LOL again I was not condescending…it…is… humor…full…sarcasam
in response to your conclusion jumping.
Carleas, I am not hung up on anything this is just a conversation not a soapbox. So far the subject of choice has been about differences. Now if I started a couple of threads on gender differences then you could claim I was hung up and focusing on it.
After what 3 or 4 posts you actually think that I only believe that the Gender differences are a huge part of humanity’s makeup? ROFL
Instead of jumping to conclusions about what someone says. Ask questions, don’t assume, don’t twist and don’t presume. Humanity is huge as are the differences in the use of just the English language. Our language has many variances, nuances, translations and doubtful meanings. What you think I say may not be what I said. Even here in the USA words have different meanings depending upon your background and what part of the country you come from
Humorful example; Say just the word Hoedown in one part of the country and folks will get ready for a dance. Say it in another part of the country and folks will think a prositute has been shot or injured or is ready for a John, or a man’s woman is sick. Say it in another part of the country and people will think you broke or lost a gardening tool. One word three ways to see it in the same country. Now if you add that word in the right sentence you could really confuse the crap out of people. ( There is a hoedown on 44th st.) or ( Lets go find that hoedown in the country) Now keep in mind you are reading it. Saying the words will add a difference too. Also people always have different speech patterns depending upon where they come from. Can’t forget this either: Misreading can be done from typos too.
Got it?
Our language is colorful to begin with, now throw in slang and generations of twists and turns on language , you get a mish mash of meanings that must be dug through.
Genders won’t ever understand each other totally. While we walk the same path we are on different sides of that path. This is not a bad thing. I have said that. It is a good thing in my eyes. I have said this. If need be I will say it again. We need to be different. Psst . hint…ask me why instead of jumping that ravine again
Satyr: My question was ambiguous. I meant, what evidence do you have to support the notion that men have more intellectual potential than women?
I won’t get into race here, but I will address the general argument, that environment can’t account for intellectual differences. The claim is patently false on many grounds. There is plenty of evidence that abuse and childhood trauma are linked to delayed mental developmentl, and that the allocation of resources, especially in the form of food and parental attentions, can dramatically affect mental development. If woman and girls were given less of either than men and boys, it could account for the perceived discrepency. Furthermore, the type of parental attention given can affect a childs ability to solve problems. Phenomena like ‘Learned Helplessness’ can account for many differences if it is accepted that women have been discouraged from mental pursuits, and have been led to believe themselves less intelligent than their male peers.
So, while there have been many influential female thinkers, it is also not surprising that they occur less frequently than influential males, because in the system we have one would expect those results even if we assume that mental potential is equal for either sex.
Kris, humorful sarcasm can be condescending. So can language lessons. Maybe if you spent more time clarifying your position and less time rofling and telling me how much I’ve misunderstood, we might get somewhere.
I’m not denying that “genders won’t ever understand each other totally”, but I am saying that the very act of pointing that out is to give it too much credit: fact is, no two people, no matter their genders, will ever understand each other totally. You are making gender seem like the deciding factor where it is not. The amount that two people of different genders can understand each other is trivially less than the amount that two people of the same gender can understand each other.
(By the way, if at the end of your post, you are recognizing that you have not done enough to explain your position, it is a sign that you might want to hold off on posting until you have time to convey all the necessary information.)
I give “lessons” because you condescend jump and dictate. How else am I supposed to respond? with contriteness? with anger? with condescension of your condescension?
Your posts lean towards snobbery and you take sentences out of context. at least it seems that way to me. Now I could get all emotional. I choose not too. If you can’t comprehend why I write what I write it really is not a big deal to me. you see this subject has little priority in the greater picture. You seem to think it is I that is bound to this when it is you. To me it seems that you must make sure that everything I say is colored with ignorance or bigotry. I find it amusing.
The way you write is one big condescending lesson. why should I not find it amusing especially since you accuse me of it. Heck you don’t even really read what I write you seem to pick, choose and take things out of context. So be it. You have picked your view of what I say. Its cool. NP.
If people waited to have time to clarify everything few conversations would really go anywhere, but, then again it is the difference in people that brings people to forums not the commonness.
Kris, interesting. I was hoping to get your thoughts on this part, though:
“I’m not denying that “genders won’t ever understand each other totally”, but I am saying that the very act of pointing that out is to give it too much credit: fact is, no two people, no matter their genders, will ever understand each other totally. You are making gender seem like the deciding factor where it is not. The amount that two people of different genders can understand each other is trivially less than the amount that two people of the same gender can understand each other.”
Who dominates?
Even culture is a male invention which, turns against its creators.
Man, attempting to control and dominate invents; these inventions make him obsolete because an invention is accessible to all and not just the creator.
