Gender: Is there a difference?

[Meliodas]

This idea sparked recently as a conversation among some of the players in my RP, and was surprisingly quite civil for the most part. There seems to be a lot of debate about sexism, which I really feel is rooted in this idea that men and women are different. Do men and women respectively deserve to be treated differently? Are the ways we handle ourselves socially that drastically different? What are your thoughts on how men and women think, or, my favorite caveat, your thoughts on comparing/contrasting gender as it relates to our psychology?

 

[ArQane]

Regarding feminism, it is impossible to fully satisfy everyone's ideals for how females should be treated, but I do believe that gender equality should be a goal, even if it's one that can never be fully accomplished. We can see this from two different feminine angles.

1. Females should be entitled all rights and treatment as men get
The statistics of "average pay" of a woman compared to men, as I deduced, are not all that accurate. They factor in issues such as maternity leave and stuff, which I'm not going to delve into much. But I still believe that a woman with the same qualifications do earn less than men, which bothers me. Why? Because f*king white male supremacists.

Just kidding. (Not actually though, f*ck them)

2. Females should be treated better than men by men
I get this a lot. I remember watching some talk show clips where radical feminists freak out about men asking to "split the check" or when they "don't hold open doors," but I sit there in disgust and ask myself, is this really what feminism is about? I came to the conclusion that there will always be those that are impossible to please, wanting only the benefits whilst avoiding the consequences. That's not equality. But in a manner of speaking, that's not necessarily wrong as well.

I noticed that I myself, being a male, am slightly more courteous to females than to males. It's not something that makes a huge impact in my life persay, but I think it has a lot to do with I'm more comfortable hanging around people my own gender. (Yay nurture!) But I never think that I'm sexist or anything for doing so, it's just natural.

The aspects of feminism that I truly believe is that women should be provided with the same opportunity to make as much as men do while putting in the same amount of effort. I find it disgusting when men *cough* Trump *endcough* believe it is okay to abuse a woman. It's like going up to him one day and rubbing his dick, I'm sure that's not pleasant (and somebody will have to shoot me before I'd do that anyways; it's worse for me).

But some things need to find a common ground. I see frequently that when females are (we'll use something everyone probably knows about as a reference) subdued by police officers, they scream "rape".

No. Just no. We talk about equality, then women should get arrested the same way as men do. Stop increasing the sexualization, it's bad enough.

But I do believe that a lot needs to change, and it's definitely a lot to do with our psychology that makes it so hard to aim for these changes.

 

[Joshua Raxter]

Agreed ArQane

 

[Nilum]

This idea sparked recently as a conversation among some of the players in my RP,

Just for the sake of your players, I'll answer this from the scientific (and not ideological) point of view. Then I'll make a point about it.

Keep in mind, this is over simplified to shit. (Like, massively.) So if your players are really curious about the subject matter, please, by all means--encourage them to look it up themselves!

This also means that, in the oversimplification, some specific details may be lost. So if I end up forgetting something important, remember...

I'll keep it to three points, just to keep it short.

#1: Men are stronk. Like, terrifyingly stronk.
Biological fact of life. Males in our species are stronger than females. This is probably nowhere better expressed than in weightlifting, where women can't even compete in some of the highest end categories that men can--they simply can't even physically get there.

Comparing men and women biologically isn't even entirely rational. They're two different entities that, biologically speaking, perform different functions. Men will average 40-60% stronger overall than women in the same weight ranges. Men have greater bone density, meaning their bones are less likely to fracture or break when exposed to stress. The primary male sex hormone stimulates muscle growth, and males possess around 5-20 times as much as females do.

If you put the world's strongest man into a fist fight with the world's strongest woman, it wouldn't be a fight--it would be a one sided slaughter. It wouldn't even be remotely funny--it would be over in under ten seconds. There's a reason they separate men and women in the UFC, and it has nothing to do with weight class. Put a 120 LBS woman against 120 LBS man--if they're of equal skill, the woman is far more likely to take an injury in the form of a fractured or broken bone, the woman will have a lower muscle per pound ratio than the man, and the man will have a greater level of adrenaline and testosterone flowing through his body which helps him to ignore pain.

In a fist fight, women don't beat men through strength. They beat them through cunning, the environment, and weaponry. Preferably, they beat them without ever going into melee combat against them.

#2: Men and Women's brains are basically the same.
They are. Outside of estrogen creating more serotonin receptors in the brain (IE: larger mood swings during periods usually), and the manner in which periods affect chemical balances in women, men and women have near-identical processes in the brains. They are equally intellectually capable, they are equally sufficiently conscious, they are equally emotionally cognitive. The idea that women are somehow more "emotional" than men (outside of serotonin/periods) is backwards absurdity. The parts of the brain that control and manage emotion in women are not somehow "larger" or "less capable" than those of a male. Similarly, male brains do not suddenly sprout a section called "dudebro" that magically makes them into thoughtless dribbling idiots obsessed with tits and cars. These are learned behaviours--not inherent to the genders in question.

Therefore, it should come as a surprise to literally nobody who has a scrap of knowledge about the human brain that you can have feminine men and masculine women, as well as masculine men and feminine women.

That being said, there is a trend of "males are masculine" and "females are feminine" and it's not entirely society. The chemicals that run through our brains (dopamine, serotonin, et cetera) do affect our behaviours, and the process of puberty affects males and females differently. Males really do tend to be more aggressive, but it's not because there's a magical male brain out there--it's because some of the side effects of Testosterone are aggression and competitiveness. Which makes biological sense given that males ultimately used to compete for the affections of females back in our far more primitive cave man days. (Hell, a lot of us still do it today--we're just more self aware of why we're doing it.) Women really do tend to be more compassionate, but, again, that has nothing to do with a magical female brain--it has everything to do with the chemicals that run through them.

Men and Women are different on a psychological level, but--and I have to emphasize this--they are not ruled by their nature. They are affected by it, which creates trends, but a man or a woman is human first, with an identical capacity for consciousness and decision making skills that allow them to accept or reject the norms imposed upon them by the world. In other words? More men will be warriors--but not all men will be. More women will be caregivers--but not all women will be.

