Oprah for President

I like Ayn Rand, but I never thought of myself a Randroid. Her words aren't gospel to me.

If we aren't blank slates at birth, why are little boys 10 times more likely to be diagnosed with autism and/or ADHD? Why are little boys more likely to be put on psychotropic behavior control drugs than little girls? The gender difference starts at an early age.

If gender is a social construct, and men's and women's brains are literally the same, and we are all blank slates who are molded entirely by society, then how do you justify the existence of a transgender person? A person who claims to have a male brain trapped in a female body, or vise versa? If gender is a social construct, they should not exist. But they do.

Gender is a biological construct.

No, I said engineering was a male dominated field because it typically interests men more than it does women. Men can be good nurses too, but again, it's a profession that interests women more. Nice try though.

From MeAgain's sources
Brain Differences Between Genders

Processing

Male brains utilize nearly seven times more gray matter for activity while female brains utilize nearly ten times more white matter. What does this mean?

Gray matter areas of the brain are localized. They are information- and action-processing centers in specific splotches in a specific area of the brain. This can translate to a kind of tunnel vision when they are doing something. Once they are deeply engaged in a task or game, they may not demonstrate much sensitivity to other people or their surroundings.

White matter is the networking grid that connects the brain’s gray matter and other processing centers with one another. This profound brain-processing difference is probably one reason you may have noticed that girls tend to more quickly transition between tasks than boys do. The gray-white matter difference may explain why, in adulthood, females are great multi-taskers, while men excel in highly task-focused projects.

Chemistry

Male and female brains process the same neurochemicals but to different degrees and through gender-specific body-brain connections. Some dominant neurochemicals are serotonin, which, among other things, helps us sit still; testosterone, our sex and aggression chemical; estrogen, a female growth and reproductive chemical; and oxytocin, a bonding-relationship chemical.

In part, because of differences in processing these chemicals, males on average tend to be less inclined to sit still for as long as females and tend to be more physically impulsiveand aggressive. Additionally, males process less of the bonding chemical oxytocin than females. Overall, a major takeaway of chemistry differences is to realize that our boys at times need different strategies for stress release than our girls.

Structural Differences

A number of structural elements in the human brain differ between males and females. “Structural” refers to actual parts of the brain and the way they are built, including their size and/or mass.

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, girls and women tend to input or absorb more sensorial and emotive information than males do. By “sensorial” we mean information to and from all five senses. If you note your observations over the next months of boys and girls and women and men, you will find that females tend to sense a lot more of what is going on around them throughout the day, and they retain that sensorial information more than men.

Additionally, before boys or girls are born, their brains developed with different hemispheric divisions of labor. The right and left hemispheres of the male and female brains are not set up exactly the same way. For instance, females tend to have verbal centers on both sides of the brain, while males tend to have verbal centers on only the left hemisphere. This is a significant difference. Girls tend to use more words when discussing or describing incidence, story, person, object, feeling, or place. Males not only have fewer verbal centers in general but also, often, have less connectivity between their word centers and their memories or feelings. When it comes to discussing feelings and emotions and senses together, girls tend to have an advantage, and they tend to have more interest in talking about these things.

Blood Flow and Brain Activity

While we are on the subject of emotional processing, another difference worth looking closely at is the activity difference between male and female brains. The female brain, in part thanks to far more natural blood flow throughout the brain at any given moment (more white matter processing), and because of a higher degree of blood flow in a concentrationpart of the brain called the cingulate gyrus, will often ruminate on and revisit emotional memories more than the male brain.

Males, in general, are designed a bit differently. Males tend, after reflecting more briefly on an emotive memory, to analyze it somewhat, then move onto the next task. During this process, they may also choose to change course and do something active and unrelated to feelings rather than analyze their feelings at all. Thus, observers may mistakenly believe that boys avoid feelings in comparison to girls or move to problem-solving too quickly.

These four, natural design differences listed above are just a sample of how males and females think differently. Scientists have discovered approximately 100 gender differences in the brain, and the importance of these differences cannot be overstated. Understandinggender differences from a neurological perspective not only opens the door to greater appreciation of the different genders, it also calls into question how we parent, educate, and support our children from a young age.

 

I can see both biological and social factors in the formation of sexual orientation.

from the textbook Social Problems Continuity and Change. It's a really good book I'll put the table of contents!

