"Gender has NOTHING to do with Sex"

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
I'm not saying they do, but they need to be combatted correctly, specifically. Their influence, while pernicious, is alrgely exagerated by the straight, white, Christian, male orthodoxy in academia and society at large. I would argue that the anti-PC people constitute the greater threat, since they tend to dismiss everything brought up by the PC, which includes their central aim of freedom.

I agree with pretty much everything in this post, but do you really think that that the white christian male orthodoxy dominates the academia? I was under the impression that the academia was a completely different beat than the rest of society.

[Bosh]

Originally posted by Spiffor

I agree with pretty much everything in this post, but do you really think that that the white christian male orthodoxy dominates the academia? I was under the impression that the academia was a completely different beat than the rest of society.

Depends. There's econ and then there's sociology...

[chequita guevara]

Tha majority of university professors are still white males unless it changed massively in the last decade. When I did a term paper on this in the early 90s, more than 70% of uni professors were white males.

[Odin]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Tha majority of university professors are still white males unless it changed massive;u in the last decade. When I did a term paper on this in the early 90s, more than 70% of uni professors were white males.

At my Uni there are about equal numbers of men and women in the biology department, and the sciences are a field that is traditionally big-time male dominated (hell, the department head is a woman). though I don't know if that is a freak occurance or not.

[Jon Miller]

that sort of thing is true in biology, I think

in physics, on the other hand, it is something like 20:1 (20 men to one female)

maybe that is a light exaggeration

JM<

[Zylka]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara

Of course, some things are near universal. Men still are the bread winners, women still take care of children. The only society where this was an exception was in the Trobriand Isles, if Margret Mead is to be believed, and some accuse her of fudging her data. While there is some movement towards role swapping (men staying home, women bringing home the bacon) in Western socioety, it is by far the exception, and not the norm.

That's an example that will be brought up in class. Yet predictably enough, she'll come up with the same old "but these definitions change so often (that there's therefore no connection)". It's like a chronological cancellation with her. 'Since this correlation (may or may not) change in the future, as many "supposed" correlations have already - the connection can therefore never be claimed". It's kind of like saying that weather has no affect on how people behave - because our most prehistoric ancestors never cared to venture out into the snow; and now, low and behold - we do!

What is wrong is coercing people into behaving according to them and punishing those who act differently.

Absolutely, yet the reprecussive bigotry from gender bending, "under-sexed" behavior and "deviant" orientation are not the focus of indignance here. Her qualm is with any role<->sex correlation whatsoever. And in near all cosmetic terms, as with the example pink - I am definitely starting to agree, though only partially:

For example, though pink has changed in its gender role consistently - it can still be argued that it held Sex based connotations in each "non-permanent" phase. ie. Pink for a baby boy as lightened shade of red, if indeed red is hardwired as a masculine association for human beings; resulting from the more aggressive (more often flush red) male. Pink today, swaying to the more vivid, sexually associated physicality of females - at least in caucasian cultures. [On an aside, the recent, Western society fad of pink shirts for men is seen as a purely trend based counter culture swing; almost ironic form of un-original "rebellion" towards "defying" current methods of Gender in fashion. The ongoing fad of pink in fashion for men in India? I don't know. Widen the goalposts for it culturally, perhaps ]

Yet to deny even cosmetic forms of Gender that result from our pure physicality.. that's simply ridiculous. I'm going to bring up the lipstick example. And regardless of how hard she may argue for the future, I will not be convinced that lipsticking will sway to male dominance for reason of primal, sexual attraction by hardwired association.

More concrete an example to bring up will be for Men as prime breadwinners, Women as prime nurturers. And if she tries to dispel that with some trite mention of how "Women increasingly permeate the workforce in higher proportions today [and] Fathers are taking more roles in child upbringing" bullsh*t...

Well? How would you most intelligently, though strikingly - respond.

Very few things in human behavior are entirely cultural, just as very little in human behavior is entirely genetic. Most behavior is a mix of both genetic and enviromental influences. That professor is full of sh*t.

There is a lot of data showing the fact that there is a innate difference between men and women in various behaviors. The problem is that the PC nuts somehow get to think that said data somehow condones sexism.

Thank you. As ridiculous as it sounds.. that's a breath of fresh air; for this class. Now is much of that data easily available online?

She looks like an activist Feminist who intends to make you believe that gender is entirely un-grounded in reality so that you agree with her agenda.

I can see only one good thing about her stance: by completely separating gender and sex, she'll help even the slow students understand the difference between the two concepts.

Absolutely agree. Though I hope it's a white lie simply for the latter. If this is rather some ideological stunt to further her own held cause of "everyone for every role" - the faculty should be notified. We'll see what happens.. but in all honestly, I'm expecting to see A papers turn into Bs by her own critique; that based on nothing more than opposing ideology.

