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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Men and Women
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
I'm curious as to what 'programmed' means. Genetically?
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
It's the old nature vs nurture thing. The differences in the underlying biology do mean we're sexually dimorphic. Nurture can (clearly, I believe) determine our expectations and our roles.
But this is where I bang on about class again. Russ's post is referring to the attitude of rich and powerful men, who can act like that and get away with it. Those poorer and less-powerful men are criminalised for trying to act like that. It's not that there's not a 'socially acceptable' outlet for their maleness - it's that they're too poor to behave that way.
I'd argue that behaving that way is never 'socially acceptable'.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
It's a strange kind of determinism; but in fact, we're not helpless victims of our genes. For example, women are not compelled to get pregnant, nor men to fight. It sounds like 19th century thinking.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
Russ: Young men who don't have a socially-acceptable outlet for their male energy and urge to violence.
Don't we have football for that?
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
Football is 90 minutes pretending that you're hurt. Rugby is 80 minutes pretending that you're not.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
Not having a lot of time to waste, I nevertheless recently wasted a substantial chunk of it watching TV.
Without exception, the shows ran as follows:
US SITCOMS
Guys are clueless fools. Husbands think with their gonads, fathers teach kids to avoid responsibility, (male) lovers go for looks alone, and will shag (or try to) anything that takes their fancy regardless of prior commitments.
Sons either resent parents or must counsel them about the "real world;" brothers take almost no interest in siblings (unless it's to abuse them. Other kinds of relationships - friendships, extra-nuclear-family ties -- are almost nonexistent.
And men are virtually never seen working.
US CRIME DRAMA
Well, speaks for itself, right? Both cops and criminals are more-or-less constantly engaged in violence, often fatal, and often involving the kinds of brutality & torture (committed more against women & children than other men, but includes men) we associate with war crime than with ordinary citizen life.
"Work" consists solely of getting away with crime, or with abusing those attempting to.
Frankly, if I were a guy, I'd be out marching in the streets against this broad-brush portrayal of my entire gender as stupid, clueless, and brutal.
On balance, the women in these shows come off rather better, but only in a few limited ways.
[ 07. March 2015, 12:49: Message edited by: Porridge ]
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by George Spigot:
Russ. I don't want glory or droit de seigneur.
If you mean that you've got your act together with your rational conscious mind in charge, and have concluded that your path to personal fulfillment doesn't lie in that direction, then congratulations on being a civilised man.
But if you mean that you've never felt the slightest urge in that direction, then maybe you need to get in touch with your inner barbarian ?
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
And can you not look back at history and see such urges at work in the behaviour of men (but not women) ?
Best wishes,
Russ
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
Russ
Can we or are we reading our own culture into history?
I would maintain that the women's desire for violence is largely underestimated and socialised out of girls at an early age.
Jengie
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"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge
Back to my blog
Posts: 20894 | From: city of steel, butterflies and rainbows | Registered: May 2001
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie jon:
I would maintain that the women's desire for violence is largely underestimated and socialised out of girls at an early age.
Jengie
Maybe . . . or maybe it gets channeled into other forms. I've known girls & women to be pretty vicious to one another, but the viciousness gets expressed in terms of ostracism, verbal abuse, etc. rather than physical violence, and some researchers believe this form of abuse can be more damaging psychologically than the physical kind (though I personally take no sides in this debate).
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
Not having a lot of time to waste, I nevertheless recently wasted a substantial chunk of it watching TV.
Without exception, the shows ran as follows:
US SITCOMS
Guys are clueless fools. Husbands think with their gonads, fathers teach kids to avoid responsibility, (male) lovers go for looks alone, and will shag (or try to) anything that takes their fancy regardless of prior commitments.
Sons either resent parents or must counsel them about the "real world;" brothers take almost no interest in siblings (unless it's to abuse them. Other kinds of relationships - friendships, extra-nuclear-family ties -- are almost nonexistent.
And men are virtually never seen working.
US CRIME DRAMA
Well, speaks for itself, right? Both cops and criminals are more-or-less constantly engaged in violence, often fatal, and often involving the kinds of brutality & torture (committed more against women & children than other men, but includes men) we associate with war crime than with ordinary citizen life.
"Work" consists solely of getting away with crime, or with abusing those attempting to.
Frankly, if I were a guy, I'd be out marching in the streets against this broad-brush portrayal of my entire gender as stupid, clueless, and brutal.
On balance, the women in these shows come off rather better, but only in a few limited ways.
I totally, totally agree with you. The problem is, the production/ direction community is male- dominated, still, so we have this cyclical problem of entrenched folk who, like Russ, believe the above combination of cluelessness and brutality is what guys want to see about themselves, and everyday male folk who worry that someone will take their " man card" away if they admit that stuff is not their cup of tea.
