Thank you for taking me seriously. I enjoyed your response immensely and completely agree with it. I erred.

And your references were astonishingly insightful . . .

In my mother’s bedside table lay her mother’s jewelry and in my father’s lay his single-cartridge starter’s pistol. From this dynamic has all my gender judgment casually and unconsciously arisen.

Struggle as I might, my nurturing occasionally prevails over my conscious self-development.

So should I change my picture to one of cro-magnum woman handing a shiny flint knife to a man and telling him to get out there and kill one for her?

Or have I still got it wrong?

;o)

Your observations of average women are sadly accurate, but describing their behaviour as “carnal” is an unfair summation of a complex issue. I’m saddened that you’ve reacted with easy acceptance to my use of the word, which I meant as rhetorical hyperbole. Let me explain myself more levelly.

As far as women who are, let’s call them “first-world average” (taking it for granted that, as you say, gifted individuals of either sex can lead exceptional lives, surpassing gendered and other cultural limitations) there’s much to suggest that the codependence of their ambitions is socially constructed. I don’t think that’s the only influence, as I will also explain, but that it’s a factor demanding heightened compassion from thoughtful individuals, such as yourself.

One need only consider the relatively-recent advent of diamond marketing, inscriptive ideals of women as obliging and supplicant, and artificially-retarded career development to realise that social factors hold powerful sway over first-world average women’s decisions (and look to declining birth rates in the first world to realise that sheerly instinctual drives are now being socially mitigated to a high degree, i.e., women’s lives are primarily nurture-influenced, rather than nature-influenced)

If groups of first-world average men did not have access to average opportunities (i.e. these were significantly capped) but could fruitfully and acceptably resort to codependence, wouldn’t they? A moment after I’ve typed this I realise the hypothesis applies to racially prejudged men… but let’s save that discussion for another day.

Clearly women’s behaviour is not overwhelmingly “carnal” but socially-constructed to the degree that in suggesting carnality, you belittle a social mater that demands the compassion of gifted individuals (for if thoughtful people don’t address such issues, who will?)

All of this said, I agree that there’s lengthy historical evidence that shiny-adornment is a predominantly female cultural trait (in spite of societies where the roles have been markedly and prolongedly switched) and that the shiny things men carry have most often been weapons.

As your own expanded-logic expresses, though, it’s as likely that early men collected shiny things to attract women, as early women collected shiny things to attract men through self-adornment. You didn’t use such an example, nor better yet, a gender neutral one; instead, you chose an example that carries a wallop of contemporary judgment.

I therefore maintain criticism that your “introduction” page is not a great place for non-sequitur, gender-critical comment of average women. Ya know?

By your own careful logic (i.e. the open-mindedness that recalled Joni Mitchell, and does not judge as good or bad anyone’s resourcefulness in survival) you could have left out the sex of the gifted shiny-things collector, and your writing wouldn’t shut anyone out.

Thanks for bearing with this tangent. The Internet is naught if not an opportunity for the unexpected, no?

Thank you for your frankness. I’m sorry to think my words may have hurt you. The only point I was trying to make is that it is the gifted who are conscious enough of their awareness to be able to make use of it. The use may or may not be considered honorable.

Your line: “Attraction to shininess is part of the carnal character of young females?” is very powerful and as a statement rather than a question I think absolutely states the historical and current truth for many women. I do not think that this is all women, however, and the Mother Theresas, Hilary Clintons and Maya Angelous can cheerfully co-exist with the diamond-encrusted crowns of Queen Elizabeth and the arm candy of male billionaires.

To address your questions, “Something shiny” could be anything at all, but I suppose I meant it as a reference to a potential adornment, or something desirable and rare and therefore a symbol of power. Gifted people are as much possessed by human nature as anyone else, and competition for mates takes many forms.

All attraction arises from a mixture of factors, but amidst those some women respond more to a breadth of intelligence, others to the thickness of a wallet, and others to something else altogether. I don’t judge any one as better or worse than any other.

The same thing goes for men. As Joni Mitchell sings: “Shining hair and shining skin/Shining as she reeled him in.” The fate of Harry, in her song, and the innocent female from my blog, lured by ‘something shiny’, is ultimately much the same: they discover that what they have is false.

I’m not sure that my casual reference is really an a priori assumption in a society where phrases like “gold digger”, “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend”, “Material Girl”, “Don’t marry for money but look where money is,” and “She made a good marriage” are commonplace. More a general observation.

Finally, it’s a fun idea that money might have been invented simply as a manifestation of the sex drive but no, I don’t think that’s what it was.

The line, “A fourth picked up something shiny, saw the glint of desire in a young female’s eyes, and started looking for more and saving them,” is enough to put me off this site. To the author, Christopher, really? Attraction to shininess is part of the carnal character of young females? Is “something shiny” metonymic for gems, or are you implying that money was invented as a way to attract young females? Jewels or money, archaeology suggests otherwise. No matter what you intended, I’m boggled and frankly hurt to see such a priori assumptions about the sexes, in the very introduction to a site that purports to be for the “gifted community”. Thanks, I suppose, for returning me to my regular state of social skepticism. Are there any human communities who claim, “we’re different and special” without regressing to definitions of how others aren’t?!