Comment by heresie-dabord

7 hours ago

The concept of a social cabin or "men's shed" has been discussed before on HN.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men's_shed

Basically the whole point of the Freemasonry fraternity as well. Male only. It is dressed up with some altruistic goals and rituals, but it is a social club for men essentially.

  • > Basically the whole point of the Freemasonry fraternity as well. Male only. It is dressed up with some altruistic goals and rituals

    Freemasonry began as a workers' guild, but the accreted "goals and rituals" take a group far beyond the simplicity of a men's shed.

    The simplicity of any club rapidly becomes complex when monotheism or henotheism (any theism) is injected:

    From Wikipedia:

    * Anglo-American style Freemasonry, which insists that a "volume of sacred law" should be open in a working lodge, that every member should profess belief in a supreme being, that only men should be admitted, and discussion of religion or politics does not take place within the lodge.

    * Continental Freemasonry or Liberal style Freemasonry which has continued to evolve beyond these restrictions, particularly regarding religious belief and political discussion.

    * Women Freemasonry or Co-Freemasonry, which includes organisations that either admit women exclusively or accept both men and women."

    [1] _ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freemasonry

    • I don't think it is complex. The theme of a social group is just there as a filter. If you like rock climbing and meet someone at a rock climbing gym that person is far more likely to be interested in things you are interested in: physical fitness, the particular mental challenges of rock climbing, etc. It was just an example. I won't analyze the sexism or male only nature of the fraternity, but I think Freemasonry anecdotally reinforces the idea that men want/need/form these kind of clubs more than women on average.

      When we study this we notice very small actual bias at an individual level on socialization preference. The differences are modest and more like slight preferences. There is more overlap than not at a local individual level. What gets missed is that even though the differences are relatively small, the network effect greatly amplifies these small variances resulting in non-linear outcomes. Even small biases at an individual level essentially produce significant effect in socialization behavior.