Too much testosterone!

gue_barium

baraka wrote:

Then what is it that causes males to be aggressive? Could it be too much testosterone? I kid, of course.

Look, these studies can be used to throw stones at both men and women. Like I said two other times, the brain is quite remarkable in the ability to utilize alternative pathways to accomplish a function when another pathway is absent or disrupted. These same studies have been used to argue why women are not up to par with men when it comes to math and sciences. You even had the president of Harvard making such claims. http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/worldwide/story/0,9959,1392808,00.html

So, are you siding with the argument that aggresion, male aggression especially, is culture-based? I think you are.

baraka

gue_barium wrote:

So, are you siding with the argument that aggresion, male aggression especially, is culture-based? I think you are.

I think 'nurture' plays a big role, yes.

Ahnimus

baraka wrote:

Then what is it that causes males to be aggressive? Could it be too much testosterone? I kid, of course.

Look, these studies can be used to throw stones at both men and women. Like I said two other times, the brain is quite remarkable in the ability to utilize alternative pathways to accomplish a function when another pathway is absent or disrupted. These same studies have been used to argue why women are not up to par with men when it comes to math and sciences. You even had the president of Harvard making such claims. http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/worldwide/story/0,9959,1392808,00.html

Ok, this will only be like the umpteenth time I've cited this research, so it should be extremely well-known to everyone here. I'm sure some just choose to ignore it *cough* jeanie *cough*

1. Mead tells of Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies. "She explained that nobody knew the degree to which temperament is biologically determined by sex. So she hoped to see whether there were cultural or social factors that affected temperament. Were men inevitably aggressive? Were women inevitably "homebodies"? It turned out that the three cultures she lived with in New Guinea were almost a perfect laboratory — for each had the variables that we associate with masculine and feminine in an arrangement different from ours. She said this surprised her, and wasn't what she was trying to find. It was just there.

• "Among the Arapesh, both men and women were peaceful in temperament and neither men nor women made war.
• "Among the Mundugumor, the opposite was true: both men and women were warlike in temperament.
• "And the Tchambuli were different from both. The men 'primped' and spent their time decorating themselves while the women worked and were the practical ones — the opposite of how it seemed in early 20th century America."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Mead

This is very well known and respected research. I'd be surprised if you didn't already know this Baraka.

Ahnimus

Oh, I must add that in Canadian culture, the idea that "men are more aggressive" is an absolute social myth. I've cited statistics canada several times, suggesting that men and women are equally aggressive, but are aggressive in different ways. Men are more likely to spontaneously assault someone, women are more likely to poison their coffee, i.e. passion vs. premiditated

Ahnimus

One more thing, if my memory serves me, 18% of lesbian couples report domestic violence...

I'll find the studies a bit later and post them.

angelica

Ahnimus wrote:

Oh, I must add that in Canadian culture, the idea that "men are more aggressive" is an absolute social myth. I've cited statistics canada several times, suggesting that men and women are equally aggressive, but are aggressive in different ways. Men are more likely to spontaneously assault someone, women are more likely to poison their coffee, i.e. passion vs. premiditated

Show me the back-up, please. The large majority (I think 95-98%) of sexual assaults are perpetrated by men.

baraka

Ahnimus wrote:

Ok, this will only be like the umpteenth time I've cited this research, so it should be extremely well-known to everyone here. I'm sure some just choose to ignore it *cough* jeanie *cough*

1. Mead tells of Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies. "She explained that nobody knew the degree to which temperament is biologically determined by sex. So she hoped to see whether there were cultural or social factors that affected temperament. Were men inevitably aggressive? Were women inevitably "homebodies"? It turned out that the three cultures she lived with in New Guinea were almost a perfect laboratory — for each had the variables that we associate with masculine and feminine in an arrangement different from ours. She said this surprised her, and wasn't what she was trying to find. It was just there.

• "Among the Arapesh, both men and women were peaceful in temperament and neither men nor women made war.
• "Among the Mundugumor, the opposite was true: both men and women were warlike in temperament.
• "And the Tchambuli were different from both. The men 'primped' and spent their time decorating themselves while the women worked and were the practical ones — the opposite of how it seemed in early 20th century America."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Mead

This is very well known and respected research. I'd be surprised if you didn't already know this Baraka.

I know Mead's research very well, but I'm not sure what this has to do with my post you quoted? What is your point? I'm not the one you need to convince, ahnimus. I think the only disagreement we might have on this issue is that although nurture is a very important determining factor, you can't discount nature.

gue_barium

baraka wrote:

I know Mead's research very well, but I'm not sure what this has to do with my post you quoted? What is your point? I'm not the one you need to convince, ahnimus. I think the only disagreement we might have on this issue is that although nurture is a very important determining factor, you can't discount nature.

determinism.

lol.

Jeanie

Ahnimus wrote:

Ok, this will only be like the umpteenth time I've cited this research, so it should be extremely well-known to everyone here. I'm sure some just choose to ignore it *cough* jeanie *cough*

1. Mead tells of Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies. "She explained that nobody knew the degree to which temperament is biologically determined by sex. So she hoped to see whether there were cultural or social factors that affected temperament. Were men inevitably aggressive? Were women inevitably "homebodies"? It turned out that the three cultures she lived with in New Guinea were almost a perfect laboratory — for each had the variables that we associate with masculine and feminine in an arrangement different from ours. She said this surprised her, and wasn't what she was trying to find. It was just there.

