Are women and men made or born? The ‘nature versus nurture’ debate has been raging for years in multiple disciplines; from sociology and philosophy, to psychology and biology.
Both sides of the argument have many supporters, and as with any heated debate, a healthy number of people sitting comfortably in the middle. Gender is a subject that the nature/nurture debate has only examined fairly recently, fuelled perhaps by the uprising feminist and women’s movements who have demanded what they refer to as ‘equality between the sexes.’
Nativists would say that women and men are born, and behave based purely on their physiology and genes, however psychologists and sociologists have shown that gender is not always as simply defined as the body one is born with.
Argument that Men and Women are Born
In Life-Span Human Development, Sigelman and Rider notethat human beings are genderless at the point of conception, or, more accurately, all humans are female at conception. For a child to develop as male, a Y chromosome from the father's sperm must take up residence in the correct place at the correct time. Thus, genetically, the only difference between male and female fetuses at this stage is one chromosome.
While this may sound like a small discrepancy, there are hundreds of thousands of genes in difference on this one chromosome and Rollings-Magnusson states in the article ”Same difference; How gender myths are hurting our relationships, our children and our jobs” that nativists would argue, that it is these genes that determine the differences between men and women's identities as well as their biology. Genes have been identified as a strong predictor of not just physical appearance, but also many human behaviours, and, notably, human intelligence.
In an article titled “Environmental and behavioural influences on gene activity” Gottlieb argued that genes cannot directly cause personality and behaviour differences, in fact, a gene will only be activated under certain conditions. The activation of a gene, or gene expression, occurs when certain genes are activated by certain environmental factors.
Charles Darwin is famous for his theory that strong, beneficial genes are more likely to be activated and passed on to offspring, while weak, detrimental genes are more apt to be phased out through the process of natural selection. Darwin argued that the primitive genes that make women caring and nurturing and the genes that make men more aggressive and less emotional have been passed on for literally millions of years, ultimately resulting in the “traditional” male and female personalities that are evident today, as they were necessary for the human species to flourish.
Argument that Men and Women are Made
Feminists are one such group that disagree with the notion of men and women being solely the product of their genes. They argue that society is the way it is because it is male dominated and men have held women back as noted in Bessant and Watts book Sociology Australia. Feminists view the world as unequal, where men have all the power and women have none and argue that a woman's biology should not prevent her from being able to achieve the same social status as a man.
The feminist argument, is for the most part, a Western idea, as in other cultures around the world, differences in “gender roles” are not merely accepted, they are embraced. Also important, is that some work traditionally considered “men's work” in Western society is considered “women's work” in another. As these cultural differences demonstrate, human biology alone cannot account for what drives men to be men and women to be women, as biologically, they are all very similar, regardless of where they come from. Thus the way women and men are socialised has enormous impacts on their behaviour, life choices and the way they view and are viewed by society.
In the article “Boy vs. Girl,” MacQueen notes that gender roles are constantly changing, particularly in regards to sports, education, and work, with many men and women refusing to allow “traditional gender roles” to inhibit their choices. Further, Barnet and Rivers, in Same Difference: How Gender Myths Are Hurting Our Relationships, Our Children, and Our Jobs, found that women and men behave similarly when they're placed in the same role. They cited the example of a managers; all managers, whether male or female, adopt the same traits in order to perform the role successfully.
Sources:
Barnet, R. and Rivers, C. (2004) Same Difference: How Gender Myths Are Hurting Our Relationships, Our Children, and Our Jobs. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Bessant, J. and Watts, R. (2007) Sociology Australia 3rd Edition, Crows Nest, NSW, Australia: Allen & Unwin.
Darwin, C. (1859) The Origin of Species. New York: Modern Library.
Gottlieb, G. (2000) "Environmental and behavioural influences on gene activity." Current Directions in Psychological Science, 9, 93-97.
MacQueen, K. (2003) "Boy Vs. Girl," Maclean's Toronto, May 26, Vol 116, Issue 21, page 26.
Rollings-Magnusson, S. (2005) "Same difference; How gender myths are hurting our relationships, our children and our jobs," Journal of Comparitive Family Studies, Calgary: Autumn, Vol 36, Issue 4, page 671-673.
Sigelman, C. K. and Rider, E. A. (2006) Life-Span Human Development, Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
