Female hunters and how to claim victory over the Patriarchy

 

Apparently women can hunt. Who would have thought? Seriously, here we are, sitting in our male privilege, telling women to go to the kitchen, and boom, a news like this happens.

Damn. It is a good thing that all these popular science portals present it in an easy-to-digest way, already positioned for fitting into the narrative of identity politics so popular nowdays, posted on their facebook pages with short tags, like "sexist scientists". Or with "The idea that men always hunted and women gathered in ancient hunter-gatherer societies is a myth."

Well, of course it is a fucking myth. It is a myth you just made up, because a cursory glance at the academic papers and wikipedia will tell you that the whole issue of sexual division of labor was not viewed in this simplistic, "Patriarchic" manner by all those sexist, white male scientist people. Let's also ignore the fact that present hunter-gatherer societies (you know, what researchers used as the closest available to model how early humans lived) also very much have gender roles present (as the author of the original paper admits). Let's also ignore the fact that it is not actually a clear-cut evidence, and 'a few female hunters' does not equal to the sweeping generalizations even the study's authors are making (which is kind of telling about their findings... somehow I do not believe they can be partial when they say things like this: "Labor practices among recent hunter-gatherer societies are highly gendered, which might lead some to believe that sexist inequalities in things like pay or rank are somehow ‘natural.’ But it’s now clear that sexual division of labor was fundamentally different — likely more equitable — in our species’ deep hunter-gatherer past". This sounds like some activism mixed with science to me. I would also like to get an explanation how this "genderization" happened in all known stone-age level societies present on this globe.) To be honest, even some common sense thinking would tell you not to expect strict gender roles in a society that is balancing on the edge of survival: whomever can, will hunt. Nobody will tell a female hunter not to hunt when she brings home an elk.

But this, of course is beside the point. Let's ignore the decades-long scientific discussion. What we need is articles showing how we stick it to the Patriarchy, so people who have absolutely no fucking clue what science is can happily share it on their facebook, generate clicks, and, as a side-effect fight the gender wars which are only deepening the fissures in our societies. (Just reading those posts will melt your brain, by the way. People did find a way to inject some anti-European -anty white under a more palpatable name- sentiments there as well if the whole male-female discussion was not enough for you.)

#metoo has gone #too far

When you read about the #metoo movement in The Guardian and other papers, or hear people talking about it, you find that the speaker/author regularly confuses and conflates several different things.

1.       Sexual coercion in several areas of professional life (It started from the movie industry, but now it is concerned about all areas, rightly so.)

2.       Sexual assault and the nature of consent (and that we’re living in a rape culture)

3.       Domestic violence

4.       Patriarchy

Interestingly in any of these situations the narrative is always the “men are perpetrators, women are victims”. Neither of the loud proponents seems to be concerning themselves with victims other than women and perpetrators other than men, and they are more than happy to ignore the grey areas so that they can present a beautiful black-and-white picture that supports their crusade against the Patriarchy. A lot of people –women included- are saying that the #metoo movement transformed into a sort of “warlock-hunt”; these articles are worth reading.

Sexual coercion

Powerful individuals pushing themselves onto vulnerable people, taking advantage of them is wrong. Forcing others to perform sexual  acts to get advantages is wrong. Weinstein is a scumbag. (So are Spacey and Takei, by the way.) However. The idea that in a relationship the one holding the power is automatically the guilty party (especially if he is a man) is just plain stupid. The first lab I attempted my PhD was in a lab where the PI had a wife who acted as a lab manager. I learned later that she used to be his MSc student, and my PI divorced his fat and ugly wife to marry his blonde and thin student. In this case you may argue that my PI took advantage of his situation, but it’s not what happened. What really happened was that the lab manager took advantage of her situation, and simply seduced her supervisor. There are cases when you clearly have a scumbag abusing his power (see Weinstein), but a lot of these cases we like to forget that we all are humans with our insecurities, worries and, yes, libidos. Just because in a professional setting the guy was a superstar of peptide chemistry, does not mean he was not an insecure chubby man who could be easily manipulated by a self-assured, striking young woman. And I have not even mentioned people who abuse their sexuality to get ahead in line. Sexuality is power too, you know. In fact it is the ultimate power in this world. What I’m saying here is yes, scumbags, like Weinstein should not be allowed to do what they do best; however every case should be treated with care. (The problem here is what the problem is in most of these cases involving genders: the people setting the tone are not concerned about collateral damage, since it does not happen to the members of the group they belong to. Even if the perpetrator does happen to be a member of their group they normally get off easy in both legal proceedings and in the social media outrage-machine.)