#3: Technology is the great equalizer.
Okay, I'm cheating a bit with this one, but just hold on. Back in the medieval era, the biological differences between males and females mattered a lot more than they do today. Reason being is that most jobs were labour jobs--smithing, for example--where strength benefits you. Out on the battlefield, where all other things are equal, the total weight of one force will crush the other. Vikings used to take huge shields and run yelling and charging into opponents, knocking over smaller opponents and then literally beating them to death with their shields if they could feasibly move in for the killing blow with their axes.

You know what beats a 220 LBS yelling blonde haired juggernaut man with an axe and shield, no matter his strength?

A gun.

A gun does.

A gun does not care if its user is a man or a woman. It does not care if they're tall or short. It does not care if they add or subtract 100 pounds from their opponent. So long as the user of the gun is not horribly anemic or horribly overweight, they can use most firearms properly, and kill anyone in front of them.

You know how we used to get messages around? Runners. You know what benefits runners? Having the strength and stamina to move great distances without tiring, as fast as is possible. Again, men beat women at this.

You know how we get messages around now?

I hit a few numbers into a rectangle box of electricity and metal and can contact anyone in the world. I can literally be legless and still have my voice carried wherever I wish it to be, with whomever I wish.

Literally the only thing left in modern society that differentiates men from women in any major way (outside of certain professions) is the fact that in order to produce a new human, you need a male and a female. The male is done in one night. The female has at least (not counting recovery time afterwards or the initial raising and feeding of the tiny frail baby) nine months.

We still have our defined gender roles and ideals for men and women, and at a basic level, men and women are still biologically different. That being said, those biological differences--outside of perpetuating the species--are essentially irrelevant in the vast majority of professions and hobbies thanks to the modern age and its technology.

-----------------------------------------------

Now for my personal opinion. The one not backed up by science. The message I would generally carry to your role players if nothing else above matters.

Fantasy is whatever you choose to make of it. You can have giant flying reptiles that breath fire, or be in a space ship that can defy all physics that we know of today, or anything in the middle. Gender will only matter as much as you wish it to. Both in the worlds you create, and in the characters you build. It's another subject matter of significant depth and, ultimately, incredible beauty that you can explore of your own volition. Do what you think is interesting, pursue the stories that you feel most passionate about. If that's a woman beating the odds and kicking a man's ass in a contest of strength, or being a female knight of great renown in the medieval age, or being a male caregiver who raises the children while his wife goes out to war--do whatever you want. Fiction need not conform to reality, it merely need be the light of our dreams, our ideals made manifest by words, shared with others.

Whatever limits you impose upon it, gendered or otherwise, are yours to choose. Be creative with it.

 

[Mysteerious]

Just for the sake of your players, I'll answer this from the scientific (and not ideological) point of view. Then I'll make a point about it.

Keep in mind, this is over simplified to shit. (Like, massively.) So if your players are really curious about the subject matter, please, by all means--encourage them to look it up themselves!

This also means that, in the oversimplification, some specific details may be lost. So if I end up forgetting something important, remember...

I'll keep it to three points, just to keep it short.

#1: Men are stronk. Like, terrifyingly stronk.
Biological fact of life. Males in our species are stronger than females. This is probably nowhere better expressed than in weightlifting, where women can't even compete in some of the highest end categories that men can--they simply can't even physically get there.

Comparing men and women biologically isn't even entirely rational. They're two different entities that, biologically speaking, perform different functions. Men will average 40-60% stronger overall than women in the same weight ranges. Men have greater bone density, meaning their bones are less likely to fracture or break when exposed to stress. The primary male sex hormone stimulates muscle growth, and males possess around 5-20 times as much as females do.

If you put the world's strongest man into a fist fight with the world's strongest woman, it wouldn't be a fight--it would be a one sided slaughter. It wouldn't even be remotely funny--it would be over in under ten seconds. There's a reason they separate men and women in the UFC, and it has nothing to do with weight class. Put a 120 LBS woman against 120 LBS man--if they're of equal skill, the woman is far more likely to take an injury in the form of a fractured or broken bone, the woman will have a lower muscle per pound ratio than the man, and the man will have a greater level of adrenaline and testosterone flowing through his body which helps him to ignore pain.

In a fist fight, women don't beat men through strength. They beat them through cunning, the environment, and weaponry. Preferably, they beat them without ever going into melee combat against them.

#2: Men and Women's brains are basically the same.
They are. Outside of estrogen creating more serotonin receptors in the brain (IE: larger mood swings during periods usually), and the manner in which periods affect chemical balances in women, men and women have near-identical processes in the brains. They are equally intellectually capable, they are equally sufficiently conscious, they are equally emotionally cognitive. The idea that women are somehow more "emotional" than men (outside of serotonin/periods) is backwards absurdity. The parts of the brain that control and manage emotion in women are not somehow "larger" or "less capable" than those of a male. Similarly, male brains do not suddenly sprout a section called "dudebro" that magically makes them into thoughtless dribbling idiots obsessed with tits and cars. These are learned behaviours--not inherent to the genders in question.

Therefore, it should come as a surprise to literally nobody who has a scrap of knowledge about the human brain that you can have feminine men and masculine women, as well as masculine men and feminine women.

That being said, there is a trend of "males are masculine" and "females are feminine" and it's not entirely society. The chemicals that run through our brains (dopamine, serotonin, et cetera) do affect our behaviours, and the process of puberty affects males and females differently. Males really do tend to be more aggressive, but it's not because there's a magical male brain out there--it's because some of the side effects of Testosterone are aggression and competitiveness. Which makes biological sense given that males ultimately used to compete for the affections of females back in our far more primitive cave man days. (Hell, a lot of us still do it today--we're just more self aware of why we're doing it.) Women really do tend to be more compassionate, but, again, that has nothing to do with a magical female brain--it has everything to do with the chemicals that run through them.

Men and Women are different on a psychological level, but--and I have to emphasize this--they are not ruled by their nature. They are affected by it, which creates trends, but a man or a woman is human first, with an identical capacity for consciousness and decision making skills that allow them to accept or reject the norms imposed upon them by the world. In other words? More men will be warriors--but not all men will be. More women will be caregivers--but not all women will be.

