Gender Roles

[mangamuscle]

Originally Posted by DonQuigleone

An infantryman has to carry a variety of weapons, body armor, tools, tents, food and water. Consider how much you have to carry when you go out camping. It's already too much weight for most men. I'd hate to know how women take it.

IMO it is criminal to make them carry that much weight on a regular/daily basis, some might be naturally gifted but those who can't (bet it men or women) would need special training to carry that much weight on a regular basis, but it would take months to years and of course the military mind set seems to be the same to the average japanese boss "deal with it, we need you to do it now". Remember some men are below average and some women are above average, gender should not be taken as pass/fail criteria.

[LeoXiao]

Originally Posted by mangamuscle

Remember some men are below average and some women are above average, gender should not be taken as pass/fail criteria.

See but nobody is saying that. What is being said is that typically speaking, there are marked differences between men and women beyond the sexual organs. That is the source of controversy here.

I have yet to see a young girl interested in military affairs, but nearly all guys I know, even if they don't like wargames or anything, have a violent or combatative side to them. Of the women I know, some of them may be mean-spirited but never have I sensed an inclination towards violence.

[sunset]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

Bella pursuing Edward isn't disturbing because it's feminine. It's disturbing because he's fucking insane (though, so's she). Bad example, Mr. Author Guy.

And I always think it's awesome when a heroine ensnares someone with intrigue, subtlety and sneakiness.

Black WIdow outwitting Loki in Avengers was particularly awesome.

[mangamuscle]

Originally Posted by LeoXiao

I have yet to see a young girl interested in military affairs, but nearly all guys I know, even if they don't like wargames or anything, have a violent or combatative side to them. Of the women I know, some of them may be mean-spirited but never have I sensed an inclination towards violence.

How come people keep confusing their personal experience with a statisticall poll

[synaesthetic]

Originally Posted by sunset

Black WIdow outwitting Loki in Avengers was particularly awesome.

Yes. When it became clear that she was just fucking with him, I was like OHSNAP THAT WAS AWESOME.

[LeoXiao]

Originally Posted by mangamuscle

How come people keep confusing their personal experience with a statisticall poll

Why don't you give me a statistical poll then, or bring up your own experiences of all those little girls that love playing army men?

[DonQuigleone]

Originally Posted by Ithekro

I know a woman that was fairly good a strategic games. Axis and Allies for one. She usually won. She did table top miniatures gaming for a little while. Though she had a "ramming always works" mindset.

I do a fair amount of strategy gaming. I've only ever met 1 female interested in it. It is strange though, considering it's not nearly as "overtly" violent as, say, an FPS. Yet if you look at non-war based strategy games, the gender ratio is more even. Maybe the idea of "destroying" your opponents doesn't appeal to girls.


As for finding statistical evidence for the gender difference in people's interest in violence and war, I don't know of any statistical survey. I don't really know of any concrete way to measure this kind of thing.

[NorthernFallout]

The danger I've been seeing throughout the entire thread is assuming women aren't interested in "typical masculine things" like violence, military etc. Yes, it might be true on a quite broad scale, but it's still a generalization.

The nature of violence, military etc does not only stem from possible biological traits, though I'm sure some are, but it's a social construct like many other things already mentioned. Men are expected to like violence, they are expected to enjoy "masculine things", while women aren't, but these "things" has been decided on a societal level throughout history, not on an individual level. Look at commercials, movies, series, games. They all serve to embed this thinking into the audience, with quite a few exceptions. The constructs didn't just "pop up", they were constructed and the thinking that goes on in here enforces it. Women might get ridiculed for liking some masculine things, both from their own gender and the other, and so decide not to get into it because "it's a thing women shouldn't like." Mind, similarly, men getting into feminine things are also ridiculed, but for the notion of feminine things being "bad compared to masculine."

As for the "Men are naturally stronger and better suited for military/firefighting/whatever", yea, that's possibly true. What isn't, however, is the notion that Feminism seeks to make it easier for women and might weaken these sections as a result. That actually goes AGAINST feminism thinking, as it would just be discrimination against women again (from what I've read). They, instead, seek to give the same tests to men and women, differences notwithstanding. Can they do it? Good! Can't they? Too bad.

tl;dr: Talk about personal anecdotes all you want, but it holds no value whatsoever in this can of worms.

