Women are inferior

[loveofreason]

The botanist would like to state that in her perfect world the terms inferior and superior are without value. They merely indicate the relative position of things, neither higher nor lower having any more intrinsic worth than the other.

Both superior and inferior positioned components are elements of a functional whole, and equally valuable to the organism (system).

But now, the smutt of cultural values? Hmmm... I was certain that Jane Austen was somewhere responsible for a quip along the lines of "I have never known a tolerable woman to be fond of her own sex.", but I can't find a reference to it, so my untrustworhty memory may be inventing things... anyway.

Why does such a view exist? Because the attitude expressed belongs to a cultural continuum - from which we are not free, and is the relic of backward-looking judeochristian philosophy which both worshipped the intellectual legacy and mythos of past civilisations, and imposed a dichotomy of good and evil upon the world.

It is the heart of our creation myth.

Woman is the downfall of man - the weakness that betrays his perfect relationship with the male creator god; robs him of immortality and grace and the consumation of love with That after whose image he is cast.

Man is no longer in union with god, and woman is to blame.

If we think a few generations of positive discrimination has undone the Adam and Eve of our unconscious mind, we are ignorant of the power of culture.

What we have inherited is both outright condemnation of the female and damnation via analogous association. Our whole system of thought has been built upon dichotomies. Binary thinking - dividing the world into polarities: defining things in terms of presence/absence, leads to two sets of terms; the primary attributes of each set are held in opposition to the other, and the terms within each set become analogues.

It makes great metaphor possible, and symbolic imagery, and many of the fine achievements of both culture and science. High culture and the intellect rests upon this throne. The system of thought which has built our world and owns much of our unconscious mind. (Beyond that, and deeper, we are owned by our biologies.)

Thus, in a world of dichotomies we have: life vs. death, light vs. dark, spirit vs flesh, mind vs. matter, culture vs. nature, man vs. woman, thought vs emotion, Ti vs. Fe...

superior vs. inferior.



If we have to divide the world into opposing sets, we lump superior with the male and inferior with the female. (Our creation myth places man closer to god, the most superior term we have imagined.) Ti with the male and Fe with the female. (The distributions support it.) We rationalise. Thus woman, Fe and inferior become analogous to one another.

Hence we can say things such as: Woman is inferior.

It may technically be metaphor, but history itself and culture don't care for that. We enmesh the two terms. We teach it over generations and generations, we build empires on the back of such an assumption, subjugating others by virtue of our superiority. We try to claw our way back to god.

(And I'm guilty of it. I can't bear most women and women's preoccupations - either now, as enshrined in popular culture, or historically. It is the disdain possible from the vantage of high (rational) culture that permits me to take such a view.

The disdain of immortal aspirations for mortal flesh. Conceptual freedom vs. material obsession.

I can observe this presumption at work in my psyche, and I can see it in conflict with other assumptions. It's a riot when the pure, white-robed youth of my mind must contest with the wiccan whore. That's about the time it pays to schedule an afternoon drinking tea with the sage.)

If we (as a culture) look at the discrepencies and limitations which arise from statements such as "woman is inferior", no matter how dear it is to our values, or objectionable, we might surmise our system of thought is flawed.

Happily we are developing and adopting other systems. The understanding of Chaos was a major breakthrough. So while we may be standing on the mountain of history, we are nowhere yet near the pinnacle, nor our broadest understanding.

 

[Deleted member 1424]

Awesome post lor.

I don't really feel like going into detail; but I've seen firsthand how the idea of 'male superiority' can destroy. The whole concept is not something that can be quantified. However what happens when a Man believes he's superior to a woman, by simple 'virtue' of being male? Polygyny, Oppression, Rape; women become objects when that type of thinking becomes permissible. Don't quote the 'slippery slope' fallacy to me; this stuff already happens.

Historically Man does not treat his 'inferiors' very well, be they animals, women, minority races, or even entire caste layers. So with that, I say it hardly matters whose superior, we're close enough. Man or Woman cannot be trusted to treat their inferiors with the dignity due them, so calling one superior only paves the way for the maltreatment of the other.

sidenote: If you went with a purely biological/evolutionary analysis, Women would be far more important than Men.

 

[shoeless]

(let me preface this by saying i only skimmed your post)

but it's interesting you should bring up "our" (christian) creation myth; the iroquois have a different creation myth that i think is worth mentioning, where it's quite the opposite -- sky woman is indeed betrayed by her husband, who pushes her down into the abyss out of the paranoia that she was having an affair.

i love the iroquois, they're so weird. i would go more into the myth, but, i'm tired. anyway, even though the men betray the women, there is also "good twin" -- male -- who is like the prophet of the iroquois, sort of a parallel to jesus in christianity. it's strange how this civilisation seems much more "equal" than our own, despite being... "savage indians", in the word of that dumbass james fenimore cooper.

anyway. i'd be interested in what you guys have to say about this, taken out of a european, anglo-saxon perspective, where obviously the lines have been pretty clearly drawn.