#3: Technology is the great equalizer.
Okay, I'm cheating a bit with this one, but just hold on. Back in the medieval era, the biological differences between males and females mattered a lot more than they do today. Reason being is that most jobs were labour jobs--smithing, for example--where strength benefits you. Out on the battlefield, where all other things are equal, the total weight of one force will crush the other. Vikings used to take huge shields and run yelling and charging into opponents, knocking over smaller opponents and then literally beating them to death with their shields if they could feasibly move in for the killing blow with their axes.

You know what beats a 220 LBS yelling blonde haired juggernaut man with an axe and shield, no matter his strength?

A gun.

A gun does.

A gun does not care if its user is a man or a woman. It does not care if they're tall or short. It does not care if they add or subtract 100 pounds from their opponent. So long as the user of the gun is not horribly anemic or horribly overweight, they can use most firearms properly, and kill anyone in front of them.

You know how we used to get messages around? Runners. You know what benefits runners? Having the strength and stamina to move great distances without tiring, as fast as is possible. Again, men beat women at this.

You know how we get messages around now?

I hit a few numbers into a rectangle box of electricity and metal and can contact anyone in the world. I can literally be legless and still have my voice carried wherever I wish it to be, with whomever I wish.

Literally the only thing left in modern society that differentiates men from women in any major way (outside of certain professions) is the fact that in order to produce a new human, you need a male and a female. The male is done in one night. The female has at least (not counting recovery time afterwards or the initial raising and feeding of the tiny frail baby) nine months.

We still have our defined gender roles and ideals for men and women, and at a basic level, men and women are still biologically different. That being said, those biological differences--outside of perpetuating the species--are essentially irrelevant in the vast majority of professions and hobbies thanks to the modern age and its technology.

-----------------------------------------------

Now for my personal opinion. The one not backed up by science. The message I would generally carry to your role players if nothing else above matters.

Fantasy is whatever you choose to make of it. You can have giant flying reptiles that breath fire, or be in a space ship that can defy all physics that we know of today, or anything in the middle. Gender will only matter as much as you wish it to. Both in the worlds you create, and in the characters you build. It's another subject matter of significant depth and, ultimately, incredible beauty that you can explore of your own volition. Do what you think is interesting, pursue the stories that you feel most passionate about. If that's a woman beating the odds and kicking a man's ass in a contest of strength, or being a female knight of great renown in the medieval age, or being a male caregiver who raises the children while his wife goes out to war--do whatever you want. Fiction need not conform to reality, it merely need be the light of our dreams, our ideals made manifest by words, shared with others.

Whatever limits you impose upon it, gendered or otherwise, are yours to choose. Be creative with it.

I agree with your points (especially like the one about technology being equalizers), but men and women's brains do have plenty of evolutionary differences.

Male brains utilize more gray matter for activity while female brains utilize more white matter. This shows that typical male brains are more capable of focused work, while female brains are more capable of multitasking.

Due to the difference in processing of chemicals like testosterone, estrogen, serotonin, and oxytocin, males on average tend to be less inclined to sit still for as long as females and tend to be more physically impulsive.

Females often have a larger hippocampus, our human memory center. Females also often have a higher density of neural connections into the hippocampus. As a result, women tend to input or absorb more sensorial and emotive information than males do.

Those are just some examples, the male and female brains have many small differences that add up. But the problem with these trends is that we use them to create expectations for people, and conform them to such stereotypes. Neurological trends aside, there are so many factors that can affect one's mental growth, and therefore each person should be seen as an individual, not a set of collective stereotypes. In my view, sexism is harmful in the sense that they both conform people to stereotypes and favour some traits over another.

 

[Meliodas]

In first crafting this question, I didn't imagine delving into the all too obvious realm of biology (which I happen to know quite a bit about). Alternatively, I know little about gender differences in terms of psychology, but curiosity has lead me to consider taking a class on the subject (of course there is an entire course devoted to this question). Now, I'd like to expand on this just a bit because of the direction which Nilum was headed in terms of gender roles and equality.

Have we overly sexualized females? Consider the idea that crimes such as rape are usually thought involving a woman being the victim for example. Take for example most commercials that make every attempt to turn a woman's body into a sex symbol, while America specifically likes to subtly emphasize the need for women to be skinny, proper, and even borderline submissive at times.

What are your thoughts on this? Do men deserve to be considered just as sexual as women? Men could just as easily be raped, or self-conscious about their bodies, etc. Not sure where I was headed with that specifically, but as gender roles begin to overlap, we really need to stop to question the responsibilities we place under each of them.

Edit: Someone in private just made a good point. What about this idea of a third gender?

~M

 

[Gwazi Magnum]

Nilum already stated anything I could and more in response to the OP's original question, except for one small note.

You know how Transgenders exist? And how it can be diagnosed as "Gender Dysphoria?", well brain/hormone differences are why you get people feeling weird in their biological bodies to begin with. Then very fact such a thing exists proves the Gender has some amount of weight to it.

Have we overly sexualized females? Consider the idea that crimes such as rape are usually thought involving a woman being the victim for example. Take for example most commercials that make every attempt to turn a woman's body into a sex symbol, while America specifically likes to subtly emphasize the need for women to be skinny, proper, and even borderline submissive at times.

This also has evolutionary roots. Because of how human reproduction works humanity had some big trends set.

1. Men only needed to spend 5 minutes on making off spring, while a woman needed 9 months.
2. A Man could father multiple children at the same time over a 9 month period, a woman could only focus on one (not counting twins).
3. Once the mating process was done the father could die and the child would still be alive. But if the carrying mother were to die, so would the child.
4. But also during said nine months a woman was weak and vulnerable, but a man was unencumbered by pregnancy, and could fight at full strength.

This set it up so that strict gender roles were set for most of our history, where any woman was valued because each woman meant more offspring, but men weren't as valuable because we needed much fewer of them to keep up offspring. You didn't want it to be only one man though, due to genetic diversity and just one mans physical limits in how many mouths he can protect and feed, but you didn't need them in as high a quantity. So basically, men were required to compete with one another, for the right to mate and reproduce, and have their gene's passed on to the next generation, meanwhile a woman just had to be a woman who was at least healthy enough to (usually) survive the birthing process. And since creatures have evolved to be attracted to what gives their children the best chances of surviving, this lead to different standards of attraction between the sexes.

