Monday, May 30, 2011

On Men and Women

Women are not the same as men.

They are the females of the mammalian species Homo Sapiens, in case one needs to be reminded.

They have distinct bodies, which have distinct processes, which have distinct hormonal rhythms.

They have a distinct biological role, and that biological role has defined to a very great extent the social and moral restrictions placed on them.

Of course there are "double standards" when it comes to male and female sexuality. "Double Standard" assumes a pejorative and hypocritical stance, whereas a more neutral phrase would be "distinct standard".

These distinctions in social and moral restrictions can be summarily brushed aside as unnatural and unfair only if one does not understand their evolutionary bases.

...

A woman is expected to act more modest socially. Her modesty has traditionally been her shield against unwanted male advances. It signals that she is not easy, and that there are going to be commitments and investments and social negotiations before a man is to even attempt to impregnate her.

A woman is "free" to disregard this traditional guideline of modesty just as someone in Iowa is free to not wear a helmet while riding a motorcycle. There is going to be increased risk, and society as a whole is going to have to pay for undesirable consequences when they occur. Divorces, night patrolling, care of fatherless children, termination of pregnancies, sexual harassment regulatory overheads, matrimonial litigation, all are significant economic costs which traditional societies avoided by having strict rules for women.

Many of those rules caused hardship to free thinking women, who were intelligent enough to make wise sexual decisions and didn't need to be overseen. And it is an interesting facet of law and morality that they are both wide-ranging and do not account for individual differences.

All sexual morality is the consequence of the biological facts of a woman being a female mammal requiring protection and support while she gives birth to and brings up the offspring and thus helps to propagate the genes of the father. There may be idiosyncrasies such as genital mutilation of females in certain societies, but then there are such idiosyncrasies related to men as well (e.g. circumcision).

Females and males are sexually unequal, and always will be. This fact can be consciously disregarded, but reality has a way of catching up in a hard way if you ignore it long enough.

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The other arena of the so-called "double standards" is leadership.

Traditionally, power and leadership has been synonymous with readiness to engage in conflict. And to this day, conflict can quickly escalate into insults, ruthless negotiations, property disputes, physical violence, warfare. Armies and police forces all over the world are still predominantly male. It is no wonder that women military leaders have been conspicuous by their non-existence. There have been some notable female heads of state, but again, the vast majority of rulers have been men.

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Coming to white collar environments, can a woman be a leader of men? The conflicts in these environments are not physically violent, but they do require a certain "toughness", an insensitivity (not blindness) to others' suffering and emotional states (ref, mass layoffs), and competitiveness.

A woman in a position which requires ruthlessness will understandably have to prove herself as being "man" enough. A man doesn't have to prove himself capable of ruthlessness, it is assumed that he is, by virtue of his gender. On the other hand, it is a fair question to ask of a woman leader whether she has got the requisite "guts" and "balls".

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To what extent are traditional morality and social restrictions related to women still relevant? And let it not be thought that it is men (or only men) who subject women to the "rules". In fact most men who are not socially invested in her well-being would like her, for obvious reasons, to be more promiscuous and available and skimpily dressed and so on. Women have been brainwashed to think that "men" are restricting their sexual freedom, when factually speaking, societies (both men and women) have evolved these morals and rules to avoid hardship and a breakdown of the community.

In modern urban settings, the breakdown of the community is a non-factor, the community not being there in the first place. Similarly, sexual morality, being a communally driven phenomenon, is relatively non-existent. Hence, in a metro, a woman is, more or less, free to do what she wants.

But, there is a caveat.

Because an atmosphere of amorality and lack of community does not equate an atmosphere of implicit safety (in fact it is quite the opposite), increasingly vicious forms of women-friendly legislation have been put in place in most modern societies. Presumption of guilt is quite widespread when a woman complains against a man for some sexual or matrimonial indiscretion.

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Equality before law is another topic of debate. No society treats all its inhabitants equally, even formally speaking. Illegal immigrants do not have the rights granted to a citizen. There is affirmative action for various classes of underprivileged people. Certain jobs require youthfulness. Most jobs require suitable credentials. Only high-net-worth individuals can invest in hedge funds.

It is politically correct to say that one must not discriminate against a particular race, income class, gender, and so on.

