Overall I liked this podcast (listening to it for the first time) and how men and women do in fact have certain roles! They are more inclined to certain roles.
However I do also think that in some places, racism and sexism is definitely alive, and having specific scholarships for people, ie women or a black student who grew up homeless, who had to overcome hardships, especially circumstances outside of their control, doesn't take away from men. It helps give people a leg up who otherwise wouldn't be able to even come close to affording for example college. And most of the ones I've seen are all merit-based.
Also as a religious mom, so many people have misunderstandings of what Sharia law actually is. And I think you could gain more knowledge instead of just tossing it around so flippantly.
Once again, I did a lot of nodding along and occasionally wanted to say “but…”. Susan’s comments addressed so much of my thinking on this.
In some ways. I think it’s much simpler than this discussion would signal. Basically, we should not push stereotypes, but can acknowledge their existence. We should allow for the variations, without necessarily eliminating all distinctions we as a society provide for males and females.
Notably, I also might not like Brad Pitt in a dress, mainly because it probably wasn’t aesthetically pleasing. When a man wants to dress differently, he shouldn’t be approximating a woman’s clothes. Scottish men wore kilts quite masculinely and Billy Porter dresses more on the feminine side, but taking his male body into account. Men in dresses designed for Women’s bodies generally won’t look great!
However, this is distinguishable from a man with a beard and penis and full-on breasts. This is either a medical condition deserving of sympathy but would be unattractive in the way illness is less attractive than good health or, more likely, a choice to use chemicals to create something never seen in nature and contrary to anything that is naturally attractive about a man or a woman. (Sure, someone can love another person and find them attractive despite their heath issues or choices, but, particularly when the condition is a capricious choice, it is difficult not to find it jarring - especially in a stranger.). I think we need to be careful to obviously distinguish between bucking stereotypes for fashion and chemically and/or surgically altering bodies to approximate the features of the opposite sex!
On the therapy discussion, I agree with all of it. We are mis-using diagnoses to either explain or excuse our behaviors and our difficulties. In short, life is hard and most of us can get through it without extra help! Blind people need help or accommodations. People in wheelchairs need help or accommodations. Schizophrenics need help or accommodations. Most of us just have to push through our challenges and we won’t all do exactly as well as each other in each task - but that’s okay. Or at least it used to be okay. Now any student not getting all A’s on tests is a serious problem. And being shy is no longer a characteristic. It’s now a disability called social anxiety. (Okay, now I sound like a curmudgeon.)
As I listened to this podcast, I began to wonder, once again, whether we are starting in on a period of over-correction, as a reaction to an over-correction that wrongly assigned wholesale, fixed oppressor-oppressed characteristics to demographic categories. I thought Dr. Hartz did an excellent job describing what has happened in therapy out of this simplistic set of characterizations, and I found it illuminating.
The discussion of male and female characteristics and how they play out in the world is perhaps more complicated than the interview had time to address. To explain what I mean, let’s take a couple examples pertaining to women artists. In the past, women were not allowed to paint nudes (if they were allowed in studios at all). Indeed, there was a time when women were not allowed to buy their own art supplies. As women were not allowed to paint nudes, they were almost entirely consigned to depicting lower-rated subject matter, such as still-life and landscape.
As art historian Nicola Moorby described the hierarchy that existed in the past: "Following on from principles entrenched within Western art since the Renaissance, genres were assigned a notional ranking based upon their perceived cultural value. Within this system, the mostly highly thought-of fields were those believed to require the greatest imaginative effort on the part of the artist (generally those centred around dramatic depiction of the human figure). Thus, in the top spot, history painting —themes drawn from mythology, history or literature; secondly, portraiture; and thirdly, genre pictures (narrative scenes of everyday life). Real-life subject matter such as real-world landscapes, animals and still-life motifs was considered less cerebral and therefore rated lower."
While then is not now, and much progress has been made, obstacles to recognition like these take a long time to correct for, and the problem is not trivial. All this is to say, we must be careful when citing numbers of male and female artists as evidence of relative talent or worth.
Now, I want to stress that this does NOT mean that the oppressor-oppressed model is valid. It is emphatically not. Dr. Hartz demonstrates lucidly many ways in which this simplistic categorization is damaging to us all as individuals and to society as a whole. I just want to caution that we remain attentive to historical information, assiduously gathered over time, that demonstrates “great men” are often made, not born, and the greatness of women is often obscured.
Our challenge, as individuals and as a society, is to find ways to discuss, assess, and address the problems illuminated so well in this interview that does not swing from action to reaction, but rather is nuanced and well-informed.
