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Reddit mentions of Is There Anything Good About Men?: How Cultures Flourish by Exploiting Men

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Reddit mentions: 23

We found 23 Reddit mentions of Is There Anything Good About Men?: How Cultures Flourish by Exploiting Men. Here are the top ones.

Is There Anything Good About Men?: How Cultures Flourish by Exploiting Men
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Found 23 comments on Is There Anything Good About Men?: How Cultures Flourish by Exploiting Men:

u/DashingLeech · 19 pointsr/science

Wait a sec. From the article:

> The survey included two statements to measure sexism: "On the whole, men make better political leaders than women do" and "On the whole, men make better business executives than women do."

From a purely scientific perspective, isn't this a biasing assumption. What if, on the whole (i.e., statistically speaking), men are better at these things. I'm not saying they are, but there are certainly equality-based theories and frameworks that make this entirely plausible. For example, Roy Baumeister's research (and book Is There Anything Good About Men demonstrates how men have a wider variance in many innate drivers (motivations, perhaps capabilities though not necessary), and provides the evolutionary math to show why this could be the case. Men are more at the top and bottom, and innately driven by different strategic goals than women (statistically speaking), such as higher risk and return activities and competition in larger social structures than collaboration in smaller ones. (Again, with good evolutionary explanation and data to back it up.) The research shows how the different strategies address trade-offs given the nature of our different behaviours that maximize reproductive success, and hence every "better than" for one sex has a corresponding "better than" in the other.

Without judging that work, just supposing it could be true would invalidate that these above questions as being sexist. Making decisions on who to hire or work with based on it would be sexist, as a statistical trend doesn't make all cases true. But that's not what it says.

I call scientific foul on this one.

u/Juko007 · 16 pointsr/OneY

If you´re interested, Roy Baumeister (social psychologist) wrote a book about "how societies flourish by exploiting men". I thought it was a pretty interesting read because it highlights the other side of the coin in the ongoing debate about discrimination against women.

Basically, Baumeister says that men are overrepresented in at the upper end of the societal hierarchy, but also (and perhaps even more) at the lower end. He argues that our society heavily relies on prototypically male competetiveness and a stream of expendable individuals who are willing to take risks to ensure constant growth. You can find the book here:

https://www.amazon.com/There-Anything-Good-About-Men/dp/019537410X

u/MegasBasilius · 8 pointsr/neoliberal

I agree the focus has been on women because they're the ones making less. You may enjoy the book Is There Anything Good About Men? by Roy Baumeister, who details the ways in which the average Joe has contributed to society.

> And is it really wrong that men are expected to do more dangerous/physically demanding tasks?

Personally? No; men are naturally stronger.

For the sake of an equitable society? Many would say yes.

u/Kmlevitt · 7 pointsr/JordanPeterson

Once you're done with that, read Is there anything good about men? by the psychologist Roy Baumeister. It covers her story along with many others, and explains the differences in evolutionary terms. Brilliant stuff up there with the most insightful stuff JP has to say. Here's a short essay he did on the same topic as a sample-

https://psy.fsu.edu/~baumeisterticelab/goodaboutmen.htm

u/STEM_logic · 4 pointsr/MensRights

To unequivocally debunk the feminist myth would take an entire book, which would require years to research. You're going to have to be very neutral and balanced and as fact-orientated as possible, which most mrm stuff imo falls short of. "Positive discrimination" and false accusations are what feminists WANT you to complain about - not that they're not valid complaints, but things like the gender empathy/victimhood gap, men's lives being valued less, maternal superiority, male moral inferiority etc. which fit into traditionalism and can be put forward as the other side of the coin are much better imo.

Janice Fiamengo's youtube series "The Fiamengo File" (Season 1, Season 2) is a much watch (she's also coincidentally an English proffessor). Her video : "what's wrong with women's studies" is also very good (this lecture was protested, had fire alarms pulled etc.).

Christina Hoff Sommers' channel "The Factual Feminist" is also very good. These videos (1, 2 by Karen Straughan are good, but her other stuff tends to be more sensationalist.

As for books, Warren Farrell's "The myth of male power" and Roy Baumeister's "Is there anything good about men" are essential reading. This paper (on sexual repression) also by Roy Baumeister is also extremely important.

This article touches on a lot about the childcare/domestic vs workplace spheres, also this one on maternal gatekeeping - which you could could add domestic gatekeeping in aswell - basically that a lot of women still see the traditionally female realm as "theirs" (despite wanting into the traditional male realm) and although they probably say they want equality, in reality they want a helpmate rather than a full equal, taking on a managerial/directorial role to which a lot of men might react to by dragging their heels (not that some guys aren't genuinely selfish) - things like fathers looking after their kids being described as "babysitting" tie into this. Of course guys in these situations have very little preparation for this because feminism has resulted in a situation where for decades egalitarian roles have been pushed with a positive encouraging message for women and girls and a negative shaming message for men and boys, as a gain in power for women and girls and a loss in power for men and boys. It has also resulted in tons of messages of traditionally "masculine" things being reconciled with positive/aspirational feminine social value, while the reverse has not been the case remotely near as much (I've only ever seen housework being portrayed as compatible with positive/aspirational masculine value once - in movie Don Jon).

