- Anything Else -

Let me clarify

Posted by: Kevin Dempsey ( Canada ) on December 04, 1999 at 17:27:27:

In Reply to: You're inconsistent. posted by Nikhil Jaikumar on December 02, 1999 at 17:01:31:

"So are the men who abuse women, they're also outnumbered."

I was suggesting that most people involved in creating war are men. Also, most people involved in causing domestic violence and other forms of violence against women are men. Seems straightforward.

"If women are violent, that's also because they want to be." Why do they want to be, and why do men want to be, and why do men want to be more than women?"

"It's a manner of speaking, Kevin. It's a term of respect."

Why is being awarded honorary male genitalia an honour?

"You're inconsistent. First you argue (ridiculously, to my view) that there are no intrinsic differences between men and women. Then you argue that tehre are feminine and masculine traits, and that agghression is among the latter. What sort of inconsistency is this?"

When I used the quotation marks around "feminine", I meant them. That means I meant that what was contained therein was not my perception. To elaborate, what M.Thatcher exhibits is, as far as I'm concerned, not an explicitly male nor female characteristic. She (and others like her) are expected to behave a certain way (ie: with femininity). When they behave otherwise, they are "abnormal". They are awarded honorary male status without all the perks. At the same time as they are seen as "ballsy", they are seen as acting uncharacteristic to their gender, and therefore, neither entirely male, nor female... lacking in some fundamental respects.

"NOT! DO you deny that men are more aggressive, more sexually driven, etcetera. Biology states otherwise. DDN is right on here."

No, I don't deny that, but I DO deny that it is necessarily a biological trait. I submit that these are learned characteristics, as would many sociologists, anthropologists, and psychologists today. As for behavioral biologists, there are many leading primatologists who would also dispute behaviour differences between the sexes.

"No, tehy exist largely based on inherent differences."

Please provide some examples of INHERENT differences... the aversion to the colour pink, please concede, is not an inherent aversion, but a learned one.

"Now, clearly, polygyny and polyandry are cultural artifacts, and teh fact that they are both practiced in different societies speaks to the power of cultural mores in conditioning behavior. But the prevalence of polygyny indicates, does it not, that polygyny is mroe 'natural' than polyandry."

(I am unclear as to what polygyny is... is it the same as polygamy?) Well, the same argument, a few centuries ago, could have been made regarding slavery. Is racial oppression 'natural'?

"How many intersexual kids or whatever the term is are there? They are not all that common are they? How can you base a general statement about male and female genders on what is clearly a rare aberration"

I am without my source at the moment, but will try to provide it relatively soon. The numbers, as you might suspect are relatively small. My example was to serve as exactly that: an example of what can happen when humans impose gender. What the example was meant to suggest was that gender is something that is imposed upon us all. It is something distinct from sex, and it is something which we learn, not which we are born with.



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  • polygyny Nikhil Jaikumar DSA MA, USA December 06 1999 (0)

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