Some Things Never Change

Isias to her brother Hephaistion¹ [greeting]. [1]

If you are well and other things are going right, it would accord with the prayer which I make continually to the gods. I myself and the child and all the household are in good health and think of you always. When I received your letter from Horos, in which you announce that you are in katoche in the Serapeum at Memphis, for the news that you are well I straightway thanked the gods, but about your not coming home, when all the others who had been secluded there have come, I am ill-pleased, because after having piloted myself and your child through such bad times and been driven to every extremity owing to the price of wheat, I thought that now at least, with you at home, I should enjoy some respite, whereas you have not even thought of coming home nor given any regard to our circumstances, remembering how I was in want of everything while you were still here, not to mention this long lapse of time and these critical days, during which you have sent us nothing. As, moreover, Horos who delivered the letter has brought news of your having been released from detention, I am thoroughly ill-pleased. Notwithstanding, as your mother also is annoyed, for her sake as well as for mine please return to the city, if nothing more pressing holds you back. You will do me a favor by taking care of your bodily health.

Farewell. Year 2, Epeiph 30.

Prof. John Muir (a retired Lecturer at King's College London) interprets the letter as being representative of Hephaistion's avoidance of "the cares of family life" [2]. Muir also suggests that Hephaistion likely went to Memphis to seek a cure of some kind (the Serapeum is a temple to Serapis, devised as a unifying Graeco-Egyptian god).



[1] Bagnall, Roger S., and Peter Derow, eds. The Hellenistic Period: historical sources in translation. John Wiley & Sons, 2008. p 281.

[2] Muir, John. Life and letters in the ancient Greek world. Routledge, 2008. p 49.

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1. her husband

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A video of some Harvard doctoral students discussing the letter (led by Dr. Laura Nasrallah of Harvard Divinity School):

Mating Competitors Increase Religious Beliefs

It has been presumed that religiosity has an influence on mating behavior, but here we experimentally investigate the possibility that mating behavior might also influence religiosity. In Experiment 1, people reported higher religiosity after looking at mating pools consisting of attractive people of their own sex compared to attractive opposite sex targets. Experiment 2 replicated the effect with an added control group, and suggested that both men and women become more religious when seeing same sex competitors. We discuss several possible explanations for these effects. Most broadly, the findings contribute to an emerging literature on how cultural phenomena such as religiosity respond to ecological cues in potentially functional ways.

Li, Yexin Jessica, et al. "Mating competitors increase religious beliefs." Journal of experimental social psychology 46.2 (2010): 428-431.

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Link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2847293/

Parental Leave - Gender Differences In Consequences

Parental Leave - Differences In Consequences

There were two studies released this past June (2013) in the Journal of Social Issues that cover aspects of "flexibility stigma," which is to say, stigma attached to taking family leave.

1. Fathers and the flexibility stigma

Some excerpts from the first study [1]:

Expectations for the ideal worker typically assume minimal interference from child care or other family obligations. The ideal worker is supposed to work long hours without interruption and to keep family matters from intruding on one's commitment to the job (Williams, 2001). Historically the ideal worker norm was also linked to the organization of production which helped pattern gender relations and shaped cultural conceptions of the ideal man and woman (Mintz & Kellog, 1988). Women were assumed to be focused on and committed to caring for children, family and home, whereas men were assumed to be directed toward paid work and civic engagement, fulfilling their family obligations by serving as good providers (Bernard, 1981; Coltrane, 1996; Moen & Roehling, 2004). Undergirded by this cultural ideal of separate spheres for men and women, workplaces have been organized in highly gendered ways and have remained surprisingly impervious to change (Acker, 1990; Glass, 2004; Jacobs & Gerson, 2004; Williams, Blair-Loy, & Berdahl, 2013).

At the same time, cultural conceptions of appropriate gender roles and behavior have changed dramatically in the last half-century, and women's labor force participation patterns have undergone huge transformations (Coltrane & Adams, 2008; Moen & Roehling, 2004). Most women now remain employed after they have children and labor force participation rates for mothers have increased faster than for others, with over two thirds of American women with school-aged children employed full-time. Changes in men's domestic behaviors have been slower, but even here we have seen some profound shifts in the ways that housework and child care are divided in contemporary families with American men doubling the time they spend on housework and child care between 1965 and 2003 (Bianchi, Robinson, & Milkie, 2006; Coltrane, 2000; Sullivan, 2006).

