Gender differences are fun and sexy, indeed!

boy_girl_courtesy of raymond poort

Image courtesy of Raymon Poort

The most interesting and lively conversations I had about gender stereotypes and gender differences are definetly the ones with men and women whose way of thinking was practically opposite to mine. I am re-posting a comment to one of my reader here as my conversation with this reader has reminded me of all my past assumptions and believes about gender and it is somewhat amusing for me to see how my position regarding these issues has changed so drastically throughout the years.

The last twenty years of neuro-scientific research have highly disproved that there is actually much difference between male and female in term of how our brains are wired from birth. Lise Eliot (Pink Brain, Blue Brain) made a powerful example of this in her comparison of graphs (see page 12) regarding psychological /attitudinal gender differences compared to physical gender difference such height. While the difference in height is significant and cannot be denied, the difference in psychological and attitudinal characteristics are remarkably minimal and their distribution tend to overlap at all points of the curves: this means you can probably predict with reasonable degree of confidence on the basis on gender that a man will be taller than a woman, but in terms of psychological and attitudinal characteristics we cannot predict with confidence any of them on the basis of gender.


But what has been discovered by neuro-scientists in hundred and hundred of studies is something even more significant: it’s called ‘neuro-plasticity’. It means that while in previous years scientists thought that our brain characteristic (or ‘wiring’) was somehow fixed, now it is evident that the brain (its neurons and all its nervous pathways and connections, so-called ‘wiring’) develops and grows in response to the enviroinment, with the creation of new neurons and new pathways depending on the activities that we do, our thoughts, emotions, habits in response to our enviroinment. This means that our education, the messages we get from parents and society, the toys we play with and all other enviroinmental influences will mold and shape our brain from the day we born. This is why the brain differences between the two sexes are incredibly minimal at birth, to become something noticeable once adulthood is reached.


The trouble is GENDER DIFFERENCES ARE SEXY (to borrow again from Lise Eliot). How boring would be to think that we are not this explosive encounter and exciting clash of ‘Mars and Venus’? Our brain is naturally inclined to form categories and opposites. We love dichotomies and contrasts. Media and marketing thrive on this desire of men and women to be different, like being from different planets (see the incredible success of the 1992′s book “Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus” of John Gray – which conclusions are much more based on what people experience, feel and see in their relatioships and every day life, rather than on solid scientific evidences). After all, the marketing of any product is based on something called ‘segmentation’… dividing a big mass of consumers into well defined categories and niches of people with similar characteristics (in this sense, marketers LOVE stereotypes!). To be honest I was one of the most firmly convinced individual about gender differences until just a few years ago (funnily enough). Coming from Italy, I’ve been brought up in a society and culture with strong patriarchal values, further reinforced by a even stronger religious values based on Catholicism. Naturally then, I’ve always been tempted to believe in BIG, undeniable, innate differences between men and women’s psychology: afterall, this was my direct experience of relatioships with most boys and men in my life! (How can someone ever deny such an obvious difference I thought? How can someone deny my own experience of things?)

But when I DID stop and look at the real scientific evidence out there, I had to question my believes and I gradually started to appreciate the differences between men and women (/boys and girls) as something which is acquired and grow through many years of “molding” our brain and behaviour under social and enviroinmental expectations. Reflecting on how we become like we are is a fascinating phenomenon and I know these discoveries are positive in terms of making girls and boys (the women and men of tomorrow) much more close and similar than what has been in the past.

THIS WILL BRING MORE UNDERSTANDING AND LESS POLARISATION. It will also bring more freedom for each individual to grow their feminine and masculine sides at their own leisure (all the more so as scientist have also proved that individuals with a good mix of masculine and feminine attributes/attitudes – so-called androgynous – are generally advantaged in both their social and emotional life). But this does not mean that the ‘sexiness of difference’ will disappear in our relationships (oh no! we don’t want that!), because that ‘sexy tension’ will always exist: it is between our individual characteristics, feminine or masculines or a mix of them. So that a masculine type (either men or woman) will be always attracted by a feminine type (either man or woman) and a feminine type will be always attracted by a masculine type: so that, in truth, to beat gender stereotypes is only to leave every boy and girl (alas every man and woman) free to follow their natural inclinations towards femininity/masculinity and express their individuality without ‘gender molding’ constantly applied to them. 


I am also convinced that the emphasis should not be so much on censorship, or an array of strict regulations and limitations applied to businesses, marketing and media productions (with exceptions of course, as I would gladly see Photoshop manipulations disappear from advertising practice) : after all, the profit interests at the basis of the system would make very unlikely a drastic change of direction, at least in the immediate future. I propose that the emphasis should be much more on making young girls and boys more critical towards media and marketing messages: by changing the way our boys and girls react to the environment we will allow them to be sophisticated and independent consumers, who will be able to shape the economic and ideological fabric of tomorrow ‘s world through their informed demand or rejection for certain products /media /marketing practices, their patterns of consumption. In other words, by educating children on concepts such as ‘gender stereotypes’, ‘objectification’, ‘sexism’ or ‘sexualisation’ we will be able to eventually affect the system from the inside out.

