In a gender neutral future Utopia

The basic building block of society is mother and infant.

What men do or not do in society is fairly arbitrary in comparison.

There's no reason for men to behave in the same way that women do; giving men a social role of any kind requires planning.

I think the sex based difference make it easier to oppress women and give a reason for men to oppress them so I think unless the culture evolved and weeded that out it would continue to happen. I think that's down to humans being atseholes really. Men being physically larger and not bogged down by breeding gives them the upper hand, so I think it's more physical than mental

Kursk, I think that that there may be some differences, but they would not be nearly as pronounced as they are within our society, and that the differences between the sexes would not be as large as the differences between individuals, iyswim. I don't know this for a fact, and I don't think I ever will unless I live to observe OP's utopia.

squishysquirmy

Interesting comment, I know that I am in the minority with my thaughts and I am fully expecting to be overwhelmed to the contrary. But I do believe that there is a difference outside of social constructs

Oh duh yes. I was agreeing with you. I'm tired. Ignore me

Gina, did you mean it is within the normal range? Just that your post pretty much backed up what I said in my post?

If you had said male I was going to pick up on this comment:
"I still feel like this and the physical differences would define roles"
and bring up the rational male vs intuitive female stereotype. I wasn't asking to be nasty or weird or anything.

think all of that is within the range of normal toddler behaviour, for both girls and boys.

It isn't and also we have confirmation bias.

I've sat there and watched girls running riot and building blocks and jumping and fighting etc in play groups... only for people to comment when they see a group of girls then do something 'girly' about how girls and boys are all so different.

Like all the other stuff doesn't count.

kursk you are talking bollocks.
Male seahorses brood the eggs and go through a process similar to labour to produce babies.
Male penguins equally share egg brooding and chick care with female penguins.
There are many mammal species where females are dominant leaders (e.g hyenas, African wild dogs, elephants).
Biology doesn't tell us anything about the "natural" expectation of human behaviour.
FWIW I do think there are likely to be some sex based differences as our babies are so dependent on their mothers for feeding for an extended period after birth. But I'm not sure that equates to differences in behaviour in other areas

squishysquirmy

I don't mind I am female why?

@elevenclips I noticed the sorts of differences in play preferences between my two DC too - except both of mine are DDs. They just have different preferences because they are individuals with different personalities and tastes.

I think as said upthread the male/female brain has been thoroughly debunked, but given our own upbringings and social conditioning it would take generations to remove their influence and only then would we find out which behaviour are inherent and which learned.

Kursk, do you mind me asking if you are male or female?

And my dd build towers with her blocks, most of the time. Then knocks them down. Or gets me to build a tower so she can knock it down whilst cackling hysterically. Sometimes she is very caring with her dolls, other times they act out scenes from her life/Cbeebies. In the garden earlier she kept trying to whack me with an Alium seedhead, because she was a "bad guy".
Her favourite game is to act out what happens at nursery (where she attends part time) with various toys in tedious detail.
I think all of that is within the range of normal toddler behaviour, for both girls and boys.

Ok so let's assume that you take a group of humans and raise them genderless. Then the only difference would be brain chemistry (testosterone etc)

I still feel like this and the physical differences would define roles

"Neither child had been to nursery. Both had spent all their time with me."
....
"They saw me do manual tasks such as building furniture. They saw dh do tasks such as cooking. I did not bring them up or socialise them as girl/boy."
There is a difference between the role you and your dh performed in front of them though, wasn't there? If they spent all their time with you, then they were brought up with a SAHM?

I mean that as no criticism, I am a SAHM myself at the moment, but I am also aware that no matter how caring and involved a parent my dh is at the weekends and evenings, my dd is still learning that mum is the primary carer. And she knows that she is a "girl like mummy".
Even if she went to nursery full time, this message would still be enforced as most of the staff at nursery are female.

