Re: memes and sexuality/ Gender Bias for Memes

From: J. R. Molloy (jr@shasta.com)
Date: Mon Apr 16 2001 - 20:04:03 BST

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    From: "J. R. Molloy" <jr@shasta.com>
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    Subject: Re: memes and sexuality/ Gender Bias for Memes
    Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2001 12:04:03 -0700
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    Thank you very much for your interpretation of gender bias in memes, TJ.
    Nice to find someone who has given some thought to this subject.

    --J. R.

    Useless hypotheses:
     consciousness, phlogiston, philosophy, vitalism, mind, free will, qualia,
    analog computing, cultural relativism

    "I imagine bugs and girls have a dim perception that Nature played a cruel
    trick on them, but they lack the intelligence to really comprehend its
    magnitude."
    --Calvin
    http://www.ucomics.com/calvinandhobbes/

    ----- Original Message -----
    From: "TJ Olney" <market@cc.wwu.edu>
    To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
    Sent: Monday, April 16, 2001 11:13 AM
    Subject: Re: memes and sexuality/ Gender Bias for Memes

    >
    > The memetics of gender very much contribute to communication difficulties
    > between people of differing gender orientations. You will get much further
    > with gender thinking if you make the distinction between gender as a social
    > construct (memetically based of course) and sex as a biological one. The
    > poles for the english language are then masculine <- -> feminine and not
    > male<- ->female.
    >
    > What you will find across groups is that there are XY folks who are very
    > feminine in their behaviors and XX folks who are very masculine in their
    > behaviors. This includes their use of language and attribution of meanings
    to
    > words. The problem that arises if we are not careful about the distinction
    > is that the central tendencies for XX tend to be feminine and for XY to be
    > masculine, and we start to really mix up what has been genetically
    > determined, what has been genetically influenced, and what has been
    > memetically influenced. There is getting to be some excellent research that
    > has helped to tease out these differences. Hormones do matter, but,
    > especially with drugs of various kinds, their influences can be drastically
    > modified.
    >
    > So few women?
    > A strong gender bias exists for peace making vs argumentation. That bias is
    > amplified by a cross cultural difference between different English speaking
    > countries. Wade and J.R., of course, represents the ultimate masculine
    > perspective of "I said it so it must be right, and even if it isn't I can
    > defend it." (Which of course has given rise to the sweatshirts that say "If
    > a man speaks in the forest and there is no woman there to hear, is he still
    > wrong?") It's too bad I've had to put them in my "file with out reading"
    > filter, because they both occasionally have very interesting things to say.
    >
    > We on the list have no way of knowing whether they are XX or XY, only that
    > their verbal behavior represents a very masculine (current epoch) approach
    to
    > communication. There are very few intelligent women willing to participate
    > in a discussion with that point of view, it conflicts with feminine values.
    > Maybe that is why so few self-identified-as-women participate on the list.
    >
    > TJ
    >
    >
    > ===============================================================
    > This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
    > Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
    > For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
    > see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
    >
    >

    ===============================================================
    This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
    Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
    For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
    see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit



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