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Inherent gender differences (self.MensLib)

Ap-hr-ostasis が 投稿

Hello /r/MensLib, I thought I'd ask this here after lurking a little, and seeing mostly intelligent and (from what I could tell) well moderated discussion. This, and I also believe this topic to be linked, if not directly to men's issues, at least to some of the solutions and discussion around gender roles and rights.

I'd like to explain where I come from on this matter instead of bluntly asking a question that might be perceived as having mysoginistic connotations.

I think it's fairly obvious that there exist a male and a female anatomy. Research suggests these sexual differences run deeper, and involve the brain as well. Mystical beliefs aside, we can fairly assume that this should lead to different competences and behavioural traits for each gender.

Or it could also be that these differences are neglectible when pitted against the importance of hormones and acquired traits. Unfortunately, google and forums failed to provide me with a satisfactory answer to this first question: how great a difference do the sexual brain differences make, especially when it comes to behaviour (ie what is characteristical spontaneous behaviour for each, and what emotional distress typically comes to each from being forced against it through socialisation and what have you) and competences ?

This is such a sensitive subject that I found mostly denial or the complete other end of the spectrum, people brandishing two IQ points or what was it as the ultimate proof of male supremacy and clutching right on towards borderline autoritarian fantasies.

As a follow-up (maybe I'm pushing your hospitality here, sorry if I am) I'd like to know what the general arguments are for an un-gendered society (after all, it is a relatively new concept, excluding the Greek myth of the Amazons which is arguably borderline on the subject) and what science backs these up.

PS: The questions are fairly independent in that one could imagine a society where - even if there were "hardwired" differences between genitalia subsets - the one class of citizen model would be necessary and beneficial (thinking some forms of socialism, for example, of the kind we don't live in in Western countries).

PPS: On the quest that precedes this post, I found "evolutionary psychology" to be particularly hilarious in the convenient explanations given to trivial (sometimes even anecdotical) evidence. I read an entire article on the mechanics of dancing for each gender with such scientific observations as: "If you go to a club early, I'm certain you'll mostly see women dancing close together"; later on, the conclusion would be "Women dance as an invitation for potential mating partners to display their fighting skills, as a refinement of primitive strength displays leading often to death; the ideal mate is a man who can fight, but who won't".

I like to think the article was intended to have some comedic value.

TL;DR What is an objective list of behavioural traits and competences that depend on brain structure rather that hormones and nurture? And why would feminists/men's rights activists like to get rid of gender roles?

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[–]flyingmountain 5ポイント6ポイント  (0子コメント)

how great a difference do the sexual brain differences make, especially when it comes to behaviour (ie what is characteristical spontaneous behaviour for each, and what emotional distress typically comes to each from being forced against it through socialisation and what have you) and competences ?

Currently not known. This is exactly the nature/nurture debate. It's an ongoing debate for a reason. Different research provides different answers.

And why would feminists/men's rights activists like to get rid of gender roles?

I don't think most people want this. Instead, I think that most people would prefer a world in which our ideas of appropriate gender roles were expanded. So for example, we can recognize that there are differences without making a ton of assumptions about how a person should behave on that basis.

I'll also just throw in that any discussion of "innate" gender differences is incomplete without pointing out the existence of trans people. This means, inherently, that being born with a certain set of genitalia cannot possibly determine behavior or identity in all cases.

[–]kinkingpumpkin 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

The way I see it - many women are probably better at many men at some tasks, and vice versa, many men are probably better than many women at some tasks, but in both cases there are outliers. Also, even if a woman is not "The best" at a thing, if she really wants to do it, even if she will never be better than average at the thing, shouldn't that be fine? Many people do and enjoy things that they are average at instead of the best at. There are extremely few people who get to be "the best" at anything and masses and masses of people get by just fine being good enough. The point being, when possible, all roles should be open for all people to try at them.

Another way to put it - men and women are farrr more similar than they are different. In all types of intelligent tests, most men and most women will be on the same footing and therefore should have access to the same roles. Only outliers, that is, exceptional men and women will be especially bad at some tasks or good at others, and the funny thing is that those outliers are the ones who we base our stereotypes on.

edit: AND ONE MORE THING

A society with extremely firm gender roles is going to be extremely cruel to outliers - there are women who make TERRIBLE caregivers, for instance, and fantastic mechanics, to make a crude analogy. Forcing those women into caregiving is going be hell on the women, hell on the people receiving care, and really really unfair to the car that woman doesn't get to service. Not all women need to be mechanics, but gender roles must be flexible enough that the barrier to entry isn't impossible.

A society with inflexible roles, be they class or gender or whatever, is a dystopia by the fact of the misery it forces on people who don't fit in.

[–]lux_roth_chop 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

Nobody has any idea how brains work. There is at least as much physical variation between the brains of people of the same sex as there is between people of different sexes.

Using brain anatomy to support generalisations about the behaviour of entire sexes is as inappropriate as using it to support racism.

[–]right_in_the_doots 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

Well, I believe that there are inherent differences between men and women, but due to ages of discrimination and prejudices, we have no idea what those differences are.

To reiterate, men might be better than women in some aspects and vice-versa, but women have been so oppressed, that we don't know what we are better at then the other.

And I can be completely wrong, but in my very simplistic opinion, we can only find out when true equality of opportunity is achieved.

[–]DevonianAge 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

The brain is different from the body in that it is designed to be plastic, especially in babyhood and early childhood. It is (and probably always will be) difficult to pin down what male and female brain/cognitive differences might be innate precicely because of that plasticity; gendered environment/socialization/developmental timing drives real physical changes in the brain starting in babyhood. It's a few years old now, but the book Pink Brain Blue Brain discusses this topic in detail. That author could find only a few definitive differences in male and female fetuses and babies, mostly having to do with small sex-based differences in developmental timing (but again, that's the kind of thing that can drive babies' activity preferences, which can in turn drive cognitive development in one direction or another). She also delved into the experimental methodology behind several oft-repeated claims of gender-based brain structure difference (eg, women having a larger corpus callosum) and concluded that the n's were often too small or that the results were not reliably reproducible.

IMO, a more interesting place to look for male/female behavioral differences is hormones. Have you read any gender transition accounts? You might find discussions of mood and personality shifts after the introduction of hormones pretty interesting.

[–]Pneumatocyst 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

There are two problems with the 'inherent ability' argument.

  • 1) Is it actually inherent? At what point do we start giving girls dolls and boys toys to build with? How does that start to mould their abilities to approach more complex versions in mathematics or emotional maturity? Are the skills that we attribute to men and women really inherent or are they filling the roles that we set them up for? I don't think that anyone has or can answer those questions.

  • 2) If we assume that developing boys and girls start with a different set of skills, what does that mean for adults? A researcher looked at just that. She compared aptitudes of young men and women for mathematics and 3D visualization. Men scored on average higher then women. Ok, fine. But next she provided a special course to the participants that focused on these skills. It was a quick course, an hour once a week for a month or something. At the end of this course, women and men had identical scores. So even if we assume that these inherent differences account for different skills in adulthood, a relatively short and simple course eliminates that difference.

With those two ideas in mind, I personally am skeptical of inherent differences, and believe that the reason for these to impact us as adults is due to cultural and not biological reasons.