Feminism - but is there some truth in the stereotype of gender roles?

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I understand that feminism has its place, 100%. The way women are treated in some parts of the world, (and I will agree), in the western world to an extent, is wrong. And feminism is needed to that effect.

What I can't get my head around is that on some level, generally speaking, I believe women are more suited to the stereotypical 'woman's jobs,' and likewise, men are suited to their jobs. I embrace the fact that I am the one staying at home and look after my kids while my husband works (and this is coming from someone who has a very successful career and earned pretty much the same as my husband). I love cooking his dinner and cleaning the house. I don't feel oppresed. I am also attracted to my husbnad because he embraces his stereotypical male role of the breadwinner. I feel proud of my role as a women and I am proud that it differs from my husband's general role.

I know that the point of feminism is that everyone should be free to do what they want, male or female, and that men, if they want, should have the right to stay home with the kids.

But does anyone agree that on some basic level, instinctive almost, that for the majority of people (again, not all), that women do have women desires that are typical of a women, and the same for men?

ie. women are generally better at cleaning and tidying and naturally take the reigns, men prefer heavy lifting and DIY, women will be more motherly with kids than men, etc. NB. I know this is not always the case, but I am speaking generally. I believe stereotypes in this instance, are based on natural differences between men and women that we will never get away from. (Again stressing that there are exceptions).

Ladies, please would you all go away and read The Female Brain and The Male Brain by Louann Brizendine* before spouting your misinformed views on this topic.

(For balance, let me say that men are also capable of spouting misinformed views on the topic, don't want anyone getting the wrong idea!).

Louanne is one of the world's leading neuropsychiatrists and in particular an expert on women's moods and hormones. She demonstrates, in her books, with evidence, that men's brains and women's brains are wired differently, from the moment we're born.

Yes, we're more alike than we are different, but there are significant differences in brain structure in general and hormones in particular - causing differences in preferences, attitudes, behaviour and the rest.

(Waits for inevitable torrent of abuse and vitriol).

I think that people especially parents choose believe that gender differences are innate because then it means that we don't need to do anything about it. Its easier to accept 'natural' then absolve ourselves of any responsibility for gender inequality because its 'normal.'

WhySoAngry, please go away. And read Delusions of Gender by Cordelia Fine. Then come and have a sensible discussion rather than telling everyone who disagrees with you that they are wrong without trying to explain why.

Another thought, WhySoAngry... are you therefore saying that a liking for cleaning, tidying, shopping, make up, etc is innate in all/most women as a result of these apparent differences in male and female brains?

This crap really annoys me because it gives credence to those men who are happy for women to do all the - what is to me - drudge work, because we're "better at it". I fucking hate housework,and I'm crap at it. I'm sure if my dh was married to someone else he would do a lot less - he made comments which indicated that he did think it more women's work but I just don't do it so he has no choice. It's great for you that you like housework - you have a clean house - but you certainly can't extrapolate from that that all women do! Whatever about childcare, how on earth can a love of cleaning be biological?!

Anyone else wondering if this thread ought to be on the Feminism Chat board, rather than Relationships ?

I don't believe there are any differences apart from physiological. If you look at different cultures throughout history you will find that in a lot of societies it was the women who went out hunting animals, the men looked after the children and babies (women would feed then hand back the child and some men induced lactation), men would be the ones wearing makeup and jewellery etc.

OTT - in which culture men induced lactation?

So women are born to be able to handle vacuum cleaners better, while men are, due to their different genitalia/hormones/brain better at handling lawn mowers?

I do think this is an interesting discussion to have. However I also agree with the majority - I don't think gender differences are innate or based in biology.

