People who have poor understanding of human nature will consider this an evidence of sexism.
Think for a minute about why "Fifty shades of grey" is popular among female readers.
If there are many stories are filled with males competing over resources and women (in the form of violent criminals kidnapping women and brave heroes rescuing them) then might it be that these kinds of stories are what people are looking for?
Try to imagine a story about a weak man who cannot defend himself against a gang of three women who kidnap him, only to get saved by his brave girlfriend, who upon rescuing him promises him to stay by his side for ever.
Just try it. Does it sound like an interesting story?
That plot would fit into, say, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (which had a viewship in the millions) no problem.
Also, if you're going to say things like "natural difference between men and women that are implicitly understood by people" (down thread), you're going to have to bring some double-blind, peer-reviewed evidence.
This is a controversial subject that's overflowing with armchair sociologists. Right now you're indistinguishable from them.
I have no problem with the possibility that men and women are different. What's unjustified is, given the powerful effect of culture on behaviour, someone making offhand claims that they know what differences are natural.
I read "natural difference between men and women that are implicitly understood by people" as saying that what's "implicitly" (i.e. commonly) understood as to be the natural differences is correct. Because what has been "implicitly" understood has differed substantially across time and cultures, that's a highly suspect claim that requires a matching degree of evidence.
Furthermore, just the long and loud history of people spouting off absolute bullshit about what women are and aren't is, by itself, enough to demand significant evidence for any positive statements of what's natural or not.
>Also, if you're going to say things like "natural difference between men and women that are implicitly understood by people" (down thread), you're going to have to bring some double-blind, peer-reviewed evidence.
Millenia of history is a kind of evidence. And the main answer back is "this history is the history of an oppression". Which doesn't even go to why would (all things being equal) one gender get to be the oppressor and the other always the oppressed within the same society, and with the same population numbers on each side (e.g. we're not talking about slaves captured via force here).
Natural differences are things like 'mean height', and the ability to get pregnant.
It is quite reasonable that past societies divided labor based on suitability of physical capacities for different tasks. It wouldn't be reasonable to call this 'oppression' per se.
However the structure of roles human societies has always been mediated by the level of technology. Gender divisions of labor, class and caste systems etc, have always shifted when the technological structure of production and warfare have changed as technology has developed.
Reinforcing roles that were developed in a less advanced technological society but are not necessary in the present landscape is most certainly oppression, as is resisting thought that could lead to more freedom for groups you don't belong to.
Think about that history affected our biology (due to evolution). Consider the case with food. We now have an abundance of food rich with carbs and fats, but if we eat too much of them we get sick, because our bodies were designed with certain assumptions about environment. In this case, or natural environment.
Wouldn't the same be applicable to our social environment?
Also, technology is not permanent. Consider what would happen if society collapsed for whatever reason.
Actually that's a very good reason, if not the best one.
Having been that way in the past means it's already tried. And if it has been carried on, it means it has passed the test, and it has proven useful. It also means its not fickle.
Nope. All it tell you is that it has been tried and it works for whoever is in power. Any kind of oppression that works, can therefore be justified this way, including slavery and genocide.
Just because something works, does not mean it is good to do. And in fact, having seen the undesirable effects of a practice may provide all the reason need for discontinuing it in favor of an untried practice.
You are simply arguing against the development of society.
Note that the qualification "outdated" has been added by you, not the parent.
One could have easily said "evergreen" or "tried and true" or "resilient" roles.
Also not being reliant on what's enabled by the available technology for major choices is more than about "being prepared in case society collapses".
For one, technology is neutral, it can enable all kinds of things, including things that are bad for society. What should be going should be a cultural/ethical/etc discussion, not a knee-jerk adoption of any new available option.
Not saying that this is the case here, but there's more to being logical than your critique of the parent.
If you want to make the case that the gender roles are not outdated, be my guest.
The parent brought up the idea of society collapsing. Not me. If you have something to add please do, otherwise you are just kicking up dust.
There has been a cultural/ethical discussion going on and a great many people decided that gender roles needed to change. If you 'aren't saying that's what happened here' how is your comment relevant?
