I think one thing women don't always realize is that men have many of the same feelings toward other men the author describes.
I identify as male, and if I meet another man while out travelling, I am exactly as wary and careful at first (and so are they). You mentally calculate your odds, etc. Of course, most end up being a great meet and good company. Some of the conversations I've had with fellow hikers have been some of my best.
But I share her feeling of tiredness about that initial stage.
> men have many of the same feelings toward other men
This is absolutely true.
But it overlooks her premise, which is summarized in:
> And usually, what men in these situations actually want is closeness. They’re trying to get closer to me, physically or emotionally, in the only way they know how. That combination of poor emotional skillsets and a desire to get closer is exactly what puts me in danger.
As a male on the trail, you do have to watch out for the rare aggressive evildoer.
But you generally do not have to watch out for ordinary maladjusted humans (most of them) who just want closeness, and react to disinterest with escalating hostility.
You see this on the street too, in public. A woman who does not respond with brightness and cheer to a man's (perhaps gentle, but unwelcome) attention will often get yelled at or called names. On the street. In public.
Men almost never have to deal with demands placed upon them by strangers that are anything like this.
> ordinary maladjusted humans (most of them) who just want closeness, and react to disinterest with escalating hostility
That sounds insane. "Most humans" are maladjusted, "just want closeness" and "react to disinterest with escalating hostility"? Just no.
> Men almost never have to deal with demands placed upon them by strangers that are anything like this.
"What are you looking at?", followed by some combination of humiliation, violence, robbery. It's pretty common with the type of aggressively useless person that would also yell at women for not appreciating attention from some random person.
My sentence structure might not have been adequately clear.
Most humans are maladjusted on some spectrum. I believe that, but OK it's arguable.
The remaining qualifiers were intended to be increasingly smaller subgroups of the first. I make no claims about how large the ultimate group in question is, although "too large" seems clear.
Re: the second part, yes but there's also the category of decent people who extend themselves a little and feel humiliated/react defensively to a non-adept rejection.
Right, I think the whole 'patriarchy' thing is a complete mis-characterisation.
It's a dominance hierarchy, of course mostly dominated by men since men are physically stronger and more aggressive or competitive.
And it can be just as uncomfortable, possibly even more so, for men.
For example as reported by trans-men, who suddenly, as men, find themselves bullied, put-down, hazed and dominated, rather than dismissed, not taken seriously, harassed, etc, as they may have experienced as women.
What you describe is what the word "patriarchy" means, in feminist theory. It's jargon, and doesn't literally mean "rule by fathers" or "rule by men".
Anecdotal evidence from people who hormonally transition (I don't know of any studies, sorry) supports the theory that men being “more aggressive or competitive” is cultural – or, at least, isn't caused by testosterone.
"supports the theory that men being “more aggressive or competitive” is cultural – or, at least, isn't caused by testosterone."
Right, and the same cultural influences are having identical, in fact more extreme affects, in horse culture, elephant culture, dog culture, bull culture, chicken culture, etc.
> In the wild, among males, bonobos are half as aggressive as chimpanzees, while female bonobos are more aggressive than female chimpanzees.
> There is one inferred intraspecies killing in the wild,[129] and a confirmed lethal attack in captivity.[130] In both cases, the attackers were female and the victims were male.
Humans have very different mating rituals as compared to chickens. We have very different social behaviour to cattle. We have barely any instincts at birth, as compared to a fawn. We have planet-spanning societal structures, unlike dogs.
There are many ways in which humans differ from the animals you've listed. Why do you think we are necessarily the same as them in this particular respect? (There's a reason we look at evidence in science, rather than discarding ideas out-of-hand.)
Sorry, you can't completely escape biology. Look at any number of studies on the effects of testosterone.
We have many of the same instincts as animals, since we are, animals. Of course we have consciousness and culture, so we can tame ourselves to an extent, but that is not the same as being a blank slate.
Your example of bonobos still does not show males are less aggressive (note that I'm saying aggressive and competitive, not necessarily violent), just less than chimps.
I know it's very attractive to deny biology so that any imagined society becomes a 'simple' matter of rewriting culture, especially for certain groups, but it just isn't so.
And in fact I find this argument quite specious. It's the same one used to justify 'correction programs' for gay people for example. I mean if sexual orientation is just culture, then we could 'fix' gayness with boot camps, or more-masculine/feminine upbringing and role models etc, no?
It's very clear to me that sexual orientation or desire is more of an inherent collection of traits or instincts, at most merely 'colored' by culture, and there is nothing to 'fix', quite apart from any argument of why would we want to anyway.
We can at best tame our instincts, but they are there.