 

[Da Blob]

I think the concept of Oppression is relevant to this discussion.

I might note that oppression of females and children is not unique to the Judeo-Christian culture but is a common feature amongst other cultures and to a certain degree even other species. This is a consequence of the Male simply being larger and therefore able to impose his will to dominate and subjugate.

The facade of civilization is built upon this fact. For when males compete, it is the larger stronger individual who wins and becomes the loser's "Superior". When groups of males or armies of males compete, the same general principle holds true. One would like to believe that it has been the most intelligent, most enlightened, most rational of men who have prevailed and were the most influencing in the course of human. However, this is not the case, it has been the brutal, violent men that have oppressed the species. and dictated the course of history through the development of better weapons and military tactics.

It is unfortunate that even when given a choice, females find these "Alpha" males attractive and prefer to mate with them... I guess there is some primitive biology still at play....

 

[Words]

men and women are inferior to each other in some ways. there is no *overall*. If power, then men...though power is such an inferior worldly desire. SO

 

[Aiss]

Variations within groups are much bigger than variations between groups.

Therefore considering group is useless when addressing individuals.

 

[echoplex]

Since the many ways both men and women could be inferior, and the ramifications of the notion of inferiority have pretty much been covered, let me throw out something that (I think) hasn't been discussed yet:

What if we could see superiority/inferiority in more existential terms? For instance, say you are in a pre-existent state and you are given a sort-of introductory course on life. You are told you are to be a human (let's assume you have no choice in that matter) living on planet Earth. You are informed of what that entails and you understand it well enough. Then, let's say you are given a fairly detailed explanation of sexes, including the mental, emotional, and physical differences between them.

Okay, now say you are given a choice by (let's just call it "God") to decide which sex you will exist as in your next life. Let's assume, for the sake of discussion, that you can only choose between Male and Female, so there are no other possibilities. Let's also say that you can't choose or know where you will be born geographically, so culture cannot be taken into account in your decision.

You are given a relatively short amount of time to decide and you have no way of backing out. You review all you have just learned about the sexes and it's now time to make a choice...

Which do you choose?

I know it's probably impossible for us to objectively answer this question, because in our lives we have undoubtedly picked up all sorts of biases regarding our gender identity, as well as our physical bodies. I imagine some people are more prone to pick their own gender, at least those who are "happy" with it, or have negative experiences with the opposite sex. Still, others will be more prone to pick the other gender, perhaps because they don't really like the one they are, or because they find the other sex to be more interesting. (grass is greener on the other side, I suppose)

I guess what I'm asking is: How would we go about making such a choice? Is the experience of going through life as one sex superior to the experience of being another? And if so, how could we determine this?

What comes to mind are likely things like childbirth, menstruation, competition, expectations, gender-specific health problems, likelihood of being hurt/killed in certain situations (including war), being valued for "shallow" attributes, longevity, etc. etc...

Some of those things apply to only one gender, others apply to both.

 

[Kidege]

One question though; What gave men the chance to claim the dominant role in the first place?
Why isn't men the gender that now has to be offered equality?

If we were equal, I believe we naturally would have developed a gender equal society in all areas. It wouldn't have to be forced.

The historical process/productive forces, according to a bunch of sociologists. Preindustrial societies are said to be more inclined to the "different but equal" approach than the industrial ones, because in preindustrial societies a great part of the economy relies in jobs that are done within the house (think pottery or weaving). The workspace of men and women intersect and there's less need/chances for an ideology that claims women are inferior (not that such ideology doesn't exist, but it should be less pervasive and/or work in different ways --- which it did, through religion).

With the advent of the Industrial Revolution, men started working in factories; women too, but less, since they became a "supporting workforce" for the workforce. They were needed as housewives that would tend to their factory-worker husbands/children. The work women did now was economically important but practically invisible.

This explains why the visibilisation of women happened when they became important as factory and service workers.

And society doesn't develop "naturally", but that's another matter...

Re the OP, I'm with AI and Jennywocky in this.

Edit: I had not read Lor's and Adaire's posts. *ponders*

 

[Bre]

The botanist would like to state that in her perfect world the terms inferior and superior are without value. They merely indicate the relative position of things, neither higher nor lower having any more intrinsic worth than the other.

I agree. It isn't a matter of one being more important than the other. Each has their own purpose.

The botanist would like to state that in her perfect world the terms inferior and superior are without value. They merely indicate the relative position of things, neither higher nor lower having any more intrinsic worth than the other.

Both superior and inferior positioned components are elements of a functional whole, and equally valuable to the organism (system).

