The above is an article about a famous and influential scientist, Margaret Mead. The article discusses the ways in which her sexuality and her relation with one of her students shaped her work. It is not a very good article and is not very rich in content - but there is nothing controversial about it and its subject matter is certainly of interest to HN. Many people on HN are interested in how influential scientists, technologists, entrepreneurs, artists, etc, changed their respective fields with radical new ideas, as Margaret Mead did. Furthermore, the article has received only few votes and does not seem to be on the verge of starting any flame wars. There is no obvious reason such an article should be flagged.

Note also that my comment is not going against HN guidelines that discourage the discussion of downvotes on comments, not discussing the flagging of articles. Read the guidelines carefully if you are in doubt.

Living in a household with many people who view their gender in nonstandard ways has really opened my eyes to the ways in which most people are completely and blindly entrenched in gender expression. Especially men.

The other day I overheard someone in a park saying “I could never wear a dress because I am a man”, and it made me do a mental double-take. Sure you might not think a dress is flattering, and it might not be how you want to express yourself to the world, but surely you’d still be a man if you put the dress on. Masculinity in our culture is seemingly defined only by a series of negative statements, an outline only defined as the negative space of what is considered feminine.

Women experience this too, but not nearly in the same way. A woman can wear a suit and have a serious job and talk about cars but no one will deny her femininity. She’s “one of the guys” but in a bar she’ll still get lewd sexual attention and be seen generally as a woman. If a man wears flowers in his hair and puts on makeup and is preoccupied with domestic tasks then his masculinity is on the line. Ironically this person will still mostly get unwanted attention from other men (both sexual and downright aggressive in nature), who seem mostly unable to confront that which confuses and potentially arouses them.

I think part of the problem is that women know that the world is made for and by men, so amongst themselves they don’t see taking on “masculine” traits as being threatening to femininity, they are just trying to get by in the world. On the other hand, most men think the world is just rationally masculine so it is confusing or even aggressive to see other males flouting what they see as the only obvious way for male-bodied people to act.

Personally, I think the cure for this would be exploring the past and other cultures.

When you consider that it was one common for men, and in fact men of high class, to wear tights, skirts, robes, long hair, powdered hair, shoes with high heels... And on the other hand use women as bargaining chips in power struggles, and on the other hand, exactly opposite later, and including equality. Celebrate homosexuals, villify homosexuals. Define gender (or lack thereof) in opposition, contrast or in conjunction to others - or not at all. By various means as well.

We're past even the remix culture yet many people still cling to cultural authoritarianism of Elizabethans and Puritans and conformism far surpassing that of the darkest medieval times, full of war.

Perhaps it is a way to reduce confusion about the world that is too complex to comprehend. Or an attempt to perceive yourself as having any kind of power or dominance or sense of belonging to a group identity, a no longer extant imperium, even if that identity is long term irrelevant.

The group within group perceives threat and reacts, by forcing yet more conformity, higher polarization up to a point of caricaturing itself.

So, instead of fighting one conformism with another kind of conformism (so common lately), why not find another way?

For some reason, I rarely know what points the authors of Nautilus articles are trying to make. What are they claiming? How are they backing up those claims?