Masculinity

[Wise Fool]

3 hours ago, The Killer Snark said:

Stego - As soon as anyone from the Left starts a discussion on masculinity, you can literally count the heartbeats before someone sticks the word 'toxic in front of the term. I wonder if someone started a discussion on Radical Feminist misandry bandying the terminology of 'toxic femininity', which given how few women actually declare themselves to be feminists, would be as wildly generalising and inaccurate, how long it would be allowed to last.

Perhaps if you and Stego feel oppressed and unsafe about your ideas about masculinity you could start a new thread and make it a safespace. That way evil leftists and feminists wouldn't keep oppressing your opinion and you could hold each other for comfort while you had a good cry about what victims you both are. Just a suggestion, buttercup.

[karaddin]

Red Tiger - Here is the piece that I read, I have not yet read the book that it's drawing most heavily on (although this reminds me I should) and I haven't done independent verification of the claims, the biology stuff in particular is outside my wheelhouse for now, but I accepted it as it fits my understanding of sex.  The book in question is Sex Itself: The Search for Male and Female in the Human Genome by Sarah S. Richardson.

10 hours ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Regarding definite markers of sex. I'm curious how transgender studies treat the subject in general? What is the narrative for something like mtDNA: The Eve Gene?  http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/journey/eve.html

I'm guessing that people would say it is incorrect to say the ability to pass down mtDNA is a definition for being female? Maybe it's more accurate to say only females can pass down mtDNA but not all females can pass down mtDNA? I'm interested in your viewpoint on that area as I truly am ignorant on the subject and your post(s) made me think you've likely read something related before?

 

I wouldn't say there is a universal way that it's treated.  My personal opinion is that there is so much variation that there can't really be a single definitive thing that determines 'physical sex'.  Given the number of exceptions to any attempted rule, I think the only useful way to judge sex is based on what the person themself knows their sex to be, which is determined by the brain so I guess if I had to say something it is that the brain is the definite marker. But I'm not remotely confident that there will be anything that can be measured externally which demonstrates sex, it relies on subjective testimony.

I've not really looked into the mtDNA and don't have the cognitive ability right now to read through that link properly, but my understanding of it is that it's a function of certain reproductive anatomy rather than a definitive sex, once again see all the intersex people who lack a uterus and/or ovaries but do have the external genitalia by default and would be accepted by general society as women (as opposed to trans women like me, who also lack those parts but have a much harder time with acceptance and don't have the external genitalia already) for example.  So I'd say "only people with a uterus and ovaries are able to pass on mtDNA" rather than only females can do so.

On the straw radfems and 'toxic femininity', I'm one of the first to criticise a certain flavour of feminist but I don't think it's fair to cite them as an example of toxic femininity, they typically abhor femininity and were the movement that threw it under the bus - just look at how many of them like to present themselves, they aren't exactly rocking pink lace or anything.

I don't think toxic femininity even really makes sense as a concept because of the different cultural context that femininity occupies.  Think of negative behaviour that you would associate with femininity and it's already viewed by society as a bad thing, the thing that springs to mind for me is "bitchy" competitiveness.  That's not something that is lauded and women are explicitly encouraged to engage in in the same fashion that certain antisocial masculine traits are.  Femininity itself is not seen as a positive, even as women are expected to conform to it, and that's why being feminine is such an insult to a man, but being masculine within reason can be seen as quite a positive for a woman (just don't go forgetting that you aren't a man).

But I'm sure I'm just spewing misandry here so it's irrelevant.

[Lily Valley]

4 hours ago, Weeping Sore said:

Maybe a bandolier? Or a full-length coat that ripples and flaps as you walk?

I'll need both.  Mardi Gras  2017 costume planning is finished.  Thank you very very much.

 I will wear it and hug everyone.  (Squish squish squish squish squish...).

[all swedes are racist]

On February 1, 2016 at 2:21 PM, White Walker Texas Ranger said:

Blame the new board software (is it just me, or does it seem like the software gets worse every iteration) and tapatalk.

Anyway, Peterbound may have assumed that 100% of men have penises, but he didn't state it explicitly. You asked:

"is there any alleged trait that is more diverse between each alleged 'sex' (whatever the fuck that is) than among each alleged 'sex' (however many there might be)?"

He responded: "penis and lack of penis? "

He gave a trivially correct answer to your query. It doesn't matter if 100% of men have penises or 99% do (actually closer to 99.9%).

Let's be generous and assume that only 95% of men have penises and 95% of women don't. It you have a hundred men and a hundred women. Then the men will have on average 95 penises and the women 5. There's a standard deviation of 2.18 penises in each group, while different between them is 90.

 

So, could I substitute beard for penis in this argument and we'd all feel the same, re: 'diverse' masculine trait?

