'One function', maybe. Death of a Salesman comes to mind as bringing a new insight to the ideology of America, and the world. But it's not just a matter of good and evil, it's far more important than that.

That's not a politicized gender war, though. So un must have been talking about something else. — frank

It's a general impression, somewhat supported by some of the reactions on this thread. But what was specifically in my mind was a clip I saw from the secret life of five year olds, in which Harlo from LA expresses some rather rampant sexist views and refuses to play with girls. You may not have access to this and it's not anyway a format I really like - a bit big brother - but it was jarringly out of what I generally expect at that age, and also apparently out of what the other children expect. It looked a bit mad.

Here's a description.

gender neutrality seems like an attack; a negative approach. — frank

Well it is an attack on stereotypes, not on individuals. But you have hit upon the reason for all the resistance to something that would otherwise be uncontroversial, which is that people don't just conform to but also identify with stereotypes. As soon as one talks about 'manly virtues' and complementary 'womanly virtues', one declares the superior virtue of the manly man over the womanly man, and of the womanly woman over the manly woman. And at this point, one can start to talk about 'privilege'. Cue another bout of outrage.

Dude, I'm not attacking you, don't panic. I'm suggesting that talk about legal rights is rather unimportant. You have a relationship with your wife that is bigger than her rights and your rights, and the rights of any hypothetical foetus. The last comment was somewhat facetious, and my main point in relation to fathers is that 'where they are' is not one place. some fathers deserve consideration that they do not get, and some fathers get consideration that they do not deserve, and the law is unlikely to be better able to distinguish them than the mother.

And we don't either know where the mother is, or where the foetus is, except that they are stuck with each other, and only the mother can express an opinion about that. So perhaps a responsible pro-life man or woman, whether father, grandfather, neighbour or stranger, will be prepared to put their own life on the line, to do whatever it takes to support mother-and-foetus, which is a whole other thing to demanding laws and asserting rights.

I am not that responsible, so I do not claim to be pro-life. I am close enough to the bottom to know that bearing the responsibility for a child while being deprived of the social support and opportunity to fulfil that responsibility is an intolerable situation that many in our civilised caring society find themselves in, and while that is so, the law is just another weapon used against them, to keep them there and pass the blame on to the victims.

I am against coercing women to continue a pregnancy, but all for bribing them to do so.

Where is the father in all of this? Why does a complete stranger (the doctor), have more of a say on the fate of the child than one of the parents of the child? — Mr Phil O'Sophy

I wonder if you have ever been in the position of fatherhood? To have the responsibility of another, a helpless infant, fall upon one's shoulders is not something that anyone is qualified for, let alone entitled to. It is a heavy burden, even if it is a welcome one.

And part of that burden of responsibility is necessarily towards the mother. So speaking personally, I can say where I think the father should be, at least the father who does not favour abortion. And that is to be a support to the mother. The mother must be prepared to give up her health, her career, her freedom, her whole foreseeable future to a child, and a father likewise to the mother and child. Are you prepared for a drunken fumble with a woman you care nothing for to dominate your life from here on out? If you can say yes, then you will be there and you will have your say, and you will listen to the doctor and agonise with your woman.

Downs Syndrome folks are among the most loving and wonderful people; they bring so much joy. But make no mistake, their care will fill your life - your whole life and your care must even spread further than your whole life to who will support them when you are dead.

I wish this whole debate could be closer to the reality of people's lives, and not conducted as if there are monsters that like to eat babies that must be defeated and criminalised.

Nobody is in favour of abortion, nobody is against motherhood or apple pie. Well almost nobody. But people like to make rules for lives they do not have to live, and I think there should be a law against that.

Here is the thread theme tune. It was written in response to the Aberfan disaster, when an old slag heap collapsed onto a school in South Wales in 1966.

Here is the same general idea, but without the ecobabble and in depth analysis, which of course exposes its socialist origins and thus completely devalues it - in some folks eyes.

Maybe the end is near. If it is, we'll soon find out. — Bitter Crank

Well no, actually, one never does find out; one never gets to say, 'I told you so'. It's really annoying.

