Feminism, a response to BoundlessEyes

Feminism, in a response to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4ij5ErG1CM, Feminism: Still Relevant?, by youtube user, http://www.youtube.com/user/BoundlessEyes

I can see many seeing this as a controversial piece and this is partially because everyone has some opinion on gender and sex(m/f) because it is to a degree within their understanding. I have focused more on results than political correctness. For clarification some males are born with a female gender type and they are usually gay. Some females are born with a male gender type and they are usually lesbian. Thus I choose to usually use the term gender rather than using sex(m/f) as gender points more towards their behavior than their physical appearance or degree of sexual dimorphism. Gender is mainly a quality that forms in the infant brain due to their developmental environment. Basically the percent of certain hormones effect what structure the brain will take and thus gay males have female-like brains. See http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/02/050223144619.htm for instance.

Females should be given equal pay for equal work. A practical solution must exist to the situation that exists. The pay gap causes however vary by country, religion, education, intelligence and social construct. In order to come up with a complete solution all viewpoints have to be considered, even ignorant ones.

The apparent inequality aside, does that mean if a man and a woman are employed at similar jobs and the women gets paid less, does that automatically mean the woman is being paid less simply because she is female - not necessarily. Statistics do not necessarily imply a casual relationship, which is why I don't care much for statistics. Yes, an issue does exist in regards to females being paid less, but is that simply due to their appearance, maybe, but potentially they are being paid less due to not performing the job equally to what a man would perform. To really know if women are being discriminated against for legitimate reasons, i.e. ones other than simply being a woman, specifically job performance issues, you have to look at each case specifically. Woman are getting paid such % less than men for that exact job - evil men oppressing women afraid of gender equality, umm no, well maybe rarely. I don't doubt that in some cases men are discriminating against women solely for their appearance as a female, mainly talking about idiot males in society. But as a general reason among intelligent individuals for the pay disparity between the two genders in educated countries, some other reason must underline this issue.

In general functional differences exists between women and men, even of those of similar intellectual abilities, even if you disregard the issues that revolve around pregnancy and children rearing. If you take children when they are young, you will notice that each gender has quantifiable differences. Girls play will dolls and makeup and hair and cutesy things and in general are more concerned with physical appearance, ie grooming and hygiene, and socializing(gossiping and social hierarchies). Guys are more interested in sports and fighting and playing with cars and blocks and figuring out puzzles and mathematics and science and computers and care less for physical appearance and complex social behaviors. That being said some crossover exists in each gender type and both males and females can find themselves in varying places in their degree of sexual dimorphism as well in their sexual preference.

People's opinions are going to have to be changed about a lot of things. Men are still looked on as the bread winners. They are expected to ask the girl out(an act of aggression vs passivity role typically played by girls) and to provide financial support if the woman has children. In general they are expected not to appear weak, which means they are also less likely to report being beaten up or raped by a female. Certain religions have also served to oppress woman, mainly Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Less educated countries also have stronger sexual discrimination. However people are also going to need to recognize that some issues that are resulting in gender based pay gaps have biological causes and thus any solution must address that biological nature. Women are also going to have to take on traits typically considered solely masculine traits.

Women have to be raised differently from the start of their existence. Any real solution is going to have to address fetal brain development. And from there, early childhood development. The math and sciences need to be more strongly promoted and complex social behaviors and playing with dolls and excessive grooming behaviors need to be discouraged. Exercise and participation in sports starting at the age of 4 or 5 is a necessity. The taking of testosterone and other hormones and stimulation of their production via food intake, exercise or any other means needs to be taken into consideration. Early education at a young age in the math and sciences via extracurricular activities, tutoring, and competitions will also be necessary. In order to bring about any long term changes it will be necessary to do it on a large scale and over a significant time frame, via multiple generations, i.e. at least 50-100 years. It is not something that will necessarily happen overnight. Also giving men the ability to give birth could also help to lighten the load placed on females, though men will also need to be given the desire to want to raise kids via genetic alteration or medicinal means.

I am a strong believer in that behavior characteristics can show themselves via subtle clues in physical appearance/characteristics. Basically the same things that cause a person to look a certain way and shape result in certain structural and dynamic changes in the brain. So women may have to accept appearing what is generally regarded as masculine. Norms will have to be challenged. In general I have noticed some trends in educated countries in the past 100 or so years. People are getting smarter or at least they were. I'm a bit confused in regards to the effect mass entertainment and the internet have had. Also exercise and sports aren't as strongly stressed for both genders/sexes. Females are getting prettier and more imaginative and more "emo" and to a lesser degree overall more intelligent. Males are becoming more reason and mental oriented and becoming more attractive, but not necessarily in the sense of being pretty. It is quite possible with the way things seem to be headed that females could in some sense get the best of both worlds. They could become both more feminine and still achieve the gender equality that they long for. In some areas it seems gender equality has already been achieved or something very close to it. However as far as running big corporations or being elected to political office, at least for now females are going to have to embody what are historically considered masculine traits like aggression, independent thinking, bravery, emotional insensitivity, domination, being authoritative(leading/being bossy). Increasingly though, people are accepting more feminine traits for this roles(ceos, elected office), but still women are going to have to fight to gain accepted.

Edit: October 11, 2009. To be more precise as to my use of the word gender was not completely clear, I was using it in the sense of behavioral traits that have a biological basis. I wasn't equating gender with sexuality, but merely saying they have similar causes, which are hormonal in origin. Some typical gender roles are culturally based, while others are biological based. It is a difficult word to accurately define. It is all how the hormones estrogen and testosterone and I think some others effect the different parts of the brain at different stages in its development. You have the hormones, which being produced by the fetus, plus you have the hormones being provided by the environment and all these factors result in varying gradients in the traits they produce. Plus the female x chromosome is more complicated than the male y chromosome, due to y chromosome deterioration, so the x chromosome codes for a greater variety of behaviors and there is nothing stopping a female x chromosome from acquiring some of the coding that is typically associated with a male. I'd almost say it is necessary for x chromosome to at least have some latent coding for males as y chromosomes suffer erroneous mutations at a higher rate than females due to lack of inability to compare(no double y's) and thus when y chromosome becomes dysfunctional, another one would have to be reformed from a female x chromosome. Also to an extent we choose our gender roles and our sexuality. And hormones can have an effect on our gender identification and sexuality after birth as well.