A knot of sexist logic in the Western mind

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Duncan Butlin
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Re: A knot of sexist logic in the Western mind

Post by Duncan Butlin »

SpheresOfBalance, you say that some people would consider you “slightly sexist”. You have my sympathies -- most people would call me extremely sexist. ‘Sexist’ is a derogatory term, almost exclusively used by women against men, where the woman accuses the man of being nasty to her on the basis of her sex. In other words, she’s saying that he’s pointing out what he thinks is a negative female trait, inherent to all women but not men, about which she can do nothing. As far as she’s concerned he is not just insulting her, but insulting all women at the same time.

Technically, if the trait (sex difference) is really true, then the man is not being sexist -- he is simply telling the truth. But, increasingly, as more and more societies officially deny sex differences exist, telling the truth is not an option: if a man distinguishes between the sexes in any way (except for sexual purposes) then he is being sexist and he is in the wrong.

I believe there are many large differences between the sexes, especially in our behaviour towards one another; I believe in pointing out these differences whenever acceptable; and I often believe in exaggerating them. You’d have thought I was asking for trouble, but rarely do I have a problem in social encounters -- almost everyone, if put on the spot, acknowledges differences -- it is just impossible to get anything published. In the public sphere, the whole world has gone into denial.

You comment:
I see that lesbians and gays are gender deficient, at various stages of being a hermaphrodite. Though I have nothing against them, they are innocents. Unfortunately birth defects happen.
This is why I use the term sex war -- the conflict is so important that it even shows sex differences in homosexuality (my own son is gay). Gay men side with the opposite sex whereas lesbians side with their own sex (they are often leading feminists) -- both treat heterosexual men as the enemy. That’s one of the reasons why I want to minimise homosexuality in men -- the more there are the weaker men become in the sex war.

You say you are, “all about equality across the board”, whereas I do not even believe in equal rights between men and women. It’s obvious, really, if there are any sex differences in behaviour, then each sex has its own probability of manifesting that behaviour. Women are more agreeable than men, so have a greater probability or ‘right’ than men of entering caring careers; men are more systemising than women, so have a greater probability or ‘right’ to enter STEM careers. Boys and girls have the opportunity of becoming respectively men and women -- they are not the same; they do not have equal opportunities; they do not have equal rights.

I don’t mind a woman being in charge occasionally, but when it becomes a trend, particularly a forced trend, then I draw the line. Quotas and women-only lists are anathema to me, and yet they have spread all over the world. That’s what happens when men give up control. I believe that men on the average make better leaders. You think the reverse (“in some respects they'll do a better job than us men”); you even think that “women can have a better scientific understanding than men”. I’m not sure where that comes from. We’ll just have to agree to differ on that. But hang on a moment, you are the one who said he believed in equality, and yet now you are judging women superior in a very significant way. That’s the female knot of logic I am talking about. You trickster!

As for sexual positions, the more the merrier I say. Thank you very much for your time. Sorry to go on at such length.
Skip
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Re: A knot of sexist logic in the Western mind

Post by Skip »

Sir-Sister-of-Suck wrote: Wed Aug 08, 2018 5:02 am I haven't largely been playing 'armchair psychologist' in this thread. I have specifically been warning against that. You just continue to misunderstand my intentions for the exact opposite of what I'm actually trying to do, here, and frankly that's pretty irritating. Especially when I deny that I've been making sweeping generalization about you.
Ah, now I get it!
You never said those things, and you really meant the opposite and besides it was said with good intentions and it never happened.
SOPc2018
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Kayla
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Re: A knot of sexist logic in the Western mind

Post by Kayla »

SpheresOfBalance wrote: Wed Aug 08, 2018 9:43 amI believe that on average men can take more physical and psychological punishment than women. That being tortured once caught behind enemy lines women would break quicker.
do u have any idea how many women regularly present a happy and functional face to the world in the face of very painful premenstrual cramps?
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Kayla
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Re: A knot of sexist logic in the Western mind

Post by Kayla »

