Gender Differences

[TimeEntrance]

Here is a male U.S. politician that is of the female gender (dressed like a woman) but not transsexual.

I Catholic teaching would view this as immoral.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stu_Rasmussen

Stu Rasmussen (born 1948) is an American politician. He was reported to be the nation’s first openly transgender mayor when he was elected as the mayor of Silverton, Oregon in November 2008.[1][2] He had previously been elected twice in the 1990s as mayor of this Willamette Valley community, before coming out as transgender.[3] He was also three times a member of the city council.[4] He is biologically male and identifies as a heterosexual man, but has breast implants and dresses as a woman.[citation needed]

Rasmussen, a self-described fiscal conservative and social liberal,[2][4] served as city councilor until January 2009.[5] Rasmussen also owns the local movie theater.

Before and after images: beta.photobucket.com/images/stu%20rasmussen/

Photo while being interviewed:

http://nimg.sulekha.com/others/original700/stu-rasmussen-2009-4-8-17-20-44.jpg

 

[Sarcelle]

I think the reason why the topic of gender differences can be a potentially sore subject is that a lot of people can interpret it to mean one gender is inferior to another. You don’t have to look far for examples of this. Browsing through the posts in here reveal a lot of people who genuinely believe that women are inferior to men.

Men and women are not the same, that is true but they are not polar opposites either. They are complementary. However it does not do any good to say that one gender is inferior to another. You con’t have to look far to see the fruits of this thinking. Look at China and India and to a lesser extent South Korea.

I agree with Peter Kreeft when he said that masculinity and femininity are archetypes and not stereotypes. Pity that the popular definitions of masculinity or femininity do not do them justice.

 

[TimeEntrance]

If what you say is true, then peasant women should have been accorded the same treatment.

Problem solved.

I think chivalry was a concept that extended further than respectful treatment of noble women. Part of chivalry as institution was the vowed protection of widows and orphans.

I have a book on Bushido written by a Japanese man that tries to explain the institution of Bushido to Western readers by relating it to the Western institution of chivalry.

Attacks on chivalry are really veiled attacks on the Catholic Church and possibly Christ himself. The institution began with the Germanization of Catholicism and the Catholiczation of the Germanic tribes. These were a pagan people we regard as barbarians by today’s standards. They had a strong warrior-chief culture. The Saxons out in what is England, were only converted by Germanic Frankish monks, by a clever book and story the monks created referring to Jesus as the great warrior-chief and his 12 Apostles as his retainers (warriors). The Church eventually tried to bring the Germanic swords of the nobility under Christian ethics and eventually chivalry was born.

For sure, many knights never lived up to the ideals of chivalry but neither did many Japanese samurai. Yet… few to no one ever criticizes those Shinto-Buddhists. The samurai in fact could be by Christian standards quite evil. Their ego and pride was so notoriously big that their is a fictional tale of a peasant charitably warning a samurai that he had a flee on his back. The samurai quickly draws his sword and cuts the unarmed peasant down for the perceived insult. The samurai were also one of the most bisexual institutions in history.

But popular discourse has to go out of its way - like Satan - to accuse chivalry and Christian knights.

There were Christian warriors outside the nobility that were not given the honorific title of knight because of their common birth. These warriors were referred to as men-at-arms. I’m not sure if they were vowed the code of chivalry too or not.

 

[carn]

And therein lies the problem: people are not statistical norms, they are individuals.

Suppose your 100 men included 50 who are physically weak, uncoordinated, unaggressive, nurturing, and great with children.

And suppose your 100 women included 50 who are strong, aggressive, and not patient enough to deal with children.

Congratulations! By sorting them by gender stereotypes, you just created TWO teams that are going to fail miserably at their tasks. But had you looked at people as individuals instead of numbers, both teams could have been very successful.

(As for me, I don’t like children but I have a hot temper, impressive upper body strength, and a menacing appearance.)

Jala

And congratulations you are so hard dug into genderhogwash you choose the wrong answer.

The groups are chosen randomly. So bad luck might produce any kind of unfit group.

The wise choice means to decide what is likely. And its more likely that the women group has enough nerves between them to deal with the children, while its more likely the men group has enough physical strength and agression to good and impressive with clubs.

Therefore, based on the information, thats the best answer. The answer “i cannot choose anything, because maybe and well possibly” is wrong. Life consists of making choices on limited information. And if the only information about the two groups is, one is all female and the other all male, then biological conditions dictate the group assignment with the highest probability to be reasonable.

 

[carn]

I’m a little confused as to how evolutionary adaptation would provide for women a better recollection and orientation with regards to landmarks. Since men were indeed the ones who traveled the greater distances, wouldn’t this mean *they *would be the ones better equipped to find their way back to the home camp?

