A visual essay about men and emotions

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > A visual essay about men and emotions

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

afeelgoodpoop posted:

Hypothetically this happens and like some people who advocate for it theorize, a large portion of the population develops a fluid nongender specific sexuality. Do you think such a society would be able to keep itself from dieing out?

People in the developed world aren't having kids because they actually have a choice in the matter now, and having kids is super loving expensive. If you want population growth or population stability, that is what you attack, through subsidies or what not. It's not a breakdown in gender roles that's leading to pop-decline, it's a society where both parents have to work, or the transition of jobs from full-time to part-time (and the destruction of job/income stability that brings), or the expense of childcare.

Duckbag posted:

Also there's been a long and contentious debate over the role testosterone plays in male aggression and violence. Poor socialization and "boys don't cry" bullshit definitely has its role to play as well, but it's hardly the whole story. The ages at which men are most likely to commit violent crime have a startlingly close correlation with peak testosterone levels and I really don't think it's a coincidence. The phrase "testosterone poisoning" is still stupid and sexist, but the way we tend to ignore hormones and underlying genetic factors when comparing the sexes is somewhat bizarre.

Psychological studies have shown that, even from childhood, boys get less attention from their parents, and are seen as 'angrier'. This is spite of their actual behavioral differences from girls been marginal:

http://www.alternet.org/gender/masculinity-killing-men-roots-men-and-trauma posted:

Yet both mothers and fathers imagine inherent sex-related differences between baby girls and boys. Even when researchers controlled for babies� �weight, length, alertness, and strength,� parents overwhelmingly reported that baby girls were more delicate and �softer� than baby boys; they imagined baby boys to be bigger and generally �stronger.� When a group of 204 adults was shown video of the same baby crying and given differing information about the baby�s sex, they judged the �female� baby to be scared, while the �male� baby was described as �angry.�

Intuitively, these differences in perception create correlating differences in the kind of parental caregiving newborn boys receive. In the words of the researchers themselves, �it would seem reasonable to assume that a child who is thought to be afraid is held and cuddled more than a child who is thought to be angry.� That theory is bolstered by other studies Real cites, which consistently find that �from the moment of birth, boys are spoken to less than girls, comforted less, nurtured less.� To put it bluntly, we begin emotionally shortchanging boys right out of the gate, at the most vulnerable point in their lives

Exactly how much a specific 'human nature' determines behavior is still up for debate, but the society we are in is demonstrably policing and conditioning behavior in a gendered way, creating artificial differences and expectations. People are social animals, and tend to want to meet the expectations of others. If people expect 'men' to be violent, then wouldn't young men, wanting to be acknowledged as adult, act violently in order to validate themselves? You can't discount these kinds of effects when discussing things such as crime.

I mean think about it this way: if difference is totally innate, then why would it ever be possible to call a man 'unmanly' or a woman 'unladylike'? Wouldn't any behavior they express already be within the spectrum of behaviors correlated with their gender, by the fact that is innate?

rudatron fucked around with this message at 06:26 on Jul 20, 2015

# ¿ Jul 20, 2015 06:21

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rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

Jarmak posted:

Yea my massive amount of personal with hosed up and broken people is unanimously the opposite. Suffering makes people callous and unemphatic, and tends to encourage worldviews that glorify enduring that suffering or that either the suffering or the source of it is "good for you". It also seems to encourage people to think "I dealt with it so stop being weak". I'm not talking strictly of battlefield trauma here either, there's lots of people I met with hosed up or sad backgrounds before they even get near a gun which exhibit the same sort of behavior.

This can also be seen in many progressive causes throughout history where some of the most fervent reactionaries are the previous generation's victims.

I think the difference has to do with the way you handle suffering as to which way you'll go. If you seek to justify it or externalize it, you'll become callous and uncaring. If you see it as arbitrary or internalize it, that experience will be used as a reference point for the suffering of others. Part of that is going to be informed by gender roles, where (unfortunately) men tend to do the former, because being perceived as weak is instantly emasculating.

The point about victims becoming oppressors is true, but I don't think that's particularly relevant to this kind of personal psychology, it just shows that the malicious corrupting effects of power are universal.

# ¿ Jul 21, 2015 03:57

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

You could probably make a comparison to AI optimization stuff that attempts to maximize a 'fitness', where the fitness is some kind of emotional gratification. So harkening back to Freud, when he says that civilization and other social actions are a kind of suppressed sexual drive.

Smudgie Buggler posted:

I don't think the maxim that says power is a universally (or even generally) corrupting force is one that should be as blindly accepted as it is.

People in positions with the kinds of power to which that saying usually refers (political, economic, bureaucratic etc.) tend to be viewed by those without those powers – and therefore the public at large – as being more morally corrupt than the norm in a given society. But that doesn't necessarily mean that their power corrupted them. I think it's fairly obvious that most people don't really know what their scruples truly are until they're placed in a position where the application of them might have some consequence. The kinds of powers with which we interact most frequently (pedagogical, pastoral, parental etc.) aren't really considered corruptive at all, if you think about it. Do we expect the near-absolute power parents have over their children to turn them callous and sadistic?

That's probably because the one's that aren't seen as corrupting are also incredibly limiting. Political/economic power is simply more absolute than parental or pastoral (it's notable that when pastoral power was a real thing, because it was deeply embedded into the political-economic system, it too was strongly associated with corruption).

I'm not sure whether the blind acceptance of anything is a good idea, but as far as ideas about politics go it seems pretty straight-forward. You can of course argue that ideology can make things worse (Nazism isn't just a matter of corruption, but also dehumanization), but I'd be incredibly skeptical of any ideology that says they can reduce that corrupting effect, if only because every one that's tried has failed (Theocracy has this kind of fantasy of moralistic-restraint as a counter to political corruption at its core, but surprise surprise its bullshit).

# ¿ Jul 23, 2015 05:12

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