"The fact that men usually being the breadwinner has changed over a period of a few generations establishes that this is a cultural phenomenon."
Oh wait, except for the fact that women didn't start joining the workforce until birth control and relatively comfortable jobs became the norm...
Do you see the problem with your logic?
sunprince, how do you manage to define your premises as non-cultural? shiori didn't give concrete causes like you're attempting to, and you're giving definably cultural reasoning for your examples. suffice it to say I am confused, because his point is that biology is a largely impermeable and consistent influence on behavior, ergo the suddenness of the shift is by definition culturally based...which you would seem to agree it is, by the nature of your own possible reasons.
not sure about the influence of feminism on the proliferation of technology from a gender standpoint, though.
Shiori assumes that any rapid changes over a period of a few generations establishes that the phenomenon was cultural (e.g. due to cultural reasons).
The example of women joining the workforce shows that this is poor logic, because the real reason that men were historically the primary breadwinners is because most work was hard physical labor that women could not perform, and because until the advent of birth control women were generally constrained too much by childbirth to be primary breadwinners (and even today, pregnancy is a major factor for women in the workplace).
In other words, the change was due to technology alleviating biological conditions, not because male breadwinners were a cultural phenomena that simply was dispensed with when the prevailing cultural winds shifted.
TL;DR: you can't assume that simply because a phenomena changes quickly that the phenomena is cultural, because the phenomena might be a biological one that simply applies differently.
It is unbelievably disingenuous to suggest that there was no cultural component to women joining the workforce. Actually, it's absolutely absurd. While technology alleviating biological conditions was certainly important and relevant to women joining the workforce, so too was the women's rights movement which challenged the widespread belief that women were best suited to work in a particular field or only in the home.
The argument I was making is that division of labor which explained the historical trend of male breadwinners was a biological phenomenon in the first place. Culture certainly was constructed around it, and needed to change for women to join the workforce, but that doesn't mean that the phenomenon was cultural.
On June 11 2013 10:09 Shiori wrote: Furthermore, even the idea that children should be raised by women or by one mother is completely a cultural phenomenon, as evidenced by hunter-gatherer tribes which are structured in a completely egalitarian fashion and which had children raised by men as well as multiple women; mothers even lived with their mothers for a period, undermining the very typical conception of the nuclear family that continues to dominate Western culture. Of course, men are generally breadwinners in these sorts of societies, but there are exceptions to this rule.
Modern hunter-gatherer tribes are egalitarian. This does not imply that most hunter-gatherers historically were egalitarian.
In fact, I would argue that the reason why archaeologists and anthropologists disagree on this notion is because the anthropologists study modern hunter-gatherers, whereas archaeologists look at historical ones.
Why the difference? I would speculate this is because the non-egalitarian ones were the ones that developed civilizations because they figured out that division of labor was an advantageous strategy, given the biological differences between men and women.
On June 11 2013 10:09 Shiori wrote: Ultimately, my point is that you appear far too eager to justify virtually any existent divide between men and women in modern culture by way of biology in order to uphold the utterly absurd conclusion that feminism not only has nothing to accomplish but is actually unfounded by definition.
I haven't recently argued that feminism is unfounded, and my posts in this conversation were not aimed at establishing that notion.
My conclusion that feminism is unfounded is due to the fact that it rests on patriarchy theory (an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory with no evidence to support it), the fact that feminists in practice do not actually pursue gender equality as they claim, and the fact that feminism assumes that all gender differences are entirely culturally constructed.
From the Wiki article on sexism: "According to Peter Sterns, women in pre-agricultural societies held equal positions with men; it was only after the adoption of agriculture and sedentary cultures that men began to institutionalize the concept that women were inferior to men.[7]"
So I'm afraid your insistence that the modernity of hunter-gatherer tribes has anything to do with the equal influence of men/women just doesn't fly. By the way, division of labour != primacy of males when it comes to decision making.
Your definition of feminism is actually just wrong. Not only are not all feminists complete deconstructionists, but a feminist is nothing more and nothing less than "an advocate or supporter of the rights and equality of women" according to the OED.
I've encountered feminists who go overboard with the intersectionality and post-structuralism, but to say that this is a necessary component of feminism is demonstrably false.
EDIT: "patriarchy theory" isn't any singular thing. It's incontrovertible that patriarchal societies have not only existed in history but have been the dominant force, at least in the West, so I'm not sure why it's so puzzling to you that vestiges of patriarchal institutions could still have influence. Not that I think everything is because of the patriarchy, or whatever, because that's lunacy, but to call the very idea that there might still be constructs that derive from patriarchal ones a conspiracy theory is pretty silly.
"The fact that men usually being the breadwinner has changed over a period of a few generations establishes that this is a cultural phenomenon."
Oh wait, except for the fact that women didn't start joining the workforce until birth control and relatively comfortable jobs became the norm...
Do you see the problem with your logic?
sunprince, how do you manage to define your premises as non-cultural? shiori didn't give concrete causes like you're attempting to, and you're giving definably cultural reasoning for your examples. suffice it to say I am confused, because his point is that biology is a largely impermeable and consistent influence on behavior, ergo the suddenness of the shift is by definition culturally based...which you would seem to agree it is, by the nature of your own possible reasons.
not sure about the influence of feminism on the proliferation of technology from a gender standpoint, though.
Shiori assumes that any rapid changes over a period of a few generations establishes that the phenomenon was cultural (e.g. due to cultural reasons).
The example of women joining the workforce shows that this is poor logic, because the real reason that men were historically the primary breadwinners is because most work was hard physical labor that women could not perform, and because until the advent of birth control women were generally constrained too much by childbirth to be primary breadwinners (and even today, pregnancy is a major factor for women in the workplace).
In other words, the change was due to technology alleviating biological conditions, not because male breadwinners were a cultural phenomena that simply was dispensed with when the prevailing cultural winds shifted.
