Responses to Real Manhood
| October 2nd, 2004In an earlier post, I criticized Hugo Schwyzer’s use of the phrase “real manhood.” Amanda at Mousewords commented on my post, mostly agreeing with me; Hugo himself then replied to me, drawing on his inner Bly; and Stentor at Debitage responded to Hugo’s reply, suggesting a different approach Hugo could take to defending the concept of real manhood.
Anyway, I’m planning to respond as well; but I haven’t yet found time to write a substantive post, and rather than putting off linking to the above (especially Hugo’s reply) any longer, I thought I’d better post this update.
Update: Soulful Blogger Joe Perez, who (like Hugo) comes from a mythopoetic perspective, disagrees with me.
October 2nd, 2004 at 11:53 pm
FYI I stepped into the fray with a criticism of your post here:
http://www.joe-perez.com/archive/2004_10_01_soulful.htm#109678896576252996
This comment was written by Joe Perez.Report this comment to the moderators
October 3rd, 2004 at 3:00 am
Now that I’ve read Hugo’s full position, I have way less sympathy for it. It isn’t any sort of half-hearted “redefining Manhood is useful because the term is out there,” and it isn’t the “Men have their own issues to deal with out of being raised as men, so its worth having a term for men who have figured out how to be decent human beings,” that I suggested in another thread, instead, it is indistinguishable to me from Newt Gingrich’s famous lines: “If combat means living in a ditch, females have biological problems staying in a ditch for thirty days because they get infections and they don’t have upper body strength. I mean, some do, but they’re relatively rare. On the other hand, men are basically little piglets, you drop them in the ditch, they roll around in it, doesn’t matter, you know. These things are very real. On the other hand, if combat means being on an Aegis-class cruiser managing the computer controls for twelve ships and their rockets, a female may be again dramatically better than a male who gets very, very frustrated sitting in a chair all the time because males are biologically driven to go out and hunt giraffes.” Oh, except Hugo isn’t insane, so he doesn’t say it in nearly as weird or funny a manner. Still, he is clearly saying men are strong in those wonderful manly ways, and maybe women can be strong too, but mostly in unmanly ways that we men don’t care about. Bleck.
This comment was written by Charles.Report this comment to the moderators
October 3rd, 2004 at 3:49 am
Sorry. I really shouldn’t be so hostile. This is a difficult and complex thing to talk about, and one worth talking about, and I shouldn’t jump all over Hugo for talking about it.
I wouldn’t have a problem with what he says (nor with what Joe Perez says) if he could just stay away from talking about women. When he talks about women while trying to describe real men, he slides further and further into sexist nonsense, ending with the women can be strong but in different ways from men passage that led me to think of Newt and the giraffes.
I think that becoming a real man (and let me just say for the record that I am much more of a manly man than Amp, so I have very different manly issues to deal with than he does) is something more like this (and I reserve to myself the right to talk absolutely as much nonsense as anyone else in the world): imagine you are a wolf, and imagine that your right, front leg is caught in a trap, and imagine that you have been told for so many years that your right from leg is the essense of manhood, so you start to chew below the trap so that your right front leg will be able to get free.
Now imagine you realise that actually you aren’t your right front leg, and that you have to find some way to get your leg out of the trap (because it is useful) so that you can save your whole being.
Becoming a real woman is like being that same wolf, but it is your front, left leg that is caught in the trap.
For me, masculinity is that front, right leg, and feminity is that front, left leg. Not one of us is mostly either a front, right leg or a front, left leg, and furthermore, all of us wolves have both.
Going back to the manly man point, Amp knew all his life that if he was supposed to be a front right leg, he wasn’t a very good one, and therefore had an easier time figuring out he had two back legs, a head, a tail and a left leg. I made a passable right front leg, so it is harder for me to remember that I am not just a right front leg (although I didn’t make all that good of a right front leg). Hugo seems to want to say that I should integrate that right front leg with the rest of my body (on which point I agree), rather than just chewing it off above the trap, but then he wants to say that women don’t really have a right front leg, and that I don’t have a front left leg. He also seems to still want to say that that right front leg is the essense of my being (or maybe that is just Joe Perez who wants to say that).
I still can’t figure out where the giraffes come in.
This comment was written by Charles.Report this comment to the moderators
October 3rd, 2004 at 2:22 pm
My problem with “real manhood,” “real womanhood,” or even “real personhood” goes beyond gender role impositions. It’s that it’s a deceitful way of using the language. What they really mean is “ideal manhood,” “ideal womanhood,” and “ideal personhood.” People say stuff like, “real men can end their relationships without retrospectively poisoning the memories of their exes,” or something like that. Well, no, that’s not true: some real men end their relationships with grace and maturity, some real men end them in a very ugly, bitter way. What the person making such a statement really means to say is, “ideal men can end their relationships without retrospectively poisoning the memories of their exes.” Yet they’re afraid to use that language, because they think that if they do, men will just think, “oh, well, that’s the ideal. No one can live up to that.” So they end up saying that all real men fit what is really an ideal, and those who don’t are just sub-real men. Whether it’s used to promote aggressive dominant attitudes or respect for others (otters?), it disguises exhortation of an ideal as diminution of everything but the ideal. The same applies to even gender neutral ideas like “real personhood,” unless it realistically applies to real people.
This comment was written by Julian Elson.Report this comment to the moderators
October 3rd, 2004 at 11:55 pm
I’m with Julian on this, the idea that there is some precise ideal/real way of behaving that is typically female or male is annoying, it’s not true to actual reality.
It’s hilarious that Hugo speaks of feminists and quote Tipper Gore. The usual “I didn’t think so until I had kids” - there, another level of “realness” as ideal, people who have kids know something more than people who don’t. Er, no, cos we’ve all been kids, and unless we’ve had a lobotomy, we know what it was like. Besides, what if you have a son who is more introvert and polite and quiet and dislikes aggressive competitive games, while your daughter is an hyperactive extrovert loudmouth who gets into fights and just won’t sit still for a minute, are we supposed to think of the boy as girly, and the girl as manly, and for some reason think it’s something gone wrong that we should blame on the mother who smothered the children and deprived them of a masculine role model? I mean, seriously, how is this view supposed to be different from archaic notions of masculinity and femininity?
Of course there are differences but there’s more that are cross-gender and at individual level, I don’t see how we can extrapolate a fixed “real” notion of manhood or womanhood if not by projecting it onto people.
There’s something I find a bit dodgy about the Bly stuff and all related movements spurred by that. Like the whole wild men thing where guys go in the woods to connect to their mythical manhood or something. And the whole enactment of rites of passage thing. What’s so innovative about that? Sounds a bit like a masonic lodge only without the politics.
There’s a level where this archetype of masculinity that all men should connect with gets taken a bit too literally. Symbols are not meant to end up like that. What if you’re put off by the whole new warrior imagery and the notion of rituals and ancient myths, does that mean you’re not a real man? What if you’re less aggressive than your girlfriend, is it her fault? People are just different from one another. We define things arbitarily as “feminine” or “masculine” but it’s reductive, they’re traits that can be present all across. If only there were less generalisations and projections, maybe these things wouldn’t be a problem and it’d be easier to grow up as individuals. But I guess they need to be made into problems so that ideologies can be offered as solutions and books sold and stereotypes upheld and so on and so forth.
This comment was written by monica.Report this comment to the moderators
October 4th, 2004 at 12:06 am
see, where Hugo writes: “Countless parents have come to the same insight. These differences, whatever they are rooted in, are real and profound — and they are not necessarily frightening. (Before I go any further, I know there are plenty of exceptions to every generalization! Pace, those of you who were aggressive little girls and gentle little boys. Your own unique and special circumstances do not gender theory make!)”
