In the midst of a mostly dull disquisition on the evils of marriage, filled with odd jargon he’s made up himself, A Voice for Men’s erstwhile cooking columnist
sexual fidelity (especially in women, to protect fatherhood), durability (to protect women and motherhood), and presumptive consent to sex (to maximize fertility and protect both father/mother from spurious rape allegations).
To put it in less euphemistic terms than Løvenskiolds: both partners agree not to cheat (but men do it with their fingers crossed); there’s little or no divorce; and marital rape isn’t regarded as rape. Which is, I suppose, one way to reduce “spurious rape allegations,” though it makes roughly as much sense as legalizing marital murder to protect married murderers from “spurious murder allegations.”
But that’s not the bit I wanted to tell you about. That was just some background so you could better understand the context in which Løvenskiolds makes his bizarre and revealing little comment. It comes at the end of this paragraph on the disintegration of traditional “andomarriage.” I’ve put it in bold.
With the rise of gynocentrism and leisure culture, the harsh penalties for violating the andromarriage laws began to erode – as our preferences for expanding the purview of women increased we became less willing to hold women to any standards or responsibilities. We now see women as lifelong children: too weak, frail, stupid and mercurial to be trusted with adult responsibility when it comes to adhering to the strict requirements of an andromarriage contract. Western countries now look on places that stone adulterers as barbaric even though we were killing them ourselves not that long ago. A woman stoned to death is a woman held to adult standards that feminists now reject.
Did he just say that “[a] woman stoned to death [for adultery] is a woman held to adult standards that feminists now reject?” Yes, yes he did.
Løvenskiolds also has some, well, interesting Evo Psychy thoughts on domestic violence. You might have to read these next bits a couple of times before it makes any sense at all. I’ve bolded some of the more striking bits.
Strong men were better at fulfilling the obligations of being fathers and women who chose those strong men left more progeny, so men became bigger and stronger over time as their genes spread. This is why women hitting men is still seen as less serious than the reverse: she is testing his strength and endurance in the face of pain to gauge his ongoing suitability as a mating prospect. A man who hits a woman – even defensively hitting her back – is displaying a weak intolerance for self-control in the face of pain and society reviles him regardless of the viciousness of the provocation unless he takes on an impressive amount of damage first.
Men who selected women based on markers for fertility – youth, breasts, hips and swayback – also were more successful at reproduction. To the dismay of modern feminists, these mate selection preferences still dominate human coupling: women still swoon for strong, successful men and men still have standards for women’s attractiveness. Weirdly, feminists still rigorously enforce the unequal violence standards that disadvantage weak men while they oppose beauty standards that equally disadvantage ugly women.
As far as I can figure it out, he’s suggesting that “unequal violence standards … disadvantage weak men” because weak men have less self-control and are more likely to hit women.
In other words, he seems to be miffed that women might prefer big burly men who don’t hit women to “weak men” who do. And he seems to think that women not wanting to date men who beat them is somehow akin to dudes putting “no fatties” in their personal ads.
Wow. Even after five years of doing this blog, I’m still surprised at the perverse ingenuity of MRA misogyny.
Løvenskiolds claims to be a Man Going His Own Way. I suggest he continue Going His Own Way, as far away from the rest of us as possible.
Signed the petition. After that and the stoning apologism from Mr Chicken-Fail… I really can’t even with all this bullshit. Are these people evil or just stupid?
Anyway – anyone notice how, according to Mr Burnt Chicken, when a man hits a woman, people are angry at him for “displaying a weak intolerance for self-control”, as in a fault in himself as a person, and not because, y’know, he inflicted pain and suffering on another human being.
“Waah, people are mean about me and pick on me for being a bad person, just because I hit women! Waah, I’m being held to an impossibly high standard for self-control by being expected not to hit women!”
It’s a small distinction, but it seems to illustrate a recurring theme – that these bozos just cannot empathize, or even understand on a basic level that their actions have an impact on other people.
WWTH,
Well, more sex isn’t necessarily better. Pregnancy is dangerous, raising children is expensive, and every new child takes some resources away from the existing children, even if you survive childbirth. If you don’t, then your living children are sepecially screwed. Humans do best with a limited number of children, and seem pretty willing to have enough sex to make that happen.
Not necessarily. As factual claims, they’re compatible. You could reasonably argue that men who rape and cheat would likely have more surviving children than those who don’t; you could also reasonably argue that men who control their wives and jealously protect marriage would leave more surviving children. Both could be true, and then both behaviors would become prevalent through evolution.
