Heresy: Men and Women Are Different

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Andrew Sullivan writes:

Is the fact that the vast majority of construction workers are male and the huge majority of nurses are female a function of sexism or nature? Is male sexual aggression and horniness a function of patriarchy or testosterone? …

My suspicion is that it’s more about nature than about society, and one reason I believe this (apart from all the data) is I because I’m gay. I live in a sexual and romantic world without women, where no patriarchy could definitionally exist, a subculture with hookups and relationships and marriages and every conceivable form of sexual desire that straight men and women experience as well. And you know what you find? That men behave no differently in sexual matters when there are no women involved at all. In fact, remove women, and you see male sexuality unleashed more fully, as men would naturally express it, if they could get away with it.

And this:

15 Comments for “Heresy: Men and Women Are Different”

  1. posted by Tom Scharbach on

    A false dichotomy.

    Men and women are quite different, but that doesn’t mean that men are biologically or psychologically incapable of behaving themselves sexually in the workplace, or shouldn’t be held accountable when they don’t behave themselves.

    • posted by Doug on

      One of the distinguishing differences between humans and other animals is the ability to think and reason. Doesn’t seem like Sullivan accounted for that. Males and females may have different ‘urges’ but both sexes also have fully functioning brains.

    • posted by Tom Scharbach on

      Sullivan’s selling a crock of shit, as far as I am concerned.

      He’d have been beaten to a bloody pulp if he acted out his “urges” on straight boys in high school, and he’d last about five minutes if he started grabbing straight men in the workplace. And that’s a fact.

      Decent men behave themselves in the workplace. Sullivan’s argument that men can’t is nonsense.

    • posted by David Bauer on

      Wow. Andrew gonna try to be all relevant again, eh?

      Seriously, sexism does not exist in the gay male community? I could go on, but the article was a lot of BS.

      • posted by Matthew on

        Homophobic women are privileged in ways gay men are not. Homophobia is sexism because gay male bashing is misandry, as is denying the reality that misandry exists.

  2. posted by Jorge on

    The conclusion I take from Mr. Sullivan’s epiphany is that science and culture defeat nature. Therefore, nature *is* a social construct.

    Science: You can physically change the composition of male hormones in someone’s body.

    Culture: Through social norms you can change when and how the body produces male hormones.

    Once when my mother had a crisis and had to go to the hospital, my father became cold and distant toward his fellow woman. His “rush of energy, strength, clarity, ambition, drive, impatience” led him to give top priority to making sure she got here. Once he knew she was safe, he became more social and concerned for her well-being… after about 10 minutes of standing around saying nothing. A man can choose to accept and act upon context and social cues, deliberately regulating their male hormone levels.

    I do think it’s true that only men have a good track record of actually teaching men how to be good people. Men tend to teach men how to regulate themselves (means). Mr. Sullivan’s “left-feminism” is a little more concerned with the behavior (ends). Look, you can’t teach a kid how to control his internal patriarchy. I certainly agree with Sullivan’s concerns.

    But there is a legitimate moral choice that can be made here.

    • posted by Tom Scharbach on

      I do think it’s true that only men have a good track record of actually teaching men how to be good people.

      Well, there goes numerous millennia of maternal efforts to turn little male savages into civilized men right down the drain. Not that the effort ever worked all that well, but it is good to hear a full-grown man come right out and say it instead of all the Mother’s Day twaddle.

      • posted by Jorge on

        Well, there goes numerous millennia of maternal efforts to turn little male savages into civilized men right down the drain. Not that the effort ever worked all that well, but it is good to hear a full-grown man come right out and say it instead of all the Mother’s Day twaddle.

        I’m going to pretend I don’t agree with you.

        To be fair, most studies show no difference between gay and straight two-parent families in measures of child-rearing success.

        • posted by Matthew on

          As I always say to anyone who trots out Adam and Eve to defend heterosexual supremacy: “Adam and Eve created Cain and Abel, and look how they turned out!”

  3. posted by JohnInCA on

    Yeah, I couldn’t finish that drivel.

    Yes, men can be pigs. But they don’t have to be. Excusing piggish behavior with “because he’s a man” is lazy and immoral.

    • posted by Matthew on

      Sounds like an argument an HIV-positive barebacker would make.

  4. posted by MR Bill on

    A good piece by an actual feminist: “It’s always fun when someone like Sullivan decides to be the expert on what various schools of feminists believe, what they may or may not have been exposed to, what is clearly biological and what is not biological in human beings, and so on.

    Gender essentialist conclusions have been part and parcel of the history of sex differences from the day that research field was created. The conclusions have always come first, then whatever evidence exists at that time has been picked to support them. Once it was the smaller brain of women, then it was the XY chromosome, then it was assumed sex differences in the use of brain halves, then testosterone, and on and on.

    But even today’s research findings are more complicated than the way Sullivan chooses to interpret them. Genes and the environment interact, epigenetics may play a role, and, in any case, any measurements we do on individuals after birth are already affected by both their genetics and their life experiences.” https://igfculturewatch.com/2018/01/19/heresy-men-women-different

    • posted by Matthew on

      This. I have shoulder-length hair that is still longer than that of some of the women in my family; in Sullivan’s eyes, does that make me any less of a man, or my female family members any less of women?

      That jenn-durr essentialist crap is just that: crap. All the arguments to defend it are circular at best and outright sexist and homophobic at worse.

  5. posted by MR Bill on

    well crap, got the wrong link: let’s try that again: http://echidneofthesnakes.blogspot.com/2018/01/andrew-sullivan-on-what-woman-is.html

    • posted by Jorge on

      “OPINIONS OF ECHIDNE OF THE SNAKES,
      A MINOR GREEK GODDESS.”

      Not since the days of computer magazine reviews have feminine wiles been so venomous.

      “Just in case you are still unsure about how Hillary Clinton and left-feminists dis men, Andrew teaches us by doing a reversal on that. By dissing women, that is
      …
      So what a woman is consists of lack of energy, weakness, lack of clarity, lack of ambition, lack of drive, patience and, above all, lack of horniness. I hope there’s no lack of clarity about all that now.”

      What an idiot!

      The author is a fine example of female insecurity. “Do I look fat?” “You look great!” “You just called me fat!”

      “This means, my friends, that women are exactly the same as male people suffering from being HIV-positive and thus having their testosterone levels lowered.”

      Sorry, but if this is an actual feminist, then I’m a Milo Yiannapoulos disciple.

      My God! I think I just stumbled on why feminism so often devolves into a crock of s***. Women take the stupid insecure habit of twisting men’s words around, and take it into politics.

      I will stop it, right at the source.

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