Emerald

I think it's that you don't like women acting differently from the imaginary women in your mind... and you like to see women punished when they operate differently than you want them to. And when a woman experiences misfortune when she deviates from how you think women ought to be, you feel a sense of vindication and a strengthening of the idea in your mind about women. Like, "If you would have only listened to me and been Feminine... maybe you wouldn't have gotten hurt." And that's the immature part.

I just find it to be a sign of insecurity that you're laughing at a woman's misfortune that way. What is it in you that wants to humble women and put women "back in their place" so much that you have such glee about a woman being attacked by a man?

That's a perfect description. I notice that many of the men on this forum can get lost in these caricatures. And they can try to match the Masculine one and ultimately fail because it's a caricature. Then, they finger wag women for not matching the hyper-Feminine caricature and blaming modernity and Feminism for the fact that women "aren't the way they used to be" believing that nomadic and agrarian women matched that caricature and that modernity stole those things from modern women.

Your schadenfreude is so much lamer than that.

It is really sad that they can't really open up to learning new information about women and gender dynamics. So many men build their entire self-esteem on being men and their relationship to women (and their concept of what we are)... that hearing new information about gender and women that doesn't match their ego-inflated identity around collective belonging in the male group... or comforting worldview that frames men as superior in all ways that matter to them, will be met with cognitive dissonance. That's why they keep moving the goalposts and resetting things to their comforting ideologies and narratives around gender. And they keep pretending that our more nuanced and accurate way of looking at these dynamics is extreme... and they straw man us as not recognizing any differences between men and women. Their concept of gender is so baked into the foundation of their identity and what makes them feel good (and bad) about themselves, that they have to find ways to avoid the actual nuanced reality of how humans have existed and interacted with one another. It also might make them have to question a fantasy of some bygone era where women aren't the way we are in the modern era. They can imagine a fantasy of a time when women were existing as purely Feminine in a state of contentment (existing in only the way they want women to be). And that can be hard fantasy to shake.... and to realize that there is no time when women's nature matched to the idea of the imaginary women of yesteryear in their minds. It's always been us bitches! And they don't like that.

This is lame.

You're moving the goalposts. This was your claim: "One gender was specialized in creating and nurturing life, the other in taking away life. Baby nurturing activity is antithetical to the action of taking away a life. One requires max empathy and feelings, the other requires decoupling from empathy and feelings." And now you're softening it... and acting like it's weird that I brought up examples of agrarian Stage Blue farmer ladies with 10 children who were frequently slaughtering animals on the farm... and teaching her kids the art of slaughter as well.

Don't take credit for the work of men who crawl through sewers just because you're the same gender as they are. You work an even cushier job than my job is.

You just won't actually stick to a claim. That's why you're not responding to my arguments... because you don't want to actually defend your real claim, as you know it's a weak claim. But sexual dimorphism likely evolved because one of the main evolutionary strengths of human beings is specialization within a community. And specialization requires a ton of differences and divergences in people's interests, personalities, temperaments, skills, strengths, and weaknesses. So, having men and women be quite a bit different ensures a degree of specialization and divergence... even before the discovery of agriculture. When agriculture was discovered and humans had a surplus of food... we settled into tribes and civilizations. And this enabled us to have more social roles that people can play... like lawyers, interior decorators, secretaries, etc. But in nomadic times, we didn't have surpluses of food. Instead, everyone in the group had to work to eat and survive that day. And to the degree that division of labor and specialization was possible within those roles, it made sense for women to mostly fulfill certain roles and for men to mostly fulfill other roles. So, women mostly played the roles of mother and forager. And men mostly played the role of father and hunter. Both had a parenthood role. And both had a provision role. So, the divergences between men and women enabled them to specialize into those roles to some degree. But specialization in a pre-agrarian group is very risky as there isn't a lot of people. So, it makes sense that there also needed to be a high degree of competence playing every role in the group... as survival depends on it. So, there are divergences in men and women's temperament and physiology because it enabled a degree specialization before specialization was possible. But men and women's skills in a variety of domains are always an overlapping bell curve even if some provisionary specializations are things women are generally better at... and other provisionary specializations men are generally better at. There's also another angle that we can look at sexual dimorphism from... which is the fact that humans are a very social species. And the differences between people's physical appearances are very important relative to our capacity to socialize. Then, there's also the fact that appearance plays a big role in attraction for human beings. And seeing someone who appears different from you signifies the sex difference... where maybe raccoons just sniff each other for that information.

