Summary: As I began to write what I hope is the last in this series about solutions to the gender wars, it became obvious I had made a mistake. Seven posts described our situation and how we got here. But I never gave a summary of the problem. Without that, discussions of solutions are pointless, and coalitions to make reforms are impossible. Here is my attempt at a statement of our problem. Coming next: solutions.
Loss of trust
Reforms to public policy during the past fifty years (and continuing today) were well-intended adaptations to cultural and technological changes. But they were made on the basis of feminists’ ideology – with little or no foundation of research and testing. Their effects are legion and too complex to assess. But one has become visible to those who wish to see: the trust between men and women has been damaged – and continues to unravel. That would be tolerable in societies that have rigid family and social structures, with punitive enforcement mechanisms. We do not. We instead relied on trust for the smooth operation of our social machinery.
The most obvious result is the change in marriage. Both partners vow “until death do us part.” But women have aggressively used the option of ending marriage at any time, taking the children and having the father pay for them (plus a large chunk of their savings, often from his earnings). Cultural inertia for a generation prevented men from seeing this change. Now they slowly become aware of it. How we got here no longer really matters. Blame is useless.
I doubt our high rate of marriage will survive the spreading of this insight. Not all women divorce to gain their independence (i.e., without the usually accepted causes). But what matters is men’s inability to distinguish women who will from those who will not.
The fractured bonds of trust between men and women are spreading like cracks in a window. For a decade Anita Hill benefited from the support of Clarence Thomas. Until 1991, when he learned that she said he had sexually harassed him. As countless men have learned since, women have the right to receive support for men without any notification that they consider themselves to be harassed, then years or decades later publicly denounce them. Campuses create kangaroo courts lacking the most basic legal safeguards to convict and punish men. Behavior that occurred a decade before, behavior accepted for generations, becomes occasion for punishment.
Cultural standards change. That is (usually) considered progress, the nature of Western civilization. But the way these reforms – still in progress – have been done leave men little basis to trust the women they deal with in both business and socially. How many women will make false accusations? Nobody knows? How many will respond to changes in 2028 to denounce your behavior today? Nobody knows.
Laws can be changed. Institutions can be reformed. But trust is everything, and lost trust cannot easily be regained.. Time will tell how large are the effects of our lost trust, and how this will evolve over time. Meanwhile, watch more men adopt the “Pence rule”.
“In 2002 Mike Pence told The Hill that he never eats alone with a woman other than his wife and that he won’t attend events featuring alcohol without her by his side.” {Source: WaPo.}
A unisex society. A possible problem. Perhaps more serious.
Physical engines run on the difference between the two sides of the equation. Hot to cold for the heat engines that power our civilization. High to low in hydropower plants. From high polarization to low in electrical engines.
We are conducting an experiment to see if that powers western society. What is the role of gender differentiation? The Boomers and Millennials have enrolled our children in a giant social experiment, raising children with unisex methods. Each generation has grown up to increasingly dress alike, talk alike, think alike, and behave alike. Boys as girls. Girls as boys.
As always, the change appeared first in fiction. Books, TV, and films reflect a more unisex world. Change the names and pronouns in books (e.g., military science fiction), TV, (crime shows “Castle” and “Forever”), and films (Star Wars: The Force Awakens). A reader cannot identify the gender of the characters.
Now we see how this will play out in real life. It is too soon to call this a problem. But it might become one. Perhaps the most serious one we face.
It is sad to watch parents here in the San Francisco Bay Area. They enroll their little girl in sports at age 8, buy her LEGOs and science kits, praise her effusively when she acts like a tomboy, encourage her to value career and independence above all things, and think of herself as a leader. By age 30 she has had 30 partners. By 40 she has three cats and no kids. The parents wonder what happened, but see no relation between this outcome and their actions long ago.
Conclusions
The breakdown of trust is the core problem in the gender wars. Women have become afraid of men breaking the rules: rape, date rape, sexual harassment, and a thousand forms of oppression. Men fear women breaking wedding vows, of being punished today ex post facto (for behaviors accepted in the past but unacceptable today), of false claims (consensual sex reinterpreted as rape days or week later).
All these things have been part of life since the dawn of history. Cultural progress has made these fears stronger and weakened the bonds of trust that allows society to function. This loss of trust is acid on the foundation of society.
Both men and women are reacting logically to this. Women are speaking out. Women going their own way, either through divorce or never marrying (fish don’t need bicycles). Men are speaking out. Men are going their own their own way (MGTOW) by never marrying (or not re-marrying after being divorced). It is defensive driving on the path of life.
We can only guess at how this will evolve in the next decade or so. I doubt it will work out well for us.
And in the future lie the changes from our shift to a more unisex society. I suspect those will be far larger than anything our society has seen in a long time. Perhaps the largest since the great change from 1850 to 1950. I doubt that we will enjoy them.
Next: back to discussing how men will end the gender wars.
See the other posts in this series
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If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. See all posts about society and gender issues, about feminism, about marriage, and especially these about solutions…
- Men find individual solutions.
- Modern dating: is the only winning move is not to play?
- The end to World War G (the gender wars)
- Men standing together can end the gender wars.
For data about marrige and divorce see…
- A study using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79), about Boomers through 2010.
- Data from California 2009-2015.
- National Vital Statistics System.
- CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics.