Ecology hangs over every discussion of the future and is often--quite amazingly--ignored. The rate of global warming, ecological disruption, sea-level rise, more severe swings in weather events, and so forth cut across projections of future economic growth. — Bitter Crank

Yes, and Slater Nazi Inc. are not going to solve these problems of their own volition.

that doesn't really make me lose any confidence in the continued ability of humans to substantially improve their situation. — Hanover

Nor do I lack confidence in the ability of humans. As usual in your haste to contradict something that might oblige you to think a new thought, you miss the point. Have another read of the link above and you will see that it is not a problem of human ability but of political and economic system that is flagged up as the difficulty.

... the economic models which inform political decision-making in rich countries almost completely disregard the energetic and material dimensions of the economy (Hall and Klitgaard 2011).
As Hall and Klitgaard (2011) have shown, today’s dominant economic theories, approaches, and models were developed during the era of energetic and material abundance. These theories were challenged only temporarily by the oil crises of the 1970s and the 1990s; no significant theoretical or political changes were made. Thus, dominant economic theories as well as policy-related economic modeling rely on the presupposition of continued energetic and material growth. The theories and models anticipate only incremental changes in the existing economic order. Hence, they are inadequate for explaining the current turmoil.

Yes, I think that is something like a new application though the theory is not new. But let's not be hardline about what is in any case a very peripheral issue to the thread topic. derived from a rather throwaway remark.

I wonder if anyone is at all interested in discussing the topic of the thread?

novel ways of using existing knowledge. — Hanover

Yes.I'm glad you agree. Not the end of the increase in knowledge, but past the peak. The internal combustion engine dates from just before 1800, 220 years later, we have improved on it a good deal; likewise the electric motor, 1830s. Jet engine and rocket engine, 1940s and since then - improvements, but no new engines.

There's no telling what will come next. — frank

The best I can manage is to spot trends of the past and project. I am aware that this is not as good as a crystal ball.

I'm not sure what you are asking. Gender neutrality does not change anyones sex, or mandate their sport. and we could have this conversation in Arabic or Chinese, though I would be in linguistic difficulties personally.

I assume your linebacker is supposed to exemplify in a non-gender-neutral society, a man who conforms to the stereotype of masculinity. If there were no such stereotype, there would still be such men, but we would not call them 'masculine' and some other, ( pick your own cliche) 'effeminate'.

I'd like to draw attention to something I wrote earlier trying to characterise the difference from the subjective viewpoint, between gender neutrality and gender stereotyping. It passed without comment.

I am a man. Therefore however I behave is manly behaviour.

Men behave thus and so. Therefore anyone who does not behave thus and so is not a proper man.
Therefore I am not a proper man, therefore I have the wrong body.

Gender neutrality allows that your linebacker, Stephen Hawking, unenlightened the gobshite weakling, and Bitter Crank the gay icon, are all equally men, and thus equally masculine, no matter how many women we are not stronger than, or how we choose to waste our time.

What needs to be done – in social and material terms?
Let us first take a glance at what economies need to accomplish, in concrete terms. They need to transform the ways in which energy, transport, food, and housing are produced and consumed (O’Neill et al. 2018). The result should be production and consumption that provides decent opportunities for a good life while dramatically reducing the burden on natural ecosystems. In terms of greenhouse gases, global net emissions should be zero around 2050 – in Europe and the US by around 2040. (Rockström et al. 2017)
Energy. Currently, approximately 80% of the global net primary energy supply comes from fossil fuels – oil, natural gas, and coal (IEA 2017). Good quality, easily available fossil fuels have powered the industrialization of nations world-wide. Now, the entire energy infrastructure needs to be transformed.

This is necessary, but capitalism cannot accomplish it, the theory does not provide the mechanism.

We haven't reached peak knowledge. — Hanover

You know that do you?

I am speaking loosely, but the first useable computer was during WW2, and since the transistor made them ubiquitous, I don't see an equivalent novelty in the last 70 years. Nuclear physics, relativity, electromagnetism, evolution are all old stories that are being tweaked, nothing more.

This is why identity, when it is a living being which is being identified, is so difficult. The power of choice gives that being the capacity to change its identity. — Metaphysician Undercover

Oh I agree with this completely. The business of life is to build freedom. Gravity says stay down, but life refuses. And I think all along in the thread I have emphasised identification as an activity more than something static. - Or perhaps I took it for granted?

I didn't know the history of the Andamans, but I am not surprised. There is hardly a corner of the world that the British have not polluted with their civilisation.

