saturnfan wrote:The problem with your line of reasoning is that it seems you have taken an extreme anti-evolutionary position on the issue, to the point that it looks like you are denying that sexual dimorphism exhibits any significance at all in humans.
Not at all. I specifically mention differences between the sexes in my opening line.
o.pwuaioc wrote:I think there are real biological differences between men and women.
I'm not sure how you constructed that strawman of yours.
Take Turner’s syndrome for example. It is caused by a woman’s failing to receive her additional chromosome, and are thus XO (as opposed to XX). Women who suffer from it are observed to behave in ways are hyper-feministic, and exhibit every stereotype about women can you can think of.
Cite the study on that. I've known a couple people with Turner's, and they were
not that stereotypical "female" (whatever that means, especially since different societies have different stereotypes about women, and this usually changes as time goes on. Are women meek and quiet? Or are they loud and bitchy?
But biological reasons are the most significant, as to our amazing evolutionary history. The only people who “deride” these studies are from the humanities, who are not aware, any of the technical data or research. The scientific community isn’t as divided as you think; it’s just that highly technical data from academic journals rarely makes its way into the mainstream. Nor would the average person even be able to read and understand it.
They're not divided, because they don't agree with you. There is absolutely zero evidence that says that women in every culture prefer social jobs or that it is biological to do so. In fact, I can point to you a dozen societies where women were the ones hidden away, and the men were social (ancient Greek, early ancient Roman, Ottoman Turkey, feudal Japan, early and middle imperial China to name a few). And if you start to protest that this is a humanities problem, why don't we take a look at some real science articles?
Queller, David. "Evolutionary biology: Males from Mars."
Nature 435.7046 (2005): 1167.
That men and women sometimes seem like different species is the stock in trade of pop psychologists and relationship gurus. Some go even farther: men are from Mars and women are from Venus. But in reality, human sexual differences are rather small. Even a naturalist freshly arrived from Mars or Venus would have little trouble binning specimens of men with women, and not with female chimpanzees or gorillas. There are species where males and females are different enough to have fooled real earthly naturalists. But no population geneticist would be misled -- males and females mix their genes in their progeny, and as a result male and female genes comprise a common, well-mixed pool. A fascinating exception to this rule is described by Fournier et al . (Clonal reproduction by males and females in the little fire ant) [1]. Males and females each reproduce clonally and, like independent species, follow separate evolutionary branches.
Joel, Daphna. "Male or Female? Brains are Intersex."
Integr Neurosci 5 (2011): 57.
The underlying assumption in popular and scientific publications on sex differences in the brain is that human brains can take one of two forms “male” or “female,” and that the differences between these two forms underlie differences between men and women in personality, cognition, emotion, and behavior. Documented sex differences in brain structure are typically taken to support this dimorphic view of the brain. However, neuroanatomical data reveal that sex interacts with other factors in utero and throughout life to determine the structure of the brain, and that because these interactions are complex, the result is a multi-morphic, rather than a dimorphic, brain. More specifically, here I argue that human brains are composed of an ever-changing heterogeneous mosaic of “male” and “female” brain characteristics (rather than being all “male” or all “female”) that cannot be aligned on a continuum between a “male brain” and a “female brain.” I further suggest that sex differences in the direction of change in the brain mosaic following specific environmental events lead to sex differences in neuropsychiatric disorders.
Martinsen, Bente (2012). "Are men from Mars and women from Venus?"
Int J Qual Stud Health Well-being. 7: 10.3402.
In empirical research literature, men and women are commonly separated into specific gender groups, and this may be well-founded as there are clearly biological differences. However, this tendency seems to have entered qualitative research and this may conflict with ontological and epistemological beliefs. A brief survey of some papers containing qualitative studies shows that while some researchers provide a rationale for dividing groups along gender lines, others do not appear to question or provide justification for this in their research. In most cases, the division is made with reference to earlier studies using gender division, for example: “Since allergy to gluten has only been studied among women so far, this study provides insight into men's experiences of this life condition”. Attempting to establish the necessary niche in the existing body of knowledge, the researcher fails to question whether a gender division is suitable in this particular study.
The differences between the sexes are real, but they're not nearly as nice and neat as you want them to be, and research actually has been trending in the opposite way
in the sciences.
).