As always here at Transmuted, you and your guest give us a lot to think about. Thank you.
And as always, your thoughtful comments give me a lot to think about! I did wonder whether art was a good example to use, even though I wasn’t attuned to the historical context you point out, because artistic mastery is both subjective and not tied to any obvious sex advantage, the way sports are. But I thought Andrew was brave to then veer into jobs like CEO. I expected pushback on that, but I was prepared to defend him based on what I believe has been shown regarding risk tolerance and other sex-based cognitive differences, none of which make women dumb or ‘worse.’ If the phrase ‘differently abled’ hadn’t been ruined, it would be very useful here!
And one more thing about that descriptor ‘differently abled’: my dad taught me to play tennis, and we both loved the game. When we watched it on TV, he would always say the women’s singles was far more interesting to watch than the men’s because the ball would go over the net so many more times for each point, and the players would be all over the court— I had to agree! I’d also rather watch women’s gymnastics than men’s (though both are amazing). Andrew’s point about men being obviously better tennis players is no less true for all that, in the sense that a mixed sex match would be a rout for the woman every time. Still, our differences make us different, not categorically better or worse.
Love both your responses, which raise further interesting questions about any value judgment we might make. I have had several female and at least two male “top” bosses; one of the women was head of a mayoral office, another an actual CEO; one male and one female were heads of their agencies. They were all over the lot in terms of personality and effectiveness. The head of agency male was the least assertive of the lot; the other male, head of our statewide union staff, had huge emotional intelligence and inspired us all. I also had one second in command of agency male boss who was so uber alpha he did nothing but piss everyone off. So I think that the idea that one sex is better than another at running the show is a lot of nonsense—and I also disagree that males are “obviously better” tennis players. Depends on what we mean by “better,” if you know what I mean😎.
I really appreciate the comments, and I’m genuinely sorry if anything I wrote sounded like I was saying women are inferior—that’s not what I believe at all. I think women have many traits that are stronger than men’s on average. What I was trying to say is that if we acknowledge that men and women are different, we should also expect each group to have different average strengths and weaknesses. That means there will be at least some roles where men perform better on average (for example, maybe in science, sports, the military, certain types of leadership, or being movie directors—for whatever combination of reasons), just as there are many areas where women will, on average, perform better than men. This doesn’t mean women can’t succeed or be outstanding in any of those “male-leaning” roles; it’s just a statement about averages, not about limits on individuals. And perhaps many areas have a male-lean for artificial reasons or due to various biases.
Still, I worry that if we can’t acknowledge men having *any* strengths on average, masculinity ends up thought of as a bundle of purely negative traits, with no value. This will cause problems for men and boys. But if we articulate what masculine strengths might be, it will likely be very controversial because we aren't used to talking about male strengths. It's a very challenging topic to discuss constructively.
Thanks for weighing in. It's an interesting discussion to have. To your statement: "if we acknowledge that men and women are different, we should also expect each group to have different average strengths and weaknesses," what I want to stress is, this depends entirely on what we are talking about, and what's key is not to slide right down the omnipresent slippery slope of sex stereotypes.
So, on the one hand, when it comes to "leadership roles," my view is that defining any "leadership role" as "male-leaning" is a value judgment, not a fact. We first have to ask what we want in a leader, and then judge each individual seeking to lead based on that. If we are particularly seeking assertiveness, and it turns out a male candidate shows that strength best of the available candidates, he should be hired.
But we should not ever, as potential employers, interview candidates with the idea in our head that males "on average" have an a priori advantage in this regard. We have to be mindful also, when making these judgments, that what is considered assertiveness in a male is considered aggressiveness in a female, and therefore undesirable. In an ideal world, hiring would be "blind" to male and female, as is done in many orchestras. (Just for interest: Here's a study on the impact of blind auditioning, by Claudia Goldin, a Nobel Prize winner for her work in this area, and Cecelia Rouse. https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/aer.90.4.715)
Now, on the other hand, what we can say, and do need to say, is, for example, that males and females are biologically different, and those differences can be relevant, with sport as a prime example. Male biological advantage in sport is real and on several dimensions. It is indeed fundamental to understand and recognize this in order to appreciate why the female category in sport must be protected. That is quite a different thing, however, than saying that, because males are stronger, they are "better" at a given sport. There, we are right back in value judgments land.
I very much appreciate your engagement, even as, and perhaps even especially as, I do think we disagree in at least some respects.
Overall I liked this podcast (listening to it for the first time) and how men and women do in fact have certain roles! They are more inclined to certain roles.