" Homeland" has a balance of men and women in the production team. Their characters-- male and female-- are nuanced, complex, and fundamentally human. And judging from the ratings demographic, men eat that shit up!
Hollywood, with men, is like that crazy overprotective mother who keeps tying her little boy's shoes till he is ten years old because she is convinced he will never get it right. At some point, accomodation stops being respect and starts being an insult-- and yes, constant reinforcement that men are only Interested in domination, are hopeless at self- care and relationships, and are unable to look at the women around them in any other terms than as potential acquisitions, is insulting.
Eta: and meanwhile, the little boy believes that he can't tie his shoes, that some one else tying them for him is a privelege rather than a problem, and that not tying his shoes is so much a part of his identity that it is better to walk around with shoes untied than to challenge that part of his identity.
The only way to fight the old stories is with new stories, and I agree-- men have an equal stake with women in demanding that we hear new stories.
Better yet, speak up and tell your own. We have had the same half dozen international media outlets tell us what the world is like for decades. Fuck them. They are pretty much wrong about everything and everybody, male, female, and sundry.
[ 07. March 2015, 19:57: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie jon:
I would maintain that the women's desire for violence is largely underestimated and socialised out of girls at an early age.
Jengie
Maybe . . . or maybe it gets channeled into other forms. I've known girls & women to be pretty vicious to one another, but the viciousness gets expressed in terms of ostracism, verbal abuse, etc. rather than physical violence, and some researchers believe this form of abuse can be more damaging psychologically than the physical kind (though I personally take no sides in this debate).
Exactly. Girls are socialized very early to suppress their physical instincts, and to avoid being loud and agressive. They learn to channel their feelings of anger into social aggression-- isolation, gossip, scapegoating.
Apples and oranges, thought-- i doubt some boy who nearly loses an eye in a fistfight is in the mood to hear about how Jane got slutshamed on Twitter, and probably vice versa.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
Apples and oranges, thought-- i doubt some boy who nearly loses an eye in a fistfight is in the mood to hear about how Jane got slutshamed on Twitter, and probably vice versa.
Not that this is wrong, but in some eyes, this could be seen as putting these things in equal balance. And they are not.
Yes, boys/men can be victims of these cultural bias, but not to the same girls/women.
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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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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
we have this cyclical problem of entrenched folk who, like Russ, believe the above combination of cluelessness and brutality is what guys want to see about themselves, and everyday male folk who worry that someone will take their " man card" away if they admit that stuff is not their cup of tea.
...constant reinforcement that men are only Interested in domination, are hopeless at self- care and relationships, and are unable to look at the women around them in any other terms than as potential acquisitions...
Don't think I said anything about men's taste in entertainment. Or about the extent to which men do or don't succeed or should be expected to succeed in overcoming their biological inheritance. Or even about the relative importance of nature and culture.
Just saying that we know the different types of thinking that the "nature" part endows men and women with, and that - insofar as this does have an impact - it is the male of the species that finds modern life to require a greater effort to suppress one's natural desires.
Cluelessness and brutality doesn't sound attractive to me. But the point of a caricature is that people recognise some element of truth in it.
Best wishes,
Russ
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
But the point of a caricature is that people recognise some element of truth in it.
The point of a caricature varies. Often the point is ridicule or vilification.
And it is sometimes the perception of an element of truth rather than the presence which is "recognized".
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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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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
it is the male of the species that finds modern life to require a greater effort to suppress one's natural desires.
My natural desires are thoroughly encouraged by modern life, especially because those natural desires involve sitting on my arse watching a screen while drinking something alcoholic. It seems the majority of men in my culture are quite happy doing just that.
The greater effort is to get up, do something, make something, create something, learn something, be something. That's what modern life suppresses because you move from being a passive consumer to an active creator - and it affects women just as much as men.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Teilhard
Shipmate
# 16342
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Posted
Whether for good or ill, "'Biology' is 'Destiny' …"
Posts: 401 | From: Minnesota | Registered: Apr 2011
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Teilhard:
Whether for good or ill, "'Biology' is 'Destiny' …"
Which is of course why my hyoid bone, vestibular ossicles (little hearing bones in ears), a piece of my skull, and my jaw are no longer gill slits, but serve other functions. Unlike male nipples.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
we have this cyclical problem of entrenched folk who, like Russ, believe the above combination of cluelessness and brutality is what guys want to see about themselves, and everyday male folk who worry that someone will take their " man card" away if they admit that stuff is not their cup of tea.
...constant reinforcement that men are only Interested in domination, are hopeless at self- care and relationships, and are unable to look at the women around them in any other terms than as potential acquisitions...