Rape culture and sexual consent

This has some tangential connections to the issues triggering the #metoo movement, but only in a very specific way: can someone give consent if the other party is much more powerful than they are. This has, since then, spun out to be a general outcry about consent, and the whole, very unrealistic “yes means yes” attitude. Apparently women are not capable vocalizing their wishes if they don’t want something, so to protect these fragile creatures a constant verbal confirmation is needed during sexual acts. Interesting concept, but it does beg the question if these people have ever had sex before. It also means, of course, that if two drunk people bang each other, the man essentially raped the woman since she has taken something that made her incapable of consent. (This is true even if she only had a glass of wine, by the way.) The fact that the guy was drunk too, does not come into play. It’s not two adults doing things that they may regret later –it’s one adult doing things to another for which he will be criminally liable for the rest of his life. Responsibility is something only one party has to think about. (I wonder why infantilization of women is OK with these people, but whatever.)

Weinstein did give a very good opportunity for these people to push their agenda; after all we all know men are always more powerful than women, right? After all, Patriarchy.

To be honest it is not necessarily wrong to re-evaluate social norms, and create new ones; the problem is when it’s a retroactive, one-sided process. The retroactivity is pretty easy to see: people get burned for relatively minor things (like touching of knees or pretending to grab boobs for stupid photos) they did in the ‘80s. Well, guess what. Those were different times, and it’s not necessarily conductive to judge those times based on your present social norms. The one-sidedness is also quite evident; it’s enough just to talk to a bouncer or a bartender if you want to hear about inappropriate behaviour by women – behaviour they do not get pilloried for; but behaviour a man could easily find himself arrested for.

But this is not where one-sidedness ends. OK, let’s pretend women do not behave obnoxiously, or there are no double standards on behaviour. The present discussion places every single iota of responsibility on the man. There are no clear “new norms”. We still live in the past (apparently) where it was a man’s duty and job to court women; they are (and were) the proactive party most of the cases. Like it or not, this is something that has been going on for as long as sexuality existed in the animal kingdom (OK, not as long, but nearly). The males court the female, the female chooses her mate. Just because it has always been like that does mean it’s set in stone: after all, social norms can and do change. In fact, many men would prefer if women were more proactive. However. This places men into a very precarious situation presently, since there are no accepted new norms yet. Most women expect men to pursue them; most women expect men to be proactive and “manly”. It’s not the “toxic masculinity” certain feminists like to talk about; it’s simply the fact that genders do have different roles. You don’t have to abide them, but the differences are there. You smile at someone, you bring them flowers, ask them out, kiss them; we all know the drill. Right now what is being argued for is that anything that a woman does not welcome is sexual harassment or abuse. There are no clear lines, no clear definitions. She can change her mind later, too –like in the case of Aziz (and countless others). So what these people are arguing for is that women have no responsibility in changing their behaviour, only men do. But we are not giving them new rules; the rules are that if we don’t like you, we don’t like what you do, or we regret something we did later, we can absolutely and totally fuck you up. (Like Mattress Girl, and the others who destroyed the lives of men they accused of rape.) Funnily enough this can happen to a woman, too, if she poses as a man. But, as we know, women do not lie about rape or sexual harassment. Ever.

