Those who have come from Pz's blog, aka THAT thread

[cogwheel]

Wait, I'm supposed to be doing sit-ups too?

[Coito ergo sum]

I'm not sure what you're talking about, actually. I haven't said there aren't gender differences. I have said that I don't see them as "problems" to be solved. Maybe that is where some of us differ.

Ah, forget it. These questions were directed to everyone, not just you, so...

I was just answering the question.

I'll just see if there's anyone who see some ideas they want to kick around with me.

I didn't kick around ideas? I mean, most of what I wrote was directly responsive to your question, I thought.

By the by, I think having good rote memorization skills is pretty crucial to learning. But then, I always enjoyed the challenge of memorization.

I agree. I always wondered about that when folks would scoff at tests and schooling as indicative of smarts or education. Some folks say, "oh, that's just memorization..." Well....errr... yeah...a good portion of knowing about stuff is remembering what they are....

Hey - Hades - I think you're great, and I didn't mean to come across in a bad way, if I did. I really was trying to answer your question head on. If you thought I was being a dick or something, I really didn't mean it.

[laklak]

I'm sorry CES, an apology just isn't enough! BY the order of this court, you are to be taken from here to a Walmart parking lot where you will be shoved into a 40 gallon galvanized garbage can. You will read Brownmiller's "Men, Women and Rape" while Sister Sledge's "We Are Family" is blasted at 140 db until you decide you truly do love Big Sister.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I'm sorry CES, an apology just isn't enough! BY the order of this court, you are to be taken from here to a Walmart parking lot where you will be shoved into a 40 gallon galvanized garbage can. You will read Brownmiller's "Men, Women and Rape" while Sister Sledge's "We Are Family" is blasted at 140 db until you decide you truly do love Big Sister.

Playing Sister Sledge was a "signal" when I was in Puerto Rico, the WAVES used to use it to nudge-nudge-wink-wink.

[Coito ergo sum]

I think you might have missed a point I made earlier to Coito, about how these gender norms influence boys and men as much as girls and women.

I think it's pretty clear that culture/environment/upbringing influences children and effects them throughout their lives. I, for one, never suggested that there weren't gender norms, or that they don't influence boys, girls, men, women, etc.

I have a picture book my mother-in-law gave me, that I refuse to read to Sprog because the big joke in the end is that Daddy burns the spaghetti and has to order in pizza. Why would I want to teach my son that men are bumbling fools in the kitchen? Who does that help? Besides, his dad like to cook.

Some men are bumbling fools in the kitchen, though, and that book is only one book. Maybe the next book is about a daddy as a master chef.

This shit is weird.

But as for preferences, yeah, isn't it possible your friend's daughter was born loving pink? Where the hell would something like that come from? Where is the "I like pink" gene? And if there is one, does it travel with other genes? Or is it some other kind of functionality entirely-- eyesight, or taste, or when she first got her first pink thing?

I don't believe anyone has identified a pink gene. But, what I suspect is that there may be genetic predispositions that lead men and women to behave differently in some circumstances. For example, I think there is some evidence out there that male brains and female brains do function differently, generally speaking. Is it possible that this different functionality leads to the fact that maybe women like to say, "shop" more than men?

I mean - I'm not suggesting I have the right answer -- I'm kicking this around. Like, I go to the mall and I see that 80% of it is geared toward women. Women buy far more stuff than men, shoes, clothes, all sorts of stuff. Nick nacks around the house -- home decor -- everything, top to bottom, is "womanly" stuff. Isn't it? Why? Is it purely culture/environment? How did that come to be? Certainly, if one were to assume a misogynistic, paternalistic, patriarchal society (like the Skepchicks do) how could it possibly have arisen in the culture that womanly consumer goods are so overwhelmingly represented in the retail sales industry?

My nephew loved cars before he could talk. Actually, his first word was "Volvo." Where the hell did that come from? Can you really be taught to like cars before you're a year old?Puzzling, I agree.

But then, why couldn't you be? You learn to do all this other amazing crap in that time.

I don't know. But I find it all really interesting.

Me too. I know it "seems" like little boys and little girls gravitate to different things. Little girls seem to like girly stuff, and little boys seem to like boyishy stuff, and it doesn't seem as if one can force it either way.

Can it be that certain innate traits -- say "competitiveness" in boys might be slightly, marginally higher than it is in girls? This could then extrapolate out into why sports and "playing war" has so traditionally been the province of boys, and why little boy activities so often result in games of skill with winners and losers, whereas many little girl activities have involved playing together without as much of the competitive element?

Now -- I'm not saying that women never like competitive things, and aren't competitive. I'm talking about perhaps -- perhaps - kicking it around - a slight marginally higher degree of competitiveness in boys -- maybe it's part of the brain functioning, where males evolved in a certain way that helped survival rates. Whereas females did not develop quite as much that way, because other traits developed just a bit more in them which also increased survival rates?

Believe me - I know women can be competitive and they like sports. I just saw a good portion of the USA v France Olympic soccer game and those ladies are awesome. So, don't take what I'm writing as any sort of a knock. I am sincerely trying to kick this around, as you indicated you wanted to do.

[Coito ergo sum]

I'm sorry CES, an apology just isn't enough! BY the order of this court, you are to be taken from here to a Walmart parking lot where you will be shoved into a 40 gallon galvanized garbage can. You will read Brownmiller's "Men, Women and Rape" while Sister Sledge's "We Are Family" is blasted at 140 db until you decide you truly do love Big Sister.

Playing Sister Sledge was a "signal" when I was in Puerto Rico, the WAVES used to use it to nudge-nudge-wink-wink.