TL;DR: you can't assume that simply because a phenomena changes quickly that the phenomena is cultural, because the phenomena might be a biological one that simply applies differently.
It is unbelievably disingenuous to suggest that there was no cultural component to women joining the workforce. Actually, it's absolutely absurd. While technology alleviating biological conditions was certainly important and relevant to women joining the workforce, so too was the women's rights movement which challenged the widespread belief that women were best suited to work in a particular field or only in the home.
The argument I was making is that division of labor which explained the historical trend of male breadwinners was a biological phenomenon in the first place. Culture certainly was constructed around it, and needed to change for women to join the workforce, but that doesn't mean that the phenomenon was cultural.
On June 11 2013 10:09 Shiori wrote: Furthermore, even the idea that children should be raised by women or by one mother is completely a cultural phenomenon, as evidenced by hunter-gatherer tribes which are structured in a completely egalitarian fashion and which had children raised by men as well as multiple women; mothers even lived with their mothers for a period, undermining the very typical conception of the nuclear family that continues to dominate Western culture. Of course, men are generally breadwinners in these sorts of societies, but there are exceptions to this rule.
Modern hunter-gatherer tribes are egalitarian. This does not imply that most hunter-gatherers historically were egalitarian.
In fact, I would argue that the reason why archaeologists and anthropologists disagree on this notion is because the anthropologists study modern hunter-gatherers, whereas archaeologists look at historical ones.
Why the difference? I would speculate this is because the non-egalitarian ones were the ones that developed civilizations because they figured out that division of labor was an advantageous strategy, given the biological differences between men and women.
On June 11 2013 10:09 Shiori wrote: Ultimately, my point is that you appear far too eager to justify virtually any existent divide between men and women in modern culture by way of biology in order to uphold the utterly absurd conclusion that feminism not only has nothing to accomplish but is actually unfounded by definition.
I haven't recently argued that feminism is unfounded, and my posts in this conversation were not aimed at establishing that notion.
My conclusion that feminism is unfounded is due to the fact that it rests on patriarchy theory (an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory with no evidence to support it), the fact that feminists in practice do not actually pursue gender equality as they claim, and the fact that feminism assumes that all gender differences are entirely culturally constructed.
From the Wiki article on sexism: "According to Peter Sterns, women in pre-agricultural societies held equal positions with men; it was only after the adoption of agriculture and sedentary cultures that men began to institutionalize the concept that women were inferior to men.[7]"
So I'm afraid your insistence that the modernity of hunter-gatherer tribes has anything to do with the equal influence of men/women just doesn't fly. By the way, division of labour != primacy of males when it comes to decision making.
Your definition of feminism is actually just wrong. Not only are not all feminists complete deconstructionists, but a feminist is nothing more and nothing less than "an advocate or supporter of the rights and equality of women" according to the OED.
I've encountered feminists who go overboard with the intersectionality and post-structuralism, but to say that this is a necessary component of feminism is demonstrably false.
What exactly does egalitarian mean here? That they were equally involved in hunting and childcare? That there were an equal number of female chieftains to male chieftains? That men didn't exert physical domination of women when they wanted to?
"The fact that men usually being the breadwinner has changed over a period of a few generations establishes that this is a cultural phenomenon."
Oh wait, except for the fact that women didn't start joining the workforce until birth control and relatively comfortable jobs became the norm...
Do you see the problem with your logic?
sunprince, how do you manage to define your premises as non-cultural? shiori didn't give concrete causes like you're attempting to, and you're giving definably cultural reasoning for your examples. suffice it to say I am confused, because his point is that biology is a largely impermeable and consistent influence on behavior, ergo the suddenness of the shift is by definition culturally based...which you would seem to agree it is, by the nature of your own possible reasons.
not sure about the influence of feminism on the proliferation of technology from a gender standpoint, though.
Shiori assumes that any rapid changes over a period of a few generations establishes that the phenomenon was cultural (e.g. due to cultural reasons).
The example of women joining the workforce shows that this is poor logic, because the real reason that men were historically the primary breadwinners is because most work was hard physical labor that women could not perform, and because until the advent of birth control women were generally constrained too much by childbirth to be primary breadwinners (and even today, pregnancy is a major factor for women in the workplace).
In other words, the change was due to technology alleviating biological conditions, not because male breadwinners were a cultural phenomena that simply was dispensed with when the prevailing cultural winds shifted.
TL;DR: you can't assume that simply because a phenomena changes quickly that the phenomena is cultural, because the phenomena might be a biological one that simply applies differently.
It is unbelievably disingenuous to suggest that there was no cultural component to women joining the workforce. Actually, it's absolutely absurd. While technology alleviating biological conditions was certainly important and relevant to women joining the workforce, so too was the women's rights movement which challenged the widespread belief that women were best suited to work in a particular field or only in the home.
The argument I was making is that division of labor which explained the historical trend of male breadwinners was a biological phenomenon in the first place. Culture certainly was constructed around it, and needed to change for women to join the workforce, but that doesn't mean that the phenomenon was cultural.
On June 11 2013 10:09 Shiori wrote: Furthermore, even the idea that children should be raised by women or by one mother is completely a cultural phenomenon, as evidenced by hunter-gatherer tribes which are structured in a completely egalitarian fashion and which had children raised by men as well as multiple women; mothers even lived with their mothers for a period, undermining the very typical conception of the nuclear family that continues to dominate Western culture. Of course, men are generally breadwinners in these sorts of societies, but there are exceptions to this rule.
Modern hunter-gatherer tribes are egalitarian. This does not imply that most hunter-gatherers historically were egalitarian.
In fact, I would argue that the reason why archaeologists and anthropologists disagree on this notion is because the anthropologists study modern hunter-gatherers, whereas archaeologists look at historical ones.
