WOMEN AND MEN, Raised different or born different

[Roland_Deschain]

I know this does not apply to all men and women but none the less I thought it could be an intresting thread.

Now we all know that men and women have their stereotypes, such as drinking, not wanting to ask for directions, the hobbies or intrests they take in a percentage is actually quite different from each other...most of the time.

I am not saying there are not girls acting like guys or vise versa, and I am not saying that is the way people SHOULD act, I am just speculating on this idea.

I was thinking to myself about the many differences between men and women and I started contemplating if they are more or less born different form each other, or has society changed them into the stereotypes of what we think they should be. Or perhaps it is a combination of both, if you think that is the case please explain which you think has a larger affect.

Now I do think mother nature has some major aspect in this, for example strength and speed seem to be some personal genetics and traits you are born with, but even those can be altered growing up.

My question is do you think the world is manufacturing what society deems as traits of a female/male by mass association with entertainment, media, internet, parental guidance, and peer pressure. Or would men and women would adapt these traits eventually of their own accord?

I will get more into this when others start to, please leave your opinions. Have genders become distiguished thanks to personal choice or majority choice. Every time someone tells a guy he is acting like a women, or every time a lady tells her friend that she is doing something unlady like. Good examples of things not only in america but other countries that genders seem to differ on are, drinking, smoking, sewing, taking care of children, paying the bills, making the money, decorating, what entertainment the two choose. There are just so many different things RATIOwise, like I said I am not saying its all like that, I am just speculating on if is caused by evolution, genetics and gender, or if these things are attributes to what we have made society.

 

[Naoto Shirogane]

It HAS been proven that your Paraents gene create a part of your personality.

If you have a shy parent and a Boisterous one then you'll have a mix of them. So you might be Shy sometimes but the life and soul of the party with friends.

Then society. Society has "standards" in which the majority want people to be. all have generally the same personality. so if you grow up in the society like that. your personality will Mirror societys.

If a you grow up a Girl and are treated like a man. then you will have "Manly" properties in your personality. Vice Versa for a guy.

If your raised as a Girl and your a Girl. your personality is going to reflect what your treated like.

If a kid is abused as a Child. They will most likely Mirror their abusers Persoality or actions because they belive what they did is ok. Its all about how and where your raised.

Your personality and actions can change later in life. but its hard. If you not religious and then try to become christian. Your not going to understand everything in a Day. you need to learn and Switch from your previous lifestyle. If you were born and raised a Christian. then its easy for you to fit in. because you grew up like it.

TL;DR? your personality and Actions reflect on how your raised and where. Slightly influenced by your Parents Genes.

 

[Roland_Deschain]

Yes you gave prime examples of genetics and society impressions Garland, but my question for you is which one do you think plays the most role?

Lets speculate that society did not have a shaping impression for how men and women should act, do you think genetics would conjure up the same results anyhow?

Or what if there was no imprints in the genetics, would society still be able to shape the correct definition between the sexes that people still desire?

 

[Starships]

Raised differently.

Boys are taught not to cry. They grow up with action dolls, trucks, sandpits, castles and blocks to destroy, lego games, ninja toys, pirate toys etc.

Girls are taught that it's okay to let out their emotions. They grow up playing with Bratz dolls, they learn how to be a mummy and change dolly nappies, and have a pretend cook oven and ironing oven. Playing wedding games.

Basically it starts at childhood. Guys are taught to build and destroy things, while girls are taught to become a wife and a mum. From age 3, both genders become separated, and go down different pathways.

 

[asm]

Judith Butler has written tons about this. She's pretty hard to read at times, but it's definitely right on the mark for this.

This thread kind of sounds like an epilogue to a feminist theory. Some people use the word "feminist" as an insult (I'm not one of them, on the contrary), regardless of what you feel about feminism in general there's a load of feminist literature everyone should read.


As for my own dumb opinions, yes. Gender and sex are absolutely, positively, without a shadow of a doubt, 100% separate things. Regardless of which genitalia you're born with, you're taught what you're "supposed to be" by someone else. That supposition generally being sexist, stupid, or designed to make you an effective cog in the machinery that makes money for someone else.

Perhaps there are minute differences that are dictated by biology such as hormones (testosterone is a good example), that dictate things like aggression, but for the most part gender is a learned trait.

 

[Howl]

I had this conversation with someone not too long ago. It was determined that the ONLY thing men and women need each other for is procreation. Otherwise, for the most part they are so severely different in terms of chemical (or emotional) design that they really don't make good "buddies", or partners.

