1/- So, I’m not close to as smart as you or some of your followers, but the whole biological gender difference thing interests me. From what I understand, there are certain personality traits that on average are more common in women and vice versa. Ex: Women on average are higher
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2/- in agreeableness. What I think you’re saying is that despite average gender differences, it’s a possibly pernicious way of determining how a “man” or “woman” should behave, because despite averages, there are always exceptions and individualistic qualities that need to be
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3/- considered. Even if there are biological differences, it’s not as simple as bunching people up into one category or another. Am I close at all?
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Yes, exactly. The best way to understand this is to think of height differences. The average British woman is 5 ft 5 & the average British man is 5 ft 9. That's a tiny difference - 4 inches - and its smaller than the range of normal heights within each sex & there is much overlap
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But even tho the difference is tiny and we all know women who are taller than the average man and men who are shorter than the average woman, it's significant. We notice it. I'm 5 ft 9 & people remark that I'm tall which they wouldn't if I were a man.
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No-one says 'You can't be 5 ft 9. You're a woman.' That would be ridiculous. But some might say 'You can't be an engineer. You're a woman.' That would be wrong, ethically & factually, & this is overwhelmingly accepted now. Nevertheless, most ppl of 5ft 9 & most engineers are men
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I think ‘essentialism’ is a bad concept myself, in that it smuggles in an assumption that there is nothing beyond immediate appearance; that is the ‘ism’ is a pejorative attached to the essence/appearance distinction. (Making no claims about gender here.)
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I'm not sure I follow.
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My fault, I’m sure. IMHO: Mostly the arguments against biological essentialism as explanation for gender difference are good. But...
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... the concept of essentialism is bad. All reason is about moving from appearance to essence (with caveats). I.e. not taking first impressions uncritically. Deconstructionists (and others) argue this is a false move, which they call ‘essentialism’.
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I know the concept of biological essentialism is often misused. In fact, I think I only hear it in contexts where it is misused. When sex differences are being denied.
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Moderate differences in means between populations leads to big differences in relative ratios in the tails.
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Yes, I try to explain this by comparing to height. There's only 7% difference in average height differences between men and women and many women who are taller than the average man but nearly everyone who hits their head on a beam six foot off the ground will be a man.
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The distinction is in the distribution.
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Yes, absolutely. In the same way a woman of 5 ft 9 strikes us as tall although this is the average for men & very many women are 5 ft 9 and a man of 5 ft strikes us as short although this is average for women & many men are 5 ft 5. We notice norms & variations on them.
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Distinct and overlapping aren’t in contradiction if we have slightly different averages on specific traits. Unless you’re using “distinct” in a restrictive, mathematical sense.
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Distinct as in separate from each other, yes. A list of male traits and a list of female ones.
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Not many but I seem to get a lot of them. They mostly claim that men are built for specific roles and women for other specific roles due to differences in nature. The one today is claiming that women are liberal & men conservative.
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Way more men will be interested in engineering and way more women in nursing?
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