Home | Community | Message Board

NorthSpore.com BOOMR Bag!
This site includes paid links. Please support our sponsors.


Welcome to the Shroomery Message Board! You are experiencing a small sample of what the site has to offer. Please login or register to post messages and view our exclusive members-only content. You'll gain access to additional forums, file attachments, board customizations, encrypted private messages, and much more!

Shop: Kraken Kratom Red Vein Kratom   PhytoExtractum Buy Bali Kratom Powder   Unfolding Nature Unfolding Nature: Being in the Implicate Order   Original Sensible Seeds Bulk Cannabis Seeds   North Spore North Spore Mushroom Grow Kits & Cultivation Supplies   Myyco.com Golden Teacher Liquid Culture For Sale

Jump to first unread post Pages: 1 | 2 | Next >  [ show all ]
InvisibleVeritas
 User Gallery
Registered: 04/15/05
Posts: 11,089
Feminism vs. Female Chauvinism and Male Bashing
    #6729683 - 03/30/07 09:14 PM (16 years, 11 months ago)

There is a common misapprehension among both men AND women that being a feminist involves denigrating men. After all, if women are the victims, men must be the perpetrators.

IMO, any political POV that espouses hatred for/discrimination against men is not feminism. There is no true power to be found in retaliating against male chauvinism with female chauvinism.

Some who practice what has come to be called "Victim Feminism" will disagree with me. At one point, I was nearly thrown out of a Women Studies class for suggesting that women have continually participated in their own subjugation. My opinion on the matter is that women could not have been forced into the disadvantaged position they occupied for hundreds of years, had they not cooperated and believed in the reasons for their second-class status.

My practice of feminism would probably be more aptly called humanism. I believe that humans should be allowed, both socially and legally, to define their enactment of their gender role. This means that women AND men can choose to act as "manly" or as "feminine" as they so desire, and opt to stay home with children or go to work full-time.

This also means that men with an interest in Early Childhood Education will not be steered into another field by prejudiced guidance counselors, as a dear friend of mine experienced. It means that women who are passionate about science will be offered the same opportunities for graduate work as similarly qualified male students.

And, most of all, it means that this tedious War of the Sexes can finally be ended. My best friends have often been male, and I have not found any great chasm between the sexes which cannot be bridged by true friendship.

This is what I see as the promise of feminism--the end of the illusion that men and women are enemies.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
InvisibleSilversoul
Rhizome
Male User Gallery

Registered: 01/01/05
Posts: 23,576
Loc: The Barricades
Re: Feminism vs. Female Chauvinism and Male Bashing [Re: Veritas]
    #6729694 - 03/30/07 09:19 PM (16 years, 11 months ago)

While I realize this has some political implications, I think this thread is more appropriate for the P&S forum.  I agree with what you're saying, though. :thumbup:


--------------------

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
InvisibleVeritas
 User Gallery
Registered: 04/15/05
Posts: 11,089
Re: Feminism vs. Female Chauvinism and Male Bashing [Re: Silversoul]
    #6729697 - 03/30/07 09:20 PM (16 years, 11 months ago)

Feminism is a social/legal/political issue, so I thought that this forum would be more appropriate.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineRedstorm
Prince of Bugs
Male


Folding@home Statistics
Registered: 10/08/02
Posts: 44,175
Last seen: 4 months, 29 days
Re: Feminism vs. Female Chauvinism and Male Bashing [Re: Veritas]
    #6729729 - 03/30/07 09:37 PM (16 years, 11 months ago)

Being a male, I often find myself having a knee-jerk male chauvinistic point of view when dealing with female chauvinistic feminism. While most of the time I catch myself, I at times lump all of feminism into this extreme grouping and then being reactionary.

I know it's wrong, but these youthful hormones get pumping and then everything goes all crazy. :wink:

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineSirTripAlot
Semper Fidelis
Male User Gallery


Registered: 01/11/05
Posts: 7,625
Loc: Harmless (Mostly)
Last seen: 2 hours, 6 seconds
Re: Feminism vs. Female Chauvinism and Male Bashing [Re: Silversoul]
    #6730038 - 03/30/07 11:23 PM (16 years, 11 months ago)

For me, its hard to agree with any viewpoint on the subject matter, unless there is a fundamental understanding that men and women, are completely different creatures................


--------------------
“I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
InvisibleAnnapurna1
liberal pussy
Female User Gallery

Registered: 05/21/02
Posts: 5,646
Loc: innsmouth..MA
Re: Feminism vs. Female Chauvinism and Male Bashing [Re: Veritas]
    #6730619 - 03/31/07 02:47 AM (16 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

Veritas said:
And, most of all, it means that this tedious War of the Sexes can finally be ended. My best friends have often been male, and I have not found any great chasm between the sexes which cannot be bridged by true friendship.

This is what I see as the promise of feminism--the end of the illusion that men and women are enemies.




nor does it come as any surprise who started that war either ..

http://www.liferesearchuniversal.com/1984-21.html

Quote:

But in the future there will be no wives and no friends. Children will be taken from their mothers at birth, as one takes eggs from a hen. The sex instinct will be eradicated. Procreation will be an annual formality like the renewal of a ration card. We shall abolish the orgasm. Our neurologists are at work upon it now. There will be no loyalty, except loyalty towards the Party. There will be no love, except the love of Big Brother.




orwell is perfectly clear on this point ..that "feminist movement" was in fact created by the patriarchy to serve the selfish interests of the patriarchy...

Edited by Annapurna1 (03/31/07 03:00 AM)

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
InvisibleVeritas
 User Gallery
Registered: 04/15/05
Posts: 11,089
Re: Feminism vs. Female Chauvinism and Male Bashing [Re: Redstorm]
    #6731175 - 03/31/07 09:36 AM (16 years, 11 months ago)

Yes, I think that any man would experience a similar reaction to his entire sex being denigrated. This is simply sexism, and not feminism IMO. The ridiculous conversations around "men are better" "no, women are better, men are dogs" remind me of childhood arguments.

How much more interesting it would be to approach those conversations with curiousity and open-mindedness. "I wonder what men and women would be like if they could feel free to define themselves as individuals?" "I'd like to be safe walking around the city at night, I wish that men were not encouraged to violent behavior."

