Devaluing female/feminine behaviours

Ooh, no, I hadn't seen that! Thanks. I did see a study of varying professions (teaching was a biggie, I recall) that proved the point graphically.

It's a hard point to get across. I liked Maureen Baker's comment on that page:
"If a higher ratio of men or women working within a profession is deemed to be reducing its status then there is a problem with the very way society views the abilities of the sexes."

Yes, indeed, but did everyone think Dr Black was part of the problem rather than a flag-waver?

garlic butter Remember this?

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3527184.stm

Bears out your view about status falling when careers increase the proportion of females. Dr Black was pilloried by some at the time who misunderstood what she was trying to say i.e. that working practices should be looked at to make it possible for more women to take part in the high status specialties, activities, organisations, advisory roles etc that senior doctors needed to undertake. She wasn't trying to say it was bad that so many women were becoming doctors......

how tightly people want to cling onto gender differences - Were you on the Man Has Baby thread, messy? It demonstrates your point quite well (and sadly.)

As far as I know, empathy - or, more accurately, theory of mind - begins to develop at around 3yo but isn't fully formed until about 20yo. It's the final stage of growing up. This is in both genders. The development of TOM is profoundly influenced by environment, culture and factors such as love, security and friendship. There's a possibility, then, that by following gendered stereotypes when dealing with children, we actually inhibit this development in males.

I wanted to reply to your post, BelleCurve, where you said I think also some of the supposedly feminine traits are great for channelling women into more shitwork - empathising and communication - great for caring, poorly paid roles. Spatial awareness, better for engineering etc so obviously you can't be as good in these higher paid, higher status roles.

It's interesting that those roles used to be very highly-rewarded ones, conducted mainly by men. The scribes, the doctors, the readers and even the actors were male. When typewriters brought secretaries, they were originally men and the role was high status. The "chicken and egg" is, I suspect, a matter of the status dropping as the role becomes filled by women. If most engineers were women, I'd bet some other profession would have its status and pay levels would be lower.

This would mean the qualities were not assigned to "channel" women into low-status roles, but the roles became associated with low status because they have become associated with women - and so did the qualities. I find that much more scary, tbh!

And Another Thing ... I keep reading that assertive women are denigrated in the workplace, but that honestly hasn't been my experience. I've seen highly assertive or aggressive women reach positions of power by being that way - which is a problem in itself, imo. But we need to be careful of the assumptions we make when talking about male and female qualities.

AlanMoore, I am SO heartened to hear about your partner's workplace! It sounds like huge strides towards what I'd consider a sensible approach to business, and has really cheered me up

What amazes me though is how tightly people want to cling onto gender differences. Time after time these supposed differences are shown to have so many cultural factors mixed up in them, yet so many people want to see innate differences wherever they can.

And even if there were innate differences, which would have to be very slight given all the evidence we now have, one could argue that girls therefore should be taught spatial skills and boys empathy skills in order to give every child a well-rounded set of talents, rather than emphasize the differences.

It's as if people WANT girls and boys to be different, and really, why would they want that? Lol, I realize that is an incredibly naive question!...

I think you're right, messy - I don't think girls (or indeed, boys) are innately empathic at all. Those studies that seemed to suggest female infants were more tuned in to emotions show on faces etc. have since been held up as deeply flawed. The rest showed no significant difference between infant girls and infant boys in that regard. It appears empathy is something that is learned, like most things. Nothing to do with gender, as far as I can see.

oooh I like the thought train Bertie / Inmaculada: I remember reading somewhere (on the subject of kids media) that the reason why girls will watch a boy protagonist but not vice versa is because they have such great empathy skills, and I remember thinking "or it could be that they have no choice!".

Even empathy skills, which we think are so innate to girls, could be a result of the fact that girls can't cocoon themselves off in their own world in the same way as boys can.

Interesting you say that, Bertie! I was just reading about a study of empathy and the results showed women tended to do better at reading people's facial expressions overall, but men were just as accurate at decoding other men's facial expressions (much less so women's) as the women in the study were. That seems to add support to your hypothesis.

I was musing on a recent thread too - I wonder if women are seen as more empathetic because so often the default view/opinion shown in the media, pop culture etc is male. So, as we're constantly being bombarded with the male POV it's easy to imagine ourselves in their shoes and see the "male view" of things.

Conversely, because of the lack of female views and opinions in the media and society, it's not as easy for men to see the woman's point of view - it requires actual thinking and perhaps speaking to women themselves if they've never been in that position. Hence, men = rubbish at empathising, women = cones naturally to them. Whereas probably most people are somewhere on the empathy scale, but women don't have to look as hard to find the views of the opposite sex.

It is what is stereotypically seen as male behaviour though. Of course women are just as capable as men of taking this on. But the point is the devaluing of the other roles and skills women bring - and men as well. Stereotypically female traits in men are also highly devalued.

It's not 'typically male' behaviour. It's leadership behaviour. Take all the modern trappings away, put a group of random women all in a wilderness fending for ourselves and we'd be looking for people with good ideas and a bit of chutzpah to direct the shelter-building and rabbit-hunting. They always emerge in any task-oriented group situation whereas others are happier in a support role. In a team situation everyone can add value but not everyone is comfortable standing at the front taking responsibility.

I see this all the time. I am a lesbian and one of the things both I and my DP hate is the devaluing of typically female traits that a lot of lesbians seem to adopt - certainly amongst my age group. Being "girly", more passive, into traditionally female hobbies such as sewing is definatly given a lower status than more typically male behaviour such as being good at DIY, ambitious, dominant, etc. Having bdeen a tomboy is also valued.

It drives me wild. Of course feminism is about challenging the idea that women are naturally less ambitious, etc,but this doesn't mean that some women aren't that ambitious for example, and that there is anything wrong with this.

