Devaluing female/feminine behaviours

[BelleCurve]

I've been thinking about how easy it is to devalue typical feminine behaviours (sparked by the raising a boy thread), unconsciously avoid dressing boys in pink etc.

This carries over to the workplace - I work in a very male dominated environment and remember even from school that to "get ahead" you had to act like one of the boys.

Before my post-natal feminist re-awakening, it seemed for a long time to me that women just had to try harder to be more like men, and those who didn't were letting the side down.

Obviously, the attitudes are very deeply ingrained but if I have to sit through one more "women, you should be more assertive to get promoted" presentation I will scream!

I've seen some blog posts about this issue on here a while ago - any Mners with better memories?

I see this all the time. I am a lesbian and one of the things both I and my DP hate is the devaluing of typically female traits that a lot of lesbians seem to adopt - certainly amongst my age group. Being "girly", more passive, into traditionally female hobbies such as sewing is definatly given a lower status than more typically male behaviour such as being good at DIY, ambitious, dominant, etc. Having bdeen a tomboy is also valued.

It drives me wild. Of course feminism is about challenging the idea that women are naturally less ambitious, etc,but this doesn't mean that some women aren't that ambitious for example, and that there is anything wrong with this.

It's not 'typically male' behaviour. It's leadership behaviour. Take all the modern trappings away, put a group of random women all in a wilderness fending for ourselves and we'd be looking for people with good ideas and a bit of chutzpah to direct the shelter-building and rabbit-hunting. They always emerge in any task-oriented group situation whereas others are happier in a support role. In a team situation everyone can add value but not everyone is comfortable standing at the front taking responsibility.

It is what is stereotypically seen as male behaviour though. Of course women are just as capable as men of taking this on. But the point is the devaluing of the other roles and skills women bring - and men as well. Stereotypically female traits in men are also highly devalued.

I was musing on a recent thread too - I wonder if women are seen as more empathetic because so often the default view/opinion shown in the media, pop culture etc is male. So, as we're constantly being bombarded with the male POV it's easy to imagine ourselves in their shoes and see the "male view" of things.

Conversely, because of the lack of female views and opinions in the media and society, it's not as easy for men to see the woman's point of view - it requires actual thinking and perhaps speaking to women themselves if they've never been in that position. Hence, men = rubbish at empathising, women = cones naturally to them. Whereas probably most people are somewhere on the empathy scale, but women don't have to look as hard to find the views of the opposite sex.

Interesting you say that, Bertie! I was just reading about a study of empathy and the results showed women tended to do better at reading people's facial expressions overall, but men were just as accurate at decoding other men's facial expressions (much less so women's) as the women in the study were. That seems to add support to your hypothesis.

oooh I like the thought train Bertie / Inmaculada: I remember reading somewhere (on the subject of kids media) that the reason why girls will watch a boy protagonist but not vice versa is because they have such great empathy skills, and I remember thinking "or it could be that they have no choice!".

Even empathy skills, which we think are so innate to girls, could be a result of the fact that girls can't cocoon themselves off in their own world in the same way as boys can.

I think you're right, messy - I don't think girls (or indeed, boys) are innately empathic at all. Those studies that seemed to suggest female infants were more tuned in to emotions show on faces etc. have since been held up as deeply flawed. The rest showed no significant difference between infant girls and infant boys in that regard. It appears empathy is something that is learned, like most things. Nothing to do with gender, as far as I can see.

What amazes me though is how tightly people want to cling onto gender differences. Time after time these supposed differences are shown to have so many cultural factors mixed up in them, yet so many people want to see innate differences wherever they can.

And even if there were innate differences, which would have to be very slight given all the evidence we now have, one could argue that girls therefore should be taught spatial skills and boys empathy skills in order to give every child a well-rounded set of talents, rather than emphasize the differences.

It's as if people WANT girls and boys to be different, and really, why would they want that? Lol, I realize that is an incredibly naive question!...

As far as I know, empathy - or, more accurately, theory of mind - begins to develop at around 3yo but isn't fully formed until about 20yo. It's the final stage of growing up. This is in both genders. The development of TOM is profoundly influenced by environment, culture and factors such as love, security and friendship. There's a possibility, then, that by following gendered stereotypes when dealing with children, we actually inhibit this development in males.

I wanted to reply to your post, BelleCurve, where you said I think also some of the supposedly feminine traits are great for channelling women into more shitwork - empathising and communication - great for caring, poorly paid roles. Spatial awareness, better for engineering etc so obviously you can't be as good in these higher paid, higher status roles.

It's interesting that those roles used to be very highly-rewarded ones, conducted mainly by men. The scribes, the doctors, the readers and even the actors were male. When typewriters brought secretaries, they were originally men and the role was high status. The "chicken and egg" is, I suspect, a matter of the status dropping as the role becomes filled by women. If most engineers were women, I'd bet some other profession would have its status and pay levels would be lower.

This would mean the qualities were not assigned to "channel" women into low-status roles, but the roles became associated with low status because they have become associated with women - and so did the qualities. I find that much more scary, tbh!

And Another Thing ... I keep reading that assertive women are denigrated in the workplace, but that honestly hasn't been my experience. I've seen highly assertive or aggressive women reach positions of power by being that way - which is a problem in itself, imo. But we need to be careful of the assumptions we make when talking about male and female qualities.

AlanMoore, I am SO heartened to hear about your partner's workplace! It sounds like huge strides towards what I'd consider a sensible approach to business, and has really cheered me up

how tightly people want to cling onto gender differences - Were you on the Man Has Baby thread, messy? It demonstrates your point quite well (and sadly.)

garlic butter Remember this?

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3527184.stm

Bears out your view about status falling when careers increase the proportion of females. Dr Black was pilloried by some at the time who misunderstood what she was trying to say i.e. that working practices should be looked at to make it possible for more women to take part in the high status specialties, activities, organisations, advisory roles etc that senior doctors needed to undertake. She wasn't trying to say it was bad that so many women were becoming doctors......

Ooh, no, I hadn't seen that! Thanks. I did see a study of varying professions (teaching was a biggie, I recall) that proved the point graphically.

It's a hard point to get across. I liked Maureen Baker's comment on that page:
"If a higher ratio of men or women working within a profession is deemed to be reducing its status then there is a problem with the very way society views the abilities of the sexes."

Yes, indeed, but did everyone think Dr Black was part of the problem rather than a flag-waver?