Or, if you're interested, here's the book they wrote:

Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters: From Dating, Shopping, and Praying to Going to War and Becoming a Billionaire-- Two Evolutionary Psychologists Explain Why We Do What We Do by Alan S. Miller

It's an easy read.  If you're expecting heavy duty science content, you're looking in the wrong place, though.  It's just a 101 overview of evolutionary psychology.  My only word of advice is take everything you read as an indication of a direction of study in evolutionary psych, not necessarily a concrete statement of cause.  This is a really exciting field, but it's very young.  It's one thing to observe the phenomenon that beautiful people have more daughters.  (They do, and yes, we can quantify beauty.  Get over it.)  It's another to note that powerful families have more sons.  When we start drawing direct line flow charts, things get a little dicey.  It's difficult to say what is the exact cause of these natural "biases."  Most likely, the word cause is insufficient, since all of our behaviors are a combination of genetic "programming" and environmental influence on the expression of genes.  In other words, it's really fucking complicated, but we know for certain it happens.

Before anyone gets their panties in a twist, I should make two very important philosophical points:

1) The fallacy of appeal to the natural is really important here.  The above statement, while completely true, doesn't mean that in a given situation it is right.  The cult of enforced equality is dangerously close to a precipice, and as we learn more about human nature, we're going to find out just how horribly wrong it is.  Humans are not equal.  That's evolution.  Men and women are different, and at every turn, when men do treat women as equals, women get pissed.  This is why I'm so adamant about teaching the average person just what science tells us about human nature.  Our politics are dead wrong in a lot of cases because we believe lots of incorrect things about humans.

2) While I'm on the subject of women getting pissed, I should bring up the South Park episode where the whole town went metrosexual.  After a while, all the women were pissed because their men were acting like women.  That's because women are attracted to the masculine aspects of men.  Part of making the workplace safe and productive is realizing that men are after sex, and that emasculating them doesn't make anyone happy in the long run.  Women (and lawyers) need to remember that the difference between sexual harrasment and sweeping a woman off her feet is often nothing but the woman's level of interest.  (Yes, Chris Rock was right.  Denzel Washington gets accused of sexual harrassment far less often than the fat bald guy with smelly sweat stains in the armpits of all his work shirts.)

I have to agree with the gender discrimination part. Many women don't understand what it's like being a man in certain environments. Of course these environments are in some places and not others. For instance, growing up, my Boy Scout troop was very competitive and discriminative contrary to what you'd expect.

There are alot of men who aren't like this, and wish we could all just get along... like me. But, many men find the need to pick on each other as a way of asserting their worth or standing in the social structure. Yes, we men seem to have a structure. I don't know if it's like this for women, but for men... I bet you could survey a group of friends as far as ranking themselves for 'coolness', or 'assertiveness' (I can't put my finger on how to describe it) amongst their group of friends and they'd probably all come up with the same rankings. It's like a smaller breakdown of the high school clique thing. I think this would definately lead into the discrimination thing.

Interesting read. Confirms many of my own thoughts on some of these matters.

My entire brand name is based on this. One day truth will be vogue.

Great pick.

Un bacio dall'Italia ( a kiss from Italy )

Falstaff

But I really don't agree...

If there are statistically more men who are arseholes who prefer short-term relationships (i.e. have a problem with committment), what is that meant to prove? According to this article, it seems we are supposed to take it as a sign that men can't help themselves. This is also the argument used to blame victims of rape for dressing too 'provocatively'. It also suffers from a similar problem to the rape-victim blamers in that it ignores the specifics of the abuse.

Let's look at the example of rape for a moment. When someone says: "Oh, men can't help themselves when confronted by a beautiful scantily clad woman", they are ignoring that rape involves a woman who does not consent to the sex, so there are inevitably tears and, very likely, screams.

The victim of sexual harassment is described above as receiving "abusive, intimidating, and degrading treatment", but what about the specifics? Anyone here surely knows that a common example of such treatment is bottom-slapping and let's not forget that the harassers are not known for doing this to both men and women equally. If the people who did this abuse were really treating employees equally, the abuse would be felt by both male and female colleagues. But let's just ignore these facts for the sake of academic discussion and say that men who do this are simply expressing their inner cavemen because, let's face it, men haven't developed one bit since the stone age. *sighs*

If margaritas ought to be garnished with oranges, why doesn't sugar dissolve in cold water?

