Magritte: Attempting the Impossible    

The Science of Sex


Commentary


Some of the Propositions and Theorems Discussed





Proposition 1. Females cannot tolerate naked masculinity.

In mind is "neanthedral man," fighting off any obstacle to his chosen mate and dragging her off to his cave. If this strategy were employed today women would be sneaking round trying to make themselves as unattractive as possible.


Theorem 1, The Dynamical Laws.

  1. The only power that females have is given to them by males;
  2. The only thing which females do with that power is use it against males.

Part one of the Dynamical Laws is proven by default, by the absence of a counterexample. The best counterexample offered so far is discussed in All About Women and elsewhere, and quotes Darwin:

'With many closely-allied species, following nearly the same habits of life, the males have come to differ from each other chiefly through the action of sexual selection, whilst the females have come to differ chiefly from partaking more or less of the characters thus acquired by the males' (Darwin, 1874: 759).

The second part of the Laws is perhaps conceptually difficult because it might be taken to suggest immediacy ("the only thing"). Of course, if whatever power given to the female was instantly used against males, she would never be given any. More subtle behaviours develop.

This situation is comparable to the example of the office Christmas Party in the discussion of Costs and Benefits. Adolescent females tend to divulge information immediately, while the mature female saves the information for maximum effect later. The conceptual problem is that at once we are dealing with the aggregate (i.e., the mass of people averaged) and the extremes. No distinction is made between them, and this second component of the Dynamical Laws appears as a sweeping generalisation accounting for every case simultaneously.

Probably a good example of part two of the Dynamical Laws is provided by the case of the woman pilot (actually co-pilot) for British Airways reported in the British media in March 2007. She had spent three years in legal battles agitating to have her working hours reduced to 50% so that she could spend more time looking after her two daughters (her second daughter was born during the course of the dispute). The airline had already reduced her work time to 75%, but still she claimed that not being allowed to work at the 50% rate amounted to sex discrimination. A rate of 50% working time is equivalent to 8-10 days flying per month.

There are a number of good examples of female behaviour here, such as imitation, insatiability and going too far, as well as an observable preference for part-time work, but these have no direct bearing on the Dynamical Laws.

The environment of airlines, like that of large goods vehicles, is highly masculine. Passenger air traffic demands precision and high levels of training and competence in pilots in order to protect the safety of passengers. Precision, exactitude, rigour and so forth all lie in the male domain. It was reported that only 171 of BA's 3,100 pilots are women. Doubtless there are fewer female applicants, but this ratio reflects the greater uniformity of females, so that the vast majority of individuals displaying exceptional levels of coordination, reaction times, stamina etc. will be male.

Has the female in this instance acquired her power from males? Certainly, since she was given it by a male parliament and subsequent males have admitted her to a male-dominated profession. Males invented all the devices and aids which have removed the physical demands formerly required, as well as increased the job’s physical safety. One hundred years ago a woman would have spent a large proportion of her time washing laundry by hand or, if she was one of a fortunate few, managed a household of servants. Is she using that power against males? Yes. Her presence alone is an affront to the masculinity of the male pilots, who are in the overwhelming majority. She is using a male hierarchy and legislative system to impose femininity (especially, a preference for part-time working) upon a masculine environment.

Some women take the driving test to qualify them to drive large goods vehicles, this being made possible for them by the invention of synchromesh and power steering. This is a rather less esoteric field than piloting an airplane, but comparable. The female seeks to prove to herself that "she can do it, as can a man" but it is also an attack on the masculinity of a normally male profession. However once the licence is obtained, the objective is achieved, because only a tiny proportion of these women (already a small minority) actually go on to work in the nitty-gritty, and often lonely, full-time job of truck driving.

The woman pilot in the example is also jeopardizing the very safety so craved for by her sex. Indeed the airline argued in this case that pilots are required to have logged at least 2,000 flying hours before reducing their hours by half. It said it was acting on grounds of safety, not gender. Regular working is required to maintain high standards, or else the pilots might get "rusty" and, in a moment of crisis, fail to quickly adopt the correct procedure.

Clearly she believes she is acting for all women: "I hope that my case will make it easier not just for other pilots, but for all working mothers, to be able to work flexibly" she is reported to have said.

One can imagine the ribbing a male pilot would have received from his colleagues had he demanded to work part-time so he could spend more time with his family. He would likely have been told by his superiors that if he wasn’t prepared to do the hours, he shouldn’t have applied to be a pilot in the first place. The disapproval of his colleagues would probably be sufficient to persuade him to drop his claim altogether.

Evidently this has not taken place in this instance and, just as women now exploit the gains made by a small number of deranged suffragettes a hundred years ago, and the victories of feminists more recently, her female colleagues will also take advantage of any gains she makes.

Paradoxically, the decision was hailed by the Equal Opportunities Commission as a victory for gender equality. In reality it is a demand that women be treated as a special case; since the airline has trained her, at great expense, to only get a part-time worker, it further demonstrates the unsuitability of women for such roles.

The second part of the Dynamical Laws is not meant to suggest the immediate, invariable use of power against males, rather its inevitability. Sooner or later one or more females given power will use that power to make such a bid and, by the consent or acquiescence of the rest, the second part of the Dynamical Laws will be fulfilled. The direction of the trend is invariably set. The behaviour is driven by an evolutionary imperative – the "arms race" between male and female which accounts for our rapid evolution.

The example of the female pilot, extended and assuming an absence of male influence, is ultimately comic. Lace curtains would appear on the cockpit windows, pilots would breast-feed their babies while the autopilot was engaged, and as the planes became progressively smaller more and more of the available space would be taken up with creche and nappy-changing facilities for the cabin crew. The plane would have become a flying nursery. Men would be relegated to maintenance roles only.


Pending? Or just retracing old ground?

A possible contradiction has been identified involving Response Displacement, Advanced Approach Displacement and EBIAR. The essential issue is whether making Approaches is the natural role of the male or the female. The female has superior verbal ability, is more capable of making "small talk" and has a more opportunistic nature than the male (all with sound evolutionary origins), yet seemingly expects the male to adopt this role.

It was concluded in TOA, largely due to observations of Response Displacement, that the female had formerly approached the male but only recently had required him to approach her. "The female manipulates the male into doing her work."




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