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?

@Bumpitybumper it was a shock to me visiting friends in the Netherlands with my ds1 at 9mo to find them stunned I was still on maternity leave. I like many others had thought the scandi social experiment had resulted in expectation of a decent length mat leave as the norm but my friends wiht their own small children said oh no we all go back to work at about 4m in. All of us very similar financial services / professional services big 4 background.

So is the message?:
Being a SAHM: biological, natural
Working: the result of socialisation

how do you know which is nature and which is socialisation? Is it purely based on feelings? What people are pointing out is that its nigh on impossible to find out what would happen if we had NO gendered norms at all so there is really no point in trying. Additionally, trying to find out whether there is some biological essence of womanhood is likely to be harmful to many women. You can still improve conditions for all women and improve choices without resorting to biological essentialism.

@GCAndProud
Yes, this. They imagine that feminists must be judging them so get super-defensive Except everyone on this thread (or at least the vast majority) are feminists themselves. I am the opposite of a conservative woman but have a different take on sex based differences. I define myself as a radical feminist.

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
All correct and all clear examples of how public policy and socialisation is working towards pushing women away from spending time at home to raise their children. Another example is how women are penalised disproportionately for spending time out of the workforce so even a few years at home can setback a career massively, even though there are clear policy changes that could be implemented to help minimise this.

You are right to warn women about this, you are wrong to suggest that society and the law has to be this way.

@Suddha Women in general excel in verbal ability, whereas men have better visual-spatial skills.

If you had two people interviewing for a job involving visual-spatial skills, and they appeared evenly matched except one was male and one was female, would you give the job to the male based on your bias here?

I am increasingly concerned at the number of people taking stuff like this at face value and how this informs their own actions. It's a form of prejudice and even in the face of HUGE scientific studies showing the below, people stick to them.

This study (cited in a previous post) looked at studies of a total of THOUSANDS of people.

With the explosion of neuroimaging, differences between male and female brains have been exhaustively analyzed. Here we synthesize three decades of human MRI and postmortem data, emphasizing meta-analyses and other large studies, which collectively reveal few reliable sex/gender differences and a history of unreplicated claims. Males' brains are larger than females' from birth, stabilizing around 11 % in adults. This size difference accounts for other reproducible findings: higher white/gray matter ratio, intra- versus interhemispheric connectivity, and regional cortical and subcortical volumes in males. But when structural and lateralization differences are present independent of size, sex/gender explains only about 1% of total variance. Connectome differences and multivariate sex/gender prediction are largely based on brain size, and perform poorly across diverse populations. Task-based fMRI has especially failed to find reproducible activation differences between men and women in verbal, spatial or emotion processing due to high rates of false discovery. Overall, male/female brain differences appear trivial and population-specific. The human brain is not "sexually dimorphic."

www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0149763421000804?via%3Dihub

@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.

I haven't seen that as a predominant view here, although there are probably some feminists somewhere who believe that. But this seems to contradict your agreement with GCandProud that feminists aren't one homogeneous group. We are all individuals with different views, and the assertion that we're all man-haters who want to live in a female-only commune is straight out of the '70s anti-feminist handbook.

I define myself as a radical feminist.

A radical feminist who supports biological essentialism?

No, that is absolutely not the message. The argument is that women as a class may have a biological propensity towards certain things, so in the parenting example it may be to spend more time with their children when they are young. As with all things, this will not apply to all women and it is totally normal and natural to not have this longing. However, the potential fact remains that a significant proportion of the parents that would like this extra time are women as opposed to men.

But what is the best way of supporting those women with this longing? We can seek to override this through socialisation and public policy as in the patriarchal society we all live in the choice to stay at home with your children FT or PT comes with a heavy price. This is the course we have currently taken and one that many women (absolutely not all!) have expressed concern and distress about.

Or we can look to change the system so that public policy and socialisation support women in making this choice but also looks to minimise any disadvantages they may experience as a result of exercising their choice. Schemes to get women back into work, reviewing the taxation system and changing divorce law could all be looked into.

You are right to warn women about this, you are wrong to suggest that society and the law has to be this way.

I’m not suggesting it has to be this way. Currently though, it is. It wasn’t great before either tbh. It’s much better that there is reliable state provision than women needing to rely on a man.

Either way these issues can be addressed without resorting to biological essentialism. All the scientific evidence points away from the existence of a lady-brain but non-scientists on here are convinced that is wrong. Why?

@OldCrone sorry, I don't think I've made any sweeping generalisations about feminists. Some have acted the way @MalagaNights has suggested, many haven't. It is a view I have seen expressed on these boards though in some threads so definitely exists.

