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?

Yeah, this is a huge example. ANy time you see discussions about getting young mums back into the workforce you will see a group argue that young mums are actually no more likely than young dads to want to do this, and therefore social policy should be directed to encourage the young mums back into the workforce so the dads will step up. Some people even argue that things like parental leave should require that they share.

I've several times seen people make a similar argument that when parents are not together there should be a 50% split in care, even with an infant. Based on the premise that mums and dads even at this stage are not only interchangeable and want the same things.

The argument usually says that unless this kind of thing is mandated as much as possible by the policies of the state, the culture won't change, and we will keep socializing women to want to stay with their babies.

Pure social constructivism can justify a lot of different policy approaches that, if it's wrong, are potentially quite negative.

You could apply similar steps to trying to understand all sorts of sex differences, such as why men/boys have more trouble in higher education than women/girls in many more egalitarian countries (though also elsewhere), though I would never argue that that sex difference is based on innate preferences!

There are twists to interpreting preferences as in-built in the example MangyInseam uses. See, for example this and this.

@MangyInseam - I kinda agree - especially with: preferences aren't the only thing people consider when choosing a career.

In the west I find people emphasise doing a job you love. In my East Asian culture, many people emphasize doing a job to earn money for your family. So how competitive a job is and how much it pays are relevant. For me personally work-life balance and workplace flexibility is important now I have a family. In essence the perks/extras of a job can be as important as the job itself. Stem jobs can pay well and have a good work-life balance.

This may play a role in the observations mentioned by @nepeta. I would like to see whether female enrollement in stem courses correlated with income disparity between stem and arts jobs and also reasons why people choose a career (eg interest, social good, to provide money for family, work-life balance, flexibility).

Pure social constructivism can justify a lot of different policy approaches that, if it's wrong, are potentially quite negative
This is exactly my concern. Currently we have observable differences between the sexes in key areas such as childrearing. Should government policy be designed to reduce this difference as it is due to unhelpful socialisation or be looking to support the sexes in the pursuit of potentially different things that better align with their different biological drivers?

The science certainly isn't definitive in this area, so to pursue the former so vehemently is not without risk.

What is the risk? That some men might miss out on a good career because of unfair support for women? That some women might end up in well paid careers that they don't particularly love? What are the negative consequences that must be avoided here?

It has been proven that deep unhappiness and dissatisfaction can stem from when people feel they are doing something that is misaligned with their own goals and desires. If women do have a biological imperative towards spending more time raising their children when young for example, then public policy designed to push these women back into working as many hours as possible in a career they don't want to do is obviously problematic. As the science is unclear, this is the clear risk. It only becomes risk free is you assume that the women are 'better off' anyway even if they are forced to act against their biological imperatives because having the well paid job is the most important thing in life. I fundamentally disagree

So in the UK, with statutory maternity pay and leave, and 15 or 30 hrs of subsidised childcare from age 3, is that as public policy designed to push women back to work as soon as possible? Are feminists in the UK pushing to reduce or remove this support to get women pushed back into the workplace?

It's not about what is current public policy but how acknowledgement of biological differences (or not) could shape public policy. That's where the risk lies.
As seen on this board, feminists aren't a homogeneous group with the same view on this. Some feminists are very pro public policy that strongly encourages mother's into the workforce and splits maternity/paternity leave etc. Others don't agree that this is necessarily the way forward and think it needs to be more nuanced.

I've got a trans friend. Used to be Kelly, is now Kristofer. Married to a lovely woman (bio woman), if you didn't know you'd never even be suspicious. An amazing person, went through full surgical "sex change" and absolutely supports female rights to single sex spaces. Maybe because he spent 21 years using them and has experienced hiding in the toilets to avoid a clingy man who won't accept no for an answer.

Anyway, he and I chatted a lot about his transition and part of the reason for him insisting that woman's single sex spaces should be protected is the effect testosterone had on him. He's been on it for well over a decade now and he said that in early days, all of a sudden it was like a switch was flipped in terms of strength, aggression, and sex drive. He said he found himself attracted to people he'd known for years in a sexual way, tried chatting them up? went absolutely sex mad, made a twat of himself by overreacting to things, felt the urge to punch things in anger etc until his body got used to the dose and he was able to sort of retrain himself on how to behave when he had this raging thing inside. He said he honestly believes some men are just like he was as standard. From watching how some behave, he said he recognises that from his early months on testosterone and that it's probably because they've got massive male privilege and have never found it necessary to moderate their behaviour. Because they don't care how women feel, they've never had to.

