4 ms·

A fairly in depth article, through I do find a major issue that recurs is that they use the same definition of aggression and violence for both men and women, a

by belorn 3y ago

A fairly in depth article, through I do find a major issue that recurs is that they use the same definition of aggression and violence for both men and women, and then use that to eliminate or minimize the existence of female aggression. Like: "We tamed ourselves by weeding out bullies and domineering males throughout our evolutionary history. Humans organized egalitarian societies, and any male that violated this too much was subsequently the victim of a targeted killing." Women competing with with other women using dominance behavior like bullying is a very common behavior, and I doubt there is a parent with a teenage daughter or teacher who has not observed this. We can also see this in apes, with female to female dominance behavior being one if not the biggest causes of death for female baboons. To continue with animal observations, male baboons have a different form of dominance behavior, and their behavior also result in dead baboons. Female aggression is about depriving the lower ranked females of food, water, sleep and grooming (together with some amount of bites and scratches), while male aggression is primarily about major injuries sustained during fights. If we define the latter as the single definition of aggression and dominance then the other form becomes invisible to us. Going down further in the article, they define power as access to and control of resources. Not access to and control of people. This in order to say that women don’t have a strong craving for power because "obtaining power entails the risk of being disliked, and, unlike status, power has few social payoffs". It uses an exclusively male definition for power. Here (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237101081_Female_Dominance_Hierarchies_Are_They_Any_Different_from_Males https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237101081_Female_Do...') is a study done on dominance behavior in female vs male hierarchies. It basically fully invalidates most of this article's claims on male vs female behavior in terms of dominance. It does not seem to use a male-centric definition of dominance. I am not all against this article. It is a fairly in-depth description of the topic and an interesting read. I would however advise to consider some of the terminology and definitions to be a bit limited, and occasionally leading the reader into misconceptions by trying to use a single definition for both men and women.

vjk800 3y ago
> Like: "We tamed ourselves by weeding out bullies and domineering males throughout our evolutionary history. Humans organized egalitarian societies, and any male that violated this too much was subsequently the victim of a targeted killing." This quote is horribly wrong anyway. Human history, even before agriculture and industrialization, is filled with tribal wars. Maybe it would be more right to say that the aggressive bullies have historically had an outlet for their aggression: killing the aggressive bullies of other tribes. If aggressiveness were absolutely useless personality trait in past societies, it would have been weeded out by the evolution a long time ago.
- WJW 3y ago
  Just the > Humans organized egalitarian societies bit is so incredibly wrong. Status differences can be seen in any social creature, and humans are no different. History is absolutely overflowing with slavery, wars and various more-or-less official class systems like organized nobility or priesthoods.
  - Levitz 3y ago
    Do note that the article talks about a point in time way before the agricultural revolution. I winced a little on that part too, but he does give the caveat later that women and children weren't equal to men at all, which means that "egalitarian societies" means "something like 30% of the tribe was somewhat egalitarian" which really isn't saying much. I also winced when later in the article there is what I consider to be an enormous leap of logic, when stating that a child staring at two puppets being rewarded differently means the child yearns for equality. I've got to say that the older I get, the more effort it takes me not to dismiss social science commentary unless backed up with strong evidence. There is just so much bullshit.
    - imbnwa 3y ago
      >I winced a little on that part too, but he does give the caveat later that women and children weren't equal to men at all, which means that "egalitarian societies" means "something like 30% of the tribe was somewhat egalitarian" which really isn't saying much That's also what ancient Athenian democracy was
      - tetromino_ 3y ago
        > That's also what ancient Athenian democracy was Athenian democracy was far worse: ~15% of the population was hereditary uncitizens (metics) with almost no rights, ~40% were slaves with zero rights, women and children from citizen families had very limited rights of their own, so the Athenian democracy was really democracy for the ~12% of the population who were adult citizen males.
- 3y ago
guerrilla 3y ago
> egalitarian societies This is delusional anyway. We're by far the most unegalitarian of all animal species besides maybe things like ants. We have individuals that command entire countries worth of resources and armies to go with.
mensetmanusman 3y ago
I'm a father of boys and girls. I like the saying 'boys will break your bones, girls will break your soul.'
javajosh 3y ago
Yes, women are vicious fighters but use different, and arguably more potent, weapons. A fist-fight with a man might leave you wounded and bleeding for a few days. A woman will leave you ostracized from your friends and family, possibly ending your career, for the rest of your life, often leading to your depression and suicide. Society (especially now) will approves of a woman's destruction of her target, seeing it as a positive example of "female empowerment", independent of any other fact of the case other than gender. In other words, there is social pressure that encourages females to become domineering bullies. At the same time, causal misandry encourages this false idea that women are somehow excluded from a wide variety of the worst of human behavior, the same behaviors that are actively encouraged in women! This is in addition to the fact that women's anger, violence, sexual assault (especially against children), is very real and, I believe, wildly under-reported.
- weatherlite 3y ago
  > A woman will leave you ostracized from your friends and family, possibly ending your career, for the rest of your life, often leading to your depression and suicide. And a man wouldn't ? I haven't checked but I bet anti social behavior, narcissism and psychopathy is higher in males than females.
- hospitalJail 3y ago
  >Yes, women are vicious fighters but use different, and arguably more potent, weapons. A fist-fight with a man might leave you wounded and bleeding for a few days. I cannot agree with this. Bodily harm was far far worse than being picked on. You use an extreme case for the women, but a near harmless case for a man? What if you get your skull smashed in and have a brain injury forever? (I saw that happen). What if your face gets smashed and plastic surgery can't fix it?(seen that one too) Not to mention becoming a paraplegic. (or death) I'll take a chance at ostracization over being afraid for my life.
  - lagniappe 3y ago
    Many things in life can damage you physically, but the utmost emotional devastation will drive you to kill yourself.
User23 3y ago
No mention of social proof either. Social proof affects both males and females, but females are considerably more likely to be swayed by it. This is why so many people observe superficially counterintuitive effects like getting more attention from women when already in the company of an attractive one. This is also why teen girls are so prone to ostracism. A higher status girl risks her own status by hanging out with an ostracized girl. That’s not to say we don’t see the same patterns among males, they are just less pronounced.

