The Perils of Patriarchy for Men as well as Women: Another Mass Shooting, another Reason to Begin Di

reply to post by Pinke


Pinke,

I think you are missing the point here.

And I do acknowledge the level of violence crime has gone down. However the overall level of violence in society and that includes verbal violence, economic violence as well as physical violence (in which you must include WAR and violence to Planet) has increased.

Men evolved to Hunt - not to fight - a big difference and I suggest you read your history a bit more on that score. Recorded history only goes back about 6,000 years.

Males evolved to have intense quick and focused bouts of physical activity - Tracking and Hunting basically.

Females evolved a more difuse focused long term stamina - gathering and watching children.

Before offically recorded history societies were much more matriarcal.

See - Riane Eisler's "The Chalice and the Blade" and/or Leonard Shlain's "The Alphabet vs the Goddess" for two very different and both compeling takes on the transformation of Matriarchal to Patriarchal societies world wide.

Both predict we are moving to a more balanced society in the future.

Perhaps this increase in male violence is a reaction to the swing back to more femine attributes being valued rather then denegrated.

There's a new book out of the subject called "The Athena Doctrine" I eager to read on the subject which the authors compiled and analysed data from some 64,000 interviews on traits needed by leaders in the 21st century and found that what traditionally would be called feminine traits of collaboration, flexibility, patience and empathy. They also noted a dramatic change in attitudes towards gender attributes between older and younger people with the younger being much more 'flexible'.

I read your post as rather fatalistic and, to be honest, I often feel the same way. I do find increased (or is it just increased reporting) of violence against 'low status' tribes very distrubing. Yet, I'm encouraged by the young men I know and the increased activism by men against violence.

It does have something to do with patriarchy probably, but that's not the main cause. The real cause is corporatism/consumerism which has driven up the cost of living while at the same time making people feel that society doesn't value them at all unless they are either wealthy or famous.

reply to post by FyreByrd


Read history? It is filled to the brim of men fighting and going to war with each other. Over land, resources, women, you name it, we have fought over it, and there was probably a war fought over it somewhere as well.

However the overall level of violence in society and that includes verbal violence, economic violence as well as physical violence (in which you must include WAR and violence to Planet) has increased.

I'd need to see strong evidence for some of this ...

I don't think we can discuss conservation / planet issues in the same breath. Further to that, the most lucrative western consumer bracket to market to is women statistically I believe. That issue is a human issue, not a male issue.

Violence in general ... I would disagree here. More people are alive now than have died throughout most of history. I think due to technology our wars have been more damaging, but looking at the statistics ... Looking at the Human Security Report Project (link) from 2007 deaths in battle have gone way down. We've gone from half a million a year around seventy years ago to thirty thousand a year in the last decade. That's huge.

Men evolved to Hunt - not to fight - a big difference and I suggest you read your history a bit more on that score. Recorded history only goes back about 6,000 years.

Well I am completely uneducated, but I'll have a red hot go! haha

Again, I'd need to see the precise argument you're using here. Anthropology presented this argument for a few decades, demonizing characters such as Napoleon Chagon who claimed 'lost' tribes were just as violent as we were. Chagon has recently been vindicated! There have even been mass shootings covered up by anthropologists. Yes, mass shootings conducted via bow and arrow within tribes with very little contact with the rest of the world.

The idea that humans only ever fought over resources until modern times has really taken a beating in the last several decades. Whilst recent research has generally agreed that women have had more involvement in manual tasks than previously thought, there isn't much evidence that the role of men have suddenly changed ... and if we're talking prehistory, then it's reasonable to assume it will take at least another six thousand years to fix.

Males evolved to ...

It's a very minor thing, but I don't believe evolution has any particular goal. Men who took care of their families and reproduced a lot are likely the genes we got. I don't think men evolved to hunt exactly, but good hunters passed on genes.

See - Riane Eisler's "The Chalice and the Blade" and/or Leonard Shlain's "The Alphabet vs the Goddess" for two very different and both compeling takes on the transformation of Matriarchal to Patriarchal societies world wide.

Its been a long time since I've seen Eisler's book, but from memory it was initially very excited but looking over my shoulder it was flawed, made some serious blunders, and provides scant evidence for the claims made within it. A lot of these books also seem to skate around dealing with their opponents.

There is a case for historical reinterpretation for certain, and its been happening. Cleopatra is much more respected in recent times than when she was the queen that had 200 Romans in her bed.

