It may be unpleasant to realize that most people don’t particularly care about your thoughts or feelings capability or even your well-being except instrumentally, but it is true.
Do you mean that this is true of how people interact with other people in general, or specifically how men interact with women?
You have to explain to people why they should see you as a human being, and what seeing you as a human being actually looks like, or they will simultaneously fail to understand why they should, and fail to understand how they are not doing so already.
They should because it’s self-evident that I am a human being? To me, at least. I spend a lot of time in a male-dominant community (atheists/skeptics/rationalists cluster), and even more time in a female-dominated domain (nursing), and my conversations among females are no more dominated by emotion than those among males. We have conversations to share useful information and ask for practical advice, to tell morbid anecdotes that we all find hilarious, to share personal goals, to point out new discoveries in medicine that we think are fascinating and exciting, etc etc etc. It’s so freaking obvious to me that this whole gender thing just Does. Not. Matter.
Most people in my immediate social circle already do this right, including the local Less Wrong group. It’s all the more jarring when I’m reminded that right, this whole feminism thing isn’t a moot point yet after all.
you will not unlock the puzzle-box that has ownership of me as the prize.
If that is someone’s goal in talking to women in general, they are doing it wrong, no matter the content and tone of their discussion.
I get that some women’s revealed preferences seem to indicate that they expect and want to be treated this way. This is deeply confusing to me. Anyone who wants ownership of me as a prize for their interesting conversation is going to be disappointed, because that prize is not on the table.
They should because it’s self-evident that I am a human being? To me, at least. I spend a lot of time in a male-dominant community (atheists/skeptics/rationalists cluster), and even more time in a female-dominated domain (nursing), and my conversations among females are no more dominated by emotion than those among males. We have conversations to share useful information and ask for practical advice, to tell morbid anecdotes that we all find hilarious, to share personal goals, to point out new discoveries in medicine that we think are fascinating and exciting, etc etc etc. It’s so freaking obvious to me that this whole gender thing just Does. Not. Matter.
In my case at least, I think it’s more precise to say that gender is screened off by context: a randomly chosen conversation between me and a male is more likely to be about physics and less likely to be about emotions than a randomly chosen conversation between me and a female, but once you specify whether or not they’re a colleague of mine, whether or not we are on a walk together, etc., knowing their gender doesn’t provide much more evidence either way; it’s just that I have more male colleagues than female ones, take more walks with females than with males, etc.
Do you mean that this is true of how people interact with other people in general, or specifically how men interact with women?
I explicitly mean both at once.
it’s self-evident that I am a human being?
But it is not self-evident that they are required to treat you as one, or even that they will gain a net benefit from doing so. Perhaps I should have avoided the rhetorical device “like a human being” and used the more precise “like a person”, instead. Let me reframe in that way:
It is obvious that you are a human being—that is, a member of the species Homo sapiens.
It is less obvious that you are a person—that is, a being that they must treat with the same level of rights and respect with which they expected to be treated.
This statement:
(especially women, with whom the whole point of interaction usually isn’t information-related but purely emotional anyway)
indicates that you are a tool / resource for achieving specific instrumental goals, and that those instrumental goals are different when they involve you than when they involve men. Your own preferences of which instrumental goals you would like to be utilized for is irrelevant; your average heterosexual male cares exactly as much for your preferences as your average Congressman or your average corporate marketing team: your preferences are useful for determining how to manipulate you towards instrumental ends, but other than that they don’t really enter into the equation.
Perhaps you want to be treated as an equal—seen as a terminal value rather than as an instrumental tool or resource? That’s an admirable goal, and one you will find that most people share. And thus, a good deal of social manipulation involves providing the appearance that we care about each other as terminal values, while behaving very clearly as if we really only see each other instrumentally. It is ironic that in this specific case, a significant portion of the motivation for unlocking your puzzle-box is so that the male can believe that you see him as a terminal value. Our cultural narrative strongly reinforces to men that the only way they will ever get someone to see them as a terminal value is by finding a woman and unlocking her puzzle-box—for many men (especially the so-called “Nice Guys”), this is actually a more powerful motivation even than sex.
