OK, so males and females are defined as different because of their chromosomes and genitalia, but do you think that there are other inherent differences (emotional, mental, behavioural) between men and women?
Personally I think that there aren’t inherent differences between men and women, but there are differences you can generalise about due to out-dated societal expectations of the roles of men and women. Therefore if the community didn’t believe there were inherent differences and changed their expectations of the roles of men and women these generalisable differences wouldn’t exist.
I think that there are inherent differences between the sexes which make it possible to make generalised statements about the population as a whole - hormonal balances are different between men and women, and it is not unreasonable to believe that this has some impact upon behaviour (ask the parents of a teenager whose growth hormones have just kicked in whether they have affected his/her behaviour).
What is wrong, to my mind, is to transform those generalised statements into beliefs or actions toward a specific person of a specific gender. Men may, as a whole, be physically stronger and emotionally more aggressive than women, but Dave who works down the hall is a 8-stone weakling who runs away from his own shadow. Women may, as a whole, be more emotionally aware than men, but Freda in finance is a callous, heartless bitch.
The point is that individuals deserve to be treated as individuals, not as part of a group, no matter how true the generalisation my prove to be in the long run.
Would care to venture a plausible evolutionary explanation as to how this could be? Certainly amongst all the other great apes, even amongst the bonobo which are by far the most egalitarian of them, there are clearly defined male and female behaviours. Given the size dimorphism between male human and females and given that humans have only existed in an industrialised state for a few centuries at most and that prior to that survival of individual and the tribe was contigent on very different male and female behaviours can you suggest how there could not be inherent differences in male and female behaviour?
Basically I think that Grimpixie has it nailed. Humans are a very flexible, adapatable and variable species and added to that we can to a large extent overcome our instinctive behaviours through will and conditioning. As a result it’s very hard to make generalistaions about humans as a whole.
However that doesn’t mean that such do not exist. We could readily proclaim that men are stronger than women and for 99% of cases this will be true, but as has been pointed out for the rest of the cases women will be stronger than men. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t a real genetically determined strength difference between men and women or that women won’t have to work hard to be as strong as even an average man. In the same way there will undoubtedly be mental differences between men and women that can be overcome through hard work and determination but that doesn’t mean that men won’t have to work extremely hard to ever be as good as a woman.
Perhaps the best way to discuss this would be to say that, all things being equal, women are more emotionaly aware for example. That doesn’t mean that a man can’t be as emotionally aware as the average woman but he’s probably going to have to work hard to get to get to that pount wheras a woman will be there with no effort whatsoever.
So that’s my opinion. There are differences between men and women that will exist so long as all things remain equal. They aren’t simply cultural artefacts but real genetic effects. That is not to say that such advantages can’t be overcome with effort, but if men and women put in equal effort then women will inevitably have the advantage in some areas.
It is claimed by some (although I don’t know how you would measure such a thing) that the difference, behaviourally, between males and females is greater than the difference between male gorillas and male chimpanzees say.
Among the well accepted genetic differences in cognition, men can mentally rotate objects faster than women, women are more likely to use verbal aggression while males tend to resort to physical aggression, females reach puberty earlier than males, males have a greater variation in intelligence than females, females are more sensitive to touch and smell than males… and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Nearly all of these behaviours span cultural boundaries and many of them are already apparent from early childhood, far too early for social cues to change behaviour.
It’s about as ridiculous to say that males think the same way as females as it is to say males look the same as females.
Social cues step in extremely early, so I’m not confident it’s possible to ever separate cultural differences from inherent ones.
<anecdote> When my oldest son started in daycare at the age of three, he learnt very quickly what was expected of him as a boy, and the differences between boys and girls. Such as which colours boys can and can’t wear, and that girls arent’ supposed to like swords. (I had a long fight with him over that. Mommy is a girl and mommy likes swords.) </anecdote>
Some of the differences that seem inherent at first glance may be learnt. For instance, I’ve heard (no cite, sorry) that men tend to have better spatial abilities than women (“mentally rotate objects” looks like another aspect of that). However, at least in my part of the world, boys ball games, like football and basketball, much more than girls, and it’s likely that this would help train abilities in judging movement, speed and distance at a glance. Of course, if this is true we’ve just moved the question to another area - do boys like ball games more than girls because of cultural pressure or inborn qualities? (I should perhaps stuff in a pun here on boys and balls, but I’m a girl, we’re not supposed to admit it when we think dirty )
I would say that there is at least some amount of physical/biochemical component to the differences between men and womens’ personalities. Of course some of that will be because of several thousands of years of our sexual preferences based on, perhaps, social ideas. And of coruse some of our social ideas will have been based on what physical/biochemical differences there were in ancient times.
