Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1a 7/7/83; site rlgvax.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!seismo!rlgvax!guy From: guy@rlgvax.UUCP Newsgroups: net.women Subject: Re: women as world leaders Message-ID: <885@rlgvax.UUCP> Date: Sun, 24-Jul-83 03:27:52 EDT Article-I.D.: rlgvax.885 Posted: Sun Jul 24 03:27:52 1983 Date-Received: Mon, 25-Jul-83 22:34:24 EDT References: <333@ssc-vax.UUCP>, <488@mit-eddie.UUCP> Organization: CCI Office Systems Group, Reston, VA Lines: 38 Of course, it could be argued that women, at least, have only a certain time of the month when they are subject to "raging hormonal influences", while men are constantly having their brains bombarded with testosterone... Simply because a court case was resolved with pre-menstrual stress as a mitigating circumstance does not mean that it's an established fact that women regularly go crazy at certain times in their menstrual cycle. The law makes many foolish judgements. Even if this one woman did experience stress at that time, this does not mean 1) that it's common to all women or 2) that it's specifically due to hormonal influences. The body does different things during different stages of the estrus cycle (is there not a tendency to retention of water at some points?) which may produce uncomfortable SOMATIC effects in some women; to make an analogy, would you be less under control of your reactions if you had a headache? Frankly, it would take a LOT of evidence to convince me that women and men had thought patterns that differed radically for BIOLOGICAL reasons. There may be forms of behavior that differ - I could see infant care as one possibility, but I can't see the survival value of women caring ONLY about their infant or men NOT caring much about their offspring - but the case that women are less likely to be assertive, or agressive, or capable of logical thought, or capable of understanding category theory or elementary particle physics or music composition or whatever simply because they don't have a Y chromosome wiring their brains up right or causing the endocrine system to pump the right kind of polypeptides into their bloodstream does not have any good evidence for it that I know about. The (in)famous differences cited in things like visual ability may exist, but this still doesn't mean "men make better mathematicians than women". There aren't that many Gausses OR Noethers born, period. Furthermore, all such cases I've heard about have been hotly debated on scientific grounds. I shall have to go back and reread "The Mismeasure of Man" by Stephen Jay Gould soon. He pointed out that claims of "science says you can't do these things as well as we can" have been used by the powerful to keep the powerless in their place for as long as such claims have been made. Guy Harris {seismo,mcnc,we13,brl-bmd,allegra}!rlgvax!guy