What made an attractive man was an ability to protect the mother and child from dangers, and be able to (relatively) safely hunt for food. This required a lot of physical strength and an ability to express dominance to show they were bigger, better and tougher than most other men. Women on the hand mainly just needed to show to have that right body proportions to be able to safely carry and birth a child, cause if they couldn't the man might focus his resources on the women who are more likely to safely produce healthy children. That, and they needed to be willing to stay in and camp and not go hunting, cause a pregnant women doesn't tend to make an effective hunter/predator, or live long when doing such activities.

As a result women basically became biological trophies to be won, by the man who expressed the most dominance. The more attractive the woman, the more dominant and successive men they'd have competing, thus explaining why they tend to be more sexualized, in order to attract the most Alpha male that they can. They tend to be submissive because to be anything else was practically suicide back in those days, women who decided they wanted to be the provider either didn't live long or just weren't reproducing to begin with. And the rape? Well, that's also a matter of biology, it's a display of dominance and our biological ancestors didn't have any sort of actual standard for consensual sex. Outside of cases like the duck, where the rape can get so brutal it kills the female it was basically another way of showing off "I'm the best male for you".

And like Nilum stated above, although we're not slaves to biology we are influenced by it, which set's trends. Now, obviously casually raping women isn't a trend today, that's an example of society and people's independence allowing them to overcome their biology. But, it does still explain why traditionally when rape is brought up why people tend to picture a woman as the victim.

What are your thoughts on this? Do men deserve to be considered just as sexual as women?

If that's what people, or a particular set of people want. We're not all beholden to one standard of sexual attraction, if some men want to try to be just as sexual they're free to. And if women (or other men) decide they like that then they're free to. Just as long as they're not trying to force that onto everybody.

Someone in private just made a good point. What about this idea of a third gender?

Are we talking Japan's third Gender or a Tumblr Gender?
And if we're talking Japan's, are we talking their actual Third Gender or their romanticised Third Gender?

That being asked, biologically speaking we've only had two genders pop up. And yes, I recognise that Gender =/= Sex, but we still established only two gender roles for our vast majority of history. So any other gender isn't so much a biological question bur more a cultural question, that's less indicative of how one's brain actually works and more indicative about social and cultural norms the individual has adapted and practices.

(Edit: To clarify, I don't know too much on Japan's Third Gender. I just know enough about it know it doesn't have a biological root, and that it tends to be twisted and manipulated a lot these in days in comparison to how it actually was back when Japan practised it).

 

[Nilum]

I agree with your points (especially like the one about technology being equalizers), but men and women's brains do have plenty of evolutionary differences.

Male brains utilize more gray matter for activity while female brains utilize more white matter. This shows that typical male brains are more capable of focused work, while female brains are more capable of multitasking.

Due to the difference in processing of chemicals like testosterone, estrogen, serotonin, and oxytocin, males on average tend to be less inclined to sit still for as long as females and tend to be more physically impulsive.

Females often have a larger hippocampus, our human memory center. Females also often have a higher density of neural connections into the hippocampus. As a result, women tend to input or absorb more sensorial and emotive information than males do.

Those are just some examples, the male and female brains have many small differences that add up. But the problem with these trends is that we use them to create expectations for people, and conform them to such stereotypes. Neurological trends aside, there are so many factors that can affect one's mental growth, and therefore each person should be seen as an individual, not a set of collective stereotypes. In my view, sexism is harmful in the sense that they both conform people to stereotypes and favour some traits over another.

Yep! You got it. Those are all legitimate, but, as I said above, I was massively oversimplifying the subject matter, and some stuff is invariably lost in translation in doing so. In terms of the point I was making, it was simply that men and women are pretty close in terms of brain structure and total intellectual capacity. They may think differently in some ways, but in the grand scheme of things, males and females are both capable of equal feats of intelligence, emotion, and consciousness--three pillars upon which to develop a character. A woman may behave differently due to their biology, but they are no less capable of understanding it, and accepting or rejecting it... If that makes sense.

Have we overly sexualized females? Consider the idea that crimes such as rape are usually thought involving a woman being the victim for example. Take for example most commercials that make every attempt to turn a woman's body into a sex symbol, while America specifically likes to subtly emphasize the need for women to be skinny, proper, and even borderline submissive at times.

I'm going to take a very tentative "no." Probably going to get pitchforked for that later, but in terms of society? (Again, to oversimplify): Men are sexually valued based on power and strength, women are sexually valued based on appearance and emotive intellect. This goes all the way back to our cavemen days, again, and I'm sure I don't need to explain why.

My three primary arguments against the idea of oversexualization are as follows.

#1: Men are sexy too--just, a different kind of sexy.
Look at Fifty Shades of Grey. Look at Twilight. They're two schlocky, terrible books, whose writing level is equitable to your average action movie starring Sylvester Stallone or Arnold Schwarzenegger... However, they are books aimed squarely at women. Look at the men in them: They tend to be handsome, strong, capable. In Twilight's case, he's aloof and has to be "tamed" into romance by the female lead. In Fifty Shade's case, he's hilariously rich and kinky, and the female lead wants to be pampered and explore her sexuality.

Go look up romance novels written for women. Go look up Harlequin romance novels. Go look up stories written on Literotica* by women, for women. You will find a distinct trend of what male sexiness looks like, and it's pretty consistently a man who needs a woman's emotional touch, but who in exchange can protect and provide for the woman. There's a reason why the classical tale of "the silver knight atop his white steed slays the dragon and saves the princess" is a popular one among women, as well as men. The places where men go to find their fantasies and fictions are often not frequented by women because they're too busy frequenting their own places for their fantasies and fictions.

As well, psychologically speaking, men tend to have power fantasies and women tend to have emotional fantasies. What men and women want are different, sexually speaking. There are exceptions to the rule, but they normally prove the rule, rather than break it.

#2: There are plenty of female characters throughout fiction that are not oversexualized.
Lady MacBeth, Ripley, and Chell come to mind as three examples from three different mediums. All major characters in major fictions that had a great impact on the cultures of their times--not by being women, but just by being good protagonists that did their jobs.

