"Anatomy is destiny": do you agree?

[MuggedByReality]

    To what extent do you believe that differences between the sexes -in terms of emotion, behaviour,
     personality and achievement- can be explained by biology?

[Chavi]

Quite a lot. Women a generally more predisposed to emotions, and the need to nurture, as a result of motherhood etc.
Perhaps you can take direct examples from the hunter-gatherer society and apply them to modern society to see how gender roles still reflect our place in society (although it is becoming less apparent with workplace equality)

[dptjandra]

I would say a huge amount of someone's identity is influenced by their biology - more specifically, how they look.  I mean, in today's society, someone can be treated so differently, even in basic social situations, based on their appearance.  People might disagree with me, but I feel that not uncommonly, an attractive person can get away with a comment, or person elicit a more warm response to a not very good joke than a less attractive person could.  That sort of response from other people is really important in shaping how people then respond and act in the future.  Haha, I've almost almalgamated two arguments...nature impacts nurture impacts nature

[Glockmeister]

I would say a huge amount of someone's identity is influenced by their biology - more specifically, how they look.  I mean, in today's society, someone can be treated so differently, even in basic social situations, based on their appearance.  People might disagree with me, but I feel that not uncommonly, an attractive person can get away with a comment, or person elicit a more warm response to a not very good joke than a less attractive person could.  That sort of response from other people is really important in shaping how people then respond and act in the future.  Haha, I've almost almalgamated two arguments...nature impacts nurture impacts nature

But isn't that really a cultural thing and not a biological thing. I mean what is considered 'attractive' actually differs between cultures, and you can be attractive and not be attractive in a physical sense.

[chrisjb]

I would say a huge amount of someone's identity is influenced by their biology - more specifically, how they look.  I mean, in today's society, someone can be treated so differently, even in basic social situations, based on their appearance.  People might disagree with me, but I feel that not uncommonly, an attractive person can get away with a comment, or person elicit a more warm response to a not very good joke than a less attractive person could.  That sort of response from other people is really important in shaping how people then respond and act in the future.  Haha, I've almost almalgamated two arguments...nature impacts nurture impacts nature

But isn't that really a cultural thing and not a biological thing. I mean what is considered 'attractive' actually differs between cultures, and you can be attractive and not be attractive in a physical sense.

but cultural factors are fueled by psychological factors which are fueled by biological factors...

[Ghost!]

That fields of purity thing is so cool!

[Eriny]

I think that gender differences are primarily socialised. Girls are spoken to in a certain way from birth and boys are spoken to in a very different way. Children pick up very early on the conventions for their gender and generally so a very good job at adhering to them. As an aside, Judith Butler actually argued against the idea that sex is biological and gender is cultural, by actually saying that both are cultural.

It's a complicated argument, here's a copy+paste thing from wiki:

She begins her critique of identity and gender by challenging her readers' assumptions about the distinction often made between sex and gender. (In this distinction, sex is biological while gender is culturally constructed.) In the first place, Butler argues, this distinction introduces a split into the supposedly unified subject of feminism, and in the second place, the distinction proves false. Sexed bodies cannot signify without gender, and the apparent existence of sex prior to discourse and cultural imposition is merely an effect of the functioning of gender. That is, both sex and gender are constructed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_Trouble

[binders]

Sexed bodies cannot signify without gender, and the apparent existence of sex prior to discourse and cultural imposition is merely an effect of the functioning of gender. That is, both sex and gender are constructed.

what does she mean by 'sex' there? she can't mean the primary sexual characteristics of an organism, can she? because they are biologically 'signified' before culture, and therefore gender can be applied.

[Eriny]

^ Good question. I don't think that she argues that male and female bodies aren't physically different, because they clearly are. I think she means that the concept of 'sex' doesn't make sense without the concept of 'gender'.

So, you perform your gender in a number of ways - the presence of genitalia is probably an obvious one, but there are other things like 'dressing like a girl' or other things like that. The thing is, through these performances you identify with (usually) one gender you impose a lot of different meaning on your body particularly but also your identity. The point is that the labels 'male' or 'female' are applied externally, there is nothing intrinsic within the body that makes it either male or female, those are the words we apply to them in order to make sense of that aspect of them. This is despite that biologically there is a distinction.

