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?

Suddha, please read the thread. People have acknowledged that there are differences between men and women.

People are arguing about specific traits and how little they actually differ between men and women - how it would be impossible to act meaningfully by assuming a man or a woman would be better or worse than their opposite sex counterpart at any particular skill because of their sex.

No, I'm not arguing for that.

I haven't mentioned being a wife. You have added this from nowhere. I haven't mentioned that women should be socialised in a way that encourage them to be SAHPs, nor do I think they should be socialised against this. You have made so many assumptions.

Of course women can be more than mothers and wives. You can have a career too, either concurrently or can take some time out on a PT or FT basis to focus on family for a while. The penalty associated with doing this though is unnecessarily high in society at the moment.

Of course women can be more than mothers and wives. You can have a career too

Sometimes - if you're one of those not-really womany women - INSTEAD!

Honestly OP sometimes I feel like you're debating in good faith and then I read things like this and I feel a bit like I'm being trolled.
So much conflating of 'being female' and 'being a mother' here. I'm beginning to see what my childless friends complain about - it's ingrained.

No problem for most of us with being a mother and also working full time - not easy whether you are male or female but if you are in a relationship where you are fair and equal (eg my children's father and I both work full time and when the children were young things were 50/50 at home in terms of domestic stuff and childcare when we weren't working) then it works fine.

I'm basing my view on what feminists on these boards have said directly to me in the past few weeks.

I agree however they are not all feminists.

Most conservative women I know work and are very successful so not sure who they think they are?

Yes and they are real.

The arguments against people saying women should stay at home, shouldn't work, don't want to work are just straw men arguing with something no one has said, but what you fear they might think, and a continued failure to understand the interpretation of the statistics.

@Suddha has read the thread. And she's seeing the same thing I am. Biological denial. That's what this thread is about.

Read the thread again if you think anyone is denying that there are biological differences between men and women.

What people are saying is that there is an enormous overlap between traits which are more common in either men or women. Even if all of these are 100% biology and 0% socialisation, there are no attributes of male or female brains which are not found at all in the opposite sex.

Generalisations like 'most women are caring and nurturing' just takes us back 100 years or more, when women had little choice but to accept this stereotyping. What benefit do you see for women if it could be proved that a majority (or even a large minority) of women fit this stereotype due to biology alone? This is what you seem to want - a proof that women fit a certain biologically determined stereotype. Why? How does this help women?

@Bumpitybumper - perhaps 1 part of the argument we haven’t explored: if women had a natural inclination to a free car- we could legislate for all women to get a free car if they chose that. But the benefit to society of women getting a free car would not necessarily be high - so most men and women would not vote for this (many would see it as an optional luxury and the money could be spent in a better way).

what you are saying is that women who wish to be sahp when kids are young is of benefit to both women and society. And furthermore is of equivalent value to society as the current set up (1 year mat leave then paid group childcare). Group childcare is more ‘efficient’ because the ratio of carers to children is lower so costs les per child. There are also standards which you can hold childcare facilities to.

what others would say is that they disagree that women being sahp benefits women and society as much as the current setup. They would say that sahm’s might make men complacent and disengaged from doing childcare; make it hard for families if the men left or became abusive; worsen workplace discrimination (so that women but not men are expected to take child sick days). I personally think SAHP-WOHP on individual level can have many benefits (depending on situation) but also comes with significant risk too.

@Suddha has already outlined the benefits above. Are you suggesting that the study citing changes in the brain during and after pregnancy is irrelevant and/or should be repressed?

No. But that's irrelevant to the points I was making which were about male and female brains in general for people's entire lives.

Obviously temporary changes in the brain due to pregnancy can only be experienced by women. This is not the same as men and women having completely different brains from birth until death.

And I'm sure I've read about men's brains changing when they spend a lot of time caring for their babies. In which case, it's not just a female thing at all.

That women and men are just biologically different in what they wish to do and in what they are capable of doing has always been the defense of women's unequal roles, and if you read about this in the history of women or the history of science you will find many now debunked theories which were all presented as showing innate sex differences in cognition etc.

Indeed, this is the defense that those make who believe in women's lower status as natural, and that is why we should always be willing and equipped to thoroughly scrutinise studies which say that they show biological sex differences in cognition or preferences.

That's what I want to say about the debate going on in this thread on which differences might be due to socialisation, which might be immutable biological differences, and which might be due to complicated interactions between what used to be called nature and nurture.

It's not the case that the overall debate in the public on these issues is somehow objective and neutral and that only feminists are strongly for one type of explanation.

Rather the reverse, based on my following them for over ten years. Several political parties (and religious groups) are strongly invested in the presumed biological basis for most important observed sex differences, and they are more powerful than, say, radical feminists.

And this is why women feminists must be willing to critique innate arguments and to point out flaws in the research. If a study was done well and its findings are strong then it should survive such criticisms. But many in the past have not, and so I always take a critical stance to such arguments.

Gina Rippon's The Gendered Brain makes for useful reading in this area, by the way, as she also talks about the limitations of the new brain scanning technology and how it's nowhere as sophisticated as laypeople tend to assume but fairly crude still.

@nepeta these are very relevant points on why people should take a critical approach to any research on this, although even the findings that any differences are used to validate women staying home is biased. I’ve often thought hoW much easier it is for Dh to parent, for example, as I’ve not recovered strength from pregnancy and the baby in car seat im straining my shoulder to carry out is a breeze for him. Ditto that he takes the baby ti swimming lessons for our older dc and wanders into the cafe next to pool carrying her - she’s too small to sit up, and my wrists would be killing me if I just wandered around a shop holding her in one arm while buying and carrying other things… I suspect you could find biological arguments for men to do more caring if that’s what you were looking for.
But you also note the limits of brain scanning. I for one would rather know than not know, believe in the limitations of what we currently know, and that theres lots more to learn, and raising caution and flagging that a certain cynicism needed in reviewing findings is very different from simply dismissing the whole concept, which is also an attitude taken by some on this thread and this site.

