Camille Paglia, women, and #MeToo
Here’s an interview of Camille Paglia appearing in Quilette. The entire thing is worth reading, but here’s one of her most interesting statements [emphasis mine]:
As an atheist, I have argued that if religion is erased, something must be put in its place. Belief systems are intrinsic to human intelligence and survival. They “frame” the flux of primary experience, which would otherwise flood the mind.
But politics cannot fill the gap. Society, with which Marxism is obsessed, is only a fragment of the totality of life. As I have written, Marxism has no metaphysics: it cannot even detect, much less comprehend, the enormity of the universe and the operations of nature. Those who invest all of their spiritual energies in politics will reap the whirlwind. The evidence is all around us—the paroxysms of inchoate, infantile rage suffered by those who have turned fallible politicians into saviors and devils , godlike avatars of Good versus Evil.
Paglia then goes on to discuss #MeToo and Kavanaugh:
The headlong rush to judgment by so many well-educated, middle-class women in the #MeToo movement has been startling and dismaying. Their elevation of emotion and group solidarity over fact and logic has resurrected damaging stereotypes of women’s irrationality that were once used to deny us the vote. I found the blanket credulity given to women accusers during the recent U.S. Senate confirmation hearings for Brett Kavanaugh positively unnerving: it was the first time since college that I truly understood the sexist design of Aeschylus’s Oresteia, whose mob of vengeful Furies is superseded by formal courts of law, where evidence is weighed.
During the Kavanaugh hearing, I discussed the parallels to the Furies, as well. And the hearings were worse than “dismaying,” and I guess the whole thing was startling, but it was not really surprising. This is the way things have been going for a long time, and decades of talking to friends of mine has convinced me that a vast number react to politics and sexual offense accusations in a very emotional manner. Therefore I agree that this entire phenomenon has “has resurrected damaging stereotypes of women’s irrationality,” but what it really has done is even more extreme. It hasn’t just resurrected those stereotypes; to a certain extent it has actually tended to validate them.
I say that with great sorrow and a sense of horror. And I certainly do not think that women should not be allowed to vote. But not only have I been observing this phenomenon of all-too-common irrationality in women for a long time, I’ve also observed that a small but vocal number of women say this makes women superior to men, because rationality and due process are the inventions of privileged white guys and therefore bad.
I will add that the last couple of decades have brought home to me the irrationality not just of so many women, but of so many men as well. And that seems to be increasing, too. I have no way to measure the relative rationality of each sex as a group, or the numbers of those who display it. But I have noticed a great deal of emotionalism and a great lack of rationality in both sexes. And I find it highly disturbing and troublesome, although I’m not suggesting we all should become like Star Trek’s Spock (that would create other problems).
There is a great deal of overlap between the sexes on the emotional/logical axes. But it is my observation—anecdotal and fragmented though it may be—that the dominance of emotionalism over rationality is indeed at least somewhat more common than women than in men. But as I said, it’s pretty prevalent all around.
That same issue of Quillette contained another article on #MeToo that is well worth reading. It demonstrates how the movement has helped false accusers create “credible” scenarios. The example used by the author occurred in Canada, but it certainly is not limited to Canada:
The #MeToo movement, along with other previous movements and hashtags, has opened up vast resources online that help victims of sexual assault seek justice, network with allies and other survivors, and recover emotionally from their trauma. This is all to the good. But as Chloe’s case helps demonstrate, these same resources can also be used as tools to create a realistic backstory out of whole cloth.In 2016, a young British woman admitted, after just a few minutes of cross-examination at trial, that she had manufactured a sexual-assault complaint against her father, using the lurid plot of Fifty Shades of Grey as her source material. The father might well have been convicted if he hadn’t mentioned to his lawyer in passing, just a day before trial, that his daughter’s favorite book was, by his recollection, “about a millionaire who takes a young woman under his wing and ‘teaches her about art.’”
Likewise, if Chloe hadn’t promoted her interest in sexual-assault prevention on social media and recorded videos about her activism, how would the evidence in her case have come to light? The prosecutor and police reportedly didn’t research any of this in detail before the case went to trial; and when issues were raised by the defense, the Crown made no effort to examine or provide exculpatory evidence. Indeed, the court transcripts indicate that the prosecutor’s behavior was so outrageous that the judge warned about possible contempt charges. Yet this episode produced no social-media outrage, despite the fact that a likely innocent man might easily have gone to jail.
