Nature, though through nurture people's behaviors can certainly be changed to some extent.
I would mainly like to focus on the source of gender, although I would like to discuss the nature of gender as well.
Anyone ever think of doing a lexiconographic study / geneology on gender? My guess is that would be the easiest way to do anything empirical or analytical on it.
"As in a kaleidoscope, the constellation of forces operating in the system as a whole is ever changing." - Ludwig Lachmann
"When A Man Dies A World Goes Out of Existence" - GLS Shackle
Vive, I think that would be really interesting, although I don't know how much we could do with pre-historic cultures which would be extremely important in our assessment... Feminist literature might actually be a very good place to turn to...
Juliet Mitchell
Simone De Beauvoir
basically, male/female is a dialectic, but woman has yet to reach the place where she embraces the Other so there is an unformed synthesis and the source of gender is, for Freud, the collective historical experience of mankind. both authors say that looking to the historical record will be unfruiful. There are always bits and pieces of evidence that are of course true, but they cannot be reversed.
Yeah feminist writers do take an interest here. Foucault as well, I think, in his book on sexuality.
But here is where studying indigineous tribes all over the globe may come in handy.
Also, my guess is there could probably be some type of ultra easy verification system in prehistorical archaeology that shows finding of any significant community recognized gender differences in some form or another.
I have many thoughts on gender, but some types like to pull out trigger words to things they don't like or understand such as "post-modern" so I've refrained from posting, but...
If you're gearing towards gender roles I think in time in some first world countries where traditional roles and practices have been fading away you'll find that gender roles will begin balance out between the sexes (unless ignorance and low-culture keeps rising), or what's considered gender and gender roles to "neutralize" itself.
Somewhat related, but I was working up a piece to continue some old feminism posts on the inverse of gender roles and being gender queer, and that it doesn't not neutralize but reinforce gender concepts. For example, there could be someone who's a lesbian, but their gender is a social construct; they may be gender queer with the position such as "I'm a man in a woman's body who likes women and is gay" (to that extent, and yes these are positions people hold), so generally one may here "I was born in the wrong body" etc., but eventually this becomes a formula of explanation. In the end the gender roles many of them rail against they only inversely support them, not neutralize them.
In the end the gender roles many of them rail against they only inversely support them, not neutralize them.
I think they're railing against the imposition of a particular gender role on them based on the shape of their body, not the roles existing and open to voluntary identification with.
+1 Blargg - the key is individual choice. We can look at it like athleticism. Some people are more athletic, some people are less athletic. To suppose that either preference is somehow "superior" and the other "inferior" is baseless opinion. Being masculine and being feminine is the same. Most men strive to adopt and project masculinity. Most women, femininity. Those who choose to do otherwise ought not to be prevented from doing so. There is little more to be said about the issue. The constant haymaking about these narrow subsets of human freedom - homosexual freedom, female freedom, freedom of all races, etc. - has been cynically turned to the uses of the State by corralling dissent. If you think money production or the terms of banking arrangements, for example, should also be free, then you're simply unserious... clearly, you don't care about the only freedoms that are "serious", like women's freedom, gay freedom and the freedom of all races.
Clayton -
If people are railing against words like "feminism" and "post-modern" on a forum like Mises.org (where these words shouldn't be too crazy to use) on open topics that deal specifically with gender, than these people are idiots.
You can't try to tune out "post-modern" language or thought on a feminist and expect the person to have any concern for what is being said - it kills any chance of dialogue. A person has just "meta'd" their way out of the conversation if that happens.
Of course, it still helps to keep on topic:
like how to approach this from a nature / nurture angle, etc and probably not from aesthetics, moralizing, etc.
vive, the complaints regarding post-modern feminism had to do with it's anti-logic position. You can't have a meaningful discussion with someone who knowingly throws logic out the window.
Maybe,
but my main point is if you bring up "gender" as an unqualified topic - you have to expect to be engaging feminists and "post modernism". If this is something from a previous topic, I am unaware, and am out of that conversation.
