Stories and reality | 126 comments (126 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

Certainly won't argue with you about there being bias.

But I get the impression you think certain qualities, traits, ideas, are either 1) a result of one's gender or 2) have genders of their own. I don't know where I stand on that. I think that often men and women experience the world differently, but often as a result of social norms. So do we assign ways of seeing the world a gender because we think it might be dangerous for men to stray from their day jobs or for women to have too much power? Do we assign them genders as a way of judging them (rational v. irrational)? Last time I checked, men and women had the same capacity for rational thought and for irrational feeling. They are just encouraged to express them differently. Still, the day my brother stops falling madly in love with every girl he meets and calling me at 3 am to talk about it, and the day my girlfriend gives up engineering as her profession and political science as her hobby, I'll be a bit more open to the idea that a person's perspective is implicitly gender-based.

"Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.

by poemless on Tue Aug 21st, 2007 at 05:05:54 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: tools (4.00 / 2)

Social norms are very influential. But the fact remains that males and females have different proportions of drugs running through them. There is a quantifiably different effect resulting from the release of estrogen or testosterone - to note the key biochemical difference. Ask Helen. There are many other semi-hormones that are less easily placed prominently either side of the male/female physiological divide.

My belief system agrees with the yin-yang symbology that the uniting of male and female is what is needed to make the perfect homeostatic world. I am not sure that it depends in implicity, but it is surely the best fit with evolutionary principles.

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Tue Aug 21st, 2007 at 05:22:45 PM EST
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Re: tools (4.00 / 4)

Hormones? I've been a guinea pig in one hormone experiment after another. Nothing so radical as Helen's. But enough to induce severe vomiting and nervous breakdowns.

Through it all, my way of seeing the world did not change. Fortunately, medicine did.

"Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.

by poemless on Tue Aug 21st, 2007 at 05:29:42 PM EST
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Re: tools (4.00 / 2)

Doctors- huh! Whadda they know ;-)

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Tue Aug 21st, 2007 at 05:40:26 PM EST
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Re: tools (none / 1)

_perfect homeostatic world. _

i was taught that was the definition of death!

from free growth and chaotic change emerges relative order.

absolute order would be death too.

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty

by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Tue Aug 21st, 2007 at 08:14:15 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Homeostasis (none / 1)

It is a dynamic equilibrium state in either an open or closed system.

You can't be me, I'm taken