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Comment by JoachimSchipper | Hacker News Reader

> [Women's] natural imperative is to raise children and nurture them

This is the 21st century. Are we really still talking about "natural imperatives"? If nothing else, note that women are having fewer and fewer children, later and later - clearly, they are feeling this "natural imperative" less and less.

Traditional gender roles are unfair to women wanting to have a career, unfair to men who want to stay home with the kids, and far more rigid than needed. Having some "standard patterns" makes sense, but there should be more than one, and the freedom to deviate from those.

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>This is the 21st century. Are we really still talking about "natural imperatives"?

I do think that "imperative" is a little strong. But males are biologically different from females in all species, and in all species this translates into behavioral differences. There's no such thing as a species where males and females don't show behavioral differences, and in particular in regards to mating behavior and reproduction.

Certainly humans, as a whole, in first world countries are failing to mate effectively. Children are being had later or not at all. But women still show a comparatively greater interest, despite this overall trend. It would be foolish to claim that the 21st century has made natural behavioral differences irrelevant.

The biology argument is an affront to the spirit of entrepreneurialism. There's nothing natural about starting a company. Often it requires ignoring social needs and occasionally one's health. What about the need for sleep? I don't often read comments compelling founders to heed that biological requirement.

>What about the need for sleep? I don't often read comments compelling founders to heed that biological requirement.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39699 http://www.ted.com/talks/arianna_huffington_how_to_succeed_g...

Besides your counterpoint being blatantly wrong, I don't understand why something being an "affront" to what you feel is the entrepreneurial "spirit" is a valid argument at all.

It's like Christians saying evolutionary theory is an "affront" to Christianity. It very may well be, but that doesn't mean that evolutionary theory isn't correct or have merit.

He's not saying that women are doomed to fail. He's just pointing out that they often make different choices than men, and that many of those choices are likely rooted in biology.

> This is the 21st century. Are we really still talking about "natural imperatives"?

People (and in particular their brains) have not evolved significantly for a very very long time.

A lot of modern unhappiness is caused by people doing things which they are socially expected to do but which go against their primal urges.

The feminist movement is perhaps the classic demonstration of this. Many women feel that they should go and get that high-powered job etc. due to social pressure, but I think many of them would be happier if they didn't.

This problem isn't limited to women, of course. Men also feel social pressures to behave in more cooperative and less ambitious/aggressive ways and this causes issues for them too.

You're over-reaching. My parents raised me to be cooperative and less aggressive. It feels perfectly natural to me. The human brain is very malleable. There are some natural tendencies... I don't think the natural tendencies are quite what our society thinks they are. Socialization papers over most of them.

Try "socializing" an animal that lacks the evolved capacity for empathy. See how far you get.

We have incredibly complex apparatus in our brain with a dedicated purpose of socialization. Empathy, language, and cooperation are things which humans would not be capable of if we didn't evolve to do them.

"Are we really still talking about "natural imperatives"?"

I am puzzled by this sort of comment. There are certainly things that I do as a male that I consider to be built in behavior. I do not see any reason to think that women would not have similar.

What's natural isn't necessarily right; what's right isn't necessarily natural. Respectively those are the naturalistic fallacy and the moralistic fallacy.

The reason people object to the naturalistic fallacy in arguments on this topic is that it is typically used to argue for the status quo by people who benefit from the status quo.

If you would like to see an example of it in action, read the Texas Declaration of Causes of Secession and the Cornerstone speech. There you can see rich white people explaining how black people are natural slaves, unfit to any higher role in society. Which was certainly a convenient argument for them to make.

I have no interest in ethics, certainly not universal ethics.

All I'm saying is that "everybody is the same" type positions ignore reality.

Nobody is taking an "everybody is the same" position. People are taking an "everybody should have the same opportunity" position, which is an ethical stance.

The root comment in this chain claims that women's natural imperative is to raise children, with the implication that encouraging women to do startups is therefore wrong. That's also an ethical stance, one justified by the naturalistic fallacy.

All animals, people included, have built-in behaviors. But that tells us nothing about what the right behaviors are.

"everybody should have the same opportunity"

I don't believe anybody is seriously opposing that position. I certainly am not.

It seems to me that you are seeing an argument where none exists.

You expressed puzzlement that somebody was objecting to using the natural fallacy to justify discrimination. I tried to explain.

No, I really don't think that is what I did.

There are also women who have been hurt by the feminist way of life. They just want to be submissive, raise a family and let their man take care of everything difficult and challenging. But other women are shaming them into having an active career and delaying the starting of family.

I don't support any dogmatic approach into shaming people doing anything. People should have accurate information without distortion and lies. They should have different options presented them in a pro/con fashion. They should be able to be themselves without feeling bad about it. Only shaped by harsh reality and their own interests, not by the opinions and preconceived notions of other people.

They just want to be submissive, raise a family and let their man take care of everything difficult and challenging.

Whoa there. I can't think of any position in this debate that can be strengthened by such a contemptuous statement.

Not to mention oxymoronic. "Raising a family" isn't "difficult and challenging"? Egad.

Are you denying that there are women who want to be submissive and raise a family? Nothing the parent said suggested that all women want that.

Agreed that raising a family is difficult and challenging.

"Submissive" is pejorative. You might as well say "bitch" (edit: almost). I mightn't have picked up on this if he hadn't also said "everything difficult and challenging".

I actually agree with the point about feminism being to some extent a prejudice of its own that makes some women feel bad about wanting what they want. But they're figuring it out. We're, what, 50 years into this? That's lightning-fast change. It's fine to let the pendulum swing back and forth a few times.

The more pressing question in the long run might be how we got into a situation where both men and women have to work full-time in order to have things (like a house) that a single-salary family used to be able to afford.

The problem is that we gave women more options without actually dismantling patriarchy. We just gave them the option to join in men's crappy patriarchal bargain, which still kind of sucks. If feminism had succeeded as many men as women would want to stay at home in a D/s relationship and raise the children, though I think there would also be Doms who'd want to stay home and raise children. As long as we think of "Staying Home and Raising Children" as something women do, or something that is a separate and mutually exclusive choice with being in the public sphere, we have at best applied bandaids.

I don't really agree. As many men as women will never want to stay at home and raise the children, unless the whole thing really is culturally constructed and biology has nought to do with it, which I think is naive and ideological.

If by D/s you mean domination and submission - I'll take love between equals, thanks.

I actually respect and admire women who enjoy the submissive role. Thus, when I say it I mean it as a compliment.

It's not a "traditional gender role", it's biology.

>If nothing else, note that women are having fewer and fewer children, later and later - clearly, they are feeling this "natural imperative" less and less.

On the other hand, maybe they are being misinformed and thus unwittingly making choices they later come to regret:

http://www.npr.org/2011/12/01/142725547/many-women-underesti...

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