Something to look forward to amongst the fear-mongering gloom.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/feb/08/heathrow-stockpiling-rubber-gloves-from-eu-for-post-brexit-searches?CMP=fb_gu&fbclid=IwAR3NgOn5doKGabRsHuvh2U_ETNxkAZEcFFxE6XVqOvmswsgpOaINP_6zAOQ

Case closed. — Echarmion

I have, alas, concluded that this is not enough of a philosophy forum to cope with this topic, a fear which I expressed in the op. So I have indeed closed the case for my own part. But I am not going to be dogmatic about it, and if you or anyone wants to bring forward something of interest, I will still be following, and will try to respond.

... making my ideas and opinions a reflection of my cultural relations, is to deny the importance of free will in choosing what to believe. And determinist ontology leads to all sorts of problems with respect to cultural relations. — Metaphysician Undercover

I am no determinist. But my position is that freedom arises from limitation; my freedom lies not in the fabrication or forging of identity because that is the given, but in the transcendence of identity. I am, alas, stuck with my middle-class white male Englishness, but I am downwardly mobile, and a revolutionary traitor. Time and place and genes and upbringing make me - cut out the cloth - and my freedom is in what I make of these necessities. But now we're really off topic.

that is the way OP is trying to introduce monopoly as a relevant criticism to capitalism. — Judaka

Well no, actually, I was merely reminding the hurried and harried reader that criticisms of capitalism have a history. I was rather hoping that folks would read the rather more substantive and modern analysis quoted and linked, and discuss that, perhaps with half an eye to the witty subverting of the cliche that forms the subtitle, and replaces the economy with the ecology as the supreme ruler of society. But Monopoly is a more tractable topic, so do carry on.

Yes, amazingly, an article about preschool focuses on preschool, although it does talk about 4 & 5 year olds not just I & 2. And there is a suggestion that this is an important age, and horrifyingly points out the they actively seek to undo some of the stereotypes that the kids have already absorbed.

But there is no suggestion at all that this is anything separate from or antithetical to general education and general social policy in the country.

The only thing I've seen that's in need of change is how we are to let our kids play in preschool when they are 1 and 2 years old. — Hanover

I didn't see that bit where someone, anyone at all, said gender neutrality only applies to preschool. Remind me.

I don't see how we'll change the math curriculum in a gender neutral society — Hanover

Nor does anyone else in the whole wide world. That's why it's so silly.

I'm referencing the misuse of schools to teach a particular ideology. How does teaching math, for example, do that? — Hanover

by simply treating the genders differently. — unenlightened

... in a myriad of small ways, ignoring, ridiculing, one sex, and encouraging the other. By simply assuming that girls aren't usually as good at maths, or that they're not as interested, or that they won't need it, by not challenging such expressions when they are expressed by pupils. Again, one does not put the dominant ideology on the curriculum because it pervades the ethos of the school. One does not teach gender stereotypes because they pervade everything one teaches. Your maths question is silly, and I have given it far more notice than it deserves.

What are the schools doing now to enforce gender roles? — Hanover

I don't know. Do they have different uniform requirements, maybe? But roles can be supported without being enforced, by simply treating the genders differently.

The schools stop teaching the basic nuts and bolts about the world and decide their role is social engineering. — Hanover

That is ridiculously naive. Education has always been about social engineering, you are simply using it as a negative because it might engineer change. What do you think nuts and bolts are used for?

but are all gender-based roles irrational stereotypes? I don't think so. What does psychology, if it's the basis for the movement, have to say about it? Isn't it psychology and neuroscience that showed us men and women brains operate differently. — TheMadFool

The first thing neuroscience shows is neuroplasticity. London cabbies have to learn the knowledge and it changes their brains. Which is what one might have expected really, and means that brain studies cannot distinguish innate from learned roles so easily. There is a ton and a half of social psychology studies on this, but for the purposes of this thread, one can simply assume that if mens' and womens' brains operate differently, then treating them the same in childhood will not affect that because that is what it means for a difference to be innate rather than culturally induced.

The stereotypes are self-sustaining myth. People make the mistake of confusing their preferences for a notion/rule of where they belong. They walk away under the illusion to be of a preference means they must of a gender prescribed in a stereotype.