Its a difference, whether you want to find a specific spot in a known area or whether you want to head in a little known area in the more or less generally correct direction. The former skill is very useful for foraging, the later for hunting or warfare.

For the former place recognition is useful, for the later its useless.

 

[TimeEntrance]

I think the reason why the topic of gender differences can be a potentially sore subject is that a lot of people can interpret it to mean one gender is inferior to another. You don’t have to look far for examples of this. Browsing through the posts in here reveal a lot of people who genuinely believe that women are inferior to men.

Men and women are not the same, that is true but they are not polar opposites either. They are complementary. However it does not do any good to say that one gender is inferior to another. You con’t have to look far to see the fruits of this thinking. Look at China and India and to a lesser extent South Korea.

I agree with Peter Kreeft when he said that masculinity and femininity are archetypes and not stereotypes. Pity that the popular definitions of masculinity or femininity do not do them justice.

You make some reasonable points.

There is also very little sexual dimorphism among human being compared to primates like the Great Apes. Ergo, it calls into question the notion a boy or man should not engage in hand-to-hand combat with their peers of the opposite sex.

But a anthropological discussion probably is not the best point of departure to design ethical and moral constructs for a Christian society. Perhaps philosophy or Christian philosophy should own that avenue - while looking to and drawing upon insights from anthropology and other fields of study.

But one thing I do find interesting is that animals like dogs will hump a persons leg to show dominance. My female anthropology professor told me that female dogs will do this too. This makes me wonder if the human trait - among both males and females - that views men as weak that act effeminate, switch their butts, and take the female “receptive” role in sex with other men that are “masculine,” if this has some greater biologically wired causes in our brains and animal evolution?

 

[lerapt78]

I think chivalry was a concept that extended further than respectful treatment of noble women. Part of chivalry as institution was the vowed protection of widows and orphans.

You’re right. The code of Chivalry encompassed so much more than mere courtesy and protection toward women, widows and orphans. The Christian knights were expected to obey those in authority, to speak the truth at all times, to live by honor, to refuse monetary bribes and gifts, to fear God and maintain his Church.

In addition to all of the “soft” attributes, chivalrous knights were also what we’d call “men’s men”, in that they were not afraid to stand up and fight. They were also expected never to refuse a challenge from a contender, to never turn their backs against an enemy, to persevere to the end of any mission taken, and to carry a sword (little daggers were for sissies!.

Chivalry wasn’t just a set of rules - it was a way of life.

I have a book on Bushido written by a Japanese man that tries to explain the institution of Bushido to Western readers by relating it to the Western institution of chivalry.

Attacks on chivalry are really veiled attacks on the Catholic Church and possibly Christ himself. The institution began with the Germanization of Catholicism and the Catholiczation of the Germanic tribes. These were a pagan people we regard as barbarians by today’s standards. They had a strong warrior-chief culture. The Saxons out in what is England, were only converted by Germanic Frankish monks, by a clever book and story the monks created referring to Jesus as the great warrior-chief and his 12 Apostles as his retainers (warriors). The Church eventually tried to bring the Germanic swords of the nobility under Christian ethics and eventually chivalry was born.

For sure, many knights never lived up to the ideals of chivalry but neither did many Japanese samurai. Yet… few to no one ever criticizes those Shinto-Buddhists. The samurai in fact could be by Christian standards quite evil. Their ego and pride was so notoriously big that their is a fictional tale of a peasant charitably warning a samurai that he had a flee on his back. The samurai quickly draws his sword and cuts the unarmed peasant down for the perceived insult. The samurai were also one of the most bisexual institutions in history.

But popular discourse has to go out of its way - like Satan - to accuse chivalry and Christian knights.

There were Christian warriors outside the nobility that were not given the honorific title of knight because of their common birth. These warriors were referred to as men-at-arms. I’m not sure if they were vowed the code of chivalry too or not.

That’s interesting - I don’t know much about Bushido. Also interesting the correlation you make with the attack on chivalry being an attack against the Church.

 

[TimeEntrance]

You’re right. The code of Chivalry encompassed so much more than mere courtesy and protection toward women, widows and orphans. The Christian knights were expected to obey those in authority, to speak the truth at all times, to live by honor, to refuse monetary bribes and gifts, to fear God and maintain his Church.

In addition to all of the “soft” attributes, chivalrous knights were also what we’d call “men’s men”, in that they were not afraid to stand up and fight. They were also expected never to refuse a challenge from a contender, to never turn their backs against an enemy, to persevere to the end of any mission taken, and to carry a sword (little daggers were for sissies!.

Chivalry wasn’t just a set of rules - it was a way of life.

@ bold: I didn’t realize that, lerapt. Thanks for the info.

 

[Jala]

And congratulations you are so hard dug into genderhogwash you choose the wrong answer.