Duncan Butlin wrote: Wed Aug 08, 2018 8:43 am Forgive me for being blunt, but your enthusiasm for women in positions of power is based on a contradiction.  By implication you argue that men and women are equal and therefore women deserve 50% of powerful positions. You then argue, again by implication, that women are not equal (better at networking, multi-tasking, less confrontational) so that 50% female participation will deliver improved governance, improved corporate performance and improved business operations.
equality is an overloaded word

men and women are equal (or should be in any case) in the political sense

this is a separate issue from psychological and physical differences between genders


men-only groups tend towards acting like pigs

women-only groups tend towards way too much hormone-driven drama

it boggles my mind that there are still people who fail to see how mixed- gender groups avoid both of these extremes
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Kayla
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Re: no protest; no effort

Post by Kayla »

henry quirk wrote: Mon Aug 06, 2018 4:31 am just stating facts
how do u distinguish facts and things that you believe to be true?
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Duncan Butlin
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Re: A knot of sexist logic in the Western mind

Post by Duncan Butlin »

Kayla, I agree that mixed sex groups behave nicely, but there are many occupations where either men or women dominate. Unbalanced sex environments are inevitable. I even think a case can be made for allowing single-sex clubs and education. Neither sex inevitably goes bad when isolated for a while -- though I agree your generalisations apply sometimes.

I disagree that we are equal politically, though -- nor do I think we should be -- I just don’t believe you can separate out the psychological differences. Men excel at leadership and sticking to agreements, for example, and I think this makes them superior politicians. Free of quotas, preferences, special programmes and women-only lists I think there would naturally be only about ten percent women in parliaments around the world, and I think that would be about right.

But you avoid the issue. The paragraph of mine you have quoted shows that, in promoting women into powerful positions around the world, women are cheating (and men are following on). How can that be right?
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Greta
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Re: A knot of sexist logic in the Western mind

Post by Greta »

Duncan Butlin wrote: Wed Aug 08, 2018 8:43 am Greta, a valiant salvo in the sex war. You say:
Maybe so, as long as you ignore millennia of abject oppression of women down through history, continued oppression of women around most of the world, and continued under-representation of women in all positions of power in even the most "enlightened" countries.

How far under the thumb do you need women to be before you are satisfied?? Just when I was starting to be hopeful that we'd be treated as equals the seemingly insatiable male hunger for power and domination over women rises again.
But why the bitterness? We’ve been at it for millions of years (not just millennia), so why not enjoy the fight?
I imagine it's because being smashed to a pulp over, as you say, millions of years is probably less fun than being the ones doing the smashing.

The good news is that each gender is probably going to become an anachronism in the future. Bring on the machines, I say. We could do with more logic in the world.
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Duncan Butlin
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Re: A knot of sexist logic in the Western mind

Post by Duncan Butlin »

Greta, being bossed around by a stroppy wife for millions of years is far worse than putting up with an occasionally belligerent husband, but, seriously, I actually think we need each other to think straight. True intelligence has to be able to consider contrary ideas, as per you and me, and a single intelligent entity cannot contain such blatant contradictions. In other words, if and when truly general artificial intelligence comes along, it will have to be made in male and female versions. We need male logic and female logic fighting it out together to generate true logic.
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Re: A knot of sexist logic in the Western mind

Post by Eodnhoj7 »

In 5 sentences or less, what seperates male from female logic according to you?
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henry quirk
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"how do u distinguish facts and things that you believe to be true?"

Post by henry quirk »

Being unphilosophical about it...

A body apprehends some things directly (fire, for example), some indirectly (love, for example).

Fire is 'there', naked to you: the heat, the flickering light, the sound and smell of it, all right 'there' in front of you. Even in your first exposure to fire (mebbe as a kid, wonderin' 'what is that?') there's no need or place for 'belief' cuz fire 'is'.

Love, however, you can only detect indirectly (cuz 'loving' [the on-going act]) happens behind the eyes, in the heart). The one who loves has to demonstrate loving, and the presumed subject has to recognize the loving. Mistakes happen. Demonstrations of love are not universally understood. Recognition of love requires attention (which can be elsewhere).

With fire: it's always the same, no matter when, where, or who, so fire is 'true' (real).

Love: so much depends on experience (what one has sussed out for himself; what been transmitted to him from others) one could say love is a matter of 'belief'.