Two books by Professor Regnerus that help explain the situation
Premarital Sex in America: How Young Americans Meet, Mate, and Think about Marrying
Strongly recommended: Cheap Sex: The Transformation of Men, Marriage, and Monogamy
See my posts about Cheap Sex: Misadventures of a young woman in modern America. and Cheap Sex is the Inconvenient Truth in the end of marriage.
Due to a WordPress system problem, a batch of comments were lost in the trash, including this one.
Lack of trust between men and women is certainly a problem but my guess is lack of trust between men and the various institutions that are supposed to support men/ marriage, church, courts, public opinion etc, is a bigger issue.
After all, any one woman can screw over any one dude. The courts and what have you are screwing over every man
I believe you’ve found the two key issues, now it’s just a matter of analysis.
Polarity is the basis of attraction, and sexual attraction depends on this polarity. In practice, this general principle can be applied in a myriad of ways. The unisex experiment happens periodically in our culture, and frankly, the general trend (outside of the book-shop gender-benders) appears to be towards greater polarity, not less. It’s cyclical. Makes no sense to falsely extrapolate the trajectory toward a unisex society if we’re already at a turning point.
Loss of a trust-culture is that great dark beast which looms over us, and not just between men and women. This topic needs to be explored in all its manifestations. Trust in financial matters, between those hired and those doing the hiring, and between one’s fellow man have been hard-won prizes in Western Civilization, and it makes sense to study how to build and maintain it. Until one’s church and political party can respect the notions of privacy and of individual conscience, it makes no sense to discuss anything further. And until one understands that if a church preaches liberty and fraternity, but turns its nose up at the idea of equality, trust-culture will not be cultivated.
We have managed to weather gigantic technical changes, which usually lead to enough dislocation that trust flies out the window. But given a little time, we do manage to right ourselves, until then next big dislocation. That is what the study of history has taught me.
Shelly,
(1) “now it’s just a matter of analysis.”
THis post follows 160 posts of analysis, building on the billions of words written by others. Enough analysis. Now comes discussion of solutions.
(2) “the general trend (outside of the book-shop gender-benders) appears to be towards greater polarity”
Please list the examples of greater polarity appearing between the sexes. That appears clearly the opposite of history.
I could continue. but this gives the feel of the change.
(3) “The unisex experiment happens periodically in our culture”
These trends are overwhelming and unidirectional. There are no cycles. There have been some short-term changes (e.g., women going to work in the factories during WWII), but those were more path-breaking than cyclical.
(4) “Trust in financial matters, between those hired and those doing the hiring, and between one’s fellow man have been hard-won prizes in Western Civilization”
I would like to see evidence for any of those things. I believe you assume present conditions are those of most of US history. They’re not.
(5) “Until one’s church and political party can respect the notions of privacy and of individual conscience”
I don’t know what that means, but it sounds kinda utopian. Utopian thinking is a barrier to effective reforms. I suggest thinking smaller.
(6) “We have managed to weather gigantic technical changes, which usually lead to enough dislocation that trust flies out the window.”
I don’t see any relationship between technological progress and lack of social trust. The West has gone through several tech/industrial revolutions since 1700, which was a period of slowly increasing social trust. In the US, we had fantastic technological progress from 1867 to 1947 (details here) – a period of increasing trust. Tech progress for individuals has been much slower since then, yet trust is burning away.
(7) “But given a little time, we do manage to right ourselves, until then next big dislocation. That is what the study of history has taught me.”
Unfortunately, that is quite false in two senses. First, such a perspective is called “survivors’ bias.” It is like looking at the mutual funds operating for the past 50 years and calculating their rate of return, and expecting to get that. It ignores all those that did poorly and closed. In this case, look at all the societies that had a collapse of social trust – a painful brutal revolution — and were rebuilt quite differently.
More broadly, that the society continues — the land and most of its people survive — tells us little. How much suffering did they have as a result of lost trust and the resulting dislocation? As Keynes said, just because the weather grows calm after a storm does not mean we should ignore the possibility for massive destruction — and prepare for it. Or avoid it.
‘Until one’s church and political party can respect the notions of privacy and of individual conscience, it makes no sense to discuss anything further. And until one understands that if a church preaches liberty and fraternity, but turns its nose up at the idea of equality, trust-culture will not be cultivated.’
What religion with any majority, or history of broad social success, has ever preached liberty of action or equality of station? Those very concepts, outside of recent incarnations which are merely postmodernism coated in a veneer of this or that co-opted faith, are antithetical to all of the major religions, and even the word religion itself, which means to bind. Nietzsche pointed out, correctly, that Christianity is a religion of slavery, a sentiment found in Catholic theology which speaks of ‘the happy yoke’ of subjection to divine ordinance and which is more or less echoed in most Protestant sects that existed before the 20th century. The word Islam itself means submission. Every other major religion on the planet bears precepts that are intended to be reformative.
Further still, we should consider the paradoxical nature of a religion which did not do these things. You speak of trust many times in your comment, and how losses of trust have damaged the relationship between the sexes. Have you not considered the psychological foundation of trust? It is the dichotomy of self versus other. Trust dynamics are predicated on likeness to self (somewhat related is likeness to the ideal/norm, and how our happiness and success in society is also predicated on our resemblance to that ideal). We instinctually have more trust in people of our own gender, people of our own age, people of our own ethnicity, people of our own religion. This is an evolutionary biological selection founded in survival: that which is most like us is most understandable.