 

6-eyed:

Edit: for your convenience:

About your arguing for fat shaming: on who exactly would you apply your tactics? Friends & family (as in people you know and also have some insight of), obnoxious fat strangers you just KNOW () got to have bad eating habits?
Coworkers you're not sure of what they eat but who you are familiar enough with to fat shame?
An obese looking person in front of you in a fast food restaurant?

 

Actually it seems to be part biological, part social construct. I mentioned the Hyde Meta-meta analysis previously. Hyde (2005) American Psychologist. 60 (6): 581–592., reviewing 46 meta-analyses. There were some gender differences, mostly in attitudes toward sex, but 78% were small or close to zero. The investigator concluded: "It is time to consider the costs of overinflated claims of gender differences. Arguably, they cause harm in numerous realms, including women’s opportunities in the workplace, couple conflict and communication, and analyses of self-esteem problems among adolescents." For further elaboration, see Sex & Gender Differences
Conclusion: "There really are sex differences. Above we have summarized the 28 notable (effect size of r-square > 2.5%) psychological sex differences found repeatedly. The biggest psychological sex differences are in masturbation (18.7%), agreeableness (17.2%), casual sex (14.1%) and mechanical reasoning (12.6%). To clarify how I made this summary I return the opening example that "everybody knows" that "boys are better at math than girls." It's not missing for lack of meta-analyses. There actually have been 5 different meta-analytic results about math abilities but the highest of their effect sizes was just under 1%. This difference that everybody knows, one that lay persons think of as so pervasive and maybe even categorical, accounts for less than 1% of who we are. Even just looking the notable, replicable, psychological sex differences reveal sex accounts for only about 7% of who we are. That means over 93% of who we are is accounted for by something other than our sex. Differences within sexes are far greater than differences between sexes. "(Italics mine)

The problem is that political ideologues way overgeneralize from this data to support gender-based stereotypes. For instance,Brescoll and LaFrance (2004) found that a fictional story that members of one or the other gender is better at identifying plants ( a topic not associated with traditional stereotypes) led subjects later to "endorse the idea that people cannot easily change, and to associate each sex with stereotypical attributes, like being nurturant, intuitive, whiny, and nagging for women, and being competitive, quantitatively skilled, arrogant, and egotistical for men. These effects were found whether the fictional news story claimed that men or that women had superior ability." Explaining Gender Differences
Your own emphasis on the importance of such differences as propensity to autism or ADHD suggests a similar tendency toward global over-generalization and stereotyping from limited data. African-Americans have a greater tendency to suffer from sickle cell anemia than whites. This doesn't have anything to do with their relative fondness for chicken and watermelon.

 

Okie and Soul,
The color blue is considered masculine, and the color pink is considered feminine by society and culture. Dresses are considered feminine, and neck ties are considered masculine. Fashion and color theory are social constructs. That being said, that's about as far as ever single one of y'all's gender is socially constructed argument may take you. I don't deny there aren't any societal factors in gender. I argue that societal influences don't determine gender differences like our primal instincts and hormonal chemistry.

Maybe it's because little boys are generally rowdier than little girls. It could also be that boys tend to learn better though hands-on lessons, whereas girls tend to do better at auditory/visual learning. Which might be why girls are doing better in the public school system than boys. And when boys fail to live up to the same standards as girls, they're put on ritalin.

Blacks have a stronger likelihood of suffering sickle cell anemia because its a genetic illness. One advantage of sickle cell anemia is that they don't get maliaria. But they don't usually live to see their 40th birthday. Not sure where you're going with the chicken and watermelon stereotype. I've lived with black people and watermelon wasn't ever in the fridge. TBH, I think that is a media manufactured stereotype. Like white people being unable to dance.

How about constructing anti-obseity ads, the same way anti-alcohol and anti-tobacco ads have been run for the last several decades? Breaking the unwritten laws of political correctness good place to start.

I don't see much wrong with being open about having a negative opinion toward obesity, as long as you're tactful and ethical about it around other people. I've never told a stranger smoking a cigarette to put it out because they're killing themselves. Nevertheless, many people around here are shamelessly unapologetic with their negative opinions of cigarette smokers.

If someone you love is eating themselves into oblivion, it's the right thing to do to call them out on their bad habits. Calling people you care about out on any kind of bad habit is important if you love them enough, regardless what the habit is. Be it eating too loud, interrupting, completing the other person's sentence, being judgmental and prejudiced without justification, and more. Intervention is an effective method for one's improvement.

