Wait, you mean if I stood naked before you with an Xbox covering my naughty parts that wouldn't swoon you to your knees? Damn, all this time. Pfft. Please remove my picture, k thnx. (j/k, of course)

I agree with you on what defines sexy. Almost every time I ever actually get interested in a girl is when I find out she plays an instrument or can do really interesting artwork. Eye candy has never been enough for me to try to get anywhere with a girl.

I've never cared for "sexiest" lists, but then that's probably because I never topped them. My computer thinks I'm sexy. Yes, you do. *pats his monitor* Yes, you do.

Ha! What really confuses me is who enters these things, and why? There's a sociological study to be done there...

At least one of the girls was honest enough to say that MYST was her favorite game. Anybody pretending to be a gamer wouldn't pick a 10-year-old adventure game as their favorite.

Still, in my Sexiest Gamer contest, all beauty photos must be taken of a person while they are playing a game. If you can look good while all tensed up and staring, unblinking at a screen, only then do you deserve to be called "sexy gamer."

And the finalists must engage in a gaming tournament. A beauty contest where the finalists all engage in some sort of gladitorial arena battle sings of legitimacy. Oh yes.

Ahh Clockwork do you think GGA could sponsor such a contest? That would be so SWEET. Hot dudes and chicks in a Battle Royale! Topless!

Oh my, the possibilities.

I think this is an *excellent* idea.

In addition to regular physical stats (measurements, etc), I think players should have to provide their best clear time for their favorite games, etc.

waka

hmm, I'd love to see a GGA sponsored contest. :) As long as it was more than just visual beauty. What's sexy between gamers?

Here's some ideas for not-so-obvious "sexy" criteria:

well-rounded gamer: fairly spread across genres.

time efficient gamer: Means they know how to get some gaming in those awkward moments when you're not doing anything. Such as a ride up the elevator or waiting for friends to show up to the movie.

creative gamer: this could mean a couple things. Maybe they write about games, create gaming t-shirt designs or gaming-related artwork. Could even be as simple as a dedicated Simulation player (building cities or families takes some creativity).

evangalistic gamer: the kind of gamer that likes to spread the word. Writes guides. Refers friends. The number one way gamers discover games is by word of mouth, so obviously we have quite a few evangalistic gamers. :)

cutting edge gamer?: hey, you deserve an award if you keep your computer upgraded & buy every single console just to play the latest games. I'm not even that good. :)

And for many geek girls. The most important thing for us, what turns us on, is Brain Power. We may indulge in a little kissing action with pretty boys, but they'll never go the distance. Instead we look for the tell-tale quirks of personality, the indie t-shirt, the limited-edition accessory that says, "I am a collector of the strange, an eccentric, I am a prize in a world of muddled Muggles."

Fair warning, Jane: a lot of guys have learned how to fake "alternativeness," just as they learned to fake "sensitivity" when that was the attribute of choice.

But I suspect that for many of you, hotness in a girl goes way beyond looks and goes into the realm of charm, sass, wit, and so on.

I think you suspect wrongly. While those things are crucial to a happy long-term relationship, the initial attraction is almost always physical for us.

I'm game for a GGA sexiest geek contest. However, there's no way in h-e-double hockey sticks I'm going topless. Not even back when I was 19 and would have looked good doing so ;)

Are gaming professionals disqualified from the contest? Or should we have a pro and am contest?

I feel that I need to bring up a counter-point to Brain's statements. Faking sensitivity and alternativeness is one thing, but I believe what Jane was getting at was a bit more in depth. Faking geek-ness (-hood? -dom? lacking a better term) in my opinion would be a daunting task. Most geeks tend to share a common skill to spawn spontaneous debates (ranting) usually over seemingly absurd and often unimportant matters. I see it in almost every day to day conversation between my friends and I. I belive that lacking true "geek" passions be it computers, video games, comics, et cetera this "skill" would be very hard to emulate in front of another geek.

