729. Research Concerning Women's Evolutionary Plight
"Imagine the following scenario: a woman and a man are having a conversation. She is interested in the conversation, and is friendly, smiling and warm. He interprets her behaviour as sexual interest.
Or maybe: a man is sexually attracted to a woman he has just met, and signals this in various ways. She thinks that he is just being friendly."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/01/150129094120.htm
When I was young, I again and again experienced a slightly different variety of the above scenario.
I wanted conversation, either only or at least extensively for a long time before even considering anything more. Being still naive I projected upon men the same needs, wishes and interests as are my own.
But my mistake was limited to being theoretical. Soon after the initiation of interaction, men's behavior became so clearly a nuisance, that it could not be mistaken for being merely friendly.
My own behavior showed very clearly, that I wanted to be taken for serious, to talk about cultural, intellectual topics the same way as men do between themselves. I was not flirtatious, I was purposefully dressed in an anti-sexy way, which should have discouraged any misinterpretation.
But I had no chance against the obnoxious male behavior. It did not appear like a misperception. I experienced it more like behavior triggered automatically by nothing more than merely being in the presence of a woman. This was enough to bring out the worst in men, to make them superficial, flirtatious, seductive and to deactivate any ability for serious conversation and communication.
I suffered doubly. I suffered from the degradation and objectification by being mistaken as prey, and I suffered from being deprived of fulfilling my own great need for intellectual exchange.
The more women are superficial, uneducated and stupid, the more they feel flattered when being approached as prey. Such women may not experience the nuisance the same way as I did. But for educated and intelligent women, it is a serious plight.
In those days, I had no clue, why I was treated as if I were nothing better than a brainless body. Today, science and the availability of information on the web allow women and men to gain awareness of such misperceptions and misunderstandings.
I suffered doubly. I suffered from the degradation and objectification by being mistaken as prey, and I suffered from being deprived of fulfilling my own great need for intellectual exchange.
The more women are superficial, uneducated and stupid, the more they feel flattered when being approached as prey. Such women may not experience the nuisance the same way as I did. But for educated and intelligent women, it is a serious plight.
In those days, I had no clue, why I was treated as if I were nothing better than a brainless body. Today, science and the availability of information on the web allow women and men to gain awareness of such misperceptions and misunderstandings.
"In most areas of psychology, there is little to no difference between genders: mental capacity, intellectual achievements, food preferences -- men and women are all more or less the same. But when it comes to reproduction and challenges related to finding a sexual partner, there are suddenly differences to be found.
A man's ability to reproduce is all about seizing every opportunity. He has to spend both money and time on courtship, which still may not lead to sex. But it costs even more to not try, because then he won't be able to reproduce.
A woman can have sex with multiple men over a short period of time without producing any more children. So for men, it is a low-risk, potentially high-reward situation for men to have sex with women whenever the opportunity presents itself.
On the other hand, the cost is potentially great for a woman if she thinks that a man is more sexually interested than she is. A woman risks pregnancy, birth, nursing and raising the child, as well as lost oppotunities to reproduce with others. Across thousands of generations, women's psychology has evolved to set the bar higher, which means they need much clearer signals than men before they consider sex."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/01/150129094120.htm
Awareness for those differences is needed as a first step, but it does no suffice to change women's plight. Needed is the recognition, that only a fair balance between giving and receiving can improve the situation of women.
Men need to learn, that instead of demanding and pursuing sexual homeostasis as if it were an entitlement, they have to offer in return the full meeting of women's non-physical, cognitive and emotional needs.
Women have no chance to get this without men's insight and cooperation.
