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Magritte, Attempting the Impossible    

Psychology using sex difference as basis

Commentary

Clarifying remarks on a couple of the Propositions and Theorems


SIMON SHEPPARD




Proposition 1. Females cannot tolerate naked masculinity.

In mind is “neanthedral man,” violently charging through any obstacle in the way of his chosen mate and forcibly dragging her off to his cave. She might be ejected from the cave just as brusquely. If this were allowed today of course we would have women skulking around making themselves look as old and unattractive as possible. Brutally honest expressions of the male perspective are similarly not conducive to successful relations with females.




Theorem 1, The Dynamical Laws.

  1. The only power that females have is given to them by males;
  2. The only thing which females do with that power is use it against males.

Part one of the Dynamical Laws is proven by default, by the absence of a counterexample. The closest to a successful counterexample offered so far, of a woman killing herself, is discussed in All About Women. Darwin is quoted:

With many closely-allied species, following nearly the same habits of life, the males have come to differ from each other chiefly through the action of sexual selection, whilst the females have come to differ chiefly from partaking more or less of the characters thus acquired by the males (Darwin, 1874: 759).

By ‘the equal distribution of characters’ many traits acquired by the male, chiefly through competition with other males for females, are shortly acquired by the female.

The second part of the Laws is perhaps conceptually difficult because it might be taken to suggest immediacy (“the only thing”). Of course, if whatever power given to the female was instantly used against males, she would never be given any. More subtle behaviours develop.

This situation is comparable to the example of the office Christmas party, illustrating how costs can be increased by the control of information. Adolescent females tend to divulge information immediately while mature females save the information for maximum effect (advantage) later. The conceptual problem is that at once we are dealing with the aggregate (i.e., the mass of people) and extremes of behaviour. No distinction is made between these two cases, and part two of the Dynamical Laws appears as a sweeping generalisation accounting for every case simultaneously.

Probably a good example of this second component of the Dynamical Laws is provided by the case of the woman pilot (actually co-pilot) for British Airways reported by the British media in March 2007. She had spent three years in legal battles seeking to have her working hours reduced to 50%. This was so she could spend more time looking after her two daughters (her second daughter was born during the course of the dispute). The airline had already reduced her work time to 75%, but still she claimed that not being allowed to work at the 50% rate amounted to sex discrimination. Working 50% of the time is equivalent to 8-10 flying days per month.

There are a number of good examples of female behaviour here, such as imitation, insatiability and going too far, as well as the common female preference for part-time work, but these have no direct bearing on the Dynamical Laws.

The aviation environment, like that of heavy goods vehicles, is highly masculine. Air traffic demands precision, high levels of training and competence in pilots in order to ensure the safety of passengers. Exactitude, rigour and so forth all lie in the male domain. It was reported that only 171 of BA’s 3,100 pilots were women. Doubtless there are fewer female applicants, and this ratio reflects the greater uniformity of females, so that the vast majority of individuals displaying exceptional levels of coordination, reaction times, stamina etc. will be male.

Has the female in this instance acquired her power from males? Certainly, since she was given it by a male parliament and subsequent males have admitted her to a male-dominated profession. Males invented all the devices and aids which removed the physical demands formerly required, as well as increased the job’s physical safety. Is she using that power against males? Yes. Her presence alone is an affront to the masculinity of the male pilots, who are in the overwhelming majority. She is using a male hierarchy and legislative system to impose femininity (e.g., a preference for part-time working) upon a masculine environment.

Some women take the driving test qualifying them to drive large goods vehicles (HGV’s), this being made possible for them by the male inventions of synchromesh and power steering. This is a rather less esoteric field than piloting an airplane, but comparable. The female seeks to prove that “she can do it, as can a man” but it is also an attack on the masculinity of the profession. When the licence is obtained, only a tiny proportion of these women (already a small minority) actually go on to work the nitty-gritty, and often lonely, job of truck driving full-time. Obtaining the licence achieves her objective: her ego is satisfied and she can attack the male sex with it whenever she pleases.

The woman British Airways pilot is also jeopardizing the very safety her sex so craves. Indeed BA argued that pilots are required to have logged at least 2,000 flying hours before being permitted to reduce their flying hours by half. It said it was acting on grounds of safety, not sex. Regular working is required to maintain high standards, or else the pilots might get “rusty” and, in a moment of crisis, fail to quickly adopt the correct procedure.

Clearly she believed she was acting for all women: “I hope that my case will make it easier not just for other pilots, but for all working mothers, to be able to work flexibly” she was reported to have said.

One can imagine the ribbing a male pilot would have received from his colleagues had he demanded to work part-time so he could spend more time with his family. He would likely have been told by his superiors that if he wasn’t prepared to do the hours, he shouldn’t have applied to be a pilot in the first place. The disapproval of his colleagues would probably be sufficient to persuade him to drop his claim.

Evidently this did not take place in this instance and, just as women now exploit the gains made by a small number of monomaniacal suffragettes a hundred years ago, and the victories of feminists more recently, her female colleagues will also take advantage of any advance she achieves.

Paradoxically, the decision was hailed by the Equal Opportunities Commission as a victory for sex equality. In reality it was a demand that women be treated as a special case; since the airline had trained her, at great expense, to only get a part-time worker, it further demonstrated the unsuitability of women for such roles.

The second part of the Dynamical Laws is not meant to suggest the immediate, immutable use of power against males, rather its inevitability. Sooner or later one or more females given power will use that power to make such a bid and, by the consent or acquiescence of the rest, the second part of the Dynamical Laws will be fulfilled. The direction of the trend is invariably set. The behaviour is driven by an evolutionary imperative – the “arms race” between male and female which probably accounts for humans’ rapid evolution.

The example of the female pilot, extended and assuming an absence of male influence, is ultimately comic. Lace curtains would appear on the cockpit windows, pilots would breast-feed their babies while the autopilot was engaged, and as planes became progressively smaller, more and more of the available space would be taken up with creche and nappy-changing facilities for the cabin crew. The plane would become a flying nursery. Men would be relegated to maintenance roles only.



Barbie’s friend Elsa pilots an airplane, with special guest Spiderman. From some Youtube video or other.


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