Ok... let me explain my last comment, because I can tell from your post that you won't know what it means.  Think very carefully about these two words:

Is/are/was, etc.  = Description.  There is a stopsign at the corner.  This is not up for interpretation.  It is either true or false.  Period.  End of discussion.

Should = Prescription.  As I have written before, should has to have a referent.  In other words, if I say you "should" eat vegetables with every meal, what I'm really saying is, "IF you want to be healthy, THEN you should eat veggies with every meal."  Outside of the goal -- good health -- there is absolutely no justification for using the word should.  Let me say that again.  "Should" is a meaningless word unless it is in reference to a particular goal.

In your first question, you make many assumptions and subjective declarations.  First, you assert that more men than not are assholes.  This is kind of difficult to deal with in the first place because we don't know what "asshole" means to you.  (Sorry, but saying they're afraid of commitment doesn't cut it.  Commitment is a big word that refers to a LOT of different possible situations.)  Second, the authors in question don't claim that men have more problems with commitment than women.   They claim (and I've looked at the papers personally.  They're right.) that men are more interested in short term commitments FOR SEX than women.  When men decide who they are going to marry, they are equally as choosy as women, and in some ways, even moreso.

Men are not assholes because they're more interested in short term sexual relationships than women.  They are just men.  Men who deceive women by claiming to be interested in the long term when they are not are deceptive, and might be correctly called assholes.  You see the difference?  One is a description, and the other is a prescription.  Men are more interested in short term sex than women.  IN THE CONTEXT OF CURRENT DATING CULTURE, their genetic predispositions can be the cause of deceptive behavior in the pursuit of sex.

Now, look at the question I asked in response to your question:  If margaritas ought to be garnished with oranges, (prescriptive) then why won't sugar dissolve in cold water (descriptive)?  The question is obviously nonsense.  The "IF" and "THEN" part don't have anything to do with each other.  In the same way, when you describe the dating behavior of men who deceive women or otherwise act poorly, and then try to relate it back to the description of men's genetic makeup, you're making the same kind of mistake, only it's more subtle since the two seem related at first glance.  There are tons of men who don't lie to women to get laid, and they have the same genetic predisposition as those who do lie.

And by the way, don't get me started on the ways that women are genetically predisposed to be manipulative bitches.  In fact, I've already gotten started... why don't you read about it HERE...

No, not at all.  This article states that men are genetically designed to have certain desires.  It says absolutely nothing about what you ought or ought not blame them for in any particular circumstance.  You need to work on recognizing the difference between prescription and description.

LIFE GUARD TO THE DEEP END, PLEASE!!!  STAT!!!!

This has NOTHING to do with the article.  I've read the whole book that this was excerpted from.  I've read most of the actual studies with my own two eyes.  You need to work very hard on reading what is written, and not inserting your own personal bias into the equation.  I'm sorry that you're very emotionally affected by rape.  Rape sucks.  In a civilized society, it ought not be allowed  (Prescriptive) IF we value our personal liberties and rights (Referent).  However, it has absolutely nothing to do with this article.  Rape is in an entirely different category of behaviors than pursuing dating relationships, whether short or long term.

Yeah.  *sigh*.  Rape is bad, ok.  None of us here are fans of rape, but you've jumped so far off the deep end that it's hard to tell that you're even addressing the same article as the rest of us.  Please reread the whole thing several times, and pay special attention to what the authors say, and much, much more importantly, to what they do not say.

"Should" is a meaningless word unless it is in reference to a particular goal.

I agree. Now show how that is at all relevant to what I wrote.

First, you assert that more men than not are assholes.  This is kind of difficult to deal with in the first place because we don't know what "asshole" means to you.

Actually I don't say anything of the sort. I claim that men who can't stick with relationships for the long term are arseholes. It is the article quoted in the blog entry which claims that there are statistically more men with that kind of attitude than women. (Though neither myself nor the article claim that "more men than not" hold such a stance. That's just something you've come up with because you didn't read what you were responding to properly.):

Studies demonstrate unequivocally that men are far more interested in short-term casual sex than women.

