Are women and men pyschologically different?

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  • #40822
    Avatar photowv
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    #40832
    Avatar photozn
    Moderator

    Same Difference: How Gender Myths Are Hurting Our Relationships, Our Children, and Our Jobs
    by Rosalind Barnett (Author), Caryl Rivers (Author)

    http://www.amazon.com/Same-Difference-Hurting-Relationships-Children/dp/0465006132

    Same Difference: How Gender Myths Are Hurting Our Relationships, Our Children, and Our Jobs

    by Rosalind Barnett and Caryl Rivers.

    A landmark demonstration of how groundless beliefs about “natural” differences between the sexes have harmed both women and men-with a hopeful vision based on up-to-the-minute research.

    From respected academics like Carol Gilligan to pop-psych gurus like John Gray, the message has long been the same: Men and women are fundamentally different, and trying to bridge the gender gap can only lead to grief. Generations have bought into the idea that women are uniquely primed to be “relational,” men innately driven toward achievement-even when these “truths” are contradicted by what’s happening in our daily lives.

    The time has come, argue the authors of this groundbreaking book, to liberate ourselves from biological determinism. Drawing on years of exhaustive research, Barnett and Rivers reveal how a toxic mix of junk science, pop psychology, and media hype has profoundly influenced our thinking and behavior, causing us to make poor decisions about how we choose our mates, raise our children, and manage our careers.

    It is power, not gender, that makes a difference; in fact, there are more differences among women (or men) with varying degrees of power than there are between women and men. In this vitally important and life-changing book, Barnett and Rivers sound a clarion call: a plea to end sexual stereotyping so that women and men, girls and boys, may realize their destinies as full human beings.

    Same Difference takes on the myths of “Mars and Venus”:

    Myth…Men are genetically driven to seek out beautiful women. This may have been true in the stone age, but times change. Now, a significant number of men report that an attractive portfolio is even more alluring than a pretty face.

    Myth…Women want to marry wealthy men who can protect them and their children. In fact, a surprising majority of today’s women put a higher price tag on empathy and nurturance.

    Myth…Girls face an inevitable plunge in self-esteem at adolescence. Recent research finds no evidence of this. Yet parents, teachers, and girls themselves lower their expectations and balk at challenges, because of this pervasive belief.

    Myth…Boys and girls learn differently. Teaching styles that emphasize different tactics for boys and girls are more often rooted in stereotypes than research or hard science, and can lead to a poorer-quality education for girls. Still, public funds are squandered on special curricula aimed at “female learning styles.”

    Myth…Men and women speak “different languages”-they “Just Don’t Understand” each other. Wrong. Women talk “male” in the boardroom, and men easily master “motherese.”

    Myth…Female leadership is kinder and gentler. Not so. Position is the key to behavior: female managers are not more democratic than males, though many of us might like to think so.

    #40835
    waterfield
    Participant

    There are most certainly some differences. At least in my wife’s opinion. Her non scientific observations are from years of being an educator from young children all the way through high school at both the teaching and administrative level and now as an advocate for parents who have children with special needs. One difference being-and its significant-is that young adolescent girls begin to mature earlier than boys in their own age groups.

    #40836
    Avatar photozn
    Moderator

    There are most certainly some differences. At least in my wife’s opinion. Her non scientific observations are from years of being an educator from young children all the way through high school at both the teaching and administrative level and now as an advocate for parents who have children with special needs. One difference being-and its significant-is that young adolescent girls begin to mature earlier than boys in their own age groups.

    Well see but we all have years of observation.

    It is true that girls develop cognitively faster than boys at a certain age but there is no reason to believe that leads to or is part of other grand totalizing differences.

    the problem with “observation” of course is…what is one “observing”? The effects of people internalizing social and culture norms together with the observer’s own tendency to see things in terms of those norms?

    Or biology.

    And that’s where you need actual evidence and the ability to analyze it.

    What that evidence and analysis leads to is the argument that gender distinctions are not clearcut and admit of lots of gray areas. That’s the evidence.

