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Don't dumb girls down

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Re: Don't dumb girls down

#181

Post by civilian »

rimantas wrote: post #119
ErrantX wrote: post #49

I was musing on this the other day (beware; anecdote alert!). I went out for some drinks with a friend of mine from a long time ago - he is certainly not the sharpest of individuals, but a laugh and good fun in small doses (even if a lot of the jokes include farts :S). For some reason he is also constantly surrounded by very attractive women. I've seen him out and about before and thought "I'd like to have some of th…

You know, one of the two things from the lecture about education I had some 17 years ago which still stuck is this: Pay more attention to girls. Men will behave they way women let them to.

Check your quote's grammar? It doesn't make sense to me. :-/

Re: Don't dumb girls down

#182

Post by Duff »

bigfudge wrote: post #165
Duff wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, and it's an equally massive leap to say "OMG! Little girls want to be reality TV stars instead of !" and assume that this is some sort of problem driven by sexism. The folks who deal in this controversy have a vested interest to keep it controversial. Don't hold your breath for rational explanation.

How is your comment relevant to the OP? How does she demonstrate an interest in controversy?

The original article referenced is promoting a book by Ms. Bloom called "Think: Straight Talk for Women to Stay Smart in a Dumbed-Down World".

I have not read this book, but the publishers description of the book is on Amazon.com's listing.

Here's a snippet: "In this provocative, entertaining, educational, and thoroughly researched book, Lisa outlines the ways that we as a society, and particularly women, have fallen off the intellectual path, and, very specifically, points to how damaging this has been to us on many levels. Lisa shows us the fallout--but she also provides the solutions for "Reclaiming the Brain God Gave You" and seizing back control of your mind and your life. Think is delivered in a no-nonsense manner that will make you laugh, make you question yourself, make you squirm, but, most important, make you start thinking again."

Ms. Bloom believes that women live in a world of "stark paradox" and wrote a provocative book to talk about it and encourages readers to think. That implicitly says to the world "This book is controversial", as controversy and paradox are generally what make us think.

That's not to say that controversy is bad. But you're not going to reach a rational conclusion until a consensus driven by generally-accepted fact is reached.

Re: Don't dumb girls down

#183

Post by Tichy »

kamaal wrote: post #138
Duff wrote: post #121

Great, another whiny article about the poor, maligned girls doomed to a future of breast enhancement and cellulite cream thanks to misogny. The article is a troll, here to elicit an emotional response that will sell a book. Enter the strawman: "In my book, Think: Straight Talk for Women to Stay Smart in a Dumbed-Down World, I reveal that 15 to 18 per cent of under-12 girls in the United States now wear mascara, eyeli…

This is worth thinking over. I think a lot of boys do aspire the adrenaline rush professions. But if they don't end up being one, do they now resign from their whole lives and just go saying the social persuasions to be such, destroyed their whole lives? There is always going to be a social persuasion for nearly everything. They way we eat, dress, talk nearly anything people can see, people can pass a comment on. And…

"why should we expect a guy to work late in the night, come on weekends, push hard deadlines and a girl is given all options to leave early?"

Well, to put it drastically: biologically men are almost worthless. They can not produce babies. Hence women can make higher demands. Men have to bid for women (to carry their children) offering as much "worth" as they can. Nobody has to bid for men, because men are easily replaceable. Especially now that physical strength is not so important for survival anymore (we have guns).

In many species the female actually eats the male after sex for a nice protein boost. That is how useful men are.

Re: Don't dumb girls down

#184

Post by ap22213 »

klenwell wrote: post #176
JonnieCache wrote: post #75

To all the people in this thread who seem so absolutely sure that the gender differences are strictly biological, do you fancy telling us what exactly makes you so sure? Last time I checked there was no evidence to support this idea. Obviously there are easily observed physiological differences in brain structure and in the endocrine system etc, however it is a massive leap to go from that to asserting that observed…

I agree it's easy (and fun!) to oversimplify gender differences as a function of biology. But basic parental investment has always seemed a convincing hard limit to me. The Bateman Principle sort of sums it up, though reading the Wikipedia page shows it's more complicated than common sense might dictate (as you should expect): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bateman%27s_principle It's not as clear-cut as Bateman thought…

I think it's ironic that in a forum called 'hacker news' I can view perspectives on this topic that are convinced by 'hard limits' on Human ability by extrapolating theories of general animal biology. As if the whole realm of Human invention and innovation should be discarded, because we weren't supposed to go beyond our original biological limits.

Luckily, Humans have invented physical and cultural hacks to deal with the biological costs of child-rearing. Many types of family structures, economic structures, languages, social establishments, and physical creations have been invented to help us reproduce. In fact, Humans couldn't even exist as they do today, with their big heads, if it weren't for those original hackers.

As Humans go, where there's a will there's a way. And, that generally seems to be the implied rule on this forum. But, for some reason, when it comes to gender, we're willing to sacrifice 50% of our population by using language that demonstrably reduces probability of success.

The point is: we should be encouraging all children to never assume that hard limits exist, especially when based on incomplete information. And, even when hard limits are reached, there is always another way around.

Re: Don't dumb girls down

#185

Post by JonnieCache »

Alex3917 wrote: post #150
JonnieCache wrote: post #75

To all the people in this thread who seem so absolutely sure that the gender differences are strictly biological, do you fancy telling us what exactly makes you so sure? Last time I checked there was no evidence to support this idea. Obviously there are easily observed physiological differences in brain structure and in the endocrine system etc, however it is a massive leap to go from that to asserting that observed…

"To all the people in this thread who seem so absolutely sure that the gender differences are strictly biological, do you fancy telling us what exactly makes you so sure?" I don't believe gender differences are strictly biological, but I think the balance of evidence points to biology being a factor: 1) The differences in the prevalence of neurodevelopmental disorders. E.g. .1% of women are diagnoses with autism, vs…

"neural nets can be strengthened like any other muscle, especially if there is social encouragement pushing in one direction or the other."

