Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!bionet!apple!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!aero!holstege@polya.stanford.edu
From: holstege@polya.stanford.edu (Mary Holstege)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: sex/gender
Message-ID: <11011@polya.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 1 Aug 89 14:52:46 GMT
References: <8907071844.AA10158@cattell.psych.upenn.edu> <10546@polya.Stanford.EDU> <12869@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> <10781@polya.Stanford.EDU> <13094@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU>
Sender: nadel@aerospace.aero.org
Reply-To: elroy!ames!polya.stanford.edu!holstege (Mary Holstege)
Organization: Stanford University
Lines: 60
Approved: nadel@aerospace.aero.org
Status: R


In article <13094@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> geb@cadre.dsl.pitt.edu (Gordon E. Banks) writes:
>
>I can't find the paper on the voles (I heard the author give a
>colloquium and have it somewhere).  The usual method is learning mazes,
>which males are superior at.  I am not sure what other methods were
>used.  If you seriously want to read this work, I'll find the reference
>for you.  He also talks about other mammals and the sexual territory
>stuff.

Yes, I would be interested.  Please forward a reference to me.

>the papers showing the difference probably run into the hundreds.  The
>problem with humans is that advocates of environmental influences claim
>that the differences are due to environment not nature.  (In other
>words, little boys are treated differently than little girls and somehow
>this results in their doing better on tests of spatial ability).  Since
>it is unethical to control the rearing environment for humans, animal
>experiments must be resorted to.  The finding of the same differentials
>in animals that are found in humans makes the environmental argument
>much less tenable.

This is the core of it and I will refrain from pointing out some of the
problems of interpretation in the work you talk about it and just focus on
this.

It has been shown -- repeat -- shown that environmental effects can produce the
differences in mental abilities and personality that we are talking about here.

Even if you take a raw difference between normal males and normal females
(it is unclear what, if anything, you can learn about normal behaviour from
pathological cases) at face value, the magnitude of the difference is as small
or smaller that the magnitude demonstrated for known environmental causes, and
biological determinists routinely neglect environmental explanations.  In
particular, cross-cultural studies are extremely rare.  As the old saw goes,
all we know about psychology is the psychology of college freshmen.

Furthermore, even taken at face value, alleged sex-based (versus happens-to-be-
correlated-with-sex-in-our-culture) differences account for 1% to 5% of the
variability of individuals.  Other factors are far more important.  It's a lot
like height (only less so): typically women are 10% smaller than men, and
indeed I am about 10% shorter than my brothers, but I am also taller than most
men on the planet.  Being Dutch has more to do with my height than being a
woman. 

Such magnitudes do not justify general statements that women are more verbal
than men or that men are more spatially adept than women or what have you,
because the reading of such statements is that all or the overwhelming majority
of women/men fall into certain patterns.  The implication that can (and is)
drawn is that any particular person is presumed to fit the gender stereotype.
This may sound terribly abstract and unimportant to you, but from my side of
the stereotype I see such results being misused to justify job discrimination,
and I see people routinely presuming that I am incapable of math, just because
I am a female.


                              -- Mary
                                 Holstege@polya.stanford.edu

ARPA:                            holstege%polya@score.stanford.edu
BITNET:                          holstege%polya@STANFORD.BITNET
UUCP: {arpa gateways, decwrl, sun, hplabs, rutgers}!polya.stanford.edu!holstege