Darling Cardinal
Just a little more on the dear Vatican. Because they are such fun there, I can’t tear myself away from the subject. They say the most amusing things!
Among the fundamental values linked to women’s actual lives is what has been called a “capacity for the other”. Although a certain type of feminist rhetoric makes demands “for ourselves”, women preserve the deep intuition of the goodness in their lives of those actions which elicit life, and contribute to the growth and protection of the other. This intuition is linked to women’s physical capacity to give life. Whether lived out or remaining potential, this capacity is a reality that structures the female personality in a profound way. It allows her to acquire maturity very quickly, and gives a sense of the seriousness of life and of its responsibilities.
No it isn’t, no it doesn’t, no we don’t. I find myself reacting the way Kingsley Amis did when he read a Virginia Woolf novel – with every sentence he would simply contradict. ‘No she didn’t, no they weren’t, no it wasn’t.’ Well this is where difference feminism gets you, isn’t it. I hope Sandra Harding is very proud – because that pile of codswallop up there sounds as if Cardinal Ratzinger has memorized her books. ‘Fundamental values linked to women’s actual lives’ indeed. Speak for yourself, bub! You don’t know anything about my life, or the lives of nearly every woman on the planet, so how do you get to talk about our ‘actual lives’? Huh? And as for informing me what ‘deep intuition’ I preserve of what – well it kind of makes me want to shove your mitre down your throat, frankly. ‘Whether lived out or remaining potential’ – got that? We’re stuck either way. No matter what we do, we’re all basically mommies, even if we aren’t actually mommies. And that structures our personalities in a profound way. Oh yeah? Well how do you explain me then? Huh? A more malevolent, cold, ruthless, violent, feral personality you wouldn’t want to meet, and as for maturity – ! Don’t make me laugh. And I have zero sense of the seriousness of life and its responsibilities, thank you very much; I’m entirely frivolous, I wander around giggling insanely all day long, and if you put a baby in my hands I would immediately drop it on its head. So don’t talk to me about what structures my personality, Cardinal baby, because you don’t have a clue.
Whatever. Celibate priests telling women what to do – you’d think that sort of thing would have stopped by now, under the weight of ridicule if nothing else. But no. And then people wonder why atheists won’t just shut up. That’s one reason right there.
” Celibate priests telling women what to do – you’d think that sort of thing would have stopped by now, under the weight of ridicule if nothing else. “
If you’re of the mindset that some religious Authority Figure has the right to tell you what to do, it really doesn’t matter if they’re celibate priests, literalist nutjobs, or green aliens from Mars.
Sure, but it’s all so public – I would think the Vatican itself would be embarrassed, is what I meant.
There’s way too much worthy of attack in the document, but I found the biggest problem was getting past the opening laugh-line: “1. The Church, expert in humanity…” I suppose it’s only natural that they have to work really hard after that, trying to top that whopper…
…And if you don’t like the big religions, you can skip over to the new-age sector where women are still consistently identified with the yin, dark, lunar, passive principle, despite lip-service to equality/respect. Want a goddess religion that supposedly exalts women? Get ready for enough pap about “mother earth”, and worship of body functions rather than mind/spirit, to make a hyena heave. And don’t get me started on the technophobia.
Heck, even if you pick up the Satanic Bible, you’ll find that women “represent the passive principle in nature” and are suppposed to dress provocatively for rituals, while men can just wear a robe.
Oh, arright, back on topic…not much I can add to yours save that it’s too bad stupidity doesn’t confer sterility.
“Celibate priests telling women what to do.”
I hate to point this out, but you’re playing identity politics here. And you’re unscientifically generalizing your views of maternity from a sample size of one, namely yourself. I’m not implying that the Catholic church has anything useful to say by virtue of being the Catholic church. But, in actuality, a majority of humans (both male and female) want to procreate. I know a few women who were made to feel guilt over betraying feminism if they chose to have kids early and stay home to take care of them.
“And you’re unscientifically generalizing your views of maternity from a sample size of one, namely yourself.”
That’s not how I read it. I did not get the impression that OB was suggesting all womankind held her views on maternity. I think the post was merely making the point that there was AT LEAST ONE woman (namely OB) who did not hold the views on maternity that the Catholic church claims all women to have.
“A more malevolent, cold, ruthless, violent, feral personality you wouldn’t want to meet”. Thanks for that phrase, OB.
The Vatican has been doing everything in its power to shoot any credibility it might have had in the foot. In the long run, they may be doing the world a great favor.
I still like Woolf, anyway. Her fiction, at least, does not deserve so cruel a comparison.
OB:”Celibate priests telling women what to do.”
