trial records. There was only ever one time that a woman beat a man's record: Beryl Burton's 12 hour record, set back in 1967. That record is probably more famous than Burton's seven world titles, because beating the boys at their own game was such a special moment, with such rarity value.
Some women can outperform some men - well yes, obviously, and especially in our slob society where a minimal amount of training will let you outperform most people. Does that mean that there are no real, significant differences between the sexes in terms of physical performance? No, it doesn't.
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Preach Christ, because this old humanity has used up all hopes and expectations, but in Christ hope lives and remains.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Posts: 2821 | Registered: Sep 2004
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
Initially, IngoB, I thought "how on earth can I find an online source for what I have known since college, rather a long time back, and seen backed up on various occasions, in places I can't recall.
Are you sure that you are not confusing this with IQ distributions? What you say works for those. For physical performance, not so much...
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
It clearly refers to what I believe to be true.
It claims massive differences between men and women, the female average being almost five standard deviations away from the male one. There is very little overlap of these bell curves.
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
And then I found this:
Overlapping curves
That's an opinion article with nothing resembling data in sight...
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
And then, with an illustrative curve of marathon times: War and gender
I had found that one. The graph was so small and badly described, I then tried to find something better. I found a couple of amateurs analyzing some data scraped of marathon websites. But I couldn't find anything really decent. Anyway, the graph you link to shows a massive difference in averages, about 2 standard deviations away I would say, with men running over a mile per hour faster on average. Also the male distribution is clearly skewed to high speeds (not a Gaussian), the female one isn't. There's consequently a massive dominance of men at the highest speeds. This is really different to for example the IQ graphs, which I still think is what you are thinking of.
(By the way, in googling for racing results separated by gender, I found what must be the worst Nature paper ever: Athletics: Momentous sprint at the 2156 Olympics? These jokers extrapolate the 100 m records linearly over more than a century, and conclude that eventually women will sprint faster than men! I seriously cannot believe that they got this through peer review at all, never mind in Nature... Extrapolate a few more centuries like that, and women will need zero seconds for the 100 m. ROTFL!)
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
It also refers to other primates, which reminds me that we have a major difference from them, in that the sexual dimorphism among humans is much less than that in the others. So much less that in some communities, it is barely distinguishable.
I've lived and worked in several countries on several continents, and have visited dozens of countries. Never have I encountered a human population where bodily differences between men and women were "barely distinguishable" on average.
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
Couples where the dimorphism was almost as great as in gorillas. Couples where heights and builds were equal. Some where the woman was taller.
Nobody has claimed that the tallest woman is shorter than the shortest man, or anything like that. That's not needed for statistically highly significant differences.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
(By the way, in googling for racing results separated by gender, I found what must be the worst Nature paper ever: Athletics: Momentous sprint at the 2156 Olympics? These jokers extrapolate the 100 m records linearly over more than a century, and conclude that eventually women will sprint faster than men! I seriously cannot believe that they got this through peer review at all, never mind in Nature... Extrapolate a few more centuries like that, and women will need zero seconds for the 100 m. ROTFL!)
Oh, I don't know. I rather think that Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children (a.k.a. Andrew Wakefield's notorious paper) was worse ethically, practically, and in terms of the methodology and practical outcomes. But yes, Nature does appear to be about one step up from New Scientist or Scientific American despite its reputation.
quote:
I've lived and worked in several countries on several continents, and have visited dozens of countries. Never have I encountered a human population where bodily differences between men and women were "barely distinguishable" on average.
On what scale?
quote:
Nobody has claimed that the tallest woman is shorter than the shortest man, or anything like that. That's not needed for statistically highly significant differences.
Indeed.
That said, there's one sport I can think of where women do often outcompete men. Ski Jumping. So they separated it into mens and womens (and right now it's the only olympic sport with only a mens' event).
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
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Horseman Bree
Shipmate
# 5290
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Posted
Oh well, not getting any answers, might as well throw another rock into the pool.
Thicke vs Cyrus at the VMAs.
Miley Cyrus is clearly going through a "dump-Disney" phase, and has managed to get a lot of attention. Robin Thicke doesn't have the stunted-adolescence problem, but managed to get a pretty good gig.
Cyrus gets all sorts of negative comment about showing her sexuality (despite being at the peak of her sexuality) while Thicke gets nothing much but a few people saying vague things about inappropriate - not that he's married or anything. Cyrus gets blasted for appropriating black music forms (as if that never happened before) while Thicke gets the publicity for a hit song. I'm not seeing the misandry here.
