This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
This work may be important, but formalizing it and ranking it within the same hierarchy as male status is not inevitable, and in fact is historically fairly recent. In most pre-modern societies a young woman who helped facilitate social relationships in her village would not on that account consider herself to be of superior social rank to a blacksmith or a baker and therefore refuse to consider them as partners, the way the HR manager now considers herself the social superior of the electrician.
Rather, young people of both sexes would usually have the same social rank as their fathers. Because about as many male vs. female children would be born to families at each social rank, there was little possibility of an excess of women who couldn't find similarly-ranked men.
She probably would internally consider herself socially superior to an uncouth blacksmith even if she wouldn't say it.
But the very social pressures she uses are used on her by other even more socially influential women to promote marriage et al.
Tales of women having to put up with and improve poorly socialized men are age old. You can't fix that "Women are wonderful" effect so don't even try. You just make the alternative of spinsterhood even more shameful. Once she is attached to Perrin she can turn her talents to improving his status and thereby her own. Women wanting to "fix" a man is an age old stereotype, presumably for a reason.
The shaming by other women of being single and childless is your key factor to push the union. Assuming as per the OP's conditions we can't mandate arranged marriages at least.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link