Men and women can't read each other the way men&men or women&women can. I absolutely don't mean that homosexuality is legit, albeit if you are, I couldn't care less. I'm just saying, women are more likely to know what other women are thinking or feeling moreso than a man and vice versa. If you think you do know what the opposite sex is thinking or feeling you're more than likely basing the assumption on stereotype.

It just sort of goes without saying. I mean, most men are friends with other men, and most women are friends with other women. Given the fact that sometimes there's a stray male in a female click (who probably has more metrosexual qualities than the average male).

I don't think it's a stereotype for men to be brought up as physical laborers and women as homebodies. After all, who is genetically designed to bring in the hunt, and who is designed to give birth and care for growing children? There's nothing wrong with today's society in which men and women switch rolls, but it's absoltely not a stereotype; it's human nature.

 

[Roland_Deschain]

I had this conversation with someone not too long ago. It was determined that the ONLY thing men and women need each other for is procreation. Otherwise, for the most part they are so severely different in terms of chemical (or emotional) design that they really don't make good "buddies", or partners.

Men and women can't read each other the way men&men or women&women can. I absolutely don't mean that homosexuality is legit, albeit if you are, I couldn't care less. I'm just saying, women are more likely to know what other women are thinking or feeling moreso than a man and vice versa. If you think you do know what the opposite sex is thinking or feeling you're more than likely basing the assumption on stereotype.

It just sort of goes without saying. I mean, most men are friends with other men, and most women are friends with other women. Given the fact that sometimes there's a stray male in a female click (who probably has more metrosexual qualities than the average male).

I don't think it's a stereotype for men to be brought up as physical laborers and women as homebodies. After all, who is genetically designed to bring in the hunt, and who is designed to give birth and care for growing children? There's nothing wrong with today's society in which men and women switch rolls, but it's absoltely not a stereotype; it's human nature.

It may be apparent that we are different from each other, but I personally have discovered the ability to read emotions of females, at least when it comes to my lady or family. Trying and caring is a large factor in reading each others emotions

If I may pose a question to you, do you really think we would still be so completely different from each other, that men would hang with men and vise versa, if society had not set a standard for difference in emotions or actions?

So far considering It seems the me that while we may be born different from each other, the largest factor of our difference is how we are raised by parents and how society has carved and depicted compatable roles for the sex's.

Speaking of mother nature you can notice many different mammals the have the females as hunters and the males as the attractive looking one's, so perhaps its larger than mother nature.

 

[Eight]

When you think about it, a stereotype never just pops out of thin air, it's always based on something from the past, sorta thing. The same applies to gender, to an extent.

I ain't much on science, but our behaviour is based on our cells right? Y chromosomes X chromosomes etc? So like, way back when before gender steroetypes existed, did the majority of men and women act in the way we now depict as stereotypical? Like, Uga the caveman and his wife Unga found that it came naturally for Uga to go out and get grub whilst Unga looked after Uga and Unga Jr. And the same applied to all their neighbours based on their genetics and all that.

And as we developed, as time went on, something happened to our genetics or chromosomes or whatever that twisted them around around and made certain men like Julius Ceasar more feminine and women like Amazons more masculine till eventually we got to today where we have Boy George or Dame Edna.

However, we still haven't broke the habit of giving boys Action Man and girls Barbies, because it's still part of our instinct. Though tbh, it doesn't really matter anyway, because they're still seems to be a noticable increase in feminine men and masculine women. With society becoming more liberal, people are expressing their true selves more.

In short, is it possible we begun naturally as what is now defined as 'traditional' but as time went on, different people bred, cells and genetics and all that sorta stuff mixed and people became more diverse and then we came to where we now?

Sorry to answer a question with another something that's pretty much another question, but I'm kinda interested in this now. xD I know there's some chemical something-or-other that effects how we behave inside us. I'm going into this without remember science and terminology properly. =[

EDIT: Also, I agree with asm, Judith Butler's queer theory was a fascinating read.

 

[Rydrum2112]

Incase you are actually interested in the science of this, and not just what you think goes on or your own anecdotes there is a book by Judith Rich Harris (who at first I thought a few had mentioned) called "The Nuture Assumption: Why children turn out the way they do"

Which discusses this. Also a read in general for this is Matt Ridley's The Agile Gene which goes through the science of the nature v nurture and how that is a false dichotomy- in reality it is nature thru nurture.