This said, I don't believe fictionalizing our past for divisive ends is that helpful to men or women. If you believe that there is a chapter of Eisler's book that I've glossed over that will change my mind, please let me know and I'll be happy to revisit it. I love history very much.

Perhaps this increase in male violence is a reaction to the swing back to more femine attributes being valued rather then denegrated.

What increase????

There's a new book out of the subject called "The Athena Doctrine" I eager to read on the subject

I've recently started reading it but I've had to put it down.

It frustrates me. It makes claims that many positive traits fall to women and then tries to dance around it by stating that men can be as caring and women can be as assertive, and that feminine values belong to all genders ... but then it's still calling them feminine values. It also talks about how masculine constructs of awards, stature and recognition are out of touch etc ... It tries to dance on the fence by having this analysis based around surveys ... but frankly I could do surveys of sexist attitudes and hide behind that, too.

Fact of the matter is we're moving towards a more peaceful society. That doesn't mean it should be called a 'feminine' society or that men have suddenly become inferior. It worries me that we're going to move into future generations devaluing men in the same way that men once devalued women. That will be ironic won't it? Men burning their jock straps screaming 'we're not just sperm providers! We have empathy too!'

I read your post as rather fatalistic

It's realistic.

I don't believe feminist theory should alter the course of history and force a revolution in male thinking. I believe men should adapt naturally to the new future. You don't think it's patronizing for men to read feminists saying they need to be brought up differently, stop playing with action figures, and learn not to rape at a time in history when peace is on the up?

Men once blamed women for temptation, for dead fields, for witch craft etc etc etc ... Men said women couldn't lead, were hysterical, stupid etc etc etc ... Yet here we are watching theorists accusing men of not having the right traits, of ruining the peaceful Matriarchy, of being the prehistorical cause that brought the downfall of humanity ...

Kind of sounds like calling men Eve doesn't it? Maybe the genders aren't so different after all.

Pinke

However the overall level of violence in society and that includes verbal violence, economic violence as well as physical violence (in which you must include WAR and violence to Planet) has increased.

I'd need to see strong evidence for some of this ...

I don't think we can discuss conservation / planet issues in the same breath. Further to that, the most lucrative western consumer bracket to market to is women statistically I believe. That issue is a human issue, not a male issue.

I don't think you can take any violence out of the discussion. And yes, violence is a human issue but statistics (as I quoted in the OP) show that males are more prone to violence. Whether it be physical, emotional or ecological.

And your assertion that 'violence hasn't increased' by whatever definition is not relevant to the discussion. And I would need to see 'strong evidence' for this premise regardless.

Even were your assertion true - that violence has decreased - doesn't change the FACT that more males are violent than females.

Violence in general ... I would disagree here. More people are alive now than have died throughout most of history. I think due to technology our wars have been more damaging, but looking at the statistics ... Looking at the Human Security Report Project (link) from 2007 deaths in battle have gone way down. We've gone from half a million a year around seventy years ago to thirty thousand a year in the last decade. That's huge.

In the area of Conventional War - which is only a subset of Violence.

Again, I'd need to see the precise argument you're using here. Anthropology presented this argument for a few decades, demonizing characters such as Napoleon Chagon who claimed 'lost' tribes were just as violent as we were. Chagon has recently been vindicated! There have even been mass shootings covered up by anthropologists. Yes, mass shootings conducted via bow and arrow within tribes with very little contact with the rest of the world.

Well he is certainly entitled to his opinion and I'm not familiar with his work. My brief search on him kindled a memory of a guy who went native, married a native, brought his family back to the states, and so on. He appears to be somewhat of an outlier in the field though that doesn't necessarily effect the validity of his work.

And yet again it is irrelevant to the main point of the OP.

It's a very minor thing, but I don't believe evolution has any particular goal. Men who took care of their families and reproduced a lot are likely the genes we got. I don't think men evolved to hunt exactly, but good hunters passed on genes.

Survival is the goal of any system.

Its been a long time since I've seen Eisler's book, but from memory it was initially very excited but looking over my shoulder it was flawed, made some serious blunders, and provides scant evidence for the claims made within it. A lot of these books also seem to skate around dealing with their opponents.

There is a case for historical reinterpretation for certain, and its been happening. Cleopatra is much more respected in recent times than when she was the queen that had 200 Romans in her bed.

This said, I don't believe fictionalizing our past for divisive ends is that helpful to men or women. If you believe that there is a chapter of Eisler's book that I've glossed over that will change my mind, please let me know and I'll be happy to revisit it. I love history very much.

