Gender Differences & Same-Sex Attraction

         

            This week in class we talked a lot about gender differences. We watched a video called Men, Women, and the Sex Difference by John Stossel. In this video they explored the question of whether girls and boys are the same at a nature level. There are a lot of people that thought that the way we nurture our girls and boys is what makes them different, and if we treated them the same they would act the same. In the video they showed this was false, that some parents who tried to raise their kids gender neutral were finding certain differences coming out naturally like the way they played with toys. Girls would be more sensitive and cooperative while playing, while boys were more aggressive. In class we made a chart of some of the commonly found characteristics that are found in the majority for the different sexes. For girls we found that they are generally more compassionate, sensitive, expressive, and cooperative, while boys are generally more tough and aggressive. It was also found that girls’ brains are more connected, while guys are more segmented.  And girls are more relationship oriented and guys are more spatially and task oriented.  

            Another topic we discussed was same-sex attraction.  Just to clarify same-sex attraction refers to if someone has a romantic or sexual attraction to the same sex, while homosexual refers to someone who has acted on these attractions, and gay and lesbian is used more to define an identity.  We talked about the debate on whether people are really born having same-sex attraction. We looked over the studies that people cite in evidence of it, and found that the social scientist that conducted these studies never said their studies were positive proof and some of them describe the limits and flaws of their research.  If you would like to read more on this there is a book called: Understanding Same-Sex Attraction and Chapter 8 talks in-depth about these studies. 

            We then talked about a theory called “Exotic becomes Erotic” from a researcher named Bem. This theory talks about how your temperament leads to activity preferences, which later leads to the feeling of “I am different” from the gender you do not share much in common with. So for example if a boy had a more feminine temperament like maybe he liked to engage in more girl type activities like playing dolls or creating more than sports or being aggressive. That may lead to feelings of “I am different” from other boys. And he might have a deep desire to want to be accepted by the other boys, and not in a sexual way. And there are other factors like if a person is molested, that person is four times more likely to have same-sex attraction. Especially for boys, they feel like if they felt stimulated while they were molested, and if they had some of the other variables as well, they sometimes feel like they were always different, so maybe they do have same-sex attraction.

             I just found this image and thought it was interesting.