This post is so out in left field. I wasn't trying to make a comparison or claim that women are just as violent as men. Of course, men have a much greater capacity for violence than women. The prison statistics bear that out, even in modern day. I was responding to Alex's claim that, "Men are suited to take life and women are suited to nurture life."... implying that women can't kill animals on a hunt because it's against women's nature to kill. So, I was reminding him that even agrarian Stage Blue women (who mostly worked on farms) were probably having to kill chickens pretty frequently... and other animals too. That's why it makes no sense to think that pre-agrarian women wouldn't hunt because "women are suited to nurture life, not take it".

This is also a new claim. Which claim are you actually arguing... Claim 1: "Women have traded off physical effectiveness for maternal effectiveness." If this is your claim, what does "physical effectiveness" mean? Is it about women's lesser speed and strength compared to men. If so, I don't understand why it follows that women being slower and weaker is directly related to being better and more empathetic moms. I'm sure there are some fast and strong women who are great moms... and some slow and weak women who are terrible moms. And there probably isn't any correlations to be drawn... like "Slower, weaker moms are usually better at mothering." So, I'm assuming that men evolved an extra dose of muscle and speed because of the nomadic roles they needed to play... as opposed to women evolving weakness and ineffectiveness to make them better mothers. (especially since nomadic women had to be strong and highly effective just to survive in the wilderness) Claim 2: "External effectiveness comes at the cost of empathy and children." External effectiveness implies that women who have skills and talents at anything at all are worse moms than moms who are less competent and effective in their work. Basically, this equates capability with bad mothering... and incapability with good mothering. But again, I see no such correlation. I'm great at what I do. But (if I say so myself) I'm a very caring and empathetic mother. Softness is an inextricable part of my nature. Claim 3: 'Women who work in war zones and other very difficult jobs lose their capacity for empathy and childcare." This one's still a dubious claim, as it implies that working these jobs will fundamentally change a woman's temperament and personality. Though, I understand that being in a setting that requires toughness, can cause you to become stressed and to get very contracted around logistics. But honestly... is working on an oil rig or lumber yard actually anywhere near as difficult as surviving in the wilderness as a nomadic woman? I think not. The reality is that modern women are about as soft and empathetic as women have ever been (even women on oil rigs or construction)... because survival is easier. And the Feminine thrives when survival is easier.

Tell that to all the agrarian farmer ladies that needed to regularly slaughter chickens (and other animals) on the farm. Also tell that to wilderness-hardened nomad ladies who (even if they weren't hunters in some groups) always needed to be able to spear encroaching animals to death to protect the camp. The only reason why women get to be nice and soft and nurturing today is because life is a lot easier to survive in. And there is more space for women (and men) to be connected to their Feminine side. Honestly, if you interacted with women anytime before a few hundred years ago... you're going to find a toughness that just doesn't exist in industrial and post-industrial societies.

You're moving the goalposts. Your claim was: "External effectiveness comes at the cost of empathy and children." in reference to women Your claim was NOT: 'Women who work in war zones and other very difficult jobs lose their capacity for empathy and childcare." (which is also a dubious claim)

This may be the most incorrect thing that you've said on this thread. A woman need not be incompetent or lack survival skills to be a loving and caring mother. In fact, women have historically always had to have skills in order to survive and contribute to the group throughout the entirety of human history. Also, from personal experience... in my zones of genius, I'm highly competent. But I'm also a very deeply feeling person. And I'm a very supportive and caring mother.

