Gender Roles

[synaesthetic]

Originally Posted by Chandela

I don't know about that, in reality women cannot survive without men and vice versa, so to me we are of equal importance although women do seem to get the short end of the stick in the long run when trying to attain an equal status.

The difference isn't that one is needed or not needed, the difference is time. Males aren't needed for very long to procreate--just long enough to conceive. All they have to do is stick it in and get her knocked up.

The woman, on the other hand, has 99% of the responsibility, physiologically speaking, of doing the reproduction thing. She's got a fetus in her body that gets really big, makes it hard for her to move, makes her eat significantly more, often makes her sick... the list goes on.

[ChainLegacy]

But reducing a woman's usefulness to her reproductive capacity, and a man's to his ability to procreate, is only true from a Darwinian perspective. Otherwise, women not capable of bearing children would be just as 'useless' as males. I also think it's more complicated then that anyways - especially in social species, everyone has their role to play.

Though in some alternative reality with a tiny population of humans, I could understand saving females first as they can carry children. You'd only need a few males to knock up all the females. That doesn't apply to our overpopulated world, however.

[JokerD]

The way I see it, rights comes with responsibility, all too often now, people (not just limited to this gender debate) demand rights they see as universal without realizing the responsibilities that come with it.

An example would be in the cases of divorces, women are increasingly made to pay alimony due to their increased earning power. I read that women would grumble as much as the men did...

[Kyero Fox]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

The difference isn't that one is needed or not needed, the difference is time. Males aren't needed for very long to procreate--just long enough to conceive. All they have to do is stick it in and get her knocked up.

The woman, on the other hand, has 99% of the responsibility, physiologically speaking, of doing the reproduction thing. She's got a fetus in her body that gets really big, makes it hard for her to move, makes her eat significantly more, often makes her sick... the list goes on.

and I would be there for every momment of it to help her. As is it is my nature and concienceness to do so.


Wrex feels the same way right syn? and he BETTER with THAT woman.

[DonQuigleone]

Women are not just useful for , ahem, procreation. Consider the fact that women go through menopause at ~45 long before they die of natural causes.

[Chandela]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

The difference isn't that one is needed or not needed, the difference is time. Males aren't needed for very long to procreate--just long enough to conceive. All they have to do is stick it in and get her knocked up.

The woman, on the other hand, has 99% of the responsibility, physiologically speaking, of doing the reproduction thing. She's got a fetus in her body that gets really big, makes it hard for her to move, makes her eat significantly more, often makes her sick... the list goes on.

I see your point and it makes me glad I am not a female (no offense intended if anybody takes any)
Its interesting to see how women tend to get the short end of the stick when they have to deal with so much more then men do, especially physiologically. I'm somewhat surprised that women were treated as bad as they were when the some problems they have to deal with came to light.

Originally Posted by DonQuigleone

Women are not just useful for , ahem, procreation. Consider the fact that women go through menopause at ~45 long before they die of natural causes.

Excuse me if I am being ignorant but exactly how is that useful? I think I missed something...

[Endless Soul]

I think he's saying that women are useful to society for things other than procreation.

(Please correct me if I'm wrong DQ.)

Endless "Somewhat useful" Soul

[JMvS]

Regarding the fact that men are more prone to engaging in risky behaviors, and are more easily considered expendables compared to the lives of women, I'd say it's a compensation mechanism.
Remember that women do have their own, specific, risky behavior: reproduction (STDs aside). Even tough it is nowaday heavily medicalized, women still risk their lives by engaging in child bearing.

It reminds me of this joke:
"Great Love: 16th Century expression, a time when a women's life expectation was about 30 years"

A women's reproductive prime is more or less her twenties, even tough starting at age 12-14 used to be common, it carries risks depending on wether she had sufficiently matured. Similarly, other will hit menopause in their late fifties, but still, after 30, child bearing carries additional risks, with greater chances of complications or malformations, and much lower chances of sucess overall.
So, with about 10 years of reproductive prime, many girls dying at their first delivery, and 2 out of 10 children surviving out of infancy being a good prospect, do the math and you'll see that it was a very tough business to just sustain the population level.