In the process, it forms an illusion that someone's preferences are being attack. Much as we've seen in this thread, where gender neutrality is mistaken for some notion of everyone being genderless and not having any sort of individual preference. — TheWillowOfDarkness

(my bold)

What I am wanting to contrast here is the American culture that seems to be highly gendered and gender prescriptive, and adversarial, with the playing down of gender differences in Sweden. It seems to me that the whole tone of the debate in the US is overheated and ideological, and is putting great pressure on folks to conform or else to rebel to an extreme. But what seems to happen is that even the idea of reducing the conflict and relaxing the rigidity of the stereotypes is taken as a threat to gender and part of a campaign to emasculate and defemminise.

Among western countries, the United States is most likely to believe that transgender people have a mental illness (32%) and the most likely out of all countries surveyed to believe that transgendered people are committing a sin (32%). Americans are the most likely to say that society has gone too far in allowing people to dress and live as one sex even though they were born another (36%),

. https://www.ipsos.com/en/node/392831

These are amongst the people, (and gays used to be, but have carved something of a niche for themselves) who suffer from the contradiction between what they are, and what what they are is supposed to be. They suffer both from the internal conflict of identity and the often physical persecution of a rigidly coercive society.

I am a man. Therefore however I behave is manly behaviour.

Men behave thus and so. Therefore anyone who does not behave thus and so is not a proper man.
Therefore I am not a proper man, therefore I have the wrong body.

They who claim to be gender neutral are probably lying, quite possibly to themselves as well as to others. — Bitter Crank

Oh no they're not! Those who claim that They who claim to be gender neutral are probably lying, quite possibly to themselves as well as to others, are probably lying, quite possibly to themselves as well as to others.

Let's leave to the Baden household how to raise his rugrats and the Hanover house how to raise his. — Hanover

That sounds good to me. But is it not also possible to discuss together why you each think your way is the best?

You seem very open to the idea that public education ought to be in charge of enforcing government ideology and morality, and I have a bit more of a problem with that. — Hanover

Well public education has to lean one way or another. It cannot be trying to be gender neutral and support gender stereotypes, and my guess is that you want it to go on with the way it is, which is enforcing government ideology, more or less by definition. If I was playing hard ball, I would suggest that gender neutrality as described is rather refraining from imposing an ideology of what character is appropriate to each sex.

I think we're about as close to understanding each other as we're going to get at the moment, so I think I'll leave it there. Thanks for the discussion.

Perhaps the no-deal-Brexit is something equivalent to the Y2K scare? — ssu

Perhaps. Do you live in the UK? My experience is that there are a lot of people living on the edge already. I dare say we can survive the death of a few hundred thousand, and that's nothing to the millions of WW1. But the similarity is in the predictable yet somehow unavoidable nature of the thing, the mindset rather than the extent.

the idea of necessity. This issue is a bit more complicated because we tend to think that an object has an "objective" identity, an identity independent of any "subjective" identity assigned to it by a human being. (What Harry calls "there is simply a way things are"). This creates the idea of necessity, the identity is necessarily such and such according to the objective position of the thing. — Metaphysician Undercover

The way things are is what I call contingency. Like Popeye, I yam what I yam. But that tells you nothing; to know something about me, you have to know things that relate me to the world That I am a sailor man, and live in a caravan, that I eat spinach, etc. This is the necessity, that knowing anything about me means knowing how I relate to the world; it is a linguistic, and epistemological necessity. If I am unique, I am unique regardless of what is said or known, but to know that I am unique is to know something about the world, that it only has the one unenlightened in it.

This is like the summer before WW1. Anybody with any sense can see where we're heading, but no one with any sense can see a way out. Cries of 'they can't let this happen' proved false then, and are false now.

https://www.npr.org/2013/04/23/178616215/stumbling-into-world-war-i-like-sleepwalkers?t=1549475941500

I guess statistics doesn’t mean much to you. — TheMadFool

It's a field where statistics need to be read very carefully, because in matters human, humans are affected by statistics. We have, for example: Statistics to the effect that men are stronger -> expectations that men are stronger -> men are disproportionately encouraged/allowed to take up positions requiring strength -> men exercise more -> men are stronger.

This is not to deny that there is any physiological effect of sex on strength statistically, but to warn that its significance is exaggerated, because of cultural feedback, and the exaggeration tends to become exaggerated, so as to become a barrier to some.