Since the kind of person described there ('only interested in casual sex' - not long-term relationships) is, in my opinion, an arsehole, that then led me to state how annoyed I was with the idea that there are statistically more men like that. - In any case this was actually a side-comment in my post leading to the more major issue that sexual harrassment clearly is sexist.

This article states that men are genetically designed to have certain desires.  It says absolutely nothing about what you ought or ought not blame them for in any particular circumstance.

If the man still has a choice, he is still making a sexist choice by slapping a woman's arse, no matter what his desires. You are agreeing with me here.

"It also suffers from a similar problem to the rape-victim blamers in that it ignores the specifics of the abuse."

This has NOTHING to do with the article.

You clearly didn't understand what I wrote.

I'll explain again. Looking at examples of sexual harassment we see that it clearly reveals 'sexist' behaviour. Sexism isn't just a blanket-term for anything which affects a woman badly through, say, " abusive, intimidating, and degrading treatment". Sexism is when you employ discriminatory language or behaviour towards people of a particular sex or gender. As such, if an employer slaps EVERYONE'S bottom, they are not sexist. They are only sexist if they only slap women's bottoms. Sexual harassment involves an employer who only slaps women's bottoms and does so as a means of undermining them as women. The very idea that some genetic predisposition changes this is completely ludicrous and ignores what sexual harassment involves in practice (just like the rape-victim blamers ignore the specifics of rape).

The "rape-victim blamer" example was an analogy. That's why you didn't find anything about rape in the article. Look 'analogy' up in a dictionary..... then re-read it several times just to make sure you've understood it properly.

Thanks Kelly!!

Yes.  I know.  You still haven't understood anything the article, Kelly, or I have been saying.

So you don't think that on balance, men are more interested in short term relationships than women?  Pardon me.

Since we're talking about reading comprehension, would you care to explain how you took "men are far more interested" and translated that into "only interested in casual sex"?

Apparently, if your post is to believed, your problem is that you thought the article stated that men are only interested in casual sex, when what evolutionary psych says is quite different.  Men are typically more interested than women in short casual sex encounters, and they are less choosy about their partners than women.  Men, when they are interested in marriage and reproduction (which... obviously they are, since there are a lot of marriages and children in the world) are actually equally, or perhaps even more picky about their partners than women.  (I don't know if that's in the article, but it's true.  Evo Psych is my primary field of study.)

No, it's not.  Men sexually harrass men and women.  If they didn't sexually harass women, they would be treating women differently than men.

Stop thinking politically and think scientifically.  Men use intimidation, coercion, manipulation, and power to get what they want in the workplace.  Scientifically, we can say that they use those methods to gain status within their community.  If they refrained from using any of those techniques with women, we would say that they were treating women differently than men.  They were going easy on women.  As it turns out, their natural inclination is to treat women the same when women are also in the workplace.  (Remember, it's only been very recently in our evolutionary history that men and women have had such blurry division of labor!)

You keep using the word "sexist."  I do not think it means what you think it means.

Uh huh.  Maybe the problem is the word "discriminatory."

1.characterized by or showing prejudicial treatment, esp. as an indication of racial, religious, or sexual bias: discriminatory practices in housing; a discriminatory tax.

So, sexism is prejudicial treatment because of gender.  This scientist just demonstrated that sexual harassment is not applied just to women.  It's NOT PREJUDICIAL.  It's applied across the board.  Women would actually prefer prejudicial treatment which exempted them from being subject to the normal practices of men in the workplace.

Have you ever been in a men's locker room?  Ever heard men ridiculing each other about their sexual prowess, their ability to get a woman, or how long it's been since they've gotten laid?  You think men work out just to impress women?  Like I said, you really need to stop thinking politically if you're going to understand this concept.  It's not about right and wrong.  It's about what is and what isn't.

You're being nitpicky to the point of absurdity.  Ridiculing a coworker about having no luck with women is sexual harrassment.  Slapping a woman's ass is sexual harrassment.  You're either ignorant of men's sexual harrassment towards each other, or you're ignoring it.

