Rules of attraction by chrisisall

Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:

In it's healthiest form, we like people who are like us, because we like and accept ourselves

My "better half" is yin to my yang. We are both similar & different.
And she's hot.

The laughing Chrisisall

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Thursday, April 23, 2009 11:24 AM

Chrisisall: I didn't mean to sound dismissive. What I meant is that I can talk all the logic and biology I can think I can apply to this issue, but once it turns to feelings I can't really comment anymore. Don't have the necessary experience or perspective.

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Thursday, April 23, 2009 11:32 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
Don't have the necessary experience or perspective.

Wisdom begins in knowing that there is so much yet to know.

The knows he knows nothing Chrisisall

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Thursday, April 23, 2009 11:42 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
imma Poly, case ya missed it.

I looked it up...
Polymerase: Any of various enzymes, such as DNA polymerase, RNA polymerase, or reverse transcriptase, that catalyze the formation of polynucleotides of DNA or RNA using an existing strand of DNA or RNA as a template.*

* Incredibly vague Dark Angel reference

The laughing Chrisisall

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Thursday, April 23, 2009 11:46 AM

...I'm nonsexual, knowing is pretty much off the table.

But, I understand the sentiment and what you're trying to do there.

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Thursday, April 23, 2009 1:14 PM

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)

Quote:
Originally posted by SergeantX:
I think sexual attraction is a good deal more flexible than most people recognize. I'm sure certain tendencies are 'hardcoded', but so much of sexuality has to do with emotional associations. They're very deep emotional associations to be sure, but not entirely fixed. My own preferences have changed considerably over the years and I suspect I could enjoy sex with most any physical "configuration" if the emotional conditions were right.

SergeantX

"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock

I think that's what I used to call a "trisexual" - as in, you'll try anything once. That's not meant as an insult or any kind of judgement, just as a semi-funny pun (and are there any other kinds of puns?)

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Thursday, April 23, 2009 1:27 PM

Here's a related question: How many here have had a young, attractive teacher in High School that they definitely would have gotten busy with had the opportunity presented itself?
*Sigh- my 11th grade sex-ed teacher, she was so fine*

The perv Chrisisall

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Thursday, April 23, 2009 1:29 PM

YINYANG

You were busy trying to get yourself lit on fire. It happens.

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
The reason I'm including the sexual orientation is because of the developmental mechanism that sexual orientation tied to gender combinations suggests.

[...]

Bytemite - I had a long response to your post written up, but I was being nit-picky and I don't know how productive it would have been. I find myself in general disagreement with it, but I don't know why exactly, so I thought about what gender categories I can think of, and I come up with this:

Masculine - One who identifies as a boy or man (distinct from male, which describes biology); of or relating to boys or men.

Feminine - One who identifies as a girl or woman (distinct from female, which describes biology); of or relating to girls or women.

Bigender - One who identifies as both a man and and woman, or as a boy and girl. (Distinct from intersex or transgender.)

Genderqueer – None of the above, but still gendered; could be existing on a feminine to masculine continuum, or one who does not fit into standard gender roles, or something else.

Null gender - Without gender of any sort.

Gender not equal to biological sex. Trans or intersex people who identify as women or men really are women or men, not some distinct category, and not "fake." Though technically their bodies may be male or female or whatever.

What about butch women? Are they feminine because they are women, or masculine females, or just queergendered? And are stereotypical, "flamboyant" gay men masculine, feminine males, or what?

Maybe all that is too simplistic; I don't know. Or maybe it doesn't really mean anything, as I didn't (re)define "girl," woman," etc, and the common definitions confuse the issue. I'm not sure the English language is suited for a precise discussion of gender, anyway, because we don't have different terms for feminine child and female child (that I know of) - they're both "girl." And I think generally in this society we're stuck on gender being tied to sex, and on having these two categories that oppose each other.

I don't know what my point is anymore. So I'll stop rambling now.

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Thursday, April 23, 2009 1:32 PM

YINYANG

You were busy trying to get yourself lit on fire. It happens.

Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:
Here's a related question: How many here have had a young, attractive teacher in High School that they definitely would have gotten busy with had the opportunity presented itself?

In another universe where we weren't teacher/student (and they were single)? Yes.

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Thursday, April 23, 2009 1:57 PM

I feel your system is slightly too involved in defining traits that are masculine and traits that are feminine. That's sort of a pet peeve of mine: I believe there are no masculine traits or feminine traits, but merely social expectations. It is a source of frustration for me that there aren't ways to describe these traits beyond a gender association.

Your system is useful for addressing some basis of gender role behaviours, but in my opinion it also ignores a large aspect of social interaction by excluding sexual orientation and how that can change a person's behaviour situation to situation. I feel an important part of describing a person's gender role includes their role in the relationships they might seek out.

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Thursday, April 23, 2009 2:31 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:
Here's a related question: How many here have had a young, attractive teacher in High School that they definitely would have gotten busy with had the opportunity presented itself?
*Sigh- my 11th grade sex-ed teacher, she was so fine*

The perv Chrisisall

My 11th grade English teacher, Miss Huckabee.