As for the contest, I feel Jane is correct. Much more is needed than just a photo and a list of favorite games. Sexiness goes way beyond physical attraction (for both women and men) and definitely when it comes to the realm of geeks. I could see you hosting a more in depth contest with great success. You would probably see a very different set of entrants than Gamer.tv saw as well as a more passionate and opinionated set of voters.

That is just my observations though and could very well be wrong.

If there is a contest I'll make an effort to enter.

Very true Jane! I know for me, wit and intellect are requrements for winning the sexy label from me. I like the idea of actually screening the contestants before letting them enter your theoretical contest, although for all that work, u'd have to want to enter really badly ;)

Maybe you could have nominations as well - where other ppl nominate their gamer-geek friends. I bet there are a lot of SHY sexy geeks out there ;)

Take a look at the photos of the top "sexy gamers"... no one could put the time into preparing themselves for their public that these people obviously do on a daily basis, and still spend enough time gaming/thinking of gaming/associating with gamers to warrant an authentic "gamer" label. Dabblers at best.
Who are they trying to fool? Seriously, who?

I have to disagree with Brain here on the physical attraction part. Like Jane says, the heart of attraction is in the geeky t-shirt, or the witty statement. Being a film and videogame nerd, I find that I am never turned on more than when a girl can talk with authority about my two loves. I am, in fact, not turned on by a girl in the least until I have some sort of idea that she could be a geek like me. Oh, and a GGA sexiest gamer with a test: this, is a good idea; never can meet, see, talk to, or even read enough about smart, sexy, geek girls.

"Instead we look for the tell-tale quirks of personality, the indie t-shirt, the limited-edition accessory that says, 'I am a collector of the strange, an eccentric, I am a prize in a world of muddled Muggles.' And of course a nice smile never hurts.

But the true test of a sexy geek's worthiness is in Making Stuff. Robots, art, decompilers, what have you - we go for guys who can design and build some cool and unexpected thing. That is HOT!"

Is that really true? Is this really how a "geek girl" thinks? There mustn't be that many "geek girls" around where I live.

"Is that really true? Is this really how a "geek girl" thinks? There mustn't be that many "geek girls" around where I live."

well, i grant you we're all different, of course - so i can't guarrantee that all geek girls feel this way. but based on my experience talking with tech-savvy and tech-interested women from all over, i would say this is *generally* the case.

we like boys who are *into* something, usually something scientific or creative; something that drives you to stay up until four in the morning building it, or painting it, or writing it. a passion for construction, for making the world a more efficient, more pleasant, more user-friendly, better place.

Ahhhhh-indie "fashion". The true staple of the artistic "individualist".
maybe it's just me, maybe it's my art background, maybe it's the fact that I lived in a household filled w/ the ULTIMATE in indie-rocker subculture..but, I HIGLY doubt that loving your X-box (although personally I find playstation 2 to be better), wearing t-shirts from obscure bands, and never washing, is what a woman (like myself)looks for in a man in order to find someone whose "intelligent".
This pre-concieved notion falls under the mistaken beliefe that ANYONE can call themselves and artist and just because you ARE one, doesn't mean you are any closer to God or the knowledge of the Universe v.s. any other poor schmuck on Earth.
I'm a nerd-have been forever. Yes-I know who Rinoa is, I reference "Pheonix Down" in my discussions, I own every game system (as well as PC) imaginable, I have 12-sided die, and am very familiar w/ White Wolf's Vampire clans. I'm also an artist, Fine arts to be exact-in love w/ body studies, oils and watercolor and most other materials of creation, I have been formally trained and have struggled w/ myself and my art in every way. However, I don't fall into the pre-concieved vision of the "artistic type". I dress in high-end, form fitting clothes to accentuate the positive, I have hair the style of Victoria Secret's Angels, I wear high heels ALL.THE.TIME. I love make-up and do everything I can in order to make myself attractive while I've still got it.
I did the whole indie, punk rock, eclectic, wild artist thing already......in college..where it belongs.
Been there, done that.
A true artist would know when it's tme for them to advance and move on from the high school steriotyping that's managed to eek over into modern pop culture.
It's just all so boring now.