The groups are chosen randomly. So bad luck might produce any kind of unfit group.

The wise choice means to decide what is likely. And its more likely that the women group has enough nerves between them to deal with the children, while its more likely the men group has enough physical strength and agression to good and impressive with clubs.

Therefore, based on the information, thats the best answer. The answer “i cannot choose anything, because maybe and well possibly” is wrong. Life consists of making choices on limited information. And if the only information about the two groups is, one is all female and the other all male, then biological conditions dictate the group assignment with the highest probability to be reasonable.

Doesn’t sound to me like I’m the one brainwashed here. I deal with statistics every day, and I never said that it was more likely that the majority of men would be nurturing and the majority of women would be aggressive. I said that you have to** judge each person on their individual merits**. Interestingly enough, I work in what would be considered a traditionally “male” field, and about half of my co-workers–and superiors–are women. The reason my company is the best at what they do is because they look at individual performance, ability, and aptitude–not gender, skin color, religion, etc.–when choosing who works on what projects.

And speaking of statistics, the probability that you would ever have a random group of men and women assigned to take care of children or beat the heck out of people with clubs–is awfully low. Nice scanario if you live in a fantasy world, but the rest of us live in real-life, where we have to deal with people and their actual abilities, not the probability of their abilities.

Jala

 

[lerapt78]

Its a difference, whether you want to find a specific spot in a known area or whether you want to head in a little known area in the more or less generally correct direction. The former skill is very useful for foraging, the later for hunting or warfare.

For the former place recognition is useful, for the later its useless.

So it’s about general versus specific orientation? That makes sense.

That probably explains why men are usually better at finding their way back to a main road if they get lost driving. I think they also generally have a better sense of north/east/south/west.

It also probably explains why men are more likely to open a refrigerator and say “Honey, there’s no beer.”, to which the wife might reply “Yes, there is - top shelf, behind the box of baking soda, under the blue Tupperware container. You have to move the milk out of the way first, Honey!”

 

[carn]

Doesn’t sound to me like I’m the one brainwashed here. I deal with statistics every day, and I never said that it was more likely that the majority of men would be nurturing and the majority of women would be aggressive.

Then why do you imply, that deciding in this scenario according to gender stereotypes is a bad idea?

I said that you have to** judge each person on their individual merits**.

Absolutely.

But the stereotypes are not without information either, they are a general approixmation of averages. So in case one lacks individual information, then sorting people according to general characteristics to general tasks will produce better (of course not perfect results) than just randomly distributing them.

And the stereotypes also explain, why riot police is made up mostly/completly of men and while men seldom work in kindergardens.

Interestingly enough, I work in what would be considered a traditionally “male” field, and about half of my co-workers–and superiors–are women. The reason my company is the best at what they do is because they look at individual performance, ability, and aptitude–not gender, skin color, religion, etc.–when choosing who works on what projects.

If one has lots of companies discriminating vs women and a few selecting according to skills only, the women will be concentrated in the few. The overall percentage of women in the field will be low.

What equality propenents now fail to understand, is that the percentage of women in the field might still be low, if companies stop discriminating. It might be that women were discouraged to enter the field due to known discrimination. Then the percentage will rise with companies stopping discrimination.

Or it might be, that companies not only discriminated, but that women are less talented. Then the percentage increase will be smaller, because although all companies now act fair, still few women enter the field, as they are less likely to have the respective skills.

That does not mean, its useless to stop discrimination. Its still a great idea.

Its just that the result will disappoint often, with percentage of women in riot police still low and percentage of men in daycare centers still low, although everybody stopped discriminating. Then the serious error will happen, that the low percentages will be taken as prove that further activity is necessary and that yields to unfair rules, like too high quotas, lesser requirements or other mistakes, which will not only lead to discrimination (now against the other group) but also to not selecting the best for the job.

And speaking of statistics, the probability that you would ever have a random group of men and women assigned to take care of children or beat the heck out of people with clubs–is awfully low. Nice scanario if you live in a fantasy world, but the rest of us live in real-life, where we have to deal with people and their actual abilities, not the probability of their abilities.

Jala

Its a nice scenario to test, whether people are ready to admit, that on average men are better at beating other people and women on average are better at taking care of children.

You agree, that on average that is so?

(Besides, there are unfortunate places in this world, where somewhat similar scenarios are not unlikely, mainly in countries with civil wars. Militias are made up of men, even if they use guns. The women stay with the children. )

 

[carn]

To have an example, that might actually happen in real life:

Cop is patrolling aroung, hears someone screaming around the corner for help, heads there, there is a person seemingly lightly injured. Person tells Cop, someone attacked him from behind and stole his bag, he didnt see whom, just heard, the attacker headed towards the end of the street, where a t-junction is. Cop runs there and sees in each of the two possible directions, where the attacker might have fled, one person, both in about equal distance to him. Upon calling them to stop, both start to run (which doesnt surprise the cop its an area and time of the day with people trying to avoid police contact).