One of the reasons the Kavanaugh hearing energized so many women (and others) on the right to support Senate Republicans in the 2018 election is that it was a graphic example of how easy it is to “credibly” accuse an innocent man, and how even someone with a sterling previous reputation such as Kavanaugh is highly vulnerable to a woman who tells a good story in a believable manner, even without corroborative evidence, without important details such as time and place, and even though the events the woman alleges to have occurred supposedly took place many decades ago. It was a chilling prospect for anyone who believe in due process, the rule of law, and rationality over emotion when making a judgment about an issue so important.
Except the Republican counter-wave that was supposed to occur because of the Kavanaugh embarrassment didn’t occur.
MIke,
Given that the only “toss-up state” Democrat incumbent who held his seat is also the only one who voted in favor of Kavanaugh, there may well have been a counter-wave concerning those more directly involved in the fiasco.
Remember when Larry Summers suggested there might be mental differences between males and females and the feminists started fainting and getting sick? He was denounced and called names. That was when I began to think that giving women the vote was a bad idea.
I’m a total Pagliaista and have been for years. The odd thing is, she’s very conservative on almost all issues: the importance of family, of religion, of art and literature, of rigorous education, and of the military. It’s always been a mystery to me why she doesn’t connect those values to politics.
She’s the original, and still one of the few, “feminists” to realize that the Sexual Revolution, the Hook-Up Culture, and abortion rights have totally benefitted men to the detriment of women.
Og the caveman had to promise to hunt the wholly mammoth, bring the meat home, protect the women and children from sabretooth tigers and other tribes, and be faithful to his mate (really, to his own seed) — before he got nookie. His descendants don’t even have to pay for dinner. And if she gets pregnant? No shotgun marriage for him! “Go have an abortion, sweetheart — I totally support your right to choose.” I know any number of formerly young women who can’t figure out why they can’t get their boyfriends (or any man) to make a commitment. Duh-uh, why should the boyfriends, when they don’t have to, to get their nookie? Marriage is for the benefit of women, not men, but feminists can’t see it. Go figure!
Mike – the wave arguably dribbled out into a back-splash because of the hearings; it’s unreasonable to have expected it to disappear completely.
The conclusion from Quillette’s article is important, because it states the essential conflict between progressivism and conservatism.
“The #MeToo movement has drawn appropriate attention to historically ignored injustice. Thousands upon thousands of real sexual-assault survivors have come forward to tell their stories and seek justice. But all movements, no matter how virtuous in intent, open up unintended misuses of their cause. In this respect, #MeToo is no different. Web sites such as Project Unbreakable, notwithstanding the good intentions behind their creation, can serve as a resource kit for dishonest complainants. And in such an environment, the emotional and political reflex that leads us to automatically “believe the victim” will sometimes cause us to cheerlead the imprisonment of innocent men.
The only way to avoid such miscarriages of justice is through the rigorous application of due process, including the presumption of innocence. These are age-old principles, and some might dismiss them as old-fashioned. But in the age of #MeToo, as Chloe’s story shows us, they are more important now than ever.”
Another article from Quillette (jack-pot!) is also relevant to the #MeToo travesties.
https://quillette.com/2018/11/02/a-mania-for-all-seasons-the-continuing-importance-of-the-devils-of-loudun/
“Adrenalin addiction is rationalized as Righteous Indignation and finally, like the prophet Jonah, they are convinced, unshakably, that they do well to be angry.”
These words first appeared in 1952, in the pages of Aldous Huxley’s The Devils of Loudun. While many of Huxley’s works are better known and more widely read, there may be no text, past or present, more relevant to our turbulent era than this account of a seventeenth century witch trial.
…
It is fitting, therefore, to allow Huxley the final word on our perennial mania—a diagnosis of our terrified moment:
“The effects which follow too constant and intense a concentration upon evil are always disastrous. Those who crusade, not for God in themselves, but against the devil in others, never succeed in making the world better, but leave it either as it was, or sometimes even perceptibly worse than it was, before the crusade began. By thinking primarily of evil we tend, however excellent our intentions, to create occasions for evil to manifest itself …Today it is everywhere self-evident that we are on the side of Light, they on the side of Darkness. And being on the side of Darkness, they deserve to be punished and must be liquidated (since our divinity justifies everything) by the most fiendish means at our disposal…And on a very small stage, this precisely was what the exorcists were doing at Loudun. By idolatrously identifying God with the political interests of their sect, by concentrating their thoughts and their efforts on the powers of evil, they were doing their best to guarantee the triumph (local, fortunately, and temporary) of that Satan, against whom they were supposed to be fighting.”
