British 'man' becomes pregnant

For a start, men have penises and can rape / forcibly impregnate women. Women as a group tend towards having less muscle mass than men as a group and men as a group tend to be stronger than women as a group.

That's right, but I would argue that muscle mass and penetrative capacity are more matters of capability than aggressive intent.

And of course there are 'complex relationships between nurture and nature'. We are all physical beings with physical brains. But that there is not in general one set course for male brains developing and another female independent of social context.

This is a horrible illustration of my point, but if you took a female child at birth, sequestered her away from all contact with mainstream society, and spent the first ten years of her critical period of brain development brutalising her and telling her that violence is the way to solve problems then you would probably create a sociopathic monster.

And if you subjected both a male and female child to the same process, there is no reason at all why the male child would necessarily end up more of a sociopathic monster than the female one.

Now I come to think of it, the only essentialism that we have seen on this thread is the notion that the only reason men are violent oppressors of girls and women is because of their (innate!) manly strength and physique. Ahem.

Oh no! was that in relation to my post? Because that was not what I was saying!

Thank you FloraFox for your above post.

Arf at Duracell Bunny of mansplaining venusinscorpio.

Now I come to think of it, the only essentialism that we have seen on this thread is the notion that the only reason men are violent oppressors of girls and women is because of their (innate!) manly strength and physique. Ahem.

*To clarify, what I have been trying to say throughout this thread is that overall, in most human societies, men are more manifestly aggressive than women because of social factors. Because of nurture rather than nature.

Men are not necessarily born more likely to develop aggressive personalities than women; and women are not necessarily born more likely to develop caring, passive, nurturing ones than men. There are no biological determinants of male domination independent of social, cultural and economic context. None.*

Ah ... I don't agree with this, especially the last two sentences. I think that there are complex relationships between nurture and nature and between bodies and their environments with respect to both hormones and brain development and that the scientific literature that I have read on this (which is not exhaustive) backs this up. That is different from their being "no biological determinants of male domination (emphasis mine)". For a start, men have penises and can rape / forcibly impregnate women. Women as a group tend towards having less muscle mass than men as a group and men as a group tend to be stronger than women as a group. Pregnancy (depending on a range of environmental factors) can be mildly to severely limiting for women and men biologically do not get pregnant.

It's not nurture or nature, but a complex relationship betwen the two that determines behaviour, and there are concrete, observable and unchangeable bodily 'facts' that determine the sex-binary between males and females.

You have no idea ageingrunner

It must be weird being a bloke 🤔

Qwerty, you are truly the Duracell Bunny of mansplainers.

Sorry not Cote.

That was to qwerty not Capt. unfortunate timing.

Thanks for that, Captain Obvious.

I can see you want to believe that is all there is to it, but there is extensive scientific literature on hormones and their effects on behaviour.

Start your reading with animal studies.

Is there proven evidence that normal male levels testosterone cause violence? That there is not a correlational but a causative or predispositional link between those levels and violent behaviour?

Not sure that there is.

To clarify, what I have been trying to say throughout this thread is that overall, in most human societies, men are more manifestly aggressive than women because of social factors. Because of nurture rather than nature.

Men are not necessarily born more likely to develop aggressive personalities than women; and women are not necessarily born more likely to develop caring, passive, nurturing ones than men. There are no biological determinants of male domination independent of social, cultural and economic context. None.

The fact that more women, overall, exhibit a more benign psychology and men a more aggressive one is the result of socialisation.

Sorry that wasn't directed at Cote, in case there's any doubt

It's hard to understand stuff if you have a fixed idea of what the other person is saying, which is different from what they're actually saying, and you're not willing to try and understand their pov.

YetAnother is not saying the same thing as you, though. Nobody is saying behaviour, environment etc does not affect testosterone levels. They do.

What you have said, qwerty, is "there is little evidence that testosterone makes people more aggressive" which is provably false. The effects of testosterone on aggression are very well documented, and their pathway is also now being discovered, as in the study I linked to below.

You put it much more succinctly and eloquently than me YetAnotherSpartacus. Thank you.

Possibly I did, but TBH this thread has got so complex that I'm having trouble following the different positions in it.

My post was not intended to back up or be evidence for any particular position or poster.

You put it much more succinctly and eloquently than me YetAnotherSpartacus. Thank you.

qwerty I'm quite shocked at your posts in this thread. Have you considered for a moment that your knowledge of feminist thought might be too simplistic for you to understand the points Beachcomber has made. Her viewpoint is as far from essentialism as it's possible to be but you don't seem to be able to get any further than just yelling "essentialism!"

