7 ms·

Save the Males

51 points by echair 18y ago

time_management 18y ago
I wish I had read that article in my apartment rather than at a cafe. I could've cleaned the floor with all the sweeping generalizations in it. The article raises some good points, especially on the reproductive inequity, but most of what is in it is just boring overgeneralization. It's too long for the few points it makes. [Edit: Made this comment as I was RTFA. The second half is better.]
pavelludiq 18y ago
It was an interesting reed, but why the hell was it on the front page of a computer nerd site? The sun has no spots on it? Ok, thats cool, and nerdy, thats real science, brain burning extra calories? Well interesting, of course, we are smart people and we care what happens in our brains, there are viruses in our genes, cool!!! But save the males? Who cares? Western civilization has a lot of more interesting issues than this. It wasn't even THAT interesting, just readable. I was alway annoyed by 'not HN' posts, and i know my post is annoying too, good, it was meant to be annoying, it's important, you can't ignore my bitter rant!
- river_styx 18y ago
  Based on your word choices and spelling mistakes, I'm gonna place your age in the neighborhood of 16-17. Am I right? Maybe you'll find this kind of topic more interesting when you're a bit older...
  - blurry 18y ago
    Where does I'm gonna place you?
iuguy 18y ago
I'm glad someone out there is making a point about the emasculation of men at the expense of wimmin's lib, even if it's not in the most articulately expressed manner.
- time_management 18y ago
  My parents grew up in the '60s, and my mom is quite feminist, but I'm pretty sure they'd be disgusted by Sex and the City. Casual sex is actually radically anti-feminist, but few people are willing to point this out. I'm surprised the author didn't discuss divorce and alimony. The fact that a woman can divorce her husband for another man, then use his alimony payments to live it up with her live-in boyfriend, is much more of a concern to me than the existence of a "lovable doofus" father figure in Everybody Loves Raymond.
  - olavk 18y ago
    Why do you consider casual sex anti-feminist?
    - time_management 18y ago
      This is a topic larger than I can cover in one post, but I'll cover the major points. 1. The player/whore dynamic. There are male whores and female players, but usually the woman is going to be presumed to be the conquered, the pwned, the slut. This double standard is not going to go away soon. Empirically, the vast majority of people who participate in casual sex have low self-esteem. In men, this type of activity is (perhaps wrongly) viewed as caddish but a not-entirely-repulsive way of maintaining one's confidence between relationships. Society is less forgiving of women who do it (again, perhaps wrongly). 2. Casual sex makes it difficult to form intimate relationships later in life. Future partners will view it negatively, and the psychological consequences of casual sex are severe and generally undesirable. The "wires" for emotional intimacy and sexuality are closely intertwined for most people, but once separated, they don't go back together. 3. It turns physical intimacy into a commodity, traded on a highly efficient* market where the media of exchange are social status, physical attractiveness, "game", and "for the story". (* However, "inefficiencies" such as love and devotion turn out to have enormous subjective benefits, for people of both genders.) So, I'd phrase the question as thus: why is prostitution considered anti-feminist? The only difference between casual sex and prostitution is that, in the former, the medium of exchange is social status, and in the latter, it's money. 4. Casual sex represents (admittedly contained) social regression. In primitive, pre-monogamous societies, a few men (alpha males) have many wives, a larger set (beta) have one or two wives, and most (gamma) have none. Surplus loser males must be sent off to war to acquire more resources (and therefore, more women) or they will stage a revolution against the alphas. (In pre-monogamous societies, 1 in 3 men will die at the hands of another male, and murder often raises a man's social status.) What does monogamy do? For one thing, it reduces the reproductive stakes involved in social status, making it simply not worth it to kill another man in order to improve one's position. Second, social status must be redefined; instead of seeking many wives, successful men are encouraged to find one very desirable partner. This creates an incentive for him to treat her well, because a wife in this arrangement has a lot more power over her husband than if she were one of 8 wives. The casual sex market is a pre-monogamous subculture, and although it hasn't led to full-on social regression, I would not be surprised to learn that it's a major contributor to violence and rape. There's a reason fights break out at nightclubs... and alcohol ++ is merely a catalyst, not an agent. A few fringe feminists support casual sex out of a reaction against the 1950s "traditional family", which they view as an abomination. The traditional family wasn't the best regime for a lot of people, but there are practically as many family structures as there are actual families, and most modern families are much closer to equal partnerships than "traditional" families. In any case, replacing the family with no-holds-barred commoditization of activities that were once called "physical intimacy", and calling this a "feminist" advance, is just balls-o'er-the-bridge lunacy. For the record, I'm utterly liberal. I'm appalled that people in this country want to ban same-sex couples from getting married, and I'm generally a social libertarian. However, I'm also a pragmatist, and the fruits borne of casual sex are detrimental to society. I would never support a law banning casual sex, as it would be impossible to define, but I'd prefer that this class of activities fade into the background as behaviors to be avoided, rather than being glamorized by shows like Sex and the City. ( ++ Later edit, 3:32 pm. I would actually classify the alcohol abuse observed in the bar/club scene as case-in-point of sexually driven violence. Excessive drug use is, arguably, violence against oneself, and the case could be made that "social" alcohol abuse is often borne out of sexual frustration.)
