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JGWeissman comments on Of Exclusionary Speech and Gender Politics - Less Wrong
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How did you get from "women should be aware" of the biases, to "this is evil"? The constraint seems to fit with your standard:
I believe that discussions following this standard will not provoke offense. Mostly it is important to not come off as advocating the use of the technique for manipulation.
So, me wanting to use the same standards in evaluating the two things I want to compare is a sign of bias?
Where did I claim that some of these are acceptable and some are not? The standard I would apply is what sort of manipulations the manipulated person resents when they find out about it.
It would be perfectly fair for you to point to discussions of PUA that lack the features I describe as offensive, which still provokes offense, and to analogous discussion of beauty techniques that do not provke the same offense. Since I know, and have explained, what evidence would persuade me that I am wrong about what features are negative, it is not fair to claim I am saying they are negative by definition.
I did not ignore your substantiation. I refuted it. You don't get a free pass on supporting a claim because it is part of a larger issue.
And your attempt to parallel my objection does not seem to fit well. Maybe you should not try to be cute like that.
Mainly from your implication that the purpose of the article is that these are things that should be resisted and, in a perfect world, never done to begin with.
No, because you're ignoring the part I just bolded: for some of the techniques, one might be perfectly okay with others using on them. A lot of men are okay with their opinion of a woman being altered by makeup. A female commenter (which I'll dig up if you don't believe me) had remarked that (some appropriate subset she had in mind of) PUA techniques would have the effect, if widely used, of making all men hotter, which she would regard as good.
Let's not forget, a lot of PUA is just teaching autistic-spectrum males to do things that "naturals" already do automatically. If you find yourself saying an action is bad only when you know why it supports your goals, you made a mistake somewhere.
No, your attempt to equate your ungrounded hidden definition of manipulation with "real comparisons", plus the substantiation I gave that you just cut off in your reply, is a sign of bias.
Probably at the point where you required any discussion of biases related to PUA have the premise that it's only being talked about as a way to destroy its effectiveness.
But why does that matter in terms of whether it should be included in the article? Why can't it describe the effects that certain actions have, by reference to specific biases, which exist because of a specific mechanism, without rendering judgments about whether people deem them manipulative (which people, including and especially the targets of the techniques, will disagree on)?
Okay, but you still seem to have this presumption that any article discussing PUA-related biases in women is by its nature promoting bad stuff and so must apologize at every corner by focusing purely on how to resist them.
No, you did not refute it. You have said nothing about the evidential standards I discussed, or the reason it is so important for you to learn the basis for my suspicions. The latter would go a long way to getting to the root of our fundamental disagreement, and be far, far more productive than unraveling what causes a suspicion of mine in one specific case.
If attempting to get to the root of a discussion by comparison to the opponent's standards is "cute", then may we all be kittens!
You are horribly misunderstanding my position, and detecting biases in a position that I do not actually hold. Stop trying to infer a deeper agenda than the things I actually say. Your mental model of me is wrong.
I said women should be aware of biases they have that men will try to manipulate. That does not mean they have to resist it. They could react to this awareness by saying, "Oh, that's cool, it lets me enjoy sex/dating more", as long as that is their decision. You were the one who made the leap, on my behalf, from "they should be aware" to "it is evil and must be resisted". I never claimed and do not agree that this is a necessary conclusion. Though, it is also a reaction that women could have. Or they can react anywhere in the spectrum to each sub technique independantly. Or they can react by thinking "I want sex as part of the process of getting to know someone for a potential long term relationship, and it bothers me that men try to make feel like that is what we are doing when in fact they are not interested in a long term relationship." (And I am aware some PUA's explicitly make their intentions in this regard clear, and this reaction is not fair as a response to their techniques. This should produce less offense.)
The refutation of your "evidence" was noting that there was no analogous discussion about women manipulating men to the particular discussions about men manipulating women that caused offense, so there is no expectation to observe offense at an analogous discussion until one actually happens. You have evidence that a certain class of discussion of men manipulating women causes offense, and the a different class of discussion of women manipulating men does not cause offense. What you do not have is a comparison of the same class of both types of discussion.
Do you want to show my refutation is wrong? Then stop trying to attack me, accusing me of biases, and find the two discussion that you can argue are in fact analogous, in which the discussion of men manipulating women provoked offense, and the discussion of women manipulating men did not. That is the object level evidence that would demonstrate your point.
All you have to do is effectively argue that PUA discussion met the same standard as the beauty techniques discussion. If I say here is a corner in the PUA article where it did not apologize, you can point to a similar corner of the beauty techniques article. Any unreasonable standard you worry I might apply, you can argue the beauty techniques article doesn't meet it either. But it seems unfair to assume I would treat these articles asymetrically before even having that discussion.
