Not sure about your school but when the hand balls we had formerly used for dodge ball were removed we upgraded to basketballs. Once those were removed we used rocks.
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The Demise Of Guys? (TED Talk)
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soundscream
Member
You're supposed to master your fear and catch the ball.
Pretty much what I think. Although others on GAF with disagree, I'm sure, men and women are extremely different, behave different, and have different qualities, strengths and weaknesses. Politically correct bullshit is part of the problem with people wanting equality between apples and oranges.
Zimbardo makes very good points in his video, and I think he's right. The answer really is, get out more, out of your comfort zone and connect with others in a real way.
I've never wanted to punch someone over the internet more than now. Your post is trash.
fierrotlepou
Member
Every "guy" should just start watching Mad Men.
beelzebozo
Jealous Bastard
"how to be an unhappy man"
Well, I'm of the opin . . .
This has been disproven so hard it's not even funny. Gender is a biological construct that can and will be modified (moderated or strengthened) by the society we live in. But boys will still be boys and girls will still be girls. It's not really a problem unless you make it one by removing free will when you are trying to build a utopian society on the false premise that "gender is just a social construct".
Just out of interest, how would you go about removing all these societal boxes that we are "forced" into?
I'm sorry, but no, absolutely not. Anthropology and sociology and biology (the appropriate scientific fields for addressing gender and sex) have absolutely NOT decided that gender is biological. Quite the opposite. Gender is cultural. Sex is considered biological (although even that is somewhat debatable). "Boys will be boys" is absolutely apologist trash for the shitty patriarchal gender roles we ascribe, typically making boys "wild" "uncontrollable" and "impulsive," ultimately putting the role of "gatekeeper" of men's sexuality on women because the boys themselves are "unable" to. "Boys will be boys" is a lie, and I'm hoping maybe you've just gotten confused/mixed up in what you meant to say. Gender is cultural. Period.
And to answer your last question, you combat social constructs with awareness and intention. Combating power structures that are responsible for the uneven distribution of power along gender, racial, and other sociological lines important, and there's a number of ways its been done historically (revolution, Civil Rights reforms, women's suffrage reforms, etc.).
Once someone starts complaining about political correctness, I tend to assume that they are uninformed at best and bigots at the very worst.
It hasn't steered me wrong yet.
Agreed.
Perfect.
Anthropology and Sociology are not sciences. They are humanities.
Biology is Science and in biology the only thing that is a topic in this regard is sex. And the two sexes in humans are biologically different in a myriad of very profound ways. Right down to the chromosomes. This, I might add, is in no way controversial in the field of biology.
shanshan310
Member
So are you saying that women cooking and liking shopping, and men doing hard labour and liking cars is inherently biological? okay.
Its happening all the time.
We're talking about gender as well, where anthropology and sociology are relevant. And I suspect that anthropologists and sociologists would disagree with you on the question of whether or not they are sciences.
What if you boil those concepts down to 'nurturing' and 'providing'?
Haven't we seen studies show that kids will gravitate naturally towards activities and toys associated with their gender even if external stimuli are removed?
I've been trying to put this idea forward for years. Young men today shoulder negative rhetoric but then don't do anything to redefine what being a 'man' should be. The strongest identity we have for men in 2012 comes directly from the media that has been recycling the same stereotypes that have been floating around for decades. In High School and College, young boys are encouraged to embrace some strange ideal of 'man' and when they get out and realize nobody wants the College 'man' they're lost.
There have been other studies that show kids do not have a concrete identity that matches up with what our society associates with gender.
beelzebozo
Jealous Bastard
i actually do believe that we're on a sort of cusp of a growth period for men as a gender. reading a lot of the online newsmags, every other story seems to be about misogyny, or the male orgasm's inferiority to the female orgasm, or the likelihood that a woman will be smarter than a man, and so on. the fascinating thing is that a lot of guys have learned to so love their prescribed scumbag, bachelorhood, macho role that they have no idea someone is shitting down their neck.
maybe this has less impact tangibly on male advancement than it did on women at the height of their oppression--certainly i think so--but female liberation seems to be creating this monstrous male oppressor who doesn't actually exist, and it certainly wages war upon the male psyche. there's a narrative that seems to underlie a lot of it, at least from some outlets, that the gender as a whole is being phased out, is less evolved, is just straight up dumber.
my hope is that in the next ten or twenty years, men become as aware as women about how destructive those kinds of proscriptions can be.
maybe this has less impact tangibly on male advancement than it did on women at the height of their oppression--certainly i think so--but female liberation seems to be creating this monstrous male oppressor who doesn't actually exist, and it certainly wages war upon the male psyche. there's a narrative that seems to underlie a lot of it, at least from some outlets, that the gender as a whole is being phased out, is less evolved, is just straight up dumber.
my hope is that in the next ten or twenty years, men become as aware as women about how destructive those kinds of proscriptions can be.
shanshan310
Member
Yeah, that makes sense I guess.
