Women in the music industry...

[jancivil]

Without feeling any need to present a paper on it here, I do tend towards such as 'the female brain'. I do not accept that means any necessary or natural deficiency as to dealing with maths or hard science, let alone being a musician or audio engineer or whatever.

Once upon a time, women were not part of your big-time orchestras really. Things change, things change because people quit accepting bullshit.

[jancivil]

c) are you dense? you're the one arguing 'essential/natural'. do you not believe there is a male brain vs a female brain, essentially? I don't think there is a necessary dichotomy but essentially there is a difference, hence gender as identity that does not match sex as born.

I explained my thinking a little better in an edit. But no, I don't think that our brains are different, only that our ways of thinking may be influenced by or gender (not only but also).

How can there be any 'as nature made, girls and boys are different' in that case? That seems inconsistent, unless you really are placing 'gender' as the very same thing as 'sex'. Which I don't accept. That isn't even worth rehearsing any more, I'm not going to be moved from that position. I think it's a mix of nature/nurture but that gender is not wired to sexual organs. But still that comes across as muddled. What is the difference that has a boy taking a truck and a girl taking a baby doll, if not the brain wiring?
I think there is a biological imperative *essentially* but a boy gets the same biological imperative as the most feminine girl in some cases and vice versa, through brain wiring that birth sex failed to replicate. And there IS science on this. And evidently there are various admixtures, 'in between'.

Thank for your generosity in the end, I'm sorry to direct such heat personally, but that's what life has shown works for me from my 'threatened' position.

[Jace-BeOS]

There are always exceptions. It's the same with soccer. Most men are attracted to soccer but a few of them aren't. For example, I'm not a big soccer fan at all, only occasionally I watch a few games of the Europa Cup and the World Cup, and I don't know the names of all players in the German team.

I have no interest in any sport, at all. I know other males that are the same. It's social conditioning to presume males care about sports. They're lead into it by their peers and parents. If they don't actively fight against it, the conditioning at least makes them take sides (pick teams). It's the path of greatest resistance to not follow along with the group, in that sense, so most go with it to some degree. It's the social outcasts and such who are more apt to reject sports openly and actively. Being one of those, it's frustrating to find out that way more women accommodate the sports social norm than I thought (it's no benefit to me that I reject sports, as a male looking for female companionship). But women are "allowed" to reject sports as "a guy thing". Women aren't "allowed" to reject being parents nearly as much as men are, because of the gender presumptions about which parent is more important and which gender is expected to breed and be a stay at home parent.

It's statistically demonstrated that, as a society's education and employment opportunities for women improve, the number of women choosing NOT to have children increases. Where they're "allowed" to reject motherhood as an expectation, they're free to do more elsewhere. Men aren't similarly handicapped, and therefore have always had the benefit of putting "bread winning" before parenting (as an explicit expectation in some ways).

And despite I'm a man, I'm not big into programming, either, I wouldn't have the patience to solve every single bug... I nearly went crazy when I programmed my homepage because I thought it should be finished in 10 minutes but it took many hours...

Same here. I have an outright math/calculation disability. Even if I didn't, my interest doesn't extend beyond the surface of the basic functionality. I'm an educated user, at heart, though I play a techie in the workplace.

But apparently it's not specifically male to be a coder. It's a sub group of males called "geeks". This same category exists among women (because women can be just as obsessive, narrowly focused, and socially awkward/unsociable, and therefore find an interest/haven in programming). However, it is not a social norm for them, and therefore they're often redirected to a more "female" obsession (I have a horse-obsessed companion), even if the redirection is not overt.

[Jace-BeOS]

Well, capability is certainly not the issue, girls tend to be better at math and physics at school. Still, your daughter is the exception to the rule, which is that girls and women are by and large not nearly as interested in tech stuff.

That's a socially applied "rule". Not a biological predisposition.

[vurt]

There are (quite a few) female doctors, physicists and scientists and there are (quite a few) male nurses, kindergarten teacher and cleaning personal! What else should we do? Should all girls be interested in science and all boys in house keeping? Do we want to inverse the whole world?

its not about inverting anything, its about getting to a point where either gender has no predetermined expectations based on nothing but their genitalia, getting to a point where people arent shocked by a male nurse or a female builder.
inverting the what used to be the social norm is actually no different really as it still leaves people in a workd where from birth their gender creates expectations.

[Jace-BeOS]

Well, this topic has really devolved into a sad mess of perpetuating stereotypes.

Unfortuntaley your one example does not prove otherwise. Neither did my example some pages before. But human progression over thousands of years should maybe a bit of an eye opener. Unless you want to close your eyes, and make what you believe the ultimate truth of course. Or you want to swim with the stream of political correctness and good humanship nowadays.

