Depends on what you consider culture, @The_Riv. I am struck again and again by all the things my partner's mother did not teach him about food and cooking that I learned from my mother -- who didn't even especially like cooking but put dinner on the table virtually every night for the 55 years of her marriage. Though as I write this I'm coming around to what you're saying, when I think of all the male celebrity chefs.
Another thing going along with what you're saying, and of course I have no idea where I read this, but I think it's been theorized that the evolutionary point of menopause is for women who last that long to share in care of other women's young children -- lots of culture and socialization being passed along that way.
Another thing going along with what you're saying, and of course I have no idea where I read this, but I think it's been theorized that the evolutionary point of menopause is for women who last that long to share in care of other women's young children -- lots of culture and socialization being passed along that way.
This is what used to be known as the 'grandmother hypothesis', but actually there's increasing evidence in recent decades that during hunter gather stage of human existence those who survived the first few years of infancy were likely to to their late 60s/early 70s, and that elderly community members of both sexes were likely to play a role in bringing up the younger generation (the so called 'active grandparent hypothesis' or the related 'embodied capital hypothesis').
YES!!! The menopausal aspect was a significant point in the post I mentioned! Sorry to have omitted that. It theorized that having such a significant number of years left beyond bearing age (generally 1/3 of a lifespan) facilitated important teachings.
If your point is that men are taller and bulkier and that this an advantage, please bear in mind that there are activities (gymnastics?) in which it is not an advantage. Not everyone plays basketball.
If your point is that men are taller and bulkier and that this an advantage, please bear in mind that there are activities (gymnastics?) in which it is not an advantage. Not everyone plays basketball.
And not every tall man is good at basketball. My son and I both know whereof I speak.
people identified as men are encouraged to be more aggressive throughout their lives,
Would you care to share some statistics on that?
What percentage of men? Or men in general?
Which was kind of my point.
What form would you expect those statistics to take when a lot of what is being described operates at the level of cultures and institutional structures?
Consider the experience described by @KarlLBabove - what role does that sort of framing play in setting the 'norming norm' for what male behaviour is supposed to be? How would you expect that to be represented as a statistic?
It's close to an "All Scotsmen ...." statement.
As a man who was not raised to be aggressive and who didn't raise his sons to be aggressive I find such all encompassing statements to be pretty nasty.
If your point is that men are taller and bulkier and that this an advantage, please bear in mind that there are activities (gymnastics?) in which it is not an advantage. Not everyone plays basketball.
And not every tall man is good at basketball. My son and I both know whereof I speak.
I'm six foot three. You would struggle to find a less sporty person than me.
If your point is that men are taller and bulkier and that this an advantage, please bear in mind that there are activities (gymnastics?) in which it is not an advantage. Not everyone plays basketball.
And not every tall man is good at basketball. My son and I both know whereof I speak.
I'm six foot three. You would struggle to find a less sporty person than me.
Can I suggest that you may be conflating two different propositions?
1. More violent actions are perpetrated by men than women - that's statistically demonstrable.
2. All men are more violent than women.
2 may explain 1, but it is not the same thing. It is also not the only possible explanation. Another is that:
3. the proportion of men who are violent is higher than the proportion of women who are.
The important distinction is that your statement that anyone who is born with an expressed Y chromosome is inherently more likely to commit physical and sexual violence than anyone else is only true if we accept proposition 2, and not proposition 3.
I know what you're saying here, Karl, but I don't think you're quite right.
Suppose I have an ordinary well-balanced 6-sided die. You'd agree that the probability of rolling a 6 was 1/6, right?
Now take 6 6-sided dice. The first die has a 1 on each face, the second die has a 2, and so on. Put all six in a bag, and choose one at random. What's the probability of rolling a 6 with that die? It's 1/6.
For a single random encounter with a die (or a man), it doesn't matter whether your prop 2 or prop 3 is correct: the probabilities are the same, because (in the prop 3 case), you don't know whether you're encountering a "violent" man or a "non-violent" man.
It makes a difference for multiple repeated encounters with the same die. In my extreme case, if you roll a 6 (1/6 probability), and then keep hold of the die, you're guaranteed to keep rolling 6, because that's all that die does.
