Your argument would just as well prove that no one can criticize anyone outside their group. Surely you don’t mean that? And how would it invalidate the argument? At the least, it would be a valid point to say,
“I cooperate by monitoring behavior in my group. Why do you defect?”
Right?
You’re right, I don’t mean that. I would say, rather, that the burden of conscientiousness is greater when one is criticizing a group to which one does not belong; dangerous thoughts and all that. My problem was not with what you were saying, necessarily, but that the manner in which you said it ignored this burden of conscientiousness. If you had said, “I cooperate by monitoring behavior in my group. Why do you defect?” I doubt I would have had any problem with the comment.
Second, there’s the dating pool. If dating capability feeds on itself, then prematurely complying with a request to leave will be dominated by disrespectful men, and women increasingly believe that their only option is a disrepectful man.
Why do you make the bolded assumption? In cultures where long-term monogamous relationships are the norm, dating capability annihilates itself by taking those who possess it off the market.
And for that matter, why are you worried about women increasingly believing that disrespectful men are their only option? If disrespectfulness is a self-reinforcing phenomenon as you suggest, we should expect to see respectful men as almost entirely marginalized. And yet the past fifty years have displayed the opposite trend: there is much more belief now that women should expect/demand a certain level of respect from their romantic partners. Whether or not this is acted upon proportionately (and while I suspect that it is, I have neither scientific nor personal evidence that this is so), I’m not sure how your model explains what evidence I do have.
If you had said, “I cooperate by monitoring behavior in my group. Why do you defect?” I doubt I would have had any problem with the comment.
Okay, but that’s exactly my complaint. Now what?
Why do you make the bolded assumption?
I’m referring to confidence effects: i.e. the more success you have earlier, the more you have later.
And for that matter, why are you worried about women increasingly believing that disrespectful men are their only option? If disrespectfulness is a self-reinforcing phenomenon as you suggest, we should expect to see respectful men as almost entirely marginalized. …
We do—hence the widespread phenomenon, noticed even among women, of women being attracted to “bad boy” types, which was attenuated in more conservative eras. Plus, the increasing frequency of divorce and domestic violence.
Divorce has been on a steady upward trend. If fraction that are due to domestic violence is constant, that’s all that’s necessary for my point. If not, you’re right, I don’t have e.g. battered women’s shelter stats handy, but even if you ignore that part, the divorce rate alone is strong enough evidence.
The divorce rate increasing is not good evidence that domestic violence is increasing. It can be explained by divorce becoming easier legally (no fault divorce), less stigmatized socially and less financially crippling for women (they have more opportunity to generate their own income and arguably divorce has become more favourable to women when it comes to dividing up assets).
Increased social awareness and decreasing tolerance of domestic violence could also lead to increased divorce rates without the domestic violence rate increasing. Women are less likely to feel trapped in abusive relationships by social and economic pressures than they were in the past.
I had the same reaction. I’d be surprised if this is true since violent crime generally has been on a downward trend. I did some googling and couldn’t turn up much data, though a couple of hits seemed to support my suspicion that this is a difficult question to answer due to historical widespread under-reporting of domestic violence and a suspected increase in frequency of reporting more recently.
I’m not sure why this is evidence that women increasingly believe that disrespectful men are their only option or that respectful men are almost entirely marginalized. Is the argument that the increased number of divorces largely affect respectful men, in that when divorces were more difficult to obtain, women could only obtain divorces when their spouses were demonstrably problematic (and therefore, more likely to be disrespectful), and that easier divorce procedures allow women to divorce respectful men more easily?
I’m not an expert on either current or historic divorce law, but it’s my understanding that under earlier regimes, in many instances, women could not obtain divorces easily even with abusive husbands, because of proof difficulties. Perhaps more easily obtainable divorces just allowed more women to divorce disrespectful men.
To everyone making this same brilliant point: the divorce rate continued to increase after the relaxation of these restrictions on it, which would mean we’re not just seeing the conversion of “would have divorced” cases. And if the causes after that relaxation remain constant in relative proportion, that means more domestic violence.
But assuming there is more domestic violence, and that women are initially marrying more abusive and/or disrespectful men, if there’s also more divorce, this could mean that women are less tolerant of these abusive disrespectful men. So does it provide evidence for women increasingly believing that disrespectful men are their only option or respectful men being almost entirely marginalized?
Alright, point taken. Because I can’t reliably document a trend of men becoming more disrespectful, obviously there’s nothing to worry about with an incentive structure that penalizes men for being respectful, and women should keep using “doesn’t listen to me” as a standard for which men they like, and also complain that men don’t respect them enough.
