A Changeling Feminist?

Ding Ding Ding and Zeev is The Winner Folks and its been a great fight night tonight

So, can we bring this back to Changeling: the lost? I am really not interested in discussing with any of you the merits of feminism in the real world.

Fergurg:

So, can we bring this back to Changeling: the lost? I am really not interested in discussing with any of you the merits of feminism in the real world

I would like to take a moment and thank Zeev for the well-made posts.

I'll make this quick:

Ok, the quick versions:

1.  That's a classic example of a bad slippery slope argument.  Science is, at its core simply an observation of how the world works.  There are no natural conclusions to having that knowledge since different people will do different things with it.  As such, as I said, the important thing to be doing is to train people not to abuse knowledge.

2.  No, more neurons alone doesn't explain it, however it's simply part of the larger model that explains the differences between the two sets of brains, how they differ when observed in action, and how those differences impact everything else.  The whole 'cultural variance' thing deals with psychological tests.  It really doesn't impact what brain scans tell us.

3.  A false dichotomy doesn't have a link, that's the entire point.  It is an argument that attempts to turn two statements into mutual exclusive ones without any substance behind it.  Cultural variations in expression don't actually define differences in physiology.  Significant and impacting physiological variations are not inconsistent with cultural variations in behavior.  You're an asshole because you're being hypocritical and inconsistent.  And I said your posts demonstrated a lack of critical thinking skills.  You might have them, but that doesn't mean you used them.

4.  Before 'a couple posts up' you were talking about CtL.  You've been making claims since the start of page 3.  Also, I've been involved in this thread before this point.  Trolling and being an intellectual asshole aren't the same thing.

Zeev:

however it's simply part of the larger model that explains the differences between the two sets of brains, how they differ when observed in action, and how those differences impact everything else.

Zeev:

The whole 'cultural variance' thing deals with psychological tests.

My argument boils down to the latter bold being an instance of the former, and when the two contradict, as in the example above, there are only two safe conclusions:
1. The gendered differences between brains don't actually affect cognition at the level of providing better aptitude for emotions for women than men, or
2. The gendered differences between brains provide advantages for women's cognition of emotion, however the differences are minimal as compares to the variation and influence of culture. So while the hypothesis is true, culture is far more important for determining cognitive ability in certain areas as it pertains to gender, and the trueness of the hypothesis is useful only in a pure scientific curio sense.

Zeev:

A false dichotomy doesn't have a link, that's the entire point. 

I'm sorry, let me clarify: I'm not understanding why I have created a false dichotomy. If biology predicts a certain (psychological) trait in women and psychology proves that that trait is not significantly measurable, the two are at odds. I don't see how they can both be the case, except as per 2. above, in which case we agree.

Look, you're obviously more of an expert in biology than I am, and I have contradicted something you've learned or (which is far more likely) you have grossly misunderstood me. If you think I am wrong, and your aim is to prevent the abuse of knowledge, then why not enlighten me? You don't have to give me a course, but the internet was created for quick hyperlinking. The personal attacks are purely uncalled for and really solve nothing. Regardless of your perception of my 'deceit' I haven't stooped that low and in fact asked you to not do so. It doesn't befit someone who's supposed to be knowledgable in this subject.

ieattime20:

My argument boils down to the latter bold being an instance of the former, and when the two contradict, as in the example above, there are only two safe conclusions:

There's no basis for this assumption.  There are distinct differences between neurology and psychology.  Where are your grounds for saying one is distinctly an instance of the other?  They interrelate, but that's not what you said.

ieattime20:

1. The gendered differences between brains don't actually affect cognition at the level of providing better aptitude for emotions for women than men, or

Stop conflating 'different' with 'better.'  That's where sexism actually lies.  Sex based brain differences don't equate to superiority, because such a concept is completely subjective and situational.   By constantly acting like difference must lead to superiority, you're losing any clear sight of the situation.

ieattime20:

2. The gendered differences between brains provide advantages for women's cognition of emotion, however the differences are minimal as compares to the variation and influence of culture.

And here you're conflating processing with expression.  Which is the problem with your whole argument, you see cultural variations and correlate it to cultural influence without any casual demonstration.

