Are/should male norms be the benchmark for female 'equality'? Should 'femininity' be prized too?

I think that was me Missy but actually I said I think if he had taken 6 months off we would have been equally responsible for caring. Sadly he only took two weeks!

I'd love to see society put equal value on paid work, unpaid caring work at home, and volunteering outside the home (regardless of who was performing them). So that both men and women could experience a mix of these things over their lifetime as it suits them rather than focusing on having or not having a career. That's why I'm pro the universal wage. But this is getting a bit off topic! I don't see that caring work as being inherently feminine

Peacocks are extreme ends of sexual dimorphism. Humans are dimorphism- maybe younger males could pass as females but in general the appearance is a giveaway.
Thinking about a previous poster who said her husband took 6 months off- I think this would be a good way to go, maybe men and women should each have a year off each compulsory, women and then men so child is at least two then there's no difference between sexes and baby/family benefits. Then I thought too much economical burden- but why? Since men and women both went into workplace surely we should be better off to be able to afford this, but we aren't. Houses, bills, food all so expensive it's a stretch on two wages. Why are we being kept poor? Don't have the answer here.

Whether or not biology is an influences our capacities or behaviors, much of what is often described as 'femininity' certainly appears to be socially constructed and done so in order to restrict women's choices.

There is very little evidence that women are innately neater or cleaner than men; Instead women have been socialised to believe that control over the 'domestic sphere' is an area of competition with other women. Women are not born with a focus on fashion; Certainly history shows that men can be as great or greater peacocks than women. Even the competitive guilt over parenting is established through women focused media, with no evidence that it is biologically based.

All of this serves to generate an artificially high 'mental load' on women. It burdens them with entirely delusory and unnecessary concerns that serve as huge and pointless distractions. How many women struggle in the workplace because of concern of how others regard their parenting? Or waste time in the mornings picking out just the right outfit, or doing makeup, when it has no impact on their capacity to work?

Men are socialised away from such concerns, taught to regard all the above as frivolous obsessions and therefore unburden themselves of a great deal of pointless mental effort. It's as if half the species were brought up with the most intense kind of 'catholic guilt' and the other half taught to be relaxed, free spirited Buddhists.

Masculinity apparently has it's challenges, but femininity is just designed to break people.

Well I have a biology degree and I'd say we are dimorphic- you can look at a man and woman- tell which is which easily without having to see the genitals- that's dimorphism.

That’s secondary sexual characteristics- the point isn’t that men and women are identical. It’s that in species where there are massive sex differences in role there are also massive differences in physiology. We don’t have those.

A delicate chap could quite easily be dressed up as a woman and pass muster if not looked at too closely. You couldn’t pass off an alpha male baboon as female, or a peacock as a peahen. Or a mature male elephantvseal as a female. That’s a level of dimorphism that’s well beyond tits and bits, so to speak, and we, as humans, don’t have that. We aren’t very different at all. That doesn’t mean we have NO physical differences.

We are a very adaptable species.

I think its silly to pretend that men and women are physically and hormonally the same and therefore there is no difference between them.

I don't think these differences have any impact on whether someone can be a judge, policemen, nurse, accountant or retail assistant. I do think they might change how someone delivers those 'services' and I do think currently the male way of delivery is seen as the right way.

I also think there are jobs that suit smaller, delicate fingers or big strong muscles and currently big strong muscle jobs are seen as good and delicate little finger jobs - less so.

Well I have a biology degree and I'd say we are dimorphic- you can look at a man and woman- tell which is which easily without having to see the genitals- that's dimorphism.

I'm not saying we can excuse men's behaviour with respect to prostitution, porn etc... but yes men are more driven towards sex than women and more draw to visual stimulation. Otherwise why wouldn't women pursue these activities?

Thanks tomato

I’m on the molecular side myself ;) good to have the bones confirm ...

Oh. And ps I am an archaeologist who studied human evolution specifically. Hominids really are not very sexually dimorphic. It's hugely difficult to determine sex based on skeletal evidence. Early on in our evolutionary history (ie early australopithecine) there was more dimorphism which steadily reduces as we move towards anatomically modern humans

*f you don't think this is the case how do you explain

• men being interested in porn, lap dancing clubs, prostitution,*

Oh my. Nononono. You cannot use ‘evolution’ as an excuse for men doing all these things. That’s societal conditioning of men to be able to do whatever the fuck they like and social subjugation of women to be commodities.

You cannot honestly think that this has justification from our evolutionary past ??

This is an interesting discussion. I dont think anyone disagrees that caring and empathy are traits that should be more highly valued and rewarded in society. The problem is framing these traits as being inherently feminine and more career orientated traits as being inherently masculine.

