What I found interesting in that article is not so much the evolutionary psychology behind it, (but in this case it is nice it supports the point as many in this forum do seem to embrace it) what I found interesting is the correlation between perceived attractiveness as a dating partner and delinquency. I think the answer for it lies more in the concept I explained as 'subterranean values', social values that are presented but seldom 'officially' articulated, then in some evolutionary psychology — Tobias
Why does this need explanation? It fits the theory rather well no? In a more feminine society, these are the roles ascribed to men. — Tobias
The point which I tried to make though and which you also picked up on (thanks for that) is that a lot of these values actually stay the same and that overt formal condemnation and demand for change is countered by informal 'subterranean' reinforcement. I feel stereotypical male values are formally opposed and informally reinforced. — Tobias
While feminine values are becoming our mainstream values, masculine values remain revered in situations that are out of the ordinary, 'in love and war' so to speak, quite literarily in this case. When one reads young adult male forums one gets a sense that you have to be a bad boy to get girls. That can be quickly dismissed as the whining of losers, but there is some scientific support for this hypothesis. From a study on delinquency and dating behaviour: "Of particular importance, results suggest that delinquency does not appear to increase dating by increasing the delinquent's desire for dates. Instead, they suggest that delinquency increases dating outcomes by making the delinquent more attractive to prospective mates. This finding supports evolutionary psychology's implicit prediction that adolescents may, knowingly or unknowingly (see Berry & Broadbent, 1984; Claxton, 1999; Lewicki et al., 1992; Massey, 2002), perceive delinquency as one type of risk-taking behavior that reflects such qualities as nerve, daring, and bravado. 5 From an evolutionary perspective, such qualities may be highly beneficial to a prospective mate's social status, physical well-being, and/or genetic lineage"(Rebellon & Manasse 200 — Tobias
The narratives people tell about their internet dating experiences can reveal how shifting yet stubborn heterosexual gender relations shape those experiences. We have argued that the nutter narrative is a commonly told story that exposes many of the gendered assumptions and ways of interacting that can reinforce inequalities between women and men. It is a narrative that helps us understand where the limits to gender heterodoxy sit and how they are guarded. The nutter narratives suggest that the gender innovations enabled by internet dating may travel out from the heteronormative centre, but not too far. What we offer in the rest of the book is an analysis of what kind of innovations are possible, but here we get to grips with the outer fences, the lines in the sand, beyond which it is dangerous to go. Technology has affordances, but the internet is not outside of regulatory power. The nutter narrative is one mechanism via which that power is exercised and gendered selves and interactions produced — Internet Dating, Beasley and Holmes (2021), p31
Yes and if I am write the pendulum will swing in women's favour. They will be seen as more capable of verbal jobs that require both rational and emotional intelligence, such as judge, university professor, upper management. It will take time, but if my theory is right it will happen. — Tobias
values Masculine Feminine — Tobias
Yeah I think it fits your theory somewhat well. I don't think it fits the narrative you're criticising very well. It seems a vestige of a more gender-stratified economy and society. Whereas there's no reason women shouldn't be on the front lines, wearing hard hats, or heaving metal on a rig. — fdrake
I will read that article when I have time. It sounds really interesting and on topic! Thank you.Internet Dating, Beasley and Holmes (2021), p31 — fdrake
I suppose we shall see. — fdrake
It starts here. Values have no sex. So we are talking about values and perhaps virtues and vices that have been traditionally ascribed to and associated with masculine and feminine identities. — unenlightened
Then, the thesis is that these associations have been changing. The world has changed, for example, with the introduction of "the Equaliser". This charmingly lethal apparatus negates the physical advantage of strength in combat. No one can out-run a bullet, and even a delicate feminine finger can pull a trigger - hence the name. The facts of industry and technology have devalued masculine muscle. — unenlightened
The problem is that traditional male virtues have lost their value. And the solution is either a luddite reversion to primitive preindustrial society or a change of identification, of what it is to be a man, and particularly a good man. And of course women are involved with this re-evaluation of all values, because 'man' and 'woman' are identities in relation to each other. — unenlightened
I would like to hear more about how you understand the relation between the social construct of masculinity you are associating with the right, and conservative populist thinking in its wider scope. Do you think the former explains the latter, the reverse, or is there some more complex relation between the two? — Joshs
In the US a gender gap among voters exist as well. See here: [url=http://]https://cawp.rutgers.edu/gender-gap-voting-choices-presidential-elections.[/url]
So no, you cannot predict what someone thinks but you can predict that when you see a woman it is more likely that she voted for Harris and when you see a man it is more likely he voted for Trump. — Tobias
I think this is a very perplexing situation actually. I can imagine why women would not want to do this stuff. It is very risky and does not pay particularly well, especially in relation to the physical risk involved. It seems also that men do not like women to go to the front lines which is even more perplexing. The only reason I can think of is the control over the use of violence is key in any conflict. — Tobias
On the one hand, masculinity is being unreasonably problematized, on the other hand it is being reinforced by certain political groups and social media. — Tobias
The profound misunderstanding expressed in the Latin transla- tion of "political" as "social" is perhaps nowhere clearer than in a discussion in which Thomas Aquinas compares the nature of household rule with political rule: the head of the household, he finds, has some similarity to the head of the kingdom, but, he adds, his power is not so "perfect" as that of the king. 11 Not only in Greece and the polls but throughout the whole of occidental an- tiquity, it would indeed have been self-evident that even the power of the tyrant was less great, less "perfect" than the power with which the paterfamilias, the dominus, ruled over his household of slaves and family... Although misunderstanding and equating the political and social realms is as old as the translatio n of Greek terms into Latin and their adaption to Roman-Christian thought, it has become even more confusing in modern usage and modem understanding of society.
