Thanks to Midibu for the link!
Showing posts with label battle of the sexes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label battle of the sexes. Show all posts
Monday, 18 February 2008
Tuesday, 9 October 2007
'Studies have shown' precisely sod all
Deborah Cameron has written a book entitled The Myth of Mars and Venus, published last week by Oxford University Press. As she explains in an interview in The Times today, men and women are all from Earth, but perhaps John Gray is from Uranus.
Extracts from this book appear in The Guardian. I was going to provide lots of choice quotes, but it's all so fascinating, insightful and comprehensive that I felt like quoting all of it, so you'll just have to read it for yourself. The basic premise is, women don't talk more than men - just more than the patriarchy would like them to. This is what I've always suspected and it's great to see it in print.
This table presents a realistic picture of what scientific research has actually discovered about the differences between men and women, where 'd' is the value of overall gender difference: minus values indicate that women are ahead of men and plus values indicate that men are ahead of women. As Cameron points out, the only reputable studies that have revealed significant differences between the sexes have measured athletic prowess and aggressiveness, at which men outperformed women. In other words, this is what you would expect from differences in muscle mass and testosterone levels, with little or nothing to do with the manner in which male and female brains are 'wired up'.
Of course, the stereotype of the grunting, knuckle-dragging buffoon is pretty insulting to men:
An unfortunate side-effect of these patronising gender stereotypes however is that they can excuse loutish, petulant behaviour in men. As Cameron explains, this can have serious consequences:
So, big up to the Deborah Cameron massive. But the one major beef I have with all of this is that nobody seems to be tackling the commonly-held belief, often backed up in the same manner by dodgy sensationalist 'studies', that women can't read maps and have poor sense of direction and spatial awareness. If Cameron manages to debunk the myth that men are useless neanderthals who can't communicate but people continue to believe that women can't navigate their arse from their elbow, we could end up in a nasty situation whereby we swap rigid, equal-but-different gender stereotypes for perceived male superiority. Perhaps there's another book in the pipeline. I hope so.
There's plenty of evidence to suggest that all of these differences between the sexes are minute, with far more variation between people regardless of gender than between the genders themselves. But as Cameron explains, "A book called Men and Women Understand Each Other Pretty Well Most of the Time isn’t going to sell too many copies, is it?”
Alas, Deborah, you've hit the nail on the head. Newspapers, magazines, books and documentaries don't tell you the truth. They tell you what you want to hear. And people want to hear that women can't read maps and men need to be more 'in touch with their feelings', whatever that means. I work in the media. I know how this works. You go for the most exciting stories, which doesn't necessarily correlate with the most accurate representation of what's actually going on. And if someone's produced a bollocks study, for example, deciding that the female love of pink is genetically hardwired by asking 208 people what their favourite colours are, this is the sort of thing that readers will salivate over. The media ignores the thousands of other, more reputable studies that prove that there's not much difference between the sexes because it's not what the readers want. That's not what sells papers or improves viewing figures. Nobody wants to read that women are capable of parallel parking or that men are capable of picking up their own dirty socks. Actual news is a different matter, but when it comes to features and fluff pieces, most people want to read nice, comforting drivel that confirms their own opinions, which of course were formed by such drivel in the first place.
And then people actually start living it. Who has ever been in a room full of women actually boasting about how bad their maths skills are, presumably because it somehow asserts their femininity? Likewise with men claiming not to understand anything but the clearest of entirely verbal cues. Most people who don't happen to be completely useless in the areas in which the patriarchy tells them they're supposed to be completely useless suppress their strengths. I was the only girl out of 25 in my A level maths class, and everybody at school thought I was a lesbian. Not because I displayed any 'dykeish' behaviour but because the only possible explanation for my greater aptitude for maths and science than humanities was that I was a raving carpet-muncher. Apparently heterosexual girls just didn't do maths.
Even when people genuinely want to be good at things that don't correlate with their gender roles, it's difficult. Society has been shaping their self-image since they were tiny children. Most women really do think that they can't read maps. Most men really do think that they're insensitive slobs. In some cases this is true and that's fine. But it's not fine that millions of people find it difficult to fulfil their potential because we all feel the need to pigeonhole each other.
