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

[SteveB]

The Dick to the Dawk to the PhD:

http://richarddawkins.net/articles/6465 ... t-so-angry

Why are they so angry?

[hadespussercats]

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.

All right, from the top-- you admit that there are gender roles, you've never claimed different-- you see how they influence people throughout their lives--
but you don't see how they might be confining to people who don't fit one way or another? You must see that there are many people who don't perfectly fit these societal norms-- if the gender roles are from nature, why so many misfits? Why the shifts in roles from culture to culture, or in one culture over time?

* As for that book MIL gave me-- it was pretty clear that the depiction wasn't just one man out of a wide array of men with different skills. It was more like all these commercials that show wise moms nodding their head knowingly and then giving a little "you know what I'm talking about" giggle while their husbands act retarded. Do you know the sort of thing I'm talking about?

Plus, the book was all about teaching kids to say they're sorry, and the things they were supposed to apologize for was shit like "coloring outside the lines." I'm not inflicting MIL's Olympic levels of uptight passive aggression on my helpless infant.

* I wonder about genetic predispositions, too, though I imagine if they exist, they would be a spectrum, not a point, in terms of skills proficiency. For instance, my husband and I have tested roughly equivalent IQ-wise, if you give any heft to that sort of thing. I outscored him on the SATs by a small amount, but when you look at our scores, while they were generally high across the board for both of us, his math score was higher and my verbal score was higher (his math score was quite a bit higher than mine, but my verbal score was higher than either of his.)

This is what you'd expect, if you believe certain notions about sex-related differences in the brain.

And I have a hard time remembering numbers. It's weird-- phone numbers, street numbers, social security numbers, all that. J has no problem with it.

But I remember whole conversations we had when we were nineteen, word for word.

But couldn't it just be that we are two people who happen to fit into a mythical norm regarding sex and analytical skills?

Furthermore, how much does that difference have to matter? Like I said, I did quite well in my math classes in school. I just had to find ways to write things down or make little graphs so I could keep the numbers in my head long enough to work with them. Which were coping methods I had to figure out on my own-- as long as you get good grades, teachers don't seem to care if you're struggling more than you usually do.

And, while mozg has made clear that expectations didn't affect her path through learning, is it unreasonable to wonder that the expectation the girls probably won't enjoy math might become a self-fulfilling prophesy?

Finally, what do these people who don't fit into the norms illustrate in terms of where these norms originate and what they mean?

* As for shopping, even stereotypically speaking men love to shop. They just shop for different things-- music, stereo equipment, instruments, computer stuff, cars, motorcycles, bikes, and related fun stuff for souping those vehicles up, boats, fishing tackle, hunting and camping supplies, beer and liquor, porn--
etc. etc.

But I will point out that when it comes to clothes shopping, stereotypically speaking again, gay men love fashion, lesbians could care less. Same for home decor, etc., etc.

So is this behavior related to sex, or gender, or both-- and how?

I think it's important also to point out that behaviors that may have originated in a patriarchal society might be perpetuated by members of a society that is more egalitarian. Perpetuated by men and women both, in part unwittingly. So I think it's possible to look to patriarchy as the possible source of societal gender roles without men being "to blame" for it.

* Re boys and girls and their behavior--
I'm reminded of another thread on here somewhere where I referenced the case of the Canadian (I think) twins. Two boys. One boy's penis was destroyed by a botched circumcision. So a doctor advised the family to finish the job, as it were, and give the child a vaginoplasty and raise him as a girl. This was following a blank slate theory that gender is taught.

Turns out he spent his whole life feeling wrong, like a boy trapped in a girls body. IIRC, when he found out what happened to him, so many pieces fell into place. But I think he may have committed suicide.

I should source this.

Anyway-- this story, and my experiences with trans people, make me think that there is something about gender that is innate. How much? I'm not sure. Like I've said, I always felt like a weird warp between the two. I liked to play in the swamp and dig up grubs and people always told me I looked like a boy. So? Is that not girl behavior? I know plenty of girls who liked that sort of thing. Maybe more would have if their mothers let them get their dresses dirty. Who knows?

As for competitiveness, I don't think that's a place where the gender roles differ at all. Well, maybe in how the competitiveness traditionally gets expressed. But girls and women are just as competitive as boys and men.

I mean hey-- look at us.

[lordpasternack]

So on one side we have smug jerks who hate the idea of being progressive, but on the other, on my side, we’re quite ready to cut the troglodytes loose, and we’re quite ready to move on without them.

If this is in any way directed towards Rationalia - let me be one of many to tell it to you, PZ - you have no idea what you are talking about. Same goes for being smug and wanting a cookie for being atheistic.

