The gender equality paradox

[Borachio]

OK.

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro04/web1/csante.html

 

[luiz]

OK.

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro04/web1/csante.html

From your link:

Although convincing relationships have been found between testosterone and aggression, hormones in general cannot cause a particular behavioral outcome; they can only facilitate or inhibit the likelihood that such an outcome will occur.

Which is what we've been saying. Of course just having high testosterone levels won't necessarily make you an aggressive person, but it will surely facilitate it. Likewise low testosterone levels inhibit aggressive behavior.

 

[Borachio]

Yes. No. I was just thinking. I'm not agreeing or disagreeing.

You see, if a football hooligan is being very aggressive, doesn't he metabolize testosterone?

And hence won't his testosterone levels be lower, at that time?

 

[timtofly]

I'm really not sure how much weight you can put on conviction rates. There are just so many confounding factors involved, I really don't know why you'd single out testosterone levels as the single major cause of male incarceration.

A more interesting question, assuming your premise is correct for the moment, would be why there are so few men incarcerated?

Still, maybe this is all beside the point. Since you dismiss my anecdotal evidence with such facility, let's turn to your experience. How does the behaviour of men and women of your acquaintance differ? And how does their thinking strike you as different?

Men have been domesticated. Even though a lot of ideologies convince men to go out and kill, for the most part civilized men have become domesticated and there is no longer a need to go out and kill to survive. Killing is now considered an aberration. We are not really talking about the feminization of men and the masculinity of women, although some seem to see a need to blur the lines. The lines will never be blurred, except when society allows it, and positions have even been swapped in some cases. This does not mean they are equal in any way, it just means that roles change, not biological variations.

Behavior is sculpted by society, even though it's source is who we are as individuals.

 

[Borachio]

Does kind of undermine biological determinism, doesn't it?

 

[luiz]

Does kind of undermine biological determinism, doesn't it?

Nobody in this thread has argued for strict biological determinism. We have insisted that we're talking about populations, not individuals.

 

[warpus]

Do you know, I don't think I've heard anyone say it?

I've had a woman say something similar though, if I've understood what you mean correctly. But that was very shortly before she decided she was happier with someone else. Or to be more exact, shortly before she told me so. She'd no doubt decided sometime before. But, blow me down, with hindsight I realized I should have known anyway.

I don't mean to sound sexist (uh oh, famous first words), but to me women and men behave differently to a noticable degree, as much as you can generalize to such an extent anyway.. I mean, generalizations usually suck and aren't very good when talking about distinct people - but when talking about large groups they can be useful.

We are both members of the same species so we are obviously very very very similar, but there are differences that can't be discounted. Some biological ones are obvious (vagina, penis, etc.).. Others are more subtle.

Personally I think it's odd to argue that there aren't any gender specific differences in generic men vs women behaviour and how we see the world, but you have every right to have this position.

 

[timtofly]

Does kind of undermine biological determinism, doesn't it?

Only until one can exist without the other.

 

[Disgustipated]

I was looking up stuff about races, and I feel more enlightened, and I should not have mentioned races earlier. It was ignorant of me, because as the article linked below shows, races cannot be clearly defined. But it got me thinking, if races cannot be clearly defined, then perhaps gender cannot be clearly defined as well (other than obvious physical differences). See this article to see my line of thought:

http://www.kenanmalik.com/lectures/race_oslo.html

But just because gender cannot be clearly defined, does not mean it does not exist.

 

[Traitorfish]

The way I used the term "Underlies" I meant that the biological influences are at a less abstract level that affects behaviour than culture.

That's probably not true in all cases, but it's a probably "good enough" way to look at it.

Our biology was still there before we developed complex social groups and culture, right? If you go back far enough our culture was very minimal, as our ancestors tended to the basic necessities of life required for survival. The better we got at survival and the less time you had to put into surviving directly, the more culture sprug up. Then much later with agriculture and specialization much more complex social groups started spriging up, which lead to an even more complexity in culture.

That's sort of what I meant - the biology is always there, if changing. The cultural and social influences are built on top of that.

