A requested thread for Varsovian.

Mostly I find it confusing.  This onion article sums up my take on things fairly well:
http://www.theonion.com/articl...g-a-woman-does,1398/

I considered requesting this, after all the hubub in CC (funny how often I agree with silveroak when it isn't about religion!) But I felt it might be a little unfair, with females so underrepresented here.

I think in CC there are a couple of extreemist feminists whom I suspect are college Sophmores or Juniors who draw a lot of fire repeating their class doctrines. Real world feminism is morw widely varried and interesting, though less colorfull than either the college counterpart or it's predecessors.

Thank you. I was starting to lose faith in the ideas.

I don't know. My experience with real world feminism is that can be quite extreme, too...

Anyway, as I said over at the CC: my problem with feminism is that it seems to be a whole complex ideology and not just the idea of the equality of the sexes. I don't know how it is in the States, but here in Poland feminism seems to be married to left-wing social policies and worldview. There is diversity, of course... but, on average, I'd say that a feminist would be a woman in favour of liberal abortion laws and gender quotas, strongly opposed to religion (or, at least, to the Catholic church) etc.

Also, I have a distinct feeling that some of the feminists are so invested in the movement that they cannot fathom the possibility of feminism actually ever achieving all of its goals. I mean... the last century was an enormous step for women's rights. But, if you talk to some of the feminists... they don't seem to be seeing this. They can still talk on how the women are discriminated against in a very fiery manner... they believe that there many injustices still committed against women. Some of the things they talk about are real problems... but some of the examples of the gender inequality they cite are just absurd.

For once, many feminists back here are really worked up about the fact that many occupation names in Polish language doesn't have female variants. That the only form existing in the language is male. So, the feminists insist on coming up with feminine variants and applying them to women of said professions. For example: apparently, it's sexist to call a female psychologist ... well, a psychologist. No, now the proper word to call such a person would be "psychologistess". It doesn't matter that, until now, such a word hasn't actually existed in our language. Now it's being introduced - and everybody should be using it. You don't do that? You are a sexist who supports the patriarchal assumptions of the language...

I mean... come on. 100 years ago, women were fighting for the rights to vote. Now, the feminists are opposing the injustices of... grammar? It's just like some of the feminists were unwilling to see that they had *won*, that they *achieved* all the things they were fighting for. As if they needed to fight for *something*... so they were coming up with non-issues just to be able to keep fighting and complaining against how awfully the women are discriminated against...

In the US, the vocal feminist movement is closely tied to the Progressive movement, and the Democratic Party. I wouldn't say that that applies to all feminists, of course. It does concern me a little bit that some people might be approaching ethical issues, such as abortion, on the premise of political gain.

There has been a little fuss about taking distinctly sex-based words (postman, fireman, stewardess) and making them less so. Postal worker, fire fighter, flight attendant. Actress is oftentimes less favored than actor (for both genders). Fortunately, the sex-based occupations are pretty limited, so it hasn't made a huge difference. I'm not aware of a lot of new words (except regarding 'woman', 'history' and finding gender-neutral pronouns - but that has mostly been ignored).

I would agree though, it seems some people are so focused on 'women are getting repressed, and we need to fight that!' that they forget the ultimate goal is equality.

As a Christian I'm all for equality of women in human rights and many other areas but women are not men. There are just some jobs women cannot do well for example fighting in an armies infantry I'm sure when operating a tank a woman can hold her own but marching, with a pack and engaging the enemy is just not a womans job - do to physiology. Same for fire fighting they make great paramedics but carrying me over their shoulder down a ladder in a fire is not something most women can do.

But I agree women came a LONG way and I'd rather see the fight go to nations where women have real issues that matter. Female circumcision, child marriage, honor killing, stoning women for crimes that are to us not crimes, homosexual womens rights and fundamental rights to education, holding jobs and access to lending for those wanting to start their own businesses. And in some nations defending unborn girls from being aborted just for being girls.

In the US and other nations like those in Europe we pretty much won ladies, be happy and now focus on our sisters where they need us to back them up. There is a long way to globally all of you know that.

