Barring certain reproductive bits, men and women are basically the same. Discuss.

[ElephantsAndMiasmas]

I know we've touched on this on other threads, but I was hoping to troublemake start a discussion on this specific issue. So often I've heard people say "of course wanting equality does not mean we think women and men are the same. We cherish and celebrate the differences between them" and the like.

Well, what are the differences then?

The more I think about it the more convinced I am that men and women are fundamentally pretty much the same, squashy bits aside.

What do you reckon?

Nooka: 'prepuberty boys and girls have very similar levels of testosterone'

A quick google has thrown up the following article: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC116575/

"Conclusions:

Our results confirmed significant differences of salivary testosterone levels between both sexes. Prepubertal boys had higher testosterone levels in saliva than prepubertal girls"

I would attempt to join (I wasn't usually welcome!) my brother and his friends when we were around 10-12yrs (so not really young)

Well if we're talking about brothers I used to play with my brother and his friend from down the road and I was stronger, tougher, braver and more daring than them by miles. Also much more competitive, mainly because I always won! I was also 18months older so I think that probably had sometihng to do with it! Cyclops was your brother older or younger?

We became less close when puberty started up - so probably when I was about 12 and him 11 - and then became closer again in our twenties...

Like nooka I think that socialisation of children starts very very young, i think it starts when children are babies TBH.

you already know don't you?! He is older than I am, but not by much.

Aha

This may be off the OP a bit but I have a little armchair theory...here it is!!

If you have two siblings, one of each, and the girl is the eldest, then there is a far greater chance of them being closer/playing together as children (say, between the ages of 8-12yrs after which all bets are off during puberty), because the girl will welcome/invite her younger brother into her games, or she will lead the games and he will follow her lead...whereas when the boy is the eldest, he will be more resistant to having his little sister join in with his games, will rarely invite her to join in and will seldom invite her along to play with his friends (I was always told I 'slowed them down' )

I have considered lots of families from my childhood who comprised elder brother/younger sister and I could think of one case where the elder brother wanted to join his younger sister's friends games/outings. He came out as gay during his teens.

Interesting.

I have noticed a strange thing where a lot of people seem to think that it is fantastic for a girl to have an older brother, but a fate worse than death to have a younger brother. As someone with a younger brother I have never understood why they think that - and often get if not even about this assertion that it must be dreadful.

People who say this are usually people with sisters, I don't know if that means anything.

Cyclops your theory would seem to say that they are all talking cobblers

And yes this is veering way off the OP

i would say that older boys age 8 - 12 woudn't want to play with younger girls because they have been pretty much told since day 1 that little girls are feeble and crap.

oh I so wanted to be the eldest one!!!

My mum never understood why 'we all couldn't play together' and she would tell my brother to 'let her go with you' but no, he didn't want me along!

But yes, I know what you mean about the 'have a boy first' thing, I've heard people say that too. And guess what, based on my armchair theory, I would recommend getting a girl first

Just thought I would add to this thread what my friend said today about her 18 month old twins. The context is that she is a very well paid full time professional and her husband stays at home to care for the kids. Both children have access to a wide variety of toys in the living room. Apparently the girl wanders round all day pushing a doll in a pram while the boy lugs round a rugby ball. She says they never swap. She feels she hasn't influenced that choice at all and neither has her DH although surely they have, unconsciously.

In other respects the girl seems to be more helpful and sociable (she was fetching stuff for her mum all afternoon) than the boy who seemed happier to be by himself. I'm pretty sure I didn't project all that as I was consciously trying to observe their actions without an agenda.

So although I find the innate difference argument pretty unhelpful I spent today having that view challenged by my friends little twins. If it's socialisation it's amazingly insidious. Although they are both very happy with their respective toys!

That's interesting Cyclops, the evidence I've seen showed little difference, although granted I was looking for evidence of the so called "testosterone surge" so a younger age group.