CM:”I hate to point this out, but you’re playing identity politics here.”
You needn’t read it as identity politics. I don’t think it is unreasonable to suggest that celibate men mightn’t be overqualified to dictate about child birth.
Yes, Chris M had it right. I certainly wasn’t saying that all women are like me – I was just saying that the Vatican is quite wrong to say that all women are maternal, serious, responsible, blah blah. They’re the ones playing identity politics – hilariously enough.
The bit about celibate men is a more minor point, but still – there is something a tad absurd about it.
or enjoy similar arguments from the hardcore nativist perspective of evolutionary psychology…
Good point, Alex. Every once in a while there is one of these articles that promises to show the fundamental nueroanatomical differences beween man and women: see, this time, it’s the corpus callosum. There is this search for a brain difference that simply HAS to be there, right?
For me, there’s sort of an ‘Ellen’ Turing Test (or an Ellis Bell Test, for those Bronte fans out there). Except when explicitly mentioned, I cannot tell the sex of an author. Even (or perpaps especially) here on B&W, with the proponderance of initials (or unisex names like Alex).
There simply cannot be a significant difference in the way our brains work.
Celibate (why would celibate matter?) men could definitely have some valid points about childbirth. Sure, most wouldn’t have considered it deeply, but you know, a properly trained gynecologist knows a great deal – independent of their gender, their proclivities, or their orientation. I’m sure a woman doctor knows a hell of a lot more about prostrate cancer than I do. So, it was a minor point, OB, but a sexist one, if only a ‘tad’ bit so.
“There simply cannot be a significant difference in the way our brains work”
That’s a very bold empirical claim! What with those different concentrations of hormones sloshing about, different chromosomes and all. Perhaps you mean to say that it doesn’t seem likely that there can be a difference in the way our brains work that would give rise to significant differences in behaviour/external presentations.
Of course you’d be wrong, in the sense that there are almost definitely significant differences between the genders in the statistical sense (i.e. overlapping distributions with different average values).
As to celibate men and childbirth. We’re talking about an institution run -entirely- by celibate men which makes very serious rules about what woman can, can’t and should do with their bodies. I think it is not unreasonable to object to people telling you you should be having children when they (a) can’t have them, and, (b) have no idea what it is like to have children. It is entirely disanalogous to doctors exactly because the church can’t claim special knowledge about it.
No that I’m saying it isn’t a pretty weak argument, but its defensible nonetheless.
Funny how it is a ‘bold empirical claim’ that the sexes think the same way! Take 500 scientific papers authored by women and 500 by men that are about non-gender topics. Remove the names, shuffle. I do not think you can methodologically seperate them with any degree of accuracy : they are indistinguishable. I think there is overwhelming evidence of my position.
I see, so you say I need to take the statement within context of referring to the Holy Roman Church? I should read it as ‘Priests of the Roman Catholic church cannot know anything accurate about childbirth’? Why? Is there something, ah, secret and spiritual and nontranslateable about having a child? You have every right to object, to disagree, to even get angry about what they say, but you have no right to say to attack a logical argument based, ad hominem, on the mouthpiece. Many priests have astounding educations and rhetorical skills.
Look, either men (even god-loving priests) can say something meaningful about childbirth without directly experiencing it, or they cannot. “Its a thing, you wouldn’t understand.” Am I not allowed to say anything about war without having fought in one? Or about death while still being alive?
“Take 500 scientific papers authored by women and 500 by men that are about non-gender topics.”
But you’d fail Methodology101 with that kind of experimental design because of the assumption that the 500 women scientists are representative of the population of women in the same way as the 500 male scientists are representative of the male population.
If you’re committed to the view that male and female brains work differently, then that isn’t going to be the case. So your design can’t demonstrate what is denied by your opponents.
“Funny how it is a ‘bold empirical claim’ that the sexes think the same way!”. Well that wasn’t quite what you said now was it – you said “There simply cannot be a significant difference” – now that is a bold empirical claim, ruling out the possibility a priori.
“I think there is overwhelming evidence of my position.”
Your ‘overwhelming’ evidence is for the indistinguishability between scientific writing style between men and women. Come on, that is pretty flimsy evidence, nor has it even been shown to be true!
“I see, so you say I need to take the statement within context of referring to the Holy Roman Church? I should read it as ‘Priests of the Roman Catholic church cannot know anything accurate about childbirth’?”
No, I didn’t say that, I simply echoed the sentiment that dictating to other people about the childbirth that they have to go through is a little rich when you will never experience either having children or giving birth. Think of it as analogous to Bush and co sending people to war.
