Comment by adekok | Hacker News Reader

Comment by adekok | Hacker News Reader

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> That's because most ancient societies were blatantly misogynistic.

I have serious ethical concerns with such a claim. It gives a simplistic view of history, to the point of severe distortion.

It implies that all women terribly oppressed, while all men had lives of unrelenting leisure. That's simply not true.

What is true is that the Mesopotamian civilizations were violent, hierarchical, racist, genocidal, poor, etc. Many men were slaves, killed in wars, or beaten to death by the rich. Calling a society that treated women poorly "misogynistic" is like calling the USA a "technological" society. Well, it mostly is, but you could also call it an oligarchy, capitalistic, and sometimes democratic. No one sweeping term is accurate.

The Biblical story of Esther shows that women were valued, and had significant "behind the scenes" power.

I would even venture to say that there are no human societies, ever, where women were utterly powerless. Such a society would quickly collapse.

> ... but because of the male-oriented power dynamics that clearly dominated most ancient societies.

As opposed to our society, where most politicians and business leaders are male?

As for why this happens, see:

http://www.comparativecandidates.org/sites/default/files/Eng...

Once we take into account incumbent advantage – where more men are incumbent - the ratio of elected women is about the ratio of the female candidates. When we model candidate success measured as the number of preference votes for individual candidates we do not find that women receive fewer votes than men on party ballots either.

Maybe men just prioritize competitiveness more than women do. And for some strange reason, people who are competitive out-compete people who aren't competitive.

> > That's because most ancient societies were blatantly misogynistic.

> ...[This] implies that all women terribly oppressed, while all men had lives of unrelenting leisure. That's simply not true.

No. The preceding statement does not imply either of those things. At all.

Let's take patriarchal societies which also had male slavery of hard labor, since hard labor slavery is nearly the antithesis of a "life of unrelenting leisure". Do you think that US society in the 1700s was at all patriarchal or misogynistic? Yes? So then would you deny that US society had male slaves at that time, or claim somehow that being a slave then implied a "life of unrelenting leisure"? Does having slavery including male slavery somehow make a society non-misogynistic or non-patriarchal? Do you think perhaps these are different dimensions and you are making wholly faulty logical leaps?

Or, let's be less extreme. Would you say that US society in, say, the 1920s or 1950s was at all patriarchal? Would you then claim that in the US in either decade "all men had lives of unrelenting leisure?"

Your logic is unsound to the extreme. Your entire line of reasoning is specious at best and employs reduction to absurdity throughout. You make these stark, extreme claims and assertions (like the quoted text above) with no logic justifying them whatsoever. Are you simply making bombastic statements for the sake of controversy?

> Your logic is unsound to the extreme. Your entire line of reasoning is specious at best and employs reduction to absurdity throughout.

You are reacting emotionally to the first sentence of my comment. And are then ignoring the rest of it. Labeling my argument "specious" is not a counter argument.

> You make these stark, extreme claims and assertions

Such as claiming that the Biblical story of Esther shows that women were not powerless.

Such as claiming that many men also had a terrible life.

Which are both true.

But it's easier to dismiss my argument out of hand, than to address it via facts and logic.

> Are you simply making bombastic statements for the sake of controversy?

Is asking a loaded question good practice?

Your opening line was incendiary. The first line of logic you used to backup that incendiary claim was completely specious, as I took time and care to explain. With limited time in a day, opening this way leaves little motivation to take the rest point-by-point. And since your entire "ethical" position and the arguments that flowed forth from it depend on that opening foundation, all that's required is to point out the flaws in the foundation.

How about you address, point by point, the obviously flawed logic I called out. If you either demonstrate how my rebuttal is incorrect or accept that maybe you were being illogical and/or unfair there, it might enable a more reasonable discussion of the remainder. If you can't even address the first part of your own statements though, then what is the point?

> > You make these stark, extreme claims and assertions

> Such as claiming that the Biblical story of Esther shows that women were not powerless.

Read carefully. Think logically. Did I say all your claims and assertions were extreme? What statements did I specifically address in my reply? Why would you then point to only your statement about Esther. If that single statement of yours was not extreme, would that somehow necessarily mean no statement of yours was extreme? How is this any kind of logical counterpoint to what I actually, specifucally said? Logic.

But related to your comment on Esther, it is indeed an example of the extreme (eg reducing my statements to absurdity) and flawed logic I was discussing. Nowhere did I say that all women in all ancient civs (or even all women in any particular ancient civ) were powerless. I didn't say women were "powerless" at all. You are creating a straw man and then arguing against it.

I simply said that, in the ancient civs which we're aware of today, it seems many were patriarchal and/or misogynistic. By definition, women are less likely to have official functions/jobs (eg government officials, accountants, merchants, scholars) which involved frequent writing and conferred power in a patriarchal or misogynistic government and civilization.