On the anecdotal evidence front, my ds is 16mths older than my dd. They play together just fine (well when they are not fighting obviously!) and are very close. dd is much more sociable that ds, and she has more friends and they are often at our house. ds often plays with them. He shows little sign of being gay (at almost 11 he has recently started to show interest in girls, although obviously not as much as in computer games) and I think it's a bit sad to suggest that boys who might choose to play with girls are therefore perhaps a bit effeminate. He'd be hard put to say that dd might slow him down as she is only an inch or so shorter than him and has always held her own in tussles, in fact she has often been the more dominant one. I suspect that friendships between siblings depend mostly on their characters.

blinder anecdotally at playgroups I don't really notice a difference between the toys that children choose - its funny isn't it.

Is it that the doll and the rugby ball are the toys that the children have formed an attachment to - my DD won't go anywhere without her bear! And DD2 is very attached to a cloth book.

Rugby balls - not as common as general balls - does the father watch rugby which is men running around and the boy has picked up on that?

Its so hard to know what is innate and what is socialisation - I don't think anyone actually knows do they.

Another thought - boys are usually bigger than girls aren;t they? In our families it was the bigger stronger one who was dominant - children are quite straightforwardly physical - so is it that the larger boys are better at and so do the physical stuff, pushing the girls out, and the girls are left on the sidelines doing something more sedentary?

Is it all down to physical size?

Talking about really little children there =- obviously brains come in a bit later with thinking up games and stuff - but by then the gender roles will already be set?

Just thinking out loud

ISNT yes his dad watches rugby alot! And I think you might be right that they are attachment objects.

no, I didn't want to imply that if an older boy plays with his younger sister that he might in some way be less masculine!! That was just the exception I could think of from my younger days.

The twin scenario is interesting, almost like having a ready made 'experiment' in your living room!

I would say socialisation undoubtedly takes place because an individual cannot live outside an environment - which in case this includes people, toys, culture, etc. BUT! My view is that gender differences are there from the beginning.

I think physical size in the 8-12yrs group is less relevant than strength or gender.

Don't forget the element of choice too, so it could be that some older brothers regularly invite their younger sisters to join in with their games of football, cricket, etc, but that the sisters regularly choose not to join in (I realise that there is girls' football but I'm talking here about ad hoc, street games). However, in my experience, older boys do not do much inviting in the first place....(unless they are short of players and then the boys will 'let' the odd girl can fill in).

I have no problem seeing or accepting boy/girl differences.

I think 90% is cultural construct, and 10% innate (only rough % you understand). I think the cultural bit enhances/exaggerates the innate bit...

I think it is unlikely to be physical size that affects playground behaviour as girls are often taller than boys during primary school, as their growth patterns differ.

I'm not arguing that girls and boys are the same, because clearly they are not, it's more the nature vs nurture aspects that interest me. People often tend to assume that because at present girls and boys (in the UK and similar countries) behave differently that's just how it is naturally and personally I doubt that is all there is to it.

"To say that women should not try to compete with men out of principle, but instead be happy with their lot, knowing that it is important no matter what anyone might think/what the pay might be, seems to be not quite the right thing somehow. And would seem to encourage the status quo."

I don't think women should just accept their lot, but I do think that both men and women need to re-define the value of motherhood; because right now staying at home to look after your own babies is regarded by society as being the shittest of the shit jobs (and it is paid accordingly i.e not at all), and there is something not right about that.
I think this is a very masculinist interpretation of the world. I think that women do need to work in the highest echelons of all professions (law, banking, medicine, education) but I think this is not the only work of value and that mothering is mis-represented in the media and trivialised.

BAsed on my own, anectodal experience, I think that my experience of "parenthood" is nothing like my husband's.I think women are hard-wired to protect and respond to their newborns in a way that men are not.
Sorry, men can't have that. They can't do motherhood better or as well as women can, no matter how much time they spend with the baby. Being mothered by your mother is completely different to being fathered by your father ( my own father was a SAHD for a few years). Its just completely different. From a child's perspective that is not a cultural construct; its something about your mother's smell and presence, I can't define it in words. But a woman does mothering and a man does fathering IMO.

I think that mothering and fathering may be different (and are of course different for every single father and mother). But I don't think that beyond early babyhood one is better than the other. I think that what our society needs to do better is acknowledge children - we still have a strong seen but not heard type attitude, and that translates into the work environment. When all parents are expected to spend time with their children work life balance will get better for everyone.

there are greater differences amongst each gender than between them.