I have found it so educational to develop intimate friendships with men, and hear their experiences of being male & attempting to relate to women in an equitable manner. Many of my male friends have found that women reject being treated as equals, and related to as friends. Somehow the women take it as an insult when men do not approach them primarily as a sexual being!

It seems to me that the obvious first step in ending this "war" is for women to examine and dismantle their own internal double standards for men's behavior, as well as confronting their female chauvinism.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
InvisibleIcelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery
Male


Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
Re: Feminism vs. Female Chauvinism and Male Bashing [Re: SirTripAlot]
    #6731472 - 03/31/07 11:22 AM (16 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

SirTripAlot said:
For me, its hard to agree with any viewpoint on the subject matter, unless there is a fundamental understanding that men and women, are completely different creatures................




Completely different? :rotfl: 

Like eyes in different places, or two heads, or WTF are you talking about. Men and women are basically the same, their differences are few compared to their similarities.


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

Edited by Icelander (03/31/07 11:23 AM)

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Offlinelonestar2004
Live to party,work to affordit.
 User Gallery

Registered: 10/03/04
Posts: 8,978
Loc: South Texas
Last seen: 12 years, 11 months
Re: Feminism vs. Female Chauvinism and Male Bashing [Re: Icelander]
    #6731632 - 03/31/07 12:20 PM (16 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

Icelander said:
Quote:

SirTripAlot said:
For me, its hard to agree with any viewpoint on the subject matter, unless there is a fundamental understanding that men and women, are completely different creatures................




Completely different? :rotfl: 

Like eyes in different places, or two heads, or WTF are you talking about. Men and women are basically the same, their differences are few compared to their similarities.





Women and Men are sooooooooo different.

I am on the Internet right now because there are about a half-dozen women in my kitchen. I can hear them in the background talking. They are always talking. Apparently one the them got a haircut.
They have been talking about this haircut for 30 FUCKING minutes....

The men are sitting in front of the TV watching a movie called Freddy vs Jason. I heard them talking about one of the girls in the movie has nice TITS, Other than that they have not said a word to each other for at least 30 minutes.....


--------------------
America's debt problem is a "sign of leadership failure"

We have "reckless fiscal policies"

America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership.

Americans deserve better

Barack Obama

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
InvisibleMushmanTheManic
Stranger

Registered: 04/21/05
Posts: 4,587
Re: Feminism vs. Female Chauvinism and Male Bashing [Re: Veritas]
    #6731833 - 03/31/07 01:32 PM (16 years, 11 months ago)

I support equal opportunity for every human being. Regardless of sex, a person should be able to get a job, get elected, etc, based on their abilities. My main beef with most feminists is that they assume men and woman are completely equal in every respect. They don't accept that males and females may differ on a biological level and ascribe any differences to "social construction." This is why they look at careers such as engineering, which is 90% males, and conclude that there is a male conspiracy to prevent women from becoming engineers.

Their belief that rape is about something other than sex (rape is another male conspiracy to keep all women submissive :rolleyes:) is absurd.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Offlinemrc
iknowyoudon'tlikeme


Registered: 12/21/06
Posts: 115
Last seen: 3 years, 5 days
Re: Feminism vs. Female Chauvinism and Male Bashing [Re: lonestar2004]
    #6731840 - 03/31/07 01:34 PM (16 years, 11 months ago)

i am young and have not grown wise yet do to the lack of yearsi have been on this planet. i understand both opposing points of view. But the problem doesn't rely in women it relies in the inability of men to accept that wmen can do he same things as men and we as men feel threatened as a unit or body by the rising of women in our economy, and figures of power in our society today.

or we could tak th lts smoke a bowl of bud and all be happy approach

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
InvisibleVeritas
 User Gallery
Registered: 04/15/05
Posts: 11,089
Re: Feminism vs. Female Chauvinism and Male Bashing [Re: MushmanTheManic]
    #6731885 - 03/31/07 01:51 PM (16 years, 11 months ago)

So it is your contention that women are not engineers because they are not biologically suited to the profession?  :confused:  Does estrogen somehow interfere with my ability to understand math?  Do breasts get in the way in the lab?

I think that we need to dig a little deeper, here.  While I do not think that there is a conspiracy amongst men to keep women out of the sciences, I have read too many studies on the feminine compliance with social taboos against being good at math and science.  The research shows a sudden drop in girl's math scores during middle school (when girls get interested in dating), as well as a sudden disinterest in participating in "showing off" by raising their hands with the answers during traditionally masculine subjects such as science, math, politics, history.

If we examine the social structure surrounding the public education of both girls and boys, it is no mystery why women are underrepresented in scientific and mathematical fields. 

As I said, I do not see a mass conspiracy against women, what I see is women afraid to defy the social construct of "femininity," and risk ostracism and censure.  Thus they, in the majority, do not pursue education in male-dominated fields, and are not qualified for employment in said fields.

What is often experienced by the few women who DO defy social constructs and pursue the education and experience required to participate in male-dominated fields, however, IS sexism and discrimination.  They are not taken seriously, and they are not afforded the opportunities which their equally-qualified male colleagues enjoy.  This is where the male leaders in these fields need to shift their thinking & join the 21st century.

Re: Rape.  I do see this as something other than sex, but not as a tool of female subjugation.  While it is a subject far too complex to cover in this thread (and off-topic), suffice it to say that (IMO) the prevalence of rape in our society is part and parcel of the "war of the sexes," as well as the repression of non-masculine traits in men.  Attributing the practice of violent genital invasion to the male sex drive is insulting and sexist.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineFrenchSocialist
DarwinianLeftist


Registered: 08/02/06
Posts: 883
Last seen: 16 years, 8 months
Re: Feminism vs. Female Chauvinism and Male Bashing [Re: Veritas]
    #6731944 - 03/31/07 02:28 PM (16 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

Veritas said:
At one point, I was nearly thrown out of a Women Studies class for suggesting that women have continually participated in their own subjugation. My opinion on the matter is that women could not have been forced into the disadvantaged position they occupied for hundreds of years, had they not cooperated and believed in the reasons for their second-class status.