And as an already seen negative.. there's a LOT of polarization happening in the class when it shouldn't be happening. The slower students seem always happy to indignantly brand those who oppose them in any form, as enemy. Witty "re-buttals" that have no bearing or reference to the point being criticized are rampant - and keeping the class in a slack jawed sort of hysteric. What the **** is to be learnt here, exactly?

Anyway.. great points all around. Chemical Ollie, can you explain what you mean by your statement? If you're more so siding with this proffessor than anyone else in the thread - I would kill, to (in depth), hear it.

[Az]

Another point would be: since it's unethical to experiment on humans, we are currently unable to conduct double blind experiments to actually determine whether or not gender differences in children are a result of nature or nurture, or to what extent.

Na-ha che. There is solid evidence that the "clean slate" is fiction. Therer are several cases of "late blooming" transsexual twins that were separated at birth, and were raised as different genders. While the one raised as a boy led on to live a relatively normal life, the one reaised as a girl struggled with his sexuality, until finally deciding on becoming a man at his mid-teens, due to his dislike of 'feminine' activities. Note that the boys weren't informed of the speciality of their case.

This has nothing to do with equal opportunity, or the lack of it. It's about equal predisposition ( or the lack of it! )

[chequita guevara]

I would respond that the behavior of post-third wave feminists is most instructive. The battle to prove that women can do anything has already been won. Now women are doing what they chose to do, and guess what, they, by and large, chose to stay home with the kids, at least for a few years.

I would argue that men, however, have not freed themselves from patriarchal gender notions as much as women have. The Promise Keepers not within standing, the men's movement hasn't made very much in the way of inroads either among men or women as to what our new roles should be and how we should approach them.

I would also argue that in no society yet observed, dug up, or amoung in our simian cousins, we we found a society where women were the bread winners and men stayed home with the kids. Given the seeming universalness of the trait, it would be intellectually untenible to claim that it is arbitrary.

You might also use the analogy that we are naturally omnivorous creatures, even if we can chose to be vegitarians. We are naturally sexual creatures, but we can chose to abstain. The fact that we have evolved a particular way as a species does not mean that individuals have act a certain way. We get particular natural rewards for doing what we are programmed to do, but we aren't slaves to our genes.

I agree with you on lipstiking, but male use of make up isn't unknown. Consider the 17th and 18th Century gentry or certain Roman emperors.

Finally, I would note that even in societies which were dedicated to ending gender roles failed to do so. The Soviet Union, the PRC, and Cuba have all failed to break these notions, though they have gone quite far in doing so.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Az
Na-ha che. There is solid evidence that the "clean slate" is fiction.

That's very strong evidence, but it is not conclusive from a scientific standpoint. The reason is that indentical twins do, occassionally, divurge on things that are presumed to have genetic causes, such as homosexuality and schizophrenia.

That aside, I think the "blank slate" is largely incorrect, but it helped us break certain long held far more untenable untruths.

[Az]

That's very strong evidence, but it is not conclusive from a scientific standpoint. The reason is that indentical twins do, occassionally, divurge on things that are presumed to have genetic causes, such as homosexuality and schizophrenia.

Your examples are different from mine in their logical value.

The goal of the test was to prove that nurture was the sole cause of gender differences. Since the children turned up to be similar in the behavior and sexual preferences, despite completely different upbringings, this is as close as possible to being a double blind test as one could get. It didn't prove that Genetics is the only influencing factor. But noone's making that claim seriously anyhow. It did certainly disprove though that nurture is the only thing that matters, aka the "clean slate theory".


as to one untruth replacing others, I don't see any virtue in such a "fairer approximation", because:

a) It's not an approximation, but a model that has qualitatively differing results than reality, just like the old sexism one.
b) it's tolerability puts the search of truth on hold, and stalls it.

[chequita guevara]

So Newton's physics are of no use because they were superceded by Einstein's?

[Mr. Harley]

Zykla - please be very careful, unless you don't give a damn if you get an "A". My wife's courses in Mental Health have routinely had equally biased instructors. She finally stopped struggling when I convinced her to use a different models in those courses.

Do not view those courses as learning, instead view them as a job, with your final purpose being getting a good Performance Review and Recommendation. Disagreeing with the boss, even when you are right, seldom achieves this. Instead determine what the boss wants, and how she wants things done, and then do it that way. Hopefully, unless the boss is totally arbitrary, you will get a minimum of a good review (B) and maybe an excellent review (A).

And next time hopefully you will be able to research how the instructor works and find a good one, or if you have no choice you will get a class where actual learning occurs. Where you will actually be rewarded for good performance.