35% of people think...

[MIdgebabe]

Do you agree That men and women are born to have different roles

Question in the current BBC quiz on morals. Apparently 35% agree with that statement. 44% are unsure.

But of an odd question in someways,,,biologically we do have different roles ( sperm producer or woman for example). Socially we are born to different roles through gender constraints beyond our control. But cognitively it seems that there is no discernible difference,

Is it just a dumb question Or is it a loaded question?

Bins. That's definitely the man's role in the Navidi household.
Everything else is pretty evenly split.

Cognitively there's plenty of difference imo.

Oh! Interested in the perceived cognatative difference as to date I have seen nothing that supports an innate difference.

Roles in what context?

It isn't clear what the question is asking. If it's asking are there any different roles the answer is obviously yes. It isn't as if men can give birth.

If it is in the context of employment or household tasks the answer is no.

I'm surprised only 44% were unsure if they didn't provide context.

Midgebabe, cognitively it is my understanding that the bell curve for men is flatter than for women on various measures.

IQ is the best known example, so the average is the same but there are proportionately more men at both extremes.

There is way more variation within each sex than between the sexes though so such differences don't even begin to amount to 'born to have different roles'.

I suppose you could argue that physiological differences, which are far greater than any cognitive variation, between the sexes, make men more suited to certain roles (heavy lifting) and women others (those requiring fine motor skills) but even then there are members of both sexes capable enough that sweeping statements of 'born to' aren't very useful.

Well I think that men ejaculate sperm and women make eggs and can give birth. But I realise this is a very old fashioned viewpoint.

The idea of separate male and female roles harks back to a more sexist age in which there were 'women's jobs' (paid less) and 'men's jobs' (paid more, seen as superior) and in which the home and childcare was seen as completely within the female sphere.

However, feminism's successful pushback against this idea that people's roles are limited by their biology has created an opportunity for confusion that has been exploited by TRAs and misogynists - that if there is no difference between male and female roles, then (they argue) that this reflects a lack of difference biologically.

Hence men can be women and women men.

Where it falls down as a theory is that of course feminism was never about denying biological difference - it was about denying the right to discriminate based on those differences.

And of course, just as the biology is real, the discrimination and oppression based on it is also, sadly, real.

And it's the discrimination and oppression that lie behind the need for single-sex facilities, all women shortlists etc.

And members of the dominant group cannot just identify into membership of an oppressed group and claim those protections - or it's as offensive as Rachel Dolazel taking jobs and rights aimed at black people.

Is the extremeness for the males innate or could that even be a result of society? It seems to be that obsessive /extreme behaviours are more tolerated in boys? ( or it may just be the people I work with)

In my house the division of roles is: -
I carried the children until birth and DH provided the sperm. Everything from then on has been split.
Actually he's ended up doing a lot more since my health went down the pan. However doing laundry and cleaning hasn't caused his willy to drop off.

Is the extremeness for the males innate or could that even be a result of society?

That's the real question isn't it? I have no idea how one could set about answering it ethically, it would require the removal of test subjects from society. I suspect the answer is a bit of both and you also have to question exactly what it is being measured and how. IQ is a very crude measure of a very limited sort of intelligence for example so what it tells us isn't that useful.

I think there innate behavioural differences dues to different hormones. Men are more inclined to risk taking behaviour, particularly when young, and this seems to be driven by testosterone, the levels of which drop as they age, but that is a hormonal (ie physiological) rather than cognitive difference.

In a single-parent household blue jobs vs pink jobs is a luxury that isn't an option.

I've also heard somewhere that one in three homes (in the UK) is occupied by one person - who takes out the bins/does all the dishes/cleans up after the dog etc etc...

How do these people cope without a blue or pink partner?

Then there's the gay couples.

I think there innate behavioural differences dues to different hormones. Men are more inclined to risk taking behaviour, particularly when young, and this seems to be driven by testosterone, the levels of which drop as they age, but that is a hormonal (ie physiological) rather than cognitive difference.

I agree. Biology is more than physical bodies. After I gave birth to both my children I was simply flooded with this immense NEED to have them close to me at all times, and to care for them. My husband did not have even a fraction of that need.
I don't see why I should be ashamed of that, or apologise for it, or overcome it just so my husband should share the care 50-50. I think it's nature's way of nurturing human young and we should not politicize it away. I realise that some might find this view outdated. On the other hand, I believe we are coming full circle, in that many mothers are owning up to that difference in their responses to the very young.

If the question is just as stated, there isn't enough information to give an answer.
Biologically yes, generally, no.
And Horse has a good point that so many people live alone these days and do all of the jobs, regardless of what gender is supposedly more suited to them.

Now that I'm aging, there's no difference in the way I live to the way a man would live -- except perhaps sitting to pee, and even that is not the case in my household; my son, aged 34, lives with me at the moment and he sits to pee.
He also does virtually all of the housework. I didn't ask him to do it, he simply gradually took over doing it, and I allowed him to do so. I do chip in now and again, cooking and washing up sometimes, putting laundry in the machine, cleaning the bathrooms! But he does most of the domestic stuff, and there's nor one whit of difference between "living as a male" or "living as a female."

Basically the only difference is in regard to childbirth and -nurturing (in the early years), and physical strength; we tend to divide up neatly in those respects and choose tasks accordingly. Though I do know of one woman who is as strong as an ox; she can out-lift most men. But there are always exceptions.

with respect to cognitive differences, my reading of the scientific literature is -

• no differences in maths / languages etc
• v small differences in some spatial tasks, not clear if this is nature or nuture
• differences in variability at the BOTTOM of the scale - boys are more likely to have developmental disorders. It is not clear if there are matching differences at the TOP end of the scale and measures here are much more confounded with education etc
• differences in aggression with more aggression in males
• some differences in throwing distance

but I have yet to see any papers which make a case for differences in cognition that matter for the modern world of work. And all the differences also have big overlaps (smaller than for height). Just as you can't use sex to predict how tall a person is, so you can't use it to predict anything about that person's cognitive skills or personality.

There are variations and exceptions in nurturing ability too, of course. Men who actually have to do more hands on parenting are likely to be affected by the experience.
It's only the reproductive role which is an absolute binary (and even then, of course, not all people have children for all sorts of reasons).

differences in aggression with more aggression in males

Again I would question whether this is cognitive rather than hormonally driven.

Re risk and hormones - there was a study which found that women's risk taking or risk aversion varied during their menstrual cycle. IIRC around ovulation risk taking was higher than men's, overall about the same. (It wasn't physical risk being tested)

I don't know if this has been replicated or if they've run a similar study in post menopausal women v men of the same age.

I read the title of this thread “35% of people think”. And thought yup, about 65% of people probably don’t - about anything!
On the subject of gender roles, I’ve been a lone parent since DH died 28 years ago. Didn’t realise I should have been putting my blue hat on every time I put the bins out, re-wired a light, plumbed in a washing machine or plastered a ceiling. And my pink one for knitting the kids’ jumpers and cooking their dinner.
Gender roles my arse. Apart from pregnancy, there aren’t any.

The context of this question is in a 'quiz on morals' ... I'd guess it was meant merely as a simplistic proxy for 'socially conservative'.

Is there a link to this quiz available?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-50487054