What are your reasons for believing this? I suspect you are correct to some degree, though I think your reasoning on this matter may be a little off. Women have indeed contributed patriarchy by practicing primogeniture because it is in their genetic interest (first born males have the best chance of leaving the most offspring behind, and hence make for the best investment of resources) whereas men have done so by forming long-term military/political coalitions. In fact men have a greater aptitude with regards to forming long-term military coalitions, which is in my opinion the main contributing factor to patriarchy. Hence female contributions to patriarchy are often times more individual, less organized and less direct. For that reason I think it unfair to say that women are just as much to blame for male dominance.

Keep in mind there is a distinction between identity feminism and equity feminism. What you seem to adhere to is the former- that women and men are identical. What I generally advocate is the latter, that men and women should be treated equally with respect to moral and legal standing. The latter entails different standards in recognition of biologically determined psychological differences i.e. sometimes you have to apply different standards to different people in order to be fair. For example, it may be fair if I'm hosting my friend Steve to expect him to make his own coffee under normal circumstances, but if Steve is in a wheel chair the that would be a totally difference situation-- expecting him to reach up into various cupboards that are literally out of his reach would be extremely unfair and unrealistic.

An example of how the same principle can apply to gender differences applies to multi-tasking, men are less capable of multi-tasking then women, so to expect a man to be as capable in that regard is a little unfair. That is why I am rarely ever offended if one of my male friends doesn't immediately answer me when he's watching TV and I ask him a question--he physically cannot help but do so, and expecting him to is irrational.


--------------------


"Both liberty and equality are among the primary goals pursued by human beings through many centuries; but total liberty for wolves is death to the lambs" -- Isaiah Berlin

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
InvisibleAnnapurna1
liberal pussy
Female User Gallery

Registered: 05/21/02
Posts: 5,646
Loc: innsmouth..MA
Re: Feminism vs. Female Chauvinism and Male Bashing [Re: mrc]
    #6731954 - 03/31/07 02:33 PM (16 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

mrc said:
i am young and have not grown wise yet do to the lack of yearsi have been on this planet. i understand both opposing points of view. But the problem doesn't rely in women it relies in the inability of men to accept that wmen can do he same things as men and we as men feel threatened as a unit or body by the rising of women in our economy, and figures of power in our society today.




so does that mean that simply having equal numbers of women sitting on the fascist power circles somehow make us more "equal" to men??...i dont think so...the problem is the fascist power circles..not merely the fact that their currently male-dominated...as long as such circles exist..we will continue to be oppressed by them even if every male on the planet were to suddenly disappear...


--------------------


"anchor blocks counteract the process of pontiprobation..while omalean globes regulize the pressure"...

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineFrenchSocialist
DarwinianLeftist


Registered: 08/02/06
Posts: 883
Last seen: 16 years, 8 months
Re: Feminism vs. Female Chauvinism and Male Bashing [Re: Veritas]
    #6731975 - 03/31/07 02:40 PM (16 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

Veritas said:
So it is your contention that women are not engineers because they are not biologically suited to the profession?  :confused:  Does estrogen somehow interfere with my ability to understand math?  Do breasts get in the way in the lab?




That is very much a straw man argument. Obviously whatever mechanisms determine biologically based psychological differences go deeper then estrogen and breasts.

Quote:

Veritas said: While I do not think that there is a conspiracy amongst men to keep women out of the sciences, I have read too many studies on the feminine compliance with social taboos against being good at math and science.  The research shows a sudden drop in girl's math scores during middle school (when girls get interested in dating), as well as a sudden disinterest in participating in "showing off" by raising their hands with the answers during traditionally masculine subjects such as science, math, politics, history.




Yes, keep in mind that is also when adolescence begins and hormones begin to exaggerate already present gender differences.

Quote:

Veritas said:As I said, I do not see a mass conspiracy against women, what I see is women afraid to defy the social construct of "femininity," and risk ostracism and censure.  Thus they, in the majority, do not pursue education in male-dominated fields, and are not qualified for employment in said fields.




Or maybe it requires more effort for them to pursue such fields for biological reasons. That being the case, the cause of women being underrepresented in such fields is both social and biological. Namely in that the social standards, by treating everyone the same, fails to teach or encourage women in the proper manner.

It is the same for kids with ADD, because they don't learn in the same manner as people who don't have ADD many of them are unable to pursue careers that they may be interested in or excel in simply because the school system dogmatically expects them to learn in the same way as everyone else. It's not that there is a conspiracy, or that people with ADD are purposely keeping themselves down, its that the school system equates fair treatment with identical treatment.

Quote:

Veritas said:What is often experienced by the few women who DO defy social constructs and pursue the education and experience required to participate in male-dominated fields, however, IS sexism and discrimination.  They are not taken seriously, and they are not afforded the opportunities which their equally-qualified male colleagues enjoy.  This is where the male leaders in these fields need to shift their thinking & join the 21st century.




Do you have any evidence for this besides simple correlation studies? I ask because the correlation may be as much due to biology as it is society. Keep in mind, treating men and women the same in every respect may be the very thing that is keeping women from excelling.

Quote:

Veritas said:Re: Rape.  I do see this as something other than sex, but not as a tool of female subjugation.  While it is a subject far too complex to cover in this thread (and off-topic), suffice it to say that (IMO) the prevalence of rape in our society is part and parcel of the "war of the sexes," as well as the repression of non-masculine traits in men.  Attributing the practice of violent genital invasion to the male sex drive is insulting and sexist.




I think this is where the identity feminism comes in. In your mind, for men and women to be equal it seems like they have to be identical. That approach is folly however, as there is a vast amounts of scientific research that suggests this is simply not the case.

Bear in mind, that according to what you are saying if there are any proven biologically based psychological differences, it means men and women are no longer equal.


--------------------


"Both liberty and equality are among the primary goals pursued by human beings through many centuries; but total liberty for wolves is death to the lambs" -- Isaiah Berlin

Edited by FrenchSocialist (03/31/07 02:49 PM)

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
InvisibleVeritas
 User Gallery
Registered: 04/15/05
Posts: 11,089
Re: Feminism vs. Female Chauvinism and Male Bashing [Re: FrenchSocialist]
    #6732146 - 03/31/07 03:48 PM (16 years, 11 months ago)

I believe that women have been complicit in their subjugation because they were. If women had not cooperated and complied, chosen to become the "weaker sex," despite biology to the contrary, it simply would not have occurred. Women have allowed their concerns about being acceptable and marriageable to override their self-interest.  This is lame at best, and self-negating at worst.