All you have attempted to do here is add doubt without adding substance or logic of your own. If you can actually argue your position, go ahead, but engaging in this kind undermining suggests that not only can you not, you are aware of it.
Your other comments on this topic show that your suggestion that you are merely trying to point out that my logic isn't as strong as it could be is a misrepresentation of your view.
How can you consider your views as non-sexist? You're clearly defining roles based on gender.
Edit: First story off my head is the first Resident Evil movie. She wakes up in chaos without memory. From what she can discern her would be lover and she are accosted by zombies. She fights her way through as the hero. Ultimately I think she remembers her lover betrayed her and started the outbreak or some such thing. Point is, it wasn't boring.
Your example is not of a female rescuing a weak helpless male and then "putting a ring on it". It's of a female hero who rescues herself after discovering her lover betrayed her. Still the bad guy role played by the male. Still the person worth caring about is the female.
> How can you consider your views as non-sexist?
I'm simply not concerned with whether you consider my views sexist or not. I just want to have a realistic understanding of human nature.
Now, if I said that women should have _less_ rights than men, then I would be sexist (in a bad way). But I never even implied anything close to that. So why should I worry about my views being sexist?
Even having different boxing (the sport) categories for men and women could be construed as "sexism".
Much less any implication that men and woman can have, as genders, different sensibilities and priorities, and not just because they were "raised that way" but also because of biological imperatives.
E.g. something that we know is true for almost all animals in nature (e.g. which gender hunts, etc).
One of the better horror movies that I've seen in a while, Hush, features a deaf woman as the protagonist. She is writing a novel in a cabin in the woods, but then is taunted by a psychopath and she has to fight like hell to survive.
I think your story example is a bit forced. After all, there are few stories about what the princess is doing in the castle while waiting for the brave knight to rescue her.
We like stories where the characters we follow have agency. A story about a brave woman who saves her boyfriend after undergoing hardship - that certainly has the potential to be interesting.
It might be interesting to you, but I would challenge you to find a large audience for it.
And if this audience exists, why aren't there more mainstream stories catering to them? Surely, this could be an untapped market worth millions of dollars. That is, if it were true that most people would find this kind of plot incredibly interesting.
> Try to imagine a story about a weak man who cannot defend himself against a gang of three women who kidnap him, only to get saved by his brave girlfriend, who upon rescuing him promises him to stay by his side for ever.
What's wrong with that story? It'd be more interesting than the inverse actually, because it's plausible but less played out.
Here's a story not so dissimilar if you don't believe it's plausible. Sounds like a script that would write itself:
If you mean unfair discrimination against women, then that's not an evidence for it.
If you mean natural difference between men and women that are implicitly understood by people, then yea you can call it sexism but it's not necessarily a bad thing.
Of course, I suspect that's what he means, but I also suspect that what he sees as "detrimental" effects on women are actually not.
But this is all a bit too abstract. Could you be specific of what these determintal effects are?
Please not that any attempt to "make up" some egalitarian idealistic expectations without any regard to the biological reality is definitely going to have detrimental effects on both men and women.
For example, if you try to push the idea that women, all women, should abandon the role of motherhood, because it's an "oppressive" societal expectation, and instead should chase after high paying careers, like the powerful men in society, then I think your idea (if it was like this, or similar to this) will have a detrimental effect on most women (if it were to take hold in society).
A friend of mine studied electrical engineering in Spain, and was so good at it that she got accepted into MIT's Technology and Policy Master's Degree. Back when she was 18 and about to enter college, her father got into a big fight with her, because "engineering wasn't a profession for women".
My mother and I were raised by my mother only. Your idea that motherhood is at odds with "chasing after a high paying career like the powerful men in society" is ridiculous. They aren't at odds, and the propagation of that myth by people like you is detrimental to the women that consider the choice.