• "Among the Arapesh, both men and women were peaceful in temperament and neither men nor women made war.
• "Among the Mundugumor, the opposite was true: both men and women were warlike in temperament.
• "And the Tchambuli were different from both. The men 'primped' and spent their time decorating themselves while the women worked and were the practical ones — the opposite of how it seemed in early 20th century America."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Mead

This is very well known and respected research. I'd be surprised if you didn't already know this Baraka.

I treat your posting with the same respect and interest as you treat mine.

Ahnimus

angelica wrote:

Show me the back-up, please. The large majority (I think 95-98%) of sexual assaults are perpetrated by men.

When did we start talking about sexual assaults? We are talking about aggressiveness in general. Certainly it would be more difficult for a woman to rape a man, just as it would be more difficult for a 5' tall woman to beat a 6' tall man to a pulp with her bare hands. Looking at those statistics alone will only give you a bias view of the aggressiveness of men and women in general.

The best way to look at it is total reported cases:

The 5-year rate of violence was similar for women and men (8% and 7%, respectively)(Figure 2.1). Overall, this amounts to approximately 690,000 women and 549,000 men who had a current or former partner and reported experiencing at least one incident of violence.

Of those who had a current partner in the 5-year period preceding the survey interview, 4% reported some type of spousal violence. Women (4%) and men (4%) were equally likely to report violence by a current partner. In previous relationships, women (28%) were more likely than men (22%) to report experiencing violence.

http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:g-QBnkKRYfIJ:www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/85-224-XIE/0000085-224-XIE.pdf+domestic+violence+statistics+canada&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=ca#13

Again, if you look only at sexual assault then you are going to see a major bias. Like if I asked "What's the ration between male and female pregnancies" I could say "Well 100% of women get pregnant and 0% of men do, so that means women are less responsible with their bodies." it would be an absurd way of determining the statistical probability of male and female "responsibility with their bodies". Likewise, looking at sexual assault, which can only be perpretrated by men, gives you a drastically skewed view of "statistical aggressiveness between men and women".

Jeanie

Oh and I deliberately didn't look for stats on domestic violence because I thought the topic of the thread was men in politics and power?

Jeanie

Ahnimus wrote:

.........
Likewise, looking at sexual assault, which can only be perpretrated by men, gives you a drastically skewed view of "statistical aggressiveness between men and women".

??????? :rolleyes: oh.....what's the point?

baraka

Here is a pretty good debate on the science of gender. This was in response to the remarks of the Harvard President, Summers (the link I posted earlier).

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/debate05/debate05_index.html

Ahnimus

baraka wrote:

I know Mead's research very well, but I'm not sure what this has to do with my post you quoted? What is your point? I'm not the one you need to convince, ahnimus. I think the only disagreement we might have on this issue is that although nurture is a very important determining factor, you can't discount nature.

I've never discounted either. They are both important, but just important in different ways. I would say nature is repsonsible for men liking phsyically fit partners and women liking social proven men. That would be natural and not necissarly learned, but exacerbated to some degree by nurture as well.

The point was as far as temperment goes, it's clearly, largely influenced by culture.

Ahnimus

Jeanie wrote:

Oh and I deliberately didn't look for stats on domestic violence because I thought the topic of the thread was men in politics and power?

For the sake of coherence, try using the term assertiveness instead of aggressiveness. Because assertiveness can't be interpreted as violence.

But, I think this is just back-peddling on your part.

Ahnimus

We should also take into consideration--concerning the nature vs. nurture debate-- that the development of the brain depends on stimuli and the efficiency of the brain is largely impacted by expectations. I can elaborate more later if you want. But I mean, just keep in mind that if the brain is different in men and women does not necissarly mean that it's caused by nature as opposed to nurture, since nurture impacts the development of the brain quite a lot.

gue_barium

Ahnimus wrote:

We should also take into consideration--concerning the nature vs. nurture debate-- that the development of the brain depends on stimuli and the efficiency of the brain is largely impacted by expectations. I can elaborate more later if you want. But I mean, just keep in mind that if the brain is different in men and women does not necissarly mean that it's caused by nature as opposed to nurture, since nurture impacts the development of the brain quite a lot.

I think nurture impacts the development of human behavior, whereas nature's impact on the brain is probably more sublimely neuroscientific.

gue_barium

Ahnimus wrote:

For the sake of coherence, try using the term assertiveness instead of aggressiveness. Because assertiveness can't be interpreted as violence.

But, I think this is just back-peddling on your part.

what about assertive aggressiveness as opposed to, say, passive assertiveness?

Ahnimus

gue_barium wrote:

what about assertive aggressiveness as opposed to, say, passive assertiveness?

lol, well, either way it's describing assertiveness. Or a person's motivation to get out and get the life they want. Whereas aggressiveness alone connotes violence.

gue_barium

Ahnimus wrote:

lol, well, either way it's describing assertiveness. Or a person's motivation to get out and get the life they want. Whereas aggressiveness alone connotes violence.

but, in terms of behavior, those are medical terms, of psychology. in this debate of nature and nuture, or testosterone and behavior: psychology is a low-roller. i mean, unless you want to get into a particular person's head, or something.