And stepping into a subordinate's conversation with the cute girl at Starbucks, just to let her see that you're his boss, is also a means of undermining him as a man.  Get over the idea that women deserve special treatment by default.  That's politics, not science.

Stop equating sexual harrassment and rape.  They're not the same.

Analogy has a form.  It can be either valid or invalid.  Here's how it works:

A and B have a similar quality.  X and Y belong to A and B, respectively:

A ------ X

B ------ Y

We say that X and Y are analogous  if they relate to A and B in a way that is either identical, or close enough to equal to illustrate a point.  We say, "Such and such is X in situation A, and such and such is Y in situation B, so maybe B is to A as Y is to X.

Rape - Forcible, nonconsentual sexual contact, accompanied by violence or the threat of violence.

Sexual Harrassment - unwanted sexual advances, offers to exchange preferential treatment for sexual favors, or refusing equal treatment unless sexual favors are given -- IN THE WORKPLACE.

While both of these practices involve sex, they are not analogous inasmuch as rape is actual sexual contact while sexual harrassment is not.  Using physical force is NOT the same as using workplace influence to try to persuade a woman to have sex.  The motivations for rape (in the male) are not the same as harrassment.

So, where's your analogy?  Rape is to women as sexual harrassment is to women?  How?  "Women" is either A or B, but not both A and B.  Or, are you saying, "Rape is violating women physically and Harrassment is violating them mentally"?  How do you justify the equality of mental and physical distress?  Given a choice, would you rather be raped or have to quit a job because your boss wouldn't stop grabbing your ass?  They're not equal.  Men and women both experience emotional distress at work from asshole bosses.  Rape at the office is considered rape, not sexual harrassment.

It is high time that Kelly et al. stated our true innate nature. My heartfelt thanks. Notwithstanding the fact that feminists belong to an array of differing ideological camps (I'm personally a fan of individualist/libertarian feminism), mainstream feminists still cling to the false notion that human nature can be perfected via social engineering to achieve the utopian ideal of equality. The post-modernist idea that gender is purely a social construct is just as much pseudoscience as intelligent design. There are feminists who dogmatically insist that toddlers be given gender neutral toys or have boys play with dolls lest they become misogynists and rapists if they race and crash toy trucks. Leave the kids alone and let their innate XX and XY proclivities come into fruition!!!!!! Girls will not be boys and boys will not be girls (my apologies to the Kinks with Lola).

Here's the truth of it all:

1. Men will always want to fuck young pretty girls with big tits and wide hips. And short of altering a man's genome, there is nothing anyone can do to change this. The scandinavian countries are the most gender inclusive feminist societies wherein toddler boys are encouraged to play with dolls. And here's what men want in spite of years of gender socialization:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zsneEp7ciM

2. Women will always want to look young, pretty, busty and fuckable. And there's nothing anyone can do to change this either. It is not due to negative conditioning from a patriarchical socieity.

Now does all this give men the license to rape and sexually harass? Does this mean that fat disproportionate flat chested women are to be treated as social lepers? Absolutely not!!!!! No human being wishes to be humiliated or harmed. Every individual has inalienable rights and civil liberties which should never be violated. Also, each human being to a varying degree has an innate capacity for empathy. Yes there will always be jerks but most people do not want to hurt others.

And it boggles my mind how so many feminists forget the lessons from history. Large scale experiments in social engineering led to brutal totalitarian societies (ie. Stalinist Russia, Mao's China) that oppressed women.

That's not entirely accurate. Personally, I prefer small tits.

1. Men will always want to fuck young pretty girls with big tits and wide hips. And short of altering a man's genome, there is nothing anyone can do to change this. The scandinavian countries are the most gender inclusive feminist societies wherein toddler boys are encouraged to play with dolls. And here's what men want in spite of years of gender socialization:

Actually that is not neccessarily strictly true, ladies breasts have absolutely zero sexual attraction to most hetrosexual men  in this world ,the western world is the exception.

They simply arent treated as sexual part of the body  in most of the 3rd world are hence uncovered.