I love this idea. Even more because I know GGA would run it fairly and righteously.

I'd enter, and I know I could get others to enter it too.

I'd enter, but I wouldn't want to inflict images of myself upon the innocent.

We're talking retinal scarring here, folks...

Man, Girls are complicated.

Girls aren't complicated. They're just not "open source"

I don't think that a gaming contest should be required, because you don't have to be a good gamer to be a gamer. You would need to somehow find out how much of a gamer the contestant is. I don't know how this would be accomplished but I'm sure everyone could think up some criteria. I like a lot of the ideas so far though (espcially the topless tournement even though I don't think it should be the only criteria).

Girls aren't complicated. They're just not "open source"

I want that as a t-shirt! Very nice, very nice indeed.
ANd i agree with Jane - boys that are into stuff are a big draw for me - tho i am not particular on what, just as long as they have a passion for *something* and dont get scared when a girl can hold up her end of the conversation.

I can't believe you thought you could get away with sexist statements like that -- "boys are more visual" ... *pah* And I thought we had come a bit longer in gender thinking than that...

It's not that sexist to say "boys are more visual"- there are certain sociological and biological realities that reflect innate differences between boys and girls. Statements like that are made "in general" anyways- there are always exceptions. I don't think saying "boys are more visual" makes it impossible or unacceptable for a boy not to be visually oriented.

It's not that sexist to say "boys are more visual"- there are certain sociological and biological realities that reflect innate differences between boys and girls. Statements like that are made "in general" anyways- there are always exceptions. I don't think saying "boys are more visual" makes it impossible or unacceptable for a boy not to be visually oriented.

I suspect the problem is that after centuries of hearing, "Men and women are different, and by 'different' we mean that MEN ARE BETTER," a lot of people have taken to excess in the other direction by regarding the very idea of such differences as somehow malevolent.

Which gets silly, of course. "Sexist" is, if you think about it, a neutral adjective. For example, the whole medical speciality of OB/GYN is "sexist" as it pertains to females only (one might say the same thing about Urology).

Andrew is correct, though, in that there are confirmed differences between males and females - some of which go to basic brain function and structure. Child psychologists have observed these differences manifesting even in male and female infants.

I don't think it's a question of Boys vs Girls, one better and one worse... but we are not interchangable.

My roommate and I were chatting about this last night and she brought up an interesting point: how many guys do you know who are still living at home despite having graduated from High School and maybe University to? How many girls? What's up with that?

In my experience if you are a boy it seems you can get further on sheer force of personality romantically-speaking. How many not-so-hot guys do you know who are dating hot-looking women? How many not so hot girls do you know who are dating underwear models? WHat's up with that? And how come the not-so-hot guys seem to treat the girls they're with with such contempt?

I used to think that it was primarily personality that attracted me to certain girls until a friend of mine kindly burst my bubble by pointing out how physically attractive they'd all been. This is not to say that they weren't also awesome people.

I think that any geek hotness contest would need to go beyond just listing looks and appropriate geek skills.

Hotness has a lot to do with quickness, I think. How witty are they? How clever? How smart? We'd need transcripts of them in conversation. How well can they drop names and manipulate pop-cultural references? How many weird and awesome facts do they know? Are they arrogant and annoying about it?

"How well can they drop names and manipulate pop-cultural references? How many weird and awesome facts do they know?"

And this has what to do with intelligence, exactly? :)

Well, if you're playing D&D, I'd make a manipulating pop-cultural references check an intelligence check, as opposed to wisdom or charisma.

In a White Wolf game, it would be under wits, rather than intelligence. Depends what system you were created with, I suppose.

And for Call of Cthulhu...? Is it a plus or minus to Sanity to know what Einstuerzende Neubauten is?