There are masculine women and feminine men.

And I think it is impossible to distinguish between socially constructed and inherant differences.

"But I don't think that beyond early babyhood one is better than the other. I think that what our society needs to do better is acknowledge children - we still have a strong seen but not heard type attitude, and that translates into the work environment. When all parents are expected to spend time with their children work life balance will get better for everyone. "

I agree with all of this exept the first sentence. If a mother dies early in a child's life it has a far greater psychological effect on the child than if the father does. Same for abandonment. I don't think this is because the mother is usually the primary carer. I think its because the person who carried you in her womb is no longer there. From a child's perspective its just different.

I don't want to use this to "keep women down". Its just that I envisage another type of hell where one day, maybe, childcarers will get the funding they finally deserve (and if enough men start to look after children money will surely start to flow in that direction). It sends chills down my spine to think that by that time women will have convinced themselves that child-rearing is the shit work and that men and women are both just as suitable for it. I envisage women going out to work in offices for a pittance while men stay at home to do the child-rearing for proper money. Don't worry this'll never happen; but I just don't think men can do it the way women can. To be fair, I don't think men, even SAHDs really know what mothering is.

Well that just sounds highly sexist to me. Sorry, but I'd need to see some really good research evidence before I accept that women are just inherently better than men at being parents. Different perhaps, but better? I know a fair amount of families where the mother takes pretty much all the parenting role, but where both parents really share I see plenty of very caring dads doing a fab job of helping their children grow up. I can imagine that when the arrangement is very mother centred then the impact of losing that mother would be even more devastating than where parenting was more shared (yet another good reason to share the caring role surely).

But wasn't it discussed on another thread that the term "sexism" is to define the oppression of one group of people by another group (just like racism). So men can experience gender bias, but not sexism in the same way that women do. I think the word sexism incorporated everything, including misogyny to sexual harrasment and even rape. So I don't think you can say that I'm sexist because I'm trying to say that there is one thing that I don't think men can do better. They can do well at parenting, (and they most certainly do all the housework ), but I disagree that they can be a mother. What is being a mother? Its all those little indefinable things that you can't explain. It could be her big fat bosom that squashes you when she hugs you. There is something about a woman that is a mother but men, however child-oriented, however kind, just do not have. Men are fabulous parents, but they are not mothers. Studies show (I'll hunt down the book later if you want me to) that men even play with children differently, just as boys play differently on the playground. Fathers and men in general are really good at spontaneous, creative imaginative play. WOmen are too of course, but men are really good at making children laugh, haven't you noticed? I'm not saying men shouldn't care for children more than women, even. I'm saying that a man can never be a mother. I'll never believe it.

This does NOT mean women should be delegated the housework, care for the elderly, low paid work, sexism, rape and all the other millions of things that are the result of a truly sexist society.

Sakura - I have to say that you have made some really interesting arguments up to now in favour of SAHMs but you've lost me at the squashy bossom! especially since lots of women don't have these if they choose not to breast feed. It's an idealised mother earth image that I just don't buy into.

And I'm sorry but fathering is just as important as mothering - and if you don't see that then I think that's quite sad. The way towards true equaliy cannot involve barring men from such an important role: being an equally important force in a child's life. How awful to suggest that.

Yes my DS lived in my womb - I don't see how that makes me a better parent. That's like saying an adoptive mother isn't a true mother. Being a mother is something you do - more than something you are I think.

Ha, yes I don't personally have a squashy bosom myself! Have always been a bit high-testosterone and my figure is boyish...but I was just trying to offer a (sorry, poor) example of the myriad of ways a woman can be a mother that you can't quite pin down and explain.
I've never said fathering is not as important as mothering. Far from it. It is just as important, equally so, but it is not the same. In my last post I just said that I think its perfectly fine for a dad to look after his child full-time and will be a brilliant parent etc etc, but he'll never be a mother and a child knows the difference. Just because the man stays at home doesn't make him the child's mother and just because the woman goes out to work it doesn't make her the father because they are different, they parent differently. YOur child living in your womb doesn't make you a better parent, but it makes you a "mother" and believe me, a child knows the difference.

marking place - back later