Ex: Mises critique of socialism is heavily qualified, it has nothing on Rousseau primitive socialism.
I think the moral to my post is: qualify vague terms so people are not out in the wilderness when they talk to each other
Bert and Clayton duked it out in a previous thread and on more than one forum. I'm assuming that's what Bert was referring to. Other than that, I agree with the moral of your post.
"Being masculine and being feminine is the same" <-- very badly worded. What I meant was:
"In this regard, the difference between being masculine and being feminine is analogous to that between being athletic or not being athletic."
They're definitely different but neither one is better or worse. It is actually a kind of soft-sexism to argue that being feminine is a sign of oppression. In fact, it is like the many ways that 18th- and 19th-century white Americans regarded the natives as "needing our guidance" or "needing to assimilate for their own good", etc. On the surface, it seems like a nice sentiment, but it is actually patronizing. The woman who emulates masculine behaviors and attitudes is held up as a role model. And the feminist is someone (male or female) who is "looking out" for effeminate women who need to be delivered from the oppression that they are subject to - as evidenced by their overt femininity - in order so they can exhibit the truly free behaviors and attitudes of the masculine. It is patronizing and, simply, wrong.
What Clayton said about male vs female attractiveness being objective is meaningless. We have subjective value theory because values are not intrinsic properties of objects. Beauty is not a physical property of a viewed object any more than it is a property of the viewer. A belief is generally considered objective when it is held by everyone. What we have here is a number of samples of subjective valuations of different things plugged into an arbitrary mathematical operation. If you think that averaging calculations turn subjective evaluations into an objective evaluation, welcome to mainstream economics.
Economic benefits: beauty gap is certainly is not the reason that women gain more "economic benefits". There are several factors in the difference, the most obvious of which is that women have a monthly high lust period, men have constantly high lust. A man can never have the earning power of a woman given the same genotype and phenotype.
"Sexual" benefits: All women as a group have the same pool of men to choose from. Thus, women as a group's mate selection can't benefit from anything except improvement of the male population. (The opposite is happening due to evolution of humans into whales.)
While I agree with you about Clayton's post, I think the reason he considers it objective has to do with evolutionary reasons. That doesn't make it objective, but I believe that is why he thinks it is. I may be wrong. Separately, when everyone agrees, it is universal, not necessarily objective.
Another thought:
Is nature / nurture a valuable dichotomy, can the entire concept be abandoned all together for any form of grand theory? Usually when I see a dichotomy like this, I tend to to put it in a high degree of suspicion.
MOre thoughts:
- As aristophanes alluded to: historical verifications are no "ultimate" argument for (or against) gender - however someone can show a phenomonoligical manifestation of gender using various forms of historical outlooks.
- Objective aesthetics is a crazy concept, and no way in hell would I debate:
If all you are doing is confirming the fact that jack says jill is attractive because he said so and wish to call that objective, I guess that works. I wouldn't be so keen to put a buzzword like "evolutionary" on that though (in fact I think references to evolution myths is way overplayed today).
Or evolution took place (obviously), and everything is here existing (even more obvious) so all that happened was "objective" - I guess you can say that, but what does that say, and in what context are we supposed to care about that?
I'm probably more sympathetic to gotlucky and Caley's view, but even here is the statement "Everyone likes pie" verifiable: this statement in any worthwhile way - it may say something more about the person comming up with the test than what it is supposedly trying to verify - this is probably putting me in lachmann territory, but so be it.
I would think the nature/nurture dichotomy has its uses. I doubt that it's all one or the other. In terms of gender, my parents didn't want to give either me or my sister exclusively what would be considered male toys or female toys. But in the end, my sister preferred dolls and I preferred the building blocks. Obviously some boys will prefer dolls and some girls will prefer building blocks, but I doubt that companies would delibrately waste resources marketing toys that children don't want.
