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Renaissance Women

yalereview.org

40 pointsPetiver76 comments

What will modern twenty first century women be described, like, in five hundred years?

Empty egg cartons?

Today it’s seen as rather reductive to think of women as baby factories, but given the current fertility trend and its demographic and economic consequences, I wouldn’t trust people 500 years from now to be understanding or forgiving of us today. At least no more understanding or forgiving than we are of people who lived 500 years ago.

Just in yesterday's news I read a telling stat: +40% of men think that women had gone too far in pursuing equal rights... in my country, a fairly progressive one.

What's there to understand or forgive? This is unacceptable. Patriarchy is dominant culture in most parts of the world, and it utterly sucks, period.

My house is largely matriarchal and I’d be surprised if it scores better on your suck scale.

Isn't it rather presumptuous to believe that just because someone says "patriarchy sucks", they advocate for a matriarchy?

I just read it as "patriarchy sucks, we should have equality" instead.

If they live in a progressive society and says that existence of men who doesn't see that they live in a horrible patriarchy is proof that they live in a horrible patriarchy then yeah, it is not unreasonable to think they wont be happy without a matriarchy because that is where such thinking ends up.

If they have good examples of patriarchy and horrible things against women they should have posted that instead of saying that men thinking women have it good is evidence of patriarchy.

most husbands will emphatically agree. i wonder if we're representative thou

Did they define what they meant with going to far? During metoo in Sweden, the dominant discussion was about media ethics and how far things should be legal with trial by media. There was also discussion about banning men from concerts and have women exclusive departments on trains.

There has also been discussion about giving women free credit points for university programs with high ratio of men (but was later cancelled because they did not want to give men the same credits in programs with high ratio of women). Affirmative action in education has been a fairly hot political topic for the last couple decades.

An other discussion is about quota systems for boards or management, and if those system is effective strategy for equality. Within EU it has also become a question if such laws should be on EU level or on a national level. Similar discussion also exist with parental leave and if those should be shared or dedicated, and if it should be EU law or national.

Which region of the world are we talking about with "+40% of men think that women had gone too far in pursuing equal rights", and what is the context/demographic/method of polling used?

> Patriarchy is dominant culture in most parts of the world, and it utterly sucks, period.

might be a worthwhile to look at the places were it isn't and compare the suckiness. thou correlation does not imply causality...

"men pretend to hate each other and women pretend to like each other."

Understanding is good. You don't need to agree with someone but to understand someone is always good.

To see the world through anothers eyes might be the only way how those who view progress as too far can be reached and talked with. How can someone willfully ignorant change their mind?

Understanding isn't something that only ones enemies have to do. Understanding can be a prerequisite of forgiveness and necessary for peace.

Many do not want to understand or forgive for many factors. Understanding these factors is good.

(In a political context, personally I find politicians are able to understand others views most. They understand and can approach those with differing viewpoints)

I did interpret "understanding" as "being supportive to" and not as "comprehend incentives / PoV". In that case, fair enough, but I don't think there is a ton left to comprehend, as in, I am not seeing many new arguments as why men career opportunities must come at the cost of women's, etc.

(An btw, not advocating / defending matriarchy either, but egalitarism.)

> +40% of men think that women had gone too far in pursuing equal rights... in my country, a fairly progressive one.

Why is it strange that men in a progressive society thinks that they are a bit too progressive? The more privileges given to women the closer we are to women having gotten too many and now men are disadvantaged, so I don't think it is unreasonable for a large amount of men thinking it has gone too far regardless were you are on the spectrum.

> privileges given to women

Privileges, you mean rights? The same rights that men already have? Even in the most progressive parts of the world we are still far from equality.

"given", given by whom?

Is it a privilege to have gender-specific programmes and scholarships at universities?

Particularly if that gender is now the majority at universities...

And it's not only at university level. Boys are doing worse than ever before at all levels of education, yet the focus is still on helping girls succeed. And I don't believe that it's due to discrimination, I think boys are just more vulnerable to modern distractions (including girls) and schools are doing a very poor job compensating for that.

> Privileges, you mean rights?

No, I mean privileges, don't argue with a strawman.

> The same rights that men already have?

Women hasn't lacked a single right men had in my country for my entire life, but women has many legal rights/privileges that men hasn't had in my life. That is why I said privileges and not rights. Maybe they need those privileges to make up for cultural privileges men has, but you can see why some men think that maybe they gained too many.

Gender salary gap is a man's privilege, even in your country, to put just one example: https://ourworldindata.org/economic-inequality-by-gender

OTOH I am not going to ask what "privileges" women have in your country, but I hope you don't count abortion, longer maternity leave, reduced VAT in feminine hygiene products and such, as women's privilege.