I'd write you a second post about gender roles (and the context they need to be looked at within) throughout history and in the developing world, but there's a lot and I'm tired. Maybe tomorrow morning!

u/[deleted] · 3 pointsr/MensRights

> I suppose the stock explanation for any such difference is that women were not encouraged, or were not appreciated, or were discouraged from being creative. That’s certainly what the Imaginary Feminist will tell us. As usual, when one rejects the idea that men have ability than women, one is left with the explanation that men must have oppressed women.

> But I don’t think this stock explanation fits the facts very well. In the 19th century in America, middle-class girls and women played piano far more than men. Yet all that piano playing failed to result in much creative output. There were no great women composers, no new directions in style of music or how to play, or anything like that. All those female pianists entertained their families and their dinner guests but did not seem motivated to create anything new.

> Meanwhile, around the same time in history, black men in America created blues and then jazz, both of which changed the way the world experiences music. By any measure, those black men, mostly just emerging from slavery, were far more disadvantaged than the middle-class white women. Even getting their hands on a musical instrument must have been considerably harder. And remember, I’m saying that the creative abilities are probably about equal. But somehow the men were driven to create something new, more than the women.

Roy Baumeister - Is There Anything Good About Men?

u/mavnorman · 3 pointsr/AskSocialScience

> the rest of your statements don't really seem to follow

I was merely commenting on the part I quoted, ie. the idea that (mostly) linguists do "this".

Now, it's probably fair to say that we may have slightly different opinions what "this" actually is.

For me, it was linguists writing articles and selling books supposedly outside of their "expertise", as you called it. I'll shortly explain why I put expertise in quotes. But as far as I can tell, this happens quite frequently and the culprits come from all social sciences. You seem to agree with me on this point.

Now, you say they are justified to do this, because "[they] all study aspects of society or behavior that have political implications." But this strikes as superficial an association as if I'd say "linguists are social scientists, and politics is part of social science".

One might as well ask what qualifies a social scientist like, say, Roy Baumeister to write about topics as diverse as: The need to belong, self-esteem, willpower, "Evil", and gender?

In my experience, such a diversity is quite normal for any active social psychologist with a sufficiently long career. This also holds for some economists, I'd say.

But if expertise were in one's basic education and a single topic, the correct answer would be "nothing", ie. we would need to say that Baumeister is not qualified (and I suspect some feminists said exactly that about his work concerning men and gender).

But all of our lives would be quite boring if that's the case.

Which brings me to the question concerning expertise, and the reason I put it in quotes above. I'm not quite sure a social scientist's expertise is about the topic itself. One might as well argue that it's about the methods one uses to research a topic and contribute to the discussion.

For instance, Steven Pinker's "The better angels" follows the usual habits of scholarship. I'm picking this one because I've read it, and chapter 6 (IIRC) is about a current research interest of mine. And in all fairness, the chapter is a sufficiently good introduction about the causes of immoral behavior, given the time it was written.

Sure, one can complain that one's pet idea wasn't mentioned by Pinker (and many do just that), but that's the usual envy in scholarship concerning popular and successful authors, in my opinion. Ask r/anthropology about Jarred Diamond and watch what happens.

However, ignoring "possibly relevant" works is something we all are guilty of. The amount of "possibly relevant" literature is beyond anyone's intellectual and physical capacity as a writer, not to mention the reader's patience.

To summarize, I think you over-reacted a little bit in your initial comment.

u/luxury_banana · 3 pointsr/MensRights

There is a much longer book in which the author (Roy Baumeister) covers these topics more in-depth.

Is There Anything Good About Men?: How Cultures Flourish by Exploiting Men

Other good reads which are related include The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature by Matt Ridley, and Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene.

u/yy222 · 3 pointsr/MensRights

> One thing that won't be mentioned in that book: women do not need to continually prove that they are women because their status as a woman cannot be stripped-away very easily and it simply isn't demanded of them.

Summa Genderratica

> A female needs to undergo a process of biological maturation in order to perform the feminine contribution to society, however this process is essentially automatic and is basically assumed to occur over time, with mensturation serving as a clear biological indicator of fitness to perform the task.

> With males, things are more tenuous. Proficiency or even ability to perform the male function, let alone perform it well, is not biologically guaranteed. Additionally, there is no single clear “he’s ready” indicator delivered by male biology.