Quote:

What you seem to adhere to is the former- that women and men are identical.




No, I adhere to the idea that men and women are human, and that the minor dissimilarities which we can generalize about are irrelevant to a discussion of social and legal freedom.

Comparing men and women's relative abilities to that of someone with a physical handicap is a vast exaggeration.  While it would perhaps be fair and accurate to say that men's ability to multi-task is not as readily developed as that of women, I would not be so sexist as to claim that they are handicapped by comparison.

The same goes for these so-called biologically-determined psychological traits which can supposedly reliably be shown as sex-linked, as opposed to learned or undeveloped due to cultural norms.  Last I checked, the main physical difference between the male and female brain was in the corpus callosum, and explained the multi-tasking aptitude as well as women's relatively higher emotional intelligence.

Here's my problem with this evidence--the brain is a plastic, responsive organ, not a carved-in-stone, pre-determined, one-size-fits-all cultures and personal activities, off-the-rack mechanism.  What if the corpus callosum in these adult research subjects was developed in response to the differing enactments of gender roles?  Without lifelong studies of relative brain structure, this research is simply inconclusive.

Men and women certainly have many hormonal differences, with men on a testosterone cycle every 15 minutes, and women experiencing a different "blend" each week of their 28-31 day menstrual cycle.  Does this render them remarkably different from one another as humans?  Perhaps.  Does this mean that men's hormones are more compatible with careers in engineering?  Doubtful.

Quote:

Yes, keep in mind that is also when adolescence begins and hormones begin to exaggerate already present gender differences.





Then why have studies shown that girls in same-sex classrooms do not experience this precipituous drop in both performance and classroom participation in the so-called masculine subjects?  If it was hormonal, it would occur sans social impetus. 

Quote:

Or maybe it requires more effort for them to pursue such fields for biological reasons. That being the case, the cause of women being underrepresented in such fields is both social and biological. Namely in that the social standards, by treating everyone the same, fails to teach or encourage women in the proper manner.




Who said that social standards treated everyone the same? :confused:  I would say that this is rarely the case.  What is your basis for claiming biological impediments to women excelling in traditionally male-dominated fields?

As a female, with all the usual hormonal and physical accessories, I have never found it difficult to succeed in studies of law, math, science, medicine, politics, computer programming/assembly/repair, etc.  What handicaps, exactly, am I experiencing from being female?  What handicaps does my sister, currently a full, tenured Professor of Analytical Chemistry, labor under?

Oh, and while I'm at it--what does men and women being identical (or not) have to do with rape being about the male sex drive?

Edited by Veritas (03/31/07 03:57 PM)

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineFrenchSocialist
DarwinianLeftist


Registered: 08/02/06
Posts: 883
Last seen: 16 years, 8 months
Re: Feminism vs. Female Chauvinism and Male Bashing [Re: Veritas]
    #6732244 - 03/31/07 04:51 PM (16 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

Veritas said:
I believe that women have been complicit in their subjugation because they were.




That is circular reasoning.

Quote:

Veritas said:If women had not cooperated and complied, chosen to become the "weaker sex," despite biology to the contrary, it simply would not have occurred. Women have allowed their concerns about being acceptable and marriageable to override their self-interest. This is lame at best, and self-negating at worst.




It could also be because their opponents formed long-standing military coalitions because they were more psychologically adept at it. That being the case, it would be suicidal for women to oppose men throughout most of history. In fact, I believe the death penalty was the punishment for women who rose up against men throughout most of history.


Quote:

Veritas said:No, I adhere to the idea that men and women are human, and that the minor dissimilarities which we can generalize about are irrelevant to a discussion of social and legal freedom.




On what basis do you say they are minor? Even new born babies express different inclinations based on their gender. Remember in nature the differences between males and females can be vast--male sea lions grow up to 3 times larger then females. Simply put, just because with human beings the two groups may look similar does not mean that they haven't evolved very different psychologies.

Quote:

Veritas said:Comparing men and women's relative abilities to that of someone with a physical handicap is a vast exaggeration.




I don't think its as vast as many people think. Men for example commit ten times as much violent crime as women, even in relatively egalitarian liberal democracies.

Quote:

Veritas said:The same goes for these so-called biologically-determined psychological traits which can supposedly reliably be shown as sex-linked, as opposed to learned or undeveloped due to cultural norms.




This supposed tendency is based on a variety of empirical tests, including cross cultural studies, measurements of brain chemistry, and infant studies.

Quote:

Veritas said:Last I checked, the main physical difference between the male and female brain was in the corpus callosum, and explained the multi-tasking aptitude as well as women's relatively higher emotional intelligence.




Actually there is a lot more to it then that.

For example, there is evidence to indicate that men and women may process serotonin differently:

Quote:

Science Daily:What pushes some men to the outer limits of machismo, to be more confrontational or apt to get into scuffles and arguments? According to results of a study involving 531 white men of European descent, belligerence may be attributable to variations in one of two genes involved in the activity of the neurotransmitter serotonin. However, men with the “aggression” genes aren’t necessarily all cads, cautions Stephen Manuck, Ph.D., professor of psychology at the University of Pittsburgh, who led the research. Genetics appears to be predictive of aggression only if men also have more cynical and hostile attitudes toward others or fathers who never completed high school.

The Pitt study is the first to look at whether aggression in “normal” men may, in part, be attributed to the same serotonin-related genetic alterations that have been associated with aggressive behaviors in certain psychiatric and criminal populations. Indeed, the study found those who reported past fights, conflicts with authority figures or breaking objects in bouts of anger were more likely to carry the “low activity” MAOA gene variant that’s been linked to criminal violence.