Social norms are perpetuated over thousands of years by the members of the societies that hold them. That doesn't make them any kind of scientific proof for gender role validity. It may be a stepping stone between "males are physically more capable of violence and therefore socially dominant" and "men are more often in technical fields", but that doesn't mean there's a biological cause for women to lack interest in technical things or control/power. It is so easy to conflate social history with biological predetermination that people do it constantly. That doesn't make it correct.

[Tricky-Loops]

It's statistically demonstrated that, as a society's education and employment opportunities for women improve, the number of women choosing NOT to have children increases. Where they're "allowed" to reject motherhood as an expectation, they're free to do more elsewhere. Men aren't similarly handicapped, and therefore have always had the benefit of putting "bread winning" before parenting (as an explicit expectation in some ways).

Well, not really. The house wive who raises 10 children is dreaming of a big business career and the business lady who has a successful career is dreaming of having 10 children...

[jancivil]

Men having the hormonal capacity to develop greater upper body mass does not per se translate into greater inclination to do violence.
Certain biological imperatives towards motherhood (which some females never exhibit really) would translate into less inclination to cause trouble.
But if you think women won't be your Natural Born Killer, think again. The human has been crafting weapons for a while now.

[Jace-BeOS]

It's statistically demonstrated that, as a society's education and employment opportunities for women improve, the number of women choosing NOT to have children increases. Where they're "allowed" to reject motherhood as an expectation, they're free to do more elsewhere. Men aren't similarly handicapped, and therefore have always had the benefit of putting "bread winning" before parenting (as an explicit expectation in some ways).

Well, not really. The house wive who raises 10 children is dreaming of a big business career and the business lady who has a successful career is dreaming of having 10 children...

That sounds more like the gender-neutral "grass is greener' problem to me

[Jace-BeOS]

Men having the hormonal capacity to develop greater upper body mass does not per se translate into greater inclination to do violence.
Certain biological imperatives towards motherhood (which some females never exhibit really) would translate into less inclination to cause trouble.
But if you think women won't be your Natural Born Killer, think again. The human has been crafting weapons for a while now.

No argument. I was suggesting where people may get their gender biases from, in a very deeply historic angle.

[jancivil]

I get it, and that 'you' is really for the people that would proceed from that, not 'you', you.

I was throwing and catching a football really well as puny as I was, I think all of that kind of stuff is more about drive and desire than what you were born with. Alicia de Larrocha on piano, eg.

[Tricky-Loops]

It's not the body mass that makes some men aggressive, it's their too much testosterone (as well as other hormones)... Sex crimes are mainly committed by men, not by women (yeah, I know that some female US teachers love under-aged boys ). That said, there are cruel mothers, too - but it's not the majority (fortunately)...

[fmr]

It's statistically demonstrated that, as a society's education and employment opportunities for women improve, the number of women choosing NOT to have children increases. Where they're "allowed" to reject motherhood as an expectation, they're free to do more elsewhere. Men aren't similarly handicapped, and therefore have always had the benefit of putting "bread winning" before parenting (as an explicit expectation in some ways).

Nonsense. Do you really believe that the majority of women are willing to NOT have children? Did you made any enquirer on the subject? Are you based on ANY enquirer on the subject?

What has been demonstrated is that many women delay (and ultimately sacrifice) their opportunity to be mothers because they want to first earn a position and a career which will grant their child all the best economically. And economical organization of the society (read: greediness) exploits that up to the maximum, encouraging that ambition (and ultimately greediness also), to the point of sacrifice their future.

And, what's worse, this is creating some serious social and demographic problems, to the point that some studies predict that, for example in my country, population will decrease by as much as 20% in the next generation. This is not because of more opportunities, this is because of lack of them.

Norway is one of the most prosperous countries in the world, and one that has the best quality of life. Government encourages, supports and secures gender equality like nowhere else. So, when 90% of the nurses are women, and 90% of the engineers are men, would you say that's because of "lack of opportunities"? Prejudice? Think again.

Geesh. This is like discussing religion. A deaf conversation. So long guys. See you in some other thread.

[Tricky-Loops]

And, what's worse, this is creating some serious social and demographic problems, to the point that some studies predict that, for example in my country, population will decrease by as much as 20% in the next generation. This is not because of more opportunities, this is because of lack of them.

That's what the media is telling you! But will the human race be extincted because of it? I don't think so! If there are less women with children, the world can heal itself. Nature doesn't need humans, humans need nature

Same with gays or lesbians. Even if they were more of them in the future (which is to expect) and less child-bearing heterosexuals, the human race isn't endangered at all. In contrary: less humans, more nature - which, in the end, means a better future for the human race.

Don't believe everything what the media is telling you!

[chk071]

It's not the body mass that makes some men aggressive, it's their too much testosterone (as well as other hormones)...

Exactly. The hormones make the difference between the genders. No matter how much you want to twist it around with things like social norms or anything. Social norms don't come from nowhere. There is a reason for everything in our world. That doesn't mean we have to have conditions like in the middle age, because what distinguishes a human being from an animal is its ability to adapt, and think over its position. But denying ourselves isn't right either.