I do a lot of stats for work. And yes you ignore outliers BUT only after you determine why they're outliers. If there's an underlying cause to move the majority of the numbers to skew a certain way then there's no way to really tell if the outliers would be normal without the underlying cause or not.
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The "Men's Rights Movement" is apparently having a resurgence. Awkward.
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I do a lot of stats for work. And yes you ignore outliers BUT only after you determine why they're outliers. If there's an underlying cause to move the majority of the numbers to skew a certain way then there's no way to really tell if the outliers would be normal without the underlying cause or not.
No, I'm talking about being skeptical of the 'biologically inclined' part. Proving that it's a biological inclination and not an inclination shaped by post-birth influences is, and should absolutely be considered, very very hard.
Both of those are considered masculine in western culture. Chefs are loved as masculine figures, and taking care of your children and protecting them from the evil guy is a trope in a lot of western action films
Vermillion
Banned
I hate reposting facebook stuff, but yeah:
I may know the guy who asked about coffee through a degree of separation :/
But I don't know very much of the situation, it's new to me.
That's the extent of comment I have for that picture.
IHaveCandy
Banned
Maybe in reading this out of context, but I don't get why you are fighting generic pre-disposition. As a male, the best way for me to make a bunch of offsprings is to try and have sex with as many females as possible. I may do some or even no fathering, but my genes get spread the fastest if I spread myself around. This applies natural and sexual selection pressures that make males that are "macho" and making the being the one that tries to win over the female are more likely to pass their genes. Females have the opposite problem. They have to be selective because once they have a bun in the oven, they are going to have to go through a lot more work carrying and raising the offspring. So females are pressured to be more selective.
Yes, we've been around for hundreds of thousands of years and have had civilizations for a portion of that. We've developed a conscious mind that is far less controlled by natural instincts or emotions. But it's still a part of us. A few hundred generations isn't going to undo millions of years of evolution. If we maintained our culture for millions of years, you may see men less predisposed to being macho since it would be less necessary.
Winterfang
Banned
I have nothing against Florida or Facebook but fuck me, If I didn't laughed at this.
So then you keep them in and still an icredibly large majority of major cultures still have men trying tonattain masculinity
I don't think you understand statistics very well if you think correlation automatically implies causation.
IHaveCandy
Banned
It shouldn't be since brain study continues to grow. For example, we know testosterone levels play a huge part in how men and women develop differently emotionally and physically. We may not always be able to pin a cause, but I think genetic differences have been becoming rather clear, and will continue to be better understood in the future.
essyouemeight
Banned
I don't mean protecting children from bad guys. I mean babies, as in making their food, cleaning their poo, and rearing them.
And Chefs are loved as masculine figures because they run a business. I was referring to being almost solely responsible for making food within the family unit.
Anyway, you don't even seem to get the point so this is a waste of time.
He lives in the US/Europe where men are bros. Everything else is an outlier and therefore statistically irrelevant.
STATISTICS MOTHAFUCKA!
What if I'm doing that now after retiring from a 20 year Naval career? What does that make me then?
The problem is that you are smooshing together all kinds of selection into genetic selection. Was the popularity and positive-sexual-selection of moustaches in the 70s a genetic impulse? Did we have a single generation where GATA replaced GATT and suddenly everyone lusted after men with luscious moustaches?
Funny thing about this, testosterone levels are also affected by things other than genes. Particularly diet. And disease. Even that aside, though, the problem is when you try to draw macroscopic conclusions about society's functioning from microinteractions that may or may not be influenced by genetic factors. We may just be animals, but we are not merely our genes either.
Are we urged by our genetics to shower crowds of women with semen? Sounds like a worthwhile strategy. Throw paint at a wall, see what sticks.
Where do you get the idea that this is supposed to be true? That being macho is what causes one to "win over a female"?
CrudeDiatribe
Member
You know someone who knows Richard Dawkins? That's cool.
IHaveCandy
Banned
Genes don't tell us to do specific things. I wasn't trying to argue that. Genes make us feel certain ways. A gene may make us feel anxious around bugs. We then decide to get rid of the bugs or run away from the bugs. Genes make men want to be more engaging towards women. That doesn't mean it directly makes us engage in a particular way. We may use humor, sexual appeal, dominance, etc. Our genetic instincts don't as sharply dictate human actions as they do most other animals. It's like our genes play a game of hot or cold with us until we find the answer in many cases.
So when you say men had big starches in the 70s, their genes inclined them to be more noticeable to women, and their conscious brain acted on that desire by what best fit for be times.
I completely agree. I'm not trying to do the whole "you and me baby ain't nothing but mammals" bit. I'm just saying that genetic differences are real and shouldn't be entirely dismissed. It commonly is for the sake of bring politically correct. It would only be politically incorrect to identify a particular person's traits only using what we know about genetic inclinations of that person's sex.
LAUGHTREY
Modesty becomes a woman
I'm so confused and out of the loop on this.
Aren't there actually a lot of issues with Men having problems in America? Discrimination if you're not masculine, custody battles where it's very hard for single Dads to get anything other then token weekend supervised visits, false rape accusations that can ruin your life, etc?
