Rolling Maleness and Masculinity Discussion Thread

like i said, i don't think biology doesn't matter, that's an absurd position. i just think society still has a much more overdetermined notion of how tenuous gendered ideas & biology really are; that pink was the color for boys & blue a color for girls 100 years ago, for ex

Male monkeys, like boys, showed consistent and strong preferences for wheeled toys, while female monkeys, like girls, showed greater variability in preferences.

maybe i'm missing something, but this gives away the game. The study is set up as if there were two genders, when in fact women show "greater variability in preference," not a preference for female toys. whereas males tended to be drawn to the "male" toys. Built into the study is a gender binary which assumes there can only be two kinds of toys, an assumption that monkeys will fit into one of two groups. these two groups only exist bc of the boundaries of the study, which presumes two possible answers going in. maybe im missing something but it feels like the deck is stacked?

i don't understand what is confusing you. in that study the boy monkeys preferred to play with wheeled toys and the female monkeys played with wheeled toys and with dolls.

Phil, my son's condition (a vanishingly rare KDM5C mutation) is x-linked and overwhelmingly hits males. Females are carriers but usually only have mild effects, if any.

my 12 year old boy spent the entire school day yesterday biking 17 miles with his class. and they tied in science, math, etc to the trip. that's the newfangled way.

this is a big reason why we have our kids in private school - we felt they'd cater to their learning needs better w/ smaller classes, more inventive pedagogy, etc. (the other big reason is religious.) the public schools here are great - nationally acclaimed - but they are basically sitting a desk all day. unfortunately most ppl don't have the luxury of choosing.

one reason it might matter is bc it determines how we educate our children. if males can be socialized to learn the same way females are then we should just do that but if they aren't we need to make adjustments to the current sitting in a chair for 8 hours a day regime. xp

― Mordy, Wednesday, November 1, 2017 2:56 PM (eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

fwiw i dont think we even disagree about this, but i'm not sure why it would matter if its biological or socially determined; if men are struggling to sit in a chair x hours a day more than women bc they've been allowed to run wild vs. they're driven to run wild, it still has to be dealt with. the socialized reality isn't something that can just be undone with progressive parenting or whatever, its a deep societal thing regardless

ah, right, the x-chromosome. i knew that. i think that's the thing responsible for my response when i learned about trepanning: huh, that makes sense! let some air in.

i honestly believe that's what makes the idea of a gunshot to the head so appealing to so many men. relieves the pressure.

thread has taken a dark turn

these two groups only exist bc of the boundaries of the study

LOL

Not to derail, but this is a condescending, reductive and inaccurate statement:

this is a big reason why we have our kids in private school - we felt they'd cater to their learning needs better w/ smaller classes, more inventive pedagogy, etc. (the other big reason is religious.) the public schools here are great - nationally acclaimed - but they are basically sitting a desk all day. unfortunately most ppl don't have the luxury of choosing.

I’ve been vocal about school types before, and I have NEVER been in a private school whose pedagogy is more cutting-edge than some of the most under-resourced publics I’ve taught in.

LOL

― Οὖτις, Wednesday, November 1, 2017 3:09 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

if you don't understand what i'm saying theres no need to be a dick about it

what happens if u introduce six different "types" of toys & let boys & girls shake out the results

idk what to tell you i looked at the public school option and the option we went with and the entire program was more cutting-edge than the public school. that's an explicit part of their appeal that they rely upon to attract students. xxp

it's a student:teacher ratio of 1:10. is there a public school that can give that kind of individuated attention?

Yeah any of the three I’ve worked in!

i admit i'm surprised. that's not the ratio at the public schools here and we're far from under-resourced.

i guess i'm not a parent but i feel like deej has been otm here

I’m not saying you’re wrong on the whole, but I want you to recognize that (many) public schools are hugely innovative... especially considering the quality of education provided for an increasingly high number of special education students.

ok that's fair. it seemed like the better choice for us, partially bc we have one child who is an unconventional learner. i do know parents who for various reasons (like having more resources for special ed students) have opted for the local schools. and like i said - they're very good. i was really replying to scott's assertion above that while i like unconventional classrooms that kind of thing isn't an option for most people.

I only brought up the parent thing because many of us were discussing our anecdotal evidence. Which is generally preferable to D-40's standard evidence-free hypotheses.

