I've been having a fun discussion with Sean over on that other social network and figured I'd continue it here.

To be clear, my upvote on this post came from my steemvoter which currently supports all of Sean's posts because he not only introduced me to Steem (along with Bill Butler), but because I really enjoy intellectual dialogues with him and how he challenges my thinking (even if I don't always agree with him). As to his views here, I don't endorse them, but I do value them. I see value in some of what he's saying here, even if it's unpopular or misunderstood.

Example: I've met some women who self-identify as feminists and (from my observations) do not have a very healthy psychological life. They are anxious, depressed, angry, sad, emotionally-irrational, easily triggered by non-offenses, and generally do not appear to be living with high well-being. I would not choose that life for anyone. In contrast, I have also met some (not many) women who have taken an approach closer to what Sean is advocating and live amazing lives which are empowered and fulfilling. Sean hasn't mentioned his wife as an example (thank you for not using anecdotal evidence to prove your point), but to me, she fits that example nicely. She's overcome many things and embracing her sexuality and natural feminine power has been a really good thing for her (and Sean as well, I'd wager).

At the same time, I can imagine that many feminists are so upset because they see things the rest of us don't, and they are sacrificing their well-being in order to change the system, much like early abolitionists fighting against systemic problems.

If I could attempt to summarize (steelman?) Sean's points it goes something like this:

1. Power women naturally have is being taken from them by a male-dominated society which wants to objectivize women as sexual objects while also not having to sacrifice anything to obtain those objects.

2. Psychological harm is mostly created by cultural constructs. If culture tells you to be upset about something, then you most likely will be. In Sean's view, much of the objectification of women is not actually a "bad" thing. It simply is a natural, evolutionary response that men can not control and would take thousands of years to change via natural selection. Instead of fighting it, he argues, we should understand and embrace it and give the power back to women to use as they see fit.

3. Men should be encouraged to be men and women should be encouraged to be women. Women, as he sees it, are objects of sexual desire to men and women can use that as a power to get what they want from men.

4. Having worldviews and opinions which are not congruent with reality as it is creates psychological harm and further problems. It's much better to embrace reality as it is, and work towards change from that starting point.

I hope that comes close to what you're saying, @sean-king.

I completely agree with point 4, but I think it's possible there's an aspect of a woman's lived experience (her reality as a woman) which you (and I, most likely) may be discounting which might impact your conclusion about the benefit of normalizing the objectification of women as sexual objects for men.

This very discussion is being played out on a masculine playing field. You and I both are very comfortable with confrontation, conflict, verbal sparing ("intellectual combat"), and the like. Most stereotypical women? Not so much. They prefer nurturing, cooperation, and avoiding conflict. Right away, that puts this approach at risk for truly understanding a perspective outside of our own experience. They may not be comfortable explaining their reality to you in ways you'll find acceptable.

For point number 1, I agree, shaming a woman for her natural abilities as a women is not helpful. I also strongly disagree with simply accepting it's okay for a woman to be objectified if she herself doesn't want to be viewed as an object of male desire. This is such an important point, and I'm really surprised you seem to avoid it by claiming it's just evolutionary biology and should be accepted as fact. It seems silly to me that I have to spell this out: a human woman is not an object. They have their own intentions, desires, consciousness, etc, etc. To normalize treating women as objects is to take a big step backwards in human relations and philosophical understanding of morality, IMO.

Point number 2 challenges me quite a bit. I think you're right in many ways, and I often argue the best approach for dealing with psychological harm is to do so much self-healing that you have no buttons which anyone could push to trigger you. I still believe that is the best possible state of being. I also recognize reality. Not everyone is at that place and it does very little good for those who currently have power (men) to dictate to those without power how they should change without better understanding their lived experiences. Some people are oppressed to the point where they can't easily get the long-term self-healing they need as they are in short-term survival mode. That's not okay, and I do think we can do better as a society. Where you argue we should change society to encourage natural female empowerment (which, in my view, may normalize abusive behavior), I argue we should change society to not be so abusive to women.

That leads to point 3 which I also agree with in terms of men and women should know themselves fully. I don't, however, agree with the idea that women are, biologically, objects of male sexual desire and should simply embrace this "reality." @errigankerrigan made a great point about how detrimental it would be in the workplace if it became normal for women to advance by giving sexual favors to men. Instead of a meritocracy based on actual on-the-job performance outlined by job descriptions and shared goals, we'd have a twisted, manipulated rewards system. If that's not what you're going for, can you please explain in greater detail how you see your vision playing out in the workplace?

I hope I did a fairly acceptable job of explaining your perspective and then listing my objections to it.

One thing I've asked a couple times and haven't seen your response to yet is the relationship between the approach you're taking (deferring to evolutionary psychology) and tactics historically used to justify racism. Based on our previous discussions, I think you're coming at this from a "the science is settled" position that the differences in sexes are so clear as to be unambiguous and therefore don't relate to the racism discussion. Is that accurate? In my perspective, the science here isn't settled as we're still figuring out the differences between gender and sex and how our own self-perception impacts things. In the past, people with power used to argue segregation of races was "natural" and unavoidable. I think we know better know.

In the future, I think we'll know better in terms of how to best treat women.

I think it will contain aspects of what you're advocating (empowering women to embrace their natural sexuality and not be shamed by it) while also contain aspects of what you may not be appreciating (women, a whole 50% of the human population, have a completely different approach which is not competitive, confrontational, etc and their preferences should be valued just as much as those of men).

The reason I spend so much time on discussions like this is because I think these discussions actually shape our society which will impact how my two little girls will be treated as they grow up and mature. I want them to be respected by men for who they are and their abilities, not just as objects.

I think you're arguing against the "make women better by having them act more like men" approach, and I completely agree with you there. What I'm also saying is women may not want to play by men's rules and that includes being seen by them as objects.

For me to better understand your perspective, maybe you could walk me through a scenario: A woman at her workplace has her butt touched by a man, and she did not initiate that touch in any way. What should she do? Should she consider this a compliment and politely decline the "failed pass" as you described in our Facebook conversation? Should she respond as a man would when another man violates their personal space or their bodily autonomy with their own threats of defensive force (and or respond directly with actual force)? To me, both approaches keep the male system in place. Instead, I'd prefer a society where touching anyone without their consent is unacceptable while appreciating generic male and female preferences (as the starting point, before treating each person as an individual which is clearly ideal) which would imply men and women should be approached differently.

Thanks as always for an interesting discussion. I'm going to give myself a full upvote instead of posting this comment as a separate post.