Feminism/Gender Studies

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Feminism/Gender Studies

Post by eMTe »

To hell with correctness. This forum needs some spice, like in good old OG times. (if you have short memory and/or care to check there were some actual debates here at CWF, frequently initiated and maintained by the fellow called Zandrav Ibistenn).

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The major problem with feminism, as somebody wise said, is that it is the greatest nobilitation of masculinity. What's the better nobilitation of man than showing how insistently you desire to become one?

One can't be treated equally, because one's primarily a sexual object in the game. Male for female is primarily sexual object. Neither marxist manipulations nor gender nomenclature will erase true nature of both sides.

If males tend to be more admired as objects of admiration is because they were the dominant factor throughout millennias. They built cities, declared wars, invented things, they were philosophers, artists, madmen. With the violent/sexual factor erased progress will be also erased. At least understood as biological progress what many males can't accept.

Also, what's funny we're talking about feminist- and gender-related subjects like they are universal to the whole world. In reality, the only countries where these tendencies won are either small, weak militarily or have relatively small populations. Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Netherlands, Canada. On the contrary, in BRIC countries, feminism and gender ideologies are most likely discussed only in small academic or bohemian circles, sexual roles are still clearly defined among masses. The paradox is that the latter countries tend to have larger population growth while in our egoistic and fun-dominated culture having babies slowly becomes sort of anachronism. So all this peace/cooperation/IT revolution may be futile, because by the end of this century there might be nobody to utilize its results. Unless we'll be flooded with immigrants, which is already happening, but these immigrants, especially from poor and religious countries, are not interested in our sexual revolutions. It's a vicious circle. You develop ideology which is self-destructive and the only ones who might be its beneficients are not even its supporters.

The major problem with feminism is exactly this. For feminists everything is now and here, they are unable to look at the issue from broader perspective. They don't think of the results their linguosocietal manipulations can have. Thus, feminism is not only anti-past in its denial of everything that's male, but also anti-future, paidocratic and irresponsible. Nothing counts except the fierce opposition to everything that's dominant and strong.

It is a trap. First, feminists want to make everybody equal, because women suffered from inequality in the past. The problem is that while social status of women goes up, social status of males goes down, therefore it's them who suffer now. Thus feminism, allegedly peaceful and modern, turns into sort of revenge. Males feelings don't count.

Second, this pursue for equality can end for some on the other, dark, side. I have read, not so long ago an article about female children of second-wave feminists and many of them rebel(led) against their mothers, because they turned into sort of father-like military figures. The dream of equality is in fact dream of authority which males always possessed and now it becomes a holy graal of feminism. To rule, to decide, to be free, to be dominant, self-reliant etc. It turns females into males, not into "equal females".

What's fair, good, modern etc. is in recent times dominated by certain mode of discourse.

There was once an article in Swedish paper Dagens Nyheter about how politicians who support multi-kulti choose to live in white, gated communities. I call it the Fennoscandia hipocrisy.

Same can be applied to feminism. There is some kind of masochist guilty conscience draining minds of people (of both sexes) who support feminism. They want to push our planetary existence forward, but at the same time they emotionally masturbate themselves to destruct whatever's left of old-school progress. On the other hand you have people associated with islam, which is backwardish ideology in general, but Muslims multiply themselves like hares in the old cartoon Playboy joke pushing brute force approach to the forefront.

Rarely you can encounter somebody who understands progress as balance.
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Re: Feminism/Gender Studies

Post by eMTe »

I have watched the below movie. Didnt know that it exists.



If they begin to make movies like this one in Norway you know that the b@llsh#t is ending. Well, not that I believe there was anybody healthy on mind who ever believed in these ill theories, Im just happy that with movies like this sooner or later genderists will be treated as seriously as raelians.
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Re: Feminism/Gender Studies

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Didn't watch the whole movie, but from what I saw there was lots of bullshit in this documentary when they tried to proove that there is a neurological difference. Especially the toy test and the test at which object newborn children look longer (they can not even clearly see at that age) are nonsense.

But at least in the end the movie maker comes to the right conclusion that gender differences are a mixture betwwen biology and culture. But I believe that even most feminists don't doubt that.
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Re: Feminism/Gender Studies

Post by eMTe »

But isn't culture biology?

