Preferences dictating gender roles

Jadefeather7 wrote - "according evolutionary psychologists and surveys men and women prefer Traditional gender roles."

Perhaps cavemen and cavewomen gave untruthful answers when they filled in their evolutionary psychology questionnaires.

Yes! All those rows of comptometer operators. I'm old enough to remember that.

www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-women-stopped-coding

Intersting piece on how gender roles change over time

See also computer programming. Coding used to be viewed as a kind of typing in the 1980s and so it was dominated by women. But, as more men entered the profession its status and financial remuneration rose...

Of course, whenever a job or profession becomes dominated by women, it loses status. Think of 'typewriters' when the machines were new - a highly skilled, high-status job for men until it turned out women could do it, too, for less - and GPs in the old USSR. Bank clerks, primary teachers, nurses, librarians and perhaps even solicitors, soon. Fewer men climbing quickly through the ranks to the top tier and the bulk of women doing the heavy lifting for less. 🤷🏼‍♀️

@NonnyMouse1337 @drspouse absolutely agreed! One of my parents was from a poor country but also very strict and I had wondered if that's same dynamic was happening in Indian families too. In my case "if you're going to go to uni it needs to be worth it!" Was the rhetoric! Economic need trumping social, personal, or any other influences.

Why are you engaging with such a knobhead?

You cannot logic the religion out of people. Stop trying. It is a total waste of your energy.

• @Apple31419 I've read those data and a lot of them are from former Eastern Bloc/planned economies so I assumed they told women to do STEM because they needed engineers etc and you didn't get a choice of what to study at university.*

It’s also plausible that STEM was never coded sociologically as a “male thing”, thus fewer women turned away.

Once you reach a certain frequency of women in a career training path they tend to stick with it. Very few physics major women in the west because they are seated with a room full of men (in co Ed colleges anyway).

@Apple31419 I've read those data and a lot of them are from former Eastern Bloc/planned economies so I assumed they told women to do STEM because they needed engineers etc and you didn't get a choice of what to study at university.
I imagine the same will be true in India except at family level (you do something that earns proper money). I've also worked in a much poorer country where few people even got to secondary school so you did the training you could. Lots of male nurses. Some frustrated artists working as mechanics. Primary teaching wasn't a degree but you could work your way up so some did that to get a degree in the end.

more men are colourblind also.

Because it’s a recessive gene on the X chromosome. Women have two X chromosomes so they can have one with the recessive gene and still see full colour because of the other. Men only have the one.

From memory, there does seem t9 be something in the object rotation.

It's why women make better map readers, provided they are not forced to read a map the default Male way.

Men seem to find it easier to read a poorly orientated map and will outperform women on that rather specific task , whereas women tend t9 do better if they are permitted to turn the map anyway they want,

It may be socialisation that makes men worse map readers as it's probably socialisation that stops then orientating the map. But they do think it stems originally from a marginal better ability with spacial/shape based stuff. To balance, women do tend t9 be better at colour recognition..more men are colourblind also.

Both are postulated as being relevant in prehistoric communities. Although map reading is still useful today.

OP, another great read on this topic is Angela Saini’s book ‘Inferior’, it goes through and debunks the scientific arguments given for women’s inferiority.

Whether its nature or nurture, fact is males are better at object rotation and navigation compared to women.

Nothing to do with the fact that boys get Lego, vehicle and STEM related toys whereas girls gets dolls and bracelet making?

it was said that women showed a preference for strong men who can provide therefore based on that sexual preference he has concluded that men should be breadwinners and that leaves women with the home making role.

Even if the first part re 'strong men' (whatever that may mean) was true nowadays, it wouldn't remotely follow that men should be the sole 'breadwinner' and women must be left with the 'home making' role. I don't see it would imply much more than that women tend not to like 'cocklodgers' much.

I think I'd be asking him to show the link between people doing things and liking them! Most of us pay our taxes, but that's generally because the consequences of not doing so are unpleasant. Ask him whether he's ever got up and tackled a job he really, really didn't want to do. And follow up by asking whether that proves he enjoyed it. 🤷🏼‍♀️

Good grief, think about all those little girls carrying water instead of going to school!

In early human society women and children were probably forced to rely on men for food, shelter and protection and that's persisted.

Ehhh I don’t think the current evidence supports this.

Yes, basically all premodern societies have gender roles but it’s not homemaker and provider like the 1950s stereotype. Both men and women were absolutely essential to providing nutrition and safety to their family, it’s just the tasks they were trained in were different (and variable across cultures). There was far too much work in any premodern society for half the populace to not work. Instead, tasks were divided Because of basic division of labor economics. It’s much easier to become expert in half of the things instead of all of them.

Older anthropology was (unsurprisingly) extremely focused on men’s domains because the researchers were almost all men. They assumed women were “cooking and rearing babies or whatever”. Once female anthropologists got in the game and studied what women were actually doing, it became clear that in most cultures women provided on average half the nutrition to the village. Rather than hunting (usually) they just do/did it more often by fishing, gathering or processing otherwise inedible foraged foods.

Also note that all cultures have included people who crosses gender role barriers and ended up expert in cross gender work role. Societies police these with violence sometimes in others they assign you a third gender (usually “non-man”), or just accept you as an outlier. Which option would your friend prefer of those 3?

I enjoyed the book “the secret of our success” for some actually well researched evolutionary social science.

You don't need to begin, or do the work in the middle, or draw together conclusions at the end. This is not your project is it. It's his. Let him do the work.

He'll tell you you're wrong whatever, his mind's plainly made up and impervious to evidence, so why waste your time?

Why do you care so much, what someone so intellectually and educationally challenged, thinks? Surely a 'that's nice dear' and moving on to another subject, would suffice?

But if you're really claiming that sexual preference should determine social roles... well, there are going to be quite a few people living in stables and kennels, aren't there.

Look into evolutionary biology and psychology. In early human society women and children were probably forced to rely on men for food, shelter and protection and that's persisted.

Also, never take notice of anyone who starts from a position of belief and looks only for evidence that supports that prior belief. That is not research, or education, or understanding.

When, if, he's looked into the subject he claims to be interested in, he could tell you about what he's found out. What the different current positions are, types of research undertaken, state of play in relevant academic fields.

Basically, tell him to do his own bloody homework!

The book itself is over 20 years old, and clearly 'social science', not science science.

Oh right. Your friend's 'knowledge' is based on reading one book.

That's not knowledge. He's plainly not an educated person. He has no research or critical thinking skills.

Ignore all 'I just read one book / saw one documentary, so plainly this is how the world really is' burbling in future, from him and anyone.

Well, lots of people are paedophiles and would like to have sex with children, as well as, or instead of, living with an adult partner. They view this as part of their adult male entitlement to have and live whomever and however they want. That 'male entitlement' perspective is a very gendered one. Should their preference form the basis for social organisation?