> Whilst females “grow into” being women, males do not automatically grow into being “real men.” A young female just becomes a woman automatically, due to the innate properties of her biology. Her mensturation evidences her maturation. Her womanhood simply is. She is assumed to be gender-compliant and thus socially contributive by default.

> A young male has to demonstrate, through action, the ability to perform masculine tasks successfully. A young male must prove he has “grown up” and become a “real man.” Males are not assumed to be gender-compliant (and thus socially contributive) by default; by himself he is just another mouth to be fed by the work of “real men.” A man must validate his manhood by action, otherwise he is not a real man but rather a “boy” (i.e. immature, not-an-adult male).

> A gender-compliant person of either sex is seen as valuable to society (since they are acting in ways which conform to survivability-oriented norms). However, females are assumed to either be (or will be) gender-compliant; naturally infertile women are the exception rather than the rule and thus the assumption is that any given female is (or will be) capable of bearing children due to their biology.
As such, females are ascribed an innate value simply for being female. Females are seen as inherently cherishable because they are the incubators of the future.

> Males lack this. Their gender-compliance is not seen as an inevitable feature of their biological maturation but rather an ideal to live up to. Males neither are nor will become “real men” by default. As such, they have no innate value. The value of a man is exclusively contingent on the consequences of his agency and by himself, he is ultimately disposable.

Roy Baumeister - Is there anything good about being a man?

> In one episode [of The Apprentice], two members of one team were shown arguing about a difficult aspect of the upcoming task. Somebody had to take on the responsibility for doing what could be an unpromising chore that was needed for the team but carried some risk and unpleasantness. The argument became heated, as each person thought the other should do it. The woman goaded the man with the phrase “C’mon, be a man!”

> Indignant, he shot back, “You be a woman!” Immediately and almost shouting, she replied “I am a woman!” and went on to say more things. The man sat there in silence, unable to think of what else to say.

> We can understand his confusion. He did not know why he had abruptly lost that argument. She had said something to him, and he had said essentially the same thing back to her, but his reply had somehow failed utterly. He probably thought that in this age of gender equality and fair treatment for all and so forth, “Be a man” and “Be a woman” would be equal, parallel things to say. Yet they weren’t. She was a woman already, and she knew it, and he did too, and she did not have to prove it. But once his manhood was questioned, he would have to do more to prove it than simply say “I am a man!” in a loud voice.

u/cmumford · 2 pointsr/MensRights

I agree that The Myth of Male Power is basically the MRM bible - read it first. However, my favorite book - by far - is Is There Anything Good About Men?: How Cultures Flourish by Exploiting Men. Also, if you have a young boy I suggest Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men for it's medical advice.

u/problem_redditor · 2 pointsr/MensRights

https://www.academia.edu/38034640/The_Privileged_Sex_-_Create_Space_Independent_-_Martin_van_Creveld

"The Privileged Sex" by Martin van Creveld is a great read about men's issues.

EDIT: I haven't personally read this one, but a lot of people seem to say "Is There Anything Good About Men" by Roy Baumeister is a good book on the topic as well. https://www.amazon.com/There-Anything-Good-About-Men/dp/019537410X

u/axemred2 · 2 pointsr/OneY

The speaker wrote a whole book about this later. And here it is:

http://www.amazon.com/There-Anything-Good-About-Men/dp/019537410X

u/hopeless_case · 2 pointsr/MensRights

Here is a great essay on where gender roles come from, how the males ones are constricting, and why female roles were relaxed first:
http://www.psy.fsu.edu/~baumeistertice/goodaboutmen.htm

And here is a book where the author expanded on the original essay:
http://www.amazon.com/There-Anything-Good-About-Men/dp/019537410X

u/Fatalistic · 2 pointsr/science

Except we've already covered this and it can't be selection bias when it is a mixed group who are all undertaking the tests for varying reasons, including those that are court-ordered. Enough tests have been run (millions) to be statistically significant and representative of the general public, as well.

Did you know that the current population of humans is descended from twice many women as men? DNA analysis has proven that. Fun fact, that.

u/Demonspawn · 2 pointsr/MensRights

>He didn't publish this elsewhere, did he?

Actually (I only found this out a few months ago and I've cited that speech for years) the speech was actually about his book of the same name! I don't have my paws on it yet, but you can find it on amazon

u/rogueman999 · 2 pointsr/TheRedPill

About time this got to the front page of TRP. OP, you'll want to read the book too. I put it off for a long time because I thought it's just a longer version of the speech, but boy was I wrong.

u/MetaMemeticMagician · 1 pointr/TheNewRight

Sex

The Way of Men – Jack Donovan***
Sperm Wars – Robin Baker
Sex at Dawn – Christopher Ryan
Why Men Rule – Steven Goldberg
The Manipulated Man – Esther Vilar
Is There Anything Good About Men? – Roy Baumeister
Demonic Males – Dale Peterson
The Essential Difference – Simon Baron-Cohen
The Mating Mind – Geoffrey Miller
The Red Queen – Matt Ridley

****

Government

Mau-mauing the Flak Catchers – Tom Wolfe
Public Choice: An Introduction – Iain McLean
On Government Employment – Foseti (blog post)
Yes, Minister – TV Show

****

​

u/ttumblrbots · 1 pointr/TumblrInAction

SnapShots: 1, 2, 3 ^[?]

