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If you ever want to have real fun, point this out to a doctrinaire feminist who is heavily invested in the idea that men are more violent than women because in
by tjradcliffe 12y ago
If you ever want to have real fun, point this out to a doctrinaire feminist who is heavily invested in the idea that men are more violent than women because in the primordial landscape men did most of the hunting. I did this to a freind once, quite innocently, and she ended up so angry she could--in her own description--barely speak.
There is a whole literature in a particular brand of feminism (mostly associated with the radicals) that simply takes the association of hunting and interpersonal violence on faith, whereas in fact we're pretty sure men are more violent than women because of mate competition. The fact that we observe hunting behaviour amongst female chimps (who are less violent than male chimps) and female bonobos (who are far less violent than chimps, and no more violent than male bonobos, who also hunt) makes it clear that hunting behavior has nothing much to do with interpersonal violence.
This makes good sense from an evolutionary perpsective: killing a member of another species is a profoundly different kind of selective event than killing a member of your own species, particularly in a social primate like proto-humans where the individual you kill is likely to be closely related to you. The selective pressures on the two behaviours are almost completely disjoint, but to believe the feminist myth--or the equally silly pseudo-evolutionary anti-feminist myths that preceded it--you have to believe they are somehow related.
- michaelkeenan 12y agoYou make some interesting points, but there should be a norm against introducing a political topic on a non-political thread. There's a way to get to a political point from most non-political topics, but then every thread leads to a political fight. I think it's especially important not to criticize a political point that no-one has brought up in the thread already. It's always tempting to address the worst arguments rather than the best ones, and there's more leeway to do that we we're not constrained by replying to something someone's actually said.
- peteretep 12y ago> there should be a norm against introducing a political > topic on a non-political thread No there shouldn't. You're welcome to use those little grey arrows to vote about what you want to see, but you are one voice amongst many.
- jl6 12y agoI interpreted norm as different to rule. Sure, no need for a rule here. A norm is a convention. This norm sounds like a good guide to having a focused, mature and productive conversation rather than a noisy juvenile fight.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- Spockulus_Rift 12y agou aspie rube
- tedks 12y ago>There is a whole literature in a particular brand of feminism (mostly associated with the radicals) that simply takes the association of hunting and interpersonal violence on faith This is a straw woman. I cannot think of any radical feminist for whom this is an important point. (You probably don't mean actually radical feminists, but just liberals with whom you disagree, but that's another point.) I think virtually any feminist would say that men are violent because patriarchal society teaches and programs men to be violent. It teaches boys that violence is an acceptable way of solving problems, interacting with others, etc., and even when violence is overtly discouraged (for example, in schools) it is often covertly encouraged (the pride a father displays in a son who hits back against a bully, the resulting respect on the schoolyard for that child, not to even mention video games, movies, and other cultural role models). But maybe you've just read different feminists from me. What prominent radical feminists, or even liberal feminists, hold this viewpoint?
- cjsthompson 12y agoWhat's wrong with hitting back a bully if you can? If you can, by all means do it. The problem is not that, it's shaming those who can't hit back.
- mbrock 12y agoSocial contracts, religions, wisdom traditions of all kinds have been founded on the insight that "hitting back a bully if you can" is not a good behavior in the long term. The Buddhist text Dhammapada puts it like this, in Gil Fronsdal's translation: Hatred never ends through hatred. By non-hate alone does it end. This is an ancient truth. (Of course this is not evidence; you didn't provide any, either.)
- wvh 12y agoIdealistic moral philosophy and real life are quite different. My own experiences tell me repeatedly turning the other cheek will rarely improve your situation in reality. I think the utopia of religions and "wisdom traditions" run counter to human nature, especially in individual situations (e.g. bully violence) as opposed to a lofty moral concept for mankind (as in "we all ought to strive to...").
- qiqing 12y agoEarly attempts to study stress hormones from aggression in large cats (e.g., lions and tigers) studied hunting behavior. The researchers puzzled over data that didn't make any sense to them for a long time before realizing that to a lion, killing that smaller mammal is like opening a box of cereal. That you really have to look at lion-on-lion violence to study aggression.
- peteretep 12y agoI would be interested to see testosterone distribution between male/females in other species of our monkeylike cousins. I feel like I've seen many anecdotes by women who have transitioned to men (or are mid-process) who suddenly "get" many male behaviours once they start supplementing testosterone.
- Frondo 12y agoYou once made a friend so angry she could barely speak, as a way of having fun? I suspect you didn't really mean to connect those two, but it sounds kinda mean-spirited.
- mbrock 12y agoGender relations are interesting that way. I wonder what evolutionary psychology theory explains this particular kind of behavior.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- dang 12y agoThis subthread detached from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9397270 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9397270 and marked off-topic. A pity, because there are some substantive comments in it too.