    Remember in the 19th century observation by whites supported the idea that blacks were inferior. It was just obvious. It was right in front of your eyes.

    There is virtually no border between “observation” and “projection.”

    That’s why actual studies of these things are so illuminating. And on that the evidence is in.

    Which means, read the book. It ain’t solved because you read a blurb and leaped to an accustomed, habitual conclusion.

    #40837
    Avatar photozn
    Moderator

    from [Journal of] Catholic Education/June 2007

    Review of SAME DIFFERENCE: HOW GENDER MYTHS ARE HURTING OUR RELATIONSHIPS, OUR CHILDREN, AND OUR JOBS
    ROSALIND BARNETT & CARYL RIVERS

    Reviewed by Ruby T. Urbina

    “People’s behavior today is determined more by situation than by gender” (p. 5). Same Difference: How Gender Myths Are Hurting Our Relationships, Our Children, and Our Jobs explores how power makes the difference, not necessarily gender. The book is divided into three parts: relationships, work, and parenting.

    The authors refute many myths, presumptions, and misconceptions about the differences between men and women. Part 1 of the book provides different examples that foster the view that the woman’s role is that of caretaker, responsible for answering to the needs of her husband and family. Starting in Genesis, we find the idea that a woman (Eve) was created to take care of the man (Adam). Using science and intellectual insight, the authors take on the most popular myths of gender difference. This book strongly recommends the improvement of relationships between men and women. Historically, men have been the breadwinners of the family. Today, due to the demands of society and the greater needs of families, both parents are forced to work to make ends meet. Since this shift, a drastic change in relationships has begun to surface within members of the family and the socalled harmony has begun to fade, probably because of pressures at work.

    This book not only discusses relationships between adult males and females, but it also talks about young boys and girls as well. Researchers claim that boys are better in mathematics than girls. The influential journal, Science, published a study under the headline “Math and Sex: Are Girls Born with Less Ability?” Time presented it as the “Gender Factor in Math.” The study became a major national story, and many parents worried that their daughters would not be able to compete with their male peers in mathematics. According to the authors, the reporter who is responsible for this did not go over the significance of statistics and failed to emphasize that the key issue is not the size of the difference in the average scores of the boys and girls. What is really important is the difference in the range of scores in each group. The three studies conducted by these researchers concluded that girls’ and boys’ math scores are roughly equivalent. They also emphasized that women succeed not only in math but also in the field of science, engineering, and within the technology workforce. Excellence in women in these different fields was proven by different statistics cited in this book. The authors added, “this kind of progress won’t be widespread until we stop believing that males are innately superior at math just as we have stopped believing that the earth is flat” (p. 171).

    Gradually, we have established social views about women and their role in a relationship. Our views are natural and we have grown up listening about these traditional outlooks. Many social commentators cite that men are better leaders. Among the reasons given are that women do not have the right hormones. Their brains are built for empathizing, which is only good for making friends, caring for the baby, and gossiping. Also, women lack the motivation for leadership and are violating their essential feminine natures when they try to lead. In short, these social commentators believe that women will never achieve as much as men in the work world. This reviewer commends the authors for pointing out that if we believe the myths about a woman’s inability to lead in the workforce, we will also harm the corporations for which they work.

    The last part of this book talks about parenting. Both authors agree that there is no difference between the two sexes; they are equal in potential, but varied in behavior. This section shows that fathers are also capable of doing the day-to-day caring for children, such as fixing a daughter’s hair, playing with children, and interacting with them. Parenting behavior is neither inborn nor socially transferred to one sex, but is learned by caregiving in a specific situation.

    The authors provide several examples to support their argument, refuting stereotypes and rationalizations about differences between the sexes. From mathematical aptitude to maternal intuition, the authors explore and take apart many generally accepted conceptions of male and female destiny. Each chapter in the book focuses on myths that are thoroughly misunderstood by our society.