Regarding violence in games etc, though I can't remember where I saw that particular post/study, it has less to do with violence and more to do with identification. It isn't for nothing the ME series is popular among both genders, while CoD or BF3 are more popular among the male demographic, since, in the former, you can choose your gender. Not that I, as a male, identify with a huge marine, but hey.

This possibly extends to movies as well.

I suggest for anyone interested in, actual, Feminism to check out the thread over at SA and a very good Youtube channel which often brings up the topic of media; FeministFrequency as well as the Feminism101 blog.
From there you should be able to find several good blogs about the subject as well.

EDIT: Regarding the "men does more dangerous work and women should too because they want equality!" is another argument that doesn't work. First, no work should be dangerous in the first place. Secondly, it isn't womens' or feminism's fault it remains such. It's the Patriarchy and the "Women shouldn't do dangerous work/they aren't suited for it because they are women" logic, along with potential harrassment/inequality within those areas (as far as I remember.)

[DonQuigleone]

Originally Posted by AtomicoX

The danger I've been seeing throughout the entire thread is assuming women aren't interested in "typical masculine things" like violence, military etc. Yes, it might be true on a quite broad scale, but it's still a generalization.

The nature of violence, military etc does not only stem from possible biological traits, though I'm sure some are, but it's a social construct like many other things already mentioned. Men are expected to like violence, they are expected to enjoy "masculine things", while women aren't, but these "things" has been decided on a societal level throughout history, not on an individual level. Look at commercials, movies, series, games. They all serve to embed this thinking into the audience, with quite a few exceptions. The constructs didn't just "pop up", they were constructed and the thinking that goes on in here enforces it. Women might get ridiculed for liking some masculine things, both from their own gender and the other, and so decide not to get into it because "it's a thing women shouldn't like." Mind, similarly, men getting into feminine things are also ridiculed, but for the notion of feminine things being "bad compared to masculine."

I think it's a tendency, that is, perhaps, magnified by society. But it's a tendency that appears from a very early age. You can put a bunch of young children in a room with a bunch of different entertainments available to them. The boys will be drawn to the toy soldiers and model trucks, while the girls will be drawn towards the doll houses. Both sexes will be equally drawn to the music sets, finger paints, and pencils and paper.

But frankly, I don't see how boys being drawn to violence and fighting makes them in any way "better" then girls.

Warfare is primarily a young man's activity, because girls don't care for it, and older men are wise enough to know that it's futile and pointless.

I don't know why we should bother to focus on violence, it's a completely pointless task. Personally, I think our penchant for violence only makes us worse.

That said, women are just as capable of aggression, they just use different methods...

[NorthernFallout]

Originally Posted by DonQuigleone

I think it's a tendency, that is, perhaps, magnified by society. But it's a tendency that appears from a very early age. You can put a bunch of young children in a room with a bunch of different entertainments available to them. The boys will be drawn to the toy soldiers and model trucks, while the girls will be drawn towards the doll houses. Both sexes will be equally drawn to the music sets, finger paints, and pencils and paper.

Maybe, maybe not. In what environment do they grow up in? Do the parents assume they like those things because "It should be like that"? Have they been presented with the different choices without bias? What media has they experienced (Princesses, knights, etc what have you.)

I know I'm not citing a study, but those factors counts into it. It might as well be as you say, but in my academic experience it isn't.

But frankly, I don't see how boys being drawn to violence and fighting makes them in any way "better" then girls.

Neither do I, but it ties into the theory of Patriarchy and, well, "Protecting the weak" I suppose. It goes back in history. Military for men to protect their women that produces offspring, put in crude terms, making the women "weaker", making positive connotations to masculine things as mentioned. That's my theory anyway and I read something about it but I can't back it up atm.

I don't know why we should bother to focus on violence, it's a completely pointless task. Personally, I think our penchant for violence only makes us worse.

That said, women are just as capable of aggression, they just use different methods...

