The research, published in the US journal Psychological Science, found that women formed a negative view of their peers much quicker than men did...I have a different theory.
They wrote: "Women may simply weight negative information more heavily than men do, because negative information disrupts the establishment of intimacy, which serves a more important function in same-sex relationships for women than for men...."
Most boys, starting from about the age of reason, get into fights with their peers constantly, and puberty only makes the fighting worse. This habit of fighting typically ends with age, or prison.
Now, the fighting was initially only gameplay: when I was a boy we would play Cowboys and Indians or American GIs versus Nazis, but as I got older we just got into fist-fights or wrestling matches, and these generally started over trivial matters.
Even the most liberal and pacifistic of parents — who would never give violent toys to their boys — are shocked when their sons imaginatively turn yardsticks into swords, and bananas into guns, which they use to pretend fight with their friends. Ultimately, the best any parent can hope for is eventual maturity and good health insurance.
As I mentioned, my fights with my friends would often be started over the most trivial of matters, usually over some fine point of honor. None of us actually enjoyed the fights, which usually drew blood and sometimes broke bones, and so we quickly learned how not to get into a fight. Every man usually has ‘hot buttons’ which will nearly guarantee to start the fists flying, and so most men will learn, from hard experience, what buttons not to press.
In the interests of self-preservation, young men who do not end up in prison learn to be gentlemen who treat other men with honor and a certain amount of tolerance.
Most girls do not learn this lesson. Cat fights are extremely rare — I've seen only two — and so girls can dishonor each other with impunity since they don't risk bloodshed. I'm often shocked at how badly women treat each other, but they can get away with saying things that would give a man a fist in his face. It is for this reason that boys were once taught the old rule that you never, ever hit a girl under any circumstance, and likely the reason why men tend to ignore most everything a woman says. It keeps things peaceful.
‘Enlightened self-interest’ is a low level of morality, and most men don't get beyond it. Women are more likely to attain higher levels of morality, spiritually based on duty and love, so we can expect that women may eventually show higher honor and tolerance for their peers as they get older. Being a ‘lady’ is rather superior than being a mere gentleman.
Well you never raised a daughter and you clearly haven't been in a high school lately. Girls are as violent as boys these days! If you want to really hear the talk of sailors follow a group of high school or 8th grader girls around a mall for an hour.
ReplyDeleteI have heard of a trend towards more violence among girls, although males are incarcerated at far higher rates: as of 2007 the ratio was 14 to 1 in federal prisons.
ReplyDeleteAn open question is how much varying behavior between boys and girls is innate versus socially conditioned.
Old Victorian notions of the sexes were too much influenced by Protestantism, Enlightenment philosophy, and Darwinism, while contemporary Feminist notions of the sexes are Marxist and highly destructive.
And any discussion of sex-varying behavior is going to be entangled in the phenomena of same-sex attraction. Is violence perpetrated by girls primarily associated with lesbianism, and is violence against girls a major factor in expressing lesbianism?
I rather find the old Medieval Catholic view more helpful, seeing "maleness" and "femaleness" as permanent metaphysical or spiritual types, which are imperfectly instantiated in our fallen world. This explains more phenomena better than modern views, although this view requires a cognitive leap for those attached to materialism.
whoa dude! "smell the coffee" So girls are violent because they are either influenced by Marxism or Lesbians??? How about our hyper competitive sports culture has taught/emboldened aggression is the fairer sex!Upper Middle Class SUV Driving absentee parents push their daughters to win win win!!! Suck it up! Play through the pain!! You can go to college on a scholarship instead of me saving for your education!! I am actually laughing
ReplyDeleteas I reply, I find you notions so off base!
Title IX sports scholarships are largely about lesbianism. The impetus behind Title IX was Marxist feminists, and it retains great support from them, even though it has been highly damaging to men's college sports.
ReplyDeleteLOL!!!!!!!!!! this is funny! So are you going tell the girls at Oral Roberts , Brigham Young, Liberty University etc (you get my drift I assume) that their college boards are supporting Lesbianism!!!! and lets see NOTRE DAME has suffered because it has womens sports!
ReplyDeleteRead lesbian literature. They consider Title IX to be of extreme importance for their agenda.
ReplyDeleteRevenue-generating men's sports, like Notre Dame football, have been spared, but minor sports have been greatly hurt because of Title IX insistence on near-parity.
since I live in ND's backyard I will call The Dean of Local Sports Jeff Jeffirs at WNDU TV a Neosho Missouri Boy and let him know that you have discovered why ND football has been suffering while womens basketball has won a national championship! Its the GIRLS fault!!! For years they have been whining that it was because they are lilly white and don't cheat like the other "boys" they have to play and all along it was Father Hesburgs fault by first admitting women and then allowing them to play too!!! You have saved poor old ND a fortune in Coach Search Fees! (their 1billion dollar endowment is safe)
ReplyDeleteLets look at poor old ND again.....their hockey program (minor sport) was a club sport before Title 9 and then turned Division 1 program....this year they had a winning streak of 18 games, were ranked number one in the nation and it was just announced that a seperate ice arena will be built solely for the use of the mens hockey program. OH!!! how they have suffered Lord!!! Have mercy on the men of Notre Dame!