Why the difference? I would speculate this is because the non-egalitarian ones were the ones that developed civilizations because they figured out that division of labor was an advantageous strategy, given the biological differences between men and women.
On June 11 2013 10:09 Shiori wrote: Ultimately, my point is that you appear far too eager to justify virtually any existent divide between men and women in modern culture by way of biology in order to uphold the utterly absurd conclusion that feminism not only has nothing to accomplish but is actually unfounded by definition.
I haven't recently argued that feminism is unfounded, and my posts in this conversation were not aimed at establishing that notion.
My conclusion that feminism is unfounded is due to the fact that it rests on patriarchy theory (an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory with no evidence to support it), the fact that feminists in practice do not actually pursue gender equality as they claim, and the fact that feminism assumes that all gender differences are entirely culturally constructed.
From the Wiki article on sexism: "According to Peter Sterns, women in pre-agricultural societies held equal positions with men; it was only after the adoption of agriculture and sedentary cultures that men began to institutionalize the concept that women were inferior to men.[7]"
So I'm afraid your insistence that the modernity of hunter-gatherer tribes has anything to do with the equal influence of men/women just doesn't fly. By the way, division of labour != primacy of males when it comes to decision making.
Your definition of feminism is actually just wrong. Not only are not all feminists complete deconstructionists, but a feminist is nothing more and nothing less than "an advocate or supporter of the rights and equality of women" according to the OED.
I've encountered feminists who go overboard with the intersectionality and post-structuralism, but to say that this is a necessary component of feminism is demonstrably false.
What exactly does egalitarian mean here? That they were equally involved in hunting and childcare? That there were an equal number of female chieftains to male chieftains? That men didn't exert physical domination of women when they wanted to?
It means that there was no institutionalized gender with power over another i.e. everyone had equal rights and privileges and influence with respect to governance.
"The fact that men usually being the breadwinner has changed over a period of a few generations establishes that this is a cultural phenomenon."
Oh wait, except for the fact that women didn't start joining the workforce until birth control and relatively comfortable jobs became the norm...
Do you see the problem with your logic?
sunprince, how do you manage to define your premises as non-cultural? shiori didn't give concrete causes like you're attempting to, and you're giving definably cultural reasoning for your examples. suffice it to say I am confused, because his point is that biology is a largely impermeable and consistent influence on behavior, ergo the suddenness of the shift is by definition culturally based...which you would seem to agree it is, by the nature of your own possible reasons.
not sure about the influence of feminism on the proliferation of technology from a gender standpoint, though.
Shiori assumes that any rapid changes over a period of a few generations establishes that the phenomenon was cultural (e.g. due to cultural reasons).
The example of women joining the workforce shows that this is poor logic, because the real reason that men were historically the primary breadwinners is because most work was hard physical labor that women could not perform, and because until the advent of birth control women were generally constrained too much by childbirth to be primary breadwinners (and even today, pregnancy is a major factor for women in the workplace).
In other words, the change was due to technology alleviating biological conditions, not because male breadwinners were a cultural phenomena that simply was dispensed with when the prevailing cultural winds shifted.
TL;DR: you can't assume that simply because a phenomena changes quickly that the phenomena is cultural, because the phenomena might be a biological one that simply applies differently.
It is unbelievably disingenuous to suggest that there was no cultural component to women joining the workforce. Actually, it's absolutely absurd. While technology alleviating biological conditions was certainly important and relevant to women joining the workforce, so too was the women's rights movement which challenged the widespread belief that women were best suited to work in a particular field or only in the home.
The argument I was making is that division of labor which explained the historical trend of male breadwinners was a biological phenomenon in the first place. Culture certainly was constructed around it, and needed to change for women to join the workforce, but that doesn't mean that the phenomenon was cultural.
On June 11 2013 10:09 Shiori wrote: Furthermore, even the idea that children should be raised by women or by one mother is completely a cultural phenomenon, as evidenced by hunter-gatherer tribes which are structured in a completely egalitarian fashion and which had children raised by men as well as multiple women; mothers even lived with their mothers for a period, undermining the very typical conception of the nuclear family that continues to dominate Western culture. Of course, men are generally breadwinners in these sorts of societies, but there are exceptions to this rule.
Modern hunter-gatherer tribes are egalitarian. This does not imply that most hunter-gatherers historically were egalitarian.
In fact, I would argue that the reason why archaeologists and anthropologists disagree on this notion is because the anthropologists study modern hunter-gatherers, whereas archaeologists look at historical ones.
Why the difference? I would speculate this is because the non-egalitarian ones were the ones that developed civilizations because they figured out that division of labor was an advantageous strategy, given the biological differences between men and women.
On June 11 2013 10:09 Shiori wrote: Ultimately, my point is that you appear far too eager to justify virtually any existent divide between men and women in modern culture by way of biology in order to uphold the utterly absurd conclusion that feminism not only has nothing to accomplish but is actually unfounded by definition.
I haven't recently argued that feminism is unfounded, and my posts in this conversation were not aimed at establishing that notion.
My conclusion that feminism is unfounded is due to the fact that it rests on patriarchy theory (an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory with no evidence to support it), the fact that feminists in practice do not actually pursue gender equality as they claim, and the fact that feminism assumes that all gender differences are entirely culturally constructed.
From the Wiki article on sexism: "According to Peter Sterns, women in pre-agricultural societies held equal positions with men; it was only after the adoption of agriculture and sedentary cultures that men began to institutionalize the concept that women were inferior to men.[7]"
So I'm afraid your insistence that the modernity of hunter-gatherer tribes has anything to do with the equal influence of men/women just doesn't fly. By the way, division of labour != primacy of males when it comes to decision making.
Your definition of feminism is actually just wrong. Not only are not all feminists complete deconstructionists, but a feminist is nothing more and nothing less than "an advocate or supporter of the rights and equality of women" according to the OED.
