The
philosophy of women is one that I (as a man)
am unqualified to write. Therefore what follows
is the philosophy of women as viewed through
the eyes of a member of the
unfair-er
sex. (Yours truly).
Recently there is a trend, probably driven by
laws of "equal opportunities", to
assume that the sexes are equally capable of
various tasks. This is, of course, utter nonsense
(although I agree that equal opportunities still
applies for many jobs, but not all. An efficient
military force of muscle-bound killers, for
example, is not a place for women).
Biology: There are obvious contrasts
to be found between the sexes here: hormones.
Women have oestrogen. Men have testosterone.
Oestrogen gets in the eyes whilst driving. Testosterone
makes you forget birthdays, anniversaries and
makes you waste time watching
sport.
Women are superior at tasks that require pin-point
accuracy - dexterity at subtle tasks. Blokes
are superior where strength and accuracy of
throwing/hitting things counts (e.g. sport).
Men have a Y chromosome, women do not. This
is a cause of differentiation in the genetic
diseases that affect the sexes. Then there is
"the
curse". Women have menstrual
cycles; men have mother-in-laws.
Brain scans: Women and men think in fundamentally
different ways. We know this because, during
brain scans, women's brains light up differently
to men's. The lust cortex of the male brain
lights up like a supernova every ten minutes.
The pain centres inside the female head fire
up in exact synchronicity. Men tend to rely
on spatial cues to navigate, whereas women use
landmarks and visual clues. Brain scans show
that the sexes actually use different parts
of the brain when navigating. It is thought
that this divergence is caused by the influence
of the sex hormones on the developing brain.
The evolutionary explanation for this difference
in navigation is that during the hunter gatherer
days of our ancient ancestors the men hunted
afar and women gathered food close to the home.
The two tasks require distinct navigational
skills. These days these evolved specialist
navigation skills help males to find pubs -
and stagger back home again even when too drunk
for that to be technically possible. Women's
evolved navigational prowess gives them the
special ability to miraculously locate, in seconds,
the car keys that the resident male lost and
can't find to save his life.
Magazines: Observe just how wildly different
men's and women's magazines are. This is absolute
proof of the vast chasm that separates the sexes.
Women adore fashion, relationships and shoes.
Men seek anything that
isn't fashion,
relationships and shoes. If you were to stack
women's and men's magazines together in a big
pile they would annihilate in a massive magazine-antimagazine
explosion.
Evolution explains many differences between
the sexes in terms of prehistoric life styles.
Males needed to be strong; good leaders; accurate
throwers of objects; and natural navigators.
It's not easy to to kill a woolly mammoth (especially
now that men have made them extinct). On the
other hand, women evolved craft, home management,
empathy, conversational skills, child nurturing expertise, and can multitask up to six activities
at once. Evolution made men and women physically
and mentally distinct.
One branch of feminism states that these differences
are redundant. Yet women, relative to men, are
steering clear of computer science, the Web,
the physical sciences and engineering. These
domains are burgeoning. Unless women embrace
these fields men will continue to invent the
world for... men. The feminists cat fight with
one another about how their longed-for equality
might be achieved, with little consensus. Men
will be men and invent and destroy everything:
women will be women and make the world a more
charming and humane place to live. This is simplistic
of course, but generalisations are underrated.
Take computer programming: generally, women
- not men - should be better at programming,
because programming negates men's advantage
in physical strength, which should cause more
women to gravitate towards programming careers.
Reality is very different. Instead, women tend
to favour more sociable jobs such as nursing
and teaching. In science, men usually go for the physics end of the spectrum,
and women for the social sciences.
Of course, there are copious exceptions,
and rightly so! I'm not trying to paint a stereotype:
but this phenomenon isn't even down to culture:
broadly similar patterns occur all around the
world, where female choice is permitted. (Unfortunately,
allowed female occupations are formally restricted
in societies where fundamentalist followers
of religions, notoriously Islam, systematically
limit women's opportunities. Such oppression
is, of course, deeply immoral and destructive.
Repression of women is also inherent in strictly
hierarchical systems, such as found in Japanese
culture). I conjecture that the matter of choice
differences of occupation is generally (not
always) down to genetic differences between
men and women, and these differential genes
influence the cultures of societies and religions
that in turn influence choice. (Given that we
evolved as tribal societies, this conclusion
is not so surprising). I say more about such
genetics later.
Someone in the comments/feedback section conjectures
that the lack of women in computing is down
to two things, firstly women are dismissive
of a field created by men. This sounds plausible
until you realise that this depends on circular
logic. The conjecture that
women are intimidated
computing because they didn't invent it
can be countered with the observation that perhaps
women didn't invent computing in the first place
because they do not like it as much as men do.
The second point made is that women are oppressed
by men, who are in power. This point is far
more important. I see no problem with seeing
this competitive disadvantage that women find
themselves against is genetic. Indeed, testosterone,
ultimately caused by Male genes, increases the
aggression that contributes to such competition.
Women, compared to men, generally prefer cooperation,
and this is one of the reasons women prefer
social roles that rely on empathy. They are
better at such roles than men. Conversely I
suspect that men are more fascinated by, hence
better at, less socially dependent activities
such as computer programming: not always, but
in general. Such a male bias towards computing,
I suspect, would be true, even if the oppression
of women by men was nil.
