Monday, November 17, 2008

Love in the Time of Darwinism

11/17/08. Author Kay S. Hymowitz applies Darwin's theory to male - female relationships. We are all animals: men are tough, cool, and promiscuous; women are manipulative, calculating, and driven by self-interest.

True?

http://www.city-journal.org/2008/18_4_darwinist_dating.html

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sorry, long comment warning:

I'm a 25-year-old woman who chooses not to associate with the kind of men that Hymowitz quotes in her article -- the ones who tell her that "men are finally waking up to the ever-present fact that traditional marriage, or a committed relationship, with its accompanying socially imposed requirements of being wallets with legs for women, is an empty and meaningless drudgery."

In my world, men who make blanket statements like this don't make them because of the "chaotic post-dating scene" -- they make them because they are ASSHOLES. It is true that being young and on the prowl is not always fun -- nightclubs are loud, and dancing has become an ugly form of grinding, and talking to people now carries this strange weight of self-awareness. But in cities, that is because young men and women are completely saturated with all kinds of pop culture references, and you have very few connections to anyone or very little sense of community. So those reference points become your conversation starters, and that's kind of boring and unbearable.

But it's ALWAYS been hard to meet people, that hasn't changed -- if anything, technological advances like the Internet have made it easier! And the few men that Hymowitz quotes (her selection of quotes reminds me of Tom Wolfe's I Am Charlotte Simmons, in which he broadly generalized college kids and somehow lost sight of the many interesting, high-achieving, well-behaved ones) -- men like that are probably not religious, not very close to their family members, don't have close, meaningful friendships, and thus have little to get them through the day. And they definitely don't meet enough women, or they wouldn't generalize all of us in such a horrible way.

I'm not sure why I read Kay Hymowitz anymore -- I think it's mainly because I'm fascinated by women who clearly are benefitting from the work feminists did in the sixties, and yet turn against feminists whenever they can. Hymowitz is a respected writer who probably gets paid very well -- partly thanks to the pay demands of feminists and the noting of the "glass ceiling." If she has children, and she chose to have them in her thirties once her writing career was established, and she's not being judged for that (except maybe by herself) -- she has feminism to thank for that too. It's very difficult to make sense of her articles.

Anonymous said...

Hi City Swamp,
In my opinion, with this article Hymowitz shows that she is an intellectual heavyweight who is able to notice, digest, and process new information when she encounters it. Is the information uncomfortable? yes. Did she ignore it and "stuck to the script"? no. That is true journalism.

Even the biggest optimist will admit that not all is well in our world of modern courtship. Clearly something has gone amiss with the force. Divorce rates holding steady at 50%, marriage rates at the lowest evel recorded levels (2008 was the lowest in the UK since records started being kept in 1835). Hymowitz does not give us any answers, but at least she is calling out the problem, and asking some good questions.

Her ability to change her perspective after her original article, so that she can have another go at finding the truth, shows perseverance and intellect. I respect that in a person, man or woman.