So many? Like, five?
Updating this to add – the image Finn MacKay tweeted doesn’t show so here it is:
MacKay is using that ridiculous photo as evidence that “women’s personalities are expressed so similarly.”
Wait, what??
So many?
So many women’s personalities are expressed via tiny skirts and towering heels? I don’t know any women who fit that description. Not one. Women like that are a confection of the advertising-entertainment industry; they have nothing to do with real life.
No, we don’t mean “the rights of trans people”; we mean the stupid nonsensical contorted garbage that makes up the belief system behind the idea that there is such a thing as “trans people.”
Mackay isn’t really that dumb, surely? Just identifies as that dumb?
So there are either people born in the wrong body, or there is biology causing men and women to present similar to other men/women? Sounds sort of like a false dichotomy to me…
The third option…the logical and correct one…would be societal expectations and learning from those around us.
Like you, I don’t know women who dress that way. Most the women I know dress for comfort, and the ability to do whatever job or other activities they perform.
Well, he does partially have a point:
It is indeed true that, on many psychological traits, there are clear differences between typical “on average” male behaviour and typical “on average” female behaviour. And yes, most of that is indeed down to biological sex (though there can also be a social component).
One of the under-appreciated facts about human nature is that stereotypes are often true (if taken to be about tendencies and averages, not about all individuals). Human brains are good at noticing patterns and “stereotypes” are observed patterns. There’s nothing wrong with acknowledging this. Stereotypes only become harmful when they are taken as normative, rather than as descriptive. Hence, of course, they should not be “enforced”.
No, it isn’t. Why would it be? Personality is a result of an interaction of nature and nurture. The experiences, capacities, limitations, and tendencies of men are more similar to other men, and thus men’s personalities will cluster. The experiences, capacities, limitations, and tendencies of women are more similar to other women, and thus women’s personalities will cluster. This isn’t some kind of counterintuitive thing like quantum theory. It’s really simple stuff.
And neither collared shirts and pants nor skirts and dresses are aspects of one’s personality.
I agree with Coel. Some personality traits are partly based in biology (female modesty, agreeableness; male aggression, objectivity) â but there is so much overlap and there are so many exceptions that no such trait is exclusive to a sex. Emphasizing this is how we battle sexism. A nurturing man is not a woman, nor does he have a âwomanâs traitâ any more than a short man has a âwomanâs height.â A woman without a nurturing personality is no less of a woman because sheâs still and always female.
Dr Finn contradicts himself. First he argues that men express their personalities in a way different than women do, draws the conclusion that this is biological â then he plugs that into how transgender people have the personalities of the opposite sex â and finally he whines that the other side is enforcing gender stereotypes. Wait, what? Weâre the ones separating sex from personality because biology doesnât divide that neatly. Heâs the one saying it does.
Oh? That sounds like a very confident assertion. How does one differentiate between the two and what’s the percentage breakdown between them? How do you distinguish between “biological” and inculcated/enforced psychological traits? Given that humans are subjected to sex-based differences in treatment and behaviour from birth, how do you control or filter for that in determining this percentage of “biologicality?”
While there are some things that are biologically common to women, and some to men, the stereotypes are easy to refute.
In the pictures he chose, the individuals (at least the women) were in the same social class. Working women don’t dress that way, unless maybe they’re working as a model.
If you go into a car repair shop, the women there will look much like the men…they will dress in the same overalls, have similar hats, and smell like motor oil, just like the men. If you go into an office, you might see the men dressed like most of those men. The women will not likely be dressed like those women. They will be more likely dressed in business suits with either skirts or slacks, but not in the flirtatious way those women are. In all my years of working, I only ever saw one person dressed like those women, and it was a trans identified male who didn’t have a clue how women dressed for work.
When a woman is at home, she may be lounging in sweats or blue jeans, or she may be dressed in any one of a variety of ways. Few women dress like that in their home.
So, no, it’s not biological sex that makes them look that way. It is biological sex that gives them the basic body shape, the reproductive structures, and even some other things like facial hair. Biological sex doesn’t determine how we dress. In fact, if you went back to the times of Shakespeare, you might mistake many of the men for women if you went by clothes alone. Styles change. They change across time, and they change across space. They also change across socioeconomic boundaries and types of employment.
No, it isn’t biological sex. Outside of the body formation, there is a lot of variation both within and between the sexes. He cherry picked his examples to fit the thesis he believed, and when you do that, of course you will have the results you are looking for. Give us a wider range of women/men, and we will see that while there are some characteristics that women share and some that men share, there are none outside of body (and not even there) that are universal.