Given the amount of women to be expended simply to cope with our species biology, of course men would be the ones to be spent on dealing with the environment, wilderness and competing groups.

Now, of course many things have changed, but child bearing is still a risky business (more so as it gets delayed in our advanced societies), so yeah, egalitarianism aside, men are to be considered expandable. I'll admit that the increase of women shunning motherhood do pose a new variable in the equation (sacrificed or not, single men die younger).

[mangamuscle]

Originally Posted by JMvS

It reminds me of this joke:
"Great Love: 16th Century expression, a time when a women's life expectation was about 30 years"

Don't get it out of scope, back then men lived on average to the age of 40. Even a hundread years ago the average lifespan in europe was about 60. No doubt women had the least favorable part of the "bargain", eating less food and doing more work (most generations of women lived without even dreaming someday their will be a cloth washing machine) and having smaller frames (height) to cope with this living environment.

[Haladflire65]

This isn't related to the more biology-centric discussion on this page, nor some of the overall discussion in the thread but I'll post it anyways. It's partly because I think especially in the modern day and age with the innovations in technology, I see mass media as having a bigger role in aggravating the gender inequality that was at first cemented by biology.

We were studying media portrayals of women in English recently and there're lots of appalling statistics regarding misrepresentation and under-representation of women in media - take advertising for instance. A huge amount of ads objectify, stereotype and demean women in both blatant and subtle ways - the latter's even more dangerous because half the consumers of these ads just subconsciously absorb these implications. The majority of TV broadcast networks have men sitting at the top, so even when you look at things like news reports, you can see how pervasive the points of view of men are. Media is often very subtly sexist - for instance, there were two articles about a male and female politician. The male politician was said "to have stated" something, while the female one "complained" about something else. We don't really notice these things unless we really look for them. It's like slow-acting toxin for the minds of consumers of media.

When bombarded with all of these media constructs from the moment of birth, both men and women form skewed conceptions of how men and women "should" be. Of course it affects men too - for instance, men are discouraged by media from having "feminine" characteristics like compassion or sensitivity by a stereotypical image of masculinity that also really needs to change. But foremost, the media really doesn't help raise productivity of women in society. It's a given that men are the dominant ones, with their stereotype of being powerful and "manly" as mentioned. When the self-esteem of women is put down by media, how could they have to confidence to do things like run for office or climb to the top of a company? And even if they reach positions of high power, women have many difficulties, one of the factors being that she'd be subject to more sexism. A woman in power is often not seen as a good thing, it seems...

I think it's important for women to realize that the current societal environment affects how they view themselves is being affected just as much as how men view them. To change the attitudes of people in society towards gender roles and stereotypes, we need to be far more critical of everything we see and hear, and for that to happen media literacy would be crucial. This would be the first step in the direction of gender equality.

Sorry for the long post guys Practice for my English exam... heh XD

[DonQuigleone]

Originally Posted by Chandela

Excuse me if I am being ignorant but exactly how is that useful? I think I missed something...

(re menopause) No other spieces (that I know of) goes through menopause. So it is an evolved trait. Presumably, it was considered beneficial in an evolutionary sense for mothers to not compete with their daughters for resources by continuing to reproduce, but to continue to assist her children by helping to look after her grandchildren, along with the other tasks that she did prior to menopause.

So women are useful for a lot more then simply procreation, and in fact it's more useful for older women to not procreate, but continue to assist the community.

[mangamuscle]

Originally Posted by DonQuigleone

(re menopause) No other spieces (that I know of) goes through menopause. So it is an evolved trait.

I challenge that notion. As I said before, in most of humanity history the average lifespan was about 40 years. Is only in modern times that the average lifespan has increased (even doubled in some counties) to the point where diseases (or conditions) such as menopause or alzheimer have become common. But this coopeation between generations will come to an end in this century as research to prevent menopause will sooner or later move the menopause age further and further.

