In this past week readings, we discussed and read an article on Anne Fausto-Sterling, "Seving the Brain: How Biologists make a difference." Overall, the article explains using the dead brain and to research on what causes gender roles for men and women. Men were more likely to become firefighters, scientists, and engineers. Fausto-Sterling explains in her article that the brain consists of complex weaves and contributes with feelings and emotions to the human brain and body. Mark Gungor is pastor, motivational speaker, and a very important figure. Mark explains that the there is a difference between the male and female brain. Men's brains are like a bunch of boxes and every box has a certain area of a topic like a box for money, car, family, and many other things. It's like a mailbox for the men's brain. We also have a "Nothing Box," which means we can do nothing for hours and not think about anything. An example would be like fishing. Women's brains are like a ball of connected wire. This causes emotions which leads to energy which leads to remembering everything unlike the male brain. Another important aspect would be that men think highly of themselves while women are the exact opposite. Women think they are too fat, too skinny, and much more. Women look at magazines and wishes to be like the women in the ads, but these women are not perfect, especially with airbrush and computer technologies. This may be a reason why women suffer from depression. Most importantly everyone is different with different backgrounds, races, and culture. Mark described that ΒΌ college white girls have a eating disorder. Women of color don't have this type of problem; it is a interesting but weird concept. Mark doesn't describe why but says it is a proven fact and I was blown away by this unbelievable fact.
1. What do you think about how the brain works between male and female? Agree or disagree? why?
2. Why are there gender roles and how does it make you feel about it?
3. What are your thoughts on how women portray their looks?
Thomas Jang
Thomas, you post a very interesting blog pop. While some of the gender-role wiring might occur within the brain, I personally believe most gender roles learned today are via societal constructs. Most societal constructs were established as a means for either religious or governmental control, and the majority of these ruling entities were created and maintained by power-hungry men. However, I feel that men and women are definitely wired differently at a biological level. For example, males are naturally inclined to be more sex-driven, dominating, and protective by nature because their main biological purpose (well before societies and empires were created) was to "spread their seed" (so to speak), protect and hunt/gather food for their offspring and offsprings' mother so their gene pool would survive. On the other hand, females were more inclined to be nurturers and care-givers by protecting, comforting and feeding their young. Additionally, because males took on the role of hunter/gatherer (likely due to their physical composition) and were often outside of the "home", females would tend to stay close to home and rely on social circles of other females to help in the rearing of the offspring. This is still seen in many primitive cultures today, but it is also reflected in modern society when we refer to women being more social then men. I don't believe it is a coincidence that female socializing was once a means for survival via community support. These biological survival techniques served their purpose in early, primitive times of human history, and obviously much of the core basic functions of males and females has remained the same. I believe the issue at hand is how much these basic functions are still maintained and exaggerated into stereotypes and modern gender-roles in a culture and society where equality should be highly attainable as we no longer depend on primitive gender-role resources due to ever-growing technology.