“Women Prefer Creeps” + “RTL Mvmt Motivation” + “Tomboys more OK than Sissies” = AHA!!!
In various recurrent threads, it has been asserted (albeit not without some dissenting opinions) that nice guys don’t get the chicks, that females fall for (and/or fall into bed with) assholes who mistreat them.
In this thread, it is asserted (once again not without dissenting opinions) that it is considerably more OK for little girls to be tomboys than for little boys to be sissies.
Which will provide me with my starting point. I hereby assert that the underlying reason for these motivations, which I think are widely shared by men of a certain ilk, is that **they are afraid that if women have the freedom to have sex with and with whom they please without significant constraints, the sex that women choose to have won’t be with THEM **. They believe that sex should inherently fall to men like themselves. They love pseudo-anthropological and sociobiological explanations of how sex naturally does and will fall to men like themselves. They do not, however, appear to relish giving women much freedom in determining their participation in these “natural” arrangements.
Postulate A: If you tend to get pregnant on some occasions as a consequence of having sex, and can’t do anything once pregnant except give birth 9 months later, this is likely to make you more consciously calculating about if and when you are going to have sex.
Postulate B: If you are likely to be socially disparaged for being pregnant unless you have a male officially associated with you in the “father of the child-to-be” role, this is likely to cause the calculations to include more of the “how would this guy work out as a father to my children” considerations than they otherwise might. If that social disparagement is likely to translate directly into material considerations like “difficulty finding job”, “difficulty retaining existing job”, “difficulty getting promotions”, and so forth, this is even more likely to be the case.
Postulate C: If finding, maintaining, and getting good promotions on the job is made more difficult by or suffers interference from pregnancy, either actual or potential, then the calculation of “how would this guy work out as father” will tend to include more of the “is he making enough money to support not only himself but me and any children that result from us having sex” considerations than they otherwise might. If the mere fact of being female is conventionally interpreted as implying “probable recurrent pregnancies at possibly unplanned times” and this consideration leads to reduced wage and promotion opportunities for females in general, this is even more likely to be the case. If a social attitude prevails and holds that it is a “proper” societal arrangement for females to be economically dependent on men, and this attitude ALSO leads to reduced wages and promotion opportunities for females, that again makes all this even more likely to be the case.
Postulate D: If the nature of the workforce world and of the social distribution of assets is such that being a nice guy does not make a guy more likely to have a good job and a large net worth, the consideration of “is this guy a nice guy” is entirely tangential to the calculations being discussed here. If the nature of the workforce world and of the social distribution of assets is such that guys with a large income and a substantial net worth actually tend to behave less “nicely” than others, the consideration of “is this guy a nice guy” is no longer tangential but may actually become associated with negative evaluative characteristics.
Postulate E: Many calculations are intuitive rather than deliberative and conscious. In the, uh, “hypothetical” environment described, females may well make such calculations and experience the evaluation on a “feelings” level rather than as a cerebrally-accomplished equation, i.e., they might find that they experience males who have been evaluated positively by these criteria to be “sexy”. If this is not so (and it may not be so, or may not be equally so for all women), it may still be true that cerebral calculations of pragmatic matters such as these are not conducive to exploring whether or not the guy is cute, fun, sexy, or fascinating.
Postulate F: The arrangement described in the above postulates does not benefit guys who feel that, left to their own unimpeded choices, they would be chosen by women. Such males are likely to be perceived as “different from other males” and/or “somewhat more like females” insofar as the personality and behavior associated with having high wages and net worth and getting one’s way as a result of having them would be less often found in females in general due to the postulates described above. Such males would have very little stake in preserving the system so described and would therefore constitute a potential threat to those who do. Therefore, the sissy-phobia, and the reason why it is more “OK” for little girls to be tomboys even though society is a “patriarchy” and such a rule seems anti-male rather than anti-female.
What? Can you repeat that? The only part I even feel like trying to understand is the sissy phobia thingy. I wholeheartedly agree. Yes, it’s true there is definately more pressure on males to conform to gender roles than females. But being a woman I have to say that these constraints are constituted by males, not us. When I was little it would have been nice if Boe Boe and Bubba (male playmates, don’t laugh it’s the South) would have played Barbies with me once in awhile. Some days a girl can use a break from chasing crawdads in the creek, riding saplings to the ground, and seeing who can spit the farthest.
