No, you came into it with an axe to grind and deliberately misread and misrepresented the aeguments put forth so your self-righteousness would self-stoke.
I suppose the stock explanation for any such difference is that women were not encouraged, or were not appreciated, or were discouraged from being creative. But I don’t think this stock explanation fits the facts very well. In the 19th century in America, middle-class girls and women played piano far more than men. Yet all that piano playing failed to result in any creative output. There were no great women composers, no new directions in style of music or how to play, or anything like that. All those female pianists entertained their families and their dinner guests but did not seem motivated to create anything new. Meanwhile, at about the same time, black men in America created blues and then jazz, both of which changed the way the world experiences music. By any measure, those black men, mostly just emerging from slavery, were far more disadvantaged than the middle-class white women. Even getting their hands on a musical instrument must have been considerably harder. And remember, I’m saying that the creative abilities are probably about equal. But somehow the men were driven to create something new, more than the women. It's really handy for the writer of this article that no women were a part of the jazz movement, innit? Wait... This article repeatedly, repeatedly, uses exaggerated examples such as this one which deliberately set a "male movement" vs. a "female movement" to establish one example which is then taken as evidence of the entire point. There were women in jazz, tons. But the author credits the entire movement to black men, forgetting black women or other women who were a part of the genre. They were typically singers, so no, they wouldn't improvise in the same way that a jazz quintet would. But to say that black men created jazz is to ignore Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Nina Simone, Bessie Smith and countless others. So his point here is that women simply are less creative than men, because white educated women who were trained to play the piano as part of standard "wedding material repertoire" weren't creating music, but black men were. Except there's loads more cultural differences than he's taking into account here. Except there's loads of women he's discounting when he says they had no part in jazz. How about this? If that's true, then conversely, men shouldn't specialize in small group or single person activities. Funnily enough, most creative activities (writing, painting, playing music, composing, etc) are not group activities. By that logic men shouldn't be better at these activities. However, apparently besides preferring large group activities men are still also more creative, even when it comes to doing things they don't prefer. Also, there should be fewer male writers than women (there aren't), since men as a whole don't prefer that type of activity. Fewer male painters. Composers. You get it. None of which there are. I mean, like, I think I'm just hearing "men are naturally better at everything" over and over again in different ways in this article. Either you're not or you're not bothered by it. This one is for PantherHeel93 : So, in this paragraph, the author is saying that women don't feel the need to differentiate themselves from each other because they don't descend from women who have had to fight their way to the top to mate. (For the time being we'll disregard my first problem with this statement, which is that since every person is a product of the combined genes of a woman and a man, writing as if men descended only from "men who had to fight to mate" and therefore are more aggressive, and as if women descended only from women who, well, didn't, establishes an interestingly tribe-like and ignorant paradigm which disregards the fact that since those fighter men would have had to fuck those non-fighter women to create children, the aggressive traits of the fathers would have ended up in both their female and male progeny while the lazy traits of the mothers would have done the same and it's really fallacious and in fact stupid to suggest that the male offspring only take after their male forefathers and the females their female foremothers.) In this paragraph, the author states that men feel the need to be special and do things which set them apart, while women simply don't, because each gender feels drawn to different sizes of interpersonal relationships (essentially, men like group bonding, women like pair bonding). Here are the questions which spring to my mind in regards to these assertions. First, how are we justifying this statement? How are we justifying or backing up this idea that women don't differentiate themselves as much as men do? Let's go back a paragraph or two: So because women tend not to think of themselves in ways that distinguish their personal self from a group, we are supposed to conclude women actively don't try to set themselves apart from others. Or, while some women might do it, they aren't driven to do it in the same way as men are. Empirically and scientifically speaking, how might one quantify or measure degrees of "setting oneself apart from others" or "individualism"? If we can do that why is there no mention of a measurable and statistically significant difference between men and women in that regard? I mean, you'd think someone would have looked into this, right? Why is fashion supposed to be dominated by women if women aren't creative and don't need to set themselves apart from each other? (Maybe it's not really dominated by women