The Relationship Thread

Originally Posted by Marie Monday

You're right that it is vague, so is biology though. Does that mean purely genetics, for example, to what extent are women genetically inclined to prefer tall men?

I don't know if women are genetically disposed to prefer tall men. Like I said with the bird analogy, we don't necessarily know why the female birds select mates with colorful feather patterns either. We just know they do because the males are colorful and the females aren't.

As such, the fact that women prefer taller men on average is apparent in the average heights of women vs men. So if women apply this sexually selective pressure on men through their mating preferences on average, that will change the genetic make up of the male population over time so that taller men are more likely to reproduce and thus men are taller on average as a consequence.

Maybe I use the word conditioning weirdly, but I mean something like 'anything imposed by the outside world through a continuous creeping influence'.

that would describe literally everything including biology and culture etc. So we don't necessarily disagree based on your definition. But typically people use terms like conditioning and social construct to detract from the biological influence.

that's true, there are some harmless aspects to gender conventions, but as a whole the concept sucks in every way

I don't necessarily agree.

I think that though there are some harmful aspects to it, that's not a reason to say we are better off trying to socially engineer it out of existence.

There are positive, benign and harmful aspects to virtually all of our basic instincts and traits.

For example, tribalism. Supporting a sports team is a form of tribalism. High school cliques and music scenes are forms of tribalism. So is racism. The fact that racism is bad says nothing about the merits of these other forms of tribalism.

So with regard to sex and gender norms, I just don't see a fundamental problem with group x being different from group y on average.

It turns into a problem when you're a member of group x but you have different traits than the average member and people pressure you to get in line. But you can be against that without thinking it's an inherent problem these group differences exist on average in the first place.

I think it's just as problematic to see some problem with women's mating preferences being different from men on average as it is to see a problem with a woman who doesn't fall into that stereotype.