I think my issue with it is, is nature / nurture strictly a psychological (that is the field of psychology) dichotomy -
if so, I think that is going to bring back the problem of dealing with the relationship of psychology, psychologism, metaphysics, and gender
Do you mean psychological as opposed to neurological?
No, I mean psychology. I don't think "nature / nurture" can be used as much of a purely biological explaination. As far as I know, it's a psychological and/or a philisophic concept
The source of gender? Gender originates from the biological differences between male and females. All other types of activities that can not be attributed to that biological difference are probably not gender specific. But rather a part of the cultural role that has developed within the region, traditionally influenced by religious information, but often for other pragmatic reasons. There are advantages and disadvantageous on both sides of the gender difference. I don't think this is any kind of mystery.
In saying that though I do think there is benefit to having different gender roles based on the biological differences and i don't like the idea of ignoring traditional gender roles. But it could be said that is merely a preference and there is high chance that most activities that you might class as gender specific, are not even that gender specific and have not been for a long time.
What about things similar to gender, that is, expectations and expeced limitations based on a person's body? Some that come to mind: race, age, class, height, weight. I see gender as just one of these, with the minor difference that people see the other things as more cosmetic or changeable, and thus not as absolutely fixed, but gender as absolutely fixed based on one's body shape. I see the source rather like a bit of dust that a rain drop eventually condenses on to, a very small nudge that pushes some other process over a tipping point. Or pressure on something and a tiny crack that expands to a deep one. There are many benefits to having two types of people (specialization), and body sex was a convenient thing to base it around, given that there are probably relatively common psychological differences that this split in roles would cater to somewhat.
As Christopher Hitchens once put it, "Most men are fantastically unattractive" which he held to explain why men have to rely on humor and other gimmicks to attract women.
I used to think like that and I think that's the common view on the subject.
That perception is biased due to the fact that the vast majority of men are very "passive" and have little real world experience with attracting women in general, so they form their ideas by extrapolating the world by their own smallish personal experience and by speculation based on pop culture stereotypes that don't translate that well into reality.
After you acquire even a modicum of experience you start to realize that a large part of being attractive comes from a (self-)hypnotic state of mind which starts by acting towards other people in general and women in particular as if you were very attractive, consistently, until you (and, mostly as a consequence, them) start believing you are indeed very attractive.
That's the whole "fake it until you make it" thing. Works like a charm. It is, in essence, charm.
Most guys I've met that are really good in attracting women always start by assuming every girl is attracted to them, even when that's "objectively" very far from the truth.
But they also know that even when a girl is attracted she's not likely going to take first action. So they basically go in assuming it's a done deal. Does it always work? Of course no. It's like when Ron Burgundy said "60% of the time, it works every time". But they also realize there's not much on stake anyway.
This also means being very unresponsive by most forms of rejection and negativity that are likely to emerge from assuming such an "aggressive" stance. (For the feminist creatures out there, I'm not talking about sexual assault here, "aggressive" means mainly taking the initiative, and of course the unresponsiveness to rejection is not to be taken as a "no means yes". Of course one should not proceed harassing the same girl after being categorically rejected but one should not let himself get all selfconscious just because some random girl didn't care for his approach).
Of course, during this whole process of taking action they eventually change a few things about the way they look, like building muscle, eating less crap, and dressing better, which help making them more objectively attractive, but that's mainly a consequence of one developing a much higher level of respect for oneself.
But once you go through that you realize that the usual gimmicks and humor pieces commonly associated with "picking up girls" are not that effective after all, unless this underlying attitude is understood and assimilated.
One thing that is specially counter-productive is the use of self-deprecating humor by dudes that really lack on confidence. It might get the girl to laugh on your expense, but it will hardly do any good to advance your prospects. The best way of making a girl laugh is not by telling stupid jokes, but by saying the things that most guys think they are not supposed to say when they first meet a girl, and meaning it. That and calling her on the stupid geeky thing she does.
Does anyone here think that public bathrooms should be sex-integrated? I'm going to go out on a limb and guess not. Why?
