Chapter I

WHO CHOOSES WHOM

What do you think, if we ask someone to go ahead and name some pairs of opposite things, what would be the most common answers? We tried this experiment a lot of times with people who did not really know what dialectics [The word dialectics is not very commonly used in the western literature. Dialectical approach supposes three basic principles. Firstly, any phenomenon is to be considered in its development, from its origination in the history till the moment when in the course of history it dies. Secondly, dialectics looks at any phenomenon as at a unity of opposites, which this phenomenon comprises. Thirdly, dialectics considers any fact of being within its links with the other facts of being. – Translator’s note.] is. As a rule people name black and white, positive and negative, summer and winter, man and woman…

Of course, we are concerned about the last pair. In what way are the two sexes opposite? It is clear with summer and winter. Summer days are hot and long, winter days are cold and short, in summer nature is awake, in winter it is asleep. But the two sexes…  People rather feel than realize that they are opposite, and it turns to be difficult to explain why it is so. “Well, man is man, and woman is woman”, someone would say after a minute of thinking. Others would be more specific: men are more stubborn, and women are easier to convince. Men do not care a lot for their health, while women do. Men are likely to have so called bad habits, and women can do well without them. The man is fascinated by a woman’s body, while she is trying to get to his soul.  Not bad so far...

But all in all, how many opposite traits and features do men and women have? How are these features connected with each other?

In our study we have taken the task to make a system out of the conglomerate of men’s and women’s features, traits, abilities and qualities. We will have to understand which features are the most essential, and which are not.  The nearest step on our way is to find answers to the following questions. What is man and what is woman regarding the objective mission of sexes? Actually, we have to understand what this mission is, and why there appeared a bipolar (bisexual) system of reproduction.

We will reach this goal by the end of chapter 5. After that we will pass to solving the riddles of the abnormal proportions between the newborn males and females. We have mentioned some of these in the foreword. Having solved these problems we will be able to say what conditions contribute to the probability of birth of a child of a certain sex. The last five chapters will be dedicated to historical forms of the interaction of sexes and the future of the sexes till the point of disappearance of the bipolar system of reproduction as well as reproduction itself. So these are our goals.

Now why do not we start. Let us take such features of men and women that are not likely to be a point of an argument.

We state that men are active in their interaction with women and women are passive. We refer not only to the climax of sexual interaction, but so to say to the whole way to it. On this way the man takes the initiative, courts the woman, chases her in a sense being sometimes troublesome, appears to be molesting or harassing. These word formulas we have taken from the real language, our aide that directly and honestly reflects the reality. We will consult the language throughout our investigation. Considering language is one of the methods in social studies as far as language comprises the norms of social consciousness that are expressed in words.

Now let us try to apply the above formulas to a woman. Just think of a woman courting a man or harassing him…

That is where we are expecting to meet some objections. Why cannot the woman be on the wooing and chasing side? Someone would say that he or she knows some Ms. Niagara rushing at men out of an ambush while her neighbor Mr. Bashful has never been married and gets all confused and red when talking to a woman. He does, we would say, things happen. But all in all Mr. Bashful and Ms. Niagara are rather poor representatives of their respective sexes.

So why do not we settle on not eliminating the general rule by exceptions of this kind. Surely things happen, but to build a conception it is important to see the forest behind the particular trees.

This brings us to methodology. Certainly, we would reduce reality to an absolute model stating that men are totally and constantly active and women are always and permanently passive. Nevertheless, this kind of assumption will make us see in a clear way the general opposite features that really exist. Later on we are going to use this method considering other features of the two sexes, keeping in mind that in the reality things are more complicated.

Right now let us admit that men are more active than passive, while women, on the contrary, are rather passive than active in their interaction with the opposite sex.

Later in our investigation we will consider those cases where men turn to be passive and women take it over with their womanly activeness. We have to deal here with the fact of interpenetrating of the opposites. Otherwise, there would be neither sexual interaction, nor the sexes as they are. That would mean that woman being totally passive would stand like a statue, and man revolving around her in his unlimited activeness would gain escape velocity and leave the Solar system.