Yes, an image of a man in a kilt or a sarong would have ruined everything.
@Your Name’s not Bruce?:
For starters, any systematic differences in psychological traits that are consistent across times & cultures are likely to be biological rather than cultural.
Also, in general, mainstream opinion way overestimates the effects of socialisation and way underestimates the effects of biology on psychological traits (as shown by things like twin studies).
There’s a reason that over ten times as many men than women are imprisoned for violent assault (with such ratios being consistent across cultures), and that’s to do with biology; it’s not because little girls are taught to be demure.
[By the way, particulars of clothing styles are highly variable across cultures and times, so obviously those are not biological.]
I considered pointing out to Coel that problems have been identified with the twin studies, but I decided it is futile. He will continue because he has already decided what he prefers to be true. I will, however, mention that for anyone else here that might be swayed by his arguments.
Okay, You’ve proposed a filter. How do you get from your “likely” to the claim that most of the differences are biological? How many traits are we talking about here? How finely grained are the distinctions between the psychological tendencies we’re supposed to be looking at? I’m not denying that there are biological components involved, but how do you know that most of the differences between men’s and women’s psychological traits can be attributed to biology? You’ve already seemingly fallen back to “likely” rather than “are.” You’re also bringing up how wrong “mainstream opinion” is on the subject. It’s not mainstream opinion I’m looking for, it’s backing for the claim that biology is responsible for “most” of what we’re talking about. Sure you’ve got the example of male violence and aggression. What other sex-specific traits can be ascribed clearly and cleanly to “nature” rather than “nurture?”*
Human brains are also good at detecting patterns that aren’t there, finding faces in things that don’t have them, making up whole schools of thought out of elaborate confections of nothingness like astrology, which has survived for thousands of years, despite the fact that the stars zodiacal “signs” are not real natural objects, and that there is no reason to suppose that the gas and rock which make up stars, planets, etc. posess ony powers or energies to effect us beyond gravitation, or whatever chunk of the electromagnetic spectrum they are emitting or reflecting, much less any ability or tendency to selectively influence and amplify particular personality traits. How many stereotypes are actual, meaningful, observed patterns that are really there, and how many are made-up bullshit like astrology? And a stereotype, true or not, doesn’t need to be “enforced” to be harmful, it just has to be believed and passed along.
*I know that the whole nature/nurture dichotomization is a mug’s game and that both are responsible for shaping what and who we are, and that the effects are complex, synergistic, and very tightly intertwined. I just don’t think the apportioning of credit or blame to either one is as clear cut in the biological direction as Coel believes it to be.
Oddly enough, I could make exactly the opposite point – that men’s and women’s personalities must be pretty much the same, as they are expressed in the same way – by putting up a photograph of the public on any high street. Almost everyone – male, female, young, old – will be seen to be wearing, according to the weather and time of year, some combination of trousers (slacks, jeans, leggings, shorts, tracksuit or other leisure wear) with comfortable footwear (trainers, tennis shoes, boots in winter), a T-shirt or shirt/blouse, pullover or cardigan, and a jacket or coat. Very few women will be wearing a skirt or dress of some kind, except on very hot days, and none will be wearing those weird ‘fashion’ items in his photograph. Even schoolgirls only wear skirts and dresses where mandated – given a choice, they wear trousers. High heels are so rare in public these days, that I’m always taken by surprise when I see someone wearing them. There are far more aspects to personality than the clothes we wear in everyday life, many of which (uniforms, for example) are imposed. Cherry-picked photographs from a fashion magazine don’t represent ordinary people. Hell, I doubt a single model in the photograph of women turned up for the shoot wearing anything even vaguely similar.
It’s almost as if he’s missed the point entirely. Without the ‘almost’.
As for nature versus nurture – the jury will, I suspect, be forever out on that one. My five children ranged from very timid to bold – and my daughter was one of the two boldest. However, the boldest of the boys seemed to lack the sense of self-preservation which she had. If I explained that something was dangerous, she was much more likely to pay attention to my warning than he was. He would immediately want to test if I was right*. When my older two boys were very small, I had a friend with two daughters. My friend used to comment on how frequently I would have to admonish my eldest for attempting the same forbidden action, and tell me that I should only have to say it once. When my third, a girl, became mobile I was able to do just that with her. My friend’s third was a boy – and, much to her chagrin, she found herself repeatedly having to warn him for the same things. Boys’ personalities do tend to cluster at the assertive, rebellious end of the spectrum – partly, I suspect, due to much higher testosterone levels (studies have shown women on testosterone become much more aggressive and reckless too), but at least partly because too many parents say, from the start “Boys will be boys!” and fail to rein in their worst impulses when they’re toddlers, after which it becomes increasingly difficult. Yes, it’s frustratingly tedious to keep picking up your toddler and marching him away from something which seems to fascinate him, despite repeated warnings to stop; especially when he’s screeching his objection to being controlled at a high volume. Perhaps it feels easier to give in. But what happens when you have failed to exercise control when he’s too young to have the slightest notion of self-control? He never develops it. And you can’t pick up an aggressive eight-year-old and put him on the naughty chair.
