Randomness thread, part two.

[a500lbgorilla]

From day 1 we take cues from the people around us on gender (as well as, well.. pretty much everything else). You are raised as a boy so you take cues from the men in your life, or that you see on TV, on the street, wherever. Their mannerisms, affectations, disposition etc mold you, inform your understanding of what it means to be male.

I stole mannerisms, affectations, disposition, etc, as I discovered them from others and made them work for myself. Culture didn't do this to me, I did it to me.

You are assimilated into "manhood" by virtue of growing up and being raised as a man by other men who were also raised the same way.

I just had a pretty good conversation with some friends based on this article.

https://medium.com/war-is-boring/seb...ar-f163804cbf6

The jist is that a lot of young men go to war to become men because our society lacks classic trials and demarcations between childhood and adulthood. I'm a man, quite frankly, because it just became about damn time I was one.

If you listen to audio recordings of people speak, you can tell, virtually every time, who is a man and a woman. This is not simply because of the register of their voice, it's because of subtle things like cadence, inflection, and intonation. Same with gait. Posture. Various affectations of the body and face.

Hormones.

These are things we absorb from an early age. Did you read my whole post? Fa'afafines are an excellent example of this. They are raised as girls and in turn come off virtually the exact same as females in the affectations I mentioned above. Watch the videos.

Like with those falafel ladyboys. Parents try to raise their kids that way, no one cares if you are that way, the culture wants to assimilate people who behave that way and so it nudges them from behind and opens the way forward. As far as any aspect of my identity is concerned, I never experienced any influence from others that I didn't have a personal hand in accepting (edit or was innate). They just let me be as I wanted to be. The nudges and path-making was all toward being a pliant and productive member of society. Hence why I say I've never experienced the kind of cultural/societal influence that people decry.

[wufwugy]

rilla you are describing cultural influence.

[a500lbgorilla]

Fine, then my culture was a culture of commercialism as I said originally.

[aubreymcfate]

My point is not that anyone made a concerted effort to make you talk or act or think a certain way. My point is that you were raised as a boy and so you took cues from people about what being a boy means. This is not a conscious act on anyone's part. If you really think you had that much autonomous control in forming your identity as a child then I really don't know what to tell you, lol. Whether or not your parents were controlling or not is light years from the point I'm making. You don't have a personal hand in accepting what you learned about identity as a child, at age 1, 2, 3, 4, etc., when you are quite literally a sponge and learning everything you know about the world and identities from the people that surround you. No one is trying to do anything to anyone else - it simply happens.

No, not hormones. Just watch the video. They were raised as girls and taking cues on their identities like other little girls do, so they come off that way. At least address this point even if you don't agree with it. Again, watch the video and actually study the things I'm talking about. Do you see how they are hyper feminine in all respects, not like feminine gay boys or drag queens but actual women? Is that not evidence to you that the way you are raised plays a massive role in your expression of your gender identity?

You're not a unique snowflake that's escaped the intricate bonds of social conditioning and societal influence just because you had cool parents lol, sorry but you're just not. It doesn't mean you're a weak soul or that you don't have a strong individual sense of self or any of that (clearly that is not the case, you come off as very self-actualized), of course you do. But there is a lot about yourself you didn't choose. No one intentionally tried to do that to you, and everyone else has gone through it too.

[a500lbgorilla]

“You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when you're finished, you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird... So let's look at the bird and see what it's doing -- that's what counts.”

-Dick Feynman

This dude teaches so many great lessons.

[a500lbgorilla]

Have you ever met young children? You never noticed the differences between boys and girls the same age where the boys were inside their own heads and the girls were out-going?

Did culture teach those boys to be so deep inside themselves? That was me.

[aubreymcfate]

I don't know how to respond to that other than great quote.

[aubreymcfate]

Have you ever met young children? You never noticed the differences between boys and girls the same age where the boys were inside their own heads and the girls were out-going?

Did culture teach those boys to be so deep inside themselves? That was me.