Applied to Duncan's knot: there's a heavy element of belief in my (up-thread) assessment of that knot.
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Lacewing
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Re: A knot of sexist logic in the Western mind

Post by Lacewing »

Sir-Sister-of-Suck wrote: Wed Aug 08, 2018 2:59 am
Eodnhoj7 wrote: Tue Aug 07, 2018 5:24 pmMistreated? I look around me and the simple truth is the mankind strictly uses eachother as a means.
Sort of like how you're using Lacewing as a means of an emotional punching bag... /...by attacking her with very loose, pre-concieved phycho-analyzations which aren't being shown to be valid, in any objective way.
Yes, (as he says) he thinks the "simple truth" is that everyone is "strictly" a certain way -- no other potentials exist! This attitude keeps echoing in his communications with me.

He has repeatedly manufactured a false reality about me in order to justify his own demented perspectives and projections. He does this without real knowledge of the actual truth -- showing that he doesn't care/consider beyond his own spew which he is apparently very intoxicated with.

To me, it's another demonstration of the rabid delusions that occur when someone believes their limited views and reality to be all that is.
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Re: A knot of sexist logic in the Western mind

Post by Skip »

Duncan Butlin wrote: Wed Aug 08, 2018 11:08 pm Men excel at leadership and sticking to agreements, for example, and I think this makes them superior politicians.
:lol: :lol:
https://qz.com/1273510/all-the-internat ... iran-deal/
No female presidents so far.
https://www.heritage.org/missile-defens ... e-scrap-it
No women in charge there, either.
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Sir-Sister-of-Suck
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Re: A knot of sexist logic in the Western mind

Post by Sir-Sister-of-Suck »

Duncan Butlin wrote: Wed Aug 08, 2018 8:10 amSir-Sister-of-Suck, this dichotomy between how to treat strangers versus people close to you is interesting. I definitely treat strangers and friends differently.
And wouldn't you say that this is in pretty blatant disregard of what your activism would tell you to do? The most literal interpretation of your ideology would probably dictate for you to not discriminate against certain people, like that.
I still don’t understand why you think I should not use “information gained through my political activism” to inform my generalisations and my private life. Am I not simply wasting my time researching, if I don’t make use of knowledge gained? Or do you consider that ‘knowledge gained’ to be of such low quality that it should not be used in real life? Only suitable for academia?
No it's not just because I personally disagree with the data coming from out of MRAs and feminists, I think it's altogether a very unhealthy thing to do. It creates a disconnect from your own experience of things, in favor of outside data that isn't specific enough to actually make judgments about individuals in your life. Even worse, if what you're being taught is something as extreme as 'men have no sympathy in times of distress,' or 'women don't actually enjoy sex,' that generalization could literally overwrite an important thing you thought you knew about your wife or husband, and that is going to have very negative consequences in your sanity. With more and more information, you could potentially end up in this psychological goose-chase where you now reconsider every thing you thought you knew about a person.

Just as your activism doesn't consider personal attachment, these generalizations don't consider your own long-term analysis of a person. There are exceptions within any generalization, whether they're correct or not. Honestly this whole conversation has become so convoluted. I feel as though I'm not conveying my position well enough anymore, almost like I'm missing my own point. I definitely think my reply to you above about this idea that we 'discriminate' against people who aren't our friends is the most solid point reinforcing the concept to separate your politics from family. We definitely can't follow any form of activism by its most strict application. I hope it doesn't sound like a cop out, but I think I'm just about to bail out of this thread.
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Duncan Butlin
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Re: A knot of sexist logic in the Western mind

Post by Duncan Butlin »

Eodnhoj7, you ask:
In 5 sentences or less, what separates male from female logic according to you?
Women change levels of argument far more freely than men, and make more frequent use of fallacies: sex, sexism, ad hominem, straw man, non-sequiturs, reductio ad absurdum, confusing the general with the particular, and self-contradiction. To monitor a marriage, a wife keeps a list of all the bad things her husband does; he keeps a list of all the good things he does. Men have large consciences, feel guilt, and punish themselves when accurately blamed: women have small consciences and must be directly shamed (serotonin recovery times after defeat). Women are much better at finding holes in a men’s arguments. Women are very keen on change, undermining things (fashion); men want to preserve the status quo, the structure of the community (sociobiology: bride moves to husband’s house). That’s the first five that come to mind. Oh, and one for luck: female freedom is the freedom to break rules (modern, individualistic society); male freedom is the freedom to make rules (the building of civil society).
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Re: A knot of sexist logic in the Western mind

Post by Skip »

Duncan Butlin wrote: Thu Aug 09, 2018 11:17 am reductio ad absurdum
Yea.
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