The distinction between a private and a public sphere of life corresponds to the household and the political realms, which have existed as distinct, separate entities at least since the rise of the ancient city-state; but the emergence of the social realm, which is neither private nor public, strictly speaking, is a rela- tively new phenomenon whose or igin coincided with the emer- gence of the modern age and which found its political form in the nation-state. What concerns us in this context is the extraordinary difficulty with which we, because of this development, understand the deci- sive division between the public and private realms, between the sphere of the polls and the sphere of household and family, and, finally, between activities related to a common world and those related to the maintenance of life, a division upon which all ancient political thought rested as self-evident and axiomatic.
In our understanding, the dividing line is entirely blurred, because we see the body of peoples and political communities in the image of a family whose everyday affairs have to be taken care of by a gigantic, nation-wide administration of housekeeping. The scien- tific thought that corresponds to this development is no longer political science but " national economy" or "social economy" or Volkswirtschaft, all of which indicate a kind of "collective house-keeping"; 13 the collective of families economically organized into the facsimile of one super-human family is what we call "society," and its political form of organization is called "nation." 14
We therefore find it difficult to realize that according to ancient thought on these matters, the very term "political economy" would have been a contradiction in terms: whatever was " eco- nomic," related to the life of the individual and the survival of the species, was a non-political, household affair by definition. 16 Historically, it is very likely that the rise of the city-state and the public realm occurred at the expense of the private realm of family and household. 16 Yet the old sanctity of the hearth, though much less pronounced in classical Greece than in ancient Rome, was never entirely lost. What prevented the polis from violating the private lives of its citizens and made it hold sacred the bound- aries surrounding each property was not respect for private property as we understand it, but the fact that without owning a house a man could not participate in the affairs of the world because he had no location in it which was properly his own. 17
Even Plato, whose political plans foresaw the abolition of private property and an extension of the public sphere to the point of annihilating private life altogether, still speaks with great reverence of Zeus Herkeios, the protector of border lines, and calls the horoi, the boundaries between one estate and another, divine, without seeing any contradiction. 18 The distinctive trait of the household sphere was that in it men lived together because they were driven by their wants and needs. The driving force was life itself—the penates, the household gods, were, according to Plutarch, "the gods who make us live and nourish our body" 19—which, for its individual maintenance and its survival as the life of the species needs the company of others. That individual maintenance should be the task of the man and species survival the task of the woman was obvious, and both of these natural functions, the labor of man to provide nourishment and the labor of the woman in giving birth, were subject to the same urgency of life. Natural community in the household there- fore was born of necessity, and necessity ruled over all activities performed in it.
The realm of the polls, on the contrary, was the sphere of free- dom, and if there was a relationship between these two spheres, it was a matter of course that the mastering of the necessities of life in the household was the condition for freedom of the polls. Under no circumstances could politics be only a means to protect society —a society of the faithful, as in the Middle Ages, or a society of property-owners, as in Locke, or a society relentlessly engaged in a process of acquisition, as in Hobbes, or a society of producers, as in Marx, or a society of jobholders, as in our own society, or a society of laborers, as in socialist and communist countries. In all these cases, it is the freedom (and in some instances so-called freedom) of society which requires and justifies the restraint of political authority. Freedom is located in the realm of the social, and force or violence becomes the monopoly of government.
What all Greek philosophers, no matter how opposed to polls life, took for granted is that freedom is exclusively located in the political realm, that necessity is primarily a prepolitical phenome- non, characteristic of the private household organization, and that force and violence are justified in this sphere because they are the only means to master necessity—for instance, by ruling over slaves—and to become free. Because all human beings are subject to necessity, they are entitled to violence toward others; violence is the prepolitical act of liberating oneself from the necessity of life for the freedom of world.