What if they were never sex-separated in the first place? Given that they have been, that familiarity is a big factor for continuing it.
If there must be any separation, I'd rather it be between those comfortable in an open environment, and those who want a closed one. Using the same amount of space as is currently used for dual bathrooms, you could have an open one with lots of fixtures, and at least one where the user is entirely locked in without any connecting air space other than a vent to the other ones. Who can complain? If you aren't comfortable with other people (perhaps of a certain sex, perhaps regardless of sex), you use the closed one, but possibly wait longer. If you don't care who is in there, you use the open one and get more immediate access.
The current scheme only caters to those who feel uncomfortable with those of a different sex than they are, and comfortable with those of the same identified sex.
Wouldn't present culture be a factor?
Sheesh. First, someone give a scientific explanation for why women go to the bathroom in groups[1], then we can talk about such absurdities as coed public restrooms.
[1] Hint: The answer is already known, you can probably find it with some Googling.
Also about attractiveness ratings: when you rate images you are normalizing the data from your previous experience to determine how to allocate ratings to the images in the test set. The "raw data" is already normalized in any such test. The variation between different test groups is a product of that haphazard process as much as anything. So, if you have men rate women and women rate men, there should be no difference based on the assumptions that average is attractive and men deviate more from average.
Neodoxy:Does anyone here have thoughts on gender roles and identity? Yeah blah blah "I support people to live how they want libertarianism", but what do you think the reality of gender roles in terms of nuture/nature and their positive/negative aspects in society are? This is something that I've been thinking about lately, and it's something that's helped me realize exactly how radical my own position really is on social matters like this. Thoughts?
Yeah blah blah "I support people to live how they want libertarianism", but what do you think the reality of gender roles in terms of nuture/nature and their positive/negative aspects in society are?
This is something that I've been thinking about lately, and it's something that's helped me realize exactly how radical my own position really is on social matters like this.
Thoughts?
I think gender roles are almost entirely the product of nurture, but by "nurture" I'm talking about millennia of enforced cultural norms. From my own research, I've concluded that humans in their "natural" state are essentially the same as bonobos when it comes to sexual behavior (at least).
The keyboard is mightier than the gun.
Non parit potestas ipsius auctoritatem.
Voluntaryism Forum
My conclusion is that "culture" in general is a product of the unique instrument/weakness of humans, behavioural manipulation by ideological propaganda, and that product is almost entirely based on reproductive motive. Patriarchy is not men being in charge due to greater strength. It's a conspiracy by men that are powerless with women, to create fictions and social sentiments that give them that power by mind control rather than personal physical might or instinctual desire induction. Wherein, naturally gifted people are manipulated into self-sacrifice (like the state conjures soldiers and taxpayers) and everyone is manipulated into attacking each other for dogmatically incorrect behaviours. "Men" dominated traditional marriage because it is a social scheme invented by "men" and there are certain sympathies among "men", not because all men are individually dominant. The purpose of making up your own game with your own rules is to win.
My bias/insight is being the opposite of fantastically unattractive. A token example: I get hit on by girls 12-15 in pairs/groups... through my 20's. They seem to have little awareness of how the world works. It made me realize the true nature of age of consent laws: the men that get picked last don't want leftovers. I see a lot of men ridiculing feminist types as masculine, ugly, etc. I don't see any knights of truth drawing attention to the obvious fact that society has a profound negative impact on the most attractive men so that the least attractive can get their fair share. Marriage, age limits, ban of sperm/egg sales... you name it. If it pertains to copulation or reproduction, it is an attack on competition. It's simply a matter of cutting through the BS (and being me helps) to see it. After all, the root purpose of ideology is to substitute default behaviour with self-benefitting behaviour. Where there is an imperative there is a special interest.
I'll be back later to blast "traditional values" some more.
