To be furious?! Women's march?

[Goldmonday]

Have been seeing posts like this being thrown round on social media the past couple of days....am I the only one who thinks the whole world has gone bananas and we are now taking a huge step backwards???

Agreeableness and neuroticism (traits men tend to exhibit less than women) are both likely to lead to nervousness and underperformance in stressful situations like interviews. This is not a "thrilling speculation" about "ladybrains" but acknowledged by most. It's often used as a possible explanation for the gender pay gap. Men are significantly more likely to ask for a pay rise or negotiate their contract.

surely this is due to socialisation?
I'm not trying to pick a bunfight with you Foreigner so i'd appreciate if you could adopt the same polite tone with which i speak to you.

Firstly, I won’t take any study seriously that begins with this quote -

Men and women belong to different species and communications between them is still in its infancy. – Bill Cosby

I shit you not.

The literature the ‘writer’ is discussing is over 10 years old, and in some cases over 20. They neglect to factor in external societal impact upon the ‘gender related’ perceived character traits, which has over time put women in a neat little ‘please everyone’ box. To get rid of these societal expectations, norms and gender will (hopefully and hypothetically) erase the differences.

If you have any biological studies which can prove differences in personality I would love to see those.

and considering that around half of studies can't be replicated and scientific opinion is very divided in this area i don't think that adopting a different stance on the matter than you have means i am not a "clever person".

Oh I forgot to say - OP YANBU

Aside from your last patronising comment, I agree. My comment wasn't impolite as it was directed at you and me. I said "your (our)" including myself.

"Surely this is due to socialisation?"

What makes you so sure?

We know that brain plasticity is real and important. It can be beneficial and in fact is necessary for us to learn to communicate (ever wondered how a 3 year old can be bilingual without formal input but an can adult spend years learning a new language and will never speak like a native).

The studies I linked to interestingly show gender differences in personality traits are more or less pronounced at different ages and that they swing one way and back again. There were however real trends and that these are different according to gender. This goes against oft-touted suggestions that girls are taught from a young age to like pink, know their place in the patriarchy etc.

Another factor to suggest that this is not due to socialisation is the fact that the people sampled came from different cultures and there was minimal moderation.

I said that this isn't proven but is a valid hypothesis that shouldn't be written off as "shitty ladybrain theories" simply because it doesn't tie in with your thoughts.

I didn't say or suggest you weren't clever.

@theaveragewife

"Firstly, I won’t take any study seriously that begins with this quote ..."

No offence, but that shows your lack of ability to engage with alternate views. You also didn't understand the difference between and introduction and a conclusion.

Interestingly, if you had managed to read the article, it ended with

"Clearly the average personalities of men and women are systematically different. Does this mean, however, that Bill Cosby's metaphor, that men and women are from “different species,” is apt? We would caution against adopting such a dramatic interpretation of the pervasive gender differences in personality that we report in this study."

Awkward for you.

"If you have any biological studies which can prove differences in personality I would love to see those."

But would you read beyond the first line?

"They neglect to factor in external societal impact upon the ‘gender related’ perceived character traits,"

How are these factored in? To what extent? This paper analysed the results. The cause is still open for discussion and splits scientific opinion.

You are no more sure that any difference in the genders is due to socialisation than I am that there are innate differences.

Perhaps you'll answer one question and explain your reasoning.

There are differences in male and female: cardo-vascular systems, muscles, skeletons, bone density, blood composition, hair, skin, teeth, nervous system, eyes, elbows, hips, relative proportions, metabolisms, speed of growth even down to hair and fingernails) ...

It seems to me that the logical answer to "are differences in male and female brains due to socialisation or evolution and biology" must be the latter. I can't get my head around the notion of 'yes, that's different, that's different, that's different, that's different, oh, and that too. Brains? NO! They're identical and if you can prove there are differences, well, that's because of men'.