Can I suggest that you may be conflating two different propositions?
1. More violent actions are perpetrated by men than women - that's statistically demonstrable.
2. All men are more violent than women.
2 may explain 1, but it is not the same thing. It is also not the only possible explanation. Another is that:
3. the proportion of men who are violent is higher than the proportion of women who are.
The important distinction is that your statement that anyone who is born with an expressed Y chromosome is inherently more likely to commit physical and sexual violence than anyone else is only true if we accept proposition 2, and not proposition 3.
I know what you're saying here, Karl, but I don't think you're quite right.
Suppose I have an ordinary well-balanced 6-sided die. You'd agree that the probability of rolling a 6 was 1/6, right?
Now take 6 6-sided dice. The first die has a 1 on each face, the second die has a 2, and so on. Put all six in a bag, and choose one at random. What's the probability of rolling a 6 with that die? It's 1/6.
For a single random encounter with a die (or a man), it doesn't matter whether your prop 2 or prop 3 is correct: the probabilities are the same, because (in the prop 3 case), you don't know whether you're encountering a "violent" man or a "non-violent" man.
It makes a difference for multiple repeated encounters with the same die. In my extreme case, if you roll a 6 (1/6 probability), and then keep hold of the die, you're guaranteed to keep rolling 6, because that's all that die does.
I am aware that the probability of a randomly selected man being aggressive is the same under either formulation.
But it makes a difference in terms of what we as a society do about it.
My point was that prop. 2 implies that every man is more violent than the human average, while prop. 3 says no, but more men are more violent than the human average than are less so.
people identified as men are encouraged to be more aggressive throughout their lives,
Would you care to share some statistics on that?
What percentage of men? Or men in general?
Which was kind of my point.
What form would you expect those statistics to take when a lot of what is being described operates at the level of cultures and institutional structures?
Consider the experience described by @KarlLBabove - what role does that sort of framing play in setting the 'norming norm' for what male behaviour is supposed to be? How would you expect that to be represented as a statistic?
It's close to an "All Scotsmen ...." statement.
As a man who was not raised to be aggressive and who didn't raise his sons to be aggressive I find such all encompassing statements to be pretty nasty.
On the contrary it's recognising the impact that society and culture has on us regardless of our immediate upbringing, and again I'd ask you, how do you want that to be represented in statistics ?
My point was that prop. 2 implies that every man is more violent than the human average, while prop. 3 says no, but more men are more violent than the human average than are less so.
Men are taller than women. What this actually means is that the distribution of heights is distributed roughly normally in both men and women, but men are on average about 6" taller, and about 2/3 of men are taller than about 2/3 of women.
It's certainly plausible that propensity to aggression / violence could have a similar-looking distribution.
My point was that prop. 2 implies that every man is more violent than the human average, while prop. 3 says no, but more men are more violent than the human average than are less so.
Men are taller than women. What this actually means is that the distribution of heights is distributed roughly normally in both men and women, but men are on average about 6" taller, and about 2/3 of men are taller than about 2/3 of women.
It's certainly plausible that propensity to aggression / violence could have a similar-looking distribution.
Plausible, but that would not support the proposition in the OP that anyone who is born with an expressed Y chromosome is inherently more likely to commit physical and sexual violence than anyone else, as clearly some women are taller than some men, so equally under overlapping normal distributions some men would not be more likely to commit physical and sexual violence. Some would be less so inclined than most women, in the same way that some men are shorter than most women.
It took the discussion of height to remind me, because it was clear back in the 80s when I had a friend who was almost six feet tall whose five foot four inch boyfriend beat her up from time to time.
@chrisstiles, about the grandmother hypothesis: It would be hard for people to help bring up the younger generation if they were still bearing children themselves, so menopause still seems to have served an evolutionary purpose. But it makes sense that the grandparent role wouldn't have had to be gendered. I imagine there could have been variation over time and place as well.
The problem in the OP is that it says anyone -- statistics are not predictive for an individual. Certainly we all know men who aren't the least bit violent and women who are violent. @stonespring would have to say whether or not that's still how he'd phrase it after this discussion; if it were me I'd re-phrase to say only that men in general are more violent than women, but that there are a whole lot of exceptions and caveats. If violence has been committed, the perpetrator is more likely to be male than female but isn't necessarily male, and most of us don't fear every man we meet will be violent.