That's interesting, because I'd disagree - on the grounds that you're making generalizations. My aunt is a marine (her husband as well), and frankly, she scares me a bit. She is very tough, and very strong, and I have no question she can hump a pack and shoot straight. But she isn't the average woman. My personal belief is, in cases like the military, where lives depend on performance, set fair requirements, based solely on the expected conditions of the job, and permit any person, regardless of gender, to get in based solely on their ability to meet those requirements.

A few things separate US feminism from the European. The first of these is prostitution. In Europe a large part of Early feminism arose from prostitutes who wanted to be able to control their economic fortunes in terms of investing their earnings. In the US there developed a form of conservative Feminism in the 1970's which claimed things like 'all porn is rape' while main body of feminism was still liberal bra burning and believed that the pill meant freedom.
Another difference was Soujourner truth- durring the sufferage movement a woman who was a former slave and feild worker stood up with her 'and ain't I a woman?' speach and blew apart myths of feminine delicacy and inability to do 'a man's job'
Now in the US there is academic feminism, which seems stuck in the 1970's, legal feminism - which is dedicated to making equality a reality and advocating for women in courts where they still tend to show up either as victims or as the accused in cases of laws that are still targeted on the basis of social class and gender (when is the last time you heard of a man being prosecuted for prostitution, yet men do engage as well as women). There is also real world feminism which is engaged on a subtle level and frequently in politics, simply in dispelling myths of 'natural inequality' and empowering women to see themselves as people with wants needs and desires instead of a product (as in 'why buy the cow when you get the milk for free' analogies) and work on improving how girls are raised to become women where they won't have the baggae previous generations were raised with.

On related note, one of my problems with the feminists I've encountered is their opposition to the idea that there might be any natural *mental* differences between sexes. Of course, the socialization has an enormous role in shaping the ways men and women think and behave... but I suspect that some subtle differences might indeed be inborn. And that these differences might show up even in perfectly un-discriminating society.

For example: I'm a psychology graduate. At my faculty, the men-to-women ratio was 1:5... but I didn't really feel that men were discriminated against there. I suspect that there simply might be some inborn differences that cause the situation that, on average, more women than men are interested in the fields of psychology, teaching etc. - while more men than women are interested in joining the military etc. If that was the case, I don't think that would be a reason for despair.

This is why I'm not convinced about the idea of sex quotas I mentioned. At this moment, in Poland, these quotas are something the feminists are really pushing for. Specifically, they would like to have the law passed that would make it obligatory for political parties to register equal number of men and women as candidates in parliamentary elections. The rationale is that the low number of women in Polish politics is the effect of them being discriminated against by the leadership of the parties. And, to help women get into the politics, the state has to force the parties to have women as candidates.

I'm not saying that the accusations of sexism in political parties might not be true for some extent... but are quotas a right way to change the situation? Who knows, maybe there simply *are* less women than men interested in politics..? The feminists don't seem to be considering that possibility. For them, it's for some reason obvious that, in a perfect society, there would be the same number of male and female politicians...

There have been many tests which indicate, pretty conclusively, that male and female brains are physiologically wired differently. Otherwise the idea of transgenderism holds no weight! Men and women sort information, react to stress, visualize and problem solve differently. This has been mapped with CAT scans and MRIs.

Aside from that there is more to thinking than the brain. Hormones play a large role in thought processes, and there is no question that there is a difference there.
On the other hand there is also a huge difference in how men and women are raised, and this also produces a difference in how they think as well. Trying to factor out nature versus nurture when it comes to complex issues such as choice of career is extreemly difficult. However trying to legislate teh end result is certainly not a realistic solution. Will schools start forcing women with an interest in social work into psychology instead? Or men with an interest in psychology into social work?

In reply to silveroak (msg #13):



I would like to demonstrate this in a more interesting way; you can proceed to through vegetables at me once I’m done.  Here goes.  Female infants from the moment they are born have about a thousand more neurons in their left frontal lobe then males.  This greater number is directly related to the amount of estrogen the female infant receives during development (see Stunsen, 2005, for a review).  While there are a number of consequences related to this, one of them is the increased number of and continued time looking at faces.  Numerous studies and observations have demonstrated that this leads to increased conversation from the parent to the child.  This leads to increased stimulation to the verbal centers, which already have slightly more neurons in girls than boys.  The increased stimulation, over time, leads to more developed verbal centers in the brain (e.g. Warner, 2009).   Thus, we see the complex interplay between nature and nurture, as well as the interesting interplay of sex differences.

