This thread reminds me of an editorial from The Onion: I Never Talk On The First Date
. It plays with the idea that men use women for sex and turns it around so that it's women who use men for conversation, companionship and so on.
Men can use women for sex, sure. But aren't there also women who use men for emotional validation? If a man can have sex with a woman without interest in her as a long-term partner and enjoy it, is it any more exploitave than a woman using a man's feelings for her to have someone who listens to her talk or buy her things?
In general, I have a pretty dim view of exploitive relationships. I think it's tasteless to use another person's feelings for you for self gain with no interest in reciprocating.
edited 20th Mar '12 2:25:09 PM by Lawyerdude
What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly.
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This gag stops being funny when you realize that exactly how certain folks think. Regarding your second argument, I have this idea there is an Internet law that every time someone point out some unacceptable behaviour, someone will posts about how the reverse situation happens, but usually without mentionning whether the reverse situation happens on the same scale and with the same regularity that the denounced behaviour... As if it cancelled out things. Some women being as ruthless and manipulative as men is, quite honestly, right, but kind of a given. It's also entirely irrelevant to my point, I'm sorry to point out. As you said, manipulative and exploitative relationships are bad, no matter who is the manipulator and who is the victim. However, Nice Guys and PUA are predominantly men.
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At ease.
If I thought you had that kind of opinions, I would have been, let's say, more blunt. I was just pointing out why no one should pay heed to this line of thought.
edited 20th Mar '12 3:59:25 PM by Sable
Which suited me just fine, of course — the cost of a dinner is not a huge issue either way, but as you mention the subtext of the male having to pay "for" the date is a little icky.
But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.Of course, there still are various sets of assumed gender differences that could explain such things, (ie. this component of the reasoning does not necessarily point to specific ones) but I don't think a lack thereof is one of them.
There
are
cultures that are
matriarchal/matrilinear societies
, so I am not quite sure if patriarchy and male dominance is necessarily a biological thing.
edited 20th Mar '12 4:48:33 PM by IraTheSquire
I'm fairly sure that if a Finnish guy were to pay for dinner and/or drinks, say, five times in a row, the woman would probably get suspicious that they're dealing with a chauvinist who thinks that one sex should pay for stuff more often than the other.
They might also suspect that the guy is only paying to increase their odds of "getting" sex, which would actually decrease their odds in the long run instead of improving them (as most women don't want a man to pay more often than the woman does.)
Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.![]()
I didn't say "every society." Please pay closer attention to my wording.
@Sable, yeah I figured you were just responding to the idea, I just wanted to be clear on my actual stance since it's so easy to get misunderstood here on the Internet.
@Best Of, I always pay for dinner or whatever when I'm with a girl, but that's because I've almost never dated a girl who made more money than me, so it's not really about the sex in this case. I've had nurse girlfriends who I split food with when I was a college student or a new lieutenant, so I didn't make as much money as I do now. I also don't let any of my younger sisters or brothers pay for dinner when I get to hang out with them at home either.
"Did anybody invent this stuff on purpose?" - Phillip Marlowe on tequila, Finger Man by Raymond Chandler.Consider me in agreement with Martello here.
If I ask a girl out, I'll pay for the whatever if I make more money than she does. I find offering to pay to be a good litmus test for who I do and don't want to date. If she lets me pay without saying something more than once, I've found that she'll also expect me to keep paying for stuff (she's entitled). If she makes an issue about me offering to pay and couches it as some sort of man/woman thing, she's probably pretty uptight (and not a good fit for me). If she thanks me, offers to split the check or promises to get it next time (and makes a second date then and there), she's a keeper in the money department for three reasons; one, she's polite. Two, she knows money doesn't grow on trees. Three, she obviously likes me well enough to make a second date.
Again, this is experience talking and I'm not making any general statement about women, just the women I've happened to go out with...which is a pretty small percentage of the population, really.
Martello's also right about the fact that most guys do view paying for things as a way to get into a woman's pants. I've made a concerted effort not to see things that way, because by society's standards its offensive to imply that a woman is a prostitute...and you're thinking you can have her for the cost of a few drinks, a pretty cheap one at that.
