Male-Female Differences ...born Or Society?

[Guest Donna Jean]

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Something very interseting to think about....

Do we, as men and women, have certain behaviors because we were born with them or do we adapt to socieities expectations?

Are girls born liking the color pink? Boys blue? Or are we told that is the way it is?

Can men be nurturing if not told how to be manly?

Can women learn to read maps?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/15/girls-boys-think-same-way

This is an interesting piece along that route.....

Donna Jean

[Guest Elizabeth K]

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Something very interseting to think about....

Do we, as men and women, have certain behaviors because we were born with them or do we adapt to socieities expectations?

Are girls born liking the color pink? Boys blue? Or are we told that is the way it is?

Can men be nurturing if not told how to be manly?

Can women learn to read maps?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/15/girls-boys-think-same-way

This is an interesting piece along that route.....

Donna Jean

Psudoscience - same old same old. I have been hearing this argument since the 60's. I have been hearing about scientific studys that say the opposite, my entire life.

Too many variables - too many differences in the samples - its like trying to count grains of sand on the beach - the density varies beach to beach, as well as the composition.

Personally? I like that old 1/3 + 1/3 + 1/3 theory:

Genetics, parenting, world experience - that idea. That is probably what make us what we are. With gender I guess it would also include what you were labeled at birth, based upon what the doctor or midwife saw between your legs - verses - what you later identify as. DANG - we transpeople mess up everything!

Who knows... BUT I do not believe this article is accurate - that females and males are essentially the same starting out. Ask any parent with both gendered children. They know differently.

Lizzy

[Guest ChloëC]

One of the problems with articles like this (which is most 'scientific' articles published in the mainstream press) is that they are basically empirical type articles. As in, 'well, I know someone who is such and such' and someone else writes about someone who basically is different. What do either prove? And expecially all those comments.

It's like Global Warming (or cooling or whatever). If you experience it, it's real, if you don't, it's phony scientific doggeral.

I've been suggesting this for years, it's the me-here-now syndrome and it's only getting worse. The most important time is now, the most important place is here, the most important person is me. Anything outside those boundaries are meaningless and probably 'wrong'.

My daughters never ever cared for dress up dolls, play kitchens, and the like, and they hated the frilly clothes one grandmother tried to dress them in, attractive yes, overt frilly, no. And we tried those things; but we also tried pretty ponies, and those trolls, and those Care Bears, and athletic equipment, and games, and puzzles and handheld electronic games based on Disney female characters, and computers, and the list goes on. Some worked, some didn't. All it told me is that people are different and given enough choices they'll be even more different.

My son is about 6' 2", big, fairly strong. He only did moderate at sports. And I tried and supported him. My daughters each earned 5 or 6 varsity letters in softball, volleyball, tennis. And they would come to me for assistance, which I gladly gave as well as years of support. Yet, they are wildly different, the older is fair at make-up, choosing clothes, but comes across as very 'girly'. The younger is a clothes horse and her friends come to her for make-up advice, but is more outspoken and expecting of others. Why the difference? What does it mean?

Well, we're all different.

As I am from the three of them.

Hugs

Chloë

[JJ]

My problem with the article is that while it criticises other studies it offers bsolutely no evidence of it's own.

We don't know-or have enough evidence to support the types and extent of gender differences between male and female brains.

But the existence of parallel cultures from early times all around the world argues that gender roles are hard wired to some extend

To argue otherwise is to ignore the role that instinct plays in human behavior. And mammalian behavior. We like to ignore that we are also animals with basic instinctive behavior but whether that view is comfortable or not doesn't alter that we are. We are arguably more than that but it is still a major component in our beavior.

And just as men evolved stronger they evolved certain roles and behaviors-it only makes sense. The same is true for women. They evolved physically weaker but with compensatory sills and instincts to fill an evolutionary niche.It would not make biological sense for eachh generation to have to learn all those behaviors-it wouldn't work. Those born with certain skills would be favored in survival of offspring so that those skills etc would be reinforced. Inherited-ard wired.

Otherwise men and women would have evolved to be identical in strength and appearance. We look different because we are different because we evolved that way to fill specific roles. Not a popular or politically comfortable view but one I believe is grounded in science.

JJ

[Guest Lillet Coll]

There's a lot of strange misinformation in this thread both about the article and about the physical differences between genders.

First, this wasn't a study. No where in the article did it say it was a study. This means it's impossible to be pseudoscience because it wasn't even presenting itself as science, but commentary. Commentary isn't a place to offer high amounts of statistical proof as that's largely inaccessible and hard to read, but there is a lot of information at the surprising insignificance of biological differences between men and women in relation to things like doing math and knitting that can easily be found outside. The only goal of this article is to get people to start paying attention to these surfacing studies that point out our original assumptions are wrong. I implore you not to turn a blind eye to this just because it counters what you believe at the moment. It's an interesting and important subject that could greatly enhance anyone's understanding of gender, gender roles, sexism, psychology, and neurology.

Socialization plays a major role in how we all act. It governs what we consider polite, impolite, right, wrong, pretty, ugly, our sex drive, what we eat, what we drink, how we talk, walk, dance, and even how willing we are to express ourselves. As transsexuals, we should be pretty much the most conscious of socialization as we've all actively fought against it at some point while accepting socialization for our real gender.

Simply looking into the pass shows how strong socialization could be. Two thousand years ago, it was men who were sex objects that had to look pretty and great. Two hundred years ago, being fat was considered an attractive thing because it showed you had wealth enough to eat. Fifty years ago, women were supposed to be happy being housewives. (I say that, though feminist literature has been around for much, much longer.)

Even the idea that men are naturally stronger isn't really true. Men and women are of equal strength when weighing lb for lb of muscle. Men tend to get bigger muscles while women tend to get denser muscles. Women greatly underestimate their own strength in studies considerably because of how society repeats that mantra myth that they're supposed to be weak. When it comes down to it, as far as physical strength, height is a larger factor than gender. (Height isn't just a genetic thing, either, it's also nutritional, but women tend to not nourish themselves the same as men again because of socialization.)

There's a lot that goes into this, and it's a very interesting subject. Don't turn a blind eye to it. <3