Ch. 9 - Battle of the Sexes

Chris OConnor · Sun Aug 02, 2009 1:43 am

The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins
Ch. 9 - Battle of the Sexes

seespotrun2008 · Sat Oct 03, 2009 8:12 pm


	Quote: One feature of our own society that seems decidedly anomalous is the matter of sexual advertisement. As we have seen, it is strongly to be expected on evolutionary grounds that, where the sexes differ, it should be the males that advertise and the females that are drab. Modern western man is undoubtedly exceptional in this respect. It is of course true that some men dress flamboyantly and some women dress drably but, on average, there can be no doubt that in our society the equivalent of the peacock’s tail is exhibited by the female, not the male (Dawkins 164).

Hmmm. I wonder why this is. Human beings are very complex so I think that there are probably multiple things going on here. I think that part of this is definitely the objectification of women. In a society where women have less money and power they have to compete for males that will “build their nests” so to speak. When women are only described in terms of sexuality or appearance that is not a compliment. It is objectifying that person and taking away her complexity. Women are put into little boxes of who they are or are supposed to be: mother, sex kitten, old maid.
Queen Rania of Jordan has said that “the face of poverty is a woman”. This is very true. I think that money comes into play in human relationships. Other animals do not face this sort of competition. In human relationships the more money one has the more power one has. If you can keep individuals or groups of people from having money then you get to maintain power. So maybe money is the factor in human relationships that create this difference.

DWill · Sat Oct 03, 2009 10:03 pm

Of course, it is probably much worse for women whenever they are forbidden to advertise their sexuality, as in Muslim countries. No doubt many of these women would see this as an opportunity, regardless of the fact that it pleases men. But it does seem that we human males have invented the subjugation of the other sex. Does that really happen with other animals? Well, I guess perhaps in a sense it does occasionally, as with the harems that sea lions rule over. And Dawkins mentions that in most cases, at least with mammals and birds, it is the male that is most able to fly the coop after mating, leaving the female stuck with the job of raising the baby. So maybe there is the germ in the animal world of an exploitation that we took much farther.

geo · Sun Oct 04, 2009 9:19 am

seespotrun2008 wrote:


	Quote: . . . it should be the males that advertise and the females that are drab. Modern western man is undoubtedly exceptional in this respect.

Hmmm. I wonder why this is. . . . In a society where women have less money and power they have to compete for males that will “build their nests” so to speak.

I think DWill is on to something regarding the fact that in humans the male is less a caretaker of the young than the female and that this has created distinct sexual role differences between males and females. Historically, the male works as the provider, a role that continued during our hunter/gatherer phase. The female also having such a fairly long gestation period means that males are more mobile and also typically larger and stronger, which is probably why we tend to be patriarchal.

seespotrun2008 · Sun Oct 04, 2009 10:44 am


	Quote: Historically, the male works as the provider, a role that continued during our hunter/gatherer phase.

Actually, meat was a rarity. Women were the ones to keep the tribe going on a regular basis by gathering nuts and berries.

geo · Sun Oct 04, 2009 11:03 am

seespotrun2008 wrote:


	Quote: Historically, the male works as the provider, a role that continued during our hunter/gatherer phase.

Actually, meat was a rarity. Women were the ones to keep the tribe going on a regular basis by gathering nuts and berries.

True. In that respect, this division of labor was probably more equal.

However, to complete my thought, the male as warrior serves as protector in a species that tends to be aggressive and battle other clans for food and land, the females of our species have come to depend on the male for survival and protection. Thus there is competition to get the biggest, strongest male, so females have to advertise. Maybe? It's interesting to note that much of the "advertising" that takes place—lipstick, high heels, clothing and hair styles—are cultural (memetic) and not genetic.

Suzanne · Sun Oct 04, 2009 1:05 pm

Geo wrote:


	Quote: Thus there is competition to get the biggest, strongest male, so females have to advertise. Maybe? It's interesting to note that much of the "advertising" that takes place—lipstick, high heels, clothing and hair styles—are cultural (memetic) and not genetic.

Oh, I'm going to kick myself for saying this, seespotrun may kick me too, but I have to agree. Beauty holds power in our society. A beautiful woman has the capability to manipulate men, and any man who says otherwise, is kidding themselves. Yes, women do doll themselves up to attract men, and the richer, the better.

However, once the peacock has been captured, the drab hen needs to keep her appearance up to keep him. This is what I have a problem with. See, seespotrun, maybe I've redeemed myself a little. There are two many divorces because the "rich" man no longer finds his wife disireable, and he knows, there are those dolled up women waiting to fight for his attention.