Another case: In the Texas legislature, Wendy Davis spoke for eleven hours about abortion, while standing in one place and not drinking or going to the bathroom. The only thing reported was the colour and make of her shoes. Nothing of substance in eleven hours of speaking. Meanwhile, the men can say anything, however stupid and irrelevant, and get applause.
Some states insist on raping women with an ultrasound wand if they want an abortion, but, when a proposal to do a rectal probe with the same instrument to check on prostate problems, it is voted down instantly.
No misandry at all, just lots of misogyny.
EE seems to be calling persecution just like those white evangelicals, who are trying to get women and blacks back under control, scream about being persecuted when the Supreme Court rules that GLBTs and women are actually people.
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It's Not That Simple
Posts: 5372 | From: more herring choker than bluenose | Registered: Dec 2003
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Fair enough, we do not. I think with an activity so strenuous as to actually deform bones we can make some rather easy guesses, but whatever. I was not really making a point about English longbows and who can handle them with sufficient training. I was making a general point about the overall suitability of the sexes for the kind of physical combat that held sway from time immemorial to early modernity.
On average, men are taller, stronger and faster. It does not inherently follow that insufficient numbers of women could perform acceptably well* in combat. This is true of many male-dominated jobs.
Women bear children. This alone is sufficient explanation as to why they would not be the primary hunters and warriors. Attitudes, once set and culturally accepted, change slowly.
*And acceptably well is the general standard of performance of men in combat.
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
That said, there's one sport I can think of where women do often outcompete men. Ski Jumping. So they separated it into mens and womens (and right now it's the only olympic sport with only a mens' event).
Well,
quote:
On 6 April 2011 the International Olympic Committee officially accepted women ski jumping into the official Olympic program for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia
Though it is a tad ironic this Olympics would find an area in which to be inclusive.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Dave W.
Shipmate
# 8765
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
And then, with an illustrative curve of marathon times:
War and gender
There is supposedly a link to a Fig on lifting capabilities, but I couldn't get it.
It turns out you can see the Google Books scan of the page that has that figure here; the curves show much less overlap than the ones for marathon times.
Posts: 2059 | From: the hub of the solar system | Registered: Nov 2004
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Cod
Shipmate
# 2643
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
Sure, I agree that the harm is very real, from personal experience too. I was musing the roots of the problem. Whatever those roots are, for an individual dad facing prejudice, or even separation from his kids, it doesn't really matter. The situation is shitty and unfair, however it came about. That needs to change.
Its roots are indeed in a system that benefitted men. It does not follow that as a result men benefitted from this particular practice. My own father spent my entire childhood (and that of my elder siblings) working very hard. We knew not to bother him in the morning, or indeed in the evening when he came home from work. I don't think my siblings or I ever appreciated what he did for us. All we knew was that he always seemed to be in a bad mood and didn't really know how to talk with us.
I am also pretty much the sole breadwinner in my family. Happily, I am able to spend far more time with my children than my father was able to spend with us, but I see the same problem taking place. I am surprised by this, because I actually spend pretty much as much time with the Codlets as Mrs Cod does (she is generally out doing one thing or another during the weekend). But when I see what the children are actualy being taught, either formally through school or informally in other ways, I don't see much if any recognition that fathers can be carers, nurturers etc, or that they have feelings that can be hurt. Insofar that they are mentioned at all, it is as strong stoics. Of course, elsewhere they are idiots who may or may not be useful at chopping up firewood or DIY, and may or may not be able to earn a crust.
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"I fart in your general direction."
M Barnier
Posts: 4229 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Apr 2002
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Avila
Shipmate
# 15541
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
[snip]
I feel very much like a second-class parent despite my efforts and believe also that my children are encouraged to see fathers as second-class parents by by society in general and their school. For example, some while back I checked through my children's school books and worked out that references to mothers outweighed fathers by about 5 to 1. This lopsidedness is not deliberate. It is the result of unexamined attitudes. Nevertheless, I think is real enough, and to categorise it as a result of misogyny trivialises the very real harm it causes.
I think the schooling references are deliberate - there has been a concern not to alienate children who don't go home to a 2 parent family at the end of the day - the previous assumption in resources from earlier times. And with single mums being the most common weekday carers they get to stay in the books.
It may be intended as a reflection of the way things are but as you note it also reinforces a view.
