Have you seen  this “article” on the Yahoo! front page?

http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/sex/10-things-husbands-should-never-do-552285/?zing

It was pointed out to me earlier this week, and though I thought there were some good points (e.g., the silliness of caring for one’s own children being called “babysitting”), the article annoyed me. Its tone is bellicose, critical, and patronizing. The author plays both sides of the fence to score cheap “you go girl!” points with the readers. No big deal; stuff like this comes up all the time. But when it started to pop up on the social media sites I occasionally frequent, well, that was it.

Me being me, I immediately reversed the gender role criticisms and wrote a “10 things wives should never do” article. My intent was to show how vicious, petty, and unhelpful the original article was. Alex (my wife) read the draft of my list and noticed that things didn’t always “fit.” You can’t just reverse all gender role stereotypes; they don’t always match up like that. Some do (e.g., stereotypes about both men and women talking about things the other isn’t interested in, spouses not showing appreciation for each other’s hard work on meals/household projects, or each gender believing their traditional role takes more work), but others don’t. If I wanted a list about female stereotypes, I’d have to list actual stereotypes, and then I’d have to write my own belittling insults, instead of using the ones Diane Oatis wrote about men. I was not really comfortable with that. And there were some doozies. Just read through that list and you’ll see them screaming at you. Let me tell you, if I learned one thing from that list, it was that I am thankful to no end that I married Alex instead of Diane Oatis.

If you’re looking for female stereotypes, they’re not hard to find. As Alex pointed out, in our grandparents’ day these stereotypes were dropped casually in conversation and assumed in professional publications. She suggested looking at old magazines for a list of annoying wife habits to counter Diane Oatis’ list. And those old media have them by the dozen: women are incapable of rational thought, terrible at driving, overly emotional, less intelligent than men, unable to make difficult decisions, incurable gossips, etc. It seems that Ms. Oatis and her readers have failed to grasp the point that swinging the pendulum the other way is an investment in pendulum swing, when we should be trying to get away from pendulums altogether.

Thanks to consultation with my media naranja, I didn’t write the list (though I still might, I guess). So maybe I didn’t sink to Ms. Oatis’ level, this time. Such writing does not help anything — it makes problems worse — but it’s a constant temptation. We are different, we boys and girls, and it’s easier to bust out the gender-based one-liners for guaranteed laughs from our homeboys or -girls than it is to work out how best to cooperate for higher goals.

Men and women do have important differences (if you don’t know this, I’m not the one to explain the details). But we have far more similarities, in the final analysis, and exaggerating our distinctions — especially in divisive, sabotaging ways — is not good for any of us. Whether the message comes from the Right packaged as family values or from the Left packaged as feminism, any message that unnecessarily divides men from women and encourages unneeded conflict is bad for us.

Perhaps Ms. Oatis will think about this the next time she feels the urge to make a buck from thoughtlessly fanning the flames of the gender war (I’m sure I couldlearn this lesson a little better, too). And maybe Ms. Oatis would be surprised to learn that few actual feminists would find anything useful in her list.

This post is a response to Laine’s thoughtful post/essay on some of the issues involved in the “gay marriage” debate(s). She was interested in a religious person’s POV, and I figured I fit the bill. It’s a monstrous response, and didn’t fit in LiveJournal’s character limit. So, after the cut, the whole way-large response.
Continue reading →

Roy Baumeister is one of the most respected social psychological researchers alive today, so when I saw that he had given a talk with the title of this post, I had to read it. It has given me much to think about, and of course I’m going to share.

Baumeister starts by noting the obvious: there is a strong thread of man-bashing in the world (especially in academia). But the talk isn’t just a balance-the-scales exercise; it’s a thoughtful look at why various gender differences might be the way they are, from an evolutionary perspective, and whether the things that make men men might not play an important part in the success of cultures (the answer is yes, if you want to skip the rest of this post).

Dr. B suggests that culture is a higher-level strategy developed for improving our odds of surviving. Thus, whatever works for a culture must also help its members reproduce… at least on average (it’s evolution, yo). The history of gender then shifts from men versus women to men and women in groups versus other groups, and against the harsh realities of the physical world. Many gender differences — biological, social, cultural, psychological — can be seen as adaptations resulting from this struggle.

So, how does culture use (exploit) men to perpetuate itself? Baumeister’s answers are embedded in a “radical theory of gender equality. Men and women may be different, but each advantage may be linked to a disadvantage.” This leads to some very thought-provoking evidence and implications, many of which I’m about to summarize (warning: lots of content after the cut): Continue reading →

In no particular order:

1. The proportion of the human race that makes this guy sick seems pretty large (depending on how he defines some of his terms). I imagine he has constant stomach cramps and/or diarrhea. Perhaps some chronic cold symptoms.
2. I’m fairly impressed that he spelled “effeminate” correctly.
3. I once knew a Jew from that synagogue. She said it wasn’t as exciting as it sounds. Satan didn’t even show up half the time, and hardly ever gave the Torah readings.
4. Anyone who is, literally, the nut of a sport (either the left or the right nut) has probably come to expect this kind of treatment, so their inclusion on this sign seems unnecessary.
5. Is it OK if they’re not on bikes?
6. Ankle biters? Am I missing something? He hates children? Seriously. I don’t get this one, unless there are more people in the world with my particular fetish than I thought.
7. But– but– rebellious women are the hottest ones!
8. Computer freaks? Oh, right, I remember now: “Lo, he who hath the stench of days in his basement, and the pallour of darkness about his countenance, and a working knowledge of programming language, or more than two markup languages, or more than ‘moderate’ user expertise in two operating systems, shall be curséd…”
9. Dig that kid’s gleeful expression. Heh. Nothing pokes holes in your crusade quite like a slacker punk using your righteous wrath for a scrapbook entry.
10. Whew. Good thing he put “racists” up there, or he might have come off as intolerant.

I have a fantasy about asking this guy, with great sincerity, “Why the Pentecostals? Mm hmm. Yes, I see. And the Mormons? Oh, interesting. Of course. Those make sense, I suppose, but why the child molesting homosexuals?”

There was a guy back at Ohio State who’d set up shop on campus with similar tactics, every Spring. I think he was called “Brother Jed” or something equally apocalyptic. He would delight the less-religiously-threatened students by hollering (often with a megaphone or PA system) epithets and curses at individuals, or at the student body in general. We sometimes liked to wait around for him to find scantily-clad young women (it never took long), because he would approach them and yell, “WHOOOOOOORE!” It was sort of his trademark thing.

This was no doubt traumatic for some of the girls, but we were pretty sure others would bait him for entertainment purposes. I recall considering asking him questions in my best super-gay-stereotype voice, but I never did. Oh well.

The gender war is sometimes very entertaining. This spoof site (definitely safe for work) kills two cultural birds with one stone by both mocking male-centered porn and reinforcing gender stereotypes.

My favorite parts?

1 – description of a video clip depicting “20 minute clip of a single button on a bursting wedding dress being slowly unpicked on a windy moor. At dawn. Near some trees.”

2 – another video clip apparently about “…extreme close-ups of floorboads and skirting being stripped by your boyfriend while you lie on the sofa drinking hot chocolate.

3 – three of the six navigation tabs at the top of the page are labeled “FOREPLAY.”

Heh.