A woman does not have to be overly sexualized to be included or valued in a story or elsewhere. Granted, you will find a lot of sexy women, but that has a lot to do with the fact that four billion years of evolution has burrowed very, very deeply into the instinctive consciousness of the species to desire sex--especially in men. So, if you want men to take notice, flash tits at them. If you want women to take notice, emotion-bait them with a handsome looking male that promises to fulfill their needs.

#3: Crimes. Like rape. Oh god, we're actually talking about ra--
Look I'm not gonna lie, I'm not overly comfortable with this particular subject matter. It's violent and disturbing. That being said, the likelihood that persons are going to commit crimes or be victims of crimes is a gendered thing. Men are more likely to be victims of assault, but they're also more likely to commit assault. Women are more likely to get targeted by predators and roofied at bars.

This is a fact of life. It's not something you can change, because society itself is not actually perpetuating it. Society itself is the victim of it.

The overall level of crime is, however, going down, in every category. As society progresses, as life becomes easier, as people become less desperate, they're less likely to commit crime. There are social movements dedicated to dispelling myths about rape and assault and who are chipping away at preconceived notions of who is guilty and who is innocent. We make mistakes based on our gendered assumptions, and then we fix them with our human intellect. The less we demonize the fact that we are different, that we do different things, the more we just accept ourselves and one another for what we are? The closer we'll get to fixing these divides and issues that continue to exist.

Divides which used to be a lot worse, when we were far more primitive.

*Literotica is an adult site, featuring adult only fiction. Be warned.

EDIT

Also, not touching the third gender thing beyond that it would make no sense biologically speaking. It really wouldn't.

 

[Meliodas]

Gwazi really hit on our instinctual and biological drives in terms of mating behavior – something all mammals possess. We have touched on our biological and hormonal differences and even our culture/social differences to an extent. Clearly, if we disregard biology, I am going to gander that we are more alike than ever aside from the basic fact of the roles society has given us which is a direct result of thousands of years of conditioning. Social interactions play a very large role in our psychology, which is why psychology has accepted a biopsychosocial model to explain that it is an interaction between these three elements which defines us. With biology out of the way, my psychology texts talk quite a bit about how theorists suggest that a woman’s traditional role has fostered a sense of dependency and helpless. At the same time, we could probably come to the conclusion that men are looked as strong, heroic… etc. We are simply meant to just “man up.”

Now, with the integration of women not only into the workforce but the military, that really has to leave us wondering. Of course, I am all for equality, but what really interests me is this growing overlap of masculinity and feminism. We have reached a generation where we are really beginning to question this, and arguably there is a lot of debate about this – especially in the states right now.

So, some questions I want to transition towards are, what would equality look like? Obviously, this is a popular topic recently, so, pushing aside things like equal pay (which I more than agree with), how do we strike a balance that is fair? Furthermore, as the genders overlap with one another, what would the long-term solution be? When we think about our social roles, we think about conditioned behavior, so, do you think this behavior will be reprogrammed? In the future, how different should we be? Or how similar? Could we potentially see the breakdown and complete blur of gender roles in society?

I almost want to reach a philosophical argument here that in the end, are we really just the same? If we could remove thousands of years of conditioning and social interaction, would things have turned out different? Another idea to toy with is, there is some proof out there if I recall that men are naturally more aggressive and dominant. Say, hypothetically, we rewind time back to Adam and Eve (let's not make this religious, just focus on the concept). What do you think that relationship looked like? Born without knowing anything we do now, would Adam have automatically taken on a more dominant and aggressive role? Are we nothing more than slaves to our instincts?

~M

 

[Gwazi Magnum]

what would equality look like?

If you mean Equality of opportunities, we already have it for the most part. There's no laws stopping any one from entering a field they desire assuming they show their competency for it. We've only got smaller issues left now such as anti-abortion laws and circumcision.

If you mean Equality of outcome, you're either going to be forcing people into fields they don't want to be in, or you've found some sort of magical potion that completely erases any sort of biological history and tendencies we have.

When we think about our social roles, we think about conditioned behavior, so, do you think this behavior will be reprogrammed?

The very fact we have civilisation shows we've been able to reprogram our behaviours to some extent.
But like stated above, it won't be fully reprogrammed until you find a way to take our biological history out of the picture.

In the future, how different should we be? Or how similar?

*Should* is almost impossible to answer without seeing what the future holds in store for us. We could be facing a perfect sci-fi future like on Star Trek allowing us all to follow our own paths, we could be screwed over by stuff like Global Warming, and be reduced to Hunter-Gatherer societies, where gender roles would need to make a very real comeback.

If we could remove thousands of years of conditioning and social interaction, would things have turned out different?

Yes, we'd still be living in the wild like every other animal species, and Civilisation would of never been a thing to exist. Assuming our species didn't get themselves killed outright from all the fathers sitting about in their caves, and the mothers getting killed while hunting when pregnant.

Say, hypothetically, we rewind time back to Adam and Eve (let's not make this religious, just focus on the concept). What do you think that relationship looked like? Born without knowing anything we do now, would Adam have automatically taken on a more dominant and aggressive role? Are we nothing more than slaves to our instincts?

They would be two naked people with a strong phobia of eating apples.

Adam likely would still be more dominant and aggressive, because there would still be the biological history of the species that homo-sapiens were descendants of, all the other species of creatures in his ancestry line over the millions of years beforehand. But I have a feeling that wasn't what you meant, but rather just a situation where there was no biological history period, in which case you've one of two things going on:

1. We were the first signs of biological life on earth. So we'd probably be completely mindless individuals, like sponges, but less complex.
2. Something else intervened and created us. In which case, what we would end up being would of be completely up to the thing in question.

 

[DifferentStrawhat]

This idea sparked recently as a conversation among some of the players in my RP, and was surprisingly quite civil for the most part. There seems to be a lot of debate about sexism, which I really feel is rooted in this idea that men and women are different. Do men and women respectively deserve to be treated differently? Are the ways we handle ourselves socially that drastically different? What are your thoughts on how men and women think, or, my favorite caveat, your thoughts on comparing/contrasting gender as it relates to our psychology?