Monoamine oxidase-A, or MAOA, is an enzyme that inactivates serotonin, helping to keep its levels in proper balance. Yet the low activity MAOA gene was only associated with aggressive “acting out” among men with oppositional attitudes. Variation in another serotonin gene, the serotonin 2A receptor, which is necessary for the neurotransmitter to act, also was predictive of antagonistic behavior, but only among men whose fathers had less than a high-school education. The same gene has been implicated in personality and anti-social disorders and in some criminal offenders.




http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/06/060621162228.htm


Quote:

Veritas said:Here's my problem with this evidence--the brain is a plastic, responsive organ, not a carved-in-stone, pre-determined, one-size-fits-all cultures and personal activities, off-the-rack mechanism.




The human brain is plastic, but only to a certain degree. It is not infinitely plastic. Even if there is room for learning, that doesn't mean different people will learn in the same way, to the same degree nor does it mean there is no room for relatively inflexible behavior:

Quote:

Edge.orgSTEVEN PINKER: It is certainly true that the brain has a great deal of plasticity. I think of each one of these subsystems or faculties as systems that are designed to learn, that are designed to shape themselves in interaction with the environment. But it's not true that these faculties are infinitely plastic, and that the brain can do whatever it wants with itself. One example is the difference between spoken language and written language. All children learn to speak without lessons, spontaneously, by exposure to a community of other people, whereas to learn to read requires extensive practice, artificial curricula, and has a high failure rate. If the brain were completely plastic there should be no difference between reading and speech. There is a huge difference, and that is likely to characterize other mental faculties as well. But it certainly is true that they all are designed to learn and interact with the environment.

ROSE: I think the dialogue between specificity and plasticity in the development of the brain is much the most important and interesting thing that we need to understand. Of course the brain cannot be infinitely plastic; our eyes as we develop need to wire up to the visual cortex in the brain in a fairly ordered and systematic sort of way, or we couldn't preserve binocularity, we couldn't have a visual analyzing system of the sort that we've got. At the same time we have to have brains that are modified by experience. That's plasticity, and the capacity for both specificity and plasticity is there genetically to start with, so I entirely agree with you, and I think it's a mistake to have to think in terms of modularity, to an excessive degree, when one's concern is much more complex functions than simply visual analyzing functions.




http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/pinker_rose/part2/part2_p1.html

Quote:

Veritas said:What if the corpus callosum in these adult research subjects was developed in response to the differing enactments of gender roles? Without lifelong studies of relative brain structure, this research is simply inconclusive.




That is why scientists have conducted ethnographic and infant studies.


Quote:

Veritas said:Then why have studies shown that girls in same-sex classrooms do not experience this precipituous drop in both performance and classroom participation in the so-called masculine subjects? If it was hormonal, it would occur sans social impetus.




What studies are these specifically? I really can't answer that question unless I know what you are specifically referring to.

There could be a number of reasons for the above, however, including teachers changing their behavior in general. To make an analogy, if a class was full of nothing but students with ADD, then the teachers may change their methods more to suite those students, instead of excluding them and thereby give them a better chance at success.

Quote:

Veritas said:What is your basis for claiming biological impediments to women excelling in traditionally male-dominated fields?




The basis for my claim lies generally in the fact that men generally prefer to work with objects over people, the fact that women in certain fields (namely those of language arts and social sciences) do actually perform better then men, and last the fact that men are generally better at mathematical reasoning (though women do better at mathematical calculations).

To expound:

Quote:

But there are at least six differences that are relevant to the datum we have been discussing. The literature on these differences is so enormous that I can only touch on a fraction of it. I'll restrict my discussion to a few examples in which there are enormous data sets, or there are meta-analyses that boil down a literature.

The first difference, long noted by economists studying employment practices, is that men and women differ in what they state are their priorities in life. To sum it up: men, on average, are more likely to chase status at the expense of their families; women give a more balanced weighting. Once again: Think statistics! The finding is not that women value family and don't value status. It is not that men value status and don't value family. Nor does the finding imply that every last woman has the asymmetry that women show on average or that every last man has the asymmetry that men show on average. But in large data sets, on average, an asymmetry what you find.

Just one example. In a famous long-term study of mathematically precocious youth, 1,975 youngsters were selected in 7th grade for being in the top 1% of ability in mathematics, and then followed up for more than two decades. These men and women are certainly equally talented. And if anyone has ever been encouraged in math and science, these kids were. Both genders: they are equal in their levels of achievement, and they report being equally satisfied with the course of their lives. Nonetheless there are statistical differences in what they say is important to them. There are some things in life that the females rated higher than males, such as the ability to have a part-time career for a limited time in one's life; living close to parents and relatives; having a meaningful spiritual life; and having strong friendships. And there are some things in life that the males rated higher than the females. They include having lots of money; inventing or creating something; having a full-time career; and being successful in one's line of work. It's worth noting that studies of highly successful people find that single-mindedness and competitiveness are recurring traits in geniuses (of both sexes).

Here is one other figure from this data set. As you might expect, this sample has a lot of people who like to work Herculean hours. Many people in this group say they would like to work 50, 60, even 70 hours a week. But there are also slight differences. At each one of these high numbers of hours there are slightly more men than women who want to work that much. That is, more men than women don't care about whether they have a life.

Second, interest in people versus things and abstract rule systems. There is a staggering amount of data on this trait, because there is an entire field that studies people's vocational interests. I bet most of the people in this room have taken a vocational interest test at some point in their lives. And this field has documented that there are consistent differences in the kinds of activities that appeal to men and women in their ideal jobs. I'll just discuss one of them: the desire to work with people versus things. There is an enormous average difference between women and men in this dimension, about one standard deviation.

And this difference in interests will tend to cause people to gravitate in slightly different directions in their choice of career. The occupation that fits best with the "people" end of the continuum is "director of a community services organization." The occupations that fit best with the "things" end are physicist, chemist, mathematician, computer programmer, and biologist.

We see this consequence not only in the choice of whether to go into science, but also in the choice which branch of science the two sexes tend to go into. Needless to say, from 1970 to 2002 there was a huge increase in the percentage of university degrees awarded to women. But the percentage still differs dramatically across fields. Among the Ph.Ds awarded in 2001, for example, in education 65% of the doctorates went to women; in the social sciences, 54%; in the life sciences, 47%; in the physical sciences, 26%; in engineering, 17%. This is completely predictable from the difference in interests between people and living things, on the one hand, and inanimate objects, on the other. And the pattern is pretty much the same in 1980 and 2001, despite the change in absolute numbers.