Fictionalizing? Hardly - just her interpretation. Her research on pre-patriarchical societies is very good. And the rise of patriarchy is chronicled in myth and legend. Again Schain's theory, I think, is better on that score.

Perhaps this increase in male violence is a reaction to the swing back to more femine attributes being valued rather then denegrated.

What increase????

Again - irrelevant to the OP.

There's a new book out of the subject called "The Athena Doctrine" I eager to read on the subject.

I've recently started reading it but I've had to put it down.

It frustrates me. It makes claims that many positive traits fall to women and then tries to dance around it by stating that men can be as caring and women can be as assertive, and that feminine values belong to all genders ... but then it's still calling them feminine values. It also talks about how masculine constructs of awards, stature and recognition are out of touch etc ... It tries to dance on the fence by having this analysis based around surveys ... but frankly I could do surveys of sexist attitudes and hide behind that, too.

Fact of the matter is we're moving towards a more peaceful society. That doesn't mean it should be called a 'feminine' society or that men have suddenly become inferior. It worries me that we're going to move into future generations devaluing men in the same way that men once devalued women. That will be ironic won't it? Men burning their jock straps screaming 'we're not just sperm providers! We have empathy too!'

Now, this was my mistake bringing this book into the conversation. It's a different and only tangentially relevant. Maybe more then a tangent... And having not read it, I can only speak to it from the material I heard in a interview with one of the authors.

From that - I believe the authors thesis is that character traits are not tied to gender but that the traits needed in the 21st century are more those that historically have been seen as feminine.

Now - certainly you can see that throughout history certain traits have been considered masculine and others feminine. That's just a fact of history. We see it in language, stories, etc.

Men and Women are not the same and to believe so is delusional. First the biology is different, then the socialization is different, on and on. They are, however, Equivalent.

No one, in anything I've referenced, is seeking to put women above men. Riane Eisler's life work is creating tools for use in bringing us to a peaceful 'Partnership' society. Slain's work as well is pointing to an Equivalent outcome where all are valued.

I read your post as rather fatalistic

It's realistic.

I'll not judge.

I don't believe feminist theory should alter the course of history and force a revolution in male thinking. I believe men should adapt naturally to the new future. You don't think it's patronizing for men to read feminists saying they need to be brought up differently, stop playing with action figures, and learn not to rape at a time in history when peace is on the up?

Men once blamed women for temptation, for dead fields, for witch craft etc etc etc ... Men said women couldn't lead, were hysterical, stupid etc etc etc ... Yet here we are watching theorists accusing men of not having the right traits, of ruining the peaceful Matriarchy, of being the prehistorical cause that brought the downfall of humanity ...

Kind of sounds like calling men Eve doesn't it? Maybe the genders aren't so different after all.

Again, you are reading something into this that just isn't there.

I am not certain why you believe that trends on violence are not important when in your OP you make the claim:

Perhaps this increase in male violence is a reaction to the swing back to more femine attributes being valued rather then denegrated.

This is a largely different claim to pointing out that men are generally more involved in violence; this is a claim that asserts men hate women being valued.

My issue overall is logic that paints women as passive observers in society, and claiming that men are back lashing against the value of women. If we accuse approximately fifty percent of the planet of something we better back it up. We can't just say 'oh it doesn't matter, they are still violent!'

If a man said to me that women started feminism specifically to man hate I would backhand them into the eighties, that's the magnitude of the claim. I am not sure how you can make such claims and then say that I am reading too much into things.

You can almost ignore the rest of the discussion on that point. Sincerely, I used to have similar thoughts and make similar claims to yourself. It took me a long time and some soul searching to admit that the flippancy of some of the comments I made was just as wrong as patriarchal history.

Women are not passive observers in modern life, and there are many factors that lead to male violence. One of these hundreds of factors is male biology but in some cases such as career criminals women certainly make a contribution. We can't acknowledge that through the thousand feet up academic feminist lens because as you said yourself, it encourages and promotes clumsy tools for analysing violence by wanting to include more and more into its already stretched domain.

Feminism can't fix or interpret everything, even though freedom for women is major factor in moving any society forward. I stand by much of the rest of our discussion but I think if we want to discuss history and things in depth, I would be happy to do it in a thread say specifically about Eisler or something.

I dunno though, have a think about it.