omouse 18y ago
What's interesting about these articles is how out of touch with reality the journalists are.
blurry 18y ago
To save everyone time reading complete garbage, allow me to provide one representative quote from the article: The shame attached to unwed motherhood did serve a useful purpose once upon a time. /sigh/
- blurry 18y ago
  So I take it everyone here supports the view that single mothers are shameful. Wow.
  - run4yourlives 18y ago
    No, you can take from your downmodding that this isn't reddit, and you'll need to make stronger arguments than that to be taken seriously.
    - dgabriel 18y ago
      It's amusing that the arguments in the original article are not strong, and are based on bias and anecdote. Also, the reply comments here are extremely reddit-like.
      - run4yourlives 18y ago
        People have already pointed out the former. I agree. There are also some very astute comments on this article, which is hacker news all the way.
scott_s 18y ago
Cherry-picked anecdotes and data to support a priori conclusions.
- jmtulloss 18y ago
  I agree, but it's still a counter point that isn't often discussed. Maybe you'll start to see more things supporting the argument now that it's in your mind.
  - scott_s 18y ago
    I don't think the author's position is new or radical; I've heard it frequently. Your second sentence describes confirmation bias.
    - jmtulloss 18y ago
      Yeah, I know. Confirmation bias isn't a bad thing if you're aware of your own thought processes. You can see arguments for both sides if you're paying attention. All I'm saying is that just because you've made a conclusion a priori doesn't mean it's a bad idea to write about it. That's how argument and discussion works. It's only a bad thing when you've proven yourself wrong and you refuse to admit it.
- iloveyouocean 18y ago
  No anecdotes or data to support a priori dismissal.
- pg 18y ago
  That could equally well describe any essay. An essay is not a report on a controlled experiment. You have to work to decide which parts you agree with.
  - scott_s 18y ago
    It could describe most bad essays, yes. Good essays either stay out of falsifiability territory, or they invite formal exploration of the subject. In this essay, she makes claims that are supported only with anecdotes, when data could be used. This is important since I can easily think of counter-anecdotes that nullify her arguments. The biggest example is her claim that males are predominantly presented as emasculated in popular culture. I'm sure one can consume a subset of all popular culture where that is true, and I'm also sure one can do the opposite. But if someone were to actually come up with a metric and test this idea, then that would be worthwhile.
jimbokun 18y ago
As the father of two boys, this was my favorite part: "But seven-year-old boys are not interested in making lanterns from coffee tins. They want to shoot bows and arrows, preferably at one another, chop wood with stone-hewn axes and sink canoes, preferably while in them." All true.
- menloparkbum 18y ago
  This is generally true. However, much to the consternation of my macho dad, I was the weird kid who was more interested in making lanterns from coffee tins than shooting at canoes or chopping wood with rocks. If the author is really concerned about society going down the tubes it might be worthwhile to not include making things in her stereotype of behavior that isn't "manly." The guys who spent their youth throwing stuff at each other are the ones having the most problems when they grow up. Last I checked, makers do pretty well in adulthood.
  - sfg 18y ago
    I enjoyed making my bow and arrows and I am sure that would be included fully in her definition of manly. She is moaning about activities and toys that are unmanly, not the process of making stuff.
- davidw 18y ago
  At that age I liked bows, arrows, running around, but also legos and computers. It's not an either-or thing.
  - deleted 18y ago
    [deleted]
zandorg 18y ago
I could be wrong, but as a Brit (ish) it seems America is a lot less forgiving of men on the whole. In the UK, TV adverts have Homer Simpson-like figures who are funny, but in a forgiving way. I see feminism's flaw as being that women have wombs and can reproduce, but men can't. Fix that by letting single men adopt. The other flaw is that feminism is an offshoot of Marxism.
- dgabriel 18y ago
  Single men can adopt. One of my son's best friends is the adopted son of a single man.
  - zandorg 18y ago
    Thanks for correcting me. I'd better do some more reading before jumping to conclusions outside my education.
msie 18y ago
I see men around me being as macho as ever and the popularity of mixed-martial arts, wrestling, NASCAR and the use of the word "gay" to deride stuff. My anecdotes cancel her anecdotes!
dejb 18y ago
I think this article is somewhat self-selecting. For any guy who agrees with it - then maybe it is true. For guys who think it's a load of crap - then it probably is.