We will come back to activeness and passiveness later. And now let us look at another pair of opposite features. It will not seem so evident as with the first pair. Try to answer the following question: who chooses the so-called matrimonial partner?  To be more precise: who has the last word? We speak now first and foremost of the mutual appeal rather than of the formal circumstances of marriage. We are not going to object if you say that it is done between them both, man and woman choose each other. Still, let us reduce their roles to an opposition, like we have done with activeness and passiveness.

While you are thinking, let us refer to the opinion of college students concerning this point. Almost all girls consider themselves to be the ones who choose or make the final decision. Boys are not this unanimous. More than a half joins the girls. The rest think that it is them who make the choice.

By the way, girls are likely to give their opinion ready-made, as if this question were subconsciously decided for them. Boys start to figure it out on the spot. It seems that women are more concerned about the future. Maybe they are more responsible? Let us not forget these guesses.

Now we are supposed to give you the right answer. College girls were right. To make choices is a womanly trait; the manly one is to offer. Our conclusion coincides with word formulas. Men give their heart and soul; women’s choice falls on that certain gentleman. Man proposes and woman either accepts or rejects his proposal.

Rejecting man’s proposal, woman manifests her choosing predestination, although the act of choosing has a negative sign, if we use a mathematical analogy.

 Nowadays woman is the side that mostly starts divorces. In Leningrad (St. Petersburg) in the 1970s women initiated 65 to 69 per cent of all divorces. In Riga, Latvia, in 1977, 77 per cent of divorces were started by women, and among women under 25 the rate was as high as 85 per cent [Звидриньш П.П. Стабильность браков и рождаемость. // Рождаемость: известное и неизвестное. – М., 1983. С. 63-64]. The same rates can be seen in other European countries, USA, Canada, and Australia.

The more developed a society is, the more liberated in her choice is the woman. While in the 1920s in Ukraine men initiated most of divorces, now women have taken their place. If we take a look at pre-revolutionary Russia, we can hardly speak about any women’s initiative at all [See Чуйко Л.В. Браки и разводы. – М., 1975. С. 140-142.].

We have found out what students think about women’s capacity of choosing. In fact, women do choose in this social group. The same could be said about middle-aged university graduates: engineers, doctors, teachers, and lawyers. Among older women as well as among those who have not received much education the picture is different. Some women would not understand how they could choose the “master”. Therefore, the more emancipated, educated and independent the woman is, the higher is her ability to manifest her natural predestination.

Choosing capacity is a natural quality, an attribute of the female sex. However, under certain historical circumstances this capacity is reduced to zero. In the society of exploiters and the exploited, where a woman is sold and bought like property, is made a child-producing machine, she is divested of her natural quality. Only now, on the decline of the society of exploitation, woman is gaining her inherent quality to choose her partner overcoming such impediments as norms of social behavior, traditions, and man who used to be her master. 

Dealing with sexes, which is a biological category, we have come across a very strong influence of social and historical factors.  It means that we have no choice rather than taking into consideration the social influence upon the system of sexual interaction and analyzing all kinds of distortions it produces.  By the way, we must say that in the exploitation society, men are deprived of their predestination to offer to the same extent as the women of their choosing capacity.

However, non-historical approach is not always unproductive. Throughout our investigation at some points we will factor out the historical and social impact, as the scope of our survey goes wider beyond Homo Sapiens’ reproduction. Alongside with ‘man’ and ‘woman’ we will use such terms as ‘male’ and ‘female’. Nevertheless, solving such problems as the causes of the formation of sexes, particular forms of matrimony, types of monogamy and the future of the bipolar system of reproduction we will fully consider the influence of social and  historical factors.

Coming back to what was said above, men are active and women are passive. This was the first pair of opposite qualities that we found. Secondly, men are to offer themselves and women are to choose their partner. Does this second pair of opposites anyhow correlate with the first one? No doubt, it does. Just think of a vendor who took away the signboard, covered the window with a curtain and got under the counter with all the stuff he was going to sell. Passivity has nothing to deal with offer.

Now let us get a bit deeper. One can offer something only actively exhibiting this thing. Exhibiting itself is an activity. Man by his nature is a demonstrator. So what does he demonstrate?  He demonstrates what he has. How does he manage to do it? Remember the teenage guys dying to show off in front of their girl classmates? As for adults, they have plenty of their means: education, intelligence, reliability, dignity, career, and social status. By the way, men care for praise to a bigger extent than women do. Praise helps to exhibit man’s worthiness.

