Are/should male norms be the benchmark for female 'equality'? Should 'femininity' be prized too?

[ChesterBelloc]

Inspired by an interesting comment on another thread:

"What I find interesting though is that in all the (justified) talk about equality the standard is set by a male, testosterony , capitalist set up. For a woman to be successful she must do what men have traditionally done. That’s great. But why does no one tell young men that they should aspire to do the roles that women have traditionally filled? Because caring is not valued as highly as producing. And that is a bit of a problem in my opinion."

Two contentions there:

1. female success is now measured against traditionally male benchmarks (financial independence, professional success - though I would also add the 'equality' of her personal relationships)

2. caring roles (traditionally associated more with women) are not valued as highly as 'producing' roles

I absolutely believe that every human life is of the same intrinsic value, and absolutely do not believe that men are 'better', or that what were commonly considered 'masculine' traits are more important/valuable than 'feminine' traits. They're not a binary, or a hierarchy: they're just different.

However, I do believe that the work that women have traditionally done (keeping house, raising children, caring for elderly family members etc) has been steadily de-valued, and is now considered 'drudge work' that can/should be done by (mostly) minimum-wage workers, freeing up women for the far more important, worthy task of competing with men for success in the capitalist labour market ignoring the fact that those who work in the 'caring' professions are overwhelmingly women, looking after other people's children/parents rather than their own. Why is caring work only considered a worthwhile use of one's time if it has a wage attached?

This could turn into an essay, so I'll stop there, and simply ask if you think that men and women should aim for identical life outcomes (clearly impossible in the face of the biological need for future generations), or if there is any mileage in the idea that the sexes are different, and that the more 'female-associated' traits should be considered just as much of a strength as the more 'male-associated'? For example, is female biology (including menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding) a hindrance that needs ever-more sophisticated work-arounds, or something we should prize as a society (for example, making considerable adjustments to accommodate it in the labour market)?**

I'm expecting lots of disagreement with most of the above, but I'd appreciate a civil discussion!

Oh. And ps I am an archaeologist who studied human evolution specifically. Hominids really are not very sexually dimorphic. It's hugely difficult to determine sex based on skeletal evidence. Early on in our evolutionary history (ie early australopithecine) there was more dimorphism which steadily reduces as we move towards anatomically modern humans

Thanks tomato

I’m on the molecular side myself ;) good to have the bones confirm ...

Well I have a biology degree and I'd say we are dimorphic- you can look at a man and woman- tell which is which easily without having to see the genitals- that's dimorphism.

I'm not saying we can excuse men's behaviour with respect to prostitution, porn etc... but yes men are more driven towards sex than women and more draw to visual stimulation. Otherwise why wouldn't women pursue these activities?

I am not an expert in any of these fields, but I would point out that, apart from the primary physical differences in anatomy between the sexes, there are also secondary differences in things like hormones, for example, which occur in different types and levels in men and women, and have different physical effects. Higher levels of testosterone are a FACT, and they have physical effects on men, that they don't have in women because we have less of it - and have higher levels of oestrogen which have other, different effects on us.

I think it's disingenuous to say that, apart from basic anatomy, every other different between men and women is a product of societal conditioning.

"yes men are more driven towards sex than women and more draw to visual stimulation. Otherwise why wouldn't women pursue these activities?"

It's hard to argue that men and women are identical in all respects, including these two, without also concluding that women must therefore have developed greater self-control in order not to behave the same as men here - which would be to admit a difference between the two groups at population level!

We are a very adaptable species.

I think its silly to pretend that men and women are physically and hormonally the same and therefore there is no difference between them.

I don't think these differences have any impact on whether someone can be a judge, policemen, nurse, accountant or retail assistant. I do think they might change how someone delivers those 'services' and I do think currently the male way of delivery is seen as the right way.

I also think there are jobs that suit smaller, delicate fingers or big strong muscles and currently big strong muscle jobs are seen as good and delicate little finger jobs - less so.

I would broadly agree with you - and I think a HUGE part of the problem is that wherever there are differences, a hierarchy of value comes into play, and both men and women tend to view those traits/occupations associated with women as being of less value. The term 'motherhood' being a prime example. "I'm a parent, he's a parent; apart from the insignificant matters of pregnancy, birth and breastfeeding heavy sarcasm, we can offer exactly the same things to our infants."

Being 'equal to men' seems to always end up as 'doing the same as men', which is fine if you genuinely believe that we are all just 'humans', rather than 'men' and 'women', but I personally believe that the sexes are different, and that it is through the presence of both that human society is richest. I do think that mothers and fathers are different, and that a child is best served by having both, because they can offer different things.

We will never be able to prove, either way, the extent to which evolutionary needs/social norms/'the patriarchy' moulded men and women into different kinds of human beings; I do think that if we try to dispense with all these differences, we will one day regret it.

I'm aware that this view puts me beyond the pale, but there we go.

Well I have a biology degree and I'd say we are dimorphic- you can look at a man and woman- tell which is which easily without having to see the genitals- that's dimorphism.

That’s secondary sexual characteristics- the point isn’t that men and women are identical. It’s that in species where there are massive sex differences in role there are also massive differences in physiology. We don’t have those.

A delicate chap could quite easily be dressed up as a woman and pass muster if not looked at too closely. You couldn’t pass off an alpha male baboon as female, or a peacock as a peahen. Or a mature male elephantvseal as a female. That’s a level of dimorphism that’s well beyond tits and bits, so to speak, and we, as humans, don’t have that. We aren’t very different at all. That doesn’t mean we have NO physical differences.

Whether or not biology is an influences our capacities or behaviors, much of what is often described as 'femininity' certainly appears to be socially constructed and done so in order to restrict women's choices.