Matriarchal socieites and the equaility. The annanuki came and toppled that and threw burqua's and veils on women and erected pyramids and beat the drums of war. Welcome to earth, war and starvaton are the symbols of this planet. Sophia was the ancient tree of life, with the matrix being the womb, and her branches reached to heaven, her roots to the underworld, while ascension and progression was the norm of all souls. But they turned her into eve the temptress. And donned the robes of adrogeny themselves, thinking they could be combined genders and lots gender benders occurred, not the natural kind, but their kind, because they hate women and hate equality and progression of souls.

Once murder and war and starvation took root, the way back home and to higher levels is cut off.

We need to bring true equality and many many mothers and grandmothers on the counsels with citizens being the primary first level of government, not elites or status of any kind.

Pinke

This is a largely different claim to pointing out that men are generally more involved in violence; this is a claim that asserts men hate women being valued.

Never said anything about men hating women at all. Just that males perpetrate more violence.

My issue overall is logic that paints women as passive observers in society, and claiming that men are back lashing against the value of women. If we accuse approximately fifty percent of the planet of something we better back it up. We can't just say 'oh it doesn't matter, they are still violent!'

Never said, or quoted anything of the sort. You are reading things not there. As for the statistics - they are listed.

You can almost ignore the rest of the discussion on that point. Sincerely, I used to have similar thoughts and make similar claims to yourself. It took me a long time and some soul searching to admit that the flippancy of some of the comments I made was just as wrong as patriarchal history.

I just plain don't understand what you are saying here. The first part okay but the "...comments I made was just as wrong as patriarchal history" doesn't make any sense.



Women are not passive observers in modern life, and there are many factors that lead to male violence. One of these hundreds of factors is male biology but in some cases such as career criminals women certainly make a contribution. We can't acknowledge that through the thousand feet up academic feminist lens because as you said yourself, it encourages and promotes clumsy tools for analysing violence by wanting to include more and more into its already stretched domain.



First you are off on your own feminist 2.0 rant here. And again - this is irrelevant to the topic at hand completely. I'd suggest if you want to discuss Feminist Theory that you start a thread on it. Personally I find most "Feminist Theory" tremedously pompous. I've learned from it but find it pretty useless. The authors, I've referenced in this thread are not Feminist Theorists and I find much more forward thinking/solution thinking then most theorists in any subject.

Feminism can't fix or interpret everything, even though freedom for women is major factor in moving any society forward. I stand by much of the rest of our discussion but I think if we want to discuss history and things in depth, I would be happy to do it in a thread say specifically about Eisler or something.

I dunno though, have a think about it.

FyreByrd Violence at any level does not work (long term) for anyone. It just breeds more violence and hate. We need to look at it's roots in our culture(s) and seek answers.

Hmmn. Well, from my armchair I think there are at least a few critical issues.

1. There's that whole "...since the dawn of time, this has likely been the case" problem, suggesting that:

2. While we cannot attribute violence to testosterone, we can certainly attribute 'more violence of one gender than another' to it, I'd think.

Neither of those really address any possible "yes, but the issue 'specific to NOW' might be" scenario though. So:

3. I consider our culture profoundly fragmented, half-dissolved, most the people I know are lucky to have a decent immediate family never mind extended never mind community, and most the immediate families I know are pretty seriously messed up by lack of decent parenting to begin with, which only gets exponentially worse with each generation.

In specific I see the lack of participative fathers as a serious problem. Unfortunately right now all the hype and hysteria is on jailing men for child support failure instead of bringing them into their children's lives in a substantial way (IMO no man should pay most his net paycheck to only get to see his kid every other weekend. Hell someone should pay HIM to take his kid out of his life that much. I believe unless location of the parents makes it impossible, all child living should be 1 or 2 weeks with each parent; and unless the woman demonstrably didn't work for childbirth/child-rearing or his schooling/preference, no child support would be at issue there, and only very mildly and perhaps by proxy [e.g. buying certain things for the kid as opposed to giving the mom money] even then).

4. The degree of "personalized violence" in media has always been some issue, though I think less so than many people make it out to be. However the degree of this (example; the Walking Dead, now hugely popular, and many modern videogames) is just out of this world. I can't say this does or doesn't affect violence directly, but I feel certain that beyond a certain threshhold (that being a variable for each individual) it will negatively affect psychology. Might not be via violence. Or it might.

