When feelings tell one he is, or should be, something he is not or shouldn't be – a girl, a legless man or Napoleon – the sane conclusion is that you're confronted with a psychological problem, not a physical one.
Perhaps you've heard the tragic story of David Reimer. Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada in 1966, David was the victim of a botched circumcision that left his penis charred beyond surgical repair. His parents Ron and Janet, no doubt beside themselves, were confused about the best way to proceed. Then, one day, they saw a man named Dr. John Money on television.
Money was talking about his theory of "gender neutrality," which states that "gender identity" is learned rather than innate. The idea was that the sexes were the same except for the superficial physical differences; this implies that if a child were altered so as to superficially resemble the opposite sex and was raised as one of its members, he would be happy with that sexual identity. Hearing this, the Reimers hoped they had found their salvation.
They took their boy to Money, who told them that their son's penis could not be restored and that he stood a much better chance of living a happy life if "sex-reassignment surgery" (in reality, reassigning sex is about as possible as reassigning species) were performed and he was raised as a girl. The Reimers agreed, and the surgery was performed when the boy, who would be named "Brenda," was 22 months old.
In reality, the kindest way to describe Money's theory is fanciful. His idea of "gender neutrality" was still in vogue when I was a youth, and "vogue," in the most frivolous sense, is the correct term. It was always more style than science; it was something that I, even as a teen, knew was bunk. Yet who would listen to people such as me? We were old-fashioned, behind the times. And it didn't matter that Money was Alfred Kinsey redux and believed pedophilia was lovely if it was for "love." It didn't matter that David and his twin brother, Brian, said that Money sexually abused them during photo shoots. He was a "doctor," a Ph.D. on the cutting edge of a brave new world.
Only, David ("Brenda" at the time) wanted nothing to do with that world. Although he was never told he was a boy, had been surgically altered, was dressed and raised as a girl and was regularly seeing Money for therapy, he resisted his "gender assignment" from the outset. He acted like a boy, played with boys' toys and objected to seeing Money from the age of seven. It wasn't going well – and it wouldn't end well.
At the age of 14, in a rare commendable act of teen rebellion, David threatened suicide if he were forced to continue with Money's prescriptions. This prompted his parents to finally tell him the truth about his condition. With his eyes opened, he then replaced his estrogen treatments with male hormone therapy, took the name "David," started living as a boy, underwent reconstructive genital surgery and later married a woman who already had children. Yet the damage had been done. His tormented life which began in such a tragic way came to a tragic end: he did commit suicide, at the age of 38.
Dr. Money, too, is now dead. Yet he died with his ideological boots on; not only did he fail to repent, he fraudulently portrayed David's case – the one for which he was most famous – as a success for years after its failure was obvious. This, and his refusal to ever own up to the failure, only increased the chances that other children would be thus scarred.
As a testimonial to how quickly fashions pass away, Money's theory has joined him in the grave. The stake through its heart came in the 1990s, with brain research and an improved understanding of intrauterine development proving conclusively that the sexes are different even within the womb and the skull. These new findings expressing old wisdom were related as revelation, reflecting the idea that nothing is truly valid until vindicated by "science." So there was no collective mea culpa from the psychological establishment for clouding reality and misleading generations of naive parents. They just continued without missing a beat, as if it were a matter no more significant than recommending the wrong size shoes for the kids. Worse still, they have now moved on to their next mistake.
We have heard about the curious case of Caster Semenya, the 18-year-old South African runner who has been competing as a woman. Semenya has become the focus of suspicion (I'll use masculine pronouns, as I'm convinced this individual is a boy who experienced abnormal intrauterine development) because of his masculine physique, deep voice, development of facial hair, male mannerisms and the fact that he has been winning races by wide margins. As a result, a battery of medical exams to determine his true sex has been conducted, although the results have not been officially released. Yet the real story here is not what investigation may tell us about Semenya. It is what our reaction to Semenya tells us about ourselves.
This is reflected in comments found throughout the Internet. For instance, consider "JimBob" posting under this Daily Mail piece, who said, "Why is everyone talking about genetics? What about Caster's own mind – if she believes within herself that she's female, then she is."
Echoing this sentiment here, "Green Is Good" wrote, "SHE identifies HERself as a female. Done."
Then, back to the Mail, "Livio" opined, "This is a clear case of gender identity discrimination. What if she is a man who identifies himself as a woman?"
