Erica's response makes exactly the point that I was going to next make, 
but better. My relationship with my parents, while different, falls 
closer to her description than to Andrews. And my feelings about having 
and raising my own children fall more into the female stereotype than 
the male.

Yet I agree with Andrew that there is a statistical distribution with 
compatibility to the gender roles that is quite significant, and I have 
no problem with people filling those roles based on that distribution.

The question I ask, and I hope this very interesting discussion will 
help drive out the answer to, is how do we create a society that allows 
that there will be stereotype enforcing naturally evolved tendencies 
based on gender and other criteria (i.e. where most women want to have 
and raise children, and most men are content to go out and work and 
leave this task mostly to the women), without pressuring those who do 
not fit this pattern to go against their natures, possibly at deep 
personal and societal cost? What a terrible loss too have a man who 
would have been a great primary caregiver decide not to because because 
it is looked down on by his profession, his friends, and possibly even 
his wife? What a fate for children to be raised by a woman who doesn't 
have the patience and tolerance to do a proper job, but does so just 
because she is biologically equipped?	Same question in reverse, how 
do we allow people to be completely free to discover their own personal 
aptitudes and follow them, without making those who fall perfectly into 
the stereotype feel like they're just conforming or otherwise bad for 
doing the default, (i.e. pressuring women who want to and would be good 
at staying home as mothers from doing so)?

I see this as a problem with most stereotypes. If there's any basis at 
all, any tendency for it to be true, the stereotype forms in our 
societal mind very quickly, and people are very naturally inclined to 
expect it to be true for everyone, including themselves, and cause 
problems when it's not.

The current answer to my question seems to be to have extremists 
battling it out loudly, (we're not extremists, but then we're not 
publishing or marching on Washington either), each decrying the other's 
position, and thus everyone is able to see that there are at least two 
if not a range of choices. The more loudly, or perhaps the more equally 
loudly, both sides make their point, the less sway the stereotype has. 
Maybe it's human nature that this is the way it will always be. Our 
government seems to function as a set of continual battles between 
extremes as well. There doesn't seem to be a good way to keep things 
balanced just in the middle... but maybe I'm wrong, I find that 
question very interesting.


And while I do agree that there's a tendency to fall into stereotypical 
gender roles, without being able to prove it, I disagree that the 
distribution of gender role tendencies based on gender is 
"overwhelming". I disagree that the truly important things about being 
a good parent, things like patience, tolerance, compassion, wisdom, 
etc. are as strongly tied to overt biological characteristics (such as 
having breasts) as we think they are. Genetically men and women are 
nearly identical, the ingredients for all aspects exist in both, and 
especially mentally I think they are quite mixed. I think in the long 
run we will learn that with the comfort of today's technology, where 
the mental criteria are the only ones that really matter anymore, we 
are doing more forcing ourselves to conform to stereotypes than we are 
filling the roles we are suited/want to. I agree that there will 
probably always be more women who are better parents than their 
husbands than vice versa, but my guess is that the split is more like 
60/40 than the 95/5 that people expect it to be today. So I guess it's 
that extra 35% that I'm trying to save with this argument. :-)

Finally, to flesh out my earlier argument, I think we all have a mix of 
natural inclinations inside of us that are self-conflicting. None of us 
are perfectly suited for any role. So we necessarily re-enforce the 
inclinations that are strongest or work the best, and suppress the ones 
that go counter to our chosen roles, whatever roles we choose. 
Evolution didn't do a perfect job, so we make due with what we've got. 
This is hard enough even individually, so all the more reason to find a 
way to make society as flexible as possible in allowing people to find 
their own roles, following the standard mammalian role or bucking it as 
they personally see fit.

One more random thought, maybe instead of feminism or masculinism, we 
should call it anti-stereotypinism. :-)

Dave

ps- Je ne parle pas de tout la Latin . :-)




On Oct 14, 2005, at 1:08 PM, Andrew Reeves wrote:

>    Thank you for your interesting response. I do not doubt that actual
> human personalities are a varying mix of the "masculine principle" (go
> out and get the bacon) vs. the "feminine principle" (stay home and tend
> the hearth), with nobody 100% one or the other. But these personality
> types were named as they are because of their superior biological
> suitability to play these roles, which is also the overwhelming present
> statistical distribution between the genders. I think it's perfectly 
> all
> right if everyone follows his/her own inclinations which every now and
> then might go against the mainstream. I only object to societal
> pressures trying to force people into molds they do not fit into.
> Remember, this whole debate started with a report in the New York Times
> claiming that the trend in elite colleges these days favors stay-home
> moms over professionally active women during the reproductive years.
> Robert Felty suggested that this impression was deliberately created by
> biased choice of the interviewed subjects; Danny felt that it was a
> self-fulfilling prophecy with anti-feminist ulterior motives. Dave
> admitted that the trend may be genuine but he regarded it as an
> undesirable residue of ancient and now obsolete natural inclinations.
> It is only against these ideas that I voiced protest.
>    By the way, I must admit shamefacedly that I do not understand
> "vescere bracis meis"! So much for my six years of school Latin.
>    DANNY'S GRANDPA ANDREW
>
>
>
David P. Morris, PhD
aka thecat Æ umich.edu, aka KB8PWY
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