Most feminists I have talked to, or listened to, are not in favor of equality before the law. They would rather have preferential treatment for women, because they are the "oppressed" class. In most modern societies, laws favoring women vastly outnumber laws favoring men (if the latter at all exist).

I am of the firm opinion that one can't have it both ways. Either admit that women (as a class) need protection, and that they are more vulnerable to abuse. Or admit that women are equals, and that they do not need protection or special treatment. In the first case, a special right (or protection) will have to be accompanied by certain responsibilities on part of women. In the second, women can do what they want, but they had better take care of themselves when shit hits the fan and not run to the "society" for taking care of the fatherless child, or to men for "alimony" and "maintenance", or to judges for "bail based on gender".

(to be continued)

9 comments:

Sridhar said...

"A woman is expected to act more modest socially. Her modesty has traditionally been her shield against unwanted male advances. It signals that she is not easy, and that there are going to be commitments and investments and social negotiations before a man is to even attempt to impregnate her."

How does the above explain this - A relatively modestly dressed girl in Delhi is more at risk of "eve-teasing", unwanted sexual advances, and outright rape as compared to a girl wearing a mini skirt and a very revealing top in say Vienna, Austria (or any western city). I don't particularly have any data to prove it but it seems to me that the more sexually open, less moralistic, and less religiously condescending a society is, the less problem women have (regardless of how they dress). Of course, men will be men,and in even in the west, a man would check out a sexy girl in scant attire (albeit discreetly, as opposed to the wide eyed gawking common in India), but that is usually not seen as an invitation to rape or sexual assault - as seems to happen quite often in the "third" world.

Maybe the answer is more simple than it seems. Unmarried Men in the west get laid more easily, at a much younger age. To them sex becomes just another activity - like playing tennis, or catching a movie. We just have too many hormones flowing, sexually frustrated young men walking around - hence the rapes, sexual assaults, harassment of women, etc etc.

Harmanjit Singh said...

@sridhar, given that even mildly "provocative" behavior in a city like Delhi is order of magnitude dangerous than in, say, Vienna (both for women and men) indicates that one must be even more careful in sending "wrong signals". A woman who dresses skimpily in Delhi is just inviting trouble.

As to why Delhi is a much more unsafe place than Vienna, you are right that sexual repression is a factor. Access to sex is, however, depends upon which class one belongs to. The rich in India (as elsewhere) have always been more promiscuous than other classes, because they set their own standards and are not answerable to the "community" and have better access to the "law" and to private places where they can have their liaisons.

I would venture to say that sexual crime in India is another form of corruption: men want women to whom they have no legitimate right to. The community in traditional settings can and does lynch a middle class or poor man if he dares to outrage the modesty of a woman. The rich men, obviously, are out of reach.

The lawlessness in Delhi is not just limited to safety for women, but to almost everything else as well, be it real estate, politics,
traffic, street fights, and so on.

The right recourse, IMO, would be to strengthen law enforcement, not short circuit due process.

As to what this lawlessness means for women (or for vulnerable men), they should not act in a provocative manner. Pragmatic women and men know this. A Delhi middle-class man does not attempt to pick an argument with a VIP number plate vehicle driver even if the latter dangerously cuts him off. Similarly women know not to venture out alone in certain areas at night.

In short: the lack of safety and of there being widespread criminal abuse of power is not just related to women.

Vidyut said...

Thank you for sharing this article. Frankly, I think this has pretty much nothing to do with mine, but I'm glad it triggered the subject, because it is a comprehensive monument of the utter moral depravity of the average Indian male.

The overall impression I get from your article is that men find it fine to disrespect the personhood of a woman and that you find that normal and fine and a circumstance that women must deal with alone - as in conform or live with consequences. While I have no doubt that this is a widespread view, I seriously refuse to take responsibility for the lack of an editor between a man's dick and brain.

I'd say its your problem, because bullying, raping, abusing, demeaning anyone - man or woman is something that's luckily illegal - whether we enforce it adequately or not. Slut shaming is prevalent - true, but it is also not an ideal to aspire to. You seem content to live there. Frankly, I have only contempt for such views, but am fine seeing as how you have no authority over my life and are free to become whatever you aspire to.

It does creep me out that we remain a society where such thoughts may be freely chest thumped as some kind of insight.