Gender salary gap is a privilege of hours worked and work experience. People who work full time get the privilege of getting more paid that those working half time. The linked ourworldindata page also says this, as the gender salary gap is about inequality and not necessary discrimination. The ourworldindata page does also not use the word privilege.

A major cause of inequality is that mothers spend less time in the work force during and after pregnancy, and that there are a higher ratio of mothers than fathers. Fathers also do not take out their given parental leave, with many reporting that they are not allowed to because of cultural discrimination (including from their partners).

> Gender salary gap is a man's privilege, even in your country, to put just one example: https://ourworldindata.org/economic-inequality-by-gender

Nobody said that men doesn't have any privileges, just that women aren't lacking any rights men has. Don't mix rights and privileges.

Possibly a response to the perceived nature of the pursuit?

You do know that you need both, a fertile man and a woman, to have offspring?

A fertile man can have hundreds of babies, a fertile woman has a limited output. So women will be the bottleneck.

And how would that work in a society that is heavily leaning to monogami? Or repsecting the womens voice in that? Or squaring that with the manoshperes whining about declining male fertility?

And no, a man cannot realostically have hundreds of babies. Unless, of course, you don't give women a voice in the process. And even then, only a small minority of men would actually be up to follow through with something that amounts to rape.

Genghis Khan is estimated to have had over a thousand children, it is an extreme example but it certainly is possible. About 8% of men in previously Mongol areas carry his Y chromosome.

> Or repsecting the womens voice in that?

Believe it or not, but some women actually wants to have babies with men even if they wont get a relationship from it. Why do you believe women can only want a monogamous close relationship? I know of a happy woman who had 2 kids with a guy she never had a relationship with, the kids are happy etc.

Because that is the norm, more or less everywhere. Unless you count societies in which men have so much power they can do whatever they want.

And come in, Genghis Khan? And then such a laughable claim? How about Casanova then?

> And then such a laughable claim?

What claim is laughable? Gengis Khan dominating the gene pool? That is what the data says.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/bizarre/18861516/how-m...

> In 2003, evolutionary geneticist Chris Tyler-Smith discovered that eight percent of men across 16 different Asian ethnic populations shared the same Y-chromosome pattern.

This pattern was traced back to a shared origin from about 1,000 years ago and to create so many descendants it is thought that this origin, or person, would have had to have a huge number of sons.

Genghis Khan is known in contemporary literature for fathering hundreds of children in this area, so historians and geneticists presume the common origin of the chromosome is the first Mongolian emperor himself.

You seriously, unironically, link to the TV and Showbiz section of the SUN? And there I was, thinking Twitter would be the worst source I see on HN... At least it is not a TikTok short.

Nature article, happy now?

> The case for Genghis Khan’s genetic legacy is strong, if circumstantial. A 2003 paper2 led by Chris Tyler-Smith, an evolutionary geneticist now at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Hinxton, UK, discovered that 8% of men in 16 populations spanning Asia (and 0.5% of men worldwide) shared nearly identical Y-chromosome sequences. The variation that did exist in their DNA suggested that the lineage began around 1,000 years ago in Mongolia.

https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2015.16767#:~:text=Th....

Anything more recent backong up the, I quote, "strong, if circumstantial" claim?

The claim sure is sensational and hood for headlines. If true, it would be quite a thing in the field of genetics. So I assume there was more than one study done, right? Also on the method used, because it coupd be used for so many other use cases!

Good to know so, that we all can be Genghis Khan if we want. Finally an alternative to Batman! And we would even save, I assume, western civilisation by producing a lot of good strong children with the, what, Harem (we would need a better, western term for that, right?) we get provided by, well, whom exactly?

> And we would even save, I assume, western civilisation by producing a lot of good strong children with the, what, Harem (we would need a better, western term for that, right?) we get provided by, well, whom exactly?

What are you even talking about here? Can you stop talking to a strawman that only exists in your head? All people is saying that men can have way more children than women can have, you argued against that, I provided evidence that it is actually true and has happened. Why are you starting to talk about unrelated things then?

makes one wonder if having an affair/fwb is the common and cold reality behind the curtain of the monogamous relationships.

No, it doesn't.

"isn't" i guess?

thanks for the faithful comment thou

Oh, affaires do exist. Always have. They are, especially since divorce is socially acceptable, the minority.

Personally, I don't have an issue with this, people are free to live their lives.

A man produces more semen than he knows what to do with, but has a limited capacity to provide a nurturing environment for a proverbial “barefoot and pregnant” wife and subsequent children.

Going on a satyriasis-addled insemination spree will do nothing to help the demographic crisis, if anything it will make it much worse.

It will all depend on how much women will have a hand at researching history and presenting it to the general public. History will probably still be about narratives and perceptions.

It’s not at all obvious to me that women 500 years from now will have the same values as women today, any more than the men. So while female inclusion in history writing obviously has an effect, I don’t think we can infer anything about what that effect will be.

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