Should women not be distracted from bearing and raising children by science?

[Guest MacPhee]

I understand hnw how my statement could be easily misunderstood. Do you really think it is necessary to cite sources for the statement that the Civilization of Ancient Egypt was any different from the patriarchal-monogamous social/political system that dominated the Mesopotamian civilization and every one since, including in the New World? The word "society" really has no meaning unless it is defined in terms of the mainstream ideological system that binds the people into it. Otherwise, it means just any group larger than on individual. No mainstream society in history has been ruled by women. All historical mainstream societies have been male dominated.

 

As with all social generalizations, there are what might appear to be exceptions. In this case, late in the life cycle of a civilization, women do rarely and temporarily gain some authority. (There are good reasons for this, but that is another subject.) The example of Cleopatra is good one. By that time the Roman Emperors set her up to rule the polytheistic religion of Egypt was swiftly being replaced by Christianity. And wasn't she part of the Potelimic or Greek Hellenist secular belief system that helped glue together the Roman Empire? All such woman rulers exercize their authority only by adhereing to only male set rules, limitations and customs.

 

In a matriarchal society, female public opinion would dominate and form a different type of society. I studied some of the few and small surviving matriarchal-type societies of India. I also studied first hand the society and long-houses of the Minangyabau of Sumatra. In them, each high status women owned her own bedroom in their common longhouse and a man could sleep in one only upon her invitation. The bedrooms were small. (I only looked in, was not invited in!)

 

It was not so much that they were dominated by female rulers but that public opinion, customs, rules etc. were all formed and sustained by the public opinion of the women.

 

The woman is biologically programmed to give birth to children. Then look after them, while they're growing up. So her thoughts must rightly be focussed on this essential task.

 

She ought not to be diverted from it, by outward distractions. Like wondering what the stars are. Such ruminations are a male preserve. Which explains why Science is dominated by men. They have the spare time to think about such esoteric things. They don't have to breast-feed the kids.

 

This must, essentially, be true. Otherwise, how do you explain why there are so few successful women scientists. Why don't women win as many Nobel Prizes, as men?

 

And - to get back to the point of the OP- history can show no female equivalents of Napoleon, Lenin, Stalin and Hitler. Leading their societies to horrible oppression, war and ruin.

 

Could be that women are more likeable, on the whole, than men. More peaceful, less inclined to violent excesses.

 

So any nascent, gentle, woman-led society, would be quickly be expunged by neighbouring male-led Romans, Goths and Huns. So would never get written about much, in the history books. Historians, who are mostly men, like violent men-led societies. Because they make more exciting reading.

 

I can't quote any sources for this idea. But doesn't it sound, somehow, right?

[Qfwfq]

She ought not to be diverted from it, by outward distractions. Like wondering what the stars are. Such ruminations are a male preserve. Which explains why Science is dominated by men. They have the spare time to think about such esoteric things. They don't have to breast-feed the kids.

So then, confine them to looking after the kids, don't let them do the guy stuff and then justify this with the fact that so few of them are doing the guy stuff. Of course there's also the fact that it's the guys that's got the balls.

 

In hunter-gatherer tribes, guys hunted and gals gathered. This was quite a natural division due to the reproductive roles and it's why they think it must have been the girls that learned how to cultivate plants. When tribes were growing crops and raising livestock, they needed to call the land their own and hence the concept of private property. Defending it was more like hunting than gathering, so guys were the soldiers. Tribes that only hunted and gathered saw no difference between this and looting, hence they got called savages and had to be exterminated, the lazy bums. But they said there's no such thing as land being mine or yours, it was an absurd concept and so those ground tillers had to be hunted like wild game, and then of course the animals that they presumed to own without having killed them.

 

The transition to agriculture allowed a tribe to thrive on less land but more labour, even without considering defence of the land. The average working day of hunter-gatherers is said to be a couple of hours, compare that with a farming family. Still, the girls typically had to do the domestic stuff as well as helping in the fields. This was mainly a matter of obedience, guys still had the balls and, as well as the heavier tasks, they could still boss the girls around more than vice versa. So there came to be much less time for discussing how many angels can stand on a pinpoint, but in a farm there was certainly even less time for the girls to do it. Previously all had plenty of time to goof around and tell stories, yet already it was the guys that had the balls.