The reactions of a person interacting with you are statistically calculable in direct proportion to the degree to which their various identities (demographic, ethnographic, political, religious) overlap with your own. Religions, especially those which are catholic (universal, i.e. everyone can join), and thus avoid problems of ethnonationalism like Judaism, provide a rigid structure which allows trust, at least idealistically, to transcend the lower hierarchies. People of every gender, age, ethnicity and nationality are able to find common identity in the foundational principles, i.e. morality, of a religion. The negative proscriptions of that morality help to establish trust.
Your contention that the loss of that overarching identity caused by the removal of moral maxims within religions will somehow engender trust is not only wrongheaded, the corruption of religious bodies and the haemorrhaging of membership show that capitulation to moral relativism, in the case of the Catholic Church for example, shows that it does absolutely nothing to promote trust in individuals or in the institutions that unite them.
Scarlet,
That’s quite a brilliant analysis!
Shelley, are you saying that sexual polarity in mate choice becomes further accentuated as gender differentiation decreases in various areas of society? This is largely borne out by the research and it makes sense on a fundamental level: as constraints and other considerations (e.g. ostracization, shame, distance, social barriers) lose relevance, sexual attraction comes to the forefront as the primary motivation. But your writing is a little too obfuscating to tell.
The Inimitable,
That’s a fascinating thought. Can you explain it in a bit more detail?
It’s just the mundane observation that as social incentives disappear, evolved sexual preferences take priority in mating strategy.
A series of psychological studies performed in Switzerland, Norway, etc. found that sexual preferences in men and women skewed harder towards classical feminine and masculine traits respectively, even though said cultures didn’t promote them. It was a surprising conclusion for the researchers. Several of them assumed that as gender differentiation was minimized, preferences would drift towards personal taste; essentially, they believed revealed preferences would converge towards a non-polarized set of traits.
In retrospect, it’s only shocking if you assume tabula rasa. Societies that de-emphasize “traditional” gender differences are typically prosperous ones where people can entertain the notion of satisfying a AF/BB combination. In the past, the vast majority of individuals couldn’t capitalize on an optimal sexual strategy and had to settle based on situational context. In short, they had to value other things besides desire.
The Inimitable NEET,
“found that sexual preferences in men and women skewed harder towards classical feminine and masculine traits respectively, even though said cultures didn’t promote them.”‘
But that’s not what I see in the America today. Women are increasingly dressing and acting like men. I’ve even (casually) seen studies showing increasing representation in media of women with mannish features (e.g., the “man jaws” seen in so many heroines these days). The difference is obvious when watching films and TV shows from the 1970s and earlier. Those actresses look much more feminine than those today, on average. Even the action adventure actresses.
That’s my point. The researchers assumed that as gender roles started converging (in terms of acceptable appearance and behavior), individual sexual preferences would also follow suit. In theory, the aggregate mean of desired traits would be close to a neutral zone because:
A. Preferences would be widely scattered due to various mixes of environmental and personal influences.
B. Societies with less stringent gender roles wouldn’t pressure individuals to conform to any iron standard.
However, they discovered men desired feminine women more often and vice versa. And this was being compared against results found in more traditional societies.
Remember that representation of women with masculine traits in media is a trope appealing to women. It’s above all meant to reflect their aspirations (they can be recognized and accredited in traditionally masculine ways while feeling superior for defying norms). In reality strong-willed, dominant women are not looking for patsies and wallflowers to complement them; the latter two are strung up to be mocked and deconstructed, hence why male objects of ridicule must first be exposed as “fake men” before the teasing begins. They want hyper-masculine men who can make them feel feminine by comparison. This is something myself and others, such as Roissy, have noticed empirically as well. It’s blatant in certain nations like South Korea, whether male androgyny is balanced out by an insane focus on status and fame.
You wrote about this a while ago in one of your Castle entries. Beckett trains Castle from stud to simp in order to maintain her spot on the pecking order, to appease viewers who watch to see her kick ass and take names. But who were her lost loves? They certainly didn’t resemble post-humbled Castle.
I’ve read enough comment sections here to know that you resist any forays into firm social pessimism, at least insofar as societal upheaval is concerned, usually based on the general failure of rate of prophecies of doom. That’s a perfectly fair and rational position to take. I leave only the following consideration: the propensity of human groups engaged in social combat to, upon any sort of victory, to demand, and usually instigate, harsh and even disproportionately retributive measures against the loser. Which is to say that a pendulum drawn to any non-zero amplitude will not simply stop at equilibrium, it moves beyond to a point that is as close to the antithesis as inertia and friction will allow.
For nearly sixty years, postmodernist ideologues, especially feminists, and their abettors have demonised the group to which they owe the type of quality of life that they presume to enjoy. Do you honestly think that, if the anti-feminist activism gains any substantial traction in the broad population, it will simply return to true gender equality, that is equality under the law and equality of opportunity? I personally find that contention to be contrary to history. The experience of suffering and loss as a condition of acceptance, or assignment by loss of conflict, of guilt is as old as Hammurabi’s code and is found in nearly mode of thinking from bronze-age semitic religions to the Enlightenment’s Kant and his Philosophy of Right. The excess of Henry VIII spawn the purges of Mary. The hobbling of Germany at Versailles gives rise to NSDAP.