Also, if it becomes apparent that I can have a woman for the price of a few drinks, I steer clear...because she's probably not worth having.
If I were to write some of the strange things that come under my eyes they would not be believed. ~Cora M. Strayer~I won't go that far. How many societies that are not influenced by the West or another patriarchal society can we name? The West has dominated the globe for a long time, it's reach far. How do we know that the current status is due to biology and not due to the dominance of patriarchal cultures (plural because I'm including Chinese, whose culture influenced everyone in the Far East). The fact that matrilinear/matriarchal societies can exist mean that it is possible that should the dominant culture be matriarchal we'll be having an entirely different views about gender.
Since societies influenced by the West are so widespread, they are thus, the norm. And Eastern society can be real patriarchal too. [1]
edited 21st Mar '12 4:45:49 AM by ThatHuman
something@Black Humor: Then we are in agreement. There are societies that put more power in feminine hands. But none of those can be rightfully called matriarcal, because either men still hold a lot of power, or because the women in charge are stripped of feminity when they hold positions of power, by being forbidden to bear childrens, have sex, are forced to adopt male or neutral behaviours, and other things. On the whole, the split is either a tie, or tipped in favour of men.
Guys, this is a derail.
Insert witty and clever quip here. My page, as the database hates my handle.@Sable: No, I disagree those aren't matriarchal. A society which gives a little more power to women is just as much a matriarchy as one that gives them a lot of power. Just because there's no society as consistantly female-dominated as Western society is male-dominated doesn't mean there aren't any matriarchies.
There are unambiguously patriarchal societies that still give a lot of power to women (modern Western society, for one). There are unambiguously patriarchal societies where traditional masculinity is unbecoming for a leader (would you want Chuck Norris as president? Didn't think so). There are even unambiguously patriarchal societies that are currently ruled by a woman at this very moment; for a while in the 80s both the Queen and the Prime Minister of the UK were female, and the most famous PM of the country where the Taliban originated was ALSO female.
For even more patriarchal societies that have been led by women, I submit Pakistan, Bangladesh and Indonesia.
ETA: Yes, this went off-topic. I guess when one opens all the threads with new posts in the Watchlist in tabs and goes through all of them, one might forget the topic.
I apologise for participating in this derail.
Let's get back on-track.
edited 21st Mar '12 3:38:33 PM by BestOf
Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.What breadloaf claimed was that it was because patriarchal societies happened to become predominant in the world. I was saying that the factors affecting such patriarchy, and those affecting status in the world, may be related.
But a more relevant point is that even pointing out matriarchies (and remember, so long as such structures aren't a simple gender flip per aspect of life, we're comparing apples and oranges here) does not negate the point about gender roles having origins in gender differences; it simply implies that such gender differences reacted in different ways with different societies, as I mentioned before.
EDITED IN: As for this being on topic, it is connected in the sense that interpretation of such things reflects on what you attribute attitudes like the ones mentioned in the OP to. I am still not particularly convinced that it is widely seen as a bad thing for guys to turn down sex so much as seen as unlikely, though I find the former a little more plausible now than I did at first.
edited 21st Mar '12 10:43:44 PM by HiddenFacedMatt
"The Daily Show has to be right 100% of the time; FOX News only has to be right once." - Jon Stewart
Or alternatively gender roles have little to do with biology and entirely caused by the cultural environment. Or both biology and environment play a role. There simply isn't enough proof to show any one of those to be right. Evolutionary psychology is neat and all, but it remains just a hypothesis until somebody manages to do an experiment to prove its claims. And before that they need to fix the bias towards
western undergraduates that most psychological studies have before it becomes credible in my eyes
.
edited 21st Mar '12 11:03:37 PM by IraTheSquire
@Best Of: But I mentioned Pakistan already!
(Although, yeah, I agree this is a derail.)

Of course, there still are various sets of assumed gender differences that could explain such things, (ie. this component of the reasoning does not necessarily point to specific ones) but I don't think a lack thereof is one of them.
edited 20th Mar '12 2:08:54 PM by HiddenFacedMatt
"The Daily Show has to be right 100% of the time; FOX News only has to be right once." - Jon Stewart