Don't think I said anything about men's taste in entertainment. Or about the extent to which men do or don't succeed or should be expected to succeed in overcoming their biological inheritance. Or even about the relative importance of nature and culture.
Just saying that we know the different types of thinking that the "nature" part endows men and women with, and that - insofar as this does have an impact - it is the male of the species that finds modern life to require a greater effort to suppress one's natural desires.
Cluelessness and brutality doesn't sound attractive to me. But the point of a caricature is that people recognise some element of truth in it.
Best wishes,
Russ
Again, I'm not a man, but from the responses to my question, sounds like a lot of men don't recognize an element of truth in it.
What I think is true is that all of us, male and female, desire power. To some degree that's a natural thing, part of what it means to have "dominion"-- to have influence, to make our mark, to have some control over our destiny. But it's a heady drug, and once tasted, most of us will become addicted to the taste and desire more and more, beyond what is healthy for us and certainly for others. And so we will leverage whatever tools we have at our disposal to gain and exert power.
What is true in Russ stereotype IMHO is that men are in general physically larger and stronger than women in general. Which means that in years past many men were able to leverage their size and strength to exert power through physical domination, whether thru simple intimidation or thru actual violence. Russ' illustration of droit du seigneur illustrates that well-- if the biological urge were simply release (or "penetration" as Russ crudely put it) then once that need is met through regular marital intercourse there'd be no need for anything more. The purpose of droit du seigneur, then, would seem to be not so much sexual release but rather a show of power, of domination. Of the woman, sure, but even more so of whatever man she "belonged" to (father, husband). It was a way of demonstrating power.
Conversely, women in general rarely are able to exert power thru physical intimidation, so historically have had to do so subversively. Sometimes this could be fairly positive, things like emotional IQ, being winsome and wise, diplomacy (see Abigail in the OT). Others not so positive-- giving or withholding sex, character assassination (see Salem witch trials), etc.
Beyond those crude stereotypes there are a host of other ways that individuals, both male and female, gain and exert power, again, both positively and negatively: intellectual power, economic power, social power, etc. Then you have a (sadly few) who have demonstrated a counter-intuitive approach to power thru subversive, creative nonviolence: Ghandi, MLK, and of course, Jesus.
The bottom line is all of us seek power in whatever currency is most available to us. Bill Gates does not appear to be particularly gifted in physical intimidation, and is less than adequate at social currency, but has used his strategic thinking/ game playing to crush his corporate opponents in a way that is every bit reminiscent of a gladiator fighting to the death in the coliseum.
I think it would be fair to say that some of the societal and particularly economic shifts in the last few decades, particularly the shift away from manual labor, has negatively impacted working class men. One is tempted to say that it has been advantageous to working women, but only if qualified to say "relatively" since women were starting at such an economic disadvantage, and still have not caught up, though the gap is narrowing.
But the underlying urge I think is not this male need for violence/ pillaging that Russ suggests, but rather just a very human need for power and control over one's destiny, played out in a 1000 different ways.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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Teilhard
Shipmate
# 16342
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
quote:
Originally posted by Teilhard:
Whether for good or ill, "'Biology' is 'Destiny' …"
Which is of course why my hyoid bone, vestibular ossicles (little hearing bones in ears), a piece of my skull, and my jaw are no longer gill slits, but serve other functions. Unlike male nipples.
Yes … and following the relentless successive steps of embryonic development, growth and puberty, my gonads (and yours) are now anything BUT "indifferent" ...
Posts: 401 | From: Minnesota | Registered: Apr 2011
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Hiro's Leap
Shipmate
# 12470
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
I'm not a man, but from the responses to my question, sounds like a lot of men don't recognize an element of truth in it.
I doubt many men would admit to having feeling like that - especially on a Christian website. The "power" stuff sounds pretty icky. However, if you replace power with status/fame, and perhaps ask a different group of men:
"Can you see the appeal of being an attractive Premiership footballer / pop star / Hollywood A-lister / billionaire, and effortlessly being able to sleep with a different woman every time you went out for a drink?"
I suspect you'd see a very different set of replies. Most men I know are old enough to see the downsides of a life like that (and might have moral qualms) but on some level they'd love it. My female friends don't tend to feel the same.
quote:
What is true in Russ stereotype IMHO is that men are in general physically larger and stronger than women in general.
Another difference is that a woman's power makes no difference to the number of children she can have. (Although it'll affect their survival chances.) Historically for men, the number of potential offspring varies from zero to hundreds, and power had a siginificant influence on that.
