: "So are the men who abuse women, they're also outnumbered.": I was suggesting that most people involved in creating war are men. Also, most people involved in causing domestic violence and other forms of violence against women are men. Seems straightforward.
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It cuts both ways Kevin. If you argue that unjust warsare fought by men, then you mustalso concede that just warsare fought mostly by men. In which case,, why aren'yt women picking up the slack and fulfilling their duty as soldiers?
Women can fight in the army quite effectively BTW./ Just ask the Israelis or the Eritreans- or the LTTE terrorists for that matter. Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by a woman.
: "If women are violent, that's also because they want to be." Why do they want to be, and why do men want to be, and why do men want to be more than women?"
Why do men 'want' to be violent? Many reasons. sometimes for money, or sex, sometimes for revenge, someimes to serve the cause of liberation and righteousness. You are asking questions for which the answers are both obvious and complex. How do you explain YOUR violent tendencies. (Don't tell me you don't have any.)
The reason men are more violent and agressive than women is rooted in biology. If both men and women were accustomed to fight an equal amount, then women would have evolved to eb as strong as men. the fact that they are, on average, weaker suggests that they were never as aggressive. Males, in polygynous species like the human, evolved to compete over women, and thsi was one major reason fro aggression to evolve. Also, men hisorically ahd to fight against lions and suchlike.
: "It's a manner of speaking, Kevin. It's a term of respect."
: Why is being awarded honorary male genitalia an honour?
It was a man who said it, and so they viewed being what they were as an honor.
: "You're inconsistent. First you argue (ridiculously, to my view) that there are no intrinsic differences between men and women. Then you argue that tehre are feminine and masculine traits, and that agghression is among the latter. What sort of inconsistency is this?"
: When I used the quotation marks around "feminine", I meant them. That means I meant that what was contained therein was not my perception. To elaborate, what M.Thatcher exhibits is, as far as I'm concerned, not an explicitly male nor female characteristic. She (and others like her) are expected to behave a certain way (ie: with femininity). When they behave otherwise, they are "abnormal". They are awarded honorary male status without all the perks. At the same time as they are seen as "ballsy", they are seen as acting uncharacteristic to their gender, and therefore, neither entirely male, nor female... lacking in some fundamental respects.
The fundamental problem with your argument is that you think differences between males and females are socially conditioned. To quote somoene who I don't remember, amybe chomsky, a theory taht explains everything explains nothing. If I raise the fact, for exampel, that most men would like eight partners over the next two years while most women would like one (averages, of course), then you';re going to say that';s socially coinditioned. How do I prove it isn't? Of course our media portrays men as more sexually driven. I woudl argue that';s because they ARE, in reality. Example. When I've been in mixed gatherings and the subject comes up, all the guys agree that they think about sex several times a day. the girls are shocked and horrified, and they can't understand how our midns coudl work that way. Now what does that tell you? To me it speaks of biological hardwiring. If thsi is merely social conditioning, then why does it occur in every society? Moreover, if the conditioning is social, then WHERE did it originate. You can't argue taht it persoists because it's been handed down from generation to genertion. That begs the question. WHO devised tehse roles in the first place, and WHY did they devise them. I have a hard tiem believeing taht some gusy sat down one day and said, Hmmm, you knwo, I think it woudl be nice if we made men think they were aggressive and sexual and women think they were not. Somehow that doesn't amke sense to me.
: "NOT! DO you deny that men are more aggressive, more sexually driven, etcetera. Biology states otherwise. DDN is right on here."
: No, I don't deny that, but I DO deny that it is necessarily a biological trait. I submit that these are learned characteristics, as would many sociologists, anthropologists, and psychologists today.
