9th July 2010, 7:34 PM
(This post was last modified: 9th July 2010, 8:35 PM by A Black Falcon.)
Lazy has completely confused nature and nurture, or genetic versus learned traits, SJ... probably on purpose, to further defend his ridiculous anti-female beliefs. Honestly I don't know how much it's worth arguing with him at the moment, it's obviously not going to go anywhere... but pointing out facts does have merit even if the other person doesn't listen, so there is reason to do it anyway. To a point.
To return to my point though, some things about people are natural to humanity. Other things are learned culturally. The problem is, all people are part of a culture. There is no control group to look at to tell which elements are which. Some things can be done to partially cover this problem, but the problem remains, and is a core part of why the issue is so complex. Indeed, the great complexity of the genetic/biological versus learned issue is why figuring out exactly which elements of sexual difference are natural and which are learned is so incredibly difficult. We know for sure that both elements are involved, but how much of each, and which things are one and which are the other? In order to have a chance of figuring out which is which, you need both scientific studies of the human mind and studies of human cultures as they are. For the latter, comparisons between cultures is obviously key. You can try to find isolated peoples or study data on isolated peoples to try to find things that you can't find by just looking at the major, interconnected societies of the world today, but still it's hard, and fewer and fewer people haven't been greatly affected by foreign cultural influences, in today's world.
I mean, you can't study nature vs. nurture well by looking at people within a culture, because no matter what the efforts of their parents, children are affected by innumerable outside influences, from language (what do words mean, and how are they used?) to clothing, to the attitudes of other people, towards objects intended for each gender, and more. But you also can't ethically do a study of children growing up all on their own, either; ignoring how hard that would be, many studies, and real-life experiences, have shown that the first few years of a child's life are absolutely crucial... children who grew up in extremely impersonal Soviet orphanages, for instance, often ended up emotionally stunted for life. So what can be done? The general answer seems to simply be to guess around the edges and not really know. It's all we can do, really.
Really, we still have a long way to go in figuring out which things are which... we know some things, but there are so many more that we don't that the entire subject is still a very tricky, very difficult one.
Examples? Well, I listed earlier in this thread some definite physical differences between the genders, apart from the obvious (sex organ) ones. I won't repeat the list (go back and look at it), but just add one more I remembered -- women are also a bit more flexible than men. That's the "simple" stuff. It gets so much more complicated when you move to anything involving the brain...
The human brain is an incredibly powerful and versatile thing. People can convince themselves of almost anything with enough time. A great many things that people from a society absolutely believe are essential facts of human nature often aren't, and are actually just socially constructed -- but they don't see it, because that's how things are, right, and so many people are like that... not realizing that one of the main reasons why is because of those very cultural stereotypes, or because of other factors in their society.
For an example of that, in the 19th century particularly, it was believed that women fainted easily at any shock or surprise, or sometimes for no reason. Actually, it is believed that the main reason for this was the tight-laced corsets that were so popular from the 1820s to the 1910s -- with their midsections crushed, women simply couldn't get in as much breath as they needed and it made them pass out sometimes. The tight-laced corsets also damaged the organs they squeezed.
Ironically, however, corsets were marketed and advertised as health-promoting garments, essential garments for women which they could not be without without major health consequences -- they needed all that support, of course! Point being, people within a culture are often blind to its quirks. We are only somewhat different today -- that essential point is still very true.
Or how about something else... there are so many things I could talk about. Um, what about gossip? Of course the stereotype is that women gossip far more than men... but some studies show that both genders actually gossip the same amount, overall, if I remember right. I'm not sure, it's been a while since I read about that... but I think that if there were differences, it wasn't in the amount of time spent gossiping.
Or how about emotions? I think I said this earlier, but it bears repeating -- men and women actually feel the same amounts of emotions. Studies have proven this. The stereotype that women are more emotional comes from the fact that women are better able to understand and show their emotions, while men are more likely to keep them bottled up inside until they explode. Combine that with men's greater testosterone and you have one possible explanation for why men are so much more likely to do things like shoot up their workplaces, I think, maybe at least.
Of course, one major reason why the question is so difficult is that in so many ways people are similar, regardless of gender. Certainly the two are different, but they are also very similar... we have spent the past century particularly slowly breaking down some of the many stereotypes that had built up over the centuries, but it's obviously going to take a lot longer to (hopefully) complete the job. That doesn't mean make both the same, they obviously aren't... but I am sure that the differences are not as significant as our cultural expectations suggest. A lot of sexism I just don't understand, myself... I mean, for instance, I can say the reasons why I think that women didn't get the vote for so long, mostly about how women had been stereotyped as inferior and unable to properly reason and because the people (men) who had the power didn't want to give some of it up, but still, that just doesn't make any sense to me... why in the world would, for instance, people give the vote to poor men many, many decades before rich women, or in the US black men 50+ years before white women... I don't get it, those other things seem like they (social and racial differences) should be bigger barriers to me, somehow... but what it proves is how strong sexism is, I guess. (Of course in much of the South black men were re-disenfranchised from 1877 until the 1960s, after getting the vote after the Civil War, and the first few states, all out West, gave women the vote in the late 1800s... but still, the difference in, say, 1900 between the number of states where black men could vote versus the number where women could vote is massive.)
