Preferences dictating gender roles

[Jadefeather7]

Hi

I was hoping one of you wonderful mumsnetters could help me.

Currently in a discussion with someone who thinks preferences should dictate gender roles eg if there’s a study shows women overwhelmingly like men who are breadwinners, women should be housewives kind of thing. I want to give an example of why preferences shouldn’t determine gender roles by giving an example of a preference which we accept as one that we don’t want to promote. Can anyone think of anything? Would be so grateful!

I'm not sure what you describe are universal 'preferences'.

It seems to be this kind of reasoning for example;
"I observe many children working in slum factories in Bangladesh.
This must clearly be a 'preference' of Bangladeshi children.
Therefore it is right that we consider it a Bangladeshi child's role going forward."

The reasoning is broken.

So it’s not so much that they are drawing conclusions from observations eg all their friends like housewives so that must be universally true, it’s that they have studies in which large numbers of men and women were interviewed about sexual preferences and based on the findings from those studios they think we should have traditional gender roles because men and women have preferences for them.

I guess I’m looking for something like “80% of people said that they like steak”...but that doesn’t mean we should encourage red meat consumption because we know it’s bad for the planet, linked to cancer etc. I just feel like that’s a poor example and I was wondering if someone can give me a better one or at least eloquently describe why we don’t do such a thing.

Are you talking universal preferred enforced gender roles at population level or preferred gender roles decided at individual level?
Very different.

Enforced gender roles at the population level

Why we no longer enforce universal gender roles- because gender nonconforming people always exist and they get killed or imprisoned by society or are driven to kill themselves.

But what’s the point of “having gender roles” in that case? If most people have those preferences, for whatever reason, they can go ahead and do those things no one is stopping them?

Or are they under the mistaken impression that the feminazis of the world are in the business of knocking and doors and “liberating” housewives? And in any case if that worked wouldn’t that also demonstrate said preference is pretty malleable?

The point here is that average differences do not translate to universal differences. Many people will conform many people won’t. Leave us alone ye “gender trads” and seek out each other.

People might have preferences for things based on socialisation and culture.

Girls are taught from a very young age to engage in household work, (help mummy with the washing), while boys often get a free pass on tasks and see their fathers doing a minimum at best. They see the same thing replicated in the media and the world around them. So girls learn that they should do housework and it’s their responsibility.

And there are structural reasons why women are more often housewives. Women are the ones who bear children, so there is an expectation they’ll stay home to care for them. Women generally earn less than men, so it becomes “sensible”, for the higher earner to remain in the workplace.

The thing is, it’s impossible to know what humans, men or women, would do without the influence of socialisation into gender roles. So what such studies are measuring are not natural or innate preference, but the success of socialisation.

Men get to have preferences for all kinds of interesting and energetic activities that are not housework, precisely because cultures teach women that they should care about housekeeping, whatever their real desires.

It’s a religious people who think that gender roles are backed by science because according evolutionary psychologists and surveys men and women prefer Traditional gender roles.

@DancelikeEmmaGoldman I agree that socialisation point is definitely one that I will be making. They seem to think that these are preferences that we are born with and that are hard wired into us because of our genders. I think they attribute them to differences in our hormones

I think everyone wants to be equal in a lot of situations , but it's always obvious the real thoughts of people when there's a spider or a bin needs to be taken out. That's always a mans job somehow. Not everyone of course, but to me that shows the difference in people that automatically that's the male area , if the options there x

religious people who think that gender roles are backed by science because according evolutionary psychologists and surveys men and women prefer Traditional gender roles.

Ok but yet again who cares? What should be done differently if it were scientifically proven (can’t be btw) that people on average prefer trad gender roles?

And Again Those are average differences. Or does this person believe that every person is identical? Are they blind or don’t understand statistics or both? And what a boring world if everyone were the same...

Well because they are religious they believe we have to guide people on how to live and religion provides that guidance by promoting gender roles. They want to show that’s its a position that’s backed by science as that will give it more legitimacy

If it’s a matter of faith or gods will why should whether it’s supported by science matter? It would still be holy to police gender roles whether or not science backed it being “natural”.