I don't think we all should be treated differently, as i have roleplayed with both genders (not as), i had less troubles with men than women, most of the females i met acted.. like they deserved special treatments and full attention on their characters, while treating the other like trash, while some do what they ordered, i was the only who told to them that i was tired on their attitude..

it doesn't matter wich gender the player is, if the player is nice, then he/she deserves to be treated nicely, if the player is not nice, then he/she deserves to be treated the same way.

 

[Meliodas]

One thing that is extremely interesting today is that we are seeing an increasing overlap of genders. I would gander that many, many years ago, this wasn't something that would have been pointed out, especially with the way gender roles were in the past. Now, we have reached a society where in theory, the genders are equal. Online especially, we see a lot of confusion about who is a guy versus who is a girl because these are traits that are perceived in both genders. Which is interesting considering that this problem exists online, which is really an outlet for our psychology and personality to play out. Normally, biology has no place in a community like this because it isn't something a lot of us even take into account. At least, I know I don't.

The overall point of this discussion was to touch on the fact that nowadays, these discussions or marches for equality in the world today could really go either way - yet they don't appear to. Men can be just as emotional as a woman, just as a woman can in theory be as brave or strong as a man (psychologically).

Unfortunately, as a society, we seem to be placing an emphasis on women's rights today, and rightfully so. I guess one thing that interests me is what about a man's rights? Why do you think things in the world seem so one-sided? Or, maybe they aren't at all, and that is just my OWN personal perception. Thoughts?

~M

 

[DifferentStrawhat]

I think it's useless for fighting for women's rights since they are already achieved,
and i honestly don't get why a man can't be emotionnal, or are told to "deal with their problems" if they need help too..

for exemple, why not helping both genders who deal with domestical abuse? i don't know about your country, but in mine, it's taboo to talk about a man who deal with this issue for exemple..

I do think that if we talk about an issue, both genders should be helped, but alas, it's just a dream...

 

[FriendA]

Gender right now is a very touchie subject. As if you want to be a man or woman. But in relatity we are all the same in the bible in gen. It says woman was made from man.

 

[Spearheader]

Have we overly sexualized females? Consider the idea that crimes such as rape are usually thought involving a woman being the victim for example. Take for example most commercials that make every attempt to turn a woman's body into a sex symbol, while America specifically likes to subtly emphasize the need for women to be skinny, proper, and even borderline submissive at times.

~M

I think the answer is that we have, but that doesn't mean we have to abandon sexualization altogether, or keep it marked in a box labeled "Sexy things" that must be apart from all other things. The ideal should be some sexy, some not, some submissive, some not, for both genders.

I, of course, have a dog in that fight, but I've been trying to see the other side too.

 

[White]

Just for the sake of your players, I'll answer this from the scientific (and not ideological) point of view. Then I'll make a point about it.

Keep in mind, this is over simplified to shit. (Like, massively.) So if your players are really curious about the subject matter, please, by all means--encourage them to look it up themselves!

This also means that, in the oversimplification, some specific details may be lost. So if I end up forgetting something important, remember...

I'll keep it to three points, just to keep it short.

#1: Men are stronk. Like, terrifyingly stronk.
Biological fact of life. Males in our species are stronger than females. This is probably nowhere better expressed than in weightlifting, where women can't even compete in some of the highest end categories that men can--they simply can't even physically get there.

Comparing men and women biologically isn't even entirely rational. They're two different entities that, biologically speaking, perform different functions. Men will average 40-60% stronger overall than women in the same weight ranges. Men have greater bone density, meaning their bones are less likely to fracture or break when exposed to stress. The primary male sex hormone stimulates muscle growth, and males possess around 5-20 times as much as females do.

If you put the world's strongest man into a fist fight with the world's strongest woman, it wouldn't be a fight--it would be a one sided slaughter. It wouldn't even be remotely funny--it would be over in under ten seconds. There's a reason they separate men and women in the UFC, and it has nothing to do with weight class. Put a 120 LBS woman against 120 LBS man--if they're of equal skill, the woman is far more likely to take an injury in the form of a fractured or broken bone, the woman will have a lower muscle per pound ratio than the man, and the man will have a greater level of adrenaline and testosterone flowing through his body which helps him to ignore pain.

In a fist fight, women don't beat men through strength. They beat them through cunning, the environment, and weaponry. Preferably, they beat them without ever going into melee combat against them.

#2: Men and Women's brains are basically the same.
They are. Outside of estrogen creating more serotonin receptors in the brain (IE: larger mood swings during periods usually), and the manner in which periods affect chemical balances in women, men and women have near-identical processes in the brains. They are equally intellectually capable, they are equally sufficiently conscious, they are equally emotionally cognitive. The idea that women are somehow more "emotional" than men (outside of serotonin/periods) is backwards absurdity. The parts of the brain that control and manage emotion in women are not somehow "larger" or "less capable" than those of a male. Similarly, male brains do not suddenly sprout a section called "dudebro" that magically makes them into thoughtless dribbling idiots obsessed with tits and cars. These are learned behaviours--not inherent to the genders in question.

Therefore, it should come as a surprise to literally nobody who has a scrap of knowledge about the human brain that you can have feminine men and masculine women, as well as masculine men and feminine women.

That being said, there is a trend of "males are masculine" and "females are feminine" and it's not entirely society. The chemicals that run through our brains (dopamine, serotonin, et cetera) do affect our behaviours, and the process of puberty affects males and females differently. Males really do tend to be more aggressive, but it's not because there's a magical male brain out there--it's because some of the side effects of Testosterone are aggression and competitiveness. Which makes biological sense given that males ultimately used to compete for the affections of females back in our far more primitive cave man days. (Hell, a lot of us still do it today--we're just more self aware of why we're doing it.) Women really do tend to be more compassionate, but, again, that has nothing to do with a magical female brain--it has everything to do with the chemicals that run through them.

Men and Women are different on a psychological level, but--and I have to emphasize this--they are not ruled by their nature. They are affected by it, which creates trends, but a man or a woman is human first, with an identical capacity for consciousness and decision making skills that allow them to accept or reject the norms imposed upon them by the world. In other words? More men will be warriors--but not all men will be. More women will be caregivers--but not all women will be.

