Men and women have profound and innate differences in their capabilities and desires. Besides the obvious differences in physical strength, etc., hormones for instance make men more aggressive and women more prone to compromise. Meanwhile, while men and women have equal average intelligence, men have far more IQ variance, so there are more male geniuses and imbeciles, and the sexes also perform differently on different subtests. Finally, differences in breeding patterns (procreation is MUCH more of an investment for the woman, and one man can impregnate multiple women) also contribute to behavioral differences.
So, let me ask a question. Would you say that all human beings have differences in their capabilities? You seem to be saying so, considering your statement about IQ variance.
If so, then would you say that human beings are not uniform, and you will find human beings of one gender with attributes you claim come from another gender?
So masculinity and femininity aren't mere "social constructs" and the result of societal training, as a Cultural Marxist would say. They are terms which refer to clusters of behaviors and attributes which we developed over hundreds of thousands of years of evolution as hunter-gatherers, and which are very much present in more sophisticated civilizations.
So, Marxists are the only ones to ever make an argument about social constructs? I find that hard to believe. Even Plato in
The Republic talks about the assignment people to the correct jobs based on how they act and their capabilities. And this includes letting women be guardians of the city, marching off to war with the men
if these women can meet the same rigorous criteria as the few men who also meet these criteria. It would be hard to call Plato a Marxist, since he died a few years before Marx.
For instance, hierarchy, authority, and conflict are part of the masculine sphere, whereas equality, consensus, and accommodation are inherently feminine.
To be clear, are you saying that woman cannot be hierarchical, authoritarian, or engage in conflict? Are you saying they are just not as good at it? Are you also saying that women are always more egalitarian than men?
Because men have much more IQ variance and one man can impregnate multiple women, men are much more hierarchical and less egalitarian than women. In the natural state, a man is worth what he produces for the tribe, whereas women are, in a sense, all equally valuable because their reproductive potential is limited. Now, all sophisticated civilizations invent monogamy as a necessary measure to keep less valuable men in line and productive, but the remnants of the old mentality are still there, and men are still very hierarchical by nature.
I'm not sure I follow. Could you tell me some other attributes of sophisticated societies? And could you elaborate on whether a society counts as having monogamy if adultery is tolerated or even encouraged among the political or economic elite?
I'm asking because I see a lot of societies that pretend to value monogamy, but in practice, the power of men in the culture determines how far they can break with monogamy.
The lowest-status members of society like criminals and permanent homeless are virtually all men because men are inclined to protect women and look down upon men who aren't self-sufficient. Think of "women and children first," conscription, the numerous historical programs to take care of women, and so on. Now, the leaders of society have historically been men as well, and it is again because of these factors.
Wait a moment. You lost me here. Men are the leaders of society because men are inclined to look down on and protect women? That seems to be the very definition of "we've constructed our society, either consciously or unconsciously, to treat group of people X as second-class citizens, and we reinforce it by maintaining control of the leadership positions in that society." That hardly seems to support your thesis, does it? Shouldn't it be natural, and not the result of men looking down? Shouldn't perception have nothing to do with it?
Men are more aggressive/competitive, and geniuses (like idiots) are overwhelmingly male, so men are naturally going to be more inclined to rise to the top. As a consequence of all this, we can safely say that hierarchical leadership is an inherently masculine thing.
I don't think your argument bears this out at all. You've either skipped some steps or have not sufficiently explained the ones you've listed.
Warfare falls under the same category, both because the people sent to die in wars have always been and will always be men (both because of physical strength and the fact that they are seen as more disposable than women), and because military tactics/strategy relies very heavily on visual-spatial intelligence, which men tend to have more of.
Women past menopause are not biologically indispensable. Why aren't they marched off to war? Is it just because they are too old? If that's the case, then why do we have older men still allowed to remain in the military?
But leaving aside that part of the issue, if warfare relies heavily on visual-spatial intelligence, and men are better at it, then why do we have women who, when given the chance, can not only adequately perform military tasks, but excel at them?
It almost seems like you really want to advocate a more radical egalitarianism. If you want the absolute best people in a particular line of work, like the military, then we don't even need to look at the gender box on the recruiter forms. We need to instead focus on their ASVAB scores (for those of us in the US) and physical fitness scores (plus the requisite medical checks).
In fact, at least in the US, given the number of human beings that are unfit for military service for one reason or another, the goal should be to focus on getting the best people to enlist or take a commission. I mean, that makes sense, doesn't it?
So what is the feminine sphere? It's mostly about the home, but in a broader sense involves civil and voluntary society in general. Because of their biological indispensability and narrower intellectual bell curve, women are more empathetic and compassionate.
I fail to see how biological indispensability, empathy, and compassion relate to one another. You will have to spell this out for me. I could make the argument that biological indispensability should make women haughty, aloof, and willing to kill one another to make themselves even more valuable.
If available wombs are such an indispensable resource, then shouldn't there be a natural heated or perhaps even violent competition between women? After all, my valuable resource becomes more valuable if there is less of it around.
They are egalitarian by nature (especially with each other) and prefer consensus-based decision-making. They also have greater verbal intelligence and often can read the complexities of social situations much more quickly and effectively than men.
If this was true, then women should be better orators by definition. Given the importance of rhetoric in contemporary politics, we should see them winning elections all over the place. So, either there are artificial barriers in place making women's natural verbal intelligence a moot point, or that the greater verbal intelligence you describe is not statistically relevant.
Historically, women played the extremely vital role of running the home and raising the children, but even beyond this, middle- and upper- class women have traditionally played a distinctly feminine role in keeping society afloat. Charities, churches, and voluntary societies have always depended primarily on female labor.