Murder is after all natural. Naturalistic fallacy etc.

They take pride in following a religion that claims to be Rational and backed by science. It’s nuts. I just want to show that this particular idea is unscientific

But if we are hard-wired for our gender roles, wouldn't every culture have the same gender roles?

And wouldn't I be good at housework and childcare?

*But if we are hard-wired for our gender roles, wouldn't every culture have the same gender roles?

And wouldn't I be good at housework and childcare?*

Women are better at social cues, men have better spatial ability (object rotation). So they've proved empirically for decades.

Theres even stuff on sexuality and these kinds of behaviour and how it's all predetermined before birth. E.g., lesbians more masculine, gay men more feminine. Stereotypes come from somewhere don't they?

Women are better at social cues, men have better spatial ability (object rotation). So they've proved empirically for decades.
No they aren't. It's impossible to do a scientifically correct study on it because that would require a sample of people with either no socialization or exactly the same one between men and women which obviously doesn't exist. The studies can only talk about differences between men and women under current socialization/life conditions. That tells you absolutely nothing about any innate abilities.

It's a really interesting area. I'm afraid I can't help, but I've always been interested in getting more women into STEM. I'm in a very technical area and noticed that a lot of my fellow female co workers are from countries with poorer outcomes for women than the UK (majority are from India) or they were heavily sheltered and religious when younger (like me!).
Studies have shown that women from socially liberal countries, are more likely to go on into "womens professions" such as nursing.
Here's a link to one if you are interested eprints.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/4753/6/symplectic-version.pdf
It depends how you interpret it. Perhaps it's good that women have the choice.
It could be gender inequality is linked to highest economic disparity, and in those countries there's more pressure to go into a stable well earning job. If you do go to uni, better make it worth it!
It could also be that obedient women bright to traditionally might find it harder to say no to their parents, and rather than go into something creative and caring they do as they're told and follow their test scores.
Perhaps STEM is a sensible choice for those wishing to gain independemce - again because it leads to a sensible job.
Like others have said, maybe the same gender roles just aren't in place.
I think it's interesting and it would be valuable to find out why.

What is an evolutionary psychologist?

Theres even stuff on sexuality and these kinds of behaviour and how it's all predetermined before birth etc. etc.

Have they done tests on embryos and foetuses in utero and could predict not that they were going to be Lesbians, but masculine Lesbians to boot? Wonders will never cease.

They should have do predictive tests for other things as well. Then I wouldn't have wasted a fortune on piano lessons for a child who then gave it up. It would have saved me a bit if hey could have predicted that for me.

Is sexuality being bundled with other behaviours here? Not sure I am comfortable with that

Heterosexual behaviour is a sexuality. Whether its nature or nurture, fact is males are better at object rotation and navigation compared to women.

Theres a reason why some occupations are dominated by males and others dominated by females. I think nature and not nurture. Think about how many men want to work in early childcare settings and how many women want to work on a construction site.

Men are object focused and women are people focused. On average.

@Jadefeather7

So it’s not so much that they are drawing conclusions from observations eg all their friends like housewives so that must be universally true, it’s that they have studies in which large numbers of men and women were interviewed about sexual preferences and based on the findings from those studios they think we should have traditional gender roles because men and women have preferences for them.

What have studies on sexual preferences got to do with gender roles?

This sounds like a group who are both homophobic and misogynistic - I doubt there is much point trying to engage seriously with them.

Do you have links for the studies they are talking about? Impossible to discuss properly without those really.

@aztecnik

Heterosexual behaviour is a sexuality. Whether its nature or nurture, fact is males are better at object rotation and navigation compared to women.

Recent studies have shown that women's ability improves to match that of men, on average, when they get training. It's now thought that this alleged ability derives in large part from the types of toys given to boys and girls and subjects studied, And like most other abilities (apart from childbirth and lactating) the ability is an overlapping bimodal distribution. Some women are better at this than some men. I've always been good at it, and my job involves a lot of 3d visualisation and rotations (and doing the maths to make it happen too)

You're being ridiculously simplistic.