Now to mean that means one of 2 things

1) There is a gene for making men be attracted to breasts than the western world has but Africa doesnt, extremely unlikely as those of African descent in the West seem to have exactly the same desires

2) The attraction of big tits (couldnt do breasts for much  longer) is almost entirely a media and marketing exercise along with a large part of what is it to be attractive

I don't know the answer to this but any psychology that doesnt take into account regional differences is basically bullshit science (I would love to see someone define a person as genetically British or American). You don't have German gravity, American quantum mechanics and  French relavitiy science is about studying universal laws and psychology plainly arent

Who told you that?

Dude, they're secondary sex organs.  The fact that they're uncovered in much (not most) of the third world doesn't mean they aren't thought of as sexually attractive in any cases.  They're simply not regarded as taboo.  There's a big, big difference.  It's the same as men walking around bare chested.  Women aren't attracted to every bare male chest they see, but rest assured, there are many women who love particular kinds of chests, despite not being particularly attracted to others.  This goes for East, West, North, and South. 

While you're on that train of thought... what do most of the breasts in National Geographic have in common?  They sag below the belly button.  In no culture that I'm aware of is that considered the height of attractive.  Want to take a guess what kind of women men in third world countries are attracted to?  It's young women whose breasts don't sag.

Horse shit

Or:

3) The attraction to breasts in general is emphasized in cultures that place a taboo on the baring of them in polite company.

Evolutionary psychology does take regional differences into account, and the trend is clear.  Men are attracted to female breasts across all cultures, and the degree of attraction does vary significantly based on cultural norms.  Breasts that tend to betray youth are consistently favored in all cultures against breasts that betray age.

Come back to the shallow end of the pool, please.  We're going to lose you out there...

While I'm at it, it's well known that decorated human bodies have long been the goal of all human cultures.  Clothes are decorations.  Have you considered that western women emphasize the attractive qualities of their breasts by wearing particular kinds of decorations?  Necklaces that point to them, bras that push them up (making them look more youthful), clothes that seductively hint at the shape without giving it entirely away... 

But "boobs" where not the point made. Don't focus on the boobs. The point was in Scandinavia (like Denmark, where I'm from) men and women are still different, and we focus on different things, in spite of various political and cultural initiatives to equate men and women from childhood.

And while I like my country (Denmark), and it's gender-culture, I recognize that there are still slutty women, and macho asshole men here, because we still conform to our natural state in some ways.

But, like Hamby was trying to point out, politically you can do whatever you want to try and implement what should be the case, but that does not have anything to do with what is the case.

Many politicians in Denmark still do not understand this, but many others are beginning to, and I think this is a very good thing.

Because, as a product of my own culture, I am very much in favor of gender equality, and the general extinction of assholelary, injustice, and bigotry against women, nerds, racial minoraties, ugly people et.c.

But I also think if you have such utopian hopes, the best way to get there is to understand human nature (what is) so that one can better figure out how to best achieve the things we want (what should be).

Hamby's two replies to the two "boobs" posts above him, had not appeared while I was writing my reply, so for the record, my post was not directed at you Hamby, but at the posts you were replying to.

And for the record, I agree with Hamby's replies. Well said (again) Hamby.

Right.  I still haven't found an elegant way to say this, but the only way you can ever get a human to do something that's contrary to his nature in one way is to make it fit his nature in another.  In other words, if you want men to stop treating women poorly in the workplace, you have to change the workplace, not the humans.  You can't change human nature.  I'm not saying I know the answer for the workplace, but I know that it's got to be a change in the way workplaces are structured that makes it easy for men to treat women better.

As a disclaimer, I am not saying that people can't behave themselves, or that we shouldn't expect restraint from men in the workplace.  What I'm saying is IF the workplace is set up such that men can treat women poorly to their own advantage, some men will do so.  Some will exercise restraint, of course, but others will not.  The way to effectively eliminate a behavior is to change the situation, not the human.  If it is no longer to the benefit of men to treat women poorly in the workplace, they won't do it.

The choice is a simple one:

1) Expect humans to act in a way that is contrary to their nature, then punish them when they do not

OR

2) Understand human nature, and create an environment which exploits it in desirable ways.

Hambydammit, since you had ignored my reply to you for quite some time I thought you might have agreed to disagree.

