Good question Z.M Davis. I don’t know Eliezer’s answer, but mine is that men who think women are easy to understand are typically unusually non-empathetic men who don’t know that anyone cares about really understanding anyone else. By “understand” they mean “know a few tricks for manipulating that pretty reliably work as expected”. It’s the equivalent of knowing how to aim a cannon and thinking that one is done with physics. A smaller number simply have belief in belief that the sexes are identical and believe that they would be bad people if they seriously considered the alternative. Since people don’t draw inferences from beliefs that they just believe they hold, this misstatement doesn’t harm them and so just like God it isn’t really a delusion in the clinical sense. Least common are unusually feminine men and unusually masculine women who socially restrict their interactions to the limit of their ability to members of some sub-culture (business, academia, sf fandom) where behavior strongly characteristic of one gender over the other are disapproved of and somewhat repressed. These people can then honestly say that among their type of people the two genders act pretty similar and simply dismiss outsiders as a defective Other who don’t merit consideration. In this case the complexity remains but isn’t identified with gender. Sadly, because male is considered the default gender (and possibly because there are more highly masculine women than highly feminine men?), women in these cultures are required to shift their behavior far more than men are required to even when both are present in equal numbers. This prevents potentially valuable regions of social design space from being explored.
rfriel: Maybe “romance with women is confusing?” My impression is that homosexual male romance is much less confusing than heterosexual romance and that homosexual female romance may the most confusing of the three.
and possibly because there are more highly masculine women than highly feminine men?
This might be true as stated, but it’s certainly also true that in a society that is still male-dominated, it’s more acceptable to be a masculine woman (“strong!”) than a feminine man (“wussy”). Consider that it’s no longer even noteworthy for a woman to wear a suit, but even in the most accepting and progressive of western subcultures it’s unusual for men to wear dresses other than as costumes. (That’s “male-gendered,” not “male-bodied”; transwomen are not men-in-dresses.)
For that reason, I’m wary of the assertion that more women are naturally inclined to act in manly ways than vice versa; the environment in which we’re observing is inherently biased.
For that reason, I’m wary of the assertion that more women are naturally inclined to act in manly ways than vice versa; the environment in which we’re observing is inherently biased.
I wonder if this has to do with the fact that the extent of oppression of women has necessitated reconsideration of women’s gender roles, whereas men haven’t really had a similar movement.
That’s a really interesting question. It makes me think about what the differences are between a movement to rebel against another group, and a movement to change a group that you’re part of. And under what circumstances is it possible to create a movement for more freedom when you already belong to the power group?
I think we may be in the midst of such circumstances right now, actually. I’d be interested to know how much the LGBT rights movement is influencing gender roles, particularly male gender roles. The movement encourages people in general to question gender roles. Acceptance of transpeople, for instance, requires that people rethink the idea that gender and sex are equivalent.
Also, I think it’s interesting that gay men (or some of them, in any case), who belong to an oppressed subset of the power group, have been able to push gender boundaries to a great extent. This may have to do with the fact that traditional male gender roles dictate attraction to women, so gay men are already questioning their roles. I wonder, though, if the fact that they’re a subset of the power group will allow the movement to benefit all men.
Good question Z.M Davis. I don’t know Eliezer’s answer, but mine is that men who think women are easy to understand are typically unusually non-empathetic men who don’t know that anyone cares about really understanding anyone else. By “understand” they mean “know a few tricks for manipulating that pretty reliably work as expected”. It’s the equivalent of knowing how to aim a cannon and thinking that one is done with physics. A smaller number simply have belief in belief that the sexes are identical and believe that they would be bad people if they seriously considered the alternative. Since people don’t draw inferences from beliefs that they just believe they hold, this misstatement doesn’t harm them and so just like God it isn’t really a delusion in the clinical sense. Least common are unusually feminine men and unusually masculine women who socially restrict their interactions to the limit of their ability to members of some sub-culture (business, academia, sf fandom) where behavior strongly characteristic of one gender over the other are disapproved of and somewhat repressed. These people can then honestly say that among their type of people the two genders act pretty similar and simply dismiss outsiders as a defective Other who don’t merit consideration. In this case the complexity remains but isn’t identified with gender. Sadly, because male is considered the default gender (and possibly because there are more highly masculine women than highly feminine men?), women in these cultures are required to shift their behavior far more than men are required to even when both are present in equal numbers. This prevents potentially valuable regions of social design space from being explored.
rfriel: Maybe “romance with women is confusing?” My impression is that homosexual male romance is much less confusing than heterosexual romance and that homosexual female romance may the most confusing of the three.
This might be true as stated, but it’s certainly also true that in a society that is still male-dominated, it’s more acceptable to be a masculine woman (“strong!”) than a feminine man (“wussy”). Consider that it’s no longer even noteworthy for a woman to wear a suit, but even in the most accepting and progressive of western subcultures it’s unusual for men to wear dresses other than as costumes. (That’s “male-gendered,” not “male-bodied”; transwomen are not men-in-dresses.)
For that reason, I’m wary of the assertion that more women are naturally inclined to act in manly ways than vice versa; the environment in which we’re observing is inherently biased.
I wonder if this has to do with the fact that the extent of oppression of women has necessitated reconsideration of women’s gender roles, whereas men haven’t really had a similar movement.
That’s a really interesting question. It makes me think about what the differences are between a movement to rebel against another group, and a movement to change a group that you’re part of. And under what circumstances is it possible to create a movement for more freedom when you already belong to the power group?
I think we may be in the midst of such circumstances right now, actually. I’d be interested to know how much the LGBT rights movement is influencing gender roles, particularly male gender roles. The movement encourages people in general to question gender roles. Acceptance of transpeople, for instance, requires that people rethink the idea that gender and sex are equivalent.
Also, I think it’s interesting that gay men (or some of them, in any case), who belong to an oppressed subset of the power group, have been able to push gender boundaries to a great extent. This may have to do with the fact that traditional male gender roles dictate attraction to women, so gay men are already questioning their roles. I wonder, though, if the fact that they’re a subset of the power group will allow the movement to benefit all men.