This freedom is the essential condition of what the Greeks called felicity, eudaimmla, which was an objective status depending first of all upon wealth and health. To be poor or to be in ill health meant to be subject to physical neces- sity, and to be a slave meant to be subject, in addition, to man- made violence. This twofold and doubled "unhappiness" of slavery is quite independent of the actual subjective well-being of the slave. Thus, a poor free man preferred the insecurity of a daily-changing labor market to regular assured wo rk, which, because it restricted his freedom to do as he pleased every day, was already felt to be servitude (douleia) , and even harsh, painful labor was preferred to the easy life of many household slaves. — Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition pg 27-31
By all means do a better job. I tried to provide definitions actually used in sociology. Two lines are a bit disappointing, but I am happy hearing where the argument goes wrong. — Tobias
Also very much in agreement, yet what I miss in many discussions on this subject is exactly this two way street. We are right now in a time in which is not self evident how and with what man should identify. The general consensus on the left seems to be that man should change and that since they are the problem they should figure it out while the general consensus on the right should be that men should reassert their classical role as the 'head of the table' so to speak. On the one hand, masculinity is being unreasonably problematized, on the other hand it is being reinforced by certain political groups and social media. — Tobias
Masculinity is problematised in a very different way in mainstream discourse than femininity is problematised. Masculinity's associated with violent crimes, sexual crimes, domestic abuse, posturing, financial risk, overwork, selfishness, lack of community spirit, emotional inflexibility and poor communication skills, and thus is a problem. Femininity's problematised as part of an oppressive system of norms that confines women's conduct and renders them less powerful and less capable of self expression, it is thus seen as posing problems to women. — fdrake
Men are simply way too violent. It's still a huge problem. — RogueAI
Alright. First, I generally frown on one sided political topics in philosophy. Politics and religion are two ideologies that make people extremely defensive and shut their brains off. We don't argue for Christianity or Islam here, just like we shouldn't argue for Republican or Democrat here. Good topics are "What is God? What would prove God?" A good political discussion would be, "What is masculinity? What would prove masculinity? — Philosophim
Plenty of people will disagree with your definitions of masculine and feminine. Citing an author from 24 years ago doesn't lend credence. What is the justification for these definitions? How do we know his ideas aren't crack pot? You're coming in with something very sociological and often considered pseudoscience. — Philosophim
How would I fix this? Talk about men. If men are having problems, what are their problems? Is this all men? Because plenty of men do not fit in with this definition of 'masculinity'. Define what the manosphere is. Explain what is wrong with it. Are all men in the manosphere? Is it some men? What men get drawn to the manosphere? Why does the manosphere encourage misogyny? — Philosophim
Are these men the only reason the right won last election? Why is it oppressive misogyny and not economic perception or people feeling like government wasn't serving them? — Philosophim
Present to us why these terms are useful and concrete. That would be a philosophical topic worth discussing. — Philosophim
Masculinity has become a problem for itself, it is unclear what it is precisely, how it should be constructed. It is clear that it is a problem, but unclear what the solution is because it is caught in a contradiction. It has to reform and not reform at the same time. — Tobias
Don’t masculine and feminine go together as the two poles of an outdated binary social conception? Aren’t they in the process of being replaced by a new binary, in which both what had been understood as masculine and what was seen as feminine are redefined? Or perhaps the binary itself is on the way to being replaced by a spectrum or non-linear plurality or fluidity? — Joshs
The myth of the very stable genius has replaced the myth of the lonesome cowboy. — unenlightened
Not so much 'should', the facts are that man has changed because he must change.
His masculinity is now cosmetic drug induced muscle that hides a complete lack of moral integrity.
There is nothing behind the performance.
He has indeed become the bicycle that every fish no longer needs or wants.