Gosh, the patronising. So he’s decided that “plenty of exceptions” are just a marginal thing, not something that maybe complicates the statement that the Tipper Gore experience is universal and differencs are “real and profound” and precisely identifiable like that. “Plenty of parents” who agree with Tipper Gore count more than “plenty of exceptions”, case closed.
Why should his own special view make gender theory? Just because it’s more common and traditional?
This kind of thinking is not “frigtening”, it’s just simplistic, it’s not useful, it can be taken to levels of conditioning that confirm exactly that assumption, and it’s not a good thing, for boys as well as girls.
Also like someone said in the comments there I find the notion that role models can’t be gender-independent real reductive. We’re humans before being male or female. Values of what makes a good person are universal. Why should a kid not be inspired by someone just because it’s a different gender?
This is just the same old pap, only re-dressed to pretend it’s progressive. Give me a break.
This comment was written by monica.Report this comment to the moderators
October 4th, 2004 at 12:56 am
I hadn’t noticed Hugo’s “Your own unique and special circumstances do not gender theory make!” comment until Monica just mentioned it.
The exceptions damned well better make gender theory. A gender theory that only tries to explain a stereotype of the plurality isn’t a gender theory I would want anything to do with, particluarly one that is essentialism with a twist of “special circumstances.” Hugo’s gender theory throws out butch women and femmy men and androgynous people of all sorts and transsexual people and transgendered people and everyone but the warrior men and the mothering women.
It isn’t even that that isn’t a feminist gender theory, that just isn’t even a gender theory.
Like Monica just said, it’s just the same old pap.
This comment was written by Charles.Report this comment to the moderators
October 4th, 2004 at 1:04 am
Thinking further, the weird thing is that it it is such junk gender theory that I have a very hard time believing it is really Hugo’s gender theory. Hugo seems like an intelligent person who has thought enough about this to be come a pro-feminist man. Surely his gender theory is broader and richer than that?
How else to explain his support for same-sex parenting? If boys need male role-models and girls need female role-models, why should same-sex parenting couples be validated? As piny asked before, if Hugo really believes all that, what does he think of transexuals parenting either sex? Surely, Hugo thinks that being a transexual doesn’t invalidate piny as a parent, right? But how does his simplistic gender theory given in these posts allow him to give that recognition?
I remain puzzled.
This comment was written by Charles.Report this comment to the moderators
October 4th, 2004 at 7:19 am
I agree wholeheartedly with Charles. I read Hugo’s response and thought, “Oh, another believer in rigid gender roles. Ho hum.” I find it utterly bewildering that anybody can believe that sort of nonsense, especially on cherry-picked anecdotal evidence.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
October 4th, 2004 at 8:43 am
Charles,
Just for the sake of argument, it is said (and before someone calls me a Newt lover, please… do yourself a favor and don’t. I don’t care for the man and that’s an understatement), what exactly is wrong with what Newt said? Seems to make logical sense.
Just curious, you know. ;)
This comment was written by Aurora.Report this comment to the moderators
October 4th, 2004 at 9:16 am
Aurora,
You really can’t figure out from the rest of this thread what I find wrong with Newt’s statement?
What makes it somewhat unfair to compare Hugo’s statement to Newt’s is the absolutism of Newt’s statement and the bizarrity of suggesting that men have a poor attention span from being bred for hunting giraffes. The standard trope would be hunting antelope or gazelles. The idea of giraffe hunting being a major part of human evolution crosses from the dumb to the bizarre. The idea that a) hunting large mammals was restricted exclusively to men and played a large role in human psychological evolution and b) hunting doesn’t involve long periods of tensely waiting and doesn’t involve keeping a group of people in line is simply standard nonsense trotted out to prove that women aren’t agggressive. If he hadn’t felt like ceding the point of women being capable of command positions and spatial skills (for the moment, in this particular statement) as long as he figures the task is boring, he would have trotted out other aspects of hunting to prove women couldn’t do that easier. Man the hunter is the greatest cheap tool for sexists, particularly since it relies on 19th century British fantasies of hunting, rahter than actually paying attention to what we know from actual hunter-gatherer cultures (super broad brush of my own: hunting isn’t that important for most cultures, men and women both tend to hunt, although generally not together).
Also, the misogyny of the idea of women being unfit for warfare because the get infections (presumably vaginal and urinary tract infections, since all soldiers tend to get infections of wounds and feet, it is the major soldier killer pre-antibiotics) is impressive and not really present in Hugo’s statements. This is so obviously a fear of women’s genitalia contaminating the sacred male act of killing people in warfare that it is simply embarrassing to witness. Have vaginal and urinary tract infections in women proved to be a significant problem in the current war?
Besides that? Just the essentializing of gender difference with a broad brush.
This comment was written by Charles.Report this comment to the moderators
October 4th, 2004 at 9:22 am
Bean:
If everything has an effect on a child, a position with which I wholeheartedly agree, can we include chromosomes too? How about testosterone levels?
This comment was written by Hugo.Report this comment to the moderators
October 4th, 2004 at 10:46 am
Aurora: I would also add that when people perpetuate the attitude espoused by Newt, that women are inherently unsuited for physical or “masculine” activities, it has a real-world effect on the lives of women: our choices of jobs are limited, our ability to pursue and advance in certain occupations is limited. When we go ahead and break those barriers anyway, we endure anything from outright discrimination and sabotage, to being ignored, to having credit for our work stolen, to having our sexuality or femininity questioned….this is real. It may have gone away in some aspects of employment, but not all. Ask female police officers, firefighters, operating engineers, electricians, pipefitters, etc. etc.
People seem to be more attached to their beliefs about masculinity, even more than femininity (like I said in the responses to Hugo’s post…there’s been quite a change in the image of women). When we women “barge in” on the last bastions of maledom, some (like Newt) take it very personally…they’ll fight tooth and claw to keep us out, even to their own detriment.
This comment was written by La Lubu.Report this comment to the moderators
October 4th, 2004 at 11:52 am
I loooved Joe’s “masculine modes of being (agency) and feminine modes (communion)”. That’d be absolutely great (it’s good to have words for modes of being and stuff), except that the terms they’ve chosen are stupid. If you want to talk about agency and communion, great: talk about agency and communion. But as soon as you use “masculine” and “feminine” to talk about them, you’re implicitly (or explicitly) claiming that certain people “naturally” have more of an affinity for one mode than another because of their chromosomes.
And that’s just not helpful…
This comment was written by David M. Chess.Report this comment to the moderators
October 4th, 2004 at 3:09 pm
Hi David Chess, I guess I can’t be helpful. But I can be right. Well, I don’t know if it’s JUST because of their chromosomes, but certain people DO have more of an affinity for masculine modes of being, and some for feminine modes of being. That’s a fact, not just my opinion. It seems that you may be following some rather outmoded style of feminism or other ideology that needs a refresher course on research on sex differences from the sciences in the past few decades. More recent modes of feminism and gender studies actually acknowledge typical and cross-cultural gender differences.
This comment was written by Joe Perez.Report this comment to the moderators
October 4th, 2004 at 3:44 pm
Hugo and Joe Perez:
Yes, there are differences between men and women. Besides the obvious anatomical ones, there are statistically significant psychological differences. Men tend to be more aggressive and to want more sexual partners than women, for example. As others have noted, there are plenty of exceptions (lots of unaggressive men and lots of promiscuous women), but the statistical differences do exist.
But, obviously, “different” doesn’t mean “better” or “worse.” So I’m still trying to figure out what the fact that men and women are different has to do with your defense of the terms “real men” or “real manhood.” Presumably, “real manhood” is supposed to be a good thing. Presumably, it’s better to be a “real man,” or at least to strive to be a “real man,” than not.