    Their conclusions provide a different point of view toward gender and diminish the already established notion of innate difference between the sexes. After extensive and quite exhaustive research, Barnett and Rivers demystify several myths and depict how society has influenced human thinking and behavior. As a result, people often make poor and sometimes incorrect decisions. Furthermore, the authors lay out a marvelous resource for educators that instills the notion of gender difference as irrelevant to education. It suggests getting rid of misconceptions and presumptions of gender.

    Students, both male and female, should not consider themselves superior or inferior. They should perceive their fellow classmates and everyone around them to be equal in potential and in ability. Educators must help their students in this matter. Educators must accept that there is no academic difference between males and females. Education is optimistic; hence, educators should be optimistic, believing that both males and females have the potential to do anything they desire. The authors of this book tell their readers that there is no difference in gender. They insist that it is society that is setting the misconceptions and erroneous judgment.

    #40841
    waterfield
    Participant
    #40852
    Avatar photozn
    Moderator

    Its really a mixed bag of nature and nuturing

    That’s one argument. Another is that people tend to exaggerate the nature part. To me that’s the argument backed by the heaviest evidence. And yet another argument is that those are only 2 of the sources, and people tend to exaggerate individual parental nurturing. Many of the things we are talking about do not come from deliberate (or even accidental) nurturing influences, but from social/cultural influences way beyond any individuals control and often so deeply unconscious we are hardly aware of them. This kind of thing even has a direct effect on how we experience emotion. So for example if you grow up in a culture where shame and “losing face” matter more, you experience the entire world differently where the issue is more guilt-oriented behaviors than shame-oriented behaviors. And yet all human beings are capable of both emotions. How they play out in your life, though, depends on where and when you grow up.

    Fact is, human beings may not really exist, in some respects, in the nature/nurture continuum. Genetically we are built to be culture-bearing animals. That means culture has a direct effect on what we are as individuals, and paradoxically, we’re that way because we are genetically predetermined to be that way.

    #40868
    Avatar photowv
    Participant

    Fact is, human beings may not really exist, in some respects, in the nature/nurture continuum.

    Genetically we are built to be culture-bearing animals. That means culture has a direct effect on what we are as individuals, and paradoxically, we’re that way because we are genetically predetermined to be that way.

    ——————–
    What do you mean “humans may not exist in the nature/nurture continuum” ?

    w
    v

    #40879
    Avatar photozn
    Moderator

    Fact is, human beings may not really exist, in some respects, in the nature/nurture continuum.

    Genetically we are built to be culture-bearing animals. That means culture has a direct effect on what we are as individuals, and paradoxically, we’re that way because we are genetically predetermined to be that way.

    ——————–
    What do you mean “humans may not exist in the nature/nurture continuum” ?

    w
    v

    It may be the wrong way of putting it.

    That is, if we are genetically determined to be culture bearing animals, then, nature has decreed that much of what we are comes from culture.

    So there’s no dichotomy, for one thing.

    Anyway…to me, the question is this: what’s (A) hard-wired at the level of the brain, and what’s (B) absorbed through cultural/social values, practices, perceptions, norms, and taboos. Part of the issue is that many things on list “A” can be altered or re-shaped or transformed through list “B.”

    #40896
    Avatar photowv
    Participant

    Fact is, human beings may not really exist, in some respects, in the nature/nurture continuum.

    Genetically we are built to be culture-bearing animals. That means culture has a direct effect on what we are as individuals, and paradoxically, we’re that way because we are genetically predetermined to be that way.

    ——————–
    What do you mean “humans may not exist in the nature/nurture continuum” ?

    w
    v

    It may be the wrong way of putting it.

    That is, if we are genetically determined to be culture bearing animals, then, nature has decreed that much of what we are comes from culture.

    So there’s no dichotomy, for one thing.

    Anyway…to me, the question is this: what’s (A) hard-wired at the level of the brain, and what’s (B) absorbed through cultural/social values, practices, perceptions, norms, and taboos. Part of the issue is that many things on list “A” can be altered or re-shaped or transformed through list “B.”

    ======================================

    So you are saying that females who grew up in an aboriginal culture in the fourth century in Japan, might have a tendency to have “trait X”
    but females who grew up in 1999 in New York City might have a tendency to “Not have trait X”.