This conflict will be worse because it cuts through ideology to the very heart of the human race going back 150,000 years: the compact between the sexes as an engine for the perpetuation of the species. It does not end well for anyone.
Scarlet,
That’s a well-reasoned and profound comment! That’s the kind I like to see. And you might be right. Optimism here is difficult to have.
It’s quite unlike “doom is certain” nonsense that overflows from the internet, and which I try to discourage here!
As a tentative prediction, the greatest fallout from the homogenization of gender roles will be a widespread loss of faith in the nature of women. This is a slightly more pessimistic take than your emphasis on trust, which emphasizes inscrutability. Trust can be maintained through social controls even if they didn’t hold their women in the highest esteem; most ancient civilizations did so through various punitive measures and selective allocation of authority/social mobility.
However, idealization has replaced said controls as a necessary substitute in an open society. If one ever wondered why feminists shame men for rejecting conservative attitudes towards marriage and sexual licentiousness while advocating liberal ones for themselves, look no further that this point. The “innate goodness” of women is one of the few articles of faith feminists cling to despite the inclusion of almost every other ideological position under the label’s penumbra; subsequently, it can only be “harnessed” when released from social expectations and biased power structures. And that smoke-and-mirrors show was predicated on men believing they were superior to women. In social classes free from manual labor, men interpreted their higher stations in life as evidence they had distinct responsibilities, particularly to protect and cultivate feminine sensibilities. They were even willing to accept their own disposability as long as they believed the intended recipients of their sacrifices were worthy. Women, whether from solipsism or denial, refuse to admit how much they depend on men buying into this fiction for the whole charade to work.
This idealism cannot hold out in the modern era. Besides the legal and social exploitation of men’s productivity, Game is effectively the death blow to the act of putting women on a pedestal. The fact that it exists is testament to a decaying social fabric. Its entire inception and development couldn’t exist in an era where women’s hypergamous impulses were constrained. Only when traditional norms of propriety dissolved did men begin applying their trademark approach (identify the issue, construct a standardized schema via observation and inference, test and refine extensions of fundamental assumptions) to a field previously dominated by notions of mystique and willful ignorance. Game itself cannot be the impetus behind an organized resistance – too individualistic, devoid of loyalty towards greater social/political entities – yet its core premises can be extricated and confirmed separate from the overall philosophy. It doesn’t take a PUA to notice monkey branching, attraction to jerks, etc. and plenty of boys will internalize its cynical attitude when their lovey-dovey dreams of romance get brutally dashed.
Fears concerning self-preservation are what dominate men’s suspicion right now. Depending on gender dynamics evolve, they may be superseded by doubt over whether women are worth investing in at all. It won’t take an enormous number of men to tip it over; the American SMP is already severely destabilized due to a whole host of factors. And unlike China, any extraneous runoff won’t be motivated to present themselves as worthy husbands.
The Inimitable,
Thanks for posting that comment is. Like Scarlet’s, it is of the first water (as they say about diamonds). You are more pessimistic than I, but I can’t say you are wrong.
‘Fears concerning self-preservation are what dominate men’s suspicion right now. Depending on gender dynamics evolve, they may be superseded by doubt over whether women are worth investing in at all.’
It’s not difficult to believe that we’ve already reached that point, though likely not in the way that you mean, especially amongst millennials. So many in that demographic group have been indoctrinated in revolutionary activism. Please note that I do not name a specific revolution, merely identify a set of behaviours consistent with sociopolitical revolutionary thought, i.e. that revolution is an enternal conflict without borders and without noncombatants because every person that does not share the ideals of the revolution is a counterrevolutionary. That has been true in every society which has embraced the notion that all social interaction is a oppressor-oppressee power dynamic predicated on identity (class in historical socialism, demographics/sexuality in the modern incarnation).
So many amongst millennials have become professional activists. The danger with such a profession, a danger which is now expressed nearly universally, is that such a creature cannot live their vocation without an enemy. This failing made even more dangerous in that, unlike past revolutions where your enemies could be converted by proselytism or force, one cannot change the reality of one’s biological sex or the concomitant instincts. That failing is in fact the primary driving force surrounding the postmodernist obsession with race, gender, gender expression and sexuality being social constructs capable of mobility. So long as that delusion remains refuted they cannot hope to have their side be victorious.
As a result, so many on both sides of the gender divide, especially amongst the young (for whom the lack of tranquility between the sexes is and will continue most devastating) seem to be viewing those on the other side as intractable enemies, with whom only momentary truces for sport (not unlike a sexual Christmas Truce of 1914) are permissible or desirable. I don’t think, when looking at the birthrates in the same developed countries where this behaviour is most prevalent, that there is much doubt that it is having an effect. The far greater concern, as I see it, revolves around the death phase of Calhoun’s Mouse Utopia.
Many have commented on the, at least superficial, similarities between MGTOW and the ‘beautiful ones’ in the latter stages of the colony’s life. That does not concern me so much as the fact that, when pairs from that experiment were placed in a new enclosure, the mice in question still did not socialise or breed despite having no social inertia to stymie such behaviour. Their instincts required for their social structures to work even at a pair level had, over successive generations, become so eroded that they had effectively been rendered sexless. The question becomes: to what degree must the social compact between the sexes be violated that a sufficient number of breeding pairs avoid reproducing, and those that do fail to provide the social instincts to form familial groups, to create an unrecoverable behavioural sink?