And what if a man lacks of all the things we have listed? No problem. Still he keeps being a demonstrator. Man, no matter whether he is an outstanding person, a mediocrity or an alcoholic, lives his life making a show out of it. And his show is bigger than that of a woman.

Here, dear reader, you just have to disagree. Men’s show rest in front of the show of fashion models wearing awesome makeup, manicure, with extra long eyelashes provided by Max Factor mascara. Covered with bijouterie, they give points to any man-demonstrator.  And they just melt with compliments! You are absolutely right. But we are right as well. What we have stated in the previous paragraphs applies to everything but physical appearance. In chapter 2 we will refer to physical looks being a manifestation of womanly activeness.

Let us go on with our research. Man offers himself actively exhibiting his qualities. And what does the opposite sex do? We will try to understand it turning this word formula to its opposite. Woman chooses a partner passively looking at a variety of men who offer themselves.

What she needs to have is a choice.

If you come to a store and see nothing but Wrigley’s spearmint chewing gum or regular soap you would be unable to make a choice for technical reasons. To choose from one needs a certain range.

Let us look at men keeping this in mind.

We will use a model offered by Geodakyan. Let us pretend we make a team of all men and another one of all women. Which sex is going to win in a team competition and which one in the individual contest? Men or women? We need to add that it will not be a sport competition (where physical differences play a big role), but a competition of various, including everyday, activities, such as sewing, peeling potatoes, gathering mushrooms, driving… If you think that women are going to win in the team competitions and men are going to get the prize in the individual race, you are rather observant and you think like our colleague Geodakyan.

In his article Two sexes. What For And Why? Geodakyan extends this law on animals and states that in every kind of activity males are going to become champions in the individual competition while females are to win as a team [Геодакян В. Два пола. Зачем и почему? // Наука и жизнь. 1966. № 3. С. 103.].

The solution looks clear and well defined. We cannot but agree with its first part. However, the second part needs some refinement, which is very important. We have to say that only junior females will win the team competition. Senior males will leave behind their senior female competitors. In chapter 7 we are going to give an answer why. At this point, our dear reader, just take your time. For now we are quite satisfied with Geodakyan’s solution.  Our colleague proceeds from the assumption that the male sex is more diverse than the female. It looks rather evident and later we will find a theoretical basis for it.

It is true that among men we will easily find different kinds of champions. Outstanding scientists, composers, engineers, surgeons, chess-players, teachers, couturiers, embroiderers, cooks can be easily named within the male half of the mankind. However, one can be outstanding in quite a different way. Looking among male representatives you need not think twice to point at those who are unable to sew on a button, who would cut off their finger with potato peel and would not tell chess from draughts.  Criminals, alcoholics, maniacs, pigs, the dumb and the clumsy inevitably make up a part of the male population. Also men have more physical and psychical diversity.

While the male sex is scattered, the female sex appears to be unified. Men are to a bigger extent than women different from each other.  The other side of men’s diversity is their individual particularity. If we look at a man and a woman on the individual level, he will be more specific and peculiar than she. The female sex representative is more averaged and versatile.

So we have come to the fundamental difference between the two sexes, which is both of people and animals.  This assumption is the cornerstone of Geodakyan’s theory, as he declares himself [Геодакян В.А. Эволюционная логика дифференциации полов и долголетие. // Природа. 1983. № 1. С. 71-72.]. Our latter research will be proceeding from this opposition of the male and female sexes.

Diagram #1 shows the opposition.

The plus sign (+) stands for prominent men and women, those who work for the progress of the society, zero (0) stands for the average representatives, and the minus sign (-) depicts the negative part of the population.

Men’s bigger diversity has two consequences.

First, the environment (here we refer above all to social surrounding) has less mercy upon men than upon women. It discards those who do not grant its demands. As seen from the diagram there is rather plenty of such men. These are not only the ones of the negative wing. It is nothing safer to be an outstanding person than to be at the bottom of society. Julius Cesar, Jesus Christ, Jan Gus, Pierre Curie, Moses Uritsky, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Leon Trotsky, Nicholas Gastello, Martin Luther King Jr., John Lennon, Jury Gagarin, Andrey Mironov and many more men would have lived long years if it had not been for their prominent qualities.

