The gender equality paradox

[civ_king]

Do you mean Ada Lovelace?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Lovelace


She who the language Ada is named after?

Yes, Ada; I can't believe I forgot to mention her name.

 

[Hygro]

There seems to be a lot of evidence that suggests testosterone levels have a pretty significant impact on developmental and behavioral patterns, both physical and social. Small children may not have a ton of testosterone in either gender, but prior to birth and starting again at puberty, the differences tend to be pretty stark. I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that there may be some differences in the bell curve for activities and propensities of people depending on their chemical/hormonal gender.

Yes, true,

I just took a class on the molecular and cell level of the endocrine system. We're talking about a computer written on some pretty advanced code, here.

You have hormone on, hormone off.
You have hormone variant 1, hormone variant 2, etc.
You have receptor open, receptor closed.
You have receptor variant 1, receptor variant 2 etc.
You have promoter on, promotor off.
You have repressor on, repressor off.
You have co-promoter for promoter on/off
You have co-repressor for promoter on/off
You have co-repressors and co-promoters (coregulators) for other coregulators on/off

Then you have shades of gray between "on off"

Then you have all the response decisions for these on/offs that are based on these shades of gray, and based on this very process for other hormones and neurotransmitters (so you run this script for testosterone, but you need to know what progesterone is doing to know what the testosterone results mean, but the progesterone is reacting to your thyroid which is connected to the back-bone, the back-bone's connected to the hip-bone... times 100. And then once the testosterone makes it's call the progesterone will change up and the whole thing will mean something else.


Meanwhile your thoughts and feelings, which literally are chemicals like these in aggregate, are reacting to social stimuli, which is to say that as far as your body is concerned, my words to you are physiologically an extension of your being, that you respond to, that I respond to, that your cortisol responds to, etc.

And then the same coregulator might promote one hormone and repress another at the same time, but that repression of the second hormone tells the first hormone receptors to downregulate, effectively repressing the first one, which might inform the second to upregulate, promoting the second.



And that's like, leaving out a lot (I didn't mention agonists vs antagonists, or the shapes of cells, or what kind of goo the stuff is in, whether it's talking to membranes or to nuclei, I mean, it goes on and on.



Your hormone system is so advanced that if you devoted your consciousness to experiencing and acting based on hormonal impulses you would still act with intelligence.

 

[Farm Boy]

Your hormone system is so advanced that if you devoted your consciousness to experiencing and acting based on hormonal impulses you would still act with intelligence.

I think we're probably doing that, literally, almost all the time! Don't you think that's what our intelligence actually is, such that it is? That people with hormonal disorders and differences tend to have different types of intelligence? Or did I very much miss the push of that statement?

 

[Akka]

There's no obvious reason why boys would be more likely to act that way, and girls less so, outside of a cultural context that encourages them to do so.

Yeah, because men and women are so totally alike and have absolutely no biological differences at all, that wouldn't influence them in any way even if they would exist...

 

[Traitorfish]

That's okay, I'm not interested in discussing this like grown ups either.

 

[Hygro]

I think we're probably doing that, literally, almost all the time! Don't you think that's what our intelligence actually is, such that it is? That people with hormonal disorders and differences tend to have different types of intelligence? Or did I very much miss the push of that statement?

The push is that the very underlying differences that lead to women lower testosterone and men higher testosterone may also make those differences lead an equal outcome. Or an even more unequal outcome. Or a hard to compare sideways outcome.

But otherwise, yes, you got my other point which is indeed we are largely doing that all the time. So are plants. In our case, though, we also have give or take half dozen other distinct information consoles that are as radically important as our endocrine system information console. Most of these other consoles reside in the brain, (i.e. the brain is not one distinct one), but their processes are highly analogous to our brain.

Yeah, because men and women are so totally alike and have absolutely no biological differences at all, that wouldn't influence them in any way even if they would exist...

Not TF's point. His point is that even though you acknowledge physical differences, there is little reason to connect those differences to our cultural prejudices.

I would further venture to say that even if our ancestors were picking up on innate men-women differences, our modes of thinking and experiencing the world have changed so radically that we're surely misinterpreting those differences so any appeal to tradition, even hunter-gatherers (especially hunter-gatherers), can lead to some big missteps.