I don’t think either I or anyone else can answer that from any evaluation of probability, insofar as we are dealing with the social algebra of a species ostensibly capable of overriding their instincts and thus have a sample set of one. That said, I can, based on the general tenor of gender relations, coupled with evaluation of resultant indicators, accept that the tipping point comes sooner rather than latter without much difficulty.
Scarlet,
“so many on both sides of the gender divide, especially amongst the young (for whom the lack of tranquility between the sexes is and will continue most devastating) seem to be viewing those on the other side as intractable enemies”
I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, and (from my 15 years as a Boy Scout leader) know many young men in their early 20s. And from friends and family, young women. I don’t see that. And if not here, I doubt that’s so in Iowa.
A tiny fraction of men are moving in that direction. And they are moving slowly. Surveys clearly show that your description is not true. Not yet, anyway.
It’s true for even fewer women. For good reason. The Generation X women lived a golden age. High and rising levels of equality in education and work. Men playing by the traditional rules (a decade of free dinners while dating!) followed by party of her life – marriage – kids – elective divorce when they’re in school – child support, community property, heroic status as a single mom, and independence. This is working for the early millennial women, and the late Millennial women plan to follow the same path (I expect most will succeed). They not as you describe because the system works OK for them.
The open question is how many men will defect from this game, and how quickly. Then comes the next phases: how will young women react, and how quickly (men reacted with astonishing slowness)?
It may be argued that the Trust issue is actually a much more fundamental problem for our society.
Americans are learning that trustworthy entities are hard to find, not our banks, which eagerly helped ruin millions during the real estate bubble, not our churches, rife with cover ups and pedophilia, not our news media, complicit in launching fake wars such as the Libya or Syria assaults. In a world of ‘spin’ , the rational response is deep skepticism. That does not leave much room for love, but perhaps that is not essential for a functioning marriage if there is a reasonable confluence of interests.
Society can flourish even if people are very suspicious of the social institutions and marriages were too important in many societies to be left to the desires of the participants. So there is space for optimism, even if the historic framework is breaking down.
etudiant,
“Americans are learning that trustworthy entities are hard to find,”
When and where was that golden era when that was not true?
This discussions tend to mutate into belief that the proper standard of comparison is Heaven. Which is silly. Heaven is open to all. You must first die to get there, of course. Then there are the entrance standards…
‘I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, and (from my 15 years as a Boy Scout leader) know many young men in their early 20s. And from friends and family, young women. I don’t see that. And if not here, I doubt that’s so in Iowa.
A tiny fraction of men are moving in that direction. And they are moving slowly. Surveys clearly show that your description is not true. Not yet, anyway.’
I accept that your anecdotal evidence is genuine, insofar as it represents the microcosm of an OVERWHELMINGLY homogeneous area, philosophically speaking. In that sense, the lack of vocalisation of it being a problem is no more indicative of it being lack of problem than it would be in Soviet Russia. People in your immediate environment have very real, pragmatic reasons for keeping any such displeasure to themselves. Look at the case of James Damore. Conversely, it’s in the areas of split demographics with regard to political leanings, places like Iowa where there are enormous gulfs between moderate-to-liberal college cities and deep-red rural communities that we’re seeing the most vocally contentious relationships.
Yet, despite such a combative relationship not being vocalised, San Francisco county has nonetheless the lowest marriage rate amongst the 100 most populous counties in the United States, with a mere 27% of people aged 30 are married, well below the US average of 45%. You have the lowest birth rate in the state, and that’s not simply a function of social restrictions, as the percentage of births to unwed mothers in SF is half of the California state average. Are we to believe that these comparative shortfalls are entirely divorced from a breakdown in gender relations, or more appropriately in gender roles as they relate to evolutionary biology? I suppose one could argue that widespread use of contraception and both access and lack of social stigma on abortion could be to blame here but that is incidental in and of itself. Since clinics to do exit polls for abortion, it is impossible to say whether they were sought because of lack of confidence in the associated marriages/relationships, or from the relations resulting in the pregnancy being viewed as purely recreation, per my Christmas Truce remark. That said, I can accept that I may very well be wrong.
Scarlet,
“accept that your anecdotal evidence is genuine, insofar as it represents the microcosm of an OVERWHELMINGLY homogeneous area”
That’s not the relevant point. This area is one of the leader in the feminist (or gender) revolution. Years or decades ahead of the rest of the nation. Effect show here long before elsewhere.
“lack of vocalisation of it being a problem is no more indicative of it being lack of problem than it would be in Soviet Russia.”
No. There are young men I’ve worked with since they were 11 (for some, 8). I’ve camped with them. Hiked with them. Attended key ceremonies in their lives.
“San Francisco county has nonetheless the lowest marriage rate amongst the 100 most populous counties in the United States, with a mere 27% of people aged 30 are married,”
First, that is evidence of what i said: this area is far ahead of the rest of the area. Second, those simplistic numbers have to be adjusted. To mention one obvious factor, there are lots of gay people in the city. Marriage rates among heterosexuals here should be compared with the national average.
SF is an example of nothing.