This is exactly what I'm talking about. Just like everything else in the world of human beings, we are seeing mutual feedback between society and genetics, which flows in both directions and is impossible to separate.

Like I said in my other comment, I am not arguing that biology isn't a factor. On the contrary, I am arguing that biology and society both play mutually reinforcing roles, the problems begin when people start trying to paint behaviour as an immutable product of predefined genetic destiny, and then using this to support political stances that promote their own status in society.

Re: Don't dumb girls down

#186

Post by JonnieCache »

loup-vaillant wrote: post #170
Alex3917 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"To all the people in this thread who seem so absolutely sure that the gender differences are strictly biological, do you fancy telling us what exactly makes you so sure?" I don't believe gender differences are strictly biological, but I think the balance of evidence points to biology being a factor: 1) The differences in the prevalence of neurodevelopmental disorders. E.g. .1% of women are diagnoses with autism, vs…

> 5.4% of girls and 14.1% of boys age 11 - 17 have been diagnosed with ADHD. Wait what ?! How did we manage to have a disorder that affects nearly 10% teenagers? There must be something odd with either the school system or the term "disorder" itself, because otherwise, such a flaw would likely have been filtered out of the gene pool. I wonder which it is. (Same remark for learning "disabilities" by the way, though I'…

We have many ways of defining [ab]normality in human physiology and behaviour. Statistical abnormality, what you are using in your comment, is just one, and it alone is insufficient: if we only relied on statistical abnormality, maths geniuses would be just as in need of treatment as those with downs syndrome!

So, we must consider other factors, such as distress, social norms, and maladaptivity. Obviously these bring their own attendant set of intractable ethical problems. Such is the lot of the medical practitioner.

See https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Abnormality_(...

Re: Don't dumb girls down

#187

Post by rmc »

onemoreact wrote: post #146
rmc wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

when nearly every culture in the world seems to have pretty much the same sort of normative ideas about men and women. You're saying Saudi Arabia is like USA now? Have you even watched the TV show Mad Men? 1960s USA was different from 2000s USA.

Sorry, same sort of normative ideas + Reductio ad absurdum = what you said. Clearly, there are cultural differences. However, name one country that’s military is made up of significantly more women than men. Far more women in the US go to college today than men do, go back 50 years and the ratios was very different. So clearly cultural norms change, yet there is less cultural diversity than you would expect if biolog…

There has been loads of cultural change, even in the USA. For example, it's no longer accepted that all women really want is to have kids & raise a family. (There are several instances of this in Mad Men, from Betty Draper's psych issues at the start) This change is due to 'second wave feminisim', have a look at this book which covers it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Feminine_Mystique . To think that all that has is the ratios in university is ignoring attitudes, which did change.

Yes, women are not the largest ratio of militaries, however the attitude to women in military has change. Today people would balk at the idea of putting 5 years in the military, we think they should be protected, and being in the military would harm them. This used to be the attitude to women in the military.

Attitudes have changed.

Re: Don't dumb girls down

#188

Post by rhygar »

The amount of ignorance and misogyny in here is staggering. Have any of you ever actually talked to a woman? I'll boil down the argument into one that favors women:

Men are biologically programmed to be violent. We should find it as no surprise that the vast majority of violent criminals are men. After all, it's their biology. And thus all men should be regarded as likely violent in the right circumstances. Also we should not trust men to care for small children, because they have no idea what they are doing since they lack the biological drive for child-rearing.

Re: Don't dumb girls down

#189

Post by GeneTraylor »

kamaal wrote: post #60
wgren wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Human biology is not that quick to change. No, but a lot of things with regards to our current expected behaviour of genders is in fact social, not biological. A lot of 18th century male behaviour would today be regarded as effeminate. Red was once the color of choice for baby boys, and blue for girls. >Artificially boosting the career success of women just causes misery on the long run for men Hang on, did anyone p…

Hang on, did anyone propose affirmative action here or something? All the blog talked about was trying to praise girls for their smarts rather than their looks. If this is enough to cause misery for you, I think you have self-esteem issues. Sorry the blog talked silently about a lot of things, which squarely put the blame on people for a lot of mistakes which girls make personally. I appreciate my nephew all the time…

It's not about the attribute itself, but affirmation along that attribute.

It's the same conundrum facing parents of gifted kids, praising innate ability vs. hard work backfires in a spectacular way sooner or later and the child stops taking risks because they are afraid of being dumb.

Re: Don't dumb girls down

#190

Post by barrkel »

JulianMorrison wrote: post #166
rdtsc wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To convince yourself of the opposite of one fact you are suggesting -- that endocrine system doesn't play a major role in behavior, try administering yourself testosterone shots (ok don't actually do it (!) this is just for the argument's sake). You'll notice how you'll start feeling more agressive. You might start behaving more aggressively. If you stop after a while you might look back and even say something like "…

From Wikipedia: "In adulthood, it is clear that testosterone is not related to any consistent methods of measuring aggression on personality scales, but several studies of the concentration of blood testosterone of convicted male criminals who committed violent crimes compared to males without a criminal record or who committed non-aggressive crimes revealed in most cases that men who were judged aggressive/dominant…

The aggression / arrogance / etc. (in my experience) comes after winning, not before (it happens in status measuring when measuring up); adrenaline comes before winning, during the contest. I don't think this circle has a simple start and end.
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