Actually yes, I do believe that society influences the behavior of children in those respects too. A little girl is raised with the understanding that she is a little girl, so she takes cues from other women, how other little girls act, what's expected, etc. She sees, she responds. Parents push their children into acting certain ways that they think they should because of their gender, and children respond by fulfilling those expectations. There are always degrees to which this occurs (people are after all their own personalities with different quirks and such), and of course some parents do this more intentionally than others, but it always happens on some level.

Do I think that hormones and biology also play a role in the way children act? Of course, totally! Again, I am a nature and nurture person. To think it is all one or the other simply makes no sense to me.

And to think it's "all me" is a display of immensely naive arrogance.

[a500lbgorilla]

That first alfalfagirl is clearly a dude in face and voice.

[aubreymcfate]

That first alfalfagirl is clearly a dude in face and voice.

Watch the whole thing. Look up some other videos. Actually give it your best shot to get a full understanding of what they're like instead of eagerly trying to prove me wrong. And if you still don't see what I mean about feminine affectations then I literally have nothing else to say to you lol, I can't change your perception. It's clear as day to me.

[aubreymcfate]

The very fact alone that there exists a society with a third gender should show you that our construction of gender is not some universal or natural law, but simply that: a construct.

[a500lbgorilla]

A little girl is raised with the understanding that she is a little girl, so she takes cues from other women, how other little girls act, what's expected, etc. She sees, she responds. Parents push their children into acting certain ways that they think they should because of their gender, and children respond by fulfilling those expectations. There are always degrees to which this occurs (people are after all their own personalities with different quirks and such), and of course some parents do this more intentionally than others, but it always happens on some level.

Yes! This was my point. None of this happened to me, but it does happen to little girls. This is why I said the cultural influence thing never clicked with me.

Now on to why, I'm betting it's because societies have an obvious interest in their women and their behavior while men are regarded as a bit more free to make themselves as a failed man doesn't hurt like a failed woman.

[spoonitnow]

Boys and girls have much different behaviors before they're even born. But it's a social construct!

[aubreymcfate]

Boys and girls have much different behaviors before they're even born. But it's a social construct!

Like I said, I believe in gendered brains. And never once said it's "all" a social construct. Are you even trying? You can do better than that.

[aubreymcfate]

Yes! This was my point. None of this happened to me, but it does happen to little girls. This is why I said the cultural influence thing never clicked with me.

Now on to why, I'm betting it's because societies have an obvious interest in their women and their behavior while men are regarded as a bit more free to make themselves as a failed man doesn't hurt like a failed woman.

The way you express your gender is shaped by your observations of masculinity, and the way you were raised to understand it. It doesn't mean you're a pod person, it just means you took cues from the men in your life or on TV or wherever.

I agree with your point about the differences between how society treats men and women but that is still not relevant to the point I am making.

[aubreymcfate]

Biology is one thing, but our society and its vast weird and intricate web of interpersonal dynamics, be they gendered or race-related or age-related or what fucking ever, everything that's lead up to this point in civilization -- that exists in the outside world. Not in the womb. And it shapes us from day 1.

[a500lbgorilla]

What observations of masculinity? I can't think of any. I never looked upon a man and thought of him or what he was doing in terms of masculinity, only in terms of what he was doing and if I could do it successfully.

[aubreymcfate]

What observations of masculinity? I can't think of any. I never looked upon a man and thought of him or what he was doing in terms of masculinity, only in terms of what he was doing and if I could do it successfully.

Again, go back to the Fa'afafine. They were raised as women, and therefore have adopted mannerisms pretty much identical to any actual woman. They're sponging, not actively taking notes and learning. When you are a child your brain is plastic and very mutable and you sponge off of what you see and how you are treated. This has literally nothing to do with what you actively thought when you looked at a man. My goal here is not to make you say "Oh yeah, I remember now!" You're not going to remember. It's not that kind of thing.