I find questions like 'what is masculinity' to be rather silly, especially on a forum such as this. You will just get people pulling some idea out of their ass. I also think the question cannot be answered because in my view what x is depends on the interaction of people with x. The question "What is masculinity?" presupposes some essentialist answer to the question. — Tobias
Now that is a fine question in its own right but then I would not get to the topic I think warrants discussion, namely why a certain political view that would be considered far out of the ballpark 20 years ago is very popular nowadays. — Tobias
I could go into that of course and it would be good, but it would also extend the length of the post and not make it very suitable for a forum like this. — Tobias
Let me ask you, where do you disagree with Hofstede, where do you find him not convincing? Do you think these values are not commonly associated with male or female identities? — Tobias
Of course plenty of men do not fit the definition. I bet not one man or woman actually embraces all these values to the furthest extent. There will be a lot of women that embrace values associated with masculinity and vice versa. That is also not the point of an ideal type. It is a way to make certain phenomena visible by simplifying and exaggerating certain traits. If it is totally out of touch with reality, then it should be dropped of course. — Tobias
Consider this quote from the CAWP website: "Women tend to be more supportive of gun control, reproductive rights, welfare, and equal rights policies than men. They tend to be less supportive of the death penalty, defense spending, and military intervention". — Tobias
As for your questions on the manosphere, all interesting questions, but not the focus of my question. — Tobias
Data indicates that economic concerns were the most dominant reason for voters to vote Republican, but those do not explain for instance why there is a huge gender gap in the US among young voters. As many observers expected before the election, there was a significant gender gap among young voters. Young women preferred Harris to Trump by a 17-point margin: 58% to 41%. But young men preferred Trump by a 14-point margin: 56% to 42%. — Tobias
The proof of the pudding is in the eating. For me the terms are useful because they enable me to make an analysis and present it to you If the analysis goes wrong I like to know where. — Tobias
What is also lacking to my knowledge at least is a discursive analysis of images of masculinity and femininity among right wing populist parties. I wanted to undertake such an analysis, but alas, I want a lot of things... — Tobias
I think there are public rejections of violence and aggression, which are seen as stereotypically masculine traits, but you do receive social sanctions if you don't behave enough like a man. If no one no longer needed or wanted, ie no longer enforced, the straitjacket of masculinity the expectation to behave that way would dissolve. — fdrake
I also don't agree with that. I think there are public rejections of violence and aggression, which are seen as stereotypically masculine traits, but you do receive social sanctions if you don't behave enough like a man. If no one no longer needed or wanted, ie no longer enforced, the straitjacket of masculinity the expectation to behave that way would dissolve. — fdrake
Men are going to be masculine no matter how hard society tries to mould them into something else. — Tzeentch
The promotion of senseless violence is a problem very particular to certain scenes - gangster culture and football hooliganism, for example. Both have been glorified by pop culture, even though the vast majority of society recognizes these scenes as degenerate. — Tzeentch
I'm sure you agree that 15 year olds stabbing each other with machetes is degenerate? — Tzeentch
The emergence of society—the rise of housekeeping, its activities, problems, and organizational devices—from the shadowy interior of the household into the light of the public sphere, has not only blurred the old borderline between private and political, it has also changed almost beyond recognition the meaning of the two terms and their significance for the life of the individual and the citizen.
This is not merely a matter of shifted emphasis. In ancient feeling the privative trait of privacy, indicated in the word itself, was all-important; it meant literally a state of being deprived of something, and even of the highest and most human of man's capacities. A man who lived only a private life, who like the slave was not permitted to enter the public realm, or like the barbarian who had chosen not to establish such a realm, was not fully human. We no longer think primarily of deprivation when we use the word "privacy," and this is partly due to the enormous enrichment of the private sphere through modern individualism. However, it seems even more important that modern privacy is at least as sharply opposed to the social realm—unknown to the ancients who considered its content a private matter-—as it is to the political, properly speaking.
The decisive historical fact is that modern privacy in its most relevant function, to shelter the intimate, was discovered as the opposite not of the political sphere but of the social, to which it is therefore more closely and authentically related. The striking coincidence of the rise of society with the decline of the family indicates clearly that what actually took place was the absorption of the family unit into corresponding social groups.
It is decisive that society, on all its levels, excludes the possibility of action, which formerly was excluded from the household. Instead, society expects from each of its members a certain kind of behavior, imposing innumerable and various rules, all of which tend to "normalize" its members, to make them behave, to exclude spontaneous action or outstanding achievement.
We find these demands in the salons of high society, whose conventions always equate the individual with his rank within the social framework. What matters is this equation with social status, and it is immateri al whether the framework happens to be actual rank in the half-feud al society of the eighteenth century, title in the class society of the nineteenth, or mere function in the mass society of today. The rise of mass society, on the contrary, only indicates that the various social groups have suffered the same absorption into one society that the family units had suffered earlier; with the emergence of mass society, the realm of the social has finally, after several centuries of development, reached the point where it embraces and controls all members of a given community equally and with equal strength. But society equalizes under all circumstances, and the victory of equality in the modern world is only the political and legal recognition of the fact that society has conquered the public realm, and that distinction and difference have become private matters of the individual. — Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition.
However, I think the analyses so far provided are usually too one sided, not only in the threads here, but also in general. The tacit assumption that is usually made, is that it is a reaction of a powerful group, men, that would like to solidify its privileges and uses the same means of oppression that it usually uses to oppress women and other minorities. — Tobias
It's like you know, as none of us other contributors do, what 'masculine' human nature is beyond social and cultural influence, and everyone who disagrees is wrong and degenerate. No doubt you also then know, as I certainly don't, those circumstances if any, when violence is justified and virtuous. — unenlightened
More or less, you're not an impoverished mentality. Thus you don't feel attacked. That doesn't mean, that masculinity isn't reprimanded currently. Just because it's not on your radar doesn't mean it's not occurring. — DifferentiatingEgg
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