Anyone who wants ownership of me as a prize for their interesting conversation is going to be disappointed, because that prize is not on the table.
That is irrelevant. The fact that you are in front of them, and they can imagine you fulfilling the role, means (from their perspective) that that prize is on the table. The fact that you do not wish to reward it will not disuade them; at most it just means (again, from their perspective) that they need to give the puzzle-box one or two more twists before it opens.
(EDIT: Re-reading this post, the picture I was painting of human nature is perhaps unnecessarily bleak. I think it is more accurate to say that people do not naturally treat each other as terminal values unless they are given explicit reason to, and that family, friendship etc. are all the normal reasons that they are given explicit reason to. Humans CAN be taught to treat all other humans as terminal values by default, but this is not particularly common. Unfortunately, it is far more common for people to learn to PRETEND to treat all other humans as terminal values—and to pretend to themselves just as much as they pretend to each other. Breaking through that to teach people how to truly love each other is something that mystics and visionaries strive towards every generation; you can look around you to get a rough estimate of their success rates.)
Perhaps you want to be treated as an equal—seen as a terminal value rather than as an instrumental tool or resource?
This may be a little on the pedantic side, but people are not values. They may factor into values, terminal or otherwise, in some way—you might for example want to maximize their happiness or their preference satisfaction—but if you say “Alice is a terminal value to me” or “Bob is an instrumental value”, you haven’t actually said anything well-defined about how to optimize your behavior. You haven’t even said anything about how they relate to other people in your value system: you can weight values differently, and it’s entirely consistent to treat Alice and Bob’s happiness as (separate) terminal values while weighting Alice’s needs over Bob’s in every situation where they come into conflict.
I find your interlocutors’ comments to be very insensitive, and think that they’re being hyperbolic.
I think that their descriptive characterizations of the world are true to some degree, but that this is highly contingent on culture. Our culture places very high emphasis on women’s physical appearance to the exclusion of most other things. I don’t think that this is biologically engrained. I think that men have small genetically rooted tendencies to view women in a more sexualized way than they view men, and that these tendencies have been greatly exacerbated by self-reinforcing runaway cultural feedback loops. I think that your interlocutors have (whether knowingly or unknowingly) reinforced these with their comments.
Their comments contain a valid overarching point which isn’t specific to gender relations at all: people greatly exaggerate their own and others’ prosocial motivations, deluding themselves into believing that they play a greater role than they do. The things that superficially appear to be altruistic often turn out not to be upon further investigation. People have some concern for others, but when they have conflicting motivations, they’ll generally succumb to them. I do believe that it’s possible to overcome these tendencies to a substantial degree, but most people aren’t sufficiently self-aware to recognize that there’s an issue that needs to be corrected, or interested enough to put effort into it.
Do you mean that this is true of how people interact with other people in general, or specifically how men interact with women?
They should because it’s self-evident that I am a human being? To me, at least. I spend a lot of time in a male-dominant community (atheists/skeptics/rationalists cluster), and even more time in a female-dominated domain (nursing), and my conversations among females are no more dominated by emotion than those among males. We have conversations to share useful information and ask for practical advice, to tell morbid anecdotes that we all find hilarious, to share personal goals, to point out new discoveries in medicine that we think are fascinating and exciting, etc etc etc. It’s so freaking obvious to me that this whole gender thing just Does. Not. Matter.
Most people in my immediate social circle already do this right, including the local Less Wrong group. It’s all the more jarring when I’m reminded that right, this whole feminism thing isn’t a moot point yet after all.
If that is someone’s goal in talking to women in general, they are doing it wrong, no matter the content and tone of their discussion.
I get that some women’s revealed preferences seem to indicate that they expect and want to be treated this way. This is deeply confusing to me. Anyone who wants ownership of me as a prize for their interesting conversation is going to be disappointed, because that prize is not on the table.
In my case at least, I think it’s more precise to say that gender is screened off by context: a randomly chosen conversation between me and a male is more likely to be about physics and less likely to be about emotions than a randomly chosen conversation between me and a female, but once you specify whether or not they’re a colleague of mine, whether or not we are on a walk together, etc., knowing their gender doesn’t provide much more evidence either way; it’s just that I have more male colleagues than female ones, take more walks with females than with males, etc.