Third, risk. Men are by far the more reckless sex. In a large meta-analysis involving 150 studies and 100,000 participants, in 14 out of 16 categories of risk-taking, men were over-represented. The two sexes were equally represented in the other two categories, one of which was smoking, for obvious reasons. And two of the largest sex differences were in "intellectual risk taking" and "participation in a risky experiment." We see this sex difference in everyday life, in particular, in the following category: the Darwin Awards, "commemorating those individuals who ensure the long-term survival of our species by removing themselves from the gene pool in a sublimely idiotic fashion." Virtually all — perhaps all — of the winners are men.

Fourth, three-dimensional mental transformations: the ability to determine whether the drawings in each of these pairs the same 3-dimensional shape. Again I'll appeal to a meta-analysis, this one containing 286 data sets and 100,000 subjects. The authors conclude, "we have specified a number of tests that show highly significant sex differences that are stable across age, at least after puberty, and have not decreased in recent years." Now, as I mentioned, for some kinds of spatial ability, the advantage goes to women, but in "mental rotation,"spatial perception," and "spatial visualization" the advantage goes to men.

Now, does this have any relevance to scientific achievement? We don't know for sure, but there's some reason to think that it does. In psychometric studies, three-dimensional spatial visualization is correlated with mathematical problem-solving. And mental manipulation of objects in three dimensions figures prominently in the memoirs and introspections of most creative physicists and chemists, including Faraday, Maxwell, Tesla, Kéekulé, and Lawrence, all of whom claim to have hit upon their discoveries by dynamic visual imagery and only later set them down in equations. A typical introspection is the following: "The cyclical entities which seem to serve as elements in my thought are certain signs and more or less clear images which can be voluntarily reproduced and combined. This combinatory play seems to be the essential feature in productive thought before there is any connection with logical construction in words or other kinds of signs." The quote comes from this fairly well-known physicist.

Fifth, mathematical reasoning. Girls and women get better school grades in mathematics and pretty much everything else these days. And women are better at mathematical calculation. But consistently, men score better on mathematical word problems and on tests of mathematical reasoning, at least statistically. Again, here is a meta analysis, with 254 data sets and 3 million subjects. It shows no significant difference in childhood; this is a difference that emerges around puberty, like many secondary sexual characteristics. But there are sizable differences in adolescence and adulthood, especially in high-end samples. Here is an example of the average SAT mathematical scores, showing a 40-point difference in favor of men that's pretty much consistent from 1972 to 1997. In the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth (in which 7th graders were given the SAT, which of course ordinarily is administered only to older, college-bound kids), the ratio of those scoring over 700 is 2.8 to 1 male to female. (Admittedly, and interestingly, that's down from 25 years ago, when the ratio was 13-to1, and perhaps we can discuss some of the reasons.) At the 760 cutoff, the ratio nowadays is 7 males to 1 female.

Now why is there a discrepancy with grades? Do SATs and other tests of mathematical reasoning aptitude underpredict grades, or do grades overpredict high-end aptitude? At the Radical Forum Liz was completely explicit in which side she takes, saying that "the tests are no good," unquote. But if the tests are really so useless, why does every major graduate program in science still use them — including the very departments at Harvard and MIT in which Liz and I have selected our own graduate students?

I think the reason is that school grades are affected by homework and by the ability to solve the kinds of problems that have already been presented in lecture and textbooks. Whereas the aptitude tests are designed to test the application of mathematical knowledge to unfamiliar problems. And this, of course, is closer to the way that math is used in actually doing math and science.

Indeed, contrary to Liz, and the popular opinion of many intellectuals, the tests are surprisingly good. There is an enormous amount of data on the predictive power of the SAT. For example, people in science careers overwhelmingly scored in 90th percentile in the SAT or GRE math test. And the tests predict earnings, occupational choice, doctoral degrees, the prestige of one's degree, the probability of having a tenure-track position, and the number of patents. Moreover this predictive power is the same for men and for women. As for why there is that underprediction of grades — a slight under-prediction, one-tenth of a standard deviation — the Educational Testing Service did a study on that phenomenon, and were able to explain the mystery by a combination of the choice of major, which differs between the sexes, and the greater conscientiousness of women.

Finally there's a sex difference in variability. It's crucial here to look at the right samples. Estimates of variance depend highly on the tails of the distribution, which by definition contain smaller numbers of people. Since people at the tails of the distribution in many surveys are likely to be weeded out for various reasons, it's important to have large representative samples from national populations. In this regard the gold standard is the Science paper by Novell and Hedges, which reported six large stratified probability samples. They found that in 35 out of 37 tests, including all of the tests in math, space, and science, the male variance was greater than the female variance.

One other data set meeting the gold standard is displayed in this graph, showing the entire population of Scotland, who all took an intelligence test in a single year. The X axis represents IQ, where the mean is 100, and the Yaxis represents the proportion of men versus women. As you can see these are extremely orderly data. In the middle part of the range, females predominate; at both extremes, males slightly predominate. Needless to say, there is a large percentage of women at both ends of the scale — but there is also large sex difference.

Now the fact that these six gender differences exist does not mean that they are innate. This of course is a much more difficult issue to resolve. A necessary preamble to this discussion is that nature and nurture are not alternatives; it is possible that the explanation for a given sex difference involves some of each. The only issue is whether the contribution of biology is greater than zero. I think that there are ten kinds of evidence that the contribution of biology is greater than zero, though of course it is nowhere near 100 percent.




And before the objection is presented, yes there are reasons to believe these differences are biologically determined and not just consequences of environmental conditioning:

Quote:

First, there are many biological mechanisms by which a sex difference could occur. There are large differences between males and females in levels of sex hormones, especially prenatally, in the first six months of life, and in adolescence. There are receptors for hormones all over the brain, including the cerebral cortex. There are many small differences in men's and women's brains, including the overall size of the brain (even correcting for body size), the density of cortical neurons, the degree of cortical asymmetry, the size of hypothalamic nuclei, and several others.