@iknklast:
At some point this becomes science denialism.
“I considered pointing out to Evolutionists that problems have been identified with Darwinism, but I decided it is futile. Evolutionists will continue because they have already decided what they prefer to be true.”
@Your Name’s not Bruce?:
There is no single one piece of evidence, rather — as with most complex issues — it comes from fitting together a large number of bits of evidence. Thus it can’t be done in a comment like this, especially as it would have to be done on a trait-by-trait basis. The fact that there are clear differences (in average/typical traits) that hold across time and different cultures is one bit of evidence. The result from twin studies that “shared environment” is surprisingly ineffective in moulding the personality of kids is another bit of evidence. But we can discuss particular traits and the evidence for them if you wish.
An obvious one is sexual attraction. For about 98 out of 100 of men their primary sexual attraction is to women. For women it is vastly lower, only about 5 out of 100. That vast difference seems to be biological, and not about socialisation.
Another is the fact that, however trendy, “progressive” and gender-neutral the parents, play-group and the environment, young boys tend to aggregate to boy-typical play (rough-and-tumble) while girls tend to aggregate to girl-typical play. It is trendy to deny this fact, but it is obvious if you observe the real world. [And pointing to exceptions does not refute the claim that this is biological, any more than pointing to gay men refutes the claim that sexual attraction is biological.]
More generally, developing brains are steeped and marinated either in male hormones or in female hormones. We know that this has a very large effect on some personality traits (the above two, aggression/violence and sexual attraction, for example). From there the idea that it also has smaller effects on a whole slew of other traits is hardly an outlandish idea (again, we’re talking about tendencies and averages). Indeed, the idea that such influence would be limited to only a couple of traits would be far more surprising.
For a summary see (for example) “Stereotype Accuracy is One of the Largest and Most Replicable Effects in All of Social Psychology” by Lee Jussim (link).
Back in my Movement Skeptic days, before the “deep rifts”, for a while my thinking was heavily influenced by Steven Pinker’s The Blank Slate. While I still think Pinker made some valid points*, in the light of everything that’s happened since, I have grown much more sympathetic towards (or at least understanding of) the reluctance among certain feminists to talk about innate cognitive or psychological differences between men and women. As I remember there was a certain “gotcha” that was very popular among “anti-blank-slatists” at the time:
Indeed, I was almost certainly guilty of occasionally using this “gotcha” myself. I now think this is a strawman. It’s not that the supposed innate differences justify discrimination, it’s that they’re too often used to explain away discrimination (Michael Shermer’s infamous “more of a guy thing” comment being a prime example).
There is a tendency among movement skeptics to talk as if claims are either “supported by evidence and sound logic” or not, when, in fact, things are almost never that clear cut. As they say, there is no algorithm for truth. The data is usually at least somewhat ambiguous and open to interpretation, no method is ever infallible, and no study is ever without flaws, so if we’re motivated to reach certain conclusions and avoid others, we can always find reasons why studies that lead to an inconvenient conclusion are “fatally flawed”. For studies that lead to a desirable conclusion we don’t look so hard for flaws and don’t ascribe such fatal consequences to the ones we do notice. We can be biased and guilty of intellectual double standards even without contradicting any established facts and without making any obvious logical fallacies or methodological errors.
So while I don’t deny that there are real differences in the distribution of interests and talents between men and women, my general impression is that right-leaning people tend to be very quick to embrace biological explanations for things like the under-representation of women in positions of power and status without exposing them to the same level of hypercritical scrutiny as the alternatives. They also seem very quick to conclude that if different innate preferences enters into the explanation at all, there is no need to look any further: That’s all there is to it, and sexism has nothing to do with it. And to be fair, at the risk of engaging in false equivalence and bothsiderism, leftleaning people are almost certainly guilty of the opposite double standard.