Additional reading:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2273972/Men-Mars-Women-Venus-Actually-planet.html

The sexualisation debate: innocence versus sexual agency

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There is no question that the pervasiveness of the media affects us all—regardless of age, race, and privilege—but the question of how much it impacts the developing brain of a child—particularly when it comes to their emotional and sexual development—and what the long-term consequences of this might be, is such a diverse and complex area of study that definitive conclusions have yet to be drawn. Millions of children are being subjected to marketing-driven media every day, much of it containing sexual overtones, whilst we look on with no real knowledge of how this will affect them ten, twenty, or thirty years down the road. Are we affecting our children’s self-esteem and their ability to be healthily intimate one day, merely for the sake of profit?

Several countries now ban advertising to children altogether in an effort to control the media; Sweden, Norway, Greece, and the Canadian province of Quebec have all instituted a ban on advertising to children under twelve in any way, shape or form, and a rising chorus of voices in the UK is calling for a similar ban. A recent petition letter (leaveourkidsalone.org), which was circulated by Jonathan Kent, writer and broadcaster, and Rupert Read, reader in philosophy at the University of East Anglia and chairman of Green House think tank —and subsequently signed by more than 50 authors, journalists, renowned academics, and leading childcare experts— implicates marketing to youngsters in a host of national ills, such as high rates of teenage pregnancy and underage drinking. Among other things, the aggressively sexual subtext in advertisements is seen as a powerful and insidious encouragement to engage in destructive and risky behaviours—an alluring voice that infiltrates the media to make partying and having sex seem “cool” to innocent young minds.

The letter claims that such marketing is “Designed to manipulate adult emotions and desires onto children as young as two or three”, a strong nod to the adult themes, such as sexuality, that are present in many advertisements. The letter also claims that marketing to youth, on the whole, makes them “harder to control” by turning them into little adults who demand what they want, when they want it, and aren’t afraid to express themselves verbally, physically, or sexually.

On the other hand, critics depict this move as a moral panic and argue that the commercial interests behind broadcasting aimed at children would make problematic, if not entirely unfeasible, a total ban on advertising to kids: a measure which would undoubtedly shake the whole foundations of children programming. One can easily imagine how the main stakeholders holding strong financial interests on the outcome of this debate – broadcasters and children products industries – are lobbying to make their voices heard.

Like in any important socio-economic issue there is always a political side to it. The issue of KGOY (acronym used for “kids growing older younger”) is often attributed to the increasingly strong influence of media on children’s mind, but I agree with Jackson (2006:251) that this line of thinking is not necessarily helpful to young people as they are based on notions of childhood as innocent and powerless, rather than acknowledging or seeking to increase children’s abilities to understand their world (for example, by enhancing their critical skills through media literacy interventions). Critical observers have questioned whether these experts truly seek to restore children’s agency and protect their ‘innocence’, or whether they seek to limit their free will and access to media in an effort to control social problems that would be better addressed by the government, for example by providing more useful and thorough social welfare programs (all of which are presently facing a decline in the UK).

Said need for critical examination is especially evident when one considers that in Canadian provinces like Ontario, where advertising to children under twelve is perfectly legal (and the media is, overall, little different to what it is in the UK), the rates of issues supposedly tied to early sexualisation—such as teenage pregnancy—remain relatively low (as do abortion rates, despite Canada’s notable lack of restrictions on abortion). And yet, across the border in the United States, where much of Ontario’s consumed media originates from, issues like teenage pregnancy are much more prevalent. When one weighs this information, the clear link between the media, early exposure to sexual content, and the “too much, too soon”social ills suggested by the team of English experts grows more tremulous.

This does not mean, however, that concern about the impacts of marketing and the media on children’s developing sexuality is mere moral panic, and nothing more. Statistics, at the end of the day, tell us little about the actual people behind them, and there is no denying that across the western world, overt sexuality is being displayed by young people—particularly young women—more often, more blatantly, and earlier on that at any other time over the past century (and perhaps much longer).

The issue of whether or not these young women have knowledge about and access to birth control (and the right socio-economic reasons to use it) tells us nothing of the emotional consequences they may be suffering as a result of possibly premature sexualisation and self-objectification. How do they feel about themselves? Is their body image suffering under the pressure of increasingly unrealistic beauty standards portrayed in the media and in the effort to be sexually appealing? Are young girls too willing to be intimate with any man that desires them, having been taught that they are simply objects for this desire? Are they able to be properly intimate with young men who have also been raised in today’s culture? Or, conversely, are young women finally being taught that female sexuality is not a ‘sin’, a dirty secret, but rather something to be reclaimed and expressed while also striving towards a successful career? Is ‘girls power’, as a feminist-inspired discourse absorbed by popular culture and challenging the idealisation of girlhood in our culture as repository of purity (based on the rhetoric of girls’ vulnerability and need for protection), leading to increased girls’ self-determination and agency?

In short, are we creating something revolutionary—acceptance of the sexual agency of young women —or are we setting girls up to be passive targets of exploitation, while pushing young men to aggressively exploit?

These are the main questions of the “pleasure vs danger” debate, which I will address in my next blog post. So far, I have tried to adopt a sitting-on-the-fence stance in the attempt to present more objectively the different sides of the argument. In a third article I will also be keen to clarify my own position on these issues. In the meantime, I am asking my readers to chime in and let me know their own perspective on things. 😉

 

Main References
1. Jackson, Carolyn (2006). "Wild" girls? An exploration of "ladette" cultures in secondary schools, Gender and Education, Vol.18 (4): 339-360
2. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/9984366/Ban-advertising-aimed-at-primary-school-children.html
3. http://www.economist.com/node/4649
4. Currie D, Kelly D M, Pomerantz S (2009) Girl Power': Girls Reinventing Girlhood. Peter Lang Publ.