I recognise and celebrate the diversity in feminism.

No, that is absolutely not the message. The argument is that women as a class may have a biological propensity towards certain things, so in the parenting example it may be to spend more time with their children when they are young.

For the umpteenth time, why do you want this to be rooted in biology? Why is it not enough to say that women currently do perform certain jobs and do spend more time than men with their young children and that these jobs/activities tend to be devalued? Why are you keen to prove that actually this is part of some biological nature inherent to women? I must say that it sounds the total opposite to radical feminism.

No, the evidence is not definitive and is contradictory in lots of areas.

Yes, I'm a radical feminist that believes biology is relevant to discussion on differences between the sexes. I don't think every difference is driven completely by biology and in some cases I'm not convinced it plays any role at all.

Biology is relevant as it helps us to understand the why. Why do we make certain choices and behave in certain ways. Without this how can we begin to imagine a society that based meets our wants and needs and understand how to achieve it. The childrearing example is a good one. If we assume women want to stay at home with their children because of socialisation you would take a completely different approach to this than of you assumed it was because of a fundamental bioogical urge.

I'm still struggling, OP, to see why you're focused on brain traits and are now using these seemingly interchangeably with 'desires and wants'.

LOADS of people 'desire and want' not to have to work for someone else. LOADS of people 'desire and want' to do a fun, exciting, challenging yet achievable job. This is hardly dictated by people's natural skills and abilities, but again, shaped by countless factors in life. If my brain showed that I was inherently lazy, would that be justification for me not having to work?

Is your belief that, for every job that is required to be filled, there is someone with the matching psychological makeup that would be doing it, who isn't because of stigma? Or that people are doing the right jobs (as far as they can) but aren't being paid appropriately?

I’m going to mute this thread now but all i will say is that labelling yourself something doesn’t mean you are that thing. Radical feminists fight against biological essentialism and always have done. You, on the other hand, are embracing it. That’s what people used to do before feminism - what you are saying is not new. We moved away from that because it is harmful bullshit. You want to revive it for god knows what reason and you have convinced yourself that it won’t fuck women over like it did time and again in the past. I’m out.

If we assume women want to stay at home with their children because of socialisation you would take a completely different approach to this than of you assumed it was because of a fundamental bioogical urge.

But again - WHICH women? How do we differentiate between those that do and don't have a biological urge? You do seem to be making huge generalisations when you say things like this as you are treating 'women' as a group who act in the same way.

The reason I do what I do with my days (not saying what) is solely down to a paragraph in my employer's policy that made it practical. Not a biological urge, not socialisation - it was that that was the deciding factor between certain types of work/being SAHM.

Insisting that I must be acting on a female psychological desire is just wrong.

If we assume women want to stay at home with their children because of socialisation you would take a completely different approach to this than of you assumed it was because of a fundamental bioogical urge.

Would you? What would the different approaches be? Can you give some examples?

I take your point, when I write 'women' I mean women as a class. I don't mean all women want to do the same thing but that the majority of parents that have a desire to stay at home on FT or PT basis with their children may be women, even if this is a minority of the overall population. As discussed previously, proving the origins of this desire is almost impossible but I feel on the balance of evidence it is likely to have a biological component.

So say for example, 40% of women have an interest in working PT or not at all in order to stay at home with their children but only 5% of men had the same interest then women clearly dominate this group and it is a feminist issue. We don't necessarily want to socialise or incentivise women to act against this interest as who would that serve?

I don't understand your point about the paragraph. Do you mean you chose your job based on a specific paragraph around flexible working or something of that nature?

Well if you assume socialisation and perceive staying at home with children to be damaging to a woman's career and financial security (which it currently certainly can be) then you would seek to change the way women are socialised in order to get them back to work and to equalise childcare responsibility between men and women as much as possible.

If there is a biological component then we need to look at why staying at home with children is so heavily stigmatised and penalised. We need a holistic review of all aspects of society to make sure that they are supporting this as a valid and equal choice as those men and women that choose to go out to work.

Basically socialisation = no reason why men and women can't do the same thing and be equally happy. Biology = this isn't the case

So say for example, 40% of women have an interest in working PT or not at all in order to stay at home with their children but only 5% of men had the same interest then women clearly dominate this group and it is a feminist issue. We don't necessarily want to socialise or incentivise women to act against this interest as who would that serve?

