John said to Mary:
You hit upon a very interesting topic there. Royce once answered the question
in a letter, why in his experience there were so few female philosophers. He
said the problem was not intellectual - women are just as smart as men, but
moral. The female of the species is almost always reluctant to strike out on
their own, to challenge authority and reject the social norm. Probably even
truer in the 19th century than now, but I see vestiges of that attitude still.
dmb says:
There are obvious biological distinctions, I don't put much stock in gender
differences assigned by the culture. In response to that book, "Men are from
Mars and Women are from Venus", I like to say, "Men are from Earth and Women
are from Earth, so get over yourself". I think it's better think think of
culture as having both masculine and feminine values but that it is the task of
each individual, regardless of what equipment you have between your thighs, to
find a balanced set of values and apply them as the situation demands. When you
look at the culture as a whole, the relative status of men and women is a
reflection of the culture's ability to find a balance between masculine and
feminine values. When you look at it like that, we can view the fact that women
couldn't even vote in the 19th century but now they run for President, sit on
the Supreme Court, have become Senators and Representatives and yes there are
female philosophers. I've never seen anybody so much as bat a
n eye at that.
On the other hand, if what they say is true, that men and women generally
employ two completely different kinds of communication styles for completely
different reasons, then that would explain why philosophy is still so dominated
by men. They say that the masculine style is focused on the content, on the
precise meaning being exchanged in communicative act. The feminine style is to
focus on the tone and the affective significance. I believe this difference is
explained in terms of the evolutionary pressure put on the hunter's need to get
a clear picture of what he's up against and on the gatherer's need to maintain
social cohesion. In practical terms, this means that most men just want the
info right now, whereas women aren't necessarily interested in the exchange of
knowledge when they talk so much as they just want to make a connection, they
talk just to be with somebody. It's only a generalization and it's really about
the various styles of people rather than men and wome
n per se, but with all those qualifications, I think it's true. I think we see
various mixtures of those different styles around here.
John's recent complaints about me, for example, could be explained by a clash
of the two styles. Where he sees mere antagonism, I see a substantial
disagreement on issues of real concern. It's not that the mode of expression is
irrelevant to me but it is, admittedly, far less important than the actual
issue. On top of that, there is the fact that we've never actually met and
we're communicating in public cyberspace through a keyboard. That's not exactly
conducive to an intimate, heart to heart. One can only guess at the tone of
voice. There is no body language, no facial expression, no chance to catch the
other guy's unpremeditated, natural response. Sometimes we can't even tell
sarcasm from sincerity. In a forum like this, it just doesn't work to focus on
style instead of the content. This doesn't mean we can't talk about anything
personal, in which case the content itself is the intimate thing. But actual
disagreements and hostile tones are not at all the same thing, even i
f they often go hand in hand. That's why there can be such a thing as friendly
disagreements and why we can sometimes agree with our enemies.
Sure, we tend to like the people who agree with us but that's just the ego's
satisfaction, not the intellect's. Given that this is supposed to be a place to
discuss metaphysics, to debate philosophical issues, all this other stuff seems
like a distraction. To be honest, I don't really care if that makes me seem
unfriendly. The only that matters to me here, is WHAT you say, not how you say
it or what a nice guy you are. For all I know, you could be posting from a
psych hospital, a prison or a circus.
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