A thinker, for example, thinks up a concept and then loses control of it when and if he shares it with another; an artist creates and then the creation ceases to belong to him.
Wow, all parents seem to be bastards towards their female offspring.
That’s because you are looking at it from a limited perspective.
In nature the “abuse” an organism suffers either result in the organism perishing or in it overcoming/adapting.
That most children suffer the consequences of their environment of abuse is no different than children suffering the consequences of pampering.
You seem to fail to comprehend that all human creation and advancement is based on human suffering and the desire to overcome it.
Man doesn’t invent and think and create when he is content, he does so because he is discontent.
Does a full bellied man hunt?
What would motivate him to do so?
It makes one wonder why not a single one managed to give the "correct"“attention†in the “correct†way to create a female Einstein or Mozart or a Kant or a Marx, or, even a Hitler in thousands of years of civilization.
You use “education†to make a point about intelligence and then avoid answering if knowledge and intellect is one and the same thing.
Does a supercomputer, having been given all the information/knowledge/education possible possess a superior intellect than a Kalahari Bushman that has never read a book?
Fascinating.
I wonder how and why other minority groups or underprivileged peoples managed to overcome their disadvantaged positions.
What about Jews?
“Learned Helplessnessâ€, as you put it, is promoted by society in both men and women – I call it dependence.
I find it interesting that the exception to the rule is used to disprove a rule.
It would be like taking an albino black bear and saying that blackness is not the natural coloration for this species because some of its members diverge from the norm.
Evolution implies mutations, which either provide an advantage and are propagated or do not and they fail.
As such a woman’s nature may not be set in stone and exceptions might pop-up every so often but a general commonality of genetic predisposition cannot be denied and blaming culture, which is a relatively recent evolutionary development, making it seem like a woman or a man are independent from millions of years of evolution but not free from thousands of years of cultural indoctrination is hypocritical, to say the least.
That man sought to empower himself by enslaving other humans by using natural tendencies, is undeniable.
Marketing is the manipulation of instincts and their redirection towards a cultural symbol or a product or an ideal.
That man invented, out of thin air, “unnatural†constructs is bullshit.
Man doesn’t invent nature or reality. He discovers it and uses it by gaining control over it – by knowing it and manipulating it successfully.
Female sexual choice has been repressed, using religion, and institutions and moral systems, as a necessary step towards stability and inclusion of greater amounts of cooperating individuals within larger and larger groups, requiring more and more resources and demanding more and more repression.
I mean the only reason women even have a voice is due to manmade equalitarian moral systems, technological inventions which make physical power obsolete and institutional powers which defend and ensure the respectability and safety of all.
The system imposes its male-dominance and forces everyone to adhere to standards of conduct even if undeserving.
This is how an imbecile attains respectability when none is due to him and a physical weakling feels as safe as a physically superior individual.
Feminism is directly linked to this systemic need for stability and harmony which levels all, superior and inferior into indistinguishable automatons and consumers.
These “influential female thinkers†have been nothing more than followers of male thinking.
The need to separate appearances from essence lies behind this desire to admit to physical outer divergence with no deeper implications.
This is how diversity becomes a mere matter of cosmetics and sensual information is selectively considered relevant.
For instance coloration in fruits and flowers and animals is used by science to differentiate and to study behavioral patterns and categories, but the minute you use it to differentiate and to establish behavioral patterns and categories in the realm of human nature using them – this going against the systemic need for harmony and stability and inclusion – the rules are altered and coloration means nothing.
Perhaps.
But his would be a dilution of both.
You can’t have it both ways.
When something is gained something is lost.
Whether this gain/loss balance successfully serves the individual within a particular environment is yet to be determined.
At that point you cannot speak of females or males but about a hermaphrodite with more masculine or feminine leanings.
Is this not a leveling?
When I flatten cement to make it smooth, am I not taking away its distinctive qualities, its character?
Satyr, you are really trying to cover your bases. First there are no females of any not, then there are but they are exceptions, and then they are just leeching off of male accomplishments anyway. The last point is absurd: like no influential male had a mother who raised him. If someone’s influential thought is irrelevant because it is based on or inspired by someone else’s, then there have been no influential thinkers worth mentioning. That’s a dandy conclusion, but it can hardly be held exclusive to one sex.
You’ve conceded that intelligent women exist, but maintain that they are exceptions. Of course that’s true: women are a clear minority in advanced science and math, and much other acadamia, as well as in the role of corporate bosses and spokespeople. I do not deny this. I don’t use these exceptions to attempt to disprove the ‘rule’. However, I am saying that that in itself is not evidence enough to conclude that women are innately less intelligent than men. The pattern would be expected even if we assume their equality. If group A and B are intellectually equal, but group A is given more of the resources that foster achievement in field X and group B is completely ignored for centuries in regards to field X, then that group A has a better track record in field X is not surprising, and is to be expected.