Totally agree on both accounts.

[Vexx]

Given the demeanor of some of the posts .... :P .... here's an article on sexual harassment in gaming. Seriously, some days I think wandering from house to house and just slapping the shit out of the puerile juvenile losers of my gender would be a Good Thing.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18280000

Note the industry collected percentages of women gamers

American gamers

• 72% of households play computer or video games
• Average gamer aged 37, has played for 12 years
• 42% are women
• Women aged 18+ represent a greater portion of game-playing population (37%) than boys aged 17 or younger (13%)

[Ithekro]

I've found (so far) that female gamers, while usually not as violent minded as their male counterparts, are much more interested in winning and competing that the males. In table top games it was about winning and victory. It wasn't about loses, combat, and anything else. Whatever it takes to win. In MMOs, it was achievements and numbers. The hardest competition I had was with my friend's wife in WoW. I was playing. She was trying to win the numbers game (highest dps, higher number of achievements, those sorts of things). Her husband, wasn't into achievements, and the only thing he cared about was getting things finished for either better gear, or just to get them done. Though he usually was the tank or healer (or both at the same time) while his wife and I were dps. She's branched out to healer and tasnking for alts. I tend to stay with dps because I don't play many alts.

[Akka]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

Your reasoning is not sound. Men are not, on average, three times as strong as women. That's a load of malarkey. Men aren't even twice as strong as women, unless you're comparing a male bodybuilder to an elderly Chinese lady. *snort*

I'm afraid you're simply refusing to see facts, though I was perhaps going a bit far with "three times" when it's rather "twice" - it's still a staggering difference.

Men ARE physically much stronger than women, and on top of that they gain muscle mass much more easily. Wikipedia explains the several reasons why it is so, and you can have a look at sport charts standards to see what average is expected from both sexes categories, and see how widely apart they are - a upper-body strength-heavy exercise like benchpress see average men with intermediate performances on par with the best performances by women several weight categories higher.

Additionally, speaking from experience, modern assault rifles aren't heavy. I've personally fired AR-15 variants and others, and I'm hardly a paragon of upper body strength. The modern assault rifle is a lightweight weapon that fires small, fast ammo. Even when they were big, heavy and fired large bullets, it's still not that big a deal as something like, swinging a sword would be (which I've also done, and trust me, combat requires nowhere near the physical fitness it used to).

This is both quite absurd - combat prowess is not a binary point "can I lift and fire a gun or not ?" - and completely beside the point - we were arguing about how fighting is "typically masculine" or not, not if women "are physically able to fight with firearms" or not.

To say that a man is unequivocally a better soldier than a woman just because he is a man is probably the stupidest fucking thing I've ever heard. I'm pretty sure most women in service would agree with me.

*harumphs*

Good things that's not at all what I said, then, right ?

Let me quote for my post something that I put because I feel it was really required, and your answer strongly reinforce this point :

Don't ignore facts and logic just because they sometimes go contrary to our own preferences and bias.

First, as said above, I was specifically talking about "average". The fact that you somehow morphed it into "To say that a man is unequivocally a better soldier than a woman just because he is a man" is, sorry to be blunt, a proof that you're not going into the discussion with an open mind, to say the least. If your reasoning were sound, you wouldn't need to use such a blatant strawman.

Second, the actual point you made and I challenged was something like "there is nothing inherently more masculine beside putting a penis in a vagina". THIS is bollock. There is lots of activities, mindsets and behaviours that are much more prominent in men than women, and vice versa.
Social construct certainly influence behaviours, but they are just as much influenced by them, and it's no coincidence that the typically "masculine" stuff is so strongly correlated with stuff that men have a natural inclination to do/feel.

You're just very obviously trying very hard to ignore tendencies, regardless of how strong. That's not a good way to prove anything ; in fact, it tends to prove you wrong, because you would not need such logical fallacies if your argument could stand on its own merits.
It seems more than anything that you have a pet peeve on this specific point - just an uninformed guess of mine, but aren't you just irritated that you, as a woman, have "masculine" hobbies and resent that you may be considered "not feminine" due to that by some people ? If it is so, then that's pretty pointless, "typically masculine/feminine" is about "tendencies", not "hard, 100 %, binary facts".