I think, if nothing else, it breeds a sort of psychological association between anger+power=guns/violence, not that these aren't kind of a no-brainer anyway, but I think in other cultures there might be other associations. For example your average ivy league yacht club collegiate doesn't dream of shooting his enemy in the face, he dreams of humiliating him in front of his peers and making more money or whatever -- I'm being general obviously -- I'm just saying that our media connects those neural cables and then leans on that connection all our lives, and what we later tie to our violence or sexuality or anything else is influenced by the individual culture we each are within.

5. The USA has way too many gun laws already and most of them are miserably enforced, which only leads to likely gun crimes and more hysteria about how we need more gun laws. If the ones we already have had a lot more enforcement and concern, I think that would probably be helpful. I don't have time to dig out details but I'm sure someone else on the web far better informed has already done this.

As an aside, I don't like statistics as the basis for these kinds of things, because I feel like there are different worlds that should fairly be addressed. For example if we removed all the crimes with guns that had even indirect relationship to drugs, I bet that would drastically drop the crime rate; having that in the stats creates a confounding factor in a way; similar to doing a survey on how often people eat animals for lunch when you're standing near the door of a steakhouse. Also, if you look at different kinds of crimes, the percentage of men and guns vs. women drops quite a bit, e.g. in domestic violence of immediate household.

6. We do not have any cultural education that involves serious discipline period, let alone serious discipline and education about weapons, self defense, first-aid care, etc. like you would get in most countries with required 1-year or so service in the military. People sometimes rant on about combat soldiers and violence at home for example, but statistically, soldiers are vastly less likely to shoot someone than others of their age and/or peer group, and I suspect enforced discipline over time is probably a lot of this.

7. We feed humans "edible entertainment" as if it's food from birth, sodas and juices in sippy cups, we medicate children with coc aine-level drugs like ritalin from as early as age 2 so they won't be inconvenient, which I think has profound culture-wide gene-expression and development damage we are ignoring like the elephant in the living room. Then we trap them (especially boys) in a non-kinesthetic inactive bureaucracy (drugs if they argue) for 12 years of forced schooling, and forcibly extend "childhood" to years past the time when humans are biologically and psychologically geared to fight for their way in the world, and then we wonder why so many people especially boys seem to be kinda torqued by the time they hit official adulthood if not sooner.

I don't think we can solve the violence problem until we solve at least some of the serious dietary and cultural problems. Like right now, you couldn't just draft everyone for a year; a ridiculous percentage of the people of that age group, which should be the healthiest age in someone's life, would fail the physical, and many more would fail the ASVAB, which barely requires more than 5th grade (and modern fifth grade, at that) to 'pass' enough to join the military. So what I'm saying is that if you breed a culture-wide experiment of people who are unhealthy on several levels, we shouldn't be surprised that psychological health suffers at least as much as physical health.

8. Somewhere (probably there is a link on this forum somewhere) not long ago I saw this animated graphic that showed all the "public demonstrations / rallies / protests" over a long span of time, and it made it clear that compared to say, the 1960s which we all attribute 'protests' to, the recent era is going completely nuts with them. I see violence particularly with youth (excluding things related to drugs) as a little bit correlated to this, in that much like a dysfunctional family, it is usually a small child -- often the youngest or a boy -- who will "act out" the dysfunctional energy in a family and become the "presenting problem," I suspect that it is young men who take this role for the culture as a larger sort of family, you might say.

Just thoughts.

You say:

FyreByrd
Perhaps this increase in male violence is a reaction to the swing back to more femine attributes being valued rather then denegrated.

Then say:

FyreByrd
Never said anything about men hating women at all. Just that males perpetrate more violence.

'Men perpetrate more violence, why?' =/= 'Men perpetrate more violence in reaction to feminine attributes being more valued rather than denigrated.'

They are different statements. If I've misunderstood or you have miss written then let me know, because I don't understand what you think that means. If men are doing this because feminine values aren't being denigrated ... ... ...

Personally I find most "Feminist Theory" tremedously pompous. I've learned from it but find it pretty useless. The authors, I've referenced in this thread are not Feminist Theorists and I find much more forward thinking/solution thinking then most theorists in any subject.

And here I find you a little rude.

I wasn't being uncivil when I entered the thread, sorry if you get this impression ... but I don't understand this either.

Eisler is a feminist scholar. They are using feminist terms. She is quoting feminist writers. Dominator theory is feminist. Patriarchy is a feminist concept. You can find a list of books using dominator theory here.