I've encountered feminists who go overboard with the intersectionality and post-structuralism, but to say that this is a necessary component of feminism is demonstrably false.
What exactly does egalitarian mean here? That they were equally involved in hunting and childcare? That there were an equal number of female chieftains to male chieftains? That men didn't exert physical domination of women when they wanted to?
It means that there was no institutionalized gender with power over another i.e. everyone had equal rights and privileges and influence with respect to governance.
Maybe down to a complete lack of institutionalisation... If it applies to governance then it means chieftains were equally female/male. At least from what I've seen of African and South American tribes as well as read about European contact with new world states, that was not the case at all.
Your definition of feminism is actually just wrong. Not only are not all feminists complete deconstructionists, but a feminist is nothing more and nothing less than "an advocate or supporter of the rights and equality of women" according to the OED.
I've encountered feminists who go overboard with the intersectionality and post-structuralism, but to say that this is a necessary component of feminism is demonstrably false.
I agree, that it is not necessary, it would be my opinion, that most women who fall under OED definition would not go around calling them selves feminists do to the extemists like you mentioned in the second case. It appears the people now touting the term feminists the loudest are the most extreme. Most of the people I ahve met who fall under that definition attempt to use a different term to describe themselves as to not be associated with the extremists. And I believe that most people, now a days in the developed world, my self included would fall under that definition. I think the differences come in to how the equality is measured. Is it still equal if both men and women have the same opportunity for a job but only 15% of the workers are men (example used was norway and nurseing). I believe so, others would disagree.
I also beleive that under that definition a feminist would agree that women in todays societies have advantages over men essepcialy in birth and child rearing laws, and theoretically should also fight to have those rights equalized. The feminists in your second point would not.
I essentially agree, although the matter of birth and child rearing laws favouring women is rather complicated and has a shitload of implications, so I think one needs to be careful when tinkering with it.
There will always be people who don't take women's sports or the like seriously because they are..women.
However, I recognize a good athlete when I see one. For example, the new female UFC fights. Those women are really, really good at what they do. Sure, some of them look great, but I know a good fighter when I see one and that's what matters and that's why I watch UFC, whether women's or men's, is the high-quality fights that is determined by skill. If the pretty girl loses, oh well, she was the crappier fighter. ez.
I'd give it a 95% artificial/5% natural breakdown in construction. incidentally, your line of argument is far better served by focusing on an increased preference for socialization in females, which is practically the only biological behavior that is researched and supports any sort of natural reasoning for differences in gender participation in video gaming. since I guess that's where this thread is at now.
Great I would give it 5% artificial and 95% natural. Oh wait I'm just throwing out numbers with out facts, studies or anything to back it out. But now that I have said it I'm going to act as though it's true because thats how smart I am and you should all agree with me based on that.
Honestly stop making stuff up.
All things should be presumed as incidental unless someone can prove they are necessary i.e. it is infinitely more reasonable to assume that a given behaviour is a product of the environment (since environments are contingent and can change) rather than that a behaviour is a necessary genetic consequence, because the latter is a much stronger claim.
Kinda like: you go to a particular country and see a black sheep. Then you see a couple more or perhaps a herd. It would be incorrect to presume that all sheep are black since that's too broad a variable for what you've observed. Instead, it would be much more reasonable to conclude that at least one species from this particular country is black.
The problem with the debate right now is that somewhere we're equivocating "there are biochemical differences between men and women" and "men and women have wildly different behaviours/preferences/aptitudes" when there's pretty much no indication of how powerful the biochemical influence actually is. The reason there is very little evidence is that, unfortunately, no one beyond infancy hasn't been exposed to culture, so culture can't really be eliminated as a variable, especially since varying cultures tend to have had some perspectives on sexuality that are more or less analogous in relevant ways.Yes, I'm aware of studies that show varying interests among infant boys and girls, but to move from this subtle distinction to a grand dismissal of the fucking huge skewing that we observe among adults is simply not substantiated by science.
No doubt the development of those cultures has no basis in the biology of humankind... When you see running themes in cultures across the world since time immemorial, it's actually much simpler to apply the differences between the sexes to biology than to culture, so you've completely misapplied Occam's razor.
Except there are enough major differences across cultures that biological distinctions don't help us much, especially since our knowledge of different cultures diminishes greatly as we move farther into the past. Furthermore, there are a great many variations that seem like the norm over a long period of time but actually don't represent a uniform thing at all. For example, a cursory look at Western civilization might lead one to believe that homosexuality is something that we have some sort of genetic basis for hating, because the last millennium and a half is filled with various cultures simultaneously reviling it. But if you go back just a little farther, you find a much more relaxed (though not egalitarian, by any means) approach to homosexuality in ancient Greek society.
So no, there aren't really any relevant "running themes" that are truly universal since "time immemorial" aside from general monogamy (or at least serial monogamy) and that men have penises and women vaginas.
A single example (of an exception that proves the rule, no less) doesn't change the fact that there are general identifiable trends. But ultimately, cultural differences are derived from both sex differences and social conditioning.
The simple fact is, there are empirically established sex differences besides the obvious physical ones. The argument that men and women are psychologically identical is preposterous if you look at it from a biological sciences viewpoint, because sexual dimorphism exists in nearly all mammals and extends to non-physical differences as well. Ideologues who argue against this are essentially making the ridiculous claim that humans are unique in that unlike all of our relatives, we're identical in every way except physically.
Except at no point did I claim that men and women are psychologically identical. My point is that the argument you are making, namely that some tendency X is a result of sexual dimorphism and differences in brain chemistry, is a positive claim. This means you need to show it to be true. Obviously not all behaviours which differ between men and women are genetically determined, so you need to actually show that a behaviour in question is definitely a result of biology, not culture. You have not done this when it comes to gaming. You have constructed a post-hoc hypothesis that is plausible but by no means certain or even probable (i.e. the notion that disparities between men/women in tech has something to do with perceived loser status later ameliorated and blah blah is a quaint and consistent system, but it's totally unfounded because it's just hypothetical and hasn't been substantiated. But to be clear: I'm not dismissing your points about women and social status, or whatever, but merely that this particular example isn't necessarily due to the system you are proposing).
