"Man-bashing." My favorite DU pule.

[happyslug]

73. One of the problems is the sexes are complementary not equal

Last edited Tue Jan 8, 2013, 10:25 PM - Edit history (1)

What I mean by Complementary is often what one sex is bad at, the other is good. Thus a man and a woman is superior to two men or two women. The problem is how to make the differences between the sexes that ar as fair as possible.

Notice I did not use the term "Equal" for that means treating people the same and that is a problem when they are not the same. Are we treating people Fairly, when we demand that everyone piss standing up? Such a requirement would treat everyone equally, everyone would have to stand and piss, but is that fair?

Similar problems occur due to the physical differences between the two sexes. Is it fair to treat everyone equally, providing they can keep their shirts clean while lifting heavy dirty items? Women whose center of gravity is two inches below their belly button, tend to want to hold heavy items close to their chests, thus the wieght of the item is closer to being nearer right above her center of gravity. Men, whose center of gravity is in the middle of their chest, want to hold the object a little bit away from their chests, so that their center of gravity counterbalanced the heavy object so that the combined center of gravity is over their legs.

Do we treat people fairly when we want to hear them from the further distance? Male's deeper voice travel further then women's (and children's) higher pitch voices (on the other hand, it is easier to locate the exact location of a higher pitch voice then a lower pitch voice, so if demand that the voice be easy to locate in deep brush, how is that "Fair" to men?).

Woman's smaller hands permit more intricate weaves then men's larger hands, is thus fair to use how tight a weave a person makes?

Now there are other differences, but for some of them there is a dispute if it is innate or cultural (And the cultural influence is notso ingrained that for most people it is innate for all practical purposes). Some of these include:

1. Women find it easier to learn a new language then men as adults.

2. Women tend to have a better feel for the need of young children (i.e. babies).

The above seems to be innate, but some people dispute those findings. The evolutionary explanation is simple, Women bare children and thus relate to them better then men (and since only women produce breast milk, babies have to be close to their mother until they can eat solid foods).

Women in primitive societies would have to leave the family they were born in, and enter another family as the mate of a male member of that extended family. This often require women to have to learn a new language, thus Women evolved to learn new languages. Given this background is it FAIR, to treat people who have a harder time learning a new language? Is it fair to treat people, whose native tongue is not what is being spoken, on their ability to speak the language being used?

Now, cultural influence may be great. For example I often give the example of a Study of Males and Females in the 1970s in regards to their sense of direction. Various males and females were put on buses and blindfolded and then driven around and when stopped asked to show in what direction they came from. Males did a much better job then females in the test.

A few years later, I read of the Autopsy reports on the brains of London Cab Drivers. It was found that the part of the brain believed to deal with direction was enlarged in such cab drivers. This implies that they had no better innate sense of direction then most people, but because they used their sense of direction, they developed that part of their brain, thus its larger then normal size and they better ability to determine direction. Given that in most cases, women are guided by their parents, then their brothers, then their Boyfriends and finally their Husbands, who most women end up leaving driving or otherwise leading them on any trips, would that NOT discourage use of that part of the brain by women, and thus it is for cultural reasons women have a worse sense of direction then men?

Worse, what is fair can become unfair over time. The classic case was the right of a husband to 100% control over his wife's real property. Sounds unfair today, but when the rule was invented was fair, for ownership of real property was tied in with military service and what was needed were knights and men at arms, strength more then anything else. Thus the Husband obtain full use of his Wife's real property, but that was due to the fact he had to perform the duty tied in with owning that property (i.e. he had to serve as a knight or man at arms that was tied in with ownership of that property). The wife "lost" use of her real property, but then she did not have to go to war whenever the King called his knights and other men at arms out. The reason Women lost that right to their own property, was they were incapable of performing the related military duty (And this relationship was an invention of Feudalism around 900, as the Kings took the land from its previous owners and gave them to knights who would defend the area from invaders in exchange for the land, by 1000 it was legal for women to inherit such lands provided her husband performed all required military duties tied in with the land). This was viewed as fair, and even mentioned in the Magna Carta (The King could NOT convert military services to taxes if the land owner wanted to perform the military duty).

The above was fair, until the Kings of England decided to ignore the Magna Carta and change all of the old Feudal Dues to taxes. Women can pay taxes as well as men, when it all comes from the production of the actual workers in the field. This conversion made the right no longer "Fair" to women, but couple of centuries to be abolished (The Renaissance saw a massive drop in the rights of women as Roman and Greek Law came back into fashion and the rules of law of the previous 1000 years was viewed as "Barbaric" or worse Catholic in Protestant England after the English Civil War of 1640, the older rules tended to give women more rights then the new reinstatement of Greek and Roman Law, through some aspect of the older law were kept, if the law gave men more rights then women, or a noble more right then a commoner).

Side note: Does it really matter if an advantage of one sex over the other is a product of Culture, when the Cultural influence affects actual physical development of the brain? For example, take a group of people and put them in an situation they never have been before, and see how they handle it, and compare that to a group of people who had plan and trained for such a situation? Culturally we do this a lot, but if we ignore it so we can treat both groups equally, is that fair?

A lot of male bashing (and some women bashing) are arguments over not only innate differences between the sexes but cultural differences. The differences exist, but not in conflict. Most men leave the house to their female mates and with it primary care of the children. Men want to use the house and be involved with their children, but generally defer to the women in their lives on how the house and children are to be handled. Women, tend to deferrer to the men in their life, issues outside the home, including any groups the couple want to be a member of. At the same time, women do want a say in such outdoor activities, but tend to defer to the men in their lives in regards to such matters. Some of this is innate, some of this is cultural, but not to address it is NOT treat both sides fairly (while technically not addressing either issue is equal treatment).

Just a comment is that what both sexes want is fair treatment for both know true equal treatment is a fallacy. On the other hand, ideal equal and fair treatment is a concept most people want, but how do you treat two unequal people equally and still be fair? Comes up in divorce cases all the time, each side puts different value on jointly owned property, dividing the property equally is not fair to either side thus it is divides equitably instead. The real issue is not equality but fairness, and what is fair changes all the time, thus a constant source of problems.