
Is There Anything Good About Men? - Zarathu
http://denisdutton.com/baumeister.htm
======
TomOfTTB
First, let me just say this paragraph alone made the article worth the read...

 _Seeing all this, the feminists thought, wow, men dominate everything, so
society is set up to favor men. It must be great to be a man.

The mistake in that way of thinking is to look only at the top. If one were to
look downward to the bottom of society instead, one finds mostly men there
too. Who’s in prison, all over the world, as criminals or political prisoners?
The population on Death Row has never approached 51% female. Who’s homeless?
Again, mostly men. Whom does society use for bad or dangerous jobs? US
Department of Labor statistics report that 93% of the people killed on the job
are men. Likewise, who gets killed in battle? Even in today’s American army,
which has made much of integrating the sexes and putting women into combat,
the risks aren’t equal. This year we passed the milestone of 3,000 deaths in
Iraq, and of those, 2,938 were men, 62 were women. _

With that said I don’t agree with the premise of this article.

The problem I have with classic feminism AND the people making counter
arguments (like this article) is it’s all inherently irrational. In the end
the rational thing to do in society is to match each job with the person who
has the most compatible skill set. Whether that person is man, woman, monkey,
or whatever doesn’t really matter.

Now some say these arguments have to be made to stop people who believe women
are inherently inferior to men. Well the problem with that is you’re trying to
use a rational argument to convince someone who has decided to disregard any
rationality. It’s dumb foundingly obvious that some women are better than
their male counterparts.

In the end the most disturbing thing about this article, imho, is the fact
that someone felt the need to right it in the first place. I mean, if there
really is someone out there who thinks either sex is expendable is there
really any point in trying to convince them otherwise?

~~~
amichail
_Now some say these arguments have to be made to stop people who believe women
are inherently inferior to men. Well the problem with that is you’re trying to
use a rational argument to convince someone who has decided to disregard any
rationality. It’s dumb foundingly obvious that some women are better than
their male counterparts._

This makes no sense. Obviously when you say group X is better than group Y,
you don't mean that the worst member of X is better than the best member of Y.
You might mean that average ability in X is better than average ability in Y,
or perhaps, that the best people in some domain tend to come from X.

~~~
TomOfTTB
Not really. You're taking things out of context by putting things in the macro
instead of the micro. I have no problem with someone saying "men are usually
stronger than women." That's statistics.

But Anti-discrimination laws are designed to keep someone who is offering a
job from picking a less qualified man over a more qualified woman. So if
someone had a job that required strength and hired the man even though the
woman was stronger that would be irrational.

So you see, one's a macro discussion and the other's a micro one. In the macro
using statistics is rational in the micro it's not.

~~~
amichail
Who would argue with you about the micro? That's obvious. The article is about
the macro.

~~~
TomOfTTB
Ummm...Anyone who wrote, voted for, or is in favor of the millions of anti-
discrimination laws that are in place in every country in the world.

As for the article it was a counter point to classic feminism which is the
movement that was behind all the aforementioned laws.

~~~
amichail
I mean almost anyone would agree that you should pick the better candidate for
a job. That point is obvious.

Some may argue that it should be ok to discriminate in the presence of
insufficient information. While that may be rational in a probabilistic sense
if you are lazy, it should be and is illegal.

Anti-discrimination laws force you to evaluate the candidates more carefully,
and ultimately, to pick better candidates for the job.

~~~
TomOfTTB
But why are the anti-discrimination laws necessary?

You really have to try to step out of your own perspective for a second and
realize that maybe not everyone is enlightened as you. That the whole purpose
of feminism is to fight against those who are not as enlightened as y ou.

You saying "almost anyone would agree you should pick the better candidate"
tells me that you can't see out of your own perspective long enough to realize
there is discrimination out there.

Which is why you can't see my point. My whole point was that these people are
out there and that reasoning with them is pointless BECAUSE they aren't making
a rational decision in the first place. So the feminist who try to fight
against them with rational arguments are wasting their time BECAUSE those
people have choosen to disregard all rational evidence.

~~~
skinnymuch
I'd say anti-discrimination laws being around has a ton more to do with
governmental power over society than all the points you are attemping to make.

------
chaosmachine
Despite the linkbait-ish title, this is actually a very thorough and well
written article.