Back then, when we were in pre-agrarian groups, the roles we had to fill were not specialized. So... women were just mothers, foragers, and camp keepers... and men were just fathers, hunters, and warriors. (and there was interchangeability because of the lack of specialization in pre-agrarian groups) But even then, it wasn't that women were the parents and men were the providers. Men and women both parented and provided. Provision was a communal effort... not a man-specific role, like the common assumption is. That's the real issue comes about when pop-evo-pseudoscience gets involved. And we extrapolate black and white rigid ideas about gender (like man provides, woman parents) that aren't reflective of the more nuanced realities of how humans currently operate and how humans have historically operated. And if you apply the binary idea of "Women parent. Men provide." to modern society like it's a Venn diagram with no overlap (which is how it often gets treated), it means... women are better suited to parenthood and men are better suited to all other human endeavors, which include all career specializations. And this is where your idea of "Men have to have something" idea doesn't hold up... as we don't have to organize this into a binary, as parenting and providing was never treated as a binary. Instead of splitting things into an arbitary dichotomy of "parenting vs providing" and feeling like "men have to be superior at one whilst women are superior at the other", we can look at all of these as human specializations... including parenthood. And we can get a clearer idea on which specializations men are generally better suited to and which specializations women are generally better suited to... of course with many exceptions to rule. And to say "men are better providers" gives men credit for all human specializations and achievements... even things that women have historically done and gotten no recognition or credit for, largely on the basis of the same false gender assumptions. So, with the framing that "women are optimized for parenting and men are optimized for providing" it splits a wide variety of thousands of human specializations into two distinct arbitrary categories. And it ends up being an inaccurate and unfair assessment because there's only one thing in one of the arbitrarily chosen categories and a bajillion things in the other arbitrarily chosen category. So, it's not like, "Men have to be superior at one of the two. Women can't be superior at both." There's not even two.... there's a jillion. But we can talk about which specializations that men and women are generally superior at. (again with many exceptions) Men are generally superior at specializations and provisions that require strength and physical speed. So, men will generally be better at weight lifting, running, heavy duty physical labor, plowing fields, competitive team sports, and hand to hand combat. And women are better at specializations that require social and environmental attunement. So women will generally be better at teaching, raising kids, working with human psychology, maintaining social harmony, interior decoration/other aesthetic endeavors, and various daily sustainer tasks like cooking and cleaning. Then, outside of those super-powers, things are likely relatively equal if you organize all men and women on a bell curve relative to all specializations that don't have anything to do with strength, speed, social attunement, and environmental attunement. And modern women (and men) is definitionally tied to the current era. But I'd imagine there's nothing so very different about the psychological anatomy or physiology of a modern man or woman compared to a man or woman of 500 years ago. So no... there wasn't some 'magical utopia' in the past where women weren't the way they are now. Women have always been women. It's just that women haven't always had the freedom of choice over which direction their lives go in. And the mythologized past of a time when women were only mothers and were blissful about only fulfilling that single role never existed. Women have always worked throughout the entirety of human history... except for wealthy women (and middle class women in the 1940s and 50s). Perhaps that's disappointing, but there's no time in human history where women weren't operating like humans do.

Of course he was joking, as a means of trying to take a dig... and imply that women's only strengths are things like motherhood, cooking, and cleaning. He even said he was doing it to "teach me" through "suffering" because of my "resentment towards men". But I was being serious. Women are probably better at those tasks if you organize everyone on a bell curve. And I was joking that he needn't worry so much about his gender's deficits... as his 'male handicaps' won't hold him back from developing those skills.

That's true in general, if you organized all men and women on a bell curve. But don't worry, there are plenty of men who are very tidy and who are very adept at cooking... even if women are generally better at those skills if you look at the wider population. So, you don't have to worry if you currently lack those skills. You can absolutely improve... even if you're a man.

I think he was doing a bit of projecting there.

Yes. I saw that he said that. But I was talking about his original claim that "Women are optimized for motherhood. Men are optimized for providing". And saying that "women excel in other things too" doesn't mean that he doesn't view men as even better optimized for those roles that women excel at. And it also doesn't mean that he sees the roles that women excel at as equal in societal value to those that men excel at. For example, he could say "obviously women excel at certain things"... and those things that he doesn't see as valuable. Or he could say "obviously women excel at certain things"... and believe that men are still better at those things. So, the reason I didn't address it is because I'm working with his actual claim... which I that "Women are optimized for motherhood. Men are optimized for providing". And believing that "women excel at some things" doesn't mean that he stopped believing "Women are optimized for motherhood (one thing). Men are optimized for providing (many things)". So, I stick to the original claim... as his softening statements doesn't mean that he isn't claiming that men are superior with the majority of human endeavors.

What's an example of a point that I haven't addressed? I'm happy to address them.

