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Okay, okay, okay!! I looked him up....did some reading on him and read some of his material. Fabulous stuff...really fabulous stuff. In so many ways, it's like he's talking from my own heart. I was blessed with that analytical mind that much of society has tried to stereotype. It's not as if all intelligent women out there are competing with men, it's that they shouldn't HAVE to! We do know our place and it should be anywhere we want to be. That same privilege should be accorded to males as well. Stereotyping is so hurtful and limiting. It saddens me to think that a human being should have to go to such great lengths to be taken seriously though. The beauty of being a wife and mom though....is that I have 4 opportunities to change the "stereotypical woman" image. LOL
All of this is going pretty far OT, but this thread is all over the place any way, so I doubt it matters. Although, he and people like him highlight where you are correct, that it's about the individual; what the individual is bringing to the table, what s/he gives to the community.
All of this is going pretty far OT, but this thread is all over the place any way, so I doubt it matters. Although, he and people like him highlight where you are correct, that it's about the individual; what the individual is bringing to the table, what s/he gives to the community.
Thank you so much for that link. It was quite long, but I couldn't pull myself away from it. I actually read the Powerpoint presentation before I responded to your post, but the lecture was much better. Thanks for posting the link. Although OT, as you said, this thread has ended up all over the place anyway and I actually think that this was a very productive avenue, in view of the fact that we ARE involved in a "great debate". I truly hope that I am not the only person on this thread who clicked on that link.
I tried to watch the UTube video from the link on his notes earlier, but couldn't find the video. Thanks for providing this link to the Google video. Be blessed and have a great evening. I'm glad that someone is saying something.....someone in a position of authority, who has the power to reach a large audience....although, it starts with one.
I linked Ben because A. he's a great scientist. B. as a transgenered individual he has quite a bit of insight on the issue of transgenderism (sp?), since it has been brought up in this thread (wrongfully, tho). He's socially active in a range of areas. If any scientist belongs in this conversation, it's Ben. If you're interested, I have an excellent lecture he gave at Harvard on women's issues. It's pretty long, but enjoyable.
eta: be clear, this magic (and, agreed, it certainly is magic) is being wielded by a transgendered person. He does take issue with being called disordered, tho.
etaa: since you love science, and I sense a passion, perhaps you should reconsider your career path and join the fun.
Ah, did I just imagine it, or did Ben state that he suffered from gender identity in his/her younger days? I believe s/he did...right there on the lecture! LOL
I truly hope that I am not the only person on this thread who clicked on that link.
It's great that you took the time. It is 2 hours so that's probably too much of an investment for some. But, yes, it's difficult to pull away once it gets going. Ben is the one, and recently Redisca here on CD, who introduced me to the follies and blunders of evolutionary psychology. The issues that prompted Ben's article in Nature also hit close to home due to my locale in Cambridge. While that's on the table, you might be interested in the debate he referred to between Pinker and Spelke, which I will link, but I will quote one of the examples used to highlight potential consequences of bias, which lends to systemic discrimination even tho it's not overt.
"I will give you one last version of a gender-labeling study. This one hits particularly close to home. The subjects in the study were people like Steve and me: professors of psychology, who were sent some vitas to evaluate as applicants for a tenure track position. Two different vitas were used in the study. One was a vita of a walk-on-water candidate, best candidate you've ever seen, you would die to have this person on your faculty. The other vita was a middling, average vita among successful candidates. For half the professors, the name on the vita was male, for the other half the name was female. People were asked a series of questions: What do you think about this candidate's research productivity? What do you think about his or her teaching experience? And finally, Would you hire this candidate at your university?
For the walk-on-water candidate, there was no effect of gender labeling on these judgments. I think this finding supports Steve's view that we're dealing with little overt discrimination at universities. It's not as if professors see a female name on a vita and think, I don't want her. When the vita's great, everybody says great, let's hire.
What about the average successful vita, though: that is to say, the kind of vita that professors most often must evaluate? In that case, there were differences. The male was rated as having higher research productivity. These psychologists, Steve's and my colleagues, looked at the same number of publications and thought, "good productivity" when the name was male, and "less good productivity" when the name was female. Same thing for teaching experience. The very same list of courses was seen as good teaching experience when the name was male, and less good teaching experience when the name was female. In answer to the question would they hire the candidate, 70% said yes for the male, 45% for the female. If the decision were made by majority rule, the male would get hired and the female would not.
A couple other interesting things came out of this study. The effects were every bit as strong among the female respondents as among the male respondents. Men are not the culprits here. There were effects at the tenure level as well. At the tenure level, professors evaluated a very strong candidate, and almost everyone said this looked like a good case for tenure. But people were invited to express their reservations, and they came up with some very reasonable doubts. For example, "This person looks very strong, but before I agree to give her tenure I would need to know, was this her own work or the work of her adviser?" Now that's a perfectly reasonable question to ask. But what ought to give us pause is that those kinds of reservations were expressed four times more often when the name was female than when the name was male" Edge: THE SCIENCE OF GENDER AND SCIENCE
Quote:
I'm glad that someone is saying something.....someone in a position of authority, who has the power to reach a large audience....although, it starts with one.