51 points by echair 18y ago

I wish I had read that article in my apartment rather than at a cafe. I could've cleaned the floor with all the sweeping generalizations in it. The article raises some good points, especially on the reproductive inequity, but most of what is in it is just boring overgeneralization. It's too long for the few points it makes. [Edit: Made this comment as I was RTFA. The second half is better.]

pavelludiq 18y ago

It was an interesting reed, but why the hell was it on the front page of a computer nerd site? The sun has no spots on it? Ok, thats cool, and nerdy, thats real science, brain burning extra calories? Well interesting, of course, we are smart people and we care what happens in our brains, there are viruses in our genes, cool!!! But save the males? Who cares? Western civilization has a lot of more interesting issues than this. It wasn't even THAT interesting, just readable. I was alway annoyed by 'not HN' posts, and i know my post is annoying too, good, it was meant to be annoying, it's important, you can't ignore my bitter rant!

river_styx 18y ago
Based on your word choices and spelling mistakes, I'm gonna place your age in the neighborhood of 16-17. Am I right? Maybe you'll find this kind of topic more interesting when you're a bit older...
- blurry 18y ago
  Where does I'm gonna place you?

iuguy 18y ago

I'm glad someone out there is making a point about the emasculation of men at the expense of wimmin's lib, even if it's not in the most articulately expressed manner.

time_management 18y ago
My parents grew up in the '60s, and my mom is quite feminist, but I'm pretty sure they'd be disgusted by Sex and the City. Casual sex is actually radically anti-feminist, but few people are willing to point this out. I'm surprised the author didn't discuss divorce and alimony. The fact that a woman can divorce her husband for another man, then use his alimony payments to live it up with her live-in boyfriend, is much more of a concern to me than the existence of a "lovable doofus" father figure in Everybody Loves Raymond.
- olavk 18y ago
  Why do you consider casual sex anti-feminist?
  - time_management 18y ago
    This is a topic larger than I can cover in one post, but I'll cover the major points. 1. The player/whore dynamic. There are male whores and female players, but usually the woman is going to be presumed to be the conquered, the pwned, the slut. This double standard is not going to go away soon. Empirically, the vast majority of people who participate in casual sex have low self-esteem. In men, this type of activity is (perhaps wrongly) viewed as caddish but a not-entirely-repulsive way of maintaining one's confidence between relationships. Society is less forgiving of women who do it (again, perhaps wrongly). 2. Casual sex makes it difficult to form intimate relationships later in life. Future partners will view it negatively, and the psychological consequences of casual sex are severe and generally undesirable. The "wires" for emotional intimacy and sexuality are closely intertwined for most people, but once separated, they don't go back together. 3. It turns physical intimacy into a commodity, traded on a highly efficient* market where the media of exchange are social status, physical attractiveness, "game", and "for the story". (* However, "inefficiencies" such as love and devotion turn out to have enormous subjective benefits, for people of both genders.) So, I'd phrase the question as thus: why is prostitution considered anti-feminist? The only difference between casual sex and prostitution is that, in the former, the medium of exchange is social status, and in the latter, it's money. 4. Casual sex represents (admittedly contained) social regression. In primitive, pre-monogamous societies, a few men (alpha males) have many wives, a larger set (beta) have one or two wives, and most (gamma) have none. Surplus loser males must be sent off to war to acquire more resources (and therefore, more women) or they will stage a revolution against the alphas. (In pre-monogamous societies, 1 in 3 men will die at the hands of another male, and murder often raises a man's social status.) What does monogamy do? For one thing, it reduces the reproductive stakes involved in social status, making it simply not worth it to kill another man in order to improve one's position. Second, social status must be redefined; instead of seeking many wives, successful men are encouraged to find one very desirable partner. This creates an incentive for him to treat her well, because a wife in this arrangement has a lot more power over her husband than if she were one of 8 wives. The casual sex market is a pre-monogamous subculture, and although it hasn't led to full-on social regression, I would not be surprised to learn that it's a major contributor to violence and rape. There's a reason fights break out at nightclubs... and alcohol ++ is merely a catalyst, not an agent. A few fringe feminists support casual sex out of a reaction against the 1950s "traditional family", which they view as an abomination. The traditional family wasn't the best regime for a lot of people, but there are practically as many family structures as there are actual families, and most modern families are much closer to equal partnerships than "traditional" families. In any case, replacing the family with no-holds-barred commoditization of activities that were once called "physical intimacy", and calling this a "feminist" advance, is just balls-o'er-the-bridge lunacy. For the record, I'm utterly liberal. I'm appalled that people in this country want to ban same-sex couples from getting married, and I'm generally a social libertarian. However, I'm also a pragmatist, and the fruits borne of casual sex are detrimental to society. I would never support a law banning casual sex, as it would be impossible to define, but I'd prefer that this class of activities fade into the background as behaviors to be avoided, rather than being glamorized by shows like Sex and the City. ( ++ Later edit, 3:32 pm. I would actually classify the alcohol abuse observed in the bar/club scene as case-in-point of sexually driven violence. Excessive drug use is, arguably, violence against oneself, and the case could be made that "social" alcohol abuse is often borne out of sexual frustration.)