Still there's one point where you managed to hit the nail on the head:

"So you don't think that on balance, men are more interested in short term relationships than women?  Pardon me."

Absolutely right. Though to put it more specifically, I don't think that men are more genetically predisposed towards short term relationships than women. I think that women are maligned more for admitting to being interested in short term relationships but as far as actual preference is concerned I think men and women are actually pretty much the same in this respect.

Stop equating sexual harrassment and rape.  They're not the same.

I have NEVER equated sexual harrassment with rape. Not once.

What I said was that in cases of rape some people can be inclined to blame the victim claiming that 'the men couldn't help themselves'. It was this attitude of 'men cannot help themselves' which I believed to be analogous to the current article's attitude.

The article claims that sexual harassment is just another part of the ordinary  abusive, intimidating, and degrading treatment which employers use towards all their staff and that therefore women should not claim that sexual harassment is victimisation of them for their gender.

Here's the argument in it's logical form:

1. Sexual harassment is abuse, intimidation and degradation.

2. In order to be sexist it would have to be done more to one gender than the other due to prejudice.

3. Employers use abuse, intimidation and degradation towards all their employees equally.

4. Therefore it is wrong to call sexual harassment of women 'sexist'.

The argument is completely flawed, not on a logical basis but because of information which is missing from the premises. Premise one claims that sexual harassment is abuse, intimidation and degradation, however it ignores that it is a particular FORM of such abuse, intimidation and degradation.

I'm sorry, but undemining a collegue for having poor luck with women, while abusive, is not sexual harassment. Sexual harassment can be seen in the act of slapping an employees bottom, which is in an invasion of personal space, degrading an employee for their gender and making reference to sexual difference. By comparison, mockery for not being good with ladies is not sexual harassment.

Here are some types of sexual harassment:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_harassment#Types_of_harassment

And let's not forget that men can be subject to sexual harassment too:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2006/jun/25/gender.world

2 in 5 sexual harassment cases have men as the victim, but not every case of abuse, intimidation and degradation is 'sexual'. Sexual harassment is unwelcome attention of a sexual nature, not simply any abuse which happens to involve sex in the subject. The employer who mocks their employee for a lack of luck with women is not giving them unwanted sexual attentions.

You say I don't know what sexism is. On the contrary, I am claiming that the writer of the article does not know what sexual harrassment is.

Almost forgot to bring things down to your level by posting a quote where you have clearly missed the point followed by an unnecessary insulting response:

While both of these practices involve sex, they are not analogous inasmuch as rape is actual sexual contact while sexual harrassment is not.  Using physical force is NOT the same as using workplace influence to try to persuade a woman to have sex.  The motivations for rape (in the male) are not the same as harrassment.

So, where's your analogy?  Rape is to women as sexual harrassment is to women?  How?  "Women" is either A or B, but not both A and B.  Or, are you saying, "Rape is violating women physically and Harrassment is violating them mentally"?  How do you justify the equality of mental and physical distress?  Given a choice, would you rather be raped or have to quit a job because your boss wouldn't stop grabbing your ass?  They're not equal.  Men and women both experience emotional distress at work from asshole bosses.  Rape at the office is considered rape, not sexual harrassment.

LIFE GUARD TO THE DEEP END PLEASE!

There. Wouldn't want the conversation to be too civilised now, would we?

So... um... your argument is that sexual harassment is particular because... um... it's not the same as other forms of harrassment?  Ok... well... um... so is degrading a man for not being able to get laid.  That's particular because men don't do it to women.

What's your point?

Seems like special pleading to me.

Agreed. Abuse is abuse. There's nothing more special about one demographic recieving abuse than another. We're all human. Focusing on one aspect of abuse blinds you to the abuse that occurs elsewhere. I hate seeing signs around that say "End violence against women!". Assholes. How about ending violence PERIOD?! I find more "sexism" in such a sign than in sexual harrassment as portrayed here.

Precisely!

What my previous interlocutor has yet to understand is that evolutionary psychology is not a value system.  It's a branch of science.  It says how things are, not how they ought to be under a particular moral framework.