So what, exactly, are you saying that “real manhood” is? What does it mean to be a “real man?” Are you suggesting that men should strive to be aggressive, promiscuous, etc., since those are characteristically manly qualities (at least in a statistical sense)? Or what? You say you want to rescue the language of “real” manhood/manliness/men from conservative anti-feminist religious moralists, but I still don’t understand what you mean it, or why you think it’s useful.
This comment was written by Don P.Report this comment to the moderators
October 4th, 2004 at 7:17 pm
What defines a mode of being as “masculine” or “feminine?” This is assuming, for the sake of argument, that the phrase “mode of being” is meaningful. If the argument is that masculine traits are defined as traits occurring in men while feminine traits are traits occurring in women, then what the specific trait is, in and of itself, doesn’t matter. If it occurs in a man it is masculine and if it occurs in a woman it is feminine.
On the other hand, if we start with the trait first, and say that a trait is either masculine or feminine, and that one who possesses masculine traits is a man, and one who possesses feminine traits is a woman, we can run into some rather obvious physiological inconsistencies.
The point is that, while inborn tendencies to exhibit one characteristic or another probably do exist to an extent, whether or not those tendencies are determined by sex exclusively has not only not been conclusively proven, but is probably unprovable. Therefore, to determine that one characteristic is masculine while another is feminine is, in substance, meaningless. That’s not to say that it doesn’t make for an interesting literary/symbolic/intellectual/linguistic exercise, of course.
Oh, and when I say trait or characteristic above, I am referring to social characteristics only, rather than physical.
This comment was written by Dan J.Report this comment to the moderators
October 5th, 2004 at 1:53 am
Now, since we all agree that masculine and feminine traits (as Joe Perez defines them) exist in both men and women to varying degrees, and we all agree that there is a very broad overlap, with many women having more of the masculine traits than most men, and many men having more of the feminine traits than most women (while most women still have more feminine traits than many men, and most men have more masculine traits than many women), even if we don’t agree at all whether this state of things is “natural,” “social,” or some combination there of, and even if we don’t all agree at all whether this mild to moderate difference in distribution is something that should be emphasized and celebrated, or whether it is something which should be worked against or ignored, there still arise some questions about attempting to use these distinctions to construct categories of Real Men and Real Women.
The first question relates to the issue of what the opposite of a Real Man is. Is a fake man not like a male person in that he doesn’t have a sufficiency of masculine characteristics, or is not like an adult in that he doesn’t handle his mixture of masculine and feminine traits like a mature human being (and all of the other dimensions, since only a small part of being human can even arguably be divided out into masculine and feminine)? Can a woman be a Real Man? Can a man be a Real Woman? Can a woman fail to be a real man because she is puerile and doesn’t handle her mixture of masculine and feminine traits in a sufficiently mature manner? Is a Real Man simply the name that we call an adult with a male identity who handles his mix of masculine and feminine traits in a mature manner?
Taking Real Man as the example, if someone who has a large number of masculine traits requires a role model who likewise has a large number of masculine traits, is there any reason to think that either the modeler or the modelee needs to have a male identity? Can’t a more masculine than average woman role model healthy masculinity to a more masculine than average man? Does the role model merely need to be more masculine than average, or does the role model need to be at least as masculine as the modelee? Does the role model need to be deficient in feminine traits, or only abundent in male traits?
I guess this boils down to a much simpler question: if some people need or want to be role modeled by people of the same sex, and need or want to be taught to be a mature adult by someone of the same sex, is this really a result of some essential failing of the opposite sex, or is it a trait of the person who has this restriction? Is this restriction one which should be celebrated and highlighted as how people should be, or should it be recognized as a failing and a flaw in how we teach people to be?
I work in a university, in the sciences. Within my school, there is a significant program to try to provide mentors to teenage and pre-teen girls, to help get them interested in the sciences, to help maintian that interest, and to show them that women can be scientists. This program is very clear about the fact that it needs both male and female mentors, since the point is to show the girls what they can do, not just to show them that women can do this.
Our society teaches young men that they should not view women as equals, that they are better, stronger, more aggressive than women, that they are men. I can understand why it is necessary and useful for male mentors to work from within that system to try to change the meaning of Manliness for young men, but I think that there is a danger of becoming trapped within that system, of thinking that the system is right, that it is just that the boys haven’t learned the niceties of being manly, the addenda that say “Despite everything else society has taught you (Men want sex, Men take what they want, violence is cool and the essence of manliness, verbal communication is less valuable than communication by displays of aggression), real men don’t rape.”
The system is not right. The system is rotten and poisonous.
I say this as someone upon whom the system worked fairly well. I am pretty well indoctrinated into my gender, I score as clearly male on most questionares, and I hate it.
Perhaps all this is irrelevant.
Joe, perhaps the systems that you buy into and are working from are actually beneficial. Perhaps they construct a masculinity that is not poisonous and rotten, a femininity that is not poisonous and rotten.
But if that is so, I utterly fail to understand why it matters to you that your core traits are masculine, not feminine. Surely, you understand that there are millions of women out there who are more masculine than you, who ought to be part of your Warrior system. On this axis, those women have more in common with you than they do with Amp, or with my spouse, who is neither particularly masculine or feminine, and you have more in common with them than you do with Amp or possibly with me.
The only thing that you and Amp and I share that you don’t share with more masculine women is the experience of being raised a boy in this culture. If you based being a real man around dealing with being raised a boy in this culture, then I could understand your desire to use the term. I could accept that you meant mature-adult-human-and-male, not male-not-female. But when you base your ideas around masculinity, as a thing that belongs to men and not to women, then I simply don’t see how you avoid buying into the toxic culture of manhood that I grew up in, and that I suspect you grew up in too.
I am interested in understanding. Being a-decent-human-being and male is something that I struggle with, so I am interested in how other people try to solve this puzzle as well.
This comment was written by Charles.Report this comment to the moderators
October 5th, 2004 at 2:27 am
Joe Perez,
My comment on your blog was written after this comment. Re-reading your earlier comment, and your newest comment (on your blog), I think I understand your position much better now, and I think you have answered much of my questions. Your position now seems solidly distinct from Hugo’s to me, and the above questions probably relate better to Hugo’s concepts than to yours. If you have any insight into the answers to these questions (or anyway, if you would be interested in presenting your answers to these questions), I would definitely be interested in hearing them, but I don’t think you should take the post above as the scathing interogation of you that I probably intended it as.
On the other hand, I still stand by my interogation of Hugo’s position, although I should probably try much harder to be less scathing. This is not a topic in which I think anyone says much of use or interest once they feel their back is to the wall.
This comment was written by Charles.Report this comment to the moderators
October 5th, 2004 at 3:21 am
“If everything has an effect on a child, a position with which I wholeheartedly agree, can we include chromosomes too? How about testosterone levels?”
Except there is no absolute certainty of how exactly and how much chromosomes and hormones influence behaviour in such precise ways than can be categorised as “masculine” or “feminine”. Hormones have a physical purpose, like reproductive organs. How far does the influence on psychological behaviour extend? Which organ is bigger and more important for determining behaviour, the brain or the uterus/penis? Which organ develops with interaction with the outside world? (no jokes intended)
No one is denying the reality of biology. But there is a difference between influence and biological determinism. I don’t know if around you all men tend to behave like a herd of sheep, all the same, all manly masculine, whatever that means, but normally everyone in their lifetime experiences that the individual differences from a man to another man, and a woman to another woman, are far bigger than their common gender. What do David Bowie and Saddam Hussein have in common? Seriously, why not give the human mind a bit more credit?
So what’s the point of trying to define what behaviour or trait is supposed to be masculine and what is supposed to be feminine, outside of poetry and myths? Why be so literal and categorical about things when reality is far more complex and interesting, I don’t know.