There have been a number of studies showing that, on a population level, there are some differences in some areas between male and female brains. BUT if you look at an individual brain, only 1 in 6 will conform to a gender specific pattern (ie have all the typically female or male features). The majority of us have mosaic brains with some 'female' areas and some 'male' areas. Since these studies were done on adults it is also impossible to say how much the differences that exist on a population level are down to genetics and how much down to the influence of society. The human brain is an immensely plastic thing and very responsive to external influence - that's why we are so good and learning and adapting behaviour.

It's anecdote rather than science, but in my own household we had a pretty even division of labour until our first child was born. Whilst my husband was on his two weeks paternity, it was him who did the majority of the caring work for our son, so I could concentrate on breastfeeding. Part of this was because caring for a newborn did not come at all naturally to me but it did to him. Once he went back to work, I had another 6 months of leave. Of course by the end of that I have ended up as the primary carer and that role has been reinforced by the birth of our daughter. But if we had both been able to take 6 months off I don't think that imbalance would have appeared. It certainly wasn't an inherent difference at the start.

And I do sort of know what I’m talking about with evolution, honest ;)

No missy I don’t mean just differences in secondary sexual characteristics when I say humans are not very sexually dimorphic.

I mean massive differences in size and physiology. This runs from the sexes being almost identical to huge differences in size and appearance.

Here’s a particularly dimorphic species - this type of angler fish.

People reject evolutionary differences because it doesn't support their ideology. The fact that we are dimorphic shows the different selection pressures were at play at some point

Humans are dimorphic- women have less body hair, softer facial features, softer voice, breast tissue, curvier hips, smaller waist etc... we are dimorphic, it's obvious.

Evolution is change in frequency or genes in a population. What you are describing is natural selection. males and females would have had different selection pressures- reproductively we are different and reproductive success depend on different variables, i.e. Males are more successful by quantity of mates, females by quality of mates. Reproduction is more biologically costly for females- More energy, time- pregnancy, lactation, defending their young. Because of the cost involved females are choosier and more selective about who they mate with.
As I said monogamy was a trade off because of the mutual benefits.
As I said one behavioural difference is males are more aggressive and higher sex drive.
If you don't think this is the case how do you explain

• men being interested in porn, lap dancing clubs, prostitution, females on average don't pursue this kind of stimulation. I don't think it's cultural , men seem more driven to this visual stimulation.

But that’s not a logical explanation, nor is it necessarily true.

We were once tree dwelling primates. We were once a kind of lemurid small mammal. We were once unicellular slime. Now we are urban dwelling desk jockeys. Which bit gets to dictate what men in the 21st century behave as?

Human society has never just been ‘aggressive males and submissive females’ - look at the astounding differences in tribal societies. Some are matriarchal, some are patriarchal. Huge differences in social setups - humans are adaptable. We are omnivores, we adapt well to different climates and environments and we do it quickly. Hunter gatherers is what we were most recently, and actually, they don’t have huge sexual differences in resource provisioning. I suspect we never have actually - the idea of the women tending the hearth and the men going out to hunt has little to no athropological basis - it’s us putting our own cultural assumptions on the past.

Humans as a species don’t have much sexual dimorphism (large bodily differences between the sexes) at all. if anything, that indicates that there has never been a sustained period of manly big men doing manly things. Species with huge sexual dimorphisms do exist - we aren’t one of them.

The evolutionary psychology argument is a fallacy, and rightly seen as such in scientific circles.

roles allocated are part of the evolutionary process

Trying to work out if this is a wind up or if you believe the 1950s ladybird book of the caveman is actual history rather than speculative fiction

I should say "we" not "they".

We are saying at some point in our ancestory there were different selection pressures on male/female

And they are saying this is a fundamental misunderstanding of evolution.

anatidae
We are saying at some point in our ancestory there were different selection pressures on male/female so there are differences physically and behaviourally- yes in modern times those selection pressures are removed, thus we can choose what we want to do, but some differences remain.

@Anatidae said it better than me.

I think some women are frightened to believe that it’s social and cultural factors - over many, many generations- that mean overall men commit more violent crimes and women are more prevalent in caring roles or show more empathy. Feminism and equality don’t want to destroy caring, empathy etc. They do want to spread it around.

Women are not innately more emotionally intelligent or morally good than men. Sorry! But both men and women are damaged by the patriarchy. Maybe a matriarchy would be differently but equally damaging. Who knows?

Children raised in institutions would be bad for children, bad for society as a whole.
Socialism whilst sounding good on paper- is selling out on freedom. Parents would hand over their power to the state to raise children.
The focus can't be purely on materialistic things to the detriment of society as a whole. Individualism and "me, me, me" attitude is at the core of identity politics and it's poisonous. Family is the very reason I want to earn a wage, so my kids can have a good life.
Yes women need opportunity and should have freedom to choose how they live, but let's not remove the importance of children and the vulnerable just so we can go out and earn more. I'd take family over money any day.