 

[JollyRoger]

I know for a fact that women couldn't do my job

The free market has many invisible hand jobs that can only be done by men.

 

[Arachnofiend]

I find it impossible to believe that anything other than a tiny minority of computer-owning boys ever take the thing apart, and equally impossible to believe that boys don't primarily use their computers for socialising. I think this is sexism applied backwards - we observe that most computer scientists are men, we seek to find an explanation which preserves our natural inclination that this is entirely fair, and come up with something like this. Given the same level of encouragement from birth to be interested in technical subjects, I think it's a fair bet that a boy and a girl are equally likely to become interested in computing.

Early computer programmers were women, the job was culturally designated to women, and it was only when people wised up to the fact that software design is a real intellectual and logical challenge more complicated than putting together the dinner menu that the roles were reversed and it became a field dominated by men.

So there's that.

 

[Cryopyre]

Men and women's minds are different. I think it's hard to believe otherwise.

Studies on day to month old babies show differences between preferences.

Is that also a result of culture?

We do not know the exact ways the brain is different, because we don't understand the brain very well in the first place, but we are learning, and we see differences between the brains in a multitude of studies, even with our limited perception.

I'm confident in the assertion that the brains and behaviors differ on a fundamental level. Further study is working to refine and understand what we see.

As for social justice movements, and how they relate to neuroscience/psychology: I can understand wanting equal treatment under the current system, but expecting people to forgo their natural tendencies in order to present a facade of equivalence (as opposed to equality), oversteps the bounds IMO. Furthermore, and this is my largest fear, we should not let our dedication to bringing women equal opportunities step in the way of scientific understanding. Much published gender-research is overly apologetic in its findings of difference. Also, it seems paradoxical to me that social justice movements will claim to embrace transgender individuals and reject the idea of innate differences in the male and female brain. How can you feel like a man or a woman if the "inner world" is supposed to be the same?

 

[Akka]

Not TF's point. His point is that even though you acknowledge physical differences, there is little reason to connect those differences to our cultural prejudices.

That's what I understood, and I still think it's a ridiculous notion.
Not that all of these prejudices are justified, of course, but the "core" ones tend to be near-universal, and either glaringly based on biological differences, or simply logical (if not always justified) consequences of said biological differences.

 

[Flying Pig]

Early computer programmers were women, the job was culturally designated to women, and it was only when people wised up to the fact that software design is a real intellectual and logical challenge more complicated than putting together the dinner menu that the roles were reversed and it became a field dominated by men.

So there's that.

Today, we continue to assume that the programmers are largely anti-social and that anti-socialness is a male trait. As long as these assumptions persist, says Ensmenger, the programming workforce will continue to be male-dominated. Although the stereotype of the anti-social programmer was created in the 1960s, it is now self-perpetuating. Employers seek to hire new recruits who fit the existing mold. Young people self-select into careers where they believe they will fit in—for example, women currently comprise 18% of computer science undergraduate majors, down from 37% in 1985.

By uncovering the history of women programmers, Ensmenger seeks not only to remind us of women’s forgotten contributions to the computing field. More broadly, he is interested in the process of how and why the field became predominantly male. The fact that stereotypes embedded in advertisements and hiring practices had such a profound effect on masculinizing this profession, says Ensmenger, also sheds light on what can be done to reverse the trend, making programming and other computer professions more open to women.

I think that says it all, really.

 

[Borachio]

How can you feel like a man or a woman if the "inner world" is supposed to be the same?

I don't know how anyone "feels like a man or a woman".

The biggest gulf, for me, is between my experience - as myself - and the entire rest of the world.

Gender issues are as minor, in comparison, as hair-colouring.

Still, that's perhaps easy for me to say. I've never really felt disadvantaged because of the choices I've had to make with regard to public lavatories. Why is defecation considered gender-specific?

 

[Hygro]

That's what I understood, and I still think it's a ridiculous notion.
Not that all of these prejudices are justified, of course, but the "core" ones tend to be near-universal, and either glaringly based on biological differences, or simply logical (if not always justified) consequences of said biological differences.

Glaringly, not really. But the second part, the "logical consequences" well yes, quite reasonably so. But such logical consequences as so far divorced from evolutionary starting points there is not a lot of reason to ascribe these consequences as natural biological sex biases. We know that women-driven societies can produce highly competitive women -- as competitive as men in men-driven societies! -- while the men are not so competitive. Might men still be biologically more competitively driven? Perhaps, but culture is the stronger factor for sure.