    Still one wonders if they are tendencies that are ‘hard wired’ below the level of Culture. Core, ‘hard-wired’ tendencies that may differ among males and females. One would think that there are such differences given the biological difference that males dont get pregnant and females do.
    One would ‘guess’ that a bio difference that big would lead to some core differences below the level of culture. Just how much cultures could ‘change’ those possible-core-differences, is an interesting question.

    …on a side note, i was at a martial arts competition over the weekend, taking photos. (a judge and a magistrate were in the competition – friends of mine) Anyway, i had my camera and was taking photos, and I mainly took photos of the little kids. I noticed most of the little boys were kicking the crap out of each other, making all kinds of little ‘competitive’ gestures and generally just being little dicks to each other. Meanwhile the little girls were just laughing and having fun and enjoying the hell out of each other. There was quite a difference in the behavior between the boys and girls. I ‘assume’ the differences were cultural. But i dunno. I always ‘assume’ its culture.

    w
    v

    • This reply was modified 8 years, 9 months ago by Avatar photowv.
    #40903
    waterfield
    Participant

    “I always ‘assume’ its culture.”

    I guess my question is “why” ?

    #40905
    bnw
    Blocked

    Ask an amazon.

    The upside to being a Rams fan is heartbreak.

    Sprinkles are for winners.

    #40907
    Avatar photowv
    Participant

    “I always ‘assume’ its culture.”

    I guess my question is “why” ?

    Well, while I’m assuming its cultural, I’m also leaving open
    the possibility that it aint cultural, or its some mix of this
    and that. So, there’s that.

    But the reason my ‘default setting’ is always to “assume its cultural”
    has to do with my reading over the years. I’ve read so many articles
    about other cultures that i know that women in culture X, during Era Y, in time Z, had “trait Q” — but women in culture A, during Era B, in time C, did not have “trait Q”.

    Ya know. I mean, maybe the little boys who were acting like dicks at the martial arts tourney represented boys in Aappalachia. Maybe boys raised in a commune in Berkley California would have had different traits. And maybe little girls raised by the Black Panthers in the 60’s in Oakland would have behaved differently. I dunno.

    I do ‘assume there are some core-biological differences between males and females. Cant prove it, but i assume it. But i also assume most differences are cultural-based.

    Science is fun. Its fun wondering about all of it. I do think we have to be a little wary of folks (religious fundamentalists for example) who argue for differences because “God had different roles in mind” for men and women. Etc, and so forth. Agendas.

    w
    v

    #40916
    waterfield
    Participant

    The problem with agendas-and we all have em- is that when it comes to discussing issues one tends to find support for their own “agenda”. And given the internet we can always find support for something we “believe”.

    While I believe in providing women with equal access to jobs across the board, along with pay equality, and just about everything else-I don’t think my view that there are fundamental differences between the sexes is inconsistent with that.

    #40927
    Avatar photowv
    Participant

    The problem with agendas-and we all have em- is that when it comes to discussing issues one tends to find support for their own “agenda”. And given the internet we can always find support for something we “believe”.

    Well, yes, everyone, apparently has a “point of view” and
    maybe we can call that an ‘agenda’ if we want.

    It reminds me of what a lot of folks describe as an aspect
    of “postmodernism” — the notion that there is no “the truth”
    there is only “your truth” and “my truth” etc.

    I dunno. Maybe all we can do is ‘the best we can’ to
    sift evidence in a scientific way, and do our best
    to continuously be skeptical of our own assumptions,
    and ‘beliefs’ and question our programming.

    And in the end there ‘does’ seem to be a qualitative difference
    between, say Galileo’s work and a fundamentalist christian who
    ‘believes’ the earth is flat and the sun moves around the Earth.

