Physical Vs psychological difference between the sexes

[Bumpitybumper]

So Mumsnet seems a very gender critical place when it comes to physical sex based differences. The majority don't support men competing in the female category in sporting competitions or men being allowed in single sex wards or changing rooms. The reason being men and women are so fundamentally biologically different that an ideology can't just erase these difference.

However I have noticed that the majority do not support the assertion that male and females may be psychologically different and as a class have different inclinations, behaviour and desires. Many reject the idea that girls may be drawn to different toys, subjects or types of play than boys. They reject the idea that women may naturally have predisposition as a class towards certain occupations and hobbies. They simply cannot accept that women have different desires when it comes to having children and also raising them and the role they play in providing care.

I feel like the insistence that men and women want the same things and behave in the same way is because traditional feminine occupations and interests have been so undermined, undervalued and used to repress us in a patriarchal society. Rather than explore the idea of what women have a natural biological propensity towards and seeking equal value for these things, it is easier to suggest our feminine preferences are all a result of socialisation and conditioning and actually our underlying psychology is the same as men's. This seems very dangerous to me and almost playing into the patriarchy's hands.

Am I alone is seeing this distinction in how physical and psychological differences between the sexes are viewed?

I agree, there’s a biological basis for cognitive differences between the sexes. Women in general excel in verbal ability, whereas men have better visual-spatial skills. Children of different sexes generally prefer different types of toys; this is borne out by studies with monkeys. There’s a visible difference in volume in certain areas of the brain between males and females. The female brain changes again in later life in response to pregnancy hormones; it’s resculpted to focus more on social attachment and these changes last for at least two years. Female brains with autism are more similar to the average male brain. There’s a lot of very reliable research on these topics and I’m not sure why it’s so controversial. We already know that male and female bodies are different so it make sense that there are brain differences too.

It’s not about having more social manipulation, it’s about having less.

It can't be if there are innate reasons you'd have to provide social reward for acting against natural instinct.

Indeed this was expressed earlier about steering women away from caring career choices they may prefer due to the financial penalty, which I get, I'd counsel young woman in this way too, but if many will continue to make those choices anyway despite social reward not too, then what??

Then can we face the reality and talk about how to support those women beyond saying everyone should just do as they're told?

@Bumpitybumper @RoseslnTheHospital
how do we make care work and childcare higher status/pay? market forces push the pay downwards because they are jobs that many people have the skills to do. I suppose being a nanny for a rich family can pay well (though long hours and probably fairly high skillset).

that is not to say we can’t act against market forces - maternity leave, paternity leave, minimum wage are not set by market forces. Would you propose just raising the wages of care/childcare workers? Do you think the population would agree? If the population would take time to agree - what would you propose in the meantime? economics would say that women who have alternative better paying options than care work should opt for those (providing the job wouldn’t make them v unhappy) - then supply would decrease and wages increase.

My original point was meant to be that our biology will influence our behaviour. I suppose this incorporates both traits and states and how they interact.

Our socio-economic class influences our behaviour. Whether we have children influences our behaviour. The weather influences our behaviour. The political party in power influences our behaviour. Our health, religion, music preference, where we live, almost countless factors influence our behaviour. Again, I'm wondering why you're so focused on aligning sex with behaviour, if it's just the behaviour itself you are interested in? Is your goal to be able to point to a protected characteristic and say 'this influences the jobs X group of people enjoy, so we need to make sure anything affecting these jobs doesn't disproportionately affect this group of people'? Can't we just advocate for a group of people as themselves instead of trying to force some proxy measure into a sex binary?

But this thread veers from there is no evidence for any innate behaviour difference. Prove it.

To even if there was knowing wouldn't help.

To this discussion is bad.

Then back to all difference is socialisation.

It's circular

You do realise there are many different people contributing to the thread, right? It's not just an essay written by one or two people?

Yes maybe all human behaviour for thousands of years just started and continued as an evil plot to suppress women and is in no way related to reproductive roles influencing behaviour and decisions like with all other animals, and no evolutionary drives at play, just manipulated socialisation to oppress women.

Have a look at what I wrote earlier then please confirm whether you are referring to my claims with this statement.

When we had no CHOICE about reproductive roles - i.e. until about 5 minutes ago, historically speaking, of course they would dominate the activities we were forced into. Same with manual labour forming most paid work.

