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.

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

no, I didn't say that. But on the whole, I believe that there are more men interested in those things to a greater degree than women. Not all men, most men aren't.

Couldn't disagree with you more claig, both of your posts.

The assumption that women are not interested in the more mathematical sciences. It's depressing.

'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.'

empathy is that unique human skill of understanding and putting yourself in another's shoes that a mechanical robot created by the artifical intelligence scientists will never be able to replicate. It is a unique human skill and women are better at it than men. That is why it is such a valuable skill, because the world is made up of people, not visual stimuli, and interacting with people is the most important skill.

Claig do you believe that women do not study aeronautical engineering because they do not wish to do so, or because they are not capable of doing to?

'The assumption that women are not interested in the more mathematical sciences. It's depressing.'

I didn't say that all women are not interested in mathematical sciences. But I think that more men are interested in those things than women. I don't think it is depressing, because I don't think that mathematical sciences are the be all and end all of human achievement. I don't find difference depressing. I think that difference and diversity is great. I find uniformity depressing.

'Claig do you believe that women do not study aeronautical engineering because they do not wish to do so, or because they are not capable of doing to?'

because more women do not wish to do so.

I also think that this is fortunate if you are interested in money, because I am sure that Xenia earns far more than any aeronautical engineer, whether male or female.

And you don't think that's anything to do with the fact that boys are pointed in the direction of "doing" toys, construction toys, things to do with helicopters, aeroplanes and trains.

While girls are pointed in the direction of role playing, grooming activities, and given dollies. Most famously, dollies which say "math is hard" when you press their tummies.

All of that is coincidental to the subjects that people pursue when they get older?

It used to be the case that medicine was a "male" discipline, what with all the sums and science. Women didn't do it. Now they do. Is this because women's fundamental natures have changed in the last 60 years or so?

Is it inconceivable that in another 60 years we might see women entering the field of aeronautical engineering in large numbers?

at that last piece of guesswork on your part, do you actually know how much xenia earns, and how much a top aeronautical engineer earns?

I am boggled at the idea that the fact that women apparently choose to do english literature over sciences, is good for them, as this means that they have the keys to enormous wealth in their hands.

Funny how women still earn less than men, despite women having all the advantages in their studies that way, isn't it.

claig

We're never going to agree on empathy because you just don't get the point. I understand what empathy means, and why it might be more valuable than blips and sounds. I also understand that 'driving' is different to 'flying a plane'. It's just that basically the object of the process is more important, not the complexity and nature of the stimulii. So, if women are better at empathising, then they are also better at all other cognate tasks.

But ISNT makes the point far better-what you are claiming is that women are innately basically better at doing all the things that should make them run the world, but aren't doing so becasue they innately don't wish to. Which works well as a natural explanation of the status quo, but makes little sense otherwise.

Nobody is saying that 'male' roles should be valued more highly. But the flipside of that is that women should just accept that what they do is great, accept their lot in life, emapathise with Hubby after a day naturally directing folk, and persuade him to give them a little extra housekeeping, because that role is valuable too.

But the basic problem is the back formation and contradiction. You argument runs 'men and women do these things, this is because they are programmed to do so', what we need to do is to accept this but view them equally. But if naturalised back formation from a simplified present is an argument, why can't we just accept that men's roles are ntaurally going to be valued more highly than women's because they currently are?

I'm off to bed anyway, have fun

'And you don't think that's anything to do with the fact that boys are pointed in the direction of "doing" toys, construction toys, things to do with helicopters, aeroplanes and trains.'

I think people have distinct personalities and inclinations and skills, and I think that they tend to follow those inclinations over time. I think that women didn't receive an education in the olden days, so they were not able to enter medicine. I think that medicine is a caring profession that helps people and that is why more women and men are interested in it, than in a mechanical subjects.

I doubt we will ever see more women in aeronautical engineering than men, because I think it is intrinsically a less interesting subject, and therefore fewer people are interested in it, and I think the few that are will probably always be men in the majority.

I am not sure exactly what Xenia does, but with all her private school fees, it sounds like she earns more than a top aeronautical engineer. How many top politicians are aeronautical engineers rather than barristers?

no i don't think that, because teh majority of boys are also not interested in aeronautical engineering.

They are fooling people telling them to become engineers. they always do that when there is a shortage of cheap labour. They say there is a shortage and try to encourage people to become engineers, and that way they keep the wages down and the capitalists make more profits. Ask Rivem , her husband is a top engineer who has invented things and he earns nowhere near what barristers, lawyers and financiers earn. Don't fall for the engineering trick.