There were no twenty-somethings in SF in the Aughts to have kids and the new generation of dot.com 2.0’s both with jobs at Google can’t afford a 3 bedroom here and never will be able to. It’s got little to do with their values (none of them are from here) than practical realities.
The bars are brimming with young straight couples – inching every day closer to even the Castro. And all while, ‘traditional values’ folks are whinging about all the kids on their lawns.
Lt Lucid,
San Francisco is a small city, population 864 thousand.
The San Francisco metropolitan area has a population of 4.7 million.
The San Francisco Bay Area (the Combined Statistical Area) has a population of 8.8 million.
Google’s headquarters is in Mountain View, Santa Clara country. The county is bedroom community, population 1.9 million, as are many in the Bay Area. Lots of kids there.
It’s trends are those of America, just a few years ahead of the rest.
Due to a WordPress system problem, a batch of comments were lost in the trash, including this one.
Here’s where your familiarity with Dalrock could payoff. Why not ask him what he thinks the real rate of marriage and divorce is in California as he has given the idea much thought. Why? Because they no longer add California divorce statistics (don’t know about marriage stats) to national totals.
Supposedly the data is not collected. Dalrock did several posts covering this and what that meant for the various marriage surveys he follows and even got in contact with the authors of one of them. Excuse me for not being more precise but I’m operating off memory of posts of his that are now several years old.
“When and where was that golden era when that was not true?”
The difference in this era is the internet. Everything is out in the open, there is no hiding from it other than willful denial.
As for the issue of trust, it’s like anything else, you have to give it to get it and there are no guarantees other than not to participate at all, going your own way. What happens if some still seek to form that trust and others do not. I don’t like this assumed separation between the genders. The fact of the matter is that it is highly unnatural for each man to be paired with a woman as most men are substandard and most women are highly desirable. These changes in culture have only accentuated these two truths. If mars was colonized and women could send as many men as they wanted there, how many would they send? And how many women would go with? Let’s assume it was the same environment as earth and it was just a case of being here or there. What would be the key differences between two societies, one with a small group of women and one with a small group of men?
Your understanding of evolutionary biology needs work.
Most women are not “highly desirable” in any sense other than procreation. Men have been partitioned into the disposable sex because of the numerous benefits that a sexually dimorphic species has over a monomorphic one, primarily the opportunity to specialize in fitness traits. For the same reason men and women have evolved different mating strategies, which is what you are referring to.
If the question boiled down to desire, they would send enough men to satisfy a 1:1 ratio (women LOATHE the constant threat of mate guarding). If they were intelligent, they would send a lot more since a woman’s sexual strategy depends on a surplus of potential male suitors. Said strategy is schizophrenic as it allows them to be robust and adaptable to ever-changing circumstances.
Both societies would utterly fail although in different, intriguing ways.
John,
(1) “The difference in this era is the internet.”
That’s not even remotely true. In the past people assumed that their rulers were exploiting them – supporting that with lies. Because it was obviously true. There was no belief in an honest news media, even as an aspiration.
(2) “as most men are substandard and most women are highly desirable.”
Wow. That’s a perfect example of a guy (presuming “John” is a guy) beaten into submission by feminism. He could be the “before” picture for a men’s rights group.
(3) “If mars was colonized and women could send as many men as they wanted there, how many would they send? And how many women would go with?”
No need to guess. History has uncountable examples of colonization. The pattern is that the guys go first and do the heavy work of creating tolerable conditions. Then the women come. Given the shifts in technology, the balance for colonization in space might be — might be – different. It depends on the goal. If mining, then probably almost all men at first.
If science (which is imo unlikely for the foreseeable future), then perhaps the numbers would begin higher and rise somewhat faster. Look at Antarctica. For the first two centuries it was almost an all-male frontier. As the conditions improved, the NSF and other institutions began programs to increase the number of women. By 1983 5% of the population was women. It has increased since then, although I have not seen percentages.
(4) “What would be the key differences between two societies, one with a small group of women and one with a small group of men?”
Since nobody has tried a mostly women frontier exploration, we don’t know. Fantasies like yours are common. Practical people run these operations and stick with proven models.
John said:
The fact of the matter is that it is highly unnatural for each man to be paired with a woman as most men are substandard and most women are highly desirable.
Every man alive today is the offspring of a man who was subject to selection pressures considerably harsher than those imposed on women. So that can’t be true.
If mars was colonized and women could send as many men as they wanted there, how many would they send?
Frontiers obviously will always have men blazing a trail, with women following.
“That’s not even remotely true. In the past people assumed that their rulers were exploiting them – supporting that with lies. Because it was obviously true. There was no belief in an honest news media, even as an aspiration.”
You tend to have a more narrow focus than me. That’s good. That’s why I read your writing. However, if you’re asking what I think, I could never pour the whole thing into a post so I have to be curt. The internet and cell phone communication has changed people in so many ways. It has also led to a level of mental illness and paranoia that was more avoidable for most people in the past.
If I was to guess your response, it would be that there have always been a certain amount of people with mental illness and if it was not the internet that brought it out of them, something else would have.
“That’s a perfect example of a guy (presuming “John” is a guy) beaten into submission by feminism. He could be the “before” picture for a men’s rights group.”
It’s obviously a world of fine lines and it takes a lot of work for any man to have value in our current society. That is not news. It is why we are here discussing what has gone “wrong.” It is because of this fact that many are looking for cheat codes like PUA, etc.