This is one area that I agree makes assumptions about what men don't - or can't - do.
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http://aweebleswonderings.blogspot.com/
Posts: 1305 | From: west midlands | Registered: Mar 2010
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Cod
Shipmate
# 2643
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Cod, that's not so true in the UK (and it looks the US from trying to find references). There are a number of initiatives involving fathers in caring because research is showing that more actively involved fathers lead to better outcomes. Locally the library service runs Saturday morning sessions with fathers/grandfathers and children called Daddy Cool and there are a number of school based initiatives to work with fathers and children.
I'm glad to hear it.
For completeness I should add that I grew up in the UK (in the 70s and 80s). The point to note is that neither I nor my siblings were ever really encouraged to appreciate the importance of what our father did. Perhaps it was though to be too obvious to need stressing, but the result was that his hard work was taken for granted. The importance of love and affection is something every child will appreciate without being told, but mere money is never a big deal unless there isn't any.
What troubles me now (and as I type this I realise I'm in a bad space and perhaps should retire from this thread) is that I am becoming just the bad-tempered dad who goes off somewhere during the day, comes home, cooks, moans, and despite the extrea time I get with the kids, remains *just* the Dad.
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"I fart in your general direction."
M Barnier
Posts: 4229 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Apr 2002
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
On what scale?
You mean concerning what observables? Height, weight, skeletal features (more robust head, wider back, bonier extremities ...), more visible bone/musculature (less overall fat 'cover') and walking motion would be the most visible.
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
On average, men are taller, stronger and faster. It does not inherently follow that insufficient numbers of women could perform acceptably well* in combat. This is true of many male-dominated jobs.
Women bear children. This alone is sufficient explanation as to why they would not be the primary hunters and warriors. Attitudes, once set and culturally accepted, change slowly.
*And acceptably well is the general standard of performance of men in combat.
First, the question is not whether a weaker unit (e.g., made up of women) is better than no unit. Of course it is. Throughout history, weaker units have had their tactical uses. For example, the Romans put their teenagers / young men as skirmishers in front of the battle line, to pelt the enemy with spears, and then to duck back behind the battle line as the main clash commenced. That's a highly efficient use of a weaker unit. Putting them up directly against a stronger unit is usually a bad idea though, unless the commander is willing to sacrifice troops for the delay that they cause in being slaughtered...
I'm sure that also in the ancient world there were occasions of what we have come to call "total war", in particular in sieges of cities. But if you are about to draft an army from your populace, while leaving a considerable part of them to get on with business, then it is natural to draft men, not women. That is very much not just a function of child bearing or patriarchal culture. On average, a unit of men will be better for (ancient!) warfare than a unit of women, or indeed than a mixed unit. And if the resources are limited, then you want to go for the best that you can get in building up an army. Arguably, drafting mixed units would have been best for maintaining regular life at home (men would have been missed at home much more in the past than in our times full of machines). But it doesn't help to have maintained home better if the war gets lost, and so this was not done.
I note that these comments apply pretty much regardless whether we talk about units that favour "individual fighting power", think of "wild" barbarians, or "organized group fighting", think a phalanx or Roman "block left, poke right" shield lines. The averages always count in the end, whether it is who loses some duel-like individual combat or whose line breaks first. Furthermore, it is not at all just about direct combat. The question how fast you can march your troops from A to B with full (often very heavy) gear often is decisive in wars. Give every soldier armour, weapons and "livelihood" gear of about 30-50 kg to carry, and march them 100 km to the next battle. How quick can they do it? In what state will they be when they arrive? Often battles have been won simply by virtue of who got there first and was able to set up in advantageous position. The same is true for military "on the fly" building: how fast until those trenches are dug, how quick for the makeshift bridge to be established? Or for moving heavy equipment in and out of battle: how quick will that two story siege tower be pushed to that city wall under heavy fire?
The idea that choosing men as war fighters is merely some kind of ingrained cultural preference is really quite inane. Only now are we technologically so advanced that the clear differences between men and women do not play as much of a role any longer in battles. I've never been a soldier, thank God. But I have been a martial artist (past tense, hopefully present tense again soon), including some serious weapon fighting (FMA). I think I have a fair idea what men and women can do with a bit of technical / fitness training in pre-firearm combat, generally speaking. You do not want to field a unit of women against a unit of men, drawn randomly from the population and all other things (numbers, health, training, gear, ...) being equal. Bad idea. Period. That some elite unit of amazons could have kicked ancient male Greek ass, I will readily accept as a (mythical...) possibility. But that doesn't change these general considerations.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.:
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
And then, with an illustrative curve of marathon times:
War and gender
There is supposedly a link to a Fig on lifting capabilities, but I couldn't get it.
