Degrees of Misogyny

Not at all. If people hate women, they hate women.

Like the abolition of slavery. If those damned liberals hadn't freed the slaves, there wouldn't be all these problems with race in America. If women had never been allowed to vote or own property, there wouldn't be all these damn feminists disagreeing with their husbands.

In the 1960's women were not allowed to do most things a man did. They were treated a bit more like dogs than humans; pampered and preened, then punished when they did something they were not trained to do.

Great if you are a dog. Not so great if you are a human.

Would you want to be treated like a dog, even if your owner was a good one?

Yep. And today the children would be put on the life rafts while some men and women would remain behind and try to find a way to survive together.

 

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I think the notion of a biological factor interesting, where catcalling is concerned. However, I think the odds of success are rather slim. Nonetheless, it does make me think of other mating rituals among animals, which are also "show" in many cases. The peacock comes to mind. I don't think it is a far flung idea to assume it an impulse with biological origins.

Is it normal for males to make more forward advances in nature?

 

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No, it's "normal" for males to advertise and for the females to be discerning and make the first approach.

 

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There is a biological component in almost all mating behavior. Watch a male dove trying to court a female dove, then watch guys in a bar try to impress women.

Depends greatly on the species. In some species the male has the exceptional display (ritual, plumage, nest) and in some species it's the female. In some species the female is the aggressor, in some it's the male, and in some it's neither.

 

Sounds like you do not understand how sociobiology works. There are strategies which may be successful in some circumstances, and not in others. For lions, those who have killed any offsprings from other males have been successful, so now lions do this, instinctively. For humans, this strategy was not successful, thus, human males do not have a tendency to kill offsprings of other males. The reasons may be, in part, that males have no good method to find out. Or have not had them at that time when the human instincts have been developed.

The job of sociobiology is to explain our instincts. It is not to propose some "biological imperatives". But, of course, understanding what are our instincts - something we cannot get rid of - and what is, instead, a changeable cultural habit, is important. In particular, if some of our instincts have an obvious antisocial character, the question is what to do with this.

So there is a strong instinct like jealousy. Clearly antisocial - the social behavior would be to be happy once your friend has a loveful relationship and fun with sex. Once this is an instinct, we have no chance to get rid of it, but have to learn to live with it. And find some way to live so that this instinct does not lead to too much murdering out of jealousy. I would guess most of the sexual restrictions have the reason to minimize the harm caused by jealousy. Redirecting jealousy toward some sexual minorities, like gays or pedophiles, can be, for example, a nice way to do this. Instead of murdering each other, only a few outsiders are murdered, which do not have an important function as fathers or so, and not for having sex which one wants to have too (which would endanger everybody), but only for having somehow bad sex (so not dangerous for the majority).

And, of course, there is instinctive competition between men for women. Part of this competition is a strong urge to fight with other men. One way to minimize the harm is sport.

Women have a strong instinct to rigorously prefer their own children. For other children, she can be only a stepmother - in old fairy tales a really horrible fate for a child. How this instinctive preference is handled today? I doubt it is handled in a reasonable way. In particular, there is an increasing tendency to take away children from their parents for reasons of "child protection". The problem with this is that even a bad mother is a mother, and the only person in the world which has the "mother instinct" toward this particular child. The replacement is, at best, a stepmother.

Similarly, there are instinctive patterns about ways to find partners for sex. They are not completely unique - some women are interested in one-time sex with some attractive men, others are not. And these are differences on the instinctive level. And, whatever the culture, those women interested in occasional sex will be able to give this information to the men they want to have sex with. A typical way is that every society has rules of decent behavior, and the women who are not interested in sex with other men show this by restricting themselves to this decent behavior. Another typical way is that - to avoid conflicts based on jealousy with their husbands - open indecent behavior is restricted to a separate class of "sluts" which are not married, and married women have to be very careful with showing such indecent behavior.

