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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Physical Vs psychological difference between the sexes

431 replies

Bumpitybumper · 24/06/2022 13:27

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?

OP posts:
RoseslnTheHospital · 24/06/2022 14:23

What do you think my biology as a woman is driving me to do, that men aren't being driven to do?

onlywhenidream · 24/06/2022 14:26

Perhaps OP is suggesting real men don't have long hair , cook or post on feminist boards ?

Beowulfa · 24/06/2022 14:28

Bumpitybumper · 24/06/2022 13:55

Whilst I agree that psychological differences have been historically exploited, I'm not sure that I agree that they have been exaggerated as there is still so much debate about the extent of these differences and the influence of biology Vs socialisation.

It's hard in a patriarchal world that values STEM over the arts or banking over caring to suggest that women might be drawn to things that are currently valued less highly. It seems to strike at the heart of equality. The thing is though, all these things have been given a value by men who will naturally value their own occupations, interest and desires more highly. If we as women understand our own value system (that may well differ from a man's) then we can fight for real equality that fits our biology properly.

Are you quite sure our society values STEM over the arts? The only Prime Minister to have a science degree was Thatcher. "Engineer" is a protected title in some other countries.

Bumpitybumper · 24/06/2022 14:29

LaughingPriest · 24/06/2022 14:16

So you're saying that quite a lot of women would want to do feminine things, even if we didn't live in a heavily gendered society, while acknowledging that quite a lot of women wouldn't.
What do you do with that information, if it was found to be borne out by research?

I find it interesting that people are almost offended by the suggestion that women might want to do feminine things because we are biologically different than men rather than have been socialised towards them. Why would it be such a terrible thing if we were psychologically different?

If it was definitively proven then I would want a movement to start to gain true equality for women. Currently if a woman makes a decision to pursue a feminine (and therefore completely undervalued) occupation then it is viewed as a woman making a shit choice to not pursue the more lucrative and better valued occupations dominated by men. After all she should be equally drawn to both according to current logic so it is almost a form of self sabotage to choose the lesser valued occupation, even though pursuing that particular occupation could help her achieve self actualisation and long term satisfaction. If it was proven that she was always more likely to be drawn to the occupation because of biological drivers then an argument can be made that fighting for better pay, conditions and status for female dominated industries is absolutely a feminist cause. The strings of the patriarchy would be more visible and women wouldn't be pushed out of fields that they are naturally drawn to in a bid to get equal status and reward as men.

OP posts:
onlywhenidream · 24/06/2022 14:30

I do think that access to stem is strongly gatekeepered with girls in the UK expected to gush that they don't like hard maths

onlywhenidream · 24/06/2022 14:32

If the feminine things were consistent across space and time you might have a point but many feminine things were originally masculine- dancing , and vice Versa - coding

Exams are over I think ?

RoseslnTheHospital · 24/06/2022 14:33

"Currently if a woman makes a decision to pursue a feminine (and therefore completely undervalued) occupation then it is viewed as a woman making a shit choice to not pursue the more lucrative and better valued occupations dominated by men."

Viewed by who? By men? Society as a whole? By women? By feminists?

Feminists are not the ones telling women they've made a shit choice to go into a caring type job.

Bumpitybumper · 24/06/2022 14:38

onlywhenidream · 24/06/2022 14:32

If the feminine things were consistent across space and time you might have a point but many feminine things were originally masculine- dancing , and vice Versa - coding

Exams are over I think ?

This is a good example of what I mean in terms of defensiveness and refusal to consider alternatives. The science doesn't definitively prove that socialisation is responsible for all the sex based differences and there are clear biological factors that act differently on males and females. You can see it clearly and undeniably in our bodies but yet you won't consider it has any impact on our brains and how we are wired?

OP posts:
RoseslnTheHospital · 24/06/2022 14:40

Bumpitybumper · 24/06/2022 14:38

This is a good example of what I mean in terms of defensiveness and refusal to consider alternatives. The science doesn't definitively prove that socialisation is responsible for all the sex based differences and there are clear biological factors that act differently on males and females. You can see it clearly and undeniably in our bodies but yet you won't consider it has any impact on our brains and how we are wired?

Um, if we're talking about a refusal to consider alternatives....

You're ignoring the very valid responses to your points on this thread and just repeating yourself.

LaughingPriest · 24/06/2022 14:40

Currently if a woman makes a decision to pursue a feminine (and therefore completely undervalued) occupation then it is viewed as a woman making a shit choice to not pursue the more lucrative and better valued occupations dominated by men.

I don't view this. (I'm not at all offended or anything btw, I'm interested, but would prefer to stick to factual discussion rather than derail into ad-homs).

I think most people realise that life choices are influenced by hundreds of interconnecting factors rather than pursuing money at all costs. Who is it that views this? People reach terrible and incorrect conclusions based on incomplete information, their own biases, the increased weight they give to their own experiences, their upbringing etc etc all the time. Telling them that female people are people that like and are good at "feminine" things is not going to change that?