I'm not entirely sure the historical record bears this out. Even among European countries, the role of women was different in each historical period and in each culture. In fact, seminal events would radically change their roles at times. I'm not sure if you understand just how much of a change the Reformation had on the role of women in various parts of Europe, especially in smaller denominations where they had more freedom. And that's just the "churches" part of your statement, never mind charities.
But it goes deeper than churches. Your argument doesn't make sense when we consider historical situations where there is a significant disruption of the economy and large scale death. The impact of the Black Death on England is a great example. A quick look at the laws in place before the Great Mortality versus after it shows a substantial shift in laws permitting women to do things they were barred from doing before. Guild charters were amended to let women join them and even assume positions of rank and responsibility. Under the terms of your argument, they should have stayed in their distinct sphere
because women naturally gravitate towards those things AND you argue that in the state of nature, women have a specific role to fulfill. But a breakdown in societal order, including large numbers of people being dead and the economy being thrown into chaos, resulted in
more egalitarian treatment of women.
This dovetails well with the Soviet women listed in this thread. Given Soviet casualties during WWII (estimates range from 20 million dead to 43 million dead, depending on which figures you think are true and how you compute them), which caused a 15% or more reduction in population, with even worse damage to the economy than the Black Death in Europe (fewer dead, but the occupation of portions of the Soviet Union meant both industry and resources were taken away or even outright destroyed during the war). And in these conditions, it's curious that the Soviets also moved in an egalitarian direction. When times were tough, suddenly the best person for the job was the most important thing, not the gender of the person in question.
In fact, I would assert that the historical record bears out the opposite of your statement. The worse things are economically and demographically, the more willing cultures are to break with their patriarchal systems and treat women with more equality
because they've realized that Plato was right all along. National survival means that the best person needs to be in various jobs, gender be damned.
Men have always turned to their wives for advice and perspective (and more importantly, a kind and sympathetic ear to come home to after being yelled at all day).
Well, you mean except for men like Ike Turner, or various aristocratic men who don't have a boss who yells at them and who don't even speak to their wives on a daily basis, and men who have multiple wives, and men who refuse to talk to their wives about business and... Well, you get the idea.
I don't know where you live, but that statement is at odds with both statistical evidence where I live and stuff I observe.
Finally, women are by far superior as hostesses and general arbiters of social gatherings.
Then they should be ruling the Republican and Democratic Parties in the United States during the convention season.
So, in a nutshell, a woman who is a great hostess and household administrator, who creates a soothing home environment, who routinely offers her husband sound advice and perspective on social situations, who spearheads charity and volunteering missions, and who effectively raises a large number of children, is a woman of great feminine achievement. Meanwhile, if a woman achieves great things as a ruler or general (and to a lesser extent, as a CEO/lawyer/scientist/etc.), she is excelling in the masculine sphere. Now, I definitely think that can be an impressive feat (I'm a huge Margaret Thatcher fan
o), but to imply as though "Great" or "Strong" women are the ones whose achievements are masculine in nature is an insult to the many millions of great wives and mothers who do amazing things for society behind the scenes every day and always have. The simple fact of the matter is that women tend to like and excel at different things than men, and denying this or attributing everything to "cultural training" is lunacy.
So, I want to make sure I understand you correctly.
You say that implying a woman is great or strong when they excel in the masculine sphere is an insult. So why isn't it an insult to call a man those things when he is in a position of political power? Don't you see the contradiction?
"Alfred the Great was a great king." = good
"Elizabeth I was a great king." = insult to women not in a position of power
You seem to think that the two are mutually exclusive. Why can't you say this?
"Elizabeth was a great queen. Oh, and Elizabeth, Countess of Rutland, you did a great job managing Penshurst and helping keep the traditions of poetry alive by teaching your children properly and making it possible for me, Ben Jonson, to hang out at your estate and write poetry without keeping a regular job." (I picked her specifically because Jonson does an excellent job of extolling her virtues in the poetic sequence
The Forest. She is not a politically powerful woman, but she has value, more so than her idiot husband. It's a wonderful sequence of poems for anyone who has never read them.)
I don't know how people behave in your neck of the woods, but I don't know anyone who would complain that a woman who excels in "traditional" areas is a loser. The point I always see is that you should be willing to recognize the value of everyone who contributes to society and to not restrict them if they have the capability of doing a particular job. Not everyone can be Margaret Thatcher, male or female.
In fact, the great irony of this discussion is that I know women who do both: be a lawyer AND have a flair for catering. Have a terminal degree in an academic field AND knit. Go on raids in LotRO AND bake cookies (to be consumed during the aforementioned raids).
As to whether being a doctor or truck driver is "empowering," I'd say yes and no. On one hand, technology has allowed women to be economically competitive with men where they couldn't before, and this has increased their power in certain respects. To put it bluntly, it has given them a masculine sort of power. But this trend is eventually going to lead to women losing a lot of their social privileges and leverage (their "feminine power", i.e. the power that makes men go jump in the trenches for them without hesitation) as men start to give up on chivalry and everyone becomes more androgynous. To my mind, this will just result in women becoming less happy because it will entail them drifting away from their natural predispositions (and if you look at statistical data on female depression rates, it seems the process has already started happening).
The flaw here is that you equate androgynous to equality. But in a broader sense, your argument assumes that masculinity and femininity are universal across human history and culture. The problem is that the historical record simply doesn't bear that out. The definition of masculine and feminine, in terms of personality attributes, intelligence, and even colors associated with different genders (to say nothing of clothing), has always been malleable.
You don't even want to get into notions of child rearing and gender in Renaissance England, to say nothing of how something as masculine as action figures in 20th Century American culture originates not from some deep-seated notion of gender, but from a desire to sell dolls to a new demographic.