If we think like scientists instead of politicians, we realize that discrimination is not a bad word.  It's just distinguishing between two classes by means of a particular trait.  Singling out violence against women is sexually discriminating because it distinguishes between men and women as recipients of violence.  It's sexist.  That doesn't mean it's wrong or right.  But it is sexist.

In your case, it sounds like you would prefer not to discriminate between violence against men and women.  This is an example of taking a fact ("violence against women" is a discriminatory category) and applying it to your own moral system (there should not be discriminatory categories of violence).  Presumably, if asked, you could construct an argument by which you rationalize this particular moral judgment.   That's how it works.  You start with a fact.  Then, you determine how that fact fits into a subjective framework.

All harassment in the workplace is workplace harassment.  It's been clearly demonstrated that people in power in the workplace often harass those under them in rank.  They do it to men and women.  One category of harassment employs sexuality.  Since men and women's sexuality is different, the harassment is going to be different between the sexes.  Duh.  Slapping a man on the ass has a different sexual significance than slapping a woman on the ass.  This is the major point that seems to be slipping by here.  Sure, it's angering and humiliating to be sexually harassed at the workplace, but it's sexist to presuppose that the harassment against women is automatically worse in kind than that against men.

Women, have you really got any idea what it feels like to be a fifteen year old boy and have all the eighteen year olds in the gym locker laugh at your penis?  How about what it feels like to be on a business trip and have the boss make fun of your poor skills with women in front of a client?  Do you know what it's like to be passed over for a promotion because you're short and bald, not tall, muscular, and sexually attractive?

Ok, so here are the bullet points on what evolutionary psychology says, and what it doesn't, about sexual harassment:

* Any harassment based on any trait whatsoever is discriminatory.  It's almost nonsense to mention the point.

* Men harass both men and women in the workplace.  There are elements of sexual harassment in both sexes.

* Men harass women in the workplace precisely because they DON'T discriminate between the sexes.  They apply different kinds of harassment because women and men are different, and humans are very good at finding the most effective ways to humiliate other humans.

"I hate seeing signs around that say "End violence against women!". Assholes."

You didn't just say that. Seriously.

The reason why it's 'End Violence Against Women" is because it is MUCH more likely to happen to women than men. When a woman is brutally assaulted by her husband she is practically helpless. Men who've been attacked by their wives, on the other hand, have often mentioned being worried about causing too much damage if they fight back. I think it should be obvious here that men are much less likely to be in the same situation of helplessness when it comes to domestic violence. Of course, there is also the case of domestic violence amongst gay couples and naturally it is important not to ignore those instances either, but the most common and most devastating instance of domestic violence will always be inflicted by men upon women.

There's also the fact that 1 in 3 women will be victims of rape at some point in their lives, yet only about 4% of instances where a rape case goes to trial actually end in a conviction. (I'm working with UK statistics here. I'm afraid I don't know the stats for various US states.) That's ignoring the huge numbers of women who are too ashamed to come forward. - What arseholes, eh?

Ok, so here are the bullet points on what evolutionary psychology says, and what it doesn't, about sexual harassment:

* Any harassment based on any trait whatsoever is discriminatory.  It's almost nonsense to mention the point.

Ok, I'm still waiting for what evolutionary psychology says about sexual harassment. I know that any harassment is discriminatory, but not all harassment is sexual.

Indeed and what you've failed to note, once again, is that women are far more likely than men to receive sexual harassment.

* Men harass both men and women in the workplace.  There are elements of sexual harassment in both sexes.

* Men harass women in the workplace precisely because they DON'T discriminate between the sexes.  They apply different kinds of harassment because women and men are different, and humans are very good at finding the most effective ways to humiliate other humans.

But that isn't true, is it? Men don't harass women and men equally. They are more likely to harass women sexually.

I've just realised that I might get accused of self-contradiction for my last post. While I noted that sexual harrassment is actually being shown to happen slightly MORE often to men than to women, those instances tend to involve a female boss. So long as we are only talking about sexual harassment by men, sexual harassment is much more likely to be aimed at women.

 Please try to understand this point.  It's very simple.

Evolutionary Psychology is not a value system.

Read it again, please:

Evolutionary Psychology is not a value system.

Seriously.  It's not a value system.  It doesn't address value.  It can't.  It doesn't.  It's not a value system.