A few brief points:
-Knowledge/intellect is a semantic issue. I trust you are using the words to mean different things.
-I took your point on education. I mean the environmental factors that engender intellectual accomplishments.
-Learned Helplessness is not my invention.
-Other minority groups have their own circumstances. Their achievments do not belie the continued struggles of the ‘minority’ group in question.
You missed the point I made about the male version. Shame isn’t a consideration for a chauvinist, only for someone who isn’t and is thus sensitive to the implication. But wait, someone like that would then be a male feminist, no?
Thank you very much for changing the way you are addressing my post.
Now I agree with you on the two people regardless of gender not totally understanding each other and I agree that the genders have more in common than not in common.But it is the un common that is truly important.
Think on this phrase “Opposites attract” That my friend is so very true.
Without the gender differences the attraction probably would not be there. Lets look at how people tend to choose a spouse now. they look for someone that is the same. These pairings more often than not end in seperation. While those that have little in common last. I have studied anthropology and sociology most of my adult and preadult life. I question and learn people.
My own marriage is going on 23 yrs. The gentleman I am espoused to is my opposite. we fight etc. but, we love and are so attracted to each other that life without each other is unimaginable. Now having this under my belt plus questioning uncountable other couples, studying and reading has led me to understand that Gender differences are needed. It is not just the opposite that is attractive it is the mystique the lack of understanding the gender that brings us together as a species. We want what we do not have and we want what is different.
If we drive off the differences if we mask them and hide them or even fail to acknowledge them in simple unharmful chauvanism we deny ourselves the adventure of love and life. The problem now a days is people equate chauvanism with sexual harrassment. Both Genders are guilty of this but most people that are simply being chauvanistic are being accused of a horrible crime that they are not commiting. There is a significant difference. One is pure controlling harmful ego and the other is, well, more like searching.
I could add more but, my family just pulled in and I as matriarch must feed them and make sure that those two males of mine are comfy.
then i get to continue my work afterwards while they relax. I would not change my love or my life for the universe.
Though I appreciate your anecdotes, they don’t seem to be held up by research. This article from the American Psychological Association summarizes the findings of “one of the most comprehensive studies ever undertaken” on the question of whether opposites attract. It found that “there is no evidence that opposites attract,” and rather that “people tend to marry those who are similar in attitudes, religion and values” (i.e., people are attracted to ostensible similarity), and that “similarity in personality. . .appears to be more important in having a happy marriage.” In the full text of the article, the authors conclude that “similarity on personality-related domains was strongly associated with satisfaction” (i.e., a deeper similarity predicts relationship success). WebMD, citing a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, relates the finding that “In Western society, humans use neither an ‘opposites-attract’ nor a ‘reproductive-potentials-attract’ rule in their choice of long-term partners, but rather a ‘likes-attract’ rule based on a preference for partners who are similar to themselves across a number of characteristics.” The study was criticised because, unlike the first study I linked, it involved only unmarried heterosexuals. But still, it indicates that people are looking for someone with similar qualities.
And if another nail will help, this article from ABC News relates a finding that we prefer, in both mates and friends, those similar to us on a genetic level. First, it reestablishes that “a large body of research suggests that we pick our friends, as well as our mates, because underneath it all they are very much like us.” The article reports that genetic similarity accounts for about one third of our social choices, which is a significant amount. That doesn’t mean that the rest is difference. The lead researcher is unambiguous when he says “research has been clear, over and over again, that you can be opposite on one or two dimensions, but overall it’s similarity that rules.”
I would hazard that your personal experience is theory laden; that you interpret it in light of your belief that ‘opposites attract’. But when scientific rigor is applied, the conclusion is unequivocal: people look for similar people. There is no reason to believe that current gender differences are necessary for our species to continue to find mates attractive.
But, let’s ignore that for a minute. Let’s asume that opposites do attract, and that the sort of differences you support allow for attraction. Still, that doesn’t mean that the differences should be connected to sex. If we worked to break down those connections, eventually we would have a world where there are some women with what modern society would call male characteristics, and some men with what modern society would call female characteristics. If the connections were perfectly destroyed, the distribution would be uniform for both sexes. The distribution of attraction, then, would be uniform across both sexes: A person would be as likely to find a member of either sex attractive. It would not be that people would stop finding love, it just wouldn’t be tied to genitals.
And what’s wrong with that? We’re already beyond a time when reproduction is the necessary and ultimate goal of relationships, and even if that’s what you want from a relationship, you don’t need a heterosexual relationship to have a child (what with artifical insemination and surrogate mothers). The reproductive rates would likely fall, but that is not a terrible thing considering our rapid approach to overpopulation, and the looming environmental catastrphes that are a result of over-consumption.