[a500lbgorilla]

Does it count if I tried to pretend to go super-saiyan like Goku?

[a500lbgorilla]

Again, go back to the Fa'afafine. They were raised as women, and therefore have adopted mannerisms pretty much identical to any actual woman. They're sponging, not actively taking notes and learning. When you are a child your brain is plastic and very mutable and you sponge off of what you see and how you are treated. This has literally nothing to do with what you actively thought when you looked at a man. My goal here is not to make you say "Oh yeah, I remember now!" You're not going to remember. It's not that kind of thing.

Yeah, they were raised. I wasn't. I was left to be.

[a500lbgorilla]

aub, we already got to the point. The way you were raised wasn't the way I was raised, but you really, really, think it was. The way I acted, behaved, chose, and grew as a boy is unlike how you did as a girl.

[aubreymcfate]

Again, nothing to do with how your parents intentionally raised you -- my parents also let me be and gave me a lot of freedom. I'm not harboring any bitterness over my childhood.

Nonetheless, you grew up with the understanding that you were a boy. That was your identity and you learned about your identity through the world. You grew up around other people. You grew up in society. Not a bubble. What's so hard about this concept?

I really don't think you understand what I'm saying and I think it's because of two things: 1) you're stubbornly projecting the point you think I'm making onto me and 2) I'm doing a shit job at communicating. Bad combo.

[aubreymcfate]

Also I am not at all convinced your parents raised you in a 100% gender neutral way lol. And if you think they did I think you're lying because pretty much no one does that unless they're uber uber young liberals living in Portland or something.

[wufwugy]

social influence is not social determinism

spoon id like to see what the researchers found with regards to prenatal behavioral differences between the sexes.

[a500lbgorilla]

Also I am not at all convinced your parents raised you in a 100% gender neutral way lol. And if you think they did I think you're lying because pretty much no one does that unless they're uber uber young liberals living in Portland or something.

They knew I was a boy. I knew I was a boy. I was raised as a boy. Which is unlike being raised as a girl. I bet if I was raised as a girl, I would have a girl-tendency to want to assimilate and please, I would have a girl-tendency to look at faces and share emotions, and the world around me would want to shape me in its understanding of how girls need to be shaped.

But I was a boy, so I was largely ignored so long as I showed no obvious red flags.

Hence my original point, cultural influence nonsense doesn't click with me because it wasn't my experience. How you can think that it was a huge part of your experience (or the experience of young girls) and invisible to me and still be essentially the same thing is beyond me.

[a500lbgorilla]

Nonetheless, you grew up with the understanding that you were a [XXX]. That was your identity and you learned about your identity through the world. You grew up around other people. You grew up in society. Not a bubble. What's so hard about this concept?

[XXX] = If girl, then yes. If boy, then no.

[wufwugy]

rilla you are still describing cultural influence. you say "i knew i was a boy", yeah, you did, and what your culture calls a boy you also knew, and that's a big part of what you "knew you were".

nobody is arguing determinism. im honestly surprised you're not arguing for the role of environments.

[aubreymcfate]

I never said that you felt the need to assimilate and please and that that fact is invisible to you. I'm glad that you see girls have a different experience growing up when it comes to gender roles but that's still not relevant to the point I am making.

Again, I am talking about things like: disposition, affectations, mannerisms -- the whole nuanced gamut of gender expression. These are things you sponge off of unconsciously.

You keep talking about being ignored and not being pushed into doing things and this and that, acting as though I'm trying to convince you that you were more controlled by people in your life than you thought. But that's not what I am saying. You still sponge off of masculine influences around you and they in turn inform your expression of your identity, of your understanding of what being a man means even in just physical affectation alone (not like, oh you have to join the sports team, or something like that). And yes of course I'm sure you rejected some and incorporated others more because we're all individual entities, but my point is nonetheless you are constructed by your environment.

You really don't think we are all constructs of our environments?

