From: Kathryn Aegis (k_aegis@mindspring.com)
Date: Tue Dec 28 1999 - 19:08:04 MST
At 06:58 AM 12/25/99 -0800, Robert Bradbury wrote:
>All of this is not to say that all males & females fall into one
>basket or another. But as the genetics gets slowly disassembled
>we will have a blueprint for predisposing "biases" that each of
>us inherently have. What those biases turn out to be and how
>we decide to modify them (by choice or edict) will be important
>in the coming century.
I think that the particular 'biases' you chose (shopping, sports,
preening) have more to do with culture than genes.
But, leaving that aside for a moment, we should back up to a key
assumption in your constructions. Applications of evolutionary
theory to gender schemas often start from an assumption that Darwin
may not have agreed with to begin with, being a naturalist. Dawkins
makes note of this unintended consequence for social commentary in
his annotated version of _The Selfish Gene_. And, it is cited in
a book by Judith Lorber that established the concept of gender as
a social construct, _Paradoxes of Gender_.
To wit: Naturalists consider the human species to be what they call
'weakly dimorphic'. That is to say, from a distance, it is often
difficult to tell who is male and who is female. The average male
and female of the species are roughly of the same size and weight.
If they both engage in similar pursuits of athleticism, or if they
both work at hard labor, they can develop similar muscle masses.
As Lorber notes in her book, it is human cultures that decided to
exaggerate the physical differences through dress and body language.
Why? Because, according to Lorber (among others), social
status, power, and resources are allocated according to gender
in most human civilizations, even now as we enter the new
millenium. Those humans who act in the most stereotypical manner
for their gender fit into that system and cause the least
disruption to the social order. Those who insist on following
their own individuality can look forward to relentless pressure
to conform and negative reactions from those imbued with
responsibility for enforcing social norms. (See the huge body
of literature on the life experiences of gay men, lesbians, and
transgendered for accounts of these experiences.)
And, so, I have just described my starting point on examining
gender. To bring it into a futurist context: In planning
their own future, humans must come to realize that they have
placed far too much emphasis on gender differences. Rather
than focus on the 90% that men and women have in common, we
have instead, through relentless indoctrination from birth,
created two different human subcultures that are in
continual opposition. In other words, the so-called 'battle of
the sexes' is a manufactured entity, and we are just as capable
of discarding it as we were of building it. Transhumanists
focus on the future of 'humanity', ane so we may provide a
context within which to begin to move beyond these constructs.
Sincerely,
Kathryn Aegis
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