this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2023
1122 points (97.9% liked)
Asklemmy
43917 readers
1559 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
Search asklemmy π
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- !lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
As long as high physical strength is not required, I strongly agree. These days the need for that is becoming less and less unless you want to be a marine.
You're conflating physical strength with gender, but when it comes to who can do the work, only one of those is relevant.
I think we're on the same page, I'm just pointing out that the statement "women can do any work a man can, as long as high physical strength is not required" is just as inaccurate as saying "all men can do work that requires high physical strength". As a man, I'll be the first to say there are a huge number of women who are more physically capable than me. Turns out, a task that requires high physical strength doesn't need a man, it needs a person with high physical strength.
I don't think you were replying to me, but objectively the average man, of similar size, is going to be stronger than me, in the brute force, or explosive force aspect. It's just an unfortunate fact of human genetics. Men typically have denser bones, ligaments, and tendons, muscle fiber, more muscle mass, and testosterone to help build and maintain all of it. Women are said to be something like 60% as strong as a man on average. HOWEVER, women typically have better stamina, longevity, are better at enduring trauma, etc.
I am by no means frail or weak, and am probably stronger than a lot, but I will never be as strong, or as lean as a man with equal work put toward it.
There is no disagreement that, in the current day and age of the human species, men are biologically predisposed to be more physically capable on average. There is no contention about that.
The point I am making is that two bodies with similar bone density, muscle mass, testosterone, etc. are going to be physically capable of the same thing, regardless of their genders. The gender is a red herring, what matters is the capability of doing the work.
As I told the other commenter,
Lol. Are we? Maybe it's just my small world but I don't see that at all. I encounter sexism CONSTANTLY. Hell, scroll down to the bottom of the comments on my main reply, it's right there for everyone to see.
But gender does matter because one gender is predisposed to be bigger, stronger, have more testosterone, and has the ability to be stronger/build muscle more easily. I'd love to agree with you, that in a perfect world, gender didn't matter in brute strength, but it does. All things are not equal out of the box.
Now, as I have clearly proven, brute strength isn't everything, in fact most of the time it only means so much, but it's still there regardless. I think a more accurate statement would be something like "strength only gets you so far, capability is more important"
Lol I meant it more in a "you're smart enough to stop leaving the milk out of the fridge, child!" kind of way. I agree sexism is still rampant, and I guess I'm implicitly saying people in the past are somehow excused because they weren't as intelligent, but what I'm intending to saying is that we're smart enough now, so we have no excuse.
I see this as a heuristic at best, and an excuse for sexism at worst. In my example above I'm specifically referring to two people who are equally physically capable of doing a task by definition. The man shouldn't be given preference simply because he's a man, and men happen to be stronger on average. That's not relevant when picking someone who can do the job.
Sure but you are probably aware that all boys being born have higher strength than females, just because of biology. Then of course in life as we grow, some men don't maintain that strength and lose it. But I think it's still accurate to think that men in general are stronger than women, even if there are exceptions.
Otherwise we are just ignoring a fact of how our bodies are different.
But due to how natural selection works, that's a self-fulfilling argument. Men are biologically stronger specifically because people have made the argument you're making for hundreds of thousands of years, thereby selecting for the pattern you're claiming exists.
When you're looking for someone to do a task, you aren't looking for a biological explanation, you aren't looking for a man, you're looking for someone who can do the task.
I don't think people have selected for that. It was necessary in the past to be strong to survive and provide for your family. So those genes were selected because those people could survive long enough to have kids. If you were too weak, you didn't make it.
I'm not saying it was deliberate (i.e. artificial) selection, the selection was natural. I'm just saying, think on it more.
But you're saying those genes weren't required by females for some reason? Why? Honestly the only answer is: because it just happened to work out that way. The evolutionary coin could have just as easily flipped the other way and resulted in women being biologically predisposed to be stronger. We see this in many animal species, in fact.
We have a history of giving jobs to men because we've conflated their gender with other capabilities, not because they actually are the most capable. But my point is, we're smart enough as a species to not do that anymore.
Of course, coin could have flipped the other way. Its not like men did anything to get higher strength. Just like woman didn't do anything to be able to have children.
I think we should celebrate that we are different. Sometimes it feels like people thinks higher strength means "better gender". It doesn't mean that at all. :)
I love that woman are different from me. I love everything about it. And my partner loves that im a man. I think we should just celebrate that we have two genders that are different in many nice ways.
As for job history, tall men are paid more than women, at least where I live.
But people are different. It's not a homogenization to treat each person as an individual, exactly the opposite. Just as the coin could have flipped the other way, the coin could have been a 1 sided, or an N sided. If someone identifies strongly with their gender, then that's great, celebrate who they are as part of their gender. But other people want nothing to do with the social associations people make between them and their gender, often because they don't apply. Gender norms are great for people who identify with those norms, but they're a prison for people who don't.
We do have biological patterns, but they're not nearly as clean-cut as Leave it To Beaver, or a high school text book might paint them to be. In some cases, there are very real, very measurable biological patterns that society refuses to accept as real, instead insisting that every human falls into a simple "male" or "female" bucket that they can be defined by. That simply doesn't reflect reality.