And you all wondered why I paid attention in English class...

Mike

Build a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day...
Set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.

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Thursday, April 23, 2009 2:57 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
I feel your system is slightly too involved in defining traits that are masculine and traits that are feminine. That's sort of a pet peeve of mine: I believe there are no masculine traits or feminine traits, but merely social expectations.

So, the whole dogs & hoes thing doesn't fly with you then? Fair to say.

Seriously, I believe firmly in those traits, seen them at play, and enjoy them on a daily basis.
As a "guy," I want to vanquish the bad guy & get the girl...IRL I got the girl- vanquishing the bad guy is yet to be fully accomplished, but voting for Obama is a small step in that direction.

The laughing Chrisisall

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Thursday, April 23, 2009 3:42 PM

FREMDFIRMA

Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:
Here's a related question: How many here have had a young, attractive teacher in High School that they definitely would have gotten busy with had the opportunity presented itself?

I *almost* DID make it with my remedial math teacher, but we decided conflict of interest would cause that to go ugly places in the end - we remained quite good friends for long after, and she was the one who introduced me to Alice Millers work just before she passed on.

-Frem

It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it

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Thursday, April 23, 2009 3:47 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
she passed on.

So sorry, man. I hate that peeps we love or respect have to go before we do.
Damn, I'm goin' all Connor McCloud here....

The laughing Chrisisall

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Thursday, April 23, 2009 4:18 PM

Well, there can be only one...

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Thursday, April 23, 2009 4:53 PM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:
I'm all for gay rights & marriage, I just don't *get* the attraction.
Can anyone 'splain it to this poor dumb hetero?

Everyone is a unique individual. You might as well ask why some folk like football (any type) and some like baseball. As long as what they do doesn't hurt anyone by their actions (that is, anyone who isn't hurt because everyone doesn't follow their "god" given rules), why care?

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Thursday, April 23, 2009 4:59 PM

YINYANG

You were busy trying to get yourself lit on fire. It happens.

Quote:
I feel an important part of describing a person's gender role includes their role in the relationships they might seek out.

Ah, well, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree, then, because I don't think that aspect is particularly important. You seem to have done a lot more thinking on the topic than I have, though, so maybe there's something I'm missing. ::shrugs::

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Thursday, April 23, 2009 5:52 PM

Mostly I just think that people of alternative lifestyle need to be able to describe their orientation and behavioural patterns.

But I give you credit for trying to come up with something: technically the 7-gender thing isn't really my idea. And there are problems with it, in that gender performance isn't addressed well. But I understand why a lot of the community has embraced the labels in question, because those are very direct for finding people like them.

Which is important both for relationships and for establishing a supportive environment, because a lot of those orientations are treated with hostility by the mainstream.

Do you disagree with my hypothesis on how orientation and gender roles could have arisen simultaneously? I see that as separate from the system, although thinking about the system provided the framework for me to come up with it.

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Thursday, April 23, 2009 11:29 PM

JEWELSTAITEFAN

Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:
Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
imma Poly, case ya missed it.

I looked it up...
Polymerase: Any of various enzymes, such as DNA polymerase, RNA polymerase, or reverse transcriptase, that catalyze the formation of polynucleotides of DNA or RNA using an existing strand of DNA or RNA as a template.*

* Incredibly vague Dark Angel reference

The laughing Chrisisall

Not so much.
Backing up a bit, I don't totally follow the "differences" aspect. Seems many are attracted towards features or factors similar to the parent of opposite gender, unless that parent was bad.
Many parents think their children are very attractive. This is not merely bias or prejudice. Generations before them have selected as mate somebody who they find attractive, and the children bear those traits. I've seen huge families where all the grandchildren look like siblings because the elder offspring chose mates who look similar to each other, and their parents. Much of this is hereditary, and the non-heterosexual DNA is weeded out of the gene pool. Those who look to somebody as different than their background often are seen as "exotic" and therefore also attractive.

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Friday, April 24, 2009 12:30 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by jewelstaitefan:

Not so much.
Backing up a bit, I don't totally follow the "differences" aspect. Seems many are attracted towards features or factors similar to the parent of opposite gender, unless that parent was bad.
Many parents think their children are very attractive. This is not merely bias or prejudice. Generations before them have selected as mate somebody who they find attractive, and the children bear those traits. I've seen huge families where all the grandchildren look like siblings because the elder offspring chose mates who look similar to each other, and their parents. Much of this is hereditary, and the non-heterosexual DNA is weeded out of the gene pool. Those who look to somebody as different than their background often are seen as "exotic" and therefore also attractive.

Funny thing.. I once had a fairly intense flirtation going on with a coworker, tall guy, sandy blond.. anyway. At a party at his house, I met his mother. It was like looking at a mirror image of myself 30 years in the future. Tiny, curly brunette. Didn't see that coming, but it cost me a lot of energy not to burst into giggles.

Interestingly enough, though, he's married to a leggy blond now, who is much closer to his mother in terms of personality.

I figure long-term compatibility has a lot more to do with that sort of behavioral familiarity than anything else.

