Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Great Feminization

compactmag.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 68 posts

Re: The Great Feminization

#41

Post by bigyabai »

morshu9001 wrote: post #25

No additional comment on the male vs female thing, just want to say that the "proof by emotion" described in the article is something to watch out for in universities. One example of many I remember was a social/music class where the prof asked the lecture if there are any innate, non-culture-specific features that make music enjoyable. I raised my hand to say I think so, because octave equivalence seems pretty unive…

In fairness, your teacher was absolutely correct and would have shamed themselves if they gave you the point for that one. What humanity considers to be music predates tonality and harmony entirely. There were thousands of years where humans satisfied themselves without the help of a tuning fork, carefully-constructed scales, sheet music notation or instruments of any kind. It is a fantasy that music doesn't exist until cultures find some sort of audible ley line to follow.

If you want to ascribe their reasoning to "proof by emotion" then you're welcome to make that logical leap, but instantially your teacher was asking you to think outside the anglobox here. You made an unlucky guess, but props to you for trying.

Re: The Great Feminization

#42

Post by morshu9001 »

bigyabai wrote: post #41
morshu9001 wrote: post #25

No additional comment on the male vs female thing, just want to say that the "proof by emotion" described in the article is something to watch out for in universities. One example of many I remember was a social/music class where the prof asked the lecture if there are any innate, non-culture-specific features that make music enjoyable. I raised my hand to say I think so, because octave equivalence seems pretty unive…

In fairness, your teacher was absolutely correct and would have shamed themselves if they gave you the point for that one. What humanity considers to be music predates tonality and harmony entirely. There were thousands of years where humans satisfied themselves without the help of a tuning fork, carefully-constructed scales, sheet music notation or instruments of any kind. It is a fantasy that music doesn't exist un…

I'm not saying I was right, but the teacher's explanation was not what you said. It was that the correct answer is the inoffensive one.

I'm also still not sure about the answer. A lot of unrelated cultures developed music independently and ended up with some kind of rhythm beaten from something. I didn't say they had tuning forks or scales, and ofc 12 tones or 8 notes per scale isn't universal, but there's still the thing about octave equivalence. I did some searching back then and found some scientific papers on this that didn't show a definite conclusion.

Re: The Great Feminization

#43

Post by ofcourseyoudo »

Yeah there's a few red flags here that belie the problem with this piece.

Women emphasize "empathy over rationality" ... what a strange dichotomy. As if empathy could not be rational, or rational thought automatically leads to dis-empathy.

She asserts that feminine culture emphasizes cohesion, but then brings up a biracial (what's the point of this note?) reporter at the NYT not having coffee with Bari Weiss and says that this snub is "feminine". What? Are woman about cohesion or not? The previous graph would assert that colleagues would have coffee to not hurt each others' feelings, but then she claims the backhanded animosity ALSO as feminine.

Make up your mind, woman.

Re: The Great Feminization

#44

Post by UncleMeat »

cedilla wrote: post #16

What an absolutely hilarious idea that appeals to emotion are a uniquely feminine way to tackle a problem, while men just go on and make logical arguments, which I assume they then scrutinize rationally to be convinced by the most rigorously argued-for one.

We all know that men are engaged in rational thinking when they pull a gun on somebody who cut them off in traffic /s.

Re: The Great Feminization

#45

Post by UncleMeat »

morshu9001 wrote: post #42
bigyabai wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fairness, your teacher was absolutely correct and would have shamed themselves if they gave you the point for that one. What humanity considers to be music predates tonality and harmony entirely. There were thousands of years where humans satisfied themselves without the help of a tuning fork, carefully-constructed scales, sheet music notation or instruments of any kind. It is a fantasy that music doesn't exist un…

I'm not saying I was right, but the teacher's explanation was not what you said. It was that the correct answer is the inoffensive one. I'm also still not sure about the answer. A lot of unrelated cultures developed music independently and ended up with some kind of rhythm beaten from something. I didn't say they had tuning forks or scales, and ofc 12 tones or 8 notes per scale isn't universal, but there's still the…

Consonance and dissonance between pitches are physical properties. How they relate to the enjoyability of music is culturally constructed.

Re: The Great Feminization

#46

Post by rufus_foreman »

nis0s wrote: post #24
marcusverus wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The idea that there are straightforward “female” and “male” traits should seem quite shaky to anyone who is even a little bit into humanities. Straightforward male and female traits/roles pervade the animal kingdom, including the other great apes. Honestly, even entertaining this idea is female-coded. In a male space, the denial of so obvious a reality would be dismissed out of hand as obviously retarded.

Are you saying other male animals don’t perform the tasks usually attributed to human females? Look up the behavior of male penguins in the Arctics. There are many such examples, have Chat look them up for you.