> Testosterone is often considered a critical regulator of aggressive behaviour. There is castration/replacement evidence that testosterone indeed drives aggression in some species, but causal evidence in humans is generally lacking and/or-for the few studies that have pharmacologically manipulated testosterone concentrations-inconsistent. […]
> Baseline testosterone shared a weak but significant association with aggression […] in men […] but not women […] Changes in T were positively correlated with aggression […] in men […] but not women […]. The causal effects of testosterone on human aggression were weaker yet, and not statistically significant […]
> The behavioral tendency to react aggressively increased in three studies out of four (at three months follow-up), whereas only one study out of five found angry emotions to increase (at seven months follow-up). In contrast, one out of three studies reported a decrease in hostility after initiation of testosterone therapy. The remaining studies found no change in aggressive behavior, anger or hostility during hormone therapy.
You're arguing that humans are not “blank slates”. I do not dispute this. I do dispute that it's as simplistic as you claim: the evidence that my quick PubMed search turned up is consistent with the idea that testosterone increases arousal in humans, and the effects of that depend on the person and how they believe they're expected to act.
This is the case with alcohol (which https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1403295/ and https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11469-020-00321-0 seem to support). People without the concept of a violent drunk tend to get happy and sleepy when taking alcohol, without exhibiting violent behaviour, whereas people who usually get violent when they're drunk will get violent even if they're not drunk, if they think they are. Does alcohol cause violence, in humans? Well… depends what you mean by those words – but it's true to say that it's cultural.
The title is kinda clickbait, but the article is quite good. It starts with a basic introduction to some relevant feminist theory (which is perhaps a bit jargon-heavy), and then it deconstructs an aspect of popular culture (using the author's personal experiences as reference).
Some of her other articles probably aren't on-topic for HN, but I think this one is.
Uninteresting premise. Some shit-for-brains vlogger asks an inflammatory question to n women, assembles a rage-bait compilation of m responses, posts it online, and swathes of poorly-adjusted individuals immediately confirm their biases and circulate it as evidence of.. what?
What do masculinity social norms have to do with the possible danger that comes from meeting a lone stranger in the woods? You don't trust strangers because you don't know them. It has nothing to do with masculinity, men or some gender wide conspiracy.
If I met a tiny petite girl in the woods, while I was hiking, and if she wanted to stick around with me, I would also be wary of her. I would think that she's maybe part of a some elaborate robbery scheme or something. Stranger danger and all that.
And if a man, or anyone, finds themselves in a position of power, and they decide to abuse that power, that is on them. There is no social norm that teaches men to take advantage of women whenever they feel like it.
Ultimately this is a worthless discussion because you cannot legislate evil away. Some people will always behave badly and no amount of preaching about the patriarchy will change that.
I don't know what this "woods" or "hiking" stuff is about, but the scariest moment in Elite Dangerous is when you're far, faaar out of the human bubble, in deep, remote space... and, against all odds (the game is literally astronomical in scale), you pick up another player on your radar. You're lonely, so the encounter is exciting. And shocking. And mortifying. Out here, there's no system security. There's no repair facilities. You might be carrying months of exploration data. If they want to kill you, you're screwed. It's all the best and worst emotions all at once. :D
I wrote a sibling comment pointing out something similar, but I also realize the situations are still different.
If you take any woman/man combo meeting alone in the woods, chances that the man will feel compelled to get closer even if not encouraged (physically or even just emotionally, as the author points out) is, I think, greater than the other way around.
As I wrote, if I meet that man alone in the woods, I will still be wary and feel uncomfortable at first. But I can probably get to the point of letting my guard down more easily and faster, because the chances of me having anything the other side desires or that desire developing is just lower.
So yeah, I think sex/gender are a factor in terms of when it's possible to decide to take the risk and relax. Keep in mind I am talking about perceived risk, the man in the hypothetical doesn't have to be an actual predator.
Not sure why I read this. The writing seemed honest, but guarded. I almost didn't make it past the feminist ideology. If I was her editor I'd tell her to drop it, but still, it does seem to come from someplace genuine.
I think what she reminded me of was, of all things, the mgtow movement, except for women. Not the mgtow pop youtube 'redpill' online movement, but the actual men living in a quiet transitional space looking for life after being hurt by a woman.
I think one thing women don't always realize is that men have many of the same feelings toward other men the author describes.
I identify as male, and if I meet another man while out travelling, I am exactly as wary and careful at first (and so are they). You mentally calculate your odds, etc. Of course, most end up being a great meet and good company. Some of the conversations I've had with fellow hikers have been some of my best.
But I share her feeling of tiredness about that initial stage.