ReplyDeleteyou didn't take your ball and go home did you? I want to correct something I said earlier ND's endowment isn't 1 billion it is 3.6 billion, darn those girls and their rich parents anyway!
ReplyDeleteMark, Mark, Mark ---
ReplyDelete(You are a wonderful photographer of churches. But please permit me to remind you that I have retired from a long mental health career in maximum security institutions -- prisons and hospitals, of both males and females. This is my territory, my bread and butter, my faculty position.)
Violence is the product of two variables: (1) how much it is valued in a culture, and (2) testosterone level.
(1) Historically American culture always has placed high value on violence. My grandparents' impressed me with how violent their generation was (examples = the "wild west", the "five points" and the Bowery in NYC, the "tenderloin" districts of both NYC and SF, "skid rows" in Chicago and the NW, Canton Avenue in Toledo, etc.). My parents' generation contributed prohibition, the mob, and movies. As children my generation's favorite games were "cowboys and Indians" and "war", their favorite radio shows the afternoon serials. And the current generation values violence more than any of those predecessors -- witness TV and other public "entertainments" that bring the "bread and circuses" of the Roman Empire and the "prolefeed" of 1984 up-to-date.
American culture values "self-defense" and revenge highly -- if I can convince a jury of "self-defense", I likely will go scot-free. Contrast Jesus, who repeatedly condemned both (for example, several times in Mt 5) and then condemned those who dared call themselves Christians while ignoring these standards (Lk 6.46).
(2) Testosterone -- blood levels vary enormously in different individuals, with males having the higher values. And bellicosity (a dimension of violence) parallels the testosterone levels (consider athletes who take steroids). Therefore, it is no surprise that male prisons always have been much larger than female prisons (between the 14:1 you quoted, and 50:1). However, this is not the entire story, since most prisoners of both genders are incarcerated for non-violent offenses. Differential enforcement and differential sentencing also contribute to the contrast.
The evidence is that sexual orientation has little impact on the expression of violence. Since the Kinsey reports 60 years ago we have known that large minorities in both genders have same-sex preferences, and nothing has come along to show any statistically significant change in those proportions since the 19th century. Violence amongst female prisoners has been shown to be associated with membership in groups ("families" -- in males we might call them "gangs"), but not with lesbianism.
As for Title IX, whether or not lesbians lobbied for its passage or hype it in their literature is quite irrelevant to both whether parity is desireable in college sports, and whether Title IX is good law. The legislation would have gone nowhere without the support of "straight" legislators (obviously, the vast majority). Personally, I subscribe to the old-fashioned notion that college sports should be true amateur activities, NOT revenue-generating -- even at Catholic schools. And as amateur sports, there certainly should be parity.
Oh, one afterthought. I never met a Marxist lesbian who was a prisoner -- though they are not uncommon in colleges.
(3) When you put forth concepts like "permanent metaphysical or spiritual types" you hypothesize entities that can be neither delineated, tested, nor proven. Sorry, I can't get any intellectual traction on such a thing.
Irene,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your compliments on my photography. I do photos when I don't have anything to write - I find photography versus writing to be marvelously complementary with regard to my various mental states. However, I started this blog with the intent of doing writing, but unfortunately I'm not very productive with putting my ideas into text, whereas the photos have proved to be popular and I'm able to generate photos of fair quality in good quantity quickly.
I think a major problem with our current world is a radical insistence on materialism and subjectivity, and the way to get beyond this is with a metaphysical or spiritual viewpoint. Yes, 'intellectual traction' can be hard to find, but I think that metaphysical knowledge is true knowledge, and this viewpoint so permeates the Early Church and pre-modern Judaism that many, including Pope Benedict XVI, consider it an integral and irreducible part of authentic Christianity. Clearly other religions, especially those found in the Far East, agree. Contemporary thinking wants to eliminate metaphysics, but this never happens: each new generation of philosophers denounce the preceding generation as being 'metaphysical', without realizing they too have a metaphysics.
I studied mainly physics and mathematics in college, and both fields have strong metaphysical component, so much so that they were denounced as 'Jewish' science. Of course, Orthodox Jews have a metaphysical outlook highly similar to traditional Catholicism. Some problems I've seen in math and physics stem from an insistence on bad philosophy.
There are some good arguments for a metaphysical basis for sex, something which transcends men and women: the Western tradition has a concept very similar to the Eastern 'Ying and Yang'. The widespread acceptance of this idea in ancient societies may stem from the fact that it is true. The goodness of many things relates quite strongly to how well they conform to the idea of maleness or femaleness, which is something I'll write about some day.
Regarding violence, I agree with you completely, and I'm very familiar with the effects of testosterone on human behavior. But what about the main thesis of this article, which is that gentlemanliness often stems from young men's desire to avoid violence, and that this is often missing among girls (despite the level of of their participation in sports).
Friends of mine counseled prisoners and noted the great increase in imprisoned females, mainly due to gambling debts.
I disagree with you regarding self defense, although this seems to be a requirement for clergy and religious. A Christian who has a duty of care to others, such as a parent, may even have a natural moral duty to defend himself or others. See the Catechism of the Catholic Church, starting at paragraph 2262. Obviously, the kind of self-defense for a Christian must be as minimal as necessary as a spiritual duty, even if it is a natural moral right. Also, the legal prohibition against self-defense is seen in totalitarian regimes, and is a frequent precursor to tyranny.