Scientific & Historical Exploration of Cultures, Religions, & the Sexes

[Inexorable Username]

Well, personally, I don’t really like assertive men. I like confidence, but not excessive confidence.

I was really talking more about a lack of assertiveness, men who can't stick up for themselves because society has always attached severe consequences to such. As someone who grew quite tall quite quickly I became almost unable to defend myself physically because any time I was physical with my peers a teacher was quick to intervene and blame me for the altercation on the presumption that because I was bigger I must have started it.

I still take a lot of pride in my work, and I get a lot of respect from others for it, too.

But I also don’t have a social life and don’t take days off. The only entertainment I’ve engaged in recently is this forum.

When I talk to other people in my industry, though, they don’t have the same drive. For instance, I recently spoke with a girl that said she wouldn’t work after 5, under any circumstances. I’ve yet to meet someone in my industry that doesn’t fall victim to the “its good enough” philosophy. It’s just a different perspective. Some people want work life balance. If you want that, you’re just not going to be the best at what you do.

You don't get what I'm talking about, which is fine I can hardly explain it adequately given that it's a hardwired irrational thing. Men are goal orientated, to say we want to hunt and kill something is overly simplistic but it illustrates the mentality, we want to do a thing, do it well and be done with it.

I think that's why we despise following written instructions unless the thing we're building is so complex it would be impossible to do it without them, we want the satisfaction of doing the thing and following instructions robs us of some of that satisfaction.

Well...I would really like to understand if you wanted to explain it.

I've done a bit of research into what men struggle through these days and I feel like it's equally bad, if not worse, than what women struggle through. To qualify, I think that it's actually worse to be a female in "today's society" from physical, environmental standpoint. But, I think it is much worse to be a male from an emotional one....and in a way, to me, what men go through is more destructive. Even though it sucks to be a woman, as a western woman, you can make choices about how you're going to handle the issues.

As a western man, it seems like men have to grapple with an issue that's far deeper, and not so superficial. I don't think most men are able to cope with it, and that's very sad. Especially considering the fact that we don't look after our men like we look after our women. At least when life gives me lemons, and I know deep down that if it's ever too much and I sit down on a rock and just cry about it, people are going to feel bad for me, and they're going to help me.

That can't be said for men. I'm not sure what people would do...and I think that, as a man, I would never risk it. What if people shame you for it? It would be mortifying.
And then to imagine growing up that way, as a kid, feeling like you can't show those feelings. It's terrible.

Anyways...I don't believe I understand the struggle of men, so, I'm sorry if it came across that way. I definitely don't think it's dismissible. It's one of the reasons I would never identify myself as a feminist, even though I think we could probably stand to make some cultural changes in how we handle the genders - but I can't agree with the feminist notion that women have it worse than men, or (even worse, imo) that men are somehow to blame for that. It's nonsense.

My limited understanding of what it's like to be a male is that you grow up learning to never be yourself. You have to put a mask on to leave the house, and constantly hide your feelings. Mothers are less likely to be kind of their male children when they're upset or hurt, and fathers often give advice like "be a man". Then, males go to school, and they are subjected to truly terrifying peer behaviors from male groups that condition them not to "be a bitch". After men have been conditioned for their whole youth to be tough, unfeminine, and not to demonstrate feelings except for happiness, frustration, and anger, they are then thrown into an emotionally complex culture that nurtures victimization and values displays of weakness, and asked to get into a relationship where they are expected to be understanding and unaggressive, and finally, asked to marry, where they are expected to be tenderhearted, sacrificial, and somehow know exactly how to empathize with, and raise kids, in an ever-changing technological world.

Women, meanwhile, are given baby dolls practically before they even realize they're alive. (In the words of one of my favorite comedians, who made this argument quite succinctly.)

I would love to hear more of your perspective. For the past few years, I've been trying so hard to understand what men have to go through, but it's hard, as I'm not a man, myself. All I can do is try to talk to men when I can (a challenge, as most men either can't or don't want to communicate deep thoughts and feelings), and research.

Please don't think that I don't empathize with your struggle.
I know that I don't always understand it as fully as I wish I did, but I do actively try to put my mind to understanding - if that matters.

This gives me an idea for a new thread, actually. This thread sort of sucks. There isn't really answers for how things panned out for women. It would be more valuable and useful to discuss the life experiences, upbringings, and feelings men experience and the social consequences...Anyways, thanks for your response! Sorry I missed the mark. Hope you always feel more than welcome to tell me when I've done so. If I don't know that people will do that - I know I won't feel like I can speak freely.

 

[Inexorable Username]

I was taught about the Balfour Declaration as a kid. I was in Israel during the Intifada. There were deaths almost every day. When I came back to the UK, I started doing my own research. I discovered a lot of things.

This, and everything you said thereafter is like a very depressing gold mine of information. Have you written any papers on this? Ever thought of making a biography? You seem to have a lot of information to share that would be hard for me to get anywhere else. Let me know if you ever want to PM about it.

I like what you've shared, but it's confusing. Particularly the timeline of things. I'm interested in what you have to say about the muslim influences on the western world. Anyways...if you're willing to discuss the topic in detail, or if you have anything you've written you'd love to share, I'd love for the opportunity to learn more/get a more clear picture.

 

[Ex-User (14663)]

one introverted woman I dated invited me up to her apartment, then invited me to sit next to her on the couch, etc, etc, but then if I tried to get more intimate with her she was 100% neutral and just sat there without giving any signal one way or the other. See now I am tasked with calculating the probabilities of succesfull attempts vs the probability of getting metoo'ed and all kinds of complicated things.

 

[Inexorable Username]

one introverted woman I dated invited me up to her apartment, then invited me to sit next to her on the couch, etc, etc, but then if I tried to get more intimate with her she was 100% neutral and just sat there without giving any signal one way or the other. See now I am tasked with calculating the probabilities of succesfull attempts vs the probability of getting metoo'ed and all kinds of complicated things.

Hmm...That has to be confusing and frustrating. That's got to suck. This "me too" thing is friggin absurd. The thing I HATE about this movement (yes, I feel at liberty to capitalize that word) - is that now women who have had genuinely messed up things happen to them, if they talk about it, they're aligning themselves with this ridiculous movement. Once again, the extremism is underlying the real message...these things are so frustrating to me. At least I don't have to walk on eggshells around members of the opposite sex, though.

I think that's why it would be easier to find a woman you feel like you can have a real conversation with. Of course...if they aren't within your peer group, that might not matter. Ie: If the woman is far younger than you, even if you were to bring the conversation around to PC culture and get her ideas on philosophies, it could still be seen as you taking advantage of her after the fact...and she might even see it that way, if she feels weird about it, and people are telling her she was taken advantage of. Especially if she's shy and easily pushed around, and she has a lot of liberal/PC friends, I could see how she could be convinced that she was somehow inappropriately handled....It's a lot safer these days to date women who are in their 20s, I would think.

Here's a perspective that is maybe useful to you?
So...I had a period in my life where I wouldn't kiss guys if it was anything more than a quick, simple kiss. I was so afraid that if I did, he would believe that I was giving him a "signal" to take things further, and he would try 6 different ways to Sunday to escalate things, and then if I didn't want to, I would get accused of "leading him on".
I'm not the only woman I know that lives in fear of being accused of "leading a guy on". If you look online, the information you'll find is just rife with the philosophy that females use men and intentionally lead them on. I've been accused of it a number of times.

So while you're fearing the "me too" problem...maybe she's fearing that she doesn't want to send the wrong message?

As a female, it's really, really hard to know the difference between what is "okay" behavior, and what isn't, as far as managing a male's expectations. Unfortunately, we're held accountable for his expectations, but we don't have a very good understanding of how he's feeling, or thinking, and generally speaking, men also won't share that information if you ask. As for me, I tried just being blunt and honest - but that also doesn't work, because most men seem to believe that women are playing games with them.

I don't know where this ridiculous attitude comes from, but it's obnoxious. I've never deliberately played games with a man. That's like...actually pretty screwed up. If anything, I think it's reflection. I think a lot of men view trying to get women into bed as a game, so they assume that women are also playing games. Culturally, I think that some women have come to think it's "cool" to act like they're playing a game - but I don't think most women feel that way, and I don't think it's natural, either.

If I sat with a guy on the couch, I would personally hope that we could just sit like that, and hang out, and be friends. I'd hope that he would flirt with me a bit, so I could be sure that he wanted more...but I would hope that he would wait until I'm not sitting there, clamming up, acting "neutral", because that would mean I'm feeling awkward and uncomfortable, and I'm afraid to do anything that might give him the wrong impression. Again, though, that's me. I need time to get to know a person, and I like to take everything in stages. Sitting on the couch together - that's close proximity in a vulnerable position. That's a new stage.

 

[redbaron]

when do we get to the science bit?

 

[Ex-User (14663)]

If I sat with a guy on the couch, I would personally hope that we could just sit like that, and hang out, and be friends. I'd hope that he would flirt with me a bit, so I could be sure that he wanted more...but I would hope that he would wait until I'm not sitting there, clamming up, acting "neutral", because that would mean I'm feeling awkward and uncomfortable, and I'm afraid to do anything that might give him the wrong impression. Again, though, that's me. I need time to get to know a person, and I like to take everything in stages. Sitting on the couch together - that's close proximity in a vulnerable position. That's a new stage.

that would be a perfectly reasonable and not uncommon preference. The thing is that the only way that I, as a guy, can tell the one from another is by reading cues, body language, misc non-verbal responses. E.g. if I get closer, does she move slightly away or move slightly closer too, etc. Most of human courtship is like that. So the problem arises when there's zero signals going out. One obviously doesn't want to act like a creep and overstep lines or make the girl uncomfortable, yet one also doesn't want to be all passive and do nothing in case she actually wants you to do something. This is what makes things more complicated with introverted or shy women.

 

[Minuend]

that would a perfectly reasonable and not uncommon preference. The thing is that the only way that I, as a guy, can tell the one from another is by reading cues, body language, misc non-verbal responses. E.g. if I get closer, does she move slightly away or move slightly closer too, etc. Most of human courtship is like that. So the problem arises when there's zero signals going out. One obviously doesn't want to act like a creep and overstep lines or make the girl uncomfortable, yet one also doesn't want to be all passive and do nothing in case she actually wants you to do something. This is what makes things more complicated with introverted or shy women.

If there are no signals, it's always best to just back off. Even if she's interested, she's missing out on her chance by being passive and that's not your problem. If she's interested enough, she'll find a way to communicate it or go her entire life being single. Especially younger women often have a difficult time reject guys that hit on them and say no, so they kinda just sit there and hope the situation passes without them having to do something. I hope younger generation of women aren't raised to have to be "nice" to everyone and where any tinge of maybe hurting or letting someone down is worse than the literal plague. Because that's how a lot of women, especially younger ones, think and behave around.

 

[redbaron]

sounds like you're just bad at recognising signals and also overthinking it

 

[Rebis]

If there are no signals, it's always best to just back off. Even if she's interested, she's missing out on her chance by being passive and that's not your problem. If she's interested enough, she'll find a way to communicate it or go her entire life being single. Especially younger women often have a difficult time reject guys that hit on them and say no, so they kinda just sit there and hope the situation passes without them having to do something. I hope younger generation of women aren't raised to have to be "nice" to everyone and where any tinge of maybe hurting or letting someone down is worse than the literal plague. Because that's how a lot of women, especially younger ones, think and behave around.

A girl I used to see was quite neutral on the first night we spent with each other, I was trying to be intimate and she just moved my hand away, we just made out and cuddled for the night. I think the hand gesture was a nice touch and I can understand @Serac's point: It takes two to tango, and neutrality doesn't counter someone's action, a counteraction counters someone's action. I imagine serac would've been a lot more comfortable in the situation if he had input from the person, even something subtle.

If I take an action which includes another entity, yet they do not reciprocate and don't take action, then I am only left to regulate myself. Take this out of the sexual context: I propose talking about a topic, they don't take a counter-action and they remain neutral and listen, I continue on because I seem to be the only one participating. While you may disagree that the logic displayed isn't sensitive to the other party, it is infact how people organically think: If they are the only one that expresses a view on a decision then they are the only stakeholder so to speak, if you're the only stakeholder then you take the action in most cases. If we watch a movie and I suggest a movie, and you don't suggest one, then I am only left to my own devices to guess what movie to pick. I'll be inclined to pick my movie because you have not stated which one you would like. I may know your interests to determine what movie you like, but you may also know mine.

I think all social decisions involve a risk. I think this atomises people from taking decisions, and puts all the responsibility on the one taking the action instead of the one which involves the action. Communication is key: If you're neutral then there is no communication and the other person is left to guess. If we were to take inaction at each situation that is a result of a guess, or choice that doesn't have 100% probability conversation would not exist.

 

[Rebis]

I know someone will say that doesn't make it right, I'm not talking about what's right and wrong, I'm simply expressing the limited thought pattern of most people. If they want something and there is no opposition, they will pursue this want. This is rudimentary, it is much more taxing for someone to regulating themselves in the face of guesswork. So, to expect sometime to consider a lot of information is a weaker possibility than understanding people pursue what they desire, unless someone opposes that pursuit. This is done by communication: Say "No", "Stop" or something. Or don't even let them reach a point in time.

Again, I'm not talking about what's morally right or wrong, I'm talking about the basic level of cognition you can expect from people. If you understand the basic form of cognition that all people have, then you know communication is a form of opposition and that is the only reliable way to get across your message.

 

[Ex-User (14663)]

sounds like you're just bad at recognising signals and also overthinking it

I'm sure I can always get better, and one "problem" for me is that I tend to err well on the side of caution. Having said that I think people have a hard time seeing my perspective – I'm not talking from the perspective of "I met this one girl that I really liked and couldn't figure out what was going on", I'm talking statistically and comparatively to countless other examples. As in, I've met girls across the full range from introverted academic types to nymphomaniac types, and I'm speaking in terms the relative difference between the types.

 

[washti]

i/m dying curiosity @Serac .

Thus I will ask:
what was context of invitation to her place? you said you were already dating her.
i'm lost(forgive me lord) but what you actually did with her on dates prior to her invating you?
like did she know she was on date not on some platonic thing,right?

Have you introduced romatic meassures?

First thing - you are touching her hands. A lot.
Second thing - when you walk together you gently touch her waist.
Hair, face touching plus saying something nice. etc
Every date its good to repeat some of those moves to check up if lady is comfortable. To create atmosphere.

You need to warm up shy woman before you start leaning on her, christ.

There is no risk to be meetoed for slowly escalating small gestures described above.
If you made them she clearly had some responses to your action.


If you really think so though, (that you can be meetoed for those), the problem is your fear, not introverted lady and lack of signals. sorry but if you wanted something you need to do something. actually inviting you to her place is already iniciative taken, no? So maybe you were shy and too passive as well? I would understand more if pro poker playing made you a bit overreactive to body language and you would be fast to overinterpret it. But claiming it to be neutral, no matter what you do? That's weird.

ermmm how much joking were you about this thing that you wash your clothes after people tell you it's smelling bad?
it may be crucial information.

