Oddbean

This is one of my favorite hot takes too Moral arguments aside, it’s undeniable that there is a different distribution curve for male and female political opinions While every individual is different, women skew more collectivist than men, and over a century even a 5% difference on the margin changes the entire shape of politics First-past-the-post elections also play a role

Women only skew collectivist, politically, if somebody else is paying. Men's self-concept skews both individualist ("I must be comfortable living with my decisions") AND collectivist ("I am an X and willing to sacrifice for the good of X). Women's self-concept skews relational ("I am a good friend / good mother"). If forced to choose between the good of a collective and the good of social-relationship connections, women will overwhelmingly choose the social relationship (unlike men). The difficulty is framing that choice that way in our centralised and high-time-preference societies.

That’s a fine clarification but with government it’s always “someone else paying”. Many people in my life legitimately believe in concepts like free education and free healthcare. Another generalization which has a lot of truth to it is that men still dominate most “dirty” work fields. Plumbing, construction, carpentry, waste management, roadwork, etc. are all extremely male centric. The people who built society are the people who know what it all has really cost, since they had to experience it. This is not to say that there haven’t been great women that built society, but on a whole especially during the early periods from 1920-1960 women very often had the role of a homemaker and were almost never subjected to that type of work (although wartime offered many opportunities to subvert that social norm). When we look at new deal programs which came about just 15 years after woman’s suffrage and are still in place today, and think about it in the context of “someone else paying” there is something there.

You're absolutely correct there, although the "until the 1960s most women were housewives" is pop culture copium. That was fully sixty years ago. Women's average political choices have gotten worse not better. Single woman: "people I don't know should pay more tax to support my friend's art" Married woman: "my husband should NOT pay tax to support people I don't know." That is why women's votes change much more than men's after marriage. Don't phrase it this way when applying for research grants or public office, but women on average are much more selfish than men on average. People who want them to make better choices need to admit this and harness it.

Female friends reading this - your shoe size may be pretty close to the typical woman's, but you're about five standard deviations from the female mean on everything politically relevant. Sorry if that comes as a shock :p

👍 I’m glad to see that in general, this discussion has made clear that women are not all the same. We’re not, and cultural trends can be overcome. Raise the children you want to see run the world.

Selfishness without any context is not a negative thing. In fact, selfishness can be very virtuous. There’s an entire book about it that I know a lot of people around here like 🤣 https://i.nostr.build/AaWWq.jpg

Interesting… My other half is a staunch socialist, we get married in two weeks time. Are you suggesting her outlook will change from that point? I’ve always veered more toward anarchic behaviour myself although we initially met on a political campaign in 2017.

Statistically, the chances of her positions shifting on various issues will be high over the next several years. That doesn't mean she will stop identifying as a Socialist, but she may emphasise different things. My personal pet conspiracy theory is that politically-engaged people of all factions have more in common with each other than with normies in many ways. But most are loathe to admit the possibility

I think that's basically horse shoe theory isn't it? I spend a fair amount of time in a state of cognitive disonance but I try to keep open to different and new ideas. I'm very aware of how little I know. A lot of political people think they have the answers but the world is clearly super complex. Lot's of libertarian ideals sound like they work at small scale but we don't live in that world. We have mega corporations, we all use the same tech, capitalism will centralise production as it's more efficient. Like I said, I don't have any answers....

The irony being that Rand, in later life was taken car off by the state... lol I'm aware of her work but that point always stuck with me. Not as a justification for the state but that people can become unwell or just age and often end up needing care. A life of selfishness ended with her in that position which to my mind, discredits her somewhat. I'm vary aware that my world view at 20 is very different to what it is now and I expect the same to be true if I reach 80. Whilst clearly very smart, I think Rand lacked humility and it kicked her in the arse eventually.

Seemingly unrelated topics mix into our decision-making, as well. A lot of the married women I personally know aren't using effective forms of birth control, don't like abortion, and haven't slept with large numbers of men, so they feel more existential angst concerning immigration and overall crime. Married women are also more likely to have at least one son or nephew, so we care about "male" issues for a longer time.

Yes absolutely, and this is the role we need women to play to build strong societies. No different to fiat forcing doctors or engineers to become part-time investors so they don’t lose their wealth - diluting people’s attention from what they are best at and where they provide the most value to the extended order has a net negative impact on everyone else in that order.

I read between your lines and no. The whole career-life-family system is broken, not just for women. The world is not better off when mothers have only the mother and wife role to play, while fathers and husbands are trapped in a system where they are kept from their families much of the time working. Balance is needed. Mothers and fathers are both vital to children and mothers and fathers both should have lives apart from their children as well, including meaningful work.

There’s no lines to read between. I didn’t say women need to exclusively be mothers, I said that is where they need to focus for the extended order to most benefit. For them to be good mothers they’re going to need to have other interests which is no different to men who should be the breadwinners but will not be well-rounded fathers if they have nothing outside of their work - one-dimensional people do not make good parents. But the idea that people can do multiple things and excel at each is nonsense. We should be moving to a world of hyperfocus where each of us devotes the majority of our productivity to what we are best at (outside interests should be leisure) and realistically we need women to be best at raising the next generation to extend that rather than deferring motherhood or palming it off to the state as that is what perpetuates the very system you identify as broken.

Adam was taken from the earth (work), while Eve was formed from the flesh of man (relationship). This ancient Hebrew story says something deep and profound about men and women and differences in their basic life orientations. Adam was inclined to and created to work, while Eve was inclined to and made Adam's helper.