The second part I'm not sure about, but suggesting that women and men have completely different interests is a big generalisation I don't really feel comfortable with.
Gender is a biological construct that is modified by society. Sex is obviously a biological construct (that can be modified by medicine i guess).
The difference between boys and girls has been observed from ages of a few months; hardly enough time to have them "brainwashed by forced societal boxes".
I'm not sure what you are trying to achieve with trying to deny this; as long as we have the free will to choose and everyone is born with the same opportunites, rights and possibilities - surely there is no problem that we choose differently? I don't know what life is like where you live, but where i live we have already achieved this. Just because this does not automatically transform the world into one where car mechanics are 50% women and nurses are 50% men does not mean we live in a patriarchy; in fact science tells us that the more equal a society is percieved to be, the more pronounced these differences become - also known as the "gender equality paradox".
The monstrous male oppressor is our father and his traits have been passed down to us.
beelzebozo
Jealous Bastard
yeah, but your dad was as much a victim as you, you know?
it's hard to see how when you work within these systems that even the oppressors are fucked.
Don't worry, the idea that women have a hardwired need to nurture and provide isn't true. Biologically there are many differences between men and women, but it's society that shoves these differences into 'hunter' and 'gatherer'.
We don't need hunters and gatherer's anymore.
I completely agree but we cannot bury our heads in the sand and pretend that the old and dusty stereotypical male isn't alive and well in todays world. Look at some of the replies in this thread.
NEOPARADIGM
Banned
Offensive.
Can we start providing some sort of evidence for such bold statements?
I know it's awkward reproducing large swathes of textbooks but, really, it's kinda necessary in this case.
I find myself agreeing with you a lot these days. Crazy.
It's a crazy world indeed =)
I suppose I should clarify. Nurturing and Providing in the traditional sense is something that we've associated with traditional female roles. Biologically Men are less apt to fulfill this role than Women but only because we've molded our society to fit around that difference. I'm not explaining it well.
Let me try again.
Women aren't forced by biology to nurture an infant, this much is obvious. So I feel it's disingenuous to say that a woman is a nurturer while a man is a hunter. A woman has different empathetic spectrums then a man [which may cause the behavior that we've associated with nurturing]. I'll find the corroborating paper, that'll help.
I feel like the elephant in the room at the moment, which I'm not sure has been hit upon is obesity which I think is going to continue to affect our youth in negative ways.
Sports, activities, exercise, diet all these things are so vital for kids growing up but especially for boys. Boys need exercise, they need competitive spirit, they need an outlet for a bit of healthy aggression, they need a good, balanced diet high in protein for proper growth and development. I'm also sure there's a link between high body fat and low testosterone, which is a vital hormone in male development (which is unfortunately often associated with aggression, but also has a number of features which help with energy, mental prowess, stress management, anxiety, etc)
Sports, activities, exercise, diet all these things are so vital for kids growing up but especially for boys. Boys need exercise, they need competitive spirit, they need an outlet for a bit of healthy aggression, they need a good, balanced diet high in protein for proper growth and development. I'm also sure there's a link between high body fat and low testosterone, which is a vital hormone in male development (which is unfortunately often associated with aggression, but also has a number of features which help with energy, mental prowess, stress management, anxiety, etc)
Stop giving people trophies just for signing up.
I think everyone (boys and girls) need sports, activites, excercise and diet to grow up healthy. Crazy huh? Though i do think the silly "everyone is a winner" needs to go.
I believe personally there is a biological component to gender. The term is used exclusively for the social construct side (it never used to be) but we're really talking semantics. It is a mixture of both. I'm not sure any serious scientist would claim categorically that is entirely a social construct. We use the term 'sex differences' now, but I imagine sex differences have some influence on, some effect on, gender. Doesn't mean necessarily it is the direct cause or absolute cause of any gender specific trait, it just means it has an influence on a possible behavioural outcome, making certain behaviours more likely.
The man going to work and the woman staying at home washing the dishes is a social construct, but that is missing point. It doesn't explain why we form gender roles to begin with. The purpose of gender roles, it seems to me, is to give the offspring the best chance of survival. Only the female can have kids. Only she can develop milk. There tends to be a strong maternal bond that develops.