So is seems that the premise is untrue, and that even if it weren’t, it doesn’t lead to the conclusion. It still seems that gender stereotypes should be resisted.
I acknowledge that intelligent women exist but, also, that they never reach the heights an intelligent man does.
It’s a difference of genetic potential.
There are physically strong women but, on average, a woman is physically weaker than a man.
Why?
Because a woman has evolved for a different procreative role.
Can a woman, subsequently, use her mind to attain her full physical potential, through exercise, and so advance beyond a man who has done no such thing?
Yes.
Can she exceed the male’s full potential, assuming the male is average?
No.
Of course if we take the most physically powerful female and compare her to an average or a below average male, you can make the point that females are not less strong than males.
But that would be ignoring the empirical evidence by using an extreme or an exception and comparing it to an average.
The difference is one of potential.
The gap is shrinking, due to the feminization process and due to the effects of civilization on human genetics just as racial differences are diminishing due to interbreeding and sharing common environments for a period of time.
This current development does not negate the original environmental effects that originally caused a racial or a sex split.
To assume that an environment has had physical effects but no mental ones is an absurdity.
It would be like saying that a dog is no different than a wolf because they look similar or that a red fruit is no different than a green one.
Unfortunately appearances are a natural method of guessing at essence. In other words appearances are not superficial nor irrelevant but expose deeper differentiations.
If we are to discard appearances in one area then we should, if we are to retain our intellectual integrity, discard them altogether.
There goes empiricism.
When physicality diminishes in importance it becomes obsolete and so there is a convergence of potentials to the least common denominator.
Still, though, you have no evidence for your claim that women have less potential, other than the results of unequal allocation of resources. I’ve already made a case for why this logic is faulty, and you have not addressed it.
In terms of evolutionary role and its correlation with mental potential, I would reason that pure evolution would have produced more intelligent women. In a less civilized world, women were the care-givers for children, and men were the hunters. Hunting is a fairly low level skill, requiring physical ability and strength, and rudimentary social skills. Childrearing, especially for humans, involves much more mental ability. In fact, it was probably women who pioneered language in order to sooth their children while they foraged out of sight. Selection would favor smarter women, because smarter women would probably raise smarter children, thereby raising the intelligence of the whole social unit and improving its chance of survival.
So, evolutionarily, we would expect greater mental potential from women. What we see in society is probably a result of men having greater physical potential, and thus being able to decide the allocation of resources. The connection between physical and mental potential might not be what you think.
Did You fully read the articles? And then did you read what I have been saying? Lets not forget they only examined Newlyweds. Not couples that have been together for decades. Nowhere could I see followups which should have been done to truly be conclusive. They should have followed the couple for at least, at the very least, a decade. They did not.
I have stated that we need differences to compliment each other That is in the article… which I have read previously I had to laugh when I saw that it was the same full report. Read the whole full report study it. It is very interesting. Reread it a couple of times. Because you wiil see that they do somewhat agree with portions of what I have been saying.
Someone’s heading for a spanking. All I can say is you’re lucky that I’m a physically weaker specimen as compared to a you, a man, regardless of how much I can bench press. Of course, my developed upper-body strength does allow me to throw heavy things. Watch your back.
Funny how you don’t get men running about willy-nilly throwing shoes because they are forced to confront the possibility that they won’t ever measure up to the social adeptness of a woman.
All you have is a theory that women are inferior because men kept them that way.
But how and why did men manage that?
Furhtermore my assumption concerning female potential is reinforced by empirical evidence concenring physical differences.
You just prefer to seperate the mind from the body, when it is a manifestation of the same thing, so as to preserve the possibility that you possess the same mental potentials even if you cannot claim to do so physically.
The duality of mind & body, creates the illusion of spirit and matter.
Thusly man can accept physical diversity even while maintianing the illusion that this does not relate to mental or psychological diversity.
your comments on hunting expose your erors in judgment.
Hunting, in fact, requires a higher level of abstract thinking since a hunter, if he is to be succesful, must study and predict the behavior of an alien, to himself, species.
You ar unable to even understand the difference between knowledge and intelelct, as your entire position rests on the possibility that women are dominated because they lack education or that they consistently fail to distinguish themselves to the degree men do in every creative field because they were not offered the same information.
But what is education?
Is it not a communal experience passed down and regurgitated?
Women are good at immitation and conformity, most of their intelelct is dedicated to fitting-in.
So I ask again:
Is a supercomputer, having been programed with all of mankinds knowledge (educated), more inteleligent than a goat herder who is illiterate?