'But if naturalised back formation from a simplified present is an argument, why can't we just accept that men's roles are ntaurally going to be valued more highly than women's because they currently are?'

but I don't think that men's roles are moe highly valued than women's. It all depends what job you do. The capitalist system ascribes value and it doesn't care if you are male or female. As Xenia always says, a binman is not as highly valued as she is in her job. Everyone decides what path they will follow, and if they choose the wrong path (such as engineering in my opinion) then they can't complain that Cherie Blair earns more than them.

claig

My last post. What you are saying throughout is that you have identified innate differences between the sexes. The method you use for identifying those differences is to state 'society is produced by choices, these are the choice people make, therefore these are the traits that are innate'.

There are huge difficulties with that as a line of argument-principally that choices are not free. Hence what would be 'innate' would vary according to when and where you were. To give you more credit, you might be arguing that in modern European capitalism chocies are free, but that is not something most feminists would agree to simply because 'anti-discrimination' legislation exists-it ignores the day-to-day reality of the lives of women and men and substitutes an idealised and simplistic model in its place.

But, to return to the OP, I don't really see how that tells her what feminists think, because I don't think any feminist supports a naturalised model of the status quo.

I think you need to remove the credit you give me. I do believe that on the whole we are free, we can decide what subjects interest us and we perform well in subjects where we have natural inclination. The majority of teachers are women, I don't think that they are holding girls back and preventing them studying science. I do believe that science is less interesting to the majority of girls and boys than a subject like English or history. That is why fewer undergraduates choose to study physics. I think this is the free choice of pupils. It also makes sense from a monetary point of view, because physicists will be paid less than financiers anyway, even though it is a much harder subject. It is also true if you are interested in power. Scientists and physicists are backroom people and politicians, spin doctors and power brokers rarely come from a science background, apart from Margaret Thatcher, who got a chemistry degree. However, she soon dropped that and studied for the bar, as most of them seem to do.

I'm with claig here. THe reasons 'male' things enable them to run the world is because men do them, pure and simple

WHat that means is, anything men do is given a higher value because men do it.

SHopping? The Buyers- glorified shoppers- of shops are among the highest paid employees in a company. WHo are they? Men, of course.

A C.E.O of a company has more flexitime than an employee on a supermarket checkout (I know because DH is the boss and can easily get time off whenever he wants). So does that mean more women are CEOs (because it fits round the kids) and more men work on supermarket check-outs or in low-level office work? Does it hell.

Physical labour, Farming for example. It must be men doing it because they're stronger, right? WRONG. More than 80% of the world's food is grown and harvested by women, who own less than 10% of the world's land.

In Japan, maths is a "female" subject, because women are considered to be natural bookeepers. Literature is seen as a high-brow, intellectual pursuit, beyond the reach of women.

Men and women being different or the same is irrelevant here because Whatever men do will be valued because they do it, and by consequence more money and power will flow in their direction. They will used cultural means of excluding women (city bankers/businessmen entertaining clients at strip clubs etc)

This basic tenet of male dominance must be understood.

Writerofdreams: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

I'm not trying to say that there are NO differences between men and women but I m trying to make the point that they are greatly influenced by society. Men and women both have testosterone and oestrogen. In differing levels granted but not hugely so and a big part of the difference we see in real life is down to socialisation.

but as　we've seen: for millenia, women have done the bulk of the physical labour for the human race: carrying water, the drudge of housework, horticulture/farming/hoeing, down the pits, the cotton mills, standing up in factories during the industrial revolution.... the list is endless.

Men, OTOH, have always had the cushy, light, prestigious, high-paid jobs (law, medicine, economics, science) that they traditionally excluded women from on the basis that their brains (or was it their wombs?) couldn't handle it.

The physical donkey-work for the human race has been done by low-class women accross cultures.

Again, really interesting posts. I agree with Claig's point of view to a certain extent, in the sense that in my extensive experience of education, both as a psychological researcher and a teacher I have seen the amount of encouragement, and in fact, near-coercion that is involved in attempting to get women more interested in science and engineering. In fact, when I was at school I attended a week-long event in a local uni that was specifically aimed at getting women into these more male-oriented arenas. Results of these initiatives have shown they have very limited effect. Numbers of women studying these subjects does increase slightly as a result of these initiatives. But then usually what happens is that women drop out or change direction, so that the actual numbers of women staying in these careers stays pretty stable. Essentially the women who would have chosen them without the intiatives stay on. Research has shown this is not due to discrimination but lack of interest. You can't tell people what they want to do, basically. Women tend to choose more people-oriented occupations rather than science and engineering. Given that women birth and take care of babies their people-orientation seems normal and to be expected. That's not to say for a second that they should be the sole carers for children. It's just that because the survival of a species requires the person most likely to be there at the child's birth (ie the woman) to have a huge investment in that child, it would make sense that women naturally have a greater affinity for meeting the needs of people and wanting to be around people rather than machines or chemicals.