so the answer is "because it's a man's thing." You tell me.) Now, as for that statement about how large groups foster the need for individualism, I'm a bit puzzled by that. I mean, come on, we've all read "The Lottery." Or "A&P." Or any story about a small town which rigidly enforces uniformity at the price of citizens' happiness or even lives. Uh...Footloose? It seems a common maxim taught to children in schools that groups create "group think." Or as we call them now, "echo chambers." or "hiveminds." Or "reddit." So like, how is that statement, that large groups somehow foster individualism, being blandly accepted by everyone reading it? The generally accepted maxim about group behavior refers to lemmings and essentially asserts the opposite. But here this author can slip in this sentence and everyone seems to have swallowed it like gravy because it fits so well in the cadence of the speech and patterns the author has already established. I'd even assert that in large groups it is better for the group to have at least 2 people that can do each job not one special individual. An individual is important to the group if he can hunt, for instance. But if he is the only hunter the entire group is fucked if he is hurt or killed. If you have multiple hunters, they aren't special, they aren't distinguishing themselves from the entire rest of the group - they're a subunit - meanwhile it's better for the group because redundancy. I mean, so, how about all of that? Besides the fact that this paragraph is essentially saying that women just aren't driven to be special which disregards every single woman who accomplished anything of note in any art or science - Marie Curie coming in top of my list - because she was driven to it. If a woman's driven like that, apparently, it's just gravy. Whereas it burns in every man? If what I am seeing is wrong, tell me how it's wrong. But what I am seeing a lot of in this article is deliberately separating men and women into 2 distinct categories that are like yin and yang : they do not overlap, they compliment, but if you are yin you are definitely clearly not yang and vice versa. It's stuff like saying men descend from the men that fought to make kids while women descend from the women who just lay there. Like excluding the entire history of women in jazz from a discussion of the jazz movement. I'm not saying men and women might be different, but complimentary. I am saying this article is bullshit. I mean for christ's sakes guys the man titled his essay "Is There Anything Good About Men," then opens by saying: THEN Is that my axe to grind kleinbl00 ? Is that me misinterpreting this article? I mean literally the sections "Men on Top" and "Stereotypes at Harvard" are basically saying "Well there are just more men," and then "Not all men," and then "well maybe there aren't simply more men than women, maybe it's that there are more men at the ends of the spectrum as opposed to the middle" in case being told that the reason there were more men in power than women was simply because there were more men at all seemed slightly, I don't know, flimsy or tautologic to you. hardly any women improvise. Why? The ability is there but perhaps the motivation is less. They don’t feel driven to do it.
Women specialize in the narrow sphere of intimate relationships. Men specialize in the larger group. If you make a list of activities that are done in large groups, you are likely to have a list of things that men do and enjoy more than women: team sports, politics, large corporations, economic networks, and so forth.
cultivating a unique skill isn’t essential for her. But playing the trombone is a way to get into some groups, especially brass bands. This is another reason that men go to extremes more than women. Large groups foster the need to establish something different and special about yourself.
research showing that men think of themselves based on their unusual traits that set them apart from others, while women’s self-concepts feature things that connect them to others
The question of whether there’s anything good about men is only my point of departure.
I think it’s best to avoid value judgments as much as possible...I have no conclusions to present about what’s good or bad
So when I say you're looking for a reason to be offended and deliberately misrepresenting arguments so you can be pissed off, deliberately misrepresenting arguments so you can be pissed off doesn't make your case. "Black men created jazz" does not mean "there were no women in jazz." "Women favor small groups" does not mean "only women pursue solo activity." You're not even going for the tangential arguments ("women clearly composed as much as men, it's just that in a patriarchal society they had a much harder time having their compositions heard") you're moving the goal posts to where the author argued somewhere that men can't be poets. And then you wrote a paragraph invoking a sci fi story, Footloose and Reddit. Go to sleep. Wake up. Have coffee. Take a deep breath. Then read it again. I'm not going to tell you why you're wrong when an article arguing that evolutionarily, women and men have different goals gets turned into a diatribe about Marie Curie.
This is a common problem with scientific studies, particularly in psychology and sociology. It's so hard to look at generalized statistics and understand that just because you don't fit the description does not mean they are any less true on average. I think you're right that this is what trips you up. You are not a typical female, so seeing these studies that show females on average are overwhelmingly different from you is hard to believe.