It is only in my grandmother's days that women did not have the vote because they were well known to be irrational, unintelligent and inclined to hysteria, at least until given a hysterectomy. And no doubt the statistics proved it.

I don't know about this site, but when a pregnant woman walks in and all the seats are taken do you get up to give the pregnant woman your seat? Men can't get pregnant so...? — Harry Hindu

I'd be grateful if you'd just butt out, Harry, I'm afraid you're not up to this. Where a difference makes a difference, it is foolish to pretend it makes no difference. Thus having darker skin makes one less able to synthesise vitamin D using sunlight. This is one of the few physical effects of skin colour and a perfectly uncontroversial ground for discrimination - give the black guy more fish. Likewise, where there is a real sexual difference, discrimination on the basis of sex is uncontroversial. So if you want to know whether someone is pregnant, it makes sense to consider their sex. On the other hand, if you want to know whether someone needs to sit down, I recommend looking to see if they seem frail or tired, and then maybe asking them.

As to your second comment, you're just trying to change the subject and poison the well.

However, there are many factual difference between men and women. Men are physically stronger, for example. — TheMadFool

This is not true. There are many, many women stronger than me, for example. It is exactly the sort of thing that is irrational. Let us suppose you have reason to separate a bunch of people into stronger and weaker halves. Which method would be rational, (a) examine their strength, or (b) examine their genitals?

A thing's identity is found by determining aspects which are unique and particular to that thing itself, not by examining that thing's position within an arbitrary group. — Metaphysician Undercover

How does one discover a unique aspect without relating it to the group? Even with DNA the uniqueness of the individual consists of usually a unique combination of traits that are shared in a population, or rarely a unique mutation, which is only found to be so by comparison with the group. That is to say, uniqueness is necessarily a position in a group, like a king in a country, or a runt in a litter. To say that I am unique is to say that I have X, and no one else has X, and it is only through the relation to everyone else that uniqueness can be seen.

We can't simply dump everything under the pretext of equality. — TheMadFool

Well I think we can dump all ourother preconceptions under the pretext of equality. I think we understand that it is not true - posters are not all equal on this site, but one treats them equally until they individually give us reason to do otherwise.

I'm not saying women should be treated as lesser then men but different, yes, because they are different from men. — TheMadFool

So how should women be treated differently? On this site too?

Sure, but if I go to a psychologist I expect science. — Baden

You're liable to be disappointed. However, they are well known for banging on about education, parenting and politics, as well as giving solicited advice to the gullible distressed.

Here's the thread theme tune.

Along with a word of wisdom from the mother-in-law. 'Even the lowest, foulest tramp looks down on every woman.'

Aqualung
Jethro Tull
Sitting on a park bench
Eying little girls with bad intent
Snots running down his nose
Greasy fingers smearing shabby clothes, hey, Aqualung
Drying in the cold sun
Watching as the frilly panties run, hey, Aqualung
Feeling like a dead duck
Spitting out pieces of his broken luck, oh, Aqualung
Sun streaking cold, an old man wandering lonely
Taking time, the only way he knows
Leg hurting bad as he bends to pick a dog end
He goes down to a bog and warms his feet
Feeling alone, the army's up the road
Salvation a la mode and a cup of tea
Aqualung, my friend, don't you start away uneasy
You poor old sod, you see it's only me
Do you still remember
December's foggy freeze
When the ice that clings on to your beard
It was screaming agony
Hey and you snatch your rattling last breaths
With deep-sea diver sounds
And the flowers bloom like
Madness in the spring
Sun streaking cold, an old man wandering lonely
Taking time, the only way he knows
Leg hurting bad as he bends to pick a dog end
He goes down to a bog and warms his feet
Feeling alone, the army's up the road
Salvation a la mode and a cup of tea
Aqualung my friend don't you start away uneasy
You poor old sod, you see it's only me
Aqualung my friend don't you start away uneasy
You poor old sod, you see it's only me
Sitting on a park bench
Eying up little girls with bad intent
Snots running down his nose
Greasy fingers smearing shabby clothes, hey Aqualung
Drying in the cold sun
Watching as the frilly panties run, hey Aqualung
Feeling like a dead duck
Spitting out pieces of his broken luck, hey Aqualung