Xps

(And instructional assistants/non-certified teachers/support personnel are NOT considered in the public school student/teacher ratio for public systems, whereas anybody who considers themselves to have any instructional duties can boost the numbers for independents/charters.)

interesting. good to know.

Let’s cuddle this out.

U know u always my boo, Mordy! <- man bonding

public schools killed my sister

i didn't weigh in on the cuddling thing but i'm a big no for male cuddling [for me - i have no judgement about other ppl enjoying male bonding cuddles]

idk we've been pretty disappointed at how our highly-rated school districted has handled our son w/ autism, most of the schools doing the best work w/ special needs kids (or at least kids w/ autism, adhd, and similar conditions) in our city are all private. i always vowed i'd send my kid to public schools but seeing the difference between even the best public school districts in our city and the private schools that specialize in supporting kids w/ autism has made us reconsider. part of this could be ohio's "autism scholarship" program which routes money to individual families to select the school/providers of their choice but not if they choose the public school (in effect resources are routed to private providers rather than the public system). it sucks really but as a parent im not really hesitating to take the $$ for the best situation for my son

tangent obv but anyways

You're on a msg board Mordy. You don't *actually* have to cuddle when someone says cuddle.

Without comment on the rest of the study results, reducing that monkey toy study to "cars" and "dolls" will not help anyone understand the results -- per Mordy's link:

Because we hypothesized that some aspects of sexually differentiated toy preferences reflect activity preferences, we categorized our toys not by traditional gender assignment, but by specific object properties that made our categories comparable, though not exact matches, to stereotypical gender assignments. Thus one set of toys was “wheeled,” most comparable to the masculine vehicle toys and the other was “plush,” most comparable to the feminine doll and stuffed animal toys. The seven plush toys were: Winnie-the-Pooh™, Raggedy-Ann™, a koala bear hand puppet, an armadillo, a teddy bear, Scooby-Doo™, and a turtle. The sizes ranged in length from about 14 cm to 73 cm. The six wheeled toys were: a wagon, a truck, a car, a construction vehicle, a shopping cart, and a dump truck. These ranged in length from 16 to 46 cm. Plush and wheeled toys varied considerably in shape and color as well.

That paints a different and more interesting picture than just "cars" and "dolls."

(Yeah, I'd also like to see what would happen if traditionally "neutral" toys were included as well, but that's not what the researchers were studying.)

You're on a msg board Mordy. You don't *actually* have to cuddle when someone says cuddle.

then who's this guy who keeps wrapping his arms around me i assumed it was one of you

I only brought up the parent thing because many of us were discussing our anecdotal evidence. Which is generally preferable to D-40's standard evidence-free hypotheses.

Xps

― Οὖτις, Wednesday, November 1, 2017 3:21 PM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

my very first post included my own anecdotal evidence

"that while i like unconventional classrooms that kind of thing isn't an option for most people."

and, also, my kids go to one of those dreaded.............PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOLS.

a real hot button topic around these parts. i stay out of it.

then who's this guy who keeps wrapping his arms around me i assumed it was one of you

― Mordy, Wednesday, November 1, 2017 8:27 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haha <3

(Yeah, I'd also like to see what would happen if traditionally "neutral" toys were included as well, but that's not what the researchers were studying.)

― Monster fatberg (Phil D.), Wednesday, November 1, 2017 3:25 PM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i dont mean neutral (what is a neutral toy? One that doesn't assume a gender binary going into it?)

my very first post included my own anecdotal evidence

Didnt realize you had observed the development of yr siblings' gender identity since birth, must be quite an age gap.

you're clearly arguing just to argue

I mean basically the way I see it is that the rough groupings of "male" and "female" are not just, like, completely made up, and that there are probably some clusters of biological traits that in turn have some cluster of influences on behavior, taste, etc. But also the range and variety within those groupings is much broader than we have often allowed, and social pressure has tended to cause a narrowing of what would otherwise be wider. E.g. men who really aren't all that excited about trucks going with the flow and pretending like they are excited about trucks, or guys that might never independently develop an interest in NFL forcing themselves to have some kind of knowledge of NFL. And I think there's probably a lot of overlap between that kind of pressure and what we call "toxic masculinity."

Also, relatedly, the specific *ways* in which certain traits, e.g. aggression, are allowed and not allowed to express themselves is very much a social thing, for example, whether the strong picking on the weak is tolerated, encouraged, or discouraged.