People have very often a VERY HARD time understanding the whole concepts of statistical/tendencies/correlation. They don't mean "always", nor can they be proven false with a single counter-example, nor do they IMPLY anything. They just give more or less wide and general trends.

[Akka]

Originally Posted by AtomicoX

The danger I've been seeing throughout the entire thread is assuming women aren't interested in "typical masculine things" like violence, military etc. Yes, it might be true on a quite broad scale, but it's still a generalization.

The entire point of "masculine/feminine behaviour" is about generalization. The entire point of male/female differences is also about generalization.
In fact, the entire point of most everything related to humanity is about generalizations, because you can hardly tell something not generalized when it's about 7 000 000 000 people and several thousands of years of history.

The nature of violence, military etc does not only stem from possible biological traits, though I'm sure some are, but it's a social construct like many other things already mentioned.

And from where do you think these social constructs evolved ? Social construct, like I said in my previous post, don't spring out of nowhere. They are built on already-perceived norms, which exists because of existing differences and their interaction with the environment.

Of course they tend to have their auto-feedback from then on which lead to other assumptions and rules mostly unrelated (such as seeing men as mentally superior because they were in power, when they got this power at the origin only because of physical superiority), but the fact that the overwhelming majority of all cultures, even those totally unrelated to each other, have all very close approximations of what is "masculine" and "feminine" in most domains, seems to me as a very strong proof that YES there are strong natural tendencies.
Yeah, nature is politically incorrect like that

tl;dr: Talk about personal anecdotes all you want, but it holds no value whatsoever in this can of worms.

On this point, though, we totally agree, anecdotes mean nothing on a statistical level - even though it goes rather against you initial irritation about generalizations, as anecdotes don't hold value only when you talk about large numbers, hence generalizations

EDIT: Regarding the "men does more dangerous work and women should too because they want equality!" is another argument that doesn't work. First, no work should be dangerous in the first place. Secondly, it isn't womens' or feminism's fault it remains such. It's the Patriarchy and the "Women shouldn't do dangerous work/they aren't suited for it because they are women" logic, along with potential harrassment/inequality within those areas (as far as I remember.)

It's just politically correct wishful thinking.
No work should be dangerous ? Yeah, that's a nice ideal. Sure, no work should be uselessly dangerous. But how this nice rosy idea works when the danger is PART of the work, like in military, firefighters, bodyguard and the like ? Are you going to sue reality because she doesn't play fair ?
For the second part, I'll refer to the first answer : it's all nice to say "that's a worldwide plot against women", but from where does this social constructs and expectations came to begin with ? I'll be the first to agree that society has unduly restrained women up until very recently in the West (and continue still in many parts of the world), but that doesn't mean there isn't some REAL differences between men and women, and some general tendencies in behaviour in the sexes not only doesn't seem far-fetched, but on the contrary feel totally logical if you consider the origins of humanity, both in biology and psychology.

[NorthernFallout]

Originally Posted by Akka

And from where do you think these social constructs evolved ? Social construct, like I said in my previous post, don't spring out of nowhere. They are built on already-perceived norms, which exists because of existing differences and their interaction with the environment.

While, yes, some of them exist from actual difference, the point is that not everything that is said does. Some of it are simply constructed. Women, as are men, are individuals. Some women might not like children, even "if they are wired to". Which, to these women, becomes a stigma, because it's outside the norm.

Now extend this to a wider range and it becomes a problem.

It's just politically correct wishful thinking.
No work should be dangerous ? Yeah, that's a nice ideal.

I'm aware. It's just the "WOMEN DON'T WANT TO DO DANGEROUS WORK SO THEY LET MEN DO IT" thinking that pisses me off.

Sorry for the ramble, it grinds my gears.

Originally Posted by Vexx

Given the demeanor of some of the posts .... :P .... here's an article on sexual harassment in gaming. Seriously, some days I think wandering from house to house and just slapping the shit out of the puerile juvenile losers of my gender would be a Good Thing.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18280000

Note the industry collected percentages of women gamers

Urgh. I've experienced (or observed would be the correct word) this directly with my gf. So damn prevalent. Especially if you check gamer articles with, say oh I don't know, a subject related to women, and then look at the comments.