While I have some issues with Jonathan Haidt, I think he is right to say that the merit of science is not that it makes individual scientists immune to bias, motivated reasoning, intellectual double standards etc. It’s that, at its best, it allows the competing biases of different scientists to “cancel out”, at least to some degree, which is why viewpoint diversity is so vitally important in science. I also think this is a major part of the reason it’s so important to determine in advance (i.e. before the data are in) what is going to count as a positive result. You should always be prepared to bet your pet hypothesis on predictions that haven’t yet been confirmed or disconfirmed. Because once the facts are in, it is always possible to retrofit the data to a desired conclusion.
* Indeed several critics of gender ideology, including Helen Joyce, have made the point that the tendency among many feminists to downplay and minimize the importance of biology has put them in an awkward position when it comes to defending the need for female only spaces.
This is not the first time Coel has suggested I am a science denialist. It is not science denial to read more than just the studies reported in the mainstream press, nor is it science denial to read the follow up studies that failed to find the same pattern.
But I will let him think that. He appears incapable of accepting that some scientists read more than just Stephen Pinker.
This conversation brings to mind the follow snippet from Colin Wright’s “The New Evolution Deniers”:
“Given that humans are sexually dimorphic and exhibit many of the typical sex-linked behavioral traits that any objective observer would predict, based on the mammalian trends, the claim that our behavioral differences have arisen purely via socialization is dubious at best. For that to be true, we would have to posit that the selective forces for these traits inexplicably and uniquely vanished in just our lineage, leading to the elimination of these traits without any vestiges of their past, only to have these traits fully recapitulated in the present due to socialization.”
@ Bjarte Foshaug:
Absolutely. It doesn’t help women to deny differences between men and women.
As a clear example, asserting that there are no on-average differences in sporting ability between men and women leaves you with no good reason to divide sport according to sex, as opposed to self-ID.
At times, some strands of feminism have gone down the no-difference route, and ditched biology entirely, Judith-Butler style, thinking it will lead to equality, but it doesn’t.
We should readily accept that there are differences between groups (and that they do indeed lead to differences in outcomes), while emphasizing that: (1) individuals can be very different from any group average, and (2) we should treat people as individuals, not as avatars of groups.
@iknklast:
Feel free to present an actual critique of twin studies (and all the other strands of evidence that support the results of twin studies) if you wish to.
As noted by Tigger, nature vs nurture is almost certainly impossible to untangle under any practical (not to mention ethical) experimental regime. Though some have claimed that identified brain differences between the sexes are a slam-dunk argument, it’s worth noting that human brains are very plastic, and social and environmental factors can have a significant effect on physical structures.
Coel states that we need to accept the differences among groups, but “we should treat people as individuals”. But on almost all measures, the differences between the averages for each sex are much smaller than the differences within each sex. On this basis, how can stereotypes be anything but harmful?
Yes, this is the kind of thing I was concerned about and driving towards, that you’ve articulated much more clearly.
I don’t see anyone here arguing for strictly either or. It’s an issue of the balance and proportion of each, and in which traits. Given that until very recently biological arguments were used to keep women from voting, from working outside the home, and from any number of things for which “innate differences” should have been completely irrelevant, so you might excuse a reluctance to immediately surrender the field to any claims of inherent differences between the brain wiring or psychological traits of men and women being appealed to to explain differences in outcome for each. It’s certainly far too early to claim that the playing field is now level for women. There is still prejudice and discrimination. As Bjarte Foshaug notes above above, once any differences are found, they’re often used as an excuse to justify the way things are and have always been, rather than to determine if the differences are germaine to the standards being questioned and tested.
But these biological sex differences don’t explain why, historically, boys and men’s sports have received more support at every level than those of girls and women. Until recently, many sports were not even offered to girls and women on a single sex basis. Why? For the same reason that sports for girls and women are now being sacrificed on the altar of “inclusion” to the benefit of men: because, at a fundamental level, women and girls don’t matter That’s a value judgement with consequences that can’t be explained by our little psychological trait-by- psychological trait arguments. What lies behind this meta-difference? Why don’t women count? Surely that’s not biological?
We can’t leave differences alone; we tend to turn differences into hierarchies, and it is within this broader context of hierarchical valuation in which women and femaleness are often (perhaps more often than not) devalued, denigrated, and restricted, with consequences that can be lethal that this is playing out. If you’re looking for a demographic subject to physical violence and whose rights are always up for debate, look no further. This is more than academic. This is what’s at stake, and why it’s important to get this right, or at least righter than we have it now.