And the part that follows in the OP is I think even more off the mark: any other seemingly noble action or intention that comes from such a person is likely to come from a sublimated desire to dominate and harm. This just doesn't ring true to me at all. Some men? Sure. All men? No, not plausible.
And finally: I think there's something to be said for not writing off biological differences between men and women as if they didn't matter at all, but the biological essentialism of the OP is not helpful. Biology is not destiny. We need to consider things like how we can make school a better experience for all children who find it difficult to sit still, for instance, but probably also be aware of how our gendered views of boys and girls make us likely to view active boys differently from active girls.
Plausible, but that would not support the proposition in the OP that anyone who is born with an expressed Y chromosome is inherently more likely to commit physical and sexual violence than anyone else
That's just flat out an unreasonable proposition. We have an existence proof of a number of women who are violent criminals and rapists, and a large number of men who are not. So the proposition that all men are inherently more violent than any woman is ridiculous, and not worth considering.
The height-like analogy could be reasonable: a typical man could be inherently more violent than a typical woman, but there was significant overlap in the distributions - that would generate the observed discrepancy in behavior. It's also possible that most men and most women were similar in propensity to violence, but that the distribution for men had a much larger, longer tail in the violent direction. Personally I think that less likely, but I don't think it's incompatible with the data.
Plausible, but that would not support the proposition in the OP that anyone who is born with an expressed Y chromosome is inherently more likely to commit physical and sexual violence than anyone else
That's just flat out an unreasonable proposition. We have an existence proof of a number of women who are violent criminals and rapists, and a large number of men who are not. So the proposition that all men are inherently more violent than any woman is ridiculous, and not worth considering.
The height-like analogy could be reasonable: a typical man could be inherently more violent than a typical woman, but there was significant overlap in the distributions - that would generate the observed discrepancy in behavior. It's also possible that most men and most women were similar in propensity to violence, but that the distribution for men had a much larger, longer tail in the violent direction. Personally I think that less likely, but I don't think it's incompatible with the data.
I know it's an unreasonable proposition but it is the one we are discussing from the OP.
I know it's an unreasonable proposition but it is the one we are discussing from the OP.
I suppose my case is that if we reinterpret the OP as a "men are taller than women" kind of statement, then it becomes at least worthy of discussion.
Yeah, but I was trying to express to the OP that his proposition about the the incorrigibility and irredeemability of men was two steps removed from the evidence available because the evidence is not sufficient to support the second step.
This reminds me of a story from a U.S. college campus back in the 1980s (if I recall, maybe 1990s) where a bunch of women got hold of a list of the male students, made copies with "Potential Rapists" at the top, and posted them all over campus. It of course started a shitstorm to which the women's group said, "See?" As if being angry about being called a 'potential rapist' proved you were a potential rapist.
This reminds me of a story from a U.S. college campus back in the 1980s (if I recall, maybe 1990s) where a bunch of women got hold of a list of the male students, made copies with "Potential Rapists" at the top, and posted them all over campus. It of course started a shitstorm to which the women's group said, "See?" As if being angry about being called a 'potential rapist' proved you were a potential rapist.
"Only the true Messiah denies his divinity!"
"Well what sort of a chance does that give me? All right then, I am the Messiah!"
"He is! He is the Messiah!"
Comments
Another thing going along with what you're saying, and of course I have no idea where I read this, but I think it's been theorized that the evolutionary point of menopause is for women who last that long to share in care of other women's young children -- lots of culture and socialization being passed along that way.
This is what used to be known as the 'grandmother hypothesis', but actually there's increasing evidence in recent decades that during hunter gather stage of human existence those who survived the first few years of infancy were likely to to their late 60s/early 70s, and that elderly community members of both sexes were likely to play a role in bringing up the younger generation (the so called 'active grandparent hypothesis' or the related 'embodied capital hypothesis').
It's close to an "All Scotsmen ...." statement.
As a man who was not raised to be aggressive and who didn't raise his sons to be aggressive I find such all encompassing statements to be pretty nasty.
I'm six foot three. You would struggle to find a less sporty person than me.
