Gender Roles

The problem is, there's not much of a way to test this. We can't just put a bunch of babies on an island and see what sort of society they develop.

And we can't have volunteers try to set up communities that entirely genderless, because they're not free from a societal imprint.

If we assume that gender roles primarily exist for biological reasons, then our best approach would be to promote general tolerance of "unusual" people, so as to increase acceptance of people who for one reason or another have traits that are uncommon in their gender. If gender roles are primarily cultural, this increased acceptance may actually lead to their slow dissolution. The problem, then, would seem to be finding the best way to promote tolerance.

The problem is we don't have a way to determine which is the case.

And if they are cultural there's no reason why they would eventually be dissolved.

Holy Crap 53 posts?! I'm so proud!

But yes, gender roles are obsolete in our post-industrial society where sex really doesn't make much difference in what a person can or can't do anymore, but their so embedded in our cultural mind-views that it would be very difficult to try and remove or change them. Perhaps the best we can do is lessen their effect of ostracizing those who don't fit within 'normal' boundaries.

... I'm staying out of this thread. Not only am I more worried about the situation in Japan right now. This is blatant Evo Psych bait.

No, what I'm saying is, if it's cultural and not biological (which I don't think is the case), than culture determines what happens. You can say what culture should do, but it will likely have no bearing on what it will do.

Can males have babies?

We're working on it, Rott.

Insert fanfiction here.

And that justifies everything?

Mmm, the joys of SCIENCE!

Define what you mean by "everything". A particular set of sex roles may be oppressive, but sex roles themselves are in no way unjust a priori. Maybe they would be if males and females were physiologically identical, but we're not. Different natures make different behavior proper.

The differences are minor. Most sex roles are not the result of any physical or psychological differences between males and females. Therefore, yes, I do think that all sex roles are unjust. We are being confined to a particular set of behaviors for no good reason.

So males can have babies, then?

Why couldn't we have an estrous cycle? Than we wouldn't even think about this stuff except for one month a year.

Using the same argument, no two men are psychologically identical to each other, nor are any two randomly selected women. So why should we force all of a particular gender to conform to roles they are not psychologically suited for?

And no, I'm not saying that this means men can give birth if they wish really hard. However I am saying that if a man is more suited to staying at home to raise the kids, and a woman is more suited to pursuing a career, there should be no restrictions that prevent either from doing so to the best of their abilities.

edited 17th Mar '11 12:10:43 PM by Meeble

A male's abilities here are inferior, since he doesn't lactate.

Infant formula leads to lower immune function and IQ, so is totally unacceptable if you accept the premise that giving your children the best trumps ideology.

^But after breast feeding?

As Meeble's example shows, the ability (or lack) to give birth does not mean a person must behave a certain way or another. The ability to give birth is not what causes women to stay home and men to work.

^No, but the ability to care for that child immediately after giving birth does.

Neither of you are considering the whole of a child's existance.

Or the fact that in many house holds both parents work, making the question kind of immaterial.

The invention of breast pumps allow for a baby to feed off of breast milk for as long as the mother wishes to produce it without the mother actually being present.

Even without that, a child commonly only breast-feeds for a limited time period. After that, there is no reason a capable father could not fill the role of household caregiver while the mother pursues outside career options.

This isn't even considering the fact that many men and women (more and more every year, in fact) are not even interested in having children to begin with, and their career and life goals should not be limited by the fact that they are biologically capable/incapable of having children they don't want in the first place.

edited 17th Mar '11 12:36:50 PM by Meeble

@Meeble: Hasn't the actual act of breastfeeding been shown to be an important thing in child development?

But yeah, you do have a point, that the main biological arguments for gender roles pretain to child rearing, and outside of that they lose some credence.

@Rott: I'm a bit late, but yes, men can indeed have babies. Edit: Or at least they could, if the link worked.

edited 17th Mar '11 12:35:16 PM by randomtropeloser

No, a man can have his life threatend by a likely doomed fetus.

Plus he would likely be unable to breast feed afterwards.

(Copy Paste into bar)

http://www.science20.com/challenging_nature/a_real_pregnant_man_almost_certainly_possible_but_it_might_kill_him

edited 17th Mar '11 12:43:45 PM by HungryJoe

The internet seems to really hate that link, for some reason... Anyway yeah, medicine would have to come a long way for it to work safely, I just thought it was interesting that the answer is technically yes. As for the breastfeeding thing, men can lactate under certain conditions, though probably not enough to feed a baby.

edited 17th Mar '11 12:44:37 PM by randomtropeloser