Fiona wrote:@ Fable. You have dealt with question of whether it is instinct to protect women and you seem to believe that is important.
Only as part of the larger nurture vs nature question, which is important because there's so much misinformation out there, to do pop culture and pseudo-scientific bestsellers. (Oh, we've had such long, beautiful threads about this!
) I tend to think in general that fact is more important than fiction as a basis for living--so to that extent, yes, I try to research and kill urban legends wherever they spring up. I think it started back in junior high school, when my teachers tried to force official US textbook history down our throats, despite what I could easily see and prove were major inaccuracies. I started bucking tall tales then, and I've never stopped.
To that extent, your comment that the so-called "instinct to protect women" is mattter of belief ("Some believe it exists and is a result of "conditioning") is wrong. It is not a matter of belief. It has been thoroughly researched, and there are numerous cultures where this so-called "instinct" simply doesn't exist, because it is trained behavior passed on from generation to generation.
I agree that there are chemical and other changes in pregnancy and after giving birth which can be said to make the protection of children instinctive in women. They do not last very long, so far as I am aware. How then can the protective response in women differ from that of men (in relation to their children) when the child is say 5 or 8 years old? It is my contention that it does not. I will go further. We are social animals and relying on physical changes to the individual to demonstrate the existence of something important in behavioural terms in humans is deeply problematic. Our social conditioning can be harder to alter in fact. For example there is not doubt that short sightedness is physical. It is solved by glasses for all functional purposes and is not important at all. On the other hand the conditioning which teaches us to use a toilet is vitally important and most of us would find it much harder to crap in the middle of the shopping centre than to wear glasses. (I am aware this is not the best illustration but it is the best I can do at present and I hope it gets part of my point across). In reality the emphasis on the physical and now genetic elements is merely an artifact of what is easier to measure and control. Most things are not science and that will not change any time soon.
I agree with all the above, except taking a crap in the middle of a shopping center (which presumably you could do in IKEA), and your final sentence, since social interaction is a field of relevant scientific study under cultural anthropology. That said, I'm not the person to argue that science is everything--that's CE. I only brought it up briefly because the argument was presented (if I understood it correctly) that the protectiveness of males towards females in some cultures was instinctual, a case of nature. For the rest, you are mounting several regiments of cavalry, infantry and cannon against the wrong target, since I'm already with you.
More generally. I cannot accept that all forms of violence are the same. A random attack on anyone will trigger some kind of survival response ( and that will vary with the individual) and in Magrus scenario gender is a redundant concept
But Magrus' focus wasn't on gender. It was on
how the individual reacts towards the issue of gender in that situation, arguably a very different matter. So the exact kind of violence, the cause of it, the locale, etc, was irrelevant. Worse, any of those issues could have clouded the question by interposing additional values. I'm sure others can come up with far better examples, but I might suggest that if Magrus had said you were being attacked with a bowie knife by an expert in its use, the focus of response could easily have switched at least in part to the weapon itself, and/or levels of expertise. As I said, it's probably not a very good example, but hopefully it will make my point that the question needed to be phrased starkly and simply in a way containing as few a number of variables as possible.
Outside Magrus' question, I of course agree with you. All kinds of violence are definitely not the same, and there are a huge number of variables surrounding any given situation.
We are left with the real world situation of opposite gender violence. That is a social situation in every case and it is not walking around the question to say so: it is the question, IMO
Here, we must disagree. Magrus wasn't interested in opposite gender violence. He was interested in the subjective reaction of the individual to violence committed by someone of the opposite gender. Two very different things. I'm perfectly willing to discuss the other in a different thread, if you want to create one like that.