Are the MRA groups taking it too far and trying to protect men getting paid more than women and crap? If so, that's is definitely bullshit and I can't believe anyone is that stupid to do shit like that, and bring way more harm than good. Trying to maintain any advantage men have over women in our culture is asinine.
Aren't there actually a lot of issues with Men having problems in America? Discrimination if you're not masculine, custody battles where it's very hard for single Dads to get anything other then token weekend supervised visits, false rape accusations that can ruin your life, etc?
Are the MRA groups taking it too far and trying to protect men getting paid more than women and crap? If so, that's is definitely bullshit and I can't believe anyone is that stupid to do shit like that, and bring way more harm than good. Trying to maintain any advantage men have over women in our culture is asinine.
depths20XX
Member
Men are predisposed to spread our seed and we shouldn't fight it just bust in as many women as we can. I don't even understand what the argument is anymore. The whole thing is about getting men and women on an equal footing and I don't understand how chalking it up to biology really helps anything.
essyouemeight
Banned
Technically, at the time it was true. Being Macho WAS the best way to procreate. But times have changed. Being macho is not as required anymore. Now males have to invest more, and now females too have to be more macho. The problem is that males are being punished for trying to adapt, and females are being punished for trying to adapt. The factors that made "being macho" and "being a girl" a viable way of living are being mitigated by how complex our societies have become
The main problem I have is that men can't seem to build a group based purely on those merits without someone having women hatred just below the surface. There are things that need to be addressed, but get muddled in with the wrong groups. Same goes for feminism or WRAs. Problems getting obscured because of either yelling gender wars.
IHaveCandy
Banned
I'd say there are some real issues against men. The biggest one for me are legal issues involving divorce/custody. I think a lot of laws are still using the mindset that the man is the breadwinner and the wife is the housekeeper child care provider. Some states are more proactive at updating those laws, so I hope to see that continue.
I do think there is this perception that men can't be soft amongst a large group of people. Though it isn't really a systematic issue in most cases. I can tell you from personal experience that people have thought I was gay because I didn't express my infatuation with attractive women with them as they were doing so. Same would happen if I gave less macho answers. I can say some treated me differently because of it. I don't think it's a problem that needs any government action or change of order. We just gotta get people on board with not expecting every boy to grow up wanting to be just like Arnold Schwarzenegger.
IHaveCandy
Banned
Nobody has said this
Right. The opposite being true really upsets some people for some reason. They see the male who is the homemaker as weak, or lazy.
As far as my understanding goes, the controversy stems from how the right have ceased on findings (or even, just the basic concept) that differences are hard-coded in our genes based on selection. Hence that whites/men/rich are in position of power due to genetic superiority. That's not what Ep is about, but rather seeking to understand how certain traits have occurred due to adaptation.
The only true criticism I have with EP is that the baseline for what is seen as a universal trait in all humans is skewed by the vast majority of physiological tests and studies being done on Westerners. This obscures which traits are hard-coded in all human brains, and which ones are shaped by culture. I see nothing controversial with the idea that some psychological traits - including gender roles - were shaped by evolution.
depths20XX
Member
Ok, well I'm sorry if I misinterpreted you then. I think the whole evolutionary thing could also be used to describe why we're such a violent species but does anyone want to live in a violent world? Understanding our origins is good but I don't think it helps with how we can change things now.
From what I've read, and correct me if I'm wrong, custody is heavily biased toward the biological mother, is not really sexism per se, if the kid is with lets say some aunts or uncles or grandma because they thought the mother was a druggie or something, the chances the biological mother can get the child back are pretty high, regardless of the gender of the other party. Would be interesting to see some statistics because I have nothing to back up what I said except some anecdotal evidence.
Personal experience when the topic arises in a conversation and the response of the women involved. I don't troll the internet looking for feminist blogs, but I know and have met a few(some were close friends) and when they starting "preaching" I asked what about the pressures men face growing up. I was met with laughter and eye rolls. So that is what I base my statement on, personal experience.
ColonelColon
Member
I think the biology tangent started with this post:
I responded by suggesting that men are incentivized by women to be hyper-competitive, strong/powerful, and domineering. That sexual selection strongly influences male behavior.
I think you should consider more deeply why you might get that reaction. If, say, your mother died and someone started talking to you about how awful it was when THEIR mother died ten years ago, and not in a "I understand how you feel" kind of way but in a "Think about ME!" kind of way, how would you react?
If your goal was to express sympathy for their struggles, you may have been going about it wrong. If your goal was to compete with their struggles, well, it's pretty natural to get that reaction.
To be fair, it took feminism a while before the majority strived for egalitarianism, rather than its views shaped by the notion of the oppressors and the oppressed.
IHaveCandy
Banned
What about biological druggie father vs sober extended family?
Though I don't know if I like arguing in favor of living custody to unfit parents.
This is pretty hard to argue with, since "shaped" is pretty weak. But, look, you're saying that EP has a problem in that studies on Westerners are maybe misidentifying cultural traits as biological traits. "Western" includes lots of different cultural traditions. Suppose we did these studies on everybody. Couldn't it be the case that all present/surviving/successful cultures will produce certain traits? By something like the same logic that undergirds EP, we can conclude that a process of cultural 'evolution' might independently produce cultures that all have certain fundamental similarities. This conclusion has wildly different implications, though, because culture is in principle much easier to change than genetics.
