Females: Tool Inventors

[Katy]

I’m still not sure, Katy, what point you are trying to make, but it sounds like you are trying to suggest that the deep psychological differences between males and females aren’t actually true, and that the causes for any differences between the two sexes stem from the societies they are born into. Is that what you are thinking?

.

Ah, well I can see where there may be some confusion because I thought the article was interesting and made the author's point for a couple posts even though I don't agree with her 100% and then started to make my own point instead of hers so there was a bit of a switch.

At any rate, my point was to question whether the differences between the genders are biological or cultural. I suspect the answer is "both" though I don't know to what degree either is true. Also, if there is a biological difference it evolved relatively recently so I'm curious as to what the reasons behind that might be.

I'm also curious - though haven't researched at all - whether the differences might evolve (whether biologically or culturally) in the other direction with women entering the workplace and doing typically male jobs more often. Though that hypothesis has the problem that idiots breed more often than intelligent people...

[Jamesh]

I have the same view as Dhodges. Becoming aware of the traits of chimps really does allow many people to see the animal nature in themselves. To me it is a most useful exercise. Studying beavers is a different pastitme :).

[Dan Rowden]

I think the culture/biology question of gender roles and differences is a bit of a chicken/egg affair. There's no doubt an element of one driving the other but I'm not sure we'll ever figure out the origins. I'm not sure we really need to.

As to what changes the modern situation might make, I think that's very much a wait and see proposition. I'm not convinced that gender role changes are more than a social fad that everyone will eventually weary of. There's a lot of the "social experiment" about it for me..

[Jamesh]

I'm not convinced that gender role changes are more than a social fad that everyone will eventually weary of. There's a lot of the "social experiment" about it for me.

Yep, post a worldwide disaster of some sort, I would not be surprised to see the current trend reverse somewhat, not to back to the way it used to be, but with male values re-asserted and dominant in positions of power.

[sue hindmarsh]

Society will return to bygone fashions only if women feel they'd look good in 'it'.

As far as “male values” being re-asserted - one has to ask, what difference will that really make? Man values above all other things 'woman'. So even if women stay at home while man fills every work place, runs every country, fights every war - her values are the ones still being enacted.

No wonder women intuitively feel that man's an idiot. Committing the bit of consciousness he possesses to ensure that she has cement driveways and double-glazing is downright stupid. But era after era he has done just that.

For society to experience real change, you'd first need it to focus on a different value. Until then, it will continue to only change superficially – same people, different costumes.

.

[Nordicvs]

Society will return to bygone fashions only if women feel they'd look good in 'it'.

Heh. Not sure why, but this struck me as amusing.

As far as “male values” being re-asserted - one has to ask, what difference will that really make? Man values above all other things 'woman'. So even if women stay at home while man fills every work place, runs every country, fights every war - her values are the ones still being enacted.

Indeed, an excellent point. Any change in 'power structure' will last for a time, and, like it's done over and over and over again throughout history, inevitably it will swing back toward excess, waste, corruption, decadence, environmental annihilation, wide rich-poor gaps, and glaring mediocrity.

When men stop seeking power (when men "get masculine" again, somehow), then and only then will we be free from feminine 'matriarchy-disguised-as-patriarchy' heirarchies. (In this sense, I am leaning towards certain feminist ideas---'more women in power'---because that seems to be the only way of running this entire beast into the ground or over the cliff, for good. Men will just perpetuate it, as you point out, because our main collective 'value' is Woman.)

If man's one consistent trait for the last 100 thousand years has been adapting to female "needs," men will only start to change as a whole (back to something sound) when women want them to adapt in a different way. Woman is the environment man has adapted to for over ten thousand years---perhaps we need a more natural environment once more.

[Hmm... it's almost depressing to think that the future our species is now in the hands of women, but my misanthropy is sure to kick in anytime and clear that up...]

No wonder women intuitively feel that man's an idiot. Committing the bit of consciousness he possesses to ensure that she has cement driveways and double-glazing is downright stupid. But era after era he has done just that.

Yep.

For society to experience real change, you'd first need it to focus on a different value. Until then, it will continue to only change superficially – same people, different costumes.

.

Or the value we have needs a radical revolution of character. Either or. I doubt men will ever stop pining over tits and ass and mommy praise, not the way things are going.

[brokenhead]

Dan Rowden wrote:

I think the culture/biology question of gender roles and differences is a bit of a chicken/egg affair. There's no doubt an element of one driving the other but I'm not sure we'll ever figure out the origins. I'm not sure we really need to.

At least let's get this one thing straight: The egg came before the chicken.