Richard Saunders on November 12, 2018 at 10:46 pm at 10:46 pm said:
I’m a total Pagliaista and have been for years. The odd thing is, she’s very conservative on almost all issues: the importance of family, of religion, of art and literature, of rigorous education, and of the military. It’s always been a mystery to me why she doesn’t connect those values to politics.
* * *
Ditto here.
I think she just puts greater weight on the Dem policies she agrees with.
Also, seeing the value of family, religion, & military for society did not translate into action for her personally.
But she is always fun and enlightening to read.
But where were the men in this Ford uncorroborated character assault by a woman whose shaky psychosocial history is out there, quite tarnished. Where were the men, Lindsay Graham aside?
Her affect radiated chronic serious deoression.
And the “Lions” of the Left, like Booker, Harris, Schumer, Warren, Feinstein all tinged themselves with their brutal brushes. These are not Senators, They are vermin.
Any correlation with the decades-long gradual decline in sperm counts? Is it something in the water that quenches manliness?
Paglia is amazing. I think she strives to be a thoroughly modern woman. Someone who genuinely wishes to progress from something good to something better. It is her chosen job to analyze our culture and how we got here.
Unlike so called “progressive” political activists who feel free to negate any and all parts of the 2K+ year development of western civilization, if it stands in their way, Paglia wants to understand and preserve the best of it.
“… rationality and due process are the inventions of privileged white guys and therefore bad.” — Neo
Well, rationality and due process stand in their way. The privileged white guy association is just the flimsiest of excuses for getting what they want. A few weeks later, the same people might proclaim the fundamental importance of reason and due process, if it suits their purpose that week.
______
Mike Smith,
I think the Kavanaugh Republican counter wave was real. But then there was an October surprise, when Trump triggered a Florida sociopath to send “real bombs” (according to the FBI director) to all of the Dems with the biggest microphones.
In my household, the above “surprise” was a non-event, but I’ll bet lots of households felt differently.
Great discussion between Jordan Peterson and Camille Paglia. It’s exciting to see such brilliant minds on display. Cleansing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-hIVnmUdXM
A rather different sort of discussion involving Peterson and a “leading feminist”:
https://www.rt.com/news/443477-peterson-sweden-wallstrom-rock/
https://nyheteridag.se/swedish-foreign-minister-wallstrom-says-jordan-b-peterson-shouldve-stayed-under-a-rock/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqVLqZY9KuE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6l3M_doleQ
“the irrationality not just of so many women, but of so many men as well. And that seems to be increasing, too.”
I’m sure it IS increasing.
In the past, irrationality led to bad decisions, with bad outcomes for the decision maker. Today, the bad or worse decisions lead to less bad, much less bad, or even “good” outcomes — see the book deals for many Dems who get famous.
Incentives matter. (Especially to the rational?) If being emotional is rewarded, folk will be emotional.
On the #MeToo movement, I strongly suspect very few women who lost their virginity on their wedding day are among those complaining about male abuse.
Sexual promiscuity is the problem. Most men are happy to be sexually promiscuous, before and even after marriage. Most women are less happy with promiscuity than with commitment.
Men and women are different, think differently, and feel differently, about promiscuity.
Promoting sexual promiscuity equality has been good for the few women who are as happy being sluts as are men like Bill Clinton, Trump, or JFK (or most ..Ks) — there’s not even a negative word for such men. Cad? Rake? Rogue? Jerk? I’m calling them jerks, or alpha-jerks, including Trump. (Confession: I wanted to be an successful alpha womanizer and now think this was wrong.)
I see one possible silver lining from the #MeToo movement is a big move back away from the Eric Jong “Zipless F*ck” equal promiscuity so stupidly promoted by feminists — many of whom don’t practice this much in their own marriages. (Paglia is also lesbian, noted in her J. Peterson talk)
Finally, some of the bitterness of middle class women is the realization, as they go over 40, that they’ve traded being a housewife & mother for being a wage slave stuck on the rat race treadmill for more cash & mindless mass consumption.