" Patriarchy is not men being in charge due to greater strength. It's a conspiracy by men that are powerless with women, to create fictions and social sentiments that give them that power by mind control rather than personal physical might or instinctual desire induction. "
So you believe that patriarchical societies are "mind controlled" into existence? What are some examples of this "mind control"?
'Men do not change, they unmask themselves' - Germaine de Stael
+1 Caley... legally-enforced monogamy is the original communism, IMO. Many men who should never have been able to find a mate, do, and in the process prevent mating between a much better* man and the woman they tied up.
*you can throw a fit about the word "better" all you like but there is no question that some men are better in every sense of the word, than others
From feminism to eugenics...
Tell us, Clayton, about all the men you judge.
@Aristophanes: What eugenics? It is non-dysgenics. Enforced monogamy is dysgenic interference into the natural order. Of course, so is enforced polygamy (as they have in arranged-marriage, polygamous societies such as Muslim society and FLDS). True "women's rights" doesn't exist today... a woman in the West (or East) is not permitted to choose to marry a married man. And the problems for women in the Middle East are well documented.
I see gender roles as being largely dependent on a society's economic base, and therefore at least in a large part they are "nurture", not "nature".
It all has to do with the birth rate and labor needs of the society.
In hunter-gatherer economies, especially in the post-ice age climate that does not favor mass animal migration, populations are most prosperous when they stay mobile. The amount of labor required to meet the calorie needs of the tribe is less than under other economic systems. Thus, birth rate can and SHOULD be maintained at a lower rate. Women breast feed longer in order to postpone repeat pregnancies. They are tied up with the care of small children to a far lesser extent, and in the spare time they can contribute a great deal to the tribe’s caloric intake. In fact the kinds of tasks that women can take on while watching their children (usually trapping and gathering) take in a larger percentage of the food than the hunters’ efforts do. As a result, women are a) perceived as more than sexual objects AND b) actually more profitable to the tribe than men. Their roles and treatment historically have been reflective of this status.
In farming economies a major shift takes place. It takes more labor and requires more children to provide that labor, to meet the family’s caloric needs. That means women are less suited to the work and less available to help with it. They spend their time having children as fast as possible as long as their fertile period lasts, and their time is almost wholly taken up with childcare. The result of this is they pull in far less money or product than their male counterparts and their roles are highly related to their usefulness specifically as sexual and childcare beings. This has what we call a detrimental effect on the perception of women in those societies, leads to a lessening of their legal rights and a whole lot of assumptions becoming commonplace regarding the work capacity of women outside of that sexual role.
Technology changes this again, and as women are less motivated to have large families AND more productive at work, their roles and the perception of their capabilities become much more equal to those of men.
We are in an upswing of womens’ roles in our civilization purely because of the high technology and service based economies in the areas of the world where this is occurring.
All in all this leads me to believe that many or most, if not all, of the “traits” that we assign to one gender or the other are the result of nurture.
@Saiga: What do you think of the idea that TPTB have promoted the "dual-income household" merely as a way to spread the tax burden? I'm not saying "women shouldn't work" or anything like that, of course, but I'm actually quite skeptical of the idea that the shift that has occurred in the make-up of the workforce since the 1950's or so is actually reflective merely of natural change as a result of technology.
I think it’s the practicalities that drive the fashions, and government comes in after the fact and takes advantage taxwise.
The more technology one needs (or thinks one needs) at home, the more a two-income family becomes necessary, and the more fashionable it is for the woman to work. The couple with two BMW’s and two Ph.D’s is trendier than the one without. That trendy couple doesn’t have the time to have kids, who wouldn’t contribute anything to their family’s income; or if anything they just have one or two, and they take advantage of nontraditional childcare options if possible.
Before the BMW was possible, the whole scenario was a lot different. Roles, I firmly believe, change with the economy.
I’ve seen this with my own life choices as much as I have seen it in what I read of history.
Don’t forget what period of time child labor laws became fashionable. Just about at the same time as the jobs became doable by women, who didn’t then need as many kids! All these economic factors lead to the changing roles of women in society.