There is very little evidence that women are innately neater or cleaner than men; Instead women have been socialised to believe that control over the 'domestic sphere' is an area of competition with other women. Women are not born with a focus on fashion; Certainly history shows that men can be as great or greater peacocks than women. Even the competitive guilt over parenting is established through women focused media, with no evidence that it is biologically based.

All of this serves to generate an artificially high 'mental load' on women. It burdens them with entirely delusory and unnecessary concerns that serve as huge and pointless distractions. How many women struggle in the workplace because of concern of how others regard their parenting? Or waste time in the mornings picking out just the right outfit, or doing makeup, when it has no impact on their capacity to work?

Men are socialised away from such concerns, taught to regard all the above as frivolous obsessions and therefore unburden themselves of a great deal of pointless mental effort. It's as if half the species were brought up with the most intense kind of 'catholic guilt' and the other half taught to be relaxed, free spirited Buddhists.

Masculinity apparently has it's challenges, but femininity is just designed to break people.

Peacocks are extreme ends of sexual dimorphism. Humans are dimorphism- maybe younger males could pass as females but in general the appearance is a giveaway.
Thinking about a previous poster who said her husband took 6 months off- I think this would be a good way to go, maybe men and women should each have a year off each compulsory, women and then men so child is at least two then there's no difference between sexes and baby/family benefits. Then I thought too much economical burden- but why? Since men and women both went into workplace surely we should be better off to be able to afford this, but we aren't. Houses, bills, food all so expensive it's a stretch on two wages. Why are we being kept poor? Don't have the answer here.

I think that was me Missy but actually I said I think if he had taken 6 months off we would have been equally responsible for caring. Sadly he only took two weeks!

I'd love to see society put equal value on paid work, unpaid caring work at home, and volunteering outside the home (regardless of who was performing them). So that both men and women could experience a mix of these things over their lifetime as it suits them rather than focusing on having or not having a career. That's why I'm pro the universal wage. But this is getting a bit off topic! I don't see that caring work as being inherently feminine

I absolutely agree that it makes for a very unhealthy, over-stressed society when it requires two full-time wages to run one home.

As more and more women entered the workplace, and family units with two incoming wages became more commonplace, I suppose prices (of property/rent etc) steadily rose alongside opportunistically. A rather toxic side-effect of women's lib.

Even better than the suggested 1 year out of the workplace above, I think would be a re-structuring of the job market around a shorter working week (25 hours?), which would make it far easier for two parents to share childcare (once breastfeeding had ceased), and give all parties better quality of life, more leisure time, and less stress. The housing market would also need to be re-jigged though, to ensure housing was still affordable.

Also, by having more women in senior positions/boardrooms (which you seem to be so against OP), things can improve which will enable more women to not have to "juggle it all"!

E.g. My mum's boss made a rule of "no meetings after 5pm".

A rather toxic side-effect of women's lib.

Or a rather toxic side-effect of men not stepping up to their caring duties.

I agree though that ideally the workplace would be restructured to allow two parents to work 3 day weeks - the couple I know who do that have the most balance family and life that I've ever seen.

"having more women in senior positions/boardrooms (which you seem to be so against OP), things can improve..."

Where on earth have I said or implied that, Yolo?!? I have nothing against women being in senior positions or boardrooms!

"Or a rather toxic side-effect of men not stepping up to their caring duties."

Not really, Fizzy, unless you lay the blame for 'life costs inflation' at the door of working men - which would be rather unfair, surely.

Sorry, there should have been an apostrophe in there - I meant 'the inflation of the cost of living/housing'.

There’s no correlation between two person working households and increasing house prices. That’s down to supply and demand. In fact the country has more single person households than ever before because of the aging demographic and the increase in single parent families.

I think the reduced hour working week, or fewer days sounds great. When women entered job market, it should have made things easier- work place labour shared, then technically people should in theory have more free time to care for children and older relatives. If both men and women had more free time- it would be practical divide caring responsibility equally. I think caring is low paid because there is such a demand as people struggle to afford it- local authority can't afford to pay carers much. If people had more free time to look after their own children and relatives there would be less demand for carers and the wage therefore could be increased.
House prices should have been capped, to me the economy is not balanced fairly against income. It's like the price of everything is too far inflated against earnings. Working hours are not balanced practically against the need for time out of work.

House prices just increased stupidly high, it should have never been allowed to get to this.

House prices increase depending on what banks are willing to lend.

If banks didn't lend out hundreds of thousands of pounds, house prices would very swiftly drop.

Yolo-
Yes banks are definitely partly responsible for this mess.
I mean even now house prices are still increasing, with super high inflation completely out of sync with wages. It's ridiculous and harmful.
If house prices weren't so high, men and women could work less hours- they'd be free to do child care and look after relatives. This would save local authority money. It makes sense but we're locked into a vicious cycle of just trying to keep up.

Every thing is out of line with wages, it's making us all relatively poorer. We're working more, getting less and having to pay others to do our childcare and look after our older relatives.

"The housing slowdown means that the average home in Britain has increased just over £3,000 in value (or £16.79 a day) since the start of the year, according to analysis by Zoopla. The property website found the typical home was valued at £304,469 as of 30 June, £3,309 more than in January. By contrast, the average property value increased by £13,852 in the same period last year."

From an article in guardian this year, £16 per day raise in house prices, per day- in a "slow down". My wage isn't going up by that much so why are houses.

We're working more to make up for the lack of appropriate wage rises. what we should be is earning more so we can work less. The labour in the work place was shared so surely the caring could have been shared
as a natural follow on. Instead we're now all working more, not being paid enough and no one is home to do the caring.