I looked it up. Male penguins are physically different from female penguins, they have different behavior and different vocalization methods.

Are those social constructs?

Re: The Great Feminization

#47

Post by techblueberry »

ofcourseyoudo wrote: post #43

Yeah there's a few red flags here that belie the problem with this piece. Women emphasize "empathy over rationality" ... what a strange dichotomy. As if empathy could not be rational, or rational thought automatically leads to dis-empathy. She asserts that feminine culture emphasizes cohesion, but then brings up a biracial (what's the point of this note?) reporter at the NYT not having coffee with Bari Weiss and says…

I think a lot of what she attributes to male/female is actually scarcity/plenty. Even if you attribute rationality to men (which I question) that trait is probably only exhibited when you feel confident in your person. That the pathological state is not excessive femininity but that masculinity and femininity both have pathological states that can be exacerbated by scarcity.

Like the ICE raids clearly not are not an appeal to rationality, they’re an appeal to fear, and that fear is created by a real or imagined sense of scarcity.

Re: The Great Feminization

#48

Post by marcusverus »

bigyabai wrote: post #40
marcusverus wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The idea that there are straightforward “female” and “male” traits should seem quite shaky to anyone who is even a little bit into humanities. Straightforward male and female traits/roles pervade the animal kingdom, including the other great apes. Honestly, even entertaining this idea is female-coded. In a male space, the denial of so obvious a reality would be dismissed out of hand as obviously retarded.

Would it be feminine of me to ask you for a citation?

Only if you did so in a passive-aggressive way ;)

From the relevant Wikis:

Chimps:

At the core of social structures are males, which patrol the territory, protect group members, and search for food. Males remain in their natal communities, while females generally emigrate at adolescence. Males in a community are more likely to be related to one another than females are to each other. Among males, there is generally a dominance hierarchy, and males are dominant over females.

Orangutans:

One to several resident female home ranges are encompassed within the home range of a resident male, who is their main mating partner.[50][51] Interactions between adult females range from friendly to avoidance to antagonistic.[52] Flanged males are often hostile to both other flanged males and unflanged males, while unflanged males are more peaceful towards each other.[53]

Orangutans disperse and establish their home ranges by age 11. Females tend to live near their birth range, while males disperse farther but may still visit their birth range within their larger home range.[51][54] They enter a transient phase, which lasts until a male can challenge and displace a dominant, resident male from his home range.

Gorillas:

Gorillas live in groups called troops. Troops tend to be made of one adult male or silverback, with a harem of multiple adult females and their offspring.[58][59][60] However, multiple-male troops also exist.[59] A silverback is typically more than 12 years of age, and is named for the distinctive patch of silver hair on his back, which comes with maturity. Silverbacks have large canine teeth that also come with maturity. Both males and females tend to emigrate from their natal groups. For mountain gorillas, females disperse from their natal troops more than males.[58][61] Mountain gorillas and western lowland gorillas also commonly transfer to second new groups.[58]

Mature males also tend to leave their groups and establish their own troops by attracting emigrating females. However, male mountain gorillas sometimes stay in their natal troops and become subordinate to the silverback.

Re: The Great Feminization

#49

Post by marcusverus »

nis0s wrote: post #24
marcusverus wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The idea that there are straightforward “female” and “male” traits should seem quite shaky to anyone who is even a little bit into humanities. Straightforward male and female traits/roles pervade the animal kingdom, including the other great apes. Honestly, even entertaining this idea is female-coded. In a male space, the denial of so obvious a reality would be dismissed out of hand as obviously retarded.

Are you saying other male animals don’t perform the tasks usually attributed to human females? Look up the behavior of male penguins in the Arctics. There are many such examples, have Chat look them up for you.

> Are you saying other male animals don’t perform the tasks usually attributed to human females?

No. My claim is that male and female traits/roles generally differ. That can't be read as a claim that there is no overlap between their roles/tasks.

Re: The Great Feminization

#50

Post by muwtyhg »

arnoooooo wrote: post #17
ogurechny wrote: post #2

The idea that there are straightforward “female” and “male” traits should seem quite shaky to anyone who is even a little bit into humanities. The problem is that both sides of the equation are constructs of the mind, both the thing we would like to measure, and the measure itself. Fighting journalistic simplification with journalistic simplification is not the mentioned “pursuit of truth”. So before arguing whether…

If you look at things like physical strength for instance, the difference is quite marked. That some females can be stronger than some men does not change the fundamental distribution. This is not a construct of the mind. If male and female abilities differ, it should follow that our social expectations differ.

> That some females can be stronger than some men

If you are using "female" as a noun in a sentence to refer to human women, it is a good idea to also refer to human men as "male". It is more consistent and doesn't end up dehumanizing one side.

People seeing this inconsistency may jump to conclusions about your thoughts on men and women.

Post reply on HN