Since kleinbl00 already covered the majority of your silly argument I just want to address what you directed at me. Firstly, regarding your genetic rant, again I feel the need to reiterate that men and women are not genetic clones with different physical parts. All these studies show differences in them which due to genetics and hormones predispose them to acting in different ways. So kindly get off your soap box for a moment while you contemplate the indisputable fact that men and women developed differently based on evolutionary, societal, and cultural incentives for doing so. This happens in virtually every species on Earth. If you think people are really just half mom and half dad, you need some time alone with your Punnett Squares. As for the main part of what you directed at me, the part about quantifying individualism, that is answered in this article. I suggest following kleinbl00's advice and giving this another read in the morning while trying to keep your emotions out of it. I know that's a lot of effort and a lot of reading, but you're clearly not understanding the opposing viewpoint, and if you ever want to argue outside of an echo chamber and avoid looking foolish, understanding the opposing viewpoint is vital. However, I doubt you'll reread it, as that would interfere with your confirmation bias.
S'that what you're doing with the comment where I called you out on bullshit earlier, or do you just wander from post to post and say [BLANK] bias to people like you're in first year philosophy class and then not going back and answering when somebody gives you shit that you can't handle? "Wayward you attacked me with an ad-hominem! Now let me just be a condescending prick right here, it's not the same thing!" I just, I don't get it! It's weird to me that you agree with klein when he has the ability to argue with someone without being a condescending prick. "I know that's a lot of effort and a lot of reading." Holy shit-fuck. It's so hard to take you seriously when you talk to everyone like you're better than them. Stop it. You'll more than likely enjoy it here more if you don't act like that. To conclude, I'm not gonna be reading however you respond to this. Just gonna hush you up for a week, check back, see if your attitude's changed. HOPEFULLY IT DOES.I suggest following kleinbl00's advice and giving this another read in the morning
Totally. What the article says is as a woman, you are more likely to find a family and have children. What the article says is as a woman, your level of necessary success to be judged as "successful" is lower. What the article says is as a woman, you are not only less likely to be a CEO, you are also less likely to be a prison inmate, a workaholic or a workplace casualty. Effectively, the article says that "average" women are judged as successful but men need to lean more towards extraordinary because that's the structure we've evolved. If you accept that you are more likely to be average than extraordinary, it's better to be a woman. The only negative aspect for women is that men are more likely to be extraordinary than women - a consequence of men more likely to be deeply substandard. But again - it's a statistical argument. Statistics can no more predict whether or not you're extraordinary than whether or not you're blonde. Yeah - it can give you odds, but numbers don't know you.
Yeah. I don't consider being "average" a compliment or a positive aspect. I'd rather die out in a flame than fade away, or whatever, apparently. For those who are okay with the safe option I guess being a woman, from the point of the article, seems okay. I guess it's the average people that don't have billboards or movies for them.
No one's asking you to. more important, the article doesn't argue that women are more or less average than men - the article is arguing that women who stand out actually stand out more than men who stand out. More than that, you can still stand out and be judged on the median:On the Titanic, the richest men had a lower survival rate (34%) than the poorest women (46%) (though that’s not how it looked in the movie). That in itself is remarkable. The rich, powerful, and successful men, the movers and shakers, supposedly the ones that the culture is all set up to favor — in a pinch, their lives were valued less than those of women with hardly any money or power or status. The too-few seats in the lifeboats went to the women who weren’t even ladies, instead of to those patriarchs.
I'm a big fan of existentialism. Nothing matters, life is pointless, the world is pointless, the universe is pointless. No matter what we do, we will die, be forgotten, and nothing we remembered or nothing about how we exist today will live on. There is no future for us. But, regardless of that, we can life happily picking our own path, picking what is important for us. In the grand scheme of things, life is truly pointless, from my view, I just want to be happy, live my life, and die. Going out with a bang, being famous, is encouraged by society because it benefits society when people sacrifice themselves for doing so. Society loves a poet driven to suicide, but who produced lovely poems for thousands. Do you want to be that poet?
I didn't say that because my views of you, or because I thought you are a child, I said that because it's a rhetorical tool. Making the statement that being great, being a hero, is something that society "glamorizes" at the expense of all those who become heroes. And that nobody should actually want to be a hero, even in the culture that emphasizes it, because it comes a personal harm.
" If you have multiple hunters, they aren't special, they aren't distinguishing themselves from the entire rest of the group - they're a subunit - meanwhile it's better for the group because redundancy" But it's better for the individual person in the group to be irreplaceable. If I'm the only hunter, everyone will work to protect me and I get all the ladies. It's evolution, not politics.