The reality is, there is no way to positively show that any sex differences are due entirely to biology or culture. However, empirically establishing a biologically difference is enough to reasonably make inferences that such a biological difference may explain a sex difference.
In the case of gaming, it has been established that men prefer physical violence more than women do, probably due at least in part to the 20x greater amount of testosterone in men. We can also reasonably observe (or possibly find studies, but this is probably non-controversial enough to accept) that most popular video games are violent. Therefore, it is reasonable to claim that men are more likely to play video games since they are more likely to prefer the physical violence prevalent in video games.
Another one of your houses of cards! Well, actually, your own link notes that Kenyan boys and girls are equally likely to use physical violence, which pretty much annihilates whatever point you were trying to make, given that, as far as I'm aware, Kenyan's don't have different testosterone than everyone else.
Once again, you seem to miss the concept of the "exception which proves the rule". Cultural conditioning can affect preferences for physical aggression, but the fact that males prefer it in most society, and the fact that we know what testosterone does and the disparity in testosterone, makes it obvious what the reasonable conclusion is.
On June 11 2013 10:36 Shiori wrote: But that's actually beside the point, because using physical violence is not the same as being comfortable playing a game that has physical violence. What's more, you've completely dodged the much more plausible hypothesis that arises out of the fact that you failed to adequately explain women's slow warming up to technology, namely that the reason women are less interested in video games is because they tend to use technology less than men to begin with! It's not like women are super on board with using all sorts of technology across all demographics and just magically don't play any video games! For one thing, tonnes of video games are very obviously marketed to men (shooters, especially).
That was my whole point. Near the very beginning of this discussion (though in a post to Exile, I believe), I argued that primary reason for the discrepancy between men and women in gaming is because most video games are made by men (since most women don't go into game development in particular or STEM subjects in general) and therefore suit men's preferences (including the preference for physical violence).
On June 11 2013 09:58 Shiori wrote: For example, the fact that women leave the workforce earlier than men could either be a result of a biological inclination to cease activity earlier or due to cultural influences. Evidence suggests it's the latter.
The article you linked argues that the main reason women retire earlier is because they face more caregiving demands. However, you're making the assumption that women are primary caregivers due to cultural influences, without any evidence to support that notion, when it is at least partly due to the fact that women are inclined towards caregiving.
It's cute that you ignore the other two reasons,
I addressed the actual article which you linked, which focused on the third bullet point and argued that this was the major factor. I was also addressing you, and you did not previously address the other two bullet points either. But I can address them now if you like:
The first bullet point seems wrong. Women live longer than men, suggesting that women are in better health. When referring to the American Time Use Survey that your article draws from, the only thing that bullet point appears to be based on is only one surveyed data point: women report spending more time on health-related self-care. This does not mean that women are in worse health, it simply means they spend more time taking care of their health than men.
The second bullet point is spurious. Being laid off does not equate to involuntary retirement. If you had the desire or incentive to find a new job, you are capable of doing so. All that point shows is that women are less likely to try to look for another job if they are approaching retirement age and are laid off.
That entire study is based on perceptions of age discrimination, rather than any sort of empirical fact. Considering it comes from the AARP, which lobbies on behalf of the elderly, that makes the data especially unreliable.
On June 11 2013 10:36 Shiori wrote: Furthermore, there is virtually no agreement nor scientific consensus around women being better/more natural caregivers than men other than convention and the simple fact that women bear children and, therefore, can't really run away from them while men have generally not encountered any career impediments as a result of fathering a child, barring illegitimate or scandalous pregnancies.
The argument is not that women are better caregivers. The issue is that women prefer caregiving more than men do, which is why, as r.Evo pointed out, only 10-15% of nurses are male in extremely egalitarian Sweden.
I give up. It's incredibly obvious that you aren't going to change your mind given your refusal to do anything other than twist evidence into saying things it doesn't say.
I know there's a name for the fallacy where you construct plausible hypotheses and then assert their validity, but I can't remember its name.
"The fact that men usually being the breadwinner has changed over a period of a few generations establishes that this is a cultural phenomenon."
Oh wait, except for the fact that women didn't start joining the workforce until birth control and relatively comfortable jobs became the norm...
Do you see the problem with your logic?
sunprince, how do you manage to define your premises as non-cultural? shiori didn't give concrete causes like you're attempting to, and you're giving definably cultural reasoning for your examples. suffice it to say I am confused, because his point is that biology is a largely impermeable and consistent influence on behavior, ergo the suddenness of the shift is by definition culturally based...which you would seem to agree it is, by the nature of your own possible reasons.
not sure about the influence of feminism on the proliferation of technology from a gender standpoint, though.
Shiori assumes that any rapid changes over a period of a few generations establishes that the phenomenon was cultural (e.g. due to cultural reasons).
The example of women joining the workforce shows that this is poor logic, because the real reason that men were historically the primary breadwinners is because most work was hard physical labor that women could not perform, and because until the advent of birth control women were generally constrained too much by childbirth to be primary breadwinners (and even today, pregnancy is a major factor for women in the workplace).
In other words, the change was due to technology alleviating biological conditions, not because male breadwinners were a cultural phenomena that simply was dispensed with when the prevailing cultural winds shifted.
TL;DR: you can't assume that simply because a phenomena changes quickly that the phenomena is cultural, because the phenomena might be a biological one that simply applies differently.
It is unbelievably disingenuous to suggest that there was no cultural component to women joining the workforce. Actually, it's absolutely absurd. While technology alleviating biological conditions was certainly important and relevant to women joining the workforce, so too was the women's rights movement which challenged the widespread belief that women were best suited to work in a particular field or only in the home.
