Feminism and natural sex differences

[WriterofDreams]

I am a woman, but I know very little about feminism, so this question is posed out of curiosity more than anything. Where do feminists generally stand on genetic/biological differences between men and women? By that I mean would a lot of feminists believe that they don't exist, or would they believe that they do exist but are irrelevant?

Just to give my current thinking on it (am open to having my mind changed) I do believe there are certain stable sex differences between females and males. This has been borne out by research into the way that girls and boys develop. I realise culture has a large role to play in these differences but I also believe it is not entirely the source of them.

Would like to hear other views.

Do those genetic differences mean that women are happiest at home doing housework and caring for their children and husbands, while men are better off forging ahead in the world outside the home, with all that it offers, due to their higher ambition and low boredom thresholds

Silly, innit.

Am going to google to see if I found out what this baron-cohen said so that I can blow a fuse.

'Women are better communicators'

That's not true.

About the 'fact' that men are physically stronger than women. Think about the kind of ways we expect and encourage little boys and girls to play and behave. Could this have anything to do with it? Anything at all?

TRIGGER ALERT FOR VICTIMS OF MALE VIOLENCE

MrsClown

Points like that coincide with where I think the OP is coming from, as are the sort of responses I raised earlier, which would be:

(a) A man walking towards you raising his fist and shouting incoherently because drunk is communictaing as effectively as a woman mediating-both are letting others know what they feel.

(b) to go back to my first post-why then are newsreaders or PR execs not predominantly female? And why, given modern politics is about election and communication, are politicians not predominantly female? Has modern society simply buggered up biology?

And, to go back to the OP, that's the reason so many (feminists and non-feminists) are sceptical about difference-not just because evidence for it is so slight-but because 'different but equal' comes to focus on women as subordinate, to use 'communication' to justify some roles but not others.

Very interesting posts guys, thanks.

As far as the physically stronger issue goes mrsrisotto it is a biological fact that women (in general) can't build up as much muscle mass as men. If they take testosterone then their muscle mass increases, but other physical attributes also change such as amount of body hair and deepness of voice.

The overall idea I'm getting from the responses is that yes there may be some general sex differences but really they're irrelevant as they tend to be used to justify women's subordinate position in society and they can't account for all individuals, a fact that is true of any generalisation.

Would feminists here agree that one of the aims of feminism should not be just to get women into the same jobs as men but also to ensure that the jobs women tend to choose (for whatever reason) gain as much status and attract as much pay as traditionally male jobs?

"Would feminists here agree that one of the aims of feminism should not be just to get women into the same jobs as men but also to ensure that the jobs women tend to choose (for whatever reason) gain as much status and attract as much pay as traditionally male jobs?"

Of course! That's huge part of feminism. And I would also add get men into 'women's jobs' too.

This might sound like a totally odd question, but why is it important to get men into "women's jobs"?

Practically, because jobs and population are finite.

But less calously, because women would have greater freedom genuinely to choose roles if more roles were not gendered-if childcrae were not considered a woman's role, if WOHD's were getting whipped by the Daily Mail, more women could make genuine choices.

But, the world being the world, what actually happens is that men's jobs remain closed while men's rights activists attack the few areas dominated by women.

I would say that bar very few professions (tries to think of some), there are no such things as "men's jobs" and "women's jobs".

Jobs which required a lot of physical strength used to be beyond a lot of women physically (they didn't really have female bus drivers before buses had power steering for example) although even then there would have been some women who had the strength.

But in modern Britain, I can't think that there are many jobs at all that fundamentally require a male or female to do them.

So I think that giving jobs "genders" is a false thing to do in the first place. The way they are divided "traditionally" is high profile/salary/power jobs reserved for men, low status, monotonous, caring roles reserved for women.

The whole thing needs to be opened up so that people can have a genuine open choice as to what field they work in. The current situation where basically men just don't do preschool and even primary school childcare/teaching, and women hold hardly any positions of status power & wealth needs to change. We are failing to tap the talents of a great many people in society, and those people are miserable as a result.

We also need to have some kind of anti-capitalist revolution and reassess the whole way our society functions but that is definitely another thread

These men's right activists - they get mentioned sometimes on this topic. Is it fathers for justice types? I don't really know anything about it.

'if men are better at spatial awareness why aren't they typically stacking small cupboards with weekly shops?'

because people do things if they get enjoyment or perceive that they will get rewards from doing them. Just because someone has good spatial awareness doesn't mean that they will want to stack cupboards. If they have a choice, they may not like doing that.

'If women are better at interpreting simultaneous complex visual signals (empathy from faces is this, unless you belive in telepathy) why aren't they typically air traffic controllers and football managers?'

I think women are better at reading human emotions and interpreting body language and facial gestures. This is not the same as looking at blips on a screen. The difference is the complex understanding of human nature and emotion. There is probably no advanatge for either sex in reading blips on a screen. We don't live in a neat world where the best person for a job is the person that does the job. There are other factors such as whether people want to do that job, whether there are barriers which prevent them entering that profession etc. Being a football manager is about more than reading people's emotions. It involves having a deep understanding of football tactics and understanding and empathising with the players and being able to gain their respect in order to manage them.