Also, you seem to follow the same fallacy the gender activist uses as an argument in latter part of the film - that opponents have an agenda. It's hard oldschool science - pure observation followed by logical reasoning. If somebody has an agenda here - they are feminists and genderists.

When somebody accuses adversary of having an agenda it usually means that we're facing the birth of fundamentalism.
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Re: Feminism/Gender Studies

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eMTe wrote:But isn't culture biology?
No it's not. Biology is something that is purely determined by nature (and can hardly be changed). Culture is a result from education, society and experience and changes very often (even in a short period of time).
eMTe wrote:Also, you seem to follow the same fallacy the gender activist uses as an argument in latter part of the film - that opponents have an agenda. It's hard oldschool science - pure observation followed by logical reasoning. If somebody has an agenda here - they are feminists and genderists.
Not quite correct. I believe that there are extremists on both sides that follow an agenda. They are just a small minority, but they are very vocal. Most people that deal with that kind of gender questions are quite rational though. For example there is a broad consent (at least in Germany and as far as I know also in most of the other Western Europe nations) that something should be done for boys in kindergarten and school, because the gender politic focussed too much on the girls during the last two decades. Doesn't seem to me that this would be the case if this would only be a business for feminist gender activists.

And no, what you saw in the movie isn't hard oldschool science. Don't know how much you are familiar with studies in empirical social research and pedagogics. They are more or less always a matter of interpretation and experimental set-up and many of the are manipulated in a way that you get the results you want in the end (because normally you try to proove your thesis). That's why there are often studies about the same subject that come to extremly opposed results (which hardly ever happens with natural sciences). These kind of research is anything but hard. I bet if I wanted, I could set up the toy test in a way that the boys would always choose the feminine toys and the girls the masculine ones.
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Re: Feminism/Gender Studies

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Pater Alf wrote:Biology is something that is purely determined by nature (and can hardly be changed). Culture is a result from education, society and experience
Culture is determined by biology.
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Re: Feminism/Gender Studies

Post by Pater Alf »

If that's right, how is it possible that all humans share the same biology (more or less), but not the same culture? And why does culture constantly change, but biology hardly does?
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Re: Feminism/Gender Studies

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eMTe wrote:To hell with correctness. This forum needs some spice, like in good old OG times.
Okay, I'll join the argument. :) There seem to be some misconceptions about feminism being spread about here, so I'd like to talk about it.
eMTe wrote:The major problem with feminism, as somebody wise said, is that it is the greatest nobilitation of masculinity. What's the better nobilitation of man than showing how insistently you desire to become one?
Feminism is about wanting everyone to have the same, fair, and equal respectful treatment, regardless of gender. It is not about women wanting to become men. Men and women are different, yes, but feminism isn't about making them the same; it's about treating them with the same respect.
eMTe wrote:One can't be treated equally, because one's primarily a sexual object in the game. Male for female is primarily sexual object. Neither marxist manipulations nor gender nomenclature will erase true nature of both sides.
Sexuality is just one part of a person's being. People have a variety of hobbies and interests, career choices, favourite music, favourite food, daily routines, habits, lifestyle choices, and everyone has different family and friends and influences that shape who they are. People have a huge, rich variety of traits that make up who they are, regardless of their gender. They are not primarily sexual objects. Sexuality can be a very important part of a person, but that does not mean it is the only trait that defines them.
eMTe wrote:If males tend to be more admired as objects of admiration is because they were the dominant factor throughout millennias. They built cities, declared wars, invented things, they were philosophers, artists, madmen. With the violent/sexual factor erased progress will be also erased. At least understood as biological progress what many males can't accept.
Our current society has developed from a combination of competition and cooperation. If humanity really was defined by a "violent/sexual factor," we'd still be living in the stone age and we would not have computers and space stations and all the other technology we take for granted, because that technology was developed by people who pooled all their knowledge and worked together. It was not developed by violent urges, so it doesn't make sense to say that progress would be erased by removing a violent/sexual factor. Personally, I think social change that encourages equal treatment of all people is the next important step in human evolution because then we'll have an even bigger pool of knowledge with a greater variety of sources to work from. Imagine the technological progress we could develop if everyone truly worked together!
eMTe wrote:It is a trap. First, feminists want to make everybody equal, because women suffered from inequality in the past. The problem is that while social status of women goes up, social status of males goes down, therefore it's them who suffer now. Thus feminism, allegedly peaceful and modern, turns into sort of revenge. Males feelings don't count.
Men have been in power for most of history; I think it's about time that we learn to share. :)

