What's a beta male?
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Science Says Toxic Masculinity — More Than Alcohol — Leads To Sexual Assault
- Thread starter RavenSky
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That's what women want. Sexual selection is a bitch, amirite?
laughing dog
Contributor
Someone testing to be a male.
Ah, I gotcha. It's what brocucks call other brocucks who don't cuck along with the group chest-puffing animal brain he-man posturing and aggression.
ruby sparks
Contributor
That would be a patently nonsenical conspiracy theory, obviously.
ruby sparks
Contributor
The not very slight problem with that is that the same things have been going on for at least tens of thousands of years, and similar behaviours can be observed in most other ape species. In other words, you are talking rubbish. Nor do you seem to understand evolutionary timescales either.
ruby sparks
Contributor
Yeah right. That's about as well thought-through as a turd going down the toilet.
Also, what has feminism, necessarily, got to do with anything I said? The news articles were probably not posted by feminists. The writers of the book I cited are not feminist. I am not a feminist. Feminists may use the term 'Toxic masculinity' but it's also used by sociologists generally, and in any case, the attitudes and behaviours exist no matter what they are called.
Feminist what? Where did that come from? Simply pointing out that nothing in human behavior makes sense without evolution. The reason men and women are the way the are is the result of millions of years of sexual selection. Or you can go with one of the creation myths.
ruby sparks
Contributor
For starters, you made a post about feminism. Duh.
Eh? Feminism and sexual selection are two different topics. We’ve had feminism for a hundred years or so. We’ve had primate sexual selection for five million years.
ruby sparks
Contributor
Exactly. One wonders why you introduced it then. My first preference would be that you don't bother to try to explain.
Dude, what do you think sexual selection means?
ruby sparks
Contributor
Ok, setting aside that you brought up feminism then.
Sexual selection? Sure, that plays a big part, and has. Nobody said otherwise. One of the writers of that book is a primatologist in fact. Evolution generally, including natural and sexual selection specifically, are big parts of the explanation.
Though as you implied, a lot of social, cultural and behavioural changes can take place over non-evolutionary timescales.
A want is a conscious, psychological, disposition of mind, which moves us away from strictly or only evolutionary issues. As such, it would be at least be partly wrong to say that women want men to be violent and aggressive, though to some extent there is some general truth in it, up to a point. Actually, quite a lot of the time, the attitudes, characteristics and behaviours that are desired are not violence and aggression, per se, but these are correlated with some of the attitudes and behaviours which are desired (strength, assertiveness, status).
Obviously, there is a lot of generalisation in that. Just as there is a lot of generalisation in talking about male attitudes and behaviours. It goes without saying that there is (a) a lot of variation among individuals and (b) a lot of overlap between sexes and genders.
But whatever the general explanations (and they are multiple) and the variation and overlap, unless we are to make an appeal to nature moral argument ('X is good because it is natural') there is still the brute fact that there are trends and patterns of problems. We could still acknowledge and analyse that/those, and also possibly explore ways to improve matters. Changes in attitudes and behaviours are demonstrably possible, over much shorter timescales than biological evolution.
And just to briefly refer to feminism myself, we do not have to, and I don't, subscribe to many common feminist paradigms regarding explanations. Which is why I said that there is no necessity to bring feminism into this, because the issue exists of itself in any case. Though it should be noted that some or many feminists readily accept a variety of explanations, including evolution, though in general feminism still emphasises nurture over nature. But then so do sociologists and members of other disciplines, such as psychology.
Discussions about 'why', especially on the internet, tend to get bogged down in allocating or avoiding 'blame' and having big argy-bargys about it. They don't have to. Understanding causes is relevant, yes, but it could be said that finding and endorsing solutions is much more useful. Agreeing, where possible, is also arguably much, much more useful than endlessly disagreeing. I'm not saying that blame is irrelevant, only that (a) taking things personally (or on behalf of a group one identifies with) in that sense can be counter-productive and (b) 'explaining' is a better emphasis.
It would be just great if we could all discuss this in a slightly better, less pointless and divisive, more constructive way than is usually the case here on this forum, but I suspect that may be pie in the sky. I also suspect that the more reasonable members of the forum who might be more willing to do that stay away from the general topic, and perhaps even the politics subforum, because of not wanting to get involved in the unfortunate quagmire and Grounhog Day ding-dongs, which go absolutely nowhere, over and over and over.
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thebeave
Contributor
From The New Yorker
https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/seven-signs-that-your-mans-masculinity-is-nontoxic
Seven Signs That Your Man’s Masculinity Is Nontoxic
1. He carries a tote bag that’s at once pro-environment, pro-feminism, and pro-reading.
https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/seven-signs-that-your-mans-masculinity-is-nontoxic
Seven Signs That Your Man’s Masculinity Is Nontoxic
1. He carries a tote bag that’s at once pro-environment, pro-feminism, and pro-reading.
ruby sparks
Contributor
Apart from not understanding no. 6, I thought that was a good, whimsical list.
I would just say though that I don't think I've done any of them, and I still consider myself relatively non-toxically masculine.
ruby sparks
Contributor
And in a similar vein, and what a nice surprise to find it on the front page of the BBC News UK website today, an interesting article:
After MeToo: What I Learned on a Men-Only Retreat
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/What_I_Learnt_On_A_Men_Only_Retreat
Constructive, positive comments would be welcome (at least by me). Picking holes, being negative or being cynical not so much, because imo there's already far, far too much of that.
After MeToo: What I Learned on a Men-Only Retreat
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/What_I_Learnt_On_A_Men_Only_Retreat
Constructive, positive comments would be welcome (at least by me). Picking holes, being negative or being cynical not so much, because imo there's already far, far too much of that.
untermensche
Contributor
There are leaders of both sexes.
All a family needs is one leader. If the male is just a provider that is all that is necessary.
All a family needs is one leader. If the male is just a provider that is all that is necessary.
ruby sparks
Contributor
Afterthought. My guess is that that guy would be very attractive to many women, or men, and I can't think why he shouldn't be. I think I'd like him a lot too.
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thebeave
Contributor
Afterthought. My guess is that that guy would be very attractive to many women, or men, and I can't think why he shouldn't be. I think I'd like him a lot too.
Yes, I think so too. I debated whether I should put his picture in Hide tags so as not to cause excessive female arousal, but I ultimately decided not to, as I figured, "Hey...who am I to deny women one of the great pleasures in life?".