Access over 35 million academic & study documents

Nature versus nurture of gender differences in the society

Content type
User Generated
Rating
Showing Page:
1/2
Surname 1
Name:
Tutor:
Course:
Date:
Nature versus Nurture of Gender Differences in the Society
Indeed, every society that has ever existed and is known to us is founded upon
assumptions of gender difference and the politics of gender inequality. In my society in Hong
Kong, women are considered to be different from men. There are different criterions that
people have used over the years to explain the differences. Biologically it is explained that
the females are wired differently. Their anatomy, biological formations, brain chemistries and
brain structures are completely different from those of men. Scientist have also explained that
nurture or how the people are nurtured when they grow up or in their respective societies
bring about gender differences in the society (Kimmel, 78-89)Although there exist
differences between the two causes of gender differences in the society that is nature versus
nurture, there exist several common features between the two. They share two fundamental
assumptions.
One of the assumptions is that both schools, nature and nurture see men and females
differ from each other. Although the reasons for them being different are different but at the
end of the day they believe that they are different (Kimmel, 78). Nurture, for instance, believe
that believes that the process of socialization brings out the difference between the male and
females, even though it allows some possibility of change. The school of nurture argues that a
certain surrounding or environment where a person grows can make him or her behave in a
certain way, for instance when a female grows up in a family of men, they might end up
behaving as men and the gender differences will not be as much as those females who are
raised in an environment where there exist men and women and the distinction is clear. Even
though nurture allows such a possibility of change, they still argue that males and females are
different. Both schools of thought assume that the differences or the distinctions between men
and women are very much great which would require more analysis than the differences that
exist among either men alone or women alone. Men could be different but the difference is
not as distinctive and as decisive as that which exists between the two genders. The same
scenario applies to women.
Another assumption is that both schools of thought believe that gender domination is
a product of gender difference. The gender difference between the males and the females is
what has caused men to dominate women in almost all the societies across the. In the nature
side, for instance, women are associated with things like pregnancy and lactating their babies.
Due to this, they are always at risk and thus they will always need some sort of protection
from men (Kimmel, 89). As men offer protection to them during this time, they find
themselves developing a domineering attitude towards women both consciously and
unconsciously. This mostly begins in social institutions like families where the father will
develop such a dominating attitude from their endeavours to protect their wives. The
masculinity and the high testosterone levels among levels men as part of their nature causes
them to be very aggressive and involving themselves in risky activities like hunting that
women would not be able to engage themselves in. This creates a dominatingattitude and a
dominating spirit among men. Also, under this assumption, both men and women how they
are nurtured, they are taught to devalue women’s abilities perception and experiences and
promote men’s and this also creates a dominating attitude among the men in the society.
I agree with the statement that virtually every society known to us founded upon
assumptions of gender difference and gender politics. According to Kimmel (45), 99.89 per
cent of the countries in the world believe that men are born to lead and dominate women.
Many societies even how they treat their women, right from the point of birth makes them

Sign up to view the full document!

lock_open Sign Up
Showing Page:
2/2

Sign up to view the full document!

lock_open Sign Up
Unformatted Attachment Preview
Surname 1 Name: Tutor: Course: Date: Nature versus Nurture of Gender Differences in the Society Indeed, every society that has ever existed and is known to us is founded upon assumptions of gender difference and the politics of gender inequality. In my society in Hong Kong, women are considered to be different from men. There are different criterions that people have used over the years to explain the differences. Biologically it is explained that the females are wired differently. Their anatomy, biological formations, brain chemistries and brain structures are completely different from those ...
Purchase document to see full attachment
User generated content is uploaded by users for the purposes of learning and should be used following Studypool's honor code & terms of service.

Anonymous
Excellent resource! Really helped me get the gist of things.

Studypool
4.7
Indeed
4.5
Sitejabber
4.4