Are Gender Behaviors Learned?

[F U Clock]

I argue with my friend about this almost every time we hang out... But I always find it interesting to argue about, probably because the answer is so elusive. Are (a large part of) the ways we behave as a member of our gender learned from our society, or are they inherent in our evolution/genetics?

I don't want to say too much on the issue cause I want you guys to kick it off, but it brings up a bunch of questions, like is it okay for women to wear makeup or are they playing into their own marginalization? Same goes for dress style. Discuss damn you!

[miracle fruit]

yes and no

[AstronautClock]

I had a guy friend in primary school his favourite colour was pink and his favourtie animal a zebra. but when he got older he changed his favourite colour but not his animal!!! he studies medicine now though hes got it made pretty well.

I think stuff like clothes and what colour is gay and which one isnt and stuff is all learned through society. but things like wanting to see tits and being obsessed with the size of your dick is probably genetically.
I think the dick thing is just done to show how confident you are, its a part of something else rather than really about dicks.
its a tricky subject though but I gree with magicfruit that its a yes and no answer.

[d u m p y]

i believe both are entirely perpetrated by society and that neither are inherit. like when people still lived in caves and shit, it's not like there was a difference between what a woman did and what a man did, like what their roles were. everybody did the same shit

[Marlin Clock]

yes and no

Yeah, if there's anything I learned about behavior is that it's only really big things that you can contribute to simply genetics. You basically said all I was gonna say about epigenetics and the like.
 

In some cultures, like ancient Greece, having a large penis was seen as grotesque, hence why you'll see their statues are markedly...understated.

That might have been because of all the sodomy though.

Didn't they use giant shlong statues to ward people off or something?

[AlbinoClock]

Gender's a pretty complex subject. You've got the obvious physical aspects of gender, those being genitalia and the possession of an XY or XX chromosome, but there are also behaviors and expectations associated with gender. There are some people who possess the physical aspects of one gender but identify psychologically with the other gender, or who identify with *both* genders, or who exhibit behaviors associated with both genders while not attributing those behaviors to gender itself.

Personally, I don't think gendered behaviors are inherent to gender itself, but some of them may be partially biological. I think it's more likely that there are a range of behaviors that we've associated with gender and that we put pressure on people to restrict their behavior to that "appropriate" for their gender. So you get men who worry about not being overly feminine, closeted homosexuals, and mothers who force their daughters to play with an easy bake oven instead of a toy gun.

"Gendered" behaviors, then, are partially biological and partially social.

[F U Clock]

I guess what I get hung up on is not so much what is and isn't genetic, but how these things impact women vs. men and what is the right thing to do? Going back to the makeup thing, obviously it enhances beauty, but is it an implicitly feminine type of beauty, or is it just that because males are dominant and we want our mates to be gussied up we've had them slap on a bunch of stuff to look better?

Obviously men have also become more willing to do things to improve their appearance, but we don't go to that extra step (unless you're in a band or were in the 80's). Is this because there is a feminine beauty vs. a masculine beauty? I've met VERY few women who actually find the typical "hunk" look attractive, and actually prefer a more "feminine" looking man. Of course, female sexuality is a lot more fluid in my opinion than male.

I guess what I'm saying is if the cards were somehow flipped and women were on top o' the world, would men and women dress the same way or do the same things to look attractive as they do now because they're inherently flattering to our genders, or do we do them because of some societal tom-foolery?

[FLOUNDERMAN_CLOCK]

Since we're on the subject of  male genitalia someone explain to me why this is an ancient and cherished part of japanese culture

[F U Clock]

Neither men nor women should wear makeup, but men shouldn't be so insecure about skin care. Actual healthy skin is better than paint, and washing your damn face and using lotion won't turn you gay.

Here's my big issue with that:



I'd rather wear makeup myself than have to live in a world where I DON'T want to bang Kim Kardashian.

[buttplug]

Neither men nor women should wear makeup, but men shouldn't be so insecure about skin care. Actual healthy skin is better than paint, and washing your damn face and using lotion won't turn you gay.

Plenty of women enjoy wearing makeup.

[AlbinoClock]

I guess what I get hung up on is not so much what is and isn't genetic, but how these things impact women vs. men and what is the right thing to do? Going back to the makeup thing, obviously it enhances beauty, but is it an implicitly feminine type of beauty, or is it just that because males are dominant and we want our mates to be gussied up we've had them slap on a bunch of stuff to look better?