(here the scenario assumes, that the laws do not allow the cop to use his gun to stop both, probably true for most civilized countries, after all, one of the two is probably innocent)

Whom does he pursue?

Small info, one of the fleeing persons seems from body height, clothing andhair style to be female, the other male.

 

[Crescentinus]

Here’s how I see it:
Beware of women who act like dudes.

 

[vsedriver]

T It was out of great love for women that men would die. Out of love would a man protect a woman, out of love would a woman receive the most plentiful rations of food, out of love would a woman be removed from harm’s way. Now man is told he doesn’t have to, because he is told that woman can protect herself.

What’s love go to do with it?

This is survival of the species. A man can father many children at a time but a woman can only produce one at a time. In human society if the female population declines the society is at risk of dying. Therefore it is natural for men to risk death as they are in fact, more expendable. Nature has even hardwired women for survival in tough times. In times of famine men will die before women even if they eat the same amount of food. Women’s bodies store fat more easily and therefore they have a greater margin of survival during lean times.

In a society where there is no threat of extermination due to famine, disease, or war, gender/sex differences aren’t an issue except in where it applies to moral behavior.

 

[CollegeStinks]

You’re right. The code of Chivalry encompassed so much more than mere courtesy and protection toward women, widows and orphans. The Christian knights were expected to obey those in authority, to speak the truth at all times, to live by honor, to refuse monetary bribes and gifts, to fear God and maintain his Church.

In addition to all of the “soft” attributes, chivalrous knights were also what we’d call “men’s men”, in that they were not afraid to stand up and fight. They were also expected never to refuse a challenge from a contender, to never turn their backs against an enemy, to persevere to the end of any mission taken, and to carry a sword (little daggers were for sissies!.

Chivalry wasn’t just a set of rules - it was a way of life.

You have no idea how PUMPED UP I got when reading this. Man. THAT was THE way of life. That is what we need today. That is what all men need to be today. Lord, please, I pray for these values to once again storm this Earth in a torrent of courage and bravery.

 

[CollegeStinks]

What’s love go to do with it?

This is survival of the species. A man can father many children at a time but a woman can only produce one at a time. In human society if the female population declines the society is at risk of dying. Therefore it is natural for men to risk death as they are in fact, more expendable. Nature has even hardwired women for survival in tough times. In times of famine men will die before women even if they eat the same amount of food. Women’s bodies store fat more easily and therefore they have a greater margin of survival during lean times.

In a society where there is no threat of extermination due to famine, disease, or war, gender/sex differences aren’t an issue except in where it applies to moral behavior.

I prefer not to be the reductionist. There is much more behind the scenes here than you describe, which is why I STILL, even in these days of abundant comfort, hold open doors for every woman and allow her to sit in the most comfortable of seats when given a selection. Do you know what was like to live in Albania some 15 years ago? Very little hot water. Men like us would suffer through the pain of ice cold showers in the nude, just so our beloved sisters could enjoy every drop of hot water. Uncomfortable yes, but no threat of death.

And to think, I have heard women rebuke men for holding doors open.

 

[carn]

I agree.
And I think men, also, should be allowed to enter whatever career field they wish (outside of the nunnery). This assumes, of course, that they are able to meet the required standard of the position being filled–including the military.

And, i repeat myself but it has to be repeated often because it is often ignored, even if you have a discrimination free society, in which for each job only the most qualified are selected, in which each man and woman can be found in any position and in which not the slightest implication whatever from birth onwards is made towards boys and girls, that they should orient themselves to specific jobs, even in such society one might end up with military 80% men, police 70% men, infantry 95% men, riot police 99% men, kindergardeners 90% women, basic school teachers 60% women, people working in voluntary uncompensated charity 90% women, people having the job “evil heartless job-destroying capitalist” 90% men and so on.

The error of modern society is to ignore this and somehow assume that all should and will one day be 50%.

 

[lerapt78]

You have no idea how PUMPED UP I got when reading this. Man. THAT was THE way of life. That is what we need today. That is what all men need to be today. Lord, please, I pray for these values to once again storm this Earth in a torrent of courage and bravery.

Bravery is a beautiful thing.

 

[Crescentinus]

Bravery is a beautiful thing.

Indeed.
Sadly, chivalry had been demonized in many circles.

 

[CollegeStinks]

Indeed.
Sadly, chivalry had been demonized in many circles.

Even in Catholic circles. It won’t take long even on this forum to find that out.

I fear that we are entrenched in the sort of philosophical liberalism too deeply to fix anything. It will take an act of God to restore. Woe to those who oppose His will in the coming age.