At the same time I totally understand and agree where other posters are coming from when they say that regardless of differences, mens roles tend to be more highly valued than womens. How do feminists believe this situation came about? It had to arise somewhere, so is there something innate in men that makes them more dominating and more likely to demand money and status (which has led to their stronger position in society) or is there something in women that makes them more submissive? Culture didn't just spring up ready-made, it was shaped by who we are and how we think. So how come cultures across the world, which differ so much, tend to value men and devalue women? Where did that come from?

Are we innately capitalist beings who will value the breadwinners over the carers no matter what?

I would like to get back to the study about high flying women "choosing" to step down.

In today's societly, I don't see it as much of a choice. Look at the general attitudes - a male CEO (with children) is a CEO. A female CEO is a horrible mother neglecting her poor kids and should not really have them if she does not want to take care of them.

A SAHM is doing the most important job in the world. A SAHD is a useless waste of space who should move his butt and get a real job.

We mentioned at some party that in case we happen to have children, my DH will be the one staying at home. People actually laughed as obviously, such an absurd statement can only be just a joke..

So no, I don't think those women in the study changed their minds because of biology.

writerofdreams

Nobody is saying there are not patterns in any society which suggest that men and women within them don't want different things or behave in different ways. And nobody is disputing, although we would have different opinions on where boundaries lie, that 'men' and 'women' have some differences.

But there is a powerful trend in post-war western societies in particular to link those things with 'natural causes', as you do with 'childcare' and claig does with everything. That argument has a huge hole in the middle: here are two believed differences, so they must be related.

And the problem with that is that the differences in desire are culturally speciifc but the differences in body cannot be. If you visited 17th-century London you would find women excluded from political coffee clubs becasue they supposedly naturally lacked skills in social interaction, conversation and language use. Now you find them excluded form the same societies because they are supposed to nturally have those skills but they are deemed irrelevant.

And any broader perspective produces similar occurences, which suggests strongly that some aspect of the logical chain is broken, is extrapolation when all we can say is 'we believe in two differences', not 'there is a definitie link'.

agree entirely with WriterOfDreams. I believe the differences are caused by nature, they are natural and they exist due to the major difference between women and men i.e. childbirth. I believe that women are naturally better at reading and understanding people precisely due to the fact that nature intended this in order to protect children.

Also agree entirely about the majority of women preferring people oriented subjects as opposed to mechanical subjects. This is also true of men, but I think there is a higher proportion of men than women who are drawn to mechanical subjects. This doesn't make anybody superior, it is just a difference in interest and inclination.

All groups who have power are by necessity conservative, because they wish to maintain that power and privilege. Men try to hold onto their power and privilege by valuing what they do and undervaluing what women do. However, this is changing fast, as women enter occupations that were previously male only. It is capitalism that is freeing women and giving them the chance to enter these occupations and outperform men. The barriers are being broken down. However, capitalism values some jobs higher than others, because it is able to earn more money from those jobs. As Xenia so often says, women need to enter those jobs if they want to earn the high rewards that capitalism offers. Men will not be able to hold women back easily, because in a free capitalist competitive socoety, capitalism will favour those who can produce the most wealth regardless of gender.

'is there something innate in men that makes them more dominating and more likely to demand money and status'

yes I think there is. This is not true of all men and women, but on the whole, I think there is a higher proportion of men who are more ruthless, single-minded and driven than women. I think it is a yin/yang type thing. I think it is again fundamentally related to people skills and caring for other people. I think that there is a proportion of men who are extremely ruthless and anti-social and care nothing for others, and it is often these types that rise to the top, because they are prepared to do anything and sell their souls for power. If you look at ruthless criminal gangs, they are nearly always led by ruthless, vicious, anti-social men who are prepared to go to extremes that most men would not contemplate. I think they exist because nature cares less about men and their role in the preservation of the species, and that is why these outliers exist far more often amongst men than women.

However, none of this means that we should accept discrimination. All doors should be open, all subjects should be studied and discrimination must be dismantled.

"Research has shown this is not due to discrimination but lack of interest. You can't tell people what they want to do, basically. Women tend to choose more people-oriented occupations rather than science and engineering."

OK, but you have no way of telling whether this is due to "innate differences", or socialisation.

It would be interesting to see if there is a difference in the subjects taken at GCSE and A-Level between girls from mixed state schools and single-sex v academic private schools.

Claig you are talking a lot of balls about engineering. You honestly think there are no jobs to be had in engineering - encompassing the entire telecommunications industry, energy (coal, gas, oil, nuclear, refineries, power stations, transmission systems, energy conversion systems in our houses), computers, software, everything we walk on or travel in, sports equipment, buildings, a whole variety of entertainment equipment, producing music, television and film, almost everything we touch, use and see, and so on and so on almost endlessly? That is a bonkers argument.