The Tendency for Humans to Over-Correct Social Issues

Everyone knows about the pendulum… You know, the social pendulum swinging side-to-side about each end of the spectrum of possible social problems.

Not familiar? Well, everyone knows making a subject taboo only exacerbates its attractiveness — it’s the rebellious spirit, that massive red button, or breasts to a school boy. Some people just need to be contrarian. They’re are what I call the early movers, or the opposition to the momentum of the social pendulum. Before long, the contrarian views become the norm, and new contrarians arise to rebel against the once contrarian ancestors.

Examples can be found everywhere. But I’m not here to go over a million examples, I’m here to show why the social pendulum can lead to an over-correction of important social issues. Ehh, who can resist?. Remember when Apple was contrarian back in the early 2000s? And remember when in 2007 the iPhone was released to the public?

Cool because I don’t, I was seven.

Nevertheless, to the behest of the conforming Steve Ballmer’s amongst us (p.s Steve-o Ballmer knows the future, just the wrong way around), the contrarians adopted it immediately with passion. Anyhow, the same people today buy off brand folding phones.

The issue is: What happens when the contrarian people push the pendulum too far the other way? And what happens when we’re not talking about iPhone, and instead we’re talking about sex?

The social and economic relationship between male and female human beings

Believe it or not, whether you be left or right (or forward), there has been real and proper, undeniable persecution towards women. And it’s not just “white men”, or even always men! But in every civilisation who has meaningfully contributed to our world, women have been considered less.

And some (perhaps most) of this is merely a mechanical result of agriculture and strength — not a committee of old white men deciding arbitrarily to make women less important for the next few thousand years. With the advent of agriculture, came back-breaking hard work — with the ability to produce more than one needs. And a lack of contraception that meant women were regularly pregnant, and a further lack of any dishwasher or drying machine meant work at home was actually, genuinely not super easily (unlike now).

So a swap in gender roles in the early agricultural period would be quite troublesome. The women looking after the farm would be less effective purely from a difference in strength, but would also need her husband to opt-in as she falls pregnant and needs to take a hiatus from the farm for 9-XX months before another child arrives two months after that.

“well yes, obviously we needed gender roles in ancient times” — You

I agree, with the advent of the tractor-contraception contraption, women were pretty much able to do any job they want (though I suspect not many women dream of becoming bricklayers).

So what is the problem?

The 20th century technological shift allowed women into the workplace and led, probably and to some degree, to their further participation in politics (the vote). This caused a destabilisation, because before:

• Women didn’t participate in the economy because the work was difficult and contraception didn’t exist.
• Women didn’t participate in politics because they didn’t participate in war.

Now, to a degree, both of these arguments explain the feminine exclusion. But it’s not a stretch to imagine some deep-seeded sexism as a factor here too. And most historians agree. The pendulum was pushed in the direction of misogyny. The push of hard and physical work ends. The push of pregnancy lowers. And all that is left is some conservatives holding the heavy pendulum with all their might. They start to slip.

Suddenly they lose their grip as society takes hold of the pendulum and propels it to the middle. Women are now safe and secure in the workplace.

Inertia…

The pendulum keeps going. Men are considered naturally predatory to the far left. A thing called ‘toxic masculinity’ emerges and the whole world screams to the idea that women are paid less in the workplace.

Ribbons, banners and ads portray every company’s acceptance of ‘diversity and inclusion’. Large corporations change working conditions to better fit the child-rearing tendency of female workers.

A concept called equity emerges where equality isn’t equal until outcomes match. Taking out of the picture, scientifically established differences in preference between the sexes. And later taking down the whole concept of biological sex differences, also known as sexual dimorphism (not yet rebutted for the animal kingdom).

Without sexual dimorphism, equity makes sense. Men have higher bone density because they’re more encouraged in sporting activities, females prefer dolls because their parents reared them like that, and men are CEOs more because women are held down by men.

Everything I’ve said above is a gross oversimplification of the opposing argument. But it captures the issue quite well (while avoiding the tedious task of proving each and every point). The thing is;

I’m not worried about men’s rights being eroded in society…

I’m worried about the contrarian uprising against what is now the status-quo. Kids, the late Gen Z and Gen Alpha, will grow up in a society pushed in a direction that uses broad group-selection to identify historical oppressors and despise them today.

This becomes a problem when these kids see this attitude as the dated, boring view that their Millennial parents hold.

A world contrarian to the one today is racist, homophobic, and misogynist. And I’m already seeing the early signs of this transition.

Heads up! You’ll see both logical and grammatical errors in my work. This is well and truly a hobby and a way for me to explore my ideas. Not something designed meticulously to change the mind of the world — just an idea vomit.