Is There Anything Good About Men?: How Cultures Flourish by Exploiting Men
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Last annotated on September 26, 2016
CHAPTER 1 An Odd, Unseasonal QuestionRead more at location 60
Note: Le maggiori differenze tra uomo e donna si comfigurano come trade off: se U è migliore nel fare X allora D fa meglio Y... Non esiste società al mondo in cui gli uomini non domonino. Perchè? Tre spieghe: 1) l'uomo è superiore 2) la donna è oppressa 3) uomo e donna hanno motivazioni differenti... La terza spiegazione sembra vincente: le inclinazioni dell'uomo sembrano più idonee a costruire sistemi sociali estesi, anonimi, astratti. La donna è più attratta dalla sfera personale... Tesi del libro: la cultura è una costruzione maschile ma ciò nn significa che tuteli il maschio, al contrario, gli uomini ricoprono spesso i panni della vittima... Il femminismo ha prodotto uno spiacevole effetto collaterale: la teria del complotto patriarcale. Non sembra davvero una tesi sostenibile. Avete mai sentito dei maschi complottare? In genere maschi e femmine collaborano. Il conflitto dovrebbe essere qualcosa che accade all'insaputa dei protagonisti. Solo alcune femministe radicali sembrano coscienti... Il femminismo da movimento per i pari diritti si è trasformato in movimento antagonista. Molti cervelli hanno giudicato raggiunti gli obbiettivi mollando il colpo e lasciando il movimento nelle mani della frangia più radicale... Non lo si può negare: chi nell'accademia revoca in dubbio gli assunti femministi rischia. Non esiste un pari trattamento tra ipotesi esplicativi. Es. il wage gap: esistono molte opotesi alternative all'oppressione dei pregiudizi (full time, rschio, sacrifici, preferenze, negoziazione...) eppure... Altro esempio eliquente sono le ricerche sulle preferenze del nascituro... U. e D. sono differenti, le culture che capitalizzano qs. differenza sono vincenti. Il matriarcato ha perso in questa lotta. Perchè. Tesi: nn che le donne siano inette a governare ma hanno meno motivazioni: sono più avverse al rischio e ai sacrifivi (hanno più alternative alla carriera)... Ma come è possibile che il sistema sfrutti i maschi quando i maschi sono ai vertici di qualsiasi organizzazione? L'errore qui è di concentrarsi sui vertici. Guarda anche ai margini, scoprirai che anche lì la prevalenza maschile è indiscutibile. Margini: prigione, barboni, incidenti sul lavoro, vitime di guerra. Per la nostra cultura la vita di un uomo vale meno. Spiegazioni? Forse è tutto legato alla generazione della prole: bastano pochi uomini per garantire una numerosa figliolanza, mentre le donne devono essere necessariamente molte... Norah Vincent: una femminista che si è fatta passare da uomo x scrivere il suo libro. Conclusione inattesa: che vita di m.!... Trade off. Esiste un genfer gap opposto nei salari e negli incidenti sul lavoro. Forse sono legati: parte del salario copre i rischi di incidenti. La logica del trade off compensa i gender gap e spiega molto in qs. tematiche... Edit
Note: 1@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@§ LA TESI... LOTTA TRA SESSI.... FEMMINSMO INVASATO. POLITICALLY CORRECT (WAGE GAP E PREFERENZA X IL MASCHIETTO)... DEFINIZIONE DI CULTURA...CARNE DA MACELLO Edit
In this book, I develop a somewhat radical theory about men and women. It holds that differences are rooted mainly in tradeoffs. If one gender is better at something, the superior ability will probably be linked to being worse at something else.Read more at location 64
One of the most important traits that make us human is our ability to create and sustain giant social systemsRead more at location 68
These systems are called cultures. I shall suggest that cultures routinely exploit men in certain ways, which is to say cultures find men more useful than women for certain tasks.Read more at location 69
men have long held higher positions in society than women have. Most rulers throughout history have been men. Even today, most countries are governed by groups consisting mostly of men. Elsewhere in society, men rule also: in corporate boardrooms, on town councils; even within families, men seem to have more authority. The Global World Forum recently rated most nations on various dimensions of equality, and it found not a single country in which women generally enjoy superior status over men.Read more at location 75
two main explanations have been put forward for why men have dominated culture and ruled the world. The first was accepted nearly everywhere until the twentieth century: that men were naturally superior to women.Read more at location 79
The second explanation was a reaction against the first. It said that women were not inferior to men on any meaningful dimension. Possibly women are superior, but definitely not inferior. Therefore, the difference in social standing had to be explained as oppression. Men must somehow be working together to keep women down. Men devised a clever system for themselves, called patriarchy, and they used it to share rewards and to oppress women.Read more at location 82
This book offers a third explanation. It’s not that men are smarter than women (the first theory). It’s not that men are wicked conspirators against women (the second theory). It’s about some basic likes and dislikes. It’s rooted in how men treat other men, and how that is different from the way women relate to other women. It’s about how culture works.Read more at location 85
There were crucial tradeoffs: Women’s relationships were vital for some other things. Just not for constructing large systems, like a market economy, or a large team. Because culture grew out of men’s relationships—including competition, trading and communicating with strangers, and ample doses of violence—men were always in charge of it.Read more at location 89
Women have asked, and occasionally demanded, to be allowed into the giant systems that men built, and to varying degrees they have been let in. Meanwhile, there are hardly any places in the world where men are asking (or demanding) to be allowed into giant social systems built up by women.Read more at location 92
lack of such female-created social systems is something worth pondering.Read more at location 95
One core interest of the book is to examine how culture exploits men. This does not mean I am denying that culture exploits women too. Many cultures do exploit women, some more than others, and sometimes cruelly.Read more at location 97
