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That's not my read of that statement at all. I always took this to mean that a woman is loved for her intrinsic traits (of which beauty may be one, but doesn't have to be), whereas love for men is conditional on their being productive members of society. I don't just mean "love" in a romantic sense, but also platonic and familial sense. This is difficult to express and back up with hard data, but I do think it's generally much more socially acceptable for the average woman to e.g. take a "sabbatical" or "career break", move back in with her parents and not work for several months, than it would be for a man to do the same. We have a hundred derisive terms for adult men who live with their parents and stubbornly refuse to find a real job and get their shit together ("NEET", "basement dweller", "hikikomori", arguably "incel"), but the reflexive assumption is that a woman who lives with her parents and refuses to get her shit together must be "going through some stuff" or suffering from some nebulous undefined "trauma". Consider also that there's no distaff counterpart to terms like "deadbeat dad", "prodigal son" or "failson". Generally speaking, a woman who is pleasant, agreeable, talkative and amiable, but who's moved back in with her parents, hasn't worked for six months and isn't actively looking for a job is "figuring herself out"; a man who does the same is an embarrassment to the family. I don't think the situation is fundamentally different if the woman is overweight and unattractive. This, I think, is what the "woman are loved for who they are" concept is getting at.
The phenomenon I'm describing isn't just a negative one (romantic, platonic and familial love being extended to women in spite of what they refuse to do - their "sins" of omission) but also positive (their loved ones extending them love and charity in spite of what they have done). It's variously called the "women are wonderful" effect or "hypoagency" or whatever, but my general impression is that whenever a woman does something bad (including criminal offences) people will scramble to find someone or something to blame other than her. I'm racking my brains trying to think of a time I read about a woman on trial for a criminal offense and her crime wasn't attributed to self-defense/justified retribution, "mental health issues", or manipulation by a (male, obviously) third party. The idea that Ghislaine Maxwell or Elizabeth Holmes could have just done really awful things without a man coercing them to is just too unspeakable to countenance, apparently. I've even read a feminist writer attribute the murder of Sylvia Likens to crypto-feminism. It's not just talk: I think there's a large body of evidence indicating judges give vastly shorter sentences to female murderers than male. And yes, this reflexive assumption of hypoagency does not depend on the woman in question being pretty. Aileen Wuornos was no supermodel, but people were still falling over themselves to attribute her killings to justifiable retribution against would-be rapists and/or pimps, even if the evidence strongly suggested otherwise (although said kid-gloves treatment in the popular imagination did not save her from execution).
So this is my interpretation of "women are loved for who they are": women tend to be loved and respected by their families, friends and romantic partners more or less unconditionally. Crimes of omission, derelictions of duty and shortcomings will be ignored; crimes of commission will be forgiven, excused or explained away. "Pretty privilege" factors into this but is by no means dispositive (e.g. there are no "plus-size men").
Yeah, these sorts of double standards and/or Russell conjugations are ubiquitous once you start Noticing. Not even the fatFIRE subreddit is immune. Threads with male OPs asking how to go about pre-nups often have several comments accusing them of being paranoid and misogynistic, whereas ones with female OPs have several comments praising them for being prudent and looking out for themselves.
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Society may take antisocial behavior less 'seriously' when committed by women, but I don't think it's to such an extent that it can be said "women are loved unconditionally." Maxwell and Holmes are still going to prison. Wuornos, as you note, was executed. At best there's a weak qualification of their crimes in the public imagination, but I don't think anyone is actually out there hoping Ghislaine Maxwell walks free.
I also think you underrate how much different the experience can be for an overweight/unattractive woman compared to a very attractive one. People, especially men, really are much, much more patient, indulgent, and friendly with good-looking women (and good-looking men, but I think the effect is stronger since a much higher premium is placed on women's looks).
This I absolutely do not agree with. Men absolutely don't love their girlfriends' unconditionally, it's entirely conditional on sexual attraction (which, again, reduces to "loved for their looks"). I don't think anyone has friends that love them unconditionally, that would actually be quite weird, the whole point of friends is they're pleasant to be around, and if they stop being pleasant you're not going to want to be around them anymore. In this respect I don't think women are any different from men. Families? I'm pretty sure my mom and dad love me unconditionally, but that's probably it. Is there any evidence parents love their daughters any more than their sons?
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Unhappily, males are disposable. See this about bull calves.
The flip side of "alpha guy in his society has literal harem of women" is that you don't need that many men to be reproductively active, you can populate your locale with only a few, selected men so long as fertile women are available in sufficient numbers. That means a pressure to winnow out men to find the fittest to reproduce and pass on their genes to the next generation, and that means competition among men and high standards for mates by women.
I understand the logic of where male disposability came from. The point of this thread is to raise awareness of the fact that it exists at all, when most of modern feminism seems predicated on the assumption that it doesn't.
Even if we admit that male disposability in some respects may be a necessary evil for a society or tribe to effectively multiply and flourish (I recently rewatched Titanic and am 100% onboard with the Birkenhead drill: I found the sacrifice of the men travelling in first class who willingly laid down their lives that women might escape unscathed far more moving and affecting than any component of the Jack and Rose A-story), I don't think that necessarily implies the "women are wonderful effect" or hypoagency are justified. Male disposability implies that it's wrongheaded to execute a woman for capital crimes even if we would happily execute a man who committed the same crimes, fair enough. But why does male disposability imply that women cannot be held accountable for any acts of wrongdoing, why we must scramble and contrive reasons that someone (some man) other than the woman in question was at fault for the crime she freely chose to commit? The male disposability hypothesis presumes that societies are loath to kill women because they're required for child-bearing and -rearing, but isn't there an argument that a systemic refusal to hold women accountable for their decisions prevents them from learning the skills they will need to be effective child-rearers?
I guess you could stretch it to argue that the successful men who haven't been disposed of are responsible, like captains at sea, for everything the women in their household do and fail to do. Therefore, if a man's wife commits murder or robbery or fraud, it is the man who is responsible and knows or should have known and done something to prevent it. His failure to do so means that he is unfit and must be punished. I don't exactly agree with this, as I am a Westerner and not a Talib, but that's my best argument for it.
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I never watched Titanic because I thought the story was idiotic. Why did Cameron feel the need to plug in an invented romance, I have no idea. Wanted to make a chick-flick? Who knows.
Women were executed for crimes in the past. Maybe the past was harder-headed. Maybe we're just softer about executing any criminals today. Maybe there's a difference in the type of crimes committed by men and women for which execution is the punishment.
I think everyone should be held responsible for freely-chosen actions. But we're in the throes of over-correction. Talking about how women disproportionately get custody in separation and divorces ignores that (1) men used to get automatic custody, and indeed often abusive husbands used that as a weapon against their wives - divorce me and never see your children again (2) women were and are disproportionately the caretakers of children. More men may be willing to be full-time fathers and look after their kids, but it's still catching up.
Is that used now as a weapon against men? Yeah, and the solution there is to work out how to stop vicious divorces and the best interests of the children, and I'm happy to go along with "don't rely on social workers who are too easy fooled by a sob story when deciding which parent gets custody". But on the other hand, I've seen examples from my workplaces of men who wanted nothing to do with their kids and indeed in one case was actively fucking over the kid just because he was still in a pissing match with the mother years after the separation.
Here's 1.8 billion reasons why. I remember when it was in theaters, and many of the women I knew went to see it multiple times. The music video was blared non-stop on MTV. It wasn't because they were moved by the sacrifice of the men in first class.
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