Why is yours the logical and likely answer?

but by the logic of someone's brain corresponding to their biological sex how would it work that, for instance, someone with a typically "male" body (eg penis, muscle mass, facial hair, fingernails) could have a female brain and vice versa? if it is true that a male/female brain is part of the package?

pink being associated with girls is very much a 20th century western phenomenon iirc

did i say "shitty ladybrain theories" at any point?

I didn't say you did. It was @Ereshkigal on this thread who used that expression. I feel you might be after a bunfight.

You answered your own question. "Typically" is the key word. I'm taller than the average man. I suspect with low agreeableness and neuroticism scores too. This is not about all men being different to all women or anything close. It's about averages. Trends and "typically".

Yes, someone with a typically male body could have a typically female brain in the same way some women are stronger or faster than most men.

"pink being associated with girls is very much a 20th century western phenomenon iirc"

Yes, I think so. What does that have to do with anything?

i can assure you that bunfights are not my thing

i thought you said earlier that girls' attraction to pink was not the result of socialisation? i could have misread though.

I think that, once it was identified that white middle class men were seen as the "lowest" in pecking order (hahahah!!) and the " most put-upon" (hahahaHA!), that they've been doing their damnedest to make sure that changed.

And I think the result is that white women have been targeted massively to take their place. By the men, primarily. They've found a way to knock women back into bottom place and they're living it up.

I don't really understand the message that post is trying to convey because I doubt very much that all white women on that march were thinking along those lines. But I wasn't there, so what do I know.

No, it means I won’t take a study seriously which starts with a quote from a man accused of the rape and sexual assault of many women.

*Interestingly, if you had managed to read the article, it ended with

"Clearly the average personalities of men and women are systematically different. Does this mean, however, that Bill Cosby's metaphor, that men and women are from “different species,” is apt? We would caution against adopting such a dramatic interpretation of the pervasive gender differences in personality that we report in this study."

Awkward for you*

Slightly more awkward for you, considering you presented this as part of your ladybrain argument.

In answer to your question, I am open to a credible study which shows the difference in personality traits between men and women’s brains using biology. However, biology doesn’t tend to intersect with psychology - and I’m not sure how it could, although I’m sure there’s a case for a biopsychology course!

I carried out my own study a few years ago on the gender traits in a specific sector, before I hit peak trans and realised the constraints of gender were detrimental to both males and females - and I found no difference. So from my own study, and my own experience I don’t believe there is an innate difference between the sexes.

Ooh I forgot, regarding your list - although male and female bodies are physically different, we are still able to carry out tasks in the same way - I can make a fist, do a few lunges, flick my hair in the same way a man could.....so although my cortex may be thicker, I am still able to carry out the same processes as a man.

@theForeigner
You sound very passionate and I know you believe you’re forward thinking. Come back to us when you’re double your age. Will you be in you 40’s by then? You’ll have lived a little and seen and experienced a lot more than you have right now. Then tell us how you feel about your 10yo daughter’s rights have been degraded and faceless middle aged women being denigrated. You’ll be one of them afterall.

@apathyisland

I agreed with someone that pink, painted nails and being bad at maths are not clearly 'girl' or gendered things but that nervousness in an interview, whilst not proven, is certainly seen by many well-regarded scientists as a fine hypothesis and one supported by lots of evidence.

I have no idea if girls even are attracted to pink let alone if this is due to socialisation or otherwise. I suspect that caring more about appearance (being on-trend / fashionable) is gender-driven and can be explained by personality traits.

@theaveragewife

Are you reading the same passage as me? There are pervasive differences in personality traits in men and women but not enough to suggest that men and women are from a "different species" or the two communicating is in its infancy. Does that make sense to you?

Pervasive. Differences. Same. Species.

I didn't know you were published on the subject. Going to link to the work?

Just because you found that constraints are detrimental doesn't mean they don't exist. In my experience there is an innate difference.

"although male and female bodies are physically different, we are still able to carry out tasks in the same way"

but not as well. DH can't hold a baby on his hips as well as I can due to differences in hip bones and elbows but he is able to leverage the object more efficiently with his stronger muscles and throw it further.

