tribalypredisposed wrote:This is a huge claim, the "no innate connection" claim. And it seems to be flat-out wrong. There are universal differences in the normal range of certain behaviors which differ between the two genders. Yes, there can still be significant overlap, but the averages of certain behaviors, for example rough and tumble play, do have a strong innate component determined by gender.

tribalypredisposed wrote:The idea that there is "no innate connection" between gender and expressed behavior inherently depends on the idea that human behavior is not the product of evolution. To me this is Flat-Earth territory, since there is no scientifically sound hypothesis which can describe how our ancestors, alone of all Mammals, evolved without evolution selecting for both behaviors and structural features. Which is to say that when we look under the covers of the trendy politically-correct view that gender is purely culturally constructed we find folks who are forced to assert that humans did not evolve. When we get right down to it humans obviously are built differently physically, and this reflects different optimal fitness strategies for the two genders (as Evolutionary Psychology obsessively informs us). It is very rare, for example and for evolutionarily understandable reasons, for females to be directly involved in combat in war. So we should not be surprised that boys are far more likely to practice skills needed in combat in the form of play than girls are.

tribalypredisposed wrote:There was a recent study which I can track down if anyone cares enough that showed that belief in this idea about gender declines very sharply in the group of people who have had children. Those who are most likely to believe it are Women's Studies and Sociology academics who are childless.

tribalypredisposed wrote:Sure, again, there is variation. Some women are way more macho than me. My mother-in-law, for one. But variation is what evolution selects from, and its existence in no way disproves a role for the "innate" in a behavior. The question is whether or not a behavioral range is universal and seems to be based on evolved predispositions. There are a number of examples of these ranges differing between genders. Of course, culture can alter how these predispositions express, no one is arguing for determinism either. But the assertion that gender is a purely cultural construct and our genes have no part in creating divergent averages or ranges of behavior cannot be correct unless the Theory of Evolution is wrong.

Beatsong wrote:Everyone's on the coffee. Does thinking about gender produce a need for stimulants?

Beatsong wrote:My question is not whether such a connection exists, it's whether it is (a) purely an objective measurement by society after the fact, or (b) something which corresponds itself to some real subjective state.

The fact that we can measure things as being connected by probability of occurence, and sort them into categories of the most common connection and the less common connections, doesn't mean necessarily that the categories we so define are psychologically meaningful.

...

The categorisation into two types came about by studying the number of times that each characteristic corresponds with other characteristics in the same individual. But even if we accept that such numbers cluster highly to certain correspondences, does that mean that the overall category we invent as a "norm" has a subjectively meaningful reality all its own, outside of the reality of each characteristic taken singly?

Or is it just an artificial construct of measurement, that some people have fooled themselves into thinking is real?

Beatsong wrote:

Festeringbob wrote:the role of genes in the formulation of the mind is not properly elucidated yet, therefor at this time there is no definitive answer to your question of psychological gender being "real" or "innate" as opposed to "learnt" and "imposed", however the wonderful thing about nature is it's ineffable ability to fuck up, and as such we see all sorts of failures in biological systems which help us understand what is wrong with the damaged component (failure in the genes that are responsible for the production of melanin result in albinism for example)

particularly prudent to this case is the existence of gender identity disorder, which appears to be a failure in some mechanism that allows the mind to assume the correct psychological role, whilst no one as yet knows why this happens, it begs the question, how can this happen if gender is learnt?

How can there be a "correct psychological role" outside of society's judgment about what is "correct"?

"Correct" is not a description of innate reality, it's a value judgment about reality. The vast majority of sheep are white. But when we see a sheep that is black, we don't call it an "incorrect sheep". A farmer may judge it as being incorrect for his purposes, but that is an entirely different matter. In terms of innate reality, there are simply correspondences between things that happen often (like the other aspects of "sheepdom" and whiteness) and ones that happen less often.

Similarly, if a person is born with a penis, a total dislike of all sports and a deep desire to nurture young children (even supposing that we can know such things are "inborn"), what makes the correspondence between those physical and psychological factors "incorrect"? How can that be anything other than society's judgment that such things ought to correspond differently? And what is society's justification for that judgment?

Isn't there aa wierd kind of "is/ought" problem here? A leap from the observation that certain sets of characteristics cluster together the majority of the time, to a judgment that they ought to cluster together the rest of the time as well?

The issues with gender identity disorder are not a result of a conflict between the person's "natural" state and their "misfiring" resultant state. It's a conflict between society's beliefs about how sex and gender should be interchangeable, and the fact that some people's gender doesn't fall neatly in this pigeon hole. I'm not aware of the figures on GID, but I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't largely a problem in Western countries where there are strict expectations on how you should behave, whereas in other cultures there is a more realistic understanding of the variation in human behavior. In Samoa, for example, there is "male", "female" and a third option: Fa'afafine. This is when boys with clearly feminine behaviors (so males identifying with a feminine gender) are identified at an early age and essentially raised as females. Here I would imagine a very low level of GID since there is no room for mental distress as they are accepted as part of society.

Obviously gender as a set of social constructs is as "real" as any other set of social constructs. ie, not objectively real at all, but real in the sense that society chooses to operate that way and in doing so, has real effects upon peoples' lives.

But I think what I'm referring to here is gender as a person's own subjective sense of "being" male or female, or "identifying" with male or female gender roles.

I'm going to start from the position that this concept is not real: it doesn't describe any actual psychological reality (in most people, at least), that can't be adequately described by other factors.

As far as I can tell, the factors that contribute to a person's sense of identity in relation to sex, are:

1. Their biological sex

2. Their sexuality

3. Their interests

4. Their interaction with social expectations about how these factors go together.

The concept of "gender" only seems to arise where there is a severe conflict between any of the first three of these factors, and the fourth one. A biological male who happens to be homosexual will have to fight against homophobes who insist on the expectation that men "should" want to have sex with women. A young girl who happens to like playing rough games will be called a "tomboy" and, later, probably be suspected of being gay, simply because her interests don't coincide with what society says they "ought" to be. In extreme cases, a young child can form a transgender identity and insist that they are the opposite of everything people tell them they "should" be.

But the problem with all this is that factor 4 is entirely cultural and arbitratry. There is no innate connection between biological sex and certain interests, or contradiction between it and other interests. Since these social expectations are not "real" - they are not rooted in anything to do with physical or innate psychological reality - the idea of "gender" that emerges from them cannot be real either. It is simply a way of describing the interaction between the real elements of a person's body and psychology, and social expectation.

Anecdotally, I have never known young children to have a concept of their own "gender" that is separate from or additional to these elements. Small children just get on with life. If they want to play with dolls they do. If that is celebrated or discouraged because of the spurious assumptions of the adults around them, then obviously that affects how they continue in terms of seeking reward from their environment.

The one exception to this seems to be transgender children, who develop the sense that they "are" the opposite sex from their bodies, largely out of extreme conflicts between their personality or interests and social expectations (ie, factors 3 and 4 above).