The argument I was making is that division of labor which explained the historical trend of male breadwinners was a biological phenomenon in the first place. Culture certainly was constructed around it, and needed to change for women to join the workforce, but that doesn't mean that the phenomenon was cultural.
On June 11 2013 10:09 Shiori wrote: Furthermore, even the idea that children should be raised by women or by one mother is completely a cultural phenomenon, as evidenced by hunter-gatherer tribes which are structured in a completely egalitarian fashion and which had children raised by men as well as multiple women; mothers even lived with their mothers for a period, undermining the very typical conception of the nuclear family that continues to dominate Western culture. Of course, men are generally breadwinners in these sorts of societies, but there are exceptions to this rule.
Modern hunter-gatherer tribes are egalitarian. This does not imply that most hunter-gatherers historically were egalitarian.
In fact, I would argue that the reason why archaeologists and anthropologists disagree on this notion is because the anthropologists study modern hunter-gatherers, whereas archaeologists look at historical ones.
Why the difference? I would speculate this is because the non-egalitarian ones were the ones that developed civilizations because they figured out that division of labor was an advantageous strategy, given the biological differences between men and women.
On June 11 2013 10:09 Shiori wrote: Ultimately, my point is that you appear far too eager to justify virtually any existent divide between men and women in modern culture by way of biology in order to uphold the utterly absurd conclusion that feminism not only has nothing to accomplish but is actually unfounded by definition.
I haven't recently argued that feminism is unfounded, and my posts in this conversation were not aimed at establishing that notion.
My conclusion that feminism is unfounded is due to the fact that it rests on patriarchy theory (an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory with no evidence to support it), the fact that feminists in practice do not actually pursue gender equality as they claim, and the fact that feminism assumes that all gender differences are entirely culturally constructed.
From the Wiki article on sexism: "According to Peter Sterns, women in pre-agricultural societies held equal positions with men; it was only after the adoption of agriculture and sedentary cultures that men began to institutionalize the concept that women were inferior to men.[7]"
So I'm afraid your insistence that the modernity of hunter-gatherer tribes has anything to do with the equal influence of men/women just doesn't fly.
Your source here is unreliable. It is an audio CD that is a recording of a professor's undergraduate lecture, not a scholarly article or anything backed by support.
On June 11 2013 10:41 Shiori wrote: By the way, division of labour != primacy of males when it comes to decision making.
I was not talking about primacy of males when it comes to decision making. We were, if you recall, talking about male breadwinners. That's division of labor.
On June 11 2013 10:41 Shiori wrote: Your definition of feminism is actually just wrong. Not only are not all feminists complete deconstructionists, but a feminist is nothing more and nothing less than "an advocate or supporter of the rights and equality of women" according to the OED.
I didn't argue that all feminists are complete deconstructionists. My argument is that predominant feminist theory is deconstructionist, something that is easily verified.
The "definition" of feminism is irrelevant to what I argued as well. I specifically stated "feminists in practice", not "feminists according to their definition".
On June 11 2013 10:41 Shiori wrote: I've encountered feminists who go overboard with the intersectionality and post-structuralism, but to say that this is a necessary component of feminism is demonstrably false.
Many of the things that feminists lobby for is based on the notion that men and women are inherently identical. Feminists rarely if ever question why there are differences in representation (whether political or economic), they simply assume that it should be 50/50 and demand accommodation to make it so. The wage gap myth perpetuated by feminists is a prominent example (aside from being a blatant failure to understand statistics): feminists assume that women and men should make the same amount of money, without considering that men may prefer higher wage occupations or vice versa. Same goes for feminists demands to have equal representation as executives or politicians.
On June 11 2013 10:41 Shiori wrote: EDIT: "patriarchy theory" isn't any singular thing. It's incontrovertible that patriarchal societies have not only existed in history but have been the dominant force, at least in the West, so I'm not sure why it's so puzzling to you that vestiges of patriarchal institutions could still have influence. Not that I think everything is because of the patriarchy, or whatever, because that's lunacy, but to call the very idea that there might still be constructs that derive from patriarchal ones a conspiracy theory is pretty silly.
I agree that "patriarchal societies" have existed throughout history. However, the feminist definition of "patriarchy" has nothing to do with the anthropological definition.
Before feminists misappropriated the term, anthropologists defined "patriarchy" as simple societies organized around fathers holding authority over their families (e.g. rule of the father, as the name implies), a situation that not replaced until it was reversed by the feminist-created Tender Years Doctrine. However, feminists define "patriarchy" as the system in which all men dominate and oppress all women, which is not substantiated by any evidence. Further, they use this false myth of historical female oppression to demand restitution.
Do you remember the name of the guy in your highschool (if your in highschool then elementary school, and if in college then middleschool) that you hung out with at lunch but wasn't really a friend of yours?
And then do you remember the name of the girl that you never really spoke with, maybe you said hi a couple times, but were smitten with.
I don't remember the first name of that guy but I can remember her name was Kathrine Ashley Steward.
Judging by the fact that most of the audience of both male and female sports is male, which tends to favor the female sex as far as choosing a mate, we can find that men will remember the names of female athletes that are more attractive than female athletes that aren't. How well someone's name is recognized is how useful that person is in marketing so that allows for more sexually attractive people to be easier remembered and easier to make it further in marketing.
This isn't 100% true, I don't have scientific studies to show this, but marketing companies use easy to remember and catchy jingles to get their idea/product out there.
"The fact that men usually being the breadwinner has changed over a period of a few generations establishes that this is a cultural phenomenon."
Oh wait, except for the fact that women didn't start joining the workforce until birth control and relatively comfortable jobs became the norm...