I'm looking at you, Kotaku.

[Zakoo]

Hmm, that's quite arguable but since you are talking military, I will side with synaesthetic. Men have indeed more muscles than women, but women have much more adipose tissues (it's quite visible btw). As such, in long endurance sport, women tend to have the upper hand since they use both their lipids and glycogene, while we men stock only glycogene in our muscles. Hence making them have more energy.

Without talking that they, always, have more grey matters, bluntly that make them smarter( But that's only an hypothesis, nothing sure for the time being that the two are proportionals). And less controlled by their hormone, or should I say they simply don't have testosterone, they can stay calm easier than most of men -of course there are others hormones, but this one is especially decisive in the difference of behavior between male and females-. I think it's a quality to be cold blooded in military.

But that's quite the debate you are doing. I don't see how you separate the good soldier from the bad one. I'm not sure any of us have the knowledge to do so.

[Gamer_2k4]

I haven't been following the topic as a whole, so I'm sorry if what I'm saying has been said before. That said, here's my opinion:

Gender roles certainly exist and have their place. Men and women are inherently different and that's not a bad thing.

This has come up in my conversations with my girlfriend about marriage and roles within that marriage, since it's going to be a very real issue for the rest of our lives. I ultimately summed it up (and she agreed) by saying that, "When bearing a burden, men pull from the front while women push from behind." Both roles are important and both are part of a system, but they're both distinct as well.

Men and women have different personalities, motivations, and capabilities. The existing gender roles came from a generalization of those things to something that works pretty well most of the time. Are there strong, independent women? Sure; I know plenty of them. Are there reserved, "thinkers rather than doers" men? I know those as well. But neither exemplifies the typical role for that gender.

Yes, women aren't all dresses and makeup, and men aren't all sports and hunting. But the typical woman tends to be closer to the female stereotypical extreme, and the typical male tends to be closer to the male stereotypical extreme. Generalizations and stereotypes may be bad, but they wouldn't exist if they didn't have some basis in fact.

[monsta666]

Originally Posted by Zakoo

Hmm, that's quite arguable but since you are talking military, I will side with synaesthetic. Men have indeed more muscles than women, but women have much more adipose tissues (it's quite visible btw). As such, in long endurance sport, women tend to have the upper hand since they use both their lipids and glycogene, while we men stock only glycogene in our muscles. Hence making them have more energy.

While I can agree that a healthy weight women will carry more fat than a man of the same size and height that does not confer an advantage when it comes to endurance sports. Just compare the times between male and female athletes, the men post faster times on all endurance events. While women have more fat, men have more slow twitch fibres that is invaluable when it comes to performance in long distance events. Furthermore I also suspect men have higher iron levels and haemoglobin which is also useful in endurance events not to mention higher lung capacity. All these factors will contribute to higher levels of performance and this can be seen in faster times.

Fat tissues does give women an evolutionary advantage however and that is women are more well adapted to surviving periods of severe famine. When it comes to food scarcity the first people in society to perish are the elderly, children and babies. If a famine persists for longer then the men die due to lower fat levels and finally it is the women that die. This fact is no coincidence as women are more important to the future of society than men. This is because if there is one man and many women society has a good chance of living on whereas if there is only one women and many men then the community is in a very perilous position because society cannot grow very quickly if there is only one person capable of giving birth.

As for the military, a big part of being a good soldier is to be physically fit. Seeing as the average male is physically stronger and faster a male soldier should generally perform better than a female one. However some caution should be observed with this as the regular army would not need to have such a high level of fitness. I suspect the issue of fitness would be a bigger factor in the elite divisions when the entry tests would be more challenging. I strongly suspect when you look at the elite divisions of modern armies it will be dominated by males. And this domination will come about as less women can fulfil the challenging physical examinations to make it into the squads.

