NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #3/NN_1993_3.iso/spool/alt/feminism/7507

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From: [e-mail] (Joel Hanes)
Newsgroups: alt.feminism,soc.women
Subject: Re: Inherent differences (WAS Re: Feminism is a RELIGION! (eureka!)
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Date: 21 Jan 93 20:17:15 GMT
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I'm going to address Lenore Levine's points out of order.
I don't intend to distort her position by doing so --
if I misrepresent her views, I'm sorry, and I hope she'll
call me on it.

>[e-mail] (Joel Hanes) writes:
>
>>Ethically, the right thing to do is to base
>>socialization on the differences between individuals, and to
>>provide an environment for each individual that tends to
>>increase their chance of a successful, well-integrated life.


   [e-mail] (Lenore Levine) writes:
>
>Yes, I believe in human differences. And, for that reason, I feel it
>is just as cruel to thrust humans into rigid categories, without regard
>for their *individual* differences, as to assume they are all equal.
>Specifically, I believe that education needs to be tailored, to a
>certain extent, to the individual needs of the child. It is barbarous
>not to do so.

I agree.  No, I don't think that
any child (or adult) should be treated by category; the
character of the individual should determine.

My point is that
if we truly adapt education or training suited to
individual differences, we'll find some situations where
people fall into categories -- not air-tight categories,
not categories without exceptions; but groups *will* arise
with strongly skewed makeup.  All this makes up a
counter-argument to the often-heard claim (which I am aware
that Ms. Levine did NOT make) that non-proportional
representation, in professions, in classes, in aptitudes,
in attitudes, is always defacto evidence of discrimination.

To take up Lenore's trivial example from an earlier posting
about facial hair -- in the West, in the first half of
adult life, most men have considerable facial hair;
most women have considerably less.  (but see footnote).

If we need to teach daily facial shaving, and if we treat persons
as individuals, and if we wait until the person shows considerable
beard growth so we don't rely on categories to identify
potential students, we'll end up with a class composed almost
entirely of adolescent males.

We haven't discriminated, yet the population isn't proportionally
represented in our class makeup.
Yes, this is a trivial and contrived example.

The whole point of my posting about testosterone and aggression
was to pose an analagous, but decidedly non-trivial, example.

Are men over-represented in the prison population?         yes.

Is this defacto evidence of pervasive sexism in nurturing? no.

Do the testosterone studies mean that sexism in
nurturing is *not* pervasive?                                no.

Are the relative contributions of inherent differences and
sexism in nurturing very very unclear?                      yes.

Are the relative contributions of inherent character
and nurturing likely to vary widely between individuals?    certainly

Is there a growing body of opinion and legal precedent in
the US that *assumes* that nurture and socialization
completely dominate, and that skewed representation is
defacto evidence of discrimination?                         yes

Does discrimination exist, and greatly affect
representation of groups?                                   of course

Is any simple, one-dimensional policy
thus likely to be both just and effective?                  no


>>(It's also a seldom-reported fact that North American black
>> males average significantly higher in blood
>> testosterone than the general male population.)


> By this reasoning, should white males be separated from black males?

I hope that it's obvious by now that my answer is

  - of course they shouldn't be grouped by category

  - but if strongly-skewed groups do arise, it's not out of the
    question that inherent differences account for some
    of the non-proportional grouping.

---
Joel Hanes

   *  Ah, yes; the threatened footnote.
      Actually, all humans have about the same amount of body
      hair, and further, about the same areal density of hairs
      as do chimpanzees - the visual differences come from the
      differences in thickness, pigmentation, and length of
      the hairs.
      Further confounding our "universal" generalization
      that "men have beards, women don't" are the facts that
      eastern Asian men tend to have very sparse beards, within
      the range of variation of European females of the same age;
      and that in all populations, old mens' beards grow sparse
      and more transparent, while old women tend to develop
      visible beards, so that many old women of European
      ancestry have heavier beards that some men of their
      same ethnicity and age cohort.