[LeoXiao]

Originally Posted by Haladflire65

I think it's important for women to realize that the current societal environment affects how they view themselves is being affected just as much as how men view them. To change the attitudes of people in society towards gender roles and stereotypes, we need to be far more critical of everything we see and hear, and for that to happen media literacy would be crucial. This would be the first step in the direction of gender equality.

Well here's the thing. Genderization and sexualization (particularly of women) is highly reinforced by the mass media, but the fact is that at the core, the concepts of masculinity or femininity are pretty natural, and this is reflected in all major cultures. Men are simply more attracted to "womanly" women as women are more attracted to "manly" men.

The mass media is not the cause of this, instead, it serves as a magnifier of the superficial aspects of masculinity and femininity, which makes sense since "sex sells". The result is that both men and women get further objectified by commercial culture (though women are more subject to this), which has trivialized the classical meaning of what it means to to a man or what it means to be a woman into something like "if you're a guy you have to be rich, never cry, and have big muscles", and if you're a girl it means "you have to dress sexily, put on makeup, and accentuate your voice in silly ways". The more subtle implications of gender differences, the ones that are harder to pinpoint but yet actually matter, are practically ignored.

I like women who are feminine, but a girl does not automatically become more attractive to me because she has bigger boobs or is wearing a bikini, yet most of the I feel that mass media wants me to think this is the case. Likewise, a lot of girls I have have talked to like all sorts of guys, but that's because they have different ideas about what they find to be 'masculine', ideas which don't always equate to the "Brad Pitt" (or whatever) image.

Basically, notions of femininity and masculinity are perfectly natural, but they have been simply reduced to sexual manipulation via the media to get people to spend money. And then when people recognize this, they seem to accept the commercialized definition of gender differences when it's really just hypersexualization, and then reject gender differences altogether (even though they are natural and IMO inevitable) in favor of an "equal society", as if men and women need to be the same, which will never happen unless we re-engineer humans altogether.

Sorry for the long post guys Practice for my English exam... heh XD

Hope you do well on it.

[DonQuigleone]

Originally Posted by mangamuscle

I challenge that notion. As I said before, in most of humanity history the average lifespan was about 40 years. Is only in modern times that the average lifespan has increased (even doubled in some counties) to the point where diseases (or conditions) such as menopause or alzheimer have become common. But this coopeation between generations will come to an end in this century as research to prevent menopause will sooner or later move the menopause age further and further.

Well, walk into any tribal community and you'll see many people who are over the age of 40. While the average age of death was indeed about 40, you have to take into account a few things:

1. Infant mortality: the mortality rate for children below the age of 5 is obscenely high in tribal communities, this heavily skews numbers downwards.

2. It's only an average, many still live longer then 40

3. it's mostly men who die young, because men engage in the more risky activities in tribal communities. Aside from childbirth, women face few risks in the average tribal community.

In fact, in tribal societies, if you survive childhood, little is going to kill you. Tribal humans had few diseases (due to lack of domesticated animals) and the leading causes of death would be murder, killed by an animal, food poisoning and occasionally starvation.

If you survived to 40, you likely would be an "elder" and not need to engage in the riskier activities, so significant portions of the human population would have been elderly. Consider that words for grandmother and grandfather are universal in all human languages.

[JMvS]

Originally Posted by mangamuscle

Don't get it out of scope, back then men lived on average to the age of 40. Even a hundread years ago the average lifespan in europe was about 60. No doubt women had the least favorable part of the "bargain", eating less food and doing more work (most generations of women lived without even dreaming someday their will be a cloth washing machine) and having smaller frames (height) to cope with this living environment.

At that time averages were meaningless, for more than half died before reaching age 2, and only a fraction surved childhood.

I was obviously talking about this tiny fraction which were able to enter adulthood. So if we remove all the dead children, a substantial number of adult men would live past 50 even in the middle ages.
For the women, much less, for all those who survived into adulthood, a lot would at one point die in childbirth, before her thirties.