 

Nowadays, after the transition from agrarian to industrial and then to technological society, what basis is there for distinct roles? Genetic differences remain but they seem to be even decreasing a bit. Guys have less balls and girls have more of them, they're not less hysterical but guys are a bit more so. There's less cause of disparity in decision making and in young generations you often can't tell them apart.

[Guest MacPhee]

Nowadays, after the transition from agrarian to industrial and then to technological society, what basis is there for distinct roles?

 

A good point. The answer is, there's probabably not much rational basis - in 2011.

 

But don't we have to consider the long time evolution takes, to change the behaviour of a species.

 

Our species, Homo Sapiens, has been around for - 200,000 years? Something like that.

 

And we only developed agrarian society about 10,000 years ago. And an industrial society less than 400 years ago - if we regard steam-engines as marking the start of industrialism. The first proper steam engines, started groaning up and down in the early 18th century. As for "technological" society - is that defined as the introduction of devices like the electric telegraph, radio, radar, television, photography, motion pictures, sound recording, steamships, submarines, railways, motorcars, aeroplanes, spacerockets, Earth satellites, nuclear reactors/bombs, and so on?

 

If so, the most generous estimate for how long we've had a technological society would be - less than 200 years!

 

And 200 years represents what, 7 generations? As compared to the 7,000 generations Hom Sap has been around!

 

Can a few generations of technological society, really cause any evolutionary changes in basic human nature?

[Turtle]

...

Can a few generations of technological society, really cause any evolutionary changes in basic human nature?

 

no. society does not cause evolution; evolution causes society.

[Guest MacPhee]

no. society does not cause evolution; evolution causes society.

 

So, we didn't have a technological society in 1611. But we've got one in 2011. That's because during the 400 intervening years, we've evolved?

 

You cannot be a famous former tennis player!

[Qfwfq]

But don't we have to consider the long time evolution takes, to change the behaviour of a species.

And you don't call that a rational basis?

 

How many generations it takes depends on how girls are choosing guys. Those without balls are no longer rejected, those with excessive balls aren't nearly as sought.

[Turtle]

So, we didn't have a technological society in 1611. But we've got one in 2011. That's because during the 400 intervening years, we've evolved?

 

not quite. first, let me give you the operating definition of technology in the context of this topic.

 

technology @ free dictionary

3. Anthropology The body of knowledge available to a society that is of use in fashioning implements, practicing manual arts and skills, and extracting or collecting materials.

 

so, humans have been technological more or less from the git-go, the minor uncertainties of the date(s) of first tool and/or language use aside. it was our biological evolution that gave us the ability to form societies and share bodies of knowledge to use in fashioning implements, practising manual arts and skills, and extracting and/or collecting materials. so called "primitive" societies are no less human than so-called "advanced" societies which is to say that the genetic differences are for all practical purposes nill. while certainly interesting to investigate, the cultural differences are merely artifacts of circumstance.

 

You cannot be a famous former tennis player!

 

i have no idea what this means, but i expect that my preceding explication covers it if it is at all on topic. :shrug:

[CraigD]

The woman is biologically programmed to give birth to children. Then look after them, while they're growing up. So her thoughts must rightly be focussed on this essential task.

...

I can't quote any sources for this idea. But doesn't it sound, somehow, right?

It sounds to me, somehow, right, and also, somehow, wrong.

 

For it to sound right, I have to ignore some obvious faults with the claim “The woman is biologically programmed to give birth to children, then look after them while they're growing up.”. To support this claim scientifically, you’d have to demonstrate that child care behavior in humans is “biologically programmed”, rather than learned. For example, one might isolate a female human infant from other humans or vaguely similar animals (eg: mammals), then impregnate her, and see if she instinctively knew how to care for her child.

 

There are prohibitive ethical problems with performing such an experiment on humans, but it has been done, rarely and infamously, with non-human primate. The best know such experiments were performed by Harry Harlow in the 1970s. They showed that female monkeys raised in isolation were unable to adequately care for their own infants, being either neglectful or abusive (see http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/harlow.htm).