Another sign of the more sociable natures of
women: when I compare how often men and women
are on the phone at work - women win hands down.
NO CONTEST. Women tell me they have the ability
to talk on the phone *and* simultaneously listen
in to the person's conversation next to them
*and* simultaneously agonise over what pair
of shoes to wear to the party tonight. This
is an extraordinary multitasking feat utterly
impossible for any male. Again, the best explanation
is that the key differences in the natures of
men and women stem from genetics - in exactly
the same way that propensity to pee standing
up stems from genetics. To pretend otherwise
- for example that the differences are down
to systematic oppression - is simply unhelpful
and unscientific.
It is a misconception by those feminists that
cling to such thoughts, that men and women differ
due to the cultural effects of upbringing. Children
as young as 14 months have a preference (shown
by gaze behavior) for toys that are in accord
with their own sex. Male babies tend to focus
on pictures of spiky, rugged mechanical toys,
where as female babies prefer soft clean toys.
This research was conducted by Anne Campbell
and independently other scientists. As Campbell
points out, this must be a genetic, not a cultural
effect, at that early age. And it is not so
surprising. After all, babies are born with
all sorts of innate knowledge, such as likes
of milk and dislikes of pain, which are undoubtedly
genetic at the core. Given that gender is genetic,
then it should not surprise us that innate knowledge
and preferences can be innately affected by
expression of these sexual genes. Here nature
seems to win over nurture. Having said that,
It is, of course, always true that both nature
and nurture have a role to play later on in
life. But it is easy to underestimate the effect
of our genes on the masculine/feminine aspects
of our behavior. We do not have, it seems, as
much choice or freewill, with regards to how
macho or feminine our behavior is, as we'd like
to think.
However, trying to explain to the missus that
washing up is preordained by nature to be work
for her hands, and not yours, may backfire with
an unladylike explosion of violence upon your
person.
Campbell has researched sex differences, especially
in the area of violence. She thinks that men
are more violent than women (which is almost
universally true) not because men are necessarily
seeking trouble, but because they feel less
fear when trouble finds them. An evolutionary
perspective is that women feel more fear because
they are far more important to the survival
of her child than are men. In effect, women
are more important than men, in evolutionary
terms, and so they have evolved to avoid risk.
Men have evolved a riskier lifestyle because
they are, in a sense, more expendable, and need
to compete for the important females. I find
it deliciously ironic that the male sex is dominant,
in terms of wielding power, partly because they
are less critical when it comes to child rearing
- which is the only thing that really matters.
Another researcher, the
wonderfully
monikered Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, indicates
that women and men have evolved different mating
strategies and counter strategies. For example,
in many primates species, such as chimps, infanticide by unrelated
males is rife. Females in such
species tend to have sex with many males so
that those males will not kill her offspring,
in case it is theirs. This strategy of unfaithful
sex by females to confuse parental identity
also prevails in various human societies, or
within poor places, such as inner city areas,
within otherwise non-promiscuous societies.
Given that males and females have evolved different
strategies for passing on their genes, it is
natural to assume that many differences in men
and women that are not explained by the physique
or by culture. They are natural, and hence will
never go away, regardless of what the feminists think.
SBH also points out that parental empathy, which
is needed in the wild to raise offspring, will
eventually die out, because it is no longer essential to have empathy to raise kids. Kids
brought up in neglect can still survive on welfare and other artificial means of support, and in turn go on to
reproduce, passing on the same empathy-challenged DNA.
By being civilised, we will evolve the very
thing that makes us civilised - compassion - out of our genetic makeup.
Then there is the physical: in their prime, women are Nature's curvaceous masterpieces. They
possess the finest geometry in existence (well,
apart from the
skinny
and the obese, obviously). A new field of
mathematics will appear, "Erotic Geometry",
which will explain the female form through the
application of algebraic equations.
If, however, you solve the algebra that governs
the
female mind you will discover why
women are always right; why "no" can
mean "yes", and why the toilet seat
should always be left
down.
Another interesting question is to contrast
how physical attractiveness affects the sexes.
Handsome men may seldom master the art of deep
thought, but will have all the fun. Pretty females
ditto. So men and women aren't so different
after all. >disclaimer: I am joking here<
Add your comment to this page
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| From: |
isolani | Subject: | 2001-03-13 18:14:20 |
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| From: |
Freddie Flamflinger | Subject: | 2001-03-22 10:57:45 |
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| From: |
Ticcer | Subject: | 2002-01-22 01:13:11 |
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| From: |
Ticcer | Subject: | 2002-01-22 01:47:11 |
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| From: |
zyberclone | Subject: | 2002-06-01 10:31:28 |
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omega terra guy | Subject: | 2002-08-06 19:02:22 |
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| From: |
katie | Subject: | 2002-09-28 11:16:05 |
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sara the girl | Subject: | 2003-06-01 16:25:36 |
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Mike | Subject: | 2003-09-07 01:56:47 |
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Doug McIntosh | Subject: | 2004-07-07 03:25:55 |
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| From: |
MadPole | Subject: | 2004-11-09 10:48:46 |
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| From: |
Jen | Subject: | 2007-06-25 04:58:29 |
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