It is fairly well-known that women suffer wage and career penalties for taking a leave of absence (usually for family reasons) - the degree to which this occurs is up for debate, but Coltrane et al cite a study suggesting that it is 5% per child.

Anyhow, they go on to ask about implications of changes in gendered patterns of work and family commitment:

An optimistic prediction would see the earnings and work patterns of American men and women becoming more similar, whereas a more pessimistic prediction would assume that patterns of gender discrimination and wage inequalities would persist despite modest behavioral change at workplaces and in homes.

Slightly off-topic:

Not surprisingly, we find that both men and women with more education earn more. For men the positive effects of educational attainment are most evident at the highest levels, attending college or obtaining a college degree, whereas for women, high school graduation also has beneficial effects on earning.

findings often appear gender neutral; the magnitude of effects is similar for men and women. Only for education among these human capital variables do we find pronounced gender effects, with the return stronger at lower levels of education for women than for men (Diprete & Buchmann, 2006; Glenn & Taylor, 1984).

Being divorced is associated with significantly lower earnings for men (especially Whites and Hispanics), but higher earnings for White women.

Previous studies typically examined how earnings were related to simple parental status—either motherhood and lower earnings (the motherhood penalty), or fatherhood and higher earnings (the fatherhood premium). In contrast, we measure the presence of children living in the home to determine parental status. Net of various controls, we find a positive relationship between residential children and higher earnings for men and Black or Hispanic women. These findings may reflect genuine increases in labor productivity among parents as children increase the financial needs of the household or may be the result of selection effects, with higher earning individuals more likely to become parents, or to become parents at a later age.

They refer to the marriage premium, but (happily?) sidestep any explanation:

Being married in our findings is associated with statistically significant higher earnings for men but not for women. In our longitudinal findings using several decades and multiple controls, the “marriage premium,” though sometimes enjoyed by both men and women, is significantly stronger for men of all racial/ethnic groups. Marriage is still a better economic deal for men than for women.

As for the consequences of men's family-related work adjustments:

These analyses show convincingly that men who opt for a “daddy track,” by choosing flexible work trajectories suffer lower long-term earnings, just as women who opt for a “mommy track” suffer an eventual earnings penalty. Thus, our findings suggest that the flexibility stigma is relatively gender neutral.

They go on to mention another factor:

Our results suggest that men who are unemployed or quit work for family reasons do indeed suffer an earnings penalty. Although some recent theories suggest that men on a “daddy track” suffer even greater negative consequences than women because of the violation of normative gender prescriptions for seeming to forgo primary breadwinning, our results challenge this prediction, at least for some types of flexible work strategies, and for outcomes like earnings.

The reference to "normative gender prescriptions" is important, and is dealt with a similar study below.

2. Penalizing men who request a family leave: Is flexibility stigma a femininity stigma?

Much in keeping with first study, but more focused on gender. The introduction to the second study [2]:

However, because the concept of work–life balance is strongly gendered, men who request a family leave may also suffer a femininity stigma, whereby “acting like a woman” deprives them of masculine agency (e.g., competence and assertiveness) and impugns them with negative feminine qualities (e.g., weakness and uncertainty). For example, men who behaved modestly during a job interview encountered more prejudice than a comparable woman, an effect that was fully accounted for by perceptions of weakness (Moss-Racusin et al., 2010). Moreover, men who championed women's causes (i.e., male feminists) were viewed as higher in femininity and lower in masculinity than either a male biologist or a benevolent sexist (Glick & Fiske, 1996), suggesting that defending women's rights can weaken men's gender identity in the eyes of observers (Rudman, Mescher, & Moss-Racusin, in press). In addition, men who succeed in female domains are at risk for penalties that range from being perceived as a “wimp” and robbed of respect (Heilman & Wallen, 2010) to being sabotaged by their peers (Rudman & Fairchild, 2004). Precarious manhood theory would also suggest that men who “act like women” by requesting family leave are at risk for feminization (Vandello et al., 2008). According to this theory, manhood is not assured by biological changes that occur during puberty but instead, must be won and continuously sustained by men's behavior. As a result, men who request a family leave may be penalized by perceptions that they are not “real men.”