I explicitly mean both at once.
But it is not self-evident that they are required to treat you as one, or even that they will gain a net benefit from doing so. Perhaps I should have avoided the rhetorical device “like a human being” and used the more precise “like a person”, instead. Let me reframe in that way:
It is obvious that you are a human being—that is, a member of the species Homo sapiens.
It is less obvious that you are a person—that is, a being that they must treat with the same level of rights and respect with which they expected to be treated.
This statement:
indicates that you are a tool / resource for achieving specific instrumental goals, and that those instrumental goals are different when they involve you than when they involve men. Your own preferences of which instrumental goals you would like to be utilized for is irrelevant; your average heterosexual male cares exactly as much for your preferences as your average Congressman or your average corporate marketing team: your preferences are useful for determining how to manipulate you towards instrumental ends, but other than that they don’t really enter into the equation.
Perhaps you want to be treated as an equal—seen as a terminal value rather than as an instrumental tool or resource? That’s an admirable goal, and one you will find that most people share. And thus, a good deal of social manipulation involves providing the appearance that we care about each other as terminal values, while behaving very clearly as if we really only see each other instrumentally. It is ironic that in this specific case, a significant portion of the motivation for unlocking your puzzle-box is so that the male can believe that you see him as a terminal value. Our cultural narrative strongly reinforces to men that the only way they will ever get someone to see them as a terminal value is by finding a woman and unlocking her puzzle-box—for many men (especially the so-called “Nice Guys”), this is actually a more powerful motivation even than sex.
That is irrelevant. The fact that you are in front of them, and they can imagine you fulfilling the role, means (from their perspective) that that prize is on the table. The fact that you do not wish to reward it will not disuade them; at most it just means (again, from their perspective) that they need to give the puzzle-box one or two more twists before it opens.
(EDIT: Re-reading this post, the picture I was painting of human nature is perhaps unnecessarily bleak. I think it is more accurate to say that people do not naturally treat each other as terminal values unless they are given explicit reason to, and that family, friendship etc. are all the normal reasons that they are given explicit reason to. Humans CAN be taught to treat all other humans as terminal values by default, but this is not particularly common. Unfortunately, it is far more common for people to learn to PRETEND to treat all other humans as terminal values—and to pretend to themselves just as much as they pretend to each other. Breaking through that to teach people how to truly love each other is something that mystics and visionaries strive towards every generation; you can look around you to get a rough estimate of their success rates.)
This may be a little on the pedantic side, but people are not values. They may factor into values, terminal or otherwise, in some way—you might for example want to maximize their happiness or their preference satisfaction—but if you say “Alice is a terminal value to me” or “Bob is an instrumental value”, you haven’t actually said anything well-defined about how to optimize your behavior. You haven’t even said anything about how they relate to other people in your value system: you can weight values differently, and it’s entirely consistent to treat Alice and Bob’s happiness as (separate) terminal values while weighting Alice’s needs over Bob’s in every situation where they come into conflict.
I find your interlocutors’ comments to be very insensitive, and think that they’re being hyperbolic.
I think that their descriptive characterizations of the world are true to some degree, but that this is highly contingent on culture. Our culture places very high emphasis on women’s physical appearance to the exclusion of most other things. I don’t think that this is biologically engrained. I think that men have small genetically rooted tendencies to view women in a more sexualized way than they view men, and that these tendencies have been greatly exacerbated by self-reinforcing runaway cultural feedback loops. I think that your interlocutors have (whether knowingly or unknowingly) reinforced these with their comments.
Their comments contain a valid overarching point which isn’t specific to gender relations at all: people greatly exaggerate their own and others’ prosocial motivations, deluding themselves into believing that they play a greater role than they do. The things that superficially appear to be altruistic often turn out not to be upon further investigation. People have some concern for others, but when they have conflicting motivations, they’ll generally succumb to them. I do believe that it’s possible to overcome these tendencies to a substantial degree, but most people aren’t sufficiently self-aware to recognize that there’s an issue that needs to be corrected, or interested enough to put effort into it.