Article/Editorial on reading overmuch into gender differences

[moominmuppet]

This reminded me a bit of the article I posted about the other day regarding the speed with which relatively questionable science that reinforces current stereotypes gets adopted and disseminated.

Anthropologists who suggest early humans survived by dint of separate gender roles are grabbing headlines. Caryl Rivers says it shows the media's fondness for evidence--however dubious--of the species being hardwired for male dominance.

It's actually the latter two sections of the commentary that I found most relevant, since those address the connection between these theories and current political and sociological issues.

Comments

[forestfire.livejournal.com]

I never thought it would happen, but I've become a feminist in my old age and realize now that I'm constantly under philosophical and practical attack yet mainstream liberals think the battle has been fought and won, never even noticing that we lose ground every year.. Sigh..

[moominmuppet.livejournal.com]

It can be a disconcerting experience. Entirely too frequently, I have the "Am I really nuts? I must be, because otherwise I don't get how so many people aren't seeing it" experience.

As a bitchy slut

[forestfire.livejournal.com]

I think its bvecause large numbers of the discriminated class (women) are convinced of the validity of discriminatory propoganda... that women are more emotional, less logical or scientific, strong women who know what they want are bitches, women who like sex are sluts, etc, etc, etc... I know many educated women who carefully count their sex partners and worry about appearing too aggressive.

Also, much as is true in India a few women in positions of power is intended to appease the masses who cheerfully fight for the fundamentalist views that prevent them from achieving any sort of equality.

Sigh, on an unrelated note... my okcupid local matches got set to Cleveland while I was visiting... you came up first on the list...

Re: As a bitchy slut

[moominmuppet.livejournal.com]

*nod* That's the part that scares me when I start the "Am I nuts" thing -- it's not just a rhetorical question -- it's really easy to start doubting one's own beliefs and sanity in the face of all of it.

Sigh, on an unrelated note... my okcupid local matches got set to Cleveland while I was visiting... you came up first on the list...

*chuckle*

I just wish they had a "never show me this match again" option. It's really a rather creepy buzzkill when one's sib pops up repeatedly as a best match (and I know Matt feels the same way)

Re: As a bitchy slut

[forestfire.livejournal.com]

Hell, I feel that way about some of my non-related matches. I didn't look at the screen long enough to see if Matt came up for me, I just looked saw your face, realized my settings were screwy and giggled.

On the topic of okcupid, it was funny talking to my date Monday night, his top match is underwatercolor, who I met off of okcupid... the conversation very quickly devolved into both of us realizing we knew everyone in the top ten. The system is flawed in a small area.

[kat-chan.livejournal.com]

And, of course, none of those studies examine anything that falls outside of the binary gender paradigm. *growl*

[moominmuppet.livejournal.com]

Well, by their standards, nothing exists outside it, donchaknow?

And any of us who think differently are imaginary little pixies. Yup.

[kat-chan.livejournal.com]

Yeah...and for the last month or so I've been fighting a heavy depression centering around my amorphous gender and my frustration at not being able to express my gender as I'd like, or as I feel at the time. And at the realization that there are probably things that my brain thinks it may like, sexually, that just will never be something that I can experience because of the limitations of the human body.

*sighs*

[heron61.livejournal.com]

My rage at the idiocy of bad social science knows no bounds. Dear gods, we have clear evidence in the Sahara desert rock paintings that both men and women went on hunts, evidence that also fits with pre-contact plains indians jump hunts of buffalo, where most adult members of the tribe (both men and women) helped out.

[forestfire.livejournal.com]

Which makes logical sense as a good use of adult labor. My question is, so what if they did not? Does the fact (assuming that its even true) that prehistoric peoples subdivided based on a need to protect childbearers truly translate in a moral or natural paradigm. A single male and multiple females can repopulate a tribe. The reverse does not hold true. Assuming that some prehistoric people saw this logic, why should I, living in an over populated society, be in any way bound by it?

Its a real pain in the ass to when research is bound to a political agenda. It means we never get good research.