#RepealThe19th

[Bob Butler 54]

(10-14-2016, 12:37 AM)taramarie Wrote: Do you think we are more influenced by culture, or our male/female hormonal driven behaviours which dictate how we behave? Are we naturally inclined towards certain behaviours/roles depending on our sex or does culture influence those decisions more?

I really don’t have firm clear answers on that one.  I will say though that the environment and technology have a lot to do with it as well.  I’ll give some examples of cultures and jobs where division of labor by gender might or might not exist.  I can’t give enough examples to firmly answer your question, but perhaps enough examples that you can think though your own view.

Let’s start with Eskimo hunter-gatherers way up north.  The males can get very good at paddling kayaks and throwing harpoons.  The ladies can get very good at sewing kayaks and excellent cold weather gear.  Does paddling and harpoon throwing require the superior strength?  Is it easier to nurture the young while sewing than when paddling a kayak?

This might illustrate how low tech cultures might be more apt to develop specialization than higher tech cultures.  

One of my first jobs was with the local telephone company.  I was with “house services,” which meant I was mowing lawns, emptying trash bins and cleaning.  Not much, but I got to move around to various buildings.  There was the lineman’s garage.  They replaced telephone poles, strung wires, and other outside infrastructure work.  Every one of them was male.  Back in the 1970s they still had buildings full of operators helping to complete calls.  Every one of them was female.  For unknown reasons, house services was all male too.

Five years later, an engineer’s degree in hand, I joined a bunch of people writing software.  Mixed.  Remarkably little difference in gender role.  More males than females, but not by that much.  Through most of my career I had female immediate supervisors.  The ladies did get more maternity leave than the guys, but otherwise…

I live in cranberry country.  Bogs everywhere.  One of the local restaurants features old photographs of how cranberries were harvested back in the old days.  There was a picture of harvesters, wading hip deep in water wearing rubber overalls.  Males, every one of them.  Then there’s a picture of a bouncing room.  Dry high quality berries bounce higher than mushy berries good only for sauce.  Thus, you have rooms full of tables being vibrated up and down, with women at the tables separating out the berries that bounce the highest.

I have two grand nieces and a grand nephew.  The girls have favorite dolls.  The little guy has a favorite ball.  My nephew and his lady aren’t sexists trying to force traditional roles on the kids, but they take it for granted that trying to force dolls on the little guy when he doesn’t want to play with dolls is really pointless and futile.  I remember my grandmother taking the spoon out of my sister’s left hand and putting it in her right.  It wound up back in her left hand right quick.  Forcing gender roles seems similarly pointless and futile.  

I see human cultures as very flexible.  If there are pragmatic reasons for something, the culture will absorb and encourage said solutions.  Yet, abstract ideas can be influential too.  “All men are created equal” might guide and shape a culture at least as much as practical factors like giving guys the jobs that require more physical strength.

Yet, cultures can also be inflexible.  Gender roles were once much more beneficial than they are now, but some will want to maintain tradition because it is tradition.  Thus the old telephone utility company had more gender segregation than the newer software industry.

The above might not be an entirely satisfactory answer, but there are lots of factors interacting.  I’m not entirely sure how to weigh them all.