(all this talk of “real man” reminded me of an aftershave ad from the 70’s - “Real men never need to ask”, with a real male naked chest where a real woman’s hand with real red fingernails crawled after he splashed on the aftershave, ah, the golden age of advertising…)
This comment was written by monica.Report this comment to the moderators
October 5th, 2004 at 3:42 am
Oh and the hormone thing is funny, males are aggressive, but aggressive women are bitchy (or ‘power-driven’; or unnatural; or lesbians, whatever comes first); males have testosterone, an obect of fear and awe, females have PMS or menopause, an object of ridicule. Male hormones - good, mythical, warrior stuff. Female hormones - crazy, mercurial, hysterical, lunatic, moody, etc. It is the stuff for jokes, harmless if a bit tiresome, until we take it all a bit too literally.
This comment was written by monica.Report this comment to the moderators
October 5th, 2004 at 7:20 am
Charles, you seem convinced that I have somehow, somewhere argued that “real manhood” involves denigrating women. I’ve reread my own post in the light of your comments, and forgive me, I don’t see where I have done this. Indeed, I’ve gone out of my way to stress that “different” does not mean “superior” or “inferior”.
The fact that essentialism has been used to marginalize women in the past does not mean that there isn’t some genuine value to it. The mythopoetic movement reframes essentialism and makes it compatible with egalitarian principles. Please don’t assume that where I say “different” I mean “unequal.”
This comment was written by Hugo.Report this comment to the moderators
October 5th, 2004 at 8:17 am
But what is the value of essentialism? Why exaggerate the significance of the few genuine biological differences between men and women when there is no reason to believe that those biological differences have any bearing on the vast majority of human endeavors? It seems to me that it just leads to some fictional sanctification of “manhood” and “womanhood” that, as I said, exaggerates what little differences there are and does so conveniently in favor of historically proscribed gender roles. It all seems a bit too much of a distraction from the real interactions and activities of real human beings, in favor of fictional human archetypes.
This comment was written by Dan J.Report this comment to the moderators
October 5th, 2004 at 8:53 am
This idea that we don’t need any positive definition of manhood is all very well for a feminist audience. But the people who need to be changed are, primarily, men who believe that “being a man” means being aggressive, treating women badly, possibly even rape and violence.
Which argument is going to sound more convincing to those people: an argument that gender doesn’t matter, or an argument that they would more manly if they treated women with respect and learnt to communicate instead of just hitting people. I’d bet it’s the second.
This comment was written by Individ-ewe-al.Report this comment to the moderators
October 5th, 2004 at 10:13 am
Individ., that’s the most compelling argument I’ve seen for keeping the concept of “real man” alive. But I still don’t think it’s a good one.
I doubt either argument will convince men who are already “bad” to change their ways. They’re just going to think that the people putting forth the idea that “being a man” means respecting women are just trying to turn them into wimps. But this is conjecture; it’d probably work with some people and not others, in which case, why not promote both?
When it comes to kids, however, we should definitely talk about being a good person, not a “real man” or “real woman.” If we indoctrinate boys into culturally-masculine attitudes while they’re young, we’re just going to perpetuate those attitudes.
This comment was written by Hestia.Report this comment to the moderators
October 5th, 2004 at 4:24 pm
“Charles, you seem convinced that I have somehow, somewhere argued that “real manhood” involves denigrating women.”
Hugo — I don’t think it is only Charles who read a failure of “real manhood” as being inferior. In reading many of the posts, many of the women are put off by your assertions. Of course this is not a baseless reaction given the negative connotation “real manhood” has meant for women over the last 2300 or so years.
I agree with the goal, however the label should be changed to invoke support instead of hostility. I like the idea set forth by an earlier post — the term “ideal man” is better suited to your argument in my opinion.
This comment was written by jstevenson.Report this comment to the moderators
October 5th, 2004 at 8:29 pm
Hugo:
The fact that essentialism has been used to marginalize women in the past does not mean that there isn’t some genuine value to it. The mythopoetic movement reframes essentialism and makes it compatible with egalitarian principles. Please don’t assume that where I say “different” I mean “unequal.”
Well, we’re still waiting for you to explain what this alleged value of “essentialism” is with respect to your defense of the concept of “real manhood.”
We’re still waiting for you to explain what it means to be a “real man” or to exhibit “real manhood.” All the meritorious characteristics you’ve mentioned so far (maturity, love, strength of character, compassion, etc.) can also apply to women, as you have admitted yourself. You claimed that men and women exhibit these good qualities in “different ways” but you have utterly failed to explain what that’s supposed to mean. What are the “male” ways of being mature, loving, etc.? What are the “female” ways? Why can’t a woman exhibit maturity in the “male” way and vice versa? Why can’t a woman act as a mentor and role model for a boy (or a man for a girl) by exhibiting and teaching these qualities?
You just seem to have an irrational attachment to this idea of “real manhood” as a virtuous quality that men should strive to acquire or exhibit, but you are incapable of explaining what it is supposed to mean in a way that does not demean women.
This comment was written by Don P.Report this comment to the moderators
October 5th, 2004 at 8:35 pm
jstevenson:
I like the idea set forth by an earlier post — the term “ideal man” is better suited to your argument in my opinion.
What is an “ideal man,” then? How does it differ from being an “ideal woman?” How do the characteristics of an “ideal man” differ from the characteristics of an “ideal woman?” If the characteristics that would make a man an “ideal man” are the same characteristics that would make a woman an “ideal woman,” why isn’t it a matter of striving to be an ideal person or an ideal human being, whether you’re male or female?
This comment was written by Don P.Report this comment to the moderators
October 5th, 2004 at 9:08 pm
that “ideal thing” sounds pretty stupid all around.
“ideal (gender identifier)” sounds wholly sexualized and without any bearing on the actual conduct. as in “rock hard abs and/or 36/24/36″
if we’re actually looking for an effective gender neutral “real man” doesn’t “adult” seem to work well with the definitions we have now?
say John Q. dumbass spends alot of time making excuses. he’s generally immature and disrespectful.
This comment was written by karpad.now, if you say to Young Master Dumbass “Be a real man” or “be an adult” can you think of any meaningful difference there?
“Adult” already has ALL the “positive” connotations of “real man” without the baggage of misogyny.
in other words, there ARE negative connotations to “real man:” no one has ever committed an act of domestic violence under encouragement from friends and coworkers to be more like an adult when dealing with his spouse. and we already have a word that does EVERYTHING positive we could possibly want out of the phrase “real man” or “real woman.”
so what’s the point of this mootness again?
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October 5th, 2004 at 11:08 pm
“The fact that essentialism has been used to marginalize women in the past does not mean that there isn’t some genuine value to it.”
Well I suppose someone of a certain persuasion could eagerly apply the same reasoning to racist mentalities. ‘Just because the notion of racial differences has been used to discriminate minorities, doesn’t mean there’s no genuine value to it’.
You can’t pretend it’s not essentialist reduction of individual behaviour to biological gender that is the source of gender stereotypes that are still of no benefit to people of *both* genders in a modern society.
“The mythopoetic movement reframes essentialism and makes it compatible with egalitarian principles. ”
Or maybe, it just makes it compatible with ego-stroking via fancy renditions of selected ancient myths of masculinity. Just a thought.
This comment was written by monica.Report this comment to the moderators
October 5th, 2004 at 11:15 pm
“why isn’t it a matter of striving to be an ideal person or an ideal human being, whether you’re male or female?”
Yeah, exactly.
I personally don’t automatically interpret the phrase “a real man” as mysogynistic, if it’s in a context like karpad’s example, I take “man” to be neutral and generic, “human”, “person”, etc. - something like, Mensch (I suppose it’s also a language thing) - but in Hugo’s post, all that essentialism, reductionism, men are this, women are that, the exceptions confirm the rule, it’s simplistic, arbitrary, patronising, to both men and women, to the notion of what makes a person a person.