If you think about it, perhaps there were biological differences years ago when we were a survival species, but now we live in such relative comfort,all of that is unnecessary. Men might have a slight edge on body size and physical strength, but we drive (far faster than running) and have ladders and get food from shelves, not trees, and if a woman wants to do something physically difficult, she can either train (and end up stronger than most men, since most men are not physically fit as our lifestyles no longer require it) or there are various labour saving devices available. I sometimes joke about needing my husband to open jars (there's a funny story in our family where my mother, a lone parent at the time, chased the postman down the street to ask him to open the marmalade) - but in actual fact, I can open any jar by using a tool, a technique I found on the internet, or just by creating more grip (rubber gloves). I only hand jars to him out of laziness.

Women are still the only ones who can give birth to children, but men are perfectly able to care for children. We have formula, and there are many instances of single fathers, stay at home dads, same sex male couples bringing up children. It's not the norm because of our societal expectations, not because it's more difficult for men.

No, I think that gender differences are very much socialised. I could go into lots of examples but since OP seems to have disappeared I'll wait for another direct question (or from anyone, I'm not fussy ) It's a very self perpetuating cycle. Children are aware of their gender from a very young age, four of the very first words we teach them are girl, boy, man and lady. At this age they are looking to us to see how they ought to be, what a human does. Any one year old is a master of mimicry. And we tend to notice things which confirm our current suspicions or held beliefs. I remember a documentary a while ago, might have been Child of our Time, but I'm not sure now, they took 6-7 month old babies and dressed them in either pink or blue and handed them to an adult who didn't know them and then watched them through a mirrored window. The adults did interact with the babies differently depending on what gender they perceived them to be (some were wearing the colour associated with their own gender and some the opposite) - it was really eye opening. Every single one of the adults said that they treated girls and boys exactly the same, but in practice there were quite marked differences, even in things like tone of voice used, the kinds of toys they picked up to try and interest the baby, the way they held them. They were totally unaware of these differences. Afterwards, they described the babies in different ways which correlated with the gender they thought the baby was (they weren't told that some of them were dressed in opposite-gender clothes). It's not the only study of this kind, either. We tend to have unconscious beliefs from our environment about what boys are like and what girls are like, and we apply these even to babies. So I don't think it's a coincidence, at all, that little girls tend towards dolls and pink things and pretending toys and little boys tend towards vehicles and construction and destruction type toys, because there's just no way we are not passing on unconscious messages, as well as everything they get from the environment themselves and their peers, and then of course we pick up on things that we expect to see, like when the boys race around with the doll's pram or a girl tucks a car into bed - but my son would put his cars and trains carefully into the shed for sleep time, and I've seen girls race around, too (they are usually told off for being too boisterous).

I thought this was in feminism Well either way. My response is the same.

Haha I love whysoangry's parody!

OP it's great that you're happy in the roles within your relationship, that's fab. The problem is when it's assumed that all women and men are, because that way misery and resentment lies for many who don't fit their designated gender role. Particularly as this tends to mean the majority of house and family work, work that is vital but hugely devalued by society, is deemed to be a woman's job whether they enjoy it or not.

Okay I googled Louann Brizendine and Cordelia Fine, and this is a quote from the very first article. I'm not being biased here, although I agree with Fine, I just picked the first one.

"For the purposes of this critique, Fine fact-checked every single citation in "The Female Brain," examining every study that Brizendine used to document her argument that male and female brains are fundamentally different. Brizendine cited hundreds of academic articles, making the text appear authoritative to the unwary reader. Yet on closer inspection, according to Fine, the articles are either deliberately misrepresented or simply irrelevant."

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/10/AR2010091002678.html

Not anywhere in the first page of results can I find any response by Brizendine to Fine's criticisms.

This is also pretty damning - and even if those exerpts are cherry-picked, they sound pretty bonkers. Sorry, I'm not feeling like rushing out to buy this book. It sounds like more recycled Mars and Venus bollocks, which is very cleverly done, actually - it's very well observed, which makes it both familiar and amusing, which is a very friendly thing to read. The reader finds themselves nodding along going "I TOTALLY do that!" "This is EXACTLY like DH!" and they're so comforted by this observation that they are then in a very able state to lap up the overly simplistic, totally unreferenced explanation given for this difference in behaviour. It's couched in pseudo-logic - something that sounds logical, but is too shallow to really hit the bottom of the issue, and also rests on common assumptions. In turn, it creates more assumptions. Bad science at its best. These books might be amusing to read, but don't set too much store by them. If it's not hurting your brain, take that as a warning sign that it's probably not really getting to the root of the issue.

