I ran across this article titled
Is There Anything Good About Men? given in an address by Roy F. Baumeister and would love to hear what you think. I found it incredibly thought-provoking and it raised oh, so many questions! By the way, I didn't name it so don't shoot the messenger.
I find many a thing good about men.
A brief summary:
- He lays the groundwork by introducing the concept of culture as an abstract system that competes against rival systems and in the process uses both men and women (albeit in different ways) to advance its cause. So his true question isn't is there anything good about men rather what are men good for from the perspective of a culture?
- Dutton further clarifies that his entire theory is built around the concept of trade-offs so whenever there is something that is good it is inevitably tied to something that is bad and the two ultimately balance out.
- He argues that biologically and genetically men have more extremes than women in everything from height to IQ levels. In other words men really are better AND worse than women and it is this pattern of extremes among men that create misleading calculations and many a statistical quirk in measuring the similarities and differences between the sexes.
- Rather than different yet equal he proposes a radical theory of gender equality. He suggests that men and women may be different, but each advantage of a particular sex is likely linked to a disadvantage. So upon hearing that women are better at something then men it would be wise to stop and question why this is likely true — and what the opposite trait might be good for.
and...well, this is getting quite long so just one more point.
- Men and women's social and intimate relationships are structured differently in response to the needs of the cultural system they exist within with two very distinct ways of being social. Women tend to specialize in the sphere of close, intimate relationships while men tend to specialize in the sphere of broad, shallow relationships. Neither good nor bad these different social sphere orientations have do with the different benefits they offer to the long-term maintance and growth of a specific cultural system.
Seriously, give it a read as my summary doesn't do justice!