Replicating past research, men who requested a family leave were viewed as poor workers (Butler & Skattebo, 2004; Wayne & Codeiro, 2003) and ineligible for rewards (Allen & Russell, 1999). Uniquely, we also found that male leave requesters suffered femininity stigma, such that perceivers judged them as weaker and more communal, but also as less agentic and dominant, compared with control targets. Indeed, male leave requesters were viewed as relatively more weak than dominant, and more communal than agentic. By contrast, these perceptions were reversed for control targets. However, communality did not protect male leave requesters from judgments of low rewards and high penalties. Instead, being effeminized as weak was a significant factor in predicting both rewards and penalties, and fully mediated the effect of poor worker stigma on penalizing men who request a family leave. The findings suggest that because weakness is prohibited for men (Prentice & Carranza, 2002; Rudman et al., 2012), men are penalized for this transgression, and those who request a family leave are particularly at risk for this consequence.

One of the more interesting parts (the "manipulation" is the reason for the leave):

female participants judged male targets as poorer workers than did male participants, regardless of the leave manipulation

The researchers go on (clearly displeased with the findings):

Unexpectedly, women did not shield male leave requesters from poor worker stigma, suggesting the extent to which women have been co-opted by ideal worker ideologies (Blair-Loy, 2004). The fact that women were just as likely as men to feminize male leave requesters is less surprising, given past research showing no gender differences for backlash effects (Moss-Racusin et al., 2010; Rudman, Mescher, & Moss-Racusin, 2012), but troublesome given its implications for gender equality. Because women are more likely than men to utilize FMLA (Hill et al., 2003), we had hoped that their reactions to male counterparts would be more positive than men's.

Women take a leave of absence 74% of the time, according to Rudman et al.

3. Comments

The results from these two studies aren't entirely new for some people. It seems that men must observe, as closely as possible, the gender norms for masculinity, but women seem free to chose from the continuum of gender roles (masculine to feminine). What stands out is that if men are in a so-called egalitarian relationship, one where child-rearing duties would be expected to be split evenly, the man is forced into a situation detrimental to him, and given the organizational risks (e.g. demotion, reduction in pay), to his wife, as well.

While some could (and do) say "men can take a leave, too," it is a lot like saying "women can have as many sexual partners as they want."

In both cases the statements are true (in terms of what can be done), but the consequences are conveniently ignored. Another 'point' for men observing traditional gender roles, as well as being in a relationship where such gender roles are at play. Men seem to only lose when they play by the rules of feminists.

The idea that feminism (or at least many of its adherents) has equality (however it is defined) of the sexes as its goal is not readily observed here. Given the nearly non-existent response from feminist women, one could be forgiven for thinking that feminism is just an excellent cover for female gender bias, and not true equality (or even some semblance of it). Feminism has seemingly exploited men's adherence to traditional gender roles (e.g. protector and provider) - it also doesn't seem to provide much benefit to abandoning them.

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[1] Coltrane, Scott, et al. "Fathers and the flexibility stigma." Journal of Social Issues 69.2 (2013): 279-302.

[2] Rudman, Laurie A., and Kris Mescher. "Penalizing men who request a family leave: Is flexibility stigma a femininity stigma?." Journal of Social Issues 69.2 (2013): 322-340.

Paternal Disengagement And Female Promiscuity

An abundance of research demonstrates a robust association between father absence—or low-quality paternal involvement—and daughters’ accelerated sexual development, promiscuity, and sexual risk taking. Although recent natural experiments provide support for fathers playing a causal role in these outcomes, these effects have not been examined using a randomized experimental design to eliminate genetic and environmental confounds inherent in previous studies. We redressed this empirical gap by experimentally testing the effects of primed paternal disengagement cues on women’s sexual decision making. Across 5 experiments, reminders of paternal disengagement increased women’s activation of sexual thoughts (Experiment 1), sexual permissiveness (Experiments 2-4), and negativity toward condom use (Experiment 5). Moreover, these effects were specific to women’s sexual decision making, as paternal disengagement cues failed to influence women’s willingness to take nonsexual risks (Experiment 4) or men’s risky sexual attitudes (Experiment 5). These results provide the first true experimental evidence supporting a causal relationship between paternal disengagement and changes in women’s psychology that promote risky sexual behavior.

DelPriore, Danielle J., and Sarah E. Hill. “The Effects of Paternal Disengagement on Women’s Sexual Decision Making: An Experimental Approach.” (2013).