    I like it when authors and tv-talkers are open and frank and honest
    about what their biases/agendas/beliefs actually ‘are’ rather than pretending like they dont have them or are somehow ‘neutral’.
    I was skimming some customer reviews of the book “A People’s History of the Supreme Court” and some folks liked the author’s leftist politix and some folks didnt but everyone seemed to appreciate the fact he declared his ‘agenda/politics’ from the get-go. I wish every ‘news’ anchor-person did that, as well as every historian, writer, etc.

    w
    v

    #40954
    Avatar photozn
    Moderator

    Still one wonders if they are tendencies that are ‘hard wired’ below the level of Culture.

    Of course there are.

    #40955
    Avatar photozn
    Moderator

    Still one wonders if they are tendencies that are ‘hard wired’ below the level of Culture.

    Of course there are.

    My point was that the hard-wired/culturally embedded distinction is murky because often things that are hard-wired, or even apparently hard-wired, get filtered through cultural lenses, both in how they are performed and how they are perceived.

    A simple example. All human beings smile.

    Americans tend to smile at strangers in service situations (like at a waiter in a restaurant) because it is a sign of general friendliness, setting the tone for a specific kind of exchange. The French, on the other hand, take smiling as a private expression between intimates. As a result, when americans smile at French waiters, they’re taken as idiots who don’t get how social exchanges really work. To the French, it would be as if we went up to the waiter and put our arm around him or her and rubbed his or her belly affectionately. Very inappropriate. Meanwhile in the USA if an american doesn’t show some kind of personal greeting to a waiter, like smiling, they’re taken as unfriendly and even hostile.

    Yet we all see and recognize and interpret and “perform” smiles—that much is universal.

    My agenda on this btw is to be well-read on the topic and know a lot about the nature of the debate and the evidence that drives it. It’s the study itself that interests me…and none of this is new. There have been studies of gender by historians, sociologists, anthropologists, cultural theorists, philosophers, pyschologists, and so on, for decades now. The evidence is piled sky high and covers many fields of inquiry. Knowing as much as I can about all that in its own right is what interests me, personally.

    ..

    #40956
    Avatar photozn
    Moderator

    There have been studies of gender by historians, sociologists, anthropologists, cultural theorists, philosophers, pyschologists, and so on, for decades now. The evidence is piled sky high and covers many fields of inquiry. Knowing as much as I can about all that in its own right is what interests me, personally.

    Anthropology, Sex, Gender, Sexuality: Gender is a Social Construction

    BY JASON ANTROSIO

    link: http://www.livinganthropologically.com/2012/05/16/anthropology-sex-gender-sexuality-social-constructions/

    What does it mean to say “gender is a social construction”? Too much ink and internet time has already been spilled on such questions, but definitional issues and conceptual difficulties remain entrenched, even in academia where people should know better.

    A first issue is ongoing confusion around shorthand phrases like “gender is a social construction” or the phrase “race is a social construction.” I avoid such shorthands because they so quickly lead to an assumption that by “social construction” there is a denial of reality, or an implication that–as one biologist put it–people “generate their own truths based on their own experiences and imaginations.”

    What “Gender is a Social Construction” Does Not Mean

    When social scientists use shorthand phrases like “gender is a social construction” they are

    in no way denying that humans vary biologically in many different ways, or claiming that biology is irrelevant;
    not trying to say that these social effects are somehow not real or important; and
    not saying that they are necessarily subject to extensive individual manipulation.
    Those shorthands simply indicate that many observed behavioral characteristics and life experiences are heavily influenced by social expectations, norms, and roles. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t real–they are quite real and can become biologically real as well. One example of a social construction–look no further than ideas about Gun Control.

    The reality of social constructions is something anthropologist Jeremy Trombley succinctly tackled:

    We have to get past the idea that things that are socially constructed are somehow not real. I encountered it again today in something I was reading. “X is socially constructed” or “X are social constructs” as if to say they are only or just social constructs–as if to say X is not real. But social constructs are real–that’s what makes them so powerful. Race, Class, Gender–these are all social constructs, but it is because they are socially constructed that they have tremendous effects on the lives of people who live in a particular society.
    Trombley has also recommended The Reality of Social Construction(now in paperback). From the book-jacket:

    “Social construction” is a central metaphor in contemporary social science, yet it is used and understood in widely divergent and indeed conflicting ways by different thinkers. Most commonly, it is seen as radically opposed to realist social theory. Dave Elder-Vass argues that social scientists should be both realists and social constructionists, and that coherent versions of these ways of thinking are entirely compatible with each other.
    I agree with Trombley on the need to emphasize the reality of social constructions, but Elder-Vass’s book would never have needed to be written if the idea hadn’t been misinterpreted from the beginning. Social construction and realism never should have been opposed.