A thosand more out of how many billion?

I’m looking for exact overall neural difference, but given that different regions are linked, to certain primary activities, (See Halmark for a review), dimorphic changes between regions are important.  In fact, if you look at the male and female brain, whether it is human or some other mammalian, you will notice significant neurological differences that are linked to behavioral differences.  Experiments on hormone levels among mammalians have repeatedly demonstrated to play an integral role in neurological development and behaviors.  For instance, Stuncen and Roberts (2002), demonstrated across a series of experiments that increasing androgen levels during the second trimester reduced the number of neurons in this lobe from a difference of around 2000, the amount of micrograms utilized were so small tat the power behind the level of significance was considered to be minimal.  The affect however was quite significant.  The rats, demonstrated the same level of attention span as the typical male, which like in human females is normally longer.

Oh, don't get me wrong, males brains are typically larger overall then females, which is of little importence.

So a difference in 200 in a rats brain compared to a difference of 1000 in a human brain.
Obviously there is some signifigance, nature doesn't just throw in spare neurons for the heck of it, but I think trying to ascribe gender based differences in adults to a 1000 neuron difference at birth when teh brain doesn't even finish developing until what, 3? is a bit of a stretch.
if by a bit you mean a gigantic amount and by stretch you mean leap of faith.

These are some selected quotes from a journal article that I have partially scanned.

Infant studies that have looked at differences in the brains of males and females have focused on:

 (1)   Total brain size: In adults, the average brain weight in men is about 11-12% MORE than the average brain weight in women. Men's heads are also about
2% bigger than women's. . This is due to the larger physical stature of men. Male’s larger muscle mass, and larger body size require more neurons to control
them. This does not suggest that due to the larger brain, males are smarter than females.

(2)   Cell number: men have 4% more  brain cells than women , and about 100 grams more of brain tissue. this may explain why women are more prone to dementia
(such as Alzheimer's disease) than  men, because although both may lose the same number of neurons due to the disease, "in males, the functional reserve
may be greater as a larger number of nerve cells are present, which could prevent some of the functional losses."

(3)   Cellular connections: while men have more neurons in the cerebral cortex, women have a more developed neuropil, or the space between cell bodies,
which contains synapses, dendrites and axons, and allows for communication among neurons .

(4)   Corpus callosum: it is reported that a woman's brain has a larger corpus collusum, which means women can transfer data between the right and left
hemisphere faster than men. Men tend to be more left brained, while women have greater access to both sides.(
(6)   Language: two areas in the frontal and temporal lobes related to language (the areas of Broca and Wernicke) were significantly larger in  female infants, thus providing a biological reason for women's notorious superiority in language-associated thoughts. For  males, language is most often just in the dominant hemisphere
(usually the left side), but a larger number of females seem to be able to use both sides for language. This gives them a distinct advantage.

Taken from Hallbarry, K. (2006), A review of Sex diffrences, Journal of H uman Neurology. Vol. 22 101-119.

If you will notice from my previous post, however, I indicated, as research has demonstrated, that environmental factors play an additional role.   only children, regardless of sex, typically have larger languange centers, then households with multiple children.  Typically observations, even taken through cameras in the hospital, demonstrate that mothers usualy talke more to their first born then to another child.  So, please don't conclude that I'm saying that nuture is the main colperate here, I was attempting to respond to an earlier post demonstrating the complex dance between hormones, biology, and environment.

Let me try and say this a different way, the increase in androgen levels lead to a difference in the female rat brain in about two thousand neurons.  The difference in rats brains are slightly more demorphically discernable, despite the overall smaller brains.  Estrogen and androgen levels play a major role in the dimorphic changes in an organism brains, the basic architecture of which forms while one is still in the womb and continues after birth.  Barring major physiological alterations, the brain remains with this basic architecture until adolescents, where the alterations and differences become even more pronounced.