“But beyond all this, women are just better than men, and I think we all know it.” This offended me, and I fumed to myself internally
What I would have thought instead of getting offended is that it is a tautology issue. If you take the preferences of men into account, by those values men are clearly not worse at doing whatever men like. The professor was probably working from the assumption that everybody agrees with an already feminine value system, and from that angle men are rather obviously worse at implementing those values.
A feminine value system would include: risk aversion, huge aversion for violence and aggressivity, aversion to exclusionary attitudes, aversion to competition, aversion to hierarchy, aversion to rules, and aversion to treating an argument as something to win. Of course men are worse at it, because men don’t exactly like things this way. Men like to lock horns, and what a surprise, men are good at locking horns. Once you can at least provisionally put into your value system “locking horns can be good, because it is fun”, the problem disappears.
The problem is rather that the viewpoint of intellectuals since the Enlightenment tends to be automatically feminine. For example, Immanuel Kant did not see wars as a dangerous game to gain glory in it. This attitude would be simply filed under being stupid. So he saw it as something to abolish. 200 years later, men still enjoy at least simulated war, like Aragorn chopping up orcs on the TV screen.
Of course, a good argument could be raised that the masculine value system is not exactly consistent. Pretty much nobody wants actual war just to scratch an itch for adventure, we just like the highly abstract simulated idea of war and glory, where Aragorn does not half his face chopped off and does not kill himself five years after suffering from PTSD. So the good parts only, so to speak.
Otoh the Enlightenment / feminine value system is inconsistent too, because it is highly boring. Lacking any form of excitement and fun that comes from conflict, rules or dominance hierarchies, the main sources of fun would be sex and artistic expression. That gets old after a while.
A bit more formal way to define it would be a different approach to utility calculation. A feminine utility system runs on the “first do no harm” principle. Avoid harm, avoid offense, even if you don’t do much good, at least do no harm. Minimize negative utilons, and cautiously try to add positive ones as far as you can. The root value is “harm is bad”.. A masculine value system runs more like on a “maximize output, and keep it mainly positive” rule. Blast it from both barrels, generate a lot of utilons, try to keep them mainly positive, but doing some harm is all right. The root value is “don’t be boring, also try not being evil, but don’t always fret much about harm—it can make people stronger”.
If you look at it this way, this really predicts the gender difference. Women are very good at not doing harm which sometimes results in not doing much at all. Men are very good at doing a lot of things and really shaking up a sleepy world, but some of those things will end up being harmful.
What I would have thought instead of getting offended is that it is a tautology issue. If you take the preferences of men into account, by those values men are clearly not worse at doing whatever men like. The professor was probably working from the assumption that everybody agrees with an already feminine value system, and from that angle men are rather obviously worse at implementing those values.
A feminine value system would include: risk aversion, huge aversion for violence and aggressivity, aversion to exclusionary attitudes, aversion to competition, aversion to hierarchy, aversion to rules, and aversion to treating an argument as something to win. Of course men are worse at it, because men don’t exactly like things this way. Men like to lock horns, and what a surprise, men are good at locking horns. Once you can at least provisionally put into your value system “locking horns can be good, because it is fun”, the problem disappears.
The problem is rather that the viewpoint of intellectuals since the Enlightenment tends to be automatically feminine. For example, Immanuel Kant did not see wars as a dangerous game to gain glory in it. This attitude would be simply filed under being stupid. So he saw it as something to abolish. 200 years later, men still enjoy at least simulated war, like Aragorn chopping up orcs on the TV screen.
Of course, a good argument could be raised that the masculine value system is not exactly consistent. Pretty much nobody wants actual war just to scratch an itch for adventure, we just like the highly abstract simulated idea of war and glory, where Aragorn does not half his face chopped off and does not kill himself five years after suffering from PTSD. So the good parts only, so to speak.
Otoh the Enlightenment / feminine value system is inconsistent too, because it is highly boring. Lacking any form of excitement and fun that comes from conflict, rules or dominance hierarchies, the main sources of fun would be sex and artistic expression. That gets old after a while.
A bit more formal way to define it would be a different approach to utility calculation. A feminine utility system runs on the “first do no harm” principle. Avoid harm, avoid offense, even if you don’t do much good, at least do no harm. Minimize negative utilons, and cautiously try to add positive ones as far as you can. The root value is “harm is bad”.. A masculine value system runs more like on a “maximize output, and keep it mainly positive” rule. Blast it from both barrels, generate a lot of utilons, try to keep them mainly positive, but doing some harm is all right. The root value is “don’t be boring, also try not being evil, but don’t always fret much about harm—it can make people stronger”.
If you look at it this way, this really predicts the gender difference. Women are very good at not doing harm which sometimes results in not doing much at all. Men are very good at doing a lot of things and really shaking up a sleepy world, but some of those things will end up being harmful.