by belorn 3y ago

vjk800 3y ago

> Like: "We tamed ourselves by weeding out bullies and domineering males throughout our evolutionary history. Humans organized egalitarian societies, and any male that violated this too much was subsequently the victim of a targeted killing." This quote is horribly wrong anyway. Human history, even before agriculture and industrialization, is filled with tribal wars. Maybe it would be more right to say that the aggressive bullies have historically had an outlet for their aggression: killing the aggressive bullies of other tribes. If aggressiveness were absolutely useless personality trait in past societies, it would have been weeded out by the evolution a long time ago.

WJW 3y ago
Just the > Humans organized egalitarian societies bit is so incredibly wrong. Status differences can be seen in any social creature, and humans are no different. History is absolutely overflowing with slavery, wars and various more-or-less official class systems like organized nobility or priesthoods.
- Levitz 3y ago
  Do note that the article talks about a point in time way before the agricultural revolution. I winced a little on that part too, but he does give the caveat later that women and children weren't equal to men at all, which means that "egalitarian societies" means "something like 30% of the tribe was somewhat egalitarian" which really isn't saying much. I also winced when later in the article there is what I consider to be an enormous leap of logic, when stating that a child staring at two puppets being rewarded differently means the child yearns for equality. I've got to say that the older I get, the more effort it takes me not to dismiss social science commentary unless backed up with strong evidence. There is just so much bullshit.
  - imbnwa 3y ago
    >I winced a little on that part too, but he does give the caveat later that women and children weren't equal to men at all, which means that "egalitarian societies" means "something like 30% of the tribe was somewhat egalitarian" which really isn't saying much That's also what ancient Athenian democracy was
    - tetromino_ 3y ago
      > That's also what ancient Athenian democracy was Athenian democracy was far worse: ~15% of the population was hereditary uncitizens (metics) with almost no rights, ~40% were slaves with zero rights, women and children from citizen families had very limited rights of their own, so the Athenian democracy was really democracy for the ~12% of the population who were adult citizen males.
3y ago

guerrilla 3y ago

> egalitarian societies This is delusional anyway. We're by far the most unegalitarian of all animal species besides maybe things like ants. We have individuals that command entire countries worth of resources and armies to go with.

mensetmanusman 3y ago

I'm a father of boys and girls. I like the saying 'boys will break your bones, girls will break your soul.'

javajosh 3y ago

Yes, women are vicious fighters but use different, and arguably more potent, weapons. A fist-fight with a man might leave you wounded and bleeding for a few days. A woman will leave you ostracized from your friends and family, possibly ending your career, for the rest of your life, often leading to your depression and suicide. Society (especially now) will approves of a woman's destruction of her target, seeing it as a positive example of "female empowerment", independent of any other fact of the case other than gender. In other words, there is social pressure that encourages females to become domineering bullies. At the same time, causal misandry encourages this false idea that women are somehow excluded from a wide variety of the worst of human behavior, the same behaviors that are actively encouraged in women! This is in addition to the fact that women's anger, violence, sexual assault (especially against children), is very real and, I believe, wildly under-reported.

weatherlite 3y ago
> A woman will leave you ostracized from your friends and family, possibly ending your career, for the rest of your life, often leading to your depression and suicide. And a man wouldn't ? I haven't checked but I bet anti social behavior, narcissism and psychopathy is higher in males than females.
hospitalJail 3y ago
>Yes, women are vicious fighters but use different, and arguably more potent, weapons. A fist-fight with a man might leave you wounded and bleeding for a few days. I cannot agree with this. Bodily harm was far far worse than being picked on. You use an extreme case for the women, but a near harmless case for a man? What if you get your skull smashed in and have a brain injury forever? (I saw that happen). What if your face gets smashed and plastic surgery can't fix it?(seen that one too) Not to mention becoming a paraplegic. (or death) I'll take a chance at ostracization over being afraid for my life.
- lagniappe 3y ago
  Many things in life can damage you physically, but the utmost emotional devastation will drive you to kill yourself.

User23 3y ago

No mention of social proof either. Social proof affects both males and females, but females are considerably more likely to be swayed by it. This is why so many people observe superficially counterintuitive effects like getting more attention from women when already in the company of an attractive one. This is also why teen girls are so prone to ostracism. A higher status girl risks her own status by hanging out with an ostracized girl. That’s not to say we don’t see the same patterns among males, they are just less pronounced.