Way to go to summarily dismiss research. So
men's brains change too so obviously that means the changes are the same and you are back to validating your starting point. How about this hypothesis? Women are not just men with tts on. Research is showing that women are biologically wired to want to nurture their kids for two years after birth. If this study is validated it gives women the ammunition to advocate for more maternity leave. It will also make women who struggle to return to work after nine months, even with quality childcare, feel less like sht.
Does this mean everyone will want to or need to take up to two years? Of course not.
I imagine this particular biological driver is similar to sex drive. It varies from person to person.

I have no idea where science is in relation to sex differences in the brain. A seemingly knowledgeable poster up thread suggested there were a few. I image most are largely insignificant. But I'm not afraid to find out. Women are not about to return to the kitchen. I don't think we could even if we wanted to. Women need to stop being so bloody afraid.

If validated it gives men all the more reason to send women back to the kitchen

I'm in two minds whether to engage with this since you seem so determined to deliberately misunderstand. (The alternative conclusion, of course, is that you genuinely don't understand, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt here.)

So men's brains change too so obviously that means the changes are the same and you are back to validating your starting point.

Who said the changes were the same? I was referring to changes in the brain that made men more caring and nurturing if they spent time looking after an infant. That doesn't mean they're the same changes that women experience during pregnancy.

And what 'starting point' are you referring to that you think I am 'validating'? You're making a lot of assumptions here.

Research is showing that women are biologically wired to want to nurture their kids for two years after birth. If this study is validated it gives women the ammunition to advocate for more maternity leave. It will also make women who struggle to return to work after nine months, even with quality childcare, feel less like sht.

And it will also make employers less likely to want to employ women of childbearing age.

Does this mean everyone will want to or need to take up to two years? Of course not.

But employers won't see it like that. They'll assume that they all will and hire men instead.

@Link3 "Research is showing that women are biologically wired to want to nurture their kids for two years after birth."

Do you know that this is absolute not what that piece of research shows. In fact the researchers very specifically said that they could not say what the changes in brain structure meant. They could say the general areas of the brain which showed changes and what they are usually associated with. Changes to the hippocampus had reversed after two years. The areas that showed long lasting change were to do with recognising the intentions of others from their faces and actions. So essentially women got better (more specialised) at doing that, speculatively it might confer an adaptive advantage. In other words, it gives an advantage that helps women keep their babies safe. How has that been turned into "women are biologically wired to want to nurture their kids for two years after birth"??

You're right @RoseslnTheHospital. @Link3 completely misrepresented the contents of the article. Here's the link again (I had to go back a long way in the thread to find it).

www.science.org/content/article/pregnancy-resculpts-women-s-brains-least-2-years#:~:text=A%20first%2Dof%2Dits%2D,and%20responding%20to%20social%20signals.

The alternative conclusion, of course, is that you genuinely don't understand, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt here.

I dont understand what? That we are in imminent danger of the Taliban taking over middle England and putting us all back in the kitchen if we find out that there are biological differences?

And what 'starting point' are you referring to that you think I am 'validating'? You're making a lot of assumptions here.

I am making the assumption based on your response that you are opposed to the idea that men and women have different biological drivers that influence their behaviours and attitudes. Am I wrong?

And it will also make employers less likely to want to employ women of childbearing age.

Yes it will. Because we're still living in the house that Jack built. But if it's what women need surely it's worth fighting for?

But employers won't see it like that. They'll assume that they all will and hire men instead

In the house that Jill builds men will take paternity leave. Their brains change too.

Am I wrong?

Yes.

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

No, I definitely know what you mean but keep a bit quiet about it.

I just don’t know though how much of a woman’s psychology comes from social condition and how much is physiological.

@Link3- I don’t know if 2 years would be classed as a ‘need’ or a ‘want’ by society.
But you could definitely make that case for people with premature babies, birth injury or postpartum psychosis.

I guess at one time people were thinking that Minimum wage or current maternity leave were incompatible with capitalism.
Yet here we are with paternity leave as well, flexible working, wfh.
Now 4 day week and universal basic income are being trialled as well.
So I guess 2 years mat leave/shared parental plus greater use-it-or-lose it paternity leave is not that far out.

But just because people have a biological propensity for doing something doesn’t mean that society accomodate it.
Our brains might light up when we play computer games - but society and the govt don’t need to provide everyone with a games console or job gaming.

I am making the assumption based on your response that you are opposed to the idea that men and women have different biological drivers that influence their behaviours and attitudes. Am I wrong?

What response are you referring to?
What have I said that leads you to make that assumption?

I am making the assumption based on your response that you are opposed to the idea that men and women have different biological drivers that influence their behaviours and attitudes. Am I wrong?

EVERYONE has different biological drivers that influence their behaviours and attitudes.

The thing we are discussing is which specific differences have been shown to exist, and what practically do we do with that information?

So far, I'm learning that if I go to a job interview alongside a man, I run the risk of the interviewer believing, as many on this thread do, that the man will automatically be better at some skills, or that because I'm a woman, what I actually am 'naturally' inclined to do / desire is to be at home with my kids, (or go and have kids as soon as I can) so perhaps they'll be doing me a favour by not offering me a job.

It's really quite depressing.