You're constraining into two options based on bias, not logic.  This is evident in your qualifying of each option.  The proper dichotomy is between significant advantage and no significant advantage.  All the excess words detract from the logic at hand, not add to it, because it denies that each of the two primary options have multiple possible variations.  Once we decide that there is, or is not significant cognitive difference, then you can start to make arguments about how impacting they are. 

However, your cultural hypothesis still lacks any actual attempt to address causation versus correlation.  If women in different cultures have significantly similar brain structures to the point of eliminating genetic drift as a variable, simply stating that there are cultural differences in psychological expression cannot logically answer why or how these variations come about.  All you doing is saying since there is a strong correlation between culture and expression, culture must be the primary effect.  That's not proof.  There's all sorts of holes and variables unaccounted for in that argumentation.  Especially since it doesn't even address gender differences, but intra-gender variation.

If you have a thought process in population X that expresses itself differently in different cultures, having that process is not 'minimal' it is essential.  Variation is simply something to study as a subset of the process possessed by X.  It doesn't actually show that the process is irrelevant, especially when comparing X to population Y. 

Take, for example, opposable digits.  There is a lot of variation between animals with opposable digits in terms of how we use them.  This does not make the distinction between opposable digits and not any less significant.  That I use my thumbs completely differently than an opossum's toes, doesn't change that having them provides a set of advantages all creatures with opposable digits make use of.  As well, it doesn't change that this is significantly different from creatures without them.

ieattime20:

If biology predicts a certain (psychological) trait in women and psychology proves that that trait is not significantly measurable, the two are at odds.

I don't think that is an accurate assessment of the situation.  For example, biology predicts a certain neurological effect will lead to higher rates of dementia in women.  Psychology data has backed that up.

However, psychology has a lot of trouble proving something as 'significantly measurable.'  The two being at odds doesn't mean the two are contradictory.  Psychology could just lack the tools to measure it.  As well, psychology is much more prone to consistency issues due to the nature of testing human expression.  There's no grounds for saying a given set of psychology data should be defaulted to as being the most accurate model.  Biology could be right, and the data from the psychological testing could just be biased or fail to account for a variety of variables.

And, as if often the case with science and people making false dichotomies about it, is that 'both being the case' is not the issue.  Rather, the issue is failure to recognize the possibilities beyond the two choices.  If you have biology saying the root mental processes and cognition are significantly different between genders, but psychology saying the cultural variations are a strong influence on behavior, you haven't even contradicted yet.  Both can be true.  How we think impacts how we behave, but it doesn't absolutely control it.  And how we are acculturated doesn't actually control our mental processes.  On top of this, if you can't reconcile two different fields, the proper place to think is what explanations answer both sets of data, not assigning one to be dominant or wrong.

I think there is an important misunderstanding that the resolution of would make what you've just said a lot more digestible:

How do you test out a hypothesis concerning, say, the expression of a difference in brain structure and how it affects mental abilities? I mean, testing a structure involves a brain scan, and I get that, but testing whether that affects psychological disorders or other such things requires some degree of psychological testing, which has the capability of being culturally biased. I'm asking because I'm not a research biologist, but the classes on cognitive neuroscience and psychology I've taken say that these sorts of things are taken with psychological aptitude tests.

when the REAL biological differences between women and men were far more important (like when being able to kill something was the only way to ensure your family's survival, so of course those who were less capable of killing were taken into a servitor role)  -  ieattime

It's worth noting here that Man the Hunter provided only about 20-25% of the food in the Ice Age - the majority was provided by Woman the Gatherer - meaning that knowing where the right plants grew was more vital to your family's survival than the ability to kill animals.  Which will be my one and only contribution to this threadjack.

So, can we bring this back to Changeling: the lost? I am really not interested in discussing with any of you the merits of feminism in the real world.  -  Fergurg

Making some attempt, I'll reiterate the point I made in my last post; you can find a story for any male or female role you want:  Durga was a chosen champion; Joan of Arc, Medea, and Viviane of the Lake were all fairy godmothers; Scathach was a blacksmith as well as a warrior; unlike Inanna's or Demeter's, Anat's descent into the Underworld was a raid where she beat the tar out of the god of death and took back the brother she wished to save; in the earliest known version of Red Riding Hood, Red finds her own cunning and escapes the wolf by herself.

