The following exchange is from Dialogue Group 8, Thread 9.

1. Gender ideology
Fri, Dec 18, 1998 - 8:34 PM/EST
Deborah

If we're going to discuss the incidents that led to the impeachment proceedings, it's hard to factor out issues relating to gender, sex, and sexuality.

I'm wondering whether folks in the group see maleness and femaleness as two radically different ways of being human. Of those who do see the categories as radically different, how many think that difference is inborn, how many think it is socially constructed, and how many think it is some combination of factors?

Best regards from Deborah

3. Gender Identity, Genetics
Fri, Dec 18, 1998 - 11:11 PM/EST
Frederick

Studies in genetics show that much of the behavior that we consider to be affected or learned is actually controlled by genetics. Things like whether one is introverted or extroverted, neurotic or stoic, one's taste in clothes, one's political affiliations, one's chances of going to prison, one's chances of getting a divorce, etc., etc., are actually strictly under genetic control and have suprisingly little to do with the environment.

If you want me to get into the details about how these conclusions were arrived at, then I'll supply them. Suffice it to say that, to my eye, the evidence is very compelling.

Having said this, the evidence concerning the effect of gender on behavior is in: gender is the result of genetic makeup and is accordingly an extremely important determinate of behavior. Girls and boys are different in character and temperment, interests and dislikes, almost from the day they are born regardless of the environment they are reared in. This conclusion has been confirmed in multiple studies.

A number of people in the educational and sociological fields keep trying to ignore or downplay this evidence purely for political or ideological reasons. They are the heirs to Rousseau and believe that human beings are infinitely malleable. Given the right conditioning, they think, then differences between the genders can be eliminated. They are dead wrong, as any mother with more than a few children can tell you.

4. Hi Frederick
Sat, Dec 19, 1998 - 10:42 AM/EST
Joy

I read your bio and see you are a very educated man. Sorry to hear what you are going through at the holidays. Ive been through that. I would say your instincts are right as to the reference you made to 'something going on you dont understand' but I digress. I agree that genetics play a role in a persons wants and desires. But there is no denying the fact that children are socialized into thier belief system. Morality, civic pride, the right or wrongness (excuse the grammer) of thier sexuality.

5. Hi Joy
Sat, Dec 19, 1998 - 11:39 AM/EST
Frederick

Appreciate your empathy about my situation. I have had better years, that's for sure.

I fully agree that the environment is very important. My point is that genetics is far more important than a lot of people would like to admit. Feminists, for example, speak of this as "biological determinism", and almost spit on the ground every time they say it because it gets in the way of their political agenda of absolute equality between the sexes. Specialists in sociology and education have a deep stake in the idea that they can make better human beings through their social engineering.

6. Psychology's view
Sat, Dec 19, 1998 - 11:48 AM/EST
soulcoughing

Given that Frederick's a Nuerologist, it's rather self-evident that he'd believe in genetics primary role in gender-differences. I'm afraid psychologists and psychiatrists see it somewhat different. Phenotype/Genotype factors aside, our persons' soul has tremendous power to overcome our own makeup. We can become blind out of the sure power of trauma, yet have no physiological explanation.

Freud had this argument down pat. It is a given that man and woman experience sex/intercourse very differently. In this way, our genetics, our physiological makeup makes it so...from the experience of orgasm, to pheronomes, to arousal levels. So, there perhaps are the primary culprits of our gender differences. Add to this how mother and father treats us differently. Who changes our diapers the most, who the baby suckles, who dresses the child, which toys are provided, which siblings (and their genders) are around to compete for the love, nurture, and support of mom and dad. The difference begins in the beginning...and perhaps we become more alike than different as we develop. We gather control over our environment. We are no longer at the whim of society's will. Freud found that we start off bisexual...and become socialized to be heterosexual.

8. Don't Get Me Started on Freud
Sat, Dec 19, 1998 - 1:41 PM/EST
Frederick

Neurologists, such as myself, and psychiatrists often see things differently, which is why they split into seperate disciplines in the 1950's. Neurologists are far more likely to ascribe behavior to constitutional factors than psychiatrists are. I ascribe this difference to the fact that neurologists are able to recognise conversion complaints while psychiatrists often are not. It is easy for a neurologist to tell the difference between a real seizure and a feigned one, real muscle weakness and fake weakness, real sensory loss and fake sensory loss. Given this, neurologists can recognise the importance and prevalence of somatoform disorders in a way that psychiatrists and psychologists can't. Neurologists can therefore also recognise the fact that somotoform disorders are familial and coinherited with alcholism and sociopathy. Thus, the great importance of genetics as a determinant of behavior has always been obvious to neurologists.

13. clarification
Sun, Dec 20, 1998 - 3:02 PM/EST
Kevin K.

According to the dial immediately in front of me when I'm driving, the engineers in Korea built my car with the capability of going 110 miles per hour. This does not mean that I drive it at 110 miles per hour. If I were to drive it at that speed and a police officer stopped me, s/he would probably not excuse me for breaking the law if I explained I was only driving at 110 mph because the car was built to do that.

In the same way also, genetics and chemicals -- including the hormones and enzymes of gender -- affect the mechanisms of our behavior. How we behave is still our responsibility.

We may have for whatever reason an emotional make up that causes us to anger quickly. When someone frustrates you, you might feel a powerful urge to punch that someone through a wall. There's nothing we can do about that; that's just a feeling. What you can do is make a CHOICE based on that feeling.
Whether you punch him or her through the wall is entirely up to you.

Our biology, our environment, and our society all provide us with feilds -- with ranges of possible action. What choices we make within those feilds are entirely up to us and entirely our responsibility.

14. Some Questions
Sun, Dec 20, 1998 - 5:56 PM/EST
Frederick

Kevin K.,
You seem to feel uncomfortable in assigning human behavior to genetics because it diminishes the concept of human free will.

Consider two scenarios: In one, a man with two alcoholic parents becomes an alcoholic, runs his truck through a red light, and kills two other people in the process.

In the other, you are dating a woman and find out that her parents were both alcoholic. According to the statistics, her chances of becoming an alcoholic are 50%, and she's already a "moderate" drinker.

Would the fact that alcoholism is under significant genetic control influence your judgement about what to do in either of these scenarios; i.e., punishment in the first case and whether to continue your relationship with the woman in the other?

17. Somatoform Disorders
Sun, Dec 20, 1998 - 11:21 PM/EST
soulcoughing

To Frederick:
I don't deny you'r assessment skills. I also work w/ many a psychiatrist/nuerologists who sustain case loads of "NOS" becuase they can't figure them the hell out. Malingering is not as easy to detect as you make it seem. But essentially, I'm not arguing against the "importance" of genetics...I'm arguing for the essence of Will.