Told reading tests are a game, boys score higher • Hacker News Board

Re: Told reading tests are a game, boys score higher

#191

Post by kaitai » Wed, May 11, 2016, 3:11 AM UTC

devishard wrote: post #124

kaitai wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When investigating the intersection of unconscious attitudes (often shaped by culture) and performance, gender is more relevant than sex. It's not whether you have this equipment or that but what groups you are perceived to belong to and what groups you see yourself as belonging to. In some cultures there are third genders with different cultural expectations: the Hijra in India, Kathoey in Thailand, some other group…

> When investigating the intersection of unconscious attitudes (often shaped by culture) and performance, gender is more relevant than sex. This is a very broad statement which is trivial to prove false. Look at powerlifting: men perform better than women, and testosterone plays a well-understood role in this performance. This is a function of sex, not gender. And while it's most numerically provable and obvious in p…

I would disagree, actually. I am a woman who loves powerlifting, actually, and I think that the attitudes of many women in the United States toward lifting heavy things renders them less likely to actually do it. Many women believe they'll bulk up, they'll be unwomanly, men won't like them, women won't like them, it's ok to be physically weak as a woman because you can always get a guy to open the jar/lift the box. As a result, these women don't try to lift heavy things and when you ask them why, they say, "I can't! I am just not good at it." I'm a relatively small woman who got up to a 220-lb deadlift without much effort -- I know active helplessness when I see it.

Re: Told reading tests are a game, boys score higher

#192

Post by devishard » Thu, May 12, 2016, 3:11 PM UTC

groovy2shoes wrote: post #185

devishard wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When investigating the intersection of unconscious attitudes (often shaped by culture) and performance, gender is more relevant than sex. This is a very broad statement which is trivial to prove false. Look at powerlifting: men perform better than women, and testosterone plays a well-understood role in this performance. This is a function of sex, not gender. And while it's most numerically provable and obvious in p…

> Are we to claim that ovaries and testicles are sex, and the brain and pituitary is gender? That about sums up the usual definitions, yes.

Why make that distinction when they are fundamentally interconnected?

Re: Told reading tests are a game, boys score higher

#193

Post by devishard » Thu, May 12, 2016, 3:33 PM UTC

kaitai wrote: post #191

devishard wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When investigating the intersection of unconscious attitudes (often shaped by culture) and performance, gender is more relevant than sex. This is a very broad statement which is trivial to prove false. Look at powerlifting: men perform better than women, and testosterone plays a well-understood role in this performance. This is a function of sex, not gender. And while it's most numerically provable and obvious in p…

I would disagree, actually. I am a woman who loves powerlifting, actually, and I think that the attitudes of many women in the United States toward lifting heavy things renders them less likely to actually do it. Many women believe they'll bulk up, they'll be unwomanly, men won't like them, women won't like them, it's ok to be physically weak as a woman because you can always get a guy to open the jar/lift the box. A…

But if those attitudes changed, it wouldn't mean that suddenly women would be able to deadlift as much as men.

Take a look at this chart: http://www.exrx.net/Testing/WeightLifting/DeadliftStandards....

Your deadlift of 220lbs puts you in the "Advanced" category assuming your body weight is somewhere in the middle. By comparison, I'm deadlifting 360lbs at 185lbs, and that's not even close to "Advanced", I'm well within the "Intermediate" category. For me to be considered advanced, I would have to lift 440lbs, literally twice what you're lifting. That's not a difference explained by psychology.

Besides, we can easily remove the factor you're talking about: there are plenty of sports which don't have the social factors you're describing. There are tons of women who run, for example. In the 60 meter dash, the top male performer, Maurice Greene, finished in 6.39s, more than half a second faster than the top female performer, Irina Privalova, at 6.92s. A half second might not seem like a lot, but consider that Privalova's time wouldn't place her even in the top 25 of male atheletes. [1] Similarly, Paula Radcliffe's 2:15:25 marathon record doesn't wouldn't put her even in the top 10 (I suspect there are hundreds of men whose personal record beats her time, but Wikipedia only shows the top 10).[2]

Do you really think Irina Privalova or Paula Radcliffe is just being actively helpless?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/60_metres#Top_25_performers [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marathon#All-time_top_ten_athl...

Re: Told reading tests are a game, boys score higher

#194

Post by groovy2shoes » Sat, May 14, 2016, 8:37 AM UTC

devishard wrote: post #192

groovy2shoes wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are we to claim that ovaries and testicles are sex, and the brain and pituitary is gender? That about sums up the usual definitions, yes.

Why make that distinction when they are fundamentally interconnected?

The point is that they're not fundamentally interconnected. The current line of thinking among transgendered people is that their sex is not appropriate for their gender, regardless of what the chromosomes say. I.e., their genital profile and secondary sex characteristics ("ovaries and testicles") do not exhibit the same sexual mode as their identity ("brain and pituitary", though in many cases likely just "brain").