It’s the moralizing that maybe become contradictory. It’s definitely easiest to say either that patriarchal marriage is morally good and pre-marital sex, polyamory, and adultery are morally wrong, or that patriarchal marriage is morally wrong and sexual freedom is morally good. It’s difficult to argue that men should or may engage both in virgin-loving, slut-shaming, marriage-fetishizing jealousy AND try to fuck everything that moves, but it can be done. You just have to go for a radical individualism or in which it’s permitted for me to both pursue something good for myself and also try to stop other people from having it, or a “will to power” argument (with apologies to Nietzsche) that it’s in fact good to seek the good for yourself and to snatch it from others.
@magnesium,
I reckon that the fat breasts that early human adult females evolved were far less about being attractive to potential mates than simply about having more fat storage to protect against starvation. Women with fat breasts, asses, and thighs were more likely to survive food scarcity long enough to reproduce, so they passed those fat-storing genes to their offspring.
I can’t believe these wastes of sperm and eggs have conventions. Actual conventions where they pay actual money to listen to actual people like Captain Chickenburner.
Maybe this is too obvious to count as an epiphany, but… you just turn things into the opposite of what they say, and it starts to make sense?
Oh, duh! I feel so relieved now. No more upside-down brain. (Does a small dance.)
@Exiled Star:
I don’t think they believe it either, given the responses to Paul Elam’s price announcement.
MGTOWs are ridiculous. Go your own way, already, MGTOWs. Enjoy. Go that way and have a good time doing it, and I will weep into my pillow at night over your loss, and we can all STOP HEARING ABOUT YOUR PEEN PROBLEMS.
Except, they don’t really mean what they claim to mean, “I reject this society’s standards for relationships so I am removing myself from them.” Instead, they mean to “go their own way” in the same way a toddler means to “run away from home.” That is, they want to tie a toy into a handkerchief on the end of a stick, stand by the door and say, “SO LONG, MOM! YOU MADE ME CLEAN MY ROOM AND NOW I’M OUTTA HERE! YOU’LL MISS ME WHEN I’M GONE! OOOH, BOY, YOU’LL BE SORRY THEN!” and wait for mom to come, weeping, and prostrate herself in shame.
It never works, MGTOWs. Mom is not fooled. You never get past the end of the block. We wish you would, though.
Damn it, I can never find that clip from America’s Funniest Home Videos where a boy is telling his mom he’s going to run away, but she informs him that he’s not allowed to cross the street, and he goes “How can I run away if I can’t cross the street?!”
It’s a lot funnier to see it, and I’d love to post it every time we have a MGTOW post.
Because that’s what they sound like.
I don’t think they’re capable of it, tbh. At best, male supremacists are flakes. At worst, they are frauds. MGTOW are not actually going their own way, or else they would have done gone by now. MRAs are not actually activists or else they would have been airing their grievances to politicians instead of taking all their anger out on women, LGTBQA, and feminists. Red Pillers are not actually valuing themselves or else they would spend their time pursuing their personal interests and enjoying the people in their life instead of debasing themselves on the Internet. These folks are quite literally the antithesis of what they claim to be. They are practically a self-created parody of themselves.
Some of them claim “I have an IQ of 150 so you should take me seriously!” Right, that’s why they sit around trying to gaslight everyone instead of wagering on the stock market or contributing something useful to society. You know, stuff that actually might NOT be a waste of time (and it doesn’t take an IQ of 150 to see that).
These dudes (and some dudettes) try desperately to present themselves as well put together individuals of worth, but in the end they reek of insecurity and immaturity. They WANT to be seen as smart and capable, but they can’t even deal with other people without resorting to manipulative bullshit. They WANT to be seen as independent and free thinkers, but can’t get through the day without their fellow troll’s encouragement and input. They WANT to be seen as well liked and engage in attention seeking behavior, because at the end of the day they can’t even like themselves. There’s no nice way to say this: they are depressingly co-dependent basket cases with empty lives (and sometimes, just empty heads). They may have legitimate reasons for becoming shitty people, but at the end of the day, I’m not a therapist and I wasn’t put on this earth to take their abuse. So selfish of me, I know. They need to practice what they preach – grow up, pull themselves up by their bootstraps, and take some responsibility as adults.
They think their bullshit macho posturing works, because they’ve pulled it off on other people just as insecure and dim witted as they are. But at the end of the day, the people who DO have their shit together will see right through them which is why they are bound to get nowhere. All they will accomplish is recruiting people just as fucked up as they are, which is what makes them dangerous in groups. Nothing good has ever come from a group of men who are empathetically challenged and honest to god believe people who aren’t like them are nonpersons to be disposed of if they aren’t useful to their agenda. I predict that if they don’t reign in on their violent hate speech, the Southern Poverty Law Center won’t be the only social welfare agency to add them to their watch list.
@Luzbelitx
“Except for… I don’t know… culture?”