Consider this dude, by your standards, a young boy had better lean modesty fast, because pedophiles exist, and since they are more powerful, the consequences are entirely the boy's to bear. Why have child protection laws? Why make them a special case? While you are at it, pliss to also ignore old people being killed by robbers. After all, robbers exist. If they can't manage their own security, they deserve to die, right? Or at least throw away all their tempting valuables.

They should be on par with an adult male of prime age. Defend or die. Luckily India is not a wildlife sanctuary... yet. Compute that.

The only other misfit in your monument is that you forgot to tell rapists to target the bold women who disregard these laws. Statistics say that women who appear quieter, less inclined to create trouble or publicly confront them are more likely targets of rape. Compute that too.

I find this utterly pukeworthy.

Vidyut said...

Well said, Sridhar. I wish I'd read your comment first. I could have been less verbose.

Harmanjit Singh said...

@Vidyut:

pukeworthy or not, if you "seriously refuse to take responsibility for the lack of an editor between a man's dick and brain", then that is your choice. I would, on the other hand, be rather careful if I were driving on Indian roads and not scream: I "refuse" to take responsibility for others' lack of driving skills.

You say: "It does creep me out that we remain a society where such thoughts may be freely chest thumped as some kind of insight."

You must be pretty heavily brainwashed to get crept out by the reality that human beings are still pretty much animals when it comes to sexuality.

As for your analogy of young boys, that doesn't hold because he cannot be expected to know about the big bad world, and need to be protected. And by the way, I am all for laws for protection for anyone who is too weak to protect themselves (be it men or women), but let there be due process and let not the laws be misused.

As for your statistics of docile women being more probable targets, I guess you consider docility and modesty as synonyms. I don't. By all means resist, and modesty is one form of preemptive measure against sexual ogling and attacks.

You don't really seem to have read my article. Thanks for visiting, though.

Vidyut said...

http://www.thisisnotaninvitationtorapeme.co.uk/dress/

http://www.usu.edu/saavi/pdf/myths_facts.pdf

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=16393921&method=full&siteid=94762&headline=asking-for-it-name_page.html

http://pathwayscourses.samhsa.gov/vawp/vawp_supps_pg11.htm

http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=16885786

http://webs.wichita.edu/?u=police&p=/sexual_assault/

http://www.siue.edu/~jfarley/melanie.htm

Harmanjit Singh said...

@vidyut: thanks for the links.

please feel free to wear revealing clothes and advise others of this freedom as well.

and then if a man ogles at you, or comes on to you, protest, resist, get agitated, complain to the police, etc.

and next time, again wear revealing clothes, repeat ...

Anonymous said...

Nature is fluid whereas law is rigid. Where one takes hold, other takes a beating.

Darshan Chande said...

This is a very thought-provoking article! But I think getting people to accept this is always to remain an uphill battle; as in the case of every issue needing super deep intellectual analysis, which only the likes of you can afford. Bravo!

Although it will enrage people (especially, women) the most, I found the last paragraph very impressive. It's so very true!

// Either admit that women (as a class) need protection, and that they are more vulnerable to abuse. Or admit that women are equals, and that they do not need protection or special treatment. In the first case, a special right (or protection) will have to be accompanied by certain responsibilities on part of women. In the second, women can do what they want, but they had better take care of themselves when shit hits the fan and not run to the "society" for taking care of the fatherless child, or to men for "alimony" and "maintenance", or to judges for "bail based on gender". //

Only yesterday I came across a blogpost in which the author (a woman) was expressing her anger for men, saying that if men can roam about wearing shorts then why can't women wear miniskirts... That men are perverts for ogling women, and so on. What people fail to understand is that men's behavior in the society towards women is different from women's behavior towards men, not because men are perverts and women are sane; but it is so essentially because men and women are fundamentally different from each other, and that their behavior has an evolutionary basis based on their respective gender roles.

Harassment of women by men is not acceptable, right; and we must certainly have the laws to protect the weak (women, here), but at the same time people should also understand the fundamental difference between the two sexes, and chuck the if-men-can-why-can't-women logic.

As you very rightly observed, special protection must be accompanied by special responsibilities.

... And I am overflowing with thoughts on this subject. Probably will write an article myself. Thanks very much for writing this enlightening post!