“No need to guess. History has uncountable examples of colonization. The pattern is that the guys go first and do the heavy work of creating tolerable conditions. Then the women come. Given the shifts in technology, the balance for colonization in space might be — might be – different. It depends on the goal. If mining, then probably almost all men at first. If science …then perhaps the numbers would begin higher and rise somewhat faster. Look at Antarctica. For the first two centuries it was almost an all-male frontier. As the conditions improved, the NSF and other institutions began programs to increase the number of women. By 1983 5% of the population was women. It has increased since then, although I have not seen percentages. Since nobody has tried a mostly women frontier exploration, we don’t know. Fantasies like yours are common. Practical people run these operations and stick with proven models.”
I’ll go no comment on this other than that’s an interesting way of putting it.
Ray said: “Every man alive today is the offspring of a man who was subject to selection pressures considerably harsher than those imposed on women. So that can’t be true.”
Increased competition thins the heard of men. I don’t know that it’s quite the same for women.
I continue to enjoy everyone’s perceptives, obviously we all bring something different and will never see everything the same way.
John,
(1) “If I was to guess your response, it would be that there have always been a certain amount of people with mental illness”
That’s quite an example of moving the pea. I was discussing social trust. You’re discussing mental illness.
(2) “It’s obviously a world of fine lines and it takes a lot of work for any man to have value in our current society. That is not news. I”
Too weird for rebuttal. Or it is trolling (“make a deliberately offensive or provocative online post with the aim of upsetting someone or eliciting an angry response from them”). If so, again not worth a response.
(3) “I’ll go no comment on this other than that’s an interesting way of putting it.”
They’re called “facts.” Try them. You’ll like them.
(4) “Increased competition thins the heard of men.”
Again, that looks quite delusional. War sometimes (rarely) substantially reduces the fraction of young men in a society. But “competition”? No.
Larry,
I was never trying to upset or antagonize you or anyone else, just offering some thoughts from my perspective on the ground. We don’t seem to be connecting, maybe it is the way I put things. I don’t want to have any kind of emotional discussion.
John,
“Most men are substandard …It takes a lot of work for any man to have value in our current society.”
“Most Blacks are substandard …It takes a lot of work for any Black to have value in our current society.”
“Most Jews are substandard …It takes a lot of work for any Jew to have value in our current society.”
Blah, blah, blah. The time has passed for such nonsense. Those spouting such things can no longer expect to be treated nicely.
Follow-Up for John,
California law requires employers to provide supervisors with 2 hours of interactive sexual harassment training and education every 2 years, effective 17 Aug 2007 (CA Govt. Code Sec. 12950.1, CA Admin. Code Sec. 7288.0). It teaches that statements such as your are no longer accepted under America’s social norms. Saying such a thing in a big business would get some severe discussion with your boss. More so if you are a supervisor. Further offenses would get mandatory training, at the very least.
Straws in the wind. You should pay attention.
Larry quoted John:
“Most men are substandard …It takes a lot of work for any man to have value in our current society.”
We live in a world with wall-to-wall technological marvels, from the flush toilet to laptops to nuclear energy. Maybe men are being punished for delivering too much value.
Larry,
I understand. That comment was offensive toward men in general. I didn’t mean it to be that way. When sex is easily available to men from a young age, it kills their motivation to actually become a man and increases their motivation to become better at getting sex and having a good time at everyone else’s expense. I don’t know how you flip that situation around. Who is going to do that, how and what are their true motivations going to be.
John,
“When sex is easily available to men from a young age”
For most men, sex is not easily available at a young age. I don’t have the data handy, but for most men (this varies by race and ethnicity) sex does not become easily available until the mid-20s.
“it kills their motivation to actually become a man and increases their motivation to become better at getting sex and having a good time at everyone else’s expense.”
I’m not sure what that means. Let’s play that back. Sex is easily available to women, which “kills their motivation to actually become a woman and increases their motivation to become better at getting sex and having a good time at everyone else’s expense.” Try that out on some feminists. If you survive, report back on your experiences.
That’s some heavy duty sexism you’ve got there.
John said: When sex is easily available to men from a young age, it kills their motivation to actually become a man .
Not true except for a tiny minority of men, who often have undesirable characteristics. Consider the number of love letters written to serial killers vs the number of love letters written to the movers and shakers of the software industry.
and increases their motivation to become better at getting sex and having a good time at everyone else’s expense
You mean society doesn’t like it when men can achieve sexual gratification without a large transfer of resources on their part (exceptions are sometimes made for the Chads and Tyrones of this world).
You see an example of this with Kathleen Richardson’s campaign against sex robots. It’s very clear that she doesn’t want John Q. Average getting any.
You guys are not on the right track with what I am saying and I don’t think you realize how many men and women alike are not motivated to obtain any resources. That’s the only point I was trying to make. I don’t know why that’s a contentious point to make. But hey, I get it, I’ll go.
John,
“I don’t think you realize how many men and women alike are not motivated to obtain any resources.”
Why do you believe that we don’t know that? It is a core aspect of our system: most people must work to live. That gives them motivation to obtain some minimum level of resources — food, shelter, clothes, entertainment.
But your implication that many are “not motivated to obtain any resources” is false. Look around. Few in America live the lifestyle of ascetic monks.
“That’s the only point I was trying to make.”
