Feminism and Gender

[Tatyana]

If some women have male brains, and some men have female brains, why in the name of pasta are we assigning the brain types by gender? Type A, type B. Warthog brains and wallpaper brains, whatever...the only pairing that, apparantly, is wholly inappropriate is 'male brains' and 'female brains'.

I found the quiz about gender on the brain, and later, after posting it, I thought, hmmmmmmmmm, how does one determine 'male' brain characteristics and 'female' brain characteristics without relying on stereotypes.

I have, unfortunately, encountered this in real life. It's just as anger-inducing in person because it's all based on philosophy instead of people and relies on erroneous preconceptions.

I haven't come across it as often lately but I don't think you would have to search far to find it.

There were a few parts of the research that I thought were interesting like the hypothesis that the length of your middle finger is related to the amount of testosterone you were exposed to in utero.

 

[TragicMonkey]

This may relate to the topic, perhaps in a peripheral way. Not sure. But in a thread about feminism, it might be helpful to discover our own gender traits...

http://androgyne.0catch.com/gentest1.htm

This is not the first such test I've taken, and the first one was in college, a few years ago.

My score then, as now, is -11, which puts me in the "nearly masculine" category.

I have no clue what that might mean in the context of feminism and gender-specific rights, and so forth...but perhaps it might be found interesting...

Hmm. I'm "nearly masculine" as well, with -17.

 

[Pup]

There were a few parts of the research that I thought were interesting like the hypothesis that the length of your middle finger is related to the amount of testosterone you were exposed to in utero.

For what it's worth, I took that test when it was posted, and scored a 50 on the male side, exactly average for a male (which I am). I've had low testosterone all my life and my finger length was off-the-scale toward the feminine side, actually the reverse length of males. Yet apparently I scored high enough on the other parts to put me at average for males.

(edited to add) the test that includes the finger length was posted a couple pages back in this thread. It's http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/sex/add_user.shtml

On the test linked just a few posts above, I was a -32, solidly on the male side.

 

[Tatyana]

For what it's worth, I took that test when it was posted, and scored a 50 on the male side, exactly average for a male (which I am). I've had low testosterone all my life and my finger length was off-the-scale toward the feminine side, actually the reverse length of males. Yet apparently I scored high enough on the other parts to put me at average for males.

(edited to add) the test that includes the finger length was posted a couple pages back in this thread. It's http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/sex/add_user.shtml

On the test linked just a few posts above, I was a -32, solidly on the male side.

I scored on the male side as well, and in the above quiz, androgynous.

 

[jiggeryqua]

21.

That's +21. I am woman. A big hairy woman with a deep voice and testicles. I'm pretty sure I was giving fairly honest answers, but even allowing for the inevitable inaccuracy of self-assessment, I'm off the scale woman.

Which reminds me of a point I've made here before. Would anyone here accept that the world can be neatly divided into 12 types of people? Of course not, astrology is bunk. But two types of people? Fer sure, seed and seed bed. I think there may be a little more to it than that, and that's only one of the reasons I observe feminism rather than join in. It sounds like a good idea, but it's only really entrenching a woo view and damaging everyone (seed or seed bed) who doesn't fit the simplistic binary approach.

 

[mijopaalmc]

However, you do need to read up on your history. There are many periods and many regions where men were traded like livestock, and still considered men. Such slaves could earn their freedom, and even become equal members of society in some places and times. They were not enslaved because they were considered less than human, they were enslaved because they were on the losing side of a fight with a stronger adversary, nothing more.

The classic example of this would be Imperial Rome, but that was hardly unusual. During the period of slavery in the West, Africans did not uniformly rise up against the slavers, because slavery was a common practice throughout Africa at the time.

You need to read what I actually. Male slaves were not traded because they were male; they were traded because they were slaves. Women were treated like property because thet were women.

 

[jiggeryqua]

We should be informed by history. It's probably optimistic to imagine that we might expect a significant proportion of the population to learn not to repeat the mistakes of previous generations, but nevertheless, a record of past mistakes must be maintained in the hope that future generations won't repeat them. But building an ideology that is actually an enduring feud is probably one of the mistakes that we ought to be educated out of by now.

I don't find myself believing that women were ever 'property', except by assent (or perhaps socio-biology). I know that in my lifetime I've never met an owned woman, or a woman who might accept being owned. Maybe it was so, once. Does that matter? I know that the witch trials burned men and women, at the accusations of women and men, but that's not how some feminists (the Not True Feminists that we're not allowed to reference) view them.