I'd also like to add that the very existence and persistence of this website is a living demonstration of the limitations of gender stereotypes. No one thinks of this sort of "nerdy" discourse as being particularly feminine, but this site has suceeded in making it so, while also demonstrating a sort of intellectual maturity and restraint that most "serious" and male-oriented gaming sites direly lack. Of course I'll stop just short of saying that "intellectual maturity and restraint" are considered to be "feminine" qualities, but I think my point is clear.

so, after all:

#define sexy() ...is left to be done.

Andrew, this site could be an exception that proves the rule.

"Nerdiness" has always been asexual. I'm always amused when people say things like, "Girls are socialized away from being techies, whereas boys are encouraged."

Obsessive interest in mathematics or mechanical systems has never been considered "cool" or "manly" by most young men. Sports are cool. Cars are cool. Rock and roll in cool. Having a pretty girlfriend is cool. Computer programming and electricial engineering? Not cool, except for a small subset of youngsters (from which almost all future computer professionals come).

This is part of a much larger anti-intellectual facet of American culture. Smart people are socially appreciated and rewarded if they can invent clever things that save us time and effort, entertain us and if we can make lots of money investing in their businesses.

Most parents would love to see their son be the next Bill Gates, but don't even know who Bill Joy or Linus Torvalds are. Why? Because even though Joy and Torvalds are every bit as smart and "techie" as Dollar Bill (if not more so), Gates is the model of the Nerd Made Good because of his wealth and power. Appreciation of intelligence has nothing to do with it.

So let's have the end of this "Society tells boys to be technical, blah blah blah" because it just ain't so.

Brain, have you looked at girl's and women's magazines lately? Inspite of the fact that I personally KNOW girls who own and love computers, there is absolutely no media targetted at girls involving tech. Pick up JANE magazine, supposedly "feminist" and progressive - is there a single review of a tech product? Besides, maybe, a vibrator? The rest is all shopping and boys. Fine things, but can't we shop for iPods too?

By comparison, Details, Maxim, etc - as stupid and heinous as they are - almost ALWAYS have "gadget reviews" - they take it for granted that men (and boys) would be interested in stuff like that.

So, I have to disagree with you. I absolutely believe that girls are socialized to ignore a lot of technology, even to pretend to be not smart because it's easier than being smart. But thank goodness, that is changing. Some day soon I will start the new Sassy, and we will break down Windows and have blogging tutorials and profiles of Lady Lovelace and how to uninstall crap along with the latest Alexander McQueen collection and the Jake Gyllenhaal photo shoot.

Man, that would RULE.

*swoon*

I'd love to write for (and read!) your new Sassy, Jane. Story number one: why do all iPod cases have belt clips? Most women I know aren't wearing their gadgets around their waists...

Presumably the iPod case's belt clip is there to balance the remote control, which seems to have been designed for a woman's dress shirt.

Brain, have you looked at girl's and women's magazines lately? Inspite of the fact that I personally KNOW girls who own and love computers, there is absolutely no media targetted at girls involving tech.

Hey, no argument here. That's an audience waiting for some good material.

Pick up JANE magazine, supposedly "feminist" and progressive - is there a single review of a tech product? Besides, maybe, a vibrator? The rest is all shopping and boys. Fine things, but can't we shop for iPods too?

iPods, like almost all Apple stuff, are just too damned expensive. I don't how "feminist" JANE is supposed to be, though. Try BUST or even BITCH for more explicitly political "girl's mag" stuff.

On that point, though, couldn't a girl/woman just read CPU, PC MAGAZINE, WIRED or (gods help us) MAXIMUM PC? No lack of tech news and coverage there - although WIRED is increasingly appalling.

By comparison, Details, Maxim, etc - as stupid and heinous as they are - almost ALWAYS have "gadget reviews" - they take it for granted that men (and boys) would be interested in stuff like that.

Well, MAXIM is an outright joke - like watching BEAVIS & BUTTHEAD or belching. It's a "guy thing" and we take it as such. DETAILS, etc. are stupid, to be sure, but even there I think the thinking is more along the lines of, "Well, we've got a lot of young male readers, young men like gadgets, so let's cover that." There would be nothing stopping a young women-focused magazine from doing the same thing.

