I don't believe the difference is taught. After raising two daughters I am convinced that many (but not all) of the traits we assign to each gender are there from birth. This has further been reinforced by my grandsons. I didn't raise either daughter to be any more "frilly" than a son. Both can change the oil in their cars and know which is the business end of a soldering iron. They showed their "girlish" traits from their earliest days. My grandsons weren't raised to be any more "rough and tumble" than a girl would have been. If anything, my daughter attempted to keep gender roles to a minimum. She is quite surprised, and sometimes baffled, by her sons actions. Nurture does play a role, but nature plays a larger role and cannot be denied. To paraphrase an old proverb: "Give a man lumber and he'll give you a house, give a woman a house and she'll give you a home."

Some parts of the role stuff are "nurture", and it's not just in the home. For example there's a significantly low percentage of women in the "STEM" (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) fields. It's been proven that women are as a whole no less talented in these areas than men... One major source of the difference appears to be the social stigma of "geekiness" or "nerdiness" which is tied to these areas, and being cast as a result as an outsider and social pariah. The other major source appears to be propagational; the old-school bias that women are supposedly less talented in these areas are, according to some studies, passed on from teacher to student in early schooling...

I'm not much interested in political correctness. But I'm also not much interested in wrong theories about why people behave in certain ways.

-Especially- if these theories then lead to claims that women are naturally evil greedy money vampires or actually enjoy getting every annoying or disgusting chore in the world shoved off on them. Or even just "all talk too much". Because that paints -me- with a brush that I don't like to wear. Try on the claim that "men are smelly animals that would not ever wash if they weren't being made" for comparison if you don't get that point.

To come back to the topic: if you aren't aware what annoying behaviors of your spouse are due to them being in a situation that would cause the same behavior in you, and instead assign it to an innate flaw in their gender or personality, you will never even try to find a solution; you'll both be unhappy at each other until you part. Rinse, repeat.

People are not the roles society assigns them, they just wear them more or less gracefuly. Much as you shouldn't need to wear make-up or suck in your belly all the time in a marriage, you shouldn't need to pretend that you are a role either.

Generalizations are only useful if they actually fit a majority. "Men are 1.75m tall" eg would be another totally useless generalization. I don't know a single woman with 40 pairs of shoes, do you? Imelda Marcos doesn't count :-P

A good litmus test is "how do other societies behave". If you can't find any society where people do something differently, it's innate. If you have a behavior that is 70:30 m:f in one society, but 30:70 in another, it's not.

spzeidler wrote:

Try on the claim that "men are smelly animals that would not ever wash if they weren't being made" for comparison if you don't get that point.

Substitute "gamers" or "sci-fi fans" or "furries" for "men" and a surprising number of people will nod sagely... regardless of the fact that most gamers or fen or otaku or anthros do practice a socially-acceptable level of hygiene, and have reasonably "normal" sets of proclivities. But because a few elements in mass media have chosen to paint these groups as the disgusting social outcasts or sexual deviants that a small percentage are (and let's face it, there's a small-but-significant portion of the rest of the population to which those labels are accurate), the whole of these groups are painted this way.

And yet there's no public outcry of unfair labeling being made in defense of any of these fandoms...

@ Guairdean -

-"I didn't raise either daughter to be any more "frilly" than a son."-

-"My grandsons weren't raised to be any more "rough and tumble" than a girl would have been."-

Next time you're shopping for a holiday card for one of your daughters, please take the time to compare what's marketed for the purpose vs. what's marketed for giving to a son.

Or, see what happens when you give your grandson a Barbie for his birthday. And, if you wouldn't, then tell me why.

My point wasn't about parental impacts. It was about society's impacts.

@ spzeidler -

-"-Especially- if these theories then lead to claims that women are naturally evil greedy money vampires... "-

This is exactly why I stated that it was easier to exemplify the negatives rather than the positives. You've missed my point entirely.

It's not about blood-suckers on real suckers. It's about a person attempting to derive meaning from their own perceptions of the outside world as the world presents itself. And for a man (Yes, man. Typical, stereotypical, and in the spirit of the original comment Guairdean made about men and women not necessarily understanding each other. -"I must disagree. Women understand why another woman needs (not wants, needs) 40 pair of shoes. Men understand why men need (again, need, not want) a complete set of nearly identical tools. Little girls understand the joy of twirling in a skirt, and little boys understand the joy of being able to jump up and touch the top of the door frame. All of these things are a mystery to the other gender. The trick is to understand that the mystery itself is also important, and to enjoy it. You are correct that we can never truly walk a mile in another's shoes since we are individual beings, but we can understand the "why" of our own genders needs. Understanding the "why" of the complementary (opposite is, in far too many ways, the wrong term) gender is something only a rare few will accomplish."-) he looks for usefulness and existing value. A woman, as (op-)pressed out by society's general marketing and entertainment trends, looks to see what value she can derive from an existing (insert noun here).

It isn't about good-natured vs. maliciousness, as these (and other intrinsic) traits exist in all people to varying degrees. As Guairdean does point out, when one examines groups separated by distinguishing traits, you begin to ven diagram everything else about them. Not everything is going to come out even, or the effort to compare would never be called for.

And, my theoretical model is discussing how I think that men tend towards pursuit, while women tend towards utility.

Or, more harshly put, in my poor attempt at dark humor (sorry any confusion) based on the stereotypes of conversational fraternization --> Men Covet, Women Criticize.

I'm not attempting to vilify anyone.