A little bit wild of a conclusion from the abortion thread I was in, but…
–ilk blanked out, however…do you mean the “nice” guys?–
I’m lost already since I don’t know who “they” are.
Barring these opening difficulties, we continue.
Yes, this only affects women. Surely there isn’t a man alive who feels responsibility toward a pregnancy. :rolleyes: Granting this, however–
I’m not sure what this postulate entails. Are you asserting that being a parent is no more difficult than being single? Or that having a partner relieves no burden relative to the single parent? Or, even, that because you have a child it is a man’s fault that you think about these things?
As well, the “how would this guy be as a father to my children” should be, if you ever plan on having children, a key question to ask yourself after a certain point in a relationship. Perhaps I am not as carefree as you, however. :shrug: Its what I think about the women I’m with. What kind of mother would she be? Would we agree on childrearing issues? Why is this oppressive?
As far as the job issue goes, I’m not sure I understand either, but I’ll take your word for it that it is more difficult to find a job that would fit specific hours like many mothers require (especially single ones).
You’ve lost me here almost completely all over again. Income itself is not a huge indicator, but finding a mate with a decent job is an issue of stability and, again, if you plan on having a child this should be an issue anyway. That is, it is a gender neutral issue to be able to provide for the child to be had. Where the hell is this a conspiracy against women by men??? To continue…
Perhaps, being a male who doesn’t do this and doesn’t see it I am not discussing this from an advantageous position. But I find you creating a world, conveniently, that has your problem built into it so as to foster debate.
If the nature of the workforce was like that, sure. Too bad it isn’t.
So, in other words, females aren’t thinking logically and society is geared to damn women only because of this by forcing them to get pregnant and find a satisfactory mate since there is no abortion. In this “hypothetical” [cute quotation marks] world.
So, then, you seem to be agreeing that “the nice guy doesn’t get the girls” because being nice entails economic disparity while the cold bastards who “get the chicks on a subconscious level” have in fact geared society to favor themselves. Somehow.
Well, assuming this were “true” we find that it is anti female, or rather, anti-feminine, anti-intuitive, anti-anything-but-wealthy-and-logical.
In other words, at the beginning you say
and then finish off your postulates with
Can you tell me another story tomorrow night? How about “Through the Looking Glass”?
I’m not holding up my share of the bargain, I guess. OK…I have a general dislike for threads in which one person argues with another and they they go at each other line by line and blow by blow until it devolves down into “You said that I said that you said that when I said such-and-such I was being a moron, and that for saying that I owed you an apology, and you still haven’t acknowledged that what I did say was too an acknowledgement of what you said, and you owe me an apology for that”…but I owe you more of a reply than I gave you…
I’m not sure if you are going along with this for the duration of your exploration of the assertions that follow or not.
As I said, no. My original reaction to reading this was “of course not. You’re willfully misunderstanding me”. Hence the brief reply. That was rather uncharitable of me though. I suppose that having only read this far one might reasonably wonder if I meant the NICE guys would fear that women, if unimpeded in their choice of when and with whom to have sex, would choose other guys instead. I didn’t mean that. I mean the guys of the OTHER ilk.
With these opening difficulties hopefully cleared up, let us continue again.
Let me try that again: all other things being equal–which for some individuals could already mean a keen sense of responsibility towards a possible pregnancy–then if we add, as a variable, lessened ability to prevent undesired pregnancies and inability to abort them if they do occur, I’m saying this is likely to make you more consciously calculating about if and when you are going to have sex. I do not mean “more so than men”. I mean “more so than if this were not the case”.
I am saying that, in a hypothetical situation where one is at significant risk of becoming pregnant and having to have a child if one has sex, let us consider the effects of the following variable: what difference does it make if there is a prevailing social attitude and opinion that “females should not have children when they are single” and, especially, if that attitude leads to difficulty obtaining, retaining, and getting promotion within jobs if one DOES turn up pregnant when single? I am asserting that, all other things being equal, the effects of this variable are to increase the extent to which one assesses one’s sexual companions as potential father-persons.
