I’ve been chatting via e-mail with readers about the nature v. nurture argument and for the sake of simplifying the discussion, I’m posting the chat in the blog.
Without a background in biology or anthropology, I can’t add much to the discussion about why men and women are different. So, instead I ask, does it matter why men and women are different? If Brooks and crew are right, that genetics helps determine personality, does it take us to places that we don’t want to go? TJ says yes. Genetics can be used to rationalize all sorts of inequalities. The world has been predestined to be run by men and the home front by women. And I agree with him. Yes, I can see how the genetics argument can take us places that I don’t want to go. I definitely think that Brooks was going there. Genetics has be used throughout history to justify all sorts of other inequities about race and class. Phrenology was used to explain “deficiencies” in certain ethnic groups.
However, I think that why were are different can be a huge distraction and that the thing to do as progressives is to move beyond this discussion to figure out how to lessen these inequities with smart educational programs and smart social policy. Genetics doesn’t have to mean destiny. For example, if little girls are more likely to be obedient, a trait that serves them well in school, but not in the larger world, then we need to teach them to break rules. Nurture can overcome genetic tendencies.
Apt. 11d 
I think the problem goes far beyond gender. What we have to come to grips with is the diversity of humanity. Environment is important, but even if the same environment is applied to different individuals, they will turn out differently. As parents, educators, or legislators, we can’t extinguish individual differences, and we shouldn’t want to. For better or worse, diversity means inequality–some will run fast and far, some will learn languages with ease, some will make friends effortlessly, some will have a genius for finance, some will be hardworking, and some will have perfect pitch. And some won’t.
What we have to deal with is that equality (as G.K. Chesterton pointed) is something almost entirely metaphysical, divorced from visible fact. Our equality has nothing to do with our objective qualities, because we human beings are not the same, whether in height, weight, age, IQ, mental, niceness, work ethic, hygiene, etc.
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Hell, if the same environment was applied to the same individual, they would come out differently. Noise matters.
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I think Amy P. is right that genetic diversity always entails inequality of some kind.
That’s doesn’t mean we shouldn’t seek to erase cultural and social barriers to equality, of course. But “nature” *does* matter, in my opinion, as a potential alternative explanation for individual choices/preferences that seem to break along gender lines. I haven’t read Linda Hirshman’s book, for example, but I don’t think I would find its thesis complete or persuasive unless Hirshman at least conisidered accounts from, say, genetic studies or evolutionary biology that might offer a different explanation for the tendency among women to choose to stay home with their children.
Laura, when you say nurture can overcome genetic tendencies, I wonder a) the extent to which that is true and b) when, and in what instances, it *should* be employed to overcome genetic tendencies.
I think part of the problem is an impreciseness in definitions and categories here. When we talk about genetic tendencies, we’re talking about averages, not about individuals, so while I agree with you that individuals should be educated such that we make the best of their intrinsic natural abilities (*some* girls will be exceptional at spatial reasoning, etc., and *some* boys will be nurturing and relationship-oriented), I’m not sure whether you’re arguing that nurture can overcome genetic tendencies such that the individual girl who has less natural spatial reasoning ability will become equal with the individual boy who has greater natural spatial reasoning ability.
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The problem is not really that boys and girls might be, on average, “different.” The problems are:
1) The differences between the genders are usually quite small (per Barnett and Rivers, Same Difference) and there is more variation within the genders than between them. It would be harmful to exaggerate small differences into huge ones.
2) What about individuality? What about girls who love math and are assertive, and boys who love to read and are timid? I’d hate to see cookie-cutter programs tailored to “how boys and girls are” without considering individual variation. Modern education is cookie-cutter enough as it is and I don’t feel that kids should be sex-tracked without taking into account their individuality. I probably would have hated an emphasis on traditionally “feminine” group-work, for instance.
3) Finally, and hugely: Our culture values the male, and traditionally masculine attributes, and disparages the female and traditionally feminine attributes. As long as the feminine is considered inferior, danger lurks in the “boys and girls are different” idea.
I do have a background in anthropology and sociology and can attest to the fact that different cultures value different attributes – and many cultures value what we consider “feminine” behavior. The Ifaluk Islanders and the Minangkabau to name two, put the highest value on gentleness, calmness, and non-competitiveness. What we call “boys will be boys” is regarded with horror in those cultures. Likewise, the Hopi traditionally value women over men because women create life. Parents eagerly hope for a girl baby.
Whether boys and girls are truly, innately different isn’t really such a frightening proposition – BUT the fact that our culture values the masculine and denigrates the feminine does not give a good foundation for the contemplation of innate gender difference. IMO we need to work on valuing the feminine, THEN consider how boys and girls might be different. And remember that any innate differences are likely to be small.
