Comments on: The male gaze: I see it

By: David_H

David_H — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 01:05:29 +0000

uh cough cough - bump

By: Paulus

Paulus — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 17:35:22 +0000

Naah, Helen, you just put the little buggers in the harness, and whip them hard enough, and you’ll get them pulling the sled, no problem.

Much easier than getting women on to the blokosphere, err, sorry, blogosphere!

By: Helen

Helen — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 12:17:45 +0000

So, you think that women playing an equal part in the blogosphere would be like cats pulling sleds? because that’s where the evpsych – essentialist argument always heads, isn’t it?

By: Adrien

Adrien — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 09:34:13 +0000

TT – if I’ve misjudged where you were heading with the emphasis on “it’s a theory”, I apologise in advance.
.
Yeah you did. I know what you mean. Like AGW is just a theory so we can ignore it by pretending ‘just a theory’ is like: it’s only a story. Natural Selection makes perfect sense to me.
.
As I understand it a viable theory has evidence that backs it up but is not yet 100% proven beyond the shadow of a reasonable doubt. It may be proved false finally or, more likely, superceded by a better theory which incorporates the earlier ones.
.
I mean the difference between the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics and the General Theory of Relativity. Or evolution and natural selection. The first is a fact; the second an explanation that explains the fact, at least partially.

By: su

su — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 09:10:08 +0000

There is a limit as to what can be done. You’ll never train cats to pull sleds for example.

First, you build a giant roomba. Put technology in the mix and nature/nurture starts to get interesting.

By: tigtog

tigtog — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 07:50:45 +0000

@ Adrien Theories are models of observed phenomena (i.e. facts) which are used to predict future events/phenomena. So biological evolution has observations, data, mechanisms, hypotheses, facts, theories and predictions based on the theories. ETA: if I've misjudged where you were heading with the emphasis on "it's a theory", I apologise in advance. It just sounded way too like the "Just A Theory" woo that makes my teeth grind.

By: Adrien

Adrien — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 07:06:03 +0000

Natural selection is just one mechanism for evolution BTW, there are others eg genetic ‘drift’.
.
Insofar as I actually understand this stuff I thought they were theories.

By: Adrien

Adrien — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 06:54:17 +0000

Su – Cheers. I’ll read them tonight.
.
Fine – Good point. The picture of nature which I have is one of material that will fit its circumstances. The proposition that women are inherently less assertive due to natural make-up cannot be absolutely proved. And even if it was so I think perhaps that it could be defied. Caeser once commented, on the war with the Celts in France that the women were more dangerous then the men. Still true.
_

So the Queen Boadicea, standing loftily charioted,
Brandishing in her hand a dart and rolling glances lioness-like,
Yell’d and shriek’d between her daughters in her fierce volubility.
Till her people all around the royal chariot agitated,

I suppose tho’ that the construct on which gender is based – masculinity/femininity – must be redesigned. Obviously this is not a new idea. But I think perhaps there’s a tendency to regard a human animal as a bank page upon which a culture writes. Whereas I think of it as an animal.
.
There is a limit as to what can be done. You’ll never train cats to pull sleds for example. So the intention becomes not so much in creating a race of gender-homogenous androgynes but new ideas of femininity/masculinity which do not curtail the aspirations and opportunities of individuals insofar as that is possible at the present time.
.
There is however a difference and it will persist. At least imho. I could well be wrong.

By: su

su — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 06:48:38 +0000

Gahh formatting. The study was called “Recent acceleration of human
adaptive evolution” by John Hawks,and a bunch of others. Two of the authors have written a book based on the results called “The 10,000 year explosion: How Civilization accelerated human evolution”.

Natural selection is just one mechanism for evolution BTW, there are others eg genetic ‘drift’.

By: su

su — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 06:34:11 +0000

I am not arguing along this old left/right chestnut.

I know, I meant a general "you" rather than you specifically.

Would you please elucidate. How do we know that?

See this study (pdf), results reported here.

By: Fine

Fine — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 05:09:45 +0000

Except that mammals share a great deal of DNA with usand behave in very similar ways. In a discussion about the impact af nature and nurture, there’s no reason to assume that the experience of other species of mammals are irrelevant when their personalites are moulded by both their inheritance and their environment, which is the case with domesticated mammals.

By: Adrien

Adrien — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 04:10:46 +0000

Well yes I did. But I would’ve thought it axiomatic that there a whole range of species that diversify. Species and orders have their natures. If we were arachnids there’d be no feminism. There’d be no masculism either. Us guys’d be breakfast before we’d get anywhere with emancipation.

By: Fine

Fine — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 03:57:41 +0000

Adrien, you used the word ‘animal’ not ‘primate’, as in ‘we’re all animals’.