I can't help but think that a tendency to 'want' to do these things is on some level natural. Nope, never ever had a tendency to want to clean, tidy and cook. What does happen though is that other women will say "she hadn't made the beds" and not "DH hadn't done his housework"

I still feel on some level that women enjoy these tasks more than met, AND, more importantly, feel a desire to have things clean than men do!!! wrong again.

women wear make up...doesn't appeal to men. women enjoy shopping...mos men don't. I have never worn makeup, but had many boyfriends who did. I loathe shopping; my 23 yo DS loves it.

When I read the OP I assumed it was a pitch from a very bad journalist looking for a story. I can't believe that in 2015 there are still people with this attitude.

I'm crap at childcare and housework. I don't wear make-up and find shopping a bore. I read New Scientist, my male DP reads Heat, has a carefully considered hairstyle and spends his day off staring at himself in the mirror of All Saints changing room. I don't think we are especially rare, it's not the '50's.

There is nothing natural about women getting burdened with all the undervalued caring work. It's the result of living in a patriarchal society. It's complete bullshit that the 'women's jobs' are the endless drudge ones and the mens ones are screwing a plank of wood to another one every 18 months.

Yes, I've also had many boyfriends who wore make up too.

I don't know what to say...
...except, read books op. Educate yourself.

Of course in some parts of the world,
heavy lifting does seem to be stereotyped along gender lines....not sure they prefer it.

Brains aren't 'hard wired'. They are much more 'plastic' than that and more responsive to societal and environmental pressures or messages.

But it's always nice as 'Ladies' to be told we don't know what we are talking about by some patronising sod, WhysoAngry.

Of course in some parts of the world,
heavy lifting does seem to be stereotyped along gender lines....not sure they prefer it.

for comparison

scallopsrgreat
"Brains aren't 'hard wired'. They are much more 'plastic' than that and more responsive to societal and environmental pressures or messages."

That we can be culturally conditioned into acting a certain way or desiring certain things, does not preclude there from being some kind of hard-wiring that is being consciously or unconsciously overridden or followed.

What came first, the chicken or the egg. Did culture invent the stereotypes or do the stereotypes derive in part from natural general differences. Back in the cave man days and before, were the males and females of the species all equally likely to be nurtures or hunter-gathers and whatnot, because at the time there was nothing like what could be called a social construct brainwashing them into a particular way.

Well, I dunno, Japab, but I would cheekily point out that you have nipples and you do produce prolactin. So caricatured assumptions about gender roles in ancient humans have to be wrong somewhere along the line, don't they?

It's a good job I don't believe being patronising is hard wired into men's brains, isn't it?

I'm very good at DIY/flatpack shit. But useless at cleaning - allen keys and screws everywhere. And last time I checked, I'm a woman.

interesting article on sexual equality in hunter gatherer societies

JAPAB - why do you say that there was no "social construct" which conditioned our genetic ancestors? Extraordinary statement!

Surely in "cave man" days social conditioning was as strong if not stronger than nowadays. Indeed, part of our development as modern day homo sapiens was in no small part due to our ability to create and maintain complex social bonds, norms and attitudes etc. Basically our ability to organise ourselves. It happens all over the animal kingdom as well, of course. Primates, large cats, fish, insects - they all have social conditioning. In fact, I think science is only beginning to understand how complex and rich some of those animal societies are.

The OP's original statement (and a couple of the subsequent ones) were so simplistic and, dare I say, ignorant to be laughable. Yes, the biology and physiology of male and female is different in humans because it has evolved that way in response to the pressures of our environment to ensure the survival of our genes.