The truth is somehow offensive.
(media.kotakuinaction2.win)
You're viewing a single comment thread. View all comments, or full comment thread.
Comments (44)
sorted by:
We've always been gynocentric. Even the oldest religions have a basis in gynocentrism.
What changed is our social dynamics between men and women. Less physical labour, the birth control pill, welfare and so forth that allows women to survive independently of men. If anything, we're seeing the beginning of the transition back to the sexual strategy humans naturally follow - a tournament species. Where a small number of high value men monopolise the dating market, children are raised collectively in alloparenting by the women and most men get nothing but work and pay taxes in return for being a member of society.
No. I disagree. This is of those "evolutionary psychology" myths which is simply a modern rationalisation of the behavior observed in current society, as is the rest of your comment (evolutionary psychology is bunk, but that is a topic for a different time).
Human society has always had a basis in differing roles for men and women, not gynocentrism per se. I'm not sure what you mean by "the oldest religions", but it's clear to me that Christianity, as an example, is patriarchal, not gynocentric. The difference is that under patriarchy, it is the male role to lead society and men have natural authority over women. Part of the role may be to provide for and care for women in their families and societies, but this is an example differing roles of men and women (equally, women were expected to care for their families and societies including their men, using their feminine abilities and talents).
That "gynocentrism" is natural is a myth usually justified by modern thinking that is inherently flawed. For example, a common "evolutionary psychology" argument is that women are more intrinsically valuable, usually justified based on something to do with how many babies a man vs a woman could have, which makes no sense since the limiting factor in human populations is the ability to successful provide for the population and raise children to adulthood, for which men play a more important role than women. This is the reason males (boys) have been historically valued more than females (girls). We can see that even today in countries such as China.
It is only feminist societies in which this is reversed. Yes, this is partly to do male roles in Western society becoming less important as there is less of a need to physical strength, but in is more to do with the prevailing attitudes in society rather than reality. Even in modern Western societies women do not survive independently of men, their survival is still supported by men except not men in their families, but the men who do all the useful jobs like maintaining the food and water supplies, electricity and transport, mining resources and building homes etc.
I also disagree that the "natural" sexual strategy of humans naturally follow is "a tournament species". This makes no sense. Humans have always lived in societies. While there may have been examples of successful "tournament" human societies when one man gets all the women, this is generally a poorly surviving society as it requires other means to coercing the majority of men (who have no wives or children) to defend and provide for that society. As opposed to a society made up of stable families, in which all members of the society have a strong stake of their own in maintaining the society. In the latter example, it does not mean there is no hierarchy in the society. The "best" men (who win "tournaments") still get the "best" women. But the men below that also get women, simply not the "best" ones.
Humans have never lived in a patriarchy. In a sexually dimorphic species, it is the biological sex that bears the most cost who determines the conditions for a species. In humans, that is women. It is the basis of Briffault's Law.
The idea that humans are a pair bonding patriarchy until the big bad feminists turned up and women were given the right to vote does not tally with all the studies and recorded data I have seen.
I have heard humanity described by a modern day online philosopher as "powered by orgasm". It's wrong to assume that men built things and women are subservient, it's that men built things so women continue the species. After all, it's why MGTOW is a small minority of men going their own way whole feminism has political, social and cultural power. Men in unison on a sex strike only need a few outliers to undermine it (such as the top tier men) but women doing the same thing could bring down your society in a generation. Fact, men have built everything around us for women. Everything you take for granted today has been done for this manner. Those roles for men and women are hardcoded into our biology. We've always been a gynocracy.
Evolutionary psychology is the best scientific explanation so far for how humans have evolved and progressed.
Evolutionary psychology is the generally the domain of people who know nothing about evolution beyond a high school level (e.g. psychologists). It doesn't incorporate modern ideas about evolution from the biological sciences - what about genetic drift? Gene flow? Multi-level selection? Non-genetic inheritance? Basically, it involves individuals coming up with 'fun' sounding rationalizations for their pet theories based on an unfalsifiable appeal to 'natural selection' and 'fitness'. These theories are not even based on attempts to perform mathematical modelling of evolutionary trajectories, which is what evolutionary biologists would do (even if these simplistic models are no doubt flawed themselves).
Evolution, especially that of human behavior, is far more complicated that these evolutionary psychology 'theories' would have it, and in my opinion beyond the ability of any human to properly comprehend due to its extreme complexity involving so many variables, most of which could never even be measured properly. It is the domain of God.
There are other, far better, uses of our rational minds than arguments based on 'evolutionary psychology'.
ps. 'Briffault's Law' is also flawed when applied to humans. Even a casual observer of humans would observe that throughout history, unlike animals such as birds, it is the human females, not human males that seek to attract male attention by improving their appearance using makeup and clothes, seductive dancing etc. This clearly indicates females are competing amongst themselves to be chosen by their preferred males. These males are determining whether and with what females to associate with. To put it another way, how is the 80/20 rule and ideas surrounding 'Chad' consistent with Briffault's Law? Chad, a male, is obviously choosing which females to associate with. None of this means that males don't also have to compete amongst themselves to associate with their preferred females, but simply that your simplistic "Briffault's Law" does not apply to humans.
Evopsych doesn't disprove all of these theories and observations made by evolutionary biologists. But I haven't seen any other attempt to discuss human nature other than "God dunnit". It's certainly more logical than the blank slate concept, evolution stops at the neck and the human brain and the (il)logical aspects of it can't be studied.
Briffault's Law is just a coined term. It's a general observation, no different from saying that people are heterosexual. Homosexual people existing doesn't invalidate the general observation. You can still have intrasexual competition while still understanding that society panders to the biological sex that bears the most cost in reproduction (women). Same with a small percentage of men having the choice of the dating market. These things don't disprove the rule.
ETA: Alexander from DatePsychology did a video in the last few days regarding what seems like two contradictory concepts - hypergamy and assortative mating but they can co-exist and both be true at the same time.