Let's do a flip example of the fa'afafine. Let's imagine a girl who shows tomboyish behavior from a very early age, so her parents raise her as a boy. She will, I bet you, have the same exact eerie exactitude of male disposition and affectation.

Look, if I was making the point you think I'm making, you'd be right. But I'm not making that point.

[aubreymcfate]

And by the way, environmental construct is not at all limited to gender. Our very consciousness and perception is shaped by the technology we use. Hell, the phonetic alphabet way back when marked a major shift in our perceptive faculties.

Environment is ur daddy. Learn to love it.

[a500lbgorilla]

Again, I am talking about things like: disposition, affectations, mannerisms -- the whole nuanced gamut of gender expression. These are things you sponge off of unconsciously.

They are mine. Plucked from the world or emergent from myself. And some of them can change.

You still sponge off of masculine influences around you and they in turn inform your expression of your identity, of your understanding of what being a man means even in just physical affectation alone (not like, oh you have to join the sports team, or something like that).

What if this is not the case?

Let's do a flip example of the fa'afafine. Let's imagine a girl who shows tomboyish behavior from a very early age, so her parents raise her as a boy. She will, I bet you, have the same exact eerie exactitude of male disposition and affectation.

So what do you think it means to be raised as a boy?

[a500lbgorilla]

And by the way, environmental construct is not at all limited to gender. Our very consciousness and perception is shaped by the technology we use. Hell, the phonetic alphabet way back when marked a major shift in our perceptive faculties.

Environment is ur daddy. Learn to love it.

Not everything in the brain is as dynamic as the neocortex.

[a500lbgorilla]

rilla you are still describing cultural influence. you say "i knew i was a boy", yeah, you did, and what your culture calls a boy you also knew, and that's a big part of what you "knew you were".

nobody is arguing determinism. im honestly surprised you're not arguing for the role of environments.

Really, I never thought about it. Gender wasn't a part of my process. Whereas read what aub says about being raised a little girl. It's front and center in their lives or at least more prominent. Being a boy was like being white, it meant nothing.

[MadMojoMonkey]

Look, if I was making the point you think I'm making, you'd be right. But I'm not making that point.

Epic quote deserves respect.*




*I'm taking it as its own context, and not in the context of the present conversation and its active participants.

[a500lbgorilla]

And again, I'm not arguing for anything. I'm building on my original point. Whatever I hear when people talk about culture and societies influence, it doesn't click with me. Painfully obvious for a lot of women, never noticed it personally.

[MadMojoMonkey]

It's easy to not notice something when you are the beneficiary.

I dated a "beautiful" woman once. I mean... turn heads beautiful. I'd get compliments from random men we walk past on the sidewalk. She got treated differently. She got better service. Her perception of the world was a different thing than mine.

It's everywhere. People are treated a certain way because we as people are complicated and busy. We want a comfortable and streamlined interaction with people so we assume certain things about them based on nothing at all. Gender, clothes, beard, glasses, tone of voice... abstract nothings... and we just roll with it.

We all get treated a certain way by "the public at large" and that's based on all of our collective experiences of what works and whatever our current mood dictates.

It's certainly true that ugly people get worse service and pretty people get better service. How you are perceived as pretty or ugly is beyond me.

[a500lbgorilla]

Or maybe I need to watch less 30 rock.

[wufwugy]

Really, I never thought about it. Gender wasn't a part of my process. Whereas read what aub says about being raised a little girl. It's front and center in their lives or at least more prominent. Being a boy was like being white, it meant nothing.

even a lack of a perception about something is an influence. lots of people have similar experiences to you. lots of people have similar experiences to aubrey. the environment is always relevant, even when it appears non-influencing. it's just not deterministic.

the answer to the nature vs nurture debate is "both".

[aubreymcfate]

Fuck I just made a whole post and my piece of shit faulty internet ate it. Cannot retype the whole thing.