Extracts from this book appear in The Guardian. I was going to provide lots of choice quotes, but it's all so fascinating, insightful and comprehensive that I felt like quoting all of it, so you'll just have to read it for yourself. The basic premise is, women don't talk more than men - just more than the patriarchy would like them to. This is what I've always suspected and it's great to see it in print.
This table presents a realistic picture of what scientific research has actually discovered about the differences between men and women, where 'd' is the value of overall gender difference: minus values indicate that women are ahead of men and plus values indicate that men are ahead of women. As Cameron points out, the only reputable studies that have revealed significant differences between the sexes have measured athletic prowess and aggressiveness, at which men outperformed women. In other words, this is what you would expect from differences in muscle mass and testosterone levels, with little or nothing to do with the manner in which male and female brains are 'wired up'.
Of course, the stereotype of the grunting, knuckle-dragging buffoon is pretty insulting to men:
The literature of Mars and Venus, in both the self-help and popular science genres, is remarkably patronising towards men. They come off as bullies, petulant toddlers; or Neanderthals sulking in their caves. One (male) contributor to this catalogue of stereotypes goes so far as to call his book If Men Could Talk. A book called If Women Could Think would be instantly denounced; why do men put up with books that put them on a par with Lassie or Skippy the Bush Kangaroo ("Hey, wait a minute - I think he's trying to tell us something!")?
From The Guardian
An unfortunate side-effect of these patronising gender stereotypes however is that they can excuse loutish, petulant behaviour in men. As Cameron explains, this can have serious consequences:
Cameron cites one rape trial in Canada in the 1990s where the female complainant is asked: “Did it occur to you through the persistent behaviour that maybe your signals were not coming across loud and clear”, while the male complainant states simply: “She said that she was tired but she never said like ‘no’, ‘stop’, ‘don’t’.”
Cameron argues that both men and women are perfectly capable of understanding what a woman saying ‘I’m tired’ and feigning unconsciousness means, but no one thinks to ask why the defendant is being so obtuse. The complainant, on the other hand, is roasted for not being direct enough. The myth of Mars and Venus bolsters a great escape route for the defendant: miscommunication.
From The Times
So, big up to the Deborah Cameron massive. But the one major beef I have with all of this is that nobody seems to be tackling the commonly-held belief, often backed up in the same manner by dodgy sensationalist 'studies', that women can't read maps and have poor sense of direction and spatial awareness. If Cameron manages to debunk the myth that men are useless neanderthals who can't communicate but people continue to believe that women can't navigate their arse from their elbow, we could end up in a nasty situation whereby we swap rigid, equal-but-different gender stereotypes for perceived male superiority. Perhaps there's another book in the pipeline. I hope so.
There's plenty of evidence to suggest that all of these differences between the sexes are minute, with far more variation between people regardless of gender than between the genders themselves. But as Cameron explains, "A book called Men and Women Understand Each Other Pretty Well Most of the Time isn’t going to sell too many copies, is it?”
Alas, Deborah, you've hit the nail on the head. Newspapers, magazines, books and documentaries don't tell you the truth. They tell you what you want to hear. And people want to hear that women can't read maps and men need to be more 'in touch with their feelings', whatever that means. I work in the media. I know how this works. You go for the most exciting stories, which doesn't necessarily correlate with the most accurate representation of what's actually going on. And if someone's produced a bollocks study, for example, deciding that the female love of pink is genetically hardwired by asking 208 people what their favourite colours are, this is the sort of thing that readers will salivate over. The media ignores the thousands of other, more reputable studies that prove that there's not much difference between the sexes because it's not what the readers want. That's not what sells papers or improves viewing figures. Nobody wants to read that women are capable of parallel parking or that men are capable of picking up their own dirty socks. Actual news is a different matter, but when it comes to features and fluff pieces, most people want to read nice, comforting drivel that confirms their own opinions, which of course were formed by such drivel in the first place.