I know what you're saying here, Karl, but I don't think you're quite right.
Suppose I have an ordinary well-balanced 6-sided die. You'd agree that the probability of rolling a 6 was 1/6, right?
Now take 6 6-sided dice. The first die has a 1 on each face, the second die has a 2, and so on. Put all six in a bag, and choose one at random. What's the probability of rolling a 6 with that die? It's 1/6.
For a single random encounter with a die (or a man), it doesn't matter whether your prop 2 or prop 3 is correct: the probabilities are the same, because (in the prop 3 case), you don't know whether you're encountering a "violent" man or a "non-violent" man.
It makes a difference for multiple repeated encounters with the same die. In my extreme case, if you roll a 6 (1/6 probability), and then keep hold of the die, you're guaranteed to keep rolling 6, because that's all that die does.
I am aware that the probability of a randomly selected man being aggressive is the same under either formulation.
But it makes a difference in terms of what we as a society do about it.
My point was that prop. 2 implies that every man is more violent than the human average, while prop. 3 says no, but more men are more violent than the human average than are less so.
On the contrary it's recognising the impact that society and culture has on us regardless of our immediate upbringing, and again I'd ask you, how do you want that to be represented in statistics ?
Men are taller than women. What this actually means is that the distribution of heights is distributed roughly normally in both men and women, but men are on average about 6" taller, and about 2/3 of men are taller than about 2/3 of women.
It's certainly plausible that propensity to aggression / violence could have a similar-looking distribution.
Plausible, but that would not support the proposition in the OP that anyone who is born with an expressed Y chromosome is inherently more likely to commit physical and sexual violence than anyone else, as clearly some women are taller than some men, so equally under overlapping normal distributions some men would not be more likely to commit physical and sexual violence. Some would be less so inclined than most women, in the same way that some men are shorter than most women.
@chrisstiles, about the grandmother hypothesis: It would be hard for people to help bring up the younger generation if they were still bearing children themselves, so menopause still seems to have served an evolutionary purpose. But it makes sense that the grandparent role wouldn't have had to be gendered. I imagine there could have been variation over time and place as well.
The problem in the OP is that it says anyone -- statistics are not predictive for an individual. Certainly we all know men who aren't the least bit violent and women who are violent. @stonespring would have to say whether or not that's still how he'd phrase it after this discussion; if it were me I'd re-phrase to say only that men in general are more violent than women, but that there are a whole lot of exceptions and caveats. If violence has been committed, the perpetrator is more likely to be male than female but isn't necessarily male, and most of us don't fear every man we meet will be violent.
And the part that follows in the OP is I think even more off the mark: any other seemingly noble action or intention that comes from such a person is likely to come from a sublimated desire to dominate and harm. This just doesn't ring true to me at all. Some men? Sure. All men? No, not plausible.
And finally: I think there's something to be said for not writing off biological differences between men and women as if they didn't matter at all, but the biological essentialism of the OP is not helpful. Biology is not destiny. We need to consider things like how we can make school a better experience for all children who find it difficult to sit still, for instance, but probably also be aware of how our gendered views of boys and girls make us likely to view active boys differently from active girls.
That's just flat out an unreasonable proposition. We have an existence proof of a number of women who are violent criminals and rapists, and a large number of men who are not. So the proposition that all men are inherently more violent than any woman is ridiculous, and not worth considering.
The height-like analogy could be reasonable: a typical man could be inherently more violent than a typical woman, but there was significant overlap in the distributions - that would generate the observed discrepancy in behavior. It's also possible that most men and most women were similar in propensity to violence, but that the distribution for men had a much larger, longer tail in the violent direction. Personally I think that less likely, but I don't think it's incompatible with the data.
I know it's an unreasonable proposition but it is the one we are discussing from the OP.
I suppose my case is that if we reinterpret the OP as a "men are taller than women" kind of statement, then it becomes at least worthy of discussion.
Yeah, but I was trying to express to the OP that his proposition about the the incorrigibility and irredeemability of men was two steps removed from the evidence available because the evidence is not sufficient to support the second step.
"Only the true Messiah denies his divinity!"
"Well what sort of a chance does that give me? All right then, I am the Messiah!"
"He is! He is the Messiah!"