I am not dismissing the importance of parenting at all. In fact, I'd say it's one of the the most important occupations that there is. It's just that parenting is one endeavor... and providing encompasses many endeavors. And it's very common that people who see women as inferior will try to pare women's value and humanity down to a single function... whilst seeing men's value and humanity as spanning many functions. And don't deflect the responsibility for your own hierarchical views onto me. I'm just noticing that you have them and pointing them out to you. You may not realize it. But you do have a lot of male supremacist views... and you protect them dearly.

There are no assumptions here. You said, "Women are optimized for motherhood. Men are optimized for providing." That means... "Women have superior capacity for parenting and men have superior capacity for doing other kinds of work that contribute resources to group (aka all non-parenting work endeavors)." Tell me how that isn't a statement of who is superior at doing what? And tell me how that isn't a statement that frames women only as superior at one endeavor... whilst framing men as superior at most endeavors? Either that, or you just see the non-parenting work that women are superior at as inferior in the value it provides to society. So, you did make a statement that indicates that you see men as superior with providing... and providing means working to provide resources. Working to provide resources encompasses thousands of endeavors. Parenting is just one endeavor.

You are saying that men are superior to women with regard to the survival contributions we make to society. (which is all other domains of work outside of parenting) So, you're saying "Men are superior with the vast majority of human occupations. But women are just superior with parenting." And that's just untrue. Throughout human history, women's non-parenting work has contributed just as much to survival as men's work. In fact, if we recognize that women were the primary foragers... foragers provided over half of the calories to the group in nomadic times. So it isn't like... men are the survival apes and women are the reproduction apes. There's no evidence to back that up. Men and women are both survival and reproduction apes.

The entire point is that women fulfilling hunting duties likely wasn't an exceptional situation for most human groups. It was common. Even now, in 79% of foraging societies, women fulfill a significant portion of the hunting duties. Based on the evidence, it seems to reflect that men were/are usually the primary hunters in foraging societies but that women commonly fulfill(ed) hunting duties. So, your assumption that women hunting is an exceptional situation is just a pop-cultural assumption based on how you believe these societies to have operated. And these pop-cultural assumptions about gender roles arise because we project agrarian and industrial dynamics onto pre-agrarian groups. The reality seems to be that hunts were much more communal. And large hunts often involved every capable adult. And even elders and children would get involved. Also, I've been pregnant before. And you're not bed-bound or anything like that. You can still be quite active when pregnant. I worked well past my due date during my second pregnancy. And many pregnant women do physically active jobs. But even if pregnancy were a hindrance to action, there's only a 20 year period in a woman's life where she can get pregnant. And before agriculture, women didn't need to have so many children to fulfill farm roles. And based on DNA evidence in women's teeth, the studies showed that pre-agrarian women often had 4-5 births in her life spaced out every 3-4 years during her fertile period... And it's estimated that only 2-3 of those children would survive to adulthood. And in contemporary foraging groups, a similar pattern of waiting every 3-4 years to have another child is the norm... as having multiple babies at a time can be a liability in these circumstances. And if you just look around the world, in agrarian farming societies women have often done quite hard labor all throughout human history with a baby wrapped to them. It's not an uncommon image to see women doing hard labor out in a field with a baby in tow.

There was still some division of labor between men and women in pre-agrarian times. But the lines were much blurrier than in agrarian times, when patriarchal transfer of land and resources started to become a thing. Back then, we were in groups of 20-50 people. And the capacity for specialization was very limited... as specialization is something that unlocks only when there are surpluses of food and a fully settled location, like in agrarian times. But if you think about it logistically, with so few people, it's going to be important for people to be generalists... where everyone is working together on similar tasks of basic sustenance. That way, there's always the capacity to cover that person's role if they get sick or die, as everything is so hand to mouth. Like, imagine that it was the case that there's a group of 20 people. And 4 of them are children... 8 are men and 8 are women. Then, 5 of the 8 men get killed in an altercation with a warring group. In that case, it's going to be important that there are women who know how to pick up the slack and fulfill the roles those men used to fill. So, it makes logical sense to have a set-up where everyone would be familiar with all the roles in the group... and fulfill them often enough. It's like if you lived your life camping... you'd need to learn all the basic skills, like hunting, making a fire, fixing your tent, foraging, etc. So in those times, the evidence points to a less rigid division of labor between the sexes... where (in many groups) men were the primary hunters but all often foraged and women were the primary foragers but all often hunted.