 

Were “looking after them” “biologically programmed” (AKA “instinctive”) rather than learned, the “motherless mother” rhesus monkeys in Harlow’s experiments should have been able to adequately care for their infants.

 

From this, we can infer that child care behavior is learned, not instinctive. A man who learns child care, say by assisting with the care of a young sibling, will likely be a better “mother”, than a woman who does not.

[Turtle]

...

The woman is biologically programmed to give birth to children. Then look after them, while they're growing up. So her thoughts must rightly be focussed on this essential task.

 

She ought not to be diverted from it, by outward distractions. Like wondering what the stars are. Such ruminations are a male preserve. Which explains why Science is dominated by men. They have the spare time to think about such esoteric things. They don't have to breast-feed the kids.

 

This must, essentially, be true. Otherwise, how do you explain why there are so few successful women scientists. Why don't women win as many Nobel Prizes, as men?

...

 

after considerable thought and some prodding i am moved to address this backward chauvinist claptrap expressed above. while it is bad enough so many men seem to hold and prosecute such views, it is inexcuseable to publish and promote it as truth. further, having decided that it is little less reprehensible to let it go unchallenged in the most vigorous and severe terms -craig's reply nothwithstanding- i call it the fig it is; a shameful, ignorant, hurtful, hateful pile of bigotted misbegotten trash which humanity can well do without. i appeal for pardon in my hesitancy in replying.

 

no doubt i have any number of additional descriptive terms & epithets i might employ, but you may well be assured they would likely bring me censure. in their stead i offer this bit of explanatory rebuttal.

 

Women in science @ wikipedia

Women teaching geometry

 

Women have made contributions and sacrifices to science from the earliest times. Like many men in science, women have received little or no distinction for their work during their lifetimes. Science is generally and historically a male-dominated field, and evidence suggests that this is due to stereotypes (e.g. science as "manly") as well as self-fulfilling prophecies.[1][2] Historians with an interest in gender and science have illuminated the scientific endeavors and accomplishments of women, the barriers they have faced, and the strategies implemented to have their work peer-reviewed and accepted. In the present, these barriers still exist as the pay and opportunities for women in science continue to be surpassed by those for men.[3][4]...

[Qfwfq]

To support this claim scientifically, you’d have to demonstrate that child care behavior in humans is “biologically programmed”, rather than learned.

It isn't quite necessary for it to be totally instinctive and not learnt at all.

 

They showed that female monkeys raised in isolation were unable to adequately care for their own infants, being either neglectful or abusive (see http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/harlow.htm).

Compare that with mother cats. They are awesome, even when they had been seperated early from their own mah.

 

Of course, the more a species is able to communicate, the more they can learn from each other, the less essential instinct becomes. That's why women can be lousy mothers, if they haven't learnt. However, there are typical psychological and personality differences between male and female homo sapiens, including those tied to reproductive roles. In the seventies, trendy folks believed in giving toys with no regard to gender, but research has shown that this isn't suitable. Baby girls pay much more attention to faces than baby boys and they take to dolls in a way boys just don't. Women are typically more apt at catching on as to what an infant needs and how it feels. Mind, some of them are still lousy, negligent and abusive mothers; it is very subjective and yes, to quite an extent a bride needs to have learnt as she grew up, playing dolls and similar games when a real baby wasn't available to her.

[Guest MacPhee]

i am moved to address this backward chauvinist claptrap expressed above. i call it the fig it is; a shameful, ignorant, hurtful, hateful pile of bigotted misbegotten trash which humanity can well do without.

 

Turtle, one thing everyone notices about some "politically correct" people, is this. As soon as their beliefs are questioned, they resort to violent, extreme, insulting, language. Like in the excerpts from your post, which I've quoted above.

 

If you think my posts are foolish, misguided, and fatuous, I've no objection to your saying so.

 

But when you describe my post as a "a shameful, ignorant, hurtful, hateful pile of bigotted misbegotten trash", I think you go too far. The use of such intemperate language, makes you sound like a foaming-at-the-mouth fanatic. :o

 

Actually, on thinking about this a bit more, I realise you were only jesting. Hopefully! :)

[JMJones0424]

MacPhee, I have tried numerous different ways to excuse the utter repulsion I feel in reading your post, and in your defense of your words. The easiest is to resort to your ignorance, for you admitted having no foundation on which to make your claims. This, however, lets you off far too easily. I am ignorant of many things, yet I do not make statements that advocate excluding approximately half of humanity from science due to their being born with mammary glands and a uterus. Far from being politically correct, Turtle was pointed. Craig and Q were politically correct, nauseatingly so.

