I don’t think so. I think Engels is saying that conjecture is conjecture. Assertion of social causes in this case has no evidence behind it, while the chemical assertion has flaky evidence. Ditching either conjecture is silly at this point as “Everyone here is well aware that there are often competing social and biological explanations for various phenomena.”

Engels is saying that to condemn the assertion of a link between gender identity and chemicals in the absence of evidence supporting that link Lemuel must prove the link does not exist.

If that shit flew I’d have walking into a committee meeting years ago, asserted my model was valid, and challenged my committee prove me wrong or give me my PhD.

Who says that, Cheryl? It must be a great many people for you to see it as the “acceptable” view. The feminists I read don’t say that at all. The opinion of most reasonable people seems to be that biological and social influences interact (and there is no evidence for a biological basis for such things as, for instance, preferring pink, as opposed to giving birth or having testicles.)

Can you give examples?

I would say they proof of influence; just not reliable outcome, esp when factoring in “absolutely massive [often] confounding variable[s].”

Mary Douglas has argued that a society’s fears of pollution are influenced by anxieties about other threats to their way of life, not just the actual danger posed by the alleged threat. For example, the belief among the cattle herding Hima people that cattle are made ill by contact with women is not because women actually cause cattle disease. (See “Purity and Danger” and “Risk and Culture”). When this article moves on the tea-sets, I get the distinct feeling that the anxieties it is appealing to are not just about the actual danger from industrial chemicals, but are also about social changes in gender roles that most likely have nothing to do with PCBs.

But having said all that, I still think Chris’ snark was a bit uncalled for. As Cheryl says, the toy choice is jsut a symptom. It’s a reasonable hypothesis that toxins that cause major bodily changes in high doses will cause more subtle brain developmental changes in lower doses, and to try to measure these. Of course, if you do this, you need to allow for the absolutely massive confounding variable that socially permitted gender behaviour has changed radically over the twentieth century. (e.g. Middle class academics who write for Crooked Timber may be more likely to let their male children play with dolls, for reasons that have nothing to do with their levels of PCB exposure). I agree with Lemuel Pitkin that the actual paper isn’t convincing; but I wouldn’t be so eager to laugh off the whole idea that there are biochemical influences on human behaviour. (Hey, we have a massive Pharma industry based on the belief that we can influence peoples behaviour with drugs).

I am saying that if you justify existing gender roles in biological terms you are playing with fire. Once that meme is out there you don’t get to decide how those roles are defined. It will be you versus Dobson and Limbaugh…

Engels:

You’re demanding that Lemuel prove a negative. So I have a question for you:
Do you believe in UFOs? No? Can you prove they don’t exist?

Magistra, so you think that gender identity and its associated patterns of behaviour have to be acquired solely by means of some generalised learning mechanism and specific biological/neural processes can not be involved? That may be true, but I don’t think it so obviously true as to warrant ruling out contrary views as crazy or objectionable.

I note that no-one has responded to my main point which was simply that whatever one’s position on these issues it is simply not correct to suggest that accepting the the existence of the correlation referred to in the post commits anyone to the view that gender roles are biologically determined, as Chris and Lemuel originally claimed.

It’s nice that Cheryl thinks girly things are no less important than boyish things. But it seems like a threadjack had to happen for her to say this, when everyone else was assuming it anyway…

I’m saying nothing of the sort. I think that most of the research on gender issues is complete crap, and as I said to lemuel above I’ll be very pleased if this study is also nonsense because it means we are not creating more transgender people. The only dog I have int his fight this this we should not dismiss a piece of research as “non-serious” simply because it is about boys doing girly things.

As for this:

Assuming that gender roles are biologically determined protects transgendered kids – but justifying the particular gender roles prevalent in contemporary society in biological term screws over everyone else.

Well, that’s a fine example of what I was talking to engels about. What you are saying here is that if we allow any biological component as an explanation of trangenderism then all gender must be a result of biology, which is ludicrous. The world does not have to be black and white.

And even if it was, so what? Are you saying that if science proved a biological origin for gender then we should ignore that result because you find it politically inconvenient? (And note here that I’m not saying that any such thing has been proved, not that I want it to be proved.)

I started out writing something rather angry – but here’s my more considered take on your posts.

You believe that attempts to make transgendered children conform to gender roles are wrong. Biological determinism of gender roles provides a justification for that belief – forcing gender roles on transgender kids becomes forcing something unnatural on them. This is basically an extension of the argument against trying to convert homosexuals to heterosexuals.

But this argument (applied to gender roles) has lots of nasty consequences. Assuming that gender roles are biologically determined protects transgendered kids – but justifying the particular gender roles prevalent in contemporary society in biological term screws over everyone else.

You end up in Lawrence Summers land – where inequities are justified by reference to “obvious” essential differences.

Now, you might respond by claiming this is all about The Science – but lemuel pretty much destroyed that study. And the majority of The Science shows that cognitive differences are pretty minor and the variances in aptitude large. What that study really showed was how easy it is to publish crap if that crap conveniently supports our prejudices.