Men and women also approach tasks differently. There was an interesting study (I can't find it) where groups of men and women were tasked with getting an object out of a cage. Men used brute force and made a lever from a long pole. Women tried combinations on the lock (1,000 possibilities) until it opened. The women took half the time. This suggests that although similar results can be achieved, men and women don't approach them in the same way.

As you've been peak transed, I'm sure I can guess your opinions on segregation in sports, for example. If you can carry out tasks in the same way as men, are you happy for trans men to be in women's rugby teams?

"so although my cortex may be thicker, I am still able to carry out the same processes as a man."

Which cortex, which processes and which man?

@Mummyoflittledragon

Thanks for the patronising and ignorant comment. I'll likely be dead when twice my age. I'll certainly have my telegram from the Queen!

I've left it a bit late to have a daughter.

Just to go for a full house in being incorrect in everything you assumed, I don't think I'm forward thinking. Gender and innate differences in the sexes are not new. When I was an active feminist, differences were celebrated not denied and we wanted equal treatment. That's where I still stand. I don't see men as an infestation. I don't want quotas and segregation.

Anyway, besides wanting to be rude I don't know why you addressed me. I guess personal attacks are always a good fall back when you don't have anything of substance.

Oh my goodness. Excuse my mistake. You sound so young.

"Oh my goodness. Excuse my mistake. You sound so young."

Keep going. You sound like a twat.

And you sound angry. I just apologised.

Not angry.

I deal with teenagers all day long and I say the same thing to them.

"personal attacks are a fallback when you don't have anything of substance to say"

Sometimes I say "argumentum ad hominem is for the unintelligent" but I fear it would have been lost.

Interestingly, you've tried to use the halo effect of suggesting one trait is influenced by another (my opinions are worth less because of my age) as well as cognitive ease through the repetition in you 'apology'.

I realise the irony of this little explanation having said you sound like a twat but as you didn't really say anything, it doesn't apply. Poisoning the well, perhaps ...

tbh i didn't read mummyoflittledragon's apology as a sarky one

You are reading so much into my post that is not there at all. I am truly baffled that you would read me believing your opinions are worth less because you are a middle aged woman. Being a middle aged woman myself, that would be a senseless viewpoint.

The reason as to why I said nothing is not because I have no opinion. I have stated my opinion on many different threads and my views are very different from yours.

Having reread your last long comment addressing different posters, I can see you are older than I imagined. As I said, please excuse my mistake.

They also have to worry about access to contraception, the pay gap, not being able to access abortion in parts of the US, not having a safe space in a shelter, sharing a prison cell with a man, being catcalled and insulted in the street etc etc.

Ahh but putting that into this for each of the types of women, would have showed up the glaring elephant in the room.

Or penis in the room..so to speak.

This was clearly made by a transactivist.

I am surprised you did not bring the very serious scientific study regarding the uterus wandering about women's bodies and making them all hysterical and in need of a frontal lobotomy.

There is no such thing as a cis woman because we are human beings not isomers.

No I’m not going to link to my work - for obvious reasons.

As you believe there are differences between male and female brains, how do you believe that then manifests itself into wanting to wear heels, dresses and make up and demanding unnecessary surgical intervention funded by the government, and taking the places of women who have fought to compete for their places in international athletics? Is wanting to be perceived as a social construct an innate trait? Or do you believe that the performance of role expectation even down to wearing lipstick is nature rather than nurture? If not, do you think Danielle Muscato should be taken seriously as a woman?

You are right, one study does not prove anything (particularly one you can’t link to). And you are also right, I am against transwomen competing alongside women in competition where there is a difference in physicality as that’s an undeniable and well proven fact. However - motorsports, horse racing etc can and should be mixed.

theForeigner:
"You know that redsatinsheets is a woman, right?"

Which is why you should always read more that the first line of a post, because I go on to say "women (some) are accepting of it." redsatinsheets would be one those women presumably.