Re Do Women Want to be Oppressed?

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Herb Lin <herblin () stanford edu>
> Date: December 29, 2017 at 8:23:41 PM EST
> To: "dave () farber net" <dave () farber net>, ip <ip () listbox com>
> Subject: RE: [IP] Re Do Women Want to be Oppressed?
>
> From where I stand, the issue of biological or evolutionary origins of gender disparities is a red herring and 
> focuses our attention on the wrong question.
>  
> Essentially everyone acknowledges the existence of gender disparities in our society.
>  
> The wrong question to ask about the existence of such disparities is “What is the root cause of those gender 
> disparities?”
>  
> The right question is “Regardless of cause, do we want to live in a society in which such gender disparities exist?  
> If the answer is yes, then we don’t need to do anything about it.  If the answer is no, then we need to do something 
> about it regardless of what the ‘root cause’ is.”
>  
> Let’s take something not controversial, like cystic fibrosis—well-known to be a hereditary disease.  We invest 
> significant sums of money to find ways of treating the disease and otherwise helping who suffer from the disease.  
> Why?  Because we have decided that we don’t want people with that hereditary condition to suffer from its 
> debilitating effects. 
>  
> So the fact that a condition may be inherited is not by itself a reason for accepting the implications of that 
> condition without complaint or action, and I don’t particularly care about whether a given condition is or is not 
> inherited.  The question is whether we think that condition is desirable or not.
>  
> herb
>  
>  
>  
> From: Dave Farber [mailto:dave () farber net] 
> Sent: December 29, 2017 1:29 PM
> To: ip <ip () listbox com>
> Subject: [IP] Re Do Women Want to be Oppressed?
>  
>  
> ---------- Forwarded message ---------
> From: Ellen Ullman <ullman () well com>
> Date: Fri, Dec 29, 2017 at 12:45 PM
> Subject: Re: [IP] Do Women Want to be Oppressed?
> To: dave <dave () farber net>
>  
>
> Dave,
>  
> I don't want to push back but enlarge this conversation.
>  
> On that peacock's tail: See Richard O. Prum's The Evolution of Beauty: How Darwin's Forgotten Theory of Mate Choice 
> Shapes the Animal World -- and Us. Among other questions, he asks why females choose males with those magnificent 
> tales, choose male birds who can construct colorful bowers -- not just any bower, which requires strength, but the 
> most beautiful one? Prum's answer is to resuscitate Darwin's idea that the perception of beauty is a factor in 
> guiding reproductive choice. 
>  
> If we want to look at traditional societies, we can see the time and effort that went into decoration. There is no 
> good survival reason to go into the woods and bushes, given the dangers there, to gather berries to make red dyes. 
> (I'm sure someone will work hard to create one. Female gatherer dominance through color-wars anyone?) Yet millennia 
> of our ancestors have done just that, creating decorated vessels, which could carry water just as well without the 
> designs. A plain rug will do to sit on. A beautiful one soothes, stimulates, and pleases the senses. A particular 
> local design solidifies a community's idea of itself.
>  
> Why must this be a discussion of dominance and oppression? There is a loveliness in life. We don't just mate; we 
> live. Physical beauty is not just a sign of fitness but some dazzled response to something remarkable in the world.
>  
>  
> From: "dave" <dave () farber net>
> To: "ip" <ip () listbox com>
> Sent: Friday, December 29, 2017 11:54:52 AM
> Subject: [IP] Do Women Want to be Oppressed?
>  
>  I know I’m going to get a lot of noise on this one djf
>  
> ---------- Forwarded message ---------
> From: John Horgan <jhorgan () stevens edu>
> Date: Fri, Dec 29, 2017 at 11:41 AM
> Subject: Do Women Want to be Oppressed?
> To: Dave Farber <farber () gmail com>
> CC: John Horgan <jhorgan () stevens edu>
>  
>
> Dave, I thought members of your list might find this column interesting. John Horgan
>
>  
>
> Do Women Want to be Oppressed?: Evolutionary theorists claim that female desire for domineering males helped create a 
> patriarchal world.
>
>  
>
> In principle, evolutionary psychology, which seeks to understand our behavior in light of the fact that we are 
> products of natural selection, can give us deep insights into ourselves. In practice, the field often reinforces 
> insidious prejudices. That was the theme of my recent column “Darwin Was Sexist, and So Are Many Modern Scientists.”
>
>  
>
> The column provoked such intense pushback that I decided to write this follow-up post. Alt-right pundit Steve Sailer 
> described my column as “science denialism.” Psychologist Jordan Peterson deplored “the descent of Scientific 
> American.” Scientific American columnist Michael Shermer called me the “PC police of the [Scientific American] web 
> site.”
>
>  
>
> Political scientist Charles Murray complained that Scientific American “has been adamantly PC since before PC was a 
> thing,” which as someone who began writing for the magazine in 1986 I take as a compliment. Murray, famed for 
> contending in The Bell Curve that biology underpins racial inequality, has proposed similar arguments to explain 
> female inequality.
>
>  
>
> Critics of my column see themselves as courageous defenders of scientific truth, and yet they prefer “truth” that 
> confirms their conviction that biology underpins inequality. If you question these claims, you are a “social justice 
> warrior.” So what does that make them? Social injustice warriors?... 
>
>  
>
> Now let’s take a closer look at a claim advanced by evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller, whom I cited in my 
> previous column. In his 2000 book The Mating Mind, Miller argues that sexual selection can account for differences 
> between males and females. Darwin proposed sexual selection to explain puzzles like the tail of the peacock, which 
> from a practical point of view seems to diminish fitness. Darwin hypothesized that females have chosen to mate with, 
> or selected, peacocks with large tails, thus propagating this trait. Miller suggests that sexual selection can help 
> explain why males dominate women in many realms of culture...
>
>  
>
> Continue reading at https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/do-women-want-to-be-oppressed/​
>
>  
> This message was sent to the list address and trashed, but can be found online.



-------------------------------------------
Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now
RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/18849915-ae8fa580
Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=18849915&id_secret=18849915-aa268125
Unsubscribe Now: 
https://www.listbox.com/unsubscribe/?member_id=18849915&id_secret=18849915-32545cb4&post_id=20171229230245:48D8AD9E-ED16-11E7-BE7D-9ED0B9E7FF16
Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com