MALE DISPOSABILITY – What is male disposability? And what keeps it going?

(oops, that’s “MALE disposability in war.”)

Are there any cultures where there is no male disposability at all?

I`m not so sure there is no biological basis for male disposability and I think some of it will remain even if you remove the driving forces that have amplified it previously and you maximize the the potential for gender equality given the biological gender differences I think are there to some degree. I think the tendency for that which is not neotenous to protect that which is neotenous has a fairly strong genetic basis. I do however think it can cross gender in a way it has not done before based on how I have shifted my own perceptions lately.

Over time I have reduced certain tendencies in myself towards male disposability which I think have been taught to me culturally. For example the willingness to go to extreme risks just to protect a woman/ save a woman regardless of circumstance, be the hero in the fairy tale/movie really. Or to see a man as having to take physical and verbal beatings just because of being a man and a related overprotectiveness of women. However, once I have stripped away a lot of that I still maintain some of the same patterns in a far less extreme form that varies a lot with with the degree of neoteny and femininity in the woman/man in question. I have also found shifts in this lately as my testosterone levels have increased. I have lift weights for a long time rather inconsistently and have experienced clear testosterone surges after a session and progressive increases over time when I have been consistent but lately I have been training much more frequently and entirely consistently. This has lead to very noticeable and large increases in testosterone for the last weeks. As I have noticed these shifts I have noticed clear differences in how I relate to emotions, emotional disturbances, hostility from others, risk and the desire for women and especially the desire for feminine women and most importantly the desire to protect that which seems feminine and vulnerable/neotenous. This is an amplification of how I felt before.

What I have observed is that I look at women and I see if they seem like the very open vulnerable type that take in the feedback they receive from other people where strongly and directly, if they feel very strongly and seem to be captured and swayed very strongly by what they feel. If I observe that to be very strong in a woman I feel a strong desire to shield her from that in various ways. So, I would talk less harshly towards her if I was angry at her because I would be afraid it would pain her more, scare her, even make her cry if I was really harsh. In short I am gentler with her. If I perceive her as more stoic/masculine/more hard, I don`t have the same tendency. If she is blunt like a man, talks aggressively and does not display the same emotional range and depth of taking in bad feelings I don`t feel as much need of being gentle and will be “harder” with her in every way. That means everything from displaying stronger anger if I am angry at her, speaking more bluntly about everything we are discussing and there is a presumption in me that she is more able to “take care of her self”/less need for protection in all senses. I don`t dislike such women but enjoy the more guy like way of interacting and basically treat her more like one of the guys as opposed to more obvious feminine women which I treat a lot more in the way men conventionally have treated women. I also find that this all flows nicely. The “harder” women enjoy me being more direct, more blunt and me not interfering with their independence sort of while the more feminine women on the other hand seem to light up more when I am gentle with them and with displays of chivalry and seem more drawn to hints of protectiveness. Previously I had the same tendencies to adapt to the woman at hand but I was less flexible and treated them more based on belonging to the box woman and man with less emphasis on adapting to the personality at hand.

With men its been a bit different. I´ve noticed that the rougher he seems the less need I feel to be careful of his feelings and this also seem to work. With more feminine/emotional men I`ve had to tendencies. One is a certain inclination towards pushing them a little to make them man up a bit if they seem too soft. The other is a desire to let them be what they are an shield them a bit in the same way I shield more feminine women. I´ve noticed the tendency to want to push them a bit to toughen up a bit comes from a thought that says “man you NEED to toughen up a bit in order for you to handle what you need to handle”. In this case since I don`t perceive men to need to go to war or be physically tough or assert themselves very much amongst other men in the very rich non violent gentle society I live in where success can be obtained by other means I notice that might inclination to make them toughen up a bit comes solely from my perception comes from wether I perceive them as being able to attract and handle women or not. If I perceive that the way he is emotionally reactive/soft is to a degree AND in a way that I feel certain will be a turn off for women and make relationships hard for him THAT is what makes me want to toughen him up a bit. If I perceive him as feminine and visibly emotional but in a way that still contains an element of sufficient strength/game/frame control then I don`t have the same reaction. My baseline reaction is to leave them as they are and apreacate them as they are for their way of being which I can enjoy a lot just as men that are more masculine but in a different way. I notice in the same manner that I am more gentle with more sensitive women I am somewhat more gentle with more sensitive men but not anywhere near to the same degree as I simple perceive them as not needing or desiring it to the same degree.