I don't agree. You're assuming a pre-cultural, pre-social man, which I don't think is possible. The significance of the body, of the material generally, is always in how it is taken up by cultural actors. Brute materiality constrains the possibilities of culture, but I see no reason to assume that it is determinative of it.

Personally I think it's odd to argue that there aren't any gender specific differences in generic men vs women behaviour and how we see the world, but you have every right to have this position.

Certainly there are. But that's a result of the construction of "generic man" and "generic women", of setting out to imagine men and women as distinct and opposed categories. The conclusion is built into the question.

 

[warpus]

I don't agree. You're assuming a pre-cultural, pre-social man, which I don't think is possible. The significance of the body, of the material generally, is always in how it is taken up by cultural actors. Brute materiality constrains the possibilities of culture, but I see no reason to assume that it is determinative of it.

I'm confused. At some point we didn't have culture and society.. right? We might not have been human back then, but if you go back far enough all we had was biology - with perhaps inklings of social and/or cultural layers sitting on top.

So yeah, I am assuming that! To make a point - if you go far back enough in time biology plays almost a central role in how we behave. Move forwards in time, and other factors get layered overtop.

It's an examplem eant to illustrate what I meant initially that cultural influences sit "on top of" biological ones. They have to - because the biological ones were there all along, even before the cultural ones were still in their infancy.. and before that.

Certainly there are. But that's a result of the construction of "generic man" and "generic women", of setting out to imagine men and women as distinct and opposed categories. The conclusion is built into the question.

Evolution has sort of put us into these categories. There is no escaping it!

 

[Borachio]

I was looking up stuff about races, and I feel more enlightened, and I should not have mentioned races earlier. It was ignorant of me, because as the article linked below shows, races cannot be clearly defined. But it got me thinking, if races cannot be clearly defined, then perhaps gender cannot be clearly defined as well (other than obvious physical differences). See this article to see my line of thought:

http://www.kenanmalik.com/lectures/race_oslo.html

But just because gender cannot be clearly defined, does not mean it does not exist.

Haha. I'm beginning to warm to you, Mr Pated.

I think you're being as fair and open-minded as anyone could reasonably hope.

 

[Traitorfish]

I'm confused. At some point we didn't have culture and society.. right? We might not have been human back then, but if you go back far enough all we had was biology - with perhaps inklings of social and/or cultural layers sitting on top.

I don't agree. H. sapiens is, by evolutionary design, a tool-maker and a language user, which means that culture and sociality, and more to the point the plasticity of culture and sociality, are built in at a genetic level. Human nature is to be without determined nature.

So yeah, I am assuming that! To make a point - if you go far back enough in time biology plays almost a central role in how we behave. Move forwards in time, and other factors get layered overtop.

I don't think we can conflate chronology with ontology. That lizards appear before apes does no mean that an ape is a lizard with go-faster stripes. Behaviour can't be imagined as the accumulation of sediment, but only in terms of the the response of an intelligent organism to its environment.

Evolution has sort of put us into these categories. There is no escaping it!

Evolution gave us the bodies, but the way we categorise them is all our own. They're our abstractions, invented by us to describe the world we find ourselves in, and that means we have to be willing to examine them critically. They appear "common sense", but that only means we're not accustomed to thing about them, not that they possess any sort of divine guarantee.

 

[Borachio]

Evolution gave us the bodies, but the way we categorise them is all our own. They're our abstractions, self-generated, and that means we have to be willing to examine them critically.

Including our own behaviour. And if we can examine our own behaviour critically, it's not all that evident that it's biologically determined.

It's kind of like rationality overriding instinct. Which can, sometimes, happen?

 

[warpus]

I don't agree. H. sapiens is, by evolutionary design, a tool-maker and a language user, which means that culture and sociality, and more to the point the plasticity of culture and sociality, are built in at a genetic level. Human nature is to be without determined nature.

I don't think we can conflate chronology with ontology. That lizards appear before apes does no mean that an ape is a lizard with go-faster stripes. Behaviour can't be imagined as the accumulation of sediment, but only in terms of the the response of an intelligent organism to its environment.