Ah, did I just imagine it, or did Ben state that he suffered from gender identity in his/her younger days? I believe s/he did...right there on the lecture! LOL
Yes, I believe he was contending with the gender issues early on, or at least asking questions. IIRC, it surfaced clearly at the onset of puberty, tho, he makes mentions of enjoying 'boy' activities as a child.
Yes, I believe he was contending with the gender issues early on, or at least asking questions. IIRC, it surfaced clearly at the onset of puberty, tho, he makes mentions of enjoying 'boy' activities as a child.
Isn't it interesting though, the differences in human beings? You see, I was the little girl who HATED dolls.....I didn't hate being a girl, but I was not at all into "girl" toys. If If I was given a choice, and I rarely was, I was up in that tree, or had the hatchet out cutting saplings to build a fort. It was TORTURE to have to play with the girls. I wanted to play tackle football, baseball with the boys, build roads with the Tonka construction equipment. If I ever wanted to be a boy, it was ONLY because they got to do all the "fun" stuff.
As I grew into adulthood, I was heavily into softball. I wanted to be on the mens' team, but the best I could do was be on a co-ed team. However, I lived near a ball park and if I wasn't at work, I was headed for the park to see if any of the guys' teams were practicing. I got to be a regular there and learned soooooo much about playing ball. Unfortunately, so much more than I had ever learned playing with the women. They never saw me as some "chick" coming down there .... but loved having the extra person at practice. Okay, don't know why I went there.
I will look at that information on the link that you posted. It is so vital that, somehow, we get past the prejudiced attitudes and start having more faith in people.....stop seeing people from a gender perspective and view them as people. I had discussions with my father....sometimes heated....he was an old-school fella who thought boys should be boys, girls should be girls....and boys should NEVER be expected to do dishes, do laundry, make beds, etc. Girls had no business in the workshop, working construction jobs, etc. He said I was going to screw up my boys, they were going to be gay, because I was making them do "women's work". I let him know that I was raising PEOPLE!....self-sufficient PEOPLE, not boys and not girls. Sigh...... By the way..... My sons have so many female friends.....my daughter has more male friends than female..... LOL Go figure, they are what I consider to be quite normal.
Isn't it interesting though, the differences in human beings? You see, I was the little girl who HATED dolls.....I didn't hate being a girl, but I was not at all into "girl" toys. If If I was given a choice, and I rarely was, I was up in that tree, or had the hatchet out cutting saplings to build a fort. It was TORTURE to have to play with the girls. I wanted to play tackle football, baseball with the boys, build roads with the Tonka construction equipment. If I ever wanted to be a boy, it was ONLY because they got to do all the "fun" stuff.
As I grew into adulthood, I was heavily into softball. I wanted to be on the mens' team, but the best I could do was be on a co-ed team. However, I lived near a ball park and if I wasn't at work, I was headed for the park to see if any of the guys' teams were practicing. I got to be a regular there and learned soooooo much about playing ball. Unfortunately, so much more than I had ever learned playing with the women. They never saw me as some "chick" coming down there .... but loved having the extra person at practice. Okay, don't know why I went there.
I will look at that information on the link that you posted. It is so vital that, somehow, we get past the prejudiced attitudes and start having more faith in people.....stop seeing people from a gender perspective and view them as people. I had discussions with my father....sometimes heated....he was an old-school fella who thought boys should be boys, girls should be girls....and boys should NEVER be expected to do dishes, do laundry, make beds, etc. Girls had no business in the workshop, working construction jobs, etc. He said I was going to screw up my boys, they were going to be gay, because I was making them do "women's work". I let him know that I was raising PEOPLE!....self-sufficient PEOPLE, not boys and not girls. Sigh...... By the way..... My sons have so many female friends.....my daughter has more male friends than female..... LOL Go figure, they are what I consider to be quite normal.
"Traditional" attitudes and stereotypes can be so frustrating. The fact of the matter is that people aren't always going to live according to our worldviews (and in your case, your dad's worldview). My father was similar and it set him up for dissapointment, tho, he didn't harp on women's work to the same degree.
He did end up having a gay son, and to his credit, he dealt with it pretty well. He's against gay marriage, but pro civil unions, which has been a source of contention in our relationship because it's such a silly position imo. I'm not particularly close with my little brother due to our age difference, but as mentioned previously, we saw it in him when he was a child. He was always a good kid. He was a pretty conservative teen, and now he's a mellow adult.
I don't think his life is anybody's business. If he wants to get married, again, it isn't anybody's business. And I don't think he's diseased. He will be a librarian and his partner, providing they stay together, will be a physican. They can potentially have a good life and contribute. In his case, his homosexuality was not a choice, just as my heterosexuality was not my choice. OTOH, I have read some interesting articles/blogs about African American women choosing alternative lifestyles due obstacles faced in their culture. I'll have to dig that stuff up.
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