Feminism

[PDH]

It ain't you that is doing the teaching, society itself immerses us in itself and we absorb it starting from day 1.

[derspiess]

I do find it frustrating that somehow I am subconciously but decisively and every effectively teaching my kids gender roles while I seem to have so much trouble getting them to stop throwing food off the table

Yeah, that's a fun one.  Tommy never really did that (he's clumsy but at least that's unintentional) but once Lola has decided she's had enough to eat she will drop her food on the floor, piece by piece.  And she'll do it with a big old smile on her face.  And as cute as she is trying to eat with a fork or spoon you might as well lay out some newspaper on the floor underneath her.

[Valmy]

It ain't you that is doing the teaching, society itself immerses us in itself and we absorb it starting from day 1.

Society should be more anti-throwing of food!  I am also glad I am off the hook if I feel guilty for gender-pigeonholing my kids.

But anyway I fail to see how you can prove that decisively before we can better understand how the brain works or doing social experiments that cross ethical boundaries

I just do not see how it is relevent.  Should our goals change when it comes to gender if we could prove that decisively one way or the other?  If we discovered evidence there are profound biological reasons for differences in levels of care giving would we be all 'forget this Feminism thing, back to pre-industrial values!'?  Of course not.

[PDH]

Don't need to prove anything.  Just a look at various human societies show a wide range of gender roles (from women hunters in some tribes in the Philippines to male day-care type situations in some New Guinean groups) that highlight that these roles are quite likely not simply human biology based but biology and culture mixed.  The best thing is that people in each culture know that their system is natural and other systems are weird.

One of the basic elements of culture is this naturalizing of the society into something basic and internalized, we are the fish in water with culture.

[derspiess]

Don't need to prove anything.  Just a look at various human societies show a wide range of gender roles (from women hunters in some tribes in the Philippines to male day-care type situations in some New Guinean groups) that highlight that these roles are quite likely not simply human biology based but biology and culture mixed.  The best thing is that people in each culture know that their system is natural and other systems are weird.

One of the basic elements of culture is this naturalizing of the society into something basic and internalized, we are the fish in water with culture.

But the two examples you cited are outliers, aren't they?

[The Minsky Moment]

The physical, social, economic, and technological qualities of human existence have changed so drastically and so rapidly in the last 200 years, that any concept based on socially evolved characteristics has to be reconsidered.  The millions of years of advanced primate and later human evolution involved social adaptations to an environment that has ceased to exist, and many of  those adaptations may be dangerous or counterproductive for the new society humans have created for themselves.  Fortunately, human beings have these things called self-consciousness and a capacity to reason, so that we don't have to be passive prisoners of our cultural and social heritage.  This is why whenever I hear an argument about social arrangements that proceeds from "nature" or alleged inherent cultural characteristics, I grab my intellectual wallet.

[Valmy]

Don't need to prove anything.  Just a look at various human societies show a wide range of gender roles (from women hunters in some tribes in the Philippines to male day-care type situations in some New Guinean groups) that highlight that these roles are quite likely not simply human biology based but biology and culture mixed.  The best thing is that people in each culture know that their system is natural and other systems are weird.

One of the basic elements of culture is this naturalizing of the society into something basic and internalized, we are the fish in water with culture.

Well you do if you assert it is taught and not innate period (or, you know, the opposite).  If you say some wishy washy statement about it not simply being one thing but a combination of things you can probably get away with not needing to prove it.

[PDH]

But the two examples you cited are outliers, aren't they?

Indeed, but that is not what is being argued.  Cultural anthropology looks to such outliers because they refute the very "naturalization" of culture that is innate in people.  In the present such naturalizing views have taken on biological elements (at least since the mid 19th century) for support.  To show that cultures can indeed function without a defined "natural" system points out that different cultures are indeed always outliers from our own, but that does not make them unnatural.  Indeed, as a human social system they are the definition of natural.

Any anthropologist worth their salt will talk about both biology and psychology as what makes up society.  To argue one or the other is to make totalizing statements that do not stand up to scrutiny.  As Valmy said, it is all wishy washy, but it does seem to be far more accurate than the alternatives.

[PDH]

This is why whenever I hear an argument about social arrangements that proceeds from "nature" or alleged inherent cultural characteristics, I grab my intellectual wallet.

After you grab said wallet, remember to donate some intellect to me...it is tax deductible.

[Ed Anger]

I do find it frustrating that somehow I am subconciously but decisively and every effectively teaching my kids gender roles while I seem to have so much trouble getting them to stop throwing food off the table

Yeah, that's a fun one.  Tommy never really did that (he's clumsy but at least that's unintentional) but once Lola has decided she's had enough to eat she will drop her food on the floor, piece by piece.  And she'll do it with a big old smile on her face.  And as cute as she is trying to eat with a fork or spoon you might as well lay out some newspaper on the floor underneath her.

Cold. Blooded.

[Valmy]

As Valmy said, it is all wishy washy, but it does seem to be far more accurate than the alternatives.

Well, true to my nature, it is the angle I agree with.  I just get tired of the 'it's all a social construct!' or 'it is all the natural way of things' as if it must be one or the other entirely.

[derspiess]

As Valmy said, it is all wishy washy, but it does seem to be far more accurate than the alternatives.

Well, true to my nature, it is the angle I agree with.  I just get tired of the 'it's all a social construct!' or 'it is all the natural way of things' as if it must be one or the other entirely.

I don't think anyone is arguing the latter.  Some are obviously arguing the former.

[merithyn]

As Valmy said, it is all wishy washy, but it does seem to be far more accurate than the alternatives.

Well, true to my nature, it is the angle I agree with.  I just get tired of the 'it's all a social construct!' or 'it is all the natural way of things' as if it must be one or the other entirely.

I don't think anyone is arguing the latter.  Some are obviously arguing the former.

I don't think so. I think most of us recognize it's a combination thereof. The question is: how much of each? I would argue that it's more social construct than innate, while Berkut seems to be arguing that it's more innate than social construct.

As in all arguments regarding nature vs nurture, it's a matter of degrees rather than absolutes.

[derspiess]

As in all arguments regarding nature vs nurture, it's a matter of degrees rather than absolutes.

You seemed pretty absolute in this statement:

it falls in line with my assertion that women being better care-givers is TAUGHT, not INNATE.

[merithyn]

As in all arguments regarding nature vs nurture, it's a matter of degrees rather than absolutes.

You seemed pretty absolute in this statement:

it falls in line with my assertion that women being better care-givers is TAUGHT, not INNATE.

I believe that men would be a different type of care-taker than the average woman based on their innate nature, not better or worse. That's where the nature part fits in for me, rather than on whether they'd be any good at it.