And then people actually start living it. Who has ever been in a room full of women actually boasting about how bad their maths skills are, presumably because it somehow asserts their femininity? Likewise with men claiming not to understand anything but the clearest of entirely verbal cues. Most people who don't happen to be completely useless in the areas in which the patriarchy tells them they're supposed to be completely useless suppress their strengths. I was the only girl out of 25 in my A level maths class, and everybody at school thought I was a lesbian. Not because I displayed any 'dykeish' behaviour but because the only possible explanation for my greater aptitude for maths and science than humanities was that I was a raving carpet-muncher. Apparently heterosexual girls just didn't do maths.
Even when people genuinely want to be good at things that don't correlate with their gender roles, it's difficult. Society has been shaping their self-image since they were tiny children. Most women really do think that they can't read maps. Most men really do think that they're insensitive slobs. In some cases this is true and that's fine. But it's not fine that millions of people find it difficult to fulfil their potential because we all feel the need to pigeonhole each other.
Sunday, 8 April 2007
Math is hard!
Today I've been thinking about an acquaintance of mine. This girl has lots of lovely redeeming features, but something that really annoys me about her is her stubborn refusal to admit to any competence in anything traditionally "male".
A while ago, she asked me to show her how to use basic HTML tags (and we really are talking basic here - just line breaks and stuff). She sat at her desk sporting a rabbit-in-headlights expression, repeating phrases such as "Oh no, I really don't understand this" "I'm so useless with computers" rather than actually concentrating and making any real effort to learn how to do it for herself. The same goes for anything maths related, anything computer related, anything vaguely logical, carrying heavy things*... It may come as no surprise that this girl irons her boyfriend's shirts. (Actually, I used to iron my last boyfriend's shirts. But only because I was better at it than him. And he used to make me breakfast whilst I was doing it.)
This is the case for quite a lot of women. They assert their femininity by refusing to become proficient in "male" activities, as if coding their own HTML will magically turn them into a fat ugly cow. Women are not supposed to be good at certain things. There is a long list of skills that women are not allowed to have. This is just what I can think of off the top of my head:
Arithmetic
Computer programming
Parallel parking
Calculus
Wiring plugs
Assembling flat pack furniture
HTML
Reading maps
On average, women are slightly worse at these sorts of activities than men. On average, women are better at language and communication, and have better empathy. But what you never ever get told when bollocks newspapers report on all these bollocks surveys that for some reason scientists manage to get funding for is firstly that these differences between men and women are tiny and probably attributable to differences in upbringing rather than brain chemistry, and secondly that there is massively more variation between people regardless of gender than there is between the genders themselves. Bottom line is, we're all different. Some talents and shortcomings might have a greater bias towards one gender than the other, but if you happen to be good at parallel parking this does not make you any less of a girl. You wouldn't regard a considerate man with a wide vocabulary a poofter. A man has nothing to fear by excelling in anything to which he puts his mind. A woman is regarded as unattractive for being good at the wrong things. I myself was repeatedly accused of being a "lezzer" at school because I took maths and physics A levels. Nobody would have batted an eyelid had it been English and history, but nor would they have batted an eyelid had a boy taken these subjects.
Because women are all too happy to perpetuate this myth that they are incapable of adding up because it makes them feel more "feminine", men are all too happy simply to go along with it, seeing as it asserts their superiority. You don't see men bemoaning their narrow vocabulary for example, making a show of asking women for help in writing letters. Attention is not drawn to male "shortcomings" in the same way. Therefore we have an image of men as competent in everything, including "female" activities, but of women as incompetent in these traditionally "male" fields. We have a general culture of inferiority perpetuated by social conditioning that tells girls that math is hard and that they'd better not grow up to become a computer programmer or else they'll be a greasy-haired freak in NHS glasses playing World of Warcraft at three in the morning and never getting laid, ever.
And then of course, there's the fact that at school, more value is placed on the "male" maths and science subjects - they are regarded as more difficult than "female" arts or humanities. If you subscribe to this theory, then check this out. It's an online version of the entrance exams that Cambridge admissions tutors are using to put potential undergraduates through their paces these days. I don't know about you, but I sailed through the maths/spatial awareness/data analysis type questions to the extent to which I wondered if they were trick questions, whilst really, genuinely struggling with most of the more humanities-biased questions.
Anyway, bottom line is, unless you are genuinely bad at something and genuinely want help with it, do it yourself, because you are just as competent as a man. And if you're so unsure of your gender that you feel the need to bemoan that math is hard, just take a look in your pants.