Also you need to specify what exactly you are referring to (which specific trait), not everything is a mix of one or the other- your natural eye color is 100% genetic, and the language you speak is 100% environmental. Where as something like intelligence is more genetic than environmental, but is both of them- great evidence gathered via twin studies.

 

[Roland_Deschain]

Also you need to specify what exactly you are referring to (which specific trait), not everything is a mix of one or the other- your natural eye color is 100% genetic, and the language you speak is 100% environmental. Where as something like intelligence is more genetic than environmental, but is both of them- great evidence gathered via twin studies.

I guess for me what I am curious is not the obvious things such as skin color and physical attributes, but more mental thinking.

I know things are changing in western society in this day and age, you have more women providing the family and generally are more independent. However in the long line of human beings it has always been depicted as men being the providers and women being the caretakers. Females tend to have the affection towards the famly's mental needs, also the stereotype of cooking, sewing, doing the shopping and more connected parantal figure.

Its these things that make me curious as to if the design of the two sex's are the way they would naturally be if the structure of mankind was not setup in a certain way, for example would women have naturally taken these roles without the examples set before them or the pressure and judgement of society from the past all the way up to today.

 

[Donald Trump]

There is no naturally is this context, it would be impossible to raise a children without them being influenced by the world around them. Even if there were was nothing to influence them like how it would have been after man first evolved, or if you prefer, god made them, then there would still be no natural. Life was a constant struggle that can't be conceived of today. In such a situation a division of labour would be natural, men would go and hunt shit, woman would raise kiddies. By the time of the Egyptians you've already got a gendered society. Slightly later and you've got the ancient Greeks, inventors of Democracy etc etc, and an incredibly misogynistic society.
I don't think there's any definitive answer to which has more influence as there is a number of different factors. People react differently depending on if they are by themselves with other people, and who they are with also influences what they'll do.

 

[Rydrum2112]

There is no naturally is this context, it would be impossible to raise a children without them being influenced by the world around them...I don't think there's any definitive answer to which has more influence as there is a number of different factors. People react differently depending on if they are by themselves with other people, and who they are with also influences what they'll do.

Just because children aren't raised in a vacuum doesn't mean you can't estimate the impact of the environment. For example, identical twins (monozygotic) share 100% of their genes & their birth environment (in utero); you can look at identical twins who were raised in different environments and correlate their traits. Compare this to the correlation found from dizygotic (fraternal -who only share 50% of their genes and 100% of their birth environment) who were raised apart.

 

[Mr. Gorilla]

Gender identity/role is mostly a social construct (And one that is outdated and no longer serves a practical purpose in this modern society). Yes, there are obvious natural physical differences between men and women, but aside from that, there aren't many notable differences between men and women in a socially practical/functional sense. Yes, personality IS influenced by genetics/hormones/whatnot, but psychology is influenced to a far greater extent by the environment/society than it is by what you were born with and the significance that genetics play in this modern practical sense is most likely minimal, with evidence to the contrary being inconclusive.

you can look at identical twins who were raised in different environments and correlate their traits. Compare this to the correlation found from dizygotic (fraternal -who only share 50% of their genes and 100% of their birth environment) who were raised apart.

Could you link some of these studies? Also, how significant are these traits compared to their overall personalities? Are there a few common things--like, 10% in common--or are there many things in common (Like, 50% or higher)? How different were the environments?

 

[Rydrum2112]

Yes, personality IS influenced by genetics/hormones/whatnot, but psychology is influenced to a far greater extent by the environment/society than it is by what you were born with and the significance that genetics play in this modern practical sense is most likely minimal, with evidence to the contrary being inconclusive.

Actually it turns out in things like personality (or likes & dislikes): the older you get the more genetically related traits tend to be. That is during teen/young adult hood things are much more environmentally influenced. Also the evidence is pretty conclusive (see provided links).

Could you link some of these studies?

For the best reading- see Stephen Pinker's "The Blank Slate" (especially the 2nd half). Part of the problem to linking things is that they are journal articles, so you need access to them. http://www.ists.qimr.edu.au/journal.html

Also, how significant are these traits compared to their overall personalities? Are there a few common things--like, 10% in common--or are there many things in common (Like, 50% or higher)? How different were the environments?

I am not sure what you mean traits compared to overall personalities, you can look at both. For example intelligence seems to be more heritable than environmental (see link below). Also I don't know what you mean by 10% in common. What we are talking about is % of shared variation.
http://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/heritability-of-human-intelligence-iq-and-eugenics-796

I hope that makes sense/answered your questions.