 

If you are not personally, the post you wrote is rife with misogynistic hogwash. If it were not rooted in such a long history of true evil, claiming that women should refrain from critically examining the world around them because instead they should devote their lives to child-rearing would be comical.

 

The woman is biologically programmed to give birth to children. Then look after them, while they're growing up. So her thoughts must rightly be focussed on this essential task.

 

She ought not to be diverted from it, by outward distractions. Like wondering what the stars are. Such ruminations are a male preserve. Which explains why Science is dominated by men. They have the spare time to think about such esoteric things. They don't have to breast-feed the kids.

 

This must, essentially, be true. Otherwise, how do you explain why there are so few successful women scientists. Why don't women win as many Nobel Prizes, as men?

 

Here you make a number of assertions without even attempting to provide evidence for them, a requirement of our forums. A few claims which I would like you to provide evidence for are:

1) Because women give birth to children, they are "biologically programmed" to rear them.

2) It is, or should be, the role of all women to bear children.

3) Men need not take part in raising children and can therefore they alone can spend their time doing other things.

4) Breast-feeding takes up so much of a women's time that she need not worry herself with other matters.

5) There are few successful women scientists.

6) Women scientists are rare because they don't have time to think scientifically.

 

And then, to put the cherry on top of this wonderful demonstration of reason, you deduce that female recipients of the Nobel are rare because of all of this. Never once, in all of your chauvinistic fantasies, did you entertain the fact that there have historically been cultural and societal restrictions preventing women from excelling. Instead, you promote a "shameful, ignorant, hurtful, hateful pile of bigotted misbegotten trash which humanity can well do without."

 

This is a community. I can do nothing to exclude you and your cancerous views from the community in which you live, but as long as you post filth like that here, I can seek to exclude you from this community. After all, if we can't have "Science for Everyone", because you feel half the populace has mammary glands and should use them, dammit, I'd much rather just have "Science for Everyone but you."

[Guest MacPhee]

MacPhee, I have tried numerous different ways to excuse the utter repulsion I feel in reading your post, and in your defense of your words. The easiest is to resort to your ignorance, for you admitted having no foundation on which to make your claims. This, however, lets you off far too easily. I am ignorant of many things, yet I do not make statements that advocate excluding approximately half of humanity from science due to their being born with mammary glands and a uterus. Far from being politically correct, Turtle was pointed. Craig and Q were politically correct, nauseatingly so.

 

If you are not personally, the post you wrote is rife with misogynistic hogwash. If it were not rooted in such a long history of true evil, claiming that women should refrain from critically examining the world around them because instead they should devote their lives to child-rearing would be comical.

 

 

 

Here you make a number of assertions without even attempting to provide evidence for them, a requirement of our forums. A few claims which I would like you to provide evidence for are:

1) Because women give birth to children, they are "biologically programmed" to rear them.

2) It is, or should be, the role of all women to bear children.

3) Men need not take part in raising children and can therefore they alone can spend their time doing other things.

4) Breast-feeding takes up so much of a women's time that she need not worry herself with other matters.

5) There are few successful women scientists.

6) Women scientists are rare because they don't have time to think scientifically.

 

And then, to put the cherry on top of this wonderful demonstration of reason, you deduce that female recipients of the Nobel are rare because of all of this. Never once, in all of your chauvinistic fantasies, did you entertain the fact that there have historically been cultural and societal restrictions preventing women from excelling. Instead, you promote a "shameful, ignorant, hurtful, hateful pile of bigotted misbegotten trash which humanity can well do without."

 

This is a community. I can do nothing to exclude you and your cancerous views from the community in which you live, but as long as you post filth like that here, I can seek to exclude you from this community. After all, if we can't have "Science for Everyone", because you feel half the populace has mammary glands and should use them, dammit, I'd much rather just have "Science for Everyone but you."