If you're not happy with the roles generally deemed typical for fairy tales, it wouldn't be hard to rework the fate/story/role system so that the Wyrd rewards those who seek out a story to power the role they want to live rather than those who live according to commonly cited roles.  (Not to mention that it would be a good nod to the folkloric reverence for storytellers).

It would be even easier to say that anyone can live benefit from living a role regardless of whether their physical sex of gender identification matches the one generally assigned to it.

ieattime20:

How do you test out a hypothesis concerning, say, the expression of a difference in brain structure and how it affects mental abilities?

That's a bit general to answer specifically.  But, generally, by designing experiments that either compensate or eliminate for cultural bias (to the greatest extent possible).  Then you test and test until you can statistically analysis the data as presenting a meaningful result.

Lets say you're testing neurological responses to visual stimuli in the form of pictures of other people in emotive expressions.  In other words, you're watching the brains of test subjects as they see images of sad people, happy people, angry people, etc.  There's some inherent cultural bias in the responses, because different cultures see different expressions differently.  A happy smile to one person might be a threatening grin to another.

If all you do is correlate brain response to emotional response, you retain the cultural bias.  That's where I see your argument as ending.

But you can go beyond that and look at how emotive responses are formed, rather than the specific response-stimulus relations.  That is, you find a picture that a given demographic group finds calming across gender lines and you look to see if there is a difference in neurological processing between genders.  Do men and women find it pleasing the same way?  Then you look to different demographics for a similar stimulus for that demographic, rather than using the same picture.  Then you take the gender differences in both demographics and compare them.  That way you can find gender based differences that account for culture and psychology without being biased for them (obviously simplified).

You can say (generally and as an example) things like women engage empathy centers and men engage reaction centers when viewing people they consider in need of consoling.  It doesn't matter that different cultures will ingrain different responses to that, nor does it show positive or negative behavior based on it.  Female brains being more emotionally receptive can be good as it can be channeled into intuitive support, or bad since it can give a women a clear opening to manipulate the other person to her own ends.  Male brains being more reactive can be good as it can motivate immediate productive problem solving, or it can be bad because it is too process oriented and he ends up making things worse by not listening to the underlying emotional content.

Basically:  Biological support of their being different methods of recognizing and processing the need for emotional support from another individual by gender is provable and valid.  This does lead to aptitude differences.  The only problem is when people mistake that for gender 'jobs' such as women as being better at emotional support.  What you do with your natural dispositions and how effective you are with them is still non-gender based.

this turned into a bit of a deathmatch. It's great to see such diversity on the forums though, even if some of the contributors seem slightly stuck in their own mindframes, in my eyes at least. It helps to look at people as individuals outside of any given stereotype, in my case :) Now, on with more flaming.

However, psychology has a lot of trouble proving something as 'significantly measurable.'  The two being at odds doesn't mean the two are contradictory.  Psychology could just lack the tools to measure it.  As well, psychology is much more prone to consistency issues due to the nature of testing human expression.  There's no grounds for saying a given set of psychology data should be defaulted to as being the most accurate model.  Biology could be right, and the data from the psychological testing could just be biased or fail to account for a variety of variables.

What he said.

It is the softest of the soft sciences. It's pudding-like in the way that data can be used to fill conclusions of any shape.

Biology is a good long way from the absolutes and perfect proofs of mathematics as well but it's a bit closer- and certainly has a history of finding more appropriate tools for measuring information or drawing conclusions from available data.

Times like this I really wish Edward O. Wilson played Changeling.

To completely deny that there are biological differences inherent in both the physiological processes and the resulting behavioral tendencies of men and women is a disservice to the idea of collecting evidence, measuring data and trying to draw a conclusion.

To twist those differences into justification for gender superiority as a total measurement of the intrinsic value of a human being is a disservice to reason.

To assume that gender differences represents absolutes is... well, it shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the idea of presenting generalities and tendencies that can be supported by evidence and the idea that there's variability within a population of living organisms. Biology is very much a science that focuses on differences of degree and a science that will happily accept statistical outliers as something it needs to explain (and accept). The broader the group that's being looked at, the wider the gaps start to grow.

