Reverse Gender Gap: Men Falling Behind

I doubt it, but its not like anything I'm saying is some kind of original insight derived by my own novel insights and experience. I'd maybe suggest I've read more critical & feminist theory than posters on TH by virtue of my education, but I'm not some kind of expert. But the pushback is basically the argument I'm making, people put more stock in their own observations than the work of actual experts. That's why our long standing ideas of gender persist and are reproduced! This despite the fact that no one really knows how people lived pre-history, because its not recorded.

 

I believe this was your hypothesis, that the entirety of behavioral differences between the humans with boy parts and those with girl parts stems from the different teachings that they receive. So whatever you meant when you suggested that, let’s just hypothetically reverse it, giving boy teachings to girls.

By the way, something unfortunately close to this kind of experiment occasionally gets run on children when their sex is mistaken.

 

Well I'm very suspect of anyone who says it's all one thing or all the other thing (all nature or all nurture). As usual, it's not that simple -- both things impact our personalities.

 

Is there ever a situation where we would teach boys aren't different from girls in some way? Like there are some biological differences, how pronounced you want to make them, and what you want to make of that is probably a matter of culture, ideology, parenting, religion etc. Forget the politics, just the idea of romance is based on someone being different than you, whether is opposites attracting, being "completed" - whatever. Maybe there are people who want to have sex and partner with someone exactly like themselves, but I tend to think the fun part of romance is that someone is different from you, and the meaning you derive from that, which is completely made up and novel, but nonetheless incredibly important. Even in a theoretically gender neutral society with no taboos about homosexuality or whatever, wouldnt we "see difference?" - even if it had no biological or scientific basis, we'd create it, because that is how meaning is derived.

 

I think you are correct that whatever science is, it must have to do with systemic study. That said, I also appreciate dang’s point, that sometimes reality smacks you in the face pretty well. One comment that stuck with me is something like “After your first kid, it’s hard not to appreciate the power of nurture, and after the second kid, it’s hard not to appreciate the power of nature.” It’s funny getting the second kid for many, because it feels like, where did this thing come from?

Of course you are right that none of that is proof that gender roles have a biological basis, but I do think this is a counter example to your hypothetical about bias above, where many of us are surprised to find this. So while it isn’t necessarily a universal truth, neither is it solely a product of prior beliefs.

 

My basic point is that we dont know "nature" because no one lives in a 'natural state' (and we cant talk to people who ever did, if that is even a thing), and the idea of a 'state of nature' is something created after people had civilized themselves. Its sort of a retroactive imposition on an unknowable past. There is nothing scientific about that.

 

We were all raised with these ideas, they were imposed on us, and not with malice. Its not like we were intentionally lied to or "indoctrinated" in most cases, people believe this stuff for the most part. And I wouldnt even argue myself that its all or even mostly harmful. You talk about confirmation bias a lot, seems like the ultimate confirmation bias too me. "Wow I noticed all the things people I held in esteem & authority told me were eternal truths." I think these ideas are just less stable than we suppose.

 

I love your points about personal meaning and experience, and I think we should not want to live in a world without this.

I am also a bit more sanguine on the prospects of scientific progress than you are. I do think with study, time, and criticism we can learn about the world. Admittedly, this progress does not come as a steady climb without missteps, but I do think it happens. If our ideas weren’t somehow based in reality, I think we would eventually jettison them, as we have done with several theories from the past, eg psychoanalysis. Even the lens through which you are now analyzing science was created by people in response to what they saw as an incomplete theory of knowledge.

 

It could be just confirmation bias, but if so, I am not sure why it should feel so surprising. Intellectually, I knew kids come with their own natures, but somehow my emotions appeared to believe that I could mold them. I felt strongly I would get my kid to love jazz and blues. Instead, I’m living with this kid listening to Minecraft parodies of Lady Gaga. WTH? Lol.

Meanwhile, I believe confirmation bias feels more like a shot of dopamine that you get when you are proved right. Like when prices rise in the next couple months, I’ll think, “And what did anyone think would happen with crazy high tariffs??”

 

Dangol brought up parenting and I think your anecdote here speaks to how little control parents have over the ideas their child is exposed to and that we cant program them how we like (as important as parenting is). Of course, this realization drives a lot of our worst politics. I forget which Dem politician said something about how raising children was not just the domain of parents and that they belonged to a society (I'm badly paraphrasing), they were correct about that, but of course they received predictable backlash for making a truthful statement.

 

I think it speaks to how 2 kids raised in the exact same environment can be so different.

 

My wife and I had that discussion last night- of our 5 kids one walks to the beat of a different drummer

 

I think it's fair to evaluate to what extent disparities seen today in historically oppressed and marginalized groups exist due to lingering effects from past official discrimination compared to current, non official bias/discrimination compared to various social/cultural factors. I think most would agree, for example, that wealth accumulation is often generational and that past official policies played a major role in the disparities we see between Black and White Americans' wealth.

White men, as a group, were not held back in any official/legal sense the way other groups have been, and that seems like a huge variable that we simply don't have to account for if we're discussing White men.

 

Oh I agree with you, and I probably have the same analysis of the situation. I just also know that others have a different perspective, and I think their conclusions shouldn’t be dismissed without consideration. After all, no matter how good or bad a group had it in the past, it is always possible that they will have it differently in the future.

 

Absolutely possible wgb. I think his divergence started before he really interacted with society per se, but still this is possible. And certainly now that he is 12, it seems likely. Though it raises the new question of why outside factors would exert greater influence than those in his home.

Of course, we should also acknowledge the possibility that you too are subjected to the intellectual constraints that you recognize in others. Perhaps your view of the world can also be colored by your beliefs, causing you to seek fault with results that seem incongruent. In fact, if all knowledge is just reification, this conclusion is foregone.

 

I believe that part of the problem is the sports culture in the U.S. Too many HS kids (boys) are sold on the prospect of playing professional sports for millions of dollars. About 99.9% of them will never see a professional dime. In the meantime, they decide there is no need to get an education, since sports will pave their way to riches. They already understand that sports is a pathway to popularity in high school and that nerds are unpopular. Girls are less likely to fall for the siren song of sports, since so few women are highly successful (and financially successful) in professional sports. When the dream crashes, the boys need to figure out what to do with their lives. Some turn to drugs, some to gambling, and some to alcohol, while many of them struggle to make an honest living. Lots of boys peak in high school, and backslide for the next 70 years.

 

I can only offer my perspective as a (male) engineering professor here at UF.

The biggest challenge I see specific to young men is the maturity gap. Lots of young men attrit from our programs or get some lousy grades along the way because they make errors of immaturity -- party too much, miss assignments, and so on. The machismo of "I don't need no help!" is a thing, too, but maybe a 10% effect. (For any Gator Engineering students lurking on the board... please come to office hours and ask for help; especially, don't watch the lecture video a fifth dang time if the first four watches didn't work!)

So what can we do about it? I'd like to see us work towards a six-month or even one-year gender/sex split on kindergarten entrance age or maybe offering men a government-funded gap year at the same time women are offered government-funded pregnancy/maternity leave. But I know I'll never see either.

 

Perhaps we should have mandatory military service, peace corps, AmeriCorps…

 

I'm a firm "no" on anything more "mandatory" to young men (unless women have a comparable obligation). I want it to be a "free year" -- play video games, watch Netflix, bang his GF or randoms, travel, etc. -- same thing women get 60 years later because lifespan difference.