However I do also think that in some places, racism and sexism is definitely alive, and having specific scholarships for people, ie women or a black student who grew up homeless, who had to overcome hardships, especially circumstances outside of their control, doesn't take away from men. It helps give people a leg up who otherwise wouldn't be able to even come close to affording for example college. And most of the ones I've seen are all merit-based.
Also as a religious mom, so many people have misunderstandings of what Sharia law actually is. And I think you could gain more knowledge instead of just tossing it around so flippantly.
Once again, I did a lot of nodding along and occasionally wanted to say “but…”. Susan’s comments addressed so much of my thinking on this.
In some ways. I think it’s much simpler than this discussion would signal. Basically, we should not push stereotypes, but can acknowledge their existence. We should allow for the variations, without necessarily eliminating all distinctions we as a society provide for males and females.
Notably, I also might not like Brad Pitt in a dress, mainly because it probably wasn’t aesthetically pleasing. When a man wants to dress differently, he shouldn’t be approximating a woman’s clothes. Scottish men wore kilts quite masculinely and Billy Porter dresses more on the feminine side, but taking his male body into account. Men in dresses designed for Women’s bodies generally won’t look great!
However, this is distinguishable from a man with a beard and penis and full-on breasts. This is either a medical condition deserving of sympathy but would be unattractive in the way illness is less attractive than good health or, more likely, a choice to use chemicals to create something never seen in nature and contrary to anything that is naturally attractive about a man or a woman. (Sure, someone can love another person and find them attractive despite their heath issues or choices, but, particularly when the condition is a capricious choice, it is difficult not to find it jarring - especially in a stranger.). I think we need to be careful to obviously distinguish between bucking stereotypes for fashion and chemically and/or surgically altering bodies to approximate the features of the opposite sex!
On the therapy discussion, I agree with all of it. We are mis-using diagnoses to either explain or excuse our behaviors and our difficulties. In short, life is hard and most of us can get through it without extra help! Blind people need help or accommodations. People in wheelchairs need help or accommodations. Schizophrenics need help or accommodations. Most of us just have to push through our challenges and we won’t all do exactly as well as each other in each task - but that’s okay. Or at least it used to be okay. Now any student not getting all A’s on tests is a serious problem. And being shy is no longer a characteristic. It’s now a disability called social anxiety. (Okay, now I sound like a curmudgeon.)
No you don’t! You’re not even exaggerating. Thanks for weighing in.
As I listened to this podcast, I began to wonder, once again, whether we are starting in on a period of over-correction, as a reaction to an over-correction that wrongly assigned wholesale, fixed oppressor-oppressed characteristics to demographic categories. I thought Dr. Hartz did an excellent job describing what has happened in therapy out of this simplistic set of characterizations, and I found it illuminating.
The discussion of male and female characteristics and how they play out in the world is perhaps more complicated than the interview had time to address. To explain what I mean, let’s take a couple examples pertaining to women artists. In the past, women were not allowed to paint nudes (if they were allowed in studios at all). Indeed, there was a time when women were not allowed to buy their own art supplies. As women were not allowed to paint nudes, they were almost entirely consigned to depicting lower-rated subject matter, such as still-life and landscape.
As art historian Nicola Moorby described the hierarchy that existed in the past: "Following on from principles entrenched within Western art since the Renaissance, genres were assigned a notional ranking based upon their perceived cultural value. Within this system, the mostly highly thought-of fields were those believed to require the greatest imaginative effort on the part of the artist (generally those centred around dramatic depiction of the human figure). Thus, in the top spot, history painting —themes drawn from mythology, history or literature; secondly, portraiture; and thirdly, genre pictures (narrative scenes of everyday life). Real-life subject matter such as real-world landscapes, animals and still-life motifs was considered less cerebral and therefore rated lower."
While then is not now, and much progress has been made, obstacles to recognition like these take a long time to correct for, and the problem is not trivial. All this is to say, we must be careful when citing numbers of male and female artists as evidence of relative talent or worth.
Now, I want to stress that this does NOT mean that the oppressor-oppressed model is valid. It is emphatically not. Dr. Hartz demonstrates lucidly many ways in which this simplistic categorization is damaging to us all as individuals and to society as a whole. I just want to caution that we remain attentive to historical information, assiduously gathered over time, that demonstrates “great men” are often made, not born, and the greatness of women is often obscured.
Our challenge, as individuals and as a society, is to find ways to discuss, assess, and address the problems illuminated so well in this interview that does not swing from action to reaction, but rather is nuanced and well-informed.