It's not, actually. You're just too busy being offended to notice. Read the section headlined "Stereotypes at Harvard." There's a point being made, but since that point flies in the face of "women are underrepresented because patriarchy" you tuned out and went full snark, zero refutation. It's not even a complicated argument. Here - I'll spell it out simply: Because it takes one womb to create one child, women are effectively assured reproduction. On the other hand, one man can have countless progeny which requires men to compete with each other in order to reproduce. This competition has genetically selected for diversity in male behavior while the assurance of reproduction in women has genetically selected for homogeny. How 'bout simpler? Men have to stick out and take risks if they want to have kids, while women have to survive. A man who does nothing to distinguish himself is unlikely to reproduce, while a woman who strives to distinguish herself actually reduces her ability to reproduce through undue risk. The key phrase is actually in the text: Here's how that reveals itself in GPA, with women earning better grades than men: Here's how it reveals itself in the workplace, with women earning less pay than men: The article presents a statistical, evolutionary argument for why women get the shaft academically, professionally and historically without resorting to "the patriarchy." Simply put, it says that the basic underpinnings of society were created by men to one-up other men and that historically, women largely opted out because the fundamental unit of female society is smaller than the fundamental unit of male society. It goes on to say that there's conflict now because we're reshaping our society to fit women into the larger context. But you were too busy literally getting your panties in a twist. 'member this? That's yet another example of the most controversial words I've ever committed to the internet: It's part of an argument whereby I point out that both genders are adjusting to a changing social dynamic and that we ought to account for and understand the deficiencies both genders are dealing with. But, like countless times before, somebody completely lost their shit over the "a half dozen generations ago you bitches were de-facto property" part... ...without recognizing that not only is that painted as something bad, it happens to be true. You came in looking for a "rah rah men's rights" argument so superheated that you literally ignored everything that wouldn't give it to you. And you're better than that. And you looked at it, and said "who the fuck badged this", and snarked the fuck out of it, and I called you on it, and you called it "a silly article with a rather pointless premise" instead of wondering what, exactly, I saw in it. And I'm better than that and you know it.Almost certainly, it is something biological and genetic. And my guess is that the greater proportion of men at both extremes of the IQ distribution is part of the same pattern. Nature rolls the dice with men more than women. Men go to extremes more than women. It’s true not just with IQ but also with other things, even height: The male distribution of height is flatter, with more really tall and really short men.
A pattern of more men at both extremes can create all sorts of misleading conclusions and other statistical mischief. To illustrate, let’s assume that men and women are on average exactly equal in every relevant respect, but more men at both extremes. If you then measure things that are bounded at one end, it screws up the data to make men and women seem significantly different. Consider grade point average in college. Thanks to grade inflation, most students now get A’s and B’s, but a few range all the way down to F. With that kind of low ceiling, the high-achieving males cannot pull up the male average, but the loser males will pull it down. The result will be that women will get higher average grades than men — again despite no difference in average quality of work.
The opposite result comes with salaries. There is a minimum wage but no maximum. Hence the high-achieving men can pull the male average up while the low-achieving ones can’t pull it down. The result? Men will get higher average salaries than women, even if there is no average difference on any relevant input. Today, sure enough, women get higher college grades but lower salaries than men. There is much discussion about what all this means and what should be done about it. But as you see, both facts could be just a statistical quirk stemming from male extremity.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but a half dozen generations ago you bitches were de-facto property. If we wanted in your pantaloons we'd fucking ask your dad, not you. So next time you get all catty and bitchy about shit, remember that we're dealing with our instincts in your world and try not to be too fucking complicated about it.
What this article says to me is that I, just naturally, whatever, cannot be as great as men. Not all men, but, you know, like 50% maybeish. I just can't. I didn't evolve that way, the women before me just lay there to get me here, and the assets I bring to the table in life are that I fucking get along with people and my baby will love me regardless of whether I am special in any single way or not. Neither of which are things I particularly care about. That even a "different" woman won't be able to get to the same peak or success as men. Because after all, historically, culturally, societally, etc, the only thing that has really mattered about all the women before her was their wombs. Women fall to the middle. Men get to the extremes. Huh? Do you expect that I am going to read that and be like "Yeah man, cool. I've always wanted to be average" ? And sure, like, we can all pow-wow and be like "Not you ref!" if we really want to, we can say "We mean it in general but not in specific" but the bottom line is that I'm a member of this class which has been identified in this article as having basically no significant, worthwhile positive attributes so far as I can see. They go along to get along. They've just had to survive. They don't take risks. They aren't as motivated. They're not as creative. Whatever, we can keep going. Let's even just say for the fun of it it's all fucking true. Who. The fuck. Would want to believe that? Oh yes, very insightful klein. Great article. Love it. 'scuse me while I go accept my second-rate existence. Don't worry, it doesn't bother me. Besides, I'm way more concerned with what everyone else thinks.