This comment was written by monica.Report this comment to the moderators
October 5th, 2004 at 11:28 pm
Individ- what would you think of the suggestion that the argument that you should treat ethnic minorities with more respect instead of beating them up is more “convincing” to some people than the notion that race and ethnic differences are not a matter of essentialism?
It’s a clumsy comparison, ok, it’s different context, I’m not drawing any direct parallels between gender and race, which is arbitary, whereas gender in the biological sense (sex) is not - but you know, saying that kind of argument is convincing means you assume you’re talking to a mass of racists/mysoginists, and that you have to concede their entirely flawed point to get across yours. It’s rather sad.
I don’t think gender doesn’t matter at all. I think it does. It’s just not something you can ascribe arbitrary traits to - positive or negative, doesn’t matter. It’s just not something by which you can exclusively define a person. Just like, in different ways, belonging to one or the other ethnic group does have an influence on you, it’s part of who you are, it’s part of your culture, background, etc. but you can’t put either gender or ethnic group *before* being a person with your own individual traits.
What I find objectionable in Hugo’s position, basically, is at the conceptual level first of all. Excess of categorisation.
This comment was written by monica.Report this comment to the moderators
October 6th, 2004 at 12:57 am
Hestia and Monica, I largely agree with both of you. I’m really not big on essentialism, particularly not gender essentialism. I was trying to be pragmatist about this, but it’s always a dangerous path to use means not in line with your ideals to achieve those ideals.
I just feel like, if someone is deeply afraid of “losing his manhood”, there’s no way he’s going to have time for someone telling him his manhood isn’t worth protecting. It plays right into the stereotypes that feminism is emasculating and so on. I guess what the aim should be is to take away that fear altogether, but I’m afraid I don’t have a very good idea how to do that.
This comment was written by Individ-ewe-al.Report this comment to the moderators
October 6th, 2004 at 5:12 am
Individ-ewe-al, I understand what you mean there. I wouldn’t say “manhood isn’t worth protecting”, though, I’d say simply manhood is not some platonic shape outside of yourself that you’re supposed to fit in to be “real”.
I don’t really see the need for stereotypes, or how they can be of any use to men as well as women. The fear of emasculation from feminism is a ridiculous reactionary paranoia, anything is used to play into that stereotype. It’s not a genuine “fear”, it’s ideological, and political. It’s unfounded. Guys who think that feminism is about what, turning men into eunuchs or something, are just barking mad.
I don’t see how a man can lose his “manhood” if not in the physical sense. What’s abstract manhood? what’s ‘real’ manhood, what’s fake manhood? everyone has their way of being a person first of all, and then a man or a woman. There is always a pressure and a sort of instinct to conform to abstract stereotypes of behaviour, just because they’re there and they offer some precise categorisation of the world, all neat and easy, group A, group B. It just does more harm than good to individuals.
That’s what I’d say, if I were to argue with “Real Man”, though first, we’d have to find him, and the thing is, “real man” is not real in the “real” sense. He’s just pure abstraction. But there’s billions of real-real men and real-real women, which is a lot more interesting.
This comment was written by monica.Report this comment to the moderators
October 6th, 2004 at 9:54 am
I see on Hugo’s blog that he has now promised yet another post, in addition to the two lengthy ones he has already written, attempting to explain and justify his defense of the idea of “real manhood” or “authentic masculinity.”
I am not optimistic that his new effort will be any clearer than his previous ones, but perhaps he’ll surprise us. I would also suggest that if you cannot provide a clear and concise defense of a term or an idea that is sexist and demeaning on its face, you probably ought to take that as a sign that it’s not worth defending.
This comment was written by Don P.Report this comment to the moderators
October 7th, 2004 at 4:42 am
Hi Joe, and thanks for the reply. I think you’ve rather misread my comment, though. As others here have said more eloquently than I, there may very well be a statistical correlation of whatever strength you like between human gender and affinity for certain modes of being. But that doesn’t mean that it’s good or sensible to *identify* those modes of being with those human genders. When you say “masculine modes of being (agency) and feminine modes (communion)”, you’re not just making a value-neutral statement about statistical correlation, you’re endorsing a value statement, that male humans OUGHT to partake more in agency and females OUGHT to partake more in communion, and that any individual who does the opposite is abnormal, is different, is marked. And that’s not a value judgement that I can support.
There’s gender theory and there’s gender theory. There’s gender theory that analyzes and critiques and offers alternatives to traditional gender stereotypes, and there’s gender theory that takes those stereotypes as a given and elevates statistical correlation into judgements of value.
(To be clear, the value judgement that I’m concerned with here isn’t “male better than female”; it’s “male in the mode of agency better than male in the mode of communion” and v-v. I consider both odious, but the latter is the one that I see in your gender essentialism.)
I don’t know, or care at the moment, which kind of gender theory is currently trendy where. But I know which one I like… *8)
This comment was written by David M. Chess.Report this comment to the moderators
October 7th, 2004 at 5:11 am
“Men tend to be more aggressive and to want more sexual partners than women, for example.”
You know, I’m heartily sick of hearing the above steretypes expressed, especially the latter one. Most men I’ve known personally in my 41 years on this planet have been about as aggressive as a wet dishcloth unless they’ve been a) drunk b) in groups or c) both. In other words, unless they’ve been in situations where *culturally* they’re expected to be aggressive, they haven’t been. Yeah, there have been exceptions, but I’ve also come across a hell of a lot of really aggressive women.
Secondly, who the hell says men want more sex partners than women do? Every study I’ve read recently has gone on about the fact that women are far hornier and gung-ho about sleeping around than anyone previously suspected. In my experience, my friends and I have always expressed the desire to sleep with lots of guys–and those of us who haven’t done so usually haven’t due to fear of being physically hurt by choosing a nutcase or of social censure (”BAD slut!”)…in other words, if women don’t fuck around as much as men, it’s largely due to cultural reasons.
The problem with certain studies that have been done–funnily enough, the only studies that seem to count amongst those who believe in “real men” and “real women”–the “scientists” involved seem to look at their data at face value, with seemingly no clue that there is something called society which exerts pressure on individuals to conform to certain patterns of behaviour. Didn’t Amp recently post a link to a study in which the exact same sort of sexual behaviour in men and women was interpreted as having a different root cause for each sex? That is due to scientists looking at their data through the lens of sexism and not even being aware of it. And that is where ideas of “real”ness come from.
Rigid gender roles are not only destructive to our mental health and therefore our society, they aren’t even based on anything like good science.
This comment was written by Crys T.Report this comment to the moderators
October 7th, 2004 at 6:27 am
That stereotype particularly annoys me, Crys–how daft do you have to be to see that women might be afraid to sleep around because it will ruin their reputations and possibly cause some physical harm?
This comment was written by Amanda.Report this comment to the moderators
October 7th, 2004 at 8:05 am
Don P: I am not ignoring you. Been sick for the last week or so — San Diego gets awful when the tempature drops below 85 F. :-)
As far as is an “ideal man” and how does it differ from being an ideal woman. I must give my opinion on the second question in order to answer the first one.
An ideal man differs from an ideal woman in that an ideal man is first required to have the genetic make-up of a human male. As much as we may want to ignore the differences between men and women, nature will not let us. Both a woman and a man can be an ideal human. But what is an ideal human? There is a domestic violence commercial airing in California that provides an excellent example of the need to differentiate between the two. The essential tagline is that you must set the example for young men on how to treat women. Of course a mother can teach her son the female view of how to treat women (that would be a characteristic of an ideal parent and an ideal mother). However, a mother cannot bestow upon her son a man’s perspective on how to treat women properly. In an ideal world we would be asexual and there would be no difference in how men see the world and how women see the world, but we are not asexual and along with a nurtured development handicap we suffer from a natural development handicap that will, in my opinion keep a man from viewing things in the female perspective and a woman from viewing things in the male perspective. Both society and nature are hinderances to acheiving asexuality. For example, someone who has not been a rape victim says — “I know how you feel,” may receive an unapologetic bitter response from the target of “his” statement (”What the fuck do you know, you’re a man!”). The proper statement would be I empathize with you. A male feminist cannot know what women go through, but can empathize with their plight.