You made a great many more points, quite unrelated to that one. Embrace your words!
“But hey, I get it, I’ll go.”
Be careful with that sexism. It’s one of the worst cases I’ve seen in a while. Unashamed, too.
There 400 Million dead girls due to sex selection abortion – about 4% of the world’s females are gone – and this is the article you write! Really??? U miss the poInt
AvgWorld,
“U miss the poInt”
Rather, it is you that miss the point. There are a thousand or more serious problems in the world. Most of which Americans have zip control over. This website is about these things from an American perspective, focusing on things for which we are responsible.
The 400 Million dead girls is going to be THE world issue for the next 100 years. That’s the fact. Lack of women and clean water is a major major problem. And war will result. And btw – aborting girls just for being girls IS happening in the US. Wake up!
Avg,
“The 400 Million dead girls is going to be THE world issue for the next 100 years.”
Not likely. First, the effects of the gender imbalance are local. Second, the world has no gender imbalance (the number of men and women is roughly equal, given the low data quality). Third, by mid-century the population will be 10 to 12 billion — so even the local gender imbalances will be small vs. the total.
Third, the in past many nations have had much larger gender imbalances of men. Unpleasant, but life continues.
I suggest you learn a bit more about the issue before pushing the “hysteria” button. See this WaPo article (note areas where women outnumber men), and the invaluable about boring stuff Wikipedia.
Anyway, this is grossly off-topic. Back to the subject at hand!
If you just want to make up stuff I guess you can convince your readers you know about this stuff. They didn’t even keep track of sex ratios until the 20th century. That’s all guess work and heresay before then. And it’s not just local. Everyone knows gendercide happens in the Balkans, Caucasus, Vietnam, Taiwan even Portugal Italy and Austria. We’re talking 75-100 Million extra men with no chance at a family. That’s never been seen before in human history. But u can pretend I guess to sound smart that it’s not a big deal and has happened before! Lol
Avg,
“if you want to make stuff up.”
That’s quite a reading fail. Unlike you, I cited expert sources. Which you dismiss, displaying excellent self-esteem.
1. You don’t read what you write very well. You said it was a local problem. It is not. I already provided other areas of the world where this is true.
2. Here’s what you don’t understand about the overall human sex raito on earth: older women cover up the real truth. Meaning because women live longer than men – it’s older women accounting for most of the balancing. Try running the earth’s sex ratio under 30 years of age. I’ll wait as you embarrass yourself further!
Avg,
“You said it was a local problem. It is not. I already provided other areas of the world where this is true.”
“Local” means it is true in some areas but not of the world as a whole. It’s not true of the world.
“I’ll wait as you embarrass yourself further!”
You appear unable to either provide supporting material for your claims or discourse in a civil manner. Life is too short for this. You’re banned.
If you want to read the WPO read the Too Many Men article recently on the front page – “TOO MANY MEN” by Annie Gowen {ed note: also by Simon Denyer.}
Avg,
Please attempt to read before replying. Yes, there is a gender imbalance in China and India of men over women. True, that is without precedent.
My points were different, which you ignore. First, it is not a global imbalance. Second, such imbalances are common — but in the past of men over women. Perhaps this will have large effects on those societies — unlike the imbalance of women over men. Perhaps not. Time will tell.
Nice of you to at last cite evidence, even if falsely given as rebuttal. Facts are your friends. Use them more often.
AvgWorldCitizen said:
You said it was a local problem. It is not. I already provided other areas of the world where this is true.
When he says “local problem”, I take he means unlikely to spread very far away from its immediate area. So an imbalance in India (sex ratio ot 1.06 between ages 25-54) is unlikely to impact a country like Armenia much (sex ratio .93 for the same age group) or Puerto Rico (.92).
As to the Chinese, they can’t even rebalance their special administrative regions Hong Kong and Macau (.74 and .80 respectively for ages 25-54) with mainland China (1.04 in that age group).
They didn’t even keep track of sex ratios until the 20th century.
In that case, how can you be so sure about what’s going to happen? John Derbyshire has some expertise on Chinese affairs and it’s his contention that the Chinese have been dealing with sex ratio imbalances for centuries.
We’re talking 75-100 Million extra men with no chance at a family.
Corn and porn can be helpful in those situations. Wars have often been a way of taking surplus men out of the picture but advances in technology have served to make casualties plummet. China may have imperialistic ambitions but it would have to deal with the baggage of its previous one-child policy, which would make a war unpopular.
As to corn and porn, here’s one way the Chinese are dealing with their sex ratio issues.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/09/28/sex-dolls-are-replacing-chinas-missing-women-demographics/ I expect 21st century technology will come up with a whole bag of tricks for men to achieve sexual gratification.
For those men who insist on reproducing, there’s the prospect of the artificial womb.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/sep/04/artifical-womb-women-ectogenesis-baby-fertility
I expect it to take some time before it becomes a mainstream technology, but stay tuned.
That’s never been seen before in human history.
Contradicts what you’ve said previously.
Larry Kummer said: “Not likely.”
John Derbyshire has weighed in on the Chinese sex ratio. He doesn’t find it to be a hugely important factor.
“On Demographic Disasters—China’s And Ours”
“More on the Chinese Census” at National Review.
Ray,
Thanks for posting those. He refers to this book:
“Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men by Mara Hvistendahl. Review at The New Criterion.