So, I have to disagree with you. I absolutely believe that girls are socialized to ignore a lot of technology, even to pretend to be not smart because it's easier than being smart.

Jane, that may well be true. My point was that it's actually a gender-neutral, anti-intellectual thing.

Having been born in 1967, I literally grew up during the dawn of the personal computer and video game ages (VCRs too, for that matter). I have the first issues of COMPUTER GAMING WORLD and ELECTRONIC GAMES. I typed lines of BASIC and PASCAL from BYTE and other early mags into my brand-new Apple ][+. I actually owned a Kaypro, for crying out loud. ;)

I can tell you from first-hand experience that, outside of certain subcultures, being a "techie" was not cool for boys. Period. My cohort of late 70s / early 80s male youngsters were not encouraged by our parents, peers or "society" to be computer nerds.

Now, did/do girls have it worse? Maybe. You've got a point there.

But thank goodness, that is changing. Some day soon I will start the new Sassy, and we will break down Windows and have blogging tutorials and profiles of Lady Lovelace and how to uninstall crap along with the latest Alexander McQueen collection and the Jake Gyllenhaal photo shoot. Man, that would RULE.

Is that the kid from DONNIE DARKO? Rather overrated film, methinks. ;)

For the Record, I never said that being a geek was ever considered "cool", but that it has traditionally been a male stereotype. I don't think society at large pressure males into being "geeks", but it's important to realize that American society is not one unanimous organic being, and that a person's development is likely to be more influenced by a particular subculture or even microscopic social scene (ie, the people you hang out with in high school, your family, etc) than by popular culture at large (television, mass media.) But even within those subcultures, the image of a "girl geek" is pretty rare.

re Brain:
"I don't think it's a question of Boys vs Girls, one better and one worse... but we are not interchangable."

But all Boys *are* interchangeable with each other? And/or all Girls?

There are no personal or intellectual traits that are the exclusive domain of men or of women, or that are universal to all persons of a given sex. No human trait that either gender is incapable of: father love used to be expected to be as profound and doting as mother love (Jesus talked of his God as "Abba" - more like "Daddy" than "Father"), and women have been worshipped as goddesses of two supposedly male traits: rationality and law, eg Athena, and murderous destruction, eg Kali. (And, like most actual people, these gods have other aspects as well.)

Even biological differences - fat:muscle ratios, strength, etc - are considerably reduced in societies where men and women have shared the same physical workloads and evolution has had a few generations to apply its selective pressures convergently, rather than divergently, as in a highly gendered society such as ours has been.

I appreciate that you're trying to highlight the need to acknowledge and value difference, and I respect and applaud that, so kudos. But I believe strongly that many of the differences between individuals are commonly attributed to gender are much more to do with the way our culture interferes with gender than with gender itself. (I use the term "interfere" in a double sense, that of "meddling" and of "interacting in complex ways".)

A final point on the question of whether tech culture is male-oriented. I know from personal experience that it's hard to be a male geek at school; there is absolutely a universal anti-intellectualism at work. But that compounds rather than replaces the gender-specific component of anti-nerdgirl sentiment; at least other geekboys make you feel welcome for who you are and what you're interested in, and not your extra chromosome leg.

There are quite a few gaming and technological sites and magazines which also feature images of naked or semi-naked women; such images are also a staple of many games, and one female game designer I met had to fight tooth and nail to get ONE image of a sexy male into a "Pleasuredome" level she was working on. ("Sexy" in the narrow sense, not the wider sense used by jane, obviously!)

This one-sided sexualisation is actively alienating to many women (and some men), and in the aggregate marks gaming as a major preserve of a childish/adolescent male heterosexuality - not exclusively, but predominantly, and first impressions are likely to revolve around this. If that's actively discomforting, are you going to stick around for second impressions? And so you generate a self-selecting community of PHWOAR-mongers.

That's changing, true, but it hasn't changed yet. So kudos to GGA and its community for broadening those horizons.

re Brain:
"I don't think it's a question of Boys vs Girls, one better and one worse... but we are not interchangable."

