D
Part 1
The sex differences in the desire for short-term casual sex are exacerbated by another sex difference in evolved psychological mechanisms: a woman’s desire to understate her sexual desire in a particular man and to engage in what is known as “token resistance.” In one study, nearly 40% of undergraduate women admitted to saying no to sexual advances from a man even though they actually wanted to have sex with him. More than a third of these cases where the women initially said no eventually resulted in consensual sex. As the late great behavior geneticist Linda Mealy, whom we’ve also encountered before, eloquently puts it: “That females are selected to be coy will mean that sometimes saying ‘no’ really does mean ‘try a little harder.’” Of course, women sometimes do mean no when they say no, but this isn’t always the case.
Part 2
While many women legitimately complain that they have been subjected to abusive, intimidating, and degrading treatment by their male colleagues and employers, Browne points out that long before women entered the labor force, men subjected each other to such abusive, intimidating, and degrading treatment. Abuse, intimidation, and degradation are all part of men’s unfortunate repertoire of tactics employed in competitive situations. In other words, men are not harassing women in this fashion because they are treating women differently from men (which is the definition of discrimination under which sexual harassment legally falls), but the exact opposite. Men harass women precisely because they are not discriminating between men and women. Men harass women because they are not sexist.
The sex differences in the desire for short-term casual sex are exacerbated by another sex difference in evolved psychological mechanisms: a woman’s desire to understate her sexual desire in a particular man and to engage in what is known as “token resistance.” In one study, nearly 40% of undergraduate women admitted to saying no to sexual advances from a man even though they actually wanted to have sex with him. More than a third of these cases where the women initially said no eventually resulted in consensual sex. As the late great behavior geneticist Linda Mealy, whom we’ve also encountered before, eloquently puts it: “That females are selected to be coy will mean that sometimes saying ‘no’ really does mean ‘try a little harder.’” Of course, women sometimes do mean no when they say no, but this isn’t always the case.
Part 2
While many women legitimately complain that they have been subjected to abusive, intimidating, and degrading treatment by their male colleagues and employers, Browne points out that long before women entered the labor force, men subjected each other to such abusive, intimidating, and degrading treatment. Abuse, intimidation, and degradation are all part of men’s unfortunate repertoire of tactics employed in competitive situations. In other words, men are not harassing women in this fashion because they are treating women differently from men (which is the definition of discrimination under which sexual harassment legally falls), but the exact opposite. Men harass women precisely because they are not discriminating between men and women. Men harass women because they are not sexist.