That's interesting. What if you're a lunkhead who identifies himself as intelligent?
Yet it isn't sufficient to just dismiss this with sarcasm, as this isn't the rambling of only a few twisted minds.
What these posters are expressing is the handiwork of today's Dr. Moneys, "transgender" theory. This is the idea that your "gender" can be whatever you want it to be – male, female, both male and female or neither, etc. – that it isn't limited by biology. If you have a problem with this, bravo, but then you should have a problem with the word "gender" itself. Why? Because its current usage (it used to apply only to words) was originated by people such as Money for the purposes of facilitating the relation of their theories. Understand that while many people use "gender" as a synonym for "sex," that is not its social sciences definition, which dictates that it refers to social rather than biological differences. Yet people love to use this and other elements of the lexicon of the Left. It's a fascinating phenomenon. If you replace a simple, one-syllable word such as "poor" or "sex" with impressive sounding terms such as "underprivileged" or "gender" for ideological reasons, people, oblivious to the underlying agenda and wishing to sound sophisticated, will glom onto them. You see, simpletons, who are relatively rare, prefer simple words. And the only other group that does is rarer still: true intellectuals. But I digress.
So, returning to Semenya, many people express the shocking idea that his actual sex should have no bearing on whether he should be allowed to compete with women. It's that modern phenomenon – image is everything, reality is negotiable.
This notion has so taken hold that we've recently heard of two stories out of Britain wherein young boys, ages 12 and 9, showed up in school earlier this month as "girls," sporting girls' clothing and ponytails and bearing feminine names. And the schools are kowtowing to them, telling other pupils that they'll be punished if they don't handle the "sex change" "sensitively." Yet sensitivity is not for the other children, who are upset and confused. In just the way that David Reimer's body was mutilated in deference to yesterday's latest theory, their minds must be mutilated in deference to today's.
Now, even if someone subscribes to "transgender" theory, it is striking that he would allow a child who is too young to decide to have sex decide what sex he should be. How did we get to this point?
These parents, like Ron and Janet Reimer before them, are listening to the respected social scientists of their day. These "experts" tell them that there is something called "gender dysphoria," which is the persistent feeling that one is a member of one sex trapped in the body of the other. It's enough to convince many parents, such as those of German Tim Petras, who received female hormone "treatments" at age 12 and now goes by the name of Kim. Yet on what basis is this diagnosis really made?
Feelings.
It is truly reflective of this age, where relativism has obviated reason. That is to say, if there are no absolutes, no Truth to use as a yardstick for judging among feelings, the feelings themselves become the ultimate arbiter. Then, of course, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a Fig Newton if it feels like one.
But one of the problems with emotion is that it is by its very nature irrational. And if anyone would defend an emotion-based diagnosis such as "gender dysphoria," note that it's brought to us by the same psycho-babblers who have given us something dubbed "body dysmorphia." This is this persistent feeling that a certain body part, such as an arm or leg (or multiple body parts), doesn't belong on one's body. And if you think it isn't taken seriously, know that doctors have amputated healthy limbs on this basis.
Be shocked – that is, unless you accept "gender dysphoria" as legitimate. Then you'd better be introspective. For what is the difference? Why would you accept the emotion-based diagnosis of gender dysphoria but not the emotion-based one of body dysmorphia? Why are the feelings of those who suffer from the latter invalid but the feelings of those who suffer from the former a credible arbiter? Both groups have persistent feelings that their bodies aren't as they should be. Both groups cannot bear to live in their bodies as they are. Both groups want to have their bodies altered. And both groups have found "experts" willing to put them under the knife. Sure, it strikes us as the most horrid malpractice when a doctor amputates healthy body parts, such as a pair of legs. But, then, should we view it any less dimly simply because those healthy body parts are between the legs?
Lamentably, today the answer is often yes, and this speaks volumes about our society. That is, we've all heard that old stereotype of a lunatic, the guy in an asylum who thinks he is Napoleon. Now the asylums have largely been emptied, and I think I know why: we've turned the outside world into an asylum. What was once only acceptable to a small group within the scariest of walls – detachment from reality – has now been mainstreamed. You can be a man who thinks he is a woman, yet no straitjacket is slapped on you. It is slapped on the mouths of those who dare say self-image isn't reality.