It is almost impossible (if not actually impossible) to insulate our children from cultural influences.

elevenclips you must surely realise that your anecdotal evidence of 2 children reared in our society which is flooded with messages about sex stereotyped behaviours is utterly irrelevant? Unless you live on a remote island with no TV, books, magazines, other people, etc etc and you were incredibly careful to avoid all gendered expectations of play from birth, and carefully analysed your interactions daily with both children to ensure no gender bias. And even then it's still pointless as you have a sample size of 2.

Every society has different ideas of what constitutes 'acceptable violence' so we have to stop thinking of them as natural states.

It used be brilliant entertainment to watch people hang for various misdemeanours.

And before that sending someone to the lions was a genius way to spend a day.

Other cultures engage in cannabism.

The culture shifted and normal people find these things abhorrent now so I do think it's possible to move toward a mostly non violent society. If the will was there.

It would be interesting to see how gender was presented when male aggression was no longer seen as natural

Toddler ds took doll/figure type toys and put them on towers and drove the cars into the towers sending the doll flying. Toddler dd took the doll/figure type toys and fed them playfood.

And mine didn't do that. So there's that theory crushed. Also since when are cars, blocks etc proof of natural human behaviour?

GinaFordCortina

I agree I have also noticed a push back against gender neutralization.

As for male violence being genetic I believe that it's a genetic trait of females too. In relation to females protecting the young

There are massive variations in male/femal traits across speices. Nature is amazingly diverse - what's weirdest thing you can imagine? I guarantee nature has made something weirder

Even if you just stick to mammals, there are no set male and female traits. Female meercats can be very aggressive towards other female meercats (ever watch meercat manor?), female lions do the hunting, and some species of monkeys have very territorial females.
On the other side of the coin, many species feature males that are "caring" towards their young or towards other pack members. And believe me, males of many species are very interested in "looking for a mate".

Those are just the species I can think of off the top of my head.

You should look into Bonobo monkeys, as they are the closest relative to humans. You might be surprised.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonobo

I think male/female are fundamentally different in behaviour.

My kids were little 2/3ish. They had a pile of shared toys, including "girl" toys and "boy" toys.

Toddler ds pushed cars around, sometimes crashed them. Toddler dd got a piece of kitchen roll and made the cars a little bed and spoke to them in a caring manner. Neither child had been to nursery. Both had spent all their time with me.

Toddler ds took doll/figure type toys and put them on towers and drove the cars into the towers sending the doll flying. Toddler dd took the doll/figure type toys and fed them playfood.

Blocks. Toddler dd would build little houses for any figures. Toddler ds would build a tower as high as possible.

They shared clothes. They saw me do manual tasks such as building furniture. They saw dh do tasks such as cooking. I did not bring them up or socialise them as girl/boy. That is how they were born.

I don't think we can know what it would be like but I don't think we're going to go towards a gender neutral utopia anyway. I think we're absolutely revelling in gender stereotypes

... therefore, the only thing I consider to be possibly genetic is male violence.

In species where the male is involved in caring for the young, the female is not more caring than the male. Therefore, if we assume that human fathers having anything to do with the children they fathered is natural, then we also have to assume they are just as capable of caring for children as the mother.

Or, I suppose, we could just form all-female groups and kick men to the fringe of society, never to be involved in raising children. Every assumption should be followed to its logical conclusion. Indeed, much of societal sexism is based on NOT following things to the logical conclusion.
(If men cannot help raping scantily clad women, should we not lock up those beings who so severely lack self-control? Just as example.)

Spotted hyenas...

There are some differences between outliers but there is a huge overlap. For some traits - be it nurturing, aggression, passivity, physical coordination - if you put the whole population on a spectrum from 0%-100% you might well find that the people in the 0%-10% decile were more likely to be one sex and the people in the 90%-100% decile were more likely to be the opposite, but that most people would be somewhere in the middle.

Other traits would be thoroughly mixed all through.

It would be ridiculous to assume anything about someone's personality based on their sex despite it being known that the people best at xxxx are often that sex.