Bumpitybumper · 24/06/2022 14:41

RoseslnTheHospital · 24/06/2022 14:23

What do you think my biology as a woman is driving me to do, that men aren't being driven to do?

Do you think that men and women have exactly the same biological drivers? Do you think hormones influence behaviour at all?

OP posts:
Bumpitybumper · 24/06/2022 14:45

RoseslnTheHospital · 24/06/2022 14:40

Um, if we're talking about a refusal to consider alternatives....

You're ignoring the very valid responses to your points on this thread and just repeating yourself.

I'm not ignoring anything. People largely think psychological differences either don't exist or are the result of socialisation. I acknowledge this may be the case but I am pondering why people can't consider the alternative can be true too in the absence of definitive scientific proof.

OP posts:
Schoolchoicesucks · 24/06/2022 14:47

Isn't it that there is much more overlap between psychological differences between the sexes (even ignoring the role of society in influencing those) than there is between physical differences?

LaughingPriest · 24/06/2022 14:47

I know that this thread is fast-moving, but I asked the questions I did in order to clarify your position, OP (in good faith! It's an interesting topic). Without answers I am slightly in the dark so will bow out for now.

I maintain that being female and "femininity (in terms of inclination, behaviours and desires)" can be mutually exclusive categories. One doesn't necessitate the other.

Also my phone keypad is playing up on MN - anyone else finding this recently? (Browser on Android phone)

onlywhenidream · 24/06/2022 14:48

Ah

Presenting facts isn't being defensive it's being sensible and logical

It's like climate change deniers and the old smoking industry - there comes a point when the tactics to muddy the waters to protect their own interests become sad

Bumpitybumper · 24/06/2022 14:50

My point about valuing female occupations isn't that someone (feminists, men, society) pats the women on the head and thank them for the service. It is more that a society can claim to have achieved equality if men and women are paid the same for the same work . Under this mantra you can get away with paying female dominated industries a pittance as any man working in the sector would get paid the same. What if it was acknowledged that women and men are drawn to different work though? The obvious sexism involved in underpaying work that women are more drawn to becomes more obvious and it is harder for societies to hide their discrimination.

OP posts:
onlywhenidream · 24/06/2022 14:50

Whilst we are considering random thing

What would the world be like if the dinosaurs had died ?

Or what about if cuthbert and Hilda became pope ?

RoseslnTheHospital · 24/06/2022 15:00

Do you really think that feminists would claim that society is equal when men and women are paid the same for the same work? That feminists haven't noticed that traditionally womens jobs are underpaid and undervalued?

Bumpitybumper · 24/06/2022 15:01

onlywhenidream · 24/06/2022 14:50

Whilst we are considering random thing

What would the world be like if the dinosaurs had died ?

Or what about if cuthbert and Hilda became pope ?

Is this random on a feminist board? You might disagree with what I'm saying but it's hardly random or as abstract as what you're suggesting.

For those saying that I've not been clear enough and given enough examples, apologies I started the thread at a bad time and have been replying where I can. Will try and get back on later and give some better responses if anyone is still around then

OP posts:
titchy · 24/06/2022 15:07

What if it was acknowledged that women and men are drawn to different work though? The obvious sexism involved in underpaying work that women are more drawn to becomes more obvious and it is harder for societies to hide their discrimination.

Because they're not innately drawn towards it! That's where your argument falls down.

The patriarchy means women end up doing it. Ask a group of GCSE students what their ambitions are - do any of the girls say 'I want to wipe old ladies' arses for the rest of my life'? But overwhelmingly it's girls who go onto do just that.

nepeta · 24/06/2022 16:04

Bumpitybumper · 24/06/2022 14:50

My point about valuing female occupations isn't that someone (feminists, men, society) pats the women on the head and thank them for the service. It is more that a society can claim to have achieved equality if men and women are paid the same for the same work . Under this mantra you can get away with paying female dominated industries a pittance as any man working in the sector would get paid the same. What if it was acknowledged that women and men are drawn to different work though? The obvious sexism involved in underpaying work that women are more drawn to becomes more obvious and it is harder for societies to hide their discrimination.

The problem is that what used to be called nature and nurture are now sometimes found deeply intertwined in complicated ways (Cordelia Fine writes about this in her book about testosterone) so that something like "being innately drawn to certain types of work" is very difficult to actually empirically study.

We can't put new-born infants into an alternative reality where they would grow up completely without any social cues about what is suitable for women and what is suitable for men so that we could then study how their life choices would differ.

In our reality the cues are everywhere, though they are clearly stronger in some cultures than others, backed by open religious rules or laws, and the problem is how to try to control for all the subtle and not-so-subtle environmental factors. As one example, the recent thread here about messages in children's clothing demonstrates that even wear for infants is colour-coded and items with messages tell baby girls about being kind, about unicorns and about hearts, while messages for baby boys tell about heroism, boundary setting, and being active.