    A related example: Money is obviously a social construction. We all choose to believe that pieces of paper with pictures of people on them (or electronic bits without any visible reality) have value and can be used to purchase real things in the world. We trust that when we exchange something for those bits of paper or computer bytes, it is because the next person in the chain will also accept that as real currency.

    We could also do an anthropological tour through different times and places and marvel at all the different kinds of objects pressed into the service of currency–that’s one part of an answer to What is Anthropology? We can readily agree that money is a social construction. But that doesn’t make it not real! It has a direct influence on life chances, experiences, ability to do things. It can have very real biological effects, like hunger and even starvation–the bodies and motor habits of the poor and rich can turn them into quite biologically different creatures. Moreover, simply imagining or believing that I have more money does not make it so. I may be able to use my imagination to do something to “make money,” but my efforts are far from guaranteed.

    Clarifying Sex, Gender, and Sexuality

    With that in mind, we can return to the issue of sex and gender. Initially, social scientists sought to distinguish sex from gender. As my introductory anthropology textbook defines sex: “observable physical characteristics that distinguish the two kinds of human beings, females and males, needed for reproduction” (Lavenda and Schultz 2015:375). As is clear in this definition, sex is mostly experienced as dimorphic, although the textbook does talk about various ways “genetic or hormonal factors produce ambiguous external genitalia.” So there are some ways biologically in which we might talk about a male-female continuum, or even contemplate other-sex categorizations. It is useful to recognize that the human primate seems to be something of an outlier in comparison to the standard measures of sexual dimorphism in non-human primates, and there is still a lot of evolutionary explanation needed for why human primates are unlike other primates in this way (see Adam Van Arsdale’s The complexity of human sexual dimorphism for an interesting contemporary take; Greg Downey on The long, slow sexual revolution; and The Phallus Fallacy by Agustín Fuentes for more on the range of variation in genitalia and the cultural dimensions of phallus-focus).

    But understanding human sex difference would be frighteningly incomplete without considering gender, or “the cultural construction of beliefs and behaviors considered appropriate for each sex” (Lavenda and Schultz 2012:365). Social scientists introduced the term gender as a way of talking about all those expectations and beliefs we load onto people with certain physical characteristics. And we could do a tour through history and different cultures to find out how very different those expectations and beliefs can be, which is why we say they are “socially constructed.” However, that does not mean there is no biological variation, nor does it mean those beliefs and expectations don’t have very real effects, nor does it mean a particular individual can “generate their own truth” about gender. In fact, our beliefs and expectations can have quite dramatic biological effects, in terms of how boys and girls are differently fed and the spaces and activities they are assigned. And in some cases, most notably with eunuchs, there is the deliberate fashioning of a third-sex role (we are hardly the first or only society to engage in sex operations).

    Gender roles and identity have often come as a duality, but there are a number of societies where “supernumerary gender roles developed that apparently had nothing to do with morphological sex anomalies” (Lavenda and Schultz 2012:368). Many of these cases are from the peoples indigenous to the Americas, which very often had a third-gender (or even fourth-gender) roles for “Two-Spirit Peoples” (which the French denigrated as berdache). These people typically took on tasks appropriate to the other gender; they often but did not always “cross-dress,” and many had special ceremonial roles in their communities. While some have glossed this as “homosexual,” it really does not correspond to such designation, and many contemporary Native Americans have rejected this gloss. (For an elaboration on Two-Spirit peoples, see Two Spirits: A Map of Gender Diverse Cultures: “Hundreds of distinct societies around the globe have their own long-established traditions for third, fourth, fifth, or more genders.”)