The point is, we as a society have not caught up. Attitudes about 'women belonging at home' are handed down from generation to generation. Even in 2022 we see men talking about their wives 'maybe getting a little job for spending money', if they're lucky, until they have kids to be looking after.

We are beginning to see the outcomes of women's choices slowly starting to filter through. Guess what? most women aren't choosing to have 7 or 8 kids 'because that's their desire or inclination'.

It’s absolutely nature and nurture and I think it’s ridiculous to deny it. Nature has a huge influence on the set of innate preferences and attributes that form our personality- you have only to look at the separated twins studies where they have the same favorite colour and marry women of the same name in the same month etc. as others say there is almost no clear evidence on the extent to which the nature drivers are sex based; given sex influences every cell in your body I’d be very surprised if there’s no influence. Violence being one- that is absolutely not just societal. I have a stem background and a degree in maths for the record and one of my sisters is also in a very stem career. I worked on a trading desk as the only woman so naturally am aware of the measured links between testosterone and risk taking - i can’t lay hands on it while feeding the baby (and may be paywalled) but there was stuff showing higher testosterone on traders profitable days, and there are certainly a few studies in this area www.nature.com/articles/srep11206
so it doesn’t seem out of line to hypothesise that there is less natural inclination on average towards gentle caring jobs for men, although the magnitude of the inclination may as others say not be large. And the other thing is that eg being the primary carer of a baby does I think (not my area, dim memory of having read this) rewire the brain a little, and perhaps it better orients men towards caring.
One thing I find very interesting is the growing data on diverse boards creating a more profitable company. The results are clear that a diverse board (often defined as more than one woman; not just a lone representative who can be dismissed) increases profitability. This is both something measurable and does seem worth exploring as a sex difference; women who get to ftse 100 boards are noticeably not women who have always been strongly oriented towards traditional caring roles.

It’s hard to fit a measured view into a post- to be clear I don’t believe there are intellectual differences or that there is any evidence at all for that, but I do believe we do not fully understand the brain or the human body and there seems some evidence worth exploring of innate differences in personality for want of a better word.

It is interesting that the majority of discussion about occupations women might have a biological predisposition towards have focussed on care and the lowest paid/status jobs in the sectors. Wiping bums etc has been mentioned numerous times and the assumption is that these jobs can be done by the lowest common dominator and require little skill or expertise. The assumption is also that nobody wants to do these jobs but women will end up almost matched to the roles because of their biological makeup. Well if this was proven to be true (which I don't believe it is as low skilled as suggested by any stretch of the imagination) then literally anyone can do the job requires so I don't think care work is at risk of having a strong biological sex bias so the right thing to do would be to look at societal factors that were causing the care sector to be so heavily dominated by women.

If actually though, it takes a certain skill set to be able to properly care for people for a sustained period of time and this happened to have a proven biological female leaning then we need to re-evaluate the job and look at benchmarking a carers role more effectively with other job roles with a more realistic appraisal of what it actually takes to be a carer and persevere in the job.

I know councils relatively recently did a benchmarking excercise and at least one found that traditionally male occupied roles (bin men) were relatively overpaid compared to traditionally female occupied roles that required a different but comparable skill, education and experience level. They increased the pay of the female dominated roles to reflect this and I believe froze the male dominated roles pay.

The question of how we fund care more generally is a greater question and involves all sorts of other factors. It is particularly tricky for women who rely on affordable childcare often provided by other women in order for themselves to go to work. Somewhere along the line though, you do have to wonder why this is such a women's issue when males need just as much care as females over their lifetimes.

As a human I don't just see my biology, but I feel it. It pushes and pulls me in different directions and to sometimes act against my own rational self interest. My biology is unique but also is female and I empathise (ironically!) with others who don't want to be erased or homogenised with men.

You seem to be taking your own desires and preferences, assuming that they are biologically driven and extrapolating from that to assume that women as a class share the same desires and preferences. I think that's pretty faulty logic.

We're discussing care in terms of paid work choices but in fact most care women do is of their own children.

Yes most women given choices don't seem to want to have huge numbers of babies and stay at home exclusively, but most women do seem to want children, and many of them, do want to at least work less when the children are young.

Now let's just assume that could have a biological basis, and if it did would acknowledging that help women?

Well yes we could then talk about what supports women in that vulnerable position from that position.
We can talk about it now, but much of that discussion is based on a solution of don't put yourself in that position and make a different choice, but if there is an innate propensity that solution is not going to work.