Edit: DonQuigleone beat me to it

Regarding infant mortality, its only with the advent of vaccination and antibiotics that it was effectively curbed to the current levels. Only a century ago, it was a common occurence to lose several children even in the West.

I might as well add another saying:
"In Africa, each time an elder die, a library is burning"

In this respect, survival of adults past the reproductive prime has been discussed as an evolutionary trait, as it allows the preservation and transmission of knowledge.
Aside from being bedtime stories or saga tellers, in most cultures the elders are the one who transmit their respective skills and knowledge to the young ones.

[Haladflire65]

Originally Posted by LeoXiao

Spoiler:

Well here's the thing. Genderization and sexualization (particularly of women) is highly reinforced by the mass media, but the fact is that at the core, the concepts of masculinity or femininity are pretty natural, and this is reflected in all major cultures. Men are simply more attracted to "womanly" women as women are more attracted to "manly" men.

The mass media is not the cause of this, instead, it serves as a magnifier of the superficial aspects of masculinity and femininity, which makes sense since "sex sells". The result is that both men and women get further objectified by commercial culture (though women are more subject to this), which has trivialized the classical meaning of what it means to to a man or what it means to be a woman into something like "if you're a guy you have to be rich, never cry, and have big muscles", and if you're a girl it means "you have to dress sexily, put on makeup, and accentuate your voice in silly ways". The more subtle implications of gender differences, the ones that are harder to pinpoint but yet actually matter, are practically ignored.

I like women who are feminine, but a girl does not automatically become more attractive to me because she has bigger boobs or is wearing a bikini, yet most of the I feel that mass media wants me to think this is the case. Likewise, a lot of girls I have have talked to like all sorts of guys, but that's because they have different ideas about what they find to be 'masculine', ideas which don't always equate to the "Brad Pitt" (or whatever) image.

Basically, notions of femininity and masculinity are perfectly natural, but they have been simply reduced to sexual manipulation via the media to get people to spend money. And then when people recognize this, they seem to accept the commercialized definition of gender differences when it's really just hypersexualization, and then reject gender differences altogether (even though they are natural and IMO inevitable) in favor of an "equal society", as if men and women need to be the same, which will never happen unless we re-engineer humans altogether.

But where those ideas of masculinity and femininity come from in the first place is what I've been starting to wonder. I don't think they're completely "natural" notions. It's not the same everywhere around the world. For instance, I notice that Japan seems to have very different expectations for men than in North America - there're very few ripped men, it's okay for them to be sensitive in places like public TV... Korea on the other hand likes built men more I think, even if Asian men are naturally smaller. Female celebs there are also taller, more plastic-surgeried, and generally closer to Caucasian females that would be considered "attractive". A theory I have is that it's because Korea has been much more receptive to Western pop culture, while Japan is much more protective of their own. Korea has pretty much succumbed to the Western notion of masculinity and femininity, in my opinion. I still do think a lot of the cause is media.

People might have different ideas of attractiveness or masculinity and femininity but they'd still be greatly pressured by media whether they agree with it or not. I for one have stranger tastes when it comes to men - I don't really like those supposedly attractive young models, so my friends already think I'm strange. I'm still affected by media portrayals of men and women even if I don't necessarily believe in them.

Thinking about it again, I do definitely agree that the media responds to the masses, but it works just as strongly the other way around. I also agree with your statement that the media magnifies those stereotypical notions regarding both genders. I'm just not sure about preconceptions regarding gender being "natural".

Originally Posted by LeoXiao

Hope you do well on it.

Thank you I'm enjoying this discussion; I haven't participated in ones like it in AS ever, I don't think!

