Comments on: Why we all need to stop this nonsense about women

By: Piya Khanna

Piya Khanna — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 14:20:39 +0000

I wrote a blog about a similar topic recently
A great read is Pink Brain Blue Brain by a Neuroscientist who essentially says that the actual differences between the genders are so few as to be non-existent from a genetic & biological point of view & her view is that the majority of the differences are conditioned or nurture rather than nature.

By: Elizabeth Debold

Elizabeth Debold — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 18:36:13 +0000

Dear Lee,

I appreciate the frustration! The habit, and it is a deep one, of seeing the world in this binary way, where men and women are opposite to each other, is not only the way the world has been structured for hundreds of years but it also deeply conditions how we think about and experience ourselves. Rooting this out at the roots of our being, female and male, is the next step in human liberation.

And thanks for commenting on the blog I’ve created with a group of women who want to create that level of change: http://www.evolvewomen.org

Best to you,

Elizabeth

By: Dave Page

Dave Page — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 09:58:59 +0000

I agree with what you say, though I’d nitpick that sex and gender isn’t as simple as XX and XY. XX tends to produce phenotypic females, XY tends to produce phenotypic males, but it’s not 100%. That’s before you get onto people who are neither XX nor XY genotypically. And there we’re talking about physical expression of sex, which is a different thing from the cultural expression of gender – again, there’s largely a correlation between male sex and masculine gender expression, but it’s not quite as clear-cut as that

It’s interesting that once I started to get experience of sex and gender as spectra rather than binary distinctions, it made it much harder for me to maintain stereotypes about “all men” or “all women”.

By: Daily View 2×2:

Daily View 2×2: — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 05:57:07 +0000

[...] Lee Chalmers tackles sweeping generalisations [...]

By: Lee Chalmers

Lee Chalmers — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 19:43:46 +0000

Hey Martin, thanks for saying that.

I totally agree that women can make great peers, bosses, employees, etc. And they can make bad ones. All I’m saying is that there is nothing we say that applies to ‘all women’. I’m all for getting more women into business, into senior leadership and politics because I know there are capable women. There are also incapable women (in that domain). And those qualities have nothing to do with whether they are women or not.

By: Martin Haworth

Martin Haworth — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 18:37:04 +0000

Maybe I’m a heretic, but in a 25 year management career I preferred working with women more than men. I’m talking about peers as well as those I managed as well.

I found them more constructive; focused; creative and, actually less testosterone (that would be a given, I guess)/ego based, in the main.

Just felt it needed saying…

Regards

Martin Haworth

By: Lee Chalmers

Lee Chalmers — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 14:35:18 +0000

Thanks for your links Brendan. You are right that it’s also important to work with women to increase their self-esteem, get into IT, not because they are women per se but because they are people not fulfilling their potential. And we will have to do this ‘womens work’ for a while to come yet, to undo the damage done by the stereotyping of women. And of men. And of others “minorities” etc. On and on….

By: Brendan D'Cruz

Brendan D'Cruz — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 14:03:55 +0000

I agree with your comments, and think that stereotyping of any form is not progressive and damages the fairness and equity in our society. Take for example this posting which I put on the Project Eye blog with respect to wmen as project managers:

http://www.bcs.org/server.php?show=conBlogPost.1251

I am very much in support of efforts to promote equality of opportunity and diversity in the workplace, take for example this work in Essex that tries to go beyond gender stereotypes and raise the aspirations of both women and girls:

http://www.essexwomensadvisorygroup.com/

By: sandrine

sandrine — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 14:01:23 +0000

I spent last week reading up on ‘difference feminism’, which as far as I can make out is a bunch of women arguing either that women are naturally different or that patriarchal institutions made them so but that in any case we ought to make a space for this difference. Of course I’m reading this in the context of writing on Wollstonecraft so my immediate response is to join her in shouting ‘Bollocks to that!’ women, and men, are rational creatures, and as far as work, politics, and family hierarchy is concerned that’s all we need to know. And then I stop and think about it. And I still say the same.