^^ttumblrbots ^^will ^^be ^^shutting ^^down ^^in ^^around ^^a ^^month ^^from ^^now.

u/riverraider69 · 1 pointr/TheRedPill

Just a comment on EP (much agree with the rest btw). EP is a very solid science, with two big caveats:

  • it's incredibly easy to misuse by beginners. Just say "yeah, people are like that because in our ancestral environment..." and fill in the blanks with whatever sounds about right. There are ways to make it hard science, but you won't find them in casual discussions.

  • for humans, EP actually works on two completely unrelated levels. There is the genetic component, which is why everybody thinks about when talking about evolution. And there is the cultural, memetic component, which can be studied with much of the same framework, is a lot more fast moving and (like you say) a lot more relevant to our discussions.

    You may want to read this btw. It's not about EP, but I have a feeling you'll like it.




u/SnapshillBot · 1 pointr/MGTOW

Archived for your convenience

Snapshots:

  1. This Post - archive.org, [megalodon.jp*](http://megalodon.jp/pc/get_simple/decide?url=http://www.reddit.com/r/MGTOW/comments/6noele/science_among_the_ancestors_of_todays_human/ "could not auto-archive; click to resubmit it!"), snew.github.io, archive.is

  2. Is there anything good about men? - archive.org, [megalodon.jp*](http://megalodon.jp/pc/get_simple/decide?url=https://www.amazon.com/There-Anything-Good-About-Men/dp/019537410X "could not auto-archive; click to resubmit it!"), archive.is

  3. Roy F. Baumeister - archive.org, [megalodon.jp*](http://megalodon.jp/pc/get_simple/decide?url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Baumeister "could not auto-archive; click to resubmit it!"), archive.is

    ^(I am a bot.) ^([Info](/r/SnapshillBot) ^/ ^[Contact](/message/compose?to=\/r\/SnapshillBot))
u/Senven · 1 pointr/todayilearned

https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article/21/11/2047/1147770/Genetic-Evidence-for-Unequal-Effective-Population
^ This is the basis for most of the interpretations. Twice as many women reproduce as men.

https://www.amazon.ca/There-Anything-Good-About-Men/dp/019537410X
An interpretation of Wilders stats

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-evolving-father/201311/non-dads-or-childless-men
An interpretation of Australian's differential between childless men (13%) and childless women (10%).

and
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr036.pdf
Look at tables on page 17 and 18. Which indicate a greater amount of sexually inexperienced men (my euphemism) by 40 compared to their female counterparts.

You're free to interpret that data as you wish however. If a percentage of men are sexually inactive for whatever reason, and a lesser percentage of women are not: those women are having sex with someone. To the point that even if every woman only slept with one person in her life that X amount of men would have to sleep with more than 1 partner for this to be possible.

Ultimately you have some men for whatever reason having more partners than others as is evident by the % of men who at the very least have no partners in contrast to the women. This is interesting for instance because North America is a female majority continent. If sex distribution was uniform it would be expected for more women to lack sex due to a lack of partners given the slightly lower male population. Whatever social,political, economical, biological,etc factors are at play there isn't an equal distribution between men and women. If there was the stats would favor men given that it is a female majority nation which on paper is only beneficial for men.

To flip this back to the main topic: For whatever reason there isn't an equivalent distribution in the dating sphere. Considering the articles talk about

"However, the researchers also found that while the effects of a breakup hit women the hardest, they tend to make a full recovery as time passes. As for men, the researchers say they simply “move on.” For the man, Morris explained, the loss will ferment and linger.

"The man will likely feel the loss deeply and for a very long period of time as it 'sinks in' that he must 'start competing' all over again to replace what he has lost — or worse still, come to the realization that the loss is irreplaceable."


increased competition because of unequal distribution would suitably explain their conclusion. Why do you have to
start competing over again" if dating was as simple as 1 man to 1 woman and people didn't have preferences and desires that eliminate certain parts of that demographic from being eligible.





u/SirTylerGalt · 1 pointr/MensRights

Stumbled upon this while reviewing old HN bookmarks. It seems Roy F. Baumeister wrote a book on the subject since then.

Some previous discussions on Hacker News:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=589346

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1634955

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2767867