In the company I work for, there's a lot of overweight people. The stairs they climb to get to the office is likely the most exercise the do on any given day. Of course, being in the position I'm in, I would never call them out in front of their faces as it could get me into trouble at work. We have a safe space policy here . I also tend avoid needless drama in real life, that and possibly because I don't care enough about these people to intervene on their own eating habits.

 

Well, might I ask about your definition of gender? One of the first things they taught us in college sociology 101 is that gender is social, while sex is biological. Granted, they go on to explain that sexuality is primarily biological. I would say that's a pretty important aspect of gender, like you no doubt would too. I can dig up my definition, but it wouldn't be the one from intro to sociology because that book went back to the campus bookstore. I have one from Social Problems though, but the slant is toward gender inequality. Anyway, they both state that gender is by and large a social construction, like you said, with blue and pink, dresses and tuxedos, and all things masculine and feminine. Those things help make up male and female as a gender vs. male and female as a sex. Sex is all things anatomical, including what you said about hormones and instincts. That's what it says, and that's what I'm operating off of. I'll post the Social Problems definition of gender if anyone wants to see it.

 

6

No you used the word better and better suited (because they are wired that way) and one of the things you indicated men were ‘better’ at was engineering (which you describe specifically as a ‘manly role’)

- Women are generally better than men at certain tasks, and men are generally better suited than women at others –

- I feel that females are typically better listeners, more patient, and more empathetic than males -

To repeat – I’ve heard the same argument being used by sexists to defend discrimination.

In that they say -women are as a group are better listeners and are more empathic. Men as a group are more assertive and less caring.

So the argument goes women are more ‘wired’ to bringing up children and other such ‘caring’ jobs or in roles where they take orders (because they are so good listeners) while men are more ‘wired’ to give orders and for leadership roles where feelings and caring would get in the way.

The problem is that I’m not sure the stereotype is accurate and I think can often get in the way, as in men believing they have to act as the stereotype dictates (being ‘strong’, not feeling fear, being assertive, of not looking to women for leadership but being their protector) or be thought of as ‘lesser men’ of not being ‘masculine’. It can lead to men feeling they are not ‘real men’ if they don’t ‘control’ women and see assertive women as not been ‘real women’ (who are mean, spiteful and vindictive, man haters).

 

6

Yet you have claimed that you mainly base your view of economics on a bad sci-fi novel written by Rand?

 

6

Again for you it seems to be black and white you seem to be saying that in your view men and women have to be completely different or completely the same.

As I keep pointing out the reality is usually a bit more complex, as I’ve pointed out above you seem to be projecting your view of what men and women should be like onto how men and women ought to be like.

So you think women should be empathic and caring (and men not) so you think women are ‘wire’ to be better at certain ‘girly’ jobs (and men are better at ‘manly’ ones)

Oh you say some ‘tomboyish’ girls might want to do ‘manly’ jobs (like engineering) but bless them you seemed to imply, they are women and so will never be as good as men who are ‘wired’ for such work.

The thing is that I’ve worked with many people, I’ve had men managing me and women managing me, I’ve worked in mixed groups, in places were the majority were men and in at least one place where I was the only man. Thing is that I’ve never seen the huge difference in mentality between the sexes that you seem to claim is there and which you see as marking men and women out for specific types of work.

 

It seems the most favorable option of 6-eyed is in fact the ad by mayor of Londons example. Which is curious as it is a gubberment body and I recall some previous stances on that kind of thing.
Also, and i'm glad, when he nuanced it down he's for very bearable criticism, even only constructive remarks on like a workfloor or among people he knows.
So the fatshaming rambling seems primarily a trigger tactic again. Not that we would have found if we didn't ask for his explanation often enough. Regardless: I'm pleased

 

Here is one example of a series of government funded adverts that air on British TV for healthy living



Also the publically funded NHS has apps

Live Well - NHS Choices

And everyone over 40 gets a free (publically funded) health check that assess a person’s health and gives advice and recommendations on improving it.

What is an NHS Health Check? - NHS.UK

There have been some good publically funded research into the subject of obesity done

Tackling obesities: future choices - GOV.UK

And there is growing demand for the regulation of the food industry although the industry does fight back in the same wahy the tobacco companies used to do.

Building Health Systems Globally | Vital Strategies

 

New ad concept from the mayor of London:

 

I like what you wrote, but still can't feel her being commander-in-chief.

 

Kudos to the mayor of London.

 

Trump thinks Oprah is insecure and tweets: "Hope Oprah runs so she can be exposed and defeated just like all of the others!" Runnin' scared?