Seriously PZ - you haven't the faintest understanding of the culture of this site. That's not a crime - but it would be decent if you either tried to learn a bit more, or just quit while you're ahead and stop talking bollocks about users of this forum collectively or individually. Suffice to say, Pappa's crass joke was not representative either of Pappa's personality or of the culture of this site.

This is a small, laid-back, lighthearted, closely-knit community, mostly of mutual friends, mostly of nice, smart, witty people - many of whom know each other well in real life. Conversation is usually either intelligent and thoughtful, silly and absurd, or both. We have had two marriages grow out of this forum, and a few other (transatlantic) relationships emerge. And that includes Rachel's relationship with Pappa, whom she married in February of this year - and for whom she left California to come and live in Wales.

We've also seen the deaths of two long-standing members. Their usernames are mentioned on our banner: "In memory of Tigger & Mr P". And it ain't just words either: I went to Tigger's funeral, in particular. He was a lover and confidant of mine, and one of the best friends I made, and was privileged to know. I cried real tears at his funeral. And when I returned to my hotel room in Durham in the UK, I spent over an hour on the phone with another person from the forum who couldn't make it to the funeral because their car broke down on the motorway.

And yes, I know Pappa, and I've met his kids, and he's a great dad, for what it's worth to anyone out there.

That's how 'real' this forum is... We're not just usernames, avatars, and pixels on a screen. We're not (all) anonymous figmets. We're mostly real people, who really know each other, and we're mostly actually quite nice. And we're not misogynists, or smug, or anything else. We're just fucking people, without a set agenda, who happen to be mostly atheists, and who like to discuss things here.

And I hope that at least some of that seeps through, and people stop caricaturing us grotesquely on the basis of Pappa's recent screw-up, and all the second and third-hand accounts of what has been happening, and how this site is supposedly run.

And for what it's worth - we probably have a greater presence of women here than you have at Pharyngula - many of whom felt quite comfortable in challenging Pappa about the content of his badly considered 'joke' - for which Pappa has now apologised sincerely.

We're not smug, we're not sexists, and we don't want cookies for being atheists - we're just people, and I think I speak for most when I say that all we really want is for other people to say a few more accurate things about us, and/or just fuck off and leave us alone.

Cheers.

[lordpasternack]

I'm reminded of another thread on here somewhere where I referenced the case of the Canadian (I think) twins. Two boys. One boy's penis was destroyed by a botched circumcision. So a doctor advised the family to finish the job, as it were, and give the child a vaginoplasty and raise him as a girl. This was following a blank slate theory that gender is taught.

Turns out he spent his whole life feeling wrong, like a boy trapped in a girls body. IIRC, when he found out what happened to him, so many pieces fell into place. But I think he may have committed suicide.

I should source this.

David Reimer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer

[hadespussercats]

I'm reminded of another thread on here somewhere where I referenced the case of the Canadian (I think) twins. Two boys. One boy's penis was destroyed by a botched circumcision. So a doctor advised the family to finish the job, as it were, and give the child a vaginoplasty and raise him as a girl. This was following a blank slate theory that gender is taught.

Turns out he spent his whole life feeling wrong, like a boy trapped in a girls body. IIRC, when he found out what happened to him, so many pieces fell into place. But I think he may have committed suicide.

I should source this.

David Reimer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer

Thanks, lp. you're the best.

[Pensioner]

So on one side we have smug jerks who hate the idea of being progressive, but on the other, on my side, we’re quite ready to cut the troglodytes loose, and we’re quite ready to move on without them.

If this is in any way directed towards Rationalia - let me be one of many to tell it to you, PZ - you have no idea what you are talking about. Same goes for being smug and wanting a cookie for being atheistic.

Seriously PZ - you haven't the faintest understanding of the culture of this site. That's not a crime - but it would be decent if you either tried to learn a bit more, or just quit while you're ahead and stop talking bollocks about users of this forum collectively or individually. Suffice to say, Pappa's crass joke was not representative either of Pappa's personality or of the culture of this site.

This is a small, laid-back, lighthearted, closely-knit community, mostly of mutual friends, mostly of nice, smart, witty people - many of whom know each other well in real life. Conversation is usually either intelligent and thoughtful, silly and absurd, or both. We have had two marriages grow out of this

forum, and a few other (transatlantic) relationships emerge. And that includes Rachel's relationship with Pappa, whom she married in February of this year - and for whom she left California to come and live in Wales.