And that is the point: there is something called reality. When feelings tell one he is, or should be, something he is not or shouldn't be – a girl, a legless man or Napoleon – the sane conclusion is that you're confronted with a psychological problem, not a physical one. It may be intractable, and it is certainly easier to mutilate the body than cure the mind. But you cannot mutilate reality, only obscure it. If a man loses his genitalia in an accident, does he cease to be male? Or, if "gender" is a continuum as today's Moneys say, is he less male? Did David Reimer cease to be a boy because he was mutilated and given estrogen against his will? Of course, the "experts" would say the answer is no, since he never saw himself as a girl. Again, though, feelings cannot be the arbiters of reality. After all, I may have hypertrichosis like Jo-Jo the Dog-Faced Boy, undergo operations to create a snout, paws and a tail, howl under the moonlight and change my name to Spot. Yet am I sane if I call myself a different species?
So what are we to conclude about "gender" science? Decades ago its "experts" said society could turn your boy into a girl if it felt like it; now they say he can turn himself into a girl if he feels like it. Is it just a coincidence that Dr. Money's "gender neutrality" theory accorded with his day's feminist claim that sex roles should be discarded because the sexes are essentially the same? Is it just a coincidence that the current "transgender" theory accords with our day's homosexual claim that sex roles should be discarded because everyone and his values are essentially different? It is at all possible that these theories have less to do with sound science than the spirit of the age?
We have gone from the proposition that "gender" can be whatever society says it is to the proposition that it can be whatever the individual says it is without ever stopping to wonder if the second idea is just a crank like the first. But most won't wonder because today we place more faith in doctors than doctrine, and today's doctors say that eternal common sense and yesterday's doctors' nonsense are wrong. Yet the most significant thing that distinguishes them from Dr. John Money is that they are still alive – and their theory is not yet dead.
very torn while reading this. i agree wholeheartedly that there is too much turning from shared truth to individual truth, and also that people turn too quickly from long held common sense for the hypothesis of the day – as long as it’s on the day time talk show circuit. there is also a lot to be explored about the impact of the person who makes a dysmorphic claim on the immediate community they are a part of. there is likely too much being done to silence dialogue about it, which results in the issues of an inverted taboo – what was once taboo is exalted to a protected status leaving a wake of confusion.
but there does seem to be reliable science around some amount of the dysmorphia claims (http://is.gd/3MBJ7). are you stating that you categorically reject all of these claims, or rather such claims need more scrutiny and less knee jerk compliance?
I am old enough to remember when frontal lobotomies were all the rage in the early ’50s. There were even some “B” horror movies made about them. Anyone performing any these days?
If “gender identity” is learned rather than innate as Dr. Money claimed, why did he have to give David Reimer estrogen treatments? Shouldn’t that have been a tip-off that his theory left something to be desired?
Regardless of Dr. Money’s preferences to the contrary, there simply are persons who suffer from the disjunction between the sexual character of their bodies and the sense of identity that they actually have. Piling up conservative cliches won’t make this kind of problem go away. Did Dr. Money ever suppose, since he is, presumably, someone with scientific training, that maybe, just maybe, there can be a researcheable problem here. Or does he just riff on his favorite conservative themes? Does he even know that his separation of “psychological” from “physical” problems might not be accepted in this crude form within the psychiatric profession? Put simply, the problems of those who believe they are ‘trapped’ in the wrong kind of body are likely to involve very complex neurochemical anomalies in the brain. Dr. Money seems to prefer to indulge right-wing biases rather than consider medical possibilities.
And, even if Dr. Money is 100% correct, what then? Do we decide that girls should not be taught science and math? Do we refuse to let women attend medical school? Do we prevent women and girls from playing in competitive sports? Do we repeal sexual harassment laws and policies? Do we bar qualified women from the boards of directors of our companies? Do we even let women start businesses or own property in their own names? After all, the conservatives of other eras had no problem with that.Exactly, what is supposed to follow from reasserting (or even proving) the traditional understanding of human sexual differences?
Until conservatives like Dr. Money can put their real cards on the table, columns like this are ridiculous.
A slightly more readable account of more-than-psychological factors at work in “body integrity identity disorder” (the condition whereby a limb or other body part is felt to be ‘alien’):
http://scienceblogs.com/neurophilosophy/2009/03/voluntary_amputation_extra_phantom_limbs.php
“The brain does not register the limb as a part of the body, and contains no representation of it, so it is not incorporated into the body image.”