I don’t think that a conscious decision to ignore our inherent sex-based traits is impossible, though. If you want to go from being girly girl to being macho-chick, I doubt that your inherent traits will make that impossible. Of course it will be harder and less natural than for someone born that way. (Which is the other factor, that even within the sexes, the traits attributed to each sex is just a generalization of the majority. There are large, furry, aggressive men and then there’s effeminate ones.)
I agree, but, (always a but), there are also parents who consciously try to muck things up and give children positive reinforcement for opposite gender stereotype play. We bought WhyKid (boy) dolls and stuffed animals and a kitchen set, along with toy trucks and swords (no guns. Mommy doesn’t like them) and footballs. Did he play with the dolls? Eh…sort of. I coaxed him to “feed” his doll spaghetti once for a funny picture. Other than that, he’d usually line them up in a row and crash his cars into them, or throw them off the couch, yelling “Murderer!” (Pretty scary until we figured out he had watched The Lion King one too many times.)
My point? Even given “girl” toys and positive reinforcement for playing with them in “girl” ways, he just took them and adapted them to “rough and tumble boy” play.
I learned not to take it too personally. Now we have an infant girl, and the first book I got her is one on construction equipment and fire trucks. She’ll get toy trucks and swords (but no guns, 'cause Mommy still doesn’t like them) and footballs, along with dolls and stuffed animals and a kitchen set. And she can play with whatever she likes, however she likes.
There are definitely inherent differences in the two populations. In general, girl babies are more interested in anything that resembles a face, whereas boy babies are more interested in objects that move. This can be seen in infants only a few days old, not nearly old enough to be influences by society’s expectations. Note that, as grimpixie said, this is an overall generalization, and may not apply to a specific individual.
I’ve also read that there are – again, in general – actual structural differences between male and female brains. The connections between the two hemispheres, for example, are larger in women than in men.
But some of these changes can be detected as early as a few weeks, not years. And there have been any number of misguided attempts to try and raise children in a social cue neutral enviroment, giving girls trucks and boys dolls etc. Almost universally, these attempts fail miserably, the girls will trade the trucks for the dolls and then they both go off and play.
While it’s certainly possible to argue that social cues are so subtle and pervasive that they somehow still affect children in such a strong way, it seems infinitely more plausible given everything else we know about developmental psychology to posit that females and males are so different that from the behavioural sense, they could probably qualify as two different species.
MLS and Shalmanese, I’d like some cites for those differences between girl babies and boy babies, please. If they are well documented, I may have to change my stance on this issue.
Well, a child that’s old enough to do anything more advanced than gnawing on a toy is old enough to have experienced quite a bit of socialising. Not to mention someone who’s old enough to understand that this small colourful plastic thing is meant to be a copy of a big, noisy, smelly, dangerous, macho piece of technology. I’d like a cite for your “almost universially” as well, please. I don’t doubt that there are plenty of anecdotes, like the one WhyNot mentioned. I could share plenty of anecdotes at both sides of the debate, myself. (My disillusioned, cold, black feminist heart still warms at the memory of the charge of the (six-year-old, female, sword-wielding) pink brigade.)
Wow. That’s an, erm, interesting statement. Could you give a list of, say the ten most important differences in behaviour which leads you to the “could probably qualify as two different species” description?
Short answer, yes there are inherent differences between the sexes beyond the genetalia and chromosomes. Generally speaking there are differences in the brain structure, hormonal balances, and dozens of other biological features of humans.
Longer answer, there isn’t really a “bright line” seperating the genders. Phenotypically(looks-like) male humans can have “feminine” brian structures. Genotypically female(chromosomes XX) humans can have “male” facial features. None of these features has yet proven to be capable of being a litmus test or “bright line” where everyone with a particular feature in a certain configuration can be said to be a specific gender. Such a test may yet develop, but today it seems wisest to allow those closest to the issue, the individual themselves, the penultimate say in what their “gender” is.
Nutshell. The variations within are greater than the variations between.
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