The only way to objectively study birth order is to have a batch of children, raise them, then kill them and have another batch.

my very first post included my own anecdotal evidence

Didnt realize you had observed the development of yr siblings' gender identity since birth, must be quite an age gap.

― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 1 November 2017 20:33 (eleven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I made this actual response about an hour before everyone jumped on d40 ppl are being unfair imo and this is a good thread today can we chill and just be chill guys

It would be pretty funny/ironic/fitting if the maleness thread devolves into Lord of the Flies

says *man alive*

my POV on the "has anti-gender essentialism gone too far" thing is basically I'm sure we've all observed "progressive parents" trying to bring up their children in some kind of blandly gender neutral existence & their efforts often seem ignorant of the depth & power of gender roles w/in that society; and that they neglect to recognize that 'society' extends beyond their household, and that they themselves reinforce those same norms 1000 times daily for every 1000 times they think to do otherwise. in that sense, i can see critiquing the new intelligentsia consensus, but i think the problem isn't that theyve gone too far, its that they dont realize how far they (and everyone around them) really have to go (or for that matter, that we can't really "unlearn" this stuff, we can only pile more discourse on top of it)

II think that the ability to pooh-pooh physiologically-based gender differences is actually the very definition of male privilege. Beyond fine/gross motor development, differing functioning of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, or (say) onset of sexual maturity, there are lots of socialized gender-experiences that the direct result of biological phenomena. Young men can opt out – almost entirely – from the icky conversations of maturation, and many of them literally never have to discuss/see/engage with menstruation for an entire lifetime, whereas it's a biological imperative for young (cis) women. That difference alone, magnified over a lifetime, is enormous, and while the expression of these differences plays out in social learning, the root of it is in sexual dimorphism.

"progressive parents" trying to bring up their children in some kind of blandly gender neutral existence & their efforts often seem ignorant of the depth & power of gender roles w/in that society

I can't remember if we did this point already, but in vein of how it's necessary to UNDO patriarchy and not just ignore it or pretend you can shut it out, this problem is somewhat similar to the many studies and discussions about how ineffective it is to try to make kids "color-blind" instead of purposefully studying the violence of racism. You have to grapple w it and teach it and teach strategies for not bending to the social pressures. You don't just say "Girls can like trucks too," one time and that's it, you have to live the message, however that looks in your family with gender roles and stuff. And like if there's that one relative or older friend who always tells your daughter she looks "pretty" and must be "such a good girl," you have to talk about that w your daughter and parse it out. Ditto whatever messages for boys. Invite your kids to examine stuff--you already know how smart they are!

epically OTM post, in orbit

art of this could be ohio's "autism scholarship" program which routes money to individual families to select the school/providers of their choice but not if they choose the public school (in effect resources are routed to private providers rather than the public system).

This is utterly and completely evil.

At my (public) middle school we have a "NEST" program, which mainstreams high-functioning autistic kids into regular honors classes with extra training for the staff, a higher faculty-to-student ratio, and some environmental adaptations to accommodate the NEST kids (quiet rooms, specially structured lessons, a calm and predictable schedule, minimal classroom travel, etc). It's wildly successful, for instance one student DOUBLED her test scores from the previous year. And these are hyper-involved parents, not kids who "fell through the cracks" or whatever. Public schools can do it. But like LITERALLY ANYTHING GOOD, it isn't free. It requires funding.

I was literally JUST unpacking some of this stuff with my daughter (see children's programming thread) and she said things that were way more sophisticated than anything I could have come up with at twice her age.

io, you may be unsurprised to know I brought up colorblindness as an analogy about a week ago :-) obv I think you are OTM

you don't just say "Girls can like trucks too," one time and that's it, you have to live the message, however that looks in your family with gender roles and stuff.

Yeah! This is so true –– and it's not just the conversations about gender/race/sexuality/economics/religion. It's the act of having the conversation, itself. I try to have these conversations every day with students, and often the most profound discussion happens around 'hidden' biases and powers that kids'll bring up that are (basically) invisible to me. Last week, kids brought up the tyranny of 'nice' teachers who like 'niceness' and the way in which niceness is adjudicated based on pleasant appearance, lack of obvious disability, youth, and compliance. Only because of fifty million previous conversations did they even think to bring it up, and it struck me as a triumph that they'd question something I'd been ignoring/misunderstanding my entire life.