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> Gender in humans isn’t fundamentally different. It is fundamentally different. The range of behaviors that Humans have is fundamentally far, far more broad
by RajT88 4y ago
> Gender in humans isn’t fundamentally different.
It is fundamentally different.
The range of behaviors that Humans have is fundamentally far, far more broad than animals, because we are much more intelligent creatures. Example from a few thousand years ago: Farming, Cooking food. More recent examples: Fixing cars, doing taxes. Most of what Humans spend their time doing these days are things that animals don't do in nature.
Human cultures like to ascribe gender roles to most of these things, but in reality most of what people do doesn't have any implicit gender role associated with it, since it's pretty far removed from biological functions at this point.
Even in nature, the things people and animals do doesn't always neatly align with gender roles. For example, child rearing or even bearing live young is sometimes done by the male, even though it's usually a female gender role.
What's different between us and animals (as is usually the case) is our big thinky brains, and the things which follow on from that.
- 31337Logic 4y agoIt is at this point, I believe, that it is entirely worth reminding ourselves that humans are, in fact, animals.
- RajT88 4y agoIt's usually worth reminding ourselves of. I'm not sure what you're getting at here though.
- gatlin 4y agoThey are getting at the point that as animals we can intellectualize all we want and will still have biological characteristics that fundamentally influence our behavior and culture.
- RajT88 4y ago> still have biological characteristics that fundamentally influence our behavior and culture. I suspected as such. In my life, I've often heard this point trotted out to justify "Why men/women are good/bad at X thing", which is why I was asking what they were getting at, specifically. Even if they weren't getting at that, their comment doesn't add much by itself.
- pron 4y agoResearch findings are not "intellectualization." Intellectualization is what those who don't actually research a subject do. However, I don't think anyone claims that there is are no innate biological effects on behaviour. It's just that its scope is hard to determine, and extrapolation one species to another has proven to be an unreliable means of making such determinations.
- bequanna 4y agoThe point I think the parent is trying to make is that there are now many people who see all of human behavior as some sort of construct vs. innate behaviors that exist all over the animal kingdom. In fact, very few behaviors are specific to only humans. We aren’t that special. At the end of the day, we’re just very clever mammals.
- xupybd 4y ago>The range of behaviors that Humans have is fundamentally far, far more broad than animals, because we are much more intelligent creatures. This is a difference in scale not a difference of kind.
- RajT88 4y agoKeep reading the post! You'll get there.
- xupybd 4y agoI'm sorry. I have read the post and I don't understand what you are referring to.
- RajT88 4y agoIt is in the following three sentences from the one you quoted. It's not an argument about scale. "Dogs Playing Poker" is not based on anything real.
- xupybd 4y agoSorry I'm still lost.
- RajT88 4y agoI am saying there are many, many behaviors which human beings have which the rest of the animal kingdom does not exhibit. I am positing that, in fact, most of how we spend our time as human beings (such as arguing on YC news threads) is behavior which does not exist in the rest of the animal kingdom. That is not an argument about scale as you say, it is an argument about the type of behavior.