One could argue that infant clothing of this type might just reflect actual psychological sex differences, but the clothes are not picked by the infants themselves. So distinguishing between what might be somehow coded in our genes and what is added as external input is extremely difficult.

The other problem is that all research into sex differences has a built-in bias in the sense that it must be participatory because all researchers belong to a sex class to begin with. This bias is even visible in the name of the field (gender or sex differences), because there is no field called gender or sex similarities.

So when a study about something perhaps not even about sex differences finds some, it is those that will get stressed in the abstract, while studies of the same type which find only sex similarities but are really not about gender or sex to begin with, simply don't point the similarities out as actual findings. This is, I believe, not because of any kind of sexism (say, neurosexism), but follows naturally from our tendency to look for differences rather than similarities.

The human brains are also more plastic than was assumed in the past, and this makes it difficult to use brain imaging, say, as proof that some difference is innate or has some clear portion which is innate. Several studies have shown changes in the way the brain looks or functions as a consequence of past illnesses and past behaviours (the long-term memory of London cabbies in the past is a famous example here), so to the extent that women's and men's lives are differently organised by societies, we would expect observable differences, on average, in adult brains.

Finally, the whole history about women's place in various societies has always been built on the assumption of innate cognitive differences between the sexes, and those are still the ones used to argue that the natural place of women is in some inferior position.

For example, the most conservative Islamic scholars argue, even today, that women shouldn't be judges because women are more emotional and therefore less likely to decide cases on the relevant facts alone (which also ignores the way we tend to define emotions as excluding such emotions as anger from the list, perhaps because men show it at least as much as women.)

So it's quite likely that a focus on sex difference as innate is as or more likely to support the case against women's equal rights than for them, and because this is how such arguments have always been used in the past I hold any new ones to very high standards of proof.

TullyApplebottom · 24/06/2022 16:13

Bumpitybumper · 24/06/2022 14:38

This is a good example of what I mean in terms of defensiveness and refusal to consider alternatives. The science doesn't definitively prove that socialisation is responsible for all the sex based differences and there are clear biological factors that act differently on males and females. You can see it clearly and undeniably in our bodies but yet you won't consider it has any impact on our brains and how we are wired?

What the science does establish, I think, is that there is huge diversity across populations. Simon Baron Cohen is often positioned as a proponent of gendered brain theories but even he is very very clear that available data will tell you about trends or averages across hugely diverse populations, but nothing about individuals.
so you might find across a big sample more men than women like maths. But within that sample I there will still be lots of women who like maths. So faced with a woman is it sensible to assume she doesn’t like maths? Clearly not. She could easily be one of the millions who do.

TeenPlusCat · 24/06/2022 16:19

For me I think there is clear evidence that socialisation steers the sexes differently.

I think to show things are actually psychological you would need to negate the strong socialisation aspects first.

Evidence?
Basic things like the Professor Winston experiment where he showed that dressing babies in different colour babygrows lead to other adults offering them different toys.
Studies showing people with boys spotting rabbits in a field might say 'look at the rabbits! lets count them' whereas to girls they say 'look at the rabbits! Aren't they cute?'
The 'boys will be boys' v girls are quiet and nice blazoned across T shirts for toddlers, ditto dinosaurs, and pink unicorns.

It is so entrenched. Plus when girls get the opportunity, plenty do go into STEM, or want to play soccer or whatever. Just so many times they aren't encouraged or are told it isn't for them.

TullyApplebottom · 24/06/2022 16:23

TeenPlusCat · 24/06/2022 16:19

For me I think there is clear evidence that socialisation steers the sexes differently.

I think to show things are actually psychological you would need to negate the strong socialisation aspects first.

Evidence?
Basic things like the Professor Winston experiment where he showed that dressing babies in different colour babygrows lead to other adults offering them different toys.
Studies showing people with boys spotting rabbits in a field might say 'look at the rabbits! lets count them' whereas to girls they say 'look at the rabbits! Aren't they cute?'
The 'boys will be boys' v girls are quiet and nice blazoned across T shirts for toddlers, ditto dinosaurs, and pink unicorns.

It is so entrenched. Plus when girls get the opportunity, plenty do go into STEM, or want to play soccer or whatever. Just so many times they aren't encouraged or are told it isn't for them.

Thing is though it’s not one or the other. Our brains respond and change in response to external stimuli, throughout our lives but especially when we’re young. so you can to an extent influence what a person “naturally” ends up being good at or interested in, through the environment they are brought up in.

Ponderingwindow · 24/06/2022 16:29

The physical evidence is concrete. It can be measured, quantified, and examined.

The psychological differences are always going to be interpreted through a societal lens which means skepticism should be high. Some are blatant, things like psychological evaluations including a checkbox for whether or not a woman is wearing makeup. It’s supposed to be a sign that she isn’t taking care of herself if she hasn’t bothered and it’s a ridiculous criteria that should never be allowed but still is in use. Some are more nuanced. We interpret the separation of fathers and mothers from their infants differently so that social feedback may influence the inclinations each parent.

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