[LeoXiao]

Originally Posted by Haladflire65

But where those ideas of masculinity and femininity come from in the first place is what I've been starting to wonder. I don't think they're completely "natural" notions. It's not the same everywhere around the world. For instance, I notice that Japan seems to have very different expectations for men than in North America - there're very few ripped men, it's okay for them to be sensitive in places like public TV... Korea on the other hand likes built men more I think, even if Asian men are naturally smaller. Female celebs there are also taller, more plastic-surgeried, and generally closer to Caucasian females that would be considered "attractive". A theory I have is that it's because Korea has been much more receptive to Western pop culture, while Japan is much more protective of their own. Korea has pretty much succumbed to the Western notion of masculinity and femininity, in my opinion. I still do think a lot of the cause is media.

yes, that's all true. But what I meant regarding notions of masculinity or femininity is that despite there being different ways in which they manifest themselves, the fact that they exist at all is a natural phenomenon. I may not have the same taste in women that my friend does, but we still have our idea of what qualities we'd like a woman to have. That ideal is thus what one would call "femininity", and unlike the way the mass media portrays it, it goes far beyond looks or acting like you're in heat.

People might have different ideas of attractiveness or masculinity and femininity but they'd still be greatly pressured by media whether they agree with it or not. I for one have stranger tastes when it comes to men - I don't really like those supposedly attractive young models, so my friends already think I'm strange. I'm still affected by media portrayals of men and women even if I don't necessarily believe in them.

I agree. I can't stand to look at the covers of many magazines with grossly exaggerated photos of half-naked oversexed women on them; sure I'll admit it can be stimulating* but I'd hate to have a girlfriend like that.

*=Baiscally, the point is to get you to look at it and then think with your balls and not your brain, and then you might spend some money.

Thinking about it again, I do definitely agree that the media responds to the masses, but it works just as strongly the other way around. I also agree with your statement that the media magnifies those stereotypical notions regarding both genders. I'm just not sure about preconceptions regarding gender being "natural".

Again, it's not that the preconceptions themselves are natural (since they can be changed), but that preconceptions of some sort regarding gender will inevitably manifest as long as humans stay biologically similar to what they have been for the last 10,000 years. Trying to stop men, for example, from having a conception of an ideal woman, as opposed to viewing them the same way as men, is like telling children that it's not natural to find sugar (or sweet things in general) tasty, even though some children might not care for it. This is what I mean by "natural".

Now there does seem to be a base-superstructure relationship between the media and the masses. In the past, the fashion and etiquette was determined by the upper classes and their artists, and then it became the proper mode for that culture. A lot of what those people liked was probably based on their personal tastes and musings, and not so much with the idea of influencing people around them. Now, in the age of industrialized capitalism, there are all kinds of superhuman entities all competing in the markets to make money. And with that the sexualization of genders began to escalate exponentially.

A few decades ago, most people buying stuff were men, and so the advertising appealed to men. So increasingly sexualized, objectified women were used to entice the buyers. It is a kind of sexism but ultimately the objective is to make money. Now, with females making up a big consumer population, objectified male images are also appearing. It's an ironic equality, in which men and women simultaneously objectify each other.

I'll make an analogy. In the USA, massive, intensely sweet cakes are very popular, probably more popular than more subtle varieties. Similarly, voluptuous bikini-clad women probably attract more men than conservatively-dressed or not-so-curvy ones. Now even if those more popular options were not available, children would still like sweet cakes as opposed to plain bread and men would still like good-looking women as opposed to ugly ones. The problem is not that the gendered ideal exists but that it has been broken down into a moneymaking tool without regard for the finer effects on male-female relations.

Thank you I'm enjoying this discussion; I haven't participated in ones like it in AS ever, I don't think!

Haha, you're welcome. Just don't spend too much time at it.

[DonQuigleone]

I'd say a lot of gender issues is rooted in how powerful our sexuality is.

It's evidence enough that for most of us, 80-90% of our friends will be of the same gender as ourselves, and usually all of our closest friends (significant others and family members obviously excepted).

I don't think this is because of huge differences between the sexes, more that for many of us it's difficult to associate with the opposite sex extensively while ignoring our sexuality. IE most of us who make a female friend secretly harbour the desire for it to be something more. On the flip side, I'd say most guys (particularly myself) are not as interested with becoming friends with unnattractive women.