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Finally, and hugely: Our culture values the male, and traditionally masculine attributes, and disparages the female and traditionally feminine attributes. As long as the feminine is considered inferior, danger lurks in the “boys and girls are different” idea.
totally. The problem is that the feminine is considered inferior. Clearly, as you point out, different societies can place preferences on more traditional feminine roles and everyone adjusts. I’m more convinced that gender differences are present, on average and mostly in the beginning. Some of those differences are fine and great and lead to no social problems. I’m only concerned with the traits that limit opportunties for women. In some cases, society must change and in other cases, it is up to the individual. Then there are the real differences that have nothing to do with personality, such as childbirth, which leads to another whole set of problems, but takes us really off track.
Amy, funny you should bring up diversity and equality, because I am going to do a joint Valve/Crooked Timber book discussion on that topic in October. So, I’m going to save my thoughts for that. Well, one word… The only reason to readjust behavior is when it leads to inequity rather than just interesting differences. If someone is poor because of a trait, either learned or genetic, it makes sense to treat the problem with conditioning.
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I’m a little bit confused. I probably agree that our culture, to some extent, disparages the “female and traditionally feminine attributes” (heck, some feminists do this, too), but could you, Laura and Ailurophile, define your terms a little more clearly? When you talk about “the feminine,” are you talking about gender or sex? Are you talking about attributes that are associated with gender roles or attributes that are associated with sex, or both?
In any event, as I said in my original comment, I certainly agree that we should educate children as individuals, in order to make the best of their natural abilities. My point about the importance of differences between the sexes was that it may be useful as one way of explaining differences in individual preferences, and that’s not to say that bias/discrimination may not be a better explanation.
Laura, when you say you’re only concerned with traits that limit opportunities for women, what kinds of traits are you talking about? And, if the traits are sex-based, how do know that women and/or men can be conditioned out of them? Are there some studies that address this?
Lastly, when you suggest that there are feminine traits which limit opportunites for women, aren’t you participating in the devaluing of “the feminine” that you and Ailurophile deplore?
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Okay. I *am* a biologist and I *do* address the issue nature and nuture in my research (albeit on plants). Clearly chromosomal, genetic, biochemical, and anatomical differences exist btw male and female, possibly btw hetero and not, and as they no doubt do between any two groups of humans (or other organisms).
Importantly, nature and nurture are interdependent and *not* mutually exclusive explanations. You don’t need a Ph.D. in biology to learn this, and to decide and work to convince others to desist from perpetuating debates framed in terms of nature “versus” nurture.
In response to the Larry Summers comments, which typify the controversy that won’t die, MIT’s Evelyn Fox Keller eloquently responded by acknowledging that there may be “genetic” or “brain” differences that put women at a slight disadvantage in the current world of science research, and then went on to argue that this makes it particularly critical to change the institutions of science to ameliorate the situation. Laura makes sort of the same argument … why not make a world where *all* people are likely to reach full potential, rather than one that automatically and severely privileges certain groups over others?
A few eloquent words from a NY TImes profile of Fox Keller(April 5, 2005):
Dr. Keller said she wondered “why there should be so much enthusiasm” for the idea that people are born, not made. For one thing, she said, there is “nothing special” about birth as a line of demarcation in development, since even in the womb environment affects how genes are expressed.
“When we talk about innate and acquired it is rarely clear where to draw the line,” she said, “and where to draw the line is rarely stable. What a mess! What a mess all our efforts to sort nature from nurture get us into.”
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Thanks, learner. Really loved that last quote. I have to run off to a meeting, but I wanted to quickly take stab at Kate Marie’s excellent comment.
OK, let me work backwards. In my perfect world, caretaking would be highly valued by our society. Men and women would more equally share this role than they do right now. This lopsided responsibility leads to extra work and financial insecurity for women and a less satisfying outcome for kids and fathers. I don’t really care why this is the case, except that we should figure out a way to change things. Government and society have to prioritize caretaking. The messages may show women that they aren’t the de facto parent and men that there is much to gain from bonding with their kids. In that way, you need to both value the traditional feminine role plus offer women other avenues for growth. Can a society simultaneously promote caretaking for men and ambition in women? I don’t know. It does sound pretty tricky.
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I am inclined to suspect you can emphasize one or the other, but not both, because there is a tendency of people to value one or the other, but not both, as they tend to both be sufficiently time consuming as to preclude being good at both.
That being said, there are a fair number of guys who would like to spend more time with the kids, etc, if they didn’t have so much work pressure, so we may be closer to your hope than my fits of pessimism would allow for.
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Thanks for your thoughtful response, Laura. I agree with your aims. As you have suggested, though, how to get there is the tricky part.
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You asked, ‘why does it matter?’ – I think it does. People behave badly, okay. Does it matter if they behave badly (or, in ways of which we disapprove) because they are built to behave badly or if they behave badly because they were led astray? Well, yes: partly because our society has a pretty widely held assumption that if something is natural, it is presumed to be good, and partly because if we are fighting human nature to get people to behave in some way of which we approve, there may be limits to what we can accomplish. There’s been a lot of discussion of this and related issues by Elizabeth at the blog Half Changed World, in a discussion of gay parenting she included ‘…this comment by Judith Stacy, a sociologist who rejects the conventional wisdom that the children of gay and lesbian parents are no more likely to be homosexual than the children of heterosexual parents. ”My position is that you can’t base an argument for justice on information that’s empirically falsifiable in the long run,” she said. ”If your right to custody is based on saying there are no differences, then research comes along and says you’re wrong, then where are you?”’
