[Split] Sexism

[Varislintu]

I still feel like questioning the premise that Norway is a place where we can look at what happens if there is no sexism. That clip from the TV show they had in the documentary, where a girl exclaims that a woman can't be a janitor, that looks to be from the 90s. The girl looks to be my generation. So Norwegians who are 30 or older have grown up in a world where it's obvious that women are never job X.

I also do think the show has an agenda, precisely due to how it edited the answers from the gender researchers. Leaving in stuttering and confusion is a usual tactic in this kind of thing. It's the prerogative of the maker, I suppose, but it's still a tactic that's worth noting.

The point of that video is the following: if gender roles are culturally determined, why the highly anti-sexist culture of Norway does not produce the same amount of male and female workers for a determined job? This is the paradox.

Apart from that, there is an even greater paradox in the anti-sexism: there is the illusion of being able to reach a fundamental level of reality about the nature of the human being, which is believed to lie beyond the interpretations and mediations constituted by the "ideal" world. There is the unawareness of the fact that in order to eliminate the differences between men and women I have to indoctrinate - that is, I have to use culture, education, manipulation - that previously I had declared to fight. Otherwise, I had to admit that I've found the ultimate truth about man's nature.

I feel stupid, but I have a hard time understanding what you mean in the second paragraph. Could you reformulate it?

[vijayjohn]

I feel stupid, but I have a hard time understanding what you mean in the second paragraph. Could you reformulate it?

Nah, that confused me, too.

[Ludwig Whitby]

I could turn the question around. Why are feminists always dismissing biological gender differences a priori? Even when presented with a case that should at the very least spark some thoughts and questioning of the established theories, they won't consider them?

Because that assumption leads nowhere. It leads to no self-examination, rethinking or change in how we treat girls and boys. Sure, it could be that there are immutable biological brain differences. Just like it could be that God created the world and just made it look like evolution happened. But what is the point of thinking like that? Settling on that and never asking "but what if?"

It's not a ''What if''. In the video they had an experiment with babies, a person and a machine. Male babies would look longer at the mechanical object and female babies would look longer at the human face. This is only a couple of weeks after they were born. There was no time for 'nurture' to influence them.

And finally, my thoughts on the question of the 'Norwegian gender equality paradox': Women in less equal countries have a need to prove themselves to be equal to men, so they choose engineering, one of the toughest and manliest professions, more often than Norwegian girls do. Norwegian girls are secure and already know that they are equal to boys and are quite happy that the society they live in sees them as equal to boys, so they have no such need and are able to choose a profession without the pressure of a socially inflicted inferiority complex. So they simply choose what fits them best.

Could be, yes. But are you willing to just leave it at "engineering just doesn't fit women?" If you had a daughter, would you be willing to just trust that she is naturally not fit for engineering, nor engineering to her?

No. Engineering fits some women.

Or more personally: My mother is an engineer. She became an engineer, because her father (also an engineer) never saw her as smart enough or able enough and had always preferred my uncle. The whole family and their circle of friends expected my uncle to follow in the footsteps of his father, and as for my mother, well, she can't really be a good engineer, now could she? It took my mother many years to realize that she truly isn't interested in engineering and was only compensating.

Sure, sexism or family unfairnesses shouldn't drive people to professions they don't like. But after this anecdote I would feel for all the women engineers (and soldiers, and construction-related workers, etc) who are actually really interested in what they do, but are now possibly seen as gender imposters or overcompensating due to an inferiority complex. And not to mention the younger girls and women who might walk away with the cultural message that these jobs are so inherently male that them pursuing them is weird and desperate and gender-bending. That it's not normal for them to pursue those professions.

I want a world where it's attitudinally normal for women to pursue engineering and for men to pursue nursing. They don't have to end up doing it 50-50%, or at all. As long as it's a valid, normal option. It's these un-normalising attitudes that I would want gone. And the attitudes are going nowhere if we label certain things as naturally women's interests or men's interests and just stop thinking about it after that.

