Theologian Announces That God Has A Wife

[WmLaw]

 

The problem is that human physiognomy favors a certain very different division of labor for very practical reasons in primitive societies: When, for example, males are hunting deer or larger mammals, they must have three advantages which females simply don't have:  (1) powerful upper body strength,  (2) ability to run long distances (deer and other animals will eventually collapse from fatigue), and (3) more logical and focused for the hunt.  

I know plenty of female marathon runners that would contradict your item (2). 

[saemo]

It may very well depend upon whether the anthropologists bring an apriori feminist bias or patriarchal bias to the investigation, ideology predetermining the conclusion reached.  It is, however, undeniable that different environments can favor very different arrangements.  Humans are after all very inventive and the power of women often understimated.

 

The problem is that human physiognomy favors a certain very different division of labor for very practical reasons in primitive societies: When, for example, males are hunting deer or larger mammals, they must have three advantages which females simply don't have:  (1) powerful upper body strength,  (2) ability to run long distances (deer and other animals will eventually collapse from fatigue), and (3) more logical and focused for the hunt.  The same applies to physical combat in defense of the tribe.  Females, on the other hand, are naturally equipped both mentally and physically for nurturance of young and old, and for all aspects of life at home base (breast milk for offspring for two years or more, fine manual dexterity, powerful intuition, and multitasking ability), and are better able to withstand pain and temperature extremes than men.  Women thus make the basketry, ceramics, preparation of hides (clothing), sewing (with bone awls & needle), cooking, midwifery, etc.

 

In a modern environment, of course, men and women can do nearly any ordinary task equally well.  That tells us nothing about paleoanthropology.

…and the stereotypes live on. Working in Park City, I know more than a few female athletes who would 1) kick your behind with their upper body strength, 2) beat the majority of any man in a race and 3) are more focused and logical.

 

Seriously, you are having a discussion with a woman who has a career in I.T., which requires both focus and logic. Your assertion is, my male coworkers are better at my job for mere fact they are men.

 

So 1950's. Right up there with the man who commented I was the first systems administrator he had ever met who didn't have a beard!

Edited January 9, 2014 by saemo

[Stone holm]

…and the stereotypes live on. Working in Park City, I know more than a few female athletes who would 1) kick your behind with their upper body strength, 2) beat the majority of any man in a race and 3) are more focused and logical.

 

Seriously, you are having a discussion with a woman who has a career in I.T., which requires both focus and logic. Your assertion is, my male coworkers are better at my job for mere fact they are men.

 

So 1950's. Right up there with the man who commented I was the first systems administrator he had ever met who didn't have a beard!

He was off base on the third item, as to the first two he probably isn't. This isn't about whether athletes can outperform your average male its about on average in both genders. He is probably right about Stone Age cultures, but this isn't the Stone Age so the question becomes why are we still applying factors that disappeared approximately a century ago to support present day gender roles nod stereotypes.

[thesometimesaint]

You mean monogamy isn't the traditional form of marriage and was started by the pagan Romans as a false idol as Brigham Young and John Taylor claimed?  Well, then perhaps polygamy WILL return to being the norm...

 

I didn't say it was THE traditional form just that those are were we got our marriage laws from. Polygamy was rare, and when practiced was kept out of the public as much as possible, throughout Christian Europe.

 

Polygamy wasn't even the norm among the Saints during BY times. Less than 5% of the Saints practiced it.

[thesometimesaint]

I know plenty of female marathon runners that would contradict your item (2). 

 

We all do. However the average marathon runner isn't the average person.

[WmLaw]

We all do. However the average marathon runner isn't the average person.

Yet an average person can be an average marathon runner - regardless of gender. The ability to run long distances is a human trait, not limited to males.

[Stone holm]

Yet an average person can be an average marathon runner - regardless of gender. The ability to run long distances is a human trait, not limited to males.

 

Omigosh people.  Does political correctness now require us to assume that statistically there is almost no difference in the physical strength of men and women?  Even the Army doesn't engage in such silliness.  The important point is that today a woman can pull a trigger as easily as a man, most men don't hunt for subsidence -- most men and women do their hunting at the grocery store,  in most areas of the United States you don't have to set an armed guard at your door to protect yourself, your family and your property, women in most industrialized nations don't have to squat in the fields and forests to relieve themselves, most women if they want to can even avoid getting pregnant without giving up sex.  Now it is true that men cannot bear children, or breastfeed them, but there is basically no reason they can't handle the rest of the program.  Women can shoot, drive a vehicle, operate a computer, make business decisions, and just about anything that doesn't involve absolute brute strength that a man can do.  We don't normally walk around with huge swords, clubs, etc.  But we are still carrying around the cultural baggage regarding gender that became largely irrelevant many, many years ago.