It turns out you can see the Google Books scan of the page that has that figure here; the curves show much less overlap than the ones for marathon times.
Thanks for that. I could tell from the percentages in the text that that was the case - but would point out that that figure refers to trained soldiers, not the general public, and the marathon includes a much wider selection, from the elite runners to the amateurs (but excluding those like me who don't run anywhere if they can help it). And my original point was that looking at the overlap required looking at the whole population. The soldiers, not being conscripted, will be a self selected group, as are the runners. I couldn't find anything that did that.
One thing in that article (I think, it might have been something else I found) was the comparison of upper body strength. When I was at all girls schools, my inability to haul myself up a rope was regarded with scorn - eventually a colleague who trained at a PE college enlightened me on what could be expected from girls and what couldn't. My legs are full of muscle, my arms aren't. Muscle is heavy.
But, I also remember a programme about Victorian kitchens and professional cooks - and I wouldn't want to gamble on their upper body strength. Everything we do with gadgets and more was done with their arms. Whisking, blending by pushing food through sieves, kneading huge quantities of dough, and particularly sticking in the mind, twisting wet cloth to extract consomme. The same sort of thing goes for launderers. If you train people to use their bodies, abilities develop. (I think the article referred to what can be carried in less effete societies - water pots comes to mind - where women are more often seen carrying than men are. And what is carried has to be lifted.)
I suspect that (undoped and un-whatever the eastern bloc used to do) women in the throwing events would have a large overlap with the general population of men, and most of those events are based on what were originally war activities. Who would care to take on Fatima Whitbread at the javelin?
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
I suspect that (undoped and un-whatever the eastern bloc used to do) women in the throwing events would have a large overlap with the general population of men, and most of those events are based on what were originally war activities. Who would care to take on Fatima Whitbread at the javelin?
Who would care to take on Fatima Whitbread at the javelin? Why, male javelin throwers who are equally professionally training this, of course. As you can read here, "men throw a javelin between 2.6 and 2.7 m in length and 800 g in weight, and women throw a javelin between 2.2 and 2.3 m in length and 600 g (21 oz) in weight." So men throw a heavier, bigger javelin and still their world record is 26 meters further, covering about 36% more distance.
You really have to start to compare like with like here. You cannot take a top female athlete and compare her to untrained males. In terms of warfare, one would not expect most recruits - either male or female - to reach world record throwing distances with a few months or perhaps years of training. Let's say they manage to throw half the distance, about 50 m for men. But one can expect something like that 36% difference between men and women (not even counting the weight difference). So the women may throw something like 37 m. Is an extra 13 m reach going to make a difference? Depends on the situation, of course, but in general: yes, definitely. For example, a skirmishing unit needs to throw and then run back: if they get caught out they are basically dead against the heavily armoured regular troops. An extra 13 m distance mean a lot when you need to turn heel on charging troops and run for your life...
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
You do not want to field a unit of women against a unit of men, drawn randomly from the population and all other things (numbers, health, training, gear, ...) being equal. Bad idea. Period.
And following up on lilBuddha's earlier point, even if men and women had identical strength and speed, you still wouldn't want to put your women on the front line. It would be demographic suicide. If 30% of your men don't come home from war, you haven't really altered your new population production ability. Kill off 30% of your women, and it drops 30%.
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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Dave W.
Shipmate
# 8765
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.:
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
And then, with an illustrative curve of marathon times:
War and gender
There is supposedly a link to a Fig on lifting capabilities, but I couldn't get it.
It turns out you can see the Google Books scan of the page that has that figure here; the curves show much less overlap than the ones for marathon times.
Thanks for that. I could tell from the percentages in the text that that was the case - but would point out that that figure refers to trained soldiers, not the general public, and the marathon includes a much wider selection, from the elite runners to the amateurs (but excluding those like me who don't run anywhere if they can help it). And my original point was that looking at the overlap required looking at the whole population. The soldiers, not being conscripted, will be a self selected group, as are the runners. I couldn't find anything that did that.