And here we are. You're preferring ideology to facts. You don't want to accept a fact because of its possible social consequences.

I'm in full accordance with you that we should tacle the un-normalizing attitudes (hey, I'm a philologist and I'm neither a woman nor a gay man!), but let's not make our ideology influence science.

[Lada]

In Russia most engineers are women, my dad is working among women, there are few men in his company. However, this term "engineer" is too broad, actually they design pipelines and other different underground communications... Anyway Russia is not a good example, because Soviet system made women to take men's professions and after war there was a lack of men everywhere, so women started to drive the economy.

[Marah]

The point of that video is the following: if gender roles are culturally determined, why the highly anti-sexist culture of Norway does not produce the same amount of male and female workers for a determined job? This is the paradox.

Maybe because even those societies are not perfect in that aspect?

[linguoboy]

It's not a ''What if''. In the video they had an experiment with babies, a person and a machine. Male babies would look longer at the mechanical object and female babies would look longer at the human face. This is only a couple of weeks after they were born. There was no time for 'nurture' to influence them.

There was, however, ample time for the gender bias of the researchers to have influenced the design, execution, and data collection of the experiment. This is why experimental conclusions are considered tentative at best before they have been reproduced by other researchers in a variety of settings and why we often see a regression to the mean when the results of such attempts are published.

[Varislintu]

Because that assumption leads nowhere. It leads to no self-examination, rethinking or change in how we treat girls and boys. Sure, it could be that there are immutable biological brain differences. Just like it could be that God created the world and just made it look like evolution happened. But what is the point of thinking like that? Settling on that and never asking "but what if?"

It's not a ''What if''. In the video they had an experiment with babies, a person and a machine. Male babies would look longer at the mechanical object and female babies would look longer at the human face. This is only a couple of weeks after they were born. There was no time for 'nurture' to influence them.

So are you only talking about this one study in this discussion? I was talking way more broadly, but okay. What do you think that study, if we accept it's results as truth, means for the world? What should we do, upon learning that baby boys like to look at machines and baby girls like to look at people?

No. Engineering fits some women.

So, if the study about the babies tells us virtually nothing about specific adult individuals' preferences (since we seem to agree that individuals can behave completely against what their gender biology tells them to [I'm adopting your position in that for the sake of the argument]), again, in what way should we be influenced by knowing that baby boys and baby girls like to look at different things? This is a piece of the puzzle I'm missing, and would like to know.

Sure, sexism or family unfairnesses shouldn't drive people to professions they don't like. But after this anecdote I would feel for all the women engineers (and soldiers, and construction-related workers, etc) who are actually really interested in what they do, but are now possibly seen as gender imposters or overcompensating due to an inferiority complex. And not to mention the younger girls and women who might walk away with the cultural message that these jobs are so inherently male that them pursuing them is weird and desperate and gender-bending. That it's not normal for them to pursue those professions.

I want a world where it's attitudinally normal for women to pursue engineering and for men to pursue nursing. They don't have to end up doing it 50-50%, or at all. As long as it's a valid, normal option. It's these un-normalising attitudes that I would want gone. And the attitudes are going nowhere if we label certain things as naturally women's interests or men's interests and just stop thinking about it after that.

And here we are. You're preferring ideology to facts. You don't want to accept a fact because of its possible social consequences.

I'm in full accordance with you that we should tacle the un-normalizing attitudes (hey, I'm a philologist and I'm neither a woman nor a gay man!), but let's not make our ideology influence science.

Hmm, how come we agree, but I get a "And here we are. You're preferring ideology to facts."?

I think we are actually talking past each other. What is the "fact" that you mean? There is extremely contradictory study results and evidence of this whole nature vs. nurture thing. There is not some kind of scientific consensus that women's and men's current average preferences are purely biological. We, as a species, do not yet know which way it swings, and how much and in what sense and in what topic. I accept that the study with the babies gave the results it gave. Of course. Is that the fact you think I'm not accepting?