Home This book is not about the “battle of the sexes.”Read more at location 114
Feminist theory has had the unfortunate side effect of accustoming us all to thinking of gender in terms of conflict: mainly men oppressing women, and men being threatened by female successes. Instead, I think men and women for the most part work together. Any time people work together, there are occasional conflicts, but these are not the main story. One goal of this book is to reinterpret the relations between men and women as more cooperative and complementary than antagonistic.Read more at location 117
He identified himself as a group therapist who had been conducting all-male group therapy sessions for more than twenty years. He said something that has stuck with me ever since. In all those years of men’s groups, he had never once heard any group of men talk about women as the enemy.Read more at location 123
some of it has fostered hatred and readily sacrificed the pursuit of truth for the sake of self-interested political gain.Read more at location 153
Many of us, especially those of us past a certain age, have affectionate memories of the feminist movement in the 1970s. We associated feminism with promoting equality,Read more at location 154
These days many people associate feminism with something quite different, even the opposite: promoting women at the expense of men, defending dogmas, stifling new thought, and deploring men.Read more at location 156
In her book Who Stole Feminism? Christina Hoff Sommers argued that the feminist movement had indeed changed from a men-welcoming, idealistic movement promoting one kind of utopia into an antagonistic and often stridently anti-male movement.Read more at location 159
achieving many of its reasonable goals caused many to think the job was done. Fewer moderate women joined, and this left the movement to be taken over by the more radical and fanatical types.Read more at location 161
I strongly suspect there is no point in debating with feminists.Read more at location 164
The business of feminism was aptly summarized by Daphne Patai and Noretta Koertge, two scholars who have spent their careers in Women’s Studies programs and who wrote a thoughtful book, Professing Feminism,Read more at location 165
most feminists do not pay any attention to criticisms from non-feminists. They listen a little bit to criticism from each other—but that mainly concerns the purity of their commitment to feminist politics and doctrine.Read more at location 167
my argument is with a certain stereotyped feminist outlook. I am arguing not with actual feminists, but with feminists as they are perceived by men.Read more at location 177
These include the ones who have campaigned to have urinals removed from public lavatories so that men will be forced to sit down to urinate,Read more at location 184
sex with men was “sleeping with the enemy.”Read more at location 187
I said that the hostility between the sexes had been overstated. I mentioned as an example the women’s suffrage movement. I pointed out that women got the vote because a majority of men, only men, voted to extend the vote to women.Read more at location 190
men had essentially welcomed women with open arms and affirmative action.Read more at location 193
No doubt there are many women who identify themselves as feminists yet who do not hate men and may even like them,Read more at location 202
claims about oppression and prejudice seem immune to this process. They are not treated with the same strict discipline that other scientificRead more at location 216
oppression hypothesis routinely has taken a beating. There are multiple possible explanations for the gender salary gap, and several have much clearer support than oppression. Men are more likely than women to work full-time rather than part-time. On average across the population, men are more ambitious than women. They work harder and put in hundreds more hours per year. Men are less likely than women to take a few years off during the crucial career-building years of their thirties. Men take bigger risks than women. Men are more willing to sacrifice other sorts of career benefits, such as freedom from travel requirements, low stress, and even personal safety, for a higher salary. Men are more likely than women to negotiate for a higher salary. All these contribute to higher male salaries.Read more at location 220
preference for boy babiesRead more at location 225
parents were more likely to have another child if their first or previous child had been a girl than a boy. The explanation given at that time was that parents really want sons, and so if they have a girl, they regard the reproductive event as a failureRead more at location 227
What they said, and what research evidence also shows (if anyone had bothered to look before attributing parental choices to sexism), is that girl babies are generally easier than boy babies.Read more at location 232
Boy babies are more trouble. They scream and cry more often than girl babies, and louder too. (Incidentally, this well-documented finding has been recognized as an important challenge to the conventional claim that females are more emotional than males.) Once they start crawling and walking, they get into things. They make bigger messes. They climb the furniture and pull the draperies. They fight with other kids. Parents who have boys think, this is difficult. Let’s not have any more of these.Read more at location 237
Recently I visited China. The preference for boys there is well entrenched in the culture and it is hard to deny that there is overt preference, to the point of prejudice.Read more at location 241
Yet even there, it may be overly hasty to attribute these attitudes to oppression and prejudice. My Chinese colleagues pointed out that Chinese tradition and law stipulate that a son is responsible for taking care of his parents in their old age. A daughter is not.Read more at location 246
The law and tradition are themselves quite relevant to one theme of this book. Males are required to support their parents, while females are exempt from this requirement.Read more at location 253
I shall propose that men and women are different in some basic ways and that some cultures—successful ones—capitalize on these differences to outperform rival cultures.Read more at location 258