To summarize: Sociobiology explains instincts, but does not give any "biological imperatives". A society which thinks it can win against instincts is stupid and this stupidity will cause a lot of harm. A reasonable society accepts humans as they are, with their instincts, and defines rules which try to minimize the conflicts which are unavoidably caused by various antisocial instincts we have. To find such rules, it is important to know what is some antisocial instinct (something where it is hopeless to get rid of) and what is simply a stupid antisocial cultural habit (something one can get rid of).

 

How strange. You describe a condition completely foreign to my witness and comprehension. Where do we find these mothers you describe?

We Americans do seem to have a version, but that can't possibly be what you're talking about, since we consider those women and the would-be fathers terrible parents. You must be describing, at best, the cultural produce of particular societies. Which, in turn, raises the question of who and where the hell you're describing.

Much like the paragraph about sexual behavior, the whole effect is that your post reads like vicious, ill-conceived, poorly-executed satire.

 

And your answer reads like expected from you.

 

The question remains.

 

You think I will give you some introduction into standard sociobiology for free? No interest. If I would see some real interest on your side, I could decide differently, but it is very obvious from the remaining text, that you only want to start cheap polemics. Not interest in cheap polemics.

 

Care to explain why being a stepmother is a bad thing? I'm sure many women who have adopted babies would love to hear all about how they're not real mothers.

 

Mothers have the ability to distinguish their own children from other children, and sociobiologically it is clearly a meaningful strategy to prefer the own children. And it agrees with everyday observations that human mothers have indeed a strong instinctive preference for the own children. At least in German fairy tales "stepmother" is simply an equivalent for a very bad mother, which prefers her own children and mistreats the stepchild. And, no, I do not present here any empirical research of the type "happy people have a tendency to smile more than unhappy". If you prefer, for ideological reasons, not to believe this, so be it.

Of course, a politically correct mother would never do such things. So, for the politically corrects this cannot be anything but wrong, even worse, it has to be "frankly obscene" and "pure rubbish". And, of course, children have to be taken away from any politically incorrect mother. Stepmothers are really loving, even better than their own mothers:

Indeed, and there is a known sociobiological reason for this, post-natal depression. Which is, indeed, a problem, and another example of an instinct which is antisocial, once it often leads to killing of newborns. And to understand why this happens, sociobiology is helpful too.

In fact, I couldn't care less about these funny games of the politically correct against the politically incorrect which you seem to like to play.

And you invent some narrative which I don't have. And if you would read, instead of inventing my "narratives", you would have read the following: "Sociobiology explains instincts, but does not give any "biological imperatives"." I defend sociobiology, which is a useful science. And I reject the idea of biological imperatives.

 

Bells, why do men catcall? In your opinion. I've never seen it in a vulgar sense. Once while working downtown as a youth, an attractive woman passed me and a friend while we were working. My friend shouted out, "I think I'm in love!" To which she smiled. Does that smack of sexual harassment in your opinion?

I think there are different ways of expressing attraction. I'm leaning in the direction that some men are more willing to show their feelings verbally. I can understand how aggressive behavior would be a source of concern, but simply showing an appreciation of a woman's beauty? It's not something I have ever done, but, yeah, I do notice attractive women in public spaces.

 

Who cares what then? I'm not going.

No. It is telling that I see a nice correspondence between sociobiological arguments and reality. So that I see no reason to wait for "happy people tend to smile" type of scientific research, and the reference to fairy tales is simply one simple and widely known part of the evidence. Once you, for obvious ideological reasons, do not like this, it is clear and expected that you will reject this, and I would not wonder if you even find some "scientific evidence" for this.

Of course, I know, everything which is not politically correct is dangerous and obscene. My very existence is dangerous and obscene, and if political correctness controls the whole world, I have to prepare some method to kill myself if I do not want to end in a reeducation camp. SCNR.

Of course, I do not doubt at all that there are also a lot of cases where even a stepmother is better than the natural mother. Instincts give only a general tendency. But if you compare children which have been grown up by their mothers, and children grown up in institutions for child care, the results are not in favor of child care. Why? Those working in child care have an education about how to care about children which is much better than the average mother, so the result should be much better, not?