I think the conversation could then change to more realistic and practically helpful strategies like: don't have children unless you are married.
Marriage has been rebranded as old fashioned and just a piece of paper resulting in so many young women still choosing the financially vulnerable child care role without the legal protection marriage provides.

That's one change to the conversation we could make.

Also we could start to talk positively about the vital importance and benefit to children of a consistent care giver in the early years and shift the view of this to a highly regarded role in status (if not financially). Not that women have to do it, many would choose not to, men can choose it too, but I don't really see this type of discussion at all these days.
It's a role seen as a cop out and without value.

In fact one thing I think would help women is if we prioritised children more and talked about what they need, I think if this was really a priority for society the role of care giver (any sex) would have higher status.

And if it's women who will disproportionately choose those roles that's important for women.

Yes they are slow changes in attitude I'm proposing, but so is wait for evolution to catch up with how birth control has changed women's options, or let's see if we can change the human race through socialisation programmes only.

And whatever the solution we need it based in some reality of what women do and choose and how that makes them vulnerable.

Nope, I was just explaining the impact that hormones can have in my experience. Lots of studies have shown hormones to be powerful, it is not just a random anecdote. Do you disagree? I haven't assumed anyone shares my own personal desires or preferences. I haven't even discussed what mine are!

Literally everything you have talked about and suggested in terms of valuing care has already been said by feminists. They were saying this stuff 40 years ago and more. It’s also perfectly possible to value care more highly than to start some nonsense theory about how women are natural carers. Why isn’t it enough to recognise that care is vital for society’s survival (childcare and disabled and elder care) and that we should value people who do it higher? Why do we have to bring in hormones in the mix? Do you not get that that will play into the hands of misogynists who will rejoice at evidence that actually it’s against men’s nature to look after their kids?

As a human I don't just see my biology, but I feel it. It pushes and pulls me in different directions and to sometimes act against my own rational self interest. My biology is unique but also is female and I empathise (ironically!) with others who don't want to be erased or homogenised with men.

My biology does not 'push and pull me' and the only times I have acted against my own rational self-interest were in my mostly younger days when I stayed out drinking longer than I should have :)

My desires pushed me towards a career that was meaningful to me and towards financial independence that is definitely towards my own self-interest.

I know I am a woman but I don't feel in particular ways because I am a woman unless you include outrage at women's oppression.

I don't see feminists talking about that at all.

I think many feminists disparage those roles and women who make them.

I get that myself on these boards.

I've made people very cross with the supposedly dangerous statement: most women want children.

And people have argued they shouldn't.

I think many feminists are disappointed with the choices real life women make as it's not in line with the live life free of men and children restructure of the human race some feminists push for as a utopia.

I think most women don't, won't, and will never want that. And I don't think we can be reprogrammed to.

I don't believe that care work is undervalued. I think many people who are in the profession may feel like they should earn more but unfortunately care work is low value work because its not difficult in that most people can do it. Value of a certain type of work will only EVER become more valuable when there are less people to choose from to fill the positions. I know that's not what what many want to hear but it's the facts.

It is definitely undervalued. It is not merely whether there are lots of people who can do the job that determines pay. If a job is vital, it should be highly rewarded. Just because it is currently underpaid doesn’t mean that it has to be.

No, it isn't the 'facts'. It is your opinion . There is plenty of evidence to the contrary and it isn't an area that supply and demand will necessarily resolve as it would in other sectors due to the way that care is funded.

www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=www.carehome.co.uk/news/amp/article/id/1653050/care-workers-underpaid-7k-per-annum&ved=2ahUKEwj36-f41c_4AhXPbMAKHQBTAVwQFnoECAQQAQ&usg=AOvVaw1MUHhwHJYlul6elYVku2Fm

I would make a terrible carer and so would a lot of people I know. Most of us could technically do lots of jobs rather badly but I don't think it's fair to say that 'anyone can do it'.

Yes you have made your point. Well done. You have shown that you have little understanding of what feminists actually say and are just basing your ideas on a stereotype of man-haters who all want to live in a commune. That’s not actually what feminism is about but obviously if you come on here glorifying marriage and financial dependence on men, you will get some pushback.

