Refuting Steven Goldberg

[Hexen]

This has been bothering me for a long time, whats is everyone's thoughts about this particular individual named Steven Goldberg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Goldberg)who is notorious for extremely sexist books like The Inevitability of Patriarchy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Inevitability_of_Patriarchy) and Why Men Rule (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_Men_Rule)? Could anyone refute this misogynist asshole?

[jake williams]

I think it probably isn't worth talking about.

[Hexen]

I think it probably isn't worth talking about.


Why so?

[jake williams]

Why so?
Maybe the women on RevLeft can let us know why they're not just naturally our subordinates?

[Hexen]

I found a couple articles that are somewhat refuting Goldberg's sexist paradigm although their extremely hard to find for some reason.

http://www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/dworkin/WarZoneChaptIIID.html
http://www.reappropriate.com/?p=497

[Module]

I haven't ever read 'The Inevitability of Patriarchy' by Steven Goldberg, but then I've never read 'Jewish Supremacism' by David Duke, either. I don't see any need to read such self evidently bullshit theories.
No point me becoming intensely enraged over nothing ...

Why men rule - they tend to be more able to beat women up than the other way around. So sure, maybe to that degree biological differences do explain patriarchy. :rolleyes:
Past that, however, if patriarchy is inevitable then why has it become so weakened, so naturally, with the development of technology, social organisation and not to mention anthropological science?
Is the reason Hilary Clinton was a leading candidate for the presidential nomination because elsewhere some naturally suitable man was being oppressed by feminism? Or is it just because the material conditions of power have changed, and patriarchy is now an obsolete form of socio-political power?
There's no point even entertaining this right wing bullshit, Hexen. It will only lead to a vexen'. lol

[Jazzratt]

There's no point even entertaining this right wing bullshit, Hexen. It will only lead to a vexen'. lol


FOr this you miss out on the rep I was going to give you :glare:

[Rascolnikova]

As a bona-fide Christian Fundamentalist (TM), I struggled with this question for a long time. After all, men have been in charge for so long--surely there's some kind of reason for it? And while there are clearly exceptions, a lot of women, honestly, aren't very competent. And we aren't as strong, which everyone likes to pretend doesn't matter, but it does, as any survivor of a prolonged domestic violence situation can attest. On top of all this, three days of excruciating pain every month, often accompanied with rampant, uncontrollable, embarrassing emotional instability? Wtf? What was God thinking? Clearly if he was trying to make us equal he was doing a shit job of it.

Of course, I've always been aware of the cultural factors that feed into that lesser competence--for example, unsupported motherhood and an obsession with appearance don't exactly do wonders for one's intellect. . . but ultimately, what it comes down to is that a people can choose what kind of society they want to live in.

That means we can choose to live in a society where rigid gender roles are valued, or we can choose to value a notion of chivalry that's about the strong and the weak, the mature and the immature, the competent and the incompetent, not about x and y chromosomes and bullshit notions of what identity they ought to entail.

The most frustrating thing about these ideas (I can only guess, I'm not reading any more of that shit) is that they do, in fact, draw on reality. Women do score lower on mathematics spatial reasoning tests, they do (in the first world) spend more time recreationally shopping, they do, often, indulge (or more often indulge their male partners) in incredibly annoying flights of self-infantalization. Smart people who know how to read a fucking sociology textbook have figured out that this is not about genetics, periods, or pms.

For accessible analysis on the destructiveness of gender roles, which goes a long way towards explaining these behaviors in terms of social pressures rather than (#$%#*@&) evolutionary psychology, I recommend much of the output of the Media Education Foundation (MEF), but most especially the "dreamworlds" series (very hard/generally illegal to get a hold of), and perhaps "wrestling with manhood."

An example of a somewhat more advanced application of these ideas, in a very specific context, would be the book Rape; sex, violence, history, by Joanna Bourke. It's an excellent analysis, and will give you some concept of how well a rigorous and coherent social analysis can explain these things. It does a much better job than anything I've seen from the other side.

[Hexen]

Women do score lower on mathematics spatial reasoning tests

ummm....Not Quite... (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25836419/)

[Rascolnikova]

ummm....Not Quite... (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25836419/)

Unfortunately, equality in elementary school--while necessary and refreshing--doesn't cut it. If I'm not mistaken, women actually do better, in general, at getting good grades in school these days through a bachelors degree than men do. This doesn't translate into, say, equal representation in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) fields, or equal scoring on advanced measures of this kind of thinking.

[Hexen]

Unfortunately, equality in elementary school--while necessary and refreshing--doesn't cut it. If I'm not mistaken, women actually do better, in general, at getting good grades in school these days through a bachelors degree than men do. This doesn't translate into, say, equal representation in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) fields, or equal scoring on advanced measures of this kind of thinking.

However, I think it could be slow process for the majority of women to score equally at STEM fields by once our society gets even less sexist (or post revolution) even though right now it could be just a very low or rare number of women getting high scores right now I guess as it seems.


they do (in the first world) spend more time recreationally shopping, they do, often, indulge (or more often indulge their male partners) in incredibly annoying flights of self-infantalization.All the rest of this is caused by our own society and how most women are socially conditioned eversince childbirth (even though it doesn't work all the time and there's also women who rebel against this) whilst Steven Goldberg on the other hand just uses pseudoscience by reducing them into biology as his method/attempt into explaining why they do so.

[Dimentio]

Never heard the name.

[Hexen]

While I tried to google/search a article for refuting Goldberg's misogynist paradigm, I keep running into this site (http://www.debunker.com/patriarchy.html) by Robert Sheaffer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Sheaffer) a so called skeptic who "debunks" feminism and even promotes Goldberg's theories.

Not to mention this incredibly disturbing article...

http://debunker.com/texts/noblelie.html

[Dimentio]

Its sounds like this is like car accidents to do. No matter how disgusted you are by the sight, you cannot stop watching. I will bet my 20 joules on that this is unhealthy for you.

I don't think it matters that men are physically more intimidating than women generally speaking. Might is not right, and everyone should be judged as individuals on their own character, not on the general characteristics of what social group they are belonging to.

[Hexen]

I think the only way to decribe Steven Goldberg and Robert Sheaffer which YKTMX from this thread (http://www.revleft.com/vb/blank-slate-steven-t36941/index.html) (about another misogynist socialist named Steven Pinker) said it best....


is a far right "socio-biologist" who argues an ultra-darwinist view, saying that all human behaviour is genetic and based on evolution. It's crazy, reactionery, proto-fascist pseudo science.

[jake williams]

I want to make clear that if this science were actually valid, it would be very important to study because I think we should maintain honesty in science. In principle I even support new research into such topics, in that I'm not comfortable with censoring scientific research, but really I don't think it's necessary. Further, syntheses which are simply misogynistic and totally ignore the actual reality are without merit.

[Hexen]

I want to make clear that if this science were actually valid, it would be very important to study because I think we should maintain honesty in science. In principle I even support new research into such topics, in that I'm not comfortable with censoring scientific research, but really I don't think it's necessary. Further, syntheses which are simply misogynistic and totally ignore the actual reality are without merit.

However, I don't think it's valid since science can be twisted to fit someone else's personal agenda (much like the 19th century British imperialists, American "manifest destiny" and the Nazis used eugenics and other racist pseudosciences to justify their crimes against humanity) to mainly (as a attempt to) undermine movements for the struggle of equality to maintain their ideal society (capitalism, fascism, etc).