a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment by _refugee_
_refugee_  ·  3122 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Is There Anything Good About Men?

    hardly any women improvise. Why? The ability is there but perhaps the motivation is less. They don’t feel driven to do it.

    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?

    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.

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 :

    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.

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:

    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

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:

    The question of whether there’s anything good about men is only my point of departure.

THEN

    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

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.





kleinbl00  ·  3122 days ago  ·  link  ·  

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.

_refugee_  ·  3122 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Maybe my problem is I just don't relate to what women are supposed to be.

kleinbl00  ·  3121 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Maybe your problem is you're seeking a personal judgement from a statistical argument put forth in a speech given eight years ago.

user-inactivated  ·  3122 days ago  ·  link  ·  

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.

user-inactivated  ·  3122 days ago  ·  link  ·  

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.

user-inactivated  ·  3122 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    I suggest following kleinbl00's advice and giving this another read in the morning

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.

_refugee_  ·  3122 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Is there a single person in this thread who would want to be a woman after reading this article?

kleinbl00  ·  3121 days ago  ·  link  ·  

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.

_refugee_  ·  3121 days ago  ·  link  ·  

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.

kleinbl00  ·  3121 days ago  ·  link  ·  

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.
reguile  ·  3118 days ago  ·  link  ·  

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?

_refugee_  ·  3118 days ago  ·  link  ·  

You have no idea what you are talking about, but I'd appreciate it if you can trust that I'm an adult who has thought through her desires carefully enough not to mind what they are. So otherwise, fug off.

reguile  ·  3117 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I think you are reading too much into what I am saying.

    it if you can trust that I'm an adult

I don't give a shit who you are.

_refugee_  ·  3117 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    Society loves a poet driven to suicide, but who produced lovely poems for thousands. Do you want to be that poet?
reguile  ·  3117 days ago  ·  link  ·  

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.

_refugee_  ·  3121 days ago  ·  link  ·  
This comment has been deleted.
j4d3  ·  3117 days ago  ·  link  ·  
This comment has been deleted.
_refugee_  ·  3122 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    I doubt you'll reread it, as that would interfere with your confirmation bias.

Brah you know so much about me!

fudog  ·  3115 days ago  ·  link  ·  

" 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.

_refugee_  ·  3115 days ago  ·  link  ·