Etc.
To return to my point though, some things about people are natural to humanity. Other things are learned culturally. The problem is, all people are part of a culture. There is no control group to look at to tell which elements are which. Some things can be done to partially cover this problem, but the problem remains, and is a core part of why the issue is so complex. Indeed, the great complexity of the genetic/biological versus learned issue is why figuring out exactly which elements of sexual difference are natural and which are learned is so incredibly difficult. We know for sure that both elements are involved, but how much of each, and which things are one and which are the other? In order to have a chance of figuring out which is which, you need both scientific studies of the human mind and studies of human cultures as they are. For the latter, comparisons between cultures is obviously key. You can try to find isolated peoples or study data on isolated peoples to try to find things that you can't find by just looking at the major, interconnected societies of the world today, but still it's hard, and fewer and fewer people haven't been greatly affected by foreign cultural influences, in today's world.
I mean, you can't study nature vs. nurture well by looking at people within a culture, because no matter what the efforts of their parents, children are affected by innumerable outside influences, from language (what do words mean, and how are they used?) to clothing, to the attitudes of other people, towards objects intended for each gender, and more. But you also can't ethically do a study of children growing up all on their own, either; ignoring how hard that would be, many studies, and real-life experiences, have shown that the first few years of a child's life are absolutely crucial... children who grew up in extremely impersonal Soviet orphanages, for instance, often ended up emotionally stunted for life. So what can be done? The general answer seems to simply be to guess around the edges and not really know. It's all we can do, really.
Really, we still have a long way to go in figuring out which things are which... we know some things, but there are so many more that we don't that the entire subject is still a very tricky, very difficult one.
Examples? Well, I listed earlier in this thread some definite physical differences between the genders, apart from the obvious (sex organ) ones. I won't repeat the list (go back and look at it), but just add one more I remembered -- women are also a bit more flexible than men. That's the "simple" stuff. It gets so much more complicated when you move to anything involving the brain...
The human brain is an incredibly powerful and versatile thing. People can convince themselves of almost anything with enough time. A great many things that people from a society absolutely believe are essential facts of human nature often aren't, and are actually just socially constructed -- but they don't see it, because that's how things are, right, and so many people are like that... not realizing that one of the main reasons why is because of those very cultural stereotypes, or because of other factors in their society.
For an example of that, in the 19th century particularly, it was believed that women fainted easily at any shock or surprise, or sometimes for no reason. Actually, it is believed that the main reason for this was the tight-laced corsets that were so popular from the 1820s to the 1910s -- with their midsections crushed, women simply couldn't get in as much breath as they needed and it made them pass out sometimes. The tight-laced corsets also damaged the organs they squeezed.
Ironically, however, corsets were marketed and advertised as health-promoting garments, essential garments for women which they could not be without without major health consequences -- they needed all that support, of course! Point being, people within a culture are often blind to its quirks. We are only somewhat different today -- that essential point is still very true.
Or how about something else... there are so many things I could talk about. Um, what about gossip? Of course the stereotype is that women gossip far more than men... but some studies show that both genders actually gossip the same amount, overall, if I remember right. I'm not sure, it's been a while since I read about that... but I think that if there were differences, it wasn't in the amount of time spent gossiping.
Or how about emotions? I think I said this earlier, but it bears repeating -- men and women actually feel the same amounts of emotions. Studies have proven this. The stereotype that women are more emotional comes from the fact that women are better able to understand and show their emotions, while men are more likely to keep them bottled up inside until they explode. Combine that with men's greater testosterone and you have one possible explanation for why men are so much more likely to do things like shoot up their workplaces, I think, maybe at least.
Of course, one major reason why the question is so difficult is that in so many ways people are similar, regardless of gender. Certainly the two are different, but they are also very similar... we have spent the past century particularly slowly breaking down some of the many stereotypes that had built up over the centuries, but it's obviously going to take a lot longer to (hopefully) complete the job. That doesn't mean make both the same, they obviously aren't... but I am sure that the differences are not as significant as our cultural expectations suggest. A lot of sexism I just don't understand, myself... I mean, for instance, I can say the reasons why I think that women didn't get the vote for so long, mostly about how women had been stereotyped as inferior and unable to properly reason and because the people (men) who had the power didn't want to give some of it up, but still, that just doesn't make any sense to me... why in the world would, for instance, people give the vote to poor men many, many decades before rich women, or in the US black men 50+ years before white women... I don't get it, those other things seem like they (social and racial differences) should be bigger barriers to me, somehow... but what it proves is how strong sexism is, I guess. (Of course in much of the South black men were re-disenfranchised from 1877 until the 1960s, after getting the vote after the Civil War, and the first few states, all out West, gave women the vote in the late 1800s... but still, the difference in, say, 1900 between the number of states where black men could vote versus the number where women could vote is massive.)
Etc.
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