You’re going to have a hard time finding any psychologists who think behavior is defined by only one set of circumstances (e.g., culture, vs. biology, vs. non-social aspects of the environment). How does the emergence of culture suddenly negate every evolved, innate behavioral tendency? We still produce hormones which can influence our behavior, and men and women produce different levels of different hormones. I hate to have to side with MRAs on anything, but that’s how it is. It’s an observable part of male vs. female development.
A lot of people seem to be divided over accepting evolutionary psychology as a legitimate science because they get caught up in the naturalistic fallacy; i.e., what is natural is also what is good and right and how things should be. That’s where a lot of people who follow this blog seem to agree with the manosphere, and hence reach conclusions based on a combination of their belief in the naturalistic fallacy and their different ideas about what is morally or ethically right.
Science attempts to tells us what is, not whether it is “right” in moral or ethical terms.
@Nameless
Slowly slowly, it seems their infamy is growing among mainstream media. From what I’ve read the Guardian seems to have a pretty good idea of who they are and what they do already. At minimum it knows that AVFM tends to harass feminists/women and is definitely not “a supporter of equality between the sexes.”
Except that’s not what was being discussed.
In fact, the statement I addressed is absolutely dull in its content:
Which is basically saying there are differences in behavior in animals, and we can observe different behaviors in humans. What a shock.
Then you claim there’s nothing in humans that sets our behavior apart from that of animals.
Except for, you know, culture.
This has nothing to do with culture being the “only” anything. Goalpost shifting, anyone?
Are you trolling? Cause that’s what I’m smelling…
Wut? Nobody said there aren’t biologically innate behaviors. Speech is one. You don’t have to teach children how to talk, they’ll naturally pick up the language in their culture. Even feral children sort of invent their own primitive forms of speech. Language varies across cultures, but every culture has one.
We’re saying that internet misogynists are wrong in claiming a biological basis for rape, abuse, old men chasing pubescent girls, and capitalism. There’s no evidence of any of it. If a behavior isn’t consistent across all culture and time, it isn’t innate. It’s cultural. If men were hardwired to rape, all men would rape. They don’t. Also, the science is far from settled on how hormones effect behavior. They probably do to an extant, but they don’t keep one from being able to exercise self control. I say this as someone who tends to get bad PMS.
What specific behavior are you claiming is innate, Owen? Say what it is and cite the research or at least a news article about the research. There’s no point in just declaring that the MRAs might be right about something without stating what that is. I have a feeling you’re trying to make excuses for misogynist behavior while avoiding being called out for it. That’s not going to fly here. Please explain what you intend to accomplish here.
I suppose I misunderstood your comment about culture. I wasn’t denying that it’s an important factor in human behavior, but even culture can be understood within a biological framework–an evolutionary result of a very social species developing large brains and complex nervous systems.
I’m certainly not trying to make any excuses for misogyny. I tried to be pretty clear that a biological basis for any behavior, whether it’s rape or murder or taking care of your offspring, does not necessarily justify that behavior. Discounting a field of science because people you disagree with have decided otherwise is shortsighted.
I agree that a large part of the misogynist behavior we see is cultural, but that doesn’t also mean that there is not a biological basis behind it. It’s not being biologically hardwired to rape as much as it’s being biologically hardwired to probably be more aggressive, probably be more dominant, and probably have strong sexual urges, combined with living in a culture that is more likely to excuse that kind of behavior. Not all men will rape, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t more likely to rape due to those influences. And that still doesn’t excuse their behavior.
So the science may be “far from settled on how hormones effect behavior.” But even you (weirwoodtreehugger) say that they probably do–this doesn’t result in someone who is guaranteed to exhibit certain behviors, but it provides a framework with which to understand those behaviors. And gaining a better understanding of it can only help us work on fixing the resulting problems.
But again, as I have tried to make very clear, a biological basis for any behavior does not justify that behavior. People wholeheartedly dismissing evolutionary psychology because of the naturalistic fallacy is pretty much the entire reason I commented. You can feel free to address that idea, and please do so if you disagree. But calling me a troll does nothing to further the conversation.
You’ve provided no evidence that rape has a biological basis though. That’s the problem with evo psych. It’s based on untestable hypotheses. That’s why people are dismissive of it and say it’s not a science. You can’t look around and see male violence and conclude that men are biologically more violent. Maybe they are, but without biological evidence to rule out culture as the main cause, it’s nothing but a guess.
Honestly, if your problem with it is that it involves a lot of speculation, I won’t argue with that. I agree, and apparently so do evolutionary psychologists–I read “Why do beautiful people have more daughters?” a few years back, and the authors made it clear in the beginning of the book that their field currently is based on speculation within a certain framework, as well as that readers should be careful not to assume that what is natural is also what is good or correct.