    Update 2013: Debates around marriage equality have revived interest in the idea that dichotomous sex and reproduction is rooted in nature. See Nature’s Case for Same-Sex Marriage by David George Haskell: “The facts of biology plainly falsify the oft-repeated notion that homosexuality is unnatural. Every species has evolved its own sexual ecology, and so nature resists generalizations. . . . A wide, living rainbow arcs across the natural world. Diversity rules in sexuality, just as it does in the rest of biology.

    See also the articles in Marriage and Other Arrangements, the inaugural issue of Open Anthropology, a public journal of the American Anthropological Association. Also note Where a Gender Spectrum May Be Taking Us by Rosemary Joyce, who writes of how students have become incredibly attuned to these issues.
    Of course given this biological sex variation and gender role variation, the question of sexual identity and sexual practices gets really tricky. We have typically thought of heterosexuality as both normal practice and identity. More recently there has been an idea that both homosexuality and heterosexuality are normal variants, and surely there are biologists searching for that “gene for homosexuality.” Others have talked about homosexuality and heterosexuality as a continuum. However, none of that gets at the even crazier range of human variation. For example, sex with a “Two-Spirit Person” would be considered neither strictly homosexual or heterosexual. There are also societies in which male homosexual practices are considered vital in order for men to later engage in heterosexual intercourse. Other societies gauge homosexual or heterosexual activity not by the biological sex of the partners but by their role in the sex act–a man can be perfectly “heterosexual” and have sex with other men, depending on the type of sexual practice involved. Hopefully we’ll soon be finding the genes to explain all that stuff…

    Note: That last line was supposed to be a joke, based on the idea that it would be silly to search for genetic causation for that sexual diversity. However, I may have to be more circumspect, as the idea of faster genetic evolution combined with ethnicity–what I’m calling ethnobiogeny–may indeed result in such claims. See the end of Race Redux for more on ethnobiogeny.
    As useful as it has been to think about the social aspects of gender and sexual identity as related to but potentially quite different from biology, there has been some frustration with these approaches. First, gender was almost immediately used as a euphemism for sex. After the 20-week ultrasound, many people ask “what is the gender of the baby?” I was tempted to joke: “The sex is female, but we haven’t decided on gender yet” (note however that parents play an important but only auxiliary role in fashioning gender expectations). Second, people immediately misinterpreted the “social construction” argument in the ways described above, as a denial of biological variation or difference.

    Many analysts therefore wanted to push the point further, showing how our gendered social expectations actually become embodied, incorporated into our developing motor habits, musculature, and bodies, so that it was not just gender that was socially constructed, but sex too. In other words, the bodies we see as male and female are in part due to social environments. For example, many societies actively discourage females from participating in sports or other activities that would build muscle mass, as this would be unfeminine. While there are some who believe such differential expectations have lessened or disappeared in the industrialized world, I note the irony that technologies like the ultrasound now enable people to frontload gender expectations in ways that would have been impossible in the past–many people have their nurseries appropriately decorated and buy gender-coded baby clothes months before the baby is born!

    Gender is a Social Construction–and Beyond

    In the context of people who were already familiar with many of these assumptions, a philosopher colleague recommended a chapter from Georgia Warnke’s After Identity: Rethinking Race, Sex, and Gender. Warnke is precisely attempting to push some of these boundaries in order to critique assumptions that males are evolutionarily programmed to be bread-winning but promiscuous whereas females are similarly programmed to be at-home and choosy about mates. Warnke reviews much of the ethnographic and historical record I have referenced above–and is really drawing on a lot of anthropology–to conclude that these roles are hardly anchored in our genes or evolution, but are more a product of relatively recent gender expectations. What we see as science is influenced by what we already believe to be true about males and females.

    When anthropology talks about human sex, gender, and sexuality, we insist that we must take account of what humans say, think, and believe about their activities. To do otherwise is arrogant, presumptuous, and a root cause for why people become suspicious of the people who call themselves scientists.