It's history and geography, I find, for the activists. In some parts of the world, some cultures do have specific, limiting, binary definitions of gender. That they limit and bind both genders, and that there is no clear evidence that the gender with the greater power to enforce is also the gender calling the shots, is neither here nor there. In a small village in scotland, I watched a group of women use their considerable power against men with the rationale that we hadn't yet invaded the middle east and imposed proper concepts on them. It doesn't matter what's happening here and now, for them, so long as they can find a single woman 'suffering', all men are the enemy.

f1: Men are the enemy? Why?
f2: Because they oppress us and have all the power.
f1: What shall we do?!
f2: Why, we shall force our view upon them.
f1: But why would they listen? They have all the power?
f2: Are you kidding? They all need to get laid, we have our own power.
f1: So, they don't have all the power?
f2: Shh! Don't tell them that. They know they have all their own power, no need to mention we have our own. They're dumb enough to fall for this, trust me.

 

[mediocrity511]

We should be informed by history. It's probably optimistic to imagine that we might expect a significant proportion of the population to learn not to repeat the mistakes of previous generations, but nevertheless, a record of past mistakes must be maintained in the hope that future generations won't repeat them. But building an ideology that is actually an enduring feud is probably one of the mistakes that we ought to be educated out of by now.

I don't find myself believing that women were ever 'property', except by assent (or perhaps socio-biology). I know that in my lifetime I've never met an owned woman, or a woman who might accept being owned. Maybe it was so, once. Does that matter? I know that the witch trials burned men and women, at the accusations of women and men, but that's not how some feminists (the Not True Feminists that we're not allowed to reference) view them.

It's history and geography, I find, for the activists. In some parts of the world, some cultures do have specific, limiting, binary definitions of gender. That they limit and bind both genders, and that there is no clear evidence that the gender with the greater power to enforce is also the gender calling the shots, is neither here nor there. In a small village in scotland, I watched a group of women use their considerable power against men with the rationale that we hadn't yet invaded the middle east and imposed proper concepts on them. It doesn't matter what's happening here and now, for them, so long as they can find a single woman 'suffering', all men are the enemy.

f1: Men are the enemy? Why?
f2: Because they oppress us and have all the power.
f1: What shall we do?!
f2: Why, we shall force our view upon them.
f1: But why would they listen? They have all the power?
f2: Are you kidding? They all need to get laid, we have our own power.
f1: So, they don't have all the power?
f2: Shh! Don't tell them that. They know they have all their own power, no need to mention we have our own. They're dumb enough to fall for this, trust me.

Lysistrata plus tartan?

 

[Mycroft]

f2: Are you kidding? They all need to get laid, we have our own power.

So it seems like the predominance of lesbians and the focus on lesbian issues within feminism would negate this.

 

[BravesFan]

On the test with the 3 columns I got a -19 (right on the edge of masculine and nearly masculine)

yet on the one that had the 6 levels (and the finger length tests) I got mostly female brain replies and then some in the middle.

So ..... I don't know how much validity to put into either of them really.

 

[jiggeryqua]

Lysistrata plus tartan?

Except that what was demanded was war, not peace. But yes, women knew how to use their power then, and now.

In Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist, when the character Mr. Bumble is informed that “the law supposes that your wife acts under your direction,” Mr. Bumble replies, “If the law supposes that … the law is a ass—a idiot. If that’s the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is that his eye may be opened by experience—by experience.”

 

[jiggeryqua]

So it seems like the predominance of lesbians and the focus on lesbian issues within feminism would negate this.

I tend to dislike the kneejerk "Evidence?" that infests this forum, but that's a bold unsubstantiated claim, and more to the point doesn't address the majority (I can reasonably claim that heterosexuals are a majority?) of men or women.

Actually, you said 'predominance', which suggests 'majority'? I don't know you well enough. Are you saying 'all feminists are lesbians', or did you just misuse the term?

 

[Tsukasa Buddha]

I dislike the continuum model on the BBC site. The more accurate version is that there is this bunch of traits here we group under female, a group here under male, and then the rest are neutral. So a person can be androgynous and have a lot of both or a few of both traits.

Some of the sex studies the BBC uses are just streching things a bit. I mean, really:

Average ratio for men: 0.982
Average ratio for women: 0.991

Average score for men: 11.4 words total
Average score for women: 12.4 words total

Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus . The BBC test is more of seeing if one fits the statistical trends for certain physiological traits and psychological functions based on sex. And that I prefer that my boy toy has a masculine face really seems off the wall .

