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[Putnam]

You're forgetting, Neonivek, about Super Princess Peach, wherein Peach uses her incredible womanly powers of mood swings.

...

I don't think that that's a very good example.

[Reelya]

No, Reelya, I was asking that because your main contribution to the thread thus far has not been statements along the order of "this is what I think" but "I say you're wrong."  I was trying to say that I hadn't gotten a good handle on what you thought and felt, because of your lack of concrete statements and tendency to criticize other people's argumentation (which is, I think, a bit hypocritical in light of what you've said about Sarkheesian, though I may be pinning the position on the wrong person).

Hold up, I haven't mentioned Anita Sarkheesian once in this whole thread, except for that mention in the last post I made about Super Princess Peach.

My first post in this thread is page 12, where i mentioned a game where you could be straight / gay / bi / trans or whatever. You're free to criticize anything i actually said after that. After that, I started debating whether pure socialization could explain noted differences in personality between (typical) males / females. Another note before people jump on this: i never said aptitude or ability, I specifically said "showed interest". I then clearly stated my view that pre-natal hormones play a role in this (and I did specifically clarify that I'm specifically NOT saying there's a yin / yang line, but there's a slider and overlap between males / females, my sources should have made that fact clear. I also hold that this pre-natal theory explains outliers better than the "well, just because" of socialization theory - because active attempts to socially-engineer gender-neutral children from the 1970's to now have been a dismal failure). Anyway one point you made that i didn't respond to before, might as well now:

Your explanation: Large Law of Small Numbers.  I'm the most talented computer person in any part of my family by far.  I happen to be female.  No one else showed any interest.  I have plenty of male relatives.  I guess that demonstrates that women are just that much more interested than men in computers, and men would prefer to study things like accounting and the classics because they really aren't very technically adept.

Well, the pre-natal hormone theory can actually explain that situation (and also why it's less common than the inverse). But can you point to any purely social / environmental argument as to why you'd apparently buck your super-pervasive "girl" social programming? Especially as "No one else showed any interest". It boils down to whether personality is born, or is it made?

I'd also be interested in how the pure socialization theory fits into transgender people who claim they "always knew it was wrong". I'll take their word for it that it's correct (since i can't see into their head). Why did they go 180 degrees against their socialization which is supposed to be so perfectly overwhelming? If there's no pre-natal / biological component, that's a hard line to push.

EDIT: another thing just occurred to me; that study that measured a whole lot of factors which turn out to be the same for males & females - then jumps to the conclusion "any actual remaining differences in behavior MUST be from socialization". Well, no that doesn't actually flow as a necessary logical consequence at all. The best you can say from that data is "this data doesn't tell us anything at all about whether the existing differences are biological or social, or a mix, or even how much of a mix". What it does tell you is that those measured factors are not the important ones deciding whether people do one thing or another (i.e. maths ability =/= maths interest)

[Max White]

Also, men ask other men for pictures of their genitals and chests online?  I had no idea.

I'm pretty sure some of them would... I mean the gay community is a minority, and the 'trading self porn' community is also small to my knowledge, but I'm sure the overlap between the two is a number > 2.

[penguinofhonor]

I'd also be interested in how the pure socialization theory fits into transgender people who claim they "always knew it was wrong". I'll take their word for it that it's correct (since i can't see into their head). Why did they go 180 degrees against their socialization which is supposed to be so perfectly overwhelming? If there's no pre-natal / biological component, that's a hard line to push.

Maybe gender identity is innate and interests like programming aren't? I don't really see your point with that.

Also I don't think anyone's argued that socialization is "perfectly overwhelming," just regular old overwhelming. I could be wrong.

[Neonivek]

You're forgetting, Neonivek, about Super Princess Peach, wherein Peach uses her incredible womanly powers of mood swings.

...

I don't think that that's a very good example.

She is still pretty awsome. If you entirely tune out her "PMS powers" it is about Princess Peach and how she is the only one in the Kingdom capable of controlling her emotions enough to be the hero. Using what was a curse to all into a power to be weilded in her own hands.

While others are stunned with sorrow she uses it to drown others, where others are blind with rage she uses it to pummel others, while some are giddy with laughter she soars to the occasion with her flights of fancy.

Mind you it is a VERY common Female character trait in Japanese media (and heck males often have that trait too, it is pretty close to being unisex). This thing I like to call "Extreme Emotional Maturity". A lot of female characters in anime and sometimes videogames tend to have such high levels of emotional maturity that they can handle not only their own feelings, express it, but also understand how others feel.

Which in Super Princess Peach it is what allows her to be the hero while Mario, and his inability to handle the weight of his own emotions, cannot.

Think of it in terms of Western media where the woman is considered "more emotional" and shows more emotion all the time. It could in some respects even be considered progressive as it shows a woman with full control of her emotions while everyone around her breaks down, instead of being the one whos emotions brings everyone else down instead.

But ONLY if you can ignore the "Super PMS" aspect.

[Vector]

Reelya:

Ah, there we go.  I'm terribly sorry--I think I've conflated you with somebody else.  I really, honestly feel bad about it.