But all Boys *are* interchangeable with each other? And/or all Girls?

There are no personal or intellectual traits that are the exclusive domain of men or of women, or that are universal to all persons of a given sex. No human trait that either gender is incapable of: father love used to be expected to be as profound and doting as mother love (Jesus talked of his God as "Abba" - more like "Daddy" than "Father"), and women have been worshipped as goddesses of two supposedly male traits: rationality and law, eg Athena, and murderous destruction, eg Kali. (And, like most actual people, these gods have other aspects as well.)

Even biological differences - fat:muscle ratios, strength, etc - are considerably reduced in societies where men and women have shared the same physical workloads and evolution has had a few generations to apply its selective pressures convergently, rather than divergently, as in a highly gendered society such as ours has been.

I appreciate that you're trying to highlight the need to acknowledge and value difference, and I respect and applaud that, so kudos. But I believe strongly that many of the differences between individuals are commonly attributed to gender are much more to do with the way our culture interferes with gender than with gender itself. (I use the term "interfere" in a double sense, that of "meddling" and of "interacting in complex ways".)

A final point on the question of whether tech culture is male-oriented. I know from personal experience that it's hard to be a male geek at school; there is absolutely a universal anti-intellectualism at work. But that compounds rather than replaces the gender-specific component of anti-nerdgirl sentiment; at least other geekboys make you feel welcome for who you are and what you're interested in, and not your extra chromosome leg.

There are quite a few gaming and technological sites and magazines which also feature images of naked or semi-naked women; such images are also a staple of many games, and one female game designer I met had to fight tooth and nail to get ONE image of a sexy male into a "Pleasuredome" level she was working on. ("Sexy" in the narrow sense, not the wider sense used by jane, obviously!)

This one-sided sexualisation is actively alienating to many women (and some men), and in the aggregate marks gaming as a major preserve of a childish/adolescent male heterosexuality - not exclusively, but predominantly, and first impressions are likely to revolve around this. If that's actively discomforting, are you going to stick around for second impressions? And so you generate a self-selecting community of PHWOAR-mongers.

That's changing, true, but it hasn't changed yet. So kudos to GGA and its community for broadening those horizons.

Does debating make you a sexy gamer?

Trying to have an intellectual debate on gender differences can be like trying to answer the phone with your feet. Sure, it can be done, but you'll probably just look like an idiot.

With that said I'll quote what Jane said because I have something to say.

"By comparison, Details, Maxim, etc"

Those are male magazines because they alienate women? Ok. Look, I don't read magazines outside of the occaisional dentist appointment and even then it's usually a Highlights or other wacky childrens adventure to find the spoon in the picture of a cow. My knowledge of magazines goes about as deep as the front cover. I do know enough, though, to say that Maxim is for men as "Stuff Gamer" is for gamers. Throw out the gratuitous images of babes and you still have 50 thousand N-Gage advertisements nestled between articles about why gaming is all the rage in paris.

We are more than the sum of our biology and conditioning. I was conditioned to be a bible thumping neurologist. Guess how accurate that was.

Sexist remarks typically forget the part that both sides of the fence change and beyond that there are always exceptions. So many changes that happen so quickly, to make any definite remarks of the differences between men and women seems counter productive to me. As soon as you define something to be true for this moment, the next moment the world changes and you have to start working all over again to put everyone in their nice categories. Feh, humans are hilarious. Everyone changes. There are differences, but anything is possible. No use rehashing old sayings or ideas because we're all equally human capable of more than what our biology or conditioning dictates. You can't hold it against a capitalist world for catering to stereotypes of the moment because business only cares about green and it gets there by trial and error.

So if debating makes you sexy, I hope I scored a few points. *rude tounge gesture while rubbing nipple*

Phil,

But all Boys *are* interchangeable with each other? And/or all Girls?

There are no personal or intellectual traits that are the exclusive domain of men or of women, or that are universal to all persons of a given sex.