Dvorak just ended – thanks for great music!
“the irrationality not just of so many women, but of so many men as well. And that seems to be increasing, too.”
Interesting coincidence: Wretchard at Belmont Club linked earlier today to a book review from the Claremont Review of Books titled “On the Slaughter Bench of History.” It is a review of several books published shortly before the centenary of the beginning of WWI in 2014. Algis Valiunas, the author of the review, emphasizes the marked hyperemotionalism and irrationality of the rulers and diplomats who were responsible for Europe’s rush to disaster. Valiunas writes: ” . . . the power of unreason so damnably afflicts—compromises, misdirects, undermines, flummoxes—the reasoning of men who do decide the fate of nations, even the course of a civilization. . . . The shadow of unreason fell upon leading men everywhere [in the summer of 1914]; seeing clearly and acting soundly became more and more unlikely.”
The entire review is beautifully written as well as informative, and (like the Paglia interview) is worth reading in its entirety. Link:
https://www.claremont.org/crb/article/on-the-slaughter-bench-of-history/
You can also download the review in PDF format at the link.
I know any number of formerly young women who can’t figure out why they can’t get their boyfriends (or any man) to make a commitment. Duh-uh, why should the boyfriends, when they don’t have to, to get their nookie? Marriage is for the benefit of women, not men, but feminists can’t see it. Go figure!
Richard, one of the alternative questions is regards the overall misandry of our culture.
1) Men are attacked, malehood is vilified. So many stay emotionally boys.
2) Why should a man risk working for a decade or more, busting his ass to provide for his family, only to have her decide she wants out, but doesn’t want any responsibility for “being the bad guy”, so she projects everything bad onto him, does her damnedest to paint him as a horrible person, gets full custody by overtly lying, and proceeds to turn his own children against him? Meanwhile, he gives up half his income indefinitely to a wife and kids who all hate his guts. Now see “1”.
I mean, all the evidence I read about Woody Allen says he’s innocent of being a pedophile. But pretty much everyone on the Left is certain he is one.
MORE astonishing is the number of the people who will vilify him but defend Roman Polanski, who was convicted IN COURT of rape-sodomizing a 13yo girl. AND showed zero contrition 8y later in an interview after he fled The Long Arm Of The Law: “EVERYONE wants to f*** young girls!!”
😉
Do y’all realize that in Cali, a woman can claim you (a male) are the father of her child. The state then has no absolute obligation to reach you in order to make you aware of the legal proceedings, and, once those proceedings happen, the state will literally screw you out of child support even if you get DNA proof that the child is not yours. Yes. there are cases of this happening on record. SMH.
The real irony here is that the “pro-women” side, the MeToo types, think they are helping women as a protected class when they put Ford and her obvious evidence-free lies up there for he world to see, and then lecture those of us who still demand evidence that we should “believe all women”.
If you wanted to destroy rather than reinforce the credibility of women as a class, this would be one way to do it. This is the best they could do? This idiotic plan was seen as a good idea?
Between this and the Russian meddling clown show, it’s finally obvious to a critical mass of the population that the Left is clinically insane, ie, so desperate and ideological that they have lost touch with reality, and far more interested in acquiring and protecting power than protecting liberty and defending our rights.
Paglia’s comment that something will be put in place of religious beliefs which are erased is very true. People are going to believe in something. Politics as religion leads to horrors. Look at the intense hatred we are seeing today, which is primarily leftist hatred for the right. There are, of course, crazy people on all sides, but in general, conservative politics are restrained by the ethical-religious principles of its proponents.
This is really what’s wrong with Islam, too, and many people set loose from Judeo-Christian principles seem to land there. Islam is both religion and politics in one package, and insists on “commanding right and forbidding wrong,” that is, that what Islam says is right or wrong must be forced on others. Perhaps this is one reason why leftists excuse Islamists — because they, too, think that people must be forced to accept and celebrate their ideas of right and wrong.
Just yesterday, 98 Democrat US Representatives signed a letter calling the Trump administration definition of sex as determined by biology “cruel and unscientific.” Unscientific? We have at least 98 people in Congress who are crazy.