And if the causes after that relaxation remain constant in relative proportion, that means more domestic violence.
I’m sure we all appreciate the basic math lesson but you haven’t provided any evidence that the proportions have remained constant and given all the cultural and legal changes affecting the divorce rate there is very little reason to expect that they would.
You’re right, I don’t mean that. I would say, rather, that the burden of conscientiousness is greater when one is criticizing a group to which one does not belong; dangerous thoughts and all that. My problem was not with what you were saying, necessarily, but that the manner in which you said it ignored this burden of conscientiousness. If you had said, “I cooperate by monitoring behavior in my group. Why do you defect?” I doubt I would have had any problem with the comment.
Why do you make the bolded assumption? In cultures where long-term monogamous relationships are the norm, dating capability annihilates itself by taking those who possess it off the market.
And for that matter, why are you worried about women increasingly believing that disrespectful men are their only option? If disrespectfulness is a self-reinforcing phenomenon as you suggest, we should expect to see respectful men as almost entirely marginalized. And yet the past fifty years have displayed the opposite trend: there is much more belief now that women should expect/demand a certain level of respect from their romantic partners. Whether or not this is acted upon proportionately (and while I suspect that it is, I have neither scientific nor personal evidence that this is so), I’m not sure how your model explains what evidence I do have.
Okay, but that’s exactly my complaint. Now what?
I’m referring to confidence effects: i.e. the more success you have earlier, the more you have later.
We do—hence the widespread phenomenon, noticed even among women, of women being attracted to “bad boy” types, which was attenuated in more conservative eras. Plus, the increasing frequency of divorce and domestic violence.
[citation needed]
Divorce has been on a steady upward trend. If fraction that are due to domestic violence is constant, that’s all that’s necessary for my point. If not, you’re right, I don’t have e.g. battered women’s shelter stats handy, but even if you ignore that part, the divorce rate alone is strong enough evidence.
The divorce rate increasing is not good evidence that domestic violence is increasing. It can be explained by divorce becoming easier legally (no fault divorce), less stigmatized socially and less financially crippling for women (they have more opportunity to generate their own income and arguably divorce has become more favourable to women when it comes to dividing up assets).
Increased social awareness and decreasing tolerance of domestic violence could also lead to increased divorce rates without the domestic violence rate increasing. Women are less likely to feel trapped in abusive relationships by social and economic pressures than they were in the past.
Also, changes in social attitudes would also have increased the reporting of domestic violence.
I had the same reaction. I’d be surprised if this is true since violent crime generally has been on a downward trend. I did some googling and couldn’t turn up much data, though a couple of hits seemed to support my suspicion that this is a difficult question to answer due to historical widespread under-reporting of domestic violence and a suspected increase in frequency of reporting more recently.
I’m not sure why this is evidence that women increasingly believe that disrespectful men are their only option or that respectful men are almost entirely marginalized. Is the argument that the increased number of divorces largely affect respectful men, in that when divorces were more difficult to obtain, women could only obtain divorces when their spouses were demonstrably problematic (and therefore, more likely to be disrespectful), and that easier divorce procedures allow women to divorce respectful men more easily?
I’m not an expert on either current or historic divorce law, but it’s my understanding that under earlier regimes, in many instances, women could not obtain divorces easily even with abusive husbands, because of proof difficulties. Perhaps more easily obtainable divorces just allowed more women to divorce disrespectful men.
To everyone making this same brilliant point: the divorce rate continued to increase after the relaxation of these restrictions on it, which would mean we’re not just seeing the conversion of “would have divorced” cases. And if the causes after that relaxation remain constant in relative proportion, that means more domestic violence.
But assuming there is more domestic violence, and that women are initially marrying more abusive and/or disrespectful men, if there’s also more divorce, this could mean that women are less tolerant of these abusive disrespectful men. So does it provide evidence for women increasingly believing that disrespectful men are their only option or respectful men being almost entirely marginalized?
Alright, point taken. Because I can’t reliably document a trend of men becoming more disrespectful, obviously there’s nothing to worry about with an incentive structure that penalizes men for being respectful, and women should keep using “doesn’t listen to me” as a standard for which men they like, and also complain that men don’t respect them enough.
I’m sure we all appreciate the basic math lesson but you haven’t provided any evidence that the proportions have remained constant and given all the cultural and legal changes affecting the divorce rate there is very little reason to expect that they would.