Feminism and Political Correctness (2 Viewers)

[TacoTerrorist]

What does it matter?

Women just dress up sexy to appease their male masters anyway, and I have met few intellectually stimulating women.

Average female: OMG omg liek gess wut i mnet this reel hawt gy!!1!

EDIT: The media portrays women as dumb blonde sex objects because that's what they are.

 

[_dhj_]

What does it matter?

Women just dress up sexy to appease their male masters anyway, and I have met few intellectually stimulating women.

Average female: OMG omg liek gess wut i mnet this reel hawt gy!!1!

EDIT: The media portrays women as dumb blonde sex objects because that's what they are.

The above is obviously an exaggeration of the reality bordering on being offensive.

However there are some differences (generalisations of course) between men and women. Women are more sociable and extroverted than men. They're more in tuned to the aesthetic value of objects rather than their geometric, symbolic or functional value. Because of these differences, men tend to be more philosophical and transcendent, but also more alienated and less likely to form social networks beyond their immediate family and closest friends. Societal norms demand men to suppress their emotions, but in fact men are more fragile than women on the inside, more likely to succumb to addictions and violence, depression and suicide.

 

[scaredytiger]

ok...since i dont actually do chemistry or biology, id prefer to stop discussing brains. i have enough info to cram into my brain before my half yearlys.

lol. Is that biology? Never did bio at school. Caught up through molecular bio and animal/plant bio at uni.

no no the social comments are completely random in the middle of physics explanations.

eg. "Let us consider a typical American home with central heating, water heaters, hotplates and all the modern electrical hoopla that brainwashed consumers are encouraged to lust after."

for ages we thought it was our teacher who wrote them. i still do.


for the record. i dont watch tv. i am quite happy with my black books dvds. dylan moran = god.


i miss being able to write essays that fit my ideas in them.
once i start getting in my head that...
"RAGAD is an analogy to the psychological rise and fall of individuality"
how does my analysis of that fit in a what... 50 minute essay?

must learn to write essays. must not get stabbed by mother. she must never know i got 65% in the assess. task.(shes an english teacher)
doesnt help my self esteem that my boyfriend happens to be ranked 1st in english. yes. its paradoxical to my argument. i know that. but hes all uber smart.

again with the rambling. sorry about that.

 

[Slidey]

Study shows brain processing (emotional empathy in this case) can be changed through training: http://www.physorg.com/news125767090.html

Sorry posted that before you responded. Anyhoo:

no no the social comments are completely random in the middle of physics explanations.

eg. "Let us consider a typical American home with central heating, water heaters, hotplates and all the modern electrical hoopla that brainwashed consumers are encouraged to lust after."

for ages we thought it was our teacher who wrote them. i still do.

Haha well I agree with him. Cult of consumerism and all. Although he perhaps focused on bad examples there.

for the record. i dont watch tv. i am quite happy with my black books dvds. dylan moran = god.

I stopped watching TV in 2003. I pick and chose what I watch and when now via torrents. Black books is ace though.

 

[scaredytiger]

What does it matter?

Women just dress up sexy to appease their male masters anyway, and I have met few intellectually stimulating women.

Average female: OMG omg liek gess wut i mnet this reel hawt gy!!1!

EDIT: The media portrays women as dumb blonde sex objects because that's what they are.

maybe if you frequent the fringes of "lets get drunk" parties for girls to take into the bushes.
also, the lack of intellectually stimulating women may be due to your obvious preoccupation with dumb blondes who are easy.

smart girls have the intelligence not to waste their time talking to guys like you seem to be.


i take care of my appearance because i think its an outward expression of who i am as a person. i would attribute that to being an actor and artist. most arts students i know do the same.

sure, there are skanks, but they are a minority.

also, you cannot use twelve year olds as your examples. they dont count.

they are within a margin of error.

 

[TacoTerrorist]

^ That whole post of mine was sarcasm btw. Anyone who says what I said in that post in a serious manner deserves the utmost of abuse.

All I'm saying is that every other language continues to have its feminine and musculine words except the English language (correct me if I'm wrong?).

The English language does have masculine and feminine words as well as neuter (neutral/neither) words, but they have no bearing on grammar. What English does lack is a formal 3rd person pronoun that represents both genders.

 

[Slidey]

What English does lack is a formal 3rd person pronoun that represents both genders.

False. 'They', 'their', 'themselves' all exist for this purpose. They do not indicate quantity (id est: can be used in the singular and plural case).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they

'He' is also technically gender-neutral because it derives from two etymologically different words: the old English versions of "he" and "she". It is often used in this manner, though many would consider 'he' to be masculine. 'She' derives from the gender-neutral word for 'that'.