'And if they are better at 'nurturing' why not Army training instructors?'
I doubt that army training instructors are about nurturing.

'if they have lower boredom thresholds (S B-C uses this to explain housework) why are so many traditional male jobs in hevay industry repetitive and boring (much more so than housework)'

because these men don't have much choice in the type of work that they do. They have to take what is on offer. They can't afford to turn the jobs down just because they are boring.

'A man walking towards you raising his fist and shouting incoherently because drunk is communictaing as effectively as a woman mediating-both are letting others know what they feel.'

but the drunk raising his fist is not the type of communication that is required for business. To influence people, manage staff and win customers, a much more understanding human empathetic communication is required, and women on the whole are better at that.

'to go back to my first post-why then are newsreaders or PR execs not predominantly female?'

With newsreaders teh TV companies usually like to try to create a balance. A lot of women do work in PR. But again jobs don't necessarily go to the best candidates, there are other factors involved.

'And why, given modern politics is about election and communication, are politicians not predominantly female?'
because politics is essentially about power, and men are often attracted to these roles. Politics is about much more than communication and spin.

Oh WoD missed your question. Why is it important to get men into "women's jobs". I would say because lots of men would like to do those jobs but in today's society they don't feel they are an option. That is changing slowly in some areas (the idea of a male nurse was enough to raise eyebrows only about 20 years ago). And with the current set-up where women's work is undervalued, if it's no longer exclusively women's work, the status and pay might rise.

claig

You're missing the context here, which is that supposedly innate differences are used to justify the patterns in soceity-women are good at this so they do it and should keep doing it. If you move from that and just go 'women enjoy this, men enjoy that ' then you're in a completely different discussion, and one no neuroscientist or geneticist would touch. Nobody believes that there is a natural disposition to put things in cupboards, cupboards not having existed long enough in evolutionary terms.

Three things you say aren't trite like that. The communication example is not about types of communciation, but about a post which said 'women are better communicators'. if 'better at this sort of thing' was meant that wasn't what was said. On body language Experimental Psycologists hate any supposed difference which is stimulus specific and explained naturally. They point out that what you are talking about in reading 'body langauge' is a stimulus-a series of visual clues, not a separate ability. Hence, since we know of no visual why men can't 'see' body langauge we can't separate it from other equally complex visual stimulii. Women should naturally be better at making sense of all complex visual stimulii if they are better at doing so for body langauage.
Unless, as I said, you believe in telepathy, which would be a separate process.

And on 'nurturing' I was basing my comment son a recent study looking at how wounded soldiers talked of their NCOs, mothers, fathers, comrades, officers and friends. It showed a remarkable coincidence of language, (down to 'willing to die for me')in descriptions of NCOs and mothers. Whilst I doubt they refer to their NCOs as 'nurturing' they think they do what 'nurturing' mothers do. Which, coming form an army background and watching my father talk about 'his' men rings true for me too.

The football manager would be the triple whammy: women should be better at interpreting all visual patterns within some rules if good at body language-hence be able to read a game instinctively. They should be better able to understand players becasue they're so damn empathetic. And to earn repsect becasue they're such good communicators and business managers.

But they're not football managers-becasue they don't learn that set of skills and would lack respect on account of being women, and most would not wnat to be football managaers.

But the second is a description based on society, the first on supposed natural difference.

And that's the point-you can't claim womens hould do 'x' because naturally suited, but then accept them not doing 'y' which has the same skill set because 'culture' dictates otherwise.

Either culture dictates both or neither

claig a couple of points in your posts stand out for me.

You say that "the drunk raising his fist is not the type of communication that is required for business. To influence people, manage staff and win customers, a much more understanding human empathetic communication is required, and women on the whole are better at that." But the majority of business leaders, CEOs, top managers, top earners etc are men. How can that be explained?

And then later "because politics is essentially about power, and men are often attracted to these roles". Do you believe that women aren't interested in power? I have never heard that before.

'You're missing the context here, which is that supposedly innate differences are used to justify the patterns in soceity-women are good at this so they do it and should keep doing it.'

When people say 'women are better communicators', I think they are right. But they don't mean that they are better at ranting and raving than a drunk man. They mean that they are better able to communicate with other people, to negotiate, empathise and win them over in a complex human interaction.

I think that there are innate differences, unlike those that pretend there aren't. But who uses these differences to justify the patterns in society? There are laws against discrimination. Women can choose to study physics or computer science or aeronautical engineering if they want to.

'They point out that what you are talking about in reading 'body langauge' is a stimulus-a series of visual clues, not a separate ability.'
I think these experimental psychologists are talking rubbish. It sounds like they have been to politically correct school and lost their common sense. Yes, body language is a series of visual stimuli, but these stimuli have significance and meaning, and women are better at attaching the correct meanings to these stimuli because over time they have gained the experience and are innately more skilled at reading the meaning correctly.