As always here at Transmuted, you and your guest give us a lot to think about. Thank you.
And as always, your thoughtful comments give me a lot to think about! I did wonder whether art was a good example to use, even though I wasn’t attuned to the historical context you point out, because artistic mastery is both subjective and not tied to any obvious sex advantage, the way sports are. But I thought Andrew was brave to then veer into jobs like CEO. I expected pushback on that, but I was prepared to defend him based on what I believe has been shown regarding risk tolerance and other sex-based cognitive differences, none of which make women dumb or ‘worse.’ If the phrase ‘differently abled’ hadn’t been ruined, it would be very useful here!
And one more thing about that descriptor ‘differently abled’: my dad taught me to play tennis, and we both loved the game. When we watched it on TV, he would always say the women’s singles was far more interesting to watch than the men’s because the ball would go over the net so many more times for each point, and the players would be all over the court— I had to agree! I’d also rather watch women’s gymnastics than men’s (though both are amazing). Andrew’s point about men being obviously better tennis players is no less true for all that, in the sense that a mixed sex match would be a rout for the woman every time. Still, our differences make us different, not categorically better or worse.
Love both your responses, which raise further interesting questions about any value judgment we might make. I have had several female and at least two male “top” bosses; one of the women was head of a mayoral office, another an actual CEO; one male and one female were heads of their agencies. They were all over the lot in terms of personality and effectiveness. The head of agency male was the least assertive of the lot; the other male, head of our statewide union staff, had huge emotional intelligence and inspired us all. I also had one second in command of agency male boss who was so uber alpha he did nothing but piss everyone off. So I think that the idea that one sex is better than another at running the show is a lot of nonsense—and I also disagree that males are “obviously better” tennis players. Depends on what we mean by “better,” if you know what I mean😎.
I really appreciate the comments, and I’m genuinely sorry if anything I wrote sounded like I was saying women are inferior—that’s not what I believe at all. I think women have many traits that are stronger than men’s on average. What I was trying to say is that if we acknowledge that men and women are different, we should also expect each group to have different average strengths and weaknesses. That means there will be at least some roles where men perform better on average (for example, maybe in science, sports, the military, certain types of leadership, or being movie directors—for whatever combination of reasons), just as there are many areas where women will, on average, perform better than men. This doesn’t mean women can’t succeed or be outstanding in any of those “male-leaning” roles; it’s just a statement about averages, not about limits on individuals. And perhaps many areas have a male-lean for artificial reasons or due to various biases.
Still, I worry that if we can’t acknowledge men having *any* strengths on average, masculinity ends up thought of as a bundle of purely negative traits, with no value. This will cause problems for men and boys. But if we articulate what masculine strengths might be, it will likely be very controversial because we aren't used to talking about male strengths. It's a very challenging topic to discuss constructively.
Thanks for weighing in. It's an interesting discussion to have. To your statement: "if we acknowledge that men and women are different, we should also expect each group to have different average strengths and weaknesses," what I want to stress is, this depends entirely on what we are talking about, and what's key is not to slide right down the omnipresent slippery slope of sex stereotypes.
So, on the one hand, when it comes to "leadership roles," my view is that defining any "leadership role" as "male-leaning" is a value judgment, not a fact. We first have to ask what we want in a leader, and then judge each individual seeking to lead based on that. If we are particularly seeking assertiveness, and it turns out a male candidate shows that strength best of the available candidates, he should be hired.
But we should not ever, as potential employers, interview candidates with the idea in our head that males "on average" have an a priori advantage in this regard. We have to be mindful also, when making these judgments, that what is considered assertiveness in a male is considered aggressiveness in a female, and therefore undesirable. In an ideal world, hiring would be "blind" to male and female, as is done in many orchestras. (Just for interest: Here's a study on the impact of blind auditioning, by Claudia Goldin, a Nobel Prize winner for her work in this area, and Cecelia Rouse. https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/aer.90.4.715)
Now, on the other hand, what we can say, and do need to say, is, for example, that males and females are biologically different, and those differences can be relevant, with sport as a prime example. Male biological advantage in sport is real and on several dimensions. It is indeed fundamental to understand and recognize this in order to appreciate why the female category in sport must be protected. That is quite a different thing, however, than saying that, because males are stronger, they are "better" at a given sport. There, we are right back in value judgments land.
I very much appreciate your engagement, even as, and perhaps even especially as, I do think we disagree in at least some respects.
Thanks for having Dr. Hartz on the podcast Jenny, this was a very refreshing and informative interview.
Thank you Richard, glad you enjoyed it!