Controversial take, but please believe I’m making it in good faith:
Obviously this is bad, but I hope people realise that these kinds of attitudes are still incredibly pervasive, sometimes where you would least expect them.
You’ll sometimes see people who think of themselves as feminists or progressive, have a superficial(!!!) understanding of identity politics, treat abstract even stereotypical ideas about gender as if they’re real things, and reinforce essentialist and binary ideas about gender. They’ll shout down those who don’t have the same identity based ‘lived experiences’ and claim they have no right to speak on certain topics.
It ranges from the banal: someone claiming the only reason someone could possibly be criticial of the Barbie movie, is because they’re not a woman.
To the outright toxic: progressive women who were assigned female at birth (cis/not trans) who are transphobic against trans women because they’re not ‘real women’ because they haven’t had the same ‘lived experiences’ and therefore don’t have the right identity to speak on ‘real’ women’s issues or become part of the women’s movement. Of course, trans women aren’t cis women, but that doesn’t mean both don’t have enough in common to both be considered women. Nature’s messy.
I suspect this partly explains what happens with people like JK Rowling, who think of themselves as feminists but in practice are increasingly(?) sliding into essentialist, regressive and right wing ideas about what it means to be a woman, thereby helping to foster division among people who share a common cause and inadvertently undermining the women’s movement.
More generally, binary essentialist thinking can be incredibly divisive and undermine stuff like class consciousness. I may have been born with a penis and think of myself as a boring man, but that doesn’t mean I have nothing in common with a black trans sex worker. We’re both getting fucked by the Elon Musk’s of this world.
This comment was overly long and stream of thought. I go sleep now.
Great story. You’ve made some good points in themselves, but what does it have to do with a man who abandons his wife and new-born child, abuses the wife and writes a book about it?
I agree with most of what you said. There are biological differences between men and women though, and we do tend to have different reactions to similar situations based on our hormonal balances. It’s scientific, and not some antiquated ideology. We know the effects estrogen and testosterone have on mood, behavior, physique, and libido. We even know how particular balances of those hormones can impact someone’s perceptions and reactions. When men undergo hormonal treatment for transitions they do become more emotional, and when women transition to male they become less emotional. Men and women with lower estrogen levels have a lower libido and men and women with higher estrogen levels demonstrate larger mood swings. Even something as simple as testosterone replacement for injured or older men can trigger emotional differences until the doctor gets the patient’s estrogen balance correct.
Hormones make a difference, but I don’t think it’s wise to use that to say “men are like this and women are like that (but because of hormones).” Doubly so since there are a ton of factors that impact those levels, e.g. age, weight, medications, cycles, etc.
Men are only less emotional if you don’t consider things like anger emotions. Which is bullshit.
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It ranges from the banal: someone claiming the only reason someone could possibly be criticial of the Barbie movie, is because they’re not a woman.
Over Christmas I was on the receiving end of a common variant of this from my sister in law: she claimed that the only reason I don’t like Taylor Swift’s music is that she’s a woman.
I got the same with an ex girlfriend and Outkast. The only reason I didn’t like them is because I am white and racist.
Pfft. That implies that the only reason I do like them is because I’m a white racist.
Obviously this is bad, but I hope people realise that these kinds of attitudes are still incredibly pervasive, sometimes where you would least expect them.
https://medium.com/@jencoates/i-am-a-transwoman-i-am-in-the-closet-i-am-not-coming-out-4c2dd1907e42
I want to give the author of that a hug.
Fantastic article.
If Books Could Kill is an excellent podcast, and I’m pretty sure they covered this fictional novel.
Yo, man. Don’t just talk about it. Post a link. That’s my favorite episode
https://open.spotify.com/episode/0urY9vOZg5o0wypzNX5F2c?si=bEnekQ_ERHyuz8BhuklO4A
If books could kills’ episode on freakonimics was the most got a podcast has ever made me feel. Love their stuff.
Why? I’ve read Freakonomics. Just curious!
Basically Freakonomics is kind of bullshit, make you feel smart, fluff.
That’s because Economics is actually boring. Disputes are over how to measure inflation or unemployment exactly, not the exciting things in Freakonomics.
Yeah, except the exciting things in Freakonomics are pretty much just correlations. There’s no research done to see if there is any cause.
I mean, yeah. It was written specifically to be accessible and fluffy. Like none of the non-academic share of the population is qualified or capable of digesting and actual treatment of economics.
The “men are rational, women are emotional” trend exists since the 18th century. Otherwise it would have been limited to north america 9r english countries, if the origin was this sole book.
I can’t believe a therapist recommended this book to me. It was awhile back, but still.
I’ve had some really bad therapist recs myself: The Four Agreements and The Case For Christ. Finding a useful therapist is so lucky. I’d read both before and had to be careful to not joy-thief a couple friends who’d also excitedly recommended them.
My read of that book series was different.
I must be wrong.
HahaHA genders are different. OH MAN!
What book is this?
Men are From Mars, Women Are From Venus
Bonus trivia - The author, John Gray, not only treated his wife like crap, and got a divorce, she ALSO had a best selling self help book around the same time:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_De_Angelis
“Are You the One for Me?: Knowing Who’s Right and Avoiding Who’s Wrong”
De Angelis is known for her books that help people find the right partner … and has been married five times as of 1995.
Rule 1: Don’t read her books.
She may just be a hands on learner.
Learn from other people’s mistakes!
There’s something telling about their relationship in the titles of their books…
I guess that makes me feel a little better
Are you asking for the title of the book that’s explicitly called out in the post itself?
I misread, my mistake.
Yes, please?
Not having the title in quotes leaves it a bit ambiguous.
But having the leading words “The book is called” is not.
the capitalization kind of makes it stand out too…
Titles aren’t indicated by quotes, they’re indicated by capitalization.
It’s not supposed to be in quotes, it’s supposed to be italicized.
Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus
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Pretty sure it wasn’t men buying this book. If women want to make it a best seller that’s on them.
Pretty sure it wasn’t men buying this book.
Why?
If women want to make it a best seller that’s on them.
Well, the important thing is that you found a way to blame women.
The wife also wrote a best seller about finding the right partner. She’s been divorced something like 5 times back in the 90s.
Is there some kind of demographic breakdown that shows this to be the case?
Book sales have historically always been very low on Mars.
Sales of the book on Mars: 0
Sales of the book on Venus: ?
Was that a shot at men? I’m rationally displeased.
The forests never recovered from that meathead with a chainsaw.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/470748/favorite-book-genres-gender-usa/ Is the closest i found. But there it is only a 6% diffrence for self help. (Not sure if that is the correct category for the book)
