The gender equality paradox

[dutchfire]

So let's recap, shall we?

Yes, see my previous post for a recap.

so bloody what?

So averages are clearly not enough to answer who will be the best 15 runners in our class, which is a question of physical differences.

Did I ever say it was optimum for all armies to be 100% male?

The entire point of my post #96 was that it is not optimal for armies to be 100% male. This was in contradiction with your original statement "women can be effective soldiers today, obviously they couldn't in the past" which logically leads to "women couldn't be effective soldiers, so the army has to be 100% male".

Did I ever say all men are capable of beating all women in a marathon?

No, you didn't. That would be a silly thing to say. Sadly, the rest of your position is based on very similar statements.

Is that clear enough, or do you want to do some more posing?

False dichotomy.
And no, it is not clear enough, see previous answers.

Any questions I missed?

 

[luiz]

OK, so it's a combination of posing with actual limitation, it seems.

So averages are clearly not enough to answer who will be the best 15 runners in our class, which is a question of physical differences.

But the purpose of my statement was never to say who would be the best 15 runners in class. It was to show there are actual and meaningful physical differences between the genders. For that averages are necessary and enough.

If you want to argue against a strawman, do so alone. I never said anything about who would be the best 15 runners in class.

The entire point of my post #96 was that it is not optimal for armies to be 100% male. This was in contradiction with your original statement "women can be effective soldiers today, obviously they couldn't in the past" which logically leads to "women couldn't be effective soldiers, so the army has to be 100% male".

It only leads to that conclusion if you don't know how to make conclusions. And obviously my statement on effectiveness was relative to men; there's no point in talking about effectiveness without a reference.

So, to make it clear for the 100th time: in the past women were much less effective soldiers (than men), today not so much. If you disagree with that position, which was my only position all along as can be easily inferred from the context in which those posts were made, fine. Let's argue that position.

If you want to argue against arguments that I never made, such as "all the best runners in class will necessarily be boys" or "you can't find a single good soldier among the whole female population", then I won't indulge you. I suggest you start a new thread, titled "dutchfire is a paladin of equality and women's right", and invite other like-minded individuals for a circle jerk.

No, you didn't. That would be a silly thing to say. Sadly, the rest of your position is based on very similar statements.

No it's not. You don't know how to draw conclusions and how to look at statements in contexts. Or rather, you choose to not to.

False dichotomy.
And no, it is not clear enough, see previous answers.

Any questions I missed?

Yes, you missed the actual argument going on in this thread and decided to do some posing. Too bad you're arguing against position neither I or anyone here actually hold.

 

[dutchfire]

Yes, you missed the actual argument going on in this thread and decided to do some posing. Too bad you're arguing against position neither I or anyone here actually hold.

I'm arguing against this opinion, which comes from your post

women can be effective soldiers today, obviously they couldn't in the past

If you don't actually hold that position then couldn't you have said so 2 pages ago?

 

[Akka]

You have still missed the point

Let me spell it out for you, because it seems that is necessary. Imagine I'm in a high school class with 30 students, half male half female. Now, men are typically better runners than women. So, the average man in the class is probably faster than the average woman, and the fastest runner in the class is probably male. Our class will join a running competition and needs to send a team of 15 people, independent of gender.

The luiz & Akka approach to this is to say "Well, men are on average faster than women, so we will send our 15 men to the competition." Do you think this is indeed optimal?

My point (and, I think, Luiz and a certain number of other people too) => there is biological differences between men and women, and these differences are the source of most of what we call "masculine"/"feminine" behaviour.
The typical military example is just a very factual, very obvious one illustrating such difference, because as a whole men are MUCH more suited to fighting than women.

Your answer to this ? Saying that average don't matter (duh ? This is absurd, it's actually the only thing that matter in the point we're making), claiming that there are some women better than a certain number of men (duh ? It's both obvious, already being specifically pointed in our arguments, and completely irrelevant to our point) and making number jugglings that are actually perfectly in line with what we're saying, but that you somehow think prove us wrong (wrong about what ? I don't know, because it really doesn't go against anything we're saying, on the contrary).

Really, who's not getting the point here ? Seems to me it's actually you.

 

[Flying Pig]

My point (and, I think, Luiz and a certain number of other people too) => there is biological differences between men and women, and these differences are the source of most of what we call "masculine"/"feminine" behaviour.

Yes, this is the point of contention. Most masculine and feminine stereotypes are not directly linked to body mass, and it is certainly not the case that small men are just as likely as average women to conform to female stereotypes.

 

[Akka]

Also, don't forget that it really wasn't all that important even in pre-industrial warfare. If it was, Romans would have made even worse soldiers then women.

Romans were weak midgets.

These posts don't make any sense.

 

[Akka]

Yes, this is the point of contention. Most masculine and feminine stereotypes are not directly linked to body mass, and it is certainly not the case that small men are just as likely as average women to conform to female stereotypes.

Because body mass is the only difference between men and women ?

Both Dutchfire and you tend to be typically intelligent people. Why are you putting so much effort into purposedly being thick here ?