It is not obvious that Bush and co are -necessarily- wrong in doing so, but you might speculate that you are a bit more blase about such things when you can avoid the direct consequences yourself.
Oh, Mark, by the way, there is exactly a Turing test about gender. Much like the machine intelligence one except you pretend to be the other gender.
Yeah – most of the point about the celibate men was what PM says. It’s a bit rich for them to reproach people who don’t have children, for one thing, and it’s also a bit rich for them to announce that all women preserve a deep intuition blah blah giving live blah blah when they give themselves permission not to do what all men can potentially do if you define them according to their genitalia. The point was not so much that celibate men aren’t authorities on women, as it was that they’re not putting their money where their pompous regressive other-people-limiting opinions are.
“Individuals can convincingly pretend to be either sex”.
Not really. An individual can only pretend to be of the opposite sex to that which they are. (Whether convincingly or not, no doubt depends on the individual). A woman cannot pretened to be a woman, as she actually is one.
“Significant” seems to be used in a weaselly way. Presumably any differences that ARE found could then be discarded as not significant.
“If there were a significant neuroanatomical difference, how could this be so? “
I can run Mozilla on Linux or Windows. If there are siginificant differences between Windows and Linux (which there jolly well are), how could this be so? Nuff said.
“If there were a significant neuroanatomical difference, how could this be so?”
Well, and besides, MP – surely it’s obvious. It could be so if there were significant neuroanatomical difference(s) that affect areas other than language. It’s not as if every single neuron in the brain is involved in language, after all. And language is an awfully clumsy tool for the purpose you’re putting it to anyway. It’s a very fuzzy criterion with which to make a precise judgment…
Sheesh, what was I thinking – here’s a neuroanatomical difference, men have heavier/bigger brains than women, even corrected for different body sizes.
Probably something to do with men having more muscle fibres, and so needing more cells to tell them to move.
Or perhaps with men being more obstinate or lazy, and so needing extra brain cells to overcome their innate tendency to lie on the floor and eat chips.
(That’s a joke, by the way!)
Language may be a fuzzy tool, but until we perfect our telepathy helmets, it’s really the only way of testing intelligence – not measuring it, note.
It’s also precise enough for us to be discussing this in the first place.
Turing said that if you could communicate with a machine, through a blind of some sort, and were unable to discover the fact that it was a machine after careful interrogation, the machine would qualify as intelligent.
I say that if you have a series of humans communicate through a blind of some sort, you cannot tell what gender the opposite is via the communication (including the ability to ask math questions or others that use non-language centers, OB) itself especially when lying is possible.
To be sure, you would need proof beyond the words. The gender differences can be faked; either sex can pretend to be the other convincingly. Even without the blinds skilled pretenders can pass for the other.
So, you can go on and on about how it seems that in men this is bigger, or in women that is more circular and I can chalk it up to individual variance or unimportant form vs function. Operationally we appear to be the same. When relieved of secondary sexual indicators: intelligence indistinguishable. There is no ‘test’ for gender that will be accurate without resorting to physicality.
If our brains were markedly different, it would be an impossible coincidence that this could happen.
Well IQ would have to be indistinguishable since that is how the tests are designed ;-)
“There is no ‘test’ for gender that will be accurate without resorting to physicality.
If our brains were markedly different, it would be an impossible coincidence that this could happen.”
Anyone recall that thing that was supposed to tell you your gender based on your writing or somesuch?
“If our brains were markedly different, it would be an impossible coincidence that this could happen. “
Until you tighten up your definition of “insignificant” or “markedly”, your claim is pretty hard to refute. Any differences identified can be neutralised by claiming they are not “marked” or “significant”.
Another difference which springs to mind: most women find men attractive, and most men find women attractive.
In many ways, this is probably a misguided debate. Many people who argue there are no differences between men and women no doubt do so to argue that men and women should enjoy the same rights. In fact men and women should enjoy the same rights as each other in any event. The issue of whther there are differences between the sexes (marked, significant, or otherwise) is irrelevant to whether both sexes should enjoy the same rights.
“Language may be a fuzzy tool, but until we perfect our telepathy helmets, it’s really the only way of testing intelligence”
No it isn’t. Intelligence tests also use shapes, puzzles, etc.
And then using language to test intelligence is one thing, and arguing from one person’s subjective even intuitive judgment of whether a given piece of writing is by a woman or a man is quite another.
Yeah I remember that thing – it was online somewhere. I think there was a post about it and link to it at Crooked Timber a few months ago. I came out as a man. But it was a dumb test! Simply relied on heavy use of a few particular words – ‘the’ for example. And if I remember correctly, it didn’t predict very well at all. Which is MP’s point, it’s just that I don’t think that makes the case he’s making.