Do you see the problem with your logic?
sunprince, how do you manage to define your premises as non-cultural? shiori didn't give concrete causes like you're attempting to, and you're giving definably cultural reasoning for your examples. suffice it to say I am confused, because his point is that biology is a largely impermeable and consistent influence on behavior, ergo the suddenness of the shift is by definition culturally based...which you would seem to agree it is, by the nature of your own possible reasons.
not sure about the influence of feminism on the proliferation of technology from a gender standpoint, though.
Shiori assumes that any rapid changes over a period of a few generations establishes that the phenomenon was cultural (e.g. due to cultural reasons).
The example of women joining the workforce shows that this is poor logic, because the real reason that men were historically the primary breadwinners is because most work was hard physical labor that women could not perform, and because until the advent of birth control women were generally constrained too much by childbirth to be primary breadwinners (and even today, pregnancy is a major factor for women in the workplace).
In other words, the change was due to technology alleviating biological conditions, not because male breadwinners were a cultural phenomena that simply was dispensed with when the prevailing cultural winds shifted.
TL;DR: you can't assume that simply because a phenomena changes quickly that the phenomena is cultural, because the phenomena might be a biological one that simply applies differently.
It is unbelievably disingenuous to suggest that there was no cultural component to women joining the workforce. Actually, it's absolutely absurd. While technology alleviating biological conditions was certainly important and relevant to women joining the workforce, so too was the women's rights movement which challenged the widespread belief that women were best suited to work in a particular field or only in the home.
In Norway today about 10-15% of engineers are female and about 10-15% of nurses are male. Care to explain that phenomena in one of the most gender-equal countries in the world?
It's easily explained!
Nine times as many women find their way to the nursing line of work because nine times as many women as men work in the nursing line of work. People identify as men or women, people do manly or womanly things.
Riding horses used to be manly as fuck in Scandinavia. Now it's the girliest thing there is. Because that's what girls do. They ride horses.
EDIT: Not saying that there isn't a biological component. But any biological differences will be greatly enhanced because we naturally act according to our role as white/black, man/woman, short/tall whatever.
"The fact that men usually being the breadwinner has changed over a period of a few generations establishes that this is a cultural phenomenon."
Oh wait, except for the fact that women didn't start joining the workforce until birth control and relatively comfortable jobs became the norm...
Do you see the problem with your logic?
sunprince, how do you manage to define your premises as non-cultural? shiori didn't give concrete causes like you're attempting to, and you're giving definably cultural reasoning for your examples. suffice it to say I am confused, because his point is that biology is a largely impermeable and consistent influence on behavior, ergo the suddenness of the shift is by definition culturally based...which you would seem to agree it is, by the nature of your own possible reasons.
not sure about the influence of feminism on the proliferation of technology from a gender standpoint, though.
Shiori assumes that any rapid changes over a period of a few generations establishes that the phenomenon was cultural (e.g. due to cultural reasons).
The example of women joining the workforce shows that this is poor logic, because the real reason that men were historically the primary breadwinners is because most work was hard physical labor that women could not perform, and because until the advent of birth control women were generally constrained too much by childbirth to be primary breadwinners (and even today, pregnancy is a major factor for women in the workplace).
In other words, the change was due to technology alleviating biological conditions, not because male breadwinners were a cultural phenomena that simply was dispensed with when the prevailing cultural winds shifted.
TL;DR: you can't assume that simply because a phenomena changes quickly that the phenomena is cultural, because the phenomena might be a biological one that simply applies differently.
It is unbelievably disingenuous to suggest that there was no cultural component to women joining the workforce. Actually, it's absolutely absurd. While technology alleviating biological conditions was certainly important and relevant to women joining the workforce, so too was the women's rights movement which challenged the widespread belief that women were best suited to work in a particular field or only in the home.
The argument I was making is that division of labor which explained the historical trend of male breadwinners was a biological phenomenon in the first place. Culture certainly was constructed around it, and needed to change for women to join the workforce, but that doesn't mean that the phenomenon was cultural.
On June 11 2013 10:09 Shiori wrote: Furthermore, even the idea that children should be raised by women or by one mother is completely a cultural phenomenon, as evidenced by hunter-gatherer tribes which are structured in a completely egalitarian fashion and which had children raised by men as well as multiple women; mothers even lived with their mothers for a period, undermining the very typical conception of the nuclear family that continues to dominate Western culture. Of course, men are generally breadwinners in these sorts of societies, but there are exceptions to this rule.
Modern hunter-gatherer tribes are egalitarian. This does not imply that most hunter-gatherers historically were egalitarian.
In fact, I would argue that the reason why archaeologists and anthropologists disagree on this notion is because the anthropologists study modern hunter-gatherers, whereas archaeologists look at historical ones.
Why the difference? I would speculate this is because the non-egalitarian ones were the ones that developed civilizations because they figured out that division of labor was an advantageous strategy, given the biological differences between men and women.
On June 11 2013 10:09 Shiori wrote: Ultimately, my point is that you appear far too eager to justify virtually any existent divide between men and women in modern culture by way of biology in order to uphold the utterly absurd conclusion that feminism not only has nothing to accomplish but is actually unfounded by definition.
I haven't recently argued that feminism is unfounded, and my posts in this conversation were not aimed at establishing that notion.
My conclusion that feminism is unfounded is due to the fact that it rests on patriarchy theory (an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory with no evidence to support it), the fact that feminists in practice do not actually pursue gender equality as they claim, and the fact that feminism assumes that all gender differences are entirely culturally constructed.
From the Wiki article on sexism: "According to Peter Sterns, women in pre-agricultural societies held equal positions with men; it was only after the adoption of agriculture and sedentary cultures that men began to institutionalize the concept that women were inferior to men.[7]"
So I'm afraid your insistence that the modernity of hunter-gatherer tribes has anything to do with the equal influence of men/women just doesn't fly.