I’m not aware of any way to test it at present, but if the above studies are accurate, it wouldn’t seem a priori impossible that at least some cases of “gender dysphoric disorder” might have a similar etiology.
As to the case of Semenya, sometimes things aren’t quite as black-and-white – or male-or-female – as we’d like. Leaving aside the possibility that Semenya is simply a statistical outlier, a particularly mannish woman… there are more ambiguous possibilities. Look up, say, “Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome”, where an XY person develops to all outward appearances as a female; indeed, only when they get to be 18 or so and haven’t menstruated is there any indication of something untoward. Are they “really” boys? Then you get into cases like people with XXY chromosomes – are they strictly “male” or “female”?
I don’t know what to do about the David/Brenda problem, but as far as Semenya goes, why not let males and females compete as one? Elimination of girls/women’s sports, women’s studies, etc. would allow everyone to compete on a level playing field. Isn’t that what the left proclaims to be their goal?
Ivan:
Your idea won’t work because some women will complain that men have some physical advantage and demand some form of affirmative action [like spot then 50 yards in a 100-yard dash] to ensure equal outcomes. After all, women are equal but special. As someone noted, competition is an anathema to the Left, although they themselves seem not to have a problem with excelling others.
Why the Left’s message continues to sell boggles my mind because the average person works hard to better his standard of living. “Should people be equal?” asked a wealthy British gentleman of his butler. “Heavens no, sire. I do not want to be considered equal to a footman!” he replied.
sman
That’s funny!
I didn’t say it would work. I just think it makes sense in terms of equality. Like the golfer, Anika Whatever, who made a big deal out of playing against the men and came in something like 99th in a field of 105. That’s OK with me. After all, she beat 6 men. The women’s equality people didn’t have much to say about her performance afterwards.
Ivan:
I had completely forgotten about her. After being admitted to the men’s competition, didn’t she ask for a reduced driving distance accommodation?
Ivan, Sedonaman – In sports with a physical component, where size or upper-body strength matter, it makes sense to have separate contests for men and women, since there are demonstrable physical differences between men and women. (And vive la difference, I might add.) For the jobs that require a level of physical strength to perform – fewer all the time as mechanization increases – minimum requirements make sense. A woman who wants to be a firefighter has to be able to carry someone out of a building, for example.
Intellectual endeavors don’t need to be separated, however. See here:
http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2008/12/why_are_there_so_few_female_chess_grandmasters.php
“Far more men play chess than women and based on that simple fact, you could actually predict the differences we see in chess ability at the highest level. It’s a simple statistical fact that the best performers from a large group are probably going to be better than the best performers from a small one. Even if two groups have the same average skill and, importantly, the same range in skill, the most capable individuals will probably come from the larger group….
The model revealed that the greater proportion of male chess players accounts for a whopping 96% of the difference in ability between the two genders at the highest level of play. If more women took up chess, you’d see that difference close substantially.
Overall, the women actually performed slightly better than the model predicted and the top three in particular were playing well ahead of expectations…
This overlooked fact accounts for so much of the observable differences that other possible explanations, be they biological, cultural or environmental, are just fighting for scraps at the table.”
Mr. Ingles:
If a woman she says she can do the program, she shouldn’t ask for any special accommodations once admitted. That’s why there are women’s divisions. Another example of the doctrine of “equal but special” is the woman who forced the Citadel to admit her. Once admitted, she filed a lawsuit so she wouldn’t have to get her hair cut like the other cadets. No one said, “Hey, wait a minute! You said you could do this program. Now do it or quit.”
Funny you should mention women firefighters. I once had to escort a woman fire inspector [in uniform] up five levels aboard a Navy ship. After about 3 or 4 ladders, I could no longer hear her climbing behind me. I stopped and waited for her, and when she finally made it, she was huffing and puffing. But heaven help us if we discriminate … even on a merit basis!
P.S.
I once knew a doctor who jogged a lot. Since the best marathon runners are small as opposed to muscular, I asked him why women don’t make better long distance runners than men. He said it’s because women can’t get rid of excess body heat as well as men. That’s what he told me.
