Quote of the Day: On Blogging, Digit Ratio and Gender Equality

[matgb]

In a discussion about the interesting Beeb article on gender differences andrewducker says:

You know, the quality of comments like this, and the breadth of knowledge available on my friends list is one of the reasons I love livejournal.

I'd amend it slightly to say blogging generally, but LJ, with the built in friends list aggregator, does make it very easy to keep in touch with a huge chunk of people with knowledge in specific areas way beyond my own.

Not sure on the research as presented, she's definitely got a point, but as always generalisations can be beaten by specifics--my index and ring finger are roughly the same length, and I definitely show both "male" and "female" traits depending on context, and I know a fair number of women that are a lot more "male" than me in most respects. But on the other hand, I definitely agree that a good mix of talents and a good gender ratio make for a much more succesful office/business in general situations, and I'm always slightly wary when a profession, office or place of work is too skewed one way or the other.

Comments

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

Stop blogging, woman, and get in the kitchen and make my drink! You're not going to get away with this when you're my wife, you know...

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

I'm full of testosterone, my ring finger is almost a centimetre longer than my index finger...
On the other hand, I have pathetic facial hair and almost no body hair so there wasn't much left it seems. ;oP

[innerbrat]

And I still get angry when Isee intelligent women talking about gender differences in positive constructive ways, and claim they're not feminists.

[andrewducker]

gender differences I'm fine with. Claiming not to be a feminist annoys the living hell out of me. If nothing else it shows total ignorance of what the word _means_.

[innerbrat]

'sactly.

Your icon rocks, btw.

[matgb]

Heh, see comment below I was typing—unfortunately, some words do effectively lose their meaning and/or are used in a derogatory way. The question becomes is the word itself worth reclaiming or is it better to move on and pick a new descriptor.

[pickwick.livejournal.com]

As a woman who sometimes claims not to be a feminist, I think there's a gap between the dictionary definition of "feminist" and the real-life definition. The original dictionary definition is more or less useless these days, because it encompasses 95% of the population (in the UK at least), and is therefore no use as a label. I think of a feminist as at best someone who actively campaigns for equality of opportunity for women, ranging to at worst one of the horribly sexist "feminists" who really want women to have more power than men, hate transexuals, etc.

The other reason I wouldn't tend to call myself a feminist is that doing so seems to prioritise one kind of equality (male/female) above all the others. Is there even a word for people who fight for equality of opportunity for different races, religions, ages, sexualities? Why should gender be so special?

[matgb]

I think the problem with the term "feminist" is that it's become a bit like the term "liberal" in the US, it's been misused, misapplied or misappropriated so many times that some people want to disassociate themselves from it regardless of whether they should or not (faeriecween for example always vehemently denied being a feminist, despite being succesful in a field that would have previously been denied her, etc).

It's why I tend to talk about equality of opportunity a lot more than more gendered terms, you can't be misunderstood if you avoid terms some people choose to misinterpret. Similar-but-different example, "vegetarians" who eat fish, cause problems for real vegetarians. "Feminist" is frequently interpreted to mean "man-hating-loon", and it's hard to dissassociate that in the minds of many, no matter how wrong the assumption is.

[innerbrat]

Sometimes I wonder if I should say "I don't eat meat or fish, but I'm not a vegetarian", just to prove how stupid that attitude is.

[thapunkprincess.livejournal.com]

That BBC article is just rubbish. I'm deeply suspicious of any of this 'evolutionary psychology' stuff that attempts to 'prove' gendered differences in thought processes (and I wonder what she has to has to say about racial differences in thought processes, hmmm).

It's a chicken-and-egg question. If MRI scans show womens' brains operating differently to men, is that because they've already been socialised in such a manner as to cause the differences, or do the differences cause the socialisation? If the former, then it doesn't prove much at all, and the latter just shows a determinism that is sexist in its political implications (and no doubt why when this woman speaks it upsets 'politically correct' people!).

What a crock of shit, in other words.

[andrewducker]

the latter just shows a determinism that is sexist in its political implications
Which doesn't, of course, have any bearing on whether or not it's true.

[thapunkprincess.livejournal.com]

It could well be true, and it could well be the case that these differences are hard-wired from birth with no socialisation involved. But we don't know this, and she doesn't know this. What we do know is that from the start she 'upsets politically correct people' and that she's 'not a feminist'.

So a political reading of what ostensibly appears to be a science report is the appropriate response, I feel.

[matgb]

I've said similar in comments at Andrew's—there's a chance she right, but the article reports it badly so it's hard to judge (and I can't be arsed to dig deeper I'm working).

The problem is that she's talking in generalities and avarages, if you always judge by the avarage then you've real problems across the board, idiot employers might use it to discriminate "men's work/women's work" but that's daft as there will always be some from one gender as good if not better at stuff normally suited to the other gender, etc. But given a large number of people are idiots, anti-discrimination campaigners will dislike her message regardless of its veracity.

[wieselkind.livejournal.com]

"If MRI scans show womens' brains operating differently to men, is that because they've already been socialised in such a manner as to cause the differences, or do the differences cause the socialisation?"

Yup I've said this to people and they get huffy and say I'm not arguing properly.

[andrewducker]

If people aren't willing to engage with that question, they don't deserve to argue with you :->

It's a perfectly good question. And the answer is, according to what I've read, "both".

We can tell this at least partially because the structures don't vary by gender, per se, but with testosterone levels. And those are largely confluent with gender, but not entirely, so we can look at high testosterone women and low testosterone men, and see the differences there too.

And of course culture affects our minds - and our minds _are_ our brains, so the way we're treated is going to have an effect on the structure of our brains.

Teasing the two apart is very hard, of course. But there's a fair chunk of evidence that both have an effect, in ways that are sometimes different and sometimes the same.

[misscoollinda.livejournal.com]

There's a woman that I work with here that hates female bosses. Our office manager, a woman, doesn't put up with this co-worker's whiny bullshit - hence her general poor opinion of ALL female management. The previous male manager listened to her whine and cry and usually gave in. She can't separate gender from management style.
As for being "feminist", it has taken on a negative connotation. I was telling someone that I thought men and women should be paid the same for doing the same work. He said "oh, you're one of those 'women's libbers ' ". He meant it as an insult.

[matgb]

Our office manager, a woman, doesn't put up with this co-worker's whiny bullshit ... The previous male manager listened to her whine and cry and usually gave in.

Aye, Men can relate to blokes acting up and can spot it, but have problems figuring out with some women trying the same.

And equal pay makes you a "women's libber"? How old was this guy and can we shoot him now? I'm aware of negative reactions and thus connotations regarding extreme "man hating" so-called feminists that give reactionaries an excuse to object to any attempt at equality (slippery slope bollux), but to object to what should be a self-evident truth is just crazy.

Words fail me at times.

[misscoollinda.livejournal.com]

This guy is SO neanderthal. Is there nothing worse than an arrogant idiot? Yes, you may shoot him now.