Most anthropologists today have rejected the strong cultural determinist model. While much of our behavior is idneed culturally determined, much is also controlled by biological predispositions. OIf course men can train themselves never to think about sex, as the Hindu yogis can attest. But it's substantially more difficult for them than for women. I think i speak for most males when I say that I have tendencies toward both aggression and sexual desire. I wrestled in high school, and I think my love of that sport stemmed from deep primitive impulses towards physical dominance, in teh same way that gorillas or deer fight each other. It felt as 'natural' to my mind as any feelings I've had, that adrenaline-pumping feeling of asserting physical dominance, of the struggle. That is why I think it's a male trait.
Psychology, in my humble opinion, is a load of shit. Freudian psychology in particular has been discredited as neither scientific nor religious. studeis have shown that psychiatry plus drug therapy gets no better results than drug therapy alone. hence clinical psychology at least is damn near valueless.
:As for behavioral biologists, there are many leading primatologists who would also dispute behaviour differences between the sexes.
can you name names? I don't doubt you, I'm just interested to know their names. Also,
: "No, tehy exist largely based on inherent differences."
: Please provide some examples of INHERENT differences... the aversion to the colour pink, please concede, is not an inherent aversion, but a learned one.
The aversion to the color yellow certainly seems to eb a biological trait- I'm not aware that tehre';s a cultural consipracy to get people to dislike yellow. There are biological reasons, though, strating with teh fact that yellow suggests siuckness, jaundice, etc. There are biological reaosns why red means caution (blood color). I don't pretend to know about pink.
Let me ask you a question Kevin. This is a somewhat complex and arcane point, but inetersting nevertheless. Different societies recognize different numebrs of colors. For the ancient Latins, there was no such color as green. Now the interesting point is this. It is almost fully predictable, once you know how many colors a culture recognizes, to say what those colors are. All cultures distinguish between black and white. If they recognize three colors, they recognize black, white and red. And so on.. The discriminations that differnet cultures make fall in exaclythe same places, until you get down to fairly fine levels of discrimination. I think thsi strongly suggests bological predisposition, don't you?
You have a problem in your arguemnt. If there is a culture X where women are mroe aggressive thanb men, then your whole argument becomes a gross overgeneralization. If there is no such culture X, then a moral question (SHOULDN"T women be mroe aggressive when the time calls for it?) and a scientific question (DOESN"T that indicate thatthe difference is universal, hence natural?)both come about.
: "Now, clearly, polygyny and polyandry are cultural artifacts, and teh fact that they are both practiced in different societies speaks to the power of cultural mores in conditioning behavior. But the prevalence of polygyny indicates, does it not, that polygyny is mroe 'natural' than polyandry."
: (I am unclear as to what polygyny is... is it the same as polygamy?)
Polygamy = multiple spouses (either sex). polyandry = multiple husbands per woman. polygyny = multiple wives per man.
:Well, the same argument, a few centuries ago, could have been made regarding slavery. Is racial oppression 'natural'?
Wonderful. This is really great Kevin. After upholding cultural control of behavior, you're suddnely syaing that your culture is superior, and trying to force your values on other societies. The difference here, the all important one, is that marriage arrangements, whetehr polygynous, polyandrous, monogamous, whatever, are CONSENSUAL, unlike slavery. If the men are hapopy with it, and the women are happy, then wht the hell gives you teh right to interfere? Monogamy may be right for us but it may not be right for african societies. Who are you to assert your superiority to them? In my opinion we should not regulate marriage arrangements. Men and women should be able to set up families and households in any way they choose.
: "How many intersexual kids or whatever the term is are there? They are not all that common are they? How can you base a general statement about male and female genders on what is clearly a rare aberration"
: I am without my source at the moment, but will try to provide it relatively soon. The numbers, as you might suspect are relatively small. My example was to serve as exactly that: an example of what can happen when humans impose gender. What the example was meant to suggest was that gender is something that is imposed upon us all.
But my point is the opposite. you cannot generalize from the intersexual aberration to huamnity as a whole. While they may not be born with natural gender inclinations, that doesn't mean the rest of us aren't.
:It is something distinct from sex, and it is something which we learn, not which we are born with.
None.