JGWeismann said:
When you used the word "manipulate," I do see why Silas thought you were being judgmental and primarily advocating resistance. If you say you don't mean that, then I believe you, and I would prefer that the discussion move on to substantive issues, rather than what biases you might supposedly hold.
I think part of the problem in discussions like this is the word "manipulation," which different people use to mean different things (some people use it in a value-neutral way, while others use it with a negative connotation... and some slide between these two meanings whenever convenient). I prefer to talk about "social influence," and whether it is ethical or not.
Perhaps you and Silas can just start this discussion over? What was the main question, anyway? I lost track.
I see what you are saying. But I find it strange to apply this interpretation to "men manipulating women", but not "women manipulating men".
Me too.
Should we expect this community to hold discussion of PUA to a higher standard than discussions of other sorts of "social influence", in particular, the use of beauty enhancement techniques to make women more attractive?
What is this in reference do? Who do you claim was doing that?
FYI: In case you're interested:
That would seem to contradict the discussion's history. You entered after I said this:
And you entered to respond to the bolded part. I don't think that's equivalent to
I was saying that, even though both beauty methods and male charisma methods induce bias, some posters (unfairly IMHO) support more restriction on discussion of the latter despite their relevance. JGW denies the existence of such a class of posters.
I am not saying that no individual poster will treat discussion of PUA unfairly. But I think that there will not be enough to cause problems if we have discussion of PUA following the standards you specified. Are we in agreement about this? If not, can we discuss it at the object level, without trying to assign each other motives for the positions we take?
Better yet, skip the meta discussion entirely and just create a relevant, well written post on a charisma related subject that one of you happen to be interested in. If someone happens to object on principle then we'll see it and respond as appropriate.
Why waste time second guessing hypothetical unreasonable objections?
Hey, fine with me. I'm not the one demanding huge-likelihood-ratio evidence to justify an estimate made in an aside. That would be JGW.
If I turn out to be wrong in my estimation that LW mirrors a lot of society in going apes*** whenever useful female romantic biases are mentioned, like it has in the past -- GREAT! The reason we have guesses is to have expectations BEFORE the ultra-conclusive evidence comes in.
..."useful"?
I agree that JGW demands were unreasonable, in fact, they came quite close to the line at which I would label them disingenuous.
...
You provide important insights, as usual, and it is appreciated.
Well, I didn't, and I generally try hard not to. That's why I've now posted two summaries in the course of this discussion (first, second), tracing it back to JGW's entrance.
What you call an "attack" and "accusation of bias" was actually a very relevant query. Let's review the history (again):
1) I stated a suspicion (prior tilted slightly toward one hypothesis rather than another) that PUA bias discussion would tend to be criticized unjustifiably more than beauty bias discussion.
2) You asked why I harbor such a suspicion.
3) I pointed to the flamewar over PUA, vs. tame discussions of beauty.
4) You say, in essence, that my position is so wildly implausible that I need to provide the same level of evidence as would be necessary to refute a "privileging the hypothesis charge". You ask for an example.
5) I show a case where a man was shown to be biased because of a woman's beauty, while less bias was mentioned for the woman, and a following calm discussion.
6) Here's where the problem begins: Despite my relatively low belief in my claim, you go through the effort to refute the analogy and ask for better ones. Now: all throughout society, discussion of manipulation of men with beauty-enhancing products is widely discussed, while PUA, or any actually effect methods of drawing attraction from women is taboo. Yet you act shocked, shocked that this forum would be otherwise, and demand very specific evidence (and IMHO unfairly specific evidence) that it would be.
7) At this point, I'm confused. Why do you treat my mere suspicion like it's some bizarre, random idea (actually one of 3 relatively plausible options) and keep asking for more and more evidence (and more specific evidence)? It's been pretty commonly noted that a disparity exists (since the OB days), and you won't stop until I can provide copious substantiation for a mere suspicion. Hm. That's strange. Is this part of a broader discussion we should be having, I wonder. And so I ask.
See how it all fits in? It just seems strange that you really want to stomp out any belief, anywhere, that PUA discussions might be unfairly stigmatized. You ask for comparisons from beauty discussions, when you know there haven't been nearly as many for comparison.
That's why I ask what's going on. Because it's clear to me you're not just humbly asking for a little proof of the outrageous idea that men have a harder time discussing the nuts-and-bolts of attracting women. You're offended at the very suggestion.
So again, I'll ask: what's really going on here? What is it that makes this issue, and your belief on this issue, so important that you'll hound anyone who expresses any contrary reservations until they give you that perfectly parallel case? Because I'd much rather have that discussion than this one. And so would the rest of the forum, I'm guessing.
I have already told you that your mental model of me is wrong. Update already.