Clear?

I get that you're angry about rape and sexual harassment.  They're bad, ok?  I don't think anyone here disagrees with you.  (Also, please note that I did not voice my opinion on the previous poster's suggestion that it's a bad idea to single out violence against women.  I just noted his use of fact to construct his own presumably justifiable position.)  Can we all just hold hands, sing Kum-By-Ya, and agree that we'd like it if less women were raped?  I'm ok with that, if it means we could move forward with this discussion instead of quibbling over what science says about the facts.

Do you know what you're objecting to?  I don't think you do.  I'm ok with you mounting a campaign to end workplace harassment of women.   (By the way, I'm still not clear on why you're mentioning rape and sexual harassment in the same category.  They're not.  That's why they call one rape and one sexual harassment.)  Please, by all means, find a way to set up the workplace in such a way that will lower the amount of sexual harassment.  Really.  I'm on your side with this.

Now, please return to the subject at hand.  By what philosophical justification do you put sexual harassment against females in a unique category when it is demonstrable that workplace harassment is equally doled out to both genders, and the only reason it tends to be sexual against women is that most men tend to be heterosexual, and find sexual harassment to be very effective towards their goals?

Actually, they are more likely to use propositions and demands for sexual gratification from women because most men are heterosexual.  You're still confusing politics with science.  The number and types of behavior that are scientifically classifiable as sexual harassment are substantially different than those legally recognized as such.

For comparison, do a study of workplaces where the management are women and the workers men.  What are the percentages of sexual harassment in those cases?  You know the answer.  Men hardly ever sexually harass their boss.  Stop confusing politics with science.  Men harass everybody when they're in charge.  So do women.  Because most businesses are run by men, and most women are middle or lower tier employees, there are more chances for men to harass women sexually in the workplace.

Consider that there are more whites than blacks in American jails.  That's because whites are about 80% of the population.  Per population, there are significantly more blacks than whites.  

Invent a society where women are the bosses and men are the lower tier employees, and sexual harassment by men towards women in the workplace will drop to almost nothing compared to the current system.

I didn't ever claim that rape and sexual harassment were in the same category. I hope that clears up that one. If you read back through everything I've written you will clearly see that I have only ever compared the reaction of certain people to allegations of rape to the statement that sexual harassment is not really sexism. It was a comparison between two responses, not the equivocation of two activities.

I know that evolutionary psychology is not a value-system, however it remains the case that saying "sexual harassment is not sexist" is objectively false.

"By what philosophical justification do you put sexual harassment against females in a unique category when it is demonstrable that workplace harassment is equally doled out to both genders"

Okay, you appear to be easily led off the topic here. We are talking about sexual harassment. Yes, there are a variety of different forms of harassment in the workplace. I agree with that. However, sexual harrassment is sexist. Understand now?

Invent a society where women are the bosses and men are the lower tier employees, and sexual harassment by men towards women in the workplace will drop to almost nothing compared to the current system.

I already noted that there are statistics showing that men are actually sexually harassed MORE than women. In many companies women ARE the boss and there have been a number of valid complaints of sexual harassment by men concerning their female boss.

My point was that men do not normally sexually harass their male employees. Sexual harassment is harassment of someone of a particular sex, it is based on the gender of the employee and therefore it is sexist. I don't see why this is so hard for you to fathom!

 Ok.  I've got to admit it.  You've stumped me.  What is your point?

You aren't claiming that sexual harrassment ought to be singled out over any other.

You are claiming that sexual involvement involves sex.  Wow... brilliant.

You are admitting that it's a biproduct of the male dominated workplace.   Seems obvious enough.

You are claiming that men don't normally sexually harass males.  Again... DUH.  Most men are straight.

Is this all just so you can use the word "sexist" when talking about sexual harassment?

Is this all just so you can use the word "sexist" when talking about sexual harassment?

This is brilliant. I am so glad I came back to check up on this. One moment you are claiming that sexual harassment is not sexism and the next moment you are claiming that the statement "sexual harassment is sexist" is a tautology.

*Bangs head into wall*

A friend told me about that book but, I didn't pay to much attention to it but now I'll be sure to read it.
thanks!