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Comment by nostrebored | Hacker News Reader

And to say that people are making their decisions in a vacuum is intellectually dishonest. Unless of course you just assume that women have different brains, that make them too intellectually feeble to have interests in computing, engineering, machinery.

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I don't have an interest in forwarding the notion that one gender is superior to the other in anyway shape or form. But neither are both genders identical.

For example, the video I linked above, there is a brief observation made about how more female doctors drifted towards pediatrics than men. I don't think that says anything about the potential of either gender, but I would possibly describe it as a gender preference.

And ultimately, I think we should aim for freedom of choice. And if we do that, I don't think we can expect to split our population up by any characteristic, examine flat participation percentages and think that anything other than 50-50 is caused by prejudice.

>"But neither are both genders are identical."

I'm going to take a step back and substitute gender for sex. Saying that the two sexes are not identical is a very interesting, and strong stance. Especially seeing as it is impossible to prove with socialization and neuroplasticity.

I don't doubt that there are preferences based on gender. Gender is the word that we use to describe a set of sex-stereotypes that we project onto members of our society.

Aiming for freedom of choice makes sense sans socialization. I overuse this example, but imagine Douglas Adams' cow that was raised to be eaten -- if we raise girls with the notion that they should love children, be self sacrificing, value helping others over money, not be selfish, and raise boys with a completely separate set of traits, is it reasonable to not apply a critical lens to these choices when they cause a detrimental effect on the quality of life of one group, and the set of available experiences to both groups?

Is raising a cow that chooses to be eaten any better than raising one that doesn't? Is it even worse?

Equating liking children with the suicidal urge to be killed and eaten is on the overdramatic side.

What's so "detrimental" about women's choices? Is becoming doctors and lawyers so much worse than becoming programmers?

Think about this: How do you know socialization is responsible for these differences, and not inherited personality and interest (average) differences?

What would be observably different in a world where our species worked that way?

I'm not saying it's true that biological sex creates certain predispositions, but it's also not unreasonable. The people who dogmatically deny it outright are as bad as the people who strongly affirm such differences despite lack of evidence.

Would you say the same about any other causal relationship? Are there any implications of it that don't perpetuate the idea that women are intellectually inferior? That don't shift the burdens of emotional labor and child rearing onto children? The idea is so obviously sexist...

How do you mean? A common stereotype is that men are aggressive while woman are kinder and gentler (the former true to some extent because of testosterone). Surely that's a good trait, so not all stereotypes disfavour women? Point being, recognizing differences between the sexes (which it exists in areas such as the aforementioned aggressiveness, or in kids where you can see boys are more restless and prone to suffer ADHD, but almost certainly not in intellect like you suggest) is not "so obviously sexist". It's the reality.

Actually testosterone studies have shown that it increases aggression in men who have anger problems. Estrogen has been shown to have similar increases in aggression in women. Too lazy to find on mobile but I'll edit later.

Boys are held to a lower standard of behavior than girls. "Boys will be boys" is a societal mantra.

It's worth noting that these "inherent" traits vary across societies. For instance Italian culture believes that girls are more violent and boys are kinder and more emotional.

Women being kinder is a sex trope not a neurological reality.

Also both of your examples are perfect fits for what I was talking about. Women being kinder means that kindness is expected of them. Also that they are available to be emotionally dumped on.

"Men being aggressive" excuses male violence. "Boys being hyperactive" means we have low standards for their behavior.

>Women being kinder is a sex trope not a neurological reality.

But what did I freaking say? -.- I did specifically say it was a stereotype, to counter your point that differences between sex necessarily imply an idea of inferiority of women, and here you go lecturing me on how what I said is a false stereotype D:, well no shit. It's an absurd notion. Negative stereotypes go both ways. But that's not the point.

The point is that you clearly have preconceived notions about how the world should be. And damn the facts. I find that an intellectually dishonest way of looking at things. The point is, for instance: in all likelihood there is no difference of, say, intelligence between the male and female population, but you _cannot_ discard that possibility a priori. You can't just say that, because men being inferior to women in that regard, or the reverse, would be undesirable, that you can close your eyes and go la-la-la. You can't. There are physiological differences, hormonal differences, would it be such a stretch that there would be neurological differences too? Or that the hormones would generate different patterns of behaviour in males and females?

I mean, just look at your last sentence. You don't actually care to know if men are naturally more predisposed to aggression, or if boys are more hyperactive and thus have more difficulty at school (if that were the case maybe methods of teaching could be more tailored to that reality, but that is beside the point). You just say that "Boys being hyperactive" would mean we have low standards for their behavior, and as that is a conclusion you do not desire, you reject the premise, without caring to know if it is true or not!

When you close it with we have to be aware of the realities of behavioral difference between the sexes, your beliefs become ambiguous. A thorough restating of positions doesn't make the arguments less clear.

I have the preconceived notion that we cannot assume that there is a biological difference in cognition. You're right. I'm wary of it because people have been doing it for hundreds of years for equally inane reasons. My wife isn't missing 5 ounces of her brain, her brain isn't held together by more delicate strands, the shape of her brain relative to the skull doesn't make her more subservient. What you seem to miss is that this assumption is not rooted in any scientific reasoning -- in fact more and more neuroscience is coming to the conclusion that there are very few differences in brain structure. Catherine Dulac's research from Harvard has been getting close to this, and although I think her conclusions overstep the data that she has, it's very interesting to me. And you've missed my point. I do think that there is a difference in cognition between the sexes, but I do not think that there is a biological basis for this. Just like I don't think that there is a biological basis for the reason that black children score lower on standardized tests (and there is an easier study setup for this, which is excellent!). The thing is, the studies that they've done show pretty similar results between increasing either sexes primary sex hormone and the effects on cognition. There are very similar results when either sex has a hormone imbalance.

I do actually care to know if men are naturally predisposed to aggression. Here are the links to the studies refuting that testosterone causes increased aggression [0][1][2]. And again, I do care that boys are more hyperactive. I don't deny that it's happening, I think it's a problem, and I think that what we can do to fix it is increase discipline and develop healthy coping strategies.

I'm not rejecting the premise, I'm rejecting that there is an inherent flaw in boys that makes them violent, hyperactive rapists. I'm rejecting that there is an inherent flaw in women that makes them docile, logically incapable therapists.

The fact that this is controversial just blows my mind.

How do you feel about the cross cultural differences in expected behavior between the sexes?

[0] http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature08711 [1] http://jcem.endojournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/81/10/3578 [2] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6W...

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