Weren't you in the Navy? I thought your "signal" songs were "Young Man" and "In the Navy" by the Village People....

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I'm sorry CES, an apology just isn't enough! BY the order of this court, you are to be taken from here to a Walmart parking lot where you will be shoved into a 40 gallon galvanized garbage can. You will read Brownmiller's "Men, Women and Rape" while Sister Sledge's "We Are Family" is blasted at 140 db until you decide you truly do love Big Sister.

Playing Sister Sledge was a "signal" when I was in Puerto Rico, the WAVES used to use it to nudge-nudge-wink-wink.

Weren't you in the Navy? I thought your "signal" songs were "Young Man" and "In the Navy" by the Village People....

Next time, read the post, then reply.

[Coito ergo sum]

I'm sorry CES, an apology just isn't enough! BY the order of this court, you are to be taken from here to a Walmart parking lot where you will be shoved into a 40 gallon galvanized garbage can. You will read Brownmiller's "Men, Women and Rape" while Sister Sledge's "We Are Family" is blasted at 140 db until you decide you truly do love Big Sister.

Playing Sister Sledge was a "signal" when I was in Puerto Rico, the WAVES used to use it to nudge-nudge-wink-wink.

Weren't you in the Navy? I thought your "signal" songs were "Young Man" and "In the Navy" by the Village People....

Next time, read the post, then reply.

That is far too limiting of a practice.

[lordpasternack]

Any group of at least four guys who get together socially and don't make the occasional (non-violent) joke about women ought to turn in their testicles.

Does that mean misogyny is inevitable? Maybe, if one always wants to call it that. But when a group of women get together and the conversation turns to the subject of men, what are some of the words we have for that?

To be honest, I'm a bit dismayed to read this. A man needs to hand in his testicles if he fails to jest about women? Really? That's actually kinda sad… 'Real Men' tell stupid jokes about women!

And for what it's worth - I really DON'T make jokes about men with any kind of regularity. And yes, some of the things I hear other women saying about men are petty and stupid, and sometimes embarrassing and shameful - especially to me, being raised as I was with just my dad and elder brother in the house - and until fairly recently being an aunt only to two nephews. (The reunion with my half-brother gained me a half-niece last year, with another born this year.)

I meant it quite jovially. It's a way of saying that making a quip or even a joke about the opposite sex is a perfectly normal thing and does not imply any degree of bigotry, including misogyny.

Well, fair deuce. It was the remark that they'd have to "hand in their balls", if they didn't engage in whatever the supposed fun and games were...

I'll also remark generally that I was quite privileged as a kid, in the fact that I was a tomboy, and was allowed to be a tomboy, and never felt that I was treated any differently at any stage due to my gender. From the ages of about 6 till 17/18 I don't think I owned or wore a single dress.

I think it's important to recognise my family's nonchalance to that as a privilege - because I've since heard of a fair handful of cases (mostly from Americans, funnily enough), of girls who felt very real pressure to conform to certain notions of femininity, or who were bullied at school for appearing 'boyish' (in the same way that boys are sometimes bullied for being 'nancies' or 'pansies'), and told by their parents and others that it was their problem for making themselves stand out.

And sometimes society does have a way of making their expectations for specific groups of people known. It's only happened to me a few times - but I do remember specifically my General Chemistry lecturer back in 1st year once made an off-hand quip to me, around the start of the semester, in response to something I'd said or done, that perhaps I'd be better off doing a Humanities degree. I seethed over that - and while I can't tell if it was specifically because I'm female that he came out with that, I can't help but feel that it was a factor. (And as it happens, I turned out to be one of the best in the class - and as the semester progressed, he actually found himself asking the head of department on more than one occasion if there was anything on my records about Asperger Syndrome. )

Conversely, I've also heard stories of strongly ideological feminists who have daughters who turn out to passionate about make-up, and pink stuff, and glitter, and dolls - and they try to 'deprogram' their daughters to little avail, and cause similar antagonism in the process.

Oh, and one last thing - I was buying my 7yo nephew some fiction at Christmas, and I really wanted to find a version of Alice In Wonderland suitable to his reading ability - because I think it's a 'fairytale' that actually has an interesting and thought-provoking plot, which isn't completely saturated with tropes - but all I could find were versions of the story in compilations of 'Stories for Girls'...

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I'm sorry CES, an apology just isn't enough! BY the order of this court, you are to be taken from here to a Walmart parking lot where you will be shoved into a 40 gallon galvanized garbage can. You will read Brownmiller's "Men, Women and Rape" while Sister Sledge's "We Are Family" is blasted at 140 db until you decide you truly do love Big Sister.

Playing Sister Sledge was a "signal" when I was in Puerto Rico, the WAVES used to use it to nudge-nudge-wink-wink.

Weren't you in the Navy? I thought your "signal" songs were "Young Man" and "In the Navy" by the Village People....

Next time, read the post, then reply.

That is far too limiting of a practice.

I agree. Do carry on.

[Bella Fortuna]

In case anyone actually wanted this to die down and get back to more constructive things... sorry to say, he's keeping it going. http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/ ... -the-smug/

[Ian]

What's there to keep going? Are some people still (*gasp*) OFFENDED? Boo hoo.

I'm not going to deign to look at the PZ-land mob scene again, so perhaps someone could write a summary?

[Bella Fortuna]

We haven't realised how horrible we all are and prostrated ourselves begging on the altar of Pharyngulation, at least not to the Witchfinder General's satisfaction.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

How long do you think we can keep them chewing the carpet? Not too much longer, I hope, I got rapin' to do.

[Ian]

I think they should all be made to stare at Coito's signature for an hour.