[…]
But, I also remember a programme about Victorian kitchens and professional cooks - and I wouldn't want to gamble on their upper body strength. Everything we do with gadgets and more was done with their arms. Whisking, blending by pushing food through sieves, kneading huge quantities of dough, and particularly sticking in the mind, twisting wet cloth to extract consomme. The same sort of thing goes for launderers. If you train people to use their bodies, abilities develop. (I think the article referred to what can be carried in less effete societies - water pots comes to mind - where women are more often seen carrying than men are. And what is carried has to be lifted.)
Now it seems you're trying to have it both ways - you deprecate the US Army results because they're for "trained soldiers", but then suggest men's and women's capabilities might be practically the same since "If you train people to use their bodies, abilities develop."
(And I suspect the training effect on soldiers is probably a lot less than that on marathon runners. The few marathon runners I've known put a great deal of time and effort into preparation; the fitness standards of the US Army aren't anywhere near as challenging.)
I think your original statement that there's a "vast overlap" of the curves describing the distribution of physical capabilities of each gender isn't supported by the evidence. Here's one study which explicitly compared elite female athletes with untrained males:
quote:
Hand-grip strength has been identified as one limiting factor for manual lifting and carrying loads. To obtain epidemiologically relevant hand-grip strength data for pre-employment screening, we determined maximal isometric hand-grip strength in 1,654 healthy men and 533 healthy women aged 20-25 years. Moreover, to assess the potential margins for improvement in hand-grip strength of women by training, we studied 60 highly trained elite female athletes from sports known to require high hand-grip forces (judo, handball). Maximal isometric hand-grip force was recorded over 15 s using a handheld hand-grip ergometer. Biometric parameters included lean body mass (LBM) and hand dimensions. Mean maximal hand-grip strength showed the expected clear difference between men (541 N) and women (329 N). Less expected was the gender related distribution of hand-grip strength: 90% of females produced less force than 95% of males. Though female athletes were significantly stronger (444 N) than their untrained female counterparts, this value corresponded to only the 25th percentile of the male subjects. Hand-grip strength was linearly correlated with LBM. Furthermore, both relative hand-grip strength parameters (F (max)/body weight and F (max)/LBM) did not show any correlation to hand dimensions. The present findings show that the differences in hand-grip strength of men and women are larger than previously reported. An appreciable difference still remains when using lean body mass as reference. The results of female national elite athletes even indicate that the strength level attainable by extremely high training will rarely surpass the 50th percentile of untrained or not specifically trained men.
Posts: 2059 | From: the hub of the solar system | Registered: Nov 2004
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
I have been basing my comments on a) what I have been taught, and b) some things I have read since over the years. (Plus noticing anecdotal things like the way I could match male teachers who insisted one gripping my hand over firmly when shaking it. And the bunch of shaven headed Japanese Buddhist monks and nuns I met where it was not at all easy to identify which were men and which were women.)
I shouldn't have said vast. But the overlaps are there, much more so than in other primates. And I do think that arguments about men's and women's usual positions in society should be based on the whole distribution of whatever is being measured across all the members of each gender, and not just the extremes. Fatima Whitebread may well have been hefting a lighter javelin than the Olympian men, but she was a heck of a lot better at it than most of the men who weren't on the field in the Olympics. The argument about gender differences should not be based on Olympians of either sex, or cooks, or archers, but upon hoi polloi, both men and women. It's the middle of the curve that matters.
(And in IQ, the middle wasn't shown as different when I was at college, while the male tails extended further than the female. Even though, in the non-verbal 11 plus, more girls qualified for grammar schools than boys, only for a "correction" to be applied downwards. So I have read and been told. I've tried to find a reference of this "common knowledge" but not even a Snopes' myth bust of it.)
Anyway, where does misandry come into this? I don't deny it's out there, but I don't think saying some women are better at some things than most men is an example. (I know it's out there, 'cos I saw a book yesterday called "Completely Stupid Men" with a "joke" on the cover. "What do you call a man with half a brain? A genius." I feel bad I didn't discuss the suitability of including it on the Age Concern stall. By a woman (apparently). My best male friend denies it's misandry because it's funny. I disagree. A different target and it would be misogynist or racist.)
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
There's an interesting exception to the general physical strength observations, which is "ultrarunning", eg ultramarathons of 100 miles and the like. They are usually run with both sexes competing against each other as equals. There's an article here in a running magazine about it, but the effect is real and there are peer-reviewed papers written on it.