Saffron · Sun Oct 04, 2009 1:39 pm


	seespotrun2008 wrote: Queen Rania of Jordan has said that “the face of poverty is a woman”. This is very true. I think that money comes into play in human relationships. Other animals do not face this sort of competition. In human relationships the more money one has the more power one has. If you can keep individuals or groups of people from having money then you get to maintain power. So maybe money is the factor in human relationships that create this difference.

I am using a quote from Spot's post in order to address Geo's speculation about patriarchy. Human society has only be patriarchal for a small percentage of its history. I can't say exactly what it was. I don't think right now anyone really can, but there is plenty of evidence that society has not always been patriarchal. Why patriarchy? One reason must be linked to the fact that money is power. What happens to your wealth (I mean whatever assess you have -- money, land, jewels, goods, etc.) when you die? In Europe (even before it was Europe) it went to one’s children. How exactly can one be assured that one’s children are really one's children? Well, a woman just knows. What about a man -- can he be sure? The way to be sure is to control your woman's sexuality.

Anyway, this is one of the theories that explains some aspects of patriarchy and why the face of poverty is a woman's.

Interbane · Sun Oct 04, 2009 2:27 pm

The misogyny of religion has lead to patriarchy in recent millennia. I would guess that before that, muscular strength of men was one more factor to weigh in on the prowess of an individual, combined with wisdom which in all fairness we can say is split evenly.l

Saffron · Sun Oct 04, 2009 3:05 pm


	Interbane wrote: The misogyny of religion has lead to patriarchy in recent millennia. I would guess that before that, muscular strength of men was one more factor to weigh in on the prowess of an individual, combined with wisdom which in all fairness we can say is split evenly.l

Patriarchy seems to have come from bands of herding people in the middle east area of the world. Muscular strength doesn't really explain much about why patriarchy; more about the how. Human culture existed for tens of thousands of years in some other form than patriarchy, so it must be something other than the physical ability to dominate that caused patriarchy to develop.

Robert Tulip · Sun Oct 04, 2009 3:51 pm

Saffron wrote:


	Interbane wrote: The misogyny of religion has lead to patriarchy in recent millennia. I would guess that before that, muscular strength of men was one more factor to weigh in on the prowess of an individual, combined with wisdom which in all fairness we can say is split evenly.l

Patriarchy seems to have come from bands of herding people in the middle east area of the world. Muscular strength doesn't really explain much about why patriarchy; more about the how. Human culture existed for tens of thousands of years in some other form than patriarchy, so it must be something other than the physical ability to dominate that caused patriarchy to develop.

Commandment Ten from Moses the Patriarch stated that women are the property of men. This teaching is at the centre of the three Abrahamic faiths. Dawkins provides great tools to analyse the adaptivity of such cultural norms. He observes it is not about any objective morality, but just whichever strategy is most fecund and long-lasting and accurate in copying. This remorseless logic from biological evolution shows that if such a misogynist strategy can produce an expansionary society then it will overwhelm other approaches which are based only on abstract values such as love and justice. Yet, in the long term, as in Dawkins' great example of hawks and doves, if the dove strategy has an underlying adaptivity then the hawk will not be evolutionarily stable on its own. We are seeing this imbalance now with patriarchal values. The Mosaic Judeo-Christian ideology is like a pure hawk, producing all sorts of unanticipated harmful consequences. As a result, we now see that equality between the sexes is correlated with societies of high wealth and development, while inequality is correlated with poverty and ignorance. On the larger scale, equality seems to be more adaptive in terms of producing a more highly evolved culture. However, the birth rate is lower in more equal societies, so the fundamentalists can outbreed the enlightened.

seespotrun2008 · Tue Oct 06, 2009 12:37 am


	Quote: Oh, I'm going to kick myself for saying this, seespotrun may kick me too.

I would never kick you, Suzanne.


	Quote: Beauty holds power in our society. A beautiful woman has the capability to manipulate men, and any man who says otherwise, is kidding themselves. Yes, women do doll themselves up to attract men, and the richer, the better.

I wonder about this, though. Beauty is really subjective. And I wonder if the tables were turned and it was the women with the money and the power if men would not behave in the same way. In many cultures, women have been required to be economically dependent on men. It is still that way to some extent. Women do not get paid as much as men and oftentimes do not get equal pay for equal work. But women are required to be beautiful. And in our culture it is not just any beauty. It is an impossible beauty that advertising companies create for us.