Maybe this changes a bit if you do get into a close relationship, but then jealousy comes into play. Most men don't want to see their GFs/Wives associating closely with other men, and most women don't like the idea of their BFs/Husbands becoming close friends with another woman.

At the root of all this, men and women objectify each other. We are always assessing each other as potential mates. It's impossible for a guy to look at a girl and not do a quick assessment of her attractiveness, it's practically automatic. Furthermore, we all have certain preconceived ideas of what we want in a mate, almost always rooted in how see the roles of fathers and mothers, which is usually rooted in our own homelife, and very much influenced by contemporary cultural ideas. Most guys are, in some sense, evaluating women as potential mothers, and most women are evaluating guys as potential fathers.

Due to biology, these are two different notions. In particular, motherhood is a very static concept, it all has to do with compassion and caring, and activities that are adjunct to that. Children trust their mothers the most, and will trust the food presented by their mother the most. A young child might not trust the food prepared by any person besides their mother. So often the association between food and their mother is a pretty powerful one. Which is one reason why cookery is almost universally considered a good maternal, and in turn feminine trait. It makes sense, if you think about it.

Motherhood is an inherently conservative concept. Not only that, but I think any guy wants to think that their potential wife will put her children first before any other concerns (like, for instance, a career). From an evolutionary perspective this makes sense, and if you look at folklore, the vain mother who thinks of herself first is frequently a villainous figure, while the selfless mother who tirelessly looked after her children, is idealized.

Masculinity is a much more flexible concept. They basically just need to "provide" for their wife and children, and protect them from enemies during their period of greatest vulnerability. The need for protection is not particularly necessary today (though you can see it crop up in a lot of fiction...), and there are many different ways to provide. You could say that men get the more varied end of the stick.

These conceptions stick with us in our gender relations, and I think are responsible for a lot of sexism.

However, theres some crucial differences between today, and most of human history. The big one is that prior to the modern era, women spent almost their entire pre-menopausal lives caring for at least one young child (What do you expect with no contraception, and high infant mortality?). Today, women will likely only spend at most 6 or 7 years on this, so their position in society is much more flexible. Being a mother is still important for women, but women are now freed to do a lot more.

The root of a lot of women's dissatisfaction lies in the fact that in the modern world the workplace has home has been seperated, and so it's difficult for women to work with their children around. In pre-industrial times, women could work and look after children at the same time, quite easily. Jobs like weaving, spinning were fairly typical, and vital elements of a family's income. Most women are faced with the demanding choice between just childcare, or just work, which is not something most women would presumably want.

[fanty]

Originally Posted by DonQuigleone

Most women are faced with the demanding choice between just childcare, or just work, which is not something most women would presumably want.

Statistics also show that the more conservative (industrialized) societies, where there is huge pressure on mothers to quit their jobs and become housewives, also tend to have extremely low birth rates. That's because many women, when faced with a black and white career vs. children choice, choose to not have any children. While in societies where day care is easily accessible and of high quality, where the employers are willing to give women more flexible working hours, and where people don't look down upon you for not sacrificing your career to care for your children, the birth rates are much more healthy.

And I can totally understand why that is so. I'd like to have children eventually, but if I was pressured to give up my career, or if childcare was so bad or so unavailable that I'd be forced to give up my career, then you can guarantee, my decision would be "Screw it! It sure would be nice to spread my genes, but I'd rather spread my work!" (I'm an artist)

[DonQuigleone]

Exactly. People need to be able to do both, and companies need to be forced to compromise.

Fortunately, I don't think laws will be required. The vast majority of people want to have children, successful and unsuccessful alike. In order to hang on to the best workers, employers will have to compromise.

I see the rise in telecommuting, flexitime and contracting to be steps in the right direction. I think, in the future, the best job security will be a portfolio of prior work, and a book of contacts.

Provision of child care is a good stop gap, but I think the real solution is to eliminate the need for it. For instance if it was easier to only work from ~9-2pm (IE school hours), or if husbands and wives could arrange job sharing arrangements such that at least one of them is always free after school.