Anyway, Rilla.. I don't know how else to express to you that this has nothing to do with me being a girl. This goes way deeper than that, beyond sexism in our society. I'm not just speaking out of some damaging experience that I can't understand anything outside of. I never even said anything about feeling like I was forced to act a certain way because I was a girl. You projected that on to me. Do you think that I actually -feel- the effects of this myself? I don't. This is something I understand intellectually, not experientially. I don't remember any of this any more than you do.

I'm not trying to dismantle your sense of self. I also am a similarly arrogant shit and have been from day 1, thinking I was super perceptive and smart and awesome and totally owned myself.

Look at transexuals that transitioned later in life, that only started expressing themselves as a different sex later in life. An older MtF has a hard time making this shift because they were brought up male and experienced life as a male. Even if they truly believe through and through they are women inside, they still were conditioned as men. When you look at them, you can see the masculine affectations, even as they try to act more female. It's really hard to just make that sudden change when you're older after a lifetime of experiencing the world as a different gender.

eta: I'm sure some post-structuralists would have you believe that your entire sense of self, through and through, is a construct. I don't buy that.

[a500lbgorilla]

On them trannys, they blended in to the group they thought everyone would lump them into. I was just in the group everyone thought I was in. From my perch, I had no friction with society, while they do. They have to blend, I just had to be. And society didn't have a lick to say about how I was gonna be. Because we agreed.

You couldn't dismantle my sense of self if you tried.

[aubreymcfate]

Your hubris is really impressive. It's also stunting you intellectually (at least, it is in this case). Question everything, even your sense of self.

I'm going to go hit my bubbler now and move on from this conversation. But it was fun. An infuriating pleasure, as usual<3

[a500lbgorilla]

I can't roll my eyes hard enough. You clearly don't know me well enough.

[aubreymcfate]

I'm commenting on what I know well enough to comment on and nothing more. Wouldn't dream of judging any aspect of you that I didn't experience directly.

[a500lbgorilla]

You ever see that study that had little girls preferring faces over mechanical toys and boys vice versa?

edit at like a few weeks old

[wufwugy]

You ever see that study that had little girls preferring faces over mechanical toys and boys vice versa?

we went over this a while back. it's interesting, but it doesn't tell us much. it is within the realm of possibility that some small environmental effects are more powerful than the innate effects. it's also possible you're super right and men are naturally better than women at some brain things and a wealth of environmental effects won't change that. but we dont know and the study you mention isn't going to tell us.

[aubreymcfate]

No, but I'd like to see.

[a500lbgorilla]

Alright, then the one where the young boy monkeys took to trucks while the young girl monkeys took to dolls, then?

[wufwugy]

it's also possible the effect disappears one year down the road. or ten years down the road. or it's possible that when girls hit puberty, they have a bigger spike in mechanical appreciation than the spike boys may get. lots of possibilities.

[a500lbgorilla]

No, but I'd like to see.

It's somewhere buried in this thread. I'll find it. But in the mean time, I walk from there to the idea that girls are probably more vulnerable to cultural influence than boys. Hence why you know it happens and know it happens to me, while I contend it doesn't happen to me at nearly the same degree as you would like to believe.

[wufwugy]

Alright, then the one where the young boy monkeys took to trucks while the young girl monkeys took to dolls, then?

same.

mmm should jump in here, as he has been correct on everything he's said about how science works so far. it's basic science that you can't extrapolate that far at all with these sorts of studies. we're just seeing a correlation, but we're not knowing what causes the correlation or what would cause the correlation to disappear or for a different correlation to appear.

[wufwugy]

i dont think girls are more susceptible to culture than guys are. i cant name a way my mind is not influenced by my culture.

[aubreymcfate]

btw I could show you a bunch of experiments that prove the point of social conditioning. The truth lies somewhere the middle and neither you or I can say exactly where.