Why I'd buck my social-pervasive "girl" social programming?  In my family, things were very different.  First of all, my family is matriarchal.  Second of all, my mother refused that Disney be in the house.  I didn't grow up with the typical female roles in fiction--I mostly grew up on Pippi Longstocking, Encyclopedia Brown, Animorphs, and The Wizard of Oz, all of which were full of girls that had adventures; what this means is that pretty much all sexism was imported from other children, which meant that I was subjected to a lot less of it in my younger years than most people.  In my family, how you look isn't anywhere near as important as how deeply you can see; my extended family is cemented together by group culture and puts a high value on witty humor, storytelling, artistic talent, and a refusal of consumerism.  Also personal, enduring toughness, combined with a refusal of violence.

Almost no one wears any makeup.  No one reads fashion magazines or celebrity news, and we mostly don't watch all that much TV.  The women wear their hair long for a large period of their lives (mine was down to my calves until 19) with ankle-length skirts, leather boots (or barefoot) and blouses buttoned up past the collarbone.  In this get-up they haul cement, build houses and fencing, and repair cars.  Compared to mom, my dad is a wuss.  Our family mottos are "Get mad and get the job done" and "Who promised you a rose garden?"  The house my mother and uncles built is called "Contra Viento," which means "against the wind."

So when I decided I was going to do things like walk 10 miles barefoot over volcanic rock at the age of seven, my parents just said "carry your shoes" and we set off.  When my father was out of the country and we were evicted, my mother and I moved the entire house ourselves.  Helping out with "guy stuff" physical labor is just the way it is.  I spent my childhood helping to dig gardens and climbing mountains.

Why did no one else program?  Because within this culture, why do it with a computer when you can do it with pencil and paper?  What's so great about making a computer do something you already know how to do?  I only ended up doing computer stuff at all because I recognized it was something I didn't know anything about (and a source of neat problems to solve), and I really, really like games.  The rest of the family isn't quite as addicted to problem-solving as I am.

[Neonivek]

In my case vector it is because I cannot write fast or fluidly and if I were to write out my posts on pen and paper I'd probably be hours where it should be minutes.

It is a tool that assists me in doing something I will never be able to do at the level of everyone else.

[Max White]

Vector were you actually raised as part of a psuto-Amish society? If it isn't too personal, that is.
It sounds like a very interesting sort of upbringing. You should write an autobiography.

[Neonivek]

Vector were you actually raised as part of a psuto-Amish society? If it isn't too personal, that is.
It sounds like a very interesting sort of upbringing. You should write an autobiography.

Sounds more like a family of hipsters then Amish.

Though more specifically a docterine of "do it yourself, inner strength, be yourself" sort of family.

Kinda reminds me about what I think about cooking: Everyone should know how to cook

[Ogdibus]

.

[penguinofhonor]

The discussion got a little angry then pretty chill. I support chill.

[Vector]

I wouldn't call it pseudo-Amish.  We like technology as much as anyone else.  Rather. . . we have this family story.  Four hundred years ago, we were Jews fleeing the Spanish Inquisition.  We baked our holy books into loaves of bread, disguised ourselves as Roma, and left with a caravan over the Pyrenees.  On the way across Europe, generation after generation, we intermarried.  All the family stories we have are like that: there was some problem, and we just kind of took care of it.  That's the attitude.  Stick together, be tough as nails, help others out, be creative and learn new ways to do things, and never be too proud to get on your knees.

Though more specifically a docterine of "do it yourself, inner strength, be yourself" sort of family.

Yeah, this one.  Not really "hipsterish" at all, given that in our case being poor helped create the whole "drinking out of jelly jars and going around barefoot" thing.  Also, not long ago we had an influx of folks from Tennessee.  Helps with the "git 'er done" attitude.

[Loud Whispers]

I guess the first question I'd ask about Starcraft and Chess is: "Are the 'good' communities actually good for women, or are they just somewhat less putrid?"  I say this because a lot of environments that may seem fine to dudes (like the math community *cough cough*) are full of subtle devaluations of women, and I suspect similar things could apply to chess.

Starcraft is pretty neutral in that gender doesn't really factor in much at all.
Starcraft people are trying hard, Chess people are trying too (IIRC two-three years ago they had the under 16 champion pick the first move for a final, and are trying to encourage the expansion of clubs and such in mixed and girls schools).

In this get-up they haul cement, build houses and fencing, and repair cars.

Ha ha ha, use a wheelbarrow or something! Sounds awesome. How'd they build houses? Did they conform to building regulations?
_{[Might be a bit off topic but still, pretty awesome].}

I wouldn't call it pseudo-Amish.  We like technology as much as anyone else.  Rather. . . we have this family story.  Four hundred years ago, we were Jews fleeing the Spanish Inquisition.  We baked our holy books into loaves of bread, disguised ourselves as Roma, and left with a caravan over the Pyrenees.  On the way across Europe, generation after generation, we intermarried.  All the family stories we have are like that: there was some problem, and we just kind of took care of it.  That's the attitude.  Stick together, be tough as nails, help others out, be creative and learn new ways to do things, and never be too proud to get on your knees.

Now that is just several increments of awesome. If my family had a backstory like that, I probably would check all of my cupboards for Spanish Inquisitors before going to bed.

[Vector]

It was out in the country with no one about, so I'm not entirely sure that it conformed to building regulations or not. . . it's stood for fifty years or so, anyway.  The road is so steep and rocky that it's pretty hard to push a wheelbarrow up.  They, y'know, laid the foundation, poured cement, put up scaffolding, built a roof and put in plumbing, and all the stuff one normally does.  My grandfather wired the entire house.

[Pnx]

Wow, that sounds like a pretty awesome childhood.