I can't really uncritically accept the "facts", because there is no one true package of consistent facts to accept. But in the face of this scientific uncertainty, I try to keep in mind that nurture may very well play a role, and that can restrict choices. I keep that in mind because my ideology is in many ways feministic. In the hard science sense, I want scientific inquiries into this topic to look at how and whether nurture plays a role, and what our biology says. In the social science sense, I want to understand how this knowledge plays out in society -- for example, what does it mean to us as a species that we know that boy babies like to look at machines and girl babies like to look at people. What do we infer from that? Where do we place value in this issue? (Why are we so obsessed with finding biological differences between genders? -- a certain gender researcher, i.e. a social scientist.)

[Massimiliano B]

I still feel like questioning the premise that Norway is a place where we can look at what happens if there is no sexism. That clip from the TV show they had in the documentary, where a girl exclaims that a woman can't be a janitor, that looks to be from the 90s. The girl looks to be my generation. So Norwegians who are 30 or older have grown up in a world where it's obvious that women are never job X.

I also do think the show has an agenda, precisely due to how it edited the answers from the gender researchers. Leaving in stuttering and confusion is a usual tactic in this kind of thing. It's the prerogative of the maker, I suppose, but it's still a tactic that's worth noting.

The point of that video is the following: if gender roles are culturally determined, why the highly anti-sexist culture of Norway does not produce the same amount of male and female workers for a determined job? This is the paradox.

Apart from that, there is an even greater paradox in the anti-sexism: there is the illusion of being able to reach a fundamental level of reality about the nature of the human being, which is believed to lie beyond the interpretations and mediations constituted by the "ideal" world. There is the unawareness of the fact that in order to eliminate the differences between men and women I have to indoctrinate - that is, I have to use culture, education, manipulation - that previously I had declared to fight. Otherwise, I had to admit that I've found the ultimate truth about man's nature.

I feel stupid, but I have a hard time understanding what you mean in the second paragraph. Could you reformulate it?

I agree with those who say that men and women should have the same rights and duties. I don't agree with those who say that there is a substance that is the same for men and women. This passage is not allowed, unless we want to do metaphysics. Trying to impose a metaphysical view to the reality is an aberration, and the failure of Norway in doing so is a proof against the proposers of the gender theory (which is a metaphysical construction).
Moreover, a theory has not to be applied to reality, but to be proven by the observation of the reality. If the experience does not fit the theory, this has to be rejected. So, Marah, we don't need an infinite time to determine whether a theory is right or not.

[Varislintu]

I agree with those who say that men and women should have the same rights and duties. I don't agree with those who say that there is a substance that is the same for men and women.

What do you mean, "substance"?

[Marah]

Trying to impose a metaphysical view to the reality is an aberration, and the failure of Norway in doing so is a proof against the proposers of the gender theory (which is a metaphysical construction).
Moreover, a theory has not to be applied to reality, but to be proven by the observation of the reality. If the experience does not fit the theory, this has to be rejected. So, Marah, we don't need an infinite time to determine whether a theory is right or not

I think there are flaws in your logic. Just because Norway isn't perfect in that aspect yet doesn't mean it's a failure. They're closer to their goal than they were before. So, all in all, their politics have been successful.
Now, will it ever be possible to completely eradicate this problem? I don't know. There are things that are out of their control. It's been pointed out before but when Norway started to apply its policies there was already a sexist culture. For instance, your parents were likely to have a job that was linked to a certain gender and therefore it influenced their kids. Their kids grew up having this vision of society where men are more likely to have certain jobs and women other jobs, just like mommy and daddy. You can't just erase that.
Plus, there's foreign cultural influence too. Norwegians watch tv. They watch a lot of American television and it will, of course, have an impact on their expectations concerning gender roles.

[mōdgethanc]

From how it's edited, I gather that the documentary has the agenda of casting doubt on the idea that how the genders choose professions is largely due to cultural history and gender socialisation (i.e. nurture), and instead wants to lay these gender differences at the door of biological differences of the brain (nature).