Now if war or some sort of group fighting was involved my natural instinct would be to get involved if I felt it was important for the group/the right thing to do. I feel a strong pull towards that and enjoy martial arts a lot. Who would I want at my side? Just like in the Jack Donovan quotes in the article I linked I would want people who had or where able to handle the classical masculine virtuous he mentions. I want people that I think can handle it and have my back. I perceive quite a lot of men as having that already and I see a lot of potential for developing it most men if it was required yet there are some men I perceive as having so little potential for it that I would not want them at my side. If I take away the idea that men all need to man up and take care of war I feel naturally inclined not to push them. There are only a small handful of women I would want at my side and very few I feel have the raw material to develop the right virtuous. And while war is horrible for most men there is certainly a part of many men that can simulatiously enjoy it on a certain level if they feel it as a fair fight and to at least handle it. I think I could. I see far less of that in most women yet I see it in some. I think it simply has to do with genetic masculinity and how enhanced that has been. A very feminine woman would feel overwhelmed and have very little “warrior energy” to mobilize in order to plow through, keep things at a mental distance sort of and enjoy the battle from a certain perspective despite the horrors of it. My instinct would be to spare those who would suffer the most and that includes most women and a few men.

So, in short what I think will happen based on how my perception shifts is that what is achievable and also probably to a certain degree fair is for things to organize more according to degree of masculinity/hardness. I think instinctually that will lead to people being treated more like they feel like being treated and need to be treated. That leaves some male disposability. Especially with regards to war but it is not strictly about males anymore but about masculinity. When it comes to war I see that just because some are more mentally resilient for the task does not make sacrificing their lives fair, the key part is death or not. However, I think there would be a strong inclination for people to want to self organize like that. There would both be an inclination for those who can handle it best to want to spare those who can not and a desire to not have to be burdened by fighting next to people that can not handle it.

The one thing I am most uncertain of is how the least masculine men will fare in the dating market. There is some degree of reverse polarity between masculine women and feminine men. They seem to be socially drawn to each other as they fit well together in a certain way socially and I think they have genetic attraction towards each other because they have opposite immune systems and compatible genes in general but but they still tend to struggle with sexual attraction since the women perceive themselves as dominating the men and loose respect. I`m not sure that can be changed.

” evil men forcing men into feebleness,” forcing women, sorry, typo

“probably not a hero…”

Effectiveness is the standard he’s judged by, and that’s why he was replaced – he let his subordinates and their banter make him ineffective with a public who couldn’t ever understand any of it. The perils of military service in a democracy – far better than the alternatives.

TDOM,

” A woman is more valuable and less disposable than a man because she can reproduce only about once a year while a man can reproduce daily (or even more). Therefore it takes more women to sustain a society than it does men. However, male/female birthrates are almost 1 to 1 meaning that there is an almost equal amount of each and therefore men become expendable because a single man can impregnate multiple women but a woman can only be impregnated by a single man (in any given year).”

You are missing a crucila piece of this.

You point out that individual women are more valuable than individiaul men. Leaving aside the fact that successful reporduction takes a lot more than getting a rare egg fertilized, and almost all of that requires a designated male to make it happen, the part you are missing is that this is not a one-to-one comparison. This is not a state of peace where there is one woman for every man, or where the population of men is stable.

