Just so you know, LJ friends

The link that says "you are about to view content that may only be appropriate for adults" when you post an entry, has not only seized to be funny a long time ago, but also, since yesterday, LJ views me as a minor or something, and I can't read your posts when I click the link. I can't read neither text nor comments, and yes, I am logged in when I click the links to various friends who use this extra (yawn) function.

(tommdroid, seamusd, anon, and others, I want to read, but I can't)

I don't know why this is, I don't care and I don't have time to fix it right now, if indeed it is anything *I* should fix.

The gender war part II

I don't debate much anymore, but when I do debate I avoid the dumbasses and go for the best, the most intelligent ones, but also the ones who think in patterns I find flawed. It has lead me deep into fields I never thought I would waste time exploring, but there it is...

There is a whole movement or ideology if you wish that states:


That cultural success patterns could never have happened without the patriarchy and the subordinate role of women. Without patriarchy there would be no science, Engineering or art, and society would not have permitted women's movement to emerge. The more rabid proclaimers of this theory accuse feminism to spit on what birthed and fed it.
The more sober supporters claim that the historical power structures were depending on women's monitoring of children and the family zone in order for cultural expansion to be able to take place.

The cultural expansion theory claims that it was natural for women to be suppressed, since male and female intelligence, while equally capable on average, differs in how it works. For instance:

1)Men and women are are on average equally intelligent, but women are clustered around the middle of the scale and men have more representatives in the top and the bottom of the scale.

2) Men & women act according to their reproductive evolutionary patterns, which means that while women have a few eggs to keep safe, they thus are not as conditioned to take risks, stand out in a crowd or improvise, while men both risk and win more, as well as lose more, they are conditioned to act according to having many sperms, and their best bet is to stand out, or otherwise some other male will get the offspring.

3) According to the rules above, men's social intelligence is directed towards wider networking, larger groups, to influence or dominate these, and women's social intelligence is geared towards small groups and families, in order to make these function at their best level.

4) There are exceptions to these norms in every group of men and women, these criteria should be seen as an average.

These things don't sound so bad, right? I can even find parts of these facts believable as truths (which I of course would like to have a wider scientific discussion about, but still)

It all becomes chilly when the conclusions of this structural hypothesis, stated by some propagators are drawn out:

a) No culture in which women play a large part in shaping can ever be successful, because it would be invaded by another culture which is lead by men.

b) Only in an advanced patriarchal and wealthy society can women's rights ever become true, because a prosperous society, which can fight off and invade other societies is the only kind of society which can survive and reach the successful platform in which women can get more rights.

c) Feminism is therefore dangerous, because it leads to the oppression of the only successful cultural structure which can hold the fort against other structures. Also in feminist societies fewer children are born and the culture dwindles.

Many who support these theories and see them not as partial truths but as absolute facts, use the speech of the Professor of Harvard University, Lawrence H Summers from 2005 at the Conference of Diversifying the Science & Engineering Workforce. It's a 7-8 page long text with a few questions and tentative answers at the end. In extreme short summary, Summers ponders the reasons why women are underrepresented in the higher levels of scientific fields (between 8-15 % women, depending on if it's biology, engineering, astronomy, math, physics, etc etc). The three hypotheses he sets up are:

1) The High-power job hypothesis (in short: High power jobs and the stress they provide don't fit the general female temperament which is geared towards nurturing and children. Also, high powered jobs do in fact have a real impact on child bearing and child raising)

2) The Different Availability of Aptitude at the High End Hypothesis (once more, this theory is based in the theory/fact that male and female brains are equally capable on average, but that males have more people in the top and at the bottom while females have larger numbers in the middle, and this should explain the lesser numbers in top scientific fields)

3) Different socialization (cultural patterns, not only in ones own upbringing and immediate environment, but also in society at large)

The Harvard Professor is fairly open with being unsure about a complete truth in his thesis, but he also states that he thinks all three factors matter, and in that order of importance.

This text has become the crutch of the whole movement I referred to above, and structuralist theories and views about men and women and culture, and "how it should be", "what is the truth" and "what is best" are running wild.

ETA: Here is another iconic text for the Cultural Success Pattern Movement, written by Roy F. Baumeister, called Is There Anything Good About Men?, observe that this text is often interpreted by masculinists in the same way as the Koran is interpreted by terrorists, I've heard it misquoted and misunderstood more times than the opposite.

And I feel that there is such a fragility in our whole stance as both men and women. We can so easily lose what we've gained in less than a century.

What do you think?