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Friday, April 24, 2009 1:54 AM

Quote:
Much of this is hereditary, and the non-heterosexual DNA is weeded out of the gene pool.

Except that it isn't, or there wouldn't be gay people around.

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Friday, April 24, 2009 4:28 AM

There's clear sexual dimorphism within the human species, arising from clear and actual physical differences of the two physical genders. When dealing with natural systems you want to look at averages, since natural systems are analogue, and doing so shows clear masculine and feminine trends that are there, not just a trick of societal expectation. In that regard where do you think societal expectations of differences in gender may come from? Societal expectations often form from what has or does happen.

Men develop more muscle mass, making them stronger on average, they have less nerve endings in the skin making them feel less pain when injured. Men have more clotting factors in their blood, so recover from injuries faster, and more red blood cells aiding physical endurance. Women have more white blood cells and b lymphocytes, meaning they are less susceptible to disease and recover more quickly (in other words girls: yes we do get the flu worse than you). There's numerous physical differences between men and Women that are a matter of scientific fact, not just societal expectation.

Mentally Men and Women are different too. Ignoring that Men have much more testosterone, which results in more competitive and aggressive behaviour (as well as increased muscle and body hair growth), there's differences in Brain structure too. Men have more Grey matter, where as Women have more White. Grey matter is thought to be 'thinking' material, and White matter is thought to be connecting material. There's no real difference in general intelligence though, so the way Women's brains exhibit intelligence has to be different to men. The analogy I can think of would be Men do it through brute force processing power, while Women exhibit intelligence through having a lot of smaller processors that can work together, like a computer with a less powerful multi-core cpu, opposed to one with a big hefty single core unit. There are differences in Men and Women's specific mental attributes though, for instance Men excel at spacial acuity (seeing objects in 3D, and being able to mentally rotate them to 'see' them from other sides). Men have a more 'systematising' intelligence, seeing things in a technical systematic way, which means Men tend to make better mathematicians, scientists and Engineers (not that Women can't be, but you'll find more Men wanting to be and excelling in those fields), while Women tend to have a more Socialising intelligence. This does explain some societal expectations in regards to "male jobs" and "female jobs". Nursing requires getting to know and caring for patients needs, more than surgery that views the body as a system that needs fixing. I don't see that as inherently a problem, unless you start enforcing these expectations, and preventing those who buck their gender trends. Perhaps expectations are a bad thing, because by it's nature an expectation leads to enforcement, whether that enforcement is "hard" (laws against Female surgeons, or Male Nurses) or "Soft" ("don't be silly son, boys don't become nurses, they become Surgeons").

Women also are better at multi-tasking, while Men are much better at focusing on a single task and devoting all their energy to it. Humorously I remember a comedian called Joe Brand touch on this. She noted that when she cleaned the house, it took an hour or so, and ended with things being mostly clean (what she called "F*ck it, that'll do"). When she asked her husband to do so while she went to the shops, she came back to find he hadn't got past the front room and all the furniture was in the front garden, so he could vacuum the whole floor.

At any rate the differences in our Genders does indicate where social expectations have come from. But also we can see why our sexual dimorphism probably came about due to the difference in societal roles in early human society (i.e. tribal hunter gathering). Men were the hunters and fighters, they needed more physical strength and better endurance to pain and injuries inflicted by those pursuits. Mentally Men would need to plan attack strategies against both rival tribes and large game, and they'd need to devote their full concentration to those plans and actions.

Women were often the Gathers, and would be responsible for keeping camp and children while the Men were hunting. That wouldn't be a simple task, and was far from the easier side of the arrangement. There's a huge amount of information to keep track of when keeping a community together. Also a lot of things that need to be done simultaneously when looking after the children, keeping an eye out for predators, and searching for the fruits and vegetables as part of the gathering side of hunter gatherer. These aren't guesses either, these social structures can be seen time and again in real (though few and far between) Hunter Gather societies through out the world. Sexual Dimorphism in Humans isn't so much a societal expectation, as societal expectations arise from the Sexual Dimorphism that is actually there.

The further question is one of sexual orientation, which is quite distinct from than of Gender. Sex is a question of physical Gender, and Human beings have two, Male or Female. Sometimes the physical system of gender falters, because of developmental faults people who are Genetically Male are born Female and vice versa, sometimes something very odd happens and people are born both, but all these occurrences are, I think exceptions that test the rule, not disprove it. I think there's a difference between having more than two genders, and there being natural 'missteps' in the delineation of gender in some individuals.

Sexual orientation isn't one of clear delineation like Gender is. It's a spectrum, and individuals can exist at any point on that spectrum (much like Humans can vary in height across a board of maximum and minimum values). One person may be heavily in the realm of heterosexuality, another may be over the end of homosexuality and yet another maybe in the middle (bisexual). We like to put labels on these things, but they're clunky and unwieldy, it's like trying to give clearly delineated labels to people of differing heights. You can put as many labels on it as you want, but in the end you're going to have to accept that those labels are always going to be inexact, no matter how many you use. It's just as if not more useful to have three (homosexual, bisexual, heterosexual) and accept that there is a huge amount of blending between them, than too attempt to enforce an infinite set of delineated labels.