There's a lot more I'd like to say on the subject, but I have a friend coming over, so I'll have to finish this post later...
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Re: Feminism/Gender Studies

Post by Chroelle »

Interesting subject. I watched the whole thing, and halfway through realised that i had seen half of it before when stumbling on it on NRK. Its an interesting docomentary, but I think the debate is not going on at a high level in the doc. It seems they tend to either go on about proving their point as to how things MUST be like or try to persuade the interviewer that if people believe that things are otherwise then they are ignorant, naive or downright stupid. Which was underlined for me when I read the youtube comments. Gender talks ends up being about stereotypical behaviour, and then someone says that men being less like men are gay, and women acting out of place are flaming feminists. This is all acts of choice later in life. I choose to have taken a job that is typically a womans job. I takd carw of kids after school, and my female coworkers expect me to be THE MAN on the premises and teach the kids about soccer and woodshop, but this was not why I wanted the job. I wanted to help kids emotionally get a better life - but I am also good with tools, sports and computers, so I am not failing my gender stereotypes, I am adding too them. I am not being stereotypical male ONLY, I am being more.
Women could also be both caring, and be good with tools, but whenever we talk gender we divide it up stereotypes and thus we shoot our own research in the foot.

Did you know that in Swedish daycares where boys are "honom"(he) and girls are "hun"(she) they have a practice of calling all children "hen" instead which has no genderindication yet is very warm (to underline it doesn't translate to "it"). This makes sure that no children are feeling boxed in by stereotypical expectations.
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Re: Feminism/Gender Studies

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Sorry for typos. I am writing on my tablet...
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Re: Feminism/Gender Studies

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I'm back! And now, I'll continue. :)
eMTe wrote:Second, this pursue for equality can end for some on the other, dark, side. I have read, not so long ago an article about female children of second-wave feminists and many of them rebel(led) against their mothers, because they turned into sort of father-like military figures...
You seem to be giving a skewed vision of feminists. Women don't have to be militant to be feminist; they just have to believe in equal treatment and equal rights of choice. A woman can live as a housewife and cook and clean and look after the kids and all those traditional female gender role things and still call herself a feminist if she does it all by choice and not because of some societal standard. Being a feminist doesn't mean that women never do traditional "woman" things; it just means that if they choose to do something else, they are free to do it. Also, children rebelling against their parents is something that has happened throughout history and is an entirely separate issue.
eMTe wrote:...The dream of equality is in fact dream of authority which males always possessed and now it becomes a holy graal of feminism. To rule, to decide, to be free, to be dominant, self-reliant etc. It turns females into males, not into "equal females".
I think you and I have different ideas of what it means to be male. :) I don't see ruling and being dominant as inherently "male" traits. Plenty of men don't want to rule. (I sure don't) I think having more women in positions of authority would be a positive step because it would help bring more balance by having a less male-centric society, but I don't see how that would be considered turning females into males.
eMTe wrote:Culture is determined by biology.
Biology can influence culture, but culture is such a vast, complex, multi-faceted concept that biology is not the only influence and it's not remotely the biggest influence. If you look at people from various countries across Europe, like England, France, Germany, Poland, Denmark, etc. they're all similar biologically but they may have very different cultures from one country to the next.

I have to go to bed, so that's all for now. I haven't watched the video yet, but maybe I'll post some more after I check it out. :)

EDIT: @Chroelle, I applaud what you said about not "failing" your gender stereotypes, but adding to them. I have a lot of respect for people who can break away from traditional gender roles; it makes for a much richer variety of life in the world.
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Re: Feminism/Gender Studies

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Chroelle wrote:Did you know that in Swedish daycares where boys are "honom"(he) and girls are "hun"(she) they have a practice of calling all children "hen" instead
It's "han" and "hon", "honom" is the masculine objective form (eg. "till honom", the feminine form is "till henne"), but yeah, "hen" is the non-gender-specific form.