The article says literally fuckall about you. Here's the funny thing: on average, men are every bit as average as women. What the article says is that men are also more likely to rule harder and suck harder than women, but the men who suck harder are rarely even noticed. The article basically points out that women are going to be underrepresented at the top the same as they're underrepresented at the bottom but being underrepresented at the top is held forth as social injustice while being underrepresented at the bottom is held forth as a consequence of the natural superiority of women. But you're too busy looking to feel victimized to notice. The really stupid thing is that the article isn't even saying it should be this way. The article is saying "it's probably worth investigating how it came to be this way" and putting forth hypotheses. Know what the article says? "Average dudes don't get laid." It then explores the societal results of that maxim. Is your existence second-rate? Well, statistically you're more likely to get laid - assuming we're both single. We're not, though. I'm married. To a woman who was married before. To a guy who dropped out of college, didn't get a job, got addicted to pot and dropped out of life. That guy? out of the gene pool. I'll bet you didn't even know he existed - the fact that I'm my wife's second husband. He's so irrelevant to our life that we haven't even looked his ass up on Facebook. That guy? Not the norm. "Extraordinary." In a way you don't want to be. A dude who can't get laid is a loser. A woman who can't get laid is a tragedy. The article explores what that means for CEOs and jazz musicians. But frankly, at this point if you want to take it personally I really can't stop you so go right ahead.
Found it! Don't ever let statistical averages apply to you and you won't have a problem. What happens in the aggregate has jack shit to do with YOU, so long as you don't let it. I graduated high school thanks to a gift grade from an art teacher, who passed me when I didn't deserve it, as I'd spent all of high school getting high and cutting as much class as I could. In the average, I should be digging ditches for minimum wage by now, but I'm sure a shit not digging ditches. I'm not going to sit here and brag about how awesome my life is, but if I would have listened to everyone who told me I was destined to be a failure, I never would have stood a chance. My elementary school principle told my parents as much when I was 9. Seriously. Fuck averages. They're instructive when trying to explain group behavior, but they are meaningless to any particular individual. I'm not telling you not to be offended. I didn't read the article, because I don't have any interest in reading it. I don't know what it's like to be a woman or a minority, and I won't pretend to. But what I am telling you is that every other woman in the world could be a slug, and you're still you, and you still get to make your own choices.What this article says to me is that I, just naturally, whatever, cannot be as great as men.
Perhaps I will when I have time later. One thing I found fascinating about Catching Fire was the author's assertion that gender roles sprang from the need for protection in camp, as cooking requires (a) a fire that's easy to detect, and (b) sitting in one place for a ling time. Essentially, men and women struck a "deal" in which women cook for men and men protect them while doing so, and that this relationship has exactly nothing to do with sex. Best argument I've ever read, frankly.
And the African tribe that marries off the young bucks to the crones because the crones will bloody well be able to cook, which gives the young bucks the opportunity to thrive, outlive their crones and then take on the hot young new wives when they're established. It's funny how many taboos there are to talking about sex, even when the discussion is about the economic motivations derived from gender.
This is true for me as well. Being a man I'm statistically in exactly the same spot. About 50% of men cannot be as great as the other 50%. Why is this worse for you than for me? What this article says to me is that I, just naturally, whatever, cannot be as great as men. Not all men, but, you know, like 50% maybeish. I just can't.
No, what it's saying is that women produce fewer Stephen Hawkings, Einsteins, and so on. People who aren't normal. People who didn't speak for years, or have genetics that create muscular dystrophy. Traits that, in an ancient time, are more damaging to exist in women than to exist in men. You may well be an exception, you may well be an Einstein or a Stephen Hawking. However, if women as a group produce fewer of these sorts of people, then society will develop a bias against women as being incapable of doing those abnormal things. You should fight that bias, but understand it's origins at the same time. Without doing that, you cannot understand it, and will never defeat it.What this article says to me is that I, just naturally, whatever, cannot be as great as men. Not all men, but, you know, like 50% maybeish.