Raymond,
While I know you’re sincere, your source is peddling pc nonsense about chess. It obvious that participation levels make a big difference. But there’s far more to it than that. The ratio of male to female math geniuses is 13 to 1 or 7 to 1 – depending on which stat you believe. That’s just a for instance. Also, studies have shown that men are in fact more intelligent. You just don’t hear about these studies from the mainstream media. On top of this men deviate from the mean more when it comes to traits. This means that you’ll find many more male geniuses and male dullards than female geniuses and female dullards. For these reasons, men would dominate in chess even if the participation levels were the same.
Also, it’s pretty obvious dealing with women that they are lacking in the logic department.
Sedona, there’s also more to it with marathon runners. men have less internal body fat. So they’re dragging around less dead weight. Also, men have a greater VO2max. This means that their bodies can transport and utilize more oxygen during exercise.
But there are so many differences. Let’s talk about golf again. Even in putting the men are far better. Just check the putting stats at PGATour.com and LPGA.com.
“Far more men play chess than women”. So!
Far more men play hockey than women and far more men play baseball than women. Your arguments are MBE.
Sman
Your stair example has just given the leftists a reason to give women a head start.
Ivan:
How do you give a woman a head start at rescuing a person from a burning building?
Paladin:
Re: “Even in putting the men are far better.”
This is interesting. Perhaps it has something to do with the part of the brain that perceives objects in space and their relation to each other. A woman psychologist told me there are differences between men and women in this part of the brain. She added that it’s one of the reasons women have more trouble parking a car. I have observed this in some of the things my wife does [I'm constantly moving things around to make more efficient use of counter and shelf space].
Sedonaman – I agreed with you, quite explicitly, about firefighters. I actually said “A woman who wants to be a firefighter has to be able to carry someone out of a building, for example,” remember?
And you know what? I agree with you regarding Shannon Faulkner’s haircut, too. The rules should be applied equally. I’m not aware of any jobs in the military – and very few anywhere else – that actually require specific genitalia. Aside from those, the requirements should be what they need to be, and apply equally. (That being said… a whole lot of military jobs don’t specifically require lots of upper-body strength, and putting women in those jobs might free up more men in our volunteer army for the jobs that do.)
If you have a disagreement with me, it’s not on anything you’ve commented about so far. As I said, “there are demonstrable physical differences between men and women”.
Paladin – You write, “It obvious that participation levels make a big difference. But there’s far more to it than that.”
Not that anyone’s actually demonstrated, at least with chess. The math is remarkably straightforward. If you can point out a problem with Bilalic’s numbers, feel free to point them out. (Or, even better, demonstrate that there’s variation in putting ability between men and women above and beyond what participation differences can explain. That’d be interesting and informative.)
Also, studies have shown that men are in fact more intelligent. You just don’t hear about these studies from the mainstream media. On top of this men deviate from the mean more when it comes to traits.
I’ve cited my sources. Hint, hint…
Actually, I’ll cite one more. It’s difficult to tease out the impact of nature and nurture, but sometimes one can get a glimpse: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/314/5798/435
Re: “…I actually said ‘A woman who wants to be a firefighter has to be able to carry someone out of a building, for example,’ remember?”
Yes, I remember; and I used it to make a point with Ivan. It still doesn’t answer my question of how to give a woman a head start in saving someone from a burning building.
“Re: “And you know what? I agree with you regarding Shannon Faulkner’s haircut, too. The rules should be applied equally.”
Like so many liberal/Leftist ideas, this sounds good in theory but somehow it just doesn’t work out in actual practice. As I recall, she won her lawsuit. And liberal/Leftists laughed all the way out of the courtroom. Quod est demonstratum.
Re: “I’m not aware of any jobs in the military – and very few anywhere else – that actually require specific genitalia.”
This is a gross oversimplification. You don’t use genitalia to work or fight; you use tools or weapons. Yes, there are many jobs that usually don’t require a lot of strength; however, during the Battle of the Bulge, all those supply clerks, cooks, and other “rear-echelon weenies” suddenly found themselves carrying rifles.
Re: “Aside from those, the requirements should be what they need to be, and apply equally. (That being said… a whole lot of military jobs don’t specifically require lots of upper-body strength, and putting women in those jobs might free up more men in our volunteer army for the jobs that do.)”
Well, I have some strong feelings here. What happens in real life is that the woman eventually encounters some undesirable aspects of her job, so she complains to some man in charge who, for some real or imagined sexual favor, dumps those parts of her job onto some poor innocent Schmuckattelli in the corner who was minding his own business just doing his job, and who has to keep his mouth shut. I know because I was once that Schmuckattelli.