Anyways, I think that it's pretty silly. I'm pretty sure that kids speaking a gender-neutral language like Finnish turn up exactly the same as kids speaking in a language that has gender-specific pronouns. (Although, I do feel sexist every time I speak in a foreign language and default to translate "hän" to the masculine pronoun... even when speaking about women...)

eMTe, i'm a so disappointed by your "culture is determined by biology"-argument, because not only can it be reduced to absurdity by following up with "biology is determined by physics" but it would also restrict culture to living things. Who's to say (advanced) AI's couldn't have cultures? Also, many definitions of culture are based on the explicit difference between culture and biology, so a more apt restriction would be to sentient beings (and yogurts).
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Re: Feminism/Gender Studies

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Tormuse wrote:Feminism is about wanting everyone to have the same, fair, and equal respectful treatment, regardless of gender. It is not about women wanting to become men. Men and women are different, yes, but feminism isn't about making them the same; it's about treating them with the same respect.
There are various feminst trends as you probably know. I'm centrist by heart, so my criticism is usually aimed at fundamentalism of any kind. I met fundamentalist feminists in rl.
Tormuse wrote:Sexuality is just one part of a person's being.
Granpa Freud would probably destroy you in debate. I don't feel competent enough, but Id love to see him appearing by my side atm, like Marshall McLuhan appears in Woody Allen's "Annie Hall". :D
Chroelle wrote: I choose to have taken a job that is typically a womans job.
Stay happy. But this is the problem with fundamentalist leftism - they force you to become what they want you to become. It's not much different from rightist fundamentalism. For me, the general movie's message is - when you're free you should stay free in your life choices. So, if some males don't have problem with their masculinity - as fundamentalist feminists claim - they should remain macho types with all pros and cons of this position. If somebody wants to nurse kids - peace be with him, if somebody wants to wear skirt - peace be with him, if somebody is gay - peace be with him. Genderism is all about forcing people to understand how it would be like to be mutilated by society. I don't have to be forced into unsafe situation to understand what people with psychosexual problems feel like, I have empathy, I understand there are minorities, I understand that not everybody is happy, but I don't want any experiments being performed on my freedom by minorities.
Tormuse wrote:I think you and I have different ideas of what it means to be male. :)

I don't have any visions of what it means to be this or that, I just write what I feel. If something sounds fake to me I try to debunk it. Feminism and gendersim stink to me, so I argue.
Zyx wrote:eMTe, i'm a so disappointed by your "culture is determined by biology"-argument,
I have become fierce physicalist, you shouldnt be dissapointed. It's my way of approaching life as I predict in 2050 fierce physicalism will be the only widely supported theory. And I don't want to stay behind. :wink:
Zyx wrote:Who's to say (advanced) AI's couldn't have cultures?
Advanced AI's can be downgraded to periodic table or any kind of other plain system of debunking environment around us, just like everything. There's no difference between excretory system, brain, yoghurt, Big Bang, AI, rocks, trees, males and females. The difference is social. And that's what I stick to. I'm a social animal, I want to stay as happy as possible throughout my self-awareness period, so I promote what keeps me safe and happy. From cosmological perspective, genderism is as much true as string theory, because it's really a relational issue.

Living humans on planet Earth tend to write what keep them self-aware, it's so distant from what the frozen water on icy moon would say.

