Comments on: ‘Progress’=widening gender gap?

By: Yuri

Yuri — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 18:55:18 +0000

If the roll is fixed you don’t have much space for your personality to vary, even if it is outstanding. About our innate personalities – if we take physical attributes as a comparison to personality – it can be altered and suppressed by local traditions but not completely ‘re-written’. The Burmese longnecks Karreni tribe are a great example of that. On one hand all female necks made long by forcing brutal tradition. On the other hand the basic attributes are still personal – the neck muscles strength, the pigment of the neck skin and eventually the length itself varies also, but all those are way less obvious under the tradition.
My conclusion remains: in a free and wealthy society it is much easier making your personality stand out. (I hope I was answering the question you asked lol)

By: bexband

bexband — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 04:35:18 +0000

Thanks for your comment! I suppose the ‘counter-intuition’ comes from the idea that ‘we’ (from ‘more advanced’ societies) look upon ‘them’ as generally being more repressive towards women, and just having more fixed roles for men and women. Interesting to think though, that despite fixed roles, personality itself may not vary so much between genders. It makes me question, though, what personality actually is–you say that it takes time and money to have it. If that’s so, can it really be something innate to us?

By: MeLight

MeLight — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 20:21:34 +0000

Personality gap widens? Ha. All I got from this article (I actually went to the NYT site and from there to Dr. Schmitt’s) is that the differences between men and women are easier to witness with society progressing further. What’s so counter intuitive about that? In what they call a ‘traditional ‘ society both genders are simply to busy working to be showing any strong differences in interests and perceptions. But when you have the time and the economical basis you can really afford being who you are. Why wasn’t Dr. Schmitt surprised by the fact that both female and male genitalia do not grow/shrink towards an average sex organ? It would only be intuitive to conclude that all gaps should narrow