Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site umcp-cs.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!seismo!rlgvax!cvl!umcp-cs!randy From: randy@umcp-cs.UUCP Newsgroups: net.women Subject: innate passiveness? Message-ID: <973@umcp-cs.UUCP> Date: Wed, 20-Jul-83 10:52:57 EDT Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.973 Posted: Wed Jul 20 10:52:57 1983 Date-Received: Thu, 21-Jul-83 14:52:35 EDT Organization: Univ. of Maryland, Computer Science Dept. Lines: 26 The discussion about women as world leaders brings to mind (to me) the question of whether women are innately less aggressive than men. One side of the fence claims the societal environment and upbringing causes the differences one observes today. Others say genes and hormones do the trick. Consider the following: There is a strange (likely genetic) disease in which male babies are born with a drastic hormone imbalance giving them the appearance of females. This persists until puberty when suddenly (over a period of only months) the child's hormones return to male levels and he acquires male genitalia, etc. This is of course VERY rare. A few years ago in the Philipines, several cases were discovered. As you can imagine, the anthropologists flocked out there in droves about the time the children were to reach puberty (11 or 12 years old). The point here is that these kids had been raised as girls with all the upbringing this primitive culture bestows on girls. The idea was to see if they would "suddenly" acquire "male" traits such as aggressiveness after the change. Well, supposedly they did. (Does anyone have any further information, like a reference, on this?) Hearing about this had a big effect on me as I was always on the 'environment' side of the fence. - Randy -- Randy Trigg ...!seismo!umcp-cs!randy (Usenet) randy.umcp-cs@udel-relay (Arpanet)