Obviously men have also become more willing to do things to improve their appearance, but we don't go to that extra step (unless you're in a band or were in the 80's). Is this because there is a feminine beauty vs. a masculine beauty? I've met VERY few women who actually find the typical "hunk" look attractive, and actually prefer a more "feminine" looking man. Of course, female sexuality is a lot more fluid in my opinion than male.

I guess what I'm saying is if the cards were somehow flipped and women were on top o' the world, would men and women dress the same way or do the same things to look attractive as they do now because they're inherently flattering to our genders, or do we do them because of some societal tom-foolery?

Well, I know part of the reason is that men tend to be more visually oriented than women when it comes to attraction. Women, generally, lean more toward fulfillment of their emotional needs. It's not cut and dry, there's overlap on either side, but it's part of why men tend to like porn and women tend to like romantic comedies.
 
What do you mean by the right thing to do, though? I'd say the right thing to do is to let people express their personalities in whatever way they feel comfortable with and to express your own shamelessly.

[AnimeClock]

I got into an argument with my friend about female wages, and he was trying to say that women are weaker and have more estrogen and so they are "naturally" predisposed to stay home and raise children. What really irks me about class generalizations is the way that people say that anything is "natural". "Natural" points to some unspecific pre-human era, that we should be striving to imitate.

In the ecological sense, Nature is championed as the antithesis of Smoke Stacks and Skyscrapers, as a vague, righteous, pure old world order. Evolution is accepted in the realm of "Natural", but never wants to acknowledge that smokestacks, skyscrapers, global warming, and atomic weapons are a natural progression from the evolution of humans. It retains the quality of multiple contradictory meanings, but doesn't have to settle on one, because the word means multiple things.

If someone needed to defend the word, they would only need to reference the positive connotations of the word. They can get away with this because someone can choose what the word means to them. However the word is never destroyed, so the other connotations are denied, but the connotations don't necessarily disappear. The mythical quality of the word is retained.

The word "natural" is just a really sneaky absolute. It is often used in conjunction with loose scientific observations and an implied structure of order in the universe to justify a stereotype. More often than not these scientific observations are more readily observed, because the stereotype already exists.

e.g. Black people tend to have bigger dicks. This stereotype is perpetuated and considered safe to use because it does not carry an overt negative connotation in our culture. Even if it can be scientifically proven, the constant mention and celebration of this specific attribute carries an insidious subnarrative involving other stereotypes that black people are wild and sexually promiscuous.

Coming back to women, finally.: Even if aspects about woman's sexuality and weakness and emotionality can be proved by science, the people who ruminate upon those aspects tend to have an ulterior prejudice against women that they are seeking to validate through "nature".

[AlbinoClock]

If you're talking about the wage gap, Anime, that's mostly accounted for by women choosing to sacrifice their career in order to have children. Women who do choose to focus on advancing their careers instead of having children often make more than men. It's a factor men don't really have to deal with because they can't get pregnant or nurse. Once you factor that in the wage gap more or less disappears. If women didn't have a tendency to take time off, to take shorter hours, and to take more flexible jobs, it wouldn't exist at all.
 
What I find more interesting is that women are under-represented in all the professions with the highest work-related death rates.

But yeah, sexism in either direction is some bullshit.

[MentosClock]

At the risk of over-generalization I will say yes, all gender behaviour is learned. But my opinion may be skewed because I learned everything I know about gender from a sociology course, and sociologists don't like thinking about genetics.

is it okay for women to wear makeup or are they playing into their own marginalization? Same goes for dress style.

Yes, it is okay! A lot of feminists seem to think that the best way to fight gendered oppression is to completely avoid adhering to gender roles: make-up, for example, is considered feminine, so if women want the same respect that men get then they should stop doing girly things like wearing make-up. I think this is misguided. Oppression is being told what you can and can't do, so if women are told not to wear make-up because it makes them bad feminists then they are still being oppressed. I think a girly girl who wears make-up and skirts can be just as good a feminist as one who avoids adhering to that gender construct. Feminism is about attaining equality, and men and women don't need to act the same in order to be treated as equals.
Also, when they criticize female gender traits such as wearing make-up without criticizing male gender traits, it seems to imply that the way men act is the ideal way to act, which isn't the case. After all, men tend to be more violent than women, while compassion is often considered a female trait. So, in some cases, men should be encouraged to adopt more feminine traits rather than the other way around.

I don't want gender roles to be eliminated entirely, though, because gender is fun. I am imagining a world of complete androgyny, where there is no difference between male and female fashion and culture, and this world seems boring. Don't get me wrong, I like androgyny as much as the next David Bowie fan, but would it really be as cool if everyone did it?

