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Old 05-12-2003, 04:44 PM   #41
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Furthermore, to say that we don't have sufficient evidence on something is not the same as saying that it must not be true.
Its not sufficient evidence... its *NO* evidence, plus considerable evidence to the contrary.

Gender Dysphoria- In intersexuals who were "fixed", in transsexuals, in the John/Joan case, etc. If male and female were identical, if gender in some form didn't exist, THIS COULDN'T HAPPEN. But it does.

Hormones- They affect the mind as much as the rest of the body. Proven.
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Old 05-13-2003, 01:55 AM   #42
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No, you've missed the point, Phyrro. People who claim that there are no biological differences between males and females make this claim based entirely upon the premise that there can be no differences between the sexes because that would validate sexism (in their opinion) and sexism is wrong, so therefore there can be no differences between the sexes. The funny part is the irony of you then adding your own sexist message to the end.

The fact that intersexed children who have had surgery to 'fix' ambiguous genetalia often end up thinking of themselves as males, despite the fact they have been raised to be female shows that sex has a biological basis.

You claim that "The first thing to observe is that “intersexual infants” are likely to be treated differently than ordinary children, with some parents feeling that their children are freaks". I entirely disagree with this fact. They have been made to look male, their parents have been told they are male, and their parents have told everyone else this too. There is no evidence that they have been treated as anything other than a normal girl, let alone as a freak by their parents.

Also, clearly males and females have different genitals, different sizes, different body shapes and so on. These are obvious biological differences between men and women, and yet you think that it is not possible for men and women to have any biologically based behavioural differences.

If behaviour is known to depend at least partly on brain structure, and brain structure is determined by genes, is it so hard to believe that the genetic differences between men and women can cause biological differences between them, rather than relying on spurious 'social causes'?

Can't you see that men and women can be different while still being equally good?
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Old 05-13-2003, 04:11 PM   #43
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I was thinking about this last night and I came up with another point.

It is obvious that in many species sex is determined purely by biology, because these species have no complex, verbal society at all. With no society there is nothing left to assign gender roles to males and females except biology.

And yet Pyrrho would have us believe that as soon as humans evolved, any biological influences on gender magically disappeared and were replaced by society's influence. I find that a bit hard to swallow.

It is true that society does have some effect on differences between the sexes, and in other cases society may exaggerate biological differences that are already present, but to claim outright that biology has absolutely no influence on gender seems a bit far-fetched to me.
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Old 05-13-2003, 09:41 PM   #44
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Default politics at last

Goober's insight is quite as valuable as Dr. Retard's (both above). I like to look at gender as a political term rather than biological or social in its purview.
A horrifying fact that I learnt just 2 days ago: in Mau district of my state (in India), girls (mainly living in rural areas) dont get to drink milk!. And not just milk-- butter, cheese, milk products in general are all forbidden. Add to that the fact that most of these girls are vegetarian, and you have a nutritionist's nightmare.
I locate this phenomenon within the ambit of "gender." There is no reason for these humans to abstain from milk (barring allergies and dislikes, of course) apart from a gender difference b/w girls and boys.
To state my argument formally:
(ahem!)
Gender is the political position taken by individual humans and their associations living in social groups; in response to behaviour patterns arising out of percieved or physical differences between these humans (or their associations) and the rest of the social group.

-amit
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Old 05-14-2003, 12:58 AM   #45
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That sounds totally bizarre. Why on earth would they have that???
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Old 05-14-2003, 06:55 AM   #46
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Originally posted by Amit Misra
girls (mainly living in rural areas) dont get to drink milk!.
Oh no - where are they going to get calcium? Please tell me they take calcium supplements, or eat lots and lots of vegetables with calcium in it. Girls need more calcium then boys - that *is* a biological difference, and one we shouldn't take lightly because of risks of osteoporosis.

Religion - gotta love how it rips every rational neuron out of people's brains. :banghead:

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Old 05-14-2003, 07:41 AM   #47
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Alternatively, this is a very sexist allocation of scarce resources.
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Old 05-14-2003, 07:54 AM   #48
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Alternatively, this is a very sexist allocation of scarce resources.
But still an irrational one - men have bigger bone masses to start with, don't go through menopause, so they have a less likelihood of getting osteoporosis.

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Old 05-16-2003, 02:27 PM   #49
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Goober asks how we would be the only instinct-less species. However, we do differ from nearly all the species on our planet in being able to do a large amount of learning. Only a few other present-day species come close, like chimps.

Consider the case of language. It is a human universal, possessed by all who can acquire it. However, individual languages differ drastically.

They use the same range of speech sounds, but different languages and dialects use different selections from them, and when one learns one selection, it can be difficult to learn another, thus accents.

Only a tiny fraction of words are sound-symbolism words, and even these are often variable. And one has to learn at least a couple thousand words in order to be reasonably competent in a language.

Though there are some universal categories of grammar, like noun-like and verb-like words and most sentences having a subject, a verb, and an object, how they are handled differs dramatically.

English and many other languages prefer subject-verb-object, while subject-object-verb is also very common. The four other orders are less common, with object-before-subject orders being very rare.

Likewise, while English and many languages have adjectives before nouns, many others have adjectives after nouns.

Grammatical-gender categories are also variable:

None
"Natural" gender
Masculine/feminine
Common/neuter
Masculine/feminine/neuter
Some larger number of categories (Bantu languages, Chinese)

Furthermore, there is no sign of any racial or ethnic differences in language learnability -- the descendants of immigrants often speak the languages of their adopted homes fluently, even if those languages are very different from the languages of their ancestors.
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Old 05-16-2003, 05:18 PM   #50
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Originally posted by scigirl
But still an irrational one - men have bigger bone masses to start with, don't go through menopause, so they have a less likelihood of getting osteoporosis.
This raises the important question of the origin of male dominance.

This is related to why the sexes have the features that they do, and relative resource investment successfully explains many of those features in many species. Females produce larger gametes than males, and it is not surprising that among many animals, the female is larger than the male. This can cause trouble for predatory arthropods like mantids and spiders, where the male looks like potential meal for the female.

This explains why males are often competitive and females often choosy. Female birds often prefer male ones with bright colors. Such colors indicate the male is in good health and has evaded predators, despite having painted a target on himself. The relative investment can change, and that change induces a change in behavior. In certain crickets, the male produces a sperm capsule with jelly, which the female eats; when food is short, it's the females that compete and the males that become choosy.

Among social animals, males often compete for females, with the one getting to breed being the one who is best at winning fights. The females, having to invest more in their offspring than the males, do not compete as much. This makes males bigger than females in many cases. But females can also get competitive; both the alpha male and the alpha female of a wolf pack reserve to themselves the privilege of getting to breed.

Our species may well have that sort of legacy; the size differential between the sexes does seem to fit, and it may well be that men tend to crave social dominance more than women do. However, our species does have features that do not quite fit, like a tendency toward at least temporary monogamy. So it may be difficult to make a simple statement.
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