No if you understand the paper is saying changes in sex hormones which either make the brain masculine of feminine are what make a female act like a male because they have too much male sex hormones. This was shown in the studies they did on typical gender behaviour in children.
But it doesn't unpack what we mean by "like a male," and how much (for example) the experience of being transgendered might lead to someone resisting typical gendered socialisation. Like discouraging girls from rough-and-tumble play, or having male friends.
First if someone feels like something then they are going to act like they feel.
But - for example - how does a transgendered person know what it means to act like the gender they feel they are? What leads to a transwoman wearing dresses and heels and make up? There's nothing innate in that. It comes from observing the social norms of women and mimicking them.
It doesn't matter what portion is contributed...
Of course it matters when all of this is used to argue for gender roles which disempower women. People point to ambiguous and inconclusive results about behaviour and then argue that on that basis women should be denied education, or employment, or be "domestically oriented."
I suspect you may be bias on this because its a scientific fact that nature plays a role as I have linked.
I'm a mother. I know that our biology means different outcomes for men and women, even based on our reproductive physiology. But I don't think nature is anywhere near enough of a reason for the oppression of women we see backed up by this kind of argument.
You seem to be throwing the baby out with the bath water by thinking that the mere word protection and provider are something negative and oppressive.
Of course they are. Someone who needs to be protected and provided for is weak, passive, disempowered. Putting up an ideal of a male "protector and provider" means that women are supposed to play the inverse role to that, rather than being equal life partners whose agency, gifts, personality and so on actually matter.
There are healthy and positive ways males play the protector and provider role. We see it throughout history such as the 9/11 disaster.
Firstly, you're overlooking the involvement of women in emergency services. And secondly, it's one thing to take on a professional role like this; it's another thing to argue that all men need to be "protectors and providers" for their household.
In fact the reason why the natural instincts go to the extremes is because males are denied or lose their positive natural selves and identity. They become either needy and possess or violent in an attempt to act out their natural instincts. They want to control because they don't know who they are.
There's probably some truth to this, but the answer isn't to revert to gendered stereotypes as a script. It's to encourage and allow each person to discover their particular gifts, talents, strengths, and so on, and to flourish personally and professionally in their own unique identity.
Well maybe you need to do some more research because its not bunk but scientifically supported.
Evolutionary psychology is mostly pseudoscientific waffle.
The constructionist position ideological because it incorporates beliefs and assumptions about human nature and how we should be ordered as a society.
And the prescriptivist view of gender roles doesn't? At least the position I'm taking is attempting to challenge social injustice, rather than entrench it.
If this is an overall difference then there is little difference. But when we isolate the specifics to gender behavior and thinking it becomes greater.
Exactly. Little difference across a range of behaviours and traits typically considered to be different by gender.
Its at the extreme where the difference is greatest and that is where its a matter of evolutionary adaptions for survival like men are way more aggressive than women at the extreme and someone you would want as a protector as a matter of survival.
The point is, though, most men aren't at the extreme. Most men are under the same part of the bell curve as most women. Women, on average, are only slightly less aggressive than men, on average, and many men are less aggressive than many women. We can't use this to then prescribe that men must fulfil roles in life where more aggression is considered beneficial, but have to look at the individual person in front of us.
And honestly, most of us don't need a "protector" for survival at any point in our lives beyond childhood.
But when the males positive natural instinct is denied or where negative role models influence them things get out of whack and that's why we see much higher rates of male violence in society.
Nobody's talking about denying positive instincts (although they may need to be channelled appropriately). But I think you're right about negative role models, especially when we look at misogynistic subcultures (the book
Men Who Hate Women is a disturbing, but eye-opening read in that regard).