Btw, on lighter note, have you ever heard of this feminist who believes the word "history" should be splitted into "history" and "herstory", because the word "history", namely the prefix "his" sounds oppressive? Poor woman, she didnt know that Greek word historia has nothing to do with English prefixes. 8)
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Re: Feminism/Gender Studies

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eMTe wrote:There are various feminst trends as you probably know. I'm centrist by heart, so my criticism is usually aimed at fundamentalism of any kind. I met fundamentalist feminists in rl.
I guess you and I have had different experiences with feminists, then. :) I'm not sure what "fundamentalist feminists" are like, but the feminists that I've interacted with are mostly interested in educating the public about the social/political/financial differences between how men and women are treated and encouraging men to recognize their privilege so they can help bring balance between them. This doesn't mean that men should feel bad or guilty about their privilege; it just means that they need to learn how to use their position of power to help people instead of hurt them.
eMTe wrote:Granpa Freud would probably destroy you in debate. I don't feel competent enough, but Id love to see him appearing by my side atm, like Marshall McLuhan appears in Woody Allen's "Annie Hall". :D
Haha, well, I recognize that Sigmund Freud is hailed as the father of psychiatry, and he did have some excellent and truly innovative theories for his time, but that was about a hundred years ago and there have been quite a few psychologists that have built upon his work and developed new theories since then. Personally, I ascribe more to cognitive behavioural theories than psychosexual theories; I find them much more useful and applicable.
eMTe wrote:...but I don't want any experiments being performed on my freedom by minorities.
I'm a bit confused by this. :? How does any of this affect your freedom in any way?
eMTe wrote:Advanced AI's can be downgraded to periodic table or any kind of other plain system of debunking environment around us, just like everything. There's no difference between excretory system, brain, yoghurt, Big Bang, AI, rocks, trees, males and females. The difference is social. And that's what I stick to. I'm a social animal, I want to stay as happy as possible throughout my self-awareness period, so I promote what keeps me safe and happy. From cosmological perspective, genderism is as much true as string theory, because it's really a relational issue.
Well... You certainly have an interesting way of looking at things... :) I think it's important to recognize that there is a big difference between string theory and feminism. In the case of string theory, 99% of the planet doesn't care if it gets proved or disproved and knowing about it doesn't affect anyone anyway. Feminism and patriarchal systems, on the other hand, affect everyone very strongly. I recently saw this image posted on Tumblr the other day that puts things in perspective: (EDIT: Scroll down within the image to see the rest of the figures)
Wages are almost twice as high for men at every level of education!
Wages are almost twice as high for men at every level of education!
tumblr_msf4ovwCBR1syoczbo1_500.jpg (92.59 KiB) Viewed 29186 times
It's referring to statistics in the US, but similar figures can be found in countries all over the world. If a man and a woman have the same qualifications for a job, but the man gets paid more for it, doesn't the woman have a good reason to complain and be upset about it? These are very real issues that affect people in very real ways. It could determine whether or not a woman is able to afford enough food to feed her starving family. This isn't some abstract concept like string theory which has no effect on real life; people could die over this! In my opinion, this is something that's worth being concerned about and fighting to improve.
eMTe wrote:Btw, on lighter note, have you ever heard of this feminist who believes the word "history" should be splitted into "history" and "herstory", because the word "history", namely the prefix "his" sounds oppressive? Poor woman, she didnt know that Greek word historia has nothing to do with English prefixes. 8)
Yeah, I've heard of that. :) I think that kind of playing with words is losing sight of the more important issues, like stuff I mentioned above. I'd say people who argue about minor differences in words need to choose their battles better.
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Re: Feminism/Gender Studies

Post by eMTe »

Tormuse wrote:I'm not sure what "fundamentalist feminists" are like
They look like Junior Soprano.
Tormuse wrote:How does any of this affect your freedom in any way?
Not wanting to involve you in a philosophical debate (what some of you here criticize, unfairly imo, because we live in times where various methodologies, branches of science and commonfolk approaches to life merge if are not already merged completely), but my understanding of freedom is total freedom of mind. So, if I use my brain to discuss the very concept of freedom I reserve myself the right to question my opponent's understanding of freedom. Practical example: I am approached by a hippie who tells me "hey man, join our commune, smoke grass with us, enjoy our lifestyle, it's total freedom". The problem is, when you join any commune it's not a freedom anymore, because you also glue yourself to certain understanding of concept of freedom.
Tormuse wrote:You certainly have an interesting way of looking at things... :)
Well, I am interested in differences between being social and unsocial. I have this, still unresolved feeling, that people act, think and talk differently in presence of other people and in presence of "no other people". If you follow my thinking path. Since I view our environment as continuum I don't see any differences between, for example, self-awareness and a chair. From scientific point of view. But here, we discuss social issues, and afaik, there are differences in the macro-world. There may be not in micro-world, but this is another subject, check the "singularity" topic where I am going to write next. 8)
Tormuse wrote:I think that kind of playing with words is losing sight of the more important issues, like stuff I mentioned above. I'd say people who argue about minor differences in words need to choose their battles better.
Well, you're indeed not much into in-depth fierce feminism, because language is one of the battlefield for them. I always love to quote certain discusion which took part in one of the pubs where one of those Junior Sopranos called my friend a "catholic faggot". Only a second later she realized that catholic is indeed an insult, but faggot is not. Still, why did she use that combo? :wink:
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Re: Feminism/Gender Studies

