We define aggression as, "what men do," and nurturing as, "what
women do." The genders are used to define the terms. This blinds
us to the equal aggressiveness of women, and equal nurturing of
masculinity.
It is the real gender bias in our society which continues to this
day, expressed in stereotypes such as deadbeat dad and batterer,
and innocent victim woman, and relied upon to gain special treatment
for women. We fall prey to it because we continue to attribute
characteristics to groups while ignoring genuine gender differences.
Feminism in particular has fallen into the same trap of which they
once accused others.
It shows up in the strangest of places. In her book, Odd Girl Out,
Rachel Simmons says, "... the female orientation to relationship
and connection -- to nurturing and care-giving --" as though they
are one and the same. This in a book whose very purpose is to show
how the female orientation to personal contact is just as readily
used to bully and abuse as nurture and care.
On a web page of the National Institute of Mental Health we find,
"... [suicide] is associated with aggressive behavior that is more
common in men." No study has ever found a gender association with
aggression any more than one with love, empathy, greed, or lust.
Testosterone has been explicitly dis-associated with aggression,
causing no more than does estrogen. NIMH even performed some of the
studies that established this.
Society uses its men for its aggressions. This does not mean men are
aggressive, but society. Men have greater outbound energy than women
and boys are more rambunctious than girls; masculinity is adventure,
independence, and exploration. If this is called aggression, that is
the bias to which I refer. It is damaging, not only in its
unfairness to men and their subsequent narrow treatment, but in the
effects on all such as readily denying children their fathers.
Carol Gilligan created a career by asserting an inherent female
moral superiority, a throwback to Victorian times if ever there was
one. (See her book, In a Different Voice.) Unfortunately, she never
found any evidence. Indeed, Lawrence Walker of the University of
British Columbia published a review of 108 studies on gender
differences in solving moral dilemmas. He says that, "Sex
differences in moral reasoning in late adolescence and youth are
rare." And Anne Colby of Radcliffe College says, "There is little
support in the psychological literature for the notion that girls
are more aware of others' feelings or are more altruistic than boys.
Sex differences in empathy are inconsistently found and are
generally very small when they are reported."
Gender differences appear in how things are expressed. Not what.
Male-aggression is only the first half of the bias. No gender
association for nurturing has ever been found, either. It's purely
social perception. Life-long child development researcher Michael
Lamb says, "With the exception of lactation, there is no evidence
that women are biologically predisposed to be better parents than
men are."
Men often nurture differently from women, but after their study,
Sandra Ferketich and Ramona Mercer concluded that men and women are
identical in the depth of their love for their children.
The two best sources for the evidence that fathers, in their own
way, are just as important to children as mothers are Kyle Pruett's
Father Need, and the academic classic, The Role of the Father in
Child Development by Michael Lamb. Yet we treat fathers as
disposable, even dangerous. This male-aggression female-nurturing
prejudice does more damage than anything about which feminists
complain.
Whenever you hear a reference to aggression or nurturing, watch for
an allusion to gender. If there is one, call them on their bias.
Copyright © 2004 K.C.Wilson.
K.C. Wilson is the author of
Male Nurturing, The Multiple Scandals of Child Support, and other e-books
on family and men's issues.