And if a woman can’t do a part of her job because of limited strength, some man has to pick up the slack, all at equal pay for her of course.
“If you have a disagreement with me, it’s not on anything you’ve commented about so far. As I said, ‘there are demonstrable physical differences between men and women’.”
I agree with you here, although, this never seems to be the case when the discussion with liberal/Leftists moves to extending the draft to women. They suddenly “focus on the foxhole” too, whereas before, they used your argument to furthering career opportunities for women in the military.
I recall a debate on the ERA during the Carter Administration that did get around to the drafting of women, and guess what. An advocate [a feminist] for the ERA said, “But men have bigger shoulders and can throw hand grenades farther.” When pressed to consider whether some women might be able to throw hand grenades farther than some men, her reply was, “Do we want to go to all the expense of determining which ones?” This had been the precise argument used against the ERA.
Maybe I’ve wandered about; maybe we disagree on some of these points, but the bottom line is that organizations, be they civilian or military exist for one reason, and one reason only: to provide goods or services [and make a profit in the case of companies] to society, not to provide career opportunities for women, or anyone else, and certainly not to provide constant proof of the lie that our society doesn’t discriminate. The whole idea of equal economic opportunities for women was invented not to provide women with equal opportunities, but to break up the family.
Perhaps I haven’t proven anything, nor do I intend to; these are my feelings, and as Phil has pointed out many times, feelings matter more than facts.
Ray, I took a look at the chess article. Honestly, it’s bunk. The researcher considered 120,000 chess players with RATINGS-7000 of these were women. But it overlooks something. What kind of person becomes a serious chess player in the first place (I know someone who is by the way)? It’s generally people who have some kind of talent for it-people who are somewhat exceptional in that area. How do I know? Common sense. People who show talent for things are far more likely to pursue them. People who don’t are far more likely to drop out.
All the study demonstrates is that among this exceptional group mathematics shows that the ratio of male to female chess players is what you’d expect. But it doesn’t answer the question of why there are more MALES in this exceptional group to begin with. It’s entirely possible that most women who have true talent for the game actually do become serious. It’s possible that 113,000 to 7000 represents the ratio of truly talent males to truly talented females. Why does this make sense? Because people do tend to involve themselves in things that are in line with their nature.
Again though, I will say something. Males deviate from the mean a lot more in traits. For this reason there are many more highly talented men in every area than highly talented women. For this reason men will occupy the upper ranks of every field. Heck, it’s even like that in cooking.
Also, here is one of the studies showing that men are smarter-http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-405056/Men-intelligent-women-claims-new-study.html
I have to say that even the study understates the issue. There are two kinds of men: those who know men are smarter-and dumbbells.
Did you ever try to reason with most women?
Sedonaman – “It still doesn’t answer my question of how to give a woman a head start in saving someone from a burning building.”
Ask someone else. I’ve already said that they shouldn’t get the job if they need one.
There’s a saying among scientists: “The plural of anecdote is not data.” That hasn’t been my experience. Not in school – where if possible, I would partner up with female engineering students, regardless of their attractiveness… because I always found them to be serious, devoted students whose abilities noticeably exceeded the average in the class. My lady co-workers today are equally hard-working and competent.
Does my experience cancel out yours? Who knows? We won’t know until we do some actual studies.
Oh, wait, I cited some…
As to the draft, I think it should apply equally as well. Of course, I think Heinlein got it right: “No state has an inherent right to survive through conscript troops and, in the long run, no state ever has.”
Dang! I was really looking forward to you attempting to prove that one!
Paladin –
It was once “common sense” that educating females too much would deprive their uterus of blood and lead to infertility, too. Your sense is, unfortunately, not supported by evidence. To quote from the article I cited before, “In fact, Christopher Chablis and Mark Glickman recently found equal drop-out rates for boys and girls among 600 budding chess players of comparable age, skill and interest. Their study also found that both sexes improve at an matching pace, and they concluded that the success of men at chess’s highest tiers is fuelled by the overwhelming majority of boys who enter the game at its lowest levels.”
It’s entirely possible that most women who have true talent for the game actually do become serious.