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This study examines female reproductive development from an evolutionary life history perspective. Retrospective data are for 10,847 U.S. women. Results indicate that timing of parental separation is associated with reproductive development and is not confounded with socioeconomic variables or phenotypic correlations with mothers' reproductive behavior. Divorce/separation between birth and 5 years predicted early menarche, first sexual intercourse, first pregnancy, and shorter duration of first marriage. Separation in adolescence was the strongest predictor of number of sex partners. Multiple changes in childhood caretaking environment were associated with early menarche, first sex, first pregnancy, greater number of sex partners, and shorter duration of marriage. Living with either the father or mother after separation had similar effect on reproductive development. Living with a stepfather showed a weak, but significant, association with reproductive development, however, duration of stepfather exposure was not a significant predictor of development. Difference in amount and quality of direct parental care (vs. indirect parental investment) in two- and single-parent households may be the primary factor linking family environment to reproductive development.

Quinlan, Robert J. "Father absence, parental care, and female reproductive development." Evolution and Human Behavior 24.6 (2003): 376-390.

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In a first study, we investigated how the absence of a father and the presence of a stepfather during early childhood affected physiological and behavioral traits related to reproductive development (such as age of menarche, age of first sexual intercourse and number of sexual partners) in a large sample set of male and female French university students. We evaluated which ages were sensitive to modifications in the family composition and found that menarche occurred earlier when the father was absent, particularly when the child was between 0 and 5 years of age. Father absence during early adolescence was associated with a younger age at first sexual intercourse and an increased number of sexual partners, for both sexes. The presence of a stepfather during this period further advanced the age of first sexual intercourse. We also measured testosterone levels in both sexes and analyzed their association with parental separation, and found that young women with separated parents had significantly higher afternoon levels of testosterone. In a second study, we analyzed direct fitness measures (such as number of children and grandchildren) in a large sample of French workers and found that parental separation during childhood was not associated with fitness variation. We discuss whether the reproductive outcomes of individuals having experienced modifications in the early family environment are the expression of costs or adaptive strategies.

Alvergne, Alexandra, Charlotte Faurie, and Michel Raymond. "Developmental plasticity of human reproductive development: effects of early family environment in modern-day France." Physiology & Behavior 95.5 (2008): 625-632.

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Children raised without a biological father in the household have earlier average ages of first sexual intercourse than children raised in father-present households. Competing theoretical perspectives have attributed this either to effects of father absence on socialization and physical maturation or to nonrandom selection of children predisposed for early sexual intercourse into father-absent households. Genetically informative analyses of the children of sister dyads (N = 1,382, aged 14–21 years) support the selection hypothesis: This association seems attributable to confounded risks, most likely genetic in origin, which correlated both with likelihood of father absence and early sexual behavior. This holds implications for environmental theories of maturation and suggests that previous research may have inadvertently overestimated the role of family structure in reproductive maturation.

Mendle, Jane, et al. "Associations between father absence and age of first sexual intercourse." Child development 80.5 (2009): 1463-1480.

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The purpose of this research was to determine whether or not the father absence literature can be successfully used to predict patterns of female preferences for facial masculinity in young adulthood. Predictions were made based on the effect father absence may have on the development of (a) sexual strategy, and (b) female ‘condition’, and were tested in two independent samples. Results for the link between father absence and masculinity preference were mixed; across both studies, however, daughters who reported low quality relationship with parents during childhood showed lower masculinity preference. These results predominantly support the condition dependence predictions that early family stress should be associated with reduced ability to compete for mates and thus preference for less masculine men. Additionally, in Study 2, family background was associated with facial preferences and age of menarche only amongst women who were not currently in happy and committed relationships, which suggests that there are systematic physiological and/or psychological differences between women for whom father absence is and is not related to long term outcomes.

Boothroyd, Lynda G., and David I. Perrett. "Father absence, parent-daughter relationships and partner preferences." Journal of Evolutionary Psychology 6.3 (2008): 187-205.

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And more. There is a great deal of research on this topic.

Some Trends Worth Noting

There are two trends (of many) that I've noticed over the past few years, while reading various blogs that identify, to varying degrees, with feminism (and in the case of the blogs that I've been reading, usually qualified with "Christian" or "Catholic").

