"Male studies"

[Seshat]

I know that 'gatekeeping' behaviour can be real, because I've noticed myself doing it. I've also noticed males doing it, and with roughly equal frequency. Just with different things that were being gatekeeped. Gatekept?


I'd like to see a gender studies course. One which looked at the history of both males and females, what has happened in the past, what is happening now.

Equally importantly, one which taught the students how to research for themselves; how to critically examine assertions; how to figure out some sort of approximation of the truth. And how to keep an open mind.

I'd like the course to also at least touch on transgender, and on the problems faced by intersex babies and their parents. (Intersex babies are ones whose genitalia are not clearly female, nor clearly male.)




On the topic of female soldiery:
- A society, especially a small one, which allows its fertile women to die in war, is not likely to last for long. The society can survive with a ratio of one fertile male to a hundred fertile women; but not the inverse ratio!
- Women who are currently pregnant or nursing have a more important (to the society's survival) job to do than fighting.


From a 'how do you keep the society as a whole alive' perspective, your social core consists of the pregnant and nursing women, the children, a small cadre of healthy adult men and (other) women, and those of the elderly who are living libraries of essential knowledge.
Everyone else protects that core.

The smaller the society, the more essential it is to do things that way. The larger the society, the more you can get away with killing off your fertile women.

But it's simple biology and math. And it's one of those things that sort of .. gets handed down as a cultural meme.

[Gravekeeper]

On the topic of female soldiery:
- A society, especially a small one, which allows its fertile women to die in war, is not likely to last for long. The society can survive with a ratio of one fertile male to a hundred fertile women; but not the inverse ratio!
- Women who are currently pregnant or nursing have a more important (to the society's survival) job to do than fighting.

That's assuming a 1:1 woman/child ratio and that a woman is incapacitated for life by having a child. That's also assuming a western viewpoint on gender roles where women are expected to be the primary caregiver. As well as a state of constant war. If a society is at a state of constant war, its either large enough to spare women in combat, or small enough that its women will be forced into combat at the hands of the enemy. Though the latter occurs in a larger society as well. As I said before, during a city siege, women fought.

Additionally, any society that's so small that its breeding pool is threatened by female combat deaths is too small to maintain any sort of fighting force to begin with. Which means, again, if threatened in combat, the women are going to be fighting.

Furthermore, do you know what historically is one of the greatest dangers to women's lives? Childbirth. >.>

But it's simple biology and math.

Its far far more complex than that.

[TheHuckster]

That's assuming a 1:1 woman/child ratio and that a woman is incapacitated for life by having a child. That's also assuming a western viewpoint on gender roles where women are expected to be the primary caregiver.

You're forgetting that back in the days of yore before formula women had a good 2-3 years they had the biological requirement to be the primary caregiver (I'm accounting for the period of time the mother is pregnant in those 2-3 years). Men couldn't nurse. And why stop at one child? You've got a society to grow, let's make sure the women are birthing babies for as frequently as possible for as long as they're fertile.

Also, Seshat is technically correct about the icky details of why it's better to have a surplus of women than a surplus of men when you want to increase your society's birthrate. It's not a pleasant thing to talk about nowadays, of course, but that's only because technology and the maturing of civilization has allowed that to happen.

[Seshat]

I'm sorry, I specifically said 'nursing' women. Childcare of weaned children could be taken care of by any of the adults in the core group; whether they were the parents of those children or not, and regardless of gender.

Once a woman is neither pregnant nor nursing, she is no longer automatically part of the social core group and becomes eligible to be a warrior.



I do agree that if a society is small enough that this is a serious problem, the society has other serious problems as well.

[Gravekeeper]

You're forgetting that back in the days of yore before formula women had a good 2-3 years they had the biological requirement to be the primary caregiver (I'm accounting for the period of time the mother is pregnant in those 2-3 years).

A) Wet nursing.
B) A woman does not have to be or have been pregnant to lactate.
C) A lack of formula does not preclude the use of bottles, etc. ( Roman's for example actually had some male wet nurses ).

You've got a society to grow, let's make sure the women are birthing babies for as frequently as possible for as long as they're fertile.

The limit of a society's growth is available resources. Not having to treat its women like breeding cattle.

Also, Seshat is technically correct about the icky details of why it's better to have a surplus of women than a surplus of men when you want to increase your society's birthrate.

A surplus of either gender creates a host of problems within a society. However, the simple math in question only applies if you're dealing with a very small group to begin with. Also, the problem the simple math ignores is that having a surplus of females does not expand genetic variety, only available mates. Weakening the society as a whole regardless as it becomes increasingly inbred until it rules Europe.

[Sleepwalker]

Mendel wept.

[D_Yeti_Esquire]

You know, thanks to this thread I actually went out and did something I'd been meaning to do for a long time. I actually went and researched men in the various waves of feminism. I think that is one area where current education really fails everyone. It tends to give people the impression of a struggle against sexes rather than a struggle between what realistically was two distinctly different viewpoints consisting of adherants of both sexes.

I sort of hate this version of teaching because it tends to make sex rather than ideology the enemy, and especially for men it gives them no real role models within the feminist community. Just in wave one, I don't know how many people know the name Gerrit Smith. Wendell Phillips and William Lloyd Garrison are probably more well known for being abolitionists.

It's sort of a sadness I get when I see things like Eugene McCarthy introducing the Equal Rights Amendment in 1967 and when I actually read the Equal Rights Amendment Wikipedia page you can read about Alice Paul who wrote it in the 20's or Feminists picketing the senate in 1970's, but they don't even actually mention the person who put it on the floor in the first place.

Thing is, a lot of guys would like to see how they can help. And usually, you have to dig for those models. That's one of the reasons I really wouldn't mind a legit "Male Studies" course. No thanks to the angsty, rage-filled version this guy had in mind.

[Hyena Dandy]

That "Battle of the sexes" attitude is partly, I think, what leads to the Tumblr-ite "Misandry Yay~" style of feminism.

I've on more than one occasion been told to stop questioning someone, because I was a man and no matter how reasonable my questions or suggestions, I wasn't allowed to argue with them, and they were obligated to me or else they'd look like they're just rolling over because a man said something. That was a very... Unpleasant... Experience.