By: Adrien

Adrien — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 03:49:06 +0000

Mindy – We also see nature documentaries where mothers fight off other males and predators so your point doesn’t really stand Adrien.
.
Mindy – please consider my position a little more closely. I did not say that females won’t fight to protect their young. In fact I believe mammalian mothers defending their young are about as ferocious an animal as you get on this planet. But it would make more sense if they didn’t have to do that wouldn’t it. A sort of division of labour?
.
Again I am not advocating hard set gender roles based on some archaic view of nature as a Holy Clockwork. Can you please attempt to eschew the nature/nurture opposition. That is an opytmoded model and it does not apply to the actual world.

By: Adrien

Adrien — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 03:45:05 +0000

Su – Yes; no testable hypotheses and no evidence for the assumption that all current human behaviours conferred a reproductive advantage – two big problems with ev psych.
.
Indeed. Psychology is one of those disciplines that properly belong in the Hunmabnities but are desperate to wear white coats. I don’t have a problem with it provided we’re aware that a lot of it is speculation.
.
The other is that, even if you were to accept the notion that nature necessarily trumps nurture (I don’t)
.
I am not arguing along this old left/right chestnut. I’m trying to put it to the side. It’s inaccurate and progressively more useless.
.
we know that human evolution has been accelerating as populations have grown larger, so the assumption that our brains were set in their current state in the Pleistocene is demonstrably false.
.
Would you please elucidate. How do we know that? If one assumes the theory of natural selection it seems that human evolution would slow down.
.
BTW – Emotionally I was inclined to believe we could make of ourselves whatever we wished. But facts are facts however inconvenient. Again I’m not coming from some ‘it’s nature ye cannae do nuthin’ about it’ position. More from the position that to cultivate something as you would it helps to understand it.
.
Thing is, it actually is in our natures to leave most of our learning to nurture innit?

By: Adrien

Adrien — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 03:38:20 +0000

Fine – I think when you start bringing nature into it, you need to be accurate about how animals behave actually behave.
.
Yes. But we are not horses. We are not Perissodactylan order. We are primates.
.
Do you think the threat of wild animals wouldn’t have restricted the men as well?
.
Of course. But men are not as essential for child-rearing as women. And we have physical attributes which prpare us (slightly) better for conflict. And we’re idiots.
.
I don’t think gender roles have ever been entirely rigid. There’s a lot of variation amongst individuals. Like horses we display androgynous characteristics.
.
I’m not saying we’re all machines programmed by the gender default. Merely that social progress necessitates understanding and we may find utility in appreciating how out archaic past affects modern behaviour and assumptuions without our realizing it.

By: su

su — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 02:42:13 +0000

As far as I’m aware it would be difficult to falsify claims about the psychology of archaic humanity.

Yes; no testable hypotheses and no evidence for the assumption that all current human behaviours conferred a reproductive advantage – two big problems with ev psych. The other is that, even if you were to accept the notion that nature necessarily trumps nurture (I don’t), we know that human evolution has been accelerating as populations have grown larger, so the assumption that our brains were set in their current state in the Pleistocene is demonstrably false.

By: Fine

Fine — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 01:44:16 +0000

Adrien, I think when you start bringing nature into it, you need to be accurate about how animals behave actually behave. I’ve spent a fair bit of time working with racehorses. It’s interesting to observe how people often gender behaviour with these animals. Big, assertive mares who’d rather walk through you than around you get labelled as ‘masculine’ mares. Lightly built, gentle mare get labelled as ‘feminine’. Yet, in the wild it’s the alpha mare who controls the herd, not the stallion. It’s the same with domesticated horses. Put a group together in a paddock and it’s the alpha mare who’ll run the show, including kicking the living shit out of any stallion who dares intrude.

Do you think the threat of wild animals wouldn’t have restricted the men as well?

By: Mindy

Mindy — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 22:39:35 +0000

We also see nature documentaries where mothers fight off other males and predators so your point doesn’t really stand Adrien.

By: Adrien

Adrien — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 02:07:29 +0000

Su – I’m not a doctrinaiire adherent of evolutionary psych or sociobiology or any other ‘right-wing’ field. I don’t categorically exclude them either. I just ask is the idea of some veracity, is it interesting, is it useful? I’m just speca-latin’ about a hypothesis I know I don’t know nuthin’.
.
As far as I’m aware it would be difficult to falsify claims about the psychology of archaic humanity.
.
It doesn’t make intuitive sense to me that foraging for food and the raw materials to produce fibres etc would restrict the range of women cf men
.
What would restrict the range of women is the threats from wild animals and males from other tribes. We see that kind of behaviour in animals. We’re animals.