Post by Tormuse »

So, I finally watched the video the other day and I wanted to comment on it. :)

The video is called "The Gender Equality Paradox," referring to the fact that Norway, cited as having the most gender equality of any country in the world, still has strong divisions in the genders of different professions, with, for example, a huge proportion of engineers being male and a huge proportion of nurses being female.

After watching the video, I think I can safely say that there is no paradox. The genders of people in Norway simply aren't as balanced as they want you to believe. (Disclaimer, I've never actually been to Norway; I'm just going by what I saw in the video) For example, the interviewer greets a female doctor by commenting on her tan and kissing her on the cheek and greets a male doctor by shaking hands and commenting on what a firm handshake he has. See the difference? He complimented a woman on her appearance and a man on his strength. There are little examples like that throughout the video of him treating people differently based on their gender, including the fact that both his daughters are dressed in pink. (Presumably, he bought them pink clothes because they are girls) Over and over, women are encouraged to look good and men are encouraged to be strong.

I'm glad they used the example of the experiment with the babies with different coloured blankets, because I was planning to mention that study anyway. :) Something as simple as the colour of a blanket causes people to treat children *very* differently, even before they can walk or talk, and that has profound effects on how children turn out as they grow up. The interesting part, to me, is that when the interviewer hears about the baby blanket experiment, he is so surprised that he puts his hands to his face in disbelief that, even in Norway, people treat boys and girls very differently. This tells me that these sexist ideas about boys and girls are so ingrained into him that he doesn't even realize that he himself is perpetuating them.

Is Norway really the most gender-balanced country in the world? Perhaps... but I think it's something like this...

3 3 3 4 3 3

Out of the above list of numbers, 4 is clearly the highest, but it's only a tiny bit higher than the average. Similarly, I have a feeling that Norway is only a tiny bit more balanced than other countries in the civilized world, with such a small difference that it's hardly noticeable.

The people in the video that claim that males and females choose different professions because of innate biological differences keep using Norway as an example, saying that the fact that there are disparities in such a gender-balanced nation is proof that choice of profession is based on biology and not culture, but considering all I've said above, I don't think Norway is a very strong example of what it means to have balance between the genders. In the end, I'd say it's a lot like what Pater Alf said above, that the way boys and girls turn out is based on a mix of culture and biology.

Basically, it ends up looking like this cartoon:

http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db ... 1883#comic

Women tend to be less interested in technical fields because they are never taught about them or encouraged to learn about them.

And on a side note, I don't think I've ever heard the Norwegian language spoken before this video. It's got a sort of musical quality to it and I like the sound of it. :)

(EDIT: I'll be back to comment on the other stuff later)
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Zyx
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Re: Feminism/Gender Studies

Post by Zyx »

Relating to this, there was an article on the Economist about the difference in brain activity between males and females.
Dr Verma’s other main finding is that most of these differences are not congenital. Rather, they develop with age. Her volunteers ranged from 8 to 22 years old. The brains of boys and girls aged 8 to 13 demonstrated only a few differences, though all were of the type that later became pronounced. Adolescents, those aged 13 to 17, showed more. Young adults, over 17, more still. Sex differences in brains—those visible to this technique, at least—thus manifest themselves mainly when sex itself begins to matter.
It is important to note that we know very little about the actual functions of the brain and it's very likely that to some extent the different parts of the brain can do pretty much anything but on average seem to specialize on same things. Also, it is wrong to come to the conclusion that men and female are inherently different - there is some indication that both nature and nurture cause the differences.