Without comment
https://youtu.be/c-ecbGNxEHM
That was when I began to think that giving women the vote was a bad idea.
You mean my very sensible aunt should have been debarred from voting because one Nancy Hopkins, a self-centered bint on the Harvard faculty, made a scene?
It is not the irrationality argument that applies to women, but that many women crave consensus. A single woman can be just as judicious and effective as any man, but a group can quickly descend into an irrational but acceptable consensus.
Confidence and self-reliant women are much less susceptible to sexual harassment and other discrimination. They also help men control the predators and lotharios by making the men less worried about retaliation.
Years ago (1970’s) I went to a Society of Women Engineers talk in college to see a presentation by a noted Antarctic Scientist. As the only male there, I thought the topic was interesting. The speaker who was in her 50’s, gave a harsh talk to the young women telling them they have nothing to complain about with regard to discrimination and that the image of weakness and lack of proficiency this projected hurt all women in technical fields. She was right.
Neo is correct.
Irrational behavior is on the rise here in the US regardless of gender. That shouldn’t be a surprise to any adult who had children that attended a public school.
‘Americanism’ as propounded by brilliant men like Herbert Hoover has been replaced with Marxist cant. The results we see are inevitable.
For example, if YOU don’t think that Herbert Hoover was a brilliant man, a great humanitarian and a great American then you have been mislead by your ‘educators’.
Politico has a nice profile of the woman who started Quillette. The comments are the usual left wing comments by Politico readers but the article is fair.
I am a subscriber.
It is attacked in this piece, which seems to be all over the place politically.
dirtyjobsguy on November 13, 2018 at 9:47 am at 9:47 am said:
It is not the irrationality argument that applies to women, but that many women crave consensus. A single woman can be just as judicious and effective as any man, but a group can quickly descend into an irrational but acceptable consensus.
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I have seen the same effect with most groups of men.
Consensus is a group thing, not a sex/gender thing.
The overlap of character traits of men and women (and thus all possible gender-fluid combinations thereof) is very, very close (with the few bi-modal exceptions of math affinity), differing only on whether the long tails tend to one side or the other.
If you think that men tend more to sort out into hierarchy and dominance, define “more” and then go read about Mother Abbesses and convents.
And I have male friends who fit right into the stereotype of Chatty Cathy.
well.. yeah… you have to pay for her lawyer and your lawyer…
you dont get victims fund, shelter, and they freeze your accounts
before things are decided they can take money too..
and of course… your out of business if your business is in the home and she gets an order
soooo you have to pro se…
he did what he was supposed to do…
but you have to have sympathy for the parent who cant have their own kids EVER
you have to have sympathny for the person who needs 20 years fo cooperation to have family
her? she only has to go out and get drunk for the most part.. and she can have family on his dime
and keep kids and never see him… or can do it with 8 people and refuse to say. or she can take the kid and dump it without tellign him and if he doesnt protest without knowing he loses the kids… but thats ok, cause after he finds out they can tag him for the money.
[edited for length by n]
Paul in Boston on November 13, 2018 at 9:02 am at 9:02 am said:
Without comment
https://youtu.be/c-ecbGNxEHM
“I think of a man… And I take away reason and accountability.” – punchline from the movie
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Henry Higgins (in “My Fair Lady”): “Why can’t a woman be more like a man?”
One reason I read comments here and a few other places is to get a look at the experiences that differ so much from my own. I have dealt with women singly and in groups for many years as part of my church responsibilities, and I cannot put all of them in the same bucket that so many people do, because there isn’t a single bucket that holds all of one sex or the other.
Some of the difference may be due to “sample sorting” — men who are hierarchy-oriented may tend to enter the military, rise to CEO, become bosses in any field; men who aren’t go into different professions. Same with women.
Different sets of the full range of either sex may fall more into the stereotypes than others, and thus are encountered more in some environments than in others — an analogy from my life is that many people could not believe that I had spent my entire childhood without ever hearing an adult say some of the four-letter words I learned about my first year of college, but it was natural to me because of the “set” of people my parents knew – they did not use that language in their own lives, and certainly not in front of children (a lost cause now, sadly).