 

[TacoTerrorist]

^ Thanks for correcting me. I have much to learn.

 

[KFunk]

Don't confuse growth hormones with neurotransmitters. It's actually predominantly growth hormones (enzymes, not amines) produced by the gonads that determine sexual structure and difference. Namely: FSH, LH, LHRH.

Pedantic technical note: those hormones are produced by the anterior pituitary (though I'm unsure what LHRH is... I suspect it might be another name for GnRH? which is released from the hypothalamus). The relevant gonad hormones (released in response to FSH and LH) are steroids like testosterone, estradiol and progesterone.

I've heard it before, too. I used to be a proponent until I discovered 'left' and 'right' brained (based on hemispheres) is dismissed as pseudo-science by neurologists and psychologists.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lateralization_of_brain_function

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corpus_callosum#Sexual_dimorphism

I don't know much about the whole 'left' and 'right' brained persons issue, though it is likely based in very real distinctions between the left and right brain. For example if someone suffers damage to their left cortex in Broca's Area they will develop (a type of) aphasia which is a difficulty/inability to produce speech, whereas if the corresponding area on the right cortex is damaged they will develop dysprosody, which is a difficulty/inability to introduce appropriate inflection or emotion into speech. Similarly, damage to Wenicke's area in the left hemisphere causes an inability to understand speech (receptive aphasia) while damage to the corresponding area of the right hemisphere causes an inability to detect rhythm/emotion/etc. in speech (receptive dysprosody). Of course, in some people this is switched (though this is much less common, even in left handed individuals) and some people have 'ambidextrous' minds, so to speak, where certain cogntive abilities are spread across both hemispheres (which is useful if they have a stroke!). I find this stuff fascinating.

P.S. I still find it bizarre that marsupials and monotremes don't have a corpus callosum.I'd be interested to know whether any significant functional differences stem from that. (^inspired by your corpus callosum link)

 

[KFunk]

Yeah? In what way? I've read studies that show boys (and people with ADHD) have larger amygdalas than girls, and the average for their sex, respectively. The amygdala is the area of the brain most often associated with being "right-brained", but it is also the emotional, parallel processing area of the brain, which you are claiming is stronger in girls, not boys.

...

It's far more likely to be due to neuroplasticity than it is genetically determined brain chemistry deviation. As an example: a person from an east Asian culture thinks differently to an American person, and approaches problem solving from a different perspective. It's not because of brain chemistry difference or genetics, but because of the impact of society on brain development. East Asians found relative judgements easier (and absolute ones harder) whilst the reverse was true for Americans, and they used different areas of the brain to solve the same problem. (Probably explains why most Americans don't understand British humour, and can so easily blind themselves into believing in things like creationism)

Basically, I think you really underestimate neuroplasticity.

Also, on the amygdala and neuroplasticity. I've attached a paper I read a while back which reviews some evidence that points to the experience-expectant(/dependent) nature of the limbic system which includes the amygdala (just to emphasise your point... and you might find it interesting). It's quite amazing how much effect one's upbringing has on these, and other, structures. For example, the amygdala can shrink/atrophy if an individual doesn't receive enough love/support/care in their early childhood and infancy.

 

[Slidey]

Yes, LHRH seems the old term for GnRH. And you're right; LHRH for example is partially controlled by norepinephrine/dopamine levels. Not too much though I'm guessing since if it is so involved in sex determination then people with ADHD would have more than just concentration problems on their hands, I'd think. I'll admit my knowledge of developmental biology gets fuzzy here, though.

Re brain hemispheres: Oh you're quite right about disorders associated with some sorts of lobotomies and such - but does that really imply that in a normal person such functions are relegated to said hemisphere, or simply that such functions require something in said hemisphere to work properly? I do believe I've heard before that the two hemispheres can individually come to a conclusion about something, often a different conclusion.

I think I've heard that about marsupials before. Fascinating. So the common ancestor of humans and most other mammals is apparently younger than the common ancestor of humans and monotremes? I wish I could find more information about how their hemispheres communicate.

Another fascinating feature of the limbic system is (from memory, can't find the source) that much of its complexity and power originally evolved due to a requirement for a strong sense of smell.

Cheers for the article. Will read it fully later.