It's actually quite surprising how much culture affects us even physically.
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Re: Feminism/Gender Studies

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As for "culture" affecting "biology", take my drunk posts as example. They spread mostly bad memes, but they are language and language is what you probably consider as part of "culture". Now, intoxication for you is nature or culture? You take physical factor (alcohol in this case) which influences your cultural output. Where's the border between nature and culture? Between fourth and fifth beer? If language is culture how come it changes with a small intake of yellowish fluid?
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Zyx
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Re: Feminism/Gender Studies

Post by Zyx »

There's no clear border, you're a product of culture and nature. Alcohol just changes your brain's chemical balance, just like when you're angry or whatever. This affects your mood and decision making.

Language doesn't change when you drink. Your use of if might. (Of course, one could argue that language changes every time we use it and is in constant flux)

This way leads only to age-old questions about free will, soul/body, criminal capacity etc.
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Re: Feminism/Gender Studies

Post by Tormuse »

eMTe wrote:As for "culture" affecting "biology", take my drunk posts as example. They spread mostly bad memes, but they are language and language is what you probably consider as part of "culture". Now, intoxication for you is nature or culture? You take physical factor (alcohol in this case) which influences your cultural output. Where's the border between nature and culture? Between fourth and fifth beer? If language is culture how come it changes with a small intake of yellowish fluid?
Well, first of all, your decision to get drunk in the first place could be seen as the result of a mix of culture and biology; culture, because your alcohol intake is affected by society's perception and tolerance of alcohol. (Some cultures don't drink at all, for example) and biology because some people's bodies handle alcohol better than others and/or may be more prone to alcohol addiction.

As for the effects of alcohol, it's been said that the reason people's personalities change while under the influence is that alcohol releases your inhibitions. It frees you to say and do the things you secretly want to say and do but normally don't because society says you shouldn't. For example, some people are mean drunks, they become more angry and aggressive while they are drunk because they are naturally aggressive people, but they usually restrain themselves from being mean or insulting because it's impolite. On the other hand, some people become very affectionate when they're drunk because they secretly want to be more expressive of their feelings, but they normally don't because society says they're supposed to be tough and so they hide that part of themselves.

So, in short, alcohol changes you because it makes your true self come out. I suppose the question is, is your true self a product of biology or culture? (Nature or nurture?) I would still say it's both. Biology, because there may be chemical processes and imbalances in your brain and body that make you predisposed toward certain emotions, and culture because your upbringing and early experiences shape what you value and how you react to things. Even when you're drunk, your actions aren't based purely on biology or purely on culture. I'm assuming you brought up alcohol to suggest that men and women behave a certain way while drunk due to biological factors of their gender, but I don't think so. How else do you explain the fact that some men may beat people up while drunk, while others become weepy and say, "I love you guys!"

EDIT: And on a related note, I happened to see this funny video today. :D
eMTe wrote:
Tormuse wrote:How does any of this affect your freedom in any way?
Not wanting to involve you in a philosophical debate (what some of you here criticize, unfairly imo, because we live in times where various methodologies, branches of science and commonfolk approaches to life merge if are not already merged completely), but my understanding of freedom is total freedom of mind. So, if I use my brain to discuss the very concept of freedom I reserve myself the right to question my opponent's understanding of freedom. Practical example: I am approached by a hippie who tells me "hey man, join our commune, smoke grass with us, enjoy our lifestyle, it's total freedom". The problem is, when you join any commune it's not a freedom anymore, because you also glue yourself to certain understanding of concept of freedom.
I don't mind discussing philosophy; such discussions can be quite interesting, though I wonder if we should start another thread for that if it gets too far away from the subject of gender studies.

I agree that there are different definitions of freedom; Personally, I believe in the freedom to do whatever you want as long as it doesn't interfere with other people's freedom. Do you agree eMTe? I still don't understand how the feminists you mentioned interfere with your freedom. Did they tell you that there are things you can't do or say?
[size=84]"A Canadian is someone who knows how to make love in a canoe."
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