[/quote]
I don’t think it is oppressive to consider such things. But if you consider motivations for engaging in sexual behavior, I take it as a given that many of us do so for reasons other than reproduction, and often have absolutely no intention of reproducing. If, for example, one has long since decided not to have children, I would imagine that needing to consider one’s sex-mate’s qualifications as potential parent ANYWAY would put a bit of a crimp in one’s style.
I’ll try again. All other things being equal, what effect does it have on your considerations of who to have sex with if, in addition to running the risk of unwanted and unabortable pregnancy when you have sex, you also run the concurrent risk of lowered salary or even job loss if you DO get pregnant? I am asserting that the effect of this variable would be that when you ask yourself “How would this guy work out as a father”, you’d emphasize economic variables (“Could he support me and the kid if I got pregnant and couldn’t keep my job or couldn’t get promoted?”) more and non-economic factors (“Is he good with children? Do we agree on how children should be treated?”) would perhaps seem less important in comparison. So now we’re up to “How well-employed and/or rich is this guy” as a meaningful consideration when asking “Should I have sex with this guy”, see? You with me so far?
I do not believe that at any point in my OP I referred to such a conspiracy. In fact, let’s think about this for a moment. I am saying so far that having to take these things into account changes who women decide to have sex with. I am certainly not saying that restrictions on women’s ability to control their reproductive functions represents a conspiracy by men in general–how would this benefit men in general? It could even COST men in general, since women could have sex with other women and not run any risk of getting pregnant. This is not about benefitting men in general. This is about benefitting SOME men, at the expense of OTHER men, and at the expense of female freedom of choice in the matter.
You do acknowledge that it is hypothetically possible for attitudes to exist that say women’s place is in the home and that therefore they should get paid less and men should get first dibs on jobs and so forth, I hope? OK, I am asserting that if such attitudes DID exist and wages for women in general WERE lower, this would INCREASE the extent to which women would consider “How much money does this guy make/have?” when considering having sex with a guy, all other things as described in the thread up to this point being equal.
OK, you understand me and you disagree.
Why, no, I was saying women ARE required to think logically, or definitely would be in the situation I described. Logically and pragmatically.
As well as, not instead of. It is certainly still anti-female if we assume females value freedom of choice and don’t appreciate being potential dependence on the continuing good will of a well-employed male as a consequence of scratching their itch.
kudos to you, ahunter, for being considerably less biting than I was. I don’t know what my problem was. But hey, I like those line-by-line threads, at least when they don’t degenerate like you said.
Let me see if I can attempt to shorten this. Ahhh, non-nice guys (which, I guess, are the non-effeminate males) have set up society in such a way that we are, perhaps even on a subconscious level, considering feminine traits. But feminine is a pretty abstract term, and so instead of getting into that we’ll focus on the issue of pregnancy.
Becuase BC and abortion have been frowned upon[sup]1[/sup]-- and possibly restricted?-- people become more cautious about sex. Sure. People begin to only look for mates who are economically viable. Sure. Intuition, which is slippery, goes the way of the Dodo and practiciality and logic fills the gap. OK (I kind of wish most intuition would go that way, but anyway).
In such a society, we find a certain group always in power, hough not consciously?, and as such any characteristic which is not of the group has a stigma attached to it. The effect of this is not to keep women down, as most of the post asserted or hinted, but to discourage these types of males from forming and being a threat to the current power scheme.
Also, I think an important distinction needs to be made here, between “Group A caused such-and-such situation to come into being” (situation as result of conspiracy) and “Group A tends to resist changes to such-and-such a situation, and to seek to roll back changes if they do occur” (no claims made as to original cause of situation).
I am certainly claiming that there are men who perceive themselves as the beneficiaries of the old-morality system that corresponded with women having little access to birth control /abortion /equitable wages, etc, and that they see the connection between these factors and want to curtail access to abortion services for that reason.
I’m not making any claims about how things got that way in the first place, though. I don’t think the boys developed a conspiracy in the boys’ bathroom circa 10,000 BC and brought the girls beneath their oppressive heels grinning wickedly the whole time, for what it’s worth.