'Women should naturally be better at making sense of all complex visual stimulii if they are better at doing so for body langauage.'

mo, becuase the key thing about body language is that it is about human beings and therefore requires the skill of empathy. Reading radar blips on a screen is far more simple and mechanical and doesn't require the complex intuition and empathy which women have in greater abundance than men.
These pyschologists are missing the holistic view and are concentrating on the mechanical nuts and bolts of body language stimuli and equating them with radar blips. That suits their world view that everything is equal (including radar blips and visual signs of human emotion), but I think they are missing the obvious.

I don't think the army is like a nurturing mother. I have heard soldiers in platoons talk and they talk of their comrades as brothers. They will die for their team, their squadron and their comrades, just as soldiers in the second world war were prepared to die for their leader, which in the case of the Nazis wasn't a mother figure.

Claig it would be interesting to hear what you think about the world of paid employment, and men and women, and the gender pay gap, and all of that stuff, rather than disecting other people's posts!

Do you think that men and women are "naturally" predisposed to different types of work? What do you think about the fact that traditional "women's" work is low status and low pay compared to "men's work"?

'You say that "the drunk raising his fist is not the type of communication that is required for business. To influence people, manage staff and win customers, a much more understanding human empathetic communication is required, and women on the whole are better at that." But the majority of business leaders, CEOs, top managers, top earners etc are men. How can that be explained?'

Because top jobs are about power and status and I believe that on the whole men are more interested in those things than women. I think the same is true of politics. I think that the people who succeed in these spheres are often the most single-minded, driven and ruthless individuals, and I think that less women are innately like that than men.

x-posts

"Women can choose to study physics or computer science or aeronautical engineering if they want to. "

In theory, they can, yes..... but.....

So basically you say that there is no pressure on children to conform to gender stereotypes, and girls and boys are not pointed in different directions from birth?

That there is no sexism and everyone is genuinely free, with an understanding of the full range of choices available to them, and the ability to exercise those choices?

Do we therefore conclude that the reason that women "choose" different subjects at school and university, and go on to earn less than men, and not rise to the top of their professions as much as their male counterparts, is basically because they;re a bit thick? And they're happier at home doing housework, with their high boredom thresholds, and looking after children, with their innate nurturing capacity, and they're happy to do all this for free, because they aren't interested in money? And that they are happy to leave all the difficult stuff like running the world to the men, because they have the attributes for that?

You truly believe that women are not interested in money, power and status?

Claig

What is the skill of empathy please? Does it mean listening and looking at someone and understanding what you think they are feeling? If so, the only difference between that and numerous other processes is the 'someone' rather than 'lots of sounds and blips'. That's stating the obvious, not misisng it.

That women are trained and forced to respond to some stimulii better in order to survive I have no problem with. That this might make them generally better empaths, likewise. But making up distinct processes, especially ones that others use to justify certain roles, that's different.

"This might sound like a totally odd question, but why is it important to get men into "women's jobs"?"

Cos to remove the distinction between 'men's' and 'women's' jobs they all need to be open to all. By concentrating on 'women' into 'men's' the distinction remains. You still have jobs that are separated by gender. They should all be gender neutral and you don't do that by having 'men's jobs with the addition of women' and 'women's jobs'.

It's like how some people are happy for girls to wear 'boys' clothes, but then aren't happy for boys to wear 'girls' clothes. That means girls are indulged as being like boys, but the distinction remains.

If women are just indulged as being 'allowed' to do what men do, but the distinction is still there, then it is very easy to 'send women back to the kitchen' (as there is an attempt to do so now).

I also think that patriarchy shits on men too. So what about the man that wants to be a primary school teacher, a nurse, a social worker etc? They should be able to be who they want to too. Getting rid of patriarchy does not just benefit women. But this isn't my biggest priority, as patriarchy shits on women more.

I didn't say that there was no sexism. There is pressure to conform to stereotypes. There are still barriers of opportunity.

'Do we therefore conclude that the reason that women "choose" different subjects at school and university, and go on to earn less than men, and not rise to the top of their professions as much as their male counterparts, is basically because they;re a bit thick?'

it has nothing to do with being thick. I think youa re equating clever with male. I believe there are differences between the sexes and even in some of the things that they are mpre interested in, but this doesn't make any sex thick. Many more young women choose to study English literature than men. I think that is because they are interested more in English literature than a subject like aeronautical engineering. Most men are also not interested in aeronautical engineering, but I think there will be more that are interested in that than women are. I don't think that is due to social conditioning.

I think that the capitalist system determines who earns the most money, and I think that if you are interested in money, then you should take Xenia's advice and follow her example and choose to enter professions that pay the most. I don't think that these high paying roles are more valuable or better than other less well paid jobs.

I don't think the capitalist system cares what gender you are as long as you can earn for it. JK Rowling earns more than probably every male author, because she created books that sell in their millions. That is what is rewarded by the capitalist system.