I still think the Fa'afafine are damning evidence that disposition/affectation can be taught (not intentionally taught like I'm going to give my daughter a class on how to act feminine, but she will naturally take after me and other women in her life, what she sees and hears on a daily basis. Or maybe she won't, which would be a less likely case but totally possible). And again, important point -- There was that one boy who was raised Fa'afafine but really wasn't one, and of course, he doesn't come off as a Fa'afafine. Proof that we aren't just born rag dolls with no sense of self that someone else stamps on to us. It's a mix of nature and nurture.

[JKDS]

You ctrl c'd and ctrl v'd the word Fa'afafine didn't you. Admit it!

[a500lbgorilla]

I can't find it. It was done by Borat's brother (Somethingsomething Baron-Cohen). He studied real young kids and their preferences and compared it to their digit ratio as a measure of testosterone exposure in the uterus and found that the babies with more masculinized brains preferred mechanical objects to faces, and vice versa for feminine brains.

It's in here

https://vimeo.com/19707588

17 mins for a study on 9 month olds.

20ish mins for the Baron-Cohen one.

[a500lbgorilla]

Plus those tranny studies, I posted earlier. Plus the studies about the gendered brain. As has been said, nature and nurture have equal pull in different ways. Trying to poke apart this knot is going to take a lot of inspiration from all over the place.

[wufwugy]

rilla gathering said inspiration

[aubreymcfate]

Some evidence is damning enough to turn the tides. Doesn't mean the tides are ever permanently fixed.

It definitely is a knot, that's for sure. What's difficult about knots like this is that you're stuck in the center of it.

[aubreymcfate]

Dude that gif is hot as fuck. She looks like she's pondering the dick she's about to jam down her throat.

[a500lbgorilla]

Other bits of inspiration from my personal experience. I remember being like 20 and talking frankly about how difficult eye contact was. I don't remember ever looking at faces as a child or even teenager. I even remember having difficulty remembering my older brother's face one day, because I never looked at it.

Maybe society didn't touch me like it did you because my flavor of autism never gave it the chance.

[wufwugy]

Maybe society didn't touch me like it did you because my flavor of autism never gave it the chance.

you're more or less this way because society. if you're not, nurture means nothing and all things are determined.

i dont mean to say "you are this way because society, more or less", but that the degree to which you are this way is affected by things that include nurture. your flavor of autism is not unaffected by reinforcement. would you be more afraid of walking through double doors if every time you did a bear attacked you? yes. im glad we can now agree that environment affects people.

[a500lbgorilla]

wuf, man, you're not going to invalidate all the shit I've come by by saying "its both nature and nurture". Environment is other factors like diet, sunlight, attention, affection, stability, peace, etc etc etc. You're trying to boil an incredible problem down to one that can be solved by saying, "I don't see any nurture, so it's wrong."

[aubreymcfate]

Clearly you have an experience that is distinctly different than the average person. Nonetheless, I still don't believe that you grew in some kind of autistic bubble separated entirely from your environment. I do believe that your experience is by no means average or common, and that your "flavor of autism" had a definite effect on your dynamic with the surrounding environment.

"No environment is perceptible, simply because it saturates the whole field of attention."

"Environments are not just containers, but are processes that change the content totally."

- my main squeeze, Marshall McLuhan

[a500lbgorilla]

I have legs with their shape and structure because of nature and nurture. One built and maintains them, the other determines how they're used, which informs the first on how to maintain, over and over. But there's still a lot to learn about legs based on their nature.

The nature of gender is an important thing worth trying to isolate and understand and then re-assimilate and for some reason you refuse the exercise.

[a500lbgorilla]

Clearly you have an experience that is distinctly different than the average person. Nonetheless, I still don't believe that you grew in some kind of autistic bubble separated entirely from your environment. I do believe that your experience is by no means average or common, and that your "flavor of autism" had a definite effect on your dynamic with the surrounding environment.

"No environment is perceptible, simply because it saturates the whole field of attention."

"Environments are not just containers, but are processes that change the content totally."

- my main squeeze, Marshall McLuhan

What you believe doesn't change the truth.

PS now who's refusing to question everything?