Nature also discards men having any kind of physical abnormality, attacking first of all those who are still in their mothers’ womb. This is what is called natural selection. The one who performs it is a well-known person wearing a shroud and armed with a scythe.

The second consequence of men’s bigger diversity is linked with women’s choosing capacity. As male population is diverse, women have where to choose from. Thus a part of men stays unclaimed. This is called sexual selection. The one who performs it is woman. What is she wearing and what is she armed with? We will answer the first part of the question in the next chapter, as it was promised. The second part is to be answered right now. Woman is armed with her ability to choose, evaluate and compare.

Men are not just scattered by the extreme areas of population. They crave for their position there trying themselves in extreme activities. To a certain degree this can be referred to any man. Swedish researchers studying men’s behavior noted that choosing some activity from a number a man would choose the one that would cause adrenalin secretion. Adrenalin is known to be a stress hormone. Thirst for the extreme is noted from a very young age [Франкенхаузер М., Едман М. Мужчина, женщина и стресс. // Наука и жизнь. 1991. № 5. С. 59.]. Just look at boys and their games.

What makes men look for pungent emotions? Later on we promise to answer this question.

For now we will just keep in mind that men are inclined to risks, adventures, peril, they strive for the unknown, unexplored, mysterious. This can be an Arctic expedition, an experiment of some kind, a scientific discovery, a triumph, a crocodile safari, a war conflict, a drunken brawl, or just a thriller. Extreme stressful activity also has its other side. The point is that human mentality is like a pendulum. Having swung in one direction, it inevitably has to swing back. It means that an overstressed man needs to relax, lounge about, get dumb with the help of alcohol or smoking. This kind of zigzags is not a whim of the male sex, but its inherent quality. Women, unlike men, are inclined to stabilized activities. Their swings of their psyche and behavior have a less amplitude [We considered the questions of psychic oscillations and the particularities of male and female perception in our book Искрин В.И. Новая психология. – СПб., 1998.].

Men’s activeness is directed not only towards women, but also towards nature, and first and foremost, towards its "unvisited areas". Man joins new "lands" to the "social territory", introduces novelties. The combination of activeness and extremism makes man more enterprising than woman.

Woman, on the contrary, treats the environment with certain passiveness. She cultivates the joined lands, makes routine jobs (or those that have already become routine). The combination of passiveness and ‘centrism’ makes woman more quiet, steady and balanced in what she feels and what she does. 

Having started our analysis with the opposition of manly activeness and womanly passiveness, we have spread the area of these features beyond the sexual interaction. Both sexes proved to possess these qualities in their interaction with the environment as a whole. Thus we managed to picture this dialectical opposition more or less completely.

Let us sum up what we have found out.

1. The male sex turns out to be the active side both in the interaction with the female sex and the environment. The female sex is the passive side. Men’s inherent trait par excellence is the initiative; women’s attribute is inertness.

2. The male sex is scattered in its diversity, on the individual level man is likely to have some specific quality. If we compare people by a certain parameter, men will have more differences between themselves.  The female sex is more unified; on the individual level woman turns to be versatile. Women are more similar to each other in any parameter.

3. Men are more inclined to extreme activities; women are disposed to restrained moderate occupations.

4. Men’s nature supposes them to exhibit their qualities and thus offer themselves to women. Women watching men make their choice. As we have found out, they have a pretty wide range.

Making conclusions we need to point at the principles and methods we have found useful.

Firstly, we settled on observing general tendencies and rules and not being cheated by particular exceptive examples. Secondly, in those cases where it helps us to see the general tendency we decided to reduce the oppositions of some qualities to an absolute model. We hope you have noticed that sometimes we used an utter abstraction, and sometimes tried to shorten the distance between the model and the reality. Thirdly, we made an assumption to disregard till a certain point of our investigation the influence of social and historical factors. We do this as long as to spread the dialectics of sexes beyond the Homo Sapiens species and see the system of reproduction without hindrances caused by social factor. Finally, we appealed to language formulas and these have already helped us to define clearly the stable trends in social consciousness.

Although methodological insertions made the chapter not so easy readable, it was a necessary step on our way. Due to well-defined methods this way has become much clearer.

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