"Any farmer will tell you about the sexual superiority of females." Not so. Every farmer says "The bull/ram is half the herd" same for rooster and flock. These are old saws and very well known from centuries of repetition by those who breed animals.
Women obviously cannot "...actually produce offspring." without a man involved any more than the cow can produce a calf without a bull. Their 'superiority' would then depend on promiscuity, i.e. any male will do and they are disposable, which is true enough in a population as opposed to a civilized society or purposeful livestock breeding.
If we are to be monogamous, the man becomes as important as the woman and there is no superiority, but complementarity.
Obviously both sexes are necessary. But the Bull or Ram being half the herd illustrates the point - you only need 1 decent male for reproductive purposes, and the increase of your flocks and herd are ultimately determined by how many females you have. Beyond his genetic deposit, the male doesn't serve nearly the same purpose. If Genghis Khan had refrained from sleeping with every single woman he came across, those women would likely have had just as many children, we just wouldn't have a quarter of the population descended from the same man (probably would have been better over all for the health of human genetics). The "drive" for men is toward the act of reproduction - our current landscape clearly indicates that if the act itself is cheap, many men will be satisfied without ever becoming fathers. When women act that way, they are clearly trying to imitate men, and the smart feminist authors are starting to realize this now (Perry and Harrington) - the woman's sex drive naturally drives her to have children and take care of them; their drive is relational - they give men sex hoping for attention, and that's also what they get from motherhood. It's not a substitute exactly, but women become mothers they achieve a higher degree of relational satisfaction. Of course biological drives are not the point, there's lots of species where to the males and females only come together to mate. Marriage causes men and women's DIFFERENT strengths to find their fullest potential; Men have a superior productive nature, women have a superior sexual nature.
I think all this is confusing qualitative and quantitative categories.
If increase is all one is concerned with then one's outlook is quantitative, one's implicit qualitative metric is simply big numbers are good quality, and it could be argued the male is inferior.
If we're talking about societal concerns regarding reproduction and marriage, this is an inappropriate, or at the least insufficient, metric.
Superior/inferior is a qualitative assessment and can encompass more than simple increase. Qualitatively, males are not inferior; they provide half the genetics.
If the bull is half the herd, this implies a sort of superiority as his qualities are of paramount importance, more so than any individual cow. I just think it's a bad analogy for your subject, cattle are neither a purely quantitative proposition, nor civilized people.
If you're saying the institution of marriage gets us away from a purely quantitative metric in which males can be considered inferior and permits the different qualities of men and women to complement each other, I agree.
Thank God for my wife!
I totally disagree.
"Any farmer will tell you about the sexual superiority of females." Not so. Every farmer says "The bull/ram is half the herd" same for rooster and flock. These are old saws and very well known from centuries of repetition by those who breed animals.
Women obviously cannot "...actually produce offspring." without a man involved any more than the cow can produce a calf without a bull. Their 'superiority' would then depend on promiscuity, i.e. any male will do and they are disposable, which is true enough in a population as opposed to a civilized society or purposeful livestock breeding.
If we are to be monogamous, the man becomes as important as the woman and there is no superiority, but complementarity.
Obviously both sexes are necessary. But the Bull or Ram being half the herd illustrates the point - you only need 1 decent male for reproductive purposes, and the increase of your flocks and herd are ultimately determined by how many females you have. Beyond his genetic deposit, the male doesn't serve nearly the same purpose. If Genghis Khan had refrained from sleeping with every single woman he came across, those women would likely have had just as many children, we just wouldn't have a quarter of the population descended from the same man (probably would have been better over all for the health of human genetics). The "drive" for men is toward the act of reproduction - our current landscape clearly indicates that if the act itself is cheap, many men will be satisfied without ever becoming fathers. When women act that way, they are clearly trying to imitate men, and the smart feminist authors are starting to realize this now (Perry and Harrington) - the woman's sex drive naturally drives her to have children and take care of them; their drive is relational - they give men sex hoping for attention, and that's also what they get from motherhood. It's not a substitute exactly, but women become mothers they achieve a higher degree of relational satisfaction. Of course biological drives are not the point, there's lots of species where to the males and females only come together to mate. Marriage causes men and women's DIFFERENT strengths to find their fullest potential; Men have a superior productive nature, women have a superior sexual nature.
Appreciate your replying.
I think all this is confusing qualitative and quantitative categories.
If increase is all one is concerned with then one's outlook is quantitative, one's implicit qualitative metric is simply big numbers are good quality, and it could be argued the male is inferior.
If we're talking about societal concerns regarding reproduction and marriage, this is an inappropriate, or at the least insufficient, metric.
Superior/inferior is a qualitative assessment and can encompass more than simple increase. Qualitatively, males are not inferior; they provide half the genetics.
If the bull is half the herd, this implies a sort of superiority as his qualities are of paramount importance, more so than any individual cow. I just think it's a bad analogy for your subject, cattle are neither a purely quantitative proposition, nor civilized people.
If you're saying the institution of marriage gets us away from a purely quantitative metric in which males can be considered inferior and permits the different qualities of men and women to complement each other, I agree.
okay, it's a flock of sheep.