As such an ideal man is an ideal human, parent, citizen who lives under the unique experience of being a man. Since a woman does not labor under the unique experience of being a man she cannot be an ideal man. The same goes for a man’s infirmary of being an ideal woman. An ideal woman is not less than an ideal man. An ideal woman would strive to be an ideal human who deals with the with the unique experiences and life challenges of being a woman. Is striving to meet the standard of ideal human with the unique experiences, perspectives and challenges that face us do to our gender differences a bad thing, only if we in society make an ideal man or woman out to be something less than an ideal human, parent, citizen.
This comment was written by jstevenson.Report this comment to the moderators
October 7th, 2004 at 8:53 am
Crys T: “Most men I’ve known personally in my 41 years on this planet have been about as aggressive as a wet dishcloth unless they’ve been a) drunk. . .”
Your statement contradicts your point. Alcohol is widely known to releas people from societal/ nurtured constraints and exaggerates their natural tendancies.
“Smokers are cautioned not to drink, as it undermines willpower and the determination to quit. Alcohol releases both social and personal inhibitions.” (“The Last Puff,” Farquar, MD and Spiller, PhD, 1990}
If most of the men you know are not aggressive unless they are drunk or drunk and in a group, and once their “id” is released through alcohol most men you have known in your 41 years actually fit the presumption. Since alcohol releases cultural inhibitions, then it would be logical to say that they are not culturally required to be aggressive, but instead are naturally aggressive. So maybe there is something to the stereotype, at least with most of the men you have met in your life. Just a thought.
This comment was written by jstevenson.Report this comment to the moderators
October 7th, 2004 at 8:54 am
“The essential tagline is that you must set the example for young men on how to treat women. Of course a mother can teach her son the female view of how to treat women (that would be a characteristic of an ideal parent and an ideal mother). However, a mother cannot bestow upon her son a man’s perspective on how to treat women properly”
You know, I honestly don’t understand this kind of reasoning.
To me, it’s pretty apparent the “tagline” about violence is you don’t go round beating people up and treating them like shit, no matter if they’re women, or men. There’s no male view that is different from the female view on “how to treat women properly” in the sense of “avoiding abuse”. The things a mother can’t teach his son is how to make love to women (assuming that’s his preference), how to “treat a woman properly” in the sexual sense, because that’s something for him to find out on his own, and sexual behaviour is where the male-female difference matters. So if he feels he needs to talk about it he’ll more likely go to other guys, just like girls will talk to other girls about sex. But outside of the area of sexuality, surely one of the main things any parent should teach their kids is how not to be bullies and assholes, and that’s got nothing to do with gender differences. It’s basic stuff.
In an ideal world we would certainly not be “asexual”, we just wouldn’t credit sexual and biological differences more power on our behaviour than all other factors and variables and our own different characters and capacity to make individual decisions.
In an ideal world, we also wouldn’t have Ann Coulters elevating Dick Cheney to a paradigm of Real Manhood and resorting to “pretty boy with girlish hands” as a definition of He Who is Not Man Enough To Be Vice-President during a war on terror. We wouldn’t have Uber-Manly Fox News making dumb jokes about a man getting manicures, oh the horror, as if it was the ultimate insult to masculinity. There’s enough of this ridiculous right-wing rhetoric about tough real men vs. “girly-men” to make you want to puke these days. We can’t pretend that’s not what “real man” means for a lot of people with that kind of mentality.
This comment was written by monica.Report this comment to the moderators
October 7th, 2004 at 9:47 am
Crys T:
You know, I’m heartily sick of hearing the above steretypes expressed, especially the latter one.
Too bad. They’re stereotypes because they’re true. The facts won’t change simply because you don’t like them.
Most men I’ve known personally in my 41 years on this planet have been about as aggressive as a wet dishcloth unless they’ve been a) drunk b) in groups or c) both. In other words, unless they’ve been in situations where *culturally* they’re expected to be aggressive, they haven’t been. Yeah, there have been exceptions, but I’ve also come across a hell of a lot of really aggressive women.
Your anecdotes and personal experiences are irrelevant. Men tend to be more aggressive than women because they evolved that way. Males competed for sexual access to females, producing greater aggression, greater body size and greater strength in men. The same basic difference is observed in other species that share our reproductive model.
Secondly, who the hell says men want more sex partners than women do?
Science says it. There is a mountain of scientific evidence that men want more sex partners than women, and that this difference is largely innate (that is, a matter of genes).
Every study I’ve read recently has gone on about the fact that women are far hornier and gung-ho about sleeping around than anyone previously suspected. In my experience, my friends and I have always expressed the desire to sleep with lots of guys–and those of us who haven’t done so usually haven’t due to fear of being physically hurt by choosing a nutcase or of social censure (”BAD slut!”)…in other words, if women don’t fuck around as much as men, it’s largely due to cultural reasons.
No it isn’t. There is a mountain of evidence that men are genetically disposed to be much more sexually promiscuous than women. There is also an elegant evolutionary theory to explain that difference. It follows from the different minimum investment that men and women make in reproduction. A man’s minimum investment is a few minutes of sexual activity and a small amount of semen, of which the supply is essentially inexhaustible. A woman’s minimum investment is a precious egg, nine of months of pregnancy, childbirth, and (in the ancestral environment in which we evolved) breastfeeding. This difference has enormous implications for the optimum reproductive strategy of men and women. Men’s reproductive success is best served by a strategy that emphasizes quantity over quality. Women’s reproductive success is best served by a strategy that emphasizes the opposite. Thus, men evolved a sexual psychology that causes them to want lots of different sexual partners and to be relatively indiscriminate in their choice of sexual partners, while women evolved a sexual psychology that causes them to look for fewer partners and to emphasize good genes and a willingness to stick around and help raise the children. This same basic difference between males and females is observed in virtually all other mammal species, including our closest evolutionary relatives, the great apes.
Anthropolgists classify this difference between men and women as a “human universal,” a difference that is observed in all human cultures, which is further evidence that it is innate.
Yet another line of evidence comes from studies of gay men and lesbians. Heterosexual relationships tend to minimize gender differences because they represent a compromise between the desires of a man and the desires of a woman. But gay relationships involve no such compromise, so they showcase differences in sexual psychology between men and women in purer form. And the difference is enormous. Gay men tend to be vastly more promiscuous than lesbians. Gay male culture is extremely sexualized compared to lesbian culture.
Other sexual behaviors characteristic of men, including an interest in prostitution, pornography, and a greater emphasis on youth and physical attractiveness in their sexual partners provide still more evidence for the differences. Consumers of pornography and prostitutes are overwhelmingly male (gay and straight). There is virtually no market for these products and services amoung women.
Culture may act to either amplify or suppress these innate differences between the sexes, but it does not create them, and it cannot eliminate them.
This comment was written by Don P.Report this comment to the moderators
October 7th, 2004 at 10:22 am
“Your anecdotes and personal experiences are irrelevant.”
Oh, okaaaaaaayyyy…..so, when people’s real-life experiences don’t square with your bullshit *theories*, you toss out the experience because, hey, the Theory is Supreme??? That is exactly why over the years, there has been so much laugable rubbish accepted as “fact”: people have fallen so in love with their theories that they can’t accept any data that contradicts them–even when those data are coming in in droves.