No, of course not. There are many traits that are essentially sex-neutral (courage being one). And yes, there is considerable diversity within both sexes. But that does not invalidate the idea of "maleness" and "femaleness" anymore than some people being born blind diminishes the primacy of sight among our perceptive senses.

It's one thing to insist on the importance of culture and socialization along with biology and genetics when considering why people are the way they are, but it's something else to discount the impact of the natural, physical world upon us.

To my eyes, biological determinists and social constructionists are two sides of the same dogmatic coin. I think it's folly to discount the power of social learning and genderization in shaping male and female identity, but it's equally silly to pretend that the millions of years of evolution and adaptation underwent by our (two-sexed, mammalian, primate) species didn't leave any kind of "mark" on us in terms of sex-specific behavior.

That smacks to me of "magical thinking;" the notion that we are IN the world but not OF it - detached somehow from nature and its shaping.

On the other hand, it's tricky to compare humans to even our closest animal relatives because of our unequalled (so far as we know) self-awareness. We can and do consciously change ourselves, often in spite of social pressures.

Ahem.

Back to Games 'N Girls. I have my own theory on what happened here, which I will save for the next post as this one is rather long.

Draigon, re the phone-feet-feat: Unless you get really good at it. Then it can be startling and cool. Unless you overplay it and its party-trick nature becomes apparent.

And hear hear. People do change.

Brain: (A) I would very much like to hear this theory of yours.

(B) I agree that it is folly to ignore millions of years of evolution. There are concrete and very real differences between men and women, of course. My view however is that gendered behaviours are usually explicable in terms of rational, non-gendered responses to fairly gendered bodies - filtered through a highly gendered culture. In other words, gender is given more weight in "Our" ideas about reality than it actually has in reality.

To me, the human body is only "fairly gendered" because most of it is pretty much the same whether you're male or female. There are certain things that you are almost certain to experience or not experience depending on your sex, but the vast majority of experiences are unisex, at least potentially. We are male and female humans rather than Martians and Venusians.

In language and culture, however, we ARE men and women, not people-A-or-people-B. In fact in some languages and cultures EVERYTHING is man or woman (or sometimes neuter).

Clearly the difference between male and female is one of the most important for us to grasp, because it allows us to explain and control some fundamental aspects of our lives. But because this crucial distinction was present at the beginnings of what we might call "memetic culture" - behaviour communicated through language and symbol rather than through genetics - it has effaced a great many other important differences, some of which have become MORE important (intelligence, honesty) with the advent of a highly specialised economy, effective contraception and a range of other changes which have given us greater control over reproduction.

I'm digressing. My point is that although we DO have those millions of years of purely biological evolution behind us, since we achieved consciousness we have become something different, something smarter than the average bear. We are starting to become our own primary selective force (within a relatively stable ecology, thus far) - and we are also able to modify behaviour on the fly. That means that our expectations of each other and demands on each other are extremely powerful.

In that context, to talk about "men" and "women" in anything other than the "person with X/Y paraphernalia" sense is to participate in shaping the selective pressures on people with those attributes - and to base that discussion on historical data and data from other animals is an innately conservative act, one which acts to preserve past norms which may or may not be immutable. In other words, claiming that historical data is relevant is a loaded assertion.

But even despite being loaded, it is not one-sided. I personally believe that there is evidence to suggest that both physical and, especially, mental gender realities are highly mutable under cultural pressures over time. You need only look at the last few decades, but for more extreme examples, see my previous post.

Given this, I am a firm believer that there should be as little generalisation made as possible, so that people can turn out however THEY like. This does not apply only to gender, but as gender is one of the most potent and entrenched bases for generalisation, it's one which deserves a good bit of resistance.

For more and often scary discussion of how expectations can shape us - everything from career to life expectancy - check out Pigeonholed by Robert Adler, from New Scientist, 30/9/00, pp38-41. It's been posted in chunks here, or go to the New Scientist Archive.

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Posted by: outsider on April 11, 2006 07:58 AM

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pozdrawia A.K.
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gost i Gost

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Posted by: mik on December 30, 2006 11:34 PM