And this is not on. This is not “sexual liberation” of women; this is an absolute empowerment of women at the expense of men.

Since we discuss rape. Does rape happen? Absolutely. It’s not Mattress Girl’s figment of imagination at all. A friend of mine was raped when she was a child by their neighbour and her parents dismissed her claims. It’s absolutely outrageous and something that needs to be punished severely. But the discussion is incredibly one-sided.

It is incredibly disingenuous that rape –in the eye of the law in most countries- can only be done by men to women. It is also incredibly disingenuous that people disregard every single piece of evidence and statistics that do not confirm with the “men are rapists women are victims” narrative; and that narrative drives policies. The simplest examples are the female teachers sleeping with their students; most people just shrug, or even feel a bit of “that’s the way to do it, my son” attitude. (Myself included if I want to be honest.) However, these cases should not be treated differently from male teachers sleeping with their underage students –yet they are. Both in the public eye, and in the eye of the law.

But it does not stop here. Female on male rape does happen. In fact, a study looking at sexual violence found that females and males had carried out sexual violence at nearly equal levels by the age of 18. You can read other studies and statistics, too.  Most US studies conclude that federal surveys detect a high prevalence of sexual victimization among men—in many circumstances similar to the prevalence found among women. The factors perpetuating misperceptions about men’s sexual victimization are reliance on traditional gender stereotypes, outdated and inconsistent definitions, and methodological sampling biases that exclude inmates. And yet nothing happens; these people are not included in the list of people deserving help; they do not conform the “men are the perpetrators, women are the victim” narrative. The typical response from a feminist (and I use this word with reluctance because I guess “third wave feminist” would be more fitting), is that “Patriarchy hurts everyone”. This is bullshit, of course. “Patriarchy” used as a convenient trump card in these discussions even though it makes absolutely no sense. Patriarchy is supposed to disadvantage women so that men can exert their power over them –after all, it is in the name. If this system disadvantages both genders in different way, it is not a patriarchy. As we discussed, names are important. The real issue is here –as with all the other “Red Pill” issues- is that certain feminists think it’s a zero sum game: if we talk about men’s problems we will ignore women (or, if I’m less charitable, they hate men). So it’s a struggle from here on between sexes for them; a struggle they are actually winning.

It does not have to be like that. As a feminist scholar said about male victims: “Compassion is not a finite resource.”

Domestic violence also comes up a lot when it comesto #metoo. This, just like rape and sexual assault, is a very grey area- not as black-and-white as they would like it to be seen. In fact, people who dare to claim it is a reciprocal thing, tend to get death threats. And lose the right to enter the shelter they themselves founded. Figure that.

Let’s see the statistics again. There are also studies on the matter; freely available for everyone. Yet nobody bothers; or even worse, they ridicule the victim.  It seems like men are also quite often victims of domestic violence; yet they are never on the agenda when it comes to help. The fact is, a man who is a victim of domestic violence, has nowhere to go. (Or rather, he can go to prison if he calls the cops.) This is not to say that all things are equal; it is very true that a lot more women die or get seriously injured as a result of domestic violence. What I am doing here is pointing at the discrepancies of narratives and realities. The usual “men –bad, women- good” narratives are just not true; and a lot of victims go without support because of that. What is worse, even the victims these movements love to pretend they want to protect go unprotected, since all policies aimed at protecting women in domestic violence are built on a false narrative, and not on the actual evidence. They will make you feel great about yourself, but they do jackall to actually protecting women.

The whole issue has been hijacked by a very radical form of feminism worldwide; even mentioning the discrepancies in sentencing, the homelessness rates, the suicide rates, education, and so on evokes a mixture of hatred and ridicule. There are no sane voices in this debate; and this is what the #metoo movement morphed into –another weaponized outrage-factory in this gender war where everything is about the evils of Patriarchy, and not correcting the problems in our society we both built. (Or if I want to be cheeky, men built.)

