Nel Question #9: Gender - Perfect Sense

[cat_kind]

No: HPFGUIDX 127536


Geoff:
> The fact is that men and women often process facts and events in a 
> different way, practically, emotionally and intellectually. It 
> doesn't imply any difference in status or intelligence, it is because 
> males and females /do/ see things in a different light. 

catkind:  I find this a huge and dangerous overgeneralisation.  

*Different people* process facts and events in a different way.  

If you look at the distribution of behaviours of women, and compare it
with the distribution of behaviours of men, the two will be different:
the "average" woman might see things in a different light from the
"average" man, if those terms mean anything at all. 

To some extent this has to do with biological differences; in my
opinion it is more to do with cultural differences. But there is a
huge overlap.  The average tells you nothing about how to approach
individual people. /Any/ two people will see things in a different
light.  There's no way you can tell from their different lights which
gender they belong to.

It's like saying men are taller than women, or men are stronger than
women.  Some are, some aren't. True on average, but rather silly if
you take it as an absolute.  Fred is taller than Mary because Fred
happens to be taller than Mary, not because he's a man.  

I expect people like Geoff do mean these statements statistically, but
I strongly feel that this sort of blunt statement is dangerous. This
is precisely the sort of place where sexism can creep in to our thinking.
Oh bother, and I really didn't want to get involved in this discussion.

catkind