But now, the smutt of cultural values? Hmmm... I was certain that Jane Austen was somewhere responsible for a quip along the lines of "I have never known a tolerable woman to be fond of her own sex.", but I can't find a reference to it, so my untrustworhty memory may be inventing things... anyway.

Why does such a view exist? Because the attitude expressed belongs to a cultural continuum - from which we are not free, and is the relic of backward-looking judeochristian philosophy which both worshipped the intellectual legacy and mythos of past civilisations, and imposed a dichotomy of good and evil upon the world.

It is the heart of our creation myth.

Woman is the downfall of man - the weakness that betrays his perfect relationship with the male creator god; robs him of immortality and grace and the consumation of love with That after whose image he is cast.

Man is no longer in union with god, and woman is to blame.

If we think a few generations of positive discrimination has undone the Adam and Eve of our unconscious mind, we are ignorant of the power of culture.

What we have inherited is both outright condemnation of the female and damnation via analogous association. Our whole system of thought has been built upon dichotomies. Binary thinking - dividing the world into polarities: defining things in terms of presence/absence, leads to two sets of terms; the primary attributes of each set are held in opposition to the other, and the terms within each set become analogues.

It makes great metaphor possible, and symbolic imagery, and many of the fine achievements of both culture and science. High culture and the intellect rests upon this throne. The system of thought which has built our world and owns much of our unconscious mind. (Beyond that, and deeper, we are owned by our biologies.)

Thus, in a world of dichotomies we have: life vs. death, light vs. dark, spirit vs flesh, mind vs. matter, culture vs. nature, man vs. woman, thought vs emotion, Ti vs. Fe...

superior vs. inferior.



If we have to divide the world into opposing sets, we lump superior with the male and inferior with the female. (Our creation myth places man closer to god, the most superior term we have imagined.) Ti with the male and Fe with the female. (The distributions support it.) We rationalise. Thus woman, Fe and inferior become analogous to one another.

Hence we can say things such as: Woman is inferior.

It may technically be metaphor, but history itself and culture don't care for that. We enmesh the two terms. We teach it over generations and generations, we build empires on the back of such an assumption, subjugating others by virtue of our superiority. We try to claw our way back to god.

(And I'm guilty of it. I can't bear most women and women's preoccupations - either now, as enshrined in popular culture, or historically. It is the disdain possible from the vantage of high (rational) culture that permits me to take such a view.

The disdain of immortal aspirations for mortal flesh. Conceptual freedom vs. material obsession.

I can observe this presumption at work in my psyche, and I can see it in conflict with other assumptions. It's a riot when the pure, white-robed youth of my mind must contest with the wiccan whore. That's about the time it pays to schedule an afternoon drinking tea with the sage.)

If we (as a culture) look at the discrepencies and limitations which arise from statements such as "woman is inferior", no matter how dear it is to our values, or objectionable, we might surmise our system of thought is flawed.

Happily we are developing and adopting other systems. The understanding of Chaos was a major breakthrough. So while we may be standing on the mountain of history, we are nowhere yet near the pinnacle, nor our broadest understanding.

I concur. You have an exceptional way of putting this.

 

[Lyra]

My take on this matter is not standard.

Axiom: extreme and fruitful divergence from contemporary structures-- including contemporary norms of knowledge-- is generally the province of biological males.

Axiom: mutual and inter-meshing desires are the means by which any prevailing structure is maintained.

Axiom: the biological female elicits desire in the biological male in a way which little else has the power to do.

Argument: it is notable that misogyny is almost a standard of particularly heretical and insightful philosophers. Whether they be age-makers, like Nietzsche, or the forgotten and mis-understood, like Austin Osman Spare, those who have utterly divorced themselves from contemporary understandings and dived fully into a personal (i.e. Masturbatory*) re-structuring of knowledge have displayed an almost instinctive scorn towards the female and what she does to the philosophical male. This is not coincidental. A rejection of desire for the female, and thus a willed end to the individual male's motivation for partaking in contemporary structures, is a prerequisite to a true realisation of the individual's full potential for unique understanding.

Conclusion: withdrawal of desire into oneself-- becoming one's own object of desire, and channeling one's lust into internal re-structuring entirely apart from the binding structures of the many which externally directed desire forces participation in-- is a prerequisite for male wisdom. The female must be rejected by the wisest of our species; she is the means whereby they fall from heaven.

Definition of Heaven: the realm of unbound, god-like, understanding.

--

*Not a derogatory term-- a complimentary analogy.

 

[Lyra]

Addendum: social participation with intent forces convergence with and integration into contemporary structures. The process whereby wisdom is attained necessarily involves extreme divergence from normal understanding-- which is implicit in such structures and which can only be escaped fully by escaping such structures fully. Desire to attract the female motivates social participation and consequently convergence. The forceful internal redirection of this desire, and others, allows* the individual to diverge without the resistance to such that the need to be an attractive mate is concomitant with. The rejection of the female-- and other desired things-- is the gateway to unlimited divergent understanding.