Half of the thread is about repeating the caveats "it's about average" and "let's take this specific example just to illustrate", caveats that should not even be required if people weren't playing dumb on purpose.
And despite all this, people still seem to spend all their energy into trying to find a way to put a strawman for political correctness sake rather than actually getting the point.

It's just insanely annoying.

 

[Flying Pig]

OK, so we're back to finding another demonstrably biological difference between men and women that is not a product of culture. Which was the original problem. Yes, there are biological differences between the sexes, but they do not usually correlate with, still less determine, the increasingly outdated concept of 'gender roles'.

It makes a more sense if you know that Romans tended to make good soldiers.

And that the Romans were self-confessedly usually smaller and feebler than their opponents.

 

[ParkCungHee]

These posts don't make any sense.

It makes a more sense if you know that Romans tended to make good soldiers.

 

[Hygro]

While raw body mass and violent tendency may explain some aspects of mêlée age warfare it doesn't do to forget that burning you able bodied womenfolk on stabbity shankity slashity enterprise is pretty wasteful unless your tribe/group/nation is severely overpopulated.

Which is to say there are game theoretical reasons for why populations at certain times in history find it advantageous to have different social norms for men and women.

Hygro, my concern is that you are undervaluing the social echoes of 'violent sociopathy,' as you put it, which is I think a overstretch on your terms. Being less risk averse could play here without isolating to something quite so loaded. Little differences make big ones over time.

Unless I am mistaking you, I'm pretty sure that was the argument I was making. Within the subtext of "there are other logical narratives than biological evolutionary psychology".

Does a More Equal Marriage Mean Less Sex?
The article is rather long, so it is a good idea to read it for yourselves, but the basic premise is that the more a man acts like a man, the more likely a man tries to be equal with the wife, the less likely it is going to turn on the woman, so in effect men who are more manly are better for women. This goes against our egalitarian society, but it is what has made other societies survive before us.

It doesn't go against anything, dude. You can have totally gender-divided relationships and still be pro equality. I'm not sure why having a culture that allows strangers to treat you the same as how you want your husband to treat you is a reason to stratify gender in society

@Hygro, yes there is a biological difference between men and women, that should be blatantly obvious.

Don't ever change.

 

[Akka]

OK, so we're back to finding another demonstrably biological difference between men and women that is not a product of culture. Which was the original problem.

There was never any problem in finding very obvious biological differences between the sexes. Even if someone is blind enough to not see the huge differences between men and women (as a whole, seems we need to raise the flag each time), I'm pretty sure he can find medical reports that would be able to enlighten him - that is, unless he simply doesn't WANT to see, as there is no cure in the entire world for selective blindness.

The only problem I've seen in this thread (or, to be honest, any time this subject pops up) is the incredibly biased attempt at people to reinterpret reality in a way that is politically correct instead of objective.

Yes, there are biological differences between the sexes, but they do not usually correlate with, still less determine, the increasingly outdated concept of 'gender roles'.

Actually they strongly correlate, and both the empirical observations and the logical deductions we can draw from our biology and the need of a hunter-gatherer society like the one in which humanity evolved, strongly hint that they tend to determine them.

I've yet to see an actual argument backed up by anything more than wishful thinking that can stand up to this. So far, the only serious attempt I could notice was made by Hygro, and it still required both extremely selective reasoning and extremely biased sorting of the facts, all this to barely reach at best a "we don't know" point.

It makes a more sense if you know that Romans tended to make good soldiers.

Err... sure, and ?

Romans weren't midgets for their time, their fitness was actually very good, and anyway even if it wasn't the case, their men weren't somehow magically weaker than their women. So you still don't make a shred of sense.

 

[dutchfire]

My point (and, I think, Luiz and a certain number of other people too) => there is biological differences between men and women, and these differences are the source of most of what we call "masculine"/"feminine" behaviour.

As a supportive argument for this point, the following was said by luiz:

women can be effective soldiers today, obviously they couldn't in the past

This point was challenged by Flying Pig and me, which is where this particular story starts. Now, you could have done several reasonable things. You could have conceded this point, since this argument might not be necessary to your overall point. Alternatively, you could have clarified or adjusted the point in a way that still supported your original thesis. Or you could have explained why the arguments given by us are wrong.
Instead, you seem to be arguing that our reply to your supportive argument is not a reply against your original point. This misses the entire structure of the argumentation.


And a small addendum for the nitpickers:

Saying that average don't matter (duh ? This is absurd, it's actually the only thing that matter in the point we're making),

Our point is not that averages are irrelevant, it is that averages are not the only relevant thing and insufficient to explain everything.

 

[Akka]

As a supportive argument for this point, the following was said by luiz:

It's the third times (at least) you've been repeating the same sentence like a drone, totally ignoring anything that was said in answer.
Okay I get it, you're in love with your strawman. You win at playing the idiot. Gratz, I give up.

 

[luiz]

I'm arguing against this opinion, which comes from your post

If you don't actually hold that position then couldn't you have said so 2 pages ago?