The Imaginary Feminist asks, why not matriarchy? Why can’t women rule? I say, yes, why not?Read more at location 259
It has been tried. Unfortunately, those matriarchal cultures and societies did not stand the test of time. There is probably a good reason. In fact, I shall suggest that women can rule, and even quite effectively. But usually they don’t. It’s not a matter of competence or capability. More likely, it has to do with the willingness to take the risks and make the sacrificesRead more at location 261
In other writings, I have gone so far as to conclude that culture is humankind’s biological strategy. It is how people attempt to solve the basic biological problems that all species face: survival and reproduction. We have culture, a system that shares information, coordinates different tasks, and increases wealth.Read more at location 266
In short, cultures have challenges. To survive, they must use their men and women effectively.Read more at location 281
How, indeed, can we say that men are exploited by society? On the one hand, it is true that men dominate society. They occupy the vast majority of power positions as presidents, prime ministers, and other rulers.Read more at location 286
Certainly, the Imaginary Feminist won’t listen to any talk about men being oppressed.Read more at location 291
Feminist gets quite angry at any insistence that culture victimizes men,Read more at location 294
The mistake in that way of thinking is to look only at the top of society and draw conclusions about society as a whole. Yes, there are mostly men at the top. But if you look at the bottom, really at the bottom, you’ll find mostly men there too.Read more at location 302
(Imagine if our society were half as indignant about the police engaging in gender profiling as it is about their racial profiling!)Read more at location 309
Warren Farrell documented this in his book The Myth of Male Power. When men and women are convicted of the same crimes, the men get much longer prison sentences than the women.Read more at location 310
Another group at the bottom of society is the homeless. More men than women are homeless. In fact, for many years homeless people were almost exclusively men.Read more at location 315
When homeless people were almost entirely men, they were regarded as immoral trash, and they were called bums and tramps.Read more at location 316
Society needs people to do all its various jobs, and some of those jobs are dangerous. Somebody has to climb out on the roof, or exchange gunfire with the criminals, or run into burning buildings, or sail the stormy seas to rescue the desperate, or even just drive cars and trucks on the busy or dark roads that kill so many. Some of those people will end up injured or, in the worst case, killed.Read more at location 324
92% of Americans who die in the line of work are men. This is true despite the fact that there are almost as many women as men employed in America.Read more at location 327
One more spot at the bottom deserves mention: being killed in battle.Read more at location 328
These casualties have overwhelmingly been men. That’s changing, one might say. Women are entering combat and sharing the risk. Although correct, it is beside the point. Women’s progress in sharing the risk of combat death is accompanied by women sharing many of the rewards that society has also, such as prestigious and well-paying jobs. Plus, women’s progress into high-paying jobs has been faster than their progress into risk and danger.Read more at location 330
In 2007, the Iraq war passed the sad milestone of 3,000 American deaths (including everything from being shot in combat to being killed in a traffic accident). Of those dead soldiers, 2,938 were men. The 62 women comprised about 2% of the deaths.Read more at location 334
Men are more expendable than women, at least from the perspective of the cultural system.Read more at location 339
The idea has several roots, some as deep as the basic ability to make babies for the next generation, to enable cultures to compete simply by outnumbering their rivals: a culture needs only a few men but as many women as possible.Read more at location 340
Yes, there are more men than women at the top of society, but there are also far more men than women at the bottom. The two are related. Society uses men and women differently.Read more at location 342
One of the most interesting books about gender in recent years was by Norah Vincent. She was a lesbian feminist who with some expert help could pass for a man, and so she went undercover, living as a man in several different social spheres for the better part of a year. The book, Self-Made Man, is her memoir. She is quite frank that she started out thinking she was going to find out how great men have it and write a shocking feminist expose of the fine life that the enemy (men) was enjoying. Instead, she experienced a rude awakening of how hard it is to be a man.Read more at location 354
She was glad when it was over, and in fact she cut the episode short in order to go back to what she concluded was a greatly preferable life as a woman.Read more at location 359
Although in modern society women can be found in just about all walks of life, men still outnumber them at the extremes, and in the past this difference has been even greater.Read more at location 370
If you follow the popular media, you see and hear plenty about the gender gap in pay and the general unfairness about women earning less than men. Meanwhile, you will see and hear very little about the gender gap in occupational death.Read more at location 373
This is called a tradeoff. Tradeoffs will be important throughout this book. In fact, I think gender theory needs to acknowledge tradeoffs much more than it has.Read more at location 379
Confronted with such tradeoffs, men and women tend to see different tipping points. I’m sure it is possible to pay the average woman enough extra to make her willing to take more risk. But the average man will take that same risk for a smaller increase in salary.Read more at location 385
Many research studies have shown that men put more emphasis on money when choosing jobs and careers than women do. As a result, these men earn more than the women who took the safer careers.Read more at location 388
Taking and doing those dangerous jobs is thus one thing men are good for.Read more at location 390
