One of the most important links in this subreddit: The Frontman Fallacy

[–]kanuk876[🍰] 9 points10 points11 points 16 years ago* (16 children) | Copy Link

why men occupy most positions of social power

Because in our society, we reward the top-performers. And the top performers (and bottom performers) in most competitions are men -- because god rolls the dice more with men than with women.

If we took 100 people and judged them on, say, violin playing. We'd find a distribution something like this:

20 people really, really suck, 15 men and 5 women.

60 people are about average. 20 men, 40 women

20 people are awesome, 15 men and 5 women.

The above distributions are normal and symmetric. The female distribution tends to be more clustered around the middle (average), while men's distribution covers a wider span of talent, from really-bad to really-good.

In life, we tend to reward the superstars, the talented top performers. Take the top 20% performers from the above distribution and you'd have 15 men and 5 women (and feminists screaming PATRIARCHY!).

But what about the bottom 20% and the male-dominance there too?! This is what Farrell is talking about with his notion of the glass floor for men. And feminist's near-absolute neglect of the men at the bottom of society.

When feminists come along and (a) give women a leg-up to get more average-talent women into the top spots, and (b) penalize men for being men and push them out of the top spots, the result is a new distribution:

20 people really suck, 19 men and 1 woman.

60 people are average, 21 men and 39 women

20 people are awesome, 10 men, 10 women.

Great. Now you have parity at the top, and a large number of under-achieving men. And a generation of women who think men suck because the men around them are, on average, under performing relative to women.

If you think I'm full of shit, just look at the top-performing Equestrians. The top spots are almost all men in this female-dominated field. Is this the Patriarchy?!

[–]cryptogirl 1 point2 points3 points 16 years ago* (3 children) | Copy Link

[–]hopeless_case 1 point2 points3 points 16 years ago (2 children) | Copy Link

[–]cryptogirl 1 point2 points3 points 16 years ago (1 child) | Copy Link

[–]hopeless_case 0 points1 point2 points 16 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points3 points 16 years ago* (8 children) | Copy Link

That's a big factor as well, although I can't remember the proper name of this phenomenon and so it's hard to find an external reference.

Women tend to cluster around the "center" because they have two copies of the same chromosome. If there is anything too "eccentric" in one copy, it's likely the other copy will account and correct for it so the eccentric trait will not manifest.

Men, however, have only one copy of each chromosome. If there's anything eccentric, it will show. That's also why men are way, way more susceptible to genetic and developmental diseases and disturbances than women.

If you think I'm full of shit, just look at the top-performing Equestrians. The top spots are almost all men in this female-dominated field. Is this the Patriarchy?!

Males are not only more likely to be genetically eccentric in all aspects, they're also more driven to stand out (*) in order to increase their value as mates and thus increase their desirability and chances of reproduction. Females were not evolutionarily ingrained with this kind of motivation, as their job for billions of years was to simply sit back and chose from the most eligible males that managed to reach them (and very often it still is).

(*) A good example is this article I read once, where the author, a father, casually says:

When our first child was born, I vowed to spearhead a movement of fathers who would take an equal share in bringing up children, participating in schooling, and generally being awesome. As my wife pointed out at the time, a woman will just do something, whereas a man must spearhead a movement.

[–]kanuk876[🍰] 4 points5 points6 points 16 years ago* (2 children) | Copy Link

Women tend to cluster around the "center" because they have two copies of the same chromosome. If there is anything too "eccentric" in one copy, it's likely the other copy will account and correct for it so the eccentric trait will not manifest.

We're getting a bit technical at this point, but... I read a recent discovery where they isolated the gene/mechanism which moderates the rate of mutation for humans. They found that the sex of the person affects both the rate and mechanism of mutation. When I said, "God rolls the dice more for men", I meant it literally. Our genes introduce more and different mutations in males versus females.

In my mind, this is a far more deliberate and significant indicator of what's going on versus 'accidents' due to only having one copy of an X chromosome.

But at the end of the day, the genetic mechanism is irrelevant; we can statistically measure human populations and observe the variances we're talking about here.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point2 points 16 years ago (1 child) | Copy Link

[–]kanuk876[🍰] 0 points1 point2 points 16 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points3 points 16 years ago (4 children) | Copy Link

Women tend to cluster around the "center" because they have two copies of the same chromosome.

That pretty much bullshit. There are 22 other chromosome pairs (the autosomes), and they together hold 95% of the information in the human genome. The only differences in genetic variation between males and females will be in X- and Y-linked traits. The Y chromosome is linked to almost no traits when compared to other chromosomes, so the vast majority of genetic differences between male and female chromosomes will be in X-linked traits, where males will be more affected by X-linked recessive traits than females.

Needless to say, your statement is completely unjustified, especially when you consider that all females have only one "active" X chromosome in each cell, the other forming the Barr body.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point2 points 16 years ago* (3 children) | Copy Link

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point2 points 16 years ago (2 children) | Copy Link

It's not just a matter of chromosomes actually containing relevant information, but they trigger, or not, information in other chromosomes as well.

Just so you know, a gene which triggers the expression of another gene is still "relevant information" (whatever that means).

No, that's pretty much the current scientific consensus. Please point me otherwise.

Read up on X inactivation and the Barr body. The vast majority of differences in genetic variation between men and women will exist in X-linked genes.

I'd be happy to admit I'm wrong, though, if you could cite for me some textbook or set of foundational articles which show that most of the difference in variance is accounted for in sex-linked genes. Until then, I'll have to stick with the null-hypothesis, which is that most of this difference is not accounted for in sex-linked genes.

Honestly, "please point me otherwise" is pretty weak when you've already been presented with an argument. I've argued that X inactivation and the comparatively low number of sex-linked genes imply that the repetition of the X chromosome in females cannot possibly account for the differences in variation between sexes. It's up to you to either point out where the logic fails, or show that the repetition of the X chromosome does indeed account for this difference.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point2 points 16 years ago (1 child) | Copy Link

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[–]Omnicrola 0 points1 point2 points 16 years ago (1 child) | Copy Link

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[–][deleted] 4 points5 points6 points 16 years ago* (42 children) | Copy Link

he sidesteps the obvious question of why men occupy most positions of social power.

Let me guess, let me guess! THE PATRIARCHY

Isn't that imbalance itself evidence of gender inequality?

Evidence of "gender inequality" in the strict sense that the gender distribution is not 50-50, yes. But that doesn't automatically mean there's anything wrong with that.

And, anyway, that is irrelevant. A fair and honest straight white male in a position of power can do a greater service for gays, blacks and women than a dishonest and greedy bisexual black woman in the same position. There's no intrinsic reason why society should benefit from having the people in positions of power be a reflection of the larger population.

And if so, why stop with women and some random ethnic minorities? If society would be somehow better for having 50% of people in power as women and 25% (or whatever) as blacks, then it follows that it would be even better if it accurately reflected the demographics of Jews, Indians, tall people, fat people, diabetics, etc. Saying this "logic" applies only to women and blacks, but not to any other groups, is special pleading.

[–]cryptogirl 2 points3 points4 points 16 years ago (41 children) | Copy Link

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But what about mimetics, cultural evolution, the natural selection of ideas/symbols/practices? Don't we have a lot of biologically maladaptive societal traits that can't be to explained purely through genetics?

I've never taken any type of gender studies course, so I've never heard the theories on how each of those might influence gender behaviors. Do you have any resources I could look at? (free preferably)

Sexism, I'd argue, is biologically maladaptive, because it limits womens' ability to select the fittest mate. On the other hand, sexism makes sense mimetically; an idea that effectively quashes the ideas of those who might oppose it will replicate more readily.

Can you go into this in more depth? Today, I took a test, wrote a paper, and went to work so I'm a pretty fried. I feel like I'm watching you solve math problems on the chalkboard, but you're skipping to the answers. (In fact... I think I'm gonna crash, but I'll check back in the morning. Night!)

[–]cryptogirl 0 points1 point2 points 16 years ago* (0 children) | Copy Link

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[–]cryptogirl 2 points3 points4 points 16 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

[–][deleted] 3 points4 points5 points 16 years ago* (27 children) | Copy Link

I'd argue instead that there is a deeply rooted social bias (held by people of both genders) in favor male leaders. I find that troubling.

It's not social, it's psychological. It comes from our evolutionary history. It's the result of a few of many quirks that makes us human.

I'm not saying it should be that way. I'm saying that, first, tying to tackle this through the lenses of Social Studies is the wrong way to go about it. Second, that trying to achieve equality by fiat is even worse.

but where gross imbalances persist, it's problematic - especially when there is a clear history of discrimination against that group.

There are lots of gross imbalances and clear histories of discrimination against groups that no one cares about. So I guess you mean outright political discrimination. In that case, once the political barriers are destroyed (as they are, in most western societies), what's left is educating the public. Unfortunately, a very vicious meme got traction before we had a good idea of how to effectively deal with inequality; the meme of "historical justice."

It mistakenly conflated both evolutionary biases and past political doctrines – two very different things – as one thing – "social" issues –, and attempts to deal with them as such. Put bluntly, it's not going to work. It's simply the wrong medicine for the disease. Actually, the disease itself got misdiagnosed. It might actually make it worse, as if there's one thing we can all agree on about this whole shebang is this: it causes a lot of resentment. In both sides. That's bound to explode sooner or later.

Honestly, how comfortable would you feel in a society where 90% of politicians, judges, CEOs, etc. were women?

If that society functioned well and made most of its citizens happy? I honestly wouldn't mind. I don't think brute equality is our goal, here (both for feminists and MRA), but happiness and freedom. We just identified some sets of inequalities as obstacles for that (and correctly so), and are trying to correct them hoping that it will lead us to happiness and freedom.

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[–]cryptogirl -2 points-1 points0 points 16 years ago (12 children) | Copy Link

[–][deleted] 5 points6 points7 points 16 years ago* (11 children) | Copy Link

Well, where to begin. Do you think our gender differences started in the first tribe of the Homo Sapiens Sapiens, when a bunch of men got together and decided things would be better if they could just boss women around? Try going back a good few million years, to our first social ancestors (fish).

Social specialization first arose as the result of biological specialization. This process just became more granular as time passed and species started to develop culture and pass forward their "findings" on how to survive. Groups that conformed well to hierarchical structures tended to "cooperate" better, and thus thrived better than groups that didn't. Which is why hierarchy is seen all over nature and in all human societies. And it's not just custom, humans are just as instinctively predisposed to hierarchical stratification as animals.

For the most of our past, the single most relevant factor that would decide how you would participate in the group was your gender, due both to biology and custom. Both in animals driven by instinct and basic intelligence and in our hominid ancestors, this form of "stereotyping" persisted for the same reason: it benefited the group as a whole, even if at expense of what we today would perceive as liberties and well-being (for both sexes).

Throughout all those millions of years we ingrained a bunch of shortcuts to our repertory of heuristics, many of which became woefully inadequate as individuals got more complex (learning to mischievously use expectations for their benefit) and groups started to get larger and more diverse, in the last few thousand years.

For example, abstract shapes with hard lines and edges appear to us as masculine, while shapes that are rounder and softer appear to us as feminine. The same tendency is seen as observers are quicker to see anger on men's faces and happiness on women's.

Humans are biased to think male leaders are best in cases of fights with other groups and female leaders for fights in-group. Which is exactly what happens in other primate species.

In fact, a growing body of research links the tendency for males to emerge as leaders with diverse evolutionary aspects [1] [2].

And that's just from some quick googling. A good example is this article I read once, where the author, a father, casually says:

When our first child was born, I vowed to spearhead a movement of fathers who would take an equal share in bringing up children, participating in schooling, and generally being awesome. As my wife pointed out at the time, a woman will just do something, whereas a man must spearhead a movement.

This kind of drive is deeply rooted in the male psyche, and with good reason. It comes from millions of years of leading their packs and tribes and battling for survival and reproductive success, often in a very literal sense. And that explains why positions of power tend to be occupied by more men than women much more accurately than some arbitrary political interpretation that can only account for the past few centuries. Men are there because women have better things to do.

Really, you'd have to believe god made us by hand, fully formed from the ground in one day, to think only the past few centuries of human history account for what we see in the world today.

Social, political and historical causes are all real, but secondary. They're only there because evolution made us what we are, in the first place. A good analogy is:

Why did the ship sink?

Proximate cause: Because it was holed beneath the waterline, water entered the hull and the ship became denser than the water which supported it, so it couldn't stay afloat.

Ultimate cause: Because the ship hit a rock which tore open the hole in the ship's hull.

Also, from the link:

In ethology, the study of animal behavior, causation can be considered in terms of these two mechanisms.

Proximate causation: Explanation of an animal's behavior based on trigger stimuli and internal mechanisms.

Ultimate causation: Explanation of an animal's behavior based on evolution. Requires that behavioral traits, like physical ones, are genetically heritable, and then explains behavior using an explanation of why this specific behavioral trait was favored by evolutionary mechanisms such as natural selection.

Social and gender studies don't even go as deep as taking into account psychological triggers; they are concerned with the problem only at its most superficial level, as it becomes apparent and easily graspable by anyone who feels wronged by anything. In the analogy above, it would be akin to trying to save the sinking ship by getting rid of the rising water with a bucket. It doesn't take into account the hole that's letting the water in, much less what caused it in the first place.

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[–]cryptogirl 0 points1 point2 points 16 years ago (1 child) | Copy Link

Wow, thanks for the thoughtful response.

Do you think our gender differences started in the first tribe of the Homo Sapiens Sapiens, when a bunch of men got together and decided things would be better if they could just boss women around?

No, but I'm not convinced that all social aspects of gender can be traced to biological evolution. Looking at primate social structures, our two closet relatives are actually quite different. Bonobos are described as matriarchal and hypersexual, while chimpanzees are considered more male-dominated and aggressive. As a species, I'd say humans share qualities of both.

Some gender differences seem purely cultural. Pink and blue, for example, are arbitrary. In fact, they used to be oppositely "gendered," a switch that would be difficult explain purely through biological evolution. Of course, such cultural gender differences very likely wouldn't exist without underlying biological sex differences, but these biological differences cannot not explain why each specific cultural gender difference exists as it does. These reasons are historical, social, "soft science."

I'm not opposed to evolution - I love evolution - but I think evolutionary principles are applicable to more than just biology. Are you familiar with memetics, the theory that culture evolves under the influence of selective pressures, that ideas, like genes, seek to self-replicate? Meme theory might offer a explanation for sexism independent of male malice or biological predisposition.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point2 points 16 years ago* (0 children) | Copy Link

You're right, evolution is not concerned with social minutiae, but the problems are rarely really that minute, aren't they?

The things I'm talking about are, for example, feminists saying that "rape is about power, not sex" (and passing legislation on that basis). That's purely political, ideological, and completely ignorant of the fact that it's a very common (and effective) reproductive strategy throughout the animal kingdom, seen from microscopic animals to insects to fishes that practice external fertilization to orangutans to humans. The mating process is often cruel for the male, and bypassing all that drama to guarantee both survival and reproduction was often a worthy and successful strategy, in our past, which is why the practice exists and persists.

Now, I'm not saying that rapists are all just trying to ensure reproductive success, but that rape is a tool present somewhere within our genetic toolbox for valid (although not "moral") evolutionary reasons. Just like not all murders are about ensuring survival, but the instinct to murder is in our repertoire.

Of course, there are a host of cultural beliefs that are conductive to a higher incidence of rape; just like with murder; but attributing rape itself to culture or males – and trying to fix it through that angle ("Men can stop rape" – what about females raping males and females?) – is the wrong way to go about it. You have to understand where the problem really comes from, or what it really is, in order to properly deal with it.

Meme theory might offer a explanation for sexism independent of male malice or biological predisposition.

I wouldn't doubt that. Did you see something like that somewhere? It sounds interesting.

[–]rmbarnes 5 points6 points7 points 16 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

[–]remboi[🍰] 0 points1 point2 points 16 years ago (4 children) | Copy Link

Well, that guy isn't who I'd want to represent me as an MRA.

To me, and many MRAs that I know the term feminazi is a term reserved for men-haters. They're even easy to spot. They'll refer to men, all men, as "Potential Rapists™" (including their own fathers and sons).

As far as why men often occupy positions of power let's see. Now I can only vouch for here in the US, as I've never lived in another country. But let's see:

Politicians: Women are more apt to vote then men, yet far less likely to enter politics themselves

Military/Police/Fire Fighters/EMTs: Few women join these forces.

Finance: Fewer women go to college with the sole purpose of conquring the financial industry.

Perhaps if more women went into law, political science, finance, business, criminal justice and ROTC instead of going into liberal arts and feminist studies then there would be more women in those fields.

[–]cryptogirl 1 point2 points3 points 16 years ago* (3 children) | Copy Link

[–]remboi[🍰] 0 points1 point2 points 16 years ago (2 children) | Copy Link

Oh, I'm sorry, I don't think I mentioned anything about undesirable jobs. Dangerous, yes, I did mention them. And I also implied that it was men who made the choice to join the military, police forfe, fire brigade etc.

As far as taking a job as a ditch digger or migrant farmer or the like( I assume this is what you ment by undesireable job), NOBODY really chooses those jobs. Rather they are taken by those that need food in their children's stomach more than anything else. I think it's safe for me to assume that feeding one's children takes a little more priority than who is keeping whom down.

As far as fewer men in college than women we have to remember a couple of points. One is that alot of men go to trade school instead. You don't need a BS degree from Harvard to work on cars, but you do need a training certificate. You don't need a PhD from Berkley to be an underwater welder, but you do need SCUBA and welding certifications.

Secondly, college campuses have gotten bigger over the past few decades. Most of that growth went to women students. Why? Perhaps many of them didn't want to get grease under their fingernails so they went to college instead of trade school.

[–]cryptogirl 0 points1 point2 points 16 years ago (1 child) | Copy Link

[–]remboi[🍰] 0 points1 point2 points 16 years ago* (0 children) | Copy Link

In what field? It's a fact that men are wighted slightly more at both ends of the IQ bell curve which would be why there are more 'tards that are men as well as more astro-nuclear physicists that are men.

Men have broader builds and a higher muscle to fat ratio then women, typically, so hard manual labour is also a realm naturally suited to men.

On both of those points you can blame Mother Nature.

But as far as the average Joe, or Jane, is concerned in the cubicle farm it really depends on if a field is dominated by more men or women. A higher number means a higher chance for on of the workers to be hot shit. If you ever played sports in high school you'd be familiar with the phenomenon. Schools with more students are kept in a seperate division from schools with significantly less. A football team from a school with 5000 students has a much higher chance for more apt players than a school of 500 students.

Title	One of the most important links in this subreddit: The Frontman Fallacy
Author	[deleted]
Upvotes	15
Comments	59
Date	January 11, 2010 12:09 PM UTC (16 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/ao5xu/one_of_the_most_important_links_in_this_subreddit/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/one-of-the-most-important-links-in-this-subreddit.1051242 https://theredarchive.com/post/1051242

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