Newsflash: most women (and men) do have children so obviously they want them. It doesn’t follow, I’m afraid, that most women would therefore like to be SAHMs and not have access to their own income. Some do and some don’t - it’s nonsense to say it is biological because it varies so much and also varies from country to country. Feminists argue for good quality affordable childcare, giving women the choice of working if they want to rather than being forced out of work for financial reasons. They also promote flexibility in the workplace, meaning that work is not necessarily incompatible with caring responsibilities. In countries where women are given more options (good social security available, basic income, cheap childcare), women do tend to opt to stay in the workplace.

I think many feminists are disappointed with the choices real life women make as it's not in line with the live life free of men and children restructure of the human race some feminists push for as a utopia.

I think many conservative women are disappointed and threatened by choices made by other women (who are also 'real life' by the way) and they seek to paint these as unnatural.

Oh I see someone has mentioned the baby chimp toy preference study! One of my favourites. The study showed that female chimps enjoyed playing with puzzles, dolls and trucks equally. Male chimps had a strong preference to play with the truck only. And therefore… er… actually it’s unclear what this really means , but boys love cars !

It annoys me slightly when people come along and say “surely it’s just common sense that male and female brains are super different.” No it’s not. Actual neuroscientists are not that interested in “sex differences” in the brain because the human brain is remarkably unaffected by sexual dimorphism compared to other mammals like rats.

when I studied graduate neuroscience the consensus actually was the effect of hormones on the brain homogenises male and female brains to make us more behaviourally similar and not less. We used two brain atlases interchangeably - one of a male brain and one of a female - and no major differences were noted. Humans just don’t exhibit significant innate cognitive differences on the basis of sex. The only reason sexed brains seems commonsensical is because differences between the sexes are artificially induced via gendered socialisation.

Yes, this. They imagine that feminists must be judging them so get super-defensive.

Feminists are right to warn women that giving up work is a risky endeavour though. Many women don’t think that divorce will happen to them until they find themselves in their mid-50s without an earning capacity or proper pension provision. It is a myth that divorce laws will offer sufficient protection too. Over the past few decades, financial provision has been scaled back and divorced women often face considerable financial hardship. It would be negligent not to warn against that.

@GCAndProud
Feminists aren't one homogeneous group as you suggest. @MalagaNights is completely right to state that some feminists (especially on these boards) are very opposed to women taking on certain roles or making choices that are deemed to be anti feminist and regressive.

In countries where women are given more options (good social security available, basic income, cheap childcare), women do tend to opt to stay in the workplace
No country is without socialisation. In Sweden for example, probably one of the countries you are alluding to, the social stigma associated with being a SAHM is extremely strong. Combine this with a perceived economic necessity to work and it is unsurprising that most mothers work. Just because the stats show a certain % of mothers work doesn't mean the choice to work was made freely and aligns with their own internal core desires and wants. That would be the same as saying that most women actively choose to be housewives or SAHMs in the past because such a high percentage of women took on these roles. Of course, we know in reality that there were many factors limiting and shaping women's choices in the past and this will be true in Sweden today.

So it's not a 'nonsense' that biology is likely to be involved. You would expect to see variation by individual or by society because biology interacts with the society we are a part of to influence our choices. For example, if the taxation and benefits system was changed to provide a greater incentive for people to stay at home with their children (on a PT or FT basis) then this would likely mean that more women would opt to do this. Their fundamental desires haven't changed but the economic realities on acting upon their desires has.

I thought of another trait that is measured by brain imaging. It turns out that a select group of people have brilliant knowledge about London's road layout, and this is shown in brain imaging. These people are drawn to jobs as London cabbies, showing that brains can match professions!

... now obviously that is perhaps not the correct way of reading the data around this, but worth bearing in mind when we are talking about brains and being drawn to jobs.

Yes, this. They imagine that feminists must be judging them so get super-defensive.

Feminists are right to warn women that giving up work is a risky endeavour though. Many women don’t think that divorce will happen to them until they find themselves in their mid-50s without an earning capacity or proper pension provision. It is a myth that divorce laws will offer sufficient protection too.

I totally agree. My personal view is that marriage is a crock of patriarchal shit and does exceptionally little to protect women. I certainly never had any desire to be a bride.

Also, if we accept that the sexes are behaviourally different and that this is innate, then surely we accept the old higamous hogamous rhyme where 'naturally' she's monogamous and he screws everything in sight and spreads his seed (after all, it's biology innit and look what the animals do). To that end, surely we accept that marriage is unnatural and affairs are totally natural for men ... :)