What you're basically telling me is that whatever post ice-age bias begat patriarchal agricultural societies that encouraged a social division that relegates one sex to serve the other as proof that the behaviors that we see today that are a direct product of 9,000 years of that cultural force are still nevertheless accurately telling us the innate behavioral differences between the sexes. Glaringly.

There's plenty of reason to suspect it. There's no reason to believe in it.

Why is defecation considered gender-specific?

Goddamn it Borachio how do you do it.

 

[Traitorfish]

That's what I understood, and I still think it's a ridiculous notion.
Not that all of these prejudices are justified, of course, but the "core" ones tend to be near-universal, and either glaringly based on biological differences, or simply logical (if not always justified) consequences of said biological differences.

Well, which ones are these?

 

[Akka]

Glaringly, not really. But the second part, the "logical consequences" well yes, quite reasonably so. But such logical consequences as so far divorced from evolutionary starting points there is not a lot of reason to ascribe these consequences as natural biological sex biases.

True, there is a number of consequences that are due to cyclical feedback (typically : men tends to vie for and get power, hence power is in the hands of men, hence after a number of generations they conclude that women are not fit for high-responsabilities/powerful positions, and they transmit this PoV to their descendants) and though they are a logical consequence, they are only indirectly related to evolutionary reasons.

But when it comes to typical expectations between men and women, especially about behaviour, I see an overwhelming majority of them that stems directly (though obviously at different degrees) from biological differences.
I'd say most problem in gender equality have more to do with the typical unability of people in general to understand the concepts of statistics (like : "women TENDS to be worse/less interested/whatever at X" which becomes quickly "no woman is good at X") than with actual true falseties in tendancies.

There's plenty of reason to suspect it. There's no reason to believe in it.

I find one very good reason to believe in it : it tends to describe reality better than any alternatives I was shown until now.

 

[Traitorfish]

"Confirms my prejudices" and "describes reality" are often easily confused; are you absolutely sure that you've filtered the one from the other?

 

[Akka]

"Confirms my prejudices" and "describes reality" are often easily confused; are you absolutely sure that you've filtered the one from the other?

I'm talking about how (on a tendencies/statistical/large numbers level), biological differences fits and explain behavioural expectations.
First proves how it's wrong, only then you can talk about "prejudices".

 

[Flying Pig]

I think you should first tell us exactly which you consider to be the biological differences between men and women, and which you consider to be culturally imposed, and how greatly you believe that these biological differences determine how one turns out. After all, the Dutch are biologically predisposed to being tall, but I'm taller than most Dutchmen.

 

[Hygro]

I'm talking about how (on a tendencies/statistical/large numbers level), biological differences fits and explain behavioural expectations.
First proves how it's wrong, only then you can talk about "prejudices".

Ah see, we found the knot in your otherwise pretty good cord. It's a pretty big knot. The correct default puts the burden of proof on you. You can articulate that you have an avenue you find compelling, one strong enough to tell others you find it compelling, and personally strong enough for you to live your life accordingly.

But if you articulate that, indeed, what looks to me like a (big) leap of confirmation bias faith is the truth until proven otherwise, you've both logically and behaviorally stepped into the very realms you've recognized other folk in recent threads as dubiously doing.

 

[Cryopyre]

I don't know how anyone "feels like a man or a woman".

The biggest gulf, for me, is between my experience - as myself - and the entire rest of the world.

Gender issues are as minor, in comparison, as hair-colouring.

Still, that's perhaps easy for me to say. I've never really felt disadvantaged because of the choices I've had to make with regard to public lavatories. Why is defecation considered gender-specific?

A perspective I fully understand. The ego, or the division between what I perceive as myself and what I alienate from myself, is a major problem. It's also outside the scope of what I'm trying to touch upon. The problem of the ego is a problem of great philosophical clout. Comparatively, gender is something so easy to study that we can even use empiricism.

I only bring the issue of gender up, as the existence of transgender people seems to imply that there is a natural connection between the inner world, and the physical body that the inner world uses to experience everything else. A potentially subconscious thing, but for gender dysphoria to appear, it must exist in some form.