If childcare was free at point of use you'd find out how many families would prefer to have 2 parents working.

If there was no 'gender wage gap' you would find out whether some families would prefer the man to be doing more of the childcare rather than it being the person who was previously earning less (usually the woman due to being on average younger/less established in career, or being in lower paid work).

If society expected men to be more flexible in work when their kids were younger you might find that everyone stopped be discriminated against for wanting the flexibility.

Women differ. I was keen to get back to work (when babies were two weeks, not even 2 months) but I accept most women aren't like that. Also I was the higher wage earner (although we both work full time). I might well have taken longer had I had even 6 weeks at 90% pay (in those days I did not even have that). My daughters are lawyers who are married with children and work so I am seeing the next generation managing careers and families well too but I would never interfere in their decisions or those of my sons as to who stays at home if anyone does and who does what around the house. I have a way of living that works for me and plenty of other people are different - live and let live, I say. i want to live in a UK where we can all be very different from each other if we choose and are left relatively free to make our own choices.

I don't think you can really generalise but I do agree most mumsnetters thankfully support the rights of women and do not want discrimination on the basis of sex and to protect women's only spaces and also want to ensure our daughters can do "male" careers like engineering etc if they like. We have seen huge strides in the last few decades. Eg my daughters are lawyers and when I became one men out numbered women. Now it is vice versa. It was about 100 years ago when the complete ban in England on women being solicitors was lifted. Before then the Victorians used to think our brains too feeble to cope with the intellectual rigour etc etc.

I do a lot of perhaps "male" things like DIY, work under sinks at home, car stuff but that is because plenty of us women are pretty good at that (albeit I accept many are happy to leave it to their husband)

If women do have a biological imperative towards spending more time raising their children when young

I think it's important not to conflate "women" with "mothers" (not saying you were, but treating the larger group as though they have the traits of the subset is unlikely to be beneficial).

Obviously lots of people DO think a woman's main role is, or should be, "mother". I would want to actively move away from that assumption.

Absolutely, not all women want to be mothers and lots of mothers want to work FT, but if a significant majority of the parents that want to have more time with their children are women then this is still a feminist issue. Using the same example I used upthread regarding autoimmune conditions, a minority of women will suffer from these conditions but yet the vast majority of sufferers are women as opposed to men. Therefore women have a biological propensity to suffer from these conditions. If there is evidence this area of medicine is relatively underfunded and researched then it is fair to say women are disproportionately impacted by this and therefore equality would look like these conditions being treated comparably to other conditions.

So ultimately it comes down to empowering and supporting women on issues that disproportionately impact females. We can't begin to do this unless we understand what our drivers are and this means we have to properly consider biological factors. Socialisation is undoubtedly powerful and can work both ways, pushing women towards what is considered traditionally feminine things and pushing them away from it. I think at the moment according to the responses on this thread there is a heavy preference towards the latter.

I don't think anyone has advocated pushing women towards or away from traditionally feminine things? I think like anything, try it and see if it suits you.
I think it's really bizarre to think most/all women would benefit from either.

If there is evidence this area of medicine is relatively underfunded and researched then it is fair to say women are disproportionately impacted by this and therefore equality would look like these conditions being treated comparably to other conditions.

Absolutely, and as I've already said, medical conditions and aggression is where I think there are notable sex differences.

What feminine things are women being pushed away from (and how?) And what are women being pushed to instead?

I think many psychological 'differences' are socially orchestrated. When DS1 was small he was obsessed with fairy princesses. He wore a fairy princess dress with wings, he chose fairy princess comics and had a fairy princess doll that went everywhere with him. Other (small) boys used to laugh at him a lot. I had parents take me aside at a church playgroup and tell me off, for 'encouraging' him to 'be gay' [grin.]

