6 thoughts on “Political Correctness takes another zorch in the eye”

  1. Allegra, after reading this article, I finally get what you’ve been saying about “reproductive fitness”. Fascinating read AND it makes sense! Given that a male is hard-wired to select the most attractive, healthy women to breed with, where does that leave a 50-year old woman who still wants to have children?

  2. Just so, Debbie. And Allegra – WHAT an affirmation of your long-held understanding of the world!!

  3. Now that Nautilus3 and I are all sorted out on “reproductive fitness, etc.”; I will print this article for later reading AND at some point maybe it will help Jenn understand what she is currently going through (she broke up with her boyfriend yesterday). The last thing I heard from Jenn last night was “I’m still sitting at the airport” and why would that be sweetie “… because I like it here”. OK, we’ve got our “S***” together and all is well NOT!! That’s when I went to bed, but apparently she did find an airport motel so she got a some sleep. So far, so good today though — looks like today’s attempt at flying out of SF will be a take. I won’t be able to completely relax until Jenn is inside the international gates and phones me.

  5. OK, I’ve been thinking about the part where it talks about men going through a change of life because there’s wife’s reproductive days are coming to an end … that it’s in the genes for the guy to be seeking out younger females to mate with at this point. If you go back a couple of centuries, many woman died in child birth (it was probably the leading cause of death among women at that time), so the male would choose another wife to take care of his existing children and probably have more children with the second wife, and so on. Also, men & women did not live long lives in general. Further to that, married couples tended to have many more children (I only have to look at my Great Grandfather & Great Grandmother for this). By the time the wife reached the end of her days for having children, the oldest children were probably getting married and having children of their own. The husband was able to continue his lineage with no interuption through his grandchildren.

    What I am saying is the way our genes are programmed probably worked pretty well the last couple of generations.

    What do you think?

  6. Alright, I guess I am going to have to open my big mouth again.
    The Psychology Today is largely a reflection of some kind of interpretation of the behaviour of the judeo/christian side of our world culture. Indeed, catholicism has stomped it’s way around the world, so this may seem like an ubiquitous viewpoint, but I will throw a couple of less well understood human phenomena into the ring for contemplation.
    Polygyny is actually a throwback to conquering nations. Look at the Saudis. Any time a man had many wives and children (which he then had to support or suffer social castigation) was during times of war. What I mean is, if he wanted to take over his cousin’s tribe, he had to produce enough offspring to make a bigger army. Also, after war had decimated his descendants, he needed to make as many as quickly as possible in order to get back in the game. Fecundity is important because the way to make many offspring quickly is with multiple young fertile females. Also, after war in most cultures there are way more women than men around, so the opportunity for multiwife is greater. Women are able to withstand more extreme living conditions genetically, so whenever there is migration, more women make it to the destination than men.
    Don’t forget also that war has a tendency to kill off the big strong men, so I find the authors’ assertion that only the big strong men get to breed is entrely misplaced. Surely we all know men who are shorter than the national average who have procreated, some of them rather copiously.
    In a lot of cases men do not support their offspring or spouses in our modern society. Midlife crisis is just another run at adolescence. Peter Pan syndrome anyone
    Many times the impetus to breed heavily can be tied to religious duties.
    Our culture is seeing an unprecedented increase in marriage between 2 people over the age of 50. More people are doing what they want instead of what society and religion want of them.
    Fewer young people marry.
    Only 50 years you were an outcast if your husband left you, and unemployable if you had children.
    In one chinese province, the name of which escapes me currently, a matriarchal society is still observed rigidly. Women handle all the money. Women choose who they bed. Men marry women but continue to live in their mother’s houses. Strangely it has been observed that men do not fight each other in this culture. I wonder why…
    Another example; an african tribe where young people consort freely for a year, and then choose a mate. Again, the woman chooses. The have no out of wedlock children, perhaps because this exercise is completed within the year, or perhaps because they have a mindset which prevents pregnancy until the union is secured.
    Now, lets have a look at other chinese people in Canada. 3 generations live together. The grandfather is revered and gets to sit around and drink Johnny Walker Red. Grandma, on the other hand, is up to her elbows in dimsum and takes care of the offspring of her offspring. I have seen them camping here; everyone goes to play except grandma, who does all the cooking, and hauls all the wood and water for her entire family. I’ll bet she wishes her husband had run away!
    At any rate, if you get outside the judeo/christian context, a lot of what is in this article about men and women doesn’t hold. A lot of it doesn’t hold also in our modern society which is seeing all kinds of legitimatized unions that have nothing to do with procreation.
    A lot of men don’t want children, and will now finally admit it instead of playing the penis measuring game that has been around for centuries. That’s right guys, it is not women who have been so concerned about size all along. It is men. Sometimes it has been expressed by the # of children one has; sometimes it is just a spam offer from one guy trying to sell another guy something by telling him he can get more women or impress the one he has. His choice…
    Oh, and the Barbie syndrome? Apparently men over 40 like their wives bodies better, especially if they have borne them children. Can’t quote the source, but I was certainly interested to read that about 10 years ago. I think it was in Psychology Today.
    Men with brains also recognize that their daughters have huge economic value. Look at Belinda Stronach. I personally know a lot of men with daughters who are still married, and men with sons who are not. My cross section of realty cannot be that far from the survey this article is based on.
    Another one that is left out is that statistically fewer men divorce who marry women OLDER than they. Isn’t that curious? So I guess the trick is to find a young buck, and let the guys our own age hunt for Barbie. After all, she just wants his money anyway.

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