#3: Technology is the great equalizer.
Okay, I'm cheating a bit with this one, but just hold on. Back in the medieval era, the biological differences between males and females mattered a lot more than they do today. Reason being is that most jobs were labour jobs--smithing, for example--where strength benefits you. Out on the battlefield, where all other things are equal, the total weight of one force will crush the other. Vikings used to take huge shields and run yelling and charging into opponents, knocking over smaller opponents and then literally beating them to death with their shields if they could feasibly move in for the killing blow with their axes.

You know what beats a 220 LBS yelling blonde haired juggernaut man with an axe and shield, no matter his strength?

A gun.

A gun does.

A gun does not care if its user is a man or a woman. It does not care if they're tall or short. It does not care if they add or subtract 100 pounds from their opponent. So long as the user of the gun is not horribly anemic or horribly overweight, they can use most firearms properly, and kill anyone in front of them.

You know how we used to get messages around? Runners. You know what benefits runners? Having the strength and stamina to move great distances without tiring, as fast as is possible. Again, men beat women at this.

You know how we get messages around now?

I hit a few numbers into a rectangle box of electricity and metal and can contact anyone in the world. I can literally be legless and still have my voice carried wherever I wish it to be, with whomever I wish.

Literally the only thing left in modern society that differentiates men from women in any major way (outside of certain professions) is the fact that in order to produce a new human, you need a male and a female. The male is done in one night. The female has at least (not counting recovery time afterwards or the initial raising and feeding of the tiny frail baby) nine months.

We still have our defined gender roles and ideals for men and women, and at a basic level, men and women are still biologically different. That being said, those biological differences--outside of perpetuating the species--are essentially irrelevant in the vast majority of professions and hobbies thanks to the modern age and its technology.

-----------------------------------------------

Now for my personal opinion. The one not backed up by science. The message I would generally carry to your role players if nothing else above matters.

Fantasy is whatever you choose to make of it. You can have giant flying reptiles that breath fire, or be in a space ship that can defy all physics that we know of today, or anything in the middle. Gender will only matter as much as you wish it to. Both in the worlds you create, and in the characters you build. It's another subject matter of significant depth and, ultimately, incredible beauty that you can explore of your own volition. Do what you think is interesting, pursue the stories that you feel most passionate about. If that's a woman beating the odds and kicking a man's ass in a contest of strength, or being a female knight of great renown in the medieval age, or being a male caregiver who raises the children while his wife goes out to war--do whatever you want. Fiction need not conform to reality, it merely need be the light of our dreams, our ideals made manifest by words, shared with others.

Whatever limits you impose upon it, gendered or otherwise, are yours to choose. Be creative with it.

Yes, I would like to expand a bit more on it.

Genetics, it does not come down to X or Y, though you do, usually, require a second X to have a womb, male primary sex developement comes down to the presence of a gene called SRY. In most cases it happens to be on Y, but it can be translocated to an X, making a man an XX male.

An extremely rare case, known as 5 alpha reductase deficiency, causes a girl to become a man. They literally grow testicles and a penis when puberty hits. That is literally like... WTF, but shows and proves how fragile the two sexes are. These men have no problem with being men and are all heterosexual, which you can consider an arguement that homosexuality and transidentity is in fact genetic.

With the discovery of epigenetics, we have found something whereby the genes themself act differenly. You can compare this with genes being like a broken phone, you type in a number but end up calling somewhere completly different. Epigenetics has shown some evidence for homosexuality being genetic and the developement of sex expressions within the brain. Yes, the limited tests done on trans people has shown them to have the sex expressions of the identified gender.

Gene expressions do also show that men and women do have them a bit differently. It is not much of a suprise if you consider the different uses of the first X chromosome.

Aside from the testicles/Ovaries, our sex is entirely developed by estrogen/hormones and we see drastic changed to our genitials when we swap to the other hormone. Estrogen affects the testes in a way the hospital-university essen is currently looking into. In owner's of vagina's, testosterone find changes to the structure and layers of the vagina.

There are more than 30 genes found being somewhere responsible for sexual developements.

There is a species of rats in japan that do not have a Y chromosome and therefore no SRY. (Amami spiny rats) Other genes adapted and became responsible for male developement.

A genderless baby's genitial looks like a vagina without a canal.

The first X chromosome is a double agent, responsible for a lot of important things in women and in men.

China loved and wanted transsexual and homosexual people in the imperial court. They would never want to touch the concubines.

Yes, I am aware of the misuse of the word vagina.
The conclusion to all the genetic knowledge is that people are just what people are. Men and women happen to be regardless of one's own genitial and a lot of variation exists.
Genetic diversion has become more of a subject mentioned in my surroundings and it is true that humans are extremely diverse and adaptable. These things exist so that a species can adapt to enviromental needs and it is much easier for a genetic make up to change something around for sexual dimorphism when things are more similiar in it's origin.


There is an interesting article regarding this here:
http://www.nature.com/news/sex-redefined-1.16943

I agree with it's conclusion, though I only believe there to be two genders and think that people whom identify as one or the other on a daily basis are probably merely accepting that they have aspects and patterns of both. A number of experts consider sex to be a mosaic as a result.

As for sexism...

Now as @Nilum noted, yes, men are stronger (but women are stronger internally). This comes down to testosterone being present and this causes forms of sexism to this day. If you think about it, women tend to be victims of sexual assaults, more so than men, women also tend to be more frequently the victims of domestic violence, judged by ammount of sexual partner and even judged by the state of the hymen(something not every woman is born with), connected to virginity. Religion still assumes a controlling behavior in the middle east and some regions of the US onto women and their bodies, but please, let's *not* go into this and just leave this one here as is(I am tired of discussing this).
Radical feminism has become a problem but equalism and therefore the original idea of feminism are still needed to solve these problems.

A study a couple of years ago showed that women sentenced in court for murder were more frequently using a knife as a weapon. A kitchen knife to be exact and were victims of domestic violence.

The pay gap, the problem that has occured seems to be that people interpret it in two different ways and that both are valid.

Men suffer more severe punishments in court than women do.