The core Darwinian idea of natural selection has, in the intervening years, proven to be a little two simplistic. The question has been raised before, and here by inference, that homosexuality can't be genetic because they don't have children so can't pass on their genes. This is a fallacious argument because it assumes an irrelevance conclusion from an unsound and out of date foundation. Clearly there are still homosexuals, and all the evidence points to homosexuality having a genetic component, in fact we've even managed to isolate the gene sequences. Clearly it isn't as simple as Darwin's original hypothesis. Consider our urge for self-sacrifice for instance. One person giving their life to save another, a fireman putting his life at risk to protect others when they enter a burning building, makes absolutely bugger-all sense if we look at it purely at a Darwinian survival of the fittest sense. They've just extinguished or put their genes at risk, for someone else's. Taking a pure Darwinian bent, obviously the urge to self-sacrifice would be extinguished as our self-sacrificing ancestors died off, and our selfish self-saving ones survived to breed. The fact this hasn't happened clearly indicates that Darwinian personal natural selection isn't the only mechanism involved.

And indeed it isn't. Consider the tribal societies that our species has lived in for the majority of it's evolutionary history. Our group, the people we would be sacrificing ourselves for, are all members of our tribe, our extended family. We're all relatively closely related, in other words, we all carry the same genes. Thus if I sacrifice myself for another member of my family, the group benefits and therefore my genes are passed on to the next generation by proxy. That's another reason why social Darwinism is so much horse shit by the way, it doesn't even work that way in the natural world.

That works for Homosexuals too. There's some anthropological evidence to suggest that Homosexual couples, who by their nature are not breeding pairs, could help look after other breeding pairs children at times. The initial viability of that to a society should be obvious to anyone with children who has ever gone to a child minder or crèche, or had a baby sitter. In a tribal situation, a non breeding pair helping with child rearing could leave breeding pairs free on a occasion to, well, do more breeding amongst other things. Thus homosexuals help increase the viability of the whole group, their genes are passed on by proxy, and are kept in the gene pool to resurface in different individuals.

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Friday, April 24, 2009 4:49 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:
I don't see that as inherently a problem, unless you start enforcing these expectations, and preventing those who buck their gender trends. Perhaps expectations are a bad thing, because by it's nature an expectation leads to enforcement, whether that enforcement is "hard" (laws against Female surgeons, or Male Nurses) or "Soft" ("don't be silly son, boys don't become nurses, they become Surgeons").

I agree with this.

It's all good and well, recognzing trends. But they really should mean diddly squat in real life, because each and every time you you face a human being you are dealing with an individual who may or may not fit any single one of the many features that one or the other gender may tend toward. You can't assume anything.

Plus, society has tended to take a trend and then run with it. Things like, women are better at dealing with small children... so men shouldn't. As if this hasn't deprived generations of men from properly bonding with their children.

But then, I'm of the frame of mind that mother nature doesn't care for our mental well-being or physical comfort, and even societies living close to our pre-historic roots are not perfectly balanced to our needs. Women are subjugated even in those societies, people are unhappy even in those societies.

So stepping away from nature is not necessarily a bad thing. We were not designed nor have we evolved to be happy but to survive and procreate. (And even that was a sloppy job.) But we want to and have a right to strive for happiness, so anything that historical trends or biological tendencies may tell us should never be considered rules for how people should live their lives.

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Friday, April 24, 2009 5:13 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by AgentRouka:
I agree with this.

It's all good and well, recognzing trends. But they really should mean diddly squat in real life, because each and every time you you face a human being you are dealing with an individual who may or may not fit any single one of the many features that one or the other gender may tend toward. You can't assume anything.

What I was getting at is that the acceptance of trends is a different thing to the expectation of their fulfilment, and one can be bad, while the other is not.

Quote:

Plus, society has tended to take a trend and then run with it. Things like, women are better at dealing with small children... so men shouldn't. As if this hasn't deprived generations of men from properly bonding with their children.

Yep, but then again also enforcing the opposite, is just as bad if not worse.

Quote:

So stepping away from nature is not necessarily a bad thing. We were not designed nor have we evolved to be happy but to survive and procreate. (And even that was a sloppy job.) But we want to and have a right to strive for happiness, so anything that historical trends or biological tendencies may tell us should never be considered rules for how people should live their lives.

Depends what nature and how. If we declare and rigidly enforce equality, by demanding all professions are representative (i.e. in this case 50% of Surgeons must be Male, and 50% must be Female) that is not only as bad, but probably worse than the inequitable position of no Female Surgeons. Society has picked up equality and is now running with it, and is in danger of doing as much bad with it as it did with inequality.

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Friday, April 24, 2009 5:14 AM

I find a lot of those irrefutable studies on the mental differences between men and women suspect, because they are worked on BY men, in a field dominated BY men because society tells women they shouldn't be interested in math and science, but celebrities, dating, and GOD FORBID, shopping.

The grey versus white matter part ignores that crucial fact. Perhaps it's not a natural difference men and women are born with, but men are ENCOURAGED to be thinkers more than women, just like men are encouraged more to do sports.