The world was probably a much more dangerous place in earlier times. Women staying in the cave nurturing the child while the man protects them and goes out to hunt, makes a lot of logical sense. Men were there as the protector and provider. It is a natural role to take to insure the survival of the kid. You can see the similarity between the more natural roles and the artificial ones though right? It is mirroring the earlier hunter-gatherer society. The root of it lies simply with the need to protect the offspring.
Society has evolved a huge amount since those times. Men don't need to go out and hunt or protect the family in the same way anymore. I think the traditional gender roles, in the sense of the social construct, came about from a more primal impulse; a need to form roles to best protect the offspring and insure its survival.
It is much less needed now. Both men and women go to work. In fact a lot people find it difficult now to form those traditional roles even if they wanted to. We're also waiting until a much older age before we have kids.
Honestly, saying that there's no hardwired difference in gender roles makes for a better null hypothesis. More research is still needed, of course, but it's best to make any necessary assumptions wisely.
I know I've read papers detailing the role of biology in determining the nurture response from a Mother, and I've read papers detailing the nurture need in non-mothers... but I can't find any that are fully available online, or any at all that actually specify that women are hard-wired to nurture.
Obviously more research is required.
The thing is though marrec, we're not just programmed robots. A woman doesn't just switch into nurture mode of course. As I said before, I think it is more biology having an influence on the behavioural outcome rather than being the absolute cause of it.
I remember something a girl I know said to her brother when he was expecting his first kid. She talked about how she couldn't stop worrying about her child when she was at work. Is the carer doing this right, is she doing that right, etc, etc. Constant worrying. Of course he would think about the child, but I suddenly thought, actually, he isn't going to go into worry mode about every little thing while he is away. Men tend not to think like that.
freenudemacusers
Member
no joking... even better that these posts are made on a videogame forum, which I would imagine is not a very 'manly' hobby.Well, I'm of the opin . . .
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
beelzebozo
Jealous Bastard
the idea that the chief advantage of having a lick of common sense is in its ability to "get you a woman" is a big part of the problem.
Etrian Oddity
Member
This right here.
blame evolution
I agree and said as much in this thread. There was an interesting study done in 1985 that shows a woman who has a child below the age of 4 is more likely to enter the traditional nurturing mother stereotype that society presents and a mother whose child is above the age of 6 is more likely to want to have a job and achieve something in a professional field. This doesn't show that women are biologically hardwired of course, it does show that whatever role a person is forced into is most often the most convenient role at the time.
Here we have an example of the common gender role being fulfilled not because of biology leadbelly, but because of society.
beelzebozo
Jealous Bastard
uh huh.
I see where you're going with this.
In reality though, there is no such thing as devolution; it's all evolution even if you are perceiving that it's going backwards.
Yeah. Of course the younger the child is, the more vulnerable it is. It makes sense that women would feel the need to nurture more at a younger age. As a baby though, it goes without saying because only the female can produce the milk.
lol
Why are you holding the Standford Prison Experiment against him? It was a very interesting study and the researcher himself acted responsibly in a time when experimental controls were much different than they are now. Between this and Milgrim's Experiment, we've learned far more about authority and psychology than we have in the years following when protocols were tightened.
But even in biology, sex is not a clear cut - two category phenomenon. There's plenty of examples like XXY chromosome individuals and hermaphrodites. Sex and gender are far more complex than to just say they're all "social constructs" or "genetic expression."
i don't think the issue is solely isolated to boys, in general the younger generation is a lot more awkward in real life society, everybody has their faces shoved into tablets while listening to music on their headphones while browsing facebook, in a cafe.
definition of irony.
definition of irony.
People have been saying this about subsequent generations since Roman times, probably before, and it has never born out to be an actual societal issue. Technology integrates with human interaction, it has not supplanted it up to this point.
People are seriously offended at that picture posted?
Get a grip folks. It's not intentionally trying to mock homosexuals or downplay individual expression, it's a purposeful exaggeration that uses a traditional stereotype to try and poke fun at hipster fashion and the dawn of metrosexuality. If you don't think it's funny, fine, plenty of jokes aren't funny to plenty of people. Just leave it be then.
Why does everything have to be so dramatic on GAF sometimes?
Get a grip folks. It's not intentionally trying to mock homosexuals or downplay individual expression, it's a purposeful exaggeration that uses a traditional stereotype to try and poke fun at hipster fashion and the dawn of metrosexuality. If you don't think it's funny, fine, plenty of jokes aren't funny to plenty of people. Just leave it be then.
Why does everything have to be so dramatic on GAF sometimes?
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