gender difference
Saturday, 30 January 2010 10:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
miriam_eI've been trying to distract myself while waiting for the phone to ring with news of Mali.
I got to thinking about claims of difference between the minds of women and men. In the past I've witnessed hot arguments on the subject, with both sides generally insisting more or less the same thing -- that men and women think and feel differently. I'd always been uncomfortable with such arguments as nobody ever gives any evidence; they argue entirely from their own experience, with one saying to the other that "You can never know what it feels to be [insert male or female here] because you are not." It was always a confounding statement to make, because they're right, nobody can know what maleness or femaleness feels like if they are not of that gender. However I always found it unsettling because I never felt a part of my gender, so I'd always felt a little mystified at what they meant.
It suddenly hit me today that the entire argument springs from a delusion. When people assume that what they feel is shared by others of their gender, they are making an unfounded assumption. They say people of their own gender feel a particular way, and that those of the other gender don't, but how can they possibly know if either of those statements is true? Clearly they can't. Neither sex has access to telepathy. Nobody knows what another human being feels like, let alone an entire gender of humans. And the simple fact that I stand alone, feeling not particularly female or male would tend to disprove it anyway. If I feel like this, how many others do?
I've met plenty of strong, aggressive, gadget-oriented women, and gentle, touchy-feely males. It looks to me that there is far more overlap between the sexes than there are distinguishing features, meaning that many, many people (most?) are not able to be easily fitted into any simplified box of shared experience or mental traits.
Despite it being one of those commonly accepted "self-evident truths", it seems it is really just another example of sexism.
I got to thinking about claims of difference between the minds of women and men. In the past I've witnessed hot arguments on the subject, with both sides generally insisting more or less the same thing -- that men and women think and feel differently. I'd always been uncomfortable with such arguments as nobody ever gives any evidence; they argue entirely from their own experience, with one saying to the other that "You can never know what it feels to be [insert male or female here] because you are not." It was always a confounding statement to make, because they're right, nobody can know what maleness or femaleness feels like if they are not of that gender. However I always found it unsettling because I never felt a part of my gender, so I'd always felt a little mystified at what they meant.
It suddenly hit me today that the entire argument springs from a delusion. When people assume that what they feel is shared by others of their gender, they are making an unfounded assumption. They say people of their own gender feel a particular way, and that those of the other gender don't, but how can they possibly know if either of those statements is true? Clearly they can't. Neither sex has access to telepathy. Nobody knows what another human being feels like, let alone an entire gender of humans. And the simple fact that I stand alone, feeling not particularly female or male would tend to disprove it anyway. If I feel like this, how many others do?
I've met plenty of strong, aggressive, gadget-oriented women, and gentle, touchy-feely males. It looks to me that there is far more overlap between the sexes than there are distinguishing features, meaning that many, many people (most?) are not able to be easily fitted into any simplified box of shared experience or mental traits.
Despite it being one of those commonly accepted "self-evident truths", it seems it is really just another example of sexism.
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Re: interesting post...
Date: 2010-02-01 10:37 am (UTC)You gave me great pain when you voiced the worry about telepaths hearing your "perversity"... I've just had a tooth out and the laugh and big grin that comment produced caused me to yelp with pain. :) Thank you and curse you at the same time. heheheh :)
When transexuals say they feel like they are the wrong sex, I think they are mistranslating an expectation that they've unwittingly taken on board. Society has these restrictive views of what a male or female should be, and people (no matter how intelligent) end up getting sucked in by them. It is my view that transexualism is a mistake caused by society screwing with people's minds. We need more feminine males and more masculine females and everything in between; they are extremely important for the health of society. Transexuality sadly takes those valuable people out of the breeding race so they can no longer contribute their important genes. For similar reasons I feel strongly that lesbians and gay males should be able to have kids.
Ecological science has taught us how diversity makes for a strong and healthy ecology.
I'm currently about a third of the way through James Surowiecki's cool non-fiction book "The Wisdom of Crowds" in which a major theme is how groups of people are able to act intelligently only to the degree that they are diverse. Remove diversity and you end up with lynch-mob-crazy mentality. We need diversity. It is not just a nice, feel-good, artsy, liberal thing; it may decide our survival as a species.
Re: interesting post...
Date: 2010-02-01 12:16 pm (UTC)Re: interesting post...
Date: 2010-02-01 02:29 pm (UTC)Of course I don't really know and I'm just theorising. I could be completely wrong in all this. I have no better access to other people's minds than anybody else. :)
I've heard some explanations of transexuality that mention imprinting and early effects of hormones on the baby brain, but I don't know how much credence to give them. I've heard them used to "explain" gayness as well, which always seemed silly to me.