So, instead of eliminating gender roles, I think that they should just be made more flexible. Women shouldn't feel like they have to wear make-up, but they should feel that its okay to continue doing so if they please. Men should also feel free to wear make-up if they so desire! Gender roles should exist as guide-lines, showing possible ways that people can act depending on their sex, but people should be able ignore these guidelines if they don't like them. Basically, people should do whatever they want.

[AnimeClock]

I like everything FU is saying

If you're talking about the wage gap, Anime, that's mostly accounted for by women choosing to sacrifice their career in order to have children.

But it's less often that men have to choose whether or not to make this sacrifice.

Women who do choose to focus on advancing their careers instead of having children often make more than men.

Still, those women have to work much harder than men to get to that point because A) They have to first escape the cultural standard that women should have children and take care of them, B) They have to compete with men under predominantly male bosses.

It's a factor men don't really have to deal with because they can't get pregnant or nurse. Once you factor that in the wage gap more or less disappears.

I don't agree with that equation. Maybe I'm talking about more than just the wage gap.

If women didn't have a tendency to take time off, to take shorter hours, and to take more flexible jobs, it wouldn't exist at all.

Sure, but this mass "tendency" is hardly an identity or character attribute. It's a series of decisions heavily pressured by cultural expectations and discrimination

What I find more interesting is that women are under-represented in all the professions with the highest work-related death rates.

That's an interesting statistic. Also supposedly 4 times more men commit suicide than women, and on the other end, more women attempt suicide. I'm not sure what it means. This factoid and other data such as women being more chemically prone to emotions points to arguments that women are inferior/are discriminated against because they aren't more like men.

But yeah, sexism in either direction is some bullshit.

Sure, I agree.

[DWARFINATORclock]

i didnt read anything you guys said but i will say a lot of research has been done on the subject google it become enlightened and ababababababab

[Thor]

AnimeClock, I've seen statistics that corroborated what AlbinoClock said. It's not a matter of females being unable to become alaskan crab fisherman or loggers; they simply don't want those jobs. I can't be arsed to find the study now though.


I think a lot of gender is actually built into humanity. While some stupid and unimportant shit like "favorite color" is obviously a cultural thing (in the early 1800s pink was considered a more masculine color and blue more feminine), other, more important things are due to our physical makeup. Men have more testosterone than women, this is indisputable. This has such effects as making men more aggressive and stronger. Males and females also have subtly different brain structure. It's not radically different, obviously, but it does effect preferences and actions in subtle ways.


I think the most accurate method of seeing what the baseline characteristics of how the sexes act is looking at gender roles across ALL cultures and looking for common occurances. Some cultures, like Native Americans and Europeans, are obviously not related to each other at all and have an extremely long amount of time to evolve and change culturally apart from each other. Even with the huge amount of distance and time to separate the cultures, some things are still true of gender roles in both; the men do the hunting. The women care for the children. The male children prefer more violent play like wrestling. Across most cultures men take up leadership positions.

In conclusion, gender roles are simply societies reflection of the nature of mankind. People who defy gender roles are just acting out against their instincts. It's not good or bad, but transgender people still give me the creeps.

[GreyClock]

Didn't they use giant shlong statues to ward people off or something?

Big dicks had a multitude of positive connotations and uses in the Greek and Roman world: to ward off the evil eye, as good luck charms and good luck totems (in front of your house), road markers (herms) and of course there was the god Priapos with his permanent monster erection. (Links contain both sculpted and painted dicks.)

[miracle fruit]

theres probably more im missing too. all of those things we do to prevent ourselves from being a slothy smelly messy ugly bag of fat and hair, because thats unattractive. none of those things that we do are natural and most of them serve no secondary purpose other than to be more attractive.

im going to go a lil off topic here but can anybody explain to me why those things arent considered natural

at what point does nature stop being nature and become this supposedly unnatural product of it instead

just look in the rainforest for one of rhose lil crunk birds that dance and rattle and do all kinds of pointless shit for a mating ritual, you think "what a beautiuful and natural little fella"

now look in a public bathroom and find a minty applying makeup, you think "what a fucking unnatural whore"

human beings are funny

[Thor]

• shower
• use soap
• brush your teeth
• use mouthwash
• shave
• clip your nails
• cut your hair
• trim your body hair (pubes)
• exercise (no more jogging/biking/cardio for the sake of doing cardio, lifting weights, yoga, etc)
• wear deodorant
• wear cologne
• wash your clothes
• even buying clothes (for the sake of having new clothes because they make you look good.)

I don't do any of this stuff and I'm doing great.

All natural baby