Gender is all in your head, according to scientists....

Eve_Dublin

Related to the discussion on femininity earlier....


http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2011/06/24/137398402/gender-is-dead-long-live-gender?sc=fb&cc=fp

Wibbs

Interesting. I'd agree 100% that self perception based on culture, affiliation and experience influences performance and personality and influences others perception of you(the latter can be very hard to change).You see it all over the place too. The study a few years ago that found African americans tend to "dumb down" correspondence if they think they're writing to other African Americans, yet increase their vocab if they think they're writing to European Americans. Regardless of the education standard of the writer. In the background cultural and historic noise in their heads Black = dumber than white. Hell I've even seen examples of Irish people put on a "telephone voice" when talking to English people with "upper crust" accents as they perceive that as the better accent.

With something as obvious and culturally loaded as gender, with values ascribed, neutral, good or bad depending on context? Oh yea I'm sure it has a big effect. I think the article falters in a couple of ways though. The comparisons are as much about stereotypes and status as about gender. Comparing the college professor and cheerleader for example. If it was a male cheerleader hed still be marked "dumb but pretty" I'd reckon. Indeed he may be marked down even more because it's seen as a female pursuit. Which kinda proves the article... Doh! Painted my self in to a keyboard corner yet again. I really don't edit...

metrovelvet

That article is interesting and has broader implications than those about gender. Because it touches on classifications becoming destinies, whether they be gender, illness, sexualities, etc.

The gender thing starts very very young and on a spectrum from subtle to not so subtle, I see it all the time with parents of young kids.

unknowngirl!!

I've studied this to a certain extent and the general feeling from the litterature is that sex is a biological distinction whereas gender is socially constructed..

Jack B. Badd

That article seems to be a bit all over the place. The thought experiment mentioned at the start compares 2 distinct sets of categories; gender male/female & occupation scientist/cheerleader, apparently without putting a control in place or doing something as basic as comparing only 1 category, e.g. male scientist to female scientist. I'm left wondering how exactly anyone can confidently draw conclusions from their results. Wibbs' example of the difference in vocab used for African vs European Americans is a lot more substantial imo.

Overall, the article reminds me of the concepts in 1984 whereby restricting vocab by removing certain words from the English dictionary removes the ability of the population to rebel. Due to the way the human brain operates wrt language, if we can't vocalise or communicate an idea, we can't even properly understand that idea ourselves. It makes sense that categorisation is affected in the same way. While I'm of the opinion that gender is a category like any other, I'm not sure this article conclusively really draws any strong conclusions on gender apart from the imo iffy logic applied in that thought experiment.