~~~
robertk
This is one of those articles that could be labelled "worldview changing." I
mean this in the sense that to gain knowledge of certain facts and arguments
has immense corollaries for how one understands and interprets the world. Here
are two other recent examples I can think of:

\- Moore's Law and the resulting implications regarding the "singularity"

\- "Happiness" turns out to not be a Platonic ideal or otherwise specially-
valued conception, but simply an ever-present state with slight fluctuations
(and then perhaps "getting" happiness refers to obtaining the highest positive
fluctuation--which will however stabilize over some time). See the recent TED
talk on synthesizing happiness.

The key fact in this article, from which all other conclusions naturally seem
to follow, is that males as a statistic exhibit much higher traits of
extremity (in all aspects) due to the historically much higher probability of
a woman being able to obtain a partner and reproduce.

~~~
iamelgringo
I think the author did have some interesting things to say. His idea of men
going to extremes on either end of the productivity scale was interesting. His
points that men occupy the top rungs of society as well as are considered
expendable are interesting as well.

Completely disregarding centuries/millena worth of cultural, historical and
legal issues seems a little intellectually dishonest, however.

Women have had difficulty for centuries across many cultures in obtaining
property rights:
[http://womenshistory.about.com/od/marriedwomensproperty/a/pr...](http://womenshistory.about.com/od/marriedwomensproperty/a/property_rights.htm)

Women have had to fight to obtain the basic right to vote:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women's_suffrage>

Women have also had to fight to obtain the right to higher education, work in
certain categories of jobs, etc...

Dismissing all the cultural, historical and legal evidence to the contrary,
and chalking it all up to evolutionary pressures seems a little dishonest.
It's hard to evolve aggressive women, when aggressive women are imprisoned or
killed. You still the effects of that in some very conservative muslim
countries. I imagine that would have some evolutionary pressure on culling
certain aggressive genes in women.

In fact, it seems dangerously close to, "well, men evolved to be stronger,
therefore, only men should be able to be ['soldiers', 'policemen',
'construction workers', 'etc...'].

~~~
Darc
> In fact, it seems dangerously close to, "well, men evolved to be stronger,
> therefore, only men should be able to be ['soldiers', 'policemen',
> 'construction workers', 'etc...'].

Funnily enough, everytime someone tries to say that male ascendancy in society
isn't a conspiracy by evil men to put down women, there is always someone who
construes this as a moral validation of male dominance, or even as an
imperative for it.

That cultural, historical and legal issues might have been side-products of
gender differences rather than their cause seems to be unthinkable for the
typical feminist kool-aid drinker.

The feminist ideology requires us males to be villains, because otherwise
there is no war (because males aren't fighting it, and probably never have),
and they become obsolete. Which is of course exactly what they are. Gender-gap
in pay, academic and economic achievements, or even domestic violence have
little or no cultural basis nowadays, so feminists are about as useful as
slavery abolitionists would be today in western societies.

~~~
idiopathic
> "feminists are about as useful as slavery abolitionists would be today in
> western societies"

In other words, very useful and laudable pursuits:

<http://www.antislavery.org>

The article is very good. Incomplete, but very good. Your response is
disappointing because it dismisses the suffering of many people: women and
slaves. Just because some university professor came up with a good explanation
for the origin of suffering, it does not mean that the suffering is good, or
that we should tolerate it.

------
jmtame
"For men, the outlook was radically different. If you go along with the crowd
and play it safe, the odds are you won’t have children. Most men who ever
lived did not have descendants who are alive today. Their lines were dead
ends. Hence it was necessary to take chances, try new things, be creative,
explore other possibilities. Sailing off into the unknown may be risky, and
you might drown or be killed or whatever, but then again if you stay home you
won’t reproduce anyway. We’re most descended from the type of men who made the
risky voyage and managed to come back rich. In that case he would finally get
a good chance to pass on his genes. We’re descended from men who took chances
(and were lucky)."

~~~
amichail
In recent times, if you want to maximize your chances of finding a wife, it's
better to have a safe career as an employee with a stable income. The only
risk involved is in aiming for a career for which you have insufficient
ability.