[DonQuigleone]

Originally Posted by Gamer_2k4

Yes, women aren't all dresses and makeup, and men aren't all sports and hunting. But the typical woman tends to be closer to the female stereotypical extreme, and the typical male tends to be closer to the male stereotypical extreme. Generalizations and stereotypes may be bad, but they wouldn't exist if they didn't have some basis in fact.

My view on it wouldn't be so clear cut. For instance, I'd say "The thinker" is just as much a male stereotype as "the hunting action oriented doer". For instance, if you look at my example of strategy gaming, it's heavily dominated by males. Even something like First Person Shooters, which might at first seem more "male" actually have a much more normal gender ratio then strategy wargames. I would say, of all the hobbies in existence, it is the most male dominated by far. Further to that, I can't really understand why. One of my favourites, Diplomacy, is extremely male, even though as a game it's heavily based on social skills, and manipulation. Again, I don't see why this game is so male dominated.


I'd personally say that while the averages between men and women aren't so different (except on physical aggression and strength), I'd say men are a lot more variable.

[Akka]

Originally Posted by NorthernFallout

While, yes, some of them exist from actual difference, the point is that not everything that is said does. Some of it are simply constructed.

I actually specifically pointed that out. And I'd say it's not "some of them" which are drawn from actual differences, but "a large majority". Again, just look at how near-universal most of these gender-related archetypes are. It's far too many to be only contrived coincidences.

Women, as are men, are individuals. Some women might not like children, even "if they are wired to". Which, to these women, becomes a stigma, because it's outside the norm.

This is true, but it's true for any kind of norm, nothing specific with gender roles here. As, again, I already said, we're talking by definition about generalization here, and, again by definition, generalizations are about tendencies, not particular people.

You'll find all kind of people in all kind of situation and having all kind of preferences. Tendencies just tell us about large numbers, but it's just about "distribution". You'll always find "exceptions" (which are numerous enough to not even be considered "exception" in fact).

I'm aware. It's just the "WOMEN DON'T WANT TO DO DANGEROUS WORK SO THEY LET MEN DO IT" thinking that pisses me off.

Sorry for the ramble, it grinds my gears.

I'll say it again : reality doesn't care about our feelings. That we don't like some things doesn't make them any less true. Women are much less attracted to danger than men - it's not that they specifically aim to evade responsability by letting men do the dirty work, it's rather they simply tend to have much less interest in such activities while men tend to have a higher one, so they make up the vast majority of the people participating in them.
This is not a problem as long as we're using objective criteria (like standards to reach) and not arbitrary bias (like "you're a woman, so you're automatically out just because we'll look at your gender rather than your accomplishments").

Originally Posted by Zakoo

Hmm, that's quite arguable but since you are talking military, I will side with synaesthetic. Men have indeed more muscles than women, but women have much more adipose
[...]
male and females-. I think it's a quality to be cold blooded in military.

I was talking previously about how sensitive subjects tend to attract flawed arguments that only cater to one's bias.
This post is the perfect example of starting with the conclusion you wish to reach, and going backward from there to twists/ignore/diminish/emphasis facts as needed so they fits your pre-determined bias.

There is barely anything that is not either completely ridiculous/outlandish, or simply flat-out wrong. In fact, the funny thing is, it basically is the exact same pile of rubbish that we could see in misogynist pamphlet, simply reversed.

Originally Posted by Gamer_2k4

Gender roles certainly exist and have their place. Men and women are inherently different and that's not a bad thing.

Men and women have different personalities, motivations, and capabilities. The existing gender roles came from a generalization of those things to something that works pretty well most of the time. Are there strong, independent women? Sure; I know plenty of them. Are there reserved, "thinkers rather than doers" men? I know those as well. But neither exemplifies the typical role for that gender.

Yes, women aren't all dresses and makeup, and men aren't all sports and hunting. But the typical woman tends to be closer to the female stereotypical extreme, and the typical male tends to be closer to the male stereotypical extreme. Generalizations and stereotypes may be bad, but they wouldn't exist if they didn't have some basis in fact.

Thank you for providing level-headed opinion and, above all, simple common sense, that seems to be the first casualty when a sensitive subject push people to replace objective interpretation of facts with personal bias driven by agenda.