I’d say that’s unlikely, for a couple reasons. I unfortunately can’t find the study on the web, but when I read about it several years ago, in college, I went to the library and read the actual paper, so I attest that it exists:
The study addressed the phrase “throws like a girl”. They had a bunch of boys and girls throw balls, and even after correcting for measured strength, the boys threw further and more accurately than the girls. Nature over nurture, right?
Well, no. They noticed a group of girls in their data who threw as well as the boys. Interestingly, all of them went for sports like baseball where throwing was practiced over and over. They brought the subjects back and had them throw with their non-dominant hand. Suddenly, everyone was “throwing like a girl”. (Try it yourself sometime.) Their abilities improved with practice at the same rate.
It appears that girls, aside from the upper-body strength issue, have just as much talent for throwing on average as the boys. But apparently in our culture, so few girls learn to throw that “throwing like a girl” becomes synonymous with “throwing like a newbie”…
(And hey, so long as we’re all trading anecdotes about, I’ll note that my cousin’s daughter got a shot put throw of over 35 feet, which is quite a bit further than I could do. Those things are heavy – she had one on display at her graduation a few months back. With a lot of practice, I could possibly match that – but right now, if someone needed to get a hand grenade somewhere, I’d suggest they give it to her before me.)
Secondly, there’s the documented effect of the “stereotype threat”. Do the free registration thing at the sciencemag.org site and look at the measured difference in results. It positively dwarfs the difference Rushton claims to have seen in the link you provide. (Leaving aside the issue of how accurate IQ tests are, anyway.) The size of the difference is very important – see this paper: http://www.apa.org/journals/releases/amp606581.pdf
Whaddaya got, paper-wise, in terms of “Males deviate from the mean a lot more in traits”? I’m not opposed to the idea, even in the mental sphere, but I’m most interested in documented wider standard deviations of mental traits.
Did you ever try to reason with most women?
No, I haven’t had a chance to meet most women. If you have, you must be very social and travel a lot. Congratulations, I envy you!
On the other hand, of the many, many women I have met, I’ve found them to be just as amenable to reason as the men. They haven’t always shared my goals or purposes, of course, but the fact that I can’t always convince someone to do what I want them to doesn’t mean they’re being irrational…
(Come on, seriously: Are you a Poe?)
“In fact, Christopher Chablis and Mark Glickman recently found equal drop-out rates for boys and girls among 600 budding chess players of comparable age, skill and interest. Their study also found that both sexes improve at an matching pace, and they concluded that the success of men at chess’s highest tiers is fuelled by the overwhelming majority of boys who enter the game at its lowest levels.”
I read the above, Ray. It’s not relevant. Truly talented chess players are rare enough that it might not affect overall dropout rates noticeably. This is especially true with a small sample where you conceivably might not find many truly talented players due to sample variance. When I said truly talented players I was talking about the kind of people who would actually get involved enough to get a rating.
Really, you seem very naive just like the writer of the article you provided. No one had thought about participation levels before? I did about uh, 20 years ago. I also know that girls can learn to throw. But they’re still not as good at it because of the power difference that develops during adolescence.
“Whaddaya got, paper-wise, in terms of “Males deviate from the mean a lot more in traits”? I’m not opposed to the idea, even in the mental sphere, but I’m most interested in documented wider standard deviations of mental traits.”
I don’t have to provide you with jack. It’s something you learn in college psychology. If you don’t know it, well I’m not here to provide remedial education.
But you said you were in engineering. This means you’re a hard sciences type. This would explain why you have a poor feel for human nature. If you don’t understand that men will always be the best in most every field-even intellectual ones-I can’t help you. I also can’t help you if you don’t know that most women are hard to reason with. I really don’t have patience for people who need to read science papers to learn what tradition and common sense should tell them. Take it easy.
Have gun, will travel wrote
“But you said you were in engineering. This means you’re a hard sciences type. This would explain why you have a poor feel for human nature.”
I’m with you mainly, but you don’t have to slander engineers. RI is a breed alone.
Paladin –
‘I claim it’s easy to prove, but I can’t be bothered.’ Right. Got it.
Wow, you never met a stereotype you didn’t like, eh?
Like I said before, ‘It was once “common sense” that educating females too much would deprive their uterus of blood and lead to infertility, too.’ Common sense always needs to be tested. People have been fundamentally wrong about their own bodies for thousands of years – it was once thought the brain was just a cooling mechanism for the heart. I suggest you take the advice of another famous conservative: