By Milo has knocked it out of the park recently with two columns that are related:
In the first case, Milo argues that masculinity is a force that can be unleashed for tremendous gain, but, when stifled and contained, can explode with equally tremendous devastation. I think that’s true for both masculinity and femininity, – it’s a feature of human nature. When you try to suppress some vital aspect of our very natures, it isn’t going to end well. We have to channel our natural energies towards the good, or deal with the inevitable consequences, which tend to be really bad.
Milo’s second article explains, rather nicely, I think, that while both masculinity and femininity are powerful, and very natural inclinations, there is a measurable, quantifiable, vitally important difference between how that power is deployed and iterated: the ultimate expression of femininity is a baby, and the ultimate expression of masculinity is the Large Hadron Collider.
Both are vital, but the intelligence and ingenuity required to create one is wildly different from the intelligence and ingenuity required to create the other. Any woman with a uterus, functioning ovaries and access to sperm can create a baby. It’s a miraculous, complex process, but one that operates pretty much independently of a woman and her intentions.
I can’t think my way through the complexity of genetic fitness and consciously select the genes I wish to be used to create the new life growing inside me. I can take a few sensible actions to increase the odds of producing a healthy baby, but it’s pretty much up to embryogenesis to do the hard work.
Not so for the LHC. Human beings had to sit down and think their way through the complexities of accelerating high energy particle beams through cables without losing energy in the process. Someone had to figure out that chilling magnets to -271.3C would be the trick to make the whole thing work. Someone had to figure out that liquid helium would be useful to cool the magnets. Most of those someones were men.
I don’t have to explain this to regular readers, but since this is precisely the sort of post that brings the haters out, I will remind everyone that averages cannot be reliably extrapolated to individuals. Men, on average, are more intelligent than women, particularly at the very highest manifestations. This does not mean that every man is smarter than every woman, just because he’s a man. It means when you add up the IQs of the entire population, men as a group test higher, on average. Now, I’d like to give some credit to old-school feminists who perhaps remember a time when averages were indeed extrapolated to individuals, and women were treated as morons simply because they were women. I would absolutely want to punch someone in the face for that assumption, and I would join the bra-burners to fight that kind of prejudice. A really great example of that discrimination can be seen in the BBC series The Bletchley Circle.
Four women who worked in the WWII code-breaking center, Bletchley Park, turn their post-war attentions to tracking serial killers by breaking the ‘code’ of how they operate. When they go to the police, they get a nice little ‘aren’t you adorable’ pat on the head, and no one will listen to them because they are assumed to be bored housewives with no real skills to speak of. The real problem with the Bletchley women is not that they are women, per se, but the fact that they cannot reveal their experience and expertise! Because of the nature of the work the woman did during the war, they had to sign the Official Secrets Act (as did everyone else who worked with sensitive information) which forbid them from revealing their skillset, so the police had no way of knowing they were dealing with very experienced code-breakers. The very fact that the women did work at Bletchley Park means that the culture could and did make room for exceptionally intelligent women. When the ladies run into other people who signed the Act, and they reveal they were at Bletchley, without exception, the person to whom they are speaking does an about face, and immediately treats them with full respect.
I contend that our culture has always made room for exceptionally intelligent women, despite the fact they had to fight to be seen as intelligent and worthy. Women should not have to fight to be seen as rightfully intelligent (meaning they actually are really smart, not just think they are), and I am heartily glad that aspect of society has changed, but none of that changes the fact that great genius appears rarely in women, and more importantly, even when women are exceptionally intelligent, they still tend to embrace typically feminine interests. Remember Lauren? She tests extraordinarily high, and likes hair and make-up and wants to be a showgirl. Fair enough, Lauren, but I sincerely wonder how many men with IQs over 160 are interested in acting and dancing?
Feminists are quick to insist that any observable differences between men and women and their interests are strictly the result of socialization (when it suits them, of course. Women are socialized to avoid STEM, but naturally better caregivers than men, so the tender years doctrine awarding them custody of children is just fine and not sexist at all), but let’s pretend for a moment that feminists are correct: gender differences are the result of socialization. Socialize the genders in a different way, and you will find all differences between men and women magically disappear. Okay, let’s run with that.
Human achievement depends on the tenacity and ingenuity of men, and their willingness to shoot for the moon (or a comet). Our mastery of the human condition, an end to suffering and poverty and disease and destitution requires technology. Water doesn’t magically clean itself, food doesn’t spring forth from the Earth without coaxing (at least not in sufficient amounts to feed all of us), the oceans do not replenish, diseases do not cure themselves and our ability to communicate and connect with each other, from one side of the planet to the other, all depends on technology.