@Seanna Watson:
There are two distinct questions here: whether or not stereotypes are accurate, and whether or not they are harmful. It is possible that they are both true and accurate, and also harmful. There would then be a temptation to argue that, in order to reduce the harm, let’s assert that they are not true. But, in the end, truth and reality tend to win out, so this strategy will backfire.
@Your Name’s not Bruce?:
I agree with much of your analysis, but:
Agreed, people tend to do that (though they shouldn’t). And so, in order to avoid any danger of hierarchies, people want to assert that there are no such differences. Again, as above, this is a dubious tactic because, if it false, it won’t succeed.
So the temptation has been, in order to attain parity of esteem and parity of funding, to assert that there are no differences in sporting ability. I can entirely understand the temptation.
But, in the long run, it won’t work because going against reality generally doesn’t work. And it can backfire. (As it indeed is: the blank-slatist stance that men and women are identical has led to many regarding biological sex as irrelevant and wanting to replace it with self-IDed “gender”.)
Yes, we need a moral, legal and societal emphasis on parity of esteem between groups, but we should not rest this claim on the denial of differences between groups. Because that’s not true, and resting your moral claims on untrue falsehoods won’t work in the end.
[…] a comment by Bjarte Foshaug on So many? Like […]
But that denial of difference does not happen in all instances, and the failure to dismantle the hierarchy being opposed has nothing to do with “dubious” tactics that backfire.
I’ve never heard this argument coming from defenders of women’s sport. I hear it more often from the “Suck it up, buttercup” defence of “inclusion” that focuses narrowly on testosterone while completely ignoring the skeletomusculature and cardiovascular advantages conferred on trans identified males by male puberty.
But we’re jumping from the physiological differences between male and female bodies and the differences between male and female psychological traits. “Blank slatism” pertains to the latter, but not, as far as I’m aware, to the former.
And how does expecting a fair share for women’s and girls sports “go against reality?” What is anti-realist about the desirability of women counting, and not being turned into second class citizens within their own societies with regards to sports and goddamn near everything else if we include the rest of the world?
I don’t see anyone here resting their moral claims on “untrue falsehoods.” The demand for a fair share for women does rest on a denial of differences between men and women, but so often the defence of its denial seems to rest upon those very differences. Why do men own the vast majority of property and wealth in the world? Is this the “natural” result of “biological” differences? Is it just a “guy thing?” Why are women themselves treated as little more than property in too many societies? Is this a “natural” outcome that is part of the “reality” that we must not go against? Is this part of the natural order of things, and therefore futile to oppose? This state of things did not arise from any “denial of difference.” I would argue that whatever differences in temperament or ability there are between men and women, and whatever their basis, they offer no justification for the subjugation and disempowerment of women. If “inherent” male violence and aggression are the foundation of the disparity of wealth and power between men and women, then it needs to be opposed and overcome because it is wrong not accepted because it is “natural.” Otherwise we might as well give up on passing laws against theft and murder, too.
@Your Name’s not Bruce?:
At this point I’m not clear what you are arguing. If you are arguing (and I agree) that:
… then, fine, we can just assess whether there are differences between men and women on the evidence, without that implying “hierarchy”, but that seems different from your earlier:
… which, I agree, we (humans) tend to do, but shouldn’t.
So we can accept that, for example, the best adult-women soccer teams could lose to teams of 14-yr-old boys, while still asserting that women should have opportunities and funding to pursue sport, should they wish.
That, in the end, is my stance here. There are indeed differences in group averages in many areas, and we should not deny that; but that is distinct from what social policy should be.
Quercus alba:
Sorry to pick on you, but …
This is one of those mathematical things that sounds compelling when you don’t think about it too much, which is probably why we encounter it so often, whether we’re talking about sexes, races, cultures, or whatever. Let’s consider two distributions.
1. First, the result of rolling a 100-sided die. Results will range from 1-100, with an average of 50 and a maximum difference of 99.
2. As above, but adding 49 to the number rolled. Results will range from 50-149, with an average of 99.5 and a maximum difference of 99.
The difference between the averages of (1) and (2) is 49, less than half the range of difference within each. That’s an absolutely massive difference, which should certainly justify forming a reasonable expectation of higher numbers from the second set. And these two distributions are flat, meaning every result has the same probability. If we instead use multiple dice, the distributions’ overlapping ranges comprise a smaller portion of all possible outcomes. For example, we might use ten 10-sided dice instead of a 100-sided one. Now the majority of results cluster around the averages. (Go here and click “Graph” for a visual representation.)