Am not sure if it's because you don't want to associate with feminism or you think it's a bad word but you're discussing, using, and applying feminist theory! If am mistaken, please link me to what these authors are. I guess the alternative is we have an approved list of feminist theorists for the thread? Haha sorry don't take offense am just being funny.

And look no hostility is intended! If am wrong, then teach me but I'd prefer you not talk down to me. I try and do the same as best I can, and if you want to end the conversation we can do that too.

reply to post by Pinke


I found this piece on increased violence without any 'sexist' bias:

Fracking linked to rape, meth addiction, and STDs

Yet another reason to hate fracking: It’s connected with an increase in STDs, car crashes, drug-related crimes, and sexual assault in areas where the oil and gas industry sets up shop. Or in Vice-speak, fracking workers have “an insatiable appetite for raw sex and hard drugs.” Writes Peter Rugh on Vice:

Critics of fracking have compared it to raping the Earth, but where drilling has spread, literal rape has followed. Violence against woman in fracking boomtowns in North Dakota and Montana has increased so sharply that the Department of Justice (DoJ) announced in June that it plans to spend half a million dollars investigating the correlation…[T]he DoJ speculated that “oil industry camps may be impacting domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking in the direct and surrounding communities in which they reside.”

Note that no assumptions are made about the gender of any perpetrators.

It's mostly a product of biology..

Tesosterone is powerful and constant with most males, alters the brain. Makes it more prone to violence, and anger.

Teaching men that being a man is about proving how tough you are.. that doesn't help.

My gut feeling is feminists are an overreaction, but necessary reaction, sort of like how unions react to business. However, I would not put my full faith in them. I think both men and woman are evil. Evolution might not be making it perfectly clear for us, but when does it? We have to earn every scrap of knowledge.

The OP points out one of the worst traits in a man, but what about woman? I'd like to see a thread about woman so we can get to the bottom of this.

Have a look at this:
www.livescience.com - Men and Women Really Do Think Differently...

...........
Psychology professor Richard Haier of the University of California, Irvine led the research along with colleagues from the University of New Mexico. Their findings show that in general, men have nearly 6.5 times the amount of gray matter related to general intelligence compared with women, whereas women have nearly 10 times the amount of white matter related to intelligence compared to men.
........
The results from this study may help explain why men and women excel at different types of tasks, said co-author and neuropsychologist Rex Jung of the University of New Mexico. For example, men tend to do better with tasks requiring more localized processing, such as mathematics, Jung said, while women are better at integrating and assimilating information from distributed gray-matter regions of the brain, which aids language skills.

Scientists find it very interesting that while men and women use two very different activity centers and neurological pathways, men and women perform equally well on broad measures of cognitive ability, such as intelligence tests.
............

jonnywhite
My gut feeling is feminists are an overreaction, but necessary reaction, sort of like how unions react to business. However, I would not put my full faith in them. I think both men and woman are evil. Evolution might not be making it perfectly clear for us, but when does it? We have to earn every scrap of knowledge.

The OP points out one of the worst traits in a man, but what about woman? I'd like to see a thread about woman so we can get to the bottom of this.

Have a look at this:
www.livescience.com - Men and Women Really Do Think Differently...

...........
Psychology professor Richard Haier of the University of California, Irvine led the research along with colleagues from the University of New Mexico. Their findings show that in general, men have nearly 6.5 times the amount of gray matter related to general intelligence compared with women, whereas women have nearly 10 times the amount of white matter related to intelligence compared to men.
........
The results from this study may help explain why men and women excel at different types of tasks, said co-author and neuropsychologist Rex Jung of the University of New Mexico. For example, men tend to do better with tasks requiring more localized processing, such as mathematics, Jung said, while women are better at integrating and assimilating information from distributed gray-matter regions of the brain, which aids language skills.

Scientists find it very interesting that while men and women use two very different activity centers and neurological pathways, men and women perform equally well on broad measures of cognitive ability, such as intelligence tests.
............

edit on 22-10-2013 by jonnywhite because: (no reason given)

Great link, JohhnyWhite and thanks for sharing it.

Men and Women, on average and generally, excel in different areas. Some men are better nurturers then some women, but on average and generally Women are better nuturers. The discussion is not about specific individuals but about averages and this study you cite also has to be taken in that context.

Again, thanks - I'll read and bookmark it.

FyreByrd
reply to post by Pinke

 

I found this piece on increased violence without any 'sexist' bias:

Fracking linked to rape, meth addiction, and STDS.