Kerala, I sympathize. I went for a job interview recently and I was told "you're so softly spoken, your voice carries no authority" Grrrr.... The problem isn't "femininity" per se but in other people's reactions to it.

Being assertive is very valid - the trouble is how assertive females within the workplace are often regarded.

Assertiveness in men tends to be lauded, whereas in women they get labelled "ball-breakers" "harridans" etc. etc.

I used to work in an office that had a pair of female job-share bosses. They were both forces to be reckoned with and I for one had a lot of admiration for them and respect for the way they operated (I was the union rep, so dealt with them from the other side of the table, as it were). But you should have heard how they were referred to by some of my male colleagues. Very few of them came out with it directly, but there was loads of whining and whingeing about them that certainly didn't happen with subsequent male bosses (who were no better as operators, just different and male) - the passive aggressive approach was favoured by some of the men. They called those female bosses "The Girlies" which used to infuriate me no end.

"women, you should be more assertive to get promoted"

Assertion is a female behaviour. I know many women that are naturally assertive in everyday life... not because they want to get promotion. If you're saying that being assertive is invalid and the only valid female behaviour is submission, I'd be horrified

Quickly, because it's late, but have you read The Politics of Breastfeeding? There is a whole section in there about how "work" as something separate from "home" has evolved to be very friendly to men and hostile to women who are bound to their children by childbirth and breastfeeding, especially before the invention of adequate alternatives, and so from a parenting point of view women really have to act as men have traditionally acted in a post-industrial society, ie, handing over care of their child(ren) to somebody else, not feeding them themselves, etc. Whereas actually it would be perfectly possible to bring a small exclusively breastfed baby to many workplaces and/or have small creches within workplaces or work from home more so that these roles could be mixed. Of course, men could participate in childcare more this way too.

There's a whole argument about whether or not this would be a good idea or not but I think that the idea that it's problematic in the first place is an interesting one.

Ooh good thread!

It's certainly something I'm conscious of with my daughter, as while I don't want her going down the Disney Princess culture cul de sac, I don't want her thinking that frilly dresses (to give an example) and dressing up in a girly way is bad.

I'd agree that it's very easy to "devalue typical feminine behaviours" - particularly i think for women like me who grew up in the 70s with very gender-neutral upbringing and lean towards more masculine hobbies and interests.

I worry a LOT about having a very 'girlie' girl (not got any girls yet) because i honestly have NO IDEA how to both support her own choices (if she likes pink, why should she not have pink dammit) while at the same time know where to draw the line (what if she decides she wants to be a glamour model??)

When working in a male dominated investment bank I was told at an appraisal that my voice was holding me back. It was too soft, needed to be deeper and louder apparently i.e. like a mans I suppose. Honestly wtaf.

I couldn't agree more sunshine.

I think the characteristics you mention are desirable and positive and you're absolutely right that co-operation ultimately achieves the greater good for our species when compared with domination.

So I guess the question we should seek to answer is why, in a supposedly modern, civilised society, so many humans still regard power over others/the environment etc. as being necessary.

Competition is everywhere - and everyone has the potential to be a dirty fighter if they feel they need to. Just think of the way people shore up their own lifestyle/survival choices by denigrating those choices made by others - we see it on MN all the time! And this is arguably one of the lesser forms of one up-personship, yet many of us still feel impelled to jostle for position.

Is it a human instinct we all have - competing for what we perceive as resources and the best way to prolong our life-cycles/propagate our genes etc. etc.?? Or is that evo-bullshit? So why do we do it? And why is so much repression seemingly based on this sort of thing? Or maybe it isn't...?

As you can see, I don't have the answers, but it does make you wonder....

There are some really good posts on here.

I still find it a major headache though.

Women are socially conditioned to be passive and empathetic because it allows men to be dominant and selfish because that is a good result for men. The argument makes sense, but is it really a good result? If we consider society as a whole - made up of women, children and the elderly in addition to men in their prime, then you can put a completely different slant on it.

Social co-operation and altruistic behaviour have many positive social benefits and to some extent, you could argue that all the major leaps in humankind's history are a result of those.

Why are passivity and empathy considered the lesser traits that hold women back? Why shouldn't we consider them positive, desirable traits and criticise dominant behaviour instead?

Why shouldn't men be more like women instead of women more like men?

Yes Belle, I think you've got something there.

Lise Eliot is good on spatial awareness in Pink Brain, Blue Brain (and the stereotype threat/stereotype lift effects you mention). She says that the most recent studies on infants suggest males have slightly better spatial awareness than females and older males are demonstrably better than females in tests of spatial awareness BUT (and she makes it very clear it is a very big but) the main reason for superiority in spatial awareness skills is practice.

The kind of stereotypically male pursuits encouraged in young boys are often related to the development of spatial skills (including shoot 'em up video games, for example) and that is why they become generally more adept in that area than females. There are other studies which show as soon as females have some practice at using their spatial awareness, the gender gap disappears.

The other thing that occurs to me is that empathy and many other supposedly feminine traits are relatively passive compared with the supposedly male traits which tend to be much more about action. It is helpful in a power contest for one side to be fed the stereotype that they are essentially passive so the other side can retain the upper hand, no?

Likewise, in the job Market, women have embraced going out to work but it has taken a lot longer for men to embrace housework and childcare.

This is one reason I don't really like the 'Pink Stinks' campaign, although I get what they are intending to do. But why should we devalue the pink stuff and expect girls to emulate the boys? I don't see a boys' campaign called 'Trains and pick up are crap'. It's the same principle which means that when clothing becomes 'unisex', the reality is that women adapt male clothing but men do not start wearing dresses and skirts.

It's always the women / girls being asked to change.