I’m not really worried that I can’t provide a biological basis for rape, because that wasn’t why I commented. I’m a scientist (not a social scientist but my parter is and I think it’s interesting), and what I was concerned with was that people seemed to be trashing evolutionary psychology for reasons that have little or nothing to do with actual science.
It’s one thing to say “evolutionary psychology does not have a strong basis for scientific credibility, so we shouldn’t pay much attention to it.” It’s another thing to look at internet misogynists using EP’s conclusions to justify mistreating women (or anyone else) and then to decide that it must not be a science because you don’t like how someone else used it. Lots of people have tried to misuse evolutionary biology to justify racism, and Nazis used it as part of their eugenics research to further their social agenda–but evolutionary biology is still an extremely robust and productive scientific field.
Lest I get a reputation as an unwavering supporter of evolutionary psychology, I would like to point out that I take EP’s conclusions with a large grain of salt, because like you said, it’s based on lots of untestable hypotheses. All science requires some degree of speculation in order to progress, and perhaps one day EP’s hypotheses will be testable. It won’t grow into a more solid field of study though unless people keep working on it. Even chemistry started out as pretty much utter bullshit, and it is now one of the fundamental tools we use to understand how the world works.
We mock how misogynists use evo psych because this blog is about mocking misogyny. It’s awfully condescending to assume we’re getting all emotional because MRAs make our lady brains sad and unable to science. A lot of commenters here are educated and have degrees in social and hard sciences. We really don’t need to have basic science mansplained to us.
I look at this blog because I enjoy mocking misogyny as much as anyone else here. To be honest though, most of the time I’ve seen evolutionary psychology mentioned on this blog, it has come off to me as mocking the field as well as the misogynists who use it.
I sincerely apologize for coming off as condescending. I’ve come across lots of people who claim to support science, but trash it when someone uses it in ways they don’t like, or decide some part of it isn’t “real science” because they disagree with it…in addition, most people aren’t scientists and I don’t know who on here is or isn’t, which I guess resulted in my mansplanation. I really am sorry about that.
Criticisms of the field of evo psych as it stands today do not have to apply to the Platonic Ideal of evo psych in order to be valid. We can call attention both to the failings of evo psych as a science (lack of falsifiability) and as a practice in the real world (many self-proclaimed evolutionary psychologists go around telling just-so stories justifying modern misogyny and racism and call that science).
Fine, say this allows us to “understand” behaviors based on a very-loosely scientific framework.
How is that supposed to resolve the problem of, let’s say, violence against women? How does it help a all?
OK, I see the problem. If you were in the Social Sciences you’d be too busy be insulted, frustrated, and/or dumbstruck by the manophere’s endless fake theory’s about human behavior, culture and history.
We’re not debating Steven Pinker here, the last MRA “Evo Psychologist” blathered on about random made up theories he had about one million years of human existence. I’d argue his adding roughly 800,000 years to human existence was far from the stupidest thing he said.
These guys know zilch about shit they talk about endlessly. They have no interest in actually learning about any of these subjects because all they want is psuedo-academic claptrap to bolster their “theories” about why women are inferior and/or should fuck them.
“Race Realists” love discussing IQ tests and isn’t because they’re facinated by the various theories about human intelligence; they just want to add a fancy gloss to their “theories” about white superiority.
*too busy being
I’m on my phone & in a hurry, sorry for any other mistakes.
Yes, science does require some speculation to progress… but I want EVIDENCE. TESTS. DATA. That’s what science requires, more than speculation. And I haven’t seen very much of that in the arguments we’re mocking here.
I mean, I can call whatever speculation I pull out of my ass science, but that doesn’t make it so.
@LBT
Even theoretical physics has math to back it up and it’s theoretical.
That’s comparable, right?
Anthropologist Elaine Morgan floated (pardon the pun) a hypothesis, decades ago, that a lot of our distinctly human traits — fully upright posture, mostly hairless body skin, greater subcutaneous fat, and well-padded mammary glands — evolved when drought periods drove us down to the estuaries to survive. We spent most of our daytime hours wading and clamming. The full, buoyant breasts that women developed were useful when they waded waist deep while nursing babies. I don’t know if I believe it all, but consider: What primate goes to the beach when stressed out? Us. What primate likes to snack on little salty things? Us. What primate has sex mostly during the hours of its sleep cycle? Us. This last only makes sense if we were spending all day someplace where copulation was difficult and therefore engaged in it after we had hauled out for the night.
The extra subcutaneous fat of a woman, by the way, gets quickly converted to breast milk during lactation. And human beings have no estral swellings at ovulation…but they wouldn’t be visible on a woman waste deep in water, would they?