You are not arguing any of my points. You're making up entirely different points (which are also extreme to the point of absurdity) and then making arguments against those separate, made-up, extremist points.

Stop strawmanning. Read carefully. Use clear logic. It will engender a better discussion.

As I wrote below:

However, as shown in another comment, the typical "everything is misogynistic" comment is due to intersectional feminism. Which in my experience, largely does claim that men have it very good just for being men, and women have it very bad, just for being women.

A blatant statement of "the culture was misogynistic" is an overly simple classification. The culture was oppressive towards damned near everyone who wasn't of the highest class.

I just don't believe that a rich woman like the Biblical Esther had it worse than a poor free man living in the city at the same time. So her experience with misogyny gave her a better life than 99% of the rest of the population.

> Yoy are creating a straw man and then arguing against it.

No. I'm arguing against the ideas proposed by certain groups of people. People who (in my experience) typically argue that "that culture is misogynistic" means "all men have it better than all women".

I've run into many of these people online and in daily life. If you don't believe this, I'm sorry for insinuating you do. I was reacting to the normal use of that terminology, which, in my experience, does have the meaning I said.

> It implies that all women terribly oppressed, while all men had lives of unrelenting leisure.

No, it doesn't. It says nothing about "all men" other than their status relative to women. If I said "Alabama society in the 1950s was blatantly racist," why would you conclude that every white person in Alabama lived like a king?

True.

However, as shown in another comment, the typical "everything is misogynistic" comment is due to intersectional feminism. Which in my experience, largely does claim that men have it very good just for being men, and women have it very bad, just for being women.

A blatant statement of "the culture was misogynistic" is an overly simple classification. The culture was oppressive towards damned near everyone who wasn't of the highest class.

I just don't believe that a rich woman like the Biblical Esther had it worse than a poor free man living in the city at the same time. So her experience with misogyny gave her a better life than 99% of the rest of the population.

> The culture was oppressive towards damned near everyone who wasn't of the highest class.

Yes, yes, "all lives matter". It doesn't change the fact that given a man and woman of the same class, it was generally more oppressive to the woman, Biblical queen exemptions notwithstanding.

> It doesn't change the fact that given a man and woman of the same class, it was generally more oppressive to the woman,

Please define "oppressive"... using either gender neutral measurements, or measurements which balance comparisons against both genders.

As a case in point, I can cherry-pick the following facts, which are all true:

* women live longer than men

* more money is spent on womens health care than mens health care

* more men die in violence and wars than women

* about 80% of homeless are men

* more men are mentally ill than women

etc. Does that mean that men are "oppressed"?

Maybe. Maybe not.

I'm poking this subject with a sharp stick in order to question our assumptions. Someone says "women are oppressed", and everyone nods in agreement.

OK... what does that mean? Are the stats cherry-picked like I did above? Maybe sometimes women have it better than men, and sometimes they have it worse?

For the majority of women in most of history, oppressed means that your life is just as difficult as a random man of the same class, plus he might rape you.

I'm done here.

I'm looking for quantitative measurements of "difficulty". You've admitted you don't have them, and are unwilling to look for them.

I'm replying here again as the chain got too long, and as you made a point below which re-frames the entire ensuing discussion.

> [From further down in this chain:] I'm arguing against the ideas proposed by certain groups of people. People who (in my experience) typically argue that "that culture is misogynistic" means "all men have it better than all women".

Ah. Okay. Thank you for explaining and admitting this.

I do NOT subscribe to the line of thinking you are apparently disputing at all. Saying that "culture is misogynistic" means "all men have it better than all women" is absolutely idiotic, in my view. Reference the statements I made regarding patriarchal societies that also had male slavery. Many, many (probably most?) ancient civilizations included class-based socioeconomic systems. In many, the women in higher classes were much better off than the men in lower classes, on average

I'm not making any of the arguments or statements which you are arguing against. Thank you for clarifying that what you were actually reacting to and arguing against was something other than my statements, as I found your leaps in logic very surprising based on what I actually said/claimed/argued.

> I've run into many of these people online and in daily life.

I understand. Unfortunately, extremism and poor logic are all too common in discussions of important matters today. It's disappointing and frustrating.

I hope you can reflect here, though, and realize you are adding to this problem, in this example. You made an assumption about my worldview which wasn't based on any particular statement I made, and which absolutely does not represent my thoughts whatsoever. You then argued, and were even incendiary, based on that flawed presumption. This is the sort of thing that spins debates online and offline into bad places, which partially happened here as well.

> If you don't believe this, I'm sorry for insinuating you do.

Thank you, truly, very much for saying this. I feel a lot better now knowing what was actually happening here, as it made no sense to me previously. I think it's big of you to step back and reflect here.

> I was reacting to the normal use of that terminology, which, in my experience, does have the meaning I said.

I can see what you're saying, but again note that this doesn't apply to any argument I made. Thank you for clearing this up.

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