Anyway, I think the criticism of EP goes deeper than that. It's just very hard to test and it will tend to produce false positives. If we can't find any other explanation for some apparent feature of humanity, it's usually pretty easy to tell a story about how evolution produced it, and it's pretty much impossible to test that. How does one go about distinguishing an EP explanation for a feature we already (think we) know about from the possibility that the trait is a spandrel, say? How do we figure out whether or not it's biological or cultural, even if evolved? There's not much room for testing predictive ability because we're trying to use the EP story to explain something we've already seen.
IHaveCandy
Banned
Yeah, the example I go with is like waking up in a hospital and finding out you had you thumbs amputated from a freak accident and the patient you are sharing a room with lost both hands. Yeah, obviously the hands guy got the shittier end, but it would be inappropriate for the hands guy to dismiss any frustration you have over your loss.
No, it's more that it's all to common to hear sarcastic cries of "what about the menz" (even in this thread), which shows a complete lack of empathy. That might be a natural basic reaction based on the history of female oppression, but it's not a justifiable one if you're supposedly seeking equality.
IHaveCandy
Banned
I'm kinda surprised Kittens wasn't banned for her man rant. What exactly makes her rant different from hate speech?
A person seeking equality is not required to be absolutely perfect at all times. Nor are they required to hear every argument for every inequality in the world. It is, also, a really frickin' common derailing tactic when the subject of women's struggles comes up so I don't think it's unreasonable for it to be treated with skepticism. I stand by the idea that if you get that reaction you may want to reflect on what you were trying to do and how you went about it.
Anton Sugar
Member
This. To many I've met, the mere mention of feminism is taken as an attack/criticism.
Deified Data
Banned
I hate reposting facebook stuff, but yeah:
The right only seems able to acknowledge women's rights when it corresponds to their hatred of Islam.
IHaveCandy
Banned
I just want to live in a world where I don't have to be pretend to be brave for others or treat the opposite sex's life as more valuable or have to be expected to spend money on the opposite sex or see women be stuck in other gender roles or have anybody treated differently due to their sex in all aspects of life. How do we get that going?
Usually while also attempting to deny them the right to wear religious clothing if that's genuinely their choice. Strange to see false consciousness used as an argument by people who are otherwise so anti-PC.
Or, you know, you're just conversing with an arsehole.
IHaveCandy
Banned
The only time I see that brought up is when they wish to wear it when it is outside of dress code. If a business or government building requires headwear to be removed for security reasons, religious beliefs shouldn't exempt a person from that rule. Is others a different, less sensible argument that's being made against Islamic clothing?
GraveRobberX
Platinum Trophy: Learned to Shit While Upright Again.
This thread and the posts within it are filled with a lot of these:
Stay safe!
Stay safe!
Notably face-coverings (though also for security purposes, banning religious veils was definitely considered a positive part of it) are banned in public in France, care of France's centre-right (afaik) party.
But it crops up elsewhere. Banning them for identification purposes seems to be a wedge a lot of the time, usually with a bunch of fringe people popping up trying to save the women from their even-more-patriarchal-society.
The reality is that it's an islamophobic thing more than a false-consciousness thing.
Depends. Sometimes the argument being made in public is the one you're describing, but it doesn't actually seem to be motivating the people pushing for a burqa ban (or similar). Sometimes the justification for the dress code is questionable, and it seems likely that the right call is to make an exception to allow something which is very important to a minority.
France banned "face-covering" in public only very recently (2011), ostensibly in order to enable identification of people for security and cultural reasons. The most common reason for it that I heard from French people at the time was that face-covering was creepy, more or less. Their president had previously (2009) said that the law "is to protect women from being forced to cover their faces and to uphold France's secular values."
It's still a divisive issue even amongst feminists. Some feeling that the burqa a systematic method to oppress women, other feeling that being able to wear what you want is a source of empowerment.
IHaveCandy
Banned
I get what you mean about the "No no no, we are banning it FOR you" thing. Hell, maybe the people in France honestly think they are going good work. But are the really movements in America trying to get them banned publicly? I can't imagine anybody but extremists pushing for that.
Vane_MagicCity
Banned
It seems to me that nature makes men want to do things that attract women and culture tells men how to do it.
Now let's be honest, do women prefer strong men or weak men? Do women prefer successful men or unsuccessful men?
I know though, it's all because of the patriarchy, right?
Now let's be honest, do women prefer strong men or weak men? Do women prefer successful men or unsuccessful men?
I know though, it's all because of the patriarchy, right?
Both valid, and it goes back to debate about the extent of or even reality of false consciousness, as I mentioned, which is also a divisive issue.
But in the case of laws like this, islamophobia definitely seems to be a much stronger motivator.
It'd be harder to pull off in the US, given the rather stricter freedom of expression guarantees the US constitution has, but there's probably a more substantial base for the idea than you think even so.
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