The original article (at least I think it is) doesn't really sell this conclusion successfully.

The increase in crime and the rest is more to do with putting large numbers of people of the same gender in one location at a time. It's one of the reasons why I think prisons can be cruel and unusual - particularly in the USA where a person can do time for comparatively small things. I mean, if you go to prison heterosexual it's not unreasonable to expect to leave heterosexual.

I don't see any reason to believe that these illegal activities are directly correlated with the type of work these people are doing.

I recently had a dispute with two friends over my statement that if woman were more in leadership positions the world would be less violent.

Of course with a caveat that unfortunately even woman have been brainwashed with the patriarchy syndrome (look at Anne Coulter and Sarah Palin types).

They, being raised in a patriarchal environment, didn’t agree at all.

But I think the OP is making a good point but few men will admit it even though statistically the vast majority of violence and evil in the world is perpetuated by men

My friend retorted to me “well, it was woman who raised these evil and violent men.”

That is true but I think it is a well established belief and observational reality that woman are naturally more prone to the compassionate and nurturing side of human nature, of course that is not an absolute black and white thing since men have a feminine nature as well as woman have a masculine side.

Bottom line if tomorrow magically we reversed the leadership in the world from a vast majority male leadership to the opposite female leadership than what would happen?

I think overtime once we weeded out the Anne Coulter, Michelle Bachman, and Hillary Clinton types the world would be much better

Well it depends which kind of women! Elite, bloodline royal family or "that set" would not change the world or improve it. We need to stop electing "that set" altogether and have counsels of citizens, ie. teachers, nursery school workers, social workers, counselors, mechanics, waitresses, chefs, ie. you and me and our comunities, elected and jury duty, so everyone takes on learning, understanding stats better than they do and human rights, so they don't do foolish things, and working for win/wins for everyone. And in that situation, there should be alot of mothers and grandmothers, but some balance needed to.

With the "other set" we should stop buying from all corporations and deal their banks and stop feeding the beast. We need to start ethical small businesses everywhere and buy from each other, and the most ethical compassionate business gets the billing. The one that decides, oh wow, look its working and we're going to move to some island and stop paying taxes and replace our few employees with some underpaid slaves, doesnt get a penny from you.

And start our own credit union thing if it can legally be done, otherwise get really smart at where and how we bank.

Some of this is giving gender way too much credit. Both have their lovely and their glory and their drama and their muck, but neither are much better than the other side in most measures, and when seemingly more graceful in one area they're probably worse in another.

If you look at history, era and areas when Queens ruled, there was no less bloodshed with a woman in the big chair than when it was a man. As for recent times, I don't recall the few countries who've had women in the big chair (Britain, Israel for example) being kinder and gentler due to that.

I'm convinced the USA is going to vote in a woman just in time for the country to melt down -- which it would have no matter who was there -- and then women will be blamed for the fall of the western empire...

In my observation in civilian life, and observation of friends in combat life, women "in general" (obviously this is not for individuals) are slower to violence, quicker to negotiate, more prone to avoidance and dealing with frankly more important things than that kind of drama since usually they're the ones stuck dealing with the other things -- but once they snap, become more bloody terrifying than any man who isn't famous for having killed in the 8 digits.

Culturally women tend to be stuck dealing with the 'everything else.' Both genders join gangs, both genders have kids too early, especially in the ghetto for example. But one reason the stats of ghetto shooters are so high on men vs. women is that a lot of the women are busy trying to raise kids. They don't have a lot of time to be running down the street with da boyz and punking nonlocals, they're changing diapers and frankly they're exhausted. In various ways it's always been like that.

What I'm saying is that aside from stuff I already mentioned (namely testosterone, but also cultural problems), much of what people "do" relates to what ELSE they are busy doing. (Reminds me of the quip about idle hands ending up doing the devil's work.) People with hobbies are less likely to spend all their time at parties or loitering or in front of the TV for example, and the more dedicated the hobby, or the larger the number of hobbies, the more you'd see the stats on things like violence and all other crimes fall drastically.

I don't necessarily think it's because those individuals innately are of better character (though it could be so), as that they are simply busy doing other things, they have other priorities, and even when they are in the situation for violence, they may not prioritize the issues, the threat, the rage, the way that people without much else in their lives would.

