"Normative" bullying part 2- Gender and relationships

Gender differences- Nature or nurture?

The simple answer to this question is, "both", but a more challenging question is, how much of the observed differences between males and females is nature, and how much is nurture?  I think the "nurture" component has definitely declined since the 1950s, but it is still there, and I believe that the main problem with it is that it often tends to be enforced through "normative" bullying techniques.

A frequent personal experience of mine is that, culturally, men are expected to be X, and women are expected to be Y, but I tend to be a mix of the two.  I tend to be particularly exasperated by contradictory arguments like the following:

"Like it or not, men and women are different.  There is no peer pressure to conform to gender roles- that has died out since the 1950s- there is only pressure not to conform.  Fundamentally, men are X and women are Y, and if, as a man, you aren't X, then it means you probably have something wrong with you and so should be regarded with suspicion, for a civilised society has to have norms/rules and if you don't play by the rules you should be punished.  Most other men are happy to be X, so why can't you just be X like everybody else?  Vive la difference!"

This argument is extremely contradictory, arguing that there is no peer pressure to conform to gender roles, but then saying that if you don't conform to gender roles, you should be punished for being different because "rules are rules" (if that's not a form of peer pressure to conform, what is?)

Examples of cultural differences

In many developed countries, notably the USA and to a lesser extent the UK, it is normal for men's friendships to be based on shared interests, particularly competitive hobbies, and for women's friendships to be based on emotional bonding.  Men are not expected to bond emotionally with people other than close family and men who hug close friends can be regarded with suspicion, whereas women can hug close friends without any worries.  These gender divisions are harmful for both genders, since they make it difficult to find friends who will provide both shared interests and emotional bonding (male friends tend to provide the former and female friends the latter).  The lack of emotional bonding in men's friendships, in particular, tends to result in them being perceived as short-term and disposable.

For men

The norms relating to "Men don't bond emotionally with friends" have no biological basis.  They stem from the way that close friendships involving men were stigmatized during the Victorian era due to the fear of being accused of being homosexual, as there were strong criminal penalties for homosexual men, as Oscar Wilde found out to his great cost, for example.  The stigmatization of emotional bonding in men's friendships relates to the idea that men are not emotionally sensitive, and if they are, they are unnatural and probably have something wrong with them.  This issue has significantly fuelled the recent paranoia over child-molesters in the UK, where every man who behaves inconsistently with his gender role in the vicinity of a child is suspected of wanting to molest the child.  But it is at odds with biological evidence suggesting that about 15-20% of humans, both male and female, are born "highly sensitive".  

I suggest that this is an example of what I call "normative" bullying.  Men who are more "sensitive" than the expected norm end up feeling compelled to hide their sensitive traits, for fear of being socially rejected for being different, and even suspected of wanting to molest children.  In today's culture of "the minority spoiling it for everybody else", when there is a perceived threat to our safety, we look for innocent people to target by association with the likes of rapists.  Homosexual men traditionally used to be the easiest targets, but now that homophobia is becoming recognised as a significant problem, it is becoming easier to focus on "sensitive" men instead as they are not widely recognised as being vulnerable to discrimination.

For women

"Women don't engage in competitive hobbies/interests" does have a limited biological basis, as women tend to be less aggressive and competitive by nature.  However, much of the gender division is still caused by social conditioning.  From an early age, girls are taught that females "grow out" of competitive activities like computer games (especially violent games), chess, ten pin bowling etc., and that females who persist in doing them are acting unfeminine and childish and stooping to the males' level.  Another, related, problem is the patronising, "macho" type of reaction that females get from some males who are strong at such activities, like, "She can't be as good as us- she's female." or "I'm not playing against her because I couldn't stomach being beaten by a female."

I remember cases from my childhood where people applied the rule, "Boys shouldn't hit girls, but it's OK for girls to hit boys" (which is dubious in itself, for while girls are, on average, physically weaker than boys, the rule doesn't take into account the individual-on-individual variations from the average, or the fact that it is possible, up to a point, for weaker people to inflict significant harm on stronger people) and but then decided that it was OK for boys to hit girls who took part in these competitive activities because "they aren't real girls as they do boys' things rather than girls' things".  An extreme case admittedly, but one that strongly highlights the problem.

So, again, a significant reason why many girls don't engage in these activities is because if they do, they will be socially rejected for being different. This is reflected by the fact that once it becomes relatively "normal" for females to do a traditionally male-dominated activity, we usually get a sharp rise in the number of females who take an interest in it, and by the fact that many girls who take up these activities tend to give them up during their teenage years, which is when peer pressure tends to be at its most rampant.

All of the above is strongly relevant to areas where there is a problem with women being under-represented in the workforce- sometimes the above attitudes are quite prevalent, and tend to be accepted without question, such that people (both male and female) bully women out of wanting to be part of them, without even realising it.

I am not a fan of positive discrimination

I am a believer in equality of opportunity, which is not the same thing as equality of attainment.  There are some areas where biological differences between the sexes will result in there being more men than women (or vice versa) succeeding at a particular activity, e.g. men are at an advantage, on average, in activities that require a lot of physical strength.  And we get variations either side of the mean, so Company A may find that most of the best applicants for a job are male, while Company B might find that most of the best applicants for a similar post are female.

I can see that positive discrimination can go some way towards addressing the problems that I described above.  If women are under-represented within a group, and we push to get more women involved, then it will become perceived as relatively "normal" for women to take part, and therefore, less likely that they will be socially rejected for being different, and thus discouraged.  

However, positive discrimination can result in the jobs not going to the best candidates, with inferior candidates getting priority because of, say, their gender and/or skin colour.  It can also result in us unrealistically trying to aim for a 50-50 gender distribution in an organisation, where there may well be a genetic difference that, if we left "nurture" out of the equation, would make it more like 70-30.  These issues put a lot of people off from supporting what is a very important cause.

Once again, the problem that we're dealing with here is normative enforcement of "rules", i.e. the "If it's normal, it's OK, and if it's different, it's not OK" mentality.  I feel that it would be most beneficial to try to tackle this directly.  People should be punished for doing things that are likely to be detrimental, not purely for being different.