Your clarification that you don't think she is stupid is mind-bogglingly lacking in self-awareness.

I haven't followed all the previous posts (because I find them too confusing), but my limited understanding, gained from my women's studies education a looooooong time ago now (so I'm not terribly up to date) is that the effects of testosterone on violence are complex and involve understanding interactions between individuals and their environments as well as their body chemistry. In other words, testosterone levels, as well as violent behaviours, can be affected by various environmental triggers and stresses. It isn't just biology pure and simple at all and we are more than our bodies and body chemistry in a vacuum.

Here is one recent public access article that discusses some aspects of this.

traumamon.com/?page=article&article_id=18040

Sex is biology and it is not possible to change it by wishing yourself something else. Gender is a social construct and it is possible to put on a dress, grow your hair long, paint your nails, act more feminine etc. These two things are completely different and you really need to start differentiating between them if you are going to hang out on FWR.

I actually agree with you here Cote, and on reflection I was wrong not to make a clear distinction between biological manhood or womanhood and gender as an identity. Fair point and I stand corrected.

Coming back to the thread topic, I would like to answer this first post by qwerty:

"isn't the general consensus that gender is a social construct and therefore there is no such thing as innate manhood or womanhood? If that is the case then surely it is legitimate to term this man a 'man', a 'transman', a 'woman' or anything else he prefers?"

You are confusing sex with gender.

Man = Adult human male
..... where Male = Of the sex that can make sperm.

Woman = Adult human female
..... where Female = Of the sex that can bear young or make eggs.

Gender = Girls like pink / boys like blue, girls like dresses and glittery stuff, boys like machinery and trains, etc.

In other words, gender is a social construct. Biology is not a social construct. It's the DNA in every cell and your organs, including your genitals.

The pregnant "man" in the OP is still female and will continue to be female even after a hysterectomy, double mastectomy, years of Testosterone injections etc because that "man" will never be "Of the sex that can make sperm" and will always be "Of the sex that can bear young or make eggs".

Sex is biology and it is not possible to change it by wishing yourself something else. Gender is a social construct and it is possible to put on a dress, grow your hair long, paint your nails, act more feminine etc. These two things are completely different and you really need to start differentiating between them if you are going to hang out on FWR.

and yet you have yet to show in your posts that you have grasped what the statement being made is

What is the statement being made?

I said that testosterone increases aggression, activates the amygdala ("lizard brain") and inhibits impulse control. This is fact. And on average men have far more testosterone than women. That is also fact.

It is far from a proven fact that testosterone increases aggression. Or that the higher levels of testosterone men are born with predisposes them to violent behaviour.

The interaction between the limbic brain and its higher, more rational components is highly complicated. We all have a tendency to atavism. For instance, if you put any one under enough threat then they will regress. But the brain is plastic, and responds to the physical and social environment.

This article puts it best:

For one thing, hormones do not directly change behaviour; they influence the expression of a behaviour within appropriate environmental/ social contexts. When studying human behaviours, identifying which environmental/social contexts might be important remains a significant challenge to researchers trying to identify hormone–behaviour relationships.

The only evidence that testosterone does lead to more aggressive behaviours is correlational, and administrations of exogenous testosterone in clinical trials have resulted in no elevation of aggressive behaviour.

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091208132241.htm

No doubt if you measured the testosterone levels of Wall Street traders or a load of jocks at a frat party then you would find they have higher testosterone levels than me when I'm sat listening to the new Beyonce album.

But does that mean men are born with a greater predisposition than women to commit physically violent acts? No. It means that. in particular social contexts men have abnormally high levels of one hormone. Which proves absolutely nothing.

And you say that you are not suggesting that we are stupid but this repetitive telling us what we think suggests otherwise.

We do actually know our own minds and, I for one, am heartily sick of men explaining to me what I think. It's almost as though such men think we are inferior.

"women will always, overall, be more caring and nurturing than men. And men, who cannot become pregnant, will always be more likely to value life less - and therefore be violators and killers."

You are taking it too far. There is no doubt that pregnancy, having & nurturing a baby etc change women and make them more aware of the love and care that goes into a human being. IMO and IME, whether that makes each woman more caring than each man is a different story and depends to a great deal on our starting points.

There are also many women who have not yet or will not ever get pregnant & have a baby. It would be interesting to see a study where their levels of aggression/violence are compared to a group of men and a group of mothers, but I doubt if they would be terribly different than mothers.