(no subject)

[oyceter]

So I've calmed down a little and actually read through the entire thing. And wow. Am trying very hard not to get worked up again. The gender essentialist stuff in and of itself would piss me off, not even considering that he's using it as a piece of "proof" to further his very fallacious chain of reasoning.

And as hesychasm so kindly pointed out, yonmei and cesperanza have written rebuttals, which is good, because so far they are much more coherent than me.

ETA: I take it back. I am ranting anyway. Because the gender essentialist crap really pisses me off and his whole, oh gay people do have the right to marriage! It's like back in the days of non-interracial marriage -- you do have the right to marriage! Of course, with the small footnote that it is limited to a certain pool of people who look like you! I'm sorry. Yonmei goes into the whole marriage without sex thing but I haven't read far enough to see if she (he? I tend to assume LJ people are female, ironic for my gender essentialist argument) points out that his argument itself is very scarily like the Jim Crow laws. Blacks have the right to sit on buses -- just in the back. Blacks of course have the right to go to school! Just these certain ones though. Because of course the whole separate but equal thing was totally fair.

And I am pissed off beyond the telling at the gender essentialism. Wait, only a father can provide moral groundwork? WTF?! Because we poor women are too weak and coddle the children too much, and of course, we are all freaking the same because we have two X chromosomes? Nothing about cultural influence there, or maybe that the centuries confining women to the home space may have caused this, as opposed to genes. Oh no, a woman, any woman, no matter what, will without fail be coddling and cannot possibly *gasp* reprimand her child to provide a moral framework. Uhh, I'm sorry.... surely it wasn't my mother who taught me lying was bad?

I'm sorry. That's honestly the stupidest thing I've read for a very long time. And I'm not being good and logical about it like I'm sure other LJ people are, but oh well.

Ugh. To think I went to his signing.

Comments

[mogens.livejournal.com]

What a piece of shit article. The entire thing is full of statements that make absolutely no sense. Case in point:

Since the natural reproductive strategy for males is to mate with every likely female at every opportunity, males who are not restrained by social pressure and expectations will soon devolve into a sort of Clintonesque chaos, where every man takes what he can get.

While women, of course, are primarily interested in men as a meal ticket and sperm donor, and are happiest when they've secured their claim to a man by having his child. ::rolls eyes:: People who take a couple of ideas from evolutionary (and political) theory and use them to argue that men and women act in a predictable, unchanging, biologically destined manner (and that that is the best way to view them) really, really annoy me. It's reductive, not to mention utterly ridiculous.

And then, of course, there is his constant assertion of "facts" that he doesn't back up with any hard evidence.
Why? Because he's talking out of his ass!

Ok, rant over. *g*

[oyceter]

I know! Because all males follow only the reproductive imperative and can't think for themselves.

Nyargh.