We've also seen the deaths of two long-standing members. Their usernames are mentioned on our banner: "In memory of Tigger & Mr P". And it ain't just words either: I went to Tigger's funeral, in particular. He was a lover and confidant of mine, and one of the best friends I made, and was privileged to know. I cried real tears at his funeral. And when I returned to my hotel room in Durham in the UK, I spent over an hour on the phone with another person from the forum who couldn't make it to the funeral because their car broke down on the motorway.

And yes, I know Pappa, and I've met his kids, and he's a great dad, for what it's worth to anyone out there.

That's how 'real' this forum is... We're not just usernames, avatars, and pixels on a screen. We're not (all) anonymous figmets. We're mostly real people, who really know each other, and we're mostly actually quite nice. And we're not misogynists, or smug, or anything else. We're just fucking people, without a set agenda, who happen to be mostly atheists, and who like to discuss things here.

And I hope that at least some of that seeps through, and people stop caricaturing us grotesquely on the basis of Pappa's recent screw-up, and all the second and third-hand accounts of what has been happening, and how this site is supposedly run.

And for what it's worth - we probably have a greater presence of women here than you have at Pharyngula - many of whom felt quite comfortable in challenging Pappa about the content of his badly considered 'joke' - for which Pappa has now apologised sincerely.

We're not smug, we're not sexists, and we don't want cookies for being atheists - we're just people, and I think I speak for most when I say that all we really want is for other people to say a few more accurate things about us, and/or just fuck off and leave us alone.

Cheers.

Well said indeed , and I second the fuck off.

[lordpasternack]

I'm reminded of another thread on here somewhere where I referenced the case of the Canadian (I think) twins. Two boys. One boy's penis was destroyed by a botched circumcision. So a doctor advised the family to finish the job, as it were, and give the child a vaginoplasty and raise him as a girl. This was following a blank slate theory that gender is taught.

Turns out he spent his whole life feeling wrong, like a boy trapped in a girls body. IIRC, when he found out what happened to him, so many pieces fell into place. But I think he may have committed suicide.

I should source this.

David Reimer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer

Thanks, lp. you're the best.

Come on - it's circumcision-related trivia...

And I would also add - to other people 'out there' - that I fully appreciate that Skepchicks don't appreciate being reduced to pixels on a screen, bytes travelling along a fiberoptic cable, virtual identities, or strange apparitions on the end of an internet connection somewhere either. They're all real people too - with all the richness, complexity, weirdness, irritance, joy and everything else that that entails. I don't want to turn this point into another petty game of Tu Quoque...

[hadespussercats]

I'm reminded of another thread on here somewhere where I referenced the case of the Canadian (I think) twins. Two boys. One boy's penis was destroyed by a botched circumcision. So a doctor advised the family to finish the job, as it were, and give the child a vaginoplasty and raise him as a girl. This was following a blank slate theory that gender is taught.

Turns out he spent his whole life feeling wrong, like a boy trapped in a girls body. IIRC, when he found out what happened to him, so many pieces fell into place. But I think he may have committed suicide.

I should source this.

David Reimer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer

Thanks, lp. you're the best.

Come on - it's circumcision-related trivia...

That story was an important nugget of an idea en route to us leaving our boy intact. GAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

[Rum]

Well said LP.

[cogwheel]

Come on - it's circumcision-related trivia...

Yeah you'd think I would be the one to have come up with that link given my heritage

[lordpasternack]

Come on - it's circumcision-related trivia...

Yeah you'd think I would be the one to have come up with that link given my heritage

And for all those who don't yet know: Cogwheel is the grandson of Marilyn Milos - the founder of NOCIRC.

Small world...

[Robert_S]

I like the direction this thread is going.

That is all.

For now

[Mousy]

Haven't read this thread through yet, but I occasionally search for Tigger and his name came up here. For anyone unfamiliar with Rationalia and who wants to know, Tigger is my Dad. I have had more support than I could have ever thought possible from the people on Rationalia. To some, we're just a bunch of like-minded atheists on an internet forum. To me, the community here comprises my Dad's close friends and my close friends, some of whom were kind enough to drive to my hometown and hug me at his funeral, and all of whom have provided me with incredible support.

[Ian]

LP and Mousy - two contenders for Post of the Day.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Haven't read this thread through yet, but I occasionally search for Tigger and his name came up here. For anyone unfamiliar with Rationalia and who wants to know, Tigger is my Dad. I have had more support than I could have ever thought possible from the people on Rationalia. To some, we're just a bunch of like-minded atheists on an internet forum. To me, the community here comprises my Dad's close friends and my close friends, some of whom were kind enough to drive to my hometown and hug me at his funeral, and all of whom have provided me with incredible support.

We miss the Tig. And he would have been proud of you, my dear.