lauralh | men vs women part two (Reply)

So I don't actually believe the stereotypes about men and women - I indulge in them on occasion, while driving, for example, but in general I don't really think men and women are all that different, aside from testosterone levels. Granted I base this on purely anecdotal evidence, but on the other hand, it's not like I can do an experiment with raising children without any predefined gender roles.

So I use anecdotal evidence. The people I know who were raised in an "untraditional" manner tend to not have any "traditional" female or male characteristics. Whereas those who were, do. In my own case, my brothers and I are all exactly alike, except that they started shaving their faces at age 20. And really in my own case, whether as a result of having 3 brothers or whatever, I've been able to relate to men better than women. That's not true really - I just relate to people who are "untraditional," and it really seems that there are more men than women who've broken out of the traditional roles. I can't relate to macho guys who talk about cars and video games, for example, any better than I can relate to women who talk about kids or makeup.

There's a lot of talk nowadays about how men are now "too sensitive" or something. I think that's bullshit - that you can be too sensitive, I mean, not that men today are more sensitive than their forefathers. I mean I don't know if they are or not, but if it's true, then it seems pretty clear that no matter where you start out, you can be socialized into being too macho or too sensitive or whatever. And the same with women, except that it's more of a "Girls can be police officers too!" kind of thing, which is a little harder to break out of. Which is to say, it's easy for even traditional women to raise boys to be more "feminine", but it's harder for them to raise girls to be more "masculine."

(Hey Clark, aren't female chimps in the wild even more sexually aggressive than the male ones? Some ape anyway. I dunno.)