Pointless But It Does My Head In

[mixed_biscuits]

Is this assumption grounded in anything? The prevailing norms for girly behavior are VERY strong.

Yes, but not THAT strong. In other words, there is a good chance that a girl not minded to do girly things will not do them and, if minded to do boysy things, will express an interest.

Girls and boys "seem" to have different interests at the present moment from where I sit, therefore, nature. Is basically what you're saying.

I suppose I believe that there are likely to be biological sex differences that are decisive and that culture is more likely to reflect these than not.

 

[mixed_biscuits]

Why do you think women didn't "make" these things that you think boys love so much because of their sex? Could it be because they've been indentured servants and sex slaves for, oh, ten thousand years? And were excluded from certain activities?

Ah yes, good point.

The reason men go to war, by the way- the strict Darwinian explanation- is not because men especially like killing because they are naturally aggressive, blah blah. It's because males in most species are more evolutionarily expendible than females. All you need is a couple of males, and they can reproduce with the females, and keep things going. If you start letting women take the life-or-death risks, for example, then you'd potentially see a sharp decline in birth rate.

Exactly: it doesn't matter if the odd boy gets lost whilst building skyscrapers or fiddling about inside steam engines but woe betide us if a lady meets the same fate, hence womankind's instinctive aversion to all things tall, noisy or mechanical and love of pink, the colour of ruddy good health and an easeful existence.

 

[nomadthethird]

Yes, but not THAT strong. In other words, there is a good chance that a girl not minded to do girly things will not do them and, if minded to do boysy things, will express an interest.



I suppose I believe that there are likely to be biological sex differences that are decisive and that culture is more likely to reflect these than not.

But you're making the classic mistake- the idea that culture and nature are discrete and autonomous entities. They're not.

Culture is a natural phenomenon. It evolves. It plays a role in our evolution. It evolves alongside us, as a sort of parasite. As does technology. (Some people have argued that our machines are just like viruses, and are "alive" to the same extent you can say a virus is "alive"...)

There's already been all sorts of studies that showed that when black kids were told that black kids score lowest on math and science, then given standardized tests, that they score lower. But then when they were told they scored highest, they scored higher. Same with women. Basically, the Bell Curve has been pwned six ways to Sunday, and still, people insist on thinking this way... privilege likes to think of itself as natural and naturalized.

 

[nomadthethird]

Ah yes, good point.



Exactly: it doesn't matter if the odd boy gets lost whilst building skyscrapers or fiddling about inside steam engines but woe betide us if a lady meets the same fate, hence womankind's instinctive aversion to all things tall, noisy or mechanical and love of pink, the colour of ruddy good health and an easeful existence.

What?

Women are important in reproduction, therefore, women have an innate dislike of tall buildings? And steam engines? Architecture and engineering are hardly "high risk" activities.

This is getting silly.

 

[mixed_biscuits]

But you're making the classic mistake- the idea that culture and nature are discrete and autonomous entities. They're not.

I agree, which is why it is, to an extent, legitimate to argue post hoc ergo propter hoc.

 

[nomadthethird]

The whole color-coded gender thing, a) doesn't work anymore, because even the hardest core thugs wear pastels and bright pinks, b) it's entirely relative to culture, which means, it must have little to no hard biological substrate, and c) makes no sense on the face of it.

 

[mixed_biscuits]

Women are important in reproduction, therefore, women have an innate dislike of tall buildings? And steam engines? Architecture and engineering are hardly "high risk" activities.

Well, all I'm missing is uncharacteristically non-facetious examples - the main thing is that you have highlighted a good reason for men's instinctive inclinations to differ to women's, and thus be drawn to do different things.

 

[Mr. Tea]

I wouldn't be surprised if there are still fairly well defined gender behaviour norms even in societies that don't practice agriculture or have a concept of land ownership, which I think are generally accepted as providing the initial germ-cell of patriarchy. I think hunting is predominantly a male occupation in most, though maybe not all, h-g societies, for example.

Interestingly, I read a book recently about the mythology of the Middle East which said that for quite a long time in Mesopotamia, well into the historically recorded period even, matriarchy and goddess-worship (and presumably a much more sexually equitable culture than those that followed) persisted long after the adoption of agriculture and settled living. It was with the rise of powerful city-states and the appearance of metal weapons that warfare started to edge out fertility as the main focus of social organisation and religious worship, and the beginning of men's conception of women as a resource to be fought over, which of course was later codified into the religions of that region that persist around the world today. I guess maybe a similar thing happened in the Far East, too.

So nomad's point still stands, of course, but ten thousand years may be over-estimate.

Edit: on the point about "inherent male aggression", it's probably worth noting that common chimps have a strongly patriarchal social structure and are notoriously aggressive, while bonobos have much more equal societies and are known to be much more peaceable, both towards each other and towards humans. Not that you can extrapolate without qualification to humans, but it's worth bearing in mind.

 

[nomadthethird]

I agree, which is why it is, to an extent, legitimate to argue post hoc ergo propter hoc.