The identity politics of the left (and do they have any politics that aren’t identity?) is based on emotional connections to a tribe. The much touted empathy (which the messiah said was the most important attribute of judges) is just one part of emotional connection toolkit.
It is said men define themselves by what they do, women by their relationships. And aside from Ayn Rand, does any believe that relationships, at their core, are rational decisions.
I have a theory about the irrationality thing.
I tend to agree with whoever it was above who pointed out that an individual woman may have no trouble acting rationally, but in groups we seek consensus, sometimes (or often) to the detriment of reason. I think that this tendency plays out thusly with men:
Men are hard-wired to want sex. This wiring makes most of them behave in ways that women approve of, so that they can get the women to give them sex. The behavior that now pleases a lot of women is to adopt an irrational, feelings-based frame, it no longer being acceptable for a man to prove his worthiness of sex by demonstrating traits of physical protectiveness and channelled violence in service of family/society.
Or, importantly, irrationality is the behavior that we are TOLD pleases women. You look at heroes in movies and they still act more like Cary Grant or John Wayne than like Sensitive Ponytail Man from Singles. I think we’re caught in a positive-feedback loop: men want sex; women want men; women know they’re supposed to reject masculine men, so they encourage men with certain feminine traits; men do their best to comply; but women don’t really want what they are supposed to want; so everyone is frustrated and acting foolish.
I love masculine men, as long as they don’t mind that I have a brain – and as long as they are willing to live by the old social compact.
Men and women are equal in rights and complementary in Nature.
That said, no diversity. No color judgments. It’s a woman or some women. It’s not women as some monolithic bloc defined by their sex or gender. A principal does not qualify a principle, nor should a principal color other principals.
Women’s suffrage is protected by the patriarchy and rooted in Christianity. If both those institutions are badly damaged you can kiss it goodbye.
What Art Deco said.
” I think we’re caught in a positive-feedback loop: men want sex; women want men; women know they’re supposed to reject masculine men, so they encourage men with certain feminine traits; men do their best to comply; but women don’t really want what they are supposed to want; so everyone is frustrated and acting foolish.
I love masculine men, as long as they don’t mind that I have a brain – and as long as they are willing to live by the old social compact.” – Jamie
* * *
Well said, and also n.n., but this is what I worry most about now (assuming a benign and positive definition of patriarchy, which I think can be defended):
Chuck on November 13, 2018 at 12:43 pm at 12:43 pm said:
Women’s suffrage is protected by the patriarchy and rooted in Christianity. If both those institutions are badly damaged you can kiss it goodbye.
n.n.; AesopFan:
I also agree that all are individuals, women and men, and that there’s a lot of overlap in characteristics. That’s why I try to only write about the relative percentages of a certain characteristic in each group, whatever that group may be.
There are hyper-rational women and very emotional men, for example. Plenty of them. But I do believe that the percentages of the former are lower among women than among men, and the percentages of the latter are lower among men than among women. If I find evidence that disproves this, I’d be happy to abandon my beliefs on it.
Women’s suffrage is protected by the patriarchy and rooted in Christianity. If both those institutions are badly damaged you can kiss it goodbye.
Chuck: Back when I hosted a blog before there were blogs, one female participant kept going on about her fervent hope for Western Civilization and Christianity to implode so women would be treated better. There are people who believe this.
I told her if Western Civ and Christianity go, it’s going to be old-school, alpha-male patriarchy and women will be chattel again.
Yup, huxley. I have lived in India (majority Hindu, large minority Muslim), and Egypt (very large majority Muslim). The situation of women in each is not good in general. Western-educated families treat their women reasonably well. The women in the villages and the slums are not free and are not especially safe. Women in the US who wail about the “patriarchy” have no idea what they’re talking about.
The behavior that now pleases a lot of women is to adopt an irrational, feelings-based frame, it no longer being acceptable for a man to prove his worthiness of sex by demonstrating traits of physical protectiveness and channelled violence in service of family/society.
I’m not sure I’ve met many women who are pleased by this. There are women who are interested in someone comfortable and safe or are willing to settle for such a person given a realistic appraisal of their prospects. You don’t need much aggression to get along in the world of credential-driven office employment in occupations with fairly flat hierarchies.