Technology is designed, built, installed, maintained, repaired and operated almost exclusively by men. Without men, we would be living in grass huts, eating mud. We must have men fascinated with machines and tools and processes, willing to take risks and solve problems. If we have socialized men to be this way, and our continued survival depends on having more people socialized to focus on technical solutions to our problems, then clearly, we are socializing girls all wrong. We’ve made an effort to socialize men to be more like women, but that’s taking us backwards, not forwards. Creating a generation of men who value feminine virtues over masculine ones, and indeed, teaching men that masculinity is not just less valuable than femininity, but toxic, leads to mass shootings, as Milo describes. It leads no where good.
What if we have this ass backwards? What if it is not men who need to be socialized differently, but women? Here is what I propose: we socialize girls to be more like men, and more like exceptionally intelligent men, in particular. Here is my modest proposal to teach girls to be more like boys:
Anyone can do hair, makeup, and dance in a production of A Chorus Line.
We want more from our girls, don’t we? We want to charge into the future, ready and equipped to tackle every problem that arises. And we want women standing alongside men, cooling magnets with liquid helium. Let’s science the shit of this!
Wait, what’s that you say? Even if we socialize each and every girl on the planet to love science and technology and mathematics, they’re all still gonna get married, have babies and refuse to leave them? Because women care more about babies than science?
Yeah, probably. But not all women. There are unicorns out there. Somewhere, there is female Einstein. If we truly loved women, loved humanity and loved intelligence, we would socialize women to be more like men. We needn’t worry about socializing men. They seem to be doing fine. The marvels of the world we live in are evidence of that. What we do need to stop doing right now is teaching men and boys that they are toxic because it is their nature to ‘conquer, crush and win.’ There is no better way to ‘celebrate and honor’ men that to encourage our children, boys and girls alike, to strive to emulate the best of what men are. Imitation, after all, is the sincerest form of flattery. Let’s all resolve to flatter that which deserves flattery:
Human intelligence.
Whether male or female.
Lots of love,
JB
Source
In the first case, Milo argues that masculinity is a force that can be unleashed for tremendous gain, but, when stifled and contained, can explode with equally tremendous devastation. I think that’s true for both masculinity and femininity, – it’s a feature of human nature. When you try to suppress some vital aspect of our very natures, it isn’t going to end well. We have to channel our natural energies towards the good, or deal with the inevitable consequences, which tend to be really bad.
Milo’s second article explains, rather nicely, I think, that while both masculinity and femininity are powerful, and very natural inclinations, there is a measurable, quantifiable, vitally important difference between how that power is deployed and iterated: the ultimate expression of femininity is a baby, and the ultimate expression of masculinity is the Large Hadron Collider.Both are vital, but the intelligence and ingenuity required to create one is wildly different from the intelligence and ingenuity required to create the other. Any woman with a uterus, functioning ovaries and access to sperm can create a baby. It’s a miraculous, complex process, but one that operates pretty much independently of a woman and her intentions.
I can’t think my way through the complexity of genetic fitness and consciously select the genes I wish to be used to create the new life growing inside me. I can take a few sensible actions to increase the odds of producing a healthy baby, but it’s pretty much up to embryogenesis to do the hard work.
Not so for the LHC. Human beings had to sit down and think their way through the complexities of accelerating high energy particle beams through cables without losing energy in the process. Someone had to figure out that chilling magnets to -271.3C would be the trick to make the whole thing work. Someone had to figure out that liquid helium would be useful to cool the magnets. Most of those someones were men.
I don’t have to explain this to regular readers, but since this is precisely the sort of post that brings the haters out, I will remind everyone that averages cannot be reliably extrapolated to individuals. Men, on average, are more intelligent than women, particularly at the very highest manifestations. This does not mean that every man is smarter than every woman, just because he’s a man. It means when you add up the IQs of the entire population, men as a group test higher, on average. Now, I’d like to give some credit to old-school feminists who perhaps remember a time when averages were indeed extrapolated to individuals, and women were treated as morons simply because they were women. I would absolutely want to punch someone in the face for that assumption, and I would join the bra-burners to fight that kind of prejudice. A really great example of that discrimination can be seen in the BBC series The Bletchley Circle.
Four women who worked in the WWII code-breaking center, Bletchley Park, turn their post-war attentions to tracking serial killers by breaking the ‘code’ of how they operate. When they go to the police, they get a nice little ‘aren’t you adorable’ pat on the head, and no one will listen to them because they are assumed to be bored housewives with no real skills to speak of. The real problem with the Bletchley women is not that they are women, per se, but the fact that they cannot reveal their experience and expertise! Because of the nature of the work the woman did during the war, they had to sign the Official Secrets Act (as did everyone else who worked with sensitive information) which forbid them from revealing their skillset, so the police had no way of knowing they were dealing with very experienced code-breakers. The very fact that the women did work at Bletchley Park means that the culture could and did make room for exceptionally intelligent women. When the ladies run into other people who signed the Act, and they reveal they were at Bletchley, without exception, the person to whom they are speaking does an about face, and immediately treats them with full respect.
