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Comment by adrianbye | Hacker News Reader

Margaret Mead provided the foundation for feminism to advance by "proving" that culture drove society, not genetics.

Unfortunately that isn't true. Genetics shapes culture. One of the interesting things from Mead's "research" was that Samoan women were having a lot of premarital sex in the 1920's. Yet somehow none got pregnant but that was overlooked.

When you force people too far out of their natural roles, bad things happen. There's a whole lot more to this and its fascinating to see how people don't realise it.

I respect that feminism is the moral case. Genetics is the scientific one, which currently is not respected. There's a balance between the two

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And all that would mean something if (a) all of sociology was somehow based on the work of Margaret Mead, (b) Margaret Mead had been proven fraudulent, (c) proof of bad evidence on one side automatically meant the correctness of the opposite, and (d) you provided any evidence of your claims that genetics somehow drives society towards an ideal that coincidentally lines up perfectly with your preferred gender roles.

Since none of those things are true, I'm left to ask again - what the hell does any of this have to do with men getting weird looks in parks?

margaret mead effectively founded "cultural anthropology" which basically means "research which makes people feel good". many people have followed her:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/10/science/10anthropology.htm...

this ties into funny looks for men in parks because men as a gender have been devalued into being potentially dangerous, rather than as a source of strength and value for communities.

challenging feminism is a little like investigations into wall street executives after the financial crisis, it just hasn't happened.

things are starting to turn - we have the internet now so we're much better informed...

either that or the USA economy continues its downward slide.. i really don't care either way.

the truth is that as the left becomes too strong, whether it is socialism, feminism or whatever, the economy gets destroyed. this is likely why rome collapsed, too.

the moral case is very important. so too is the economy.

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