[Crixus]

4 hours ago, karaddin said:

Femininity itself is not seen as a positive, even as women are expected to conform to it, and that's why being feminine is such an insult to a man, but being masculine within reason can be seen as quite a positive for a woman (just don't go forgetting that you aren't a man).

But I'm sure I'm just spewing misandry here so it's irrelevant.

This. In a work environment especially, I notice how women are encouraged to emulate 'masculine' qualities (don't be 'sensitive', it's unprofessional etc.) but if they're seen as being too 'masculine' e.g. assertive (usually labelled 'aggressive') they get stuck with nasty nicknames like 'dragon lady'. Basically, you need to be the perfect blend of qualities so as to gain the respect of the men you work with, while not threatening them...

Then there's women who deride 'female' qualities and indulge in the 'don't cry like a little girl' and 'I get on with men, not women' shit with pride. So the same stereotyping at work, directed inward and out.

Anecdotal, this, based on my experience, but it seemed relevant.

[Weeping Sore]

In biological terms, it's more plausible to think of men as a subcategory of women than vice-versa. We all gestate and are born from women and its reasonable to assume that the function of the male (contributing to genetic diversity through mating competition) is secondary to the ability to produce offspring, without which the species ends in short order. So if we are all descended from an Ur-female, it would seem that at some point the female desired to express itself as the male embodiment that sprang forth from it. In other words, the will to violence and domination was externalized into a more expendable sub-category of hirsute wanderers with hypertrophied clitorises and upper appendicular skeletal muscles.

The female then had to contend with the monster it created, and some found refuge in the false consciousness of passive (and thereby blameless) femininity, just as the wandering mutants started to take pride in the greater capacity for violence that separated them.

 

[sologdin]

17 hours ago, Red Tiger said:

Yeah, but I see this type of jackassness happen a lot. One person makes cracks about their own group, somebody outside of the group says the exact same thing and is called a bigot and treated like a monster. The result is that the minority group gets a rep for being thin-skinned and the bigots get more ammo.

internal critique is different than external critique, surely?  that's in fact completely elementary, yes?

[Egalitarianism Always]

Weeping sore, there is absolutely no way that human males are more violent that human females, fear guarantees that.

Chimpanzees are maligned as violent but many chimpanzee males and females exist together in a large group, female chimpanzees take part in attacks on those they want socially excluded, and just like some males some female chimpanzees do murder another female's baby, but this happens within a social group, and abhorrent social behaviour is made more possible by sociability, there will always be throwbacks which is what violence which is not self-defence is.

The killing of infant wild chimpanzees by female adults of their own kind may be more common than was thought.

[Weeping Sore]

Women just as violent because chimps? Should I likewise say men rapists because orangutans?

ETA: If you were taking my narrative literally you are misreading it. It's meant to have some sci-fi or fantasy connotations, like men as Skeksis and women as Mystics, a fall from grace through the creation of a false duality.

[Red Tiger]

45 minutes ago, sologdin said:

internal critique is different than external critique, surely?  that's in fact completely elementary, yes?

There is internal critique and then there's blatant hypocrisy and entitlement issues.

[karaddin]

There's external critique and then there's spewing ignorant thoughts without the contextual underpinning necessary to know wtf you are talking about.

[Red Tiger]

On 4-2-2016 at 2:43 AM, karaddin said:

Red Tiger - Here is the piece that I read, I have not yet read the book that it's drawing most heavily on (although this reminds me I should) and I haven't done independent verification of the claims, the biology stuff in particular is outside my wheelhouse for now, but I accepted it as it fits my understanding of sex.  The book in question is Sex Itself: The Search for Male and Female in the Human Genome by Sarah S. Richardson.

Thanks, looks interesting

[Egalitarianism Always]

On 04/02/2016 at 3:29 PM, Weeping Sore said:

Women just as violent because chimps? Should I likewise say men rapists because orangutans?

ETA: If you were taking my narrative literally you are misreading it. It's meant to have some sci-fi or fantasy connotations, like men as Skeksis and women as Mystics, a fall from grace through the creation of a false duality.

 

It's called cutting through human cultural camouflage and cultural obfuscations by using behaviours found within one of our nearest cousins to illustrate an idea, those behaviours have endless mirrors in human societies: just walk down a city's busy pubs and bar streets on a Friday night for examples of women as well as men fighting.  There's endless examples of human female violence.

Chimpanzees are individuals with a complex set of thoughts with varying levels of intelligence, some are very moral more than many humans.

Comparing humans to Skeksis and Mystics while ignoring that there are male and female Mystics haha, and the Skeksis do they have 'genders'?

Your post was neo-Victorian society, shaped by centuries religious indoctrination and false narrative.