I do not argue that it is a good idea to abandon all child care and force all children to live with their parents. In traditional societies, the extended family or some pedophiles care about them, above are no longer available (the former no longer exists, the latter is the ultimate crime today), so that this social function has to be taken by someone else. All I argue for is that those who decide about this should know that taking away a child from his own mother does some real harm to him. So that the question is which harm is greater.

In fact, I would argue in favor of leaving the decision to the child. Without any necessity for a "once and forever" decision. So that the child care institution is open to children who have a conflict with their parents, for the time of this conflict. If the child care institution is really better than the parents, the children will remain there forever. But if the child prefers to live with his parents, so be it. (Don't worry, children are egoists, they care about themselves - this is their instinct. But, of course, you know better what is good for them.

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Of course. (As if I would have said "always".) Postnatal depression is relevant only for a very special part of filicide - the killing of newborn children by their mother. Which was what you have referred to, with "Mothers are more likely to kill their own newborns than a stepmother is likely to kill a stepchild".

Fine that you start to recognize this.

Instincts are not imperatives. We are in no way morally obliged to follow them. Instead, some of our instincts are antisocial, and a problem for every civilized society. Is this a clear enough rejection of the idea of "biological imperatives"?

But then comes the part which you, it seems, don't like. Namely that it is nonetheless important to distinguish instincts from purely cultural habits. Because purely cultural habits can be changed without problems, while instincts cannot be changed. So, to handle antisocial instincts, one has to find/invent/create cultural ways to live with them in a civilized way. And to distinguish the human instincts from purely cultural habits is not easy. One possibility to do this is sociobiology - if something can be understood as having a sociobiological explanation, it makes it much more probable that it is an instinct. Another one is cross-cultural comparisons. Things which are part of our instincts will be recognized in almost every society. Things which are purely cultural will tend to be very different in different cultures.

Similar to the problem which the left has traditionally with these points. They like fantasies about the power of education, and a human being with instincts which survive education is dangerous for these fantasies. As well as the idea that some of the problems which exist in all known human societies would exist even in their communist paradise too.

 

Hmm... That might be part of it. I think it's just a natural reaction for men to recognize beautiful women. Most do it silently, for sure.

He didn't growl at her and bare his teeth. It was his way of telling her that she was beautiful. He made no sexually charged remarks in any form or manner.

If a guy walked to my wife and told her she is beautiful, I would agree. If he were to make sexually loaded remarks, yep, I would be upset. I think there is a line between the two. Again, letting someone know they are attractive isn't an insult or an overly aggressive act; however, I agree that sexually charged comments are rather creepy. Even worse are those who follow a woman in a stalking manner.

Well, if I were walking down the street and some guy yelled I think I'm in love, I would probably look around to see who she was. Now, if some guy were to stop me in the street and do the same, I would probably smile at the guy's poor taste in men.

If I were a young single man, and I saw an attractive woman who caught my eye, why wouldn't I say something? Of course I wouldn't assault her with sexual innuendos, but I would be a fool not to at least show some interest if that were truly the case.

But that's how human sexuality works in many ways. It not just sexual appearance, but that can provide the initiative to try finding a deeper interaction. I think it's okay to approach someone. If they don't show any interest, let them be.

But what's wrong in telling someone they have a beautiful smile?

The work environment is an artificial environment. It's a controlled environment that, by law, dictates the limits of male and female interaction. Again, if I were young and single, and I truly had an interest in a woman at work, I would be a fool not show it. Certainly it would be restrained by propriety, yet it can be done.

 

Bells, catcalls with overly sexual content are gross. I think we both agree on that point. But if you find someone attractive, letting them know isn't the worst thing you could be doing. Some time ago several women commented on my appearance in a flattering manner. Now, at my age that happens, like, never. So I appreciated the kind words. I suppose it might be different for women than for men, but if someone were to tell me I am beautiful, I would give them a smile in response. It's certainly better than being told you are fat and ugly.

 

Not for the first time your knee jerk reaction and stereotypical character judgement have corrupted your perception. This is unfortunate as it detracts from those many posts where you exercise good sense and objectivity.