It reminds me of the inevitable "homo discounting" that comes up in my real life discussions about sex and gender (Not that the BBC test was doing this):

"Why do men do X?"
"I don't do X."
"Well, you're gay so you don't count."
" Then stop asking me these questions."

And this reminds me of talk in the late nineteenth century about gays being a "third sex", but that's a whole new can of worms .

 

[bookitty]

Except that what was demanded was war, not peace. But yes, women knew how to use their power then, and now.

In Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist, when the character Mr. Bumble is informed that “the law supposes that your wife acts under your direction,” Mr. Bumble replies, “If the law supposes that … the law is a ass—a idiot. If that’s the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is that his eye may be opened by experience—by experience.”

Have you ever read Oliver Twist? Within the context of the story, this quote is so far off base that I can't tell whether or not you're joking.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

I don't find myself believing that women were ever 'property', except by assent (or perhaps socio-biology). I know that in my lifetime I've never met an owned woman, or a woman who might accept being owned. Maybe it was so, once. Does that matter? I know that the witch trials burned men and women, at the accusations of women and men, but that's not how some feminists (the Not True Feminists that we're not allowed to reference) view them.

This seems to me a lot like saying "I don't find myself believing that slaves were ever 'property' except by assent. I know I've never once met an owned slave. Maybe it was so, once, but does that matter? I bet those slaves were secretly getting together for witty conversations where they effectively exercised a 50% power share in society because hey, the work wouldn't get done without them."

As to whether it matters, well, no, not really. Women aren't slaves now. They were back then, or close to it, but the relevance to modern issues is negligible.

 

[mijopaalmc]

Have you ever read Oliver Twist? Within the context of the story, this quote is so far off base that I can't tell whether or not you're joking.

Not to mention that Lysistrata is a man's interpretation of how women perceive themselves, so the idea that "women knew their power" in ancient Athens completely discounts that Aristophanes is portraying women and is not a woman himself. Not to mention that the final reconciliation banquets concludes with the men dividing up a woman's body as a metaphor for dividing up Greece.

 

[slingblade]

f1: Men are the enemy? Why?
f2: Because they oppress us and have all the power.
f1: What shall we do?!
f2: Why, we shall force our view upon them.
f1: But why would they listen? They have all the power?
f2: Are you kidding? They all need to get laid, we have our own power.
f1: So, they don't have all the power?
f2: Shh! Don't tell them that. They know they have all their own power, no need to mention we have our own. They're dumb enough to fall for this, trust me.

Lysistrata, is that you?


(whoops, Mediocrity511 beat me to it! )

 

[epepke]

I don't believe I've ever heard anybody use the word "broad" in that way except on television. Old television. Things aired in the 1950s and set in the 1930s. Might as well call them "dames" or "skirts". Or, in even more bizarre usage, "tomatoes". I find it incredible anybody on earth ever used that one, but apparently they did.

The very last time (prior to this thread) I heard the term "broad" used was in UHF (1989), where it was out of the mouth of a villainous television executive character. This was well after I had decided not to use a line in a story where a character named Broad Alto explains that he is neither female nor tall, as I figured nobody remembered the word "broad."

The very last time I heard the term "tomato" used was in the middle 1990s drinking beer with a particular physicist on the back deck of a pub in a particular college town who was making a bad sexist joke (not bad because it was sexist but because it was unfunny). He was an interesting character. He used to try to pick arguments with me because my girlfriend didn't like Andrea Dworkin, whom he respected (Dworkin, that is, not my girlfriend). He had a rather nice wife who ran away from him when she discovered he was a transvestite. I was fortunately spared personal knowledge of that particular recreational activity, as I do not think he would have been plausible. On the other hand, he would have made an excellent Deacon Vorbis in Terry Pratchett's Small Gods.

Go figure.

 

[jiggeryqua]

Have you ever read Oliver Twist? Within the context of the story, this quote is so far off base that I can't tell whether or not you're joking.

Well, it's been a while, and he was never my favourite author, but what's your problem with the quote? Which story are you using as 'context'? You can't be saying Charlie D was "so far off base', I'm sure, so perhaps you mean I was very far 'off base' by including that quote in that post (the 'story' presumably being the anecdote about the scottish misandrists).

Perhaps if you actually made the point, rather than hinting that you had one and hoping people didn't look past our respective genders or social standings, I'd be able to respond more adequately. At any rate, while I don't suppose I was making a particularly earth-shattering point it wasn't a joke. Hope that helps.

 

[Morrigan]

I got like -20 on the first test, and 50 on the male scale on the BBC test.

I'm female.