It Seems We Are Not Allowed A "wrong" Opinion!

[ToraToraTora]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-40859004

[naomi24]

Jim, indeed it is. Glad that's settled. Time to cook supper.

[pixie374]

Saw this on one of aog's links...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-4768800/Women-active-brains-men-new-study-shows.html

[jim360]

Oh, ***, I'm a woman then. :(

[pixie374]

Takes a little more than that, Jim:-)

[jim360]

A little less, in some places :o

[pixie374]

No- just in different places ;-)

[sp1814]

Nature or nurture?

We literally have no way of telling.

But things like this don't exactly help the nature argument:

https://metrouk2.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/magazine-covers.jpg?quality=80&strip=all

Subtext:

"Hey girls, be pretty, lovely fashion, hair, beauty, giggle giggle giggle".

"Hey boys, think about your future! What do you want to do for a living? How can you contribute?"

Hmmm...

[jim360]

Back to seriousness for a minute... I wonder if a lot of this is hurt by the innate imprecision of language. It's all very well stating that "women are more likely than men to overthink" or what have you, as the study may well be true, but it is clearly and obviously glossing over the fact that the overlap is sizeable in almost every case.

I am not sure that this point is ever really emphasised properly. The memo in question acknowledged it, vaguely, before going on really to ignore that in pursuit of whatever else it was trying to say.

I'm happy to accept that there are differences in men and women overall, as an average, but it has to be taken alongside the massive variations between men and women themselves. And that was kind of what prompted the question I had to start with. How can biological differences alone account for such wide disparities as a 4:1 ratio among computing engineers? How can it be that, even if men are more predisposed to become computing engineers on average, that we still pick more of the "above average" men than the "above average" women?

There are simply more factors at play in these gender gaps, in most fields, than can be accounted for purely by any biological differences. Even if those differences are "only" being exaggerated by society then it's worth acknowledging that. Ironically, one of the reasons is that indeed men and women can bring different perspectives, life experiences, etc. to the job, and therefore employers could proportionately lose out on this variety if they are missing some diversity in the workforce.

[pixie374]

The closest ways have been with identical twins raised apart- and often surprising similarities. It has to be a mixture of both- and in Psychology one of the biggest emphasis is called "goodness of fit" which is how the mother and baby interact. So which is that? Nature or nurture?

[woofgang]

I know I am hole picking but the problem that I see with that research is that the brain scans were performed on adult males and females who presumably had been raised in that gender with all that implies in terms of familial and societal moulding and expectations. Its known (I will pull out the research when I can find it) that babies' brains and neural pathways remould as they begin to hear and identify language depending on what language it is that they hear. I would suggest that its possible therefore that if a child is raised in the expectation that it will have female attributes, then the neural pathways could, at least in part, remould to facilitate that?

[pixie374]

Possibly- but that hasn't panned out that way when babies have been diagnosed the wrong sex at birth and treated as female (for instance) when they were genetically male.
I have to go back to work for a while. Take care x

[woofgang]

Hasn’t always panned out that way......I have just read a book about transgender issues and the history of their treatment. Its called Galileo’s middle finger. Its not an easy read and the author can be plenty annoying but the story of treating children whose physical gender is not clear at birth is an interesting one.

[naomi24]

Perhaps we should just ask why, since time immemorial, men have said they will never understand women. ;o)

[woofgang]

Because they think its a good excuse naomi.

[Khandro]

114 posts on soap scum - the world's gone mad!

[Khandro]

Ignore that - the wrong thread!!!

[woofgang]

hahahaha

[naomi24]

woofgang, I don't think it is an excuse. I think men genuinely don't understand women.

[Old_Geezer]

What does that mean ?

[Khandro]

naomi; // I think men genuinely don't understand women.//

Forget the men/women angle, I have reached the conclusion that nobody actually "understands" anybody, even themselves.