The problem with radical feminism is that it calls beautiful women sex objects to prove their point and forces an idea of life onto women that prevents them from becoming passive housewives or loving mothers mothers.

Cultural view...

Now it is also important to mention that there is a historical view to gender. Asia, specifically China has a lot more attention given to important women in history. Movies and series from asia usually portrait feminine, yet very strong female characters whereas hollywood seems to portray women more frequently as the "addition", only there to be the romance. I cringe everytime I see a western movie end with a kiss or throw women in there just for romance purposes.
(Fa Mulan, Empress Dowager Cixi, Ching Shih, Jin Xing(alive) to give a few examples. For the west, Queen Elizabeth, Catherine the Great and Jean of Arc come to mind)

 

[Natalija]

#1: Men are stronk. Like, terrifyingly stronk.
Biological fact of life. Males in our species are stronger than females. This is probably nowhere better expressed than in weightlifting, where women can't even compete in some of the highest end categories that men can--they simply can't even physically get there.

Comparing men and women biologically isn't even entirely rational. They're two different entities that, biologically speaking, perform different functions. Men will average 40-60% stronger overall than women in the same weight ranges. Men have greater bone density, meaning their bones are less likely to fracture or break when exposed to stress. The primary male sex hormone stimulates muscle growth, and males possess around 5-20 times as much as females do.

If you put the world's strongest man into a fist fight with the world's strongest woman, it wouldn't be a fight--it would be a one sided slaughter. It wouldn't even be remotely funny--it would be over in under ten seconds. There's a reason they separate men and women in the UFC, and it has nothing to do with weight class. Put a 120 LBS woman against 120 LBS man--if they're of equal skill, the woman is far more likely to take an injury in the form of a fractured or broken bone, the woman will have a lower muscle per pound ratio than the man, and the man will have a greater level of adrenaline and testosterone flowing through his body which helps him to ignore pain.

In a fist fight, women don't beat men through strength. They beat them through cunning, the environment, and weaponry. Preferably, they beat them without ever going into melee combat against them.

Oh boy I love dis-proving these kinds of opinions... because they are so mistaken, I dont even know where to begin. So, speaking as someone who is a martial artist, crossfiter and a fighter, has been for 10+ years, who vas in MMA (until I quit it and swiched over to competing in underground bareknuckle events, one of the reasons being the afore-mentioned gender separation, vhich realy started to piss me off after a while - I hapen to like a chalenge, and fighting men provides it). So lets start, point-by-point.

1) Males are inherently stronger, yes. But muscular strength is a function of training, and body mass. And inherent advantage men have, can be overcome by superior training. Any woman can get evry bit as strong as any man, if she put enogh effort (and certain kinds of carbo/protein suplements), into it. It may take more time, but the cap is the same. I my-self am 84kg, and can deadlift 210 kg. Thats comparable to any man of the same weigt, vith my level of training.
2) Your fist fight argument is bullshit. There are videos on YT that test the average impact force of male and female fighters of the same weigt class, and in some cases, the woman proved a harder puncher/kicker. And if you known anithing about fighting, you wuld know that striking force isnt a function of muscle power, but momentum, bone-hardness, and technikue. Why do some mid-weigt boxers punch way harder then heavys? Superior technikue. In fact, tensing up ur muscles during striking only limits the deep-penetrative impact on contact. I seen some guy, a real brick type, 110+ kg at least, throw a punch, that vas measured... he gone all-out, tense as a rock, snarling, full "man-mode beast" and it measured barely 700 pounds. His muscular tension just destroyed his punch. I can open-palm strike for 1.3k pounds of force (measured it about a year and half ago in the gym), punch for about 950-1k, and throw a 1.1k roundhouse kick. Ever heared of a litle thing called "relaxed power"? The hardest strikes are the ones vhere muscles remain loose, and momentum does all the work.
3) Bone-hardness... to continue upon it, yes - I agree that inherently, men have denser bones (its necesary, since they are usualy heavier). But bone density, agen, is a function of training and conditioning. Superior training overcomes inherent advantages. Vith enough impact-conditioning, any bone wil become hardened and calcified, and 3-4 times denser then normal. Male or female, dont matter. Iron Body disciplines in varius Kung Fu forms deal vith that, vhich I practice regularly. Hitting my-self with 5kg (body), and 3kg (face/head/neck/throat) dumb-bells wraped up in cloth, is a regular part of my conditioning regimen. It kills the nerve-endings, and calcifys the bones. You start out slow, mung beans or something similar, then move up incrementaly.
4) Agression. This is vhere most women fail, since yes... our lower testosterone level makes it harder to maintain agression for any length of time, and we are wired diferently, toward talking things out rather then fighting. But agen... mental training takes care of that. Being a good fighter necesitates a certain level of anti-social atitude, vhich is instiled thru mental training to develop that controled psycho-side of the personality, and elimination of "fight or flight" fear reflex. Fear tenses ppl up. Tense ppl have no power. Something my SiFu told me long ago, and it proves corect over and over agen. That applys equaly to males and females.

Oh, and that statement that men have higher pain tolerance... riiiiiiiight. Its a wel known fact women have a higher pain threshold. I see it evry day, during crossfit. Vhen they get tired and muscle-fatigued, vhen it starts to hurt, men usualy give up on the WOD faster then women, or take longer pauses betwen rounds. Its most evident on the people who are just starting (>1 month). Most guys regularly complain about how hard something is, how its "for animals, not ppl", groan, moan, try to cheat thru the number of reps, etc, etc. You know vhat most girls do? They keep kuiet, and keep pushing thru it. Same weights. Same number of reps (for beginers, theres not much diff, all are usualy equaly weak and un-trained, male or female - another debunking of your "men are 40% stronger" teory). You can see the strain on there faces, the sweat, the trembling limbs at the end - but they never let out a sound, or complain about it. Now, men do advance faster, due to higher testosterone levels, but the top cap is the same.

So in concluzion, my vote is a firm "no". Most diferences betwen genders are simply societaly-imposed stereotypes, to keep women feeling weak and subservient.

 

[Lila Renn]

Im a person but like. Women are just magic. They do this us gender just can't be bothered to do.Hail women.