I bet most of the men you know in your own life wouldn’t say boo to a goose, let along caper about like mad cavemen, slinging their women over one shoulder and a haunch of giraffe over the other. So why on earth are you clinging to this silly fantasy?
“greater body size and greater strength in men”
Again, utter bullshit. What men, where? As compared to which women? If you were paying even minimal attention, you’d note that not only are size differences that you can witness in despised Real Life getting smaller, but that your precious scientists are also noting the fact that the gaps in both size and strength are closing.
“There is a mountain of evidence that men are genetically disposed to be much more sexually promiscuous than women.”
No, there isn’t. There is a mountain of evidence that shows it is more culturally acceptable for men to admit to being promiscuous or to pretend that they are. However, as cultural values change, studies are showing less and less difference in the way that males and females are responding. Like it or not.
You seem to have a lot of emotional investment in this theory, but I’m sorry to tell you, it’s a load of outdated, sexist crapola.
I love the way that misogynist men are always coming up with “scientific theories” to justify their hatred, contempt and fear of women….and their own shitty behaviour. I’m guessing that for you, any man who doesn’t act like a total pig is some sort of aberration that is less than a “Real Man”.
This comment was written by Crys T.Report this comment to the moderators
October 7th, 2004 at 10:22 am
Don: Science says it.
No, “Science” doesn’t say anything; science is not a person. Some particular scientists say it; other scientists disagree.
Of course, the nice thing about sociobiology is that it’s just storytelling. Almost nothing that Don just said is subject to objective falsification, which is awfully convenient. And which makes it bad science, in my opinion.
In fact, despite what Don says, in the vast majority of human cultures men mate for life, and there are strict sanctions to prevent women from sleeping with more than one man - sanctions that either don’t apply to boys or don’t apply as strongly. (Even the USA still has this, informally - men who sleep around are “players,” women who sleep around are “sluts.”).
Question: If sleeping with as many women as possible is a biological, universal trait of men, then why does marriage develop at all?
Question: If women are naturally uninterested in sleeping around, then why is it necessary to create strict control systems to prevent them from having sex with more than one man?
You can tell a “just so” story to account for this, of course. Since men have no way of knowing for certain that they’re the parent of a child, it benefits them to try and get into an exclusive relationship with a woman and stick with her; otherwise how can he know that he’s reproducing? Furthermore, it benefits him to stick around and help raise the child, thus making it more likely that his genes will survive and be passed on.
This is a “just so” story that explains a great deal of human behavior, found in most societies, quite well.
By the way, among the Bonobo chimps, one of humanity’s closest relative, the female chimps sleep around constantly. (”Just so” story: it benefits females to sleep around a lot, so that more males will be invested in protecting a female’s offspring).
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
October 7th, 2004 at 10:28 am
Crys T wrote: I love the way that misogynist men are always coming up with “scientific theories” to justify their hatred, contempt and fear of women….and their own shitty behaviour. I’m guessing that for you, any man who doesn’t act like a total pig is some sort of aberration that is less than a “Real Man”.
Crys T, I really appreciate your posting here - and obviously, I agree with you on the issue of what “science says.” But I ask that all posters on my blog remain civil on my blog, and try not to make personal attacks. Please try to respect that. Thanks!
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
October 7th, 2004 at 10:57 am
ampersand:
No, “Science” doesn’t say anything; science is not a person. Some particular scientists say it; other scientists disagree.
For goodness’ sake. Yes, I mean scienTISTS say it, of course. But it’s not a matter of “some scientists say it and others disagree.” There is no serious dispute in the scientific community about the differences I have described. The only people who really dispute it are feminists and sociologists with a predetermined ideological committment to the notion that there are no significant psychological differences between men and women.
Of course, the nice thing about sociobiology is that it’s just storytelling.
Utter nonsense. You don’t know what you’re talking about. Evolutionary psychology (or sociobiology, if you prefer to call it that) is an established branch of evolutionary science and involves the same scientific processes and standards as any other branch.
Almost nothing that Don just said is subject to objective falsification, which is awfully convenient.
More nonsense. Of course it’s subject to falsification. Evolutionary psychology has produced numerous testable predictions that have been confirmed through experiment and observation.
In fact, despite what Don says, in the vast majority of human cultures men mate for life, and there are strict sanctions to prevent women from sleeping with more than one man - sanctions that either don’t apply to boys or don’t apply as strongly. (Even the USA still has this, informally - men who sleep around are “players,” women who sleep around are “sluts.”).
I’m not sure what “men mate for life” is supposed to mean. The vast majority of human cultures are polygamous, in which one man has multiple female sexual partners. Institutionalized monogamy–public recognition of an exclusive right of sexual access to a woman by a man–is believed to have arisen primarily to reduce conflicts amoung men for sexual access to women. Behavioral monogamy–lifelong sexual exclusivity between one man and one woman–is extremely rare.
Question: If sleeping with as many women as possible is a biological, universal trait of men, then why does marriage develop at all?
I assume by marriage you mean “institutionalized monogamy.” See my explanation above.
Question: If women are naturally uninterested in sleeping around, then why is it necessary to create strict control systems to prevent them from having sex with more than one man?
Women are not completely uninterested in sleeping around. They do have some incentive for non-monogamy. But it is vastly weaker than the incentive for men to be non-monogamous. The “control systems” are imposed by men on women to prevent sexual access to them by other men.
You can tell a “just so” story to account for this, of course. Since men have no way of knowing for certain that they’re the parent of a child, it benefits them to try and get into an exclusive relationship with a woman and stick with her; otherwise how can he know that he’s reproducing?
Huh? He doesn’t know for sure that it’s his biological offspring whether he sticks with her or not. Men do have some evolutionary incentive to stick around and help women they impregnate raise the child they have sired. But a reproductive strategy of sexual monogamy is an evolutionary loser for men. They have a higher chance of producing more offspring if they impregnate lots of different women. The physical investment is small and the genetic payoff potentially enormous. No such incentive applies to women. A woman can conceive only one child a year (or in very rare cases two or three). A man can sire thousands.
By the way, among the Bonobo chimps, one of humanity’s closest relative, the female chimps sleep around constantly.
In bonobo society, sex serves important social functions that it does not serve in human societies. This is also believed to be why homosexual sex is more common amoung bonobos than amoung human beings.
This comment was written by Don P.Report this comment to the moderators
October 7th, 2004 at 11:08 am
Sorry Amp: I let my blood get up and posted immediately, instead of cooling off first.
This comment was written by Crys T.Report this comment to the moderators
October 7th, 2004 at 11:09 am
Monica — I did not write the script for the commercial. Of course we should teach people not to be bullies, but to ignore reality is to invite trouble.
The reality is that the sexes are different in how they perceive life (different through experience and nature). You acknowledged as much when you commented — “Guys who think that feminism is about . . . turning men into eunuchs, [figuratively]. . “ I would be disingenuous if I said that is not a widely internalized perception among men. Correct me if I am wrong. It seems by your analysis(stark raving mad) that women do not hold figurative castration as a goal of feminism.
Children form their ideas of how to treat others AND how they should be treated from the time they are born. They don’t just start forming these opinions once they have friends. A young boy or girl is going to look to the actions of men in their lives, initially, when they form their opinion on how a man treats a woman or other men. Personality formation begins even before parents and others provide their children with musings on life relationships (tell me a parent who is going to sit their one year old down and tell them how people should be treated). Children form their personality in this sense before they are five years old, well before adults verbally counsel them or their friends have influence on them. I think that is what the commercial was trying to convey. In that sense, a woman is at an infirmary when it comes to showing children how a man should treat a woman and reducing domestic abuse.