 

JMJones, thanks for your long and interesting reply. I've read it carefully. But I note that in it, you're using emotive words like "cancerous" and "filth", to describe my views.

 

Why use these hateful words? Why not just say calmly, that my views are demonstrably wrong, and let that be the end of it? Why all the heated frothing?

 

It seems to me, that you've been conditioned by modern society, to react violently against anything which opposes the modern dogma: "There's no mental difference between men and women".

 

As to whether there is, in reality, a difference of mentality, I'm content to appeal to commonsense, the experience of any person with a marital partner - and the dearth of Nobel Prizes to women. You can't explain that last point by male prejudice, surely. Do you suppose there is a conspiracy to prevent women getting Nobel Prizes? The Nobel committees are stacked with male chauvinists?

 

No, IMHO, women are just not as good at science as men. Just as they're not as good at chess. Or are there cultural and societal restrictions on female chess - is the lack of women Chess Grandmasters another chauvinist conspiracy?

 

Political correctness is all very well, but get a grip!

[JMJones0424]

It does not matter to me if you are content to accept logical fallacies as appropriate reason. The forum rules require that you provide support for your assertions. Instead of doing so, you've added a few new ones to the list. Your "common sense" does not constitute support, nor is it a compelling reason for others to agree with your assertions.

 

In addition to the above listed six assertions, I'd also like to see you provide support for-

7) Women are not as good at science as men.

8) Women are not as good as men at chess.

9) The distribution of Nobel Prizes is an accurate measure of a group's ability to conduct science.

[Turtle]

Turtle, one thing everyone notices about some "politically correct" people, is this. As soon as their beliefs are questioned, they resort to violent, extreme, insulting, language. Like in the excerpts from your post, which I've quoted above.

 

If you think my posts are foolish, misguided, and fatuous, I've no objection to your saying so.

 

But when you describe my post as a "a shameful, ignorant, hurtful, hateful pile of bigotted misbegotten trash", I think you go too far. The use of such intemperate language, makes you sound like a foaming-at-the-mouth fanatic. :o

 

Actually, on thinking about this a bit more, I realise you were only jesting. Hopefully! :)

 

that you should think i am kidding is just one more indicator of your gross ignorance. that you think i am politically correct yet another. that you defend your extreme and insulting posts and continue to disregard our rules is beyond the pale and i assure you it will not last long. this pretense to politeness is a farce & i don't give a rat's *** what you object to.

[Qfwfq]

IMHO, women are just not as good at science as men. Just as they're not as good at chess.

Fortunately you made that your humble opinion, because otherwise it would be a claim and a totally unsupported one. I spent many years in the environment of a faculty of mathematical, physical and natural sciences and I can tell you that my humble opinion disagrees with yours.

 

Or are there cultural and societal restrictions on female chess - is the lack of women Chess Grandmasters another chauvinist conspiracy?

No, it shows that women go in a lot less for silly games. It takes more ego than anything else to win chess tournaments and, as already said, it's the guys that have the balls.

 

Oh BTW, we also have a rule against annoying other members and your posts are definitely bigotted, this appears to be annoying people here.

Edited December 27, 2011 by Qfwfq
dumb typo

[Guest MacPhee]

Thanks to everyone for your replies.

But I'm honestly surprised at the vehement and emotional nature, of them. Describing my views as shameful ignorant hurtful piles of cancerous trash.

Just because I think there's evidence that men may be better at Science, and Chess, than women?

 

JMJones, in post#18, asks me to provide support for my views. The support is these two already given facts:

 

1. Women do not win as many Nobel Prizes as men.

2. Women do not become Chess Grandmasters.

 

These facts must have an explanation. But - are we seriously expected to believe the explanation is that all male scientists, are rampant chauvinists. Constantly engaged in a conspiracy to prevent women scientists from winning Nobel Prizes (and Chess tournaments?) The absurdity of this belief speaks for itself.

 

The other explanation, put forward repeatedly by Qfwfq, is - "It's the guys that have the balls".

Quite what this means, is a bit obscure. Doesn't it sound rather sexist?

 

I'm really not trying to annoy anyone, just amazed how political correctness has infected scientific discussion in the US!