Animal behaviors have a genetic basis. Organisms cannot actually act in a manner that is completely outside of their genetically pre-programmed range... That doesn't mean that genetic predisposition is the only basis for a given behavior, the physical structure of the brain, the health of various chemical secreting glands and external factors in the environment can all shift the behaviors that are actually observed in response to any given stimuli (and even there, it's enormously difficult to actually provide truly identical stimulus as a control in order to measure other variables, since a repetition of a stimulus that an organism has already been exposed to inherently involves an individual that has had prior experience- memory and learning starts to come into play, to varying degrees depending on the degree to which the species behaviors relies on declarative rather than procedural memory).

Cultural biases towards a certain behavior often follow the same kind of model and can have the same basis as genetically isolated populations of any animal in response to the breeding imperatives inherent in the micropopulation... That is to say that most cultures traditionally became independent and distinct from the larger population as a result of breeding with one another and that the breeding pressures and societal values ended up being more and more strongly expressed in subsequent generations. Societies that bred for big aggressive bastards that could hunt and kill and fight ended up producing some really amazing hunting, killing fighters. Societies that values intellectual traits or in which certain emotional responses had a high degree of success and were sought after during mate selection tend to produce individuals who are inclined in those directions.

I'm trying to avoid using Paint to make a crude illustration... so hopefully I can describe what really should be a visual aid. An oversimplified visual aid, to be sure, but a sort of visual aid.

Picture a yellow square. Identify this square as being the aptitudes of a female brain, physical structure and chemical effects all rolled together.

Picture a blue square. Identify this square as being the aptitudes of a male brain, physical structure and chemical effects all rolled together.

Overlap the squares, so that they form a green rectangle in the space where they overlap.

Specifically expressed behaviors could then be mapped as points- or more often as lines- on the graphic. Most human behaviors would fall into the green area. Some would not, with most of the ones that fall into either yellow or blue areas having a pretty direct basis as simian reproductive behaviors.

Importantly, as has been said... a gender based predisposition for certain behaviors should not be taken to mean that those behaviors are absolute (inclusively or exclusively), nor should it be taken to confer any inherent gender superiority along the lines of "Men are better than women" or "Women are better than men."

Any value that's attributed to something like; "women's brains are structured in a way that increases their probability of remembering events as associated with the emotional response the events evoked" is purely a value that has been constructed by the individual. It's not really good or bad, it just is.

Hahah. What happened here?

My thoughts for those who care.

Men and women as two groups are inherently different BUT within each group the variance that individuals display really obliterates (or it should, anyway) any gender pigeon-holing.

Populations force these stereotypes on themselves because these stereotypes support a model that is presumed to be optimally supportive of a peaceful, functioning and productive society.

It's gotten to the point where we don't know any other way, and we're scared that if we try, it'll all come crumbling down. I'm not saying it's conscious, but it's there.

When someone's lived their whole life in one house, no matter how much they hate or dislike that house, it's comforting. It's all they know. Anything else seems wrong. And so they have a vested interest in protecting the status quo.

If you need any proof, just look to women wanting to be "equal" but still wanting to have doors held open for them, or any of the other dozens (probably hundreds) of artefacts from before liberation. Or look to men, who, for example, call each other "girls" if one of them happens to be on the emotional side of the spectrum.

These are indicative of a society that wants to appear to be all for gender equality, but isn't- not really.

Anyway, the idea that any individual can be valued or defined in any meaningful way by their sex is an illusion. They really are just mostly dangly bits. The idea that there are physiological characteristics that warrant pigeon-holing is laughable. There is such a panoply of individuation out there that that assertion cannot stick.

Gender is an even bigger illusion, because gender doesn't represent anything tangible or concrete- gender is just a construct we made up some time ago to make it easier for us to interact with the world.

The less options there are, the happier we are. Fact.

Loxosceles:

To completely deny that there are biological differences inherent in both the physiological processes and the resulting behavioral tendencies of men and women is a disservice to the idea of collecting evidence, measuring data and trying to draw a conclusion...
...Any value that's attributed to something like; "women's brains are structured in a way that increases their probability of remembering events as associated with the emotional response the events evoked" is purely a value that has been constructed by the individual. It's not really good or bad, it just is.

Loxosceles and I are in agreement. He said what I would have said (although, probably more prettily) if I could have been bothered :) Thank you, Loxosceles.