I'm not intending to back up Russ' main point - that the lack of droit du seigneur etc damages contemporary men. Not sure if that's true or not, but I doubt it. However, I think that there's an interesting connection between male glory / status and sexuality.
Posts: 3418 | From: UK, OK | Registered: Mar 2007
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Hiro's Leap:
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
I'm not a man, but from the responses to my question, sounds like a lot of men don't recognize an element of truth in it.
I doubt many men would admit to having feeling like that - especially on a Christian website. The "power" stuff sounds pretty icky. However, if you replace power with status/fame, and perhaps ask a different group of men:
"Can you see the appeal of being an attractive Premiership footballer / pop star / Hollywood A-lister / billionaire, and effortlessly being able to sleep with a different woman every time you went out for a drink?"
I suspect you'd see a very different set of replies. Most men I know are old enough to see the downsides of a life like that (and might have moral qualms) but on some level they'd love it. My female friends don't tend to feel the same.
But that just supports my point-- that the base urge is not violence, but power, and that power is achieved through lots of different means-- sometimes thru physical strength but also thru economics, fame, status, etc.
I think women are the same, the equation just shifts. The "markers" of power for women are different, and often the currency to acquire power is as well. We know instinctively/ thru socialization that too naked a quest for female power is perceived harshly (whereas for a man it just means he's an ambitious "go-getter"). But we like to have control, to exert power just as much as men. We just go about it differently and have different ways to keep score.
[ 08. March 2015, 23:09: Message edited by: cliffdweller ]
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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Hiro's Leap
Shipmate
# 12470
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
I think women are the same, the equation just shifts. The "markers" of power for women are different, and often the currency to acquire power is as well. We know instinctively/ thru socialization that too naked a quest for female power is perceived harshly (whereas for a man it just means he's an ambitious "go-getter"). But we like to have control, to exert power just as much as men. We just go about it differently and have different ways to keep score.
Hi cliffdweller,
I couldn't think how to respond without introducing a major tangent, so I've started a new thread.
Posts: 3418 | From: UK, OK | Registered: Mar 2007
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Cliffdweller, excellent post, a lot of it I agree with. Possibly also related to the arms race idea in evolution, which can involve battles between male and female. Oops, equine.
Also, some interesting stuff in anthropology on this; e.g. men to the cafe, women to the church, (round the Med).
[ 09. March 2015, 13:24: Message edited by: quetzalcoatl ]
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
if the biological urge were simply release (or "penetration" as Russ crudely put it) then once that need is met through regular marital intercourse there'd be no need for anything more. The purpose of droit du seigneur, then, would seem to be not so much sexual release but rather a show of power, of domination. Of the woman, sure, but even more so of whatever man she "belonged" to (father, husband). It was a way of demonstrating power.
Hi cliffdweller.
Much of what you say about power is right.
The bit I'd disagree with is the quote above. Can you not see that you're taking what I've said about the anti-social nature of male desires - sex as violence as conquest as glory - and your female brain is interpreting it as being "really" about relationships and communication ?
The man who fantasises in the shower about droit de seigneur is not dreaming about sending a message of his powerfulness to other men. He's dreaming about a situation of being able to satisfy the urge-to-conquer he feels whenever his eye falls on the curves of a young woman's body. Which doesn't miraculously go away just because he cares deeply for his wife.
And as for what Doc Tor is watching on his screen, it's probably a highbrow documentary. Rather than Internet porn or computer games simulating violence or conquest...
Stereotype ? Absolutely.
Best wishes,
Russ
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
if the biological urge were simply release (or "penetration" as Russ crudely put it) then once that need is met through regular marital intercourse there'd be no need for anything more. The purpose of droit du seigneur, then, would seem to be not so much sexual release but rather a show of power, of domination. Of the woman, sure, but even more so of whatever man she "belonged" to (father, husband). It was a way of demonstrating power.
Hi cliffdweller.
Much of what you say about power is right.
The bit I'd disagree with is the quote above. Can you not see that you're taking what I've said about the anti-social nature of male desires - sex as violence as conquest as glory - and your female brain is interpreting it as being "really" about relationships and communication ?
The man who fantasises in the shower about droit de seigneur is not dreaming about sending a message of his powerfulness to other men. He's dreaming about a situation of being able to satisfy the urge-to-conquer he feels whenever his eye falls on the curves of a young woman's body. Which doesn't miraculously go away just because he cares deeply for his wife.
I'm not a man, so I will yield to your greater knowledge of what men think about in the shower. However, much as you point out the "relationship" language in my post, allow me to point out the "power" language in yours-- "urge to conquer" could as easily describe Bill Gates crushing the competition or a snotty socialite undercutting her social rival as much as it describes an act of lust. Sex being just one of many currencies of power.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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