* Actually, I do think that as a general rule, men should help women carry heavy things. It's good manners. There's no shame in accepting that men have more brute strength than women. I was however none too impressed by the man who once offered to help me (an attractive nineteen-year-old at the time) carry my bags with which I was clearly having no trouble, ignoring the fat old lady next to me who was struggling with hers. That is not chivalry.
HTML Copyright The Urban Feminist 2007
A while ago, she asked me to show her how to use basic HTML tags (and we really are talking basic here - just line breaks and stuff). She sat at her desk sporting a rabbit-in-headlights expression, repeating phrases such as "Oh no, I really don't understand this" "I'm so useless with computers" rather than actually concentrating and making any real effort to learn how to do it for herself. The same goes for anything maths related, anything computer related, anything vaguely logical, carrying heavy things*... It may come as no surprise that this girl irons her boyfriend's shirts. (Actually, I used to iron my last boyfriend's shirts. But only because I was better at it than him. And he used to make me breakfast whilst I was doing it.)
This is the case for quite a lot of women. They assert their femininity by refusing to become proficient in "male" activities, as if coding their own HTML will magically turn them into a fat ugly cow. Women are not supposed to be good at certain things. There is a long list of skills that women are not allowed to have. This is just what I can think of off the top of my head:
Arithmetic
Computer programming
Parallel parking
Calculus
Wiring plugs
Assembling flat pack furniture
HTML
Reading maps
On average, women are slightly worse at these sorts of activities than men. On average, women are better at language and communication, and have better empathy. But what you never ever get told when bollocks newspapers report on all these bollocks surveys that for some reason scientists manage to get funding for is firstly that these differences between men and women are tiny and probably attributable to differences in upbringing rather than brain chemistry, and secondly that there is massively more variation between people regardless of gender than there is between the genders themselves. Bottom line is, we're all different. Some talents and shortcomings might have a greater bias towards one gender than the other, but if you happen to be good at parallel parking this does not make you any less of a girl. You wouldn't regard a considerate man with a wide vocabulary a poofter. A man has nothing to fear by excelling in anything to which he puts his mind. A woman is regarded as unattractive for being good at the wrong things. I myself was repeatedly accused of being a "lezzer" at school because I took maths and physics A levels. Nobody would have batted an eyelid had it been English and history, but nor would they have batted an eyelid had a boy taken these subjects.
Because women are all too happy to perpetuate this myth that they are incapable of adding up because it makes them feel more "feminine", men are all too happy simply to go along with it, seeing as it asserts their superiority. You don't see men bemoaning their narrow vocabulary for example, making a show of asking women for help in writing letters. Attention is not drawn to male "shortcomings" in the same way. Therefore we have an image of men as competent in everything, including "female" activities, but of women as incompetent in these traditionally "male" fields. We have a general culture of inferiority perpetuated by social conditioning that tells girls that math is hard and that they'd better not grow up to become a computer programmer or else they'll be a greasy-haired freak in NHS glasses playing World of Warcraft at three in the morning and never getting laid, ever.
And then of course, there's the fact that at school, more value is placed on the "male" maths and science subjects - they are regarded as more difficult than "female" arts or humanities. If you subscribe to this theory, then check this out. It's an online version of the entrance exams that Cambridge admissions tutors are using to put potential undergraduates through their paces these days. I don't know about you, but I sailed through the maths/spatial awareness/data analysis type questions to the extent to which I wondered if they were trick questions, whilst really, genuinely struggling with most of the more humanities-biased questions.
Anyway, bottom line is, unless you are genuinely bad at something and genuinely want help with it, do it yourself, because you are just as competent as a man. And if you're so unsure of your gender that you feel the need to bemoan that math is hard, just take a look in your pants.
* Actually, I do think that as a general rule, men should help women carry heavy things. It's good manners. There's no shame in accepting that men have more brute strength than women. I was however none too impressed by the man who once offered to help me (an attractive nineteen-year-old at the time) carry my bags with which I was clearly having no trouble, ignoring the fat old lady next to me who was struggling with hers. That is not chivalry.
HTML Copyright The Urban Feminist 2007
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