This idea falls apart when we look at the evidence, which shows us that sexual dimorphism in the brain is really quite small and there is no reliable way to tell the gender of someone just by looking at it. There are subtle differences, of course, but it's hard to say how much of those are inherent and how much are socialization. (Remember, the brain is a plastic, constantly evolving thing.)

but specifically nursing, construction and engineering are evidence of biological gender differences in the brain?

They aren't evidence of any such thing. Only a brain scan can tell us that.

[Massimiliano B]

@ Varislintu
"Substance" is "the supposed immaterial substratum that can receive modifications and in which attributes and accidents inhere". What we see is a cluster of organs, veins, muscles etc.
But what we think a real person is, it's the substance. We can only believe that the substance of men and women is the same, because what is observable is that men differ from women.

@ Marah
I don't see any flawlessness in my logic. I say that a theory is a scientific theory if it can be invalidated by experience. If one says that there is no experience that can invalidate the gender theory, we have to conclude it is merely a metaphysical construction.

[Varislintu]

@ Varislintu
"Substance" is "the supposed immaterial substratum that can receive modifications and in which attributes and accidents inhere". What we see is a cluster of organs, veins, muscles etc.
But what we think a real person is, it's the substance. We can only believe that the substance of men and women is the same, because what is observable is that men differ from women.

Okay. Could one roughly say that you mean something akin to "soul", althought not necessarily in a religious sense?

If so, then I don't really agree (that men and women's substances must be different), because there are just so many exceptions. Trans people, on the "immaterial" side, and cromosomal anomalies on the "physical" side. There can be a person who has XY chromosomes, and should become a man, but their bodies don't respond to testosterone (i.e. they are resistant to it), and so they become women in the womb. Which "substance" could we predict them having? At what point is it determined? And does that prediction hold true?

[linguoboy]

We can only believe that the substance of men and women is the same, because what is observable is that men differ from women.

No, what is observable is that individuals vary from one to another. Calling some of these individuals "men" and others "women" is a cultural construct you're imposing on them. There is no excuse in this day and age for not knowing about intersex individuals and other deviations from a strict sexual dichotomy. If you're going to talk about "challenges to theory", first familiarise yourself with the facts.

[Itikar]

and so they don't become women in the womb.

Fixt

[Varislintu]

and so they don't become women in the womb.

Fixt

Very true, thank you.

[Massimiliano B]

We can only believe that the substance of men and women is the same, because what is observable is that men differ from women.

No, what is observable is that individuals vary from one to another. Calling some of these individuals "men" and others "women" is a cultural construct you're imposing on them. There is no excuse in this day and age for not knowing about intersex individuals and other deviations from a strict sexual dichotomy. If you're going to talk about "challenges to theory", first familiarise yourself with the facts.

I agree with you and with Varislintu: each person is an island, a separate universe, with their characteristics, behaviour, and accidents. That's exactly the opposite the supporters of the gender theory are trying to do: affirming that there is a unique human nature, the same in every individual - which becomes nothing but a mere incarnation of that idea.
On the other hand, there is a first grouping based on the observation: it' a fact that the vast majority of human beings have either male sexual organs or female sexual organs. You cannot deny that. That there are some human beings that don't fit this dicotomy, is another proof of the falsity of the gender theory, whose supporters say that human nature is one and the same in all persons.
We don't come onto existence with the same set of genes: everyone is unique, and trying to impose the idea that everyone share the same primitive nature (which is said to be the same in everyone) is not scientific.

@ Varislintu:
Yes, you can call it "soul", of you want.

[Varislintu]

I agree with you and with Varislintu: each person is an island, a separate universe, with their characteristics, behaviour, and accidents. That's exactly the opposite the supporters of the gender theory are trying to do: affirming that there is a unique human nature, the same in every individual - which becomes nothing but a mere incarnation of that idea.

I don't understand. In what way is that the opposite of gender theory? In other words: what is it that you think gender theory says in this context?

[hreru]

How is gender equality measured? What made Norway score so high?

[Johanna]

How is gender equality measured? What made Norway score so high?

Probably laws and official policies, since measuring these things among the public is a really hard thing to do.