Let's do some mansplaining about manspreading

This really annoys the crap out of me. The Guardian and other "newspapers" keep picking up how women suffer of manspreading. As if this was a thing. Well, they did make it out to be; it is in now the public consciousness. It is not, however, on the Tube. At least in my four years of commuting I've experienced it exactly once. (As a man, I have to say I was a bit taken aback; I thought it was supposed to happen to oppress women, but what do I know?) In fact it was not even manspreading: a dude was playing tug-of-war with me, and tried to push his arm over to my side of the seat. I do not mean the handrest; he had that already; he tried to push his elbow into my side. I pushed back for a while, moving his hand back and did something that immediately took care of the situation -more on that later. (Perhaps the title should be in the recent style of idiotic internet articles: "A guy pushed his elbow over the handhold in the Tube - you would not believe what happened after". "Tube commuters hate this single mom for this ONE simple trick.")

I did see a lot of people taking up a lot of space with their backpack on; women crossing their legs and sticking their shoes out to the space between the seats (I guess free shoe polish as you try to negotiate the walkway, right?), and people being dicks in general to each other for no particular reason. I was even thanked once by a lady when I took off my backpack before entering the train... thanked for not being a dick. So I have seen enough assholery, but it was not gender specific. It was just people being assholes.

Anyhow. Manspreading. It does not exist. It is used to ridicule and shame one half of the population, but it is a non-existing problem. Don't even try to argue that it only tarnishes the inconsiderate assholes who manspread; you have the word "man" in the expression, for Pete's sake! Same goes with the term mansplaining... there assholes who mansplain usually do it to people regardless of gender; and there are assholes who mansplain and have a vagina. (Interestingly the above linked study shows exactly that: men "mansplain" to each other just as much as to women -which is the exact definition of equal treatment.) It's a term about assholes who think they know everything best, regardless of what dangles between their legs. If you think that it does not tarnish all men, try to use the term "Jewccupation" for the Occupied Territories, and see how people will take your explanation that you only mean the State of Israel and the settlers, but not the entirety of the Jewish people. (By the way, I have dibs on that term; I just came up with it.) The reason certain women attribute a gender aspect is to "mansplaining"or "manspreading" is that they can't imagine this could happen to them for any other reason than their gender.* Which says a lot about them, to be honest. It's also really interesting to watch that on one hand this feminist movement wants to "ungender" language (spokeperson, using "they" instead of he/she), but on the other it keeps pumping out divisive, gendered words.

This is an excellent tactics if you are in identity politics; by stating manspreading is a fact as a fact, you establish it as one. From then on people start arguing about why it is justified or not justified, instead of asking you to justify your original assertion to begin with. So you will see furious arguments on the Guardian's comment section between men and women about how your balls need or does not need more space, instead of stopping to ask if it is a problem at all? (To pitch in: my balls are regular sized as far as I can determine; I never had issues sitting with my legs closed.)

So. What did I do in my only instance of a guy (or a gal) overspreading his/her (or their?) boundaries, you ask? Did I write a furious opinion piece in The Guardian about the Patriarchy, the Gender Pay Gap, and The Oppression of Women by All Men? Did I launch an anti-elbow campaign? #killallwhiteelbows?

No.

I told him to move his hand back.

He got red as a beetroot, and moved his fucking hand back. Case closed.

So the moral of the story: if you have someone manspreading next to you (by which I mean sticking his/her backpack into your face, not letting you exit, not moving inside the carriage to let you on), you can do two things: either you generate a fake social movement for gender equality, shaming and ridiculing one half of the human race, or, you know, you can fucking ask them to move. I wonder which is the most constructive solution.

*Are there genuinely sexist men who think women are stupid? Undoubtedly. But how many? And how many women harbour similar thoughts about men? Have you had a woman explain to you how to do the freaking washup or change nappies?