	Quote: However, once the peacock has been captured, the drab hen needs to keep her appearance up to keep him. This is what I have a problem with. See, seespotrun, maybe I've redeemed myself a little. There are two many divorces because the "rich" man no longer finds his wife disireable, and he knows, there are those dolled up women waiting to fight for his attention.

I think that there are some really great guys out there who do not expect their partner to be any less human than they are. And not every man is rich.


	Quote: The misogyny of religion has lead to patriarchy in recent millennia.

I disagree, Interbane. I think that religion has been used to maintain power structures. And religion reflects cultural values as well.


	Quote: Patriarchy seems to have come from bands of herding people in the middle east area of the world. Muscular strength doesn't really explain much about why patriarchy; more about the how. Human culture existed for tens of thousands of years in some other form than patriarchy, so it must be something other than the physical ability to dominate that caused patriarchy to develop.

I agree. And it is more than just physical strength that maintains patriarchy. Although Gloria Steinem did say that the heart of patriarchy is violence. Economics, religion, philosophy, science, entertainment have all been used to maintain the power structure of patriarchy.

DWill · Tue Oct 06, 2009 7:24 am


	Robert Tulip wrote: . He observes it is not about any objective morality, but just whichever strategy is most fecund and long-lasting and accurate in copying. This remorseless logic from biological evolution shows that if such a misogynist strategy can produce an expansionary society then it will overwhelm other approaches which are based only on abstract values such as love and justice.

I think one problem with this reasoning, Robert, is that we can't determine that misogyny accounted for 'expansionary' success. It could be one of many factors in that success, or--who knows--a factor irrelevant to it. I also can't possibly see that accuracy and fecundity in copying is a good way to account for the history of patriarchy. Since much of the world has headed away from such domination, would you now say the reason is a drop in the fecundity and accuracy of the 'memes' that compose the strategy of patriarchy? Would you be better off here, perhaps, with Hegel's idea of the world-spirit evolving, in this case evolving to eclipse the belief that women should be subjugated to men? That would allow values and human reason to enter the equation, which seems proper.

I'm sorry if I keep throwing a wet blanket on your idea to apply biological determinism to human society, because of course you could be right. I simply feel a need to express my strong certainty that changes in human society cannot be explained by natural laws that we know of. I don't expect my certainty to have any weight in itself, though (looking back to Robert Burton).

DWill · Tue Oct 06, 2009 8:00 am


	Suzanne wrote: Oh, I'm going to kick myself for saying this, seespotrun may kick me too, but I have to agree. Beauty holds power in our society. A beautiful woman has the capability to manipulate men, and any man who says otherwise, is kidding themselves. Yes, women do doll themselves up to attract men, and the richer, the better. However, once the peacock has been captured, the drab hen needs to keep her appearance up to keep him. This is what I have a problem with. See, seespotrun, maybe I've redeemed myself a little. There are two many divorces because the "rich" man no longer finds his wife disireable, and he knows, there are those dolled up women waiting to fight for his attention.

True, I think, on both points. It's one of the cruelties of life that women have to face this crisis of losing the attractiveness they had in the eyes of us shallow, visually-dominated men. Men don't have the same pressure brought on by aging; they don't have as much to 'lose.' What is the ratio of women's plastic surgeries to men's? I don't know precisely, but the lopsidedness toward women shows how clearly the message comes across to women that they're no longer 'good' enough.

seespotrun2008 · Sat Oct 10, 2009 6:20 pm


	Quote: but just whichever strategy is most fecund and long-lasting and accurate in copying.


	Quote: I also can't possibly see that accuracy and fecundity in copying is a good way to account for the history of patriarchy. Since much of the world has headed away from such domination, would you now say the reason is a drop in the fecundity and accuracy of the 'memes' that compose the strategy of patriarchy?

I think that Robert's idea of "most fecund and long-lasting" is correct though. It seems like Dawkins is concerned with, not just that culture gets transmitted, but why. He gives the example of Auld Lang Syne. He talks about how people have held on to "for the sake of auld lang syne." This is not how it was written, however. It was written
"for auld lang syne". Dawkins asks what the "survival value" of this mistake was. Ultimately, this leads to asking what is the "survival value" of anything in our culture. Why do we hold on to certain things and not others? Dawkins asks the question about God, but we can also understand all of the ideas and values that make up patriarchy by asking that same question. Why do we hold onto certain values?


	Quote: It's one of the cruelties of life that women have to face this crisis of losing the attractiveness they had in the eyes of us shallow, visually-dominated men.

Actually, this may not be entirely true. There were some scientists at the Washington University School of Medicine who found that women actually respond very quickly to erotic images. See the article:

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/45169.php

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