Second, many of the major sex differences — certainly some of them, maybe all of them, are universal. The idea that there are cultures out there somewhere in which everything is the reverse of here turns out to be an academic legend. In his survey of the anthropological literature called Human Universals, the anthropologist Donald Brown points out that in all cultures men and women are seen as having different natures; that there is a greater involvement of women in direct child care; more competitiveness in various measures for men than for women; and a greater spatial range traveled by men compared to by women.

In personality, we have a cross-national survey (if not a true cross-cultural one) in Feingold's meta-analysis, which noted that gender differences in personality are consistent across ages, years of data collection, educational levels, and nations. When it comes to spatial manipulation and mathematical reasoning, we have fewer relevant data, and we honestly don't have true cross-cultural surveys, but we do have cross-national surveys. David Geary and Catherine Desoto found the expected sex difference in mental rotation in ten European countries and in Ghana, Turkey, and China. Similarly, Diane Halpern, analyzing results from ten countries, said that "the majority of the findings show amazing cross-cultural consistency when comparing males and females on cognitive tests."

Third, stability over time. Surveys of life interests and personality have shown little or no change in the two generations that have come of age since the second wave of feminism. There is also, famously, resistance to change in communities that, for various ideological reasons, were dedicated to stamping out sex differences, and found they were unable to do so. These include the Israeli kibbutz, various American Utopian communes a century ago, and contemporary androgynous academic couples.

In tests of mental rotation, the meta-analysis by Voyer et al found no change over time. In mathematical reasoning there has been a decline in the size of the difference, although it has certainly not disappeared.

Fourth, many sex differences can be seen in other mammals. It would be an amazing coincidence if these differences just happened to be replicated in the arbitrary choices made by human cultures at the dawn of time. There are large differences between males and females in many mammals in aggression, in investment in offspring, in play aggression play versus play parenting, and in the range size, which predicts a species' sex differences in spatial ability (such as in solving mazes), at least in polygynous species, which is how the human species is classified. Many primate species even show a sex difference in their interest in physical objects versus conspecifics, a difference seen their patterns of juvenile play. Among baby vervet monkeys, the males even prefer to play with trucks and the females with other kinds of toys!

Fifth, many of these differences emerge in early childhood. It is said that there is a technical term for people who believe that little boys and little girls are born indistinguishable and are molded into their natures by parental socialization. The term is "childless."

Some sex differences seem to emerge even in the first week of life. Girls respond more to sounds of distress, and girls make more eye contact than boys. And in a study that I know Liz disputes and that I hope we'll talk about, newborn boys were shown to be more interested in looking at a physical object than a face, whereas newborn girls were shown to be more interested in looking at a face than a physical object.

A bit later in development there are vast and robust differences between boys and girls, seen all over the world. Boys far more often than girls engage in rough-and-tumble play, which involves aggression, physical activity, and competition. Girls spend a lot more often in cooperative play. Girls engage much more often in play parenting. And yes, boys the world over turn anything into a vehicle or a weapon, and girls turn anything into a doll. There are sex differences in intuitive psychology, that is, how well children can read one another's minds. For instance, several large studies show that girls are better than boys in solving the "false belief task," and in interpreting the mental states of characters in stories.



Sixth, genetic boys brought up as girls. In a famous 1970s incident called the John/Joan case, one member of a pair of identical twin boys lost his penis in a botched circumcision (I was relieved to learn that this was not done by a moyl, but by a bumbling surgeon). Following advice from the leading gender expert of the time, the parents agreed to have the boy castrated, given female-specific hormones, and brought up as a girl. All this was hidden from him throughout his childhood.

When I was an undergraduate the case was taught to me as proof of how gender roles are socially acquired. But it turned out that the facts had been suppressed. When "Joan" and her family were interviewed years later, it turned out that from the youngest ages he exhibited boy-typical patterns of aggression and rough-and-tumble play, rejected girl-typical activities, and showed a greater interest in things than in people. At age 14, suffering from depression, his father finally told him the truth. He underwent further surgery, married a woman, adopted two children, and got a job in a slaughterhouse.

This is not just a unique instance. In a condition called cloacal exstrophy, genetic boys are sometimes born without normal male genitalia. When they are castrated and brought up as girls, in 25 out of 25 documented instances they have felt that they were boys trapped in girls' bodies, and showed male-specific patterns of behavior such as rough-and-tumble play.



Seventh, a lack of differential treatment by parents and teachers. These conclusions come as a shock to many people. One comes from Lytton and Romney's meta-analysis of sex-specific socialization involving 172 studies and 28,000 children, in which they looked both at parents' reports and at direct observations of how parents treat their sons and daughters — and found few or no differences among contemporary Americans. In particular, there was no difference in the categories "Encouraging Achievement" and "Encouraging Achievement in Mathematics."

There is a widespread myth that teachers (who of course are disproportionately female) are dupes who perpetuate gender inequities by failing to call on girls in class, and who otherwise having low expectations of girls' performance. In fact Jussim and Eccles, in a study of 100 teachers and 1,800 students, concluded that teachers seemed to be basing their perceptions of students on those students' actual performances and motivation.



Eighth, studies of prenatal sex hormones: the mechanism that makes boys boys and girls girls in the first place. There is evidence, admittedly squishy in parts, that differences in prenatal hormones make a difference in later thought and behavior even within a given sex. In the condition called congenital adrenal hyperplasia, girls in utero are subjected to an increased dose of androgens, which is neutralized postnatally. But when they grow up they have male-typical toy preferences — trucks and guns — compared to other girls, male-typical play patterns, more competitiveness, less cooperativeness, and male-typical occupational preferences. However, research on their spatial abilities is inconclusive, and I cannot honestly say that there are replicable demonstrations that CAH women have male-typical patterns of spatial cognition.

Similarly, variations in fetal testosterone, studied in various ways, show that fetal testosterone has a nonmonotic relationship to reduced eye contact and face perception at 12 months, to reduced vocabulary at 18 months, to reduced social skills and greater narrowness of interest at 48 months, and to enhanced mental rotation abilities in the school-age years.