[spoonitnow]

What you believe doesn't change the truth.

PS now who's refusing to question everything?

+1

[aubreymcfate]

What is the truth? That nature plays a role?

I've literally been saying nature plays a role this whole time.

If I meet you and you turn out to be the most asexual androgynous genderless being on the planet, just completely alien and different than anything I've ever seen any human be like on planet Earth, I will concede.

[wufwugy]

wuf, man, you're not going to invalidate all the shit I've come by by saying "its both nature and nurture". Environment is other factors like diet, sunlight, attention, affection, stability, peace, etc etc etc. You're trying to boil an incredible problem down to one that can be solved by saying, "I don't see any nurture, so it's wrong."

i see it as you taking a hard stance and me pulling on the reins. what you're saying means that some of the complexities of mind and behavior are pure nature. there isn't any evidence for that position.

[aubreymcfate]

What you believe doesn't change the truth.

PS now who's refusing to question everything?

Questioning everything -//- agreeing with everything you say.

I didn't know you were on the spectrum and I agreed that that definitely has a marked impact on your experience. It also makes me understand your argument this whole time a little better.

Nonetheless, questioning everything doesn't mean losing your ability to discern. And so far you have not proven to me that you grew up in a bubble unaffected by environment.

[a500lbgorilla]

i see it as you taking a hard stance and me pulling on the reins. what you're saying means that some of the complexities of mind and behavior are pure nature. there isn't any evidence for that position.

You can't keep saying things like this. Just because you're unaware of the evidence doesn't mean there isn't any.

[a500lbgorilla]

Questioning everything -//- agreeing with everything you say.

I didn't know you were on the spectrum and I agreed that that definitely has a marked impact on your experience. It also makes me understand your argument this whole time a little better.

Nonetheless, questioning everything doesn't mean losing your ability to discern. And so far you have not proven to me that you grew up in a bubble unaffected by environment.

I'm not on the spectrum, aubrey.

[aubreymcfate]

nevermind

[a500lbgorilla]

Anyways, my ass needs to go to sleep.

[wufwugy]

What is the truth? That nature plays a role?

I've literally been saying nature plays a role this whole time.

If I meet you and you turn out to be the most asexual androgynous genderless being on the planet, just completely alien and different than anything I've ever seen any human be like on planet Earth, I will concede.

it would still be affected by the environment. and we would not be able to say that somebody like this is genetically determined to be like this. nobody can pinpoint a cause, genetic or environmental.

[aubreymcfate]

it would still be affected by the environment. and we would not be able to say that somebody like this is genetically determined to be like this. nobody can pinpoint a cause, genetic or environmental.

good point

[wufwugy]

You can't keep saying things like this. Just because you're unaware of the evidence doesn't mean there isn't any.

then show evidence. where are the studies that show gender causes boys to look at trucks and girls to look at dolls? we may have studies to show that gender correlates with boys looking at trucks and girls at dolls, but no causes.

[a500lbgorilla]

then show evidence. where are the studies that show gender causes boys to look at trucks and girls to look at dolls? we may have studies to show that gender correlates with boys looking at trucks and girls at dolls, but no causes.

1. 9 month olds preferring gender-appropriate toys.
2. 1 day old girls gaze lingering on faces and boys on mechanical objects (both in that video I linked for aub)
3. https://www.newscientist.com/article...fer-boys-toys/ The monkeys seem to be the same
4. http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/dev/15/3/339/ Before children can identify the gender of a toy, they prefer gender-appropriate toys.
5. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science...18506X08000949 Sex differences in rhesus monkeys parallel children in toy preference.
6. http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF01544131 No matter how they grouped the kids, toy preferences remained unchanged, though teachers reported all-girls being more socially sensitive and all-boys more rambunctious.

Literally like 5 minutes of googling to find these. But as we know, there's really no evidence to suggest that certain aspects of gender-appropriate behavior have a basis outside of the influence of culture and society.