I see all the differences as the result of social training.

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Friday, April 24, 2009 5:29 AM

THATWEIRDGIRL

I don't have 50 pairs of shoes. In fact, I pretty much wear the same pair every day for years until they fall apart. I have my own tool box. It's usually the better toolbox in the relationship. A s kid you would have called me a tomboy. Climbed trees and changed the oil. The majority of my friends are guys.

Does that make me a little male?

---
Sometimes I lie awake at night, and I ask, "Where have I gone wrong?" Then a voice says to me, "This is going to take more than one night."
-- Charlie Brown
www.thatcostumegirl.com
www.thatweirdgirl.com

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Friday, April 24, 2009 5:30 AM

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

I can't remember which societies they were (my memory is for shit) - but there were a number of them where men were considered the emotional sex and women the logical thinking one.

MOST 'human nature' arguments are suspect - because you can always find exceptions, even large-scale ones. For example, there were three thriving civilizations who didn't have war or religion. And if you can find exceptions, how can those things be due to some immutable inborn factor ?

My $0.02

***************************************************************

Silence is consent.

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Friday, April 24, 2009 5:42 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
I find a lot of those irrefutable studies on the mental differences between men and women suspect, because they are worked on BY men, in a field dominated BY men because society tells women they shouldn't be interested in math and science, but celebrities, dating, and GOD FORBID, shopping.

The grey versus white matter part ignores that crucial fact. Perhaps it's not a natural difference men and women are born with, but men are ENCOURAGED to be thinkers more than women, just like men are encouraged more to do sports.

I see all the differences as the result of social training.

Ok, so the Science is bad because it was done by Men, and god knows men can't be objective, poor deluded simpletons they are. Hang the fact that the differences make sense from an evolutionary stand point, hang the fact the argument isn't "the science is bad because of this evidence" but because "men were doing it" (argument ad hominem). Hang the fact that the conclusions aren't that Men are better or more intelligent, but that Men and Women have different abilities, and different intelligences. It's the difference between saying black people have evolved to be better suited to living in hot environments, and white people have evolved to live in more cold and temperate environments, and saying white people are better than black people.

Or maybe the actions of the physiological differences between the races aren't real, and it's just white men again? Have you something more solid to refute these scientific studies than sexist statements? Are you a Woman? I think I remember you saying you were. How would you take it if I just said you only say that because you're a Woman? Accept it or not, but dismissing the Science on account of it being done by Men (or more appropriately the assumption that it must have been done by men) is at least as sexist as the obverse position.

As I understand it, most of the reputable studies went to great extents to ensure they ruled out societal training. I would ask how can societal training effect an innate ability such as spacial awareness? How does it explain that Girls exposed to male hormones during foetal development are better at spacial awareness than girls who weren't? They're both Female, so should be exposed to the same "social training", yet Girls who have been developmentally exposed to male hormones, can be expected to have a more male like brain, and indeed do better at tasks that males tend to excel at. How, exactly, does simple gender biased social training explain that?

You're free to see it as you wish, but do you have evidence for your position? And frankly, I find the dismissal of the argument because "it was made by Men", flatly insulting and more than a little sexist.

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Friday, April 24, 2009 5:48 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by thatweirdgirl:
I don't have 50 pairs of shoes. In fact, I pretty much wear the same pair every day for years until they fall apart. I have my own tool box. It's usually the better toolbox in the relationship. A s kid you would have called me a tomboy. Climbed trees and changed the oil. The majority of my friends are guys.

Does that make me a little male?

As I eluded to in my previous post, Girls exposed to male hormones during development tend to act more like boys, and have mental skills more like males, and vice versa. Hormones play a part in Brain development, so if Girls exposed to Male hormones are better at Male brain tasks than Girls that haven't, this is an indication that it's brain gender, not "social training" responsible for the deviation in mental abilities.

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Friday, April 24, 2009 5:53 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:

What I was getting at is that the acceptance of trends is a different thing to the expectation of their fulfilment, and one can be bad, while the other is not.

Yes, that's what I meant to say. I don't deny that there are statistically provable trends, just that they are meaningless when dealing with actual individual people.

Quote:

Quote:

Plus, society has tended to take a trend and then run with it. Things like, women are better at dealing with small children... so men shouldn't. As if this hasn't deprived generations of men from properly bonding with their children.

Yep, but then again also enforcing the opposite, is just as bad if not worse.

Well, I'm not talking about forcing all men into child care and women away from it. I'm saying that a difference in statistical aptitude shouldn't prevent that both parents should be encouraged to do these things - because it benefits both parents. I think many of our gender roles are heaped with value judgments and aren't really based on capability or benefit, just tradition that long outlived its justification. In fact, were kept alive for the sake of tradition when it was harmful to one gender or society in general, i.e. political representation, parenting.

Quote:

Quote:

So stepping away from nature is not necessarily a bad thing. We were not designed nor have we evolved to be happy but to survive and procreate. (And even that was a sloppy job.) But we want to and have a right to strive for happiness, so anything that historical trends or biological tendencies may tell us should never be considered rules for how people should live their lives.

