8 ms·

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 amo

by hasenj 10y ago

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?

yannyu 10y ago
Even if it were true that "these kinds of stories are what people are looking for", that doesn't mean it's not "evidence of sexism".
- hasenj 10y ago
  Depends on what you mean by sexism. 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.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - euyyn 10y ago
    What if he means socially-constructed expectations about the roles of men and women, which have detrimental effects on women?
    - hasenj 10y ago
      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).
      - euyyn 10y ago
        I can give you specifics. 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.
aradhakrishnan 10y ago
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.
- hasenj 10y ago
  Not if her boyfriend is weak and helpless before, during, and after the story.
  - 3131s 10y ago
    Not interesting to YOU. And why that is, I'm not sure.
    - hasenj 10y ago
      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.
chc 10y ago
I feel like you could have made all the bad guys in You're Next women without harming the film's effectiveness, so probably yes?
jayd16 10y ago
"Female hero? How boring!" 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.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- hasenj 10y ago
  > Female hero? How boring! That's not what I said. 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?
  - rhcom2 10y ago
    > if I said that women should have _less_ rights than men, then I would be sexist (in a bad way). That isn't the definition of sexism.
    - hasenj 10y ago
      Not _your_ definition of sexism, apparently. If you define sexism in such broad terms that it includes both bad and neutral things, the word will lose its meaning.
      - rhcom2 10y ago
paulddraper 10y ago
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.
- EGreg 10y ago
  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. http://www.denisdutton.com/baumeister.htm http://www.denisdutton.com/baumeister.htm
  - paulddraper 10y ago
    I don't understand how that theory would make women less varied. Successfully carrying, birthing, and raising the next generation depends almost entirely on the mother.
    - antisthenes 10y ago
      > 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.
    - EGreg 10y ago
      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.
3131s 10y ago
> 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: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/three-women-kidnap-man-rape-him-and-steal-his-semen-in-south-africa-10233198.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/three-women-k...
- hasenj 10y ago
  The story is only interesting because it's strange. Like if you heard of a man who was stuck on top of an electricity column. It does not strike anyone's fantasy. Sure, these kinds of stories may exist and have some audience, but not the wide audience that you would see for mainstream typical romance stories.
EGreg 10y ago
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?
- zepto 10y ago
  The 100
badsock 10y ago
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.
- hasenj 10y ago
  You have it backwards. If you think there are no natural difference between men and women you better bring a mountain of evidence. Strong claims require strong evidence. I did not make any outrageous claim. It would be incredibly surprising if men and women were identical in every aspect except for their reproductive body parts Just consider the difference in selection pressure that men and women face.
  - badsock 10y ago
    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.
- coldtea 10y ago
  >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).
tryitnow 10y ago
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.
dcre 10y ago
People who have a good understanding of sexism will consider your comment evidence you do not understand it.
draw_down 10y ago
Sorry, what are you talking about?
UncleMeat 10y ago
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?

by hasenj 10y ago

yannyu 10y ago

Even if it were true that "these kinds of stories are what people are looking for", that doesn't mean it's not "evidence of sexism".

hasenj 10y ago
Depends on what you mean by sexism. 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.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- euyyn 10y ago
  What if he means socially-constructed expectations about the roles of men and women, which have detrimental effects on women?
  - hasenj 10y ago
    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).
    - euyyn 10y ago
      I can give you specifics. 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.

aradhakrishnan 10y ago

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.

hasenj 10y ago
Not if her boyfriend is weak and helpless before, during, and after the story.
- 3131s 10y ago
  Not interesting to YOU. And why that is, I'm not sure.
  - hasenj 10y ago
    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.

chc 10y ago

I feel like you could have made all the bad guys in You're Next women without harming the film's effectiveness, so probably yes?

jayd16 10y ago

"Female hero? How boring!" 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.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
hasenj 10y ago
> Female hero? How boring! That's not what I said. 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?
- rhcom2 10y ago
  > if I said that women should have _less_ rights than men, then I would be sexist (in a bad way). That isn't the definition of sexism.
  - hasenj 10y ago
    Not _your_ definition of sexism, apparently. If you define sexism in such broad terms that it includes both bad and neutral things, the word will lose its meaning.
    - rhcom2 10y ago

paulddraper 10y ago

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.

EGreg 10y ago
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. http://www.denisdutton.com/baumeister.htm http://www.denisdutton.com/baumeister.htm
- paulddraper 10y ago
  I don't understand how that theory would make women less varied. Successfully carrying, birthing, and raising the next generation depends almost entirely on the mother.
  - antisthenes 10y ago
    > 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.
  - EGreg 10y ago
    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.

3131s 10y ago

> 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: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/three-women-kidnap-man-rape-him-and-steal-his-semen-in-south-africa-10233198.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/three-women-k...

hasenj 10y ago
The story is only interesting because it's strange. Like if you heard of a man who was stuck on top of an electricity column. It does not strike anyone's fantasy. Sure, these kinds of stories may exist and have some audience, but not the wide audience that you would see for mainstream typical romance stories.

EGreg 10y ago

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?

zepto 10y ago
The 100

badsock 10y ago

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.

hasenj 10y ago
You have it backwards. If you think there are no natural difference between men and women you better bring a mountain of evidence. Strong claims require strong evidence. I did not make any outrageous claim. It would be incredibly surprising if men and women were identical in every aspect except for their reproductive body parts Just consider the difference in selection pressure that men and women face.
- badsock 10y ago
  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.
coldtea 10y ago
>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).

tryitnow 10y ago

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.

dcre 10y ago

People who have a good understanding of sexism will consider your comment evidence you do not understand it.

draw_down 10y ago

Sorry, what are you talking about?

UncleMeat 10y ago

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?