This is the normal state of afairs, where the relative gender composition, men to women, of society is not determined by the birthrate of boys but by the deathrate of men, and there is no certainty that all of the boys who do survive will actually marry and reproduce. Whether a man repordcues depends on his group membership, and weak groups will reporduce les than strong ones regardless of their actual numbers, as the strong crowd the weak away from resources.

Your objection rests on the presumption of a stable, basically egalitarian society. that kind of society is a fragile construct that we have attained only after centuries of concerted effort, long may it suvive.

Welcome, Rebecca.

“Pregnancy and childbirth is an intrinsically risky activity for human females – it’s still the leading cause of death for young adult women in less developed parts of the world”

And even here it can be risky. I hope my reference to that didn’t come across as a handwave because I didn’t mean it to be. What I was referring to amounted to a form of female disposability (Yes, female diposability is a thing.) and society just had to accomodate it.

“Perhaps male disposability is is an adaptation – cultural or biological – that helps keep the male/female ratio somewhat in balance during childbearing years.”

It has that effect; in fact it overshoots that objective often.

I wish I could have been more timely in this reply but I have been very busy during the week.and haven’t had time.

@Ginkgo

In my example I contrast the egalatarian society with a male-disposable society to illustrate that fewer men than women are necessary for a society to recover its lost population after a catastrophy (war in this example). Because of this, men are more expendable than women. The theory does not depend upon a stable society. Your example of the stronger man crowding the weaker away from scarce resources (thereby preventing the weaker from reproducing) is merely another method of illustrating this point. A higher percentage of women than men will reproduce either because the weaker (lower class) men won’t be chosen or because many men will be sent to die before they can. Rebecca hits on a good point, however. Many women will die in childbirth and as a result won’t reproduce. This is somewhat of a counter-balance that keeps the relative populations of men and women equal.

A while back I was in a discussion (I think it was on this site) about the biological basis for sex roles. It is primarily about the differences between male and female capacity for rerproduction. The female sex role developed around her value to society (reproduction). The male role developed around his value to society (production). Due to the influence of the industrial revolution (technology) these relative values have changed for modern society. Overpopulation combines with reduced risk of death from childbirth to devalue the female sex role (giving rise to feminism and greater egalatarianism). This has also devalued the individual male (making him even less necessary than before) because the individual woman now has the ability to support herself. However, due to the increased dependency of women (as a group) on governmental support, the male remains necessary (as a group) to provide the governmental support (taxes). The shift to collectivism has devalued the individual of both sexes, but maintained the relative higher value of the female over the male collectively. this is why in the distribution of governmental resources those that are distributed to men tend to lead to their distruction (military) and those that are distributed to women lead to their benefit (welfare). Because the individual has little value (in today’s society), society can be more egalatarian (individually), but collectively it must maintain male disposability.

@HEP

The imaginary society was merely an illustration of the argument, not the basis for it. I like to keep my iluustrations simple so it seemed like making up an example would best do that. Accou nting for too many complicating factors would just get confusing (and lengthy).

I think it was Patton who said the goal of war was not to die for one’s cause, but rather to make the other guy die for his.

So I like H.E.P.’s account better. Society needs men to inflict violence on its behalf, and inflicting violence makes one the object of violence. Men must thus be somewhat disposable in order to play that role. Women aren’t very good at inflicting violence, since their physiology has to direct so many resources towards reproduction. And since reproduction is also very important for society, it’s been better historically to have them concentrate on what their bodies are good at.

Women are less disposable because they’re generally not that good at the activities that require disposability of that (violent) sort anyway. They’re much better at making babies, which, as has been pointed out, has historically been quite dangerous as well. Nobody ever shielded women from the dangers of childbirth by telling them not to have babies. In that role women were always as disposable as men were in theirs.

