In a gender neutral future Utopia

[tsonlyme]

...would men and women behave in a similar manner?

If we abolished the social construct of gender stereotyping and children were raised with no gender bias in any area would men and women be indistinguishable from each other in their behaviour? Is behaviour nature or nurture? Is its root in socialisation or sex specific hormones/physiology?

Or is this an impossible question to answer unless it happens?

Every society has different ideas of what constitutes 'acceptable violence' so we have to stop thinking of them as natural states.

It used be brilliant entertainment to watch people hang for various misdemeanours.

And before that sending someone to the lions was a genius way to spend a day.

Other cultures engage in cannabism.

The culture shifted and normal people find these things abhorrent now so I do think it's possible to move toward a mostly non violent society. If the will was there.

It would be interesting to see how gender was presented when male aggression was no longer seen as natural

elevenclips you must surely realise that your anecdotal evidence of 2 children reared in our society which is flooded with messages about sex stereotyped behaviours is utterly irrelevant? Unless you live on a remote island with no TV, books, magazines, other people, etc etc and you were incredibly careful to avoid all gendered expectations of play from birth, and carefully analysed your interactions daily with both children to ensure no gender bias. And even then it's still pointless as you have a sample size of 2.

"Neither child had been to nursery. Both had spent all their time with me."
....
"They saw me do manual tasks such as building furniture. They saw dh do tasks such as cooking. I did not bring them up or socialise them as girl/boy."
There is a difference between the role you and your dh performed in front of them though, wasn't there? If they spent all their time with you, then they were brought up with a SAHM?

I mean that as no criticism, I am a SAHM myself at the moment, but I am also aware that no matter how caring and involved a parent my dh is at the weekends and evenings, my dd is still learning that mum is the primary carer. And she knows that she is a "girl like mummy".
Even if she went to nursery full time, this message would still be enforced as most of the staff at nursery are female.

It is almost impossible (if not actually impossible) to insulate our children from cultural influences.

Ok so let's assume that you take a group of humans and raise them genderless. Then the only difference would be brain chemistry (testosterone etc)

I still feel like this and the physical differences would define roles

And my dd build towers with her blocks, most of the time. Then knocks them down. Or gets me to build a tower so she can knock it down whilst cackling hysterically. Sometimes she is very caring with her dolls, other times they act out scenes from her life/Cbeebies. In the garden earlier she kept trying to whack me with an Alium seedhead, because she was a "bad guy".
Her favourite game is to act out what happens at nursery (where she attends part time) with various toys in tedious detail.
I think all of that is within the range of normal toddler behaviour, for both girls and boys.

Kursk, do you mind me asking if you are male or female?

@elevenclips I noticed the sorts of differences in play preferences between my two DC too - except both of mine are DDs. They just have different preferences because they are individuals with different personalities and tastes.

I think as said upthread the male/female brain has been thoroughly debunked, but given our own upbringings and social conditioning it would take generations to remove their influence and only then would we find out which behaviour are inherent and which learned.

squishysquirmy

I don't mind I am female why?

kursk you are talking bollocks.
Male seahorses brood the eggs and go through a process similar to labour to produce babies.
Male penguins equally share egg brooding and chick care with female penguins.
There are many mammal species where females are dominant leaders (e.g hyenas, African wild dogs, elephants).
Biology doesn't tell us anything about the "natural" expectation of human behaviour.
FWIW I do think there are likely to be some sex based differences as our babies are so dependent on their mothers for feeding for an extended period after birth. But I'm not sure that equates to differences in behaviour in other areas

think all of that is within the range of normal toddler behaviour, for both girls and boys.

It isn't and also we have confirmation bias.

I've sat there and watched girls running riot and building blocks and jumping and fighting etc in play groups... only for people to comment when they see a group of girls then do something 'girly' about how girls and boys are all so different.

Like all the other stuff doesn't count.

If you had said male I was going to pick up on this comment:
"I still feel like this and the physical differences would define roles"
and bring up the rational male vs intuitive female stereotype. I wasn't asking to be nasty or weird or anything.

Gina, did you mean it is within the normal range? Just that your post pretty much backed up what I said in my post?

Oh duh yes. I was agreeing with you. I'm tired. Ignore me

squishysquirmy

Interesting comment, I know that I am in the minority with my thaughts and I am fully expecting to be overwhelmed to the contrary. But I do believe that there is a difference outside of social constructs

Kursk, I think that that there may be some differences, but they would not be nearly as pronounced as they are within our society, and that the differences between the sexes would not be as large as the differences between individuals, iyswim. I don't know this for a fact, and I don't think I ever will unless I live to observe OP's utopia.

I think the sex based difference make it easier to oppress women and give a reason for men to oppress them so I think unless the culture evolved and weeded that out it would continue to happen. I think that's down to humans being atseholes really. Men being physically larger and not bogged down by breeding gives them the upper hand, so I think it's more physical than mental

The basic building block of society is mother and infant.

What men do or not do in society is fairly arbitrary in comparison.

There's no reason for men to behave in the same way that women do; giving men a social role of any kind requires planning.

That is perhaps true if we consider the "basic building block" to be the foundations of the building. Which bear all the weight yet are tucked underground out of site and largely taken for granted unless something goes wrong.

'Perhaps true' suggests that it perhaps is not true.

Surely it is self evident?

Well yes, Sylvia it would suggest that.
No flies on you are there?

That sounded arsier than I meant it to, sorry Sylvia. I need to go to bed!

It's okay! Don't worry.

I always find these threads quite interesting. The nature versus nurture argument.

If you stripped away social conditioning, I think the differences would be fairly minor. If you switched the social conditioning, I think it would obscure the differences entirely.

And it was amazes me how mothers assume their daughters choosing dolls makes them feminine, then completely ignore a boy in bed surrounded by fifteen teddies.

Or playing with a G I Joe or Action Man. Or super heroes.

It's the toy company that genders these little humans for children to play with.

Anecdotal, I know, but my son loved his Barbie, until he came home from school aghast because someone had told him it was girly.

Took his action man into school the next day. Suddenly not girly. Heartbreaking.

It's sad isn't it Datun, when they suddenly realised things are "for boys" or "for girls". My teen DS has been told he's too soft because he likes playing with babies and toddlers. Fucking ridiculous

One thing that's interesting for me is crying. Now I know there's an extent of social conditioning in that it's less socially acceptable for men to cry, but DH just does not cry. I cry at the slightest thing, it's a physiological reaction, and he just doesn't understand because he doesn't get that reaction. Part of me thinks women have more natural empathy as incentive to protect our children, which men maybe don't have (speaking purely in terms of the roles we would have fulfilled in a hunter-gatherer society), and that's where the crying comes from.