No it isn't. It's never legitimate to do that, logically.

There's no reason to believe that just because the majority of women do something, it has a strong biological/hormonal basis. It remains to be proven that anything we think of or assume to be "feminine" has anything to do with hormones-- aside from giving birth, that one's (basically) universal.

When a well-controlled experiment gives me reason to believe that hormonal regulation is implicated in a behavioral trait, then I will consider believing that behavioral trait is sex-related rather than gender-related. Though I'll probably think of a way to better test the hypothesis.

 

[Richard Carnage]

Haha, did you used to be someone else? If you're ref'ing the thread I think you are, that was yeeears back.

Longtime lurker, I guess!

 

[mixed_biscuits]

When a well-controlled experiment gives me reason to believe that hormonal regulation is implicated in a behavioral trait, then I will consider believing that behavioral trait is sex-related rather than gender-related. Though I'll probably think of a way to better test the hypothesis.

This?

Fetal Testosterone Predicts Sexually Differentiated Childhood Behavior in Girls and in Boys.
B. Auyeung, S. Baron-Cohen, E. Ashwin, R. Knickmeyer, K. Taylor, G. Hackett, and M. Hines (2009)
Mammals, including humans, show sex differences in juvenile play behavior. In rodents and nonhuman primates, these behavioral sex differences result, in part, from sex differences in androgens during early development. Girls exposed to high levels of androgen prenatally, because of the genetic disorder congenital adrenal hyperplasia, show increased male-typical play, suggesting similar hormonal influences on human development, at least in females. Here, we report that fetal testosterone measured from amniotic fluid relates positively to male-typical scores on a standardized questionnaire measure of sex-typical play in both boys and girls. These results show, for the first time, a link between fetal testosterone and the development of sex-typical play in children from the general population, and are the first data linking high levels of prenatal testosterone to increased male-typical play behavior in boys.

Tho' you might not like Baron-Cohen, because he takes quite a definite sex-differences line (with regard to autism, for instance).

 

[IdleRich]

Yes, grizzleb. Good point. Another example of how if women do it, it's already encoded as "feminine" and therefore less x,y, or z than whatever it is men supposedly do out of sheer androgen load.

Anyone see that advert for an iron for men to use a couple of years back? Interesting (or hilarious) how it focussed on its manly features such as its huge power and its aerodynamics rather than ease of use or how good it was at, you know, ironing.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Anyone see that advert for an iron for men to use a couple of years back? Interesting (or hilarious) how it focussed on its manly features such as its huge power and its aerodynamics rather than ease of use or how good it was at, you know, ironing.

Another funny one was the advert trying to tell me I need three different face products to shave with (before, during and after) and which tried to make moisturising sound macho by calling it "refuelling". Sorry guys, but I'm actually secure enough in my sexuality to admit that I moisturise after shaving without worrying that this makes me a big preening gaylord.

However, I pretty much have to be held at gunpoint before I'll iron anything. This isn't a gender-role thing, I just find it massively annoying and pointless.

 

[nomadthethird]

This?



Tho' you might not like Baron-Cohen, because he takes quite a definite sex-differences line (with regard to autism, for instance).

Ugh, he's full of it. He's basically an evolutionary psychologist.

I think there's a huge link between transsexuality and fetal hormone regulation. Possibly something to do with sexual orientation in general. But that's different from gender role issue and it's another thread for another time...And *of course* some kind of illness where testosterone is greatly depleted is going to cause problems or change behaviors... not even a question of that... but that's also a different issue... that paper conflates a lot of things that shouldn't be conflated.

 

[nomadthethird]

Anyone see that advert for an iron for men to use a couple of years back? Interesting (or hilarious) how it focussed on its manly features such as its huge power and its aerodynamics rather than ease of use or how good it was at, you know, ironing.

Did it have a phallic handle and depict the owner of the iron as a huge stud, who, by simply ironing, could make the clothes melt off every sorority girl in a 100m radius?

 

[Mr. Tea]

Ugh, he's full of it. He's basically an evolutionary psychologist.

Aww c'mon, he's getting a bit tired now but Ali G was genius.

 

[mixed_biscuits]

What about those separated-from-birth identical twins that are found pursuing identical, unfathomably niche interests?

To think that, if I had had an identical twin, he would be more likely than not to be backing me up on this very thread.

 

[mixed_biscuits]

And *of course* some kind of illness where testosterone is greatly depleted is going to cause problems or change behaviors... not even a question of that...

Do hormone levels within individual subjects change throughout the day? Maybe these changes would influence inclinations on very short time scales.

Self-experimentation opportunities galore.

 

[IdleRich]

"Did it have a phallic handle"

No. That would be gay.

 

[massrock]

What about those separated-from-birth identical twins that are found pursuing identical, unfathomably niche interests?

Not only that but they look almost exactly the same!

Obviously there is a certain amount about an organism that is determined by genes. Combine that with co-incidence (i.e. how often does this actually occur in ways that seem weird or inexplicable?) and I don't find it that surprising.