So would you change the socialisation for this 40% only, or all women? Socialisation starts from birth. How would you know which 40% shouldn't be socialised to expect to be able to do other things with their lives than be wives and mothers? And even within this 40%, shouldn't they also be encouraged to believe that they can do other things with their lives - both before having children and once their children have grown up?

You do seem to be arguing for a world where all women should be socialised to expect to be wives and mothers before and above all else.

I don't understand your point about the paragraph. Do you mean you chose your job based on a specific paragraph around flexible working or something of that nature?

Yes, my decision re the type (hours) of employment was due to a workplace policy. I made a call to discuss with HR, and I had decided to either do A or B depending on the outcome. Obviously, my setting those parameters could've been influenced by my preferences - how much of a commute I was willing to do, other quite major practicalities, but I genuinely think that 'the kind of things I like and personality traits' was a very minor consideration, and most people would've done the same in my position except for people who want to work at all costs or want to stay at home at all costs.

But on paper, this could be viewed as 'she had X kind of brain but chose to do Y' as if there was some big correlation.
This is why I keep banging on about being clear what you are measuring and how.

If there is a biological component then we need to look at why staying at home with children is so heavily stigmatised and penalised.

It's penalised financially because no-one pays you to do it, outside of mat leave and child benefit. So what would your solution be, practically speaking? I think the mat leave I had on offer here by my employer was very good and helped me get what I wanted - a year off with my baby and PT work when I returned (this is a different time to the 'employer policy' decision I mentioned before).

So campaigning for better mat leave pay, higher child benefit - sure, I can get with that. But equally we need more high quality, available and affordable childcare, so the women who want to go to work aren't penalised financially for that.
Which is hardly news to feminists?

Childcare is the issue here. Many women can’t afford to work because childcare costs too much. Don’t get me wrong; good quality childcare should be expensive. But it shouldn’t be left for individual women to pay for. Because that means women with high salaries can afford to keep working while lower paid women are forced to stay at home and lose not only their current job but also their future prospects too. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Childcare needs to be state funded like it is in many other countries, and available seamlessly from the end of maternity leave.

I think it is far more likely to be that women may approach relationships and people interactions slightly differently and there is some hormonal/sex based driver for that than that women naturally prefer staying home with kids!! And to adjust for the first you don’t say ok you should stay home with your family, you take it into consideration in your team dynamics and culture measures for whether the workplace is meeting womens needs- I’ve done a lot of employee satisfaction surveys and none have asked do I enjoy interactions with colleagues, do I think I would like more personal interactions with other teams etc, and I’m thinking on the spot here. I’m not any kind of stereotypically feminine woman, and not particularly good at the empathic supporting other people stuff, I could do with being better at it tbh. But I can easily think of different approaches to measuring workplace satisfaction that might be more tailored to what is seen as a woman’s approach. ( Which even if it is nurture we might as well be doing still, but I’d always prefer to understand the drivers rather than go it doesn’t matter. It may matter, if not in this example then elsewhere. Knowledge is power)

Being discriminated against by people who assume a man would be better at certain skills purely on account of his sex probably doesn't help their prospects either.

Radical feminists fight against biological essentialism and always have done. You, on the other hand, are embracing it.
I just don’t understand why everyone is so adamant that men and women are the same. Because ultimately what that means is that women have to fit into a world designed for men. Equality hasn’t changed the world to accommodate women - the world is the same and women have to act like men. This was seen most strongly in the 90s “ladette” culture where male-female equality basically meant women behaving like men.

If we admit that men and women are different, then we can change the male world to accommodate women. Equality isn’t just women having the freedom to do the same as men - it’s living in a world that accommodates both men and women equally.

Take the office as an example. I see a lot of women working the inflexible hours that would historically have been worked by a man with a wife at home. That doesn’t fit when you have caring responsibilities. And equally the man no longer has a wife at home but is still expected to work as if he does! Office temperatures are unsuitable for women, who have a lower metabolism and therefore prefer a slightly warmer temperature. Even the car she drives to work has probably been safety tested with a male crash test dummy.

It’s ok to acknowledge that we’re different - that allows us to understand and accommodate our differences. Insisting that we’re all the same helps nobody imo.

@Bumpitybumper - I don’t think the govt or society value long-term sustained working in many professions. The data is all on training more nurses, doctors, teachers and not on retaining the ones that are there. I think that unfortunately society doesn’t value good quality care work and there isn’t that much progression (you can’t get much extra by having more experience or being v skilled).

Why do women do it more? I think because they are encouraged to pick a job that follows their interests rather than looking at the whole package (pay, flexibility etc). I would support care workers being paid more, but in this climate I think it is hard.