My neighbor made more money than her husband. So instead of "abandoning the role of fatherhood, to chase after a higher-paying career", he's the one staying at home raising their daughter, while she keeps working full time. She's the sweetest little girl, and they're very happy. In their case, the man might be better fit for that role than the woman is. I wouldn't have trouble believing that, were their roles reversed, the girl would be a bit less happy, and they certainly would have less income to save for her future.
Unfortunately, every single difference of any significance is often took to be sexist and (of course) wrong sexist.
Why are the top 100 chess players men? Sexism. Why are there more male than female programmers? Sexism. In non-romance movies, why are there more male leads? Sexism.
There is legitimate wrongful sexism, but they aren't usually found in first world countries.
It's as if we ever agreed there was a significant innate difference between the sexes (or races for that matter), the world would come crashing down and put us in the Stone Age.
Right - there's no wrongful sexism in first world countries and there is no difference in the messages males and females are given during their upbringing about how they should behave in society.
Also, family courts make perfectly fair decisions.
Actually there is a very good biological explanation for why this is the case: men are more varied than women. Because until the modern era men were expendable and the victors impregnated the women for the next generation.
> I don't understand how that theory would make women less varied.
Look up sexual selection and dimorphism lectures from a respectable university. There's a huge body of evidence about the variation between sexes and a lot of it is beyond me since I'm not a biologist.
It explains rather well how the male population distributions get "cut off" as a result of sexual selection with constraint to resources.
Because the men are able to evolve some things separately from women (eg on the Y chromosome) and versa - mitochondria is from the mother. And even if this was not the case - some genes express themselves only in men (D'OH) like testosterone and baldness.
Actually there are lots of strong female leads now. It all started, I think, with Joss Whedon (Buffy) and Robert Taper (Xena). Women used to watch that much more than Hercules etc.
Now here is the thing... this is all wishful thinking. And the strong female lead is very much exceptional and stereotyped. She is just really strong and skilled somehow. Nearly all the other women are still weak. Once in a while her skill "rubs off" on her companions but the average woman is still weak.
And this is just about strength and/or fighting skill. How about intelligence? There is a movie now called "Gifted". Same thing - a fictional story about a lineage of women with exceptional gifts in math. None of the other women are portrayed this way.
In other words, whenever a woman is portrayed in fiction, even if she is stronger, more skilled, more resolute, more intelligent etc. than men, she is an exception.
There are a few exceptions, such as Fast and Furious, who just cram their movies chock full of two really exceptional women. But then they also cram them chock full of feats, explosions etc.
Where are the popular movies or literature where nearly all the women are routinely stronger or more intelligent than men at things?
That sounds like sexism to me. If our culture demands that stories about men and women fit into gender roles then that is a sexist culture. It might not be the direct fault of authors, but we cannot just throw up our hands and say "well it is giving the people what they want".
It is also possible to misunderstand the market. Remember when people said that the reason why action movies didn't have female leads was because nobody would watch them? And then The Hunger Games and TFA were released?
Of all places to make arguments about Darwinian resource struggles, HN is probably the least appropriate. I assure you the male heroes in those stories are definitely not the type to read HN.
Just as our culture has in-built biases against women it also has in-built biases against men who use their brains more than their brawn.
Need I even cite any examples of this? It's such a well-worn trope.
And you know what? That anti-nerd bias is pretty stupid and it needs to change. Just like the anti-female bias is stupid and needs to change.
The anti-nerd bias is finally beginning to change a little as our culture begins to recognize the leadership value of smart men (thanks Elon!). And we're also going to change that anti-female bias.
Why? Because over time anti-sexism will just plain work better than sexism. Just like over time leadership by brainy guys has worked better than leadership by dumb alpha jocks.
Think for a minute about why "Fifty shades of grey" is popular among female readers.
If there are many stories are filled with males competing over resources and women (in the form of violent criminals kidnapping women and brave heroes rescuing them) then might it be that these kinds of stories are what people are looking for?
Try to imagine a story about a weak man who cannot defend himself against a gang of three women who kidnap him, only to get saved by his brave girlfriend, who upon rescuing him promises him to stay by his side for ever.
Just try it. Does it sound like an interesting story?