I really don't understand your point here. I mean.. yeah, at some point we were not technically homo sapiens, but evolution does not move in discrete chunks.. It is a fluid process. There was no discrete line where we went from being one species to another. It's a fluid process where we went from being creatures with virtually 0 culture, civilization, or social structures, to creatures that have managed to form an intricate civilization that utilizes all of these things to a great extent.

Evolution gave us the bodies, but the way we categorise them is all our own. They're our abstractions, invented by us to describe the world we find ourselves in, and that means we have to be willing to examine them critically. They appear "common sense", but that only means we're not accustomed to thing about them, not that they possess any sort of divine guarantee.

Well sure, I don't disagree with any of that really, but I don't see how that leads to you thinking that there aren't really any real differences between men and women in how they view the world. And again, generalizations aren't very useful when applied to an individual, but when we're talking about such large groups, it is possible and useful to generalize.

Maybe we're getting a bit off track here discussing minor points rather than our positions of related to the larger picture though?

 

[Traitorfish]

I really don't understand your point here. I mean.. yeah, at some point we were not technically homo sapiens, but evolution does not move in discrete chunks.. It is a fluid process. There was no discrete line where we went from being one species to another. It's a fluid process where we went from being creatures with virtually 0 culture, civilization, or social structures, to creatures that have managed to form an intricate civilization that utilizes all of these things to a great extent.

But we were social, cultural beings before we were Homo sapiens, is the point. Long before, as our biological predisposition towards the use of language and tools show. Human culture precedes biologically modern humans, so we can't imagine that the former is a simple consequence of the latter.

Well sure, I don't disagree with any of that really, but I don't see how that leads to you thinking that there aren't really any real differences between men and women in how they view the world.

Of course there are differences. But there are differences between men and men, and between women and women. Diversity isn't a function of gender, it's a function of individuality.

 

[Mouthwash]

Watching Traitorfish argue is like... there's nothing I can compare it to. Write. A. Book.

 

[Borachio]

You're a fan, aren't you? I can tell. Don't ask me how I know, though. I just do.

 

[warpus]

But we were social, cultural beings before we were Homo sapiens, is the point. Long before, as our biological predisposition towards the use of language and tools show. Human culture precedes biologically modern humans, so we can't imagine that the former is a simple consequence of the latter.

But the point I was making was that if you go back far enough, that social element, that cultural element.. it's just not there. Then it shows up, starts growing, and eventually it ends up being as complex as it is today. Meanwhile the biology is always there - changing.. but it is always there.

Of course there are differences. But there are differences between men and men, and between women and women. Diversity isn't a function of gender, it's a function of individuality.

You could say the same thing about differences between individual apples - and individual pears. Yet there are distinct things that make apples different from pears that goes beyond an individual2individual basis.

If you are really saying that if you take a random man A, a random man B, and a random woman C, control for your variables, and repeat 5 billion times, A and B are as statistically likely to be similar as A and C? Then I think that's crazy and no way representative of reality and we might as well just agree to disagree.

Admitting that the genders are different is not incompatible with wanting equality of the genders. I think a lot of people think that "equality of the genders" means that the genders have to be as equal as possible in every possible way and that claiming otherwise is sexist somehow. Not that I think you think that, but it seems to be a.. pattern. And a dangerous ones - because we are different, and as long as we refuse to recognize our differences we are never going to get closer to that equality a lot of people claim that they're after.

 

[Borachio]

Well, I'll try this, just as an experiment.

Admitting that the races are different is not incompatible with wanting equality of the races. I think a lot of people think that "equality of the races" means that the races have to be as equal as possible in every possible way and that claiming otherwise is racist somehow. Not that I think you think that, but it seems to be a.. pattern. And a dangerous one - because we are different, and as long as we refuse to recognize our differences we are never going to get closer to that equality a lot of people claim that they're after.

Does it work?

(Not that I want to be deliberately contentious, mind you.)