There has been an intellectual war over nature versus nurture for a long time – I first started to notice it when I was in college, reading NYRB articles by Lewontin and Gould, I think, attacking Edward O Wilson. And I had read about BF Skinner and the box in which he tried raising his daughter… Jensen and the IQ determinists, with his very explosive statements about race, and Gould’s debunking. Chomsky’s, and now Pinker’s discussions of language acquisition. There is a recent, well reviewed book by Buller attacking Evolutionary Psychology, and a big attack on it at
http://www.pitt.edu/~machery/papers/debunking%20Adapting%20Minds%20Machery%20Barrett.pdf. Judith Rich Harris has published on how very little we as parents manage to affect our children’s attitudes, and ascribes a great deal of their adult nature to heredity (and most of the rest to the kids they hang out with). Identical twin studies regularly find huge, really sort of spooky similarities to twins reared apart. Overall, with some exceptions, this set of intellectual battles over the last 40 years looks like a long retreat by the nurturists as more and more of human behavior – or if not behavior at least predilections – looks to be determined.
Here is a comment I put up at Half Changed World couple of months ago:
http://www.halfchangedworld.com/2006/08/biology_and_gen.html#comments
‘…it seems to me that we can look for a common thread in opposition to sociobiology, evolution, ideas of hereditary influences on behavior, Creationism, etc. Stalin had those who doubted Lysenko put away, Kansas is the scene of pitched battles between creationists and people who want to teach evolution in schools, there was a huge attachment to the Freud theories about mental illness coming from early life events/talking cure therapy and attempt to explain away the success of anti-mental-illness medications. All of these seem to me in some way to reflect squeamishness about the connection between the meat and the behavior, or the body and the soul.
Sociobiology suggests that some pretty unattractive behaviors (1) result in more children and (2) thus contribute to reproductive success and (3) that genes leading to behaviors which contribute to reproductive success are selected for, so (4) if these behaviors are influenced by genes, they are and have been selected for. Seems plausible and likely to me. And if you want people to behave better, you take them where they are and try to move them towards what you think is right. There are also attractive behaviors for which there are plausible ‘just-so’ stories: altruism, attachment to groups. My kids’ astonishing loyalty to the Nats and the Redskins, whom they have never met, but who are ‘we’.
This is not comfortable if you want to believe that through struggle in the society you can create the New Socialist Man, or if you hold to the book of Genesis as history, or if you want to quickly go towards a just society of shared childrearing, less emphasis on status/dominance displays, no playground bullies, people ignore Paris Hilton, and peace in the Middle East. Oh yeah, and sensible shoes for all. Did I leave anything out?’
There is a swell article on Evolutionary Psychology in Wikipedia, which has the following:
“Ethical justification
Some people worry that evolutionary psychology will be used to justify harmful behavior, and have at times tried to suppress its study [citation needed]. For example, people may be more likely to cheat on their spouse if they believe their mind evolved to be that way.
Evolutionary psychologists respond by saying that they only state what is, not what ought to be. Knowing how something works, they argue, is the first step to fixing it if it’s broken, or changing how it works (if we should or not is an argument commonly left to philosophers). Furthermore, if people understand that the blind causal process of natural selection “makes” them promiscuous–that cheating is not necessarily the best course of action or the right or moral one–this information may help them to change their behaviour.”
So back on ‘Why does it matter?’ – I think your strategies differ, if you believe you are trying to get people to act in ways contrary to their inbuilt predilections rather than believing that you are trying to change the culture so that it does not instil bad behavior in people who have no inbuilt tendencies in that direction. I think you’ll be much more successful in trying for shared childrearing and sensible shoes if your strategy is based on a clear understanding of the nature of the obstacles you face. And I think if you are a ‘predilection-ist,’ as I am, you may choose priorities for your attempts to get people to behave against their nature (give up on the sensible shoes if that lets you concentrate on shared childrearing and peace in the Middle East).
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Dave S,
That was very good. If we have any sort of ambitions for changing or improving society, we’ve got to understand what the properties are of the human material we are working with. You’ve got to go with the grain of human nature, which is something that the Soviets didn’t get. I could go on and on about this, but have to run!
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Thanks, Dave S. That was a really thorough examination of the ongoing discussion in the literature and the blog conversation, which I will refer to if I come back to this topic. I appreciate everyone’s feedback on it. This post was just an intellectual exercise to see if we could work backwards without getting tangled up in the socio-biological arguments. I guess we can’t avoid the nature v. nurture debate, as much as I would like to just move on. I will let it rest until the next study comes out and then I suppose we’ll have to revisit it all.
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I took your name in vain in a comment at Half Changed World: http://www.halfchangedworld.com/2006/08/biology_and_gen.html#comment-23214293
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