Maybe it wasn't like that a long time ago. Maybe having an average job then
did not generate enough wealth for the survival of a family.

~~~
webwright
I think what you're saying is that ambition is not rewarded in the
dating/mating game, which is decidedly not the case (today or a long time
ago). If you took birth control out of the equation, which men do you think
would father the most babies today in the US, men with high ambition or men
who chose a "safe career" and "stable income"?

~~~
rsheridan6
>If you took birth control out of the equation

And if pigs could fly...

Birth control changes everything. The number of children a man has is
inversely (and counterintuitively) related to the number of sexual partners
he's had.

[http://anepigone.blogspot.com/2008/10/fewer-sexual-
partners-...](http://anepigone.blogspot.com/2008/10/fewer-sexual-partners-
means-more-babies.html)

You can have all the sex you want, but if it doesn't result in babies it
doesn't count (at least not in this context).

------
dmix
>"That means that if we want to achieve our ideal of equal salaries for men
and women, we may need to legislate the principle of equal pay for less work.
Personally, I support that principle. But I recognize it’s a hard sell."

This is a great article but the premise of that argument doesn't make sense to
me - even if he admits its a hard sell.

I'm all for equality but paying someone more for doing less work to bring
fairness seems illogical. If someone is genetically less motivated to be a
workaholic then how does taking money from the person who does work an extra
10hrs a week, so the the other person can be paid more, make the world a
fairer place?

When I was 15 I accepted the fact that I'm wasn't born tall enough to play
basketball professionally so I focused my efforts on something that I was
capable of being great at.

~~~
Retric
It was a joke.

Men work longer hours, so if men work at the same rate then you pay them more.
Saying there is a problem with people getting paid more for working more seems
silly thus the joke.

~~~
lanaer
I guess the joke is that the author would like to work less?

~~~
dmix
Ha I completely missed that if that's true. Makes sense.

~~~
lanaer
No worries. I completely missed the joke, too, until Retric said it was there.

------
visitor4rmindia
This is a very well written article. However, I must admit I don't really
understand the wide interest the (western) world seems to have in the men vs
women viewpoints.

Perhaps (and I'm just guessing here), it is because the culture in the west
has changed so fast that men and women are struggling to find new "places" in
society. I don't know - it's just a guess.

I'm going to pick on one point to discuss - the WAW effect (Women are
Wonderful).

>Both men and women hold much more favorable views of women than of men.
Almost everybody likes women better than men.

leading to:

>perhaps nature designed women to seek to be lovable, whereas men were
designed to strive, mostly unsuccessfully, for greatness.

Sounds reasonable until you see he has skipped over the middle:

>It was not always thus. Up until about the 1960s, psychology (like society)
tended to see men as the norm and women as the slightly inferior version.
During the 1970s, there was a brief period of saying there were no real
differences, just stereotypes. Only since about 1980 has the dominant view
been that women are better and men are the inferior version.

It seems strange to draw such broad conclusions that completely ignore the
past in favour of present circumstance. Plus I can tell you, in India the bias
is more towards liking men than women.

In any case, I wish I understood the fascination the west has with men vs
women debates. The fact that men and women are different is obvious as is the
fact that they tend to complement each other. The fact that men and women are
similar is also obvious as is the fact that they tend to compete with each
other.

So what??!

~~~
skinnymuch
India is pretty young. I remember your movies being incredibly prude in the
mid 90s. I just watched a recent clip of a top boxoffice film in '08 and let's
just say it was insanely racy compared to just ten years ago. I bet India will
be having the same insane feminist driven society in 50 years.

~~~
visitor4rmindia
That's an excellent point! I really hope it doesn't work out that way but
let's just wait and see.

------
codyrobbins
When Lawrence Summers resigned I was highly disappointed about the entire
incident, as it seems no one can question, with good intentions, generally
accepted facts about gender equality in the interest of the truth, rather than
what might be the socially acceptable answer. I was glad to find an article
that posits some alternative hypotheses and simply acknowledges that the
answers are not so simple as they might seem, and that discusses the issue
from a neutral, non-activist viewpoint. I read Pinker's article in The New
Republic, but this one talks about the issue more than about the discussion
itself.

One thing I kept expecting the talk to mention as I was reading was the
importance of outliers. While I agree that comparisons of fundamental ability
between the sexes, as opposed to factors such as motivation, is probably
flawed, I think it might make the argument more immune to activist criticism
to point out that there are always outliers in either group. Just because men
may be, on average, more inclined to build large businesses, for example, does
not mean that each man is more inclined to build large businesses than every
woman — the curves overlap. Of course, the different shape of the
distributions are important, as Baumeister pointed out (the male curves tend
to be bimodal in certain cases whereas the female ones might be more normal).
But there are always outliers, and so there will probably always be certain
woman who are better at any given thing than most men; even though there may
be more men than woman who are 'really good'. The entire talk discusses
generalities and statistical tendencies, I know, but might easily be confused
by less sophisticated readers as talking about individuals, which seems to be
the common criticism of such talk.

------
tc
This paragraph struck me:

"That means that if we want to achieve our ideal of equal salaries for men and
women, we may need to legislate the principle of equal pay for less work.
_Personally, I support that principle._ But I recognize it's a hard sell."
_(emphasis mine)_

It takes a special kind of commitment to the truth to write an extended,
compelling piece that ruthlessly undermines any rational basis for a position
you support.

~~~
electromagnetic
I personally support extravagant pay for no work at all, however I don't think
many people will give me a $5 mil salary for sitting at home all day.

There's always the slim chance interest rates will hit %10,000 and I'll be
able to cache an unemployment check for $5 mil, but that kind of defeats the
prospect of being a millionaire by not working.

It's quite easy to back a policy that rationally doesn't make sense. I agree
with him, I support the principle of equal pay for both men and women, however
equal pay is complete BS. There shouldn't even be equal pay between solely
male or female workers, because quite simply no one does the exact same amount
of work.

Even if you're tasked with making 50 microchips a day and two people produce
50 microchips a day, there's still lots of other factors involved. What if one
person's trained in first aid? What if one's a real douchbag and pisses
everyone off, shouldn't they be punished because they aren't conducive to a
company environment?

The variables are huge, and unless two people are identical duplicates beamed
down from space, then I don't believe they should be paid the same _just
because it's nice_.

------
SapphireSun
I think this is especially interesting in light of the fact that I and most
people frequenting this website are interested in startups. This seems to be
the essential male proclivity for seeking greatness at work. I wonder if that
is why there seem to be fewer female founders (AFAIK).

However, the worst thing to take away from this article would be that you can
predict how an individual will react given their gender. That is definitely
not true. Although, if you look at a group of people, you can probably predict
some of the distribution.

------
geebee
This was an interesting article, and a very important counter-point to the
notion that any difference between men and women is evidence of discrimination
or at least socialization.

That said, I think the article is a little extreme. I suspect that the genetic
benefits of "playing it safe" for men and "risk taking" for women were greater
throughout our evolutionary history than the author suggests.

For starters, a brief glance out into the world suggests that women do take
risks and seek power - sometimes through a man, but often independently. They
may not build boats and sail to far away lands, but they sure will follow the
yellow brick road to hollywood on a pipe dream of becoming a high status movie
star or singer.

The author used the example of Genghis Kahn as an example of why men would
benefit from high status in a way women wouldn't - GK fathered hundreds
(thousands?) of children, whereas a woman wouldn't be able to exploit this
power in the same way. This isn't necessarily the case. Sure, a woman can't
have hundreds of thousands of kids, but her sons may be able to. In fact, the
biggest fights among Bonobo apes are between Females, usually over their son's
status in the mating hierarchy.

For men - I've read (and sorry, no cite here) that many hunting gathering
societies are quite egalitarian, mainly because the leverage that great wealth
and concentration of power aren't present. While good hunters do more mating
than poor ones, the opportunity and benefit to shooting the moon with extreme
risk taking may not be nearly as prevalent in our evolutionary history as the
author suggests. Again, a brief glance out into the world suggests that the
norm among males is to exhibit some risk taking and status seeking behavior -
and perhaps a bit more so than women - but ultimately, I suggest that for at
least some of our evolutionary history, many males had the opportunity of,
well, behaving more like females, but acting fairly monogamous and playing it
safe.

Still a good article, I just think it overstates the case considerably.

------
JeffJenkins
I had a discussion about this with a friend recently. She linked me to this:

[http://scienceblogs.com/purepedantry/2008/07/math_performanc...](http://scienceblogs.com/purepedantry/2008/07/math_performance_in_the_us_boy.php)

Of particular note: "The present study also indicated that the variance ratio
for boys and girls is inverted for Asian American students -- the girls have
higher variance. Thus, higher variance in boys is not always a robust
finding."

I can't speak to the significance of this, it being way out of my knowledge,
but if true it certainly suggests something strange is going on.

------
sunjain
This is a very interesting and well thought essay. Especially the stats and
facts behind some of the positions he is taking are very interesting. With
regards to creativity, I would tend to think that: if we look at nature, there
seem to be two inherent trends emerge from time immemorial: 1) nature is
interested mainly in prorogation of species(thru reproduction) and 2) at the
subject level creativity seems to be one of the big driving factors. Meaning,
if we look at every species, it is hardwired to reproduce, and lot of physical
and non-physical characteristics/actions are specifically put in place by
nature, so that species propagates(including humans). Second, behind lot of
our endeavors, creativity is the underlying force. And so, for example art,
music, scientific discovery (and even sports or programming), the underlying
desire is to create(something). I tend to think, even behind the desire to be
powerful (for example CEOs/other powerful positions etc, in present times is
nothing but desire to create(or failure there of fulfilling this desire and
thus reflecting in powergrab). And so in case of women, this particular
desire(to create something) is inherently fulfilled(or fulfillable) by giving
birth and creating a human being. And of lot their energies over centuries has
gone towards this (and then tending and caring for their created product).
Whereas men has no such outlet, so they need to express it somehow - hence
this is also one reason why see men all over the place at top in lot of
fields.

------
kleevr
So, I read this article early today. Then later, I was just googling
interesting things, and thus surfing ensued...

I landed here
([http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090119104804AA...](http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090119104804AAyQ7aF)),
and noticing the nature of the comments/avatars. Do you think it would be
possible to find "reliable"-confirmation that "even on the internet", 'female
personalities', in situations where one would expect 'care ethics' to be
emergent on the social graph (perhaps health care industry), could one find
numerical-"confirmation" of the one-to-one vs one-to-many interactions
hypothesized in the article?

...or is that just a cyclical thought... a bias?

------
radu_floricica
Great stuff.

I found a bit disconcerting the constant use of words like "fairness" and
"morality". I tend to see them as "quick and dirty" models useful for everyday
behavior. But in a scientific work, which is supposed to study the real thing,
I find them not so fitting.

------
azgolfer
One important factor is that naturally a lot of women die in childbirth, So a
successful man in the past would often go through multiple wives.

------
tallpapab
As Artie Johnson might have said, verrrry interestink, (long drag on
cigarette, turn back to camera) but risky.

------
stcredzero
Bjork went through this stage where she used to say, "Boys are only good for
sex and beats."

------
alexkearns
Brilliant!

------
earl
This also was utterly fascinating: "The first big, basic difference has to do
with what I consider to be the most underappreciated fact about gender.
Consider this question: What percent of our ancestors were women?

It’s not a trick question, and it’s not 50%. True, about half the people who
ever lived were women, but that’s not the question. We’re asking about all the
people who ever lived who have a descendant living today. Or, put another way,
yes, every baby has both a mother and a father, but some of those parents had
multiple children.

Recent research using DNA analysis answered this question about two years ago.
Today’s human population is descended from twice as many women as men."

I had no idea... they must have tested mitochondrial dna or something?

~~~
gort
A good way to visualize this is to imagine a family tree going back for many,
many generations. You'd find that certain males were your ancestor "more than
once", i.e. you might find the same man was your ancestor on both your mother
and father's side.

Of course, females can also be your ancestor "more than once"; it's just that,
as a matter of fact, more men have this property. This is due to the fact that
some men have dozens of children, by several different women.

------
c00p3r
I didn't exactly remember the quote, but there are another 'biological' prove
of this concept - in case 'one man, hundred women' there are guaranteed
survival for entire specie, while 'hundred men, one woman' is a lose case.

In simple words, men are consumables, and this fact is known for ages.
Especially in poor countries.

------
Allocator2008
Interesting stuff. However it would be better if he had not talked about
groups or cultures competing, which is ultimately incidental, and talked
instead of genes and memes competing. Evolution could give a damn about the
group. It cares only about genes. Similarly, cultural (memetic) evolution
could give a damn about the culture (or society or whatever). It only is
concerned with the meme.

Basically his thesis is that women are good at close-knit relationships, and
me are good at broader networked relationships. So roughly, though women are
protected and valued in society because of reproduction, men are valued in
society for the culture they create with their penchant for wide social
networking. Fair enough perhaps but this misses the point.

I think rather than say woman have a usefulness to the group for the creation
of offspring, both in terms of having in offspring and having a higher chance
of reproducing, and men have a usefulness to the group because of their
cultural contributions, I think we need to look at usefulness with respect to
what. The "what" is the gene and the meme.

Woman are good for the gene. If I am a selfish gene, I want to hitch a ride
with a chick. Why? Because as much as 8 / 10 of women who ever lived
reproduced. Only about 4 / 10 men who ever lived reproduced (according to the
article). So if I want to become part of evolution's junk DNA (and 95% of our
DNA is junk, true "selfish genes"), then I have a better chance hanging out in
the junk DNA of a female than a male. Women are good for me as a selfish gene.
Women are useful to the selfish gene. Men? Well, hell, we can always invent
pathogenesis in a pinch as a certain kind of shark in a zoo has done. Men are
a nice to have to broaden the genome which enhances fitness, but we can
ultimately do without them if we need to ("we" referring to the genes).

On the other hand, if I am a selfish meme, if the author is right about men
preferring wider social networks (like politics or religion) than I have a
better shot infecting the brain of a man than a woman. Why? Because the dude I
infect will know more dudes, and can pass me along to them before he gets
eaten by a saber tooth cat.

So do the author's conclusions make sense? I think so. But he needs to
understand what "usefulness" means. Usefulness with respect to WHOM.

If I am a selfish gene, women are more useful to me.

If I am a selfish meme, men are more useful to me.

However I would say though it is hard to put numbers on this, that the higher
advantage chicks give the selfish gene versus dudes is greater than the higher
advantage endowed by dudes to the memes versus the chicks. This is a guess,
but it is my gut feeling. I think that tho genes find chicks more important
and memes find dudes more important, a gene can live without the dudes more
facily than a meme can live without the chicks. Since whereas women might not
network quite with the same alacrity as men, still they network. Anyway. So I
like this article. But better clarity could be had in my opinion by looking at
the men vs. women thing from the perspective of genes and memes, which again,
is all biological and cultural evolution respectively care about.

So yes, if you are a meme, you like men. But you kind of can go both ways. If
you are a gene, you really prefer women, and are less inclined to go both
ways. :-)

~~~
FlorinAndrei
There's something in your observation that echoes old mythologies and models
of the world: men represent Spirit, women represent Matter. I always thought
there was some kernel of truth to that metaphor, but couldn't quite put my
finger on it. I think you did.

~~~
jonny_noog
Actually, I think if one looks across most old mythologies and religions,
particularly many pre-dating Jeudeo-Christian, one would find quite the
opposite.

~~~
FlorinAndrei
Hm, I'm having trouble parsing that.

It's not just the religions of the Book which use that metaphor. The whole
Buddhism, the whole Hinduism (to the extent that such a thing does exist) -
they all say: man = spirit, woman = matter.

~~~
jonny_noog
Yeah, well I guess it's a hard thing to really pin down, but I have always
interpreted the less male dominated religions as seeing the female as the
spiritual or guiding or creative force and the male as being the force which
works to bring that creative energy into solid form.

------
jlees
No. Next article!

------
alphazero
"If one were to look downward to the bottom of society instead, one finds
mostly men there too. Who’s in prison, all over the world, as criminals or
political prisoners?"

A somewhat disturbing equation. A political prisoner is precisely the
(potentially extra-) societal actor that is relegated to the "bottom" by the
state through punitive measures.

In any event, what's good about men is that we cut code; no 'Y', no 'hacker'
...