--

*Although less in some cultures than others. India in the Buddah's time, for example, facilitated this far more than our own modern societies, which force us to pay taxes and thus force us to engage and integrate.

 

[Cavallier]

We try to claw our way back to god.

I love this. I think I'll show it off...

 

[cheese]

Thanks, MetaStructure. That's what I was asking for. Now rub it in Adaire's fa- I mean, thanks again.

Observe, people!

Fundamental assumptions provided (although criteria for attributing value had to be inferred).

Argument provided.

Conclusion provided.

We even got an addendum! Wow.

While I'd take issue with certain parts, this at least provides most (if not all) the information necessary for me to properly address his thought, and therefore does away with unnecessary fumblings in the dark before finally banging a shin against an assumption.



Alright, the reason I left the OP as sparse as I did is because I didn't want to direct anyone's gaze, or restrict their thought to particular avenues. No point playing in my framework - I do that just fine, and I know what the necessary conclusions following my rules are. Instead, I wanted to see how people automatically approach the issue. I was looking for a more epic battle, a war between whole systems of thought rather than the usual nit-picking that eventually reveals two totally different starting-points. I was wondering if perhaps we could reveal larger systems that could subsume the smaller, conflicting ones and resolve the contradictions within. It's also interesting looking at which individuals are naturally drawn to which set of assumptions.

This takes a lot more thought than was given, and perhaps I was expecting too much. I assumed enough thought would've been given to this (it's a fairly pervasive topic) in the past that something newer could be brought to the table.

lor stepped further outside these boxes, for which I'm grateful. Discrete, boldly-defined conceptual blocks - made even more so by being mutually opposed - tend to restrict thought through oversimplification and equivocation. I liked the post.


Personally, I agree with AI and a few others that it is near-pointless judging a category according to any system of valuation, when the categories are inadequate to describe their elements. This view does not take into account considerations of societal function (generalisations make it easier to direct and optimise resource-allocation), since that is only relevant to evaluating the act of judging, not the judgement itself.

In general I think it very difficult to divorce valuation from function.



@Jennywocky: Explain "inherent" value, please. It seems to be an abstract construct that cannot be mapped to physical processes - unless again, your intention is to advocate this attitude as it maximises some social good which contributes to the healthy function of the community.
If you don't believe in the need for mapping, please also explain why.


*edit
I do appreciate the responses, and you've all given me things to think about. Thanks!

Oh yeah, Moocow sort of said what I was thinking.

 

[Jennywocky]

@Jennywocky: Explain "inherent" value, please.

?

I did not use that word anywhere in my post.
(I searched for it.)
Please clarify.

It seems to be an abstract construct that cannot be mapped to physical processes - unless again, your intention is to advocate this attitude as it maximises some social good which contributes to the healthy function of the community.

Um.... I think I described everything AS mapped and even argued from a "mapped" POV -- certain biological disposition + environmental needs = certain natural behaviors that play out in social relationships. If a theory is not mapped in some way, then we cannot assume the behaviors are inherent.

Meanwhile, the impact of testosterone and estrogen not just on fetal gender differentiation but later differentiation in puberty as well as standard expressions of social and personal behavior is easily accessible all over the net and libraries and (I thought) rather generally known at this point... and a casual application of Ne should be able to fill in a ton of detail all on your own.

What is your actual problem and/or question here?

* * * *

EDIT: Sorry, I did not realize I had posted earlier in the thread and had to go back a page to find the comment.

I would word it differently: Men and women have equal inherent value as human beings, but there biological, physiological, psychological, and sociological differentiation that occurs. So there's basic differences there... then heavily amplified by individual differences.

Let me rephrase: Both men and women are human beings.
Thus, any human value we assume should apply equally to both.
(Thus, if you assign NO value to human beings, both men and women equally have no value. If you assign marginal value, then both would be given marginal value.)

As a comparison, if apples and oranges are fruit, and you say "fruit are important to me," then the statement is indicating both apples and oranges have the same value. If you mean to say that apples have importance to you while oranges do not, then it is illogical to say "fruit are important to me," you would say, "apples are important to me."

Likewise, if you say "human beings have inherent value," then you are saying both men and women have value that you've placed in them. If you meant otherwise, then you'd be more specific.

However, men and women are not necessarily the same in how they function, think, interact, or in their initial ranges of disposition.

As far as my quoted comment above goes, note I am NOT distinguish HOW much value human beings have, I am merely saying that, whatever value human beings have, it's equally doled out through the gender variance. We might have no value, we might have some value, we might have a lot of value; but I don't really care about the answer to THAT, I'm just saying it's equal throughout if we say the human race has any value.