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Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
Penny S wrote:- quote:
(And in IQ, the middle wasn't shown as different when I was at college, while the male tails extended further than the female. Even though, in the non-verbal 11 plus, more girls qualified for grammar schools than boys, only for a "correction" to be applied downwards. So I have read and been told. I've tried to find a reference of this "common knowledge" but not even a Snopes' myth bust of it.)
Same here. There are quite a few things said to have been done which I have not been able to track down evidence for either way. IQ annual test results are normed to 100 of course, and I would not be entirely surprised to learn that this was done separately by sex. Some of that other stuff sounds increasingly far-fetched, but who knows? Evidence kindly sought.
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Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
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QLib
Bad Example
# 43
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Posted
I think it would be difficult to get evidence, because it varied from one local authority to another - it depended on how many girls and boys grammar school places they had.
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Tradition is the handing down of the flame, not the worship of the ashes Gustav Mahler.
Posts: 8913 | From: Page 28 | Registered: May 2001
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
Point taken Qlib, but comments I have heard related to general rather than local practice.
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Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
Including that there were generally more boys' places than girls'.
I've been trying to track down another "common knowledge" item, in average heights. For many years I have thought that my height, 5ft6in, was average for my cohort of women - and it looked like it from looking around me. And that average for men was 5ft8in - not particularly dimorphic. I know I used to notice that many older men were not as tall as me.
Now the UK figures are 5ft4in for women, up from 5ft3in in 1912, and 5ft9in for men, up from 5ft8in in 1912. I can't find anything in between. I was taught that there had been an increase in heights because of better nutrition. (The current figures are similar to the States.) One site has graphs showing heights at different ages - it's obvious that modern girls grow quicker than a century ago, but stop earlier, presumably with earlier menarche. I don't know if anyone can find figures for mid-century.
Height graphs
One of the comments refers to a peak in British heights 2 decades ago due to free milk after the war, but without any link.
Interesting if I have always been taller than average, despite being shorter than my younger sisters. But that figure stuck because it was my height. A difference of 2 inches between the sexes isn't much, but 5 inches is.
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
The argument about gender differences should not be based on Olympians of either sex, or cooks, or archers, but upon hoi polloi, both men and women. It's the middle of the curve that matters.
Fine. Men are taller, heavier, stronger, faster, more explosive, more enduring (up to a point, see below) and more robustly built. I'm talking there about the "middle of the curve", which according to you matters. And I'm talking about statistically significant differences, with the averages separated by a couple of standard deviations or more. That is what the data say, including the data you referenced yourself. So if there's a job where most of these features are relevant, as for example in ancient combat, then the hoi polloi men should be preferred to the hoi polloi women for that job. At least so if the sole criterion is who is going to be better at the job, on average. For our example ancient combat, we indeed see that fighting was dominantly done by men. Now, there may be other reasons for that, like needing to keep women alive as "procreation reserve", or patriarchal culture, or whatever. But it remains true that the selection of men as fighters was entirely reasonable on grounds of the differences in anatomy and physiology alone.
Are we agreed? Then we can finally move on...
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
Anyway, where does misandry come into this? I don't deny it's out there, but I don't think saying some women are better at some things than most men is an example.
How about strenuously denying that men are on average better at some things than women? Can we count that as misandry?
quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
There's an interesting exception to the general physical strength observations, which is "ultrarunning", eg ultramarathons of 100 miles and the like. They are usually run with both sexes competing against each other as equals.
Actually, while googling for data I saw several scientific articles which suggested that as the distances get longer and longer bio-mechanical and physiological theory suggests that at some point women will have a physical advantage.
Women also do well for example at extreme sled dog races, so perhaps they are on par if not better than men at "ultra-endurance" in general.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Anyuta
Shipmate
# 14692
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
So if there's a job where most of these features are relevant, as for example in ancient combat, then the hoi polloi men should be preferred to the hoi polloi women for that job. At least so if the sole criterion is who is going to be better at the job, on average
Or....one could base the decision on who meets the criteria, rather than on gender. Sure a job that requires one to lift heavy weights is going to have more men than women qualify (assuming that's the only criterion), but should women who DO meet the criterion be excluded simply because most other women don't?
It works the other way too, although few jobs I can think of are based on criteria which most, but not all, men would fail.
Posts: 764 | From: USA | Registered: Mar 2009
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
quote:
IngoB:
{Lots of evidence to support the claim that men are better natural warriors than women, and also ...}
The idea that choosing men as war fighters is merely some kind of ingrained cultural preference is really quite inane.
quote:
Leorning Cniht:
And following up on lilBuddha's earlier point, even if men and women had identical strength and speed, you still wouldn't want to put your women on the front line. It would be demographic suicide. If 30% of your men don't come home from war, you haven't really altered your new population production ability. Kill off 30% of your women, and it drops 30%.