Depends what nature and how. If we declare and rigidly enforce equality, by demanding all professions are representative (i.e. in this case 50% of Surgeons must be Male, and 50% must be Female) that is not only as bad, but probably worse than the inequitable position of no Female Surgeons. Society has picked up equality and is now running with it, and is in danger of doing as much bad with it as it did with inequality.

Not to say I'm in defense of such quotas, but if you go by a standard of qualification, and enforce a quota with applicants who meet that standard, then there is no harm.

But I'm not in favor of quotas to enforce equal representation, unless there is a bias that prevents equal opportunity.

Anyway, I'm not just talking about jobs. I'm talking about using our ancestral roots as any kind of justification or recommendation for how we should live right now, with regard to gender roles or other things.

I only need to point to human child birth or our body's unfortunate combination of eating and breathing through the same orifce. Evolution doesn't aim for perfection, it a process that settles for the least imperfect status quo it can get away with.

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Friday, April 24, 2009 5:58 AM

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Citizen

There are a number of ways to look at this, here is one:

One is that ALL traits are randomly distributed between the sexes on the randomly sorted non-sex chromosomes (autosomes). There is no little demon (like Maxwell's) sitting there saying - OK, this is going to be a guy, you get the height chromosome, and the one for a long torso, and the one for free earlobes. Hence, one would expect a full range of characteristics and abilities to be distributed across both sexes.

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Friday, April 24, 2009 6:07 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:

As I eluded to in my previous post, Girls exposed to male hormones during development tend to act more like boys, and have mental skills more like males, and vice versa. Hormones play a part in Brain development, so if Girls exposed to Male hormones are better at Male brain tasks than Girls that haven't, this is an indication that it's brain gender, not "social training" responsible for the deviation in mental abilities.

mental skills more like males
male brain tasks

That's sort of what I consider negative about lending too much attention of these trends. You associate these qualities or skills with men, thus appropriating them for one gender, creating an "abnormal" quality to woman with those preferences.

That's already social training right there.

There is a trend, not a rule. It's not a male mental skill. It's a human mental skill that's slightly more developed in males. It's not a male brain task, it's a human brain task that's slightly more developed in males.

Geometry and maths belong to girls, too. Communication belongs to boys, too. Language is kinda crucial in forming those harmfully limiting associations and expectations.

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Friday, April 24, 2009 6:07 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
Citizen

There are a number of ways to look at this, here is one:

One is that ALL traits are randomly distributed between the sexes on the randomly sorted non-sex chromosomes (autosomes). There is no little demon (like Maxwell's) sitting there saying - OK, this is going to be a guy, you get the height chromosome, and the one for a long torso, and the one for free earlobes. Hence, one would expect a full range of characteristics and abilities to be distributed between the sexes.

I don't remember evoking little demons. And I fail to see how your statements of randomness in any way looks at the evidence, evidence that clearly shows that these attributes are anything but random. There is clear sexual Dimorphism in the Human animal, both physically and mentally. The fact that some Girls (those exposed to Male hormones as a Male child would be during development) lends credence to it being a gender distinction. It rubbishes the idea that it's societal training.

Your different way of looking at it, seems to be a way of ignoring the evidence. Yes if it's random, you'd expect a full range of abilities spread across the sexes, but since there are clear sexual dimorphic trends in the human species, that clearly indicates it isn't random, wouldn't it?

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Friday, April 24, 2009 6:08 AM

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

"Geometry and maths belong to girls, too."

The things I excelled in in school. Call me a guy, I guess. Or maybe just a girl who also happens to have geometry and math skills.

Oh, and big feet. That's why I never got into the genetically-determined female shoe thing.

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Friday, April 24, 2009 6:19 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by AgentRouka:
That's already social training right there.

Arguably it's a way of spinning my words into something they're not. As the level of social training here, that's more like a short hand to get across my point, than a statement like "that's wrong because Men did it".

So:
Women can do spacial awareness, but Men tend to be much better at it. Where Women can do it as well as Men, its near exclusively where they have a more Male brain due to developmental factors. Therefore it's a more Male mental ability, and one the Male brain is more suited for, not because of social training, but because of brain gender dimorphism. I fail to see how noting that male and female brains are different due to sexual dimorphism, and that men and women tend to be better at different things due to that, is societal training. Any more than noting that Women have breasts that lactate, and so can breast feed infants, where as men don't and so can't, is societal training or sexism. It's a plain fact.

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Friday, April 24, 2009 6:22 AM

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

"... its near exclusively where they have a more Male brain due to developmental factors ..."

Where is this 'male brain', anatomically speaking ?

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Friday, April 24, 2009 6:29 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:
So:
Women can do spacial awareness, but Men tend to be much better at it. Where Women can do it as well as Men, its near exclusively where they have a more Male brain due to developmental factors. Therefore it's a more Male mental ability, and one the Male brain is more suited for, not because of social training, but because of brain gender dimorphism.

You misunderstand me.

I'm NOT saying that social training is distorting what is a biologically equal brain.

I'm saying that the DIFFERENCE in skills is - in the big picture - tiny, yet we focus on the difference only, to make the entire skill a "male" skill.