She also argues that all performance of gender is a form of drag because you are dressing up and acting a certain way to fill a certain category or label. The thing is though, this label is of our own construction, it's something we've defined as being crucially important. I think that Butler means that sex should just be considered to be an attribute (obviously an important attribute in reproduction and stuff) and it should neither shape other attributes (like, I'm female therefore I love shopping or something like that) or be particularly more important than other attributes.

Phew. I hope that makes sense.

[lexitu]

There are still common features that are found attractive across cultures. Things like symmetry are important. Furthermore, women find different 'kinds' of men attractive at different stages of the menstrual cycle. A surprising amount of who we are is genetic and that goes for both mental and physical aspects.

Then I suppose culture only accentuates gender aspects and the importance of physical appearance. But the extent to which this culture is influenced by in-built genetic material is pretty significant. Some research suggests that parental upbringing has a much smaller affect on an individual than is commonly thought.

Also, I think there is an internal distinction between male and female which is created by an interplay of hormones and the like.

I suppose things like loving shopping are almost purely cultural though. They were of no evolutionary advantage thousands of years ago where the most forceful pressures were placed on human. Perhaps there is some link (tenuous probably) between the gatherer role of women and shopping. But that's far-fetched.

Interesting discussion

[binders]

yeah. that makes sense, thanks.

hmm. i’m with her on the gender idea and that there’s a performative aspect of sex which can to some extent be constructed.   Dressing up as a girl or a boy looks like a performance/expression of gender alright, but doesn’t always align with biological sex, so maybe which sex you are isn’t essential to the idea of gender.

but you could argue that some of the performative aspects of sex are still biological and not constructed. i’m thinking the behaviourist model where behaviour is a function of biological states/attitudes (eg. testosterone and its effects).  Darwin’s expression of emotion could line up with this biological, not constructed, expression/performance of sex.
and if you accept that some of the ways sex is expressed are grounded in biology, then it’s harder to argue that sex needn’t shape other attributes.

I’m still not sure i see where her grounds for making the concept of gender essential to the concept of sex lie.

[MuggedByReality]

  I think I agree most with aleitu.  Though I bow to no-one in my dislike for restrictive stereotypes, (ascribing a predilection for something as ephemeral as fashion to one's biological makeup is risible), that doesn't make me certain that there are no innate gender differences throughout the population.

[Eriny]

yeah. that makes sense, thanks.

hmm. i’m with her on the gender idea and that there’s a performative aspect of sex which can to some extent be constructed.   Dressing up as a girl or a boy looks like a performance/expression of gender alright, but doesn’t always align with biological sex, so maybe which sex you are isn’t essential to the idea of gender.

but you could argue that some of the performative aspects of sex are still biological and not constructed. i’m thinking the behaviourist model where behaviour is a function of biological states/attitudes (eg. testosterone and its effects).  Darwin’s expression of emotion could line up with this biological, not constructed, expression/performance of sex.
and if you accept that some of the ways sex is expressed are grounded in biology, then it’s harder to argue that sex needn’t shape other attributes.

I’m still not sure i see where her grounds for making the concept of gender essential to the concept of sex lie.

Yeah. I'm not sure how much I agree with her either. Part of the problem is that she's one of those dense post-modernist types so it's difficult to actually follow what she says a lot of the time. I think that the sex distinction is a biologically important one, and to some extent a culturally important one (many feminists would argue that it's an important distinction because it allows for the oppression of women but I'm not convinced that's its only function or that the function can't change).

However, obviously these categories don't fit everybody, like people are born as intersex or such, and also in terms of gender, there are people who feel that they are women in the bodies of men or vice versa. So, at the same time I also tend to think that this concept of gender/sex needn't be so central in our lives because the categories alienate 'outsiders'. Additionally, it's troubling to me that gender roles often do shape our lives, what we are interested in and what our goals are and things like that.