[ogurechny]

The idea that there are straightforward “female” and “male” traits should seem quite shaky to anyone who is even a little bit into humanities. The problem is that both sides of the equation are constructs of the mind, both the thing we would like to measure, and the measure itself. Fighting journalistic simplification with journalistic simplification is not the mentioned “pursuit of truth”. So before arguing whether pink is “for silly girls”, or “proud female colour”, it would be great to remember that its association with gender basically only started yesterday.

Even if we assume that there are “standard men” and “standard women”, there's another problem: office politics occurring in country M in century N is most certainly the product of specific culture, and not some cavemen rituals. Problems of Patrick or Patricia Bateman are probably quite alien to a lot of people in the world.

The irony is that the image of “good old days” is itself based on modern day stereotypes. So-called progressive propaganda was quite focused on the caricature of concentrated Bad Masculine Man, and now, freshly painted, it is presented as a positive example (because public is familiar with it, and making public think is too hard).

[arnoooooo]

If you look at things like physical strength for instance, the difference is quite marked. That some females can be stronger than some men does not change the fundamental distribution. This is not a construct of the mind.

If male and female abilities differ, it should follow that our social expectations differ.

[muwtyhg]

> That some females can be stronger than some men

If you are using "female" as a noun in a sentence to refer to human women, it is a good idea to also refer to human men as "male". It is more consistent and doesn't end up dehumanizing one side.

People seeing this inconsistency may jump to conclusions about your thoughts on men and women.

[BobaFloutist]

When the variation within the category is greater than the variation between categories, it's worth asking just how useful or informative the categories actually are.

[bjourne]

Would you assume the same thing about men? That a muscular man has different "societal expectations" etc. than a skinny man?

[happymellon]

So all of Donald Trumps arguments are emotional, and illogical.

Are you saying he is actually a woman?

[vapg1974]

The idea that there are straightforward “female” and “male” traits should seem quite shaky to anyone who is even a little bit into humanities... "Humanities", that alone makes your whole argument invalid.

As if brain configuation, that staemming from genetics and hormone levels, had no influence in how the sexes perceive world and social clues and behave according to those perceptions. Not mentioning the inherent physical differences which also influence how they differently percieve the world and behave.

[ogurechny]

As many others, you believe that by talking about certain things you're directly touching “real”, “material”, “physical” world. So-called humanities — barely even taught to so-called educated public — could help you see how that specific creed of scientism spread in last two centuries, how it was tied to mass education and journalism, and not actually to science, and what made you stick to it (no one told you that the outside world exists). You chose comfortable ignorance.

Being a proud servant of the status quo is neither fresh, nor smart, nor scientific. Illiterate savages worshipped their idols in the exact same fashion.

[techblueberry]

Yeah, it’s very strange to me that the starting premise of some of these articles seems to be masculinity is UFC and femininity is The Real Housewives. Most men I know, and certainly over a certain age don’t want to work for a frat boy culture. I’ve worked for plenty of men who exhibit ruinous empathy and plenty of women with excess ambition, and I’d say the dichotomy of ambition - empathy is wrong. The best leaders of either gender have both.

I do also love how she glossed over her example of how men were better at reconciliation and less likely to cancel culture because men were conditioned for war in which “ The point of war is to settle disputes between two tribes, but it works only if peace is restored after the dispute is settled. Men therefore developed methods for reconciling with opponents and learning to live in peace with people they were fighting yesterday.” Like completely glossing over the fact that first they felt they had to kill thousands of people? And do you think it was the people who fundamentally differed in ideology that reconciled with?

Then like: “Men order each other around, but women can only suggest and persuade”

Almost every leader eventually learns that leading through influence is much more powerful than leading through authority, gender be damned.

But it’s also just got more holes than Swiss cheese. Sure I love classical liberalism and the ideas of rationality, but per some of her own arguments, this isn’t the natural state of things. Most men in most cultures just wanted to club people over the head to win arguments, not engage in rationality. Most kings just wanted their way, not to deal with an objective legal system. And per her own arguments, are men Socrates or Bluto?

[janwl]

> The problem is that both sides of the equation are constructs of the mind

No, they are not. And when we take into account that they are not, the whole argument breaks down.

[ogurechny]

I think that you misunderstood me. Sadly, philosophy is completely absent from “required” education in our “enlightened” world (or presented as narrow-minded bean counting), so capturing “evident things” as results of the thought process is hard.

By one side of equation I meant all those arguments about “men” and “women” altogether. You are absolutely free to state that men are X, and women are Y, and attribute it to Nature as a whole, or scientific data sliced off of it. There is nothing wrong with that by itself. However, the whole other “stable” side which you try to “fix” by this process is no less of an invention.

Say, we're having an argument whether cucumbers are fruits or vegetables. In that case, we can even reach an “official” answer. But it's more important to realise that the whole stage on which we're playing is constructed. “Fruits” and “vegetables” are convenient man-made classifications. Cucumber does not come with a label “I'm a cucumber, as stated in encyclopaedias, etc.” Nor its atoms come with a label “We're parts of that cucumber thing”, nor anything else (note for our young vulgar materialists).

In my opinion, feminist thought taking that step (which — for multiple possible reasons — was not taken even by greatest thinkers) is the most important achievement. Which “wave” is right, or how to “correctly” display your alignment with “correct” movement according to latest fashions are ancillary questions.

[techblueberry]

Are you going to make an argument here? This isn’t aggressive or empathetic. Trying to mask your gender????

[marcusverus]

> The idea that there are straightforward “female” and “male” traits should seem quite shaky to anyone who is even a little bit into humanities.

Straightforward male and female traits/roles pervade the animal kingdom, including the other great apes.

Honestly, even entertaining this idea is female-coded. In a male space, the denial of so obvious a reality would be dismissed out of hand as obviously retarded.

[nis0s]

Are you saying other male animals don’t perform the tasks usually attributed to human females? Look up the behavior of male penguins in the Arctics. There are many such examples, have Chat look them up for you.

[bigyabai]

Would it be feminine of me to ask you for a citation?

[DaveZale]

thank you. I almost posted earlier but stopped myself, thinking, this discussion could be very divisive, you did it better.

I just read a book about civic action, where a comment was made that suggested not thinking about left and right, but of top and bottom... but even that is dualistic.

[fuzzfactor]

>both sides of the equation are constructs of the mind,

More than dualistic when so much of the time it is constructs of other peoples' minds on top of that.

[techblueberry]

Apparently you’ve never heard of pegging.

And who is dismissing easily? I’ll even give you that difference, but tying it to half the things she said in this article is probably not possible.