I know it may feel like I'm going on a tangent, but it is relevant. Humans are far more interesting and different than just "men and women are different", and we should celebrate that.
I can absolutely see your point about not fitting in to a gender role. I think many people in technology felt something similar growing up, way before computers were popular. They were considered geeky and people who used them were strange and a bit weird. Absolutely not popular.
It hurts to be treated that way, because you just want to be yourself. And I understand that feeling very much myself. It's the same when you are ugly by the way. Life is completely different when you are ugly compared to when you are beautiful. It's just a different world because every single person will treat you differently. But sorry, that's me going on a tangent...
It makes sense that when you feel like that, you want people to stop treating other people like that.
Gee, Mr. Manager, that's odd, I lift and carry my husband in and out of his wheelchair everyday because he's a quad and was a floppy baby who's never walked, but apparently "all boys being born have higher strength than females just because of biology."
You're sure it's ALL boys? You're absolutely sure that strength between two individuals is dependent upon their sex? We're the same age and height. I weigh more because he has no muscles and I do. And yet, SOMEHOW, I'm a woman.
Gee, ladies , why are we NOT surprised at that "boys"/"females" word choice in Mr. Manager's assertion?
I guess it didn't take long for the incels to follow the crowd over from Reddit.
I'm sure there are exceptions like in your case. But in general yes, boys are born physically stronger. Your insults won't change those facts. But you know, you can have your own beliefs. That's the great thing about life. If you want to believe that females are physically stronger, or that there is no difference between men and females physical strength, you can do that.
You are acting quite immature with your insults here. If you can't even talk about these things without getting upset, maybe you are not completely objective here. Give it some thought.
Oh you're also one of the ones who likes to pretend he's being strictly logical and doesn't realize how his prejudices and emotional insecurities show through in his posts. I'm sorry you're threatened by the fact that your masculinity doesn't guarantee you greater strength than most women. If you want to be physically strong you're going to have to get off the couch and exercise those muscles and ligaments. And if you want your opinions to be respected, you need to exercise respect for facts, even when it's women telling them to you. You speak like someone whose notions of "biology" haven't changed since they were 5 years old. There's a whole lot of "Mom said I can't hit girls but I really wish I could" leaking out all over the place in your comments. I'm sorry you're so emotionally stunted and I sincerely wish growth for you.
I'm sorry but you are not acting emotionally stable here. There are many things you are saying that obviously have been painful experiences in your life, but they have made you wrongfully interpret things people are saying. You have no idea who I am but your comments show you are visualizing someone who have hurt you before I guess.
Anyway let's move on in other posts. Have a good day.
Eh, it's still required to work on cars/engines. Thankfully we work on smaller vehicles (Mazda/Nissan mostly) and not some big ass diesel stuff.
I can "engineer" my way out of most situations, and have been very successful accomplishing things that many men can't, because they can't "think outside the box". What I mean by that is that I have to approach things differently. I have to understand things more completely sometimes, so I can work my way around the lack of brute force, where many men can just push/lift/torque something without thought, and they get complacent. That allows me to see different solutions to things that may stump others.
That said, I have found instances where I am just not physically big, or strong enough to do something, and need help.
I also have the benefit of being much smaller, so I can get into places a lot of men can't. It has its benefits and drawbacks.
I believe you, and I have many examples from my own life where girls are outsmarting guys because they are forced to use their brains. Guys sometimes doesn't because we can just use strength instead, like you said.
And being smaller and more agile is a huge plus in most situations as well.
Pretty much agree 100%.
Man I'm so glad that zoomers understand the difference between sex and gender, and are doing away with this, "boys do this, and girls do that!" bullshit.
Like, oh yeah, do you know a lot of girls who are, in your mind, uncharacteristically smart? That right? That's not condescending in any way.
I don't know anyone who would say "uncharacteristically smart" like that. Sounds very offensive.
I agree. Maybe you shouldn't imply it then.
I didn't. Maybe you shouldn't read things that aren't there.
Maybe you're just oblivious, but that's exactly what you implied. That "girls" "outsmarting boys" is something novel to you.
I'm amazed you are reading that into what I said. Seems more likely you want to pick a fight with someone. But I have no interest in that, so let's just stop here. :)
I think it's just more accurate to say that "there are things that only certain people with high physical strength can do." There's no reason to gender it.
I disagree actually, but no offense to you personally. I think it's better to be specific and clear and say what we mean. It becomes ridiculous to say "some people" when we mean men most of the time.
Imagine trying to explain to a kid... He asks "are men stronger than females". You are supposed to say "no, some people are stronger than others" and leave it at that? The poor kid is growing up to be an idiot then, not knowing basic biology. Maybe I'm not understanding you correctly.
Fyi, just because you took a biology course 15 years ago, doesn't mean you have a firm grasp on the modern understanding of the subject. Sex and gender are two different things.
We can agree on that too. Nice.