 

[KFunk]

On brain hemispheres: oh, I certainly wasn't putting that forward as evidence for the claim that some people are 'right/left brained', rather I was speculating that that sort of data might have been what kicked off some of that left/right brain dichotomy stuff (e.g. through a poorly reported time feature article, or the like). And yeah, split-brain cases seem to illustrate clear cases where the two hemispheres make different decisions, e.g. such as in the supposed case where each of a man's two arms reached for different shirts when getting dressed. I'm unsure how independent the hemispheres in the absence of structural pathology though. Might be worth looking into...

On the limbic system: have you ever had those 'smell memories' (at least, that's what I call them) where a certain olfactory sensation brings up a raw, emotional memory that is difficult to pin down to a specific time and place? I've spoken to a few people who get them. It's funny that we don't have a word for it. I seem to recall that the neurologist Antonio Damasio had a fair bit to say about emotions, the limbic system and their possible origins.

 

[youBROKEmyLIFE]

On the limbic system: have you ever had those 'smell memories' (at least, that's what I call them) where a certain olfactory sensation brings up a raw, emotional memory that is difficult to pin down to a specific time and place? I've spoken to a few people who get them. It's funny that we don't have a word for it. I seem to recall that the neurologist Antonio Damasio had a fair bit to say about emotions, the limbic system and their possible origins.

There is actually a word for them if I remember correctly... Synesthesia?

(also spelled synæsthesia or synaesthesia, plural synesthesiae or synaesthesiae)—from the Ancient Greek σύν (syn), meaning "with," and αἴσθησις (aisthēsis), meaning "sensation"'—is a neurologically-based phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway.

I guess it's not specific to smell, but yeah...

 

[KFunk]

There is actually a word for them if I remember correctly... Synesthesia?

Not quite, synaesthesia is when you have crossed sensory modalities. For example, some people see colours when the cochlear in the ear is stimulated (they will commonly hear sound at the same time). Edit: wiki has a decent article on it. A random celebrity case: Vladimir Nabakov, the writer of Lolita, had one of the more common varieties called grapheme-colour synaesthesia, where the individual sees certain letters as coloured. I believe his mother had it too, so she was understanding when he claimed, as a young child, that the red block with the letter 'A' on it was "the wrong colour".

 

[youBROKEmyLIFE]

Isn't it essentially the same thing though, but it's hooking in to the 'familiar memory' sense? Everyone has it of course, so you're obviously not a synesthete, but in at least a book I read by V.S. Ramachandran he offered that as a way to understand synesthesia.

 

[KFunk]

Isn't it essentially the same thing though, but it's hooking in to the 'familiar memory' sense?

Yeah, fair call. Some people argue that emotion is simply a really basic, primitive, undirected form of sensation. However, most people seem to experience emotional stimulation via various sensory pathways, e.g. sad music can make people cry, skin massage can make people feel elated and certain colours of light can make certain people feel uncomfortable. In other words, I am suggesting that emotional stimulation by the senses is probably more 'normal' than the sensory cross overs experienced by synaesthetes.

I will nonetheless conceed that the underlying structure behind 'smell memories' may be very similar to that which underlies synaesthesia. It has been argued, e.g. by Ramachandran, that we are all synaesthetes in some limited sense - think, for example, of all the metaphorical associations we have across modalities, such as blue being a "cold colour". An interesting thought experiment by Ramachandran: imagine a sharp, angular, red shape (think like a shard of glass) and also a round, undulating, ameboid, blue shape. One is called a 'keke' and the other is a 'bobo' - which is which? The vast majority of individuals associate the first one with 'keke' and the latter with 'bobo' (sharp versus rounded sounds perhaps?). These kinds of associations may even serve to (partially) explain why certain metaphors in poetry 'resonate' while others don't.

 

[KFunk]

but in at least a book I read by V.S. Ramachandran he offered that as a way to understand synesthesia.

Ah, seems you've already come across Ramachandran (sorry, I missed the edit) - he does some very interesting research! You should give his lectures a go if you can ever track him down. He's a great orator and it sounds as though he was taught english by a Scottsman with brilliantly rolled R's.

 

[youBROKEmyLIFE]

already watched them man

I've read A LOT of Ramachandran, Dan Dennet, Douglas Hofstadter and Richard Dawkins, I just have a pretty shitty memory for direct quotes etc

 

[Slidey]

Fascinating debate! Reminds me of how the brain is naturally designed to identify patterns (even when none exist), as in morse code operators hearing phantom signals in white noise: http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Psychoacoustics#Background

I believe the evolutionary explanation is thus: person who thinks he sees a tiger hiding in the forest will freak out for no reason if there is no tiger, but will then continue about his day. Person who fails to pick up on a tiger hiding in the trees won't live to tell the tale.