 

[Ex-User (14663)]

@washti maybe you're right, actually. This was sort of a case where 2 introverts got into a platonic mode and I myself got very passive. I was actually a bit ashamed with myself about how passive I got, and I felt the dates were going nowhere. I mean, we were talking about goddamn statistics and cumpter programming on the dates. On this particular date we'd been on a couple of dates before. We had some drinks, bought beer to bring home after the date, went to her place, got into a couch. Up until that point, due to the platonic mode, I ascribed no significance to any of this. When she put us under a mutual blanket, I figured maybe something is going on despite the fact that she is showing no emotions. I sort of slowly started to test the waters, still not getting no reaction. But then at some point she went from 0 to 100 on a dime and we did the thing – that time + some other times later.

 

[washti]

introverted paralysis lol.

there is apparently a place for inconspicuous dates with rapid happy end. scratch that 'a bit ashamed'. you were furiously attentive.

there is a chance that taking the lead took all her focus - resulting in blank face, which is always handy in pretending, that nothing happend, if your assumption about other party intentions turns wrong.

 

[scorpiomover]

So the British had form for starting fights in order to control a region's resources.

So why are they and the Americans still there?

That's what the Iraqis who cheered when the Americans and British came, wondered after they got rid of Saddam.

The Uk gets most of it's oil from Norway, the US, Russia and africa. A tiny fraction from the Saudis & Libya. The us gets most of it from Canada, Columbia and Venezuela as well as it's own. The Saudis give it merely 11%. The US can survive on it's own oil reserves just fine if it choses so at any time.

Canada has so much oil, that you can just scoop it off the ground. That's what those "Ice Road Truckers" are all about.

The point is two-fold:

1) Control the supply of oil. There's so much oil, that if more was offered for sale, the prices would go right down. 80% of the price of petrol in the UK is government taxes. So if the oil becomes dirt cheap, the petrol becomes dirt cheap, and the government loses billions in taxes.

2) Control the sale of oil. Oil is mostly sold in USD. That means that if any country or company needs oil, they have to purchase USD. That means a massive continuing spike in demand for USD, which massively inflates its value. If oil is allowed to be sold in currencies available in the Middle East, for example, then people don't need USD to buy oil, and then the USD would deflate to a small portion of its value, which in turn means that those who are paid in USD also see their incomes and wealth diminish by the same proportion.

They are still there for a lot of other reasons. Mainly to crush all the Muslim states

The Muslims took 8 years to conquer almost all of the Middle East, the whole of North Africa, the whole of Spain, Portugal, Southern France and Central France all of the way up to Poitiers just outside of Paris.

It took another 800 years for Europeans to take back Central France, Southern France, Spain and Portugal.

When the Muslim general leading the Moorish forces reached the Atlantic, he is rumoured to have said that he would have kept going (all the way to America) if not for the Atlantic Ocean.

So it only makes sense for Westerners to be terrified if the Muslims could ever be united into a unified fighting force ever again.

Israel is slap bang in the middle between the Middle East and North Africa, cutting the Muslim forces in two.

Be like having a tiny strip of land no more than 30 miles across cutting the USA into 2 distinct halves. Makes it incredibly difficult to form a united fighting force.

It's the military strategy of Divide and Conquer.

and ensure Israel rises as the region's biggest player / power.

Already happened a long time ago.

In most Middle Eastern countries, most of the money goes to the ruling family and their friends and relatives. The rest of the country lives on less than $10,000 a year PER FAMILY. In some Middle Eastern countries, beer is illegal to sell and cannot be bought. So are prostitutes and nightclubs. In some Middle Eastern countries, you can be whipped for having sex with your girlfriend. Moreover, you cannot criticise political leaders in public, not even with your friends, as you never know who is listening.

Israel is a modern secular Westernised country. Beer is freely available. Nightclubs are plentiful. They have a booming IT industry. The buses even have free wi-fi and free USB chargers. The people are happy to criticise their politicians any time they feel like it.

If you want to spend time learning about Judaism, just go to a Yeshiva, where you'll get to argue all day with other people using rational arguments about strange points of Jewish law. It's like being on the forums, but MUCH, MUCH better, because no-one takes the arguments personally, and you get to argue 10 hours a day. It's INTP & INTJ heaven.

Its also a proxy war against Russia and it's allies.

The US and the EU seem to really hate Putin, even though Putin is basically a capitalist and the exact opposite of the USSR and everything it stood for.

That patch of dirt is the holy land for all abrahamic religions and a source of constant conflict.

The Xians are only interested in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which the others aren't interested in.

The Muslims are only interested in the Dome of the Rock, which most religious Jews believe is on ground they cannot enter at the moment, and Xians don't seem to be bothered about.

The Jews care about the Wailing Wall and the land itself, which the Xians left to rot when they were in charge, and the Muslims left to rot when they were in charge.

So it's fairly clear that each group could easily live in peace with each other, if not for political and corporate interests.

 

[scorpiomover]

This, and everything you said thereafter is like a very depressing gold mine of information. Have you written any papers on this? Ever thought of making a biography? You seem to have a lot of information to share that would be hard for me to get anywhere else.

Lots and lots of ideas. Low confidence. Low motivation. Sometimes think about starting a blog. Then worry about it being criticised.

You seem to have a lot of information to share that would be hard for me to get anywhere else.

I research unusual stuff that I read on the internet. I like to hang with unusual people, and hear a lot from them (and then look it up). I'm drawn to unusual info.

Let me know if you ever want to PM about it.

I like what you've shared, but it's confusing. Particularly the timeline of things. I'm interested in what you have to say about the muslim influences on the western world. Anyways...if you're willing to discuss the topic in detail, or if you have anything you've written you'd love to share, I'd love for the opportunity to learn more/get a more clear picture.

Thanks for the vote of confidence. Just might do that.

 

[scorpiomover]

My limited understanding of what it's like to be a male is that you grow up learning to never be yourself. You have to put a mask on to leave the house, and constantly hide your feelings. Mothers are less likely to be kind of their male children when they're upset or hurt, and fathers often give advice like "be a man". Then, males go to school, and they are subjected to truly terrifying peer behaviors from male groups that condition them not to "be a bitch".

That was traditional pre-marriage male life.

After men have been conditioned for their whole youth to be tough, unfeminine, and not to demonstrate feelings except for happiness, frustration, and anger, they are then thrown into an emotionally complex culture that nurtures victimization and values displays of weakness, and asked to get into a relationship where they are expected to be understanding and unaggressive, and finally, asked to marry, where they are expected to be tenderhearted, sacrificial, and somehow know exactly how to empathize with, and raise kids, in an ever-changing technological world.

That was traditional married male life.

Now add in feminism, where men are told that they are ALL "potential rapists", where:
if you break up with them, it's the man's fault,
if they break up with you, it's the man's fault,
if the man doesn't ask you out, it's the man's fault,
if the man asks you out clumsily, it's the man's fault,
if you didn't get the job, it's the man's fault,
if you didn't get the promotion, it's the man's fault,
if you did get the job but didn't get paid as much as you wanted, it's the man's fault,
if there's a war, it's the man's fault,
if there's no war and bad things happened because there was no war, it's the man's fault,
etc,

AND, even if everything is perfect, the man will STILL be told that women can do everything twice as well as him, but get half the credit.

You don't know what to do, because you're told that every option is wrong.

Even if you do everything that women want, you're regularly being told you're evil, lazy, stupid and incompetent.

If you keep away from women, then you still get abuse heaped on you.

 

[Inexorable Username]

This, and everything you said thereafter is like a very depressing gold mine of information. Have you written any papers on this? Ever thought of making a biography? You seem to have a lot of information to share that would be hard for me to get anywhere else.

Lots and lots of ideas. Low confidence. Low motivation. Sometimes think about starting a blog. Then worry about it being criticised.

You seem to have a lot of information to share that would be hard for me to get anywhere else.

I research unusual stuff that I read on the internet. I like to hang with unusual people, and hear a lot from them (and then look it up). I'm drawn to unusual info.

Let me know if you ever want to PM about it.

I like what you've shared, but it's confusing. Particularly the timeline of things. I'm interested in what you have to say about the muslim influences on the western world. Anyways...if you're willing to discuss the topic in detail, or if you have anything you've written you'd love to share, I'd love for the opportunity to learn more/get a more clear picture.

Thanks for the vote of confidence. Just might do that.

I actually thought about starting a blog, myself. I have quite a few ideas. You made me realize though that a blog would actually be more successful with co-writers.

I have the media marketing talent. I can do the web design, graphic design, SEO, whatever...I used to be a tutor in English in college, and I have a proofreader who works for me for free (work exchange).

I wonder if anyone else here has philosophies they would like to share with the world? The only thing that holds me back from creating a blog is keeping up with the content. If we had a few writers though, it would be easy to manage content demands...I could probably even add to a lot of your concepts. I do a lot of illustrations/visuals to express my concepts. Infographics add greatly to a person's retention and interest.

I think you have great ideas, but they're poorly organized. Obviously, you're just responding on a forum here, so I don't know how you would actually organize these thoughts...but if you had a peer group to critique your delivery (ie: not your philosophies, just the clarity with which you're representing them), and help with proofreading/editing, or even providing visuals...I think you could add a lot to the project.

It's an interesting concept. Maybe I will start a new thread to explore how people feel on it. We would have to design a quality-check system. Hmm...

 

[Inexorable Username]

My limited understanding of what it's like to be a male is that you grow up learning to never be yourself. You have to put a mask on to leave the house, and constantly hide your feelings. Mothers are less likely to be kind of their male children when they're upset or hurt, and fathers often give advice like "be a man". Then, males go to school, and they are subjected to truly terrifying peer behaviors from male groups that condition them not to "be a bitch".

That was traditional pre-marriage male life.

After men have been conditioned for their whole youth to be tough, unfeminine, and not to demonstrate feelings except for happiness, frustration, and anger, they are then thrown into an emotionally complex culture that nurtures victimization and values displays of weakness, and asked to get into a relationship where they are expected to be understanding and unaggressive, and finally, asked to marry, where they are expected to be tenderhearted, sacrificial, and somehow know exactly how to empathize with, and raise kids, in an ever-changing technological world.

That was traditional married male life.

Now add in feminism, where men are told that they are ALL "potential rapists", where:
if you break up with them, it's the man's fault,
if they break up with you, it's the man's fault,
if the man doesn't ask you out, it's the man's fault,
if the man asks you out clumsily, it's the man's fault,
if you didn't get the job, it's the man's fault,
if you didn't get the promotion, it's the man's fault,
if you did get the job but didn't get paid as much as you wanted, it's the man's fault,
if there's a war, it's the man's fault,
if there's no war and bad things happened because there was no war, it's the man's fault,
etc,

AND, even if everything is perfect, the man will STILL be told that women can do everything twice as well as him, but get half the credit.

You don't know what to do, because you're told that every option is wrong.

Even if you do everything that women want, you're regularly being told you're evil, lazy, stupid and incompetent.

If you keep away from women, then you still get abuse heaped on you.

You're wrong, and it's unhealthy for you.
We could talk about it...but you would have to not value that frame of thinking. The way you're thinking is subjective, so if you take pride in it, then you would be defensive if someone were to challenge it. In which case, due to the subjective nature of the material, you're likely to shut down counter arguments before you consider them.
Let me know if you want your perspective to be challenged. I had a skewed perspective at one point, and no one was around to help me with it. It sucked. I was really at sea.

Anyways, we could probably make a whole new thread about that topic! It's a massive one. I feel like it's also something people are desperate to discuss with the walls down, if you know what I mean. Maybe you should start the thread? I feel like I'm making too many!

Hope you don't feel judged! I know the way I speak isn't appropriate. I'm sorry. I don't have time today to go through and flower everything up so it sounds sweet and covers all of the disclaimer bases. Just know that I don't actually judge you, in the slightest, and I can totally understand why you feel the way that you feel. Feminism upsets me too!

 

[Inexorable Username]

@Serac @Cognisant @Rebis @washti @Minuend

My personal couch passivity and the reasons behind it :

1. If I kiss him he'll expect to have sex and be mad if I don't.
2. If I tell him I want to kiss but not have sex (which I've done), he'll think I'm playing manipulative games with him and I'm being "hard to get", and he'll still expect to have sex, and be mad if I don't.
3. If I let him hold my hand, he will invariably try to kiss me. (Refer to numbers 1 and 2)
4. If I make fliratious behaviors, even if I'm unaware of them, refer to number 3, or just skip right to numbers 1 and 2.

See the problem? Men have expectations. No matter what I do or what moves I make, any of my behaviors immediately make his disappointment in my failure to live up to his fantasy, my fault. I've had men blow up in my face over things like this, and I had absolutely no idea there was an issue. It was simply that we were playing a game, and I had no clue my piece was even on the board. Apparently, I didn't play by the rules. I kissed when I shouldn't have kissed, or giggled when I shouldn't have show interest. Or I preened my hair...a self-conscious habit I'll do when being around an attractive male makes me nervous. All of these signals are perceived, by men, to be conscious invitations on my part.

I've even had it where I've lead a guy on simply by being "too interested" in a subject like computer science. All of the sudden...there you are sitting, thinking about kernels, and someone makes a sexual move on you. My brain goes totally blank - into shock mode. "Wtf, where did that come from?!" I have absolutely no reasppoinse, but to sit there, rather stunned...then he asks the invariable question - something like "Don't you like me?"

I don't know if I like you. There's literally not a thought in my head. I really don't want to hurt your feelings, but I also really don't want to "lead you on" and say something semi-agreeable, and get your hopes up.

Also - for the record, I don't feel like being "passive" means I'm missing out on something amazing. Tbh, it's the clothed foreplay I enjoy. Anything after that is entering the "dread zone". I totally fear the idea that if I expose my body to a guy he's going to reject my appearance. Men are very superficial about appearances. I also totally fear the idea that we could have sex, and he'll just disappear. Or worse, reject me and giving me a specific reason. Any foreplay we engage in is tainted by this looming fear of sexual encounters. I never know how far I'm allowed to go before he feels entitled to my body.
Sometimes even letting a man pay for your dinner is too much.

I don't know...hopefully this is somewhat helpful to you guys?

Let me explain the best, and worst case scenarios, in my mind:

Best guy:
He makes a move, I don't respond, and he doesn't make a move again until my behavior becomes over-the-top firtatious (maybe we're sharing a bottle of wine), or in the absence of that, he just doesn't make any moves at all. It doesn't seem to bother him. He doesn't seem rushed, or pressured, or bottled up with frustration, aggression, judgement, or whatever...His spirits are high, he has a great sense of humor, and he's willing to hang out "just as friends" if that's what I feel comfortable with right now.
** This makes sense, seeing as how I pretty much have everything to lose and very little to gain **
These guys tend to be the "chill" guys that love women and the female sex in general, and have female friends so they not only know how to hang out with girls, but they enjoy it too. Unfortunately, they are unicorns.
They are also INSANELY attractive, and once I genuinely sense a guy is this kind of guy...I can't help but feel drawn to him like a moth to the flame and I turn into a drooling idiot. So yes, in this sense, Serac's advice is sort of right - but it's not coming from the right mindset. Being hands-off would have been the best approach for me, but not because you should think "her loss" or what-not, but because it shows you're genuinely interested in me as a person. Something that is exceedingly rare in men.

Worst guy:
Worst guy makes a move, I don't respond, it gets awkward between us. Worst guy is sitting there trying to figure out the fastest route to get in my pants. Worst guy thinks that hanging out with me is a real waste of his time, and he's probably questioning whether I was even worth spending money on. He's already annoyed now, and the longer we hang out, the more frustrated he'll get. Worst guy probably already feels led on because he feels that either buying dinner, or sitting on the couch with me, entitles him to sex, but now I'm just making his life miserable by forcing him to "guess" at how to get the sex. Worst guy also probably thinks that I have some weird list of "rules" in my head that I expect him to know, and hoops I want to jump through, or ways I want to "test" him. There's two categories of this guy...one is that they will sit there and stew all night, and not make another move, but just basically be pissed off about it. The other category is the guy that will repeatedly hit on me and repeatedly get rejected - and they tend to get more, and more aggressive. Nothing like being trapped with a man in your own house and not knowing just how aggressive he might get.

After this kind of guy hits on me, and gets pissed about it...the walls are down, in a sense. I feel a "predatory" sense from him...It's really hard to describe. I won't want to look at him or do anything that might indicate interest, because I'm afraid to, in a way. I'm afraid of his anger, and I'm afraid he'll blame me for it. But I also just sense the fact that the only thing he's after from me is sex, and he's now going to spend the night trying to figure out how to "catch" me. I can almost feel the calculating waves rolling off of him. Like he's sitting there thinking "Maybe if I put my arm behind her back, and then touch her on the thigh...then she'll have sex with me."

Honestly I hope none of you get offended by this. It's not my intent to offend. But maybe you can start to appreciate where some girls may be coming from...and that it's not really an attitude problem on the part of those girls. It's just sort of fear-based behavior.

Women straight up have a TON to worry about when we're in close proximity to a male who is interested in us. We have a lot to lose. A lot can go wrong. And the worst case scenario for us is WAY worse than the worst case scenario for you. Not only that, but our reputation is also on the line - and yours isn't. So in general, women have a very good reason to be timid, passive, or fearful, and if you're not those things you usually get accused of being a whore. And let's face it, women who have a larger comfort spectrum around men most likely have more experience.

In short, I know that men can put sex from their mind. I've seen it. Usually guys that are more successful have an easier time at it. Really...that's what you should do. Hang out in a friendly fashion and enjoy yourself so she can really get to know who you are as a person. Ask each other questions. Have great conversations....and just let things pan out naturally. In the end, either she's going to make a move, or she's going to give you such painfully obvious signals that you will know, for sure, that you can make a move without rejection.

If you're not willing to waste that kind of time on her...well maybe you don't like her, or women in general, as much as you thought...and maybe that's a you problem.

 

[Ex-User (14663)]

@Inexorable Username to me there's nothing new under the sun about this. There's a lot of romantically/sexually incompetent men out there, who for example don't understand that a girl might be willing to kiss but then have strong resistance to escalate things further, or more generally, that one has to assess the woman's emotional state along the whole seqence from start to finish and respond accordingly. So because of this, women themselves adapt to this reality by behaving in a stifled way when it comes to flirting and engaging in intimacy. For example I've had these exact sort of cases where a girl was willing to kiss etc but then wanted to stop at that level, and then seemed positively shocked that I understood that. So then, as these worries on the part of women then make them engage in more stifled behavior, romantic/sexual encounteres become even less overall frequent, which then make both genders even less competent in this sphere, and so on it goes. I think the basic culprit is that humans are not properly sexually socialized by virtue of monogamy-based society.

However, I also think you have certain insecurities that you project onto men and their sexual behavior, for example making a demarcation between sexual interest and interest in "you as a person". I think you are wrong in the notion that they have to be mutually exclusive.

Also, I think men are much less judgmental about a woman's body than you think they are. Maybe if you have a guy whose sexual experience comes exclusively from looking at porn he will have unrealistic expectations, but men who have seen more than 1 real naked girl in their life I think understand that bodies vary a lot.

 

[Inexorable Username]

when do we get to the science bit?

Yeah, I agree. This thread has gotten off-track. Here's a science bit.

What if matriarchal groupings is the natural order of human society?
No. I'm NOT being a "feminist" about things. Please let me explain!

Evolutionary biology claims that men evolved to be protectors and providers. Evolutionary biology, though, is a soft science, based on theories and very little fact.
Factually, we know that men hunted large prey. We believe that in some cases, men probably brought down large prey by using long-distance running to exhaust the prey. That's fairly believable, because this is still a practice used by a small tribe in Africa, and we have some archaeological remains to suggest this is true.

One thing that we know very little about, though, is why females evolved to have permanent breasts, and a hidden estrous (heat).
Studies suggest women may ovulate more than once a month:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1126506/

In primates, matriarchies are quite common. Females band together, and in doing so, protect each other and their young through strength in numbers. They share the burdens of raising the young, and males visit female groupings for breeding purposes. I believe this is commonly practiced in Bonobos, who we share genes with. We are also related to chimpanzees, and our societies are more similar to chimpanzees - which are more patriarchal.

I feel that it's possible that the reasons females developed permanent breasts and a hidden estrous, as well as a ludicrously high frequency of ovulation for a mammal so large and long-lived, with young that develop so slowly...is that we actually evolved to have matriarchal-based societies.

After we began to evolve into homosapiens, the nomadic lifestyle would have become more sensible. We became long-distance runners, due to the shape of our feet and skeletal structures. That enabled us to run down large prey. It also made sense for humans to follow the movement of migrating herds. This, we believe (insofar as I know) is what happened.

If that's the case, how do we expect that men would bring back food for their mate and the children? Does it make sense to bring down a wooly mammoth and then proceed to cart the thing all the way back home? You're severely increasing your risks, you're tiring yourself out, you're moving backwards instead of forwards in your progress of following the herd of prey...there's a plethora of disadvantages. More than that, if we're following a herd of prey - predators are too. How can you protect your mate, and hunt at the same time?

How can your mate feed herself, and manage her own welfare, when she's saddled with a child that will take years to meet the bare minimum requirements for self-sufficiency?

So it seems foolish to assume that males can be providers, protectors, and long-distance hunters all at the same time.

Here's an alternative perspective. As men developed the ability for long-distance hunting, women began to develop permanent breasts, a hidden heat, and a very short ovulation cycle. Women formed matriarchal groups, which provided protection from predators in numbers. Short ovulation cycles meant a high rate of pregnancy/childbirth, which allowed women to lactate continuously (sort of like how we get milk from cows).
Women shared the burden of our insanely dependent young by co-feeding, and co-caring. I hand my baby off to you and you feed it, while I gather nuts and berries for myself. Women formed large groups with social hierarchies that ensured that the best, strongest children survived.

Meanwhile, men had the role of "Pioneers". They forged on ahead in male groupings with a patriarchy independent of the female's matriarchy. They used their rigid roles, rules, and hierarchy to intelligently bring down prey, and nurture the strength and well-being of the dominant males first and foremost. They killed predators along the way, and when females caught up with the kill, the females and children would eat, and the male and female groupings would breed.

This also suggests at why females would be smaller than males, despite having matriarchal groupings - males would have eaten more of the kill. Females ate what remained.

Because the females go into heat so frequently, there would have been no need for obvious signs of estrous. Due to the female's permanent breasts, she would be consistently able to feed the offspring of other females...in fact, losing her breasts and then having to regrow them would make less biological sense within this model.

--------------------------------------------------

Now here's how I think this applies to modern times.

There are some things that men just seem ill-suited for, no matter how you cut it.

• Monogamy
• Raising families
• Communication
• Settling down in one location
• Abstaining from aggression
• Communal aspirations (achieving for the sake of the group, instead of the individual)

These are all things women are quite good at.
However, women are pretty intolerant of certain things and, if you look back, appear to have been so for quite some time:

• Being dominated by men
• Living in isolation (ie: Staying home with the kids and not having companionship or a group of women around them)
• Achieving aspirations without the presence of a community (Women, for instance, make pretty good CEOs, and enjoy management, but women don't generally become the best mathematicians, for instance, which usually requires spending a large amount of time in complete isolation).

Women are also remarkably bad about holding back their sons, and coddling them. Men, likewise, are bad about doing the same with their daughters.

From what I can see, female moves for dominance and power are actually quite common, historically speaking. I believe that is one of the reasons why so many females were kept uneducated. Not educating females makes little sense, except through the paradigm of control. After all, she's the one that teaches the children for a large degree of their childhood. So not educating women actually holds a society back - we do see examples of this. I believe Jordan Peterson addressed this issue at some point. (Or was it Ben Shapiro?)

Lets look at what frustrates men and women today:

Male Frustrations:

• Working as a "cog in a wheel" in a social job context
• Paying for a woman's needs (House, clothes, etc.)
• Having to "sacrifice" sexual availability by getting married
• The expectation that they should be non-aggressive, not find females attractive if they're in a relationship, listen to their wives or be "nagged"...basically expectations which seem to contradict the male's inner nature.
• Female rejection
• The difficulty of dating
• Female's sense of entitlement
• Feeling as if they have to "wear a face" just to go out in public
• The female's fear/accusations of sexual harassment, etc.
• The female's fear of sex in general
• Double standards

Female Frustrations:

• Being controlled by the patriarchy
• Being controlled by men in their personal relationship
• Male's superficial preferences
• Her "valuable" period only lasts about 6 years, after which she is a non-entity
• Her lack of ability to gain social status outside of physical beauty and mate preferences
• Males don't want to be friends
• Males won't listen
• Males don't value her for anything but her body
• Sex isn't love for males
• Having to dress, act, and look a certain way to attract a mate
• Being disregarded in a professional context
• Feeling "hunted" or pursued in public places
• Double standards

Now consider if we lived in accordance to this other "model" of evolutionary biology:

Men are pioneers, mathematicians, and scientists.
Women are the makers and organizers of home and society.

• Extroverted males travel from location to location in organized groups with their own masculine hierarchy. By visiting matriarchies and breeding, they fulfill their sexual needs, while also diversifying the human gene pool.
• Introverted males engage in civilization-building mathematics, sciences, and other isolated activities, with the rest of the world taken care of by the matriarchy. In fact...older men are likely to settle down into this lifestyle, as these fields require quite a bit of experience and education.
• Extroverted women become managers, politicians, etc. and organize the structure of society. Introverted women nurture and create.

These are just some examples of how this model would pan out, but in general, women and men wouldn't live together. It seems to me that it's fairly evident that perhaps, we're not really meant to. There are very few mammals that have as many issues with the opposite sex as we do. It's odd. There's also just a lot of little hints:

• Males in a group hate it when a female enters the scene.
• Women feel threatened by males on so many levels it's a bit ridiculous. Even women who won't admit that they feel this way (because they don't want to seem like feminists) demonstrate behavior that suggests it.
• Males are very frustrated at having to choose one sexual partner, and doing so significantly affects their psychology - I think usually, in a negative way.
• Women really aren't valuable after their prime. If they don't have a career, they're basically shunted aside as a non-entity. So many women are pressured to choose between children, and a career, and it's a real battle between a female's nurturing side, and her desire to be respected by society.
• It's very, very hard for women to have respect.

Men and women easily fall into feeling bitter and resentful towards the opposite sex, and society as a whole. That isn't a new, modern thing, as so many people thing. That's actually a very old phenomenon.

So maybe we're not living according to what makes the most sense for our species?
I think if most men were honest with themselves, they would admit that they would much prefer to travel from country to country, screwing as they go, producing as many offspring as they can manage in their youth, and then settling down somewhere to live out an intellectual life among a herd of women who would attend to their needs.

I think if women were honest with themselves, they would admit that they would much prefer to live solely among other women, or older males who present no threat, and have the help of a female society to raise their young, and feel free to come and go as they please, and let their children wander.

I think if we're really, truly unbiased, and men can let go of the fear of losing dominance/authority/respect, and women can let go of the fear of saying things that are traditionally not considered to be agreeable, nice, or acceptable, maybe we could actually admit that these states of being actually feel a lot more natural than the lives we're currently made to lead in our societies.

Anyways...These are all just thoughts!
Hope nobody is offended by them!
Please don't take these thoughts and make a whole bunch of generalizations about "what kind of person" I am and so you can fit me into your labels. Thanks.

So, what do you guys think?

 

[Inexorable Username]

@Inexorable Username
However, I also think you have certain insecurities that you project onto men and their sexual behavior, for example making a demarcation between sexual interest and interest in "you as a person". I think you are wrong in the notion that they have to be mutually exclusive.

No, I don't think they're mutually exclusive. But here's the issue - if you don't know me well enough to know whether I'm open to taking things further, there's absolutely no way for me to know whether or not you ARE just in it for my body.

@Inexorable Username

Also, I think men are much less judgmental about a woman's body than you think they are. Maybe if you have a guy whose sexual experience comes exclusively from looking at porn he will have unrealistic expectations, but men who have seen more than 1 real naked girl in their life I think understand that bodies vary a lot.

Well, I also think that men naturally are actually very non-judgmental about bodies. Much moreso than women. I've made the point on another thread that men seem to find everything sexy. You can wake up with a rats nest for hair, and men somehow find that sexy. It's one of my favorite things about males! If more women knew just how sexy women are to men, I think they would be far less insecure.

That's the issue though - you never really know, do you? Unfortunately, the men who have this attitude get snapped up quickly. What's left are the men who are superficial and have unrealistic expectations. They surf around for a girl who will meet their insanely high standards, even though (if we're being totally honest here), they rarely measure up on the value scale, themselves.

The issue here is not whether or not most men, in the populous, actually demonstrate these behaviors. The issue is most men you are dating probably do, and there's really no way for you to tell who is who. The men who do have these behaviors are very determined to hide them from you.

Since I have so much to lose from trusting a man, I have to be very, very cautious about letting my "heart run away" with me, and keeping an eye out for those sorts of men who want to use me, or don't respect me, or are trying to trick me, or who feel entitled to a perfect barbie doll.

There's also just the insanely high risk factor of actually having your body rejected by someone. It's one thing for males to suffer a fear of rejection from just having asked a woman out. Imagine if you get naked in front of her, and she rejects you. The fear men have about their penises is probably similar to the fear women feel about their entire bodies - no matter how beautiful they are, because unfortunately, we're very good about only seeing the worst aspects of ourselves. On another note, image that, in your entire life, you're only allowed to sleep with 6 people. Then, one of the six has sex with you, and vanishes. Was the sex bad? Why? Do you have bad lady parts? You'll never know. Now you'll have to worry about that with the next five, because you have very, very few chances to get it right.

This is getting pretty detailed...but I'm really hoping here that my perspective helps more men to understand how it actually feels to be a female....and to know that we don't deliberately, intentionally torture you guys, and that our behaviors are most likely a side-product of the way our society is and NOT inherently evil, biological sexual selection factors.

 

[Kormak]

So, what do you guys think?

What would happen if we dissolved the state and abolished all forms of welfare together with the army as well as the rule of law?

Would women take up arms and defend themselves against armies of men trying to invade society in order to take over control?

I think the most likely situation is that they would prefer the men to take up arms, defend them and the childen, provide safety, security and social order and if the men can't then they wil submit to the invading warband in order to survive. Historically this has been the case.

If you try to fight a guy for your safety, he is very likely to physically overwhelm you and rape you. Like what happened in germany after ww2 once the armies were defeated. The Russians pretty much raped they way across Germany, the young, the old the kids, everyone. You need medicine, food? It sold for sex to an American.


A man's primary role and the reason he is larger & stronger than a woman is for defense against tribes of other men who try to take the commons and the women if they can kill the men. As I said even today what women complain about even in modern society is that they do not feel safe to do x or to say y or to dress like z.

I think this is what really makes us patriarchal in the end, why the higherarchy among men really exists. A good leader is useless alone, he has to ensure the rest of the guys fall in line and that happens by making them invested in society. Its not about gathering food or annoying eachother.

Men provide safety, women seek men who can provide safety. e_e its why according to every study women do not like men who are shorter than themselves. (cus they don't feel safe witht he guy) Does the guy exude confidence? No? Again lack of confidence = lack of prducing safety for the female partner = she isn't attracted.

Can you provide shelter, resources, defend me physically and mentally? Would you be interested if I were shorter than you, with anxiety & confidence issues, health related issues, no job and a lower standing in society than you? ^^ I have serious doubts about women saying "Yes" to that... but a guy would 100% date and even fall in love with a woman who is young and healthy even if she has no job, has no skills, is not that smart, has no social standing, wealth, resources and is petite, shy and anxious.

So yeah, my guess is, the men didn't wander off to leave the women and children alone while hunting mamoth. Doing that is really dumb, expecting them to catch up and wander without an armed escort is even dumber.

 

[computerhxr]

"There are also more high IQ, but also extremely retarded men in the gene-pool. Women tend to concentrate more towards the middle, so there are less retarded but also less very high IQ women."

Something that I have noticed is that retardation is many times a product of stigmatization. It is why free speech is important to society. Men are taught to be reserved, while women are taught to express themselves more fluidly. If you've read Malcolm Gladwell's book David and Goliath, he writes about how a doctor with Autism is able to solve problems that normal (in the statistical sense of normal) people are incapable. It is how our greatest weakness can be our greatest strength.

Think of it this way... You are not allowed to use the word 'retarded' because it is rude, so you have to find alternate terms to describe retardation without using the word retarded. That builds neural pathways abnormally (or deviated from the normal mean). Those pathways lead to discoveries through alternate ways of understanding.

Just like if someone has a gimped limb, their muscles will naturally compensate in an attempt to normalize (or balance) given the structure of the injury.

If you research the etymology of 'smart' it essentially is rooted as an acute pain (my interpretation is that pain is trauma or a stigmatization). Moving from broad to narrow, where the masculine is narrow, while the feminine is broad. Fixed and mutable.

Women are stigmatized across a perpendicular axis to men. They have extremely high EQs compared to men.

This nurturing aspect of women is a healing energy, to normalize traumatic male experiences. Again, normalize in the sense of bringing together, away from division, or deviations from the mean. It is extremely important to survival as a species.

Now, this does not justify sexism, or violence, or rape. Quite the opposite actually. Women (or the feminine) are capable of healing trauma and bring nature back into harmony and balance. Diversity is important to evolution and survival. It is a correction to an imbalance. And harmony is a balance of distinct gender roles operating in tandem. Just like the brain has a left and a right side, abstract and concrete.

I don't know if that actually answers the question... I'm tired...

 

[Inexorable Username]

So, what do you guys think?

What would happen if we dissolved the state and abolished all forms of welfare together with the army as well as the rule of law?

Would women take up arms and defend themselves against armies of men trying to invade society in order to take over control?

I think the most likely situation is that they would prefer the men to take up arms, defend them and the childen, provide safety, security and social order and if the men can't then they wil submit to the invading warband in order to survive. Historically this has been the case.

If you try to fight a guy for your safety, he is very likely to physically overwhelm you and rape you. Like what happened in germany after ww2 once the armies were defeated. The Russians pretty much raped they way across Germany, the young, the old the kids, everyone. You need medicine, food? It sold for sex to an American.


A man's primary role and the reason he is larger & stronger than a woman is for defense against tribes of other men who try to take the commons and the women if they can kill the men. As I said even today what women complain about even in modern society is that they do not feel safe to do x or to say y or to dress like z.

I think this is what really makes us patriarchal in the end, why the higherarchy among men really exists. A good leader is useless alone, he has to ensure the rest of the guys fall in line and that happens by making them invested in society. Its not about gathering food or annoying eachother.

Men provide safety, women seek men who can provide safety. e_e its why according to every study women do not like men who are shorter than themselves. (cus they don't feel safe witht he guy) Does the guy exude confidence? No? Again lack of confidence = lack of prducing safety for the female partner = she isn't attracted.

Can you provide shelter, resources, defend me physically and mentally? Would you be interested if I were shorter than you, with anxiety & confidence issues, health related issues, no job and a lower standing in society than you? ^^ I have serious doubts about women saying "Yes" to that.

Well - my argument is that I don't think we evolved that way. Indeed, if you were to do away with weapons, and have a single man attack a group of women, I think a group of women would win.

I think a large group of women would also win against a small group of men. This is the theory of strength in numbers.

If you'll notice, I didn't say "throw away the patriarchy!". I said that I think we should admit that the way we're living feels unnatural. Biologically at odds. Women, biologically, do seem pre-disposed to some degree of dominance. Men, biologically, seem pre-disposed to not be equipped to handle monogamy.

When all factors are equal (equal education, equal protection under the law, equal rights to jobs and property), I think you'll find that there is a tendency, in most successful marriages, for the woman to control her husband. I don't like it, personally. I don't think it's right. I think the sexes should be equal, and I would love for them to treat each other like our idealistic vision of the perfect king and queen - equal dignity and respect, with graceful submission from the woman and tranquil confidence from the man. I don't think that's what is reflected in real life though. Women have a strong desire to rule the household, and women who are repressed tend to do so with sneakiness and manipulation. Either way, the dominance struggle comes out.

Now lets talk about the military angle, in a more modern perspective. It sounds to me like you're taking society back a hundred years or so to when we used to conquer each others shores, physically, with armies. I think it's pretty apparent that we don't do that anymore - but for argument's sake, lets say that we did.

In this fictitious sort of society I've painted, the men would still belong to a home country. It's where you return to after your voyage, and it's where your mothers and children live. It wouldn't be that you breed and say "see you" and never see your kids grow up. I think that would be pretty cold, and could lead to unhealthy mentalities in the long run. In this fake version of the world, boys would most likely have some kind of coming of age, where they would go with their fathers to visit foreign lands. You would have strong mental and emotional ties to your homeland, and because so many men are in transit around the homeland, they, in a sense, become the "army". On a macro scale, men who are coming and going are essentially encapsulating the land that primarily houses their genes and descendants. It's less of a question of building a military, and more of a question of that military simply existing.

In this fictional world, nobody would demand that you pack up and go to some boot camp where you suddenly have to learn to be a fighter. You're with your men, and at a fairly young age (perhaps 10 or 12), you join these men and grow up with them. Enjoying male hierarchy, male ranks, and the male sense of organization. If you see someone who is coming to attack your females, in all likelihood, I think most of the men would feel emboldened to defend their homeland. Nobody is demanding that you do for the sake of oil though, for instance. It's a natural reaction.

It's like in the evolutionary biology example I provided. Men, as the pioneers, set out to bring down big game. In the process, they fell the predators that they meet along the way. By doing that, they have taken care of the "majority of the threat" - the threat on the macro level. Women are following in their wake, somewhat vulnerable because of the presence of children, and because of their smaller stature and lesser strength, but they are also protected by their strength in numbers, and in a sense, the way has been "paved" for them. Just like a gentlemen would lead the way in hacking through the jungle if he had a lady in toe...

Again, this world is a fictional one. It's simply a "what if" scenario to challenge what we think is biologically natural, and if we believe that something like this is more biologically natural than what we have now - well, it helps to fit some of the struggles we're facing in modern society into a better perspective.

But, essentially, in this fictional world...women organize and maintain society, and men are free to come and go as they please. The land that they grew up in, though, is still their home. It's where they return to in old age, where women are there to nurture you and provide for you (we do love to cook, garden, and raise animals after all). It's where they go, among other places, in their prime - and because men are a commodity and not a common, everyday occurrence, men are extremely valuable. I think you would find that in this society, men would have a smaller population, and a higher perceived value than women, so men would be the ones to be sexually selective, most likely.

I don't think you'd have such high populations of lonely men - as men can travel the globe visiting communities of women, and one woman doesn't get tied down to one man, so she can have children by multiple men, which means that more males get partners.

Because males are on the "forefront" of the danger surrounding the female colony, there is a natural aspect of population control. Men also have their own dominance and hierarchy, which probably would also produce some level of population control.

Because men are traveling for sex and the sake of exploration, they diversify the gene pool. They would also be ideally placed to negotiate international peace, trade, etc.

Essentially, you have the patriarchy on the macro scale, and the matriarchy on the slightly more micro scale. However the two spheres rarely collide, so there is seldom a struggle for dominance.

Just...for a second - try to realize that I'm not trying to discredit the role of men and that I'm not produced by the feminist cookie cutter. These are individual, unique ideas, that I feel are valid, fair, and respectful to both sexes - as any proper philosophy should be. See it as something unique, and think about it. Maybe you'll see that there are some good points here.

 

[Kormak]

When all factors are equal (equal education, equal protection under the law, equal rights to jobs and property), I think you'll find that there is a tendency, in most successful marriages, for the woman to control her husband. I don't like it, personally. I don't think it's right. I think the sexes should be equal, and I would love for them to treat each other like our idealistic vision of the perfect king and queen - equal dignity and respect, with graceful submission from the woman and tranquil confidence from the man. I don't think that's what is reflected in real life though. Women have a strong desire to rule the household, and women who are repressed tend to do so with sneakiness and manipulation. Either way, the dominance struggle comes out.

I can agree with this from personal experience. My upbringing makes it so I'm very aware of manipulation and social dinamics (Fe). Women do this at the office as well all the time both to each-other but moreso with men, who often get frustrated dealing with it and just give in. :P not me tho... I'm somewhat of a woman in this regard as well, certainly more skilled at this type of behaviour than previous girlfriends. Thx grandma, you devious sociopathic bitch XD... I learned from the best.

Now lets talk about the military angle, in a more modern perspective. It sounds to me like you're taking society back a hundred years or so to when we used to conquer each others shores, physically, with armies. I think it's pretty apparent that we don't do that anymore - but for argument's sake, lets say that we did.

Oh yes we do that today in fact. We just happen to be in a geographic location where it does not happen at this point in time. History isn't over. It will happen again & it does happen in other places. Utopias and reality are quite different things.

In this fictitious sort of society I've painted, the men would still belong to a home country. It's where you return to after your voyage, and it's where your mothers and children live. It wouldn't be that you breed and say "see you" and never see your kids grow up. I think that would be pretty cold, and could lead to unhealthy mentalities in the long run. In this fake version of the world, boys would most likely have some kind of coming of age, where they would go with their fathers to visit foreign lands. You would have strong mental and emotional ties to your homeland, and because so many men are in transit around the homeland, they, in a sense, become the "army". On a macro scale, men who are coming and going are essentially encapsulating the land that primarily houses their genes and descendants. It's less of a question of building a military, and more of a question of that military simply existing.

Children need their fathers. Something seems to be lost when the father isn't there for the kids, this shows in fatherless homes. Children from fatherless homes are more likely to be poor, become involved in drug and alcohol abuse, drop out of school, and suffer from health and emotional problems. Boys are more likely to become involved in crime, and girls are more likely to become pregnant as teens. Its not a good idea to have the mother raise the kids alone. There is statistical data on single mother families that backs this up. Kids need both their mother and father to be active and present in their upbringing.

In this fictional world, nobody would demand that you pack up and go to some boot camp where you suddenly have to learn to be a fighter. You're with your men, and at a fairly young age (perhaps 10 or 12), you join these men and grow up with them. Enjoying male hierarchy, male ranks, and the male sense of organization. If you see someone who is coming to attack your females, in all likelihood, I think most of the men would feel emboldened to defend their homeland. Nobody is demanding that you do for the sake of oil though, for instance. It's a natural reaction.

This is a problem with leadership and government, if corporations had their way for example we'd still have child labor.

But, essentially, in this fictional world...women organize and maintain society, and men are free to come and go as they please. The land that they grew up in, though, is still their home. It's where they return to in old age, where women are there to nurture you and provide for you (we do love to cook, garden, and raise animals after all). It's where they go, among other places, in their prime - and because men are a commodity and not a common, everyday occurrence, men are extremely valuable. I think you would find that in this society, men would have a smaller population, and a higher perceived value than women, so men would be the ones to be sexually selective, most likely.

If the men come and go as they please, low numbers and they aren't trained in the art of warfare you would quickly fall prey to a more highly militerized and agressive power. Either through direct conflict or a slow and meticulous takover of society from the inside. More than one way to skin a cat.

I don't think you'd have such high populations of lonely men - as men can travel the globe visiting communities of women, and one woman doesn't get tied down to one man, so she can have children by multiple men, which means that more males get partners.

Because males are on the "forefront" of the danger surrounding the female colony, there is a natural aspect of population control. Men also have their own dominance and hierarchy, which probably would also produce some level of population control.

Because men are traveling for sex and the sake of exploration, they diversify the gene pool. They would also be ideally placed to negotiate international peace, trade, etc.

Essentially, you have the patriarchy on the macro scale, and the matriarchy on the slightly more micro scale. However the two spheres rarely collide, so there is seldom a struggle for dominance.

That is detrimental for the kids & women as well, see here:

Kids need the stability of a family. The investment kids need is very high both emnotionally, materially and otherwise. You'd have to completely restructure society and they would still want to know who their father is and where has he gone. if you have multiple kids from multiple fathers, where do all these women get all the resources needed for the kids? Its hard enough raising 1 kid as 2 ppl, its worse alone, where do these women find the time to work? Do they depend financially on the fathers? If they don't work, who does all the gruntwork that keeps society afloat?

Just...for a second - try to realize that I'm not trying to discredit the role of men and that I'm not produced by the feminist cookie cutter. These are individual, unique ideas, that I feel are valid, fair, and respectful to both sexes - as any proper philosophy should be. See it as something unique, and think about it. Maybe you'll see that there are some good points here.

^^ thats not the problem. I'm just giving you feedback.

 

[Ex-User (14663)]

I think this notion that women need a guy to protect them is based on a projection of current monogamy/nuclear-family based society into the prehistoric past. People used to live in hunter-gatherer groups, not nuclear families with their individual house and a picket fence. As laid out in "The Mating Mind" by Geoffery Miller, the most likely setup was that the basic social unit was women + their children, whereas males were roaming around and being useful to women from time to time by means of hunting etc. Coupled with the fact that they probably also had weapons, having a 10% height advantage was probably worth next to zilch as far as human-to-human combat goes.

What would be highly important in a man though, would be his social value. Like, you can be a massive dude, but if you have no social status and no alliances, then 2 small dudes with knives (or 2 small women with knives) can take you out as easily as stepping on an ant.

 

[Kormak]

I think this notion that women need a guy to protect them is based on a projection of current monogamy/nuclear-family based society into the prehistoric past. People used to live in hunter-gatherer groups, not nuclear families with their individual house and a picket fence. As laid out in "The Mating Mind" by Geoffery Miller, the most likely setup was that the basic social unit was women + their children, whereas males were roaming around and being useful to women from time to time by means of hunting etc. Coupled with the fact that they probably also had weapons, having a 10% height advantage was probably worth next to zilch as far as human-to-human combat goes.

What would be highly important in a man though, would be his social value. Like, you can be a massive dude, but if you have no social status and no alliances, then 2 small dudes with knives (or 2 small women with knives) can take you out as easily as stepping on an ant.

Thats just dumb. Height and size absolutely matters in hand to hand combat & grappling. Its why we have weight classes. It also matters in terms of hauling gear, wearing armor, dragging your fellow man or carrying him / her out of danger in a battlefiled, operating heavy machinery, digging trenches. Walking for hours carrying heavy loads, pushing and pulling strength in case the truck get caught in mud, ice, snow. Ability to maintain a tank requires you to be quite strong to do certain things in terms of repair and the list goes on and on. A soldier absolutely needs to be physically fit and capable. Your arm length and size absolutely matters in mele weapon use, even a knife fight.

^^ this is not Holywood, war is more complex than a few unarmed tall guys vs women and gnomes armed with knives. It will most likely be one well trained army vs another with gear and war machines. Its not that simple.

Its not just that tho:

 

[Kormak]

We are patriarchal because as a species we are warlike and violent much like chimpanzees and very unlike bonobos. Kids require up to a minimum of 18 years of investment from both parents as each parent passes on different things to his and her kids. Kinds require an investment form the community as well. This way the kids get fully socialized. This is a lot of resources and not like other animals. Women rely on both the father and society for protection and resources, material and otherwise. This is why women are attracted to confident, healthy well built guys in high social positions, who exude safety as well as social safety nets from society / collectives of women that can help them. Men are attracted to young healthy women & higherarchies where they can compete. People who do well in their environment probably have good genes meant to survive in said environment and therfore are more attractive on both ends. This means they are more likley to reproduce. Women are really the only one of the sexes who is equipped by evolution to properly respond to the needs of her infant, this has consequences outside of the mother-child bond. Kids require a family to be stable long term and multiple relationships, multiple kids from multiple fathers is not a stable structure that provides this. It is in fact detrimental. Men need reassurance that the kids are theirs and not someone else's so they don't waste resources on some other guy's kids. Women are anxious about sex, because the consequences of it are harsh for them. They tend to dominate men through subterfuge in order to get what they want.

It is all these reasons why we have gender roles and why unwritten social rules exist, why birth control is a thing and women want more and more safety nets & rules in place so they can compete with men under capitalism & have safety+security. Environmental factors are forces of selection, those people who are unfit for whatever reason, will not procreate and so their genes do not get passed on. This can be as simple as me being a hedonist who only thinks of his own pleasure and enjoyment for example, so I sterilize myself to have sex only for fun. Or my cousin not wanting to deal with the burdens of being a mother, so she aborts any "accidents" that stand between her and her CEO career. Or the neighbur being gay and having sex with men / not passing on his genes.

I don't think its so hard to understand. The environment also has challanges on multiple levels ranging from falling for disinformation, to bad consequences of certain chains of events and other things which influence the lives of both sexes.

I don't like to try and redesign something that has evolved to work like this for specific reasons. Its likely to just cause more harm. There are clear reasons why the family exists, why men and women need to work together if they want to ensure their own legacy survives through their kids. Squabbling only leads to faliure and those that fail are not that ones who decide how the future looks.

I have a question for high IQ atheists. You complain about religion & dumb people, but most of you I know do not have kids, don't plan on having any, while the religious & the dumb have many. Doesen't seem so smart from where I'm standing. Why?

 

[Ex-User (14663)]

@Kormak if you're talking about biology and why for example men are larger than women, you can't use cases from modern-day battlefields. E.g. there weren't any large-scale wars when people lived in 60-person tribes. You have to recreate the social environment of the prehistoric era and poinpoint relevant factors of selection pressure in order to say anything reasonable about the evolution of the genders. Like, why are for example chimpanzees vastly stronger than humans, does it indicate differences in selection pressures between them and us? It's also noteworthy you bring up chimpanzees because it is at this point known that the dumbed-down narratives about concepts like "alpha males" originally emerged from studies of chimapanzees and indiscriminately transferred to humans.

 

[Cognisant]

@Inexorable Username
I skim-read a lot of posts and I’m mainly replying to the post I was tagged in so sorry in advance if the point I’m about to make has already been made.

Women being objectified as sex objects has a lot to do with men being raised starved of affection and taught the only form of acceptable affection they may receive is through sex, if it was socially acceptable for straight men to be affectionate with each other I think that would go a long way to making them less desperate with women. Of course if more women were more open to casual sexual activities that would go a long way as well, men are wired to seek sexual gratification but that need not be sex, handjobs/blowjobs (even with a condom) will suffice. Once drained of their venom so to speak (it may take 2-3 goes depending upon how young and fit they are) their urge to get into your pants is gone, indeed at this point if they don’t find you intellectually stimulating they may lose interest in you (temporarily) but if you have something interesting to talk about or you want to be platonically affectionate now is the time. Just beware the sedative effect, make sure he’s had something caffeinated and/or you’re not doing this after he’s had a long day or he may have trouble staying awake.

On the topic of conversation I think a lot of women do themselves a disservice by being too reserved, if we go with the metaphor of a starving man talking to a lamb roast if you want him to pay attention to who you are rather than what then you need to engage him in meaningful discourse. Have opinions, have interests, have goals and desires and hopes and fears and emotions and above all share them, these are the things that make people unique and interesting, without them you’re “just a girl”, a non-entity who is only of interest as something to have sex with. Also if you’re worried about giving handjobs/blowjobs being misinterpreted, an entirely valid concern, the solution to this and many other problems is better communication, if you just want foreplay set your expectations at the start and be clear that you only want foreplay. For all our faults men are good at following orders, and if a guy finds it frustrating to engage exclusively in foreplay the “take it or leave it” nature of the encounter means that he knows exactly what to do, if he’s unhappy with it the ball’s in his court, he can’t blame you for toying with him because you made the situation clear.

Of course you don’t want to be blowing every frustrated man you have to interact with nor would it be reasonable to expect you to, I’m just saying it’s an option, a tool to use to get what you want, your actions alone won’t solve society’s ills and nor should you feel guilty about using you privilege as a woman to order men around. Indeed I believe this is what a matriarchal society looks like, women free to both express and use their gender as they see fit, and the men will be happier too because as I’ve said many times we’re goal orientated, we like being ordered around, if anything what causes us distress is a lack of direction and/or not understanding the terms of interaction.

Under the current status quo anything remotely sexual is going to be misinterpreted because for the vast majority of guys that’s the only way they can contextualize it, if you make out with them you must want to be their girlfriend and have sex with them. Once you’ve explained to them what you want (to make out) and the terms by which you want it (no strings attached) the ball is back in their court, it’s their choice to agree or refuse and if they agree then they’ll know not to expect more. Although of course if things are going especially well he might ask you to reconsider and if you do just be sure to explicitly state your new set of terms so he can agree to them, i.e. do you expect exclusivity?

 

[Kormak]

@Kormak if you're talking about biology and why for example men are larger than women, you can't use cases from modern-day battlefields. E.g. there weren't any large-scale wars when people lived in 60-person tribes. You have to recreate the social environment of the prehistoric era and poinpoint relevant factors of selection pressure in order to say anything reasonable about the evolution of the genders. Like, why are for example chimpanzees vastly stronger than humans, does it indicate differences in selection pressures between them and us? It's also noteworthy you bring up chimpanzees because it is at this point known that the dumbed-down narratives about concepts like "alpha males" originally emerged from studies of chimapanzees and indiscriminately transferred to humans.

Size and strength applies to both hand to hand combat as well as combat with melee weapons, the ability to draw heavyer bows (ranged weapons), throw javelins and the ability to dig trenches, build fortifications and so on. As we go back in time size and strength value increases with the amount of dangerous manual labor.

Humans however also rely on intelligence in comparison to chimpanzees. So strategy, tactics, logistics and the ability to innovate counts equally as much. A tribe that expends men to do war and defends the women & children can easily replace lost soldiers in comparison where women also fight and die. Domestication of horses, herding animals, mounted archery, the invention of the wheel, seaworthy ships and boats and so on all increase survival & the ability to outcompete rivals.

Even in modern-days, your safety in Norway is basically guaranteed by your geopolitical military allies. Most European nations have low military budgets and can afford these days not to force all men to undergo military training, because the US army has our back. If the US, for example, withdraws the army from the world stage we'd be at a severe disadvantage, the military budget would skyrocket and compulsory military training for men would be back on the table. This is a certainty in Central-East Europe, where historically we were constantly invaded and subjugated by either the West or the East. Completely different mindset here in comparison naive high trust society milk drinking, Yngvi worshiping Swedes. The sense of safety & comfort in Western Europe is the result of it's geopolitical standing.

A way of organizing society survives based on how effective it is. Societies that are organized on faulty logic and bad principles eventually crumble.

 

[redbaron]

the idea that size wouldn't matter because 2 people with weapons > 1 person without regardless of size doesn't make sense because weapons don't exist in some special vacuum accessible only by small people, and cooperation is not something exclusive to smaller people either.

in modern society outside of warfare we don't really have that much use for size specifically but if we're talking about tribal or nomadic cultures then obviously it matters

and if we're talking about warfare, it's obviously relevant despite being offset by other factors it's of benefit in all but outlier situations

 

[redbaron]

man i just wanna take scientific out of the title because this whole thread feels like an affront to the very notion of what science is being named so

 

[Rebis]

@Inexorable Username
However, I also think you have certain insecurities that you project onto men and their sexual behavior, for example making a demarcation between sexual interest and interest in "you as a person". I think you are wrong in the notion that they have to be mutually exclusive.

No, I don't think they're mutually exclusive. But here's the issue - if you don't know me well enough to know whether I'm open to taking things further, there's absolutely no way for me to know whether or not you ARE just in it for my body.

@Inexorable Username

Also, I think men are much less judgmental about a woman's body than you think they are. Maybe if you have a guy whose sexual experience comes exclusively from looking at porn he will have unrealistic expectations, but men who have seen more than 1 real naked girl in their life I think understand that bodies vary a lot.

Well, I also think that men naturally are actually very non-judgmental about bodies. Much moreso than women. I've made the point on another thread that men seem to find everything sexy. You can wake up with a rats nest for hair, and men somehow find that sexy. It's one of my favorite things about males! If more women knew just how sexy women are to men, I think they would be far less insecure.

That's the issue though - you never really know, do you? Unfortunately, the men who have this attitude get snapped up quickly. What's left are the men who are superficial and have unrealistic expectations. They surf around for a girl who will meet their insanely high standards, even though (if we're being totally honest here), they rarely measure up on the value scale, themselves.

The issue here is not whether or not most men, in the populous, actually demonstrate these behaviors. The issue is most men you are dating probably do, and there's really no way for you to tell who is who. The men who do have these behaviors are very determined to hide them from you.

Since I have so much to lose from trusting a man, I have to be very, very cautious about letting my "heart run away" with me, and keeping an eye out for those sorts of men who want to use me, or don't respect me, or are trying to trick me, or who feel entitled to a perfect barbie doll.

There's also just the insanely high risk factor of actually having your body rejected by someone. It's one thing for males to suffer a fear of rejection from just having asked a woman out. Imagine if you get naked in front of her, and she rejects you. The fear men have about their penises is probably similar to the fear women feel about their entire bodies - no matter how beautiful they are, because unfortunately, we're very good about only seeing the worst aspects of ourselves. On another note, image that, in your entire life, you're only allowed to sleep with 6 people. Then, one of the six has sex with you, and vanishes. Was the sex bad? Why? Do you have bad lady parts? You'll never know. Now you'll have to worry about that with the next five, because you have very, very few chances to get it right.

This is getting pretty detailed...but I'm really hoping here that my perspective helps more men to understand how it actually feels to be a female....and to know that we don't deliberately, intentionally torture you guys, and that our behaviors are most likely a side-product of the way our society is and NOT inherently evil, biological sexual selection factors.

Are you angry with what you generally experience with males?

Anytime I read a post thats focused on males/females it seems to harbour some intensity to emphasize such a quality. There are many people that are seen as outliers and likely do not give a solid fuck about being a male/female. It's not a part of their identity, or if it is you can imagine that they lack personal insight, defaulting on superficial qualities like sex, "likes to have fun" and "watches TV". Females have unrealistic expectations too, just the same as males the only difference is females are generally more emotionally intune. I know females that expect a man to do everything, " a real man" that works, wears suits and all that superficial post-war american values. Both parties are feeding off each other, I see females wanting a burly Builder, a plumber and the likes mainly for his occupation. Males may want a girl for her tits, or something as equally superficial.

Yes males delude themselves into objectifying females that their resistance to ownership is simply a devilishly torturous game. Yet as we're seeing with equality in terms of social roles, functions and interests that females are also irrationally taking out their anger on males thinking they're playing games, going out with other girls and acting like "fuckbois". This isn't entirely one sided, not at all. It's a scalar of independence: it's increasingly becoming balanced. Most of the psychological profile we attach to genders to me seems like a product of social functions, if you give both parties independence then you're going to get chaos. I think the reason why males objectified females and not vice-versa is females were subservient to males so they lacked the independence, or confidence to convey their thoughts.

Females genuinely play games, they aren't just fearful and anxious because of a males behaviour. They aren't reactionaries to the male psyche. Males play games too but its emphasized less because of the lack of emotional upbringing for males, hence why females are seen as "breaking males hearts" but it's a product of the male not having emotional resillience to aptly move on.

I don't think males that've had sex are insecure about their penis sizes, I've never been. I think it's a joke from pubescence where there was infact a large difference due to people developing at different times, it kinda stuck around as a joke along with general insults, "the lad banter".

I think this whole contextual assignment of characteristics/limitations to male/females is exclusively a product of how well you are socialised.
My childhood friends when I was a kid were called cealan, Enya and Caolan. Cealan was gay, done irish dancing and dressed as micheal flatley: Enya was A tonboy and like 12 years later is now predominantly lesbian and Caolan was just the nerdy kid who always had nintendo products. I didn't really sit with groups of people, either male or female: I'd sit by myself when I was kid but people would still come over and invite me to their circle but I'd usually refuse. Sometimes I'd play football or tag with the lads, sometimes I would just talk to girls all day.

When I went to my grannies I would hang around with lads, they wore football tops played video games and we'd meet girls around the estate. There was less diversity there which I attribute to the are being impoverished and I think gender roles are a lot more prominent at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder.

During my teenage years and still to this day my best friend is probably shantelle. It started off as a friendship, brief romance, friendship again and little slips of intimacy here and there, but we'd never get in a relationship with each other. She has been the victim of some horrible males, but I also know she's directly lied to me to distort the truth. I ignored it but it was a rather nasty, and verifiably untrue lie. I don't see females as innocently at the exploitation of males. Males are a lot more direct and lack deception, while I'd attribute the lack of independence in females during the former part of the century as a reason why females are generally more cunning and deceptive with "games". The way we define games in this context seems to be anything against fulfilling the fantasy of the the person describing it as a game, they lacked the "reward" from playing. This is true for both parties, that's for sure. Females just have an upper hand in emotional understanding, it doesn't mean they don't fuel their thoughts with anger, projecting deception on the other party and it certainly doesn't mean they're not fantasical.

Most of the differences betwen male and females apart from the boring sexual dimorphism seems to be socialised and on that note, it's rejected by the purveyance of individualism. Both are quite equal in terms of jobs, voting power and entertainment.


I don't think generalizations are practical, at least as something as ubiquitious as a sex of the species homo-sapien. We got like 4 billion each or something. Both consume similar ideas, with a limited means of interpreting those ideas, so the output isn't much different. I can learn behaviours from females and vice versa.

I generalise people based on a cohort of behaviours, but they don't consider gender to a large degree. The only thing which I think truly lacks in males is the emotional intelligence, even in gay males they don't exhibit it that well either. That would be the only reliable disctinction I'd make when taking about X or Y. I just think people are becoming posessed by discussing gender, it's neverending. It's like an eternal war as if there's a constant need to revise what the definition includes: It was sex, then gender, then there is elements of that sex that don't represent the generalised perception of the sex, then there is smaller cohorts of individual behaviours separate from the sex, and then finally you get to individualism. For equality and objectivity purposes (which is a theme in this discussion, identifying intent in the opposite sex) it is likely best to stay at this level and understand the individual, their qualities and how they compliment each other.

man i just wanna take scientific out of the title because this whole thread feels like an affront to the very notion of what science is being named so

Science, bitch!

 

[Rebis]

Generalisations certainly haven't aided me in any capacity, since my bestfriend was gay and the other was a female, I was lumped as an outsider. Moving into the domain of teenagers I was thought to be gay because I hung around with gay people, girls and while I did hang out with lads it wasn't as much. I usually picked a group of people on a day-to-day basis, Who I'd walk with to the shop or hang out with at lunch. I was incredibly anxious around teenage girlfriends, couldn't make out with them even though that is clearly what they wanted, and then we'd break up. Then we'd still be friends and talk. I had a Long Distance Relationship, the same thing happened. I mainly liked talking to people that overstepped their generalizations because that is as close as you get to understanding the person: Gossip girls were boring, football lads were boring too. I talked to males/females that weren't part of both categories. I was thought to be gay by quite a few of my partners when we talked as friends probably because I talked to them as a friend first. I was thought to be gay by a lot of gay guys too, it resulted in sex because I can be strange at times.

Anyways now I haven't got anything like that at all: I still talk to girls disproportionately to males but they aren't typical females, and the males I talk to aren't that emotionless. I'm being seen as a straight, alpha guy. None of these generalizations helped me at all, and rather they subjugated me to what lazy people, who can't be bothered with individual analysis has put on me. It's caused me a lot of headaches in the past, thinking I must be suppressing my gayness because everyone thinks that and I don't want to be one of those 40 year olds who finally realises they're gay. And then me talking to females and gays normally they judge me as straight, and therefore not someone they want to let into their inner circle. All of these generalizations and categories just prevent people from becoming themselves. It is exhausting seeing the hurdles I have to jump through with people to avoid their biases and the ones I have to expose themselves to (I'm thinking of some funny ones):

"Yes, I workout and watch anime"
"Yes, I like anime but I'm not a fedorian"
"Yes, I read books without stating "book reader" in my bio"
"Yes, I see art galleries and I study computer science"
"Yes, this club is good even though it's a gay bar, and wow surprise: I'm not gay"
(Used to be relevant): "Yes, I play alot of games but don't define myself as a gamer"
(Used to be relevant):"Yes, I hang around with stoners and people who drink without doing said things"
"Yes, I know about a lot of topics without having studied them in a formal institution! WOww"
"Yes, I know about pharmaceuticals it doesn't mean I should study that!"

Categories are necessary for formatting knowledge, but they're really annoying when it comes to gender, orientation and personality.

Inferring generalizations of a people with behaviour y of Sex (XY),
then combatting that behaviour to be replaced with behaviour x of Sex (XX)
is just socialising people into behaviours, instead of going towards individualism.

I don't think males objectify females much more than vice versa, but I'm sure in conveying that message you're reinforcing the narrative: Some females will be "disgusted" at the objectification, while others will over time understand their body can get a lot of these males that objectify them, which reinforces both gender roles. Smash people's generalizations and these compartmentalized personalities will be set free. I think the best way to stop these generalizations from propegating is to never refer to behaviour as that of XX or XY in a contrary perspective: "Males have dis, females have dat" It's easy for us to associate a sex with a behaviour, rather than simply discussing the behaviour which is evidently the descriptive and purposeful component.

"A lot of males objectify" (in context of your past relationships, for example)
"I've had past relationships with males that objectified me"

The second one puts it into context, which keeps it seperate from strengthening/reinforcing gender functions. Without the SJW persecution of everybody, I think gender neutral pronouns, or just referring to people in 3rd person as them or their would reduce a lot of these behavioural clumping on the genders.

The socialisation of genders is a product of the behaviours we associate with that gender. There is no eternal, impervious definition to the way each gender behaves that would illicit hellfire damnation if broken, so the propagation of behaviours associated with roles are solely the result of us connecting certain behaviours with genders. Males are angry, females are kind. Men work a lot, females nope. A proactive approach to negate the intuitive use of our language should separate gender roles and behaviour.

The fear of rejection exists in all of us, don't think of others acceptance to validate your own self-worth. Some of us abolish it to an insignificant portion of our psyche, some it stays with until their death. I'll not say I fear rejection, but what I fear most is being inhibited by fear. If people were to reject me far and wide it would be painful, but what I fear more is being controlled by fear. Fear is the god of our world, we must conquer that which holds authority over us.

 

[scorpiomover]

You don't know what to do, because you're told that every option is wrong.

Even if you do everything that women want, you're regularly being told you're evil, lazy, stupid and incompetent.

If you keep away from women, then you still get abuse heaped on you.

You're wrong, and it's unhealthy for you.
We could talk about it...but you would have to not value that frame of thinking. The way you're thinking is subjective, so if you take pride in it, then you would be defensive if someone were to challenge it. In which case, due to the subjective nature of the material, you're likely to shut down counter arguments before you consider them.
Let me know if you want your perspective to be challenged.

Sure. There's no pride in thinking that women are against you, not as long as you want women in your life. So for gay men, there might be pride in this type of thinking. But not for heterosexual men.

Of course, there's pride in it IF those men wished to blame women for their relation ship problems. But as long as they are also partially to blame, it doesn't help. So it only there if the man goes about claiming that he's perfect when it comes to relationships in every possible way and so if there is a fault, it must be with women.

I am not one of those people. I don't even think that there are many people on this Earth who would say that I was blameless, and the few who would, seem to be women anyway.

So, teach away.

I had a skewed perspective at one point, and no one was around to help me with it. It sucked. I was really at sea.

As I said, teach away.

Anyways, we could probably make a whole new thread about that topic! It's a massive one. I feel like it's also something people are desperate to discuss with the walls down, if you know what I mean. Maybe you should start the thread?

The whole point of a new thread here, would be for you to share your perspective on how and why I am wrong.

I feel like I'm making too many!

I start many more threads in my head, but get paralysed by a lack of confidence. So it's refreshing and pleasing to at least see someone else starting threads, particularly threads that seem interesting and not over-bearing.

Hope you don't feel judged! I know the way I speak isn't appropriate. I'm sorry. I don't have time today to go through and flower everything up so it sounds sweet and covers all of the disclaimer bases. Just know that I don't actually judge you, in the slightest, and I can totally understand why you feel the way that you feel. Feminism upsets me too!

Thanks for the vote of support.

 

[Inexorable Username]

@Kormak if you're talking about biology and why for example men are larger than women, you can't use cases from modern-day battlefields. E.g. there weren't any large-scale wars when people lived in 60-person tribes. You have to recreate the social environment of the prehistoric era and poinpoint relevant factors of selection pressure in order to say anything reasonable about the evolution of the genders. Like, why are for example chimpanzees vastly stronger than humans, does it indicate differences in selection pressures between them and us? It's also noteworthy you bring up chimpanzees because it is at this point known that the dumbed-down narratives about concepts like "alpha males" originally emerged from studies of chimapanzees and indiscriminately transferred to humans.

Still reading everything you said, but I’m very interested in the book you mentioned! You really seem to “get” the idea I’m trying to point out here! You get +1 for being the first person to appreciate the concept!

One note I would like to make about alpha males. I think, in fact, that the concept of alpha males actually stemmed from a long term study of wolves in captivity. It’s my understanding from the research I’ve done that that’s where most of our convoluted and completely inaccurate concepts of male dominance stem from.

Not only was the study already completely lacking in validity insofar as its applications to human behaviors are concerned (humans having descended from primates, not wolves), but the researcher also recanted his theory about wolf hierarchy. Once we had a better understanding of wolves in the wild, it transpired that the concept of the “alpha male” was pretty misleading, and not at all a foundational structure of wolf social organization.

I could be misremembering, so it’s worth looking up.

Anyways, there’s a few flaws we borrowed from that philosophy that are still contaminating laymen today, even though scientists have dismissed them for many years now.

One of the flaws, as I understand it, is the idea that alpha males are the biggest and strongest. With wolves, male dominance will transpire that way through direct one-on-one combat between males. With chimpanzees, males decide social dominance often by rising to the top of a female grouping of chimps. The male that is the most dominant may have intelligence, or social keenness, but may not necessarily be large or powerful, and will most likely be a submissive male in another grouping.

Another flaw, from what I could see from my research, was the concept that male chimpanzees guarded their mates. That is something that a wolf will do after copulating with a female, but from what I read of chimpanzee behavior, chimpanzees pretty much leave after they mate.

There was one primate species I found that shared characteristic similar to our misunderstood notions of dominance. I believe it was the baboon. At any rate, researchers found higher levels of testosterone in these males. Males would fight each other using strength and size for dominance, would essentially rape females, and then would guard females - not only preventing other males from copulating, but also preventing the female from having any opportunity to mate with other males on her end.
The researchers documented high levels of cortisone in these animals and what appeared to be a fairly short-lived life due to stress. This model of dominance does not seem to have been a very successful one.

We see this with other mammals too. Bison, for instance, may fight for their right to a large selection of females in oestrus, but they also have to defend females in oestrus from other males. The stress of the rut can cause male bison to die of the extreme amount of strain of enduring multiple fights per day, and having little opportunity to eat.

Really, it’s frankly astounding that given the mountain of evidence to the contrary, men in society still hold tooth and nail to a research theory from so long ago that wasn’t even based on our own species.

But it’s like what the YouTuber Joe Rogan said in his interview with...someone. (Adam something from Adam ruins everything). Anyways, Rogan essentially said something to the effect of “Everyone knows this is the truth, so why can’t you just accept it?”

To me, that sums up society’s ideologies in a nutshell. Don’t question the theory, if enough people tell you it’s true - it must be true.

That’s why I question our philosophy regarding males as the “providers and protectors”. So much of how our species interacts - especially how the sexes interact - just seems unnatural. Males and females are in a constant dominance struggle - behavior which I feel is not readily observed in almost any mammal, and is quite unnatural. There are so many aspects of our society that seem unnaturally stressful - aspects you do not normally observe in nature.

I think that we looked at the way society was, assumed that’s the way it should be, and tried to find evolutionary reasons for it.
That’s why it’s such a mystery as to why females evolved permanent breasts, a hidden oestrus, and such a short heat cycle.

If, instead, we look at the most likely way that humans evolved and the evolutionary methods that make the most sense for how the animals were living at that time, things like permanent breasts start to make sense. (As I described in my original concept)

I’m not saying the concept is right. I’m sure that it is wrong. However, I think it’s more likely to be right than the misguided perspective we have today.

I’ll have to research nuclear families and look up that book! Thanks for the tip!

 

[Rebis]

We are patriarchal because as a species we are warlike and violent much like chimpanzees and very unlike bonobos. Kids require up to a minimum of 18 years of investment from both parents as each parent passes on different things to his and her kids. Kinds require an investment form the community as well. This way the kids get fully socialized. This is a lot of resources and not like other animals. Women rely on both the father and society for protection and resources, material and otherwise. This is why women are attracted to confident, healthy well built guys in high social positions, who exude safety as well as social safety nets from society / collectives of women that can help them. Men are attracted to young healthy women & higherarchies where they can compete. People who do well in their environment probably have good genes meant to survive in said environment and therfore are more attractive on both ends. This means they are more likley to reproduce. Women are really the only one of the sexes who is equipped by evolution to properly respond to the needs of her infant, this has consequences outside of the mother-child bond. Kids require a family to be stable long term and multiple relationships, multiple kids from multiple fathers is not a stable structure that provides this. It is in fact detrimental. Men need reassurance that the kids are theirs and not someone else's so they don't waste resources on some other guy's kids. Women are anxious about sex, because the consequences of it are harsh for them. They tend to dominate men through subterfuge in order to get what they want.

It is all these reasons why we have gender roles and why unwritten social rules exist, why birth control is a thing and women want more and more safety nets & rules in place so they can compete with men under capitalism & have safety+security. Environmental factors are forces of selection, those people who are unfit for whatever reason, will not procreate and so their genes do not get passed on. This can be as simple as me being a hedonist who only thinks of his own pleasure and enjoyment for example, so I sterilize myself to have sex only for fun. Or my cousin not wanting to deal with the burdens of being a mother, so she aborts any "accidents" that stand between her and her CEO career. Or the neighbur being gay and having sex with men / not passing on his genes.

I don't think its so hard to understand. The environment also has challanges on multiple levels ranging from falling for disinformation, to bad consequences of certain chains of events and other things which influence the lives of both sexes.

I don't like to try and redesign something that has evolved to work like this for specific reasons. Its likely to just cause more harm. There are clear reasons why the family exists, why men and women need to work together if they want to ensure their own legacy survives through their kids. Squabbling only leads to faliure and those that fail are not that ones who decide how the future looks.

I have a question for high IQ atheists. You complain about religion & dumb people, but most of you I know do not have kids, don't plan on having any, while the religious & the dumb have many. Doesen't seem so smart from where I'm standing. Why?

Our capacity for language, socialization and global dominance is understated here.
Evolution has a role in genetic information which determines physiological make up, it equips us with primitive forms of expression like a baby crying as a danger signal, basic emotions and such but it does not pass on complex social arrangements which is genetically inherited by the next species: When women don't agree with men they aren't eradicated, thereby eliminating this theoretical "Assertive" gene from the gene pool. Socialized roles exist on top of sexual functions, they're easily programmable via the environment. A traditionalist in epoch x becomes a revolutionary in epoch y, and then someone in epoch z reverts back to traditionalism and its seen as avant garde.

Men may be stronger on average and testosterone may help performance, but that determined the functions in a primitive society where strength and performance were measures of status. Now is not that case: Men/women are pretty equal in terms of tasks, in the sense these are steps in which either party can interpret and apply to their environment.

Social roles, separate from sexual fornication are not evolutionary. Dogs don't hold domestic genes, raise them in the wild and they'll act like what you'd expect from descendants of wolves. With technology there's less power on men with an advantage in Strength and height. Most work requires a functional brain, a desire to work and for most a desire to participate in consumerism with entertainment. Both genders demonstrate that capacity.

 

[Inexorable Username]

@Rebis

Wow - that's a lot to paw through!

Let me try to be succinct, if I can. (Always a challenge for me!)
Remember, again, as I always try to say at some point in my threads - I don't always think I'm right. In fact, I always assume I'm wrong. The degree to which I'm wrong is what matters, and voicing my opinions by using my lovely freedom of speech is the ability that gives me the power to find out just how wrong I may be.

Once again, this is my philosophy on the subject of "Generalizations", so maybe it isn't entirely right. I think it may have some useful points though.

Generalizations are useful and necessary
Generalizations allow us to understand sociology from an abstract sense of statistical probability. Abstract - meaning, often, we don't actually have the statistics to show.

These sorts of generalizations lead to all kinds of intellectual advances for our species, particularly in the sciences. Without them, we cannot form theories, or hypothesis, or create something like the science of medicine (which is largely based off of generalizations made on white men, and often applies poorly to women.)

What is often not useful or necessary, is labeling.

When I was in school, we were taught that labeling people was bad, and that you shouldn't do it. We had jocks, geeks, goths - you name it. We understood, though, that you shouldn't put people in boxes. Everybody is different.

It was a useful, good lesson for children to learn, because it reminds you to explore each person as an individual and find out how they break the mold. I think it's safe to say that pretty much everyone breaks the mold. It's ridiculous to assume that one person is going to meet every single stereotype point for point, and if they did, that, too, could be considered breaking the mold.

All this being said, why do we tell our daughters things like "Boys only want one thing". It's a cautionary generalization. In general, boys in high school are looking for sex. Are all boys sex maniacs? No, that would be logically invalid.

A generalization, in and of itself, is not logically invalid. When a generalization is used to prove an assertion, it becomes a fallacy. That is because a generalization, in and of itself, proves nothing.

Generalizations are the forest, or the macro scale of an issue. Females are shorter than men - a generalization. It's understood that some females are taller than some men.

Why it is useful to discuss generalizations in our genders, is that it helps us to interpret potential reasoning behind the behaviors of the sexes, and the logic behind that behavior. This is useful, because by using generalizations, we can also exercise our empathy. Let me try for an example here...to better explain what I mean by that...

Let's say that I present you with an alien from a distant galaxy far, far away, and a female. Now I ask you to watch me yawn in front of them, and predict whether they will also yawn. You'll probably say that the female is likely to yawn, because yawns are contagious with people. Not all people yawn when you yawn, but most do. For the alien, you'd probably be totally at sea. If the alien looked very much like a human, you might assume that perhaps, that alien will yawn too.

We have more compassion for creatures with faces, and even more for those who have human-like characteristics. Within the human dynamic, we generally have more compassion for our own sex - but we can extend this compassion/empathy by using generalizations that help us to vaguely understand the mind of the other sex.

So when you're giving an example of sitting on a couch, it's useful to know that, in general, most women may think x, or that, in general, if a woman does y, she's likely to be thinking x. People form these generalizations by asking questions, understanding the biological differences between the sexes, how that influences psychological gender differences, and then choosing appropriate behaviors. It's a very important process, and, I think it's one that we're largely losing.

If you look around you, there doesn't seem to be a lot of empathy these days between the genders. If there was more, I bet you would see that there's more polarization. I have a ton of reasons to be bitter with men - trust me, and I did struggle with it briefly in my early 20's - but then I researched the male mindset and learned about how men struggle in this modern world, and what that feels like. All I have to go off of are generalizations, but they give me the capacity to empathize with men, and that helps me to not be sexist, resentful, or bitter. Even when a male and I disagree over genders or gender roles and the like.

So yes, I think generalizations are valuable, and necessary. I think it's foolish to take an individual person, slap a generalization on them, and say "Welp, we're done here". That's why my first bit of advice about the couch situation is to learn more about the person you're sitting with. If you know more, then you should be better able to interpret whether or not your behavior is welcome. However, starting with a generalization will help you to puzzle out which questions to ask, and which behaviors to watch for so that you can have reactions that are the most likely to be statistically appropriate behaviors.

 

[Ex-User (14663)]

@Inexorable Username another thing he is talking about in that book is the fact that if men behaved close to their optimum in terms of sexual behavior – in particular being relatively promiscuous, they would (in contrast to the females) never be quite sure who their offspring were. This means that if a man would be in the business of "protecting" his "girlfriend", he would not only behave in a way which is suboptimal sexually, he would essentially become a cuckold; she might make her optimal reproductive decisions and mate with other men of optimal genetic quality while simultaneously having this one dude provide for her and protect her. All this implies that it's an unlikely scenario women made any extensive use of male protection, and that as you mentioned, women probably lived in all-female groups that looked out for each other.

 

[Inexorable Username]

We are patriarchal because as a species we are warlike and violent much like chimpanzees and very unlike bonobos. Kids require up to a minimum of 18 years of investment from both parents as each parent passes on different things to his and her kids. Kinds require an investment form the community as well. This way the kids get fully socialized. This is a lot of resources and not like other animals. Women rely on both the father and society for protection and resources, material and otherwise. This is why women are attracted to confident, healthy well built guys in high social positions, who exude safety as well as social safety nets from society / collectives of women that can help them. Men are attracted to young healthy women & higherarchies where they can compete. People who do well in their environment probably have good genes meant to survive in said environment and therfore are more attractive on both ends. This means they are more likley to reproduce. Women are really the only one of the sexes who is equipped by evolution to properly respond to the needs of her infant, this has consequences outside of the mother-child bond. Kids require a family to be stable long term and multiple relationships, multiple kids from multiple fathers is not a stable structure that provides this. It is in fact detrimental. Men need reassurance that the kids are theirs and not someone else's so they don't waste resources on some other guy's kids. Women are anxious about sex, because the consequences of it are harsh for them. They tend to dominate men through subterfuge in order to get what they want.

It is all these reasons why we have gender roles and why unwritten social rules exist, why birth control is a thing and women want more and more safety nets & rules in place so they can compete with men under capitalism & have safety+security. Environmental factors are forces of selection, those people who are unfit for whatever reason, will not procreate and so their genes do not get passed on. This can be as simple as me being a hedonist who only thinks of his own pleasure and enjoyment for example, so I sterilize myself to have sex only for fun. Or my cousin not wanting to deal with the burdens of being a mother, so she aborts any "accidents" that stand between her and her CEO career. Or the neighbur being gay and having sex with men / not passing on his genes.

I don't think its so hard to understand. The environment also has challanges on multiple levels ranging from falling for disinformation, to bad consequences of certain chains of events and other things which influence the lives of both sexes.

I don't like to try and redesign something that has evolved to work like this for specific reasons. Its likely to just cause more harm. There are clear reasons why the family exists, why men and women need to work together if they want to ensure their own legacy survives through their kids. Squabbling only leads to faliure and those that fail are not that ones who decide how the future looks.

I have a question for high IQ atheists. You complain about religion & dumb people, but most of you I know do not have kids, don't plan on having any, while the religious & the dumb have many. Doesen't seem so smart from where I'm standing. Why?

Our capacity for language, socialization and global dominance is understated here.
Evolution has a role in genetic information which determines physiological make up, it equips us with primitive forms of expression like a baby crying as a danger signal, basic emotions and such but it does not pass on complex social arrangements which is genetically inherited by the next species: When women don't agree with men they aren't eradicated, thereby eliminating this theoretical "Assertive" gene from the gene pool. Socialized roles exist on top of sexual functions, they're easily programmable via the environment. A traditionalist in epoch x becomes a revolutionary in epoch y, and then someone in epoch z reverts back to traditionalism and its seen as avant garde.

Men may be stronger on average and testosterone may help performance, but that determined the functions in a primitive society where strength and performance were measures of status. Now is not that case: Men/women are pretty equal in terms of tasks, in the sense these are steps in which either party can interpret and apply to their environment.

Social roles, separate from sexual fornication are not evolutionary. Dogs don't hold domestic genes, raise them in the wild and they'll act like what you'd expect from descendants of wolves. With technology there's less power on men with an advantage in Strength and height. Most work requires a functional brain, a desire to work and for most a desire to participate in consumerism with entertainment. Both genders demonstrate that capacity.

This is an excellent point, and very succinctly put. I agree with you.
I actually think that the rapid growth of the internet and internet-based technology has equalled the playing field more than we could ever have imagined.

Personally, I wonder if a lot of the squabbling we're undergoing at the moment is an expression of the fact that we're deviated very far from our biological roots, and that with the advent of relative peace and technology to herald this new revolution of mass transportation (the mass transportation of knowledge, ideas, etc. rather than humans and goods, this time), we're working on balancing out a more efficient system that is more naturally aliened with how we were biologically designed to function.

 

[Kormak]

man i just wanna take scientific out of the title because this whole thread feels like an affront to the very notion of what science is being named so

Yeah :/

 

[Inexorable Username]

@Inexorable Username another thing he is talking about in that book is the fact that if men behaved close to their optimum in terms of sexual behavior – in particular being relatively promiscuous, they would (in contrast to the females) never be quite sure who their offspring was. This means that if a man would be in the business of "protecting" his "girlfriend", he would not only behave in a way which is suboptimal sexually, he would essentially become a cuckold; she might make her optimal reproductive decisions and mate with other men of optimal genetic quality while simultaneously having this one dude provide for her and protect her. All this implies that it's an unlikely scenario women made any extensive use of male protection, and that as you mentioned, women probably lived in all-female groups that looked out for each other.

Oh! This is so exciting! This is the first time someone has agreed with my theory - and you actually have a source for me so I can get some further reading! I never considered that point, but it is a very valid one! I must read this book. I was dubious about posting my thoughts to this thread because I usually catch a lot of flack for them, but you've made me very glad that I did.

So, panning to the present day, let me ask your opinion on this philosophy. I think that a lot of the frustrations we're facing may be due, in some part, to the fact that males and females are living in social structures that are biologically suboptimal. If we look at the case of the baboons (I will try to find that source for you), male baboons lead incredibly stressful lives that were shortened by the excess of testosterone and the stress of their social organization.

I can't presently think of any mammalian example where males and females fight each other for dominance. Even in wolf hierarchy, where there something of a dominant male and a dominant female, the two seldom butt heads. There may be primates that act in this fashion, granted, but I do not think it is a very common or a very healthy practice.

If we piece together the possibility that males did not evolve as protectors, but more as "pioneers", and we take a look at the stress caused by monogamy and sexually diverse society (males and females being in close proximity appears to be a very stressful environment for most humans), then perhaps we should entertain the idea that male and female societies are more biologically geared towards being separated?

From an evolutionary standpoint, it makes more sense, because it would lead to greater gene diversity.

PS: I think you may have made the point, earlier, about breeding leeway. The problem with our culture is that women who breed freely are considered "whores". In order to eliminate this notion and ensure that more men have the ability to breed, I really think you would have to challenge the notion of males as the "defenders of their pregnant female mates" (which appears to be something we've decided on based on wolf behavior... ) or at least challenge the concept of monogamy. Otherwise, you couldn't expect women to continue to decrease their subjective breeding value to please the whims of men. Women who do are likely to become bitter, and turn to careers as a means of making up for their lost subjective value in society.

 

[Inexorable Username]

@Kormak
As far as rape, crime, etc. are concerned, well if we look at the rates of these crimes in society today, they appear to largely be male-on-male violence, or male/female violence. There does not seem to be many instances of female-on-female violence. That is NOT to say that males are inherently evil, terrible creatures! Please don't misunderstand me.

However, perhaps the way our society is built is very suboptimal for men. Your sex has high levels of testosterone, and the aggression, emotional suppression, and status struggles for the sake of breeding that you're faced with, given the way our societies are structured, are highly stressful. These conditions appear to lead to higher rates of frustration, fewer males being able to reproduce, crime and hate groups related to competition and dominance, higher rates of death and substance abuse, and I think...potentially even psychological disorders such as narcissism and psychopathy.
Again, if we look at the baboons, they lead pretty rough lives. Chimpanzees, however, far less so, and bonobos seem to have even less stress.

Yes, in this society, a boy needs his father. However, that is largely due to the fact that this society is frankly a brutal, harsh reality for boys. In most mammalian structures, the offspring stays with the mother or with a grouping of females for its childhood, and becomes part of the male social structure as a young adult. Many young men, anecdotally, say that the military made them real men, and that they adore the structure and male hierarchy of it, which is what makes them go back.

Once again, I'm not proposing we made changes to society. I'm just proposing a different way of looking at things. If we accept that we were wrong in our assumptions about evolutionary biology, then we should also accept that we might have been wrong about the theories of how society should be structured, which stemmed from it. The greatest of them probably being the concept of monogamy.

In any case, I think it's slightly disbeliavable to assume that we made a theory about evolutionary biology, and it just so happened to be 100% right. It's more likely that some aspects of the theory were incorrect, and in light of more recent scientific observations, ought to be adjusted. In science, that used to be the way theories worked...until science became a dogma >_> ...

man i just wanna take scientific out of the title because this whole thread feels like an affront to the very notion of what science is being named so

Feel free to jump in at any point with something you feel is more scientific than evolutionary biology...which, I agree...is something of a "soft science".

This is about genders, cultures, and religions from the context of a scientific and historical standpoint, though. So how theories in evolutionary biology may have affected our interpretations of gender roles, and how those interpretations may be invalid, is sort of pretty much hitting the nail on the head insofar as the post topic is concerned. Admittedly, there's not too much religion at the moment, but that is because we veered off into this evolutionary biology theory, and religion hasn't gotten its foot back in the door yet. I suspect that it might.

As I mentioned though, feel free to contribute. Or...if the topic bores you, not to. Up to you!

 

[Rebis]

@Rebis

Wow - that's a lot to paw through!

Let me try to be succinct, if I can. (Always a challenge for me!)
Remember, again, as I always try to say at some point in my threads - I don't always think I'm right. In fact, I always assume I'm wrong. The degree to which I'm wrong is what matters, and voicing my opinions by using my lovely freedom of speech is the ability that gives me the power to find out just how wrong I may be.

Once again, this is my philosophy on the subject of "Generalizations", so maybe it isn't entirely right. I think it may have some useful points though.

Generalizations are useful and necessary
Generalizations allow us to understand sociology from an abstract sense of statistical probability. Abstract - meaning, often, we don't actually have the statistics to show.

These sorts of generalizations lead to all kinds of intellectual advances for our species, particularly in the sciences. Without them, we cannot form theories, or hypothesis, or create something like the science of medicine (which is largely based off of generalizations made on white men, and often applies poorly to women.)

What is often not useful or necessary, is labeling.

When I was in school, we were taught that labeling people was bad, and that you shouldn't do it. We had jocks, geeks, goths - you name it. We understood, though, that you shouldn't put people in boxes. Everybody is different.

It was a useful, good lesson for children to learn, because it reminds you to explore each person as an individual and find out how they break the mold. I think it's safe to say that pretty much everyone breaks the mold. It's ridiculous to assume that one person is going to meet every single stereotype point for point, and if they did, that, too, could be considered breaking the mold.

All this being said, why do we tell our daughters things like "Boys only want one thing". It's a cautionary generalization. In general, boys in high school are looking for sex. Are all boys sex maniacs? No, that would be logically invalid.

A generalization, in and of itself, is not logically invalid. When a generalization is used to prove an assertion, it becomes a fallacy. That is because a generalization, in and of itself, proves nothing.

Generalizations are the forest, or the macro scale of an issue. Females are shorter than men - a generalization. It's understood that some females are taller than some men.

Why it is useful to discuss generalizations in our genders, is that it helps us to interpret potential reasoning behind the behaviors of the sexes, and the logic behind that behavior. This is useful, because by using generalizations, we can also exercise our empathy. Let me try for an example here...to better explain what I mean by that...

Let's say that I present you with an alien from a distant galaxy far, far away, and a female. Now I ask you to watch me yawn in front of them, and predict whether they will also yawn. You'll probably say that the female is likely to yawn, because yawns are contagious with people. Not all people yawn when you yawn, but most do. For the alien, you'd probably be totally at sea. If the alien looked very much like a human, you might assume that perhaps, that alien will yawn too.

We have more compassion for creatures with faces, and even more for those who have human-like characteristics. Within the human dynamic, we generally have more compassion for our own sex - but we can extend this compassion/empathy by using generalizations that help us to vaguely understand the mind of the other sex.

So when you're giving an example of sitting on a couch, it's useful to know that, in general, most women may think x, or that, in general, if a woman does y, she's likely to be thinking x. People form these generalizations by asking questions, understanding the biological differences between the sexes, how that influences psychological gender differences, and then choosing appropriate behaviors. It's a very important process, and, I think it's one that we're largely losing.

If you look around you, there doesn't seem to be a lot of empathy these days between the genders. If there was more, I bet you would see that there's more polarization. I have a ton of reasons to be bitter with men - trust me, and I did struggle with it briefly in my early 20's - but then I researched the male mindset and learned about how men struggle in this modern world, and what that feels like. All I have to go off of are generalizations, but they give me the capacity to empathize with men, and that helps me to not be sexist, resentful, or bitter. Even when a male and I disagree over genders or gender roles and the like.

So yes, I think generalizations are valuable, and necessary. I think it's foolish to take an individual person, slap a generalization on them, and say "Welp, we're done here". That's why my first bit of advice about the couch situation is to learn more about the person you're sitting with. If you know more, then you should be better able to interpret whether or not your behavior is welcome. However, starting with a generalization will help you to puzzle out which questions to ask, and which behaviors to watch for so that you can have reactions that are the most likely to be statistically appropriate behaviors.

The problems with generalizations is they're often not of any practical utility. Generalizations can be practical, but the use of generalizations are not practical in a lot of situations. What utility does it have to assign behaviours to male, discuss them as if they were inviolably true, and then continue building upon a faulty tower? The generalisations that help us create theories in the field of social science are often associative, correlating x and y. I think it's good to learn what we've thought about genders because we're practically equal, we have to work a job more or less, I stated a few examples above. Generalizations are best in fields that are founded on principle rather than a generalization of disparate behaviours with some situationally dependent and involve complex social phenomena like conditioning, release, anger, acceptance, compulsion, desire, mood, catecholamine ratio, stress, diet and the list goes on.

See this distinction is a problem because we see the worlds of different genders entirely different. Why do you assume that one gender cannot understand the other? What fundamental differences do we have, or are we just gonna operate on a divisive wall "You'll never understand me!" "Well, you'll never understand me understanding you!" What am I supposed to go through physiological changes just to alter my biological make up to validly say I understand females? No, because it's inconclusive. I understand people, their behaviours, power dynamics and their anxieties. I understand their conditioning, which is independent to their sex, and empathise appropriately.

Think about how we approached equality, it has been a consistent denial of these overarching generalizations we've made:

"Wow, females are smart! They are not dumb, wow I am so surprised"
"Wow, females can play sports! They're not incompetent, wow I am so surprised"
"Wow, females can work! They can leave the kitchen, wow who knew?"

Generalizations keep us in the present and from further progression and should be omitted in terms of understanding our behaviours. Behaviours are sufficient enough of a generalization to categorize behaviour: Arrogance has its forms, but it's functional as a generalization exempt from specific formations. I don't think there's much difference in gender roles because most of them are artificial, so the effect on the psychological profile of the gender is artificial. I could decide tomorrow that females rule the world, wipe everybodies memories and all they would know is that females were dominant. Based on that supposition, we validate our own biases about this principle through anecdotal and abstract reasoning which has no explicit consensus, merely a sense, either as a product of employing empathy to interpret the thought and thus agreeing through relatability.

People seem to emphasize the role of sex to the personality of the person, so much so they're socialising that gender to a behaviour that's expected of them. You have a tonne of reasons to be bitter with people, and if you actually separate the bitterness from a whole group of people you'll not socialise the belief by telling literally hundreds of people online. If you want to have generalizations about gender that's fine, but actively propagating them on the internet socialises people into the idea. You're spreading the idea, you've put the idea in guys here that they may be emotionally inhibited, and through your precursor they can either oppose the idea or comply with it.

We're being socialised into equality, I would much rather prefer that than segregating the sexes for reasons that are actually separate from development cycles, sexual organs and body proportions. It just doesn't matter in anything we do, at all. Generalization males with behaviour x, with the userbase of the entire male population allows you to make another generalization of behaviour y that's diametrically opposed to x, because the userbase consists of mutually exclusive samples. So ok, if generalizations pertaining to gender are so whimsical, why should we use them? Why can't we define behaviours of people, by the actual behaviours? In comparison to determining statistical probability, it is best to determine them with fewer variables, to which any sex has an endless amount of.

Empathy wouldn't be a problem with genders if they weren't seem as immutably different from each other. I've had female friends my whole life, i've certainly cared and empathized with them, in some cases I haven't but I wouldn't attribute that to being a male, I would generally attribute that to having a dominant thinking > feeling function. I don't think I've ever cried over a male I empathized with, infact I don't find it common. Proportionally I would empathise with females, or people that exhibit a behaviour separate from generalizations, mainly because I feel like an outlier. I don't empathise with guys because I don't see that is a component of my identity, but with each passing day people force these ideas into my head, invariably socialising me to think of the male pursuit of success being separate from a females.

 

[Rebis]

We're only held back by socialized roles, they hold little to no value in this technological world. What function are social roles if we have no competition with other species? What can one intrinsically bring to the table that the other cannot, through socialisation? I think through this realization, and indeed it's already been realized when our economy took advantage of liberating females so they too can become economic products which split the salary in too, that there is few biological markers that suggest inherent personality differences between the two. All is socialised, so we must not attribute a behaviour of x to be derived from a certain sex.

I see a lot less males call female whores than I do females ruling the pack, I see females ostracizing a male after a simple few lines containing "manipulation" "crazy" and make up a quick rumor. Highly believable, males can be dumb bricks in that respect. Should I make a generalization here? Yes, only one: People are goal-oriented, and depending on the goal they can exhibit behaviour far beyond any generalization that will ever yield reliable results.

Generalizations pertaining to social settings in this heavily individualized philosophy extending from the west and into the east is one that just isn't becoming relevant. Increasing amounts of young people are becoming agender invariably as an opposition to these categorizations, we're all calling them Gen Z but the loose categories of behaviour and gender that all of you are applying is the reason for this movement, it's a direct antithesis to this. They want to live on their own merit and are opposing your grouping.

 

[Inexorable Username]

Here are some sources for our discussion on evolutionary biology:

Regarding cortisol, testosterone, and the stressful consequences of baboon dominance structures:

• Life at the top: rank and stress in wild male baboons
  Life at the top: rank and stress in wild male baboons
• The endocrine stress-response and social status in the wild baboon https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0018506X82900277?via=ihub
• Cortisol, Testosterone, and Coronary Heart Disease https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.104.489088

This is something of a soft study - I think to be taken with a grain of sand. However, it does go along somewhat with my philosophy behind sexual dimorphism. If males are the "pioneers", hunting large game ahead of female groupings, then diets would have differed a bit with males eating more meat, fat, and protein, and using more muscular strength, speed, and prowess with weapons, and females eating more fruit, berries, etc. and using more communication and socialization. For these reasons, females could have evolved to be smaller creatures.

Anyways, this study is loosely related to that, but I don't necessarily have that much faith in it because some of the references seem poor and the whole thing reads like it was written by a college kid. I simply included it in case any of you were interested.

Human Self-Domestication by Intersexual Selection: Female Social Status and Stature Sexual Dimorphism

Human Self-Domestication by Intersexual Selection: Female Social Status and Stature Sexual Dimorphism | Request PDF

Request PDF | Human Self-Domestication by Intersexual Selection: Female Social Status and Stature Sexual Dimorphism | This research examines one of the three primary mechanisms currently proposed to explain apparent self-domestication in Homo sapiens—that is,... | Find, read and cite all the...

www.researchgate.net

This is an observation regarding bonobo behavior as it compares to chimpanzee behavior. It is possible that humans are adaptable to both chimpanzee-like structures, and bonobo structures, and that we are not necessarily biologically favored to either/or. In that case, I would say that, considering our research on the stress of baboons, the health consequences of increases in cortisol and testosterone, and modern studies such as the increasing suicide rates of males, increases in male hate groups, and similar, we might predict that human structure would be more peaceable following a bonobo-like social organization. That may not have been historically possible before, but perhaps the relative peace and mass-communication of technology and the internet has made such a thing more feasible, which could explain some of the political unrest we see today.

Latest news from the bonobos: Pan paniscus myths and realities

Latest news from the bonobos: Pan paniscus myths and realities

1 Introduction Bonobos are one of the large mammal species most recently discovered by science. First informally described in 1929, they were named Pan paniscus in 1933 (Coolidge, 1933). Since Robe...

journals.openedition.org

" Females most often initiate sexual interactions and ranging behavior (Furuichi, 2011), have priority of access to preferred food (Hohmann and Fruth, 1993; White and Wood, 2007) and will sometimes chase or be aggressive towards males (i.e. the definition of 'dominance'; NB: not within chimpanzees). Females are so influential in the groups that mothers improve the mating success of their sons when present (Surbeck et al., 2011). In male-male aggression, mothers and females can intervene and decide the outcome of the situation, and eventually influence their son's rank in the hierarchy (Furuichi, 2011). Despite modest physical dimorphism (female body size is 82.5% that of males) females gain power by cooperation and coalition formation (Parish, 1996; White and Wood, 2007). However, female dominance over males is not a rule. Males are consistently dominant in dyadic interactions (White and Wood, 2007). To conclude, it is clear that adult females occupy high dominance status in bonobo societies and that females are rather co-dominant to males (Surbeck et al., 2012). Differences in dominance among individuals are slight but measurable (see below) but we should keep in mind that bonobos show nothing that is comparable to the strong dominance with submission enforced by violence that is characteristic of chimpanzee societies. "

 

[Inexorable Username]

@Rebis

Hey, let me just say that you and I are in the same page about how social roles hold society back and how generalizations can be hurtful! I just think they can be helpful too, and since, when I made my argument, I preceded it with the point that you should get to know the other person on the couch better if you don't know how to proceed...well I feel like that set the stage appropriately for introducing a generalization.

I honestly do think generalizations are important, and useful. They're the building blocks of psychology, neurology, physiology, biology, and sociology. I also think that you can't understand the female paradigm by simply understanding humans, in general. Yes - social roles hold us back, but they also define our experience. Without understanding how a person's past experiences affect their outlook on life, you can't really say you empathize. I can't really empathize with what it feels like to be bullied, and told not to "be a bitch" by a group of boys...but generalizations I've researched have explained to me that boys go through a lot of social ridicule from a young age, which causes them to want to lock up their emotions for fair-thee-well.

The issue is...I don't know if there's much of a point in us really expanding on this topic, because I feel like your mind is made up about it, and I think that, even though we're coming from the same basic stance, we can still get caught up in a massively long-winded message volley back and forth about opinions. I have to go soon, so I don't have too much time to continue such a volley. I just want you to know that I did read your messages, and I do respect your opinion, and I think that, for the most part, you and I actually agree. We're just sort of missing each other conversation-wise, or something. Hope that makes sense!