Actions play a greater role in early childhood development than any verbal musings could ever play. To strive to be an ideal man or woman does not elevate gender differences above personal choices. In striving to be an ideal human being one should take into account that their experience will be different than that of someone of the opposite sex. In striving to correct past injustices against women due to institutionalized sexism a characteristic an “ideal man” would strive for is treating the women in his life in a positive manner.
In an ideal world where children were manufacured already developed with the ability to have a cognitive conversation, a woman could tell a child how to treat women, as an ideal man should treat them. We live in reality where, for the most part, from conception to at least 1.5 years after, people do not sit down their kids and explain interpersonal relationships. Even if they did, that “talk” would not have as much effect on their development as the actions of those around them. In reality, all a woman can can do is tell her daughter or son how a woman should be treated by an ideal man. Just as a man cannot show a child how an ideal woman should treat a man. The actual general characteristics of how an ideal man or woman treats the opposite sex are not different than how human beings should interact (respect their desires, respect their body, etc.). One material difference is that a woman is not a man and a man is not a woman. It would be ignorant to say that young children do not see that this person who is beating mommy is a man and come to the conclusion that is how men treat women (most abusers and abused come from abusive households). Of course, the same would be true if mommy were beating daddy or if mommy were beating mommy, but the point here is that those scenarios will not SHOW a child how mommy is to be treated by daddy.
Therefore, striving to be an ideal man does not elevate the gender differences over personal choice. Merely does not ignore gender differences. The fact of the matter is that only men can show children, by their actions, how a man should treat a woman. It is a personal choice if men make that a positive goal or a negative goal. An ideal man would show children a positive image of the treatment of women. All the talking in the world by women would not overcome the cycle of violence that would result if a characteristic of an “ideal man” was that he beat his wife. To ignore this fact for some utopian feel-good way things “should” be only invites those who think like Ann Coulter to continue their damage to society.
This comment was written by jstevenson.Report this comment to the moderators
October 7th, 2004 at 11:10 am
Crys T:
Oh, okaaaaaaayyyy…..so, when people’s real-life experiences don’t square with your bullshit *theories*, you toss out the experience because, hey, the Theory is Supreme???
No, your anecdotes don’t square with established scientific facts. That’s why I toss them out.
Again, utter bullshit. What men, where?
Men in general. Everywhere. I am amazed that you would seriously dispute even this obvious fact. Are you seriously claiming that there is no average difference in body size and strength between men and women? The difference is both real and significant, and is a reflection of the polygamous nature of human sexuality. It is primarily the product of an evolutionary arms-race in which males competed for sexual access to females. The same difference exists in other species.
If you were paying even minimal attention, you’d note that not only are size differences that you can witness in despised Real Life getting smaller, but that your precious scientists are also noting the fact that the gaps in both size and strength are closing.
Um, you’re the one who seems to despise the differences between men and women that exist in Real Life, not me.
Show me your evidence that size and strength differences between men and women are getting smaller. Not that it would be relevant even if they were, since the evolutionary mechanism I described is not the only factor influencing that difference.
This comment was written by Don P.Report this comment to the moderators
October 7th, 2004 at 11:30 am
Amp: “Question: If sleeping with as many women as possible is a biological, universal trait of men, then why does marriage develop at all?”
Historical study suggests that the reason the Judeo-Christian model of marriage developed was to improve society and the treatment of women in society. The construct that Don alludes to — women have a genetic desire to seek a sexual mate who will be around for child rearing — supports this reasoning.
If a man digs deep down into his psyche and rids himself of the social constraints he will see that for the most part, at 13 - 24 years old he would have had sex with every girl if she let him.
Loss of consortium laws originated from men punishing their wives for not having sex. Another hypothosis for marriage I remember from my undergrad sociology and the law class was that marriage evolved as a contract. “In exchange for me staying around and supporting you and all these kids you agree to have sex with me whenever I want.” Not trying to cause any ruckus just answering the question. I don’t necessarily agree with these theories, but it is odd that the same theories did not develop regarding the female sexual desires over the course of 2300 years.
This comment was written by jstevenson.Report this comment to the moderators
October 7th, 2004 at 12:02 pm
I am actually quite willing (eager, even!) to get into a long, detailed argument about this topic. But I don’t have time this week, plus I have about 20 pages of “stuff I’m intending to blog” open on my web browser, so I’ll hope you’ll indulge me if I put off getting into this topic further.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
October 7th, 2004 at 12:31 pm
“There is a mountain of evidence that men are genetically disposed to be much more sexually promiscuous than women.”
If this were truly the case, the institution of marriage would never have needed to be initiated. Nor the witch burnings.
Can you point us in the direction of the mountain of which you speak?
This comment was written by S. Ellett.Report this comment to the moderators
October 7th, 2004 at 12:55 pm
As interesting as the nature v. nurture question is, I’m even more interested (at least in the current context) in making the point that IT DOESN’T MATTER: even if it were a deep biological fact that the average man is three sigmas more aggressive than the average woman, and the average woman three sigmas more nurturing than the average man, it would still be a bad idea to label aggression as “masculine behavior” and nurturing as “feminine behavior”, and say that Real Men are aggressive in ways that Real Women aren’t, and Real Women are nurturing in ways that Real Men aren’t.
(Read whatever more complex set of adjectives you like for “aggressive” and “nurturing” herein; I’m just using them as shorthand.)
It’s uncontroversial, surely, that there are some female persons who are more aggresive than some male persons, and some male persons who are more nurturing than some female persons. Unless we’re comfortable labelling all such individuals as abnormal, as deviant, as marked, as Different, we should (we must) avoid identifying certain sets of personality-flavored adjectives with certain biological genders.
REGARDLESS of how strong or biologically determined the correlations in question are, the fact that there are numerous (really really numerous) exceptions to the generalization means that if we do the gender identification that I’m disrecommending, we will be hurting people (in ways that others have eloquently attested here), and we’ll be doing it in no particular cause other than a lazy desire to have neat generalizations.
If you want to talk about agency and communion, go right ahead. If you want to objectively note some evidence for a correlation with biological gender, also fine. But there doesn’t seem to be a compelling case for labelling those modes of being as “male” and “female” that would make up for the real damage to real humans that that labelling does.
No matter how strong the correlation (and I don’t have enough evidence to have a strong position on nature v. nurture myself), the underlying question remains: we can note the correlation, but what could justify taking that extra step into labelling / identification and the value judgement that it inevitably leads to? Nothing that I can see.
This comment was written by David M. Chess.Report this comment to the moderators
October 7th, 2004 at 1:22 pm
Crys T:
No, there isn’t. There is a mountain of evidence that shows it is more culturally acceptable for men to admit to being promiscuous or to pretend that they are. However, as cultural values change, studies are showing less and less difference in the way that males and females are responding. Like it or not.
Look, you’re just spouting nonsense. You obviously don’t know what you’re talking about. As I said, culture can influence human behavior, but it does not and cannot change innate behavioral tendencies and predispositions created by evolutionary processes. Those tendencies have been programmed into our genes by millions of years of natural selection. Amoung those tendencies are huge differences in male and female sexual psychology. These differences exist not only in our own species, but in countless animal species as well. The existence of these differences has been established by multiple, independent lines of evidence from a wide variety of scientific disciplines including evolutionary biology, cultural anthropology, sociology, zoology, psychology, and genetics. The relationship between genes and environment is complex, and the strength and expression of an organism’s genetic tendencies can differ depending on its environment, but the genes are there regardless. This includes the genes that program men, and the males of other species, to be sexually promiscuous.
I suggest you try actually learning something about the science you are attacking. You might start with UCSB’s Center for Evolutionary Psychology. Another good online resource is the Human Behavior and Evolution Society, which contains an extensive list of scientific papers and articles on the evolutionary basis of human psychology and behavior.
ampersand:
The ma