[Calm]

Just because men would be better at it doesn't mean that women would be incapable. In a hunt where the numbers of participants was important healthier women without the need to be 24/7 with a baby could participate to raise the likelihood of success while older women and those with young children could tend their children for them....and possibly the older or less active men as well.

[WmLaw]

Omigosh people.  Does political correctness now require us to assume that statistically there is almost no difference in the physical strength of men and women?  Even the Army doesn't engage in such silliness.  The important point is that today a woman can pull a trigger as easily as a man, most men don't hunt for subsidence -- most men and women do their hunting at the grocery store,  in most areas of the United States you don't have to set an armed guard at your door to protect yourself, your family and your property, women in most industrialized nations don't have to squat in the fields and forests to relieve themselves, most women if they want to can even avoid getting pregnant without giving up sex.  Now it is true that men cannot bear children, or breastfeed them, but there is basically no reason they can't handle the rest of the program.  Women can shoot, drive a vehicle, operate a computer, make business decisions, and just about anything that doesn't involve absolute brute strength that a man can do.  We don't normally walk around with huge swords, clubs, etc.  But we are still carrying around the cultural baggage regarding gender that became largely irrelevant many, many years ago.

It has nothing to do with politcal correctness in this case.  RFS made a bold and innacurate statement which i objected to.  

[Stone holm]

Just because men would be better at it doesn't mean that women would be incapable. In a hunt where the numbers of participants was important healthier women without the need to be 24/7 with a baby could participate to raise the likelihood of success while older women and those with young children could tend their children for them....and possibly the older or less active men as well.

Never said they were, nor do I disagree about the participation. On the other hand, I would think it pretty clear hoe the gender stereotyped roles came into existence, and that in our times the original reasons for the stereotyped roles and dress have ceased to exist.

[Robert F. Smith]

In a hunter gatherer society, it certainly made sense that the men did the majority of the hunting and fighting, and the women did the majority of the gathering and nurturing. In those days, the men would also have had to be constantly on alert to physically defend their hunting and gathering areas, their women and children. So do we take away from that probable fact that God, His Church and society should permanently and eternally afix gender roles based on hunter gatherer societies where Braun assigned roles. Do we conclude from that that the Celestial worlds are patterned on Stone Age social norms which persisted beyond their functional time period?

As I said, "In a modern environment, of course, men and women can do nearly any ordinary task equally well.  That tells us nothing about paleoanthropology."  Descriptive accounts are not value judgments.

I have nearly no concrete information about the Celestial realms and what gender roles may play.  Perhaps you could enlighten me.

[Robert F. Smith]

I know plenty of female marathon runners that would contradict your item (2). 

True enough.  But it is also true that competitive male marathon runners are significantly better than competitive female runners.  A division of labor will normally be based on the general rule.  With females tied to home base by a child who will normally be nursed for 2 to 5 years, and well-defined tribal roles, there is little room for novelty and the normal difference in musculature likewise makes for predetermined roles.  Such societies remained stable for thousands of years, allowing of a dearth of modern enlightenment thinking.  Sure, a Masai women might theoretically don the hunting garb of a male, with spear and shield, but she would not be as capable of defending herself as a male warrior.  Not even close.

 

In my many years in the martial arts, I have known several female black belts, some as big as any man and quite skillful.  It is very unusual for such women to be able to compete against skilled males.  Much as I liked "G.I. Jane," the movie (a fantasy), I recognize the physical limitations of the vast majority of females.  Male & female are inherently different.  We are preprogramed thus.  Modern times masks those powerful differences.

Edited January 10, 2014 by Robert F. Smith

[Robert F. Smith]

I didn't say it was THE traditional form just that those are were we got our marriage laws from. Polygamy was rare, and when practiced was kept out of the public as much as possible, throughout Christian Europe.

 

Polygamy wasn't even the norm among the Saints during BY times. Less than 5% of the Saints practiced it.

Although a couple of the Brethren thought that to be the case and said so publicly, their and your estimate are incorrect.  As BYU History Professor Tom Alexander says:

 

At present, perhaps the best estimates of the number of polygamous families among late-nineteenth-century Latter-day Saints range between 20 and 30 percent. Nevertheless, studies of individual communities show a wide variation in the incidence of plurality. Using 1880 census data, geographer Lowell C. “Ben” Bennion found the lowest percentage of polygamous families—5 percent—in Davis County’s south Weber and the highest—67 percent—in Orderville. He found 15 percent in Springville. In a study of St. George, historian Larry Logue found nearly 30 percent of the families polygamous in 1870 and 33 percent in 1880. (Alexander’s centennial history of Utah, quoted in Flake, The Politics of American Religious Identity, 65 and 192)

 

Some estimates are even higher.

Edited January 10, 2014 by Robert F. Smith