    To say this is not to deny evolution, to deny science, to deny that humans are animals, or to claim some sort of ethereal special place for the non-material. It is simply to ask that a role for human activity and imagination be included as part of our understandings. And of all the products of the human imagination, the idea that organisms are ruled or determined by genes is surely one of the most bizarre–but apparently also one of the most far-reaching and pernicious.

    My last sentence is borrowed from Tim Ingold’s The Perception of the Environment: Essays on Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill:

    And of all the historical products of the human imagination, perhaps the most decisive and far-reaching has been the idea that there exists such a thing as an “intelligence”, installed in the heads of each and every one of us, and that is ultimately responsible for our activities. (2000:419)

    #40959
    Avatar photowv
    Participant

    “…And of all the historical products of the human imagination, perhaps the most decisive and far-reaching has been the idea that there exists such a thing as an “intelligence”, installed in the heads of each and every one of us, and that is ultimately responsible for our activities.” (2000:419)

    Whats he saying there?

    w
    v

    #40963
    Avatar photozn
    Moderator

    “…And of all the historical products of the human imagination, perhaps the most decisive and far-reaching has been the idea that there exists such a thing as an “intelligence”, installed in the heads of each and every one of us, and that is ultimately responsible for our activities.” (2000:419)

    Whats he saying there?

    w
    v

    It’s following a revolution in various sciences including psychology but others as well.

    The idea is that there’s no single measurable mental capacity called “intelligence”—what we call “intelligence” is many different kinds of things, which each of us have in varying degrees. The writer in that case is taking advantage of what he believes to be his readers awareness of this shifting in thinking, away from “intelligence” being a single measurable capacity to it being a variety of different cognitive practices which can vary in their relative strength.

    Wiki stuff——>

    From “Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns” (1995), a report published by the Board of Scientific Affairs of the American Psychological Association:

    Individuals differ from one another in their ability to understand complex ideas, to adapt effectively to the environment, to learn from experience, to engage in various forms of reasoning, to overcome obstacles by taking thought. Although these individual differences can be substantial, they are never entirely consistent: a given person’s intellectual performance will vary on different occasions, in different domains, as judged by different criteria. Concepts of “intelligence” are attempts to clarify and organize this complex set of phenomena. Although considerable clarity has been achieved in some areas, no such conceptualization has yet answered all the important questions, and none commands universal assent. Indeed, when two dozen prominent theorists were recently asked to define intelligence, they gave two dozen, somewhat different, definitions.

    A famous biologist’s view of this comes from Gould. Also wiki stuff—>

    The Mismeasure of Man is a 1981 book by evolutionary biologist, paleontologist, and historian of science Stephen Jay Gould, who was then a professor of geology at Harvard. The book is both a history and critique of the statistical methods and cultural motivations underlying biological determinism, the belief that “the social and economic differences between human groups—primarily races, classes, and sexes—arise from inherited, inborn distinctions and that society, in this sense, is an accurate reflection of biology.” The principal theme of biological determinism—that “worth can be assigned to individuals and groups by measuring intelligence as a single quantity“—is analyzed in discussions of craniometry and psychological testing, the two methods used to measure and establish intelligence as a single quantity. According to Gould, the methods harbor “two deep fallacies.” The first is the fallacy of “reification”, which is “our tendency to convert abstract concepts into entities” such as the intelligence quotient (IQ) and the general intelligence factor (g factor), which have been the cornerstones of much research into human intelligence. The second fallacy is “ranking”, which is the “propensity for ordering complex variation as a gradual ascending scale.”

    The revised and expanded, second edition of the Mismeasure of Man (1996) analyzes and challenges the methodological accuracy of The Bell Curve (1994), by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, which re-presented the arguments of what Gould terms biological determinism, which he defines as “the abstraction of intelligence as a single entity, its location within the brain, its quantification as one number for each individual, and the use of these numbers to rank people in a single series of worthiness, invariably to find that oppressed and disadvantaged groups—races, classes, or sexes—are innately inferior and deserve their status.”

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