As you have not given an example of a reasonably parallel case, you should not be predicting that I would reject such a case for not being perfect. I am not hounding you for a perfectly parallel case. I am looking for some evidence that I would not expect to see if the two types of discussion were held to the same standard.
If you believe the example you provided is reasonably parallel, please address my object level objections to it on the object level. There is no need to speculate as to why I made objections that you think are wrong, just explain why you think they are wrong.
If you can't respond to my objections, and can't find a better example, or other type of evidence, then perhaps you should abandon your suspicion, which you claim is already weak. Abandoning your suspicion does not mean it is false, it just means there isn't a reason to be considering it in the absence of the sort of evidence that could support or refute it.
What is going on here has nothing to do with my feeling about PUA specifically. The objections I made which you seem to feel are nitpicking are in fact things that immediately jump out at me saying this observation does not discriminate between the theories being considered. It is like if person A gets sanctioned for engaging in behavior X, and complains that no one else ever got sanctioned for engaging in behavior X, when it turns out that no one else had ever engaged in behavior X at all.
If you can substantiate this, it would be object level evidence for your position. There is no need to act surprised that I have not taken it into account. Just present it as evidence and explain why you think it is true.
I would consider an appeal to common knowledge adequate in this instance. While some could plausibly deny awareness that discussion of attraction (and social dominance in general) tactics are frequently taboo, an argument would be a sub-optimal context for Silas to engage in education on the subject.
Since the topic so closely ties in with themes like 'near/far' thinking and related social-political biases it would be a post that would be worth Silas making if he has sufficient interest and some useful sources to draw from to signal credibility.
I would not. In our society, a man who has many sexual partners is reverentially referred to as a "player" or a "stud", and a woman who successfully manipulates men is derisively referred to as a "manipulative bitch".
There are 3,940,000 Google results for Manipulate Men, and 3,040,000 results for Manipulate Women. A ration close to 4:3 in favor of manipulating men, but it seems like neither subject is being repressed.
The appropriate comparison would be to a woman who gets men to spend resources on her with an insincere promise of sex.
And there is a vocabulary for such a case, though not as a term for the woman. Anyone familiar with "being friendzoned"?
Posting this as a separate reply so the separate issue can be voted on.
JGW, you're confirming my suspicion that that there's a deeper issue going on here, and I think we've found it. You see the issue I raised a one part of the broader issue about whether men or women have it better (in some appropriate sense I'm starting to discern). So you see it as completely topical to bring up a point like you just did, because it supports your stance, even though it has nothing to do with the point I'm arguing here.
Like wedrifid said, I'm not trying to prove that men, in some broad, general sense, are somehow "more manipulated" or "more oppressed" than women or anything like that. I'm saying that with respect to one particular issue -- sharing accurate information among themselves that could be used to appear more attractive to the opposite sex -- men receive more rebuke than women.
I think this is pretty common knowledge, and several quick sanity checks should convince you. For example, go to a retail center and count the number of places overtly promoting effective ways of making onesself attractive to the opposite sex, and the effort and specificity they give, and show how it compares to men and women.
Alternately, consider the rebuke you get for giving advice for being attractive to women that actually works.
You might want to rephrase that -- even knowing your overall position, I parsed it wrong the first time I read it. i.e., as "giving advice (for being attractive) to women" rather than "giving advice for (being attractive to women)". Your sentence is also unclear as to who is giving the rebuke -- the recipient or a third party -- although of course both are possible.
Actually, you can also get rebuked (or at least disbelieved), by giving accurate information to women (about what's attractive to men) as well. Many things that men consider attractive in female clothing, appearance, interests, or behavior are things that will get women docked status points by their peers... and I'm not talking about revealing clothing or overtly sexual behavior, either.
I actually think that the situation regarding accurate advice is more symmetrical than you're arguing. Women are actually just as stigmatized for seeking accurate mate-attracting information as men are, if not more so. What is socially acceptable is advice on how to be fashionable, not how to be attractive. As I mentioned in another comment, many fashions are not actually attractive to men.
Both men and women fear being stigmatized by their peers for seeking information that will actually help them attract the opposite sex, as opposed to information that merely helps them signal attractiveness and group loyalty to their same-sex peers.
What's different about men is simply that men have much more to gain and less to lose by breaking with their peers, and are more likely to be outcasts or rejects with nothing to lose. The current (relative) popularity of PUA at the moment is likely because it's mildly fashionable for men, in the same way that "The Rules" were mildly fashionable for women a while ago.
"The Rules", however, are out of fashion now with women, and discussing them would probably provoke similar rebuke from men as PUA does from women.
(For readers who don't know, "The Rules" was a book for women discussing behavioral tactics women could use to mentally manipulate men into long-term relationships, that had similar popularity to "The Game" for men.)
Those are some good points about the attractiveness/ fashionability distinction, and I made similar remarks to a different end. I'll have to think about that.
However, I can't but refer back to simple comparisons of the social reactions to advice, such as this:
"If you want to appear more attractive to men, show cleavage and arch your back." --> "Duh, already know that, of course that's how men are."
vs.
"If you want to appear more attractive to women, act dominant by ordering her around, thinking of her like a disobedient child, and generally making yourself appear scarce and unavailable." --> "Shut up!!! Shut up, you F***ING terrorist! Women are NOT like that, you worthless misogynist! You should be RESPECTFUL and DEFERENTIAL and give them lots of gifts. That's what we want, chauvanist. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go meet my boyfriend, who is such a jerk to me. I hope he's not late ... again."
Disclaimer: I'm not advocating the advice I paraphrased for men, but actual successful PUAs -- who would know what they're talking about -- seem to believe it, and the refusal to discuss such cases seriously is inexcusable.
I was contemplating your post, and thinking that there's no concept in the culture for a woman who successfully manipulates men into having sex with her, though there are concepts around "slut" for having a lot of partners. Or more partners than the speaker approves of.
"Manipulative bitch" would be generally be for a woman who gets men to spend more resources on her than is approved of. I don't think the women other than his wife that Tiger Woods had sex with would be considered manipulative.
Seductress? And what is the label used for women who sleep with married men? Something about 'family destroyer', I don't recall exactly.
The difference seems to go along with the trend of 'sex for resources' in sexual relations. It is low status to be a female who gives sex for little return in resources while it is low status to be a male who gives resources without getting the sex that he desires. At the other side of the trade the 'player' and 'manipulative bitch' are of neutral or high status but also 'bad' and subject to intended social sanction by the one doing the labelling.
Homewrecker? (I am not at all surprised that this has 4 pages of definitions on urbandictionary.)
Note that Google result counts on the first page of a search are approximate, not exact figures. On smaller result sets the actual count (as obtained by getting to the last page of the search results) can be close, or half, or even (that I've seen) a hundredth the approximated count. I would't conclude much of anything from the ratio of estimates with such large error bars.
Those aren't errors. If you repeat both searches with duplicates included, and go to the last page of results, you will find that Google is returning exactly 1000 for both. This is because Google never returns more than 1000, regardless of how many hits there are.
Comparing the estimates is the correct operation.
Do you have the empirical data to back up your unqualified assertions?
Try comparing Google's estimates to actual hit counts (as reported by going to the last page), with and without "similar results" included, for searches returning fewer than 1000 hits.
Here is one experimental result: estimated count 585, actual with similar results excluded 177, actual with similar results included 224.
That's worth knowing. Is there a source for non-obvious things about google searches?
Interesting.
How about the totals according to the last page, excluding "similar results"? That gives 899 for Manipulate Men and 893 for Manipulate Women. That ratio is pretty close to 1:1.
And the totals were way off from the front page estimates, by orders of magnitude. Maybe this reflects a lot of excluded similar results?
That wasn't the goal post that Silas was aiming for.
Look, I was trying to take Silas' belligerent meta level attack, and extract from it a object level argument for his position. It was not unreasonable for me to expect him to back up the supporting claim I identified before accepting it though. Then you claimed that this claim can be justified as common knowledge, and that was what I was arguing against in my previous comment.
I really am open to evidence on this. But I am frustrated by the unreasonable meta level attacks on motivations.
And I'm frustrated by your refusal to assimilate the lessons of You are entitled to evidence, but not that particular proof. Of course there won't be perfect, side-by-side examples we can compare, but we have to update on what we see, imperfect, or not. Before we get into a game of "why I get to ignore that evidence", I need to establish what kinds of things would count as evidence, even if they aren't ideal comparisons.
I asked to you to extrapolate out from the example I did give and ask what the reaction would be if EY's story extended to discussion of equally "useful", thorough techniques the male and female did to enhance attraction. As best I can tell, you dodged having to consider the logical implications of the hypothetical and instead preferred a test stacked in your favor, which assumes what you're trying to prove.
If you're frustrated, perhaps you can understand why I'm frustrated, and why I start positing theories for "what's really going on here", which you take offense at, but which are then vindicated when you bring up irrelevant comparisons as if they were part and parcel of the issue I was arguing about.
ETA: I have not been belligerent; I want to know if there's a broader issue we need to be discussing. Right or wrong, I have good reason to believe so. If I were trying to "explain" your arguments by reference to your mental health, that would be belligerent and offensive. But I would never dream of offering such an explanation. There's nothing offensive about suggesting there's a broader underlying issue; rather, it's often the key insight to resolving a dispute.