Your source here is unreliable. It is an audio CD that is a recording of a professor's undergraduate lecture, not a scholarly article or anything backed by support.
On June 11 2013 10:41 Shiori wrote: By the way, division of labour != primacy of males when it comes to decision making.
I was not talking about primacy of males when it comes to decision making. We were, if you recall, talking about male breadwinners. That's division of labor.
On June 11 2013 10:41 Shiori wrote: Your definition of feminism is actually just wrong. Not only are not all feminists complete deconstructionists, but a feminist is nothing more and nothing less than "an advocate or supporter of the rights and equality of women" according to the OED.
I didn't argue that all feminists are complete deconstructionists. My argument is that predominant feminist theory is deconstructionist, something that is easily verified.
The "definition" of feminism is irrelevant to what I argued as well. I specifically stated "feminists in practice", not "feminists according to their definition".
On June 11 2013 10:41 Shiori wrote: I've encountered feminists who go overboard with the intersectionality and post-structuralism, but to say that this is a necessary component of feminism is demonstrably false.
Many of the things that feminists lobby for is based on the notion that men and women are inherently identical. Feminists rarely if ever question why there are differences in representation (whether political or economic), they simply assume that it should be 50/50 and demand accommodation to make it so. The wage gap myth perpetuated by feminists is a prominent example (aside from being a blatant failure to understand statistics): feminists assume that women and men should make the same amount of money, without considering that men may prefer higher wage occupations or vice versa. Same goes for feminists demands to have equal representation as executives or politicians.
On June 11 2013 10:41 Shiori wrote: EDIT: "patriarchy theory" isn't any singular thing. It's incontrovertible that patriarchal societies have not only existed in history but have been the dominant force, at least in the West, so I'm not sure why it's so puzzling to you that vestiges of patriarchal institutions could still have influence. Not that I think everything is because of the patriarchy, or whatever, because that's lunacy, but to call the very idea that there might still be constructs that derive from patriarchal ones a conspiracy theory is pretty silly.
I agree that "patriarchal societies" have existed throughout history. However, the feminist definition of "patriarchy" has nothing to do with the anthropological definition.
Before feminists misappropriated the term, anthropologists defined "patriarchy" as simple societies organized around fathers holding authority over their families (e.g. rule of the father, as the name implies), a situation that not replaced until it was reversed by the feminist-created Tender Years Doctrine. However, feminists define "patriarchy" as the system in which all men dominate and oppress all women, which is not substantiated by any evidence. Further, they use this false myth of historical female oppression to demand restitution.
"The fact that men usually being the breadwinner has changed over a period of a few generations establishes that this is a cultural phenomenon."
Oh wait, except for the fact that women didn't start joining the workforce until birth control and relatively comfortable jobs became the norm...
Do you see the problem with your logic?
sunprince, how do you manage to define your premises as non-cultural? shiori didn't give concrete causes like you're attempting to, and you're giving definably cultural reasoning for your examples. suffice it to say I am confused, because his point is that biology is a largely impermeable and consistent influence on behavior, ergo the suddenness of the shift is by definition culturally based...which you would seem to agree it is, by the nature of your own possible reasons.
not sure about the influence of feminism on the proliferation of technology from a gender standpoint, though.
Shiori assumes that any rapid changes over a period of a few generations establishes that the phenomenon was cultural (e.g. due to cultural reasons).
The example of women joining the workforce shows that this is poor logic, because the real reason that men were historically the primary breadwinners is because most work was hard physical labor that women could not perform, and because until the advent of birth control women were generally constrained too much by childbirth to be primary breadwinners (and even today, pregnancy is a major factor for women in the workplace).
In other words, the change was due to technology alleviating biological conditions, not because male breadwinners were a cultural phenomena that simply was dispensed with when the prevailing cultural winds shifted.
TL;DR: you can't assume that simply because a phenomena changes quickly that the phenomena is cultural, because the phenomena might be a biological one that simply applies differently.
It is unbelievably disingenuous to suggest that there was no cultural component to women joining the workforce. Actually, it's absolutely absurd. While technology alleviating biological conditions was certainly important and relevant to women joining the workforce, so too was the women's rights movement which challenged the widespread belief that women were best suited to work in a particular field or only in the home.
In Norway today about 10-15% of engineers are female and about 10-15% of nurses are male. Care to explain that phenomena in one of the most gender-equal countries in the world?
It's easily explained!
Nine times as many women find their way to the nursing line of work because nine times as many women as men work in the nursing line of work. People identify as men or women, people do manly or womanly things.
Riding horses used to be manly as fuck in Scandinavia. Now it's the girliest thing there is. Because that's what girls do. They ride horses.
EDIT: Not saying that there isn't a biological component. But any biological differences will be greatly enhanced because we naturally act according to our role as white/black, man/woman, short/tall whatever.
You suggest that nursing sort of accidentally became regarded as feminine, and that this primordial accident is self-perpetuating? And, more generally, I assume you also think the over representation of women in pre-schooling and animal care is also arbitrary? This is quite the coincidence, particularly seeing as the same pattern can be found in quite a few different cultures. However, I guess, the fact that women's breasts secrete milk and men's do not is not accidental?
I am not sure why you want to dismiss the biological component. How about, maybe the culture got the way it is, with caretaking being considered feminine and competition being considered masculine, because of innate biological differences? Wide hips are also considered feminine, but this is not a cultural accident, this is readily explained by physiological differences.
Furthermore, maybe the reason horseback riding went out of favor with men was that bicycles and cars sort of obsoleted them as useful for getting around, while women still enjoy the hobby aspects of caring for and bonding with the animals?
Finally, I would be really interested to hear why you apply the same cultural wishy washy explanation for how horses can suddenly go from being a masculine to a feminine interest and nursing being stuck as a feminine job. I can't really see why it makes more sense for nursing than horseback riding to be self-perpetuating as far as gender roles are concerned.
EPT