Notice that modern medicine has concentrated on making childbirth safe to the near-exclusion of men’s health issues, but modern warfare is also geared toward reducing the risk to soldiers. The emphasis on drones, smart bombs and whatnot shows that we would really rather that our men not die while killing the enemy. The difference is that medical science helps pretty much everybody (everybody who can afford it, that is), but only a very tiny fraction of the population is in the military, so money spent there helps most people only indirectly, whether by intimidating potential enemies or through secondary uses for military technology.

dungone,

Numerous cultures have developed numerous strategies to prevent women from getting pregnant by undesirable men.

Undesirable men, yes. They weren’t prevented from having babies at all, though, in the way they were prevented from going to war. Society wanted them to get married (and stay married) and have babies, otherwise it wouldn’t have put so much effort into making sure the men would be good husbands. All the things you mention seem to be set up to protect women from unworthy men rather than from the dangers of childbirth.

Even the European Marriage Pattern (which I’d never heard of before; not my area of expertise) seems more a tendency to delay marriage and parenthood until circumstances (finances) were right rather than a clear “don’t have children, women; you could die” message. The concern seems to have been more to avoid poverty than childbirth.

Although I wonder if the cultural divide had anything to do with the East-West Schism in Christianity. I’ve just been reading a book about the Christian view of sex, and whereas the Western (Catholic) Church looked on sex as something vaguely shameful even within marriage, the Eastern (Orthodox) Church saw it as a very good thing, within marriage of course. Orthodox priests even today may be married and have children, although they have to be married already when they’re ordained. A priest may not (re)marry. So I’d expect Orthodox Christians to feel better about having sex with their spouses and thus probably have more, and accordingly have more babies. I only mention it because it’s on my mind and the Hajnal line coincides approximately with the Great Schism. I expect there’s much more to it than this.

Theodmann,
“Although I wonder if the cultural divide had anything to do with the East-West Schism in Christianity. I’ve just been reading a book about the Christian view of sex, and whereas the Western (Catholic) Church looked on sex as something vaguely shameful even within marriage, the Eastern (Orthodox) Church saw it as a very good thing, within marriage of course. ”

This is an interesting observation. Western Christianity is far more Augustinian, for more build around the doctrine of original sin, and far more likely to view sex as the expression of original sin. Augustine was an out-of-control Scorpio for the first part of his life, and while they say Scorpio rules the genitals, the reverse is much more often the case, and when Scorpio decides to turn the tables on his genitals, he does it with the usual Scorpio totalizing obsessiveness. So there’s that. This is about personality types, BTW, not astrology.

Theodmann, it’s an incredible stretch to compare conscription of single men, plus all other forms of male disposability, versus the encouragement of women to wait for and attain a sustainable marriage before having babies. Let’s not confuse rich versus poor, either. Rich women were pressured to have children to ensure lineages, that’s true. But poor women weren’t. Poor women had more children per woman than even the rich, though, because child mortality was very high among the poor. If you’re looking for a cultural reason why poor women died at childbirth, I don’t think it’s there. If you’re looking for a cultural reason why poor men were disposable, that certainly was there to some extent.

Now, if we’re talking about the state monopoly on the use of force, that is something that actually saved men’s lives versus the alternative. Medicine, also, was developed to save lives on the battlefield. Hippocrates himself said, “war is the only proper school for surgeons.” And that hasn’t changed since. Technology, as well, was advanced to save men’s lives on and off the battlefield. I’ve always said that technology is to men what charity is to women. All in all, the underlying trend of civilization is that men become less disposable as societies grow richer, and this in turn helps societies grow richer still. I would argue that male disposability, then, is actually not in our evolutionary best interest as humans.

The irony of it is, though, that even though men have become increasingly less disposable over the centuries, our cultural values have actually gone against the grain, holding men in very low esteem and young single men in even lower esteem.

Re: Hanjal Line. Yes, it coincided with religious divides. But it also coincided with economic divides. In the east you had a lot of serfs who couldn’t own land and weren’t permitted to travel, in the west you had people who were allowed to resettle and had a chance to own their own home if they saved money for it.

@Gingko, are you sure that’s the right email? I took out the ( and I think it emailed the wrong guy.