[Egalitarianism Always]

Esther your article is very interesting, glad I could inspire you again    I feel sorry for Sidony

[Ormond]

Traveller Between Worlds -- you cannot conclude from the article you linked to that female chimpanzees are equally violent to male chimpanzees, much less that women are as violent as men. Just because a particular form of aggression by female chimps may be more common than was once thought in no way means that the total amount of aggression exhibited by the females is equal to the total amount exhibited by the males. That is not a conclusion found in the article. And the fact that some women engage in bar fights does not mean that women are equally physically aggressive to men.

As I understand it, all the research shows that women are less physically aggressive than men in every culture in the world. Of course this is an average statistic -- as I pointed out before, there is always an overlap in the distributions and there are always going to be some women who are more physically aggressive than the average man. And the data only works for physical aggression -- women are just as likely to be verbally aggressive as men. But it still averages out that more physical aggression is committed by males than females, in both chimpanzees and humans. 

[NestorMakhnosLovechild]

On 2/4/2016 at 7:12 PM, Wise Fool said:

Perhaps if you and Stego feel oppressed and unsafe about your ideas about masculinity you could start a new thread and make it a safespace. That way evil leftists and feminists wouldn't keep oppressing your opinion and you could hold each other for comfort while you had a good cry about what victims you both are. Just a suggestion, buttercup.

I mean... do you actually not see how stuff like this is problematic? This is oppositional sexism 101. The entire basis of your attack on Stego and The Killer Snark is to feminize them and attack their masculinity by suggesting that they should go "have a good cry" and "hold each other for comfort" and by calling TKS "buttercup." 

[Weeping Sore]

@Traveller between Worlds-

I contend that masculinity is a form of false consciousness, but you'll notice I used the term capacity for violence rather than inclination when talking about the species, though the latter could probably be argued, too. The median male has an increased capacity for violence over the median female due to a size and strength differential alone.

The size differential is even more pronounced among certain of our great ape relatives, gorillas and orangutan males are often twice the mass of females, while the more closely related chimps and bonobos still show significant dimorphism.

What evolutionary advantages do increased size and strength confer if they have nothing whatever to do with violence and domination?

[peterbound]

10 hours ago, NestorMakhnosLovechild said:

I mean... do you actually not see how stuff like this is problematic? This is oppositional sexism 101. The entire basis of your attack on Stego and The Killer Snark is to feminize them and attack their masculinity by suggesting that they should go "have a good cry" and "hold each other for comfort" and by calling TKS "buttercup." 

That guy... he's just not good at the debate thing.  

[Weeping Sore]

11 hours ago, NestorMakhnosLovechild said:

I mean... do you actually not see how stuff like this is problematic? This is oppositional sexism 101. The entire basis of your attack on Stego and The Killer Snark is to feminize them and attack their masculinity by suggesting that they should go "have a good cry" and "hold each other for comfort" and by calling TKS "buttercup." 

Pretty sure the irony was purposefully baked in.

[Wise Fool]

21 hours ago, NestorMakhnosLovechild said:

I mean... do you actually not see how stuff like this is problematic? This is oppositional sexism 101. The entire basis of your attack on Stego and The Killer Snark is to feminize them and attack their masculinity by suggesting that they should go "have a good cry" and "hold each other for comfort" and by calling TKS "buttercup." 

Ah, but I never claimed that having a good cry, holding each other for comfort, or being called buttercup are actually unmasculine behaviors or traits. Did I? Let alone feminine. Because you see, I don't believe they are.

You do.

Oh sure, it was indeed an attack, but it wasn't on your or Stego or TKS's actual masculinity. It was on your ideas about masculinity, and it worked wonderfully, I might add.

Males, whose beliefs can be generally categorized as "MRA" (although there may be many good diamonds in this rough) or more specifically anti-feminist, believe masculinity is to never cry, to never hold one another, to not be named buttercup. This assumption tends to underlie their opinions and it can be brought out, unfortunately, with little effort.

I mean hasn't TKS bragged on this forum about how many women he's picked up? Do you honestly expect people to believe you and he are on the side against sexism?

Sure, I've suggested you boys are weak and whiny, but those are universally negative traits. It was you who decided to assign them to "feminine," and in fact for you to think of feminine as the opposite of masculine. Personally I would describe 'masculine' traits as simply growing up. The fully actualized, mature male, not the sexist immature male who can't seem to stop thinking women, and specifically feminism, are out to get him.

So no, your appeal to emotion that I am somehow "feminizing" TKS or Stego or you for that matter is not a valid argument. And by equating "weak" or "having a good cry" with "feminizing" or non-masculine, you've revealed that you believe in gender stereotypes.