Ninth, circulating sex hormones. I'm going to go over this slide pretty quickly because the literature is a bit messy. Though it's possible that all claims of the effects of hormones on cognition will turn out to be bogus, I suspect something will be salvaged from this somewhat contradictory literature. There are, in any case, many studies showing that testosterone levels in the low-normal male range are associated with better abilities in spatial manipulation. And in a variety of studies in which estrogens are compared or manipulated, there is evidence, admittedly disputed, for statistical changes in the strengths and weaknesses in women's cognition during the menstrual cycle, possibly a counterpart to the changes in men's abilities during their daily and seasonal cycles of testosterone.

My last kind of evidence: imprinted X chromosomes. In the past fifteen years an entirely separate genetic system capable of implementing sex differences has been discovered. In the phenomenon called genetic imprinting, studied by David Haig and others, a chromosome such as the X chromosome can be altered depending on whether it was passed on from one's mother or from one's father. This makes a difference in the condition called Turner syndrome, in which a child has just one X chromosome, but can get it either from her mother or her father. When she inherits an X that is specific to girls, on average she has a better vocabulary and better social skills, and is better at reading emotions, at reading body language, and at reading faces.





http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/debate05/debate05_index.html

In essence then there are roughly six lines of evidence which indicate that males and females do perform differently with regards to different fields, and there are at least ten which indicate that the reasons for these difference are biological.


--------------------


"Both liberty and equality are among the primary goals pursued by human beings through many centuries; but total liberty for wolves is death to the lambs" -- Isaiah Berlin

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Offlinewilshire
free radical
Male User Gallery

Registered: 05/11/05
Posts: 2,421
Loc: SE PA
Last seen: 14 years, 1 month
Re: Feminism vs. Female Chauvinism and Male Bashing [Re: Veritas]
    #6732324 - 03/31/07 05:22 PM (16 years, 11 months ago)

from another thread:

"29. Don’t believe the crap about the patriarchy. More women are accepted and attend college. More degrees are awarded to women than men. Women outlive men. More men commit suicide. Men are twice as likely to be victims of violence, including murder. If you consider sexual assaults in prisons, twice as many men are raped as women (society thinks prison rape is funny). The streets are littered with homeless men, sprinkled with a few homeless women. Statically, women are happier than men. The myth that girls are being cheated by are educational system is belied by the fact that schools are bastions of femininity, mostly run by and taught by women. Girls outperform boys in school. It is the boys in school getting fucked over, and prescribed ritalin for being boys. Real wages for men are falling, while real wages for women are rising. Just because someone says something enough times, doesn’t make it true. You have nothing to feel guilty about."


--------------------


Extras: Filter Print Post Top
InvisibleVeritas
 User Gallery
Registered: 04/15/05
Posts: 11,089
Re: Feminism vs. Female Chauvinism and Male Bashing [Re: wilshire]
    #6732335 - 03/31/07 05:25 PM (16 years, 11 months ago)

Well, if an old man on craigslist says it, it must be true.  :wink:

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineFrenchSocialist
DarwinianLeftist


Registered: 08/02/06
Posts: 883
Last seen: 16 years, 8 months
Re: Feminism vs. Female Chauvinism and Male Bashing [Re: wilshire]
    #6732340 - 03/31/07 05:27 PM (16 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

wilshire said:
from another thread:

"29. Don’t believe the crap about the patriarchy. More women are accepted and attend college. More degrees are awarded to women than men. Women outlive men. More men commit suicide. Men are twice as likely to be victims of violence, including murder. If you consider sexual assaults in prisons, twice as many men are raped as women (society thinks prison rape is funny). The streets are littered with homeless men, sprinkled with a few homeless women. Statically, women are happier than men. The myth that girls are being cheated by are educational system is belied by the fact that schools are bastions of femininity, mostly run by and taught by women. Girls outperform boys in school. It is the boys in school getting fucked over, and prescribed ritalin for being boys. Real wages for men are falling, while real wages for women are rising. Just because someone says something enough times, doesn’t make it true. You have nothing to feel guilty about."





I'll just say I don't believe every claim made about patriarchy. However I can't deny that some vestiges of patriarchy still exists, one only need to look at the senate in in order to reach that conclusion.


--------------------


"Both liberty and equality are among the primary goals pursued by human beings through many centuries; but total liberty for wolves is death to the lambs" -- Isaiah Berlin

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Jump to top Pages: 1 | 2 | Next >  [ show all ]

Shop: Kraken Kratom Red Vein Kratom   PhytoExtractum Buy Bali Kratom Powder   Unfolding Nature Unfolding Nature: Being in the Implicate Order   Original Sensible Seeds Bulk Cannabis Seeds   North Spore North Spore Mushroom Grow Kits & Cultivation Supplies   Myyco.com Golden Teacher Liquid Culture For Sale


Similar ThreadsPosterViewsRepliesLast post
* Why are there practically no females in the politics forum?
( 1 2 3 4 all )
RandalFlagg 3,605 67 09/04/05 04:11 PM
by Phred
* feminism and the far right ..an unholy marriage... Annapurna1 493 0 06/16/05 11:01 PM
by Annapurna1
* Forced Female Circumcision's Legacy
( 1 2 3 all )
DiploidM 3,278 58 06/11/06 10:23 AM
by Veritas
* female circumcision on the rise here
( 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 all )
quiver 6,197 144 11/27/06 07:35 PM
by Veritas
* Genetic Factors Influence Male Homosexuality-Study Worf 826 8 10/12/04 11:02 PM
by unbeliever
* Justice Dept. Prepares to Sue SIU for Discrimination Against White Males Catalysis 807 4 11/14/05 06:06 PM
by Catalysis
* White males need not apply lonestar2004 438 4 11/20/05 12:10 PM
by DieCommie
* Another female hostage found murdered - dismembered, disembowled, throat slit
( 1 2 3 4 5 6 all )
HagbardCeline 10,003 104 11/25/04 12:01 PM
by zahudulallah

Extra information
You cannot start new topics / You cannot reply to topics
HTML is disabled / BBCode is enabled
Moderator: Enlil, ballsalsa
5,170 topic views. 4 members, 5 guests and 8 web crawlers are browsing this forum.
[ Show Images Only | Sort by Score | Print Topic ]
Search this thread:

Copyright 1997-2024 Mind Media. Some rights reserved.

Generated in 0.035 seconds spending 0.008 seconds on 15 queries.