Familiarity breeds contempt, and many women have an ample supply for the men they’ve landed, whether they were looking for someone comfortable and safe or they were looking for someone with more T. In the last ten years, three quite reasonable young men among our proximate relations have been put out on the curb by their wives within 40 months of when they were married. (The marriage that lasted the longest incorporated a trial separation, a reconciliation, and then a final separation). None of these women had grounds (two of the men did, however).
the percentages of the former are lower among women than among men
Thus, no diversity, no color judgments. The focus, whatever the percentages, unless there is principled alignment, should be on individuals. Yes, I know, naive. Men and women are influenced and motivated by gendered physical and mental differences, even when the Natural order is not relevant to the issue.
I also agree… But I do believe..
Note, I am not criticizing your commentary. It’s more of responding to a focal point, and adding what I believe should be, based on personal preference, and perhaps reconcilable principles.
Jamie — “Men are hard-wired to want sex. This wiring makes most of them behave in ways that women approve of, so that they can get the women to give them sex.”
I saw that expressed in an aphorism recently:
“Men want sex; the price is marriage. Women want marriage; the price is sex.”
Fifty years ago, in college, I had occasion to take women I knew not at all well, or barely, home from a party or meeting three times. It was not supposed to happen but contingencies intervened and so I answered.
Not today. Even an honest young woman, in the hands of a skilled Student Life professional can be manipulated to think she was assaulted or raped.
See the Amherst case.
Not today.
“Men want sex; the price is marriage. Women want marriage; the price is sex.”
It’s crassly reductionist. It’s also false.
1. A comfortable majority of divorces are initiated by wives, a phenomenon that is even more pronounced when the marriage includes children. Some women want marriage. Other women want certain accoutrements which come with marriage.
2. It’s fashionable to speak of men as if they were the sum of their appetites. That it’s fashionable doesn’t render it non-stupid.
There are hyper-rational women
Not sure I’ve met one. My circle of friends once included a dyke currently employed as an engineer at a nuclear power plant. She’s not hyper-rational.
“and very
emotionalangry men, for example. Plenty of them”FIFY
Art Deco:
You’ve never met me, then.
It’s not that I’m Spock. I have emotions, too. But many of the significant others in my life have complained about my hyper-rationality. It’s not always something people are happy about.
I will add that I know quite a few women I would call hyper-rational. A lot of them are in research fields. Not all of them are my absolute favorite people to be around. But they are very rational both in their public and their private lives.
“Any correlation with the decades-long gradual decline in sperm counts? Is it something in the water that quenches manliness?”
“…the irrationality not just of so many women, but of so many men as well. And that seems to be increasing, too.”
I blame soybeans.
“There are hyper-rational women and very emotional men, for example. Plenty of them. But I do believe that the percentages of the former are lower among women than among men, and the percentages of the latter are lower among men than among women.” — Neo
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This is true; however, I wish I could find a hard study of just how large those percentages are.
“I have emotions, too. But many of the significant others in my life have complained about my hyper-rationality. … I will add that I know quite a few women I would call hyper-rational” — Neo to Art Deco
One thing I have observed that can lower the perception of the percentages is that many hyper-rational women and hyper-emotional men learned early in life that they were outliers from the stereotypes, and learned to adopt a protective cover persona.
“I blame soybeans.” — Yackums
LOL – I’ve heard it said.
So I did what any rational person would do and Googled it.
The front page all concurs that your soy protein shake isn’t going to make you want to wear pajamas all day.
(Although maybe their suppression of conservative sources extends to manipulating search results to mislead concerned manly men.)
https://www.mensjournal.com/health-fitness/how-much-soy-can-you-really-eat-before-it-affects-your-testosterone-w479484/
Anecdotal proof: many Japanese soldiers throughout history have shown no lack of toxic aggression.
AesopFan:
Believe me, the hyper-rational women I know do not have a protective cover persona. 🙂
Neo – ah, but if someone DID have a cover persona, how would you know?
😉
Kate on November 13, 2018 at 1:31 pm at 1:31 pm said:
Yup, huxley. I have lived in India (majority Hindu, large minority Muslim), and Egypt (very large majority Muslim). The situation of women in each is not good in general. Western-educated families treat their women reasonably well. The women in the villages and the slums are not free and are not especially safe. Women in the US who wail about the “patriarchy” have no idea what they’re talking about.
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Sarah Hoyt addresses that from time to time, having been born and raised in Portugal.