You're arguing against the strawman version of that opinion, which no intelligent person in the world would consider to have been my actual argument. And since I knew I was dealing with people pretending to be dumb just to pose as egalitarian and PC, I actually made this totally unnecessary and obvious clarification that I'm talking about averages many pages ago.

I do hold that "in the pre-industrial world, women were not effective soldiers [compared to men]", in the same way that I hold that "Angolans are poorer than Americans". Naturally, if you are to compile a list of the 10,000 richest individuals in the US and Angola, some Angolans will show up. Only a blabbering idiot would think this is somehow proof that my statement "Angolans are poorer than Americans" is false. It's the exact same thing with male and female soldiers in the pre-industrial world.

 

[dutchfire]

It's the third times (at least) you've been repeating the same sentence like a drone, totally ignoring anything that was said in answer.

That is because this sentence is very important. It's the very start of this conversation, and the reason we're having it. I disagree with this sentence and have explained why, and from your fuzzy answers, I'm still not sure what you and luiz think about it.

Okay I get it, you're in love with your strawman. You win at playing the idiot. Gratz, I give up.

If by strawman you mean something someone actually said, then I guess you're in need of a dictionary.

 

[Akka]

That is because this sentence is very important. It's the very start of this conversation, and the reason we're having it. I disagree with this sentence and have explained why, and from your fuzzy answers, I'm still not sure what you and luiz think about it.

If by strawman you mean something someone actually said, then I guess you're in need of a dictionary.

This =>

You're arguing against the strawman version of that opinion, which no intelligent person in the world would consider to have been my actual argument. And since I knew I was dealing with people pretending to be dumb just to pose as egalitarian and PC, I actually made this totally unnecessary and obvious clarification that I'm talking about averages many pages ago.

 

[dutchfire]

I do hold that "in the pre-industrial world, women were not effective soldiers [compared to men]"

The implications of this statement are not equivalent to "in the pre-industrial world, women could not be effective soldiers"

To use your analogy, the statements "Americans are not poorer than Angolans" and "Americans can not be poorer than Angolans" are not equivalent.

To get back to your original post, for the umpteenth time:

Modern society allows people to take all sorts of roles they couldn't before, and of course this is specially true for women (women can be effective soldiers today, obviously they couldn't in the past).

Then the meaning of this sentence is that there did not exist any single woman that could be an effective soldier. In particular, it is not a statement about averages.

 

[luiz]

That is because this sentence is very important. It's the very start of this conversation, and the reason we're having it. I disagree with this sentence and have explained why, and from your fuzzy answers, I'm still not sure what you and luiz think about it.

If by strawman you mean something someone actually said, then I guess you're in need of a dictionary.

Taking a single sentence out of the context in which it was made and totally ignoring the entirely obvious clarifications that were repeatedly made is almost the definition of a strawman.

And if you still don't know what I think of it, even after reading this:

So, to make it clear for the 100th time: in the past women were much less effective soldiers (than men), today not so much. If you disagree with that position, which was my only position all along as can be easily inferred from the context in which those posts were made, fine. Let's argue that position.

If you want to argue against arguments that I never made, such as "all the best runners in class will necessarily be boys" or "you can't find a single good soldier among the whole female population", then I won't indulge you.

or this:

I do hold that "in the pre-industrial world, women were not effective soldiers [compared to men]", in the same way that I hold that "Angolans are poorer than Americans". Naturally, if you are to compile a list of the 10,000 richest individuals in the US and Angola, some Angolans will show up. Only a blabbering idiot would think this is somehow proof that my statement "Angolans are poorer than Americans" is false. It's the exact same thing with male and female soldiers in the pre-industrial world.

Then maybe you're not just pretending to be thick.

 

[luiz]

The implications of this statement are not equivalent to "in the pre-industrial world, women could not be effective soldiers"

To use your analogy, the statements "Americans are not poorer than Angolans" and "Americans can not be poorer than Angolans" are not equivalent.

To get back to your original post, for the umpteenth time:

Then the meaning of this sentence is that there did not exist any single woman that could be an effective soldier. In particular, it is not a statement about averages.

Good God, you keep repeating a single sentence, take it out of the context in which it was made, and then try to tell me what I really meant by my own sentence, against the countless explanations I've made! And of course you chose the stupid strawman version of the argument as my true position, and won't accept any other interpretation! Talk about being thick!

I've stated repeatedly that it I was only talking about averages; that obviously in a large group of people there will be exceptional female soldiers and runners, but this does not detract at all from the point I was making, which is that there are real physical differences.

Instead of addressing what I actually meant, as clarified hundreds of times (and no clarification was needed because it's so obvious), you stick to your strawman and refuse to let go.

If you really, really believe what I meant was that no women could possibly have been an effective soldier in the pre-industrial world, even after everything I've written, then you, sir, are unintelligent to a point I didn't even find possible.

 

[Farm Boy]

Unless I am mistaking you, I'm pretty sure that was the argument I was making. Within the subtext of "there are other logical narratives than biological evolutionary psychology"

I think that I'm saying it's the same narrative both ways.