Historically, it has made complete sense to choose men to fight wars rather than women. But since it made sense, isn't it possible that this eminently practical choice has shaped our culture in ways that affect how we view men, their lives, their roles in society?
Posts: 24453 | From: La La Land | Registered: Apr 2001
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anyuta:
Or....one could base the decision on who meets the criteria, rather than on gender. Sure a job that requires one to lift heavy weights is going to have more men than women qualify (assuming that's the only criterion), but should women who DO meet the criterion be excluded simply because most other women don't?
Sure, I have no problem with strong women doing heavy lifting. As far as drafting armies go, there are however plenty of complicating factors. Factors that in the ancient world would have strongly spoken against including say 10% women in an army, even if that were the due proportion according to biological talent...
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
I don't think it's been anyone's goal to develop a 'misandristic' culture, but some commentators say that societal change has created a crisis of cultural masculinity. Some men might experience this as misandry.
There's the collapse of manufacturing; the decline of (un)skilled labour; and the rise of women's professional status, which means more competition for white collar jobs. There's a heightened ambivalence about the role of the armed forces. The rise of the service industries appears to have benefited women more than men.
Then there's the personal sphere. I imagine that the decline of grand narratives has been harder for men than for women. Men have traditionally been expected to be willing to sacrifice themselves for causes - but now there are no more causes. Sexual liberation was supposed to be great for men but it seems to have left them with a reduced sense of responsibility, even a reduced purpose in life, whereas women still dominate in the vital role of childcare or are given custody of children after divorce. Maybe the male presence in the home was always optional to an extent, but this seems to be especially true today.
The above refers particularly to cultural confusion in the (postmodern) Western world. Elsewhere things are obviously different - although there are apparently some scientists who think that biological maleness will completely die out in the very long run.
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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Dave W.
Shipmate
# 8765
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
I have been basing my comments on a) what I have been taught, and b) some things I have read since over the years.
Well, I too have learned and read things that turned out not to be true, so I know how it goes sometimes.
quote:
I shouldn't have said vast. But the overlaps are there, much more so than in other primates. And I do think that arguments about men's and women's usual positions in society should be based on the whole distribution of whatever is being measured across all the members of each gender, and not just the extremes. Fatima Whitebread may well have been hefting a lighter javelin than the Olympian men, but she was a heck of a lot better at it than most of the men who weren't on the field in the Olympics. The argument about gender differences should not be based on Olympians of either sex, or cooks, or archers, but upon hoi polloi, both men and women. It's the middle of the curve that matters.
Did you see the abstract I quoted in my last post? The average hand-grip force was 64% higher for men than for women, and "90% of females produced less force than 95% of males." The centers of the two distributions were quite far apart, with very little overlap indeed.
I don't think this should have implications for "men's and women's usual positions in society" except perhaps insofar as hand-grip strength (or some other physical strength) is a prerequisite for a particular job - and even then individual assessment makes more sense than simple selection by gender. But the observed dimorphisms are likely to result in many of those jobs being filled mostly by men.
Posts: 2059 | From: the hub of the solar system | Registered: Nov 2004
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
And I do think that arguments about men's and women's usual positions in society should be based on the whole distribution of whatever is being measured across all the members of each gender, and not just the extremes.
But this started out being about what trained people could do. Not what everybody could do.
And this, I think, is the big problem with your argument. Because you're not just positing a gender-blind world, but a talent-blind, skill-blind one as well.
Which is not only not how the real world works, I don't think it's how we WANT it to work. We don't all randomly flit from task to task whenever the mood takes us, ignoring whether or not we, and the people around us, have any aptitude for the task at hand. I have a job that I appear to be naturally talented at, as well as having developed my skills over recent years. I have a very long list of jobs that someone would be mad to employ me for. And every employer assesses the candidates for a job and picks the best one, not the one in the middle of the bell curve.