It sounds as if women have NO spatial awareness when you put it like that, it sounds as if women have no grasp of math, as if the difference isn't comparatively tiny, as if women couldn't understand the majority of what these subjects have to offer.

That is what I'm complaining about. It influences expectations WAY beyond where biological differences justify it and it's harmful and it is entirely social training.

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Friday, April 24, 2009 6:30 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
Where is this 'male brain', anatomically speaking ?

In the cranium. Would this be another appeal to ridicule?

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Friday, April 24, 2009 6:55 AM

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

"Would this be another appeal to ridicule?"

No. You seem to think there is 'male brain' and 'female brain'. I was wondering where they are - are there specific areas of the brain that are 'male' while others are 'female' ?

BTW - I'm not arguing that there aren't differences between the sexes. But in any characteristic you can imagine, each sex is on a continuum with lots of overlap between the two. And the differences you can point to - and are pointing to - may not be biological.

For example - medicine. For centuries it was held that women were unsuitable to be doctors. They were too delicate, to tender, to illogical, too emotional. And then - it was found to not be true. The same holds true for with engineers. Women were thought to not have the mathematical skills or spatial abilities to do engineering. But if you look at the (old) USSR 40% engineers were women (32% in Bulgaria). If you look at science in general, for centuries it was thought (in Britain) to be the purview of the royal and wealthy - and therefore mentally superior - class. Commoners were thought to be too near like beasts for finer thought. It was such a well-established assumption that the Royal Society was in an uproar when Humphrey Davy - a commoner - became its head 160 years after its founding.

What you consider natural, inborn differences do not appear to be so.

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Friday, April 24, 2009 6:58 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by AgentRouka:
You misunderstand me.

I'm NOT saying that social training is distorting what is a biologically equal brain.

I'm saying that the DIFFERENCE in skills is - in the big picture - tiny, yet we focus on the difference only, to make the entire skill a "male" skill.

It sounds as if women have NO spatial awareness when you put it like that, it sounds as if women have no grasp of math, as if the difference isn't comparatively tiny, as if women couldn't understand the majority of what these subjects have to offer.

That is what I'm complaining about. It influences expectations WAY beyond where biological differences justify it and it's harmful and it is entirely social training.

But the differences aren't tiny. I'd say trying to portray them as tiny would be the obverse of what you're saying I'm doing, because saying their tiny implies they are 'irrelevant', when they aren't. The differences in mental and physical abilities have arisen because Men and Women performed different functions in early Human society, they arose to make Men better at the Hunting, and Women at the gathering. It doesn't imply that all Women will be worse at Hunting than all Men, or vice versa, it implies that there will be a certain trend, and that will mean more Men will be good hunters than Women. Not that no Women will be good hunters. Personally I thought I made that clear, by saying tend to, rather than more specific and broad terms like "will", when discussing what the end result of these differences mean. I've not tried to invoke the Ecological Fallacy, which says a tendency is true of the whole group, but I do feel that I've bee arguing against the fallacy of Hasty Generalisation, because the portrayal of the exceptions of the trend seems to be held up as proof that there is no trend.

My general point was that Men and Women are physically and mentally different, and that those differences are by no means irrelevant. They lead to more Women wanting to be nurses, while more Men want to be surgeons. Even that the differences in the way men and Women's minds tend to work means more Men will be suited to Surgery, and more Women suited to nursing. The end result is that, even without societal pressure, training or bias, nursing will be a profession that includes more Women, while Surgery will be one with more Men.

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Friday, April 24, 2009 7:01 AM

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

"They lead to more Women wanting to be nurses, while more Men want to be surgeons."

Speaking as a person who was turned away from medical school because 'they had no facilities for women', I find that incredibly offensive.

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Friday, April 24, 2009 7:07 AM

Tiny doesn't mean irrelevant. It means that they are there and noticable, but they do not encompass the entirety of the ability.

I maintain that it is harmful social training to refer to certain skill-sets as male or female, because the amount of skill that one gender may statistically exceed the other is tiny compared to the aspects of the skills that both genders have equally.

To appropriate a skill-set for one gender only, because of that small difference, has greater impact than you think, and likely affects the actual motivation and opportunity of genders to enegage with the skill-set ascribed to the other gender, much more so than biological aptitude.

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Friday, April 24, 2009 7:09 AM

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

And Citizen has yet to come up with a cogent response to my posts.

Way to go dooooood! BTW - is that a male thing you're doing ? Just, you know - wondering.

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Friday, April 24, 2009 7:22 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
No. You seem to think there is 'male brain' and 'female brain'. I was wondering where they are - are there specific areas of the brain that are 'male' while others are 'female' ?

I got the idea that it might be when you earlier tried to devolve my argument regarding evolution and genetics down to "little demons" moving genetic traits around. Rather seems like an appeal to ridicule that, and then your subsequent statement "and where is this male brain" seems to lead into the old adage about where a man's brain actually is.

Maybe you should try reading what I write, I pretty clearly said that the differences in male and female brains were one of structure, nothing I said even alluded to there being specific "male and female" brain sectors. I can't begin to imagine where you'd get that idea.