RedCairo


In my observation in civilian life, and observation of friends in combat life, women "in general" (obviously this is not for individuals) are slower to violence, quicker to negotiate, more prone to avoidance and dealing with frankly more important things than that kind of drama since usually they're the ones stuck dealing with the other things -- but once they snap, become more bloody terrifying than any man who isn't famous for having killed in the 8 digits.

Culturally women tend to be stuck dealing with the 'everything else.' Both genders join gangs, both genders have kids too early, especially in the ghetto for example. But one reason the stats of ghetto shooters are so high on men vs. women is that a lot of the women are busy trying to raise kids. They don't have a lot of time to be running down the street with da boyz and punking nonlocals, they're changing diapers and frankly they're exhausted. In various ways it's always been like that.

What I'm saying is that aside from stuff I already mentioned (namely testosterone, but also cultural problems), much of what people "do" relates to what ELSE they are busy doing. (Reminds me of the quip about idle hands ending up doing the devil's work.) People with hobbies are less likely to spend all their time at parties or loitering or in front of the TV for example, and the more dedicated the hobby, or the larger the number of hobbies, the more you'd see the stats on things like violence and all other crimes fall drastically.

I don't necessarily think it's because those individuals innately are of better character (though it could be so), as that they are simply busy doing other things, they have other priorities, and even when they are in the situation for violence, they may not prioritize the issues, the threat, the rage, the way that people without much else in their lives would.

edit on 22-10-2013 by RedCairo because: typo

Well, to the women 'that snap' - I can't disagree with you there. Trained women can be really, really scary.

As to hobbies, and multitudes of responsibily, I agree there as well - but I would call that character in any gender. Women can shurk responsibilities too, just a smaller percentage tend to.

Thanks for the post.

One crucial factor associated with violence is gender, a lens that dictates “proper” characteristics, interests, and even behavioral trends. While Lapierre wishes to placate our fears (and undermine demands for stricter gun laws) with talk of "monsters," a far more significant and undeniable fact about 66 of the past 67 mass murderers is that they were men.

Is it really far more significant? That's kind of a bold statement with no real elaboration behind it. I mean, I could just as easily throw out a statstic about spouses mutilating their partner's genetalia. Who's in the majority gender of perpetrators on that one, do you think? If it's far more common for women to be the perp (Hint: it is) then does that mean women are intrinsically more evil than men?

Men are responsible for the majority of violence in this nation. According to the FBI's 2010 statistics on crime, men made up 90 percent of the 11,000 murder offenders whose gender was known.

Kind of a worthless statistic. This could just as easily be used as evidence that women are better at not getting caught for homicide.

It's also noteworthy that society generally demands a male perp conviction; there are many cases where male&female crime collaborations strike a plea bargain with the woman to "rat out" the man, freeing the woman of her charges to get an easy conviction on the male.

Men also were responsible for 77 percent of aggravated assaults

Well this should be rather obvious, really. Not making excuses for the behaviour; it's kind of pathetic honestly. When I do see it, it's usually a couple of drunken dudes at a downtown bar fighting over some girl (who I've yet to see ever try and break the matter up or resolve the issue, come to think of it).

84 percent of burglaries

I have high suspicions that this doesn't include shoplifting for specific ideals that want to be acheived with these "statistics".

74 percent of offenses against the family and children

HAH. I'm sorry but that is just ridiculous. Tell me how many times you've physically seen a woman hit her husband, and how many times you've physically seen a man hit his wife. The real statistics are hidden by the shame of spousal abuse and the unreported cases. If we saw some real statistics here, I'd bet that women are the more likely to strike first and strike repeatedly.

99 percent of rapes.

Oh please.

I'm assuming this is using the definition of rape as it pertains to forceful penetration, and not any other means of sexual assault. Leaving that 1% for the few cases we hear about women sodomizing young boys. We can't include in statistics -- which are clearly citing a certain agenda -- things like innappropriate touching, sexual misconduct, public nudity.

Then, of course, we have all the double-standards surrounding the individual situations. "Date rape", for example, seems to only be applicable if you have a penis. If you don't have a penis, any time you get drunk and sleep with someone you wouldn't want to when you were sober, it's his fault. If you do have a penis in the same situation, then it's your fault as well. Pretty undermining system to women, really; I mean, the system basically says that women are too damned stupid to be held accountable for their choices while in certain voluntary states of intoxication.

I do have to ask you if you could tie this thread a little further to this "patriarchy" which you seem to think exists. I see you blaming it a lot and really there isn't a whole lot of linking going on to the issues at hand, or any discussion about how we are living in a "patriarchy".