Dalrock's post on men "manning up" and marrying "non-zero-N women" (http://dalrock.wordpress.com/2012/01/23/how-should-christian-men-respond-to-slutty-women-marry-them/, et al) highlights the tendency of certain Christian (including Catholics, Orthodox, etc) groups to ignore consequences of premarital sex and/or to act to force certain people (men, in this case) to accept the risks resulting therefrom. Various bloggers in the Manosphere, be they Christian or atheist (e.g. Athol Kay), recommend that men marry a virgin (for reasons of divorce risk, infidelity risk, bonding, STDs, femininity, etc). Statistically this is not an impossible task (the latest NSFG data states that 34% of married women have only had one sexual partner [recognizing that some are lying, of course]), but I've noticed a few more interesting hindrances than societal decline.

Firstly: I've noticed that virgin women (but not men) are inclined to call the opposite sex's insistence on virginity a "creepy virginity fetish" (or something along those lines - including references to the Madonna/whore complex [though, in reality, almost entirely inapplicable to virgin men]) and to refuse to date such men (usually accompanied with personal attacks, and the like).

I have several theories as to why this is the case, but I think one seems more likely than rest: the constructing of a pseudo-virtue of accepting sexual pasts and associating it directly with other virtues (e.g. forgiveness, via conflation with acceptance). A thread (http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=818007 - plenty of fodder for other topics, too) popped up on CAF a while back, and one of the posts had the following (which serves as a general example of the kind of posts I'm thinking of):

"If your fiance is truly a 'good guy,' he will understand and forgive you."

What I think has ended up happening can be described with the following syllogism (modus tollens - though, with faulty premises):

If a man has some [desirable quality], then he will overlook a sexual history,
He does not overlook a sexual history,
Therefore, he lacks that [desirable quality].


It has been plainly stated in comment sections (usually by women) on the above-mentioned types of blogs that men who will not overlook a certain sexual history will be unforgiving, controlling (though, they are in reality being the controlling ones), etc, in marriage - I think this is due precisely to the conclusion from the above in the minds of those people. It seems closely related to the "man up" mantra.



Secondly: another trend I've noticed is the outright (or near outright) refusal to disclose any sexual history whatsoever (even if it does pose significant health risks, and even if it is exemplary [i.e. no sexual experience at all]), almost exclusively on the part of women (or, in advice directed towards them, by older men and women). Basically, it seems like the approach outlined here: http://wwnh.wordpress.com/2008/12/20/415-virtual-virginity-20/ (The author of that post states elsewhere: "Everybody makes mistakes. Recovery is everything, and virtual virginity provides it for past sexual mistakes.") He goes on extensively about "image management" on that topic (at least 50 posts), e.g.: http://wwnh.wordpress.com/2013/08/15/1890-make-marriage-work-addition-06-sexual-history/, http://wwnh.wordpress.com/2010/05/27/935-virgin-keep-it-secret-%E2%80%94-part-i/, http://wwnh.wordpress.com/2010/05/28/936-virgin-keep-it-secret-%E2%80%94-part-ii/, http://wwnh.wordpress.com/2011/11/15/1447-none-of-your-business/, http://wwnh.wordpress.com/2010/06/01/940-virgin-bride-actual-or-virtual/, etc etc (I cite that blog simply because it has the least "scurrility"). A Catholic blog (http://seraphicsinglescummings.blogspot.ca/ - quite frustrating to read, in general), written for young Catholic women, stipulates that virginity (or lack thereof) should be revealed only when "the wedding date is set, a hall is rented, and the invitations are sent out" - to quote her. Of course, there are many other examples to be found.


It should be noted, though, that modern research generally warns against such approaches (e.g.: Berg, John H., and Ronald D. McQuinn. "Attraction and exchange in continuing and noncontinuing dating relationships." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 50.5 (1986): 942, Cavalie, Carlos. Disclosure of sexual history in hook ups, short and long-term relationships. Diss. Rutgers University-Camden Graduate School, 2010, Greene, Kathryn, and Sandra L. Faulkner. "Gender, belief in the sexual double standard, and sexual talk in heterosexual dating relationships." Sex Roles 53.3-4 (2005): 239-251, etc). STDs and divorce risk seem to be far from the minds of many. Differential fecundity (ironically, affecting women the most), investment syndrome, relationship inertia, and so forth, seems to have the above approach leading to even higher risk of marital dissatisfaction, and a higher risk of women improperly investing time (e.g. a year) with a man who would end up not marrying her.

Stated vs. Actual Count - Plotted

Released to the public domain.

Montana newlywed Jordan Linn Graham pleads guilty in husband's murder

"I wasn't really happy," she said.

She wasn't feeling like one should when first married, she said.


From: http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/12/justice/montana-newlywed-death-trial/