Quote:

BTW - I'm not arguing that there aren't differences between the sexes. But in any characteristic you can imagine, each sex is on a continuum with lots of overlap between the two. And the differences you can point to - and are pointing to - may not be biological.

Except of course I've given arguments for how they ARE biological, how male hormones result in Women producing more male like mental abilities. This supports that there is a natural difference between the brain of Men and Women, because if there wasn't and it was all down to cultural conditioning, it wouldn't matter what developmental hormones were released, when clearly it does.

I've clearly noted that this is a trend, and like all natural systems and populations it is not homogeneous, but that doesn't refute the trend, nor make the trend sexist in any way.

Quote:

What you consider natural, inborn differences do not appear to be so.

In that case what you consider to be my argument, and the basis for what I consider "natural, inborn differences", appears to be completely wrong.

Bringing up some exceptions to other peoples biases, doesn't say anything about me or how I see things. You seem to be suggesting my flow of evidence is backwards to how it is, that I look at there being more female nurses than male proves that Women are more suited to being nurses than men.

No, I'm going from the evidence of the actual differences in Male and Female physiology, and then extrapolating to how those differences may and do manifest in society. There's a big difference between accepting that societal bias is true, and making logical judgements based on scientific studies.

What you consider to not be natural inborn differences, appears to be exactly that.

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Friday, April 24, 2009 7:28 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
And Citizen has yet to come up with a cogent response to my posts.

Way to go dooooood! BTW - is that a male thing you're doing ? Just, you know - wondering.

Pot, meet black kettle.

So far your best response to me has been to tell me my argument is about little demons living in DNA. I'm sorry 'dude', but just because you don't like the answers doesn't mean you get to say they aren't 'cogent'. Is throwing a tempertantrum and insulting me because I took time to write a lengthy and cogent response to your attempts at ridiculing my argument, rather than arguing against it, a female thing, or just a you thing?

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Friday, April 24, 2009 7:31 AM

Citizen: I don't think there's a such thing as "reverse sexism" or "reverse racism" because both sexism and racism are ideological isms founded on account of an oppression of one group by another. All there is are women feminists who are complete bitches (who to be honest I think go way too far and I can't stand), and bitter minorities who've been hurt by society.

However, I'm willing to concede that my statements were slightly out of line... And poorly explained. I don't think that men can't be objective, in fact, socially there's a stereotype that women in general are less objective, and women act that way as a result.

I'm merely questioning THESE men in particular. Science tries its best to eliminate personal biases. But the field of psychology, where results are not always consistent and are sometimes contradictory, where the science is very young and not much is known or easy to substanciate, and where "normal" and "control" are arbitrary, sometimes results are not always HARD results. This allows a lot of interpretation in, interpretations which COULD be influenced by upbringing and social expectation, biases that the men may not be aware of.

I also see an inherent flaw in restricting these studies to sampling only one nationality... Or even TYPE of nationality, the first world nation, since I'm sure psychologists in Britain have done similar studies to the Harvard studies you've been quoting. But, unfortunately, psychology in third and second world nations isn't exactly an emerging field, and everyone there, male and female, are too busy surviving to come in and be tested for muscle mass or having their brains analyzed.

I don't expect that women in third world nations would approach their male counterparts, because even in third world nations society tends to be patriarchal. However, in the muscle and brains of those women, we might start to see more comparison to those of men of first world nations, on account of those women having to use them more. Perhaps somewhere in between?

And from that, I would expect a matriarchal society, like mythological Amazons, to have women with more muscle and grey matter than their male counterparts.

But this is conjecture. International studies have not been done, and we don't have Amazon cultures to study in the first place.

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Friday, April 24, 2009 7:36 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
Speaking as a person who was turned away from medical school because 'they had no facilities for women', I find that incredibly offensive.

I can see that. When you're doing your damnedest to insult me, it would make sense that you'd need to cherry pick statements out of context in order to manufacture insult.

I did say that even if there was no societal pressure, indicating that that would be the case devoid of the factors we already have. I was speaking of trends too, not absolutes.

So far you've insulted me, made sexist comments directed at me, tried to ridicule, instead of argue against, my argument. I have no idea what possible legitimacy you see for that, but I'm fairly sure I've not done anything like that to you. If you want a fight, good for you, I'm sure AURaptor is about here somewhere, tell him the Republicans are to blame for something and have at it, because I'm not interested.

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Friday, April 24, 2009 7:42 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by AgentRouka:
Tiny doesn't mean irrelevant. It means that they are there and noticable, but they do not encompass the entirety of the ability.

No, it suggests it, the same way my statements apparently suggest that Women have no spacial awareness

Quote:
Originally posted by AgentRouka:
To appropriate a skill-set for one gender only, because of that small difference, has greater impact than you think, and likely affects the actual motivation and opportunity of genders to enegage with the skill-set ascribed to the other gender, much more so than biological aptitude.

I don't think the differences are as small as you claim across the board. I'm not dismissing the role societal expectations play, I'm saying that the differences would remain without them.

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Friday, April 24, 2009 7:42 AM