“The issue of whther there are differences between the sexes (marked, significant, or otherwise) is irrelevant to whether both sexes should enjoy the same rights.”
Yes – as things are. Because even if there are differences, they’re certainly not of a kind or degree that would make different rights useful or necessary or justified. (One could for instance make a case that such differential rights should cut the other way – that women should have more rights because they are more – whatever one decides they are more.) But then not everyone has always believed that, to put it mildly. And one can think of hypotheticals in which things would not be so clear. If all women (or men) really did have a mental age of three, for example, then equal rights would not be self-evidently good or even safe.
Thank you all for helping me refine my argument.
ChrisM, I’m trying to make my point without resorting to ethical ‘oughts’.
And yes, we can argue about significant and marked, but only to a certain point if we are trying to discuss things fairly. So, I mean ‘statistically significant’ which does mean something.
OB, I have moved past my initial “read papers” test (which was meant as an example) to a more Turing-type version. You are welcome to use an IQ test as part of your ‘careful interrogation’ to try to determine sex, so long as a blind that blocks audial and visual clues exists. The key element of the Turing test is the ‘battle of wits’ that moves beyond a simple correct answer test- which an unintelligent computer might pass. ((An AI taking a Turing would actually have to lie, that is, get answers wrong appropriately.))
An IQ test presupposes human intelligence and tries to measure it; a Turing test tests FOR intelligence.
My version is to show indistinguishability, a lack of marked difference, not measure and equate.
Ah. Okay MP. I have a feeling you’ve given yourself a pretty difficult job, there…
Yeah. Well, I deserve it for trying to convince a group of confirmed skeptics just about anything… especially something rather unformed. JerryS is having a much easier time convincing everyone that the Guardian is crap.
That said, the disagreement is wonderful; having people who almost certainly are nonsexist tearing my points asunder is great: there are few places I could get such review. Let’s hear it for No Mercy!
“ChrisM, I’m trying to make my point without resorting to ethical ‘oughts’. “
Which to be fair you are doing admirable. I was merely making the point that many people who insist that there are no differences between men and women do so under the misguided notion that this is required to justify equal rights. It is not.
“Yeah. Well, I deserve it for trying to convince a group of confirmed skeptics just about anything…”
There is nothing wrong with being a skeptic. A cynic is another matter. Like a naieve person a cynic does not use their mind, they just disbeleive everything (as oppsed to beleiving everything). A skeptic on the other hand is a very good thing to be as it means one does not disbeleive everything, but does not just take things on trust either.
“… JerryS is having a much easier time convincing everyone that the Guardian is crap.”
Yes, well that is because the assertion he is making is much more supportable ;-).
” having people who almost certainly are nonsexist tearing my points asunder is great:… …. Let’s hear it for No Mercy! “
It is nothing personal, and you should not be so protective of your points. If you are an honest seeker of truth, then it matters not if your points are torn asunder (a little dramatic, refuted would suffice). The idea is not for you to win, but for truth to win. Tha is not to say those who disagree are right and you are wrong, but it is to say you sould be more bothered by assaults against truth, than critical evaluation of points you make.
ChrisM,
I apparently even have a difficult time communicating even simple points. I was trying to be funny, not defeatist, with tongue firmly in cheek. I like skeptics and I like being taken to task when I deserve it. Be assured that I have taken none of this personally. I do appreciate the kind concern that prompted your reply, though.
“I apparently even have a difficult time communicating even simple points.”
It could be that I am incapable of undertanding even simple points rather than you being incapable of communicating them.
“I was trying to be funny, not defeatist, with tongue firmly in cheek.”
Going on your post, I actually thought there was a 50/50 chance you were being funny, but bet the wrong way. Looks like I chose heads when it was tails.
“I like skeptics and I like being taken to task when I deserve it.”
A man (or woman for all I know ;-) after my own heart. Good for you.
“Be assured that I have taken none of this personally. I do appreciate the kind concern that prompted your reply, though. “
Glad to hear it, and thanks.
Not to worry, MP, that’s how I read your post (the way you meant it, or rather the way you said you meant it in the most recent post, though of course appearances can be deceptive and ) – it would be odd for a B&W fan to be opposed to skepticism, after all.
“Yes, well that is because the assertion he is making is much more supportable”
I also tend to use the word bollocks a lot. I find it helps. :-)
The word ‘bollocks’ is the defining characteristic of Britishness that so many by-numbers dull bandwagon-jumping Guardian/Observer/Prospect/New Statesman articles have been looking for.