omouse 18y ago

What's interesting about these articles is how out of touch with reality the journalists are.

blurry 18y ago

To save everyone time reading complete garbage, allow me to provide one representative quote from the article: The shame attached to unwed motherhood did serve a useful purpose once upon a time. /sigh/

blurry 18y ago
So I take it everyone here supports the view that single mothers are shameful. Wow.
- run4yourlives 18y ago
  No, you can take from your downmodding that this isn't reddit, and you'll need to make stronger arguments than that to be taken seriously.
  - dgabriel 18y ago
    It's amusing that the arguments in the original article are not strong, and are based on bias and anecdote. Also, the reply comments here are extremely reddit-like.
    - run4yourlives 18y ago
      People have already pointed out the former. I agree. There are also some very astute comments on this article, which is hacker news all the way.

scott_s 18y ago

Cherry-picked anecdotes and data to support a priori conclusions.

jmtulloss 18y ago
I agree, but it's still a counter point that isn't often discussed. Maybe you'll start to see more things supporting the argument now that it's in your mind.
- scott_s 18y ago
  I don't think the author's position is new or radical; I've heard it frequently. Your second sentence describes confirmation bias.
  - jmtulloss 18y ago
    Yeah, I know. Confirmation bias isn't a bad thing if you're aware of your own thought processes. You can see arguments for both sides if you're paying attention. All I'm saying is that just because you've made a conclusion a priori doesn't mean it's a bad idea to write about it. That's how argument and discussion works. It's only a bad thing when you've proven yourself wrong and you refuse to admit it.
iloveyouocean 18y ago
No anecdotes or data to support a priori dismissal.
pg 18y ago
That could equally well describe any essay. An essay is not a report on a controlled experiment. You have to work to decide which parts you agree with.
- scott_s 18y ago
  It could describe most bad essays, yes. Good essays either stay out of falsifiability territory, or they invite formal exploration of the subject. In this essay, she makes claims that are supported only with anecdotes, when data could be used. This is important since I can easily think of counter-anecdotes that nullify her arguments. The biggest example is her claim that males are predominantly presented as emasculated in popular culture. I'm sure one can consume a subset of all popular culture where that is true, and I'm also sure one can do the opposite. But if someone were to actually come up with a metric and test this idea, then that would be worthwhile.

jimbokun 18y ago

As the father of two boys, this was my favorite part: "But seven-year-old boys are not interested in making lanterns from coffee tins. They want to shoot bows and arrows, preferably at one another, chop wood with stone-hewn axes and sink canoes, preferably while in them." All true.

menloparkbum 18y ago
This is generally true. However, much to the consternation of my macho dad, I was the weird kid who was more interested in making lanterns from coffee tins than shooting at canoes or chopping wood with rocks. If the author is really concerned about society going down the tubes it might be worthwhile to not include making things in her stereotype of behavior that isn't "manly." The guys who spent their youth throwing stuff at each other are the ones having the most problems when they grow up. Last I checked, makers do pretty well in adulthood.
- sfg 18y ago
  I enjoyed making my bow and arrows and I am sure that would be included fully in her definition of manly. She is moaning about activities and toys that are unmanly, not the process of making stuff.
davidw 18y ago
At that age I liked bows, arrows, running around, but also legos and computers. It's not an either-or thing.
- deleted 18y ago
  [deleted]

zandorg 18y ago

I could be wrong, but as a Brit (ish) it seems America is a lot less forgiving of men on the whole. In the UK, TV adverts have Homer Simpson-like figures who are funny, but in a forgiving way. I see feminism's flaw as being that women have wombs and can reproduce, but men can't. Fix that by letting single men adopt. The other flaw is that feminism is an offshoot of Marxism.

dgabriel 18y ago
Single men can adopt. One of my son's best friends is the adopted son of a single man.
- zandorg 18y ago
  Thanks for correcting me. I'd better do some more reading before jumping to conclusions outside my education.

msie 18y ago

I see men around me being as macho as ever and the popularity of mixed-martial arts, wrestling, NASCAR and the use of the word "gay" to deride stuff. My anecdotes cancel her anecdotes!

dejb 18y ago

I think this article is somewhat self-selecting. For any guy who agrees with it - then maybe it is true. For guys who think it's a load of crap - then it probably is.