I contend that our culture has always made room for exceptionally intelligent women, despite the fact they had to fight to be seen as intelligent and worthy. Women should not have to fight to be seen as rightfully intelligent (meaning they actually are really smart, not just think they are), and I am heartily glad that aspect of society has changed, but none of that changes the fact that great genius appears rarely in women, and more importantly, even when women are exceptionally intelligent, they still tend to embrace typically feminine interests. Remember Lauren? She tests extraordinarily high, and likes hair and make-up and wants to be a showgirl. Fair enough, Lauren, but I sincerely wonder how many men with IQs over 160 are interested in acting and dancing?
Feminists are quick to insist that any observable differences between men and women and their interests are strictly the result of socialization (when it suits them, of course. Women are socialized to avoid STEM, but naturally better caregivers than men, so the tender years doctrine awarding them custody of children is just fine and not sexist at all), but let’s pretend for a moment that feminists are correct: gender differences are the result of socialization. Socialize the genders in a different way, and you will find all differences between men and women magically disappear. Okay, let’s run with that.
Human achievement depends on the tenacity and ingenuity of men, and their willingness to shoot for the moon (or a comet). Our mastery of the human condition, an end to suffering and poverty and disease and destitution requires technology. Water doesn’t magically clean itself, food doesn’t spring forth from the Earth without coaxing (at least not in sufficient amounts to feed all of us), the oceans do not replenish, diseases do not cure themselves and our ability to communicate and connect with each other, from one side of the planet to the other, all depends on technology.
Technology is designed, built, installed, maintained, repaired and operated almost exclusively by men. Without men, we would be living in grass huts, eating mud. We must have men fascinated with machines and tools and processes, willing to take risks and solve problems. If we have socialized men to be this way, and our continued survival depends on having more people socialized to focus on technical solutions to our problems, then clearly, we are socializing girls all wrong. We’ve made an effort to socialize men to be more like women, but that’s taking us backwards, not forwards. Creating a generation of men who value feminine virtues over masculine ones, and indeed, teaching men that masculinity is not just less valuable than femininity, but toxic, leads to mass shootings, as Milo describes. It leads no where good.
What if we have this ass backwards? What if it is not men who need to be socialized differently, but women? Here is what I propose: we socialize girls to be more like men, and more like exceptionally intelligent men, in particular. Here is my modest proposal to teach girls to be more like boys:
- All toys for girls are banned, except Legos. You want a Barbie Dream House? Build it. You want a Hello Kitty Castle? Build it. You want a Monster High Classroom with barres for dancing and a killer sound system? Build it. You want a play kitchen with microwave and Kitchen-Aide? Build it. Girls must be socialized to value making and doing over experiencing and feeling.
- Ban all safety equipment for girls, and require all girls by the age of 10 to master skateboards, rollerblades, BMX bikes and trampolines. Bonus points to girls who can master the tailwhip with no broken bones of any kind. Girls must be socialized to evaluate risk and manage those risks on their own.
- All girls should be required to master a role-playing game that uses paper, pencils and dice, to sharpen their analytical and strategic skills.
- All girls should be required to take an additional hour of mathematics and science instruction at every level over and above what boys take to hone their quantitative skills.
- All girls must participate in a team sport to learn the values of teamwork and competition.
- All girls must participate in a martial art, to learn self-discipline and pain management.
- All girls must enroll in basic mechanics, woodworking and construction courses before they are allowed to take drama, basket-weaving and urban anthropology, to sharpen their skills in basic repair and maintenance.
- All girls are required to study logic and rhetoric and traditional game theory, to sharpen their ability to work through a problem using reason and the empirical method.
Anyone can do hair, makeup, and dance in a production of A Chorus Line.
We want more from our girls, don’t we? We want to charge into the future, ready and equipped to tackle every problem that arises. And we want women standing alongside men, cooling magnets with liquid helium. Let’s science the shit of this!
Wait, what’s that you say? Even if we socialize each and every girl on the planet to love science and technology and mathematics, they’re all still gonna get married, have babies and refuse to leave them? Because women care more about babies than science?
Yeah, probably. But not all women. There are unicorns out there. Somewhere, there is female Einstein. If we truly loved women, loved humanity and loved intelligence, we would socialize women to be more like men. We needn’t worry about socializing men. They seem to be doing fine. The marvels of the world we live in are evidence of that. What we do need to stop doing right now is teaching men and boys that they are toxic because it is their nature to ‘conquer, crush and win.’ There is no better way to ‘celebrate and honor’ men that to encourage our children, boys and girls alike, to strive to emulate the best of what men are. Imitation, after all, is the sincerest form of flattery. Let’s all resolve to flatter that which deserves flattery:
Human intelligence.
Whether male or female.
Lots of love,
JB
Source
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