There aren't many cases where I think 'the best person for the job' is more likely to in fact be a man, but I think it'd be just silly to insist, in the few cases where men are evidently better suited, that we need to have equal numbers of women present rather than accepting that it's 'usually' men's place in society. It would be every bit as silly as insisting on ideological grounds that 50% of wet nurses need to be men.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Jay-Emm
Shipmate
# 11411
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
quote:
IngoB:
{Lots of evidence to support the claim that men are better natural warriors than women, and also ...}
The idea that choosing men as war fighters is merely some kind of ingrained cultural preference is really quite inane.
quote:
Leorning Cniht:
And following up on lilBuddha's earlier point, even if men and women had identical strength and speed, you still wouldn't want to put your women on the front line. It would be demographic suicide. If 30% of your men don't come home from war, you haven't really altered your new population production ability. Kill off 30% of your women, and it drops 30%.
Historically, it has made complete sense to choose men to fight wars rather than women. But since it made sense, isn't it possible that this eminently practical choice has shaped our culture in ways that affect how we view men, their lives, their roles in society?
It would make a lot of sense, given the subjects of most books/plays are either war, (often martially) journeys or romance you instantly get your comment on lack of leads. Especially when you consider them mixing elements.
Posts: 1643 | Registered: May 2006
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
Historically, it has made complete sense to choose men to fight wars rather than women. But since it made sense, isn't it possible that this eminently practical choice has shaped our culture in ways that affect how we view men, their lives, their roles in society?
Sure. But I see a chicken-egg problem there. Culture is not some external entity that aliens forced on us. Culture arises from people as much as shaping them in return. So if say men have a tendency to play hero, is that because of all the male hero stories they have listened to growing up? Or were all those male hero stories written because men have a tendency to play hero, making them believable as protagonist? Probably both, in some kind of feedback cycle.
As a general comment, I would say that our current culture doesn't know how to deal with groups any longer. It is always just the individual who counts. That makes negotiating group level arrangements so difficult. I'm part of that culture as much as anybody else. Witness my comment above concerning women doing heavy lifting. It was a honest comment, but still, it reflects this individualistic world view. The question whether women can do heavy lifting is not allowed, rather it has to be the question whether this particular woman can do this particular heavy lifting.
It is always difficult to step out of one's culture and judge it from the outside, but in this case we are quite aware of having overcome the "system injustice" of group level judgement. We are proud of that, in fact. However, I wonder whether this is not yet another cultural pendulum, which happens to have swung very far one way in our times. There are serious issues with denying group level arrangements, because humans are group animals and find much of their identity instinctively from the groups they belong to. There's hence a cultural price to be paid for busting open "closed groups". In some cases it sure was worth it, but I wonder if doing it indiscriminately is not eventually doing more harm than good. To go back to a fairly harmless example: obviously, to deny some strong woman the opportunity of some heavy lifting job is doing her an individual injustice. But is there perhaps a value in declaring heavy lifting to be exclusively a "man's job"? Is there room for allowing "male pride" in doing heavy lifting? In particular, consider that heavy lifting is objectively speaking a pretty shit job. It's exhausting, unhealthy, dangerous and badly paid. But putting a tag "for men only" on it might make it attractive, and by the quirks of human psychology potentially more attractive the shittier it is: for real men only. And yes, perhaps people should be able to form groups along reasonable lines, say "group of people with good upper body strength" rather than "men". But is it reasonable to expect people to be reasonable in that way?
Anyway, these are random thoughts and I do not have a "solution". I'm not even sure how much of a problem I have there. But it seems to me that finding a new "male identity" for our times, or for that matter a new "female identity", is difficult because our culture is really opposed to any such thing as a "beyond individual" identity. You cannot successfully say "men are X" if there is an instant dissenting chorus of "(some) women are X, too" or "it is unfair to reserve X for men". Maybe people should be reasonable enough to deal with probability distributions in their ideals: "most men are somewhat more X than most women". But I fear that psychologically that does not work so well. And it can be dangerous to frustrate basic psychology.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
I have noticed, through observing Welsh relatives, how traditionalist they are and how protective the men are of their women. I found it quite disturbing and annoying until I realised that it was probably historical - due to the nasty dirty work in the mines being done by men and them not wanting their women to have to suffer as they had done. Women still worked at the mines, but tended to do surface work rather than the heavy duty work below.
We live in different times now, when that strongly protective attitude of one sex for the other should not be so necessary (but hopefully replaced by mutual caring rather than indifference), but at least I could see how it might have come about.
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Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
Possibly so, but don't underestimate how horribly and miserably hard the housework of many miners' wives was. I think you're right in saying that Wales is rather (if I may put it this way) backward in gender relations- as it is in so many other social aspects.
Posts: 6498 | From: Y Sowth | Registered: Jan 2008
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