If parents behave like this and steer their children away from their instinctively broad curiosity and interest, the effect on the child's psychology will be notable

This discussion. This. If the debates around gender ideology have revealed anything it is that we have spend so long advocating that there is no difference at all between the sexes that we have effectively neutered womanhood. In failing to recognise that women have different biological drivers we are ignoring the lived reality of many. Yes we live in a world built by the patriarchy. Yes we are still socialised along restrictive gendered lines. But am I really supposed to believe that my biological reality, coded into every gene and evolved over eons is completely irrelevant? To borrow a phrase, I believe 'sex matters'.

Sorry, who has been advocating that there are no differences at all between the sexes?

Sorry maybe I missed it but the only difference I could see acknowledged on this thread so far was in relation to male aggression.

I thought there was general consensus on this thread that there were aggregate differences at a population level, specific to the society, but where the majority of both populations inhabit the same space. Of course whether they are biologically determined or heavily socialised is hard to be definitive about.

And of course I doubt anyone here is denying that there are physical differences between women and men.

I was noting on a different thread that there seems to have been an influx of gender traditionalism/tradwife stuff on here and someone said where’s the proof. Well here is some (and there are many other threads too). OP’s view: women are inherently suited to caring and child rearing and become deeply unhappy when financial independence is offered to them. OP, you know that in countries that have much more equality between the sexes, like Scandinavian ones, women largely go out to work and there are very few SAHMs? The dads there also step up a bit more than some of the jokes over here that can’t look after their own kids for more than five minutes. It’s also been shown that not working generally doesn’t make women particularly happy (maybe some are happy not to be economically active but many aren’t). Seriously, feminism has been fighting against this whole “women are natural carers” bullshit and it’s implications for decades and now someone comes along on a feminism board and promotes it. Smh.

If women do have a biological imperative towards spending more time raising their children when young

i don’t think it’s confined to women. All people want to spend time with people they love. In countries where men are given the opportunity to spend time raising their kids, many of them do step up and do so and I’m sure they and their children are enriched by it. We have gay male couples adopting children and single dads raising children. This is a good thing and men can absolutely be wonderful carers. By labelling child rearing as the domain of women, we let men get away with not doing their share but we also ensure that men don’t get the opportunity to build strong relationships with their children and get involved with their care.

Or maybe it's because there is now a whole generation of women who have grown up in an era of legislative equality who really believed they could have it all. And then they had a baby.

And Scandinavia is no Nirvana. See below.

www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20190831-the-paradox-of-working-in-the-worlds-most-equal-countries

I've been on MN for a few years and one of the most popular subjects of threads is - well, actually it's 'I'm insulted because I've had an evening-only wedding invite'.

But a close second is 'I am really struggling with my life caring for a baby, I think I've made a huge mistake, I am not cut out for this'. Now obviously, it's not a fair sample, people who are loving it are probably not posting about how they're so happy to have achieved their dream role. But once you're a parent, unlike most other roles, you can't try it for a bit and say 'nah, actually, not for me after all'. You've got to do the best you can. So dissatisfaction is unlikely to be particularly visible/ measurable.

But am I really supposed to believe that my biological reality, coded into every gene and evolved over eons is completely irrelevant?

No-one has said this afaict. Sex is an extremely important aspect of life and affects how society is ordered. We have (I think?) all agreed that pretty much anything that disproportionately affects women - for whatever reason, whether 'innate' or via socialisation, or biology, or practicalities - is a feminist issue.

This thread has been pretty good at being an 'honest' and good-faith discussion. Would be great if we could keep it that way and take on board what people are actually saying.

So: it's been suggested that empathy is inherent to women, and systematising to men. Are there any other traits people feel strongly are linked to sex (other than clearly biological factors and aggression)?

Random thought - could it be suggested that empathy is kind of a flipside of aggression? So if you don't care about hurting feelings you might come across as aggressive (I don't mean actual violence here) and if you avoid confrontation you might come across as more empathetic? And obviously the caveat that women seem more aggressive than men when they dare to be straight-talking/bossy/etc, because they are compared to a stereotype of an empathetic norm.

Personally, I don't know where I'd put myself on any empathy scale - I can probably put myself in someone's situation quite well, but I don't always automatically do it where others do. I feel utterly flummoxed sometimes by unclear social cues and overthink them - considering almost too many options - so don't know how I come across in real life!